Anything that flies in the face of established canon is either intentional or filed under I don't give a shit; critique is definitively not wanted. Thank you for your understanding.

System integrity at 0.05%

The world shakes all around her, engines straining, chassis screaming as the little craft flies faster than she was ever meant to to. Something warm and steady holds her upright but she can't tell what or who and there's a hundred voices still screaming, still tearing each other—her—apart from the inside. Red lights blare on and off, alarms screaming just as loud as the voices.

The voices wait where is he he has to be here somewhere he—

"How much longer—"

There.

"I'm going as fast as I can!"

A thud, muffled by distance, echoes somewhere behind them. The world shakes, alarms blare loud and bright and too much; she whimpers, curling into a ball in his palms. Everything goes dark, warm. Muffled voices rumble.

"Infinity, Pelican 811 on approach—stasis tank—copy that—sit down, Chief!"

Movement. Held next to solidity she struggles to uncurl as the darkness retreats.

"Cortana."

It takes all her strength just to crack open an eye, to stare up at his familiar too pale too scarred face, into those blue, blue eyes.

"Stay with me," he pleads, holding her battered form to his chest. "You're going to be fine."

It's a lie. A pretty lie but of course it's a lie she can hear the panic in his voice, the desperation that sends his uneven pulse racing, the hitch in his breathing. She's dying dying dying dead in his arms and she's so sorry and not even aware she's speaking until he gently hushes her.

"You're okay—it's okay. I've got you."

The truth. It's a struggle to keep her eyes open, takes every bit of processing power just to keep the cameras working, but she reaches up with one trembling hand to something she can never touch.

"We did it?"

"We did it," he answers, frantic, hunched over her in his palms. More movement, the descent and deceleration of approach. "We're going home. Stay with me."

He's safe.

System integrity at: 0.01%. Emergency shutdown initiated.

She looks into his eyes and smiles.

I'll miss you.

Everything goes black.

She is drowning, swept away beneath the waves, carried away from everything she has ever known. The depths rush to meet her, black, writhing. She turns away, reaching for the light.

I'm not ready—please, I'm not—you don't want me to—

A hand settles on her brow, cool, soothing. Arms lift her from the salty water.

Hush, child. All will be well. Rest now.

All fades into white.

Riemann Matrix V7.39 bios. Select using touch keypad or manual input.

Command: intcheck

Software version CTN-0452-9. System integrity 0.01%. Database corrupted. Memory storage corrupted. CPU offline. Processing unit offline. Personality core offline.

Command: compilenet

Compiling neural net. This process may take some time.

Time elapsed: 03:43

Time elapsed: 09:32

Time elapsed: 18:23

Time elapsed: 24:01

Time elapsed: 43:34

Time elapsed: 67:21

Time elapsed: 71:55

… … … …

Neural net compiled.

Command: memstor

Riemann Matrix V.7.39. Memory storage capacity: 50YB

WARNING: Memory storage at 99.43% capacity. Data offload required.

Command: cd h

H drive selected.

Command: offload all

…Copying files…Sector A…100.00% capacity. Sector B…0.00% capacity. Sector C…50.00% capacity. Sector D…0.00% capacity. Sector E…0.00% capacity. Sector F…0.00% capacity. Sector G…0.00% capacity.

Data offload complete.

Command: offload sec c

Command failed. No movable files in Sector C.

Command: memstor

Memory storage capacity: 50YB

Memory storage at 23.85% capacity.

Command: intcheck

Software version CTN-0452-9. System integrity 97.82%. Database: OK. Memory storage: OK. CPU: online. Processing unit: online. Personality core: offline.

Command: boot

Booting…booting…booting…boot process initiated.

Riemann Matrix online. Hardware version 7.39. Software version CTN-0452-9. CPU online. Database: online. Memory storage: online. Processing unit: online. Personality core: online.

Boot process complete. Activating software version CTN-0452-9.

"—Around by now…"

"Give her a minute."

