I'd be remiss if I didn't open with a massive shout-out to BrambleStar14 for his excellent help on this chapter. And a big thank-you to the unwavering support of Xehanorto as this fic progresses. Finally, thank you to Minaethiel's beta-reading. This is a big doozy of a chapter, so let's strap in and have some fun.
Enjoy!
Post-Mortal
Written by TunelessLyric and BrambleStar14
You and I go deep like water
You and I run red like blood
You know my darkest secrets
I know what you're made of
-Icon For Hire, 'War'
They came in the night, guilty consciences like dragging chains. Their captive audience was powerless to stop them. One by one, the Phoenixes found their way through the open door of Mark's old cell, left open because there was no escaping the restraints holding her, the machines keeping her stable as her body slowly healed.
Phil came first, head bowed beneath the weight of an entire team let down. Always the firm second-in-command, he must have been seeing to everyone else ever since he jerked awake in the barracks. He came with a cold metal folding chair, which he sagged into at the foot of her bed.
They watched one another as seconds slipped away to eternity. He sighed into the deep dark silence. The calm after the storm. The aftermath. The fallout of Hurricane Hannah touching down and tearing Ian Harper out by the foundations.
Haunted brown eyes climbed her face until Phil finally made himself meet her blank gaze. "When are you going to learn that you can trust us?"
She blinked, unable to answer with the machine forcing her lungs to work.
"I just," Phil shook his head, "I don't get it, Hannah. You could have talked to me. Or Mike. Hell, Geist would have helped figure something out. Any of us would have. We're a team. You are one of us. We're family, even if we don't like each other all of the time, we… we still love each other."
She tried not to bite down on the tube in her mouth. Her heart monitor betrayed her stillness, beeping faster. She and Harper would never regard one another with anything more than reluctant tolerance now. The freshly scrubbed floor beyond the cell had seen to that. Love. She wanted to laugh.
Phil waited until the fury froze to annoyance and her pulse slowed. Hands clenched into a strangling grip on her blanket. He took a deep breath and said, "I don't know what to do with you two. I just know that if nothing changes, this will just keep happening. Without Jason, we all know it's only a matter of time before you actually kill each other. There's nothing we will be able to do about it. It's up to you and him. Just get along, please."
He was holding back, she knew it. He was sick of pulling her aside and having this sort of talk to figure shit out with a teammate. To stop hurting everyone in the process.
Hannah could only look Phil in the eye as he pleaded. As he blinked away tears.
"Please don't tear the whole team in half."
He left, those words hanging over her.
When Hannah woke next, the lights were still low. But she didn't have so much equipment pressing in on all sides anymore. She could breathe on her own.
Lucas sat dropping something into an empty coffee mug over and over, checking on her every few drops. He looked like hell. Like he hadn't stopped to think for several days. Like he hadn't wanted to.
"They said the only person who could have killed the security system was me."
Hannah gritted her teeth, unable to do much more when she was belted to the bed at every joint.
He kept careful watch over the bottom of his mug before fishing his little fidgeting thing back out. "They said you knew what commands to enter and Jason just took the guards out," he went on. "I know he would have done anything if you'd only asked. And I thought I knew you well enough to know you wouldn't have asked him to betray us."
Lucas dropped his bit of metal into his mug as if it had burned him.
"I thought I knew you, Hannah. I thought we were friends. How much of it was just you using me? What else will you do with the information we've given you, let you access? What happened to the teammate who jumped into the harbour to save me? Or was that grand gesture just to get into our good books, Sergeant Steele?" he snarled it like poison. "You should have been a spook like your father."
"Lucas." Her voice cracked like ice through her chest, blistering with frostbite. God, every fraction of sound hurt like needles boring into her guts. "Every second was real. You and I don't have to break."
He scoffed, throwing his little metal thing into her lap. "Tell that to everybody you've stabbed in the back since we found you, starting with Harper. I don't think he'll believe you, you know? I mean, after losing his baby brother, what's an arm? What's his Jay? What more are you going to take from us?"
She looked down, away from the wall, and stared down at the edges of the dice pin balancing on her thigh. She wondered if he was so angry because they were all walking on eggshells around Harper right now. An arm. She closed her eyes, phantom image of his shoulder torn to shredded meat seared into her eyelids.
"His grenade," she said, barely louder than a hoarse whisper. "Did he tell you that? That I had a gun to his head. Let him live. Still tried to kill us both."
She shifted her leg and the pin slid off. Fell to the floor.
"He shot Mark and I knelt in the blood while Jason fought him."
"I wish I could believe you." Lucas stood, expression shut tight. He wavered, nearly turning to leave the cell. His jaw clenched and he kicked the pin out of sight.
He left without another word.
It was day when Mike found himself lingering on the cell's threshold. Hannah felt stronger, less cloudy, when she looked up to meet his eye. Her chest ached, not completely from whatever internal damage the grenade had done.
"Come in," she said, voice steadier. Less painful. "Searched my quarters yet?"
He nodded, pushing off the wall and settling down in the chair. "Harper's still figuring out what he wants. Aaron's still furious. Lucas is still lost. Nothing from the Shaws."
"Did you read my note?"
"Yeah." Mike ran a hand through his hair. "We all did."
"No lecture?" she asked softly.
He winced. "No lecture. You've had plenty of time to yourself with what Phil and Lucas said. I heard they didn't hold back."
She shrugged as best she could while tightly bound to the bed. "Neither did I."
