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TUCKER: Come on dude, security is already tighter than your butthole
WASH: Idk I just don’t feel right not being in armor :/
TUCKER: You can still carry a handgun or something if you want you know, you have the clearance
WASH: Way ahead of you
TUCKER: Lol I knew it, be down in 20 mins
WASH: Ok see you there
TUCKER: ;)
It was that magical hour of the evening. After most people had gotten home from work and eaten dinner. Toddlers were being put down for the night, kids were having their homework double-checked, teenagers were logging in to their MMO servers. And single middle-aged women who lived alone were turning on the news.
She put her after-dinner cup of tea down on the end table next to a picture of her son, David. You weren’t really allowed so smile in formal pictures when you were in the UNSC, but he had been smiling with his warm, grey eyes. Gazing hopefully into infinity. Her stare caressed her son’s clean-shaven, round face, and she remembered the feeling of his soft blond hair between her fingers.
Oh, David. It had been almost seven years since he had finished basic and had been chivvied away to Gosh-knows-where. She hadn’t been worried for the first five. They had both known going into it that David wouldn’t be able to write or call. He had told her that it was worth it, and she’d agreed. David had really wanted to go. He’d been full of that manic young energy, eager to serve his planet and end the war once and for all. And she had been all for it.
But when those five years had passed, and the story had blown up all over the news, the sudden realization had killed her. Project Freelancer was a bust. Investigations following, but as it stands, none of the agents or their COs had survived.
She started watching the news religiously after that.
Tonight’s story: We go to the capitol building, where a party of high-ranking Sangheili officials have just arrived for the annual correspondent’s dinner. This is the first year that a Sangheili party has been invited since the war started, and many are hopeful that this will be the first event of many to bring mankind and extraterrestrials closer together.
She shuddered a little bit. Seeing the war end was all well and good, but holy raspberries, those aliens were big. A group of three of them strode down the red carpet leading to the capitol building, illuminated by camera flashes and spotlights. They seemed to pay little attention to the press, but nodded in a dignified manner whenever a human approached. The microphones occasionally picked up a “Honk” or a “Blarg” as they passed.
And here’s Ambassador Captain Lavernius Tucker and his son, Junior. A short, dashingly handsome man sauntered down the red carpet next, beaming from ear to ear, winking, throwing out peace signs and thumbs-ups. He was dressed to the nines – in a shocking aqua suit and white patent leather shoes. An alien followed close behind. This one had a bow-tie on.
“Tell us, ambassador, how do you feel upon tonight’s historic occasion?”
“Well, uh, good, I guess? I mean, me and Junior came last year, but it’s nice to get more of the alien crew to come. Yeah, they’re pretty jazzed about it. Not like, completely stoked, but they’re pretty happy.”
“How do you respond to the term ‘alien?’ Do your son’s people prefer the term ‘extra-terrestrial,’ or ‘alien-American?’”
“Pssh. Nah, they’re cool with whatever. Cuz technically, if you wanna be politically correct, you gotta get down to the fine details like nation, and then tribe, and then family, and then first names are a total clusterf-BEEP. So just stay away from like, enormous blarg monster.”
“Thank-you, ambassador, and we wish you the best.”
“You got it, baby. Anytime.” Tucker winked at the camera and returned to Junior’s side. An aide dressed in a blessedly normal black tux jogged up to him, finger in his ear. Probably trying to listen to a wire he had on his person. The audio was faint, but she managed to make out parts of it.
“Goddammit, Tucker, you were sup – enty minutes lat – ithout me.”
Tucker placed a hand on his aide’s shoulder and gave him a reassuring glance. “Cool. We’re – urity all over the – relax.” Tucker leaned in and kissed his aide on the cheek.
The media ate it up, the two were doused in lights and assaulted with microphones. The aide raised his hand to hide his face, and Tucker casually threw an arm around his shoulder and led him further down the carpet. Junior caught on and walked on the aide’s other side, doing a rather more effective job of hiding the aide from sight than his father.
She grabbed the remote and reclined into the careworn loveseat. She sipped her tea contentedly. She flipped through the channels. “Grifball 2529: the Final Fifty. That’s right, Chuck, and surprisingly enough, team Slipspace just made the cut this year. Boy, I tell ya –” “I Didn’t Know My Boyfriend Was an Android: Double Payback Edition. Tonight, our most shocking reveal ever. Ursula Major never suspected –” “Cooking Homestyle on Mars. Tonight, I’m gonna show you guys how to make one of my favorite, down-home Martian dishes –”
Nothing on. Might as well flip back to the news. She might at least be able to pick out a dress on the red carpet that she could find a knockoff of next season. They were just finishing what sounded like the Sangheili national anthem. It was a cacophony of tinny percussion and three or four instruments that all sounded like bagpipes. Everyone was standing, but only the Sangheili and Ambassador Tucker were singing along.
The one human in the group could be heard even from across the banquet hall where the camera was situated. “Once more we proudly blarg, honk, blarg! Amen!” There was a smattering of polite applause as everyone was seated. The camera zoomed out. Tucker and the Sangheili coalition were sitting to the right of the podium along the head table. Another man in a tux stood up at the podium and proceeded to warm up the room for whatever speeches were coming next.
You couldn’t see everyone’s faces from this angle, the cameras switching from a wide-angle view of the head table and panning across the audience. Tucker was always visible, though, just because he was wearing that dumb aqua tuxedo. There was one human sitting between him and one of the aliens. Probably Junior, but it was impossible to tell. When the camera zoomed back in on the podium, you could see Tucker’s right arm and shoulder peeking into the frame.
A few minutes went by uneventfully. The first speaker finished up and was applauded back to his seat. The main camera panned across the head table as he returned to his seat. It passed Tucker and the human between him and Junior. Oh, it was his aide. It only made sense, since it seemed like they were here as a couple –
Pause. Rewind. Play. Wait for it, wait for it, pause.
Oh, God.
Her grip on her teacup went slack; it landed on the floor with a thud.
Ambassador Tucker’s aide. Boyfriend? It was only a profile view, but still.
Short, spiky, fluffy blond hair streaked with dusty grey at the temples. And oh Jesus, his face was so much thinner than it had been. And he had a five-o-clock shadow coming in. She wasn’t sure why, but that made her break into a grin. Time had passed. He had grown. The tux he was wearing was so handsome, it fit so well.
The blond and ambassador Tucker had their heads together, noses almost touching. It looked like Tucker’s hand was in the aide’s lap, and the aide had placed a gentle hand on Tucker’s shoulder. They were looking into each other’s eyes with such warmth, such intensity, like a solar fire.
Just like in the picture.
Her son was alive.
And he was in love.