Author's note: Shorter than usual chapter, but I think it's better to be shortened, a nice little interlude to the combat that we usually see. I hope you guys like it, and thanks for your continued support

To Qrs-jg: Once again, you're on the money. Palmer was a corporal before becoming a Spartan. Definitely a good line soldier or small team member/leader, but jumping all the way up to Infinity command? That was a bit of a stretch to me too. I'm pleased that you liked my interpretation of Del Rio! I thought he was used badly. The Navy wanted him in place because he would prioritize the ship, and he did that, but he failed to adapt as a commander and realize the Didact's threat was incredibly massive and he should have tried harder to prevent it, or better, to support the Master Chief in some way before running. Lastly, the Strident frigates might be in the ship, but you never see them in 4 until possibly the last mission, so I'm going off of the assumption the Stridents were added in the refit that Infinity got the year after 4. Thanks for your review!


Could you sacrifice me to complete your mission? Could you watch me die?


32 hours passed slowly, with Infinity resting on her belly in the middle of the jungle that she had come down in. The ship was more than visible, given her large bulk, rising out of the trench that she had carved into the surface. It was as if a black monument had been erected, but there was nobody to worship it or remember it when it was still bristling with anger at having been invaded and damaged.

Turrets still spun rapidly, checking fire zones to both ensure they would be up and waiting in case of another attack. Missile bay doors remained closed, but ready to pop open and belch out their contents. Marine fireteams in Warthog convoys were scattered on the ground around the ship, while Pelicans sat high overhead, armed with air-to-air and air-to-ground attack munitions. They had been set up in rotations, a group of them up in the air at all times, before returning to refuel and switch crews. Surge operations that remained in a constant cycle of ships was what a carrier like Infinity was designed for, after all.

Mechanics and engineers were all over the ship, focusing on bringing her back online and repairing any damage that had been brought to her corridors. The tertiary reactor was functioning at full capacity now, and could power most things, but the secondary and primary would need to be functioning to power shields, weapons, and propulsion all at once, much less get her off the ground. Shield banks had been restored and functioned properly, but there was no real use in bringing them online and straining the tertiary reactor again. Weapons were what got the lion's share of the energy flowing through her veins.

Other divisions of maintenance personnel, assigned to each of the wings and repair bays for the ground and air units, were just as hard at work. Plenty of material and vehicles had been damaged or outright destroyed in the crash. Warthogs and Pelicans were being repaired after the fall, some being out of action entirely and cannibalized for spare parts that were checked over by techs before being stored for last ditch repair efforts. Nobody wanted a hand-me-down part that was part of something that had been stressed already. That was just asking for trouble.

Even the massive M510 Mammoth ultra-heavy siegebreakers were being checked over and prepped for combat. Crews were looking over the interior, using and reusing every bell and whistle to make sure they were ready to storm out of the ship and onto the surface to conduct heavy extended operations. They were a modern take on the super heavy land battleship concept that had been eyeballed throughout the 20th century and beyond. A miniature MAC cannon capable of holing anything up to a Covenant picket ship or, if the crew was lucky, a frigate, should it get too close and too careless. Heavy armor was rated to take even shelling by Wraiths and emplaced weapons. The only true worry a Mammoth had was boarders, but UNSC service personnel would hold that line and slam the door in the face of anyone who didn't think about wiping their feet before entering the vehicle's interior.

Morgan, standing with arms crossed and her helmet hooked to her belt, watched as one of the Mammoths rumbled to life loudly, another test starting up under the watchful eyes of mechanics attached to one of the Marine battalions onboard. On the opposite side of the huge hangar bay, Pelicans were being worked on, her sharp ears picking out the sounds of distant impact drills and shouts, as well as a portable speaker blaring music a little too loud.

But who was she to tell them to turn it down? The crews all worked without issues, and all they had to do was ask the others to lower the volume. Otherwise, no other group was close enough for it to matter. They could all use some method or another to try and keep themselves focused on their tasks. Everybody on the ship could still smell the spent gunpowder and, in the corridors further in the ship that had concentrated the smells, dried blood and remnants of death.

