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“Looks like we got ourselves a batch of shinies, commander.”
“Shinies, sir?”
“That’s right. Your armor, it’s shiny and new. Just like you.”
There was a clone staring at Echo. His hair was regulation style, neatly trimmed. His skin still held its natural brown tone. He could grin and hold a laugh and pass among any citizen as one of his brothers.
Looking back through the refresher mirror, Echo could barely recognize that clone anymore.
He’d come here with a task in mind to connect him with that clone again, but he couldn’t do it.
He stared down at the sink, trying to find the strength. He’d prepared for this for weeks, found the ink himself - but he still couldn’t bring himself to move. Every time he did he was distinctly aware of his lost hand, the parts of him that were so different from the clone he’d once been.
Hunter had sold him as a droid - because where was the difference, how much more machine did he need to become before that title fit him better than the one he had now?
Nothing fit. He was supposed to be a clone, but he didn’t look anything like his brothers anymore. And he was here now, among clones who were nothing alike, but they still called him reg and had a hundred formations and strategies he had to learn that they already knew -
The refresher door slid open.
Echo jolted back, reaching out in a fumble for the small pot by the sink. And in his haste it came crashing down, shards of dried clay and black ink splashing to the floor.
Echo dove forward, falling to his knees, but it was too late. He cursed to himself, closing his eyes.
Then he felt a hand on his arm, tiny. “I’m sorry. What was that?”
Echo opened his eyes to see Omega kneeling in front of him, on the other side of the black lake. “It’s - it’s nothing, it’s not important. My fault.”
“No, you were working with this.” Omega released him to press a finger to the ink. “Is this paint?”
“Sort of.” Echo wanted to run, to close himself into his quarters and never have to tell anyone what was racing through his mind. But it was always easier to talk with Omega than the rest of his team. She, at least, knew what it was to be new to them.
“Is this about Wrecker?” Omega looked up at him. “Because Rex said it wasn’t - ” She caught his flinch. “Oh. Is it Rex?”
“It’s - ” Echo exhaled heavily, trying to find the right words. It was so hard to verbalize everything Rex was to him. “When I was a shin - a rookie, I had my own team. Before Hunter. Their names - their names were Droidbait, Cutup, Hevy, and Fives.”
Fives’ name hit the hardest, the one death Echo hadn’t been able to see. Fives, who had died thinking that Echo was gone, that he was the end of the Domino squad.
“I’m sorry.” Omega reached out to wrap her hand around his cybernetic one the way she had when he first told her about Rex. She understood what had happened to his old brothers so easily that it hurt.
“I lost Hevy and Droidbait and Cutup on the same day.” Echo stared down at the ink between them, his reflection distorted. “But that was the day I also met Cody - and Rex.”
“Cody?”
Echo marveled at the fact that Omega, the last clone, didn’t know Cody. During the war everyone had known his name, Kenobi’s captain. But now - now even Rex didn’t know where he was.
Echo made a silent vow to himself that he would see Cody again, no matter where he’d fallen. Rex had said that Cody reported that Kenobi died in a fall, but maybe the Jedi had taken Cody with him. Maybe both of them were falling.
Echo focused himself back on Omega, still holding his metal hand. “Cody was Rex’s friend. Mine, too. But Rex… you’ve met Rex.”
“I see why you like him so much.” Omega smiled, tucking a strand of her blonde hair behind her ear with her free hand. “He’s different.”
“He is. He was.” Echo swallowed, trying to center himself between Rishi moon and now. “The first time we met, do you know what he called me? Shiny.”
Omega tilted her head, and Echo grinned despite himself. “He meant rookies. We were brand new soldiers - our armor was still clean. There were these eels that were on that moon; they killed Cutup. But when I met Rex, he shot one of them down with a single blast. And when he touched my chest and called me shiny, he gave me my first mark.”
Echo paused, moving his left hand over his heart. “Right here. It felt like his blessing, in a way. I never got rid of that, during the whole war - until - ”
Omega tightened her grip on his cybernetic hand, but it wasn’t enough to keep the memories at bay. Echo forced himself to keep his eyes open, not to disappear into himself. He pressed on.
“I thought Rex died when the Jedi did - but you know about that.” Echo choked out a laugh, thinking back to that day Cut had given him the best news of his life. “And seeing Rex again, but watching him leave - I don’t want to lose him again.” Echo finally met her curious eyes. “I love my team now, but I don’t - I can’t leave my old brothers behind.”
