'The beach' wasn't a very specific rendezvous point. It stretched for kilometres in either direction, but Fred supposed the fact it was empty as far as the eye could see made the point moot. She couldn't fail to spot him when she arrived - just as he couldn't fail to be certain she wasn't there yet at 2130 hours.

He waited. The sun had already descended, but the sky wasn't clear like it had been during their last visit. Wispy clouds tracked across the crescent moon. He stooped to pluck one of the pale shells from the sand and examined its relative daintiness in his large and calloused palm. The same wind which carried the clouds along tugged at his cap and he removed it, tucking it into one of the pockets on his thigh. He turned his head as the soft rasp of sand shifting beneath someone's feet reached him.

"I guess I'm late."

"Not overly." He made to rise, but she held up a hand.

"Might as well stay down there." Lowering herself down, she sat and gathered a fistful of the fine particles, letting them sift through her fingers. She looked out at the waves while he settled.

"I wasn't expecting you to agree to this," he started, embarrassed. He'd gotten the impression he'd pressured her into it without meaning to and yet hadn't assured her otherwise when she'd unexpectedly named the place and time. "It seemed like… you'd have rathered not." He didn't know why that was - her explanation of her behaviour had been disjointed and hard to follow. She'd insisted he hadn't done anything wrong, but that wasn't how he'd read things.

"That's the truth and not at the same time," she said.

What was that supposed to mean? "I don't understand."

"What was it you wanted to talk about, Fred?" She didn't sound all that interested - she sounded defeated. Resigned. To talking to him?

"This isn't exactly how I planned it going." He was flustered by her conflicting body language and tone. She'd positioned herself by his side, close enough that he could have leaned over a few inches and his arm would have touched her shoulder. But it didn't seem like she wanted to be there.

"How did you plan it?"

"I don't know." He'd imagined companionable silence, or chatting about the project, maybe learning more about her. He'd imagined her laughter and the easy feeling which had come over him just hearing it. "Is something going on that I'm not aware of?"

The expression that overtook her features was one he recognized - pain and fear and regret. The haunted quality was one he'd witnessed on the faces of soldiers after a hard and bloody campaign. It spoke of remembered trauma. Guilt.

Fred was not the most adept at the intricacies of human interaction, but he knew that expression. "Is it to do with what happened in the infirmary?" he asked after several long moments. It was possible he shouldn't be pursuing the subject - it was a personal matter which had nothing to do with the Gen 3 and thereby nothing to do with him. And if she told him that, he would certainly respect the rebuke. But he couldn't deny his own curiosity or the desire to help or assist if there were anything he could do - even if he had no notion how he might do that.

"What happened in the infirmary," she repeated the words and closed her eyes. "That was… yes. It's to do with that."

He drew one of his legs up and rested his arm against it while he watched her from the corner of his eye. If she didn't say more, he'd let it go at that. Offering an ear was one thing, prying was another.

"I don't know how to tell you this, Fred. God, I wish I didn't have to, but I do."

Not the most auspicious start. He considered pointing out she didn't have to tell him anything she didn't feel she could - he, more than most, understood the things which must be left unsaid. Must not be spoken of. The weight pooling low in his gut prevented him from doing so, however. He sensed there was something he didn't understand that she was trying to impart. Not just information, not just an explanation for what had transpired in the infirmary - it was more than that.

Lyra blew out an unsteady breath. "I told you I worked with Halsey, that she got me that procedure to correct my vision." Here she glanced to him, gaze anxious.

He nodded - foreboding kept his mouth shut.

"The diagnostics and tests they had to run to make sure I was a candidate - she had access to my results. She came to me one day after the procedure and told me how impressed she was by them, by my genetic sequencing, by compatibility, by… things I didn't even fully understand at the time, some I don't still."

Fred's stomach roiled. He wanted to tell her to stop, that she didn't need to say more. Just that much had stirred the ghosts of his past.

But she kept going. "I won't bore you with the details. I don't think I need to. She convinced me that Spartans were the future of the Human-Covenant war, that they - they you - were the answer, the means to an end. That contributing to that cause was worthy and right. I guess she wasn't wrong - not about everything." She shook her head slowly. "I agreed to contribute. My genetics, my body… I agreed to be artificially inseminated by a Spartan donor. I wasn't to know the name. It didn't work the first time, or the second - but the third, it worked that time. Everything was fine until it wasn't. I wasn't doing well and they scheduled me for a cesarean. I went under. I woke up. The baby wasn't alive. I didn't contribute, I just… did a terrible thing. I won't ever forgive myself. I won't ever forgive her."

