Another Friday, another installment of Hannah Steele's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Thanks again to Minaethiel and BrambleStar14 for beta reading duties. And another thanks again for taking the time out of your day to check up on this story. It means a lot to me.

Drifting

Written by TunelessLyric

"It's strange, what I became

When part of me was ripped away

And replaced with something worthless"

-Beth Crowley, 'I Didn't Ask for This'

Having spent the past few nights in medical, Hannah was well-used to the sounds of the base when the lights turned down. But that didn't mean she had an easy time getting to sleep. Changing into a set of lightweight UNSC-scavenged sleepwear, she slid under the sheets. It wasn't the most comfortable sleeping arrangement, but it was better than the medical bed. The mattress was firmer, the sheets thinner, tending a little to the rough and scratchy side. Like the bunks on every UNSC ship she had been stationed in the course of her career.

Like home.

She didn't fall asleep quickly, staring up at the ceiling. At the shifting greens and purples from the sky outside. Every time she shut her eyes, that black mass appeared on the inside of her eyelids. The letters had filled up with her blood while she carved, but it dried to a rusty brown. It was supposed to be a reminder, maybe the only gravestone they would get. But it felt like leaving them behind.

Eventually, she slipped a hand into her shirt to fish out the chain around her neck. In the multi-coloured gloom, she could barely make out the letters. Not that the half-melted, twisted tags were easy to read in the daylight anymore. Rolling over, she clenched her fist around the dog tags, ignoring the ache in her raw fingers. Sometime later, sleep eventually took over.

But it wasn't the dark oblivion she had spent the evening hoping for. Instead, she tossed and turned all night, waking between dreams with gunfire and energy weapons echoing through her head. With screams and barked orders. She relived each death on steady repeat, the corpses rising to play out their final moments again and again each time she finally felt her heart slow.

Morning found her the first one in the mess hall, picking through a bowl of oatmeal. It tasted like dirt and ashes, but she forced it down.

Harper's team trickled in, stocking their own plates with fruit, hash browns, eggs, toast, bacon, whatever looked good. Phil and Mike respected her space, seating themselves on the far end of the long table. Aaron watched her for a good minute before Lucas walked straight into his back. Staggering, he ended up leaving a few spots as a buffer, even if he looked like he didn't want to. Geist pulled up a chair at the head of the table, glancing her direction once before turning to the loud conversations cutting across one another. Shaw trickled in a little later, jostling with Harper about who got to enter first.

She didn't want to stay there, listening to the tone of the chatter rise and fall. The laughter as they joked and teased mercilessly. But she didn't know where she could go other than back to her room. Too many dark hours had passed in there for that idea to have any appeal. Instead, she stared down at the damage she had done to her hands the day before.

Each nail had been chewed up by the rock, a few split down to the beds. She figured she had about a day or two before they fell out. A couple were already beginning to blacken with bruises. Those she might get to keep, but they would look ugly as all hell until the damaged sections grew out. Her thumbs had escaped the worst of the punishment. But her fingertips were scabby and swollen, skinned in spectacular fashion. Even if her gloves had escaped destruction, she couldn't have put them on.

And the blisters.

Harper's knife had fit wrong in her hand. Rubbed in the wrong places, unprotected by calluses. Hours of work were carved into her flesh.

At least someone would remember that monument. Even if nobody ever walked past it, she would know. Harper would know.

The team, still talking over one another, headed out the door together. Aaron paused beside Hannah, looking like he was actually searching for words. Finally, he said, "Gym's this way." Then he caught up to the others.

With nothing else to do, she followed, used to longer legs not accommodating her short strides. She had no interest in catching up and taking part in the conversation and remained behind the casual formation that stalked through the halls. The few other Innies they passed offered nods to the team. She got curious stares.

Packed wall to wall with equipment, the gym was abandoned. Hannah was beginning to pick up on the pattern. Harper's group kept to themselves and the other personnel on-base let them have their space. Even if they showed up somewhere well-populated, they invaded and whomever had been there first cleared out quickly.

With breakfast just finished, Phil led them all through stretches. Or, at least, he faced them as they stretched, still talking to one another, though in lower tones. Hannah stayed off to the side. She followed along, reveling in the pleasant tugging pull of her muscles as she worked energy back into them after too many days of bed rest. Her only exertion since arriving here had been a few gentle exercises as her side healed.

"All right," he called at last, "pair up and get on the machines. Someone has to start with the free weights. You all know the drill. Try not to overdo it, we're going on a hike this afternoon."

Like school children, the adult men began whispering before Phil had even finished speaking, locking in their partners.

Nobody looked in Hannah's direction even though there was an odd number of them. Instead, Mike attached himself to Lucas and Aaron as Geist partnered up with Phil. Harper and Jason were already moving off to their chosen starting point. That left just her sitting on the mats where they had gathered.

She simply slotted herself in at an empty machine between the other groups.

Time melted away easily as she focused on testing her body. Working slowly at a decent resistance, she was nearly able to keep pace with her normal routine without issue. It just felt wrong not to have Dom talking her ear off as they sweated. Felt wrong to be dead silent as Harper's men challenged or encouraged one another.

