Almost an hour later there was still no sign of action anywhere. Damn intel.

Face still felt uneasy, but had a grip on his fears now. They were irrational and stupid, and... well, not entirely unexpected, if he was perfectly honest with himself. But that didn't mean he could just give in and not fight them.

If he wanted to live, he had to master them.

Two minutes per cardinal direction, that's what he had settled on. That gave him a full 360° view of the land every eight minutes. With how his hide-out was situated, that should give him ample warning time if something should go wrong.

Two minutes of staring out the north-side wall at empty landscape. Switch to east-side wall.

Face pulled his rifle's barrel from the gap and threaded it into the east-side gap. He looked outside... and recoiled.

There they were, coming out of the wood and straight to his position.

This was not how it was supposed to go! They were not supposed to be so many for starters, Face counted twelve people. And they were not supposed to be on foot either, but in a car. They were supposed to drive along the road, passing Hannibal's and BA's position, not come over to him!

Face quickly checked the view down south, where Hannibal and BA were stationed. Everything quiet there. Face returned to his place at the eastern wall. They were about three minutes out now, maybe four. How had he missed them? It was not quite an hour's hike from the wood... Had they stumbled across Murdock there? But no, no. They would have heard something. Murdock would have contacted them, or blown up the chopper or something. No, Murdock was safe.

They must have used the small groups of trees along the way for cover, like he himself had. But it was a lot harder to hide twelve men behind those than just one ...

Never mind, they were there, they were coming steadily closer, time to act. Face yanked out his walkie-talkie. "Hannibal, red-one." That was maybe overstating it, but surely not for long. They were still coming straight at him.

"Face, what's..." That's where the question ended, Hannibal must have seen for himself. "Hang tight."

"Hanging." Not that he had much choice.

How many could he shoot? Could he get them all? Surely not, that was utopistic. How much protection could the old wooden boards give him? Because once he started shooting, they would instantly know where the fire came from.

Damn, what did he do? He might as well have become a fucking sniper. At least then he would have a precision rifle to go with the job.

Damn! No time to dawdle. Face lined up his rifle, took aim.

He got two, before the rest of them hit the ground, and started shooting back.

The old boards held better than Face had dared to hope. So far he was uninjured, and he had a third man in his field of fire. Not a kill-shot, but hopefully the injury was enough to stop him from approaching any further.

A fourth man he missed altogether. Damn, damn, damn. He had to stop them, must not let them reach the shed, because if they did, that was it for him. He had not lived through all that shit just to bite it now.

Number five went down, injured or dead, he did not know.

That's when suddenly the door flew open.

Damn, fucking damn, where had this guy come from? Face stumbled back from his rifle, it kept hanging at an odd, sick looking angle from the wall. With his hands slightly raised, he stared at the man, quickly saying a silent good-bye to the world and everybody in it that he cared for. It was a depressingly short good-bye.

But Charlie did not shoot.

Why didn't he ... oh no. No, no, no, not a camp, not another camp, oh no, no. No. Face dropped to his knees. "Please. Please, no camp." His voice was a shaky whisper, he hardly recognised it as his own.

Charlie stood and stared. Almost as if he could not make sense of what he saw. "What do you know?"

"Know? I know nothing, honestly, I swear," Face quickly assured. "Please?" He fearfully looked up at the man, not knowing anymore what exactly he was pleading for. He was young, probably still in his teens. God, to be killed by a kid...

"Why shall I believe you?"

"It's true, please, I swear! I don't know anything, really." Face hated himself for his cowardice. Wasn't he able to die like a man? Obviously not.

"I don't believe you."

A shot rang out and Face dropped to the floor.

It took him a moment to realize that it wasn't him that was hit. It was a Vietcong, lying half inside, half outside the hut. Not the one who had spoken to him, that one still stood there, his attention now on the dead man at his feet.

Hannibal, maybe BA, but less likely. Hannibal was the better marksman.

The thought of his guys somehow jumpstarted his brain back into action. Face was up on his feet in a flash, grabbed his rifle, yanked it from the gap, where it still stuck, swirled around and shot.

