#clonethristingisreal

[frostycatblr-fandom-files]

Hey, Frost! Congratulations on reaching 200 followers!!

This is Carol (@clonethirstingisreal), just asking on anon rather than my main account.

For my request, I was wondering about a fic focusing on Hunter & Omega with a father & daughter vibe (or just siblings is fine too.) I really don't have anything specific in mind. It could be after everyone (including Tech) is living safe on Pabu. Maybe Hunter comforting Omega about something...or vice versa. I don't know...sorry! If you need more to go on, let me know. I'm blanking...

Thanks!

New Night Routines [Hunter and Omega Family Fic]

Warnings and Information: Officially settling into island life after everything they’ve been through since the emergence of the Empire will take time, Hunter knows that. Patience is paramount in times like these, and the people of Pabu’s limitless generosity and neighborly nature make light work of helping all six members of Clone Force 99 lay down roots. Now, the biggest battle for him, his brothers, and Omega is getting a good night’s sleep.  TBB AU where everyone gets to live happily ever after. Reference and allusion to canon-typical injury and violence. Mainly fluff and feel-good family moments. Minimal Star Wars and real-world swearing. Limited Mando’a. Fictional sea creatures. Narrative and stylistic use of italics. 

Word count: 4,020

When the decision had been made to carve out a comfortable life for themselves at long last, Shep Hazard was all too happy to provide the Batch with a proper Pabuan house. He’d been insisting upon it for some time now, but the offer had always been turned down, saying the same thing each occasion.

“There’s still a lot to sort out. We need more time to come to a proper decision.”

They had the Empire to contend with. Brothers to help. Sowing the seeds of a growing rebellion.

So when the time finally came, Hunter was thrilled to take Shep up on the next offer. No more living on the run. No more sleeping and living out of the attack shuttle. They would have a safe roof to sleep under, and a steady supply of surf and sun to fill their days. The island community came together when news broke that they were here to stay, rolling up their sleeves to repay a multitude of favors from repairing Lower Pabu following the last sea surge. 

Without the whip-smart fishermen, rewiring the house would have taken Tech many long weeks of steady work in order to bring everything up to his standards on his own. 

Wrecker had the help of the community’s woodworkers in replacing anything suffering from wood rot and constructing newer, sturdier furniture. 

Artists pooled themselves together and slung paint in every room of the house under Crosshair’s watchful eye; by lunch every room had been given a base coat, and by dinner, detail-work began once it was agreed who slept where, giving those spaces tailored touches. 

Echo, though he would often be away assisting Captain Rex and the Clone rebellion, found ways to contribute to construction, incorporating hidden compartments and caches in their eventual living space for safekeeping their old armor and weaponry. 

Omega had grand plans to decorate not just the room she had all to herself, but the whole of the house all on her own if Hunter didn’t insist upon helping between his own odd jobs. The prospect of having more than just the barest of bare essentials, but now the ‘basics’ was entirely thrilling to Omega, and perhaps more than a little overwhelming at times for Hunter. 

There’s just so much… stuff.

Blankets and pillows had been small familiarities with the GAR, but patterned bedding and special linens? Decorative pillows? Was that all really necessary?

Maybe not to him, but making sure Omega felt like an equal contributor to putting together their home meant entertaining her enthusiasm in other ways when there were no tasks suitable for her to assist with. If there were heavy shelves to hang, Hunter helped her find the best baskets offered by the island’s artisans to use for storage. When the sturdier bed frames were carefully squeezed into the house, he went with Omega on a walk to collect the blankets that had been set aside for them by the many fibercraft artists. 

And every evening after dinner, Hunter promised to do whatever she wanted for an hour to reward her for being so patient throughout all of this. Occasionally, one hour often bled into two, sometimes three before both would be thoroughly worn out and ready to turn in for the night. 

Sometimes she wanted to sit under the weeping maya tree, gazing at the star-crusted indigo skies together. Other nights, Omega wanted to roam the Archium and proudly show off all she had learned from Phee, or Layana, or Tech about each of the valuable items stored here. They’ve crawled through several of the island’s coves in the growing twilight, collecting enough sea glass that Phee offered to find a jeweler who could turn the frosted fragments into beautiful sun-catchers for them. 

