Final Words

Disclaimer: I do not own Red vs Blue.

"Goddammit!" South yelled, entering her room and throwing her helmet into a corner. "Dropped down on the leaderboard again. How the hell can this be!?"

In her frustration, she almost didn't hear P.H.I.L.S.S. "Agent South Dakota?" South sighed heavily. "What is it, P.H.I.L.S.S.?"

"You have an incoming call from Agent Alabama."

Great, South thought, so he can judge me, too. "Put him through."

She then walked over to the screen and watched as a man in red armor appeared on it and started speaking in a southern accent. "Chelsea? Chelsea, you hear me?"

"Yes, pa, I hear you just fine." No matter how angry she was, his voice soothed her. "Why did you call?"

"I'm actually off-duty for once, so I wanted to know how you are."

She cocked an eye-brow. "Really?"

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Why? Why does something have to be wrong?"

"Because you're using the same tone of voice you did whenever you failed a test."

Damn him, she sighed. "It's just...I slipped on the board again."

"I thought so," he sighed, "look, Chelsea, you're amongst the top ten of 49 elite soldiers."

"50, pa."

"49, I don't count, I'm not on the leaderboard."

"Point taken, but that's not the point..."

"The point is, you're not as high as you could be." This made her smile. He always seemed to understand her. "Chelsea, you're an amazing combatant. You got that from me. And if you slip up, you damn well better use that as a motivation to get better," he paused, "just...don't push yourself too hard. Okay?"

"Okay, pa," she smiled, "I love you."

"I love you, too. And I'm proud of you."

"Thanks."

"Yeah. Alright, I better get to calling your brother. God knows when I'll get some time off again, right? Bye."

"Bye." The screen blacked out.

It was a sunny day at the graveyard. Sarge was wearing his armor, but not his helmet. He wore his short black hair in a military cut with some lines of gray running through it. His face was covered in scars and his gray eyes stared down at the three graves in front of him. The gravestone on the left read "Charlie N. Stewart", the one in the middle read "Margaret Stewart" and the one on the right read "Chelsea S. Stewart".

"You pushed yourself too hard, Chelsea. You betrayed your friends and your family. I'm so sorry. Your strength and competitiveness always drove you on. But Leonard," Sarge cringed at the name, "that dirtbag I once called my friend exploited those traits and used them to drive you over the edge. Because of him, I didn't have any bodies to bury. I had to scrape up bits and pieces of flesh and armor. I ended up with barely a handful for each of you."

He stopped, trying to think about something else to talk about. "Remember your 6th birthday? Your brother got more presents than you, so you hid in a tree. Your brother tried to help, but you wouldn't listen. So we celebrated under the tree," he laughed, "what am I doing? I'm reminiscing with a stone. I guess the events of the past years have just caught up with me and I...I just really miss you guys." His eyes started to tear up. "Ah, fudge-muffin, now I'm getting all teary-eyed. I'm gonna have to shout at Grif later to cheer myself up. Grif's one of my subordinates. Lazy, incompetent and over-all useless, but he's a good guy and it's really fun to hate him. Despite my new team not being as well-trained as my old subordinates, their good people and, well, quite frankly their the best men I've ever worked with. I'm sure things would have turned out differently for you and the others if you had been with these guys. They sure as hell managed to change Washington and Carolina for the better. Managed to change me for the better," he sighed, "well, I guess I better get back to the others before they start looking for me. It was good talking to you, Chelsea. I love you." With that, he put on his helmet and left the graveyard to rejoin his team.