Chapter Text
On Chorus, there were beautiful stretching landscapes that went on farther than you could have thought possible. Carolina might have wanted to take some pictures, if she had a camera. And if she didn’t have better things to be focusing on, like being on a camping trip with the boys. And Tucker.
Okay, it wasn’t really a camping trip. It was more of a scouting-alien-temples trip, just one that involved sleeping outside in tents. Donut brought marshmallows. It was kind of a camping trip.
It was a long trip, one that Chorus couldn’t spare a ship for at that point. They were sent to investigate the temples to see if there were any that could help the planet rebuild after the war. The temple in question wasn’t too far away, and the terrain was even enough for the Warthogs to handle with no problems.
So they were driving.
It was about three days to get there, plus three days back. The dust thrown up by the Warthogs clouded her visor until everything she saw was tinged in tan and grey. Grif ate all the hot dogs, and Simmons yelled at him for it. Sarge wrecked his car three times before Lopez fixed it the last time and shoved him out of the driver’s seat. Donut cried because he’d spilled his hand lotion while they were still two days out from returning to the capital. Tucker was ultimately useless, because once they’d learned that it was the temple of Perfect Lawns they didn’t even bother activating it. He’d argued halfheartedly that maybe they could use some lawns, but gave up halfway. There was no way grass upkeep was the priority in the settlements right then, so they turned around and started back home. Carolina had essentially wasted a whole week of her life, but somehow she wasn’t mad about it.
---
Sitting around the campfire with the boys (and Tucker), she wondered about that. She had found herself more prone to enjoying meaningless endeavors like this pretty often lately. But she didn’t have much time to think, because sitting around a campfire with the reds didn’t leave anybody with any time to themselves. Donut sidled up to her and said, “Hey Carolina, so I was thinking…” just as Simmons came up and said something about Grif not finding the last package of hot dogs. Carolina was so thoroughly distracted by the conversation (yelling) flowing around her that she absently agreed to letting Donut paint her nails. Only when he had finished and Carolina could roast her hot dog with two hands did she finally look at them.
“Donut, I thought you said they’d be my color.”
“Well, yeah! Red is totally your color, Carolina! You really rock that hair.”
She stared at her fingernails. Too short, maybe because they were a little chewed, if she was being honest, and bright red on top of that. They were… nice. Though she’d expected aqua, who would ever presume that Donut would carry around nail polish in the colors of the opposite team? She gave her nails a small smile. Yeah, they were great alright.
Around the fire, a battle broke out over who got the last hot dog. Never one to back down from a challenge, she got up and joined them. Donut cheered her on from the sidelines, and when she finally pried the hot dog out of Simmons’ surprisingly determined grip, she returned to her spot next to Donut and split it with him. Tucker sat across the clearing, looking miserable. Carolina caught Sarge’s small, warm smile as he watched Grif pat Simmons on the back as he cried and tried to clean the grease out of his finger joints.
At night she lay down in her tent to sleep, and when she chipped one of Donut’s masterpieces first thing in the morning folding the tent up, he reassured her that he could fix it right away. After a quick touch-up, he made her promise to come right to him if she wanted them painted again. She found herself thinking that it wouldn’t be bad to take him up on that, sometime.
---
Back in Armonia everything was just the same as it always was. Trains ran late, Warthogs poured smoke, and Kimball was inches away from hysterics, trying to mask it with a cool, calm facade. Carolina had been gone for a week ( a week! ) and the mission had been a failure. It wasn’t Lina’s fault, of course not, nor was it any of the red’s. It wasn’t even Tucker’s fault. Yet she couldn’t help lamenting that week Carolina had to spend away. Kimball needed her here! She couldn’t run this alone! She needed at least one other person who was responsible, who would step up to her side and help her handle everything that was shoved into her hands, and Washington was a poor substitute for Carolina. Sure he was calm, rational, quick-thinking, everything that Freelancer had trained him and Carolina to be. But he was different from her, and even though he was meant as a placeholder, having him there just made Carolina’s absence seem more obvious.
