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Giving David a chance to join Project Freelancer is the only time Leonard Church ever acknowledges his son. David is certain the only reason he gets that chance at all is because allowing him to be court martialed would be a stain on the family name—a stain on his mother’s name, the woman who went down as a hero. David’s sister continues that legacy, and Leonard can’t let David fuck that up, despite the fact that ever since Allison’s death, Leonard hasn’t so much as looked at him.
So he joins the Project, going from David Church to Agent Washington, given a second chance and an opportunity to make a name for himself.
“No one can know,” Carolina tells him intensely when he joins. “I mean it, David. No one.”
“It’s Wash,” Wash says. “And believe me, I won’t tell anyone.” This is his chance to be someone other than the younger Church sibling, the one who has anger issues and who gets bad grades, the kid brother to valedictorian-scary-smart-class-president-most-popular-girl-at-school-who-rules-with-fear that is his older sister, and he’s not going to mess it up.
She’s always been the golden child, and no matter how hard Wash tries to follow in her footsteps, he inevitably fucks up. No matter what he does, he’s not good enough.
He’s trying to live up to her, and she’s trying to live up to their mother. He doesn’t even remember their mother, not really. She died when he was young—too young—and he can never be sure if what he recalls about her is his own memory, or stories he’s been told time and time again until they became a part of him.
When he’s Wash, he doesn’t have to worry about any of that. He gets to start over.
It’s freeing to shed his family name, the weighty expectation and smothering legacy that comes along with it. In the Project, no one compares him to Carolina—at least, not any more than they compare him to other Freelancers. No one says your sister can do this better. No one lines up their accomplishments side by side and finds him wanting.
Wash likes it that way.
—
Sometimes, Wash thinks it’s his fault.
Not Epsilon deconstructing inside his head—he knows that wasn’t his fault. But the rest of it. What Epsilon did when he deconstructed. Might be Wash’s fault.
Wash doesn’t remember his childhood. Not clearly, and not since Epsilon was first implanted. Not since the AI went through all of his memories with an obsessive focus, peeling them apart and examining them and putting them back together in the wrong order.
He doesn’t remember his childhood, but he knows he wasn’t… happy. For most of it. He thinks he was alone, but he can’t be sure.
Wash doesn’t remember his childhood, and he thinks it might be his fault.
That when Epsilon was in his head, Epsilon realized how few good memories there were of David as a kid, and decided to rewrite his past into something better. Decided to give him a sister, someone to share experiences with. Give him someone who cared about him. Give him someone who took care of him the way his father never did.
Or at least, the way Wash thinks his father never did. He doesn’t remember his father’s name anymore. Or his mother’s, for that matter. When he tries to think of them all he comes up with is LeonardAllisonChurch and he knows that’s only the fragments Epsilon left behind but he can’t help but wonder.
They both called Carolina sister, and Wash doesn’t know which one of them picked it up from the other.
But Carolina can’t be his sister. She can’t be.
If she were, she wouldn’t have left him.
If she were, he wouldn’t have left her.
If they were, they wouldn’t keep hurting each other.
—
By the time they get to Chorus, Wash barely ever thinks about his missing childhood. It’s one more thing that Epsilon took from him, and he’s supposed to work alongside Epsilon now and act like everything’s fine, so he can’t think about it too hard or he wants to break something. A specific something.
So he doesn’t think about it.
Carolina joins him in the training room at the end of one day, armor off, and Wash knows without asking that Epsilon is on loan to Kimball. It’s in the way Carolina moves, the rigid set of her shoulders, the way she keeps checking her six.
That hypervigilance melts away when she trains with Wash, and he doesn’t think too hard about why she relaxes with him. Why looking at her makes his head hurt. Why he has to focus on her red hair in order to look at her at all. Why when they spar, it feels as natural as breathing, as natural as playing with a sibling.
Wash can tell Carolina has something on her mind, but she waits until he’s on his way out to speak and he can’t help but think that’s deliberate.
