Welcome back, everyone and thanks for joining Hannah and me on this adventure once again. Due to real life scheduling, this fic now updates on Saturdays!

Big thank you to my beta team, BrambleStar14 and Minaethiel. They make me look good every week.

For My Sins

They danced through the day

And into the night through the snow that swept through the hall

From winter to summer then winter again

'Til the walls did crumble and fall

-Florence + the Machine, 'Jenny of Oldstones'

You're such a fucking hypocrite

-Seether, 'Fake It'

Play audio file.

I don't know if you're even still getting these. Maybe you're just not opening them. If I knew where Red was, I'd get in contact through him. But I doubt you'd even open them then. Maybe we were fooling ourselves back on Byzantium. Maybe it was borrowed time. I don't know anymore. All I know is how much I miss you.

I'm leaving. I'm waiting on Irons to push the pardon through, then I'm done. I think we both know where I'm going. There's only one thing left in the galaxy for me. One last shot I can take. If you'll have me.

I miss you.

Just… send me a sign if you get this, okay?

End audio file.

Harper busied himself by dismantling his pistol, cleaning kit spread over the counter and cloth in hand. He pointedly focused on the task while Hannah stood across from him, her rifle in pieces already. Several times she took a breath and willed the words to start coming out. Several times she silently let the air back out.

He didn't try to wedge open the cracks she was putting on show. He kept his head down.

She had sent the first message to Irons, the one that would completely alter her life again. The initial request for official amnesty. For reacceptance into the UNSC, and for a spot in the new spec ops outfit. It wasn't possible to sit still in her room while waiting for the response. Apparently Harper had similar trouble, because he'd joined her the moment she had gotten settled into place at the armoury's centre island.

She took another steadying breath and finally asked, "Was it an insightful stay with the Freelancers?"

Every time it came up in conversation, he found a way to wave vaguely before changing the subject.

"Not exactly. Usually when interrogators show up to your cell, you're the one supplying intel," he said without looking up.

"So you got nothing at all?"

He dismantled his pistol in rapid, jerking motions, pointedly not meeting her gaze.

"Ian. Quit being a baby. What the fuck happened?"

If someone had told Hannah one day she'd be calling Lieutenant Ian Harper of the Insurrection a child to his face, she would have punched them in the mouth. Maybe that was why he finally snapped his head up to pin her with a withering glare.

Her chin lifted. It was an effort, but she managed to look down her nose at Ian from a foot below him.

"What do you want from me? Genuinely, Hannah. Do you want me to say Jay asked a million questions about you? That the Freelancers are big, bad people who stole him away from us? They aren't. They didn't. They're soldiers doing their jobs, like you and me." He picked up a rag and started cleaning the sidearm with abrupt motions. "Happy?"

Hannah blinked. "Where the hell did that come from?"

"You fucking asked."

She snorted and got to work on her rifle. "Yeah, about Freelancer. Tell me about them. Give me something I can use."

He shook his head. "There's nothing to use. You've gone through the personnel files we have. It's all in there."

They were silent for several long minutes. Harper reassembled his pistol with a series of sharp clicks. He settled both hands flat on the counter and forced out a harsh laugh.

"I mean it, Hannah. Jay's different. I've never seen him closed off like this before."

Now it was her turn to buy time by pretending to be busy with her weapon. Did he know Jason stopped responding to her messages? Was it worth sharing that to—what? She froze that thought. To put their heads together and figure their relationship troubles out? The idea nearly made her laugh aloud.

"I don't know what's going on with Jason," she admitted at last. "That's only part of why I want to go. I'm not stupid. I miss him like hell and this isn't like him. But to be honest, I joined Phoenix to ensure ONI faced consequences for what they put Orange through. For all the shit they've gotten away with since First Contact. They're supposed to be held accountable for the good of humanity and you told me the URF could do that. Well, we haven't. Not once has this team done anything to keep ONI on a leash. We haven't saved a single life. This was supposed to mean something. All we've done is hurt more people. This has got to stop, Ian.

"I'm going to make it stop."

It all came out in a rush. All the frustration, the wasted time, the feeling she had long since turned her back on Orange's memory. It had been rattling around inside her since her conversation with Phil. She couldn't sit back and watch the galaxy burn just because she had gotten screwed over.

And if Phoenix wasn't going to do something about that, she wasn't going to stay.

