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"Half a dozen minor breaks, very mild radiation exposure because your suit isn't properly space-rated, slight carbon dioxide positioning, a partially seared stab wound because you thought spacing yourself with a hole in your armor was a good idea…"
"I know what kind of injuries I'm dealing with." He grunted quietly as Chakas paced through the medical bay anxiously. When she turned to him he grinned and added, quietly, "I was there, after all. Remember?"
"Yes, I am aware you were." Chakwas sighed, falling into her seat and pinching the bridge of her nose. "Honestly… It's like you are competing with every other idiot with a gun out there for 'most interesting way to die'."
"Not really."
"Could have fooled me…"
"It worked, didn't it?" He challenged, earning a dark look from the haggard old woman. "The Illusive Man is dead. Kai Leng is dead. I'm not. And Jack is-"
"In surgery aboard Cronos Station, now that it is secured." Chakwas sighed weakly, nodding, "I'm aware. That these insane, semi-suicidal keep bloody working is the only reason I don't tie you to a chair and roll you into an asylum."
"I'd just break out."
"Probably but that isn't the point!" She sighed, shaking her head and pointing a long finger at him, "So you're aware ahead of time, Commander Shepard is aware of your injuries. And she is going to kick your ass around them."
"I'm sure, yeah." He chuckled, and then grunted as it aggravated his still sore ribs. Pressing a hand gently to his bandaged chest he asked, "Any idea when she's going to show? I'd like a heads up before the ass kicking actually-"
"Right about now, apparently." Chakwas cut him off as the door swung open on a bloodied and battered Shepard. She was tired, head bandaged and her helmet missing, and caked in grease, grime and speckles of blood along her forearms. Even for it, Chakwas talked like normal, more used to the blood and grime, "His injuries are mostly mild, Commander, and concentrated to his head and torso."
"A head injury?" Shepard asked coolly, eyes hard as she appraised him, one brow raised. "That would explain a few things."
"Mild concussion, and extremely mild carbon dioxide poisoning." Doctor Chakwas answered simply, turning a small, ever so slightly sympathetic look on him. "He should be right as rain in a week or two, beyond the longer term injuries. But, well… The healing stimulants and bonding agents ought to see to those by the end of a second week."
"Just in time to hit Earth." He murmured, "Right Commander?"
"Assuming I let you be deployed?" She hissed, making him stiffen in his bed and then wince, earning a somewhat softer, more concerned look from the woman. "Doe, I don't need you to be thinking about Earth right now. I need to know why the actual fuck you thought spacing yourself was a good idea."
"Kai Leng didn't have a pressure suit." He explained simply, rubbing small circles on his thumb with a finger while he thought. "And I really wanted him dead."
"Doe, I… Damn it all." She paused to take a breath and then marched across the room to grab a chair, dragging it over to his bedside before dropping into it. For a moment, she was quiet, just sitting and staring at him. Thinking. Finally, though, she said, "Do… Do you know what the first update I got about you was, after I finished ripping the Illusive Man's head off and shoved it down a trash chute?"
"I…. Did you actually do that?"
"Classified." She quipped, forcing the slightest of smiles for him. "Answer the question, though, Doe."
"I… Don't know."
"I finished up and called for a status from you. All I got was static and radio echoes bouncing back off your end." He winced, more than aware how that might have looked. "So, I called Beau to see if Leng had come after them. Negative on that end. And I was fine, so I figured that my idiot XO did something stupid."
"It worked." He murmured and shrugged, "Didn't it?"
"Yes, it worked. And I had to spend ten minutes finding that out." She growled, glaring at him and shaking her head as her fury faded and her voice cracked, "One of Miri's teams sent me a ping while I was ripping my way back through the station to get to TIM's swanky little office. Said that sensors were reading a huge hull breach in that sector. Scanners didn't show any life signs either. Mind explaining?"
