"-won't fade away, I'll be pushin' on. Til the rivers run dry, I've got to try, try, try. I'll be pushin' on."
Briar might have been amused by the off-key bawling which greeted them the moment the heavy doors to the brig opened to admit them had the circumstances been different.
"Til my dying day, I won't give it all away. I'll be pushin' on," the drunken captive continued from somewhere down the aisle of holding cells as Lasky walked in beside her.
He shot the two officers milling by the master control panel a pointed look and one promptly peeled away, heading down the aisle.
She followed, checking each barren internment cubicle until she came across the one she was searching for.
John sat on the edge of the bunk, it being abundantly obvious he could never hope to actually lay down on the thing. His forearms rested atop his thighs as he leaned forward, staring at nothing, the black and charcoal cap casting his features in shadow.
"Til the rivers run dry, I've got to try, try, try. I'll be-"
"Can it, soldier," the security officer barked, silencing the raucous crooning.
There was no telling how long John had been subject to it.
Sighing, she rapped a knuckle against one of the bars. "Room for one more in there?" Lasky hadn't precisely agreed to release John, not before he'd made whatever arrangements he was working on to get them off Infinity and out of ONI's grasp were ready, but there was no way she was leaving him there.
Turning his head, John regarded her a moment. Pain, raw and unguarded, flashed through his troubled eyes. He got up, but didn't approach.
Lasky had come down the aisle, pausing behind Briar. "Open it."
The bars over half the opening slid back in answer, the officer who'd remained stationed at the control panel complying with the order.
She stepped inside with confidence. Met his steely stare, so full of all the things he'd never been encouraged or permitted to express or experience.
Outside the cell, Lasky cleared his throat. "You'll be free to go when the time comes, but until then, I…" He must have trailed off when he realized neither of them was paying him any attention. "I am sorry, Chief." His footsteps receded soon thereafter and the bars slid closed again.
"You shouldn't be here," John spoke up, the words lacking any real conviction.
Instead of pointing out that he shouldn't either, Briar moved to him and took his hand into her own. The knuckles had scabbed over and were dark with bruising from hitting the bulkhead. She skimmed her fingers over them softly. He'd very nearly killed Locke with these hands, and nothing else. Looking up, she noted he was watching her with expectation.
Waiting. Waiting for her judgement. For her to tell him what he'd done had been wrong.
"Chances are that bunk's not going to hold the both of us," she observed instead, glancing to it, and then back to him. "Good thing you don't mind the floor."
The lines feathering his eyes crinkled slightly as he attempted to decide what to make of her comment, which clearly wasn't what he'd been anticipating.
"Come on, John," Briar pressed him. "Give me something." She released his hand, gathering two fistfuls of his fatigues and pulling, forcing him to be the one to close the distance between them. "I still see you."
He shook his head. "I'm not the same."
"You don't have to be."
"You're not listening - I lost control," John snapped in agitation, leaning back to break contact with her.
As opposed to fighting to keep him close, she moved with him, shoving him back into the wall so there was nowhere left to retreat.
He was glaring now, resentful of her unwillingness to give him space, to acknowledge his lapse in discipline - his brokenness. "I don't want this, I don't want to feel this." He could not be an effective soldier this way, he couldn't even be trusted.
"This is you," she informed him. "This is what you were always meant to be, this is human."
"I'm not-" His jaw had tightened in defiance of her claim, but he didn't know how to finish the assertion.
Briar pushed into him, feeling the absolute rigidity of his body, the tension which ruled it. "It's not a choice you get to make." She slid one hand up and around to the back of his neck, every muscle tight beneath her fingers. Lightly digging them in, she began to coax some suppleness into him. "It's frustrating, and messy, and inefficient." By rising up onto her toes, she was able to brush her lips over his chin. "It's terrifying and thrilling."
John's arms remained by his sides and he mulishly refused to lower his head to where she could more easily reach him.
"And you never figure it out, not really," she murmured, grazing his throat with her teeth as her other hand quested lower, between them. Certain appendages were feeling cooperative even if he overall wasn't. When he grabbed her arm to pull it away, she gripped him through his clothes in warning and raised a brow. "I wouldn't."
Savage blue eyes burned into her own.
Her heart was in her throat as she delivered her ultimatum. "Tell me to stop, John. Tell me you don't want this, any of it. I'll never touch you again." If that was what he wanted, she'd respect it. If he wanted to return to being no more than the impenetrable suit of military hardware they'd crafted him into. Even if it tore her apart inside.
His heart was hammering, she could feel it against her own chest. A small eternity seemed to stretch out before he gave into her gentle but insistent ministrations and dropped his head, seeking her mouth. In spite of his state of both turmoil and semi-arousal, he kissed her with tenderness and restraint, slowly. When his hands went to her back, one of them landing against the thick bandage covering her injury and subsequent operation site, his lips broke from hers.
