Epilogue: Life Goes On

January 12, 2553 (UNSC Calendar)/two months later

Cairo Veteran's Hospital, Cairo, Egypt, Earth, Sol System

Operative (Staff Sergeant) Camilla Lilja Seppa

"Good day, Mrs. Seppa."

"Miss," I corrected. "Cam will do."

"It's not hospital policy to-"

"Yeah, I know, you've told me countless times."

"Me?"

"Receptionists," I said. "Just check me in."

"Right away, ma'am."

Ma'am, I wasn't a ma'am, no woman wanted to be a ma'am. I hated being called that, even when it was only because I was higher ranking. I was never called by my rank anymore. I don't even know if my real rank counted anymore. Ever since I had left Reaper I had become nothing more than an operative. Staff Sergeant Pretty Liaison they had nicknamed me at first, but that role had been pretty much a temporary front while I adjusted to my actual job. Unfortunately, Pretty Liaison proved to be popular with the press and civilian population at large. Despite myself I smiled, I had done good for the war effort and it was always nice being recognized in the street.

The hospital walls and floor were a pristine and polished white. It was a lot different from what they had looked like just a couple of weeks ago. Fighting had died down around Christmastime when the last surviving enemy combat group was encircled while trying to cross the Gobi. The massacre had been televised. I remember hearing the Marines cheer and everyone clap as thousands of tired and fearful Covenant troops were obliterated with all types of firepower. Not a single infantry soldier took part in that battle except for cleanup. That was televised too. I cheered with them, every part of the way.

Back then there had been blood in every wall and floor. Thousands of Marines, soldiers, airmen, and sailors had been shoved inside this building as soon as we realized that moving large numbers of troops by air was a possibility. I was in the first wave, Pavel and Grigori weren't. They were moved somewhere else as they were in critical condition.

It had not been a pleasant week. Or weeks, I should say. There was so much shrapnel inside me that the doctors didn't know where to start. Eventually they settled from a top to bottom approach and began removing everything that could pose a risk while patching the broken blood vessels. They left the smaller pieces, but it took three days for the rest of the shrapnel to simply start moving around in my body, getting closer to my heart. That meant even more surgeries to remove every last trace of shrapnel. The burns were healing quite nicely, but we were doing it the old fashioned way now. Every last skin insert had been used, every last cloned organ had been transplanted, every last can of biofoam had been spent, and fishing wire was needed to stitch up crude wounds that would become nasty scars.

I picked at my thigh, where I had three nasty scars that a nurse had called a tiger scratch. It wasn't that bad, to be honest, but I didn't like scars as much as my male colleagues seemed to. With that in mind I traced my fingers through my left cheek. That one would heal nicely, they told me. Only a shallow cut they told me.

"Camilla."

I looked towards the source of the voice.

"Captain Flatt?" I asked, not terribly surprised. "What are you doing here?"

"I was trying to find our dearest mutual friend."

"Well, bad news, he-"

"I know," she said. "I was hoping to talk to Pavel or you."

"Not Grigori?"

"Not him," Flatt said, cracking her neck. "We've already talked to him."

"Sometime you're going to have to talk to me about his connections to ONI," I said, sitting down on the bench next to her.

"He never talks."

"He's not allowed to," she said. "There's a long story behind that man. He's gone through a lot."

"Yeah, he has," she agreed. "Have you talked to him?"

"Just a few times," I said. "He likes his privacy. I was thinking about visiting later."

"He's still in that hotel room?"

"Yeah, until we get orders."

Flatt sighed. "Not a lot of people are going to be getting orders, not at hospitals, at least. We're still good on numbers for what we need and… well…"

"We won," I said.

"We won," she agreed with a huge smile on her face. It was hard not to grin like she was.

"So what's next for us?"

"I'll still be working a desk job," she said. "You'll be given the opportunity to sign an extension, but you probably won't."

"I probably won't," I agreed. "Finland was almost completely untouched. My family is still there."

"Klaus won't do that either…"

"Yeah," I agreed.

"Did he tell you?"

I nodded.

"It's such a shame."

"You don't know," I told her. "You don't know how much he loved her. Both of them."

"Like I'm sure Frank loved Ms. Ayers."

"I didn't get any specifics from Pavel," I said, prompting her to shake her head.

"Ship was boarded, refugees repelled the assault, ship was blown up."

"Fuck," I cursed. "Fuck."

"He was more subdued."

I looked at her with an annoyed look on my eyes.

"I'm sorry, Cam. We've all lost someone. He lost more than most."

"I think he knows that."

