He held her hand softly, fingers interlaced. “What’s your favourite graduation?” he whispered, keeping this tradition of small, harmless, personal questions in the dark. She was always herself when no one could see her.

“What do you mean?” she said, genuine.

“Mine was fifth grade.” He turned and gestured out into the room, even if it was so dark he knew she couldn’t see. “We all got tiny caps and gowns like we were graduating high school, but it only took ten minutes because you can’t make nine year olds sit still for much longer. We got a giant piece of paper and then threw our hats at each other. My parents bought me ice cream.” He squeezed her hand a little before adding, explaining, “my mother had passed away by my high school graduation. It was so much longer, too. More stuffy.”

She raised their hands and kissed the back of his. Compassion. Another thing she was so good at, in the dark. “Last time my parents were together was in Kindergarten.” She gave it more thought, and Wash heard her lick her lips. “I think my favourite is college. It was long. Neither of my parents came. I didn’t get ice cream,” she added, with a smile. “But I did it. Without any help, I did it.”

They lay there in silence for a while, her thumb making circles over his. “Did you join right after?” he said.

“Yep,” Connie nodded, like it was the most natural thing in the world. “I’d just graduated college. I thought I could do anything.”

“You can,” he said, without thought. Without hesitation. She squeezed his hand.

“Sometimes, I think so too.” She rolled over, closer to him, and he smiled as she fell asleep, slowly, into his arms. 

“You seem like you’d be the type to fall in love often,” she said, and he wasn’t sure why he took offense to it.

“Is that wrong?” Wash stammered, half defensive, half apologetic. “How many times have you been in love, then?”

“Twice.” The number hung in the air, filling the space between them with intimidation. “Once in high school. It was probably more puppy love than anything. And then again, just after college.”

“What happened?”

“We grew up,” she said with a shrug. “We didn’t grow up together, so when I left for training, there wasn’t anything to sustain.” Connie said all of this looking at the ceiling. His sheets covered her bare hips, just a corner. She had declared it too hot and lacked the modesty to care that the rest of her lay exposed in the dark. The number two floating between them. Or maybe just over him. “I bet you tell girls you love them after a month.”

He crossed his arms, laying down on his back next to her and pouting slightly. “What of it?”

“Doesn’t it, I don’t know, cheapen it? If you say it so often.”

“How can it cheapen what you feel? I say it because it’s true.” She turned to him, looking at him with that intense curiosity that always made him want to share secrets.

“How do you have so much? I mean. You’d run out eventually. You’d get hurt and you’d stop saying it so often because it lets people hurt you.”

“It lets people love you,” he corrected, holding to his point. All defense now.

“Love hurts,” she concluded, rolling back again.

“People hurt,” he corrected again. “Love-“

“I’m tired,” she said, with a certain finality. I’m tired of this conversation. I’m tired of love.

It took him three months longer to say it to her. And three weeks shorter to feel it.

Prompt from Nem: You’re one of my secrets, too. Wash/CT

She always thought he spoke in little private bursts, moments he makes his own as he leans into her ear. She used to accuse him of stealing them, but the more she got to know him, the more she realized that stealing anything was far too dishonest for him. She still wasn’t sure how she felt about that. But she knew how she felt when he would lean over during lunch and mutter something only for her ears, and stolen or not, it was private. It was intimate. It was just like him.

He always thought she was telling him a secret. The way she smiled when he starined to hear, and the small laugh she always had when he asked her to repeat something. Sometimes she slipped him notes, and he thought he was in some kind of spy movie, and the paper would self-destruct after he read it. The more he got to know her, the more she seemed like a secret herself, from her words to her laugh to her smile to the way she held his hand. No one had ever trusted him with a secret before.

When I have a moment, I will write you something more because it’s your birthday so you need more fics. But for now, here’s that one we collaborated on a long time ago that I found and finished this morning as a small, timely gift (to come before the belated one) :P

—-

“I don’t see why we have a random trooper on this mission,” Wyoming said, staring at the offending man in plain, unenhanced armor.

“It is the mission. Protecting a civilian,” South said and the malice was obvious in her voice. Wyoming and Connie laughed.

“Come on, guys,” York said with an easy shrug. “Just give the guy a chance, it won’t kill us to learn how to play nice with others.”

“Surprise, surprise,” Maine growled.

“Hey, we could all use a little more teamwork.”

The new guy laughed, and betrayed that “he” was actually a “she”.

“You’re not helping my case,” York muttered and the girl raised her hands in defense and defeat.

“You can carry your own weight?” Carolina demanded, speaking for the first time since the Pelican took off. “We’re two minutes from drop point.”

“Yeah, no sweat,” she said and that seemed enough for Carolina.

