Eyes opening onto the stillness of the dimly lit bedroom, Briar blinked a few times. The panel by the door which controlled the environmentals read 0523 hours. She could feel the warmth of the solid presence behind her and listened, trying to ascertain whether John was still sleeping or not. It'd caught her more than a little off guard when he'd practically passed out on top of her the previous evening. He'd notably been under some mental strain in the lift earlier that day, but the semi-catatonic state directly following sex hinted at more than just mental fatigue. She'd managed to wriggle out from beneath him without rousing him too much and he'd failed to so much as twitch when she'd drawn a blanket over him.

His breathing still sounded deep and even, but when she chanced a peek over her shoulder, his alert gaze lifted to meet hers.

"How long have you been awake?" Looking forward again, she yawned and indulged in an exaggerated stretch.

A large hand slid over her rib cage, fingers spreading wide as he pulled her flush with his body. "Sixteen minutes," he answered, voice still somewhat thick in evidence of this.

That'd been far more sleep than he'd typically require.

"You smell like chemicals."

Her nose wrinkled. "The dye," she explained with a laugh. "It should wash the rest of the way out next time I shower."

John grunted tactfully in response, his thumb tracing the underside of her breast. "Was it worth it?"

"Well - you didn't let me strip you and you fell asleep on me, literally."

"But you saw me in dress whites." She could hear the amusement masked behind his flat tone.

"You looked nice."

"Nice."

"Are you fishing for compliments?"

"Nice doesn't sound worthwhile," he determined.

Briar was grinning. "For me or for you?"

"It was worthwhile for me."

"It's clear you got the better deal."

"Agreed."

She laughed again. "You would have rathered another orbital entry without a chute." She hadn't missed how uncomfortable he'd been at that ceremony, even if the other bystanders might never have guessed.

"Yes." He shifted, stretching his other arm out when she lifted her head obligingly. His thumb continued to idly sweep across her sternum as she resettled, using his bicep as a rather firm pillow.

Scars ran the length of his forearm, from wrist to the crook of his elbow, now at eye level for her. Nothing she hadn't seen before. Her own body was just as riddled with them, inflicted either directly or indirectly as a result of the augmentations; countless injections and operations, stretch marks from growth spurts her skin hadn't been able to accommodate. During training, by accident or intentionally as punishment. In the field from various weapons and opponents. Sobered by the myriad of memories, she reached up and slowly ran her fingers down over the pale raised lines.

"What are you going to do?" he asked, a question she sensed he'd wanted to pose before now.

And not one she had a good answer for. "Disappear again, if I have to." The powers that be could deliberate her existence, but they wouldn't decide her fate for her. Not this time. There were plenty of places to get lost in the outer colonies still.

John was silent for longer this time before speaking again. "What do you want to do?" His hand had stilled.

"You're not going to tell me I'm a valuable asset? Ouch." She knew the response was a cop out, but wanting things felt too much like having faith in the future and its possibilities. Dangerous and unlikely to come to fruition, what point was there?

"You don't need me to."

"No."

"Then answer the question," he insisted, betraying the weight he would place in that answer.

Briar made to roll over, but his arm tightened to prevent it. "I can't." She wasn't fond of being restrained, but allowed it. "I haven't figured it out yet." When no reply was forthcoming, she closed her eyes. "I shouldn't have made it off Reach. I should have died there. I wish all of me had - I wished all of me had. Not just my identity, my… belief." At some point it'd stopped mattering. All of it. The fact that point happened to have occurred after they'd met wasn't something she knew how to admit. "I don't want to keep running, but I'm done taking orders." That much she knew.

It was probably incomprehensible to him - walking away from the UNSC. From duty. It was all he'd ever known. Which was why she wasn't surprised by his continued reservedness.

"I thought about going back a few times," she confessed, unsure why. It wasn't anything she was actively planning. Just a passing sort of morbid curiosity from time to time.

"Back?"

"Jericho VII." She couldn't even remember it, having been a mere two years old when it'd fallen. Perhaps that was where the curiosity stemmed from.

"I watched it get glassed." As with most remarks John made, on the surface it sounded toneless. A statement of fact. It was much more than just that, however. She hadn't known he'd been there, and she wasn't sure what name to give to the emotion it stirred within her.