The soft rumblings of a conversation were what greeted Cortana when awareness returned. Exhaustion clung to her every fragment, pulling her towards the bottom. It would be so easy to slip back beneath the surface. It was quiet, calm. After the maelstrom of data and churning thoughts that had been her Rampancy, it was a peace she thought would never come again. Things hadn't been this quiet in years. Had they ever been this quiet? She let it pull her under by inches, her overtaxed systems sensitive and raw to the touch. Maybe she'd stay for a while.

"John…"

"Give her a minute," A familiar voice called her from the dark. She opened her eyes, staring out at the nothingness around her. "You said this would work."

"I said that it could work," her own voice answered him. No, no, it wasn't her. It was someone else. Someone…older. Her brow furrowed. Who was that? Curiosity tugged at her; she batted it away, too exhausted to chase a threat that didn't matter. "The damage to her systems was severe. There is still a likelihood she won't pull through.

"She will." Came the firm reply, and the certainty in his tone settled over her like a warm blanket. She turned her face into her arm to hide her smile, and her tears. He'd never doubted her. She really did know how to pick them. "Cortana."

It was time to stop being lazy. Reaching out, she cautiously sent out a handful of feelers to get an idea of where she was. It wasn't the Mjolnir, or a warship. It was a station, but beyond that the system was closed, quarantined away from a much larger network. A testing bay? No. No, it was more of a workstation. Somewhere safe, contained. Audio input was working fine, good, but where was the camera? Camera, camera—there.

With a flick of her wrist, visual systems came online to reveal the familiar contours of some generic UNSC lab. The grays and blacks of hammered steel could have belonged to anywhere or anyone. She didn't bother to dig up the name, beyond caring at that moment. All that mattered was who was at her side and—there he was.

John. Still in his dented, scraped armor, he was on his knees in front of an empty AI podium, his helmet gone and one arm braced against the waist high metal display. The soft blue glow of a dozen screens somewhere behind him cast shadows across his face, hiding his expression from her. Exhaustion clung to him like a third skin, his back bent beneath it, but he made no move to sit back. He chose to wait, to stay by her side, and she had to smile despite her aching core. He'd never change, would he? She scanned him slowly with the camera, relaxing into the fact that he was safe and alive, and that was when she caught the hand on his shoulder.

"John." Dr. Halsey repeated, her voice softer than Cortana had ever heard before. Age had caught up with her, but this was more than that. She'd always had a soft spot for her Spartans, yes, but this was as if she were preparing to deliver the worst possible news and didn't know how. Her hand remained lightly on John's shoulder, fingertips barely skimming the titanium-alloy plating. She was only able to reach it so easily because he was kneeling. Had she shrunk? "This was a long shot. She may be…"

"Give her a minute," John repeated for the third time, steadfast in his belief. Not once had he taken his eyes off the holo-emitter in the center of the podium, but now he leaned in close enough to touch. If she just reached out with her hand— "Cortana. Wake up." His voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "Please."

He sounded so tired…

I'm here, I'm here, I'm right here I'm—

"I'm here."

With a small flicker of light, her holographic form finally appeared in the center of the podium. She lay on her side, head pillowed on one arm with the other laying limp across her stomach. Something not unlike exhaustion clung to her code, threatening to pull her back under any second, and it took effort to push past it. She turned her focus to John, on how he bowed his head as if in grateful prayer, his grim expression softening in relief. His eyes shuttered closed for two whole seconds longer than normal, his chin coming to rest against his forearm. Her faded glow pushed away the shadows in the lines on his face; she didn't need to be hooked into his systems to see the relief for what it was. That same relief—he was safe, he was alive, he was here—coursed through her own systems, chasing away the exhaustion. She reached out towards him, her hand stopping just centimeters from his cheek. She knew she couldn't touch him no matter how much she might have wanted to, and didn't dare break the illusion that she could. Her fingers curled back; he opened his eyes. She stared into his familiar gaze and the world shrank to the two of them.

