We&#x27;re the good guys, right?

Carolina had no intent to grace that with a response. She has standards, thank you.

Livestock was a work in progress. So are animals worth hunting for game, actually; turns out nuclear war tends to really mess up the local ecosystems. There were some rabbit-like things in the area that they were trying to figure out how to farm, but that was a work in progress.

"There is some decent forage in the area. No mushrooms; they absorb waste really effectively- efforts cleansing farmland will probably reach them last- but the array of new-growth foliage is nice, and they've been able to repurpose preserved goods pretty well." She still wasn't sure she could say 'we'- she was new here, even if they'd accepted her presence, and even if she was spending a disproportionate amount of her free time trying to help rebuild. Carolina had always had a habit of separating herself from the people around her; whether it was some innate push to keep people separate so she wouldn't be hurt, or a feeling that she wouldn't be accepted if people knew her well enough, or some secret third thing was a little hard to tell, from the outside looking in.

"I'm guessing we're not going to go picking berries, though." At least, not for lunch. Might be a fun way to spend the day at some point?

"So, lots of canned goods, maybe MREs... I can live with that." Not what York would call fine dining, of course, but he hadn't been expecting that in the first place. As they walked, he took the time to really look around and appreciate the city; he hadn't had much of a chance to do so when he first arrived.

"Gotta say, the Chorusans know how to bounce back from trouble, though. This place is pretty nice, all things considered. You'd think there hadn't been all-out war recently."

Don't smirk at her, she's weak to that shit, and she's still learning to trust you again. Smug prick. Despite herself, she grinned a little, but she pointedly looked ahead. Somehow, letting him know she was enjoying his presence felt like letting him win, and she hadn't drawn out the part where he had to beg for her affection nearly enough.

"Staples, mostly. We're still working on getting farms up and running- even with the agricultural boost from the towers, it'll be a bit before food production is steady." Why do you think her kitchen was so sparsely stocked?

"But bread is becoming much more common." It's funny- she hadn't realized how much she'd miss bread, of all things. It made sense, in a way that she didn't fully grasp; humans have been making bread longer than they've been writing down how. Regardless, however, pastry availability was a hell of a step up.

"Damn, you guys are eating office supplies?" Get it, staples? Dad joke. Anyway.

"Well, if all I get is a salad and some... breadsticks, I guess, I'll be satisfied."

Honestly, he wasn't expecting a big juicy steak or anything around here. Not any time soon, anyway. He hadn't even seen any livestock.

For the record, legs aren't cheap either- but he is right in that an eye is a whole different level, just in technical expertise. Lina's pretty sure she'd heard somewhere once upon a time that the human body's immune system didn't even fully recognize eyes as being worth protecting- or... Something along those lines. That was never really her field of expertise, beyond the occasional fun fact.

"Good news here is that they don't actually have a functional economy yet, so... Maybe get in good with the locals?" Step one, if nothing else. They didn't have the equipment to get her a permanent prosthetic (at least, not yet- they're working on it), so the odds that they'd have the equipment for an eye seemed slim to her, but she didn't know for sure.

"Oh, the cafe's coming up. Did you have something specific in mind?"

"Well, I plan on sticking around, so being a dick to the locals seems like a generally poor idea," York said with a smirk. Besides, if Carolina was willing to stand up for these folks, they had to be good people. He had no reason to be anything other than polite.

"Oh, right--well, I haven't magically acquired any allergies over the years... I was planning on winging it when we got there, honestly. Not sure what Chorus has to eat, really."

"I'm not sure glasses can fix scarring on the surface of your eye." Unless he was worried about his other eye, which... Fair, she supposed. "Have you ever considered a cybernetic replacement...?"

The operation, as she understood it, was very sensitive and more than a little intrusive, but restoring vision and functionality seemed worth it to her- but that wasn't her choice to make. Honestly, she'd find it weird if he hadn't looked into it; surely Delta had, if he hadn't.

"There's always a monocle..." That was mostly a joke.

"I've looked into it a few times, but I haven't exactly been in the right financial state to do something like that." Especially for something like an eye. Not quite as easy to replace, even with modern medicine, as a lost limb.

