Bang – You're Dead
Amy Amanda Allen had shot and killed a man. It seemed a very simple concept to grasp: person, gun, bang, dead. Being a reporter, she'd seen her share of the horrors of the world, everything from natural disasters which showed no mercy, to hired assassins and cold blooded psychopaths who subscribed to the same philosophy. Some of it she'd seen up close, a lot of it was from a distance, as distant as a headline in the morning paper or the breaking news broadcast at 6 o' clock on channel 5; tragedy couldn't get at you from a glass screen or a side article, not unless you knew someone directly involved, and most times you did not, you were safe, you could sit back and disregard the tragedy with a change of the channel or a flip of the page. But not now, this time the tragedy was all too up close and personal, it was very personal this time.
The guys had been on another mission and she'd gone along, for help, for support, to be a decoy or spy if need be. They were going up against a band of ruthless criminals who had already killed 20 innocents between them, they had no plans of stopping anytime soon so long as someone continued to disrupt their plans. The guys had gone on ahead, leaving her behind with a walkie talkie and a gun, all mere precaution, Hannibal was certain she wouldn't be needed for the final showdown. Half an hour from the time they departed, the radio went to all static and she couldn't raise anybody, so she'd gone on ahead to investigate and find out what was going on. She'd followed the path the A-Team had gone, followed the tire tracks of their van until they came to a dead stop in the middle of a dirt road, with the van abandoned and no sign of the A-Team anywhere.
Amy followed the jumbled mess of footprints half remaining in the dirt to a sudden stop before a short, haphazardly laid brick path that didn't seem to mesh with the rest of the road. She walked the short length of it and didn't find any continuing footprints on the other side where the bricks ended and the dirt and gravel resumed. Frantically, she went back to the start and almost tripped over a brick that was raised up slightly higher than the rest. Amy got on her knees to inspect it, not really sure what to expect, but what she found was that several in a row next to the loose one were not in fact a row of bricks, but rather a large square trap door made to look like a few rows of bricks. With all her strength she lifted the trap door up and saw down below was a vertical tunnel with rungs leading down somewhere. Nobody could've possibly forced the guys down there, could they? Even for the A-Team, Amy knew nothing was impossible. Tucking her gun away for now, she lowered herself down the trap door and climbed down the rungs for what seemed like forever until she finally touched ground.
This was one of the more unusual hideouts she'd ever seen, definitely one of the first subterranean ones she'd been a guest at. It was pretty dark down there but there were a few scant lights hooked up here and there so she could see where she was going, not necessarily what she was walking into. She took out her gun again and picked a tunnel to go down. Every few steps she thought she'd heard something and she stopped and her breath caught in her throat and she could feel her heart either skip a beat or pound harder against her chest. But nobody came, so she persisted, and the further she went, the more lights she saw, the brighter the lights were, and now she knew she was hearing people, talking, different voices, all muffled, but she knew she had to be getting closer to the source. If the guys were down here, she'd find them, she'd already made up her mind, and she was going to do whatever she had to to get them out.
It felt like she'd been walking for almost a mile when the ground beneath her started to slant downward, and she slid but stayed on her feet, and she came to a grate at the bottom of a wall, that allowed her to look down into another room in the tunnel and there she saw the guys. Face, Murdock and B.A. had their arms high above their heads suspended by chains tied to a pipe hanging from the ceiling of the room. Hannibal was in the center of the room on his knees with a gun to his head, he didn't waver, he showed no sign of fear, all the same he couldn't help the natural wincing in anticipation of the shot that he knew was soon to follow. In addition to the gunman, who looked like some kind of lowbrow assassin, there were three other men surrounding the room. It was anybody's guess what went wrong and how these goons got the drop on the A-Team, but here they were.
"How does it feel to die, Smith?" the gunman asked as he adjusted his aim.
Still unflappable, Hannibal managed a low, "I'll let you know when I get there."