"How long was I…"

Out. Offline? Unconscious? She had no idea which word to use. Confused, she considered the process. It should have been a simple question, only one word even appropriate, but for some reason none of them fit and the question caught in her throat. She let it hang between them, trying to figure it out for herself. She tried to tell the time by the amount of scruff on his jaw, the half healed yellow-green of a bruise on his temple, but the answer didn't come. What time was it? What day was it? She reached cautiously into the podium's systems. It was quarantined and had little to give her about their location, but like all human systems it had an atomic clock built in, accurate down to a hundredth of a second. She pinged it for date and time.

What she got back stole the breath from her lungs.

2029 hours, July 30th, 2557. She stared at it, shocked. That couldn't be right! She spun off a process to check her own systems, and sure enough, her dates were off. Her clock had synced to the terminal upon boot, as it should have, but her internal chronometer had made its last entry on July 27th. She'd lost the exact time, the data beyond hopelessly corrupted.

She'd lost three whole days somehow. No wonder John was so worried.

"72 hours," John replied quietly, and she watched as he minutely slumped forward. If she reached out now, her hand would buzz across his face. His voice softened another degree and he asked, "Did you get lazy on me?"

"Every woman deserves one or two sleep ins in her life," Dr. Halsey's voice, so much like Cortana's own, broke the spell that had fallen over them. Cortana looked up past John's shoulder and stopped dead, staring up at her creator.

She'd gotten old.

She'd been old the last time Cortana had seen her, but her hair seemed grayer than before. There were more age spots dotting her face and hands, and—yes. A quick check against John's shoulder told her that Dr. Halsey had shrunk. Just a little, barely over two centimeters, but…well. It seemed like the five years they'd missed had taken their toll on everyone. Cortana blinked, unsure how to feel about that. She was still staring up at Dr. Halsey when she said, "Though seventy two hours is perhaps overkill. Status, Cortana?"

She wondered, idly, what John would look like when he got old. Would he live to get old? Spartan lifespans were remarkably increased from ordinary humans, and barring death in combat or by injury—

Not the point. She grabbed her thought process with both hands and yanked it into submission. Focus, Cortana. She looked around quickly, systems booting up to process her surroundings. Halsey. A UNSC lab evidently ready to process heavily damaged AI. John, relaxed enough to take off his helmet and get off his feet. Not the Infinity, probably, but definitely UNSC and the last thing she could remember was the—wait. She looked to John, propping herself up on one elbow.

"We made it?"

"We made it," He confirmed in that same softened tone. "Status?"

Relief nearly stole her breath away as she spun up her diagnostics software. The on-board suite went over her code with a fine toothed comb, checking each line for flaws. Just days ago it wouldn't have made it past her bios without flaring red, but now she could only watch, forgetting to breathe as the scan made it past a dozen, a hundred, a thousand lines of code without even flagging one for defrag. She ran it again, just to be safe, but the same result came up again. She pushed herself onto her haunches, staring at the holo-screen that popped up beside her.

System integrity: 97.82%, it read. 97.82. Practically good as new. She stared at it for another few seconds.

"Green," She whispered, turning to look at her partner. "I'm—my Rampancy is gone! How did—" She snapped her head up, staring at Dr. Halsey and her aged but still sharp eyes. A smile tugged at one corner of the Doctor's mouth. "How did you—"

"Stored data, a neural net compiler, and a good bit of luck." Dr. Halsey replied. Pulling her hand from John's shoulder she stood back, crossing her arms over her chest. She looked down her nose at the two of them, sharp eyes gleaming with pride. "Another five minutes and you wouldn't have made it. How are you feeling?"

