There was never a time Trevor enjoyed being summoned by his father. Especially since he knew there was a good chance that his attempt to secretly free their prisoner wasn't a secret any longer. He nodded a thanks to Lash who had delivered the message to him moments after closing the door of Hal's cell and made his way down the corridor that housed Rhino's quarters at its rear. When he opened the door, his father was sitting alone in staring anticipation at the door of his arrival. He personally knew the look that covered his dad's face and paced his steps toward him accordingly.

"You wanted to see me, dad?" He asked in a voice that reminded him of being much younger and knowing he was in trouble.

"You're just like your mother, you know."

"You used to say that was a good thing. That I kept you in line, made sure you didn't turn into a monster."

"Well, you already kind of think I'm a monster, don't you?"

"No," he answered as his father took out an aluminum cigarette case and slide one out of it.

"Oh, I think you do. So did your mother." He lit the cigarette, took a drag, and exhaled the smoke in a grimace like it hurt some part of him to do so. "I'm pretty sure she thought I was the scum of the earth. But, I still loved that woman more than anything. My world ended the day she died."

Trevor ruffled a section of his own black hair to keep his anger from boiling over and verbalizing. The memory of his mother was too pure and good to need to come out of his father's mouth. They both looked at the door when Jonas opened it and stepped inside the room with them.

"Rhino," he said, only acknowledging Trevor in a quick glance, "the intruder, he's making his way inside of the base."

"Send Lucas and Lash."

When Jonas exited, Rhino turned his attention back to his son, returning to the tone he had left off their conversation in.

"For a long time, I thought I had killed her with all the worrying she did about me. But now I know telling her that I was going to have to kill her only son…that would have killed her." Trevor automatically drew back a split second before his father's gun reached his face. His breathing stopped in time with the sound of the Desert Eagle cocking. "It was you, wasn't it?!"

The tip of the gun resting on Trevor's nose sent the chill of the metal throughout his entire body. In his mind, his father's unsteady condition had never equaled to him pointing a gun in his face.

"Wha-what?"

"Don't play dumb with me, boy! Jonas traced the signals that someone had been sending back to the United States where we found Dr. Emmerich!" Rhino chortled amusingly while he pressed the barrel a little firmer into the boy's face. "I knew you never had it in you to follow in my footsteps. You're too soft and you think you're so damn clever...just like your mother. All the brains and none of the know-how. But I never thought you'd betray me."

"I didn't betray you...I was never with you to begin with." Trevor surprised himself with his amount of honesty in his current situation. He didn't realize he was backing up until he was halted by a barrier at his knees and forced to land in a chair. "This isn't my vision and it never has been! You've destroyed everything I've ever cared about...and I just wanted to do the same to you! Dr. Emmerich, he's got someone to go back home to. But I don't." He closed his eyes, and placed the gun's barrel to his forehead. "So, kill me. You've already killed the one person I cared about. Dr. Emmerich's getting out of here so my job is done. Put me out of my misery, dad."

"Take out the necessary but don't go looking for trouble. We'll let the government deal with Rhino and anyone who's left. You just need to get Hal out of there." Snake had nodded in discreet agreement so that he wouldn't feel like a liar if he happened to stray from Mei Ling's plan. "I'm serious, Snake." She said in a reinforced tone when she realized this. "Your body just can't take it. In fact, I suggest you thank it profusely if it gets you through this."

Those had been the last words he remembered leaving Mei Ling's mouth, words that felt they echoed from the walls of another lifetime now as he sliced his knife's across its fifth neck. He didn't know what was necessary anymore and had resorted to stealing the final breaths of anything he saw. Anything that might have hurt Hal.

Mei Ling had been right about his body, though. He slinked around a corner and let his weight fall into the brace of a wall. He fought with its will to go on and spent less time than it required to recover and pushed himself off, stumbling his first few steps back into walking.

As soon as he rounded another corner, a gunshot exploded his senses and he quickly drew his SOCOM into the direction it had come from.

"Snake...was that a gunshot I just heard?" Mei Ling asked into his ear over the Codec.

"Yeah, it was. It's coming from somewhere in the west portion of the building."

"The good news is that Hal wasn't on the receiving end of that. He's close, Snake. The signal from his nanos has him directly south from you. Hurry and get the both of you out of there."

Snake headed south and after a stretch of quiet hallway, landed in front of door that immediately emitted the confirmation he needed on the Codec.

"Hal!" He ran to the door and listened inside.

Nothing.

His eyes fell to a keypad near the handle. "Mei Ling, the door...it's keypad entry."

"It's okay. Sunny's already working on it. Just give her a moment."

A few long seconds later, a lone, green light illuminated near the handle and Snake nearly ripped it off in an effort to get inside. The SOCOM in his hand and all of his equipment put on a ton at the sight of his friend. He knelt beside him and explored for an area on his body that looked safe to place his hand on. He called his name and he lightly patted his face.

"I'm still picking up his vitals. He's alive, Snake." Mei Ling said a voice that was deciding if it believed the words.

"Barely. He's unconscious. Someone's been having a lot of fun with him."

"Poor Hal..."

"He's been through hell but...it could be a lot worse." He caught the texture of a row of bandages along his side under his shirt.

"We'll deal with his injuries when you get him back to the chopper. Just..." she sighed, "just please bring him back."

Snake lifted Hal into his hold and adjusted his tired, broken frame in his grip. He tried hard to concentrate on Hal's moving chest as he maneuvered the reverse path through the building back to Mei Ling. It was the only thing that reminded him that he wasn't carrying a corpse.

"S...S...Snake?"

Snake looked down and felt himself smile a little with his response."Hi, Hal."

"You...you came..."

"I'm sorry it took so long."

"How...long?"

Snake could tell Hal was struggling to keep his focus on him and that it was only a matter of time before he slipped back out of consciousness again.

"Two months."

"Doesn't matter...you're here."

"Are you in any pain?"

"No...Trevor...he's not one of them."

"What do you mean he's not one of them?"

"He's...he's just a kid, Snake. They'll kill him...we have to get him..."

"What we have to do is get the hell out of here while we have the chance. There's still people here. I heard a gunshot on my way to get you and I don't think they were celebrating your freedom."

Hal clamped his eyes shut and swallow hard. "He's dead...isn't he?"

Instead of answering, Snake kicked a door in front of them open and carried Hal into the first rays of sunlight he had seen in two months.

The joy Mei Ling felt when she saw Hal quickly drained as Snake brought him into her view and gave her the visual of what had been done to him. She accepted Hal into her grasp and ran her hands over his battered face, her heart breaking with every pass her hand made over the trauma each wound represented. When she noticed Hal's eyes gaze attempting to search and locate the source of the caress, she turned his head to face her.

"My God...what did they do to you, Hal?" Snake nearly collapsed under the heavy coughing spell he went into into as he climbed into the chopper. He struggled to prop himself into sitting position in a spot next to his friend.

"He's in pretty bad shape", he said when he caught enough breath to do so, "we need to get him out of here, Mei Ling."

"You're in pretty bad shape, Snake. Try and get some rest. I'll take care of everything from here."

Snake waited until Mei Ling had gotten them off the ground to allow the remaining adrenaline in his blood to thin out and his ears and eyes to filter out the surrounding noise. The only thing he didn't block out was the part of his senses he had devoted to picking up any signs of distress that came from Hal and he found himself glancing down at him whenever he felt the engineer was too still. Each time he looked at him, he quietly prepared himself for whatever broken or damaged entities that existed inside and out. Though time heals, nothing in Hal would heal back to the way it had been before it had been destroyed. Snake closed his eyes and let his head fall back in full acceptance of never seeing his friend again.