Chapter 11

"Show me where it hurts most." Hannibal feared Face could have ripped something on the inside too. He didn't know whether to be relieved or not when Face's hand went to approximately the area of the broken rib. A closer look revealed that the fraction of the bone was no more in place, it could be seen with the naked eye.

"Try not to move, BA, go call Keith."

Face was still trembling from the earlier pain and the last thing on his mind was to move.

"Colonel, he moved out to the van before and nothing happened, all this talking upset him…"

"Murdock, stop. Those things happen, nobody can prevent them. This time he ran and struggled in his sleep, it's not the same as slowly inching his way forward."

A long hour later Keith was with them and checking Face over. "The stitches need to be replaced but what has me more concerned is the way the bone fragment is standing in the wrong direction. I can set it without going in but then I have to be sure it didn't cause any internal injury. I need a good x-ray and ultrasound to do it, the portable ones are not bad but for this I need to take him to my clinic."

"An hour in the car? That will be hell on him."

"Sorry Hannibal, maybe he'll pass out. One more thing, the military has been snooping around the first year after your run and I can't have that again…it almost broke my marriage then. I'll take him to my clinic but only him, you guys have to wait close by."

"No way."

"Han'bal…it's 'kay."

"No kid, it's not. I promised to never leave you alone and…"

"It's 'kay….I know….won't leave me. Wait…for me."

It wasn't as if they had much choice anyway. They picked up their belongings and moved Face into the van. Keith had been right, Face was out before he was settled. They drove to a motel not far from the clinic and Keith brought an ambulance from his clinic. The team handed over Face with mixed feelings and settled in for a long wait. When Keith returned about two hours later the relief was evident on everybody.

"He still out?"

"No BA, he's out again. He came around when I started setting the bone but not for long. It turned out the bone didn't cause any more damage. All he has to do now is lay very still for the next days." He left them with some meds and was on his way again.

Face woke up a little while later. While he was still half out of his mind, the pain was more bearable now. After about an hour of sitting around in the crowded room Murdock felt they needed something to talk about.

"This dream you had when you ran, what was it?"

"Um, Murdock…maybe now's not the time," Hannibal suggested.

Face held up a hand weakly and waved Hannibal off. "No…it's okay." Maybe it was the sedative still lingering in his system, but he actually wanted to talk to them…to let them in. "It…it wasn't one flashback. It was as if I was travelling through time or something. At first I was a little kid…probably about six…and I was looking out the window watching a couple walk away…again."

"Again?" B.A. asked.

"Yeah…every time prospective parents came they would be real nice to me," Face paused to catch his breath, "and then they would take a look at my file and…" Face's voice trailed off as he got caught up in a combination of the memory and a spasm of pain.

"And what was wrong with your file?"

"Well, colonel, remember my file in the Army?" Hannibal nodded. "It wasn't much better."

"What trouble could you have gotten into by the age of 6, man?" B.A. asked.

"It wasn't that I was a bad kid, but I had these awful nightmares that would keep me up at night. I'd wake up screaming and by morning I was so tired and everybody was mad at me for waking them up. Let's just say I acted out for a while."

"Sound more like you were crying out for attention."

"Dr. Murdock…there you go again," Face tried to joke.

"You were saying 'let me go'?" Hannibal probed.

A shadow passed over the injured man's face. "Oh that. That happened a few years later. I was small for my age and some of the older boys…well…they would hold me down…and mess with me."

"Mess with you how, Faceman?" B.A.'s tone was angry; nothing angered that large man more than a kid being hurt.

"Not…not that way." They all knew what Face meant. "They would just hit me…or spit on me…or burn me."

"Oh, kid."

Once more Face waved Hannibal off. "Hey…it's okay. It was a long time ago. All kids go through rough times."

Nobody said it, but the others were all thinking, 'maybe, but not as bad as that.'

"Before I woke up, I was back in Nam…that time when Walker and his men got their revenge." The pain meds were starting to wear off and as a result so was his desire to talk. "I'm…I'm tired…think I'll…try to sleep."

"Go ahead, son…I think we all could use some rest."

But Face couldn't sleep from the physical pain anymore than the others could from the memories. Their minds travelled back to that day more than a decade prior when Face paid the price for their actions. No wonder his mind transitioned to that during his nightmare; it was similar to what he had experienced in the orphanage.

It was about three months after the camps and they were relatively fit again. They were back on duty but only light recon missions and they missed the action. However, the nightmares were there almost constantly and they were by far not as sharp and fast as before. They were stationed in Nah Trang and therefore on relatively safe territory and had a lot of down time. The whole team was bored and Hannibal had a hard time trying to keep them busy and out of trouble. Next to their quarters was a team of ten muscle-packed soldiers, Walkers team. They were constantly out for trouble and complained about the screams coming from the A-Teams tent when one had a nightmare to the higher ups. Three times Hannibal had been called to the office to answer questions if his team was really fit for duty and he was bored with it. In addition they liked to push Face and Murdock around or trip them whenever they could.