They finally reached the bottom of the stairs- really, it would be faster if you'd just take the window with her- and she was happy enough to emerge into the open air out the front door.

"He does have a bit of a bone to pick with you about it, yeah." Sorry, York, not everybody's ecstatic to see you. Hell, to be fair, even she had mixed feelings about him being here; it's easy to romanticize a dead man. Much harder to look him in his face and remember his flaws- or the tricky nuance that is living around him.

"Now that you've robbed me of my mobility aid once today, I think it's perfectly fair game to ask how your eye's healed up, though." More of a demand than an ask, but she worries, you know? Even if he can't see out it very well, at least she hoped there wasn't pain.

He'll pass on the window, thanks. He's long since retired from jumping off or out of buildings.

"I don't blame him, I was absolutely a dick," York replied with a laugh, sighing with relief once they were on flat ground and back outside. Ah, much better. "But hey, maybe he'll relax a bit once we talk it out."

Right, his eye. It was still a pain in his ass to this day, to be honest.

"Eh, you get used to it," he admitted. Regardless of the annoyance, after years of being blind in one eye, he had intuitively adjusted. Still had shit peripheral vision on his left side, but that wasn't as important as it used to be. "Hurts when I read. Maybe I should get glasses."

"She was skilled. When she put her mind to it, she was a great strategist; she had a very tactical mind. She just didn't include other people in her strategies." Except as marks. Honestly, she might have worked exceptionally well as a solo agent- something Carolina herself tended to struggle at- but that's not really how they were set up. There's a reason South's most successful missions were with one, maybe two other people.

"... That, and she and North were codependent. Perhaps... More heavily on one side than the other, in retrospect." Carolina hadn't ever really put voice to a lot of these thoughts and observations; she hadn't really wanted to disrespect the dead like that.

"I guess it was one of my failings as a leader that I didn't realize how the format was hurting South; I expected her to 'get it together' without identifying the problem." Oh, there we go- it was inevitably going to circle to how much she blamed herself for everything, wasn't it? Not that she put voice to those thoughts very often, either, but still. Even if she'd wanted to, could she have stood up for anybody else in the project? Or would she have been shut down?

"I... Guess it took me a really long time to actually respect Wash, too. I still find myself hovering with him."

"You were being manipulated just as much as the rest of us," York pointed out. "You're not omnipotent, you can't account for everything. And hindsight is always 20/20."

Of course, she's probably heard all of this before from Wash, so he decided not to linger on it for too long.

"In all fairness, you know what Wash was like. I feel a little bad for giving him such a hard time back then." Only a little, though.

"South." Take a little longer to answer next time, would you?

"I would never deny that she was skilled, but she was rash and self-serving. Worse, she never took an opportunity to learn how to improve, or learn how to work more cohesively with her team." Carolina was more than aware that she'd been accused of acting like she had to prove her own competence, but in her mind, that's what South had been doing- constantly trying to prove that she's competent without making an effort to collaborate with the people around her. Sure, in retrospect the Project had done a very poor job of encouraging collaborative behavior, but that didn't mean it wasn't a vital criteria for Lina herself.

"Yeah, that's what I figured you'd say."

York had not dealt with South all that often in the Project; they didn't mesh well and it showed, and he wasn't interested in tempting fate there. It was one of the reasons he was glad he hadn't been the team leader.

"I'd say I'm amazed she got as far as she did in the Project... but I guess that had been the plan all along, huh?"

It's not, and you know it, buddy. Evidence would suggest, then, that your standards for decent exercise have fallen dramatically. Lina was nice enough not to comment on that, though.

"You did a hell of a lot better than the vast majority of people I've met." It wasn't what first drew her to him- he'd been a one night stand at a night club on Reach while waiting for deployment; physically appealing, maybe a little tipsy, and alone. She'd never dug enough to realize they were there for the same deployment.

It was his skill that had her hooked; she just wasn't good for a relationship at the time, for a lot of reasons. Professionalism was a convenient excuse, all things considered.

"There aren't a lot of people who've earned my professional respect."

