0800 Hours, March 31, 2535 (Military Calendar) /

Delphi Noctem System, Big River Valley, Planet Daedalus

Camp Green River

Kelly ran.

She had been running for hours. Run the track in the rec room so long that she grew tired of it. Started running down the halls of Camp Green River. She didn't have any plans to stop now.

It was easier for her to think when she was running. And lately, there was a lot to think about.

The first thought plaguing her mind was the Covenant facility's explosion. It was extremely unlikely that the failsafe system was designed to delay as long as it had. They hadn't discovered anything but corpses within those walls – was there a survivor, a saboteur, out there somewhere, hunting them down?

Beyond that, what was the significance of the stone? Hundreds of Covenant had died for it. Halsey hadn't left her lab once since she'd received it. Even the other members of Blue Team seemed infatuated with it. Why? What was so special about what was, in most ways, just another piece of rock?

Finally, it hadn't escaped her attention that something strange was going on between herself and Fred. From his flirtatious comments outside Halsey's lab to the way she felt flustered whenever he was near her and how he seemed to be avoiding her . . . something was happening. Something she didn't understand.

It was best she kept running. It helped her think. In some cases, it helped her avoid thinking. She would gladly run for days on end in order to avoid thinking about some of the things plaguing her of late.

Unfortunately, she didn't have the time.

She rounded the corner past the mess hall and was headed towards Halsey's lab when she heard a thunderous cacophony within the mess behind her. She turned on her heel and in a few strides burst through the door to investigate.

It only took her a moment to process the view before her. Two Spartans were standing in the center of the room, facing one another. Their body language was tense, angry – they were ready to leap at each other's throats.

Will was facing her, standing across the room some ten meters distant. The Spartan with his back to her, standing somewhat closer, was Fred. She quietly sidestepped far enough into the room to get a good view of both.

The pair weren't quite two meters apart from each other, and it looked like one of them had angrily flipped the table they had been sitting at. Their chairs lay on the floor, likely in the location they fell when the pair of soldiers angrily jumped to their feet to confront each other. The remnants of some MREs were spilled across the ground, the stone from the Covenant research facility lying in a pile of rehydrated mashed potatoes near Fred's feet.

"I swear," Will seethed, breathing heavily, "I've never met someone so stupid."

Fred spread his arms wide, a toothy grin covering his face without reaching his eyes. "That's rich coming from the living, breathing counterargument to the statement 'there are no dumb questions,'" he retorted.

Will's face turned deep red, his breath becoming even more laborious and his glare deepening.

John entered the room from the door opposite of Kelly's. She watched his face as he processed the information around him and waited for him to come to the same conclusion she had – Fred and Will needed to be separated before things turned ugly.

With a few lightning-quick hand gestures, she communicated with her squad leader. John would take charge of Will, dragging him through the door he had just entered. She would take Fred.

Just as Fred opened his mouth – likely to fire off another string of childish insults – John and Kelly snapped into action. John took Will by the shoulders and yanked him backwards, keeping the other Spartan off-balance as he pulled him through the doorway and out of the mess hall.

Kelly stepped around Fred, plucked the stone from the slowly drying husk of food it had landed in, and shoved her shoulder into Fred's chest to push him backward. He struggled against her, and when she looked into his eyes for a moment there was something there that she didn't recognize. Something dark and angry – emotions he hadn't leveled at another Spartan since their ages could be counted in single digits.

Eventually he seemed to recognize her, and the anger began to dissipate from his face. He became more pliable then, more easily pushed in the direction she wanted him.

When Fred stopped pushing back against her, Kelly took him by the arm with her free hand and dragged him down the hallway toward the first neutral location she could think of - the doctor's lab. She shoved him roughly through the door and closed it behind them.

"What was that?" she shouted as she rounded on him, shoving a finger in his face for good measure.

Fred didn't even notice, turning away from her to pace back and forth across the small room. "He said," Fred fumed, absentmindedly plucking a knife from his boot and twirling it between his fingers. His pacing slowed. "He said . . ." Fred repeated, but his voice trailed off into silence.

Finally, the Spartan stopped pacing. "I don't remember what he said," he admitted. "Just that I wanted to rip his throat out."

Kelly stared at him for a moment, speechless. "You don't remember?" She seethed, throwing her hands out in exasperation. "You two nearly destroyed the objective for this entire mission in a lunch fight and you can't even remember why?"

Fred wasn't looking at her anymore. His eyes were fixed on the stone in her hand. "It doesn't make any sense," he whispered, quietly enough that Kelly wasn't sure he meant for her to hear it. "It's almost like the stone . . ." he trailed off into silence. Slowly, he reached one hand toward the artifact.

She tightened her grip on it. He was going to endanger her stone.

The objective, she corrected herself. She felt no attachment to the object outside of its relevance to the mission. At least that's what she told herself as she shifted her arm behind herself in order to shield it from her teammate.

"What is that?" Fred asked.

It took Kelly a moment to realize that Fred was no longer reaching out for her. Another moment to confirm that he wasn't even looking at the stone anymore. It took her several moments more to relax the fist she didn't quite remember making with her free hand.

Fred lifted his left limb close to his face, studying the back of his forearm.

"What is what?" Kelly eventually asked, growing tired of his silent observation.

Fred turned his arm to show it to her. "Blood," he answered simply.

Kelly stepped closer to see for herself. A wide gash ran ten centimeters up his forearm, the edges jagged and torn.

"How did you get that?" she asked. "And how haven't you noticed it until now?"

Fred shrugged nonchalantly. "I felt something happen when Will flipped the table over. I guess the stone must have hit me on its way down."

