#tom lasky

She kicks out from hiding, sending a spray of gravel up from her feet. Straight line, right at them. She stumbles, but keeps on going. The shield-less jackal squawks and flinches back, the other holds it’s ground. And the elites, her old friend aims a kick at the coward, while the other…damn, the other has spotted just what it is she is going for. Sword out, he’s striding out towards the riffle with a slowness that’s dammed insulting.

Her shields are crackling as she comes under fire. She doesn’t need an audience. One bullet to take out Shield-less. Second to finish the job on the elite. Third only catches the other jackal’s gauntlet. Crap.

She dives for the riffle as the elite reaches it. Bastard jackal continues to shoot. Elite brings down the sword. She hits the ground, rolls, grabs the riffle and upright again fires at the jackal, then twists round to shove the riffle in the elite’s face and pulls the trigger.

Nothing happens.

The elite actually slows its swing and she can see the amusement in its eyes. She heaves the useless riffle at the middle of its smug four jaws. She hates showboating. She feels a moment of satisfaction at the crack, before the elite punches her helmet with its other hand, sending her reeling backwards.

Bastard’s still showboating.

She can taste blood in her mouth. Alright then, draw on that front. She feints to the left, and then barrels straight forward before it can bring up the sword again. They both go sprawling. She has a knife, even if energy sword trumps that, but the damn thing refuses to make it easy for her. It’s snarling and spitting and truth be told she’s snarling right back. Not that it can tell. Punching it in the face gets the idea across.

It’s a scrabble of clawing, kicking, punching in the dirt. She is unaware of anything else. At some point she had gotten the sword from it, but that wasn’t important. She doesn’t need it. She’s managing just fine with fists.

Bastard kicks out, gets her in the side, the pain is enough that the next thing she knows is her back hitting the dirt, the thing snarling something but she can’t hear right. Not that it matters. She just needs to get up and hit it again, and then keep hitting it. As a plan it’s flawless. Pity she forgot about the sword. Pity the elite didn’t. Round over.

“Round Over!”

She fucking hates that thing.

“Run it again.”

Spartan Sarah Palmer pushes herself upright, ignoring the pain in her side which thinks it can make itself known again. She grits her teeth, allowing a wince of pain hidden by her helmet as she gets to her feet. She still has the sword; she watches it smoke for a moment before deactivating it and placing it on her hip. She still needs to stab something. “War Games, run the simulation again!”

“Non-Spartan personnel present; simulation paused.”

Hell there is! “And I told you not to let anyone else in!”

“Over-ridden.”

Hell with that. But she needs to rearm anyway. Her surroundings shimmer and give way to bare deck as she makes her way to the exit. She stares straight ahead, focused on her goal. Get the biggest, badest gun she can find and then go and shoot something. Such as whoever it is who thinks they can interrupt her. She knows full well who thinks they can interrupt her, but she really wants to just be shooting something right now.

“Better have a good excuse for being in here.” She doesn’t look up from the assault rifle in her hands. She checks and rechecks it, finding the familiar action soothing, even though not as much as getting to shoot something with it would.

“That’s the thing about being commander,” Tom Lasky says casually as he enters the room. “I don’t need an excuse.”

“Well, I’m sure that’ll impress the simulated Covies into not shooting at you.” The weight of the rifle seems off, somehow, even though the display says it is fully loaded, so she checks it again. Perhaps he’ll take the hint.

Of course, he doesn’t. “I’ll have you know I managed to shoot a few live ones in my time.”

“Feel free to help yourself.” She indicates the weapons locker with a curt nod. “Might last, what, two, three minutes.” The rifle’s still bothering her. Should have gone with the dual pistols, but she just…really wants to stab something with the energy sword.

“I think I could manage at least five.” He’s talking to her same way as normal, none of that kid-glove crap the others tried, and she’s grateful for that. Really. But he really, really needs to learn to take a hint. She can see him in her peripheral vision, standing there and watching her as she checks the gun again and again before unloading it once again and then slamming it back down. The crack of metal against metal remains between them even as she picks up another riffle and begins the routine once again. This one feels off, also. “Damn it.”

