Let's find out what these fools are up to in the wake of all of that.
Special thanks to beta reader extraordinaires: BrambleStar14 and Minaethiel.
We Built the Walls
Written by TunelessLyric
I'll face my fear of the evening
Once I get used to this feeling
I can't sleep
That's when you're torn away from me
While I'm dreaming I feel you leaving
-PVRIS, 'Eyelids'
"What kind of hellscape have you brought us to, Boss?"
Aaron was the first one out of the Pelican, surveying the wasteland with both hands on his hips. He twisted, looking back up at the team leader, questioning angle to his chin. "This place sucks."
"It sure as hell isn't winning any beauty contests," agreed Mike, squinting out at the grey nothing that stretched for miles in every single direction.
Hannah simply released her hold on the overhead netting, shaking feeling back into her numb fingers. Looked like the sort of thing Harper would enjoy, given the way he moped around.
It had been twelve weeks. Twelve weeks since they had last seen the Shaws. Twelve weeks since Hannah had told them to leave. Six since Byzantium.
Most of Phoenix had spent it in the dreamless nothing of cryosleep. Just a routine jump across the galaxy to some barren backwater middle-of-nowhere. Far less conspicuous than their last locale. She was pretty sure this was mostly an agricultural planet, lacking the night scene they had enjoyed previously.
She hadn't seen the guys in six weeks. They'd opted for the quiet oblivion of forgetting the outside world existed. A blink and they had crossed thousands of astronomical units. Just the space between their heartbeats.
For Hannah, it had been forty-two days in the gym working her body back into some semblance of fighting form. The ache hadn't completely eased in her chest, but it didn't hold her back anymore. Her limp was gone, muscles returned to their previous tone.
Just her and the skeleton crew required to keep the ship operational. The smear of blue at the viewports of Slipspace. The gym. Her thoughts.
The silent data pad that couldn't transmit until the ship dropped back into normal space.
She had typed out a new email, trying to figure out her thoughts. In the end, she just kept deleting it and starting fresh the next day. Eventually she'd marshal her mind and write something coherent.
Now here they were, getting their first real look at their new home. Hannah had to agree with Aaron and Mike. It left a lot to be desired.
Lucas cast a questioning look Harper's direction but only sighed. It wasn't as if any of them could argue with him now. They were here. This was it.
Hannah freed her duffle bag, a spare one with only the bare essentials thrown into it along with her civilian clothes, from the storage compartment. She swung it over a shoulder and followed her teammates down the ramp.
Off to the right-hand side, there was a flurry of activity. The prefab building, already dropped into place by the URF frigate, had swarms of engineers and grunt personnel crawling over every inch with power tools. Walls had to be fitted into place, mess hall appliances wired in, tiles laid, concrete poured. Without so much as a word to the others, Hannah set off to busy her hands.
She simply walked straight up to a sturdy middle-aged man in knee pads and a hardhat, dumping her bag to the dusty ground. "What can I do to help?" she asked.
He stared down at her, eyes roving down her compact limbs. "You ever seen a drill before, ma'am?" he asked gruffly.
"Girls have to keep busy in the summers when school's out," she answered. "And I picked a thing or two up from Circuit. I'm sure I can put it to good use and help get this place up and running."
He jerked a thumb down the half-open hall. "Get to it. Gonna take a week to get the barracks done when we're short-handed. Might only be five days with the extra pair you got."
That suited her fine. She didn't ask for names when she wound her way between table saws and sheets of metal. She just put her head down and started lifting, hauling, screwing roof plates into the frame. It was a totally different type of workout, but she relished the screaming aches in her muscles each night she fell exhausted into her lumpy cot only to rise with the dawn a handful of hours later.
Meals with Phoenix were quiet. Everyone was nearing exhaustion as they all headed up various parts of moving-in business. From time to time Aaron's bright red hair caught in the bleak sunlight from across the base, bent over a stack of munitions crates. Or she passed Lucas at least once a day directing electrical work.
Nobody had the energy to speak at meals when they gathered from their daily tasks, meeting in the mess hall that gradually formed around them. Harper barely looked at her. That suited Hannah just fine. Despite their uneasy truce, she had nothing to say to him. She could barely stand to see him sitting there at the head of the table flanked by empty seats.
So she toiled on, sweating under the sun and weight of a toolbelt that didn't quite fit properly. The hours ran together until it was all she could do to fit one more screw into place. Until she couldn't tell where one thought ended and the next began.
