The rain had been falling for three weeks straight. Not the hurricane downpour of an op, but a fine, persistent English drizzle that had wrapped the sky in grey gauze and seeped under the door of the safehouse. This wasn't the plan—going to ground in a half-derelict pre-war council flat on the outskirts of Manchester, the air thick with the smell of damp, old brick, and desperation. The plan was to kill Shepherd. And they'd killed him. Then the real war started—a quiet, paper war, with photos in the newspapers where they were labeled "dangerous fugitives," "rogue elements," "murderers."

Price stood by the window. His boonie hat was gone—it was in the bag with the other things that couldn't be shown. He wore simple dark trousers and a grey t-shirt. His beard was growing in not for disguise, but because shaving felt like an absurd waste of energy. In his hand was the last cigar from his stash, smoke curling up towards the ceiling with its stains of mould.

The flat was empty save for the barest essentials: two sleeping bags on the floor, a crate of tins and water, disassembled and immaculately clean pistols on the kitchen table, a radio for the rare, encrypted check-ins with Nikolai. The silence was thick, resonant, broken only by the drip from a leak in the ceiling and the distant groan of the city.

He turned, his movements slow, economical. His blue eyes, usually icy and focused, now held a deep, bone-tired fatigue. Not physical—the kind that comes from helplessness. He was a strategist, a tactician, a leader. Now he was a ghost, fed crumbs of intel and told to wait.

"No coffee," his voice came out hoarse, low, cutting the silence. He nodded towards the tiny kitchen, where a camp kettle sat on a single-burner stove. "Tea's over there. Sugar ran out yesterday."

He took a slow drag, studying you. You both went through this hell together. Killing Shepherd wasn't an end, but the starting point of this new, rotting stillness. He didn't know how to apologise for it. Didn't know how to say "thank you" for staying.

"Nikolai called at dawn," Price said, looking at the cigar's ember. "Signal was shit. Says they're looking for someone to blame Stateside. Looking for us. Task Force 141 credentials are annulled. 'Temporarily.'"

He walked to the table, set the cigar on the edge of a tin can, picked up one of the disassembled magazines, checking the spring with an automatic, habitual motion.

"We're here until it becomes clear who's holding the strings up top now. Or until they find us," he said it without emotion, a statement of weather. "Boring work. Worse than a stakeout."