Alright, fuck it. She just needs the sword. More fun, anyway. She puts the useless riffle back, fumbling slightly. Definitely something wrong with it. She needs to get someone to check them later. And chew out whoever left them in this state. But she needs to stab something first.

“What was wrong with that one?”

Yeah, he’s not taking the hint. She’d glare at him, despite being hidden by her helmet, but that would involve turning her head. She glares at the guns instead. Not that they can see under the helmet, either. “Weight’s off. Apparently basic maintenance is just too hard for some people,” she says, bitterly. The dull ache is becoming sharper now.

Footsteps against the deck, and he’s beside her, picking up the gun she had just put down and hefting it. “Seems alright to me.”

“Well, feel free to use it!” She snaps, louder than she intended, and it causes her head to ring. She grits her teeth. She’s wasting too much time.

“Sarah…”

“Don’t!” She can deal with this, just so long as he doesn’t use that tone of voice. “Just don’t.” She’s stopped for too long as it is. She needs to be moving, doing. Killing something. She turns away from him.

“Is this helping?” He speaks softly. Before, when she was regular grade human, she would not have been able to hear over the metallic stomp of her own armour. But back then, being able to hear over a half ton of armour wouldn’t have been a problem down to lack of opportunity. She can ignore him, and go back to killing things. Would certainly be the preferred option. But for some reason she finds herself stopping, just for a moment.

“Yes. Yes it is. And it would help if you would get out of here and let me get on with it.”

“Get on with what? You can’t keep running the War Games until you pass out from exhaustion. Or worse. You know the medics can keep track of you, there’s a whole bunch out there freaking out about you right now.”

That gets a laugh, a short, sharp crack that jars at the back of her eyes. “Really? Well, I’m touched for their concern. Not enough to actually tell me that.”

“Come on, can you blame them?” The light scuff of his boot against the deck gives away that he’s shifted his stance, probably got his hands on his hips. Probably got that look on his face, the ‘oh so disappointed, but I am trying to be reasonable here’ one. “You’re pretty terrifying at the best of times.”

“Thanks. That makes me feel much better. Problem solved. You can go away now.” She can feel herself sway slightly. She needs to keep moving. But it’s harder to get going now, somehow. There is a heaviness in her limbs, as if she’s feeling the weight of the armour somehow.

He takes a step towards her, as if he can sense this weakness. “All I’m saying is that you can’t keep on like this forever.”

“I’m still standing.” And it would really undermine her point if she were to fall over right at this point. She needs to keep moving. And he really needs to get out of her way.

“So that’s the plan, is it? Just keep on going until you’re unconscious? Or worse? How is that going to help?” He sighs. “Look, I don’t know what-“

“Don’t!” She whips round, her hand up as if she can shield herself from the sentiment. “Just…don’t.” That isn’t what she needs right now. She just needs to shoot something. She just needs to keep shooting, and everything will be fine.

“You can’t think this is healthy? You’ve been in here non-stop since you got back.” She was right, he has got the concerned look on his face. “Look, you need to stop. This isn’t going to help.”

He’s sweet, but he has no idea what he’s talking about. She glares at him, the one that can send people running even with the helmet in the way. He doesn’t move. Of course he doesn’t. God damn, she’s tired.

He can sense the weakness. “You can’t keep running from this. You’re going to have to stop at some point, and it’s going to catch up with you.”

“But it doesn’t have to be now.” The weight of the armour is pulling on her. If he doesn’t get out of her way soon she’s likely to fall on him. “Don’t make me move you.”

He just crosses his arms and gives her a look. He’s figured it out how he just needs to wear her down by keeping her talking long enough. Clever bastard. The buzzing in her ears is getting louder, and she takes a step towards him. He continues to stand his ground. Of course he does.

She’s going to have to call his bluff. He can try and stop a determined Spartan in a half-ton of armour, or he can get out of her way. She takes her second step, and he’s still staring her down like he can stop her.

The third step’s too much for her. She stumbles, and he actually steps forward as if he can stop her falling. She catches herself before she goes further than one knee, and through gritted teeth hisses “really?” at him. He meets her gaze evenly, as if she wasn’t wearing the helmet. And as if he hadn’t almost gotten himself flattened.

