AN: well, so much for my commitment to quick updates. Then again, this is a long one, easily 2-3 chapters long. It's intense, and I won't say anything more. Let me know if you cry Spartans.

"If everyone does not come home none of the rest of us can ever fully come home either."

-Excerpt from Murphy's Laws of combat operations

Location: Cradle class refit station Mechanical Advantage, in geosynchronous orbit above insurrectionist controlled planet Taurus VI, Taurus system, 13:01 standard military time, January 7th, 2558

Brandon struggled and squirmed against the restraints that bound him to his chair. As soon as he had heard the station's automated defenses spin up, he had assumed Kilo-5 had arrived. No one else was crazy enough to attacks station like this. He had started to work out a plan of escape. So far he hadn't got the pats the problem of the zip cuffs that held him firmly in place, but if he did he wouldn't need much more to figure out a way out of here and find Alison. Right now, above anything else, she was his biggest concern.

A wave of sickness washed over him as she crossed his mind. He was disgusted with himself for the hell she had been put through. Some, or most of it, had been a direct result of his actions, and he wasn't about to let himself live that down. Not until he did everything possible to make it up to her.

His wrists began to bleed as he struggled harder and the plastic cuffs cut deeper into his wrists, making him cry out in pain, and a moment later, stop fighting. He cursed himself. He wouldn't sit idly by while his teammate was tortured, and possibly killed. He had let enough good men and women die on his watch already.

As he began to drop his head and give up his struggle, he heard boots clatter outside the door towards the cell. Behind them he heard the whirring of a robotic dolly as its treads ground against the floor of the station, clearly carrying a heavy load. Brandon didn't pay to much at attention to the details however. Someone was coming, and that meant either Kilo-5 had found him, or the URF was moving him so they couldn't. Either presented an opportunity to escape.

The door slid open and in rolled a robotic dolly carrying one of the cannon barrel objects they had come their for, flanked by three URF guards. Lassiter was among them, but he didn't appear to be acting so tough any more. He no longer had his weapon, and as the two URF a guards moved to secure him, he noticed that one of them kept his rifle in Lassiter's General direction. Brandon didn't dwell on that for too long either. Lassiter was unarmed, so that made it easier to escape, and if the URF was lugging around one of these devices while their base was under attack that meant it had to be important enough to risk drawing fire from Kilo-5. Lassiter moved to untie his restraints. Clearly they meant to move him, and the device, off this station.

For a moment he wondered if Lassiter had a change of heart, because rather than beating him savagely as he had before, he undid his restraints with little fanfare and pushed him roughly to his feet. Maybe he could reason with him.

"Captain," he began, "my team is here. You're not getting out of this. Just let me go with this device and Alison and..."

Brandon was cut off by the hardest punch he had received in a long time. It connected with his jaw and sent him sprawling against the wall. Brandon prepared for another hit, but it never came. Brandon looked up with a dazed expression to find that it hadn't been Lassiter that had hit him, but one of the helmeted URF guards. Lassiter just looked at him sadly.

Something about him told Brandon that he had screwed up. This wasn't just about getting away from kilo-5 or whatever the hell that device was. Lassiter had lost this game on a whole new level.

As Brandon was once again hauled to his feet. He tried to say something to Lassiter, but it was impossible to do or say anything through the splitting headache he had. He was forced to moved towards the door of the cell, and forced out of into the cell block when it opened. Brandon only got a quick glance at the state of the hallway before he was yanked back through the door. Dead URF troopers lined the hallway, a scorch mark from a grenade stained its center, and at the other end Kilo-5 took cover behind a doorway they had cut open, leaving a mangled mass of molten metal on the floor in front of them as a reminder of their breaching attempt.

As soon as brandon was back in the cell one of the troopers threw him to the ground, then, for reasons unknown did the same to Lassiter.

Only seconds later Kilo-5 let go a wall of lead at the two troopers. They attempted to take cover behind the doorway and fight them off, but it was no use. A flash-bang grenade rolled in the door, and Brandon rolled over to protect his eyes as it set off in a blinding flash of light. He heard two cracks as the ODSTs shot dead the two troopers, and then heard Vaz yell "clear" as they rushed into the room after them.

