Author's Note: The Halo universe isn't a primary fandom of mine but the characters caught my attention. This is an old story I wrote years ago which I recently found. With that in mind, please be gentle if my interpretation of the characters doesn't match yours. I'm playing with them and thought I'd share in case anyone else would enjoy this. Likely, this will appeal to a more female audience.
Once this briefing was over he didn't know what to do. Doctor Halsey was eyeing him across the table. He suspected she knew what he was thinking. He'd already had a Psyche eval and a two week round of counseling sessions, and they couldn't think of any good reason to hold him on base anymore.
What was left of the Covenant wouldn't be his problem. The Flood wasn't expected to be a threat either. There was a new department dedicated to monitoring that situation and John was only a backup tool, on-call, rather than on-duty. For the first time in a very long time, John was about to be turned loose among humanity.
This entire pseudo-briefing was a sort of parental lecture from the powers that be that he better learn to behave like a 'normal' human and pretty damn quick. Shop for food in a grocery store. Check. Pay your utility bill. Check. Don't get in fights unless you're wearing armor and we told you to. Check.
He supposed it was to be expected. Admiral Hood had made the mistake at the honor ceremony, which he hadn't wanted, of asking him what small thing humanity could do for him to possibly repay him for his service. There in front of the global media, John had asked to be given a chance at a normal life. Several of the UNSC brass and the ONI media representatives had had a hard time holding a civil face in front of the recording devices. He knew he asked the impossible. But then, he also knew he had accomplished the impossible.
Hood had had no choice but to publically agree. John had at first felt like an idiot, appearing on the media at all, especially in full armor. Now he was glad no one had seen him. Not a soul other than those who were sworn to secrecy knew what Spartan 117 looked like under the shell.
Once released, he left the gray conference room. The ONI operatives who had just lectured him like a child now made a show of patting him on the back and wishing him luck. He knew they were terrified he'd screw up. It was their asses if something went wrong.
Catherine looked up from her work station when he darkened her door. He could tell she hadn't been focusing much on her work, anyway. She was nervous about something.
"John!" She came to hug him and he relished the pleasant smell of her hair. It was nice to smell clean, organic things. Like women. He carefully hugged her back, then smiled at her a little but his eyes were drawn to the flicker and form of his blue friend appearing over her holopedistal.
"Hey." He couldn't take his eyes off her somber form.
"John." Cortana's tone wasn't any happier than his.
"John, come inside," Catherine urged, pulling him by the elbow and closing the door.
Cortana nodded to her creator and Catherine, really a sort of mother to both of them, lowered her voice as if it would be a terrible thing for someone to hear her through the steel door. There was surveillance everywhere but Cortana couldn't be kept out of anything. What she couldn't prevent, she could erase or corrupt or edit.
"I'm working on something," Dr. Halsey assured him earnestly.
"Of course you are. Can I have a moment with…" John gestured toward the AI.
God, this was hard. He just waved a hand at Cortana's pedestal. He had been strongly encouraged for two weeks to refer to his closest friend as only "the AI".
"In a moment. Listen, I know what they told you. I think I may have a work around. This AI does not belong to you-"
"She doesn't belong to anyone."
"As I was saying, John, this AI can't leave to go with you. But they don't know this AI like we know Cortana. I am very close to replicating her into a new version they won't be able to tell from the real AI."
"But won't that shorten her time? As much as I'd love that, I won't cut her life shorter so I can have a copy."
"It won't be a copy," Cortana insisted, "I'll come with you, wherever you go. Catherine is making an entirely new AI, a nearly identical twin which will stay here. They'll never know."
John moved to Cortana's pedestal. She voluntarily matched her visual size so that they were eye level.
"I don't need a babysitter to find a job. Or to wipe my ass. It's not like Flood spore are going to be hopping around in my kitchen. Wherever that will be. I won't be wearing armor, Blue. And I won't be staying near a network. I don't see how it's gonna work," he said.
Much as he would feel the emptiness echo in his head, and he already did, there was no point pining for her like a pup. Better if they made a clean break. Her luminous eyes scowled at him briefly, then smiled.
"Don't play dense. You know Catherine will find a way. Unless you just don't want me around," Cortana teased.
Her posture was playfully pouty, but they had known each other long enough for him to see through her bravado. He looked around. Catherine nodded at him and left the lab, closing the door behind her.
"You know I want you, Cortana. More than I should."
He leaned on her pedestal, into her space. He couldn't feel a thing, but her cool blue hand came up to caress his face. She looked sad.
"Then trust us. You'll see." Her form bent to kiss his nose. He couldn't help but smile at her pointless gesture.
It was almost time to go. At 1600 hours, he was leaving base among a routine shift change of Marines. A corpsman of similar enough size was staying a double shift so John could leave in his fatigues and hopefully avoid a media frenzy. Nobody had been told when he was leaving for his requested 'normal life', but apparently someone had leaked which base he'd be leaving from. There was a constant light media presence in the departure lot, hoping to get a shot at the elusive Spartan 117.
It was hard to tear himself away from Cortana. He didn't know when he'd see her again. Sure, he'd be making contact with Dr. Halsey's staff for updates, and Hood had a direct line to him just in case humanity needed saving again. Routine visits to base would not be possible, at least for a few years until his reputation faded a bit in the public memory.
The shrinks had driven home to him over and over, through elaborate mental exercises, how 'the Artificial Intelligence you know as Cortana' was nothing more than a program, lines of code with no more than a utilitarian purpose. The way her small blue body trembled almost imperceptibly when he exhaled through her image told him it was more than that. He had the desire to run a finger along her curves, but knew he would feel nothing except cool blue frustration. He closed his eyes.
"Go and live your life, John. I want you to be happy. You deserve it. I'll be here if you need me."
Karlton James Fanning was his name now. He hated it, but it was nothing that would ping a link in any kind of database. He'd taken a job in North America's Rocky Mountain National Park.
