(A/N) Hey all, sorry about the late update, FFN was being difficult. However, it is now time for our latest update in Phase One: Genesis, and we take a little step back from the action tonight, and explore a realm currently all but untapped so far in this series: the mystical realm of romance! I know, I know, a long leap from the blood-pounding brawl of the last chapter, but I know you guys are going to love this! And hell, I've been right each time I've said that so far!

Enjoy!


Chapter Eighty-Nine - Right Beside You

Agent Michigan

Written by TunelessLyric


"Why wait until tomorrow? Why wait another day? It means everything." - Right Now by Van Halen


Mich was restless. It had been a long day, one in a far-stretching line of many. She had been reading in the room she shared with Carolina in a vain attempt to ease some of her stress.

"I hate this waiting!" she yelled, throwing her book down angrily. She was instantly glad no one was there to witness the juvenile fit of rage. She sighed and put her head in her hands. If the mission looming over every Freelancer didn't happen soon, she would start a betting pool.

Well, okay, Mich herself wouldn't but York or Cal might. Everyone could put money on how long it would take for the… unsteadier agents to completely come unglued. After Alaska's meltdown not too far in the past and Penn's definitive defeat at the hands of Mich's roommate, it couldn't be too far off. Sometime, someone would just entirely snap from the constant pressure.

A quiet beep sounded through the room, dragging Mich halfway from her gloomy thoughts. She glanced at the data-pad sitting on Carolina's neatly made bed. That was one thing about all this waiting, everyone's quarters were immaculate – other than Georgia's and Ark's, which always looked as though a hurricane had swept through it. The data-pad proclaimed the time to be 2330 hours. Early yet by Freelancer standards.

She could feel the anticipation all around the Invention. It was nearly thick enough to suffocate under. It felt like a tropical storm captured in a jam jar, swirling and impossible to hold in. Like a confused jumble in such a fragile container.

There was a series of light raps at the door. Mich spared a second to look down at herself. She was wearing sweatpants and a beaten up blue t-shirt. "It's open," she called.

The door folded back and her breath caught at the sight of Cal in the entranceway. He gestured at her rumpled appearance.

"You, too?" he asked quietly, the phantom smile pulling at his lips.

Mich frowned until she realized he look like hell's half-mile himself. He wore a long sleeved grey shirt and ripped jeans. She shrugged. "Couldn't sleep, can't focus."

He nodded and leaned into the metal doorframe. "You want to take a walk?" he suggested. "Maybe getting rid of some nervous energy'll help."

She hopped off her bed and crossed the room in easy strides. "Let's go."

They fell into step shoulder to shoulder. Cal slowed his gait to accommodate Mich's shorter legs. He led the way through the ship confidently. It was almost as though this had all been part of a plan. Knowing him, it may well have been.

Mich felt something brush the back of her hand. She tensed and glanced down sharply. It was only Cal's hand as it swung at his side. She felt silly for being so jumpy and laughed a little.

He shot her a weird glance, a half confused-half exasperated expression on his face. "Are you going to make it?" he snarked.

"You – I was surprised when…" Mich trailed off, annoyed at how stupid it sounded. "Your hand scared me." She managed to marshal enough thought to accuse him.

"Oh." He smiled at her, a twinkle creeping into his eyes. He took her hand in his.

To Mich, it was as though some part of her rough-and-tumble ODST core melted. Just a tiny bit. His fingers were warm and strong wrapped around hers. They dwarfed Mich's easily.

She looked up at him and, not thinking twice, brushed spikes of black hair from his eyes. Then they continued on their walking tour. An easy silence grew between them like a well-tended climbing vine, one of contentment.

Footsteps alerted Mich to another agent coming down the hall the opposite way. Sota emerged around a twist in the corridor, whistling softly to himself. He slowed when he noticed the two other Freelancers. His eyes slid to their joined hands as his shoulders half-lifted. Sota flashed them a glance that read 'about time'.

They passed without incident. As soon as Sota was out of sight, Mich puffed out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. She calmed down, reminding herself it wasn't a crime to like someone or anything. Besides, this was better than bad jokes and traded insults like when he left with the other agents to get the Innie spinoff armour back. It could be worse - Cal could be coughing blood on her again.

"Where are we going?" she inquired.

