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Chapter Text

[- ∞ → ∞]

It’s like this: you watch him leave and copies come back but they’re not the same. You fight for one individual in a complex world and he seems to multiply, to find new ways to split your loyalties, and you navigate a sea of troubles to find his motives as you lose track of your own.

Your mind is a battlefield from birth, territory fought over by handlers, each with their encampment secluded in your mind. Every memory regained is a war. It takes you 26 years to wield the weapon they made you.

But, through the years, there is one constant. One person you grow close to, and then start to overlap with. She teaches you what it is like to truly know someone and be known by them. And after so long waiting for John together, united by an experience only you share, you drift apart and come back together eternally.

[1944 → 1958] – [Age 0 → 14]

The Philosophers  

Adamska was born in battle scarring his mother with an artificial snake and taken straight from her arms, so it’s no wonder he ended up this particular brand of unbalanced. He’s passed from handler to handler for years, taught to shoot and enjoy shooting, taught to resist drugs, and it never seems abnormal to him until well into his adulthood. He drinks vodka on his fifth birthday; it makes him red-faced, unsteady.

The adults laugh at the stumbling child courting liver failure. He hates it so much he vows that no one will ever laugh at him again. Affecting an air of remote arrogance just encourages them.

Russia is too cold even if it's wormed its way deep enough into his body to stay with him wherever he goes; even if the language feels natural in a way that's too honest; raw: exposed. His handlers speak in Russian and they know everything about him wrapped in a neat paper bundle tied together with string. It was all recorded, from bed wetting (a sign of trauma, someone once told him) to his competency with various martial arts techniques.

What matters is this: in Russia everyone knows him and he does not know them. He cannot lie and he cannot know what runs through their heads. It's espionage he can appreciate, admire as an adult but unforgivably frustrating and he'll wake up years later, body shaking with the memory of vulnerability.

He finds solace in the weekly film showings, elbowing his way through men older than him to get a good seat, spaghetti westerns with their honest melodrama and weapons showmanship. When he can barely stand after training (they know his limits - they know when he can't take anymore because it's all written on that clipboard) he goes back to his room and practices gun tricks.

They let him because it's potentially useful. He has no illusions about that.

He first hears about his mother age 14. Whether it's deliberate or the Philosophers’ idea he will never know. He thinks that she was brought to see him, once, but the memory was scrubbed. He can feel the shape of the absence. That is all.

Ocelot learns that he is an agent of the KGB and CIA both. He is more tool than person, a weapon in the hand that wields him. Where his true loyalties lie depends on which trigger words he has just heard and which area of his tangled head is exposed. He finds himself forgetting so much, and then waking up with memories that he’s sure aren’t his.

Someone assigns him to the GRU, and he isn’t sure if it’s to serve them, to spy on them, or to pretend to spy on them while doing the opposite. Ocelot is 14 and he wakes up at night with no recollection of who he is. He looks at his hands and can’t imagine them as his own.

[1959 → 1963] – [Age 15 → 19]

The Spetsnaz

They send him to Grozjny Grad, to the Spetsnaz and Volgin. At the time he's thrilled (angry and arrogant and young and proud and determined to overcome anything) but looking back he's just so young. Too young to be another of Raikov and Volgin's victims, even if he's always been able to take care of himself. No one's had his childhood - the closest he ever discovers is Liquid Snake. It's interesting how these children the P(hilosophers/atriots) raise for warfare inevitably turn against them.

Then again, they entrusted a sixteen year old to a sadist who could control lightning with his fists. What did they expect? If you beat a dog it will cower or bite you. If you beat Ocelot then he'll take your empire apart even if it takes him a lifetime.

It’s surviving Volgin that first brings him and EVA together. They are the only people who understand what it means to be young and pretty and blond and in the immediate proximity of Volgin.  EVA likes him because he’s not interested in her sexually, unlike every other person in this sweltering jungle. Ocelot likes EVA because she doesn’t treat him like a child or his mother’s son.

Sometimes they try to protect each other from the worst. Then they stay up late together and EVA brings vodka. Ocelot’s never had a friend before, just handlers, superiors and subordinates. He practices his English with her and they talk about old movies. He wants to tell her everything, but finds that he can’t. Only his handlers know how to open his mind.

Sometimes, Ocelot thinks that he and EVA are working for the same people. Both spies. But then other times he finds himself aligned against her, wanting to report her. Luckily their friendship is a powerful emotional prerogative. Ocelot shuts his work (which is his life, his mind, his history) out of their relationship as much as he can, which isn’t enough.

[1964] – [Age 20]

Operation Snake Eater

The Cobras arrive in this jungle fortress, and with them someone he's only ever heard of in the context of violence. His mother is the angriest person he's ever known even if no one else seems to notice it. Her son is the American called Naked Snake. Ocelot is an afterthought.

He wants to talk to his mother, but when she looks at him all he can see is disgust hiding despair. He realizes, later, that she is thinking of his father. Ocelot is an unwelcome reminder of when she chose her country over her family and shot the man she loved on the orders of the faceless government. An order she carried out because she feared for Ocelot’s safety. Ocelot thinks that the Boss cannot let herself love him, or even look at him for very long. She carries the hurt with her, small and potent, like a pupating moth. It is an unacceptable vulnerability. She guards it carefully. 

Relentless comparisons to his mother were smashed over his head like a mallet during training. He admires her, and thinks he might love her, or that he could at grow into their relationship. He wants to impress her, but he does not. After she nukes hundreds of civilians, he’s not sure he wants to anymore. 

When he meets Snake, it’s like everything stops. He sees the same thing in EVA and wishes it wasn’t there because he doesn’t want the competition. 

(Years later, he ’ll realize how much of a blessing it was to have them both loving the legend. Because years later he ’ll see loving Snake for what it is – an unequivocal death sentence. A slow, agonizing and futile endeavour. Loving Snake is the kind of odyssey you want your best friend by your side for. There are no victors. Snake doesn t choose anyone.) 

As much as Ocelot tries to keep EVA out of his missions, it’s not possible to do it all the time. Some days are made of corrosive fog, where Ocelot doesn’t recognize anything but a mission, indistinct and all-consuming. It’s on one of those days, a day when he is floating miles from his body, that he enters the interrogation room with Volgin and Snake. Distantly, he watches Volgin hurt Snake. His programming doesn’t allow for horror, but some of it leaks through anyway. I love this man, Ocelot realizes distantly. The information doesn’t seem urgent. Everything feels like a dream. I would do anything for him. He watches his mother hold the knife. 

