#ct003

It started because Wrecker couldn't keep his mouth shut.

"I'm just sayin’," Wrecker announced to no one and everyone, dropping onto one of the Marauder's cockpit seats, "that Nola from the supply depot was askin’ about you, Echo. Specifically. By name."

Echo didn't look up from the console he was running diagnostics on. "No."

"You didn't even let me finish!"

"You were going to ask me if I wanted you to set something up." He turned a dial. "No."

Wrecker looked at you. His grin was enormous. You looked back down at your work, because if you made eye contact with him right now you were going to laugh and Echo would know you were on Wrecker's side, which you weren't. 

This was a recurring event. Every port, every depot, every settlement with more than four people in it, someone decided Echo needed a partner. 

The thing was, it had taken the squad an embarrassingly long time to find Echo's weak spot. Hunter got his by mentioning any amount of effort he put into his hair. Tech's was any implication that he might have gotten something wrong. Wrecker didn't really have one, which was deeply unfair. Echo had been impervious to everything until three weeks ago when someone floated the idea of setting him up with a contact on Felucia and something in his expression cracked. Wrecker, of course, grabbed onto that immediately.

Since then it had become the squad's favorite sport.

"She has great aim," Wrecker offered. "You like aim."

Echo picked up his tool again. "I'm done talking about this."

Wrecker caught your eye and mouthed he likes aim with visible joy.

You smirked and pressed your lips together to keep from laughing, but took the moment to assess Echo’s less-than-pleased expression.

You knew Echo hated it. He'd actually told you once, sitting on the ship's ramp while everyone else was asleep. He said it made him feel like people were looking at him and only seeing what was missing. Just like the scomp where his hand used to be. The cybernetic legs that carried him with a soldier's posture regardless, back straight, chin level. His body, whether human or machine, still remembered the Republic even when everything else had changed.

You sat with that thought for a long time after.

You brought it up the next morning, when the ship was quiet and the two of you were running inventory in the cargo hold.

"I have a solution to your problem," you said.

Echo looked up from the crate he was logging.

You set down a supply kit. "If you tell everyone we're together, they'll drop it."

He looked up. His brows pulled in slightly and he set the datapad down, eyes on your face.

"That's going to create other problems," he said.

"Like what?"

The corner of his mouth moved. "Hunter will see through it."

"Hunter sees through everything and doesn't say anything. He'll let it go." You shrugged. "It stops the setups. You stop getting that look on your face every time Wrecker opens his mouth. Everybody wins."

"What look?"

"The one you're doing right now." His jaw was tight and his eyes had gone somewhere flat, the look of a man waiting for something unpleasant to be over.

Then he looked up at you, and the tension in his jaw eased a little. "You'd actually do that for me?"

"Yeah," you said. "I would."

He nodded slowly. "Alright. Thank you."

You decided to tell them at dinner.

It felt like the lowest stakes version of the thing. Everyone was tired, Hunter was focused on the nav charts, Tech was eating with one hand and datapad-ing with the other. Wrecker was the only one fully present, which was either ideal or the worst possible scenario depending on how you looked at it.

You were sitting next to Echo already. You looked at him, a silent whenever you're ready, and he looked back at you for just a second before turning to the table.

"We're together," he said. Simple.

You shifted closer to him and wrapped both hands around his arm, the way you had seen people do. Easy, natural, like you had done it before. It was for the room. You knew it was for the room. His arm was warm under your hands and solid in the way everything about Echo was solid, and you looked at the table and told yourself to focus.

The ship hummed as the eyes of the rest of the Batch all fixated on two two of you. Your heart was doing something stupid and fast in your chest that you were hoping wasn't visible.

Wrecker put his fork down. He looked at Echo. He looked at you. He looked back at Echo.

"CALLED IT," he bellowed, loud enough that Hunter's head came up sharply and Tech's datapad slipped out of his hand. "I called it, I said it, nobody listened to me—"

"You did not call it," Tech said, retrieving the datapad from the floor.

"I implied it."

"You implied nothing, you were actively trying to set him up with someone else yesterday—"

"That was a test."

"That was not a test, Wrecker. A test is a procedure intended to establish the quality, performance, or reliability of something. You have no idea what a test is—"

You felt Echo exhale beside you, slow and quiet, and when you glanced at him his eyes were closed as he pinched the bridge of his nose. When he opened them he looked at you, and the corner of his mouth pulled up just slightly, and something in your chest stopped racing and went warm instead.

You shifted your hold on Echo's arm and leaned your head against his shoulder, because Wrecker was watching and you were supposed to be convincing. Echo went still for half a second. Then his posture shifted, just slightly, making room for you.

"See," Wrecker said, pointing at the two of you with his fork like he had just proven something in to the Galactic Senate.

"Eat your food," Echo said.

Hunter looked at you both across the table. He didn't say anything. He just nodded once, like he'd already known and had simply been waiting for you to catch up, and went back to his charts.

Omega leaned over and grabbed your arm with both hands. "I knew it," she whispered, delighted.

"Wrecker's rubbing off on you," you told her.

From across the table Wrecker was still going. "I want everyone to acknowledge that I saw this coming—"

"Nobody is acknowledging that," Echo said.

The table got loud again with Tech and Wrecker going back and forth, and you lifted your head off Echo's shoulder. He didn't say anything about it. Neither did you. But you were aware of the warmth his shoulder had left behind and you focused very carefully on your food for the rest of dinner.

The plan you set into motion worked immediately and completely.

Wrecker celebrated by making himself as involved as possible. He started referring to you as a unit, saved you adjacent seats without being asked, and physically relocated Tech once so you could sit next to Echo at a briefing, which Tech objected to at length while Wrecker ignored him entirely.

The briefing was the first time it felt like actual pressure. Hunter was running through the Genosis job, holomap lit blue in the centre of the room, and you were aware of Wrecker and Omega watching the two of you. Echo must have felt it too because his arm came up along the back of your seat, loose and easy, like it was nothing. Like he had done it a hundred times.

He, of course, hadn't, but you kept your eyes on the holomap. Hunter was talking about entry points. You retained next to none of it.

At some point Echo leaned forward to point something out on the map and the arm dropped. When he sat back he didn't put it up again. You didn't know whether you were relieved or not, but you forced yourself to not think about it.

"This is getting out of hand," Echo said after a few weeks of doing this dance they did. The two of you were standing in the Marauder's small corridor while Wrecker's voice carried through from the cockpit, loud and pleased with himself.

"Yeah, two rooms,” he told their contact, “One for the squad and one for my brother and his girl."

You and Echo looked at each other.

He moved toward the cockpit first. You followed, and by the time you got there Wrecker had already ended the comm and was turning around with the expression of someone who had done something very generous and wanted credit for it.

"You're welcome," he said.

"I didn't ask you to do that," Echo said.

"No, but I did it anyway. You're together now. You need your own room." He paused. "You're welcome," he said again, since the first time hadn't landed.

You stepped around Echo and touched Wrecker's arm. "That was really thoughtful," you said, and it came out warm. "Thank you."

Wrecker's whole face opened up. "See," he said, pointing at you and looking at Echo. "That's how you respond."

You turned back to Echo. He was looking at you with an expression that was doing its best to stay neutral and not entirely succeeding. You gave him a small smile and mouthed it's fine.

Something in his shoulders dropped half an inch.

"Thank you, Wrecker," he said, with the energy of a man who had lost a battle gracefully.

Wrecker clapped him on the back hard enough to stagger him. "That's what I thought."

Genosis was loud and warm and the streets from the landing pad to the depot were packed enough that you and Echo moved close together without forcing it.

Omega was just behind with Hunter and Wrecker was somewhere further back, loudly narrating the market stalls to Tech, which meant the whole squad had a clear sightline and you both knew it.

Echo's hand found yours. You looked straight ahead and matched his pace and told yourself this was the job.

