"Alright, Deakins, just take it easy," Hannibal said as he got the older man settled into one of the beds on the second floor, "You just rest now and somebody will come and get you when it's time for dinner."

Deakins breathed hard a few times as he settled on his back and he said to the Colonel, "Thank you, Mr. Smith…you have no idea how I appreciate this."

Hannibal drew the covers up on the man and when it seemed he would fall asleep very quickly, both he and B.A. quietly left the room.

Hannibal pulled the door shut behind them and turned to his Sergeant and explained, "That is why we do this."

"You' right, Hannibal, for once this was actually a great plan," B.A. said.

Hannibal glared at the Sergeant through the corner of one eye at that remark, but the moment quickly passed and they headed back downstairs to see how things were going with the others.

In the living room they stumbled upon an unusual sight; Face and Murdock both tied up with Christmas lights and garland and the kids were hanging the ornaments on them.

"B.A., you've got to let these two help out at your daycare center sometime," Hannibal said.

"That ain't funny, Hannibal," B.A. said warningly, then he pointed to the two decorated men and added, "But that is," and a few high pitched giggles escaped him.

Hannibal made his way past the children and saw the two men who looked like they'd rather be anywhere else in the world but here right now.

"Well guys?"

"The kids decided they wanted to practice for tonight," Murdock answered.

"I see," Hannibal said, "Well the two of you look very pretty," he noticed but ignored the murderous glare he received from his Lieutenant, and added, "But first I think I need to plug you guys in."

"Aw Hannibal, don't encourage them!" Face said.

"Too late," Hannibal smirked as he found the end of the cord and connected it with an extension cord.

The two men lit up in bright colors of red and green and blue and orange and everybody applauded and a few whooped and cheered as well. Face looked like he wanted to crawl under a rock and hide, Murdock looked like this was just status quo for him.

"I think, Face," Hannibal said, "Before this is over, we're going to get you to laugh at yourself yet."

"I wouldn't bet on it, Hannibal."

"I would," he replied with a grin.

Later in the afternoon, Amy came over to help, and after spending 20 minutes getting acquainted with everybody there, she went to help Murdock and Face in the kitchen, who were trying to figure out what they could make that would feed 50 people and roughly all within the same time frame.

"Think they'd have any objection to barbecue?" Murdock asked.

"It's a little late to put chicken and ribs on the grill, Murdock," Face pointed out.

"No no, I mean hot dogs, hamburgers, baked beans, that kind of stuff, we could get it all done relatively quickly and we could make plenty for everybody. After all we're reserving the big meal for Christmas Eve, I'm sure they wouldn't mind grilled burgers and weenies for the time being."

"Another trip to the supermarket," Face groaned, "Best laid plans, indeeeed."

"I'll go with you, Face," Amy said.

Face huffed and told her, "I appreciate it, I knew going into this it was going to be a massive overhaul but we still didn't come as prepared as we should've been."

"You two go on and I'll start figuring a way to whip up 3 gallons of potato salad," Murdock said.

"Murdock," Amy suggested, "Why don't we just get potato chips instead?"

A light bulb went off over his head, "That's a good idea, everybody loves potato chips."

"There you go then," Amy said, "Be a lot quicker, a lot easier…"

"And nobody can complain about them being too lumpy," Face added.

"You'd find a way to," Amy told him, "You complain about everything. The pancakes are too lumpy!"

"The pancakes are lumpy!" Face replied.

"The orange juice is too pulpy!" Amy recalled as they headed out the back door, just pushing past Hannibal instead of colliding with him.

"Boy those two are a cute couple when they're angry," Hannibal said with a small chuckle as he closed the door behind them, "How's it going, Murdock?"

"Oh everything's going fine," Murdock answered, "How's everything going out there?"

"Everybody's having the time of their lives, just wait until we actually get to the Christmas party."

"Oh by the way, Hannibal," Murdock turned to him and said, "I wanted to ask you about something. Now maybe it's nothing but if it isn't nothing I thought maybe you should know."

"Know about what?" Hannibal asked.

"The other night I cleaned out the fireplace and I was looking for the trash can, and I found something in the ashes."

"What was it, Captain?" Hannibal asked.

"A few pieces of paper somebody tried to burn, not much of them left, but put together, they looked kind of suspicious."

"Where are they?" Hannibal asked him.

"Up in my room," Murdock answered.

