We did it, buddy.

In the end, they just have to have faith.

Ain’t that a bitch?

can you imagine if the freelancers’ eyes changed color whenever the ai manifested in their actions?

imagine york making a joke but his eyes flash green and wash just laughs because holy shit delta’s got a better sense of humor than you york

imagine north complimenting tex except his eyes are a little pink and whoops now his cheeks are too seriously theta stop that

imagine south challenges tex to arm wrestle and tex says something a little too harsh and her eyes are almost black they’re so purple

imagine maine’s eyes never returning to their beautiful brown and instead forever burning orange

 I ALSO LIKE THE IDEA THAT AFTER CAROLINA GETS ETA AND IOTA # ONE EYE IS BRIGHT BLUE # THE OTHER IS BRIGHT YELLOW (via thinkofthegunstheysell)

imagine carolina in the field, saying alright everybody huddle up it’s improvising time and through her visor her eyes are practically glowing. wash just goes oh no because if carolina improvising on her own was bad how much more ridiculous is it gonna be with two ai???

there’s some questionably legal uses of armor mods and maybe a literal human slingshot involved and wash is terrified. carolina herself has never felt more alive.

#wash's eyes being bright blue while he had epsilon #and sometimes he still wakes up from nightmares with cobalt eyes (x)

Fight

The alternate universe where 479er and Carolina partner up, then go and hunt down the Dakotas, find York and Tex, then all get together and go out and fight the actual war. Imagine these motherfuckers on the frontlines giving the Covenant hell, pow-wowing together about how to bring down the Director, about the Meta and Washington. There is an agreement between them all that something must be done about the Meta and Washington.

"And Alpha," says Tex, always, repeatedly. 

Tex and Carolina don’t talk, though Tex seems like she wants to, she just sits and waits until the fuel of Carolina’s resentments burn low and familiarity makes it impossible to hold her grudge because, really, who did the Director fuck over worse than Tex?

Imagine that Tex separates from the group to search for Alpha and the Director. “I don’t exist. They can’t put a bolo out for me. And I’m the solo best infiltrator anyhow." And they all know she’s just going to go hunt for Alpha and they know they probably won’t see her again, but they let her go and Carolina keeps her team and they fight until the war ends and then… it’s time to go find the Meta. 

Imagine Wash doesn’t cross paths with South or York as a recovery agent, imagine Washington finds his whole team waiting for him, North and South and Theta, York and Delta, Carolina at the fore. Imagine Carolina like, “Sorry we couldn’t come back for you, Wash. There was a war in our way.” 

Wash can’t decide how to feel. It’s not for lack of emotion - he knows what that feels like, biting back emotions until his jaw ached because he needed the empty space to start patching himself back together. No, he’s overwhelmed. His team is alive - his team is here, everyone except for his best friend, and he’s not sure if that helps or hurts all the more - and he has a lot of emotions to choose from.

He tries to go for anger. It’s a constant. It’s easy. Anything can be a shield if you wield it correctly; anger’s the only shield with fangs, a warning to stay the fuck away or else. He reaches for that fury, knocking York’s hand away when he tries to put it on Wash’s shoulder, but it slips through his fingers like hot tar, burning and sticky and completely useless to him now.

"You didn’t come back for me," he chokes out with what’s left of that anger, feeling the burn in his throat. "You left me behind." The anger is gone, and his voice wavers on the last word. Fuck.

He doesn’t want to listen to their explanations. It doesn’t matter - the end result, the broken mess that lay in solitary confinement for years, is still the same. At the same time, he knows that broken mess would have been next to impossible to spring from its cell, would have been nothing but a dead weight for a long time. He can understand their reasoning, even if he doesn’t want to.

Carolina approaches him next, puts her hand on his shoulder. This time, he doesn’t resist.

It’s just that she’s had years of time, that’s the issue. She’s had years to imagine every way that Washington might come at them, come at her, armed, unarmed, sane, not-sane, strafed with hatred and abuse or – against all odds – completely whole. He’s not whole, as it turns out. Carolina’s had years to lie in her cot at night, clawing Eta and Iota out of her skull even though Maine did it for her, ripped them out of her by the root and upturned the folded roads of her gray matter with screaming – the final vibrato of their connection to her shocking through her body like a bullet.

She’s had years to obsess about the new recruit, the grey-eyed combat engineer they left behind.

Her hand on his shoulder is eons in coming. Her thumb pressing into the dip just above his collarbone, where the slope of his neck meet his shoulder and he’s solid. He’s real. How many nightmares were there? Where she dreamed him dead, where she dreamed him insane, where she buried him or – in her darkest dreams – become the monster that hurled him and so many others from the cliffs of her madness. Niner, behind her, stops North from moving forward, leaving Carolina stand with Washington, her thumb on the faint thrum of his pulse and…

“Yes. We did.”

And before he can react to her statement, she steps forward, loops her other arm around the back of his neck and hooks him at the back of the head, pulls the other Freelancer forward into a gesture that’s too rough to be a hug really, it has all the hallmarks of a hug, her arms around him, pulling him close… but she doesn’t feel right saying she is hugging Washington. She’s just… holding them together. Like you hold a cracked bowl, cupping the broken halves together until they look whole. She is prepared for the possibility that he will strike her. She would prefer it, actually.

“I’m sorry, Washington.”

She grips him tighter, his armor digging into her inner arm.

“I’m sorry we left you alone with them. I’m sorry we didn’t come back.” And it’s shit. It’s bullshit. It’s not good enough. It’s not enough. It’s never going to be enough. There’s not enough sorry and sobs and blood and broken teeth and skinned knuckles in the universe to undo their leaving him behind and she knows it but words are the very, very least in what they owe him so, she begins again: “I’m so sorry.”

And, because action is also the least that they owe him, Carolina says, “We’re here about Maine.” 

Revised Freelancer AI table.

our favorite ais in long time no see

I always wondered why Eta/Iota freaked out longer in Carolina’s head than the other Freelancers in that episode where the Director yells, “Allison!” I know that there were two of them, but, still. The other Freelancers with their AI stopped after a few seconds. Why would having...