( GUYS GUYS GUYS. I FOUND THE PEOPLE I WILL LOVE FOREVER.

These talented artists all had lovely visions of Wash in various awful Christmas sweaters. Take a look at their art, and give them some love too!

theartisthostage[dot]tumblr[dot]com/post/14829132389/uh-stells-asked-for-a-grumpy-wash-in-a-sweater

-By Niriall

asksigma[dot]tumblr[dot]com/post/14845154034

-By MissZ (with her own entertaining dialogue)

thatgirl-lostintherain[dot]tumblr[dot]com/post/14846434576/this-is-for-eleven-its-agent-washington-in-a

-By thatgirl-lostintherain

ask-agent-eleven[dot]tumblr[dot]com/post/14977601249/submitted-by

-By crazyfool-whydoyoualwaysjump

Seriously, guys. Go look. I was squeeing. )

Oh… oh my God.

"Wash!" I yelled, attempting to kick Meta away from me. My boot collided forcefully with his armor, but he seemed impervious to pain. "Wash!"

"What is it? I—" His voice faltered as he entered the clearing and spotted Meta. "You!"

Meta stood up to face Wash. I tried to push him away from me, but his foot remained forcefully on my body, rendering me immobile. I was trapped; I couldn't overcome his beastly strength.

"What the—how the hell are you alive?" Wash spat, holding his gun up to Meta's head.

The white soldier growled, unsheathing his brute shot and fingering it.

"Now, now, Meta, let's not get hasty," a dark voice said. Its grinding tone came from the Freelancer's helmet, and my body jolted in shock. Meta didn't have the ability to speak...? "We don't want our guest to be killed before we carry out our plan, do we?"

Meta growled his consent but still didn't put away his weapon. Wash and I were both staring at the soldier in shock.

Meta had an AI.

And I knew exactly which one it was.

"All right," the voice continued from Meta's helmet. "Let's get down to business, you fools."

"What the…" I gasped. "How many damn times do you have to be killed? The EMP—the explosion—has that not been enough?"

O'Malley chuckled. "And look what we have here," he said. Meta looked down at me. "A tagalong. How cute."

"Let me go, you son of a bitch!" I yelled, squirming fruitlessly under Meta's boot.

"What, upset that you can't seem to hold your own when I'm around?" the AI asked, jeering. "Bitter that this is the second time I've overpowered you? Get used to it, babe."

Wash snarled in response and cocked his gun. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't blast your host's brain out right now."

"Oh, please, Wash," O'Malley replied lazily. Meta grunted in what could have been laughter. "You won't kill Meta. Not when he has everything you want."

Wash was silent, but didn't move his gun from Meta's face.

"Are you really forcing me to start making threats already?" O'Malley asked. "We weren't scheduled to start that for another seven minutes. Oh, well. No reason the fun can't start early."

Again, Wash said nothing and did not move.

O'Malley sighed in mock annoyance. "All right. Meta, I know what our original plans were, but little—what was his nickname for her? Oh, right—Ells here decided to tag along. We weren't expecting that. So… I have a new idea." He was silent for a moment, transmitting whatever idea he had into Meta's mind. The Freelancer emitted a guttural chortle. "You know what to do."

Meta looked down at me again, rolling me over so that he had full reign of my torso. The white soldier placed a boot on my ribs, pressing down just hard enough for it to hurt. I gasped as the right side of my ribcage began searing in pain.

Wash's eyes widened. "Stop it!" His hands shook on the gun he was holding.

"Are you going to shoot, Wash? When you have none of the answers and everything to lose?" Meta pressed more of his weight on me, and I cried out in pain. "Shoot, and your mission fails. You collect no AIs. I disappear. So… enough games. Drop your gun and I'll stop breaking dear Eleven's ribs."

Wash still didn't move, and O'Malley growled in frustration. "Hmm…" he said venomously. "I wonder what happens to a fragile human if the ribcage splinters twice?"

With that, Meta gave the right side of my ribcage a swift kick. I screamed as the pain shot through my torso as if a thousand knives cut into my flesh.

"Leave her alone!" Wash yelled, dropping his gun instantly. "There, are you happy? I'm unarmed!"

Meta had brought his leg back to kick me again, but O'Malley stopped him.

"That's enough for now," he said softly. "We'll dispose of her at the opportune moment. Have a little fun. But not yet."

Meta hoisted me up by the chain on my handcuffs and tossed me casually to the side so I was no longer blocking the path between him and Wash.