"I used my charges to blow his viewing screens." He explained probably needlessly, "That vented the room. Then I shot Leng to crack his Barrier and, well… He wished he'd had a damn helmet on."
"Right, right, not what I meant." She said, "I meant, mind explaining why you thought of that idea first instead of anything else?"
"I don't follow…"
"You asked me- Us to trust you, John." She explained quietly, smiling so sadly it made his heart ache painfully. "And then you got yourself stabbed and blew yourself out into space. Because we left you behind. Me? I understand how those kinds of things go. The risks people take, and the risks you will."
"I know…"
"But Beau? She doesn't understand that, isn't used to it. She's used to ship-board tech work and as far as she came on ground ops… Experience and training are different, Doe." Shepard explained quietly while his heart started to pound. "I see you've figured the fuck-up out. You know where she is?"
"No." He murmured, head throbbing, "Do you?"
"Asleep, I believe. In your quarters." Shepard answered simply, eyes flicking as she watched his own widen worriedly. "She went down there to cry her eyes out as soon as we got home and then passed out. After everything, I figured she was exhausted, so I left her to sleep and handled the post-op for her."
"Thanks..."
"In the morning, I want you to go talk to her." Shepard grunted as she stood. When he started to argue she scowled, "Do you want to wake her up?"
"I…" He paused to think for a second, hesitating, before he sighed. "No. She's exhausted, like you said, and I'd rather let her sleep now. We can… We can just talk in the morning, when she's had a good night's rest."
"Good man, good man… A dumbass, sure, but still." Shepard smiled, shaking her head wearily and then ordering oddly quietly, "We have waffles and eggs in the mess. You will make her breakfast and take it to her, and you will apologize. Understood?"
"I… Guess?"
"You will or I will promote you to officer status and make sure you stay navy side to do your damn job." Shepard threatened coldly, raising a thin, sweat matted brow threateningly and adding, "How copy, Lieutenant Commander Doe?"
"Crystal, Ma'am." He sighed, chuckling under his breath and then grimacing at the dull ache that flared along his side for it. Ignoring it, though, he equipped, "I got the plan. Breakfast in bed and apologies until she kicks my ass and feels better. Right?"
"Hey loo, you're only the Way's biggest dumbass sometimes." She chuckled, headed for the door, "Chakwas if he moves before oh-six hundred, break his ankles."
"Aye, Ma'am." The doctor chuckled dryly, "I'll get me mallet."
From anyone else, he'd have thought she was bluffing. 'Do no harm' and all that nonsense. But from Chakwas, after everything she'd been through and knowing him? She just might actually have a mallet. And she just might actually use it on him if he tried anything stupid. So, with a sigh, he settled in for the night. It was looking to be a very long one, too…
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It took a long while for him to actually get to sleep, the stiff, starched medical bed doing him no favors on that end, but as always he was awake as soon as the first sound reached him. Sitting up he turned sleepy but sharp eyes on Chakwas as she slipped into the medical bay. She paid him a little nod and wave that he returned and then took her seat, leaving the lights low while she did her morning work as quietly as she could.
At least, until he started to get out of the bed.
"I know you aren't trying to leave before your morning final." The woman sighed without looking at him, fingers dancing along the holo-keyboard. "Because if you did that then I would have to write you up for refusal to submit to medical. Which, I'm sure you know, is quite a bad idea."
"Mhm." He sighed, sitting up in the loose medical clothes he'd been given to wear. "I have things to do, Doctor. Can we just…?"
"What things?"
"I just, well…" He shrugged when she turned to give him a look, one brow raised in a question and a smirk slowly slipping across her lips. "You know what I have to get to, Doctor."
"Do I?" She smiled, cocking her head to the side teasingly, "Do I really?"
"Yes." He sighed, "You were here when it got decided, Chakwas."
"Was I?" She asked, smiling even more widely and tapping a finger on her chin and looking up at the ceiling in thought. Eventually, she shrugged and sighed, "Seems I've forgotten. But if you have something important to see to, just tell me what it is. I might be able to let you go early."
