As he exited the conference room, Fred ducked his head to avoid the odd, ornate, wooden door frame. Some aging UNSC officers favoured the polished decorations crowning their conversation spaces - he used to find the fixtures overly indulgent, but these days he could appreciate the sight of the warm, organic, lines. Just so long as he remembered to duck.
Walking down the winding grey hallways, he actually found himself relieved to return to the small office he'd been granted. He and Blue Team were staged in preparatory status for an upcoming operation; allegedly a security detail. The briefing he'd just attended, however, had offered far less intel than he was usually comfortable with initiating on, and nobody in the room had been all too keen on clarifying and assuaging his many concerns. The entire affair was rife in typical ONI roadblocks. Moreover, he'd be interfacing with another AI, and already the back of his neck was tingling.
The door slipped shut behind him, loosening his tie and hanging his jacket, before standing in the low light of the room with his eyes closed, allowing himself a long, slow, breath. Feeling sufficiently decompressed, he met the blue glow of the computer as it waited, brightly reminding him the day wasn't over yet. He didn't actually mind the paperwork, as the effort often kept his mind from wandering, and offered him an opportunity to enjoy some time to himself. Sitting down, he pulled up the hardlight keyboard beneath the holoscreen and logged in, watching the rapid strings of encryption flow by. Kelly was likely resting after having put in a few good hours in the gym. Linda, he suspected, was tinkering in the armory; handling her own preparations for tomorrow. For him, it was time to draft several, insistent, requests for additional intel, 'squeaky wheel...'. The secure channel offered an exclusion delay, a happy advantage, as it prevented any dissenting voices from abruptly silencing him mid-sentence like a kid at the adult's table. He puffed out an irritated sigh, reliving the lingering frustrations of the 'briefing'. The needling wasn't a practice of pettiness, he was above that - this was...'insurance of tactical superiority'.
As his account finally cleared, he accessed Waypoint, already halfway done drafting the first complaint in his head, when he noticed the highlighted band of a very particular shielded dummy account; a new message waiting, after five months of silence.
The intel requests could wait a moment longer, as he opened the chain.
-I do miss your handsome smile. /
His eyebrows raised; he may have blinked too many times and, didn't know why, but leaning towards the screen just felt appropriate. Exhaling long and heavy, he felt his face and chest began to feel warm, prompting a few hurried glances toward the door; locks were on.
He read and re-read the short missive too many times to be reasonable for all six words of it.
The timestamp was recent, barely twenty minutes ago. Scrolling the chain up a few entries, he found only the doc request notes they'd previously exchanged. No other context to be found, though, really, he didn't need help extrapolating on something so direct. 'What could have prompted...'
His hands moved to the keys to tap out a response, ready to request clarification, or at the least, quickly remind her that these systems were monitored, and not intended as social media platforms. He did neither, pushing down the knee-jerk impulse, and pulling his hands back onto the desktop.
'Am I overthinking this?...', a thoughtful expression worked over his features, knitting his eyebrows together. In his mind, he was always the one being a little too awkward, literally struggling now and then to make sense of the motivations of regular people. He'd disregard ques, misinterpret turns of phrase, or flat out fail to react when he didn't realize there was a "thing" happening.
Was there anything to misinterpret here? Moreover, was Veta 'regular people'?
She'd certainly made a strong and successful career out of understanding them to a science. Having had the privilege to work alongside her many times, he'd seen firsthand the quality of her analysis; she could read a man as though his every deed lay written across his chest. Peel apart any personality to reveal the core. Just days after they'd met, she'd managed to find the seams in his armor - in every sense, actually.
Leaning on his elbows against the desk, he stared into the thin brush strokes coating the metal surface, tracing a few slowly with his fingertips.
Most of his life he'd had the oft confirmed impression that the sum total of his personality only carried value in how neatly it could be applied in a professional capacity - aptitude for leadership. Access to clarity amidst tension. Rational. Analytical. Methodical. Words that were all a part of who he was, but the dossiers didn't much care if he was 'kind of funny' or that he liked to draw even though he wasn't very good at it.
Truthfully, very few instances existed, since his life began at six years old, that would countermand the status quo; moments, when people would see him for something more than the only thing he was ever raised to be. Fewer still with regard to anyone outside of his most private circles. Rare as it was, it was precious; calling back to those important moments during times of pain or discouragement were like a miracle salve on any heartache; offering him almost limitless resolve under pressure. There was a deeply meaningful notion to being truly seen by someone.
