II

Murdock grabbed the frying pan from the stove before the eggs and bacon in it blackened further and turned the heat off. He scrapped the contents out and divided into the two plates he'd prepared earlier.

Grabbing the required cutlery, he made his way to the table where Erica sat.

He laid a plate down in front of her, and moved round to the other side of the table and sat himself down with the other plate.

"I told you not to make me anything." Erica said, not attempting to eat the food.

Murdock had picked up his knife and fork and without even looking at her, he replied, "Gotta eat something."

"When are we gonna talk about this?" she asked, folding her arms in front of her.

Murdock did look up this time. Only briefly before returning to look intently at the table. "Once your plate's clear."

Erica stood up, taking the plate with her and let the greasy food slide off the plate straight into the bin. "It's clear." She said.

She recognised a look of anger in his eyes, but she wasn't scared by it. She hated the fact she'd been the cause of it, but she refused to let him tell her what to do.

Murdock placed the fork in his hand down and used the fingers to try to rub away the headache he could feel coming on. "I think you should just..."

"No! Don't tell me to go. That's all you ever do. When the hell are we gonna talk about this, once I've had the baby? Would that be a good time for you?" She'd felt a twinge of guilt when she'd seen his rubbing his temple, but with his refusal to talk to her, she just forgot that sorrow and let him know how she felt.

"Just go." Murdock said back, loudly. He didn't shout at her, he rarely shouted in anger, but he wanted her to know how much he needed his time right now.

"Fine!" She said, grabbing her jacket and pulling it onto her slim arms. "When you decide to let me into your life, gimme a call!" With that, she stormed out of his apartment and slammed the door behind her.

Murdock closed his eyes as she slammed the door, as though it would block out the noise from the bang of the door.

He'd never really considered how easy his life was in the VA. It was a lot more preferable to how it was now, anyway.

There'd always been something taking the edge of how difficult life was. His childhood wasn't easy, but by no means unpleasant, then he'd gone to Nam which really wasn't easy, but it was a war zone, and it was what you'd expect when being in a war zone. And after Nam, it was all about the VA. So, yeah he'd dealt with a lot in life, but nothing ever mundane.

Nothing like holding a job, paying bills, having a regular girlfriend. It was all kinda new to him and for someone his age, that was a little weird.

But along with the normality of his life now, there was still a big part of it that wasn't quite so normal. He still worked closely with three, well, four now, four fugitives and helped people from incredibly rotten individuals who were trying to ruin their lives in someway. That part of his life was about as crazy as anyones life could get.

The problem he had was how to tell Erica what he was doing when he kept going away every now and then for days at a time, coming back tired and sometimes hurt.

He couldn't exactly tell her he worked with The A Team. Besides, officially he didn't.

He'd spent most part of fifteen years protecting their identity and his alliance with them from everyone. He couldn't stop the secrecy now. Not even for Erica.

But it wasn't as simple as that. She's told him a few days ago that she thought she was pregnant, and then two days ago she'd confirmed it.

He hadn't been sure about starting a physical relationship with her and now he wished he hadn't. He wasn't even sure if he wanted a child.

Everything was such a mess.

He just needed time to think.

Erica didn't move after she slammed the door.

Part of her had hoped that HM would have followed her, told her not to leave and persuaded her to come back in with him so they could talk things through.

But that was the problem, he just wouldn't open up to her.

She really didn't know anything about him, probably had a string of illegitimate kids scattered all other the place.

No, she knew him. Knew he wasn't like that.

She just didn't know why he was like this.