Howdy all!

This is one of the first Team fics I ever wrote (very fixed up, lol). It's been posted at my web site (On the Jazz - the link is in my profile) and I've been told to post it here coughSpeecough. Spee helped me out with the summary cause I'm just no good at those...and the title sucks, but I plan on fixing it...eventually, lol. Anyway, constructive criticism is always welcome - but if you can't be nice, I won't listen to you. I've been flamed, and the points made in the flame were valid, but I ignored them because they were...well, they were flames, lol. The moral of the story is: Be nice. I'll actually listen then. lol. Anyway, Read & Review!

Nicole Kendall took a deep breath and squared her shoulders as she approached the Veterans Administration hospital. If she felt any nervousness over what she was about to do, no sign of it showed on her face. She was a professional, and this had to work or her mother had died for nothing.

Approaching the front desk, she pasted on a smile and rung the bell.

A portly, angry looking nurse came out from a nearby door. The woman had short, light red hair, and the expression she wore suggested she had been doing nothing but sucking lemons for the last twenty years. "Yes?"

"My name," she began, producing an ID wallet from her pocket and flashing it at the woman, "is Allison Johnson, C.I.A." After allowing the woman sufficient time to inspect the ID, she returned it to her pocket. "I am here for Captain H.M. Murdock."

"Excuse me?" the woman huffed. "I have no record of anyone coming for Captain Murdock."

Nicole smiled patiently and folded her hands on the front desk. "You haven't even checked," she pointed out.

Baird, that's what the Nurse's nametag said, smirked impatiently and replied, "I don't have to check, I am the head nurse and I all paperwork has to go through me as soon as it's brought in. There is nothing for Captain Murdock."

The smile on Nicole's face faded quickly and her pale blue eyes became ice cold - she didn't have time to fool around. She produced a set of papers from her coat pocket and handed them to the nurse. "I understand that you've had problems in the past with men breaking Captain Murdock out, but I don't have the time or the patience to humour you right now." She pointed to the papers the nurse was now inspecting carefully. "Those papers have all the official seals, signatures and whatever else you may think you need on them," she explained. "They also have the contact information for the director of our local office at the bottom. If you feel you need to, you may call him and confirm, but as I said, I don't have a lot of time here."

It was clear that Baird wasn't too happy by the seeming legitimacy of the papers. She sneered at the pseudo CIA agent before going to the phone and dialing the number at the bottom. Judging by the smug look on her face, she thought she had caught the woman in her lie. But a quick phone call later, the obviously annoyed nurse told Nicole to wait while she had Captain Murdock brought out. She turned around and stalked off down the hall, leaving the impression she didn't like being wrong.

About ten minutes had passed before the sounds of Captain Murdock could be heard coming down the hall. Nicole grinned to herself as she heard Murdock annoying Nurse Baird with loud proclamations of his love for random items such as ketchup and beach towels in loud, off-key songs.

"What the CIA wants with you, I'll never know," Baird muttered to Murdock who continued to ignore her.

Murdock bounced to a stop in front of Nicole and gave her the once over while she thanked Nurse Baird with a dismissive tone.

Nicole smiled and turned to face Murdock. "Well, Captain," she said gesturing toward the entrance. "After you."

He regarded her curiously for a moment, then started toward the doors. As soon as they reached her car, a black 1964 mustang convertible, he hopped in and casually asked, "so, who are you, really?"

"Didn't think you'd buy the CIA thing," she muttered good-naturedly as she started the car. "Nicole Kendall. I would tell you who I do work for, but technically we don't exist, so . . ."

"Don't ask, don't tell," Murdock supplied knowingly.

Nicole nodded and said, "bingo."

There was no point in asking 'why me' or faking some sort of psychosis, so he figured they might as well get right down to business. "Where're we headed?" he asked.

"You tell me," she replied. With the push of a button, the hood of the car went up and over their heads. "I need you to call Colonel Smith and the others. Now, the reason where we're going depends on you is I don't know if you trust my cell phone or if you'd prefer a pay phone."