When Carolina finally returned, Kimball didn’t have any time to feel bad for ditching Wash with the reds and Tucker. She managed to act dignified, like a president should, as she walked towards Carolina, but as soon as she was there she gave in and wrapped her arms around her in a bear hug that might have crushed anyone that wasn’t a former freelancer. “You’re finally here!” She yell-whispered into Carolina’s ear. Pulling back from the hug, Carolina grinned at her. “Am I ever late?” She replied. Kimball beamed at her with the kind of happiness that could only be matched by the sun and Caboose. As she whisked Carolina off to maybe possibly do some kissing in a broom closet somewhere, she heard Grif mutter something like “There they go again.” Like he didn’t do the same thing with Simmons whenever they thought no one would notice. Carolina laughed with her about it as they snuck through the Capital building. Kimball thought, maybe a little sappily, that if she were to die even the next day, she would die happy.
---
Kimball was proven wrong about the next day when Carolina had to abandon her during sanctioned cuddle time to deal with Caboose overturning another piece of construction machinery. Kimball’s home was located outside of Armonia, because she would like to kiss her girlfriend and not have all the interns staring at them, thank you very much. It was in an area that was still undergoing reconstruction, but that wasn’t really much of a statement. Almost everywhere was still under construction on Chorus. The civil war had ended over a year ago, but it had gone on for a long time. Kimball sometimes wondered if the destruction they had caused would ever be completely gone. They were working on it though, both armies having gotten over their differences and instead working together to rebuild their home. The reds and blues had done that too, minus maybe the bit about getting over their differences. But according to Carolina, it had gone on like that for years. If it works, why fix it, right?
The fact of the matter was, Caboose was currently part of the construction team that was working right across the street from her house.
It got loud, sometimes. But Carolina was having fun, or at least it seemed like it when she yelled at Caboose with that big smile on her face.
---
Carolina was not having fun. She couldn’t seem to convince Caboose that the backhoe needed to be put right-side-up again. He kept insisting that it was napping. After a few minutes Tucker wandered over, and Carolina felt an inordinate amount of relief when he told Caboose that it didn’t need a nap because it wasn’t a bulldozer and Caboose flipped it right back over.
“Thanks,” she said, because apparently she felt like she needed to be grateful for things like that.
“Psh. Fuck off, Red,” was what he said instead of the lame joke she had been expecting.
Carolina frowned. “I’m not a red. I’m not on either team, remember?”
“Oh, you expect me to believe that? After what I saw out there?” Tucker hissed. Carolina was genuinely confused. “What are you talking about?”
“And now you’re playing dumb. Classic red behavior. I can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner,” he ranted. “You think I don’t know? You think wearing armor can disguise what you are?”
At that point, Carolina was just about ready to write it all off as some elaborate joke that she just wasn’t getting. “Are you talking about… Am I on red team because my hair is red? You’ve seen me without a helmet on like, a bazillion times-” “Not that!” Yelled Tucker, exasperated, somehow, with her even though she felt she had earned it more than him. “It’s the- you- just look at your nails!”
Carolina did. They were red. “Donut painted them,” she said, looking back at Tucker.
“Exactly!” He shouted, pointing wildly. “Fraternizing! That’s what that is! You can’t pretend to not be on either side and then pick favorites! That’s not how it works!”
“Isn’t that what Wash did?” She asked. “I guess it’s not a problem when it’s your team.”
“Wash is a blue,” said Tucker, “he picked a side right at the start. You didn’t! Don’t pull this bullshit now, it’s not fair! Red team’s got more members than us!! And if you join them then the entire future existence of blue team will be at stake!” Even though he had gotten louder and more hysterical with his accusations steadily since the beginning, he somehow sounded serious about the whole thing. Carolina couldn’t help but laugh. “It looks like Wash’s melodrama rubbed off on you when he joined blue team. You better not start throwing knives at me or I’m else gonna have to sock you.”
