"...And thanks, friend. See you again."

- Larry "Solo Wing Pixy" Foulke, Ace Combat Zero


August 25th, 2558

One year after New Phoenix Incident

Town of Allerai, URNA


The smell of food was the most prominent thing in the two story house on the side of the mountain, blown in from a chill wind in the back yard, where a grill was alight and had just got a new batch of meats thrown on it. The woman tending to it shut it down and hummed, pleased with how everything was coming along.

With her job of rotating more food through the grill done, Amber Bailey glanced off to her right, along the side of the house, and gave a smile at what she saw, but she didn't interfere. Instead, she turned on her heel and headed inside, shutting the door behind her.

Now, the hiss of meat on the grill was replaced by conversation and the sound of whatever was on the television. It looked like the New Carthage Sprint Series had started and someone decided it was something to watch. She didn't miss that several large men and women had taken up the primary couches and were in the middle of watching it with a single minded focus. The only one to look at her was a woman with parted brown hair, kept in a tight bun as always. Sarah Palmer looked away from the screen for a moment, giving Amber a smile, before she went back to watching the race. Fireteam Vegas had conquered her couches, it seemed.

The kitchen was where she went next. Bowls and plates of different foods sat on the large bar that separated the kitchen from the den. More than once now, Amber had been the barrier that her visitors had failed to break in their attempts to steal a bite, but she was only one woman.

So she'd wrangled one large helper to keep the kitchen under control in ways that only a Spartan could do. Paul August, Crown Two, was humming to himself as he cut through a line of several vegetables at once. His large hands made it easy to use the just-as-large knife, and he glanced over at her with a half smile as Amber stepped into the kitchen.

The kitchen, large as it was, felt almost cramped with Paul's bulk taking up so much of the place. The man was a damn mountain.

"How's it going in here?" She asked, stopping with a hand on his back.

"No problems here, ma'am. Everything's coming along perfectly now that the rabble is distracted with the race."

Amber couldn't help but smile. It was weird seeing him in civilian clothes after almost exclusively seeing him in techsuits or Mjolnir. Paul, being the large man he was, was wearing a hoodie that had probably taken so much effort as to fill a textile location's entire queue for a week.

She hummed in appreciation, making sure the next batch of meat was laid out on the pan and ready to be taken out a few minutes later. It had been a revolving door of these pans going out, and even now, several had been covered with aluminum foil to prevent too much heat escaping from the finished pieces. A moment passed as she ensured everything was fine, and she turned to Paul. "You seen Morgan?"

"Boss went upstairs a few minutes ago," he said, only looking away for a moment.

"Roger all," she said, rapping against the big man's shoulder as she passed by. "Don't cut yourself," she called over her shoulder as she made it to the stairs.

All she got was a laugh in return, before she disappeared behind the wall that covered the stairway a quarter of the way up. Climbing it, the sound of the party below seemed to fade away, muffled by the material of the home.

All of the doors were closed, save for the open bathroom door, and the door to the master bedroom. Inside, she saw a familiar figure, black hair down by their shoulders, back turned to her. Entering the room, Amber was careful to make a sound, as she always was.

Morgan turned to face her wife, and almost immediately, as if it was purely reactive, Morgan let herself grin at the newcomer. "Come to find me?"

"Something like that, you know I can't stay away long," she replied, closing the distance and wrapping her arms around the Spartan. Morgan's arms came up in turn, her left hand clad in the wedding band that she'd put on the instant they'd gotten home for their two week leave a few days prior.

Morgan only chuckled, putting her cheek against Amber's head and holding her tightly. When they both pulled back, Morgan took a good look at Amber's face, like she always did, and brushed some of her hair away on the right side of her face. Since the shoot down over New Phoenix, the wound she had taken had healed up, leaving behind a large scar that had gone pale in the year since. It followed the same path, and was more than noticeable.

In the weeks following it, after Amber had healed up and they both noted there was a scar, Morgan had asked if she planned to have cosmetic alterations to hide the scar, a relatively normal procedure, especially after the war.

At the time, Amber had thought about it, before she shook her head. Amber had chosen to keep the scar, giving her answer even as she ran her finger over the twin scars on Morgan's cheek. "I think I'll keep it," she had said.

Now, it seemed less like a scar, a deformity on an otherwise beautiful face, and was worn more like a badge of pride, a reminder, and most of all, a way that connected them. It was poetic, in a sense, two warriors being connected by not just their good parts, but the bad parts, scars and all.

"What had you really coming up here to interrupt my mirror gazing?" Morgan asked, their little moment of affection over.