Someone placed a hand on his shoulder and rolled him over onto his back. He found himself staring into the face shield of a helmet marked with the name Geffen, Malcolm. He had never been happier to see someone so arrogant, hostile, and disagreeable in his life.

"Army guy, you alright? You look like shit," he commented with a laugh before helping him sit up against the wall.

Dev knelt down next to them and smiled at him.

"Nah, he's good," commented Devereaux before she slapped brandon on the shoulder hard, causing him to wince, "hell, he should be feeling a lot better. Looks like the URF fixed his ugly face."

Normally Brandon would have appreciated the ODSTs humor, but right now all he could focus on was Alison. The URF already thought of her as a captured piece of hardware. If Kilo-5 had them on the run they could kill her at any moment.

He stumbled to his feet and braced himself against the wall while Vaz secured Lassiter, who was still sprawled on the ground. He hauled him to his feet and stood him face to face with brandon. As Brandon looked Lassiter in the eye he felt his anger begin to boil over; anger over how he had treated Alison like an object to leverage him with, anger over how he possibly could have killed her. If he had killed her, he would kill him right where he stood and he would think a second thought about it. He didn't care if Osman personally spaced him for his arrogance. This man needed to die.

"Where is she?" He said angrily, "where's Alison?"

He made sure to put extra emphasis on she. He wasn't going to let Lassiter hide behind the excuse that this was a genetically engineered machine he was abusing. Alison was a living, breathing human being. He glared at him in a way that demanded an immediate and complete answer. He didn't have the strength to beat an answer out of him.

What caught Brandon off guard, was that Lassiter didn't seem to put up any resistance to his question. Physically he looked fine. The fall to the ground may have broken his nose or given him a slight concussion, but that was nothing someone like him couldn't handle. Yet as the question rolled off Brandon's tongue he didn't glare or snarl, or resist in any way.

"Cell block 13 B," he said simply.

For a moment, his tone sounded almost sad. Brandon paused for a moment to wonder why he wouldn't resist. After all the brutality he had shown him, why was he giving up so easily? Unfortunately he didn't have much time to consider anything at the moment, Mal grabbed a rifle from one of the dead guards and thrust it into Brandon's hands. Brandon accepted it with a nod and brought it to battery before jamming spare magazines into his cargo pockets.

"Grab that," said Brandon as he pointed to the device and the robotic dolly Lassiter had used to carry it, "it's important, somehow, trust me."

Despite Brandon's vague reasoning, the ODSTs complied and reprogrammed the robot to follow them. They could tell Brandon was on a mission.

The four of them set off out the door with Vaz leading and Lassiter in the center of the pack. They reached the end of the cellblock, labeled C, without incident, but the moment the door slid open the hallway that faced them filled with lead as another group of URF soldiers opened fire on them.

Having already gotten into a decent rhythm, Kilo-5 didn't need much time to think about what to do, they simply reacted. Vaz slammed Brandon and Lassiter back while Mal laid down cover fire for Devereaux. She reached into her vest and retrieved a flash bang, hurling it down the hall and placing it in the relative center of the URF troops. It exploded with a crack and a flash of light, sending the URF troops sprawling. The four of them leaned out of the cell block's doorframe and laid down heavy fire on them, killing most of them easily. Any that remained either scattered for cover and didn't come out, or flat out ran for their lives.

They took the opportunity and got moving towards the next cellblock, locking the door behind them as soon as the robot carrying the device crossed the threshold. Brandon raced ahead of them towards cell 13. Mal threw him a small, portable oxyacetylene torch, and he immediately began cutting the door's lock in a shower of sparks.

His face blazed with determination as he cut the last few inches of steel, determined to break Alison free and to insure that she became the first soldier to survive unharmed under his command. He wouldn't forgive himself if he didn't.

The lock broke free, and he shoved the door the rest of the way open with his rifle. He looked quickly over the room, but what he saw took a moment to register. The first thing to hit his nose was the distinct smell of iron. He scanned the floor, and found it covered in puddles of bright red blood. Eventually, his eyes settled on the huddled, blood covered mass that lay on the ground in front of him.

"Alison," he said breathlessly.

He ran and knelt next to her.

