The first hours in the new base passed very quickly for the members of Task Force 141. After Caroline, her parents and Julia had arrived and Mac had told them what they knew about Vitaly Makarov, the soldiers had time to explore the base, get some rest or talk to the members of Mac´s SA2 team. Most of them took the opportunity to explore the base, but some decided to talk to the other team. Especially Toad was curious why Caroline´s parents were here. He always thought her dad was a driving instructor and her mum was working in a canteen, back at their home town. He was shocked as his soon father-in-law told him he served in the military since he was 18 and was the Lieutenant of the team. Less surprisingly for him was that Caroline´s mum worked in the kitchen there, she didn´t tell him a completely lie as she told him she was working in a canteen. The rest of the day Toad spend his time to handle with the fact that his girlfriend always kept an eye on him on every mission.
By now it was midnight and Toad laid in his bed and tried to sleep, but the thoughts about the new situation kept him awake. He stared to the ceiling and let out a groan; why didn´t they tell him the truth? Was it really too dangerous for them to reveal their secret to him? Sure he would have acted different on some missions, he would have been more careful, but he would never neglect his duty on the battlefield. He would have been the same good sniper with more goad to protect his girlfriend from dangerous saving-missions. If he had known she watched every step of him, they could have spent more time with each other. Maybe they would be married today. Not getting his mind free he turned around and looked to his partner, sleeping in the bed on the other side of the room. Toad saw Archer was laying on his back but couldn´t see if his eyes were closed. Was he asleep by now? Sure he was, since he knew him, Archer never had problems to sleep, no matter where they were. He would even oversleep an enemy attack. Letting out another groan he turned on his back again and stared at the ceiling once more. The whole situation was tricky and right now he wasn´t even sure if his relationship with Caro was making sense anymore. Afraid of his own thoughts Toad closed his eyes and tried to relax. Just because his girlfriend didn´t tell him she works in the military doesn´t mean that their love was a waste of time.
"I´m sure she just joined this Force ´cause she loves you with all of her heard." Surprised Toad turned around and looked at Archer again, who now was laying in his bed with eyes open.
"I didn´t know you are a mentalist." Toad answered wondering why his partner knew what he was thinking.
Archer rolled his eyes and lifted his upper body. Sometimes Toad was a slow one.
"Yes, I have supernatural powers and my only sorrows are to read the mind of my stupid partner." Archer answered annoyed and shook his head.
"Hey, I´m not stupid." Toad defended himself and turned his gaze down to the floor.
"You just gave me an answer about my last thought and that´s pretty creepy."
"It wasn´t your last thought. You said out loud that you don´t think your love´s a waste of time, in matter of fact Caroline works for Mac." Archer replied and gave Toad a quick smile as his partner looked up to him again.
"So you really think she loves me with all of her heart? I never thought you would believe in love. I actually never thought you´d have any feelings. How come I never saw you with a girl?" Toad said and smirked.
"What did you think? Of course I believe in love. It´s the strongest feeling you could have." Archer answered, laid back and closed his eyes again.
"I just haven´t found the girl I want to spend the rest of my life with, that´s all and I´m not one for one-night-stands."
Toad just nodded after the statement of his friend. He never before had a conversation like this with Archer. Now that Toad thought about it, he didn´t even know much about Archer´s life outside of the military. He wondered if he should ask him more personally stuff if they were alone; but he somehow had a feeling that Archer wouldn´t open up to him more, than he did right now. With a little sigh Toad closed his eyes and finally he could get some sleep.
"Hey Julia! Are you still awake?" Angela asked her roommate as she laid in her bed. As an answer Julia just mumbled a yes and turned around to look at Angela. In the darkness Julia noticed how Angela turned around too and looked at her.
"I wanted to ask you something." Angela continued and waited for Julia to response.
"What is it Ang?" Julia asked and heard her friend taking a deep breathe.
"Did Ghost ever ask you who was responsible for his rescue?" Angela asked quiet and closed her eyes again.
"No, we never talked about it. Why do you ask?" Julia replied and got up from her bed to sit on her bedside. Somehow amused she waited for Angela to speak again. She knew what stressed her friend but to Julia it was no big deal that she hasn´t told Ghost that she was the one who saved him. Julia was sure that Ghost wouldn´t blame her anymore for keeping him alive.