A vendor called out from a stall to your left and you instinctively turned to look. When you turned back a strand of hair had fallen across your face. Echo reached over without dropping your hand and tucked it behind your ear, the scomp tracing a cool, careful line along your cheekbone. Sure, you guys had this act going on, but you hadn’t been this close to his face before. You could see the faint scar at his jaw, the steadiness in his eyes, the unusual absence of self-consciousness in what he'd just done.

Then he was looking ahead. Just keeping up appearances.

You faced forward and said nothing.

The room Wrecker had booked was small, which you suspected had less to do with the depot's availability and more to do with Wrecker specifically requesting it. There were two narrow windows, a table, and one bed.

Echo stood in the doorway and took it in without expression.

"I'll take the floor," he said the moment the door swung shut.

"Echo."

"It's fine. I've slept in worse." He was already moving toward the corner, pulling his jacket off and folding it with the automatic precision of someone who had spent years making do with whatever space a bunk or a battlefield offered. 

His jaw was tight.

You sat on the edge of the bed and watched him arrange nothing in particular in the corner and felt something pull at you that you'd been ignoring for longer than you wanted to admit.

"You don't have to sleep on the floor," you said.

"Well, I'm not putting you on the floor."

"That's not what I said."

He stopped. His back was still to you. He stood there long enough that the street noise outside filled the room, someone laughing below, music drifting up thin and distant, and then he turned around.

"This got complicated," he said.

"I know."

"I don't want to make things strange between us."

You looked at him. "Things are already strange. They've been strange since I suggested this mess."

He crossed the room and sat on the other end of the bed, forearms on his cybernetic knees, eyes on the floor.The silence stretched long enough that you started to regret opening your mouth.

Then he said, "I stopped pretending a while ago."

You looked at him.

"That's why I didn't want things to get strange between us." He kept his eyes on the floor. "Not because of the cover. Because I didn't want you to find out and have it change everything."

"When did it stop being pretend for you," you asked.

He was quiet for a moment. "The briefing. You had your head on my shoulder and I spent the whole time trying to remember what Hunter was saying."

You laughed once, short and surprised. "Me too."

He looked up at that, eyebrows raised.

"I kept telling myself I was helping a friend," you said. "And I was. I meant it when I offered. But somewhere in the middle of all of it I stopped having to pretend to want to be close to you, and I didn't know what to do with that." You looked at your hands. "I didn't want to lose you over it. You're my friend first. That mattered more than whatever this was."

The room was quiet.

"Is," he said.

You looked up.

"Whatever this is," he said. "Not was."

He reached over and his hand covered yours, warm and steady. He didn't say anything else for a moment. With Echo, you had learned, silence usually meant he was making sure he got the next part right.

"I don't want to pretend anymore," he said. "I want the actual thing."

You turned your hand over under his.

"That's what I want too," you told him.

Outside the city kept its noise and the music floated up from somewhere below. The two of you stayed in the room that night, and none of it felt like pretending.

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Your POV

The Marauder made a sound like a shaking scream when she hit the atmosphere.

You felt it before anything else, that low metallic groan vibrating up through the floor panels and into the soles of your boots. Something was wrong with her long before Hunter’s voice came sharp through the cockpit doorway and Tech pulled her down into an emergency descent over the closest planet on the nav chart. It was a dusty, warm little rock called Velos that nobody had ever heard of and apparently nobody cared about either. Which made it, as Tech put it through gritted teeth while smoke poured from the port engine housing, the best possible option.

The navigation area lurched. You grabbed the edge of your seat with both hands and across from you Wrecker was already moving, one massive arm sweeping Omega firmly back into her seat, the securing arm locking down over her with a decisive click. Omega’s eyes went wide as the ship tilted and somewhere in the cockpit Hunter yelled something that was mostly drowned out by the groan of the port engine.

Then Tech’s voice, perfectly even: “It’s not affecting life support. We’re fine!”

“Tech.” Hunter’s voice had moved past clipped into something lower and more dangerous. “I swear to every star in this system if you tell me we are fine one more time while smoke is coming out of the ship I will personally throw you out of the airlock.”

“That would be counterproductive given that I am currently the one landing it.”

Wrecker looked at you across the bay with an expression that said he had seen this exact exchange before and found it just as funny every time. You pressed your lips together to hold your laugh and held on.

The landing was rough. The Marauder scraped and shuddered across pale dusty earth and finally ground to a stop. Wrecker looked down at Omega and laughed. Full and loud, the way he laughed at everything, like the universe was one long joke being told specifically for his entertainment.

Omega stared up at him blankly for a second before she started laughing too.

You had missed that laugh- His laugh. It had been almost two years since you had heard it regularly in person and it still hadn’t become old. You couldn’t imagine it would get old any time soon, seeing as it had already been several weeks since you joined the Batch and Wrecker laughs a lot.

You let out the breath you had been holding and unclenched your hands from the seat edge.

From the cockpit, Tech was the first to interject. “I was correct as usual. We’re fine.”

Wrecker cupped Omega’s ears before Hunter could finish his response.

The planet was warm in the way that old leather is warm, dry heat that settled into your shoulders and made the back of your neck prickle. There were sparse trees with sparse leaves that threw shade like spilled ink across pale dusty ground, and in the distance a cluster of low buildings that passed for a town shimmered in the haze. Echo had already commed ahead to a local parts dealer, someone Cid apparently knew, and the estimate he came back with made everyone wince.

It would be three days. Maybe four.

“The port thruster coupling is fractured, the coolant lines on the starboard side have sustained significant pressure damage, and the secondary hyperdrive motivator will not survive another jump without replacement,” Tech said, not looking up from where he was crouched at the Marauder’s undercarriage, both arms buried to the elbow inside the housing. Tech pulled his arm free to wipe the sweat off his forehead, and you found your eyes tracking the line of his jaw without meaning to, the sharp angle of it catching the late morning light, a grease mark sitting just below his cheekbone that he was completely unaware of.

Hunter's voice cut across the heat before you could finish that thought.

"Alright." He had his arms crossed and his eyes moving across the tree line. As usual, he was already three steps ahead of everyone else. "We're going to be here a few days so let's not get comfortable until we know what we're dealing with. Echo, you're with me. We're going to do a sweep of the area, make sure this rock is as quiet as it looks." He turned back to the others. "The rest of you, stay with the ship. Tech, keep working." A beat. "Everyone lays low until we're back."

"Understood," Echo said, already falling into step beside him.

Wrecker found you an hour later sitting on a flat rock at the edge of the Marauder's shadow, your kit spread out in front of you, running a maintenance check on your blaster the way you always did when you needed something to do with your hands. It was a habit you had picked back up only recently. For a long time the blaster had sat in a crate under your bunk on Daro Kesh, traded out for a life that was quieter and softer and involved a lot less running. You had not exactly missed it. But you had missed other things, and somehow the two had ended up being part of the same package.

Wrecker dropped down beside you on the flat rock, close enough that his shoulder almost crashed into yours.

"Weird bein' grounded, huh?" he said.

"Little bit."

"You mad about it?"

You looked up at him. The sun was behind him and it lit the edges of his broad shoulders and the side of his shaved head, and for a moment he looked exactly the way he had looked on Kestara, standing at the edge of a ridge with smoke rising from the valley below, both of you coming down off the adrenaline of a mission that had almost gone very badly.

That felt so long ago. He didn't even have his scar back then.

"Why would I be mad?" you said.

He lifted one shoulder. "We pulled you into this. You had your whole thing goin' on Daro Kesh."

"Wrecker." You set the blaster down and looked at him properly. "I'm fine."

"Yeah?" He looked at your face the way he always did when he was deciding whether to believe you, slow and direct. Then he nodded. "Okay. Good." A beat. He scratched the back of his neck. "Hey, uh. Tech's askin' if you got a calibration tool on ya. His got stripped."

You laughed. "Of course that's what this is about."

He punched your shoulder. "Hey, I came to check on you first!"

You dug the tool out and held it out to him.

"Tell him he can keep it," you said. "I've got a spare."

Tech's POV:

He did not intend to watch her.

