Who is Daddy?

'…and thanks to an anonymous tip the Los Angeles Police Department made over two dozen arrests on Friday afternoon, during a drug bust in LA's warehouse district. The elusive narcotics ring—run by five time felon, Jack Stiles—was rumored to have ties with a Chinese gang known as the Black Dragons.

Yesterday the rumor was proven true, when thirty-six year old Hu Chen, an enforcer for the Black Dragons, was apprehended on site. Over ten thousand dollars worth of heroine was also found on premises. Chen and Stiles have been charged with illegal possession, extortion, and the first degree murder of eighteen year old Kyle Franco. Stiles has named Chen as co-conspirator in the murder—'

Murdock switched off the TV, dissolving the pretty blonde news reporter mid sentence. It didn't matter though; he hadn't really liked her royal blue suit anyway. Dropping the remote on the mattress beside him, he returned his attention to the newest copy of Fantastic Four spread open on his lap. He had heard enough about Stiles, the Black Dragons, and Stiletto (or rather, Hu Chen) to last him a lifetime. Issue two hundred and sixty-seven was, for the moment, much more interesting.

Back in the VA again, it'd been almost a full day since the escape from the warehouse. Murdock could still hear Hannibal chuckling, "I love it when a plan comes together", around a spent cigar all the way to their client's home. The mission had wrapped itself up nice and neat once they had regrouped –with Hu Chen's arrest as an added bonus. When Face had relayed they had left the man unconscious in an alley for the police, the Colonel had been on cloud nine. Now with the imminent conviction for Franco's death, Murdock knew Hannibal would be completely satisfied for at least a week.

Flipping to the next page, he barely read the blurbs on the colored frames. As much as he wanted to know if Mr. Fantastic and Dr. Octopus would save Invisible Woman, Murdock just couldn't concentrate on the story. His head was still trying to catch up with the events of the past day, and despite the old adage 'all's well that ends well', he couldn't seem to shake it off. Things weren't back to normal –he wasn't even sure they ever would be. Face had graciously kept quiet about the incident in the bay and the alley, assuring him they were still solid friends. And since B.A. and Hannibal were none the wiser, Murdock knew there was only one other thing he needed to make right.

He needed to apologize to Amy.

Just then there was a soft tap at his door, "Mr. Murdock, visitor for you." A female voice said from somewhere beyond the white metal grill of room 104.

Murdock would have recognized the sound of Nurse Shannon anywhere. Her voice was as light and sweet as her person. A transfer from Ireland, her accent was also a dead giveaway. Everyone else in the psychiatric wing called the young nurse Cat, short for Caitlin. He preferred Kitty-cat.

Smiling mischievously down at the comic book, he thumbed another page and crossed his ankles languidly.

"Aw Kitty, just tell Orson I'm out of my mind right now. His Immenseness can simply leave a message between the beeps. Beep—"

The bolt slid backward in the lock and the door swung open.

"—beep." Murdock finished. Glancing up, he fully expected one of Decker's men to walk through. His heart skipped a beat when instead Amy Allen strolled in; wearing a cropped grey suit jacket, white ruffled blouse, and a charcoal colored pencil skirt. A tan purse hung from one shoulder and a folded newspaper was tucked under her left arm. She appeared ready for work. It was still early in the morning; she must have been on her way.

"Nanu, nanu Murdock," Amy said dryly. A warm smile spread across her face, surprising him further.

Slamming the comic shut, Murdock tossed it aside and scrambled to his feet. Climbing off the bed, he wiped a hand on his t-shirt and grabbed for hers.

"Hey Chi—er—Amy," He said, shaking her hand firmly up and down. Trying to hide his excitement at seeing her, he opted to refrain from pet names. They hadn't spoken since the incident in the alley. He didn't know why she'd come to visit him –let alone how she felt about him.

Amy let him pump her arm, trying to keep her purse strap from slipping off her shoulder. "Hello, Murdock." She said, grinning lightly. Despite his genuine affection, she could feel his hesitation. His nervousness was intensifying his open personality, leaving her with tennis elbow.