"I just don´t know if I should tell him that I was the one who saved him. It´s weird, I know, but I don´t want him to avoid or hate me. I´m afraid it would affect our work." Angela finally said and watched Julia put on her shoes and get up from her bed.
"I think you should tell him. I know it´s not easy, he wasn´t too happy to be still alive. But I think he´s over it and now he´s more than happy that he got the chance to life on." Julia said yawning, stepped up to the door and switched the light on. Surprised Angela looked at her; why was she doing this? It was time to sleep, tomorrow would be a long day.
As Angela kept on staring at Julia and didn´t move, Julia rolled her eyes and stepped to her friend's bed. Julia looked at her with a smile and told Angela she should come with her. Still confused Angela slowly got out of her bed, put her shoes on and followed Julia out of their bedroom. The corridor outside was dim lighted and from the rooms they passed Angela could hear that many of the soldiers were asleep and were snorting heavily. Angela knitted her eye-brows as she followed her friend to the back entrance of the base; why were they leaving the base? Angela watched Julia look out of the small window, which was in the door, and noticed how her friend began to smile wide.
Angela wanted to ask her what she was doing as Julia silently opened the door and signed her to follow her outside. Curious Angela looked at her a sec, before she followed her outside, getting greeted from a cold steam. Shivering Angela closed the door again and as she turned around she recognized Julia and her weren´t the only ones which were outside. A few meters away from her she saw Ghost and Soap, talking and smoking. Angela got even more confused as Julia stepped up to the two men, talked with them shortly and Ghost turned around to look at her with a small smile on his face. Embarrassed Angela turned her gaze to the floor; Ghost wasn´t wearing his mask and Angela somehow found it uncomfortable to look him in the eyes. It wasn´t that she thought he looked strange, he even was a very good looking man, but Angela felt ashamed that he didn´t know the truth.
Her eyes still on the snow covered ground Angela heard the Captain and Julia say that they were going back inside and Ghost answer that he would stay on the outside some more. Unsure what was going on Angela turned her gaze from the ground to Julia, who was about to walk pass her to head back into the building. As Julia was next to Angela she laid a hand on her shoulder and whispered in her ear that she should take the chance to talk to Ghost now. Angela wanted to protest and tell her it wasn´t the right time and place to talk to him but Julia just kept on walking and didn´t pay any more attention to her. Insecure Angela stood there paralyzed and watched Julia and Soap disappear behind the door again. What should she do now? Would it be rude if she would just go back into the base too and leave Ghost out here alone? Sure it was, why was she even thinking about this? Angela shook her head slightly and took a deep breathe. Ghost stayed here extra for her; she needed to talk to him and tell him everything. Determined she turned around and stepped up to Ghost, who was still smiling at her. Damn, his look doesn´t make it easier. Why can´t he just look away into the sky? Angela thought as she stood next to Ghost and looked him in the eyes.
"Julia told me you wanted to talk to me." Ghost said calmly and watched Angela playing nervous with her hairs.
"Yes, but I don´t know if it´s the right time to talk. If you want to go back and sleep we can talk tomorrow." Angela answered and tried to sound confidence. Ghost just shook his head and closed his eyes.
"Nah, it´s fine. I can´t sleep anyways, my roommate´s annoying as hell." He answered and Angela had to chuckle.
"I know what you mean." She answered and relaxed as Ghost started to chuckle too.
"Really? I never thought Julia´s hard to handle."
"You´ll understand what I mean if you know her for years." Angela answered with a smile and watched how Ghost pulled out a bag of cigarettes, offering her one. Thankfully Angela took it and waited till Ghost has lightened his own cigarette as well as hers.
"So Angela. What´s the big think you want to talk about?" Ghost asked her and took a drag from his cigarette. Getting nervous again Angela avoided to look at him and walked a few steps away from him. Angela looked up into the sky and closed her eyes.
"I was the one who saved you." She said shortly, opened her eyes again and kept on staring into the night sky. In silence she waited for him to response but he didn´t say anything to her. Thinking that Ghost was mad at her she turned around slowly and looked at him uncertain; waiting for him to yell at her, how stupid she was. She looked at his face and saw him still smiling. Wasn´t he mad at her? Maybe he hasn´t heard what she said. Maybe she should repeat it. She was about to open her mouth again and say the words again as Ghost started to move and within a short moment Angela found herself in a hug.
