What if All of This Could Make You Braver
Poor Crosshair blames himself for everything, but his family is there to tell him it's not his fault. He's their brother, after all.
Scene One: This happened between Season 3, episode 5, ‘The Return’ and episode 6, ‘Infiltration’.
Hunter now finally took a breath of peace as he settled in his seat, Echo flying the ship out of Barton IV and Omega bouncing near him, trying to assist as his mini co-pilot.
Wrecker was snoring with Batcher by his side after a whole day of running, battling ‘a huge monster’ and digging. Hunter could feel Crosshair’s steps fade away into the back of the ship.
Hunter hates the fact that Crosshair always has to be the one to hide his feelings away, and why he has to be so mysterious. Like a puzzle, but the problem is, whenever you try to pry it open by force, it self-destructs and you never know what happened.
Sure, they’re soldiers. Sure, they’re meant to be hard in the heart, but even Hunter opened up now, the Sergeant himself, so why not him? And why does he always have to feel like that, even after everyone’s now forgiven him? Why does he have to hide, when they’ve opened their hearts up to him?
And especially on Barton IV. Oh Force! Hunter actually was worried for Crosshair’s sanity. Why was he so melancholy on this planet? Why did he feel so regretful about him eradicating the natives? And most of all, why was he arranging and holding those reg helmets?
Hunter sighed, and mustered the courage to walk behind him.
Crosshair laid down on the floor in the back of the ship, his arm covering his eyes, finally grateful the mission was over and he sunk into the abyss of sleep.
[A headcanon: Crosshair can fall asleep really quick. Anywhere at all, but he’s a light sleeper and can wake up even at the smallest noise.]
Force forbid he ever have to return to this planet. But return he did, in his dreams, standing on the pressure mine with Mayday working at his feet.
“What unit were you with?”
“And here we are. The survivors.”
The scene dissolved into them raiding the thieves and finding out what actually they had been defending all this time.
“After all the clones have done, all we sacrificed. We’re good soldiers. We followed orders. And for what?”
The next one sent shivers down his spine. Crosshair holding on to Mayday as they survived the avalanche and descended down the mountain. He could feel Mayday’s dying form against his, he could hear Mayday’s words and last breaths while Nolan arrogantly rejected help and spat Crosshair’s worth into his face. He felt his anger surge.
If there was one life he’ll never regret taking, it’s Lieutenant Nolan’s.
“I see you didn’t retrieve the crates, which means you’ve failed your mission.”
“Did you hear what I said? Help him!”
That dialogue had always haunted his dreams and he had always woken up, thrashing, sweating, hand flailing for a med kit or a blaster to put a bullet through the miserable excuse of a man. This one was no different.
“Certainly not. That would be a waste of the Empire’s resources.”
“He’ll…he’ll die.” And Mayday took his last breath and lost his battle against Death. Crosshair nudged closer and put his fingers for a pulse he knew he’ll never find.
“He served his purpose as a soldier of the Empire.”
What had haunted him more was the resemblance between Mayday and Hunter, the face, the way they talked, even the words. Mayday just managed to get Hunter’s words through to him.
He shuddered thinking if it had been Hunter on the floor, silently begging Crosshair to save his life instead of a reg commander who he had known for one day only.
“You…you could have saved him!”
“Perhaps you didn’t hear me. He is expendable, as are you. And if you speak to me again with such disrespect, I’ll see to it you meet a similar fate, clone. Now leave him and get back to work, while you’re still useful.”
Crosshair fumbled with his armour, desperately finding a blaster, all the while screaming at Nolan all types of swear words and threats, until someone shook him. It was Mayday shaking him, with Hunter’s voice.
“Crosshair. Crosshair, wake up. You’re safe. Nobody’s dying.”
Crosshair’s eyes snapped to see Hunter’s alarmed figure kneeling over him. Of course, damn his senses. He looked around ashamed to see if anybody else saw him, but nobody else surrounded him.
“Nobody else heard you. I heard you cursing someone, so I found you. Is everything all right?”
Ignoring the question, he let out a shaky breath and sat up, brushing his hand. “I’m fine,” he mumbled, cursing himself over freaking out in his dream again.
He looked at his Sergeant. He looked much older than the last time they’d met. And definitely weaker. He looked so much like the dead clone who haunted his dreams.
“Does your nightmare have anything to do with the reason why you killed that officer? Or, the clone helmets you were arranging?”