"New shirt?" Amy asked, trying to switch his attention away from greeting her.

It worked. Murdock dropped her hand to look down at his chest. Printed in white letters, across dark green fabric, was the sentence: 'ask me about my vow of silence.'

"Uh, no," He mumbled, pausing to reread the phrase. "Fa—," He stopped, realizing Shannon was still standing in the doorway. Looking up he shot a small frown in the nurse's direction, before slipping into a practiced upper crust accent. "I mean, Senator Temp gave it to me for supporting him during his campaign last year. I, ha, stuffed the ballot box for him. We got caught. I pled insanity."

Amy rolled her eyes. Turning around, she faced the pretty nurse, all business. "Excuse me, would it be alright if we go for a walk outside?"

Shannon nodded her head, her wavy red hair sweeping her shoulders. Her girlish figure and long legs weren't quite hidden beneath the standard Barco tuck-waist dress and white stockings she wore. To Amy, the young woman looked old enough for a candy striper not a nurse.

"Of course you can ma'am." Shannon said agreeably, turning her short A's long. "Do you need any assistance in reaching the grounds then?"

"I think we've got it covered Kitty." Murdock nodded kindly, tugging on his cap brim.

"Very well, not long though, Mr. Murdock has group art session at eleven."

"Okay." Amy smiled. The nurse left.

Biting her lip to keep from laughing, Amy turned slowly around unable to resist a tease, "So, group art?"

"Finger paints," Murdock replied. Completely uninterested he brushed off his shirt front and bent to pick up his jacket from the foot of the bed.

Once he had slid the A-2 on, Amy flipped out the newspaper and smacked his arm lightly. "Come on, we have to talk…"

They needed to talk. They had to talk. She wanted to talk…

…so why couldn't he?

Murdock played with edge of the lace runner in front of him. A stream of early afternoon sun slipped in through the kitchen window and dappled the surface of the mahogany table top. The excess spread over the white and yellow linoleum floor below, warming the dog lying beside his chair. Outside, despite the sunshine, frost still clung to the cold glass panes.

Boston. Murdock could hardly believe where he was. It all felt like a strange dream. Him sitting in a kitchen, wearing a full dress uniform, with an arm in a sling and a dog at his feet, while tea water boiled on the stove, when a day before he'd been climbing into the belly of a C-130 and sweating inside his collar. Yet, what made the moment most poignant was the woman standing across from him. A woman he could only think of as the widow of his best friend.

The tea whistle blew, shattering the silence in the dead house. Claire had been waiting for the boil, leaning against the countertop arms folded. At the sound, she promptly turned off the stove and picked up the kettle to pour two mugs.

Murdock watched the paper tags on the teabags jump as the hot water hit the filters. He had the over whelming feeling he should be speaking, but he just didn't know what to say. He did know that Claire was waiting for him to make the next move. She'd managed to invite him in after the breakdown on the front porch, and was now offering him tea. It was his turn to reciprocate the gestures. Unfortunately, all he could do was sit useless in the kitchen chair like a green conehead.

"Milk no sugar, right?" Claire asked quietly, stirring lazily with a spoon.

Murdock glanced up and nodded. "Ye, yeah," He managed, clearing his throat when his words faltered, "How did you know?"

Claire shrugged. "Something Daryl wrote once. He said, outside of a chocolate bar, you were annoyingly responsible about anything sugary. Apparently, you made him feel guilty for putting sugar on his Rice Krispies once."

Murdock felt a smile tug on his lips at the memory. "And the milk?"

"It's not powdered." Claire replied, carrying the mugs over. "So I figured you'd want some. Lucky guess, huh?" She set both cups down and pulled out a chair for herself.

Murdock drew the mug closer, letting his good hand rest loosely around the outside. He felt the heat radiating through the ceramic. It burned his palm, but he didn't move. Instead he found the pain to be a comfort. At least he could control it. By keeping his hand still he was inflicting the hurt on himself –a change from the last three weeks of his life.

