Chapter Text
Four Seven Niner was raised on the moon, and spent her whole life wanting to leave.
Andromeda Caboose, that was the name her parents had given her. She shortened it to Andi as soon as she could. She had more siblings than she had fingers, her parents were always too busy, and the house was overflowing at any given moment. And worst of all, the young Andi would always complain to any of her siblings that would listen—usually Mikey—there was nowhere to go.
Andi wanted stars and space and adventure. She wanted to leave the moon behind. Being grounded, being trapped, always seemed like the worst thing possible.
Of course, there weren’t a lot of opportunities to leave. But there were always ways. When she turned eighteen she enlisted. They had her fill out an application and gave her tests, and she must have done pretty good, because then they asked her what she wanted to do.
The answer was easy. “I want to fly.”
She became a pilot, and then a good pilot, and then a great pilot. She was one of the best. She knew it. Everyone knew it. Her file was passed to certain important people, and she caught the eyes of one Aiden Price.
“Andromeda Caboose,” he said, standing in her pelican. “I have a transfer request for you.”
She squinted at him. “Since when are transfers, requests?” She didn’t see a military uniform on him, so she didn’t add the sir.
“We are… a very unusual project.” His smile was bland, and he held out a thick manila file. “But we believe you could be of incredible use. We need a pilot. We need to best pilot.”
She frowned. She knew flattery. But she also knew that she held several records, and that it was closer to the truth than not.
“I’m interested,” she said, and his smile got real for a moment.
“I look forward to working with you,” he said.
She traded her name for a handle. Four Seven Niner. The pilot to the best damn soldiers in the galaxy. She met Agent Carolina, who flew her copilot more often than not. She met Agent Wyoming, who told the worst jokes. She met Agent Washington, who was loud when he got nervous but was a solid soldier at the end of the day. She worked with AI and pulled off stunts so ridiculous her teachers would never believe her and she caught Freelancers in freefall and she pulled their asses out of the fire more times than she could count.
And then it all ended in a crash.
The ship was falling out of the sky, and to add insult to injury, Niner found herself thinking, she wasn’t even the one flying it.
She woke up in a hospital, and her legs didn’t work.
Price—the Counsellor now, always the Counsellor—told her that there was no need for pilots anymore. Not when Agent Washington was the only one left.
They grounded her, and trapped her in a base, and gave her a desk job. And she sat there, speaking only to Wash, and even him only through a radio, and she wondered what the hell the others had found that had made them run away.
And then she lost Wash. “Wash? Wash?” Her hand was on her headset, and she was shouting so loud that it was echoing, and she punched the table, cursing. The Meta was close, and Wash was alone with only Sim Troopers for backup.
“You seem distressed, Four Seven Niner,” she tensed the minute she heard his voice.
“South is dead, and we just lost contact with Washington!” She snapped. “Of course I’m distressed!”
He stared at her for a long moment. “I believe, Four Seven Niner, Project Freelancer no longer has need for your services. Arrangements will be made.” He turned around and walked away before Niner recovered enough to throw her headset at him.
Years later, she realized that the asshole had probably accidentally saved her life. She’d laughed about it for a solid week, knowing that it hadn’t been even remotely what he’d intended.
But that was later.
For now, she was going home.
Niner had never been to Earth. But the doctors at the center she’d been shipped to after being declared unfit for duty, (who weren’t Freelancer doctors, and so could tell her what apparently had been true for years ) had told her that, with surgery and PT, she might be able to walk short distances again.
So she went through the surgery, and then she got referred to a place in Iowa, and she gritted her teeth and reminded herself to be grateful that she at least hadn’t known Agent Iowa, and she went through every last exercise her therapist told her to. She wanted to get back at least a part of what Freelancer had taken from her.
Unfit for duty. She couldn’t even fly commercial with that haunting her, not unless she could get it revoked somehow. And he’d done it on purpose too—the rest of her file was redacted, but he’d left that part out? She must have really pissed him off somehow.
On the days she didn’t have therapy, Niner usually just stayed in the motel room she was renting. Earth TV was better than the moon TV at least, and she watched shit television and read trashy novels she picked up at the gas station and stared at the ceiling, feeling sorry for herself. It wasn’t healthy maybe, but Niner couldn’t make herself care.
Of course, then she ran out of food. Niner sighed. It was a fairly long way to go to the town’s grocery store, but the gas station was further, so grocery store it was.
The town was like something out of a storybook most days. It was hilariously quaint, almost like something she would have made up to entertain Mikey, back on the moon. She wondered if Mikey was on his way home yet. The war was over, and she doubted he was going to make a career of it, so he should be, right?
Maybe she should call home and ask. Even if that meant dealing with everyone’s expressions when they saw the chair.
She was pulled out of her thoughts by the sight of a produce stand. It had been a while since Niner had eaten anything not frozen or canned, and she pulled up towards it, wondering if it would be worth it.