"Wanted to see if we had anybody else showing up."

"Nah, not that I know of. Lasky was a maybe, said Infinity's new AI was coming online and he was onboarding the new XO. Said don't wait up. Rest of Crown is with their families. Gibson's daughter is with him this weekend and he wanted to focus on her." A shrug. "Gotta make the most of our leave while we can, right?"

Amber nodded, humming. "True. I didn't see Kris out there. She go home early?"

"No, she'll be back, she went to get more of her baking stuff. I think I saw Helen scurry out the door after her when she saw Kris bring in the first platter of cookies."

"Oh, God. Now we'll never get her back," Amber teased, smirking to herself as she glanced out the window overlooking the street, spotting Kris' house and only wondering what the two of them had gotten up to since Helen had been coaxed away with the promise of showing off her baking skills.

"Vain woman," Morgan whispered quietly, a smile on her own lips.

The two laughed together for a moment, enjoying the other's company for a few short moments before they were back to being hosts to several Spartans and eventually a middle aged woman and her husband. It was small, but that was good enough for Morgan.

Luckily, they had all come from Infinity, save for Morgan and Amber, so they had at least carpooled, and her driveway wasn't filled with cars.

Finally, they broke apart, but Morgan made it a point to grab Amber's hand. "Come on, let's go back down, figure we don't have too much time before it's all ready, right?"

"About ten more minutes."

"Then we're running out of time!"

Morgan grinned, dragging Amber back out of their room, shutting the door and taking her back downstairs. She met Paul's eyes when she appeared, and he gave her a momentary grin, having moved from vegetables to seasoning the next batch of meat that would go out.

She stopped at the bottom of the stairs, taking a look across her home, seeing the members of Vegas, seeing Paul, knowing Helen and Kris were on their way back with even more people. It was new, seeing her home essentially 'full'. It was nice. It was something she liked.

Looking back to Amber, she jerked her head towards the back door, where the grill sat. "How was it going?"

Amber glanced at the window to the right of the door, looking at something on the other side of the blinds. "Well, I think." A shrug. "See for yourself, you're the expert."

"Good idea." Morgan let go of Amber's hand and passed by Vegas, caught up in their spectacle, and headed for the door. She pulled it open and stepped out without a sound, shutting it quietly behind her as she looked over where that window was, and saw what she had been expecting.

She made her way over, moving into a crouch next to the big man that was on his knees, moving some dirt around a newly planted flower to complete the most recent addition to the family of flowers that grew along the back of her house.

"Aster Tataricus," she pointed out when he looked up at her. "The Japanese called it Shion. How are you doing?"

John-117 dusted his hands off on his jeans, his dark eyes looking up at her with questioning. "I'm… good. I didn't expect to enjoy this."

A ghost of a smile on her face. "Yeah? Tell me about it."

"It's new." He looked away, down at his hands, and then the purple petals surrounding the flower's golden core. "It feels good. I like how it makes me feel, from start to finish."

She hummed, nodding. "I felt the same when I started. Never thought that I'd enjoy something like this, seemed… weird, to me. Asked myself when Kris first told me about it, why would I do that? Why would I plant flowers that don't do anything?" A shrug. "Found out pretty quick there's something relaxing about it."

John sat back, his jeans covered in dirt around the knees, his hands covered in the grime that came from digging around barehanded. "Do you have a word for that feeling?"

Morgan couldn't help but grin, white teeth showing through. "Satisfaction. Fulfillment. Happiness."

He looked away from her, back to the flower, and after a moment, he slowly nodded. "Those sound about right to me. I don't… have the words to describe these feelings, but they feel right."

Her grin grew at that. "Sometimes that's all you need, right?"

"Maybe."

She put a hand on his shoulder. "Accept the little things. You know how when we're in armor, we can pick out the smallest things that the others do? Even if nobody else would see them?" A nod. "It's like that. Small things like this, they have a world of meaning and feeling to them. It's important that we learn to understand those, to take them into ourselves and grow from it."

Dark eyes turned back to her, and she saw something else in them. "What does it mean, then? The flower?"

She had been expecting that, and she gestured down at it. "It has plenty of uses and meanings, technically and practically. What I think is most important about it is that it had a meaning that was given to it. The Japanese had a language of flowers, known as 'Hanakotoba'. It was like a code word, or phrase, that was used in ceremonies or gifts. This flower… it symbolizes remembrance."

He was silent, looking down at it again, locked on. She went on.

