CHAPTER 1
FATEFUL ENCOUNTERS

Samus Aran sighed and closed the door to her apartment. Shaking out her long blonde hair, the almost 23 year old stretched and inhaled the glorious autumn air. It wasn't every day that she got a weekend off, but here she was, with no missions to speak of until about Wednesday.
"Samus!"
Turning, the blonde greeted her friend, Zelda. The blonde smiled at Samus, nodding respectively.
"Hello Zelda. Where're you off to today?"
Smiling, the other woman smoothed her dress. "Luke and I are going to go for a walk through the park nearby…the flowering trees are blooming right about now. Would you care to come?"
Shaking her head, Samus smiled a little. "No, you two should have some alone time. Besides, I heard that there's a shortage of hands in the infirmary, so I thought I'd head over there and keep myself busy for the weekend. Let me know how Luke is though."
As Zelda swept off, Samus headed the other direction, her black T-shirt and jeans making barely any noise as she walked. Although it was an odd hobby for the deadly bounty hunter, Samus enjoyed working with the wounded. It gave her a sense of purpose that bounty hunting sometimes didn't.
Her apartment complex wasn't too far from the ward that Samus worked on so often. Entering the long room, Samus was greeted by a brunette woman just a few years her senior.
Tessa turned to Samus, a look of relief on her face. "Thank GOD you're here. HE just walked in and I need someone to get him patched up."
Standing behind Tessa was a man in sage green armor that looked like it had seen better days. His face was hidden by a golden visor on his helmet. He shrugged and headed towards a back room, waving a hand as Tessa told him to remove the armor before allowing anyone to attend to him.
Taking the papers from Tessa, Samus tucked them under her arm and began to tie her hair back into a ponytail. "C'mon Tess, you can't be serious. Why can't you take care of him?"
Folding her arms, the brunette leveled her gaze at Samus. "Because I get to take care of that damn man every time he comes in here and he's a pain. Besides, Cooper should be coming in later today, he has a sparring session with Vincent arranged."
"Yeah yeah…" Samus headed off towards the private room that the newest arrival had headed into. Tessa just wanted her to be preoccupied because she wanted to see her boyfriend, Cooper, without his shirt on. But who could blame her? Looking at the file, she noted the name he went by was a military code name. Spartan 117, aka the Master Chief…how incredibly odd. Knocking, Samus pushed open the door, eyes still on the file.
"All right, what seems to be the problem –" The blonde was cut short by the sight before her.
The Master Chief sat on the examining table in only a pair of boxers, but that wasn't so much a problem for Samus. It was the fact that he was incredibly muscled and sort of handsome in a rugged way. His dark eyes met hers, and he ran a hand through his short dark brown hair. He was cut up and bruised in a million different ways across his chest and arms, but it didn't detract from his rugged good looks. He blinked.
"You're not Tessa."
Shaking her head, Samus set the chart down and closed the door. Finding her voice, she spoke. "No…I'm not."
Rummaging in a cabinet, Samus tried to keep the flush off her face. Chief spoke again.
"Who are you?"
Turning back to him, Samus held a roll of bandages in her hand. "My name is Samus Aran. But since you seem to prefer military names to real ones, you can call me the Hunter."
Moving towards him, Samus unrolled the bandage a little and stuck a pair of scissors in her pocket. "Arm please."
The chocolate brown haired man stuck out his right arm and watched as Samus went to work gently binding up his wounds. After a moment, he spoke again, his voice softer this time. "What do you do for a living?"
Not bothering to glance up, Samus snipped at the bandages. "I'm a bounty hunter. I hunt people, things, whatever it is, I'll find it."
"I never would have guessed."
Looking up, Samus allowed her blue eyes to seek out the Chief's brown ones. "Why do you say that?"
Meeting her eyes, the two were close enough for Samus to see that the Chief had a bit of a five o'clock shadow. The corners of his mouth twitched upwards. "Your hands are so gentle. That's why."
This made Samus turn pink, so she returned to bandaging his arms. "You're so beat up…what do you do for a living that gets you THIS wounded?"
"I'm in the military." The Chief seemed mesmerized by the way Samus's pale fingers moved across his skin and how they smoothed the bandages over his wounds.
Finishing binding up a long gash on his bicep, Samus nodded. "That explains the military name…scoot over."
Seeing the strange look the brunette man was giving her, Samus rolled her eyes. "So I can bandage your chest and back! Move over."
So after a little bit of maneuvering by both the patient and the assistant, Master Chief was sitting on the edge of the table with Samus kneeling behind him. He was still and silent while Samus worked, but he tilted his head towards her as she spoke.
"I never understood why people were given nicknames like that in the military. Then I got into it a little." Sighing, she paused; her hands cool on his back. "I was given the name 'the hunter' because that's what I did. I was just so good at what I did; the nickname my enemies gave to me became my name. It's hard now, because I'm no longer a person, but just a nickname…a hunter."
As Samus was finishing bandaging a particularly long set of score marks on the Chief's back, he spoke.
"John."
Leaning to the side, Samus tried to catch his eye. "Pardon?"
Turning his head, he smiled at her. "John. My name is John. It's been a pleasure to meet you…Samus."