"Well…" the black haired woman sighed deeply, looking outside to notice the day starting to draw up, "That's where you came into play with a heck of a first impression." She grinned at him, a blend between sad and happy.
Tucker didn't say a word, only looking at her deep in thought. Well, that wasn't that surprising given the information he had just received.
Mac decided to give him a break and took a swig of water.
Since the days here were about thirty-six hours a day, they had more time during the night too. Which was how she was able to talk for about six hours or something and the morning was only just about to begin.
It was rare for Tucker not to react to a comment like she had brought to the table, but given their past they had since she met him after losing North she knew that part of him too. The contemplative side that started coming through more prominently recently, when Wash had been captured.
"That's…" Tucker started, obviously reordering his phrasing before starting anew, "That's a fucking heavy load you've been carrying around during the last few years. At least now I understand why you never fell for my jokes or flipped me off. And why it took you so long to open up again."
"Yeah," Mac sighed again, "I'm sorry for being so bad back then. And I always wanted to thank you for not giving up, for being the persistent asshole you've always been, and trying to get through to me. It's just… I wouldn't have known to thank you earlier without sounding crazy when you didn't know my background."
Tucker snorted, "Would have sounded pretty fucked up, yeah." He replied, "But I'm glad actually that I managed. Not to have you as a chick to bang but as a good friend. You know," at that, Tucker scratched the back of his head, "I sometimes need someone kicking me in the ass to see the important things again. And that's what I like about you." He smiled at her and Mac replied to the smile with the same one of hers.
"And I like the earnestness about you. I am glad you're so fucking honest with me, no matter what situation we are in. You're not trying to sugarcoat the situation but you tell it like it is." At that, Mac suddenly snorted loudly, "That with the kick is something I learned pretty fast." She explained with a chuckle, thinking of her rather unorthodox ways of waking him up in the morning and how a meeting on the roof of the base went down back then.
Luckily without anyone dead.
Mac was sitting on the roof of the base, needing some time for herself. Because she still was mourning Drew's death.
This aqua clad idiot kept hitting on her all the time. She remembered him calling himself Tucker.
"Hey babe, you gazing at the stars? You wanna gaze at my stars?" speak of the Devil, said person just slumped down beside her.
"Shut up." She muttered, looking straight ahead, only acknowledging the male by answering him.
"Wow, what's grinding your gears?" Tucker had his helmet off, a dark eyebrow arched, "You are worse than Church."
"I don't know who this Church guy is nor do I want to know." She snapped, looking over to him with a furious glance.
"In case you haven't noticed, asshole," she started, jabbing a finger into his armored chest, "I am not the slightest bit interested in you."
"That could be changed." The guy replied with a cocky grin, obviously pretty self-opinionated.
Suddenly, Ala felt all the anger deflate when another memory of Drew came up.
"No, that will never be changed." She then muttered sadly, curling up and looking over to the temple the archaeologists were working at.
This gave the male a pause, for once not making a bad joke and only looking at her as if he wanted to gauge her reaction.
Ala beat him to saying something in a low tone with sadness interlaced throughout it, "I lost my boyfriend about two weeks before I joined the group here. I saw him getting killed."
Tucker blinked at her. She could see his blue eyes fill up with surprise and understanding dawning on him.
"So that's why you've been rejecting me that much? Because usually, chicks can't withstand me." The grin was back on his lips, but Ala could see that he was concerned about her, and that this was more of a well-meant concern instead of trying to hit on her.
"Yeah… It still hurts too much." Ala replied, sighing deeply, "Don't get me wrong, Tucker. You're a nice guy. I like you. But more as a friend instead of something more. So I would prefer we could start from there, okay?"
"That can be done." This time a smile appeared on his lips, making the woman smile herself. That was until the grin reappeared again, "I'm going to make you want me sometime soon though."
Ala groaned with a smile, "You're a fucking idiot, you know that?"
Tucker laughed out loudly at that.
Back in reality, Tucker was sporting his best cocky grin he could muster.
"Glad I could be of help." He retorted, both of them bursting out laughing.
"But… Something's been bugging me since you mentioned it." Tucker then started looking at her sternly, not a bit of the previous mirth left in his eyes.
"What about the tattoo you got? You didn't say what it was when you told me about it earlier." he asked then, causing Mac's smile to derail a bit.
"Well, about that…" she started at length, before making up her mind. "I think it's better to show it to you." She ended, starting to unscrew her chest plate and taking it off before reaching back and pulling down the zipper of her undersuit.
"What are you doing?" Tucker asked, a smug grin on his lips.
"Don't worry, I'm not giving you a boob show." Mac retorted with a snort, giving him the finger and turning around so she was showing him her back. Tucker made a noise between a disappointed whine and an amused snort before he focused back to the task at hand.
After Mac had turned around, she pulled the mesh of her undersuit aside to reveal the tattoo written in between her shoulders in curvy writing and black ink.