While Murdock started on the dinner preparations, Hannibal went up to the room Murdock had been occupying the night before and found the charred bits of paper on a table by the pilot's bed. He examined them for his own self and moved them around and tried to figure out what order they had been in when they were whole. After a while he started to see something in the mess that helped him realize what Murdock was hinting at. These were the remains of some kind of records. But too much was gone for Hannibal to make out what it was. He wondered…they'd gone over the whole house, down on the first floor there was a room that they'd easily figured out was General Bullen's office, but since he was gone, and it wasn't a very likely candidate to convert into a makeshift bedroom, Hannibal hadn't paid much attention to it. But now he was starting to wonder if there were anymore records down there where these had come from? And he decided that he would go check it out.

Murdock had enlisted the help of his fellow V.A. patients to help out in the kitchen as dinner was being prepared and Face was surprised to find that in comparison to the pilot, they all seemed to be fairly 'all there' and quite 'normal', even almost downright boring by comparison. He was sorely tempted to ask which part of the hospital they came from but he was afraid he already knew the answer, so he chose not to ask and instead helped them get the food ready.

"You know, Murdock," he said as they were getting the meat on the grill, "I'm with Hannibal and all for giving these guys a good Christmas, but what happens the day after? You know?"

"Hannibal's got a plan for that too," Murdock told him, "He said that uh…tonight, B.A. and I are on gift-wrapping duty, and you and he are gonna call some people."

"Huh? What?" Face asked, "Wha…call who? …and why is he trusting B.A. to wrap breakables? For that matter, why's he trusting you with them?"

Murdock ignored that comment and said, "I think the Colonel's planning on calling up some old clients and seeing if they have any openings at their establishments. It would give these guys work and help them land on their feet again."

"They're all small businesses, Murdock," Face felt a need to remind him.

Murdock responded with, "Small, but honest and friendly, and paying, which is more than what they're currently looking at."

"True, still, do you think it's going to work?"

"Only one way to find out," Murdock said.

"But do you have any idea how many clients we have in this country alone that we'd be calling?" Face asked.

Murdock nodded and told him, "Hannibal said we're likely all going to be at it all night."

"All ni…oh boy," Face huffed.

Something else occurred to the pilot, and he turned to Face and said, "By the way, didn't Hannibal say something about you was supposed to bring a reel of film with you?"

"Oh yeah," Face sounded even less enthusiastic, "Go digging through all the old archive vaults of every TV production ever made going back to the 1950s, because he wants to show everybody a film, what film? A Christmas Carol, the 1951 version with Alastair Sim? Nooooo, the 1938 one with Gene and June Lockhart? Nooooo…the 1935 one with Seymour Hicks? No! Instead he insists I find the surviving film of a TV version made in the 1950s starring Basil Rathbone as the ghost of Jacob Marley, and Fredric March as Scrooge, and why he insisted on seeing this version, I have no idea, what I do know is I just about went crazy trying to find it, and I think he's crazy for making me look for it in the first place."

"Should be interesting," was all Murdock had to say.

"I wouldn't put much faith in that," Face said, "It's a musical, how great can they be?"

Murdock just clicked his tongue and told the conman, "I find your lack of artistic appreciation disturbing, Faceman."

Murdock turned and looked toward the front yard and his breath caught in his throat.

"Oh my God."

"What is it?" Face asked as he turned around too.

"It's Doctor Richter," Murdock said.

Face saw a man walking up the driveway towards them. He turned to Murdock, "Your doctor?"

Murdock nodded. "What's he doing here?"

"How did he get here?" Face wanted to know.

The two Team members walked down to meet the doctor halfway. Murdock tried to play it cool.

"Doctor Richter," he said, "What brings you here?"

The doctor just looked at his patient and said in a largely unreadable, but faintly disappointed tone, "Murdock, why did you do it?"

"Uh, why'd I do what?" Murdock asked.

"You were the one who sneaked everyone out," Doctor Richter said, "Jerry, Mike, Robert, Daniel, Justin…"

Face turned to Murdock and said, "You broke them all out? And you didn't tell me?"

"Faceman, it was the greatest thing you ever saw," Murdock said, "The biggest V.A. breakout ever."

"But I didn't see it!" Face told him, "How'd you do it?" But even more so, he turned to the doctor and asked him, "How did you find us here?"

"It wasn't hard once I started asking people around the hospital if anybody had seen which way a large unmarked blue bus went this morning," Doctor Richter explained.

"The whole point of an unmarked bus is you're not supposed to notice it!" Murdock whined.