After weights, they moved on to sparring. They rotated through some pre-existing order, again without calling Hannah over. She went through the exercises for her side, watching each bout. Learning how they moved, how well they knew one another's tricks and counters. It was like watching a tournament of chess masters who had faced each other countless times. Yet Harper beat them all. Geist came a close second, with Jason not far in third. The nameless man actually had to work to hold off the latter. The match had been too close for anyone to call, though a few handshakes were made. Some pockets would be lighter later that day.

And after the round of sparring, Harper's voice filled the gym. "Grab your kits, we're going for a walk," he practically sang.

The entire group headed to the armoury. Despite having worked off some energy, or perhaps because they'd had the chance to dig into that energy and bring it to the surface, their teasing and talking didn't abate. Their voices were beginning to grate on Hannah's ears. All she could do was grit her teeth and hope a slog through rough terrain with enough weight on their backs would finally shut them up.

When she got to her locker in the armoury, Harper already had it standing open and waiting for her. Her armour, which she had brought back last night before attempting to sleep, looked very different today. Though it was still buckled inward slightly at each place the plating had been breached, the wounds were now scarred with black patches.

As she stood staring at it, Lucas looked over. "I know it's far from perfect, but it was what I had time for. I'll get it improved tonight so it's more functional. Mostly, it's just cosmetic right now. Shouldn't poke anywhere," he explained.

There was a beat of silence where she simply stared at the chestplate. The thank you froze in her throat, tasting like glass. Managing a tight nod, she began pulling the new undersuit on.

Seeming satisfied by that, Lucas and the others continued collecting their own armour and shouldering their packs. Every single one of them used efficient motions, managing to stay out of the way of the others as they moved through the room, collecting whatever ammunition they may have needed.

And Hannah opened the cannibalized UNSC pack sitting in the bottom of her unlabelled locker, blinking in surprise. MREs, a foil blanket folded into a tiny square, assault rifle magazines and more. Everything she might need for an extended outing. Looking around when she felt a pair of eyes on the back of her head, Lucas offered a lazy salute.

Right. Her dossier. He knew everything there was to know about her. Harper knew. Hell, they probably all did.

They all trooped out of the base, Hannah yet again bringing up the rear. Weight settled across her shoulders and pressed her into the ground. But her body felt good. Best it had since… before. Being properly sealed into her armour and trekking with others felt good. Even if they were definitely the wrong people to walk with.

Harper led them over the hill and onto a beaten path made by many pairs of boots. Or maybe just seven pairs that had come this way multiple times. There were rocks and roots waiting to trip and twist ankles as they wound through coniferous trees. They climbed up and down slopes, her calves protesting as the day wore on. And sun filtered down through breaks in the canopy, beating on their heads and throwing harsh glares off into the distance.

Whenever the ground evened out enough, the team broke into a steady jog. It took an hour to leave the trees behind. After that, they had a long, gradual climb up what turned out to be a winding track up the wall of a valley. The going was challenging enough that everyone shut up and focused on their next step.

Hannah's lungs began to burn with the exertion, but she doggedly maintained her pace. The distance between her and the helmet she recognized as Crosshair's—Mike's—never lengthened. At least she could say that much. She welcomed the discomfort, the way her breathing turned harsh in her ears and her legs turned soft. Her eyes were fixed on the top of this switchback. And when she reached it, she looked ahead to the next.

Eventually, she hauled herself up and over the brow of the rise. Before them, steadily rising hills stretched away until they swallowed the horizon. And back the way they had come, a dark green, fuzzy carpet broken here and there by stretches of open ground. A dot of grey was the only evidence of the base, barely more than a rock formation bursting like a tooth from the valley floor.

No wonder the Innies felt so comfortable here. There were only two ways into the valley from any direction without roads. By foot or by Pelican. And either way, someone had to know it was there to begin with.

It made her wonder who the hell had even picked this place. How they had found it in the first place.

The others took seats on the scrubby grass, pulling helmets off and digging in packs for bottles of water.

"Quite the view, yeah?" asked Phil. No, if the bird painted across his chest was anything to go by, his locker had been the one with Falcon printed in block letters.

She jumped, startled by how conversationally he addressed her. It was the sort of thing she would have expected Theresa to say after such a long walk.

"Nice going." Aaron—Firefly—elbowed the team second sharply before tearing open a food packet.

Jason laughed. "Are you of all people commenting on someone else's insensitivity? Now that's a first."

The redhead shot him a wounded look. Then lobbed a square of brown something at him.

Surprise coloured Shaw's face for a heartbeat before he growled. "Careful you don't start something you can't handle. Didn't I already stomp you into the floor in the gym?"

"I'm terrified." Firefly rolled his eyes.

Hannah found a patch of level ground off to the side and sat heavily, facing away from the team. Part of her wanted to shout at them, to rage and growl until they finally shut up for more than ten minutes. Part of her, a bigger one, smothered the desire, pressing it down deep into the cold, blank white expanse that had taken root in her heart. All of the warmth had burned out of her, dead and glassed over in a storm of plasma.

