TOUCHED
Chapter 7
Rating: K+
Author: AlyshebaFan2
If you can find the reference to an INXS song in here, you get a cookie!
When Murdock knocked on Alexandra's door, he wasn't expecting it to open so soon, or for her to look not only angry but harried. Her hair was wrapped in a towel, she was wearing a silk bathrobe, and Nick's kitten was attached to the hem of the robe, nails dug determinedly into the material.
"You aren't ready?" he blurted out, before thinking. For a second, she looked like she might actually deck him.
"It is has been chaos all morning!" she said, forming each word through clenched teeth. "My first wedding wasn't this much of a bloody hassle, and it was practically a state occasion! And I swear, if this is all just a trick, they'll be finding parts of you all over California!"
He raised his hands in the air, index fingers pointed up, surrendering immediately. "It's not a trick. Honest!"
She rolled her eyes and stomped away, kitten swinging from her robe's hem. Nick came running out of his bedroom and would have tackled Murdock if the pilot hadn't moved quickly. He looked the boy over, holding him back at arm's length – the kid was dressed in a cowboy outfit, complete with boots and (plastic) spurs, a hat, a cowhide-pattern vest, sheriff's badge and a pair of silver six-shooters. Nick looked at him with wide-eyed curiosity as Murdock crouched down to look him in the eye. Murdock had always hated people who refused to look at him, when he'd been a kid, or teased him or asked him a bunch of questions he was in no mood to answer. So he felt it only right to talk directly to the kid, eye to eye, man to man.
"Hi. Remember me?" he asked.
"Yeah. You're the man my mum is marrying."
"Er…right."
"She says you're kinda strange, but that you're nice."
"She does?"
"Yeah." Nick took his cap guns out. "But if you're not, I'll shoot ya!"
"I'll keep that in mind," Murdock nodded gravely, and Nick seemed satisfied. He stood up and let the kid run off to hunt down rustlers. He followed his nose to Alexandra's kitchen, and he stepped in as she was pulling the kitten's little needle-like claws out of the hem of her robe. The top of the robe was open, and he got a bit too much of a good look for his own nerves' good. "Uh…hey," he cleared his throat, and Alexandra looked up at him. Just for a moment, their eyes met and they were both still. The kitten decided then that it was a good time to sink his claws into Murdock's ankle. The pilot yelped with pain and reached down to grab the little creature. He held it up to eye level, by its scruff, the kitten meowing piteously and actually looking apologetic as it dangled helplessly from his hand. But he knew better. Cats couldn't be trusted.
He put the cat on the counter top and looked at Alexandra, who was now clutching the top of her robe closed with one white hand, her cheeks pink. "I figured I would drive you into town. The blood test is in less than an hour, and we've lined up the JP for ten o'clock. Then we fly outta here after lunch."
"You didn't tell me you were a pilot."
"I don't guess I've told you much at all, have I? What do you want to know?"
"Well…your full name, I guess." Alexandra reached up to touch her hair, in that utterly female 'I'm totally in control' gesture, but was horrified to realize she was still wearing a towel. He felt sorry for her then – obviously, she was not in her element, and he was still basically a stranger to her.
"Captain James Quinn Murdock, Army Rangers," he told her. "Born July the twentieth nineteen-seventy-three in Llano, Texas. Father Hanson Murdock – no middle name. Mother named Alice Eleanor Quinn. Both dead." He eyed the kitten, which was batting at his hand, apparently hoping to draw blood this time. "He died when I was three days old – killed in a farming accident. She died when I was ten. Uterine cancer." He shuffled a little, not wanting to go any further.
Alexandra's eyes widened, and she nodded. "My parents died in a plane crash. He and my step-mother were going to a safari in Kenya, and the engine just…lost power." She snatched the kitten from the counter before it could finally make a leap for Murdock's wrist. "My mother…well, I told you about her."
"Right. What's your birthday?"
