This is what it's like to be a Freelancer.

Shore leave isn't always paradise planets with gorgeous hotels and long beaches and delicious food. This time, shore leave is a tiny town on a near-deserted colony with precisely one tourist attraction: a busted-up bar called the Last Regret.

It's raining outside, turning the ground to a sludgy mess, and Wash spends the first five minutes of his leave picking the mud out of his boots with a stick placed next to the door for that express purpose. The bartender comes over to inspect his work—"There's a moss out in that mud that's practically impossible to kill once it spreads"—and finally pronounces him fit to tread the beer-sticky floor over to the bar, where York is the sole customer. Local time isn't quite noon.

"Look who finally made it off-ship," York says, kicking out a barstool for Wash to hop up next to him. The new scar running into his hairline is already fading; the small imperfection suits him. "Seen any of the others yet?"

"Shouldn't be far behind me. I was in a meeting with Internals." Wash blinks when the bartender pushes a dirty glass full of clear liquid in front of him. "I, uh. I didn't order this."

York, whose smile is maybe more crooked than usual, gives Wash a little push, nearly knocking him off his seat. Adjusting to force controls outside the armor is more difficult than they'd all expected. Also, well. There's an empty glass in front of him already. "Local moonshine," he says. "Great shit."

Wash squints at it. "Not sure I want any shit," he says, and the bartender, polishing a glass on the other side of the room, snorts. But York is looking at him earnestly, and Wash, feeling a residual twinge in the fresh ridge of scar tissue between his shoulderblades, figures maybe this is an apology of sorts. He takes a hesitant sip, then swallows a more substantial gulp. It burns going down, but the aftertaste is improbably honey-smooth, sending a warm tingling through his fingers and toes. "Wow. This isn't bad."

"Oh, no, it's definitely horrible," York says with a grin. "We're going to get really fucked up tonight. Today. Whatever."

Wash turns in his seat as the door chimes, signaling the twins' arrival. The bartender sighs and moves back to usher them through another five-minute mud-removal ritual. South rolls her eyes and leans on North, making a special effort to flick gobs of mud off her shoes and onto the floor, where the bartender scrubs it up with a glower.

Wash takes another drink, thoughtfully, then holds the glass up to the light. "I've got a pretty high tolerance," he says. "Unauthorized stills are a mainstay near the front lines. Five years of the worst poison you can imagine, that sort of thing."

York bunches a hand into the back of Wash's shirt, stopping his slow slide toward the ground and settling him more firmly on his barstool. "Uh-huh," he says. "Whatever you say, Wash. Another?"

Which is how, two hours later, with most of his squad either planted behind the bar or around a pool table, a giggling York and South convince him it'll be a great idea to try out the bar's main attraction: a rusty old machine that purports to be a flight simulator but is probably more likely to result in a case of chiropractic malpractice.

"You gotta learn to fly better, Wash," South says, with a solemn air she keeps undermining by smirking at York. "Never know when we might need a fast evac."

"That's why you fucks have me," Pilot 479er calls from where she's lining up a shot at the table. "Don't go giving away my job."

"I wouldn't feel overly threatened by Wash," Connie says, but she offers him an apologetic salute of her glass, which he returns with a flourish that splashes half his drink across the bar.

But he hesitates when York wraps an arm around his shoulders and directs him toward the simulator. "It looks a little unsafe," he says.

The bartender is watching their stumbling progress with interest. "Hey, we're not liable for any injuries you might sustain on that thing. I mean, I'll call an ambulance, but that's about it."

"We're UNSC," York calls back. "I think we can handle it."

The bartender holds up her hands and turns back to counting out her register.

Wash clambers up to straddle the machine; in lieu of a cockpit, there's a sort of saddle seat, complete with stirrups bolted to the sides of the flyer. Wash fits his feet in the loops, finds an accelerator pedal on the right one, and settles a little more comfortably, gripping the handlebars. "Hey, this is more like a motorcycle. That's no problem."