He was calibrating the pressure regulators on the secondary coolant line and the task required his full attention, or it should have, and yet he found his gaze tracking across the ground to where she sat with Wrecker, the two of them speaking quietly in the shade.

She laughed at something. The sound carried.

Tech returned his attention to the regulator. Applied the correct torque. Checked his reading.

Looked back again.

He had met her three weeks ago on Daro Kesh, a remote desert planet that smelled of dry heat and old machinery and the particular kind of quiet that settled over places people came to disappear. Wrecker had pushed through the cantina door ahead of the rest of them with his usual disregard for subtlety and stopped so abruptly that Echo walked into his back.

She had been on the small stage at the far end of the room.

Tech had run his initial assessment the way he assessed everything: approximate age, physical conditioning, the model of her blaster, the quality of her gear. Except there was no blaster and certainly not any gear. The dress had a slit at the side that caught the amber stage light when she moved, which was not what he had constructed in his mind from the number of times Wrecker had described the best demolitionist he had ever worked alongside. Her posture, however, suggested someone who knew how to move through difficult situations. Her hands were steady. He noted that specifically.

And then she had stepped off the stage into the crowd, and Wrecker was already halfway across the room with both arms out.

He thought about the way Wrecker had looked at her in that moment. The openness in his expression was beyond the standard warmth Wrecker extended to people he liked. Tech had catalogued the distinction and filed it. The file, however, had not stayed filed, which was not how filing was supposed to work.

She had shaken hands with Hunter, nodded at Echo, and then looked at Tech with an expression that was already slightly amused, as though she had anticipated being assessed and found it more interesting than offensive. Then she said something precise and observational about the atmospheric composition of Daro Kesh that was both technically accurate and mildly funny, and he had found himself recalibrating.

The pressure regulator gave a soft confirming click under his hands and he noted the reading without looking away from it this time.

There was work to do. Three days of it, at minimum.

He focused on the work.

Your POV:

That evening Hunter sent Wrecker and Echo into town for supplies and took Omega with him to run a few errands, leaving the Marauder quiet in the long amber light of late afternoon. You had returned to your spot, the flat rock with a patch of shade, and were going through your datapad when Tech emerged from under the ship with grease to his elbows and something complicated behind his expression.

He stopped when he saw you, just briefly, before he continued to the small portable wash station Omega had set up and began working the solvent through his hands.

“Did you find the fracture?” you asked.

He glanced over his shoulder. “Which one?”

“The one you were being very pointed about twenty minutes ago.”

A pause. “I was not being pointed. I was making an accurate assessment of a deeply frustrating engineering failure.” He turned back to the wash station but you caught the very slight shift at the corner of his mouth. “Yes. I found it. It is worse than I initially estimated, which is not a phrase I enjoy using.”

You put the datapad down. “How bad?”

"The coupling will require full fabrication to spec rather than a standard replacement. The part simply does not exist in a form compatible with this ship's non-regulation modifications." He dried his hands and turned around, leaning back against the hull with his arms crossed. "The parts dealer can source the raw materials. The fabrication itself will need to be done here."

"Can you do it?"

He looked at her with an expression that suggested he found the question mildly unnecessary. "Of course I can."

"I meant here. With what you have."

"With the right equipment, yes." He tilted his head slightly. "Do you have fabrication experience?"

"Some," you said. "I spent six months working with a ship repair crew out of Corellia before I went to the Cantina."

Tech was quiet for a moment in a way that was different from his usual processing silences. He was looking at you with something that had not fully resolved itself into an identifiable expression yet.

Tech was quiet for a moment, looking at you with an expression you had not seen on him before and could not quite read.

"That is," he said, "unexpectedly useful."

You looked up at him. "High praise from you, I'm guessing."

"Accurate praise," he said, allowing the corner of his mouth to prick.

Wrecker's POV:

He wasn’t good at noticin' things. People said that sometimes, not meanly, just as a fact, the way they might say Echo talked too little or Hunter never stopped scanning a room even when there was nothin' in it to worry about. He accepted it. He was good at other things.

But he did notice this.

He noticed it when he came back from town with his arms full of supply packs and found ‘er and Tech still standing by the rear landing strut in the fadin’ light, talking about something he couldn' hear, and the way she was tilted slightly toward Tech the way people tilt toward warmth without thinkin' about it.

He set the supplies down in the navigation area and stood there for a moment with his hands loose at his sides.

He had thought about her in the years between Kestara and Daro Kesh. Not constantly, not in a way that kept him up at night, but in the way that certain things stay with you whether you ask 'em to or not. The way she had pulled him out from under a collapsed structure on Mimban without hesitatin', the two of them half buried in smoke and debris, and she had just grabbed his arm and hauled and said come on, keep moving, you're fine. Matter of fact. He had liked that. He had liked her.

He hadn't told her. The war had a way of makin' certain conversations feel like something to have later, and later kept not arrivin', and then the war took them different ways and she was gone.

And then Daro Kesh, several weeks ago, and she was just there on that stage in that dress and the dreamin’ light and he had stood in the cantina doorway feelin' something he didn't have a word for while Echo walked into his back.

And you were the same as before. A little quieter maybe, the way everyone was a little quieter now, but the same.

He picked up the nearest pack and stowed it and didn't think too hard about what he had seen outside.

He was good at other things.

Your POV

The second day was long and hot and full of work.

Tech pulled you in early, standing at the Marauder's underside with the fabrication schematics pulled up on his datapad and a look that meant he had been thinking about the problem since before sunrise. You worked beside him for most of the morning, the two of you flat on your backs under the ship in the narrow mechanical space, Tech narrating the process in that precise unhurried way of his that you found you did not mind at all. He never explained things twice. He never checked if you were keeping up. He just spoke and expected you to follow, and when you asked a question he answered it directly, no preamble, no softening.

It was refreshing in a way you had not expected.

"Hold that steady," he said at one point, both hands occupied with the coupling housing while you held the adjacent pipe in place. Your arms were close together in the narrow space, shoulders almost touching, and when he glanced over to check your grip his face was inches from yours.

He looked back at the coupling without comment.

You looked back at the pipe.

"Steady," you confirmed, your voice coming out mostly normal.

Wrecker’s POV

He’d made extra.

That was the thing about bein' grounded, you actually had time to do stuff right! No eatin’ cold rations outta a pack between jumps, no grabbin’ questionable street food on the way to a job. He’d had actual time and actual supplies and he had done somethin' genuinely good with both of 'em and he was feelin' pretty great about it as he came around the side of the ship with the tray.

"Hey! Lunch!" he announced to nobody in particular, crouchin' down to see how far along they were under the ship.

He stopped.

They were close. The kind of close the narrow undercarriage space made inevitable, he understood that, but Tech's face was right there next to hers and she was lookin' back at him and neither of 'em had moved away from it and there was somethin' in the air between 'em that Wrecker didn't have a name for but recognized the shape of.

Somethin' in his chest did a thing he didn't like.

He straightened up. Looked at the tree line for a second. Adjusted his grip on the tray and walked around the ship to where they were working.

Then he crouched back down and beamed at the both of 'em like he hadn't seen anything at all, because he was good at that, always had been.

"Figured you two forgot," he said, settin' the tray down at the edge of the shade before grabbin' her ankle with one hand and draggin' her out from under the ship in one smooth pull.

"Wrecker!"

 "Lunch break," he said simply and held out her drink while she was still blinking up at the sky from the ground, then crouched back down and knocked on the undercarriage. "You too, Tech. Come on." 

A pause from under the ship. Then the sound of tools being set down with great deliberateness, the way Tech always set things down when he was bein' interrupted and wanted you to know it. He slid out and took the drink without comment.

Wrecker dropped into the dirt across from both of 'em and started settin’ up the meal with the particular satisfaction of someone who had put actual effort in and wanted it appreciated. "Been down here four hours. Eat something."

"I was aware of the time," Tech said.

"Sure you were."

Tech paused. Checked his chrono. Said nothin'.

