Author's Note: So. I've reposted an updated version of Ch. 42 that's mostly as you remembered it (if you had a chance to read it), but with a reworked ending. I'd go take a look at that first before reading this chapter since it has changed.

Also, I feel reasonably sure that I've been able to straighten out the story now since it went a little awry last chapter, so I decided to go ahead and post this up even though the fic itself isn't totally done yet. Still got another chapter or two to get through, but now that things are back on track how I'd like them to be, here goes.

Hope you enjoy!

Chapter Forty-Three: Crossroads

As I stood there numbly looking out at the three factions still fighting each other - only momentarily distracted by the large detonation behind us on the beach - I suddenly remembered an old scene from childhood. I'd been fifteen at the time, and we were at our home on Mars: me, my mom, my brother Travis, and my little sister Allie. It was summertime between my sophomore and junior year of high school, and I was bummed because my older brother Mark, nineteen then, and my older sister Jenna, twenty-one, were both gone from home. Mark had left to go back to college to take summer courses so he could graduate early and jump in on the War; Jenna was already a Marine and had been gone for about a year on deployment.

That meant that what I was left with for companionship were my friends, and when I was around the house - which was most of the time - my two younger siblings. I'd always gotten along more with Mark and Jenna, especially since as a young teen they'd been the ones to show me the ropes of navigating some of the changes and challenges I'd face in the coming years - Jenna for all the girl stuff, Mark for warning me about the ulterior motive of older boys and to offer his help as a bodyguard/face-puncher in case of need. But this summer I was left with Travis and Allie, and, being the middle child, I realized I probably still had a lot in common with them, too. I was neither among the oldest nor the youngest of the Cooper clan, so I tried my best to adapt to both.

The first few days went badly. My little sister Allie was only eleven and hardly interested in the same things I was at the time, while Travis was a twelve-year-old boy. They might as well have been aliens to me at that point. I was at the age where I was mostly wrapped up in myself and my own dramas, real or imagined, and scoffed at the thought of having to spend another minute with my annoying little siblings, who still acted like the children they were. I wished Mark or even Jenna would come back to whisk me away on their grown-up adventures and assure me it was all a bad dream.

What happened instead was one morning, our mother left early for work and crept into my bedroom. I felt her shake me awake and say, "Natalie, something's come up. I won't be home tonight. Take care of Travis and Allison while I'm gone. I've left some money on the counter for you to order food if what's in the fridge is too hard for you to make. And be sure all three of you take a shower and get to bed on time tonight. No staying up late. And nothing riotous while I'm away, okay? I mean it."

I didn't know why she thought I wouldn't disobey her; I'd never been much of a crazy kid up to that point, but I was a teenager now and defying authority was in. I could've easily blown the whole thing off and let my siblings eat what they wanted, do what they wanted, and stay up as late as they wanted while our mom was gone. But in the past, it'd always been the older kids who'd been given the responsibility of handling us. That day, because Mark and Jenna were gone, it was me. That was huge to me, having always been the middle kid who fit in everywhere and nowhere at the same time. This time, I was given the important task to do. For once, I was the oldest kid in the house, and so the weight of what she said to me stuck.

That day I did everything I could to make sure I was the best substitute parent my younger siblings could have. I took care of them and spent time with them without resenting it because I knew I was doing something good, something worthy. I was watching out for them, not just being a mismatched playmate. I made sure they had fun, food, got clean, and got to bed, just as I'd been told.

By the time they went to sleep that night, I was exhausted, but I felt good about the day. After making sure Allison was in her room with the lights out, I moved on to Travis's and flipped the switch.

"Natalie?" he said to me in the dark as I turned to go.

"Yeah, little bro?"

"Thanks, sis. For everything you did today. I had a good time."

I smiled a little. "I did, too."

"I love you. You're my favorite sister."

I heard the change in his breathing then as he drifted off to sleep. In the meantime, I stood there in the doorway a moment longer, grinning wide to myself and thinking now that it wasn't actually so bad that everyone else was out of the house.

Back in the present, I knew now that my little brother Travis was gone forever. It was a hard reality to live with - not something I was even sure I could stomach after having lost so much already. But I also knew that I didn't have the luxury of dropping to my knees and crying, like I wanted to. I wanted the rest of the world to disappear, to leave me alone in my grief, but life didn't work that way. Even with yet another huge loss I'd just sustained, I still had my job to do - and no one else to do it for me if I faltered. For better or for worse, the duty was mine, just like the responsibility for the decisions I made.

