Chapter Ten: Dedication

POV: John-117

Date: 2531

Reference: During Chapter 16 of Chipped

oOOOo

Tawny had been declared dead for about ten minutes before Professor Anders and I forced our way in to see her.

Anders had refused to believe that Tawny was dead. She'd run every test available to her. In her lab, that was a very extensive list of tests.

She had decided that Tawny wasn't actually dead. Her biological processes had stopped, but there was enough brain activity for us to see that she hadn't died. Upon more intensive surveillance, Professor Anders discovered that her biological processes were very, very slow. Her pulse was an unbelievable 0.25 bpm. Her heart was beating once every four minutes.

But she wasn't dead.

Anders didn't know when she would resume normal activity. There was no guarantee that she would; she may stay like this forever.

So Professor Anders had strong-armed Captain Cutter into moving her all-but-comatose body into her lab.

I wasn't shirking my duties, but I was standing guard outside of Professor Anders's laboratory as much as possible.

It had been nine days since she had destroyed the sun on that strange planet. We were still in slipspace; my teammates had taken their armor off. I would have taken my armor off if I wasn't waiting for Tawny to wake up. I didn't want to miss it, if it was going to happen.

My armor allowed me to stay in one place for more time, so I kept it on. It paid off.

The door to my left opened. It couldn't have been the professor; she had turned in for the night several hours ago.

I turned quickly - too quickly - to face her.

"Tawny," I breathed.

She was standing in the doorway, her skin pale and her eyes listless. She looked close to collapse.

But my HUD assured me that her pulse was steadily climbing to a comfortable pace.

"You need to lay down," I said.

She looked down bashfully. "I-I wanted to see you."

"Are you alright?" I knelt on my knees in front of her, my hands on her shoulders.

"I feel fine," she lied. "Did it- did it work?"

"Did what work?"

She messed with her ring. "D-did we destroy the fleet?"

An urge overtook me, and I allowed it to. I wrapped my right arm around her back, my left arm under her legs, and scooped her up into my arms.

I held her close and said, "It was destroyed, yes."

"Good," she breathed. Her eyes closed.

She tried to wrap her arms around my neck, but it was a stretch. I shifted my right arm up so that she could reach better.

"Are you sure you feel okay?" I asked.

Her dull green eyes met mine, and she nodded. "I feel okay. Why are you so worried?"

She didn't know how close she had come to dying.

I knew that telling her would upset her. Maybe some other time I would, but not now.

I only said, "You were out for nine days."

"Nine days?" she asked, her eyes wide. "Really?"

I nodded and started walking down the hallway.

I was taking her back to my room, and no one's protests other than hers would stop me.

"Where...where are we?" Tawny asked.

I shifted, pulling her closer, and explained, "The Spirit of Fire's observation deck."

"Why was I in the observation deck?" Her voice was breathy.

"Dr. Halsey was transferred to Reach while we pursued you and Professor Anders to the Forerunner planet," I explained. "She's been put in charge of your research now; she wanted to observe you while you were out."

"She's probably not going to be happy that I left without saying anything," Tawny mumbled.

No, she wouldn't. But I didn't give a damn; Tawny was alive, she was awake, and I was going to keep her with me to make sure she was safe.

But I didn't say any of that. "You imploded a sun, Tawny. I can't believe you're alive."

She nuzzled into my chest. "Me, either. I could sleep forever."

She had almost slept forever. None of us had known when she would wake up, if she ever would.

I kept walking down the hallway. I didn't let on any signs that I had any reaction to her words, but that didn't stop her from feeling it.

She looked up at me with wide green eyes. "I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you."

"It's fine." I ducked into the shuttle.

There were several enlisted soldiers and a few officers, and they were all looking at us. None of them said anything to me. Even the officers, who outranked me, remained silent.

I was glad for my intimidating reputation; the officers would chew out a lesser soldier for the breach in conduct I was performing by holding Tawny, taking her to my room.

I did not care.

