Fic: We Were Soldiers Once: A Hundred Tanks Along the Square (HALO: Spartan Ops)
Title: A Hundred Tanks Along the Square
Fandom: HALO: Spartan Ops (web series)
Rating: T
Genres: het
Summary: Sometimes, Thomas Lasky likes to take a break in the atrium. The aftermath of being told off by Serin Osman is a perfect opportunity.
A/N: Um. I have no idea how this happened. I just kind of started writing it and then this came out. I'm pretty sure that by the time S2 of Spartan Ops rolls around, this'll be obsolete and AU but what the heck, this needed to be done anyway. So... what do you think?
( In Now For The Kill )
( Down Upon My Knees (And You Have Broken Me) )
( Foolishness and Self-Deception )
( People Spend a Lifetime This Way (And That's How They Stay) )
A Hundred Tanks Along The Square
“A hundred tanks along the square, one man stands and stops them there
Someday soon the tide’ll turn and I’ll be free
Well I’ll be free, I’ll be free, I’ll come home to my country
Someday soon the tide’ll turn and I’ll be free.”
The Hooters, “500 Miles”
So that went well.
No, it didn’t but compared to having been drawn, quartered and then left to the SPARTANs for them to play with it could have gone worse. She didn’t even shout but then again, for some reason he doesn’t think CINCONI needs to scream much or often. She didn’t even relieve him of his command of Infinity which was probably the greatest surprise to him and served pretty well to soften the blow of being ripped a new one by Serin Osman.
Then again, she did threaten him with feeding him to Jul ‘Mdama personally as soon as they found him and Halsey.
Ah, shit, that was probably one of those moments his mother would have relished with a kind of stern faced “I told you so, Thomas” glee that only Colonel Marianne Lasky could produce. And he didn’t even tell Sarah yet. All he’d done since receiving the call from Osman he’d been dreading for two weeks now had been telling Roland to ping him only when absolutely necessary - he stated the ship being invaded by zombie SPARTANs created with that Promethean technology ‘Mdama owns as example - grab his work-out clothes and jog down to the atrium.
When they’d installed it, he’d wondered what the hell they wanted with a damn forest on a war ship - because let’s face it, Infinity was never intended to be anything but a battle ship - but since they made him Captain, he’s come to appreciate the greenery. It’s not the first time that he comes to a little clearing with actual, real, probably bio-engineered grass to lie down and stare at the artificial light source in the far above “sky”. Sometimes it helps him clear his mind and get a better perspective on things.
Sometimes it serves to empty it so he doesn’t have to think of anything or anyone. If he’s being honest, it’s very rare that he comes here for the first.
He’s not being honest now, though. He’s staring at the ceiling and trying to forget.
Forget how Osman crept him out with her even tone and her slightly disapproving face. Forget how she made it clear to him that he would find Halsey and ‘Mdama or die trying. Forget how she told him to personally execute Halsey again.
Forget how he told her what she could do with that order.
Oh, not that he actually said that. But he did try to make clear to her that he thought it a pretty bad idea to make woodentop Navy officers into personal executioners for ONI personnel’s grudges. He was being polite and submissive and cautious. He nearly ended up being skewered and then relieved of his command by her, anyway.
And he can’t stop wondering why she didn’t. It’s not like one of his adjutants - the one on duty during the call - isn’t an ONI operative. He found out only recently and he wonders what Sarah will have to face once Osman finds out about that but it doesn’t really bother him. If she activates Baumann, so be it. He has faced worse things than that.
Sarah being punished for telling him, though… that’s gonna be a hell lotta tougher. He tries not to think about it, reminds himself of how much more than him Sarah can endure, how many more sources of strength she has, how much more Osman likes SPARTANs than regular Navy. Still…
“I can’t believe you really dug yourself in to mope here.” Shit, what the hell is Sarah doing here all of a sudden? How did she even… “Roland told me.”
Right. “Remind me to fry his circuits when I get back to the bridge.”
