A/N: Chapter inspired by Cryogenic Dreams by Phutureprimitive. Also, I'm open to suggestions.

John felt cool fingers stroking over the bare skin of his back, but even though he woke at the touch, he stayed where he was, a slight smile pulling at his lips. Her hands were smooth, far smoother than normal human hands, with a telling lack of fingernails, which let him know exactly who was leaning over him cataloguing his scars. "Cortana," he murmured, his voice rougher than normal with sleep.

The AI hummed above him and kept mapping out the marks decades of warfare had left on his body, stroking long fingers over slices and gouges and pressing thumbs to stabs and punctures. Some of them were sensitive, making him shiver and his skin tingle, and some of them he hadn't known existed. But that was at least halfway understandable; he'd spent more of his life in armor than he ever had out of it, and sometimes looking at and feeling with his own skin was strange, almost as alien as the Covenant.

When she reached the end of what she could touch while he was lying on his stomach, he rolled onto his back and looked up at her.

She looked the same as ever, her calm blue glow illuminating the otherwise dark, empty space they found themselves in. She smiled down at him, then resumed her analysis. As she did so, he found himself reaching up to tuck some oddly cool strands of hair behind her ear. Her smile widened, her eyes sliding shut, and she tilted her head into his uncharacteristically gentle touch.

John shifted his hand to cup her cheek. She was cool and smooth like hard light, but her form had a slight give to it like a real body. Then he let his hand fall to where her neck met her shoulder, pulses of light and data racing under her skin. When he focused as they passed, he could feel a tiny electrical discharge against his palm, almost like her version of a heartbeat.

He left his hand there, a light anchoring touch, and she continued cataloging the marks on his body. But the next time she found a sensitive scar, he inhaled quietly - and realized in the same moment that he was achingly hard. A rare occurrence, made rarer still after he left his teenage years and the augmentation procedures behind.

He grimaced, but Cortana just laughed softly. Then she leaned down and kissed him.

Her mouth was just as cool and smooth as the rest of her, with a barely-there static buzz that made his lips tingle, and his hand went tight on her shoulder, though he didn't know whether he would pull her closer or push her away. He ended up doing neither, instead tilting his head up to let their mouths move more easily together.

One of Cortana's hands came to rest over his heart, and even though she herself was pleasantly cool, now his skin burned with pleasure where she touched. He finally took advantage of his grip on her, pulling her down on top of him. She didn't seem surprised by that, instead grinning and squirming against him to make him groan, and oh, he wasn't going to let that go unanswered.

All at once her form was suddenly anatomically correct, and when her legs spread over one of his thighs, he felt the wetness of her own arousal against his skin. He bent his knee, planted his foot on the unseen ground, and pressed his thigh up against her, and she gasped and arched into him, grinding down as he ground up. He held her close with an arm around her waist, watching the pleasure play across her face; it was even more alien to her than it was to him, which gave him an advantage, however slight.

John let his hands stroke down her sides, then gripped her thighs and lifted her higher on his body, ignoring her cry of protest in favor of pressing two fingers into her. She arched above him and gasped sharply, then descended into a whine when he crooked his fingers and massaged her inner walls while pressing and rubbing circles over her clit with his thumb.

The Spartan allowed himself the briefest smirk. Eavesdropping on the ODSTs was finally paying off.

The AI saw and hissed, writhing to escape his grip. Then she rolled back, reached back, and sank down on his cock.

This time they both hissed, and John's hands fell to her hips and went tight, tight enough that on an ordinary woman his grip would have fractured bone. But it didn't do the slightest bit of damage to her; if anything she arched into it, pressed closer, deeper into his grasp. He left one hand where it was but slid the other up her back and pulled her close again.

This kiss was even more electric than the last, and even though she was very warm - almost burning hot - around him, the rest of her had grown colder but also more electric. "Chief," she panted against his lips, her breath smelling faintly of menthol, but her voice was strangely distant, far away, like she was speaking from the other end of a long cave. He put it out of his mind and kissed her again, even as both of them started to move.

Her hands stroked over his skin, found his scars again and raised lines of goosebumps with her charged chill, even as his own followed the patterns of light and dark over her avatar. His temperature rose as hers dropped, both of them panting into each other's mouths as their thrusts grew harder, sharper.

"Cortana," he murmured, and shifted her a little higher on his body again, letting him plant his feet, get more power behind the rolls of his hips.

"Chief!" She sounded closer this time, but still oddly distant. Yet with the way she grew more frantic in his embrace, writhing against him, it was forgotten in an instant. Her hands found more sensitive skin, and in turn he sought her own, stroking one hand down her neck to her chest, briefly tweaking a nipple before wrapping it around her back again. His other hand found her clit once more, and she arched with a cry, walls tightening around him almost to the point of being crushing. But for him with her, that just pulled him over the edge.

His whole body seized up, vision blurring, blue and black turning to smears of silver and gray…

"Chief!"

John shook his head, blinked, then slapped his hands against the glass before him, breath quickening. "Easy," Cortana warned him, "You've been out for a while."

"Where are we?"

"We're still adrift on the Dawn."

"Why did you wake me?..."