"January tenth, nineteen-eighty-two. Kedlington Castle, Cornwall. Would you like some coffee?"
"No thanks. So you're Cornish, huh?"
She smiled. "Yes. I grew up in the country, basically, near the sea. It's a beautiful part of England, not far from the Bodmin Moor – there used to be a mental hospital there, so if someone's crazy around tehre, they say he or she has 'gone Bodmin'. I didn't even go to London until I was fifteen. I had no idea so many people could live in one place at one time. Seemed quite impossible."
Murdock's mind was dwelling on Bodmin, but he forced himself out of there and to the present. "I didn't even go to Austin 'til I was ten. Llano isn't exactly a bustling metropolis, but it's still a pretty small town. I haven't been there in a while, though."
"It's near Austin?" She leaned back against the counter and kept an eye on the still determined kitten, which was now batting at her ankles. She shooed it away, but apparently Tinkle was made of sterner stuff. It tackled her slipper-shod foot.
"Yeah. Coupla hours north." Murdock finally had had enough of the little beast. He snatched it off the floor and tossed it onto the living room couch. The kitten only looked offended, not injured. "In the hill country. Really rough part of the world, actually. Not as in high crime rate, but hard to survive, and no place for the weak. I come from cedar whackers, m'self, but wanted no part of that. I always wanted to fly."
"What on earth is a cedar whacker?" she asked him. The coffee was ready, and she poured herself a cup. Murdock watched her take a sip of the strong black stuff and drew in his breath. He was marrying this woman, and he couldn't remember having even touched her, except for when he had prevented her from calling security at the hotel in Hong Kong. Even worse, he had the feeling she wasn't going to welcome him touching her at all, and probably never would.
Just what in hell are you getting yourself into, he asked himself. "It's…it's a term for…well, basically, a hillbilly. Respectable folks, but…uneducated, for the most part. Not stupid, but uneducated."
"Nothing wrong with hillbillies, and 'education' means nothing if you don't have any sense. There's even a few hillbillies in Britain…though I'm ashamed to say we usually just called them Scots."
Murdock snickered. "I come from them, too. All of 'em wearin' skirts and paintin' their faces blue, screamin' bloody murder and the like. They killed your ancestors at Stirling and Bannockburn, if I recall."
She smiled, and he knew she was thinking about her ancestors killing his at Flodden. But he was looking at her face, and that lovely smile, and Murdock felt his knees weaken. Get control of yourself, stupid, he told himself firmly. She's only marrying you in the technical sense, not in the biblical sense. She's like any other woman with good sense – she'll never want you.
Alexandra finished her coffee, looked around the kitchen for a moment, apparently frantic, then took a deep breath. "I had better go get dressed, right?"
"Right. Wedding's in two hours."
She dashed from the room as though she was being chased by demons, and a moment later he heard a door bang shut. Nick appeared then, and leveled his six-shooter at him. Murdock put his hands in the air, but the boy was apparently the 'wanted dead or alive means 'dead'' type, and shot the pilot in the chest. Murdock feigned death and staggered to the couch, prepared himself for his final soliloquy, but moved the kitten out of the way before he collapsed on the couch. "Get six jolly cowboys…" he gasped. "To carry my coffin. Get six dance-hall maidens…to…to bear up my…wheeze…pall. Put bunches of roses…all over my coffin…gack… Roses to deaden…the clods…gasp…as they fall…" He went limp, and Nick giggled. "For I'm shot in the breast…and I know I must die…" After a few moments, he sat up and looked at Nick, who watched him with interest. "Thank you, thank you. I'm here all night. Try the veal."
Alexandra stood in her bedroom, gasping for breath. She hadn't even thought…it hadn't even occurred to her that he might want this to be a real marriage. Any man would expect that, after all. It would only be normal, but she was not a normal woman, and this was not a normal marriage.
