Work Text:
The war was over.
The war was over, and that was incredible. They’d been fighting for too damn long on this wreck of a planet, and it was finally done.
The war was over, and that was incredible, but the planet was desolate, buildings crumbling from bombing raids and explosions, holes in the walls from gunfire. And more than just the planet, it was the KIDS. The Feds’ youngest soldiers were around sixteen, which was ridiculous in and of itself, but the New Republic? They had kids who were THIRTEEN. One of their best pilots was a damn fifteen year old, and that was just too much. Those kids should have been at middle or high school dances, writing in their diaries and playing sports and instruments, not getting bombed and shot at and losing limbs and developing PTSD.
And god, the PTSD those kids were gonna have, being pulled into a war they were born in the middle of, caught in the crossfire before they could even walk. Eighty percent of those kids didn’t have parents anymore, maybe more than that, and some of them were too young to even be in high school. The twenty-year-olds had found themselves guardians, taking on leadership roles during the war, and now they were organizing - finding buildings that were safe to live in and beginning to scavenge for usable furniture, clean clothing, anything that would make life livable again for the younger kids - who were clinging to those leaders they’d seen during the war.
The Reds and Blues had fought as hard as they could, and it had paid off, but now there was the struggle of what to do next. Would they try to finally retire from their lives of adventure and chaos? Would they get as far away from Chorus as they could, or would they stay there and help rebuild?
Some of them just wanted to rest, Maine thought. After being rescued from Sigma’s control, that was all HE had wanted, for a long time. He wanted to settle, to retire from fighting and stay somewhere with Wash, alone, away from the others. But that hadn’t been possible at the time, and so he’d kept going - with the Reds and Blues and Carolina, he’d felt at home, and he’d felt SAFE. Now, though, with the fight for Chorus over and everything seeming like it was stable… it might be possible to finally live a civilian life.
Carolina seemed to want to stay on planet, he’d noted with no hint of pride - she was learning, finally, that not everything had to be about proving herself. She and General Kimball - President Kimball, he corrected himself, that was her title now - had grown quite close during the war, and he wouldn’t be at all surprised if they announced they were officially together in the coming months. The Reds and Blues seemed to want to stay as well, to Maine’s surprise - maybe they felt at home just like he did on this planet. Maybe they’d seen the good they could do and wanted to help rebuild.
Maine wasn’t sure what he wanted to do.
Did he want to stay on Chorus? Did he want to get as far away from the war-torn planet as he could? Did he want to leave alone?
The third question he could answer easily. No. He wanted to stay with Wash, and if he had to stay on Chorus for that he’d be happy with that, would feel safe there, would feel comfortable. But he didn’t really think anyone else needed him there. Though he’d fought with the New Republic, he hadn’t really thought of anyone else as needing or wanting him other than as a soldier. That was what he’d always been, after all - a fighter, a gun for hire with the strength of ten men and the same will to fight.
He didn’t want to fight anymore, though. He wanted a place to call home, a house and friends and a family who loved him.
He was musing over who he could possibly consider family when a small form popped up in his peripheral vision.
“Agent Maine?”
He turned, tilting his head down significantly to see one of the New Republic’s kids staring up at him. He recognized her instantly - this was one of their pilots, Britton. She’d lost an arm to a grenade blast, and she was devastated that she couldn’t fly anymore - he remembered going to see her in the hospital, he remembered the mission that had taken her wings from her. He had wanted to do something, but there was just no way any of the kids would be able to get prosthetics with what little material for those things was left on Chorus, and there was certainly no time to go off-planet.
“Agent Maine, are you okay?” Britton spoke again, and he realized he’d lost himself in thought a second time.
“Oh. Uh, yes.” He said, still getting used to the ability to speak again. Doctor Grey had done surgery on his throat - a miracle, he knew, no one else had ever been able to fix his vocal cords after the damage - and had given him his voice back, and he’d been in speech therapy for a few weeks after. Now he was talking pretty much normally with respect to the physical side of things - but it messed with his head to hear his old, deep voice again.
“Sir, are you sure? You seem… distracted.”
“I’m just…” He wasn’t really sure what he was, if he was honest. Was he distracted? Upset? Worried? He didn’t know.