At least she was too drained for the nightmares. Though she did wonder absently what would happen when the nights could stretch a few too many hours. When she wasn't dropping into bed, asleep before her head landed.
Her answer came in the form of scouting patrols. The day after the base was finished, Phoenix gathered in the rec room they had claimed for their own. It looked the same as the one on Byzantium, the chairs and couches and tables in the same places. It was just down the hall from the barracks, like before. But there was something different about the way the air moved or the atmosphere equalized. It felt different.
Harper glanced over the team, pairing them off. "Geist and Phil. Lucas and Mike. Aaron and Hannah. I'll go by myself."
Mouths opened to argue. Mouths shut without breaking the silence as green eyes stared out at them. In the end, they all filed into the armoury without suggesting Harper join another pair. It was better this way. He could be alone with his thoughts, figuring out what he could do without Jason at his side.
Hannah slammed a magazine into her rifle and turned to find Aaron already waiting for her by the door. They fell into step out of habit, but it wasn't a companionable walk.
Neither had sought the other out since he had stormed from her cell.
She wasn't even sure what to say to him as they trailed farther and farther from the new base. Time expanded between them as he trudged deeper into the grey plain, boots flattening the scrub grass without a thought.
"Heard you worked your way up to foreman of the barracks," he said at last, the base little more than a darker smudge of grey on the horizon.
"They let me build the Phoenix quarters. Seemed to impress them when I said the eighth room would stay empty. I think they thought Geist didn't sleep. Managed to find you two the double bed, so it was worth it," she answered.
Aaron snapped his fingers, ball of flame appearing above the open palm of his gauntlet. Heat shimmered into the still air, exuded from the igniters and gas jets built into the glove. Lucas had been busy with more than running miles of wire. The pyro leaned down to inspect the burn, tilting his hand this way and that.
The soft hiss of flammable gas cut out and the ball flickered before collapsing. Aaron nodded to himself before seeming to remember Hannah. He looked up, visor depolarizing. "And what grand sacrifice did you make to ensure Geist and I had comfortable accommodations?"
"I don't know what you mean," she answered immediately, turning her head away. She started walking again.
"Don't give me that, Steele. I know your little hero complex." His tone was hard, bringing her to a halt as he addressed the back of her head. "What did you give up for Geist and me?"
She couldn't ignore him. Couldn't just hunch her shoulders and block him out. Keep walking. Let it drop. She did have a complex, didn't she? The tragic hero who never put herself first.
Didn't put herself first anymore.
"Doesn't matter, does it? You guys get your little bit extra. More space, more bed, second dresser. I don't need it." She wouldn't turn. Wouldn't read the look in his eyes he wanted her to see.
"Whose dresser? Mine, or yours?"
Hannah spun on her heel, own reflective shield evaporating until they were practically face to face. "Paul, just take it. Don't say anything, don't make it mean anything. Let me do something for you."
"And what about you? Are you just using a sleeping bag on the floor and living out of your pack? Some team we are, huh?" He shook his head. "Stop. You're making me feel guilty."
"I gave it to you. Keep it, I don't want it. I'll change the lock on my door so you can't get in," she threatened.
A snap of his fingers brought the ball of flame back to life. Aaron thrust it toward her chest. "Knew I'd get you to melt eventually, Bliz. We don't need to share two dressers between three of us. I'll leave yours in the hall and make sure you get a real mattress."
"Why?" she asked, not nearly as concerned about the threat of fire so close to her as she should have been, all things considered.
"Because you're my friend and I wish you'd stop avoiding me. Us. We miss you." He closed his fist. Sparks leaked out, but the smothered flame guttered and smoked. When his fingers uncurled, he held his palm out.
Hannah slapped her hand into his. "Keep the dresser. I'll take the mattress," she relented.
Snickering, Aaron began walking again, shaking his head. "You'll take both even if I have to get Lucas to take the door off its track to get in."
After that, the dark cloud hanging between them evaporated. They walked another mile before turning back.
There was nothing on this lifeless planet besides the Innies and the farmers. No threats, even among Phoenix.
With a new normal in place, Hannah stopped sleeping through the night.
But she found it easier to lie awake in her bed than on the bare floor.
Hannah hadn't been to Reach since going back to look for the Shaw brothers. Now, as she stood in the sprawling spaceport of Ezhtergom and searched for a familiar face, she was nervous. Not only because this was the first time in almost a year that she had been away from her fellow Phoenixes, but because it was the first time in more than a year that she would see her mother.