She grins and gestures for him to stay on the ground, lowering herself next to him. “Try not to. We still need him to fly this boat.” Sometimes, he wonders if that kind of thing is a remnant of her past as a marine or if she just does that to rile up his “woodentop Navy ass”, as she sometimes likes to call it, not without a weird kind of fondness to it in her tone.
“He’s gonna be flying nothing bigger than a Warthog when I’m done with him.” It makes her snort, decidedly unladylike and he loves that about her.
“Warthogs don’t fly, remember that, Captain?” He’s not looking at her, now that they’re both lying on their backs, staring up at the immense sphere of light simulating a sun to keep the plants inside the atrium from dying. He’s still sure that that actually was straight out of her past as a marine. He loves that he knows stuff like that without having to look at her.
It’s his turn to snort now. “Believe me, they do. That one time on Circinius IV…” Two weeks ago, before he came to Sarah’s quarters and tugged up her wet suit and told her about Chyler while he tried not to dwell on the fact that his finger just brushed the bare skin of Sarah’s back, this would have been accidental and his voice would have sounded tight and harsh and bitter.
It’s not a miracle that it wasn’t and it didn’t, not really. It’s not a miracle that she knows exactly what he meant and that she could acknowledge the fact that he just made a joke about the worst and maybe best thing that ever happened to him with another snort, even if it still feels like one.
There’s silence, then. Just two people lying next to each other, breathing almost in synch - he won’t question how he knows that because that would just mean Bad Things, as Caedmon would have said - and pretending they’re not on a war ship. It’s nice, actually.
Until she goes and has to say, “I’m glad she didn’t just tell Baumann to get rid of you discretely.”
Sometimes he wonders why he ever considered having her as a de facto second in command sounded like a good idea to him but then she goes and tells him things like that. That’s one fucked up friendship, he thinks and can’t help smiling a moment before feeling himself turning into a cynic. “How do you know she hasn’t?”
Instead of an answer, he gets silence, at least for a few moments and something about that doesn’t feel quite right, especially when the only thing she does say ends up being, “You’re still here, aren’t you?” a tad too quiet for her usual self. He thinks it better not to wonder what the hell is suddenly up with that.
He keeps staring up at the artificial light source, seeing over 30 years of his career happening in front of his eyes, in a kind of condensed so this is how it’s going to end way. “That doesn’t have to mean anything.” I can’t believe I need to tell you that, he wants to add but even though she doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even change her rhythm of breathing or moves a finger, he somehow knows she wouldn’t react too kindly to that.
“My,” she says, sarcasm dripping all over the floor, “aren’t we a merry ray of sunshine today.”
You’d be, too, if you’d been on the receiving end of an Osman style dressing down, he thinks. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how disappointed I am in you, Captain. Disappointed, his ass. He keeps staring upward and against the faint humming of the ship’s engines, he can hear her breathing, inhumanly even and measured, all regular.
Once, after her augmentation, when he’d thought he’d accepted what and who she’d become, he’d had a flash of delusions of grandeur and had asked her to go on a run with him. He’d only understood why she’d smirked like that as she’d set out when he’d been running after her, thinking his lungs were on fire and she’d been breathing exactly the same she’s breathing now. It had taken him another year to get used to never even hearing a hitch in her breathing break her stride.
That is reason enough to whip around his head in concern the moment he hears the first disturbance of breathing he heard from her in years before she says, “She wants to divide and conquer, Tom.”
It’s not like Parangosky didn’t do it, too. In fact, she was a master at it. Making him Captain of Infinity for disobeying his commanding officer’s orders was one of her last major strikes. Making Osman CINCONI really was her last strike. They’d announced her death an hour after Osman’s promotion was made official.
But never, never has he ever seen that kind of pain he just heard in Sarah’s voice and saw in the slight frown on her face. “So what’s new in that, Commander?”
“Damnit, Tom.” That he can deal with. Her usual hot-headed, profane, impatient self. He’s even kind of thankful for it because the anger in her eyes seems to have beaten the pain when she sets up in a jerk of barely contained SPARTAN energy.
