Author's Note: Ok, I'm done having evil fun with my cliffhangers...for now. ;-) Thanks a bunch to all reviewers, you guys are super awesome!!! Please continue to R&R, cuz reviews equal great happiness. As always, hope you enjoy and peace!

P.S. Don't worry, the discrepancies between the Willis and Natalie parts will be cleared up as the story progresses. I guess you'll just have to stay tuned to find out what's really going on ;-)

P.P.S. To avoid confusion, I'd suggest looking carefully at the time-and-date headings.

Chapter Twenty-Six: SNAFU

1018 Hours, February 16, 2552. Europa Base, City of Cote D'Azur. "The Big Bang," Planet Sigma Octanus IV. Day One of the Battle of Sigma Octanus IV

Pure agony was an odd feeling.

It started with the psychological symptoms first: screaming, sobbing, raging. Your emotional state would oscillate between intense sadness, anger, and fear. After that, things usually moved on to the physical symptoms: that sick feeling deep in your stomach, the incredible tightness in your chest, the dryness in your mouth and throat. Agony made you feel like you couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't function.

That's what the woman in front of me was experiencing right now. The brown-haired little kid with the gorgeous blue eyes I'd found near the bus stop bench?

Her son.

Lucky for me, in my twenty-four years of life, I'd never had to experience something quite as devastating as pure agony. I'd seen and experienced a lot of terrible, traumatizing shit in this war, but nothing like what this woman was going through. I knew that if I had to choose one event that would completely shatter my world, one circumstance that would be my pure agony, it would most definitely be finding my son Gabriel lying dead on the sidewalk---or anywhere, for that matter. To lose my son, my child…that was far worse than anything I could imagine.

And so, it was hard for me to watch this mother, who had tried so hard to protect her son, break out into loud sobs as she knelt by the little boy's body.

"We need to get the rest of the civvies into that building," I said over the COM channel, to no one in particular.

"I'll handle it, El-Tee," Corporal Trevor Dandh, who was standing beside me, volunteered.

Most of the civilians had now been moved into the building I had found near the bus stop victim, and Doc Reynolds was close to finishing up with the seventeen immediate patients. There was still one more group of civvies to get into the building, however, and the boy's mother was stopping the flow of people.

It was horrible and heartless and cruel, but we had to keep the line moving. If the Covenant decided to attack now, they'd catch most of my platoon and the remaining civilians out in the open.

"Ma'am, I'm so sorry, but we need you to step into the building with the others," Dandh said, voice all calm. I knew better, though; when he'd first seen the boy's body, he'd vomited just as Hillburn had earlier near the fountain. And I didn't blame either of them one bit. Thankfully, my stomach had managed to hang in there for the time being, but I didn't know how long that would last.

The woman continued to wail and shout incoherent words. I watched the corporal attempt to physically lift the mother, but she fought him as soon as she felt someone trying to take her away from her son.

I shut my eyes and glanced away, knowing I would do the same thing if I were in her shoes.

"Leave her, Dandh," I said quietly on a private channel.

I heard him stop struggling with the woman, and he radioed back, "Ma'am?"

"Tell your squad to have the line go around on the other side, and leave her alone."

"Lieutenant, you can't just---"

"I said leave her, Corporal. That's an order."

I heard a sigh come over the radio and Dandh turned his faceplate in my direction. I knew he wouldn't understand the order, but we both knew he was required to follow it.

"Yes, ma'am," he finally replied, and let go of the grieving woman.

That was when the unthinkable happened.

Still sobbing and babbling, the woman plucked Corporal Dandh's sidearm from its holster as he turned around, cocked the weapon as Dandh realized he was missing his pistol, and shot herself in the head before he could do anything about it.

The other frightened civilians screamed, some from witnessing the event, others from hearing the pistol's report. Me, I stopped in mid-stride, as I had nearly reached the corporal before the woman fired the shot.

"Dammit," I said inside my helmet. I didn't know why I'd thought I could've stopped the woman when Dandh had been closer and still hadn't managed, but I'd wanted to save her. Somehow.

Corporal Dandh and I looked at each other's faceplates for an instant, both sprayed with some of the woman's blood. Then my wits finally returned and I opened a channel to Petty Officer Reynolds.

"Medic outside, now!" I said, too much adrenaline pumping through my system to say more than the basic words.

Meanwhile, the corporal had finally regained speech and began to ramble. "Oh, my God. Holy shit, I'm sorry, Lieutenant, I'm sorry, I had no idea, I tried to stop her, she just grabbed---"

"First squad, up to my position. Lieutenant Hillburn?" I ordered over the platoon-wide channel.

"Yes, ma'am!" the young officer answered.

"Get third squad to usher those civvies into the building fast. Third platoon should be here soon. And try to calm the crowd down a bit."

"Got it, El-Tee."

With my commands issued, I turned back to the corporal. "It wasn't your fault, Dandh. You couldn't have known what she was about to do."

"I was going to leave her alone, like you said, El-Tee. I swear!" Corporal Dandh exclaimed.

"I know, Dandh. But there's nothing we can do now. We need to focus on continuing our recon and getting back to base, Corporal."

He looked up at me, but I couldn't see his expression behind his visor. "Yes, ma'am," he finally replied.

"Lieutenant, what happened here?"

I was startled to hear Petty Officer Reynolds's voice beside me; I hadn't expected him to get here so quickly. By the time I started to answer, the medic was already kneeling next to the woman. Ignoring the gore, he immediately pressed two fingers against her neck.

"That boy by the bench is her son," I said, sounding like an automated voice. "She shot herself when she found him."

Doc Reynolds looked over his patient for a moment longer.

"Well, whatever the case, she's got no pulse," he said coolly. "She's dead, Lieutenant."

I nodded, feeling somehow detached. "Get back to the civvies then, Doc."

How the hell can you sound so calm?! was what I really wanted to scream at him. That woman's brains are all over the sidewalk, and there's a gaping, bleeding hole in her head! Don't you see that people aren't supposed to look like this?!

Of course, I was acting as though the scene were normal, too.

"Yes, ma'am," Reynolds said, responding to my order. He stood, wiped his now-bloodied gloves on his pants, and hurried back into the building.

First squad showed up as the medic was leaving, and I told them to move the bodies of the boy and his mother. The remaining civvies were already scared out of their wits, and it was all I could do to make sure my platoon was reassuring them. The removal of the two most gruesome victims would help keep the civilians moving into the building.

"Ma'am?" Lieutenant Hillburn radioed a few minutes later.

"Whatcha got for me, Hillburn?" I asked.

"The civvies are secure, El-Tee."

I breathed a sigh of relief. "Glad to hear some good news, Lieutenant. All right, then. Let's round up the platoon and get ready to move out."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Doc, how're we doing with the injured civvies?" I said, opening a private COM channel between Reynolds and myself.

"All seventeen patched up, ma'am. They're stable now."

"Great. Ok, Doc, assemble out here with the rest of the platoon. The Covenant are still in the city, and they're not gonna wait for us."

"Understood, El-Tee."

Just as Hillburn and I had finished assembling the platoon, third platoon came walking towards the building. They looked fresh because they hadn't run into Covenant air patrols yet.

"We'll take it from here, Cooper," Lieutenant Lewis said to me when he reached the building.

"Make sure you take care of the rest of the wounded civvies," I reminded him.

"Of course. I'll have my medic help out as many as she can, and then we'll hand over the remainder to Captain Kingston. Hopefully by then, those blokes at base will have figured out how to re-establish contact for a medevac."

"That's what we're counting on. Good luck, Dean."

"You, too, Natalie. I have a feeling we're all going to need it."