Woo! Chapter 4! Finally done! Many thanks to Jenn for kicking my butt for the past month to get me to finish this. 11 pages is a lot to write, especially for all the angsty-mushy stuff in here. All right, Murdock and Face finally reveal secrets they've only hinted at before now. WARNINGS: language, sexual references, implicit sexual content (no, not slash! Well, that sucks out all the fun, now doesn't it?) NOTE: "With a Little Help from my Friends" lyrics by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. I don't own any piece of that or the team AND I'm not making any money off of either, much to my dismay. As always, please review. They're greatly appreciated and I'll try to read something of yours if you review this. Thanks and enjoy! :~)
****
Ten minutes after the team and their client left the ruins of Murphy's Place, they pulled into the small parking lot in front of the Desert Inn. The motel's exterior looked cleaner and more up to date than the diner down the road, but it still wasn't anywhere near the caliber of a Holiday Inn.
Face took one look at the white and green one story building and muttered, "I've seen better roach motels than this place!"
Alia's eyes flashed as if she was the one insulted. "Hey, jackass!" she snapped. "I've lived in places worse than this, so why don't you get your head out of your ass for once and realize that the world's not going to throw itself at your feet?"
Face balled his hand into fists and stomped over to the brunette. "That's the last straw!" he yelled as he swung at Alia. Murdock darted in front of the brunette and grabbed his friend's wrist.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Hannibal exclaimed, helping the pilot hold back Face. "Knock it off, and that means the both of you!" he added when he caught Alia smirking out of the corner of his eye.
"Hannibal, I say one thing about this place and she takes it personally!" growled Face. "She's been harassing me all day for no good reason."
"I'm with Faceman on this one, Hannibal," BA added. "Alia's been a pain in the ass since you brought her back from the Chinese laundry. I say she deserves a knuckle sandwich!" The sergeant ground his huge fist in his other hand threateningly.
"Hey! I've had guys hunting me down for the past week!" Alia replied defensively. "I've been under a lot of stress and I wrongly took it out on you guys, especially Face. I'm sorry, but you saw the spooks that are after me. Speaking of which, Hannibal, why did you tell them our exact route of travel? I almost got left for the buzzards back there!"
"Pity," muttered Face.
Murdock elbowed the lieutenant again. This time Face glared back at him. "You weren't in any trouble," drawled the pilot, "not with the A-Team around."
"I'd still like to know what your grand plan is, Hannibal," Alia replied. "I hate being left in the dark when my life is on the line."
The colonel smiled with a hint of the jazz still lingering in his electric blue eyes. "It's quite simple really," he began. "I told them where we were headed so that your boss, Jones, would send his goons to intercept us on the way. This way, we pick 'em off in small groups and leave 'em behind for the local law enforcement so they stay out of our hair for the rest of the trip to Las Cruces. By the time we get to Alliance Tech, Jones' men will be spread thin, thus lessening the protection on the plant and making it easier for us to break in and get the information we need to put Jones and his pals behind bars for a few decades.
"That also means that we have to keep alert tonight in case Jones' men escape or more come in their place. Face, we need three rooms together; the two on the ends have to be doubles, but the middle one doesn't. BA and I will bunk together on one end, and you, Face, will bunk with Murdock on the other. Alia, you'll take the room in the middle so we'll have you surrounded. We'll also take shifts on guard duty tonight. There's nothing wrong with being overly cautious. Face, you take first watch. Murdock, you take over by two. When you get tired, I'll take over."
"Sounds like a plan to me, Colonel," Murdock replied.
Face flexed his hands. "Finally," he sighed, "I get to use my true talent!"
As the lieutenant marched off to the motel's office, BA grumbled, "When are we gonna eat, Hannibal? I'm starvin'!"
"I know, BA," the colonel replied, "but we've got to lay low in case the sheriff's department decides to come and question us."
