Chapter 2
Carolina woke up the next morning to the shrill beeping of her alarm clock mounted on her night stand. She grumbled slightly under her breath for a moment before reaching over and hitting the clock and getting out of bed. She swung her legs out of bed, feeling the chill of the deck on her feet as she rubbed some sleep out of her eye. Then she remembered the plan she'd decided on for this day, which she technically had off.
First she remembered the new batch of Agents that was coming aboard to join the program. She noted that she wanted to meet them or at least see a roster. But then she remembered the events of last night, and her promise to her team to meet them at the rec room for a bit of a movie night. So she skipped putting on her armor's undersuit and settled for some sweatpants and a T-shirt with the Mother of Invention written on the back with the seal of the ship on the front. After tying some tennis shoes she walked out the door and was surprised to see York standing there, about to knock.
He grinned awkwardly and brought his hand down from where he was about to actually knock, "Well, you're finally up."
"Yes, it's seven o'clock isn't it?" Carolina replied, walking out and shutting her door.
"Well…not exactly," York said slyly.
"York…" Carolina stopped in the hall, crossing her arms over her chest, her eyes demanding an explanation, "But saw his watch with the time 11:39 on its digital face, "Why is it my alarm clock said seven, but yours says eleven thirty?"
"Well I can tell you what it isn't like that."
"Dammit York, I wanted to see those new recruits! As team leader…"
"As team leader you need your sleep as much as we do, especially on your day off. Besides, the new guys already got here, you can grab a roster and their stats later. Right now, Maine's grabbing the popcorn, Wash's got the movies, and North and South have already gotten some drinks."
Carolina growled under her breath, absolutely infuriated that York had somehow tampered with her alarm clock and had made her sleep in until eleven. However she did feel the benefits of the extra four hours even as she stood there about ready to rant and possibly kill York. He seemed to be rocking back on his heels, ready to bolt at the first sign of aggression from Carolina, but he remained standing there with a smug smile on his lips. She couldn't stay mad at him forever, and it didn't do any real harm, she could let it pass.
"Fine, are we supposed to grab anything?" Carolina growled, "Or was I your responsibility?"
"Self-declared responsibility yeah, but if you want we can relieve the store room of some fresh new candied treats that yours truly pinpointed," York grinned, now realizing he had her, or at least he had her in a mood that didn't evolve into hitting and kicking.
"Agent York, you know that's against regulations," Carolina said to him almost seductively.
York barely managed to choke out a response, "Well-uh…I've already tampered with your alarm clock, I can't get into much more trouble can I?"
"How did you do that by the way?"
"I picked the lock into your room and replaced the clock with a carbon copy. Those things run on their own power you know. Really makes them easy to tamper with and replace."
"How come I didn't hear you get into my room then?" Carolina responded.
"You didn't, you were in the shower when I replaced your clock," York said, causing Carolina to flush bright red and stop in the hallway.
"You what?!"
"Did I say that out loud?" York cringed, just realizing he tooted his horn one too many times.
"How dare you!" Carolina yelled, her fists beginning to clench up, ready to deliver a world of hurt to this peeping tom.
"I just replaced the alarm clock, I swear," York pleaded, backing up as Carolina advanced on him.
"You broke into my room when I saw showering! How else am I supposed to react?!" Carolina hissed.
"Uh…by not beating the living shit out of me?"
"We're already past that," Carolina said, her fists clenched at her sides.
"Easy Carolina, I just swapped the alarm clock and left. I didn't want to be caught in there because I thought you'd kill me," York pleaded, backing away, seeing an elevator to his right a few yards behind him.
"Well, you were right. Because when I'm through with you you're going to wish that-" Carolina growled until she saw the elevator open up behind them and saw a pair of Freelancers in civilian clothing. It was North and South, who each had a pair of two liter bottles in hand.
"Hey there you two are. Come on, Wash got the TV going and Maine's already got the popcorn going," North said with a smile on his face.
"Be there in a minute," Carolina called out calmly, "I just need to teach Agent York a lesson."
"I told you replacing her alarm clock was a bad idea York," North chuckled as York tried to back away.
"It's not my fault."
"How isn't it?" South grinned, waiting for York's inevitable beat down.
"Carolina you think you can teach him a lesson after movie night? We may not get another chance at this kind of down time," North pleaded evenly.
Carolina just stared at York angrily and then brushed past him, "Fine."
York managed to breathe a sigh of relief as Carolina went past him. He'd avoided being turned into a smear on the wall, for now. So he followed behind them all the way to the rec room where he knew that his chances of getting to the next step of his relationship with Carolina were getting slimmer and slimmer. But he felt that he was up to it, the greater the challenge the greater the triumph. So with a confident grin he sauntered into the rec room where Wash was currently slapping the remote against his palm, screaming at it trying to make it work while Maine sat tapping his foot impatiently while three microwaves sat heating up bags of popcorn. The aroma had already wafted out almost to the hallway and York couldn't help but drool slightly at the thought of all that popcorn soon to be in front of him, unless Maine ate it all first.
"There you are!" Wash called out, "About time you woke up Carolina, we thought that you'd gone into a coma from exhaustion."