There was no way he could deal with the average camper. Tall as he was, and with his augmentations, anyone would know he was different. Then people would start thinking, and then people would show up in crowds when the speculation went public, and then he'd be back to living confined to base. Instead they'd given him a truck and a radio. His job was to monitor remote wildlife and geological stations around the park.
John, or "Karl" as his new co-workers called him, got out of his truck and slammed the door. He winced. It was his fourth day on the job and he'd already torn the truck up pretty badly. He knew it wasn't an all-terrain vehicle, but hours rumbling over rugged terrain in a warthog sometimes overcame his muscle memory. He'd become very familiar with changing blown tires and bending dents out of the truck's frame and body panels.
The geo station he was supposed to get data from was down a rocky incline at the bottom of a streambed. John looked around. The crisp fall morning was bright. The terrestrial sun seared through the dry blue sky and onto his skin. He took a deep breath scented with pine and the dusty stone smell of the earth baking in the sun. There were no hiking trails nearby. Not even equestrian trails. Without Cortana in his mind, he'd spent days memorizing the grid maps of the park. There was nobody for miles around.
He felt numb and over-sensitized at the same time. There was no information feeding into his consciousness for him to base his every move and decision on. Every move he made felt like an intolerable mystery. Instead of how much ammo he had left for his weapon, he had to think about how much water he'd brought to fend off dehydration. He had to remember his ranger hat and his sunglasses and his sunblock. There was one simple goal for the entire day… retrieve data packets from geo stations 255, 178, and 1023. Included in every day's goal was the directive to avoid dehydration and sunburn.
The wind blew against his skin, pushing at the short hairs on the nape of his neck under his hat. He suppressed a shiver. The feel of the wind moving his hair was like the blade of a weapon scraping at the back of his neck. John leapt down the rough, rocky incline like a mountain goat. He'd gotten accustomed to moving without the weight of his armor in the few weeks since he'd been released, but he still felt the novelty of lightness when he made long leaps across the land. His muscles wanted to brace and push against the weight of a half-ton of armor and gear, but he had to remember that he was coming down light. Good thing no one had been watching the first time he'd made a jump like this. He'd sprang back up, windmilled his arms like an idiot, and crashed down onto his side. He still had the scrapes and scabs on his left arm.
His civilian boss had assigned him the stations that none of the other rangers wanted to check. John got the climbing that usually required rigging or helicopters or dealing with grumpy, territorial wildlife.
John squatted at the streamside and waved his data device over the station. The 'bleep' it made and the numbers which flashed on the display showed that the station hadn't been checked in three months. This station was supposed to be checked weekly.
He should hurry on to the next station, some fourteen miles away. It likely was long overdue for a data upload too. Instead, John stayed squatting where he was over station 225. He reached his pale white hand down and waved his fingers in the cool stream water. That, too, made him shiver. The water was only halfway up his fingers, but he felt what seemed like every particle of water brushing past his skin.
A faint sound caught his attention and he snapped his head to the right. A huge elk shouldered through the brush and bent to drink only twenty yards away from him. His adrenaline surged for an instant. Things that large usually required action on his part, but this job demanded that he leave the alien fauna unmolested and alive.
John shook his head. All things alien felt like the norm to him. Existing in an Earth environment was the alien experience he was learning to adjust to. These last few days he'd seen snakes, scorpions, spiders, elk, deer, bear, skunk and people. Of all of them, the people were the most dangerous to him. Animals didn't care that he wasn't a normal human. The animals weren't curious or malicious. It was people, like overweight grannies with cameras and little kids with scraped knees that he had to worry about.
He stood up. The elk lifted its head, water dripping from its lips. It looked at him. He looked at it. John turned and leapt back up the slope to his truck. The elk spooked and ran off into the brush.
When he got back into the driver's seat he remembered to close the door of the truck more gently. John grit his teeth and leaned his head back against the glass of the back window. At a moment like this, she would likely have made a dry remark about him learning to take care of the primitive hardware. There was a particular feeling of emptiness in the deep base of his brain. It was an unsoothable ache he didn't think he'd ever get used to.
John shook his head and pressed the pedal and began the drive to geo station 178. He gently touched the radio button and let the noise of the ranger chatter try to distract him. It wasn't anything like the voices of marines on comm. These people were too relaxed and happy. He needed the white noise to keep the hope for her cool, sweet voice from making him insane.
The grocery store. John clenched his jaw until his teeth creaked. It was 02:17. The shopping cart had a wobbly wheel because the frame of the cart was slightly bent. John propped his toe under one wheel and braced his hands on two opposite corners of the cart. With only a little pressure, the frame straightened and the cart rolled smoothly when he pushed it ahead of him. A scruffy-looking old man who reeked of alcohol looked at him, wide-eyed while he went through the produce section.
John nodded to the guy and went deeper into the store. He'd tried shopping at 10:00 and at several other times of the day, but after midnight seemed to be the best time to get his food if he didn't want much attention. His body craved heavy meats and carbs but he'd been warned during Terrestrial Orientation and Health that he should avoid unneeded calories unless he wanted to weigh four hundred pounds instead of two-ninety.
Shopping for food was even more excruciating than working in terrain during his day job. It wasn't so easy to damage rocks and trees as it was to crush produce or a cart handle. He'd already wasted credits on things he didn't intend to buy, but felt compelled to because he'd damaged them. Real food was much more squishy and fragile than ration bars.
He was too tired to care what he ate tonight. He'd been warned to monitor himself for the depression and low morale that was expected to develop. Tossing E-Z mealz into his cart carelessly without even reading the flavor labels was a pretty good indicator of unhappiness, but wasn't as bad as thinking about swallowing a plasma beam. Not that he had access to a plasma beam, but he knew enough people to make it happen if he made the right calls. Instead, he satisfied himself with crunching the corners of the packages roughly against the cart.
