Chapter Seven

There were footsteps in the forest.

I shoved myself to my feet and reached out. "Forge?"

"The one and only." He spread his arms.

I'd never seen him in MJOLNIR armor before; it was in shades of black and green, like camo. I would expect nothing less from him.

There were three SPARTAN IVs behind him. His fireteam, if I had to guess.

"See you caught us a bunch of Innies," one of the SPARTANs crowed down at the captured men.

"Alright, we'll take these guys off your hands." Forge pulled his rifle off of his back. "On your feet. Move!"

I ran up, putting a hand on his rifle and pushing it down. "One of them can't walk."

"Oh, good. Joystick, help him out."

One of the SPARTANs growled. "Don't call me that."

"Yeah? Maybe you shouldn't choke the chicken where-"

"Hey, you guys look like you've got this covered," I cut in. "We'll, uh, leave you to it."

John, his amusement palpable through the bond, put a hand on my head. Then he nodded to Forge.

"Yeah, don't worry, we've got this." Forge nodded back. "Get back to your mission. Anders is getting impatient up there."

John readjusted his rifle. "Let's move, Blue Team."

"Tawny." Ry reached out to grab my arm.

I pulled away before he could touch me, my eyes downcast. "Be careful with them, Forge."

"I'm always careful." Forge laughed.

Ry struggled against the SPARTAN with an animalistic desperation. "Tawny, listen to me! It's important!"

I shook my head and pulled my helmet on. Seeing Uncle Ry - almost getting stabbed by him, actually - was a bit jarring. This man I'd known all my life.

John brushed his arm against mine as we walked. Offering a silent support.

"The coordinates are over this rise." Kelly nodded.

Sure enough, when we climbed to the top of the short hill, there was a small clearing. A pair of metal ridges cut through the middle of the clearing. Between them was a ramp leading into the ground; there was something beneath our feet.

I could feel the Forerunner presence.

The clearing had a hushed air around it, and I wasn't one to disrupt it. If anything, I basked in it.

The snow crunched under our feet as we moved further into the clearing.

I looked back at John. "We need to go inside."

"Keep your head on a swivel," he instructed.

I nodded. Then I moved towards the ramp. It descended down into a pitch black darkness ahead of me.

My fingers ran over the snowy metal of one of the ridges, drawing four lines in the white blanket. Then I descended.

When I was at the bottom of the ramp I switched on the lights of my helmet. There was a wall in front of me. On either side of the ramp behind me was a pair of ramps leading further down into a massive, metal room.

The true magnitude of the room faded into the darkness. But, along the floor that I could see, there was a collection of metal ruins.

I teleported down to the floor.

When I reformed, several hundred feet below the others, I looked around. Broken relics were everywhere. They were huge; some of these could even be complete terminals!

Up the sides of the room, meeting a hundred feet up on the ceiling, were wide arches. They tapered down, like ribs, to the end of the room.

But that was several hundred feet away. And there were plenty of old relics near me; I couldn't even begin to count them.

Of course, they were all broken in some way. A lot of them were shards.

"Wow," I breathed. "There's so much here."

"You see that?" Fred's voice echoed down to me, with an almost concerned tone.

They were looking at something by the ramp on the left side of the room. Well, my left. Their right.

I cocked my head. "What is it?"

Fred slid his rifle onto his back. "This looks like a power cable."

"Someone was here." Linda's voice was cold.

John brushed against my mind with the urge to get me back up there with them.

I bit my lip, looking around at the artifacts scattered around my feet. "But, John…"

He relented. His voice echoed around the room. "Make sure we're alone."

"Got it." I nodded.

My eyes closed as I reached out with my mind. There was no one in the room with us. No Covies, no Innies. It was just us.

I looked back up at Blue Team. "We're alone."

Kelly was crouched on the ground, following something. "I wouldn't be too sure of that."

"What do you mean?" Fred looked down at her.

I saw her helmet moving to follow something down the series of ramps leading down into the room I was standing in.

She shoved herself up. "There's a bomb!"

"We're leaving." John's voice was hard.

"There's no-" A massive explosion cut Kelly off.

A whole line of explosions.

The left side of the room began collapsing. Sunlight filtered through as chunks bigger than any of us crashed into the ground.

Right in between me and the rest of Blue Team.

"Tawny!" I heard John, but I couldn't see him through the thick dust.

Something crashed down, bursting into hundreds of chunks of rubble a few feet to my right. I flinched away and curled in on myself.

It sounded like the whole forest was coming down on top of us.

There was an arm around my shoulder, pushing me down. John.

He curled himself around me. I could feel him preparing to create a shield of ultrasound around us.

Before he could, a massive chunk shattered to our left. A stone from the chunk flew over, nailing John in the head. It was a rock bigger than my torso and it had been moving fast.

Fast enough to knock John out like a savage uppercut. Hard enough to hurt him through his helmet.

It would have killed me.

His limp body fell to the ground, silent in the cacophony. Silent, like the silence I could feel in his mind. Everything was just...gone.

This entire place was coming down around us.

I fell to my knees beside John, bowing over his chest. "Please be okay. Please be- I'm so sorry."

I wrapped myself around him and surrounded us both in ultrasound. We rose - slowly, so slowly - up into the air.

When we rose up to the clearing, I realized that it, and the surrounding forest that had been above the room, was collapsing like a sinkhole.

The collapse seemed to stretch on forever.

There, behind the initial ramp a scarce few feet from the collapse, was Blue Team. They were all okay.