No, no, no, God no, he thought as he looked her over. He didn't know what had been down to her, but it sure as hell didn't look survivable. Blood was all over her. Whoever had tortured her had made deliberate incisions over her scars, reopening them and creating fresh wounds over the old ones, as though to literally dig bad memories up from under her skin. Her porcelain skin was stained with sweat, grease, and trails of blood. Her hair was matted where clumps of blood had formed in it.

The sight made him sick. He had seen a fair bit of blood in his time in the Army, but he nearly vomited as the he checked for a pulse on her. After a painful moment of searching and wondering, he found one, but he still felt himself unable to breath a sigh of relief. He had put her through this. Everything that had happened to her was his fault. He had lead yet another soldier into battle, and they had come out infinitely worse for wear.

He hadn't the slightest idea what to do for her, so he did the only thing he could do. He treated her like a human being, something so many, including himself, had failed to do in the past. He placed a hand onto her cold cheek and rested his forehead against hers, taking deep breaths to contain his anger, his rage, and his sadness at what had been done to her.

"Alison, I am so sorry," he said quietly.

As those words left his mouth, he began to feel her stir under his grasp. His heart leapt as he pulled away enough to look her in the eye, but in a short, violent second, her gentle stirring became an intense, defensive reaction.

She tore Brandon's arms away from her and placed a powerful, augmented hand around his throat, instantly cutting off his flow of air. She picked him up and slammed him against the wall, pining him there with ease. His eyes went wide with terror. Alison must have been left for dead by Lassiter hours ago in a pool of her own blood. She must have been lying in wait this entire time, saving her strength and waiting for someone to come and retrieve her body so she could kill them and escape. Now, in her blind rage, she saw Brandon as that very person. He could tell by the glassy, furious look in her eyes as they bored through his own with an intense glare that she really couldn't see him anyway.

For a moment Brandon struggled to get free, hoping he could convince Alison that it was alright, that she was safe, and that he was here to help her. After a moment of thrashing, however, he realized the futility of his actions. Would Alison really be set at ease knowing that it was him who had woken her? The man who had abandoned her in her hour of need? Maybe she truly had a right to this. Maybe being choked to death by the last, living person to serve under his command was a fitting death for a failed Lieutenant.

He went limp, and accepted his fate as it became harder and harder to breathe under her grasp. As his vision became closer to blacking out, he watched as something began to change in Alison. Slowly the glassiness left her eyes and was replaced by horror as she realized what she was doing. Moments before he lost consciousness she dropped him to the floor and backed away rapidly, plastering herself to the wall of the cell and scanning the room with a wide-eyed look, as though she had fallen asleep and woken up in a horror film. Her breathing was shallow and panicked as she attempted to melt into the wall and to hide in plain sight from him and from the world.

Brandon caught his breath as his airway opened, and took several, deep breaths as he lay sprawled on the floor. His lungs and his throat burned, but those were the least of his concerned as he looked upon Alison's huddled form. The instant he recovered enough to stand he made his way over to her. He held out a hand and forced a smile as he looked over her huddled, bloodstained form. She narrowed her eyes at him as he attempted to get to his feet and move to her, warning him to stay away. She had the look of death in her eyes as he reached out to placed a hand over hers.

Anger shot through her at the touch. For a moment, she looked ready to wind up and strike him as hard as she could, but she stopped herself. She gave him one, last, pained look, and then she gave up, and let herself fall into a silent heap. To see a woman as strong as Alison simply give up was an awful sight to behold. She, the epitome of human strength, had been broken by the sharp edge of a knife.

Brandon grabbed her hand with a tight grip. He wanted her to know he was here, and he wasn't going to leave her. They would make it out of this one together. He wanted to embrace her, to hold her close and let her know everything would be alright, but she deserved to have her personal space respected, especially after what had just been done to her.

It chilled him to think that the URF had done this to her. Maybe it had even been done by Lassiter himself. He couldn't believe that someone could live with themselves after being so close to a person as they suffered horribly, and get some sick enjoyment out of their cries to stop.

Brandon spun around and looked at Devereaux, who stood agape next to Lassiter in the doorway. She was completely in shock, which Brandon assumed was rare for someone in her line of work. Anyone employed by ONI had no doubt seen, and maybe experienced, torture at its worst.