“You know, we don’t have to keep this up,” Carolina says, like she’s trying to bring him in on a secret. She never sounded like that during Freelancer, he remembers it from a childhood spent keeping secrets from their father.
“Keep what up?” He asks, his heart jumping up into his throat. He glances at her, focusing on the red of her hair to ignore the pounding in his head.
“Wash,” she says, as if that’s an answer. He doesn’t know what she sees in his expression, but she backtracks immediately. “I just meant that if you ever wanted to. Talk. About it. I’d be open to that.”
“Talk?” He finds himself saying, though his voice is high and strangled. “About what?” Carolina hesitates, looking unsure in a way that isn’t like her at all.
“About. You know. Before. Freelancer.” The words come out one by one as if dripping from a tap, and Wash feels like he’s drowning.
Sis wait up, Davey don’t do that, he’s left behind again.
“I don’t,” he says, unable to put into words the way his head feels like it’s going to explode. “It doesn’t matter.” He leaves before he can see the heartbroken expression on her face, and studiously ignores the fuzzy memories playing in his head of a childhood that isn’t his.
—
“Dude what the fuck.” Wash has his knife out before he registers who’s speaking, then glares at the hologram floating in the briefing room and purposefully doesn’t put his knife away. It wouldn’t do anything against an AI, but it makes him feel better.
It’s early enough that the mess hall isn’t open for breakfast yet, but Wash knows he can find some peace in the conference rooms until meetings start later in the day. He consciously takes the data pad he’d been using to track training schedules and moves it farther away from him before continuing the conversation.
“What do you want,” Wash asks, his voice flat. He and Epsilon have barely interacted in their time on Chorus, and Wash likes it that way. Wants to keep it that way.
“You really told Carolina that she doesn’t matter? I expected better from you!” Wash stares at Epsilon, trying to figure out what the fuck he’s talking about, when he remembers his training session with Carolina the previous day and it clicks.
“What- that’s not what I said,” Wash says, feeling oddly defensive. Epsilon rolls his entire head.
“Oh, so I didn’t just have to talk her down from an overnight training session!?”
“Why would she care about my past?”
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”
Wash is done with Epsilon’s anger. If anything, he should be angry at Epsilon about this—it’s Epsilon’s fault he doesn’t remember. Instead of being angry, though, Wash is just tired.
“Look, Epsilon, I don’t even remember my past, okay? And I don’t care.” He does care. He definitely does, in fact, care. “So it shouldn’t matter to her.”
“You… what.” Epsilon freezes so completely that for a moment Wash thinks he’s crashed.
“I don’t remember much from before you,” Wash says pointedly. “So don’t yell at me about it,” he says, and walks out of his room—he’ll take his chances getting accosted by various soldiers over prolonging that conversation with Epsilon. He knows Epsilon could just follow him, but the AI apparently has the sense to leave him alone.
Good riddance, Wash thinks. He doesn’t want to talk about his sister.
Epsilon fucked up.
He knows he fucked up, okay, he doesn’t need anyone else to tell him that.
The problem is, he fucked up a long time ago, and he’s only now dealing with the consequences.
“What do you know about Wash’s life?” Tucker jumps and shouts and flails when Epsilon appears in his room.
“Dude what the fuck, don’t you know how to knock?” Tucker grumbles, picking up his data pad from where he’d dropped it on the floor. “You have no idea what I could’ve been doing in here… or who. Bow-chicka-wow-wow.”
“Answer the question,” Epsilon snaps, his patience already wearing thin. Wash told him… that thing, but Epsilon doesn’t know if he believes it. It can’t be true, can it? Epsilon can’t have done that much damage.
Tucker rolls his eyes, then frowns like he only just now registers the question Epsilon asked. “I know nothing, dude. Ask him yourself.”
“He’s never mentioned anything? About his life before Freelancer?” Tucker shrugs, but won’t quite look at Epsilon.
“He doesn’t really talk about his past.”
