Chapter Text
The sun shone, but still he could hear thunder.
Looking out the open window, he could see the ocean glittering under the intense sun of early afternoon. He wasn’t fooled. The breeze that blew into the room was mild and humid, but far from lazy. It was picking up, blowing stronger, heralding a storm. A fast-approaching line of clouds on the horizon confirmed it.
His siblings were out of the house. It seemed he’d be weathering this one alone. He hurried outside to bring in the blankets that had been drying on the fence all day. The clouds were closing in; he could smell the rain now, could feel the pressure dropping in his ears. It was going to be a big one. After a second thought, he set their potted plants under the porch eaves so they’d be protected from the worst of it.
He was absolutely not scared of storms. Just not terribly fond of them, either.
The storm broke over the island just as he was shutting the windows. It came in with a sudden fierceness that only happened on the ocean. The sun, blazing down on the rocky hills just moments before, disappeared, leaving the sky a dark and dangerous grey-green. Looking out to the beach, he could see waves picking up as gusts rattled the windows, and anxiety twisted inside him.
Fine, he hated storms and everything they stood for. Always had. The humidity that made his hair stick to his face and electricity crackling in the air that set his senses on edge were enough to make them a nuisance. But there was more: thunder rolling like artillery fire from battles he wished he could forget, and gale-force winds whipping up violent waves and stinging rain that beat the island with a rhythm too familiar for comfort.
Thunderstorms and hurricanes harboured memories best laid away. Sleepless nights. Mud-slick war zones. That horrible, dark platform on Tantiss where they had come so close to defeat. Kamino.
He shivered. He wasn’t scared of memories, but weather like this had a way of solidifying spectres of the past into something more palpable. Shadows seemed to dance in the dim, flickering light, and the shrieking wind sounded tormented. He itched to do something, fight something, protect someone. Anything to keep him from feeling like a helpless little cadet hiding from a hurricane.
Lightning split the sky, too bright like the glaring white halls where he’d grown up. Thunder clapped, too loud like explosions.
He needed his helmet. He needed his blaster. He needed his knife. He needed out.
Somebody tapped him on the shoulder. He whipped around, fists raised, horrified that someone had snuck up on him—
“Hunter, it’s me!”
Omega was standing behind him, eyes wide and frightened.
“It’s just me,” she repeated, hands raised placatingly.
Oh, kriff.
He was scaring her. He was supposed to keep her safe and he was scaring her. He could have punched himself. His legs gave out underneath him and he slumped to the floor, shaking. “I’m so sorry, kid. So, so sorry. I—I didn’t mean—”
But then there were arms around his neck and his little sister’s head pressed against his cheek and her voice saying into his shoulder, “It’s okay. You’re okay. We’re home.” Her voice was firm and familiar over the sound of the storm roaring in his ears. “We’re home.”
As the chill of the chipped tile floor beneath them seeped into his knees and the roughness of the painted stucco wall behind him dug into his back, he began to believe it.
We’re home. Home was not Kamino, not sharp and sterile and blinding. That was gone, burned and sunken into the ocean. Home was Pabu. It was flowering plants and a messy little house and his brothers and sister right there with him.
He was home, and he was safe.
“Batcher doesn’t like the storms either,” Omega said after a moment. “She got scared, so I brought her home early, but I guess you didn’t hear us come in. I think she’s hiding under my bed. Wait here; I'll get her.”
She left and returned a few minutes later with one big blanket, five pillows, (Omega was the smallest person in the house, yet somehow laid claim to roughly fifty percent of the pillow supply,) and a whimpering lurca hound in tow. She threw the blanket over him and plopped down beside him with her plethora of pillows. Batcher curled up on his other side, sandwiching him in.
Another boom of thunder shook the house, resonating in his skull, and he tensed. His sister tucked herself under the blanket too and leaned against him.
He felt weak, panicking over a thunderstorm like a child and being comforted by an actual child—though, really, she wasn’t so small anymore. “I’m sorry, Omega. This feels backwards.”
“Being scared isn’t backwards.”
“It is when there’s no real danger.”
“But there used to be. It’s hard to forget that.”
Not so small at all. “Yeah. It is.”
The squall battered the island for the rest of the afternoon. Rain streamed down the windows, wind howled against the house, and thunder and lightning rent the dark sky apart like a celestial battlefield, but Hunter stayed next to Omega, his little sister anchoring him like a boat in a stormy ocean, keeping him afloat and safe at harbour.
Keeping him home.