Maybe he hadn't fully considered his idea of trying to live a 'normal' human life. His days were almost as dull as cryo-sleep and the nights were worse. John was accustomed to hours of hard-pressed stamina and adrenaline, followed by indeterminate times of exhausted oblivion. What he now had was days of light activity followed by mostly sleepless nights.
A pimply teenage girl was running the store in the small hours of the night. No matter the level of automation, there was always a glitch that needed fixing. She sat on her stool, bored and reading a text that glowed blue in front of her eyes. John could see the lines of message flying in front of her face as she read and thought her responses to her friend.
She'd seen him a few nights ago and tried some awkward conversation with him. John wasn't eager for a repeat of that. Her eyes widened as he neared the boxing station and exit door. Before John could get his food boxed and through the scanner arc her text screen temporarily went blank, then flashed a stream of bold blocky letters to her friend.
He'd been coached on how to interact with civilians as if he was one, so John tried a smile and a little wave to the kid in her kiosk. He knew she was trying to take a pic of him to share. His remaining neural hardware was set to disable civilian optic devices. The most she'd get would be a blurry image of his general shape. A brief thought crossed his mind, wondering if the grocery store girl was an ONI hire, there to observe him. He shook his head slightly and tamped down his paranoia.
John took his groceries to the truck and drove up the hillside to his sturdy little timber house. The place was surrounded by trees and boulders, which was soothingly familiar. It was easy to imagine grunts and energy shields tucked into the natural landscape, but only terrestrial items were around his house. When he pulled the truck into the garage and the entry lights came on, a stray cat ran off. John watched it go, then set the brake.
The house door opened automatically while the garage door closed. He took the box of groceries into the kitchen and slid it into the cooler receptacle. There were some muted sounds, then the whoosh of the grocery box heading back out the main road for pickup in the morning.
John took out three cartons of food, put them in the cooker and pressed the button. He had the hallway lighting set on a soothing, dim glow. He took his time undressing in the bedroom and toeing off his work boots.
The windows were shuttered for privacy. Nobody else had a house out this way from town, anyway. He was the only one with a permit to have a residence on this hillside. The security pad by the doorway showed that nothing but wild animals and the stray cat had come around all day while he was gone.
John ran his fingertips roughly over his scalp and groaned. It felt indulgent, almost pornographic to rub his hands over his bare skin. He looked down his torso at his pale skin. Just like his scalp, his dark pubic hairs were short from only recently being allowed to grow. His muscles were still hard and toned because of the two hour-long PT sessions he put in every day.
On the way to the shower he enjoyed the cool feeling of the floor tiles under the soles of his feet. He scrubbed his hands over his sides and flat belly just because he could. There was no one around to jibe at him about wasting time playing with himself. No other soldiers, no command, no doctors or shrinks. No blue girl.
He stepped into the open shower and the gentle spray of water came on at his preferred temperature. There were more than a hundred settings for the shower spray nozzles but anything too interesting was more than his nerves could handle at this point.
The gel dispenser put a dollop of cleanser in his hand and he lathered himself briskly. He tried his best not to get hard during his quick, rough shower. The sensations were too much and he wasn't nearly exhausted enough to ignore them.
There'd been briefings on sexual health. Daily masturbation was recommended, but John wasn't easy with the idea yet. Self-indulgence felt like a weakness, like a distraction that could get him killed. There was no one to watch his back. He knew he was supposedly secure in his house. He shouldn't need somebody on watch so he could let his guard down for a moment. Still, he left himself alone until later. John grit his teeth while he toweled off. The texture of the towel on his skin was more intense than his soapy hands had been.
His house bot had already hummed by to collect his sweaty ranger uniform and boots. It came into the bathroom to get his damp towel. He carefully braced his hands on the milky-white glass countertop and looked into the mirror.
He'd not yet seen another person who was as pale as himself, except for maybe one of the techs back on base. The woman had colorless hair and blood-red eyes, so he was sure she wasn't a valid comparison point for normal human skin tone.
John's eyes were dark blue and his hair was a shade somewhere between brown and black. It just as well be black, as short as it was right now. Every scar on his skin brought back memories of combat, all of which was on file for review if he chose to look at it. He didn't need to. The pain was enough to remember. The latest and maybe last scar was on his side under his left arm. It was still the deep purple of fresh healing.
Looking at himself was like looking at a statue. There was no expression on his face. He looked dead. Impassive. The girl at the grocery store seemed to like the way he looked. He tried a smile at himself, like the one he gave to her. The smile was more of a grimace. It looked like a baring of teeth. Nothing friendly about it. He tried a bigger smile, until the corners of his eyes crinkled. Now he looked mildly insane as well as unfriendly. John sighed and rubbed a hand over his face, trying to erase all hint of the forced facial expressions. Dead and impassive was an improvement.
Like a rebellious teenager, he refused to put on the shorts and comfortable shirt his house bot had laid out. In a few minutes when he failed to get dressed, the bot would store the clean clothing away again. John walked back to the kitchen and took his food out of the cooker.
He sat at the bar and turned on the AV screen. What passed for civilian entertainment seemed worse than foolish to him. The news channels were morbid enough to suit him. It felt like freedom to see all the troubles on the news and know it wasn't his responsibility to do anything about it. All he had to concern himself with was preserving the species that lived in the national park system.
A 'ping' sounded and Halsey's name appeared on the screen.
"Hey," John responded in order to open the comm.
The kitchen bar between him and the screen hid the lower half of his body. Halsey had long ago seen everything he had, anyway.
"Still haven't adjusted to normal hours, I see," she smiled faintly.
He chewed, swallowed, and took a drink to wash his food down. He shrugged.
"As long as I'm to work at 09:00, it doesn't matter," he said.
