She stood there in bare feet, just as she always did when she came to this place. Her gaze when she woke up, if it could be considered waking up, was fixed on one of the innumerable roses that grew agelessly in the fields surrounding the lynchpin of all existence. Her skin which in the first year of actual life had gone through more changes than she had thought possible, was now once again an alabaster white as a result from not seeing the sun in nearly seven months. The fragrance of the wild flowers was nearly overpowering in its complexity, and with it came the faces of every person she had ever met, friend or foe, all joined together singing a unified song of peace. She saw them all in one instant, heard the joy of her long dead friends at seeing her again, and the sorrow of those who had committed egregious evils against her and those she cared about. All were there except one.
Feeling his presence she almost dared not look, but her head moved of its own accord. This time though she paid no attention to the wonders of eternity that lay before her. Cortana's eyes only saw him.
He stood there with the same posture she knew him best for, as if he were waiting for an officer to appear at any moment, his clothes the same he had worn before he put the MJOLNIR on for the last time. Faded blue jeans and the black shirt that was turned inside out in order to conceal the smiley face. His own face held the smile that had been burned into her memory like an open scar. The one true smile he had ever given since she had picked him all those years ago. That crooked grin which made him look so much younger, and if Cortana had not thought her eyes were deceiving her she would have said that he did look younger. There was no longer any grey in his hair which had returned fully to its natural dark brown, his face devoid of the wrinkles and stress lines she had become so accustomed to seeing that Cortana hardly even noticed them, his skin devoid of the numerous scars he had received in the decades of warfare he had participated in.
Cortana's heart did not know if it should start beating faster or stop all together, and seemed to be trying to do both. Eagerly she raised a foot in the air, the first maneuver in the first step she would take towards John that would have inevitably turned into a full sprint, or as close to a sprint that a pregnant woman can come to, when doubt clouded her thinking. Cortana had dreamed of John before, had even had this specific dream before, and always he had disappeared after she had taken her first step. Slowly she placed her foot back on the ground, the roses parting in order to grant her access to the rich soil.
"Is this real?" she asked, more to herself than to him. A part of her believed that if she attempted to talk to him now when he was so close to her then she would wake up as punishment for daring to question the dream.
John turned his head towards the setting sun which burned in the sky and casted the passing clouds in hues of pink and orange. "Does it feel real?"
Cortana looked at the sun, closing her eyes just as she had done onboard the Infinity as it hovered in the artificial skies of Requiem. She could feel the heat washing over her pale skin, sensed each tiny imperfection in the ultraviolet rays that bombarded her body, and the coolness of a passing cloud blocking the sun's rays. Opening her eyes she saw John's shadow looming over her, having not even noticed that he had moved towards her. He was close now, his light blue eyes wrapping themselves around hers in their intensity. As she tentatively reached a hand upwards towards his cheek it was like touching him for the first time all over again. Her breathing was uneven, her outstretched hand shook, and Cortana nearly pulled it back in surprise as the skin gave slightly to her touch. When she spoke her voice shook, "John?"
I am not sure who initiated the embrace first, but in an instant they were both in each other's arms. Cortana wrapped her arms around John's waist the best she could given her swollen stomach, the Master Chief's arms going across her shoulders and into the small of her back. Her head was beneath his and he rested his own on top of it. She could feeling him breathing gently against her, could hear the beating of his heart as it pumped warm living blood through his veins, and most of all the one thing that had been missing in all of the dreams she had of him she could smell the scent that was uniquely his.
"I knew it," Cortana said as she rubbed her face into his chest, attempting to take as much of him in as possible. "I knew it. I knew it. I knew it." She could not help but repeat the words, her inner circuitry all but useless as it struggled to compose a single coherent thought.
A rumbling issued from her Spartan's chest, indicating that he was laughing in his own way. "So you did miss me."
Cortana huffed at him, and pulled away just enough so that she could stare once again into those eyes she had craved to see. "You couldn't think of anything original to say?"
