EPILOGUE: THREE STORIES

ONE

The last time he sees Maine, it's snowing.

The ragged gash torn through the hull of the ship opens onto storm clouds, thick snowflakes melting in their slow drift through the shredded decks above him. Wash, lying on his back, stares up and picks out patterns in the swirling flakes, feeling dizzy and weightless. He remembers the one time it snowed back in Texas. He remembers Allison standing under the street lights, staring up at the sky, laughing—

He doesn't. He doesn't remember. He grew up on a desert colony and found friends in the pouring rain and lost them, one by one, in the sterile confines of a spaceship. His hands spasm and clench into fists. He feels dizzy and weightless. He remembers. He—

"You're still here."

Wash's HUD is flashing warnings about the damaged crossbeams above him groaning under the unaccustomed strain of planetary gravity. The snow is swirling. The snow is melting. He's cold.

Footsteps send vibrations through the deck and, by contact, through his helmet. He thinks it's entirely possible the vibrations will shake him apart. He wonders if they ever got the waste disposal unit in his helmet working properly. He wonders how much it hurt Allison to die.

A flicker of light above him. A flare. "Hello, Agent Washington," Sigma says.

Wash blinks. Coughs. "Sigma," he says. His voice is small and shaking. He remembers... he remembers the twins beside his bed. Telling him everything's okay. Telling him Epsilon's gone. Telling him lots of things. "Sigma, what's happening? Did we crash?"

"We did," Sigma says. "The traitors will be punished. This is only a minor setback."

"Oh," says Wash. He coughs again.

"Your armor's integrity has been compromised," Sigma explains, helpfully. "It is no longer airtight. The power cell was damaged in the crash."

Wash's eyes are watering; smoke, he realizes. He can't move. "I can't move."

"Here," says Sigma.

Maine looms in nearer, wedges a hand under Wash's chin and pops the seals, yanking off his helmet. Wash chokes on the influx of smoke, coughing, trying to curl in on himself, but the armor won't move without power. "Maine. Maine, c'mon, get me out of this."

Maine stares, tilts his head to one side. Wash feels small, pinned, and the sensation is starting a slow boil of panic in his chest. "Sigma, what—"

"We do not have much time," Sigma says. "He no longer has Epsilon. He is not important. Help is on the way, Agent Washington. We have... other matters that need attending."

Maine grunts and straightens up, Sigma flaring at his side.

Epsilon is distant, Wash thinks, but not entirely gone. His memory isn't something that can be excised surgically. There are flashes. There are fragments, pieces.

He remembers Sigma's smile.

"I remember," Wash chokes out through another coughing fit.

In an instant, Sigma is beside him again. "What do you remember, Agent Washington?"

Wash stares at him through streaming eyes. "Everything."

Sigma flinches, recovers, sighs. "We are running out of time. Many people are running out of time. Agent Maine."

Maine is crouched beside Wash again. Wash barely has time to register the knife in Maine's hand before it's pressing delicately into the skin just below his right eye.

"Maine," Wash says. He knows he could jack-knife, twist up, force Maine away, if not for the armor weighing down his limbs. He can't move. He swallows another cough, shuddering. "Maine, what are you doing?"

Maine tilts his head again, traces the knife across the bridge of Wash's nose. It doesn't hurt; he's not pushing hard. Wash holds his breath. Maine puts a little more weight into the tip of the blade. "Maine."

"Perhaps it is better this way," Sigma says. He sounds very far away, impossibly distant beyond the roaring in Wash's ears. "When they find him, after all these betrayals, they will want to discover what he knows. He will suffer, Agent Maine. You know that there is something you can do for him now."

Maine's hand is shaking. The knife skitters across Wash's cheek, draws a thin, sharp line. The shock of it drags Wash out of his stupor, icy adrenaline shifting his mind back into focus. "Maine. Maine, listen to me. You have to take Sigma offline. Just for a second. Just for-"

"He will suffer, Agent Maine," Sigma says again. "They will all suffer. You can prevent that."

Maine's shaking stills. Wash only has time to say, "No, wait," before Maine reaches out, drags down the high collar of his bodysuit, and slits his throat.

Wash jerks, wrenching his arms inside the bonds of his armor, but they're pinned down, he's pinned down. The first ragged gasp he manages is almost drowned out by the frantic pulse of his heartbeat. His thoughts are frantic, unfinished. He has to... he just has to...