97 Marines, 21 Sailors, and Six Spartans had been killed in the attack on Infinity. Most of the Sailors had been killed in the crash, but some had fallen in battle, unlucky enough to be caught by invading forces. The Marines had been a more even split between the downed birds from the advance recon element, and being shot in the halls of the ship.

The six Spartans, however, had all fallen in defense of the ship's interior. The two bridge guardians had been killed late in the fight by the massive Promethean crab, which had been dubbed a Leviathan, a larger variant of the Knights that doubled both as a command unit and a heavy weapons platform. One member of Fireteam Strider had been killed in the initial attack, one of Fireteam Oasis' members had gone down after a direct hit from the fuel rod cannon of a Hunter in one of the hangar bays further towards the stern, and the last two had both been part of Fireteam Anvil, overwhelmed by a suicide squad of Grunts that had stormed them to clear the way towards the bridge.

She had only just finished updating her roster and rolling the teams that had lost members together to prevent the Spartan corps from having understrength units. It bothered her, having finished extra parts of the job. She had never had to write a letter to a family, or to try and put into words what it meant to lose somebody she'd only seen in passing.

Her letter writing had originally been truthful, but cold in how it came off. She had no idea who the Spartan was, and outside of writing how they'd died and the reason for it, there was nothing more to say. Monsoon had interjected, albeit indirectly, calling for Castille to enter her commander's office.

Morgan had been surprised, asking what she could help her with, and Castille had moved closer as she brought up Monsoon's summons, frowning at the way Morgan was writing letters.

The former medic's response to reading one of them was disapproving, and looked over at her. Blue eyes met green, and Castille gestured to the screen.

"Commander, you need to be more compassionate with these, more sympathetic. You've lost people, right?"

Morgan had nodded. Everybody had. Nobody had come out of the Great War unscathed.

"Then you know how it feels. It hurts, it never goes away, but in the beginning, when you get told about it… it's hell."

She knew that. She knew how much it had hurt, to watch Noble go down one by one and watch Reach disappear under the pillars of glassing beams. A swallow, another nod. "What would you have me do? Lie?"

Castille had been slow to respond to that, the pale woman's refined face contorting in a thoughtful expression that didn't fit on such a massive armored body. "No, ma'am. I'm just saying that… instead of being completely honest, you sort of… stretch the truth a little bit."

"But what does that solve? Wouldn't they want to know how their loved one died?"

Castille shook her head, pursing her lips. "That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying that it might be a better idea to be softer, and tell the truth that doesn't detail how they went down or what caused it directly."

Morgan had still been confused on the purpose of it, and her medically inclined Spartan team mate had decided to show her. A few minutes passed, a letter had been typed out, a moment where Morgan had realized that even now, years later and a taste of civilian life, hadn't done much at all to change her outlook from so many years of Marines dying on her, or even Noble's loss.

She had written the rest of them, with Castille giving her time in private before coming back to look over them and assure the Spartan III that she had gotten it right, however hard it may have been to find what was truly right and wrong in such a matter. The families that were informed of the loss of their loved ones by those letters would never see a right or a wrong, and the process had banged it into Morgan's head.

The entire time, Morgan's thoughts had gone back to hearing about the loss of Beta Company, and how she had felt nothing but surprise at the loss of hundreds of Spartans on a suicide mission. It had grown over time, with each loss of Noble. Jorge disappearing into the eleven dimensions of Slipspace with the super carrier over Reach. Kat's life being snuffed out in an instant because of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Carter's sacrifice to get them to the shipbreaking yards, already having been on borrowed time after vacating Sword Base's ruins. Emile, volunteering to stay behind and give the Autumn a way out, give her a way out.

Six, time for you to leave. Get the package to the pad, and get the hell off this planet. I've got your back.

Emile's orders to her had been filled with finality, and that grinning skull filled her mind's eye, as well as another thought.

