Part XIV – As the Interlude Fades

The motel they'd found only had two vacancies - one room with a pair of twin beds and one room with a full size bed. Face wanted to stay with Murdock, so the two of them took the room with the full-size bed, though B.A. went in there to help Murdock get cleaned up.

"I can take care of him, Face. You work on getting all of us some food. Be careful what you get for Murdock. Nothing too heavy but you bring him any broth or rice, you'll be picking rice outta your hair for the next week."

"Got it, B.A."

"Try and get some sweats or something that might fit him for now while you're at it."

"Already had that on my list of things to do. Be back shortly."

Bringing a pair of scissors, B.A. trimmed down Murdock's chin growth to a reasonable length before giving him the shaving foam and a safety razor. Man wanted to try and shave himself and B.A. didn't see any reason not to let him try it as he ran a bath.

Even with B.A. earlier attempt to wash Murdock off, it took two baths before Murdock felt reasonably human again. The bruising looked worse now that the dirt was off of it, but gentle prodded seemed to indicate it was healing. Probably would already have been healed if he'd had the proper nutrition all along.

B.A. was in the process of putting antibiotic creams and bandages on the sores when Hannibal came in with a carton of chocolate milk for Murdock, who claimed it the second it was open.

"ummmm - thank you, Colonel. That's good. I don't think I could even look at another bowl of rice for awhile. Not that I could see the rice in there, of course. But you know, even my imagination couldn't make pasty, overcooked rice taste like anything but pasty, overcooked rice."

"I know. I've been reading the file they made on you. Wish I'd known about the recordings they made of you. I would have found the singing one and let Decker listen to that for entertainment."

"I left him something to listen to, Colonel. You did tell me to let him enjoy what he set up for Murdock. You were singing in there? What fool thing were you singing in there? And don't even think of startin' to sing it. Just tell me."

Taking a sip of his milk first, Murdock gave a broad grin.

"I did about a zillion choruses of 'It's a Small World'. In as many languages as I could come up with."

Groaning, B.A. finished applying another bandage.

"Damn. Fool tune is stuck in my head again now."

Seemingly unaware that B.A. hadn't meant that as a compliment, Murdock beamed.

"I know! Catchy tune. Man, I want to go back on that ride. I wonder if Mom would like to go to Disney World with me one day? Has she ever been to Disney World? I bet she'd love it. Maybe we could even take Dawn. Man, I bet Dawn would love it. Maybe she'd even go on the ride with me. I bet she wouldn't bail on me after just one trip like you guys did."

"You and your jibber jabber."

B.A. looked for any sores he might have missed, then gave Murdock a rare hair ruffling.

"Missed your jibber jabber, little brother. Don't mean you have to make up for lost time though."

A light kick at the door had Hannibal heading over and a glance through the peep hole showed him it was a heavily loaded down Face. Opening the door, he gave the lieutenant a hand with the packages, some of which smelled very tempting.

"Got some of those new chicken nugget things for you, Murdock - got the rest of us hamburgers."

Murdock popped his head up.

"Happy Meal?"

"Two of them. With the Lego toys - even managed to talk them into letting me get one helicopter and one with the plane. And sweet-n-sour sauce. Did you think I'd forget?"

"You are the bestest best buddy around!"

"You don't gotta eat the fries, but you gotta finish off at least one order of the nuggets before you start playin' with the toys, fool. And eat slow. Give your stomach a chance to adjust to more'n just rice."

They all settled down to eat in companionable silence. There wasn't any need to talk about where they were going. Hannibal had already noticed that B.A. had them heading for Chicago. Besides, the emotional six weeks had taken its toll on all of them and they were all yawning before they finished eating. The Colonel knew that Murdock had to be exhausted when he saw the pilot lay the two bags of toys to the side unopened.

Getting up before he fell asleep where he was sitting, Hannibal helped Murdock over to the bed, pulling the covers over him before leaving for the other room with B.A. Stretching once the door had shut behind the others, Face made short work out of his own preparations for sleep, then slid into the bed next to Murdock, trying to be careful not to wake him.

While he didn't wake up, Murdock did snuggle over closer to Face. When Face thought about the very people oriented pilot having to go without even seeing, let alone touching, anyone else for five weeks, he understood. Contact was Murdock trying to assure himself that he wasn't going to wake up back in that damn cell and find that this was all just a dream he'd been having.

Face could attest for himself now just how much a dream could haunt you even when you were awake. He adjusted his position a little to make things a bit more comfortable for both of them.

Neither of them dreamed or even woke up until Hannibal came in the next morning to help get Murdock ready while B.A. went to get gas for the van.