“Fuck off, Red!” Was all Tucker had left to say. It looked like he had run out of steam. Carolina just laughed again. Even Caboose joined in from over by the backhoe. Then he started trying to drive it, so Carolina and Tucker had to stop making fun of each other and join forces to stop him. Carolina didn’t really think about it much until the next week.
---
“So… You’re coming over for red team movie night tomorrow, right?” Simmons asked Carolina while he was in the capital dropping off some papers. “Tell me now because I need to know how much popcorn to make.”
Carolina took a sip of her coffee. “I didn’t know I was invited.”
“Huh? Oh, yeah. New recruiting tactic. Sarge’s plan to Get Us A Freelancer- we went over this last meeting. You weren’t there?”
“I wasn’t there.”
“Hmph,” Simmons snorted, “I’m not surprised. Grif wasn’t there, or Donut, or Lopez. Sarge left halfway through. Anyway, you’re being recruited to red team, just really, reaally slowly. Sarge says we might be able to give you the keys to the team Warthog in…” he stopped to check a schedule on his clipboard. “Probably in late May, sometime.”
“Simmons,” said Carolina, exasperated and not quite sure she was actually hearing any of this, “It’s June right now.”
“Yeah, um, May next year. Duh,” said Simmons, now looking at an entirely different color-coded schedule. “I gotta go right now, but you’re coming to movie night, right?”
“Sure,” said Carolina, forgetting for a moment that her actions had consequences.
---
Carolina called Kimball during Kimball’s lunch break, which wasn’t the same as her lunch break, which was very sad. “Babe,” she said, because Kimball was totally a babe, “I think I accidentally RSVP’d to red team movie night tonight.” “Babe!” Said Kimball on the other end, mouth full of what was probably the grilled cheese Carolina had made for her that morning, “wasn’t our movie night tonight?”
“I know!” Carolina grumbled, “I thought only reds were allowed, but then Simmons came up to me asking how much popcorn he should make and I accidentally said I would go.” She sighed.
“Lina,” said Kimball, “go to red team movie night.”
“But-” “We can do movie night tomorrow. Red team, though, has only one movie night a month.”
“Actually, Simmons’ color-coded schedule says it’s twice monthly,” joked Carolina, “but yeah. I see what you’re saying.”
“Just make sure you’re not watching Sharknado 2. I don’t want any spoilers in my house tomorrow.”
Carolina laughed. “Okay, Nessa. I got it.”
“Love you.”
“Love you. Bye.” Carolina smiled as she hung up. She felt like she might have the best girlfriend in the world.
---
Carolina was less sure Kimball was the best girlfriend in the world when she arrived at red team movie night in her flip-flops and Maroon Team volleyball shirt. Simmons had messaged her saying she should dress ‘extremely casual’ because ‘Donut sometimes forgets that everyone else uses the coffee table and doesn’t put his nail polish away’ and also that ‘Grif is a fucking slob. He’s gonna leave a piece of pizza on the couch and you’re going to sit on it.’ Even though she had been warned of what to expect, and was also familiar with what to expect, she didn’t know what to expect at all from the enigma that was red team movie night.
For one, Locus was there. He waved awkwardly at her as she came in from where he was having his nails painted by Donut. Maybe that was some kind of initiation ritual or something. She waved back.
Sarge was in the kitchen over a stove he had somehow modified into a grill because of course, this was his house, and what did she think he ate? She’d never seen him eat anything that wasn’t an MRE, jerky, grilled, or roasted over a blazing fire. He was making hot dogs, which seemed to be a staple in the red team diet. Simmons was pouring an unholy amount of popcorn kernels into an old popcorn popper, which was wheezing as it spit out its contents into a bowl. Grif made eye contact with her as he took a huge handful and put it in his mouth. “It’s the shittiest popcorn machine ever, I know,” he said, adding some salt to the bowl, “but it somehow tastes great anyway. You like yours with butter?” He asked her, handing her her own bowl. “Or like, M&Ms or pretzels or Cheetos? We have other stuff, too. Donut already took all the Froot Loops, though.”
