#REAL FAMILY | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

lpmurphy · 3 months ago

Text

Of Mothers and Bedtime Stories

Read on AO3 The Care and Keeping of Spartans Master List Status: Complete Summary: “Daddy?” Hailey called. “Yeah, babygirl?” “What’s your mommy’s name?” “Catherine.”

A series of questioning from a very curious five year old forces Violet to consider her feelings towards the woman that created her husband, and what she means to him.

Of Mothers and Bedtime Stories

Bedtime had become somewhat of a sacred experience in the Harris home. The whole house seemed to slow as the first dusky lights of the evening would creep through the windows and bring with it the routines Violet knew so well. It became her favorite part of the day when Hailey was born, Sam to join it soon after; the sleepy calm that came over their home once dinner dishes had been cleared away. Little yawns would creep out between sentences, baths would be given and teeth would be brushed, and they would carry their pajama-clad children down the hallway to their bedrooms with heavy eyes before they would collapse together on the couch and revel in the return of the silence that disappeared come the morning. It was calm, it was peaceful, it was so beautifully still.

Violet hummed as she paced the length of the pale green room. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star had been out-rightly offensive to the toddler she held, despite the fact her son had loved it the night before. The already fussy boy erupted into a fit of shrieks at the sound of the song before Violet quickly changed gear. You Are My Sunshine had been the clear winner as she paced the room for what felt like the thousandth time that evening, humming and singing softly as she patted his bum. Sam’s green eyes grew heavy as he began to nod off on her shoulder and Violet resisted the urge to do a happy dance as she laid the two year old in his crib. Hailey had been the good sleeper; always easy to put down and slept peacefully. Her mother often told her that she was the same way in the days Jane spent in their old apartment after Hailey was born. Sam was the exact opposite of his sister; fussy and almost argumentative when bedtime came. She wondered if he got that from John. She wished she had someone to ask.

Violet straightened up to stand over her son’s crib and watched the boy sleep. She reached a hand to his head, carefully running her fingers through the thicket of brown hair. Dark lashes settled on round cheeks as he slept, pink lips slightly open; the image of his father. Violet couldn’t believe most nights how much he looked like John.

“Did he go down?”

Violet turned to the whisper that came from the doorway and lifted a finger to her lips. John stood in the doorway of Sam’s bedroom, Hailey on his hip, the five year old’s head on his shoulder and dressed in the purple penguin pajamas Violet knew her daughter would wear every night if allowed. Violet nodded in response to his question as she padded out of the room quietly and turned out the lights with one final glance back at him.

“He’s asleep for now,” she said softly, “We’ll see if he stays that way.”

“I’ll take the first round tonight,” his voice a low rumble as he leaned down to press his lips to hers. Violet kissed her husband before turning her gaze to her daughter.

“Shouldn’t you be in bed, missy?” She pressed a kiss to the tip of her daughter’s nose - his nose. It earned a giggle from the girl as she curled against John.

“It’s story time!” Hailey announced happily. “You said you’d read with us tonight, remember?”

“I remember. I just had to put Brother to bed,” Violet explained.

She held her arms out to her daughter and the girl clambered into her arms. Violet hugged her tightly and kissed her cheek before adjusting Hailey on her hip. “Ready, big girl?”

Hailey nodded and tucked her head against Violet’s shoulder, dark curls bouncing with each step they took down the hall to her bedroom. John followed closely behind as they pushed open the door, welcomed by the shades of pink and purple that covered every inch of Hailey’s room. Violet set her down with instructions to pick a book and settled into the old glider she had rocked her to sleep in as a baby. The chair creaked under her as she sat and watched that baby scan thoughtfully through the bookshelves that sat in the corner of her room. Violet watched as Hailey looked, brows scrunched in concentration as if her decision carried a great weight, and fought back the tears that pricked her eyes. That little baby she had once held in that chair was far from a baby now.

John settled onto Hailey’s bed with a groan. Violet stifled a giggle at the sight of her massive husband in the positively tiny bed. It never stopped being an amusing sight; his shoulders covering the bed from edge to edge and legs dangling off the end. Hailey made her selection and scurried back across the room to set it in Violet’s lap before clambering up on the bed to snuggle against John’s chest. She pressed a freckled cheek to his chest and John rested a large hand on her back, his outstretched palm covering her torso.