"Medkit, now," demanded Brandon.

Devereaux immediately complied, and tore an IFAK pouch from the spot it was Velcroed on to her vest, throwing it to him swiftly. As he caught it he glanced over to Lassiter. Brandon expected a pleased look to grace his face as he witnessed Brandon's pain, but instead Brandon found something else entirely. He looked shocked, or maybe horrified by what he saw before him. He seemed to be holding his breath as he looked upon the body of the mutilated Spartan.

Brandon had to admit, he was one helluva good actor. He wasn't going to let this playing dumb routine fool him. Brandon would make sure he regretted every last scratch on Alison, but right now he had to help her.

He pulled a can of biofoam from the medkit and began to spray down Alison's many injuries with with the pale, white foam. It filled the many gashes that covered her torso, her arms, and face. He had to draw out a second can before he had covered even half of her many injuries. As he continued with his procedure Alison did her best to hold still, but Brandon could see the pain in her eyes as the substances sealed her injuries and the stinging of the disinfectant became a near full body burn. He wanted to do anything to ease her pain and comfort her, but right now he just needed to make sure she got out of here alive.

When he sealed the last major gash he threw away the can and placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Alison, can you walk?" He asked.

Her eyes opened painfully at his question, and she pushed herself shakily off of the wall. She tried to hide her pain as much as she could, bringing herself to her feet much faster than any normal person with these kinds of injuries could. When she was on her feet she nodded down at him, pain and fatigue still weighing in her eyes.

She glanced down at him coldly and efficiently. The passion she had let him see for the past few days was all gone. There wasn't any anger in her, there wasn't any joy, there was just all consuming hurt that she was fighting to ignore. She tried to walk past him, but he put a hand on her shoulder to stop her.

"Are you going to be ok?" Said Brandon as she began to move towards the door.

She tried to spin on a dime, just as she normally could, but Brandon saw the pain shoot through her was her eyes clamped shut and she stopped turning. When she pealed them open the same dead look was in her eyes as she met his gaze.

"Please, focus on the mission Lieutenant. I'll be fine," she said robotically.

Brandon knew it was a lie through her teeth. He momentarily considered pulling a stretcher from one of the nearby medical stations and making her lay down on it, but he knew it was pointless arguing with her. Brandon stood, and followed her out the door of the cell.

Alison accepted a rifle from Devereaux as she exited and then dashed towards the end of the hallway, where Mal and Vaz were fighting off a URF squad. They had positioned Captain Lassiter and the robotic dolly with the URF device in an alcove to keep the URF from trying to destroy it or take it back. Although Brandon could tell the captain wasn't going anywhere, he could see that the device had taken extensive damage.

Brandon couldn't help but find it ludicrous that they were putting so much trouble into protecting that device now, when they hardly even knew what it was used for. For all they knew it could be god's own thermonuclear wrecking ball, or a giant, flashy paper weight, and yet Alison had gone through all that she had simply to figure out what it was used for. They needed to pay back the URF a little.

No, thought Brandon, no more thoughts like those. Stay alive, then revenge.

When Alison reached Mal and Vaz she pushed them to the side with a large hand and leaned out of the hallway. The torture didn't appear to have damaged her superior reflexes. She immediately opened up on the URF squad, switching her rifle to semi-automatic as she began firing 7.62 slugs with deadly precision, taking out trooper after trooper with well placed shots to center mass. One or two of them tried to run, but Alison pursued, putting two rounds into the back of one of the troopers, and then grabbing the other one by the shoulders and slamming him face first into the wall, killing him.

She paused for a brief moment and took a few long, pained breaths, and then turned to continue moving down the hallway with the ODSTs in tow, but when she turned her back to Brandon, he began to see the extent of the damage she had taken. The biofoam that Brandon had used to seal her back and upper arms had been ripped away by her exertions, letting blood run freely through her tattered tank top and down her arms to her finger tips. It wasn't enough to cause her to bleed out, but it was bad. She needed to lay off and rest now.

Brandon sprinted up next to her and grabbed her arm. He wasn't going to let her tear herself apart like this. He wasn't sure he could do anything to stop a seven foot tall super soldier, but damned if he wasn't going to try.