“All fresh,” Niner blinked, surprised, when the farmer behind the stand addressed her. “The corn’s just picked this morning.”
“I… don’t have a stove,” Niner said. She wasn’t used to speaking to people other than her therapist these days. And the farmer was oddly familiar in a way she couldn’t place. She was possibly the tallest woman Niner had seen not in the military, with long, curly blonde hair and a wide, easy smile. She wore a pair of faded jeans and a plaid button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, despite the summer heat.
The woman’s smile didn’t falter. “Well, I’ve got tomatoes and raspberries. Don’t need a stove for those.”
“I—sure. How much for a thing of raspberries?” Niner fumbled for her wallet.
“You in the service?” The farmer asked suddenly, and Niner realized she’d worn her old jacket, with the pilot badge on the chest.
“I was,” she said shortly.
The farmer nodded. “My brothers were both in. Frank’s still deployed, but my older brother went MIA a few years back. Hull breach on his ship.”
Niner winced, trying and failing not to think about Mikey. She swallowed. “My brother’s still in too,” she offered.
The woman passed Niner the raspberries. “Never easy, is it. I’m Mitch,” she added.
Niner had to stop herself from giving her handle. “Andi,” she said, and she smiled back.
“Well Andi,” Mitch grinned. “I’m sure I’ll see you around. Welcome to town.”
Niner didn’t tell her she’d been there three months already. “Thanks,” she said. “I’ll be seeing you.”
She went back to the stall every day for the rest of the week, just to talk to Mitch. Mitch lived on a farm east of town, where she lived with her parents and worked for them. She had three siblings still alive, and was now the oldest. She talked about her MIA brother in the past tense. “No point in hoping. Not even that power armor can keep someone alive in space forever,” Mitch said when Niner asked her about it. “Maybe we’ll get a body one day, but we’re not holding our breath.”
Niner told Mitch about the moon, about her sisters and about Mikey, about flying, about being grounded.
“Ever thought of getting a crop duster?” Mitch asked, leaning forward. “Or a hydro-plane? Something small, y’know.”
“I doubt I could get a license,” Niner said, but she rolled that thought around her head, and she couldn’t stop herself from staring at the stars with a little more hope that night.
“Have dinner with me?” Niner asked Mitch the next morning.
Mitch’s smile was wider than Niner had ever seen it. “Thought you’d never ask.”
Dinner turned into dinner and a movie. That turned into a second date. After they’d visited every restaurant in town, they went to the ones in the next town, Mitch helping Andi into her battered pickup and putting her wheelchair in the back, and pointing out the landmarks both ways.
Niner finished her PT, but she stayed in town. She got a job manning the phones for the local insurance company, and kept staying in the motel while she kept an eye out for apartments. She went to Mitch’s farm and met her family. She took the tests, and got her silence to fly private planes, even if no company would hire her with that mark on her record. She met Jackie and Martha, who gleefully told her every embarrassing story about Mitch they could think of.
And then, just when Niner had finally found an apartment that was accessible enough that she was talking to the owner about renting, Mitch got down on one knee and asked Niner to marry her.
Niner said yes.
Mitch’s parents moved into the retirement village, and Niner and Mitch moved into the farm—their farm.
They sat on the front porch, drinking coffee and watching the sun set over the paddock, and Mitch ran her thumb along the new golden ring on Niner’s finger.
“Think we can make this work?”
“What, just the two of us and this big farm? I think we can manage it.”
“Mitch, I love our family, but if I have to call the insurance company and explain “we have several mad scientists in the family, please pay for the fire damage” one more time, I will throw them out of my crop duster.”
Mitch groaned. “Which building?”
“The Red house.”
“What did Sarge do this time?”
“It was Emily this time. She was helping Lauren with a school project.”
“Lauren is in Joel’s class. I think we’d know if he had any projects that involved fire!”
“I didn’t even ask,” Niner said.
Mitch sighed. “One quiet day. That’s all I ask. One day.”
“Martha and Carolina have the kids for the day, Grey’s promised to keep an eye on Caboose, we announced it was our anniversary three times at dinner yesterday, and all the doors are locked,” Niner offered.
Mitch looked her in the eye. “I’m turning off the power. They can’t call us. We’re unavailable.”
“Agreed,” Niner said, laughing as her wife scrambled towards the basement where the switchbox was.
The lights went out, and Niner went about lighting the candles she’d already placed around the room. “Now,” Mitch emerged into the living room, holding a dusty-looking bottle of champagne in one hand, and two of their wedding champagne flutes in the other. “Where were we?”
“How long have you been saving that?” Niner laughed.
“We’ve been married ten years,” Mitch said, sitting on Niner’s lap to kiss her. “I thought we deserved a treat.”
“It’s so dusty!”
