The sun's glare struck her the moment she stepped out of the dimness of the bunker. Everything was too bright, too raw and exposed. The way the light caught on the simulation troopers' armor. They way the gravel crunched under her feet, loud and grating. She still had her helmet in hand, and she traced its edges with her thumb. It felt comfortingly solid under her fingers, like an anchor.
Carolina wasn't sure where she was going when she wandered away from the sim troopers' cheerful bickering — or, at least, she didn't think she was. But Wash was there when she turned the corner, sitting in a patch of dead grass with his knees drawn up and his helmet dangling from his fingers. He didn't look up when she approached.
"Hey," she said.
"Hey," Wash replied. Carolina watched him, looking for any hints of wariness or hostility, but he remained still, staring into the distance. It was the first time she'd seen his face in so many years. He looked older, she thought. Tired. She probably looked the same. He didn't react when she sat down beside him, simply let the silence stretch out when she refused to fill it, and so they sat there, stiffly, while Carolina pulled at the grass and thought of what to say.
Man, these guys could compete with the twins when it comes to pointless arguments.
I haven't seen you this silent since that time York convinced you to play the quiet game.
If Maine was here how long do you think it would take for him to start punching everyone?
Fuck.
"Where's Epsilon?" asked Wash.
"With the sim troopers. They're taking potshots at his hologram."
Carolina couldn't tell whether the slump in Wash's shoulders was relief.
"Huh," he said.
"Something about earning their forgiveness."
"Glad to see things are back to what passes for normal around here."
"Yeah." Carolina took a deep breath, held it for a few seconds. Then she let it out, slowly. "Thanks. You know. For—"
"Don't. Go thank the others." Wash's voice was flat. Distant. "I tried to convince them not to come."
Carolina blinked. "And they..." She trailed off, listening to the sim troopers argue about inane nonsense in the distance, as if they hadn't just helped find one of the galaxy's most infamous war criminals. Those strange, unpredictable, unbelievable goddamn idiots.
"What can I say? They believe in second chances."
"I threatened to shoot one of them, Wash."
"Yeah," Wash said, his voice dry. "You did." Then something in his face seemed to soften. He turned toward her — still not looking at her, his gaze fixed somewhere on the grass beside her feet. "Hey. You could have done worse. I actually did shoot one of them."
"Why did you do it?"
A twitch of his fingers. "I was following orders."
Right. There was something in the way he said it, terse, flat, almost rehearsed, that sent an uneasy tingle down Carolina's skin. But she wasn't exactly in a position to judge, was she?
"And then they took you in."
"They did."
"How has that been? Living as a sim trooper?"
"Well, so far no one's stabbed me in the back or left me behind in the hands of corrupt military institutions. It's everything I ever dreamed of."
There was a jarring bitterness in Wash's tone, and Carolina had to bite down the urge to snap at him, to demand what was wrong with him, for him to be able to talk like that. Because she remembered when he'd told her about Maine, about the twins, about York. He'd spoken softly then, kindly, and without the slightest hint of remorse.
She'd lost him somewhere along the way, hadn't she, and she hadn't even noticed until she'd looked back and found him pressing a gun against her head. His finger had been on the trigger then. She remembered that, too. She watched him now and tried to see the rookie she'd fought beside, but it was distorted, disconnected, like looking at him through broken glass.
Did Wash feel the same way when he looked at her?
Would she have gone through with it, she wondered, if Wash hadn't been there to stop her? She hadn't planned to. She hadn't been thinking about it at all.
"Technically, Grif," she heard a voice cry out from around the corner, "those aren't your balls, they're mine! You should take better care of them!"
"What do you care? It's not like you were doing much with them anyway!"
"Shut up, asshole, you don't know that!"
"Yes, Simmons, I do! Because I've known you for longer than five seconds!"
She heard Wash snort beside her — a soft, unguarded sound. He was staring in the direction of the voices, turning his helmet in his hands, and his face was still blank, distant, but there was something there. Not quite a smile, but it might have been the beginning of one.
It was strange to see.
"Jesus Christ, will you two stop complaining?" a third voice cut in. "There are a lot of people who'd pay money to have a bunch of badass women stomp on their balls! I mean, uh, theoretically!"
Carolina leaned back, curling her fingers in the dry grass. She couldn't feel it through the gloves of her armor, but it was nice anyway, and how long had it been since she'd noticed something like this? The air was crisp, fresh, without her helmet, and she was starting to hurt where she'd been hit. Not badly, definitely not worse than she'd had before, but it was a dull, tired ache, enough to be a reminder. So she sat there and waited. For Wash to ask about what had happened. Ask for his pistol back. But Wash was silent, staring absently into the distance with that strange almost-smile as if she weren't sitting right there beside him, and she knew then that he wasn't going to ask. Maybe she was beginning to understand. Had it been a better choice, in the end? It probably didn't matter. It wasn't a choice she could have made.
"So," she said, to break the silence between them, and because, well, maybe this was something she needed to do. "How are you doing?"
"Me? I'm fine. None of us got hurt."
"No, I mean... I should have asked you earlier. When I found you again. How are you doing, Wash?"
He turned to look at her then, for the first time in so long. His eyes were on her, his head tilted slightly to the side, and Carolina realized that she couldn't read him. She couldn't read him at all. He'd always had a surprisingly good poker face, but not like this.
"I'm..." Wash said. He shook his head, turning away. "I don't know. Better, I guess."
Better. Carolina turned the word over and over in her head. Better. It didn't sound too bad, when she thought about it. Almost like it could be enough. Not right now, but maybe in time.
More of the sim troopers' arguing floated by. "Dagnabbit, boys!" someone was shouting, "I order you to stop talking! We don't want to hear about your — no one asked you, Donut!" It wasn't as grating as it had been before. It was almost nice, in fact, something to fill her head that wasn't what she'd left behind in that dark room with its endlessly repeating video.
No.
No, she wouldn't think about that. Not yet.
"We should call the UNSC," Wash said.
"We don't have to. It's over, Wash. We could just let it—"
"No." There was a hardness to the word that made Carolina pause. "They've been looking for him for a while now. We could negotiate a pardon out of this. Maybe even more."
He was looking towards the corner again, where a couple of shotgun blasts had joined the chorus of voices, resonating across the courtyard of the facility. Carolina took a quick glance at Wash. He didn't seem concerned, so it was probably all right.
"Yes," she said, slowly. "We could."
If it hadn't been for her, the Reds and Blues would still be living in their empty little canyon, arguing and complaining and treating orders as if they were suggestions and... Well. Maybe she could try to think about other people again. It could be a start.
She stood.
"Hey."
When she turned around, Wash was looking up at her again, his face as unreadable as it had been before. He opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. "How about you, Carolina? How are you doing?"
Carolina, she noticed. Not boss. She could live with that. She closed her her eyes and tilted her head back to feel the warmth of the sun against her face.
"I'm going to get better," she said.
"I guess that's good."
"Yeah. Yeah, I think it is."
She offered him a hand, and he took it without hesitation.
"Come on," said Carolina as she pulled him to his feet. "Let's go check on those idiots."