AN: I so could have sworn I had posted this somewhere but I couldn't find it anywhere so I guess not. Sorry about the delay.

The meeting was not going well. The bad guys had taken ground again and again. Nothing seemed to work. They were going to lose planets and billions of people would be killed. It was going to happen, Church realized; someone was going to die. Sitting up straighter in his high backed comfortable looking but really hard ass chair, he came to a decision: why not have it be him?

"Sir?" Church raised the pen he had been pretending to be taking notes with, in reality he did not need notes, not really paying attention, and was drawing up schematics for a new pulse based weapon.

The Admiral stopped in his presentation and frowned. "General Church? What is it?"

Church leaned back, now that he had the Admiral's attention, he could relax, even with all the eyes of the ONI watching him. Dr. Halsey, he knew, was watching him very carefully; she would be the only one who would remember that he never spoke up during any of these meetings unless it was done rudely and snidely. "What if we lined out the five new MAC guns along the perimeter of the first planet? The Covenant can only take them one at time."

"And why is that, General?"

"Because of the force it took them the last twelve planets. Come on, don't you pay any attention to the statistics?" He could hear the room inhale collectively; he didn't care and ignored the lot of them. Church was an honorary member of this council and didn't much care if they kicked him off; Dr. Halsey would tell him everything that had happened anyways. "They need so many ships to take one planet. They are moving in with five times that much. Yes, they plan on taking those planets but," he held up his pen again just because it pissed of the Colonel sitting two seats down, "they plan on taking them one at a time. Get those MAC guns up and running around the first target and bam, alien dust."

The room was deafening with its silence.

Church knew the plan he had just proposed had never been implemented for one rather important and costly reason. He was just waiting for someone to bring it up.

"A sound plan on paper, Leonard, but you know we can't do it. For that to work, we would need a smart AI to control the five MAC guns," Dr. Halsey said. "There are none free and there is no time to clone. Even flash clone."

Church smiled. "I know."

That Colonel sitting two seats down from him who hated people talking with their pens whose name was something like Ackerson but Church could be wrong, names of humans were never that interesting to him causing him to frequently forget them, leaned forward. "Are you suggesting that we pick at random someone to sacrifice for this AI?"

"No, of course not," Church scoffed at the idea. "A random person would not have a decent template to generate a smart AI. No, I am suggesting Dr. Halsey uses my brain to make an AI."

Aforementioned doctor sat up, shocked. "Leonard! Are you crazy?"

"No, just the best for the job." He looked at her, a friend and coworker and a woman of staggering intelligence, the one person he did not yell at for using his first name on a regular basis, and gave her a rare smile before turning back to the Admiral, who was looking a little green at the idea of losing Church. "Anyways, it's not like we actually have time to debate this."

"I am sorry, General, but you can not make such a decision with out—" the Admiral started.

"Actually I can. I am not a member of your military, nor am I part of the UNSC as anything more than a scientist. No one owns me, Admiral. Anyways, a smart AI, that can be re-purposed, used again to save the lives of millions of other people on other planets. After, of course, this mission, which has the lives of thirteen billion people, our people, hanging in the balance. But then whether to use the smart AI or not, really," Church smiled, sarcasm entering his voice, knowing that there was no real choice in this kind of situation, "it is up to you. One life that will be replaced with an invaluable piece of technology or thirteen billion lives that can never be replaced along with the sacrifice of five damn good planets." He paused to let things sink in. "I get how that is a tough choice so I am going to get a cup of coffee," he continued standing, "and when I get back, I expect an answer. Excuse me, sir." And he left the room.

"You are crazy." Church did not stop, but turned looked behind him to see Dr. Halsey walking half a step behind him. "When did you come up with that hair brained idea? Before the meeting started or after you mentioned using the MAC guns?"

Church laughed. "Some time in between. It is the only way we can save everyone and you know it."

"Everyone but you," Dr. Halsey said sharply and grabbed his arm. "Leonard, you are invaluable. Maybe even more so than any AI you have made."

"That's sweet, Elizabeth, and incorrect and you damn well know it," he removed his arm and turned into the break room where he found a pot of coffee that had most likely been there since the night before.

"Why are you not concerned for yourself?"

"Simple. Remember the AI we got from Jerry?" he replied pouring himself a cup and placing it in the microwave to reheat.