“That must be nice,” Omega murmured, glancing from his armor to his face. “Not that you lost them - but that you had them. You had history, Echo. You get two teams.”
Echo had never heard it described like that - two teams, as if they could coexist, Rex and Fives at the same time as Hunter and Crosshair. As if he didn’t have to choose between his past and his future, as if he could move on and still hold them in his heart.
“I never had that.” Omega smiled again, but it was sadder than before. “I wish I had a team before, just to remember them. But I’m happy I'm here now.”
Echo didn’t answer, but he twisted his cybernetic hand slightly in hers and she laughed. Then, pulling back, she hovered her hand over the pool of ink and looked up at him. “Could I?”
It wouldn’t be the same. Echo almost said it aloud. But nothing was the same now - it wasn’t as if Rex’s hand would bring Fives back, save Crosshair.
And it was Omega, so much like Rex. If Rex had welcomed Echo to his team so long ago, Omega could be the one to bring both of them into this new age.
Echo nodded silently. Omega pressed her hand down onto the floor, waiting a moment before raising her arm and reaching out to Echo.
Echo thought it would feel the same as Rex, but it didn’t. Omega’s tiny hand pressed against his armor, tentative, was similar but different all at once.
She wasn’t Rex. Echo knew that. But if she was the kindness, the compassion so rarely found on the battlefield that had once been Rex, still here after so much loss, she was something more.
Echo had had Rex in a brother-in-arms, a searching voice, an inked handprint. In three embraces at the moments of their reunions and separations, each one as precious as the next.
But as much as Echo was the last Domino, he was the Bad Batch. The same as Omega. And if the newest member of his second team could give this comfort to the last member of his old one, it would be enough. More than enough.
Omega pulled back her hand. “Did it work?”
Echo restrained himself from brushing his hand across the mark. “It needs to dry, but - ” His words trailed off and he swallowed, ducking his head to avoid her eyes. “Thanks.”
Omega started to smile before she jumped to her feet. “Wait.” She turned and ran from the refresher, returning with her energy bow. She thrust it out in front of him. “Could you mark it?”
Echo didn’t answer for a moment, and she hesitated, lowering it. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean - ”
“No.” Echo cleared his throat, blinking harshly against the sudden stinging in his eyes. “If you want, Omega.”
She beamed, extending her bow.
Echo nearly pressed his cybernetic hand into the pool of ink and caught himself, using his left instead. The bow was awkwardly shaped, and Echo carefully wrapped his fingers around the metal, just above the bowsight. He winced as he released it. “It just looks dirty - ”
“No.” Omega cheerfully slung her weapon across her back. “It’s not shiny anymore. Just like you.”
Echo stared at her, and he wondered if Hunter wouldn’t be the only of his new teammates to see him cry.
Then Omega leaned down and grabbed his cybernetic hand, pulling him roughly to his feet. “Come on. Wrecker ordered too much Mantell Mix for me and him.”
Before Omega could lead him from their ship, Echo caught his reflection in the refresher mirror. The clone looking back at him this time wasn’t a stranger anymore - pale skin and shaved head, a missing hand and worn gray armor and a small black handprint.
But neither reflection was a stranger. Echo was the same as he had been in his past, because he was still Echo and he carried so many with him. Fives and Cutup and Hevy and Droidbait and Rex and Cody and Hunter and Tech and Crosshair and Wrecker. And, now Omega as well. All his clone brothers - and his sister.
Echo let Omega tug him along, leaving the refresher. He’d thought exiting the room would make him feel that he’d left something behind, but instead it was as if he’d found what he never knew he lost.
He still didn’t know how Rex had been able to let him go, how he’d been able to turn to Echo and say that he should leave, join the Bad Batch and start a new life. Echo couldn’t imagine being as strong if he were in Rex’s place, if it was Fives as his side, raised from the dead - telling him it was alright to move on.
Echo had thought he’d lost something he’d never have again, but Rex had given that to him. A second team, a second family.
Echo knew without a doubt he would see Rex again. But no words would ever be able to properly thank Rex for the life he’d given Echo.
The place where he belonged.
Echo was reminded of Rex saving him from Skako Minor as he followed Omega, pulling him from the darkness of their ship to the sun’s warm light.