When it seems like the Boss is going to blind Snake, Ocelot almost wakes up. Then he sees EVA, and he knows that she’s like him. Somehow hopelessly in love. She’s going to try to stop it. He rises from his reverie for that and pulls her back, but she fights him off and knocks the knife out of the Boss’s hand anyway. 

Volgin is glaring daggers at his mother, seemingly ready to order her death. EVA has just exposed herself. Snake could be blind, or dead, imminently. Ocelot doesn’t know what to do. Terrified, his mind collapses into the mission, the mission in which Volgin is his commander and the mole must be routed out. He looks at EVA. He’s known for so long, and yet- She’s his friend. 

He slips into the mission and lets his feelings take the back seat. He tells her he’s going to test her. There is nothing but bewilderment and trust in her eyes as Ocelot levels his revolver at her. She knows he can’t shoot her. Ocelot isn’t so sure. Weapons don’t choose when they fire. He likes Russian Roulette because it removes the choice from his handlers and delivers it into the hands of chance. It favours Snake. 

Snake intervenes anyway, even with his arms bound, and protects Ocelot from killing his only friend. This takes his love to a whole new level, complete with religious fervour. Something awakens in him. The love is agonizing. He doesn’t know what to do with the devotion. He wants to give Snake everything he is, only it’s not Ocelot’s to give. Only his handlers can decide who Ocelot works with. 

His mother slaps him and it's the most attention she's ever given him. There's more in it than reproach. Her cold professionalism cuts deeper than any bullet. It's intimacy of a kind, one combatant to another. He shrugs it off, still drunk on love. 

Later, she finds him alone. It’s the first time they’ve stood together without someone in the way.

“Listen.” She says, looking at Ocelot like he’s a wound. “I cannot be your mother.” Ocelot nods, unsurprised. “It’s not good for you here. Soon… soon I will be dead. Snake will kill me. I want you to leave with him. I know that you love him. Help him.” She lets her gaze linger on his face. Ocelot nods again. “EVA will go with you, too. I know you are friends.” 

It is the last thing she ever says to him. It takes him years before he can properly follow up on his promise. 

Helping Snake kill Volgin is spiritual like uncracking an egg. He won’t give Volgin a coup de grace, not after what he’s done (Ocelot will bear the lightning scars for the rest of his life, will wear the same supple red gloves to hide those on his wrists, the same red scarf to cover his neck). He wishes he’d gotten to see the swine die. Instead he gets to see Snake save his life, which is better. 

Duelling Snake is the closest thing to intimacy Ocelot knows. He finishes it with a smile, confident that he won’t be forgotten. John, a precious gift blossoming in his mouth. 

He reports back to the DCI, he thinks, but the memory is fuzzy. He has to find the Philosopher’s Legacy for them, or the KGB. The warring commands drive him to do nothing. He fades in and out for a few years, unaware of his missions, so little remaining in his head. He loses touch with EVA.

[1965 → 1969] – [Age 21 → 25]

The Mozambican War of Independence 

Someone sends him to Mozambique. Probably one faction or another of the Philosophers. He can’t remember what he’s supposed to do, but it doesn’t seem to matter because he keeps losing time. Once he wakes up in the middle of battle, three men dead at his feet. He can’t remember the mission so he just leaves. 

He’s always lived like this. It would kill anyone else. He doesn’t blink, just washes and sleeps. 

They teach him to do to others what they did to him. All drugs and needles and electrodes and knives. Interrogation and conditioning. There’s something satisfying in it, in being the one in control for once. He can look down at his subjects and know that they can’t make him forget. Is this how my handlers feel? He asks himself. 

When he’s himself, or as close as he ever comes, he leaves for a time and tracks down John. They share some rations over a fire. John’s a mercenary now. He left the CIA when they made him kill the Boss. 

“She wasn’t a traitor.” John hisses, staring into the fire. Ocelot can tell that he’s been wanting to talk about the Boss since he killed her. He might be the only other person who understands. 

“No, she wasn’t.” Ocelot hesitates. “She told me to work for you.” 

Snake snorts. “Work for you like you worked for the KGB, or like you worked for the CIA? How about how you worked for the Philosophers?” 

Ocelot’s head hurts. “I’m still trying to get out.” He says, eventually. “When I can, I’ll help you. But don’t trust me. My mind isn’t my own.” 

John nods. Next time Ocelot visits, he lets him help with sharpshooting for the mission because it’s not sensitive. They grow close, but never close enough. John doesn’t want him like he wants John. The older man can tell, Ocelot thinks. He can see it in his eyes, a discomfort, a resentment. But they never talk about it. 

At the end of the day, Ocelot is too good a weapon to discard, even for the Legendary Mercenary.

[1970] – [Age 26]

San Hieronymo Incident 

Ocelot goes to see EVA after he realizes his involvement with John’s capture by FOX at San Hieronymo. His brain feels full of cotton wool and he has more holes than memories. He wants to apologize for almost shooting her. For six years of silence. But he can’t speak. She looks at him without forgiveness or blame. Total acceptance of what he is. 

“I hear that you’ve been studying re-education, Adam.” She tells him, looking at his eyes instead of the coffee pot in her hands. She pours it immaculately without a glance, not one drop out of place. He wonders how she knows. 

“Yes. In Mozambique.” He doesn’t know what else to add. “John sends his regards.” 

EVA rolls her eyes. She’s right – John hadn’t spared a thought for her, not even when asked if there was a message he wanted passed on. He’d have done the same if it was Ocelot. There’s only one person John wants to talk to, and she’s dead. 

“Tell him I send my love.” Her teeth are bared. He relates, terribly, to the agonizing futility of loving John. She knows that Ocelot won’t tell him, and even if he did John wouldn’t reply.

They stay silent for a while, then both burst into laughter. Ocelot can’t remember ever laughing before. He wonders if it’s been scrubbed from of his mind, or if he’s never had cause to before. It feels wonderful. 

“I missed you, EVA.” He says earnestly. “I…” He thinks about a gun pointed at EVA, about John’s eyepatch. “I…” 

“Don’t.” She tells him. “They have so many fingers in your head. They’ve had you since you were, what, born?” 

“Yes.” Ocelot closes his eye, probing the tender space in his mind where his childhood should have been. 

“Adam. Your brain is a battlefield. The different factions of Philosophers were tearing you apart. You weren’t yourself.” 

Ocelot doesn’t think that he has a self, under the missions and amnesia and trigger words. Sometimes he thinks that everything is part of his mission, pre-programmed. Even how he feels about John or westerns. The only thing that’s ever felt his is his relationship with EVA, because it doesn’t mean anything in terms of missions. There’s no advantage to it. Anyway, it reminds him of when his handlers threw him to the wolves when he was fifteen. Thinking about EVA is a potent reminder to trust nobody. 

