"Yuri, my friend. You never should have come here."
Soap blinked and looked straight to the Russian beside him, how did Makarov know Yuri? What was going on? "What the hell's he talking about?"
Then he heard a beeping sound.
"Get out! NOW!" He then shoved Yuri out the window, jumping out behind him as the building exploded. They fell, smacking into every last thing on their decent. When Soap hit the ground, he hit hard. All he could be thankful for was that he was too far gone to feel the pain of his ribs all breaking before more debris fell on top of him.
It wasn't long before he started to come back, Yuri was holding onto him, trying to keep him moving. "Yuri... Makarov... he said..." He couldn't finish his sentence before more bullets flew by, armored vehicles were there.
"Don't stop!" Price shouted. "Keep moving!"
It was a shot of pain that raced through him as he stumbled, Yuri loosing his grip in the process.
"Pick him up!" Price barked. "We can't stay here! C'mon, this way. We have to get off the streets!" The urgency in his voice made Yuri work faster to get his grip back on Soap.
"Ah, shite..." Pain coming back, he knew that he probably reopened his wounds. The pain hindered his senses. He could distantly heard Price order on. He needed this wound closed, and soon...
"Set him down." Price sighed.
"Just patch me up..." Soap told him, voice low. "Get me back in this..."
"It's not safe here. We have to move!" Price answered, now picking Soap up, he could feel the blood streaming from his wound. He could barely hear Price's words. "We need... Nikolai... get us out..."
"C'mon, Soap! You can make it!" Price encuraged. Or tried to anyways. As Yuri was clearing a store they were passing through, a Russian came at them. Soap was quick to shoot him with a pistol. "Nice shot, son." Price told him, still supporting him.
"I can still teach you a thing or two, old man." Soap replied weakly.
Now outside again, Price quickened his pace. "We're moving up to the statue! Keep 'em off of us!"
While Yuri was fending off Russian troops, Soap could see more of them coming. He needed to warn him. "On the roof! Right side!"
"We can't stay here! C'mon, this way!" Price shouted to Yuri, pulling Soap up again. They then were going through an office building while fighting everyone off. When they got out, Soap pulled his head up just enough to see more coming.
"There's more... on the street!" As SUVs were driving in, they moved through the building to cut past them before Yuri dystoried the cars. Trembling, Soap sighed. "They'll just keep coming."
"Don't stop! Keep moving!" Price told him, fear in his eyes. Never had he seen the older so worried.
"Just leave me, Price!" Soap snapped. He was holding them back! If he just left him then he could go after Makarov.
"No! I'm getting you out of this!" He then looked around and pointed to the building, "Head for that building to the northwest!"
Then more were there. Soap hissed a breath, breifly getting a glimse at the blood trail he was leaving behind. No way would he make it. They should have patched him up when they could have. When he looked up he could see more. "Price! UAZ!"
"We made it, Soap!" Price assured. "Just hold on!"
The thing was... he just couldn't. He was willing to admit it now. No way could he survive this time... He fell, shutting his eyes as he waited for death to come. But it didn't. He still felt his pain. He was feeling nauseous from bloodloss. And he didn't know which way was up or down. When hands grabbed him, he barely looked up before closing his eyes.
"Clear the table!"
It was too late... If Soap were going to tell Price, he'd have to now. They laid him on the table, Yuri putting pressure on his wound, and he rasped, "Price... Yuri..."
"Not now, Soap. Just rest." He told him, then turned and shouted, "Get a medic!" In the second after, he felt a hand grab his, "C'mon, stay with me son!"
"Price..." He murmered weakly, the last of his fight for life leaving him. "You need to know..." He grabbed Price by the shirt, pulling him closer. "Makarov... knows... Yuri..." And like that, he found himself bathed in white. His pain gone. It was over...
- "Oh no..." Price stared as Soap went limp. Tears stinging his eyes. "No, no, no, no! Soap! No, no! No! Soap!" He found himself shaking his dead friend around desperately, as if he'd come back if he just kept telling himself that he wasn't gone. He then felt a hand on his shoulder.
"Price! You have to go, now!" The Resistance leader told him. He shoved him away, cheeks wets and vision foggy with hot tears.