Amy tried to open the grate and found that she could slide it up, and with virtually no noise surprisingly. Below her was about a four foot drop to the ground in the next room. Gun in hand, she jumped and entered, and when she saw the man with the gun start to turn, she squeezed the trigger.
One shot, that was all it took, she had meant for it to be a warning shot. She'd had some shooting practice before thanks to the A-Team, the aim shouldn't have been able to hit anyone, except maybe on ricochet because they were pretty crammed together, but instead, the gunman turned wrong and it hit him in the chest. He went down. In that second that it all happened, B.A. managed to break his chains off the pipe and he grabbed two of the other men and knocked their heads together hard enough to knock them out, the fourth looked between the woman with the gun and the large man with the muscles and his mind just went blank. Hannibal jumped to his feet and took him and pinned him down while B.A. got Face and Murdock loose. Only then did he go to check on the man who was just about to blow his own brains out, and he didn't bother taking the man's pulse, he just shook his head from one side to the other.
"Oh my God," Amy choked out in a tiny voice as she dropped the gun and took a step back.
Everything after that just seemed to fall away. She had no recollection of getting out of the underground hideout, she had no memory of how they got out, or where they went. The next thing she could remember was that they were back at Face's latest house he was scamming for the month, a large Beverly Hills home complete with an in-the-ground swimming pool in the side yard filled to the brim. A thousand different things were going through Amy's mind, just as she could feel a thousand different things happening to her body. She felt sick, she felt herself shaking, she felt dizzy, hot, suffocated, felt her skin being jabbed by pins and needles every which way, her stomach was burning like it was on fire, her head was throbbing and felt like it was going to explode, and part of her wondered if it would ever stop and the other part felt certain it never would.
She was only slightly aware of somebody saying, sounding very distant, "If it is shock, it's a kind I've never seen before."
"Amy. AMY!"
Hannibal. That was Hannibal's voice, Hannibal's domineering, drill instructor, authoritative tone he specifically reserved when someone truly got him mad and all riled up, and now he was mad at her. She vaguely felt his seldom ungloved hand smack her hard across the cheek, then again, it barely registered, it was like a dream, like she was floating in a body of water and nothing could truly touch her.
"Alright, that does it," Hannibal said as he bent down to pick Amy up in his arms, "Murdock, get the door."
"Yes, Colonel," Murdock raced off, then came back and asked, "Which door?"
"The front door, Murdock," Hannibal told him in his commanding officer tone.
Murdock skidded towards the front and obliged.
"What're you going to do?" Face asked as Hannibal lifted Amy up off the couch and carried her out to the front hall.
"A little shock to the system ought to bring her around," Hannibal said.
Murdock stood by the door like a palace guard and asked Hannibal as he crossed over the threshold, "We gonna trade her in for a new one, Colonel?"
"Nah, she'll be alright," Hannibal sounded sure of himself as he stepped off the porch and went around to the side yard.
He walked around to the pool and stood on the tile surrounding it and watched the water bob up and down in tiny waves and he told the unresponsive woman in his arms, "A little swim should do you some good," and promptly dropped her in.
Amy submerged and initially sunk to the pool floor, and didn't reemerge. Hannibal stood at the pool's edge and waited, figuring Amy would come up for air after a few more seconds to sulk. But she didn't.
Amy pressed herself to the floor of the swimming pool and somewhere between consciously and subconsciously, willed herself not to float to the top. This was what she deserved. She killed a man, the reasons why didn't matter, she had committed murder, and now she was going to pay for it, she had to pay for what she'd done.
She only vaguely noticed a disruption in the surface of the water as somebody else jumped into the pool. Face swam down to the bottom, completely dressed in his gray tweed jacket, white dress shirt, black dress pants, leather belt, black Gucci shoes and Rolex watch. He spotted Amy and it scared the hell out of him, she looked like a corpse dumped in the water. He swam down towards her, grabbed her and pulled her with him back up to the surface, where once they broke through, Face was gasping for air but Amy somehow still remained unresponsive.
"Amy, are you alright?" he asked, smoothing back her hair to see her face, "Amy?"