The detachment with which she spoke of the events was normal, he'd heard the hollow tone so devoid of emotion before from those relating traumatic experiences. What he wasn't prepared for was his own reaction. In contrast to her dead voice, a thousand different feelings seemed to assault his awareness all at once. Not even if he'd been provided with unlimited guesses could he have predicted this would be what she would tell him - and yet, he didn't doubt it, didn't doubt her for a moment. With only the minimal information she had revealed, he had no trouble envisioning Halsey pursuing such a goal. Had she not personally overseen their selection as children? Been the final authority on who was taken and who wasn't? He didn't resent the process which had forged him into what he was, but he was aware of the moral conundrum of stealing kids from their families in order to create Spartans. If there'd been a way to circumvent that unsavoury practice, to utilize willing participants to selectively create a new generation… he didn't doubt it to be Halsey's MO precisely.

What was more, the incident in the infirmary - her reaction to being in a hospital environment - made sense. His rational brain processed that, but the incomprehensible tangle of emotions was another matter. Before he could even begin to unravel them, she twisted towards him and he read clearly the deep anguish in her eyes.

"I didn't do anything, I didn't tell a soul. I was… I don't know what I was," she said, agitation creeping in, adding a strained note. "After she was detained - it brought it all back. I got scared. And angry. I hacked into the fertility clinic's records to check my file - it was John the first two times. Donor 1: S117. That's what it said." She sounded half-frantic, as though transported back to the moment in question. "Donor 2: S104."

The world didn't still, it jolted to a sudden and abrupt halt. Hearing John's name and designation had been jarring enough. Hearing his own? He forced his lungs to expand. Contract. "That's not…" Possible? Was he really going to assert that? He knew he hadn't voluntarily supplied any samples. But he spent a significant amount of time in cryo. Blood draws and other diagnostics were regularly run during those times. Other samples could have been gathered without his knowledge.

Why would she lie? What reason could there be? What would she stand to gain by lying?

"I'm sorry, Fred."

Her initial reaction to seeing Blue Team and subsequent avoidance, her resistance to his suspicion - behaviours which, when viewed with this background, could be more easily accounted for.

"I should have told you from the start, but - it's a lot, to tell a stranger. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

His gaze had slid to the sand, to her fingers buried in the space between them. "I wasn't aware."

"I know - or, I assumed as much. It didn't seem like very many people knew; just Halsey and the fertility team. I was never approached, never… questioned. At first, I thought it would just be a matter of time. But either they don't care because it… didn't work, or…"

Or Halsey had not been given the go ahead and had gone outside ONI's purview.

"When I got this assignment, it seemed to confirm no one knew. Even if they had all along and hadn't bothered questioning me because nothing had come of it, I couldn't see being hired on for a project Blue Team would be participating in - not unless it was a massive oversight on someone's part."

Fred's mind felt slow to fit the pieces together, to sort it all out. "You said you weren't supposed to know who the samples had come from."

"No. I wasn't. But I still wouldn't think they'd want me anywhere near another Spartan project if they knew."

He wasn't as certain of that. "You've never told anyone else about this?"

"No." She seemed more composed. That was good.

"Lyra, it's important you don't." His thoughts weren't so scattered that he didn't understand the imperativeness of keeping this silent. Whether they did or didn't know what had transpired, ONI was at the very least under the impression she wasn't aware who the donors had been.

"I know."

He was going to need time to process all this. "I have to be getting back." He brushed the sand from his fatigues as he stood and she gave a nod but didn't rise. It didn't feel right, leaving her there alone. Not like this. "I'll walk you to the hotel."

"I'm going to stay for a bit, thanks." She tipped her head back in order to look up at him. She didn't appear or sound detached any longer. Just tired. "Have a safe trip."

He hesitated. "You should get some rest."

"I will." It looked like an effort for her to summon the smile she did when he still lingered. "I will. Goodbye, Fred."

He turned and made his way back up the beach.