SO funny story guys. Right after I posted the last chapter, I started -feeling funny- and all of this stuff. When I went out for my birthday and didn't want to eat my favorite food, I knew something was wrong so it turned out I was (unexpectedly) pregnant! LOL! Sometimes birth control does fail you guys...My morning sickness was quite awful, I was still very sick until about 20 weeks pregnant, and then around that time other lovely pregnancy symptoms start to kick in...well, on October 3rd my husband and I welcomed our daughter into the world! We're doing well, we're both exhausted and she's the best thing in the world.

Needless to say, I think about this story a ton and am still planning on updating, but obviously have a lot going on. LOL. You guys are the best fans in the entire world, so I want to throw something together instead of just another author note. This story is still very important to me! My update pace will just be slower. LOL. So let me flex my fanfiction muscles and see how this goes.

His knee really wasn't what it used to be. He was sure that he could probably get a new ligament flash cloned and have a surgery on it, but somehow that seemed even more unappealing than the discomfort he endured when he went for a run.

That being said, the creaky, poppy sound it made was a bit obnoxious.

John had been thinking about Doctor Halsey and her predicament for almost a week now. Cortana hadn't brought it up again, but he could tell that she wanted to, if anything just to have an answer.

He measured his runs in time, not in distance. He didn't run for competition or pride like Kelly did, he usually ran to clear his head and he knew how much time he needed to do so. So after an hour, he started going home.

Outside the house, he could hear Cortana in the kitchen, having just finished a lesson and Joan upstairs in her room playing animatedly with her dolls. He walked quietly into the kitchen.

"You're getting old, I could hear you walking down the hall," Cortana said wryly putting some clean mugs away. He frowned slightly but ignored her ribbing and wrapped an arm around her waist.

"Good morning."

He more often than not woke up before her because he needed far less sleep than her to function, so she took the morning to take care of Joan while he went and ran for a while, and he would be back before she had to teach a lesson.

She leaned into his embrace and sighed. She didn't mind that he was sweaty from his run in the least. If she were honest, she'd admit she still even liked the way he smelled, as long as he didn't let himself stink for hours on end.

"We got a call while you were out, I was thinking you'd be interested though so I told them to call back."

"Who?"

"A Naomi Sentzke and Vasily Beloi."

Vaz was walking well again and had almost completely weaned himself off of his pain medications.

He and Naomi hadn't told anyone that they were planning to get married. It was a nice secret just between the two of them. He almost wanted to just run off and elope, but he knew that Naomi secretly wanted to have their ramshackle family they'd assembled attend. He knew things like that were important to her, and he also knew that she would never fully admit that.

Too bad her Father can't be here.

Vaz frowned as he made them both lunch.

You need to tell her that you write Staffan, you can't keep this a secret if you're going to get married and have a child together.

Naomi had had enough secrets in her life, she didn't need another one from him. His correspondence with the terrorist who was soon-to-be his father-in-law had weighed on him heavily through the years, but he knew that Naomi hadn't been in a position to know he'd kept up with the man.

Naomi came inside, covered in a light sheen of sweat from her late morning run. She went to the refrigerator and gulped down a glass of water.

"Lunch smells good," she said as she sat down at the counter.

They ate lunch quietly and slowly, simply enjoying the other's company.

"Naomi," he said after he had cleaned his plate.

"What?"

"I have something I should tell you that I couldn't tell you before," he said, sitting down by her.

She nodded, indicating he should continue.

"Do you remember when we laid together on Port Stanley and looked up at Sansar's sky?"

She went a little pale.

"Yes, I do."

"Do you remember how you asked me when I got the package?"

As cliche as the saying was, Naomi felt her heart skip a beat in her chest. Somehow she had known that they would be having this conversation someday. She'd hidden it away in a box, compartmentalized just like she did everything else unpleasant or uncomfortable, only there for her to access when she was either forced to or needed to. Life was easier that way. Perhaps less authentic, but easier, and easier is what she needed more often than not.

