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“Hunter, how about this one?” Omega asked, stepping out of the changing room for the hundredth time that afternoon.
Currently, the squad was stuck on a planet in the outer-rim called Karlo Six, after a rather rough landing. With Tech and Echo busy fixing the engine, and the planet not yet under imperial occupation, Hunter gave the go ahead for exploring the nearby city a bit. Wrecker had at some point disappeared in search of food, Tech and Echo in search of engine parts, and Hunter had decided that the time on the planet could be used to get Omega some new clothes.
All she had were the ones she left Kamino in, and they had suffered quite a bit of wear and tear during various missions. At some point last month it had suddenly become short sleeve due to an incident with some fire, and all of that wasn’t even mentioning the fact that distinctly Kaminoian clothing wasn’t the best choice when for the last several months you had a bounty on your head courtesy of the Kaminoians.
So yes, she needed new clothes. What Hunter hadn’t foreseen was how much clothing there was to choose from. Even getting Omega into a clothing shop had been a challenge of its own; she had a tendency to get sidetracked every time she saw something shiny in a shop window. Part of Hunter wondered if she picked the habit up from Wrecker, but really he knew it was just by chance that he had ended up with two siblings who would probably follow a laser like a pole cat.
“Hunter!” Omega was waving her hand in front of his face. “Are you paying attention?”
Hunter blinked, focusing on her again. “Yeah, sorry.”
“So?” She did a little spin, showing off a red jacket with a variety of pockets.
“It looks good,” Hunter supplied. “Definitely fits.”
Omega sighed. “You said that about the last three. And I know it fits, I was asking about the color.”
Now that Hunter was thinking about it, all the jackets she had shown him so far were the same jacket in different colors. He gave her an apologetic look. “Look, Omega, I’m a soldier, not a personal stylist. I’ve worn regulation uniforms my whole life, so I’m not exactly a great fashion consultant. Just pick whichever one you like the best.”
“But you all just repainted your armor last week,” Omega pointed out, gesturing to Hunter’s gear, which was in fact a new set of colors. “I’ve never been shopping either, at least not for myself.”
She looked almost… nervous? Like maybe this was just as overwhelming and confusing for her as it was for Hunter, and of course it was. Just like him, she’d lived her whole life on Kamino, and had everything picked out for her. It occurred to him that she was asking about the colors because she had no idea which one she did like the best. She wasn’t just asking for help for show, she really needed a second opinion.
Hunter took a breath, sitting up straighter and ready to pay attention. “Alright, show me the blue one again.”
Omega perked right up, disappearing back into the stall. Fifteen minutes later, they left the shop with the blue jacket, several pairs of calf-length pants, a few different shirts, and a solid supply of undergarments. They also left with a red scarf-adjacent idem for Hunter that Omega insisted would look cool, and, to Hunter’s mild surprise, she was right.
On the trek back to ship, Omega was still flitting between window displays, weaving through the crowd to look at things. Hunter was managing to still keep decent track of her, long attuned to the way she moved and sounded enough to pick her out even on a busy-ish street. Eventually though, a shop piqued her interest, and she dragged Hunter inside. He let her, because Tech had contacted him earlier to say the ship wouldn’t be ready for another few hours, so they had plenty of time.
As they stepped inside, Hunter immediately saw why Omega had been so fascinated by it. It was disorganized, shelves and tables piled high with various trinkets and knick-knacks. Omega quickly began sifting through them, spinning dials and opening boxes.
An elderly woman with deep brown skin and wild white hair poked her head out from behind the counter in the back of the shop, calling, “Welcome! Everything with the blue tags is twenty percent cheaper today, and the things in the cases on the right need to be handled carefully. I’ll tell you if anything is cursed before you purchase the item.”
Hunter nodded in return, caught between hoping Omega didn’t take a liking to one of these supposedly ‘cursed’ objects, and knowing she would think that was the coolest thing ever if she did happen to pick one up.
He leaned against the wall next to the door, watching Omega explore, and keeping an eye on his com in case Tech had any updates. Several minutes later, she walked back over to him, holding a small metal device in her hands.
“Hunter, look at this,” she said, passing to him. “Push the button.”
