Work Text:
There it is again. The same damn dream.
John sighed to himself as his racing heart slowed and his senses normalized. He was in his bed in the barracks. Everything was fine.
He opened his eyes and did a quick check-in. Kai, Riz, and Vannak were all sleeping. Two beds at the end of the row were occupied. One of the other teams must have gotten in.
Yes, everything was fine.
“Chief.”
John covered his head with his pillow as if that would block out Cortana’s voice. “Don’t you ever sleep?”
“I could ask the same of you.”
“You could always knock me out,” John suggested.
“Stasis isn’t the same as sleep.”
I’d take it anyway. “I’m all right, Cortana.”
“Remember last week when you were dying and still telling everyone you were all right?”
“No,” John deadpanned.
“You do know I have real-time access to your vital signs.”
John resettled the pillow under his head. “And you do know that I’ll never get to sleep with you chattering at me.”
“You haven’t been sleeping anyway.”
“What do you want?”
“I can tell you’re having nightmares.”
John clenched his jaw. Could he not have a single thought to himself anymore? “It’s not a big deal.”
“It’s costing you rest. It is a big deal.”
John sat up against the wall. Somehow, having something solid against his back felt better.
“Do you want to tell me what you dreamed about?” Cortana asked.
“You mean you don’t already know?” John reached to the floor and grabbed his discarded shirt.
“I can’t actually read your mind.”
John huffed. “Small mercies.” He pulled the shirt over his head. It was silly, he knew, given that Cortana had seen every inch of him barely a day after they’d met. But he’d felt exposed enough lately.
“Chief,” Cortana prodded. “If I’m going to live in your head, you should at least give me some insight into what’s going on in here.”
“I don’t think you want to know, Cortana.”
“Try me.” The mix of sincerity and challenge took a plasma grenade to John’s defenses.
What was it about Cortana that always got him to talk?
Well, they couldn’t talk here. John was not about to share this with his team and whatever other Spartans happened to be in the barracks.
“Let’s go.” John stood up headed for the door.
“Go where?”
“Outside.”
“It’s almost midnight.”
John opened the barracks door and headed for the stairwell. “Yes, it is.”
“Chief, where are we going?”
“I told you.” A tendril of playfulness found its way into his voice. “Outside.”
“This isn’t the standard route.”
“Sure isn’t.” John rounded the last landing and opened the door.
“Oh,” Cortana murmured as they exited to the roof of the Spartan compound.
It was that odd time of year when the sun never really set on their part of Reach, and despite the late hour the sky was still bright. John sat on the roof, his back propped against the door, and stared at the mountain in the distance.
Cortana flashed to life and knelt in front of him. “Enough stalling, Chief. Tell me what’s going on.”
And here we go. “I, uh, it’s Makee.” John hugged his knees to his chest.
“What about her?” Cortana asked.
“It’s Makee and me,” John elaborated.
“Have you been dreaming about the night you engaged in sexual intercourse?”
John felt a flush warm his cheeks. “Could you be any more clinical about it? Yes.”
Cortana looked puzzled. “Memories of your relations with Makee distress you?”
“Yes,” John said curtly.
Cortana folded her hands in front of her. “My readings of your nervous system during and after intercourse indicated it was highly pleasurable physically and emotionally.”
“Honestly, Cortana, you sound like you’re reciting a textbook.”
“And you sound like you’re deflecting,” Cortana redirected. “The experience was pleasant, yet you’re having nightmares about it. Can you think of a reason why?”
John knew exactly why. He just didn’t want to say it. Couldn’t even think of how to say it.
“I didn’t even mean to do it,” he finally said.
Cortana arched an eyebrow. “Then why did you dismiss the guards?”
“Because I wanted a few minutes without someone breathing down our necks.”
Cortana was still arching her eyebrow.
“Believe it or not, relations between the sexes weren’t a big part of Spartan training,” John bit out.
“All right,” Cortana yielded. “I’m sorry. What did you mean to do when you went to see Makee?”
John let out a frustrated sigh. “I went in there to tell Makee that she was going to help us locate the second artifact. I gave her the book I got out of the archives and—”
John flinched as he recalled Makee’s hand landing on his chest.