"Alison, stop," he demanded.

She hardly gave him a second glance before dashing forward once again, now out of his reach. She wasn't going to stop. She might be a miracle of bioengineering, capable of leveling a city block by herself, but she wasn't machine, and she was going to rip herself to pieces in a blind rage. This torture had awakened a new, self destructive side of her Brandon hadn't seen before.

The hangar wasn't far in front of her now. She had run past the URF defenders the ODSTs had taken out, but just before she reached the service entrance to the hangar, the pain became too much for her. She collapsed on to the floor, soaked in blood and on the verge of tears. Her genetic augmentations, her carbide bones, her overclocked immune system, they all did nothing to keep her moving on.

The ODSTs caught up a moment later, dragging Lassiter with them and hastily zip cuffing him to some pipes once they arrived. They were panting, confused, and weary of the out of control Spartan they had on their hands. As Mal and Vaz moved to secure the door Devereaux knelt down next to Alison, pulled zipcuffs from her vest, and showed them to Brandon, silently asking if she should restrain her for her own good.

Brandon glared daggers at her. With as much as Alison had been through in the last few moments, she didn't need to be put through any more confinement or abuse, certainly not by her own team. Brandon slid her rifle away from her and moved so he could look at her face. She was on her hands and knees, dripping blood and panting. The gashes had began to coagulate already thanks to a genetic tag modification she had received, but she was far from healthy.

"Alison," he said gently.

She looked up at him weakly and met his eyes. Even in a crouched position like this she was still noticeably larger than him, but she seemed to have lost her strength.

"Alison, we're going to get you out of here, but I need you to stay right here for a moment and rest, alright?"

Alison dropped her head and nodded in defeat. She had neither the strength nor the will to keep fighting or to argue with him. She moved only far enough to slump back against the wall, and then stopped moving altogether.

Brandon stood from his crouched position and motioned for Devereaux to stack on the hangar door. The three ODSTs set up against the door and prepared to rush it while Brandon braced himself against the other side of it, rifle at the ready.

"Three, two, one," he counted down, and then pressed the release.

The door slid open and revealed a hangar in much the same condition the ODSTs had left it. The automated chain gun they had set up in the rear of the pelican was scanning the room for potential targets, and judging by the amount of bullet holes in the various doors that surrounded the hangar, it had found quite a few in the half an hour the ODSTs had been gone. Fortunately they had returned before it had run out of ammunition.

They moved as one through the door. Mal and Vaz laid down fire across the hangar as Dev made a run for the pelican's cockpit. In a mad sprint she managed to make it to the Pelican's open loading ramp, showing the automated chain gun and rolling barricade out of the way. Mal and Vaz jumped on to the boarding ramp and grabbed hand holds as Dev spun the pelican around so the loading ramp was facing the door Brandon was still in cover behind, and so that her nose was facing another door way which currently harbored a group of URF security personnel. She opened up on them with her 30mm chain gun, killing most of them instantly and scaring the rest of them enough to burry them behind cover. She wasn't worried about hull breaches or rules of engagement at this point, all she cared about was getting out of here after seeing the horror story Alison had lived.

Brandon shared her single minded purpose. As Mal and Vaz dropped from the pelican's boarding ramp to lift the forerunner device from the robotic dolly, Brandon knelt down next to Allison and wrapped his arm around her back to support her as she stood. She managed to get to her feat far more easily than anyone in her kind of shape should have, but she was still showing her injuries. Limping, grunting, and gritted teeth gave away how much pain she was in.

Brandon then turned to the section of pipe where he had earlier zip tied up Lassiter, and cut him free. He motioned for Alison to limp to the pelican, which she reluctantly did, before aiming his weapon at the dead center of Lassiter's forehead.

"Get moving," he yelled.

Brandon expected him to run, or maybe to try and wrench the rifle from his hands, anything to stay out of ONI's custody, but instead Lassiter just gave up. Brandon searched his eyes to determine why, but all he found was the same, fake sorrow he had seen before.

It didn't matter though. Now wasn't the time for psychoanalysis. Now was the time for getting the hell out of here.

