Call It Freedom

Chapter 16 - And All I Gave You is Gone

Author's Note: *evil cackling* 

Also, the entire reason I got a plot for this fic was because I literally dreamed up this chapter. Enjooooy! ;) 

~ Amina Gila

There's nothing to say as the guards herd them into the cell. They go without resisting, the others following Hunter's lead, though Hunter can almost sense how angry they all are at the situation. He's angry too, but there's – he's also terrified that he'll lose one of them. Or all of them. He doesn't – he can't – he has to protect them, no matter what. Nothing else matters.

He jerks forward instinctively when Tarkin gestures to the guards who drag Tech to his feet and out of the cell. "We stay together," he begins defensively, but one of the troopers hits him with the end of his blaster, shoving him backward and activating the ray shield, separating them from Tech. Hunter has a horrible, horrible feeling – or maybe it's just that the last time he was in a cell like this and one of his brothers was taken, he never got him back.

"And you will," Tarkin answers aloofly. "He will be returned to you shortly." With those words, he strides out of the room, the guards and Tech following.

Hunter stumbles back, sinking onto the bench and crossing his arms, shaking.

"Now what?" asks Echo, looking between them.

"Last time," he says numbly, "Tech was able to point out a weak spot to Wrecker, who punched open the paneling. Omega went through the vent to open the ray shield for us."

"... But the kid's not here," Crosshair points out, "So where does that leave us?"

Hunter grimaces. "We'll need to wait until they bring Tech back. I don't – I don't know what Tarkin wants with him, but..." He lets out a shuddering breath. "If I had to guess, it's the same thing he took Crosshair for last time."

"Wait, what does that mean?" demands Wrecker worriedly.

"I... I don't know what they did to him," Hunter replies, shaking his head, "But they took him, and he never came back. We... tried to escape and we were gonna go back to pick him up, but... Well, when we saw him again, he was shooting at us. Tech – we theorized they were controlling him because of his chip, but I don't know anymore."

"Why?" asks Crosshair, after a heavy pause, and Hunter can clearly hear the faintly wounded, hurt note in his voice. "Why would you question that?"

He doesn't want to talk about this, but he needs to make sense of it. If – he can't imagine they could lose Tech the same way they lost Crosshair, but what if they do? What if Tech comes back, and he's a different person? He doesn't know what that will mean for everything that happened between them and Crosshair. He's almost afraid to know, but he – he needs to try and sort out his thoughts, and though he doesn't want to talk, talking might be the best way to do so. That doesn't mean he has to want to.

(He doesn't want Crosshair to know what he did, even if that's unfair to him, because he deserves the truth when Hunter himself is still struggling to not react negatively sometimes.)

"We – I was captured by the Empire. I told you that earlier," he explains, "And I – Crosshair came, took me back to Kamino to lure the others into a trap. That was not the first time we encountered him on the other side, but we thought... We thought the chip was controlling him. We thought there was something we could fix to get him back."

He clenches his hands, digging his fingers into his biceps as the memories start rising, the good and the bad. "I tried to get through to him, to reason with him, to try and convince him that it was the chip, that he needed to let us help him, and he..." He chokes on the words, closing his eyes, as if that can somehow take away the pain. "He said he'd taken it out, that it was really him, all that time." Tears burn his eyes, but he forces them back, refusing to let them fall.