Notes: Not many this time around. Just want to say that regardless of anyone else's opinions, Amy was a good character. She was definitely head and shoulders above Tawnia Baker (or as I like to refer to her, Tawnia Half-Baked). The first time Marla Heasley appeared on The A-Team she was one of Face's bimbos on a yacht he'd conned (I think the episode was "Bad Time on the Border"). As far as I'm concerned, her acting didn't improve much. If anything she was playing the same part, just with more clothes. Melinda Culea on the other hand could be sarcastic and got to use a homemade rocket launcher. Now that's cool! Anyway, I think that's it, so on with the story.

****

Amy Allen sat sipping coffee at the kitchen table in her LA apartment. She gazed unseeing out the window facing the rising sun. The sky burned orange in the morning smog, but Amy was too preoccupied with a nightmare that had woken her yet again. Ever since she'd heard the news that the A-Team had been executed and Murdock had disappeared, the nightmare never failed to wake Amy at least once a week.

Every night it was the same: Hannibal, Face, BA, and Murdock were lined up in front of a black stone wall with a rifle pointed at each of them. All four men stood steadfast, emotionless, and silent.

Every time Amy yelled, "This is wrong! They're innocent! Guys, tell them you're innocent!"

But the A-Team said nothing while the rifles clicked, cocked by invisible executioners. No one heard Amy scream as the shots rang out. Every time she would wake up screaming and in a cold sweat.

Amy rubbed the bags under her eyes, souvenirs of the many early mornings her nightmare caused. She took another swig of coffee and thought about the information about the A-Team's execution she'd gathered in the past year. It seemed like no matter where she turned, someone railroaded her—until the mysterious videotape and note showed up in her mail almost a year ago.

Amy did as the note told her and looked up Hunt Stockwell. She'd never seen a background so shady, but she couldn't figure out what Stockwell had to do with the A-Team's disappearance or possible death. The only person he seemed to have a link to was Murdock.

Amy surprised herself when she cried after reading the report of Murdock's involvement in Stockwell's discharge from the CIA. She hadn't realized until then just how much the pilot meant to her. She then remembered all the times she picked him up after he broke out of the VA to grab the rest of the A-Team from the Army's clutches, the countless times they flirted casually. Amy always expected Murdock to be in the VA, bright-eyed and ready to go find the team before the Army could do anything. But the pilot's absence drove the seriousness and finality of the A-Team's disappearance home.

At first Amy thought she was imagining the intercom buzzing and ignored it. When it buzzed a second time, she slopped coffee over the table when she heard the voice. It couldn't be…

"Hey, kid!" said the voice over the intercom. "Want to let us up?"

"Hannibal?" Amy whispered, not believing her ears. He couldn't possibly be in the lobby of her apartment building. She was just imagining hearing Hannibal because she was daydreaming about the A-Team's disappearance. Right?

As if to answer her question, Hannibal said, "Amy, you awake?"

Another voice said, "Hannibal, she might not be up yet. I mean it's only 6:30. We can come back later."

Amy jumped up from her chair and raced to the intercom. Unless she was mistaken, Face was with Hannibal.

"Hannibal?" she asked, panting. "Face? Is that you?"

"Hi, kid, we thought you might be sleeping in on a Saturday morning," crackled Hannibal's voice over the intercom. "Would you mind buzzing us in so we can come visit you?"

"Of course! Are Murdock and BA with you?"

"Heya Amy!" Murdock called. It sounded as if he was at the opposite end of the lobby as the intercom. "Me and the mudsucker are here too!"

Amy smiled as BA growled at the pilot. "I'll buzz you up. I can't wait to see you guys again!"

She pressed the button to unlock the building's front door and then looked down at herself to see she was still dressed in her pajamas and bathrobe. Luckily the A-Team had to walk up three flights of stairs; the elevator had been on the fritz for the past several days. Amy quickly threw on a pair of slacks and a T-shirt and brushed her hair before the guys rang the doorbell.

"Hannibal!" Amy exclaimed as she opened the door and hugged the colonel. "I thought I'd never see you again! I knew you guys couldn't be dead!"

"Good to see you, kid," he smiled back. "I'll admit, they did try hard to get us, but, as usual, they failed."

"Face!" she said as she hugged the lieutenant next.

"We missed you too, Amy," Face said.

