It was another bright sunny day in the little box canyon, known as Bloodgulch, but Private Leonard Church didn't care for the weather for inside he was nothing but a cold, empty shell since the death of his ex-girlfriend and team-mate, the black armour-clad Freelancer Tex. It had been a month since she had died… again. He had known Tex since his basic training and was one of the few who known her real name, Alison. The rival team of the Reds had killed her when a bomb she had constructed had been placed on the ship she had been escaping and detonated by the Red leader, a Sargent who was only known as Sarge.
He wandered around the crater-hewn field that contained the few remaining pieces of the ship which Tex had been in. He didn't understand why he was searching this field but he couldn't make himself stop. Hell, he didn't even know what he was searching for.
Reaching up Church removed the cobalt coloured helmet from his head and slumped to the ground. He sighed as he lay back and stared at the sky.
"Why do I feel this way? It's not like we were even friends anymore." Church asked himself as his eyes, that were the same colour as his armour, came unfocused.
"You liiike her Church, you love her still." Answered a soft voice in his head that sounded like his blue clad comrade, Caboose.
"Yeah, a half-girl half-shark who won't even sleep with you. Yep, she really was a keeper Church." Answered another little voice in his head, but this one sounded like his teal coloured and the only other guy on the Blue Team, Tucker.
"God! Why is it that when I ask myself questions it sounds like my team are answering?" screamed Church in frustration as he jumped up and kicked a loose piece of metal next to him. The piece of metal flew though the air and clinked as it hit another piece of metal as it landed.
"What the hell was that?" Churched asked as he walked towards where the piece of ship had landed.
The ghost-like figure looked around and reorientated itself; it too was in the exploded ship-hewn field. It saw the pieces of metal laying around and in particular a small silver piece embedded with a black diamond. It saw a piece of metal flying towards it and gasped as it went straight through it to hit the silver piece.
"Shit, I hate it when that happens." The figure remarked.
It looked up from where it was lying on the ground and saw a cobalt figure coming towards it.
"Oh crap!!" Cried the figure with feeling as it got up to its feet and hid itself out of sight of the approaching figure.
Back at the Blue Base, Caboose was eating pie as he discussed with Tucker about what to do about their depressed self-appointed commander. Unfortunately Caboose was incredibly stupid while Tucker was a self-obsessed womaniser and so coming up with a decent solution to their commander's problem would be a challenge.
"What should we do about Church, Tucker? He seems really upset since Shei… since Sheila blew up." Asked Caboose.
"Since Tex got blown up dumbass." Tucker pointed out angrily, "He doesn't give a shit about your former tank girlfriend or my kid! Why should we help him? He has never helped us!"
"Tucker, Church has just lost the woman who he hoped to marry someday. I mean he told you that he wanted to ask her to marry him but O'Malley and her training got in the way. How would you feel if I was killed by the Reds?" This came from the direction of the bathroom as a beautiful blonde woman stepped out in nothing but a bra and hotpants, her green eyes on show as she strapped on her bright yellow armour.
Tucker had to take a few deep breathes to calm himself as he watched her move into the room before answering, "I would be very upset Sis… very, very upset."
"Of course you would. Well that's what Church is going through right now. He's in mourning for Tex." Sis whispered.
"Hey guys! Where's my sis-" questioned an orange armoured man as he walked into the base.
"What are you doing here Red?" demanded Tucker.
"Sheila killer!" cried Caboose.
"Dexter! Why are you here?" yelled Sis.
The orange armoured guy just stood in the doorway looking at his sister with her blonde hair unbound and blushed when he noticed that only her leg armour had been put on yet. "Gees Sis, put some clothes on. What would mum think if she saw you like that?"
"I am dressed Grif! I've got a bra on. It's not like I'm flashing everyone and you have no right to tell me what to wear!" Sis shouted at her brother.
"You're not far off it though," Grif put up his hands in surrender before he continued, "Sarge just sent me over to invite you to a party to celebrate O'Malley's demise."
"Oh yeah?" asked Tucker sarcastically, "and gloat about how you killed my kid, destroyed our ship, our tank AI-"
"AI? What does the A-" Caboose asked with a confused look in his grey eyes.
"Shut up Caboose!" Tucker ordered, "Like I was saying, our tank AI and our freelancer?"
"OK I'll admit I'm not upset that the evil chick is dead but I am sorry about killing your kid Tucker." Grif admitted.
"Alright then apology accepted. When's the party?" Asked Tucker as he nodded his armoured head.
"Monday, 7o'clock." Grif replied.
"We'll be there."
Grif nodded, waved to his sister and left the Blue Base.
"Why did you say yes to going to the party?" asked Sis.
"It might just be the thing that cheers Church up." Tucker replied reasonably.
"Yeah a party that celebrates the death of the AI that was in his ex-girlfriend's head. Great idea Tucker!" remarked Sis sarcastically.
"No a party where he can get completely smashed and forget about Tex!"