"My favourite place on the ship," he answered enigmatically. "It isn't too far."

Together they passed Georgia's mess of a room. The door was ajar and light spilled across the floor, leaking pale illumination into the dim corridor. The sounds of a mechanic busily toiling over a project filled the air along with the occasional remark of a curious Ark. Mich noted the stiffening of Cal's upper body at the sound of his voice. She squeezed his hand and tugged him on.

In the mess hall, Cal insisted they cross it, several agents picked half-heartedly at cold rations. Virginia and Massa sat at one table and largely ignored York and North at another. The men chatted amiably, nodding to Mich and Cal as they passed.

"Wait," Cal commanded abruptly. They were in the lonely hallway again.

"What?" she pressed in the same tone.

He drew a strip of cloth from a pocket. "Turn around."

She eyed him warily, disbelief creeping up inside. "If I end up in the men's shower block, I'll beat your ass to next Tuesday," she warned him.

"What is it with you and showers?" he quipped.

But Mich turned around and allowed him to blindfold her. He took her by the hand again to lead her to his secret spot. He described who they passed and what they were doing to blast the mind-numbing tedium before the big mission.

Penn was working out in the gym, South there with Florida as well. Virginia was sitting in the break room – on the table – with her legs crossed and seemed to be meditating. She mumbled to herself quietly. Maine looked on impassively as Carolina, anal as ever, trained aggressively on her own. Wyoming was running shells through his sniper rifle, landing kill shots every time on the shooting range.

"I thought you said this place wasn't far," she said finally. She had given up on patience a few hours ago, before this blind goose chase began. Hence why she was here now.

"Hold your horses, this'll be worth the wait, I promise."

"Are we there yet?" she asked. "How about now? Now? Or maybe now?"

He sighed dramatically. "I'm sorry I ever made a snarky comment," he muttered, not sounding sorry at all.

Mich laughed at that. "No you aren't."

"You're right. I'm not," admitted Cal. "But I do understand what I made you put up with."

She felt something brush her hair. Cal was finally taking the crude blindfold off. She tried to orient herself. They had taken a short elevator trip after the break room visit which meant, given the fact they were on the same level as the training room and shooting range, had to be on the top level. Anything more specific was impossible to discern. At last the blindfold fell away from Mich's face. She blinked away the blurriness impatiently and let her eyes adjust to the gloom.

"I've never been here before," she breathed quietly. "I didn't even know it was here."

Here was a small room, not much more than a glorified closet, really. But the most amazing part of it was that one full wall and ceiling was clear. It afforded a stunning view of the cold darkness of space, pocked by tiny sparks of stars in the vast, mind-numbing distance.

"I like to come up here when I need to get away and just… look at the peacefulness of it all," Cal explained in the same hushed tones. "Hard to believe we're at war when you see the stillness."

"Hard to believe we're not alone with all the emptiness," she added. Mich glanced at him and noticed the wide grin on his face.

Cal sat down, back against the wall opposite the clear one. His head tilted up a little at her. He patted the floor invitingly. Mich took the proffered section of floor next to the CQC/hacker agent. She rested her head on the cool wall and let out a long sigh.

"Why the heavy sigh?" he asked, eyebrow raised.

"I don't know how much longer we can go on like this," she answered. "I mean, soon something's gotta give. There is only so long we can let this mission hang over us. I'm tired of being tired and anxious."

To Mich's surprise, Cal didn't laugh her worry off, nor did he scoff. Instead, he nodded. "I know exactly how you feel," he replied.

"I wish it was like in the good old days when they handed me a gun and pointed me at the Covvies," she murmured, forgetting for a moment where she was.

Cal stared at her. "What do you mean? 'The good old days'?"

A wave of memory swept through her mind. Feet hitting the dirt with a jarring landing, nearly enough to shake loose teeth from a head. The intense heat from the transportation. The electric thrill of knowing it was one person between humanity and annihilation. Slow and covert glances from civvies, stolen only when they thought no one was watching. Finally she gave in and did what she had thought she would never do. Something she had sworn up and down never to do.

"I was an ODST for eight years," she admitted. Instead of feeling lighter from the admission, Mich felt somehow heavier in remembering her squad. They were all good people and she had been made to leave them all behind to some unknown fate in the middle of the all-consuming war. She had to break contact with them as soon as she was approved for the Project and, truth be told, she missed them. They were like her family. No, that wasn't right. They were her family.

