Snake pressed his back hard to the wall, just in time to see the first bullet in a line of four whiz past the spot he had been only seconds earlier. A few of them took small chucks of the brick with them before they all went on to hit different objects in the distance. Too close.

He waited a few seconds even after the enemy sentry had successfully passed before he tapped a button on the Solid Eye, a device that easily looked like an eye patch from a distance. The green dot on his screen was still blinking. The girl was still alive. Suddenly, the screen went to static and reestablished with Otacon's image on it.

"Snake, you paying attention out there? Your reaction time to those bullets was a little slow."

Snake grunted. "I got out of the way, didn't I?"

"Barely. A millisecond more and that would have been your head."

"Well, while I still have it, could tell me where Shelly is before I go any farther? Her vitals are on my radar but I still can't get a read on her exact location."

"That's strange," the engineer said and keyed in a series of commands on his keyboard. "I sent you her location data about ten minutes ago."

"Well, I didn't get it."

"There could be something wrong with the equipment. You've been in the area before, though. You can find her without it."

"Yes, but that'll take more time than I have to get to her."

"It's a small area, Snake. Even if you searched every other room before you got to the one that she was in, you'd still make it to her with time to spare."

"Otacon, I'm not quite as young as I used to be in case you haven't noticed." He reminded his friend. "It's going to take me a little more time to get around this place than it did the last time."

"Going gentle into that good night, are we?" Otacon playfully poked at him. "Never thought I'd hear it from you."

As intended, the suggestion gave Snake a small charge. One he hadn't felt in some time.

"If you can get the map to me, great, but I'm going in without it."

"That's the spirit, Snake. I'll keep trying to sort out the equipment issues. Contact me when you've got her." And with that, the transmission cut.

Snake quickly traded in his SOCOM clip for a new one and peeked his head around the corner, matching his eye line perfectly with that of an enemy ahead. Shit.

"What?" The man swiftly readied his weapon and aimed it in his direction. "Who's there?"

Snake slowed his breathing to try and get his heart rate to do the same as he heard the man's cautiously paced footsteps approaching him. When he knew the man was just the right distance from him, he quickly ducked out of his area and reached around to maneuver the gun out of his grip. Before the soldier could react, Snake brought the butt of the man's own weapon hard across the side of his head and took a half step back to allow his body to fall to the ground in front of him. He rummaged his pockets and belongings but didn't find anything useful. Instead, he relieved the man of bullets for his weapon and quickly dismantled the gun itself in more pieces than what it had been assembled from. He knew Otacon had seen him and that he would probably say something about it later. The thought made him smile wryly to himself.

Soon, Snake reached a long corridor with multiple doors on either side leading to all the endless possibilities of Shelly's location. Too many doors. Something wasn't right.

He moved into position to call Otacon but he beeped with an incoming call before he could pull up his frequency.

"Otacon," he called as soon as they were connected, "why are all these doors here? That's not the way I remember this area."

Otacon shook his head in true bafflement, a state Snake rarely saw his partner in. "I don't know. Maybe your body's aging is interfering with the functionality of your nanomachines."

"Help me!"

Snake's attention whipped into to the direction he thought he heard the girl's cry come out of.

"It doesn't matter. I hear Shelly."

"Be careful, Snake! Something's definitely off. If you want me to pull you out…"

"No," Snake immediately said, "I'm finishing this."

He ended the call and reappointed his gun ahead of him.

"Please…someone help me!"

His immediate reaction was to respond to her but he caught himself and hurried to the door he thought he heard it come from behind. He eased the door open with one hand and slipped the SOCOM through as soon as he had it opened enough to do so with the other. When he looked inside, there was a young girl around the age of thirteen peaking out at him from behind a large crate. He gave the room a thorough scan to make sure they were the only two in there and holstered his gun.

"Are you…one of them?" She squeaked out.

Getting a good look at the girl's features now, a cold chill ran through his body. The short brunette hair, the big blue eyes, the red framed glasses. He knew this girl and her name was not Shelly.

"What the hell? Otacon!" He called aloud without bothering to punch in a codec frequency.