"BA!" she said as she held out her hand to the sergeant. "You're still not the hugging type, are you?"

"For you, I'll make an exception," smiled BA as he picked Amy off her feet in a bear hug.

Amy grinned broadly and hugged Murdock next. "Murdock!"

"Been working on your parachuting skills?" the pilot asked.

She tried to hide the tears misting over her eyes. "Haven't been on a plane ride like yours since I last saw you."

Amy turned to see a Hispanic man and woman standing in the doorway looking very much like they knew they didn't belong.

"Ummm…who are you?" Amy asked the pair.

"Sorry, I forgot to introduce you," said Hannibal. "Amy, this is Frankie Santana, a new member of the team and the pyrotechnical expert, and Lola Sanchez, our…client, I suppose. Frankie, Lola, this is Amy Allen, an old friend of ours and the unofficial fifth member of the A-Team."

Frankie shook hands with Amy and said, "The guys told me in the van that if I tried a line on you, they'd break my legs."

"No, I said I'd use your hair to grease the parts on my van if you hit on Amy," growled BA.

Frankie cringed. "Both equally unpleasant consequences."

"So why are you guys here?" asked Amy. "Do you need my help on a case? I'll do anything I can do to help."

"Glad to hear it," said Hannibal. "This is a rather sticky--"

"Weird," interrupted BA.

Hannibal nodded, "—situation. Lola here isn't exactly a client, but more of a questionable informant. We need you to verify her story."

"Does it have anything to do with where you guys have been for the past year?" Amy asked.

"It has everything to do with it," answered Face. "What do you know about a guy named Hunt Stockwell?"

Amy paled. That sick man did have something to do with her guys. "He used to work for the CIA from 1948 to 1963," she said quietly. "Got in really deep until Murdock exposed him as a mole. After Stockwell was discovered, he escaped capture and went into gun running and trading information with the Viet Cong. His whole life has been in the criminal underworld. How does he fit in with you guys disappearing and picking up another member?"

"He made us a deal when we got court marshaled," answered Hannibal. "Said he was a retired general who could get all of us pardoned. Frankie got blackmailed into spying on us, then had to work with us for Stockwell since he aided and abetted with known felons."

"It wasn't pretty," added Face.

"Now Lola came along and said basically the same thing as you, that Stockwell was using us for his own purposes," Hannibal continued. "We didn't believe her until you confirmed her story just now."

"So how is Lola your client?" asked Amy.

"That's a long, long, long story," said Lola, breaking her silence.

For an hour the A-Team and Lola explained to Amy how they tangled with each other the year before and what happened after Lola showed up at Face and Murdock's place the previous afternoon with Billy. After they finished, Amy sat down stunned. She couldn't believe that just after she'd realized how much she cared about Murdock, she found out that he'd had a child with another woman. Granted he hadn't intended to father a child with Lola, but Amy could tell that, regardless of what Lola put him through, he still had feelings for the woman. Amy knew that Lola also cared deeply for Murdock; she'd paled and stepped closer to the pilot as if to lend support when Amy told what she knew of Stockwell. Amy even noticed Lola's hand twitch as if she was fighting the impulse to hold Murdock's hand.

I missed my chance, Amy thought. She rubbed her eyes and looked up at Lola. "So you were the one who sent me that tape," she said. Lola nodded. "Why?"

"Because the A-Team's your guys," answered Lola. "You deserved to know they were alive and needed your help."

Amy smiled faintly. Maybe she and Lola could end up as friends after whatever mission Hannibal had in store for them. She sighed, "All right, what do you need me for, Hannibal?"

"You have the most important job out of all of us, Amy," answered Hannibal. "Not only are you going to find out anything and everything about Stockwell, but you're going to check out a computer disk Lola has on Stockwell and take everything you find out and write about what a scumbag he is and print it up in that nice little newspaper of yours." He lit a cigar and took a long drag, watching the smoke curl around the end. He grinned. "It'll be the story of the decade."

****

"Does that thing ever stop screaming?" yelled Stockwell with his hands over his ears.

"Hasn't yet," Carla yelled back as she tried to hold onto a squirming, shrieking Billy.

"Can't you make it stop? I thought women were supposed to know about these things!"

"What do you think I am? A nursemaid? I don't know anything about babies! It's your grandson, you take care of it!"