“You want me to read tonight?” Violet asked as she opened the book. She recognized the title of the picture book. She had read it enough times that she could recite it from memory.

Hailey nodded and watched her with hazel eyes, “Daddy read last night. It’s your turn, Mama. It’s nice to take turns.”

Violet smiled and nodded, “It is nice to take turns.”

She began to read from the picture book; a short tale of a kitten that thought itself to be a bunny. Violet hardly cleared the first page before Hailey sighed unhappily and interrupted.

“Mommy,” she scolded, “You aren’t doing the voices right.”

“What’s the right way, baby?”

“The way Daddy does it,” Hailey explained, exasperation heavy in tone as she twisted in her father’s arms to stare at her mother.

“Yeah, goose,” John smirked, “The way I do it.”

Violet lifted a foot and gently kicked her husband’s elbow with a tight-lipped smile. Hailey scrunched her face disapprovingly.

“Kicking isn’t kind, Mommy. Use a safe body.”

“Sorry, baby,” Violet replied, ignoring her husband’s muffled chuckle and daughter’s disapproving glare. Violet continued to read the next page but stopped when Hailey sighed loudly again.

“Can Daddy read it instead?”

Violet rolled her eyes as John reached out a hand for the book with a triumphant smirk. Hailey wiggled in his arms as he sat up slightly and rested the book on his chest, holding it so she could see the pages as he read. Hailey settled against him again and listened intently as he read the book the right way. Violet watched the two and lightly rocked herself in the glider. Hailey rested her cheek against John’s and rubbed her eyes. Always the easy one to put down, Violet thought.

She watched Hailey as John turned the page and continued to read. Her happy expression faltered with each word and little shoulders sunk as the story progressed at the young bunny arrived at his grandparents home to hugs and fresh baked cookies. It was usually a page that Hailey would smile brightly at as she pointed to the page and happily announced that Grandpa Rabbit wore glasses just like Papa. But, the joyful comment did not come as Hailey stared morosely at the page.

Violet reached across to brush an errant curl out of her face and John stopped reading. He turned to face his daughter and his own contented expression fell at the sight of her face.

“Everything okay, sweet girl?” Violet asked.

Hailey nodded weakly and tucked her head into John’s neck with a mumbled word of approval. John turned to look at Violet, eyebrow quirked in question. Violet shrugged her shoulders and matched her husband’s concerned stare.

“You sure?” She asked. Violet rose from the glider, hinges creaking as she stood and leaned over the bed to press a kiss to her girl’s forehead. She crouched down beside the bed and rested her own head on John’s shoulder to meet her daughter’s misty eyes. “Doesn’t seem like it.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Hailey mumbled into John’s shoulder.

“Hey,” he said gently, giving her side a tickle. Hailey giggled and turned her head to look up at him. “What’s your mom’s rule?”

“We talk about our feelings,” Hailey recited with a sigh, “And we don’t hide from our family.”

“That’s right. What’s wrong, babygirl?”

“Did something happen at school today?” Violet prompted, “You seemed sad when you got home. Did Nora make you mad?”

Hailey shook her head at the mention of her cousin’s name. The two girls were born only weeks apart and functioned like sisters rather than cousins; inseparable one moment and entirely hated by the other the next. Both Violet and Riz had outwardly groaned when they learned that their daughters would be placed in the same kindergarten class. Vannak had brought their teacher a very expensive bottle of wine and a warning apology during their Meet the Teacher night.

“No,” Hailey sighed. She turned on John’s chest with a heavy thud and looked up at her parents. “Why do we only go to Nana and Papa’s and not go to Daddy’s mommy and daddy’s house?”

Violet recoiled slightly at the question. She glanced up at John and made a face. He shrugged in response, sharing the confused look she wore.

“What do you mean, Hai?”

“All of my friends at school have two grandmas and grandpas and I only have one. Why?”

Her little girl, ever the observant and curious child.

“All families are different, honey. Ours especially. We just have Nana and Papa,” Violet explained, brushing her daughter’s dark curls from her eyes. Violet often wondered who her daughter had inherited her wild mane of curls from.

“But why ?”

“That’s just our family, Hails.”

Hailey rolled on John’s chest and pressed her chin against small fists, “Do you have a mommy and daddy?”

