Chapter Text
The war on Chorus had been put to rest. All that remained was to clean up the remaining few mercenaries and start rebuilding the planet. Unfortunately, that first part was more difficult than Wash had first anticipated.
All of the Reds and Blues had been sent out to destroy one of the Mercs last safehouses. Carolina had gone in ahead to scout and see what they were dealing with. She reported that all of the mercs were holed up in a back room. She couldn’t see what they were doing but the mercs inside sounded panicked. They were shushing each other constantly and the sound of weapons trading hands could be heard.
The front door was the only access point to the room. Carolina would enter the room first, with Wash and the rest of the Reds and Blues trailing after. Wash pulled the pin on the flashbang and let the fuse run down for a few moments before Carolina opened the door a crack. He tossed the grenade inside and Carolina slammed the door shut. The flashbang went off inside and from the sounds of it, the mercs started firing wildly. Carolina threw the door open and started firing at the mercs inside. Wash followed.
Inside of the room was all sorts of alien tech. Many of the mercenaries were holding pieces of tech, with their normal weapons piled in a corner. None of them seem to know how to properly use the devices, as half of the blinded mercs’ weapons weren’t even firing. One in the back of the room was holding something that looked less like a gun and more like a small cannon. Despite the confusion, he had managed to keep his weapon pointed at the door. When Carolina and Wash started firing, the merc pulled the switch on his weapon.
The freelancers didn’t notice the cannon until it was too late and a bright light engulfed the two.
By the time the Reds and Blues had entered the room, Carolina and Wash were nowhere to be seen.
North Dakota was sitting on a bar stool at the island in the kitchen of the freelancer community area while Wash dug through the fridge.
“Are you sure we aren’t out of it?” North amusedly ate his toast with butter.
“I’m sure there’s some, I specifically asked for it when we stopped for supplies.”
North chuckled. “Well, you better find it quick or else your bagel is going to burn.”
Washington groaned and moved to collect his slightly burnt bagel from the toaster. One earbud hung out of his ear with the end of the earbuds leading into the pocket of the gray and yellow sweatshirt he was wearing.
Wash pulled and cream cheese out of the fridge and added it to his bagel. He handed North another bagel from his seat on the counter. North walked around the counter and placed the new bagel in the toaster and pulled the peanut butter out of the cupboards in preparation.
North and Wash held a conversation over the merits of putting fruit on a bagel while North split his attention between finishing his toast and preparing his sister’s breakfast.
“It’s one thing to put peanut butter on a bagel, but you don’t just put fruit on it.”
North set the bagel on a plate and slide it to the end of the counter. “Maine eats peanut butter and banana sandwiches.”
Wash pulled his phone out of his pocket and switched the song he was listening to. “Yeah, but that's a closed sandwich with bread. Not a bagel, which is meant to be eaten with nonsolids on it.”
North looked down the hall and saw his sister approaching. “A bagel is a bread.”
Wash slid off the counter to grab something to drink. “No, bagels are a grain. They are not bread.”
“If they aren’t bread, then what are they?” North handed Wash a glass from the cupboard.
“A grain.” Wash pulled out the gallon of milk and filled the glass before looking towards South. She glanced at the gallon and shook her head.
North took the milk from Wash and set it back in the fridge. “That doesn’t really answer the question.”
“What the hell are you two arguing about?”
“Whether or not it’s legal to put fruit on a bagel.”
South stared at Wash for a second. “What the fuck?”
The rookie threw one hand in the air, careful not to spill the milk in his other hand. “That’s what I said!”
South shook her head. “No, why are you drinking 1%? There’s 2% in there right?” South turned to her brother.
He nodded. “There is. Wash just prefers 1%.”
“Why?” South looked at her brother for a second.
North moved to get his sister a glass of 2%.
Wash crossed his arms defensively. “It’s what I always had at home. 2% tastes weird.”
“You taste weird. North, is there any whole milk?” South took the glass from her brother.