Carla thrust the crying infant towards Stockwell, but he jumped back as if she was trying to hand him a ticking time bomb. "I didn't even take care of my daughter, what makes you think I'll take care of her brat? We're only using it as bait anyway."

A tall blonde strode into the room. "For Christ sake, it's not that hard!" she exclaimed. "Give him to me."

Carla gladly handed Billy over to the blonde. Within thirty seconds, the blonde had quieted him down and he lay peacefully against her shoulder.

Stockwell smirked. "I see the time you spent in Lola's company in the past few months has finally paid off, Robyn."

Robyn Thompson returned the smile. "I told you it wasn't a total waste. She was so starved for any human contact other than you, she didn't care if she suspected I was much more loyal to you than I ever was to her. But she still wasn't stupid enough to tell me what all she was up to. She's a lot smarter than she looks." She patted Billy on the back. "Guess there are some benefits to growing up in the slums—you learn how to take care of kids early."

"From the way you handle that brat, no one could ever guess that you're my best assassin, Miss Thompson."

"What's this kid's mother up to anyway? I figured she'd be begging at your feet right now to get her precious baby boy back."

"She will be shortly, don't worry. She just decided to get the cavalry first. Just as we expected, Miss Sanchez went running to her brat's father for help as soon as the A-Team showed up in LA. Now she plans to round them up to help her get her brat back. I thought she would've at least called to scream at me like she always did. The A-Team must not have accepted her back as readily as we expected them to."

"Don't worry. That Murdock of hers wouldn't turn her away with this kid. The whole lot of them are too righteous for their own good. It makes for a very large Achilles heel. With that, we should have the upper hand."

"I learned from the first time I met the A-Team that you can never be sure you have the upper hand with them unless you control every possible aspect of the situation. Lola still has that disk, but if she really knew just how easily she could destroy all of us, she would've given it to the press by now. We just need to sit tight until she makes the next move."

****

"Hannibal, I really, really, really don't like this plan," moaned Face as the seven of them approached the front steps of a small ranch house both Amy and Lola said belonged to Colonel Roderick Decker, newly retired from the United States Army.

"Quit complaining, Face," said Murdock. "Hannibal knows what he'd doing." He felt confident for a moment, then seemed to realize just what they were getting themselves into and jogged to catch up to Hannibal. Everyone who was ever a significant part of the A-Team was pretty much standing on their former enemy's front lawn. He muttered into the colonel's ear, "You do know what you're doing, right Colonel?"

"Course I do!" Hannibal said as he stopped on the top step and raised a hand to knock on the door. "When have I ever steered you wrong?"

"You want an itemized list?" asked Face.

Hannibal ignored his lieutenant and rapped loudly on the front door. After a few moments, they heard crisp, even footsteps heading for the door inside. Decker, who looked odd out of his usual uniform and in slacks and a polo shirt, opened the front door wide and barked, "What?"

"Hi, Decker!" grinned Hannibal, his eyes alight with the Jazz. "How's retirement treating you?"

Before anyone could say anything further, Decker slammed the door shut in Hannibal's face.

"Well, that was rude!" Hannibal said as he raised his hand to knock again.

"I think it's a sign," said Face who was fidgeting as though he was debating whether to stand firm with his team or to run pell-mell to the van. "We shouldn't be here. I bet you anything Decker's giving us a head start before he calls the MPs on us."

"I'm with Faceman on this one, Hannibal," growled BA. "I say we get outta here now."

"Have a little faith, guys," said Hannibal as he knocked again. "Just wait a minute…"

Sure enough, a few moments later Decker once again opened the door. He looked at each of the seven people standing on his front steps in turn before finally saying, "What do you want, Smith?"

"Just a moment of your time and then you can go back to retirement if you don't like what we have to offer," answered Hannibal.

"And why shouldn't I call military police? You all are wanted felons, your friends can be charged with aiding and abetting. I've finally got you, Smith! Including your men and even Miss Allen!"

"As much as I know how very happy you'd be if you got to arrest us all, I've got something even better."

"I doubt you can make me a better offer than that."

"How do you feel about one Hunt Stockwell?"

No one thought it possible, but Decker scowled fiercer than he ever had. "I'd like to get my hands on that lousy excuse of a human being and let him rot in the darkest corner of San Quentin for the rest of his life!" he growled. "And that's being polite as there are women present."

"How would you like to do just that?" asked Hannibal coolly.