Violet tensed at the question as she watched her husband. John didn’t falter to it, didn’t so much as flinch as he kept his daughter’s curious stare. He brushed her hair back and set the book on her purple bedside table decisively, accepting that her interest in the story had been lost to the curiosity that knotted Violet’s stomach.

“Nope,” he replied softly. He tapped a finger to the tip of her nose and Hailey giggled. “They made me in a secret lab.”

“That’s silly, Daddy,” Hailey announced.

Violet smiled softly - even at five years old, her daughter had little interest in nonsense. She got that from him. Hailey settled onto John’s chest and tucked her head into the crook of his neck. John turned his head to press his lips to her forehead.

“You’re silly,” he murmured.

“Where are your mommy and daddy?”

“They died when I was little, Hailey. I didn’t really know them.”

“So you didn’t have a mommy or daddy? You were all by yourself? That’s sad, Daddy.”

“I wasn’t by myself. I had all of your aunts and uncles,” he said.

Hailey’s eyes remained on him and her head tilted, obviously dissatisfied by the answer. Violet wondered when she had raised such a fierce interrogator. John brushed his hand against Hailey’s back in soft circles and her eyes grew heavy, “I had a mom.”

Violet straightened at the statement the same way Hailey did. Hailey pushed herself up to stare down at John, any semblance of sleepiness leaving her face as hazel eyes lit up with wonder. Violet leaned back on her heels and met John’s eyes. She matched the curious tilt of her daughter’s head at John’s statement. He only returned her stare with a soft look from where he laid in the too small bed with their daughter staring down at him awaiting further explanation.

“Why don’t we go to her house?” Hailey asked.

“We can’t, babygirl.”

“ Why ? Does she live far away?”

John paused and looked at Violet again, ignoring the warning stare she shot at him from where she sat. Their child didn’t need a play by play in the history of the criminal that stole her husband from his home when he was barely older than their own child. She pursed her lips, silently encouraging him to leave the topic be and return to normal bedtime procedures.

But John only continued on in the same persistence their daughter emulated as she awaited her response, “She… had to go away.”

“When will she come back?”

“I don’t know,” he said. John chuckled as she harrumphed at the lacking answer. “When did you start asking such good questions?”

“Auntie Kai told me to question everything .”

“Of course your Auntie Kai did,” Violet sighed, John’s own sigh lingering with it. Hailey only continued on in her determined questioning.

“Was she pretty?”

“Yes.”

“Prettier than Mommy?”

He looked to Violet again with a soft smirk before winking, “No one is as pretty as Mommy, babygirl. Except you.”

At least he was trying to win some points back from this, she thought. She smiled softly and took the hand he offered her. John lifted her hand and brought her knuckles to his lips.

“Was she smart like you?”

“Smarter.

“That’s silly, Daddy. Nobody is as smart as you.”

“She was, babygirl.”

Hailey nodded with narrowed eyes, the same thoughtful expression Violet had seen on John’s face hundreds of times as she considered John’s answers to her inquiries. She lowered herself back down to curl against him and Violet felt relief wash over her.

Violet reached for the book cautiously, “Should we finish our book, sweet girl?”

“Was your mommy kind like our mommy?” Hailey asked softly.

Violet bit back the response that threatened to rip from her lips and looked at John. No, she wanted to say, kind was a word that would never be used to describe that woman. Kindness was not an attribute that monster ever possessed. Mothers did not steal children from their beds. Mothers did not open their children up and replace and enhance until they became something more valuable. Mothers did not send their children into lifetimes of violence and fear. Mothers protected, mothers cared for, mothers loved. She was not a mother. Not in any sense of the word that Violet knew.

Violet picked at her nails and awaited John’s response, searching his face for any sense of the anger she tried to erase from her own. Instead, she watched as he began to comb his fingers through Hailey’s curls and she sighed sleepily. Violet hoped that she would fall asleep and that she would be released from this conversation that made every muscle in her body constrict uncomfortably. Of course tonight would be the night Sam slept peacefully through the night. John began to rub Hailey’s back again and she tucked herself tighter against him.

“She was kind,” John murmured, “ Our mommy is kind, but she was kind in a different way as Mommy.”

“How?”

Violet bit her lip and made a mental note to pull Kai aside the next time she was over. John watched Hailey yawn, thick eyelashes fluttering against freckled cheeks as she leaned in to him again.