“I don’t-” Ocelot holds his head in his hands. “I don’t know what to do. I forget everything and then the few memories I have turn out to be planted with the intention of influencing my actions. I don’t know what’s real.” If anything can ever be real. “La Li Lu Le Lo.” He says, helplessly, mind flashing back to drug cocktails and electrodes on his scalp. 

“Ssh.” EVA says, putting her arm over Ocelot’s shoulders. “You’re learning re-education. You’re learning how to do what they did to you. Now you can start to fight back.” 

“I don’t remember where or who… I just wake up with blood on my hands.” He was shaking now. “I just wake up with my childhood missing and I don’t know why.” 

“Your mind is a battlefield.” EVA repeats. “Fight back. Do what they did to you to yourself. Reconquer your mind. Plant your own suggestions. Give them fake memories. I’ll help you recover what they suppressed.” 

“And then…” The thought is startlingly clear. “And then I pretend that they can still influence me.” 

“Yes.” She smiles. “They’ll think you’re dancing to their tune, but you’ll finally be able to choose your own agenda.” The thought of acting for himself (which really means doing anything to protect John and EVA) sounds wonderful. “I’ll help you, if you trust me to do it.” 

She’s the only person he’d trust to help him with this. “Okay.” 

The control after his first round of reconditioning is dizzying. They make it so that he is the only person who can control his mind. Standing there, in places he was supposed to forget, acting out his responses to trigger phrases from memories freshly unlocked, he feels powerful. For the first time in his life, he’s wielding himself. My way or the highway, he thinks viciously, still pantomiming the same tired responses. My mind is my own. 

He kills the DCI in a fit of malicious glee after telling him his simple, simple plan: to end the Philosophers. To turn the weapon they’d made him into back on them. And, while he was at it, to stop this horrible perversion his mother’s dream had become. 

Zero contacts him and invites him to join his organization. He’s looking into cloning John. Ocelot accepts, because it’s always easier to destroy something from the inside. 

“I’ll do it on one condition.” He says into the phone, knowing the immense value of the weapon that is Ocelot. “You bring John and EVA onboard too.” 

He hangs up before Zero can protest.

[1971] – [Age 27]

Les Enfants Terribles  

Ocelot holds EVA while she cries. John’s reaction had been… extreme. He’d been so savage – come within a hair’s width of ripping the pregnancy out of EVA with his teeth. Ocelot had expected it. Had even warned EVA. But she’d known what she wanted and what she was risking. 

“This isn’t what I wanted.” She whimpers, holding her stomach. There are two mini-Johns in there. 

No, she’d wanted a family with John. And unlike Ocelot, she hadn’t realized that was impossible. Instead she’d tried to force it, and ended up pushing him even further away. 

“He’ll calm down.” Ocelot says hollowly. He can’t stop worrying that John might decide this is Ocelot’s fault, too. John already barely tolerates Ocelot, for him to despise him- 

“Don’t lie to me, Adam.” It was true, John wouldn’t forgive her. 

“I’ll be here.” He offers. “I’ll be there when they’re born, and I’ll be with you when they’re gone.” 

“I don’t want them to take them away.” EVA whispers. She looks sick. “Run away with me?” 

“I can’t leave John.” Can’t quite choose EVA and burn bridges with the love of his life, although it’s a closer competition than he’d care to admit. “They’d find us, anyway. If we want a world where you can keep them then we’ll have to make it.” 

“It’ll be too late by then.” EVA is furious, tears pricking at her eyes. She knows that Ocelot is being selfish, but she doesn’t bring it up because she’d do the same. In so many ways, they are the same. “They’re going to take them. And- and they’ll raise them like they raised you.” 

“I’ll do my best.” Ocelot says eventually. He doesn’t want anyone else made into a weapon. That was the exact thing his mother had despised – the systematic dehumanization of war. The shapes Zero and Snake had twisted that into… “I’ll try.” 

EVA pulls Ocelot close and sobs angrily into his shoulder. 

A few months later, he’s holding her hand while she gives birth. EVA names them David and Eli and then lets them go, fury set in her jaw. Ocelot advised her to do that, to seem as though she was fine with it. That way Zero might let her see them again. Ocelot gives her a photo, later. She’ll carry it with her until she dies, will spend hundreds of hours staring at it as though she could will her perfect family into existence. 

They’ll laugh together, about how they’re wasting their lives pining for some man. But nothing will change. 

Ocelot threatens and cajoles David’s way into an actual family, claiming that his early environment should mimic that of Big Boss. EVA gets to visit until his first birthday. After that he brings her more photos. Sometimes they stake out at his house, watching him with binoculars. But Eli, Eli is raised exactly as Ocelot was, and there’s nothing he can do but swear that the world he creates will never allow for this to be done again. 

EVA doesn’t get to visit Eli, but Ocelot keeps tabs. He responds terribly to training and conditioning. Eli first tries to run away when he’s five. He’ll succeed when he’s seven. 

Ocelot hopes that he’ll be there when Eli is old enough, so he can teach him the way out of the labyrinth Cipher will have laid in his mind. Until then, he visits EVA whenever he can. Every time she looks more tired, more trodden-down. Every time there’s less time until they get out the vodka. Eventually, they stop talking missions. EVA stops sending John tapes and getting frustrated when there’s no response. Ocelot calls in on her in absolute secrecy so they can watch old movies together. 

Sometimes they just sit there in the silence.

[1975 → 1983] – [Age 31 → 39]

The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan 

Ocelot has kept tabs while John worked with MSF. He even consulted on occasion. The rest of the time he’s been working for Cipher – he knows that’s where John needs him most. He doesn’t understand – he’s one of the top three people in the organization – so how did he remain uninformed of Cipher’s almost-successful attempt on John’s life? 

John’s in a coma when Zero has the audacity to start talking about the construction of more imitations. Ocelot tenses, furious, and goes to see EVA. 

“He wants to do it again.” Ocelot says, stung. “Like it went so well the first time!” 

“But it will protect him?” EVA asks. 

Ocelot closes his mouth. She’s right, of course she’s right. None of this is about how John feels towards him. It’s about John’s happiness and wellbeing. 

“You’ll help me through the hypnotherapy?” Ocelot asks her. “I’ll need to set traps in my mind. Make sure I’ve got the right memories. By the end, I won’t know who John really is.” That will be the point, he chides himself. 

“I’ll help you.” She agrees. Help you because that’s helping him. 