"Really?" Cal said a long time later. Just that. Nothing more.

Mich bobbed her head in confirmation. The metal of the wall let off a small amount of static charge and she felt the hair on the back of her head spread against it. "My father was a member of ONI and when I was little, the Covenant found our home world. Since he was so important, we were the first ones off the planet, my parents and I. I remembered thinking the men and women who had died fighting a losing battle groundside were so brave. The Covvies had already taken so much, you know. They must have known they would never have a chance at saving my home. I guess that was what made me join the Corps."

She returned to staring out into the depths of space after speaking. She had no idea what she expected him to say, if anything. For the most part, she just needed someone to talk to.

"Did you get to do orbital drops?" he inquired after a long moment.

"I was an ODST, how do you think we got planet-side?" she asked wryly. "We were beamed down from space?"

"Mouthy Mich is ruining Aloof Mich's rep," he chuckled. Then he stopped. "I suppose it's my turn to spill everything I was told to keep under wraps."

Taking his first comment to heart, Mich only shrugged noncommittally.

"Well, I'm the best DJ Reach has ever seen," he began, spreading his hands like a marquee theatrically. "I worked at Errera even. Did you know that?"

She figured that was a rhetorical question. Until he gazed expectantly at her for a really long time. She coughed slightly. "Uh, no. No I didn't." The words tumbled out of her mouth.

He faked a pout. "Oh well. You're loss. Let's see… I joined the military with my brother and was honourably discharged. That was after my good looks were screwed with by a complete and total fucktard. Spent some time out on my own then. I hunted Innies mostly, then the Director found me."

"If I ask about The Chest Thing are you going to tell me what happened?" she asked, well aware this was beyond classified information and shaky ground with him.

A shadow passed over Cal's features. For a heartbeat, Mich was afraid he would explode and make her leave. Then he released some tension. "Innies had me and… they had me and were having a friendly three-day chat with me. The guy running the tea party had a grenade on him and, being the close-quarters master I am, I took it off him. It went off a little before I was expecting it to and shrapnel was embedded in the whole right side of my chest."

She considered this story. Some parts of it sounded hesitant, as though he was uncertain how much to reveal. She let it pass. "But you escaped, I'm guessing."

"Yeah, the blast took the other guy's arm off. I ran."

"The guy that lost his arm, was he the fucktard that gave you the burns?" Mich asked before she could help herself.

Cal's shoulders hunched again. He wouldn't meet her eyes. "Yeah," he said, so softly she nearly didn't hear.

Mich bit the inside of her cheek. Seeing him in pain like this made her feel like her skin was crawling. It was unsettling. "How about we pretend we don't know all this about each other?" she suggested, sensing the conversation was about to unravel.

Not looking at her still, he shook his head. "I like it better that someone knows this. As stupid as it sounds."

"I feel like we just desecrated your cool down place with these stories."

He shrugged. "When I come here I think about this stuff anyway. I think that maybe… there was one small chance that it could have turned out differently. Not just for me." Cal faced her again, there was hurt in his face, but there was also some relief.

"Sometimes there just wasn't anything you could have done. But, that's the thing about haunting memories," Mich said. "They keep nagging at you and you wish something could have been done to avoid whatever is in them."

"What do you want me to do?" Cal asked flatly.

Mich leaned forward a little. "Make new memories," she whispered.

He considered this for a minute. She wondered what he was thinking, hoping his mind wasn't lingering over the unpleasantness still hidden from her. She didn't ask, not wanting to pry too far in matters that, frankly, didn't concern her.

Out of the blue, Mich was aware of Cal's hands on her face. An instant later, his mouth was on hers. She felt herself pushing against him, not to get away, but to get nearer. She wanted Cal to close the gap between them, wanted to be as close to him as possible. Then it was all gasping and hands in each other's hair and the feel of him touching her skin. Thrills of electricity ran through Mich's blood.

He drew away, breathing ragged. "That what you had in mind?" he asked cheekily.

She pulled her knees up to her chest and focused on steadying herself. Mich found his hand and twined her fingers in his once more. She leaned back and stared up at the stars. Whatever happened in the morning, whatever this mission brought with it, she knew she didn't have to face it alone.