It was cold, gray and rainy on the day they buried Trent Temple and the others.

Blake watched them lower his coffin into a hole in the earth. It was the last of four. Trent, Enzo, Jared and Cann were all being buried next to Eric. A long line of finality, an end to suffering. Blake watched the ONI men, dressed up and polished, lower these coffins into the cold ground and found it difficult to feel much of anything. How much death, devastation and destruction had he seen so far? But he knew his present apathy was a lie. He knew that he would suffer greatly later, and he was just in shock right now.

He thought about everything that had happened in the two weeks following the Final Battle of Omega Halo. They had managed to get the Flood contained and destroyed, but it had been a damned near thing and required glassing most of the surface of the Halo. A high-level quarantine had been enacted around the space and both the Elites and UNSC were still patrolling it. Everyone knew they'd dodged a bullet there.

As soon as they'd been appraised of the situation, the UNSC had managed to send a small fleet of ships to the coordinates of the galaxy-buster bomb. They arrived barely an hour after Trent and Enzo had and found no resistance. In fact, once they got onboard, they found everyone there dead. After a bit of investigation, they realized that Gray had been implementing a unique form of mind-control in all of his troops, somehow managing to maintain thousands of connections across lightyears. Of course, the technology was lost with the death of Gray. And, upon his death, all the links had been severed. Which was fatal.

Possibly most frustrating of all was the fact that Trent and Enzo had obviously only just died. Their bodies were still warm. But the spark of life had been lost, no matter how hard the medics tried to revive them.

They were declared dead, zipped up into bodybags and shipped home.

Beyond this, Blake knew next to nothing. He'd wanted to bury himself after all that. He'd disappeared to a little apartment on a backwater colony where it always rained and drank his credits away. No one came looking for him...until, of all people, Jennifer showed up on his doorstep, telling him about the funeral.

They had flown to Earth in silence and had hardly exchanged two sentences. Blake didn't know what to say to her, anyway, and it was obvious she felt the same way. Now, here he stood in the rain, shaved for the first time in awhile. They had won. Black Ops was done for. Presently, there were no serious threats against the UNSC and the Elites. But it hadn't felt like a victory. The cost...was too high. At least, that's how Blake felt.

He watched the proceedings begin to wrap up. They did the whole thing. Speeches, twenty one gun salute, a big crowd. ONI had chosen to go public with the Survivors, but that's only because Trent knew they were shutting the program down. He was a little surprised that Enzo had been buried on Earth, but it turned out he'd written up something like a will, and it specified that he be buried next to Trent, wherever that might be.

They finished up. Trent's coffin was covered by dirt. The media circus began to leave. The crowd began to die away. After a while, the military people started to wander off. Blake remained where he was, staring at the fresh graves, still unable to feel anything. He was so cold now that he'd gone numb in the rain.

Finally, after a long time, he realized a small crowd was heading his way. He glanced over and realized it was some of the others. Kiza, Jennifer, Thorne, Linda and Jorge. He'd seen some of the others, but they had gone by now.

Nobody spoke for a long time. They merely stood there in the rain. Finally, after a while, Blake broke the silence.

"So...now what?" he asked.

Linda was the first to reply. "Since they're shutting down the Survivors program, Jorge and I have opted to join up with the Spartan-IV program. They're getting closer to going official with it and word is they're even going to phase out the ODSTs in favor of the Spartan-IVs and Yellowjackets," she replied.

"I think...I'm going to take a vacation," Kiza said quietly, after another length of time.

Blake glanced at her. "A vacation?"

"Yes. I...need more time to mourn. But I also know that Enzo would not have me rotting away on some military vessel or isolated location...he'd want me to be enjoying myself. I see this as a...fair compromise. And there are a fair amount of human worlds I've heard about that I wish to see..." she trailed off.

Blake shrugged. "I'm not sure what I'm going to do...what I can do," he replied.

"Just keep moving on," Jennifer said. "It's all we can, do, really."

Blake considered her words. Before long, Linda, Jorge and Kiza wished them farewell and left the graveyard. Jennifer lingered uncertainly. Blake realized she wanted to say something, but was clearly conflicted about it. After a moment, she finally hugged him.

"Call me," she said quietly.

He hugged her back. "I will." She squeezed him, once, then let go, turned and left.

Blake stood there for a long, long time, staring at the graves.

Finally, he shoved his hands into his pockets, turned around and walked away.