Take Me Far That Road

Chapter 5 - The Sky Goes Cold

Author's Note: Hunter is struggling, and the boys go to Raxus. :)

~ Amina Gila

Hunter's taking first watch because he can't sleep. He knows he needs to rest because he's injured, but he just... can't. He's afraid. He's so, so afraid. The fear is choking him, making it almost impossible for him to breathe through it – as if the pain from the blaster shot wasn't bad enough. They lost Omega. It shouldn't have happened, but it did, and it reminded him all over again of what it was like at the beginning, after they lost Crosshair.

They got her back, and she's fine now, but... for how long? It's not enough to stop the fear that's drowning him. He can't seem to protect them anymore.

"Failing doesn't mean I didn't try."

He tried. He's always tried. But it's not enough, is it? It wasn't enough to keep Crosshair safe. He knows it. Crosshair knows it. They all know it.

"You're not that different from the regs. You left."

He's trying not to think about it, not to remember the furious words Crosshair threw at him, but they won't stop looping through his mind, over and over. He knows Crosshair was only angry, that he was lashing out, saying things he didn't mean to say, but... he wasn't wrong, either.

"I know what you thought! We don't leave our own behind."

Hunter shifts, trying to ease the pain in his chest, but it doesn't work. It keeps throbbing dully. Maybe it's not just the physical pain that's twisting at his insides either, right now. He wants – he wants –

(He wants to cry, like he did earlier when Crosshair yelled at him, but if he starts, he doesn't think he'll ever stop.)

Everyone else is sleeping or settling down to rest. Wrecker's on his rack. Tech's in the next room on a chair. Echo and Crosshair are talking quietly in the 'fresher – and Hunter is glad of it. They needed to talk after what happened earlier. Omega...

He tilts his head slightly when he hears her soft shuffling as she climbs down from the gunner's mount and heads to the cockpit. He doesn't move from his position, his feet on the dashboard, arms across his knees, as Omega settles into the pilot's seat, pulling her legs up onto the chair. "Can't sleep?"

"I keep thinking about the Kaminoans," Omega admits. She's afraid, too. He can smell it. "Seeing that place. I don't want to end up an experiment in a tube."

What's he supposed to say to that? The right thing would be to promise to protect her, but he can't do that. How can he promise to protect her, when he can't even protect his brothers who are fully trained soldiers?

He promised to keep them safe, and he failed that promise. He still remembers how Crosshair had confessed to him in the middle of the night cycle that he was afraid before their first field mission. Hunter had taken his hand and told him not to worry, that he would keep him safe. I promise, he'd said, even though they both knew it wasn't a promise Hunter could make.

(Omega'a smile looks like Crosshair's.)

"They are worth fighting for, but it's not our fight."

"Oh, so what is? And don't say protecting your squad."

He can't protect them. He should have been able to, but he wasn't, and he can't let Omega get caught up in that failure. He has to let her go, send her away, to keep her safe. "I know you don't, kid," he says instead of promising to protect her. He can't make those promises anymore. Merely acknowledging her fears feels hopelessly inadequate and pathetic. He should do better. But... how?