insertmeathere | A Visit from the Magical Snow Fairy

"...Huh."

This was... surprising but not necessarily alarming. It was Stacy. John knew Stacy something approaching well by now.

His money was on GLaDOS as he stepped out onto the Obs Deck to survey the "damage".

There's another SPARTAN out on the deck, staring at the snow. He's been there a while because there's a bit collecting on him.

"What the hell...?"

His head snapped around toward the voice. He knew that voice, but he had not seen the owner in... He didn't know how long. Because the last he knew, that man was dead.

"Jorge."

And that voice...

"John?" Jorge turns to look.

"...Is that you?"

"Who else would I be, Spartan?" the Chief replied. There was the barest trace of a grin in his tone, a worn and weary one.

"Good to see you in one piece."

It had been a while since he'd had a conversation with someone that much taller than him. Well, aside from Cargn.

"I'm pretty sure that's still "Sir," John. Unless you got promoted past CPO."

Jorge walks forward, and there's a hand clapped on the smaller SPARTAN's shoulder.

"I'm as surprised as you are. Not many people live after taking a slipspace bomb to the face."

"They would've had to do it posthumously," he said. "Doesn't matter here. I don't hold rank like I used to on this tub, but if you ask anybody my name is "Chief"." He raised and lowered one shoulder. It was weird, but he'd gotten used to it. You had to adapt with civilians from a bunch of different universes. It was better than them knowing his actual name; he wasn't sure he could quite stand to see that in wide use. It was too personal, it cut too close to the bone, and until recently he'd wondered if the number of people alive who knew it amounted to more than the fingers on one hand.

He returned the shoulder clap, something else he hadn't done in a long time. "Not many people survive drifting in cryo in dead space, either," he answered. "They pulled me and a smart AI off the back half of a frigate before the universe blew out. Don't remember much of it." The memories he'd gotten back before being put in the pod caverns were hazy and icefogged at best, but he could recall wrecking half a surgical suite.

"I had a feeling this ship wasn't UNSC Standard. Unless it was their solution to improve field rations."

He listens to John's story, before frowning under his visor.

"Wait, before the universe blew out?"

"Didn't they tell you?" Then again, the ship was sort of horrible at explaining things.

"We're an ark and an arsenal. This ship was sent out to retrieve people and weapons from universes the Ohm collapsed."

He exhaled. "Things went to hell at some point and the original crew was killed off or abandoned the thing. Pirates found the derelict and were dragging her off to sell the people in stasis on a transdimensional slave market. The ship woke us up in time for us to get to the bridge and prevent that."

"Now, we're running pre-set missions for some aliens that are supposed to be opposing the Ohm. The enemy might have something we can use to restore our worlds, but that's a bridge we'll cross when we get to it."

"So...Our universe is gone...? All of it?"

There's something in his voice, there. Sadness?

"It's always one after the other, isn't it? First the Covenant, now these Ohm guys."

Yep, just accepting this. He had no problem with accepting it and nothing to gain in doubting it.

John just nodded. It had hurt at first, but he just avoided thinking about it. Kelly had been here, and now so was Jorge. It was enough to give him hope that there were others that had survived. Spartans at least were damn useful, and he wouldn't be surprised if the Daligig had many of the remaining number. As for other people he had known, the list was very short.

He had barely known anyone long enough to think of them as even as much as acquaintances. He'd seen most of them die himself. Most of what remained to him was large concepts, ideas, things he was loyal to and people he would never meet but for whom he'd sacrificed every vestige he might've had of a normal, human life.

It was just easier to look forward and refuse to turn back. For now, he had a means to succeed. The price of failure was to lose that hope. If the Ohm solution was not viable, then he would have to find another way to cope.

"At least the war ended. Sort of. Covenant tore itself apart. There probably wouldn't be peace for another decade at least, but it was something."

A pause.

"If you see an Elite running around here, do me a favor and don't kill him. He's one of ours."

"You lived that long, huh? Way past the SPARTAN life expectancy."

That hand is still there. It grips John's shoulder a bit tighter. "I'm sure you played your part, there, John."

