#operativegaley

“Worry’s good for you when you got a good reason for it!  It keeps you alive and stuff.  Now if there’s nothing to worry about...”  

There exists a verse in which Philip and morganaseren are fellow students at Grissom Academy, and Morgana ends up being part of Philip’s crew; the two of them sleep together at Grissom and begin a FWB relationship that lasts until the end of the Reaper War.

This verse overlaps with the verse in which Philip and operativegaley are in a romantic relationship (Morgana not being the jealous type).

This verse splits in two directions – one timeline has Philip’s canonical Synthesis ending; Monica canonically dies during the Battle of London.

In the second timeline, Monica still dies in London…but Philip lives (and ends up marrying Morgana post-war).

I had a request from Galey (who clearly has never heard the saying “be careful what you wish for”) to write a drabble involving these characters at the moment when Monica dies. So here it is….

*****

“God damn it!” Philip swore, relaunching his combat drone over the wreckage behind which he had couched himself. “How many of them are there?”

“Enough to make this difficult,” Morgana answered behind him, her clear British contralto heavy with understatement.

None of them had come to London expecting it to be a pleasant experience, of course, but Philip was rapidly finding this final push against the Reapers to be far worse than he had imagined. The air smelled of smoke and death; what had clearly been a beautiful city was now rubble-strewn and decimated. The rapid patter of the rain stung every inch of his exposed skin; he could feel that the winter night should have been cold, but instead sizzled with heat left behind by the Hades cannons and the Citadel beam, which hovered in the distance like a blaze of fire, a guidepost to the nameless destiny waiting for him in orbit.

And the waves upon waves on enemies between him and the beam was just extraordinary.

He was not alone, though, and he took some comfort from that. James was on point somewhere ahead of them, slamming aside everything that got in his way. Morgana -- Philip’s partner in crime for almost as long as he cared to remember -- was by the commander’s side and refusing to leave it, methodical and ruthless as the occasion demanded.

And Monica was watching them from the rooftops, the woman he loved covering his back with the deadly accuracy of her profession.

“How’s it look up there?” he asked her now, thumbing the commline on his omnitool as he peered out to watch Wheatley’s progress through the next wave of Reaper forces.

“A mess. What do you think?” Monica answered. She sounded a little out of breath; navigating the shattered rooftops of the London street was proving an exhausting affair. But her everpresent sarcastic streak was undimmed.

“A little more specific, maybe?” he asked teasingly in return.

“Looks like...four cannibals coming in from the northwest.” There was the sharp crack of a Viper rifle from the building on his left. “Make that three.”

“Any brutes or banshees? “ Morgana asked, slotting a new thermal clip into her pistol.

“Not that I see.”

“Philip--”

“Already going. Monica, watch my back. We’re moving up.”

“It *is* a nice back. Tell Morgana not to block my view,” Monica quipped.

“Nice to know you care.”

“Always.” 

Things were getting rougher. The waves of Reapers were coming faster as they moved closer to the beam, and the sticky heat was growing more intense. “You know,” Philip commented around a ragged breath that tasted like ash in his mouth, “I’m starting not to like this place much.”

“I was born here, you know. I hear it was much nicer before the Reapers moved in.”

Philip snorted. “If you say so.”

“Next time we visit Earth, I recommend Oxford instead,” Morgana commented dryly.

“Noted. You can give me the grand tour when we--”

BOOM.

The ground shook, lurching under Philip’s feet and sending him staggering. “Reaper!” he shouted as he hit the ground. He didn’t need to look behind him to see what had caused the impact. One of the smaller monstrosities had flanked them. Judging by the heat of the blast it was perhaps four hundred meters away, and judging by the sound it was getting closer.

Morgana’s hand was on his shoulder, tugging him to a standing position again, steadying him. His hand covered hers briefly, gave it a quick squeeze and released as his eyes turned upwards. “Monica! Clear out of the building line; it’s coming in from the west!”

“I know, I know! How’d we miss it?” All humor in her voice was abruptly gone; the situation had grown tense in a big hurry.

“Too focused on the chaos in front of us, I suppose,” Morgana said grimly.

“We need to get out of its range or it’ll cook us.” Philip raised one hand, his omnitool glowing like fire around his wrist. “Drones out. Maybe we can draw its fire off. I--”

“Path is blocked.” 

“What?”

“My path is blocked, Philip-- this building’s stairway is collapsed. I can’t get to ground level.”

A brief flash of fear. “Which one are you in? I’ll blast it clear from below.”