Enjoying this nightly routine with her, Hunter considered making this a weekly thing once the house had been finished, which wouldn’t be much longer now. While he and his vode were accustomed to sleeping in the Havoc Marauder during the Clone Wars, he was growing tired of it long term. 

Maker, he couldn’t wait to get into that house. 

As hard as it could be to accept, her brothers knew Omega wouldn’t stay little forever. She was a growing girl who needed more room to grow, to decide what kind of life to make for herself, to simply live. And a gunner’s mount was no place for any of that. 

Laying down roots on Pabu would be good for her. 

For all of them. 

After two weeks of continuous construction and regular after-dark adventures, the morning finally came that the Batch’s new house would be complete by lunch time. Perhaps even before, depending on how many members of this selfless community came together to help the vode furnish each room. 

Omega woke shortly before dawn, too excited to sleep, or think about trying. 

Hunter found himself roused from a comfortable slumber by a bright-eyed pre-teen, her pale, curly hair an adorably bedraggled mess as she gingerly shook his arm. 

“Hunter. Hunter!”

Crosshair, ever the light sleeper, began to stir in the bunk across from Hunter’s just as the other began to sit up and work feeling into his limbs. They had all promised her long ago that if she ever needed anything, and they meant anything, from one of them for any reason, she never had a reason to hesitate waking her brothers.

“What’s wrong?” 

Hunter tugged the blanket over the sniper’s head, chuckling warmly. “Go back to sleep, Cross. I’ve got it handled.” He didn’t even know what it was, but it didn’t matter. By nature of his engineering and training, Hunter had a life’s worth of experience in waking up suddenly and quickly. Alert in just a short time, he came up with something to do to let the others get as much sleep as they could while tugging on his boots. 

“Think we can find something new in our favorite tide pools that Tech hasn’t seen before?”

It should be enough to keep them occupied for an hour or two before joining the others in putting the finishing touches on the house. 

Omega nodded, enthusiastic and eager. 

“Atta girl.” 

Hunter ruffled her hair before sending her up to the cockpit to collect the beach bag Lyana had gifted her. This would give him more than enough time to shimmy out of the shirt he slept in and into something different. Once dressed, he rounded up a few more things around the Marauder he thought they might want - a drybag for when Omega inevitably wanted to splash her feet in the water, the datapad she used for her studies, and laid a change of clothing out for each of them at the foot of his bunk. Just in case. 

They met at the gangplank, Hunter keying in the appropriate sequence to lower the ramp. 

“All set, Havoc Five?”

Omega grinned, giddy and full of energy. “Ready, Havoc One!”

“Good,” Hunter returned the smile with one of his own. “Race you down to the water, then?” 

Scuttling down the ramp together, Omega tore off in a burst of gleeful giggles, Hunter close behind. 

Having been on the run for so long, living hand-to-mouth and facing peril after peril with the bravest of faces, Omega had begun laughing less and less. As their arrangement with Cid crawled to a boiling point, tempers flaring in the backroom of the Parlor, Bolo and Ketch found less and less success in making the adolescent laugh. After their treacherous ordeal on Ipsidon was met with complete apathy, it wasn’t much longer that the Batch parted ways with the Trandoshan without so much as a word. 

Phee selflessly sharing her safe haven had given Omega back her laugh. 

Pabu and the generosity of her people were giving Omega a chance at a normal life, with normal experiences. Making friends her own age exposed her to many new things. When Lyana and other girls their age invited her to her first sleepover, Tech helped her prepare for it the day before with research and reassurance. 

“If, in the event you miss us, just remember that you have Lula. She’s been with the team for a long time. She’ll help you be brave, Omega.” 

It wouldn’t be beloved tooka dolls alone that brought Omega her new-found bravery here in Pabu’s safe harbor. It would be her brothers, too. 

Patiently learning to act less like a team, and more like a family, they were navigating this new life together. Hunter would certainly never take this for granted after everything the Batch had been through to get to this point. 

Just as Omega claimed she was going to reach the beach first, Hunter would catch up in a burst of speed and swoop his sister into his arms. Both of them would reach the beach at the same time this way. The laughter shared between them felt good. Freeing. Racing down to the water without a care in the galaxy, still new and novel to each of them, would become a memory more valuable than any vault of credits he could ever imagine. 

