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important characters:

daniel sharman as noah miller₊‧.°.⋆🪐•˚₊‧⋆.

alycia debnam-carey as maia noemia van amersvoort ₊‧.°.⋆🫧•˚₊‧⋆.

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Graves insisting on Taskforce 141 and Shadow Company returning to Alejandro's base in separate cars should have been the first sign that something wasn't right. Usually, or more so the last few car-rides they had done, Maia and Noah had always been in a car together, chatting, laughing, preparing.

Not this time.

After successfully finishing their mission, when the two were on their way to enter the backseats, Graves had called for Noah, telling him, that the two groups would take separate cars back to base.

Noah and Maia had just shrugged it off, parted ways to go to their teams, not before promising, they would talk after returning to base. In that moment they didn't yet know or even assume that this would the last time they would talk comfortably for a long time.

One last look, both smiled, expecting to maybe have the next day off, they closed the doors.

This time she drove with Ghost and Soap beside her on the backseat, Alejandro and Rodolfo in the front. Maia had met the two Mexicans for the first time when they had arrived in Las Almas, but they had clicked, not as instant as Noah and her, but now counting each other as good allies, even going as far as calling each other friends.

They talked about the successfully finished mission and how excited they were to finally possibly have a few calmer days, since the last weeks had been stressful, almost constantly being on missions, never knowing if they would survive or not.

While driving, it started to rain and the sky slowly got darker, day turned into night.
Maia felt herself becoming tired, the day had been long and not exactly calm, so she needed her bed soon.

But when the convoy drove into the entrance of the Los Vaqueros base, suddenly their car was stopped by a shadow company soldier standing at the sideline of the street, fully drenched, like he had stood there for a long time.

To no surprise everyone was confused, and they exited their cars.

Alejandro first, as this was his team's base, walked in the direction of Graves, who also had left his car and stood now outside facing the entrance.
"What's this?", he questioned Graves, who turned around, looking the Mexican directly into his eyes. "This is the immediate future. Step away from the gate"

Like her team, Maia too had left the car and looked for Noah, maybe he would tell her what exactly was going on here. But differently than expected, the guy made no move to go to her and stayed besides Graves.

Confused Maia eyed him and suddenly she realized that something must have happened in the car, because something new had appeared in Noah's eyes, a glimmer she had never seen before. The perplexity of this situation was clearly visible in her facial expression, but right now Alejandro and Graves were still center of the whole situation.

Soap immediately questioned what Graves had said, who just repeated his words, which Alejandro clearly wouldn't accept. Understandably so, it was his base, and he wouldn't accept it that easy to just leave his base to Graves, because he said so.

Graves, now with a smug smile plastered on his lips, which Maia immediately did not like, continued talking. "It's not a base. This is a sizable convert facility and I admire it, so I'm taking it."

These words were baffling and nobody in Maia's team cared to hide their anger. How did Graves dare to just take Alejandro's base after he, and his men, had helped Shadow Company and Taskforce 141. Ignoring their reactions, Graves calmly continued, "You boys have been relieved. Thank you for your service.".

Maia didn't like that comment at all, Graves was way too smug for her liking, but she knew, that she couldn't risk starting a fight.

She shortly considered saying something, but Alejandro was faster. "No, no, no. I don't take orders from you.", which was correct. Graves didn't have the power to give Alejandro and the Los Vaqueros or Taskforce 141 commands, but he had dared and done exactly that.

Like Alejandro, Graves too wouldn't just give up and started talking about Valeria, what she had said in her interrogation. He even questioned Alejandro's connections to a drug-lord, which seemed to be the last straw of Alejandro's calmness, who now looked even angrier.

"What the fuck did you say to me, pendejo.", he made a step forward, closer to Graves, but Soap who had stood behind Alejandro, grabbed his shoulder to prevent a possible fight happening.

The two men now stood closer to the American, who stepped back and tried to stop them from whatever they possibly could do.

"You're out of line, Graves.", Maia called out, with all men now looking to her. Noah too, but he didn't dare to meet her eyes. She hated the situation, but despite Maia still being the center of the attention, Graves declared, "Don't do that. No one needs to get hurt here.".

Now Ghost, who had stood beside Maia and had laid a hand on her shoulder, as protective as he was and to stop her from overreacting and possibly doing something stupid, spoke up.

"Are you threatening us?", Maia could hear the brewing anger in his voice, but now she was the one that tried to calm her friend. Graves answer came quickly. "Soldier, I don't make threats. I make guarantees. So let's not do this."

Before, Maia had seen Graves maybe not as a friend, bus as someone she at least could trust a bit. They had worked together well, and she had thought that they had a friendly relationship. But that now had obviously changed, since she didn't like at all how he thought he could give commands to her friends.

