This is one of my FAVORITE chapters I've written so I'm posting a little closer together than I normally do. When you guys review I get excited and post faster as well. Bwahaha. Enjoy!
Kelly sprinted quickly up the rocky face of the mountain, her hands dug into the rock holds without a problem. She put all of her thoughts and feelings into the physical activity at hand.
Fred liked to climb slowly, he liked to observe from different viewpoints and contemplate the light and shadows created on the various faces of the mountain. Seeing from such a high vantage point gave him perspective on himself and the universe, which brought him peace.
John used physical activity to focus inward, to sort out his own thoughts. For years he had been used to hearing Cortana constantly, a running inner monologue. Now, it was quiet and he replaced the chatter with his own thoughts as he pulled himself up the mountain.
I'm going to be a father.
What is a father?
What do babies need?
What do daughters need?
Will she be safe?
Can I make her safe?
Will Cortana be safe?
Will this hurt her?
Have I hurt her?
Climbing was interesting, it combined both endurance, strength and high intensity physical exercise all in one activity. John liked how it made him feel out of breath. It was hard to find physical challenges difficult enough for him, running was the easiest to satisfy, he could just run forty miles at a quick pace and he'd have to push to finish. It would remind him of when Chief Mendez would yell at them when they were little and he could tell when one of them wanted to give up during PT, he'd say things like "You're already hurting, it's not going to stop, make it mean something!" It was a physical strain he found relieving, comforting even. Even if there had been a military station nearby, he had ruined ODST gyms by trying to exercise among them. He had seen the specialized Spartan gym bays on the Infinity and had definitely been impressed-there were newer, denser metals that could be the size of a dinner plate and weigh as much as 500 pounds.
Those resources weren't available to him in the outer colonies. He probably could've purchased said equipment, but it seemed like such a hassle. Instead he tried to find challenges that he could create, either in nature or by simply pushing himself.
He pulled himself up to the summit where Kelly sat on top, staring down at everything below her. On many planets, they would've been high into the clouds but the atmosphere here made clouds higher up than average so they could see the view below them very easily.
She sat with her shirt pulled up, looking at her abdomen, tracing a finger over it mindlessly. On Cortana, the slightly raised bump on her stomach didn't look too strange-it blended in with the smoothness of her body and the softness of her hips which is why John really hadn't noticed much of a change until the past week. Kelly, on the other hand, had slim hips and hard muscle, her stomach looked almost as if it were bulging out of her, a hard, tiny, bump that was her forming child.
John couldn't help but stare at her a little bit. It was strange to see Kelly so enamored with something so simple. She pulled down her shirt slowly and continued to look off into the distance.
After about twenty minutes, Fred climbed up to the summit. He sat alongside Kelly and wrapped an arm around her waist. She leaned her head onto his shoulder and John couldn't help but feel lonely.
He remembered the time he had carried Cortana up this mountain. She had tried to keep up with him out of spite for a good part of it but when it had gotten to be too much, John picked her up without asking and carried her up. She threw a fit for part of the way, insisting she could make it on her own if he just gave her enough time, despite the fact that her face had been flushed bright red and she had broken out into quite the sweat while John hadn't even been breathing hard. When they had made it to the top of the mountain, she sighed and thanked him reluctantly even though she most definitely could've made it up herself. She had winked at him when she said that, her own way of joking at him.
She had fallen asleep on his back while they descended the mountain. He remembered dressing her in her nightgown, pulling back the covers of their bed and tucking her in she had been so exhausted.
"Fred, send the pod up to take a picture of all three of us up here," Kelly said lightly. She had really gotten into documenting as many things as she possibly could-she had shown John numerous photo albums she'd made just of the past few months. He had never seen so many pictures of himself. It was nice to document memories in some capacity.
John sat down next to them and looked at the hovering camera pod. He didn't smile, he seldom smiled artificially, like for a photo or when saying hello to someone, unless it had actually brought him joy.
Kelly didn't smile but her entire being emanated joy. He could feel her happiness, her anticipation. Cortana was the opposite. She was angry most of the week, he even found himself wanting to avoid her and her rapid mood swings when he'd never wanted to avoid her in his time knowing her.
"How are you feeling?" questioned Fred quietly.
"I feel better than I've ever felt. I feel fast, strong and excited. Doctor says I can continue to do the activities I enjoy until my third trimester, then I'll just have to limit my physical activity to more low-impact activity." she said smiling softly.