Face and Murdock of course did their share of the bickering and took on to the shenanigans too, for example by exchanging their liquid soap with motor oil and mixing pepper into their toothpaste. Hannibal constantly scolded them for the tricks they played but also had a good laugh with them on the reactions coming from Walker's men.

One day he decided that they needed some real action to prove that they could still handle a big and strong team. He invited Walkers team for a challenge, the A-Team would put up an obstacle course and they would run it one by one. The A-Team members first, the members of Walkers team next. The team that had the fastest man would win. Walker was fast to agree, after all those walking cripples could never be faster than any of his men.

The course had a lot of wooden obstacles to balance on and ropes to swing over mud puddles. What Walkers men didn't know, and since they weren't too heavy on the brain side didn't find out before it was too late, was that the A-Team had used soap to make parts of the wood and the lower end of the ropes slippery. Since they knew where to step and which part of the rope to hold they all went through the short course in under ten minutes while Walkers men ended up mud covered and bruised. All the base shared a good laugh about how stupid they were and Walker swore revenge.

Nobody took him serious and at first it seemed it has worked. The constant complaints and the bullying around stopped completely. But then came the day that threw them far back in their healing.

One evening Face had felt bored and said he would go for a little walk around base. When he didn't return after 30 minutes Hannibal felt uneasy but decided to stay put. Face was grown and probably chatting up a girl. He would look stupid if he showed up like his nanny. After an hour the unease had grown to worry and Hannibal began to pace. Murdock and BA told him to calm down but Hannibal still decided to go for a walk, as he put it.

He walked without aim when he heard a low moan from behind some sheds. He ran towards the sound and found Face curled up with his clothes torn and sporting various injuries. Hannibal couldn't help the flashback to the camps, when Face was brought back from interrogation.

The kid spent three days in the infirmary and at least one, most of the time all, member of the team were with him at all time. Face had the physical injuries but the most damage was done to everybody's mental state. The nightmares were back full force and Hannibal feared for Murdock's sanity. Face was relatively fast in recovering, as they learned later he had enough experience with bullies to know how to push the fear down and move on. But Murdock had a tough time.

It was then that Murdock first really started to hear the voices…or at least it was the first time he started answering back. One minute he could be fine and the next he would be staring off into space or seeing things that weren't there. Face spent every waking hour with his best friend afraid that if he let him out of his sight the pilot would hurt himself or somebody else. Ironically that somebody else was Face himself, but the only ones that knew the details were the two of them.

The sound of heavy breathing pulled Hannibal, Murdock and B.A. from their thoughts.

"Thank God," Hannibal exhaled. "He's finally out again."

"Was you two thinkin' about what I was thinkin' about?"

"Walker's gang and the obstacle course?"

"Bingo!"

"No thanks…not my favorite game," Murdock quipped.

B.A. rolled his eyes. "Shut up, fool." But there was no anger behind the statement. He couldn't be angry after just thinking about how badly Murdock reacted to Face's beating. It was one thing to be tortured by the enemy…but another when it came from people on your own side. It was the straw that nearly broke Murdock's back for good.

"I wish I had shut up back then," Murdock whispered. "Then Face wouldn't have gotten hurt."

Hannibal placed a hand on Murdock's back and said, "you know none of that was your fault. Walker's team had the course coming to them…I would have never predicted they would hurt Face like they did afterwards."

Murdock drooped his head and shook it sadly. "That's not what I'm talking about. There's something…something Face and I never told you about."

B.A. furrowed his brow in confusion. "Are you sayin' that you hurt the Faceman?"

Murdock nodded miserably and began to explain. "When I saw Face battered like that, I mean after Walkers men had beaten him to pulp, you know my dreams got worse. It was like my mind couldn't grasp why this should be happening again now that we were no more at the mercy of the Viet Cong…."

"Not just your mind." BA's voice was unnaturally quiet.

"Well, Face always tried to comfort me after a bad dream but do you remember the time I rather got more agitated than to calm down? It went on for a while and Face came to question me about what was going on. I…I couldn't tell him what my dream was about but he wouldn't let up. I lied to him, to my best friend. I told him in my dreams I saw him all battered and bloody sitting in a tree and then he fell out of the tree and when I woke up like that and he was there I couldn't shake the dream and saw him all battered and bloody again, just like after we had found him or in the camps."

Murdock stopped and when Hannibal thought he wouldn't go on he questioned Murdock. "What was your dream really about?"