"We passed a grocery store within walking distance," Alia piped up. "I could go walk over there and pick up some stuff for sandwiches and drinks."
"You're not going alone," ordered Hannibal. "Jones's men could grab you."
"OK, who wants to go for a walk with me?" Alia asked the three men.
Murdock leaped to her side and linked an arm through hers. "Don't fret, my lady!" the pilot exclaimed in an old English accent. "I shall protect thee from the vagabonds and highwaymen that lurk about these areas!"
As Murdock and Alia skipped off down the road on their mission, BA turned to his commanding officer. "I don't like her, Hannibal. There's something not right about this."
Hannibal pulled a cigar out of his coat and bit off the end. "I don't know, BA," he replied as he lit the cigar. "Murdock's taken a real shine to Alia and he's a good judge of character. I just hope that she doesn't do something to hurt him."
"If she does," BA growled, punching his own hand for emphasis, "I'll make sure she pays!"
"Don't worry," the colonel reassured the sergeant. "We'll all look out for Murdock, just like always."
****
Later that night after the team and Alia settled into their rooms, the five of them sat around BA and Hannibal's room discussing the plans for the next day and finishing up their sandwiches.
"All right," the colonel announced, "it's 2300 hours and we're getting a wake-up call at 0600 tomorrow. Time to hit the hay. Face, you're up for guard duty."
Alia bid everyone good night and the lieutenant grumbled as Murdock, the brunette, and he left for their respective rooms.
When Face and Murdock entered their room, the pilot took off his prized leather jacket and hung it on the back of a chair with care. He flopped on his bed, kicked off his shoes, and pulled his baseball cap over his eyes. Face quickly changed out of his suit into a pair of jeans and a crisp shirt, and grabbed his M-16 out of his duffel.
"Have fun on guard detail, Faceman," the pilot called after his friend as he left.
"Yeah, right!" the lieutenant grumbled.
Murdock slid his cap back for a moment. "Think of it this way, Face. Maybe your Susan will swing by and keep you company."
Face smiled at his friend who purred and clicked his tongue as the lieutenant shut the door behind him.
Now for the boring part, Face thought as he slung the rifle over his shoulder and hiked off to find a good vantage point to observe the motel and the road out front. He found a good patch of scrub brush to camouflage himself in next to the front parking lot and hunkered down for a few quiet hours.
The desert amazed Face at night. With the full moon bathing the surrounding sand and scrub in silvery light, he could see farther and better than with a flashlight. Periodically a pair of headlights cut through the dark peace, blinding Face momentarily. The lit sign of the Desert Inn flickered for a while, and then shut off permanently. The lieutenant doubted that anyone would be desperate enough, besides the team of course, to spend the night here anyway. The peaceful chirping of crickets and occasional scurrying of a lizard were the only sounds besides his own breath and heartbeat.
Nothing like the jungles of 'Nam at night, Face thought. That's when everything including your own mind would turn on you. Just thinking about that place sent shivers up his spine, even though it had been almost fifteen years.
To shake off the ghosts of the past, Face began counting the stars. The difference between the stars in LA and here was amazing. Due to the smog in the city, he could count all of the dots of light on his fingers.
"Looking for the mother ship?" asked a low female voice.
Face's heart leaped into his throat as he swung his M-16 to bear on the intruder.
"Whoa there, Tex!" Alia exclaimed, throwing her hands up in surrender.
"Alia!" Face groaned and pointed the gun at the ground. "What the hell are you doing out here sneaking up on me?"
The brunette tried unsuccessfully to look innocent. "Who me?" she asked. "I thought you were supposed to learn how to pay attention to people approaching your position in the army. This doesn't give me much confidence in your abilities to protect me."
"I was paying attention!" Face replied defensively as he stood up from his hiding spot and stomped towards the van and the Mustang in the back parking lot. Trying to find a scorpion to stick in your bed, he thought.
Alia followed the lieutenant, not wanting to let him off easy. "You were watching the stars! Are you expecting Jones to have his men parachute in on us?"