The shock must have done more to the state of his body than he anticipated because suddenly he was on his knees, trying to catch his breath in the midst of another terrible coughing spell. The girl continued to look at him, never changing expressions from when he had first come into the room. After all, she wasn't programmed to react.

"I'm pulling you out, Snake."

It was the last thing he heard come from his codec before his surroundings—along with "Shelly"--flickered in and out of solidity until he was alone back in a small steel colored room. A few seconds later, a door opened. Otacon hurried in and knelt next to him. He easily slipped out of mission mode and dropped the codename at the sight of the mercenary's suffering.

"Dave, you okay?" He asked with his hand on his shoulder. "Maybe I shouldn't have pushed you."

At the moment, the coughing spell wouldn't allow Dave to breathe much less respond. With the help of his friend, he got to his feet and exited the room.

Hal landed Dave in a chair in the lab and went to a cabinet to retrieve a syringe. When Dave caught sight of it, he hit it out of Hal's hands. He failed to react with more than the slight wilt of his face. He had expected it.

"No more…of that stuff!" He said, clearly exasperated by the gesture even in his condition. "I'm tired of the injections!"

"But they help…"

"No. They simply delay it." His body finally calmed enough to allow him to take some greatly needed deep breaths. His tone became serious. "Hal, you have to let go."

"I don't have a problem letting go," he said though he now looking away from him.

"That girl…she looked like Emma. I know that wasn't a mistake. You programmed her to look that way."

"It was a coincidence," he said in such a poorly convincing tone that he didn't even believe what he was saying.

"She was Emma down to the glasses, Hal, and we both know that."

Hal quietly sat down in front of a computer and began keying information in, seemingly ignoring the accusations. "There must have been a bug in my programming. That's why the map wouldn't show up and probably why the hallway had more doors than it was supposed to. Those are strange things to effect, though." Hal lowered his head. "You're right, though. Shelly wasn't a coincidence or the result of a bug in the programming."

"Programming someone who looks like Emma into a simulation up isn't going to bring her back."

Hal nodded in agreement. He wasn't delusional, after all. "I know. But, I just really wanted to see Emma rescued like she should have been four years ago and not killed by Vamp. It's stupid and I know you probably don't get it but…it's the only way I know how to deal with it." He brought a rotating, 3D model of "Shelly" on the screen and stared at for a long moment. "This is probably not a healthy way to grieve. Emma would laugh at me if she knew how obsessed I was with keeping her presence in my life." Hal's finger was resting lightly on the "delete" button when he felt Snake's hands come down on his shoulders.

"You're right. I don't get it…but I also can't tell you how to grieve. Everyone gets by differently."

"I'm tired of being sad all the time, Dave, and I'm tired of missing more people than I know." The 3D model disappeared and the word "deleted" appeared in big red letters in its place.

"Are you sure you wanna do that?"

He smiled faintly. "The delete key doesn't exactly support a change of heart."

Dave didn't say anything.

Hal spun around the computer chair to face him, "The next time you do the simulation, all the bugs should be fixed although I'm not sure there's a reason to keep training. You're officially retired and there's not much left in the world that the local police forces can't take care of now."

"Well, I can't sit around and wait to die an old man in my bed."

Hal laughed, "Maybe you could teach Sunny CQC."

"I don't think so. CQC is the one thing in the world Sunny can't do better than me. I'm allowed some dignity, aren't I?"

"You can rest assured that you can probably cook better than her." Hal checked the clock on his computer and slightly raised his eyebrows at how much time had passed while doing the simulation. "I'm going to go check on her. I have a feeling she's not sleeping like she should be."

He quickly hit a few keys on his keyboard to close some programs. When he had opened the door to exit, he turned back to Dave, his curiosity escaping in the grin on his face. "By the way, was it really necessary to take apart that guard's gun?"

***

As soon as Sunny heard Hal call her name, she knew she was in trouble. His tone gave away the next several words he was going to say to her and they weren't going to be good. She scrambled to find the remote to the television set until heard him descending the stairs into the living room.

