This chapter is a bit short because I didn't really have anywhere to break it up–it was something ridiculous like 8,000 words before and I just felt like that was waaaay too long. So sorry if it seems a little awkward but this was the best way for me to put it. Hope you enjoy, I have military mumbo jumbo this weekend so review because America. :P :P (I'm just kidding.)

Fall had faded into winter and it was a week before Joan's third birthday. Still in her pajamas, Cortana went out to the kitchen and looked out at the balcony to see John teaching Joan how to swim. He had activated the heating lamps to warm the outdoor balcony to comfortable swimming temperatures despite snow falling outside the balcony.

She's up early for her, thought Cortana. She grabbed a mug of coffee and watched.

John was holding her underneath her belly, letting her practice floating around.

"Okay now kick, kick your feet," he coached. She started making rather ridiculous, inefficient kicks that created large splashes.

John let go and she managed to swim a few feet until she realized that she wasn't being held by her father anymore and started to panic and splash.

Cortana watched John wait a moment before he went to her aid. Joan clung to him and seemed a little angry.

"You swam all by yourself until you got scared," he said pointedly.

"No!" she said. She refused to let go of him and John decided that all productive activity was to cease so he got out of the pool with her.

Cortana smiled softly. She had had no idea how fulfilling seeing John as a father would be. He was just so good at it. She supposed that she shouldn't have been so surprised, she'd never known him to be bad at anything.

She handed him a towel and he wrapped Joan up.

"I think she would've paddled her way to the edge if you had just let her," she observed.

He shrugged. "Not today, some other time." He knew Cortana was right but for some reason he didn't want her to think that he wouldn't always come to her rescue-he knew that inevitably she would learn to swim and ultimately be capable of solving her own problems, but she was two going on three and he figured that that was already plenty early to be paddling about in a pool.

He toweled her off and she giggled when he tickled her and messed up her hair. He set her on the ground and told her to go pick out the clothes she wanted to wear that day. She ran off like John had requested making little wet footprints as she went.

"I hope you plan on picking through her hair after you just did that," said Cortana handing John a towel for himself.

He frowned as he toweled himself off. He hadn't thought about that. Joan hated having her hair picked through when it was tangled, she whined the entire time so it wasn't a fun task. Cortana smiled at his frown, stood as tall as she could and kissed him good morning, not caring that he was wet and getting her water on her pajamas.

She pulled away from him and smiled brightly, looking up at his face. "Good morning to you," she said flirtatiously.

"What are you doing today?" he asked softly.

She looked appraisingly at his arms and chest along with how the morning sunlight hit his face. How about you, she thought to herself. She felt a little overwhelmed by her feelings, she usually didn't get so distracted but she supposed that the idea of staying home in bed all day was more appealing when she had to go to class. She shook her head, she needed to rein herself in, her brain was moving a million miles a minute towards thoughts that would make her late for her first class.

She slowly unwrapped herself from him and sighed, clearly a little flustered.

"First I'm going to get dressed, then I have my Intro lecture and department meetings until the evening when I have a help session for students that have questions before our midterm on Friday," she said taking a gulp of her coffee. "You have any big plans for the day?"

"Comb out Joan's hair. Take Joan to the park. Exercise. Read while Joan naps. Call Fred and Kelly to confirm their travel plans. Wait for you to come home," he concluded. A rather mundane day that revolved almost entirely around his daughter's whims-he supposed it wasn't much different from when his day revolved entirely around NavSpecWarCOM's demands, just a lot less dangerous.

"What have you been reading lately?"

"I started A Soldier's Tale: Rainforest Wars," he said.

"I'm surprised you guys didn't read that when you had school, that's a classic," she said.

"Most of the reading we did was history and we did a lot of math and science even though we did read a few classics," he paused, "Do you know the contents of every book ever published when you were an AI?"

She nodded. "Mhmm, makes it difficult. Plenty of books have been published in the past few years but I haven't found anything really engaging. Maybe I'm just bad at finding good books."

He once again found himself amazed-he had no idea how she kept all that sorted out in her brain.

"How do you keep track of all that information?"