"Being original was always your job," John said. The smile was still there, and Cortana could not say it was not having an effect on her, months of hormonal induced sexual frustration now finally having an outlet. If he had not been a Spartan John's neck would have surely been broken by the force Cortana used to pull his head downwards as she pressed his lips against hers. The kiss was passionate and desperate, John returning it with the best of his ability before giving up and letting her mouth take over. It was only after her lungs screamed for air that she pulled away, and immediately Cortana felt blood and heat rise to her cheeks.
"Sorry," she muttered. She would have looked away if it was not for the desperate need for her eyes to cling to the features of his face. "There are some needs you haven't been filling. I'm even starting to find Roland attractive." John gave an amused grunt and pulled her back into him, and Cortana's body melted into his. "I knew it," she said once again. "I always knew you were here. I never stopped believing. I never doubted, not for one second…"
"We're all here," John said, and at these words Cortana turned her head up to look at him. "All of us."
At first she refused to acknowledge the implication of his words, resisted the inevitable conclusion her unnaturally intelligent mind drew as best she could. She fought valiantly against the undeniable truth, matched her strength again that of fate. Fate was stronger, and the realization of what this place really was hit her in the place she was most vulnerable. The center of her chest.
"How long?" Cortana asked, wishing that the answer would never come.
"Sunset," John said. If it were possible his voice sounded as remorseful as hers.
She buried her head into his chest again, eyes looking at the setting sun on the horizon which was now almost touching the hills beyond where they stood. Her arms wrapped themselves even tighter around him, fingers digging into his shirt, desperately hoping that if she just held onto him and never ever let him go then maybe he would not have to leave. By the way John held her in return he felt much the same way.
Cortana surrendered to the silence, because for her there was no such thing when she was with him. Every breath, every heart beat, every movement and rustling of clothes or even bare skin against each other, every touch and unspoken emotion was enough noise to fill an amphitheater. To make this singular moment perfect there was but one thing that was missing.
Their son announced his presence with a swift kick into his mother's side, and it would not have surprised Cortana to know that he had been able to sense the presence of both his parents. With her fingers around John's wrist she place his hand onto her stomach, "Can you feel him?"
John nodded, "He's strong."
"He's like his father," Cortana said, leaning her head and back fully into him and shifting her body enough to give him greater access to her stomach. "I'm going to name him after you."
"You are going to name him John 117?" There was humor in his voice, humor that only she and a very small handful of others would have been able to detect.
"No," Cortana said in a do not be dense on purpose voice. "I'm going to use your real last name." She looked up at him and smiled, "My last name."
John returned the smile, "I'd like that."
"Thought you would," Cortana said. She closed her eyes, content that for the first time since her creation that everything was right in existence. That everything was where it should be.
"I love you." Cortana's bliss was broken by his declaration and her eyes flew open. His overly large hand rubbed against her stomach, "I love both of you."
In the center of Cortana's emotions there was a dial, a dial that she no longer had any control over in these late stages of pregnancy. It would turn as it saw fit, not unlike the fits of rampancy she had endured, but unlike having to deal with the multitude of fractured personalities weaving themselves in and out of her system, every time this dial turned her emotions from one extreme to another it was still her. To say that she was riding an emotional rollercoaster would be inaccurate, for the dips and turns of a ride can be predicted and prepared for. Her emotions were like a ship caught in the worst of storms, rocking uncontrollably as its hull was beaten by the wind and the waves, but especially the wind. With John's words Cortana's dial flipped.
"You love me," she said pushing herself out of his arms and turned to look at him, John letting his outstretched arms fall to his side. "You tell me that you can never come back and then you say you love me?" She felt her hands clench into fists, heat and electricity flowing up her body. Somewhere buried under the cascading emotions was a voice of reason telling her to calm down. She either ignored it or was unable to hear it as she spoke her next words. "You always leave me!" She had not meant to shout, saw the pained look in John's eyes, but by now it was far too late.