He had wanted that kind of life, once. As a cadet, likely younger than Omega had been when they first met, the prospect of living lavishly with his rowdy band of brothers after the war had been among the grandest dreams. A distraction, really, from the growing pains that plagued him and the endless hours of rigorous training, testing and tweaking of his enhancements. 

Now, settling into an easy life from the Imperial forces that poisoned a predator with fear and slowly turned him into prey was his dream. A dream free of being faced with situations so dire and desperate he would be forced to gnaw off a part of himself to escape, or keep Omega safe. 

Safe to create new routines of poking about the deeper tide pools for shells and strange, quad-eyed crustaceans with her brothers, her family. 

“Look at this one!” 

Omega carefully plucks a large crab out of the saltwater pool, keeping her hands behind its largest claw. She holds it out to Hunter, showing it off like a trophy with the proudest of smiles that she could catch one. They were often lightning-fast, scuttling down to the surf in a flash. Crosshair had figured out how to catch them to make it less challenging for Tech to study them, but not without several pinched fingers, first. 

Once he’d mastered the technique, Cross taught it to Omega and encouraged her to show Hunter the next time he and Omega went down to the cove for their after-dark adventures. (Probably in hopes of scaring the hell out of Hunter, the little shit.) Crosshair had always been talented at finding ways to catch things that didn’t like being caught. It had been a useful pastime during the war. 

“Looks very nice.” Hunter said, verbally applauding her accomplishment. “Can you tell what it is, Megs?”

“This is a false flotsam crab!” she declared, indicating the lack of splinter-like spikes lining the smallest claw. 

Hunter had to stifle a chuckle over how much she sounded and acted like their bespectacled brother. After the sea surge, they had seen a lot of flotsam crabs and the pretenders in the wreckage of Lower Pabu. Upon identifying them, Tech declared both species were perfectly edible - though they would want more of the flotsam crabs than the false ones - and basketfuls of these crabs were collected. People may have lost their homes, but there would be enough food to prevent anyone from going hungry. 

It was like the sea’s way of apologizing. 

It was also the first time the Batch had seen the scale of Pabu’s generosity, and resilience. No wonder they had fled the Empire and come to Pabu; these were good people. Good people who were helping him give his sister a good life. 

Omega brought the false flotsam closer to her brother, holding it out to him.

“Do you want to hold it?” 

Hunter shook his head, smiling. “That’s okay. Maybe another time, Omega.” There would be plenty of chances to catch crabs in the future. Endless opportunities to splash in the cool coastal waters, and bask in the salt-laden breeze and island sun. 

Placing the cranky creature back in the water, Omega returns to the task of finding something new to show Tech before they return to the others, where together, they’ll make their house a proper home. 

When the sun has risen high enough, Omega leads the way to their new house, a large shell clutched tightly in her hands. Wearing her pack, Hunter follows behind, listening to her excited babbling of all the things she thinks her prize find could be. 

Found further down the beach by his sister, it had recently washed ashore, glimmering in the young sunlight of dawn the way Hunter had heard rumors of the appearance of kyber. Opalescent, clearer than ice. Some surfaces were smooth to the touch. Others, jagged and unpleasant. It was unlike anything the siblings had seen before. 

Omega called out their return the closer they were to the house. 

“Tech! Look what we found!” 

Hunter thought ‘we’ was being generous, but he did nothing to correct her. Tech, putting away his tools, takes the shell and examines it for all of ten seconds before announcing what they found. “Another glacial turban. That’s a rather remarkable specimen, Omega.” Omega pouts in disappointment to hear that they did not find something new, but it is soon forgotten as Tech spurs her youthful curiosity with a simple question. 

“Would you like to know what makes it so remarkable?”

“Yes!”

He asks her to wait there while he ducks inside a moment, collecting his datapad, most likely. When Tech returns, he has a second shell in hand rather than his trusty technology. “This is also a glacial turban.” he explains, kneeling beside her. Comparing the two together, he shows her how the first shell has far more opalescence and clarity than the other, and the color is stronger. 

Textbook perfect, he calls it. 