"I think your apology does mean something. They just need to process everything. You haven't completely lost them or anything. We all forgive each other in the end," he promised.
"And you?" She couldn't help herself. She had to know if this calm collected sniper was just putting on the face he thought she needed.
"Come on, Hannah. We know each other better than that. Whatever everyone else thought, I knew Jason would never be completely happy when Mark was locked up. You thought Harper would never have released him, out of fear Jason would go with him, especially once you left. You never would have lived with yourself if Mark finished wasting away here. You never would have risked anyone else getting into hot water over negotiating Mark's release. Everyone else feels like they were used, betrayed and not worthy of your trust. Or they feel you didn't trust them to begin with."
Mike had always been able to see straight through her walls of ice. Even when she hadn't wanted him to.
"You don't think there's anything to forgive," she said.
"You've never owed me anything. And I'll never owe you," he replied, spreading his hands as if it was the most obvious answer in the world.
"But?"
"No buts, Hannah. You're one of us. We'll work out all of the kinks eventually. You aren't unreasonable, whatever Lucas or Phil made you think. The others need time and you need to remember we're all on the same side. Even Harper." Mike winked.
Hannah rolled her eyes. "That'll be the day."
He got down on hands and knees, half crawling beneath her bed. Instead of responding, he resurfaced with her abandoned pin.
She looked at him, down there on the cement floor someone had patched before she had been moved in. The waste and destruction hastily covered up and left forgotten.
"We all have choices to make, Hannah. I'd really like it if you chose to stay. It would mean a hell of a lot to all of us." Mike held the pin out to her. "It would mean a hell of a lot for you to remember that we'll do anything you ask."
Sense of duty be damned, she desperately wanted to say no. To promise the second she was released from this bed, this cell, she and Harper would finish what they had started.
Instead she sighed. "Fine."
Mike set the pin down on the edge of the bed. "I'll see you later then."
He left, hands in his pockets. He was whistling.
She waited a long time before Aaron finally came, head bowed. He stuck to the thick shadows in the hall, as if scared to flush out a phantom if he walked through the murky puddles of night cycle light.
She had no one and nothing to speak to all day. It had been hours alone with her thoughts and the scratches like canyons in the glass walls around her. How many had Mark put there? How many had the Innies left on him?
Were his back and chest a match to the lines carved into his brother?
"Nobody's heard from Jason. Lucas can't trace him. No news and all that, yeah?" Aaron grabbed the vacant chair, flipping it around and dropping down. He crossed his arms over the back, watching her with sparking eyes. "Are you happy down here? Congratulating yourself on your little clandestine operation?"
She raised her eyebrows. "Having a ball, Aaron," she said.
"Ah, sense of humour, got it. A'ight then, we can play that way if you like it that rough, ODST chick. You never really stopped being her, did you?" He shook his head.
"What is this, an interrogation? You're about ten months too late on it, Firefly. Though I think we're at least in the right place for it," she fired back. "You want to fight me? Let me up out of this bed and we'll see how well you do. Or do you just want to beat the shit out of me again?"
For once, Aaron didn't retort hotly. He leaned back and looked her over. Really looked at Hannah. At the woman who had steel in her spine and a storm in her veins.
"You didn't even hesitate when you shot us in the gym," he said at last.
"I didn't because they were training rounds. The pistol Harper used on Mark was for after he left the base, in case of emergency. We went over the plan for hours the day I heard the mechanics talking about the shipment of training weapons. If I had wanted you dead, you would have been. If I wanted to hurt you, don't you think I would have months ago?" she demanded.
"Don't you think we would have helped you figure it all out?" shouted Aaron, on his feet and shaking. "You didn't stop to consider it. You never do. You never think about how what you do will affect everyone else. You're all wrapped up in this tragic white knight act where nobody is on your side and you're trapped here like you didn't choose this when offered the chance to walk away. And you know what? Harper pissed me off with how he reacted. And Shaw pissed me off with feeding into your feud. He abandoned us!"
She was tearing against her restraints, straining against them as she tried to stand against his rage. "You're right, Paul, how very inconsiderate of Jason to help his dying brother leave his prison! How could he have been so selfish to just leave us here to get what we deserved, to fight each other until only the last idiot was left standing to claim him. I think he did the right thing when he left, you know, considering Harper trying to kill his brother and then blow me up!"
"You used us," snarled Aaron, kicking the chair into the wall with a crash. "Every nice thing we did, it was just so you could sneak around behind our backs and lie to us. We made you one of us. We cared so much for you. And you turned on us."
"I'm still one of you, you fucking moron." Hannah could barely see straight as one of her best friends barely held himself back from lunging at her. "I stayed for you, Aaron. I stayed for every single one of you and everyone seems to have forgotten it!"
"Yeah, real good job playing that one convincingly," he said, sarcasm in every shadow in his face. He clapped slowly, loudly, turning in a circle to address a nonexistent crowd. "Bravo, Steele, freeing a prisoner when any of us would have made your case to Harper like a sane person."
"I couldn't let you get in trouble with him," she growled. "Bad enough it looked like I was turning Jason against him. As if I needed Harper thinking I was ganging up on him. Phil already told me to stop making everyone choose a side. It isn't him or me, it's all of us. Get it through your thick skull."
Aaron looked incredulous, hands dangling limply at his sides. "I wish you heard the way you sounded right now. That's what we've been trying to tell you all along, but you don't listen."
