In the Fast Lane
BOOM! The deafening roar of an explosion, followed by the crackle of flames that surrounded the building.
Choking on a gasped breath, Hannibal shot up in bed.
KABOOM! A much shorter, fiercer explosion, also followed by the sound of crackling flames, also choking smoke and flying debris.
A scream stuck in his throat, Face also found himself already sitting up on his bed as he huffed and puffed and tried to catch his breath.
BANG! The sound of gunfire, followed by the beeps of hospital machinery, and a weak raspy gasping breath as the anesthesia wore off.
B.A.'s eyes snapped open and he pushed himself up into a sitting position and realized he was in bed and that it was still night.
Silence – a deafening silence and an icy coldness.
Murdock felt his mouth open in a scream that didn't come out, he opened his eyes and started gasping for air as reality sank in and he recognized his darkened surroundings as being his bedroom.
2 o' clock in the morning, Hannibal grumbled to himself as he hit his head back against the pillows and tried to get comfortable. Damn nightmares…no, not a nightmare, he remembered, a memory. He turned on his side and about rammed his whole fist into his mouth as he sighed, if he lived to be 150 he'd never forget seeing that old diner on fire, never forget the paralyzing sensation in his spine when he realized that Murdock and Jean were still in the building, and when they never saw either come out before the whole place was surrounded by flames.
Hannibal yanked up the covers and was considering burrowing under them when he heard somebody tapping at his door. It opened up and Face stepped in, dressed in his pajamas and unusually wide eyed for this time of night. He said in a rough whisper, "Hannibal, you awake?"
"Yeah, what is it?" he asked.
"I can't sleep," Face said.
"Join the club," Hannibal said, he pulled down the covers from the other side of the bed and tiredly called to the Lieutenant, "Come on, get in…"
Face made a beeline over to the bed and jumped in like something was waiting to pull him under the bed if his feet touched the floor too long.
"So…" Hannibal tiredly said, "What's your problem? Have a nightmare?"
"Yeah," Face nodded.
Hannibal nodded in agreement, "What was yours about?"
"Well…it wasn't really a nightmare," Face said, "It was a flashback."
"Oh, to what?" Hannibal asked as he tried turning over on his other side.
Face turned to him and asked, "Remember when Decker's car blew up and Jean got caught in the explosion?"
Hannibal groaned at the memory, "Yeah…I remember."
He tried thinking back, and he tried to figure out, just how had they gone from looking for a clients' daughter and the fine mess that followed there, to the situation they were in now? He wasn't sure, he was just thankful that it didn't happen more often, he knew that in cases where women were involved it was easy for Face to fall head over heels for a pretty face, and even Murdock had been knocked for the same loop on occasion, but luckily every other time when the job was done, those ladies went back to their own homes, and the four of them returned to theirs, he wasn't sure that they could survive if they ever ran into another person like Jean Rhodes. Ever since the day they met her that woman had been more trouble than she was almost worth, but given that Murdock was married to her, that automatically made her worth a lot more than any of them would've originally thought.
"What was it, 10 seconds before the car blew she was screaming at us to get out of there?" Face asked.
"And you were the only one with the brains to actually do it," Hannibal said, "She had to shove Decker or he could've been a crispy critter alongside her."
Face sighed as he looked up at the ceiling, "And if she hadn't gotten there when she did, we would've both been dead."
And if Murdock hadn't busted that window in the diner and gotten them both out of there, they would've both been dead 2 years ago, Hannibal remembered.
Hannibal had just opened his mouth to respond when he noticed something. There was a light blinking on the telephone on his nightstand, it meant an outgoing call had gone through and somebody was on the line. The two men looked at each other and Hannibal carefully lifted the receiver up and pressed the speaker button so they could hear.
"Hey Murdock, they paged me on the set, what's going on?" Jean asked.
"Oh…nothing," he replied, "Just wanted to see how you're doing."
"Exhausted," she answered, "90% of this movie takes place at night, so what do we do? We film all night and then sleep all day…I've been doing this for two weeks and I'm just about burnt out on it."
"Oh, sorry to hear that," Murdock told her.
