(Apologies for the 'ending' of the last chapter. I was jotting down ideas for the epilogue and forgot to delete them. It's fixed now. I've also scrapped that idea, so consider yourselves 'unspoiled' for the epilogue – if there even will be one.)

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Forty Two

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"Exactly how much furniture are you going to make before realising that there is only so much space in our home?"

Grinning, John appeared unrepentant. Digging a finger into her temple, Gabby attempted to wear a mask of annoyance. She could never hide her smiles from John, though, and he patiently waited her out. With a huff, she gave in. Warm light sang in her chest, affection burning bright. When Gabby looked up, John was leaning his hip against her new desk.

"When I asked if you could fix the wobbling leg," Gabby began, "I didn't mean fix it by building me a whole new desk."

John shrugged, as if to say your point?

"Above and beyond, honey." Gabby edged around the old desk. Compared to the new one it did look rather ratty, scuffed, scored, and stained from more than one spilled coffee. One of the legs had been Boomer's chew toy when he was teething. "Oh, alright. You spoil me. It's beautiful, John. I didn't realise you'd moved onto large furniture yet."

"I hadn't." He looped an arm around her back as she reached him, pulling her flush to his side. "I learned."

For you, went unsaid, and for me.

Touched, Gabby threaded their fingers together, squeezing his scarred palm.

"Coitus interruptus, babes!"

"I'm going to disown him," Gabby muttered, feeling more than hearing John's laugh. "Or throw something at him. I haven't decided."

Kirk made a great show of cautiously peering into the study, eyebrows waggling, before actually coming inside.

"You're awful." Gabby gave into the urge and pelted a wadded up ball of paper at him. Kirk let it bounce off his forehead, barely blinking, and grinned broadly.

"I think you mean handsome."

With a groan, Gabby persisted, "So, so awful."

Kirk subsided with a pshaw sound and hooked his hands under her old desk. John moved to help, and they manoeuvred it out the door and outside. John would take it apart, likely, and reuse what he could. Rick enjoyed using scrapped materials, apparently, and John was fast picking up the habit too.

As he learned, John was steadily fixing up their home. Repairing things that Gabby had not had the time or money to deal with. Her fences had never been so well looked after.

"You sweet man," Gabby sighed, softly so that not even Spartan hearing would register it. She smoothed her hands over the polished surface of her new desk. It was solid, sturdy, and beautiful in its simple construction. A fine desk.

A giddy feeling swelled under her ribs, and Gabby settled in to get back to work. She was elbow deep in silk and thread when John returned, announcing his presence by cupping her shoulders in his large palms. Callused as Gabby's hands were from a life of labour, John's were rougher. It was not an unpleasant feeling.

The companionable silence did not last long.

"You called it our home."

Not pausing in her work, Gabby kept working. "I did. This is your home as much as it is mine. It always will be." She finished the seam and tied off the thread. Setting the finished piece aside, Gabby cracked her knuckles and let her head fall back into John's stomach. She shut her eyes.

"You didn't sleep well. Again" This was said softly. "Will you take the pills tonight?"

It would be impossible for John not to feel how her shoulders stiffened. Gabby swallowed past the sudden dryness in her throat, relaxing a fraction when thumbs massaged the tense muscles. John was trying to help, Gabby told herself as she wilted under his honest care.

"They dull too much," she confessed, sourness lining her tongue. "I'd rather get a shitty nights sleep than wake up feeling like that, feeling like I'm back on that ship and- I-"

Gabby stopped. She squeezed her eyes shut, clenching her teeth around remembering a needle stabbed into my neck, remembering Ryan bloody and dying, remembering the realisation that I was going to die so far from home, remembering that I was being used to hurt you, to hurt everyone, remembering that I'd only just realised I loved you and was going to lose you.

Fear was a rank presence in her gut, even now, far removed from the actual event. That was how fear worked, though. It clung on fiercely, hooking into the deepest parts of the mind until it could rear its terrible head. Using the sleeping pills that Monica has prescribed heralded a morning spent hyperventilating and near-paralysed before reality sank in. Gabby hated it. Feeling so afraid, so weak.

"I get trapped in those nightmares and can't wake up."

"I know." An arm glided over her front, forearm resting just under her collarbone. John's hand gently held her shoulder. Like a vanguard, a shield, John bowed over her. Gabby reached up, curled her fingers around his forearm. She held on. "I'll be there."

