We Could've Been...

The first thing lost in war...is innocence. Morals, laws, humanity, it all crumbles in the face of conflict. The loss of innocence doesn't change you. It merely releases you. Everyone has a monster, a demon held in check by society and civilization. War removes these shackles. After the dust has settled, the graves have been filled, the memorials paid, the victims of war look back at what they once had. They look back to a time when they were human.

The final death of Leonard Church shook the crew to their core. He'd always been there, not always as a supporting pillar that held together a structure, but more of a neglected problem, like a leaky plumbing system or a family of raccoon squatters. However, he'd been much more than that as of late, and his sacrifice showed that, beneath those callous words and false projections of hatred, he really did care about them. Everyone on Chorus was feeling down.

The armies of Chorus spoke of him as a hero, a larger-than-life character. To them, he was the selfless hero who had sacrificed himself for them.

The Blood Gulch crew was uncharacteristically quiet. On the red team, everyone had toned down hostilities toward their former enemies from a certain canyon. Sarge rarely made negative comments about blue team anymore, Simmons was spending a lot of time on his own, isolating himself from the rest of his team, and Grif, well, Grif was eating. A lot more than usual. Donut could be found crying to himself from time to time, and even Lopez was somewhat unhappy. If anyone could understand his speech, they would have learned that he was genuinely upset that his only computerized friend was now gone.

Blue team and the Freelancers were in a similar state of shock and grief. Tucker, like Red team, was mostly quiet and spent most of his time in his quarters talking with the leftover AI fragments that were once his friend. Caboose was mostly confused and sad. He kept asking people where Church was, and nobody really had the heart to try to make Caboose understand where his best friend had gone. Washington had become more reclusive, merely going through the days as an automaton. His movements had become almost mechanical, as he thought of the person who had helped give him a second chance.

Doc was melancholy and Dr. Grey had become subdued. She may have been insane, but that didn't mean she wasn't a person too. She spent a lot of time talking to the Reds and Blues, trying to help the recover from their loss. However, most of this time and effort was directed towards Carolina.

Carolina had been the most affected by his death. Her worst fear was becoming true. She had already lost a family, and Church's death could signal the demise of the rest of this ragtag group. When Church died, her father died, once and for all. She knew that her real father was gone, and she had seen Epsilon as more of friend and companion, but she was terrified to see another one of the few ties she had with her old family vanish. So she began training, harder, faster, longer. Wash and Dr. Grey did what they could to bring her food and water and try to convince her to rest, but she never did. She pushed herself far beyond her limits everyday, and only stopped when she collapsed.

The UNSC had arrived, an bore with them clean-up crews and personnel to help restore the planet. The Reds, Blues, and Freelancers, their ticket to freedom finally here, had no incentive to leave. So they stayed, helped their newfound friends clean up their homes and move on from a comrade's death. Or at least, pretend to.

Three Months Pass...

Things began to return to normal after three months. That's not to say that the Reds and Blues forgot about the deceased Blue Leader, but his death and the agony of suffering that they felt began to lessen. They no longer felt as if they were carrying boulders on their backs. Carolina stopped pushing herself as hard as possible after Dr. Grey found York's video diary in the memory fragment of Delta and used it to calm the ex-freelancer down. Caboose finally realized that Church was gone, but surprisingly took it somewhat decently. Grif stopped eating enough food for the entire planet's population, and the teams mostly recovered.

Everyone began to find something to live for, a purpose to stay. Carolina wanted to protect her new "family" of misfits while Wash stayed to protect the people Church gave his life for. Red Team wanted to honor Epsilon in their own way, by "utterly kicking the sh*t out of every son of a b*tch dumb enough to deface the only blue that we trusted" as Sarge eloquently put it. Caboose found solace and comfort in Freckles, and Tucker more or less returned to normal. The only real differences between the current crew and that of three months ago was that they now carried themselves with a sense of purpose and avoided talking about Church as much as they could.

One day, Dr. Grey invited them along to a recently excavated alien artifact located in the mountains, its location revealed to them by the ever helpful Santa AI. Naturally the squad agreed, and together, they set off towards the mountains.

"Those mountains were formed from dormant volcanoes, making their hillsides naturally fertile areas for agriculture. The view from the peaks are glorious-" the words spilled from Dr. Grey's mouth as a waterfall pours from a cliff, only to be cut off by Tucker, who was determined to get his two cents in.

"Glorious view of the peaks, booyah! Bow Chicka Bow Wow!"

Only to be followed by the inevitable answer to such vulgarity.

"Shut up Tucker!"

With the expected deviation from the norm.

"I like cats."

Once again tailed by the inevitable answer to such stupidity.

"Shut up Caboose."

"Are we playing the silent game?"

"Yes."

There was no way they could have known, that today, was the day everything went to hell.