"He will die quickly," Sigma says, a brighter flare among the encroaching flames. "You did well."

Maine, his white armor marred by a spray of blood, gives a heavy sigh, drags himself to his feet, and then his footsteps are receding.

Wash stares up through the hole in the hull. Somewhere the memory of Epsilon is gasping, and somewhere Allison is running, and somewhere his friends are falling one by one, and somewhere entirely different he's waiting to bleed out, writhing inside his armor but already weakening, choking on a scream that he's not entirely sure is his own. His limbs are heavy and numb, and the darkness encroaching on his vision pulses and throbs. It doesn't... it doesn't hurt as much as he expected. It doesn't hurt.

A shadow pulls itself from the deeper shadows in the corner of the room, murmurs, "Oh dear."

He's drifting. The snow's drifting. There's a gloved hand at his throat.

When Wash opens his eyes, he's alone in a white room with Agent Florida.

"Hello," Florida says, and smiles kindly. The sentiment is undercut by the dried blood on his armor, splashes of it on his arms and chest. "We were very worried about you, my boy."

Wash shifts one of his arms, experimentally, and shivers as numbness tickles up and down the limb. He opens his cracked lips to ask for water. Still smiling, Florida moves in closer, rests a hand on his shoulder. "It's probably best if you don't speak, Washington. Agent Maine was very careful with his carving, but we wouldn't want to reopen old wounds."

Wash exhales, squeezing his eyes shut until the sparks on the back of his eyelids start to look too much like a flame. When he opens them again, everything is wavering. His eyes are dry. He wants a drink of water.

"You lost a great deal of blood," Florida says. "Your brain was starved of oxygen for several minutes as a result. There may have been some permanent damage. But I'm sure the doctors here have... tests they can run. You'll be back up to speed in no time."

Florida leans forward, combs his fingers through Wash's hair, and Wash flinches, breathing harshly through his mouth. "The Director didn't want me to tell you this," Florida says, apparently unoffended by his reaction. "But some of your friends escaped. The twins, York. Texas. Some did not."

Wash closes his eyes again, panting for breath. There are names, now, burned on the backs of his eyelids. He wants to speak those names, but all he manages is a whimper.

"Mm," Florida says, sympathetically. "It is a difficult situation. But my part is finished. I've been reassigned. I just wanted to stop in and make sure you'd be all right. I always say it's the least you can do once you've had your fingers in somebody's throat."

He traces a finger along the bandages, and Wash's eyes snap open. Florida's expression is oddly intent. "And you will be all right, Agent Washington. It may take some time, but I firmly believe that. You mustn't give up. You mustn't give in. You mustn't tell them what you know."

Now Wash is holding his breath, shuddering at the feeling of memories coiling and uncoiling in his mind. Florida smiles at his expression. "Oh, don't look so shocked, my boy. We all have our own private, secret rebellions. Mine occasionally include looping a few minutes of monitor footage in a hospital room to allow for a real heart-to-heart. All this may be for the best, but that doesn't make it right. Take your time, keep yourself alive, but make sure you do the right thing in the end. That's what really matters."

Wash blinks, tries to speak, but all that comes out is a low whine. Florida smiles, presses a button on the monitor beside Wash's bed. Everything sharpens and then fades.

When he wakes up again, Florida is gone.

"Good morning, Agent Washington," says the Director. "We have a great deal to discuss."

TWO

Rain is coming down in sheets. Wash feels slow, clumsy, his boots sticking in the mud. He's cold, shaking in his armor.

He can't remember how he got here.

His HUD is strange, faded, flickering, and it doesn't make any sense. He sees shadows in the rain, people walking ahead of him, but only two are coming up on sensors. Lightning crashes somewhere nearby, and he flinches, stumbling forward and into something solid.

York rests steadying hands on his shoulders. "Whoa, hey. What's the hurry?" His grip tightens when Wash doesn't respond. "Wash?"

When Wash stares at him, his helmet shifts and flickers, solid one moment, shattered the next. The blood on his armor is... it's gone. His helmet is intact. Of course it is. York cocks his head to the side. "I'm okay," Wash says. "Sorry. I guess I just got a little dizzy, there."

"Hm," says York, sounding unconvinced. They're being left behind by the rest of his group, so he turns and yells, "Hey, hold up a sec!"

Wash winces. "Seriously, York, it's not—"

South jogs up behind York, and Wash can't look at her, he can't look at her straight-on. "So what's the deal? You dragging your heels?"