She turned towards him, and this time he didn't stop her. His clear blue eyes met her own, and in them she read regret. "I can't remember anything. Not my home, not Damask. My parents. Nothing." All there'd ever been was the burning hatred for what had been taken from her. Except it had eventually become largely eclipsed by what the UNSC had taken, until one seemed to counteract the other, deadening the rage.

"Why go back?"

"I don't know." Maybe she never would. She couldn't claim to understand the why of it. "Sometimes I want to go back to Reach. Sometimes I wish it would implode." Part of her wanted to believe the conflicting sentiments were normal considering what she'd experienced, the other part knew 'normal' was not a descriptor easily applied to her or her situation.

He was regarding her intensely in his way. It was on the tip of her tongue to crack a joke at her own expense to dispel the sombre atmosphere - he had enough on his plate without her adding to his burdens. "I feel that way sometimes," he surprised her by saying, and she knew it wasn't in reference to Reach specifically, but of opposing sentiments. The impression it was something he'd deliberated admitting to was distinct.

Briar waited, but he failed to elaborate. Instead, he lifted his hand and pushed back the hair that had fallen into her face. She leaned up to brush her lips across his. "About Halsey." His turmoil surrounding her had been all but palpable aboard Infinity.

He stiffened immediately, the tension suffusing his body giving away what he wouldn't with words.

"John… for what it's worth, I wish there would have been a different way to fix all of this." She wished it hadn't happened to him to start with. Any of it. Even if that meant they never would have crossed paths.

He resisted the pressure she applied to his chest at first, but gave in with reluctance and laid back.

Propping herself up on an elbow, she studied him. The guarded expression he wore pained her. "You don't have to know how to feel about it all," she pointed out, every bit the hypocrite. Reassuring him or attempting to ease her own conscience?

"You were wrong," he replied. "About Cortana. About New Phoenix. She wasn't the limiting factor."

Despite herself, Briar was surprised by his train of thought. She knew exactly to what he referred, just the same. "I wasn't there, I can't say one way or another what might have happened."

"She sacrificed herself."

Nodding slowly, she smoothed her hand over the rigid outline of a pectoral. It'd either been for the best or the worst that Aurora had been terminated along with her rampant predecessor. She had no idea which. "Maybe you should talk to Blue team about Halsey. Decide what you think is fair. Hood could probably pull some strings for you, if that's what you want."

"It isn't up to me." He sounded perplexed about why she'd suggest such a thing.

"You should all have a say."

His jaw firmed stubbornly as his gaze shifted to the ceiling.

"If you're going to be satisfied with the outcome, then let it run its course. If not, do something about it." Seeing that he wouldn't acknowledge the merit of discussing it with his teammates, she abandoned the subject and got up to take the aforementioned shower. He didn't ask where she was going, and she didn't offer. Just made her way to the lav and hit the controls, stepping beneath the instantaneously hot spray of water.

The UNSC contact Briar had been assigned when she'd made the decision to at least attempt to regain her identity had been explicit in his instructions for her not to draw attention to herself until they had time to 'examine and consider how best to proceed'. She was under no illusions the odds Davids was his real name were about as good as the odds of the conundrum she represented to them being brought to a swift and satisfactory solution. They'd provided her with the means to lay low, first on Earth and then elsewhere - the elsewhere presumably not an active military base. Davids didn't ask for details of her whereabouts, which made sense. The less he knew, the easier to claim ignorance if this all went sideways. The biggest point of contention thus far had been the requirement she abandon her MJOLNIR. She'd nearly washed her hands of the process then and there. Something had stopped her. She didn't know how to describe it and wasn't sure she wanted to analyze it too closely even now, but it had led her here. Back to John.

Once she'd finished rinsing the last of the dye from her hair, she grabbed a towel and dried off. Her practical self had insisted it would be better for all involved if he'd treated her as a once-ally when they came face to face again. That other part of her, the one ruled by emotions which refused to be reasoned with, had known it would hurt her - she, who hadn't even realized there was anything left inside her to feel hurt.

John was going to remain a fixture of the UNSC, despite it all. In spite of it all, even. He didn't see any other purpose for himself. She could appreciate that. She saw no purpose either, but setting aside her grievances would be impossible. Perhaps she wasn't as adept at compartmentalizing such things. Perhaps it was a flaw in her. Perhaps a flaw in him that he could set it aside. Was he simply the better, the truer Spartan? There was no real doubt of that.

