Chapter Twelve: Another Brief Reunion

POV: John-117

Date: 2531

Reference: During Chapter 14 of Lost

oOOOo

I was in the gym. With a punching bag, since my team wasn't in the gym. We were off duty, and guessing by the time they were in the mess.

But I couldn't get her out of my head. Her memory wasn't as painful as it had been, but the sense of responsibility hadn't gone away.

I had killed her.

I had to hold back on the punching bag.

After the first two I'd received a stern talking to from a Drill Sergeant who didn't like to see her training implements getting torn to shreds. She said it scared the greenies.

So I was holding back and hoping one of my teammates would walk in. There were no other SPARTANs on base.

There was a burst of blue specks above my head, a bit behind me, by a support beam.

A body fell, a bone cracked, and a strangled cry tore out of Tawny's lips.

Tawny.

I immediately knelt over her battered body. She was only in her underclothes so I could see the bleeding cuts and bruises all over her body. Someone had hurt her.

But she was alive.

"Tawny?" I tried.

Her eyes had been clenched shut, but when I spoke they opened. They were filled with pain, but relieved.

"Jo-hn," she reached out to me with her torn voice.

I noticed the blood-soaked gauze wrapped around her ribs. And I could smell it - this was a fresh, deep wound. Right above her lungs.

She needed medical attention soon, or she would die. From blood loss if nothing else.

I pulled her into my arms, ignoring her agonized screams. Her left arm was bending at such an unnatural angle that it looked like the bones had been completely pulverized.

Hurting her wasn't good, but I would rather her be in pain for now and get to live.

What if she'd come back too late?

I pushed past the forming crowd and all but ran towards the medical ward. Tawny's pained crying jerked at something in my chest.

When I took a moment to look down at her, rushing through a hallway, I saw cuts and bruises all over her stomach, and there was old menstrual blood on her thighs. Her stoma was grimy. She had strange purple markings, like starbursts, on her forearms.

Her teeth were bared against the pain, her eyes screwed shut, and there was a sheen of sweat all over her tiny, trembling body.

I struggled to clamp down on my rage for her; I could accidentally break her just as easily as whatever did this.

"What happened?" I asked in a harsh voice. Not harsh at her, but at what did this to her.

But she didn't answer. I didn't know if she could.

Her breathing didn't sound raspy, so maybe her lung hadn't been punctured by whatever stabbed her ribs. But that didn't mean she was safe.

I ducked into the door of the medbay. Before I had a chance to speak a nurse looked up and saw the half-dead girl in my arms.

"Oh my God!" she cried. "Oh my- oh, bring her in here!"

I followed her back into a sterile hallway. Into an empty room.

"Here, put her down. I'll go get Dr. Otieno. Oh, I should-"

I laid Tawny down on the table and brushed some of her oily, sweaty hair off of her face. She was nearly delirious with pain.

But then the nurse stuck a needle in her elbow and injected something.

Tawny's body relaxed almost immediately. Her eyes were still glazed over, but she was more self-aware than she had been.

"John?" she mumbled.

"I'm here."

But my eyes were taking in her body. How destroyed she looked. The deep purple bruises covering her torso, from her lower stomach to her collarbone. The cuts bleeding sluggishly. The gauze so soaked that blood was actively dripping down her body.

And her arm.

The nurse followed my eyes, then looked back up at me. Her face was grave.

A thin black man with greying dreadlocks and massive glasses walked in. He set to work immediately and hooked Tawny up to a proper IV.

When she was somewhat better cared for, the doctor and a team moved her - carefully - onto a hovering bed and rushed her towards the OR.

I followed slowly, watching them pull Tawny away. She looked so gaunt and pale.

The door to the OR slid shut behind the frantic team, between Tawny and me.

There was no use in me staring at the door. The surgeons would help her as much as they could.

But there was a very real chance that Tawny would die, regardless of medical intervention.

As I walked, at a slow pace, down the hall of the medical ward, I looked down at my shirt. It was covered in fresh blood, dried blood that had flaked off onto me, clear fluids from something infected, and sweat. But it was mostly fresh blood; I could feel it soaking through the shirt and clinging to my skin.

That was Tawny's blood. Someone had hurt her so badly that she might die from blood loss, not to mention the other injuries she was sporting.

