AN: Inspired wholly by jackalopingintothevoid's post on tumblr about an HDM AU for Halo, specifically the part about Spartans having to go through the same separation process with their daemons as the witches do.
Linda walked on legs that were still not quite hers towards the Pelican. Her fingers threaded tightly through her daemon's fur, who was currently in the form of a tiger; what she took to whenever she was angry or afraid. She'd been taking the form more and more often, and Linda hoped it would be the one she fixed at. She liked how big it made her feel.
"It'll be okay," Fen whispered beside her. "We'll only be separated for an hour."
Her hand tightened its hold on the back of Fen's head, and she responded with a low, anxious rumble. Tiny whispers filled the deck, Spartans talking to their daemons, all of them saying the same thing: it'll be okay.
Linda wasn't so sure. The weeks of surgery had killed off half of their class, and that'd been when they were all still whole. Together.
We'll still be whole, Fen said, maybe out loud or maybe inside Linda's head. She couldn't tell over all the whispering.
We'll be alone, she replied. Fen didn't respond to that.
A hand grabbed hers, and she looked up. And then up again, and saw Sam grinning down at her. She thought the smile looked a little unhinged, but his grip was comforting nonetheless.
"Stand beside me?" he asked, jutting his chin towards the open Pelican. It was terrifyingly close.
She nodded, but didn't trust herself to speak. All thirty five of them would be shoved into the small aircraft, so the question was a little pointless. And no matter how closely they stood together, she'd still be alone in the one way she'd never wanted to be.
"Yim and I are betting," Sam continued, his voice barely recognisable above the din. The whispering was growing louder, more desperate as they neared the Pelican. Linda could see Fred in front of her, his face pressed into the downy feathers of his bluejay daemon perched on his shoulder. It felt like a death march. "On what form she'll fix at. My money's on a bear. Wouldn't that be cool?"
"Yeah," Linda said automatically. She couldn't see John from here. He'd be at the back, the last one to board to make sure everyone got on. And to make sure their daemons stayed put on the deck. Her throat began to close up.
It'll be okay, Fen said to her again. Linda knew neither of them believed it.
Mendez's voice filled the hangar, silencing all the tiny intimate conversations the Spartans were having with their daemons. Her spine straightened, and they came to a halt in unison. All he said was one sentence, but it was enough to make her belly fill with ice.
"Who's first, Spartans?"
She closed her eyes and waited, listening. She did not open her mouth to answer. This wasn't an offer to be assigned a shitty EVA op or to have it out with Tango Company's most dirty and vengeful NCOs. This was just pain for the sake of it.
It'll keep us safe, Fen whispered. It'll keep us alive.
Not everyone lives through this, Linda answered back.
But you damn well will.
"I will be, sir!"
The call broke the silence. Of course it was Kelly, Linda thought. It almost brought a smile to her face. Sam's fingers squeezed hers, hard enough to make the veins in her wrist throb. She squeezed back.
Kelly cut down the centre, coming from the back of the group. She'd have wanted to stand near John. Linda watched her break through the crowd, back straight and head high. Her hummingbird daemon flitted around her head, its buzzing wingbeats the only sound to be heard.
Mendez nodded to her, and stepped close enough to set a hand on her shoulder. In any other circumstance, the brazen display of affection would have shocked Linda, but she couldn't concentrate around the terror in her chest. She knew it was wrong to be so overcome with emotion. It felt like eight years of training had been stripped away from her, and she was standing in front of Mendez and Halsey as a six year old again, gripping Fen in her fingers and wondering where her parents were.
Mendez whispered something to Kelly she didn't quite catch, but it was enough to make the girl let out a shaky breath that was not quite a sob. "Okay," she said back, and reached up to her daemon. It squeaked in her hand, turning into a garter snake in order to wrap around her fingers; a last, desperate attempt to stay attached to her. "Come on, Alfi," she whispered. "Please."
Fen turned into a ferret and wound her way up Linda's leg to curl around her neck. She buried her face into Fen and tried not to listen to Kelly beg with her daemon to let go. She didn't know how long it went on. Sam pressed closer to her, his breathing rapid and shallow, and his daemon's koala feet were gripping the short strands of his hair, shivering.
At some point she looked up and saw Kelly standing at the top of the Pelican's ramp, her face pink and streaked with tears. She was breathing hard like she'd just run a marathon. Her daemon stood at the foot of the aircraft, tiny rabbit feet gripping the lip of the steel ramp but not crossing the threshold. It let out a continuous, low keen, the sound of an animal trapped in a corner. Linda thought Afli looked so terribly tiny and vulnerable there by himself, and bit down hard on her tongue at the thought of seeing Fen at the bottom of the ramp, just as small and alone.
One by one Spartans came forward, and one by one they pushed, ripped, and kicked their daemons away, walking up the ramp with their arms wrapped around themselves. Any daemons that tried to follow were stopped with the baton held in Mendez's hand. Linda had never seen him look so grim, but he didn't waver in keeping them in line. Magda snapped and growled at his feet at any of the daemons daring to get too close, the slate grey fur on her back standing on end. The deck progressively began to fill with noise again, but it was not the sound of careful, loving whispers; it was howls of open grief and fear, voiced by the daemons of Spartans who could not voice it themselves.
