Hey Everyone! JBearInChief here! Usually I do Half-life stories, but have, as of late, been OBSESSED with Halo: Reach. The story is amazing and the characters are equally awesome, so I decided to write a new piece based of something I felt was heavily hinted at in the Halo: Reach story- the bond and deep feelings shared between Kat and Carter. This is just a sample of the entire story I'm working on, for your viewing pleasure. Please keep in mind that this assumed a basic knowledge of the Halo Universe and/or the Halo: Reach story, but even if you're not familiar with the Halo Series, it might still be fairly understandable. Please read and review, and let me know if I should continue this story. Thanks!
Dr. Halsey was a complicated woman. At times she was sweet, caring and, above all, remorseful. Other times she was snide, harsh and icy. Today she was the latter. She was chiding the team for their previous engagement of the zealots.
"I gave the order not to pursue, our primary objective was to get the station's relay back online." Carter explained.
"Your primary objective?" Halsey mocked, "Commander, are you a PUPPET or are you a Spartan?"
The entire noble team was taken aback, Kat especially. She gave Halsey a piercing glare. Halsey seemed to either not notice or ignored it.
"Ma'am?" Carter said through slightly gritted teeth. He didn't like having his character questioned, but it wasn't something to make a scene about. Instead he would let her explain.
"There are many in ONI, myself included, who believe the Covenant dispatch Elite Advanced Teams to hunt down artifacts of value to their religion. Survivor accounts suggest such teams are small, nimble and almost always zealot class. No doubt, they came to the station for the abundance of ONI excavation data stored there. And YOU let them get away…"
"Data retrieval was not a command directive. Even had we know? We had other, more urgent matters to attend do," Carter defended.
"Like warning the PLANET," Kat shot back.
Halsey finally took notice of Kat's sharp glare, and shot one right back as she stepped in front of Kat now.
"Professor Sorvad's final entry in his field notes made reference to a 'latchkey' discovery. Latchkey. Not a word he would use lightly. So let's hope that the data module your Lutennant Commander STOLE…. Contains it."
"Kat?" Carter warned.
Kat gave a very faint and almost undetectable roll of her eyes before switching her helmet into her left arm and dug through her armor pockets with her right. She stepped forward as Dr. Halsey slid the container forward, opening it on Kat's end.
"Before you ask," Halsey said, "I was alerted the moment you attempted to access its contents, as I am with any unauthorized tap."
Kat dropped the module into the container almost flippantly, as if she were telling Halsey to stick it somewhere the sun didn't shine.
"That data is classified Tier 1," Halsey sneered, "I could send you to the brig for interfering with my work."
Kat inhaled and exhaled sharply, on the precipice of exploding. However, she thought better of it and instead, looked down at her feet, defeated, as she stepped back.
Carter had enough. He didn't know why, but his blood boiled to the point where it took complete control over his brain, and he finally decided to say something.
"Maybe you'd like to join her!" Carter snapped to Dr. Halsey.
"I'm sorry?" Halsey scoffed, clearly surprised and agitated at such defiance.
"We're currently under emergency planetary objective- Winter Contingency," Carter said, regaining his composure as to sound less emotional and more official, while still slamming Halsey down, "I'm sure you're familiar with the punishment for civilian interference with a Spartan deployment?"
"Are you THREATENING me, Commander?" Halsey hissed.
"Just making a reading suggestion, MA'AM," Carter said as he turned his back on Halsey and walked out of the room. Kat was close on his heels and the rest of the team followed as well.
Jorge lingered around a little longer than the rest. He looked at Dr. Halsey apologetically, offered a shrug and bid her goodbye with a simple, "Ma'am."
"That…will be all, Jorge," Halsey said, now softening up a bit. She couldn't possibly be short with one of her favorite Spartans. Some of the Spartan III's were defiant at times, but Jorge, a proud Spartan II, was always polite, sweet, and warm.
As they walked out of the base and into their transport helicopters, Kat tried to catch up to Carter.
"Commander?" Kat tried cautiously.
Carter gave her a look, inexplicable in its complexity. It wasn't mean or hostile, but it wasn't exactly warm or reassuring either. Kat decided to leave it alone. She knew that he was uneasy, and she felt bad that it was a result of something involving her.
If it were anyone else who had been upset, Kat would care less. But it was Carter. Kat and Carter were the only two founding members of Noble Team still alive. Kat watched all of the founding members fall, except for Carter. Kat didn't get close to anyone, because from her experience, no one lasted. Except Carter. He took the place of what she denied everyone else, shutting everyone out. Except Carter. He was the only person she was really, really close to and really, really relied on to be there. Sure, she was fiercely loyal and relatively close to her other noble teammates, but no one was at the level of Carter. Maybe that's what a "best friend" was? Kat didn't really know. She didn't have a whole lot of friends in her life, having been taken and put into the UNSC at age 7. She assumed that if she had to assign someone the title of "best friend," it would be him.
