Rampart was still watching - watching what he thought was CT 9904, but not anymore. Crosshair shifted, testing the restraints pressing at his wrists and torso. His vision was blurry and his head felt utterly empty - strangely devoid of anything after the months of sporadic pain and fogginess that lived there.
Rampart moved slowly away. Keys were tapped, and a faint beeping filtered into the heavy silence.
Rampart turned back, and Crosshair clenched his fists. The figure paused alongside him.
"Ah," said Rampart. "You are awake."
The statement made Crosshair pause.
Rampart either had laryngitis, or - wait.
He opened his eyes further and tried to clear them of the thick, itching film obscuring his vision.
"How do you feel?" said the ever-neutral Tech.
Crosshair took measured breath. "It's out," he demanded.
"Yes." Tech slipped the datapad he held under one elbow and crossed his arms. "It doesn't appear to have caused permanent alterations to your cognitive functions. I would expect residual brain patterns to recur over the next while."
"How long?" Crosshair asked.
"I cannot be sure," said Tech, blinking rapidly twice. "I suspect no longer than the usual period of time that elapsed between your becoming more aware of the influence the chip held on your mind and your superiors, er, recharging it, as it were."
Crosshair pushed himself deeper against the makeshift med table. "My superiors..." he scoffed. "Unstrap me from this thing."
Tech stepped closer, and suddenly Crosshair's vision was filled with the face of his begoggled teammate.
"You did not answer my first inquiry," he said. "How do you feel?"
Crosshair shifted. "Anything but comfortable."
Tech pulled back. "I shall need you to expound on that statement."
"What, you're not going to let me up unless I feel in prime health?"
"No," said Tech. "But you might do more damage to yourself by whatever you plan on next if you get up too swiftly."
"You also don't want to find a hand around your throat again, I imagine?" Crosshair added, irritated and feeling more than a little claustrophobic. But he couldn't fill the phrase with his intended bitterness.
Tech's mouth twitched slightly.
"That would be preferred," he concluded after a pause long enough that Crosshair felt his surprise.
The mechanic released the restraints and looked down at Crosshair for a long moment.
"I'll wait," Crosshair finally sighed, if only to remove Tech. He was not unsettled by Tech's reaction to what he'd previously said. And now he'd spotted an unlikely opportunity.
Tech opened his mouth to speak, but Crosshair anticipated his statement. "Just leave the droid with me. I'll be fine."
Tech nodded, and without a word, turned and left.
Omega straightened, her curiosity and confusion clashing as she looked at Echo.
"Crosshair? How did Crosshair help you?"
A faint smile touched Echo's lips and he inhaled deeply, tipping his head back with his eyes closed.
Omega looked out over the expanse they were in, somehow feeling she should avoid looking at him as he prepared to speak. It was...something important for Echo.
"Fives." Echo opened his eyes and smiled at Omega. "It was Fives."
"Fives or Crosshair?" Omega asked, confused.
"Both," said Echo. "It was rough, coming back to reality after Skako Minor. Accepting reality... I couldn't go back to my former life, my old friends; my best friend was dead."
"That was...Fives?" said Omega carefully.
Echo nodded once. "Right. I never knew what happened to him, just knew he'd be killed by some parasite." A bitter laugh, but gentle. Omega settled back. "It was one in a way, just not the kind they thought," Echo continued.
Omega leaned forward onto her raised knees again, head tilted sideways, and gazed at Echo. She ventured a question, uncomfortably aware of how hesitant she sounded. "And it was Nala Se...?"
"Rex told me - you remember," said Echo.
Omega shifted to stick her chin in between her forearms. She did remember. Rex and Echo had been talking for a long while over comm after the Batch's chip removals on Bracca. And Echo hadn't talked to anyone the rest of the night. Omega had tried to approach him, but he'd gotten up and walked away. At the time she'd assumed he was tired, but something had felt off. And afterwards...
Omega shivered, moving her arms to press against her stomach.
Afterwards had been too full of everything unexpected and frightening for her to remember much about anyone else except Tech for the next several days. And now, she wanted to think of anything but that time. She had gone through nothing of what Echo had, but still, she was afraid.
She was afraid of being hurt again, afraid of seeing her family hurt, terrified of seeing any of them, especially Tech, in such a state as she had seen him. She was afraid of being afraid. It would be so nice not to have to be brave again, but she knew that would never happen. She wanted so much to get help from someone, but -
A finger touched her shoulder.
"Omega?"
"Huh?"
Echo looked into her eyes, seemed to recognize what she was trying so hard to convey in them, and nodded. Not yet.
He looked away, and she relaxed. Message received. Omega slouched a little as she crossed her legs and leaned to rest her elbows on her knees instead.
Echo took a slow breath.
"Remember how I was trying to access the files in AZ?"
Omega nodded. But she also remembered hearing about Nala Se. So where did Crosshair come in?
"I was looking back," said Echo, "without knowing how to move forward. I knew there was nothing in AZ to find, but I kept trying."
"Isn't that...good?" Omega asked.
"Not if it's for the wrong thing," said Echo gently. "I couldn't have helped anyone by looking back. I didn't. Crosshair helped me understand that we don't have to put things back together once they break. Because they aren't the same thing anymore once they're broken. And we aren't the same people."
"So, something different needs to happen..." Omega slowly replied.