"Get off me!" He shouted at him, then looked back down at Soap mourningly. He couldn't believe it... He was... gone... His hand found the handle of his M1911 and pulled it out. It was the same gun he gave Soap to kill Imran Zakhaev five years ago. Shaking, he laid it on Soap's chest, closing his eyes a moment as he choked on a sob. "I'm sorry..." Then he reached down to a pocket in Soap's shirt, retreiving the black, leather bound field journal the man had kept. He then stashed it away in his pocket. Something to remember him by...
"Price! This way!" The leader again shouted. He barely heard him, numbed by greif. He then glared at an unknowing Yuri, he had one thing he'd do first. He went to a door, and turned to Yuri.
"Yuri! Open it!" He shouted. When he did, he spun Yuri to face him, and punched him square in the face. He fell backwards down the stairs, that stunned look on his face all the way down. Price took some sort of sick enjoyment out of it... When he reached the bottom, he pulled out his desert eagle.
"Soap trusted you." He sneered. "I thought I could too." He then locked his pistol, taking aim at Yuri as he glared. Eyes icy, and face wet with tears that seemed to stop coming now. The younger looked up, terrified. "So why, in bloody hell, does Makarov know you?"
Yuri sighed, then looked back up at him. "I was young and patriotic when I first met Vladimir Makarov..." So he was there... when Price had shot and took off Zakhaev. "Zakhaev never forgot what we did for him that day. Our reward was power. But power corrupts." And he was there at Al-Asad's safehouse. He had pressed the button to detonate the nuke. "Thousands of souls extinguished by the push of a button... This wasn't war. It was madness." And he was at the airport. Makarov shot him because he betrayed him, ratted him out. But he even survived that. "I was a soldier of Russia, not a taker of innocent lives. But in his eyes, this marked me as an enemy."
Price still held the pistol at him, glaring still just as fiercely. But instead of shooting, he helps him up. "Okay, Yuri. You've bought yourself some time... for now..."
- Telling Nikolai was hard. It was just like the scene had unfolded before Price again, wrapping him in cold greif. Before he even said anything, Nikolai had come to greet him when he had noticed something wrong.
"Are you okay my friend?" Nikolai asked. Then looked behind him and around. "Where's Soap?"
Price clenched his fists a moment before saying lowly, "He's... Makarov killed him... Soap's dead..." Somehow admitting it was harder to him than anything. It hurt worse than any wound any weapon could inflict.
Nikolai at first was speechless. Then he growled lowly, "It's all my fault..."
"It's not, Nikolai." Price told him. "It's all mine... I should have patched him up when I had the chance. Maybe he would have lived."
A long silence.
"How?" Nikolai asked hollowly. "How did he die?"
"He pushed Yuri out just as a building exploded, and the fall reopened the stitches." Price answered. "I pulled him out, Yuri helped me drag him for a while, and then we had a moment. Soap asked to be patched up then and there so he could get back to the fight, but I told them not to because I felt like we would be overrun if we stopped... I carried Soap mostly, and when we came to safety, he had already lost so much blood... And Soap died just as he told me something..."
"What?"
"Makarov knows Yuri." He said, remembering the life leave Soap's eyes on his dying breath before he was gone.
"I'm sorry to hear this..."
"Makarov must pay..."
"Yes. He should."
"I'm going after him." Price told him, a new found reason to keep going on.
"But what if you die? I'd rather not loose everyone to the bastard."
"I don't care if I die." Price responded. "All I care about at this point is for justice. Soap must be avenged."
"You mean you want revenge..." Nikolai corrected. "And I agree with you. He shouldn't get away with what he's done."
"Then you won't stop me." Price concluded before turning away, leaving a now depressed Nikolai as he went to his quarters. There he sat on his bed, in deep sorrow and mourning, before he pulled out Soap's journal... He held the black book in his hands, just as new found tears arrived to renew his grief. He then opened the book, pulling the red clip band off in the process. And read the fourth page, where Soap wrote his first entry.
"It's me, the 'Fucking New Guy'. Since selection, that's all anyone calls me: FNG this, FNG that. Figured it was time the FNG got himself a fresh FNJ - a Fucking New Journal."
After that, Price shut it again, maybe another time. He didn't want to ruin the pages thanks to his tears. He simply put the book down and took the knife in his pocket before stabbing the wall and hanging Soap's dog tags off of them. Staring at the old photos on the wall.
"I'm sorry, Soap..." Price whispered. "I don't know how to save a life..."