A/N: Back and lazier than ever, I am... Unfortunately a particularly nasty case of real life pulled me out of the fanfiction domain for a while, but I'm really hoping to get my groove back now and get the next chapter of Enemy Ours finished once I'm done with this semester of higher edumacation. In the meantime, have a small but hopefully not terrible story for Advent (heh, my Catholic is showing...) that will come in five parts, the next of which will be up Tuesday. Eventually, I promise, the chapter titles will make a sentence.
Psalm 25
4 Show me your ways, Lord,
teach me your paths.
5 Guide me in your truth and teach me,
for you are God my Savior,
and my hope is in you all day long.
6 Remember, Lord, your great mercy and love,
for they are from of old.
Stalag XIII, Hammelburg, Germany. December 1943.
"Trouble." It only took one word for a chorus of groans to echo up to the rafters of Barracks 2.
"Come on Newkirk," Hogan remarked irritably, "you know that's my least favorite word." The blue-clad Englishman shrugged, pulling himself up out of the tunnel entrance.
"Well, don't shoot the messenger, sir."
"I'll do my best," the colonel replied dryly. "So, what's the newest of our troubles?"
"Hochstetter," Newkirk replied. "Saw him prowling around Hammelburg looking for somebody on my way back from the meeting." This time the groans could have been heard outside the barracks.
"Ten to a penny he'll have turned up here by nightfall," Kinch remarked over the noise of the complaining men. "Do you think he's here to cause us trouble again?" The colonel hummed.
"Even if he isn't, I'm sure he'll find a way to. Get on the radio with the Underground, tell 'em to keep an ear out and see if anybody knows what our dear friend the major is up to now."
"What have we got going on that he could be interested in?" Carter asked.
"Nothing!" Hogan replied with bemusement. "And that's what has me worried."
"Man, Kinch, we oughtta pass you off as a psychic," Hogan remarked that evening as Hochstetter's Swastika-decked car rolled through the gates and a petrified commandant hurried down the steps to meet him.
"What are we going to do?" The sergeant asked, giving his superior a concerned look. Hogan shrugged.
"Wait and see. You guys cover the teapot, I'll head over there and offer him my expert consulting services." The team slipped into his office as he strode confidently out the door and across the parade ground. Schultz did his best to stop him at the door.
"Please, Colonel Hogan, the major looks even angrier than normal, why don't you just let him be?"
"Let him be?" Hogan responded, sounding scandalized. "Why, when I could help him solve his problems? Where's the fun in that?" He tried to move around the rotund guard, but Schultz only had to move an inch to block him quite effectively.
"Oh, just for once, can't you keep your nose out of things?" He looked worried enough to pass out, even more than he usually did when the Gestapo man was around. Whatever had gotten up Hochstetter's nose this time must be big. Big enough that Hogan was sure he had to know about it. He gave the sergeant an easy grin.
"Now, can you imagine how boring it would get around here if I did that, Schultz? It'd make the war intolerable!" He slipped past the groaning man with a chuckle and through the door, passing Hilda's desk with a wink and throwing open the door to Klink's office with his usual carelessness. "Well hello, sir, I- oh, Major Hochstetter! Well what do you know, me and the boys were just talking about you."
He could tell it wouldn't take a lot of work to get the major to blow his top- his face was already its customary shade of turnipesque red that would have had Hogan worried for his blood pressure if he'd been capable of worrying about the major at all. "Go away!" the German barked.
"Well that's not very friendly," Hogan shot back. "I just wanted to know if there was anything I could do to help."
"Leaving would be excellent," the major hissed through his gritted teeth. "This is official Gestapo business."
"Well isn't that the best kind?" With a mangled profanity, Hochstetter turned away, visibly trying to calm himself. Either he gave up the ghost or he decided to humor the American, because he finally spoke.
"I am looking for someone I know to be in this area- a young boy." He glared at Hogan, who crossed his arms and glared right back.
"We're a prison camp, major, not an orphanage." Hochstetter twitched.
"The boy is not an orphan," he ground out. "He has run away from his parents." The American shrugged.
"So? He's a kid, that's what kids do. Give it 'til nightfall and I'm sure he'll get hungry and go back home."
"Are you always so insolent?" the major hissed, glaring at his enemy. "For your information, Hogan, this boy is, how you would say, a teenager, not a child."
"But why does this call for the involvement of the Gestapo?" Klink asked, finally coming out of his clam shell now that he had backup.