A pounding headache was starting up, the first she'd had in quite a while. But in the past four years, she hadn't allowed a man into her house, much less into her any part of her life. She had learned the hard way never to trust them, and yet here she was, jumping into marriage with her eyes shut, not thinking of the consequences, even if marriage would solve many of her problems and give her some degree of protection. Nevertheless, James Murdock didn't appear to be the sort of man, after all, who would just accept a marriage to a woman who wouldn't let him…
"Oh, God," she sat down on her bed. She had fled England because of her first marriage, and used what little cash she had on hand to buy a ticket to New York. She had bought a miserable little car that apparently been built by drunk Russians and had somehow made it to California. No one had really noticed her then – they had only seemed to pity her, as she had been a young, skinny thing with her arm in a cast and apt to burst into tears at the drop of a hat. People had been willing to help her, and every time the Yugo had broken down, folks were eager to do what they could for her. She had come down with what she thought was stomach flu somewhere in Oklahoma, but a doctor had told her that she was pregnant instead.
Pregnant, after a thirty-four hour marriage! If the situation hadn't been so bloody awful, it would have been a farce. Crying all the time, unable to hold anything down, and finally wrecking the hatchback (which she started calling a 'hunchback') outside Solvang, she had let the Lutherans take her in, and they had been incredibly kind and hadn't asked many questions. Just let her cry and vomit and hadn't said a word about the ugliness of her car or asked her how she'd broken her arm. She had given birth to nine pounds and six ounces of screaming baby boy on Christmas Eve, surprising everyone in the delivery room by praying ardently for a girl. Considering that childbirth had killed her mother and her grandmother, Alexandra had come through the three-hour ordeal with flying colors. "Easiest first-time delivery I ever saw," one of the doctors had said, right before she tried to kick him and called him a bloody twerp, and would he like to do it next time 'round?
Rubbing her eyes, Alexandra began changing into her 'wedding dress' – a cream-colored top and skirt that had somehow survived Nick's babyhood unscathed. She knew she would look awful – her hair was just barely under control, she was as pale as a ghost, and as she stood in front of her full-length mirror and observed herself, clad in just her underwear, she knew she wasn't likely to arouse anybody's passion. Not with those ugly marks on her belly and thighs. Fighting off her terror and denying she felt light-headed, Alexandra put her clothes on, searched desperately for some shoes that matched her outfit, or at least each other, and after finally finding them, begging God for calm, she stepped out of her bedroom, out into the hall and turned into the living room.
Nick was seated on the couch, playing with the kitten. James Murdock was looking out the front window, his back to her, hands stuffed in his pockets. She noted that he was still a rather thin man, but strongly built. She had to admit – he was attractive, with that apparently unmanageable hair and those green eyes. He had a way about him – that shy sweetness and awkwardness, but also a confidence and a self-assuredness that was entirely male and strangely soothing. But there was something else, and just then it finally hit her: he was just as damaged as she was.
He turned around and faced her, and nodded. "You're ready now?"
"I think so," she whispered back.
The blood test took little time at all, and then it was a quick drive to the Justice of the Peace. She wasn't surprised to see his friends waiting for them, ready to stand witness to this bizarre union. Alexandra was even more surprised to find that the JP was a tall, lean man who bore an unnerving resemblance to Andy Griffith and who performed the ceremony without any folderol. She glanced up at the man beside her, who was transformed from total stranger to husband when she finally said 'I do'. She was not required to kiss the groom, and he made no move to touch her at all. He only nodded. His friends, particularly Lieutenant Peck, looked pleased with how well things had gone. Colonel Smith clapped Murdock on the shoulder and almost knocked him over.
It was all kind of a let-down, she thought as she sat in the back seat of a Corvette driven by Lieutenant Peck. Sergeant Baracus was seated next to him. Colonel Smith had declared, after the ceremony, that he had business to attend to and would meet them back in Los Angeles later. In between herself and Murdock sat her son, who seemed curious about the whole thing and was asking a million questions a minute, but she had to admit she was pleased that Peck and her new husband both were answering him patiently. Pretty soon, though, he would start asking why the sky was blue and where did frogs come from and what sound does a giraffe make when it's angry. She adored her son, but she knew any four-year old could get on a man's nerves. Yet none of them, least of all James, appeared irritated at all.