"I knew this was how it would work," O'Malley said smugly as I groaned, sitting up weakly against a tree. The right side of my rib cage was throbbing painfully. I prayed nothing had broken again. Wash gazed at me worriedly before turning his attention back to O'Malley and his host. "You can't afford to go back empty-handed, Wash. You need the AIs. Otherwise, you'll just go right back to jail. If you don't collect them, then you lose everything… again. You lose the chance to make amends… in more ways than one."

"H—how do you know this?" Wash sputtered. "How is this possible?"

"Do you really think we're that stupid in here?" O'Malley continued. "Wash, I'm offended."

"Well, considering—wait," Wash stopped mid-sentence. "…What do you mean, 'we'?"

"Oh, I'm not alone," O'Malley laughed. "Honestly, Meta here has been doing a much better job at collecting than you have, Daveyboy. Again."

Wash was silent. I stared confusedly at O'Malley, who chuckled evilly again.

"Why don't you say hello to an old friend of yours, Wash?" he sniggered. "He's been dying to see you. Really. He's been a bit… self-destructive, to say the least."

"You… you can't be serious!" Wash gasped.

Another voice emanated from Meta's helmet.

"Hello, David," it said shyly.

A mixture of horror and fury washed over me, and I tried scrambling frantically farther away from Meta. My bruised ribs sent sharp stabs of pain through my body, forcing me to stop. It couldn't be. It wasn't possible.

"E—Epsilon!" Wash gasped, staggering away a few steps. "You—you—"

"Yes, David, it's me," Epsilon replied. "I am no longer in the storage unit."

"Epsi-baby here is the reason we found out all about you, Wash," O'Malley laughed, delighting in our shock. "He knows you so well."

"Omega, Epsilon is not the only reason we were able to predict Agent Washington's movements," another voice cut in, this one calm and smooth. "Through recollections of tracked human behavioral patterns—"

"Oh, shut up, Delta!" O'Malley growled. "Stop ruining the moment!"

"Don't forget about me!" An excited voice piped in. "I'm the one who actually thought of our plan! I was the one who found all the pretty electricity and stuff!"

"Sigma, I'm the one running this show!" O'Malley snarled. "If you don't shut your trap right now, I'm going to scramble your code so badly you won't be able to form any more of your creative little plans ever again!"

At this, Meta tensed and growled loudly, bunching his hands into fists.

"Looks like Maine doesn't like you teasing me," Sigma giggled.

"You're only his favorite because you were his before," O'Malley muttered. "Calm down, you overgrown yeti. I'm not going to do anything to precious little Sigma."

Meta relaxed a bit, but his hands stayed curled into tight fists and he let out a protective rumble.

"This is impossible…" Wash said faintly. "You're supposed to be dead. All of you."

"David, when are you going to learn?" O'Malley grinned. "Meta here has been pushed off a building, sniped in the chest, shot in the throat, hit by an 18-wheeler, and flung over a bridge. Did you honestly think that falling over the side of a cliff would do it for him?"

"Fine!" Wash said frantically. "How about you then? And the other AIs? How is that possible? I set off the EMP myself!"

"Oh, Wash… you really do have a lot of maturing to do," O'Malley laughed. "You're so naïve. That failsafe protocol the Director instigated wasn't real. The Director only put the EMP in there because he was forced to. Having it was the law. But… as we all know, he didn't quite care about the rules, did he? He planted a fake EMP in the facility so that, if someone turned it on, it would simulate the effects of an EMP but not actually cause any harm. We were temporarily disabled, but, with time, we recovered and came back. Don't act so surprised, Wash. The Director would never be willing to destroy his work. He just skirted around the rules again. We were at the UNSC ball, remember? Or is your tiny human brain too stupid to comprehend that it was us?"

"Shut up!" Wash snapped. "You didn't show yourselves individually at that formal!"

"Our coding works differently inside an earpiece instead of armor. We had to act as a single entity."

"Okay, okay…" Wash said nervously. "So how the hell did you make it here?"

"We've been with Maine for a long time!" Sigma said lovingly with an adoring sigh. "He's been collecting and taking care of us ever since you thought he died!"

"You were at the formal to kill Hale," Wash interrupted. "But that's not your goal anymore…?"

"No. We no longer care about that idiot of a man," O'Malley cut in before Sigma could say anything. "We have bigger and better plans now. We're only on the first part of a multi-step plan now."

"What? What is it?" Wash demanded roughly. He was trying to find a loophole. Anything. A way to get the AIs from Meta.

O'Malley said nothing, basking in Wash's discomfort. He was enjoying dangling the information in front of the Freelancer.

"Tell me what you want!" Wash spat angrily.

O'Malley laughed hysterically, the echo of his voice resounding through the forest.

"You."