Dear Corin

Only days after completing his augmentations, turning him into one of the UNSC's new SPARTAN-IVs, Corin Davis receives some disheartening news.

Corin had still been resting in the recovery ward of the Spartan branch's Martian facility where he had just finished receiving his body altering augmentations when an aide had approached him and handed him a data pad. He looked through it briefly and saw that it was filled with several messages from his wife, and he grinned to himself as her saw her name. They had had a pretty big argument when he told her his plan to accept the offer to join the Spartans, as he had previously promised to retire from the military when the war was over. But that was before Reach fell, before Halo was discovered, before the Covenant tore into the Sol system, and before he volunteered to travel outside of the galaxy to save everyone he ever knew. After all that, there was no way he could have just quit and left it to someone else. When Jun had approached him in the bar that night, intoxication aside, he knew he had to do it.

He hadn't gotten a single message from her the entire time he had been training, so he figured she was still upset with him, but with augmentations come and gone, she had probably sent them to make sure he was okay. His finger tapped the first message, bringing up a large wall of text that began with "Dear Corin." That wasn't good, she never called him by his name in letters, always some sort of nickname like "Honey" or "Sugar", or even the affectionate "Starship trooper", a reference to an old novel from Earth, her using his name like that could only mean she was still mad. Corin continued to read through the message and his sense of impending doom continuing to grow. As he went on, he could definitely tell that she was still angry at him, making it well known with things like "since you broke your promise," and "after you left us," which cut him deep at how direct they were, but also because they technically weren't wrong.

As he reached the end of the letter, she saw what she was getting to, a plea for him to drop out of the Spartan branch and to retire like he had promised her. This caused him to raise an eyebrow, as a close family member, she had been informed of the training and augmentation schedule and would be well aware that it was too late by this point so why was she asking him that now? It wasn't until he scrolled back up to select another letter that he noticed the date, at least six months ago. It was only after a moment that he realized that these must have been purposely withheld from him, which couldn't be good. He checked the next letter and saw it dated a few weeks later, and though this one had less text overall than the previous one, it took her just as long to get to whatever point she was trying to make. When he finally reached the end and saw it, he wished she had taken just a bit longer as his heart sank in his chest. Right there at the end, a single sentence written all to itself, said the one thing he was confident he would never hear.

"I want a divorce."

His hands trembled and he felt his blood run cold, but he continued on, opening the next letter. This one was far more to the point than her others, explaining her reasons why. Most of them were about him breaking his promise, leaving her again to go on another adventure with his military buddies, or how his new position as a Spartan could put them in danger from rebels looking to gain leverage against the supersoldiers. The worst one though, was when she stated unequivocally that she was afraid of what a "freak like you could do to her children." Upon reading that, his sadness quickly turned into anger. He wanted to crush the data pad in hands and shout, to say that it was all bullshit and she was just using it as an excuse, but then he stopped. He looked down at the pad and noticed very clear stress fractures forming on the case and screen. He hadn't thought he had applied that much pressure to it, but these pads were built for use in battlefields and didn't crack easy. Maybe she was right, maybe with his newfound strength, he would be a danger to his kids, even if he didn't mean to be. That was something he couldn't allow.

He slumped back down into the bed and looked at the last of the messages, which contained an attached picture of the divorce confirmation papers, officially annulling their marriage. That was it then, roughly two decades of marriage over in just a few months, all while he was working and unaware of it. He wanted to curse her for ruining one of the best things in his life, for destroying his family while he wasn't even around to defend it, but he just couldn't manage it. Instead, he just laid back into the bed and closed his eyes, wishing it weren't true. But it was, and he would have to deal with it just like he did with everything else that had come before.