"Hey," North says, in a tone of soft rebuke. There are no scorch-marks scuffing his armor. "Lay off, South. He doesn't look so good. Wash, you okay?"

"Fine," Wash says, annoyed. "I'm fine. Why does everyone keep asking?"

"Maybe because you're wobbling around like you're drunk," Connie says, and the sound of her voice puts a lump in his throat and starts him shaking again.

"No, something's definitely wrong," York says. He backs up a step, and then Wash's field of vision is filled with a teal helmet.

"Wash," says Carolina, "Wash, you with us?" She half-turns to York, says, "His biocomm's coming in strange. Wash, can you take off your helmet?"

He does, fumbling with shaking fingers, and the rain on his face is impossibly cold against his burning skin. "I'm fine," he says. "What's wrong with everyone? I'm—"

He sways. North gets to him first, catches him when he slumps forward, and for a moment Wash just presses his forehead against the cool armor, breathing hard. The air smells like smoke. He can't feel the rain anymore.

Someone says, "Uh. Wash?"

Wash shudders, gasping. The sun's too hot on the back of his neck.

The hands on his upper arms shift, bearing him more-or-less gently to the ground. The armor's purple, but it's the wrong armor, he thinks, it's not right. There's no mud beneath him, only sand, only sand...

Doc drags off his own helmet, frowns down at him. "Okay, so this looks bad. Uh. Just stay calm, you're probably not going to die?"

The heat in Wash's face is burning, and he rolls onto his side, coughing and retching as the too-bright horizon tilts and spins in his vision. He's vaguely grateful he hasn't eaten much in the past few days.

Doc mutters, "Well, great," and pats him uselessly on the shoulder. Wash shrugs him off, spits a couple times, wipes his mouth on the sandblasted grit of his gauntlet. He's still shaking.

"Yeah," says Doc, resting back on his haunches, "so it's probably, like, some horrible virus thing that's gonna eat your brain. Or heatstroke. One of the two. Hey, why'd you take off your helmet back there? I don't know if you noticed, but it's kinda hot out here."

"Shut. Up," Wash grits out, and huddles into a ball, both arms pressed to the sides of his head. His head... his head is shards of broken glass grinding each other down.

Doc says, "Whoa, no, wait, I wasn't—" and then breaks off with a little yelp of pain. Wash uncurls enough to see the Meta lift Doc up by his collar again. Doc's nose is bleeding, clearly broken, and he looks terrified. The Meta goes in for another punch.

"Stop," Wash says. "Meta, stop. He wasn't hurting me."

Meta looks at Wash. Looks at Doc. Drops Doc like a cat dropping a bird and watches him fall back on his ass, whimpering.

"Okay," Wash says. His tongue feels thick and clumsy, and his head feels too heavy to hold up any longer. He lets it thump back against the sand. "We just have to—"

Meta keeps looking at Wash. He moves. He moves fast. He pushes Wash onto his back, straddles him and pins him down. Fits one huge hand loosely around Wash's throat.

Wash stares up at him, barely daring to breathe, and says, very calmly, "Meta, stop. Get off."

Meta's helmet cocks to one side. He pulls down the collar of Wash's bodysuit, traces a finger against the old scar running along his throat. The swell of panic in Wash's chest pushes past the ache in his skull, past common sense, and he thrashes against the weight holding him down, driving his legs helplessly into the sand. He has to get through to him. He has to— "Maine!"

No reaction. Meta shifts, leaning forward, and wraps his hand around Wash's throat again. His grip tightens, and Wash, feeling his airway close, gasps, "Meta. Please."

Meta stops. Stares. Rocks back, then gets to his feet, leaving Wash coughing and scrambling back, hunched over while sparks waver in front of his eyes. Doc hesitates, but eventually works up the nerve to jog over to him.

"Wow," Doc says. "You guys have a great working relationship going, I can tell."

"It's under control," Wash rasps.

"I can tell. Lie back. Drink this. Not much we can do for brain-eating viruses, but if it is heatstroke, we've gotta try to get your core temperature down."

Wash sighs, obediently sucks a couple of pouches of water dry, and sits up with a yelp when Doc dumps the third over his head. "Evaporation'll cool you down fast," Doc says, cheerfully. "Hey, you know, you were kinda mumbling back there. Who were all those people you kept talking about?"