"And you told me to ask if I needed to know," she whispered.

He nodded.

"Now you're not a Spartan and I'm not going to be a Marine for much longer, I want to tell you."

This was it. She knew what was coming but she tried to prepare herself all the same.

"Your father is alive. I have been sending him paper letters written with aliases for the last three years."

She closed her eyes tightly and tried to fight back the quick tears that fell down her cheeks futily, biting her lip all the same.

"I've known that he was alive, I knew when you wouldn't tell me when you got the package but," her voice was thick and throaty and she squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself not to cry more, "I just want to see him again so badly, I have nightmares where he calls me a monster and I want to see him when I'm not a Spartan on a ship and we're interrogating him," her voice felt thick in her chest, as if each word was hard to coax out but it fought out all the same.

"I want to be his daughter," she said quietly after a deep breath. Naomi hadn't fully realized that this had been some unvoiced desire of hers, but she knew deep down that it was true, that somewhere, deep down, there was still a little six year old girl who wanted a father.

"I have an idea," Vaz said slowly.

Naomi leaned in to listen to him.

"He is in the same system as the Chief, what if we got married on their planet, our travel visas would say we are visiting friends so there wouldn't be anything suspicious about it and I'm sure he uses fake stuff whenever he travels so it would be really difficult to make a pattern. That way, if we visited him there, it will just look like we're visiting the Chief and his wife, which there is nothing weird about that considering you grew up together."

"How do you think John might feel about harboring an ex-terrorist though?"

Vaz scoffed. "I think we ask him, something tells me it's not going to be something that bothers him too much."

She nodded quickly.

"I want him there but I don't know if we can invite Serin then," she said, "it would be...difficult, not to have her."

"I'll talk to her. Now that she's CINCONI and doesn't report to anyone, I don't think it would be as big of an issue for her to keep that kind of secret."

We've all kept far worse secrets in our lifetime, after all.

"I don't want him to go to prison, I would rather never see him again than put him through more suffering," she blurted out quickly. The thought of him being locked up, despite the fact that he had intended to kill thousands of people just seemed wrong, and Naomi knew she couldn't stand being even more the reason why than she already was.

"I know, but why don't you write him a letter and I'll send it to him. Try to keep it so if someone read it it would seem very inconspicuous."

She nodded.

"I'll leave you alone for a bit, I'll be outside stretching out my leg," he leaned down and kissed her on the crown of her head.

She inhaled and looked at the paper in front of her.

Where do I even start?

Staffan Sentzke sat down to breakfast and coffee.

"Hey, Dad, I have a few things I'd really appreciate you doing today."

"Sure, just write it down and I'll get to it."

He sipped his coffee. Things had been slow and slightly mundane in the years following his encounter with his long lost daughter, but he had accepted that she was lost to him outside of the random anonymous letters he would receive from the solemn Russian Marine. Those letters were more than he had had in years, and he clung to them as precious.

He thumbed the most recent memory in his pocket.

Every day I see light return to her eyes, a light that you must have loved very dearly when she was a little girl. I feel as if I am finally glimpsing the real person she was meant to be despite the fact that she and I have known each other for years and we have been together for half a year. She amazes me and gives me hope each day I spend with her. She is doing very well and I think she is happy.

I am leaving town for business soon and I worry for her, but I have talked to Turk and done my best to make sure she will be taken care of.

I hope that someday you may be able to see her again. If not, I hope that someday I will be able to tell her about the correspondence we share.

Respectfully,

Rusk

The letter was vague but elluded to the Turkish Admiral and Staffan couldn't help but feel a bit uneasy, despite the fact that she had seemed to care greatly for Naomi. What he wouldn't give to see that light in her eyes again. He hoped sincerely that she was happy, it was all that mattered at this point.

Has she gotten a life back? Can she be even close to normal? Will she have children?