Hannibal crouched down to see her better and he concluded, "This kid's plenty sick."
"What're we going to do now, Hannibal?" Face asked as he swam towards the edge to get them out.
Hannibal's face was grim as he shook his head and replied, "I don't know."
Amy woke up laying on a very uncomfortable bed with her arms wrapped tightly around herself, like she was trying to hold herself into one piece. She shot up on the bed as the remnants of her dream came back to her and for a minute she thought she was still in the dream. Then she looked around, she could see the sun shining brightly through the windows of her nice, white, sterile hospital room.
Her door opened and a heavier set nurse in her 40s poked her head in and said in a gentle voice, "Time to get up, Miss Allen," then she closed the door and was gone.
Amy huffed and stretched her shoulders and rubbed her eyes and swung her feet around to the floor and stood up. In spite of the time of the year it was and the fixed temperature the hospital was kept at, she felt cold. She hated the paper gown they gave her to wear and wanted her real clothes, but she guessed it was all part of the process; she'd get her clothes back when the doctors were satisfied she wasn't going to strangle herself with her own pantyhose.
She'd just started to remove her gown to take her daily shower when she heard the door open and heard a familiar voice call in, "Good morning, Miss Allen, and how are we today?"
She spun around and closed the back of her gown and told the man dressed like a doctor, "Hannibal, you're not supposed to be in here."
"Yeah and you've seen how well that stops me," he said as he breathed on the bell of his stethoscope hanging around his neck, "How're you doing today?"
"I want my clothes back," she said, "Everybody else in this hospital gets to wear their own clothes instead of these stupid things. I hate having to wear this walking around the place for everyone to see."
"Just be glad they let you have two," Hannibal told her, "You've got another therapy session schedule for today."
"I know," Amy replied, "I have therapy every day."
"Not Sundays," Hannibal replied in a smart aleck tone.
"Hannibal, get out of here," she told him, "I'm going to take a shower."
"Not today," Hannibal shook his head, "Today you should have just enough time to do something with that hair and make yourself presentable."
"What for?" Amy asked.
Hannibal picked up a brush from off her dresser and picked the rattiest part of her hair and tried to run the brush through it, no such luck.
"OUCH!" Amy yelped, "STOP that!"
Hannibal just shrugged and replied, "Sorry, kid."
"What's this all about, Hannibal?" Amy asked.
Hannibal took off his large white doctor's coat and revealed slung over his shoulder, a change of Amy's clothes from her house, the black jeans and black and red shirt she'd worn when they were at Jamestown.
"Hannibal, I could kiss you," she said to him.
"Hold that thought," he told her, "There's a reason I came down this morning. I found out that Colonel Decker is coming here to pay you a visit."
"Decker, here? Me?" Amy asked in confusion.
"Apparently he got word you were here and he's going to see if he can get you to reveal that you know us and where we are," Hannibal said, "He'll be here soon so give him your best crazy act."
She'd definitely have much material to go on, she'd seen a lot of it first hand at this hospital in the last couple weeks she'd been there.
"Oh he is, is he?" Amy asked, "Give me my clothes." She set them on her dresser, picked up the brush and started detangling her hair herself, "I'm going to make that man sorry he ever came here."
"That's the spirit, kid," Hannibal said, "While you're at it, see if you can make him sorry he was ever born too." He glanced to the door and told her, "I'm getting out of here, I'll be back later and see how you're doing."
"Thanks!" she called after him.
Ooooh she was going to give that Decker a run for his money. She took her clothes into the bathroom and quickly changed, reveling in being able to real actual clothes for the first time since she was admitted to this place. She briefly fixed her hair and deciding what shtick would be best to use on the not so esteemed Colonel, sat down in the chair by her bed and waited.
"Doctor, I'm very curious to know why a civilian would be receiving psychiatric care in a Veterans' specific hospital," Decker said to Dr. Richter as the two of them and Captain Crane made their way down the hall.
"And I am very curious as to why a Colonel in the U.S. Army would concern himself with any of our patients in this hospital."