The night before Greer had shown up at her house, she'd had another nightmare, one that had come for no reason and without warning. She had stared back into the face of another helmet, a Mark V that looked just like hers, and it had been pierced through the visor. Blackness had been all that she saw at first, before a flash of lightning revealed the eye within had been hers.

A dream, something that had been in the back of her mind since the planet went dark, disappearing behind her as she escaped against all odds. She was supposed to die on Reach, to be left behind and fight until she ran out of ammo, ran out of shields, ran out of the very life that filled her veins. In another world, Morgan-B312 had fallen with the rest of Noble, had been buried under the glassing beams and left like all the other ghosts that filled the ruins of Aszod's shipbreaking yard.

Another time.

Another place.

Another plaque to put on that statue that filled her thoughts again for the first time in a long time.

"Commander?"

A voice broke her from her reverie, one she'd always remember, always pick out in a crowd, always look for when the lights went out and the darkness returned.

Her wife stood in front of her, and even as Morgan's eyes refocused, she watched her wife already in the midst of dismissing the other pilot that had been with her. Hocus knew that look in the Spartan's eyes, sharp as ever but still looking clouded, glazed over, lost. She had seen it many times before.

They were alone now, albeit still standing in the open. They weren't far from the hangar wall and one of the doors that would lead further into the ship. Anybody could come through and they would be within arm's reach again.

Morgan caught her wife's eyes, blinking once. "Need something?" She asked, feigning ignorance.

Hocus – Amber – frowned at the bigger woman. "Some privacy, for one."

Morgan's face tightened slightly. She had been found out almost immediately. "Fair enough. Professionally or otherwise?"

"Otherwise. My bird's being checked over and my rotation is ending. We have plenty of time."

Morgan licked her lips, before nodding at her. "Wait one." Slipping her helmet back on, she reconnected to the ship's network. "Monsoon."

The AI responded in her helmet immediately, a small picture of her face appearing in Morgan's HUD. "Yes, Commander?"

"I'll be going to my quarters for a time. Anything happens, you can reach me on the TACPAD. August has command of Crown until I return. Otherwise, I'll be needing some privacy."

"Yes, Commander."

She thought for a moment as she slipped the helmet back off and onto her hip. The AI was a very nice point of contact, someone that she enjoyed having around, but admittedly, they rarely interacted. It was like the relationship with DOT back during her stint with Noble.

Morgan looked back to her wife, jerking her head to the door. "You have my attention then."

Amber jerked her head to the door as well. "Lead the way, Commander."

Morgan narrowed her eyes, and took a breath but nodded, and turned to the lead the way. Neither would speak of things until they entered their quarters.

It wasn't exactly a secret that they were together, a vast majority of the people posted to Infinity had their spouses stationed onboard, but few were posted together, and even fewer were Spartans. Anybody who looked at the ship's roster could come to the conclusion given their last names, but it wasn't the first conclusion people would make unless they knew the berthing situation. Neither got much time to speak to the other, and there weren't many in the halls that could see them enter their quarters at the same time. As far as she knew, almost nobody in the Spartan detachment knew of it, save for her fireteam, and that was only because Castille was in the know about it. It didn't matter whether people knew it or not, in the end. Neither talked about it was all.

The door opened for the two women, and they stepped inside before it closed again, sealing them in alone. Monsoon would have already excused herself. There was no need for her to snoop, and she was far more willing to keep to herself, unlike Cortana.

Gesturing to the couch, Morgan moved to one of the reinforced chairs she had pulled into the room for when she was in armor. It was rare, but better to have it than not. Her helmet came off, held in two armored hands. "Now, what was it that made you want privacy?"

Amber sat down across from her, setting her flight helmet on her lap. "Was gonna say hi and keep moving, but you had that look about you again."

Morgan raised her eyebrow. "Which one?"

"You know the one. The one where you get lost in that brain of yours again."