Harper opened his mouth, but she shook her head and mechanically ordered the parts of the URF-issued rifle. "I'm not doing this anymore. It's a waste of all of us. I don't care if you think I'm good at my job. My job's fucking obsolete."

She left the rifle in parts when she swept out of the armoury, leaving Harper alone with his thoughts.

Sunlight trickled into Irons' office through the slats of a blind, timid and uncertain. It did nothing to warm the atmosphere as Hannah stood at parade rest next to her father. On the other side of the desk sat the ONI operative she only knew as Dr. Church. The spook in charge of Project Freelancer. Like her father, his face was stony, his eyes blank. The hair at his temples had gone grey, more sprinkled through his dark curls. Unlike her father, he sat with his legs crossed and arms slung comfortably along the armrests.

Hannah ignored the feeling of being scrutinized by a Drill Instructor. She ignored the itch above her right eye. She collapsed into herself, doing her best to hide the tiny adjustments she made to her posture while tensing and relaxing her calves. Just to have something to do.

The brains were talking. The muscle didn't exist while they were busy.

"To be perfectly clear," said Church, "this is a skillset I'm not currently in the market for. I have personnel intimately familiar with the inner workings of the URF. I have former ODSTs. Sell me on this one."

As a testament to his experience, Irons didn't so much as bat an eye. "Shaw's intel is outdated by a year now. The Insurrection leadership has restructured. They've relocated. A not insignificant number of production sites and experimental technology have been created since his defection. Steele's service record speaks for itself, let alone what she has accomplished since joining Fireteam Phoenix. Furthermore, the equipment alone she brings with her will be invaluable. The URF is mass-producing more advanced armoured suits than anything we have to date. To say nothing about the upgrades to her software."

"She's already defected once. What's the guarantee she won't go AWOL under my command?"

"I assume you won't be sending her to a slaughter to cover your own ass." Irons lifted a brow.

She barely registered Church's eyes land on her. "At ease, Sergeant."

Her posture relaxed, though her spine remained stiff.

"Please speak freely. Tell me why I should trust you—given your history."

Though she desperately wanted to continue staring through the metal wall behind Church's head, Hannah forced her gaze down to his silent expression. He didn't care who she was. He didn't care where she had been or what she had done. That was the simple fact of people like him. So she said, "This war has to end. We can't afford to fight amongst ourselves while the Covenant glasses worlds. There won't be anyone left to face them if we don't bring the Colonies to heel."

Church nodded once. He tapped his palms against his armrests and raised his brows at Irons. "How enlightening. You are, of course, aware the operatives aboard the Mother of Invention know full-well who you are? I cannot—and will not—shelter you from them. If you are incapable of working as a cohesive unit, you will not find a place with them."

She nodded.

She had made a place for herself in the same barracks as Harper. She could find her way with the Freelancers.

"Good. A pardon for an Insurrectionist as colourful as yourself will take time to push through, you are aware of this?"

Another nod.

"Dismissed. Your father and I have plenty to discuss."

The last day dawned like every single day in the dustbowl—dry, grey and grim. Hannah uncurled her fingers, staring down at the slagged metal that proved Orange hadn't been a dream. That proved where she had come from. What she had been through. What she nearly hadn't survived. Who she had become in the last two years. What she still had left to do.

She pulled on her URF fatigues—nondescript grey on grey with the logo stamped on the left side of the chest. On the thick, jagged scars that should have killed her. Leaving her boots unlaced—the trailing ends tucked behind the tongues—she presented herself to the mess hall.

Lucas smiled from their usual table. Aaron waved a hand before returning to teasing Kyle mercilessly while Geist leaned back in his seat. Mike barely glanced up from his coffee when she sat beside him, still bleary from his overnight duty. Harper, however, was chatting animatedly with Phil. It felt strange when Hannah couldn't force the thought out of her mind that this would be the last time they all shared a meal together. With training, various duties around the base, off-duty hours and catching up on after-action reports, breakfast was their one guarantee.

A shiver raced under Hannah's skin.

She hadn't been able to appreciate the last time Orange had all been together. This time she would stamp every moment into her memory.

"You've got everything?"

"Yes, mother."

"You're absolutely sure?"

Hannah rolled her eyes. "Lucas," she said, "I own two sets of clothes and the music box you built."

He blinked at her, still as stone. "What?"