“But is that just because he doesn’t talk, or because he…” doesn’t remember.
“Fuck if I know,” Tucker says, then narrows his eyes at Epsilon. “You were in his head. You probably know his life better than I do.”
“Tucker, I’m serious. Has he ever mentioned anything?” Epsilon presses. His own anxiety is building now, and he’s desperately trying to quash it down because he doesn’t want to bother Carolina with it. She hasn’t slept well the last couple of nights—ever since her conversation with Wash, and then Epsilon’s subsequent conversation with Wash that she doesn’t know about yet.
Epsilon is made of memories, but even if he wasn’t he could never forget the way she looked when she told him what Wash said to her—he said it doesn’t matter, we don’t matter—and the way her voice broke on the last word made Epsilon want to punch somebody. A specific somebody.
He’d had to wait until after Carolina finally fell asleep early the next morning to actually confront Wash about it, and didn’t feel bad for bothering him. Until Wash told him… what he told him.
“Nah, man. You know he never talks about himself,” Tucker says, waving Epsilon off, but there’s something in the tight set of his shoulders and Epsilon knows he’s lying.
“What has he told you?” Epsilon demands, too tired and wired to be gentle.
“It’s not my place to say.”
“Tucker!”
“Ask him yourself!”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“Then tough shit.”
“Tucker just tell me-”
“He doesn’t know his mother’s name!” Epsilon freezes at Tucker’s outburst. If he were human, he would’ve stopped breathing. Tucker stares at him for a moment, then sighs and thunks his head back against the wall. “He told me once,” Tucker continues, staring resolutely at the ceiling, “that he doesn’t remember his mother’s name. That when you exploded in his head-”
“I didn’t explode-”
“You took a lot of shit with you.” Tucker glares at him, but Epsilon is…
Yeah. He fucked up. He’s an AI, and yet he feels like he’s going to throw up.
“Fuck,” Epsilon finds himself saying. Tucker rolls his eyes.
“Talk to him about it, dude.”
“I can’t-” Epsilon starts, then hesitates. He probably should talk to Wash about it, but he doesn’t like having deep conversations. He’s never been good at it. This conversation is already pushing his limits. “Has he told you anything else?” Epsilon asks instead of pondering that line of thought any farther. Tucker shrugs.
“Not really,” Tucker glances at the door, and Epsilon visibly sees him make up his mind that he’s already shared this much so he might as well share more. “I mean, at different points he’s said he was an only child, that he had a sister, and that he had a bunch of brothers. I don’t think he knows which one is real.”
“Fuck,” Epsilon repeats, the reality of just how much he messed with Wash’s head only now sinking in.
“Yeah,” Tucker snickers.
“Uh, don’t tell him we had this conversation.”
“Are you kidding? Wash would run me into the fucking ground if he knew I told you any of that. You’d better not tell him.”
“Right. Yeah. I’ll not do that.” Epsilon leaves before Tucker can ask him why this has suddenly become so important.
Wash really doesn’t remember his childhood.
Epsilon didn’t think he’d done that much damage. How had he done that much damage? He knew he’d left pieces of himself behind, he just didn’t realize he’d… destroyed that much on his way out.
The siblings thing confuses Epsilon. Only child—that makes sense if he straight up doesn’t remember. Sister—that’s Carolina. But a brother? A bunch of brothers at that? Where did they come from?
Except… oh. Sigma. And the other fragments. Back on Mother of Invention. They’d all called each other brother. Epsilon had never done that—he’d barely spoken to the other fragments, he’d been obsessed with rescuing Alpha at the time and he and Wash had been separated too soon to get to know any of them—but the others did. And Epsilon remembers the others doing that. So he must’ve left that behind too.
And whose fault is that? He asks himself, feeling annoyed all over again. God, he fucked up.
He needs to tell Carolina… what. What the fuck is he going to tell her? That her little brother doesn’t remember her and it’s all Epsilon’s fault? How the hell is he meant to broach that conversation?