“No, there isn’t, or I would have given you some.” North started up the coffee machine and set a tea kettle on the stove to boil.
Wash set his glass on the counter and slid off it to put his plate in the trash. “Did your guys' family ever call milk something other than milk? My family always called it cow juice.”
South snorted. “We called it moo juice.”
“No, Mom called it moo juice. Mama normally called it milk but intentionally said it weird. Meelk.” North drew out the odd vowel for emphasis.
“Nice.” Wash grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl and quickly ate it before pulling out his phone and opening a game.
“What are you doing?” North grabbed 9 mugs and set them out on the counter. He pulled out the coffee creamer, sugar, and 2% milk and set it down beside the mugs.
“Grinding, I bet Florida that I’d have more wither skulls than him by the end of the week.” Wash played until the coffee poured into the pot. He slid off the counter and helped North ready everyone’s morning drinks
North set Connie’s, Florida’s, and Wyoming’s mugs off to the side for Wyoming to prepare. The Brit like to switch up what they drank. He also refused to drink North’s tea, since he apparently could never make it correctly.
Either way, North slid Maine’s, Carolina’s and Wash's cup over to Wash for him to make. There was one thing Wash could make and he liked to try different things with their drinks.
North slid South her mug and started readying York's and his own. Quickly all of the coffee was read and placed at all of the freelancer's chairs around the counters to cool. Wyoming walked in sweatpants and Florida's blue hoodie with hair wet from the showers. He took the kettle of boiling water off the stove and started preparing the tea.
North, South, and Wash rarely attended the pre-dawn training session and instead had to make everyone's coffee. York was the next one in the room and grabbed the mug from North.
The mugs had been a pseudo-gag gift from the director for the 1 year anniversary of Project Freelancer. They were custom ordered in the colors of the agents’ armor with their corresponding state flower on the side. Wash and Connie weren't a part of the team when they first got the gifts so the director ordered them theirs afterward. Wash would deny it, but everyone had seen him tear up when we first saw his.
In return, the freelancers had started a tradition of going to thrift shops and finding the worst t-shirts and giving them to him for their non-denominational winter holiday gift exchange. The current winner was a shirt that started first glance said “I love my wife”. But upon a closer look, it actually read “I love it when my wife lets me mini golf”. Carolina had let it slip that he wore it around his private quarters fairly often.
All of the agents, excluding Maine, had made it into the room and had migrated to the couches surrounding the coffee table in front of the TV. UNSC news played softly in the background. Wash finished his coffee first and cleaned his mug in the sink before moving back to the couch. Several more freelancers finished but didn’t get up, instead choosing to leave their warm mugs on coasters on top of the glass table and continuing to talk. Florida collected then dirty mugs and moved to clean them. Wash followed him. After the dishes, excluding Maine’s still full mug, were cleaned, Florida and Wash headed towards the door.
“Now, where are you two going?” York leaned over the back of the couch.
“Well, now. Washington asked me for help with his knife skills, Maine is going to join us.” Florida made to open the door when a loud crack followed by crashing drew their attention to the kitchen island again. A bright light quickly faded. A figure in seafoam armor drew themselves to their feet behind the island and pointed a gun over the counter at the armorless freelancers. They were soon joined by someone in gray armor with yellow accents as they scrambled to their feet.
Neither figure made an aggressive move beyond pointing their guns at the armorless freelancers, but both of them kept their fingers on the triggers of their weapons.
“Lina, Wash, isn’t that your armor?” York was careful not to make any sudden moves, still, the seafoam one turned to point her gun at him.
“Who are you?” The gray one spoke. Florida tried to inch towards the button on the wall that would connect them to whoever was on camera duty and at least get their attention if they hadn’t already noticed the new arrival.
The seafoam one turned from York and aimed at Florida. “Don’t move.” Florida stopped moving.
Wash looked around. FILSS should have detected the intruders and sent this section of the MOI into lockdown. Even if something had messed with her, the person on camera duty could activate lockdown remotely.