"Yes." Jerry Davis had been a brilliant scientist who let his brain be liquefied for a smart AI some years back.

As he waited for the microwave to beep, he turned to look at Dr. Halsey. "What was so special about that one?"

She sighed and told him, "The AI adopted Jerry's personality, his mannerism, his memories. It was as though Jerry never died. I know where you are going with this."

The microwave beeped and Church retrieved his cup. "Then where am I going with this?"

"You see this as an opportunity to save billions and keep living. Be a martyr and continue to exist in some fashion at the same time. Clever but it won't work."

Taking a sip, Church smiled, "Really have no interest in being a martyr, just want the fucking job done right. And as far as it not working, we will see. Fuck this is really bad coffee. Note to self: teach some fucking marines how to make a damn pot of coffee." He poured the remains out and walked back to the briefing room. As he entered the room, he noticed it go from red hot to ice cold and took it as a good sign. "So," he started as he stood arms crossed on his chair, "what did you decide?"

The Admiral bowed his head and said with as much steel in his voice as possible, "We have approved your plan."

"Good. Dr. Halsey, I would love your assistance. We really ought to get started," he said turning to her.

****

"What is this for?" he asked, looking confused at the camera in front of his workstation.

"I thought you might want to leave a last will and testament."

"Why?" he asked fingers itching to crack its case open and see just how this model worked. "Oh wait. You mean my dad."

"I mean you should protect your legacy from those who may want to shut it down as soon as those MACs have been fired."

"Okay, after—"

"Now, Leonard." Dr. Halsey slapped his hand as it gave into the impulse to tinker. "You need to save your AI from those who do not see AIs as people."

Church groaned, "If it's based on a person, it makes it a person. Why don't people get that?" He sighed. "How do you propose I failsafe my AI?"

"I am sure you can find some clever way of keeping your AI safe," Dr. Halsey said, walking out of the room.

Church rolled his eyes and sighed. It would have to be something clever, and nasty, if he wanted the AI to last any time. But, grinning, he realized he had the perfect idea. He made a quick call, to make sure the idea would be up held, and then turned on the camera.

****

Church turned off the camera and sat back for a long moment going over his exact working, debating if he wanted to redo it. He decided against it and pushed his chair back, standing up. He cracked his neck, habit of any one who spent most of their time staring at screens, and removed his side arm. Church carefully checked the clip and safety before reloading it. He sighed and walked over to a door that was always locked; it kept most of their in progress AI's and was thusly sensitive.

Church pressed his hand to the reader and the door unlocked. He pulled it open and leveled his gun at the two hiding in the room.

****

Caboose found himself staring at the man who was pointing a gun at him. Wyoming's helmet was held loosely in his hands and otherwise forgotten at the sight of the flesh and blood ghost standing before him. James was in a similar state; caught completely off guard and totally unsure of how proceed with these new chain of events. Luckily, neither James no Caboose had to come up with anything to say.

"How did you two get in here?" Church asked, side arm dropping.

Still shaken, Caboose said the first thing that came into his head. "What do you mean?"

Church leaned against the door jam and holstered his gun. "Only two people's hand prints are enrolled in that reader. Mine and Dr. Halsey. I didn't let you in and … How did you get that?" His voice trailed off as he eyed the SPARTAN helmet and he stiffened. "Where did yo—let me see that." He held out his hand but when Caboose did not make a move to hand it to him Church grabbed it out of his hand. He flipped it over and started to examine the insides. Keeping his eyes on the helmet he waved Caboose and James out. "Get out of the room. I need to lock it."

Caboose pulled a still shell shocked James out of the room and stared as Church locked the door without ever taking his eyes off the helmet. They watched as Church sat down at a workstation that had for some reason a camera set up on it as though Church had been recording something. Confused and working off of a stunned brain, Caboose reached out to touch the camera, to check if it was real. If it was real, then maybe Church was real.

"Oh don't touch that. Catherine would kill me if that file does not get to her later today. She will file an official protest and stop Admiral Hood from letting my plan go ahead," Church said turning to look at Caboose and James, really look at them, for the first time. "Are you guys related?"

"What? Oh, yeah, James is my son," Caboose replied, a little surprised that Church would notice any resemblance between Caboose and James while not seeing the very strong resemblance James had to Church.

"So, James," Church said, pointing at him. "And you are?" he asked switching to Caboose.