Your POV

You took a long drink and looked up at Wrecker. He was already looking back at you with that open expression he never tried to hide, and your chest became warm in a way you decided to not address. You looked away first.

The three of you settled into silence. The heat pressed down. 

It should have felt easy. It almost did.

You were aware of Tech beside you because of the fact that he had not said anything since he sat down. You could not tell if he was running motivator calculations in his head or thinking of something else entirely. You did not look at him to check. You looked at Wrecker instead.

"You remember Kestara?" you asked.

He grinned immediately. The scars across his face pulled with it. "Which part?"

"The part where you ate a suspicious berry and we spent two hours waiting to find out if it was poisonous."

"Wasn't poisonous though!"

"That is not the point of the story!"

There was a beat of quiet and you felt Tech shift beside you.

"What is the point of the story?" he asked.

Something about the question landed oddly, and you suddenly became aware of the angles of the three of you. Then Wrecker pointed at you and the moment tipped back into something easier.

"She panicked!"

"I did not panic. I was monitoring your vitals."

"You kept askin' me how I felt every four minutes!"

"Because you had eaten an unidentified berry on a hostile planet!"

Wrecker was laughing, that same full reckless laugh, and you were smiling before you could decide whether to, the story pulling something warm in your chest. It was easy to laugh with him. It had always been easy.

Then you caught Tech watching the two of you with an expression that was attentive and measured and something else underneath it that he had not quite managed to put away before you saw it. You did not know what to do with that, so you looked back at Wrecker.

"Three missions," he was saying, the laugh settling into something quieter and more deliberate. "She saved my life on the second one!"

"You would have gotten out on your own," you said.

"Maybe. Faster with you there though."

You looked down at your meal that he carefully made.

Beside you Tech said nothing and you were aware of that silence the same way you were aware of everything about him lately, more than you had intended to be. So you ate and did not say anything, and so the afternoon pressed on and no one said what any of them were actually thinking.

That night you could not sleep.

Your bunk was fine, perfectly adequate, but the heat did not break the way you had hoped. You lay there in the narrow fold out space listening to the ambient sounds of the ship settling around you and thought about things you did not have the right words for yet.

Two years was a long time. Long enough that you had put Kestara and Mimban and all the rest of it somewhere far back, somewhere you did not need to look at often. Long enough that you had traded your armor for a dress and your blaster for a microphone and told yourself that the quiet life on Daro Kesh was exactly what you wanted. And it had been, mostly.

And then the Batch had walked through the cantina door several weeks ago and everything that was supposed to stay far back came walking right up to the front again.

Two years was long enough that Wrecker had become a good memory instead of a present one. And now he was present again, sleeping in the bunk two feet away, and he kept looking at you in that steady, sincere way and you did not know what to do with it.

You also did not know what to do with Tech, who was a surprise you had not planned for.

Tech was not a type you would have predicted for yourself. He was precise where you were instinctive. He spoke in complete sentences about technical subjects and seemed genuinely unaware that most people did not do this. He had strong opinions about obscure topics. And he trusted you. He had handed you a fabrication tool this morning with the particular focused attention of someone who knew you would use it correctly, and the trust had been quiet and matter of fact and had done something unexpected to the inside of your chest.

You stared at the bunk above you.

This was a problem.

You pressed your hands over your face and breathed out slowly through your fingers. And then you got up.

Tech’s Pov

He was in the cockpit at his station when he heard her moving toward the front of the ship, soft careful footsteps navigating the dark.

His datapad was propped against the control panel with the motivator schematics open, and several tools were laid out beside it in the order he intended to use them tomorrow. He had been staring at the same set of calculations for the past forty minutes.

He heard her footsteps stop at the cockpit entrance.

"You're still up," she said.

"I find it difficult to stop before a problem is solved." He did not look up immediately. "You should be sleeping."

"Probably." She came and settled into the co-pilot seat, pulling her knees up, and looked out through the viewport at the dark planet. She had her hair loose, which he had not seen before, and she was wearing the kind of expression that he believed meant thinking rather than worrying, though the line between the two was sometimes difficult for him to distinguish in others.

They sat quietly for a while. Outside, Velos was dark and still and completely indifferent to either of them.

"Can I ask you something?" she said eventually.

He set down the tool in his hand and gave her his full attention. "Ask."

"When we met on Daro Kesh. What did you actually think? When you first saw me up there."

He was quiet for a moment, His thumb stilled on the edge of the datapad.

It was a direct question. She asked direct questions. He had catalogued this about her within the first hour of their acquaintance and filed it under qualities he found simultaneously useful and somewhat destabilizing.

"I began to catalogue you," he said. "The way I do with everyone. And then I found I had to start over."

She turned to look at him. "Why?"

He kept his eyes on the control panel. "You were on a stage in a cantina on a planet people go to when they are trying not to be found, and you were…" He paused, selecting the word with care, "unexpected. The version of you I was looking at did not match the data Wrecker had given me about you. I found the contradiction," a pause, "interesting."

The two shared a stretch of silence.

"It was the most accurate word available to me at the time," he said. "I have since found more accurate ones."

She held his gaze for a moment and something shifted in the air between them, small and unannounced, the way pressure changes before weather.

Then she looked back out at the viewport and the moment settled without resolving, and the ship was quiet around them both.

He returned to the calculation. It resolved in under ten minutes.

At some point her breathing changed. He looked over. She had fallen asleep in the co-pilot seat, her knees still pulled up, one hand loose in her lap.

He turned the display brightness down a degree so the light would not wake her.

Then he went back to work and told himself, with limited conviction, that the calculations were the reason the cockpit felt less empty than it had an hour ago.

Your POV

The third day arrived with no fanfare, but a parts delivery before breakfast.

Wrecker carried the crates in from town with Omega narrating everything they passed, and the morning turned productive and loud in the way mornings always were when the whole batch was in motion together. You worked alongside Tech again outside at the undercarriage, Echo watched from the top of the ramp with a cup of caf, and Hunter kept giving you a look that was somewhere between assessing and amused.

You ignored Hunter's look.

By midday the coupling was fabricated and the first of the coolant lines was replaced and Tech allowed himself one brief moment of visible satisfaction before moving directly to the next problem.

Wrecker found you in the afternoon sitting on the flat rock again, and he dropped down beside you.

"How's the shoulder?" he asked. You had strained it that morning reaching into the coupling housing.

"Fine."

He reached over and pressed two fingers along the line of your shoulder muscle, checking, and you held still and let him.

"Little tight," he said.

"I said it’s fine."

"Yeah, you always say that." He did not move his hand immediately and you couldn’t help but enjoy his familiar warmth.

You looked at him. He was already looking at you, close and steady, and there was something sitting behind his eyes that he was not saying, that he had probably been not saying for several days and possibly, a quieter part of you acknowledged, for much longer than that.

"Wrecker?" You leaned into his touch as his arm settled around your shoulder.

"Yeah?"

"What are you not telling me?"

He was quiet for a long moment. A tree across the clearing dropped something small and dry and it clicked against the pale ground.

"Probably the same thing you're not tellin' me," he said.

You looked at him for another moment and then you looked out across the dusty ground. You did not say anything and he did not say anything, and it was simultaneously uncomfortable and not uncomfortable at all.

"I missed you," he said finally. Simply. The same way he might tell you a distance or a heading. "After you got redeployed. After everythin'. Know that's a long time ago now."

"It's not that long," you said quietly.

"No," he said. "Maybe not."

The distant trees threw their dark shade and neither of you moved. The rock held you both without complaint.

 The last morning was cool.

Some overnight shift in the atmosphere had pulled a thin cloud cover across the sky and the air when you stepped outside had that quality of something preparing to change. You stood at the top of the ramp with a cup of caf and watched the pale clouds move and tried to organize yourself.

Much to your dismay, you were not organized.

