When she walked onto the observation deck of the War Games simulation chamber, Briar had little in mind apart from passing away an hour or so watching those below. She'd freshly showered following a session in the expansive gymnasium assigned to and designed for the Spartan-IV contingent on board, but there was little point sparring with her 'newer model' counterparts. Without their GEN2 MJOLNIR, she surpassed them physically in every way. And the last thing she needed to deal with was a bunch of bruised egos.
Stepping up to the specialized glass which separated the observatory from the cavernous combat deck while at the same time portraying the current simulation being run, she tracked the various participants as they interacted with the holographic projections, automated environment, and ultimately each other.
"Fidelis," someone barked abruptly as the door slid open again.
Briar looked over her shoulder as Palmer entered, the latter slowing her step when she noted the room was occupied.
"Yes, Commander?" the AI answered through the integrated comm system.
"Reset the simulation." Palmer strode to the glass, her dark uniform crisp as she gazed down on her people.
"Resetting simulation. Recalibration in progress."
Below, the Spartan-IVs looked around in bewilderment as the projections blinked out, some of them throwing up their hands in clear frustration. They returned to their starting positions, all the same.
"I asked Jun about you," Palmer spoke up after a moment. "He said, as far as he knew - as far as anyone knows - Noble Six never made it off Reach."
Briar shrugged. She didn't see what reason Palmer could possibly believe Halsey had for lying about her identity, but neither did it bother her. "I don't care who you think I am. I don't care who you think I'm not, either."
Palmer turned to her, hostility written plainly on her features now that there was no one else around to witness it. "Look, the captain's staking his career on this, and I'm not about to let him throw it all away on a wildcard."
"From where I stand, he's already all in. And if you have a problem with that, you bring it to him - not me," Briar pointed out. "I'm not here to prove myself. I've done that. I'm here for John. And if you have a problem with that, I'm happy to wait for you to suit up so we can settle our differences. Because I'm not going anywhere."
"Not even if you being here is going to hurt his chances of being cleared?" Palmer raised a brow. "Whoever you are, you complicate matters."
"Matters are complicated, Commander. Get your head on straight. ONI is so corrupt, it's rotting from the inside out. The redactions in my file aren't what they don't want you to see, they're what they want you to focus on so you don't realize they're vanilla compared to what's not in there. You have no idea what they're capable of," Briar assured her. "You have no idea what I'm capable of." She gave that a moment to sink in, watching the deliberation going on behind the other woman's doubtful expression, then left Palmer to stew.
"Sir…"
Lasky didn't know what to think of her appearance on the bridge, that much was obvious. He waved down the security officers stationed outside the lift doors who'd stepped into her path. "Spartan."
"Captain. A minute of your time, if you can spare it," Briar requested.
He gave a slow nod and gestured her into the same briefing room they'd first spoken in when she'd come to retrieve John. Once the door closed, he hesitated. "I'm not real sure what to call you."
She nearly sighed at this. "It doesn't matter."
"How can I help you, then?"
"I want access to a secure room with monitoring equipment. I want a secondary external recording device. And I want you to verify every detail I'm going to give."
Lasky's brows had climbed with each demand. "That last one… isn't going to be easy."
"No. It isn't," she agreed. "But if you like running this ship, and if you truly want to help John, you'll find a way."
"Who is it you expect me to bring this to - HighCom?"
"No one. I just want you to hold onto it."
He regarded her consideringly, his expression turning solemn. "Until?"
"You'll know. And when you do, you don't bring it to HighCom. You bring it to everyone."
"That sounds more like breaking things than fixing them," Lasky reasoned.
"I'll let you be the judge of that, Sir. But if you still believe things aren't already completely fucking broken after you hear what I have to say, maybe you're not the right man to fix this."
"When I came to get you - we exited slipspace, and I hopped the pelican to fly to Infinity… first time I'd laid eyes on Earth in a while."
Sanghelios filled the viewport, cloud formations wreathing its oceans and continents. She wasn't exactly sure how long she'd been standing there, staring at it, but she felt John's presence behind her the moment he came around the bend in the not-oft traversed corridor.
He approached, taking up a position at her back rather than her side. He could see over her head. "You weren't in your room."
"Were you looking for me, or just lurking again?"