"Right. I'm not who I was before the Citadel rescue," said Echo. "But I'm still Echo. Fives wouldn't want me to lose focus in the present by looking back for something that isn't there anymore. At least, not the way I knew it to be."
"I think I understand," said Omega. "Does that mean...I shouldn't look back either?"
"Well, it's not the same for everyone," said Echo, grunting a little as he shifted his metal limbs. "Looking back and remembering is good if it helps you to move on. If not, you're wasting your time in chasing something that you want because you need something it gave you."
"And Crosshair helped you see differently?"
"Yeah." Echo smiled, and his eyes grew momentarily softer. "I've always had everything I need, just not in the way I'd want or expect." He turned and smiled at her. "You do, too."
Omega smiled back, but only a little because it hurt. She started pulling at the grass.
"Echo... Is it...okay...if I miss Nala se?" she finished hurriedly.
"Absolutely."
The fervor in his response made Omega almost feel envious. How could he be so certain of things? Except for the few times she knew of where he didn't, Echo always seemed to know where he was going. Things weren't as straight and obvious in how he talked about them as they were with Tech, but his thoughts were more complete in a way.
"Echo..." She was almost afraid to say it. No, more than afraid. "But wasn't...Nala Se... Didn't she..."
She stopped, unable to go on. Two big, fat tears spilled onto her cheeks and were gone.
"Nala Se drugged Fives, yes. I told you that," said Echo. The latter sentence held more self-accusation than confirmation of a fact.
"So, she was bad," Omega quavered. The tears threatened again.
"No," said Echo. And his voice was so soft, Omega had to look up to hear his next words. "When there is a war, we all have to do things we don't like. Sometimes, the authorities are wrong. A lot of the time they are. Nala Se was told to do the wrong thing, but she may not have known it. And if she did know, a direct command is not an easy thing to disobey, Omega." His voice faded and he sighed again. "And Fives understood that better than most."
They sat for a while, neither speaking, and Omega wished Hunter would come outside. It was so quiet and peaceful. And now that her head wasn't so occupied, she started searching the land in front of them for all the beautiful things she could.
But her mind quickly filled up again.
"She loved me," she blurted.
"Nala Se?"
"Yes..."
Echo leaned to the right and moved his left hand to the provisions pouch on his belt. "We all do, Omega."
He pulled out a toothpick and handed it to Omega. One end was slightly chewed, and she recognized it as the one he'd taken on a short while ago - the night he'd mentioned Nala Se.
Echo stood and Omega hopped up and stuck the toothpick in her mouth. Echo chuckled.
"And we all have different ways of showing it. I see that now."
He started up the boarding ramp. Omega followed, their conversation whirling in her head until two very disturbing thoughts presented themselves...
AZ floated with blatant unconcern right up into Crosshair's face. "Hello, CT 9904. Do you remember me?" it asked.
"Unfortunately," Crosshair snarled. He wasn't unhappy to see the droid, just apprehensive.
AZ spun while keeping its head stationary. "Oh, that is fortunate indeed! You have not lost your memory from the removal of the inhibitor chip!"
"Where is that thing?" Crosshair asked.
AZ whirred to a side tray and returned with a small plastic case. "Here it is!"
Crosshair sat slowly upright, irritated by the thrumming sensation running through his body. In between the plastic AZ held out to him was a small piece of organic matter no bigger than the top half of his thumb. Misshapen, a deep, blistered flesh tone, and spattered with black.
"Get rid of it," Crosshair snarled, leaning back against the wall as nausea spurted through his sternum.
"I cannot," said AZ. "Your Sergeant, CT 9903, has instructed me to retain this for further study."
"Still afraid I'll run wild," Crosshair snapped. "Augh, Hunter!"
"I believe that is what he labeled himself," said the droid, raising one of its fingers like Tech so often did when relating some fact or other.
"You keep my chip, you follow an order," said Crosshair.
AZ's photoreceptors flickered as if it were hesitantly blinking. "That sounds reasonably fair."
"Good." Crosshair stuffed his hand into the left pocket of the fatigues and pulled out the holotransmitter. "The binary. Tell me what it says."
AZ took the device and turned it about before playing the transmission. Just like before, the image of Reeka Mor slowly pivoted, and in between the wide bands of blue energy floating down the holo, the binary flickered again, barely detectable.
AZ said nothing. Crosshair wrapped his the fingers of his right hand over the knuckles of his left and nodded towards the device. "There."
"Oh, it is merely an ambiguous and rather curious message," said AZ mechanically
"Just decipher it," snarled Crosshair, impatience aggravating his fatigue.
AZ put one metallic digit to it's vocabulator light and mad a noise like a preparatory cough. "It reads, 'Contact me through this sequence if you want that job. If I know anything about you, you will.' And then there is a communicator code included at the end," AZ finished.
Crosshair's hands flopped to dangle over his knees. AZ spun about, it's photoreceptors never leaving Crosshair's face. "What can it mean, CT 9904?"
Crosshair looked up, mouth twisting as he processed the full meaning of the message. "It's Crosshair now," he hissed. "And it's a personal communication."
AZ seemed to shrug, then whirred up to the undersized datapad Tech had installed on the wall in place of a full-sized vitals readout panel.
Crosshair sank back against the wall while the droid scanned the monitor. His eyes burned and a single loud beep sounded through the datapad, exploding harshly out of the stream of the neatly paced tempo of Crosshair's pulse.
"A personal message..." he repeated, unaware he was whispering aloud. "From Cid."