When I opened the COM channel to the regiment, my voice was rough. That much I couldn't seem to help. "Marines, that was an entire platoon of your fellows who just went up to protect Earth. Let's make sure their sacrifice wasn't in vain. Keep at it and let's hold the line until our air support can reach us. Cooper out."

The immediate area was already soaked in blood, alien and human, and dozens of bodies lay all over the tan dirt - Marines, ex-Covenant, and torn up pieces of metal from the Prometheans. It looked like something between a slaughterhouse and a junkyard, a scene as morbid as what I felt inside. But we pushed on, fighting back since we had no other choice if we wanted to make it out alive and remove the threat to Khan.

"Move it, Marines! Get after 'em!"

Meanwhile I practiced what I preached, firing off bursts from my DMR at the Prometheans and Storm surrounding us. Beside me, Sergeant Lynch did a decent job at impersonating the late Porter, keeping himself close in case of need, and providing good suppressive fire with the SAW. As both factions of the enemy kept advancing, however, we were forced to move back in turn. Soon, I knew there'd be nowhere else for us to retreat to. We needed something more to stem the tide, or we'd be cooked.

I rolled quickly to the side then as a hail of needler rounds flew my way, thankfully colliding and exploding against the dirt-sand of the ridge rather than against my armor plates - or worse, tearing into my skin. The area was so congested now with troops on all sides that I nearly rolled right into the way of an oncoming Crawler, missing it by just a few feet. From the position on my back, I quickly dropped my DMR onto my torso armor and pulled out my sidearm, as fast as I possibly could, and shot the doggie robot point-blank with the whole clip. All eight rounds from the M6H hit on target, making the sentient AI-bot spark at each point of entry till the thing was destroyed. I laid there a split-second longer, taking in a couple of rapid breaths before I reasserted to myself that I was fine and alive, and got back to my feet.

Lynch was on my flank again in seconds, looking worried. "Ma'am? You all right?"

"Yeah, Sergeant," I replied, breathing hard. "No problems. You?"

"Good to go, ma'am. It'd be nice if there were less of these bastards to go through, though."

"Roger that. Just keep on it."

"Understood, Colonel."

If ever we could have used help from our flyboys up above, it was now. By some miracle - maybe the cosmos finally throwing us a bone - Major Collins was the one who hailed me next.

"Colonel, we've got 'em! Phantoms are down and the skies are clear. You still need that support?"

"Do we ever!" I shouted in response. "Pull a squadron from Harris's sector and send them out, now, Major! I'm tagging all friendly locations for your bombing run. Blow anything that's outside those bounds to hell!"

"Acknowledged, Colonel! We're on our way!"

The response time wasn't instantaneous, but we didn't have to wait much longer, either. In under two minutes, the air wing commander was radioing me again - this time with some of the most encouraging words I'd heard in hours.

"Colonel, this is Flight Leader. Coming in hot in five! I repeat, coming in hot in five! Keep your heads down!"

I nodded to myself and quickly relayed the info. "Marines of the 213th and 904th, we've got our wings coming in shortly to help us out! Watch it!"

It seemed like it was a lot less than five minutes when the sound of a squadron of Broadswords swooped in. It was a sound that had been my saving grace more than once in my career, and I wholeheartedly welcomed it.

The massive detonations that dotted the nearby lines then were truly a spectacle to witness. One minute there were tons of ex-Covies and Prometheans duking it out to get the "privilege" of killing us all, the next there was nothing but black craters and smoke, alien parts and sparking hunks of metal left in the wake. Contrary to what Warfield had predicted, removing the 904th Infantry from the middle had opened up a whole enemy killing field that our air support could use to its advantage, without fear of hitting our own. And the plan worked wonderfully.

"Woo!" a Marine beside me whooped. "Take that you fuckers! That's what I'm talking about!"

In the moment and despite the quake of the ground beneath my boots, I found myself smiling a little, too. The pain of Porter's death seemed vindicated now, and though it wasn't dampened in the least, I felt like he'd truly given up his life for us. Not just for me, but for all his brothers- and sisters-in-arms. For this moment.

And while my younger brother's death was still raw in the extreme, I could feel the weight of his sacrifice, too - and that of the rest of his team.

When the Broadswords finally veered off from their flight path, bombing run complete, I immediately opened up a channel and said, "Nice work, air wings! 52nd Regiment, now the rest is up to us! Harris, push your battalion forward and let's condense this fight! Take them on from both sides! Brewer and Mullen, keep up the pressure and let's finish them off!"