After regarding her carefully for a moment, Murdock let loose a howl of laughter. "Listen, sweetheart, I don't know what you think . . ."

The car screeched to a halt. "No," she cut him off angrily, "you, listen, sweetheart - I need help and I don't have time for games. If I intended to turn your friends in, I wouldn't have gone through you to find them."

There was the briefest of pauses as he sized her up. It was blatantly obvious that she wasn't telling him everything, but there was a certain almost familiar intensity in her ice blue eyes. "Take the next left," he said soberly.

It took a moment for his words to sink in, but she still didn't fully understand them. "What?"

"The next left," he repeated. "There's a phone booth a few blocks down on the right-hand side."

Nicole nodded and started up the car again, following Murdock's directions. Sure enough there was a pay phone right where he had said it would be. She waited in the car while he hopped out to make the call.

In all honesty, she was still a little irritated. With everything that had happened, she was on edge and her nerves were frayed beyond recognition. She knew that she had probably been a bit hard on Murdock, but she was aggravated and didn't really care. With a sigh she slouched back in her seat and waited for him to finish the phone call.

"You've reached an automated system," began the voice on the other end of the line.

Murdock took a second to figure out who he was talking to before he responded. "Knock it off, Face, it's me. I need to speak to the Colonel."

"Murdock? What are you doing -" Face blurted out.

"I'll explain later, but right now I really need to talk to Hannibal." While he waited for Face to get Hannibal, he turned back to look at the woman in the car - Nicole, if that was her real name. She was slouched down in her seat and looked exasperated. It seemed to him, though, that she was being fairly honest about two things: she needed their help and she wouldn't turn in the team. Not yet, anyway.

"What's up, Murdock?" Hannibal's voice jarred him from his thoughts.

Turning his back on the woman in the car, he got right down to it. "Hannibal, I got picked up at the VA by a girl claiming to be CIA, only when we got in the car and I called her on it, she admitted it was a cover. Name's Nicole Kendall; says she needs our help."

"Kendall?" Hannibal repeated with a strange quality to his voice.

"Uh, yeah, that's what she says."

There was a pause in which he guessed Hannibal was considering the situation; he could almost picture him chewing on his cigar as he thought. "What do you think, Captain?" he asked eventually.

Murdock sighed. "I honestly don't know what to think, Colonel. I mean, she definitely hasn't told me everything." After taking a second to collect his thoughts, he continued, "I just don't get why she would go to all the trouble of breaking me out of the VA if she was after us."

"You think she's legit?"

Again he looked back at the woman in the car. "I'm not exactly sure, but if she's not, it's not like we've never made a quick escape before," he replied with a grin.

"Alright, Captain," Hannibal agreed. "Bring her down to the beach house, but keep your eyes peeled."

In the background Face's voice whined, "not my beach house!"

"Your beach house?" BA exclaimed.

"Half an hour, Captain," Hannibal chuckled as he hung up the phone.

Murdock put the receiver back on the hook, and went back to the car. "Half an hour at a house on the beach," he said as Nicole sat back upright and looked questioningly at him.

"You going to give me an address, or should I just pick a beach and guess which house?" she retorted with a sarcastic smirk.

A look of uncertainty crept across his features. "You, uh, you mind if I drive? It's just that it's probably easier than trying to give directions." He wasn't sure if she'd be okay with the idea, but the beach house was a bit complicated to get to and he honestly thought it would just be easier for him to drive.

She scrutinized him for a moment before getting out of her car. "Fine," she agreed. "But if you hurt my baby, I get to hurt you."

Murdock walked around the car and grinned at her as she stood beside the car staring him down. When she finally walked away from him and got in the passenger side, he got in and drove off. Apparently she wasn't too fond of the idea of someone else driving her car - she'll get along great with Face, he thought to himself as he started toward the beach.