The glazed over look in her eyes, the scars on her arms...it had been heartbreaking. Heartbreaking to see what he knew was his child, his daughter, his life made into an instrument of war. He knew that she would forever be his daughter, but she was no longer someone he knew and that opportunity had been stolen from him.

He sighed and turned on the television.

"From the UNSC, some happy news for a change of pace. With us today is former Spartan Naomi Sentzke and Marine Sergeant Vasily Beloi, how are you?"

Staffan dropped his fork and his jaw dropped. He could feel tears pricking at his eyes just from the sight of her. She looked beautiful. Her hair was loosely braided and she even wore a little make up.

"I am doing much better every day," the burly Russian Marine replied. He looked worse for the wear with a new scar running down his left eyelid and onto his cheek below, but he was smiling.

"Now you lead the rescue of five hostages being held by Sanghelli splinter groups, to include UK Minister of Commerce and Trade David Todd which was nothing short of amazing considering everyone thought them dead, but the reason you're with us today is a video of you both that has really gone viral, let's roll the clip."

Staffan watched in awe. Naomi was shown pacing. She looked miserable. The pain visible on her face combined with her gaunt, exhausted appearance made her look almost like a ghost. The ship door opened and he watched as the weeping crowd looked for their returning family members.

Then he watched Naomi's face shift from one of despair to complete disbelief. She was running faster than he had ever seen any human run, it was nothing short of astounding.

The Marine dropped his crutch and collapsed into Naomi's arms. She lifted him clear off the ground and kissed him.

There was no way to describe the way she kissed him besides desperate and deeply, deeply in love. She broke away from him and Staffan watched as the once cold, deadly woman melted away and started sobbing while she kissed every part of the Marine's face.

Staffan felt a tear roll down his cheek.

She looks like she could be my daughter again, like a real person.

"Can we get a still of that?" the anchor asked. The video paused at an extremely emotional moment where Naomi, with tears streaming down her cheeks and arms wrapped around the Marine kissed him on the mouth. The Marine was clearly crying as well, his arms wrapped around Naomi, his hand in her hair.

"Wow, that's a very powerful moment. What was going through your mind?" the anchor spoke directly to Naomi.

He watched Naomi shift uncomfortably in her seat.

"I had been notified that he was missing a few weeks prior and I had assumed that he was dead. Most of my friends and comrades who were MIA ended up being dead so...seeing him again after all of those weeks was," Naomi swallowed and took a deep breath, "It was the happiest I have been in my entire life."

"How did you two meet?"

"I was assigned to a small battalion of Marines and a Naval officer after the Human-Covenant war which was extremely rare for a Spartan class II."

"Is that when your relationship started?"

Naomi blushed and laughed awkwardly.

"No, Naomi was far too busy making the rest of us look bad in combat to notice a lowly ODST such as myself," he quipped.

Naomi slapped him on the shoulder, "Stop that," she laughed a little more genuinely.

"No, we started dating after I retired," she replied softly.

Retired, she's not working any more.

He felt hope that he had no real business feeling. Just because she had been wrongfully taken from him didn't change that she wasn't his. He didn't really know her.

But she looks like me dammit. She has my eyes and my frown.

"So what do you have planned after your viral homecoming?"

"For some reason Naomi has agreed to marry me," the Marine said in his heavily accented English.

She's getting married. She's going to be happy.

He felt a small sense of relief wash over him. If she couldn't be with him, with her

father, perhaps she could be happy someplace else.

"Will you have the Master Chief at your wedding?"

She must have known the Master Chief, they were probably the closest thing she knew to childhood playmates.

"What makes you assume that I'm not the Master Chief?" She quipped, raising an eyebrow slightly.

The anchor chuckled.

"I suppose you're right," she said jokingly, "though I'm pretty sure that it's been agreed publically that the Chief was, or is, a male."

Naomi smiled.