"How? You know where he is?"

"I do," Lola piped up from near the back of the crowd.

"I thought you might," said Decker. "After all, he's the one who told me about that job you tried to pull at Alliance Technologies last year. I had to settle for arresting you rather than the A-Team, but then Stockwell helped you out of jail after you only spent two months in there. After that and the A-Team's escape from the firing squad, I had no choice but to retire. Thanks to all of you, I'm the laughing stock of the US Army!"

"Well, we're here to change all that," said Hannibal. "We'd like to pay you back for all those times you were such a good sport about losing us. So what's it going to be—us or Stockwell?"

Decker struggled between his annoyance with Smith and his loathing for Stockwell for nearly two minutes before he finally sighed and said, "What do you want from me to get that lying, no good sack of--"

"We need your ties to the government to figure out who's helping Stockwell elude justice," interrupted Hannibal. "Someone high up is holding Stockwell's crimes over him to get him to do some dirty work for him."

"And you know this because…?"

"He blackmailed us to do it," said Face. "Gotta love that work ethic of his."

"Don't worry, we've got proof of it," said Lola as she held up her computer disk.

"I'll also interview you about your—err—experiences with Stockwell to go along with the exposé I'm writing on him," added Amy.

"We'll explain everything if you'll just let us in the house," Lola said.

Decker sighed heavily and moved to one side of the doorway. "All right, get in here. Can't believe I'm doing this…"

While everyone else stepped into the house, Murdock pulled Hannibal aside. "Hannibal, do we have to tell him everything?" the pilot whispered. "Like the whole part about me workin' with Stockwell in the company and me bein' the father of Lola's baby?"

Hannibal took a deep breath. "How about we do it this way: you tell the story how you see fit. The others will understand. Besides, Decker might actually believe you over me since he hasn't really believed you are part of the A-Team until now."

Murdock nodded. "All right, let's get this over with."

****

"You've got to be kidding me!" exclaimed Decker after Murdock explained the situation as much as he wanted to. "You made more sense when I would ask you about the A-Team when you were still in the VA hospital!"

Over a half hour later, all eight people sat or stood around Decker's kitchen table in different stages of anxiety.

"I know it sounds crazy, Colonel, but it's the truth," Lola said calmly. "We need to bargain with Stockwell to get my son back, but we can't let him get away again. We're the only ones who can stop him."

"Where's this 'we' coming from? Stockwell's got your son, why can't you figure it out?"

"We need you to help us figure out who's controlling him. Please, it's got to be someone high up in either the CIA or the military, like his old boss or something. C'mon, you must have come across some name or other when you had Stockwell checked out sometime in the last year!"

"I did come across a name that might be the guy you're looking for. Lestrange, Robert Lestrange."

Both Murdock and Lola stared at Decker, eyes wide and faces powder white. Lola looked as if she would throw up, and Murdock ducked outside before anyone could ask him what was wrong.

"Are you sure it was Robert Lestrange?" asked Lola, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Positive!" answered Decker. "Why?"

"We are so incredibly screwed! None of you have any idea what a monster that man is. Stockwell is a playground bully compared to him. If he finds out we're involved…" Lola shuddered.

"Wait, who's Lestrange?" asked Face confusedly.

"And what does Murdock have to with him?" added Hannibal.

"If you don't know, then it's not my place to tell you," Lola said. "That's Murdock's business. Now if you'll excuse me…" She pushed her way out of the kitchen and headed in the same direction Murdock took outside.

I'm not letting her get away with that, thought Face as he chased Lola out of the kitchen. He caught up to her in the front hall and grabbed her arm. "What are you playing?" he growled.

"What are you talking about?" asked Lola as she tried to throw off his grip.

Face tightened his hold on her. "You know what I'm talking about! How in the hell do you know about this Lestrange guy and how Murdock knows him, but none of us, his friends, know anything?"

"I don't know exactly how to put this…" Lola sighed. She looked down at her feet as if to find the right words written on her toes, then locked eyes with Face. "Some things women are a whole lot better at than men, mainly anything to do with feelings. We deal with all sorts of crazy emotions on a daily basis, whether they're our own or our friends'. Guys just bottle it all up, and sometimes it all it takes is a woman's listening ear to get a man to open up. Basically, you may be Murdock's best friend, but he's told me things that you might never hear."

