-Ezra-

He reached out and snagged a party snack from a nearby platter, cubes of cheese and pineapple skewered neatly on wooden cocktail sticks. Omega smacked his retreating hand with the back of her mixing spoon; he grinned unrepentantly and held her gaze whilst devouring the dainty snack and turning the cocktail stick in his mouth like a toothpick.

“Crosshair! Those are for the party guests!” Omega scolded, putting down her current utensil and whisking the platter out of Crosshair’s reach.

Crosshair merely shrugged, licking the batter residue of her assault from his hand before folding his arms.

“And the point is, it’s Lyana’s birthday! We’re going to celebrate. I told Shep I would make the cake.”

“You don’t know how to make cake,” said Crosshair bluntly.

Omega grit her teeth and returned to her bowl, starting to mix again. “That’s why I’m following a recipe,” she told him, in the tone of voice one uses with someone struggling to grasp a simple concept.

Crosshair scooped up a broken eggshell and inspected it. It had taken Omega five minutes to fish the remnants of the shell out of the cake batter earlier when she had misjudged the force needed to crack the egg into the bowl.

“Still don’t see why you’re bothering,” he said, turning to toss the eggshell into the bin with precision accuracy. “It’s not like Lyana’s ever going to do something like this for you.”

“Why not?” said Omega grumpily.

“You’re a clone,” was Crosshair’s flat reply. “Clones don’t have birthdays.”

Omega paused in her task, looking up at him with wide brown eyes.

“Birthdays are a stupid nat-born tradition,” continued Crosshair, glaring about at the mess in the kitchen. “All this fuss over one day. They get older every day, and yet make such a noise about marking this one day in particular.” He jabbed a finger in Omega’s direction. “You don’t have a birthday. Lyana is never going to make cake for you. So why bother doing this for her?”

For a moment Omega just stared at him, mouth hanging open in shock as she processed his unexpected diatribe. Then she returned to her mix with renewed ferocity, scraping the spoon along the edges of the bowl and scooping the batter out into the waiting cake tin.

“We get decanted,” she said, a little crossly. “That’s like being born.”

Crosshair barked a bitter laugh. “What are you going to do, celebrate your decanting anniversary?”

“I could!” Omega snapped back, fixing him with a glare before returning to levelling the cake batter. “We all could! Some of Echo’s reg friends from the 501st do. I heard him talking to them about it. They invited him to Coruscant, but he couldn’t go because Tech was upgrading the Marauder.”

Crosshair sniffed and tightened his arms across his chest. Omega didn’t miss the defensive movement, or the way his shoulders rose towards his ears with ill-concealed tension.

Taking a deep breath, Omega shook her thoughts and concentrated on the next step in the cake procedure. She carefully sheathed her hands in the protective heat-mitts before opening the oven, and even more carefully lifted the cake tin down onto the wire shelf.

When she straightened up she took the mitts off and threw one of them at Crosshair.

“Why don’t you want to celebrate your decanting day?” she asked, in that special voice he knew she saved for when she wouldn’t back down from a fight. “What’s so bad about it?”

“For starters, I’m an elite clone commando, not a child,” Crosshair drawled, and the second mitt followed the first. Crosshair dodged, but didn’t break a smile. His face had settled into a familiar frown that they had been seeing less of of late, and Omega paused and walked round to stand beside him instead.

“You can tell me, Crosshair,” she said, leaning her shoulder against his side. He didn’t respond immediately, so she let her head rest against his upper arm as well. “Why don’t you want to talk about your decanting day?”

Crosshair huffed and shrugged her off, so she returned to standing, looking up at him expectantly. His gaze was fixed straight ahead, teeth clenching hard around the toothpick as he chewed on his answer.

“I don’t know about the regs,” he said at length, voice soft and sibilant above the hum of the oven, “but for enhanced clones, your decanting day anniversary was a day for the Kaminoans to take you and test you, measure you, make sure you were developing as expected…” He trailed off, shaking his head sharply as though it could dispel the memories. He scrunched his eyes shut, head dropping forwards. “It was a convenient day for them to check you were on target. If you weren’t performing adequately, or if they found a defect…”

When he trailed off Omega reached out tentatively, trying to rest her small, messy hand over his. Crosshair flinched his hand out of reach.