He follows, more measured and doesn’t roll his eyes. “What? You know it isn’t. That’s just how ONI operates. It’s probably in their blood and they can’t do anything against it, just like we can’t…”
“You have no idea what’s in their blood!” Allusions again. Damnit.
“I was just reminded of the fact that I still need to unlawfully execute a war criminal if I want to keep my command, Sarah!” How is it that they seem to be ending up in fights so much lately? “Yes, I very well know what’s…”
“You know nothing. Why the fuck are you just not listening to me? I told you…” And what in God’s name is making her so afraid of the damn ONI?
Being afraid just is not how he knows her. “Yes, I know what you told me. She’s out for my blood, she’s probably out for yours, too, we need to heed her order, she’s got people on the ship, I know, Sarah!”
“No, you don’t, Tom!” Somehow, they managed to end up sitting on the ground, their faces only inches apart from each other and it takes a moment for him to register her dilated pupils, slightly parted lips, angry frown, faintly irregular breathing.
Kiss me, Sarah.
That wasn’t supposed to be in his head right here, right now. It wasn’t supposed to be in his head at any time. It wasn’t supposed to be in his head at all. And still he’s sitting here and staring at her and not daring to lower his gaze to her lips again and all he can think of is wondering how it ever came to him knowing her so well that all the anger in her face can’t fool him about the pain lurking beneath.
Kiss me and let me make it better.
This is what he wants to say and he wants to say it so badly, worse even than he wanted Chyler to kiss him, wanted to kiss Chyler. He wants to tell her to kiss him so he doesn’t have to do it himself, doesn’t have to be the one breaking their friendship for some foolish desire without a place between superior and subordinate. This is what he wants to say to her.
And this is what he says, “What’s going on, Sarah?”
As far as he’s concerned this is as far as he can go to say kiss me without using the actual words. As far as Sarah’s concerned… “She talked to me, too.” So. Alright. It’s not like he shouldn’t have expected it. It’s just that he didn’t. Not that fast, anyway.
He’s kind of grateful to her for saying that and bringing a little distance between them. He’s not sure if he could have done the same. He’s not sure if he hadn’t kissed her anyway if she’d waited just a microsecond longer. “What did she say?”
Sarah squirms and that’s just not her. For a moment, just a very small one, he feels the irrational desire to rip Osman a new one, just for making Sarah act like someone she isn’t, someone who feels like there are things she can’t tell him but then she seems to have caught herself and the impulse shrinks back. “She told me to have an eye on you.” That was to be expected, wasn’t it? “She told me to make sure to keep you in line.” That, too. “In fact, she said that I was “authorized” and “advised” to use any force I “deem necessary” to make sure you go with her orders this time.”
The sad thing is: even that was to be expected. What wasn’t to be expected was Sarah spelling it out for the both of them. “I’m the agent, Tom.”
He doesn’t want to rip Osman a new one anymore. He wants use an ODST field knife and put it to good use on the Admiral’s skin and that’s really all he can think at the moment because the exact contents of what he wants to do right now scare the living shit out of him. This isn’t a bit of ONI scheming anymore. It’s not even petty revenge. It means fucking war. Briefly he wonders whether this is stupid enough of Osman to make Parangosky return from the grave but he buries that hope pretty fast under fear and urgency and racing thoughts on what the hell to do with that information.
There’s a moment when all he wants to do is lean over and hug her to tell her it’s gonna be okay, tell her he knows where her loyalties lie, tell her they’re gonna tell Osman what to do with that order. There’s another one when he wants to call Osman and ask her what the hell she thinks she’s doing, fucking up his chain of command and everything. There’s a third one when he wants to stay here forever, never go back outside, never wonder just how well he really knows Sarah and her loyalties.
There’s one, in the end, that reminds him that he isn’t fourteen years old anymore, and the boy who fell in love with Chyler Silva isn’t the man who fell in love with Sarah Palmer. The boy who helped down a Hunter while shitting himself with fear isn’t the man who commands the biggest battle ship Earth ever built.
