AN: Thanks to everyone who have been reviewing and following this story! You guys are awesome.
Chapter title by Journey.
Renegade
"The jig is up the news is out they've finally found me
The renegade who had it made retrieved for a bounty
Never more to go astray
This will be the end today of the wanted man,"
—Styx
Chapter 7 – Only Solutions
Somewhere in Germany
1200 Hours
"Jamie…"
"I gotcha…I gotcha…"
He held her to him until he couldn't breathe. His tears melted into her hair and hers stained his shirt. They were both dirty and unkempt but alive, for the first time in months.
"Are you really my...my Laura Alice?"
She cried harder, and Murdock shushed her gently, eventually pulling away so he could wipe the tears from her red-rimmed eyes.
He kissed her on the forehead and she smiled. Gradually he pulled away entirely so Face could hug her warmly. Laura held on tight, fisting her hands in his jacket with her arms wrapped around his middle. He kissed the top of her head and she had to swallow past another round of emotion.
"Missed you," he told her.
"Missed you too, Temp," she sighed. He let go of her slowly, allowing Murdock to swing an arm around her shoulders as the five of them entered the shack together.
.
.
.
Laura had to watch their grief as their commander, the man they had trusted to lead them responsibly, their friend was revealed to be a traitor, a kidnapper, and a murderer. Not to mention their betrayer.
She watched her brother, older than all of his team except for Hannibal, finally act his age. Despite his obvious fury and thirst for revenge, he somehow remained the voice of reason and pulled Face away from doing something he would regret.
"If you kill him—"
"Everything that we stand for he goes against—"
"He is our only evidence, we'll have no proof—"
"He's ruined it!"
"Think about what you're doing, Face! Think about it!"
"Whoa, Face, calm down—"
"If you can't handle it—"
"Just stop! This isn't going to solve anything—"
"He kidnapped your sister!"
"And you know how bad I wanna kill 'im? Do you? But I'm thinkin' with my head—"
"He made a fool of us!"
"Stop it," Hannibal finally shouted, and looked directly to Face. "Listen to me, outside! Everybody, outside."
He grabbed Face's and B.A.'s shoulders and steered them toward the exit, while Murdock took one last look at the former General Morrison before turning to Laura. With a gentle nod and an outstretched arm, he beckoned her over, and he led her outside.
.
.
.
"Hannibal, it's meaningless. What are you fighting for now, those boys?"
Laura sat beside Murdock on the pier, shutting her eyes as the man's words carried.
"Your rank?"
Face clenched his fists that itched once again for his gun.
"Your reputation?"
B.A. stared at the tattoos on his hands, wondering who the fools really were.
"They're shit. You're convicts. Plates, no plates, you are federal fugitives. And when they're done with ya? They just fuckin' burn ya."
"Boss, could you do that?" Face asked, after the silence was starting to become too deafening. "To us, what Morrison did."
"No," Hannibal answered immediately, resolutely. "Never."
"Yeah, but you didn't see it comin' though."
"How long did you know it was him?" Murdock asked.
"Are you guys crazy?" B.A. said, and with a second glance at Murdock, "I know you are, but Face. Are you accusin' him?"
"Hey, hey," Hannibal stopped the argument there. "I'd rather face a firing squad than betray you boys. Don't let this tear us apart. Not now."
There was a heavy whir in the air that seemed to be coming from the west, steadily becoming louder. Hannibal shouted the command that sent them all diving into the frigid lake.
.
.
.
After getting themselves out of the lake and the plates out of the (totaled, more like obliterated) car, it was obvious that Morrison was dead. They had no way to clear their names, and Hannibal, for once, didn't know what to do.
But that was okay.
Face did.
A phone call to Sosa from an airboat cutting through the lake, was simultaneously a candid phone call to Lynch. It had the CIA agent on his toes, and thinking the team still had both Morrison and the plates, plus a location of where the hand off was going to take place.
A second phone call to Sosa had them flying a plane to a freighter in the middle of the Atlantic, making plans with red Solo cups and marbles, fireworks and heavy machinery.
Not to mention a mask that was made out of a little more than papier-mâché.
"For liiiife is but an operaaaaaaaa…"
Face continued looking at the plans laid out on the workbench in front of him.
"It's a bit off, isn't it," Murdock cleared his throat and tried for a higher pitch. Face smiled in belated amusement.