"Doctor Richter," Face went up to the man, "My name is Templeton Peck and I…"

The doctor eyed him up and down and noted, "You look familiar…"

"Yeah, well," Face said, "If you'll just come inside, I'm sure we can get this whole thing settled…you see there's a perfectly good reason why everything's going on."

"If that is true, Mr. Peck, I look very forward to hearing what it is," the doctor told him.

"Right…" in this very instant, for the life of him Face couldn't figure out what it was Murdock liked so much about this doctor, "Well you see…"

He escorted Doctor Richter to the door and they went inside, straight into pandemonium as the kids came running through the hallway chasing each other, and whichever doorway they walked through they collided with 10 other people and had to push their way past them. Finally they got into the kitchen that was virtually empty, save Amy and the other hospital patients, and Face figured this would be a good place to talk.

"You see, Doctor," Face started to say, "What's going on here is…"

The kitchen door opened again and Hannibal stepped in and said to the Lieutenant, "Face, I need you to come with me, I need you to put your lock-picking skills to some use for me."

"Uh Hannibal," Face said, "This is Doctor Richter, Murdock's doctor from the V.A."

Hannibal turned to the man and briefly said, "How do you do?", and without waiting for a response, told Face again, "Come with me, I need you to crack open a box for me."

"Hannibal," Face grabbed him by the sleeve of his jacket to get his attention, "Doctor Richter came out here to find out why Murdock sneaked some of the patients out of the hospital today without notice."

Hannibal turned to the doctor and with almost no readable expression on his face whatsoever, said simply, "He's your patient, why does he do anything that he does?"

"It's to my understanding that you're his colonel from the war," Doctor Richter said, "Of whom he still speaks so highly in his rare, uninterrupted moments of coherency, I should think you'd be able to answer the same question."

"Okay," Hannibal said, "He brought them here because I asked him to."

"Why would you do that?" Doctor Richter asked.

"What's the matter, Doc?" Hannibal asked, "You got a problem with having a little Christmas party for the lesser fortunate?"

"A…Christmas party?" the doctor did a double take.

"That's right," Hannibal said, "That's what's going on here."

"Doctor Richter," Murdock thought of something, "Why don't you call up your daughter and invite her for the party too?"

"Murdock, I have no daughter."

"Why don't you call your wife and invite her?" Face suggested.

"I have no wife either," Richter explained.

"Boy aren't you the stubborn one?" Face asked.

"Amy!" Hannibal called to the reporter, "Fix Doctor Richter a drink, preferably something strong enough that tomorrow he won't remember today. Face, come with me, I need your help."

"I'm coming, Hannibal," Face said as he followed Hannibal out of the room, "What's going on?"

"Three lock boxes locked away in the desk, and nothing," Face said, "This General certainly is a weird one, isn't he?"

Hannibal wasn't satisfied. He paced around the room and told Face, "Something was here, something was in those boxes…something he didn't want anyone else finding."

"And it all went up in the fireplace," Face guessed.

"Leaving any trace of the records was a careless move," Hannibal said, "It's clearly something he doesn't want people to find out, he wouldn't risk anything being retrieved…he didn't burn it himself, he must've had one of the servants do it for him after he left."

Hannibal paced back and forth again, and stopped this time, and his eye caught something across the room. Face looked too and saw what it was Hannibal was staring at, a paper shredder. In two quick steps he was across the room and saw that there was still shredded paper in it.

"He's definitely hiding something, most people don't have one of these because they don't have anything worth cutting up," Hannibal said.

"Hannibal," Face said, "Even if there's anything there…do you have any idea how long it'll take to put it back together?"

Hannibal looked up at his Lieutenant and replied, "I have patience, I have time…"

"Yeah, a couple days," Face said, "And how about all those phone calls we were going to make tonight?"

"We're going to make them," Hannibal said, "And I'm going to find out what this guy's hiding."

"If it was really that important, why wouldn't he have destroyed it himself instead of leaving it to the maid?" Face asked.

"Just because he's a general doesn't mean he's smart," Hannibal told him.

"Well, that's true," Face replied.

"Let's go help Murdock explain this situation to Doctor Richter," Hannibal said, "And then get dinner, then we're going to help the kids get the tree ready, and then tonight everybody's on the graveyard shift, B.A. and Murdock are going to finish wrapping the toys for the kids and we…"

"Yeah I know, we're gonna play code-crackers," Face said as he picked up a handful of the shredded paper.

"And telephone tag," Hannibal added, "Don't forget that."

"Oh, I wish," Face replied cynically.