"Why are you doing this?"
"Doing what?" She blinked owlishly, "I'm just a forgetful old woman, after all."
"If you were that forgetful then you couldn't be a doctor…"
"Oh, I remember important things more than well enough." She waved him off, shrugging and turning back to her terminal without a second thought. "But I suppose that if I can't remember it, it must not have been that important. Just wait there, alright, and in about… Half an hour and I'll see to you."
"But-"
"Hush, now." She smirked, "I have work."
"Doctor, you know what I'm talking about." She ignored him and finally, he growled, grit his teeth and said, "I need to go see Eclaire, Chakwas. She's upset about what happened, so I want to go try and… Make her feel better, somehow."
"Oh, that's right! I remember now." She snapped her fingers, spinning her chair around to face him and smiling viciously. "You have to go make her breakfast and eat crow for scaring the everloving hell out of her by venting yourself into space with a hole in your suit! How could I have forgotten?"
"Technically, my armor has Omni-Gel sealant that closed the hole as soon as I got it… So, you know, it was fine." Chakwas' flat glare was her only answer and he sighed, throwing up his hands in surrender and adding, quietly, "And I guess you're mad at me, too."
"Why ever would you get that impression?"
"Right." He sighed, standing, "I'm sorry I scared you. Can I go, now?"
"Your uniform is in the usual spot." She smiled, "And remember, no heavy lifting for the next week. You need to be careful or you won't heal right."
"Right…"
It only took a few minutes to get out of the clinic clothes and into his uniform, tugging it on and ignoring the ache in his shoulder as he did. Chakwas, for her part, only paid him any attention if he hissed or grunted. But once she was sure he was fine enough she turned back to her work, no doubt jotting out notes on his condition to drag him back in there later and force him right back into the bed.
He didn't mind, though.
He had something more important to get to.
"Rook. Morning to you." Gardner nodded as he approached the counter, "Looking to get some grub are you? Breakfast isn't for an hour yet but eh, if you're hungry…"
"I'm not." He kind of was, really, but he had better things to worry about. Grimacing, he rubbed the back of his neck and said, "I, uh, need to know what kind of breakfast to make someone who is mad at me."
"Who's mad?" Gardner asked, cleaning a plate idly and paying him a curious glance, "And what for? Is it 'cause of your little space walk out on Cronos Station?"
"Yeah." He sighed, nodding and waving a hand at the elevator weakly, "Eclaire is mad at me, apparently. Shepard suggested I get her some good breakfast and go see her in the morning. And, uh, it's the morning. So…"
"Coe on around then." He sighed, "We'll make somethin' good."
"We?"
"You don't think I'm about to cook your apology for you, do you?" The man laughed, shaking his head wryly, "Nah. You cook, I make sure you don't burn my damn kitchen down."
"But-"
"You want it to work, yeah?" He asked, cutting John off and drawing a sigh and a nod from him. "Then you gotta cook it. Any chump can run off to the store to get a cake for somebody. Makin' one means something, though. It hits different."
"Fine." He sighed, shuffling around the counter and towards the stove. "Just tell me what to do, I guess."
Half an hour later he was finally done, pushing the too-greasy eggs aside to plop down what had been meant to be a waffle but had come out more like a darkened pancake. The bacon, or well what substituted for bacon since this was the navy, had turned from three strips to five, burnt little things stacked on one side.
It was horrible.
"Perfect." Gardner grinned, clapping him on the back and chuckling when he winced. "She'll love it, believe me."
"It looks like shit…"
"Yeah, but it's the thought that counts." His face must have told the story about how he felt about that because Gardner laughed brightly and pressed the plate into his stomach. "Trust me, kid, it won't matter. Just get it and get gone."
"You're sure?"
"Sure I'm sure." The man nodded, nudging him away with a hand and grinning. "Just go, before she gets up and starts doing something. You wanna catch her by herself, after all."