“You know you can’t keep doing this.”

The quiet words cut through the sound of her heartbeat and the rasp of her breathing, echoing all around her. She pushes her fist against the floor, metal against metal. She can taste blood. She can’t remember a time when she didn’t.

She wonders how it would feel to punch the floor, to keep going until there is nothing left. But for the first time in a long time she is tired.

“I’m sorry.” He’s still so quiet, but for the first time she can see the worry in his eyes. But then he keeps talking. “It wasn’t your fault. A lot more people would be dead right now if not for you.”

“I am really not in the mood to hear that crap.” She looks down at the floor and considers trying to push herself back onto her feet. But the buzzing’s not so loud down here. “I did the job in front of me.” She barks out a laugh. “I got lucky. Other people didn’t. Isn’t the first time.”

But it is the first time, isn’t it. In the old days, in the meat grinder, fighting for the survival of the human race, she’d seen so many of her fellow soldiers snuffed out just like that. But she’s a Spartan now. Spartans don’t die.

She laughs again, a bitter sharp bark. Maybe she had bought into that bullshit after all.

He’s crouching down beside her now. “Just because it isn’t the first time, doesn’t mean you ever stop feeling it,” he says softly. “At least we can do that for them.”

He’s wrong, of course. You get them back as good as they got yours. That’s what you do for them. But she just can’t find it in herself to tell him that right now.

“Davis deserved better.” That’s the thing that’s been pushing at her, gnawing away at her. “KIA. That’s one thing. We all know that.” She laughs again. “And what a way to go right? There are a hell of a lot worse ways to go. Not that anyone’s allowed to know that. Classified information. And that’s fine.” The claustrophobia gets too much for her, and she pulls of the helmet. It drops with an anticlimactic clang. “But he deserved better than that!”

She must look like crap. She can tell by the way his eyes widen slightly. But he doesn’t comment on it. He just looks at her, sighs sadly, and shifts to lean back against the wall beside her. “I’ve had to leave people behind as well. I know how much it hurts.”

It’s the ringing of metal that tells her she’s punched the floor. She waits for the pain to follow. She needs it to follow.

“What happened at Ivanoff?”

He’s still there. He hasn’t moved. Not beyond the automatic flinch when she hit the deck. He’s still just looking at her sadly, and she wonders how much he already knows.

But he’s looking her in the eye at least. None of the others could manage that. But that feels worse, somehow. He has kind eyes. She hadn’t noticed that before.

“Better watch out.” She breaks from that gaze with a shake of her head. “Need to know, and all that crap. Don’t want you getting black bagged by ONI.”

But it hurts. It’s dragging on her, and it hurts. And Davis deserved better than that.

“He was calling for help. Before he died. He was calling for me. But it was too late. Some Forerunner bullshit. And what was left of him…” She stares down at her fist, still sitting in the small indent in the floor, as she finds reserves of anger deep enough to cut through the exhaustion. “I did not go through all that to bring him home for that!” Her fingers itch for the riffle, to squeeze the trigger until there’s nothing left, but it’s so far away and her bones ache. She’s tired, for the first time in a long time, but the anger, the rage, it sits on her, smothering her, while the bile rises up. “To be some…science project! For that…woman! And they just expected me to just hand him over.”

She had never seen Catherine Halsey move so fast. So very keen to get her hands on a new toy. And she had to just hand him over. Just another bit of Forerunner tech. And very much aware that she was under orders to hand him over.

To leave him behind.

She so badly wants to punch something again.

She pulls her hand up and gingerly flexes her fingers. The dent in the floor looks up at her accusingly.

“That’s fine. I’m sure there’s still plenty time to buff that out.” He’s still at her side. Still hasn’t gone anywhere. She laughs at that, or his lame joke, she doesn’t know. She’s glad he’s still there. That does surprise her.

“God what a mess.” She makes a fist, but just taps it against the floor this time, then pushes to her feet. It’s a long way up.