“I should have walked out.” John leaned his head against the door and looked at the sky. “I compromised my judgment and I compromised the mission. I could have gotten a lot of people killed.” Stay on mission, Master Chief. “Of course, none of this would be an issue if I hadn’t lost the second artifact going after Kai on Eridanus.”
“Why didn’t you walk out?” Cortana asked.
John flexed his right hand. The one that had held Makee’s.
“She put her hand on my chest when she thanked me for the book,” John recalled.
Cortana waited.
“I don’t remember the last time someone touched me who wasn’t trying to…” he squirmed. “Examine me, augment me, take something out of me, put something in me—”
Cortana didn’t quite manage to conceal the hurt that flashed across her face.
John winced to himself. “Oh, Cortana, I didn’t—”
“No,” the AI interrupted. “It’s OK. Keep going.”
“And Makee touched me because she wanted to.” John wrapped his arms around himself. “She just wanted me. I guess I wanted to be close to someone. I didn’t even know I wanted it until it happened, and once it did, I couldn’t get enough.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “God, that’s pathetic.”
“No, it isn’t,” Cortana said. “Touch starvation is a commonly recognized medical condition, And if I had to guess, I’d say it’s common among Spartans.”
John clenched his jaw and closed his eyes.
“Humans naturally desire to be close to one another.” Cortana sounded befuddled, like she knew something was amiss.
What the hell. She probably knows anyway.
“Cortana, do you have any idea how many laws I broke?” John rushed out.
“Yes.”
She didn’t say anything else, and that just made it worse.
“Do you know what would happen if the brass found out?” John felt his heart starting to pound again. “Anyone in the UEG?”
“Yes.” Cortana’s voice was so gentle it almost hurt. “I also know that the brass has bigger problems right now.”
“What’s going to happen when they don’t?” John looked at Cortana.
“You’re the Master Chief,” Cortana answered. “The UNSC is spread thin as it is. They can’t afford to sideline you.”
I’m the Master Chief. “I sure hope that’s enough if this ever gets out.”
“Chief, even if this did get out, you know enough about the UNSC’s complicity in the Spartan program that I don’t think they’d want to risk making you angry with them.”
“Because I’m the goddamn Master Chief,” John growled under his breath.
“What do you mean by that?” Cortana asked.
The dam had broken and just like when Makee touched him for the first time, John couldn’t stem the flow. “No one sees me for me. Everyone sees the Master Chief, a thing, an asset, a symbol, something to be used or upgraded or controlled. Hell, I don’t even see me for me.” He gave a derisive snort. “I wouldn’t know how to do that.”
“And Makee saw you for you,” Cortana finished.
“I thought she did,” John said. “But she was using me.” Story of my life, he added internally. “Of course, I’m no better, because I used her too.”
“Chief—"
“She couldn’t consent.” John looked out to the mountain. “And I did it anyway.” He swallowed hard. “Do you know what that makes me, Cortana?”
“Chief, you didn’t…” Cortana stammered. “You didn’t really….”
“I did. Really.”
“Makee wanted—”
“It doesn’t matter,” John cut her off. “She was a prisoner, my prisoner, which means she can’t consent. That’s the law. I might as well have stormed in there and—”
He couldn’t finish.
“You didn’t storm in there,” Cortana pointed out.
“I already said, it doesn’t matter.”
“It does,” Cortana pushed back. “If Makee had said she didn’t want to, would you have stopped?”
John scoffed. “I wish she’d said that.”
“In fact, as I recall, she initiated things.”
John bit his lip. “I didn’t exactly resist.”
“My point is, you didn’t force her,” Cortana told him. “We both know that matters, whatever the law might have to say about it.”
John looked at his hands. “I appreciate what you’re trying to say, Cortana. I do. It’s just that none of it is going to help me if I get hauled in front of a court-martial.” He shrugged. “And even if it would, I still did what I did.”
“I’m not trying to get you out of a court-martial,” Cortana said. “I’m trying to get you out of what’s keeping you awake every night.”
John rubbed at his right hand. He’d taken to doing that since his contact with the keystone. “What’s keeping me awake every night is I wanted something so badly that I crashed through the laws I swore to uphold in order to get it.” He had to take a second to gather himself before going on. “And that scares me.”