Morgan wanted to lie, to say no, to push it all back down. They had been in heavy contact less than a day ago, with enemy forces not just inside their ship, but their home. They were essentially stranded inside of a hostile planetoid, with no way home yet, and no true indication of whether or not they would even get off the ground. It was still less than optimistic. Things were heating up quickly, and she was going back to the thought process where her mind and the contents became non-essential, became distractions that could get her killed.

If she had to deal with it, it could wait, couldn't it? Morgan's eyes locked onto her wife again, and she realized it couldn't. The pilot had been an unstoppable force over the years. It had been tough at first, with Morgan struggling to let her in, struggling to find the words, to work them out of her rather than letting those thoughts fester even longer.

"It's different now."

"Different how?" Her wife had her hands in her lap, resting on the helmet, rather than crossed with her arms. Her voice was low, not containing any hint of anger or exasperation. She'd always been a calm listener. Classified information on the Spartan programs had come to light in the years after the war, and Morgan had opened up about her past. There was still plenty she didn't know, and Amber had always tried to remain patient and open minded, especially in the face of a woman that had abandoned everything at a young age to become a war machine.

"It was one thing to lose people I knew, cared about. It hurt. It still hurts. Losing others I didn't know wasn't as much of a hit. I could just… keep moving, forget about them. Now, I'm writing these letters to families about these people I barely got to know since coming aboard and it feels… wrong to write these letters the way I am, and I can't just forget about them now."

"Hate to say it, babe, but it never gets any easier." Amber's voice was level, and while Morgan could tell there was sympathy in it, her wife had never lied to her and stretched the truth.

"I know that well enough by now, but I never expected this." Morgan fidgeted in her seat, looking down at the deck.

"Nobody ever does. War is more than just shooting back and forth, and the military as well. It's fifty percent sitting around, bored out of your mind, forty percent getting told to do meaningless bullshit by someone because reasons and then having to do it despite it all, nine percent drinking and sleeping wherever you can, and then the last half percent is a mixture between training and being neck deep in the shit." She shrugged, her own eyes seemed to tear away. "For people like us, that aren't just grunts being ordered around, you have to slide a new block of suck into it. Dealing with subordinates, their troubles, their wants and needs, keeping them happy, and lastly, dealing with the fallout when they die."

Morgan looked back up, but the brown eyes of the other woman didn't meet hers. "Well, I shouldn't say dealing with it. That makes it sound like a hassle, and honestly? It kinda is, but it's part of the job." Another shrug.

The Spartan's frown grew deeper. "We've never had to deal with that. Spartans die and that's the end of it. Nobody was supposed to remember us except the clerks who typed MIA in our files, our team mates if we had them, and… that was it. Nobody is left as far as I'm aware that remembers Noble past the statue, the videos that were taken on Reach, whatever else."

"That's all you can do sometimes. You keep their tags, don't you? I've seen them on you almost every time I've seen you out of armor since we met."

Morgan reached up to her chest plate, as if she could feel the necklace that her own dog tags, and that of Jorge and Emile, hung on. She took her wedding ring off more than she took those tags off. A silent nod, and Amber went on.

"You're almost lucky, in a way. None of you had to worry too much about what happened after you kicked the bucket. Just keep going and hope you either live long enough to eventually forget, or you die and don't worry about it anymore."

Despite herself, Morgan chuckled, and Amber looked puzzled. "That's the thinking I had in the end, that either we finish the war and I get to take a break finally, or I die, and it's not my problem after that."

Amber swallowed, before nodding again. "Yeah, that's about the gist of it, ain't it? Speaking of dead Spartans, what about your friend? Big Green."

Morgan's smile, however shallow, disappeared. "He's… here. I don't know if he's back, but he's here."

"You mean he's changed since you last saw him."

"Figure five years on ice does that to someone, especially when they lock themselves away expecting to never be found again. I haven't gotten to talk to him yet, or Cortana. She's been kept in his armor, and he's been kept in meetings with either Lasky or Del Rio. Other than that, any sleep or food he's gotten, he's probably done it all alone. But something else is bothering me."

"Yeah?"

