Normally, Alex tried to avoid tense situations. Whenever possible, she either ignored or dealt with arguments as quickly as possible. She managed this by often by pulling rank or using the 'I'm a huge Spartan' card. Failing that, a dismissive comment or two followed by a smooth advance to the rear always did the trick. Of course, she wouldn't be insubordinate to a higher ranking officer (yeah sure).

Alex simply didn't like fighting, except when it came to Commander Palmer. That woman simply pissed her off. Guess who always follows Palmer around with a rocket or an energy sword on war games?

Ugh, she hadn't even seen the woman in a month and her hands itched for a "friendly" round of war games training. She would probably get her wish granted if the higher ranks did assign her team back to the Infinity as supposed. The Spartan month was meant to be held pretty soon anyway.

Focus Alex... or rather don't focus. Chill and clear your mind. Like a ninja in a dojo. Like a monk on a temple. Like a—

"Dude stop!" Zoe slapped Alex's hand that was rubbing the large scar on her left hand rather obsessively. Alex stopped with the nervous movement and tried to breathe deeply.

She always rubbed her scar or bit her lip when the anxiety was boiling inside her and threatening to give her a heart attack. Her drill instructor had picked up on her because of it and had loved to place her under stressful situation just to make her bite her lip or rub her scar. Sometimes it plainly looked like sexual harassment because it was the easiest way to make her anxious. Her instructor loved screaming at her with his face close enough to make her hit his nose with her forehead. She had stopped showing her anxiety in front of higher ranks but she couldn't get rid of her nervous movements.

"Was I wrong?" Alex asked out of the blue.

"About what?" Zoe asked easily, only half-paying attention. She'd long since learned that Alex tended to ask random, broad, and impossibly vague questions when she was deep in thought. Usually nothing came of it; Alex would just mumble something and move on when asked for clarification.

"I... I don't know," Alex saw Zoe tilt her head in confusion. "The whole incident... I mean I could be dead right now and I'm probably going to get us killed if things keep escalating like they have. He told me that he could have killed me!"

"You are crazy," interrupted Zoe "you have good instincts and that's why you didn't get yourself killed in there." Alex nodded in appreciation at the comment; Zoe wasn't the type of person to give compliments lightly. "Oh and by the way, what did you do with him to make him calm down?"

"I just applied pressure to his sympathetic system," she responded vaguely.

"That's a thing?"

"What do you mean by 'that's a thing' of course it's a thing! It slows the metabolic rate relaxing his—" she was quickly interrupted by Zoe.

"I'm just hearing science, science, science, science." Alex grunted in exasperation.

"Shut up Zoe," and with that Alex continued spacing out.

"Do you hate her?"

"Her? Her who?" Zoe gave her a look. "Her as in the Doctor?" Alex saw Zoe nod on her peripheral vision, "The woman is a bitch! Who the hell kidnaps children for experiments?"

She is the reason why he is broken. Wait... broken? He was the hero of humanity, the person who could probably destroy a frigate with his pinkie. Alex must be crazy to think that... wasn't she?

Alex closed her eyelids as hard as she could and placed her forehead on the cool metallic surface of the table. She was tired and suddenly felt the need to go to her room and die. Which she might do later if she feels like getting up.

"Zoe do me a favor and drag me to my room so I can die there," said Alex, her voice muffled by the table and the hair on her face. Zoe simply chuckled and stood up leaving Alex alone. Alex groaned and sat up, she looked like she had a hangover and with that mood she stood up and dragged herself to her bedroom.


It was one thing to have Alex up and ready at 0400 in full Spartan armor in the docking bay, but to make her skip breakfast? A Spartan needs to eat twice as much as the average soldier and sometimes even more! It doesn't matter what they did to her organs and blood to make her system process proteins and shit more efficiently. She felt like she could probably eat a horse right now.

She had arrived early as expected from her as the team leader of Fireteam Raven, only to find the Chief already there in his suit; standing like a statue in the place they were supposed to meet with Captain Delgado. Alex yawned and groaned after realizing that she was both hungry and tired, not a good combination. The only thing left for her was to be on her period and she would be in full murder mode.

The Chief saw Alex entering the docking bay in her gray Venator suit. He had heard her gloating about her armor twice and he admitted that it did look menacing, yet it had the elegance and grace of a female warrior. He considered his own armor to provide a better defense than hers at the price of the agility that her armor portrayed.

Having finished his examination, he returned his attention to watching the 372 crew members of the docking bay for any suspicious behavior. He had counted each crew member himself. He kept a closer eye for those who came in range of his motion sensors. He kept his body facing the crew with his back to a metallic crate that he could use for cover if needed. He had a gun concealed in the compartment of his right leg and four knives in other compartments, two in his back, one in his chest and the other in his left thigh.