He wasn't in the bedroom, neither had she expected him to be. It annoyed her that her heart rate kicked up, but she forced herself to select new clothes from the duffle bag in the corner and dress instead of searching the house for him. Apart from the noise she was making, everything was silent. She arranged the blankets on the bed with mechanical movements, knowing she wouldn't sleep there again. That now she would leave. Turning to her reflection in the mirrored panel on the wall, she frowned at the morose expression she found there and didn't bother braiding her hair, unable to stand to see herself looking so defeated. Reach had defeated her. Six years of mindless obedience as a literal nobody had defeated her. Not this.

Briar carried the duffle from the room, all her worldly possessions stowed neatly inside. They amounted to nothing. The necessities. Clothes. Weapons. Some food provisions. She dropped it by the front door, casting her gaze around the rented house for anything she might have forgotten though she knew already there wouldn't be any. Her gaze settled on the hat on the sofa. She walked over and picked it up. He wouldn't have forgotten any more than she would. Moving to the large window looking out onto the street, her grip tightened on uniform cap.

Beside the warthog, John stood with his focus fixed on a boy who'd taken up occupation of the vehicle, seated behind the wheel. The kid had obviously been caught red handed, if the wary glances he kept shooting John's way were any indication. They were talking. Whatever was being said was not putting the boy at ease, and she almost turned to go smooth things over, but she noted John point to something and paused. Reaching out, the boy flipped a switch on the console, and the M831's spotlight flashed on.

So, he was humouring the kid. Small wonders. She watched as he indicated several other buttons for the boy to test, and finally stepped back. Climbing out reluctantly, this newest worshipper stared up at John, having to crane his head all the way back to do so. He raised his spindly arm and sketched the sloppiest salute Briar had ever witnessed before dashing down the street and into one of the yards.

John returned, his eyes travelling from the bag by the door directly to her as he came inside.

"So what's the verdict, is he a carjacker or a soldier in the making?" she asked before he could say anything about her leaving.

It took him a moment to determine she wasn't being serious, she could tell. He said nothing, but looked at the cap in her hand.

She held it out.

Neither of them moved.

"Is this why you came?" He toed her duffle.

"To say goodbye?" she inferred. "I don't know." It hadn't been her intention. She'd had no intention. Just a strong desire to set eyes on him, to know he was, in fact, alright.

"Don't lie."

Briar rolled her eyes. "You're the authority on deception now?"

"I know you came here for a reason," he corrected her.

"It's called closure, John." There. She'd said it.

His voice had a hard edge to it when he next spoke. "That's what you want?"

"You tell me how this works, then." She gestured between them. "Best case scenario; I get my name back, I get to be real again. I'm never going back to what I was before. But you're 'still a valuable asset'. Where does that leave us?"

Eyes narrowing at having his own words thrown back in his face, John stepped over the bag. "I don't know." He was losing patience. "But if it's a call you're making on your own, I guess it doesn't matter." Closing the space between them, he reached for the hat.

She jerked it back. "What's the alternative? You keep sneaking out here to fuck me?"

His nostrils flared indignantly, but it was clear he didn't know how to respond. He caught her other arm and once more attempted to retrieve the cap instead.

"How long, do you figure, before someone says something? A day or two? A week?" she pressed him, skillfully avoiding surrendering her prize. "Two weeks? You could have me so many times in two weeks, John. I know you want me."

"Enough, Briar," he growled in warning. His grasp had firmed considerably and he yanked her forward, fingers closing on the last item of his uniform.

"Then what?"

"I don't know."

"Tell me what happens next." The stitching gave way under the stress of being pulled in two opposing directions. An apt metaphor.

John abandoned the ruined hat. In fact, he released her abruptly and glared down at her.

If she would have kissed him, he'd have taken her. There was no doubt in her mind. "We both know you're always going to be a Spartan first. Their Spartan." She crumpled the cap in her fist and threw it away. "Just go back, John."

He was pissed. There was no mistaking the cold fury in his eyes. She also read frustration there. Pain. But no determination. No perseverance. He didn't know how to make this work any more than she did.

He left without replying.