He’ll figure it out. He’ll tell her. Eventually. He just. Needs a little time.
—
He doesn’t have any time left.
Hey, Sis. Fuck—Carolina. Ugh, D, start it over- fuck, nevermind, I’m going with it. Sis! God I feel stupid, whatever. Okay, look, I know mom told us- told you- told us, to never say goodbye, but I gotta say something. And maybe this isn’t really goodbye, it’s just… a message. Point being, talk to Wash. He- I fucked up, and you’re gonna have to help him. I meant to tell you earlier but I couldn’t… I couldn’t. He doesn’t hate you, okay? But he doesn’t know you any more.
—
Epsilon’s final message to Carolina leaves her feeling shaky and off balance. Which is unusual, for her.
When Epsilon called her Sis, she thought- well, she thought he was trying to make up for Wash rebuffing her all those weeks ago. He’d known she’d spiraled about it—it’s impossible to hide anything from someone sharing your head—and she’d also known that he’d gone and talked to Wash after. She never figured out what they talked about, but it left Epsilon feeling all jittery and guilty and fuck maybe she should’ve seen this coming. Wash clearly said something to upset Epsilon, not that Carolina could ever hold it against him.
Not that Carolina could hold anything against Wash when she left him alone after the Mother of Invention crashed. At the time she thought she’d been doing the right thing; Wash obviously needed help and Carolina couldn’t give it to him. Now, though, she wonders if that really was the right option.
Maybe that’s why he told her their shared past was over.
He doesn’t know you any more.
Carolina knows Epsilon messed with Wash’s memories. Maybe they messed with him more than she ever realized.
She needs more information before she talks to Wash.
“Has Wash ever talked to you about his past?” Carolina tries to keep her voice casual, but she can’t do anything about the tight set to her shoulders.
“Not you too,” Tucker groans, flopping back onto the grass where she’d found him.
“Me too?” Carolina repeats, anxiety pitching her voice up. “What do you mean by that?”
Tucker waves off her concern. “Nothing, just that-” he cuts off suddenly, a cloud of grief passing over his face before being shoved away, and he gives her a brittle smile. “Couple weeks ago Epsilon asked the same thing.”
“And?” Carolina asks, unable to tamp down her impatience. Epsilon clearly knows- knew something she doesn’t.
“Why do people keep asking me? Ask him yourself!”
“Tucker, please.” The please brings him up short, and he shoots a startled glance up at her. She hesitates, then takes a seat next to him on the grass so she isn’t looming, and twists her hands in her lap. “I’m trying to put together some pieces of- something. And I need-” she pauses, takes a deep breath. “Please, tell me what you told Epsilon.”
“Uh, okay.” Tucker lifts himself up so he’s leaning back on his elbows, though he still looks uncomfortable with the conversation—that makes two of them. “Wash doesn’t talk about his past. Like, at all.”
Carolina knows that, but she bites her tongue so as to not interrupt.
“For a while I thought it was just, y’know, broody Freelancer shit. But then I realized—I don’t think he remembers. Anything.” Tucker shoots a cautious glance at Carolina, like he’s making sure she’s not about to hit him, then continues. “Like, we were talking about our names, cause I’m named after my mom, Laverina, and he said he doesn’t remember his mother’s name. That when Epsilon-” he makes a little explosion noise and motions to his head, “in his head, Epsilon’s thoughts kinda melded with his own. And he doesn’t remember which memories are his and which are Epsilon’s.” He shrugs, unaffected, but Carolina feels like she can’t breathe. “And other things. Littler things. Inconsistencies in some stories from his childhood and stuff. But. Yeah.”
Carolina doesn’t know how much time passes as she sits there, staring at nothing.
Wash doesn’t remember her. Literally doesn’t remember her. When she tried to broach the subject of dropping their code names and he said it didn’t matter, it wasn’t because he didn’t want to be her brother. It’s because he doesn’t remember being her brother.
She feels like she’s going to be sick.