"Nah, it's good, it's—"
"Face, what's wrong."
Murdock took a seat across from him.
"Nah man, I'm just thinkin'. It's just, you know…we've always come back alive," Face said. "The four of us. Because of the old man."
"I know."
"I'm not him."
"Face, I know this."
"Murdock, I'm not Hannibal."
Murdock leaned forward at met his friend's gaze.
"Who has the most to lose on this, Face?" He gestured to himself. "Me. And I trust you."
"Yeah, I know, Murdock," Face smiled, chucked a little. "You're crazy."
Murdock smirked and set his latest creation on the bench with a slight flourish.
"Not that crazy."
Face admired the helmet and met Murdock's grin with one of his own.
"Nice."
"Ain't it pretty? Don't tell Laura about it, though." Face shook his head, grin still in place as Murdock stood. "I actually better go check on her. She looked about ready to drop when I saw her last."
No sooner had he said this that the sound of soft crying reached them from the next room down the hall. Both men sobered, and Face didn't think he would ever see such a heavy look on the older man's face. It chased away the light, teasing air the pilot had used to put Face at ease.
"Want me to come?" Face offered. Murdock shook his head minutely.
"Don't worry, Faceman, I've got this," he said with a slight smile, and hastened into the next room. He found his sister curled up on the cot, arms wrapped so tightly around herself and making her seem so much smaller than he remembered. It took merely three strides for him to be at her side, pulling her into his arms, his heart breaking when she woke with a start before clinging so desperately to him.
"Oh, Louanne…"
Few things she could utter that actually made sense. What registered most was his name and "don't go," as if he ever would. He spent several minutes reassuring her through gentle words, a hand smoothing over her hair, and wiping away tears from a chilled face.
It reminded him of a simpler time when they were growing up. When he could actually take care of his little sister's scuffed knees and sick days and nightmares from things she wasn't supposed to watch on TV but did it anyway because she was a Murdock, and Murdocks were often too stubborn and too curious for their own good.
But this wasn't something he could smooth a bandage over or check for the monsters under her bed. With six months to reflect, he now realized he hadn't taken proper care of Laura in a long time.
"You're all right now," Murdock soothed in a gentle whisper. "I'm never gonna leave, ya hear me?"
Never again, he promised, to both her and himself. You'll never be alone, and no one will ever hurt you again.
No one would ever get the chance, because he'd be waiting with an M-16 and a stick of C4 for whoever wanted to try it.
"We should be there in a couple hours, kid. In an hour get the team together," Hannibal called from the doorway.
"Got it, boss," Face replied and put down the model helicopter he'd been toying with. He met the colonel's gaze and nodded. Smith did the same and gaze a small smile before continuing on his way. Face's stare shifted down the hall, where the sound of crying had died down and been replaced by soft humming. He decided to stand and make his way into the hall.
"Niña bella, esta niña bella…"
Murdock's smooth, tenor voice carried from inside the next open door. Even though it was soft, the hull of the ship was devoid of much sound beside the engines and voices tended to echo. He followed the sound until finding two of his friends.
"La luna se pone felíz…cuando ella se duerme…"
Face smiled slightly at seeing Laura sleeping peacefully, her head pillowed by her brother's lap as he ran his fingers through her now long hair. He could see the dried tears on her pale face, but her body seemed more relaxed, less curled upon herself.
"Niña bella, niña preciosa…La luna se pone una sonrisa," Murdock sang softly, smiling at Face and encouraged him to sit beside him.
Face obliged and squeezed Murdock's shoulder comfortingly. He sat in silence and closed his eyes, leaned back against the wall as Murdock was and listened to the calming words. He'd heard bits and pieces of it before, but never the entire thing. Now that he heard it all put together the fragments made sense. They were actually beautiful in their simplicity as he mentally translated them into English.
Absently he wondered if Murdock had made it up, or if he'd heard it from somewhere. But with the little sleep they'd gotten over the past few days, his own eyes were beginning to feel heavy.
"Cuando estás dormía…"
Silence filled the room for a long moment, only the sound of Laura's deep, even breaths audible. Face opened his eyes then, and upon glancing over he noticed the gravity in Murdock's eyes, hard as flint.
"If you get a chance to kill Pike, make sure it's slow. Not like Morrison."
