I know Chief/Cortana is getting a lot of attention now, but I felt like giving a shout-out to my favorite tragic couple, ever… of all time. Seriously. Romeo and Juliet have nothing on these two.

This one will be kind of long, so be prepared :P

/

Circa 115,876 B.C.E Human Gregorian calender

"Can I open my eyes now?" the Didact asked with a rumble of amusement in his voice.

"Not yet, daddy! Mommy wants to show you something," his youngest daughter, Render of Worlds, replied. Her Warrior-esque name bore no resemblance to her personality yet. Union between two rates was unprecedented, so the Didact and the Librarian decided to name their children in sequence; one would be given a Lifeworker name, the next a Warrior name.

"What is it?"

"We can't tell you! It's a secret!" His son this time, Looker at Sequence, born just a few years after Render.

"Alright, how about a hint?" the Didact asked, an ever-so-slight smile on his face despite the Forerunner taboo on the practice and the muscles put in place after his mutation that should have prevented it from being physically possible. "Just a small one."

Looker hesitated, but Render did not. "OK! It's really big and took a long time to finish."

"Is it made of metal?"

The Didact heard Looker elbow Render in the ribs before she could answer. "Ow! Fine. You'll see in just a bit, daddy."

In a few moments, the Didact heard the Librarian's soft voice, also layered in amusement. "You can look now."

The Didact opened his eyes to see the entire landscape in front of his and the Librarian's house transformed. There was a large crater filled with a water supply that was continuously fed by waterfalls on every side of it. Inside was a large amount of exotic and alien creatures donated by Lifeworkers, designed specifically so that none of them fed on each other despite the variety of species and planetary origins.

"It's incredible," the Didact whispered. He turned his gaze towards his wife and noticed two other Forerunners beside her. His other children, significantly older due to being born on the other side of the millennial gap in which Forerunner females were infertile.

He embraced them. "It is good to see you both again."

"And you, father," Harbinger of Glorious Return replied. He bent down to meet Render's frantic charge into him, and embraced her as well. "And how goes your training, little one?"

"Really well!" she responded brightly. "Daddy knows a lot!"

The Librarian raised her eyebrow. "And what about your mother?" she asked, but Render was already chatting away excitedly to her older brother. She shared a quick glance of amusement with the Didact before turning to Chanter of Life and talking to her.

The Didact closed his eyes and permitted himself another smile.

…

When all of the children had gone to contemplate in their rooms, the Didact sat on a couch with his arm draped around his wife, gazing at the crater.

"It really is beautiful," he told her. She moved closer to him and gazed at him with warmth.

"It is, isn't it?" she agreed. "I wanted to surprise you with something when you returned from your rounds. It turns out Harbinger and Chanter were both available to visit, and I decided to coincide it with the construction of this," she said, sweeping her arm out towards the crater.

The Didact had been married to the Librarian for thousands of years, and he recognized the mischievous energy that lurked inside of her, informing him that she had something even beyond the crater that she wanted to tell him.

"There's something else," she said, confirming his suspicion. She handed him a data tablet, and he extricated his arm from behind her to hold it. "We aren't alone anymore."

The biggest news on the tablet was of the successful marriage of a Lifeworker male with a Builder female. The Didact's own marriage was mentioned several times throughout the article, but of course the focus was on the newly-married couple.

"The Juridicials are still bickering over the details, but every news source and analyst in the galaxy is saying that this will open the floodgates for more marriages like ours and theirs." She clutched his arm in excitement. "It's finally happening! Within a few millennia, ten at the most, they're saying divisions of rate in marriage will have dissolved completely."

The Didact returned his arm to its former position. "That's incredible," he breathed. In truth, he was less concerned with it than his wife was, but it was still great news. Their own marriage had been paid great attention to and often outright opposed by some of the more conservative officials in the Council, but with each new inter-rate marriage that opposition would break down.

He couldn't stop himself from heaving a sigh of contentment as he settled down in the couch once again. "You know I'm not one for holding optimistic opinions of the future, wife, but… I think we have something really good here," he said.

The Librarian looked back up at him, her youthful face filled with happiness and love. "I think so too."

/

Circa 109,760 B.C.E Human Gregorian calendar

The Librarian knew something was terribly, terribly wrong, and she was fairly sure she knew what it was.

There had been no official communications from the Didact's fleet for almost a year, and in that time she had been, while fairly lonely, at least confident that nothing bad had happened to either her husband or her sole remaining daughter.