"A coma?" Carolina asked, not buying what Wash was saying at all.
"That was my guess anyway," Wash shrugged his shoulders, and finally made the DVD player whir to life after replacing the batteries in the remote, "Aha! There we go."
Wash clicked the remote, popping open the DVD player and placed the black and blue colored disk in place. Soon Wash had gotten the disc to the main menu, with the picture of some faces, four male, one female, and the unmistakable view of an ODST helmet all pointed out in dramatic poses. The other Freelancers all nodded at Wash who stood in triumph over the entertainment center as he poured himself a cup of pepsi.
"So what were you doing Carolina? It's not like you to sleep until noon," Maine asked as he poured some kettle corn popcorn salt over several bowls filled with piping hot popcorn.
"It seems that Agent York," she said, growling his name and glaring at him from her new seat on the sofa, "decided it was a good idea to sneak into my room, as I was showering mind you, and replace my alarm clock."
"York, run away while you can," Wash chuckled.
"How was I supposed to know? I didn't have any ulterior motives other than replacing a simple alarm clock. And what harm did it do? Come on Carolina, you have to admit sleeping a few extra hours does have its perks," York said, sliding down the couch confidently over to Carolina, but not too close.
"It wasn't the replacing the alarm clock that has me ticked York," Carolina replied.
"It was sneaking in while she was in the shower you dipshit," South finished for her, getting a jab in the arm from North.
"I apologize," York said, turning on the smolder look trying to get Carolina to lighten up enough to not utterly pulverize him, "Could you forgive me?"
Carolina held her arms over her chest, looking at York, seeing him doing his very best at trying to show his apology was serious. She groaned after looking at him for a few minutes, "Fine, you're forgiven, but this isn't forgotten."
"See? No harm done," York whooped triumphantly wrapping an arm around Carolina's shoulder.
Carolina rolled her eyes, gently grabbing his arm and lifting it off of her shoulder and placed it right back in York's lap. York looked to her with an eye that said "what was that for" and got a look back that said "you know why" and the two of them just settled in next to one another as Maine walked over with four bowls of popcorn. Wash sat down at an arm chair and clicked the play button, starting the movie and then North shut off the lights and the Freelancers all settled in to enjoy themselves.
The movie started out with a bang, that was for sure. It began with a scene of several dozen HEV drop pods falling from space towards Earth during the latter stages of the Covenant War. Fire coated the falling metal boxes as they and their single passengers fell to Earth. Soon they fell through the cloud cover and revealed a massive Covenant ship right there below them. Plasma soon filled the air as point defense lasers targeted the falling pods and the camera saw several take hits and explode into molten balls of wreckage. Then, the unpredictable happened. The ship shuddered and seemed to sparkle and then a sudden wormhole opened up right in front of the ship and the giant leapt forward into it, taking pieces of the massive skyscrapers with it.
The Freelancers had heard about this, the Battle of New Mombassa. The largest and most decisive battle fought on Earth against the Covenant. They had all heard of the absolutely insane idea that the military had come up with to send a full Battalion of ODST's down to hit and land inside the carrier and rip it apart from the inside out. It was daring, and risky, and didn't work. The carrier jumped away, scattering hundreds of ODST's across that region and laid the groundwork for the most chaotic urban warfare yet seen.
"Man, can you imagine being one of those guys?" Wash asked as the screen followed one pod in particular that careened away after being struck by one of its own pods and smashed into a building.
"Shut up and watch the movie Wash," Maine growled.
"Just saying, it must be hell dropping from space," Wash said back as the screen faded to a flashback.
"It's not that bad, we're supposed to be able to train on it ourselves," South replied as she grabbed a few kernels of popcorn from the bowl on her brother's lap.
"We are?" Wash gulped nervously.
"Oh calm down Washington, just enjoy the movie," Carolina grinned at seeing Wash this nervous.
"I'd say for you to do the same Carolina," York quietly whispered, offering her some popcorn which she took gingerly, smiling knowingly at him.
The movie went on, it was sure was an action packed thriller. It seemed to focus primarily on the exploits of a lone squad of the vaunted ODST's and a lone ONI agent and their path to reuniting with one another in war torn New Mombassa. Carolina sure seemed to appreciate it, and as did the rest of the Freelancers. Maine seemed to revel in the part where the ODST's managed to take down a Brute Chieftain with nothing but a knife and their bare hands. York liked the parts with the Rookie himself, it seemed to be the classic lone wolf style of fighting, nothing to rely on but your own wits and skills. Carolina didn't seem to really have a favorite herself, but it looked, to York, that she liked the guy playing the squad's leader, Buck.
During the movie York unconsciously began sneaking his hand over to and around Carolina's shoulders. She was a bit engrossed by the movie itself and didn't really notice the subtle move to bring his arm around to wrap around her shoulders. When she realized it, she was already well within his grasp. She looked down at the arm around her shoulder to the hand resting against the couch cushion. She looked over at York with a curious expression that York saw out of the corner of his eye. He just grinned at her calmly and Carolina just quietly chuckled to herself and this time let the hand stay where it was.