A pause. "There's an Elite here?" Have some deep-seated hatred in his voice there. "There's a damned Elite here and you expect me to let him walk free?"

The images of Reach still burned in his mind. The atrocities the Covenant performed on his planet.

The other SPARTANs may not see Reach as anything other than another stronghold, but, to Jorge, it was his home. And the Covenant were burning it.

"Forty-two years," he said. "Forty-three now, I think. Time acts funny in the Bleed."

He shook it off. Get up, keep walking. Like anything else.

"His name is R'tas 'Vadum, and he's a shipmaster. Ex-Covenant. Any of them that're still alive are. Some kind of civil war broke out after they glassed Reach and we got some temporary allies with split lips."

It's all dispassionate, though. He would've been angry, he would've resented them, but he just didn't have the energy to spend on it anymore.

"Besides, if you don't restrain yourself the ship will, or I'll have to peel security officers off of you, and we don't need good men in the brig."

Wait, wait. Reach was glassed?!

He could understand that his home was destroyed by the Ohm collapsing their universe or whatever, but...

"They glassed my home, John." He mutters, his voice barely hiding his anger.

"I know the other SPARTANs hated Reach. You have a good reason to... But those Covvie bastards nuked my home! And you expect me to let that slide?!"

And the anger breaks through. All his training unable to stop it.

John squared his shoulders and stood straight. "You think it wasn't my home? I grew up there. Reach made me what I have to be and I got to watch it and my Spartans die from orbit, and have no choice but to run."

He did not raise his voice. He did not need to. The Chief did not rage, he did not yell, he did not threaten, but he could not hold back the raw bitterness. Reach still hurt. Reach had not stopped hurting since he'd committed himself to a cryo pod, knowing that James was lost and Linda was lying clinically dead in another chamber while the Covenant hunted any of his ground team that the plasma cannons had not already reduced to molten slag, knowing that there was a solid shot that he was the last SPARTAN-II still pulling air.

"I expect you not to waste time and energy on someone who is not your enemy. I expect you to put your emotions aside and do your job."

Which John himself had just failed to do. He felt slightly sick with disgust. He'd given in, he'd let himself show how badly the accusation stung. He was better than that.

Edited 2011-12-27 08:06 (UTC)

(no subject)

noble5.livejournal.com - 2011-12-27 08:11 (UTC) - Expand

Dammit it was cold.

Samus is even more grumbly than normal. She's practically stomping down the snow-filled hall. She just didn't want to deal with this.

The Chief nodded.

"Good morning, Ma'am."

Yep, he's up to his old antics again. Oh Chief, you card. (Actually it's habit and he can't help it.)

"Glados let you out to enjoy the snow day, John?"

She can play this game too.

Ah, dammit. He forgot. Samus, you wound him with your inability to accept his Ma'ams.

"Apparently," he replied, "my soul was very loose."

"Is this new, or did I miss when it showed up?"

"Showed up over night. Woke up half frozen because a couple of feet accumulated in my quarters." Yeah that's GOT to be good for the woman whose mortal weakness is cold. At least that explains her grumpiness.

The Chief somehow never chanced across this particular quirk of Samus's, which would probably explain why he failed to notice the severity of the problem.

"It doesn't seem that bad," he said. "Just a little cold."

"I'd probably be okay if not for my extreme susceptibility to cold. Almost dying really puts a damper on the rest of the day."

She sniffles. Good god, she has the sniffles. It's almost pathetic. She really hates the cold.

"...Oh."

Yeah, he had no idea. Sorry, Samus. "Medical should be able to help with that. There has to be an electric blanket somewhere."

"I've got the heat on." She knocks on her chest plate. "Not quite as efficient but it doesn't anchor me down anywhere. I should be good in a couple hours anyway."

She's still sounding a little sick. Less grumpy, though! Maybe seeing Chief has something to do with that.

"Why is it so bloody freezing?!"

An irritated Scottish voice comes from the Obs deck, and John can likely see a rather snow-covered and shivering Dr. Carson Beckett.