Chapter One

I could remember...strength. White-hot rage. Protectiveness and desperation.

A massive force beating against my strength. Fighting to destroy us. Pummelling towards us with an unforgiving hammer.

Then the coolness of space. Exhaustion. At rest, at last.

I could remember pain.

It wasn't my pain. John.

Someone was torturing John.

Then...then…?

John and I killed him.

Him? Who was- the Didact! Ur-Didact had been torturing John!

He'd composed part of Earth, and Ivanoff Station, and he intended to do it to the whole human race. Turn them into his mechanical slaves; Promethean knights.

John and I killed him.

Then we destroyed the Composer by nuking it.

How did we survive that? If I was remembering correctly...John detonated the nuke manually.

We'd been wrapped in a shield. I'd used reserves of power I didn't know I had, or maybe a borrowed strength. And...I couldn't remember anything beyond that.

Which meant I'd finally overexerted myself. The last time I'd done that - destroying an artificial sun - I'd fallen asleep for nine whole days.

How long had I been out this time?

My eyes opened. I was in a grey room. On a hospital bed. In a hospital gown.

It was dark.

There was a bond. A new bond, made pretty recently. I could feel...John.

And he could feel me.

"Tawny?" I heard his voice in my head.

My heart jumped. A smile overtook my face. John was okay; I could feel it.

"Hi, John."

"I'm coming to you."

I glanced down at myself. There was a thin blue sheet over me. An iv line in my arm. I could see the faint bulge of my ostomy bag on the right side of my abdomen. A thick cast was over my right ankle.

Oh, yeah, I'd sprained it. I'd almost forgotten about that, since it didn't hurt anymore.

The door hissed open. John was there. He was out of his armor, finally.

I smiled again. "John."

"Are you alright?"

I nodded sleepily. "'m okay. How long was I out?"

"Seven days."

So it was...June 19th.

I grinned. "Hey, that's less than before."

The last time I'd fallen into an overexertion coma, it had been nine days. I'd destroyed an artificial sun.

John appreciated my attempt to look on the bright side. I watched his eyes scan my body, even as he frisked the bond to make sure I was really okay.

I reached my left arm up towards him. The sleeve of the gown fell, revealing most of the thick surgical scars made during my arm transplant.

There was a red band around where the new arm and the old arm met. On the outside - I couldn't see it, but John could - was a thick red line from my shoulder most of the way to my elbow, where they'd made a huge incision to make sure all the bone and muscle and nerves were properly connected.

I was staring at the scar.

John grabbed my hand, holding it to his chest, and pressed a red button on the arm of the bed.

A few moments later, a nurse walked in. He looked tired. He felt tired.

But he was pretty good at ignoring it. "Ms. Clark, you're awake. How do you feel?"

"I feel good."

He was asking about my physical state, after all. So it wasn't a lie.

Inside, though?

I couldn't help but feel guilty for every person displaced, killed, or composed by the Didact. John and I had been the ones to let him out, after all.

If I hadn't led us straight into his trap…

"Tawny." John pushed against my mind.

I cut the depressing thought-process off immediately.

"Your biological processes came to nearly a complete halt while you were out," the medic said. "We only knew you were alive because of some mild brain activity, and a note of a similar condition in your file."

"I- what? Really?"

The man nodded.

I turned to John. "Did that happen the first time, too?"

He nodded.

Well, that was kind of disturbing. I'd been dead.

Not quite dead...but close.

"How's your side?" I asked.

John used his left arm to pull his shirt up; there wasn't even a scar where he'd been hurt. It was as if it had never happened.

Christ, his abs were impressive.

John smirked when he heard that thought in my mind.

The medical officer had been looking over my biomonitors. After seeing everything was fine, he turned to me. "You have an avulsion fracture in your ankle; the ligament didn't tear, but it pulled away a chip of bone. You'll need to stay in the boot for at least another week."

So it hadn't been a sprain, like I thought.

"And we'll need to keep you overnight for observation."

