Archive of Our Own ^beta

When Tex gets on the ship with Junior and O’Malley, she has no intention of ever coming back.

It’s not like when she—or when Allison—first left to go fight in the war. Back then there was the promise that she would return. That Church would see her again. But now she’s making a different choice. A choice that could cost her everything that ever mattered in the past, all so that she can change the future. That, she decides, is well worth the price.

So she does what she always said not to do.

It’s not the first time she says it. She first said it to Church after the Freelancer break-in, a lifetime ago, before he even remembered who she was. But now? Now she knows this time will be the last.

“Tex, don’t do this,” Church says through the radio, pleading as the ship lifts off.

And then she does it—lets out her final word to him, before leaving once again:

“Goodbye.”

There are so many stories where some brave hero decides to give their life to save the day. And because of their sacrifice, the good guys win, the survivors all cheer, and everybody lives happily ever after.

This is not one of those stories.

No, Church isn't here in the Project Freelancer Command Center to save the idiots he begrudgingly calls his friends. He's not here to spare the world from the horrors of the Meta. He's not here to save anyone.

He's here because he needs to know. He's here because he needs to see her again.

So he joins the Meta, capturing the attention of eager AI fragments. It's only when they surround him that he comes to the cold, hard realization of his plan’s one fatal flaw.

Tex isn't here.

Dimly, he hears Wash activate the Project's failsafe, and in the end, Church can't help but think: Ain't that a bi-

When the EMP goes off, Tex is far outside the range of impact. The Meta never found her on the ship, never suspected that he would have to look in the ship—that she would be hiding, sharing a vessel with Sheila. After throwing around whatever he could get his hands on in anger, he growled over her empty shell of a body and left with O’Malley and her cloaking armor enhancement.

Once she did get back in her armor, she knew she had to lie low unless she could find a good way to stop the Meta. Tex couldn’t even go after O’Malley and Wyoming on her own. To face the Meta head-on would've been a fool’s errand, especially given the risk for the AIs that the Meta was hunting. She would've had to be completely and utterly stupid. As stupid as Church, apparently.

She doesn't try to stop him, doesn’t try to find him again. She already said her goodbye. Now all that's left is to move on.

Whatever the hell that means.

With no Great War, no Alpha to check up on or O’Malley to stop, she’s not entirely sure what she wants. All she knows is that she needs to keep moving forward. She needs to keep living—to keep fighting. And so she does.

For a while it goes well. It’s always been an undeniable fact, after all, that Agent Tex is a bit of a badass. With her skillset, she has no trouble finding work as a mercenary. She quickly makes enough that she can pick and choose which jobs to take, while also living comfortably on her own.

The thing about doing your own thing, though, is that as freeing as it can be, it can also make you feel undeniably, inescapably alone. So one day, when Tex finds herself drinking a martini alone on a Sunday morning, she decides she needs some change.

The trouble, of course, is choosing suitable company. There's only one person who she knows could definitely keep up with her, who was gone from her life before she could ever make things right between them. Who could quite possibly be dead, but whose body was never actually found. The one person Tex would've given anything to save.

Carolina.

She doesn't have to let this consume her. Tex isn't about to spend her life chasing a ghost. But after everything she's done, everyone she's let go from her life, the least she can do is try.

By the time Tex comes back to Blood Gulch—over a year after the EMP was activated at Freelancer Command—Kai's nightly raves at Blue Base have started attracting partygoers from all over the galaxy. So the base is packed when Tex arrives, clearly not expecting to find the loud music and colored lights—clearly irritated as she pushes her way toward Kai and starts asking questions. Kai can already tell the woman still hates her.

Then Kai sees a fight break out between two losers in the middle of the room, and she rushes forward to shout at them. No way are they making a belligerent mess of her party. They back up at her insistence, but then one of them stands square in front of her, scowling down from his towering height. Kai stands her ground, though, until eventually he turns and walks away.

With a loud half-sigh, half-groan, Kai returns to her drink. And lowering the cup from her lips, she finds Tex watching her.

"Oh, you're still here?" Kai says.

And Tex laughs.