A slender figure in a business suit stood with his hands casually pocketed, salt-and-pepper hair significantly greyer than the last time they had met. Cool blue eyes roved the crowds long after picking her out of it.
Hannah's shoulders dropped when she spotted her father. Tightening her grip on her bag, she wove between reunions.
He smiled, tight-lipped and not quite reaching his eyes. "Good trip?"
"It's over," she answered, accepting his one-armed hug.
It was so different from the bone-crushing squeeze Aaron had given her when they parted ways on the verge of the Inner Colonies. He and Geist had gone vacationing somewhere uncomfortably sunny for their holiday. Hugging her father was nothing like the long embrace with Mike at the luggage conveyor ten minutes ago. Who knew where the loner was destined, but he had headed off with a faint smile on his face. And hugging her father would never be so laden with unspoken words as when Phil had pulled her into his chest. She was forgiven. His angry words were forgotten. They were still teammates, friends, reliable. He'd given her hair a muss and left her in the Pelican hangar aboard a different frigate. Hugging her father was nothing like hugging Lucas. Her best friend had held her for several long minutes without saying a single thing. Finally, they had parted and promised to stay in contact every day of their shore leave.
With Daniel Steele, hugs were perfunctory and pleasant, but hardly anything special.
"Your mother's waiting," he said, turning crisply.
Hannah withheld a sigh and followed him through the wide and winding spaceport. Their journey out of the city was one made mostly in silence. Her father knew most of what had kept her busy since their last meeting. He didn't ask for any details. She knew he'd overhear the more personal ones when she spoke to her mother. He knew she couldn't tell him anything useful about the URF.
At last, after a train ride to the outlying residential areas of Ezhtergom, she stood at the front door of the house she had grown up in. It looked as it always had, aside from a new coat of paint on the door itself. Daniel let them in with little ceremony.
Hugging Dana Steele was like being wrapped in a comforting, familiar blanket. Her mother was tanned from working in her garden in the Reach summer, and she smelled like a hundred different types of fragrant flower.
"You look…" Dana's soft brown eyes scanned her daughter's face. "You look good, honey."
Hannah wondered what her father had told her about their meeting at his office. She wondered how long her mother had thought she was dead before the news finally reached her.
She smiled. "Come on, nobody who travels halfway across the galaxy looks good."
"Well, you're a little pale, but a few days by the pool will fix that right up. Get your things upstairs and settle in. We'll be out back," said Dana, already bustling away to the kitchen.
The grin faded from Hannah's face as she exchanged a look with Daniel. In his own house, the ONI analyst looked like an intrusive Secret Service agent. She couldn't have looked too far off the same mark, civilian clothes aside. They had the same stiff back and tilt to their chins. The same hard edges. The same wary glance every time they moved into a new room.
Hannah hurried up the stairs to her old bedroom. Everything was as she had left it years ago when she had moved out. There had been college apartments and temporary rentals spotted through her early military career. Since joining the ODSTs, there had been no reason to bother with property. She lived in barracks and hotel rooms on rare time off, or in whatever makeshift shelter they had time to throw together in the field.
Stepping into this room was like stepping back to eighteen-year-old Hannah, despite the impersonal furniture her parents had installed. The walls were the same shade of pale blue, the same billowy curtains. Her duffle bag looked grimy and dusty in comparison. She kicked it under her bed.
Before changing into something more appropriate for Reach summer, she dug out her data pad and sent Jason a message. Nothing special, just a note saying she was on-world for almost two weeks.
Almost immediately, a reply came.
Left three weeks ago.
Fighting down crushing disappointment, Hannah told herself that a swim in the pool sounded like heaven. For the last month it had been the grey grime of the new Phoenix base and crowded civilian transports. Clear, cool water was just what was in order for the afternoon. So she pulled on a bathing suit and stared at her reflection in the mirror hanging on the back of her door.
Her mother was going to freak.
There was nothing for it. No hiding any of it. This was who she was now. What she had turned into.
Her father would be so proud.
She found a towel in a closet downstairs and let herself out the back door. The garden started right at the threshold, ringing the backyard in splashes of colour. Dana reclined in a lawn chair at the edge of the pool, sunhat casting her into a deep shadow. Daniel sat under a tree with a data pad clenched in both hands on the opposite side of the yard.
