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This is how it starts.
“Alright class,” her teacher says, reaching for her laptop to press a button. “Who can tell me who this is?”
A picture appears on the screen, a man, with pale skin, jet black hair, and multiple piercings on both of his ears. Most of the class is silent in response, not recognizing the man in front of them without his signature armor and helmet. Charlie can hear them speculate around her, whispers of who he could possibly be echoing in the dark classroom.
Charlie does not join them in their conversation. She knows who the man on the screen is. How could she not?
She has nightmares of him standing her her doorway almost once a week.
“That’s Felix. Felix Mcscouty,” she says, struggling to use English instead of falling into her native tongue. “He’s a war criminal.”
The class falls silent once more. She can feel her peers stare at her, casting judgement to how she knows such a thing on sight. Making the connection between her father and the man on the screen. Only God knows what they must be thinking, probably that her father has shown her those photos with pride, or talked about him like an old friend. She lets them think what they want.
Anything to get his face off the screen faster.
“That’s correct, Charlie,” her teacher says and she can hear the awkwardness in her tone. Realizing the touchiness of the topic. She reaches down to press another button, and this time the slide goes to Felix in his armor, her father standing next to them, and a picture of Hargrove in his mug shot in the top right corner. “Back during the Chorus Civil War-”
Charlie half-listens to the lecture, knowing the entire affair by heart. She’s more focused on the pictures in front of her, the man who would try to take her away, the father she knows has done more harm than good in his life, and the man who controlled both their strings. Hargrove and her father are in jail now, Hargrove in a high security prison in space, her father a fifteen minute drive out. Felix, on the other hand, is dead once more, his ashes scattered in space to keep him from appearing once again.
He’s in thousands of pieces. Thousands. Yet Charlie still can’t shake the fear that she’ll wake up one day to find him knocking on her door.
The time on the instigators of the war is brief, though Charlie isn’t sure if that was her teacher’s original intent, or just her trying to make up for the oversight that is Charlie herself earlier. She moves onto the major political figures next, General Kimball and General Doyle, then on some other assassinated heads of state, before closing on the Reds and Blues. When the lecture lecture comes to a close, it is with half the class spaced out and the other half staring at Charlie like they’re waiting for her to snap. As her teacher reaches for the button to bring on the next slide, Charlie notices the pile of papers near her desk, just enough handouts for each student.
Her stomach sinks. She knows what this project is. Lauren had to do it last year (and didn’t stop talking about it the entire month). Charlie forgotten she would have to do it as well.
“Projects!” Her teacher announces and the class of Freshman groans. “Take a figure from the Chorus Civil War and make a presentation about them to the class. Doesn’t matter who or which side. Primary sources only!” Charlie grabs a handout as it is passed around and eyes the rules (no contacting the figures involved unless you have teacher permission, no more than five minutes, no graphic images). “You must have your topic approved by me before you leave class today!”
Charlie reads the list of names. There’s a plethora of options she could take. Her father is out of the question, of course (she needs to sift through that terrible history on her own time and even now she knows more than she would like) and while the Reds and Blues present an easy option, they don’t seem quite right to chose with her connections. Last year, she would have picked Kimball, but the idea of doing a project on her now seems too painful to attempt.
Her eyes reach the final line. It is a terrible idea. Horrendous. If she tells any of her guardians, they’ll veto her topic at once. But yet-
The bell rings and Charlie looks up to find her teacher standing in front of her desk. There’s a smile on her face, but it’s plastered on.
“Charlie,” she starts. “I’m sorry for not taking you into account earlier. That was stupid of me.”
“I’m not upset,” Charlie says, the assignment paper crinkling in her grasp. The fake smile on her teacher’s face gets bigger.
“Well good. Because I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to not choose your father from our list of topics. I know you might want to do your project on him, and I know you’d be nothing but correct but-”
“I don’t want to do it on my father.”
The surprise is evident on her teacher’s face. “You don’t? Well that’s good, well not good I mean, I’m sure you would have done a great job but-”
Charlie grips her paper tight enough to leave holes. Lifts her chin. Uses the best English she can.
“I want to do my project on Felix.”
On record, Felix Mcscouty was from New York, but upon further investigation, the real Felix Mcscouty died there in a carjacking five years before Felix would ever been seen on Chorus.