Face turned on heel toward Alia who almost ran into him from the sudden stop. "Leave me the hell alone!" he growled.
The brunette kept her face unemotional as she hopped up on the Mustang's trunk. "No," she replied simply. "I can't sleep so I'm going to make sure you're actually doing your job. Twelve thou doesn't seem to get me much in the way of results."
"What the hell is your problem?" snapped Face. "I don't say this often, but you've been a total bitch since we met this morning!"
"Men like you made me this way," replied Alia, contempt dripping from every word. "You lie about everything! Whenever some poor Hispanic girl tries to make it out of the slums, there's some white prick telling her that he'll help her become somebody when all he really wants is to get into her pants. Men like you knocked up my best friends and abandoned them to fend for themselves and their babies. A hotshot soldier just like you even raped my mother when she was a teenager in Puerto Rico. She got pregnant with me and her family disowned her. Only her brother stood by her and sent her to New York to try to make it in this great land of freedom and democracy! What a big fucking lie. It's all hypocrisy! The only ones who have a shot at having a halfway decent life are fucking white men like you!"
"You think I've had an easy life?" Face practically shouted. "I grew up in an orphanage!"
"Whoopty frigging do! You had a roof over your head, three square meals a day, and a good education. I lived in a tiny tenement building with forty or fifty other people despite the fact that the place should've been condemned. Rice was our staple food; we were lucky if we got week old vegetables or fruit! The only school nearby was an hour's walk through the roughest neighborhood so most of us learned from the streets. I was in a gang by the time I was eleven, and not something like the Pink Ladies in Grease. I didn't want to stand by and watch the guys have all the power while the only two things I could do were work as a cashier at the 7-Eleven or become a cheap whore for the tourists. I learned how to handle a gun well by my thirteenth birthday and became one of the best shooters for drive-bys.
"You may have gone off to Vietnam in your late teens, but I grew up in a fucking war zone."
After long, awkward pause, Face asked, "So how did you make it from New York to New Mexico?"
Alia chuckled derisively. "Let's just say I got myself indebted to a sugar daddy of sorts. He paid for my education while I did…odd jobs for him. Nothing sexual at all, thank God! I hated myself enough as it was. As soon as I got through school, I ditched him, changed my name to Benekopoulos, and got the job at Alliance.
"Enough about me. What about you? I didn't find much in the dossier the army keeps on you."
"I don't feel like talking about it," Face replied tersely.
"How else do you think we're going to come to an understanding if I don't know what molded you into the man you are?" asked the brunette. "Fair's fair, Face."
Face sighed. "All right. I'm an orphan, like I said. I showed up on the steps of a Catholic orphanage when I was five. I never knew my father and I don't remember much of my mother. The orphanage put me through school until I joined the US Army in Vietnam. Happy?"
Alia snorted. "Hardly. That's basically what the army has on file, besides your flash-bang career in Special Forces. I told you everything. No one outside of my old neighborhood knows anything I just told you. Somehow I think you should be coughing up a little more info than that. Such as, how did your parents die?"
"This isn't some childish game of truth or dare, Alia," Face replied gravely. "I don't feel much like sharing right now."
"Fine with me, amigo. I'll just be lying on my car's trunk watching the stars until either I fall asleep or you feel like talking. Although, I'm battling with severe insomnia, so I can wait all night." Alia laid on her back on the Mustang, her long hair flowing over the fender like a dark chocolate waterfall. Face watched her, the M-16 cradled in his arms. No matter how hard he tried to figure out this woman, the worse he did. At least she had opened up to him about her past…but how am I supposed to know if she's telling me the truth?
"Since you don't feel like talking," Alia interrupted Face's thoughts, "I guess I will…again. I never knew my father either. Never have, never will, never wanted to. How can anyone expect me to track him down and forgive him for what he did? He was some arrogant lieutenant or something fresh out of West Point on some sort of training mission in San Juan before he got sent off to Korea. I wish he died in a prison camp, the asshole!"