Never had he heard the pilot as deadly as he sounded. Looking down at Laura now, who had always been the one to welcome them after a mission, provide a listening ear for his bullshit, and stay up with him during mid-summer nights…Face understood. He felt the same burning anger lingering at the surface.
It would be his honor and privilege. For his brother in arms, and for his sleeping friend.
"You got it, buddy."
"I'd do it myself, but I'll most likely miss it due to my part in the plan."
"I'll let Hannibal know." He'd almost included B.A., but since the latter was on his supposed vow of world peace or whatever, he corrected himself. "He won't be getting away."
Murdock met Face's steeled gaze.
"And I promise it won't be painless."
.
.
.
It wasn't. After his plan went into works, the only loose end was Pike, who made it easy to find him by trying to blast Face with a rocket. The fight was grueling, injuries earned on both sides, but surprisingly enough, it was B.A. who put everything back into equilibrium when Face's plan worked, almost completely without a hitch.
Lynch was revealed to the entire DCIS and military police as the traitor they were looking for, and Laura, standing next to Lieutenant Sosa, saluted Hannibal.
"What do you think will happen to him?" Laura asked Sosa as they watched the DCIS bring Lynch, or more accurately Agent Vance Burns, into custody.
"Incarceration," the former captain replied. "If it were up to me, he'd serve a life sentence."
But it was obvious she didn't think the agent would stay that long. Unfortunately, there were gaps in the system that people like Burns tended to exploit.
"Well," Laura sighed. "At least the guys are—"
"Hey, get off!"
Laura turned at her brother's outcry and gasped as Military Police officers began apprehending Murdock with cuffs, along with the other members of the Team who resisted as physically and vocally as possible. She turned to Sosa and saw that the woman looked just as shocked and confused as she was.
"What the hell is—" Laura cut herself off and glared up at the taller man approaching with a smug look she immediately wanted to slap off of him.
"Well, that's one hell of a mess," said Director General Macready as he came to stand beside Sosa. She attempted to wrangle out an answer of him as to why he was there, but he all but ignored her, holding up a hand to silence her. "But we did get the plates."
His line of sight shifted from the wrecked harbor to the four men being restrained by military officers, all worse for wear and angry.
"Unfortunately, I'm going to have to charge you all with escaping lawful custody."
He didn't sound all that regretful, but Laura was going to make sure he would be.
"What? Hannibal, what's this guy talking about?" B.A. demanded, all the while struggling against the three MPs holding his arms back.
"We were wrongly convicted, but it's still illegal to break out of jail," Hannibal reminded ruefully. That didn't stop him from remaining rigid when officers tried to pull him toward a van that would most likely take them to their incarceration. Sosa silently fumed, but she knew Laura's tentative hold on her temper was about to blow a fuse, so she stepped in before the lieutenant did something rash.
"Director, Smith and his men were instrumental in recovering the plates," she said earnestly. The general didn't even spare her a glance.
"They're still level ten fugitives, and I need that off my desk," he said firmly.
"This is chicken shit, sir." Her tone made him actually look over at her coldly, matching her furious eyes with his sharp ones.
"Well, perhaps for them it's chicken shit, but for you, captain," at this she rolled her eyes, "we're re-promoting you to your former rank. So look, they're going to be delivered to the US Marshals here in Long Beach, and—"
"Hey! Who the fuck do you think you are?"
Sosa closed her eyes and groaned inwardly. The director general delicately raised a brow as his attention shifted to the young woman currently glowering up at him with livid green eyes.
"They've done nothing wrong—"
"I suggest you stand down, Lieutenant, before I charge you with abetting the escape of federal fugitives," he said coolly, though his eyes belied his anger at her blatant disrespect.
"Abetting?" Laura shouted incredulously. "They saved me from a corrupt military general, exposed him for what he was, then literally handed you the asshole CIA agent who tried to steal the plates in the first place!"
Her face was turning red with the force of her anger while her hands trembled. Sosa, several MPs and the team looked on with mixed expressions of surprise, wariness (mostly from Sosa and the four apprehended men), and fascination.
"Are you going to become a problem?" he asked, peering down at her through the thin rims of his glasses. Laura laughed mirthlessly.
"Oh, Director, I'm about to be your long-term problem," she promised, and pointed back to the team gazing at her with wide eyes (at least Murdock and Face were. B.A. was grinning wildly while Hannibal looked torn between concerned and longsuffering).
"I told you," Murdock whispered to Face. "You've never seen her angry."
