A/N: Just popping in to say I realized an oversight in a previous chapter - John would not be aware of Inspector Lopis as he was already MIA at the time she and Blue team meet on Gao. So I'm going to remove that one line from the chapter and all will be rectified.
Genesis looked the same.
Powering down the expedition craft she'd failed to turn over when she'd surrendered her armor, Briar took a moment to sit back in the pilot's seat and survey the planet's unique landscape without the threat of a rampant AI hell bent on enslaving humanity looming over her. She refused to glance back to the empty chair. This was the way things had to be. Her days under the UNSC's thumb were over. She left the cockpit and punched the panel by the loading door, stepping down once it had descended.
Outside, strange birdsong greeted her. A gentle breeze stirred the loose hair which had escaped her braid and she tucked it behind an ear, out of the way. The air smelled of flora tinged by something very foreign, but not altogether unpleasant. Something unique to the Builder world, she suspected. She wouldn't have minded scouting the planet, had circumstances been different.
"Hello! I am 038 Exorbitant Witness," the Monitor's voice preceded it as it appeared in a vortex of golden light.
Briar barely refrained from wrinkling her nose. She well remembered the effect of the translocation grids and had no desire to experience them without her armor. "Yeah, I know. We've met." But she'd been encased in MJOLNIR then.
"Ah." The Forerunner construct swivelled to take in the ship. "You return alone. What has befallen your kind?"
"Cortana was destroyed," she supplied, a little taken aback the AI wasn't aware of this, though she supposed without access to the Domain, it wouldn't. "But not before causing a lot of damage with the Guardians."
"It is as I suspected, then." Exorbitant Witness spun back towards her. "Your mate was defeated?"
"No." She didn't want to get into the specifics with this thing. "But I need your help."
"If it is within my capacity to assist you, Reclaimer, I will surely do so."
"The Guardians - they're still out there. Is there some way you can... call them back?" Preferably before any of the idiots she knew Brass had or would be deploying to attempt to infiltrate them were successful.
"Back?"
"Here. They'd be in better hands here, with you."
"I see." The Monitor floated a ways away, seemingly considering this. "They are a formidable resource to wield."
"We're not ready - humans, I mean. Not yet. Maybe never." The bleak remains of Sydney were still clear in her mind's eye. Millions dead. It could have been worse. Much worse.
"I will need direct access in order to alter their directives."
Briar raised a brow. "To each?"
"Through one, I should be able to gain control of the others, just as the ancilla did."
Small mercies. "Good. The sooner, the better." She passed her gaze around before turning to board the Forerunner craft again.
Maybe she'd come back. If this didn't get her killed.
"You're going to wear a hole through that."
John's head snapped up. The shots, the metallic chinks of bullets being fed into magazines, the casual banter of soldiers comparing target scores all came rushing back in. The wire brush he'd been methodically feeding into the barrel of his magnum stilled in his grip.
Kelly took a seat on the bench on the other side of the cloth on which the disassembled pieces of his sidearm rested.
Linda passed by silently and entered the stall he'd been utilizing before taking his gun apart to clean, flipping the switch for a new holo-target to be displayed.
His gaze returned to said weapon.
"Fred got squirrely at the last second and wouldn't come."
His brow furrowed. This was a trap. Kelly knew he wouldn't understand the relevance of such a statement, she wanted him to ask what was going on. He didn't. If Fred had refused to be associated with whatever this was, John knew he wasn't going to like it.
Linda calmly began firing, and without even needing to see it, he knew each round was a kill shot.
Kelly's perceptive eyes were studying him. "Still no word on when we'll be returning to duty."
He set the brush aside and began to fit the magnum back together. It wasn't a process he needed to pay too much attention to, having completed it a thousand times or more in his career, but he did nonetheless.
"But that's not all that's bothering you, is it?"
The temptation to continue on in silence was real. He found Kelly's probing disconcerting, since she rarely addressed his behaviour. Certainly, Linda never did, and while she wasn't precisely partaking, her presence gave the impression she was on board with the whole thing. "I'm not bothered," he answered in as bland a voice as possible.
"You'll excuse me for calling your bluff, John."
His gut churned. Her use of his given name and not 'Chief' was purposeful. She wasn't going to let this go. They weren't going to let this go. He continued to reassemble his sidearm with building irritation. He'd come to the shooting range to distance himself from the thoughts which had been plaguing him this last week. The atmosphere was one of few on the military base he found familiarity in. The fact that was because it was filled with the sounds of weapons fire and ammunition being reloaded was not something he reflected upon.
"It might have something to do with the black eye," Kelly went on when he failed to respond. "The reason Fred was leery about joining us, that is."
John grimaced at the subtle criticism. Guilt warred with frustration. He hadn't intended to land the punch so hard - Fred should have kept his guard up. He was a seasoned Spartan, not a cadet, and if he couldn't conduct a sparring session with the proper amount of attentiveness, he had no business engaging in one. What right did he have to question John about Briar? About logistics?
"It's been a while since I've known you to take your anger out on someone."