North has come up behind his sister and York with a worried expression. "Wash," he says. "Didn't you put yourself in the hospital the last time you rode a motorcycle?"

Wash holds up a quelling finger; York grabs him by the back of the shirt again and keeps him from sliding off the machine. "That was not my fault. There were people chasing me with guns. Also, the road was slippery. This is bolted down."

North rubs the palm of his hand into his forehead. "Jesus Christ, this can't possibly end well."

"This is going to be amazing," South says.

York leans in, lowering his voice to a carrying stage-whisper. His breath smells like moonshine, but he sounds like he's pushing past drunkenness to sincerity. "You're okay, right, man? I mean, you're good? They let you out like a week ago, so I figured—"

"I'm good," Wash says, shortly. "C'mon, let's get this thing started."

Everyone else backs off, away from the padded section of flooring, and Wash just has time to suck in a breath before a holodisplay flickers to life above the handlebars, a simple HUD displaying a poorly rendered forest with a path running through it. "START YOUR ENGINES," blares a tinny voice from the speaker.

He presses the accelerator to full. The machine lurches into life. Wash clenches his legs for a better grip, leaning into the first turn as the flyer tilts beneath him with a grinding shriek of overstressed metal. The second turn is sluggish and slow, and he watches his avatar on the screen take a wide swerve away from the path and into the woods. Into the very thick woods. Into the very thick woods littered with fallen logs.

"Ohhh no," Wash says, and his flyer hits the first virtual log with a very real thump that nearly bucks him off. After that, he's clinging for dear life, locking his hands around the handlebars and hunching down over the bike as it jolts and shakes beneath him—

—and Wash tightens his arms in a headlock from behind, his feet actually dangling off the floor, trying to pull together enough leverage from his suit's overstressed servos to choke out the Insurrectionist heavy before he gets any bright ideas. Like, say, delivering the final blow to the dazed and semi-conscious York slumped at his feet.

Distraction. Right. Wash puts his legs into it, latches onto the guy like a limpet as he flails back, his shotgun firing wildly just to the left of Wash's head.

"Get up!" Wash yells, hoping that last hit hasn't taken out York's radio as well. "C'mon, York, you gotta get up! I can't hold this guy off much longer!"

"Wash, we're approaching your position," North says. "Carolina and Maine are coming in from the other side."

"Hurry up!" Wash yelps, just as the heavy spins and slams himself back into a wall. Wash grunts with the impact, but grimly keeps his grip, pulling the crook of his elbow harder back against the guy's trachea.

"Almost there," Carolina says. "York, get up."

York coughs, and Wash can see him rolling onto his side, still apparently half-conscious. But the heavy's uninterested in him, already faltering in Wash's chokehold, his steps becoming less certain.

Wash is just starting to ease up on his grip—if they can keep the guy alive for questioning, it'll make this mission a whole lot easier—when a seven-inch ka-bar blade slams hilt-deep between his shoulderblades. It doesn't hurt, not at first, so he just lets out a little gasp. But then his HUD lights up with warnings, telling him in alarms and flashes of red that he's hurt, actually, that he's hemorrhaging into his chest cavity, that the blade has penetrated between two vertebrae, that spinal function has been compromised.

His grip relaxes all at once, and he gags on another sharp gasp when he hits the floor hard, shoulder and hip and head impacting all at once. The pain is overwhelmed by a dull heaviness to his limbs, a coldness creeping up his legs. He can't move. He can't...

The heavy stumbles away from him, rubbing his throat, snarling something at a second Insurrectionist who's just emerged from the corridor, another knife still in her hand. She walks up to Wash, rolls him onto his stomach with the toe of her boot. Plants one foot into the small of his back and yanks her knife free.

It hurts, finally, completely. He screams for a moment, but the pain smothers even that. He thinks maybe he's trying to clench all his muscles, like he's in a nine-G spin, like he's pulling in gasps of air past the overwhelming pressure, fighting for each little hiccup of breath.