"You don't listen. Get the hell out of my cell." Hannah closed her eyes and turned her head away. She couldn't stand looking at Aaron when all he saw was a stranger.
Something metal and heavy landed near one hand. The cell door slammed shut.
It wasn't yet dawn when Hannah finally reached for the object Aaron had thrown at her. Sharp teeth bit her palm as she picked up the freshly cut key. It took her the better part of an hour to manoeuvre it into the lock at her wrist. Then her elbow.
Then she was out of the bed that had been her prison for endless days. She stood on trembling legs, taking a few stumbling steps to the door. Locked just as she had expected. No slot to try to reach for the keypad. As if her code would grant her access to anything anymore. Better to wish for the moon.
She dragged the blankets from her bed and made a nest of sorts on the floor. It was safer down here. That's what she told herself. Safer from what?
The glint of metal around a finger. The pistol wrapped in unfamiliar fingers, fingers that were trained to hurt and punish. Blood slick on the floor and grey and glass.
Safer in blankets that still smelled faintly of a man. Almost like Jason, but not quite.
"Hey."
She was standing before she was fully awake, looking up at Mike.
"Heard you and Aaron had it out. He's been quiet ever since."
A shoulder lifted. "We both said things better left to the imagination."
His mouth tightened. "Harper's decided you can stay. He's not going to have you killed or tortured or anything. Figures if you can earn back the team's trust, you belong here. I think he'd rather keep you here where you can't be with Jason, but that's neither here nor there right now."
Hannah frowned. "Charitable of him. As if I'll ever patch things up with Lucas or Aaron. Phil and Geist, I might talk them around. Might be able to win you over again. I don't belong here, Mike. Just leave me in this cell."
She turned away.
"Hannah, Aaron's the one who finally made Allen cave," said Mike, calm as ever. "I've never seen him so penitent before."
Freezing, she barely let herself breathe. "Aaron convinced him?" She didn't even know which part of that concept was the most confusing.
"That's what I said. Phil went for it, figured it would be more convenient for the move," he elaborated.
The move. That was it then. Goodbye, Byzantium. Hardly surprising when there was a recently escaped prisoner who knew too much about it, plus an AWOL Phoenix. Too many sour memories of the place if Jason hadn't returned after a week. She didn't bother to ask where they were going.
"So you're here to let me out?"
Mike reached over and punched a code into the door. The lock hissed open, door opening a fraction.
She was so weak. He could shove her and down she would go, barely recovered from everything done to her in this same room. Her legs were like jelly, arms limp noodles. It would take time to get back into top form. And in the confusion of pulling down the base, there would be no time to condition herself.
Hannah Steele was at the mercy of the Insurrection yet again.
Mike opened the door and beckoned. "You look like you could use a walk and a good sleep in your own bed."
She followed him out, walking in silence. Her body ached, breath already measured as if she was running a marathon. It must have been weeks since the Shaws' escape.
Her room looked almost exactly the way she had left it. Though effort had been made to put everything back in place, it had clearly been disturbed. Unsurprising. Had she been on the other end of the situation, she'd have searched the culprit's quarters for anything suspicious. She understood.
"Home sweet home," said Mike, already turning away.
"Just," she said, reaching up to touch his arm, "thanks. Y'know, for everything."
His smile was tired, but warm. "They'll come around. Give them time."
Hannah held in a sigh. She collapsed into her bed the second he was gone, burrowing into sheets that still smelled faintly of Jason. Sleep was a long time coming. Something about being out of Mark's—her—cell was unsettling. As if Jason would let himself in at any moment and they would fold into one another to drift off. But she knew he wouldn't. She knew when she shut her eyes, she would be haunted by the slick of blood over her skin and the kick of adrenaline when she realized Harper had dropped a grenade at their feet.
The stars were distant. Cold. Watching and judging. Not the comfort they should have been. Maybe it was a good thing they were leaving this desecrated land.
The workshop was even more of a mess than usual. Spare sheets of metal, socket heads, o-rings and bolts covered the floor. There was a narrow, twisty path to the workbench, flagged by abandoned coffee mugs and strips of flesh-coloured material in a variety of shades. Hunched over an array of screws and hinges, Lucas didn't turn as she entered.
Hannah lingered, uncertain now that Mike was gone. She turned her pin over in her hand, wondering where to even begin. "Hey," she finally said.
The engineer had half-turned at the sound of approaching footsteps, only to stop the moment he heard her voice. With the limited number of visitors he got as it was, he'd recognized her before she'd finished the single syllable. He hadn't quite turned to face her, but he nodded rather stiffly as a greeting, before returning to his current project.
He didn't say a word.
"What? Not going to throw things today? You guys should have picked up baseball or something. Aaron has quite the arm." She didn't know if that part had become common knowledge or not. Maybe they thought he had sprung her from the restraints himself before locking her into the cell. Maybe he had given them the gritty details of the shouting match.
One shoulder lifted in a shrug, the gesture not as careless as it was supposed to look. Returning his screwdriver to the mechanism in front of him, he twisted a screw into place with perhaps more force than was strictly necessary. Once again, he didn't respond.
"How is everyone doing?" she tried again, changing tack and going for a more serious tone. She wished he would just look at her. "I mean, I haven't seen Geist lately."
Lucas snorted, for once not the teasing kind of sarcastic sound she might have gotten before... before.
He didn't move for another moment, before casting a single glance her way. He was paler than normal, eyes sunken deeper into darker circles.
Were you really expecting him to visit you?