With the combined forces of my three battalions, the air wing, the two support companies of rebels, and the Mantis and tankers and 'Hogs, I knew now that we had this in the bag. It was an entirely different scenario than the one we'd been facing even ten minutes ago, but oftentimes the tide of battle moved just that fast. We'd lost so much, given up so many lives to get here, but now, finally, things were going our way. The second Battle for Qamar was coming to a close - and soon, with the portals gone, there'd be no chance for a third.

A good outcome for such a shitty day - and a more than harrowing deployment.

But although for the great majority of my Marines, the people of Earth, and the people of Khan, we seemed to have done well, I knew it would take me a long time to escape the weight and pain of my decisions in the field today. Decisions that had cost the lives of not only three dozen of my men, but also my little brother. It was something I'd never forget...and to be honest, even though I knew I'd done the right thing, I didn't know if it was a choice I could live with.

Things calmed down a lot quicker than I would have thought, and just an hour later the 52nd Regiment and I were in mop-up mode. I walked around the battlefield with my security detail in tow, stopping occasionally to finish off the badly wounded Storm troop or Promethean robot here and there, but mostly just taking it all in.

The size and scale of this fight was like nothing I'd ever dealt with before - at least not in my position as supreme ground commander. The battle in Africa at the end of the War had been even larger, but I hadn't been the one at the helm then. This was different, in so many ways. All of this was because of me - a reflection of my choices. And now, I'd have to learn to cope with it.

When we were reasonably sure there was no danger of being shot at by anything anymore, I pulled off my helmet to get the unadulterated experience. I wanted to remember this moment, to fix it in my mind. I wanted to bear its full weight, so I knew how to temper my decisions in the future - and be cognizant how many lives it might cost if I didn't do something right.

I was startled out of my thoughts then as I looked at the remains of the carnage all around me by a familiar voice.

"Colonel?"

I turned around to see Lieutenant Caleb Lloyd standing there, surveying the area himself. I remained silent and folded my arms across my chest, waiting for him to go on.

"I just wanted to give you my condolences for the loss of your brother, ma'am. I'm so sorry."

I nodded at first, but had to swallow down hard on my emotions before I could reply. "Thank you, Cal. It's harder knowing I gave the order myself."

"There was no other choice, ma'am."

At that I snorted. "But I still feel like I killed him. No different than if I'd pulled the trigger."

"That's not true," he said firmly. "You saved Earth - and this planet."

"Yeah. I'll be sure to tell that to the forty families who have to live with that. And the tens of others who've now lost their loved ones to the fighting here." I slowly shook my head as I walked away. "As someone who counts myself among them, I'll tell you now that it's still a jagged fucking pill to swallow."

A short while later I was able to meet up with Matt as well. It was good knowing that at least he and the spook had gotten through the combat unharmed - Willis would be happy about his brother, and I was glad I didn't lose yet another good friend. Khan had taken so much from me in such a short span of time that I just couldn't handle one more tragedy. I wanted off this planet now, for good, and I wanted to go home and be away from all this for as long as I could.

I also received a message from Captain Rhodes while I helped get the battalions and armor organized for the return to our staging camp once we were all done. He and the rebs' stealth ship had done it. The Storm ship was finally gone from orbit.

"We're a little beat up - Laraza's boat more than us - but we accomplished the mission, as did you. You know what that means now, Colonel."

"We're going home?"

"We're going home," he confirmed. "Pack your bags and make sure you get everything groundside squared away. It'll take us a few days to get everything all wrapped up, but after that, it's full sails back to Earth. You did a wonderful job, Cooper. I'm proud of you."

"Thank you, sir," I replied, trying to bury the emotion in my voice. "It means a lot. And I uh...I wanted to tell you my brother Travis died today. In the fighting, when we had to blow the Earth portal."

"Shit. I'm very sorry to hear that."

"Thirty-nine other Marines were killed as well, sir. It was my call."

I heard the Navy captain release a heavy sigh. "It's the burden that comes with command, Colonel. I know you've had to make choices like this before, but the higher up the chain you go, the higher the number of dead when you have to decide."

"I know, sir. I just...it doesn't make it feel like that much of a victory."

"Well, it is one. Plain and simple. Not only that, but you did something extraordinary out there today, Cooper. You saved not one planet, but two. That's not anything that should be made light of, or ignored."

I gave a humorless chuckle. It was the best I could muster in the moment. "I'll let you know when I start to believe that, sir."