Alex, being the socially awkward human she was, raised her arm too quickly to wave at him and almost slapped a man running with some files in his embrace. The private didn't see Alex or her hand, but the Spartan reflexes saved his life by retracting her arm before she could hit him in full Spartan armor. She grimaced at the thought of almost killing someone by accident. The Chief only turned his head slightly towards Alex who didn't attempt to wave again as she was intimidated by the cold stare of his golden visor.

It felt uncomfortable and surreal to be at the other side of the helmet, especially since she wasn't wearing her own helmet that was safely tucked under her arm. She didn't take her eyes from his golden visor. If she had, she would have seen the pale faces of the crewmembers that saw the incident.

So, she just nodded at him once she was near and considered donning her helmet to be able to blush and be able to do whatever facial expression she wanted, but she currently had her hair down and she needed both hands to fix her hair. She sighed and resigned herself to focus on not making facial expressions and wait for the others.

The Chief sprung to attention and she made a face. Why was he... oh. She suddenly remembered that the Master Chief was a non-com and she was an officer. She saluted at him and moved to stand next to him. It was quite a curious thing, the new Spartan branch had forgotten the meaning of rank. There were only positions for the Spartans. You could be the Commander like Palmer, a team leader or just a Spartan; anything higher would be Admiral.

The Chief didn't say much, normally she wouldn't have a problem with silence, but she couldn't tell what he was thinking and that bothered her. The man showed no body language and she couldn't read his face either for obvious reasons. She shifted her stance and sighed silently to make herself look like she was just bored, not tense. Well she did look kinda bored to the common eye. She started to bite her lower lip as she fumbled with an imaginary spot on her gray helmet.

The Chief was not moving even a bit, not even a finger twitched or a shift in his perfect stance. He could be replaying her incident with the little guy or judging her by whatever she was doing wrong.

Chill Alex breath, you only have to endure this until someone else comes.

She did try to look casual, but she was anxious. Her eyes moved rapidly as she scanned the crowd for anything, too bad her eyes turned to the Chief every now and then to see if he moved or something. She could only see the shift of his chest plate as he took deep breaths, she focused on his breathing for a moment and then returned to looking at the crowd that turned to look at them every now and then.

She thanked the gods when Louis came into view after five long and tedious minutes of uncomfortable silence. Alex waved with an expression of pain that expressed how grateful she was for his appearance. John shifted his stance to openly look at her and Alex was conscious of his shift.

Louis knew her expression well, it practically screamed social anxiety to him. They learned to read each other's expressions since they were children because they spent much of their time together. They could read each other so well that people were freaked out by it. The perks of having a twin.

Louis gave her a small sympathetic smile as he was getting closer to the couple feeling the Chief's eyes on him. When he was close enough he stretched his arm that was not holding his helmet to give a strong half-hug to his sister. He pretended not to feel the golden visor looking in his general direction silently.

"Chief," he nodded in acknowledgement. The Chief nodded back in response.

The Chief was studying her interactions with her brother. She had a look of relief as she saw him entering the docking bay, which made him wonder if his presence bothered her. It wouldn't be the first or the last time he would make someone uncomfortable with simply being near them.

Their interactions were completely unnecessary in his point of view. Not to mention that Louis was supposed to salute since his sister is his commanding officer. Then again, "sister" was the key word, though he didn't quite understand the concept. Intellectually, John knew what siblings were, but it was always something distant, something non-Spartans had. Something that only came up when he needed to determine how much of a security risk a person was. He didn't know the implications of actually having a sibling but he felt like his fellow Spartans II had taken a similar role of that of an actual siblings in the Spartan program was novel and he couldn't help but be a bit curious.

Most people stared at them in hopes of understanding how this two grew up together to become Spartans. Some scientists even stalked their family tree for a while until they gave up seeing that it was composed of totally normal people. Normal being an understatement... you should see the Christmas dinners.

Alex grunted and struggled against Louis chest. Her face had almost hit his chest plate when he hugged her and she was annoyed.

"Louis stop!" Alex gave him a firm push when she managed to place her free hand on his chest. He laughed and backed off, Alex tried to brush her hair with her gloved hand.

Louis smiled at her, completely aware of what he had done. He brushed a stray strand of hair away from her face gently because of the rough texture of his gloves and moved to stand next to her.

Alex huffed in annoyance and got closer to John's body attempting to get far from Louis. She crossed her arms over chest carefully as to not touch the visor of her helmet. She never liked the possibility of her visor getting dirty or scratched and she was very protective of it.