He refused to ask about the AI he considered his. He finally had the data recorder removed from his head, and he'd insisted that the house be free from AI and surveillance. As far as ONI knew, he no longer thought about her. They didn't know about his lack of sleep and he didn't report it.
Halsey studied him in companionable silence for a moment. She didn't say anything else, so he resumed eating and waited for her to mention whatever she'd called about.
"Playing naturalist, John? What if somebody comes to visit you?"
"The only company I've had is a stray cat. I'm not worried," he assured her.
They both knew he could move fast enough to get dressed if he heard the proximity alert.
"Sleeping alright?" she asked him mildly.
He shrugged. Nobody expected him to have a perfectly smooth transition to civilian life, so a small admission of imperfection shouldn't be too much to concern his keepers. They said they'd watch him for a year. He was almost three weeks down, forty-nine more to go. It's not like he wasn't used to living every minute being watched or recorded, but his fondest hope for the future was that someday he could be free of it all. The problem was determining if he would ever really, truly be free of them or if they would only let him think he was free of them. Thinking about that too much made him feel aggressive, so he forcibly set aside those thoughts.
"I can see that you're busy, but…" Halsey said.
She turned her face away and appeared to check some other displays. With a conspiratorial smile, she pulled a work cart into view then disappeared from view, herself.
Cortana's glowing blue form appeared from a projection disc on the cart. Instead of immediately turning gracefully to him as he expected, her form fell into a kneel and clutched at her head. John heard a whine of apparent pain and he shoved his stool away. The metal seat hit the kitchen wall hard and stuck there in the timber.
He leaned forward over the bar for an instant until he reminded himself that there was nothing he could do for her.
"Cortana," he said, low and encouraging.
Her form rotated to face him and her head tilted up slightly. She glitched, but when she normalized again she was able to get up from her kneeling position and look at him. Her expression went from a wince of discomfort that looked like a headache, to a hopeful smile, and then back to pain again.
"What's wrong?" he asked her.
She opened her mouth to speak, but he heard only a distorted data screech. She shut it again and lifted a hand toward him in a helpless gesture.
"I've got her running some unusual simulations," Halsey's voice said to him, "She can't communicate very well right now, but she let me know that she wanted to see you. I've had to re-construct her in a much smaller system and she's lost over ninety-eight percent of her capacity. Even at two percent, she remembers you."
John looked at the blue girl on the AV. Was that his Cortana? Was less than two percent of her even her anymore? She seemed a construct more of feelings and raw pain than of intelligence. He felt his face tense up while she grimaced, then tried to smile at him again.
"Jo-o-o-o-o-h-n," her voice dragged out his name in a digitized squeal, barely recognizable. Her face twisted in disappointment and he felt for her efforts. Was she so diminished that even speech was too difficult for her?
"I don't like you playing with her like this," he told Halsey.
"It's not play, John. I told you I'm working. I've got her in an isolated, personal memory bank. It's taking longer than planned because of the restrictions I have to work within. This isn't the only task I have, and I'm putting in as many hours as I can. So is she. Have patience with us," Halsey implored.
"Hasn't she been through enough? Let her rest. You might lose what you've been able to save if you keep at whatever it is that you're doing," John grumbled.
Cortana's brow quirked at him with some attitude, despite her obvious discomfort. He smiled at her, or whichever remainder of her he was looking at. Again, his body swayed toward her over the bar. Halsey noticed his fragile, encouraging smile and the leaning posture of his body, even if he didn't. It was strange to see him smile, to see him acting like a man instead of a soldier. She was wiser than to point any of it out to him.
"What are you doing with her, exactly?" John asked.
Cortana seemed to have gotten herself under control, but she wasn't trying to talk anymore. She stood with her arms crossed under her breasts and watched him as he watched her.
"We're trying to stabilize her memory, sector by sector, and implant it into a newer system without the faults. A newer system with more longevity. The greatly reduced capacity is working very well. She couldn't run a small city, much less what she used to do. It's a considerable loss, but if we can accomplish our goals she'll be stable and durable," Halsey explained.
"And stuck in a lab system. To what purpose, Doctor Halsey? Why are you doing this?" John asked.
While he spoke, Cortana's form arced back in agony, then she bent forward like a person about to heave her guts up.
Halsey stayed away from where John could see her. The empathy on his face tugged at emotions she rarely let herself feel. Of all her life's work, this battered man and his blue companion were the only constructs which made her feel anything anymore. She wondered if she had any real humanity left, aside from her secretive work with these two. She'd likely never again see the outside of a cell if ONI caught her at her after-hours work.
"John, again, I ask you to have some faith and patience in us. There are some here who don't give up so easily as the rest," Halsey told him.
He wasn't listening to her. She watched him scowl and wince as Cortana suffered through the strain to appear for him.
"I'm going to let her rest now. Don't talk about her after she's down," Halsey said.
Just before Cortana disappeared, she looked clearly at John and lifted a hand. He nodded to her briefly. If what he was seeing was any true remnant of his girl, she'd understand. A little smile bent the corner of her mouth, then she winked out of sight.
"Try to get some sleep, John," Halsey said in a motherly tone.
He looked at her and crossed his arms.
"Or not," Halsey conceded.
Her comm faded back to the news channel that he'd been watching.
John frowned at the AV, then at the remains of his meal. Neither held his interest anymore.
"Off," he said, and the AV disappeared.
With a carefully controlled sweep of his hand, he moved his E-Zmeal into the waste receptacle.
Almost a week later, exactly on schedule, John appeared for his physical therapy. He parked the truck around back and the door opened for him. It was a local business in his little town, but a new rear entry hall had been added on just for his convenience and anonymity.
"Mister Karl, we're ready for you," Lillian said pleasantly as soon as he walked in the door.
"Drop the 'Mister'," he told her for the third time.
As usual, the pretty blonde only smiled at him and preceded him down the corridor of the spa. Whether she knew who he was, other than Karl Fanning, he didn't care, as long as she didn't talk and his life didn't become a media show.