"You got guts, kid," she says. "I’ll give you that."

Then Tex leaves, and the next time Kai sees her is at another rave—except this time Tex is much more amiable from the start. She actually asks Kai how she's doing before jumping into her real questions. And even though Kai doesn’t have any real answers, she decides she should try to help anyway. Considering people come from all over the world to party at Blue Base, it wouldn’t be too far out there to think one of them might be acquainted with Tex’s lost friend. So Kai starts asking people if they know any badass green-eyed red-haired women, making it seem like she's only asking because that's her type.

Meanwhile, Tex keeps dropping by, both to check in on the intel-gathering and to sit back with Kai and relax—and occasionally to threaten to beat the shit out of any misbehaving drunks. Kai doesn’t actually end up helping Tex find her missing friend (she mostly just ends up scoring a bunch of dates with hot redheads), but at least they have fun.

The thing about trying to find something important, fortunately, is that it can be a lot like chasing a good memory. You can focus on it, and try to force it, but the more you do, the more you seem to push it away. But if you're patient, and you hold still, then maybe—just maybe—it will come to you.

Such is the case when one of Kai's friendly regulars approaches them to show Kai a new article from Interstellar Daily, featuring her good old fellow sim troopers: COLORFUL SPACE MARINES STOP CORRUPTION.

"Oh shit, that's my bro!" Kai says, ecstatic. Dex stands in the side of the photo, arms crossed as he looks away. "What a grouch."

But Tex isn't looking at him. "That's her," she says.

"Who?"

Tex can barely believe it. There, in the center of the photograph, stands a man with no hair, shaking hands with a soldier in familiar teal armor.

"That's Carolina."

Once Tex hears about the Reds and Blues going missing, it doesn't take too long for her to come up with a plan to get to them. Although, she would prefer if the plan in question didn't rely entirely on the radio transmission she heard between Wash and his "lightish red" friend.

At least stowing away on Doc and Donut's ship is easy enough. The two are blissfully unaware of their surroundings, more taken by each other while Tex sneaks past them to hide behind a crate of equipment. She knows she doesn't have to hide—she could easily take them both, along with anyone else on the ship who would dare try to stop her—but sometimes, she's learned, it's a lot less tiring to just be civil.

“Isn’t this exciting, Doc? Here we are, two strapping young men approaching the climax of our rescue mission,” Donut says.

“It sure is,” Doc says. “I just hope it doesn’t end up being too violent.”

“Aw, but I love it when you play doctor…”

From the small glimpse Tex has of their lower legs, she sees them move closer together, to the point where they're probably touching somewhere, and Donut's foot pops back.

Welp. Time to find a new hiding place.

She leaves the lovebirds alone and sneaks off to another room, where she waits in hiding until the ship finally lands. It isn't until the pilot prepares to leave again that Tex realizes the two idiots' idea of a rescue mission was to tell the pilot of the ship to just drop them off.

Without a moment to lose, she jumps to her feet and dives out of the ship, rolling onto the ground to stick the landing. She sees Doc and Donut go on, heading toward the cacophony of an apparent showdown between the Reds and Blues. They stop their fighting for a moment when they notice their teammate, only to jump him when they hear that the ship left.

Tex, all the while, stands back and watches in amusement. Maybe she'll try to be civil to Donut, but it's no fault of hers if she takes a bit of enjoyment in watching other people tear him apart. He did try to kill her, after all.

Once she thinks Donut’s had enough, she shoots her gun into the air, and the sim troopers all stop to look at her in shock.

“You know," she says, "I never thought I'd be so glad to see you idiots again.”

Once everyone calms down from the confusion and fear of seeing Tex, and she manages to convince them that she's not going to try to kill them, Wash explains the whole shipwrecked situation to her. He tells her about the crash, and how Carolina and Church left soon afterward. How they didn't even say where they were going—just disappeared.

But Tex knows them. Carolina's a fighter. And in a way, so is Church. There has to be some reason why they left—some enemy or cause they could fight.

When Tex intercepts a military transmission about equipment that sounds like it was stolen from Project Freelancer, she's pretty sure she's found her answer. So in the morning, she sets off to go find her old friends.