A group of women led by a blond with too much makeup started to casually approach the group. Actually, every single one of them had too much makeup, even the shy redhead behind them. Alex stared at them with curiosity and a slight disgust. She never wore makeup and it was mainly because she didn't know how to apply it.

"Hey Louis," purred the blond seductively. The others followed suit and either waved or winked at him.

They left as soon as they came, and Alex slowly turned to Louis with an eyebrow raised.

"What?" He grinned awkwardly, "What can I do? It's the Sandoval charm." Alex shook her head trying to hide a grin. John wondered for a second who or what Sandoval was until he deduced by Alex's reaction that it was their family name.

Louis grinned and looked at Alex with a knowing look that made her giggle and then laugh with him. They ignored the Chief staring at them as he studied their facial expressions. He noticed that they both shared a lone dimple on one of their cheeks. He accepted that he was curious of their antics, lately he was starting to feel more curious towards social interactions that he never had the chance to experience. He reminded himself of how pointless they were and continued to scan the perimeter.

Scott and Zoe appeared shortly after, the later saluting briskly at Alex who returned the salute in the same manner. Scott did his salute lazily and gained an elbow to his ribs from Zoe who marched to a spot next to Louis. She completely ignored the Chief's presence as she stood in parade rest next to Louis.

Scott rolled his eyes at her actions, shook hands with Louis and attempted to wrap an arm around Alex who slapped his arm away with a small quirk on the corner of her lips. Scott nodded towards the chief and started contemplating taking the spot between him and Alex. He felt the stare of the golden visor and decided against it.

It was all going smoothly until they were all standing there and waiting... in an eerie silence. The workers tried to act like nothing was going on, but failed miserably as some stared at the five Spartans with curiosity every now and then.

The Spartans sprung to attention in perfect sync as Captain Delgado made his appearance. The captain saluted and swore he saw a crewmember taking a picture of the moment.

"At ease Spartans," they stood in parade rest "I'm sorry for having you brought here instead of the bridge but we had some technical problems and it's a mess up there." He shook his head in exasperation "Well then... follow me to a more private area please."

The captain had an air of elegance and command as he led the Spartans through the deck. There were several pelicans waiting to be deployed and some engineers doing routine check-ups on their engines as well as several containers being pulled by warthogs and trucks built for the bigger containers. The whole deck was alive with working crew and the noise that was to be expected.

Eventually, the captain led them to a frail looking set of stairs going to catwalk above. This was mainly used to provide easy access the top of pelicans or other large vehicles, but it also branched off into a few side rooms and compartments; one of which was apparently their destination. Alex, who was right behind the captain, hesitated on stepping on the stairs because of the weight of the armor

"Don't worry, the stairs are made of the same shit the hull is made of." The captain said offhandedly as he began walking up the stairs. Alex still hesitated as she gently set a foot on the stairs. She took several steps and then nodded for Scott to follow her. He stepped on it and heard a creak.

"Did you hear that?" Asked Louis.

"Yeah we better go up one at a time." Scott turned to the others who nodded in agreement. They didn't see Alex's pale face when she heard the creak of the stairs.

Captain Delgado led them into a meeting room with enough space for the five Spartans to stand comfortably.

"All right here we are. Your orders for today are to wait in the D-B1 area of this docking bay and hop on the Pelican waiting for all of you. This Pelican will drop you off at Sidney before everyone else where the press will be waiting for the Chief. Your stuff will be delivered to the base you'll be deployed in on Australia."

He began with the don't-be-idiots-in-front-of-the-press-speech directed to Fireteam Raven. Alex was really trying to listen to what he was saying, but she had heard the same speech far too many times since entering the academy. Despite her best efforts, her mind wandered back to the incident in the docking bay where she'd nearly killed that private before moving on to the curiosity beside her. Subconsciously her eyes turned to the Chief before realizing her mistake and quickly yanking them back to focus on the captain. Fortunately he didn't seem to have noticed her—

"Don't you agree with me Lieutenant Sandoval?"

"What- Sir, yes sir!" Alex blushed when the captain smiled knowingly and hid a chuckle with fake coughing.

"Since the LT is not in this room I certainly wish you all the luck you'll need Chief." The captain smiled and offered his hand to the Chief and winked at Alex. She just stood still and blushed. "Dismissed."

They saluted perfectly and waited for the captain to salute and leave the room. Alex was still blushing when he left and Scott slapped her in the shoulder with a grin.

"Food?" Asked Scott to which the others nodded and headed towards the exit of the docking bay. The Chief didn't move.