“I’m good, thanks,” she said, giving the popcorn a cautionary taste-test. It really was kind of good. It had a weirdly tasty charred flavor, but it wasn’t burned at all. Maybe the popcorn machine’ deathly wheezing was causing it to smoke on the insides. Or maybe Sarge had tinkered with it at some point.
As she was contemplating the dying popcorn popper, Lopez arrived with the pizzas. Everyone stampeded over to him, even Locus and Sarge, who left his hot dogs unattended. They whisked the boxes back to the kitchen, leaving Lopez standing in the entrance.
“Sure,” he said, “I’m the only one who can’t eat, but I’m the only one who can drive. Assholes.”
There was pizza. One cheese, one pepperoni, and one half-Hawaiian and half-vegetarian for Donut and Locus. Carolina decided to go with cheese after Sarge and Grif stared everyone down while silently wrapping hot dogs in slices of pepperoni pizza. “Good choice,” said Simmons as she took a slice, “but grab what you want before it’s too late. They’ll move on to this one soon.” Carolina looked at the way Grif eyed Simmons’s plate as he moved to the living room and decided to take his advice.
---
“We’re watching Back to the Future Part 2,” Grif informed her as she took a seat, “because it was Simmons and Donut’s turn to pick, and we watched the first one last month.” Sarge banged on the TV just as Lopez pressed the On button on the remote. Donut cheered. Then they ended up having to use Sarge's credit card to rent the movie because the one Simmons downloaded online turned out to be porn.
The boys, and Locus, quieted down as the movie started. Afterwards, Carolina learned from Donut that they had all watched it a million times but were being quiet for Locus, who hadn’t seen it yet. She was honestly stunned at how they’d managed to stay quiet for so long.
---
When the movie was over, Sarge rewound it to the beginning to play in the background and began what he referred to only as ‘the afterparty’, which seemed to involve Grif and Simmons fighting a gladiator match over movie trivia. Lopez seemed way more interested in it than he had been in the movie itself, slurping his oil can obnoxiously in the corner that he’d been standing in since the movie started and occasionally pumping his fist. Locus had stealthily excused himself to go to the bathroom the minute Sarge had clacked the clapperboard he’d produced from somewhere and Grif and Simmons had started circling each other. Carolina, sensing imminent red-team-generated hijinks, had retreated towards the front entrance in case she needed a quick escape. Donut had followed her, eager to talk about anything and everything. For once, Carolina wanted to talk too.
“So, somehow, you guys manage to do this twice a month?” she asked Donut for the third time, still not over the uncharacteristic quiet that had come over the room as Marty McFly hoverboarded through the holographic shark. She’d glanced over to where Grif and Simmons were sharing the oversized armchair to see Simmons slap his hand over Grif’s mouth just as he was about to say something. And Grif had kept his mouth shut. This was a new side of the red team that she’s never seen before. She still wasn’t sure it could be real. Though the cheers coming from Sarge and Lopez as Simmons socked Grif in the face while yelling, “October twenty-first, 2015!!” at least proved they hadn’t been replaced with alien clones or anything.
“I told you, Carolina,” said Donut, leaning against the wall with his hands on his hips looking annoyed, even though he’d had no problem answering this exact same question several times in a row, “Sam just doesn’t like to be distracted during a movie. One time, we were watching Avalanche Sharks, and he did a backflip off the couch when Sarge started yelling about inaccurate snowmobile representation! Grif and Simmons were just being courteous.
“And Sam is only really here for about half of the movie nights we do. He’s a busy guy, you know, always going offplanet and stuff. You should come to the next one, too, to get a look at what it’s like when he’s not here. See, Sarge was a real big fan of this MST3K thing? I don’t know what it means, but he likes to yell during the movie. A lot. You’ll love it!”