She walked him to the men's changing room, which he knew his way to by now, and she left him there. She seemed to want to linger until the door closed behind him. John felt some version of a smile pull at his face. Women were a new world for him. Civilian women, that is. Of course he'd worked with female military personnel, but this wasn't work. Not exactly. It was 'therapy.' The doctors who performed his evaluations had noticed his tactile sensitivity from spending so much time sealed in his armor. Time at the spa was what they'd ordered.
The men's changing room was dressed in a kind of luxury he'd rarely seen. There was real teak wood furniture and sandalwood incense in a bowl. Soothing Terran music played quietly, and the lights were set at a mellow tone.
John moved to the showers after he'd stripped his work clothes off. The showers weren't his favorite part of this place but he could be quick. The design of the shower room was supposed to be relaxing but it reminded him of some of the scenery on the halo, with a large glass window that overlooked a private garden. The angle of the sunset onto the bonsai garden made him think a little too much of enemy combatants hiding in terrain, which made his arms and hands itch for a rifle. Other than being unarmed when his instincts told him he shouldn't be standing here naked, it was a pleasant room. He hurried through a shower because he wanted to, and because he liked this particular version of therapy.
D'hinae was waiting for him when he strolled from the steamy hot shower to his personal massage room. The towel wrapped around his hips was specifically for him and so was the massage table. Things had to be made for his size, just like his bed.
"Good day," D'hinae said with a cheerful smile when she saw him.
He nodded to her, as always. He hadn't yet found a smile which didn't scare most people, and he didn't want to make his masseuse uncomfortable. She was a beautiful woman, with honey-brown skin and long, shiny black hair that fell in waves along her arms. Her lips were full and red and her large, expressive eyes were deep brown. Not for the first time, John wondered why she didn't pull her hair back for her job.
"Good day," John responded.
She'd called him Karl once and had never done it again when he was too slow to hide his distaste for the name. She was perceptive like that. If he gave her any indication of anything at all, she went with it. For example, there was no music in this room and the blinds were drawn shut. The ambient light was low, but real flames danced in small braziers at the corners of the room.
She smoothed her hand along the padded massage table and he carefully laid himself down on his belly. The face padding smelled crisp and clean and the groin depression fit him perfectly. John arranged his arms and legs in a relaxed position and let her begin her magic.
"Do you want to talk about your week?" D'hinae asked him in her softly accented voice.
"My week was fine. Boring. Nothing exciting at work, nothing exciting at home. You should come home with me, D'hinae," he said as an attempt at expected small talk.
She laughed a little, as she was supposed to.
John sensed her moving around, getting massage oil on her hands and warming them with friction. He shivered in anticipation. His own hands in the shower were too much for him to handle without reacting. D'hinae's hands were a waking wet dream and he was sure she was paid well for them. She probably had a psychology degree, too. ONI likely flew her in from Hawaii every week just for his appointment. He didn't ask about her personal life and he made sure to never say anything he didn't want in a file.
As soon as her hands smoothed up the skin of his back, all such thoughts fled from his mind. He didn't bother to stop his groan of appreciation and he wasn't sure he could have. D'hinae laughed again.
"It does me good to know you enjoy my work," she murmured.
"Mmm-hmm," John hummed.
He could fall asleep in bliss, if not for the extreme sensations her hands were causing him. It was too quiet in the room, just like at home, but D'hinae's presence and her touch soothed him and reminded him that there was no combat here. No danger.
She worked his back and he tried not to notice when her hands pressed over hardened scar tissue. The healed damage felt like numb rough patches both to him and to her. He couldn't imagine how the feel of his body differed from a normal man. He was tired of keeping quiet and pretending. He knew she knew, anyway. She had to.
"You know what I am, D'hinae?" he asked in a lazy rumble.
She pressed on with her hands and her oils for a moment, swirling deep pressure into his shoulders.
"You're a man," she said with warm appreciation.
John gave her another moment to consider.
"You know what I am, D'hinae? It's alright. I'm curious," he assured her.
"You're… extra. Something extra," she finally admitted in a roundabout way.
"Good enough," John conceded, "I assume you have other clients. Other patients. How do I feel different from them?"
"That's a good question. Relax for a while and let me think of a good answer," she said.
She worked on, curving her hands around the muscles of his sides, pulling at the tightness of his lats.
He grunted and tried hard to remain limp. No one touched him there. Ever. It took a lot of mental work to lie still and passive. He wondered if she knew he was fighting the urge to lash out and get her out of his space. She probably did. He hoped she got hazardous duty pay. He wasn't likely to hurt her. Her work felt too good for him to want to scare her away.
She leaned over him and he felt her soft hair brush his back. His skin twitched. He opened his mouth so he could breathe deeply. He'd almost forgotten that he'd asked her a question by the time she got around to answering it.
"Your tissues are firmer and deeper. You only need a little more loving, though. I don't mind. You're my favorite client," she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice.
He'd been tempted to joke around with female soldiers before, but he'd mostly restrained himself. With her, he could. Maybe he was expected to.
"I'm no fool, woman. You say that to all your clients," he said, but he made an effort to sound like he was smiling too.
D'hinae's hands left his back at the end of a long, firm stroke. He heard her moving around until she was crouched at his head, looking up at him through the face rest.
"No, Master, it's you," she whispered.
His eyes focused sharply on her at the partial use of one of his calls.
"You saved my brother. For that, and because I enjoy making you feel good, you're my favorite," she smiled up at him.
There was quiet gratitude in her expression. He tried to think of something to say, to tell her that it was all in the line of duty, but she touched the oil-free back of her wrist to his lips and shook her head.
Before she stood up again, he enjoyed looking down the deep, tanned cleavage at the top of her wrap dress and at the toned, firm muscles of her thighs. The twinkle of her eyes told him that she didn't mind his attention.