"Miss Allen has no military record, therefore she should not be treated here," Decker said.
"Colonel Decker, we Californians are in a short supply of adequate mental health facilities per capita of our own people in need of mental treatment, Miss Allen was bussed here when the last hospital proved inadequate for providing the treatment she required. And why is she such a person of interest to you, Colonel?" Dr. Richter wanted to know.
"I believe she's connected to the A-Team."
"The who?" Dr. Richter asked, and stopped in midstep, forcing the Colonel and his Captain to do the same.
"Captain H.M. Murdock is another patient of yours, isn't he?" Decker asked.
"For 10 years now," Dr. Richter said.
"Then you know he flew the A-Team in 'Nam when they hit the bank of Hanoi."
"And you should know that as his therapist, you have no legal standing to inquire about what I talk to any of my patients about," Dr. Richter replied.
"I'm not asking you," Decker told him, "I intend to question Miss Allen and see what she can tell me."
"A young woman who's suffered a nervous breakdown," Dr. Richter said, "You really aim high, don't you, Colonel?"
Decker faced Richter and told him bluntly, "Doctor, whether you permit it or not, I'm going to speak to Miss Allen and if I suspect you've conspired to help her conceal the whereabouts of the A-Team, I'll personally see to it that you spend the rest of your years rotting in a military prison for treason."
Dr. Richter was unfazed by this threat and he said in an almost deadpanned tone as he met the Colonel's unwavering gaze, "Your concern for our walking wounded is overwhelming, Colonel."
Decker was mildly taken aback by the doctor's response, but he persisted, and headed on down the hall to Amy Allen's room with Crane following right behind him.
Decker stopped at the door and peered in through the small screened window and saw Amy seated crookedly in the chair, her legs turned outward and her elbows stiffly sticking out as she sat on her hands, her neck craned far to one side and overall she looked almost ready to fall over; she didn't acknowledge the man looking in through the window at her, nor did she move a single muscle when the door opened and Decker stepped in.
"Well Miss Allen," he said as he entered the room and went over to her, "I don't suppose you ever thought you'd find yourself in the mental hospital, neither would I. And yet I can't help but find it very suspicious that you wind up in the same psychiatric hospital as Captain Murdock, do you remember him?"
Amy rolled her neck slowly and craned her head around to see the Colonel, and she looked up at him with wide eyes and said in a lost voice, "I saw a horse but there was no horse…I saw a horse but there was no horse."
"You'll have to do better than that, Miss Allen," Decker advised her, "I've been here more than a few times to check on Murdock and seen all his theatrics, and I'm just as convinced he's faking as I am that you are."
Something changed in the young reporter's eyes and she looked up at Decker in awe and asked him, "Are you my mother?"
Okay, that was a new one on him, even for the crazy hospital. Before he had a chance to respond, Amy lunged up out of her chair and clung to him like Velcro, screaming over and over, "Mother! Mother!"
This was definitely new for Decker because while Murdock acted plenty nuts, he never reached out and touched the Colonel, maybe because most times Decker paid him a visit, the Captain was tied up in his straitjacket. He gripped Amy's hands and pried them off of him and told her, "Get your hands off of me!"
"Mother! Oh Mother!" Amy wailed as she fell to the floor and grabbed Decker around the knee, "Mother!"
"Cut that out!" Decker told her.
Another notable change in the young reporter, she smoothed the hair back out of her eyes and sprang to her feet, screaming gleefully, "A MAN!" and charged him and knocked him down.
Everything happened so fast Decker wasn't sure what was going on, but it suddenly dawned on him that this time he was going a round with a seemingly nymphomaniac, who wouldn't stop pawing him and trying to undo the buttons on his jacket. He threw Amy off of him and got to his feet.
A nurse came charging in, pushing past Crane and demanded to know, "What's going on in here?"
"That's a very good question," Decker said as he lifted his hat to scratch his head, he was starting to wonder if this could possibly actually be real?