“You know,” he tells her, his voice even and a bit contemplative, just for effect, “it takes two to tango.” At least she’s not looking like she has a very heard time at not freaking out right here right now anymore. In fact, she looks a lot like she just started to seriously doubt his sanity. “Divide and conquer only ever works if there are people you can divide and conquer.”
She takes a moment to answer. A moment in which he’s almost 100% sure that she’ll call Roland and ask him to have Infinity’s commander confined to sick bay for the time being. “So… this is what your mother sent you to military school for?”
Ah, and that’s what you get for trying to be meaningful. He did seem to have cheered her up, though. “It worked, didn’t it?”
Still doubting his sanity… and suddenly, reluctantly, like she’s not sure if she really wants to, snorting and laughing, welling up in short bursts and fascinating little waves until they’re both shaken by the most inappropriate laughing fit he ever had and maybe that’s why it’s so good that it makes them exhausted enough to lie down on their backs again, his breathing evening out much slower than hers.
She’s the first to speak again. “God, we’re so screwed.”
It’s a bit of stating the obvious but it doesn’t mean it’s not true. She forgot something, though. “Yeah, but we’re screwed together.”
He hears a last little snort from her before she falls silent for a few, long minutes. So long that he’s almost dozed off when he hears her say, “Tom?”
Not sure if he really wants to hear what she has to say, he leaves it a non-committal, “Mh?”
She actually manages to surprise him. “There’s no one I’d rather be screwed with than you.”
Huh.
For a weird, insane moment, this sounds suspiciously like I love you but that’s probably just his brain being too fucked up after those last couple weeks.
And it must be because when he says, “Same here, Sarah. Same here,” after an infinite minute of silence what it really sounds like is I love you, too and it doesn’t even feel that bad. It feels quite good actually, which is the only reason he doesn’t ruin the moment with any more ill-advised words, just lies there staring up at the artificial sun and listening to Sarah breathe next to him, for a few more minutes before they need to get back to what they’re supposed to do. What else is there to do for you when your best friend is supposed to be the one neutralizing you when you misbehave next time, anyway?
~*~
TBC in Never to Touch (And Never to Keep).
Fandom: HALO: Spartan Ops (web series)
Rating: T
Genres: het
Summary: Sometimes, Thomas Lasky likes to take a break in the atrium. The aftermath of being told off by Serin Osman is a perfect opportunity.
A/N: Um. I have no idea how this happened. I just kind of started writing it and then this came out. I'm pretty sure that by the time S2 of Spartan Ops rolls around, this'll be obsolete and AU but what the heck, this needed to be done anyway. So... what do you think?
( In Now For The Kill )
( Down Upon My Knees (And You Have Broken Me) )
( Foolishness and Self-Deception )
( People Spend a Lifetime This Way (And That's How They Stay) )
A Hundred Tanks Along The Square
“A hundred tanks along the square, one man stands and stops them there
Someday soon the tide’ll turn and I’ll be free
Well I’ll be free, I’ll be free, I’ll come home to my country
Someday soon the tide’ll turn and I’ll be free.”
The Hooters, “500 Miles”
So that went well.
No, it didn’t but compared to having been drawn, quartered and then left to the SPARTANs for them to play with it could have gone worse. She didn’t even shout but then again, for some reason he doesn’t think CINCONI needs to scream much or often. She didn’t even relieve him of his command of Infinity which was probably the greatest surprise to him and served pretty well to soften the blow of being ripped a new one by Serin Osman.
Then again, she did threaten him with feeding him to Jul ‘Mdama personally as soon as they found him and Halsey.
Ah, shit, that was probably one of those moments his mother would have relished with a kind of stern faced “I told you so, Thomas” glee that only Colonel Marianne Lasky could produce. And he didn’t even tell Sarah yet. All he’d done since receiving the call from Osman he’d been dreading for two weeks now had been telling Roland to ping him only when absolutely necessary - he stated the ship being invaded by zombie SPARTANs created with that Promethean technology ‘Mdama owns as example - grab his work-out clothes and jog down to the atrium.
