Agent Connecticut

There you go, Ghost. Keep fighting-

Suddenly, there was a weight on his back. Familiar arms and hands wrapped around his neck, and what was left of Maine recognized the feel of Connie on his back. He recognized the weight of her –he knew how it felt to carry her back to her room when she fell asleep elsewhere and he remembered how she felt on his back when she was wounded and couldn’t run on her own. All at once, the multitude of times he’d carried her came rushing back, and they left a grieving pain in their wake.

Where had they gone wrong? They’d been friends once –comrades in arms. She’d hopped onto his back and demanded to be carried and he’d chased her down the halls of the MOI in a full sprint. They’d shared the laughs and tears of war and cut through countless enemies by each other’s side, but now? That seemed so long ago. The lies and madness of a twisted old man had sent all those memories spiraling into once upon a time, and now here they were; two old friends, fighting against each other, but fighting for the same thing. They just wanted it to end.

Years ago, people questioned if an agent in white had a heart beneath his armor, and now, even as it ached and hurt as if it’d been torn apart, Agent Maine himself wondered if he even had a heart to break anymore –if there were anything beating beneath all the pain-

He felt lighter. CT wasn’t on his back anymore, and when the fog of grief cleared from his vision, Maine saw that she was on her back, and that the husk that used to be his body was almost upon her.

C’mon, Ghost. Get up. Fight.

The Meta stopped in its tracks. Armored feet planted themselves in the snow, and in a surge of willful defiance, Maine had his hands shooting up to his helmet and prying as hard as he could, trying to pull his helmet off –to give CT a chance. That was all she needed; one shot. 

The silence of Maine’s mind was filled with his battlecry. What used to be a silent and compliant hum was now an uproar of AI shouting and cursing, sobbing and cheering, and the silent encouragement of one that dubbed the titan ‘Gigantaur’. All at once, every AI was awake and every memory came rushing back –every bullet taken and every smile shared, each kind word and snide remark, the face and voice of every friend and love– so much noise came flowing through the space behind a golden visor, all adding to the warcry that’d been gone from the world for so long. 

From the outside, it seemed as though the Meta was struggling with itself. The colossal husk had its helmet halfway off, and it was almost as if it was unsure as to whether or not it wanted to remove the piece of armor completely, or lock it back into place.

Shaking, gloved hands tugged and pushed at the helmet as the weaponized heartbeat shook at the knees, but it wasn’t until Maine heard one voice in particular –saw the icy hues of a man he used to call brother and saw his smile– that the mighty Meta fell to its knees.

Sigma was fighting back, and fighting hard, but now that Maine had forced himself to his knees and almost had his helmet off…maybe CT could finish this. Maybe she could finally save them all, like she wanted to do so long ago.

      C.T revels in the way she sinks, wants the endlessly shifting sand that          she cannot quite feel beneath her metallic mass to engulf her wholly          because she thinks she may have long lost the will to fight. Worn down          by war & stripped to pieces by stress & fear, she’s tatters without          shape. But she claws her way to her feet, despite the impossible ache          in her chest, this feeling that she insists to herself is only the air          wrenched from her lungs by force. She claws & twists & she makes it          to two wavering feet, chest heaving, mouth sucking in all of the filtered          air her ugly helmet provides. (Not so ugly when it’s saving your life) &          she recognizes him, the hulking mass that may, or may not be her friend,          she sees him struggling with himself (or is it against?). It’s the moment          she’s needed since the beginning, handed to her with a pretty little bow          that makes her waver- she was a spy inside a corrupt organization,          she understands better than any the notion of too easy.

                                  She knows Maine better.

// which could go a few different ways that leave CT still dead

// but it could also go the way where CT has someone at her back

Dee why? Don't make me want to write things.

Even worse, you're giving me my own ideas.

     The younger Dakota couldn’t say she was sorry for her action at all, even if there was a hole in her abdomen currently. A bit of scar tissue was worth seeing the brunette here, living and standing by her side.

     Digits twitched, opening her palm to allow for a smaller hand to slip into her own, interlace with her fingers. There was a smirk on her lips, playful, as though she wasn’t lying on a stretcher in the medical bay right now with a bloody bandage across her stomach. "I know I didn’t."

     A thumb idly strokes across the back of CT’s hand, trying to ease her worry. South was here, smiling up at the other, and more importantly breathing. She was alive, and would be just fine with a short leave from active duty. "But who would I be if I didn’t? C’mon, Connie."

The brunette's lips quirked once at the nickname, but she refused to let it be a thing; Connie was a name for kids, that of a young girl in pigtails. That wasn't her, and she refused to let anyone ever have such an image of her. She was a woman with a mind that could, and more importantly, would kill. She was a woman whose fingers knew their way around a keyboard better than the woman knew her own mind. "Would you quit calling me Connie?" She half whined, playing into it as though it were a joke, despite both women knowing that she meant it.

Her eyes dropped down to watch their hands, entranced by the moving of the thumb. She ignored her own half-hearted protest  to continue the conversation, to get further away from the one thing she feared most. "You really shouldn't South." There was a small pause as CT then tasted the next words in her throat, on her tongue, and against her lips. They sat there for a moment, and then she freed them. "What would I do if you had died? What would North do?"

     Most of the time, she tripped metaphorically, and on the off chance, physically. Her toes would get caught on that barrier between ground and air, and she’d fuck up somehow. Just like today. Simply covering for the smaller Freelancer was something she didn’t even think about anymore, something that worked its way into muscle memory. Whether or not CT actually wanted her to, South wasn’t going to care.

     Her eyes were adjusting now, the harsh glare above her becoming bearable as a stripe of brown came into view, followed by the press of lips on her forehead, and just that touch made the corner of South’s mouth twitch upwards. "I thought we both knew that already."

They wouldn't have hurt her in the first place, whoever it was that must have been aiming her way. Whoever it was that South had taken down. Somewhere along the lines things had got all kinds of messed up, wires crossed and strings tangled together. South made her forget just who she was working for, what she was trying to achieve. This was unnecessary; South could have left the enemy alone and she wouldn't have got shot and CT wouldn't have to sit for hours with a dragon writhing in her guts, a parrot shrieking in her head.

     Here in Project Freelancer, or in any military operation for that matter, when you wake up groggy and doped up on a stretcher, you know you’ve fucked up somehow. Chances are, you’ve almost died, and the medics were on a mad dash to keep your dumb ass alive because personnel can’t afford to lose a soldier.

     In this case, it was South waking up on the stretcher, bleary-eyed and blinking against the harsh fluorescents in the ceiling. Arms stiff, one connected to an IV-drip and a heart monitor, she was trying to shield her eyes from the bright lights, but her body was protesting her small movements.

          “Hnn——fuckin’ hell.”

CT breathed a little easier after that, but on the  Pelican ride back, well, she had time to realise what had happened, to build up a little mantra in her head, your fault, she was protecting you, your fault. On this went, while she waited for those damn, electric blue eyes to finally open and hiss back at the world with the new pain.