Seeing that he seemed to be aware this was neither the time nor place for sexual interludes even if his body wasn't, Briar returned her one hand to his chest while the fingers of the other scraped through the hair at his nape. "Having your own organs is overrated anyway." She didn't feel much, the pain meds yet to wear off.
John grunted at the flippant comment. She hadn't yet caught a glimpse of herself, but according to the list of procedures which had been performed that her doctor had prattled on about in his attempts to coerce her back into her sickbed, many litres of donor blood had been required, so she could imagine she was pale as shit. Still, he didn't comment. Not on that. "I could have killed him." It wasn't stated in anger, just a fact.
"Did you want to?"
"Yes." Just as Lasky had claimed, there was no hint of regret or contrition in his voice.
She raised a brow. "Why didn't you, then?"
He released a pent up breath and closed his eyes, head falling back against the dull metal wall with a thud. "I don't know."
"I think you do."
They stepped onto the hangar bay deck, not as prisoners, but as Spartans. Unarmed but for their MJOLNIR - which was more than enough.
The slice which had fully penetrated Briar's multi-layer bodysuit had been repaired and with the drugs beginning to metabolize, the pressure against her wound was uncomfortable. And still she walked beside John, towards the awaiting pelican, with an unfaltering stride.
A small party had gathered to see them off. Palmer stood beside Lasky in her uniform, her expression tight, but no longer with mistrust. Judging from their body language, they were in disagreement about something.
Beyond them, she was surprised to see her doctor waiting, fidgeting as he did so. It was evident he was out of his element by the way he kept casting glances around and adjusting his stance.
One other waited, slightly apart from the rest. Briar didn't recognize him, but he was wearing the same style fatigues she and John had been issued during their time onboard. Her attention was drawn back when Lasky was the first to speak.
"I won't lie, I wish the circumstances were anything but this," he began. He looked to have aged a decade in the short time since she'd last seen him even though Infinity was now out of the woods, back to being the fully operational warship messiah of the UNSC that she was. "The Kaidon knows we were down there without his knowledge or permission, probably about the Forerunner artifact as well though he hasn't said it yet, and he's not pleased."
It was on the tip of Briar's tongue to ask if he needed someone to hold his hand, but he went on.
"Master Chief, I know I have no right to ask you this, but if you hold any sway at all with 'Vadam… we can't afford ten steps back with the peace treaty. If you are in contact with him-"
"That isn't likely, Sir," John interrupted, an oddity in and of itself.
Lasky appeared somewhat caught off guard by it as well, but shut his mouth and gave a solemn nod. "I'm going to try to make this right." He gestured to the pelican. "Supplies for an extended leave including weapons and ammo. Should be everything you need to lay low."
John was silent a moment. "Dr. Halsey?"
"Stable. They had to amputate, but she's looking at a full recovery."
"Lightfoot said she never stopped complaining about mission effectiveness the whole time they were waiting for evac," Palmer supplied dryly.
John didn't respond, so Lasky waved the doctor forward.
"Immuno-suppressants," he explained of the cartridge he extended towards Briar. "I was assured your MJOLNIR is capable of administering the correct dosage. It'll prevent your body from rejecting the new kidney."
Accepting it, she popped open the port in the titanium plated bracer on her left arm and slid the cartridge into the delivery system located there.
"I really cannot stress enough that you shouldn't be returning to combat yet." With a quick and perhaps semi-chastising look to the captain, he quit the hangar floor.
"Bones - there's no pleasing 'em," the unknown Spartan piped up, revealing his identity as he did so.
Lasky and Palmer turned towards him, the latter's eyes darting between John and Buck.
For his part, John did nothing more than turn his helmet minimally to take in the other.
Still, Buck raised his hands placatingly. "Had my fill of dancing with you two, trust me. I just came to say, we got the short end of the stick with those orders. Nobody wanted to be the ones to bring the Master Chief in, but we did what we were told to do. Never liked it. And we were never given the green light to execute anyone."
"What about the artifact?" Briar prompted.
"Retrieve Dr. Phillips and any research he was working on, including finds. That was the modified assignment." Buck's hands fell back to his sides. "Didn't understand why Locke was letting 'Vadam lead us around by the nose until we found Phillips and that thing."
So, Halsey hadn't been lying.
John's visor shifted to face Lasky again. "If that's all, Sir?" He sounded completely unmoved by Buck's revelation.
It looked as though there was more he wanted to say, but the captain refrained. "It is." He brought his hand up into a crisp salute after a moment's hesitation, which Palmer and Buck were quick to emulate.
Briar boarded the dropship. Fuck that.
Although the reaction was not immediate, and the measured period during which John merely stared back at them all apathetically was uncomfortable, he did return the gesture, his movements fluid and ingrained. Then he followed her onto the waiting pelican without a backward glance.