"Where are the girls?" Murdock asked, finally finding his voice. Claire blew gently across the surface of her tea, but didn't drink.

"They're with my parents right now," She checked her wrist watch. "They should be home soon though."

"Oh." Murdock took a tentative sip from his mug. The action gave him a chance to think of what to say next. His brain was completely useless. It irked him. "So how are they doing?"

Claire set her mug down and tapped the table with a fingernail. "Fine, I suppose. I don't really think either of them comprehends yet. May perhaps, but Joanie…because of the war she's never even met her father. Daryl was overseas when she was born. How is a child who never understood the word 'daddy', supposed to understand she's lost one?"

Murdock ran his hand over his chin, stomach clenching. "I'm so sorry, Claire." He said. And he meant it.

"It's not your fault H.M.," Claire sighed, looking down at her hands. She failed to catch the frown which crossed his brow at her words. Murdock's throat tightened...wasn't it?

Sitting back in the chair, Claire crossed one leg over her knee and smoothed a wrinkle in her jeans with her palm. "I'm thinking of keeping the girls out of school for a while; maybe teach them here at home. At least until all this anti-war business dies down some. There was another protest in the city on New Year's Eve, and the last thing I need, or want, is my daughters being fed some New Left SDS garbage about their father by dissidents. Plus, I'd rather not have the pity of the other mothers to deal with right now. Most of them are worse than the hippies."

"Yeah, I can appreciate that." Murdock said his throat catching. He cleared it again, and nodded, trying to keep it together. "How are you doing? Are you coping with…everything?"

Brushing a stray strand of blonde hair from her eyes, Claire shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know. How does anyone really cope with any of this?"

The question was rhetorical, but Murdock wished he knew the answer.

"You know," Claire continued with a wave of her hand, "Christmas Eve my husband and I were talking long distance from Son Tra, and now," her chin trembled, "and now, three weeks later he's dead and buried, and I'm stuck in a house with our kids, receiving condolences from a bunch of people I barely know. It's surreal."

"Yeah, surreal," Murdock mumbled taking another drink. The tea burned all the way down his chest. "Um, how was the funeral?"

"It went well." Claire replied still tapping her finger absentmindedly. "Some of his old friends from Hanscom Air Base were there. It was all very brass and polish. I even got a folded flag. The weather was perfect too, for mid-January. I wish you could have been there." She added wistfully.

Murdock winced inwardly. "I tried, I really did. You have no idea how many hoops I jumped through to even get this far. I had to call in a marker with an Agent Cheney from the Agency –something I know will come back to bite me."

"It's okay, H.M. I know you did your best. Daryl always said you were ace." Claire smiled, but it failed to reach her tired eyes. "I'm surprised it was so difficult. I mean, you are wounded. Aren't you entitled to a recovery leave or something?"

Now it was Murdock's turn to shrug lopsidedly. "Not stateside –although not for lack of trying. I did get shot, which is half the work, but my wound isn't permanently debilitating. So instead of shipping me home, they just pinned a purple heart to my chest and said 'have a nice layup in Da Nang for two weeks'. Which isn't the worst thing, they do have nice beaches there…and drinks with little grenade pin umbrellas."

This time, Claire's smile broke into a small laugh. Murdock felt better for having heard it and grinned despite himself.

"A purple heart," Claire reached into her pocket. "I've been carrying Daryl's around for the last week." She pulled the medal free and set it on the table. Murdock glanced down, taking in the heart shaped, purple enamel, rimmed with gold. The profile of George Washington—topped with a red and white coat of arms between two sprigs of green leaves—was familiar to him. Murdock knew, like his medal, that this one also bore the words, 'for military merit', engraved on the reverse side.

"It's too bad we aren't family. Then they would have let you come." Claire said thoughtfully.

