Chapter Four - Spartans Don't Die
She'd told herself every day that she would not, could not die on Requiem. She had too much responsibility on her shoulders, too much shit left to do. And a shithole like Requiem? Hell no. When she died, it would be somewhere that mattered, somewhere where her death would make a difference. She would not be another name on a casualty list while Infinity still floated above the planet looking for Forerunner tech.
And still she kept telling herself that, with a hand to her side as she felt blood leak from her body. A dead elite covered her legs and waist, trapping her in the dirt, and the knife it'd managed to wedge between the plates of her armour lay in its limp hand.
She was in a bad spot, she knew. She'd been scouting for her Spartans, trying to gauge where the enemy was, when the fucker now lying on top of her had snuck up behind her with one of those pussy active camo shields they used and jammed a knife into her. She'd killed it before it could make any noise, but now she was trapped against a rock and far away from her Spartans. Palmer could radio them, but the elites would track the signal and attack them back at home base—the original plan had been to scout and run back with intel, but now… now she was stuck there. And she would not risk so many lives for her own.
There was a lot of blood. A dark purple fluid covered her armour and gear from the elite, and a dark crimson, with streaks of black, poured from the wound. Her stomach was punctured, that much she could tell from the colour of the blood, and the automatic bio-foam injectors only acted to extend her life, not fix the injury. Neither did it totally clot the stab wound, but it was enough to spare her some time. An hour, she ball-parked. No time at all.
She tried to kick at the elite, fury filling her at the sudden thought of dying. She couldn't die, not yet. Her life was far too busy for her to die now. She had to train the new batch of Spartans that had arrived last week, file reports, finish her equipment requisition forms… and fuck Tom.
Tom. Jesus, no, she really couldn't die. He'd told her about all the people he'd lost, the loved ones he'd watch die. He was the closest thing she had to family for billions of miles in any direction, and she knew the same was true for him, too.
She managed to get her knee moving under the stupid fucking alien that had the gall to stab her, and with a great deal of satisfaction and pain she shoved her foot into its split-lipped face. She let out a sob from the pain as she pushed against its weight, biting the inside of her cheek until she tasted copper. She felt the blood running out of her side leak out at a greater force with the strain, but she forged on. If this elite was going to be shipped back to its family, or whatever these assholes had, he was going to look as ugly as fucking possible.
"Piece of shit," she muttered, the cursing making her feel better. She rammed her foot into its mouth, eventually jostling it enough to roll it off her other leg. The blood rushed back painfully into her thighs and calves, and pins and needles erupted in her entire lower body. "I hope you have a batch of ugly fucking worm children and an ugly fucking worm wif—" She coughed from talking, and spit into the dirt. Streaks of blood coloured her spit. I'm fucked. "—and they all get fucking glassed by my fucking Spartans, you fucking split-lip."
As she heard bones break under her foot from repeatedly kicking it in the head, the force shook the limp body enough to shake the equipment clinging to its armour. She saw UNSC dog tags fall out of a pocket, likely collected from fallen marines and ODSTs and Spartans, along with several grenades, its camo pod, and a few other bits of alien gear.
And… a tube of cream. What the fuck?
She fell onto her side and reached out the hand not holding her ribs, grabbing the tube out of the dust. She struggled for a few minutes to sit back up, slowly inching herself back into a sitting position. Palmer finally managed to lean against the rock behind her again, breathing heavily. Every breath pulled on the wound, shooting white-hot pain up her ribs and into her abdomen, and the beat of her heart was a painful reminder that she was still very much alive. A cold sweat had broken out on her forehead, but she tried to focus on the medical tube in her hand.
It was Tom's cream, the shit he put on his blisters. It was almost empty, and she popped the cap open.
"Ew, fuck." Saliva coated the inside of the cap. The elite had been eating this shit?
She untwisted the entire cap and threw it away, looking inside. Only a bit left, clinging to the sides of the bottle. Sarah grabbed her helmet with one hand and released the air-tight clamp, setting it next to her on the ground. The air on Requiem was dry, but the hot wind felt good on her face. She brought the tube to her nose and inhaled. Beyond the faint whiff of hinge-head spit, she could smell the acrid, herbal flavour of the cream. It smelled like Tom.