Morgana’s eyes narrowed; her hand, still on his shoulder, tightened sharply. “We don’t have time--”

BOOM. Another blast rocked the ground; he could see the hulking form of the Reaper lurching into view beyond the wall of buildings. “Damn it, Monica--”

“Wait. I’ve got it. That last shot knocked some of the debris loose. I’ll meet you in the street.” The old sarcastic laugh came into her voice for a minute. “You didn’t think you could get rid of me that ea--”

BOOM.

The third blast came so near that it knocked Philip cleanly off his feet and onto his back. Morgana hit the ground next to him with a groan. Bright red blood stood out against the black of their armor; he’d struck something with his head and everything spun -- but not so much that he couldn’t see the building in which Monica stood go up in a gout of red light.

“NO!”

He was on his feet in an instant, darting forward against the overwhelming blast-furnace heat of the explosion. “Monica! Monica, do you read me?”

Static crackled in his ear, punctuated by a bone-chilling scream, a wet crunching thud that burned itself into his memory.

The building, in slow, majestic temp, collapsed under the Reaper beam. The noise was overwhelming, tremendous, and yet the ringing in his ears, the dizzy terror, muffled it away from him until it felt like he was standing in a vacuum, as he had been the day he died over Alchera. No sound, no air, just fire and light and pain.

“No...” he whispered. Without thinking, he dived forward, began to claw at the front edge of the rubble that had once been a London street corner. She’s not dead. She can’t be dead. She’s under there somewhere... His own optimism seemed to be driving like an iron spike through his brain, the hope against logic that somehow the woman had survived the explosion and the fall.

“Help me!” he bellowed over his shoulder, his voice cracking as he snapped at Morgana. “We need to get her out!”

Instead, strong hands closed around his shoulders. Morgana tugged him backwards, away, down into cover as another Reaper beam lanced over their heads. “Philip-- stop--”

“We need to get her out. She...she could have...” He was trembling suddenly in every limb. This was not how it was supposed to end. He had accepted the likelihood that he would be the vanguard of this assault, the likelihood that he would die in the attempt. But his friends, the people he cared about, the people he loved...they were supposed to survive. They had to survive. 

Otherwise...what the hell was it all for?

“She’s dead, Philip,” Morgana said softly. One of her palms touched his cheek, feeding a strained calm through the contact, trying to soothe the agony in his mind. And he knew in that moment that her empathic ability had felt with certainty what he could only guess at. Whether burned to death by the beam or crushed in the collapse...Monica was gone.

“I...” Emptiness flooded him. There had been so many deaths, so much loss. There was only so much he could take. Was this the one that broke him, so close to the end?

Morgana’s arms swung around him in a quick, tight embrace. “She loved you,” she said quietly. “I felt it every moment she was with you. I’m truly sorry, Philip...”

A sob rose in his throat, threatened to choke him. “We have to keep going...” he whispered, trying to convince himself.

“Yes.” She nodded. “I am right beside you. I know your grief. But you have to stand. You have to keep moving. We will mourn her later, Philip...but we must avenge her now.”

He clung to Morgana’s voice, letting it tug him out of the pool of grief that threatened to drown him. His fingers clamped tightly around her forearm, hard enough to leave a mark, as he struggled to his feet. “She was here because of  me...” he mumbled dizzily. “She would have been safe...”

But he knew that wasn’t true, even as he said it. No one was safe as long as this war lasted. And she had always had fire in her; she was a fighter, willful, nearly reckless at times. But she had been here with him, because of him...because of what they shared...and he could not forget that.

He looked to Morgana, blue eyes meeting cool grey; her enduring steadiness was a tonic against the chaos, a mooring in the storm. It always had been. He nodded slightly at her, squared his shoulders, felt another wave of calm go through him pushed by her empathy. “Thank you,” he murmured, turned and looked out over the rubble that had buried Monica, and then back towards the harsh, blinding glow of the Citadel beam.

meme (x) | status: open 

Aria leaned forward, tilting her head somewhat to the side at the human’s remark. She didn’t know what girl’s story was, but she sure as shit didn’t  believe the sob story she’d given when she’d shown up. It wasn’t her business. As long as she was clean and showed up on time, Aria had a job for her. As long as she did what she was told, they were good. She didn’t give a flying fuck what the girl was hiding or running from or.. whatever. She frowned. 

Tavi had a maximum amount of time he could go before he started missing someone.

Galey had passed it long ago.  Quite long ago.  So when he spotted a familiar face out of the corner of his eye he spun around quickly, nearly tripping over himself in his hurry to not lose her.

If Mara was startled by the sudden appearance of the human woman, she didn’t show it. What she did show, however, was some annoyance at her unannounced arrival. This wasn’t her throne room, and she didn’t like to receive, well, anyone outside of it.