"That would be true, as for him attending our wedding it's a long way to travel, but if you're listening Chief take this as your invite," she smiled brightly, brighter than Staffan had ever been able to imagine after seeing her those years ago.

"Thank you for your time and we wish you both all the best for your upcoming nuptials," Naomi and the Marine nodded and the anchor moved on to another story.

Staffan turned off the television and wiped the steady stream of tears away.

"Dad?"

"What is it?" he said, his voice a little hoarse from crying.

"Another letter from your guy," his son passed him a letter on the table. It had become an awkward ritual that both of them pretended to ignore. His son ignored the existence of his older half sister that had driven his father insane and Staffan ignored his son's indifference.

Immediately he noticed something different. The letter was thicker. He opened it up.

This isn't Vasily's handwriting. He felt his heart start to beat quickly as he read.

It's me. I've been caught up on how you are and I don't know what to say. I'm so, so happy that you are okay. I don't feel that I can properly express myself in writing with these circumstances but I wanted to let you know.

I'm getting married. I know it must seem crazy to you but I'm really, very happy. I want you to be there.

He was crying again. He had thought that seeing his daughter get married was something taken away from him forever. He never would have imagined that he would be given that opportunity back.

Logistically I know it's difficult because it's far away.

That's not why it's hard, it's hard because I'm a terrorist who took a warship with the intention of glassing Earth.

He continued to read.

But I think there is something we can do. I have a very close friend who lives in the Lamda Aurige System and I was thinking that we could get married at their house. They apparently have a beautiful backyard, with mountains and trees and big open skies.

Staffan couldn't handle the idea of her happy and getting married under a big open sky. He felt overcome by the idea, of seeing her in such a different situation than before.

The planet has two moons, 14 June is the only evening that year where both of the moons will be in full view from the planet's surface and it seems like a perfect opportunity. I hope that you can come. I've included coordinates on a separate sheet. I doubt we'll have the opportunity to exchange letters again before the event, so I will wait and hope you will be there.

-N

Staffan looked at the coordinates and committed them to memory, forwards and backwards then set the sheet of paper on fire.

I am going to see my little girl again. I will be with her again.

John sat down on his couch after a quick shower. He had absolutely no idea what Naomi could be calling him about, but he was sure it wasn't just to catch up. She was not a chatty woman like Cortana, or even Kelly. She was very quiet, and had an overall grave presence that she exuded.

Cortana dialed the connection and put on what he knew was her 'conversation' face. It wasn't fake, but it was something she did to make people feel comfortable and was a bit more energetic than she normally was.

"Hello John, Cortana," Naomi said politely. He could see already that Naomi was nervous about whatever conversation they were about to have by the way she subtly shifted her weight while she sat.

What in the world could she be nervous about?

"Vasily and I have decided to get married," she said in a clipped tone.

"That's so wonderful! Congratulations," said Cortana brightly, looking to both the smiling yet surly Russian and Naomi.

There was a slightly awkward beat of silence.

"We were wondering if we could have our wedding at your house."

John cocked his head a little bit. He was trying to work out some sort of ulterior motive. There was no way they simply wanted to travel all this way just to see them, let alone have a wedding in their backyard when they lived in the Sol system which afforded any sort of luxury or excitement one could want in a wedding celebration.

"Long way to come for a wedding when you live on Earth," he deadpanned.

He watched Naomi blink quickly a few times. To anyone else she would look stoic and even bored, but he could tell she was very nervous about what she was about to say. She really had not picked up on social cues the way that Kelly or Fred really had. Perhaps it was the military environment she'd stayed wrapped up in through her retirement.

Naomi took a deep breath and started.

"It has to do with my father."

She spoke so quickly her words seemed to blur together, talking about how she had been in contact with her father, how she wanted him at her wedding but didn't know how to do this without getting him thrown in jail for the rest of his life, and she explained a complicated, very illegal plan, where her father attended a wedding held at their house.