"Thanks." Ghost whispered to her, gave her a smile, put his cigarette out and quickly headed back into the base. Surprised by his reaction Angela began to smile; this was easier than she thought.
"We should go back to sleep, if Mac finds out what we´re doing he´s going to kill us." Caroline sounded concerned, what she and Chrissy were doing could cause them a lot of trouble.
"Stop complaining. You know Mac wouldn´t do anything to us. We´re too important for him." Chrissy answered, concentrated on her work.
"Just hurry up. What if someone´s coming?" Caroline replied and leered out of the door.
"I´m sure no one´s coming. They are asleep now." Chrissy rolled her eyes, Caro was too scary.
"Really? Have you almost forgotten that their Captain and Lieutenant passed by five minutes ago? What have you done if they had seen us?" Caroline kept on complaining and turned her attention to her roommate, who was still not finished with her work. Chrissy let out a groan and shook her head, it would have been better if Caroline wouldn´t have come with her. Maybe she should have asked Angela if she would help her out but then Julia would have noticed what they were up to and she didn´t want to harass her. She had enough trouble the last few weeks; she didn´t need one more thing to be concerned about.
"Why does this take so long? If you can´t get into it you should stop trying, who knows, maybe they have already tracked us." Caroline kept on trying to convince her friend to stop what she was doing, it was too dangerous for the whole base.
"Would you please just shut up? I know what I´m doing. I just need to try this and….et voilà, here we go!" Chrissy announced happily as her job was done.
"Hurry up and save the information on your USB. I hear footsteps." Caroline answered her and looked out of the door again.
"Yeah, right." Chrissy answered sarcastically, waited for the upload to get finished and turned the laptop off.
Sneaking up to Caroline she tapped her on the shoulder and showed her the USB with a proud smile. Caroline just nodded and as she heard the footsteps disappear in the distance she stuck her head out of the door, looked around and as she saw no one outside she grabbed Chrissy by her arm and both women sneaked back to their bedroom. Relieved they laid down on her beds and Caroline could hear Chrissy chuckle. Annoyed she looked at her friend and rolled her eyes; she hoped Mac wouldn´t notice that they were in his office and used his laptop to hack and steel top secret information from the Russian government.
"Oh my god, Scarecrow! Would you please wake up?" Ozone stood desperate on his friend's bedside and tried to wake him up. As an answer he just earned a groan from his older teammate, which made Ozone throw his hands in the air in anger. To him it was an unbelievable phenomenon how a man could snore that loud and not wake up from it by himself.
"If you keep on like this the base soon has no trees around it. You should have become a woodchopper." Ozone spoke and watched his friend turn to the other side, not waking up.
Rolling his eyes Ozone wondered what he could do to wake Scarecrow up. He looked around in the room till his eyes got caught from a small object standing on the little table, which was on the backside of the room. Ozone smirked, walked up to the table and grabbed the object with one hand. Reading the package band he stepped up to his friend's bed again, opened the object and let the content flow on his friends head.
"What the…" Scarecrow let out a high pitched scream and jumped out of his bed. Confused he looked to the side and saw Ozone stand there with a bottle in his hand, bursting out in heartbreaking laughter. Angry Scarecrow bristled, cut the distance between him and his friend, stole the bottle out of Ozone´s hand and poured the remaining content over the head of the laughing soldier.
"Hey, Crow! That´s not fair." Ozone yelled as he felt the water running down his hair to his face.
"You started this, idiot! I just did what you did." Scarecrow said annoyed and checked if his bed got wet by the attack.
"Just because you didn´t want to wake up." Ozone complained and shook his head, to dry his hairs.
With and eye-brow arched Scarecrow watched the other man from his spot and let out a sigh. Sometimes he wondered why he saw Ozone as his best friend. Maybe it was just because he was married to Ozone´s cousin and he promised her to watch over him and make sure he didn´t get into too much trouble. Scarecrow shook his head and laid down on his bed again, pulling the blanket over his shoulders and closed his eyes again.
"Promise me to wait till I´m asleep." He heard his friend mumble as he laid down in his bed again. Scarecrow opened one eye and watched how Ozone turned his back towards him, with a deep breathe he closed his eye again and turned on his back. He needed to sleep before him; when Ozone was asleep he snorted like he wanted to cut every tree around him.