Crosshair froze. Hunter had seen him do that. Finally deciding he had enough of hiding, and knowing he can trust Hunter, he told him, “Both.”
Hunter contemplated the answer and the puzzle finally fit. “You killed that officer for the clones?”
“Not all of them. Only one.”
“Crosshair,” Hunter knelt on one knee while folding the other to rest his hand on. “Please. Tell me what happened.”
Crosshair just looked at him. “What good will it bring you? I just killed someone, and ended up on Tantiss Base. That should be good enough for you.”
“But it’s not.” Hunter replied fiercely. “I should be the one knowing what’s going on with my boys, but I haven’t had word from you in a year, and the next thing I know, is you’re up in a torture prison. For the first time, I had no clue why you got into trouble. I…regret not coming for you earlier, Cross, more than I can tell. Please, I’m your older brother. Tell me. You can trust me, can’t you?”
Yes he can. But can Hunter trust him in return?
Crosshair closed his eyes. His tone, unintentionally, turned icy as the snow on Barton IV as he spoke, “I was stationed at this base a few months after my return from Tipoca City’s destruction, and I was assigned to a lieutenant named Nolan, who had a disdain for clones. He made Tarkin look like a fan of them.
“We had been assigned to guard and later pick up some crates stored at the same depot we were trapped in today, due to the natives targeting it. Not even the troops assigned there knew what was in those crates and they had been guarding it for a year.
“The commanding officer there was a reg commander, named Mayday. He and only two of his men survived out of a whole squad. He might have been the only reg I actually liked.”
“He was a mix of you and what we’ve heard of Captain Rex. Very protective of his men. He can be nice or highly sarcastic when he wants to. He was…nice with me, but when Nolan tried to boss him around, Mayday countered his insults intelligently. He was one to stick to his ideals, and not afraid to voice his opinions.”
“I’d have liked to meet him.”
“I thought so too. I found a lot of you in him, the way he talked about the Empire.” Crosshair met his eyes then lowered again. “Back to the point, he was giving me a tour of the depot when we were raided. Both his men perished, and we warded the attackers, but they managed to steal some crates. Nolan sent me and Mayday to regain those crates.
“We found them, and fired. But when they overpowered us, we flung some bombs onto them. We were about to descend with the crates when all of a sudden an avalanche began, and if Mayday hadn’t thrown me out of the way, I might have died. I landed near to a rock so I was safe, but Mayday got buried underneath snow and was heavily injured. He…he told me to leave him and to go, but I refused to. All down the mountain, I carried him, until finally we made it to the base.”
Hunter saw hardness and agony enter Crosshair’s amber eyes.
“Nolan came, and I told him to get him a medic. He stalled us, by talking about us failing our mission, and clones being expendable, until Mayday died then and there. That day, I realised that the Empire will never give me what I had been searching for in it: loyalty. What had I not done for this establishment, and when I asked to help a brother, I was reminded of my worth to them. So…I stood up and fired at him.”
Crosshair finally sat up straight and looked at Hunter in the eyes. “I couldn’t do anything for him. For the first time, I realised what it felt like to be helpless. Hunter, I’m…sorry. I’m sorry for having you all fear for your lives because of me. I shot Nolan not for Mayday, but for you all. I tried to keep you safe, by initiating Plan 88. Believe me, I couldn’t do anything for him.”
Crosshair began hyperventilating, and Hunter immediately went into alarmed sergeant mode.
“Crosshair, Crosshair, listen to me.” He looked into his face but when he saw no effect, Hunter took his shoulders and began shaking him. “Crosshair, it’s not your fault. It’s not your fault that Mayday died because you had an ignorant superior. If anything, you gave him a death with a feeling that at least his brother didn’t leave him behind. And…I’m proud of you for that. We don’t leave our own behind. I’m sorry, Crosshair, that you had to go through all of this. I’m sorry that we weren’t there to help you. But remember: Mayday dying, Tech dying, Omega getting captured: none of it’s your fault. And don’t think any of this changes your worth to us. You’re our brother, and that makes you no less loved an important to me. Got it?”
Crosshair slowly nodded, finally at peace with his inner self. What he didn’t expect was for Hunter to lean ahead and embrace him.
“What-what are you-” he spluttered.
“We missed you, Crosshair. It’s good to have you back.” Hunter whispered, and then after one tight embrace, let him go.
“Now come on. Wrecker’s been ransacking this whole ship for you.”