"So," Jean said, "Are you going to be coming home soon?"
There was a brief pause as Murdock hesitated before answering, "Yeah, I think in a couple more days we'll be done here."
"Good," Jean said, "I'm looking forward to seeing you again."
"I'm looking forward to seeing you again too," Murdock responded, "At least hearing you was a close second."
"What's that?" Jean asked.
"Oh, nothing," Murdock answered, "Well, I'll let you go now, I just wanted to see how you were doing."
"Alright," Jean said, "Goodnight."
"Goodbye."
Hannibal replaced the receiver after the mutual clicks. He and Face looked at each other and Face said, "He's going to be up all night now."
"Maybe," Hannibal threw back the covers and got up, "I'll go talk to him."
Face yawned and turned over on his side, "Good luck."
Hannibal padded down the hall, counting the doors to make sure he reached the right one. Two months and he was still getting adjusted to life in his new home. He remembered when he first moved in and joined the others, Murdock offered to paint a symbol on his door so Hannibal could find it, like in the Arabian Nights; Hannibal had told him it was a nice offer, but he doubted it would be necessary.
"Oh phooey," Murdock said, "And I had such a great one in mind."
Hannibal came to the door at the end of the hall and listened in, it was quiet, too quiet, Murdock was awake, otherwise he'd be able to hear the man breathing as he slept.
"Murdock?" he whispered. There was no response so he turned the knob and went in. The room was just as dark as the rest of the house right now but he made his way over to the bed and asked him, "You alright, Captain?"
Murdock didn't seem to be bothered by the fact that Hannibal knew something was wrong. He swallowed loudly and replied, "Fine, Colonel, just a nightmare."
"Yeah, well…" Hannibal went around to the other side of the bed, "There seems to be a lot of that happening tonight, do you mind?"
Murdock turned and saw Hannibal crawl under the covers on the other side of the bed and he shook his head, "Na, go ahead, Colonel."
"So," Hannibal said with a huff, "Do you want to tell me what your nightmare was about?"
It was obvious that Murdock was reluctant to explain, something that rarely happened, so Hannibal knew it was bad.
"What's wrong, Murdock?" he asked.
Murdock tried to answer a couple of times but he stopped as soon as he started, he tried again and said simply, "The freezer, Hannibal…they locked her in the freezer…I remembered…"
Hmmm, Hannibal wondered if there was a boogeyman convention somewhere, seemed all original nightmares had gone on vacation and just left the nightly work to some syndicate reruns of pure memory. He reached over and gripped his hand on the Captain's wrist to get his attention and he told him, "It's alright, Murdock, it's over."
"I know it is," he replied, "But I still can't forget it…the whole thing makes me feel awful."
"Murdock, that was a long time ago."
"I know, but I'm not talking about that," Murdock told him.
Hannibal was officially lost, "What're you talking about, Murdock?"
Murdock sighed and ran a hand over his face and said, "I knew once we got her out of there, that things were going to be different…you don't tangle with the VC without coming away with some kind of damage."
"Something we're all familiar with," Hannibal agreed.
"And I tried to prepare myself for whatever happened as a result of it," Murdock told him, "I told myself that I'd be ready when the post-trauma hit, when the nightmares started…"
"And when they did?" Hannibal asked.
"Well that's just it, Hannibal," Murdock said, "I don't know if they have…I keep having nightmares about what happened but I don't know if Jean does or not, if she does, she never says anything about them, and if that's the case, how am I supposed to know so I can help her?"
Well it was a good question but it seemed to Hannibal if Jean wasn't suffering from flashbacks or nightmares, then it must not be affecting her too much currently, it wasn't something that people could hide well against those who had been there and knew.
Something else occurred to Hannibal and he tried reading between the lines, because it seemed that there was something Murdock wasn't telling him. He thought back to the fact that Murdock hadn't even been at Jean's house to see her in almost a month.
"You want to go to the house tomorrow and see her, is that it?" Hannibal asked.
"Well I…I'd rather not," Murdock told him, "That is…not until she's done working on this new movie, she doesn't even get home until 5 in the morning and then she sleeps all day, her new schedule's confusing enough without me being there."