When she finished, he could tell Naomi was either on the verge of tears or simply getting up and running away. He also could tell Cortana was a little shocked.

"So you want to have a wedding in our backyard with your ex-terrorist father and the Commander in Chief of the Office of Naval Intelligence?" asked John incredulously.

Naomi fidgeted.

"I know it sounds ridiculous but-"

"Okay," he said simply.

Naomi's eyes widened a fraction.

"Really?"

"If you've got it figured out between you and the Admiral how she's going to avoid arresting him Cortana and I don't care. It's beautiful here and Joan will be excited about a wedding, she's never been to one, I'm sure she will like dressing up," said John.

Naomi sighed. "Thank you, thank you so, so much. I can't even begin to express how much this means."

"One condition," said Cortana.

Naomi felt nervous.

"What?"

"You have to let John and I pay, and you have to let Kelly and I plan everything without you even thinking about worrying about a single detail," she said confidently.

"You don't need to do anything big, we can pay some-"

"Nope, you don't spend a dime, take it or leave it!"

Naomi sighed. Their generosity made her uncomfortable.

"Okay," she acquiesced.

Cortana clapped.

"Okay, we will see you a day before!" she hung up quickly.

"Well, this will be interesting," said Cortana dryly getting up.

John nodded imperceptibly.

He couldn't blame Naomi. He often wondered that, were his parents alive, would he try to contact them or leave them in their ignorant bliss? He had no idea, and he supposed it was a pointless exercise.

But Naomi had a father, and he couldn't fault her for wanting to see him. He also couldn't fault Naomi's father for doing what he had done. It was conflicting. He knew killing innocent people was wrong, and that's what her father had intended, but the very real madness that Staffan Sentzke had surely suffered was also wrong. What happened to their family had been wrong, and John couldn't blame the man for feeling the way he had.

Maybe somehow this would help him. Maybe his dreams of his mother would leave, and after they were gone the Doctor could live in their home without feeling like a sad mimicry of a relationship he would never have.

Because if he was honest, that's what bothered him. He was bothered that Catherine Halsey was not his mother, and that he would never know what his mother was like.

"You are implying that a man I have believed to be dead is alive and wants to come to you and Naomi's Outer Colony wedding, that I will be attending. Said man has committed acts of treason against the Earth Government that carry a mandatory death sentence that you presumably wouldn't want carried out."

"I know it sounds crazy, I know you're an Admiral and need to do your job but Naomi needs you to just be you, she needs you there, you're her best friend and she needs this. He's not a threat any more, and he will be even less of a threat if you allow this."

She sighed.

"Give me some time, let me think about how I'm going to justify this and how I'm going to make it work. You realize that if anyone found out about this conversation I could get put in prison, right?"

"I do. I also know you love Naomi and would do anything for her. And I think it's worth asking this of you because I know it means a lot to her."

Serin watched him leave the room. She felt stressed and even a little nauseated. She was confronted with something that she had wondered for years:

Am I a Spartan or am I an Officer of the Navy?

She thought about Naomi and her father. About Naomi and the pain and suffering that she had endured and the amazing amount of love now in her life. She thought of her years apart from her Spartan brothers and sisters, how they had ignored her when they saw her after she had been separated them and how much that had hurt, how much she wanted to be back with them, even on the day she commissioned. How it felt to have Naomi in her life again on Port Stanley and how it felt to be considered a part of something again when she had had all of them over for a campfire. She remembered something that John had spoke that night.

Armor isn't what makes a Spartan.

She would do what she needed to do.

Choppy choppy choppy I know, but I had to get back into it somehow. Thank you guys for your patience. This is the first stretch of time my daughter has given me that I could even get this out to you guys, so you can all thank her. haha! She's such a great little baby. This will probably undergo edits someday when I'm not so exhausted, please forgive errors, I'm pretty sleep deprived. Lol.