The crowd thinned. Some went up in pairs or small groups, but she couldn't even think about saying goodbye to Fen next to one of her siblings. This was too intimate, even for her fellow Spartans. Sam let go of her hand to approach the ramp, jaw set and tears tracking down his face as he peeled Yim off of his head and set her down on the deck gingerly, like she was a loaded gun. Linda looked around at John and saw him standing at the back, alone, with his fists clenched and his mouth a white line. Even the open fear on his face did nothing to make her feel less alone. Fen was huffing into her neck, and Linda was squeezing her so tightly she could feel her own ribs constrict from the pressure.
By the time it was her turn her legs felt like they'd gone numb. Fen climbed down from her arms and pushed at her calves, urging her onward. Linda walked forward, though she wasn't sure how. She tried to look at Mendez, but there was no strict confidence to be found in his expression she so desperately needed right now. Halsey was beside him, but her face was the same blank, calm slab of stone it always was. The only hint of distress came from her raven daemon on her shoulder, its feather puffed up as if in defence, though Linda wasn't sure what Halsey had to be defensive about. Even the NCOs lining the deck looked horrified, ones that had been more than willing to beat and lie and cheat and steal during training.
When she stopped at the ramp, she was surrounded by her friends' daemons. None of them dared touch her, but they hovered close to her, desperate for contact with a person again. She looked down at Fen.
"Go," her tiger daemon said, oddly calm. Linda felt anything but, and failed to draw from the resolution she heard in Fen's voice.
She knelt down and grabbed Fen's face again. Linda could see Fred's and Kurt's and Grace's daemons in her periphery, cooing and crying and hugging one another. She pressed her face into the neck of her daemon, not knowing what to say.
"It'll be done soon," she said to Linda. "And we won't be alone."
"Yes we will," she said, because she knew it to be true. For the first time in her life she was afraid of solitude, because it would be true solitude this time. What would the inside of her head feel like with Fen not there? Who would be there to ground her and keep her hands steady?
Sam and Kelly and Fred and Kurt and Grace and Will and John and—
"Get moving, Spartan." Mendez again. She swore she heard his voice rise an octave, but she couldn't be sure. All she could think about was Fen.
"Please go," Fen whispered, voice breaking a little. "Please. And then come back to me."
"Linda," Sam called from the other side of the ramp. The river of the dead, she thought. He held his hand out, forcing himself to look only at her and not Yim, who had taken the form a small bear cub at the bottom of the ramp, staring up at him earnestly and trying to get his attention. "Come on."
She looked up at the Spartans and realised how much of a coward she was being, disgusted with herself that she hadn't noticed it before. She'd let them all go before her, having to stare out into the deck and watch everyone say goodbye to a piece of their soul and stand firm inside the aircraft lest they run down and scoop their daemon back up into their arms. She'd been so concerned with being alone she hadn't realised how much more difficult being the first one to say goodbye would have been.
Linda looked to Kelly, exhausted and leaning against the side of the drop ship, and curled her hand against her chest in apology. I'm sorry. Then she stood up and dared not to look at Fen, walking up the ramp. The horrific tug inside her chest as the distance between them grew stole the breath out of her, and she had to hang onto Sam's hand to keep her balance. Oh god, she thought. They'd all been feeling this the whole time, and she'd been stuffing her face into Fen's fur and pretending like nothing was happening.
The thought of her daemon made her sob because now she couldn't reach for her, and Linda bit into the meat of her thumb to stop the noise. She huddled close beside Kurt and Sam and closed her eyes. Fen did her the courtesy of staying silent, because they both knew any pleading would be too much to bear.
For once no one cared about personal space. They huddled together inside the Pelican, hands clasped together and faces pressed close. She could hear sharp intakes of breath and smell terror on everyone, but they stood like a steel wall at the opening of the aircraft, waiting.
All that was left was John now. Linda didn't know if she could look, because she knew she couldn't look out onto the deck without finding Fen in the crowd of lost souls. She knew again that she was being a coward, because she could feel Fen looking at her as if she were trying to memorise Linda's face. The pull inside her chest was unlike any surgery or training they'd gone through. It took everything not to fall to her knees and sob at the magnitude of it. Loneliness seeped into her lungs and filled her chest cavity with a hollow ice that made her wish suddenly and intensely for death, and it was then she finally understood the reason for this test.
She felt the crowd shuffle and saw John push through. He hadn't said anything during his goodbye, or maybe she hadn't heard it. But he was crying like the rest of them, and she watched Sam draw him close for a hug.
"Clear!" Mendez shouted, and the ramp began to pull up. A collective cry rang out in the Pelican as they became further separated from their daemons. The light from the deck grew weaker as it raised up, and it was then that Linda dared to look out at Fen one last time.
She stood there on the deck alone, separate from the others clinging to each other. Green eyes blazed in horrific grief as they felt the bond between them stretch and thin, and the last thing Linda saw of her was in a form she'd never seen before; the russet red colour of a wolf's pelt stood out starkly against the steel of the hangar, like dried blood on the deck.