The fortunate part of fifteen days away from base was that it provided nothing but processing time.

Fred combed through every detail that had been supplied. Again and again. And the more he did, the more his failure to ask pertinent questions which might have helped him to decide one way or another the validity of the information became apparent. He'd not questioned her much - not at all. Both her own emotional state and his shock had prevented him from doing so. He was aware of the ability of some to deceive, to fake turmoil and any number of other emotions - he couldn't be sure that wasn't what Lyra had done. He just could fathom no reason for her to concoct the tale and feed it to him. What purpose would there be?

He tried to remain pragmatic, to ascertain any and all advantages which might be gained before allowing himself to consider the rest. He tried. His thoughts kept circling back to the possibility there'd been a tiny being created from his genes - even for the briefest time - and he'd not known of its existence. Offspring were not something he'd contemplated - not something any of them had, he felt it reasonable to assume, though the subject had never arisen with his teammates. And yet - maybe - he'd had one for a number of weeks. A growing, thriving continuation of his lineage.

It was an unsettling concept to wrap his mind around, not just because it was something that had happened without his knowledge or consent, but because the intention had very clearly been to create a new generation of Spartan. And while he served proudly and with honour and would lay down his life in defense of humanity if the occasion ever called for it, he was not comfortable with the idea of settling that burden onto the shoulders of a child nor of being used as part of the apparatus to bring said child into being. The S-IVs were volunteers, those who chose to join the program and sign up for the augmentations. That was how it needed to be going forward. There were few convictions Fred held to more firmly than that. What had happened to him, John, Kelly, Linda, Sam, Kurt and all the others - that need never happen again. It was part of his motivation for fighting so tirelessly. Drafting children, removing them from their families and making Spartans of them - that had been to turn the tide of the war. It'd been necessary and it'd been successful. Further such programs weren't.

He hadn't even asked whether it'd been a boy or girl.

"Time to call it a day, Ashton."

"Thanks."

"I hear sleeping every now and again is advisable."

"Thanks again."

"This wouldn't have anything to do with avoiding the over 100kgs of muscle waiting out in the square for you, would it?"

Lyra lowered her tablet, fixing Swinton - posted in her doorway - with a scrutinizing look. "You don't expect me to buy that, do you?"

She shrugged. "It's no skin off my back, but I doubt he'll stick around forever. Don't forget tomorrow's a holiday."

"How could I, you've been telling me every day for the past week."

"Been telling you to sleep too, but you keep comin' in here looking like a damn zombie."

Rolling her eyes, Lyra turned her attention back to the data she'd been scrolling through. She heard Swinton and the others leave. The lines of code were blurring together. She pushed herself up, accepting she wouldn't see any errors at this stage even if the programming was riddled with them. Packing her keyboard into her satchel, she drew her jacket on and hit the panel to switch the lights off on her way out. The cool air on her face was welcome after twelve hours inside. Her gaze wandered to the statues ringing the square despite her confidence in calling Swinton out on the lie and she came to a halt.

Fred stood before the replica Mark V, his body angled towards the direction from which she was walking. He didn't approach and yet the distinct impression he wanted to speak to her was there. He wore his cap and his head appeared to have been shaved - she supposed a necessary step for the neural implant upgrades Naples had mentioned as the reason for Blue Team's absence.

"You're back," she said as she moved closer, trying to read in his expression what this might be about. "I didn't know." She hadn't known whether to expect if he would or wouldn't want anything more to do with her when he returned when it'd become clear she would in fact still be there. Either would have been understandable.

"Just a few hours ago." His blue-green eyes were pensive. "There are some things I think we'd better discuss."

She nodded. Dumbly.

"I only have my schedule for the next few days, but if that doesn't work for you-"

"Now is good." Best get this over this. "If you're okay with that."

He nodded this time. "I'll walk with you."