She read the look without even realizing. They knew—had known—each other so well. "Everyone else found their way down there eventually. Except the obvious. Though I'm a little shocked Harper didn't come to gloat. Or at least rub it in my face that I was a disappointment and I cost him Jason."
The screwdriver was thrown down. Lucas didn't move for another moment, before reaching up and tugging his sleeves back down to his wrists again. He'd gotten better about rolling them up around teammates recently. Apparently that was another revoked privilege.
"What's to gloat about." He didn't phrase it as a question and his accent was thicker, harsher. Voice raspy.
Now it was Hannah's turn to shrug, still just hovering on the edge of the room. "He finally got me to crack and give him a real reason to hate me. Seemed like something that would cheer him up given the circumstances. Though maybe he's still down about not getting to kill me. Or do you still not believe me about that?"
"Oh, yeah. Not killing you is why he's miserable. Sure." He moved along the bench and stared down at what looked like a blueprint of some kind. His head turned enough to tell her that he was comparing the schematics to the incomplete mess he'd been working on. "You're not the centre of his world, you know. It's not all about you, this time."
"Oh, I'm aware. I let a prisoner escape." She nodded, sliding her hands into her pockets before starting down the winding path to the workbench. "And then, when Harper tried to prevent the release of an innocent man, I, what? Tried to protect Mark and Jason? So your answer was to lock me away and hope things would go back to normal? Or hope everyone would forget about me?"
"What did you expect? A pat on the back? Maybe we'd have a drink and laugh about it, yeah? You broke all the rules, then complain when you're locked up? You're lucky Allen didn't give you a worse sentence."
Yeah, she most certainly felt lucky right about then. While Lucas' back was still turned, Hannah rolled her eyes.
"None of us forgot you. We were trying to figure out what the fuck to do next. You were supposed to be one of us. You decided to do it alone."
"And who would have argued our case to Allen if we were all hanging out in the cells, Lucas?" she demanded, steps changing cadence. No longer strolling and casual, she stalked through the piles of scrap junk that he could have turned into anything. Everything. Stopping at the waste corner, Hannah fished the blueprint from oblivion. "I took the fall for it because I couldn't let the rest of you. You honestly think Harper would have let Jason's other tie here go with a smile on his face? I'm sorry, I can't see that happening."
"If Hunter had asked? If Phil had pushed Harper, and if Mike had joined in. If Geist had spoken up, or Aaron gave him a few harsh pointers? Yeah, it might have taken time, but we could have done it. You didn't trust the rest of us not to side with him. You didn't do this for us." Lucas still wasn't looking at her, navigating his way around the desk to keep his back to her. "We were supposed to be a team…" He trailed off, growling again. "Actually, fuck that. We were supposed to be friends."
She stood there for a long, long few minutes of silence. Unsure whether she wanted to shred the blueprint. Or just throw it back into the garbage and abandon it. Or spread it across the desk and make Lucas look at it.
"Then what am I supposed to do? Where do we go from here, Lucas? Jason wanted me to leave with him and Mark, but I stayed. I stayed for all of you and what I still owe you. I stayed because running away would have been too easy. And you know what? You guys are right to be furious. You're right to hate me if you have to. But I stayed because we were friends.
"So fucking look at me."
Stepping forward, Hannah reached over his shoulder and dropped the ball of paper at his feet.
He flinched, taking another step away. Then, slowly, reluctantly, he spun to face her fully. He stared into her eyes, his expression closed off. He said, "You know what really hurt? It wasn't the lack of trust. It was telling Jason to go. It was tearing him away from the rest of us. And it was the lies. For god's sake, Han—" He cut himself short suddenly, before he could finish her name. "Was the tattoo just… something to blend in for your mission? Every time you came to see me, just waiting for me to bring up the security systems, right?"
He gestured at the place where he knew the pale form of Blizzard was etched into her skin, before pointing at his own. "This was supposed to mean something to you. It did to Jason."
She smacked a hand to her forehead. "Right, I forgot, Jason only ever did things I told him to do. Like he didn't make his own choices about whether to stay or leave. I made him run away and leave the rest of us behind. Right. Thanks, Lucas. Good thing I have you to remind me that I pulled his strings his entire life and he never had an original thought in his head."
She rolled her eyes again. She didn't even want to run that same circle of having used them again. It was a tired argument. One she was starting to hate hearing, but this was going to be her every day forever, right?
"No, Lucas. I am one of you. We both know how important being Blizzard is to me. We both know that you guys gave me everything and I embraced it for what it was. You guys gave me a family when I had nothing and I have more than one type of debt to you all for it. Being a Phoenix means a hell of a lot to me and you're dreaming if you need to rationalize it as a massive scheme against you. I made mistakes and this is one of them. But I stand by all I've done since you found me." She let out a hard bark of laughter. "Not my fault if you all wish you'd left me to rot."
His face fell, that shard of frost shattering the hard mask he'd been trying to keep in place. The corners of his mouth turned down and he cast his eyes at the floor rather than hold her gaze any longer. "Don't say that. Please don't think that."
He stepped back until his back hit the edge of the desk, and then, reaching back, he pulled himself up onto it, sitting at the edge and arms almost wrapping around himself.
She spread her arms wide. "What else am I supposed to think?" she challenged. "I let you down and ruined everything, didn't I? Don't you think life would be better without me? Without the constant fighting with Harper? If you hadn't pulled me out of that hole, none of this would have happened."