It does take longer than she expects to finally find them. Turns out there's a lot of old Freelancer tech on this planet, and some of it is a long way from the crash site. Eventually, though, she does find herself on exactly the right recovery mission to bring them back together, at the site of some very useful teleportation grenades.

By the time Tex gets there, the alarm's blaring and the fight's started. Carolina's handling herself well enough despite being surrounded, but it still looks like she could use some help. So Tex joins the fray, taking out two guards at once before turning to their comrades.

“All right,” she says. “Who’s next?”

Once the guards immediately in front of her are taken care of, Carolina finally gets to take in the sight of the black armor that just a moment ago was only a blur of motion beside her.

She and Church let out the same incredulous cry: "Tex?"

Tex looks at them over her shoulder, an assailant's arm in her grip. "Hey, Carolina," she says, flipping the guard over. "Think you can keep up?"

Out of the corner of her eye, Carolina sees someone trying to take a swing at her, and just like that, her mind is back in the fight. She and Tex fight together, watching each other's backs. Epsilon still warns Carolina every now and then, but it's mostly Tex looking out for her now, stopping enemies aiming for her without breathing a word. And Carolina does the same for Tex.

When the guards are all knocked out, they have no time to waste. Carolina uses the cubes as Church instructs her to. One moment they're in the storage facility, and the next, they're outside with their coveted loot. Also accompanied—at least for Carolina—by the worst feeling of nausea she's ever had. And seeing the ghost who used to haunt her is not helping. Carolina stumbles a bit, groaning in pain.

Tex leans over her. "Hey, you okay?"

“I’m fine,” Carolina says, more sharply than she intends to. The hostility toward Tex is practically instinctual. But her tone softens, more laced with shock than anger. "But how- how are you even here? I thought you were destroyed. I thought Epsilon was the only one who made it out."

Then Tex starts from the beginning. She tells them how she eluded the Meta, how she spent years working as a mercenary, and how she eventually saw the Interstellar Daily article that led her to come here.

"So it's really you," Carolina says. "You're the Tex who was there, back in Project Freelancer."

“Yeah,” Tex says. “I'm your old teammate."

Teammate.

Like they ever really worked together in a capacity that could be called teamwork before today.

Carolina stands, glancing down at a cut on her shoulder. "I should go take care of this," she says. "Got it before you showed up since someone failed to warn me in time."

"Hey, you could've dodged it yourself," Church says.

Carolina doesn't respond. She walks away without looking back, leaving Church and Tex alone.

"She'll be fine," Church says without being asked. "The cut wasn't deep. She's just, you know. A bit shocked. Which I can't say I blame her for, all things considered."

"It shouldn't be that much of a surprise," Tex says. "I mean, you made it out, didn't you?"

"Hey, I'll have you know I've been pretty badass these past few months."

"Right, good for you. Actually trying to fight for once instead of dicking around with your friends at the crash site."

"You know what, Tex- wait. You… you talked to the guys?"

"I did."

"Oh," Church says, in typical Church fashion, clearly caring but too embarrassed to admit it. Tex knows a thing or two about that. “Have they gone mad and killed each other yet?”

“No, but they came pretty close. Really tore into that pink guy. Doc patched him up though.”

“Oh yeah? I’m pretty sure that has less to do with Doc’s inadequate medical knowledge and more to do with Donut’s uncanny ability to survive literally anything.”

"Yeah, probably." A beat passes. “They’ll be fine,” she says. “A little pissed at you, but hey, when are you not pissing people off?”

Church laughs. “You got me there. And, uh, thanks.”

He disappears then, apparently too embarrassed to hold an actual conversation (no surprise there). Which means if Tex wants to patch things up with Carolina, she'll have to do it herself.

Carolina's still feeling conflicted by the time she's done cleaning and covering the cut on her arm.

As if the whole Tex Army in the sealed Freelancer bunker wasn't enough. As if watching York side with Tex wasn’t enough. As if the years Carolina spent in Tex's shadow wasn't enough. Of course Tex is back again, because it's never, ever enough.