"I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy," Face mumbled, deadly serious. "You have no idea what it's like in a POW camp."
"I've heard first-hand stories of the ones in Vietnam from guys like you, and believe me, my father deserved it! He raped my mother at gunpoint, leaving her completely shattered for the rest of her life. She died in a hellhole of an apartment in the ghettos of New York of shame and a broken heart when I was fourteen years old. My delinquent behavior didn't help any, I'm sure."
"Did anything…good ever happen to you?"
"Yeah. You."
Face's eyes widened. How could she possibly think that the past twelve hours had been pleasant? He and Alia fought like cats and dogs almost since the moment they met. Maybe her life was a hell of a lot more horrible than she was letting on.
"I-I mean the A-Team," Alia stuttered. "To which you belong."
Face couldn't help but smile. She let herself slip, he thought. I knew no woman alive could resist the charm of Templeton Peck! "Are you saying you like me?" the lieutenant teased.
"Hell no!" Alia exclaimed and sat bolt upright on the car's trunk. "You're a lying con man!"
"And I could say the same thing about you, Alia Teagan-Bene…whatever," the lieutenant grinned.
"Hey! I explained that!" the brunette retorted. "However, you're the one that's changed your name half a dozen times in the past decade or two, Alvin. What is it with you and children's characters?"
"What do you mean?" he asked, confused.
"Ever hear of 'Alvin and the Chipmunks' or Templeton the rat in Charlotte's Web that would always be scrounging around the local landfill? Hey, that fits you to a 'T'!"
"Do you ever stop?" Face moaned.
Alia leaned close to the lieutenant and smiled coyly. "Never."
Face could tell by her tone of voice and body language that the brunette was flirting with him now, rather than insulting him. He could smell her as she slid closer. It surprised him that her scent turned him on. It wasn't the usual flowery perfume that most of the women he dated wore; instead it smelled more like lavender soap and shampoo. Somehow the aroma seemed to make Alia more real and sincere to the lieutenant. Should I? he thought.
No, I can't. She's playing me. I can't do anything with a girl Murdock's got his eye on. That's just plain wrong.
"Alia, although I appreciate the attention, I can't flirt with you," Face said flatly. "Murdock's my friend and he got to you first."
Alia smiled, this time a genuinely happy, shining white grin. "Good answer, Face," she replied. "It's good to see that you guys are as close-knit as your reputation makes you out to be. Sometimes I forget that I only have two settings: total bitch and flirt. I apologize for annoying you all day. Do you want to try to be friends for the rest of the mission?"
The lieutenant returned the smile and shook Alia's hand. "I would love to. But be careful with Murdock's feelings. He's a great guy—a little out there at times, but he's good friend—and the three of us watch out for him."
"I know," the brunette replied. "I would hate to get the three of you after me, especially BA.
"Murdock's so sweet! It's hard to believe he's been in the VA mental ward for a decade. How did he get in there anyway?"
Face shifted his weight. "That's not for me to tell."
"You're so secretive!" Alia exclaimed. "I can't figure you guys out. I spill my guts to you, but that might just be because I find you somewhat attractive, and for some strange reason, honest when it counts. Is everything for team members only? Do you not want people to get close to you? It always helps to have friends in high and low places, y'know."
Do I trust Alia enough to tell her anything more about me? Face thought. Why shouldn't I? I mean, how could it hurt? I can get some stuff off my chest. Besides, her story is strangely similar to my own. Maybe it is true that like repels like. That would explain today's continuous fighting.
"You really want to know about me?" Face surrendered.
"Only if you want to tell me," Alia replied.