Mentally he wanted to slap a hand over her mouth and drag her away before she did something stupid, like get herself arrested.
"I'll go to the US Marshalls in Long Beach right now and tell them—everyone—the truth. And I'll make sure they hear you're the one who wanted to cover it up," she said grimly. He smiled at her patronizingly.
"Who do you think is going to listen, Lieutenant? One woman's voice against the whole of the Military Police?" His voice was low with the thinly veiled threat as he leaned down slightly. Inwardly she felt the wall of her confidence begin to crumble, but outwardly she kept her ground as she stared up at him.
"You're not the whole military. You're just a man."
His thin, barely there smile was truly something to behold. It made her want to punch him square in the face.
"Laura," Murdock warned. Her eyes flitted over to him and caught his pleading expression.
Please, he thought. Your freedom—your life isn't worth it…
She ignored him.
Sorry, Jaime. This is worth it.
"You don't want to try me," he promised. "Unless you want to end up—"
Her right hook caught him just off the jaw and made him stumble back into two officers. Really, he shouldn't have leaned in so close.
Face and B.A. whooped their encouragements while Murdock, despite himself, howled with laughter from the mere shock of witnessing it. Hannibal allowed a smirk to curve his lips, but it was soon replaced by a frown and a call of warning that fell on deaf ears as Laura's arms were pulled forcefully behind her back.
"Now you can charge me with assaulting a federal officer!" she shouted at the (poor excuse for a) man, who fixed his glasses and held his jaw tenderly. He glared and barked out to the MPs holding her, "throw her in with the rest."
Sosa watched with a heavy gaze as Murdock tried in vain to kick at the officers holding his sister, though he did receive a hit to the side of the head by an MP, which resulted in Face intervening and a whole slew of struggling before three of the five were wrestled into the van.
"I'm a Harry Houdini!" Murdock said as they pushed him along. "You'll never be rid of me!"
"Let's go, keep moving," said one of the officers.
This is wrong, she thought.
She made a decision that she should have made a long time ago.
"Stop, wait," she commanded, fully aware that the director general was back in his car with the tinted windows up, probably nursing his bruised jaw. "Wait!"
Sosa stopped the officers holding Face and came to stand in front of him.
"This is so wrong," she said to him, touching his chest lightly, trying so desperately with her eyes to show him how sorry she was…for everything she'd never done. He gave her a grin that so many times had made her laugh without fail, had assured her that he couldn't fail.
"Don't worry about it," he said. His eyes looked down softly at her.
"It is, and I'm going to do everything I can to fix it," she whispered earnestly.
"I know you will." His voice was steady and firm, and she believed him.
"I'm so sorry, Face…" Now more than ever she wanted to make him believe her, and it was about time she started proving herself to him.
Sosa leaned up and pressed her lips to his, wanting to sigh into his as he deepened the kiss. Soon his lips curved into a smile over hers, and all too soon, she pulled away. And she walked away from him knowing she would see him again. It would probably be a long time though, and she hoped to God it would be.
The van began to move, but all of them were silent. They were all cuffed and bruised, some still bleeding, angry and hurt by the country they had lost their freedom fighting for. Laura leaned into Murdock's side as her gaze was cast to the floor. Until she heard,
"Nice plan, Face." Hannibal's tone wasn't altogether sarcastic, but the underlying question was, any more bright ideas?
"Yeah, we just traded Lynches and we're going back to prison," Murdock added grimly.
"We returned the plates. We can hold our heads high," said Hannibal. "We did the right thing."
"Yeah, after what they did to us," B.A. remarked gruffly. "This is bullshit."
"They burned us again, Hannibal. We trusted the system and it turned on us," Murdock said, a note of defeat in his voice. Hannibal's drive never waned though. He was treating their capture as a minor setback, though Murdock and B.A. gave him tired looks.
"Remember, no matter how random things might appear, there is still a plan," he insisted, and looked over to the conman who appeared to be smiling to himself. "Kid…"
The conman looked up at him with a shit-eating grin.
"Well, I don't mean to steal your line, boss, but uh…"
A slow smirk stretched across Hannibal's face, while Murdock and Laura looked up with dual expressions of wonder and excitement. B.A. chuckled.
Well, I be damned, he thought. Face let his smile widen, revealing a small key enclosed between his teeth.
"I love it when a plan comes together."