They fell into step, heading towards the sentries. Lyra set her satchel onto the table and obligingly removed her jacket - why she'd even bothered to put it on, she wasn't sure. While these were checked over, she was subject to a quick body search.

"Ah, miss?"

Looking down to the hand which hovered over her pocket, she flushed. "Sorry - just napkins." She pulled out the suspect ball of tissues, smudged with mascara she might as well not wear anymore. Randomly and unexpectedly tearing up several times throughout the day wouldn't be such an issue if she didn't have to worry about the black eye makeup tracking down her face - and instead only had to worry about the embarrassment of one of her colleagues walking in on such a scene. Her office, she'd been disgruntled to find, didn't possess a lock. Woe to the emotionally unstable occupant.

"Right. Have a good evening, Ms. Ashton."

She collected her things and joined Fred on the other side of the security fence.

They walked in silence for a while.

"There were some things I wanted to ask, if you don't mind," he finally spoke up. Still polite in spite of the bomb she'd dropped on him the last time they'd talked.

"No. Not at all."

"What did you know about us?"

"About Spartans?" His nod confirmed the subject. "That it'd been difficult finding candidates with the right genetics for the augmentations. That you were faster, quicker to react, and stronger than average soldiers. Not much more than what everyone else knows now, to be honest - but at the time it felt like a lot because no one knew anything." In the past few years the UNSC had relaxed its stance on the S-IIs and IIIs remaining enigmatic figures cloaked in shadow and myth.

"What did you know about what the plan for... the baby was?"

For her to be a mother to it. To love it. To protect it from ever being molded into whatever it was Halsey wanted it to be. "Just the vaguest suggestion of a training regime - an education and PT program. At first, I thought it would be a matter of waiting for them to grow up and mature and decide if joining up was something they wanted - with influence towards that end, of course. I knew there was a purpose and that it was to train new Spartans who already had compatible genes instead of screening thousands or millions searching for them. At some point it sank in that it wasn't going to so much be a choice as an expectation, and… not one that would wait to be fulfilled until they were eighteen or nineteen. But younger. Something they'd be trained for from much younger. After the two miscarriages, I wasn't going to do it again. I had my doubts - I had mostly doubts. I don't know if I wasn't thinking straight, if it was… because I had made up my mind about being pregnant, about a baby, but I agreed to one last try. I spent the first four months waiting for it to… for the same thing to happen, to lose it. And then one day I realized I wasn't going to. Or I thought… that."

"What was it?"

She looked to him, confused - until she noted the intense manner in which he'd been watching her.

He cleared his throat. "The baby… I wondered…"

So small. So soft.

"Girl… she was a girl," she forced the words past trembling lips, digging the tissues from her pocket and pressing them hastily to her burning eyes. She'd stopped and so had he, she felt his warm hand close around her elbow.

"Lyra, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked."

"Yes - you should." He didn't deserve to feel guilty about asking if the child he hadn't known was his had been a boy or girl. She blinked away the remaining moisture and crumpled the tissues in her hands. Inhaled slowly. "Fred, if there is anything I can tell you, I will."

He stared at her, visibly conflicted. "Tell me about the Mark V project, everything you remember about that year."

She did. For the remainder of the trip to the hotel, she related every detail she could recall; about Reach, Castle base and the tense atmosphere there, about the personnel she'd encountered, about the scope of her work. He was trying to verify her story and she understood that. It hadn't occurred to her he might not believe her, but neither was she offended by the prospect. Were their positions reversed, she'd be skeptical. It'd just.. been her life the past nine years, and she'd never before told anyone about it, or surely the obscenity of it all would have been pointed out to her. But Fred was too polite to say as much.

By the time they paused on the sidewalk outside the front entrance, she was exhausted from rifling through her mind for every memory whether insignificant or not, and also afraid to truly look and see disbelief written on his face.

He'd been listening with a mostly neutral expression and hadn't interrupted even once to ask for clarification or to tell her she was rambling. Was that a good sign? Was he merely being introspective?