"Hmm, any idea how long that's going to take?" Hannibal asked.
"I think a few more days," Murdock answered.
They had just returned a few days ago from a particularly trying mission over in Turkey, Hannibal would've thought as soon as they got back to Los Angeles Murdock would make a beeline to Jean, but he'd been keeping his distance from her since they touched down. He didn't get it.
"We'll wait and see what happens," he told the Captain.
Murdock didn't say anything but he nodded in agreement. Though for the moment they seemed to have gotten that cleared up, Hannibal doubted if he left this bed right now that he was going to get any sleep tonight, so he stayed with the pilot and within a short amount of time they both fell asleep.
A couple days later, Hannibal left the house early in the morning when the others were still asleep and drove out to Jean's house. The sun was just starting to come up, and her car was parked up in the driveway. The odds were that she was asleep but all the same he decided to check it out. He went up to the front door and saw that it was already unlocked and the main door was open a few inches. He opened the screen door and poked his head in, "Jean? You here?"
No answer. He stepped in and looked up the stairs, "Jean?"
From behind him he heard her voice, annoyed as usual, "Don't you ever bother knocking?"
He turned around and told her, "Well the door was," and stopped when he got an eyeful of Jean standing in the dining room dressed only in her bra and underwear, and he immediately turned back the other way with an embarrassed smirk on his face, "Whoa! Sorry, kid, I thought you were still in bed."
"I was," she replied, "Fire broke out last night a few blocks from where we were filming so everybody was forced to shut down production and we went home early, I actually managed to get a few more hours of sleep than usual."
"Ah, and…this?" Hannibal inquired.
"On rare occasions when Murdock's not here and I happen to have the place to myself, I like walking around the house in my underwear, don't you ever do that?" she asked sharply.
Hannibal couldn't force back the smirk and chuckle that escaped him as he replied without turning back to see her, "Yeah but it's a bit different when I do it."
"Anyway, what brings you over here so early in the day?" she asked.
"Oh I just thought I'd see how you were doing," he remarked, "It's been a while."
Jean looked at him as she got dressed and she told his back, "Three weeks."
"Yeah, I know," Hannibal replied.
"Almost four," Jean added.
"I know," he said, "I suppose you're wondering when Murdock's going to be coming back here."
"Well the thought did cross my mind a few times," she told him, "Alright, you can look now."
He turned around and saw her dressed for the day in her typical attire: a pair of blue jeans that looked like they came from one of their closets and a T-shirt about one size too large.
"So how've you been?" he asked.
"I've done fine for myself," she answered.
Hannibal couldn't help commenting, "You look like you lost some weight."
Jean scowled, "Yeah, I guess so."
At any other time Hannibal would have a smart remark about how she was the only woman in the world who could be depressed by that comment, but he could tell that something seemed to really be bothering her.
"What's the matter, kid?" he asked.
"It's nothing, Hannibal," she replied, "I'm just so tired of this movie we're doing, I hate the schedule, the more time passes the more I hate everything about it, I'm just anxious for it to all be over."
"How much longer you think it'll be?" he asked.
"I'm hoping to be finished with my scenes in a couple of days, past that I don't care," she told him.
"That's the spirit, you're finally starting to sound like an actor," he replied teasingly. He noticed the way she stood and the way she was breathing and he asked her, "You hurt yourself working?"
"I spent a few days recovering," she told him, "This director's a nut job…he's a sadist, his action sequence regiments make your obstacle course look like a jungle gym at the playground."
"That bad huh?" Hannibal asked nonchalantly as he took out a new cigar and lit it.
"Marine recruits have it better," Jean said as she went over to the couch and collapsed on it, "He's so anal-retentive, everything has to be exact, has to have everything look just right, get something, some minor, miniscule thing wrong, do it again, do it 10 more times…I'm about ready to kill him."
"Need some help?" Hannibal asked.
Jean inhaled and exhaled heavily and told him, "I about got my shoulder dislocated, I got a dozen cuts all over my body from crawling under barbed wire, I got thrown off of a speeding jeep that wasn't in the script, I'm not sure but I think this guy's trying to kill me, Hannibal."