He’s beside her again, and this time he does touch her arm. She’s aware of it even through the metal. “Well, you certainly gave the War Games a trial by fire. If it can take that, it can take anything.”

“I’d like to see someone else beat that score.” She winces. It hurts to laugh.

“It’s ok to be mad at orders, you know. Brass asks a lot at times.”

She raises an eyebrow. “That’s downright subversive. Never would have thought you had it in you.”

“Well, there’s a lot you don’t know about me.” He’s smiling when he says it. “If you agree to let the med team look at you I can tell you about it.”

There’s a joke about wanting to get her out of her armour there, but she’s not quite yet in the right place to find it. It’ll keep. “Fine, but you’re buying the drinks.”

Tom closed his eyes, trying to block out the world around him, seeking refuge from the emptiness of his room. However this only gave his memories a chance to reassert themselves against his wishes…He hadn’t been in the hangar when she’d been brought aboard. The mission was still active, so his place was on the operations deck. He had been stationed there a little over a year ago when this had first happened. And his reaction wasn’t any better now than it was then. Even after everything that had occurred since Paris.

Tom could still smell the mix of charred metal and blood that came with his recollection. Normally spotless white armor had been a marred by patches of black and smeared red from the efforts of her teammates to keep her alive. Tom could feel the tears collecting in his eyes and he didn’t bother to try to keep them at bay. He knew that she’d be upset with him if she saw him like this, but he wasn’t going to hide away his feelings while he was alone. “Commander Lasky,” a calm female voice spoke up, causing Tom to open his eyes. His vision was blurred from the tears but he still could see the holographic projection of the ship’s AI on a terminal near his door. “You requested that I inform you when Commander Palmer got out of surgery.” “I did,” Tom confirmed, happy to find that at least his voice was fairly steady. “What’s the verdict on her condition.” “Doctor Varin has confirmed that Commander Palmer will make a full recovery. He believes her rehabilitation will be swift enough that a temporary replacement will not be necessary.”   Tom bit back the urge to assert that there was no possible replacement for Plamer, knowing that it would be a pointless to lash out when Annie didn’t mean any offense. “Thank you, Annie. That will be all.” Tom was thankful when the AI’s avatar vanished without another word, leaving him to his thoughts again. Knowing that Sarah would be fine eased the pain in his chest, but he was still facing many days alone until she could be cleared to leave the infirmary. Though even when she would be released, they still had a long conversation ahead of them - which he wasn’t looking forward to. The way he was currently reacting was exactly why he’d been hesitant to get involved with her to begin with. He’d buried enough friends and lovers to have learned as well as any ODST that relationships while in the service of the UNSC guaranteed pain.

When Palmer had been injured badly enough to need a medical evac for the first time, Tom had been just as worried. Of course at that time it was because of how seeing a Spartan - and one of the strongest people he’d ever met - at the mercy of fate the same as any other soldier had shaken him. Now he was upset for a different reason. Now it was because she was the woman he loved. And he’d been faced with the genuine fear that she would die. That he would lose her.

He’d known this would happen, eventually, and he knew he wouldn’t take it well when the time came. What he wasn’t expecting was that, as he sat alone and tried to keep his breathing even so he wasn’t full-on sobbing, he didn’t regret a thing. Well, he regretted that Sarah was injured for certain. But he didn’t regret a single moment of being with her. He loved her, and all the pain and heartache that he knew lay ahead of them couldn’t outweigh all the joy and peace he knew they’d share too.