South's voice filters in, shaky and strident, and Wash realizes they're all listening to him die over the radio. "Jesus Christ, will somebody please—"

"—shut him up?"

Wash blinks slowly across the table at South, who's glowering at him. There's a glass of moonshine in his hands, and a pleasant warmth enveloping him, but he's pretty sure he hasn't said a word in the past hour. "What?"

"You're doing that thing!" South points at him. She's tilting precariously in her chair, and Connie pushes a bit closer to her, shoring her up against her shoulder. "That thing Maine does!"

Wash turns to look at Maine. Maine, who arrived just in time to watch him wipe out spectacularly on the flight simulator an hour ago. Maine, who hasn't said a single word since dragging him off the padded section of the floor. "Uh," says Wash. "I mean, I know Maine's hard to shut up—"

South waves a hand expressively. "That thing where you talk without saying anything! You're just sort of... staring. And it's talkative staring."

"Sorry?" Wash tries. Maine snorts, then rests a hand on the back of Wash's head, combing through his messy hair. Wash submits to the touch until Maine starts putting some weight behind his hand, pushing Wash down until his forehead's resting against the cool table. "I'm fine," Wash tells the sticky plastic tabletop. "Just getting started."

"Nah, Maine's right," says Connie. "We'll never hear the end of it if we land you back in the infirmary. Go back to the ship and sleep it off."

"It's okay," Wash says—

—and watches as York stumbles back, firing blindly at the half-dozen Innies advancing on him. The side of York's helmet is dented with the force of the blow he took from the heavy, but he's back on his feet, he's moving into a retreat. More importantly, he's moving further away from Wash, still bleeding out face-down on the floor. "It's okay," Wash says again. He can breathe now, his onboard medical systems pushing well past the safeguards to numb him with painkillers. His right hand is pinned near his belt. With an effort, he can make the fingers clench and release. "They don't care about me. They think I'm already dead. Just keep backing off."

"No self-sacrificial bullshit, Wash," York yells. He fires once and knocks a guy down, twists away from another Innie's grab at his shotgun, then has to drop it in order to block a knife aimed at his chest.

"Just hang on, Wash," Carolina says. She sounds a little out of breath, like she's pushing herself. "We're close."

"It's okay," Wash says, quietly. "Just stay back. There's more of them heading for York's position, but they've got to come past me first. I've just gotta—" He shifts, sucks in a breath at the jolt of pain, but his numb fingers have already managed to work a grenade free from his belt, shifting it in his hand. He only hesitates a second before depressing the primer, then relaxes, letting the live grenade roll from his fingers. His HUD lights up a warning. A countdown.

"Wash, what the hell are you doing?" York starts toward him, then grunts when one of the Innies catches him a solid blow across the visor with the butt of her gun.

"Oh no you don't," Carolina says, fury low and hard in her voice.

Wash hears her speed unit before he sees her, the low thrumming roar of a human body moving at fifty miles per hour. She's too fast, she's impossibly fast, and her hand closes around the grenade at his side. She whips it up and away, down a corridor. The explosion rattles Wash's bones, ramping up the pain past the ability of the meds to contain it, but he's still breathing, quick and shallow, when the dust settles. "Stay with him, Maine. I'm gonna help York out," she says, but pauses for a split-second, looking down at Wash. "Got you," she says softly—

—and Wash tilts his head back to blink up at her. Carolina's got a hand on the back of his chair, keeping him from overbalancing and toppling back. Her expression, he thinks, is somewhere between tolerant and amused. He hasn't seen her yet tonight, but her hair is down and that sort of short-circuits his brain because he's not entirely sure he's ever seen it like that before. York, standing beside her, is staring at her like he's completely blitzed.

"Thanks, boss," Wash says, leaning forward so the front legs of his chair land solidly on the ground.

Carolina rolls her eyes. "Maine tell you to get some rest, Wash?"