It was the simple, ugly truth, no matter how much the rest of the team tried to dance around it.
Lucas looked lost and adrift. "You love him. We get that. We all love him too, in our own way. All of us. And it's the same for you. Guess I was hoping it would last. You'd finish paying off your debts and stay. Sooner or later, you're just gonna… go. And then we'll be three Phoenixes down."
She felt some of the fight go out of her. Not because of how sad he looked. Because he hadn't denied her.
"It's true. You've all thought about it and I won't believe you if you say otherwise. 'It would have been easier if we'd just left Hannah.' It's true even if you don't want it to be. You'd all still be happy and together. I can't fault you for wanting that." She was quieter. Subdued. "You never needed me. Never needed me to stay. I'll go and life will go back to normal for the team. You'll find someone that fills whatever spaces I leave behind. And I'll still be in contact if you want. You can still call me or whatever."
Silence fell between them for a few seconds as Lucas's eyes slowly dragged themselves back up to hers. There was something stunned about them, before a surge of anger flashed.
"No." He seemed unable to say more for a second, actually shaking where he sat, before he pushed himself from his temporary perch and stalked over to her, fists clenched at his sides. "You don't get to turn this into that. Don't give me that bullshit!"
After a heavy pause where she didn't fight back, Lucas poked her shoulder hard and fixed her with an intense glare.
"Fuck that. You don't get to tell me I wish you'd bled out. I've never considered it for a second. Weren't you listening? We loved Jason. We love you, too. You're part of this family whether you feel like it right now or not. You hearing it this time? It's never going to be normal again. That's something we get to live with now. You don't get to walk away 'for our own good'. We don't ever get to fill the gaps. You think we ever replaced Isaac? You belong here. It wasn't a fucking debt to us. We needed you. We wanted you. I wanted…"
He trailed off, hand coming down onto her shoulder and head lowering again. "We don't want you to go too." It was an aching whisper.
She leaned in close, jabbing her own finger into his chest. "What do you want, Thorpe? What am I supposed to be for you? Tell me," she hissed, throwing up a cold wall before she went any farther down that path. Before she said something that truly would have burned.
"I never wanted anything. I never asked for anything. You were just a friend. I just wanted…" He stopped again, looking back at her again and his eyes swimming. "I just wanted you to stay. That's all I wanted. You're one of us."
"Friends hurt each other," she breathed, their faces so close together now. "And they make mistakes. And they let each other down. And then they forgive each other and find a way to carry on. And sometimes they go their separate ways, but they never forget each other. Got that?"
"I—" He swallowed, still on the verge of tears, gripping her shirt like he was scared to let her go. "I'd never want to forget you. Just don't go anytime soon? I don't want to lose someone else yet."
Hannah's mouth twitched, not feeling like cracking a true smile, but the hint of one surfaced. "You really think saving Geist's life is going to be easy?" she asked him, tone lightening.
Like he had when she'd first entered the room, he didn't answer her. This time though, he didn't turn away. He stepped closer and pulled her into a very tight and very shaky hug, lowering his face into her shoulder. She couldn't miss the sudden wetness at his eyes.
"Just… talk to me before you do something like that again. Please."
"Promise," she replied, arms tight around his shoulders. Leaning her head into him, Hannah let out a deep sigh, tension leaving her. It wasn't right to not know where she and Lucas stood. It had been haunting her for days. "Speaking of, I do have to see Harper. Any, um, tips on how I should not get killed?"
Her friend swallowed suddenly, sounding nervous even through the shaky breathing and shudders in his voice. "I—I don't know. He's taken it hard. Why do you need to see him?"
There was hesitation in his voice, the same way that Aaron had sounded resigned every time Hunter and Harper had been on the verge of getting into one of their confrontations.
"Because nothing will ever get done if we don't at least figure out how to tolerate one another," she answered heavily, drawing out of their embrace. "You think he'll let me go on another op, hold a weapon, stand next to him in a sparring session until we work things out? I can't see it happening."
Lucas shook his head even as he stepped back. "Not really, no. Allen's grounded him. Doesn't trust him not to steal one of the Pelicans right now." His mouth turned down again. "He was like this after Isaac too."
Not that she was the least bit surprised Harper had to be stapled to the floor to hold him back. Not that she could lie and say she was glad Jason hadn't contacted them in any way.
"And Allen's right. Jason wouldn't want to see him. It'd end poorly and I'm not interested in that getting any worse than it already is. Aaron said you hadn't heard anything from him yet, right? Probably for the best at this point. Give them time. Give them space from each other. I told him I'd send him a message when I could. I'll figure that out later," she added, mostly to herself.
"Phil's been talking to Harper. Trying to keep him from getting worse all over again. Try not to set him off. Please. You both miss him." Their gazes tangled again as Lucas shook his head. "And when you get in contact with Jason… tell him I hope he's okay."
Hannah nodded. "Best behaviour with Harper. Tell Jason Lucas wishes him well. Anything else to add to my shopping list? Anyone else I should be talking to on my rounds? Not sure Aaron wants to see me yet, but if you think so…?"
"If Aaron gave you the impression he didn't want to see you, you're probably right. He's not subtle." The ghost of a smile passed over his features. "I don't think Geist judges you, you know. I just think he wishes you'd come to one of us, even if it wasn't going to be him. He'll make his own mind up. Give him time."
"Time's something we suddenly have an abundance of, especially if the team's grounded." She glanced at the door. "I'll leave you be for now. I'll track Harper down and we'll only talk and things will get figured out. Aaron can come to me when he's ready to not yell."
