The Plans We Made • TBB

9.Not Made For This

It was a few days after a mission on Kuat that some of the Bad Batch members started feeling under the weather. Hunter had caught it first, waking up unable to breathe and running a fever. A few hours later Tech announced that he was experiencing chills and feeling achy.

    Wrecker woke up the next day and didn't feel like getting out of bed. His head was pounding, his mouth was dry, and his bones ached.

    Sunset was sick too, but hers was different. She spent a majority of her morning and afternoon hunched over the toilet, losing all of her stomach contents through her mouth, and then collapsing back into her bed. And then the next day after lunch that process repeated.

    She never ran a fever, her bones never ached, and her nose never got stuffed up. But she experienced this sickness at the same time as three of her brothers, and they all just assumed she had caught a worse version of whatever virus they had.

    Within a week Hunter, Wrecker, and Tech were back to feeling normal again. Sunset still felt nauseous throughout certain times of the day, but her brothers were anxious to get back into the field again and do some damage to the Separatist army.

    They were on the way back from their first mission post-sick leave and Sunset had barely said five words the entire three hours they had been out moving around the mountainous terrain. Usually she was very talkative during long missions when they were out traveling. She was always teasing Crosshair or playing around with Wrecker. But today her silence made her go unnoticed, and she strayed to the back of the squad all alone.

    Echo, Tech, and Hunter were in the very front, but they were far enough away that Sunset couldn't hear a word they were saying. But that might also have to do with the neverending pestering Wrecker has been doing to Crosshair for the last 180 minutes.

    Sunset just wanted to be back on Coruscant. She liked it there. Padme was there. And Obi-Wan was there quite often. She enjoyed Dex's Diner and the Senate Building. She liked sneaking around with Obi-Wan and having lunches with Padme while she talks about her excitement towards becoming a mother. Coruscant was nice.

    She didn't even realize she had started crying until it became difficult to see out of her visor. She grew frustrated with herself, feeling like she was losing control of both her focus and her emotions.

    Crosshair finally managed to escape Wrecker's pestering and he slowed his steps to fall back with Sunny. He stayed quiet, but his helmet would turn to look at her every so often. It very quickly became annoying to her.

    When he did it for the tenth time, her head whipped over to him. "Stop looking at me." She snapped, wrapping her arms even tighter around herself.

    "That's the longest sentence you've said all day." Crosshair stated, bumping her with the butt of his rifle. "Spit it out, what's wrong?"

    Sunset shook her head, letting out a frustrated breath. "It's just...one of those days, I guess." She shrugged.

Crosshair hummed quietly, glanced up ahead at the Sergeant, and then looked back to his older sister. "Would you perk up if we stopped by Coruscant?" The way her head lifted higher showed she was obviously intrigued. "I figured." He said, smirking underneath his helmet.

Crosshair had already convinced Hunter to make the pitstop between this mission and their next. The marksman had seen how happy being on Coruscant made his sister, and he figured it was because of her friend, Padme. And if hanging out with Padme for a few hours would bring Sunset's mood back up, then it was important to him too. But you would never catch him admitting that.

"Thanks." Sunset said quietly, finally a smile started to spread under her helmet.

"You owe me now." Is what he responds with.