John started to worry. Why did Kelly feel so happy, healthy and enthusiastic while Cortana was nauseated and miserable? It seemed odd to think that Spartans were better at carrying children, that wasn't their purpose but here they were. John worried that his contribution would affect Cortana adversely, that their daughter would end up harming her. He thought upon exactly how breakable Cortana was.
"John?" questioned Kelly.
He shook his head, losing his train of thought.
"What?"
She looked at him confidently. "Don't worry about Cortana, she's going to be fine, everything she's experiencing is relatively normal for women in their first trimester of pregnancy."
Fred pressed a button and took a picture of John and Kelly together. The sun was setting and he liked the shadows it made on their faces. Kelly's face was angular, her jaw strong, her eyes wide set and her lips thin. She had random superficial scars that peppered her face. She was Fred's favorite subject. She was beautiful beyond compare in his eyes.
When they had embarked on the daunting process of starting a sexual relationship, he had been apprehensive to say the least. He had been able to appreciate that she was pleasing to look at but sexual attraction was a different thing entirely.
When they started treatment, things started to change for him very quickly.
Every tiny facial expression she made, the way the light would catch in her eyes, how her hair looked with wind tangling it, her long arms and legs, her pale skin, even the way she smelled all became daily realizations, daily things he discovered not only by seeing them but in his reactions.
One evening, perhaps two days after they had started the treatment, Kelly was in the bathroom. He watched her splash water on her face. She noticed his presence before she reached for a towel to wipe her face and the sight captivated him-the droplets of water clung to her eyelashes and wet her hairline, a few drops dripped from her upper lip and a few more crept down her neck and disappeared underneath her tank top to the hollow between her breasts.
He had never wanted anything so badly and it was an extremely uncomfortable feeling.
"Fred?" she had questioned him quietly, seeming a little nervous.
He moved towards her and touched her face, running his thumb over her lips, catching the water. Her eyes were wide in shock.
"What do you feel?" she whispered softly.
"Something," was all he could respond with.
She leaned towards him and kissed him softly. They had done this before, and it had often felt awkward, as if he were simply doing any other physical action tied to Kelly, were it shaking her hand or pushing her out of the line of fire, there had been no particular sensation attached to the action.
It was different this time. He deepened their kiss and grabbed her face. It went from being a tiny spark to an inferno, he couldn't control it, he was starting to feel desperate and the noises he was making were showing it, just from kissing her.
He started taking off her clothes. He didn't really know why, he just knew she was wearing far too much. She pulled off his shirt and continued to frantically kiss him. She bit and pulled at his lips and he couldn't even begin to explain why he found it so erotic, it simply was. He would've never even known how to describe it, it was physical and intuitive all of a sudden. She pulled off her own skirt and reached to unbuckle his pants.
They fell to the floor with a definitive sound and they both stared at each other.
The moment changed. There was confusion again. He realized that they were both naked, staring at one another. He had never looked at her body for its differences from his-she was a Spartan just like himself, her speed legendary. He looked at her figure and knew he wasn't thinking of her speed. It made him feel nervous and confused. Almost dazed.
She nervously looked at him, her apprehension palpable. They didn't speak as she turned on the shower water and stepped into the stream.
He felt so overwhelmed, looking at her with the water running down her body, in between her breasts and across her hips. It was something he'd seen before but never appreciated, never thought of it in this context.
She reached out her hand to him and he took it.
She pulled him towards her and into the water. She drew his hand to her face and closed her eyes, she brought his hand to her lips and dragged his fingers over them, moving his hand down the column of her throat and over to her breasts.
She pressed herself into him and he palmed her breast. She sharply took in breath.
"Please, do that," she whispered. He continued to touch her even when she roughly brought him to her mouth, kissing him so fiercely her teeth bumped against his. He could feel his body reacting to the sensation.
When she reached down and grabbed him he moaned audibly.
She was curious, he could tell as she touched him. She was fumbling and almost graceless but it somehow endeared him to her even more. He'd never felt anything so teasingly good, so completely wonderful yet incomplete.
Her face while she observed him was one he'd see before-she was assessing a challenge, weighing her options and planning her best strategy.
She had clearly chosen her plan when she pushed him against the wall of the shower and started moving her hand in earnest.
He knew what the sensation was, in his adolescence he'd had awkward, fumbling orgasms in the secrecy of the night before the urge had disappeared entirely-he supposed that it was only natural at the onset of puberty. This was something entirely different, having her see him this way, seeing his reaction and his vulnerability.
