Chapter Text
Late nights always seemed to start like this for John.
He had spent three years training at the the Naval Special Warfare Training Facility on Reach, and every night was always the same. He would walk the halls, check on the trainees under his command, and order them to go to sleep.
They would always make excuses, saying they had to clean weapons or work out, but John knew that if they didn't sleep now, their training might not permit them to sleep for another week. Even armed with that as a threat it was normally still hard to convince the workaholic Spartans to catch some shuteye, except for today.
CPO Mendez had been pushing them hard recently, if he didn't know any better he would have said too hard, but he was training them to be the best and the best trained the hardest, right?
Regardless, none of them had returned from today's training mission with enough energy to do anything but basic equipment maintenance before immediately falling asleep. Still he felt obligated to do his rounds and check the ten separate rooms where the Spartan teams slept. As he approached the final room, his squad's room, he realized that a light was still on inside.
Who is too stubborn to take advantage of a time like this? Thought John.
He rounded the corner and found the Spartan in question sitting at a workbench in the back of the room, her blood red hair cascading over the back of her Marpat fatigues, the numbers 058 attached to her jacket's shoulder with a velcro patch.
"Linda?" He called to her.
"Just a minute sir," she responded.
John approached her and found she had pulled her sniper rifle out of one of the weapons lockers and was frantically soldering together some computer components she had pulled from the inside of its scope, with the rest of the rifle was spread out over the length of two tables.
John hadn't even know the weapon had had that many parts, but leave it to Linda to find them. If there was one thing he knew about her, it was she was at her best behind a rifle, in fact, what else did he know about her? Save the fact that she was always incredibly stressed and took personal responsibility for any failure of any of the Spartans, and that she rarely spoke to anyone on or off the battlefield.
John pulled up a chair to join her. "Linda, shouldn't you be getting some rest?" He asked with a hint of concern.
She barely looked up long enough to acknowledge his presence. "No sir, I have work to do."
She picked up the receiver of her rifle and slid the bolt in, racked it to test how it cycled, and scowled in dissatisfaction at how it performed.
John sighed, "Linda, you don't have to call me sir. I'm not an officer, and besides, just because I'm squad leader doesn't mean I can't be your friend as well. Now come on, tell me what's wrong."
Linda paused for a moment before sighing in exasperation.
She set the receiver down on the table and picked up a small circuit board with wires hanging haphazardly from all sides. She thrust it into his hands and went back to work on her rifle.
"That's the ballistic computer for my rifle," she explained. "Last training exercise it failed and miscalculated the windage by 2%, and failed to account for the weight of the tranquilizer rounds. I missed a critical shot because of it. That's not acceptable."
She grabbed the circuit board back and went right back to soldering.
John thought back to the exercise. Linda had performed admirably. She had dropped so many of the ODSTs Mendez had sent to face them that the rest had turned and ran. He smiled as he thought of the scolding he had given those troopers. All of them had been quaking in their boots as Mendez told them that they had just been bested by teenagers.
"Linda, we won that game," said John reassuringly, "You're being way too hard on yourself."
He placed a caring hand on her shoulder, squeezing it lightly. she paused for a moment before letting out a long breath and closing her eyes. She looked as spent as an empty shell casing. He was almost surprised she didn't fall asleep right then and there. John was starting to think he was making progress, but Linda abruptly wrenched his hand from her shoulder and went back to working on her weapon.
"But what if we hadn't?" She asked, "What if that one shot had been all that mattered and I pulled it? What would have happened then?" She said frustratedly.
"We would have lost," John said cooly, "Mendez would have scolded us and probably punished us somehow, and we would have tried again the next day. If we don't learn to move past failures we'll end up driving ourselves crazy trying to stop every one of them. Now get some rest, and that's an order."
Linda seemed ready to refuse, but set down her rifle a moment latter in defeat.
She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. "you're right, I'm tired as hell," she breathed.
Her eyes slowly crept open and she reassembled her rifle with lightning speed, taking care to make sure every part fit perfectly. She set it into the weapons locker and turned to meet his gaze for the first time.
"Thanks John," she said with a small, toothless smile.
It was the first smile John had ever seen a smile cross Linda's face, and it caused an odd feeling in him. Sure, women had smiled at him before. Kelly always seemed to be smiling, and doctor Halsey smiled occasionally, but Linda's smile was different. It caused his heart to lift momentarily, and for a moment he was completely focused on her.
She gave him a funny look, and he realized he must have been staring at her.
He looked away nervously, but to his surprise Linda's smile only grew wider. She stood and stretched before flopping down onto her bunk, not even bothering to change out of her BDU's.
"Promise me you'll get some rest, ok?" John said with concern.
"I promise," said Linda as she rolled over onto her side. She closed her eyes and fell almost instantly asleep.
John looked over at her once more. Something about seeing her asleep made him very happy. Maybe it was the way her features seemed to lose some of the war weariness no one her age should ever have, or maybe it was because her normally rigid straight posture had finally vanished and for the first time since John had met her, she actually looked relaxed.
He smiled at her one last time before falling onto his own bunk and catching some much needed rest himself.
The freezing wind burned John's face as it howled through the Spartan's camp.
It was a cold day on reach, much like every other day, and CPO Mendez had decided during today's routine training exercise to leave the Spartan trainees stranded in the middle of a blizzard with only a handful of tents, and no sleeping bags. John hadn't brought a tent, and most of the Spartans had already filled theirs. The only tent with space left belonged to Linda. In spite of himself, John felt rather happy about that fact.
Linda and him had become close friends recently, and he had noticed a stark change in her personality around him. She always stuck close to him, trained with him at every opportunity, and always had a smile and a kind word for him.