"I do?" He blinked, "I think she'll stab me."
"Probably, a little bit." He shrugged and chuckled, "But that's just the life. And hey, you even come pre-stabbed. Convenient!"
Shaking his head he picked up the plate and some tableware and turned, slipping away just as the morning crowd started coming in to slam Gardner. Unlucky for Gardner, but lucky for him, since that meant the elevator was waiting for him when he stepped into it. The ride down was a short one, too, but that didn't do a hell of a lot to make him less anxious.
Why he was even anxious he couldn't begin to explain, but there it was.
Stacked on his chest like a few hundred pound weights.
"Doe." One of the soldiers guarding the hall nodded, flicking an eye down at his food and cocking their head. "Mess hall full?"
"Not for me." he said quietly, "I, uh… Made it. For Eclaire."
"Ah." The guard nodded, turning to each of his companions and nodding simply. Like they'd planned it, the three of them slipped by and into the elevator, the one in the lead paying him a little nod and smiling behind his helmet, "Best of luck, Doe."
Quietly, he watched the door close and the lift rise before he murmured, "What the fuck?"
After a moment he just shrugged and moved on, hesitating at the top of the stairs down into the sub-decks to pound a fist against the metal. "Uh, Beau? I, uh, came to see how you were feeling."
"Doe?" He heard her squeak, "Uh, j-just a second."
"Alright."
"Okay I'm, uh, decent." She called back after a few seconds, and one very loud bang.
His room, as it were, was a mess when he got down there. Several of his crates had been toppled, presumably in the fighting since they hadn't exactly been stacked all that well, and her combat gear was laid across the floor beside the wall opposite his little pseudo-desk. The woman herself was busily making up his cot with a uniform on, the top unbuttoned and showing off her tank top as she turned, looking him over worriedly.
"I, uh, made you breakfast." He explained when her eyes landed on it. Setting it on one of the crates near he rambled, "Shepard, uh, suggested I bring you something to eat."
"Yeah?" She asked, tucking a strand of hair behind an ear and sitting on his cot while he pushed the crate over to her. Smirking thinly, she said, "Looks like you lit it on fire, John."
"I'm, uh…. Not very good with a stove." He sighed, laying the cutlery out and the plopping down on the foot of the bed tiredly. His leg was killing him, now… "Sorry, I, uh, don't think it's really all that edible."
"Yeah, more… Briquets than f-food." She chuckled, taking a bite of the blackened bacon anyway and smiling thinly. "I-It's the thought that counts, though. D-Did you, uh, bring a drink?"
"Shit, no…" He sighed, "I'll go get you something then. Just give me a-"
"N-No, it's fine." She said, grabbing his arm when he tried to stand and smiling thinly. He gave her a look and she let him go, smiling weakly, "I-I can just wait, get something to drink in a little wh-while. It's fine."
"If you're sure…"
"I-I am, yeah." She sighed, leaning back on her hands when he sat back down, staring at the ceiling. The pose left her shirt open and, looking at her stomach, he saw a bandage wrapped around a hip. "I-I got shot while we were trying to escape. It passed r-right through, though, so it's not… Anything big."
"I'm sorry." He sighed, hands curling into fists in his lap, "My plan didn't- You weren't supposed to get hurt, Beau."
"People get hurt in a fight." She said quietly, "It's fine."
"How is it fine?" He murmured, stealing a piece of burnt bacon to eat. It tasted more like ash than anything else, really, but it was the first thing he'd eaten so he was alright with it. "You got shot, Beau…"
"Is that different?"
"Of course it's different!"
"How?"
"Because you got hurt!" He finally growled, the woman's eyes widening ever so slightly at the words. Pinching the bridge of his nose he sighed, "I'm… A Helljumper, Beau. High risk maneuvers, injuries- All of this is what I'm made for, what I trained for. But you're…"
"A c-civilian?" She offered quietly, eyes glinting with a spark of anger as she leaned forward and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Weak? S-Someone to protect?"