"I doubt it, but the Red Cross did refuse my hardship request because we weren't related. However, that's not the only reason I was stonewalled." Murdock reached into his dress jacket and fished out a folded envelope. "I learned I've been under observation for the past two months. I guess they didn't want to run the risk of giving me leave stateside, and then having me go AWOL." He handed the envelope to Claire. She took it with interest. "Before I left, HQ gave me these. They're transfer orders; I'm being reassigned to a new unit under a man called John Hannibal Smith."

Claire skimmed the typed paper she'd drawn from the envelope. "It says here, that you were selected from five other candidates. What is this, some kind of ultimate Army thing?"

"I dunno. It's a Special Forces group. They're all elitists." Murdock snorted. "Daryl would pitch a fit if he knew I was flying for an SF Colonel. In fact I'm not too happy about it either, but I have my orders. C'est la vie as it were."

Nodding sympathetically at his 'such is life' remark, Claire refolded the letter and slipped it into the envelope again. Without a word, she extended it forward. Murdock reached for the packet, only to have it pulled back at the last second. Claire looked him straight in the eye, her expression serious.

"Whatever you do H.M., please stay safe." She said quietly.

Her conviction caught him off guard. For a moment there was silence between them.

After a beat, Murdock shook himself free of the thousand and one deaths which had flitted through his mind at her words. "Always," He heard himself whisper, his fingers gently taking the envelope. Claire released it, wrapping her arms about herself protectively. Her long sweater sleeves hid most of her hands from view, but Murdock could still see the fingers of her right hand ticking evenly.

It must be subconscious anxiety, he noted sadly. He knew he only had an inkling of what she must have been going through. His heart hurt with her, and he wanted to make it right. If only he could give her husband back to her. At this thought, Murdock suddenly remembered why he had come.

"I, uh, brought something for you." He said, tripping on his words. Bending down, he gave the dog a quick pat on the head and picked up the package he arrived with.

Claire shifted uncomfortably in her seat when he handed her the brown paper bundle. She gingerly took it into her lap.

"It's some of Daryl's personal effects." Murdock explained. "I found them in our hooch while I was packing my things."

Slowly undoing the paper, Claire unveiled Daryl's folded A-2. The tiger leered upward, ferocious, and half covered by several Polaroid snapshots, a letter, and a poker chip. Murdock watched her face brighten.

"I remember this –his lucky chip!" She exclaimed, holding it up. Balancing the coin-like, red striped, object near her knuckles she rolled it expertly from finger to finger and back again. "I can still do it, can you believe it?"

Murdock grinned. "Bravo."

"Brava." She replied with an impish smile. Picking up a Polaroid, Claire shook her head. "Oh, I know this. Daryl sent me a similar one of you two. May and Joanie have it taped to their bedroom wall." She turned the picture around. It was one Murdock had seen many times –a photo of Pots and him on a supply run in Da Nang. They'd found a gunship helicopter on the maintenance tarmac and had posed for a take with the new Swinger camera they had borrowed from Stevens.

"Yeah, I remember that too." He said.

At that moment, the doorbell rang. Murdock jumped at the unexpected noise, and at his feet Molly scrambled to gain her paws. Claire quickly checked her watch –she had been in the process of opening the envelope addressed to her.

"Oh, that must be my parents with the girls –excuse me." Shoving the opened package onto the table top, she stood hastily. Still holding the letter, Claire hurried into the foyer trailing the dog. Murdock watched until she turned a corner out of view.

Twisting back around in his chair, he straightened his collar nervously. His heart suddenly rose in his throat as he heard the front door open, and the cacophony voices which followed forced him to stand. Murdock's chest tightened in mild panic. The last thing he had wanted to do was face the children.

"In here." Claire's voice floated down the hall nearly drowned out by the scrabble of dog nails and childish squeals.

For the second time that day, Murdock clamped down on the urge to run. His pulse quickened and he waited, his fingers curling into an anxious fist.