Releasing a long breath, Hannah marched straight over to dangle her feet in the water. Dana looked up, brow furrowing at the sight of her daughter's exposed scars. What she was thinking wasn't too difficult to guess. Though Hannah had only been four when their homeworld had been glassed, she remembered snatches of fear and anguish. It clung to Dana for years. Each thunderstorm sent her mother fleeing to the basement until it passed. Daniel eventually stopped trying to coax her out.
Dana had never approved of Hannah's career choice in the ways that really mattered. She had been present at all of the ceremonies and the first time back from bootcamp and the initial furloughs. As time went on, Hannah and Dana found it was easier to only see each other for the rare holidays when the UNSC didn't need all boots on the ground. Hannah was a living reminder of the destruction of Dana's early life. She was an unending parade of the worst aspects of the war her mother couldn't escape, even here in the backyard full of warmth and light.
Worse, Dana had spent weeks believing her only child had died in the war. Now here she was, returned and almost whole. Proof the dead could speak. Covered in Jackal claws and tattoo ink commemorating four lost lives. And Blizzard.
Hannah slithered into the pool, ducking under and holding herself below. It was quiet, except for the pounding of her heart in her ears. Nothing to see except the inside of her eyelids. Just the dark silence broken only by the reminder she was still alive. She kicked off bottom, dragging herself through the water with long, smooth strokes until she reached the far wall and surfaced again. Without even thinking about it, she pulled herself from the pool to sit on the edge in front of her mother. She wrung the water from her ponytail, letting it hang limp over a shoulder so Dana could see her whole back.
"This is why I was gone so long," she said softly, touching the raised flesh that started just inches away from the blue feathers on her shoulder.
Dana sucked air down.
"This is for my new squad." She pointed to Blizzard. "We all have one like it."
In the corner of her eye, Hannah saw her father put his data pad down and lean forward, keeping one eye on both of them. His expression was closed.
She swivelled, running a finger down the names written down her ribs. "That's for what happened the day they told you I was killed. And that's what should have killed me." The claw marks stood out against her skin. Working under the sun in her scavenged fatigues had left her arms, neck and face deeply tanned, but the rest of her was pale, nearly translucent, from space and armour.
The tan had only made her other scars more prominent, dragged into high visibility from the sun damage. It wasn't easy to look at, Hannah knew.
"I never knew," her mother whispered, hands shaking.
Knew what happened that day. Knew how Hannah had been marked by the war, when she always wore long sleeves and long pants when she visited. Knew how she handled all the pain and terror.
"This is what war looks like. This is what we all look like, Mom. And the worst part is, we all have a high pain tolerance. These?" she touched the hair-thin lines on her right biceps. Her knife hand. "I didn't even feel them, even when they put the stitches in at a field hospital without anaesthetic."
The bullet wounds in her stomach and back. The jagged scratches and burns on her left forearm from protecting her face too close to a grenade impact. Her body was a mess of memories from the neck down. Some of them she couldn't remember, the trauma blacking it out.
Hannah couldn't look at the heartbreak in her mother's eyes anymore. Couldn't bear the weight of the sympathy. She turned back to the water, letting her shoulders roll inward. "The worst part is what sticks with you when you leave the fight."
"The battles are the easy parts. It's living with yourself between them that gets hard," said Daniel, speaking in the sudden heavy silence.
She didn't have the guts to talk about that. About the way Phil had talked her through her claustrophobic episode at the Covvie digsite. How her fear of tight spaces started after the drop before her last Orange fight. About the clouds splitting to show the gravel several storeys below and the crushing need to step off the edge. The scars Lucas had carved into his arms and legs. The lighter Jason carried. Any of it.
"I didn't want you to see me the way I was after…" she trailed off, not really sure what else there was to say her mother would understand.
Dana sat next to her daughter. Put an arm around her shoulders and tugged her into a gentle hug. "I'm proud of you," she whispered, kissing the top of Hannah's head.
"Thanks, Mom." They leaned into each other, watching the sunlight play over the calm surface of the water.
It was the quietest stretch of shore leave she'd ever had. No Orange parties. No Phoenix barcrawls. For the first time in a long time, Hannah relaxed with her parents. Rebuilt the long-forgotten relationships with them. Her mother still didn't know quite what to talk about, but it wasn't painful to be in the same room by the end of Hannah's visit.
After pulling Dana close, Hannah took a shaky deep breath, grabbed her bag and started the long journey out to Phoenix. They had a war to fight. And when it was done, she would come back and be with Jason.