Can be read here
at Archive of Our Own.
Alpha contains examples of:
- Adaptational Angst Upgrade: The different circumstances of the events of Revelation traumatize Washington so much that he basically falls into a week-long coma. He also shows a lot more grief and rage over the fate of his friend Maine than he ever did in canon.
- Adaptational Context Change:
- In the show, when we see the Alpha undergoing his torture, Washington is offhandedly mentioned to have "died" in the mission, but Alpha completely ignores that to focus on Tex. Here, that moment is expanded upon; in truth, Washington was one of the Alpha's favorite agents, so Washington was always listed as a casualty in the fake scenarios to increase the likelihood of a fragment being created.
- The fic posits that Theta's skateboard was actually a recreation of a skateboard that Washington owned.
- In canon, it's shown that Maine made his first overt action as the Meta - taking Eta and Iota from Carolina - because the destruction of the Mother of Invention made it a good time for Sigma to start acting. Here, Alpha reveals that after the Epsilon incident, the Director lied to Maine and told him that Washington would never recover, and when that was combined with Connie's recent death, he outright snapped, which gave Sigma complete control.
- Adaptational Jerkass: Epsilon's Character Development gets halted during the events of season eight, leaving him as a massive dick with a Tex-sized chip on his shoulder instead of the snarky hero who grew out of his flaws and obsession.
- Adaptational Villainy: It's implied multiple times that the Director intended for Maine to become the Meta and reunite the AI fragments, whereas in canon the Meta's creation was simply the culmination of all the Project's mistakes.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
- Washington is shown to have had sexual relationships with C.T., Maine, and 479er during his time at Freelancer. In canon, he was shown to be good friends with all of them, but none of them had any romantic or sexual interactions. Additionally, Washington served with Maine before PFL in the fic, which is not indicated in canon.
- In canon, besides Epsilon shooting Washington the first time he sees him, the two of them are largely cordial to each other despite their backstory together. Here, Washington is hostile to him from the get-go and violently captures him, while Epsilon shows clear regret for failing to protect him and apologizes to him.
- When he pretends to be a simulation trooper, Washington ends up joining the Red Team, making him far closer with the other Reds than he was in canon and also putting him further from the Blues, especially Caboose, than in canon.
- Adapted Out: Because Washington doesn't shoot Donut and the Meta isn't in need of someone to help with his armor enhancements, Doc isn't called to Valhalla and is left out of all of Revelation's events.
- Berserk Button: Washington goes from mildly annoyed to beating the absolute shit out of Tucker the second Tucker calls him "crazy". Donut fully supports him when he learns he called Wash the "c-word". As time goes on, the button extends to usage of the word to describe anyone, not just himself.
- Big Eater: When he has some downtime, Washington decides to spite Grif by eating all of his pizza in one sitting. It bites him in the ass when Sarge and Grif ambush him shortly after this, and the pizza and soda he just scarfed down ends up making him sick during the fight.
- Continuity Nod:
- When the Reds take off their armor around Washington, Grif has a noticeable skin graft from when Simmons donated him flesh after Shiela ran him over, Simmons has clear cybernetics from the same incident, and the right side of Donut's face is heavily scarred with shrapnel burns, referencing when Tex stuck him with the sticky grenade before he got his pink armor.
- Grif is happy to stay away from Epsilon-Tex because of all the times she kicked him in the balls.
- Death Seeker: All of the stress and trauma from dealing with the shell of his former best friend eventually destroys Washington mentally, to the point that he's happy to just fall asleep and never wake up. Unfortunately for him, Donut is very persistent about helping him, and he eventually remembers how to be a functioning human again.
- Empty Shell: Despite the fact that his body is still alive, it's made clear that Maine has basically been brain dead since Sigma took him over, with the body completely incapable of acting independently whenever Alpha leaves it. When Alpha does finally agree to kill him, the armor is literally the only thing keeping him alive, to the point that Beta compares the situation to Alpha just "turning off the lights" as he leaves. The only thing that remained with Maine to the end was his refusal to kill Washington. Beta reveals later that Maine finally died completely just before the visit to the power station; in fact, the reason the Meta went to the power station was because Maine's "death" crippled them.