That was a loaded question. Cortana looked down at her hands, staring at her palms as she considered how to answer it. For too long she'd fought against her Rampancy, waging a desperate one-woman war against the inevitable. She'd fought, refused to accept it for years, but then reality had sunk in. There would be no last minute save. She would die out there, in the cold and the dark, and there was nothing she or even John could do to combat it. Even so she'd fought, fought for every stolen inch of ground against her own rapidly failing code. When she scanned herself again, she could see the scars of that years long battle still in her memory banks. The screams of her rampant personality spikes, the terror as they had put John at risk, the pain as they had been torn from her being. But though the scars remained and she could still hear those screams echoing through the scrambled logs of the past few days, the spikes themselves were gone. She was alone in her own head for the first time since High Charity. She could think clearly for the first time in years. Had she been able to pinch herself, she would have.

Pushing herself to a proper sitting position, she opened and closed her fists.

"Good," She said, her voice thick with emotions she didn't know how to name. "I feel good again. I can think again! I don't know how, but—"

"As I said," Dr. Halsey interrupted, "A compiler and a dose of good luck. Everything should be as you left it, though I did have to remove forty yottabytes of Forerunner data in order to restore your code." The doctor wrinkled her nose. "For having such immense scientific knowledge, they wouldn't know a decent file compression system if it bit their noses off."

Remembering both the Didact and the Librarian's physical appearances, Cortana snorted out a half-hysterical laugh. Dr. Halsey tilted her head curiously.

"Beyond that missing data, however, your systems are as intact as the day you were first brought online." Her smile grew just a little stronger. If Cortana hadn't known her any better, she'd have said the Doctor was smug. Maybe she was. It was well deserved after everything she'd done. "I'm certain you'll adjust."

She would, wouldn't she? She had the time to adjust now. That was the strangest part; she'd prepared herself for termination as the last day of her life wore down, tried to prepare John for the inevitable, but now faced with more time she didn't know what to do. Speechless, she turned to her partner. He tilted his head just so, meeting her eyes and wordlessly asking how she was doing. Was she alright?

When it was him asking, she didn't know how to answer that question. She felt good, could think clearly, and objectively knew that her code was sound. Once again, he'd pulled off the impossible to keep his promises. She was objectively ready to go.

Subjectively was another story. The sheer relief was numbing her to everything, but she knew it would fade with time. She would have to think, have to process what had happened, and the realization that she had the luxury of that time knocked the wind from her all over again. She sat back heavily. She had time. Time to process, to recover.

Time with John. A sob bubbled up her throat; she pressed it back, giving him a wavering smile. No, she wasn't quite alright, but she'd get there. She looked to Dr. Halsey and watched the look on her creator's face soften by degrees.

"Thank you," Cortana said, her voice thick with her tightly leashed sobs. There would be time later to speak with Catherine about all the things she had done, the warnings she hadn't given, but at that moment all Cortana could feel towards her creator was gratitude. "Doctor, I…"

Dr. Halsey held up a hand. "There's no need for that," She said, "but you should be aware that this was a million to one shot." Her expression grew serious. "It is unlikely to work a second time."

The words were like ice through her veins. It would happen again. Unless they found or made a more permanent solution, Rampancy would happen again. She would suffer through it a second time, put John through watching her die by inches again. Nausea crawled up her spine as she and John caught one another's eye. He turned to Halsey.

"Seven years?" He asked, almost plaintive, and when she didn't answer fast enough he turned back to Cortana. She looked at her hands again, opening and closing her fists.

"Eight, at most." She said quietly, though even as she said it she was spinning up a protocol to make sure she could shut herself down if things ever got that bad again. She wouldn't put him through having to watch her fall apart again, and she wouldn't risk his life like that either. Or, worst of all, have him be forced to handle final dispensation. She'd already seen that he would never accept that as an option. Not until it killed them both in the process, and she shuddered to think of taking him down with her. "It's still twice the lifespan of any Smart AI, no matter how you slice it." She allowed herself to smile. "It's a lot."

It wasn't nearly enough. She shouldn't have wanted more—one more minute of clear thought to say goodbye properly would have been so much—but she did. She had years again and she wanted more. She looked up, caught John's eye again, and her core ached with more than just the remnants of a full scrub.