“Sure, if you want me to come,” was her hesitant reply.
“Oh, of course we want you to come, Lina! You should know that by now! I mean, you’ve saved all of our sorry butts enough times that even if we didn’t like you we’d still owe you to the sun and back. But really, we do like you! Really! After all, you’re a real winner, and us reds always play the winning team.”
Donut beamed at her, and Carolina pretended not to hear that the deathmatch in the background had gotten a little quieter, as if waiting for her reply.
She smiled back, as genuine as she could make it. “Thanks, Donut,” she said “Now. Why don’t you tell me more about this ‘Avalanche Sharks’ movie you mentioned?”
---
It was only around ten, so instead of a quick summary of the movie, Donut told Carolina to ‘hold up just a sec’ and marched straight through the impromptu gladiator match towards the television, which she thought was very brave of him given he was primarily a long-range fighter and Grif had just drawn first blood. Luckily, changing the movie playing to Avalanche Sharks seemed to distract Grif and Simmons and Donut ended up only getting punched in the arm a couple of times.
“C’mon, Lina! You’re gonna love this movie,” called Donut, flopping down on the couch and patting the cushion next to him. He frowned when his hand touched a cold piece of pizza that was lying there. He brushed it onto the floor.
Carolina walked over and sat gingerly on the spot where the pizza had been. Immediately after witnessing this, Sarge rushed over to sit in the spot to her left.
“Well little lady, it appears you’re going to participate in not one but two red team initiation rituals tonight! It’s a bit ahead of schedule, but who am I to complain?” He laughed and patted her on the back roughly.
As the movie’s opening scenes played, Grif and Simmons settled down on the floor in front of the TV. Lopez spotted his opportunity and claimed the squishy armchair.When the screams of the gladiator match failed to resume, Locus finally emerged from the bathroom. Donut hung upside down off the back of the couch to wave at him. “Heyyy, Sam! We’re gonna watch Avalanche Sharks with Carolina! Wanna join?”
“... I’ve already seen it, so no, thank you,” replied Locus, who was looking for his spaceship keys in the debris on the floor. “I think I’m going to head out for tonight.”
“Aw, boo. See you around, I guess!”
“If you’re looking for your keys, I put them on the counter,” said Simmons.
“... Thank you,” said Locus. He disappeared into the kitchen for a minute and then returned, gave them all an awkward wave, and left.
Carolina settled in to watch the movie.
—-
After the movie ended and Carolina had said her goodbyes, she stepped out into the chill night air. Chorus’s bright moon washed out everything in silky soft light. She heard the door open and close again behind her.
Turning around, she discovered it was Sarge who had followed her out into the night. He waved a metallically glinting hand. “Hey, Red,” he said to her, “I got somethin’ to say to you.”
“... Like what?” she asked. “Is it about joining red team? Because Simmons already told me about the recruitment plan-“
He waved his hand at her. “No, no, not that.” He shook his head. “I just wanted to tell you somethin’ important.”
He looked her in the eye, then away, then in the eye again. “I just wanted to let you know that, well, you can come around here anytime. Not that you have to or anything, but… you can.”
Sarge paused for a moment to nod at her.
“The boys all like you,” he continued. “Even Grif likes you, and he claims not to like anything at all! So, if you ever wanted a place on the team… It’s open. And it’ll always be open, even if you say no the first six times we ask!”
He grinned at her and crossed his arms over his chest. Carolina grinned back.
“Thanks, Sarge,” she said, “I’ll think about it.”
He reached over to pat her on the shoulder. “You do that, then.” She smiled, and turned to go, waving over her shoulder.
“You be careful on your way home, now!” Sarge called after her.
Carolina walked home with her hands tucked in her pockets and a warm, fuzzy feeling residing somewhere in her ribcage.