- Everyone Has Standards: Played for Laughs; the Reds are all okay with Washington trying to run Tucker over with the Warthog, but they're concerned for Wash's mental state when he beats him up with his bare hands. Washington is just infuriated by the cognitive dissonance that they consider running him over with a car to be an acceptable social interaction but draw the line at punching him.
- Failed a Spot Check: Tucker gets on the Warthog's hood and spends a minute or two ranting at Grif about his situation before he finally notices that the soldier sitting next to him isn't Simmons.
- Hidden Depths:
- As Washington accidentally starts to open up about just how badly Freelancer damaged his mental state, the entire Red Team show remarkable emotional intelligence for the situation; Grif and Simmons stay silent and simply communicate with each other with looks so as to not disrupt anything, Donut comforts Washington by telling him that it's okay to just go through the motions sometimes if it means he's not thinking about bad memories, and Sarge just tells him that bad people like the Director already ruined a lot of people's lives and it's time for Washington to put it behind him. Wash, who had previously wanted to leave and work on the Warthog, ends up staying with them for the night. Even Lopez outright says that Wash needs therapy later on, not that anyone around him can understand that.
- Unlike his terrible attempts to translate Lopez's Spanish, Donut is actually able to read and communicate sign language.
- Hiding in Plain Sight: Sarge argues that the best solution for Washington's fugitive status is to just take him back to Valhalla with the rest of them, pointing out that the government isn't going to look for him in a simulation trooper's base. Wash finds the plan stupid (and is largely delirious at this point), but agrees anyway because he has no other ideas.
- In Spite of a Nail:
- Washington and the Meta still get ambushed by Grif and Sarge with the Warthog, piss off the aliens at Sandtrap and end up killing them all, and get dragged into the glacier fight because Epsilon-Tex sets off Epsilon's recovery beacon and they walk into a trap.
- Washington still hides from the UNSC after the events of Revelation by joining the Reds and Blues and going back to their base, the only change being that he becomes a Red instead of a Blue.
- Internal Reveal:
- After enduring all of the Church and Tex-related drama for 26 chapters, Washington finally learns the full story of Leonard and Allison Church from Carolina herself, including just why the Alpha was tortured. This conversation is also when Washington learns for the first time that the Director didn't remove Epsilon from his head right away; in truth, he kept Washington in isolation for three weeks.
- Chapter 27 has Beta catch Washington up on everything that happened during The Blood Gulch Chronicles, including Junior's existence, Wyoming's attempt to end the Great War through him and Omega, and Wyoming's death at Tucker's hand.
- Mirror Match: Beta takes over the Meta's body during the fight with Epsilon-Tex at the glacier, putting the two Texes against each other. It's shown to be a relatively even fight, but the winner is never revealed because Washington takes advantage of their distraction to capture Epsilon and flee the scene.
- Odd Friendship: Sarge is a Red Blood Knight genuinely invested in the Red vs. Blue conflict, while Epsilon-Tex is a borderline-suicidal Freelancer aligned with the Blues who couldn't care less about the war. Starting when they return to Sandtrap, they end up getting along great watching Tucker, Epsilon, Donut, and Alpha all get into their own petty squabbles, and even silently agree to move spots to try to get a better view.
- Offscreen Inertia: The Reds and Epsilon go through their canon Revelation plot offscreen while Alpha and Washington are the focus characters. It only officially diverges when Epsilon and Epsilon-Tex lure Washington and Meta to the glacier.
- One-Steve Limit: Because there are two different Churches and two different Texes in Valhalla at the same time, the names get altered slightly; Alpha and Epsilon are "Asshole" and "Bowling Ball" respectively, while the original Tex is called Beta and the Tex that Epsilon created is called Tex.