“When I was younger, I had to get a surgery-.”

“Is that how you got all your owies?” She asked, fingers tracing over the augmentation scar that decorated his chest under his shirt.

“Some of them,” John agreed, “Afterwards, I got really sick. The doctors weren’t sure they would be able to help me get better. One night after my surgery, my mom came to see me. She wasn’t supposed to. She looked around the room and made sure no one was there and got into the bed with me. She talked to me and stayed with me until I felt better and fell asleep.”

Violet continued to pick at her nails as Hailey sat up and turned that smile to John. She had never heard that story before.

“Hey! You do that when I feel icky!” she said happily, little hands resting on John’s cheeks.

“I do.” Violet watched John press his lips to her hair again and draw Hailey back to his chest. She cuddled up to him again and he wrapped his arms around their daughter.

“Do you think she would have liked me?” Hailey asked quietly, her voice thick with sleep.

“I think she would have loved you, Hailey,” he replied, nothing but surety in his tone as he slid out from underneath her and lifted himself from the bed.

Violet stood as he began to tuck Hailey into the bed and pull her blankets over her. Hailey reached out for the stuffed rabbit that John lifted from the foot of the bed and tucked into her arms, another yawn stretching her lips. “Let’s go to sleep, okay? It’s late. You have school tomorrow. Say goodnight to Mommy.”

“Okay, Daddy,” she whispered, her eyes fluttering shut as Violet turned out the bedside lamp. John lowered his lips to his cheek and murmured out a goodnight before stepping away to allow Violet to come to her bedside. Violet brushed her curls from her face and offered her daughter a soft smile before pressing her own lips to her cheek.

“Don’t forget Bunny,” Hailey murmured, holding the rabbit out to Violet.

Violet chuckled softly and pressed a kiss to the stuffed animal’s head, “How could I?”

“Daddy?”

“I’m already on it,” John called back.

He lifted the nightlight Kai had purchased for her third birthday from the bedside table and clicked it on. Hailey smiled as she watched the projections of the night sky twirl across her bedroom walls. John returned to her beside and fixed her blankets again before touching his forehead to hers, hazel eyes meeting hazel eyes as Hailey touched little hands to his cheeks, “Love you more.”

“Love you most,” Hailey whispered back.

Violet made for the door and watched as Hailey rolled over, snuggling down into her bed as John walked to join her. Violet paused in the doorway to wait for him and his words weighed heavier in her belly than either of their babies ever had. John reached for the doorknob and began to pull the door shut.

“Daddy?” Hailey called.

“Yeah, babygirl?”

“What’s your mommy’s name?”

“Catherine.”

Hailey smiled brightly before lowering her head to the pillow with a nod. John whispered a final goodnight before pulling the door shut and, to Violet’s surprise, went about the night without a word regarding the conversation she had observed.

She followed him into their bedroom, listened to him shower as she crawled into bed, and he slipped into bed beside her without so much as a breath about it. John only kissed her goodnight before he rolled over and fell asleep within moments as he always had. But she remained awake, staring up at the ceiling as the words he used to describe that woman echoed through her mind. She watched the hours tick by on the chrono on his bedside table, military time blinking back at her with each passing minute.

She reached across the bed and gave his shoulder a shake.

“Babe,” she whispered. John continued to snore. She gave him another shake and he snorted awake.

“What?” He sat up and glanced around the dark room, “What is it? Are the kids alright?”

Violet grimaced and kicked herself as she watched him draw the covers back and start to rise. She grabbed his arm and gave him a gentle tug down. John’s eyes continued to dart around the room and Violet shrunk, scolding herself for waking him.

“The kids are fine,” she reassured him.

John nodded and lowered himself back down beside her with a sigh. He scrubbed his hands over his face, “What is it, goose?”

“It’s silly. Go back to sleep,” she said quickly.

“I don’t know what weird scenario you were about to present to me,” he groaned, “But, yes . I’d still love you if you were a worm, or a bird, or whatever other nonsense. Go to sleep.”

“No,” she laughed softly. “It’s about that story you told Hailey earlier.”

“You woke me up at midnight over a bedtime story? What about it?”

“Was it true?” She asked, chewing on her lip thoughtfully.

“Have you ever known me to lie? Especially to Hailey? She can sniff a lie out a mile away, that kid. Remember how long the Tooth Fairy lasted before she demanded the truth?”