“Hey, it’s okay. The war’s over, and that’s probably weird for you, cuz you’ve been fighting your whole life, right? Freelancers must have trained really hard, cuz you guys are super good, and, uh, you know, you’re REALLY strong, do you think you’re stronger than Carolina? Not that Carolina’s not strong but like, you’re so TALL, and, you know-”
Maine cut her off with a hand on her left shoulder. As he touched her, she stiffened, silencing instantly.
“Private Britton, are YOU okay?” He asked. She never talked this much unless she was nervous, he’d picked up on this with his time spent around her. She was one of his favorites, honestly - driven, determined, and kind. Without her arm, though, she seemed lost - he’d see her reach up to rub her shoulder only to realize there was almost nothing there. Phantom pain, likely - he knew that well, he still felt the pain from the shots to his throat often despite those scars having long been closed over.
“Oh. Uh… yeah. I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?” He asked, wrapping an arm gently around her shoulder. She stiffened further, going stock still at the contact…
And then she began to cry.
It was a loud, wailing, sobbing kind of cry, and Maine was glad no one else was in the hall at the moment because they probably would have rushed over in panic, and that didn’t seem like what Britton needed right now. She was only fifteen, he knew, and probably terrified of life after the war, with one arm and PTSD and probably nightmares like she’d never had -
“A-are you g-going to leave?” She stuttered out, and Maine himself stood there in shock for a few moments.
She didn’t want to be alone. That much was obvious. How far that extended, he didn’t know, but he assumed she was worried about him going off-planet.
He was shocked. He really hadn’t expected anyone to WANT him to stay…
“I… don’t know.” He answered honestly, knowing she deserved the truth. “I want to go with Wash, and if he wants to leave, I probably will. But at the same time…” He paused for a moment, thinking.
“At the same time, I want to stay. I want to see this planet restored, I want to see the kids who fought go to school and graduate, I want to see everyone living happily again. And… I want to help, if I can…”
She started crying harder, and for a moment Maine was worried he’d said the wrong thing somehow. But then she wrapped her arm around his stomach as best she could, and grabbed a fistful of the shirt he was wearing with one hand, and he realized she really was scared of him leaving.
“Britton, do you… want me to stay?”
She nodded aggressively, not looking up at him, and he felt his shirt soaking with tears.
“Okay.”
She looked up at that, and her face was wet and tear-stained, and he felt in that moment like he might cry himself - she looked so pitiful, arm gone, crying, scared, and he knew he couldn’t leave these kids, not when they had no one to look up to, not with no help or comfort, with no role models, no guardians, no one to take care of them, no PARENTS.
“Okay?” She said, confused, and Maine sat down on a bench, pulling her to sit next to him, and wrapped his arms around her.
“I’ll stay. Somebody’s gotta help you guys out, right?”
“E-even if Agent Washington l-leaves?”
“Even if he leaves.” He nodded, holding her as tight as he could without hurting her. She leaned into him, curling up, and he didn’t really know what to do except rock gently back and forth, trying to calm her. One hand went to rub circles on her back, and she cried quietly for a few moments, shaking and sobbing into his chest.
“Britton?”
“Y-yeah?”
“You don’t have parents anymore, do you?”
“No…” She paused, and he waited for her to continue. “They… they died, at the very beginning of the war, and my sister was taking care of me, and then SHE died, and then I got orphaned and by the time I was 13 I was signing up, and now I’m 15 and the war is over and I d-don’t have a-ny-one…” She started crying again, and he squeezed his arms around her tighter, rubbing circles on her back with one hand, trying to soothe her, anything he could do was better than nothing…
“A-Agent Maine?”
“Yes?”
“I wanna stay with you…”
With me? He thought, and the thought confused him, and he took a moment to process the concept. She wanted him to… what, be her guardian? Her father? That was a completely foreign concept to him, the concept of parents, of being someone like that for anyone.
He found himself speaking, without even thinking about it.
“Okay.”
She looked up, wiped her tears off her cheeks, tilted her head in confusion.
“Okay?”
“Yeah. You’re gonna need someone to look after you, right? If you want me to do that… I will.”
She sat silent, stunned by this idea. She clearly hadn’t expected to get that far with the statement, but here she was.
“First order of business,” he continued, and she stared up at him - “getting you a prosthetic.”