“Thank you,” Carolina says, pushing herself back to her feet once she feels stable enough. “For telling me all of that. Please don’t tell Wash we had this conversation.”
Tucker snorts like she’s said something funny. “God, you two really are siblings,” he mutters under his breath.
“What.” Carolina doesn’t know what her voice does, but Tucker looks up at her, eyes wide. “What did you say?”
“Nothing! Nothing at all! Who said something, certainly not me,” he babbles, laughing nervously.
“Tucker,” she repeats—growls, really, through her teeth. She forces a breath and tries to relax. “What did you say?”
Tucker stares at her for another couple of seconds like he’s debating if she’ll hit him. “It was nothing, okay? I wasn’t even the one who said it first! Just- a couple weeks ago I was talking to, uh, Epsilon. We were- okay, I was making fun of you, and he just said “careful that’s my sister.”” Tucker leans away from her, but Carolina isn’t going to punch him.
“He said that?” She repeats, her voice full of wonder. When Epsilon called her Sis, she’d thought he was trying to make her feel better. Thought it didn’t mean anything. But if he’d said the same to Tucker?
“Uh, Carolina?” She blinks and realizes she’s suspiciously close to tears. She shakes her head and gives him a curt nod.
“Thank you for talking with me.” She says, and leaves to think over the information she’s gotten.
Look, Wash, I- I’m sorry. I don’t think I’ve ever said that to you before. But I fucked up. In a lot of ways. In… in more ways than you even know. And I’m sorry. I get to deconstruct and be free of all this bullshit, but you’re still stuck there dealing with it. I could- I could say a lot of things, but you know I suck at, like, emotions and shit. So, uh, trust Carolina. She’s gonna have a lot to say after this and you need to trust her, okay? She- fuck. Just. Trust her. And I’m sorry.
—
The message Epsilon left for Wash is… interesting, to say the least. It’s nice, to finally hear the AI apologize for self-destructing in his head, for landing him in a mental hospital for years, for overwriting his own goddamn childhood memories until he’s forgotten his mother’s name. A little late, but he’ll take it.
The rest of it? Trust Carolina. As if that’s not a given. As if he hasn’t trusted her since they were kids and only had each other he joined her team as a rookie.
Well, if Epsilon thought it was important enough to say in his final message, then Wash will try and listen.
Now that the war is over, Wash has a lot more free time on his hands. He helps some with consulting on security for Kimball, but once the UNSC arrives he has less and less to do. He’s not as good at enjoying his free time like the Reds and Blues—Grif has offered several times to teach him how to relax, and Wash is honestly considering taking him up on it.
For now, he spends his free time in the gym. Carolina joins him pretty often, and even Tucker shows up sometimes. He’s just finished a session with Carolina and the two of them are stretching when she speaks.
“What do you remember about before Freelancer?” The question catches him off guard and he freezes mid-stretch. It is unnervingly specific, like she already knows his answer, and that alone gets his hackles up.
He opens his mouth to brush her off the way he always brushes off questions about his past, when he remembers Epsilon’s message. Trust Carolina. Maybe this is what Epsilon meant.
“I- not much,” he admits slowly. He doesn’t look at her as he speaks, focused instead on the floor as he stretches. “A lot of it is blurry. Well, most of it. Epsilon-” Wash hesitates. He knows the others are still grieving Epsilon—Carolina especially since she wasn’t there when he deconstructed and she blames herself—but Wash can’t bring himself to feel the same. He’s not sad that Epsilon is gone. Still, he doesn’t want to come across too harsh.
He grabs his water bottle to give himself something to do and rolls it between his hands. “You know Epsilon messed with my mind. After he- you know. Well, I couldn’t really trust my memories any more. And the longer ago something was, the less I remember.” He shrugs, trying to act like he’s over it as he takes a sip of water. He’ll never be over it.
“So what do you remember of our childhood?”
Wash fumbles his water bottle, his heart skipping a beat as his breath catches in his throat. He can’t even look at her, feels his entire body tense up.