Here goes nothing, Face thought. He sighed, then said, "I don't remember much before I got dumped on the steps of the orphanage. After all, I was five at the time. My mother tried to raise me by herself since my father either abandoned her or died before I was born, but she couldn't handle the responsibility. She didn't have anywhere else to turn, so she left me to be raised by the Catholic Church. All I remember about my mother is that she was blonde and always very sad. I tried to make her happy, but I just seemed to make matters worse. I heard she died a couple of years later in a car crash…or maybe that was a lie I created and I told it so often that I now believe it.
"Anyway, life in the orphanage wasn't exactly a piece of cake. Some of the older kids picked on me, but I soon found that I could talk myself out of most trouble by flashing the nuns a smile or by making up convincing stories. They said I was a born con man.
"I did pretty well in the different church-run schools I got sent to, even though I didn't really have any sort of legitimate career in mind. The only thing that held my interest besides football was scamming my friends out of anything they had. It was so easy to lie and I hardly ever felt guilty afterwards. But I guess I paid for it by watching all of my friends get adopted by caring families while I remained in the orphanage. It…hurt to be left behind. I thought something was wrong with me, so I decided to use my conning ability to climb my way to the top of the social ladder, starting with changing my name to something more appealing than Alvin.
"I felt great in high school. I was well liked by everyone—well, almost everyone—and I thought I found the love of my life. Leslie was everything I wanted and needed in a woman, but then she disappeared off the face of the earth just after I gave her my Saint Christopher's medal as a sort of pre-engagement gift. She was the one for me, but I guess she didn't feel the same way about me. I couldn't handle it so I pulled a few stunts, faked a few documents, and signed up for Special Forces in 'Nam. I would've done anything to get away from that orphanage. I didn't find out until recently that Leslie ran off and joined a convent in Mexico."
"So the two most important women in your life abandoned you," Alia said pointedly. "And after that happened, you figured that every other woman would ditch you sooner or later, so now you have a new flame each week. You don't get attached and you're the one that leaves them in the dust."
Face shot the brunette a quizzical look. "What are you, an amateur psychiatrist?" he asked.
"No," replied Alia, "I have the exact same problem with men. Like they say, it takes one to know one." She leaned over and pecked Face on the cheek. "Thanks for sharing; I know it's hard to do sometimes. Now we're on the same page. It's almost two, y'know. I think I'll turn in and you should too."
The brunette slid off the trunk and strolled off to her room and Face followed. Outside their doors Alia paused a moment and asked, "What's with us Catholics wandering astray? We seem to be poster children for everything wrong with the church."
"I doubt that," replied Face. "We may have started life off on the wrong foot, but now I think we're headed at least on a parallel to the correct path."
"Do you still believe in God?" asked the brunette. "I found it incredibly hard to keep my faith after Mamá died. Sometimes I can't even pass a church without a tinge of pain. She died so slowly and painfully from a viral infection that would've been curable except we had no access to medical treatment. What benevolent god would allow something like that to happen?"
"Of course I still believe, but yes, it's been difficult at times. Especially those months trapped inside the Cong POW camp. Every day I would thank Him for being alive and having another chance at getting back home to the states, and for putting me in contact with Hannibal, BA, and Murdock. The way I figure it, we're all in charge of our own destinies, but sometimes He's there to help us out."
Alia smiled weakly. "Thanks, Face, for everything. I don't know how I can repay you, or even show you how much talking to you helped me."
"Just be halfway pleasant like you are now for the rest of the mission, OK?" Face replied.
The two bid each other good night and went into their separate rooms. When the lieutenant closed his door behind him he thought, Maybe this trip isn't so bad after all.
"Murdock," Face said as he nudged his sleeping friend. "It's 0200 hours. Time to rise and shine for guard detail."
Murdock yawned, "You just got off guard duty and you're happy? What happened? Did Susan come by to warm you up?"
"No," the lieutenant replied, his smile evident in his voice, "I had a nice chat with our friend, Alia."
The pilot froze. No, Face wouldn't do that to me, he thought. But still…"You didn't sleep with her, did you?" he asked suspiciously.