“If I had known we were going to babysit, I would’ve brought my gold stars to give you for doing a good job at not dying,” South muttered with a smile.

“Who would ever let you within a mile of their kids?” York retorted. North’s small, instinctive laugh came over the radio and died just as suddenly as South’s head whipped around to face him.

“She used to babysit all the time,” North said, suddenly very interested in defending his sister’s credibility to watch over children. “Tons of people in our neighborhood would hire her, all the kids were scared shi—-loved her. Loved her, yes.”

“I’ll have to make due without that validation, then,” the girl said, her voice smothered in sarcasm.

“I see why you stuck up for her, York,” Wash chimed in from across the soldier. “She’s got your terrible, obvious sense of humor.”

“Hey, I have a fucking awesome sense of humor,” both of them said at the same time, and Wash sat back smugly with his arms across his chest, his point sufficiently proven.

“Get ready,” Carolina said firmly, cutting the other replies from the agents short. “Showtime.”

“Really?” York snickered and Carolina’s helmet turned to glare at him. “Sorry, sorry, I just…really?”

The doors opened before anything else could be said, and the agents rushed out, a surly Carolina behind them.

“Are you mad you didn’t get to have the last word,” York asked, head tilted towards the leader in an oddly apologetic stance.

“No,” she growled simply.

“Right, because that would be silly.”

“Right.”

York nodded. “Sorry.”

She looked at him for a moment, her expression softening slightly under the helmet, and then - “You know, I could’ve sworn you were taller.”

“Must be how I’m standing or something. We ready to go?”

“After you.”

She gave him an odd look- as she normally did -before shaking her head and jumping out.  The cement cratered under Carolina’s feet, knees nearly touching the ground.  The others had taken up observational cover around her and she was momentarily caught in the revelation that their guest, crouched between the twins, had to be taller than South.  The thought was jarred out of her head when York hit the ground hard, stringing together curses as he got to his feet and- was he limping? -moved to cover next to Maine.  Carolina just shook her head and barked out, “What’ve we got?”  She’d long since come to terms with the fact that, so long as he wasn’t hampering the mission, York just did whatever York did.

“Looks like a full house,” North said, scoping the place out on his sniper rifle.  “Couple of guards and a lot of traffic in the halls.”

Carolina took in the building and surroundings, forming and discarding plans until she said, “Alright, we’ll go for the tried and true method.  Maine, you and South make a nice big diversion on the east end.  I saw some fuel tanks there and possibly a generator on the drop in.  I want you drawing as many to you as you can.  North and Wyoming will scope out sniper positions and cover you.  The rest of us will head into the base.  Connie, we’ll leave you at the data center to get our secondary objective.  Wash, watch her back.  York and I will get out guest here through to our primary objective.  We’ll move once North and Wyoming are in position.  Everyone clear?”

They all nodded, “Got it.”

“Get to it, people!”

The Freelancers split up and as Carolina led hers close to the building entrance, she heard York whispering to the newcomer: “She sounds like some cheesey action movie.”

The newcomer whispered right back, “Hey- everyone’s got their kicks.”

“That doesn’t make it any less ridiculous.”

“Hey,” Carolina snapped at them.  “We’ve got a mission to focus on.”  They held up their hands in almost identical apologetic shrugs.

By Carolina’s elbow, Connie snickered.  “What’s wrong, Carolina?  Jealous that York’s got a new banter buddy?”

“Try keeping up this time, Connecticut.”

Connie just shook her head and laughed which was not the reaction Carolina was going for but at least she didn’t say anything again.  In the end, that was fine by Carolina because, even though she’d never admit it out loud, she thought this was pretty useless training mission.  Get their special guest party member to the center of the facility to gain access to some prototype only she knew the codes for.  Carolina didn’t know why she couldn’t just explain how the Freelancers could get it on their own but the Director had decided and she wasn’t about to question him about it.  He already shot down Connie’s attempts to ask, anyway.

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Wash supposed it was payback for how he broke the news about York.

Not that Carolina was being intentionally malicious. She probably didn’t even know there was anything to be malicious about. He and CT had fallen apart so spectacularly months before that mission, months before he realized she was talking to the Insurrection. So when she told him what happened, and he responded, she didn’t know what was happening.

Sometimes Wash hated how good of a liar he’d become.

And he’d just blurted it out, hastily, just “York is dead.” He didn’t offer her details or explanations or a warning. At least she gave him all three.

Even if he kind of wished she hadn’t.

But that was it, then. Confirmed. CT - Connie - has been dead for a long time. He should have checked the helmet when he first found it. Should have checked for her face. But then he’d be standing here, looking at it in the sand with hope and he remembered how much hope hurts, how it eats at you and how it sweeps everything in its wake for a tidal wave of pain in the face of confirmation.

