A/N: Another little bit of adult language in this chapter and a ton of angst - you've been warned. This isn't the last chapter, I really want to write more but it's harder than I though - endings are just not my forte.

Long Ago and Far Away

Chapter 12 – Ashes to Ashes

There was no holding him when he began to scream, it was if his strength had increased ten-fold. He fought them then, not holding back when he'd strike with fists and feet. Bloodied and bruised they could only stand back and watch helplessly as he writhed in agony. There were periods of silence, when he lay still and they were afraid he'd stopped breathing but then he'd whisper, chanting his name, rank and serial number. Hour after hour, he'd scream, his voice so ragged it made their own throats sore.

TC tried to get Rick to take some water but he refused the liquid, clenching his teeth and letting it spill down his chin. Rick's eyes were wide, he stared at things only he could see.

When Rick started clawing at the tile, breaking off his nails and leaving bloody lines on the floor TC couldn't bear it and tried to make him stop but Rick was determined.

"Cap's dead, got to bury him… the bugs." Rick began to claw at his arms, leaving bleeding scratches, "Bugs on me, get them off!"

TC managed to pin Rick's arms behind his back and despite the screams and a head–butt that bloodied his nose, continued to hang on to the struggling man.

"I don't know how he can keep this up." Magnum panted. "You'd think he'd be unconscious by now."

"It's fear, the adrenaline is keeping him awake." Higgins replied.

"I don't know how much more of this I can take." TC still held on to Rick, who had for the moment gone quiet. "He's meaner than a snake and twice as quick." He released Rick to Thomas and pinched his nose to stop the bleeding.

"Please let me go," Rick begged, "I just want to go home."

"Rick?" Thomas asked, trying to hang on to his friend and still look at his face. "Rick is that you?"

"I don't know anything, please stop…" Rick began to cry and struggle, "I can't… I can't!"

"Higgins, haven't you ever been through something like this before, give us some idea of what we can do to stop this?" Magnum pleaded.

Higgins shook his head, "I wish I had…"

"Kill me!" Rick screamed. "Kill me you cowardly bastards!" He wrenched free of Magnum's hold. He turned his back to them, seeming to curl inward upon himself and stood quietly for several minutes. He straightened, turned back to face them with a confident look, "Where I'm going, you can't follow. What I've got to do, you can't be any part of." The tone and cadence of his speech was different than before.

"What the hell?" Thomas asked.

"'Casablanca'" said Higgins. "Rick's final speech to Ilsa."

"Hey Rick." TC approached him carefully, extending a hand. "I'm TC."

Rick shook his hand, "Good to meet ya TC." A curious look quirked his features and had TC not been there to catch him, Rick would have fallen to the floor.

The door slammed open and medical personnel rushed in.

"What's going on?" Thomas asked.

"Vitals are falling, he's crashing." Dr. Collins told them.

The three friends were pushed aside as the doctors and nurses attended to Rick.

In minutes he had been placed in bed, IVs that had been prepared were set and medication to regulate his heart and blood pressure were administered.

"Is he going to be alright?" TC asked as the activity around Rick slowed.

Dr. Collins nodded, "He's burned through the aphrodyne, he's just very weak now and he needs lots of rest, but he should be back to his usual self in 48 hours."

"Rick escaped from the camp with PFC Samuel Jones who had a broken arm and a Lieutenant Henry Hammond who had been captive for nearly three years. They concealed themselves in a barn in the village of Pan Loa. Two days later they were discovered by a NVC patrol." Higgins paused, his brows furrowed. He took a deep breath and continued to read, "Rick killed the VC and got the men safely out of the village, meeting up with an Army patrol unit seven kilometers away."

Magnum looked skeptical, "Rick killed someone in hand to hand?"

"All Marines are trained in hand to hand combat." TC said defensively.

"Yeah but Rick…" Magnum laughed.

"Killed three men with his bare hands." Higgins interrupted, "One of the men was later found to have been an innocent civilian farmer."

Thomas stopped laughing. "I never thought …"

"Neither of us did." said TC, "Rick's not afraid of getting hurt in a fight, he's afraid of killing someone again."

"Precisely." Higgins replied.