But now, something deep and primal, going further than technology and mutation, had activated. Something bad had happened.

I cannot lose Render. She and the Didact are all I have left…

Her armor pinged softly and she jumped. It was a signal that the Didact wanted to talk to her via hologram. A secret, shameful part of her wished that it was Render who was trying to contact her, but most of her was grateful that she would be able to talk to her husband again.

She allowed him to appear in her room. Forerunner holographic messaging technology was far from perfect, and from this distance the Didact seemed to flicker in and out of existence, but he was there.

His eyes were downcast and sunken, and his body language was subdued. A great, terrible rift had opened in her stomach, and she felt like she couldn't breathe.

"When did it happen?" she finally managed to ask.

The Didact took a moment to respond. "Just a few days ago. We were ambushed inside of a cloud of radiation. The dirt-beasts-" here he paused to compose himself- "triggered an artificial supernova of one of their star systems. Most were able to flee, but the ships closest to the magnetic storm had too much interference to jump to the slipstream, and they were… engulfed. Render's ship was among them."

The Librarian's breathing was shallow. Her world converged on a single point. She took a shuddering breath and tried to stabilize her vision and her body. Her ancilla offered injection of a drug to calm her, but she refused.

Her last child was dead. She shook in silent sobs, but no tears came forward. That ability was abandoned in favor of progress.

Forerunner progress was going to kill them all.

/

Circa 105,450 B.C.E Human Gregorian calendar

"You do not understand! The Halos cannot be our solution! The Shield worlds will be more nimble, more responsive to change in the face of such a devastating opponent. We-"

"We have heard your argument for your Shield installations before, Didact," the Master Builder responded drily. "We on the Council have considered, and your proposal has been rejected- once again. Construction of the Halos will proceed as planned. This hearing is adjourned."

The Didact whirled upon his heel and strode out of the room, the Librarian in tow. Inwardly, though, she was seething, not at the Council nor at her husband, but at their situation.

The Didact's attempts to sway the Council had been met with futility, again and again. His methods were frustratingly naïve and his grasp of the reality of the Builder-dominated Council was sub-par. He simply was not sneaky or dishonest enough to do the job. These qualities had been endearing to her when first they met, but now they hindered him in a galaxy that relied more on lies and self-deceit than on openness and simplicity.

They returned to their surrogate home on the Capital to find the Sphinxes, each containing a Durance of their children. The Librarian had protested against them initially, since the hollow puppets of their children each Sphinx housed only brought up painful memories each time she saw them.

"Let them rest," she had pleaded to her husband when he returned to her after the war with the Humans and she discovered their existence. "They deserve to die properly."

He had just turned his face away and refused to confront her, and eventually she dropped the subject. It only produced more pain between them. Usually they lurked outside, not bothering them, and she learned to ignore them.

Now though they had crowded inside their house. "The Master Builder knows not what he is doing!" one of them wailed sadly. She shivered. She had tried her best not to try to figure out which Sphinx was which- that is, which of their children each one imitated- but it was hard to ignore the inflections of their voices, and she knew that it was "Looker" who was talking.

The Didact sighed and sat by the wall. He addressed the Librarian. "Soon we will be returning to our world," he told her. "We can do little here now."

The Librarian nodded slowly. She could not find a proper response, and the two settled into silence.

/

Circa 100,007 B.C.E Human Gregorian calendar

The Didact looked sadly at the Manipular he had imprinted. Bornstellar, Chakas, and Riser were suspended, like he was, in a constraint field. He wondered if he would ever see his wife again, and doubted it.

The Didact hoped the Manipular, and even the humans would survive. If they died, he knew it would be his fault. He wasn't sure if he could live with more deaths on his hands; though he didn't think he'd have to bear that burden for much longer.

He knew that the Sphinxes, the last vestiges of his children, would be destroyed. He knew his wife never liked them, but he had needed them for remembrance.

Then again, maybe he didn't. Maybe the Sphinxes were just him holding on too long to fragments that would never truly be his children.

He felt his consciousness constrict as the constraint fields tightened, and he caught Bornstellar's eyes just before he faded completely into the darkness.

…

"Didact, do you have a moment?" the Primordial's voice was powerful and mysterious, as though a thousand tongues, yearning to find voice and form, rose to the surface every time it spoke and tried to break through. "Just a moment. That's all it will take…"

/

Circa 100,000 B.C.E Human Gregorian calendar

"Husband!" the Librarian beamed with happiness. After so long, she would see her husband again.

