The room was quiet aside from the occasional digital beeps that emitted from one of the three computers that aligned the gray wall. I had looked over at Hal a few times in the seat next to me, but he was too absorbed in his work to notice. The only time he took his eyes off the computer screen was when blindly reaching out his hand, usually for this cup of coffee, produced nothing.

I pushed my glasses to the top of my head and tried to rub out a few of the 11 hours my eyes had been staring ahead at the computer monitor.

"You should get some rest."

"I'm fine." I lied. I flashed him the most convincing smile I possibly could muster up at 3 AM.

"Come on, Olivia. You've been working just as hard as me for the past few days. I can handle things here for a few hours or so."

"Why don't we both take a break, Hal?"

"I don't know, there's still a lot to do."

"A small one. Fifteen minutes."

I had learned enough about Hal in the past 10 months to know that he wasn't so much a workaholic as he was committed. Committed to stopping the effects of his past mistakes and helping to correct the ones made by others. He was definitely a lot stronger than his thin frame and passive nature made him look.

Without realizing it, my job had became to make sure that he didn't forget the small things--such as eating and sleeping--while he was busy with being committed. It was a job that I, unfortunately, hadn't quite figured out yet.

"Okay," he said and then added, "It'll give us a chance to go over what we're going to do in the next few days once Snake starts his mission."

'Break', in that sense, was clearly a word he didn't feel he ever needed. This didn't surprise me at all.

I propelled my chair over to him, bumping into him to light stop.

"How about we don't talk about that at all? What is the last thing you read that didn't have the words 'Metal' or 'Gear' in it?" I pointed to his computer monitor.

When he looked as if he was going to shoot down my suggestion based on it's new requirements, I repleaded, "Fifteen minutes." He took a deep breath and looked back at the screen to bid farewell to the endless lines of text on it.

"Okay, Olivia. You win."

Well, maybe I was getting better.

The truth was, I didn't feel like I was contributing much at all sitting in front of that computer screen. I had unexpectedly been thrown into all of this with the complete deafness and blindness of the general public. Government conspiracies. Human cloning. It was all I could do to convince myself that this wasn't a piece of fiction writing that my imagination was running away with.

For the past 9 months, I had been fed information exposing the truths of The Big Shell and more shockingly, Shadow Moses and FOXDIE. It was Otacon himself who had delivered some of the most core shattering details, all with the coolness of someone reporting the weather.

"Why do you call me Hal?"

I slid the piece of fruit slowly off the fork into my mouth and tried to figure out whether he thought it was good or bad that I did.

"I'm sorry. Would you rather me call you Otacon?"

"It's alright. I don't mind," he quickly reassured me.

"The first guy I ever kissed was named Hal, ya know. And...it's on your lab coat."

"So, it is." he said after he checked for himself and laughed that cute chuckle that I didn't get to hear enough, "You know, we're going to have to get you one of these."

"Lab coats are for scientists. I'm a charity case that you throw a few documents at to make feel important, at best. We both know the real and only reason I'm here is because I don't have anywhere else to go."

"Well, that's not even kind of true, Olivia." His expression suddenly deepened and those blue eyes of his, usually a little shy, concentrated hard on me, "You being here has taken a good bit of the work load off of me. The fact that you care about Snake's wellbeing just as much as I do is a huge help in itself so, don't sell yourself short."

I hadn't expected a response like that. I had, more likely than not, been only jokingly underestimating my usefulness. But, the fact that he took it so seriously gave me a renewed feeling of importance anyway. I smiled to myself and tucked back a piece of my newly shortened hair behind my ear, revealing the scar that ran along the right side of my face.

"It's okay to look at it," I said when he quickly looked down and took a sudden interest in the wooden table we were sitting at.

"I know..."

"I've lived through much worst you know. Like being rejected by the cheer leading squad in high school. That damn there killed me." What I had really wanted to say was "...like losing my husband and being a widow by the age of 26. That damn there killed me," but I filled in the blanks with something else instead.

"Those Virginia girls must be pretty harsh."

"The harshest," I didn't remember mentioning where I grew up, but knowing Hal, I probably hadn't.

"What was it like growing up there?"

"Uninteresting," when the pre-warning didn't seem to waver his interest, I continued, "Being an only child, my parents were pretty over protective. My first real taste of freedom came in the form of a 1994 Camry when I was 17."

"You don't act like an only child. Not statically speaking, anyway." God forbid I actually told him anything that he couldn't instantly run through a computer and get numbers for.

"I'm not quite sure I know how an only child is suppose to act."

"Well, you're very...free spirited, self-motivated. A lot of only children need to be dependent on someone and pushed to do things."

"So, do I act more like a middle child, then?"

I was happy he laughed with me. There was a small part of me that thought he might actually try and explain it, "Although my childhood probably wouldn't have been as uneventful with a brother or sister."

"Trust me, uneventful can be good."

I wasn't sure what that meant but I had a feeling I wasn't supposed to. The few glimpses into Hal's childhood that I had had in the past few months had felt almost accidental and often dark.

"What about you, Hal? Are you an only child?" The words took on the form of tiny daggers stabbing into him as he searched the air for words.

"No. I had a younger sister named Emma but she died about four years ago during the Big Shell incident." I wondered if the soft background hum of the computers was loud enough to keep him from hearing my heart hit the pit of my stomach for him. That was something he had left out of his original explanation of those events to me. I offered my best in late condolences, which I was no good at even when they were on time.

"You guys must have been close."

"We were going to work on it."

He emptied the contents of his cup as if there wasn't just coffee in there and with a bit of forced chipperness said, "But, enough of that."

"How is the confirmation of the new Metal Gear going?"

"Right on schedule. We should have everything we need before Snake sets out in a few days. How do you feel?"

One look at me while Hal and Snake began discussing 'worst case scenarios' and it was no secret that the whole idea made me feel uneasy.

"Concerned. For Snake."

"Even the great Solid Snake needs a team behind him bitting their nails."

"That, I can do."

"The hardest part is being helpless if something does happen out there."

"What do you do?"

Hal sat back in his chair and treated the question as if it provided him his first chance to think about it himself.

"Hope. Pray if you believe in that sort of stuff, and trust that Snake knows what he's doing."

"But what about his health? What's going to become of him in three months, hell, a year if he keeps aging at the rate he is?" It was the one thing that concerned me the most and, as luck would have it, the one thing Hal nor anyone else knew the answer to.

"I don't know but, it's the reason we've been working so hard to at least try and slow it down."

A chime from one of the computers became the unofficial cue that ended our break and conversation.

"I should probably check that out." He said pushing the chair back under the table.

I soon occupied the seat next to him once again, trying to readjust my eyes to the unforgiving glare of my own computer monitor. Hal continued his work in his hunched position that was accompanied by the blind reach for his fresh cup of coffee. He didn't notice when I reached out and slid the cup towards him until it reached his fingertips.

It was the least I could do.