Title: You said I did

Author: Tally

Warnings: Slight slash.

Rating: PG

Summary: Murdock remembers a fight between him and Face.

Note: This is my first (and only) A-Team fic. I don't really know where it came from, but there you go.

I don't remember saying your name, but I must have. You swear to me I whispered it into the embittered air and called you back to me. I remember you turning back to me, away from the door, and I remember being relieved that you had not left me, at least not yet, and that you had granted me a few extra precious moments. When I spoke next it wasn't to try and bind you to me or to try and stop you leaving indefinitely; I spoke to keep you with me a moment longer, to put off the inevitable for the space of a heartbeat.

I told you of a love I had once shared, not with you, but with another, when I was young. It felt so long ago, for the lives we have lived have not been kind and I live a lifetime in my mind every day in order to escape the world, and I think, to escape you.

But why did I need to escape you? Because you loved me and, God help me, because I loved you back. I know how hurt you have been by love and I never wanted to be the one to inflict that kind of pain upon you again, the pain that is the emptiness when your love deserts you. I ran from you, in any way I could imagine and somehow, despite that, or maybe because of it, I always managed to end up right back where I started; with you. So that night I told you of love I had known in Texas, a bright haired, beautiful thing, with innocence in her eyes and passion in her voice. It was a love doomed to die because I was none of the things she really desired, but for a few short months she loved me. Were we ever like her, Face? Did we ever revel in innocence or were we born with age in our eyes and with jaded passions?

I had not meant to make you stay, yet you did, and as I finished speaking of love, so you began.

You told me of a love you had known when you were young; he had been dark and tall and crazy. As you spoke I realised you spoke of me, of us, and how we had been when we first met more than a decade ago.

We had loved each other then, you told me, but then there were the camps and Hanoi and suddenly we weren't the same anymore. Yet, somehow, years later, we were in love again and this time nothing was in our way except our fear and our memories.

You begged me then, for forgiveness, for almost leaving. You confessed to me that you always left; hurt the other first in a misguided attempt to save hurt from yourself. The world doesn't work that way though, does it, Face? You found that out and so I did the only thing I could, as I had ever done, I forgave you instantly. And then I said something that I wish, to this day, I could take back because I know it still lingers within your mind. I told you I had always expected you to leave me. The hurt in your eyes was so quick that I almost missed it, so quickly was it replaced by bitter self-recrimination.

What had I done to you? I was your best friend and lover, I was supposed to trust you. I was so bewildered by what I saw that I said the first thing that came into my mind, words that bound your heart to mine and mine to yours, words, I promise you, that were truth from the very centre of myself.

I said 'but that doesn't mean I wanted you to leave, ever'. You were so quickly in my arms, telling me you never wanted to go, that I clear forgot the angry words spoken and the argument we had suffered not moments before. We did not promise forever or that we would never make mistakes or hurt each other, we promised each other, each other and this it seems was a promise we could both keep because here we are, together as more than friends for ten years and we're still in love.

As we held each other in that motel room I realised that with your story you had told me that you loved me, not directly and not with the usual three littler words others say, but in your way you had said it and I heard it. I turned your face up to look at me and I told you the same, saying those three little words, 'I love you'. I could still weep with the memory of your pain at hearing those words, uttered to you for I think the first time in your life with genuine feeling.

I've done my best to love you and you've loved me like I could never have imagined…

"Murdock?"

"Yes, Face?"

And there you are appearing as you did then, still young, still beautiful and still mine.

"What are you doing?"

"Why?"

"You were staring at me weird."

I cannot help smiling as I remember what it was I was thinking when you spoke my name, but I apologise nonetheless.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be, just tell me what you were thinking about."

"I was thinking about love, Facey and how I will never regret calling out to you or you turning back to me."

The smile you wear now is the same one you wore then when I told you I loved you, but now your eyes are different. Then, demons of a harsh life danced in their depths, but now no shadow of them remains. I like to think I helped you with that in some small way, although it was you who took the leap and trusted me. And now you are speaking again and once more I am amazed at how well you know me; you know what I am thinking with a few small words.

"I love you too, Murdock, but you don't even remember calling my name."

"Doesn't matter," I tell you, drawing you to me as I see your surprise and, as I did then, tilt you head so that I can see into those baby blues I love so dearly.

"Why's that?"

I take your hand in my own and bring our clasped hands up between us so that I can kiss your knuckles.

"You said I did"

I say, remembering the trust you placed in me. I look as deep into your eyes as I can and hope you see as deeply into mine. I know you do because you smile and then I whisper to you, before I kiss you, words I know you treasure almost as much as ones of love.

"I trust ya."