The others have crowded around to see, only opting to hold it once Omega says it’s okay. “S’beautiful, kid,” Wrecker says, carefully turning the turban over in his hands, “A real keeper!” Once he’s had a good look, the turban is passed to Echo, and the ARC trooper says the shell’s a real stunner. Crosshair says nothing, but the way he smiles as he studies the way the light warps and shifts on the surface explains more than enough. 

A teasing smile works its way free when Omega takes the shell back from him. 

“So? Do you like it?”

“Can’t get any better than textbook perfect, I suppose.” he replies, smiling wryly around a toothpick. 

Hunter lays a hand on one of Omega’s shoulders, looking down at her with a soft smile. “Sounds like we should find a special spot for you to show it off, then, Megs.” Now, looking up at his brothers, Hunter says the three words they had become very familiar with before all hell broke loose, once upon a time.

“You boys ready?”

Many hands make light work. Taking it room by room, they lay down rugs, make the beds and fluff up the pillows, and wrestle furniture into place. It would go a lot quicker if there was less fooling around, but making these new memories on what will soon be their first official day in a new house trumps efficiency. 

Phee drops in around mid-morning to check on their progress, finding the six of them piled on the floor, taking a short break in Tech and Wrecker’s room. “Getting tired? Neighbors have said you guys sound like you’ve been having a great time for several hours now.” Arms folded loosely against her chest, their friend is all smiles as Phee gives her report.

Tech adjusts his goggles before he replies. “Decorating a domicile has been more fun than I anticipated.”

Omega’s room is left for last out of the bedrooms, and every item within is a testament of love the people in her life had for her.

They started with the gifts from Phee and Lyana first. The sea glass sun-catcher was hung in a corner of the window, and a soft moon-yo toy was added beside Lula and her trooper doll on the bed. Next, each brother helped Omega fit his contribution to the room in only the most perfect places. 

The traditional telescope Crosshair had found and restored was tucked by the window, alongside other tools for stargazing. The bed frame that Wrecker had worked on longest of all was well worth the splinters when Omega lovingly awed over each embellishment that had been added by hand. The beaded curtains hung around her bed had been fashioned by Echo, worked on each night after she had gone to sleep. Tech gifted her a small set of shelves to display the special specimens she had collected in their travels. And adorning the bed laid the quilt Hunter had commissioned from one of Pabu’s reclusive-yet-crafty artisans, combining the common gray and red tones of Clone Force 99’s armor with the brighter hues found in Omega’s favorite colors. 

In spite of her excitement over her first proper bed since Kamino, Omega avoided climbing on it for fear of getting sand in the freshly-laundered sheets. Besides, they still had parts of the house to finish, chiefly the kitchen and living area, and Omega didn’t want them to lose the current momentum. If they wanted to have things finished by lunch, then they had less than an hour to do it. 

She would have the chance to find out just how comfortable the sleeping arrangements would prove at bedtime. 

Since the two of them had gone down to the beach before dawn, Hunter and Omega opted not to do a part of their nightly routine in favor of making their first night in a proper house an early one. Instead, they stayed with the rest of the Batch, playing a few short rounds of Sabbac or doing other things while waiting on their turn to shower. 

Wrecker would kindly offer to help Omega finish getting ready for bed while Hunter had his turn, but she declined. Her answer was less surprising than she might have expected; Hunter was already halfway to the refresher to get the water going before she had the chance to finish.

“I wanted to ask Tech to help me organize my specimens while waiting for Hunter…”

In good humor, Wrecker chuckles warmly before offering his sister’s hair a careful ruffle. 

“Alrigh’, ad’ika.” 

Ordinarily, Hunter never took long to wash up, but tonight he dawdled a bit more than usual to give Omega and Tech the opportunity to make decent progress. By the time he had dried, dressed, and detangled most of his hair from itself, he found the two of them sitting in the middle of Omega’s room. 

She had changed into a fresh pair of brushed-cotton sleepwear at some point, and was now allowing Tech to finish her haircare for the night. Joining this rather sweet scene, Hunter waits by Omega’s bed, quietly listening as they talk over her collection. Tech, kneeling behind her, is mostly focused on the instructions he is reading over her shoulder on how to start taking better care of the hair-type they have inherited from Jango Fett, the Clone template. 