"All the times I've rode him for being too chicken to fight…" Magnum looked ashamed, "He never said anything."

"Would you?" Higgins asked, not unkindly.

"No, I suppose not."

They were interrupted by a low moan.

TC was the first to reach Rick's bed, "Hey hotshot, how are you feeling?"

"My throat hurts."

TC looked at Magnum then back to Rick, "You talked a lot."

"What did I say?"

"You don't remember?" Thomas asked, passing him a cup of water.

"No." Rick took a sip, "What did I talk about?"

"I don't know," TC hedged. "You mumbled most of the time, said stuff we couldn't understand."

"Oh." Rick seemed relieved by TC's answer.

"You did quote Bogart in 'Casablanca' a couple of times."

Rick smiled, "My favorite movie." He handed the cup back to Thomas.

"You do a terrible impersonation of Bogart." Magnum teased.

"Hey," Rick protested sleepily, "you can't do any better."

"Get some rest Orville." TC said.

"We should all get some rest." Higgins said, gathering up the pictures and papers and putting them back in the box. "We can come back tomorrow."

"Good idea, Higgy." TC agreed. "We'll see you in the morning buddy."

Rick smiled, "Sure."

"'Night Rick." Thomas patted him on the leg.

"Hey Thomas, sorry I shot you."

"Don't worry about it, Rick." Magnum smiled and shrugged, "It's just a scratch, really." When he turned away from Rick his face was white with pain. "Come on guys, we need to let Rick get some rest."

Higgins drove TC back to Laie to pick up his chopper, Magnum went home, took some of the pain medication the doctor gave him and after two hours of restless tossing, gave up on sleeping and drove to Island Hoppers.

"Hey TC, what are you doing, having a barbeque?"

"No. I'm getting rid of evidence."

"You can't do that!" Thomas moved to grab the tapes from the flames but the other man blocked him.

"It's nothing that nobody needs to ever see, not even Orville." TC said, his expression was hard, brooking no arguments. "You understand me, Thomas?"

Magnum nodded and stepped back, quietly asking, "Did you watch them?"

"Yeah." TC sighed, "If Orville hadn't killed that bastard I sure would have."

"That bad huh?"

"Yeah, that bad."

"You wanna talk about it?"

"No." He stared at the curling black plastic for several minutes, "When Orville was first assigned to my bird I didn't want him, I thought he was useless, that he was gonna get us all killed 'cause he was so screwed up." TC swallowed hard, "After we got back by the skin of our teeth from one mission I must have screamed at him for a couple of hours. When I was done rippin' him up he was shaking and cowering like beat puppy and I'm ashamed to say I felt good about it." TC paused to stir the flames back up, "The next morning when he didn't show up at the mission briefing, I though he'd done me a favor and gone AWOL but he was waiting at the bird for us. Orville had spent the entire damn night going over every single gun on the ship, cleaning and loading them, making sure everything was ready to go. That was when I met Rick; tough, mouthy, stubborn, scared of nothin' Rick." He cleared his throat, "I thought he was trying for a section eight with the way he was acting but he never tried to get sent home, he stuck with me and damn if he wasn't the best gunner I ever had. He'd hear that AK popping and he was on it like a mad dog, then there's no more pop. Nothin' fazed him, he was taking them out and not even blinking." TC looked away, watching the setting sun on the ocean, "He was cold, man. A killer without a conscious and all the time acting like damn Humphrey Bogart, it was creepy. Me and the rest of the crew, we use to laugh about, but we were always afraid that some day he was gonna snap and turn that M60 on us."

"I thought he was just acting like he was crazy," Magnum admitted, "I wasn't scared of him."

"That's because you didn't know him Thomas, you didn't know Orville, just Rick."

"You talk about him like he's two different people."

"He is, though Rick has kind of faded into Orville now I guess, he's not like he was in Vietnam." TC was serious when he turned back to face Magnum, "I'm not afraid of him anymore, but I am afraid for him. He's been through more than you'll ever know Thomas and he's stronger than both of us, he had to be to survive this long. I'm not going to let anyone or anything," he looked pointedly at the ashes of the video tapes, "hurt him more."