"Okay, well, now I'm curious if there were any Freelancers that didn't earn your professional respect."

There was no denying the fact that Carolina had pretty lofty standards, and York was proud that he could meet them... somewhat. He didn't operate the same way she did in the field, after all, but maybe that was a point in his favor. She had always stressed the importance of a well-organized team that could one another's strengths and weaknesses.

"I know some of us weren't exactly the most professional."

"I'm not sure you can keep up with me right now." That's what made it fun for her, after all- that he could keep up, at least in the past. But he's been out of active duty for a while, unlike her, and she didn't expect him to just dive into the deep end. Honestly, it's not even her teasing- she's mostly just genuinely concerned that he's going to go all in to show off and end up hurting himself.

"But you're welcome to try." Within reason. Don't make her go get Delta.

"Hey now, I'm not THAT out of shape."

Well, by Freelancer standards, maybe he was, but those were some pretty high standards in the first place. Working security on Meridian may have been mostly boring--and wallowing in depression hadn't exactly been motivating--but he had still been walking around constantly in body armor and carrying a heavy rifle. That was decent exercise in and of itself.

"But... I mean, I never really could keep up with you, when you think about it."

"Your ass is not your best quality." That wouldn't stop her from grabbing it from time to time, for sure, but that's more for his reaction than anything.

"I'm more of a shoulders, chest, and arms kinda gal. I find most of the men I've been into struggle to compete with the asses of the women I'm into." Something something sexual dimorphism, you know? And her own ass wasn't really much to show off; hips, sure, but ass was lacking; maybe half of the attention was a little bit of envy. Who knows?

"Well, unfortunately, I can't reliably jog backwards while flexing and posturing," York pointed out in a comically matter-of-fact tone of voice. "But if you want to do a proper workout later, I'd be down."

He needed to get in better shape anyway, now that he had someone to impress again.

"In all fairness, women tend to have superior asses just in general."

"Audience implies there was a show. You didn't even hold your arms in a particularly flattering way that whole time." For shame, man, they're your best assets. Not at their peak anymore, mind, but beggars can't be choosers, can they?

"Shall we?" Carolina was happy to stride over to her front door- her door!- and start making her way downstairs, the boring way. Hopefully he's getting used to the climb by now; she's decently convinced that Church just complains for the sake of it at this point.

"I wouldn't have to steal your leg to put on a show for you," York pointed out as he followed her down the stairs. He could handle down, yes, good.

"But, hey, if you want me to jog in front of you so you can stare at my ass, I'll allow it." Just not on the stairs. God forbid he trip.

"Take your time. This will take a moment." It takes a little bit of adjustment to make sure everything's sitting right, but at least she's at a decently high level of mobility; really, all things considered, it's all she could ask for. There exist rigs in the UNSC that are permanently grafted on - in fact, these were often considered standard for active duty soldiers - and using some of the principals of those were vital to her own, but they didn't have quite the tools needed for it when hers was put together- for better or for worse, she supposed.

It was definitely something she intended to look into, eventually. After a moment of adjusting everything and making sure she was secure, she'd move to get her own shoes on, thank you very much. Just a pair of flats would suffice; it's not like she was hiding anything. It did feel very nice to stand and move around, though; sitting still, especially when it's not entirely her choice, wasn't an experience she enjoyed all too much.

"If you ever do that again I'm going to kick your ass."

York took his time getting his shoes on while she worked on her leg, making another pit stop in the kitchen to grab a water bottle out of the fridge, just to be safe. Best to stay hydrated, just in case.

"Why d'you think I whipped out all the big questions first?" he said with a crooked grin as he walked back in. "I know I'm not getting away with that twice. But thank you for being a cooperative captive audience for a few minutes."

"There's the underlying threat in that sentence that if I say no, you won't give it back." There's a layer of humor in her tone, but she finally turns to look at him a little more seriously at the same time. Not only does she not like being asked for a date under threat of immobility, she will be forced to find a way to kick his ass if he tries to leave without giving it back. Shit's hard to replace.