"Get out of here, both of you," the nurse ordered the men in green.
It sounded good to Decker, he and Crane hotfooted it out of there and the nurse helped Amy over to the bed and got her settled in it again; though Amy writhed around on it from side to side, reverting back to her previous persona, calling continually for her mother. Once the nurse was gone and the door shut, Amy stopped thrashing around and just laid back on the flat mattress and laughed to herself. After a minute passed, she went to the door and looked out through the small window. One regular sized doctor and one large black orderly were out in the hall, both wearing surgical masks, when they saw Amy looking their way, Face and B.A. pulled down their masks and waved to her. They weren't going to take any chance on Decker possibly leaving the hospital with Amy in tow.
A few rooms down the psychiatric wing, the door opened and Murdock stepped out for the day, dressed as usual in his tan pants, black Chuck Taylors, dark blue baseball cap, no jacket, not right now, now he just wore a light blue T-shirt with some kind of writing on it.
"Hey guys," he called to Face and B.A., "Is it Halloween already?"
"No, you crazy fool," B.A. said.
"Too bad!" Murdock replied as he came down towards Amy's room and looked in at her through the screened window, "Hey Amy, how's it going?"
"I'm, doing alright, Murdock," she said a little uncertainly.
"Great," Murdock nodded, "See you at breakfast then."
After breakfast it was decided that a nice leisurely stroll around the VA grounds might be in order for Amy. So, once again as had happened several times since she came here, she sat back and watched everything go by at little better than a snail's pace as Murdock pushed her around the yard in a wheelchair while he talked to Face.
"It's nice getting to drive one of these things for a change and not be the passenger," Murdock noted.
"It's not so much fun pushing you in them all the time either," Face replied.
Murdock's only response was a razzberry.
"When can I get out of here?" Amy asked, stopping the two men's conversation cold, and she added, "I want to go home."
"Ah, Amy," Face leaned over to see her and explained, "Dr. Richter believes you're still at risk of suffering a second breakdown and if that does happen he'd rather you be here right with the professionals when it does, so he wants to keep you here for a few more days. He also says you haven't been cooperative in your therapy sessions."
Amy met his gaze and asked him, "What good is therapy going to do me?"
"Well the sooner you cooperate, maybe the sooner he'll let you check out of here," Face suggested.
Murdock could feel the mood growing tense, anxious, melancholic, so he decided on a change of pace and told Amy, "Hang on, Amy, we're gonna burn some rubber on this baby," and started running with the wheelchair, making racecar noises all the way.
Face took off after them and was amazed how fast the pilot could run pushing a wheelchair with a full sized woman in it. Murdock had been here every day alongside Amy, acting as co-therapist and walking her through everything she could expect at the V.A. while she was under Dr. Richter's psychiatric care.
It had been Murdock's idea immediately following Amy's breakdown to take her to the V.A. and strong arm Dr. Richter into accepting her as a patient; because he was the best, he got Murdock so it wouldn't take much for him to understand about the A-Team, and if he was treating Amy as a patient, then confidentiality laws would kick in and if ever the authorities would look into the shooting, Richter would be of positively no help to their aid. Face would never forget that day. Up till then, Dr. Richter had no idea that his prize patient was one of the infamous A-Team, and he had been sorely disappointed in the Captain, because he took this 10 years' of trickery and deceit as a sure sign that Murdock had been faking his insanity all these years.
It had been Hannibal who stepped in and told the doctor, "I can assure you, just because he can help us doesn't mean he's rounded up all his marbles yet, trust me, I was there when he lost them. He's still missing a few cats eyes, a couple steelies, a swirl, and maybe a couple shooters too while we're at it. Believe me, Doctor, if it wasn't for your therapy, he would've fallen all to pieces years ago, and trust me, there's never been enough crazy glue in the world to put that Humpty Dumpty back together again."
Whatever Richter was truly thinking at that time was anybody's guess, but in a nonchalant and unfazed tone he said to the Colonel, "Have you ever considered psychiatric treatments yourself, Colonel Smith?"