When they’d installed it, he’d wondered what the hell they wanted with a damn forest on a war ship - because let’s face it, Infinity was never intended to be anything but a battle ship - but since they made him Captain, he’s come to appreciate the greenery. It’s not the first time that he comes to a little clearing with actual, real, probably bio-engineered grass to lie down and stare at the artificial light source in the far above “sky”. Sometimes it helps him clear his mind and get a better perspective on things.
Sometimes it serves to empty it so he doesn’t have to think of anything or anyone. If he’s being honest, it’s very rare that he comes here for the first.
He’s not being honest now, though. He’s staring at the ceiling and trying to forget.
Forget how Osman crept him out with her even tone and her slightly disapproving face. Forget how she made it clear to him that he would find Halsey and ‘Mdama or die trying. Forget how she told him to personally execute Halsey again.
Forget how he told her what she could do with that order.
Oh, not that he actually said that. But he did try to make clear to her that he thought it a pretty bad idea to make woodentop Navy officers into personal executioners for ONI personnel’s grudges. He was being polite and submissive and cautious. He nearly ended up being skewered and then relieved of his command by her, anyway.
And he can’t stop wondering why she didn’t. It’s not like one of his adjutants - the one on duty during the call - isn’t an ONI operative. He found out only recently and he wonders what Sarah will have to face once Osman finds out about that but it doesn’t really bother him. If she activates Baumann, so be it. He has faced worse things than that.
Sarah being punished for telling him, though… that’s gonna be a hell lotta tougher. He tries not to think about it, reminds himself of how much more than him Sarah can endure, how many more sources of strength she has, how much more Osman likes SPARTANs than regular Navy. Still…
“I can’t believe you really dug yourself in to mope here.” Shit, what the hell is Sarah doing here all of a sudden? How did she even… “Roland told me.”
Right. “Remind me to fry his circuits when I get back to the bridge.”
She grins and gestures for him to stay on the ground, lowering herself next to him. “Try not to. We still need him to fly this boat.” Sometimes, he wonders if that kind of thing is a remnant of her past as a marine or if she just does that to rile up his “woodentop Navy ass”, as she sometimes likes to call it, not without a weird kind of fondness to it in her tone.
“He’s gonna be flying nothing bigger than a Warthog when I’m done with him.” It makes her snort, decidedly unladylike and he loves that about her.
“Warthogs don’t fly, remember that, Captain?” He’s not looking at her, now that they’re both lying on their backs, staring up at the immense sphere of light simulating a sun to keep the plants inside the atrium from dying. He’s still sure that that actually was straight out of her past as a marine. He loves that he knows stuff like that without having to look at her.
It’s his turn to snort now. “Believe me, they do. That one time on Circinius IV…” Two weeks ago, before he came to Sarah’s quarters and tugged up her wet suit and told her about Chyler while he tried not to dwell on the fact that his finger just brushed the bare skin of Sarah’s back, this would have been accidental and his voice would have sounded tight and harsh and bitter.
It’s not a miracle that it wasn’t and it didn’t, not really. It’s not a miracle that she knows exactly what he meant and that she could acknowledge the fact that he just made a joke about the worst and maybe best thing that ever happened to him with another snort, even if it still feels like one.
There’s silence, then. Just two people lying next to each other, breathing almost in synch - he won’t question how he knows that because that would just mean Bad Things, as Caedmon would have said - and pretending they’re not on a war ship. It’s nice, actually.
Until she goes and has to say, “I’m glad she didn’t just tell Baumann to get rid of you discretely.”
Sometimes he wonders why he ever considered having her as a de facto second in command sounded like a good idea to him but then she goes and tells him things like that. That’s one fucked up friendship, he thinks and can’t help smiling a moment before feeling himself turning into a cynic. “How do you know she hasn’t?”
Instead of an answer, he gets silence, at least for a few moments and something about that doesn’t feel quite right, especially when the only thing she does say ends up being, “You’re still here, aren’t you?” a tad too quiet for her usual self. He thinks it better not to wonder what the hell is suddenly up with that.