“Bought it two years ago,” Mitch admitted. “It’s good though.”
“I won’t believe it until I have a glass,” Niner challenged.
Mitch grinned at her, the same, wide grin that Niner had seen at the stand all those years ago, and popped the cork with a flourish.
“I can’t believe I married a showoff,” Niner said, accepting her glass.
“Says the woman who did a barrel roll in a crop duster.”
“My honor was at stake,” Niner said with a sniff.
“No, Tucker bet you five dollars that you couldn’t do it. You can’t lie to me, Donut tells me everything.”
“Shut up and get over here. We only have twelve hours before Martha brings the kids back, I’m making the most of this.”
Laughing, Mitch grabbed her own glass and moved towards her.
An hour later, of course, Wash broke down the front door.
“What the fuck?” Niner yelled, pulling away from Mitch so she could glare appropriately.
“You weren’t answering the phone, what the hell is wrong?” Wash yelled back, before his eyes grew very wide as he realized what was happening. “Oh my god,” he whispered. Mitch’s glare was added to Niner’s own now.
Niner grabbed the lamp from the nearby and threw it at Wash’s head. “You are dead, Washington!”
“I’m sorry!” Wash yelled, ducking, before Niner grabbed the next-nearest thing—the now-empty champagne bottle and prepared to send it after the lamp. “I’ll just—I’ll be going now!”
Mitch sighed, leaning back against the couch. “Please don’t actually kill him. I can’t think of a good reason now, but I’m sure I have one. When I’m not thinking of all the baby pictures of him I haven’t shown Tucker yet.”
Niner sighed, rubbing her eyes as the sound of another explosion shook the house. “Not our problem,” she muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Not our problem. It’s our anniversary. The kids are gone. They survived for years without us.”
Mitch was already looking for her pants. “I will kill them all,” she said.
“Not as much as I do. At least you’re related to more than one of them.”
“Same number as me if we’re counting marriage,” Mitch said, tossing Niner her shirt.
“You know, when I said ‘for better or worse’, I didn’t realize it meant dealing with these idiots,” Niner grumbled.
“Look, you’re the one who put the getaway driver clause in our vows. I think any chance of a normal marriage went out the window after that. Besides,” Mitch said, quickly kissing Niner. “We’d both be bored without them.”
“That’s beside the point,” Niner said, settling into her chair. “Now, let’s go make sure my brother hasn’t burned down the corn crop. Again.”
“So you interrupted them on their anniversary,” Martha said, looking up from her project now that Wash was finished speaking.
“I never wanted to see that,” Wash knew he was whining, but he didn’t care. “I didn’t need to know that.”
“They’re married, with two kids,” Martha said. “What did you think they wanted the house alone for, chess?”
Wash crossed his arms. “You could be more sympathetic.”
“Sorry, fresh out,” Martha said, picking up her coffee and giving it a sniff before taking a sip.
“Of sympathy?”
“Usted rompió la puerta. Hemos tenido que solucionarlo. Ir llorar a tu novio si quieres simpatía,” Lopez said.
“¿Cómo estoy relacionado a este tipo?” Martha asked Lopez.
“Es un misterio. ¿Por qué es que incluso en este caso? Él sabe que no nos importa, ¿verdad?”
“Will you stop that?” Wash demanded. “I know you’re talking about me.”
“Congrats, Big Brother,” Martha said, rolling her eyes. “Look, you know Mitch will think to look in here eventually, right? You should probably switch up your hiding place.”
“I’m not hiding!” Wash protested. His sister gave him a look. Then he saw her pick up the giant jig-saw, and turn it on. “And when did you learn to use power tools?” He yelped, leaping backwards as sawdust began to fly everywhere.
“I was fifteen when you left, idiot,” Martha pointed out, shouting to be heard over the saw. “We all had character development. I learned to put people in chokeholds. Mitch fell in love. Jackie managed to get legal justification for her experiments. You, apparently, became a hardass drill sergeant and had a series of wacky adventures.”
“And Donut?”
“Managed to learn to requisition wine on the battlefield,” Martha said flatly. “Now, unless you’re going to help, I have three custom orders I need to have finished by Friday, so go away before I set the bats on you.”
Wash glanced up to the small house attached to the wall that housed the bats. “You don’t have them trained,” he accused.
“Says you,” Martha retorted. “Go, before I tell Andi where you are then.”
“You play dirty,” Wash said, heading for the door.
“I learned from you!” Martha shouted after him, before she started up the saw again.
Wash had thought he’d escaped until Charlie showed him the pictures that had been shoved under their door.
Mitch had managed to find his childhood Halloween pictures.
Tucker cried laughing.
Wash did his best to destroy the evidence before the Reds found them.
Of course, Mitch had made copies. And given them to Donut. But Wash didn’t know that yet. He wouldn’t know until the next morning.