Summary: "He catches Echo in the refresher, his torso bare, a blue handprint embedded into the skin of his chest." Echo gets a tattoo in commemoration of a past life. One-shot.
A/N: Unoriginal title, noted. It felt easiest, though.
Old Friends Not Forgotten
They stop by Kamino once after Anaxes and before Kaller. Only once.
During that time, Echo disappears. Tech can't help but wonder if the former ARC trooper is jumping out on them, despite the claims that he was only going to check up on a few regs from his past.
He does neither of those, though it takes some time before the others discover it.
Tech's the first to learn of it.
He catches Echo in the refresher, his torso bare, a blue handprint embedded into the skin of his chest. There's a sorrow in the reg's eyes when they meet his own, and Tech already knows that the symbol is something of importance from his past.
He's surprised when Echo tells him about it, a few nights later, when they're alone in the cockpit and the others are sleeping soundly.
"It was Rex." He tells him. "The handprint."
Tech lifts his gaze to meet Echo's mildly surprised at the confession.
"When I met him, it was with the last two members of my batch- Hevy...and Fives. He called us shinies, and stamped the blood of an eel onto my armor. I kept it there the whole time, until…" He trails off, and Tech knows what he means. "But now, all that's gone. The armor, Fives...I guess I just needed something more than my memories to remember it by. I'm with you guys now, yeah, but part of me will always belong with the Five-Oh-First."
Tech nods, makes some comment about the importance of remembering the past.
Echo smiles a little.
Tech wonders what he would've done if the same had happened to him.