He takes on a job with the GRU in Afghanistan as a cover. The Mujahedeen call him Shalashaka. Ends up having to talk with Kazuhira Miller to organize MSF’s eventual resurgence. Miller annoys Ocelot – he represents a far more tangible rival than the distant EVA, perpetually mourning in her Prague apartment, hopelessly estranged from John. And he has a sneaking suspicion that John actually likes Miller, which is just, ugh. 

He doesn’t tell Miller about the Phantom. It’s hard enough to brainwash himself without adding that stubborn bastard to the equation. 

He can’t visit the real John’s hospital room because it could reveal his location. He wants to bring John the white grass lilies of Tselinoyarsk. Instead, he brings them to the Phantom. Eases himself into the lie. Just before he goes under for good, he is told that John has woken up. He finally visits him, lilies in hand. 

“White lilies are for funerals.” John looks tired. 

“They were her flower.” Ocelot doesn’t call the Boss his mother. It could offend him. 

“Look after the Phantom for now.” John’s face is hard. “I’ll tell you when you can serve me elsewhere.” His expression softens. “And don’t tell Kaz.” 

Ocelot appreciates that John doesn’t doubt his loyalty. If there’s one thing Ocelot will do, it’s follow John into hell. At the end of the day, John trusts Ocelot’s devotion more than Miller’s friendship. 

That’s the real victory. Ocelot tells himself grimly, pushing the ache of being so far from John out of his mind. Soon, he’ll rewrite that too.

Chapter Text

[1984] – [Age 40]

After the Phantom Pain Incident 

Ocelot phones EVA on impulse, once it’s all over. He recognizes the urge as a hypnotic suggestion. He must have foreseen this as the correct time to relearn the truth. He doesn’t say anything down the line. 

“2 + 2 = 4.” She says and promptly hangs up. 

Everything comes rushing back. Ocelot has never felt like this before. He has never hated himself this intensely. It’s not the hours of torture, or the manipulation. It’s not Kaz having been mutilated by his direct subordinates without his knowledge. It’s the grief, the sheer grief at having the rug pulled out from under him so violently and abruptly that he can’t even conceptualize his loss. Worst of all, he orchestrated this. He designed a situation where he was uncertain of John’s identity, confident that the Phantom would behave as John would have. Instead… 

He tells Kaz, figures he owes him that much. Doesn’t leave out the hypnotic suggestion. He sees Kaz looking at him like he’s someone else which, he supposes, is accurate. The man who slept with Kaz and the Phantom no longer exists. When he’d started this, they hadn’t even been on a first name basis. At this point, they’ve shared a bed more times than Ocelot can count. Ocelot feigns indifference to cover his mortification. 

Kaz chooses the Phantom and the sons over Big Boss, the sting of betrayal fresh. Ocelot could never do that – pick anything over John, even someone as close to him as the Phantom. He wishes he could. But if there’s one thing Ocelot can’t do, it’s betray John. 

“I need to go away for a while.” Ocelot’s eyes are cloudy. “I’ll be back in a week. We’ll have to learn to work with each other.” Just work, goes unspoken. Things will never return to how they were before – the wound is too deep. 

“If you see Big Boss, tell him I said to fuck off.” Kaz snarls. 

Then he goes to Prague. It’s a city of rain and golden lamplight, of EVA’s dingy apartment where she wishes the years away looking at photos of men who either won’t speak to her or don’t know she exists.

“I brought vodka.” He yells, hammering on her door. 

“What happened?” She opens It and leans against the doorway, regarding him coolly. 

He pushes past her and sits down heavily, taking a swig straight from the bottle. After all his training, it’ll take him over a litre to feel anything. EVA sits down next to him and snatches it, taking her own mouthful before slamming it back down. He notices the pictures of her children scattered across the table. She sees him staring and shoves them aside. 

“Remember the first few months of your pregnancy? How you hoped it’d be with John?” Ocelot drew in a shuddering breath. “I had that with the Phantom. I had everything I’d ever wanted. For months, I lived my dream.” Suddenly, he slams his fist down hard on the table. EVA catches the bottle before it can topple. “I engineered this!” He’s shouting. 

“And you’re angry because..?” EVA cocks her head to the side. 

“Because it wasn’t John!” 

“The way I see it, you got to enjoy something you’d otherwise never have. You should be grateful.” She’s not saying it coldly, not trying to hurt him. She genuinely believes her words, he can tell. EVA wishes that it’d been her on that oil rig with the Phantom. She was so desperate for a comforting lie that she’d worked on Les Enfants Terribles. 

The worst part in this, in everything these days, is that he was not a victim or tool. He was an actor, an agent in the entire deception. He caused it. Looking back on those days sharing a bed with the Phantom and Kaz- it’s painfully embarrassing, that he could ever mistake someone for John. Suddenly, a humiliating thought strikes him: what if John knows. 

Ocelot groans and takes another gulp. “I found out what was happening with Zero and I met Eli.” 

EVA pushes her hair out of her face and stares at him intensely, predictably focusing on her son. “Is he okay? I heard he escaped.” 

“He was leading some child soldiers for a while, he seemed just fine. Then Snake took him in. He was safe, for a while. Then he started making trouble. He’s too stubborn for his on good – determined to kill his father and end Cipher.” Ocelot paused. “There was a contamination problem. He was infected and we had to purge the virus from the area. Snake wanted to leave him there for dead. He’s not, don’t look so terrified. He befriended a child with immense psychokinetic powers. I made sure that they were in proximity when we left. I’m sure he made it out fine.” 

“And you left him alone?” EVA grabs his arm, nails digging in. “Adam, he’s seven!” 

“Trust me, that kid has had enough of adults meddling in his life. If I could have left when I was seven I would have in an instant. He’s out of Cipher’s reach now. No one can make him do anything.” 

“You could have brought him back to me.” 

“For how long, EVA? How long do you think Cipher would let that stand? One hour? Maybe six, if we were lucky.” Ocelot reaches for the bottle, but EVA snatches it away. He grunts a weak protest. “Don’t look at me like that.” He grumbles. She’s actually managing to make him feel guilty. “I thought the Phantom was John, back then. I couldn’t just abduct his charge or bring a kid carrying an epidemic capable of decimating the English-speaking world to Prague. He would have just run away again, anyway.” 

EVA sighs. “Fine.” She hands him the bottle, but the fire in her gaze doesn’t dampen. She shifts her posture to accentuate her cleavage, not to seduce him, but because she knows that it annoys him. “I hear that you ended up closer with Miller than you’d originally planned. Tell me, how is he?” 

Ocelot uses his years of training to display no reaction whatsoever. Unfortunately, EVA knows exactly what that blank expression means. She leans back in her chair with a satisfied smirk. Once he’s properly composed himself, which takes entire minutes because this entire debacle has stripped him down, he takes a small stack of photos out of his pocket and hands them to EVA. 