“We were designed to be human weapons,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “Decanting day was when they performed their quality control checks.”

Omega could see the tremor that had set up in his tall frame, and made another attempt to capture his hand. This time she twined her sticky cake-batter fingers through his, taking his arm from where it was folded across his chest and letting it drop between them as they stood side by side, both looking forwards at the messy kitchen counter rather than at each other.

“I’m sorry that you had to be scared of that, Crosshair,” she said softly, giving his hand a gentle squeeze as she spoke.

Crosshair’s fingers twitched in return. He didn’t return the pressure of her hand, but it was something, and at least this time he wasn’t trying to pull away.

“We’re on Pabu now,” Omega continued, her voice lighter. “No more tests. For any of us.” She gave a small smile. “Just Lyana’s birthday party.”

Crosshair grunted a noise that might have been agreement. Then he took his hand back from hers, wiping the stickiness off on her shoulder.

“Ew, Crosshair!” Omega protested. “I’m wearing an apron for a reason!”

“You should clean up this mess before Hunter gets home,” said Crosshair, gesturing at the kitchen. “Maybe wash the flour out your hair too.”

Omega heaved a sigh, brushed her hands down the front of her apron, and began to clean up.

*

“Crosshair, the cake… it’s stuck…”

Crosshair peered over with feigned disinterest. Omega shook the cake-tin hard, only for the top of it to break away and land in a fragmented pile on the cooling rack, whilst the base stayed resolutely stuck inside the cake tin.

Omega gasped in dismay and turned the tin over, inspecting the damaged remains of her baking attempt. Crosshair picked up the datapad she had been using, skimming the recipe.

“Did you remember to grease the cake tin before you poured the batter in?” he asked drily.

Omega groaned, covering her face with her hands. “I’m going to have to do the whole thing again.”

“Looks like it.” Crosshair checked the chrono on the datapad. “Better hurry it up, too. You haven’t got long before the party.”

Reluctantly, but with a sense of urgency, Omega began to retrieve the baking ingredients and equipment she had so carefully stowed and washed up. Crosshair watched with the faintest smile as she began the process again.

*

Lyana’s birthday party went late into the night. Long after the children were dozing the adults sat and talked and drank and laughed.

Omega curled up at the end of Lyana’s bed, both girls chatting before conversation lapsed into sleepy yawns, and eventually quiet. Omega was vaguely aware of the door opening, and being lifted from her position on top of Lyana’s covers and held close against a warm, familiar torso.

“Kid’s tired out,” came Hunter’s voice, his usually gruff tone softened with a smile.

“Worked herself to exhaustion baking two birthday cakes,” came a snarky, sibilant reply, and Omega smiled into Hunter’s shoulder at Crosshair’s presence.

The gentle swaying motion of being carried against Hunter’s body was enough to keep her lulled at the edge of sleep, but the cool night air tugged at her consciousness to stop her dropping off completely. Omega nestled closer to Hunter’s chest and kept her eyes closed as she listened to the brothers talk.

“Omega wants her own birthday celebration,” Crosshair told Hunter after a while. He sounded dubious as he said it.

Hunter breathed a snort. “What for?”

“That’s what I said. She said we should celebrate our decanting day anniversary.”

A ripple of tension passed through Hunter’s body. Omega stilled her breath, listening to the way his heart-rate spiked. Her fingers curled a little in his scarf, and she hoped he hadn’t noticed she was awake.

“Hardly a day to celebrate,” muttered Hunter.

Omega felt them slow to a halt. She risked peeking one eye open, trying to see what was happening. Hunter was staring distantly at the dark ocean around the island, and Crosshair was stood beside him with one hand on the back of his brother’s shoulder, thumb rubbing soothingly up and down the nape of Hunter’s neck.

“You’re still here,” he murmured. The hand stilled, then squeezed his shoulder.

“Almost wasn’t,” breathed Hunter softly.