"Chief you coming?" Alex saw him hesitate and nod, she continued walking normally giving him a casual glance to check if he was still there. She soon found herself alone at the back of the group with John who was eerily quiet. Given how she could easily re-join the group, it wasn't nearly as unnerving as it was earlier.

"Why are you always asking me to 'tag along'?" He asked after a while.

"What?" She raised an eyebrow at him expecting him to explain himself further. She realized he wasn't going to do so. "Do you have other friends in this ship who you want to spend your precious time with?" He stayed silent, "exactly."

"Is this some kind of pity then?" he spat the word pity with utter disgust and anger.

Alex was taken aback, she would normally laugh, but his tone was dead serious. Did he really think that? His body was stiff as always and his pace robotic and monotone as always. Alex looked at his golden visor for the answers his body didn't have only to find that his visor pointed straight ahead.

"Pity?" She repeated confused with an eyebrow raised "Can't I just want your company?"

"I'm not much company," he said with his usual monotone voice.

"Define company," he didn't respond and just turned his head in her general direction. Alex sighed in exasperation, "look I wouldn't be dragging you along with us if I didn't want to, but if you don't want to 'tag along' then fine just leave." And with that she walked faster leaving the Chief behind in the hall. Alex tapped Scott in the arm and he automatically slithered his arm around her shoulders laughing at something Louis had said.

The Chief continued walking in a slower pace, not really understanding what just happened. He was surprised with her outburst and didn't quite understand why she had been angry at him. Was she even angry at him? Well it looks like she believes that he doesn't want to spend time with them. No one had been angry with him not accompanying someone somewhere. Cortana would've been able to explain the situation to him

He didn't consider following them, he had already eaten something around 0300 (he couldn't sleep) he wouldn't need food for a while. He kept walking forward, heading to the gym.

Socially awkward, yes that's what she had called him and maybe that's why he didn't quite understand what she'd be angry about. This type of thing spoke volumes about the differences between Spartans II and Spartans IV. The IVs had lived before the army and knew what humanity was. He didn't know what humanity meant.


"Alex what the hell was that with the Chief?" Scott had managed to slowly and quietly leave Louis and Zoe alone speaking about a new sniper rifle that needed some testing to do for when they arrived Earth.

"I have no idea what you are talking about Scott." Alex shook her head and bent her neck to look at him. Scott sighed and rolled his green eyes to make her know how stupid she was. "I really don't know Scott."

"The bitching in the hall," he added "or is there something else I don't know about?"

"No," she shook her head "why the hell do you even care?" She snapped at him at which he glared, "about the hall thing I think I'm just stressed and that's why I snapped at him." Alex turned her head to look behind her with a slightly guilty expression. "I should apologize for being a bitch to him."

"Sounds like PMS to me." Scott smiled at her annoyed face and held her tighter against his body. Alex struggled against him.

"Don't do that when we are wearing armor!" She slapped his armored arm and elbowed his side. Scott laughed and kept his arm on her shoulders.

"Sorry darling."

"Don't call me darling."

"Ok darling."

They arrived at the nearest mess hall and found a lonely table on the back they placed their helmets on the table and sat down with their food.

"What's the plan at Earth?" Asked Louis once everyone had settled down.

"Well Zoe was born there, she could take us around," Suggested Scott while eating Alex's discarded food.

"I was born in the Netherlands," nobody knew what that was "that's in Europe, I lived in Europe not Australia."

"That's a different continent right?" Asked Louis.

"Of course it is idiot," snapped Scott with disgust and Alex only smiled.

"Well we can always call a cab and ask the driver for a suggestion," suggested Alex, as Louis and Scott started shoving her and making a tss sound. The marines turned to look at them at the sound of metal hitting metal and the shuffling of the armor pieces.

"Wow! You finally had an idea." Louis pushed her again and then started grinning.

"I can even see smoke coming from your ear." Laughed Scott.

"Shut up." Alex stood up and sat next to Zoe who had been sitting alone next to the helmets.

"I hope we get to stay in armor for the whole thing at HQ," murmured Louis after a while "maybe with the Chief we won't have to dress up."

"The brass doesn't like to see us in full armor," Zoe started looking at her own visor "something about us being freaks with big muscles."

"You mean these muscles?" Louis and Scott both started making poses to show off their arms and the girls start laughing at how ridiculous they were. The marines on the other tables stopped eating to stare freely at the Spartans. The female marines even dropped their stuff and stopped talking.

"Good morning this is Captain Delgado speaking," the captain's voice was heard all through the ship stopping Scott and Louis's poses, "we will be dropping out of slipspace in four hours. Those who will drop down to Earth earlier than the rest are required to be at the docks in three hours." That meant Fireteam Raven, the Chief and those who would be going to smile at the cameras with them.