There was an uncomfortable silence for a few seconds before we realized that we didn't need to talk to each other. We had worked in tandem many times before and would not really mind being in silence. Sometimes it surprised me just how quickly you bonded with people during war. Captain Flatt wasn't a permanent fixture in my life, but ever since I came back to Reaper we had been forced to become a team and that was the best icebreaker you could ask for.

"Why are we waiting?" I asked.

"They're talking to him."

"They?"

The door slid open and four men in pristine uniforms stepped out. One of them was head and shoulders taller than the rest, dressed in a suit that could only have been custom made but somehow still seemed out of place. He turned towards me and gave me a quick smirk of confusion followed by amusement.

"Staff Sergeant," he acknowledged me. "Have you changed your mind?"

"I'm afraid not, sir," I replied. "I'm just here to visit a friend."

The Spartan looked over his shoulder and back in his room.

"He's doing better, his head is not wholly right though… Decision-making is not the best right now."

"I guess some of us got hit in the head one too many times," I replied with a shrug.

He chuckled lightly. "Well, the offer won't be open forever, Staff Sergeant, but for the time being, you know how to find me."

"Yes, sir."

"Have a good day."

"You too."

"Captain," the Spartan saluted Flatt.

"As you were," she said, returning the salute.

The Spartan and his three cronies departed from the hospital, prompting several nurses to stare in awe at the gigantic man with completely normal proportions and a body that seemed to have been sculpted by one of the great renaissance artists.

It was kind of disturbing, to be honest.

"Let's go," I said.

Pavel was in a bed, not surprising considering the amount of surgeries that he had gone through. I have no idea how he managed to remain awake for long enough to tell us what happened with Frank. He not only lost both of his legs, but he also had dozens of shrapnel fragments all over his body. He had told me several times already that he was immensely thankful that his penis and testicles had escaped almost unscathed. I have no idea what that meant, but he seemed relieved when he said that so I just nodded in agreement.

"Hey there, Pavs," I greeted. "Was that a no?"

"They visited you as well?" he asked, sounding moderately angry.

"Yeah."

"Well, apparently being a cripple is not cause for rejection from the Spartan Program," he said. He was trying very hard to sound like he was annoyed, but the pride in his voice was difficult to miss. It was a good sign, for the last month he had been depressed to have both his legs taken from him.

"Lemme see them," I said.

"Cam-"

I pulled the bedsheets hard as Pavel struggled in vain to hold them. He was still in a weakened state in account of his, you know, near death experience. His right leg was gone right below the knee, which meant he could still bend it. The left one had been torn in so many places that they had to cut another section even higher up, about a third of the way up the thigh. There were fresh bandages covering them, with a few spots of blood here and there. His mutilated appendages weren't what I was looking for, however. As an amputee myself, I was interested in what he had gotten. For the last month he had been living with ill-fitted temporary prosthetics to get around.

"Nice," I said.

"They don't look nice," he disagreed.

That wasn't strictly true. They were a bit more utilitarian than my sleek black arm, which had thankfully been fixed, but they weren't exclusively military. Both legs must've cost the UNSC enough to outfit a platoon for a couple of weeks. They were made out of some sort of titanium alloy much like everything these days, but they were a pair of good looking legs. A lot wider than most prosthetics, the shins were shaped vaguely like ODST boots, but they had clasps to fit actual armor on top of them. His left prosthetic widened at the knee and the metal above looked like you'd expect a normal leg to look, but there were also small clasps for additional armor.

"They said I can also attach these small plates if I don't want my pants to look weird," he said.

"That's some fine hardware there," I said. "How's it feel?"

"Good," he admitted. "Or at least a lot better than I expected. I tried walking around for a bit, but some of my wounds opened so I went back to bed."

"Smart."

"It's not as close as the real thing, Cam. Sometimes I feel an itch in my knee and no amount of scratching will make it go away."

I nodded solemnly. I had gone through a similar phase with my own prosthetic. These modern implants could do wonders for your life, but there were some psychological aspects that the technology couldn't handle. The merger of nerve with machine was probably as good as it could possibly get, but the fact remained that even with cloned limbs you had a prosthetic that just wasn't part of the body you had been born with. Mechanical prosthetics tended to be a bit worse, but it all boiled down to the amputee's state of mind. It had only taken a couple of weeks for my forearm to stop itching at random intervals. I hoped Pavel wouldn't experience any actual pain.

"Hey, Captain," Pavel said suddenly. "Sorry."

"No worries," she replied with a smile on her face. "Feeling better?"

He shrugged. It was weird when he did that, he seemed so half-hearted now.

"I miss my family, you know," he said.

"I know," I told him, sitting on the bed and putting my hand on his shoulder. "I know."

He didn't cry. He had done plenty of that the last few weeks, but now he just seemed to accept the fact that he was never going to see his wife or baby daughter ever again and wouldn't even get to bury their bodies.