- Only Sane by Comparison: For all that Washington is the only "real" soldier of the group who isn't either fighting a fake war or is an AI with a mountain of psychological issues, he's actually just as crazy as the rest of the Blood Gulch Crew, his insanity just manifests as crippling depression and anger issues. There are more than a few times that other members of the Crew are pointedly being more mature than him, which he tries his best to not think about. He finally accepts himself as one of them when he gets excited to see the Reds joining him and Carolina on their mission to find the Director, even if it means dealing with their Warthog's polka music.
- Only Sane Man: When the entire group reconvenes at Sandtrap once they've caught up to Washington and Epsilon, Tucker of all people is basically the only one who is willing to step in to make sure a fight doesn't break out between the Churches and Texes for no reason.
- Pet the Dog:
- Donut, being his usual dandy self, does everything he can to make Washington comfortable at Red Base despite his fraying sanity, including helping him take off his armor, cleaning up his vomit, and offering him new clothes after a shower.
- Even knowing that Maine is so far gone that he wouldn't feel anything anyway, Alpha still doses him with as much pain medication as he can before killing him just to make sure that he can't feel any pain as he dies. He also gives Maine a last piece of dignity by having a subroutine gently lower the body to the ground, ensuring that he doesn't just collapse in a heap.
- Photographic Memory: Ever since the Epsilon incident, Washington has had an impeccable memory, which tends to be most apparent in all of his incredibly vivid and detailed nightmares about the past.
- Reality Has No Subtitles: Unlike the show, Lopez's dialogue has no subtitles, though given how freely he throws around the word "idiota", it's easy to guess his general thoughts on the situation even if one speaks no Spanish.
- The Reveal: At Sandtrap, Beta reveals that all of the soldiers of Project Freelancer being basket cases wasn't an accident - the members were recruited by cross-checking combat scores with trauma survivors.
- Sanity Slippage: Having to undergo a secret mission to clear his name for crimes he didn't commit all while his best friend's corpse is being piloted by a jackass AI does severe damage to Washington's mental state over the course of the story. By the time he captures Epsilon only for his former AI to apologize for failing to protect him, he basically falls into a coma, and spends weeks after that alternating between sleeping, throwing up, and occasionally eating.
- Sanity Strengthening: The stress of all of his former fragments being jammed back into his own being causes Alpha to flicker through states of sanity early in the story. In particular, he can't help but quote Delta's "acceptable deviations of sanity" line, and he later completely reverts into Theta. However, after Beta is fragmented off again, he regains control of his mind and effectively becomes one person again, even if the other fragments are still hidden away.
- Spared by the Adaptation:
- The premise of the story is that Alpha reabsorbs his fragmented "siblings" before the EMP can go off, and once he's made whole, he becomes immune to EMPs and thus survives the blast. As a side effect of Alpha's survival, Beta and the rest of the fragments survive as well, albeit they're largely assimilated into Alpha's consciousness.
- Because of the different circumstances of the "ice fight", Epsilon-Tex survives and comes back to the canyon with the rest of the group.
- Wham Episode:
- Chapter 22: A routine fight between Wash, Donut, and Epsilon-Tex gets disrupted by Carolina, who proceeds to "kill" both of the Texes in the canyon before Wash can talk her down.
- Chapte 26: Washington is finally caught up on all of the stories behind the Director and Allison and agrees to go with Carolina to kill him, though he pointedly only does so because of their past friendship.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Washington and Alpha absolutely hate each other, but for the first half of the story, neither of them have anywhere else they can go or anyone else who will help them, so they're stuck together. By the time the full crew is back in Valhalla, Wash does whatever he can to stay away from Church unless it's absolutely necessary.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Just like in canon, each and every one of the Reds and Blues are complete dicks to each other, but they default to working together and often looking out for each other, even between the two teams. Even Sarge admits that any of his attempts to fight the Blue Team is essentially just a force of habit.