I kept my chin up and my eyes steady as the shuttle moved. Tawny was still in my arms, her eyes closed.

I couldn't tell if she was awake or not. Her body had sped up enough to come out of the coma, but it hadn't sped back up entirely. Her heart rate was still staggeringly low, my HUD assured me; 38 bpm.

When the shuttle stopped in the Senior NCO quarters I ducked out and walked down the hallway. I passed Tawny's room. She didn't notice; was she asleep?

I made my way into my own room. It was comfortably dim.

Tawny's eyes fluttered open. She realized that she wasn't in her room.

She didn't seem to mind. If she did I would take her back to her room, and stand guard at its door.

I laid her on my bed, making sure she was comfortably on the pillow.

I pulled the blanket up to her shoulders. "Stay here. I'll be back."

My armor clacked when I pushed myself to my feet. I turned to walk out.

"Where are you going?" she mumbled.

"I'm taking my armor off."

She didn't respond. A glance over my shoulder showed me her tiny, tired smile. Her eyes weren't even open.

The process to take my armor off was quick. Ten minutes, sometimes less.

All seven minutes felt like forever. Tawny was there, in my room, and I wanted to go to her.

I forced myself to stand perfectly still as the technicians removed my armor piece by piece. There were so many pieces to take apart, take off, and store.

When I had been stripped down to my biosuit I nodded to the technicians and strode out into the hallway. My eyes were focused; I needed to see Tawny.

I wanted to feel her. Her soft skin, her hair.

My biosuit was thick, and it covered my fingertips. I would have to take it off.

When my door closed behind me I checked on Tawny.

She was sleeping on my bed, wrapped in the blanket. But she hadn't pulled the blanket into herself; she was still too exhausted.

I pulled the biosuit loose from my neural implant and down my body. I laid it on the chair in front of my desk and walked over to the bed.

When I slid my arm beneath Tawny's back she stirred. "Huh?"

I picked her up and held her to my chest. "It's alright, Tawny. You can go back to sleep."

She looked around before her eyes landed on me. There was a myriad of emotions, affection chief among them.

There was also fatigue.

I laid down with her on top of me and pulled the blanket up to her chin.

Tawny nuzzled into my chest with a hum so miniscule I could have imagined it. I looked down at her in wonder. This tiny person had forced a sun in on itself.

She had paid the price, obviously; she was still very drawn and fatigued. She needed to sleep.

But she was awake.

"Tawny," I ran my thumb down her side, "you need to rest."

Her lip pouted. "But I can't. I haven't seen you in so long."

She had a valid point. She had been captured by the Covenant more than a month ago, and we'd only seen each other briefly before she fell into the coma.

"Something's going to happen again, and it's going to take you from me, and I won't see you for a long time. Again." Tawny's voice was vulnerable and scared.

I tightened my arms around her waist and back and swore, "That's not going to happen."

Her eyes were half-closed. "I just want to spend some time with you, while I'm awake."

I sat up and shifted Tawny so that she was sitting on my thigh. My back was against one wall, my right side against another. Her back was against the wall to my right.

"I won't mind if you fall asleep, you know," I said.

Tawny was preoccupied, sleepily running her finger along my collarbone. Her fingertip was soft, and her nail almost tickled.

"I got cool new powers on that planet." She tapped my dog tags with a fingernail.

"I know."

Her thumb ghosted across the dip of my collarbone. "Not just the ones you saw. I can feel them. I know things now. Like...that world, it was made by the Forerunners."

She yawned. She really was tired.

My heart jumped when she leaned against my chest. Her hair was soft to my skin.

"They called it Shield 0459, o-or the Trove," she continued. "It-it was supposed to be a safe haven when they fired the Halo Array. Then the Flood took it over."

"'Halo Array'?" I quoted. "'Flood'? What are you talking about?"

The Flood, in particular, sounded like something threatening. If it "took over" a Forerunner planet.

