A/N: Finally. So, after about half a damn century, I've gotten around to writing this fic again! I would've written sooner, I swear, but I suffered a major case of writer's block, followed by a mental health rollercoaster, followed by being sucked into roleplaying and Halo 5: Guardians, and... Ah, well, you get the idea!

Yet another filler chapter, but just as important as the last one! Good things happen in this one, that I will guarantee, but as to the overall nature of the work, I'm not gonna say a damn thing ;)

Enjoy!

Also, song lyrics taken from Believer by Imagine Dragons, a song that I strongly believe (haha, pun entirely unintended) to be completely fitting for Artemis. Go have a listen, if you like!

July 25, 01:03 Hours

"I think I actually hate him."

B312 broke the silence with a cold, hard statement. Well, it wasn't really quiet – the rain plinked against her armour, just as it had been doing since arriving in Visegrád all those hours ago. It hadn't even stopped. The silence was more between the two Spartans who had posted themselves in the landscape surrounding the base, keeping an eye out for any Covenant who might've gotten the bright idea to attack a building full to the brim with armoured supersoldiers. Either way, it was enough to spark a conversation between the pair, one which the Lieutenant hadn't entirely intended on starting.

Her companion's cool voice came over TEAMCOM, achingly familiar and yet so strange to her all at once. "Who are you talking about? My guess would be Emile, but the way Jorge mentioned you were getting short with the Commander gives me an idea that it could be him, instead."

Something about that answer had irritation welling up in her gut towards the other woman once more. "I wasn't getting short with him." she said, suddenly defensive.

"No?" Kat actually sounded somewhat mirthful. "How about getting surly with him, instead?"

"It's not funny when he keeps getting on my nerves!" Six all but snarled, the grip on her SRS99 momentarily tightening before she thought to take a deep breath and calm herself down. It wouldn't do any good to have everyone against her just because she had a bad temper. She did not want to be an outcast on the team. She wanted to fit in – she had to fit in. For the mission. "Sorry. I just… It's been a long day."

There was a beat of quiet.

And then, "I get that. You don't know where you belong among us. You see a team with established dynamics, and you don't know where you'd put yourself. You don't even know if you're a part of the team or not. It can't be easy."

"You have no idea." B312 mumbled, weary from her sudden outburst. "I'm not used to this much fighting in one day, either. Well, this much fighting against the Covies, at any rate. I'm much more accustomed to fighting my way through human targets like… like a…"

"Like a knife through butter?" Kat finished for her, and there was a sense of disquiet, though she did not disagree. "You're a fish out of water."

She exhaled a breath that might have been laughter, had she even remembered how to make such a sound. "Something like that," she agreed, "And you're right. It's not easy. The Commander is really getting under my skin and it's frustrating." It was so much more than her own issues with authority, she knew that now. And maybe it ran even deeper than both of them being two very stubborn individuals. There was something else about him, something nameless, something that she couldn't quite put her finger on, that just pissed her off. She didn't like it.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No." she answered curtly, retreating back into her emotional shell. She loathed feeling emotions at all; it was worse when they were stronger. Except for anger; anger drove her, fuelled her, was what kept her going despite everything. But this wasn't anger, and she needed to shut it off before it got out of control. "I barely even know you. We might have trained together and we might have been close, but I barely remember any of that. And I have no doubts that you've changed over the years. Who you once were would not be the same as who you are now."

"Artemis." the Lieutenant Commander pleaded, out of the blue, and uneasiness churned in her gut – but was replaced by anger at use of her name.

"Don't call me that." she snarled, suddenly vicious, suddenly tensed and coiled to strike even though there was nothing near her save the branches and leaves of the tree she currently crouched in. "That name is not mine any longer. I may have been born with it but the moment I joined the Spartan Program was the moment I became Bravo-Three-One-Two."

"Please don't shut me out."

Why was it that Kat's voice had become thick with emotion, choked with tears? Had she not changed as much as Six thought she had?

Those questions were answered when the cryptanalyst ploughed on. "You were my sister. You are my sister. Nothing could ever change that. Don't you remember that we promised one another that no matter what, we would never abandon each other? Why can't you just talk to me?"

More silence hung between them after that outburst.

Six did not know what to say. What could she say? What should she say? She did not know whether to apologize or to shut her out for good. Her fingers again flexed on the grip of her sniper rifle, and she stared up into the starlit sky above Reach.

