Well now, let's round this story up, before I disappear to Scotland for a week, shall we?
BA watched from the van's open side door how Bethany walked up the steps to the police-station, leading one boy on each hand. She was a very brave girl. Just having escaped a horrible situation herself, she had the strength to care and look out for her two little companions. It might not look like much, walking thirty yards to a police station. But with what the girl had gone through, every single step was an achievement.
BA was proud of her. She had briefly talked to her parents on the phone while they were on the way, but it had hardly been enough to really calm her down and restore her belief that things were indeed going to work out fine.
"Go, Murdock," BA said softly, his heart heavy with grief and sympathy and sadness and love.
He pulled the door shut, while Murdock slowly accelerated.
They were both quiet for a long while. Murdock heading for the highway, and BA leaning back in Face's usual seat.
BA's thoughts roamed from Bethany to Pete to the boy to Face back to Pete to Bethany the boy Face Pete Murdock...
Murdock was painfully quiet, BA realised with a sting to his heart. Murdock quiet was even more unnerving than Murdock talkative... Maybe unnerving wasn't naming it correctly, BA thought. Unsettling, yes, that's what it was. Murdock being all chitty-chatty meant that he was relatively fine, as fine as the Fool could be anyway. But when he was all quiet and brooding...
"Pull over there, I wanna drive," BA said.
Murdock obediently pulled to the side and slipped into Hannibal's seat.
A minute later BA filtered back into the light traffic.
"You think they're alright?" Murdock suddenly asked in a very subdued voice.
"Bethany and the boys?" BA asked, although, who else could Murdock mean?
"Yeah... Pete and Wilbur..."
"Wilbur?" BA's eyebrows shot up. "You don't know his name's Wilbur!"
"No, but I have to call him something, don't I?" Murdock countered defensively. "And it's certainly better than calling him Howie - or 'the boy', like you do."
"Just don't go and give him names that aren't his," BA grumbled angrily, although he actually agreed with Murdock there. Wilbur was indeed the better option out of the three. But Murdock was in the early stages of losing himself, and the best way to prevent that was to ground him, by force if necessary.
Murdock didn't say anything more for a while, probably sensing that there was trouble heading his way if he did. After a while he just repeated his question. "Do you think they're ok?"
"Yeah," BA simply answered.
"You think they're with their parents?"
"I'm sure."
"Maria surely hadn't made it yet."
"I'm sure they called her and let Pete talk with her some more."
"You think?"
"Yeah."
Another long silence in the van. BA was not sure what to think of it. Did it mean that he had failed, and Murdock was slipping, or had he succeeded, and Murdock was busy regaining his self control?
"BA?"
"Yeah?"
"You..." Murdock didn't go on, just sighed deeply.
"What is it, man?" BA stepped off the gas.
"Face," Murdock said after a minute.
"I'm not sure we should discuss him without him present," BA cautioned. Inwardly he kicked himself. He should have known that Face was the source of Murdock's destabilisation. He was wildly compassionate, so learning that one of his closest friends had suffered so... even if it had been thirty years ago...
"Yeah, no... I mean... Face..."
BA pulled over to the side and turned to look at Murdock. "Listen, Murdock. I still think we shouldn't talk about him while he's not here, just this much: It makes me furious. I've always known something's really wrong with him, but... this..." BA didn't know how to go on without damaging something. He could express his anger only physically, that's always been his problem. But if there was one thing Murdock didn't need right now, it was violence happening right next to him, so BA kept his mouth shut and his fists in check.
"He seems to deal so fine with it," Murdock said softly. "I mean... this morning he was a off, but in the evening... I mean, I lost it, and he went in in my place."
"If that's what's troubling you, man, then quit it right there. We've always taken over if one of us was not quite capable," BA retorted. Really, to get worked up over something like that! Didn't Murdock know that that's how they worked? Stepping in for each other?
Murdock forcefully pushing him came as a complete surprise. "But don't you understand?!" he shouted.
"What? NO!" Seriously, what was Murdock's problem? That he had messed up today, or finding out that Face had been abused? BA honestly did not know.
"How can Face when... did you know how many tapes there were of him? It started in '53, he's been only three years old back then! And they ended only in '55, that's..." Murdock looked at BA with big, accusing eyes. "That's two years, BA! Two years they've been doing I don't know what to him, and he's..." He didn't finish.
"And who's touched you?" BA asked softly, the realisation dropping on him like a ton of bricks.
Murdock blinked a couple of times before he answered. "My aunt Harriet." Curiously, he didn't seem at all surprised that BA had guessed. "She stayed with us for a couple months. She... I mean it didn't even hurt or anything, it was never anything drastic like..."
... like what Face had endured.
"It was just so... so... wrong. I knew it had to be wrong because of the way she went about it. I didn't like her before, and I surely didn't like her afterwards. I wished she'd get run over by a truck or something." There was rarely heard hate in his voice.
BA reached out to rub Murdock's shoulder. "If it helps you any, I don't think Face deals any better with it than you do. Just differently. Maybe not at all, I don't know. W´hat I do know is: We're all different. People deal with things in different ways. You're doing fine, Murdock. Just fine."
Murdock sniffed, then rubbed his hands over his eyes. "I like that, you know?" he asked, his voice heavy, but more alive, more like himself.
"What?"
"You calling me Murdock. I like it when you do that." Murdock managed a teary smile.
"It's your name, Fool," BA joked gently.
"Yeah..."
"Good to go?"
"Yeah. Hit the road, Jack."
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