It is believed that the name was taken by the Chorus criminal as a cover-
Lauren knows about the project before Charlie even tells her.
That’s the problem with being best friends with a reporter, Charlie thinks. They’re always one step ahead.
“That project was a blast,” Lauren says as they walk home from school. They stopped taking the bus ages ago when Charlie got too big to really fit in the seats. “I got to pester my Dads with questions about their lives for weeks and they couldn’t stop me because it was for a grade. Do you know what kind of shit I learned? From Grandpa Sarge? It’s gold, Charlie, gold.”
Charlie stuck her hands in her pockets. Her pants were too big for her (they always were) and she hoped mud didn’t catch on the pant-legs. “Who did you report on? Uncle Grif or Uncle Simmons?”
Lauren looks at her like she’s missed the obvious. “Both.” They walk another block before she speaks again. “Are you doing yours on your Dad?”
“No.” Lauren doesn’t react at all to that news. It’s one of the things Charlie likes about her; she doesn’t try to predict people much. Especially not Charlie.
“Who you doing it on then? Aunt Carolina? Uncle Tucker? Uncle Donut?” A pause. “Church? Because if you get into that you’re opening up a can of worms, just warning you. I asked Uncle Wash about him once and he looked like I kicked a cat.”
“No, no. Not Church.” She looks around for any sign of adults. “I told her I’m doing it on Felix.”
Lauren stops in her tracks.
“Felix?” She says and Charlie sighs because she knew this was coming, even from Lauren. Because no matter how much she pretends to not care otherwise, Lauren frets. “Is that a good idea?”
“Probably not.”
A pause. “You still have nightmares about him..”
There’s no use in denying it. “Yes.”
“Like screaming ones.”
“I’m aware.”
“And you’re-”
“Lauren,” Charlie says. “Do you remember two years ago? When you made me jump on that bus and we went back to where you grew up? That-”
“I remember.” Lauren’s voice is all Grif now, dark edges and Charlie can remember that same tone when they walked into a forest two years ago that was more grave than forest. “What’s your point?”
“You needed to do that. I don’t know why, but I know you needed to do that. And I need to do this.” Lauren looks at her, her frown getting less grim. “He is a monster in my nightmares. If I peel that away, see what is underneath, he’s just a man.”
The frown grows grim again. “People have been looking for the man behind that monster for years. Do you really think you’re gonna find what they missed?”
Charlie thinks back to her nightmares. How every night Felix seems to grow claws and sharper teeth. She looks Lauren straight in the eye.
“I have to try.”
Lauren looks at her for a long moment. Takes in a deep breath.
“Fine. But you’re sharing what you find with me. You came with me to that forest? I’m coming with you on this disaster.”
It’s a good enough deal for Charlie.
There is no military record for Felix, but he is thought to have served by scholars and limited testimony from his former partner, Locus. Five years after the war, his profile and information were sent out to the UNSC to help identify him;
To this day, no one has stepped forward.
This is a typical nightmare
A knock at the door. The sound of a voice, her father’s. Smiling wide because he’s home, finally home, and that means steak for dinner instead of leftovers. Running to the door to open it. And-
Blood soaked hands. Blood soaked knife. Teeth like razors. A flash of orange.
She no longer wakes up screaming to these nightmares. Those are saved for the bad ones.
Tonight is a bad one.
She doesn’t remember the details. She rarely does. Just bars she can’t get past, blood pooling on the floor and in-between her toes, dead eyes staring back at her, a laugh that just won’t stop ringing in her ears.
She gets out of bed, heading down to the kitchen as is tradition with these night terrors in the Tucker household. Back when she first started staying with Tucker, Wash and Junior, she’d caught on quick that anyone who had a nightmare could be found in the kitchen until either someone joined them or they felt well enough to go back to bed. Uncle Wash isn’t down there when she makes it to the kitchen, which is a happy surprise, but Uncle Tucker is. He’s standing in front of the toaster and when he sees her enter, he adds two more slices of bed into the slots.
“Hey kid,” he says. “Bad one?”
“Yes.” She doesn’t feel like making the effort of using English right now and Uncle Tucker will understand her either way. She pours herself a glass of water and sits down at the kitchen table. “Are you alright, Uncle Tucker?”
Uncle Tucker waves her concern off. “I’m good. Just normal parent nightmares. Stuff to guilt Junior over when he gets home.”