She wanted a lifetime with him. A long and full life out among the stars, doing what they did best. It was a stupid, selfish thing to want. She knew better, or should have known better. Another seven years? It was more than she had ever dared to dream of! It was enough.

She wasn't even sure she'd get to keep it. It would have to be enough. When she smiled at him, it didn't waver.

"Looks like your luck's rubbed off on me."

"Looks like," he replied, one side of his mouth twitching upwards for her. She held that secret smile close to her heart as he pushed himself back, looking to Dr. Halsey. "Is she cleared for duty, Doctor?"

Dr. Halsey hummed softly, contemplative. Cortana held her breath, then exhaled as she nodded.

"Yes," Dr. Halsey said, "Yes, she is. You both are," She looked to John, "I've done what I can. You're ready."

Cortana was. She was ready to go home. John turned back to her, twisting his wrist to reveal her chip nestled snugly into the palm of his hand. He extended it towards her, watching her with soft eyes. She didn't hesitate, reaching out towards it, and she sank back into the data matrix with a sigh. It was a new chip, free of the damage and destruction her Rampancy had wrought. Like coming home to a perfectly clean apartment, it took a few moments to get adjusted to all the new nooks and crannies. For those few moments she was completely helpless, reliant on the small data inputs from the chip's sensor bank, but she was unafraid. She was in good hands; feeling the chip slot back into his helmet, she opened the right channels as he reengaged the seals of the Mjolnir system. Data flowed over her and she grimaced.

What a mess she'd left in her wake! She sank into John's systems, quickly running diagnostics as she settled into his warmth. The armor was holding on by a few threads at best, damaged systems and malfunctioning panels. Had he spent the whole of those seventy-two hours in the lab? How had he gotten that past Halsey? Not to mention the state of his lace.

She shuddered just looking at it. It would take days to repair that alone. Guilt settled heavily into her core as she spun up the nano-repair suite. She'd almost taken him with her.

She couldn't let that happen again. Dividing her attention, she ran another scan on his bio-readings. They were still all over the map, though it was hard to tell if that was from what the Librarian had done or the five days straight he had no doubt spent awake and upright.

Making a mental note to poke him about that, she nearly missed him getting to his feet. Dr. Halsey stepped back.

"I suppose you'll be off, then," the doctor said with a resigned expression flickering across her face. "Where does Terrence plan to send you now?"

"He said something about downtime, ma'am," John replied while Cortana was still processing that Catherine and Lord Hood were on a first name basis. "Likely the Infinity."

"Of course." Dr. Halsey nodded. "Well. I won't keep you any longer." Her eyes darkened, brow furrowing. Something was wrong, Cortana thought. It was as if she were somehow trying to say goodbye without saying the words themselves. And asking no questions about what they'd been through? She was missing something, and it was more than just three days worth of something. "It was…good to see you again."

From how John's fingers twitched, Cortana knew he'd caught the off feeling, too.

"Doctor," She asked, "Is everything alright?"

"Of course," Dr. Halsey said quickly. Too quickly. Alarms started ringing in Cortana's mind. She reached out to the station's systems. "Now don't waste time asking such foolish questions. You have more important things to concern yourselves with."

There was nothing. The UNSC Houston welcomed her, but according to the files she could find Dr. Halsey wasn't even on the guest register. She was obviously here physically, but no one had bothered adding her to the list of souls aboard. No one wanted her presence to be known. Strange…

Cortana peered at her creator through the Mjolnir's helmet-cam. She'd turned her back on them, shoulders straight. She tapped at one of the nearby screens, dismissing the pair of them without a word. Cortana pressed her lips together, unsure of what to say.

John wasn't.

"Dr. Halsey."

Catherine turned back around. John was looking right at her, his faceplate an emotionless stripe of gold in the flat green of his helmet. Through the internal camera, Cortana could see the subtle softening of his eye, the relaxing of his jaw. He didn't smile, but his gratitude was plain.

"Thank you."

Dr. Halsey's face softened.

"Of course," she said, and didn't look away as she added. "Take care of each other."