Face was taken aback. "Of course not, Murdock!" he exclaimed. "She's yours! I've pulled some low ones before, but I would never do something like that to you. We're friends to the end."
Murdock got up, pulled on his shoes, and put on his jacket. "I know that, Faceman," he replied. "I was just makin' sure." The pilot took Face's M-16 and ambled out the door, humming some opera tune under his breath.
As Face got ready for bed he thought, I hope Alia is deserving of Murdock.
****
Alia paced madly in the darkness of her room. Face trusts me now, she thought, but BA never will. That doesn't matter much though. As long as I keep Face and Murdock on my side, Hannibal will believe me too.
I'm not sure if I should go through with the next step of my plan. At least I didn't have to sleep with Face as I originally planned. It's better this way. It would've backfired horribly if I did. I can't believe I told him my true history! We have so much in common though; it worked better than some crazy lie. But…I need to keep Murdock on a leash. He and Hannibal are the keys to the unit; they're the ingenuity of the team. Control them, control the unit.
I feel like I'm using him though! Murdock is so gentle, and kind, and warm, not to mention funny…everything I've ever wanted in a man.
Stop it! What happens, happens. You've got a job to do!
With that, Alia changed into her matching red silk nightgown and bathrobe and marched out of her room to find Murdock.
As soon as she closed her door, a cool breeze kicked up a dust devil in the desert plain beyond the back parking lot. The brunette pulled her robe tighter around her body in a vain attempt to keep out the cold. She didn't care much about the temperature anyway; she taught herself to adapt, to ignore irritations, and to focus on her goals.
Alia explored the perimeter trying to track Murdock. However, the pilot was much more careful about concealing his presence than Face. The wind didn't help the brunette in her search by smoothing out any indentations in the sand.
As Alia passed a clump of bushes, she heard a soft click and felt the cold metal muzzle of a gun press into her spine.
"What brings you out here, fair maiden?" asked a male voice in an English accent. "There are dangerous men about."
"Murdock, that better be you!" Alia exclaimed once her heart rate started to return to normal. She turned to come face-to-face with the pilot as he uncocked his M-16.
"¡Ay Dios mio!" continued the brunette. "You practically gave me a heart attack! I don't need to worry about someone getting past you tonight."
"Thanks," Murdock replied. "So why're you out here?"
"Can't sleep. Benito's visit shook me up pretty good. I thought that a short walk would clear my head," said Alia.
The pilot looked the brunette over incredulously. "A walk at 2:30 in the morning, by yourself, dressed in only your nightgown? Maybe the guys are right; you're crazy!"
"Why do you think I get along so much better with you than with the others?" Alia countered.
"Speaking of which, I heard you an' Faceman had a little chat," replied Murdock, a hint of bitterness in his voice. "Did you kiss an' make up?"
"Murdock, we didn't kiss!" the brunette exclaimed. "We settled our differences and came to an understanding. I promised him to be on my best behavior for the remainder of the mission and he can finally punch my lights out if I don't keep my word. Nothing happened!"
Murdock smiled. "I was just makin' sure your story checked with Face's."
Alia crossed her arms across her chest and threw the pilot a lopsided grin. "Still don't trust me completely, do you?"
"'What would you think if I sang out of tune?'" sang Murdock, avoiding the question. "'Would you stand up and walk out on me?'"
Alia learned quickly that whenever she found a touchy subject or asked a question the pilot didn't want to answer, he would either change the subject to something completely off the wall or sing. She decided to play along to see if she could get anywhere. "'Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song, and I'll try not to sing out of key,'" the brunette picked up the tune.
"'Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends,'" the pilot continued.
"The A-Team helped you through your personal hell, didn't they?" Alia cut in, shattering the upbeat atmosphere. "That's how you ended up in the VA, isn't it? What happened in Vietnam that scarred you so bad?"