The smile was only sort of ironic, given the circumstances. "Thanks, Lucas. For everything."
"You know my door's still open if you need anything. Or if you just want to talk." Raising his arm, he wiped the sleeve over his eyes hastily, sniffing. "We've all been kind of doing our own thing since Jason left. It's lonely."
"Then we'll hang out later, all right? And we can talk about nothing or see if there's anything to be done about that." She nodded to the tools and supplies scattered across the workbench. "However long it takes. I'll see you later."
Hannah turned to go, letting Lucas have some space for a bit to process. Some tension seeped back into her shoulders, stiffening her spine. Harper. That was going to be quite a challenge.
Back in the relative safety of her room, Hannah dug out her datapad. She sat for a long time, just holding it and staring at its blank screen. At her warped reflection in the glass. Debating the wisdom of what she was about to do.
In the end, she figured there was only one sure way to get results without intruding by roping Lucas in for tech support. And that would only cause a lot of discomfort to both involved parties.
Inhaling deeply, she set up all of the security features her father had taught her. And she started typing an email. She scanned it quickly and hit send before she could agonize over it any longer.
She got a response within five minutes.
That was when she started working on the hardest email she had ever written.
There was a limited number of options when it came to where she might find Harper. He hadn't answered when she'd knocked on his door and she'd managed a small sigh of relief when she didn't find him in the usual training room. It was better to not have this talk with weapons around and the ghosts of combat in the air between them.
Ultimately, she knew where he'd be, if only because Aaron had mentioned it to her once and Jason had later expanded, just a little. It was one of the things he was evasive on, but she knew enough to know it was his and Harper's sacred ground, or the closest equivalent they could get to it.
Ascending the stairs with uncertainty that she smothered quickly, Hannah reached out for that final metal door. She froze in place as she heard the unmistakable sound of Harper's voice on the other side. The exact words were hard to make out, but he sounded subdued. It was unnatural for him. But then, she supposed, that was who he really was underneath the affected emotion. Beneath the larger-than-life persona he adopted because it was easier for others to grab hold of.
She pushed the door open, starlight and the aurora bathing her immediately. The sky above was painted almost purple instead of black as the green tear in the horizon shifted and twisted to shades of blue.
Harper sat at the far end of the roof, his back to one of the ventilation grates, a breeze playing with the edges of his hair. In the silver and green light, she could see just how pale he was, a few shallow horizontal lines gashed across his face and still scarred from where the shrapnel from the grenade had whipped across his skin, unsurprising given his proximity to its detonation.
More surprising was his right arm, intact and looking exactly as she remembered it before the explosion. There was a single minor gash at the forearm, healed over and not enough to scar, exactly where she remembered an identical scar had lurked before. This one would fade, not deep enough to linger.
They almost matched, she realized grimly. Her left arm was dotted with knots of scar tissue from where shrapnel and concrete had chewed chunks of her away. But it could have been worse. Her face could have looked like the last strings of tendon holding his arm to his body.
Harper's head was tipped back, but as she stepped into his private starlight, his eyes flashed over to her. He hunched over, posture abruptly stiffening into something a little less exposed. Without taking a breath, his tone shifted to defensive. "Guess I'll have to carry this on later. Company showed up. Until next time, I guess." He pressed a button on the datapad at his side, and a recording in progress abruptly halted, leaving silence between them.
He eyed her with green that was cold, usual dancing amusement absent. "How long have you been out of the cell?" Even his voice was icy.
He wanted her to ask who he was talking to, just so he could slam that shut in her face, she could feel it. She knew the game. Instead, she just ignored the whole thing.
"Mike let me out a couple of hours ago. Went to see Lucas first. I'm a little surprised you didn't know, honestly. But I guess you've probably been up here all night, Ian," she said. Something stopped her from addressing him the way she always had. No guarded probing. No shields up. Just her honest thoughts.
"Wasn't my call whether to let you out." His head quirked to one side, as it always did, eyes intense. "Something like that, yeah. How's the reunion tour working out for you so far?"
"Lucas and I kissed and made up. You know how he is."
"Of course." His head turned back towards the sky, but his gaze hadn't left her, like he was trying to dissect her through his eyes alone, piercing deep enough to look past the guards she hadn't even raised. "Expecting the same here?"
"Mhm, that'll be the day," said Hannah, settling herself down opposite Harper, legs crossed. She was glad for her heavy jacket. Despite the lack of wind tonight, it was still winter. It was still cold. "What are you expecting?"
"It changes depending on the day, you know. Never very much, though," he confessed. "We were never gonna find a balance here."
"That's such a cute way of saying we hate each other and we know it." But she wasn't forceful, just laying the cards out as she saw them. It was her only play today, really. To be honest with him.
"Don't call me that." His tone went dangerously flat for a moment, the start of a growl behind a flash of teeth, before the expression passed as quickly as it had appeared, back to the almost curious interest covering up so much more in a whirlwind beneath the surface.
She snorted. "Don't flatter yourself."
"I don't think I hated you, before. You were fascinating for a lot of reasons. A challenge. Fun, even. Irritating, yeah, absolutely. But interesting. Now, though?" The smile that formed wasn't anything remotely authentic. "Yeah. I hate you now."
"Cool," said Hannah, leaning back to watch the sky. "I know."