"When I first found it, I did some research. A phrase to give to it is 'I won't forget you.' That meaning is why I gave it to you to plant."

It had been just over a year since Cortana had been lost, and she knew that he still carried her with him. The AI chip that she had resided in was on a chain around his neck, hidden in his shirt. She remembered it even now, when he'd taken his armor off on Infinity. The chip had been taken out and he'd kept it on hand. The techs had tried to take it, but they'd failed, and at the murderous look in his eyes, they'd backed off. ONI came for it next, agents coming aboard to review the ship after the fight. When one of them, a Lieutenant, had demanded the chip, the man had tried to take it by force.

It hadn't ended well, and Morgan had been forced to come between them in the middle of the rigging bay. While John had come out unscathed, the Lieutenant had barely gotten away with only a few broken fingers. Morgan had made it clear that nobody would be taking it unless they wanted to be carried out in a body bag.

After that, she had strung it up on a chain, had given it to him to keep, to carry with him just like she carried Emile and Jorge's tags.

Now, they both looked over the flower, and simply sat admiring the look it had for a time. A flash of movement caught her eye, and John's as well, and they watched as a pale blue butterfly, with a white rim around its wings and an orange coloring at the edges, settled in on the flower. It flapped its wings a few times, showing a series of black dots on a white background on the inside.

Curious, Morgan pulled out her phone, switching to an app she had taken to identify wild life and plants. Holding the camera over the butterfly, she watched as the results came in. "A Karner Blue butterfly. That's a new one."

As she looked over the butterfly's wings, it jumped from the flower, fluttering up to land on John's shoulder. Morgan took a closer look at it, realizing that the blue coloration struck something inside her, and she frowned slightly. She had never been superstitious, but…

At that, John started to reach up to touch it, and it hopped from his shoulder to his finger, flapping its wings slowly and showing the blue coloration as it turned to stare him in the face. Confused, John looked to her for an explanation, and her frown turned into a smile.

"I think she's sending us a message," Morgan started, watching the butterfly closely.

"She?"

"Cortana, John. I've never seen one of these species before, and all of a sudden you finish planting a remembrance flower, and one of them comes to the flower and then you? Lands on your finger? That's nothing short of a symbol."

Neither of them were superstitious, and something told her that John was far from the type to believe in something like that, but he didn't deny it. Instead, he looked back to the butterfly. It was blue, just like her. Maybe it was a sign? Slowly, he nodded. "Maybe…"

At that, the butterfly flapped its wings again, fluttering off into the sky. They watched it until it was too small even for them to see, and it disappeared into the forest at the top of the mountain.

The two finally looked back to each other and Morgan gave him a smile. "How did it feel?"

John's shoulders rose and fell as he took a deep breath, using the time to think, before nodding almost to himself. "...Good."

She put her hand on his back, nodding in return. "Good. How are you feeling?"

"Good. Relaxed. I think… I'd like to do this again sometime."

"You know all you have to do is ask."

Morgan rose to her feet, and John rose with her. He had spent the majority of his own leave at her home. Just as Amber and Sugar had done to Morgan all those years ago, when the war ended, Amber and Morgan had done the same to John. She'd forced him off of Infinity finally, taken him to her home, had shown him around, introduced him to Kris, taken him shopping for normal clothes, and even given him that room that she'd made up for Amber all those years ago.

It had only been a week, but he'd made plenty of progress. She had even heard him laugh. The thought of having him try planting had come to her when they'd been on the bird back to the surface, and she'd custom ordered the shion to her local shop. The shion had arrived the day before, and she'd gone to pick it up that morning. It had gotten a look from the florist, who she knew well by now, but Morgan had only winked and thanked them for the order.

She'd come home and told him about it, had given it to him and instructed him on how to plant it, and then the party had started. Now, it was in the ground, and he had enjoyed it. The symbolism had only been icing on the cake.

"Come on, let's get you cleaned up, food should be ready soon. You could probably eat most of it yourself," she quipped at the end.

He only raised an eyebrow in questioning, but had followed her inside nonetheless and split off to clean up.

Morgan went for the kitchen, where the last bits were coming to completion. The smell of dessert was in her nose now too, and she saw that Kris and her husband had arrived. Helen had finally come back as well, and Morgan saw that gleam in her eye that indicated she had taken pride in something. Stepping up next to Kris, she gently bumped her hip against the older woman's, startling her. "Hope Helen wasn't too much of a bother."

Kris only laughed. "I think I might keep her. She's… more than a little good at decorating whatever came out of the oven."