"Sunny Gulukovich," he said her whole name in a way that made her completely cease any activity, "You're going to be in so much trouble if you're still awake down here." When he finally caught his glimpse of her, he crossed his arms in parental authority.

"I'm really sorry I'm still up, Uncle Hal!"

Without saying a word, Hal sat next to her and only uncrossed his arms to retrieve her missing remote from between two cushions. When he looked at her he smiled, a gesture that completely betrayed his tone from earlier. "You make it really hard to do this parent thing when you look at me like that, Sunny."

He kissed her lightly on the top of her head and let her accept the remote from him.

"Are you and Dave finished in the simulation chamber?" She asked.

"Yes. To be honest, I probably shouldn't have let him go in but, I don't know," he said and looked down at his hands. He hated himself for letting Sunny in on such a mature subject matter but she was the only one he had, "sometimes I really want to believe that Snake's not dying."

The little girl leaned her head on his arm. "He'll get better, Uncle Hal."

"I know it." He wrapped his arm around her and kissed her again, almost in the same spot, "Thank you for reminding me. Now, back to you not sleeping, missy. It's 2 AM. Your butt should be in bed."

"I wanted to wait up on you and Dave to finish in case you needed me for something."

He sighed. He felt responsible for Sunny's early maturity. It had been born from her situation and the situation of the people around her. She couldn't just be an 8-year-old…she had to be an 8-year-old who aided a solider in his final days and comforted an engineer in denial of it all.

Just as he went to suggest he tuck her in, he looked down and noticed she already asleep. He couldn't bring himself to move her to awaken her. She looked too precious. Instead, Hal adjusted himself as subtly as he could into a position he could fall asleep in. And then, quicker than he had anticipated, he did so.

***

Glass shattered loudly. The glass of a window.

Hal immediately picked up his head and then glanced down at Sunny. She hadn't heard a thing. She still had her head in his lap, quietly dreaming. Maybe he had been dreaming the sound after all.

"Hal!"

When he looked up at the stairs, Dave was rushing down them, hastily inserting a clip into his SOCOM. For a moment, Hal thought he had awakened inside of a scenario from the simulation chamber.

"What are you doing?"

"There are people trying to invade the house."

"What?"

"Get yourself and Sunny into the safe room! Hurry!"

"Wait, this doesn't make any sense! How do you know?"

"I saw them on the security cameras. There's at least five of them out there." He moved to a window, careful not to be in the direct line of sight for anyone who might be looking in. "I doubt this is a robbery. They all look like they have military training."

"I have to get upstairs to engage the system locks."

"It's too late for that, Hal! I'll take care of them. Get her and yourself out of here."

There were three hard kicks to the kitchen door before they heard it give way and fly open. They were coming inside.

Hal desperately shook Sunny until she finally awoke. She barely got to rub her eyes before Hal began encouraging her to get up.

"Uncle Hal, what's—"

"We gotta get to the safe room! Come on."

He yanked her up from the sofa and nearly dragged her to the stairs of the basement. A few steps down, Hal and Sunny heard the first explosions of defensive gunfire erupt. Sunny froze in place and almost looked as if she was ready to run back up to help Dave. Hal didn't waste the breath to urge her to continue with him and instead picked her up to carry her the rest of the way down.

He quickly punched in a sequence of numbers into the keypad next to a huge metal door. When he turned the handle and nothing happened, he cursed aloud and tried the sequence again. His thoughts were scrambled now and the numbers of unrelated phone numbers and dates were mixing in with the numbers needed for the door. In his third attempt, the door opened and he quickly guided the little girl inside.

"We've rehearsed for this," he told her though he couldn't quite recall any of those sessions at the moment, "Stay down here and don't come out until you hear the pass phrase. You remember it, don't you?"

"'Winters in December are never sad anymore.'"

It was the very last line in her favorite book.

Hal nodded. "Good. Don't come out until you hear that phrase! I mean it, Sunny!"

When she noticed him closing her inside the room without getting inside himself, she pushed against the action.

"Wait! Where are you going, Uncle Hal?!"

"I have to go help Dave."

"You have to get in with me! That's how we always rehearsed it!" She desperately reminded him. There were tears filling her eyes.