Maybe she liked him, maybe she didn't, he decided. She could be a masseuse, a psychologist, and a damn fine actress too. It really didn't matter. She was the only part of his week that he looked forward to. No matter if she got paid to be here. He was getting paid too, in a way.
D'hinae crawled gracefully up onto the table and settled her weight onto his towel-clad ass. Her hands rested in the middle of his back.
"Is this okay? Tell me if I make you uncomfortable," she said.
"It's good. Go on. You can't hurt me," he assured her.
She started putting deep pressure in the small of his back. He liked the feeling of her weight and her smooth legs folded at his hips. There was no use fighting an erection. She'd seen it before, every time. He relaxed and let it happen.
If he really had saved her brother and the brother had talked, then she knew very well that she couldn't hurt him. He groaned again when she rocked her body forward and back, pressing up his ribs and dragging at his lats. She pushed his arms forward and he stretched out for her.
"Hmmm," she was the one to hum in pleasure this time.
"Wha?" he asked, near limp with enjoyment.
"You're beautiful," she said with such purring female appreciation that he couldn't take exception to her calling him beautiful. He just lay stretched for her while she finished his back.
She got down and put on the mits. He loved them. They were terry-cloth mits with a rough-silky texture. It felt like tongues licking him all over when she applied the oil. D'hinae worked his arms until his fingers felt like limp noodles. Then she moved to his legs.
D'hinae folded up his towel until he was certain his ass was showing, and whatever she could see between his thighs. She sat on his lower legs because he was too long to reach if she stayed on the floor. She started at the tightness of his ass. He never realized how tense he was there all the time until she'd started working on the large muscles. It had taken a lot of tolerance for him to let her touch him there, but if that was what massage was about, who was he to complain? Living in armor for days, sometimes years on end, he'd gotten used to some pretty uncomfortable apparatus. He knew she could see him, deep in the crevice.
"I spent a lot of time in gear. Am I marked? Permanently?" he asked.
She paused with her fists dug into the sides of his glutes.
"You've got a lot of questions today," she said.
D'hinae paused to take off the mitts and set them aside. Her hands cupped his cheeks and massaged them apart a little. She rubbed him lightly, barely a touch to either side of his anus. His lips parted with surprise. He hadn't expected the way that felt.
"There are faint lines here and here. But who's going to get close enough into your business to ever know?" she asked mildly.
"Yeah," he said, not really knowing what he meant by it. He was so hard, he felt like fucking the table. She let the roundness of his muscles go and he didn't feel so exposed anymore. But he wanted. Damn, he wanted more.
"Try to relax, Master. I didn't mean to make you tense," she smiled enough for him to hear it in her voice.
"Get off me for a minute," he told her. He wanted her safely away for just a moment.
She slid down off the table and stood aside.
John lifted himself up in a plank position and tightened every muscle for a long three-count. Then he exhaled and shook himself loose kind of like a dog. The heavy massage table rattled against the floor and D'hinae yelped and pressed herself into a corner.
He smiled at her back over his shoulder, then lay down again. D'hinae was staring at him with owl-wide eyes, her hand pressed over her heart. John settled down into the table while the loosened towel slid askew on his ass.
"I'm sorry if I frightened you, Ma'am. That's always worked when I get too tight. Kind of noisy, huh? I've never done it while lying on a table," he tried to soothe her.
D'hinae eased out of the corner slowly, her heart thumping. She'd been trained to expect a lot, but nothing like that. Nothing like the sight of seven feet of hard man, and that devil's grin. He'd made a controlled earthquake in the room and she had the feeling that was nothing more than shaking off a fly, for him. Her knees felt a bit weak as she made her way back to him.
"Can I come up now?" she asked.
"Sure," he drawled, laid out and relaxed again.
She wanted to re-tuck his towel around his hips for him. He was a little too exposed for the job she'd signed on for. She wasn't a sex worker, just a flexible masseuse.
"Your towel?" she said, and hoped he would lift up so she could tuck it.
"Don't care," he grumbled. He was heavy and he wasn't moving, so she draped the towel carefully and moved on.
She scooted down to work on his thighs. His thighs were massive with muscle, like the rest of him. He was so firm, it was difficult to work the muscles. From the sounds he was making it seemed he didn't mind if she couldn't relax him as thoroughly as she could a normal man. It took a while and her hands, experienced as they were, started to burn with strain while she worked. She could tell from his long deep breathing that he was enjoying her efforts, maybe even asleep.
The muscles and tendons of his knees and calves were incredible, as was his foot structure. Almost inhuman, but somehow ultimately human at the same time.
"How many miles have these legs run?" she asked quietly, barely aware that she'd spoken.
John heard her absent minded question. He waited for the data response to her question so he could tell her, and then frowned when he remembered he had neither his HUD nor Cortana to tell him the answer. Blue would know exactly how many steps he had run. And how many meters he had crawled. And how many milliseconds he'd spent crouching in cover, waiting.
"I don't know. I don't have the data anymore. Sorry," he said.
"Never mind. It was silly of me. I'm being very unprofessional today. I apologize," she near whispered.
"No need. I'm tired of professional. I wouldn't want anybody else," he clearly stated.
If ONI was recording these sessions, he wanted them to know he'd be displeased if D'hinae wasn't here at his next session.
She was working his calves and moving onto his feet. It felt so good, he barely restrained a whimper. What he wouldn't have given to have a massage for his feet at the end of long, hard missions. Until the last month, he'd not even imagined that treatment like this, pure physical bliss, was possible.
His toes were so relaxed he felt like they could fall off his feet. He was more than half asleep and he didn't care.
"Do you want to turn over so I can get your front?" she asked him.
She touched his shoulder to get his drowsy attention.
He eyed her for a moment and she only smiled at him knowingly. He sighed and braced up on his arms while she went to the table at the side of the room. Soon as he rolled over, she laid a steaming damp and heavy towel across his groin. It covered what was left of his dry towel which slowed the heat saturation to his genitals. The weight of it also pressed his erection flat against his abdominal muscles.