You had spent three days under a ship's belly with a man who spoke about coolant specifications like they were worth caring about deeply and treated your competence as a simple unremarkable fact. You had spent three days sitting beside a man who had known you in a war and remembered all the right things and whose laugh had not changed at all. You had traded your dress for your armor several weeks ago and stepped back into a life you thought you had set down for good and somehow in the middle of all of that two people had looked at you in two completely different ways and both of them had landed.

You were not organized at all.

You heard footsteps on the ramp behind you.

Tech stopped beside you, his own caf in hand, and stood looking at the clouded sky with the expression of someone running several calculations simultaneously. 

"Variable atmospheric pressure," he said. "It may rain."

"Wouldn't that be something," you said.

He glanced at you sideways. There was something in the look that was different from his working expressions, more internal, less cataloguing, and it sat there in the space between you for a moment before he spoke.

"I wanted to say," he started, and then stopped, which was unusual enough that you turned to look at him properly.

He was looking at his caf.

"You are," he said carefully, "an exceptionally capable person. And I have found the past several weeks to be," a pause, "unexpectedly significant."

You stared at him.

He looked up and met your eyes with the particular intensity he usually reserved for problems he intended to solve, steady and unblinking, and underneath it something that was plainly and unmistakably not technical at all. 

"I am not practiced at this," he said. "I want to be clear about what I mean and I am uncertain I have the correct vocabulary."

"Tech," you said.

"Yes."

"I understood you."

He held your gaze, brows knitting together. "Oh," he said, quietly.

Behind both of you, somewhere inside the ship, Wrecker dropped something heavy and swore as the moment between the two of you broke open. You both turned and the Marauder's ordinary sounds came rushing back in around you.

Wrecker’s POV

He had not dropped the crate on purpose.

Mostly.

He had been movin' through the navigation area toward the ramp when he caught sight of the two of them through the viewport, standing close together in the grey morning light, and something in the way Tech was lookin' at her made Wrecker go very still with a supply pack in both hands.

He stood there a beat longer than he should have.

Then the pack slipped through his fingers.

He crouched down and checked if anythin’ inside was damaged and told himself that was the only reason he was still crouchin’ there with his forearms on his knees and his eyes on the floor gratin’.

He heard her footsteps comin' back up the ramp and he straightened up and turned around. He was intentional to keep his face the way he always kept his face, open, because he had never learned to do anything else and had long since stopped tryin'.

She stopped when she saw him. Her expression was doing something complicated that she was trying to keep contained and not entirely managing.

"Hey," you said.

"Hey." He looked at her and kept his voice easy. "Shoulder still botherin' you?"

She almost laughed, which was not the reaction he expected. "You already asked me that yesterday. And this morning."

"Yeah, well. Askin' again."

She looked at him for a moment, and then at Tech. The complicated thing in her expression shifted into something softer and less contained and harder to look at directly.

"Can we talk?"

Tech’s POV

Oh," he said, quietly.

She was looking at him the way she looked at problems she intended to solve. Direct. Unhurried. Like she had already decided the outcome and was simply waiting for the information to arrange itself accordingly.

Tech could not see his own expression from the inside. He was, however, reasonably certain it was not helping him.

Then the clatter from inside the ship broke across the moment.

Wrecker was standing in the navigation area with a supply pack at his feet and an expression of complete innocence that Tech had known him long enough to recognize as not entirely genuine.

Tech stepped off the ramp and back into the ship and did not examine too carefully why Wrecker stood with his eyes glued to the floor.

Wrecker looked at her and kept his voice easy. "Shoulder still botherin' you?"

She almost laughed. "You already asked me that yesterday. And this morning."

"Yeah, well. Askin' again."

She looked at Tech for a moment. The thing in her expression was complicated and soft and less contained than usual and Tech looked back at her and kept his face calibrated to neutral, which was a thing he was normally quite good at and was currently finding more difficult than it had any right to be.

"Can we talk?" she said.

“Of course,’ Tech answered.

A beat of silence followed.

She looked at him for a moment longer with an expression he could almost pin. Was is… pity? And then her eyes moved past him.

"Wrecker," she said, and Tech registered a half second too late that she was not talking to him. She had not been talking to him. She was talking to Wrecker.

He looked at Wrecker. Wrecker looked at her. Something passed between them that had the particular weight of years of history behind it, the kind that did not need words to move.

Tech picked up his datapad.

There were atmospheric pressure readings to review.

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Echo had been a soldier long enough to recognize patterns. The way Wrecker checked his reflections in polished surfaces after that explosion left scars across his face. How Tech adjusted his goggles three times before speaking when he was uncertain. How Hunter touched the left side of his head when the sensory input overwhelmed him.

And how you never asked for anything.

You'd spent the past week making sure everyone had something for Christmas. You'd tracked down a rare manual on prototype ship modifications for Tech, found Wrecker some kind of explosive compound he'd been wanting to experiment with, and somehow acquired a set of vibroblades for Hunter that were perfectly balanced for his enhanced senses. Even Omega had received a hand-carved tooka doll that you'd clearly spent hours on, working late in the cargo hold when you thought everyone was asleep.

But when Hunter asked what you wanted, you just shook your head. "I'm good. Really."

Echo knew that response. He'd given it himself too many times after Skako Minor, when the others tried to make up for limbs and brothers and a life he'd never get back. I'm good meant don't look too closely. It meant I can handle what I'm carrying.

The problem was, he had looked closely. Not intentionally at first. He'd simply noticed things because that's what his conditioning had drilled into him: observe, assess, adapt. The Techno Union had stripped away his ability to ignore details. Every computation his scomp link ran, every system he interfaced with, every battle calculation that scrolled through his neural implants had sharpened his awareness until he couldn't turn it off.

So he'd noticed.

You wrapped your left wrist at night, methodical and tight, before climbing into your bunk. Some old injury that probably ached in the cold of hyperspace. You'd chew the inside of your cheek when you were worried, leaving it raw. And your gloves were falling apart. Not dramatically. Not in a way anyone else would see. But the stitching along the index finger of your right glove had unraveled, and you'd tried to repair it yourself with the wrong thread weight. It wouldn't hold much longer.

You needed new gloves. But more than that, you needed ones that would work for the kind of repairs you did, the delicate wiring and precision work that kept the Marauder flying. The kind that were hard to find and harder to afford.

Echo had always been good at slicing. Even before the Separatists rebuilt him, he'd had a knack for getting into systems he wasn't supposed to access. Now, with ports built into his body, it was even easier. He found a supplier on Ord Mantell, a black market vendor who dealt in military surplus. The gloves were listed as "tactical," designed for demolitions experts who needed dexterity and durability. They were expensive. More than he should spend.

He bought them anyway.

Getting them altered was harder. He'd had to comm an old contact, someone who owed him a favor from back when he'd been with the 501st. It took three days and most of his personal credits, but they modified the fingertips with conductive threading so you could work on live circuits without shorting anything out. A practical feature. Something you'd actually use.

Christmas morning came with the stale recycled air of the Marauder and Wrecker's enthusiastic shouting. Omega tore into her gifts with the unselfconscious joy of someone who hadn't spent most of her life in a Kaminoan facility, and for a moment, Echo let himself feel something adjacent to contentment.

You were smiling. The real kind, not the one you used when you were trying to convince everyone you were fine. You watched Omega's excitement and Tech's genuine appreciation for his manual and Wrecker's immediate desire to blow something up, and your shoulders had finally dropped from where you usually held them up near your ears.

Echo waited until the chaos had settled, until everyone was distracted with their new acquisitions. Then he crossed to where you sat on the edge of the cargo hold, legs dangling, nursing a cup of caf that had gone cold an hour ago.

"Got something for you," he said.

You looked up, startled. "Echo, you didn't have to—"

"I know." He held out the package. Small, wrapped in plain brown paper because he'd never been good at presentation. The scomp link on his left arm whirred softly as he adjusted his grip, a sound he'd long stopped being self-conscious about around you. "You need them."

You took the package slowly, like you weren't sure what to do with it. When you pulled the paper away and saw the gloves, your expression did something complicated. Surprise, maybe. Something else underneath it.