"I'll be back down here. I just have to know that Dave is okay. I love you, Sunny. I'll see you in a few minutes."

He held her hand a moment to try and calm her down but soon found himself slightly jerking from her grip. Her crying plunged a knife directly into his heart until the door finally clicked and confirmed that it was locked.

As he eased back up the basement stairs, he nearly tripped over the bleeding corpse of a male soldier in dark clothing. That meant there were at least four of the intruders left. A few more steps towards the stairs to the second level of the house revealed another defeated soul that had lost its fight with the mercenary. Three left.

At the top of the hallway, he peeked around the corner of a wall. He gasped when he realized the body lying in middle of the hallway was Dave's. He was down and not moving. Hal took a few vanity glances down the dark hallway knowing secretly that even seeing an enemy at this point wouldn't stop him from getting to his friend.

"Dave, please be okay," he begged an invisible power before he began a quick examination of his body. From what he could tell, he wasn't wounded or bleeding from anywhere that might be fatal. When Dave began to stir, Hal's sense of relief allowed him to return to breathing.

Dave's eyes took a few moments to flutter into focus onto Hal's face. But suddenly, they widened at something happening behind him.

"Hal!"

Something came down hard on the back of Hal's head and sent his world into a tailspin. Every part of his head gained a ton in weight and forced his body onto the ground and everything around him into pitch blackness…

***

When Hal's surroundings came to him, it was Dave's eyes he was looking up into this time. He wasn't in the hallway anymore and in fact wasn't even on the floor. He was on the couch in the living room and Dave was sitting next to him on the coffee table.

Hal moaned in agony. "Oh God…my head feels like it came off." He said.

Dave's face was expressionless, unresponsive.

"Sunny's gone."

Hal sat up and grabbed his head when it felt delayed a few seconds in following the rest of his body.

"No she's not. She's in the safe room. I gotta go get her."

"She's not down there. I've searched the house from top to bottom and she's not here anymore. They took her, Hal."

The words once again passed through Hal's comprehension without sounding the necessary alarms. His eyes went to Dave's right side. He had the palm of his hand firmly in place over the area.

"You're hurt." Hal assessed.

Dave sighed in frustration and stood though it looked a little painful for him to do so.

"Listen to me. Sunny is gone," he repeated each word with it's own punctuation. "I don't know when it happened or where they took her but somehow, they got into the safe room."

"The safe room's pretty big, Dave. She's probably hiding somewhere in it still. I'm going to find her and then we're going to get you to the hospital."

He stood and wobbled a bit his first few steps toward the basement staircase. The bodies from before were still there. He made a note to tell Sunny to cover her eyes when he was bringing her back up.

When he was standing outside of the safe room door, he called out, "Winters in December are never sad anymore."

Silence.

"Sunny, it's Hal. Open the door, sweetie. It's all over."

After a few more moments of not getting a response, Hal punched in the code on the keypad once again to open the door. The room was quiet—the kind of quiet that only settled in an area if there wasn't anyone in it. Hal's heart dropped slightly but he went in anyway and checked under the small twin sized bed that hugged the wall.

"Sunny, I know that was scary but I promise everything's okay now. Come on out." Hal checked behind a stack of supply crates and then, inside of the ones that were big enough to house a girl of Sunny's size. When she didn't turn up in those, he finally felt his self enter a panic.

Dave stopped his friend as he passed through the living room toward the stairs to the second level.

"Where are you going?" He asked.

"Maybe she went back upstairs into her room."

"I've already checked. Besides she would have had to go past me to get there. I would have seen her."

"Maybe it was when you were knocked out."

"Then she would have had to go past you."

"No," Hal shook his head, "she's got to be here somewhere, Dave. We just haven't looked everywhere. How about outside? You checked out there? There's a door in the basement that leads into the backyard. She could have easily ran out of it."

"Hal-"

Before he could answer, his friend had taken off in the direction of the kitchen where there was also a door that lead into their yard. By the time Dave caught up with him, he was hysterically sobbing and screaming like his heart had been ripped clean from his chest.

In many ways, it had been.