But Carolina's not supposed to care about that anymore. Thanks to Epsilon and everything that happened with the Director in the bunker, she's seen a side of herself that could learn to let go. It's just hard to be a better person around someone who reminds you of all the choices you regret—especially when Carolina remembers something Church once told her. She would have given anything to save you.

When Carolina sees Tex standing in the doorway, she's not sure whether to feel bitter or glad.

"You good?" Tex says.

"Is that why you're here?"

Tex cocks her head to the side, like she doesn't understand the question.

"Is that why you came here to find me?" Carolina says. "Because you wanna make sure I'm good? Because you're still trying to save me?"

"Save you? Carolina-"

"Because I know you cared. Church told me, but I think even before that, I knew. You saved me when no one else did—when I had two AIs screaming in my head. Your voice was the last thing I heard when I fell from that cliff. And sure, you could be a real bitch sometimes, but I know that doesn't change things. I know because I fought York myself, and I-" Her voice cracks. "I cared about him. I was awful, but I cared."

Tex looks down, her voice soft. "I know."

"But you don't have to. I mean, you don't have to keep caring so much. I survived. And despite what the leaderboard said, I'm just as capable-"

"Carolina," Tex says. "You think I give a shit about what was on the leaderboard?"

"What?"

"I know you can take care of yourself. You're a fighter. That's what I like about you. You know I actually started looking for you before I saw that article? I didn't know if you were even still alive, but I figured, if I could survive this long, there was a chance you did too."

That actually makes Carolina feel touched. "But why? Why were you trying to find me?"

"I don't know. I guess… I thought maybe we could be teammates again. Just really do it right this time."

Carolina opens her mouth, not sure what to say to that, when Church saves her from having to answer. He clears his throat, materializing beside her.

"Are you two good?" he says. "Because I think I've got a solid plan for getting back to the guys and pulling one over on those mercenaries."

The two women exchange looks. Carolina's not sure if they're good, exactly, but can they be teammates again? Can they fight again, not against each other, but in tandem? Yeah, Carolina thinks. Yeah, they can do that. And for now, at least, that's enough.

Once they do reunite with the Reds and Blues, everything moves kinda fast.

Together they show the Federal Army and the New Republic that they were being manipulated into fighting each other. The two sides join forces to work against a common enemy. Finally, with the help of her new band of lovable idiots, Tex is actually doing what she once sacrificed everything for and still failed to do: they're going to end a war.

In the end, while Wash and Carolina continue the fight outside, Tex goes with the Reds and Blues to override controls from the Chairman's trophy room. They all stand together, ready to fight for their lives. Tucker says he'll see Church on the other side. But somehow, Tex sees Epsilon and knows. She can tell what he's about to do.

Not this time, buddy.

Before he can go on, Tex's projection appears next to him. No one else moves around them. They're operating in their own time.

“So this is it,” Tex says.

Church looks at her. “Oh, hey, Tex. Wanna stay while I figure out my parting message? I figure I should at least leave these guys with something.”

"No," she says. Her tone is soft. Accepting. "I just wanted to say goodbye."

"Goodbye?" Church breathes out a laugh. "It's weird, hearing you say goodbye. The other Tex—the one after you—she hated goodbyes. She was like Allison."

"And like Alpha and the Director,” Tex adds. “But we're not them. We haven't been for a while now."

"I guess you're right. We’ve come pretty far since the Project, huh? I guess you could say we're the versions of them who learned to say goodbye. Not bad for two fragments of memory." Because that was all they were, once. The memory that started it all, and the memory that started the end. Now, the latter takes a moment to consider this. "I think I know what I wanna say in my message."

"I'll leave you to it then," Tex says. "Goodbye, Church."

"Bye, Tex. And thanks. For making me what I am.”

Tex stands with him a little longer before her projection disappears, leaving Church to record his last goodbyes.

When it's all over, the Reds and Blues and former Freelancers get all the glory from Chorus they could ever want. Kimball even promises to help them live the rest of their lives in peace, sending some people to an isolated moon to scope it out and build them two new bases—at Sarge's insistence that the Red and Blue teams should still have separate bases, of course.