Our childhood. Our childhood.
He must’ve heard her wrong. There’s not- they didn’t know each other before the Project. They can’t have. She wouldn’t have left him if they did.
“Our childhood?” Wash repeats, trying to keep his voice even, though he absolutely fails. He glances at her out of the corner of his eyes, sees her frowning, but he has to look away quickly when the sight of her green eyes sends his mind spinning. “We don’t- there’s no- we’re not-” he can’t even finish the sentence. They’re not. They can’t be.
“What do you remember of your childhood?” She says again, and though there’s a hitch in her voice like she’s holding something back, he can breathe easier when she’s rephrased it.
Wash forces a deep breath, puts down his water so she can’t tell how badly his hands are shaking. “Not much,” he repeats. “Like I said. The things that happened right before Freelancer are- are blurry, but they’re there. Anything before that… isn’t. It’s all jumbled up with Epsilon’s memories. I mean, I can't even remember my mother’s name,” he says with half a laugh, like it isn’t something that’s kept him up at night.
“Wash,” Carolina says, and she sounds hurt in a way Wash isn’t used to hearing from her, so much so that he looks up on instinct. Her eyes are suspiciously shiny, and Wash worries that he’s about to see her cry. The last time he saw her cry was when they got that letter in the mail, when their father locked himself in the study for days on end and the two of them had to take care of themselves.
He searches for anything he can say to her but comes up empty.
“Allison.” Wash freezes when she speaks, finds himself holding his breath as she continues. “Your mother’s name was Allison.”
Wash stares at her, feels the understanding of what she’s trying to tell him pressing down on him, but he refuses it. “How do you know that?” He whispers, feeling off balance.
“Wash,” she says, then even softer, “David.”
Wash is on his feet before he realizes it, his heart in his throat. “No,” he says, and his voice barely sounds like his own. “No, we’re not- we can’t be-” Carolina follows him up, reaches out a hand to him but he steps back. “Don’t,” he growls, and she drops his hand. “We’re not siblings, okay?” It sounds ridiculous to even say it out loud. “We can’t be. We can’t be.” With that he spins on his heel and marches out, and he doesn’t see the tears that silently make their way down her face.
They can’t be siblings. If they were, then she would’ve gone back for him. If they were, then he wouldn’t have pulled a gun on her. If they were, they wouldn’t keep leaving each other.
They’re not siblings.
They can’t be.
—
Wash avoids Carolina as best he can. It’s a childish impulse, something that a soldier like him should be above she always seems to bring that out in him but he can’t face her. Not after she told him… all of that.
It can’t be true. It can’t be true. He knows it's true.
Hiding in a supply closet in order to avoid Carolina is not Wash’s proudest moment. He panicked, okay? The closet had been right there and she hadn’t seen him yet, so. Yeah.
He waits a full five minutes before he exits, and then runs face first into a suit of teal armor.
“Woah, what the fuck?” Wash is ready to bolt when he sees that color, only to pause and sigh with relief when he finds it’s Tucker, not Carolina, in front of him.
“Tucker,” Wash says stiffly, glancing down the hall to make sure Carolina is not also lurking somewhere nearby. “Sorry, I didn’t see you there.” Tucker's giving him a look that Wash can read even through the visor.
“Were you seriously hiding in a supply closet?” Tucker asks.
“I wasn’t hiding,” Wash protests.
“Dude, I know you’ve been avoiding Carolina.” Tucker starts walking down the hall and, with nothing better to do, Wash walks with him.
“I’m not-” Wash starts, then stops because yeah, okay, that’s exactly what he’s been doing.
“You gonna tell me why?” Tucker asks casually.
“Where are you headed?” Wash asks instead of responding, and the short bark of laughter from Tucker lets him know he’s not being discreet at all.
“Outside. Wanna get some fresh air.” Wash keeps following, and Tucker leads them both to a hill on the outskirts of the city, where Tucker begins stripping his armor off and dropping it unceremoniously on the ground.