"These are..." You turned them over, examining the quality, the reinforced palms, the conductive fingertips. You went very still when you noticed that detail. "How did you know?"

"You've been repairing the starboard thruster coupling with your bare hands," Echo said. "Saw you flinch last week when you touched the wrong wire. Figured you could use something that wouldn't get you shocked."

You were quiet for a long moment, running your thumb over the stitching. When you looked up at him, there was something in your eyes that made his chest feel tight in a way that had nothing to do with his cybernetics.

"You pay attention," you said softly.

"Yeah." He sat down beside you, his prosthetic legs extending with the faint hydraulic hiss that accompanied most of his movements now. "Someone has to."

You smiled, and this time it reached your eyes. "Thank you, Echo. Really."

"They're just gloves," he said, even though you both knew they weren't.

You pulled them on, flexing your fingers experimentally. They fit perfectly. Of course they did. He'd measured your old pair when you'd left them in the cockpit three days ago, had calculated the exact dimensions and sent them to his contact.

"They're perfect," you said.

Echo felt something warm settle in the hollow spaces the Techno Union had left behind. He'd spent so long feeling like he was assembled from spare parts, like he was less than what he'd been before. But sitting here, watching you examine the gift he'd chosen, seeing the way you looked at him like he'd given you something that mattered—maybe being observant wasn't just another side effect of what had been done to him. Maybe it was something he could choose to be good at.

"Merry Christmas," he said quietly.

You leaned your shoulder against his, a gentle pressure that didn't demand anything. "Merry Christmas, Echo."

Outside the ship, Ord Mantell's artificial lights flickered in patterns that almost looked like stars. Inside, for the first time in a long time, Echo felt like he'd done something right.

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The morning sun catches in the gaps between Pabu's rooftops, forcing you to squint against the gold light bouncing off fresh snow. Your breath comes out in little clouds as you try to keep up with Wrecker weaving through the marketplace, his boots crunching enthusiastically on the glittering white coating the cobblestones.

"Wrecker, slow down!"

He glances back, that infectious grin spreading across his face. "Can't slow down!" He spins around, walking- no, sprinting backward so he can see you without losing speed. "Life day is in three days, and we got nothin' for Omega yet! Nothin'!"

You shake your head, unable to stop smiling at his enthusiasm while attempting to keep up the pace. "We have time. We don't need to panic."

"Panic?" He throws his hands up dramatically. "I ain't panickin'! I'm just—I gotta get this right, y'know?"

He turns back around a little too quickly and skids to a stop as he nearly collides with a fruit stand. The vendor yelps, grabbing a wobbling stack of winter melons before they tumble.

"Sorry! Sorry!" Wrecker's hands fly up, his neck flushing red as he grins sheepishly at the vendor.

You laugh, jogging up beside him and bumping his arm with your shoulder. “You’re like a rancor in a pottery shop! Come on, big guy, eyes forward!”

He grins down at you and glances to the spot your shoulder met his arm, his flush deepening but his energy matching yours. “Hey, I’m focused! Just… focused on a lotta things at once!” He gestures wildly with both hands. “Omega deserves the best, y’know? Gotta make sure it’s perfect!”

The raw sincerity in his voice makes your chest tighten. "I know," you say softly. "And we'll find something perfect. Together."

His eyes light up at that word. "Together. Yeah!"

The next stall displays woolen scarves in every color imaginable, hanging like banners in the winter breeze. Wrecker grabs a red one. It is bright, cheerful, warm.

"What d'you think?" He holds it up, tilting his head as he examines it. "Too red?"

You consider it, picturing Omega's face lighting up. "I think she'd love it. Red's bold. Like her."

"Yeah?" He drapes the scarf over his shoulder, standing a little straighter. "I mean, I notice stuff. I pay attention to what she likes."

There's something almost proud in his voice, but also vulnerable, like he wants you to know he's not just the muscle. He pays attention.

"Oh really?" You raise an eyebrow, as a slight smirk plays on your lips. "And what else have you noticed?"

The scarf slips from his shoulder. He fumbles to catch it, and you watch his eyes widen slightly, like he's just realized he might have walked into something.

"Uh... well... y'see..." His words tumble out faster. "She likes... warm stuff! And... and she's got this smile that makes you wanna give her everything!"

You can't help it. You burst out laughing. Not at him, but at how endearing he is when he's flustered.

"That's sweet, Wrecker. Really."

His face flushes deeper, but he's grinning. "I ain't lyin'! I do notice stuff!"

"I believe you." You let your smile soften. "I think we're off to a good start."

He hoists the scarf like a trophy, bouncing slightly on his feet. "Yes! Now we just need... uh... ninety-nine more things!"

You follow him down the street, warmth blooming in your chest despite the winter chill. There's something infectious about his energy, his enthusiasm, and the way he throws his whole heart into everything he does.

The trinket shop is crammed floor to ceiling with handmade toys, wooden puzzles, and tiny figurines. Bells jingle as Wrecker pushes through the door enthusiastically, and the shopkeeper gives him a wary look. He doesn't notice. He's already crouching in front of a display of tiny carved animals.

"Look at this!" His voice drops to what he probably thinks is a whisper but is still quite loud.

You kneel beside him, close enough to see the careful way his large fingers handle the tiny loth-cat figure. For someone so strong, he's remarkably gentle with delicate things.

"It's cute," you say, picking it up to examine it. "But would Omega actually play with it, or would it just sit on a shelf?"

He freezes, brow furrowing. You can practically see him reconsidering, running through scenarios in his head. “Well… maybe she’d…” He trails off, looking uncertain.

You look at the little carved loth-cat again, at the detail in its whiskers, the way its tail curls. Then you look at Wrecker’s face—the way he’s trying so hard to think practically when you can tell he really wants to get it for her.

“You know what?” You grin. “Get it anyway. She’ll love it, especially because it’s from you.”

His whole face brightens. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” You spot something on a higher shelf and reach for it. “But let’s also get this puzzle box. She loves figuring things out. That way she’s got something to play with and something cute for her shelf.”

Wrecker takes the box from you, then looks at the loth-cat, then back at you. Something warm and wondering fills his expression. “So… both?”

“Both,” you confirm, unable to stop smiling at his excitement. “We’re spoiling her. That’s the whole point, right?”

He laughs, clutching both items carefully. “You’re… uh… you’re real good at this. Helpin’ me think it through. And also helpin’ me spoil her rotten.”

Heat rises to your cheeks. "Well, we're a team, right?"

His grin could power a star cruiser. "Yeah. We are."

An hour passes in a blur of shops and stalls, debating colors and textures, testing whether things are sturdy enough for Omega's adventures. You catch Wrecker watching you more than once, not in a way that makes you uncomfortable, but like he's trying to memorize something. The way you tilt your head when considering something. How you light up when you spot the perfect item.

Each time your eyes meet, he quickly looks away, that endearing flush creeping up his neck again.

By the time the sun starts sinking, painting the sky in shades of pink and gold, you've both accumulated a pile of gifts that would make any kid squeal with joy.

"Wow." Wrecker stares at the haul, chest puffed with pride. "She's gonna love this. We did good!"

“We did.” You suddenly realize you’re smiling at him instead of the gifts, and then you notice you’ve been doing that a lot today. It’s not to not be amused, watching him light up over every little treasure, seeing how much thought he puts into each choice. “It was fun. Seeing how much you pay attention to her.”

He scratches the back of his neck, shifting his weight from foot to foot. You’ve come to recognize this as his nervous tell. “Yeah, well…” He pauses, and his usual booming energy quiets. “I noticed somethin’ else too.”

You tilt your head, curious at the change in his tone. “Oh yeah?”

He scratches the back of his neck, and you've come to recognize this as his nervous tell. "Yeah, well..." He pauses, taking a breath like he's steadying himself. "I noticed somethin' else too."

He meets your eyes, and there’s something different there, something softer beneath all that enthusiasm. "I noticed you. The way you help me. Watch out for me. Make everything better just by bein' here." His voice drops quieter, almost shy. "I really like it. A lot."