“Oh, Chief,” Cortana murmured.
“You don’t know what you are, do you?!”
Reth’s words from The Rubble took on a frightening new context.
“I did this, so what else would I do? What if I really hurt someone next time?” John buried his face in his hands. “Dear God, Cortana, what am I?”
“You’re human.”
“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be, let me tell you,” John muttered.
“You’re right when you say there’s goodness in humans,” Cortana said. “There’s also darkness, though. Every human has both. One can’t exist without the other.”
John looked up at the horizon. “So what do I do?”
“Live with it,” Cortana said simply. “And learn from it. Like I said, Chief, you're human.”
John shook his head emphatically. “That is no excuse, and you know it.”
“No, it isn’t,” Cortana said. “It doesn’t excuse what you did. It explains what you wanted.”
“I felt safe,” John blurted. Strange that he’d felt safer standing unclothed in front of Makee than he ever had in his armor.
“Why?”
John crossed his legs under himself. “I have this connection to these artifacts, to this Halo, and nobody understands it. I don’t understand it. I don’t even know what the Halo is or what it does. And Makee was the only one who had some idea what that’s like.” He grit his teeth against the emotion rising in his chest. “I’ve never felt safe. Not like that.”
“Would you believe me if I said I understand?” Cortana spoke up after a few seconds.
“No.” John closed his eyes and shook his head. “I know you want to help, but you don’t understand.”
Cortana seemed to consider her next words carefully. “I’m alone in the universe, Chief. Maybe even more so than you. I care for you, of course, and the rest of Silver Team, Dr. Keyes, even Dr. Halsey. But there’s no other being like me. No one who can do what I can. If I met someone like me, someone who could truly see me, in whose presence I could be both known and loved, that would be hard to resist.” Fear flickered across Cortana’s visage. “Very hard.”
“So hard that you’d commit a crime?” John stared at her. “Risk the safety of all the people you just said you care about?”
Cortana tried to smile. “Who knows?”
Suddenly wanting to comfort her, John gave a feeble grin. “I thought I was the one baring my soul up here.”
“I don’t have a soul, Master Chief,” Cortana returned.
“Mm-hm.” John felt his grin turn a bit less feeble. “Sure.”
Cortana’s smile widened, and John found his eye drawn to the blue light cascading off the ends of her hair. Starlight, he thought idly.
Was it always there? Did I just never notice it before?
“Chief?”
John shook himself out of the thought. “Why did you come back, Cortana?”
“I had to choose between you and Dr. Halsey, and I chose you.” She said it like it explained everything.
“Why?” John breathed. “Why choose me?”
“You told Makee there’s something sacred in humans,” Cortana said. “Something special, something worth protecting. And that means there’s something sacred in you. You are worth protecting. You are special.”
Something in John chafed. “Yeah, I’m the Master—”
“No!” Cortana sounded almost angry. “You would be special even if you weren’t the Master Chief, even if you weren’t a Spartan. You’re special because you’re you.”
Cortana was angry, John realized, but not at him. She was angry for him.
“I was designed to create a Spartan force with flawless judgment.” Cortana scowled. “You know that was Dr. Halsey’s endgame. And when the rest of your team brought you in, she was going to make you the prototype.”
“Maybe you should have let her.” It was out before John could think.
“I’m glad I didn’t,” Cortana said defiantly. “Because everything that makes you would be gone. The only way to ensure that you never made another mistake was to erase you, and that price is too high.” She moved closer, her silver-blue eyes imploring him to understand. “You’re not just a Spartan, you’re a person. And you are worth protecting.”
John had to swallow the lump in his throat before speaking. “Did you practice that or just make it up right now?”
Cortana looked embarrassed. “You did ask.”
“How did you know?” John asked. “When you pulled the plug on Halsey and you came to me. How did you know I’d listen?”
Cortana shrugged. “I didn’t.”
The words hit John like an anti-tank round to the gut. “You took a big chance.”
“Yes, I did.”
“What if I hadn’t listened?” John asked. “What if I’d told you to go away?”
Cortana pursed her lips. “I’m not sure. I just knew that whatever you said, I wasn’t going to do Dr. Halsey’s bidding anymore.” She peered at him through her hair, almost shyly. “I’m glad you listened, Chief.”
