"I'm... curious, I won't say I'm not - but I don't need to know," he corrected her. Firmly, since the considering look she wore worried him. He hadn't asked with the intention she would feel somehow obligated to help him to find out if Halsey's project had begun with her or whether there'd been others.
She sat on the foot of the bed and laid the red jacket beside her. It contrasted sharply with the immaculately white and fluffy covers - everything fleet-issued always had a gray cast to it from being laundered endlessly in bulk.
Fred cast a more attentive eye around the spacious room, taking in the plush carpeting and heavy velvet drapes framing what he imagined to be a prime view, but which his combat minded brain immediately flagged as a potential breach point and massive vulnerability to marksmen. He'd never been inside a hotel of this quality before, or inside a serviceable establishment at all - the couple of bombed out buildings he'd sheltered in when engaged with Insurrectionists in the distant past had been no more than shells of broken concrete and twisted steel. The pale blue wall coverings and soft light from the two sconces on either side of the wooden headboard lent the space a calm and comfortable atmosphere which was so starkly different from the utilitarian gray of every fleet accommodation he'd ever made use of that he couldn't help but feel out of place.
He shifted, easing back towards the door - he'd taken up enough of her time. Even if his instinct was to be cautious and objective, he couldn't discount the authenticity of her reaction to the infirmary, nor of her appearance now; drawn, the darkness beneath her eyes a testament to little sleep and poor diet.
Maybe he was a fool, maybe it went against his better judgement, but he was leaning hard towards believing her.
He left before he did anything as stupid as tell her as much.
Three days.
That was how long it had taken for everything to go wrong.
The fact he'd even been present when they'd walked her across the grounds, an armed soldier on either side, had been purely by chance - the two warthogs transporting Blue Team to the designated area for that day's training exercise had left the ground vehicle hangar at the precise moment necessary for Fred to get a clear view of Lyra being escorted, her satchel clutched in her arms. He couldn't tell to which building they were taking her and her hair hung across what little he could see of her face from that distance, concealing her expression, but her posture spoke of tension.
Had she ignored his warning and looked into things she shouldn't have? All military devices were monitored - she wouldn't have been naive enough to use her project-issued datapad, would she? Perhaps the medical facility had upgraded its security measures since the last time she'd accessed her file?
He told himself he couldn't possibly know the reason behind what he'd witnessed - for the duration of the entire exercise, he shoved down mounting apprehension and unease. It could be completely unrelated, it could be anything. Just because it was unusual for someone to be escorted across base under guard didn't mean ONI had discovered her snooping and directed her to be detained for questioning.
Since part of the purpose of the trial was to test alterations to certain HUD parameters which included different sight modes, the exercise ran long into the night. The time was 0329 when they returned and were divested of their MJOLNIR. He followed his teammates to their assigned barracks and entered his quarters, knowing he would not sleep. It took a further thirty-three minutes for him to accept checking in on Lyra at the hotel in the middle of the night was an unreasonable response to the uncertain situation.
He did it anyway.
The sentries didn't seem to know what to think of his late excursion, but permitted him off base without too much fuss. The hotel personnel, he suspected, would not be as accommodating. He used the fifteen minute walk there to formulate what he hoped was a believable explanation - an unexpected development with the project she was involved with required immediate attention and she'd been unable to be reached via commcalls. His slightly rumpled fatigues and the fact he'd previously been there would lend the lie credence.
The clerk manning the sleek desk sized him up with all the poise of any weathered gunnery sergeant Fred had ever crossed paths with in his years of service - then begrudgingly offered to call up to the room to check on Ms. Ashton. Not what he'd intended, but as he had no excuse to disagree with the course of action, he simply stood back and waited.
If she didn't answer, he'd know he'd been right to fear the worst. She could still be somewhere on base, awaiting the arrival of an agent to facilitate her interrogation, but making enquiries would undoubtedly shift focus onto him. Did that matter? He'd done nothing wrong. Neither participated willingly in nor been aware of Halsey's agenda.
"Ms. Ashton, sorry to disturb you. There is a…"
"Lieutenant," Fred supplied as a warm rush of relief spread through his body. Even if it didn't preclude the possibility she'd gotten herself into some sort of trouble, at least she hadn't been confined.
"-a Lieutenant here to see you." A pause in which he was on the receiving end of an intense glare of scrutiny. "Yes, a very large Lieutenant. Of course." The earpiece utilized to make the call was removed. "You may go up."
Right. He was now left with the unenviable task of explaining what he was doing there at such an hour.
The lift ride was not long enough to concoct any less embarrassingly fretful excuse for disturbing her in the middle of the night, so he resigned himself to admitting how illogically worried he'd been.
She was waiting in the doorway, a downy white robe which fell midway down her bare calves belted around her waist and hair tousled. She looked like she could have used the sleep he'd woken her from and her expression was anxious as she watched him traverse the hallway. "Is everything alright? Did something happen?"
"No - I just - when I saw you earlier, it looked like-" He broke off with a frown, aware of both the absurdity of his assumptions and the fact the hall was not the place to discuss them.
She seemed to come to the same conclusion, retreating back into the room to let him inside.
Fred stepped in only far enough to allow the door to close behind him. He was going to make this as brief as possible and let her get back to bed. "I thought you'd possibly been checking into the medical files and been caught somehow. I saw you being escorted across base." He watched her features shift from angst to confusion to something else.
"Oh, that - I had to bring a hard drive to Naples, she insisted on the escort," she supplied, some of the strain melting from her voice.