So he answered, nonchalantly, the same acting that got him re-certified after Epsilon. He looked at the armor of the woman he thought dead, adding a sense of guilt or betrayal. Maybe if he had agreed to leave with her, all that time ago. When she first asked. Maybe then-

Maybe then he wouldn’t need confirmation. He wouldn’t have had to tell Carolina in three words the only person she cared about died. He wouldn’t have had every friend turn on him.

He wouldn’t need to constantly second guess his old squad leader because another betrayal would be just his luck.

He wouldn’t find so much comfort in two teams of simulation troopers who never seem to do anything right, because somehow it seems that little fact keeps them from doing anything horribly wrong, too.

He wouldn’t need confirmation, and it wouldn’t hurt so damn much when he got it.

Part 1 here.

‘Cause it’s been turpentine and patches
It’s been cold, cold Campbell’s from the can
They were just two jerks playing with matches
‘Cause that’s all they knew how to play

The first thing she heard about Project Freelancer was that their top agent had died. The information was years late, she knew, and it was secondhand and not meant for her at all. Information kept from her for years because she said she didn’t want anything else to do with them. That a child was a enough to handle from Project Freelancer.

But now at night she finds herself wondering if that means it was Carolina or Tex. She manages to make it three days before she dusts off her old infiltrator skills and has a sit down with the computer, digging up all of the files she can find on the freelancers.

The first few pages are all the data she brought over with her. It wasn’t until page seven that the information on the AI begins to get more specific. Which one was assigned to which agent. Sorted by importance, the first flagged file she found was a report of an agent who had two AIs at once, and it led to her death. Codename Carolina.

Not for the first time, CT was very glad that she’d never reached the top of that scoreboard.

A few pages more and she read about how York and Tex left the program. Both still with their AIs. Wyoming was not so lucky.

Her fingers typed a flurry of codes and letters and keywords until two articles popped up. Agent Washington receives the Epsilon AI. His resulting mental instability halts the project in its tracks. Committed to a hospital ward until further notice, AI removed.

And there was the other article, the one dated just a week ago. Agent Washington, cleared for duty. New code name: Recovery One.

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She was lying on the floor and counting stretch marks
She hadn’t been a virgin and he hadn’t been a god
So she named the baby Elvis
To make up for the royalty he lacked 

CT was never sure if she should tell him, and her indecision ultimately answered itself. She left without a word to Wash, and she convinced herself that it was better this way. What would he do in this project, with scoreboards and life-but-mostly-death missions and AI, what would he possibly do here with a kid.

She wasn’t sure what she’d do with a kid, either, but all she could think of was that it was his, it was Wash, and it was whole, which is more than she could say for the father.

“You have to get me out, now. There’s a physical in a week.” She tried to record the message without her voice shaking, but she finally conceded that it was impossible to do. She sent it, and the response was immediate. Tomorrow. Be ready for extraction.

That night she said goodbye.

He looked at her oddly, probably caught off guard by the civility of the conversation.

“Bye, Wash.”

“Turning in for the night?”

“Yeah. Hey. Thanks.”

“For what?”

“For making this bearable for so long.”

“You’re welcome,” he said oddly, but didn’t think more of it.

—-

Her skin was flawless. He had expected freckles, he wasn’t sure why, but when he saw he face up close, there was nothing but smooth skin.

For some reason he had this thought that her long sleeve shirts would hide birthmarks and blemishes and moles and, somehow, scars. As she took the shirts off in the dark of his room at what passes for night time out in space, his fingers traced the skin gingerly and found nothing. It was smooth, much smoother than he’d ever thought.

He relied on this tactile experience to get to know her body, the idle thoughts of imperfections now desperate desires to find them, but all he found was smooth, soft, tingling skin.

The morning she left, she pushed a small piece of paper under Wash’s door, the location of the thing he’d spent every on again, off again meeting searching for. It said “small blemish, behind right ear lobe”. She didn’t sign it, and she knew she didn’t need to.

—-

She could run her fingers over the tight skin on her stomach now and close her eyes and pretend it was still silky and smooth. She felt him kick underneath the skin, stained with white veins of stress, worry, and love running on the sides of her body.

She had toyed with the idea of naming him David. She thought it’d be fitting, or poetic, or something, but in the end when she heard him cry the name “Elvis” slipped out, slipped out because for the past eighteen hours she’d been humming the very first song Wash ever sang to her - Love Me Tender.

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completelysane replied to your post: I’m spiralling towards introvert writing mode but…

Braille-inspired AU? What is this wonderful thing?

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it before, but an AU inspired by the song Braille by Regina Spektor, because it’s amazing and she’s wonderful and also all the things.

The basic plotline of it is that CT leaves Project Freelancer pregnant with Wash’s kid. And how all of that works in with the rest of the events of the series.