"Tom," she whispered, looking at the tube. "No wonder they keep… shooting down supply drops." She swallowed hard around the growing lump in her throat, wincing. Talking hurt even more than breathing.
She inhaled again, not caring how ridiculous she felt. She could remember his face, embarrassed that she knew about something so human and vulnerable. Embarrassed to be exposed in front of her.
I'm so sorry. The lump in her throat made it difficult to breathe. She wouldn't be there to share a drink with him on the anniversary of Cadmon's death next Tuesday, or play a few rounds of video games in the lounge after-hours and kick his ass, or lend him an ear to vent to when he was fed up with trying to solve the problems of seventeen thousand souls every day. He'd have no one, and he sure as hell wouldn't do something as selfish as burden another human being with his own troubles. The only way she ever forced anything out of him was with a stiff drink and a threatening punch in the arm. He'd just bury it and keep moving.
She curled in on herself from the pain. Why? Why fucking now? Why? Any other day, any other time than this. No atheists in the trenches, huh? Well fuck whoever or whatever wants me dead. Jesus, Buddha, Hades—suck a fat one, all of you. She wouldn't beg. She hadn't begged before and she sure as hell didn't intend to start. Those fuckers in the clouds knew who she was—buttering them up with a few nicey-nice prayers minutes before death wouldn't change her fate now.
Her vision began to fade, and her mind screamed in defiance. She needed more time, just an hour more, or any time at all…. Why was it so dark? Is this what death looks like?
No, her eyes were open. She could still see, couldn't she? Was she passing out? Sarah Palmer, you do not faint. Spartans never faint.
Her ears flooded with the sound of whirring. Well, maybe she was fainting. Or dying. Or hallucinating. If I am seeing things, let me see something nice before I leave. Chocolate cake, or a big fluffy bed, or Tom….
The wind had picked up, and the whirring noise grew so loud in her ears that it drowned out the sound of her harsh breathing. Maybe she was having a stroke or something. Ha! How hilarious would that be? Stabbed in the gut, and Sarah Palmer dies of a stroke.
God, the fucking wind. A violent shudder racked through her body, and she felt herself topple over into the dirt. The sand stuck to her cheek from the cold sweat clinging to her skin, and the grit peppered her lips. She tasted the earth, wheezing out shallow breathes, and pulled the tube of cream to her field of view.
"Sarah?"
Good, onto the hallucination stage of dying. She concentrated on the smell of the cream, hoping it would amplify the sound of Lasky's voice. She tried to speak his name, but her mouth only moved in a soundless whisper.
"Commander Palmer?"
No, no, call me Sarah… I like the way you say my name. "Tom," she forced out, barely able to hear her own voice. What the fuck was with the wind? It was blowing dirt into her face, and it blocked the smell of the cream.
She felt fingers on her skin, at her neck. She tried to look at him, but she couldn't move her head. It weighed too much.
Another hand touched hers, the one holding the tube. She felt it being removed from her grip and she tried to tighten her fingers.
"No," she croaked. "No, Tom…."
"She's alive! Miller, Carmichael, help me with her!"
No, no, no. She didn't want to dream about Miller, for fuck sakes! Lasky. Nerdy, blister-y Lasky. Preferably with no clothing. Or in his ducky pants. Goddamn, you're pathetic, Palmer.
No! Not the lotion! She didn't have it anymore, someone took it away from her. An elite? Fucking Covenant. Now she couldn't picture his face anymore. God, was there a fucking hurricane? Why was the wind so brutal? She felt sand grind against her teeth.
Her face left the hot sand, and she felt weightless. Yep, I'm dead now. It was dark, and windy, and hot. Maybe she was in Hell already. Thinking about shithead Miller for all eternity sounds like Hell, she reasoned. No more Lasky or ducks or cream… how sad.
Sorry, Tom. I really am.
His bottom lip had been completely stripped of its first few layers of skin before he finally saw the Pelican touch down in the landing bay. He tried his best not to bolt towards it like a maniac, keeping an even, steady gait as he headed for the bird. The calm walk was slowly killing him.
Palmer had told him she hated it when he watched the live feed from her helmet when she was in the field. It did little to calm his nerves, and the one time he'd called for reinforcements to help her when he thought her Fireteam had gotten too bogged down with enemies, she'd yelled at him for a good two hours afterwards.