"Cortana. Something seems wrong with her. She was always cool and collected, except for the end. She seemed almost broken when we found her again, but now she seems to be going off the rails. You ever seen an angry AI?" A shake of Amber's head. "Me neither, until now. Cortana had some sort of… outburst. No idea why."

"You tell anyone about it?"

"Not yet. I need to find out for myself, but he's been busy so damn much that I can't get close. Whatever mission is going on to destroy the generator for the gravity well, he'll be going, and so will I."

Amber's face darkened slightly. "You took this so you could get out of the field but stay in and remember it all. You didn't take it to go and kick in doors and ass alike."

"No, but I need to figure it out, and this might be the only real way to do it and see Cortana under another stressful situation. She might be able to control it normally, but stress might exacerbate it."

The smaller pilot sighed, her southern drawl sounding again as she locked eyes with her wife. "If that's what you think is best, then do it. Just be careful, yeah?"

Morgan nodded and stood up. Amber stood as well, closing the distance as her wife said those words again.

"I promise."

That got a bit of a smile from Amber, and her hand stretched up to Morgan's cheek, one of her thumbs brushing against the once deathly pale skin, moving an errant strand of black hair. "You really do know how to reassure a girl, don't'cha?"

"On occasion."

A chuckle from the shorter woman, and her hand moved to the back of Morgan's neck, meeting the tech suit rather than her wife's warm skin. Morgan was quick to get the hint, and leaned down to share a kiss with her wife for the first time in a month that wasn't rushed or given by two sleepy people. They held it for a few seconds, before Morgan pulled away, and Hocus went on. "There. Now I can rest a little easier."

"Sorry it isn't much, and under the circumstances that we have."

Amber tsked. "I knew what I was getting myself into all those years ago. You don't have to apologize to me."

Morgan let out a relaxed huff, one that left her nose as her mouth turned up into a smile. "Maybe not… but I'll make it up to you when this tour's done."

"Damn right, now get out there, figure out what you need to figure out, whatever. I'll be waiting for you."

"Hopefully not too long."

Morgan let her last words hang, and turned to the door. Her wife followed along behind her, and the two went separate directions. Morgan went left, towards S Deck, Amber went right, back towards the nearest chow hall. She would be coming back to sleep soon.

The Spartan continued to stew as she stepped onto S Deck a few minutes later, immediately moving up to the overwatch point that her commanders used as an office away from their dedicated offices. Crown was waiting for her, and she nodded to them when they looked up as she entered.

Castille was the first to come to her, a datapad in hand. "We managed to get the Master Chief's old armor off. Had him switch into the GEN2 variant, but he picked the Mark VI rather than something else. We had GEN1 parts on hand, but he refused." She shrugged. "Information on the old set is on the datapad. Medics looked him over too, didn't say it out loud, but they recommend a full psych workup."

Morgan took the datapad and started looking over it, frowning and meeting Castille's eyes when she heard the part about the psych workup. "Agreed, but we probably won't be able to get it done properly while we're here. Best I can figure, he'll lie and say he's fine."

"What makes you say that?"

"We're neck deep in shit right now and he knows something that the rest of us don't. I know him well enough to know that he'll do anything to stay in the fight and try and finish whatever this is."

Castille pursed her lips. "But there could be something wrong with him."

Morgan gave a sardonic chuckle, despite herself. "Something wrong with him? There's always been something wrong with the IIs and IIIs. We just hide it better to deal with the mission at hand. That was our entire upbringing: compartmentalize, win the fight, deal with it when the world wasn't coming down around you."

"That doesn't make it right."

"Every non-ONI doctor that's ever had an opinion on us has said the same thing. Doesn't change the way we operate, and it definitely won't change him."

She handed the datapad back after finishing her skimming. Armor had been totally wrecked. Shield system was barely holding up after a run in with something big out in the wild, especially with all the issues that had started to plague it during their fighting at the end of the war. She was almost surprised that it hadn't failed before now, or suffered any sort of small failures throughout that time that had cascaded into something more.