Brandon ran after Lassiter and jumped to board the pelican. The moment he was on board Mal slammed the boarding ramp's close button, and Devereaux brought the pelican around so the nose faced the open void. She fired the afterburners full force and propelled kilo-5 five out of that hell hole as fast as she could.

Brandon took a moment once they were clear to appreciate the shock of the whole situation. Where did he start? With the fact that his friend had been tortured, and nearly killed? With the fact that they had just made off with a device that for all they knew could be a giant bomb waiting to blow them all to hell?

He decided maybe he should start with what really needed help. Alison.

She had started herself in to one of the Pelican's many web seats that lined it's sides, and was weakly attempting to hide her injuries. Why at a time like this she would be trying to act tough Brandon would never understand. Then again, she wasn't the first solider to do something similar, and she wouldn't be the last.

Brandon ran over to her and looked her in her bloodshot eyes. She was in very, very bad shape. Her once bright blue eyes were now cloudy and dull. He yanked a stretcher down from the overhead and secured it to the middle of the pelican's deck. He placed a gentle hand on Alison's shoulder, urging her to move to the stretcher even as she continued to fold in on herself.

"Alison, I need to check you out. Whatever the hell they did to you could kill you if I don't."

Alison shook her head and didn't move. It wasn't as if Brandon could pick her up and move her, so he resorted to pleading.

"Alison, please," he begged.

Alison looked up at him with hurt in her eyes. She looked broken and just about ready to give up. She was looking for something, anything from him to reassure her she was safe, and that she would be alright.

"I'm not going to let anyone hurt you," he said finally.

Brandon didn't expect a promise like that to mean anything to her, but surprisingly it was just enough to get her to comply. She rose from her seat and limped over to the stretcher with Brandon's help. She laid down. Her feet dangled off the edge of the stretcher not built for someone of her size.

Brandon moved to secure the Velcro restraints that the stretcher provided around her, but saw fear creep in to her eyes as he ripped open one of them and looped it around her wrist. They really weren't meant to restrain the person on the stretcher so much as they were meant to keep them from bouncing around the cabin during slipspace transit. Anyone could break out of them, and Alison would certainly have no trouble, but he could tell that just the thought of being trapped again as she had been on that station, cold and bloody and alone, was more than she could bare.

He stopped short and moved to the head of the stretcher, kneeling down next to her. The ODSTs were already tending to her wounds, and although her augmentation's were working hard to repair the damage done to her body, they were still working.

What she needed most right now was human comfort.

"Alison," he said softly, "I am so, so sorry. I should have fought harder, I shouldn't have been so stupid as to think they believed our cover stories. We should have aborted the moment they caught us looking around. I should..."

In the middle of his sentence, he felt her hand moved from the side of the stretcher and reach over silently towards him. When she found his right hand, she grasped it tightly and closed her eyes. Then, for reasons unknown, she began to hum. Her tone was soft and melodic, not something he expected from someone of her strength and size. He was baffled by the action, and took a moment to try and decipher what she was trying to do. It was only when she pulled his hand closer to her and forced a weak smile that lasted for barely a second before pain over took it, that he realized she was trying to comfort him.

Why would she do such a thing for someone who had screwed up as much as he had? She had done no wrong to deserve the injuries that covered her body and the blood that had drenched her clothes. Her only fault was being placed under the command of Lieutenant David Brandon. He should have known the moment he set eyes on her that she would end up suffering, just like everyone else he had ever lead did. Anything that could possibly go wrong on an operation lead by him, did go wrong every time without fail.

He didn't deserve her kindness. She should be giving him a black eye right about now, but here she was, comforting him. He wasn't sure if God had decided this was the best way to mock all of his many failures, or if it simply spoke to her kindness.

He wasn't able to decided until a moment later when the humming stopped. The ODSTs had just finished patching her up and setting her wounds, and now looked down at the Lieutenant. Brandon watched as her breathing slowed and she drifted off in to sleep.

Blood still dripped from her clothes, despite the sealant that had been applied to her wounds. In spite of her ragged state though, she managed to somehow look peaceful. No press release or piece of propaganda had ever described a Spartan as peaceful. To the UNSC Spartans were just weapons of war, but he knew the real Alison.