As it stood, he wasn't blissfully ignorant to his place in both military, and public, society alike. He felt himself sigh as his gaze searched the room for no particular focus, finding comfort in denying an encompassing idle. One hand rubbing slowly along the beveled edge of his desk.
'To be seen...', his jaw flexed as he thought, swiveling his chair side to side slowly.
Most people, militarily speaking, didn't seem to entertain the thought of Spartans quite as human beings, specifically of his generation - he knew that. Instead, people saw them as combat machinery; exceedingly valuable, to be certain, but assets none the less. Like a highly decorated Pelican.
He found that there were two distinct sides to this mindset too - people who looked at him and his fellow Spartans as nothing short of deified constructs. Idolic monoliths shrouded in the absolutism of scientific perfection. He felt himself frowning. It was borderline unsettling, if he was honest; being glorified and propagandized. Proselytizing in the streets, claiming Spartans as divine tools. Mankind's perfectly forged hammer.
Then, there was the other side of the coin - the one's who felt their own destinies were somehow being cheated or humiliated simply by occupying the same space.
The thought reminded him of a time he'd brought about a confused chaos amongst an entire unit of marines, after raising his faceplate and revealing he was in fact just a man in a suit after all. They had later called him a cyborg while tucked into one of the many huddled conversations they'd naively assumed he couldn't hear. The moniker had carried and indisputably negative connotation.
Regardless, he'd held no distaste or contempt for those soldiers; never had and never would. They had upheld their commitments, took pride in their dedications, and looked out for one another - all tenets of service that he valued himself. Spartans, by design, are a genetically aberrant genus of humanity with an almost singular, identifiable, purpose. An unsavory beginning, as some would point out, only to be later petitioned as 'heroes' in haste against a desperate bid for survival. No matter - they were still, to most, little more than hardware.
He understood, and he couldn't fault them.
As he leaned back in his chair, much to the fret of the burdened furniture, he felt a brief pang of frustration. Biting lightly at his lip, he reconsidered if it wasn't instead a case of confusion. Maybe both. He wasn't terribly bothered by the general perceptions of others, even agitating as some could be. He took extreme seriousness in the welfare and advocacy of those under his command; it was his entrusted duty. His general popularity otherwise seemed effectually irrelevant where it bore no critical impact.
ODSTs were notorious loud mouths, but also remarkable individuals who knew to set aside their personal predispositions to get the job done, reserving their stubborn malcontent until after the dust had settled.
The cycle was reliable.
So, what was it that he was doing differently with Veta?
There was a time when she'd hated him.
As he thought back to that mission on Gao - back to meeting her, and in that very same moment, immediately facing her critical and explicit derision. He got it. He could understand her personal view and relationship with the UNSC, UEG - and him. Spartans. Many outer colony worlds held similar, oft well supported, opinions. Her general insults had been harmless, but a driven insistence developed, and he'd been worried that officials had sent someone unfit for the job - that she wouldn't be able to bridge her overwhelming bias and investigate the scenes with the impartial scrutiny and professional discipline they'd need to maintain a cohesive operation.
He shook his head - he'd been the one who was wrong about her.
His eyes narrowed as he tilted his head slightly, 'of course, you did later put a bomb in my backpack, didn't you?', a single laugh came out as a small puff, 'I forgive you...'.
He looked to the clock at the bottom corner of his screen, and raised an eyebrow. Had an hour really passed?
It was admittedly out of character for him to succumb so completely to distraction...as his eyes drew back to her message. Floating there wistfully, reminding him of the very excellent news that Veta Lopis thought he had a handsome smile. Just the sight of it was almost hypnotic in it's own right, as he constantly felt the urge to grin each time. 'Amazing how so few words can say so much...'
Without a doubt, he had come to enjoy his once-casual, eventually-companionable, conversations with her, where able. Always looking forward to stolen moments if ever the opportunity arose, and it seemed for a time that Blue Team was tasked with providing security and support for her and her Ferret team with relative frequency. He got to watch, first hand, as she evolved from a solitary operator, into a team-oriented leader; an unaugmented agent working in lockstep with a team of S-IIIs.