"I am his best friend! Why won't he talk to me about any of this?"

"Because you'd just tell him to suck it up and be a man. Sometimes that's a good thing, but in Murdock's case it's not. If you knew about half the shit he's been through, you wouldn't be able to sleep at night. Trust me, I couldn't sleep for a month straight without having nightmares about it and how I betrayed his trust. Christ, he told me stuff he'd never even told his doctor at the VA! Murdock didn't want you to know because he didn't want you to think any less of him. He knows that when shit gets bad for him, you distance yourself from him because you find it irritating and tiring to deal with him. If you were half the friend you say you are, you wouldn't give a damn how he acted as long as he didn't try to kill himself regularly!"

Lola wrenched her arm out of Face's grasp and stalked off to find Murdock, leaving the lieutenant gaping after her.

****

"Ninety nine bottles of beer on the wall…Fairy tales can come true…Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars…" Murdock mumbled the lyrics as he sat with his face buried in his knees, rocking back and forth on the ground next to the van. A few oddly planted bushes shielded him from view. "Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall…"

The pilot felt an arm gently encircle his shoulders. "Face? That you?" he muttered.

"No, it's me," Lola murmured.

"Get away from me!"

"No, I won't. I can't leave you out here alone. I'd be hurting you all over again. Even if I got Billy back safe and sound this second, I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I had to sacrifice your sanity and trust for him."

"I don't believe you. You don't know anything!"

"Murdock, don't you remember anything I told you? I screwed up once, but I'm not going to do it again. I love you. From now on, I'll always be here for you, no matter what."

"You don't know what it's like, trying to figure out if your nightmares are real or not. You can't help. No one can."

"Remember Steve? I know I told you about Steve Juarez, the guy I was going to marry until he got drafted. He went off to Vietnam, running black ops…things you know a lot about. He was discharged from the army because he cracked. He saw shit that only guys like you have seen. No one else wanted to be near Steve after he came home. Scared the crap out of people with his haunted eyes and disheveled appearance, but I couldn't abandon him. Someone needed to care for him, talk to him, and love him. As soon as Steve realized I wasn't going anywhere, he poured out his soul to me. I could barely handle it…I couldn't believe he could actually retell it. I tried everything in my power to save him, but in the end, I couldn't help Steve with his demons. He--"

"Shot himself in the mouth with his service revolver," Murdock finished.

"Yeah, and I was the one who found his body. If it hadn't been for me, no one would've known he was dead for a month."

"So you're saying that it's only a matter of time before I do what Steve did."

"Don't even joke about that! No, what I'm saying is that you're stronger than Steve. He didn't go through all the crap you did, but you're still here. You can fight back. I saw it in your eyes when I first saw you walking out of the burning VA. You have the strength to fight back, but you also need support when the demons get reinforcements. That's why I'm here."

Lola wrapped her arms around Murdock, rested her head against his shoulder, and rocked back and forth with him. The pilot wanted to throw her off, to tell her to get away and stay away, but somehow he didn't feel like he wanted to be near anyone else. Lola wouldn't ask questions, wouldn't act as if he was going to explode any second, wouldn't get irritated if he didn't get himself together for the rest of the day…she would just stay right here with him and do whatever he asked her to.

"Y'know," he muttered, "if you break my heart again after this--"

"I'll slit my wrists before you get the chance to do anything," interrupted Lola. "I swear."

"Don't do that. Billy needs you. Don't pretend like he isn't the most important thing in your life."

Murdock felt Lola's arms tighten around him and something wet drip on his shoulder. He turned his head so he could see Lola's face. Tears trickled from her eyes.

"God I miss him!" she sniffed. "It's like I can't keep anybody I love. My mother, Steve, you, now Billy…I envy you, Murdock. You've got so many friends who stick with you. Everyone I've ever known either died or I drove them away."

Murdock managed a small smile. "Don't worry about it, we'll get our son back. Then we can all go to family therapy once he can talk."

"I can't see this ending any way but badly, Murdock. I really can't. Not with Stockwell and Lestrange working together."

"Just forget about them for now. We'll just sit here and be miserable together until someone comes looking for us."

The pilot started humming again, but this time Lola joined in. Being miserable was a lot more bearable with someone else to help carry the load.

****

To Be Continued…

Don't really know when that will be, so just be patient and use the magic review button to leave your input.