And actually, he thought, as he realized just how much money he would have after Freelancer and the UNSC’s compensation for assisting in the taking down of Charon, maybe he could do that for more than just her.
“Britton, how many people do we have who’ve got missing limbs?”
She looked confused, but ran over the names in her mind.
“Jackie, Aly, Jace, Castor…” She kept naming names, and Maine counted each name off mentally, storing them in his implants’ files. When she was done, he had a total of thirty-two names.
“Is that all, or all you know?”
“I think that’s everybody. You could ask General Kimball though - she probably has a casualty record. Or Doctor Grey.”
“I’ll ask Kimball… I need to talk to her anyway.” He smiled. “In the meantime… can you do me a favor, Britton?”
“Yeah, what is it?” She wiped her eyes again.
“Can you go find everyone you can who’s on that list of names, and tell them to meet me in the Pelican bay?”
“Oh! Uh, yeah, sure!” She nodded vigorously, and smiled a small smile up at him before half-skipping off to do as he’d asked her to.
He grinned, heading off in the other direction to find Kimball.
With Kimball’s permission and a list of names, he met the kids in the bay where the transports were kept. There were mostly Pelicans, Warthogs, and Mongooses, but there were a few larger ships that had more travel capabilities - they had to be able to get off planet somehow on Chorus, after all.
“Agent Maine, sir!” One of the kids saluted instinctively, and the others followed. He dismissed it with a wave of his hand, and they dropped their salutes, confused.
“Okay, first of all, drop the ‘sir’. It feels weird now that we’re not in combat… it always felt weird, honestly.”
“Okay, s- I mean, Maine.” The teen spoke, and Maine nodded.
“Much better. Now, am I correct in assuming you guys are the kids who are going to, at some point, need prosthetics?” The kids nodded solemnly - there were around thirty, Britton had been right. Too many entirely - though he knew there were more who hadn’t survived both the war and the amputation process.
“Alright. Now, I have Kimball’s permission, so do you know what we’re going to do?”
They shook their heads no. Britton in particular looked confused, tilting her head at him.
“We’re going to take one of those ships over there-” He pointed to the ships capable of off-planet travel, “and we’re going to go off-planet, to a hospital that is capable of sizing and outfitting you for those prosthetics.”
There was silence for a few moments, and the room was still.
Then people spoke.
“Sir, ALL of us?” A young boy asked, at the same time that a different kid said “You can’t do that for us!”
“I can, and I’m going to.” He grinned at them. “For all of you. Every one of you who’s lost a limb is going to get a prosthetic, courtesy of the bank account I own which has more money than any soldier is ever going to need in it.”
“Sir…” Britton started, and she looked like she was going to cry again. Maine shushed her with a finger on his own lips, and she stopped, wiping her eyes.
“It will probably take a few days to get to the hospital, and Kimball is prepared for that. So all of you, I want you to stock up on food and other supplies - bandages for those who need them, toiletries, et cetera for the trip.”
The kids nodded, realizing he was serious.
Then one of them spoke.
“Sir - I mean Maine - can I… can I hug you?”
The kid who had said it looked to be around 14 or 15 - close to Britton’s age, Maine knew. None of these kids were older than 19.
He nodded, and suddenly he was swarmed by kids half his height, wrapping whatever arms they had around him, and he was startled, but stood there and awkwardly patted them on their heads, backs, shoulders, whatever he could reach, until they’d all had their chances, and he felt like he was doing the right thing.
He was doing the right thing.
A week or so later, the kids returned to Armonia with their prosthetics built, sized, and attached. Maine could not have been happier. Most of the kids had cried, had hugged them, had screamed in joy and shock both when they’d seen how incredible the prosthetics were. They weren’t wooden legs or anything - they were functional cybernetics, capable of writing and walking and doing almost everything a normal human limb could do. Maine was overjoyed.
Britton came up to him, Kimball in tow, a day or so after they got back. Kimball looked him in the eye, and then she did something unexpected - she wrapped her own arms around him.
“Thank you,” she said, and Maine’s eyes brimmed with tears.
“Of course,” he whispered. “They deserved it.”
Britton hugged him too, both arms wrapping around him - one flesh, one metal and cybernetics - but the cool metal against his skin was nothing compared to the warmth he felt in his heart.