"Michael Caboose." He paused realizing there was a question he was expected to ask but it felt so strong just thinking about it. Fortunately, Church answered the unspoken question.

"I'm Church. Now I can do a couple of things with you. But I really hate paperwork so I hope to pretend all this didn't happen. I can do that only if you answer some questions."

"Are you allowed to do that?" James asked looking perplexed.

"No. But they can't do anything about it." Church pulled something out of the helmet. "Do either of you know what this is?"

"We didn't say we would answer your questions," James said, a little definitely.

Church merely raised an eyebrow with a look that clearly explained what would happen if Church had to file all that paperwork.

"No," Caboose said. "I never had a chance to look inside Wyoming's helmet." He decided he wanted to tell Church everything that the man wanted. It just felt too strange to with hold information from him.

"This is a very experimental piece of equipment that allows the manual manipulation of time. It is not in use as it is not finished yet." Church held up an object that looked very similar if not exactly the same as the one he pulled from the helmet. "This," he held up the one from the helmet, "looks finished. Usable even." He put it all down and eyed the two. "You can not get into that room from the outside. I looked at the coordinates for the time and place which were in that room," he gestured to the locked AI room, "and now. I cannot tell how far you traveled but I can tell from which direction. You two came from the future."

"Yeah," Caboose said.

"Where did you find it?"

"Under the bed," James said. Caboose could feel the boy going from shocked and speechless to sullen and pissed.

Church frowned and was about to ask something when Caboose cut in. "It's a long story. We don't know how or why it was in our room."

"No idea who put it there?" Church asked.

"None. Why?"

Church flipped the unit from the helmet over. "This was broken. It was shorted and someone fixed it. Any one could have fixed it but this," he turned on a bright LED light and showed Caboose and James a tiny square. There was something etched in the casing. It looked like a signature. "That's mine. I do that to all the pieces I personally work on." To prove it, Church scribbled it on his workstation and the two were almost identical. "I worked on this. I fixed this. Only I haven't been able to put my research into temporal distortions into practice."

Caboose shook his head. "What does that mean?"

Church looked up at him. "I am not sure."

"Can you send us back?" James hissed. "I want to get out of here as soon as possible."

Both SPARTANs looked at him and only under their combined disapproving gaze did he wilt. "I can send you back. I just need to make the calculations and put them in."

"Will you?"

"James!" Caboose stared at his offspring, shocked but not really. After so long wondering about Church, James finally had the chance to meet him only to have it be the wrong Church.

"It's fine. I get worse from Ackerson. Yeah, I will send you two back. If I didn't there would be even more paper work." He sat down and pulled a few tools and other things that Caboose had never seen before closer towards him.

Caboose realized he was thirsty. It was an odd realization with an even odder dilemma. Get something to drink or stay with Church. "Um, is there a place I can get something to drink?" Or go somewhere it didn't hurt quite so much.

Church did not look up, just handed him a key card and pointed. "Two doors down. On the left." As Caboose left, he called after him, "Don't drink the coffee!"

James huffed and went back to staring daggers at the man in front of him. Church went back to ignoring the boy behind him who was trying to make him combust using only the power of his mind. After a few minutes of this Church realized it was disrupting his work. Something had to change. He had to find out what the kid's damage was or he would break.

"What is your problem?" Church snapped, slamming down his tool. "You have been holding some massive hostility towards me. We just met. So what the fuck?" Okay so he broke anyways.

James could feel himself starting to shake with uncontrolled rage. Belatedly he remembered he had forgotten to take his pills. "You left us," he snarled. "You left me! You could have stayed but you didn't!" The fact that this Church had no idea what he was ranting about did not seem to matter, nor did the possibility of fucking up the timeline. "I got to grow up with Dad looking at me as though I were a ghost! All I am to him is a constant reminder of what he lost. That is my problem," he said, coming down a little. "Allison had to tell me about Franz so he could tell me about you. Dad couldn't even give me your name." Slightly deflated and a little embarrassed at the honesty of the rant, James left the room, passing Caboose who was on his way in.

Looking half confused and half concerned, Caboose looked at Church. "What was that about?"

Church stared at him for a moment. At this point Caboose had put that look with quick and complicated calculations. The Church from Blood Gulch had a similar look but it was normally done when he was thinking up a really biting insult. "So, how far into the future are you guys from?"