But Castille seemed to drop the subject, although Morgan didn't miss the sigh from the former medic. When all this was over, Morgan would force him into a psych workup if she had to, but until then, she could only support him. There was something far more important going on than his stress and problems, according to him, but it didn't really matter what she thought on it. Even if he was put out of the fight, they'd still have to figure out how to get out of here. She wasn't a stranger to fighting on a mind hanging on by its last thread.

Didn't mean she had to like it though.

She waited for a time, looking over several datapads on their status and making plans to keep them ready to go whenever the ship got back into the air. Eventually, she saw him. The big olive colored armor was moving from the bridge further towards the stern, likely for his own berthing. His old armor had been discarded, damaged all to hell by the end of the war and with several deep pits in it, from the pictures that had been in the datapad she had looked over. Now, he was wearing the new model, one that looked significantly more angular and even different in plenty of ways. It almost deserved a new name.

She was quick to get down onto the deck and catch up with him. "Chief."

The helmet turned, and two golden visors met, reflecting each other, and not the people inside. His body turned around soon after, giving her his full attention. "Commander."

Morgan didn't say anything in return, gesturing towards an empty room nearby. He took the hint, leading the way and stepping inside before turning towards her as the door shut behind him.

"Been a while, John." Few said his name anymore, most of those that knew it personally either dead or thought he was dead, or were a high enough rank for it to be unprofessional.

"It has. What do you need from me, Commander?"

Her helmet unsealed with a hiss as she pulled it off and hooked it to her belt. "Morgan, Chief. I don't need the rank or the formalities. You and I fought together enough at the end that the rest of it doesn't matter. We're Spartans first."

He didn't respond for a moment, before he nodded. She went on. "What's going on? You've been with Lasky and Del Rio since you came aboard. Now you need to keep me updated too."

"A Forerunner Commander has been kept imprisoned in a stasis capsule for an undetermined amount of time. We were tricked into opening the capsule and now he's sworn revenge."

"Revenge?"

"He hates Humans, for one." Cortana's voice entered the conversation, sounding normal again, and Morgan frowned.

"And?"

"He's looking to finish what he apparently started who knows how many thousands of years ago. I couldn't find anything from what little time I had in the system, but safe to say, it's nothing good."

Her frown deepened. "So he's a top tier threat then. Have you brought this up with command?"

The Master Chief responded this time. "Of course. Their first priority is getting the ship into the air, but any further planning towards pursuing the Didact is secondary to that. I've started thinking of ways to go about it, but there are resources I need, support."

"Then you'll get it, I can promise you that. As soon as we get the ship into the air again, we can start tracking him down and ending him before this whole thing gets worse."

He nodded. "Thank you."

It was new, to hear the Master Chief thank her. It made her think for a moment, before she went on. "Short of anything else important, I have another question to ask, and I'd like to hear the answer from you, John."

He seemed to hesitate before he nodded. He knew what she was getting at. "Yes, ma'am." His voice was stony, but she doubted he would deny her the answer now, especially since there was no way out of it.

"What's wrong with Cortana?"

Cortana's voice came from the helmet speakers before he could respond. "Morgan, I-"

"I asked him, Cortana." Morgan's voice was hard as she cut the AI off, and she kept her eyes locked onto the Chief's visor, burning holes through it as she crossed her arms. She knew she was looking at his eyes. He wouldn't look away from her.

The Master Chief – John – took a few moments before his words came again. "She's suffering from rampancy."

Her gut twisted into a knot, and she felt her mouth dry out. Cortana? Rampant? It was a death sentence for any AI in UNSC custody. The first signs of rampancy, regardless of how long they were into their service life. No AI was safe for it, not even Cortana. If she knew Del Rio, and she was sure she knew him well enough by now, she would be decommissioned the instant he got wind of her rampancy.

Her eyes broke from his, and she started to pace, her entire form tensing up as the Master Chief and Cortana followed her movements.

She heard his voice again. "If we can stop the Didact, get her back to Earth, back to Halsey, we can fix her. Halsey would surely know how to fix it."