I started towards my room. I would have to change; this wasn't presentable.

I decided I would join my teammates in the mess hall, if they were still there.

So I pulled the bloody shirt off and took out another long-sleeved muscle shirt. It was a plain grey, exactly like the old one, and would cover most of my scars.

I didn't care about the scars, but ONI was trying to keep the SPARTANs mostly under wraps. For all they cared, the public could think we were normal humans in crazy suits of armor. And out of the armor our height drew enough attention

Before I could put the second shirt on my mind was pulled out of my body.

I was in the Domain

oOOOo

I was in the Recovery Ward. Sitting on the right side of Tawny's bed. Watching her chest rise and fall as she slept.

The doctors wouldn't tell me specifics about her condition. But she was alive. And she was stable, since they hadn't had anyone monitoring her overnight.

Kelly and Fred had stopped by once at around 0030 to see how she was doing. So had Linda, a little later at 0200. She was stable so they weren't very concerned.

But I was. I wanted to know what had happened to her.

I'd heard medics and doctors whispering outside the Recovery Ward throughout the night. Quietly murmuring about electricity marks, the starbursts on her arms, consistent with Covenant torture methods.

She had clearly been tortured - a fact that made my blood run hot with rage and concern - but no one could say for certain by whom...yet. Tawny would have to confirm it.

It was clearly the Covenant. They must have taken her somewhere between the lake and the LZ.

But I hadn't seen her on High Charity, the Covenant city Kelly and I had invaded. We'd found plenty of human POWs, checked all of the prison logs through the city's systems to make sure we saved all of them, and she wasn't there. We hadn't seen her.

Wherever they'd had her, they'd done a number on her body. She had a thick brace on her right elbow, a cast on her right leg, a wrap over the stump where her left arm had been, and bindings over her ribs that served to both seal the stab wound and stabilize the fractures.

Someone had cleaned her off and replaced her rank ostomy bag. Dressed her in a hospital down. Put an IV in her arm to provide her with nourishment she had been starved of.

It was useless, but I began plotting vengeance on whoever had done this to her. I knew it was a lost cause. That didn't stop me.

I heard a tiny, scratchy, relieved whisper. "John."

She was awake.

"Tawny," I breathed, all but shoving myself out of the chair.

I knelt beside her, assessing her expression. She was in pain and confused, and a little scared, but coherent.

"You're awake," I said in relief. Even after the surgery I was on edge about her prognosis.

She reached up with the only hand she had. It was trembling.

I wrapped my massive hand around hers. And even though I wanted to hold it close, hold her close, I lowered her hand back to her side. "Don't move."

She winced at something, a slight twitch and a sharp inhale.

When she recovered she reassumed that scared expression. "My arm…"

"What happened?" I asked her. "You weren't on High Charity."

She blinked sleepily. "I was on a ship."

"You almost died," I stressed.

"Wouldn't be the first time." There was a tired, wry smile on her lips.

I didn't find it amusing, bitterly or not. Her life never should have been in danger.

I refocused. "What did they do to you?"

She didn't answer for a minute. She just turned her hand up, looking down at the trio of thick cuts across her palm. Her eyes were tormented.

"They wanted to find out how I do what I do. I couldn't use my powers at all." Her voice was a haunted whisper. "When I didn't use my powers...they tried to force me."

I felt my jaw clench. The thought of Elites or Brutes or Jackals doing whatever they wanted to her…

Maybe there hadn't been Jackals. If there had been, I doubted she would be here right now. At least, she would have been in a lot more pieces.

That was an unpleasant mental image, and I fought to expel it.

Tawny must have sensed my thoughts, or at least my dark emotions, because she said, "I didn't give in. I'm stronger than them."

Actually, looking at her, the Covenant had been pretty mild. I'd seen the remains of people they'd tortured to death.

They had wanted something from her, and they must have known she was weak and accommodated. What they'd done to her was painful, but their normal torture methods would have probably killed her.

I didn't think she'd want to hear that, but I did go so far as to say, "Your entire left arm was shattered. They had to remove it."

After a pained breath she explained in a quiet voice, "The Shipmaster got impatient."

Before I even had time to process how angry that made me for her, a nurse walked in and said, "Good, you're awake."

He was a short and pudgy man with pale skin and reddish hair. He had an accent, the exact nuance of which I couldn't accurately place. Something Earthen.

