Forever my cyar'ika ~~ Tech x OC (book 2)

Chapter 23

Being left alone, in the cover of nightfall with my thoughts was not always a good mixture. Especially when I was feeling the cracks start to show and break deeper. The facade I was putting on was starting to break apart. But maybe that was for the best.

Maybe I needed my walls to crumble. To shatter. So that I could finally breath peacefully. Maybe I needed to get the weight of the guilt and loss off my shoulders before it swallowed me up whole.

Though...maybe it was already too late. I took a long breath and sat up in my bed, careful not to disturb Tech. He needed his rest. But so did I. Just not tonight.

I was fine—to an extent. I was happy with Tech. To have found someone who loved me and mirrored so many of the things I greatly enjoyed was euphoric. And to come across my soul mate in that said person...that was wonderful. To have found a family with clone force 99 was wonderful.

But...my heart still ached. Deep below the surface. I pushed things down. Didn't give them a proper time to heal or mend.

The oldest one being Fives death. That sat with me every damn day. How could it not?!

He begged, pleaded for someone to believe him and we just—just didn't understand him. It sounded like utter nonsense that something that deep could be rotted in the Republic. But he was right! He was right about everything and I—I didn't listen.

It was Fives! The clone that made me laugh so much my body would be in pain. How could I not have believed him?! How could I have not helped?! I gripped the blankets.

And Kamino. It was gone. The clones home was just gone. Now laying on the bottom of the sea floor. In pieces. There was no time to process it. No time for any of us to grieve. At least in the ways we should have.

That was the problem. None of us had the proper time to sit with our grieve, our feelings and understand how we felt. We just moved from one event to another. One mission to the next.

That wasn't anything new. During the war that's what we did, but being away from it all..having time to process things—it wasn't healthy to not sit with it.

And maybe that's why the walls I had built up all of sudden had shattered into pieces. Echo leaving finally set the dominoes falling. I had been ignoring everything for so long that one more thing you'd think wouldn't hurt, but it was the opposite. Like a dam bursting, so did my fortress.

Then it clicked.

Was that why my force abilities were flucturating? Because I was ignoring things I shouldn't have—putting too much weight onto myself....blaming myself for things...? We're my visions of Crosshair part of that?!

I ran my fingers through my messy hair. It was possible. Pieces of me felt guilty for leaving him behind. He had done awful things, no doubt under the Empire's influence, but so had many other clones.

Even if his chip wasn't active for a long time, there was still pain there. Anguish and sorrow. He was hurting. It was not hard to tell. That's why I told him what I did. I wanted him to know that he would always have a place back amongst us. His brothers would welcome him back with open arms. It was only a matter of time.

Maybe that was what the visions were trying to tell me. Convey to me. That Crosshair was changing. Rethinking his decision. I took a deep breath in and out. It was a nice thought to have. I could only hope that it would one day come true.

~~~

Many of those thoughts lingered into the next day. And into the next few weeks. It was like I had a cloud hanging over me. One that had always been there, but after my panic attack it seemed that it was more prominent, unfortunately.