Scene Two: This happened after season 3, episode 15, ‘The Cavalry Has Arrived’, before the epilogue.
Echo sat on the floor of the ship, Hunter piloting it back to Pabu with Omega by his side, sleeping soundly in the cockpit, as Echo began working on Wrecker’s wounds with the supplies Emerie brought him.
Crosshair leaned against the wall, cradling his stump where his shaking hand used to be, now numb after the medications Echo had administered after he put Wrecker under anaesthesia. All throughout the operation, Echo had tried to lessen Crosshair’s pain by cracking jokes about them both losing their right hands, after which Echo asked him what had happened in their final confrontation, and Crosshair didn’t even feel a thing as he told the reg all about the chilling episode.
Despite Echo’s insistence on him taking rest, Crosshair stood by Wrecker’s side.
“We’ll need to take the blacks off, to clean the wounds beneath it and check its depth,” Echo told him. Slowly, trying not to wake Wrecker up, Crosshair lifted the blacks off enough for Echo to slice from the shoulder blades to the chest and make a hole showing the deep gashes and bullet marks.
“That’s nasty,” Echo remarked, but Crosshair’s attention was elsewhere. He tried to get an angle of Wrecker’s chest, hoping he’d mistaken the scar of an older bullet wound, but Echo had started his work.
When Echo was done, and he laid back and yawned, Crosshair told him to go take some rest, while he kept watch. Evidently the former ARC trooper was exhausted, because he put up no resistance and walked inside to get some well-deserved sleep.
Crosshair looked at Wrecker, the gashes on him, and went into deep thought. Wrecker, the joyous brother of the group, the one who always found a way to make Crosshair smile. The one with the purest heart of them all, next to Omega.
“Oh look, Crosshair, this little clanker likes you!”
“You should see the new armoury! […] Hey, we both did!”
“You didn’t even try to come back! We would have still taken you in…”
“Yeah. It didn’t feel right to get rid of it.”
And today he’d made a gamble for his life. Wrecker had such a close brush with Death today, it made Crosshair’s hand getting cut off insignificant to him. He was ready to give up everything for Omega and he nearly lost his life. He nearly committed the same act Crosshair was about to do, the same act Tech had executed and fallen for.
Thankfully, he made it. Thankfully, he did not have to lose another brother, and regret over the times lost that he could have had with him.
All of a sudden, his brain brought up a horrifying memory.
Crosshair loading his rifle, all the while keeping Wrecker in his scope as the large man flung boards of metal at the Imperial troops while the Bad Batch tried to make a run to the Marauder.
Wrecker gave a yell and fell to the floor, Omega rushing to him and nearly missing his bolt if it hadn’t been for Hunter pulling her back.
He nearly killed him that day. He had intended to shoot to injure, not kill, to attempt to make them stay back, but if Wrecker had moved at the wrong moment…
Could he ever be forgiven, truly? Omega might have brought him back, they might have accepted him, but have they given him space in their hearts yet? If they haven’t, he doesn’t blame them…
“Hey, Cross, what’s with the even longer face?”
Crosshair broke his train of thoughts at the sound of Wrecker’s voice, who was now trying to sit up while wincing and was smiling at him. “Isn’t it long enough for you?”
“Grow up, you big oaf,” Crosshair snapped, silently relieved that he is alive, as he dashed to his side, giving Wrecker a glass of water.
“How are you feeling?” Crosshair tentatively asked.
Wrecker laughed. “You really have changed after the Empire, Cross,” he slapped his bony brother on the shoulder, “but yeah, it will take more than that to take me to my grave.”
“You already had one foot in it. Wanted to put the other one, too?” Crosshair snarled, stung by how normally Wrecker talked about him dying.
Wrecker looked at him while adjusting a bandage. “Is something troubling you, Cross?”
Crosshair looked down. “No.”
“Look, Cross, I know you since we were cadets. I may be stupid than I look, but I can tell when you’re really upset. So, what happened?” Wrecker asked him kindly.
“Why are you all being so…nice to me?” Crosshair blurted out.
Wrecker looked confused. “What?”
“When I and Omega showed up on that Ryloth moon, you could have denied me entry. You could have had shot me down. You could have rejected me and sent me back to Tantiss. But you didn’t.” Crosshair decided to spew everything out. “Then just mere days later, when we went to Barton IV, you all took my suggestions. Hunter suggested taking me with him. Echo even asked me for more intel, when he had right to ignore me, call me untrustworthy. You gave me my armour. You didn’t throw it away.