Kelly glanced down at the artifact and noticed one corner of it was, indeed, tinted a dark red. She sat down in Halsey's desk chair, resting the artifact in her lap to free both hands to rummage through drawers until she found a box of individually wrapped bandages.

"Here," she grunted as she tossed one in his direction. "This facility's a rental. Don't drip on the floor."

Fred rolled his eyes at her as he plucked the bandage out of the air. "Copy that," he said sarcastically as he struggled to open the bandage, his fingertips sticky with slowly drying blood.

Kelly watched him fumble with the wrapping three times before she became exasperated enough to take it from him. "Sit down," she said, pointing at Halsey's chair. "For one of the most proficient killers in the galaxy, you are useless sometimes."

"I would've gotten it," Fred argued back defensively. "Eventually," he added, more sheepishly, when Kelly turned to glare him down.

"Turn your hand over," she ordered. She partially opened the adhesive bandage as he presented his wound to her, then paused to examine it again. Within a few days it would seal and begin mending on its own. "This might scar," she said as she opened a bottle of water on Halsey's desk and used it to rinse out his cut.

"That's okay," Fred answered coolly, pressing a towel against his arm to stem the residual blood flow. "I'm told girls like scars."

"Some girls," she answered, pulling the bandage wrapping apart and preparing to lay it against his arm.

"Do you?"

Surprised at the lack of some bad joke or attempt at bragging, she glanced up. Any planned response fled her mind when she realized that their faces were mere centimeters apart. Fred's face was adorned with his customary cocky grin, but the near-imperceptible widening of his eyes betrayed his own surprise at their proximity. There was something else there, too. He looked almost nervous, waiting for her reply.

"Depends on who has them," she finally choked out. Her mind was drawn back to a memory from her childhood – a trashy film one of the nurses put on in her room while she was making her slow recovery from the augmentation procedures they had all undergone. The film followed the love of a breathy combat field nurse and a daring special forces soldier, culminating in a disgustingly romantic kiss.

She refused to be party to the replication of such a cliched – and arguably sexist – story. But a part of her had always wondered what that kiss felt like. Sitting so close to Fred, she couldn't help it if that curiosity was starting to get the better of her.

"Something wrong, Rabbit?"

She shook her head, willing the memories of poor acting and horrendously inaccurate depictions of war from her mind. "Why do you ask?" she returned in lieu of an answer.

"No reason," he responded smugly, "you're just standing awfully close to me. Something on your mind?"

When he smiled at her, his mouth splitting into that familiar idiot grin that somehow seemed new, she began to wonder if she had contracted some sort of virus. She didn't know how else to explain the strange feeling of excitement and nervousness that seemed to fill her stomach and grip the base of her spine. She added the imbalance she felt as she set the stone on Halsey's desk to the list of symptoms.

Her cheeks began to burn, but she fought the sensation. She would not get flustered and give Fred this victory. "Nothing in particular," she answered as coyly as she could. "You don't seem to be in a hurry to get away from me either."

Fred's smile grew less confident. Nervousness crept into his eyes.

That was good enough for her.

"In fact," she whispered, leaning so close to Fred that she could feel his shallow breaths wash over her face, "it almost seems like you wouldn't mind getting closer."

This might have been the most exciting game of chicken she'd ever played. And neither of them was backing down now.

But then, as she leaned forward and her eyes slid closed for no logical reason, she wasn't entirely convinced that it was just a game of chicken.

There was a click at the door as someone outside grasped the handle.

By the time the door swung open, Fred was sprawled across the floor and Kelly had turned to the desk, hurriedly rummaging through the random papers and files strewn across it.

John stepped into the small room, his brow furrowed in a scowl and his eyes hard.

Kelly wrapped her fingers around the nearest object she could find – a pen – and rose from the chair. "Looks like I didn't drop it after all," she said to Fred, who had busied himself with looking busy on the floor, "so you can get up now." She then turned to John and snapped to attention. "Chief, Blue Two is no longer at risk of causing an immediate altercation and the minor wound he sustained has been treated."

John nodded, still glaring at Fred as the other Spartan scrambled to his feet.

"Thank you, Kelly. Would you give us the room? I need to have a conversation with Fred."

Judging by the tone of John's voice, Kelly almost felt sorry for Fred. Not that that was enough to keep her from fleeing the room at her best speed.

The moment the door clicked shut behind her, however, her curiosity got the better of her. She silently crept back, standing just close enough to catch what her teammates were saying.

"You're lucky this facility is devoid of other UNSC personnel. As it is, I have half a mind to write the pair of you up for that moronic stunt," John said sternly.

Kelly felt the beginnings of an embarrassed panic creep into her mind before John continued.

"I expect you and Will to make amends. Immediately. Then you're going to repair any damage done to the mess hall."

Kelly breathed a sigh of relief. Of course John was talking about Fred and Will, she reasoned with herself. There was no reason for him to be speaking about anyone else.

Satisfied, Kelly turned to leave as Fred responded in the affirmative. Then she froze once more when John spoke up again.

"I don't know, and I don't want to know, what I just walked in on," the team leader said. "But I'd like to remind you of one thing – Spartan-087 has my full support, in everything. Up to and including the removal of anything – or anyone – that causes her harm. Is that understood?"

Kelly's mind reeled, trying to decipher John's words in any way other than what seemed to be his apparent meaning. When she failed, her jaw fell open and her cheeks burned red.

There was no other explanation. John had just threatened Fred like a father speaking to his daughter's first suitor.

She needed to go for a run.

Author's Note: I apologize for the big wait from the last chapter to this one. I hope it lives up to the wait! A huge special thanks to kpmh2001 for being a fantastic supporter and reviewer.