The words hit you differently than you expected. Not like a dramatic revelation, but like something that’s been building all day finally settling into place—all those little moments, the laughter, the teamwork, the way he kept looking at you like you hung the stars.

"Wrecker..."

"You don't gotta say nothin' back," he adds quickly, words tumbling out. "I just... wanted you to know. That I notice... Everythin' about you."

You can only stare at him, really look at him. Look at this man who's all explosive energy and booming laughter and the biggest heart you've ever encountered. This man who crashes through fruit stands and gets flustered over tiny figurines and cares so deeply about everyone around him that it spills out of him like sunlight. Then you step closer and bump your shoulder against his, gently this time.

"I'm glad you notice. Because I notice you too."

His eyes widen and you watch as joy floods his expression. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." You reach for his hand, fingers sliding against his palm.

Wrecker looks down at where your fingers thread through his, and his expression transforms into something awestruck. Carefully—so carefully—he closes both his hands around yours, cradling your hand like it's something precious.

"Best partner ever," he murmurs, voice rough with emotion.

You laugh softly, thumb brushing over his knuckles. "We make a pretty good team."

He leans closer, just enough that his shoulder touches yours, solid and warm. "Promise me somethin'?" His voice is softer than you've ever heard it.

"What?"

"Promise we keep doin' this. Watchin' out for each other. No matter what." He swallows hard, and you see vulnerability flash across his face. "Partners."

You squeeze his hand, letting all your feelings pour into that simple gesture. "I promise, Wrecker."

Relief washes over his features, and his grin returns, but different now. Deeper. More meaningful. "Good. 'Cause I'm never lettin' go."

You laugh, and the sound makes him beam even brighter. Snow begins to fall, soft and gentle, dusting his head and broad shoulders. He tilts his face up slightly, catching flakes on his cheeks, and you're struck by how genuinely happy he looks.

How happy he makes you feel.

"Hey," he says quietly, looking back at you. "You think Omega's gonna notice? That I noticed you?"

You grin, warmth flooding through you. "I think she already has."

His laugh booms out, big and uncontainable and completely him, echoing off the marketplace walls. "Of course she did! She notices everything!" He hoists the bags of gifts over his shoulder with ease. ""Alright! Let's get these home before she sees! We did it! Perfect gift hunt!"

You fall into step beside him, and he automatically adjusts his pace to match yours. The comfortable silence wraps around you both like the softest blanket.

The snow continues to fall on Pabu's winding streets, covering the rooftops and cobblestones in glittering white. Wrecker's hand finds yours again as you walk, his grip warm and sure.

You glance up at him to glimpse his profile against the golden sunset, the snowflakes catching against his features, the satisfied smile playing at his lips. Your chest swells with affection.

Somehow, with his hand in yours and his laughter still ringing in your ears, Pabu feels like the coziest place in the entire galaxy.

Like home.

Like exactly where you're supposed to be.

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The ice rink on Pabu wasn't what Echo expected. Natural, formed in a shallow valley where winter settled cold and still. Hunter had mentioned it in passing, said the locals used it when the temperature dropped. You'd been the one to suggest going.

Echo adjusted his weight on the rental skates, the blades foreign beneath his cybernetic legs. The prosthetics gave him better balance than he would have had otherwise. Tech would've rattled off specifications and performance metrics, but Echo just needed to know if they'd hold.

You laced up beside him on the bench, fingers working quickly through the eyelets. "You okay?"

"Honestly? Not sure yet." He stood, testing the feel of it. The skates held. Everything held. "But I appreciate you asking."

You smiled at that, the kind that made the corners of your eyes crease, and stepped onto the ice ahead of him. Smooth, easy. Like you'd done this a hundred times. Echo followed, and the first glide sent a strange lightness through his chest. Not falling. Moving.

"This is easier than I thought it'd be," he said, and meant it. No point pretending otherwise.

"See?" You turned, skating backward without looking, and Echo's stomach dropped.

"Careful," he said, softer than he intended. "I'd rather you didn't hurt yourself on my account."

"I'm fine, Echo." But you turned back around anyway, and something in his chest loosened. You glanced back at him. "How are you doing? Really?"

Most people didn't ask twice. "It's strange," he admitted. "Good strange. I don't get much time to just... do things anymore. Things that aren't missions."

You circled around him, close enough that he could hear the scrape of your blades. "Then I'm glad we're here."

"Me too." The words came easier than they should have. But that was the thing about you. You made it easy to be honest.

You caught his scomp with your gloved hand, tugging him forward. The touch landed gentle, respectful. Like it mattered that you were asking before pulling him along. "Come on. Let's go a little faster."

Echo let you lead him into a wider circle, adjusting his weight as the speed picked up. The rhythm started to feel natural, less like compensation and more like cooperation between his body and the mechanics. "You're good at this," he said.

"I'm okay. You're doing better than you think."

"I'll take your word for it." He matched your pace, found himself watching the way you moved more than the ice itself. Confident. Present. "Thank you for bringing me here."

You looked at him, something soft in your expression. "You don't have to thank me."

"I know. I want to." Because it mattered. Because you'd thought of him, invited him, made space for this.

You skated ahead, spun once, and came back beside him. Your hand found his again, not the scomp this time but his actual hand, and you squeezed gently. "Race you to the other side?"

Echo felt a smile pull at his mouth. "You know that's not fair."

"Life's not fair, Echo. Doesn't mean we can't have fun anyway."

That made him laugh, quick and surprised. "Alright. On three?"

"On three."

You counted together, and then you were both moving, faster than before. Echo's cybernetics gave him speed, but you had grace, and you reached the other side at nearly the same moment. You grabbed the rail, breathless and grinning. Echo stopped beside you, close enough to see the flush in your cheeks.

"Not bad for someone who was worried about falling," you said.

"I'm always worried about falling. Doesn't mean I won't try." He looked at you, at the way the cold air made your eyes bright. "I'm glad I did. Try, I mean."

"Me too." You leaned your shoulder against his, the pressure warm even through the layers. "You know, you're different from the others. Hunter's always watching, Wrecker's always moving, Tech's always analyzing. But you... you're just here. Present."

Echo considered that. "I spent a long time not being present. Not being anywhere, really. I guess I'm trying to make up for it."

"You don't have to make up for anything." Your fingers slid over to cover his hand completely. "I like you exactly as you are."

The words settled into him, solid and real. Echo looked at your hand on his, thought about how natural it felt. How right. "I like you too," he said, because you deserved to hear it plainly. "More than I probably should, given everything."

"Given what?"

"Given that I'm not always sure what comes next. For me, for any of us."

You turned to face him fully. "Nobody knows what comes next, Echo. That's not special to you."

"No," he agreed. "But it feels different when you've already lost time once."

You were quiet for a moment, and Echo worried he'd said too much. Been too honest. But then you squeezed his hand again. "Then let's not waste the time we have."

The ice stretched out behind you both, smooth and endless, and Echo felt something in him settle. Not peace, exactly. But close. "I'd like that," he said. "I'd really like that."

You smiled, and this time when you pulled him back onto the ice, Echo didn't hesitate. He just followed.

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The Marauder's cargo hold looks like a tinsel bomb went off.

I step back to admire my work, grinnin' so wide my face hurts. Garlands hanging from every surface I could reach, some of them drooping where the adhesive didn't quite stick to the durasteel. The tree I salvaged from that supply run leans at a forty-five degree angle in the corner, decorated with bits of broken tech and a few thermal detonators I painted gold. Hunter's gonna have somethin' to say about that last part, but they're deactivated. Mostly.

"Wrecker." Your voice comes from the doorway, and I turn to see you standin' there with your arms crossed, tryin' real hard not to smile. "Did you use all of Tech's spare wire for the lights?"

"He wasn't usin' it!" I protest, gesturin' at the strings of mismatched bulbs crisscrossing the ceiling. "Besides, look how festive it is!"