Oh.

"O-okay." I struggled to keep the upset tone out of my voice.

I'd been hoping to spend some time with John.

It felt like we'd been together - albeit in a life-threatening situation - almost moments ago. But I knew it had been much longer than that. I wanted to make up for lost time.

"However, provided you use crutches, you're free to walk around the compound." The medic offered me a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

That was a relief, at least. My body was sore now, but it was from a lack of movement. I wanted to get up and stretch and walk, and explore this place.

There was a window behind me, so I knew we were on a planet and not in a ship. I wanted to know where we were.

Before I could ask the nurse remembered, "Oh, and your birth control expired. We can go ahead and renew it; the UNSC is covering your medical expenses."

I'd gone on the pill about the same time I got my stoma, when I was 16, and promptly forgotten about it. But, even though it had probably frozen with me in cryosleep, it was about to expire before the mission we went on to the Ark.

How nice of the UNSC to foot the bill on it.

I nodded. "Thank you."

"I'll go get that and your crutches."

As he walked out of the room I looked up at John. "Can you believe we've been gone for almost three years?"

"A lot has changed," he agreed. His voice hinted to a deeper meaning.

"Like what?"

He glanced up at the door the medic had left through. It was so fast I almost missed it. But I could feel the accompanying emotions; he didn't want the medic listening in on this particular conversation.

I nodded in understanding.

Whatever he wanted to say, he wouldn't do it until we were alone.

So John and I sat in silence. My left hand was still in his.

I looked up at him, trying to think of what it could be that had him in such turmoil. Whatever it was, he wanted to tell me, so I wouldn't go snooping in the bond.

But I was curious.

The door opened again. The medic walked in with a pair of forearm crutches, which he propped against the bed beside me. "Here you go. Can I see your arm?"

I held my right arm up. He took it in one hand and prodded around my inner arm with the other.

After a quick check with a scanner to find the birth control chip, he pulled a small needle out and said, "I'll put the anesthesia in and remove the old implant first. Then I can put the new one in, alright?"

I nodded.

The procedure to remove the old implant was painless, thanks to the anesthesia. And, after the medic injected the new implant and made sure it had moved into the proper place, my arm had been wrapped.

He nodded, satisfied with the job, and began packing up his kit. "Take it easy, okay ma'am?"

"I will." I looked up at him. "Thank you."

With another tired smile, and a nod to John, he walked out.

I sat up and leaned against the wall. "What's wrong?"

John released a heavy breath and knelt beside the bed. His left hand came up and ran over his freshly-buzzed hair. I could feel massive indecision in his heart.

"You don't have to tell me." I ran my thumb over the top of his hand, feeling the jagged skin over his scars. "But I'm here if you want help."

His knee-jerk reaction was to push the help away. He didn't need it.

Or his pride wouldn't let him accept it.

Another heavy sigh and he seemed to deflate. His intense blue eyes roamed over the bed, not meeting mine. "They declassified the SPARTAN IIs."

"What? Really?"

He nodded. "Just the augmentations. The public doesn't know about our training. And…"

I felt his heart pull.

"...Halsey was arrested for war crimes against us, and our families."

My eyes widened. "Oh, John."

I didn't like Halsey. And John knew what she had done was wrong, even if he didn't feel like it was wrong.

But she was the closest thing he'd had to a mother. Knowing she was in prison...

He didn't say anything. His eyes were shadowed.

"I'm here, if you want to talk about it." I put my hand on his arm.

He looked up at me. I could see the troubled indecision in his bright blue eyes. The pain.

I pushed myself up, twisting so that my legs hung off of the bed in front of John. My hand came up, cupping his face. My thumb ran over his newly-shaved jawbone.

He closed his eyes and leaned into my hand. "I know what Dr. Halsey did was wrong."

I just ran my thumb over his cheek again, listening. Letting him speak.

"But it was normal to me."

His jaw was tense. He sighed, releasing some of the tension.

Sadness replaced it.