"I am hungry though, so how about this: You give me my leg back, I'll take a walk to a local cafe, and you can tag along if you're in the mood." That's a yes, but re-framing it does make her feel a little better about the whole situation, if nothing else.

York isn't so mean as to not give the leg back regardless... but the grin on his face suggests that he's still very pleased with the end result, regardless.

"Sounds like a good deal to me," he replied, getting to his feet and handing the leg back to her. "I'll go get my shoes on. Because obviously I'll be 'tagging along.'"

"It's been a long time, and a dfficult time at that. I can't begin to presume how your stances and views have changed; not when I already know I'm a very different person than I was during the project." Some people got more rigid in their beliefs over time; again, she didn't know- and neither did he. The more things change the more they stay the same, though; they'd never been great at these conversations.

Maybe that's why he felt the need to steal her fucking leg.

"I just think we should start simple. With coffee, or a casual stroll, or even working out together in the mornings again. Asking about kids is a... A leap, at this stage." Instead of trying to pick up where they left off, so to speak- which already wasn't actually that far, realistically speaking.

"Simple is good. I like simple."

He'll give the leg back in a minute. Maybe. Depends.

"I know how much you love staying on the move, so how about this: I give you your leg back, we go on a nice walk together, and see how it goes from there? Maybe there's a nice place to stop for lunch or something."

"I just... Don't think I'm the person to help you achieve that dream." She's not entirely opposed, but she's also not... Racing for it, or anything, you know? Besides, they barely knew each other, in all practicality. Whether there was natural chemistry or not, they'd never really had the opportunity to talk about this kind of stuff in the project; she'd been very private, by necessity, and she'd never asked anything of him that she wasn't willing to share herself. They might get along on a surface level, but that's just it, isn't it?

"I don't want you trying to compel me to build a life with you if one of us isn't going to be happy with it." Even if it hurt. A very dominant part of her would hate for him to feel rejected, but she also wanted to be practical. He's jumping the gun a lot with that question.

"Look, I don't know what my future holds. And... It would be great, if you were part of it. But I want to make sure you aren't dead set on a specific version of the future that I can't promise I'll buy into. If you're going to be here, and if we're going to try to actually build a relationship together, I need to know you're here for me. Not... For an imagined version of me, or for a specific version of reality that may or may not come to pass."

"Believe it or not, Lina, I'm flexible."

Sure, he had an ideal future... but he was also, ultimately, enough of a realist to know that it wasn't a guaranteed future. That was something he'd accepted well before the Project even fell apart. It was nice to dream, though. He liked to think there was nothing wrong with that.

"My priority is you, not some hypothetical kids. If it happens, it happens, and I'll love it, but if it doesn't... I think I'll live, y'know what I mean? A relationship's a team effort--it's more important that we focus on things we DO agree on."

Okay, yeah, she's thinking about that wine bottle again. Fuck.

"Somehow, you are not the first person to ask me that this week." And somehow, she managed to stay... Somewhat composed when he asked her. Just a little bit; she was staring very pointedly straight ahead, and was probably clutching her glass just a little too tight.

"I don't think we're there yet, if that's your follow up." Better to be upfront about that. "But... Kind of. I don't know, the entire idea is... A lot. I mean, I don't have... The best models of ideal parenting, first of all, not to mention the... ah... Child acquisition process."

No matter what route was explored for that, there'd be some difficulty involved; it was all a little daunting for something she was pretty sure she'd be awful at, and she wasn't really keen to mess up a whole ass person.

"I take it you have." Of course he has; he's exactly that kind of guy, isn't he? Mentally chastising herself for not considering that this would come up, she granted herself a quick glance in his direction, to get a read off of his reaction.

Well, at least she didn't spit-take.

"Look, I'm an optimist, but even I know better than to assume that much," York said, only half-joking. "I'm just... curious."

Obviously there was an ulterior motive here, and she had almost certainly pegged said motive instantly, judging by her response. Plus, he wasn't too surprised about her general opinion.

"'Course I have. I've always wanted to be a dad and a... family-centric kind of guy. Not really an option in the military, obviously, but that's not much of a problem anymore."