"Only helps half the time," she mumbled, tired of this lingering bullshit because a delusional man had decided to play with the lives of trillions. "But thanks, John."

"Anytime." He pressed her closer, just for a moment, and pulled away. "Hungry?"

John did not press for more, for her to spill her secrets and confess every worry that plagued her. Some would. Many would.

Tipping her head back until she could meet his eyes, she said, "…Did you cook, or did Kirk?"

Amusement curled his mouth. "Me."

"In that case, I'm starved."

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Time passed. Days, then weeks, and eventually months. Gabby healed, and did not let the occasional nightmare stop her from enjoying life. She worked, as did John, and her – their – house slowly filled; with Gabby's designs, John's work from Rick's shop, and the blueprints Arabella kept sending down. Kirk took up a different hobby every week, from knitting to pottery to basket weaving, and left the products of these flickering interests littered around. Rene was never far from Kirk's side. A quiet, calm presence to the kinetic energy barely contained by his skin.

And, finally, John finally seemed to find his place.

Gabby was not above admitting that each and every time John called the mountain home her heart sang with joy. Most times, anyway.

"Our home is about to be invaded."

Politely, Gabby smothered her laughter with a hand. Folding his arms, John affected a stern countenance. Had she not known him, Gabby might buy it. If she squinted, Gabby could almost see John as he was all those months ago, stoic and untouchable outside of a house he had yet to set foot in. a stranger to everything but himself.

"Keep up that frown, tough guy." Gabby hooked her thumb through one of his belt loops, tugging playfully as she leant her weight against him. He bore it without complaint, quirking a brow. "I'm sure they'll buy it."

Against all expectations, Mary and Bob, after a few breathy my words and strewth, kiddos the Grey's had agreed to letting Alpha and Omega loose on their property. Cattle needed to be herded to another paddock, Bob had reasoned, tone genial despite the ashen hue that had overtaken his skin. Mary had stared, hard, at Gabby and quietly said,

This has something to do with what happened, she'd stumbled over her words, lips twisting with grief, and that young man of yours, doesn't it?

Yes, Gabby had affirmed, and after another tense moment, Mary had let it be.

"Thel did tell you that they would be filming it all, right?" John waved a hand in the direction of the Grey property.

"He did." Gabby stifled her unease over having her face broadcasted across the universe. Thel had offered to keep her out of the news coverage, or blur her face, but Gabby had yet to decide if she would accept. It was a kindness, what Thel proposed, and a way out.

She didn't know how to feel about it.

She didn't know how she would feel, too, about how many of her friends might react poorly to Gabby's obvious endorsement of the Alliance. Most people in town would recognise her horses right out of the gate, and the land being filmed.

So many had been lost, and those left behind still felt the pain acutely.

Would there be a horde of protesters, spouting hatred and fear and malice, gathering on her front yard, trampling her father's flowers and slapping Humans First! stamps on her gargoyle of a mailbox?

Gabby shuddered to think of it.

Calling a town meeting would be a good move. Put the word out, get a feel for how welcome, or unwelcome, she might be in town following the airing of the footage. Her stomach rolled.

"What's going on in there?" Lightly pressing a finger to her temple, John drew small circles in loops that tracked along her cheekbone, following the line of her jaw. It was distracting.

"Ruminations. Mm," Gabby tilted, exposing more of her neck – much to John's delight, if the huff of laughter was any indication. The circles evolved into peculiar patterns, travelling over what skin her wide-collared shirt revealed. It was not the first time John had indulged in the touch. "Feels nice. What are you drawing on me, John?"

She felt him pause, and then continue. John copied the same motion three times, "That is Orion's Belt," he whispered into the shell of her ear. He traced different pattern, dipping towards her sternum and spanning over the wings of her collarbone, "Leo," another, smaller design stretching up onto her neck, "Scorpius," and the last, which stretched from the top of her left breast to her right cheekbone, and John hummed, "Aries."

Blinking, Gabby scraped her brain back together. "You draw constellations on me?"

"I like your freckles. They're like stars." John admitted, fond. "And they're cute."

"You're cute," she flustered. It had been a decade since someone had called her cute. More since any sort of sweetness had reduced her to a flushed, stammering mess of a woman. "I can hear you smiling, you fiend."

Feather-light, John kissed the freckle on her cheek. "And you are my star."

