Timeline 1: (x-y)=1 (\life:1) (N:pure)

"The more excellent way's yet mine! And you
Flower-laden come to the clean white cell,
And we talk as ever - am I not the same?
With our hearts we love, immutable,
You without pity, I without shame.
We talk as of old; as of old you go
Out under the sky, and laughing, I know,
Flit through the streets, your heart all me;
Till you gain the world beyond the town."

"Paralysis", Rupert Brooke. (1916)

There is only one reality. Well, no, there are several, depending on who you believe, but the homing instinct is powerful. There are several timelines out there where grown Sunny skips playfully back to meet her uncles Hal and David at the gate, where they stand in proud silence (and itchy suits) as Sunny Gurlukovitch (Bisc.) mounts the dais to collect her twin diplomas in engineering and kickboxing ("She gets it all from me") . Where the nod-out happens thirty years alter, peacefully, in their own bed. There is also a reality where an ID-tagged Old Snake is finally crushed by the foot of Metal Gear PRIME in the Sudan Wars of 2015, and yet another where Hal gets his throat slit mid-mission by Goptani rebels. Some are happier, some are sad, however, the point remains- would you live through them again? Consider the vile and bizarre circumstances it would take to reach these points- no more vile or bizarre than the present time line, but to repeat it, over and over again, in the hope of finding amid all the sorrow and heartbreak and loss the one thread which tightropes between them all. Would it even be the same life? The same person?

Otacon is, at heart, a coward. The adventurer of the pair is gone now.

He enters the hospital room. The steady beep of machines accompanies his footsteps.

The figure wouldn't stir as he entered the room.

Not surprising.

He had been impossible to wake for hours at a time, recently. The doctors had tried everything, and in triple doses too, but were losing. Hal was not worried. They did not seem to realize that pettifogging things like high-strength chemical stimulants, semi-controlled electrical shocks and, on one mad afternoon, five minutes of pot-and-pan banging combined with sincere pleading from a man with more letters after his name than a terrible accident in a scrabble factory, would hardly effect Snake when he was in the mood for a good long sleep. Even his nervous system was stubborn like that.

Hal knew a method to wake him up. It was rather a cruel method, but he also knew it was effective. He cleared his throat.

'"?"' said Hal.

The snoring lump stirred. Hal cleared his throat again.

'"!"' said Hal.

Snake rocketed suddenly to a sitting position.

(The guard noises, like birdsong, are difficult to emulate, but well worth the effort to learn.)

The single still-functioning eye swept the corners of the room, and then settled on Hal. Recognizing him as no threat*, the glare turned down from Setting Seven (High Alert: Armed Patrol With Rottweilers Who've Just Found Out Santa Claus Doesn't Exist.) to Setting Three (Low Alert: We're Out Of Milk). His hand was still going for a gun that was no longer there.**

"You know, Pavlov would have a field day with you." Said Hal, pulling up a chair.

Snake was still muzzy, but rejoindered admirably.

"And Freud would just love you."

"No," said Hal, smirking "I think he would just love your choice of words."

"Well, in about a year you'll be able to study psychology, like you wanted to. You can find out."

Hal steepled his fingers. "Why do you say 'within a year'?"

"Because," said Snake, "you'll have no other obligations by then."

Unsaid words hung heavy in the air; like unripe apples off the branch. The weight was crushing, as it had been for some time. Some things you don't say in polite company; however, they rarely had (indeed, rarely were) polite company; that wasn't been the problem. But…

There had always been something to do. Organizing a black-ops semi-terrorist anti Metal-Gear Peace Corps, to everyone's surprise, was rather time-consuming. They were apart often; Snake on a semi-safe, semi-insulated plane to somewhere remote and cold, Hal at home alternating between planning and worrying (usually about Snake). They were both champion procrastinators, and between them had maintained these thousand awkward silences and unvoiced fears, in the hope that one day, they would just go away.

They almost had.

The time to act had almost gone past.

Hal couldn't believe he had been so stupid.

He had leaned in close, glasses sliding down already. His hand was laid- not on- but near Snake's. Their two heads came together. And they began to talk, low voices murmuring together: tales of bravery, and devotion, and heroism, and The Right Thing. Anecdotes; filthy tales long gone, and the patter of soldiers, and monologues. And then gradually, voices softened, and then even wavered; devotion, and passion, and What Will Be. Two hands joined, clenched as though they might break.

Hal had popped the question. Dave, the one visible eye glittering, had looked at him as though personally offended.

"I would not have changed it," said Snake.

And that was the perfect moment.

*In the sense that he was a small bespectacled engineer smilingly appeasingly; being the creator of the world's most powerful armoured death-tank for some reason did not register on this particular scale. (In fact, it was too far off the charts to register, which just goes to prove that Snake wasn't stupid.)

** He had asked. Repeatedly. Pointedly. He had used sarcasm, and irony and everything. The doctors wouldn't let him.