Tucker read it out loud,
- to 26.09.2xxx Andrew
11.07.2xxx to 26.09.2xxx Sasha
"The birthday of this Andrew is shot." Tucker remarked.
The black haired woman knew that herself. The scars of the torn out arm had caused North's birthday to disappear. She was lucky that the rest still was okay.
"Yeah, I know." She sighed heavily. "Andrew is North by the way."
Tucker nodded.
"Figured that much." He muttered, again reading the tattoo before asking, "Wait a second, why do you have two boys name on your back?" it took a second for Mac again to put on the undersuit properly and grab her chest piece while turning around when it hit him.
"No way. No fucking way! You had a kid?!" his voice almost snapped in disbelief.
Mac pulled a face from his loud voice and shook her head, "No, I didn't."
"But the name…" Tucker began, stopping in the middle when he didn't know how to end the sentence without sounding like an idiot.
"I was approximately into the eleventh week of my pregnancy when I lost him. I guess it was the stress of Drew's death." She explained, putting on the chest piece and screwing it in place before pulling out a picture of an ultrasonography she did the day North and Sasha died and gave it to Tucker.
"How did you know that it's a boy?" Tucker regarded the picture as if he wanted to find it out by himself before looking back up again, "Did North know?" Tucker looked at the picture again and saw something akin to a jelly baby on it.
"I just knew it would be a boy. Besides, Sasha is an unisex name in some parts of Europe." She explained, Tucker nodding along with that explanation to the choice of the name.
Ala continued, tapping a finger against her armor. "Why I knew it would have been a boy, I don't know, let's call it motherly instinct." Mac shrugged her shoulders, to which Tucker nodded, absolutely being able to understand this explanation for having had Junior himself.
"And about North knowing… No, he didn't. I learned it the day they died. I didn't have time to tell him since he left shortly after I returned home." Mac explained sadly, looking into the remnants of the fire.
Tucker threw her a curious glance at that, prompting her to continue. She drew a shuddering breath, "I had a pretty bad bronchitis about three months before North died. He went to a medic in the Chinese district to get something herbal for me to lessen the coughing and the fever. It helped pretty well, but it looked like some of the herbs nullified the effect of my contraception syringe I have to give myself every three months. I guess that's when it happened. So it was kinda unplanned, but when I knew, I knew I wanted to keep the baby and raise him."
"You even already had a name, hmm?"
Mac looked down at her hands with a sad smile, "Yeah… I actually did." She then answered sadly, sighing again.
It was quiet for a moment before Tucker again spoke up, "I… shit… I don't know what to say to that aside from me being damn sorry about what happened to you."
He gave her back the picture she placed in a hermetic storage compartment on the left side of her chest plate, closest to her heart.
"Have you… I mean…" Tucker started, again searching for the right words and obviously deciding to go straight for it, "Have you been at a doctor to get that checked out?"
The black haired woman knew that Tucker was talking about the miscarriage she had and the pain in her lower abdomen.
She shook her head, "I didn't have time. Not even two weeks after shit went down, I was on the same ship as you to be shipped to the digging site. When should I have been able to check it out with no medic around?" she asked with a flat smile.
"Fair point." Tucker replied. He sighed again. "Just do me a favor and get it checked over by one of the medics here soon, okay? Looking back over the years we spent together, I know that you often felt pain and I doubt that it's okay."
Tucker was pretty observant, something that Mac had noticed already years ago.
"I'm used to it." Mac waved him off, but her adopted brother only huffed in annoyance.
"Quit fucking around. I haven't said you should go when you're not used to it or when you feel like it. I said get it checked out since I don't want you breaking down in a fight." His frown disappeared, his face softening, "Just do me that favor, okay, sis?"
It was rare for them to call each other by nicknames like sis or brother. They really were like siblings. Not related by blood, but siblings nonetheless, and they sometimes even called each other that, although their icy blue eyes were the only thing they had in common. Although Tucker's eye color went more into an aqua shade just like his armor, while Mac's were icy blue like an ice cube or a clear bright sea.
Mac then sighed, "Okay, I will do it. Promise." She intended on keeping that promise, but she would do it when there wasn't the safety of a whole planet at stake.
This promise, however, seemed to calm Tucker since they both knew that Mac would stick to her word. If she promised something, she would stick to that.
It was quiet for some time before Tucker suddenly snorted, "I guess North's death was the reason why you went so hard on Wash in Valhalla when things calmed down a bit after all of that shit went down?"
Mac shortly blinked at him before starting to laugh out loud, "You mean me punching him? Yeah, that was because of that. I wanted to try out my left hook anyways, so it came quite in handy."
"I never heard the complete story though. I only joined in when Wash already was down and about to go K.O." Tucker remarked with a laugh, Mac snorting at that.
"Okay then…" she started, taking a deep breath, "You know that I lost my left arm during the fight against the Meta." It wasn't a question, but a statement.
"How could I forget that.." Tucker muttered, shuddering at the memory of how Mac had lost her arm in such a cruel way.