"Please, you have to help her," Hannibal said, "I can put my men back together after something like this but I can't fix her."
Proving his point, Amy never looked directly to any of the men in the doctor's office, instead she sat bunched up in a chair focused on the corner of one wall while she bit her nails and worked her way up to her fingers. The first two days of Amy's 'treatment' consisted of trying to get her to come back to the here and now and acknowledge what was going on around her. And when she came back, she did it at full force and flew into a rampage and had to be sedated for an additional two days.
After that, she was notably calmer but still very clearly troubled by what had happened. That had begun her daily therapy and life for her in the hospital, a vastly different environment than what she was accustomed to; but having Murdock around constantly for whatever she needed, an amateur psychotherapist or just a reminder that she wasn't completely alone and still among friends, did wonders for her mentality. After the first week past the point of her sedation, she'd started managing to adapt to her new surroundings and new routine. She had still been very distant but each day a little more was chipped away, getting closer to the center, and the old Amy was starting to emerge. Face was right though, Amy was not cooperative with Dr. Richter during their therapy sessions, most days she wouldn't talk, about anything, she certainly wouldn't talk when he probed on why she was here and what happened leading up to it. He'd stressed to Murdock until Face had this breakthrough and could acknowledge what she'd done, she would never be able to move on and the mental healing process would never begin. So here she would stay for the time being, whether she wanted to or not.
Face caught up with Murdock and said to the pilot, "Hey Murdock, let me have a turn steering this thing."
"Oh good idea," Amy said, "I always wanted to find out if there's life after death."
Murdock stopped running with the wheelchair and let Face take over, the combined weight was more than he'd anticipated but not much different than pushing Murdock around every time he busted the man out of this hospital. He kept up a steady pace and said to Amy, "What do you say next we switch places and make it like a Benny Hill skit?"
Later that afternoon Murdock was roaming the halls of the psychiatric ward looking for the Penny to his Sky King and became slightly disturbed when he couldn't find Amy anywhere. She wasn't in her room, she wasn't in the cafeteria, she wasn't in the art therapy room, he was just about to start asking the nurses since they were friendlier than the orderlies, when he passed by a supply closet and heard a low, soft sobbing coming from the other side of the door. He backtracked his last step and turned to the door and put his ear against it to listen better. Aha. He turned the knob and went in.
"Amy? You in here?" he called out in the dark room.
He followed the sound of the muffled crying and, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness, found her curled up against the corner, her arms pressed tight against her chest.
"What's the matter, Amy?" Murdock asked as he crouched down beside her.
She looked up towards him and said over her sobs, "I killed a man, Murdock…every day I keep hoping I'll wake up and it'll be a nightmare…but it's real…and there's nothing I can do about it…and nothing can ever make me forget it. Every single day until I die I'm always going to remember…and I'm always going to see that man…"
"I know," Murdock said as he wrapped his arms around Amy and pulled her against him, "That's the hard part of this job. You don't ever forget the faces of the people you kill."
Amy collapsed against Murdock sobbing at the top of her lungs. Murdock tried to be comforting, but too many of his own likewise memories surfaced again and overpowered him, and soon the both of them were leaning against each other crying.
Amy slapped and patted the gray molding clay in her hands the next day and asked Murdock, "What's supposed to be so therapeutic about this?"
"It's an outlet," Murdock said as he pounded his like pizza dough and explained, "It's to help people's subconscious thoughts rise to their conscious, the things they can't bring themselves to say they can get out and express some other way."
"What's the point if nobody else is going to get it?" Amy asked, "People don't look at clay figures for answers."
"Trained psychiatrists sometimes do," Murdock replied as he tried making something out of his clay, but it was too wet to hold a shape.
Amy dropped hers on the table and wiped her hands off and said, "I give up, mine's as dry as a brick. You can't make anything from that."
"Let's put yours and mine together," Murdock said, "We ought to get something out of it then."
"What's yours supposed to be?" Amy inquired.