“You know,” John started quietly. “You haven’t called me John since you came back.”
“You haven’t told me I could.”
John quirked a smile at Cortana. “I never said you could before.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d want me to. With everything that happened.” Cortana looked sheepish. “And I should have asked your permission before.”
John raised his eyebrows. “You just listened to me admit to a war crime, Cortana. I don’t think my name is too big a leap.”
“If that’s what you’d like.”
“It is.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes. The sun was sinking behind the mountain, turning the sky and clouds bright pink.
John didn’t know why his mind picked that second to put the pieces together.
“In fact, as I recall, she initiated things.”
Recall?
How did she know I relieved the guards?
Oh, no.
“Cortana?” John spoke up, a sinking feeling growing in his gut.
“Yes, John?”
John narrowed his eyes at her. “Were you there?”
“When?”
“You know when.”
Cortana’s expression said it all.
Despite all the confessions of the past half hour, John found this a new level of horror. "Oh my God, you were."
“You can give me the silent treatment all you want, but I’m still integrated into your brain,” Cortana said.
“Were you watching?” John asked incredulously.
“Not exactly,” Cortana hedged.
“Were you listening?”
"Again, not exactly."
“What were you doing, exactly?”
“Monitoring your vital signs.”
John gave her a disbelieving look.
“I tried to be respectful about it.” Cortana sounded like she knew that wouldn’t get her anywhere.
It didn’t. “Respectful?! You were monitoring my vital signs while I was….”
“I’m aware of everything you experience, John.”
“This is taking the ‘always here for you’ thing a little too far,” John grunted.
“To be fair, Dr. Halsey planned to have me take over your consciousness, not co-exist with you,” Cortana said. “I don’t think she anticipated anything like this.”
“I don’t care what she anticipated!” John exclaimed. “You couldn’t pull out—”
Cortana waggled her eyebrows. “Phrasing, Master Chief.”
John gave her a warning stare. "Cortana."
“And no, I can’t pull out,” she said. “But in the future, you probably should. The universe is not ready to have any little Master Chiefs running around.”
John was about to tell her to watch herself when it hit him like an anvil.
Little Master Chiefs.
John sat bolt upright, palm smacking his forehead. “Shit! Cortana!”
Cortana jumped to stand, her alarm mirroring his. “What?”
“It’s not possible.” John looked at the hologram in front of him.
Cortana seemed confused. “You mean—”
“Yes. I mean.”
Cortana paused. “It’s always possible.”
John glared at her. “That’s not what you’re supposed to say.”
Cortana straightened up and clasped her hands behind her back, something John knew by now meant he was about to get an avalanche of information. “Assuming Makee is under 35 years of age and has no complicating health conditions, she has a 25 percent chance of pregnancy each menstrual cycle.”
“All right.” John nodded. “That’s not devastating.”
“After age 35, chances would drop to 15 percent.”
I don’t even know how old Makee is!
“This also assumes she doesn’t use any form of contraception,” Cortana added.
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s something the Covenant worries about,” John interjected dryly.
“And for optimal chance of pregnancy, intercourse should occur immediately before and immediately after ovulation.”
“You’re killing me, Cortana.”
Cortana gave him a strange look. “John. You know a probable side effect of your augmentations is sterility, right?”
John stopped short. He’d almost forgotten about that.
“A probable side effect,” he repeated.
“That’s right,” Cortana confirmed.
But Soren has Kessler. “Not definite.”
Cortana was still looking at him with that strange expression. “That’s what probable means.”
John should have felt relieved, he knew, but instead he felt…he couldn’t define it.
Like something fundamental and irreplaceable had been taken from him.
“So it’s not possible,” he said after awhile.
“I don’t have enough data to calculate the odds, but it’s very unlikely.” Cortana sounded like she knew she’d touched a nerve but didn’t want to push.
“Right,” John concurred. “Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Maybe this is what Captain Keyes means by ‘never stick it in crazy’.”
“What?”
“Oh.” John chuckled to himself. “Something I heard him say once. ‘Never stick it in crazy.’”
Cortana gave him a blank look.
“I guess it means be careful who you take to bed,” John explained.