“This appears to be mostly in chronological order, now. But a few items appear to be… missing.”

“I think some of them are still in your footlockers.” Omega replies, patiently enduring an unpleasant tug from the brush as Tech finds a rather stubborn knot. 

Promising to help her take care of getting the missing items in the morning, Tech asks Hunter to carefully set everything aside on the desk for the time being while he finishes up. He obliges his brother’s request, working quickly as both of them can see how drowsy she’s becoming. Being up before dawn will do that. Once he’s finished, Hunter lifts Omega from the floor, carrying her to bed.  

“C’mere, Megs. Bedtime.” 

He tucks her in, pulling the quilt up to her shoulder after making sure Lula is secure in Omega’s arms. It shouldn’t be long before she’s asleep, so Hunter and Tech don’t linger longer than it takes to say goodnight and shut off the light. 

“Jate ca, Omega.”

There’s little more than a sleepy hum in response. She is well and truly tuckered out. 

Omega sleeps soundly for about an hour before being stirred awake by something outside her window. It’s nothing more than playful moon-yo chatter outside, thankfully. Once they scamper off, she settles back down, but something feels… off. Not necessarily the room itself, but how quiet it is. After living on the run for so long, little more than a curtain between her and her brothers, the utter silence of the room is uncomfortable. Unsure what else to do about failing to fall asleep, Omega climbs carefully out of bed, and slips down to her brothers’ room. 

Hunter stirs before she’s gotten farther than the foot of his bed, waking easily with his keen sense of hearing. “What’s the matter, Megs?” His voice, low and sleepy, is partially muffled by his pillow before sitting up to address the situation. 

“It’s… it’s too quiet to fall back asleep. It’s making me feel uneasy.” she admits in a whisper, squeezing one of Lula’s paws to try to soothe herself. 

“... too quiet?” 

Hunter furrows his brow, wondering why a room being too quiet would make it hard to sleep when you’re sharing a room with someone. Then he remembers that she’s not sharing a room with anyone. She’s been given her own room, and she’s likely not used to being by herself anymore. Of course. All of them, for one reason or another, had forgotten to consider what might happen when she would be sleeping on her own for these new night routines… 

That was their fault, his fault, more than her’s. 

“C’mere, ad’ika. I have an idea.” 

Pillow under one arm and Omega in the other, he carries her back to her bedroom, giving her a choice. “Until we can find a sound machine to help you sleep, I’ll stay with you to help you get used to your room. Now, where do you want me to sleep?” Unsurprisingly, Omega quickly makes space so he can share both her bed and new quilt.

As she pulled it over them, she noticed the backing wasn’t just any old material. Her brothers had taken portions of their old bodysuits, carefully washing the material before donating these pieces to the blanket. Designs dear to them had been stitched in contrasting thread so she would know who particular patches came from. 

In the dark, fingers traced out the words “We’ll always have your back” at the very top of the blanket. The artisan’s neat work made her brothers’ collective loyalty and a promise all the more tangible.

As Hunter lay next to her, it wasn’t long before she was able to settle down again. Holding her close, he listened as her breathing evened out, eyelids growing heavier and heavier. Omega would be asleep before long, but not before she had one last thing to say. 

“Thank you, Hunter…”

“You’re welcome, Omega. Sweet dreams.”

Once she had drifted off, tucking her head under her brother’s chin, Hunter would carefully lay a kiss in the crown of her hair, bidding her to sleep well for the rest of the night. He listened to her for a while longer, quietly grateful that this instance of being unable to sleep was so easy to remedy. Grateful too, in a sense, that that was now among their biggest battles. 

Until their roots were firmer, settling down on Pabu would have a few growing pains. Adapting to change could be hard. Adjusting to new routines could be hard, too. 

But they didn’t have to be, so long as the Batch had each other’s backs.

Thank you for making such a sweet request for this little event Carol. I tried to include most of your ideas without rambling too too much, haha. I hope you enjoyed it! 🩷 (And apologies if the pacing feels a bit "off" in places as things were cut for brevity!)

Fic taglist: @anxiouspineapple99 @dukeoftheblackstar @dystopicjumpsuit @msmeredithrose @lonely-day3636

[Masterlist] [TBB Masterlist] [Taglist] [Requests: OPEN]