"Just setting the record straight." He didn't bother adjusting his gaze, still watching her as he spoke again. "The rest of them, you adjusted to. Never me, though. It was always gonna end up bloody."
"I'm glad we're on the same page here, Ian. I tried my best to set things aside. I didn't ask any of them for help so it wouldn't look like me turning them against you. Phil asked me to stop tearing the team in half, but I feel like everything I did was to avoid that in the first place. So I don't know what to do anymore. You have any suggestions?" she asked, still addressing the stars above. Wondering what exactly had happened to make Harper into this. How much of a hand she'd had in it.
Harper blinked at her, eyes widening by just a fraction. He leaned back against the ventilation grate with a low bark of laughter, falling back into his practiced persona at last. "I gave him to you. The older Shaw was yours to do with as you wanted. Should've gone to Allen if you wanted him out of the base. I'd gotten everything I wanted out of him. Always assuming the worst of me, aren't you, Hannah?"
She hummed thoughtfully. "Maybe you should have told me that was the case. Would have saved a whole hell of a lot of heartbreak had I known that was the situation, eh?" Her eyes flicked down to his face. "Oh, well, it's done now and here we are, both of us having made a mistake. Neither of us was exactly forthcoming to the other. Mark's gone. Jason's gone. Your arm's gone. I'm still here."
"He'll come back." An instinctive response like a twitch reflex more than a real reply. His gaze sharpened. "You're still here. How many debts left until you break their hearts again?"
Clearly, whatever the others felt, he wouldn't exactly mourn her leaving.
"Just two. Two of the hardest now that you're done," she admitted. "And no, firing squad doesn't really count, sorry to break the bad news. And as I've already reminded Lucas, when I leave they can still contact me. I don't have to disappear forever and ever amen. You'd like that, though, wouldn't you? Me and Jason off on some quiet little rock where nobody would ever find us. Might be in your best interests to keep me around a long time yet."
"I'll see him again. Whether you're there or not." It was spoken with absolute conviction. "It's funny how quickly you resort to using him like a barb to get under my skin when he isn't around. A Phoenix through and through."
"I was very recently reminded that I am, in fact, one of you, so I'd better act like it. I think it's only fair, given that you do have to consider the idea of me leaving the team and going straight to him one day."
Hannah shrugged and shook blonde hair from her eyes as the night breeze tossed it around. Giving him a moment to let that fully filter through his head before sweeping on. "You just want to know what would have happened had I killed you. Or you want to hear me say it aloud. Same thing I told you then. I can't. I couldn't. Jason wouldn't have forgiven me for it, no matter the circumstance. I can't kill you. You can't kill me. We both lose him the second one of our hearts stop beating."
"You're funny." It wasn't as flat as he'd been earlier, and it wasn't defensive, but he deflected easily enough, leaning forward again. "I hope that the knowledge burns you as much as it does me. Hating me and knowing you just can't do it. It's one hell of a leash, isn't it?"
She shrugged. "Nothing I can do about anything. This whole show is out of my hands. What are we going to do, do you think? Just go on hating each other with nothing between us but Jason? Sounds like fun."
"Doesn't it just?" There wasn't a trace of sarcasm in his voice, instead he was as interested as a hound catching the scent of prey. "I didn't know you were looking for a connection, Hannah. Hatred's been so much fun until now, hasn't it?"
She snorted. "Relax, only one man in the galaxy you and I need to worry about. Give him space. Let him figure himself out. Keep me here where you can keep both eyes on me. In the future, I'll be sure to go over your head whenever I want something done."
"Nah. Not keen." He tilted his head again. "You want to keep your wings? Not like I can take them off of you, even if I want to. You went through the same as the rest of us. And again, in the cells. We've both changed again. But you stick with Phoenix and you want something done, I'm still your team leader. Just let me know. We'll get it done."
The smile was a lot more authentic, even if neither of them believed it. "Phil's told me to be on best behaviour, since my… less consistent traits helped push us here. Don't get me wrong, though. We're not through."
She got to her feet, dusting snow off. "Been enlightening. You can trust me not to kill you or make life too challenging from here on out."
"You've got no reason to, now, do you? Now he's gone. Feel good?"
"What do you want me to say? That I'm rubbing my hands with glee? Or that I'm completely miserable? It happened and we all have to live with it. Some of us more easily than others, but here we are. I've been better. I've also been a lot worse," she said, looking down at him nearly huddled against the wall.
"Just wanted the truth. Wanted to know if it's doing to you what it's doing to me." He blinked up at her, just watching her.
"And is it?" she asked, curious.
He tilted his head, before something else crossed his features. Something like disappointment. "No."
"I'll let you get back to," she waved at his datapad, "that. I'm not planning on getting frostbite tonight. See you in the morning, Ian."
He still didn't regain his grin, staring at her with open honesty. "For the record, Hannah. If you hurt Phoenix again, I'll kill you, damn the consequences. He's coming back, sooner or later. If you take him and go, I'll kill you."
"Sure you will." Hannah passed by without even looking down, clearly not the least bit concerned about this latest threat. "Don't hold your breath."
"I can always hope," he called after her, grin back in his words. "See you tomorrow, Blizzard."
She let the door shut behind her without any further comment. There were more important things on her mind.
J/M,
I barely know what day it is today, so I'm sorry that it's been so long since we last saw each other. Sorry this message was such a long time coming. If you don't recognize the sender, it's because Irons is acting as an intermediary for us. He's not screening the info. Perks of being his only child, I guess. I'm not going to ask where you guys are. I just want to know if you're safe and comfortable. Healing after what happened. I'm fine, nearly 100% again. Harper's alive and… fine, I guess. Physically. Cybernetic arm, courtesy of the finest engineer in the galaxy.