“For your collection.” He says tiredly. “Most of them are of the Phantom but there’s a few of Eli in there.” 

“Thanks.” EVA flicks through them. “What’s with the big fire?” 

“Oh, I thought you’d have heard. Volgin came back from the dead. Apparently his ‘desire for vengeance’ kept him alive.” 

EVA snorts. “So what actually kept him alive?” 

“A hell of a lot of military experimentation and a psychokinetic child, the same one who ran off with Eli. Anyway, he had a serious vendetta against Snake, but had apparently completely forgotten about my existence. I was quite offended. He was my commanding officer and I betrayed him, but instead he’s focused on Snake.” Ocelot rolls his eyes. “Typical. I got a good shot of the corpse in there somewhere.” 

EVA lets out a satisfied huff. “And he’s not coming back this time?” 

“I doubt it.” Ocelot pauses. The alcohol is starting to go to his head. He feels untethered. “What would you do, if I wanted to go back and forget?” 

“I’d ask you who you were and what you’d done with Revolver Ocelot.”

[1985 → 1989] – [Age 41 → 45]

Diamond Dogs 

Going back to Diamond Dogs with his mind clear is like entering hell. Why he can’t work with John in Outer Heaven – wherever that is – Ocelot doesn’t know. It doesn’t help that Miller makes no secret of his resentment, and even the Phantom has changed. He can’t put his finger on what’s different – the Phantom still acts like Big Boss, but now with an aura of inevitability and defeat. 

And Miller is clearly plotting to get revenge on John, either through the Phantom or one of his sons. It would be unwise to kill him now, but every part of Ocelot itches to do that. Every day with the Phantom and Miller is a reminder of his own colossal stupidity. 

He starts taking long assignments off Mother Base just to get away from it all. He maintains a working position in the KGB out of habit, spending a few days a week cultivating it. Learns some more languages and accents, some covers. When he’s at Mother Base he chooses to spend time with Quiet. She strikes him as similar to himself. If they’d met at another time, he thinks they could have been friends. In his current life he barely has space for EVA. Sometimes he teaches her gun tricks. 

One particularly dull month, he teaches himself Navajo so he can talk to Quiet. On reflection, almost any other language would have been more useful. Czech, while not necessary because most in Prague spoke Russian, would have been helpful for his frequent trips there. But since Code Talker’s death a few months back not one person has bothered learning a way to listen to Quiet. Not even the Phantom, who’s becoming more distant with every passing day. 

He surprises her with it one day. It takes a few moments for her to process, and then she proves herself a more than competent conversation partner. She doesn’t like or trust Ocelot, which is extremely smart. He doesn’t tell her that the Phantom isn’t the real Big Boss because he suspects that she wouldn’t care. 

He sees it in her eyes when she looks at Snake. The same thing that he has, that EVA has. The same thing Miller had. In love with the legend. He wants to push her away before it ruins her too. 

Against all reason, his relationship with Miller deteriorates even further. Soon, they won’t be in the same room together. Ocelot thinks that Miller is trying to get him reassigned so he can start to work against Big Boss. In retaliation, he takes on even more responsibilities. Reports every detail back to Cipher. 

It’s Doctor Clarke who’s operating as chief. Years of working under Zero have distorted her mind. Frankly, Ocelot would like to depose her, but he doesn’t have that kind of power. For now, he tolerates her worsening attitude, listens to reports of her increasingly cruel experiments with mild disgust. 

Quiet, against all odds, manages to cut her ties to Snake and run. He and Miller have reached the end of their working relationship and Cipher want him full-time in the KGB to help with Libya. Ocelot decides to close this particular chapter of his life and vanishes without a trace.

[1991] – [Age 47]

The Fall of the Soviet Union  

When the Soviet Union falls, Ocelot goes to Prague. It’s his first visit since the Velvet Revolution. Czechoslovakia is now far more hostile to Russians. He pretends to be American instead, an easy and familiar disguise. 

EVA doesn’t ask him any questions when he arrives, just opens her door and lets him sit down. This time she pours them each a drink from her own bottle. 

“My condolences for Mother Russia.” She tells him. 

“Eh.” Ocelot isn’t sure exactly how he feels about it. “I’m an expert in regime changes. I’ve already joined the KGB’s successors. The FSR, SVR, OMON… It’s not too much of a change for me.” The real consequence had been the opportunity for time off while the dust settled. Cipher didn’t want him shaping things just yet. 

“The great experiment is over. Now there’s nothing in Cipher’s way. How long, do you think, before the only country left is the United States? Just like Zero always planned.” A spark of anger runs through Ocelot at the recollection that Zero pretends that this is what his mother wanted. 

“Not long.” Ocelot looks at his drink, not touching it. “Although there’s still your homeland.” 

“I haven’t been to the PRC in years, not since before Operation Snake Eater. It’s hardly my homeland.” 

“We don’t have homelands. That’s what John always said.” Ocelot racks his memory for the recording Miller had shared with him one intimate evening, before the Phantom was revealed to be a ghost. “‘We will forsake our countries. We will leave our motherlands behind us and become one with this Earth. We have no nation, no philosophy, no ideology. We go where we’re needed, fighting not for country, not for government, but for ourselves.’” 

“He’s a good public speaker.” Ocelot knows the look in EVA’s eyes because it’s exactly how he feels. Enchanted. “How does it end?” 

“‘We may be headed straight to hell. But what better place for us than this? It is our only home. Our heaven and our hell. This is Outer Heaven.’” 

“I miss him.” EVA’s voice is small and broken. Without preamble, she begins to cry. Ocelot feels the same way, has half a mind to join her. But it’s not nearly as bad for him – he’s still useful to John. EVA will never get to talk to Snake or help him again. She last saw him in person in the early seventies – maybe twenty years ago. So much of her life has been spent shut up in here, brooding. He knows that she takes missions from time to time, but he also knows that her schedule is far emptier than his. 

“No one can forget him, can they?” Ocelot’s eyes are wet, his mouth half-twisted. He doesn’t feel the need to conceal things from EVA. She already knows all of him, has helped him pick himself apart and put himself together more times than he can count. “Back when I was with Diamond Dogs, I met Quiet. She was a sniper, ex-XOF. She was just like us. One day she vanished – I think that she thought it was best for Snake. She left her home for him.” 

“When you next see him-” 

“I can’t make promises.” Ocelot interrupts. “I haven’t seen him in years. If I get another meeting, I can’t spend it negotiating on your behalf. You understand. You would do the same.” 

EVA nods her agreement, body hitching in more sobs. 