John couldn't deny that he liked her new found fondness for him. Whenever she approached he always seemed to get an odd, nervous feeling in his gut, and would lose the ability to talk right, that is of course until she gave him a reassuring smile that made him feel right at home.
Despite his clumsiness around her, he always wanted to be as close to her as he could. Just her presence was enough to turn another awful day of training into something slightly more manageable, and he had had a lot of awful days of training recently.
He had heard doctor Halsey describe feelings like these as love, something she said existed in nature, but science had never been able to quantify. When he had asked CPO Mendez if he knew anything about love, he had looked at him like he was from another galaxy.
"Love, squad leader, is for recruits and civilians," he answered sternly. "NCO's and officers like you and me can't show love, it undermines command authority, gets people killed, and will cause your squad mates to lose respect for you. That is all you need to know about love."
John had felt dejected after Mendez's explanation, and began to wonder what it was about love that was so dangerous, but hadn't dared inquire further. He knew in his heart that what he felt for Linda must be love, and if he couldn't show love to her then he would simply stay close to her and make sure nothing bad ever happened to her. Besides, if love was truly so dangerous, wouldn't Linda be beyond it? She was a much more professional soldier than he, which was saying a lot, and she would never feel something so dangerous towards him, would she?
John walked through the camp one last time, checking to make sure all the other Spartans were settled in and those Spartans who had volunteered to take watch were set up around the makeshift camp's perimeter before heading for Linda's tent.
As he approached Linda's tent and took a deep breath, pushing aside any feelings he might have for her before he entered. He unzipped the tent flap and found Linda huddled in a ball, pulling her heavy parka around herself tightly.
"Hey Linda, all the other tents are full, can I come in?"
She nodded and smiled, "of course John."
As soon as he saw her smile Mendez's instructions blew away like a gust of wind and he found his heart lifting once again, his breathing slightly quickening, and he felt a smile creeping over his face. He sat down next to her and pulled his jacket tightly around himself.
"So...cold," said John through chattering teeth.
Linda's responding laugh was distorted by shivering, "No kidding."
Her laugh set off something inside of him just as powerful as her smile. He found himself smiling broadly and moving just a bit closer to her, wanting more than anything for this feeling to intensify.
Mendez's scolding crossed his mind momentarily, but quickly vanished and the joy of being near Linda came back to him. She turned to look at him, her emerald green eyes eyeing him up and down, a gaze he found hard to meet without a blush creeping over his face.
Her smile changed to a mischievous smirk after a moment. "I know how we could warm up," she said softly.
Linda scooted closer to him and wrapped her arms around his chest, pulling herself close to him and resting her head against him.
John's heart beat increased rapidly, and he tensed almost reflexively.
What is she doing?
Embracing someone was an action way too affectionate for her taste, or for any Spartan's taste for that matter. Could she possibly feel the same way about him that he felt about her?
For a moment he lost his voice.
"What are you doing?" he barely managed to get out.
She laughed, "at ease John, I'm just getting some body heat."
John frowned in spite of himself.
"Of course," he said dejectedly, "just getting body heat."
He had to quit getting his hopes up like that, it would only hurt him every time she answered. She gave him an odd smile before unzipping his jacket and wedging herself snugly between it and him. While she seemed to be right at home being this close to him, his posture was still rigid, straight, and awkward out of fear that he would somehow let slip his feelings for her if he gave into his intense urge to pull her close and bask in the soft warmth she gave off.
Linda frowned at his rigid posture. "Come on John, I don't bite. Relax a little," she said reassuringly.
John's face flushed red from embarrassment. "Sorry, it's just, uh, you don't normally do this," he said uneasily.
Linda smiled affectionately and pulled herself a little closer to him. "No, I don't, Which is why you should relax John. You have my full permission to enjoy this."
"Enjoy this?" Said John in surprise, "I thought we were trying to keep from freezing to death."
She chuckled. "Call it what you like. I just like being close to you."
John's heart filled with hope for a brief moment. Maybe, just maybe, she did feel the same way about him. He tried to crush that thought, but to no avail. If he couldn't show love to Linda openly, then he would simply have to love her in secret, make sure she felt at home around him, and hope that secretly, she loved him back.
He finally allowed himself to relax and wrap his arms around her, taking in her gentle warmth and soft touch. Linda sighed happily and her sleepy smile widened under his embrace.
She shifted so that her ear rested over the left side of his chest and closed her eyes.
"God you have a strong heart John," she said after a moment.
He raised an eyebrow, "what do you mean?"
She giggled in a way that made John very happy. "You're heart, it has a really strong beat. It's a soothing thing to hear, especially in a place like this where I wonder sometimes whether or not I'm any more human than a maintenance robot."
John smiled down at her. "You're much more than that to me."
"Why?" She asked groggily, sleep threatening to overtake her.
He struggled for an appropriate response, but found none.
Because I'm in love with you, he thought dejectedly, wishing he could bring himself to say it.
He thought for a long moment about what to say, but before he could act Linda's breathing slowed, and she drifted off to sleep in his arms.
He let out a sigh of relief. At least he had successfully dodged that question.
He allowed himself a long look down at her as she continued to drift blissfully. Her face seemed to lack any tension, making her look just a little less war weary. Her emerald green eyes were shut tight, and John found himself wishing they were open so he could stare into them and admire them. Her blood red hair, that was well longer than regulation, hung gracefully down over her shoulders and a few wisps of it dangled in front of her face, which John gently brushed aside. There was no doubt in his mind that she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He wanted nothing more than to run his fingers through her silky and fiery red hair and feel her soft skin, but stopped himself.
Those were dangerous thoughts, and he needed to get rid of them before they prompted him to do something stupid.
Instead he decided to tilt his head forward, close his eyes, and enjoy this rare moment of bliss.
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