AN: thanks for returning to my humble story! This week we have near death, emotion, romance, anger, and all of the other things Halo so obviously needs more of! I'd also like to briefly adress some criticism that the Spartans aren't Spartan enough. That was only partially intentional. Remember that for most of these chapters, the Spartans were still kids, so I'd imagine the stoic-ness would come at least a little latter in their lives. Again, all criticism is welcome, and I appreciate those that pointed this out. I have to say I've had a lot of fun writing this so far, almost as much fun as I hope you're having reading it. Enjoy!
The doctors spoke kindly and professionally to Linda as they guided her to lay down on the cold, metal examination table.
Surgery equipment and doctors surrounded her. Multiple robotic arms with needles, laser cutters, and small appendages whirred around her head in entrancing circles, rapidly preparing to cut her open like a fish.
This is how I die, she thought, cold and alone and without having told John that I loved him. She sighed, if she made it out of this one, it would be the first thing she told him, assuming he made it as well.
"We're going to put you under now Linda. You won't feel a thing," said one of the many masked doctors that surrounded her.
She nodded, and felt a small prick in her arm. Her eyelids became heavy, and closed slowly as she felt herself drift off.
She couldn't think. Was she asleep? Whatever state she was in it felt surprisingly peaceful and comforting, a sort of forced relaxation, like the meditation she practiced so often.
All of a sudden that rapidly began to change. She began to feel an intense pain like nothing she had ever felt before. She began to feel uncomfortably hot, then it felt like someone had poured napalm into her veins. She wanted to scream out in pain, but couldn't. She saw black and heard nothing as she began to feel her bones being ground to dust inside of her. It felt like she was laying on a bed of broken glass doused in gasoline and set alight. She struggled against her own sedation, trying to move, to fight, to get the hell out of there at any cost.
All at once she snapped awake and immediately tried to sit bolt upright, but met resistance. She opened her eyes and found her arms, legs, and chest bolted to the table by titanium restraints. She struggled and tried to get free. Her body screamed in protest and she struggled harder, only heightening her agony.
She felt the restraints begin to groan and give way as she continued to struggle painfully.
"Linda," she heard someone call in the distance. She ignored it and continued to thrash and rip at the metal.
"Linda stop!" She heard again, this time much closer. She felt a hand on her shoulder and snapped her head to see who it was.
"John?" She gasped as she saw his face.
He slammed a button near her bed to administer a small dose of morphine, and she felt herself begin to drift again into that forced relaxation. She tried to continue struggling, but felt John's hand force her to lay back down.
"Don't fight the restraints," he said gently, "they're for your own good. I promise. You'll need them until you get used to your augmentations."
Some of her pain began to clear as the morphine took hold. It was still excruciating, but she could think a little better.
"John, it hurts! Make it stop!" She pleaded.
John typed in a command to one of the nearby auto surgeon robots, and it quickly administered a heavy analgesic shot to her arm. She felt most of her body go numb, and she relaxed back onto the cold metal surface, her breathing slowing as she began to take deep breaths to calm herself.
"There you go. You're gonna be just fine," said John tenderly. She looked at John. She noticed several large, new surgical scars on him. Two running the length of each of his arms, and a large v shaped one on his neck that barely showed under his shirt.
"John? What did they do to us?" She said as she took a moment to look down at herself. She too was scarred just as horrifically.
He sighed regretfully and looked at the ground. "Too much. It was better and worse than they expected. The catalytic thyroid implant succeeded, but massive releases of hormones and adrenaline from the surgery all but negated any negative side effects it might have had. The carbide bonded well with most of our bones, but Kelly nearly nearly died from it anyway. Fred's still comatose, and probably will be for another day. You've been out for a week as it is. A lot fewer of us died than expected..."
"Died?" Questioned Linda, "Who? How?"
"Too many," said John gravely, "and many more failed to accept their augmentations, leaving them crippled. Serin, Fhajada, Randall, they got the worst of it. None of them should ever walk again, but I wouldn't put it past them."
She paused for a moment to take it all in. So many people she had grown up with, her brothers, her sisters, dead. This wasn't a battle they had a chance to win. The game was rigged from the start for all of them. She wanted to cry out, or just cry.
John placed a caring hand over hers.
"I'm glad you made it Linda," he said gently.
For some reason, she found herself wishing she hadn't. She felt like she was obligated to die or be crippled with her brothers and sisters, to shoulder part of the burden on herself.
In desperation she grabbed John's hand with all her strength. She heard a pop in his hand and he yelped in pain, and she dropped it immediately.
"I'm so sorry," she apologized, "I didn't know I was that strong."