The pack-up process hadn't been underway long when I started to feel a nagging need to go down to the beach to see the wreckage. All at once, the realization that I'd never get to see my brother again hit me with the force of ten tons of bricks, and I wanted to be able to at least say goodbye in some way before we left Qamar forever. As the idea started to take root and grow in my mind, I radioed my XO for coverage.

"Major Brewer, it's Lieutenant Colonel Cooper," I said.

"Ma'am?" came the immediate response.

"I'm going to take a few minutes to head down to the beach. Think you can handle things topside while I'm gone?"

"Yes, ma'am. I've got it."

"Good, and thanks. Cooper out."

I turned to Porter's squad then - now Sergeant Lynch's - and said, "Gear up, Marines, and let's move. We're heading for where the tunnel used to be."

I knew as we walked that they probably thought I was crazy. And given all that I'd had to endure, in the past and present, frankly, I was surprised I wasn't. But this was my last chance to visit the place where Travis had died, and I was going to take it.

It was hard to contain my emotions when we finally got down to the beach. I wiped at my clouding eyes more than once with the collar of my T-shirt, since the rest of my uniform was even dirtier with blood, sweat, and dirt, but I didn't let the tears fall. Not in front of my Marines - and not when they, too, had lost someone close to them today. Yet I trudged on, hoping that this would give me some form of closure, and maybe a tiny smidgen of solace.

What I found instead was an enormous pile of blown-up, blackened rocks up ahead once we were getting close. It looked like half the cliff face had collapsed from the detonation inside, and now the rubble fanned out across the whole strip of sand in front of it, stopping at the lapping waves. It was a terrible amount of destruction for a terrible loss of life, but also a place where the actions of a relative few had brought salvation to countless others.

And though my brother had done a very courageous thing, I felt like the scene had punched me in the gut.

I wanted to let loose then and sob. I didn't care who was watching. Travis was gone, and he'd ceased to be right here, in this space. I had a right to grieve, even if I'd been the cause of it. But the tears wouldn't come.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," Sergeant Lynch said beside me. "There's nothing left."

"Not even bodies to recover," I murmured.

"No, ma'am. We should head back up top."

"Wait."

Past the roaring of the ocean nearby, I thought I could hear something. A faint sound that was out of place here. I'd dismissed it at first as my imagination, but it persisted, willing me forward to go investigate. I took several steps in its direction, then turned back to the sergeant with a frown.

"Lynch, you hear that?"

"Nothing, Colonel. Why? What is it?"

"I'm not sure. Keep your guns up."

I raised my DMR myself, wondering what the hell was going on. A million thoughts went through my head in a second: maybe the explosion hadn't completely destroyed the portal. Maybe a few of the ex-Covies had infiltrated our lines during the fight and made it down here. Maybe the Prometheans had teleported in from the other side -

And then I heard the noise again, closer this time. More distinctive.

It was coughing.

"Holy shit!" I cried.

I slung my rifle over my back and ran towards the sound then, hoping against hope that someone - anyone - had survived the impossible. I climbed over the rocks, slipping more than once but never completely losing my footing on the loose debris, and started to dig. I pulled the smaller rocks off myself, then had the rest of my security detail come in to help with some of the bigger ones. Thanks to the detonation, none were too big for several Marines to move. In short order we had an opening, and I looked down inside to see a bloody and battered Marine, close to unconscious, coughing and groaning against the sand.

Travis.

"Travis!" I yelled out to him. "Oh my God, Trav...can you hear me?"

The figure down below lifted his head just a bit towards the sound of my voice and then lolled back. I took that as a nod and could hardly believe my good fortune. He looked badly injured, though, so I didn't thank my lucky stars just yet.

"Hang on, Travis!" I shouted instead. "I'll get help! We'll get you out of there!"

Turning back to my Marines, I ordered, "Clear the rubble, now! We've got a live one!"

It took several minutes of painstaking work, but soon, we had an opening large enough to pull him carefully through. With Lynch's help, I grabbed my little brother and pulled him out of the hole in the wreckage, and over onto the soft sand by the shore. There I could see he had a number of bad cuts and scrapes, along with a few bones that looked out of place. But he was alive, and breathing, and at least semi-conscious if not alert.

I placed my hand on his cheek as I crouched over him in the sand and grinned, all of the heavy pain of grief lifting in one single moment. "You made it, little brother. You made it. We'll go get Doc for you and you'll be just fine. I know it."