"I'm not kidding. I guess you can count whatever's still at my parents' house, but…"

"Hannah Sarah Steele. Are you shitting me?"

She shook her head.

He tapped a finger on the workbench and let out a long-suffering sigh.

"What?" she said, crossing her arms. "I gave up my apartment on Reach, shit, two years ago. Data pad's URF property. So is my armour. I haven't really had any excuse to go anywhere on leave, so I keep some clothes at my parents'. Been with the military—militaries—since I was eighteen. You know that. Go on, tell me what you own."

He was quiet for a long minute. "Wow. I've never thought about it. I don't own anything either."

"Feels good though, right?"

The look on Lucas' face definitely leaned toward thunderstruck rather than free.

"Maybe not," she laughed.

He shrugged. "I'm pretty much in the same spot as you. If it isn't in my quarters or here, it's not mine."

And even then…. The sheets on their beds, the clothes in their closets, the weapons in their lockers were all URF-issued. Or UNSC-stolen.

It had always been a comfort, in some strange way. That when Hannah was gone a day would come when nobody would remember her. All the awful things she had done, the people she had hurt, the horrible injustices she'd stood against—someday none of those things would matter. Nobody would be left to condemn her.

You're not forgiven just because you're forgotten, Dom used to say. But he'd died with an apartment full of stuff to his name. Sometimes Hannah wondered what had become of his things. If it had gone to his mom or his sister. If someone clung desperately to the knowledge that he had once existed—that Orange had been alive and well. If anyone beyond Phoenix and her mom cared that she'd lived.

If it even mattered.

Lucas' tapping on the workbench brought Hannah back to the present. She flashed a smile. "All right, sorry to drag the mood down."

His mouth twisted wryly. "Like it wasn't already depressing around here."

"Is that gallows humour?"

With a snort, he jabbed an elbow into her ribs. "You're almost as bad as Aaron. Neither of you are funny, you know that?"

"I think it says more that you laughed," she said, rubbing her side pointedly.

"You know it won't be the same without you." Blue-green eyes shone with unshed tears.

"You're my best friend in the big, sucky universe," she said, dropping a hand on his still-tapping finger. "I'm not leaving you forever."

His hand flipped over until their fingers laced together. "Still sucks."

"I know."

"Take care of yourself, okay? Promise me."

She squeezed his hand. "I will. You, too."

Lucas nodded solemnly. "I'll only be a mail away."

Hannah slid off her stool and pulled him in close. "I'll come back here and kick your ass if you ghost me, Thorpe."

"Back at you, Steele."

Hannah managed to while away the entire afternoon in the rec room with Aaron and Geist. They could have made it unbearably awkward to be around, but Hannah realized, mocking Aaron over a hand of cards, she had never once felt like an intruder in the couple's downtime. They were three friends shooting the shit first and foremost. Talking about fond memories—well, Hannah and Aaron did most of the talking. Geist was content to offer opinions from time to time as they played.

Until Aaron tossed his last hand down in defeat. He stretched back in his chair, ruffling Geist's hair right into his eyes. "Well, Hannah," he said, "you made me all nostalgic and shit for the good old days."

She snorted and threw her cards onto the table, too. Geist carefully rearranged his hair and began shuffling with exacting precision.

"What fucking good old days, you clown?"

"You know, you at Harper's throat, Jason a massive ball of anxiety and angst, Lucas looking like a lost puppy. Those ones," he said with a lopsided grin.

"You're a fucking idiot."

"Okay, to be clear," Aaron held up a hand, "I may be dumb, but I'm not stupid."

She rolled her eyes. "What's your point?"

"I mean, when I had all my best mates with me."

There was a weighted beat when Hannah was tempted to point out the fact that Isaac had never met either her or Jason. She let it pass. What she settled on was, "Sure, I'll miss them, too."

"It won't be the same without you, you know? Who else is going to do half the crazy shit you like to pull?"

"You've got Kyle now."

"Are you telling me that Kyle is off-brand Hannah? I don't think I'm going to get him jumping into the ocean in his armour any time soon."

"You never know. He strikes me as the same tortured hero type."

Even Geist cracked a smile. He said, "When he jumps out of a tree for me, I'll let you know."

"What the hell is this, a character attack? I didn't sign up for this."

"All I'm sayin' is you spend an awful lot of time doing the most over-the-top heroic things for the sake of looking cool."