She sipped on some water, feeding herself on some impulse barely above instinct. Trained habits, instilled by about a dozen Drill Sergeants and an intimidating CO over her career. A career that was as good as over now.

Harper packed away the empty wrappers and got back to his feet. "All right, mates, while we still have some daylight." He sauntered back down the first switchback.

The way back down was much easier than the climb had been. Hannah's legs were steadier after their rest and spare lunch, but that just meant that they shook with the steep decline instead of dumping her gracelessly down the long fall. Well, at least she'd have several people to break her fall.

At the bottom of the valley, Falcon took over the lead and Harper dropped back to walk with Firefly and Lucas. Their heads close together, all three gestured broadly and excitedly every so often. Just as often, Geist or Crosshair shook their heads with some mixture of fondness and disapproval.

It took Hannah a good fifteen minutes before she realized, as their voices rose emphatically, that they were brainstorming some kind of death trap that had no right in being built. Another ten minutes after that, Falcon looked over his shoulder and very calmly said, "Absolutely not. I am going to send Hunter back there to split you three up if you don't stop."

All three complained long and hard that it was the least effective punishment Falcon could have come up with. In response, their navigator veered off at the nearest fork in the path, taking them into dense brush that snapped back the second one of them shoved their way through.

Everyone quieted down to keep their eyes on the environmental hazards coming from every direction.

Hannah gave up trying to estimate how much farther they might hike. She concentrated on the next step and avoiding the branches whipping around at head height as the rest of the group released them on the way past.

It felt like hours had passed since they had plunged back into the trees when Falcon finally stepped out into the open. The path was long behind them, but there, at the top of the next hill, was the base.

And this side of it was incredibly familiar to Hannah.

She said nothing as they took their sweet time wandering up the incline, though some distant and half-remembered part of her sagged with relief. Her feet ached. Her side hurt. And her hands throbbed, dangling limply at her sides, bare their entire outing, made only worse by the weight crushing down on her shoulders.

But mostly it felt good. She deserved every single ounce of pain for waking up alive that morning.

One by one, the silent figures in black armour with tiny little splashes of colour marched past a black, glasslike rock shoved up out of the ground, freshly scarred. Their heads turned curiously as they noticed the marks carved into its surface. None of them looked back.

Falcon called a halt after they reached the main entrance. They spread out into a loose circle and moved through the succession of stretches again. Hannah followed as best as she could, feeling much more out of shape now than she had in the gym. She still had her strength, but the week she'd spent healing had sapped her energy down to the reserves.

Even if she wanted nothing more than to hop on the first outbound Pelican, she would never have the juice to get to the man who had tried to brush her friends under the rug.

So she was stuck here, planning and recovering. Well, she could be patient for Orange. She owed them that much.

Days slipped by, blurring in quick succession. Filled with blisters and stiff muscles and more trekking across the face of Byzantium. More nightmares. Just as much rabid chatter from the group she tagged along with, but maintained her distance from. Like that first day they had hiked, she never slowed her pace, nor did she speed it up. She always remained a dozen strides behind. Never raised her voice.

But all the while, she sharpened the ice in the pit of her stomach. Honed it to a fine point. Tested the wall of it that separated off a small part of her mind.

With each day, she sank deeper into herself, opening herself to the grief and loss a little more. Feeling the bleak wintry wind blow across her face against the baking heat of a base that housed Harper's Fireteam Phoenix.

They never pushed her to properly join them. Never asked her to fall into the file as they tramped up and down the hills or camped in the dense forests. But every so often, Mike or Aaron or Lucas offered her a comment. Sometimes Phil asked her a question.

But mostly, she just did her best to keep her distance from them all. Tried not to look too long in Shaw's direction.

Lucas, true to his word, tinkered with her armour until it could withstand a firefight again. He offered a paint job, but she declined with a curt shake of her head. She liked the bare metal that filled in the gaping holes left by Covvie claws. It was the only reminder she could bare to the world that she still carried the weight of four souls on her shoulders.

She still didn't sleep soundly at night. That was only painfully obvious the two nights they had spent outside, her jerking awake at the quietest breath of wind sighing through the tall pines. At least she seemed to be in the right company, Harper's men regularly blinked awake when she shifted in vain attempts to get comfortable.

Just shy of three weeks after being released from the infirmary, Hannah sat in the hall outside the break room. In the end, only three of her nails had fallen out, and the new growth sometimes itched. She was examining their progress when a throat cleared loudly.

Harper leaned on the door frame, watching her intently.

Meeting his gaze dispassionately, she got the point across. No. She wasn't going to talk. Wasn't going to ask what he wanted.

His mildly interested expression didn't change as he took in her reaction. "Well, Hannah. Been long enough, hasn't it? We all saw you pushing yourself on the treadmill this morning. Back in top form, I'd say."

Yeah. Her side didn't bother her anymore. Her legs didn't turn to jelly when they laboured up the valley wall anymore. This was as good as it was going to get.

"I hear Tantalus is nice this time of year." He tapped the hilt of his knife meaningfully.