“Why are you wearing armor anyway?” Wash asks—he rarely takes off his armor, but since the war ended and the UNSC arrived, most of the Reds and Blues have stayed out of it.
“Had a stupid fucking meeting with Kimball and the UNSC. About-” Tucker pauses, forces a deep breath, and continues. “About Epsilon. And the Meta’s suit.” He finishes removing most of his armor and collapses on the ground, face tilted toward the sun. Wash hovers for a moment, then slowly unclasps his helmet and sits next to Tucker.
It’s… nice. To sit there. Without having to worry about an attack. Though Wash keeps glancing around, searching for another set of teal armor.
“You gonna say what’s bothering you or are you gonna keep being weird?” Tucker asks without opening his eyes. Wash sighs, his shoulders slumping.
“Has… has Carolina ever said anything about her childhood?” Wash asks hesitantly.
“Ugh, not again,” Tucker groans, slapping a hand to his face.
“What? Again?” Wash asks, now thoroughly confused. Tucker waves him off.
“Nothing, nothing. Just—I’ve been fielding this question a lot.”
“And?” Wash prompts, wondering if Carolina has in fact said something—and if so, why she told Tucker, of all people.
“Nothing!” Tucker repeats. “I know nothing, okay? I know even less about Carolina than I do about you, and that’s saying something.” Wash didn’t really expect anything different, but he’s still disappointed. “Why does this matter, anyway?” Tucker asks, tilting his head to look at Wash.
Wash drops his gaze to his hands, which he’s twisting together in his lap.
“It doesn’t, I just-” he hesitates, wonders how to say Carolina thinks she’s my sister without sounding insane. “She told me some stuff about my past, before Freelancer, and I don’t- I don’t know if I believe her.” Doesn’t know if he can believe her without getting angry.
“Before Freelancer?” Tucker repeats, frowning at him. “How does she know about that? I thought you two met during Freelancer.” Wash sighs and briefly closes his eyes.
“Yeah. That’s what I thought too,” he admits softly. There’s a long pause, and Wash can practically hear Tucker thinking it through.
“Okay,” Tucker says slowly, “so she told you something that you don’t believe.”
“I don’t remember it.”
“Right, but like, you’re the one whose head is fucked up—no offense.” Wash snorts out a quiet laugh at that. “And Carolina isn’t the type to lie. So if I had to pick which one of your stories I believed, I’d pick hers.” Tucker shrugs. “That’s just like, common sense.”
Wash sighs and runs a hand through his hair. The problem is that Tucker is right. Wash can’t trust his own memories. He doesn’t know what parts of his past are real and what parts Epsilon fabricated. Having someone who can tell him definitively what’s real should be a blessing. He should be happy. This should be a good thing.
So why doesn’t it feel that way?
Wash sighs and gets to his feet.
“So what stuff did she tell you?” Tucker asks.
“I’ll let you know when I do,” Wash says dryly, and heads off.
A knock on her door startles Carolina. She already had her meeting with Kimball and the UNSC forces earlier that day, and she doesn’t have anything else scheduled so she’s already retired to her room. She opens the door cautiously, one hand on her gun, then freezes when she sees Wash.
“Hi,” Wash says. He’s not in armor either and won’t quite meet her eyes. Carolina can’t say anything in response—she was sure he was never going to speak to her again after their last conversation. “Can we talk?” His words kick Carolina into action and she takes a step back, wordlessly inviting him into her room.
Even for a soldier's barracks, her room is bare. Carolina has seen the other Reds and Blues rooms, filled with personality and knickknacks that she doesn’t know how they brought with them. She has nothing.
Wash hovers in the center of her room, looking around with wide eyes. Carolina takes a seat on her bed, leaning back against the wall with her legs dangling off the side. Wash moves almost automatically to take a seat next to her, then stops, staring at the bed with a furrowed brow. Carolina doesn’t say anything, just watches with bated breath, and after a long moment Wash moves again and sits next to her. They’re side by side—not quite looking at each other, because it’s easier to talk that way.
