babysit | ( c o n t a c t )

(He hesitates for a moment, knowing that if Joan had sold them out, she could have done it at any time. Stuck a knife in Sam, shot him right now and told everyone the state of the Spartans.

He pulls at a dog tag, except it's not one. It's a sort of chip that has a crystal in the middle.)

This. (He says, swallowing hard.) Is what has caused my lace to inflame. The lace allows an AI to root itself at the base of my spine, and interface with the armor.

(His head nods to the bulky armor in the corner, neat and spread out as he cleans out all of the blood and sea life from it.)

Cortana cannot know, because Cortana is that AI.

[ To say it's a bit much to digest would be something of an understatement. Joan's met Cortana; they've traded jokes on the deck of the ship. (Jokes which mostly had to do with Chief and the amount of stubbornness can exist in a single man.) Now Cortana is an AI that's been downloaded into Chief's spine.

Still, technological differences aside, Joan isn't stupid. She knows how to draw a line to connect the dots provided. Joan talks slowly, carefully, like she's trying to make sure what she says is right. ]

You downloaded Cortana into your spine. And now your body is fighting her off like an infection?

No. (He says softly, looking at the dog tag as if it's a memory more than anything else.)

Our last mission was stressful for her. (that he had to hear her slowly die in the back of his head, racing against time to stop the Didact and to get her back to Halsey.)

She had to split her programming to save me. (That pause says all that needs to be said.) Along with the Librarian rewriting my DNA - it was too much for it.

[ Joan looks at Master Chief for a long time. He is, in many ways other than the frustratingly stubborn, an impossible human being. The more that she talks to him the more that she realizes that whatever frame of references she has for most people, they don't apply to Master Chief. (Which didn't make him exempt, only exceptional. There's a difference as far as Joan's concerned.)

She's not entirely sure what to say next. ]

I'm sorry, [ is what she finally settles on, moving to place a hand on his shoulder. (A compassionate gesture that she's certain will just confuse him. ] That you had to go through that. I mean, beyond just the physical stuff.

I know how much she means to you.

She can't know that this is happening.

(He explains, trying to avoid how weird it is that a lot of people have been comforting him lately. Not just here, but back 'home'. But, Cortana is dead there and alive here, he takes his lumps with his victories.)

I'm better with her. (He concedes; she literally makes him better. She's there to make him more efficient, to make sure that he gets the job done. Without her, he would have fired the Halo rings and killed all life in the galaxy. But, more importantly, she makes him human. The Spartans were his family, and as time wore on and the war raged, he was the last Spartan-II left. Cortana, to him, is everything that he has left.)

[ The moment is as much about her as it is about him. In a way it reassures Joan that all this going out on a limb to consult with the Spartans isn't leading her into a blind alley full of nothing but frustration. The fact that Master Chief can open up to her and trust her meant a lot. ]

I know what that's like. To have someone like that. [ She's thinking about Sherlock again, but Joan quickly puts that aside. ] I meant what I said about trusting me.

She won't find out from me. But you have to promise to tell me if that inflammation gets any worse.

(It's like the planets aligned for her, or the fact that he's recovering from an infection, but he gets up and starts acting as if nothing happened.)

If I start talking about UNSC secrets, you'll know. (That was a joke, to make the moment less tense.)

[ Joan rolls her eyes but accepts the levity because it's not as though Chief knows how to roll with things otherwise. She gestures with a hand to his side. ]

Your stitches. [ A beat. ] Or at least I'm assuming those are stitches under there.

Yes, there are. (she's going to see the damage from a pistol shot and a pulse round assault rifle (which is terrible), so he might as well gear up for the assault on him.)

Wire. I think.

[ She levels him with a look that isn't half as bad as it could be. Wire stitches meant something brutal. Rather than chew him out, she asks: ]

Do you want me to take a look?

Yes.

(there can't be any more classified information, right? the scars along his arms and torso from the augmentations have faded, leaving thin lines that could easily be hidden by scars.)

[ She actually appreciates that answer and so quickly moves to grab the medkit that she'd spent much of her time in Rapture building. Inside is an assortment of things, though the mention of wire has her foregoing the needle and thread. ]

Now, I don't have a surgical stapler. I'm not sure what Dr. Halsey's got on her end, but worse comes to worse I can ask once I get a closer look.

Sew me up if you have to. (he says, looking right at her with that same determined look.)

Do what you need to.

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