Carter slumped back to the falcon that was ready to take them to their base. Kat took the spot across from him. No one said a word. Carter sat ghostly silent and stared down at his helmet. He wondered if he would face a penalty for somewhat cutting loose on Halsey; but he assumed that since it wasn't overtly hostile, he would be okay. Still, it made him uneasy to go against someone in authority, even if she was a civilian. Carter was more respectful than that.
However, as much as he was respectful, he was twice as loyal. He didn't appreciate Halsey's attitude towards Kat. Kat was the person he was closest to, and Halsey's attitude finally boiled to a point where silence was no longer an option to him. He understood that Kat shouldn't have been trying to get into the contents of that data module, but she was curious; even if it was to a somewhat self-destructive degree.
But Carter knew, above all else, that Kat wasn't trying to create trouble or access the information for nefarious reasons. She had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, something that Dr. Halsey of all people should have understood. And if Halsey couldn't understand, then she should have left the reprimanding up to Carter, rather than take the discipline into her own hands. He would have reprimanded her proportionately to the severity of her crime, rather than threaten her and cut her down into submission right in front of the entire squad.
Carter looked up slightly and saw Kat out of the very corner of his eye. She was idly fumbling around with her data reader. Carter smiled a little, facetiously wondering when Kat would, at long last, get that reader fused to her hand.
Kat, however, didn't dare to look up, and just stared down, ashamed. Carter frowned, remorseful that Kat was so downtrodden by today's exchange. The group finally arrived at their outpost and disembarked from their transports. Kat tried to b-line towards one of the tents, but Carter stopped her.
"Kat! Got a minute?" Carter asked.
"Yes, sir." Kat said obediently, not even entertaining the idea of delivering one of their usual friendly jabs. This was NOT the occasion for it.
She walked towards Carter and he led her into a vacant supply tent. She uneasily looked up at him, finally meeting her light green eyes to his shockingly blue eyes.
"Kat," Carter said, "I need your head in the game fully right now- especially for tonight's recon op. Don't let Halsey get you down. She's not great with…"
"It's not HER I'm concerned about," Kat interrupted, "HER opinion is meaningless to me. The only opinion, or anger, that matters is that of my commander…"
"I'm not angry at you, Kat," Carter said before cracking a smile, "I couldn't be even if I tried."
Kat looked up and looked reassured.
"I mean, what were you supposed to do with that module?" Carter continued, grinning "Are you supposed to NOT look at it? What fun would that be?"
Kat chucked. However, her smile suddenly snapped back into a frown, and then a wince.
"What's wrong?" Carter asked, concerned.
Kat didn't say anything. Instead she threw her left arm onto the right side of her collar.
"Kat?"
"It's nothing. I'm fine."
However, as she poked at her collar, Carter knew what was up. Kat had experienced this pain since she lost her arm 3 weeks ago. She was given a very impressive and very useful prosthetic, but she still experienced "phantom" pain- a phenomenon experienced when the nerves in her shoulder would react adversely to the fuses that controlled her prosthetic joints and fingers. It created a pain in her arm, even though there wasn't an arm to feel pain. Instead it was her shoulder nerves telling her brain that her (nonexistent) arm and forearm were in pain.
Kat shoved her left hand into her suit and tried pressing her shoulder, which only made it worse. She let out an annoyed groan.
"Jeez, Kat. Come here," Carter said as he unsealed the chest piece of her suit and pulled it off. He then pulled off the back piece, unzipped the body suit and pulled the body suit down until it rolled past her waist. Kat, now in a tank top, continued to poke and prod at her shoulder, a few inches above where flesh met metal.
"Come. Sit here," Carter said as he directed her down on top of a crate near their feet. He sat next to her.
He gently pushed her hand away with his, and replaced her hand with his on her shoulder. He brought the other hand up and put it on the back of her shoulder and began applying gentle pressure with both hands, moving his fingers in a massaging motion.
"Relax!" Carter hummed, noticing that she was still tense.
"Relaxing is for housewives, not soldiers. I don't have time to relax!" Kat grumbled.
"Yes you do," Carter countered, "Stop fighting."
She closed her eyes and breathed deep. The gentle massage was very welcomed, and it started to make her feel better. After a few minutes, she slowly pulled away and looked over to Carter.
"Thank you for helping," she said sincerely.
"Don't tell the others I did that for you. If Jorge expects a shoulder massage, YOU'RE gonna be the one who gives it to him." Carter said with a wicked grin.
Kat threw her head back and laughed, "Only in his dreams!"
So there it is. Hope ya'll enjoyed it! I enjoyed writing it. And reviews/critiques/ideas/comments/etc would be greatly appreciated.