Charlie isn’t surprised his nightmares are about Junior; Uncle Tucker hadn’t been thrilled when he let them know his latest diplomacy mission would be in a war zone, no matter how many guards they promised him with. “I will help you guilt, if you wish.”
“Nah. I already got Wash on my side. His guilt trip is already eternal.” The toaster beeps and four slices of bread pop out. Uncle Tucker puts them on a plate before going to grab a new one. “Wanna talk about yours?”
“No thank you.” What is there to say? That she’s terrified of a man a decade dead? Uncle Tucker already knows that. When Uncle Tucker gets another plate she raises her hand. “Can I have grape jelly on mine?”
“As long as it isn’t a red color, you’re golden.” Tucker reaches into the fridge and two minutes later they’re munching away at patented “nightmare club” half-burnt toast.
It’s enough to let her forget about her dreams, if only for a little while.
Due to his skill in knives, it is a popular theory that Felix Mcscouty was a member of special ops, but given no record of a man matching his description in the program, that theory has not been proven. His partner would not confirm or deny that they served special ops, only that they were on the same unit in some program that he will not name his affiliation to.
Charlie starts to understand Lauren’s concern three hours into researching.
It’s not that there isn’t any information about Felix during the war; there’s plenty. More than she would ever want to know, first hand testimonies, records from his personal logs, data recovered from his armor. His known kill count is sourced in every way she can think of, his involvement in the beginnings of the war chronicled to the point of excess. The relationship to her father has almost fifteen academic papers alone (and in them are some questions she does not want answered) and she skims them in an attempt to find anything useful. She even resorts to sites trying to get into his mind (all orange themed which makes Charlie’s skin crawl) There is plenty of information of his post mortem psych evals for both of his deaths. Even she can be found on his page, a footnote, but there nonetheless. A kidnapping that no one can decide the true reason for. Money? Jilted-Ex? Mind-Controlled by those who brought him back.
Charlie knows the reason. Revenge isn’t that complicated. Felix taught her that.
It’s three pages of notes before she gathers the courage to go anywhere outside of written texts and to the actual photos. They’re more sparse, just stuff captured on helmet cam, and without the video to accompany it, she finds them useless at best. When she follows the links she manages to find the original sources, a few clips pure video open to the public, but her hand hovers over the play button.
There’s a difference between reading Felix’s words and hearing them.
“Oh no you don’t,” Lauren says and Charlie’s laptop is stolen from her in under a second. Charlie glares at the teen, trying to get her best “I am a fierce alien” look going, but Lauren doesn’t seem affected in the slightest. “We talked about this. No braving the douchebag express without taking me along for the ride.”
If Charlie had eyebrows, they would raise. “The douchebag express?”
“If the shoe fits, force it on and make sure your point it known.” Lauren turns the tablet towards Charlie and points at the videos. “Let’s avoid all the ones with blood, death and more death, shall we?” She swipes at the screen and almost all the videos vanish under her filters. “And any with sexual content-” Another video vanishes and Charlie wonders who in their right mind would both have that footage and post it on the internet. “And there we go.”
There are three videos left. Charlie’s mandibles curl inwards. “Lauren, this is nothing-”
“Be happy I didn’t filter out the training ones too or you’d just have one video.” She passes the tablet back to Charlie before getting up to sit next to her. “Okay. Hit up the movie magic. I want to mentally stab this man with my mind.”
Charlie sighs and clicks on the first video, trying to ignore her shaking hands. It looks like a video compilation from the looks of it, and given the footage it was taken with a helmet cam. The logo in the right corner says “Tucker.”
“Oh no,” Lauren says as the footage turns to Tucker himself with the word “Grif” in the right corner. “Dad told me about this.”
Charlie’s stomach sinks. This can’t be good. “What is it?”
Lauren puts her head in her hands. “My Dads and Uncles making utter and complete fools of themselves.”
Uncle Caboose says “fire in the hole” before the screen goes to static and starts on the next clip.
His relationship to his partner, Locus, is unclear. They have been speculated to be business partners only, old friends, or even lovers. When asked upon the relationship, Locus refuses to elaborate.
Given how their partnership ended and a later incident involving Locus’ and an alien child he was harboring, it is assumed-
She’s watching the video from the tower when Aunt Carolina walks in.
