Everything seemed to freeze. Two shots. One dead. Dr Criss fell to the floor, bleeding from a bullet in his head. Hannibal was holding the gun. He'd heard the shout first. Reacted more on instinct than anything else. And now the bastard was dead. So why did he feel so empty. The Doctor deserved it but he couldn't help thinking back to what they'd promised. No more killing. That wasn't who they were. And now someone was dead.
"Murdock?" Face watched at the blood seeped from the Captains shoulder. He had a hand pressed on his shoulder. Hot red blood was coming out.
"You were lucky it went through fool." BA growled, pulling Murdock's hand away from the wound.
"I've got the leprechaun's luck." Murdock said grinning.
"He needs a doctor." Amy was saying, looking at the team. Murdock was bleeding. Hannibal had killed someone. How had this happened?
"What happened?" Hannibal turned to look at them, a blank expression on his face.
"Fool stepped in front of the bullet." BA growled.
"You okay Hannibal?" Face asked. He'd let this happen. If he hadn't lost control this wouldn't have happened. Murdock had stood in front of him. Stopped him from taking the bullet.
"Fine. We need to get Murdock to a hospital."
"What 'bout this place, Colonel?" Murdock was growing steadily paler. He was losing a lot of blood.
Hannibal stood, thinking for a moment. He was stuck on autopilot right now. Think of a plan. A plan. That's what the team needed. They couldn't have him falling apart. The plan had failed and someone had gotten hurt. Someone had died. No autopilot. Sort this mess out first. "Face, you and Amy take Murdock to the hospital. BA you stay and help me with this."
Face gently let Murdock lean on him a little, not wanting his friend to collapse from the blood loss. Amy ran ahead, going to open the car door. Autopilot. Face had to help Murdock. He couldn't let his emotions get the best of him. Lock them up. Autopilot was the only way to do that.
Murdock was seeing black dots dancing around his vision. They looked kind of like the purple Wobblies. They weren't any good. They made his head hurt. He was vaguely aware of Face's presences. Murdock was going on autopilot, like the plane.
"I'll drive." Amy stated, helping Face get Murdock into the seat. She'd never expected Hannibal's plan to go so drastically wrong. How had it gone so wrong? Amy didn't understand it. But she couldn't dwell on it. She had to get Murdock help. Then they'd sort out this mess. Stay on autopilot and get Murdock to a hospital.
"Go get all of the orderlies and lock them in a room." BA heard Hannibal say as the Colonel was rummaging through papers. Stuck on autopilot, BA left the room to gather them up. The fool had gotten himself shot. They were all fools though. Fool's for thinking this plan was going to work. It was a stupid plan. They'd all known it. But none of them had stopped it. Fools. All of them. Even him. Fools.
LINE BREAK
"How you doing?" Amy asked, sitting on the chair next to Murdock's. Hannibal and Face were staying unusually quiet, leaving it to her to make conversation.
"Loopy." Murdock replied, giving her a grin. He was fin. The Doctor said nothing was nicked so all they had to do wait until the shoulder healed.
Hannibal had called the police, telling them what had happened. Giving them all the information they needed. He knew they had to get out. Sure they'd be shutting down the ward but the fact still remained. Dr Criss was dead. It didn't matter that he deserved it. He was dead. BA and he had gotten rid of as much evidence as they could. Hopefully they wouldn't make the connection. But still. They needed to get out of here. Lie low for a while. Sort out all of this.
"You better be fool. We need to be on the road by tomorrow." BA said, trying to sound threatening but it was obvious that the big guy wasn't in it.
"Only if they don't notice that Imma crazy fool." Murdock said, imitating BA's voice, expecting a smile to escape Face and Hannibal. It didn't. Hannibal seemed to be in a world of his own and Face wasn't even pretending he wasn't listening. Both of them were out of it.
The team spent the night in Murdock's room. Amy was chatting with the crazy fool and BA was telling them to shut up. Hannibal joined in the conversation a little while later, going back to how he always was. Face didn't though. He sat in the corner, looking guilty. They knew he was blaming himself but no one wanted to broach the subject.
Face was re-building the walls around him. There would be no getting through to him. They needed privacy to do that. Something they wouldn't get here. No they would have to wait.
LINE BREAK
"Don't get the cast wet." The Doctor stated as he was signing paper's for Murdock's release. The pilot had a cast on with a sling. That was going to be hard to explain to the VA doctors.
"We'll keep him away from any water." Face said. The mask was back up. He was taking control again and consequently was joining in with the conversation. Playing his part. Not really there though.
"But what if Billy wants to play?"
"There ain't no dog fool." BA said, angrily.
"Hey, maybe BA can play with him for me" Murdock meant it to aggravate BA.
"I ain't playin' with no invisible dog fool." BA said.
They all noticed though. The play between the two was for show. To keep things looking as normal as possible. BA was too worried about them to really be angry with Murdock. But normality was the best thing for them. Keep their minds off of things.
The drive to the house was a silent one. No one wanted to talk. No one knew what to say.
Right I do not like this chapter and I know it is very short. However, there is absolutely no way to make it better and no way to make it longer. This is a filler chapter and the next chapter should be better and a lot longer, in theory.