North still felt numb when he was led to his room a floor underneath the rooms of the other guys, something like a floor for temporary visitors who first had to prove themselves.

York, Carolina, Wash, and Tucker were with him, although Wash had to more watch after Tucker than he could North. That was the reason too why York had sent him up to Tucker's room with his boyfriend, since the adopted brother of the injured member of the crew was suffering so much.

The other two Freelancers accompanied the pale blond man, making sure that he would get his shower. It took him endlessly long to do so, standing under the spray of water with far away thoughts. He didn't even notice when the water turned cold.

Almost automatically, he got clean and got out of the shower about half an hour later with the same numb feeling as when he went in.

York was sitting there, his hair looking wet. He obviously had already gotten clean. Taking Carolina's absence as a clue, he suspected her of having gone to get clean herself.

North felt like crashing on the bed. His body was tired enough, but he doubted that his mind would let him.

Standing in the room and feeling oddly lost, he could see York getting up, the man with the blind eye telling North to follow him.

They both walked up to the upper floor. Carolina was standing in the hallway and waiting for them to join her. Her hair looked as wet as York's, she obviously had taken her shower too and was now waiting for them.

All three of them started walking down the hall, soon meeting up at Wash's room. Being the CO had gotten him the biggest room.

Entering it, the purple and green colored soldier could see many of Ala's friends sitting in the room together. Obviously none of them felt like they wanted to be alone at this time.

There were Doc and Donut, together with Caboose. All three of them were curled up in blankets, the biggest one of them and the dirty blond both sniffling and having red eyes.

There was Sarge, sitting in a corner with his shotgun, looking oddly unfazed by everything but given the reactions of the others this was either normal or Sarge was just pretending.

Simmons was in another corner of the room, curled up with his knees pulled up to his chest. Grif was sitting beside him, looking apathetic but still remarkably closer to the nerd than was necessary. He had his weight braced on his hands, one of them placed behind the nerd for comfort. If he felt like it, Simmons could still lean into the lazy Hawaiian.

York and Carolina had both taken places beside the door, Carolina leaning into her boyfriend. York waved him over, saying he should sit down with them.

In front of Wash's folded up cot, there was said Freelancer. Junior, the huge Sangheili, was sitting beside him, closely pressed to Wash and his dad on their left side.

Speaking of Tucker… Said man was leaning against Wash's chest, spread over Junior's legs and connecting all three of them somehow. Every one of them had bodily contact to the other two sitting with them.

Tucker was sitting sideward leaning with his left side into Wash's chest, legs stretched out to the left side of Wash. His head was leaning against Wash's shoulders and the Freelancer had one of his hands gently laid around his shoulders across his back, the other was resting around Tucker's waist. The steel and yellow-armored Freelancer had his legs folded around his boyfriend. His head was carefully resting against the dreadlocked head of Tucker.

What hurt North the most was the empty and hollow look on Tucker's face, the red-rimmed eyes and the overall miserable look he was sporting.

He could understand that feeling, given that him and Ala were siblings.

North could feel the same emptiness and sadness in his own chest and that made it so different.

In any case, none of the guys seemed to want to be alone right now after something so tragic had happened.

Thinking of it now, there had been so many hints. The way she had been walking, the way her voice sounded—foremost in battle where her voice had sounded much more like Ala back then when she was happy.

The way she had avoided him, and how Tucker and Wash seemed to know something but hadn't wanted to say anything to him on the subject since they all seemed to have some kind of no-talking-about-it agreement in effect.

And there was the thing about York meeting Carolina.

Sure, the odds had been against it but there was a small chance, even if it only was a little bit of hope saying that, that he would maybe meet Ala again too.

But given the fact that he had always been the more realistic-minded twin between himself and South, and given the fact that it was highly unlikely that he would meet Ala ten years later on a planet far away from their last meeting point, he didn't want to read too much into it.

He always was trying to be rational and he knew that meeting his girlfriend again after such a long time was nearly impossible.