He stopped her when he was worried he'd finish. Soaking wet, they ran to their bed. She pulled him on top of her and kissed him with the same ferocity as earlier. She was so intense, so focused on what she wanted, it was her very nature but Fred couldn't help but feel surprised at the overall effect.
He broke away from her and looked at her. Her hair was wet and splayed all over their pillows. Her cheeks were rosy and her lips slightly swollen. He kissed her softly and slowly, enjoying how she felt against him, their bodies still wet and sliding against each other. They broke apart again and he looked into her eyes. This close up, he could see the variances in color between their eyes. The ocular enhancements gave an overall unifying appearance to the Spartan-II eye but he could see a lighter blue when he examined Kelly's eyes more closely. He had never seen this kind of look in her eyes. It was stunning to him, her intensity, her passion, everything about her he wished he could take into himself and make it part of him. She was so many things he was not. If he could, he would take a photo of this moment, of her eyes. Instead he looked at her, memorizing every detail, committing her gaze to memory so he would never forget.
"Is this what you want?" he couldn't help but ask. He wanted her. He knew that, in some sense, she wanted him too, but he had to be sure.
She took a deep breath and simply nodded.
He'd never done this before and had hardly thought of it even.
It was awkward. She even winced uncomfortably.
"Are you in pain?"
She simply looked at him as if to say 'I have run into explosions and gunfire, this is not painful,'
"No. Just, give me a second," she continued to squirm underneath him a little bit, trying to adjust properly to the foreign feeling.
She exhaled quickly and looked at him. "Okay, try again," she said.
As he moved, he could see her wince a little bit here and there, but it didn't seem as bad as before.
He could feel himself losing control, he tried to stop moving and she shook her head. "No, it's okay," she said quickly, reading his thoughts.
When he finished, he sighed. It had felt wonderful, but he couldn't help but feel guilty, until Kelly jumped out of bed quickly and did a handstand. She started doing press-ups, completely naked.
He normally didn't question her and her sometimes oddly spirited antics, but even he couldn't help but ask: "What in the world are you doing?"
"Read on a pregnancy forum that putting yourself upside down after sex can help conception, I think it's an old wives tale, but if anything it's fun," she laughed.
He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "You're not…upset?"
She continued to do her press-ups but craned her neck and looked at him, a perplexed expression on her face.
"Upset? Why would I be upset?"
"Because you didn't…" he felt awkward again.
"I think that's pretty normal, we'll work on it. For now I'm just happy to be with you, besides, it was still enjoyable," she smirked and he couldn't help but feel flushed. Even though they were both sitting in their bedroom naked while he watched her do nude press-ups, he still had the nerve to feel embarrassed.
She snapped quickly back up to her feet very quickly, like she did everything. She sprung herself onto their bed, shaking the whole frame. She was energetic almost to the point of hyperactivity. She had been that way since they were children, only slowing down when it was absolutely required. She had been punished when they were young for fidgeting almost constantly. A drill instructor had screamed himself hoarse when she fidgeted in formation. "Move that arm in formation again and I am going to take it as a threat, chop off that arm and beat you senseless with it!" Fred nearly chuckled at the memory. She was perhaps the most extroverted of all of them, and the most willful-she had tried to escape three times after being conscripted. It was still very apparent in her adult personality.
She sat on the bed and propped a pillow underneath her back, elevating her hips. He glanced at her.
"What? No science to prove it doesn't work, can't hurt," she teased, sensing his skepticism.
Fred looked at her up on the mountaintop with the man that he knew she considered her brother. He had always viewed John as an excellent leader and a brother-in-arms, but the relationship he and Kelly shared was special. Something in Kelly had changed, seeing him again. She had talked about him a long time while she had been on duty with the new Spartans-talked about how she knew he was alive, knew he was out there and how someday she swore she'd find him. When she had heard he went AWOL, she added onto that list-she swore she would punch him in the face. She hadn't done that. She'd simply wept over how much she had missed him and how much she still missed Sam.
Looking at them together, he felt that they could maybe use some time together. They would probably be short on it soon.
"I'm going to go back, I have some editing to do."
Kelly smiled and gestured for him to bend down. He did so and she kissed him. When she pulled away she whispered quietly in his ear, "thank you." Thank you for knowing what I need. Thank you for understanding me. These were the unsaid things Fred knew she meant with her gratitude.
Kelly sighed and looked off into the sunset.
"So, it's been a week, want to talk about it?"