You have no power on Requiem, she'd barked. I call the shots, I make the choices to call for backup, not you. My Spartans follow me. Which he understood—undermining her command by making decisions for her would not do, and she was more than capable of gauging a dicey situation.
But this time was different.
He arrived at the Pelican just in time to see Miller, Carmichael and Cameron unload her from the bird, strapped into a gurney.
"Is she—"
"Alive, sir. Medical here yet?"
He nodded, not taking his eyes off her. "Two doctors, and the tram is waiting to take her to the infirmary."
Miller nodded and motioned for the other two to push her towards the tram system. He had to jog to keep pace with them, but made sure to stick close to her side.
She wasn't unconscious, but neither was she awake. He saw her eyes move restlessly under half-closed lids, unseeing and glazed with pain. Her arms were strapped to her sides, and one was slathered with crimson. She was a mess of blood and dirt and sweat, and the sight made his heart clench painfully in his chest. Please don't die.
They boarded the tram with the doctors, who shoved him aside as respectfully as they could and got to work stabilising her. He stood there watching beside the other Spartans, trying to bury the growing panic in his belly when he heard the two doctors barking orders at one another.
"She managed to stab the elite with its own blade and then cave its head in with her foot," Miller said next to him, sounding both impressed and somewhat afraid. "If Palmer doesn't survive this... well, I think we're all fucked, sir. Pardon the language."
"She'll live," he said, more harshly than he intended, and Miller straightened.
"I'm sure she will too, sir."
God, there was a lot of blood. Both alien and human, mixing together in a dark grime on the doctor's arms. They had managed to stop the bleeding, or so it seemed, but he knew she had internal injuries, too.
"Captain?"
He looked at doctor Tran, trying not to think too hard. "What is it?"
"She'll make it to medical, but she has to go into surgery straight away."
"Techs are waiting in the infirmary," he replied, answering the unasked question. "They'll get her armour off as quick as they can."
How odd it was, he thought, for Spartans to live in their gear but not be allowed to remove or clean it. He'd seen the Master Chief take care of his armour, handling it with a gentle reverence he didn't know the man was capable of. Another difference between the different generations of Spartans that he didn't know if it made the IIs better or worse than the IVs.
There was a movement on the gurney, and an odd gurgle. "Tom," he realised she was saying, and he quickly moved to her side.
Her head rolled in his direction, her eyes open enough to glare at him. "Piece of shit," she breathed, her lips twitching.
He suppressed a rather hysteric laugh. "I couldn't help myself. Lucky that I watched this time, too."
"Lucky... nothing. Spartans don't die," she managed, her fingers groping for the hand at his side. He slid his palm into hers, covered in dirt and blood. "At least... not me."
"I'm glad," he whispered. He sat down next to her, feeling an odd wave of nostalgia. When he saw her cough and grimace in pain, Chyler's face came to mind. It brought on another bout of panic, and he gripped her hand more tightly. He didn't want to watch another good person die, especially not Palmer.
Her face contorted into a wince, as if she had a horrible taste in her mouth. Her hair, now untangled from its usually tight ponytail, fell into her eyes. Not caring that there were half a dozen other people in the room, he brushed the stray strands away from her face, a soft tenderness coming over him. Even covered in muck, injured and half-awake, she still managed to glare at him for helping her. He smiled at her. No, he would not add her dog tags to his chain today. She was a bit too stubborn to let that happen.
Despite his best efforts, he fell asleep waiting. An odd thing for him, since stress usually kept him awake for nights on end, but his body had decided to shut down and he could only sit back and enjoy the momentary rest. It passed the time more quickly, at least.
It was irresponsible of him to camp out in the infirmary, dozing against a wall. He had a few day's worth of worked backlogged, and he should be on the bridge in case there was a problem—and there was always a problem, always something he had to mediate or fix or respond to. If anything, he was surprised there weren't more problems he needed to attend to on a vessel of seventeen thousand people.
When a doctor shook him gently on the shoulder to wake up, he saw that he'd slept deep into third shift—three in the morning for Earth time. Even the other Spartans had retired to their beds. A wise decision, really.
Lasky hauled himself up off the floor, wincing at the popping joint in his knee. He was definitely not sixteen anymore.