His hand came around her ribcage, pulling her back into his chest. It remained spread over her sternum, holding her in place.
Briar relaxed against him slowly. "We can't stay here much longer."
"I know."
"Something's not right about Osiris wasting all this time nosing around down there."
"I know."
"If you have contributions to make, I'm all ears," she prompted him.
A subtle note of amusement was evident in his voice when he responded. "You seemed to be doing fine without me."
"I could say the same of you." If she'd refused that assignment, left him well enough alone… it wouldn't have made a difference - they'd have sent someone else, found another way - but she couldn't feel anything but responsible nonetheless.
John was silent for a moment. "We're not talking about the same thing anymore."
"I was minding my own business, enjoying the view. What do you want to talk about?" He'd been the one to seek her out.
"You."
Briar wrinkled her nose. Eight hours of regurgitating every heinous particular of the numerous deplorable missions she'd been handed down over the past 13 years put that subject right around the bottom of her list of tolerable conversation topics. "Pass."
Grip shifting to her waist, he turned her around to face him, effectively hemming her in against the viewport. "You said my name in your sleep. Over and over again."
She flushed. "Just a dream." It'd evaporated the moment she'd opened her eyes. All that remained clear in her memory now was the inexplicable terror that had been crushing her chest.
His gaze narrowed in a way that told her he was aware there was far more to it than that.
"I liked it better when we weren't talking, too," she decided, making to turn back to the viewport, but finding herself locked in situ as his mouth descended onto hers. His arms encircled her, lifting her clear off the deck and trapping hers at her sides in the process, and she huffed a breath out in protest before muttering against his lips. "John."
He held her prisoner a beat longer, his eyes gleaming with impudence, then loosened his arms enough that she slid down against him until her boots once again touched the floor. "I want you."
"I noticed," Briar assured him as his hands found their way beneath her fatigues, the manner in which their bodies were melded leaving no doubt of this. "Tell me you're not going to accept that AI from Halsey."
The appeal cooled his ardor about as effectively as an icy shower would have. His hands stilled and he regarded her carefully, as though trying to discern what he should say.
"It feels off, John. We don't know where she stands," she insisted, willing him to understand the irrational fear even she couldn't explain. "You don't need it. You don't need anything from her."
"You don't know that," he said as he pulled away, his inner turmoil crippling enough that it came through clearly in just those four words.
"I do. She's done enough to you." She didn't try to keep him close, knowing he needed to work through this. "Let it be enough."
Pacing away from her, John whirled abruptly, driving his fist into a bulkhead. The reinforced steel buckled with the force of the blow, his bloody knuckles leaving a crimson smear as he stepped back.
"You don't owe them anything - any of them." Briar watched the rage roll over him. The betrayal. The pain. He'd been suppressing them for so long - all his life - that accepting them, processing them was a monumental struggle. "You're not just a soldier. What you're feeling now; that's humanity. That anger, that hurt - it belongs to you, John. It's yours. You're allowed to be pissed. You're allowed to be done with their hypocrisy."
His hands came up to run over his face as a muscle in his cheek ticked from clenching his jaw so hard. The tendons in his neck stood out, tight enough to snap. "Don't," he grated out the instant she moved in his direction.
"I told you, I'm not leaving you out here alone."
"I can't- I don't want to hurt you," he warned as he backed away, hands up to ward her off.
Not bothering with arguing with him, she merely closed the distance between them, catching his hands when he attempted to jerk them down to his sides to avoid touching her. She calmly tugged them back beneath her shirt to her sides, holding them against her skin as she met his tormented eyes. "You won't." He might not comprehend the visceral emotional response, but she did. And she wasn't frightened by it. She wasn't frightened by him. Releasing his hands, she reached up and plucked away the cap which shadowed his features. "You're still you."
Closing his eyes, he took steadying breaths. When she located his heartbeat through his fatigues, it thundered beneath her palm, illustrating further the physical toll of all of the stress he'd been carrying with him.
The lights winked out seemingly without cause, plunging them into darkness momentarily, and Briar felt the sudden loss of artificial gravity for a fraction of an instant before the ship's auxiliary power activated. Emergency lighting sprang to life and her weight resettled, lending the sensation of a particularly swift lift ride.
Whatever had happened, odds were not in favour of it being anything good.
John's hands fell away from her.