"I need to redress your lacerations." He walked closer to her.

She flinched away from him on instinct - an instinct she should not have had - and prepared herself for a hit that wouldn't land.

I ground my teeth.

"Are you alright with the Master Chief staying here?" the man asked, avoiding my eyes.

"Please don't make him leave," Tawny quickly begged.

A calm and moderately sad smile touched the man's face. "Alright, miss, I won't."

He reached down to pull the bottom of her hospital gown up and she once again flinched. Her eyes closed and she looked like she fully expected something to hurt her.

The medic shot her a wary glance and pulled the gown up. She'd been given a fresh ostomy bag and clean underwear, but that wasn't where my focus fell.

The cuts covering her stomach drew my eyes. Some were up as far as her ribs. One or two were high enough that they were almost between her breasts.

They weren't life-threatening cuts; they were shallow. Which was good in the long run. But shallow cuts hurt worse. This hadn't been someone sparing her, it was another method of torture.

A mild method, to be fair, but that wasn't the point.

She was once again burdened by my emotions.

She looked up at me with an attempt at a smile on her face. "Hey, I'm okay. I've had worse."

It must have shown in my expression how much I doubted that. How could she have experienced pain worse than a month's worth of torture?

"I mean, i-it didn't look this bad," she admitted. "But it hurt worse. It's why I have that."

I followed her nod and saw her stoma.

While the medic changed the dressings on her ribs he explained to her just how severe her condition had been. This was mostly news to me, too, so I pulled myself out of my head and listened.

"We had to drain excess fluids building up near your lungs," he said. "In doing so we almost fractured a weakened rib. It's a miracle you're alive, miss."

They'd tried to break her. Slowly, systematically. And they'd all but succeeded.

They'd almost killed Tawny.

"What day is it?" she asked in an obvious attempt to diffuse my tension.

The medic answered her. "July twenty first. You arrived yesterday, the Covenant had you for one month and five days."

Something sad flashed across her face and I remembered that her birthday was July 11th. She'd spent her birthday being tortured.

"Where am I?" she rasped.

"The New Mombasa Military Base," the nurse explained.

"On Earth?" Her face scrunched up in confusion.

The portly man nodded. "On Earth."

Her eyes closed again. She was still exhausted.

But she shook herself awake. "And I- what about my arm?"

Her voice had almost broken. It was so small. She was so small.

It should have been me in that brig.

"With your permission," the nurse's voice pulled me from my thoughts, "we can grow a replacement and transplant it in a few months' time. We'll need to take DNA samples for the cloning process."

"Can we do that?" she timidly asked.

The nurse nodded, then returned his attention to putting balm on her stomach.

She looked up at me. Even in her exhaustion, her eyes were such a bright green they looked almost unnaturally colored.

"I want to be with you," she murmured.

My heart leapt. I covered her hand with mine and swore, "I won't leave."

The nurse began reaching for her hand so I withdrew my own.

When he applied the balm to the deep cuts on her palm she winced again.

"I'm sorry I let myself get captured." She looked down with something akin to shame.

I just said, "You need to save your strength."

And I meant it. She looked so drawn. So weak. She needed to expend as little energy as possible.

"I guess," she muttered as she fought to keep her eyes open.

Why wouldn't she rest?

I realized immediately how hypocritical I would sound if I genuinely asked her that.

When her wounds had all been treated the nurse pulled her hospital gown back down and said, "You should rest, miss." Then he walked out.

Tawny was staring listlessly at the ceiling. Her eyes would almost close, but she consistently forced them back open. There was a fear in her eyes.

"He's right," I said, "you should rest."

Her lip trembled. "I don't want something to happen again. Something always happens."

I needed to protect her. It was almost a primal urge. I needed to keep her safe; her pain was hurting me in some strange way.

My hand blanketed hers.

"I won't let anything happen," I promised her. I fought to make her see my conviction; I would give my life to keep her safe.

Her fingers twitched beneath my hand. Like she was trying to turn her hand over and hold mine, but she was so exhausted she couldn't muster the energy to do it.

But her eyes closed at last, and her breathing steadied out. She was asleep.

oOOOOo

Author's Note: Hello guys! Once again, credit to the Awesome lier90912 for this idea!

I love y'all!