Already being on another planet had turned the tables on him, and having ten years between now and the last time they had seen each other made the chances of meeting again nearly impossible.

Which was why he always thought that Mac, the person he had met here on Chorus, couldn't possibly be Ala even though they both looked so alike.

There were so many hints that he should have noticed and still he hadn't.

"Stop beating yourself up for not having noticed." As always, Carolina immediately knew how to interpret the expressions and silences of each of her former team members.

"I know, it's just…. There were so many hints that I should have noticed." He replied silently to Carolina's remark.

"She didn't want you to know and when having to live undercover, you learn to fool everyone." Wash chimed in, looking over from his space on the floor with Tucker, his head still resting against the head of his boyfriend, "Besides, how large were the odds of you meeting her after ten years on a completely foreign planet?"

North sighed at that, "Astronomically small." He replied, an emptiness to his tone that made him startle about how his own voice sounded so empty and void of emotion.

"See." York spoke, "We both were extremely lucky in that department."

"You more than me." North replied with the same empty voice, looking out of the window where he could see the two other moons starting to rise. The one they came from would always be prominent in the sky for the next few years until it would disappear on the other side of the planet again.

"Actually..." Wash was gently caressing Tucker's right upper arm where North could see the intricate teal pattern he had noticed earlier from having had Junior. Seeing him sitting beside the two men, it was almost impossible for the pale blond Freelancer to imagine Tucker once having been pregnant with that individual.

Anyway, back to Wash talking, "We wouldn't be here at all if it hadn't have been for the ship crashing here."

North had the feeling that Wash didn't want to explain too much about the whys of the ship crashing to keep it simple and to get the message across.

North smiled sadly, "So it was more a kind of crazy luck that we were united here again?"

Carolina laughed lowly, "You can say that. If the ship hadn't crashed, we would be on Earth and living our lives as famous veterans."

"I can't imagine you being a veteran and sitting at home. You're born for the battlefield and I doubt you will leave that out of your free will." He replied, looking over to her who was giving him her trademark smirk.

"Well, I almost did." She replied with a low laugh.

"Right." He replied again, turning his head back to the window and looking out. It was dark by now and the stars had started to appear in the sky.

All of them had their blankets with them, York even having been so mindful as to take his and North's too.

After another two hours passed and many of the guys started to lie down, even Wash and Tucker deciding to try and get some shut eye.

Twenty years ago, North would have reacted angry and hurt because he would have felt like he was the only one grieving or feeling sorrow for the injured person while everyone else seemed to return to their regular lives and go to sleep.

Today, he knew that everyone else was grieving too. Everyone around here was. They were just as smart as him and trying to get some rest in order to not break down.

Ala in this case wouldn't want them to be like zombies walking around on auto pilot because they were up all the time while she was recovering.

That was the reason why even North, York, and Carolina lied down. North was away a bit, keeping his distance to the pair lying closely cuddled to each other on the ground.

On his other side, he could see that Tucker had cuddled himself into Wash's chest, his head tucked under Wash's chin and his shoulders slightly shaking. Wash had his back to the rest of his friends, shielding Tucker off from the others to give him his privacy. At Tucker's back, between the teal-armored soldier and the wall, was his son, having an arm under his head as a makeshift pillow while the other was on his father's shoulder in a display of comfort.

He again made these strange sounds, speaking Sangheili, and trying to comfort his dad.

Wash was keeping the dreadlocked man as close to him as possible and tried to give as much comfort to the suffering man as was possible given the situation.

Looking around, he could see that Doc, Donut, and Caboose were lying in a nest of blankets.

Sarge was sitting in a corner with his eyes closed and his shotgun leaning against his upper body.

Grif was lying on his back with an arm under his head and another around Simmons' shoulder, the other man lying tucked into his right side.

It was silent until Junior spoke up, much to North's surprise in perfect English, "It's funny. The first time we met, she almost shot me."