Murdock's mouth hung open as he froze, the next lyrics gone from his lips. The brunette knew she hit upon the tip of a nerve. "Yeah, the guys were there with me in 'Nam," the pilot replied, all his normal zaniness gone. "We all helped each other out during those years."
"How did you end up in the mental ward of the VA hospital?" Alia persisted.
"It's complicated."
"I'm sure it is. Most problems that serious are like that. I'll be more than happy to listen to anything you want to say. I'm not going anywhere; are you?"
Murdock locked eyes with Alia. "You asked me earlier about my real name. Do you really wanna know why I go by H.M.?" he asked gravely.
The brunette grasped the pilot's hand in hers. "Only if you want to tell me."
Murdock took a deep breath. "I was named after my father, Harold Matthew, when I was born. He left my mother and me before my first birthday. He told her some junk that being a parent was too much work. So, my mother took back Murdock, her maiden name, and moved us in with her parents in a little town outside of Dallas. My mother didn't take the situation too well and committed suicide when I was five. I was the one who found her body in the bathroom. She overdosed on painkillers. I tried to block out the memory of my mother, eventually resulting in my intermittent memory loss. After I learned every detail from my grandparents who raised me after Mom died, I couldn't stand to be called by my father's name. They never wanted to be reminded of the cause of their daughter's death either, so my grandparents called me H.M. or just plain Murdock. Dr. Richter thinks that it's one of the many reasons why I have a hard time living in what everyone calls reality. Frankly, I don't see what's so great about it. And believe me, I tried it."
He cast his eyes to the ground, trying to keep his composure. Alia wasn't fooled and embraced the pilot.
"Y'know," Murdock mumbled, sniffling, "you're the first person I've told in a long time."
Alia looked deeply into his chocolate eyes with her hazel ones and whispered, "I'm glad you can confide in me. No one should suffer alone." She kissed him on the cheek and held the pilot tighter. "Especially not someone as wonderful and gifted as you. Actually, I think it's better you go by Murdock. You don't look like a Harold or a Harry. You look like a Murdock."
"Thanks, I guess," the pilot replied.
"I know how you feel about losing your mother," the brunette added. "Mine died when I was fourteen, just when we were starting to understand each other. She was younger than I am now."
"She was a teenager when she had you?" questioned Murdock.
"Yeah," Alia answered. "She was raped and I was the product of the crime."
"You lived in the slums of the Big Apple, didn't you?" the pilot asked.
"I grew up there with my mother and hated it," replied the brunette. "I take it you pieced together the stuff I said about being from New York and the comment about how I've lived in places much worse than this motel."
"It's not too hard t' figure it out."
"Especially for someone with a genius IQ like you."
"I'm not a genius; I'm crazy! Get it straight."
"They say that there's a fine line between genius and insanity. It all depends on the eye of the beholder, and to me, you're more on the genius side."
"'What do I do when my love is away?'" Murdock continued singing the Beatles tune, skipping over the rest of the chorus.
"'Does it worry you to be alone?'" Alia whispered the next line in the pilot's ear.
"Everybody worries about being alone," replied Murdock, swaying slightly to the music in his head. "We all have our demons that come to get us when we're on our own."
"What demons come after you, Murdock? You're mother's suicide can't be the only thing."
"No, it's not. I was ostracized at school for being a brainiac, so I picked up the zany act to try an' fit in better. With my smarts I ended up workin' for the CIA for several years before I enlisted in the army. That place, the CIA, messed me up real good. I couldn't figure out what was right or wrong—they had no ethics. Nothing was clear-cut, just gray area. Some of the stuff that I saw down disgusted me. I wanted no part of it. Some 'missions' were so horrible that I chose to forget them. I blocked the memories, sealed them off in a far corner of my brain."
"Is that where you learned to speak and read so many different languages?" Alia asked.
"From what I want remember, yes," Murdock replied. "Russian, Vietnamese, Spanish…One day I had a gonzo headache, an' so I taught myself how to read and speak Chinese. My so-called genius at work.