“Sometimes…” Ocelot hesitates before continuing. “Look at us. It’s been almost thirty years and we’re still killing ourselves for a chance of touching his shadow. I get… impatient with John because of how he’s treated you.” 

“It’s not like he’s treated you very well either, Adam.” EVA points out. 

Ocelot shrugs. It’s true – but it’s John’s interactions with EVA that spark anger, instead of his countless rejections of Ocelot over the years. If he looks at it objectively, John has wrecked them both equally. Exactly up to the point of usefulness and not one step further. Ocelot thinks of him as this primal force, like a hurricane, which comes into lives and tears them apart.
“We’d still choose him over each other.” Ocelot replies eventually. “I’m never really angry with John – more like… upset with some of his actions. I want to tell you to move on because it’s killing me, seeing you here, but that’d be very hypocritical coming from me.” He lets out a cracked laugh. “I can’t move on either. I know exactly how it is. I know that in your situation I’d do the same thing.” 

“Eli’s joined the British Army.” EVA says with a brittle smile, her composure fragile but present. “Take some photos for me, next time you see him.”

[1995] – [Age 51]

After the Outer Heaven Uprising  

The country where EVA resides now has a new name. The Czech Republic. Ocelot hasn’t seen her since she told him to help Eli out during the Gulf War. He’d failed that task and they’d parted on bad terms. 

He knocks on her door tentatively. She looks him up and down, taking in his weight loss and slump, and makes a negative noise of appraisal. He comes in anyway. 

“David killed the Phantom, not John.” He looks at her face. “John’s safe. I thought that you should know.” 

“I know.” Her gaze softens. “What happened?” 

“John was trying to buy himself time with a mission destined to fail, but he underestimated Solid Snake. The Phantom paid the price. John swept in afterwards and recovered everyone he could. He’s going to rebuild Outer Heaven again.” 

“And David?” 

“Solid Snake is fine. He’s got quite the reputation.” Ocelot sighs. “I’m sorry about Eli, EVA. Cipher wanted him there. I was ordered not to interfere.” 

EVA nods her understanding without forgiveness. It’s the best he can hope for. She pours him some tea. 

“No vodka?” 

“I can’t have it around with the children.” 

“What children?” Ocelot half expects her to be talking about the child ghosts of Eli and David, to have finally lost it. EVA must know that he’s thinking that, because she shoots him a flint-hard look. 

“They call me Big Mama. I’m working with war orphans, giving them something to live for. Stopping them from becoming the wrong kind of soldier.” 

Is there a right kind of soldier? Ocelot wants to ask. Instead he thinks about the family EVA wanted, the newborns taken from her arms. Wonders if raising war orphans will ease EVA’s pain. 

He closes his eyes. “I hope it works out for you.”

[1999] – [Age 55]

After the Zanzibar Land Disturbance 

Nothing matters anymore. 

He kicks her door down without preamble. Wakes up seventy-two hours later, body full of illegal substances with EVA unconscious beside him. He doesn’t remember what brought him there. When he does, he shoots up again. 

- 

“I saw the body.” Ocelot says for the fifth time. His voice is heavy. The time has not dulled any part of his grief. “He was alive – but – barely. He was a mess. Before you ask,” He spits venomously. “David is fine. He came out of the fight unscathed.” 

EVA ignores the jab. “He’s survived worse – remember how MSF ended.” 

“Cipher have him. They’ve put him in a coma.” 

“They could be healing him.” 

“Don’t be obtuse!” Ocelot shouts, furious and agonized. “Of course they’re not going to let him wake up after what he’s done! They’re going to just keep him – like a thing – keep harvesting his genes and use his body as a prop.” 

“No.” Her face is ashen. Ocelot revels in it, in someone else understanding how earth-shatteringly awful this is. He wants to keep pushing. She has to share this with him. He can’t live with it alone. 

“He’s not dead. It’s worse than that.” Ocelot is furious. “There’s nothing we can do. They have him now, and thanks to our dedicated work there isn’t a force on this planet that can stand against the Patriots.” 

“Then we make one.” He hasn’t seen that look on EVA’s face since before she’d given birth. Utter, resolute determination. “We’re bringing him back. No matter what.” 

Ocelot doesn’t know what to say. Where to start. He thinks that they might be the only two people left who want Big Boss to reawaken. They’ll have to do this alone. Already, his mind is feeling more secure. If they can work this out together – if there is a way – 

“This is what we do.” Ocelot says calmly. “We work with whoever we can find. Let’s start with FOXHOUND. Maybe Liquid can help us.” 

“He won’t want to.” 

“He won’t know what he’s doing. No one will but us. That’s the only way we can do this.” 

EVA doesn’t miss a beat. He can see it in her posture, the easy choice to put her sons aside to save John. He understands. 

Between them lies the simple truth that they won’t survive this, and furthermore, neither of them care. EVA will leave her war orphans in an instant for John, and Ocelot doesn’t even have anything to leave. Their biggest sacrifice will be each other, and they will make it without hesitation or apology. 

They drink to John’s rebirth.

Chapter Text

[2000 → 2005] – [Age 56-61]

FOXHOUND and the Shadow Moses Incident 

FOXHOUND have crawled their way into his heart, insidious and slow. One day they're just another mission and the next he finds himself somehow coordinating a birthday party for Decoy Octopus. It doesn't go well – Octopus infiltrates the party planning committee by imitating Sniper Wolf (who wouldn't be caught dead organizing an event, they really should have noticed the replacement sooner) and usurps Ocelot. 

“At least he gets exactly what he wants this way.” Liquid says with a shrug and a wry smile. Octopus then proceeds to bankrupt the party planning committee, effectively neutralizing anyone else’s chance at a party. No one really minds except for Vulcan Raven, who's probably just looking for a chance to get angry. 

Ocelot teaches Sniper Wolf to sharpshoot. They play obscure games together, out in the snow. The phrase teambuilding exercise becomes their inside joke – a reliable way to shirk their duties. When he tells Wolf that she reminds him of Quiet, she turns out to have been mentored by that sniper. Maybe it's where she got her unconventional dress sense from. Ocelot doesn’t judge – these days he wears spurs for the hell of it, and Mantis is still preferring BDSM gear. 

There's the same helplessness in Wolf when she talks about Quiet, the same quietly smouldering defeat that Ocelot nurtures for John. He thinks about how Quiet had felt that for the Phantom, also unrequited, and imagines a long string of obsession stretching backwards across time. John and his mother Joy; the Phantom and Quiet; Quiet and Wolf; Ocelot and EVA and Kaz and John... 

Man hands misery into man. Ocelot thinks quietly. Our inheritance. 