“I’m being serious, John. Was it true?”

John groaned and pushed himself up slightly to look down at his wife. Violet crossed her arms under her chin and met his stare. He nodded.

“First round of augmentations,” he explained. “I got an infection shortly after. It hit me pretty hard, the med team had a difficult time keeping it under control. I had a rough night and they weren’t sure I was going to make it. I remember laying there thinking about how close I was to making it and being so angry. It was the first time I ever remember feeling heartbroken. They told Halsey, and she snuck in to see me. She wasn’t supposed to, I knew she would get in trouble if she got caught. I tried to tell her to leave, but I wasn’t strong enough to get the words out. But she came right up to my bedside, looked around, and crawled into the bed.”

Violet rested her head on his hip as she looked up at him, watching the panic that creased his forehead from the sudden wake up relax as he spoke. “There was this old Greek myth they taught us about when I was growing up that she knew I liked. She told it to me over and over until I fell asleep. She fell asleep in the bed beside me until the med team came to pull her out. They let her stay when they realized my vitals improved once she got in there with me.”

Violet smiled softly. Hailey was right; he’d get into bed and whisper the entirety of Peter Pan to her each time she had a stomach ache. Violet reached up a hand to husband’s face and cupped his cheek. He leaned into her touch and Violet brushed her thumb against his stubbly cheek.

“I’m sorry for waking you up, big guy,” she murmured. “Go back to sleep.”

John leaned down to kiss her before turning back over. He turned over and sighed, snores filling the room shortly after. Violet settled into her pillow and found that rest did not come to her as quickly as it did him. She stared up at the ceiling and counted the rotations of the fan, hoping the motion would lull her to sleep. It did not come as she lost count.

She sighed before she sat up and drew the blankets from herself. John remained asleep; one arm under his pillow, the other draped across the empty expanse of bed where her body had been as he snored. Violet tugged on her robe before she silently slipped out of the room into the hallway. She glanced at the doors of her children's bedrooms as she walked through the dark hall, the walls decorated with frames that held her most precious memories. Violet lifted her hands to remove one from the wall and stared down fondly at the image before she started down the stairs.

---

“Mail for you, Doctor Halsey.”

Dr. Halsey looked up from her monitor at the uniformed soldier who stood in her quarters. She couldn’t find the way in which he entered. No door existed in the projections she knew acted as the cream colored walls of her cell. She removed her glasses as he held out the large envelope to her. She frowned down at it. She rarely ever got mail beyond official correspondence. Miranda stopped writing years ago.

“Who is this from?” She asked. Halsey glanced over the return address and recognized the street as uptown New Alexandria. She did not know the woman’s name above it in pretty looping script.

“I dunno, ma’am. My job is just to deliver the mail. Someone else gets to read it.”

“Right,” she nodded. She took the envelope from him and looked down at her name written in the same handwriting. The soldier turned and walked through the wall with a dull buzz.

Halsey turned to her monitor again and tapped in the return address, but was quickly met with a ‘Restricted Access’ screen. Typical of the ONI to have her work while imprisoned, but deny her access to the most basic uses of Waypoint, she thought.

She looked over the address again. Halsey questioned how the sender had managed to get mail to the highly secure location she was kept in without extensively high clearance. She tore open the envelope and emptied it onto the tabletop. A pale green envelope tumbled out, along with a squatty mailer that thunked against the table. The same willowy script addressed her name on the pale green and Halsey tore it open to remove the neatly folded stationary inside. She made an approving sound at the sender’s neat penmanship, recalling a few former lab techs that could have taken some notes from it, as she read;

Doctor Halsey,

I hope this letter finds you well and in good health. I am sure that this correspondence comes as a surprise to you, as you do not know me. However, I know you. My name is Violet Harris. Seven years ago on a sunny day in May, I married the man you know as Master Chief Petty Officer John-117.

I do not expect you to understand why I am writing to you. Nor do I understand exactly why I am writing this myself. But tonight, our daughter asked about her grandmother and John told her about you. He spoke of a woman who raised him; who gave him purpose and direction, who taught him to be strong and brave. Of a woman who emulated all of the things that I have watched him so beautifully demonstrate for our family.