He keeps staring up at the artificial light source, seeing over 30 years of his career happening in front of his eyes, in a kind of condensed so this is how it’s going to end way. “That doesn’t have to mean anything.” I can’t believe I need to tell you that, he wants to add but even though she doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even change her rhythm of breathing or moves a finger, he somehow knows she wouldn’t react too kindly to that.
“My,” she says, sarcasm dripping all over the floor, “aren’t we a merry ray of sunshine today.”
You’d be, too, if you’d been on the receiving end of an Osman style dressing down, he thinks. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how disappointed I am in you, Captain. Disappointed, his ass. He keeps staring upward and against the faint humming of the ship’s engines, he can hear her breathing, inhumanly even and measured, all regular.
Once, after her augmentation, when he’d thought he’d accepted what and who she’d become, he’d had a flash of delusions of grandeur and had asked her to go on a run with him. He’d only understood why she’d smirked like that as she’d set out when he’d been running after her, thinking his lungs were on fire and she’d been breathing exactly the same she’s breathing now. It had taken him another year to get used to never even hearing a hitch in her breathing break her stride.
That is reason enough to whip around his head in concern the moment he hears the first disturbance of breathing he heard from her in years before she says, “She wants to divide and conquer, Tom.”
It’s not like Parangosky didn’t do it, too. In fact, she was a master at it. Making him Captain of Infinity for disobeying his commanding officer’s orders was one of her last major strikes. Making Osman CINCONI really was her last strike. They’d announced her death an hour after Osman’s promotion was made official.
But never, never has he ever seen that kind of pain he just heard in Sarah’s voice and saw in the slight frown on her face. “So what’s new in that, Commander?”
“Damnit, Tom.” That he can deal with. Her usual hot-headed, profane, impatient self. He’s even kind of thankful for it because the anger in her eyes seems to have beaten the pain when she sets up in a jerk of barely contained SPARTAN energy.
He follows, more measured and doesn’t roll his eyes. “What? You know it isn’t. That’s just how ONI operates. It’s probably in their blood and they can’t do anything against it, just like we can’t…”
“You have no idea what’s in their blood!” Allusions again. Damnit.
“I was just reminded of the fact that I still need to unlawfully execute a war criminal if I want to keep my command, Sarah!” How is it that they seem to be ending up in fights so much lately? “Yes, I very well know what’s…”
“You know nothing. Why the fuck are you just not listening to me? I told you…” And what in God’s name is making her so afraid of the damn ONI?
Being afraid just is not how he knows her. “Yes, I know what you told me. She’s out for my blood, she’s probably out for yours, too, we need to heed her order, she’s got people on the ship, I know, Sarah!”
“No, you don’t, Tom!” Somehow, they managed to end up sitting on the ground, their faces only inches apart from each other and it takes a moment for him to register her dilated pupils, slightly parted lips, angry frown, faintly irregular breathing.
Kiss me, Sarah.
That wasn’t supposed to be in his head right here, right now. It wasn’t supposed to be in his head at any time. It wasn’t supposed to be in his head at all. And still he’s sitting here and staring at her and not daring to lower his gaze to her lips again and all he can think of is wondering how it ever came to him knowing her so well that all the anger in her face can’t fool him about the pain lurking beneath.
Kiss me and let me make it better.
This is what he wants to say and he wants to say it so badly, worse even than he wanted Chyler to kiss him, wanted to kiss Chyler. He wants to tell her to kiss him so he doesn’t have to do it himself, doesn’t have to be the one breaking their friendship for some foolish desire without a place between superior and subordinate. This is what he wants to say to her.
And this is what he says, “What’s going on, Sarah?”
As far as he’s concerned this is as far as he can go to say kiss me without using the actual words. As far as Sarah’s concerned… “She talked to me, too.” So. Alright. It’s not like he shouldn’t have expected it. It’s just that he didn’t. Not that fast, anyway.
He’s kind of grateful to her for saying that and bringing a little distance between them. He’s not sure if he could have done the same. He’s not sure if he hadn’t kissed her anyway if she’d waited just a microsecond longer. “What did she say?”