Frowning, Caboose thought hard. "About twenty years."

"Uh huh. Do you know what I am trying to do?" Church was looking at him just like his Church had looked at him when things were getting a little life and death. Unsure how to answer, Caboose shook his head. "There are five planets with thirteen billion people. In about three days enough Covenant ships to glass all those planets will show up. The UNSC are sending five MAC guns, the same kind that make up the orbital defense around Earth." Caboose had been told all of this at some point. At some point he had also forgotten it all. These guns can take out the ships before anyone is killed but to do that there are thousands of calculations that must be made. No crew can do it. A dumb AI cannot do it either."

"You need a smart AI," Caboose said, realizing he was going to loose Church twice.

"There is no time for a flash clone." Church pinched his nose and sighed. "My brain is going to be used to create a smart AI. It is possible that the AI will take on my personality and retain my memories. In essence, become me. Normally an AI only lives seven years but if one did not know it was an AI or did not do much military calculations, an AI could live a normal life span." Caboose had no idea where any of this was going. Church groaned, frustrated. "Fuck it. Did you know my AI?"

Caboose blinked but figured he really shouldn't be so surprised. This was still Church. "Yes. I did know him. He was stationed at Blood Gulch with me."

"Where you in a relationship with…" Church seemed unsure of what word to use.

Caboose made it easy for the General (he was not his Church) and answered, "I had fallen in love with your AI. We had started a sexual relationship before the war ended."

"Did he?" There was some kind of yearning, a desire that had went unfulfilled, in his voice.

"James was born just after the treaties were signed." Caboose was trying to keep all emotion from his voice but it was not easy to think of that night.

Church, the General who made AI's not the Private who had love him, sat down looking just as drained as James had only moments before. "Now it makes sense. But for an AI to," he waved his hand at the door James had stormed out of. "The number of lines of code that would have to be rewritten numbers in the thousands if not tens of thousands. But there is one thing I don't get." He looked at Caboose and that look made Caboose's chest seize. "What did James mean by leaving him?"

"Your gene to …" Caboose had to stop before he even really began to take a stabilizing breath. "The gene, if activated kills. He did not know he was an AI so he died. I buried him," he added as a whisper.

"But it would have to be a routine program. A simulation based on the AI's perception of reality. The matrix should still be around. Goddamnit." It seemed both Church's had volatile tempers. "It's not fair," he said just as softly as Caboose had been. "Look I can't fix this thing with James. Even if I knew how to, I just do not have the time. And," he said heavily, "neither do you."

"What?" Caboose's heart skipped a couple beats.

Church, his Church at least, had never bee this talented with electronics, Caboose realized as this other Church held up the time distortion unit. "It's fixed. The coordinates have been set." He did not say that the other reason why there was no time: General Church had an appointment to have his brain liquefied in less than a hour. "It's time for you to go back."

Caboose grabbed Church's shoulders, unable to watch him die. "Come with us. You don't have to this! Come with us and we can be a family. A real family. I can't loose you again," he said suddenly feeling just as broken as he had been when his Church, the real Church (or was it the fake Church?) had died.

But this Church just smiled that there-is-nothing-you-can-do smile and gently removed his hands. "If I were to go with you, five planets, five MAC guns, and thirteen billion people would be lost. Caboose, you can't loose me again because you never had me. That family you want never included me. And if I were to go with you, there would be no Blood Gulch and no AI for you to fall in love with. Without that, there would be no James, thus no family for you to find. I cannot go. I have to do this." And all Caboose could think was why did his eyes have to be so damn understanding. "Cheer up. You will find him. He is out there somewhere." He paused and nodded to himself. "If you can find James, we can get this over with."

Caboose was not sure how he walked out of that room or where he found James or what he told his still sullen son, but hours or minutes later, they stood in front of General Church, the shaper of destinies and their very existence, ready or not to go back to their own time. Church keyed some commands into his computer and turned to look at them one last time as the temporal unit powered up. As Caboose and James faded from the room, Church gave a silent good bye in the form of a salute to the family he still had to look forward to. And as Church faded with the room, Caboose realized Church had understood so much of what had gone unsaid. The rushed good byes were not some product of convenience; they were parting this way because Church had understood everything and he had cared.

General Church was sparing Caboose from loosing his lover a second time.