He was an idiot. "I'm sorry for waking you, in that case. We only completed the exercise and got back a little while ago and I… I wanted to make sure you were okay. But it could have waited until morning." That sense of urgency was fast dissolving in the face of his fears being proven completely unjustified.
"I think it is morning, to be fair." She checked over her shoulder - the faint glow of one of the sconces illuminated the time displayed above the small holo-dock on the bedside table.
"Later in the morning, then." It would only be another couple of hours before she needed to be back on base. Would it really have killed him to wait that long to see if she would arrive or not? "You didn't do that, right? Check the files?"
"You asked me not to." Her brows climbed a little. "Do you…?"
"No." It wasn't required that she finish the question for him to understand the offer.
They regarded one another for a long moment. He tried not to imagine her with a swollen abdomen, carrying a life which had been intricately and briefly connected to his own in a manner which went beyond anything he'd ever before experienced. It stirred things inside him he didn't know how to account for, just the knowledge of that speck of life that had been.
If there were others, if he knew about them - then what? That information, no matter that there was a strong pull to possess it, was superfluous to his purpose. It would change nothing about his role as a Spartan and would probably distract him more than he already had been recently. Choosing not to pursue the subject any further was the right call to make.
"Fred," Lyra said softly. Her shadowed eyes were warm. Unguarded.
He moved forward to take her hand, cradling it gently in his much larger grip. "Don't do anything that could put you on their radar. Tell me you won't."
Her fingers curled against palm. She nodded once, slowly.
Hearing her say the words would have reassured him more, but this affirmation would have to be enough. He ran his thumb across delicate knuckles more accustomed to facilitating tasks such as typing and holding a tablet than punching or carrying a rifle. Unlike his own, there were no scars on her face, just smooth skin unblemished by battle wounds. It was probably even softer than her hand, but despite there being no pretense of a handshake this time, he was still aware touching her cheek or hair would have crossed some line he couldn't quite define but knew was there nonetheless. He released her, also aware he'd already taken liberties that night by showing up uninvited to her hotel room in the late hours, but found her fingers weren't as willing to let go. They caught and tightened around his index finger as he was pulling back, preparing to take his leave.
"Wait. The front desk - what did you…?"
"I said it was about the project." He flushed at the manner in which her lips pursed in what he was sure was skepticism of how well the lie would have been received.
"Hugo's no joke," she advised him, fingernails lightly scraping against his sensitive palm as she brought her hand flush with his again.
Fred had noted the name on the clerk's tag, but found his focus somewhat drifting. He grunted an agreement. The man had had no trouble standing up to a 6'9" Spartan. It was hard to think about that when his eyes kept being drawn to her mouth, however.
"I doubt he'll report you to Commander Kenashi for visiting past guest hours, just the same."
Was that reminder of the time a hint for him to go? If so he couldn't help but be confused and mesmerized by the small circles being traced over the meat of his thumb joint. He felt himself listing forward, closer to her, pulled in by a very real force he was only just beginning to understand. "That might prove awkward," he managed to cobble together in a low voice.
"Would it?" Somehow, with the way she was very attentively watching him from beneath lowered lashes, he got the impression the question wasn't in reference to reports to the base Commander.
He swallowed.
"If you want to kiss me, Fred - I want you to." It was no great surprise she could read him so easily - even he knew his body language was forthright, looming above her and barely coherent enough to string thought into words. What did surprise him was her invitation. He'd forced her from sleep, from her bed, in the dead of night just to assuage his nerves. Exasperation, he might have expected. Not this.
He felt himself freeze. He understood the mechanics of kissing - one saw things when stationed on board the same vessel for weeks and sometimes months on end, interactions between crew which weren't as discreet as they perhaps believed them to be - but he'd never done it before.
It took a moment to register that the little circles had stopped, his senses were so scrambled. Her lashes rose and she took a small breath. "I think I misread the situation…" The look which came over her face was one he remembered instantly, from that day by the pool. She let go of his hand, but he had the wherewithal to prevent her from retreating the way she had that day. He'd been too out of sorts to realize it then, but his lack of a response must have humiliated her.
"I want to kiss you," he said, finding his tongue. "I just, never have before." He knew it was abnormal - that he was an abnormality for a male of his age. It wasn't even that that sort of fraternization had been strictly prohibited for Spartans, it was merely that the desire had never formed. He'd found some women attractive, but there'd been no want on his part to do anything about that attraction - it'd never developed into anything more. He didn't know that the same was true for all S-IIs, it wasn't something discussed amongst his teammates. Their purpose and focus was as tactical combatants. Desire, kissing, and attraction simply.. didn't come up in conversation.
Lyra's eyes had widened marginally and her lips parted. She appeared for a moment as though she would say something, but seemingly changed her mind. Her free hand - the one he wasn't holding onto like a lifeline - came up and touched his name patch before flattening against his chest. It slid upwards, over his shoulder and around to the back of his neck, where her fingers gently squeezed. "You're going to need to come down here so I can reach you."
He almost snorted at the instructions. Bending down, he allowed her to guide his head until their mouths met. Her lips brushed over his own fleetingly once, twice - then settled with slightly more pressure before drawing back. His eyes had closed of their own accord and flickered open after the momentary contact.
She hadn't moved far. Her soft exhalations were warm against his chin as she gazed at him in silent expectation. Waiting for an assessment?
He had to clear his throat before he could give her one. "That seemed… brief."
She smiled. "If only there was something you could do about that…"