We sat there for a few minutes until he finally took deep breath and sighed.

"Want some jello?" he offered.

"I'm sick of jello," I groaned.

"I'm not," Flatt said, reaching for one.

We chuckled lightly.

"Hang in there, Pavel," Flatt said. "I just wanted to make sure you were fine."

"Thanks, Cap."

"Anytime," she replied, standing up. "You two and Grigori are unofficially under my command for the time being, so anything you need you come to me."

"And Frank?"

"I'm getting some pressure to label him AWOL, but his contract expires pretty soon. I'm trying to delay it until that."

"He fucking deserves that," Pavel said. "Dick."

"Pavs," I began.

"I know," he cut me off. "He needs this, but I need him too."

"So do I," I admitted, looking away and thinking about Frank, "but you know how he is."

"Crazy?" he asked.

"Crazy," I agreed, the grin on my face echoing his.

"…this is it for me. I'm sorry," I finished, holding back tears and clenching my fist until my nails dug into my skin.

"Camilla?"

"Yeah?" I said, my voice breaking. "That bastard."

"That bastard," he echoed. None of us really meant it.

"What- what did he… do?"

"Slit his wrists," I said. "He used his combat knife. Deep vertical cuts."

"Who found him?"

"They found him on his bed, blood pooling on the sheets. Apparently there wasn't a bathtub in the room." I said. "They came in to recruit him too. Jun was just leaving before I got here. Handed me his letter."

"Was it painful?"

"As painful as gouging six cuts on either forearm can be," I replied, the images of his arms flashing in my head.

"Grigori was never afraid of pain," Pavel said. "You know, with his nickname I always thought he'd be the last one to go. I could've sworn that asshole would've outlasted us all except for maybe Frank."

"I guess that was wrong," I said. "Still, he outlasted a lot of people."

"I can't believe he would do that," he groaned.

"What did he have to live for?" I asked him. "His only purpose in life was gone."

"He could've found a new one," Pavel muttered, his voice wavering. "He should've found a new one. We are here for him. We were here…"

I sat down on the curb, looking at the stretcher. He was wearing a thick winter hat like he usually did and there had been a small smile on his face. The man looked like he was finally able to rest peacefully.

"I will say hi to everyone for all of you, tell that to Francisco. We're all waiting for him here, wherever Helljumpers go to die," his note had said.

I looked at the note and shook my head. The paramedics were waiting for me to be done with my call, standing uncomfortably to the side, well within earshot. I watched as the UNSC transport carrying Jun and his entourage turned around the corner, disappearing. I looked back at the stretcher before closing my eyes.

"I need Frank," I finally said, tears were running down my cheeks freely. "I want him here."

"That's not going to happen," Pavel said.

"Why would he leave?"

"I'm sure he had his reasons."

"Were they good ones?"

"They had to be."

I stood up and wiped the tears off my face, thankful that I hadn't put on any makeup. I always got so much shit for putting on mascara before combat missions. To be honest, it wasn't the most practical of decisions, but at the same time it's practically irrelevant. That's what I always told Frank when he casually brought it up after blood had sprayed my helmet or something. Had he been here he would've made a joke and put his arm around my shoulder, rubbing my arm lightly like he always did before letting go and squeezing the back of my neck softly, letting go just in time for the skin there to get goosebumps.

That son of a bitch.

"Ma'am?"

I moved towards the stretcher and covered Grigori's peaceful face with the sheet before sniffling and nodding for them to take him.

"Cam?" Pavel asked, "you still there?"

"Yeah, I'm still here… What are you doing?"

"I'm flying back to Poland, spend some time with my family. After? I don't know."

"I'll go back to my folks," I agreed. "I'm tired, I just want to rest."

"I want to be alone," he admitted. "I don't want to deal with anyone. I want a farm or some shit like that, I'm just… I just… I understand why he did it."

"Don't say that," I warned him.

"I won't do it. I couldn't, but you know what I mean."

Suddenly I felt very sad.

"I need my family," I said. "I just don't know, Pavs, what's next?"

"Things won't be quiet, we're going to have to take care of business…"

"I've already done that, that's why I said no to Jun."

"Then just get over it, move on with your life."

"And what? Start over?"

"Yeah."

"I'm too old to start over," I assured him.

"No one is," he said, "and right now that's what we both need."

"Start over?" I said, tasting the words in my mouth.

"Yeah," Pavel said. "No Frank, no Reaper, no Grigori, no UNSC, no nothing."

I took a deep breath and heard him doing the same thing.

"Life goes on," I finally said, allowing myself half a smile.

"Life goes on."