"Don't worry about it, Tucker. I'm fine. I'm okay, and you're okay." She offered, Tucker taking some moments to breathe deeply and then nod.
"Okay, back to the story. Wash often used to show up during my time when I was bound to the bed. I was out of it mostly, so I didn't really have the time to put two and two together. Besides, how high are the chances of meeting another one of the Freelancers after the project went down and the majority of them was killed?"
"Un-fucking-realistic." Tucker replied, and Mac nodded.
"Yepp." Popping the p for emphasis, "In any case. When I was feeling better, I walked up to him. By the time I still was adapting to my arm, I learned from Donut that this Wash indeed was the Washington from Freelancer that North had told me about. Nothing bad as it is." Mac explained.
"But he had something to do with the death of North. I suspect it's not because of Maine."
"You're quite sharp." She threw him an acknowledging grin to which Tucker beamed with joy and also blushed a bit at the praise.
"In any case. Some weeks after I was back on duty, I was talking with Wash outside, saying that I knew some of his Freelancer fellows, but didn't clarify which ones. I asked him what he did after the project went down." Mac explained, making a motion with her hand to illustrate her narration, "Wash then replied that he was responsible for collecting the dog tags, armor enhancements, and AIs of the fallen soldiers."
"Like with North and CT." Tucker concluded.
Mac nodded.
"Yes, exactly. I don't know how we got on this subject anymore, but he suddenly said, that he still remembered that he couldn't find North's dog tags back then. He had his armor enhancement, but never could find his dog tags since someone seemed to have taken them." The black haired woman explained, "You know that, no matter how shitty your Platoon is, you never take off your dog tags. Not when the war is on a stellar extension and not on a planetary one."
Tucker nodded at that. He often hated the Sim-Troopers, but in the end, he was a part of them and would never take off his dog tags showing that he was part of said troopers.
"Well, that was when I saw red and punched him right in the face. Thanks to his helmet in between, he only got a black eye and not a broken skull. I didn't really hold back in my anger." Mac chuckled at that, "When he recovered from his shock halfway, I tore North's dog tags off my neck and threw them in his face, saying something along the lines of 'If you want those fucking dog tags, then fucking have them!'"
Tucker laughed lowly, "That was when I joined you guys and saw you stomping away and Wash lying on the ground shortly before passing out. By the way, he had a middle-heavy concussion."
Mac joined in on his laugh, "Exactly. Later on, however, when I calmed down, Wash came to me and I apologized. He then explained the whole situation, giving me back the dog tags and saying that he wasn't doing that anymore." She exhaled deeply before adding, "He said that I should keep them, since they are better off with me and that he thought that they represented a piece of memory for me." She nodded along with Wash's statement back then, "That was when I told him my story I had with North, just as I told you before."
"That was why you became so close suddenly, huh?" Tucker stretched his legs which had obviously fallen asleep due to him sitting in the same position for hours.
"Yep." The black haired woman confirmed, before starting to grin mischievously as she suddenly noticed something, "Wait, have you been jealous about us being getting so close back then?"
"I haven't." Tucker muttered, turning his head away and crossing his arms in front of his chest.
This caused Mac to laugh about his clear as day reaction about absolutely-not-having-been-jealous-back-then. It wasn't really visible due to his dark complexion, but Mac just fucking knew that he was blushing furiously.
"So you've been whipped for quite a while then, huh?" the woman asked after she calmed down from her laughing fit.
This time, Tucker exhaled, "I… don't know. Back then I mostly would have loved to kill Wash because he was, and still is, such a fucking hard-ass. But back then, when you were recovering, I started seeing another side of him."
Tucker shrugged, somewhat lost, with his shoulders, "When he would shoot up shouting and crying from nightmares, all sweaty and anxious as fuck. Fuck, he even almost shot me once when he noticed me sitting beside him and trying to calm him down or wake him up." Tucker said the last part with an unamused laugh.
Mac smiled at that. "I can see that. He has gone through a lot, after all."
"Hmm." Tucker replied, staring into the fire and lost in his thoughts.
After another long while of talking, Tucker got up, saying that he would have to return for breakfast and that he would have to be there to train the Lieutenants.
Since they had been separated from Wash, Donut, and Sarge, Tucker had grown into a formidable soldier and leader. Mac was proud of him.
So after another empathic plea from Tucker for her to go to a medic soon, he left, saying that he would return in two days because he wanted to sleep tonight to take out Wash on their date tomorrow and he needed to be well rested for that.
At least, he didn't want to fall asleep during a blow job.
Mac snorted at that, wishing him good luck and that she wanted some updates soon as to how it went.
When Tucker was gone, he reactivated the tracker somewhere down the hill, close to another cave, and contacted Mac with a short text over his HUD that he was back online.
Mac herself got up after shooting him a text back that she was glad he made it back safe and sound. She went to go get some berries, nuts, and fresh water for herself.