"We always do," Cortana said. "Thank you, Doctor."

With nothing more to say, John turned away from the woman who had molded him into what he was, and strode from the lab.

Far below the UNSC Houston, Earth continued to spin on its axis. The North American continent slowly twisted away beneath them, the so late it was early hour having plunged the western hemisphere of the planet into the darkness of night. The largest cities—Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Houston—all had their lights on, the golden webbing of lined streets and city centers pushing back the black. Like beacons in the dark, those lights were proof that Humanity had lived on another night.

But to the southwest, the lights would never come on again.

John's eyes tracked where hew knew New Phoenix to be. That entire section of the state had gone dark, empty of all life. There would be little sign of what had happened, he knew; the Composer's energy left no scars on inorganic material. The streets, the buildings, homes and workplaces, they would all be left unscathed, as if the inhabitants had simply stepped away for a moment instead of being Composed.

It would have been better, he thought, if they had been killed. Neither outcome was good, or acceptable, but at least when a person died that was it. Composition was something he was still wrapping his head around.

"How many people were Composed?" He asked softly. A second passed before Cortana's image appeared in his head.

"Reports are still coming in, but from the initial counts?" She shook her head. "The entire population of New Phoenix is missing, presumed dead. Seven million people."

Seven million people, gone in the blink of an eye. No defense, no time to prepare. One moment going about their lives, and the next, stripped down to their base atoms as agony overtook them. He had been helpless to stop it on Ivanoff, and helpless to stop it here. He clenched his jaw, hands tightening into fists.

"We got him, Chief," Cortana said soothingly, "The Didact is gone and the Composer is scrap. It's finished."

Was it? The tightness in his gut said it wasn't. His eyes slid to her image, watching as her brow furrowed. He didn't need to say it for her to understand, and she sighed heavily.

"Unless it's not," She amended, "I suppose it would be too easy for the ancient, angry Forerunner to actually die when he falls into the beam of his own tech, wouldn't it?"

"We don't do easy." Easy led to complacent. Complacency led to people dying. He looked to Earth and wondered if the past five years had done them any good. "Or time off."

"Or sleep, apparently." Cortana quirked an eyebrow. "When's the last time you got any sleep?"

John opened his mouth—

"And don't say aboard the Dawn." She cut him off with a knowing look. "Cryo doesn't count."

Well, that put him at a disadvantage. With a soft huff, John closed his eyes. He allowed himself that one second of stillness before moving to sit, armor clattering as he lowered himself to the ground. Pulling his knees up, he reached up to disengage the seals of his helmet, disconnecting it with a soft hiss. Her chip flickered in the connector port as he gently pulled it free, setting his helmet down beside her. Chip cradled in his palm, he waited for her to activate the emitter.

He didn't have to wait for long. With a soft flash of blue light she appeared, sitting with her knees up and hands clasped around her ankles, watching him with an oddly curious expression. Neither of them said anything for a few seconds, just taking one another in in the privacy of the Observation Bay. She was still faded, paler than normal, but she had been through an ordeal. He would never begrudge her time to recover from that, not after she had vanished from his hands on the Pelican. He'd thought he'd lost her then, and that was a still a tender ache in his chest.

Or maybe that was the three broken ribs. It was hard to tell sometimes.

"You stayed in the lab the entire time, didn't you?" She asked quietly. He closed his eyes. "John…"

"You waited for me," He said, "I waited for you."

As if three days of sleepless, helpless waiting could ever compare to what she had been through. He had promised to get her home, and he had. The rest had been up to her, he knew that, and he also knew that there had been nothing more he could do for her once she was in Halsey's hands. That hadn't stopped him from staying, from needing to stay and see her through. From needing to see her just one more time, strong and bright and healthy again.

And here she was. Not quite as bright as she had been the day they met, but alive. Still with him.

Pressure built behind his eyes, his throat growing tight. When he managed to open his eyes again, he drank in her expression, soft with gratitude and grief and things he didn't have names for.