Murdock shrugged, "Maybe we can just make a lot of bricks out of it."
"Do you know why you're here?" Dr. Richter asked Amy the next morning. He always had Murdock lay down on a couch while he engaged in therapy sessions with the doctor, but all things considered, he decided Amy's session might go over better if they sat across his desk from each other, able to see each other eye to eye.
"I killed a man," Amy answered, "The reasons why don't matter, nothing's going to change the fact that I…killed someone."
"You say the reasons why don't matter," Dr. Richter said, "But what was the reason?"
"Hannibal had a gun to his head, the man would've killed him," Amy told Richter, venom entering her voice, "I had to stop him. I tried to scare all of them to buy time, but he turned the wrong way and the bullet hit him."
"So it wasn't murder."
"That doesn't matter," Amy said, "I still killed him, he's still dead."
"And the reasons why don't matter," Richter said, "But had that man not had a gun on Colonel Smith and was about to shoot him, would you ever have seen reason to fire your own gun?"
Amy shook her head, "I doubt it, I've handled a lot of guns with the guys, but I've never fired one at someone before, only a little target practice incase I ever had to."
"And this time you had to," Dr. Richter pointed out.
"But I'm never going to stop seeing that man's face when he died," Amy said, "I'm never going to forget what I've done."
"Nobody can, Amy," Dr. Richter said, "Murdock's never forgotten, even Colonel Smith hasn't forgotten…but life still goes on for you."
Amy shook her head, "I don't think so…how could I ever go back to my old life? How could I ever go back to what I did before? Nothing's ever going to be the same."
"No, that's true, but that's life, in any drastic situation," Dr. Richter said, "But it doesn't mean we stop living, we just have to cope and adapt and carry on. If a policeman had walked in on the scene and shot the man instead, would you think that man deserved to be plagued by the memory of what he'd done?"
Amy shook her head.
"Why not?"
"Because that's part of their occupational hazard," Amy said, "Sometimes they have to shoot people to save lives."
"And if that's the case for a policeman to shoot and kill somebody," Dr. Richter said, "How different is it from a civilian being forced to use deadly force to save an innocent's life?"
Amy sunk all her bottom front teeth into the skin underneath her bottom lip and said, "I never really thought of it like that."
"You see, Miss Allen," Dr. Richter explained, "Underneath the uniforms, the ranks and badges and stripes, and the job stipulation to carry guns and use deadly force when necessary, all of us, regardless of our positions in life, are all just people, and we all have to deal with these things when the unfortunate occasions arrive, and unfortunately they do. This is a violent world and it often is kill or be killed, and equally unfortunately often too many of the wrong people are killed, at a choice between the innocents and the cold blooded killers, not to be confused with those who kill in self defense or in defense of other persons. If you had it all to do again, would you?"
Amy looked to him uncertainly and asked, "And the end result be the same?"
"Yes."
She thought about it for a minute and hesitantly nodded, "Hannibal always manages to get out of any mess, his plans always come together somehow…but this time it didn't…he couldn't…I couldn't let him die, or any of the others. But I killed him, I have to answer for what I've done."
"I doubt anybody went to the trouble of alerting the authorities of that man's death," Dr. Richter said, "And given what sort of character he was, I doubt they'd appreciate being bothered with news of his death either."
"But I still have to be held accountable," Amy said.
"The man you killed was a vicious murderer, wanted by the police, about to shoot another person in cold blood. You premeditated nothing and I sincerely doubt you have any plans to do it again to another living person in this world, ergo you're not a threat to anyone else. You're going to live with the memories of what happened every day of your life, Amy," Dr. Richter said, "Don't you think that's punishment enough?"
Amy was starting to cry again, through her tears she asked the doctor, "Where am I supposed to go from here?"
He looked at her for a moment in silent regard, as if weighing those balances of her question, and said in a short and simple answer, "Home."
"It feels good to be home again," Amy said as she plopped down on her couch and grabbed one of her throw pillows, "I never thought I could miss this place so much."