It doesn’t matter how fast Charlie shuts off the video or how quickly she hides her tablet; Aunt Carolina knows. There’s a frown to her face that isn’t exactly disapproval but worry, and when she plucks the tablet from under Charlie’s bed, the alien teenager knows she’s well and truly fucked.
“What are you doing?” She asks in a way that reminds Charlie exactly what Aunt Carolina used to do for a living.
Charlie fesses up. There’s no point in trying to hide it. Once Aunt Carolina has caught onto something, there’s no way of keeping her away from every last detail.
When she tells her the fully story, Carolina runs her hand down her face. There’s new wrinkles there, Charlie notices, and she hopes they aren’t there because of her.
“I have to understand,” Charlie says, hoping that she gets it. Aunt Carolina has always gotten it. Her father, why she needs to visit even knowing what he’s done, the nightmares. Charlie doesn’t know how, or why, but she has.
“I wish I could give you a good answer here, kid,” Aunt Carolina says. “But you aren’t gonna understand. Not in the way you want, at least. You can’t unbox people entirely. I know; I’ve tried.”
The way she says the last sentence makes Charlie want to ask the specifics, but she decides better of it. Charlie looks down at the tablet in her hands and looks at her own reflection. Alien features. Mandibles. Her father’s brown eyes. It’s the only trait she got from him.
People think she should be thankful for that. Charlie doesn’t tell them she thinks otherwise.
“Look,” Aunt Carolina says after a long period of silence. “If you want answers? You have to go to the source. It’s the closest you’re gonna get.”
Charlie looks at her, confused. “The source is dead.”
Carolina’s expression is sad in ways Charlie can’t comprehend.
“Then go to the next best thing.”
Charlie looks back at her tablet, sees her brown eyes, and realizes the answer to her question has maybe been standing in front of her all along.
Little is known about the weeks Felix was brought back from the dead in public record, due to the censorship of material captured for child privacy reasons. His helmet, however, was recovered at the scene, and to this day, files are being pulled from-
When she tells her father her subject for her school project, she has never seen him so angry.
“Who would assign you such a thing?” he says, gripping the seat of his chair behind the glass, knuckles white. Charlie is somewhat worried the chair would begin to splinter. “Do they have any idea of what that man did? What he would have done? How dare-”
“Father,” Charlie says, keeping her voice level. “They did not assign me this topic. I choose it. Myself.”
Locus’ grip loosens on the chair. His eyes grow from angry, to confused, to just wary.
“Why would you request such a thing?” There is no judgement in his voice. Yet.
Charlie knows her father’s relationship with Felix was complicated. He never spoke of the man if he could help it, and when he did, it was in sentences considered brief even for him. In their family, Felix was their shared ghost, a figure who fear in the both of them.
Charlie’s fear comes from a memory of weeks she will never forget. Her father’s fear? That is something more complicated.
“I need to understand. Why he was the way he was.”
“There is no reason-” Locus snaps, and Charlie flinches in her chair from the suddenness of it. Locus seems to notice and he takes in a deep breath, clearly not trying to scare her. “There is no reason to find.”
“How can you know that?”
Brown eyes meet her own. “Because I have looked.”
It hits Charlie at once. The reason her father never spoke to the historians in the texts, the reason he refused to give up information on a man he now hated. Her stomach twists.
“You have not told the researchers what you know because you do not know either.”
The smile her father shoots her is bitter.
“I know he was manipulative. And cruel. And enjoyed the sound of his voice more than anything else in the world given how much he spoke. But I do not know his motives.” He looks away from her. Like he can’t make this admission to her face. “I never did.”
Both father and daughter hang their head at once.
In a small part of their minds, both of them can hear Felix laugh.
-there is no indication the files from his helmet will ever be fully recovered.
This is how it ends; a presentation in a crowded classroom in dark lighting.
Charlie clicks her first slide and takes a deep breath as an orange helmet appears on a screen.
“This is Felix,” she says. ‘Felix Mcscouty. He’s a”
A kidnapper. The monster in every nightmare she’s ever had. A murderer. A mystery. A ghost she will never be able to forget. A ghost her father will never outlive.
A man. That’s the detail that makes him scarier.
“He’s a war criminal,” Charlie finishes.
Within her crowded classroom, she swears she can feel the ghost of Felix watching her.