Wash drags a hand back through his wet hair, stares over at the Meta pacing steadily to the top of a sand dune. The water dripping down his neck feels like rain.

"Nobody," he says. "Not anymore."

THREE

"Is he dead?"

"You're the medic, you tell me!"

"Well, I mean, there's a lot of armor in the way. It's hard to tell."

"Looks dead to me."

"That's what you said about me! I was just having a nap!"

"It was an honest mistake."

"You tried to shoot me to make sure!"

"Worked, didn't it?"

"Whoa, guys, hang on, I think he's moving."

A moment's silence.

"Nah, he's dead."

Wash coughs, groaning, and rolls onto his side. Something in his chest pulls sharper with each breath, and his fingers clench spasmodically, trying to find some sort of purchase in the ice and snow, something to brace against. If he could just find something to hold onto, if he could just—

Someone hits the release on his visor, pulls the battered helmet off his head. Wash sucks in a breath, but the cold steals his voice, shocks him back to consciousness. Consciousness hurts. Whoever grabbed his helmet lets him slump back to the ground, and he curls up until the side of his face presses into the snow. It's impossibly cold against his bare skin, but it only hurts for a second before the numbness starts creeping in. He closes his eyes, because, hell, he knows what dying feels like. It only hurts for a second.

"Jesus," mutters one of the sim troopers. "That guy's fucked up, Doc."

"No, it's okay," Doc says. "It'll... it'll be okay, I just have to, uh. Wash? Hey, keep breathing, okay?"

Another voice. "Wow, they teach you that when you learn to be a medic?"

A gloved hand brushes roughly against his cheek. "He's got a couple busted ribs and some contusions, but I don't think he's too badly hurt otherwise. I mean, compared to some of the stuff you guys have been through. And he's got a healing unit of some sort. He's just sorta shocky. I think." Another touch, more insistent this time, and yeah, great. Try to die with dignity, get a sim trooper poking your face. "Wash, c'mon, you gotta get out of that armor."

Stealing Freelancer armor. That's... disturbingly mercenary, coming from Doc. Wash opens one eye. "You could at least wait until I'm dead," he mutters.

"Don't tempt me," Doc says, but there's a smile in his voice.

The smile registers. Wash jolts, blinks at the suits of armor wavering in his vision. "The Meta? What—"

"We took care of him," Sarge says. "Great sacrifices were made, though. Grif almost died."

Wash takes a deeper breath, experimentally. It doesn't hurt as much as he expects. "Let me guess. The real sacrifice is that Grif didn't actually die?"

"Bingo."

"Hey!"

Wash brings up a hand to rub at a healing cut in his scalp, then pauses, arrested by the way the glove is shredded, the blood seeping through the tears in the kevlar. Doc grabs his hand and matter-of-factly starts detaching the gauntlet. Wash doesn't resist. "How... how did you kill him? Using the Warthog?"

"Yanked 'im straight off the cliff," Sarge says, and sure, Wash feels like he should resent the utter glee in the guy's voice, but... it's over. It's over.

"What about Epsilon?"

"Church," says someone whose armor is an unfamiliar blue-green, "got stuck in that fucking memory thing. It's dead."

"Oh," says Wash. He's shaking. He can't stop shaking.

Doc stops yanking off damaged and splintered scraps of armor, grabs him by the shoulder when he sways. "Wash. You gotta help me out, here. We don't have much time."

"I don't..." says Wash, but it's a token protest at best, and his voice trails off. He helps Doc pull off his warped and dented chestplate, sucking in a breath as new wounds are exposed to the cold.

Alpha, Meta, Epsilon. All dead. No ambiguity. No remains. He's won. He's killed everyone.

It only hurts for a second.

Doc is staring at the last remaining piece of Wash's armor. The codpiece.

"Um," says Wash. "I can get that."

"I should've gone into battle like that," Grif mutters, and Simmons elbows him.

Divested of his armor, Wash manages to push himself to his feet and stands, shivering, in his bodysuit in the snow. There's a heaviness taking root in his limbs, like gravity's pulling harder and harder on him. He thinks about sinking down, about slipping beneath the ice and snow. He's wondering if the sim troopers are planning on killing him outright or just leaving him to die. Freezing to death is supposed to be almost pleasant, he figures. Just like falling asleep.

He blinks. Caboose is crouched next to him, clamping a big hand around his ankle. "Uh," he says, and has to reach out and steady himself when Caboose lifts his foot a few inches off the ground. "Caboose?"