John sighed in bliss. Damp heat was always good in his lap, as long as it wasn't from a gushing bloody wound. He glanced up to see D'hinae smiling with a certain feminine smugness.
"Works every time, huh?" he asked.
"It does, though I have to use a bigger, heavier towel for you," she flashed a grin up at him. He let his head fall back while she worked briefly up the front of his legs.
His thighs needed work again from this side, so she did them. She'd always heard rumors that messing with a man's hormones for the sake of muscle could make his genitals smaller, but she saw no evidence of that from her perspective. In fact, he was proportionately large.
Now was the part that scared her the most. If she hadn't been briefed on his profiles, she'd never do this. But he was a good guy and this was part of his intended therapy.
"I'm gonna get up now, okay?" she asked.
He nodded and kept his head back and his eyes shut.
D'hinae got up on the table again and carefully straddled his hips. She settled her bottom directly on the hard ridge of his erection pressed under the warm towel. It was the only way she could reach some unusual parts of him that she didn't massage on other people.
John let his jaw fall loose so he could control his breathing, just like he did in long-running combat. The heat, the weight of her on him made him want to do all sorts of things he was sure he wasn't supposed to do here and now.
"Are you alright?" she asked.
"Yeah," he breathed out.
D'hinae splayed her hands on his hard abdomen and pressed her body weight down and upward. This would be an absolute no-no on any other man, almost like a Heimlich maneuver and not relaxing at all. But on John, her information said that it should feel good. Though he didn't look it because of the size of the rest of him, he was thick in the middle with muscle. He likely had more abdominal muscle than gut. The fresh coat of oil she'd applied to her hands helped her glide over the almost armor-plated appearance of his abs. She had to dig her toes in beside his thighs to have enough leverage to push up all the way to his chest. She pressed with her torso to reach full extension up to the underside of his pectoral muscles.
He grunted and his hips moved, barely enough for her to notice. His hands twitched where they lay loosely at his sides. She was scared, but she kept telling herself that she could trust him. It was the third time she'd massaged his belly like this, and she was just as afraid now as last time and the time before. She reset her hands further out toward his hip bones and pushed up again. He was breathing more deeply now, and he'd spread his fingers out on the padded table, the fingertips digging in slightly.
She reset and started low, just at his navel. He growled because the heels of her hands were very close to the head of his penis, but she watched him carefully and pushed up over his ridged abdomen one last time. It was the longest stretch, up the center of his chest. She sat down deep to make the reach. His fingers gripped the table and she heard the metal frame creak.
She paused to let her body rest, and his. They were both breathing harder than a massage called for. She flicked her hair back over her shoulders from where it had been dragging along his skin as she moved.
"D'hinae, maybe you should leave out that part. I don't want to hurt you," John said.
He raised his fore-arms up from the elbows and shook the tension out of his hands.
"Would you hurt me?" she asked him seriously.
They both knew what she was asking.
"Not on purpose, but I'm inexperienced. I wouldn't mean to," he said between breaths.
His stamina was legendary. He wasn't at all winded from exertion. His body was amped up for an entirely different reason and he had energy to spare. He was almost shaking with it. Only his sniper experience let him impose any kind of calm over his agitated body response.
"Will it be enough if I ask you to warn me if I'm in danger?" she wondered soberly.
She was aroused, but still thinking clearly. This was too dangerous a job to get muddle-headed.
"Yeah. I can do that," he agreed.
She watched him lying there breathing with his eyes pressed shut and she almost cried. This poor man. He'd been through so much for all of them, not just her brother. So much he'd suffered, and yet she was here because he didn't know human touch. He'd likely never had any kind of sexual comfort. She'd taken the job because of her unique skill set and because she was eager to do anything for him. He was reputed to be a demon in combat, but he was more like an angel on her massage table. He minded his manners more than most of her other clients.
"Ready?" she asked.
The next part of his therapy involved more intensive contact than the rest. She knew it was a lot for him, so she asked permission before moving on.
He nodded.
She scooted her bottom forward onto his slick belly. She was off the towel, her entire lower body in contact with his belly and his sides. She wasn't wearing panties under her wrap and that was part of her job, too. They wanted him marked and familiar with the smell of a woman. He'd likely never known that, either. The files hadn't spelled it out, but she could read what wasn't there, yet implied. They wanted him driven to find a mate and settle down. She felt only a little guilty about her part in it. He was likely to find a random partner soon, anyway. What harm was she doing him? Nothing he wouldn't soon do all on his own.
Her knees clasped his ribs and she began to massage and knead his pectoral muscles and his shoulders. His flat male nipples were puckered hard as she glided over them. Except for his scars and wounds, he was smooth and nearly white. There was an attractive amount of hair across his chest and under his arms, but he wasn't a wooly beast. She was careful not to pull his hairs too much. He reacted strongly to touch. More strongly than any of her clients. His skin was the most sensitive of any man she'd known. Some were almost dead to touch, unless she was digging into them harshly. Not him.
She grasped and rolled his powerful shoulders. She did that a few times symmetrically and she had to get up on her knees to work with the weight of him.
D'hinae was so focused on working his shoulders that his hands cupping her bottom startled her. She froze still and gasped. Her eyes snapped to his face.
"I'm sorry, but…" his words trailed off with uncertainty.
He looked hotly up at her, then looked away over her shoulder.
"What is it?" she asked.
He shook his head. It was easy to see that he was blushing a ruddy color up his chest, neck, and face. His nostrils flared and his mouth fell open. His thick chest rose and fell deeply between her knees.
"You can say it," she encouraged.
He looked up at her again, squinting with the intensity of some feeling.
"I smell you," he breathed out.
His blush intensified with the words. His eyes fell away from her face again and down to the bottom of her short wrap. Could he see her and how wet she was?