"It's okay," said John reassuringly, "you're just getting used to your augmentations. It'll take you a while to figure them out. You didn't hurt me too badly, I'm augmented now as well. If I had been anyone else you would have shattered every bone in my hand."
Linda felt a slight sickness in her stomach at the thought of that. These augmentations truly had turned her into a monster. John smiled at her and slid his hand back over hers, laying it flat on the table.
"Try to relax," he said gently.
She let her hand go limp, hoping he could take away some of her worry, and he gently folded her fingers around his and tenderly squeezed her hand.
She smiled at him and resisted the urge to squeeze back. She looked into his crystal blue eyes and sighed. I could tell him I loved him right now. So why don't I?
"John, I..." Her voice trailed off. "I'm glad you made it too," she finally said with a weak smile.
He returned the gesture. "You should get some rest. I've got to check on the rest of the Spartans."
She nodded, and reluctantly let him go. If she had had her way she would have clamped down on his hand and not let him leave. She needed him now more than ever, yet she couldn't have him. His duty as squad leader would always come first, and she doubted that she even made his top ten list of priorities.
She relaxed back onto the frigid table, and tried desperately to grab a few hours of sleep. It wouldn't be long before, ready or not, she would be back down range.
"Request permission to remain on the bridge sir," John said mournfully, "I want to see it this time, sir."
He stared through the Resolute's view screen down at Jericho VII. Despite how lush and green and perfect it looked now he knew that in a matter of minutes only glass and fire would remain.
The captain looked weary. It had been a long three year fight with the covenant for control of this system. Now the covenant were about to end that fight in a single stroke.
He glanced at John with haunted eyes. "Very well Chief. After all you've been through to save Jericho seven, we owe you that. We'll stay to watch, but if those bastards so much as twitch in our direction we're jumping the hell out of here."
John nodded. "Understood sir, thank you."
He watched as a Covenant fleet jumped into the system, and as their ventral glassing beams began to power up he began to have second thoughts about wanting to watch this, but he had to. He had fought hard to defend this planet, he would see it through to the end.
He tried to appear emotionless as he stood for an hour, watching as the covenant showered the planet in an all consuming fire. Like something that had leapt straight out of hell itself.
He didn't move until the Captain gave the order to jump, and then left without a word and headed to the lower decks of the ship where the rest of the Spartans had set up.
None of them were talking. Most lay exhausted in their bunks, some were pacing restlessly, and some had begun to clean their equipment for the next battle.
He could see the haunted look in all of their eyes. This battle had hit them hard. As much as the UNSC had tried to train morality out of them, they had failed. The civilian casualties had been excessive, and the Spartans had been ground side to see it all, and all of them took each innocent life lost as their own personal responsibility.
John glanced around to see if he could find Kelly, who had been his second in command for most of the battle. She sat at the edge of her rack reviewing a casualty report.
"Kelly, anything to report?" he asked.
"Nothing you don't already know," she responded, "Half the UNSC ground force and some hold out civilians were still planetside for the glassing, no chance of evacuation, that's millions of lives gone in an instant."
She set down her datapad and rubbed her eyes, looking exhausted.
"Are you doing okay?" He asked.
"I'm fine," she breathed, although John doubted the validity of that statement, "it's Linda you should be worried about. She's been taking this very hard. Can you talk to her? She likes you, and you seem to be the only one who can ever get through to her."
He glanced around the room to find her and didn't see her anywhere.
"Where is she?" He asked.
Kelly gestured toward the stern of the ship. "Engineering. She's locked herself in there, and when I tried to console her she hit me in the stomach. I don't hold it against her. She's been through a lot lately."
John nodded. "I'll go talk to her."
He entered the engine room and scanned the it. Linda was situated next to the FTL drive, staring at the wall in front of her with her rifle cradled in her arms. John approached her slowly and sat down next to her.
"Did Kelly send you?" She asked venomously. Her words shot through the air like a first strike weapon, and showed her deep anger well.
"It doesn't matter who sent me, I'm here for you. Now come on, tell me why you locked yourself in here."
Linda looked down at her rifle. "Three years, three long years. That's how long we've been fighting the covenant on that rock, and for what?"
She picked up her weapon and threw it against the wall. It was truly a powerful gesture of how mad Linda was. That weapon was her life, hand crafted and treated with care to insure it performed in all situations. Discarding it like that wasn't something most soldiers would do, and certainly not Linda. She looked like she was about to burst into tears.
"Why do we even try?" She spat, "No matter what we do we always lose. Every damn time. You don't get it, do you John? we're useless! No matter how many ground battles we win the war is always won or lost in space. Me, my rifle, my skills, my whole damn life of training can't do a thing to change that."