"You think you´ll like it here?" Julia asked Soap as both entered the rec room and sat down on one of the many couches that were in the room. They had decided to stay in here till Angela and Ghost were done with talking.
"I don´t know. Your base the totally opposite to the 141 base. I´m not sure if the space is enough for so much people to life together for several months. But I´ll give it a try, there´s nothing else we could do. I just wonder what to do in our free time; there´s nothing around we could go to and escape the solitude on the base." Soap explained her and tried to find a comfortable position on the old worn out couch.
"I know what you mean but sometimes Mac gives us the permission to leave the island and go to the nearest land based city. Besides if we´re after Vitaly Makarov all of us are going to leave the base and find a hideout in Russia. Nikolai has some good contacts there and he´ll make sure that they´re going to help us." Julia said and Soap let out a sigh. She was right, again. It was just a workaround that they were here. As soon as their suspicion on Makarov´s violent intention would be confirmed, they would immediately go after him.
"You´re right, I hope we soon get a cast iron proof on what he is doing on Russia. Then we can take him down before he is able to fulfill his plan." Soap answered and turned his gaze down to his watch; Ghost and Angela were talking for 20 minutes now.
"You think they´re still talking." He asked Julia and looked up to her, only to see how she shrugged her shoulders.
"I don´t know. I´m not even sure if Angela told him that she was the one who rescued him. Why do you ask? If you want to go back to your room, feel free to." Julia answered and Soap shook his head as an answer.
"I can´t sleep anyways; I have too much on my mind." Soap stated.
"Want to tell me what you´re thinking about?" Julia asked him and smiled a little.
"Mostly about the members of your team. I never thought all of you were so young."
"We´re not much younger than your men." Julia said and chuckled lightly.
"You think so? How old is your Captain?" Soap asked her curious.
"Michael? I think he´s 26 now." Julia shortly answered and thought about the year her Captain was born.
"See! He´s much younger then I´m." Soap said and crossed his arms to point his statement more up.
"Really? Well, tell me, how old are you?" Julia asked amused, she didn´t think Soap was that much older than Michael.
"I´m going to be 31 next week." Soap said and Julia began to laugh. Soap raised an eye-brow and wondered why she was laughing now.
"That´s not funny." He said and looked at her serious.
"Not? You´re only five years older than him." Julia answered as her laughter turned down.
"That´s a big difference. Maybe you don´t think I´m old, but I feel like I´m, but as I was in your age, I would have react the same way."
"As you were in my age? What do you think how old I´m?" Julia asked him and smiled as Soap started to examine her. He thought for a few seconds and closed his eyes as he answered.
"You´re not older than 23." Soap kept his eyes closed and heard Julia sigh deeply. Curious he opened his eyes and looked at her with a puzzled look on his face. Therefore Julia just shook her head amused and smiled weakly.
"Nice try, but you´re totally wrong." She said and stretched her back, maybe it was time for her to go back to sleep.
"So tell me how wrong I was." Soap said and watched her get up from her spot.
"I´m going to be 29 in a few months." Julia answered and smiled as he looked very surprised at her.
"You´re kidding me!" Soap said and shoot up from his spot, to bring himself on her eye level.
"Why should I do that?" Julia asked him still amused.
"I don´t know. You´re really 29? I never was that wrong." Soap explained and gave her a weak smile.
"And how old are your friends?" He kept on asking as them both were about to leave the rec room again, it was definitely time for them to go to bed.
"Angela and Caroline are 24 and Chrissy is 25." Julia told him as they were walking through the base´s corridors.
"That´s what I thought but to be honest, I thought you were the youngest of them."
"Oh, don´t let them hear that." Julia warned him and stopped walking in front of her room.
"They always tell me how old I´m and that their happy that their not as old as I´m."
"Good to know." Soap answered as Julia unlocked her door and shoot him one last glance.
"We see us in the morning?" She asked him as she stood in her opened door.
"Yes, at breakfast." Soap replied and smiled.
"Well then. Good night John." Julia returned his smile and closed the door behind her.
"Good night Julia." Soap slightly shook his head and kept on walking. Maybe he could get some sleep now.