Unbidden, a memory rose to the surface of her mind. Tattered, faded, but still there, and still one that she could recall easily enough.

"I don't remember Lieutenant Commander Ambrose assigning you elsewhere."

The younger cadet paused to look up at her older friend, shrugged a shoulder, and resumed packing. "He did not. ONI… COLD MOON… did." Just as they had always wanted. She'd always known that she would be going to their care; why else had they taken such pains to give her extra training on the side?

"So you're leaving, then." There was a note of finality in 320's voice, but also one of sadness. "We'll never see one another again."

This time 312 stopped altogether, stepping over to where her friend stood, curling a hand around her shoulder. "I tried to see if Ambrose could overrule them, have him assign me somewhere instead, somewhere with you. They refused. Nothing else could have been done. And hey, don't think we'll never see one another again. We're sisters, remember? Just like we promised. Things might change between us, but no matter what happens, we're never gonna abandon one another if we find each other again. And we will find each other again. I just know it. 'Kay? So don't cry, KitKat."

Kat moved a pace forwards and hugged her fellow Spartan tightly. "Do you promise me?" This time, her voice wavered.

"Yeah. 'Course I promise. And I don't break my promises."

The lone wolf blinked herself back to the present, and realized that Kat was still waiting for a response. "We will find each other again," she said, barely audible to her own ears, but she knew that the other Spartan would have heard it, loud and clear. For reasons unknown, there was a deep ache in her chest, like a knife had been stabbed into her heart, and that knife twisted when the cryptanalyst gave voice to the fact that she, too, was able to recall the conversation that Six was referencing.

"You were right. We did find one another again. But I feel like I don't know you anymore. You're so different, and it's not just because we were apart for so many years."

"I don't know who I can and can't trust. I've met too many people with ulterior motives, and not trusting anyone in general became my default, to protect myself. A defense mechanism that's hard to let go of even when among fellow Spartans." Six admitted quietly, and the guilt crept into her voice. "I want to talk to you but I just…" A short, weary sigh. "Not only that, but… I don't want to cause any problems. This topic is… I don't want to say sensitive, but what the Commander did to upset me…"

What Kat asked next was a surprise, and yet it invoked an old, familiar feeling all the same. "Wait – he upset you? What the hell did he do? I swear, if he made you think you didn't belong among us, I'm going to kick his sorry ass from here all the way back to Onyx."

Just as it had done earlier that night, B312's heart began thudding against her ribcage. How was she going to explain this one to the other Spartan? Sure, they might have been sisters, but there was also the matter of the fact that Kat and Carter were awfully close. Often she found herself wondering what kind of relationship they had, because it was clear enough to her that it ran deeper than the average working relationship between a commander and their executive officer. Were they close like brother and sister, or were they close in the romantic sense? That was what she couldn't tell, and some part of her didn't want to know.

"I… We… He…" A curse tumbled from her lips, in a language that was almost entirely forgotten to her, despite it being her second language growing up, despite it being the second-most common language spoken on this very planet. She closed her eyes tight, opened them again, checked the thermals to make sure they were clear, just as they had been the last time she'd checked it, and sighed again. "He treated a wound given to me by one of those purple-armoured Elites, and we hashed out the fact that we'd been butting heads earlier. I told him that I wasn't doing it on purpose, that I was just getting to know him, and he was fine with that. When he'd finished patching me up, he made this… well, I wouldn't say the comment itself was strange, but the way he acted when he commented about the anger in my eyes… It was… odd."

"It's in your eyes. There's tragedy in them, and rage. So much rage…"

That was the second time today that his voice had echoed in her mind. She wondered when the last time would be. She should not have let it get to her so much, but it was frustrating. She still could not tell if he was getting under her skin on purpose or not, but he was succeeding all the same.

"What do you mean?" Kat queried, listening attentively.

"He was… He couldn't stop staring at me, like he was looking at a painting, or something. And his voice went so soft when he told me that my eyes hold so much rage. I don't understand it." Even talking about it, she could not work out why he'd said what he'd said, or the way he'd acted. It was puzzling. Of course, the next part was even harder to talk about it. She had to force the words out, no matter how much they tried to die in her throat. "When I bumped into him on the way to the armoury, he was fixated on my face again. He'd steadied me, and he wouldn't let go. And then he… kissed me." Her breathing was harsh, and the next lot of words came out fast, blurring together, and incomprehensible but somehow still making sense regardless. "Please, don't tell anyone else what he did. It's bad enough that he did it and I don't even know why, and I don't think he knew why, either. I just… I don't want to talk about it as it is and I don't want rumours to spread, and I… I…."