She hugged her knees to her chest and tears began to roll down her cheeks. She tried desperately to stifle them and remain a stoic warrior, but failed and instead tried to hide them by pressing her eye sockets into her knee caps.
"It's okay Linda. It's not your fault we couldn't beat them," John said reassuringly.
He wasn't to used to dealing with things like this, but he hated seeing her like this and was going to do everything in his power to comfort her.
Linda shot him a glare that could have bored through steel. "It's not? We train to be the best but we can't even stop the covenant from taking one lousy planet. How are we supposed to keep them away from Earth?"
John wasn't about to be deterred. He took reassuring Linda as a personal challenge that he had to win, and he always carried all his Spartans through the finish line with him.
"Linda, we can't win every battle. We're not the best because we never lose. We're the best because we know how to keep fighting after we've lost."
Tears began to soak through Linda's fatigues as she continued to cry silently.
"So many dead civilians. All for what?"
John put an arm around her and pulled her close to him. Linda didn't resist and rested her head on his shoulder.
"I don't know Linda," he said as he looked down at her, "I don't know."
Her tears began to soak through John's shirt as she cried softly against his shoulder.
"It's all going to be okay," he said one last time.
She looked up at him and smiled warmly.
"Thanks John," she said weakly.
John was about to let go, but she reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck to stop him.
"John," she said softly, seeming to lose the rest of her sentence before it came out.
Her beautiful green eyes were locked on his with a look that he had never seen before, nor could he describe, but it caused an odd tightness in his chest that was surprisingly not uncomfortable. She sighed and pulled him in for a quick kiss.
John was struck dumb. God that had felt good, and he wasn't even sure why. Linda's lips pressed up against his just felt, right.
She looked embarrassed at her action the moment she released him. She let go of his neck quickly and went back to curling her knees close to her chest in despair.
"What did you do that for?" John finally managed to say.
She clamped her knees even closer to her chest. "John, I-I don't know. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. I'm sorry," she said in despair.
John was torn. He could tell her right now. Admit his love for her and get it off his chest once and for all, but something stopped him short. He began to hear CPO Mendez's voice ringing in the back of his head, telling him love was something he would never experience. A choice that had been made for him made sure of that.
He glanced over at Linda's huddling form. He hated seeing her like this. Just the thought of the pain she was in sickened him.
He wrapped an arm back around her. "Don't be sorry. I enjoyed it," he said reassuringly.
She looked at him in surprise, and then a smile slowly crept across her face. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her onto his lap. If his training wouldn't let him tell her a simple three word phrase he so desperately needed to say, then he would take solace in her embrace instead.
He leaned in, and his lips slowly met her's. At first the kiss was rough, unpracticed, uncomfortable even, but as it wore on they both became slightly more used to it, and began to enjoy it for all it was worth. When they broke she rested her head against his chest and smiled sleepily up at him as he held her close and softly hummed to her.
"Thank you," she said softly. He responded by placing a kiss on top of her head and pulling her close to him.
"We're gonna make it through this," he said, more to himself than Linda, "You, me, humanity, all of us."
She smiled and nodded. "We need to go. Someone's bound to find us like this, and that would be hard to explain."
He sighed, and reluctantly let go of her, almost feeling like he had let a piece of himself drift away. It was an uncomfortable feeling he didn't like, and assumed was one of the side effects of his affliction of love for Linda.
He helped her to her feet and lead her to a small room near the flight deck. It had been a Marine fighter pilot's room, until earlier that day. He had died while providing air cover for John. He wouldn't be needing that room anymore, and John doubted that in death he would begrudge Linda a night of peace.
He settled her into the bunk of the dead man, pulling the covers up over her shoulders and kissing her one last time.
He turned to leave, but Linda's hand shot out to stop him.
"Please stay John," she pleaded, "I feel better with you here."
He shook his head in the negative. "I'm sorry Linda, but I've got work to do still. Duty comes first, unfortunately."
She frowned and let his hand go. "Of course. I'll see you later."
"I'll come to get you in a couple hours," said John, "Goodnight my brave Spartan."
"Goodnight," she said as the door slid closed behind him.
John didn't know it then, but he should have stayed with Linda that night, held her close and reassured her, because he was gravely unaware how few of those nights he had left with her, and that for years to come he would regret leaving her side.
I'm certain at least a couple of you can guess what's going to happen next chapter, and damn is that going to be hard to write.
Also, I'd like to say I'm absolutely honored by your support for this story. I didn't really expect anyone to read it, so 20 follows in two weeks is pretty awesome if I do say so myself.
Leave your thoughts inthe review section. I live on criticism.
Thats all for this week. See you in the next chapter.