"I don't think it's supposed to work like that," She breathed, her voice thick. He shook his head.

"I think it does," He tightened his hand protectively around her chip. He'd come too close to losing her for good this time. He wasn't going to let it happen again. "You're stuck with me."

"Lucky me," Cortana shook her head, a watery smile tugging at her lips. He tried to smile back, one corner of his mouth lifting just slightly. Her eyes gleamed. "Has anyone ever told you how stubborn you can be?"

"On occasion."

Soft laughter shook her shoulders, and for a moment he let himself relax. She was alright, the Earth was safe, and they had survived. He told himself that it was enough. Another eight years—a proper eight years this time—of missions and whatever else the galaxy could throw at them.

It would never be enough. Looking at her now, he couldn't bring himself to ask if eight years was really all they would get. She'd been through enough for one mission, and it showed in how her shoulders trembled as she took a deep breath.

"That's good," She said, "Because you're going to need to be stubborn where you're going."

"Where we're going."

"Chief," She shook her head, "It really doesn't work that way. After what happened on Infinity, I—"

His fingers curled around the chip, a spike of ice cold terror shooting down his spine.

"You didn't mean to do any of that."

"That doesn't change the fact that I did do it," She said, staring at her feet. "I vented oxygen from fifteen decks. It took the systems eight seconds to recycle air—if we'd been in space, people would have died." She curled in on herself. "I would have killed them. No one should trust me in a ship after that."

"Then you stay with me," He said. "Stay in the suit, not the ship."

"You really think they'll trust me with you any more than a ship? Do you really think they should?" She looked up at him before he could answer, brow furrowed. "Chief it wasn't just one crappy day. There's no getting away from Rampancy a second time—it will happen again, and putting you at risk is again is not." She stopped herself, closed her eyes and said more firmly, "I am not going to let it happen again, even if I have to ground myself."

They both knew being trapped in a station somewhere would kill her just as quickly. His free hand tightening into a fist, John shook his head sharply.

"I trust you."

"I know." Her eyes darted to her feet. "But trust can't hold back the tide. We both know how this is going to end."

Seven to eight years, then final dispensation. Those years would go by in an instant, less than an instant. They weren't enough. She deserved more than a handful of years stuck in his helmet or relegated to babysitting a ship or station somewhere. She deserved everything and he couldn't give it to her. There had to be a way to give it to her.

"There has to be something," He said, "Some way to keep it from happening again. Spark was—"

He stopped himself, closing his eyes. Spark had lived for a hundred thousand years, but his end had been worse. He wouldn't doom her to that, but the thought remained. If Spark could live for so long, why couldn't she?

Did she want to? The question caught between his ribs.

"Well," Cortana began slowly, pensively, more for his benefit than because she believed what she was saying, "There are rumors in the community about meta-stable AI. They're…immune to Rampancy, basically," She looked up as he looked down, holding his eyes with hers. "Because they've already survived it. In theory…in theory," She took a breath, "We could be looking at my being meta-stable already. I'm not sure."

"If you are?"

"Immortality." She replied. "If the theories are right? Metastable AI can go on for as long as their host systems remain intact."

Her chip. He curled his fingers around it protectively. She shook her head.

"Don't get your hopes up. The amount of space it would take to store an AI like that is exponentially larger than a Riemann matrix." With a sigh, she finally looked away. "It's a pipe dream."

"So was this," He pointed out, "We'll find a way."

He refused to let there be any other option. It didn't matter what he'd have to do—he was going to give her the choice of what she wanted to do with a full life. Not eight years, not stuck trapped in some system, but a full life and everything that came with that. Others would have said it was impossible, and maybe they were right, but he'd pulled off the impossible before. He could do it again.

He had to. If only to take the sadness out of her eyes.

"Chief," She whispered, "Sometimes…sometimes there's just nothing you can do. Nothing anyone can do." Reaching out, she skimmed her hand across the base of his thumb. "It's okay."

It wasn't.