He gestured to her shirt and asked her, "Mind if I take a look?"
"It wouldn't stop you even if I did," she tiredly groaned, "Go ahead."
Hannibal went over to the couch and as she lifted her arms high above her head, he grabbed the bottom of her shirt and slowly lifted it to look at her ribs. He could see the remains of a few marks that he had enough experience to identify as barbed wire pricks, looked like the ones she used to have on her arm. He also saw that the skin over some of her ribs was a lingering yellowish blue.
"You been to a doctor?" he asked.
"Didn't seem to be much point," she told him, "I'm still alive so the damage wasn't that bad, and I doubt anything's broken…just gotta get the last couple of days' work done and then I'm finished."
Hannibal pulled her shirt back down and explained, "Murdock wanted to wait until you were done with the shoot to come back."
"Good idea, it'll give me a couple more days to fade before he sees me again," she said with a small exaggerated smirk.
Hannibal could tell Jean was tired and probably wouldn't be awake for much longer. "You need anything?" he asked.
"Just need to get some sleep," she said as she arched her back against the cushions and turned her head to the side, "Then I'll be fine."
"Alright," Hannibal grabbed the sheet off the back of the couch and draped it over her, "We'll be seeing you in a couple days then."
Jean looked like she was almost asleep when she suddenly picked her head up and said, "Oh Hannibal, I have one question for you."
"What's that?" he asked.
"I was just curious, has Murdock ever had any operations that you know about?"
Hannibal almost answered and then stopped, based on the way she asked it he could tell she didn't mean anything like removing a bullet or a fight related injury, "Why do you ask?"
"While I've been sitting around here recuperating I've been reading a new book I got from the library, you ever hear of The Plague Dogs?"
"Vaguely," Hannibal answered.
Jean's eyes were just about closed as she told him, "There's a dog in there that's had his brain operated on, so half the time he talks it doesn't make any sense whatsoever, just a bunch of gibberish…but it sounds like how Murdock talks sometimes I've noticed."
Hannibal wasn't sure right offhand what to make of that, but he shook his head and told her, "No, he didn't."
"Good," Jean replied with a small nod before she totally conked out.
After leaving Jean's house, Hannibal decided to drop in on the film studio since everybody had gone home for the morning, and take a little look at the film that was already made for the movie. He couldn't even tell exactly what the plot of this movie was, did they even bother with those anymore? All he knew from what Jean told him was that it was a war-torn soldier's drug induced hallucination of the war as taking place in the center of civilization America, sounded like it was a Vietnam movie, but looking at the footage, how the soldiers were dressed and what types of jeeps and weapons they were using, it looked like it could've been Korea or even World War II, there wasn't anything time specific about any of it.
Jean was a nameless, faceless stunt extra in the background for the battle sequences. You had to know her to notice her, and Hannibal noticed her. He also noticed that Jean in no way exaggerated the work they were doing for this film. The fight scenes were all staged, of course they were, but get enough people together going at each other and accidents are going to happen, in this as of yet uncut, unedited film, he could see several of them knocking into each other and falling down, big soldiers falling on top of little soldiers, several slamming into each other unexpectedly, body checks left and right that made it look like an ice hockey game.
Going forward in the film he came across the jeep incident Jean had mentioned. She had been riding in the back of the jeep and half standing in it to fire a machine gun at an unseen target, and out of nowhere the jeep sped up on a rocky path, tilted to one side and Jean was thrown from the jeep and rolled down the small hill they were driving down, reaching a full stop at the bottom. A few seconds passed and she slowly got up and walked off, no assistance received or even offered. This director seemed to be a real piece of work.
A couple more days of work, she'd said…Hannibal considered it and decided she'd probably survive that, all the same he thought he'd pay a visit to the set when they started filming tonight. No rest for the wicked, or rather very little, that certainly seemed to be the case in their lives right now. And speaking of which…he smirked as he remembered that he had a little business to tend to at the studio as well…for once he was stepping out of the rubber monster suit and was finally going to have an actual speaking part. This, he decided, ought to be a very nice change of pace…what could possibly go wrong?