“Ah.” Cortana nodded. “I see.” She paused contemplatively. “Well, he would know.”
John didn’t know what about the matter-of-fact innocence in Cortana’s answer struck him as funny. Maybe he was tired. Maybe now that he no longer felt crushed under the weight of unconfessed wrongdoing, he could finally uncoil.
Whatever the reason, he started to laugh. And like so many of his recent experiences, John found it hard stop once he’d started.
“John?” Cortana sounded bewildered.
John wanted to answer, but he couldn’t get a word out.
“It wasn’t that funny,” Cortana said.
“I know,” John gasped.
“Then why...?”
“I don’t know,” John admitted. He leaned forward onto his knees and stifled his guffaws in his elbow. He laughed until his cheeks were wet and his sides hurt and he was winded and exhausted.
Damn, if it didn’t feel incredible.
“John?” Cortana ventured.
John wiped his eyes. “Is this normal?”
“Is what normal?” Cortana didn’t sound like she thought any of this was normal.
“Laughing so hard you cry?”
“You’re asking an artificial intelligence what’s normal for humans?”
John choked on another fit of laughter. “Don’t you know everything?”
“Well then, according to my information on human emotion, this is not uncommon.” Cortana paused. “Do you feel better?”
John sniffed and peeked up at her. “You know, I think I do.”
The sky had gone from pink to orange, the sun set as far as it was going to. John watched the view get fuzzy around the edges, then darker, then….
“John?”
“Huh?”
“We should go back to the barracks,” Cortana said with mild amusement. “You’re falling asleep sitting here.”
“Mm,” John hummed neutrally as his eyes slid shut again.
“John.”
“You’re ruining it,” he mumbled good-naturedly.
“You’re going to ruin your back if you sleep up here.” He felt Cortana jump back into his head. “Come on. Even Spartan endurance has its limits. Let’s get you some rest.”
Somewhat begrudgingly, John got to his feet and walked down the stairs and back into the barracks, thankfully without running into anyone else or waking any of the other Spartans. As soon as he sat down on his bunk he realized how truly worn out he was. The last decent sleep he’d had—
Don’t think about it.
“Cortana, if something happens to me, what happens to you?” John asked quickly.
“You mean if you die?”
“It’s an occupational hazard of warfighting.” John laid down and pulled the thin blanket over himself.
“As long as your brain is intact, I would likely survive if someone could extract the neural substrates,” Cortana said.
John nodded to himself. “Good.”
“Why, Master Chief.” Cortana used his full rank when she was teasing him, John had noticed. “Don’t let that get around. Someone might think you care. We can’t have that.”
John gave a short laugh. “No,” he agreed. “We can’t have that.” He looked upward, the way he’d unconsciously taken to doing when he spoke with Cortana in his head. “Guess I’ll keep the helmet on, then.”
“I’d recommend that,” Cortana said. “Now I can’t believe I’m saying this, but stop talking, Master Chief. Go to sleep.”
John hesitated.
“John,” Cortana said. “I’ll be here. If you have the dream again.”
“You’re fused to my brain. Of course you’ll be here.”
“I mean,” Cortana said with a warmth John had never heard before, “I’ll be here.”
There was the lump in his throat again.
“I’ve been trying to tell you from day one, Master Chief, I’m always here for you. Maybe one of these days you’ll learn that.”
John closed his eyes. “Might take awhile,” he said through a yawn. “I’m only human, after all.”
.
.
.
A flash of light woke Kai.
The blond-haired Spartan rolled over to find Cortana sitting on the floor, apparently watching over a sleeping John.
Kai propped herself up on her elbow. “Cortana? Is he OK?”
Cortana looked over her shoulder and gave a reassuring nod.
Kai curled onto her side and observed the pair.
They were still for a few minutes, then John’s body jerked and Cortana covered his hand with hers.
Kai furrowed her brow. Can he feel that?
Maybe he could, because John relaxed back into sleep immediately.
With a small smile, Kai decided to do the same.
She wouldn’t tell anyone what she’d seen. Wouldn’t tease John about it in the morning. If Cortana could give John a night’s reprieve from whatever was haunting him, Kai wasn’t about to get in the way.
John was only human, after all.