“There, when Hunter and I argued, I was waiting when would he snap back, call me responsible for all their miseries, for Tech’s death, but he didn’t. He let me blame him for everything. He didn’t even fight back and you must remember our brawls as cadets. When the wyrm surfaced, he threw me to safety, even when I had just called him out, and he trusted me and forgave me. You came and hugged us.
“When Howzer scolded me, Hunter came to my defence. You waited for me before take-off, even when the Empire was there and you could have me turned over. When I nearly drowned, Hunter came to pick me up.
“When I lost Omega for the second time, neither of you said it was my fault. None of you yelled at me, or punished me or anything. You even accepted my plan. And on Tantiss, when you told me not to go in alone. When Hunter trusted me to make the final shot. When Hunter tried to make me stay because I had just woken up without a hand. I do not forget, Wrecker. I do not. And this is just a top skim of what you have done for me, even when I was a traitor and brother-hunter. I don’t even deserve a portion of it, so why?”
“Cross, don’t think like that,” Wrecker, finally having found his voice, said gently. “You’re our brother. Tech thought the same of you too. He forgave you for everything, Cross, so why shouldn’t we? I always held out hope that it wasn’t your fault, and I’m happy I was right. You came back. You risked everything to keep us safe, and even if things didn’t go your way, we still value you. You’re our brother.”
Crosshair, panic rising in his head, croaked hoarsely, “Wrecker, that bolt. Over there.”
Wrecker looked in that direction. “I didn’t get that now. It doesn’t hurt.”
“I know. I gave you that wound, didn’t I?”
Wrecker looked at a loss for words. Five seconds later, he manages to stand and walk towards a shaking Crosshair. “Cross, you were under the chip that time. You didn’t know what you were doing. Echo later asked me that even if you injured me, do I still miss you and I said yes. What matters is what you are now. And right now, you’re a softie.” He grinned. “Don’t blame yourself, Cross. We all make mistakes, that’s what we are at our core. What matters is how we deal with them.”
Wrecker then pulled Crosshair into a hug, but roared with laughter when Crosshair hugged him back.
“Yeah, you really have changed,” he wiped tears, “now let’s go get something. I’m starving!”
Crosshair followed his cheery brother, already up as if he hadn’t woken up from devastating wounds, and his heart felt lighter.
Scene Three: This took place between the series finale and the epilogue.
CT-9904, just a silver haired boy in a training room, firing at targets for practice. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen targets down in a minute. He lined his rifle up for the next one when he gasped.
The next target was Omega’s head.
Crosshair, now in Imperial armour, held his head as he let his rifle clatter. No way will he raise a rifle to her.
“Good soldiers follow orders,” the voice that had chanted all those months in his head repeated, sending waves of pain in his whole body.
As he fell from the pain, he found himself on the ground of an unknown planet, with Omega standing at his head.
“Crosshair wouldn’t do that, would he?” she whispers to no one in particular, until her brown eyes found his. “Remember what I told you in the brig? You can’t help it.” Then her voice hardened. “I wanted to believe it was your inhibitor chip that made you like this, but I was wrong.”
“You didn’t even try to come back! We would have still taken you in…”
Wrecker was replaced by Hunter.
“Why would we trust you? You really thought we’d take you in, and not ask questions? Betrayed them, like you did us?”
Echo morphed into existence. He just looked at him with every single ounce of hatred in him. Slowly, he walked towards him and slashed his face with his scomp link. While Crosshair covered his bleeding face against the onslaught of slashes, Echo’s mouth opened, but Tech’s voice came through.
“Crosshair has always been severe and unyielding. You cannot change that. He cannot change that. Understanding you doesn’t mean I agree with you.” Then Echo’s face wore Tech’s goggles, and Crosshair would have given anything to remove that look of regret and pain from Tech’s face as he bent down and whispered, “why did I give up my life, Crosshair, when it all had to end in you destroying everything? You aren’t worth my sacrifice.”