"Someone I want to!"
"I-Is that why you thought shooting yourself at a f-fucking sun was a good idea?" She demanded hotly, using the hand on his shoulder to yank him around and then pressing him against the wall at the foot of his cot. She was smaller but injured as he was, and surprised as he was besides, she managed it and then was in his face, almost screaming, "I thought you were d-d-dead for half an h-hour, Doe! Why would you do that?"
"It worked-"
"Don't say that like it makes it better!" She shouted, tears suddenly building and breaking in her eyes while she shook him. "Do you want to d-die, Doe? I-Is that how this ends? With you dead a-and me in this damn room c-crying? And then you walk in with- With burnt bacon, or something, b-because you didn't die I just thought you did!?"
"Beau…"
"I just… D-Damn it." She whined, falling into him and slowly wrapping her arms around him. Gently, warily, he wrapped his arms around her and she sighed, scooting over and into him so she could lean the bulk of her slim weight against him. She was warm, and soft, and he could feel her trembling, all just like back in that cave. Finally, she murmured, "Don't do that to me again, alright? That's… Not how this works, okay?"
"This?" He asked quietly, unsurely, "What is 'this'?"
"Oh my god, you are an idiot." She sighed, lifting her head up enough to look him in the eyes and then swallowing nervously. "I-I'm going to- If you don't want me to- F-Fuck this."
"What-" Soft lips on his own cut him off and his eyes widened. They moved slowly and jitteringly, and he felt her tremble even more, fear running through her and into him. She thought he was against this… "Fuck it."
She started to pull back and his arms wrapped around her, pulling her back in.
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"How's it going, EDI?" Shepard asked, hair wet but clean as she paced out, into the cold air of her private quarters. It was icy on her bare skin, but then she was alone and liked the cold, so she didn't care. "They still yelling?"
"No." The AI answered, "It's gotten very quiet, in fact, and I'm starting to- Ah."
"EDI?"
"It is no longer quiet in the sub-deck." The AI answered, sounding amused and adding, quietly, "I am notifying the crew to avoid the sub-deck and activating sound-dampening systems. Just in case."
"Right." Shepard laughed, "Give 'em some privacy."
"Aye, Commander." EDI answered, "Admiral hackett would like a word, as well. Operation : Scythe Breaker needs to be finalized, Ma'am. And time is of the essence to that end, as well, he asked me to tell you."
"Alright." She sighed, "On my way. Just let me get some clothes on."
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I know Gardner isn't canonically on the Normandy in ME3.
Neither is Doe.
*shrugs*
Also, yes, literally everyone playing Wingman for Doe.
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Smokey Panda :
Yeah, he's easy to wanna stab.
JGThorncross :
Yeah, wanted a metal way to kill him off, and remembered an old story from, of all things, a Literature textbook about a girl that stowed away on a spaceship and had to get vented.
Dr Killinger :
No one wrecks a bitch like an ODST wrecks a bitch.
Ze Shipper (Guest) :
Hey friend-o, ship what ya like~! Hope you enjoy yourself. But, uh… *looks up*
Just Another Guest (Guest) :
Yeah, 'effective' doesn't mean 'survivable' for an ODST. And John is SUPER self-sacrificial.
Spudy Potato :
I mean… Yeah, accurate summary.
Fox Comm :
Yeah, same. An ODST would totes go 'Okay, gonna blow myself out the airlock now, see ya in a bit'.
Predator 1701 :
I mean, after all the nonsense he's done, and what is known publicly about him, yeah. I'd conclude Rook is a super-soldier of some manner too. He's just been through way too much not to have people thinking it at this point.
And yeah, I know about space's fun quirks.
Fuck Kai Leng. XD
Mr McNasty :
The idea of a Lazarus project analogue, but in the Halo universe, seems a neat one to me. And I wish ya luck in writing it! Also yes, he got vented with a knife in him, that was explained above.