"How is she?" he asked immediately, rubbing his knee. Tran looked exhausted, and his glasses were skewed at an odd angle on his wrinkled face.
"The elite managed to puncture her stomach and graze her lung and kidney—a few centimetres up, and the stab would have killed her before she made it back here. There's quite a bit of damage, and we've replaced some tissue, but—" his sentence trailed off as he yawned. "But… she's fine. She'll have to be on a liquid diet for about a week until her stomach is no longer in shock, which I'm sure she won't be pleased about." The old man's mouth twitched at the thought.
"Is she awake?"
"If she was, you'd know. You can go see her now, if you'd like. Looks like you've been waiting awhile."
His face flushed. Maybe Sarah was right—did half the ship really think they were sleeping together? His distaste for gossip must have left him out of the loop, because Tran gave him a knowing look before heading towards the tiny coffee machine in the office space of the infirmary.
He pushed inside Sarah's room, immediately assaulted by the smell of blood masked with cleaning alcohol and the sound of medical equipment beeping and wheezing. He headed straight for her bed, and pulled a plastic chair under him before sitting down beside her.
They'd cleaned the blood and dirt off of her, and her hair had been restored to a semi-tidy state. She looked pale and uncomfortable, her mouth set in a frown even as she slept. Tom took her hand, noticing again how warm her skin always was. He ran fingers over her calloused palm, letting the sounds of the monitors beside him fade away.
He had discovered two things today, and only now had the materialized into actual thoughts, sitting beside her. One, he was painfully in love with the woman sleeping on the hospital bed in front of him, and two, he wanted to pursue the first revelation with unprofessional abandon. He would not hide his feelings away like he had with Chyler, only to watch her die as he finally had the courage to let the spark he felt grow.
Both of those thoughts made him grin like an idiot, safe to let his mouth tug ear-to-ear in the privacy of Sarah's room. He'd thought the days of fevered, passionate love had been lost with youth, not that he'd ever really experienced it to begin with, but what he felt now was strong and steady and frightening. He'd been unsure before, concerned with the backlash and complications of them being together, but now he realised he didn't give a fuck. She was one of the few true friends left to him, and he wasn't about to let military propriety get in the way.
"Win the lottery?"
His head snapped up, and he saw Sarah eyeing him with amusement. "What?"
"You've got a giant grin on your face," she explained.
"Oh," he muttered, and wiped his mouth, as if trying to physically remove it. "How… how are you feeling?" So much for bold declarations of love, he thought.
"Better than I was," she admitted, and struggled to sit up. He tried to help, to which she only responded with a dangerous glare, and settled back down onto the lumpy mass of pillows behind her a moment later. She let out a sharp breath from the movement, a hand moving to her wounded side in reflex.
"You shouldn—"
"I know, but lying down is uncomfortable." She replaced her hand in his, and gave him a small smile. "You don't look good."
"I fell asleep on the floor," he muttered, and Sarah's grin grew.
"Oh yeah?" she prodded. She looked extremely pleased with herself.
"Yeah," he said seriously. "You're one of the last friends I've got. I needed to know how you were doing."
"You have more friends than you think you do. People like you, Tom."
"Even so," he said, looking down at their hands. "I was… scared."
"The hinge-head that stuck me with his knife," she began, squeezing his fingers. "He had a tube of your cream."
Of all the things he could imagined she'd say, that was not one of them. "What? Why?"
"Apparently they like the taste of it, for whatever fucking reason," she said, shrugging her shoulders and then grimacing. "Guess that's another reason for them to shoot down supply lines. But… it made me think of you. Think of Cadmon's anniversary coming up, and how worried you always look, and those stupid PJs you own," she added, smiling at him. "It made me want to come back to Infinity, and not in a body bag." She frowned, as if confused where the tender words had come from. "That, and I have too much goddamn paperwork to fill out to just up and die."
An impressive compliment from Palmer. It eased the worry in his chest. "Well, keep thinking that. If it brings you back, you can think about ducks all day long."
"Maybe, but I prefer you," she teased. "Blisters and ducks and all."
Not being able to help himself, he leaned in to kiss her. It was a simple one, not frenzied or steamy or desperate—just a nice kiss. When he pulled away, Palmer gave him another smile, and they stayed like that until he fell asleep in the chair, lulled by the sound of her soft breathing.