She shrugged. "I think that I'm not actively remembering most things, when you mentioned A Soldier's Tale, I immediately remembered the plot and everything about every edition of the book, its copy editors and the entire life story of Jeremiah Mendez, however, I wasn't thinking about it until you asked me. I think it's the same way your long term memory works, for example, if I asked you the name of the AI who guarded Installation 04, you would say," she prompted him to complete her sentence.

"343 Guilty Spark," he responded.

"Exactly, you know the answer and probably could name a few facts about him but I highly doubt you spend all day thinking about 343 Guilty Spark. At least I hope you don't," she teased.

They started to walk inside, John holding the door for her.

"I think I only had the capacity to let one artificial intelligence take up most of my thoughts," he commented.

"Well then it was most assuredly 343, he was so charming," she said walking into their room. She pulled her shirt over her head and smiled as she watched his attention shift from her face to her figure. She went into the closet and started picking out her clothes for the day.

"So you're going to talk to Kelly and Fred in the afternoon?" she asked while she pulled on a pair of slacks.

"Yes, I think Fred's gallery opens two weeks from now," he said.

She walked out of the closet fully dressed. John looked at her and couldn't help but admire what her clothes did for her figure. He never had thought much on clothing but he definitely appreciated the nice tailoring that had gone into her new wardrobe.

His gaze must have lingered for a while because she started to smirk.

"See something you like?" she said coyly, walking into their bathroom to run a brush through her hair.

He shook his head as he tried to gather his thoughts and respond in a manor that would be at least relatively witty.

"Maybe," was all he could come up with.

He went and stood in the bathroom doorway and watched her "straighten her hair." Her hair was already straight but apparently it looked more polished when she used the she set the iron down he grabbed her by the waist and kissed her.

She broke away and inhaled deeply, she put her hands on his chest.

"Clearly we're both a little keyed up. I have to go to work and I imagine that Joan would not understand that Mommy and Daddy want to spend the day in bed without her. So I have an idea."

"I'm listening," he murmured, smoothing his hands down to her hips distractedly. These pants did everything right. He hadn't known that pants could be right or wrong until they had come to Earth. He definitely had been missing something.

"This week is Valentine's Day, it's an old holiday created literally for the purpose of selling heart-shaped merchandise and flowers that is still rather popular here on Earth. I say that we ask some of our new friends to take Joan for the evening while we," she traced her fingertip on his chest flirtatiously, "go out for dinner and get a hotel for the evening."

The idea sounded perfect. They hadn't had any semblance of alone time since Joan was born, especially considering John had also been watching Samantha a lot of the time. He'd never say that it was exhausting, fighting Covenant for four days solid without sleep was exhausting, but something about having puke and snot covering you at the end of the day made you just want to go straight to bed.

"Are you thinking of Tom and Sarah?" he asked.

"Why not?"

"Won't they have plans?"

"I have a feeling that you could maybe call in a favor, just this once," said Cortana. She glanced at her watch.

"Ugh, I really need to go if I'm going to be on time," she kissed him quickly and went to go grab her briefcase and jacket. He followed her.

"Think about it, I know I'll spend a large part of the day thinking about what we could get up to alone for the first time in three years," she teased as she put on her hat.

He felt his pulse spike up sharply at her words. He was usually good at compartmentalizing things of this nature. They obviously had been together since Joan was born but the idea of being alone even just for an evening was nothing short of exhilarating. Joan was the light of his life-he would do anything for her, but the more he thought about it the more he realized he desperately wanted time alone with Cortana.

John went and quickly dressed himself for the day. Joan's hair was a gnarled mess so he had to wet it and put some spray in it to get the tangles out.

"You need to sit still while I comb your hair," he said as she squirmed.

"I don't like it," she whined.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand you when you whine like that, you need to speak like a big girl," he said shortly. As much as he found her antics cute, even when she was misbehaving he knew he had to work on correcting her. Cortana was persistent but John knew that he let her get away with far too much.

Joan huffed and repeated herself plainly.

"Do you want to do it yourself?" He knew that she wouldn't be able to get much done and probably end up ripping out a bunch of her hair.

"No," she said quietly.

"Okay, well if you just sit still it'll go faster, then we can get you dressed and go to the park," he said.