North blinked at that before saying at length, "Right, I once was told that she didn't really like the Sangheili. It had something to do with what had happened in her time in Elbon on Chare."

The youngest of the team snorted, "She fucking hated me."

Okay, North didn't need to ask who his dad was given his language.

"Anyway," the youngster continued, "It took my father some time to get her to chill out and not shoot me if I made any kind of unsuspected movement." He chuckled at that memory, "It was understandable, given the fuck up that my brothers did. However, slowly, during our time when we were trapped in the temple on the digging site, she started to chill out and even talked to me. It was an interesting view. Seeing her change her opinion." He remarked, sounding deeply impressed by her.

There was something else in Junior's voice too. Was it respect? It sounded an awful lot like that. North had the impression that Junior also respected Ala a lot.

Tucker, who had calmed down again by now, took up the conversation, "That was a hard piece of work actually." North showed a small smile at that, "But she changed. She's fucking awesome."

Looking around, he could see the others listening to the narrations of the two with interest. He felt obliged to tell something too.

"She has her own opinion based on things she has gone through. But that doesn't mean that she can't change it. If she got other information or learned something else through a new experience, she often used that to reassess her opinion."

"Yeah, although I still was surprised. People tend to react like dicks when they're told that Junior is my son and that I gave birth to him." Tucker replied, his head still firmly tucked under Wash's chin.

"Understandable." North replied, immediately noticing the rather harsh sound to what he had just said, "I mean, it is unusual."

"Don't sweat it." At that, Tucker sat up and took a swig of a water bottle. North now realized that there were many of them there who had their bottles with them. He didn't.

Fuck. He would get it later.

"I mean," Tucker closed the lid of the bottle and put it on the ground, though he remained seated, "I really love my son, but if I had been in your or another situation and someone else had ended up having him… I would probably react the same way." He said with a bitter smile.

"It is special, but I don't think it is unnatural or whatever. Most importantly is that you love your kid." North replied, getting a nod from York and Carolina who had been listening to them. As had everyone else, but they weren't giving away their opinions on the subject as they probably didn't feel like it at the moment.

"I fucking love him. Wouldn't want to give him away anymore." Tucker replied with a happy smile, looking over to his son who still was lying on the ground and looking up with a warm smile out of his amber eyes.

"Thanks, Dad." The Sangheili replied.

"That's most important." North replied. "No matter who they are, they're your kid and they earned every ounce of love you can give them."

"You sound like a dad yourself." Tucker replied with a casual smirk, although it didn't completely reach his eyes.

Said man gave a contemplative hum, "No, I'm no dad but that's what I promised myself I would give my kids in case I should ever have any. My dad used to overlook me and preferred South all the time since he wanted a girl and never a boy."

"Your dad sounds like a pretty fucked up cockbite. Kids are kids, no matter what gender they are." Tucker replied, sounding a bit shocked.

North shrugged at that, "Yeah, probably. This, however, was the reason why I decided to make it different. I just had to widen my concept of kids to alien kids too when I entered the army and was hopping from planet to planet with different species living on them."

Tucker and some of the others nodded at that. There were many species living on the planets out in space. Arenians, Strassians, Elvari, Sangheili… Many had a more or less human-shaped body, as this seemed to be the best concept of Mother Nature for survival, no matter if some of the species were an offshoot of humans or had evolved themselves.

After that, all of the people around lapsed into a silence which wasn't comfortable, but not as tight as the one from some hours before had been.

It was strange. All of them were in a state of anticipation, waiting for someone to show up and tell them that Ala was up and alright. But everyone seemed to suspect that as long as nobody showed up, everything was fine and they were still patching her up.

North couldn't put a finger on it, but he got the strange feeling that the possibility of Ala dying wasn't even a considerable option for the guys here.

He had already heard from Wash that the guys had an incredibly large amount of dumb luck when it came to surviving shit and that this obviously also rubbed off on the soldiers who joined them later, like Wash or Ala. They would survive shit others wouldn't have just because they were stuck with the guys from Blood Gulch.