"I don't even know," Tawny admitted with a confused, forlorn face. "I just...I just know these things now. Whatever activated those ships down there, it did something to me. I was never able to do this."

She held her hand out shakily. At her beckoning, a stylus on my desk floated up and spun a few times.

"A-and...and I know how I do it, too," she said. "I never knew how I did things before."

"How do you do it?" I asked. I could hardly believe any of this was real.

"I can surround objects with ultrasound," Tawny explained.

"You said that wasn't the only ability you got."

"Oh, yeah." She paused for a moment and gathered her thoughts. "I-I can kill the Flood, too. There are more, I just don't know what they are yet. I can feel them."

The Flood. She'd mentioned it before, with disgust in her voice.

"What's the Flood?" I asked.

"The creatures from the shield world." She closed her eyes. I could feel her breath on my chest. "They...feed on sentient life. Thousands of years ago they ravaged the galaxy, and the Forerunners fired the Halo Array to-to get rid of them."

The Flood had already been a threat, and had already been dealt with. Maybe we could deal with it again, quickly.

"They're back now," I said. "Do you know where the Halo Array is? We could fire it before they become a problem."

Tawny's eyes opened, and they were wide with fear. "That would be a bad idea. The Halo Array doesn't kill the Flood, it-it kills its food."

"It feeds on sentient life." I looked down in realization. "So the Array would kill...us."

Tawny nodded. "A-and the Covenant, but yes. That's why they made the shield worlds, to-to protect a certain few from Halo."

I searched her eyes. "Is Halo still operational?"

Tawny stared ahead, her eyes unfocused and disturbed. "I...don't know. Probably. I know where they are, I-I can take us to them."

She tried to push herself out of the bed. Her eyes pinched with fatigue and pain when she moved.

I ran a quick few calculations and decided that Halo wasn't about to fire. Tawny had made it clear that it needed to be manually fired, probably by a human. And no humans knew that Halo existed.

"This isn't an immediate threat." I pulled Tawny down into myself. "You need to rest. Tawny, you destroyed a sun. Take a break."

Tawny looked up at me with tired eyes. She brought her hand up and trailed her finger lightly down my jaw.

"You drive a hard bargain," she teased sleepily. "Alright, I accept."

She was acting somewhat loopy. She was tired, and she needed to sleep, but she was fighting the pull of unconsciousness.

God, I would do anything for her. Even pale and gaunt, she was gorgeous. Her eyes were such a deep green, her lips so pink. She was upstanding and smart and kind. I didn't know many people outside of the SPARTAN ranks who were as genuine as her.

Her fingers traced down my throat. Lower, across my collarbone again. Down my left arm.

"Tawny," I pressed.

She glanced up at me as her fingers moved to my torso. "I know."

"You need to rest."

I was fighting to keep my voice even; her fingers were trailing softly up my abs and it felt strange.

"I am," she said.

When her fingernails slid up my left pectoral muscle the sensation made me twitch. And she was stalling.

I wrapped a hand around hers. "Go to sleep."

She pouted and rested her head back on my chest. "I'm trying. I just slept for nine days."

She was so pretty.

My right arm was wrapped around her back, keeping her off of the wall. I took my right thumb and ran it lightly down her face, from her temple to her jawline.

Her eyes slid closed. She looked content. Her skin was soft on my chest.

"I'm so glad I'm back," she mumbled.

I breathed in her beauty with concealed desperation. I thought I would never see her again.

She was back now. She was safe, and she was with me.

I took a deep breath and watched my chest move her as I inhaled. "So am I."

Her breathing slowed. She was asleep, most likely.

I ran my hand down her arm. It came back up to her shoulder, where I tapped "love" on her sleeve in Morse code.

oOOOOo

Author's Note: Hey guys so I'm really bored and I decided to post this today. Also would you be mad at me if I posted stories here out of chronological order? I obviously won't post anything with spoilers for the main story until those chapters have been posted, but I may do more stories from, say, Tawny's perspective on Eridanus II or smth like that. Would y'all be chill with that?