"She was always there. Helping us become better. To become soldiers." His jaw was tight. "She was...she was always there."

I looked up at him with sad eyes. Feeling the indecision tearing at his heart, it hurt. He was in pain, whether he wanted to admit it or not.

I didn't know how to help him.

So I just said, "I'm sorry. I wish I could help, but there's no right thing to do here."

His hand came up, covering mine. I could feel him pushing his anguish down. "I love you."

"I love you, too." I leaned forward, kissing his chin. "So much."

oOOOo

It was dark in John's room. I was curled up on the bed, drawing on a datapad I'd bought, with my right arm brushing against John's left arm.

The UNSC had paid me for the two years and seven months they'd thought I'd been dead. I had loads of money to spend.

So I figured I'd treat myself. I'd bought myself a new wardrobe, a new haircut, and a new datapad. I'd invested some of it and was looking into charities for the remaining half.

I'd gotten a new comm, too. It was a screen-type, like a smaller datapad. And, when I talked with my service provider, they let me keep the number I'd attached to my old comm.

I couldn't find another paper notebook - those were incredibly old-fashioned and hard to find - so the datapad would do.

John had been given two weeks' leave, since he didn't get an actual salary. I'd been unconscious for the first six days of that leave.

He didn't want to go out and stay in a hotel, and he hardly knew what to do with himself during his empty days. So I was teaching him how to draw.

He was really good. His attention to detail helped.

I leaned my head against his arm and blew my bangs out of my face.

Since the Kig-Yar's shot had burned my hair, I'd just gotten bangs and had the rest of my hair cut to my shoulders in a blunt cut.

I thought it made me look like less of a pushover.

Most likely because the bangs were thick and fluffy, John thought it made me look adorable.

I pushed against him with my shoulder. "It makes me look tough."

He didn't respond. I saw the corner of his mouth twitch into a grin.

I peeked over, onto his datapad. I'd bought him one, too, so he could draw. He wouldn't let me buy him clothes, but I'd all but insisted he get his own datapad.

He was drawing a Falcon - a kind of helicopter used for troop insertion. I could see incredible details I might not have added simply because I didn't know the vehicle as well as he did.

My eyes closed. I just leaned against him, feeling his emotions through the bond. They were steady, mostly muted by his focus.

Deep in his mind, an ever-present echo, was his guilt. A lot of it was old guilt. Some of it was new.

Some of it, I carried too.

Promethean knights, when they died, didn't go into the Domain. They were forged in agony, and plunged into infinite nothingness when they were killed.

The Promethean knights John and I had met - had killed - were beyond saving.

Could we have been faster? If we were, could we have saved New Phoenix?

I couldn't believe the Didact had composed an entire megacity. Millions of people tortured. Turned into slaves. Destined for nothing, but perhaps to die.

My eyes stung with unshed tears. As soon as they opened, the drops fell down my cheeks.

"Tawny." John set the datapad on the foot of the bed and turned to face me. He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into himself.

"It's my fault." I pressed my face into his chest, trying to stifle the sobs before they could overtake me. "I never should have tried to unblock the satellite."

"It's not your fault."

"It is. I knew there was something wrong with the satellite." I sobbed then, my shoulders quaking. "I felt something wrong with it the moment I saw it."

"You had no way of knowing it was the Didact's cryptum." He ran his hand over my hair. "We're both at fault."

"We hurt so many people. E-even if we stopped the Didact..." I screwed my eyes shut and gripped John's shirt desperately.

He didn't say anything. Mainly because I had a point; the Didact never would have composed New Phoenix, or Ivanoff Station, if he hadn't been let out.

And we had let him out.

So we were responsible for the death he caused.

oOOOOo

Author's Note: Hi guys! I'm so sorry about that break :( I should have enough content now for semi-consistent updates, but I may need a few extra days on some of them. My schedule filled up but my writer's block is mostly gone and that means I've been working on fixing up this book, Liberated! So happy to finally introduce it!

I love all of you guys sm!