"I absolutely do not!"

"Oh? Let's examine that. Lucas in the harbour." Aaron started counting on his fingers.

"The Hunter at the digsite."

"Byzantium."

"ODSTs in the forest."

"That's only four," she protested.

"That's four more than me," said Aaron. He squared his shoulders. "Hannah, it is my solemn duty as your friend to inform you. You have a problem. This is an intervention."

She scoffed. "You're not my real dads."

Aaron clutched his chest and collapsed into Geist's lap. "The agony!"

"That was uncalled for, young lady," said Geist, stroking Aaron's shoulder soothingly.

"Be glad we're not related. My life's a mess and it would reflect poorly on you," she laughed.

"That's what the intervention is for." Aaron's voice was muffled behind his hands as tried to pass off giggles for tears.

"It's hopeless, I'm afraid." Hannah lifted her chin and stared into space as if giving a monologue in an action vid. "I'm a lost cause. You'll have to let me go make the worst mistakes of my life. Set me free."

And then they were all laughing at their own jokes. Despite how genuinely Hannah thought their sentiments matched the way she really felt about herself.

Play audio file.

Jason. Please. Talk to me.

End audio file.

"All right, settle down, you lot. Nobody cares about your personal problems, silence for the vids."

Harper stood at the front of the rec room, squinting into the projector light. The shadow he threw on the wall loomed too far off-kilter to have been an accident. Hannah stuck out her tongue and pulled the blanket over her lap. Lucas traded half of it for a handful of popcorn.

"On the docket tonight," Harper consulted his data pad, "we have some artsy film from last century courtesy of Phil, Aaron is still determined to make me cry by romance, Geist's favourite nature documentary—again—and Mike, for fuck's sake, Christmas is a month away."

Mike looked offended while the rest of the team laughed.

"Let's get this travesty over with."

"Is every team bonding night like this?" Kyle whispered in Hannah's ear.

"Look, Aaron's bound and determined to make Harper feel something other than boredom. But it's a waste of time. Fiction has no effect on him. He cheered at Titanic," she whispered back.

"I meant are they all…" he seemed to search for the right word, "touchy-feely?"

"When we're not digging holes to sleep in a mile from base. And even then."

"No wonder you're escaping at your first chance," he grumbled.

Hannah shook her head.

"Will you two keep it down? I'm trying to become cultured," Mike complained.

Hunkering down farther and lowering her already hushed conversation, Hannah breathed, "I'd stay if I could."

Kyle shot her a sideways look that said he didn't believe her.

"It's the truth. You're in good hands. Just…" She shrugged. "I have other priorities now."

Then Lucas dug an elbow into her ribs and Hannah fell silent.

Hannah strapped on her armour in the dark. She shouldered her duffle bag and picked up her helmet. Dr. Church-the Director's-condition for acceptance into the Project had been the updated URF tech, entirely unspoiled. She supposed it was something she truly did possess, along with the music box she had built with Lucas and the civvie clothing she had worn with Jason.

She slipped into the hangar before the sun snuck over the horizon. It was easier than spending breakfast with Phoenix. She had yesterday firmly burned into her memory. That would be enough.

So when she saw the rest of the guys waiting, circled around her pilot, she froze dead.

"Did you actually think you'd sneak out without saying a real goodbye?" asked Mike.

"That's so cliché," she complained.

"And this isn't?" Phil lifted an eyebrow.

Hannah sighed. "You caught me. Let's get this over with."

She was subjected to an uncomfortable amount of hugging and back-thumping and hair-mussing. Lucas' rib-crushing squeeze made her drop her helmet and bag, but it was worth it to hold her best friend tightly.

"Don't be a stranger," he said tearfully.

"You know me better than that," she answered.

Aaron spun her in a circle and patted her head. Geist actually rested his face against her hair, but he made her stand on a crate to do so. Phil was content to bro hug it out, while Mike of course went for another chest-caving hug. There was a moment of hesitation and an odd look on Kyle's face, but he grabbed her forearm in traditional ODST fashion. But they passed on the forehead-touch of far more intimate friends and that suited her fine. And Ian surprised her with a firm handshake and a nearly genuine smile.

And that was how, the first rays of dawn touching the vacant scrubland, Hannah got on a Pelican and left Fireteam Phoenix.