Aiming and shooting were one.

With surreal clarity, he saw every small detail of the scene. He saw the young man's eyes, his eyelashes, the curve of his lips, the smooth skin in the V of his dirty shirt, and the spot of dark spreading around the small hole Face had just put in said shirt.

The man fell in slow motion.

"Face?!" BA shouted, still hidden outside.

"I'm ok!" Face shouted back. "That all of them?!" He still had his rifle trained at the door, ready to shoot.

"Yeah, we got them!" That was Hannibal, and a moment later he slowly stepped through the door. He had his own weapon still at the ready. "Face, you ok?"

"Yeah, Hannibal. I'm... Thanks." He looked at the man he'd killed. His throat tightened up and he dropped the rifle, like it was suddenly singeing his hands. It landed unspectacularly at his feet. "Oh man, I hate this..."

Hannibal walked over to him and put his arm around his shoulders. Face tensed, and Hannibal reluctantly let it drop away again. "It's not your fault, kid. This is war. You or them."

Face swallowed. "But aren't they just like us?"

Hannibal closed his eyes for a moment, not knowing what to answer to that. Because of course they were just like them. And yet they were not. "It's us or them." It was a cheap cop-out. But at least Face's eyes left the body on the floor, turning to him now. They were swimming in tears.

"I know, but... There'll be a day, maybe, when I'll choose them."

Hannibal swallowed against a giant lump in his throat. Damn, he had asked too much of Face. He wasn't ready for risky missions yet. How had he not seen that before now? "I'm sorry, Kid. My fault."

"Yes."

One word, spoken with so much undoubted conviction. It hurt, no matter that it was true.

"Yes," Face repeated, a bit smoother this time, "your fault. And mine. I should... should have told you, you can't count on me anymore."

"You worked pretty well, I'd say," Hannibal contradicted. He was not having anyone putting his men down, planting doubts in their minds; and that included his men themselves.

"No, no. Let me explain." Face wiped at his eyes, took a step away. "I'm not... no, you..." he fell silent, drew a deep breath to gather his wits, then looked sternly at Hannibal, "You, when you plan, right, you have us in mind." Hannibal nodded. "Us and our abilities and possibilities, right?"

"Sure, what else?"

"But you don't know my abilities anymore, Hannibal, you don't know me!"

Hannibal was silent, once more not quite sure what to say to that.

"I don't know about you, but I came out a different person," Face said, all the strength drained from his voice. "There are just things I can't do anymore," he said with an apologetic shrug.

"Like being in a little shed like this?" Hannibal asked. It had been there, right before his eyes, right from the start, and he had just ignored it. Because he had been so amped up to go back on real missions with his complete team. What a screw-up.

Face nodded. "I tried to tell you..."

"Yeah, I get that now. I should have paid better attention. I should have known you were not just bitching around." It was as close to an apology as he would go.

Face nodded. He understood and accepted it. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure." He patiently waited for Face to work up the nerve. It took a while.

"Who am I?" Face finally asked.

"Come again?" Hannibal blinked a few times with confusion. "I don't get that."

"Who am I?" Face repeated. "I am not Templeton Peck anymore. He died just before I came to Vietnam. And I'm not Face anymore, either. He died in the camp, in that cell. So who or what does that leave? Who am I?"

This time, Hannibal was not shot of an answer. "Well, leave it aside that I do believe there's still a heap of Face in you..." Face did not care much for that reply, obviously, so Hannibal quickly changed direction. "No matter who else you might be, for me, you'll always be my Kid. - Go with that?"

Face looked at him long and pensively. "Yeah," he finally said. "Yeah, I guess I can go with that." His eyes travelled around the small room aimlessly for a while.

Hannibal waited patiently again. He had failed Face at least one too many times already, he better start paying attention to him if he did not want to lose him after all.

"It's kinda funny, you know?" Face finally said, looking back at Hannibal.

And was it imagination, or was there really a spark of hope in his eyes?

"I don't think I've ever been anybody's kid before. Not really."

Not by choice, he means. "Well, you are now."

Please, excuse the sappy ending. :)

TBC in part three "Touch"