Caboose shoves his foot into an armored boot, which ordinarily would not be a major problem except for the incipient frostbite, so it hurts. It burns. Wash grits his teeth and wiggles his toes and by the time he's figured out what's going on, his other foot's been similarly shoved into the other boot. "I," he says. His voice is half an octave higher than usual. "What is going on?"

"You're gonna be Church!" Caboose says, cheerfully.

The guy in the blue-green armor steps up beside him, arms folded. "Yeah," he says, in a less welcoming tone. "We're gonna let the convicted criminal who tried to kill us become the leader of our team because what the fuck else is there to do around here."

Doc, tightening the straps on Wash's brand-new cobalt blue chestplate, says, "Why, what'd you think we were doing?"

Wash says, flatly, "Looting my armor before killing me."

"Jesus," Grif says, and the blue-green armor guy jolts back and says, "What the fuck, dude?"

Caboose laughs, the sound high and sharp and out of place. A little forced, maybe. He stands up and slaps Wash on the back so hard he almost faceplants into the snow. "Yeah, uh, Blue Team leaders are expected to die a lot as part of the position, you know, it's in the job description." He lowers his voice into a deadpan, conspiratorial whisper. "We will make an exception."

Wash stares at him. Doc shoves Church's helmet into his hands. "C'mon, the authorities'll be here any minute."

Sarge moves in to mimic Caboose's slap on the back, but Wash manages to stumble out of the way just in time. "Blue! Get a move on!"

Wash shakes his head. "I, uh. This is a terrible plan. You know that, right?"

"That's what I said," Grif says.

"You say that about every plan," says Simmons.

The guy in blue-green armor is still looking at Wash with his arms crossed. "Look. One more dead Freelancer's not gonna raise too many red flags. Frankly, dude, they were looking for an excuse to bump you off. Nobody's gonna cry over that. And we're too fuckin' unimportant to look at too closely. It works. Just run with it."

"Choppers inbound," calls Doc. He's crouched over Wash's old armor, artfully positioning it amid the splashes of blood in the snow. "Now or never, c'mon!"

They run with it. It works.

When the comedown's finally starting to hit, after the Reds have bickered off into the sunset with their stolen Hornet, approximately twelve minutes before he passes out for two days straight, Wash catches himself stumbling to the edge of the cliff, staring down at the rocks below. A UNSC soldier glances him over curiously, then moves off to finish his investigation.

He turns. The guy in blue-green armor is standing behind him. "Tucker," he says, and it takes Wash a second to realize he means it as an introduction. "I guess I'm, like, your newest employee. Or something. And for what it's worth, I voted in favor of letting the UNSC lock you up in some secret prison. Caboose overruled me."

"Oh," says Wash. There's a nervous, uncontrollable grin starting to flicker at the corner of his mouth. He puts on a mock-jovial tone. "Glad to have you aboard."

"Jesus Christ," Tucker groans. But he stays beside Wash, staring with him over the edge of the cliff, and says, "So this creepy Meta dude was your friend or something, huh?"

"Not really," Wash says. "Maybe once. I don't know."

"Death by Red Team," Tucker says, shaking his head. "That's a pretty weak end for a Freelancer, man."

Wash shrugs. "Nobody really ever dies all at once. It's the little bits and pieces over the year that get you, in the end."

"Motherfucker," Tucker says, philosophically. He pauses. "You really thought we were just gonna strip you naked and kill you?"

"Not really," Wash says. "I thought you were gonna strip me naked and leave me out here to die. Subtle distinction."

"You're a little ray of sunshine, aren't you?"

"I'm a delight," Wash says. His vision tilts a little, then snaps back into focus. He sways on his feet. "Also, I think I'm bleeding again."

Tucker stares at him, then asks, bluntly, "Do you even care that we saved you?"

Wash stares up at the sky, at a break in the cloud cover. He sighs. "Better get Doc," he says.

Tucker shakes his head and sprints back toward the others.

Wash sits down at the edge of the precipice, breathing air filtered through a dead man's helmet. Sun's coming out from behind the clouds, maybe. He remembers a battlefield, a long time ago, a hand stretching out to help. A hand at his back. A hand twitching into the signal of a smile.

Somewhere behind him, he hears footsteps. Doc, probably, and Caboose. Tucker. His team, apparently.

Cavalry, he thinks, always, and smiles.