She was constantly impressing him with her resourcefulness and endurance. She'd sought no special concessions, and never contained her candor. It really had only been a matter of time until Osman felt she'd no longer required a consistent attachment, or ongoing assistance in the continued training of the Gammas.
He knew he felt an awesome respect for her, and she had absolutely deserved the autonomy, but...
...and it felt entirely selfish, actually, but he wished those assignments hadn't run dry.
It always seemed like there was never enough time.
There never really had been, had there?
-I do miss your handsome smile. /
A small laugh rumbled from his throat, muffled and deep behind closed lips, drawing another warm smile in it's wake; it felt like magic.
'Maybe there is no difference...', he thought, as he slowly reached a hand toward the projected hardlight of the holoscreen, and gently ran his fingertips over her words.
'...she just see's me.'
He slid his hands down into his lap and laced his fingers together, looking into his palms. There was a slight heat over his face as he looked reverently at the way his fingers fit together, recalling one of those special and important moments. One he thought of often.
It had been fleeting, but private, and deeply - memorably - meaningful.
Blue Team had reassignment orders after a debrief from, what he'd later learn to be, their last joint op, near on five months ago. He laughed quietly to himself as he thought back to how he'd hesitated in his quarters a few minutes too long, all but practicing what he'd say before setting off that evening. When he'd opened the door, there she was - just standing steps away. Always anticipating him.
Hindsight, of course, offered him the lasting embarrassment of how he'd buckled, blurted a rigid farewell, and offered his hand for a handshake. She had accepted it, but lingered, her small hand in his. Even now, he was still certain that they were equally caught of guard when the gesture became an embrace. He still doesn't know quite who had started it either, but he will always remember just the two of them, alone, in that quiet hallway, blessed in the rarest privacy. Her head tucked against his chest; arms wrapped tight just over his waist. He'd curled his fingers into the cloth of her wool sweater, and only just barely felt some of her soft hair against his chin, wanting nothing more but to simply curl around her. When he thought back on it like this, he could almost feel her there against him. She'd smelled like cinnamon.
He could never forget it; after she'd stepped back. Their hands had slid together - her small fingers, fit one by one, between his own.
He blinked a few times quickly, swallowing hard, and looked back around the dark, empty, space of his office; the holoscreen of his computer having idled to sleep.
With a deep breath, he separated his hands and woke the computer, fingers just hovering over the hardlight keys.
He didn't know what to say.
After the drafting and subsequent deletion of no less than four failed responses, he leaned heavily on the desktop, propping his head up on a hand, as he leveled an annoyed glare at the text cursor, blinking against another blank box.
"I know...", he said aloud, though hardly a whisper, "...don't rush me."
Somewhere - heavily classified, no doubt - was Veta Lopis.
He sighed as he imagined her buried in documentation, six coffees in, wearing the same t-shirt and sweats for days, wrangling three gene-altered teenagers, at who knows what time of day. At least at some point, it had all stopped for a moment, and she had thought of him.
Thought about how she missed his smile.
She missed him.
His eyebrows rose slowly, lips parting just enough to allow a soft, but sudden inhale.
"How so few words can say so much...", he said, the revelation hushed, but no less exuberant. There was a noticeable uptick in his entire posture as he typed a short reply. No hesitation preceded hitting send, and there it was - he felt his pulse quicken.
The sight of the two small notes, at such stark contrast to the cold workplace minutia hanging just above, seemed to embolden the words even deeper. Two sincere, unfurled, declarations, reaching out across an unknowable distance.
- I miss you too.../
Leaning back again, he felt a sense of calm almost as keenly as his excitement. It was quite a multifaceted thrill; sharing such a deeply personal statement with Veta, who herself had prompted with one of her own, and the whole event playing out over a secure military channel. Total and willful disregard for proper protocol, for sure.
And entirely worth it.
He waited several minutes before setting himself back to task on mission prep and intel surveys. In a little less than ten hours now, he'd hoped to have a clearer picture of things, lest he stand out in front of the full operative crew on the BARBARUS's deck and make a fool of himself, 'people don't often choose to follow blind men into unknown territory...'.
He stopped typing suddenly, as that thought repeated in his mind; gaze looking through the screen.
He wondered.
Would she choose to?