Crosshair saw the Bad Batch leaving him in chains and bleeding to his death on the waters of Kamino as the Marauder took to the skies. He began pleading, screaming for anyone to come, as the water swirled around him, blood mingled in it, threatening to take his life as the reminders of him being a disappointment and pain rang again…
“No!” He sat up and gasped, drenched in sweat. He felt his face for blood, and his eyes tried searching for Kaminoan water, but all he could feel was the rough, gaunt lines of his face, and the interior of the Marauder with everyone peacefully sleeping. Evidently, he had not screamed this time because Hunter hadn’t come running this time. Or maybe he doesn’t care anymore. But Crosshair shook that idea away. He does. Hunter absolutely does. He hugged him on that bridge on Tantiss, didn’t he? And ever since that, they had seemed to grow closer…
He stood up, shakily, sleep now far away from his eyes as he walked outside of the house down to the coast of Pabu. He found a rock to sit on, and he let his breaths even out as he tried to absorb it in. It wasn’t real, they don’t hate you anymore, it was just a nightmare…
“Ah, so you’re the one I saw slip out.”
Crosshair jumped as if burned and turned to see the cyborg reg lean against one of the many caverns lining Pabu’s coast.
“Oh. It’s you.” Crosshair settled and made room for Echo to sit. “What are you doing here? Why were you awake at that time?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” Echo raised an eyebrow.
“Take a guess,” Crosshair said bitterly, since he knew Echo knew the answer only too well. Almost every time he’d accompanied Hunter when he calmed Crosshair from another of his nightmares.
Echo looked at him pitifully, a look which Crosshair disliked because it made him feel weak, but then the reg put his flesh hand on Crosshair’s back and said soothingly, “do you want to talk about it?”
Crosshair shook his head no.
Echo nodded serenely and with the push of his scomp link, laid Crosshair’s head on his shoulder.
“How does your hand feel now?” Echo whispered, nodding in the direction of where his shaking hand used to be.
“I’ll get you your prosthetic hand tomorrow. I got it tonight, but you had fallen asleep so I waited until tomorrow.”
Crosshair stayed silent, but then spoke slowly, “you also had a nightmare, didn’t you?”
Echo grimaced. “Am I really that easy to read?”
“No, but I’m pretty good at gauging you.”
Echo just rolled his eyes.
Crosshair tried asking the question that had bothered him for the past few weeks, “Echo, do you think any person can be forgiven, no matter what he has done?”
Echo seemed to understand the meaning of this question, but didn’t spoil it as he responded thoughtfully, “I believe yes. We, as humans, are bound to make mistakes, and some make them on purpose. But that’s what forgiveness is about. That man had courage enough to come back to the light, to realise he was wrong, and that is the greatest courage of all. Not everyone realises the error of their ways.”
“But what if the person has done some irreversible damage? Like, brought about the death of a brother?”
Echo sat up straighter, indicating to Crosshair to look at him. “Crosshair, what you must realize is that Tech falling is not your fault.”
“But I sent that transmission. He followed me because of it.”
“But you never meant for us to follow you. You tried to protect us. It’s not your fault we chose to find you, we don’t leave our own behind. Look, we knew what risks it would bring. We knew we may not all return, but we took it for you.
“Like Hunter told you on Kamino, we never were enemies. We just…had to adjust more to you being around. Tech wanted to go for you, Cross. So did Wrecker, Omega and us. We knew you’d turn around, and we wanted to use that chance to bring you home. When you returned to Pabu, I and Wrecker had begun to trust you again, we even forgave you. We just wanted Hunter to sort this out with you, that’s why Wrecker immediately hugged you when you both resolved it. Crosshair, you have proven that our trust in you was right, you proved we were right to take you in.”
Crosshair, unconvinced, looked at Echo. “But all of this, doesn’t change the fact that he’s dead. The last time we met, on Kamino, we argued.”
“But Tech, the last time we saw him, was the one to win Hunter over by telling him that you deserved rescuing. He was the one to check your transmission channel, in fact, he discovered your name amongst the prisoners, and you were the primary reason we planned to infiltrate Tantiss. Tech wouldn’t have wanted you to beat yourself up for his sacrifice, Crosshair. He wanted us to be safe, and you helped him. All those shots you fired, all those successful missions, you helped achieve his target of keeping us safe. I believe, he’s forgiven you too. He’s proud of you, like we all are, and it’s time you forgave yourself.”
“Thanks. But, I’ll always regret not being there to rescue him.”
“We all will, Crosshair. At that time, you were tortured, but we were there. We were in the railcar which took him down. Omega practically saw him fall down while I and Hunter fought for a way out. But, just like Hunter said, all we can do is keep trying to be better.”
Crosshair exhaled slowly. “Thank you, Echo.”
