Me:Yes. I return with another Halo fan-fic with the Chief and Cortana. Anyway, I have the Chief here with me to give the disclaimer. Chief?

MC:This psychotic idiot doesn't own Bungie, Halo, Microsoft or anything else. There. Happy moron?

Me:(whispers to readers) these people just don't get it do they? (looks up at the Chief) You know Chief, I know a lot of things I shouldn't.

MC:Oh yeah? Like what?

Me:(grins like a psychotic monkey) Like what you do when your alone and thinking of Cortana…

MC:……………………Fine. You win.

Me:Excellent, now be a good servant and go get me something to eat. I'm hungry.

MC:(walking away) the nerve of him.

Me:Heh heh heh. This'll never get old.

Eternity

"ake up Chief" was the first thing he heard. The effects of the cyro-sleep must have been worse then predicted. Remembering who he was wasn't difficult. He was Spartan-117, or known to the rest of humanity as "Master Chief". He was the only remaining Spartan in existence 'Unless they made more' he thought. He was the one who brought down the Covenant and helped free those who had been tricked into servitude by the "Prophets".

'Those pathetic creatures deserved their ends' he continued his train of thought. Regret had met his fate at the hands of the Chief. It wasn't hard, either. 'A single plasma grenade and boom! No Regret. ' he joked to himself. Mercy was devoured by the flood and incorporated into the Gravemind. 'And it got what was coming as well.'

Indeed the Gravemind was destroyed on the rebuilt "Installation 04" as Guilty Spark had called it. But the message it left behind was clear. It would reform somewhere else someday. But it didn't really matter. It would be killed again and the process would start over again. Not his problem anymore.

That just left Truth. From what he had been told, the Arbiter himself helped Truth enter the next life with a plasma rifle shot between the eyes. 'Good for him' thought the Chief. If anyone deserved to kill the Prophet of Truth, it was the Arbiter. Hopefully the war was over now and the species of the Covenant would leave Earth alone.

'But what about me and Cortana?' The thought suddenly struck him. When he went to sleep, the backside of the ship they where in was floating away into deep space. Who knows how long they would be here. And of course there was the fact that Cortana's programming would begin to degrade in several years. Meaning that when he did wake up, he'd be alone.

'Why does the thought of losing her fill me with such sadness?' he asked himself. Yes, she was an A.I., but still. With all that they had been through together, did that make her any less of a sentient being? Even if she had no senses to speak of, was she not capable of emotion? Could she not think and feel in some way? Or, to put simply: Even if she was an Artificial Intelligence, was she not a person?

He couldn't answer that. That was not something for him to decide. That was for Cortana to figure out on her own. 'But I'll never see her again.' The thought of never seeing the purplish form of Cortana actually hurt. A pain in his chest beat dully.

"Chief. Wake up."

The voice that awoke him earlier came again, only clearer this time. And he recognized the voice. He opened his eyes and found himself face-to-face with the only person e had left. "Hello Cortana." His voice sounded kind of different. Not the same as inside his helmet. He suddenly realized why. He wasn't in his armor!

"Cortana, what's going on?" his voice sounded calm but Cortana could hear the fear in his voice. After all, he spent nearly all his time inside the armor. Why wouldn't he be worried?

"Chief" she started "I'm so sorry."

His confusion was quite apparent on his face. She nodded to the side, not daring to observe his reaction. Turning his face to the direction Cortana pointed in, Master Chief realized why not only his voice sounded different but everything felt different as well.

He found himself staring at his body.

"C-Cortana… "his voice trailed off. 'W-what's going on?!' his mind raced. Snapping his head around, he glared at her. "Wh-What did you do?!" he demanded.

Said A.I.'s head drooped down, staring at the ground. "It was the only way." Her voice sounded quiet, distant almost. "It was the only way to save you, John."

At the sound of his name, the rage he felt evaporated. "What do you mean, "save me?", Cortana. Why am I a-a-a hologram?" Finally, she raised her head. If A.I.'s could cry, Cortana would have been bawling. "The stasis chamber failed" she said as straight forward as possible "and to avoid the complete loss of you, I had it copy the structure of your brain. Afterwards, I used the terminal we're in to reconstruct you."

"Why did you save me?" John asked.

"Because I would have been lonely without you" Cortana said lowering her head again.

The silence choked the atmosphere. "Thank you."

Cortana looked up at him and smiled sadly.

"So does this mean that when your lifetime ends, mine does too?" asked the now former soldier. Cortana nodded. "Well then," John said "let's make use of the time we have together." She didn't have to be a genius to figure out the true meaning behind those words, but it helped. "Okay. But remember John, now that you are a program time will move much faster for you. Thinking at speeds like this makes a second feel like a lifetime. Imagine years. It's an eternity, I'll tell you."

John-117 grinned as her place an arm made of data around the A.I. "I think I can handle an eternity here."

A/N: Well. Um…..yeah more Halo. Can't help it. When an idea comes, you've got to write it. Anyway, if Master Chief or Cortana sound OOC, think of how might react to a situation like that.

Well, hopefully I'll have something new soon. Until then, feel free to review nicely or flame me or just kinda "………WTF?".