#IT WAS MEANT TO BE A 2SR PULL WHAT

[mune-no-koi]

Was I completely just unaware of this info or were card flips always in Live Emotion?? I just got the best jumpscare ever don’t get me wrong but like.. I thought card flips was a shining live only thing I’m so thrown off in the best way possible fuchdhcncnx

Anyways here’s my pull that just confused the heck out of me

[lightwise]

Be There - Parts 1 & 2

Note: As I like to do (aka my brain holds me hostage until it is satisfied), I had to fill in a couple of moments that we didn’t get in S3 E4 - A Different Approach. I am approaching Tech and Echo’s absence as each character is aware of it so far—so whether he is dead or simply gone, mentions of Tech are not meant to imply that he is physically present in these scenes. 

Enjoy. 

Read both parts together here on AO3.

SPOILERS for season 3 of TBB ahead.

Part 1: Our mission isn’t over yet. 

Beep. Beep. Beep. 

Wrecker stared unblinking at the yellow transmission light as it lit up for the third time. Hunter had stepped away from the console for a brief minute to rest his eyes. This wasn’t standard procedure. When Echo or Rex or Phee needed to reach them, they usually used their wrist comms or the portable holo. The inbuilt console had been…Tech’s domain. 

“Uh, Hunter…you might wanna see this.”

A gruff sigh came from the pilot’s seat. “See what, Wreck?” 

The last beep finally entered Hunter’s consciousness as he tried to brush off the weariness that threatened to overtake him. So far they were only a third of the way around the sector found in the data from Setron. More time had been lost taking the cadets all the way out to Pabu too (not that he regretted the stop). His mind couldn’t shut off, wouldn’t stop thinking through the next place they could look every time a planet turned up empty, but he could feel his ligaments starting to fray at the edges in protest. 

Wrecker would have pointed out that he had been falling apart at more than the edges for awhile now. But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered until they brought her home. He just needed to keep it together until then. 

“I…I don’t remember what the codes mean but…isn’t that…does this…”

Hunter rubbed his eyes wearily, trying to get them to focus enough to read the sharp white letters that had appeared on the dashboard. Two innocuous lines, in an old coding sequence that Tech had set up before…he blinked that thought away. 

OM.P53.NMR.2SR. BT.

Plan 53 (all comms silent for a stealth rendezvous). Nearest moon of Ryloth. 2 standard rotations. Be there. 

But it was the first letters in the sequence that caused his heart to stop in his chest. 

“I shall make it so that the first two letters of each of our names signify who is sending the message. They should always be the first letters in the sequence.” A tilt of the head and a push of the goggles up his nose had accompanied Tech giving a very pointed look in Wrecker’s direction. “That should be easier to remember than full code names, I hope.”

OM. Omega. It couldn’t be. It had to be. Nobody outside of the Batch knew this frequency—or code.

“It’s HER.” 

He gripped the edge of the console in a daze. How?? She had escaped? She had somehow found a way to contact them. She…she was alive.

“But…how do we know for sure?” Wrecker’s eyebrows pinched together in concern. “After all the luck we’ve been having…what if this is a trap, Hunter?”

The words Hunter had said before their failed mission to Eriadu haunted him now, thrown back in his face like a taunt. He knew Wrecker didn’t mean it that way, though.

“I don’t think it’s a trap. I really don’t think so. But either way…we have to try it.” He glanced at the chronometer on the dash and pulled up the coordinates to Ryloth. “Especially this location…only Omega would have picked here, where she met Hera for the first time. She knows it will be off the radar but easy to get to. We can just make it if we get going now.” He had barely swung the pilot’s seat back around before furiously punching in the coordinates. 

The Marauder’s engines picked up from their lull as they launched forward into hyperspace. Wrecker slumped into the seat beside him, staring out the flickering blue around them for a long moment. He had picked up Lula from her perch on Omega’s blanket at some point, and was passing her tenderly back and forth in his hands. 

“I really hope you’re right.”

They cautiously exchanged glances as the shock and adrenaline of the last few minutes wore off. For the first time in a very, very, long time, Hunter felt the faintest flicker of something he could call hope. But he didn’t dare let it burst into full flame. Not yet. 

Wrecker suddenly chuckled and clapped his hand on Hunter’s shoulder. “Ya know, we’re a mess. We really should clean up before we get there.” His voice lowered a bit as he added, “no reason making her worry any more than she probably already is at how rough we look.” 

Hunter scowled and pinched his brow. His brother was right. The lack of sleep and hygiene had caught up with them at this point, and they smelled worse than they looked. Omega would be able to see the wear and tear on their armor eventually, but at least they could be presentable to welcome her home. 