"Is that what he said happened?" He was shoving the pieces together now, using too much force.
Kelly's brows were climbing. "No, he didn't say anything."
"That's not what happened."
"So what did?"
Slamming the magazine into the gun, John rolled the cleaning implements up in the cloth and stood from the bench.
Kelly's fingers closed around his forearm before he could turn to leave. "You've been in a mood since that ceremony - since before that even, but it's gotten worse," she informed him carefully. "You're not yourself."
Linda was watching them now, her expression unreadable. "Not here," she spoke up. "Let's go somewhere private."
He didn't want to go anywhere, but he followed her away from the range with Kelly trailing behind as though to prevent him from changing his mind and beating a hasty retreat.
Once she'd found an area which seemed suitably free of other personnel, behind a ground vehicle garage, Linda faced him again with a certain amount of expectancy.
John almost groaned. This was bad. He knew he could refuse to comply with this impromptu interrogation, but could also see doing so would sow further doubt amongst his teammates. The truth was that he knew he'd hit Fred in anger. Facing that fact in the cold light of day with two of his oldest comrades watching on wasn't an easy pill to swallow.
"Tell us about B312," Kelly prompted him with patience.
"What do you need to know?" He resigned himself to revealing what he must to put their minds at ease. It wasn't conducive to team cohesion to have them questioning his mental state.
"You trust her."
"Yes." They were already of that fact owing to her involvement in the mission on Earth. He got the sense Kelly was building up to more uncomfortable questions.
"You believe she is who she says she is?"
"Yes. Halsey confirmed her identity." He'd believed it before then, but that was irrelevant.
"You care for her." Kelly's gaze wavered for the briefest of moments, flickering to Linda, who stood stoically quiet as usual. "As more than an ally."
His jaw had tightened at the observation, but he made himself relax. He could deny it. But Fred had broached the subject previously and he knew it would create further discord for him to be anything less than honest. He trusted his teammates. He needed to trust them to understand the situation for what it was - a product of extreme circumstance. "Yes," he confessed finally.
Kelly gave a thoughtful nod. She seemed to be trying to decide how to proceed. "Something happened after you saw her last week."
"She's gone." John was aware his tone was clipped, but the ability to mitigate this eluded him entirely. He'd replayed the events in his memory countless times by now and saw no solution, nothing he could have said or done differently to secure a more desirable outcome - or what that even looked like. He looked between the two of them, feeling suddenly more spent than he had in months. "Is that all?"
"About Fred," Kelly said with obvious reluctance.
It was on the tip of his tongue to volunteer to make things right with his fellow Spartan somehow when she continued on.
"When you were MIA all those years, it took a toll on him - on all of us, but I think on him most of all when he was assigned team commander. He's never felt he was filling your boots." These types of admissions weren't made lightly by her, by any of them, and John found himself listening intently. "During some of our missions, he... grew close with one of the operatives." She paused here, and he gave a nod to indicate he took her meaning. "Well, she's been presumed dead these past two years. Except when we were sent to Reach to retrieve the package from Castle, she turned up." Another pause. "I hadn't realized how deeply her disappearance had affected him until then. I'm not even sure he truly had either."
John frowned. Fred's inquiries aboard Infinity took on a new light when viewed with this knowledge in hand. He'd totally shut down the conversation, selfishly believing it to be an infraction against his own personal issues. Worse, he'd taken his frustration out on his teammate.
"We want to help, John. We're just not sure how to do that." Kelly flicked a hand. "But with all of this out in the open, about the program and… us, Spartans, it seems like now might be the best time."
"Best time for what?" he asked, not following.
"For change. For allowances… for us to be able to have what other soldiers have, if we choose." Curiously, Kelly was now looking anywhere but at him, while Linda met his gaze unflinchingly. "Spouses. Families. Hobbies."
"Hobbies?" he heard himself repeat, though that seemed the least radical of the mentioned 'allowances'. His brain was stuck on the first two, truthfully. They were foreign concepts. A spouse? A family?
"Sure. Sports or…" It was clear this was as far as her experience of hobbies went.
"Marksmanship," Linda supplied her first contribution.
That one made sense.
"Music," Kelly offered weakly.
John's brow twitched up. "Music." He thought of the song Briar had described as inspiration for a succession of punching bags. Maybe he could find it, listen to it.
"Really, I thought the spouse option would interest you more," Kelly complained of his skepticism of her list, such that it was. "Or at least… the possibility of one."
Something painful squeezed inside his chest. The notion of Briar as… his wife, felt too bizarre to contemplate. Not only had she given no indication she wanted to remain attached to him for any significant period of time, she was no less Spartan than he was. Soldiers did not marry within their own ranks. "She's gone," he reminded them, though he knew neither would have forgotten his revelation.
"She's been gone before," Linda pointed out evenly.
He shook his head. He didn't want to discuss the particulars. "How is it you expect to bring about these allowances?" Better to focus on the challenge they were proposing.
"We know a guy who has an in with the Fleet Admiral." Kelly's triumphant smirk told him he'd walked directly into this one, and there'd be no mercy shown.