"That means three and a half," murmured a marine in the mess hall, possibly one of the marines forced to march.

The captain gave other instructions and called someone to the bridge before the "over and out" was heard.

Raven team stayed in the mess hall for a while until they decided to waste their time in the gym they had claimed as theirs since they were deployed.

The door opened to reveal the chief doing a single-handed handstand up in the ring with an arm on his back. The gravity was at its maximum and Cortana stood in the holo-pad looking out for the Chief with a worried expression.

"Fifteen minutes," said Cortana startling the Raven team and causing the Chief to switch arms.

"How long has he been doing that?" Asked Louis starring at the perfect handstand.

"An hour and fifteen minutes."

"Shit that's too much!" Exclaimed Louis, tilting his head to get a better look. The Chief wasn't paying attention to them and instead chose to focus on his breathing.

Alex gently set down her helmet on a bench and climbed on the ring. She kneeled down in front of the Chief were she could hear his heavy yet steady breathing.

"Hey Chief... how about stopping?" He shook his head "No? Ok then at least I asked you."

Alex stood up and shoved his legs to the side to force him to lose his balance. The Chief grunted and tightened his muscles to keep himself steady. Alex was momentarily impressed with the strength of his legs but shook the thought away and pushed him again, this time using her body weight against him.

The Chief fell with a metallic thud against the mat of the ring. John groaned but didn't move to stand up and instead got into a comfortable position on his back.

"He ok?" Asked Scott from afar, Alex nodded and everyone else went to sit down at the other end of the room.

"Chief?" she asked slightly worried to which she received no response "You okay?" No response. Alex sighed and knelt down to gently push the buttons below the earlobes of the helmet to release it.

She removed it as gently as she could and placed it next to his leg. Alex studied his red face for a moment. The Chief wasn't looking at her, he was just breathing and looking at the ceiling with a numb expression. His lips were relaxed but his eyebrows had a slight frown to them.

"Chief?" No response "John?" He finally looked at her, turning his head to make her know he was looking at her like he was used to always making such exaggerated movements to make people realize he is looking at them when wearing the helmet. Alex made eye contact before sighing and slowly laying down next to him.

"How red am I?" He asked in his deep baritone voice.

"Not too bad," she saw him turning his head to look at her but didn't take her eyes of the grey ceiling "like you normally look after sparing... not unhealthy looking." They just laid there for a while, Alex sat up to look at the others who had suddenly stopped talking. Scott had fallen asleep while Zoe and Louis were now playing chess.

"I wanted a distraction." He murmured.

"From what?" She asked, laying down next to him again.

"Thinking."

"Thinking about...?" No response... silence but not an uncomfortable one, a much needed one. Alex yawned and though of using her arm as pillow before remembering how uncomfortable using her armored arm would be.

"Sleep"

"What?"

"Sleep, you look tired." He turned his head to look at her.

"Why thank you!" She mockingly batted her eyelashes at him.

"I didn't mean to imply that you looked—" he was cut off by Alex sitting up abruptly.
"I can't sleep with this thing," she tugged at her chest plate "at least not with my helmet off." Rather than stand up she crawled to the side of the ring. It was funny to see a fully armored Spartan crawl so lazily. John couldn't help it but let the corner of his lips curl up into the slightest smile. Alex laid down face first on the mat and tried to reach her helmet.

"Why don't you go down?"

Alex turned her head and stared at John with a look of confusion and fear like he had grown a third arm out of the blue. Was that innuendo? No it couldn't be, he doesn't look like the pervy type of man. Then again what do perverts look like if we don't count the many facial expressions they do in presence of the other sex? Alex didn't realize how long she actually spent on thinking about what pervs looks and instead of figuring it out shook her head and decided to respond him.

"Because that requires standing up." Now that also could have been innuendo. Alex sighed and gave up on the helmet. "I'm sure that this pose would actually be comfortable if this chest plate didn't have boobs."

John shook his head and mimicked her pose, face looking at her. "No it isn't, my neck is killing me."

"Wow, I've never heard you complain about anything."

"He actually complains a lot," Cortana's voice was heard on the holo-pad's speakers "especially about my perfect driving skills."

"Thanks Cortana," mocked the Chief.

"You are welcome Chief."

"I'll add sarcastic to the list of things I hadn't noticed." Alex gave him a half smile and tried to get comfortable.

They stayed there waiting until it was time to go to the Pelican that would take them down to Earth, the ship would stay in orbit for the press conferences and some routine in-orbit checkups. They didn't speak much (more like they didn't say anything of importance) just rested until they had to actually do something.