Crosshair’s voice was neutral. “I know.”

A few moments of silence. Then Hunter drew a shuddering breath and started walking again.

“So Omega wants a decanting day party.”

“Yeah.”

A short head-shake.

“I don’t know. It brings back a lot of memories.”

They stopped again. Now Omega felt herself being lifted from Hunter’s arms, before Crosshair gently laid her down on a bench.

She opened her eyes and watched as Crosshair returned to his brother, folding both arms around him and drawing him into a close embrace. Hunter buried his face in Crosshair’s shoulder, hands grabbing fistfuls of his brother’s shirt, and Cross stroked one hand through Hunter’s hair, humming soothingly.

“We’re on Pabu now,” he whispered, and Omega recognised her own words. “No more tests. For any of us.”

*

Crosshair tilted the mixing bowl towards Omega, an annoyed scowl on his face. “Is this mixed enough?”

Omega rolled her eyes and pushed the bowl back to him. “No! Look, you can still see lumps of butter, and all these sugar crystals. It has to be beaten properly.”

“What does that even mean?” growled Crosshair in annoyance.

“It means mix until smooth and fully combined,” Omega told him patiently. “When that’s done, you can add the eggs.”

“At least I’ll remember to grease the tin,” the sniper muttered as he returned to beating the mixture. Omega leaned her elbows on the counter, watching him with a smile.

“Why did you decide you wanted to learn to bake, anyway?” she asked cheerily.

An uncharacteristic flush spread across Crosshair’s cheeks and he narrowed his eyes, concentrating fully on the task in front of him. “No reason,” he said, a lie so obvious it made it hard to question.

Crosshair’s impatience was clear as Omega talked him through the rest of the recipe, including turning up the temperature on the oven in the hope that the cake would cook faster. Omega rescued the situation when she smelled the charcoal scent of burning batter, turning the oven back down and opening the door to let the curling smoke escape.

Crosshair glared at the finished cake, blackened round the edges, as it cooled on the wire rack.

“It’s awful,” he declared in annoyance.

“It’ll be fine once you cut these bits off,” said Omega, sawing at the burnt sections with a knife. “Or, you could start again–”

“This one will be fine.”

*

Crosshair tracked Hunter down to the docks, where the former sergeant was helping unload the fishing vessels as they came in. He grabbed his brother without explanation, pulling him to one side.

“What’s the matter, Crosshair?” asked Hunter, concerned, a feeling which only grew when Crosshair refused to meet his eyes.

“I made this for you,” muttered the sniper sullenly, extending a shallow card box about a foot across. Hunter took it with a puzzled look.

“Open it then,” snapped Crosshair, turning away and folding his arms. His frame was written with the kind of tension that spoke of protecting vulnerabilities, and Hunter raised his eyebrows in soft amusement.

Cracking open the box lid did nothing to ease his confusion. “You got me a cake?” he asked, then recalled his brother’s words. “You… made me a cake.”

He lifted the lid all the way off, inspecting the trimmed edges, still crusted with a small burnt sections here and there. The top of the cake had been messily iced with an uneven layer of buttercream, but on top of that in a contrasting icing colour was a very precisely piped version of his familiar half-skull tattoo.

“It’s stupid,” said Crosshair quickly, like he needed to insult his own creation before Hunter could. “But I thought…”

He trailed off, then fished a toothpick out of his pocket and chewed on it anxiously.

Hunter waited for him to continue, and when he didn’t he prompted, “What did you think, Cross?”

Crosshair huffed in annoyance, glaring out over the sea as he spoke. “It’s your decanting day,” he muttered. “I thought… maybe if I made it special, maybe if you had a cake, like a nat-born birthday… then it’d be a nicer thing for you to think about than remembering the year you were almost decommissioned.”

Hunter looked at the cake for a moment, then up at his brother, a soft smile touching the corners of his lips.

“Did you bring a knife to cut it with?”

The relieved exhale Crosshair gave released some of the tension from his frame. “You… you want to eat it?”

Hunter grinned and nudged his shoulder to his brother’s.