Game: Halo
Character(s): John-117, Kelly-087
Pairing(s): John/Kelly
Genre: Romance, Angst
Rating: T
Summary: Reach was being glassed and she was going to die.
A/N: Guess who just got done rereading Halo: The Fall of Reach? This girl! Dedicated to one of my best pals in the entire universe, greenleafcm. Also, 343 can pry John's brown eyes from my cold, dead hands :)
Glass
Kelly stared into yawning maw of death and did not blink.
The air had become thick with soot and ash, dangerous for even a Spartan to breathe, yet her helmet lay somewhere on the broken, blood-splattered terrain behind her, forgotten. It didn't matter what she breathed, not anymore, because Reach was being glassed and she was going to die. And if she was going to die—which she was; there was no "if" about it—she would be damned if she spent her last few moments viewing it all from the optics of a machine.
A wave of impossible heat tossed her tightly-bound hair, a few stray stands sticking fast to the sweat-slicked skin of her forehead. Her eyes burned, assaulted both by the warmth of the distant plasma strikes and by random bits of microscopic debris, but she did not turn away, did not falter, did not flinch, like the Spartan she was.
Angry reds and brilliant oranges erupted from the ground and reached up into the storm-dark sky where silhouettes of Covenant craft were lit by flashes of unnatural lightning. Kelly was kilometers away from the nearest impact site, but with her enhanced eyesight, she could plainly see the destruction, witness the devastation. She could feel it, too, could feel the ground tremble beneath her feet, the weeping groans and heaves the planet made in its death throes reverberating through her very bones, chattering her teeth.
Buildings directly in the line of the plasma's fire had been obliterated in an instant, the structures that had been slightly outside the blast zone engulfed briefly in unholy flame before simply ceasing to exist as their component materials gave out. Anything—anyone—even remotely close would have perished within merciful seconds.
The urge to go forward, to look for survivors, was strong, but Kelly knew that it would be a wasted effort. Nothing could have survived in such an environment, not even a Spartan. And even if something had survived, where would they go? Where could they flee to?
The Spartans had failed.
She had failed.
Reach was lost.
Red slowly warmed Kelly's Mjolnir-clad body, and she craned her neck upwards, her suit valiantly trying to cool her off and failing. Directly above her, a Covenant battlecruiser was charging its plasma turret, preparing to bathe the forest clearing she was standing in with hellfire. Soon—within mere breaths—she would be nothing. And yet…she could not find it within herself to be afraid. Not for herself, at least.
The red intensified, blinding. Kelly stood her ground, straightened her back, clenched her fists, and set her jaw—a last act of defiance. The Covenant aboard the ship probably couldn't see her and wouldn't have cared if they had been able to. She was about to be naught but red mist—what could she possibly do to them? Still, she held herself strongly, bravely, boldly. Not for them, or even for herself, but for him.
John.
Red light blotted out the landscape. Her skin blistered and peeled as her armor bubbled and boiled. The pain was excruciating. And yet, still, she could not find pity to spare for herself. Her fight was over. But John's fight…
Her heart skipped a beat, sorrow clogging her throat.
John's fight was just beginning. And he was going to face it alone. Without her.
A distant humming throb pulsed inside her broiling blood, a solemn drumbeat to play her to her end. Everything melted away, her senses of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch scorched into insensitivity. Yet her brain continued to function, continued to sing a single name, repeating it over and over and over again even as the plasma shot down to the ground and erased any trace of a being that had once been known as Kelly.
John.
/
John woke with a start.
Gasping, he propelled himself forward, bedsheet slipping down his front, scarred chest heaving as his lungs labored to keep up with his desperate need for air. Perspiration clung to his naked form, wrapping him in an uncomfortable embrace of moistness, but he didn't notice, didn't care. There was only one thing on his mind, one thought, one person.
Kelly.
Fear lanced through him sharp and cold. Wrenching his torso to the right, brown eyes wide, his hands tore at the blankets, throwing the layers aside with reckless abandon, eliciting a reaction from the lump buried beneath them.
"John!"
John nearly choked on his relief as Kelly surfaced, blue eyes clear and focused despite the sleep she had just been roused from. Concern brought her eyebrows together as she took in John's harried state, the intense, battle-ready gleam shining in her eyes dissolving into something softer, but just as alert. He didn't need to explain why he'd woken her, didn't need to tell her what nightmare had taken hold of him once more. She just knew.
Sitting up, she took the hard lines of his face between her hands. "John," she said again. "I'm here."
John nodded his head, eyes slipping closed as he put his hands on top of Kelly's, pressing them against the flesh of his fevered cheeks firmly. A single tear escaped and slipped down the left side of his face, pooling into the space between her index and middle fingers.
It was only there, in the privacy of their bunk, that John could let the horrors out, express the things, the thoughts, the memories, the doubts, the fears, that had eaten at him since he had first been made Squad Leader, since he had first been made responsible for the lives of the Spartans. It was only with Kelly that he could shed the mask of God and be the man—the very human, very flawed man—he really was.
Years had far removed him from the events of Reach, but it was something—one of the many things—that would forever haunt him. Because it was Reach where he had gained everything—a home, a purpose, a family—only to lose it forever. Or, at least he thought he had.
"Really, John, it's a bit insulting that you think something like orbital bombardment is enough to kill me."
John's eyes fluttered open. He almost physically recoiled at Kelly's ferocious glare. It was something he'd only seen a few times before, one instance of which he had been unlucky enough to be on the receiving end, as he was now.
Kelly felt the slight flinch and laughed. "You still remember that?"
"Of course, I do." John frowned. "How could I forget? My shoulder was bruised for a week."
Kelly lifted an eyebrow. "A week? I think that's a bit of an exaggeration."
"You punch hard, Kelly."
"Well, it worked, didn't it?" she mused. "You never questioned my abilities again." She narrowed her eyes. "Until now."
"Kelly." John furrowed his brow even deeper. "That's not what I meant. You know that's not what I meant."
Kelly couldn't keep up her angry façade for long. She laughed again—god, did John love her laugh—her fingers brushing his lashes and swiping away any errant moisture that remained. John couldn't help the smile that replaced the frown creasing his face. He had never been able to be cross with Kelly.
John's hands lightly trailed down Kelly's forearms to her elbows, savoring each inch of skin his calloused pads brushed over. Kelly was corporeal and whole, her skin marred by rough scars and wounds of old. Life pulsed beneath the pale flesh that covered her bones, strong and vibrant and alive.
"Don't start something you can't finish," Kelly's breathy voice tickled his ear as his hands moved up to her shoulders and back.
"Is that a challenge?" he whispered back.
Before he knew what was happening, Kelly was on top of him, pressing him back into the sheets that smelled of her. Her thighs clenched around his abdomen and her weight pressed into his stomach. The entirety of her being hovered above him, pushed into him, hard and soft, supple and sturdy all at once.
"Let's see if you can keep up with the Rabbit for once, Master Chief," she said with a mischievous smirk.
John opened his mouth to respond, managing to get out, "I—", before the words died on his tongue as she scooted down the length of his body and descended upon him. Stars popped behind his closed eyelids, as she reminded him that she was there, that she was real and whole and solid, that she was tough and ready and able and willing, that was anything but glass.