Instead, the door Wash and Florida were next to, flew off its hinges and Maine stormed into the room. Washington and Florida scrambled away from the door and Maine charged the intruders without hesitation.
The two intruders when in opposite directions as Maine dove over the island at them. The gray one yelled, “Meta!” as he dodged the freelancer. At the distraction, the freelancers on the couch made for the open doorway. York, Wash, and Carolina made it out, but the person with the seafoam armor blocked the door before any more could escape.
Maine chased Gray around the room. The uninvited visitor couldn’t get far enough away to use his firearm. He instead focused on simply trying to run away from the freelancer chasing him. Seafoam kept the remaining freelancers in the room while also trying to aim at Maine. They couldn’t risk firing though, without the possibility of hitting their partner.
The speaker on the wall drew Seafoam’s attention as a chiming noise echoed from it, followed by FILSS saying, “Now activating armor lock for all units in the freelancer community area. Please standby for lockdown.”
All three sets of armor lockdown, trapping their wearers. Maine had managed to get Gray into a headlock and they were frozen in that position.
After a moment, male voice with a noticeable southern accent spoke over the intercom. “FILSS, please release Agent Maine.”
“It'd be my pleasure.” Another chime sounded and Maine could move.
The Director spoke again. “Agent Maine, move them away from the doorway and disarm them. The rest of you, go get your armor.”
The remaining freelancers scrambled out of the door. York, Wash, and Carolina ran into the room, carrying weapons as Maine searched Seafoam. York and Wash kept their guns pointed at the locked figures while Carolina moved to disarm Gray.
A growl from Maine drew her attention to the intruder that matched her armor. Almost a dozen knives of various sizes were laid on the ground along with several different types of grenades, some glowing orange cubes, and 4 different types of guns.
Maine held something out to Carolina. “Look.”
Gray inhaled sharply at Maine’s voice. Maine held out his hand and showed Carolina two armor enhancements. Carolina took them. Speed and adaptive camouflage, the same enhancements she had.
Maine tilted his head.
Carolina shook her head. “We’ll deal with it in a minute.” She moved back to Gray and finished stripping him of weapons. They moved all of their weapons to a corner with the freelancers standing between the intruders and the weapons and awaited orders. Carolina held onto Seafoam’s enhancements as well as the healing unit she had found on Gray.
“FILSS, I want you to be ready to put the one in gray and yellow back in lockdown at a moment’s notice. For now, let the gray one out.” The voice over the speaker was the Councilor.
Gray immediately moved between the freelancers and Seafoam and got into a fighting stance.
North lowered his sniper rifle. “Hey, let’s all try and calm down now.”
Gray laughed. “I’d agree with you if I wasn’t standing in a room of people who are pointing weapons at me-” Seafoam cut him off the best she could, despite not being able to move her jaw.
Gray looked back at Seafoam before nodding and turning back to the freelancers. “I think my partner would rather do the talking.” A tremor ran through Gray.
“Very well. Relock his armor and release his companion.” The Director accepted.
Another chime sounded and both Gray and Wash’s armor locked down. Seafoam’s armor then released.
The Director sighed. “FILSS, please release Agent Washington.”
“Very well.” Both suits of gray armor exited lockdown mode simultaneously.
“FILSS, why do you keep releasing the intruder’s armor when I asked you to only release Washington’s?” The Director sounded frustrated.
“I am sorry, sir, but in my system, the intruder is registered as being Agent Washington.”
Seafoam spoke up. “That’s probably because he is Agent Washington.”
FILSS came over the speaker system again. “Huh, that would probably explain the discrepancy. Then would you also be Agent Carolina.”
“You’d be correct, FILSS.” The intruder Carolina looked towards the ceiling.
“Director, what should we do?” Most of the freelancers were unsure on how to proceed, including Carolina, who had spoken.
“Remain where you are. We have some questions for Carolina and Washington. If that’s okay with you?” The Councilor asked cautiously.