Lyra adjusted her satchel. Her throat was dry from talking incessantly. She braced herself and turned towards him. "I won't be on base tomorrow, but if there's anything else you wanted to know… My room is 614 and I'll be here."

"I'll… consider it." He didn't seem any less pensive than he had in the square as he walked away.

Inside her room, she laid her satchel on the desk by the floor to ceiling window overlooking the skyline, the setting sun reflecting off the ocean's surface in the distance.

Maybe she'd sleep that night. She couldn't possibly unburden herself more than she had by now. There was nothing left to tell - nothing she could think of. If he didn't believe her… There wasn't anything she could do about that except get on with her job there, finish up, and go back to Cascade. He could choose to tell John or not. They were close and he would be better able to determine if the knowledge would be beneficial or detrimental to his teammate. She wasn't going to make that call. She'd caused enough complications for one Spartan.

Laying back on the bed, she kicked her shoes off and allowed the silence to wash over her. Her eyes were growing heavy and she was contemplating the need to at least shrug out of her jacket before passing out when a knock on the door disturbed the fuzzy and relaxed state.

It was a weird time of day to be restocking linens - especially when the staff were familiar with her schedule by now.

She struggled up, taking the opportunity being upright presented to shuck her outerwear. The jacket landed on the floor at the foot of the bed and she didn't care. She crossed to the door, so done with that day - with the last number of days, in fact. It slid open and she found herself staring up into a pair of troubled eyes. She hadn't expected him to take her up on the offer at all, but certainly not just now. Words deserted her.

He was gripping his cap in his hands. It'd hidden the fact they'd shaved around the sides and back of his head, but not the top. The silver stubble already growing back in at his temples caught the light in the hallway. It made her realize she couldn't actually guess what his age might be. He could be anywhere from early thirties to forties, based on appearance. His broad shoulders were slumped and he looked overall downcast.

Stepping aside, Lyra gestured with a hand for him to come in. Apparently she wasn't quite done unburdening herself.

He edged by her, cognizant of his bulk, and to her weary amusement retrieved her jacket from the floor in what she imagined to be an automatic response to witnessing disorder. Walking into her quarters to clothes strewn all over the floor had probably mortified him more than it had her, looking back on it. "I realize tonight isn't tomorrow," he began.

"It makes no difference." She reached out for the jacket and he passed it to her. "You don't know if you believe me."

He frowned.

"I understand. Really. It's alright if you don't - I'm not sure what it must mean you think of me, but it's alright." This wasn't about self-validation. True, the possibility he now believed her to be either a liar or deranged, or both, wasn't the best feeling ever. But it wasn't what was important. "I never thought I would meet you, but I have and I didn't feel it was right not to say anything under the circumstances. I'm sorry if.. it's made matters difficult for you. I'm sorry about a lot of things." 'Sorry' and 'thank you' seemed to be the two words she'd said most to him since they'd met, which frankly… was telling.

He'd dropped his gaze, his focus on the article of clothing in her hands. "You said you'd viewed your medical file… were there any others?"

The simple question stole the breath from her lungs. Other files. Other women. She hadn't even contemplated it. "I- no. I mean, I don't know. I was searching for my own, I didn't even… you think there may have been more?"

"I don't know," he said, brows drawn together. "Possibly. Possibly not."

"I saw other women when I went there, it was a private clinic. I didn't think anything of it." Now she was thinking. Now her mind was racing. Was she not the only one?

"It's just speculation, Lyra. I've had a lot of time on my hands. I thought I should ask."

"I could check." She twisted the jacket. "The files, I could remotely access them."

"What? No."

"Fred-"

"No. You've never been questioned, don't draw attention to yourself needlessly."

"But it's not needless. You would want to know, if there were others - you want to know and I can help." She developed security measures, amongst other things. Infiltrating them, while not precisely a reverse science, was something she could manage.

She'd managed before.