While all that is being prepared, the team stays on Chorus, most of them doing their best to join in the post-war festivities. But putting on a smile at a time like this is harder for some than it is for others. Which is why Carolina stays in and works out at a boxing gym, pounding her fists into a punching bag until she hears Tex enter the room.

"Hey," Carolina says.

"Hey."

Carolina lets her arms fall to her sides, expecting Tex to try to talk to her, but Tex simply walks up to a neighboring punching bag and starts putting in hits. With a bit of relief, Carolina continues to do the same.

They train side-by-side, matching punch for punch. By the time they're done, Carolina's breath is coming out in pants, and she lets herself collapse on the floor. She lies on her back, limbs spread out. She sees Tex isn’t nearly as exhausted as she sits down next to her, but somehow, Carolina can't bring herself to care. She just lies there, staring at nothing until her breathing slowly returns to normal.

“I haven’t listened to his messages,” she says suddenly.

Tex lifts her head, waiting for Carolina to go on.

“I already know what’s in them,” Carolina says, sitting up. “It has to be him saying goodbye. And I- I can’t listen. I can't hear him say that. Because as long as I don’t, it’s like he’s not really gone. He’s just…”

“Not here right now.”

It hits Carolina, then. The words remind her of what Tex is—whose memory she was based on. And despite everything—all their history and competition—it seems fitting. That of all people, Tex should be the one to be with her right now. Because Tex knows.

She knows they’ve both suffered from someone else’s obsessive need to hold on to the past. She knows Carolina is all too familiar with what happens when people can’t let go. So Tex doesn’t try to tell Carolina anything she doesn’t already know. Instead, she offers her something she’s never had before—something she always needed in the darkest moments of her life.

“If it helps,” Tex says, “you don’t have to listen alone.”

Meanwhile, Wash and Caboose are out walking when they pass by the boxing gym, and Wash's steps slow as he looks up to stare.

“You want to go check on Carolina, don’t you?” Caboose says.

Wash hesitates. “I dunno. Should I?”

Caboose exhales, exasperated. “Well, obviously, Wash. Best friends are supposed to check in on each other.” He walks over to the door. “Thank goodness I am here to share all of my best friend experience with you. You would be so lost without me."

Wash smiles. "I'll catch up in a minute. There's someone else I need to find first."

He finds Tucker strewn across his bed, only recently come back from partying with the lieutenants. Tucker's been partying harder than all of them lately.

"Hey," Wash says.

Tucker just looks at him, only for a second, before turning away.

"Look. Caboose and I are gonna go check on Carolina, and maybe talk about… about Church. And I know you've been trying not to think about what happened, and that you haven't been ready to talk about it, but you don't have to be alone with-"

"Okay," Tucker says.

"Okay?"

"Okay." Tucker doesn't say anything else, but he gets out of bed to join Wash. And for now, at least, that's enough.

“Play it again, F.I.L.S.S.”

In the past, Carolina always had to grieve alone. When her mother died, her father grew distant. When her team fell apart, she hid herself among strangers. And by the time she found out York died?

She had no one. No one she could call her friend. No one like the Reds and Blues.

At Carolina’s prompting, F.I.L.S.S. begins the playback—for the first time for Carolina, and at least the second time for each of the others.

Under different circumstances, Carolina might’ve become like her father—haunted by ghosts, replaying the same memory over and over again. Maybe, if she was still forced to be alone with her grief, she would’ve fallen into that same downward spiral.

But she’s not like him. She has teammates on either side of her, who don't care about numbers and rankings. She has her fellow survivors of Project Freelancer, who have stuck with her through all her faults. She has Tex—her greatest enemy turned friend, who puts a hand on her shoulder in an offer of solidarity and strength.

So she's not like the Director. When she's done hearing the last words she'll ever hear from Church, she can already feel a small part of her letting go. Maybe not all at once—because sometimes it's not enough to say goodbye once—but enough that she knows she can live on. With the dear friends she has beside her, she'll live on to fight. To cheer. And always, to remember.