She didn't respond and she was turned away from him but he knew she was frowning. He continued to pick her hair, which had started to get really long. In color it was more like his-she was cursed with the same reddish hair and fair skin that he had, through her hair was a bit darker than his already. In texture it was a lot more like Cortana's hair, it was much thicker than his own, though he wasn't planning on growing a ponytail anytime soon.

"Can you braid my hair Daddy?" she asked after he had finished combing it.

"Sure, how do you want it?" With her hair getting longer he had spent time learning ways he could put it. Cortana had simply said they should cut it short but for some reason he didn't want to. With that said, her hair was often a mess at the end of the day so he took it upon himself to learn various ways of putting it up.

"French please," she said excitedly.

As gently as he could he started to plait her hair. When he finished he reached into his pocket to grab a tie that he somehow always seemed to be carrying five or six of and tied it off.

"Now why don't you go dress yourself like a big girl then we can go to the park," he said. She got up and walked to her room.

John waited in the living room and Joan had dressed herself in grey and blue. She really seemed to like grey lately.

A few blocks from their home there was a nice, big park for her to play at. There were a few other kids her age. Usually Joan wouldn't ask to play but if she was asked she would play. He sat on a bench to watch her. There were a few other parents watching as well.

John watched Joan go to the top of a jungle gym and stand on top of it.

"Is that your daughter on top of the gym?"

John looked over to see a well dressed woman looking at him apprehensively.

"Yes," he responded a little confused.

"Are you sure she should be-" the woman gasped when Joan, with a loud yell, jumped off the top of the jungle gym.

John sat up slightly, watching her.

Joan, instead of crying started laughing and climbing to the top of the gym again.

John looked at the woman next to him, who was looking at him now more closely in shock.

"You're the soldier off the poster," she said quietly.

He was confused. "I don't know what poster you're talking about," he replied.

"It has to be you, your daughter looks just like the little girl," the woman fumbled on her tablet and pulled up an image John remembered well.

It was of himself and Naomi along with Joan. The photo had been edited to make the sunlight brighter and the whole shot a bit more dramatic. He looked solemn but had a small smile on his face while Naomi had a soft smile. Joan was laughing loudly at the Marines who had fallen out of formation who weren't pictured. It was a poster for a veteran resource center captioned "Heroes deserve happy endings." It had information for a hotline and links to informational literature.

"You and your wife look so happy," she commented.

John shook his head. "Wife?" He looked at the picture again.

Oh God.

Naomi looked like his wife.

That's why they wanted him to stand where he had, his wedding band showed. He felt a little stupid.

"Shit," he said aloud. The woman looked at him strangely.

"I'm sorry," he apologized quickly. "I didn't know this photo was going to be used this way, Naomi isn't my wife, she's my friend. My real wife probably isn't going to like this," he said.

"Oh," she said a little shocked. She tried to backtrack. "I suppose it doesn't look entirely like that," she attempted.

John sighed. "No, it does and I'm sure that was the intention," he replied quietly.

"Dad!" he heard Joan yell. She appeared to be gesturing wildly at another child and running up to him. Shortly after a little boy followed her, out of breath. He was a little shorter than Joan.

"Mom I made a friend!" He exclaimed to the woman sitting next to John.

"Theo, what's your new friend's name?"

"My name is Joan," she said brightly.

"Looks like you've been busy jumping off stuff and making friends today," remarked John. Joan giggled.

"How old are you?"

"My birthday is next week!" she proclaimed, not really answering the question.

"She'll be three next week," supplied John.

"Wow, she's very tall," said the woman. "Theo is four," she said. Joan was already about an inch taller than the boy who was a year older than her. Just from seeing the two of them run over John could also tell she was far more coordinated, she didn't bumble or trip like most children her age did. John didn't often have points of comparison without Samantha here anymore, it was hard for him to realize how much Joan wasn't a typical three year old.

"Well, I'm a little taller than average," he deadpanned. Perhaps she didn't realize that he was a Spartan? He wasn't going to run around shouting it like his appearance usually seemed to.

After Joan's excited introduction the two children proceeded to go play again on the playground.