But something was different. His pace was altered. He no longer held himself with pride, as though he had surrendered it entirely. His eyes were sunken and hollow.

And he was so filled with anger.

The Didact whom the Librarian had spent her long life with and the Didact whom had returned from his long exile were so very different from each other that they were like two different souls inhabiting the same biological body.

The Didact has survived, but my Didact died during his exile.

"You've been spending your time with this poor copy?" he sneered. Bornstellar, for his part, remained impassive. "Truly, either you or he have fallen far since we spoke."

The Librarian bristled. "You are not yourself!" her voice softened almost involuntarily. "What happened to you out there?"

He waved her concern away. "Nothing that need concern you. In truth, I have not come to talk with you."

She tried not to make her hurt and shock apparent. "Then why have you come?"

His sentence was cut off by the sounding of an alarm. Erde-Tyrene was under assault by the parasite.

…

"That's all he ever does! Kill my children!"

The Ur-Didact, as he was now known as, shut off the monitor he had been using to gauge his wife's reaction. He regretted betraying the Librarian's trust, but he knew it was necessary. The Flood had spread far, too far for other conventional counter-measures. This was the only way, and he knew it.

Except for the Halos.

No. The Forerunners could not fire that gun at their own heads. The galaxy belonged to Forerunners alone, whatever the Precursors plans were. The humans were not and never would be fit to attain the Mantle.

He turned to Endurance-of-Will, who was standing rigidly at attention on the bridge.

"Be at ease," he told her. "But this isn't over yet."

He strode down the bridge, gazing at his Prometheans. They were almost at Requiem. He knew the Librarian was following them, of course, along with the Monitor 343 Guilty Spark. But he was not concerned. Not yet.

...

The report of the Binary Rifle was nearly silent, muffled by Forerunner improvements to its design over the millennia, but in the deathly silence it sounded like a bomb.

The bullet of hardlight impacted just by his shoulder. Energy spread around him as he collapsed to his knees. He should have been thinking of how he could escape, how he could fight… but all that filled his head was betrayal.

I have lost my children. I have lost my wife. I have lost everything.

He surrendered to the darkness almost easily.

/

Circa 2557 C.E. Human Gregorian calendar

Must the infernal woman impede his progress at every junction? Now, when he was so close to final victory, with no opposition from his own kind?

Even in death, her meddling continues.

The Reclaimer, the human warrior, John-117, had been confronted by his wife (or what was left of her) before the Didact sensed the disturbance. Who knew what she could have done to him, to strengthen him?

The human was his primary opponent. He recognized that now. It was ironic how all of his struggles seemed to boil down to him versus the humans. But what could the "Spartan" do?

Now he had the blessing of the Librarian. Nothing was certain.

All he knew was that he had to hurry and deal the deathblow to the human race before they grew any more dangerous.

…

As he fell down the Slipspace tunnel, the taste of defeat in his mouth, the Didact contemplated.

He had done much contemplation in the hundred-thousand years of imprisonment that he'd had to endure at the hands of the Librarian, and he had always come to the same conclusion. Humans were a threat. They were evil. The Forerunners had to be the ones to uphold the Mantle. His observation of how they had co-opted Forerunner technology rather than rely on their own advancements only strengthened his conviction.

But now he wondered.

They were strong now. Did the Forerunners really have the right to claim the Mantle as their sole property?

Once he had considered Humans, Forthenco in particular, and now perhaps the Spartan, as his equals. What had the Primordial done to him?

No. Humans were a blight on the galaxy. If he lost his conviction, he would falter and fail as he had just then.

Finally, after what seemed like years, the Didact emerged from slipspace… to gaze into the face of his copy.

"Bornstellar," he croaked.

The IsoDidact's eyes were hard, but not lifeless and not without fear. He turned towards another Forerunner whom the Ur-Didact had at first mistaken for his wife.

"Take him to the court. We must try him for his crimes against the Mantle."

The Didact felt blackness overtake him, and his last thought was wondering if the Librarian had imprinted the Forerunner that stood next to Bornstellar.

Perhaps she is not as gone as I thought she was.

OK, so it wasn't as long as I thought it would be. Sorry :P

Anyway, I tried to remain faithful to the books, but I added some of my own ideas to cover some of the intervening areas.

Thanks for reading! Now review before the Didact composes you.

P.S. The ending is based on the theory that the Didact was sent to where the other Forerunners live now when he fell into the portal.