Near overwhelmed with affection and love, Gabby turned in the loose embrace of his arms, cupped his face, and drew him down for a sweet kiss. "You darling man," she kissed the tip of his proud nose, too, indulging in the silly urge, "I love you, John."

The words, so simple yet so profound, still seemed to strike him like the touch of a shock prod. Resting a hand over his heart, she brushed the skin-warmed metal of his dog-tags. Her grandmother's star was still looped onto the chain. There was no intention of taking it back, on her part.

Such sentimental fools love made them all.

Not long later, John's sharp hearing alerted them to Gabby's incoming headache.

"Incoming," John drawled.

"If Haze cannot stand still for the fitting," Gabby said with what she felt was an ominous air, "can you stand in a corner and glower him into submission? Or better yet, hold him still?"

"Perhaps."

The Bringer of Peace rippled into sight before Gabby could offer a tart reply to John's smirk.

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John watched as the human members of Alpha and Omega milled around the horses, brushing them down with careful, clumsy hands. Sangheili had an inherently predatory air. Their scent alone had most of the animals skittish, and as such, they kept a distance away from the group. Letting the horses acclimate to their presence. John quietly approved. The Sangheili were attempting to appear unthreatening, despite their intent curiosity about the animals.

It wasn't working. But, as Gabby once said, it was the effort that mattered. Thel found it all rather amusing.

Of all the animals, only Jackson seemed unaffected. He ate slices of apple from Mia'tee's hand with a placid acceptance. Little seemed to phase that particular horse; John recalled undoing a dozen sloppy braids from his mane after the latest batch of kids from Orphans of War.

"Are there any animals such as these on Sangheilios?"

Thel hummed lowly, considering. "Of a kind. The aran are similar in shape and size, though they are scaled, carnivores, and have far more vicious temperaments than these beasts. Some Clans have bred tamer lines, however. Some fewer use them as mounts, as our ancestors did."

Knowing that, Gabby would probably want to ride one. John pushed the thought away.

Mia'tee warbled some soft tune to Jackson, gliding her claws over the muscular lines of his neck. Jackson rumbled, pleased by the attention.

The front door banged open, Haze running outside as if he were being chased by a rabid animal. "You're up next, Reyes," Haze said, tone thick with relief. John felt that what Haze truly wanted to cry was freedom.

Turning away from the sight of Reyes going into his home, John draped his forearms over the fence encircling the training pen. Stevenson was laughing as Locksley scraped horse manure from his boots with a stick. Yanks was threading braids through Major's mane – thankfully, far neater ones that those the kids – and appeared as if he were enjoying himself immensely. Haze scrambled over the fence and eagerly joined his squadmates.

Suddenly, John felt old.

All of the soldiers before him were so young, so ready to fight and take on all the ill things in the universe for a chance at prolonged peace, and all John wanted was to rest.

"Your thoughts seem troubled, my friend."

John cut a glance towards Thel. "Do Sangheili retire?"

Thel blinked, once, and cocked his head. A curious gesture. "Once, perhaps. For so long we were of the belief that a death in battle was preferable to one of old age."

The irony, John thought with a bleak humour.

"Spartans," John said, "the people we were named for, thought the same."

All told, maybe John wasn't a very good Spartan. Oh, he fought and bled and killed as he had been designed to, as those that had formed the Spartan program had hoped, but lately…

Well.

He was tired. He'd had enough. John was done fighting, he decided. His duty was done. The time of Master Chief was over, and John was okay with that.

Small as it was, he still felt a weight lift off his shoulders.

Absently, John ducked as a football came sailing for his head. He head a poing and a muffled curse behind him, and then Haze nasally shouted, "Watch where you throw this thing!"

"If you can't dodge a ball, how are you supposed to dodge bullets?" Stevenson barked a laugh, scar crinkling as she grinned. Boomer wormed through the gaps in the fence and followed the footballs path. Remarkably, Boomer seemed unbothered by the Sangheili – though, that only came after a very patient Ulys spent half an hour petting him.

"I'm ready for peace, Thel," John confessed, quietly, just between the two of them, "I'm tired of bloodshed. And death."

"Are not we all? My time is not yet done. Mayhap there will be a time when an Arbiter is no longer needed, or it becomes the role of an ambassador." A laugh, deep and warm. "What does one do with peace, besides?"

"Live." John said, and it felt right. "You live."