John and I landed heavily. I looked up at them desperately. "He got hit by a rock."

"I've radioed for evac," Kelly reassured me.

Fred knelt beside John. "I can carry him to the LZ."

It was surreal to see John's seven foot form lifted up onto Fred's shoulders. That was my John, limp and hurt and completely helpless.

But none of the SPARTANs seemed overly worried about John. It helped calm me...a little bit.

So we began walking towards the LZ. I walked right next to Fred, my hand on John's limp arm as it trailed down his brother's back.

My mind was mostly dwelling in the bond, feeling his subconscious mind. He was okay, I kept telling myself, just asleep.

He'd been hit in the head with a rock bigger than my torso.

If he hadn't been there, if he hadn't been saving me, he would be okay. So this was my fault.

We were in the clearing. It was completely devoid of snow, thanks to the steady traffic that had been coming in and out. Between us and Forge's men, this place had been busy.

Fred shifted John on his shoulders.

I tapped his forearm. "I can carry him, if you- if you want."

He thought about it for a second. Then, "Okay. When you're ready."

I lifted a hand and floated John off of Fred's shoulders. I repositioned him so that he was lying down, but at an angle. Sitting up slightly was good for concussions, I'd heard, and he was probably concussed.

My hand slid into his, squeezing it. Wishing he wasn't hurt. Knowing he was hurt because of me.

I bit my lip and blinked the tears away.

There was a roar. Jet engines. The Pelican was lowering itself into the clearing.

When the ramp lowered, I pulled John up with me. Sat him in a seat. Kelly came and lowered the metal brace over his body.

I released my hold on him, though I did take a seat next to him, and pulled my helmet off.

Linda was sitting down across from us, next to Fred. Kelly was on John's other side. None of them seemed worried.

And, of course, I knew John had been through worse. But the fact that he was hurt because of me was jarring.

It was my fault.

oOOOo

I was in a med bay aboard Infinity. We'd arrived a few hours ago, and John had been admitted and given a bed.

They said he was probably fine, but they wanted to observe him until he woke up. Just to be safe.

But they were so sure he was okay that they didn't even remove his armor. Minus his helmet, of course.

He had a massive bruise on his left jawline. And another on the back of his head; he'd hit the ground hard when he fell.

I was sitting on the left side of his bed, staring up at the bruise on his jaw. Knowing, if that rock had hit me, that it would have shattered my skull. It would have killed me.

But John had taken it for me.

It was my fault.

Blue Team had gone to take their armor off, as was standard between operations now that the armor machines were refined and widespread, so it was just me, John, and my overwhelming guilt.

I dropped my head onto the bed next to him. "I'm so sorry."

"He's going to be fine, civie, don't worry."

I looked up to see Commander Palmer standing just inside the doorway, on the other side of the bed from me. She didn't look very concerned.

I chewed on my lip. "I know...but-but it was my fault. He never would have stayed if I'd left w-when he said to."

"Then next time, you'll listen to him."

"Yeah." I looked down at the blue helmet in my lap. "I will."

I wrapped my hand around John's still fingers. My eyes closed under the weight of my guilt.

Palmer shifted, crossing her arms. "I need you in debriefing."

"Right." I took a breath. "Right, I'll be right in."

"I need you now. He'll still be here when you're done."

I looked up at John with wide eyes. Then to Palmer. "I-if you're sure…"

"I am." She crossed her arms.

A quick dip into John's mind revealed that he was conscious enough to be in the Domain. From the nostalgic heartache I could feel, he was talking to Sam.

So I pushed myself to my feet and wrapped my arms around my helmet. "Okay, let's go."

oOOOo

John was awake when I got back to the medbay. I'd known he was awake; I could feel him through the bond.

He was pushing himself to his feet as I walked in.

"Tawny," he greeted me over his shoulder as he picked up his helmet.

I twisted my garnet ring around my finger. "Hey, John."

He turned to face me. "What's wrong?"

He could feel my guilt, but he didn't want to pry into the bond.

"I-I just...I should have listened when you said we needed to-to leave. I'm so sorry." My head hung, my eyes unable to rise from the floor.

"You should have listened," he agreed.

He stepped forward and lifted my chin.

"But I'm fine."

"I promise I'll listen next time." My voice shook.

"Good." He held my gaze, and I could see that he didn't hold it against me at all.

I reached up and tugged his helmet out from under his arm. I strained to hold it up.

On the left side, along the bottom edge, was an indent. It was relatively small, but it was there. And the paint was completely gone; the gunmetal grey metal was visible with the groove.

My teeth dug into my lip. The rock really would have killed me.

I was amazed it didn't kill him.

John pulled the damaged helmet out of my hands and tucked it back under his arm. "Come on."

I held onto his elbow as we walked out of the medbay.

He wasn't mad at me. He recognized that no one would have been injured if I'd agreed to leave, but he didn't blame me.

Why not?

My eyes lifted to the thick purple bruise on his jawline. It looked painful. It felt painful; tender and raw. But he didn't even flinch.

When my thoughts and guilt leaked over the bond John pushed them down. "I'm fine, Tawny."

"I know. But you would be okay if I'd listened."

"You'll listen next time," he replied smoothly.

I nodded; I would definitely listen the next time something like this happened.

oOOOOo

Author's Note: Hi from the beach! We found a place that's enforcing social distancing and I'm literally sitting on a bench by the ocean rn! I'm loving this alSO sorryifthischapterisweirdileftmychargerathomeanddidnteditoops

Love all of you sm!