May was the first to appear in the kitchen, still wearing her snow boots. She was tall for her age, with long, silk blonde hair and a slight frame. Even as she ran into the room, her step held an overly energetic bounce which spelled trouble on every form. Murdock arched an eyebrow and watched her shed her winter coat, dropping it on the floor. Next off was her knit hat and scarf, both hit the linoleum one after the other. Tearing her gloves free the little girl made a beeline for the refrigerator, leaving a trail of winter wear behind.

Half way to her destination, May suddenly halted realizing she was not alone. Her large blue eyes widened at the sight of him, and for a moment Murdock was worried he had frightened her.

"Hello." He said, bending down to crouch at her level. He hoped it would make him less threatening.

May didn't respond. Instead she simply stared at him, pulling on her lower lip with a forefinger. Her fair cheeks were still bright pink from the outdoors and she continued to bounce in place as she observed him inquisitively. Her flannel long sleeve blouse and denim blue jeans, made her look more like a mini grownup then a child. Murdock noticed Daryl's dog tags dangling around her neck.

"Hey, I have one of those too." He said, tugging his own ID tags from his buttoned collar. "See?" He held them up for her benefit.

For a second, May's gaze flitted between the dog tags and his pilot's cap sitting on the table. Then, without a word, she ran straight for him. Murdock braced himself at the last second. He compensated for balance, grunting in surprise as she threw her arms about his neck in a strangling hug.

"Whoa, Chiquita," He said lightly with a soft chuckle and an involuntary wince. Her tiny body had jarred his healing arm on impact. Patting her back awkwardly, he felt the little girl burry her face against his neck. Her nose was cold.

Like mother like daughter. Murdock mused, feeling slightly bewildered and uncomfortable. "Hey now darlin…" He tried to gently pry her free. Her hold only tightened in response.

"May, I told you to wait for mommy…" Claire swept into the kitchen retrieving discarded clothing. She stopped short upon seeing the midget high embrace.

Murdock fumbled, embarrassed. "I'm sorry, she just…" He stood up hastily, taking his stubborn cling-on with him. May wrapped her legs about his waist as he held her, still hugging his neck.

Claire smiled and shook her head in amusement. "I told her Uncle H.M. was here, I think she thought I meant another picture." Still smiling, she moved to pull off the little girls damp boots. Murdock turned to allow her better access and looked at the refrigerator door. A collage of photos and several Child's drawings were tacked to the white doors with colorful magnets. Most of the pictures were family related. There was a large majority of Daryl, but some were of him as well. Murdock was surprised by this. He had never been included on a family fridge before.

"Well that explains it then." He said, his voice strained –more from emotion then May's death grip. Claire patted his shoulder and called to her parents who had now entered the kitchen.

"Dad, Mom, this is Captain H.M. Murdock. Murdock, this is my mother and father –Mr. and Mrs. Boss."

Murdock turned around to face the doorway, his gaze settling on the man and the woman standing there. They looked to be mid fifties, both seemed kind. The elder gentleman, Mr. Boss, was dressed in an argyle vest and carrying his three year old granddaughter in the crook of an arm.

"Call me Walter." Mr. Boss said, coming forward with a wide smile his peppered mustache twitching. He extended a free hand and then stopped, laughing, when he realized Murdock was unable to reciprocate. "It's nice to finally meet you son. Daryl's written a lot about you."

"Yes, it's nice to meet you too sir." Murdock replied, oddly overwhelmed by all the familiarity. Mrs. Boss smiled and nodded a hello, moving to set the grocery bags she carried on the kitchen table. The dog trotted after her with a jingle of tags. Murdock answered with a tip of his head. All of a sudden the room felt much smaller and he was beginning to grow warm under the collar.

May straightened in his arm, lifting her head up. Joanie spotted them and wiggled in her grandfather's arms, clapping her chubby hands together. Reaching out toward Murdock, she loosed a playful squeal.

"Daddy!"

TBC, Thanks for reading/reviewing! Again, sorry for the update delay.