The two Freelancers sat there the same way the whole time, with the occasional interested glance from their compatriots. But something that neither of them noticed was that they were gradually scooting closer and closer to each other. The two of them realized this when they reached the part where the ODST's managed to hijack a Covenant landing craft, a Phantom. South too managed to notice this and held in an entertained grin and gently pointed this out to North who just smiled at the sight of York and Carolina practically up against one another and returned to watching the movie. Maine was simply too enamored with the movie to even notice or even care. He could've cared less to be honest.
Carolina felt herself unconsciously leaning into York as the movie progressed further with the Rookie continuing to make his way through the ruined city streets and fighting little bands of Covenant as he went. The guy didn't seem to say a word, he just went about his business of finding his squad through the never ending streets and rain. Finally, it seemed that the Rookie found something, and ended up going down a hidden elevator to an underground complex of tunnels and chambers where he found a cop that ended up being one of the crooked cops that had been seen earlier in the movie as the Rookie located audio recordings that took them through the early phases of the battle as a civilian and a cop tied desperately to get through to find her father who was killed by halon fire suppressants flooding his office. This cop and the Rookie ended up getting into a fight, leading to a very well done hand to hand combat scene with the Rookie nearly being strangled but then ended up regaining the upper hand and bringing a knife into the cop's heart. Maine really liked that part.
"That's not all that realistic, an ODST against a traffic cop? Please," South groaned as the Rookie controlled his breathing and regained his composure and moved on towards the source of the ONI agent, Veronica Dare's radio signal. He successfully killed every Covenant that was trying to gain access to the door with several well placed grenades and made his entrance to the now helmetless Dare.
"Oh they just did that to make him look better," Wash responded.
"Wash…" Maine growled, warning him to shutup.
The movie began to climax as the ODST's regrouped and charged down a highway protecting an alien, an Engineer that had absorbed the data from a City A.I. that had been leading the Rookie through the city the entire film. Then in a stunning and epic battle, the three of them all fought off hordes of Covenant with machine guns, rocket launchers, and other weapons they recovered from a destroyed Marine strongpoint. The Freelancers all felt themselves totally absorbed with this extraordinarily well done action scene that led to the ODST's just barely escaping on their stolen Phantom and then to a part that York hadn't seen coming. It was an emotional reunion of Dare and Buck, who let the burden of the past battle evaporate as they had one final makeout session. York felt himself draw his grip on Carolina bit closer and she seemed to even lean into it.
He looked at Carolina, who felt the movement of York and looked back, and as the movie's credits started to roll the two of them began to draw closer to each other. Their foreheads gently brushed against each other. Their noses felt the proximity and their lips felt the genuine energy course between themselves as they gently touched. The kiss was as gentle as a summer breeze, and neither of them really dared move, in fear of spoiling the moment. But they didn't need each other to do that, not when their friends were sitting right there.
The lights flicked on, and Wash's voice called out, "What movie's next-well, I think I know what brand you two want," he said chuckling as the entire room stared at the two Freelancers who had been locked together at the lips.
"Wash, mind your own business," York growled, blushing crazily and felt an uncomfortable heat rise up in his chest and up to his head.
"Just choose one that none of us have seen," North said, looking over at York and nodded politely, a big smile plastered on his face as South held her hand over her mouth trying to stifle outright laughter.
"Well how about Colony, that comedy that came out a few weeks ago, anyone seen that one?" Wash asked, stifling his own smile at how red handed Carolina and York had been caught.
"Is that the one with the commercials showing them crashing a ship into the planet they wanted to colonize?" Maine asked.
"Yeah that's the one," Wash responded, "I haven't even opened it, so you don't worry about me spoiling anything."
"Alright pop it in Wash," North responded.
Maine got up, and went to start some fresh bags of popcorn for the next movie as the rest of the Freelancers began to stretch and get some bloodflow into their legs. Carolina remained completely quiet, not really wanting to speak to anybody as she went to fill up her cup with some more Mountain Dew. York too didn't want them to have an awkward moment as he went over to where South was trying to feed a crumpled dollar bill into a snack machine.
"Dammit work!" South growled as the dollar continually got spit out over and over again.
"Here," York said, moving her to the side and pulled out his trusty multi-tool and got to work, "Sometimes you can't let these things get in the way South."
And with a few little twists the door that opened up to allow the machine to be replenished opened up and York snatched a pair of bags of candy.
"Where'd you learn that?" North asked as he filled up his own cup.
"Oh I learned that in fifth grade. The key is not taking them from the front row, that's when suspicion is aroused."
"You're something else York," Wash chuckled as he grabbed a pack of gum from the open machine."
York looked over to Carolina who was leaning against the table and grinned to one another.
"I know I am."
And done, sorry about the wait folks, I just came up against real time constraints with studying and that kind of stuff. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. Please, please review and tell me what you think and if you have suggestions for what kind of situations you'd like to see these two Freelancers or other Freelancers come up against. I will also be putting in some other pairings but Carolina/York will be my primary focus, so be on the lookout for those.
Next Chapter Preview: The next tricky steps to a relationship, and Wash has a crush, and she finds out.
