Call It Freedom

Chapter 22 - Forever Couldn't Break Up

Author's Note: Guess who FINALLY talk? :D

The epilogue is tomorrow! ^-^

~ Amina Gila

The night air of Ryloth is cool and humid as Crosshair steps off the ramp of the Marauder. He pauses for a moment, looking up at the moons overhead before bracing himself against the side of their ship, climbing onto the top. It's a good place, close enough to be near the others, but high enough away from them that he feels alone.

And he needs to feel alone right now. He needs to sort through his thoughts without the presence of anyone else. He – he... doesn't know how to feel about everything he just heard, about everything that's happened, for that matter. It's all too much, and he – he needs a moment to himself, to pull himself back together.

He lays back on the cool durasteel, feeling the coolness of it through his body glove – they took their armor off earlier, and he hadn't stopped to get it or any weapons before leaving. He's close enough that he'll be fine up here, even if he feels strangely exposed without any armor or weapons next to him.

But they're safe here. The Empire isn't likely to locate them all the way up here, hidden in a hideout that only Syndulla and his closest allies know about. And it's not as if they're planning to stay here for long.

Crosshair closes his eyes, inhaling a deep breath of the fresh, cool air, but it does little to quell the ache deep in his heart. He hurts. He can't even fully put into words why or what it is that's affecting him so deeply. Everything maybe. Or maybe seeing the way Hunter's been hurt, knowing that everything his brother went through is because of him.

Maybe it wasn't his fault, and he doubts it truly was, but it still hurts.

(Maybe it's actually the knowledge that it wasn't, because he knows it couldn't have been.)

When he was under the control of the chip, he hadn't even realized anything was amiss. Everything had felt so clear to him, so simple, and he'd followed Hunter's orders blindly. The first hesitation that he had was when Hunter told him to kill Taa instead of merely injuring him. But he'd convinced himself that Hunter knew what he was doing, and the result Rampart wanted would be the same – more or less, that is – so it wouldn't matter.

He's killed people before, and it doesn't really phase him that he's done so again, even under the control of his inhibitor chip. It's – no, it's that he could have been turned against his brothers so easily, if just one or two little things had been different. And thinking about it, about how he could have lifted a weapon against them, intending to kill, makes him sick, because he can understand it now in a way that he couldn't before.

Even if he's free now, his mind totally his own, that – it doesn't erase the could-have-been's, and it doesn't wipe away the sick sense of dread inside him.

It's a while before he hears footsteps on the ramp, and from the heaviness of them, he knows it's Echo. "Crosshair?" the ARC trooper calls out.

He grunts. "Up top," he answers, not sitting up. He doesn't want to move right now.

There's shuffling below, the sound of the ramp closing, for all the good it will do if Hunter really wants to listen. Echo can't get up here – he doesn't have the agility anymore – and they'll be talking loud enough that, if the ramp was open, everyone would probably hear them. "Are you okay?" Echo asks, after a brief pause of silence.

Crosshair chews on his lip, wishing he'd thought to bring a toothpick with him. "Mm," he says, "I will be." He believes that, firmly, because at some point, these thoughts and feelings will stop haunting him, and they'll all be able to move on, but right now, it's... hard. He misses the days when everything was simple.