"Uhmm…really silly. I did see Face on a tree and he was all bloody and bruised….but in addition he had turned into a monster and jumped down from the tree to attack me. That's why I got so agitated when I woke up and saw him."

"And that lie hurt him? How did he find out?"

"Not the lie big guy, I hurt him. He wanted to prove to me that he could sit in a tree and come down alright and that there was nothing scary about that. We sneaked off base and into the jungle, just to where the first tall trees were. I didn't want to let him but he insisted to climb up and down to prove to me that there's nothing scary about that. Maybe that was how he dealt with his dreams, I don't know. He climbed up and my fears started to build but when he climbed back down I snapped, I saw the monster coming at me and blindly lashed out. Only when I did hear my name and noticed that the monster didn't fight back, my mind jumped back into place and I saw what I had done. I broke down completely as realization hit and instead of staying a safe distance away Face was there to comfort me, again. He was a mess but he comforted me, his attacker. I begged him not to tell you since I feared I would get sent home. Face assured me that nobody would find out and told me to go back to our quarters and get some rest. We walked back to base and he hid in some bushes while he told me to go ahead. The next thing I heard was that Face was in the stockade for being involved in a bar room brawl."

"Damn, I remember that time only too well, I was so pissed at him and let him feel it…"

"Turned out he had waited close by and watched the mess. At the first sign of trouble he went over and made sure it escalated. He used the brawl to explain away his injuries even if it meant some days in the stockade."

"Was…was worth it," came the weak voice from the bed.

"Sorry, kid...we should have been quieter."

"S'okay, Hannibal."

"Face, I never apologized to you," Murdock said having a hard time meeting his friend's eyes.

"For what?"

"For what we were just talking about…for attacking you and then letting you go to the stockade to cover it up."

"I just told you it was worth it.

Murdock shook his head which was still turned away. "No…it wasn't."

"Murdock, look at me," Face demanded. "Yes, it was worth it…you were worth it. I couldn't lose you. I was barely holding onto my sanity…I wasn't much better off than you. I was just a con-man and better at hiding things…I'd had a lot of practice at faking things."

"You coulda told us, man," B.A. said softly in order to ensure that Face knew he wasn't judging him.

"I know that now…I probably even knew that then. But I couldn't risk somebody else finding out and taking it out of your hands."

"I'm real proud of you, kid," Hannibal smiled placing a hand on top of Face's thigh. He looked at Murdock. "And nobody blames you, captain."

"Yeah, fool, so stop blamin' yourself."

Murdock finally smiled again. "I think Dr. Richter would be really impressed with us."

"I told you we'd be okay. We just had to stop over thinkin' things and start listenin' to each other again."

"You were right, big guy."

B.A. put a hand to his ear and pretended he hadn't heard. "What's that, crazy man?"

"I said you were right."

"Huh? Say it louder." B.A. leaned his body closer to the pilot.

Murdock rolled his eyes. "I said you were right."

"B.A. Baracus always right…and don't none of you forget it."

The quartet erupted into giggles; it felt so good to be silly and joking again.

The team was on the road to recovery, but it was sure to have some roadblocks along the way. The first one hit as Face tried to shift in his bed and immediately gritted his teeth and grimaced in pain. The joking atmosphere was gone from one second to the next.

"What is it kid? Talk to us."

"Umghhh." Talking wasn't a possibility right then, he first had to get his breathing back under control. His eyes were still closed but he felt hands on him, giving comfort through contact. As soon as the searing pain ebbed away enough to allow him some vision other than white with stars he opened his eyes and looked around. The concern he saw in three sets of eyes was so overwhelming that he felt he owed them an explanation, even though he was still panting and didn't trust his voice.

"Sore…from laying…down…moving…hurts so."

Hannibal was a bit relieved; he had feared something more might have happened. "Just lay still and don't try to move on your own. If you feel sore tell us and we'll shift you and push some pillows in place to hold you in position. Moving that way will still hurt but not as much as using your own muscles, give yourself some time to heal, your little jogging exercise has cost you a lot."

" M'kay." Face was exhausted and tired.

"Don't close your eyes yet, you need to eat something."

"M'not hungry."

"Just some oatmeal, you have to get stronger."

"Mmm…tired."

"I know, just a little bit. You need energy to recover. I promise you a surprise when you're strong enough to sit on your own."

Face ate a few spoonfuls and fell asleep.

"Colonel, I'm curious, what kind of surprise do you have in mind?"

"That's a surprise for you too, until then go and find out how an official adoption ceremony is done."

Murdock rubbed his hands together with excitement. "Hot diggity Billy!"

"You mean hot diggity dog, fool!"

"Isn't that what I just said?"

"Oh brother," B.A. groused. "But if the surprise is what it sounds like, than I'm cool with it. C'mon crazy man, we got work to do."