"Talk about what," he intoned.
"Talk about how you're gonna be a dad," she smiled.
"Not much to talk about," he replied.
"Aren't you the least bit excited?"
He didn't speak.
"It is a lot," she agreed, reading into his silence "but for what it's worth, I think you'll be a great dad."
"What makes you think that?" he spoke.
"You're a great brother, for starters," she smiled at him and he couldn't help but feel his heart clench a little at her affection. "You're smart, you're kind, self-sacrificing, I think those are all great things for fathers to be. I know you don't have a memory of a father, besides Chief Mendez I suppose. I wouldn't recommend yelling that much, you'll age quickly," she laughed a little.
He leaned back and ran a hand through his hair. "It just seems strange. It was easy for me to just be with Cortana, I had been with her for so long, it was more accurate to say that she was a part of me than anything else. I don't know how to love a child. I don't think I've even seen a baby before, really. Or even a pregnant female for that matter."
"Well, your child will be a part of Cortana and you know how to love her, so you could start with that, but most of all I think you'll just know. You're the lucky one, remember?" she smiled softly at him.
She ran her hand over her stomach again, her face turning solemn.
"I haven't told Fred yet, but I'm naming this baby Sam. Samantha if it's a girl, Samuel if it's a boy," she said quietly.
In that moment, John could see all of the grief and loneliness she had felt in the years they had been separated.
"We made a good team, us three," she continued. "You're so serious, such an excellent leader, I would've, and still would, follow you anywhere. Sam was so...he was just so damn funny. He was so strong and he could do pretty much anything. He was loyal and he was a great friend and brother. He was such an idiot. I remember when I was recovering from our procedures and I was hearing rumors about me being washed out if I didn't recover within the week, he would come over to me and give me these crazy pep talks, he'd do things like literally yell directly at my legs to stop reacting like pansies and catch up with the rest of me."
"Oddly enough I remember that," he laughed a little bit. "I had a hard time with my eyes, I couldn't see for a while until it all snapped together. I remember hearing him running around like crazy, trying to get the two of us to quit puking and feeling like we had been run over by a Scorpion," John smiled at the memory. Sam had been so strong and refreshingly simple. He was the most loyal person John had ever known and his best friend before Cortana. His second command, he had taken bullets and thrown tanks for him. Sam would, and did, do anything for all of them.
"I think about him so much, I know that so many others have died and it's what he wanted, that he wanted to go out with a bang fighting but some days it's just so hard," she whispered, her voice wavering a little bit, "when I saw you again John, I could just see him, I could see us three together again, I know he'd be so goofy like he always was. Then I remembered he was dead. Every day I think about it, I wish I could just say "No," and get him back. Not all of us can look death in the eye and just say 'no', huh Chief?" she cried silently, just like she had the day Sam died. She was the only person he'd ever known who could cry nobly, cry without looking broken. Kelly was a woman who could wear tears and seem stronger, fiercer. He had always admired her ability to let her feelings make her stronger, it was very different from his natural reaction to emotion. She would take her love and grief for Sam and let it make her an amazing mother.
"He'd be happy that we are together now," John said quietly. It was an odd thing to say, to hypothetically speak of the dead but it felt right somehow. John knew it was true.
She didn't speak, but she nodded, reached over and grabbed his hand. She found comfort in knowing he understood, knowing that he missed their brother too.
They sat like that, silently until the sun set and the stars came out.
They climbed down the mountain quickly, jumping large distances partly to save time and partly for the rush it provided.
When they had reached the base, Kelly looked over at John. They both had no trouble seeing in the darkness, he could easily see her slightly pained expression.
"Are you going to be okay?" he couldn't help but ask.
"I think so. It's nice to talk sometimes. At least for me," she smiled. "You usually let Cortana do most of the talking, don't you?"
"She doesn't let me get a word in edgewise," he stated dryly.
Kelly smiled softly. "She has been an invaluable friend to me."
"She is special," John replied simply.
"I know I told you this once before, but I really mean it when I say I understand why you'd tear apart the entire galaxy and abandon everything for her. When I had heard about you going missing, I was angry. I couldn't believe you would abandon your duties and the mission the way you had. It makes sense now. She has become dear to me," she looked off into the direction of her home, "I'm going to go sleep, I've been needing more sleep than usual," she paused and her face took on the same softness he associated with Kelly, an intangible goodness that in part defined her.
"Goodnight, John," she said softly.
"Goodnight Kelly."