What Have You Done Too Me?
Cortana sat on her holo-pad just staring at her savior for what must have been years, but according to her internal clock it had only been three months, two weeks, and five days. Boy, doesn't time just fly by when you're having fun. There was very little to do on this ruined joke of a vessel but to sit, watch, wait, and think. And there was plenty to think about.
Such as, where were they in this galaxy, if they were in fact still in the same galaxy. Not that she could find out with the limited equipment and instruments left available on The Forward unto Dawn. On the bright side, most of the backup power systems were still operational I guess the Chiefs unique probability defying luck is still going strong for the both of them.
And then there were her own repairs, she did manage to undo most of the havoc the Gravemind reaped upon her matrix, again the Chief's luck seemed to shine down upon however in a most peculiar way. Ever since the Chief had rescued her from that monstrosity she had been feeling strange, she would sometimes get flashes of her creator Dr. Halsey's thoughts, memories, past emotions…fantasies. It was all so much, to at one moment to have a flash of what she had for dinner on her twelfth birthday then flash to a rather…provocative dream about a certain Spartan they both new rather intimately.
And if that wasn't weird enough, she actually felt what it was like to BE Dr. Halsey. She knew the taste of her favorite cup of coffee without knowing or tasting it herself. She new how proud she felt when she got her first doctorate at such a young age. She new the joy of her first love and the crushing feeling when it was gone. She knew the thrill she got out of, of all things, mountain climbing. And…how she truly, even subconsciously about John.
What concerned her most was how similar her own thoughts and feeling mirrored her creators. Not that she was truly surprised by it. But if these weren't her feelings …then how would she know what her true feelings were? Relinquishing a depressed sigh Cortana opened a visual link to one of the few working monitors left on the outer hull and looked out amongst the stars as they once had together.
And as she looked out amongst the stars a sonnet from ancient earth came to her that seemed appropriate to her :
"The time that every star shines down on us
When love appeared to me so suddenly
That I still shudder at the memory."
"Joyous love seemed to me, the while he held
My heart within his hand, and in his arms
I lay asleep wrapped in a veil."
"He woke her then and trembling and obedient
She ate that burning heart out of his hand
Weeping I saw him then depart from me."
Cortana then reached out with her hand towards the object of her desires, the capture of her heart, but she of course could not and probable would never be able to touch him. With a forlorn expression she retracted her holographic limb and hugged herself tightly as if to fight a slight chill.
Then she felt something. Small holographic tears started to slide down her cheek. Alarmed by this she immediately did a systems analysis, but all her reports, all two hundred of them, showed that she was just fine, all things considering.
Cortana soon smiled through the veil tears at her most cherished warrior in his icy sarcophagus. Its true then, she was sure this time without a shadow of a doubt that she Cortana, the most sophisticated smart AI in the UNSC, former shipboard AI of The Pillar Of Autumn, survivor of High Charity and the Gravemind, was in love with the last Spartan…Her Spartan, Her Chief, Her John.
"Oh, John my beloved, what have you done too me?"
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Just a little one-shot that popped into my head whilst playing Halo3.
-Sincerely yours a Mortified Mind.