She was good. She didn't deserve any of what had befallen her. She deserved the rest she was experiencing now in slumber, not the constant barrage of abuse she had received from the URF, and not the even more personal and shameful abuse she would receive from the UNSC upon her return.

Brandon began to feel his anger boiled over. Her own people had treated her horrible for most of her life, and yet when the UNSC's enemies came knocking, they had decided to abuse and neglect her, and not admiral Osman, or any of the other hundreds or maybe thousands of people that deserved it far more than she did.

He needed to get his anger out. He couldn't take it out on the ODSTs. They were assholes, but for the most part they were just as innocent as any other rank and file soldier in the UNSC. Working for Osman made them no more or less evil. The one person on this craft, however, who had instigated evil, and who had put someone who deserved far better through hell, and back, was Lassiter.

When Brandon looked up and saw him staring right back at him, his eyes full of pity, Brandon snapped like a twig. This man was a fraud. This man could feel no remorse. No one with a soul could do to a human being what he had done to Alison. He deserved to be punished in the only way he would ever understand. Raw pain.

Brandon stood quickly and marched over to the restrained man, fist clenched. The moment he was within striking distance he took a swing at him, hitting him square in the jaw as hard as he could. Brandon's hand hurt like hell from the impact, but the hurt was obscured by the sweet high of revenge. He had a single minded purpose, and that was to make this man suffer.

"You inhuman piece of shit," he spat at Lassiter before throwing another punch straight in to his gut, causing him to double over.

"How can you live with yourself?" He questioned, "how can you do that to a living, breathing person and sleep at night?"

Brandon didn't listen to Lassiter's response for any real length of time. Most of it was him sucking wind while he wailed about how he had had nothing to do with it.

Brandon's response was to reach for the baton that still sat on Lassiter's pistol belt and flick it open, before turning it on him savagely and beating him with it. He only managed to get one strike in before he felt an arm grab him from behind.

He spun to find Vaz facing him, a look of surprise on his now unhelmeted head.

"What the hell Army guy?" He asked as he tried to grab the baton, but Brandon shoved him away before turning back to Lassiter.

He was now bloody and bruised, just like his Spartan victim, but Brandon wanted to make sure he really knew the pain he had caused her. He wound up for another strike, but before he could connect, he felt two arms loop under each of his arm pits. He was lifted off the ground for a moment and then thrown back to the deck, hard. His head swam as he felt himself hit the ground, and his vision blurred. The ODSTs were both on top of him, yelling something at him, but he could hardly understand them. Reflexively, he struggled, trying desperately to get free. They tried to hold him down, but it was clear that they were losing out to Brandon's shear adrenaline.

"Mal, do it," he heard Vaz say, before he saw Mal reach for his utility belt.

He drew something out, and jabbed it in to Brandon's side. For a moment, all he felt was a sharp pain, and then he began to feel more relaxed. He knew what they had injected him with. It was something similar to the sedative the URF had used on them only hours ago, but engineered by ONI and the UNSC to be much nastier. It was meant to be given to prisoners of war who had just been captured. It was a sedative that wasn't powerful enough to put someone asleep immediately, but just disorienting enough to make them submissive to their captor's commands until they did. In this case, it would work perfectly to keep him off of Lassiter.

When it finally took hold, he felt the ODSTs release him and then begin to help him up. They half guided, half dragged him to one of the seats on the side of the pelican, and strapped him in for the flight. His thoughts were clouded. He could barely make heads or tails of why he had felt angry a moment ago, but what he did know was that the last thing he saw before he blacked out was Alison, still laying peacefully on her cot. The sight of her made the very last bits of that anger evaporate from him.

She was good, so good, and he cared very much about her. He hadn't felt this way about someone any time in his recent memory.

She made him feel ways that he handy in a long time, ways that court only be described with words he hadn't used in a long time. Peaceful, content, comforted, and happy were all uncommon words in his vocabulary, but Alison made all of them come to the forefront of his mind.

He certainly hadn't thought about using a word like love in a very long time, but he couldn't think of another word to better describe how he felt about her. He had fallen for her over these few short days, and all it took was the image of her sleeping and one hundred CCs of nothing good to finally show him that.