I found myself unable to think of anything but the way he spoke of you as I laid in our bed tonight, trying to make sense of it. I now sit at our kitchen table in our home as I write to you; in the home that my husband and I created together while the family we made sleeps. In the morning, our daughter will fill the chair I sit in now and my husband will make her breakfast before he walks her to school as he does every morning. I will drop off our son at my mother’s house where he will stay until the evening. John will kiss me goodbye at my office door before he sets off to his own duties in the same way he has every day since I met him. We will walk to our daughter’s school in the afternoon to bring her home and he will listen intently as she tells her daddy about her day. Our children are his entire world, and I am honored that they have a father who loves them as ferociously as John does.

I assume what I needed for you to know was the man I know. For you to understand him beyond the Master Chief in the same way I do. For you to know the incredible husband and father he has become. I wanted to introduce you to John Harris.

I met John beside a pond in a park eight years ago and knew my life had forever been changed. He loved me fiercely from the first moment, and I loved him the same. I looked upon him and a part of me knew that I had found the other half of myself that I didn’t know I had been missing. He has been the best part of me and has demonstrated a quiet, steady love in each moment I am with him. We have learned from one another, we have grown together, we have loved together. I am a better woman because of him and all of the things he has helped me to become.

John has become my mother’s favorite child. My parents adore their son in law and have shown him the same unconditional love they have shown me my entire life. They met John right where he was when they first met him, and waited patiently as he stepped beyond his comforts and found himself as a part of our family. My mother has demonstrated nothing but grace and love as John has slowly let her in. Granted, I think you and I both know that John is a bit of a momma’s boy.

John’s family became a part of ours as well. Our daughter adores her silly Uncle Vannak, who is the most incredible uncle a child could ask for. He and Riz married shortly after John and I did and welcomed their daughter, Nora, only a few short weeks after our daughter was born. Riz has become an incredible wife, mother, and aunt and will tell anyone who listens that it is because of what she learned from watching my mother and my sister Katie. I often find myself envious of the kind of partner and mother she is. She and Vannak welcomed their second child, a little girl, the same month we welcomed our son two years ago, and Babies #3 and #4 will be joining us in February. That’s right; twins! And both girls, bless Vannak’s heart. It has been an honor to raise my children alongside theirs. Kai has become my parents’ newest, most voracious daughter, and they nurture her bright spirit every opportunity they can. She is my best friend in every sense of the word; I found a bit of my soul inside of hers.

Five years ago, John and I welcomed our first child into our family. A beautiful baby girl named Hailey. John did not meet his daughter until she was one month old, but I watched something change in my husband the moment he held that little girl for the first time. I have never witnessed anything more beautiful than the love he has for his daughter, and the unwavering devotion he has to her.

Hailey could ask John for the stars and he would pluck them from the skies for her without hesitation. She has her daddy wrapped around her little finger. She loves princesses and penguins, she adores her baby brother, and wants to be ‘strong like Daddy’ when she grows up. I think she already is. She is just like her father in every way; fair and strong, and she loves so fiercely. She has an incredible example to follow and it fills me with so much pride to know that my daughter will face this world with the same bravery and strength as her father.

Two years ago, we welcomed our son. Sam is the spitting image of his father and just as every bit as stubborn and wonderful. He is a smiley, happy little boy who thinks our dog is the funniest thing he has ever seen and is his father’s shadow. He has John’s smile, which seems to forever be on his sweet little face. John was able to be with me when I gave birth to our boy. I have never seen more pride radiate from him than I did when the nurses rested that tiny baby against his chest and he looked down at his son for the first time. John named our son after the two men in his life he said shaped him and works every day to uphold their memory in the way he raises our child. However, I think if Samuel Franklin Harris grows up to be any bit like his father, the world will be a better place because of it.

I have hated you for the longest time. I am not ashamed to admit the loathing I felt for you the moment I saw the scars that litter my husband’s body the first time. That feeling has lingered even now. I believed for years that you took something away from him the moment you decided upon him and made the choice to carve him open. But I have come to understand that without you, everything I currently have and hold so dear to me would not exist.

Tonight, John told our daughter about a woman who loved him. A woman who cared for and protected him and made him better. As I listened to him speak and watched my little girl look up at her daddy with his same beautiful eyes, I saw you for what you truly are to him, and by extension, myself. You are the woman who created my husband. Without you, I would not have the beautiful life I have now. My daughter would not look up to her hero every day and know what it is to be protected and be loved as fiercely as John loves that little girl. I wouldn’t stand in my son’s nursery and watch him sleep, knowing that he will grow up to know what it means to be a man.