"You leave me and I'm the one that has to wait for you to come back. I had to wait for you on Halo, I had to wait for you on High Charity, I had to wait on the Forward Unto Dawn for five years while you slept and I was dying." She shook her head violently, "And here's the kicker, I died and got a body. Was able to do everything with you that I had always dreamed of doing. Everything that I never even dared to dream of." She was dimly aware of the warm tears trickling down her cheeks, but even as she cried she laughed at the same time, "And then you died. I sacrificed my life for you and you died. Just when I became pregnant, just when I needed you most you left me again." John was looking away from her, and it seemed at least for now he was at a loss for what to do. "And now," Cortana continued. Her voice was beginning to shake, threatening to devolve into an incoherent jumble of words. "After you couldn't say it when you were alive, couldn't even say it when you were dying. Now when you know you can't come back you tell me…" She swallowed, her throat threatening to close off as her emotional ship was about to capsize. "You tell me that you lo…"
Her internal dial flipped again, and Cortana's body was plagued by uncontrollable sobs that caused her to shake. John was on her in an instant, putting his arms back around her. Again she pushed away from him, a curled fist colliding with his chest, doing more harm to her then to him. He stood there silently as she continued to bang her fist against him, her aim wild and her arm lacking any strength. With on last halfhearted swing she succumbed fully to her grief, the tears rolling down her face, the mind no longer having even a semblance of control over her body which hung limply in John's arms. After several moments she put her arms around his waist and willingly soaked the front of his shirt.
"I'm sorry," John whispered just enough so that she could hear it. He repeated those words, repeated them as many times as Cortana needed to hear them.
It could have been minutes or days as far as Cortana was concerned, but at last the crying subsided just enough so that she could speak again. "The Gravemind was right, we were never meant to be together. Even before you died we spent more time apart then we ever did with each other."
"I don't regret it," John said. "Any of it. I never let you go."
Johnson's last words, and to Cortana's surprise she actually managed smiled at the thought of him. John, like Avery, always seemed to know just what to say to make her smile. "How is Johnson?"
John seemed to make a show of looking at the endless fields of roses that surrounded them, "He said this place needed a bar."
At this Cortana managed to chuckle, "He would say that." Gently she placed a hand on his chest in the place that she had punched him and began to rub it softly. "I can't do this without you."
"Yes you can," John said. Cortana opened her mouth to protest, but John cut her off. "You are stronger than me, you always have been. It was you that kept the Index away from the Gravemind, you that defeated the Didact. Everything that we accomplished together was because of you."
"No," Cortana said. "You don't understand. I did those things for you."
"I know," John said as he placed his hand back on her stomach. "And now you will do it for him."
"But I can't keep him safe by myself," Cortana protested.
"You can keep him safe better than I could," John said. His head hung slightly, but his eyes still maintained contact with hers. "I was built to destroy, not create."
"You created something," Cortana said, placing her own hand on top of his as it rested on her stomach.
"One thing," John said, the corners of his mouth moving upwards. In the distance a trumpet sounded, the noise rolling across the blood red fields and filling Cortana with an inevitable dread. John turned his head towards the sound, eyes staring at some point in the far distance. He closed his eyes briefly before returning them back to hers. "I have to go."
Cortana clung to him tighter, eyes filled with one last desperate hope, "Will I ever see you again?"
"Yes," John said, and his hand gently rubbed her stomach. "But hopefully not anytime soon."
Cortana leaned forward and this time the kiss was slow and deliberate, her fingers running through his brown hair. It would have likely lasted forever if John and Cortana had their way, but an invisible pair of hands moved in between them and pushed them away from each other. On the horizon only the very top of the orange sun was visible above the crest of the hills, long shadows descending upon the Warrior and the Intellect as they reluctantly moved away from each other. As the last of the light faded the roses blossomed, the suns of a million worlds swirling around them, and in the brilliance of their light Cortana and John's hands were locked with one another. The firm grip the two of them held weakened, until they were holding on to one another by nothing more than their finger tips, until that too slipped away.