Star Wars One-Shots

On Your Love I Stand (Part 2)

Author's Note: Enjoy the second and final part of this fic where the boys sort something out! :D

~ Amina Gila

Crosshair rocks back a step from the force of Hunter's anger. He's never seen Hunter angry before, not like this, not with so much raw fury in his voice and posture. He knew that his brothers were hurt by his choices, but... he never really thought he'd have to deal with it, and why would he? He never planned to go back.

An angry Hunter is, he has to admit, more than a little terrifying, but he's angry, too, because Tech died on a stupid suicide mission that they never should have gone on. He nearly died to send them that warning, to keep them out of danger, and for what? Tech still died. The kid was still taken.

"This isn't about me or my choices," he growls. "I – I sent you a warning to keep you safe from the Empire, and instead..." He chokes on the words, stopping and restarting again. "I'm sure you were planning to go after her and probably get yourselves killed in the process. I didn't ask you to come for me!"

Hunter steps forward so they're toe to toe again. "This is about you," he argues furiously. "You made it about you when you walked away like we meant nothing to you."

Beneath that anger is hurt, and Crosshair can see it for a moment, a raw pain in Hunter's eyes, that makes him hurt, too. Once, it was his role to strike first to keep them from being harmed. Now, he's the one causing that harm, but better this than their deaths. He couldn't have that on him. But Hunter doesn't get it, either. He truly doesn't understand why Crosshair chose what he did, and though he's loath to lay it all out for him, there's probably no other way.

"I don't know what was me and what wasn't," he hisses back. "I don't know. It was safer for you, all of you, to stay where you were. The Empire was the only option for me." At least there, he'd had something. It was better than wandering aimlessly around the galaxy.

"Clearly you were thinking about our safety when you lured the squad to Kamino," Hunter mocks. "You tried to kill us there. You were going to kill me. Don't you dare stand there and lie to my face about that."

He hardly even remembers what was going through his mind then, and that's what terrifies him. He doesn't know why, when he saw the droids, something in him had just snapped, demanding blood and vengeance and violence, insisting that his brothers be put down because they're traitors. He thought they'd sent in the droids after him at first, and he'd... lost it.

"Maybe I was," he says coldly. "I'm not one of you, Hunter. I never was." The truth hurts, but that doesn't mean he'll shy away from it.

This time, it's Hunter who jerks back, confusion and hurt in his eyes before they harden. "Yes, you were, Crosshair. I remember a time when we were very close. Was it all a lie? Did you ever care? Why did you do it?"

That can mean so many things, but Crosshair knows what he's saying.

"Why did you decide that orders were more important than us???"

Still, Hunter's words render him speechless for a moment, because he – Hunter thinks what?

"Against my better judgment," he grits out, "Yes, I cared. I don't – how could you even question that?" But he knows why before he even finishes asking the question.

"Wrong. I had my chip removed a long time ago."

"Since when?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes."

"This is who I am."

He doesn't – he doesn't know why he told them that, that his chip was gone, when he doesn't even know if it was true. All he knows is that, after Bracca, everything felt different. Clearer. It felt like he could finally control himself, and with his mind clearer, he had started to wonder if what they told him about the chip was even true. Or was it always him, all that time?