You step inside, duckin' under a particularly low-hanging strand, and I watch your eyes take it all in. The decorations. The gifts piled in the corner, wrapped in whatever materials I could find... some of 'em still smokin' a little from where I got too excited with the heat sealer. The enormous wreath on the wall made outta ration bar wrappers.

"It's very... you," you say finally, and there's somethin' warm in your voice that makes my chest feel tight.

"Yeah?" I bounce on my heels. "Wait till you see the feast I'm plannin'. Gonna cook enough food to feed a battalion!"

Your smile falters just a bit. "Wrecker, there's only six of us."

"Seven if Omega invites Lyana," I say, already mentally addin' another portion. "And you gotta have leftovers. That's part of the whole thing!"

Two hours later, the galley's a disaster.

Smoke pours from the oven where something that used to be a roast has transformed into a carbonized brick. The stovetop's got three pots boilin' over at once, and I'm pretty sure I added salt instead of sugar to the dessert, but there's no time to check because the timer's beeping and I can't remember which dish it's for.

I grab the oven mitts, which stop at my wrists, and yank open the oven door. Heat blasts my face. Sweat's already drippin' down my temples, stingin' my eyes. The mitts are so tight and thick I can barely grip the pan, and when I try to pull it out, it wobbles. Hot grease sloshes toward the edge.

"No, no, no—" I shove it back in, slam the door. Spin around to the pots. One's boilin' over, hissin' against the burner. I reach for it barehanded, remember the mitts, fumble with them. My fingers won't work right inside the thick padding.

The timer's still screamin'. Or maybe that's two timers now. I can't tell.

"Move, move!" I shout at nobody, spinnin' between the oven and the counter, my hands full of utensils.

"Wrecker..." Your voice cuts through the chaos, calm and steady. "Slow down"

"Can't, gotta finish—"

"Wrecker." You're closer now, right beside me, one hand on my arm. Your touch is cool against my overheated skin. "Put the spatula down."

I look down at my hands, realizin' I'm holdin' four different utensils and can't remember what any of 'em are supposed to be for. My heart's poundin' against my ribs, and not in the good way like before a mission. This is different. Tighter. Like I can't get enough air.

"I gotta make it perfect," I hear myself sayin', and my voice sounds weird. Too loud and too quiet at the same time. "Everyone's countin' on me to make this special, and I—"

The spatula clatters to the floor. Then the others.

Your hands are on both my arms now, firm and grounding. "Look at me."

I do. Your eyes are steady, patient. Not disappointed. Not annoyed. Just... there.

"Breathe with me," you say. "In. Out."

I follow your lead, my breath shakin' on the exhale. The smoke detector's still screamin', and something's definitely burnin', but you don't move. You just keep breathin' with me until my heart slows down and the panic loosens its grip on my chest.

"There you go," you murmur. "Better?"

I nod, not quite trustin' my voice yet.

You reach over and turn off the oven, then the burners, one by one. The sudden silence feels strange. "How about we order takeout?"

"But I wanted—" I stop, swallow hard. "I wanted it to be special."

"It will be." You squeeze my arm gently. "Because we're together. That's what makes it special, Wrecker. Not the food or the decorations."

I look around at the mess I made. The ruined dinner. The overboard decorations that are probably drivin' everyone crazy. "I just wanted everyone to be happy."

Something shifts in your expression. Softer, somehow. "Come on. Let's clean this up, and then we can talk."

We end up on the roof of the Marauder after everything's scrubbed and salvaged. You brought blankets, and we're wrapped up together against the cold night air of whatever planet we're parked on this week. The stars are out, bright and endless.

I haven't said much since the kitchen disaster. Can't stop thinkin' about the look on Omega's face when she saw the smoke, or how Hunter had to override the alarm. Tech's probably calculatin' how much damage I did to his equipment right now.

"You wanna tell me what that was really about?" you ask quietly.

I pick at a loose thread on the blanket. "Just wanted to make everyone happy."

"Wrecker." You shift so you can see my face better. "That's not all of it."

Course you'd see through me. You always do.

I'm quiet for a long time, watchin' my breath fog in the cold air. When I finally speak, the words come out rough. "What if this is our last one?"

"Last what?"

"Last holiday. Last time we're all together like this." I can't look at you. "Every mission, there's a chance someone doesn't come back. And I know that's always been true, but lately it feels like... like we're runnin' outta time, ya know?"

Your hand finds mine under the blanket, fingers lacin' together.

"So I thought if I could just make everything perfect, make everyone happy, then maybe..." I trail off, feelin' stupid. "I dunno. Maybe it'd matter more. Maybe they'd remember it."

"Oh, Wrecker." There's no pity in your voice, just understanding. "They'll remember it. But not because of the decorations or the food."

"Then what's the point of tryin'?"

You're quiet for a moment, and I risk a glance at you. You're lookin' at the stars, your profile outlined in starlight, and something in my chest twists.

"The point," you say slowly, "is that you care. That's what they'll remember. Not whether the roast was perfect or the tree was straight. They'll remember that their brother loves them enough to burn down a kitchen trying to make them smile."

I huff out a laugh despite myself. "Nearly burned down the whole ship."

"Nearly." You bump your shoulder against mine. "But you know what else they'll remember? That when things got overwhelming, you let someone help you. That's important too."

"Don't feel very strong when I'm freakin' out over dinner."

You turn to face me fully now, and there's something fierce in your expression. "Wrecker, you're the strongest person I know. But you don't have to be tough or perfect all the time. You don't have to do everything yourself."

"But that's what I'm good at. Blowin' things up, liftin' heavy stuff, bein' the muscle—"

"You're good at a lot more than that." Your free hand comes up to cup my jaw, thumb brushing over my cheek. The touch is so gentle it makes my throat tight. "You're good at making Omega laugh when she's sad. You're good at lightenin' the mood when missions go bad. You're good at remindin' all of us why we fight so hard to stay together."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." You smile, and it's like the sun comin' up. "And you don't have to earn that, Wrecker. You don't have to prove your worth by doing everything perfectly. We love you because you're you. Not because you throw the best parties or cook the most food."

The words sit heavy in the space between us. "We?"

Your smile turns softer, almost shy. "Well, I can't speak for everyone. But I can speak for me."

My heart does that thing again where it feels too big for my chest, but this time it's not panic. It's somethin' warmer.

"You love me?" The question comes out quieter than I meant it to.

"Yeah, Wrecker. I do." You say it simple, like it's the easiest thing in the world. "The loud parts and the quiet parts. The strong parts and the scared parts. All of it."

I don't have words for what I'm feelin', so I do what I do best—I act. Pull you closer, wrappin' both arms around you until you're tucked against my chest, your laughter muffled against my shoulder.

"Too tight?" I ask, already knowin' the answer.

"Never," you say, and I feel you relax into me.

We sit like that for a while, watchin' the stars and listenin' to each other breathe. The mess in the ship doesn't seem so bad anymore. Tomorrow we'll probably laugh about it. Omega'll make jokes, Tech'll lecture me about proper oven temperatures, and Hunter'll shake his head but smile anyway.

"Hey," I say eventually. "Thanks. For earlier. For now. For... everythin', I guess."

You tilt your head back to look at me. "That's what family does. That's what people who love each other do."

"Yeah." I press a kiss to your forehead, gentle as I can manage. "Yeah, I guess it is."

The stars keep shinin' above us, and for the first time all day, I'm not worried about makin' things perfect. You in my arms, my brothers and sister safe inside, another day together... this is already perfect enough.

Tomorrow I'll probably try to make breakfast and set somethin' else on fire. But tonight, wrapped up in blankets and you, I finally understand what you've been tryin' to tell me.

I don't gotta be more than I am. I'm enough just like this.

And somehow, that's the best gift I could've asked for.

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COLOR 17-01 : BLACK PRINT on WHITE BODY 17-02 : WHITE PRINT on BLACK BODY

PRICE ¥7,800(without tax)

SIZE S-M-L

MATERIAL ALL COTTON

DELIVERY NOV-2016