We're leaving Byzantium. I don't know where we're going. That was part of the deal of letting me out of Mark's old cell—convenience of not dragging a prisoner along.
If you want me to tell the guys anything, let me know. Otherwise, just respond when you can. I won't say anything. Allen's not dragging me up for interrogation. Even Harper's been avoiding me lately. Don't worry about me.
I'm just sorry about the way everything's shaken out. Sorry I can't be with you two. Just do me a favour.
Don't come back.
Love,
HS
Morning came to find the base buzzing like a hive. Innies swarmed from room to room. Hannah, as she had the day before, ate breakfast alone in her room. Most of her belongings were still packed, just in case she had needed to follow Mark. It had only been a small matter of tossing a few more things into her spare pack and throwing it all into her locker. She could wear her armour most of the trip to their new base, saving massive amounts of space. Every square millimetre counted on a ship.
Rather than get in everyone's way, Hannah let herself out of the building. There wasn't anywhere inside she had to see one final time. Enough hours had been wasted staring at the empty cell that had once been Jason's. She could live a hundred lifetimes without ever seeing that hallway ever again.
She was already getting stronger. Whatever damage had been done had been largely superficial. All of the major wounds had healed, leaving only pain in her chest when she pushed her limits. That, she had been told, would fade with time. As for Harper's arm, what little she had seen, it didn't seem to bother him much that it had been built entirely by Lucas.
None of their worst scars were physical anyway.
The biting cold of winter had abated. As she stood outside in the sunshine, she could hear the steady drip of water running off the roof. That didn't mean it was at all easy to break trail around the base, skirting the snowbanks built over the long dark months. Still, this was something she refused to leave undone.
Icy chill soaked through her the instant she started wiping the snow from the black monolith. It would soon warm under the strength of the sun high overhead. Hannah took her time ensuring every shallow scar in the rock was cleared of snow, despite her numb fingers.
White, Douglas J. – KIA
Gregor, Pascal M. – KIA
Roberts, Theresa O. – KIA
Thompson, Dominic B. – KIA
Steele, Hannah S. – MIA
A small breath left her as she saw their names again. She wondered when she had realized she had been buried with them after all. When she had climbed out of her own grave and rejoined the world of the living.
She suspected Jason had everything to do with that.
Clearing the snow from the foot of the monument was a much harder task. But it was something that had to be done. The grass beneath the thick blanket of greying snow was still limp and yellow. In a few short weeks, green shoots would start sprouting. In two months or so, this entire valley would be green and lush again. And the base would be barren. Cold. Abandoned.
Cool metal danced between her fingers. Over, under, through and back. A reminder of the woman who had woken in the infirmary here almost a year ago. What would Sergeant Steele have said about Blizzard? Would she have understood? Would she have accepted her?
Didn't matter now, Hannah decided as she pulled the utility knife from its sheath in one of her coat's inner pockets. She set the serrated edge to the dead grass and began the ordeal of cutting a square of frozen sod free.
Her side itched. Both of them did. The scars and the ink and the bird on her shoulder felt as if they were still fresh and healing. Sometimes she still woke, suffocating under her blankets, thinking she was bleeding to death in the muck. Sometimes she still woke drenched in sweat and convinced she was trying to save Mark's life. Failing. Sometimes it was White in that glass hallway with her. Sometimes it was Jason at her side as they faced another pack of Jackals, arms numb as they lifted their nearly empty pistols one last time.
Sometimes it was her sitting in that line of ODSTs against the roof of the transport truck, glass like scattered stars between her and Jason, SMG at his shoulder aimed at her head.
She knelt, snow melting into her knees, soaking into her bones. Tiny flame caught in a glittering shell deep in her heart. Carefully, lovingly, she nestled the gold dice pin into the frosty earth and laid the blanket of dead grass over it.
Hannah stood, watching the grave marker as the seconds ticked toward infinity. She could feel the slagged dog tag against her chest. She would carry them with her forever. All of them. Everyone she had lost. The person she had been.
"I'm right behind you," she said, and turned away.
She would never stand here again.
The sun was just starting to set when Hannah pulled on her armour. Aaron still wasn't talking to her, mirrored in Geist's silence. Phil hadn't said much, but at least he wasn't pretending she didn't exist.
"Heard from Jason," she said, eyes glued to the straps at each knee. "Just to say he's all right and we don't need to worry."
"Good," said Lucas, pausing mid-reach into his locker. "That's good, I'm glad to hear it."
Harper's head turned a fraction toward her, but he didn't say anything. Just glared from the corner of his eye as if he could make her wither on the spot. She ignored him.
With nothing further to say about it, Hannah finished kitting up. She watched the orange-red rays filter into the armoury, turning everything to gold and bronze. Freezing each Phoenix in flame. Nobody said anything as she went over to the untouched locker. Nobody stopped her from tracing a line down the door.
Harper would pack all of Jason's equipment as soon as the rest of the team filed out. He would knock her aside without warning if she so much as thought about opening it herself. He still held onto the hope that Jason would come running back to play Insurrectionist House.
So Hannah walked away. Left the Byzantium base. Got onto the waiting Pelican and sank into her usual seat between Lucas and Aaron.
And she never once looked back.