Morgan grinned, speaking loud enough that she knew Helen would hear. "She might be a Spartan, but inside, she's really a 'pretty princess' type." She didn't miss the look of displeasure that Helen shot at her, and made it a point to ignore the other Spartan.

Kris only shook her head. "You shouldn't start things, Morgan. It's mean!"

"She'll live," Morgan replied. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Kris' husband had immediately gone for the couch where Vegas was sitting, joining in as if he was part of the team rather than an outsider. A sudden change in the positioning of one of the rally Warthogs on screen had them all cheer at once.

Finally, Paul raised his voice. "Alright, you brutes, don't hurt anyone on your stampede in here, but dinner's done."

Morgan gestured to the kitchen. "Might wanna get in there before you have to deal with the sentient water buffalo herd," she said to Kris. The older woman was easily the smallest person in the house at that point.

"Good idea," she shot back, immediately moving into the kitchen to hide close to Helen so she wasn't crushed.

Vegas got up and came in after, and the procession through the kitchen was quick and orderly, despite her joking. Paul had been smart enough to line it up like a chow line, something they were all more than familiar with.

Vegas got their food and disappeared back into the living room, taking their plates and their new friend with them. Kris and Helen took the dining room table, Paul followed them soon after, and Morgan and Amber slowly got their own, talking quietly with each other.

John was the last to show up, and he took his food outside almost immediately. He liked being outside, it seemed. Morgan and Amber looked at each other, and decided to follow him out.

In the time that had passed by since the start of it all, the day had gone from late afternoon to late evening, and the sun was a deep orange now. The grill had been turned off, and Amber had gone out at some point and got a fire started in a rock pit in the middle of their yard that had been built specifically for something like this. John had taken his spot near the fire, eating quietly already.

Morgan and Amber took up spots on either side of him, and the three friends started to eat together, simply enjoying the silence and the crackle of the fire. At some point, the rest had noticed the fire and come out as well. Each of them took their own spots, the excitement of the day draining away a bit.

The food disappeared, the plates were done away with, and the conversation started up. Palmer was the first to speak, looking at Morgan and Amber. "You guys got a nice place, you know that?"

Morgan chuckled. "I made it that way, Palmer."

Amber and Kris looked at Morgan, both of them with glimmers in their eyes. Amber cut in. "Had a little help from yours truly."

Morgan looked over at her, a knowing smile on her face. "Yeah, more than a little, actually. Kris got it all started and Amber made me keep going after that. Now, here we are."

Palmer shrugged. "Well, damn good thing they did. I could get used to this."

"I wouldn't count on it, Highroller," Morgan shot back jokingly.

That got a few of them to laugh, and the conversation kept going, flowing as if it had all been planned out in advance. Everybody seemed to be relaxed, happy with the day and its events, not to mention they were all full. What better than that?

Morgan sat there, Amber having scooted her chair closer, and the two had their hands intertwined as she looked around the circle. Paul and Helen were bickering about something, Palmer wasn't being helpful at all egging them both on, Kris and her husband were merely watching, amused. The rest of Vegas was refusing to support their leader. Finally, her eyes settled on John, and she saw that the AI chip had been pulled from his shirt, and he had his hand over it. But she noticed something else that seemed to dwarf the rest of it.

He was smiling. He was living a life like he always should have. He wasn't a warrior right now, he was just John.

That was enough for Morgan.


And here we are, at the end of this trip. Just like the other two stories, it's been fun writing this, and I've loved seeing it come into being the way it has, as well as seeing the support and even the reactions all of you have had.

Again, to those of you that have been here since the beginning, that have given me their thoughts and input on the story and how it's turned out, thank you. I honestly don't know if I would have gotten this far had I not had your support.

Additional thanks to my friend and the person who constantly put up with me and my antics while I wrote this and The Flame of Nobility. Arcade, whose twitter I've linked on my profile, has done plenty of work in helping me to bring Morgan to life. Music suggestions, an ear that he's loaned, and even drawing characters like Morgan, Amber, Admiral Greer, and more. Please go and give him a visit, see some of the other things I've had a hand or two in on his page, even just to say hello. He loves visitors. He also had a part in this story to play, with Spartan Paul August being someone I created to give Morgan a right hand man, just like Arcade has been for me over the last year and a half.

But now, with this closed, I'll be focusing on completing Snapshots, and giving Morgan a nice bookmark until the day comes that I decide she needs more love.

Until that day, thank you all for reading this far, and for all the words you've said. Thank you for helping me become a better writer, and most of all, for helping me to write a story that I'm finally proud of.