Intruder Carolina turned to her companion and quietly asked, “Are you going to be okay?”
When Wash replied, his voice was shaky. “I can deal with it for now.”
Carolina didn’t like that answer but nodded anyway. Washington moved behind her, still shaking occasionally. Carolina could hear his unsteady breathing and his vitals on her HUD read his heartbeat as almost on the verge of a panic attack.
Carolina readjusted her stance. “Okay, what do you want to know?”
Connie watched the exchange nervously. All of the freelancers were listening to their private radio frequency where North and York were discussing conspiracy theories on what was happening. They were currently debating whether it was time travel or if they were alien created clones. The rest of the freelancers were tuning them out and talking on the text channel instead.
WSH: Something must have happened to them
STH: no shit
FLD: From what I can see, Not You is not coping very well.
CRL: He looks like hes having a panic attack.
FLD: Probably, considering he’s standing in a room where he’s pointing a gun at himself.
MNE: i dont like it
MNE: hes not acting like wash
WYO: I’d have to agree with you. He’s basically hiding behind Not Carolina.
FLD: He’s shaking really badly.
Florida had a point. It didn’t even seem like Not Wash was listening to the Councilor’s and Director’s questions. He was instead periodically staring off into space for a couple of minutes only being pulled out of the daze by a full body shiver. He would then case the room again, and repeat the process.
NTH: I think he’s disassociating
STH: are you two done with your conspiracy theory contest now
YRK: not even close. we havent even gotten to alternate dimensions yet.
YRK: but i dont think hes disassociating exactly.
CRL: Theres probably a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this.
YRK: disassociating is when your body kind of goes on autopilot so you dont have to mentally deal with what evers going on.
YRK: i think hes distracted by something.
CNT: And on the verge of a panic attack
YRK: that too
WYO: You might want to start paying attention to what’s going on.
YRK: you say that, but maines been filming this entire thing. we can look at it later.
MNE: sure
WYO: What inspiring confidence.
CNT: Shut up and pay attention. Not Wash is going to start talking.
“Wash. Wash.” Carolina nudged Washington, knocking him out of the daze. “Are you up to answer a couple questions?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Wash shook his helmeted to try and clear the clouds from between his ears. “I’m okay.” He raised his voice above a whisper and looked towards the ceiling. “What is it?”
The Director repeated his question. “Do you have any idea how you got here?”
Wash looked to Carolina to know how much he could say. “I only told them about us busting the merc hideout. I didn’t give them anything else.”
“Okay.” Wash tried to steady his voice. “I’m assuming the merc’s weapon was what sent us here.”
“Do you know where ‘here’ is?” Wash had to actively stop himself from stiffening at the Councilor’s question.
Wash took a deep breath. “We’re on the Mother of Invention aren’t we?”
“You’d be correct.” The Director confirmed.
“Though, I’m assuming that’s not what you were actually asking me.” No one spoke up at Wash’s remark.
Wash turned to Carolina. “We’re either in the past or in an alternate universe. That or hallucinating.”
There was a pause before the Councilor broke the silence. “Now, that might be a jump in logic-”
“Not really.” Wash cut off the Councilor’s statement. “The technology that sent us here is related to devices that allows us to teleport. When we were first messing with that tech, we lost one of our own in a place outside of time and reality for a while. The teleporting tech was probably combined with some other tech that we’ve encountered before that allows you to mess with time. It’s not that much of a stretch that we landed somewhere else.”
The silence that followed was one of both shock and disbelief. The next voice that came over the speaker was one that Wash recognized but couldn’t place. “You said it was either time travel or dimensional teleportation, which one do you think it?” The voice was feminine.
“I think it’s both. I don’t remember this room at all. We never had a community area. It was never in the plans for the ship and the MOI crashed around 5 years ago. Though it’s probably about 8 years in the past just from context clues. I also don’t know who you are.”
“I’m General Church, but you can refer to me as the General.” The woman introduced herself.
