When Soap and Price arrived back at MacMillan's base there were medics loading soldiers onto gurneys and getting them to the hospital quickly. Davis and Thompson took Steiner off to another out of the chaos while Soap scanned around for Aaron. He couldn't see her anywhere when Price's voice broke his thoughts. "Let's go find MacMillan." He said. "You go. I am going to see if I can find Aaron anywhere and see what happened exactly." Soap told Price. Before Price could object Soap took off towards the hospital to find Aaron.

In the hospital there were soldiers in rooms getting treatment and being rolled around on gurneys and beds. Soap walked through the main area and to the examination rooms. He looked in each room and had no luck in finding Aaron anywhere. He scanned the room again and walked into the next part of the hospital where it was less busy. There were a few more examination rooms that were empty, but when he got to the last one, he finally found her.

Soap opened the door and found Aaron sitting in a chair in a pair of grey army pants and a black tank top with her hair pulled back into a bun and gauze wraps wrapped around her shoulder. Her head was in her hand at first, but when he opened the door she looked up at him. Soap immediately noticed the bruise on the side of her face and her split lip.

"Hey." She greeted tiredly.

Soap walked in and closed the door behind him before walking over and kneeling down in front of her. He put a hand on the side of her face to look at her injuries more closely, but she pushed his hand away. "Please don't touch me right now…" she said calmly. Soap looked at her with upset eyes and dropped his hand. "Are you alright?" he asked her. Aaron nodded.

"About this morning," Soap began. "I am so sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you like I did. It's just when you walked out of the room, I was afraid you were walking out on us. Like you didn't want to do this anymore." Aaron looked at him with surprise before shaking her head. "Soap why would you think that?" she asked, her voice soft. Soap looked down for a moment before looking back at her. "Because I'm an idiot." He admitted. "And since the last relationship I was in she pretty much walked away. I just don't wanna lose you, too."

Aaron sat up a little and met Soap's eyes. "Soap you aren't going to lose me." she reassured him. "I am doing my absolute best not to screw this up. But that doesn't mean you off and bring up my parents in our fight..."

"I know I know…" Soap cut her off. "I am so sorry about that. About everything. Can we please just call it our first fight and make this the part where I tell you how beautiful and smart you are until you forgive me?"

Aaron chuckled. "I'm sorry, too. I should have talked to you instead of rushing out like that." She apologized. Soap gave her a half smile. "Don't worry about it." he said, moving up a little. "But this is the part where you kiss me before we have to go talk to Price and MacMillan about what happened today." Aaron chuckled again before sliding her hands around his neck and meeting his blue eyes with her brown ones. She leaned in and pressed her lips to his, Soap immediately putting his hands on the side of her face. He moved her lips with his and moved his hand around to the back of her neck, feeling her smile in the kiss which caused him to smile.

"We should go talk to Price and MacMillan." She said as she pulled out of the kiss.

"Making them wait five more minutes won't kill them." Soap replied, leaning in and kissing her again.

"Soap." Aaron said as his lips moved to her neck. He let out a breath and pulled back to look at her. "Fine." He agreed. She smiled and stood up with him, walking out of the room and over to talk to Price and MacMillan.

OOOOO

In the office building, Aaron was explaining the situation to Price, Soap, and MacMillan. "This morning there was a breach in the system that was caused by someone rewriting the firewall and getting into the system. We were able to locate the computer in Moscow, but no more specific because whoever it was got in and out in under twenty minutes." Aaron began. "But whoever it was had to have extensive training to get by that firewall and all the security in the computers. They were able to rewrite codes and programing in less than twenty minutes which is something I can't even do. So it could have been one person or a group of people. Either way it will be hard to trace because like I said, they weren't in long enough to get a trace."

"Pager I have been told you are the best in your field." MacMillan began. "Which makes me wonder how someone could get into your computer database…but why do you think they chose this day to attack the base?"

"Both MacTavish and Price were gone the entire day in Austria to retrieve Steiner which they could have seen as opportunity."

"And who contacted me here and got the base prepared for the strike on the base?"

"I did, sir."

"Who was the commanding officer at the time of the attack?"

"There was no Captain at the time, sir so I did my best to organize and prep the soldiers on the base."

"And how long did you have until those planes got to the base."

"Five minutes."

"And was everyone prepared?"

"All the soldiers were, some other personnel weren't able to receive proper protection because the armory was destroyed."

"But you gave your vest up to someone who didn't have one which is why you have that bullet wound, correct?"

"Yes sir."

MacMillan fell silent for a few moments and Soap looked at Price in confusion. MacMillan sat down in his chair and looked at his desk. "Pager I expect you to rewrite those codes and firewalls until not a single person other than you can get through them. Although I am discouraged by the fact that someone gained access to your system, you proved something not only today, but several months ago as well in Prague." MacMillan began to say. Aaron looked over at Soap who returned the look at the reference to Prague. "Sergeant Aaron Pager you are being promoted to a Lieutenant. Please do not make me regret my decision." Aaron's eyes widened slightly. "Sir…" she began to say. "Thank you."

"For the remainder of the night get some rest and prepare yourself for tomorrow. You will be spending a lot of time rewriting codes and firewalls." MacMillan told her.

"Yes, sir."

"You are dismissed. So are you two."

Aaron left the office and Soap joined her outside a few minutes later. She was leaning against the wall staring at the ground. "Did he just promote me to Lieutenant?" she questioned as Soap approached her. "That happened right?" Soap smiled and nodded. "Yeah it did. Congratulations."

"I just need to wrap my head around this…"

Soap walked over to her and put his hands on her shoulders. "Lieutenant Aaron Pager." He said. "I think you need to go to fall asleep for a few hours and rest." Aaron looked at him and nodded. "I'm gonna go do that…" she said. She began walking away, but stopped and turned around. "I'm right behind you." Soap said as he walked after her. She smiled and continued her walk to the living quarters with Soap behind her whose arms she would later fall asleep in the second she hit the mattress.