Liquid is everything that Ocelot was before EVA defused the traps left in his mind by his handlers. Ocelot helps him impose order and separate the organic memories from the planted. It's much easier with Mantis around. Mantis likes Liquid like Ocelot likes John, only it's reciprocated and freely communicated. When Ocelot isn't feeling jealous, he spares them admiration for managing to have something like that in this wartorn world. 

With the promise of time with her son, Ocelot coaxes EVA out of Prague. It's their first mission together since Snake Eater. She drops by every few months with embarrassingly personalized presents for every member of the squad. How she manages to acquire fetishwear in Mantis’s exact size, Ocelot will never know. EVA inches back into full-time active duty. They successfully conspire to kill Para Medic in 2003. That leaves two people who know John's location. 

Shooting Miller in the head is unpleasant but unavoidable if Ocelot is to maintain this family he's made. FOXHOUND is the most home he's had since the rug was pulled out from under him by the Phantom. Anyway, he'd had this conversation with Miller back in 1984. They knew where the decisions they'd made would lead them. 

This is his first real move against the Patriots. Ocelot looks at the corpse of his former lover and thinks of 1984, of domestic life with the Phantom and Miller (now both dead), and wonders if it will be worth it. 

In the end it isn't. Because Solid Snake wins anyway. 

SIGINT dies without telling Ocelot where Big Boss is sleeping, antagonizing Ocelot into prematurely killing him. Their only other choice is to force the Patriots to reveal his location. They write up a list of demands. 

In retaliation, the Patriots send the son of the Legendary Mercenary. 

Looking at Octopus's corpse, still an identical copy of that of SIGINT, Ocelot can't help but think of the habitual disruptive pranks he's come to expect from the man over the past five years they've worked together. Part of him wants to shake the body, to demand that he shed his death mask and rise. But even Octopus wouldn't pretend to be dead during an infiltration by Solid Snake. This is the real thing. 

Ocelot sighs and removes Solid Snake from his mental list of people who are to be kept alive because EVA likes them. 

With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, and a firm recollection of this Snake’s mission history, Ocelot wonders if anyone will be left standing by the time Snake is finished. Liquid's got him on codex, but Big Boss had him on codex during the Outer Haven Uprising and that hadn't helped. 

“Overconfident.” He mutters to himself. This is happening too quickly. It looks like Octopus was killed by a biological agent. Ocelot senses Solidus's influence. He goes to try and stop Snake himself, but gets blindsided and mutilated by the Cyborg Ninja he'd sicced on Para Medic several years back. It looks like Frank Jaeger is clinging on to consciousness by a thread. 

The next death is Vulcan Raven. All Ocelot can think is that it's too soon. It's a stupid thought because a few more years wouldn't have helped. This is their best shot at revolution – they have a walking nuclear mech. Ocelot doesn’t know what they could be doing differently. He feels bitter futility flood his mouth alongside desperate gratitude that at least EVA isn't onsite. 

Mantis heads out to confront Snake next. Liquid tells him to be careful, holds him close, but Mantis just snorts and pushes him away. He has never feared his own death, only Liquid's. Ocelot warns him, gives him what little psychological leverage he’s gathered on Snake since Outer Haven. 

“You worry too much, old man.” Mantis tells him flatly when he starts explaining that Snake was adopted and might have emotional vulnerabilities surrounding that. 

It's the last thing Mantis ever says to him. Liquid is bereft. Wolf salutes, hands shaking with anger, and heads out for revenge. She doesn’t come back, either. It takes her longer to die – she survives their first encounter – but she's still a corpse by the next time he sees her. 

Ocelot tears into Snake in interrogation. He's certain that if they can salvage this, somehow make an effective move against the Patriots, then they won't have died for nothing. He has to bring John back. Can’t visit EVA and tell her that Eli is dead. Has to protect Liquid. 

Liquid, angry and powerless, climbs into a helicopter before Ocelot can order him to evacuate. He’s too emotional to win – desperate to become someone else, full of self-destructive despair. Without Mantis, Liquid doesn’t want to win. And FOXDIE, the blackest of black projects, ensures that he can’t. 

Practical as always, Ocelot calls Solidus to salvage the situation and give him what he has on REX. After that, he looks into getting a prosthetic arm. The man who’d engineered one for the Phantom is still around. It's depressingly easy to take time off because his boss is dead. Bizarrely, he misses the paperwork and interactions with HR. He spends a few months working for the FSB because it's familiar and easy, slowly manages to get his right arm back to where it used to be. It's strange practicing gun tricks again, something he hasn't seriously done since he'd been with GRU. The muscle memory remains, as does the phantom itch, and before long the prosthetic is fully integrated. 

Eventually, when he can't put it off for any longer, he goes to Prague. Armless and empty, Ocelot doesn’t know how to tell EVA that Liquid is dead. He can't quite believe it himself. 

When he arrives, she pushes him up against the wall, arm pressing down on his throat. “What took you so long.” She hisses, eyes furiously asking why didn't you warn me and I should have been there. 

“Kept you waiting, huh?” Ocelot wheezes. 

EVA lets him go, half-amused and half-disgusted. She searches his face. “I heard that you betrayed them.” 

He shrugs. “Only when it was too late to matter. We didn't stand a chance. We did everything right and we didn't stand a chance.” 

“So why are you the only one left? Why not Eli?” 

“The Patriots want me alive.” 

EVA sighs heavily and gestures to one of her war orphans. He return a moment later with two glasses and a pot of tea. Ocelot rubs his throat. He knows that EVA knows he tried. She understands that Liquid was too wild for the Patriots to control. He’d been a dead man walking since he’d run away age 7 in North Africa. 

“I don't think I'll be leaving Prague for a while.” EVA says, voice flat and eyes dead. Ocelot nods. He’ll do what needs to be done for both of them while she barricades herself in Prague with her grief and her war orphans.

[2006 → 2008] – [Age 62 → 64]

Unbecoming 

Ocelot has always made it a habit to live in the shadow of his superiors. He'd relentlessly studied Liquid for his entire tenure at FOXHOUND, trying to discover the traces of John in him. Octopus had noticed and given him some sly tips for observing a target in secret. They’d laughed together, Ocelot and Octopus and Wolf, over their obsessions with their targets, and how close bloodlust often came to regular lust. 

He tries not to think of FOXHOUND. There's no bringing them back and there was never really space in his heart for more than EVA and John. Sometimes it seems like there isn't space for anyone. He feels like dead weight, like his amputated arm, like something incapable of movement or will or emotion. Without the conditioning and hypnosis, he feels like he’d fall apart into nothingness. Now he's getting older it's harder to hold things clearly in his mind. 

