Digital Seal

He wasn’t sure why he had bothered to open the file, he hadn’t for years. Jacob knew all he needed to, about his parents, about his home, whatever had came before his initial adoption was lost to time, and he had every intention of keeping it that way. But something had called him to it finally, after all that time. Something in him demanded he crack the digital seal. The data that scrolled down his screen left him with a strange feeling.
Name: Owens, Jacob Issac 
So that was what he’d been, an Owens. The records hadn’t said from what scraps of memories he had of a life before Onyx. His adoptive parents had loved him, wanted him, and the Covenant had taken that from him in an instant. Whatever lead his birth family to giving him up, they’d forfeited his recognition of their name.
Date of Birth: November 23, 2536
Place of Birth: Haderville, Eirene
His gut twisted instantly, a pang of guilt running up his body. He’d never know where he was from, but the date placed his birth dangerously close to the planet’s glassing. Suddenly, for the first time in his life he realized that his status as an orphan twice over might’ve had the same root cause. He shifted uncomfortably in his bunk, remembering the times he’d thought so harshly of them, of these Owens he’d never known. He’d been stupid.
Parents: 
- Owens, Patrick James (Deceased, Siege of Eirene)
- Owens, Hannah Finley (Deceased, Siege of Eirene)
He’d never even thought about their names. Jacob wondered if the names he carried were legacies, or something all his own. Had they laughed as they tried to think of what to call him, as they felt him kick against his mother’s stomach. Had she held him and given him his name, had she loved him the way Dawes loved his little girls? All Jacob’s thoughts went blank as his eyes fell to the next line.
Siblings: Owens, Callum James ([REDACTED])
His eyes flicked up from the datapad and across the expanse of Fireteam Stallion’s quarters, to where Callum-B042 lay in his rack, twisting beneath his sheets. His strangely coincidentally named team leader didn’t admit to his nightmares, but they all knew he had them. Something in him wondered, begging the question that he couldn’t bring himself to ask. The odds were impossibly small, not to mention Spartan Operations surely wouldn’t have made such a compromising assignment. It didn’t make any sense. 
But the redaction made him curious. Deep Winter had imparted plenty of knowledge onto his pupils on Onyx, including how to circumvent the black ink that lined files of importance. He’d meant to give them the ability so they could glean mission-critical information even when ONI censors might’ve found it uncomfortable, but Jacob had used it for plenty more.
His fingers danced across the touchpad, line after line spewing forth until he found purchase beneath the waves of Section III’s sea of blank ink. Callum James Owens file appeared on his screen, the photo of a gangly boy with dark hair and green eyes, he’d been missing since he was four. A dead-end Jacob imagined, the redaction of his file seemingly an unnecessary precaution until he caught where he’d gone missing from. The same New Constantinople orphanage Jacob had been adopted from. The coincidence drew his eye to the details, and in seconds it became far too clear that the record was falsified. The telltale signs of Section I’s meddling littering the page only now that he knew to look for them.
He hammered away, louder than he intended, but so deeply invested now that he couldn’t find it in himself to care. He had to know, there was no way, it simply wasn’t possible. His datapad’s screen flickered, and there before him was the file of a brother he’d never known, unaltered by ONI’s machinations. His eyes went wide.
“Jacob!” The Spartan’s eyes flicked back across the room, to where his leader now sat upright, wiping a hand across his face.
“People are trying to goddamn sleep here,” Callum muttered, looking back across the darkness at him. Wordlessly, Jacob nodded, and set the datapad down, and met the elder Spartan’s gaze with eyes he did not know they shared.