Rating: M

Type: Slash/Angst/Adventure

Pairing: Face/Murdock… Sort of!

Summary: Done my ideas on how the A Team came into being in 'About Face'. Now here is my take on why it fell apart! The time is now…….

Warnings/Content: Contains male/male SLASH plus torture and drug abuse. Also some full-bodied soldier type language.

Disclaimer: I do not own the A-Team characters and am making no profit from this story, which is a work of fan fiction only.

Thanks: Becky and Benedict …………………

MORE ABOUT FACE

Part One

Amy Allen paused on the threshold before entering the restaurant. Her eyes swept over the tables swiftly. It was lunchtime, a busy time for this chic place and it was filled with sweet young things and nameless grey suits. Her eyes swept over them all from the peroxide blondes to the bald shiny palates; none of them belonged to the one she sought. She followed the maitre'd as indicated through the heaving throng and out into the bright and airy conservatory.

She hesitated again as her eyes fell on the features she was looking for, still striking and yet somehow different from the image in her memory. He was dressed in an impeccable powder blue suit, his hair shorter than she remembered and darker, save for the significant streaks of grey at his temples. She moved toward him and he looked up as if sensing her presence. Again she was struck by the difference in the man, so subtle, so difficult to define, to put a name to but still obvious to her; it had been a long time it was true and she had feared such a change would be evident.

Ever the gentleman, he stood to greet her and smiled but his eyes remained distant and cold.

"Face, it's good to see you," she purred, as she kissed the air beside his cheek as was required in a place like this.

"How's the family?" he asked as they sat back down, his voice clipped, revealing nothing.

"They're fine, I have photos!" she replied diving into her bag. "Chloe will be graduating next summer."

He whistled through his teeth and shook his head slightly. "All ready?" he asked, bemused as he glanced at the photos and then returned them to her uncomfortably quickly. "I thought she would be seven, eight at the most."

Amy smiled. "Time is passing by, Face!"

She ordered a soda then and he took a re-fill to the whiskey he had drunk as he waited. She eyed him minutely, trying to decipher what the difference was.

"So," he began. "What can I do for you, Amy?"

"It's more what I can do for you, Face." She had played this moment over in her head, but the practise had made it no easier. "Hannibal asked me to talk to you."

"Hannibal?" There was a visible reaction, almost a retraction away from her, back into the safety of his seat.

She pressed on ignoring it. "He's worried about you."

"Worried about me?" The tone was controlled so tightly any hint of emotion had been wrung from it but Amy sensed it was there hidden deeply below. Face looked away. "You must have got him in one of his more lucid moments then!" Now there was a definite bitterness biting hard and she noticed his fists squeeze tightly but impotently on the table before her.

Amy lifted her own hands to lay across his, feeling the flinch the contact brought him but choosing to disregard it. "How are you really, Face?"

He gulped then, moving his hands away from hers, he placed them beneath the table and out of sight. He refused to look at her. "Good," he responded softly and with no conviction.

She shook her head. "The same old Face; still hiding behind your masks. Would it really hurt so much to let your defences down?"

His eyes came back to hers then, blue and bottomless and then she realised that was the difference; eyes once so welcoming and warm were now dull and bleak like a winter's day. And his voice, when it came, bore the same forlorn note. "You know I can't do that – they are all I have left," he said.

She shivered. "I don't believe that. Look at you, you are still a very attractive man. I like your hair, the grey looks very distinguished. You can still turn heads, I know it!"

He snorted then. "The only heads I turn are the wrinkled and blue rinsed variety!" One hand came back into sight as it took up his glass and raised it to his mouth. He took a long gulp of the fiery liquid before continuing, "Conmen should never grow old, Amy."

"You're not old, Face!"

He shook his head, looking down wistfully as he swirled the brown blended liquid in his glass. "It feels that way. Sometimes I glance in a shop window and I think, who is that old guy, is he following me or what? And then I realise it's me but hell I still feel like I did when I was eighteen." He shook his head, his features looked lost more than angry. "I'm losing it."

"I don't believe that, not for a minute."

The waiter brought their food at that point and Amy started to eat. After some minutes she noticed that Face was not eating but simply chasing his food around the plate. "You gonna eat that?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Not hungry." And took another gulp of whiskey.

"Thirsty though?" Amy pushed.

"You could say that," he signalled to the waiter for a re-fill.

Amy watched him for a few seconds as she cast about for something more to say. "You're not losing it, Face. Scams go wrong sometimes. Murdock told me about the last one."

He looked up at that. "Murdock told you?" She nodded. "He worried about me too?" His voice was prickly.