Hunter turned the disc over, pressing the little gold button. As soon as he did, a flurry of spiky stars and constellations exploded across the ceiling. Upon closer inspection, there was a warm light inside, shining through cut outs in the metal. Reaching up, Omega slowly turned a dial on the side of the disc. They both watched as the stars changed into the glow-bugs found on tropical planets, fading in and out as they flew lazily across the shop ceiling. She turned it again, and the glow-bugs became the steady fall of rain, and then snow.
“It would look so cool in my room,” Omega said wistfully. Hunter wasn’t entirely sure she even meant to speak the words aloud, her gaze still fixed on the softly falling snow. And it would look amazing in her room, not to mention the fact that it would help her sleep. It hadn’t escaped Hunter’s notice that she had trouble sleeping, and it was certainly understandable. Sleeping in space was difficult: no sense of time, light always staying the same, hard floors that were poorly cushioned at best. Not to mention that — despite her insistence that the Marauder was home — it was still not the place Omega had been falling asleep for most of her life. In a lot of ways, everything was still new.
“We’ll buy it then,” Hunter decided, handing the device back to her.
Omega looked up at him, startled. “We don’t have the money for that. Do we?”
“We’ll manage,” Hunter replied, herding her towards the woman at the counter. With one last nod of assurance from Hunter, Omega put the disc on the table.
The woman picked it up, examining it. “Ah, good choice. A projector disc.” Her eyes sparkled kindly. “One of my personal favorites.”
“How much?” Hunter asked, digging around in his pocket for credits, but the woman waved him off.
“For you?” She smiled warmly at Omega. “It’s free.”
Omega’s eyes widened, accepting the toy back from the shopkeeper. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” she nodded. “Have a wonderful day!” Omega smiled, thanking the woman enthusiastically, before heading in the direction of the door, flipping through settings on her new device. The shopkeeper turned to Hunter. “You raised a lovely child. I can feel her heart glowing.”
“That,” Hunter answered, watching Omega from across the shop, “is not my doing. She’s like that all on her own.”
The woman hummed in response. “Of course,” she said. “But many people feel the need to get rid of the wonder of children from a young age. She clearly hasn’t lost that yet, despite what she may have been through. It’s important that she doesn’t feel like she has to.”
When Hunter looked back at the counter, the woman was gone. “Hunter,” Omega called from the doorway, “Are you coming?”
He nodded following her out back onto the street.
The suns were low on the horizon when they returned to the ship. Wrecker was already back, munching on a variety of strange fruits Hunter didn’t know the names of. Tech was nowhere to be seen, most likely inside, but Echo was under the engine, messing with the wiring.
He stood up when he heard them coming, glancing quickly between them. “Scarf.” He pointed at Hunter. “Jacket.” Omega.
“Yup,” Omega confirmed, bouncing happily on her toes. It had been a running joke among the crew for a while that Echo never noticed when people changed things about their appearance. None of them would let him live it down after it took him nearly a whole day to notice that Omega had tucked her arm all the way up the sleeve of her tunic, replacing it with Echo’s spare mechanical one. Since then, he had been trying to make up for it by cataloging all his siblings’ wardrobe changes. Personally, Hunter found it equally amusing as when he hadn’t noticed at all, but he wasn’t about to say anything.
“How’s she looking?” Hunter asked, nodding at the Marauder.
Echo opened his mouth to reply, but Tech beat him to it, appearing in the main doorway. “The repairs are almost complete,” he confirmed. “Once Echo finishes hooking up those wires, we’ll be ready for take off. Technically, we’re running about fifteen minutes behind schedule, because Echo–”
“Hey!” Echo interrupted with a glare in Tech’s direction. “Would you like to come lay on the ground with sparks flying in your face for an hour?”
Tech pushed his goggles higher on his face. “Well, I would, but I don’t have the necessary build-in mechanical attachments to–”
“Yeah, yeah.” Echo rolled his eyes, what Hunter knew was good-naturedly, getting back into position under the ship. He did finish the work quickly, and they were back in the air in no time.
That night, Hunter could see the faint glow of Omega’s ceiling projector under the curtain that acted as her door. For the first time in a long time, she seemed to sleep through the night.