Sarah squirms and that’s just not her. For a moment, just a very small one, he feels the irrational desire to rip Osman a new one, just for making Sarah act like someone she isn’t, someone who feels like there are things she can’t tell him but then she seems to have caught herself and the impulse shrinks back. “She told me to have an eye on you.” That was to be expected, wasn’t it? “She told me to make sure to keep you in line.” That, too. “In fact, she said that I was “authorized” and “advised” to use any force I “deem necessary” to make sure you go with her orders this time.”
The sad thing is: even that was to be expected. What wasn’t to be expected was Sarah spelling it out for the both of them. “I’m the agent, Tom.”
He doesn’t want to rip Osman a new one anymore. He wants use an ODST field knife and put it to good use on the Admiral’s skin and that’s really all he can think at the moment because the exact contents of what he wants to do right now scare the living shit out of him. This isn’t a bit of ONI scheming anymore. It’s not even petty revenge. It means fucking war. Briefly he wonders whether this is stupid enough of Osman to make Parangosky return from the grave but he buries that hope pretty fast under fear and urgency and racing thoughts on what the hell to do with that information.
There’s a moment when all he wants to do is lean over and hug her to tell her it’s gonna be okay, tell her he knows where her loyalties lie, tell her they’re gonna tell Osman what to do with that order. There’s another one when he wants to call Osman and ask her what the hell she thinks she’s doing, fucking up his chain of command and everything. There’s a third one when he wants to stay here forever, never go back outside, never wonder just how well he really knows Sarah and her loyalties.
There’s one, in the end, that reminds him that he isn’t fourteen years old anymore, and the boy who fell in love with Chyler Silva isn’t the man who fell in love with Sarah Palmer. The boy who helped down a Hunter while shitting himself with fear isn’t the man who commands the biggest battle ship Earth ever built.
“You know,” he tells her, his voice even and a bit contemplative, just for effect, “it takes two to tango.” At least she’s not looking like she has a very heard time at not freaking out right here right now anymore. In fact, she looks a lot like she just started to seriously doubt his sanity. “Divide and conquer only ever works if there are people you can divide and conquer.”
She takes a moment to answer. A moment in which he’s almost 100% sure that she’ll call Roland and ask him to have Infinity’s commander confined to sick bay for the time being. “So… this is what your mother sent you to military school for?”
Ah, and that’s what you get for trying to be meaningful. He did seem to have cheered her up, though. “It worked, didn’t it?”
Still doubting his sanity… and suddenly, reluctantly, like she’s not sure if she really wants to, snorting and laughing, welling up in short bursts and fascinating little waves until they’re both shaken by the most inappropriate laughing fit he ever had and maybe that’s why it’s so good that it makes them exhausted enough to lie down on their backs again, his breathing evening out much slower than hers.
She’s the first to speak again. “God, we’re so screwed.”
It’s a bit of stating the obvious but it doesn’t mean it’s not true. She forgot something, though. “Yeah, but we’re screwed together.”
He hears a last little snort from her before she falls silent for a few, long minutes. So long that he’s almost dozed off when he hears her say, “Tom?”
Not sure if he really wants to hear what she has to say, he leaves it a non-committal, “Mh?”
She actually manages to surprise him. “There’s no one I’d rather be screwed with than you.”
Huh.
For a weird, insane moment, this sounds suspiciously like I love you but that’s probably just his brain being too fucked up after those last couple weeks.
And it must be because when he says, “Same here, Sarah. Same here,” after an infinite minute of silence what it really sounds like is I love you, too and it doesn’t even feel that bad. It feels quite good actually, which is the only reason he doesn’t ruin the moment with any more ill-advised words, just lies there staring up at the artificial sun and listening to Sarah breathe next to him, for a few more minutes before they need to get back to what they’re supposed to do. What else is there to do for you when your best friend is supposed to be the one neutralizing you when you misbehave next time, anyway?
~*~
TBC in Never to Touch (And Never to Keep).