Given the fact that they had been Sim Troopers to start with, only cannon fodder for the Freelancers to train their combat skills on, it was even more surprising that they were still alive. They only had rudimentary skills in fighting, no special education like every other soldier would have received, they only got the second range of weapons in terms of quality, and often tended to get stuck in the dumbest of moments.

It really was a miracle that they were all here. North suspected that their guardian angels, if there were any, had their work cut out watching over them.

His thoughts were interrupted when there were knuckles rapping on the door to Wash's room, said man asking for the person to enter.

While the door opened, all of the people began to sit up. The only person who stayed lying down was Caboose, already sleeping and out of it completely.

There was a medic standing there, and North recognized him as being one of the guys who had put an oxygen mask on Ala's face when they had stopped in front of the hospital.

He looked extremely tired, worn out, and ready to crash in his bunk right away.

However, albeit looking worn out, he was smiling. It was a relieved smile and that was enough for the Freelancer and many of the others to let out the breaths that they had been holding when he had entered.

"I have some good news. We got your friend, Mac, stable. She took a serious beating, but she's stable." The medic began explaining, his face darkening a bit which made the others' faces fall in anticipation of a huge but.

"In any case, we had to put her into an artificial coma because of the lung injury. It's better given the pain of her injury and that the wound needs as less movement and disturbing as possible during healing. We hope to be able to wake her up in the next two to three weeks. We also gave her some medication to help her in recovering faster. I don't want to know what medication it is since it's made by Grey personally," Everyone having had a treatment by the crazy doctor by now pulled a face at that, which was almost everyone in the room, "But this shit works wonders, so I, for my part, am positive. That's not an official assumption of Doctor Grey, but one from me personally." He continued explaining.

The young man had taken off his helmet. He had black hair and a darker complexion, somewhat akin to Grif sitting on the ground.

North thought that he remembered his name being James Joenes. His parents must have had a weird sense of humor.

However, despite the strange name, the medic continued, "We'll have you wait for another couple of days until we can clear her for visitors. She has to stay in a place absolutely free of germs that could possibly harm her given her weakened immune system and lung injury."

All of the people awake and listening to him nodded in understanding. Even a slight cold could mean her death at this point in her recovery. They first needed her to be stable and in better shape before they could visit her.

"Better keep her longer than necessary then. We prefer keeping her around." Simmons muttered then.

The cyborg speaking up then obviously brought the young medic's mind to something else, "Oh, about that. Doctor Grey told me to inform you that she prefers letting Ala recover completely before repairing her cybernetics. She first needs the energy to recover and any more pain could be potentially dangerous to her at this state."

Simmons nodded to that, "I would prefer Doctor. Grey giving me her green light when it's okay for me to repair the cybernetics."

Joenes nodded at that. "I will inform her accordingly. I now wish you a good rest. Please try to rest a bit since you need your strength. I doubt Mac would prefer having wrecks around her upon waking up."

"Only in the most positive way. Bow Chicka Bow Wow." Tucker muttered, now even Wash having to snort and laugh lowly at that statement.

Joenes looked bewildered, but hurried to excuse himself and get out of the room.

The moment the door was closed, a heavy silence settled in the room.

It took the guys in the room a moment to sort their thoughts, before Sarge then spoke up. "Looks like that dirty Blue again had an incredible amount of luck, dangnabit!" His heavy southern accent made it difficult for North to decipher what he said.

He already knew that Sarge was still stuck to the rivalry of the color coded soldiers despite being friends with them. What surprised and alarmed him was another part of his speech.

"What do you mean by again?" He asked, although a bit harsher than intended.

It was silent for a moment, before Wash started talking, although in a reluctant manner, as if trying to explain everything as carefully and diplomatically as possible.

"Well, you remember when I told you about the fight on Sidewinder against The Meta?" He started.

Wash knew as well as North that he remembered having gotten told that since York and North wanted to know what they had missed in those ten years.