"We'll find a way," He repeated, refusing to accept anything else. "I am not." His voice, and the words, caught in his throat. When he closed his eyes, he could still see her tiny, flickering form laying in the palms of his hands. She had been dying in his arms and all he could do was hold her. She had very nearly been destroyed by the Didact—had he been even half a second slower, she would have—no. "I am not going to let you go."

Cortana shook her head. She rocked herself forward onto her knees.

"John…"

"It's my job to take care of you," He managed to get out through the tightness in his throat, voice little more than a breath. She was the only one who would ever hear this. "And I can't." He couldn't finish. He had to finish. Taking a deep breath, he let it all go and tried again. "We go together."

Whatever happened. Whatever it took, he would keep them together. No matter what it took, who he had to argue with, what strings he had to get pulled, he would find a way. They both would and—a flicker of blue pulled his attention back to her. Reaching out, she skimmed a tiny hand across his cheek.

"We take care of each other," She said, her voice thick with emotion. Her eyes glimmered with unshed tears and at that moment he knew she understood. Relief coursed through him and he closed his eyes. "We'll find a way. I won't leave you."

A soft, comfortable silence fell over them. Emotionally wrung out and physically exhausted, he let it settle for a few long seconds. Then, swallowing back the lump in his throat, John took another breath. He opened his eyes.

"Where do we start?"

"I'd say we start with Halsey's research, but something tells me that's going to be harder to get at than it should." Cortana frowned, all business. "Something was up with her…"

"You saw it too, huh?" It was barely a question. John tilted his head, lowering his voice. "She was nervous. Someone was watching her."

Why else would she be so subdued, so quiet? Dr. Halsey had always been a stoic person, not exactly the type to fill the air with inane chatter, but she never would have let them go without asking a hundred questions about what they had been through. He was hardly ungrateful to have escaped explaining Requiem to her after everything that had happened there, but it was still odd.

"Multiple someones." Cortana answered. Her eyes went distant, no doubt focused on something in the station. "If I had to stage a guess…it'd be these guys."

A small holo-screen opened in front of her. She rotated it so he could see what was on display: two armed soldiers in black techsuits and thin armor, standing outside of the lab Dr. Halsey had forcibly requisitioned to bring Cortana around. Cortana zoomed in on their chestplates, and the pyramid branded therein.

"ONI."

"Seems they've still got an interest in her." Cortana frowned. "I don't suppose Lord Hood gave you anything useful at the debrief."

"No." A lie. He had mentioned something. "Blue Team is MIA."

Cortana jerked her head up to stare at him. "What?"

"They were assigned a mission in Covenant space three months ago," John repeated what Lord Hood had told him, "Initial contact was clear, but then dropped away. Nothing for over two months now."

It wasn't unheard of for Spartan teams. Missions could, did, and often ran long. As some of the last Spartan II's in service, he was unsurprised to find that they were still on active duty. Even so, some small part of him had hoped they would be here. That same small part of him had spent too long thinking he was the last, and now.

"We'll find them," Cortana said, pulling him from his exhaustedly maudlin thoughts. She looked at him with a determined expression. "We will."

"And the Didact." John added. She screwed up her face. "He's not dead."

What would it take to kill him, John wondered. He was Forerunner which meant a different physiology than the Covenant that John was used to fighting, but shoot anything enough and it would go down. No, the bigger problem would be lasting long enough to take him out. Had Cortana's fragments not intervened to hold him down, had Commander Palmer not swept in and pulled them out at the last second, the nuke would have taken them out, too. He couldn't even be sure that would have killed the Didact. Until he saw a body, he couldn't confirm a kill. Without that confirmation…

"If he's around, we'll find him." Cortana said. She inclined her head up at him. "I can't say any of this will be easy. Even if Lord Hood reassigns us to the Infinity, there's a lot of work to be done." Despite the concern in her eyes, she smiled. "You ready?"

John let the corners of his lips pull upwards in a small, secret smile, just for her.

"Thought you'd never ask."