“No problem, vod.” Echo rubbed his head. “I also regret not being there for Fives, or any of my brothers. I regret letting Hevy blow the station up, instead of me. I should have dragged him out. I regret living when I remember Droidbait getting shot the very instant the droids attacked us. I should have been the one to die, he didn’t even get to go outside the outpost. And Cutup, he got eaten by the eel. Captain Rex practically finished that eel with one fire, and I couldn’t even slow it down with five shots. And Fives…” he sighed deeply. “I was at Anaxes at the time, but I think, what if I had listened to Fives and not run for the shuttle? I wouldn’t have blown up at the Citadel, I wouldn’t have been absent during this whole…argument, I would have been there to stand with him, and maybe I’d taken Fox’s shot instead of Fives. We all have regrets, Crosshair. In the end, it all depends on how you deal with it. Some people use it as an excuse to become villains while it motivates others to be better.”
“I’m sorry…for all of them.” Crosshair said.
“So, you had a nightmare about them?”
“Only will tell if you do.”
Crosshair punched him on the shoulder.
“Let’s go back to sleep?”
“No, I won’t be able to sleep for a while.”
“Me neither. Let’s just sit here and-”
“Do you two realise how worried I have been, searching all over town for you?”
They jumped to see a grumpy Hunter behind them, his hair blowing in the sea breeze.
“Oh come on, we aren’t Omega,” Crosshair whined.
“But to me, you all are. Now get back home. And I won’t hear anything else on this,” Hunter, rubbing his sleepy eyes and motioning for them to follow him.
They followed him grumpily, but not before Echo gave a quick hug to Crosshair on the beach.
Scene Four: This took place between season 3, episodes 9 ‘The Harbinger’ and 10 ‘Identity Crisis’.
“No, not like this,” Crosshair instructed gently as he held Omega’s hands, fixing her grip on the blaster. “Keep your hand steady, eyes on the target, and since you’re a beginner, don’t be quick to fire. Take your time.”
“But you don’t even have to wait for a second and you don’t miss a shot,” she pouted at him.
“In case you’ve forgotten, my enhancement is sharpshooting, so I’m meant to be good at this. And I’ve had much more practice than you did,” he said, eyebrow raised.
Omega laughed and began firing off targets, impressing Crosshair when she managed to take down 2 out of four, after three days of practice.
“You’re getting good at this,” he patted her head.
“But you’ll get exhausted. You won’t have precision anymore.”
“But you keep doing it for hours. I wanna be like you.”
“How touching. Alright, let’s continue.”
After a rather successful five-hour training, they headed back home, but not until Omega had another idea.
“Crosshair, see those stumps?” she pointed to nearby blocks of wood that were previously houses but got abandoned and ransacked.
“Let’s have a shooting challenge.”
“You ready, kid? I can still hit pretty well.”
The challenge, first looking like an easy victory for Crosshair, progressively became more difficult as Omega hit more targets ad threatened Crosshair’s win.
The final round began, and Crosshair laughed and said, “give up, kid! I’m still five shots ahead of you.”
Omega smiled at him. “I never gave up on you, so why should I give up on myself now?” she turned and fired straight bullseye.
Even though Crosshair won, he still felt a turmoil inside of him and Omega seemed to notice it, as on the way back, she held his hand and squeezed it. “Something you want to talk about, Crosshair?”
Crosshair took a deep breath. “When we were talking about Ventress, you said you never gave up on me. Why?”
Omega looked at him like this was the easiest question in the galaxy. “Because you’re my brother.”
“But…I tried to hunt you down. I even once nearly killed you all. Why did you trust me?”
Omega leaned into him. “I’ve known you since you were born, Crosshair. I like to find the good in people. All those times, you never killed us, when you could have. You let us go from Ryloth, when you were more than capable of shooting us down. You didn’t kill Howzer there. When Hunter got captured and we came to Kamino, you killed your own squad, not us. You told Hunter to keep me safe. You told us all you wanted to do was to keep us with you, to keep us safe from the Empire as fugitives. You saved me when you didn’t have to. You sent that transmission, knowing what risks you are going to take for it. I knew there was always good in you, Crosshair. I knew you were good. You proved me right. That’s why I trusted you.”
Crosshair sighed. “Thanks, kid.”
“That’s what siblings are for, Crosshair. You’re my brother, and I love you so much.”
Crosshair froze at those cute words as he felt a tiny figure hugging his legs. He bent down to her and let her embrace him.
“I’ll always keep you safe, Omega, if that’s the last thing I do.”