"The first chance I got, I got outta the CIA an' into the army. Everything with the army is clear-cut; there aren't massive gray areas. You know what to do, when to do it, how to do it, an' why all up front. And I got to do what I love most: flying. I could fly any contraption that had wings or a propeller that the army had in operation. I got the name Howlin' Mad partly because of my initials, but mainly because I would take any flyin' mission, regardless of the risks. At times I was truly suicidal…when my demons would come after me. I still made it back to camp, hailed as a hero or ridiculed as a head case. But one time I didn't make it back, at least when I was supposed to. By then I was flyin' Hannibal, Face, an' sorta BA on their ops. We got shot down by Charlie and tossed in a Cong prison camp for the better part of a year. It seemed like an eternity. That—that was worse than hell. Hell doesn't even begin to describe it."
Alia squeezed Murdock reassuringly. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," she murmured. "Some of my guy friends from my youth gang years went off to Vietnam to get themselves outta the gutter. Some of them ended up in POW camps and lived to tell the tale. When they came home, a couple of them shared the horrors of those places with me. I know what you're trying to say."
"'How do I feel by the end of the day?'" sang Murdock to relieve some of the building tension.
"'Are you sad because you're on your own?'" Alia completed the lyrics.
"'No, I get by with a little help from my friends,'" the pilot sang with conviction. "I honestly don't know how I could survive without the team. They keep me grounded."
Alia chuckled mildly. "They don't seem to be doing a good job of that, but I wouldn't have you any other way." The brunette looked up into Murdock's big puppy dog brown eyes and smiled. She gently held the pilot's head in her hands and kissed him passionately.
How 'bout that? Murdock thought as he kissed Alia back. I finally got the girl for once! I hope it could be more than just a one-night stand. She's funny, sensitive when she wants to be, an' knows where I'm comin' from. On top of that, she's beautiful! How'd I get this lucky?
"'Do you need anybody?'" Alia whispered when they pulled away from each other. "'Could it be anybody?'"
"'I want somebody to love,'" the pilot quoted and kissed Alia. When the couple came up for air the second time, Murdock brushed a hand against the brunette's cheek. "Holy moly, you're freezin'!" he exclaimed.
Alia winked and smiled seductively. "You want to warm me up, handsome?"
Murdock felt the brunette's icy fingers reach up under his shirt and dance across his back. Tendrils of pleasure shot up the pilot's spine. "Why don't I get Hannibal to relieve me on guard detail an' then we can go to my place?" he said, kissing Alia's neck every two words.
"Face is sleeping in your place," Alia replied as she continued making out with Murdock. "We don't want to wake him. You go wake up Hannibal while I go back to my room and then you duck in after you've gotten Hannibal up."
"Good plan," the pilot winked.
"I'll miss you!" Alia called seductively after Murdock as he trotted back to the motel. The brunette followed behind and ducked into her room as the pilot rapped at Hannibal and BA's door.
Hannibal groggily answered the door. "0400 hours already," he muttered.
"Yes, sir!" Murdock replied, trying to hide his exceptionally good mood. "Nothing out of the ordinary yet, Hannibal. I'm gonna go turn in now. See ya in the mornin'!"
The colonel took Murdock's M-16 and closed the door to go grab his jacket before heading out. The pilot silently stalked over to Alia's door and ducked into the darkness inside.
"I've been waiting for you," Alia's rich voice greeted Murdock from the shadows on the bed.
Murdock quickly undressed and crawled into the brunette's sinewy arms to heal some of the old scabs that had been picked raw again in the past two intense hours. He hoped that he'd finally found the one woman that could fill the hole in his heart, complete his soul. What the pilot didn't realize as he caressed Alia's body was that the brunette was looking for the same fulfillment for herself in him.
****
To be continued… (I bet that really irks you, Jenn! :~) )