“Fine, I’ll go shower,” he huffed, giving Wrecker a strained grin that turned into a groan as he tore his limbs out of the seat. 

The view in the mirror only confirmed his disheveled state, and he groaned again as he tugged the bandana off his forehead and slumped against the fresher wall.

Please, please let this be real. I don’t know if I can bear another false lead.

They had crossed the galaxy five times at this point. He would a hundred more if that’s what it took. They didn’t leave their own behind.

Most of the time. 

His ears began ringing. The unbidden thought that had been slowly poking its way through his subconscious finally breached the surface. What if…what if Omega had been taken to the same facility as Crosshair. What if they had found each other? What if…she wasn’t alone?

Deke’s words had been painfully etching their way deeper and deeper into his heart since the boy had carelessly uttered them.

“At least you’re loyal.” 

If only he knew. Once Hunter had claimed those words proudly. It was the ethos he had lived by. Still wanted to live by. But…he wasn’t sure he deserved that label anymore. Too many mistakes had been made. He had failed too many times. 

Echo had told him once that their unbeatable streak on missions during the war wasn’t necessarily a good thing. And every time Hunter thought he was making the right decision, he ended up proving him right. He wasn’t prepared for the weight of failure. For the ways everything kept slipping through his clenched fists. For watching his brother point a rifle in his face and walk away. For not having the right words to bring him back. For all the ways he had to choose when there was no good choice to be had. For watching his entire world fall away. For picking shattered goggles up off the ground. For the dark and empty gunners mount that had been staring him in the face for five and a half months. 

Silver hair and a toothpick between thin lips suddenly floated in front of his eyes, sneering at him. Every choice you’ve made has been wrong. We’re all lost because of you. And then it shifted, the silver hair morphing into a scarred head and terrified, wide eyes that glistened with tears. Begging, pleading. Why weren’t you weren’t loyal to me?

No, no, no, NO. Hunter dug the heels of his palms into his eyes, trying desperately to stop the vortex spinning out of control inside his head. A sob escaped his lips as he collapsed onto the floor. He could never repair any of this. He didn’t know how. 

He sucked in a breath as he felt the faint pressure of a hand on his shoulder that couldn’t possibly be there. A clipped voice suddenly echoed through his mind. I have found that repairs, while daunting at first, simply take repeated effort and inclination in order to achieve them. It’s like a puzzle. The pieces are there, you just have to pay attention and take the time to put them back together. Steady hands. No Hunter, try moving it this way. See? I knew you could do it. 

If only he was here. Hunter wiped the traces of tears from his eyes as his hitched breathing slowly evened out. Whatever—whoever was waiting for them on that moon—he would have to face them. Whether it was a waking dream or another nightmare. He had crossed the galaxy five times in as many months. But he still hadn’t been able to outrun the pain. Hadn’t been able to outrun himself.  

It was time to try a different approach.   

Maybe not everything had to be lost. 

-----------

Part 2: You don’t know if they’re still alive.  

“They’ll be there.”

She had cut him off adamantly. The full force of her hope (her naïveté, he had called it just a few hours prior), pushing firmly against his gentle attempt at reason. 

Crosshair knew he wasn’t just trying to prepare Omega for the possibility that Hunter and Wrecker might not be waiting for them. For them? No, they would only be waiting for her. They had stopped waiting for him a long time ago.

No, his words were more an attempt at quelling his own twisted anxiety at the prospect of facing his brothers again. It had been…a year? More? Since he had stayed behind on that blasted platform. It felt like ten lifetimes ago now. So much had changed. He had changed. Or had he? 

 A staccato thud flung them out of hyperspace, the stolen freighter now drifting quietly past the two giant orange moons that guarded Omega’s choice of rendezvous. 

Still standing behind the copilot chair, his trained eye spotted the tiny speck of light coming from the open ramp of the Marauder. So they were alive. Of course. The tiniest twitch spasmed in Crosshair’s chest at the sight. 

That open door was for her, he reminded himself again. Not him. 

The girl stood unmoving as they touched down. Her spine straight, shoulders pulling down and back, and he could see the faintest reflection in the viewport of tears welling up in her eyes. 

The ramp began to lower and she suddenly came to life, arms and legs almost flailing in her haste to reach the ground. Though he could no longer see her face, as she paused at the last step Crosshair could tell that a weight had lifted from her shoulders. The weight of taking care of herself, taking care of him, getting them both to safety. 

She had accomplished her mission. 

He had to admit, he was impressed by her. Maybe he was starting to understand a little of how quickly Hunter’s loyalty had transferred to her, how she must have driven them all crazy at first with her bright-eyed optimism and inability to take no for an answer.