"Well… I haven't exactly told everything about that. Mac, or Ala, had been there, fighting him alongside us. In some part of the fight, The Meta had gotten a hold of her left arm. He had twisted the arm on her back, up to the breaking point and was tearing at it until it snapped and started to rip." The Freelancer swallowed dryly. He still could remember the horrible and agonizing screams from back then, her voice snapping and screeching in pain and horror.

"The arm didn't come loose per se, but it was heavily damaged. Ripped arteries, sinews, nerves, broken bones. Long story short, we had to take her arm off after she dropped unconscious from the pain. We kept that state up with medicaments. Had to amputate the arm at her shoulder and Simmons here with Sarge created her a new arm out of cybernetics."

"She's a dirty Blue, but I'd be damned if I'm passing up a possibility to make a new cybernetic enhancement! Unless this possibility is called Grif!" Sarge muttered from his spot in the corner.

"Aw, love you too, Sarge." Grif replied sarcastically from the ground, having flopped back down into a lying position the moment the medic was gone.

North felt overwhelmed, "Wait, so Ala has a cybernetic arm because of Maine?"

Wash pulled a face at that. "She insists on it being The Meta since Maine hadn't been existing anymore at that point. He had snapped shortly before."

"He still was Maine, on the outside. But the character that made him the guy you knew in the past was gone." Carolina explained from beside North. He turned his head to look over to her, "He had already been The Meta when you and South confronted him. He hadn't been the gentle giant anymore that you knew in Freelancer who used to give Connie piggy back rides." The redhead explained.

It took North a moment to reply, but then he started to chuckle which earned him bewildered glances from the others.

"That's so typical of Ala." He felt a wave of sadness wash over him and bit his lip to not start to cry. Balling his fists until he felt his nails break through the skin in his palms, he drew a shuddering breath and continued, "She always sees the good in people, believing everyone could be good if they tried. I wouldn't be surprised if she was thinking the same about Felix."

Tucker made a strange sound which was neither approving nor denying, "She was like that ten years ago, when we just met and when what happened with The Meta occurred. But after that, she started changing." He again got that distant look in his eyes, making it clear that he was thinking about something that had happened in the past, "After that, she started to believe that there were some people who were able to be plain mean. Like Price, Hargrove, Felix, or other dickwads."

North snorted at that. He could reciprocate that feeling.

"However, in this big guy's case, she first thought of him being a monster too. But when talking a bit more with Wash after having knocked him out, and from talking to you, North, she learned about the other side of the man. That's why she decided on saying that it was The Meta and not the Maine that you used to know." The dark-skinned man explained.

"Knocked you out?" York had caught up on that expression as well as North.

Wash's smile derailed when he was directly addressed.

"Yeah, she had knocked me out. It was a bit of an unfortunate chain of happenings. After waking up, we talked a bit since she said something about having known another Freelancer, although she hadn't told me which one of my friends she knew. Well, when she found out about me having been Recovery One and I had been complaining about not having been able to find your dog tags, she somehow snapped. I was lucky to have worn my helmet back then, otherwise she would have given me a major skull fracture. I only had a heavy concussion and a shiner for more than three weeks."

"Boy, what a shiner." Tucker had a shit-eating grin on his face and several guys in the room chuckled at the memory of the situation that most of them had witnessed.

Even more when they remembered Wash's slurred answer of Dunky-Hory before going down.

North smiled at that too, while York beside him commented with the same shit-eating grin as Tucker, "So you again put your foot in your mouth, eh, rookie?"

"How many times do I have to ask you to not call me rookie?" Wash snapped, his voice going up an octave.

This caused York and North to respectively chuckle before North took the conversation back up again.

Caboose had woken up too, having been brought up to date by Donut about Ala and was now listening to the guys talking.

"So Ala has my second set of dog tags?" Man, it still sounded so weird to talk about his clone.

"Yep, she wears them all the time. There's something else on her dog tags, but I never could see what it is." Tucker explained, making a slight sullen expression at that.