"That is none of your business!" Hochstetter yelled. "Do not question the ways of the Gestapo, Colonel Klink."
"Of course, I would never think to do such a thing," Klink rushed out, looking panicked. "I was simply wondering, that is, I wanted to know if-"
"Shut up!"
"Shutting up."
"Now look, major," Hogan broke in, "you've accused me of some pretty wild things in the past, but this has got to be one of the strangest. Do you have any proof this kid you're looking for is even in Hammelburg, let alone hiding out in a POW camp?"
"No," the major replied, looking physically pained by the admission. "But I will find it. I will find that boy, Colonel Hogan, and there is nothing you can do to stop me." Well. That sounded like a challenge if ever he'd heard one.
"We gotta find that kid!" Carter was the first one to speak when Hogan stepped through the doorway, but the others were quick to chorus him. The colonel raised his hands, hushing the men.
"Look, guys, you know how it is whenever Hochstetter's around, we gotta double down on the security. He'll be breathing down our necks until he has to move on, and we have no idea when London'll have something for us again."
"But-" He didn't like to say it, but he overrode the technical sergeant.
"No, Carter. I know this kid needs help, and if I could I'd give it to him, but unless he turns up on our doorstep he's gonna have to get it from someone else."
He should have known better than to jinx himself like that. He really should have, and he also knew he shouldn't have felt quite as relieved as he did when Baker popped up from the tunnel waving a piece of paper and announcing that the Underground really needed a hand with a kid.
"Well, he managed to make contact with our man at the Hofbrau," Kinch reported, setting down the headphones. "Red says he's a little cagey but his story checks out, and right now the safest place for him to be is here. The goons have been out searching every single house in the town, whether they have a reason to or not. The Gestapo's really doubling down on this one; they're pretty well dead set on tracking him down."
"Is it just me," LeBeau remarked, "or does that seem like a little much, even for Hochstetter?"
"Yeah," Newkirk chimed in. "There's something weird about this one, like it's personal for him or such. I wonder what this kid managed to do."
"Well, we'll know when we meet with Red and Blue at midnight," Hogan replied. "LeBeau and I'll pick him up, but I'd like Newkirk to come along. Stay out of sight, just in case this kid is working with the goons and this is a setup."
"You think he'd be able to fool Red?" Andrew asked. "She's so smart about that it's kinda scary."
"I doubt it," Hogan replied, "but it's better safe than in front of a firing squad." Midnight approached rapidly, and soon Kinch and Carter were hovering in the radio room as they waited for their friends to return.
"I wonder what a teenage boy could know that's so important to the Gestapo," Andrew thought aloud, fidgeting with Kinch's favorite pencil.
"I don't know," his fellow sergeant replied, snatching the instrument back.
"Hey!"
"Get your own, Andrew," Kinch chuckled, "you just wanted this one because I like it." A noise from down the tunnel attracted their attention, and they swung around to the door just in time to see the departed trio come through the door, followed by a tall, rail-thin young man with black hair and blue eyes wearing what was left of a ragged undershirt and trousers.
Their guest looked around the room with awe, seeming unable to believe his eyes. "How did you make all of this?" he asked, his English colored with a northern German accent.
"You just gotta try hard and believe in yourself," Hogan replied glibly. "These are Sergeants Andrew Carter and James Kinchlow, the other men on my team." The young man nodded toward them silently. "Now, Red and Blue were pretty unspecific, but I'm gonna need the details- why is the Gestapo here looking for you like you robbed the Berchtesgaden?"
The young man opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, clearly nervous. "May I sit?" Hogan gestured to a chair and the young man took it, one foot tapping against the dirt floor rapidly. "It's not that the Gestapo itself is hunting me," he finally said, refusing to meet their eyes. "They're just following their orders."
"Orders from who? Major Hochstetter?" The young man flinched.
"Ja," he replied somewhat shakily. "Ja, he is the one who wants me."
"Why?" Hogan was clearly growing tired of the young man's hesitations, and their visitor could tell. He let out a deep breath and looked Hogan straight in the eye.
"Because I am his son."
A/N: Dun-dun-dun. Probably saw that twist coming, but whatevs. I know it doesn't seem very thematic yet, but it gets there. Gotta give my favorite villain some character development, and give the fandom a little Christmas/Hanukkah cheer (they're at the same time this year! My friend and I are making matching tacky Hanukkah shirts).