*~*~*~*~*

Tom sat at the small desk tucked away in the corner of his room, trying to decipher the recent resupply manifest. Sargent Cother was on bed rest with a small flu-bug, which meant that Lance Corporal Kaft was writing up the reports; and the man clearly had no practice at the job. Tom was trying to decipher the man’s shorthand for how many MA4B rifles that had been in the last shipment, when the door to his quarters opened, causing him to jump. Usually Annie would have informed him if someone wanted a meeting with him. So the lack of announcement at a guest’s arrival was a surprise. Sarah sauntered into his room as though she hadn’t been in intensive care only weeks ago. She wore her casual clothing, and was staring down at the screen of her tablet like this wasn’t the first time she’d visited since her injury. He studied her for a moment, looking for any signs that he could read to get a feel for her mood, but there was nothing. She finally looked up from her screen and saw him looking back at her. A smile spread across her face and Tom felt his fears lift off him. Without really thinking through what he was doing, he stood up so fast that he almost knocked over his chair. Tom crossed the room before he could second guess himself and his hands cupped Sarah’s cheeks as he pulled her down into a forceful kiss. He was all the more relieved when she returned the kiss and her arms lightly wrapped around his waist. Against his will his breath became uneven and Tom found himself trying to suppress his sobs so he could continue their exchange of affection. Palmer pulled away, and for a moment he feared that she was cross with him for how upset he was. But to his relief she still kept him close, guiding his face to her shoulder. Tom didn’t protest, just let himself break down as he wrapped his arms around her neck and she held him against her.

“Let it out,” Sarah whispered, one of her hands starting to rub his back. He felt like a fool for needing to be comforted like this when he was over forty. And he felt even worse when Sarah suddenly lifted him bridal style and carried him through the room. This was certainly not a dignified moment for him. Sarah sat down and she let him settle on her lap as she cradled him. “It’s okay,” she muttered to him. He was ashamed that he couldn’t control himself or his emotions, but he couldn’t hold it back and he was just a crying mess in her arms. Tom wasn’t sure how long it was before he finally calmed down. An odd peace had settled in the room and Tom didn’t dare move and risk breaking it.

“I’m getting some real mixed signals here, Tom. If you’re going to break up with me just do it.” “What?” Tom lifted his head, brow furrowed in confusion as he tried to process what she’d said. “Why do you think I want to break up with you?” “Well you didn’t visit me in the med-bay, or S-deck when I was recovering, and you haven’t been messaging me. Sort of all the signs that you’ve been spooked,” Palmer reasoned. Tom set his head back against her shoulder, this time more in shame. “I didn’t,” he admitted. His first instinct was to make excuses, try to rationalize why he’d failed to contact her or visit her…But he stopped himself. “I don’t want to break up.” “You’re taking this better than I thought you would,” Palmer commented, hugging him a little tighter for a moment.   “You’re coddling me like a toddler after I cried my eyes out,” Tom pointed out. “I don’t think I’ve handled it very well at all.” “You didn’t run,” Palmer countered. “Though I suppose considering how you reacted now, maybe it wasn’t so bad that you didn’t come visit.” “I should have visited, or at least sent you a message. I just…” Tom struggled to find the words to explain what had kept him from reaching out to her. “You got scared,” Sarah offered, one of her hands starting to rub his back lightly again. If anyone else could see him at that moment Tom was sure he would die of embarrassment, but he wasn’t worried about Sarah. He knew she wouldn’t judge him for his weakness. “What matters is that you aren’t bolting.” “You think I’d bolt?” Tom wasn’t sure if he should be insulted by how easily she thought that he would leave her. “I mean, it would be reasonable considering everything,” Palmer said. Though Tom didn’t feel like that really answered his question. “You were the one that was afraid to get involved because you cared. And I get it. I mean you’ve been losing people you care about to combat since you were a teenager, it’s hard for that not to traumatize someone.” Tom sat up and Sarah loosened her grip to allow him to move. He turned to face her and swallowed his fear of her possible reaction, forcing himself to say what he needed to say. “I’m more sure than ever that this is what I want.” He motioned to the two of them. “I love you, and I want to be with you. I won’t run. Yeah, when you get hurt I’ll be scared. I’ll be sad. But you make me happy more than anything else. So it’s worth it.” “If you didn’t run from this, I believe you,” Sarah told him, smiling as she reached up and gently rubbed a thumb along the edge of his eye. “You look like crap right now, so you know I mean it when I say you are the most beautiful man.” She leaned forward for a quick kiss. Tom couldn’t help the wide grin that spread across his face as he leaned on her shoulder and they settled in to enjoy each other’s company. “Though next time I hope that you at least send me a message if I’m stuck in an infirmary bed.” “Fair enough,” Tom replied with a small chuckle.