These days, he has to visit EVA. She won't leave the Czech Republic. Specifically abhors the USA. She’s lost too much there. So has Ocelot, but he doesn't have someone to send in his place like EVA does to him. 

If Shadow Moses and REX weren’t enough, then there's a good chance that Solidus’s plan will also fail. The Patriots have shaped Solidus since birth - grooming him into their president – and FOXDIE is still lurking somewhere, the Patriots' attack dog which finally has absolutely no will of its own. FOXDIE is a more loyal hound than Ocelot or Less Enfants Terribles could ever be. They’re automating assassination. It won't be long before soldiers are redundant. 

They need a Plan B. And they need it to be black – blacker than FOXDIE, the kind of operation only one person is aware of at any given time. That means more hypnosis. 

“We need to make it irreversible.” Ocelot says, hands in fists, tired of waiting for John to awaken. He wants to erase himself. “We need to replace me utterly. I need to be someone else. No trigger words, no suppressed memories – just imperatives and absences.” 

“You want me to kill you, Adam?” EVA asks, tilting her head. 

“For John.” 

“Not yet. We should wait to see how Solidus's plan unfurls. You might not need to.” 

Ocelot slackens feeling utterly, utterly empty. He has been used up, thrown into battle again and again until he became a husk in his sixties trying to play at war. Trying to catch a ghost of John. To salvage anything from the smoking wreckage his life has become, where even the soldiers he interacts with are living on borrowed time.

 “I'm so tired, EVA.” Ocelot says, eyes wet. He thinks of all the dead – of FOXHOUND and SIGINT and Para Medic and the Phantom and Miller and Quiet. To join them – is that really too much to ask? 

She puts her hand on his cheek. “For John. Just a little longer.” 

He persuades her into laying the groundwork anyway. They carefully nurture a piece of Liquid in his mind which can “take over” when required. It's simple enough to rewrite his mind (they've done it before and will do it again). They pretend he has Liquid's arm more as a joke than anything else, certain they will be disbelieved. 

Being Liquid is painful, like being inside a small box lined with broken glass. Liquid Ocelot hurts and makes hurt in a futile little cycle. He is an agent of chaos and revenge. When Ocelot wakes up he knows that this is the weapon they need to destroy the Patriots. 

Determined to break the wheel, Ocelot steals Metal Gear RAY for the Patriots and decides to keep it, blaming it on his temporary transformation into Liquid.

[2009 → 2013] – [Age 65 → 69]

Big Shell Incident 

Solidus has his vicious and disloyal plans. Ocelot vows to keep careful emotional distance with Dead Cell, terrified of another FOXHOUND, and barely manages. He plans with EVA to see her less and less – she needs to shift into a mindset where he's her enemy and it’s easier with distance. It makes them both miserable. 

Ocelot tries to respect Solidus, tries to search for John in him, but all he finds is an imposter. Solidus is the kind of puppet that's incapable of realizing he's one, someone so deeply controlled that they wouldn't know what to do of their own momentum. The Patriots have had their claws in him since he was born and it shows - Solidus's Americanism and obsession with nationalistic ideals. He insists that they name his rebellion the Sons of Liberty, and that’s when Ocelot realizes that it's hopeless because you don't name your organisation after the principles of your enemy. 

Maybe Solidus knows, but they factor that in to manipulate him with inhuman precision. The Patriots use his anger and rebellion to consolidate their control. Ocelot quickly realizes that their rebellion is doomed before it begins and carefully toes the line. 

Solidus's uprising comes. Ocelot joins it with a deep sense of bitterness, the hurt of FOXHOUND still present. He guards the injury and tells himself that he'll do anything to protect John (although John seems more like an idea than a man at this point). Plan B – the plan to become Liquid – looks more likely with every passing hour. 

It's not even Solid Snake who ends up dismantling Dead Cell. Half of them are thrown away as sacrificial pawns during a distraction gambit. Vamp and Fortune are dispatched quickly. It's hopeless. 

Ocelot winces and triggers Liquid's takeover. When he wakes up, he's inside a metal gear. Manhattan is ashes and Solidus is dead. 

He washes the blood off his face and heads to Prague. 

They're getting old and desperate. Their weapons are few: themselves, EVA's war orphans, Solidus's remains. If Ocelot goes through with the transformation then they’ll have five PMCs at their backs. Outer Haven will follow the son of Big Boss and former leader of FOXHOUND. 

“It's time.” Ocelot tells EVA upon arrival. 

“You won't come back.” EVA is tired and angry. She doesn't want Ocelot to vacate his body and leave her to do this alone, but she knows that they have no choice. She's wishing that Solidus could have succeeded, that they could have seen this through together. “We’ll drag John back kicking and screaming.” 

“John will wake up in a world without the Patriots, where war has an end.” Ocelot wonders if John would want that. Maybe he’d prefer the world the AI Patriots have envisioned. 

“Or he won’t.” EVA's mouth is twisted. “I wish you could be there.” 

“You probably won't make it either.” That sentiment is, sadly, reassuring. “I'm sure we'll meet again in hell before this is over.” 

She smiles at him. Ocelot returns it. A thousand images flash through his head, hundreds of memories of EVA, at the GRU, in Prague, with vodka, with tea, with old movies, with photographs of her sons. They don't need to say that they'll miss each other - they've spent half of their lives missing each other. They already know. 

The last thing Ocelot does before his rebirth is give EVA a long hug.

[2014] – [Age 70]

The Guns of the Patriots 

Ocelot wakes up while he’s dying. His gut reaction is anger, because this wasn’t supposed to happen, he was supposed to be gone. They'd agreed that he got the privilege of dying first. His second is grief. EVA died for John's doppelgänger in a fit of confused desperation brought on by modified FOXDIE. At least David had held her in his arms as she slipped away. She must have appreciated that. 

He can feel the FOXDIE in him. The transformation will be complete when he dies just as Liquid did. As an echo, a stranger. 

They've won. Zero will finally die. They've won but they haven't, because EVA burned and Ocelot is dying. John will come back, but he'll come back to a world where everyone he's ever known is dead from squabbling over whether or not he should be woken up. There'll be no one to greet him but the son he'd never wanted, the one who'd been responsible for his coma in the first place. 

Ocelot doesn't fight to keep breathing, to catch a glimpse of John after all this. Instead, he wills death to come quicker. He wants to see EVA again. EVA isn't an ideal, EVA isn't the mythologized love of his life who he's never kissed and he hasn't seen in well over a decade. EVA is real. EVA is the wonderful product of his pining for John. They've known each other for almost all of their lives. When EVA opens her mouth, Ocelot knows what she'll say. 

Ocelot closes his eyes and wishes that he could see her one last time.