A/N: So here's one more chapter! Hope you enjoy!

Do. Not. Own.

Chapter 5

Ethan Hunt was having beers with Luther. He decided he could use some distraction. Although it didn't last long.

"What's the deal with Benji?" Luther asked curiously.

"What about Benji?" Ethan raised his eyebrow questioningly. "I heard he's on a mission".

"Yeah," the other man nodded. "Isn't it too soon? He's not fit for work".

"Maybe it's something easy?" Ethan suggested. He knew it was a silly suggestion. Nothing the IMF had ever done was easy. There was a reason they were called "Impossible Mission Force". Stickell's glare seemed to be supporting that thought.

"Man, how do you still remember the word 'easy'?" he asked grimly. Hunt smiled humorlessly.

"When did you last see him?" he asked after a pause.

"The day he got the mission," was the answer. Ethan nodded in a 'same here' gesture. "He was strange. Was remembering the Rabbit's Foot".

Ethan's eyes shot upwards.

"The Rabbit's Foot?" he asked. Why would Benji have mentioned that?... He was about to ask something but his phone vibrated.

Half an hour later he, Jane and William were all standing at the headquarters as ordered. Agent Topp eyed the trio carefully before beginning.

"This," he clicked a button and a picture of a fairly obese old man appeared on a screen in front of them, "is Dr. Phillip Wickham. Professor at Oxford University".

Ethan's eyes widened slightly but he didn't say anything, happy that only his teammates seemed to have noticed that.

"He disappeared roughly nine weeks ago," Topp went on. "Along with some of his best former students. Some of them had vanished even before the professor did".

He sighed before continuing.

"A week later the incident we sent agent Dunn to… investigate… under the cover of a police officer".

Under different circumstances Brandt would have certainly snickered at the image of Benji in a police uniform. However, now this couldn't and didn't happen.

"Yesterday we got the information that our team working in the UK had been killed," three sets of eyes were now drilling him with unbearable intensity. "Agent Morgan was shot still as a police officer during an armed robbery. The remaining men were shot by a sniper in Oxford".

The team froze, none of them being able to breathe.

"Their names were Paul Edwards and Gary Cartwright," Topp proceeded with a sigh. Jane frowned, confused.

"And what about Benji?" she asked, dreading the answer.

"Agent Dunn wasn't found," even though the answer wasn't that reassuring, it did get a small relieved sigh out of the three agents. "Although some of the blood found at the place of Edwards and Cartwright's assassination belonged to him".

There was another silent moment. Topp took a swallow.

"Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find Dr. Wickham and find out what is going on there".

This was the last drop. Brandt couldn't take it anymore.

"Okay, enough of this bullshit. You are hiding too much. Why the hell did you send Benji on this mission? Because he's English? And since when do we investigate kidnappings?"

Ethan held out his hand to calm down his teammate. However, when the former analyst had stopped, Hunt continued his rant.

"You are hiding too much from us," his voice was low but everyone who knew Ethan could say he was really pissed off. "At least one thing I know for sure. Benji was Wickham's student. And he is from the same generation as the disappeared people," he waited for his friends to get over the shock of the news. "What else do we need to know?" there were certain steely notes applied to his voice. Topp swallowed hard.

"Well," he began sheepishly, "it has something to do with what Wickham might have known… and what he might have told his students…"

Suddenly the mention of the Rabbit's Foot started making sense to Ethan. "The Anti-God…" he muttered barely audibly. Topp raised an eyebrow.

"What do you know about it?" he asked quizzically. The team leader just shrugged.

"Nothing. Just heard those words".

He exchanged nods with his team before concluding: "We accept the mission," not letting Topp say another word. He barked "Send us the further instructions" before storming out of the room, followed closely by his teammates.

"How did you know Benji was Wickham's student? And about this Anti-God thing?" Brandt asked, keeping up with the leader as they walked.

"Benji told me about this when I was on the Rabbit's Foot mission".

"He never told us about it…" Brandt went on. "Even though he's talking all the time".

"Believe me, he used to be worse," the leader assured.

"Wait," Jane spoke up. "The Rabbit's Foot? I've heard that title. What was it, anyway?"

"Well, Benji thought the Rabbit's Foot was the Anti-God," Ethan replied nonchalantly. "Satisfied with the answer?"

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Benji opened his eyes and closed them at once. He couldn't understand where he was. And what was with the pain he was feeling. He tried to recall his last memories.

He was standing there, his two dead teammates lying at his feet. He was expecting to join them soon. However, he suddenly felt agonizing pain tearing though his left shoulder (the one Brandt had shot him in just two months before). The pain was blinding, and he could tell the damage was worse this time. He sat down on the pavement. One question, though, was buzzing in his head: why was he still alive? It couldn't be a mistake, snipers don't make such mistakes. Something was out.

An ambulance arrived soon, and the paramedics began their job. One of them decided to talk to him.

"Are you in pain?" he asked.

"Are you retarded?" Benji barked. And he got his team killed… Great, Benji, just a brilliant job you did there. The paramedics said something about giving him some painkillers, and everything became black.

He opened his eyes again. Wherever he was, it was definitely not a hospital.

"Hey," a soft voice sounded, barely louder than whisper, shaky and somehow… familiar. Benji turned his head towards the sound.

"Mike?" he whispered. He hadn't even acknowledged how weak he was until he tried to speak. The guy sitting by his side definitely was Mike, his old college friend. The pair had been inseparable before each of them had gotten his own life. And now both of them had come to this.

"I bandaged your shoulder," Mike added. "Can you move your arm?"

Benji tried and failed. His only hope was that at least he still could feel it at all. A bit.

"Where are we?" he asked, trying to take his mind away from the pain that was growing every second.

"I've been asking myself the same question for the past weeks," Mike smiled bitterly. "I was just walking down the street one night, then something hit me in the head and I woke up here," he paused, as even this sentence seemed too tiring to him. "I was hoping we'd meet someday, but not like this…"

Benji looked closer at the other man. He was like a shadow of himself. The former, life-loving and optimistic Mike had completely vanished. This Mike looked every kind of broken, both physically and mentally.

"What on earth happened to you, Mike?" the former technician could feel a lump in his throat grow, threatening to choke him at some point.

Mike laughed unhappily before going into a coughing fit.

"I'm afraid you'll find that out soon, Benji," was the answer. Without even looking at the man the agent could tell he was crying.