"Are we going to McDonald's for lunch?" Nick asked eagerly.
"Um…" Murdock actually seemed amenable to the idea, but Face shook his head, looking at Nick via the rearview mirror.
"Not today, bud. We're gonna have steak, and then Murd-…er, James here will fly you and your mom to L.A."
Nick looked at Murdock, eyes wide. "You can fly?" he asked, eyes wide with admiration. "Really?"
"Yeah." Murdock futzed with his tie. He was feeling a lot like the day he'd been shot in the head, pretending to be General Morrison. He glanced up into the mirror and caught Face's eye. The conman just grinned. B.A. looked back at him, looked like he was about to say something, but caught the look on the kid's face and seemed to change his mind.
"I can fly," Murdock reiterated. "We all have wings. Some of us…well, some of us just don't know why."
Alexandra strapped herself into her seat, checked Nick's seatbelt as well and looked up at her new husband, who was doing a fast flight check. He seemed awfully rushed, but she didn't think anything of it until she looked out the window and saw a furious-looking little man shouting and running toward the plane.
"Um…James, why does that man look so angry?" she asked mildly.
"Hm?" He peeked out the side window of the cockpit and winced. "Oh. Yeah. Well…er…he has…er…Tourette's. We're lookin' into it." He looked out at Manny, the man he was borrowing the plane from. The plane's owner – who owed the A-Team more favors than he could count – had thrown his clipboard down and was jumping up and down on it, shaking his fists, screaming and cursing. Fortunately, no one could hear him out there, much less inside the plane.
So what if Manny hadn't been aware that his plane was being borrowed until now? He'd get over it, and the plane would be stored safely at LAX. No problem. He got on the horn and called the tower. "Hey, Mitch, tell Manny to remember to take that high BP medicine tonight and not worry 'bout his plane, okay?"
"Murdock, I swear to God, if this was anybody but you, I'd've called the cops!" Mitch yelled back. "Now get going!"
Alexandra was aghast. "You're stealing this plane?"
"Uh…strategically borrowing it, actually, is the proper term," he answered with a smile. "Anyway…uh…hm…okay, everybody, hold on to your butts!" He fired up the engine, grinned as it began purring like Nick's kitten after a milk binge, and turned toward the lane. "We're expecting clear skies and sunshine today," he announced. "Watch out for flying saucers."
An angry female voice came over the horn then. "James Murdock, this is Cecily!"
"Hiya, Cec," Murdock winced. Manny's wife was almost as profane as her husband, and he glanced back at Nick. "There's a kid in here, so mind your manners."
"Listen to me, you lunatic. You wreck that plane and…"
"Now have I ever wrecked a plane?" he asked, glancing back at Alexandra and giving her a twitchy little smile.
"Yes! You have!"
"I was shot down!" he snapped, offended. "And as I recall, we managed to escape…albeit into a tank, but you can't be picky 'bout stuff like that…"
A tank? Alexandra mouthed.
Cecily shouted a few more things at Murdock, and he shut off the horn before the rest of one particular word could get through, and spoke sharply into the mike. "Now listen here, that was also a combat situation, and my mother was a saint, so neither of those comments are appreciated in the least. So if you wanna catch me, just break out your broom and your flyin' monkeys an' come get me! Peace out, and really, baby, shave your legs. Don't you know fur is dead?" He turned off the horn and settled in for a quick flight. He looked back at his wife, caught her wide eyes and gave her a confident smile. "We'll be in L.A. in about…mm…an hour or so. Just sit back and relax. It's all clear skies from here on in. I know it."
Alexandra studied her husband, once he had turned back to man the controls. With his confidence and sweet, goofy humor, she could almost believe every word he said.