I still do not fully understand the way I feel for you, Doctor Halsey. However, as a mother, I can recognize the love of another when I see it reflected in the eyes of their child. Tonight, I watched that love pour from my husband as he sat beside our daughter and told her about his mother. While I don’t know if I will ever fully forgive you; I’d like to thank you for raising this man that I am so extraordinarily blessed to love and be so loved by. For the husband who has been my steady for the past eight years. For the incredible father he has been to our little girl and baby boy. For the brother and son he is to my family, and for the wonderful sisters and brother you gave me through Riz, Kai, and Vannak. And for the piece of ourselves we both found in Cortana.

Enclosed are pictures of the life that John has built. I assumed that you may want to see what has become of him. From one mother to another, I guess what I really wanted you to know is that he’s okay. We’ve got him. And he is so loved. They all are.

Best wishes,

Violet Harris

Halsey set aside the neat fold of the letter to the side before lifting the thick envelope that had arrived with it. She gave it a curious squeeze before opening it and pouring the contents into her awaiting palm. A stack of glossy photographs came tumbling out. Halsey removed the stack and laid them out on the table as she looked through them.

She lifted the first picture, finding the faces of Kai-125, Vannak-134, Riz-028, John-117, and a brunette woman she assumed was the author of the letter smiling back at her. The woman sat on a sofa behind John with her arms draped around his neck. She rested her cheek on his head as she smiled brightly at the camera. The lights of a Christmas tree twinkled in the background. Halsey couldn’t recall a time in which she had seen Silver Team smile the way they did in the photograph. She brushed her fingers over John’s face and chuffed out a laugh; he didn’t smile. He only looked up at the brunette gently, his fingers wrapped around her arm.

She shuffled through the rest of the photographs and found that several contained the image of the same little girl. Kai held the girl, no more than a year old, in her arms and grinned at the camera. The baby was dressed as a bright orange pumpkin and stared on with the same straight expression as her father. For a moment, she was surprised to see Miranda at Kai’s side as they smiled, Miranda dressed like a mermaid and Kai like a yellow and blue fish.

In another, Vannak slept sprawled on a leather sofa with his arm thrown over his face. He had slept the way since he was a little boy, she remembered. The same little girl, now two or three years of age, laid on his chest as he slept, joined by another little girl that shared his full lips and her mother’s bright curls. Both girls’ little arms were thrown over their faces in a matching motion. Dark curls spilled over her face as she slept. John’s mother had curly hair, she recalled.

She sorted through the pictures one by one, thoughtfully examining each before setting it to the side; a black and white still of John and the woman dancing under twinkling patio lights, each dressed in white and focused only on each other. The woman, Riz, and Kai all sat with arms around each other in another image. In another, Riz stood in a glamorous white gown and Vannak in his dress whites with John and Kai beside them, the brunette standing beside them dressed in a strapless black gown identical to Kai’s. John stood in a hospital room with a newborn infant in his hands, the look of wonder on his face as he stared down at the boy that fit in his open palms one Halsey had never seen him wear before in another photograph. She noticed the same thing in each picture she set down on the tabletop; the happiness expressed on his face in each image.

She picked up the last photograph of the same baby girl from the others swaddled in pink, staring up at the camera with John’s eyes. She flipped it over and found a single sentence written in the same looping handwriting;

Hailey Catherine Harris; November 7th, 2554.

Catherine smiled as she set the picture of her granddaughter down. She looked over the first picture of her children, happy and together as they smiled back at her. She touched the image of the baby’s face before sliding the photo beside the other. She stacked the rest neatly and tapped them against the table before tucking them gently back inside the envelope. She lifted a hand to her cheek as she opened her desk drawer and placed the envelope inside and brushed away the tears that had fallen steadily since looking through the photographs.

She placed the letter atop the envelope and gave it a gentle pat before pushing the drawer shut.

“I knew they’d be fine,” she murmured.

#master chief #master chief/oc #au #halo fanfic #halo tv show #not canon compliant #halo fanfiction #john 117/oc #john 117 #Soft John #Found Family #Real Family #Family Fluff #Bedtime Stories

4 notes · View notes