She really was the best of them. 

He sighed as her words echoed in his mind—“I’m not giving up, Crosshair! I won’t let you either.” Her stubbornness was certainly the family trait, and perhaps surpassed his own.  

Those words had somehow burrowed into his chest and wouldn’t leave. But they hadn’t shocked him. He expected her to say them to anyone. They fit perfectly within the love and loyalty she showed everyone around her.     

What had shocked him were the ones she said later, after he had tried every tactic he could think of to get her focus off of him and onto her own safety. He had long since accepted what the rest of his accelerated lifespan might be—serving as a test tube and punching bag for the Empire he had once sought glory from. How fitting, really. It was his penance, for everything he had done. Everything he had failed to do. 

Why should he have a chance to live when...he sighed again and pushed away the memories threatening to engulf him. Long brown hair and a beard blurred white with snow. Round, yellow-tinted lenses blinking pointedly in his direction. The remnants of a skull chalked onto the back wall of a bunk—just enough dust left to stain his fingers. 

“None of us belong here.”

The Empire changed people. For the worse. But after all those months of isolation, all his attempts to drive her away, to keep his distance so she would stay safe—he never expected for those wide eyes to practically beam sunlight at him in that force-forsaken, grey haze of a prison. She had seen him, then. Truly seen him for who he was—and still believed in him. In all of them.  

She had tried to give him the same outstretched hand many times before—during their desperate attempts to flee the sinking facilities of Kamino; on the sun-soaked platform after. In that makeshift holding cell after Kaller, where all of this had started. 

He wasn’t sure what surprised him more—that she had offered it one more time, or that he was finally willing to try and accept it. 

Batcher whined from her corner of the cockpit, tilting her head hesitantly at Crosshair as he remained fixated, unable to move from the viewport. His musings faded as he saw a shift in the light; Wrecker’s large form had suddenly darkened the doorway of the Marauder. 

Crosshair dug his spine into the door frame behind him, waiting. 

He didn’t have Hunter’s hearing, but he didn’t need it. He could imagine just how loud the shout of joy was that Wrecker let out as he ran to meet his little—their little sister. A faint smirk threatened to tilt his lips as the giant of a man lifted Omega high above his head and spun her around, wiping tears unashamedly from his eyes. Crosshair expected nothing less. He was sure there were matching tears streaming down Omega’s face as she clung desperately to her—their brother.

But where was…Crosshair’s eyes narrowed as they caught movement inside the Marauder. Was he truly prepared to see the etched face of his former leader, brother—friend—once again? A now familiar yet terrifyingly unwelcome spasm in his hand told him he was not.  

Hunter emerged from the shadows, stopping before the overhead light could illuminate his face. 

He must have said something, before practically leaping down the Marauder’s ramp as Omega catapulted herself forward again. Crosshair’s eyes softened as he watched his stoic, touch-averse brother cradle the girl in his arms, his eyes closed, his hands shifting over her back as though he would never let her go. 

Could he blame him?

But the atmosphere shifted abruptly as Hunter pulled back, his warm smile and affectionate gaze at Omega turning into a wide-eyed, disbelieving gape as he lifted his eyes toward the freighter behind her. There was no way he could see him through the tint of the cockpit, but his other senses were more than adequate at that distance. Hunter had finally realized that Omega had not escaped alone.

Crosshair felt panic wash over him. His gaze shifted to the pilot’s controls. It would be so easy to take the wheel and disappear, leave them all behind once again. Omega was safe. That was all that mattered, right? He could ditch the ship and find work on some backwater planet, do his best to keep off the Empire’s radar.

Batcher slowly shook herself and stood up from where she had been napping the last few hours, her eyes never leaving his. His lips tightened into a thin line as they stared each other down.  

He finally let out a disgruntled sigh, shaking his head and crouching down until he could rest his hand on the curve of her head. 

“I know, I know.”

She growled a little and then licked his hand, pointedly ignoring the scowl he gave in return. 

“I’m done running. Promise.” 

He achingly stood back to his full height and turned toward the back of the ship. He could almost feel Hunter’s shocked gaze still on him. Whatever message Omega had sent them, they clearly hadn’t been expecting him to walk down that ramp after her. After all the wrong choices—how could this one possibly go any better?

The tremor took over his hand again. But he suddenly, faintly, felt the pressure of a familiar, slender hand on his shoulder. And another, firmer grip cradling his trembling fingers, easing the shattered nerves. A pulse he thought he would never hear again thrummed next to his own for the briefest of seconds. 

He had nothing left to lose. 

It was time to try living again. 

Divider by the lovely @dystopicjumpsuit ✨