He almost sounded like he was pleading with her, something that she had never thought she would hear from the big man that had been the bulwark that the Covenant had crashed against at the end of the war all those years ago, that protected Humanity like a flood gate with extinction being a rotten ocean that was being held back still today.

There was no response for a while, and her sensitive ears heard the slightest movement of armor scraping against armor, of the tech suit flexing with each movement. He was fidgeting. Something he'd never done in her presence, and likely not since he was still a child. Something had gone very wrong in the five years since she'd seen them, and she knew that it wasn't his fault. He had been on ice the whole time, hadn't changed a bit.

It was Cortana that had changed, that was falling to pieces slowly, bit by bit, and he was suffering from losing the only constant he knew of. She remembered the time on the Shadow of Intent, with his visor staring over the frozen, corrupted recording of Cortana. She had felt her own world starting to shake when the AI had been left behind. She couldn't imagine what it must be like for the Chief, having spent longer with Cortana, having been watched over by the AI in the blackness of the void after the Ark portal collapsed and separated the two Spartans.

She had spent many sleepless nights thinking of the two, believing they had finally both given everything to end the war. Spartans had been made to give everything, to fight the war, to win it, to die in it. It was their job description simply to fight until the fighting was done or until there was no fight left in them and their life slipped away, their job done in some way or another. That was what she had believed. That he had accomplished his last objective, that he had made it through to the instant the clock struck midnight and was snuffed out at the very end.

But he hadn't. He was still here, and thinking about it, she realized that he was just like her. They had both lost so many of their brothers and sisters, and it seemed that all he had left now was Cortana, and the next mission, similar to how she had been at the end of it all, but Morgan had moved on and made a life outside of a war, had become something more than just a Spartan. She had become Human.

But had He? She had no idea. It was entirely possible that Cortana was all that kept him going now. She had been his guardian angel in the years in the darkness, had been his guiding force during the first Halo conflict, and even been what pushed him through the final hours of the war when they had reclaimed her, had been the one to personally fire the ring prematurely and bring an end to that damnable conflict.

Then her thoughts melted away, retreated back into the box that she kept them in with the rest of her ghosts. Maybe Kat was finally good for something, and was keeping her thoughts on a leash. Then again, maybe Kat had finally gotten tired of harassing her over the years and went back to that little village of habitation modules for good.

She doubted it.

The Chief stood there, watching her, his visor not saying anything. That was one luxury that visors afforded them. Spartans could tell their siblings' body movements down to a hair's accuracy, owing to the fact that faces were always covered. She almost wanted to tell him to take the damned thing off for a little while, let his skin see the light of day, but that wasn't her place. If he wanted to keep himself sealed away, then who was she to say otherwise?

He waited patiently, his fidgeting having stopped at some point. "Tell me, Chief… do you honestly think we can finish this and get her back to Earth? Get her fixed up and keep her going?"

There was no hesitation this time. "I do."

"And how much are you willing to sacrifice to take these risks?"

"Everything."

"Including your life? Mine?"

There was a pause to his answer this time. Eventually, he answered, but it was longer than the other pauses. "I'd give my life to save Cortana, to save Humanity. But…"

Morgan waited, her arms crossed, and the Chief went on.

"...I don't know if I could put the rest of the ship or crew at risk."

Doubt. Another first. Morgan simply nodded. "I see. Keep her rampancy a secret from Del Rio and Lasky. Most importantly Del Rio. Lasky is a wild card. You have my support, but… it's all up in the air from here."

He started to respond, but she cut him off. "That being said, I truly do hope we can find this fix of yours, stop the Didact, and get you two home. It's been too long, and the two of you could use a break." She looked down at the deck, her shoulders falling as she felt the stress of the situation hitting her like a sack of bricks. When she finally looked back up at him, her face was set in stone. "It's good to have you both back. That'll be all, Master Chief."

Her helmet came back up as he nodded, and it sealed her back inside as she turned her back and left, her mind filled with even more to keep her unsettled about the future at hand and what this might mean for not only her, or the pair that she had just left in that room, but for all of Humanity.