Caboose leaped up at this and gave Tucker a quick hug, "Then he can be happy again and we can go back to being best friends without that mean person getting between us!"
Sis sat down with a sigh and started strapping on the rest of her armour, "Somehow I don't think that will work."
Church had found where the piece of metal he had kicked had landed and was searching for the thing that it had hit. When he found the silver piece of metal his knees buckled and he picked it up as all of his emotions came to the surface and threatened to burst out. He looked at the black diamond in the metal and remembered how hard he had saved up to buy it so he could put it in the silver hairclip he had hand-made to give to Alison as a graduation present. He remembered how it looked against her black hair with its purple streaks and how beautiful she looked with her hair pulled back so the soft waves of her hair fell over her shoulders and back as he looked into her violet eyes with their cat-like pupils and slowly leaned in for their first kiss. Well the first one that he had found the courage to try and give this fiery woman a kiss.
Church looked at the hairclip in his hands and was just as surprised that it had no damage from the crash as he was that Alison had still had it, even though as a robot she had no use for a hairclip. He had thought that when she broke off their relationship that she would have thrown out all the stuff he had given her. He sighed as his emotions settled and picked up his helmet and placed it on his robot head. It was the first time since his death that he was glad he was a robot because he felt that if he had still been alive that he would have cried his heart out and he hated to think what his team would think of that. He had to be strong for them, even if he felt all broken and empty inside. He got to his feet and headed back towards the base without looking at the wreckage that was all that remained of his former girlfriend.
The ghost was stayed very still as the cobalt-armoured robot walked away and when he had disappeared down the path back to the box canyon where he lived the figure got up and headed away from the wreckage and the canyon until it got to a strange solid, metal bubble-like thing.
The figure spoke, "Command, open, password: life."
The bubble-like thing opened to reveal that it was an escape pod and inside was a little Covenant baby who was known to the people in Bloodgulch as Junior. The little creature looked up at the ghost and said, "Blarg blarg?"
The ghost smiled at the little alien and replied, "Blarg blarg honk blarg."
Junior got up and smiled back at the ghost before saying, "Blarg chicka honk honk!"
The ghost smiled as it shook its head and followed the little creature into the canyon.
Church was sitting on his bed playing with Tex's hairclip when a knock sounded on the door. Church quickly hid the clip under his pillow before allowing the person to enter.
Sis came into the room before looking down the hallway to make sure nobody was around before shutting the door. She looked at Church as he slumped on the bed as she sat down next to him.
"What do you want Sis? I kind of what to rest." Church asked softly.
"I wanted to see how you were doing Church."
"I'm fine Sis. Why wouldn't I be?"
"No you're not Church. I know where you went today and I think I know why to and I wanted to know if you're dealing with what's happened lately."
"Really? Then where did I go today and why wouldn't I be dealing with whatever I was doing?"
Sis sighed as she took off her helmet and looked him in the robot eye. "You went up to the field where the ship crashed. I know the guys here are stupid and aren't the best people to tell stuff to but you can tell me what you might of found or what you're feeling… I won't tell anyone, Church, and I have the feeling that you really need to get this off your chest."
Church looked down at the bed before reaching under his pillow to draw out the hairclip. "I found this today. I gave it to Tex when she graduated from the basic military training. We started dating not long after and continued even when she entered that military program that ended up putting O'Malley in her head."
Sis nodded and put a hand on his shoulder to silently tell him to continue.
"When she had finished the program and started to realise what O'Malley was capable of she told me it was over for my own protection and gave all the photos of us together back and she then said that she had thrown all the stuff I had given her away. I believed her and I didn't say anything when she walked away. I couldn't believe what had happened and I didn't have the guts to tell her to come back and that I loved her and when I died…"
"When you died?"
"I realised I should of told her how I felt and that I wanted to marry her. Hell when I came back I had another chance to tell her everything but… my courage failed again. Now I'll never be able to tell her and what's worse is that I feel like I'm responsible for her destruction."
"How could you feel guilty about that? You had no idea what the Reds had done to disable the ship."
"Yeah but I should of guessed that they would do something like that or I should of taken care of the disabling myself or tried harder to get Andy to not explode or warn her or-"
"You can go over the would have and should haves all you want Church, but you did all you could and you shouldn't blame yourself for what happened." Sis replied as she got up to leave. She got to the door and opened it but she turned back and looked at Church, "Besides, I have the feeling that deep down, even though she would never admit it, that Tex really knew what you felt about her and that she to may have had some feelings for you to since she kept that hairclip, even after all she had said and done."
Sis walked out of the room and closed the door behind her as Church flopped back onto the bed and looked at the ceiling. He pulled a picture of himself and Alison out of his armour pocket that showed them standing together on a beach at sunset actually smiling at the camera. It was he favourite picture of the two of them and he sat there thinking of that day as he drifted off to sleep.
He never saw the ghost or Junior sneak past his window, run down along the canyon and into the caves that hugged the left side of the canyon.