"Artemis. Breathe. It's alright. I promise I won't tell anyone. I know how to keep a secret, and I would never betray my sister." Kat told her, gentle yet firm. "I'm going to mull this over to see if I can't figure out what's going on with him myself, and then I am going to talk about it to him. He's not been himself lately; he's very tired. With the way this war has been amping up, he has a lot to think about, and his mind is all over the place. But I'll help you sort this out, I promise. No matter how much I care for him, I care for you more because you were my first friend, and even my only friend for the longest time. And what he's done… upsetting you… it isn't right; I don't like it any more than you do."

Six gave the quietest of sighs, and checked the thermals one last time before scrambling down from the tree which had been her roost for the past two hours. "Just… Please don't be too hard on the Commander. I don't want him to… react in such a way that would wind up putting a strain on our relationship. Or yours, either, for that matter. There's enough internal strife between Jorge and Emile to last half a lifetime. And I don't think either of us would want to be on his bad side."

With the patrol shift over, and still many hours of darkness left, Six was left to contemplate on what to do. Trying to stay awake seemed to be unwise; she needed to be combat ready at all times. She could do as the others did, such as drinking a cup of coffee, or reading a book… But she doubted that either of those options would help her situation. Which meant that she would have to attempt to sleep. It wasn't going to come easily to her; that she knew for sure. But there was no harm in trying.

And with that in mind, she stripped off the outer plating of her armour, deciding at the last moment to sleep in the black, form-fitting bodysuit. It was easier that way, she reasoned, since it fell in line with the urge to be ready for whatever the Covenant had to throw at her.

If they just so happen to stumble across our base, I need to be ready.

The moment she clambered onto her bunk, tucking the sheets halfway up her body, she realized that she was genuinely tired. The fighting had taken something out of her; the faintest smirk ghosted her lips as she smothered a yawn. So far, so good. Maybe witnessing her combat prowess in person would help make a good impression on the other Spartans. Only time would tell.

She curled up onto her flank, and drifted off to sleep.

Six jerked awake with a start. Her first thought was that of wondering what it was had waked her up. Her second thought was a realization of the fact that something felt dreadfully wrong. Something she couldn't begin to explain…. a nameless, blind panic set in, overwhelming her.

The lone wolf felt like she couldn't breathe, like the very air had been stolen from her lungs. Fear clawed at her chest, icy cold; her frame trembling like she'd been out in the snow and couldn't get warm. Something within ached.

Her own heartbeat pounded in her ears – or was that the quiet thudding of footsteps? She couldn't tell. The adrenaline flowed through her veins; flight or flight would kick in if she was unable to calm herself down.

"Lieutenant?"

It was Kat.

She blinked, fuzzy vision coming into focus, and saw the older woman looking at her with a mixture of confusion and concern. Why did the expression seem so familiar? She couldn't remember.

When she tried to speak, all that escaped her was a strangled whine.

Kat reached out for her but stopped, brow furrowing, hand dropping limply to her side. "Six, what happened? Are you alright?"

"I… I don't know." Out of the blue, tears began to spill down her cheeks, and she was helpless to stop them, to quell the burst of emotion that surged through her like a tidal wave. "I don't know."

"Artemis." The Lieutenant Commander looked hesitant, but reached out regardless, perching on the edge of the bed and sliding an arm around her in half of an embrace. "Artemis, I…"

Something inside her ached. She didn't hesitate to turn and hug Kat tightly, fingers pressing into the bodysuit, sobbing quietly into her shoulder. "Don't leave me," she said, shaky, "Please."

"I-I won't. I promise." Kat's embrace tightened, and she rested her head atop the lone wolf's. "I'm not going anywhere, sister."

B312 closed her eyes, her body finally relaxing. Something about Kat made her feel safe; perhaps it was a sense of old familiarity and friendship, from a time long ago. Here, she could let her guard down and sleep in safety. She knew the other Spartan would not leave her; instinct told her that she would keep her promise.

And with that echoing in her aching heart, she drifted off to sleep once more.

July 25, 10:45 Hours

In hindsight, hiding herself in the terrain away from the base to take the call from COLD MOON had been a good idea. Six had wanted some place quiet to speak to her superiors, and in a location where the other Spartans had no chance of eavesdropping. And since the call had left her shaken and angry, she'd decided to play some music to calm herself down. Ever since she was a little girl, she'd found that music was soothing, and she'd often used it as a way to just escape, even if only for a little while.