"Oh, I know!" Caboose chimed in. "She told me! She once was looking at it when I came in to play with her."

North was already adapting to the speaking patterns of the big child in order to decipher what he was saying and to discern what was the truth and what was made-up in his stories.

"The dog tags couldn't stay at their previous place and so they went to live with Mac because they knew that she is a nice person." York was already getting a bewildered expression on his face, whereas Carolina, Tucker, and Wash got a fond expression watching their childlike member of Blue Team explain what happened, "There, living with Mac, the dog tags met a bracelet and they soon got a baby ring. When the violet bracelet died, the dog tags wanted to stay with Mac even more since they knew that Mac is good with kids. She often plays with them and loves them. She's great." The last words sounded sad, and accompanied by the crestfallen face they made North sigh.

Donut scooted over and laid an arm around the blue soldier.

It was silent until York started to chuckle, which soon developed into a full-fledged laugh, "Okay, that you wanted to marry her is nothing new to me, but that you already bought her a ring sounds definite to me. You already wanted to keep your chain and ball back then?" York asked with an amused chuckle in his voice.

North felt his cheeks heat up and he looked away, "I was just a step further than you, York. But you met your chain and ball earlier already and also didn't seem to want to let her go."

The guys around them were already starting to grin at their exchange, now knowing something that they could use to tease Mac once she was up again.

Both males having that exchange got red cheeks, giving away that this was a rather sensitive subject, with some awkward moments included, for the both of them.

"Oh yeah? Who?" Carolina asked in an innocent way, though it was obvious that she was merely acting that way despite her acting skills being surprisingly good.

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" York exclaimed with an utterly speechless, bewildered, and incredulous expression, looking at his girlfriend like she had just grown two heads in a matter of moments.

This was enough for the guys in the room to erupt into laughter, with even Sarge smiling along to the cackling sounds of the people in the room.

North noticed that even Wash and Tucker were smiling. Junior's shoulder was shaking as he was chuckling along with the others. Seeing the guys laughing, he too started to grin, as did York who had finally gotten the joke, with Carolina following soon after.

It was a relieving laugh, something everyone in the room had been desperately craving for. It was indeed cathartic. It was taking a huge weight off their shoulders, making them forget about the dire situation for a moment and even making the situation at hand look less dire.

When everyone had calmed down halfway, another silence settled in again. It wasn't as loaded as the previous one, although it was still a bit strained.

After having received the good news, the guys soon started to file out of the room.

Sarge was the first one to go, followed by Grif and Simmons. Doc, Donut, and Caboose were the next three out the door, deciding to stay together in Donut's room for the night. Carolina and York left soon too.

North was the last, leaving just when Wash put down the bed and readied it for Tucker to clamber in.

There was a second bed that North just noticed for Junior to lie in. He suspected it was the one from Tucker's room. It stood close enough to the other cot for them to be together, but had enough space in between so Tucker and Wash could get out of their bed without disturbing the young Sangheili.

After having bid his goodbyes, he left the room, and only just saw how Wash got in the cot beside Tucker and how the younger male immediately snuggled into his chest.

North silently closed the door and walked down to his room.

Arriving there, he drank some water and thought about the happenings of today.

He had been surprised and shocked to realize who Mac really was, and there would be a lot to talk about once she was doing better.

But, first of all, she needed to get better and be strong enough again for that kind of talk. And North too had to sort out his thoughts about everything.

Anyways, Joenes had been right. He needed sleep and he would get that first.

He could think about everything tomorrow or when Ala woke up. There still was the possibility that she wouldn't wake up again after that. However, he wanted to be prepared and to know what he thought about everything for when she would wake up.

But that would take another two or three weeks, and getting a good night's rest first definitely wouldn't hurt.

Moving under his covers until he was comfortable, he closed his eyes and felt fatigue wash over him like a wave.

The whole situation wouldn't look as bad as it did today anymore tomorrow.