She again looked at Noah, but he had a stone-cold facial expression and had, in the last few minutes, never even slightly looked in her direction. That realization hurt.

Soap, done with Graves and the whole seemingly endless discussion, turned around and explained, that he would call Shepard. But Graves, now even strangely calmer than before, stopped him dead in his tracks with the words: "General Shepard sends his regards. He told me y'all wouldn't take this well."

In the split of a second, the mood changed. Maia's hand instinctively landed on the gun she still wore, and Ghost stepped in front of her. "He knows about this?", he questioned, and Graves promptly explained, that Shepard apparently had put him in command of this operation from here on out.

"So y'all need to stand down. Why the hell are we talking like this is some kind of negotiation? It's not.", he looked around. "It's time to let the pros finish this. I've got my orders and now you have yours."

For the first time since a few minutes, Alejandro spoke up again, not caring to stay calm anymore. "And who the fuck do you think you are, cabrón? My men are inside!", as he spoke, his voice got louder.

Maia knew how important his team members were for Alejandro, so him now really being angry was understandable. If she would have been in his place, Maia knew, she would have probably reacted the same way.

It took a toll on her to not just leave her place besides Ghost and punch the American in the face, in her eyes he clearly was delusional, thinking he could just give them commands and taking over a base that was in no ways his property.

But different to Alejandro, Graves continued to undisturbedly talk, as if he was in the right. "I am afraid not. Your men have been...detained."

These words seemed to break the last barrier Alejandro hat put up and he lunched at Graves. A Shadow Company soldier behind him stepped up, defending Graves and threw the Mexican against the car they had arrived in. Alejandro quickly got his hands tied together and now Shadow Company as well as Taskforce 141 and the few Los Vaqueros members who had accompanied them, aimed the gun on each other.

Soap, as angry as Alejandro, called out: "Graves, what the fuck?!", but didn't get an answer. Instead, a Shadow Company soldier started shooting at him, which forced Soap to take another enemy soldier as shield. Maia saw that at least two bullets had hit him, but nothing dangerous.

Now the Shadow Company soldiers surrounding Maia and Ghost started attacking him, but Ghost quickly pulled out his knives and Maia too was able to defend herself.

She saw that Alejandro tried to free himself, but Graves hit him with his gun and Alejandro instantly went down, unconscious.

The Dutch woman cursed under her breath and proceeded to try and reach Noah, while her friends got attacked. Soap had to defend himself against Graves, who was able to shoot him. Maia knew that her friends were able to not get killed, so she ran in the direction of Noah.

In the background she heard how Ghost called out to Soap, telling him to run, clear fear for his "friend" lying in his voice. One second later, in the corner of her eye, Maia saw, how Soap launched himself over the barricades, probably sliding down the muddy slope at one side of the road.

It seemed like Ghost, in true Simon "Ghost" Riley fashion, too had managed to escape, Graves reacting frustrated and calling out to his men to start searching for them.
In that moment he realized that Maia was still there, now standing in front of Noah, looking him straight in the eyes. "Please, Noah. Come with me. This whole thing isn't right, and you know it.", she took her hand away from her gun. "I know you can make the right decision. So please leave with me."

Graves called out to Noah. "Noah, you have your orders, you know it. Now do something about her, before she managed to escape too.", Maia didn't stop looking at him, the person she had let in her heart in such a short amount of time, that the whole situation hurt even more. Before being separated in the car, they had joked about how they might spend their few free days together, that they would meet up again if they could.

But now, Noah just looked at her, still so emotionless, that Maia questioned if the comfortable feeling she had in his presence had been one-sided all along. "Noah, please.", she tried again. Maia knew that she didn't have much time if she still wanted to run, but she didn't want to leave without Noah.

For a short second Maia believed that something had changed in his eyes, but in that moment, Noah grabbed his gun and aimed at her.

She couldn't, she didn't want to believe it. That she now stood in front of a guy she deeply cared about and him aiming his gun at her. "Don't do this. Please. Come with me."

And Noah pulled the trigger.

Maia was so surprised, that she didn't even feel the pain of the shot wound at first. In the split second after Noah had shot her, her facial expression had changed.

Where before helplessness, pleading and hope had been, only anger, fear and the pain of the betrayal now remained.

"Why?", Maia asked, but Noah didn't answer, just lowering his gun. A small sign, that she should run, as long as she still could.

And Maia did exactly that. Like Soap minutes before her, Maia launched herself over the barricade, down the slippery, muddy slope, vanishing into the darkness of the surrounding forest. Without looking back to Noah, while ignoring the pain of the shot wound.

Where Noah had shot her.

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dedicated to:

casnap_ - creator of noah miller and dedicated beta reader nr. 1

CaptainSam_- dedicated beta reader nr. 2

Nate_notinit - dedicated beta reader nr. 3

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