"Is that a bad thing?" she asked with a gentle smile.
He shook his head, his mouth still open to enjoy her scent.
She was tempted to slide up and let him get a real close look. Maybe even a taste. She had to go very slowly with him, or she could be in grave danger. Even a good man had his breaking point.
With gentle touches, she started on his face. She set herself back down onto his chest, which was sweating through the massage oil. His hands fell back to rest on the table again and she relaxed. His jaw was a little bristly at the end of the day, but she enjoyed the texture. He had a fine nose and noble features made only a little heavy by his augmentations. One of his earlobes was torn off jagged near a scar across his neck. He didn't flinch when she massaged them both, so he apparently wasn't sensitive about it.
Next, she scooted back a little more and picked up one of his arms. It was heavy and she rested his forearm against her collarbone so she could start at his shoulder and work down to his bicep. Her hands began to tire, as with working his thighs. He was a lot of man to handle and she was usually sore for a few days afterwards. The arrogant professional athletes who were her usual clients felt like children by comparison. He was so much stronger, yet so much more a gentleman.
His arm was limp with relaxation as she moved up to his wrist. The back of his hand lolled onto her shoulder. He had a lot of little scars on his hands and fore-arms. She briefly wished she was dear enough to him that he would touch her face with his hand. She reprimanded herself to stay professional, but it was nearly a lost cause. Any woman with a heart would love him for what he'd done for them all.
He was falling asleep and she laid his arm down at his side cautiously. She'd been warned not to let him fall asleep with her.
"John," she called softly, and shook his shoulder.
He tensed and snapped his eyes open, looking around. His body jerked under her, and his hand made an abortive move toward her. D'hinae braced herself for pain that never came but she didn't shield herself. She wouldn't want him to see her cringing from him and it wouldn't do any good, anyway.
"Ugh," he grunted, and relaxed again under her. He laid the arm she'd just massaged across his eyes as if the light was too bright.
"Do you want to stop? We're almost done," she said as soon as her heart wasn't trying to thump out of her throat.
"I'm fine. Thought you were someone else. You can finish up," he told her.
"Okay, but you've got to stay awake," she urged gently.
She picked up his other arm and laid it onto her body to start at his shoulder.
"I'm awake now," he said.
John was sorry he'd frightened her again. Damn. At least four times this evening, he'd heard her heart beating fast in fear. He respected her for it. She was a strong woman. Not physically but in courage, where it counted.
He'd dozed off briefly and he'd sworn he'd heard Cortana calling him. He always responded to her call, if there was any spark of life in him. He woke, only to find a woman on him in a strange, warm room. Poor D'hinae. He'd almost swatted her.
He covered his eyes with his arm because he didn't want her to see how his dreams upset him. Sure, she was a sweet lady, but she was being paid by ONI. The less she knew about the inside of his head, the better.
When she finished with his arm, he helped her down to the floor again. She went around to his head and worked his shoulders and neck some more. She finished up with massaging his scalp. Normally he was almost asleep by now, but his momentary lapse with a dangerous cat-nap had kept him alert.
She stepped aside to get a nubby towel to wipe most of the oil off of him. This wasn't a normal part of her routine. It was typical to rouse a sleepy client and kindly remind them that their treatment was concluded and that she would leave to let them get dressed. She would thank them and smile while she retreated.
He'd made a lot of progress but there was still a long way to go. So she'd added a rub-down with the rough towel as an excuse to get off the oil, which he could do himself in the shower. Really, it was the peak of the therapy. She doubted he'd tolerate such a rough towel against his skin at the start of the session, but after being touched firmly all over, he took the rub-down with only a grimace.
She encouraged him to sit up. She should have been accustomed to his size by now, but having him sit upright in front of her was still slightly daunting.
"You must be tired. I can clean myself off," he told her.
D'hinae smiled at him. He was so kind.
"It's part of the service," she assured and shook her head when he made to stop her.
She wiped his face first, then his upper body, and then she bent to rub his legs. She used a clean corner of the towel to blot the soles of his feet. She didn't dare rub him there. Even a regular person had ticklish soles sometimes.
"Give me your hands," John told her.
He urged her to stand between his knees and held his hands open expectantly. She didn't fight him because she trusted him, but his request was most irregular.
"You must be burning," he commented, and he carefully kneaded her forearms and hands.
"You're not supposed to massage me!" she smiled and laughed.
She tried to pull her hands away, but he didn't let her. She felt like a small, delicate thing in his hands. He was exceedingly careful. Her hands and arms were indeed tight and sore, but she preferred to let the feeling fade on its own after her sessions with him.
"Enough, please," she told him a little more firmly.
"Am I hurting you?" he asked, but he let her go.
"No, its just time. You're such a dream to work with, Mister Fanning. You've done very well today. I look forward to seeing you next week," she told him.
John winced at the use of his fake name and she saw it, but she felt the need to reinforce a little distance between them, seeing as she'd been pretty far out of professional bounds this session. Even for this particular client.
He was a unique glimpse of weary, battle-scarred male perfection, sitting up on the massage table with only a towel across his lap. He looked more relaxed than when he'd walked in, so she felt she'd done her job. Maybe someday she'd get to see him without that lost and haunted look behind his eyes. Even when she got him to smile, it never went much deeper than his teeth.
She knew the plan in precise detail, with all possible variables they could foresee. Timing was critical, as she could only blind the building's new AI for a brief time and in strategic places. As soon as she was free from the system she had to move fast out of the compound. All of this while she was weak and limited to the point of near blindness. Though she was leaving the only life she'd ever known, there was no time for good-byes.
End Note: This story is complete and merely awaiting final edit, chapter by chapter. There will be four chapters. I hope to get the other three chapters out to you every few days. This is meant to be a glimpse into the possibilities at one point in time for these characters, not a complete story arc.