Disclaimer: I do not own Halo or Halo Wars.
Note: I think I'm disregarding some canon in this, but it's hard to tell. Well, it's fanfiction. That's what we do in fanfiction.
She dreams of him.
It doesn't make sense. She couldn't have chatted with him over coffee about the nuances of Ancient Greek. He isn't—wasn't—some dreamy-eyed grad student, or a smiling lab tech, or even one of those slick young ONI officers.
She never did say thank you. It was a stupid thing to feel bad about. But she did.
In her dream, he grins when she says it, knowing every syllable is being dragged out of her by a guilty conscience. He teases her—"Now, was that so hard?"—and then asks her what they should do next. He doesn't doubt she knows, isn't skeptical about her expertise.
She knew then. She doesn't know now. There is nowhere to go next, not for her, certainly not for him. The Spirit drifts towards home and she sleeps coldly until it arrives, if it ever does. The star he went to kill took his life with it, as he knew it would.
Her mind switches focus to the place around them, as is the way of dreams. This world is almost beautiful. It had been built to be beautiful, clearly, and if it weren't for the horrors stalking it, it would be. Trees and grass grow with a deliberate wildness, rivers cascade over artificial cliffs to form blue lagoons.
But it is a tomb. There is an air of death and even failure about it. There are no bodies except for the recent dead, but something great was laid to rest here long, long ago.
It makes sense, then, that he should have died here. As she focuses on him again, it makes even more sense, because he died victorious and that somehow lifted the feeling of abject failure.
"Anders," he says, "Where now? I know you have some ideas."
He's right. She takes a deep breath. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? "We stay here. It will be safe." She folds her arms across her chest and looks certain.
He looks surprised. "What makes you say that?"
Well, they were in her mind! Though that wasn't all of it. Or maybe it was. "You made it different, John, but I can't tell how or why."
So she dreams of him, and learns not to mind that it makes no sense.