It had been three months since I left the 141. Three fucking awful months of sitting behind a desk, with no contact with anyone from the 141. Sure, I could check their files, and that they were alive, but nothing more. Of course, the CIA had decided that it was too risky for me to be put out in the field again, so I had to sit around and just do desk work.

My usually clean desk looked like a tornado had hit it; everyday for the last three months. I really couldn't be arsed to clean, when I felt so alone, so afraid. Not to mention the guilt. The guilt I had ate me alive. I could still feel Ghost's eyes burning into me. The pain, and anger that showed through. I had betrayed the man I loved. I had betrayed Soap and Roach, both of whom looked out for me. I couldn't sleep at night, because Ghost's words still rang, in every fucking dream. "Get the fuck off my base. We have no space for a spy". They hit me, harder than a magnum slug.

I got to my desk, with a fresh cup of coffee. Really, reading and writing reports was the dullest job ever, and it really let you think. And when I thought, I brooded, and then it hurt even more. As I went through the paper work for my mission on Shepherd, something caught my eye. Something had been changed. The words didn't feel like mine. And there was a constant repetition of "Echo Delta Sierra". It made no sense. "EDS" I muttered out loud. Certainly made no sense. It felt as though there was something I was missing. I grabbed my favourite chew pen and began nibbling on its end. I ran the words through my system. The search result had one result. The only place where Echo, Delta and Sierra showed up next to each other were on a file titled "Kingfish". I opened it up.

"Fuck…" I whispered. This was an unedited file on the mission where Price was captured. The 141 teamed up with Delta to kill Makarov. The agent in charge was…Ethan.

This wasn't a coincidence. I downloaded the file and opened it up. As I went through it, I noticed a few words had a tiny difference from others. Nothing alarming, but just enough for me to notice. I separated them.

"Shepherd betrayed 141. Kingfish is in the show."

That was bad. Makarov and Shepherd together couldn't be good. Although, this did fill the blanks. How else would Makarov know when the 141 and Delta would attack? It was top secret. And there was just one person who could have made this connection. Ethan. The bastard had been sent to Russia, to finish Joe Allen's work. It was possible he got a hold of some data and realised he couldn't tell the CIA. The only person he could trust was me, and then he edited my report. I ran the recent edits. There were 61.5240° N, 105.3188° E which had been deleted over and over. Someone had manually typed it and then deleted it. It could only be found after going through the entire edit history. Ethan was giving me coordinates.

I checked the edit date. Yesterday. That would explain why I had an error message today when I got to work. Ethan must've logged into my account and changed my report. The cheeky bastard is the best hacker I know. Which is why they sent him to Russia. Still, rather than figuring out how he managed it, I had to warn the 141. But Ghost and Soap wouldn't listen, and last time I got a chance to call Roach, he told me that they were going to be off the grid a bit, which meant I couldn't get through to anyone. There was just one option. I had to tell them in person.

I hurriedly left my desk. A standard flight would take too long. If Shepherd had something planned it would be finished before I landed. Luckily, I knew the CIA had been developing high speed super stealth Blackhawks. I was one of the few who had access. Given my previous experience on combat and spy missions, the bosses thought I would be the ideal person to provide a level of fair evaluation. I didn't have many hours logged but anyway. I headed to the pre-flight room and got my flight gear on. As I grabbed my helmet, I faltered. I was knowingly going to commit treason. Even if my hunch was right, I was fucked, to say the least. Then I saw the letter Roach had written to me. He had sneaked a picture of the 141 (well Ghost and Soap) with the rest of the group grinning and sent it. I was doing it for them. Plus, the Bug would probably hurt himself first.

I jogged to the hangar. "Open it up." I ordered the tech. He frowned, "I've got no scheduled flight today". "Well, danger doesn't come and we are testing the standby responsiveness of the Hawk." I said lying through my teeth. "What are you waiting for?" I snapped. The tech nodded and began the start up. I jammed my head into the helmet and got into the helo. "Waiting for co-pilot" I said, carrying on the ruse, as I ran the pre-flight. Fuel was at 95%, would get me to Russia. As the gates opened, I took the helo out. "Confirm in the air" I said over the radio, and heard the cheer, "activating stealth" I pushed a few knobs, and grinned as I vanished from radar. Then before the tech or flight control figured out what I did I gunned the engine and flew out. I fed the coordinates from the mission report into my computer. The sophisticated machine pointed out the fastest route. I selected it and ordered the computer to remain in stealth but to attempt supersonic when plausible. Then I waited.

Soon enough I saw mountains in Russia. There had been some screaming on the radio, orders to return, and a couple of times I was worried when I saw F-22's but they couldn't locate me. So all in all pretty boring. The CIA was OK with tech ever so often. The coordinates were 2 minutes away. I activated my helmets HUD. I could use any one of the 45 exterior cameras on the Hawk. As I flew in, I saw a huge fire and red smoke. That had to be the 141. I hung back and activated the powerful forward cam. I zoomed in and saw Shadow Company descending on two men. One was supporting the other. I couldn't make out their details, but the uniform was 141. An osprey landed and a man got out. He grabbed a pistol and shot the 141 men. "NO!" I screamed. I activated hover and ran to the back of the helo. The CIA hadn't installed any missiles but there was a Gatling gun. I loaded it up and fired. Shadow company scattered. Thankfully, they couldn't make out where I was firing from. In the confusion, the shooter got back and the Osprey took off. I was tempted to chase it, but I had to rescue the 141 soldiers. I shot the few Shadow soldiers left and rushed to land my chopper. As soon as I turned the engine off, I ran out.

It was Ghost and Roach. "NO!" I screamed, and ran. Both of them reacted to my voice. They were alive, for now. "Wha?" Roach slurred. Ghost didn't say anything. I reached them. They were hurt bad, Roach had massive burns and shrapnel and a bullet hole in his stomach. I swear he really is a cockroach. Ghost was better except the hole was in his chest. I grabbed the med kit on my flight suit, and began applying a tight bandage to Roach. "Shadow?" He murmured. "Yes it's me" I said, carrying on. Then I saw two more men rise out of the shrubs. "Shadow? Toad, its Shadow!" Archer's voice came out. The two snipers ran over to me, and began working on Ghost. I could sense the hostility, but at that time, we had to save our men.

While working, I told Archer and Toad what I discovered, and that we could use my helo to get to a safe house. Not a CIA one, but Kamarov. Archer insisted we go to him, apparently Price had told the team headed to Russia that Kamarov was an old friend and we could use his safe house. We stabilised Roach and Ghost and took off. I had to make sure they would be ok.

AN: Sorry for the delay. Crazy busy life. Hope you enjoy. Thanks to SMakarov for the beta reading!