"I'm sure you won't mind," Hannibal said to her, "Face took the liberty of house sitting while you were away: watering the plants, collecting the mail and paper, I think he also tried on a few of your clothes too."
"Very funny," Amy dryly remarked. "Hannibal…does it ever get any easier?"
He turned to her and didn't say anything at first, then he said to her, "I won't lie to you, the first time's just as bad as the second time, the 10th time, the 20th time you have to kill somebody, that never gets easier…and the memories won't go away, they'll always linger, somewhere in the back of your mind, just waiting to spring forth, waiting to be triggered by the smallest things. But in time, they're not so crippling, you find life in general easier to move forward with. Just don't expect anything quick and easy, that's just for the movies."
Amy looked up at him and explained, "I keep going over in my mind, what I could've done differently, what one little thing, one little movement might've altered everything, and that man would still be alive and in jail with the others."
"Don't beat yourself up about it, kid," Hannibal told her, "You can analyze it a hundred different ways, but nothing's going to undo what happened and all you can do now is not let it consume you."
Amy nodded glumly, "I know, Hannibal."
"You know I told you to stay behind and don't come after us," he said to her.
Amy nodded again, her eyes trained to the floor.
Hannibal leaned down to force her to look at him as he told her, "But I'm glad for once that you didn't listen to me. Regardless of everything, the bottom line is you saved my life, kid, thank you."
Amy wanted to shrivel up into a speck of dust and disappear, in this instant she felt very self conscious and embarrassed.
"Thanks, Hannibal," she said quietly, cleared her throat and added, "And it's been a great pleasure getting to work with you these past couple years."
"What?" Hannibal asked.
She looked up to him and said, "After what happened, I wouldn't count on me to be any use to you on any of your future missions. I just know I won't be able to do it."
"Remember what I said," Hannibal told her, "Don't expect quick or easy, you won't get them."
2 months later—
"I don't suppose we could talk this over like reasonable human beings, could we?" Face asked as he and Murdock were marched into an abandoned diner by a couple of the hired goons from the latest mission they were working, at gunpoint. Face quickly added, "No I don't suppose we could."
"Why don't you just let us go?" Murdock asked, trying to reason with them, "Why don't you let us work? We let you work."
One of the thugs shoved his gun in Murdock's face and said to him, "I don't believe you're a couple of road workers."
"Oh no?" Murdock asked, "Okay then, what are we? Want to make 20 Questions out of it?"
"I think," the man said as he tapped the muzzle of his gun against Murdock's cheek, "That you're a couple of trespassers sticking your noses in where they don't belong."
"Not me," Murdock replied, "I've kept my nose out of other people's business ever since I was 14 and slammed an Algebra book shut on it."
"You be quiet," the man holding a gun on him warned.
"Okay," Murdock quietly responded.
The man turned his attention to Face and said, "It's such a shame that we must take precautions to get rid of you,"
"Ah well if it's such a shame, how about letting us go?" Face asked, "No, I suppose not."
The man shook his head and raised his gun, "Say goodnight, friend."
"Goodnight," Murdock swallowed a baseball sized lump in his throat.
Click.
The man's eyes went wide as he felt a gun being pressed to the back of his head, and standing on the other side of the gun behind it was.
"Bang, you're dead," Amy said, "One false move out of you and both of you get it. Understood?"
"Oh boy am I glad to see you!" Face exclaimed.
Amy kept her eye on the two goons and made her way over to Face and Murdock, "Are you guys alright?"
"Terrific," Murdock said, "Never better."
"I'm with Murdock," Face said as he picked up a cord to tie up the men with, "I'm glad you came along with us on this mission."
"So am I, Face," Amy told him as she kept her gun aimed on the two men so they knew not to try any sudden movements or anything funny, "So am I." It was a great feeling to be back. She knew that to avoid a repeat of what happened, she would have to be more vigilante about what was going on and her surroundings than before, but she could take it. It had taken a little while but she was back in the game, and nothing was going to take her out of it ever again.