Wash searched through his memory for someone known as the general and couldn’t find anyone outside of Chorus. He eventually stumbled upon one of the Director’s memories that floored him. Wash’s knees gave out as he saw a blonde woman dressed in camo complain about how the Director was going to make her late.
Wash was out of breath. “Allison. You’re Allison. You’re Agent Texas.” He could feel Carolina’s hands on his shoulders but his breathing was ragged and his vision was tunneling. Wash felt his back press up against the island and held his hands to the sides of his head.
His HUD warned about his dangerously high heart rate and that he wasn’t getting enough oxygen. He tore his helmet off to stop the beep. Wash screwed his eyes shut and threw his helmet across the room. He heard the Director yell something over the speakers, but it was nothing compared to the buzzing in Wash’s ears. Carolina was fighting someone.
Wash felt a prick on the side of his neck and lashed out. His foot connected with something, but it was too late. The buzzing began quieting, as did the rest of Washington’s thoughts until he couldn’t think anymore and submitted to the quiet darkness that the drug offered.
North jumped at the sound of Not Wash collapsing. He fell and pressed against the kitchen island. Every inch of him was shaking like a leaf and North could hear him hyperventilating.
Not Carolina spun to face Not Wash and kneeled down. She pressed her gloved hands on his shoulders. She was trying to ground him.
Not Wash didn't react to her touch, instead preferring to pull his helmet off the throw it across the room.
North froze at the sight. He looked exactly like Wash, except more scarred and tired. It didn't look like he'd slept in a week.
North knew that Wash sometimes had bouts of insomnia, but it wouldn't last more than a day or two before someone either wrapped him in blankets and slept with him to make sure he actually slept or someone would make him get sleeping meds from the med bay.
Not Wash's eyes were pressed close but North bet they would be dilated to hell if they were open. His black roots had grown out more than the Washington North knew would ever stand. His hair was about to his ears. It had been a long time since his last haircut.
“Sedate him.” The General commanded over the speakers.
A medic in red armor with white accents poked his head into the room and looked around.
“NO!” Not Carolina rose to her feet and prepared to defend her companion.
“Carolina, York, Wyoming, subdue her. Sedate her if she won't comply.” The Director spoke. The medic and several others walked into the room and hid behind the wall of armed freelancers.
Carolina, York, and Wyoming shared a brief glance before fanning out and surrounding Not Carolina.
“I won’t let you touch him.” Not Carolina almost growled the sentence.
“We don’t want to hurt you.” Carolina drew her fists in a mimicry of her doppelgänger.
Not Carolina didn’t grace Carolina with a reply, instead choosing to rush her. The two were almost evenly matched. Though in a fair fight, Not Carolina would have won. She held all of the grace and power of Carolina with the desperation of fighting for her life and her family on a near-daily basis.
But she wasn’t skilled enough to fight herself, York, and Wyoming at that same time. After a few minutes, the freelancers had her pinned to the ground and a medic administered a sedative. In less than a minute, she was unconscious.
Another medic approached Not Washington. The soldier still hadn’t looked up. In the time since Not Carolina had tried to fight, he had gone from just holding his head to pulling at his hair and scratching at his implants. Another medic managed to administer him a sedative but received a booted kick to the kneecap for his troubles. After Not Wash fell asleep, everyone in the room looked to the ceiling for instructions.
It was the Director who spoke. “Take them both to the med bay. Strip them of their armor and run a full diagnosis on both of them as well as their armor.”
“Don’t restrain them in the med bay, but make sure that they are monitored at all times.” The Counselor chimed in. “Take them out of their body suits and dress them in casual clothing. Their counterparts are probably around the same size.”
The medical staff moved to follow the directions and soon both of the intruders were loaded onto cots and taken to the med bay. When all of the medical staff had left the room, the freelancers turned to the ceiling for instructions.
“Proceed with the day as if nothing had happened. If anything does occur, you will be alerted. The common room will be repaired by this evening.” The Director didn’t leave any room for discussion and the agents filed towards the training rooms.