Of course, she couldn't help that the song was particularly catchy, and one that she enjoyed – and secretly thought that it fitted her. She just hadn't expected anyone else to join in when she began to sing along.

"First things first, I'mma say all the words inside my head. I'm fired up, and tired of the way that things have been, oh ooh. The way that things have been, oh ooh."

A decidedly masculine voice accompanied her when she hit the next verse, and it took her a beat to realize that it belonged to Warrant Officer Emile.

"Second things second, don't you tell me what you think that I could be. I'm the one at the sail, I'm the master of my sea, oh ooh. The master of my sea, oh ooh."

Six frowned and pecked at the datapad, the music snapping off. There was an aww of disappointment from her as yet unseen companion, followed by a rustling of leaves from one of the nearby trees. A beat later, and the other Spartan dropped to the ground, shaking twigs from his hair as he went.

"Why'd you stop?"

The Lieutenant snorted at that, a noise of derisive amusement. "I don't appreciate it when other people see the need to join in when I happen to be unconsciously singing along to whatever it is I'm listening to." she said dryly, and this time, it was Emile's turn to snort.

"Right. Like how you bit the Commander's head off yesterday for doing that. Surprised you didn't react the same way to me, by the way."

"Maybe I'm feeling generous." She gave him a sardonic smirk, which faded as quickly as it had appeared, before shaking her head. "I'm surprised you like this song anyway. I mean, Imagine Dragons? Something that most people consider to be "ancient Earth trash"?" There were audible air quotes around the words. "Doesn't seem like your style."

"Hah. You'd be surprised at what you'll come to learn about me over the course of this deployment, kid." Emile said proudly, green eyes glinting with amusement.

Her proverbial hackles rose, bristling at the nickname, and she shifted towards him. "I am not a kid. Last time I checked, I was born twenty years ago, which therefore makes me an adult."

"I'm almost ten years your senior. So to me, you're still a kid." the assault specialist countered. "Seen more of this war than you have, seen more'n my fair share of fightin' and dyin'... So compared to you? Yeah, makes you seem real young."

Six raised her hands and gave him a hard shove, watching in satisfaction as he stumbled, lost his footing, and tumbled down the hill. She picked her way down to the bottom after him, her footwork displaying far more grace than his decidedly inelegant fall had. She smirked at him as she breezed past, flicking one hand over her shoulder in a wave, and headed towards the base.

When she stepped inside the prefabricated building, she was met by the Commander, who inclined head at her, and questioned, "Can we talk?" His voice was quiet, and he seemed somewhat hesitant, which was unusual behaviour, compared with what she'd read on his psych eval.

"About what?" She followed him into the war room, gaze focused on the door sliding shut behind them for a moment, before she met his gaze evenly. She crossed her arms over her chest, and noticed that his eyebrows were furrowed into a frown.

"My... earlier behaviour. It was out of line, and for that, I apologize." He paced towards the window, clasping his hands behind his back. "Kat was right when she said I've not been myself lately. This ongoing war is taking a lot out of everyone, myself included. I thought that you were... someone else... and I projected. I should never have done that. I don't expect you to forgive me, but you need the reason behind my actions so that you don't feel alienated. At least, I hope."

That made an awful lot of sense, now that she thought about it.

B312 voiced a quiet sigh, shoulders dragging downward. "I forgive you, Commander." Though her words were quiet, they hung heavy in the room. "I understand that it can't be easy on you, leading a fireteam of five different Spartans, and the roster must change a lot, given the way the war has been amping up over the past couple of years. Just..." Another sigh, and she allowed another smirk to grace her lips, this one lingering. "Don't get into my personal space again, okay? And don't go around kissing people you barely know. Cause uh, that shit's pretty weird. I don't care who you thought I was, that's not something I want to go into. But damn, dude, cut yourself some slack."

Carter turned back towards her, an eyebrow quirked in surprise. "Well, I can certainly try," he said lightly, and looking for all the world like some weight had been lifted off him. "Are we on good terms, now? Or am I asking too much of you?"

"We'll see about that, Commander. Give it another day or two, at least." she allowed.

A quiet chuckle escaped the other Spartan, and he shook his head. "I suppose I'll just have to deal with that one bit at a time. Now then…. How'd you like to spar with me?"