She nodded again. He shook his head. "I never knew you all cared so deeply or talked about me behind my back so readily," he muttered indignantly. "Did he also tell you I copped a plea and got a suspended sentence? And that the lady in question's grandson, grandson get that, is going to rip my head off next time he sees me?"

"So it was a bad judgement, Face. It's not the first. We all do it; it's part of being human. You can't control it all. I don't understand why you're beating yourself up about it; you made a bad call, you accept the punishment. Time was you would just put it behind you and move on."

He snorted. "Time was I had everything in front of me, now I pushed so much behind me the space is all filled up and it's spilling out to haunt me."

"You're a good man, Templeton Peck," Amy said. "Why have you always found it so hard to believe?"

"It's no good, Amy," His smile was tight and uncompromising as he skilfully slid behind his barriers. "I appreciate what you're trying to do but there is no need, really."

She looked into those blue eyes and the memory of the warmth of the man they had once belonged to forced her to carry on. "Think of all the people you have helped, Face. You have done good things!"

He sighed. "The past doesn't matter especially since I only did those things for the Team, for Hannibal. Deep down I have always known what I am. It just hurts that now the world knows it too. I never thought about growing old, of being alone, maybe if I'd realised then how scared it would make me, I would have chosen differently. But I can't go back now. All I can do is live with it."

Amy placed her knife and fork on her plate gently. "You're tired, Face. You need a break. Hell, it's been a tough couple of months for you, what with Hannibal, losing your job and the court case. Come and stay with me for a while, there's nothing spoiling here."

Peck looked down at his hands, clutched them into fists. "I'm not leaving Hannibal," he said grimly. "I owe him that much at least."

"But it's wearing you out, Face," Amy kept her voice as patient as she could. "Just a couple of days won't make a difference – he'll understand."

"No, he won't!" Peck's voice was suddenly so loud the other clients in the restaurant threw him curious glances. The moment's lapse was just as quickly controlled and he let out a long breath before looking up at Amy's sympathetic glance. "You don't understand."

"OK," Amy kept the shock at the ferocity of his reaction from her voice. "At least take tomorrow off. I'll go and see Hannibal and you can take a break." He nodded slowly as she continued. "What about the others?"

"They've done all they can." He shrugged. "BA's got his family and he's had to go back to Chicago – his mother is not doing well and Murdock has had to work all the hours in the day to get his business off the ground." His eyes flickered with warmth briefly as he said. "No pun intended."

Amy smiled. "You got him the plane, didn't you?"

Face nodded. "To begin with, yeah. But he's doing so well, he's gone legit and bought himself a brand new one." He shook his head. "Funny that mad HM has coped better with everything than the rest of us. Still, he only ever needed to fly to be really happy."

"And you Face," Amy asked. "What would make you really happy?"

His eyes were drawn to the next table where a family of four had just sat down. Their appearance was somewhat incongruous in this restaurant as if they had taken a wrong turn on the way to McDonalds but they seemed unconcerned. The father, a few years younger than Peck, was scowling at the menu while the mother fussed about with napkins for the kids. One of them was lost in a PSP game, biting his lip as he put his whole soul into his art, the other argued about his need for the lace serviette currently being stuffed into his shirt neck by the mother.

Peck sighed and looked back to Amy. "Doesn't matter," he said softly. "I had it once but it will never be again."

They sat in silence for a while and then Face shifted uncomfortably on his seat. "Listen Amy," he began with a little of the old whine in his voice. "You weren't wrong when you said I've had a tough couple of months. Thing is I …" he hesitated.

"Templeton Peck," Amy breathed. "You are not trying to run a scam on me, are you?"

"Me? Would I? Hell no – there's no scam," His head dropped forwards. "There's no money either. See I got a big fine and I lost my job and…"

"What about your army pension?"

"Goes on the rent of my apartment, that and the car…"

"You're paying rent? And you bought a car!"

He nodded sheepishly. "I don't do that scamming stuff, not any more. I can't, can't risk it. I'm out here all on my own, with nobody to watch my back and I know that I can't cut it, not in jail. Murdock's not the only one that's gone legitimate although for very different reasons."

Amy stared at him, really not knowing whether she believed this new 'honest' Templeton Peck or not. He seemed sincere enough but….

"Anyway," he continued. "This is an expensive place and I…"

Amy raised her hands in surrender. "It's OK, Face," she said. "I invited you remember and it's not as if you've eaten anything anyway."

"But I should, I mean a lady…."

"Don't show me your Neanderthal streak Face! This is a new century and men don't have to pay for everything. And you know I was never a lady! I'll get the check – my treat."

"I ran up a tab at the bar, while I waited," he confessed shamefacedly. "But I could…."

"What you should have done is eaten some of this delicious food, Face. If you're this strapped for cash you need it! But don't worry I said I'll pay and I will."

TBC