"Maysilee Van de Velde, by the way, how rude of me," she spoke with an accent that John had learned to associate with wealth and her last name screamed privilege.

"John Black," he replied, continuing to watch Joan play with her new friend.

"What brings your family to Earth?"

"My wife is an astrophysical engineer who is teaching at Columbia University. We settled down in the Lamnda Aurige System after I retired but she is doing a year long residency here before we go back home. Eventually she's going to start doing classes via correspondence and recruitment for the Almquist Fellowships," he said.

"I've never been outside the Sol System," she replied.

"Really?" The idea seemed odd to him considering he'd spent his entire life jumping through slipspace to various locations. He supposed he didn't really know much about civilian life and how they adapted through the wars. Earth had been relatively safe until the very end-this woman may not have even felt the effects entirely.

"Slipstream space kinda freaks me out," she laughed lightly. "Plus my husband has a rather demanding job here so it doesn't leave much time for leisurely travel, he travels a lot for business so when he's home it's nice to be home," she remarked.

John wondered what a demanding civilian job was. He couldn't even imagine what that would look like-was he being shot at?

John's pocket buzzed and he pulled out his tablet. He had a message from Cortana, attached the photo of him and Naomi.

Damn, your wife is hot, was all she had written. John sighed. He didn't know if Cortana wanted a response or not, she was probably pretty irritated. He was pretty irritated.

"They play well together, we should exchange information and set up a playdate for them," Maysilee said, shaking him from his thoughts.

John supposed that it would be nice for Joan to have friends. Even though he had been living a civilian life for five years now he had never really interacted with real civilians-Fred, Kelly and Cortana most assuredly didn't count. He supposed it shouldn't be difficult-it wasn't like he and Cortana sat around talking about the UNSC constantly.

"Theo, come over here, you have your mixed martial arts class in an hour and you need to change," she called.

"But mom, I want to keep playing with my friend," the boy complained. John stood up and immediately the boy looked at him anxiously, clearly intimidated. Maybe he should have stayed sitting.

"I gave Joan's Father our information, you and Joan can play again very soon," she explained.

The boy didn't speak but nodded.

"Bye!" said Joan loudly as they walked away. The boy waved a little, clearly still a little spooked.

John felt badly. He wondered how much his appearance may affect Joan's friendships in the future. Perhaps it wouldn't matter as much when Joan was older.

They left the play park, which was in a climate controlled dome with plants and trees to avoid the cold winter weather. John dressed Joan up in her coat, hat and mittens to keep out the February cold. He held her hand and they walked the short distance back to where they lived.

He hung up their outerwear and Joan went to go play in her room. John took out his tablet and looked through some of the pictures he kept on there. He found one of Cortana snuggling Joan on her second birthday. He loved this picture, both of them were smiling and happy. He attached it and sent it to her with a caption.

He hoped that that would make her feel better.

Cortana fidgeted a little in her seat at her department meeting.

"Columbia University is starting a program where random departments will be receiving treadmills for their homes to encourage fitness, I think we got a grant or something and they want to spend the money, so if you could list a drop off time that works for you that would be appreciated," droned the department head.

Cortana held back a sigh. She couldn't help but be bothered by the advertisement she saw with John and Joan in it. She knew it wasn't his fault and that it was entirely characteristic of the military to distort scenarios like the one photographed. It just played to her insecurities-Naomi was exceedingly beautiful with white blonde hair and overall striking features. It was also very quickly becoming apparent that her daughter was more Spartan than not. John didn't really notice because being a Spartan was normal to him but Joan was very heavy, extremely coordinated and overall advanced for her age. She looked and behaved more like a five year old than a three year old.

She had messaged Kelly about it and Kelly had assured her that it was just an advertisement done by the UNSC in rather poor taste, which Cortana knew but still found upsetting.

Her tablet blinked, indicating she had a message from John.

He had sent her a picture of her and Joan smiling.

I am very lucky, he had written.

Cortana smiled widely. He really was the greatest. He didn't speak overly much but somehow he always knew what to say.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter, next chapter is fun too. Have a great week! Thanks again to all of you guys who review, seriously makes my life.