Things had settled (a bit) and sure, missions are a thing. Wash on an op with the Chief? Cakewalk, everyone's gonna come home fine. Must be him buying into that legend of the Spartans or some shit but when there's a team that's sort of invested in keeping everyone safe? Odds are in their favor they're gonna come home. York figured it'd be a milk run and nothing much would go off the rails.

And then there's word of them returning with wounded. Critically injured. And the flashbacks are really fucking unpleasant. Not as much as poking his head in and seeing Wash in the hospital bed and-

This part isn't familiar. He'd never spent all that much time checking up on anyone outside of the leaderboard and Wash was sort of...orbiting them even when he made the top ten. Another reason to kick his past self in the nuts. But here and now? He makes his way to the chair, dropping into it without much fanfare. Bullet to the chest. That-

Yeah, not gonna make this about him or his issues. Or at least that's the intention, then what comes out of his mouth is- "Dude, you're stealing my shtick, here."