Beside him, Maine only shrugs, so Wash says, a little sheepishly, "Yeah."

"Good," says Carolina. "Consider it an order." She glances over to York. "I've got something to say to you too, York. Moonshine? Really?"

"Ooh," South says in a stage-whisper. "Bet she's gonna punish him real good."

Carolina pretends not to hear. York actually blushes.

Wash pushes to his feet, then sways alarmingly. "Uh," he says. "I don't feel so good."

"No shit," South murmurs.

Wash's helmet is off; the smell of blood is hanging heavy in the air, making him gag. He's been rolled gently onto his side, and the twins are working on divesting him of his chestpiece. His armor's emergency medical suite is in full effect, sending him buzzing into and out of focus. A hazy, thick nausea is settling in his gut.

He blinks slow, opens his eyes to the ceiling. Some time's passed, but he's in the same room. He's cold, but he's stopped shivering. His hardsuit's been mostly dismantled. It's lying in pieces next to him. Connie is leaning over him, her helmet off. She smiles, lopsided. "You're okay," she says. "Rescue's here, Wash. Right now, you need to rest. Just go to sleep. It'll be okay."

Wash is pretty sure she's lying. He's getting better at reading people, better at figuring out what they're thinking, what they're saying between the lines. He's pretty sure rescue's been delayed. He's pretty sure he's going to die in this room.

He gasps in a breath, releases it on a cough, and Carolina comes over. She's still wearing her helmet, which is somehow reassuring. She doesn't say anything, just crouches next to Connie and puts a hand on his shoulder. He can't feel it. He closes his eyes.

Someone's radio crackles, a muffled voice yelling landing coordinates and an ETA. South says, "You unbelievably lucky son of a bitch."

When Wash opens his eyes again, it's to the sound of Pelican engines. Maine is sitting next to him, a hand pressed against his forehead. He's smiling. Smirking. "Lucky," he says.

Wash groans. "I don't feel very lucky," he says, and spits one last time into the basin. Maine has been at his side for the entire disgusting technicolor adventure, keeping his sweaty hair out of his face with a hand against his forehead. The bathroom floors have apparently fallen prey to the moss growing outside, which is good news for his knees if nothing else. "Moonshine is terrible. York's terrible. You're terrible."

Maine grins. Wash can hear the smirk.

"Shut up," he says, and sinks down to curl into a ball of misery on the floor. "Leave me to die in peace. Remember me fondly. Embellish my deeds. Don't talk about the thing with the yo-yo or I'll come back and haunt your ass."

Maine dangles something in front of his face. It takes Wash a second to focus his eyes and recognize it as a stick of gum.

"Thanks," he says, taking it grudgingly. He doesn't protest when Maine yanks him to his feet, just stumbles over to wash his hands and wash out his mouth and stare at his hollow-eyed reflection in the dirty mirror. "Apart from the whole death-by-probably-illegal-moonshine thing, this wasn't a bad night."

"Had worse," Maine grunts, coming up beside him. He's irritatingly sober, considering Wash just watched him drink South under the table.

Wash stares at himself in the mirror a moment longer, then sighs and hikes up his shirt, twisting. He can see, overlaid on the older, fainter scars running down his back, the bright red mark left by the Insurrectionist knife. Half an inch from the heart. The surgeons didn't leave a scar with their peripheral work, but the original wound proved to be more determinedly dramatic. Some nights, when he's feeling particularly morbid, Wash thinks about what it means to be designed to carry your failures tattooed permanently into your skin.

He doesn't realize he's mumbling his thoughts aloud until he glances up at Maine's reflection and meets his eyes. "You survived," Maine says, with a shrug. "You keep surviving."

"Yeah," Wash says, and releases his shirt, concealing the scar again. He pops the gum in his mouth and winces as he bites down. Cinnamon. Maine knows he hates cinnamon. "With a little help from my friends. C'mon, asshole, let's get back to the ship."

Maine grins. "Right behind you."