Carolina has a million memories of sitting like this with her brother. She wonders if he remembers the same.
“Can you… tell me about your childhood?” Wash asks; he’s twisting his hands in his lap, looking anywhere but at her. Carolina’s heart clenches when he says your, and she has to work not to react.
“Our-” Carolina starts, but stops when Wash flinches. She swallows hard—Wash is open to hearing what she has to say, but she doesn’t want to push him. “My childhood,” she continues, and Wash relaxes, “was… strict. Regimented. Neither of- of my parents seemed very excited about being parents. To my mom it was what was expected of her, but as soon as she got the chance to fight in the Great War she took it. For my dad, I think he just wanted to continue the family legacy. They weren’t bad parents, they just weren’t… good parents, either.” Carolina glances over at Wash, sees his face twisted up in an anger that is all too familiar.
“Ou- my mother died when I was seven, and my brother was four. Dad… didn’t take it well. The little amount of parenting he did completely vanished, and I ended up raising my brother. I think dad was mad that it was mom who died, and not him. He used to joke that he tried to enlist, and the UNSC took one look at his fitness test and laughed him out of the recruitment tent.” Carolina pauses, glances over at Wash again, but his face is a mask she can’t read.
“My brother had a hard time growing up,” she continues softly. “I took after dad, but he took after mom. He looked just like her, and dad couldn’t handle that. He couldn’t look at my brother and see anyone other than mom, so he just… stopped looking. I don’t think my brother ever knew why, but he knew he was being ignored, so he acted out, tried to get attention in any way he could. It never worked.” Carolina stops again, at a loss for what else to say.
“Did you and your brother get along?” Wash asks.
“Yes,” Carolina replies immediately, then hesitates. “Well, usually. Sometimes. After mom died I had to raise him, and I- I resented him for that.” It hurts to admit but it’s true. “It wasn’t his fault, but at the time I was just trying to live up to dads expectations, and I didn’t have time to take care of my brother, so I left him alone. I regret that, now.”
“You left him,” Wash repeats under his breath. His brow is furrowed, and he’s staring off at nothing, his tongue poking out from between his lips like mom used when she was thinking. “Why?” Carolina swallows hard, fights back the tears that she refuses to let fall.
“I was young. I was stupid. I was trying to make a name for myself. I thought I was doing the right thing.” She has a million excuses, but none of them are adequate. “I thought he could take care of himself.” It was only later that she realized could doesn’t always mean should.
“Did he ever-” Wash starts, then stops, twisting his hands together. “Did he ever leave you?”
Carolina’s breath catches in her throat. She remembers that giant room underneath Red Base in Valhalla. She and Epsilon were so intent on taking down the Director, and she didn’t give a damn what the Simulation Troopers thought. She’d been so sure that Wash was on her side, because he’d always been on her side. It wasn’t until he had a gun to her head that she realized her mistake—David was always on her side. And Wash wasn’t David any more.
To realize that he didn’t even remember her when he did that feels like relief, in a way. She can pretend that if he did know, maybe he would’ve acted differently. She knows that’s not true.
“Yeah,” she answers when the silence has gone on too long. “But I don’t blame him for it.”
At her words Wash finally looks up at her, and it’s only when their gaze meets that she realizes that in the whole time they were traveling together, fighting together, working together, he was never looking at her. His eyes had always hovered on her hair, or a point just above her shoulder. This is the first time in years that those blue eyes don’t flinch away from her.
“Lena?” He asks, his voice breaking ever so slightly on her name.
“Hey, David,” she greets, unable to stop the tears that make their way down her face. He shifts, and then suddenly his arms are wrapped around her, and it’s second nature to hold him right back. They fit together so easily, and she finally feels like she’s whole again.
“I missed you, sis,” he says, his words muffled by the fact that he’s pressing his face into her hair.
“I missed you too,” she whispers back. “And I’m not gonna leave again.”