wotumba1: Well, it's continued ;-) And you'll find out about the girl in a couple chapters, I promise ;-)
It took about forty minutes before Face jerked awake, and by that time Hannibal was seriously thinking of leaving the lieutenant to his rest.
"Face?" Taking in the younger man's wild eyes, Hannibal added, "Are you back with us?"
Face tensed, shifting away from him. "Hannibal? What are you doing in here?"
"Murdock told me you wanted to talk to me." Seeing Face edge back a little further, Hannibal added, "Do you still want to?"
"I want a drink."
Hannibal filled a glass from the jug of water by the bed and handed it to him. Face eyed it a little warily, then took it, sitting up and leaning back against the wall.
"Thanks."
"You're welcome." Hannibal watched as Face gulped at the water. "Face, if you've changed your mind about talking, just tell me."
The lieutenant rolled his eyes. "You always want to second-guess people, don't you?"
"I want to help you, kid, and I can't do that if you still want me to go stick my head in the pantry." Hannibal wondered whether he ought to tell Face that he'd also heard the lieutenant calling out in his sleep for his mother, then decided against it. He already knew that part of Face's history: he and his mother had lived in a cramped trailer a few blocks away from school, just close enough for the lieutenant to toddle there and back every day. One day when the five-year-old Face came back, he'd found not just his mother, but his entire home gone.
Face swallowed the last of the water, swung both legs over the side of the bed and stood up, swaying.
"Kid—"
"I'm alright," Face told him, although he didn't protest when Hannibal caught hold of his arm and stopped him falling.
"You lost a lot of blood, Face. None of us have the same blood type and there were too many MPs in the area to get you to hospital for a transfusion. To be honest, I'm still amazed you're alive at all."
"I said I'm alright!"
Hannibal sighed. "Well, if you're well enough to argue with me, I guess you're on the road to recovery. C'mon. Time for a change of scenery."
Face stiffened but allowed Hannibal to help him over to the armchair by the window and sit him down in it.
Now what the hell do I say to him? He's convinced I'm going to start up the inquisition again.
Immediately the thought came back, So don't. Find something else to talk about. Something he can't feel threatened by.
The colonel settled down on the bed and stared at nothing for a few minutes, then chuckled.
"What?" Face's voice was a little wary, but not suspicious; even he didn't believe Hannibal would actually laugh at his situation.
"I was just thinking. You remember when we got the check from our first job? Fifteen grand each. You spent thirteen of it on your first car."
He wasn't sure, but he thought he saw a grin flicker over the lieutenant's face. "Yeah. I could drive well enough but I needed a ride to pick it up, so I had to get you to come with me."
"And you told everyone I was your driving instructor."
"And you made me drive around in circles for three hours!"
Hannibal raised his eyebrows. "What'd you expect? As a responsible driving instructor, it was my duty to make sure you were safe to be let loose on the roads. I was just trying not to blow your cover, that's all."
"Sure Hannibal, because everybody drives around the block five hundred times. We were starting to draw a crowd by the end of it. I should've rented advertising space on the side. And you never did let me drive your car."
The colonel folded his arms. "I never had to, kid. You stole it that night, remember?"
"Now Hannibal, I took very good care of it, and I brought it back! With, I might add, a full tank of gas."
"And only one headlight."
"That wasn't my fault! That thing just leapt out into the road, right in front of me! It was a very nasty experience, Hannibal. I was traumatised for weeks!"
Hannibal took hold of Face's shoulders, looked into his eyes and spoke very gently.
"Face, that thing was a traffic light."
"Ah, Hannibal. Minor detail. Anyway, if we're pointing fingers, what about the time you threw me into that door a couple weeks later?"
Hannibal glanced at the lieutenant, but there was no accusation in Face's expression and so he relaxed again.
"You took off for five days without calling or even letting me know where you were and that you were okay. I was out of my mind with worry! Just like I've been these past six weeks." The words were out of Hannibal's mouth before he could stop them. Face froze, then looked away.
"Yeah. Well."
"If it's any consolation, kid, I'm not planning to ground you again."
This time Face really did grin, albeit briefly. He'd been staying in Hannibal's apartment at the time, and the colonel had confined him to barracks for two weeks following his little excursion. Face's reaction on receiving this news had been similar to that of a teenager; Hannibal could still hear the note of indignant astonishment as though it were yesterday.
"You...no way, Hannibal! You're GROUNDING me?"
They sat there in a comfortable silence for a few minutes, then Hannibal spoke again. "Did you really want to die?"
Face stared out the window with dull eyes. "I don't know. Maybe."
More silence, then the colonel said very carefully, "Do you want to tell me why?"
"Does it matter?"
"Well, I'd quite like to stop it happening again, Face, so...yeah."
Another silence, then Face said in a monotone, "It's never going to end, is it?"
Hannibal was silent. Experience had taught him that the lieutenant would answer his own questions soon enough.
"Everywhere we go, the military are after us. Even while we're holed up here, they're still hunting us. I used to want a nice little house, maybe a dog. And kids. I always wanted kids. I can't even have that because I might be running for my life from Decker and his goons at any minute. It's been like this for ten years, for something we didn't even do, and they are never, ever going to leave us alone. And...I'm tired, Hannibal. I'm so, so tired. Sometimes I wish the military would just catch us and lock us up. I mean, sure we'd be in jail, but at least I could wake up every morning without being terrified that this would be the day they catch us. And then whenever it comes to it, I just want to stay out and stay free."
The colonel was quiet for a while longer, then said, "Do you want to leave the Team? Try and disappear on your own?"
"No." Face's voice was still dull, but there was no doubting the sincerity there. "It's like you said, Hannibal; all we've got is each other. Although sometimes I don't think I've even got that."
"What's that supposed to mean?" There was no anger or defensiveness in Hannibal's tone; he was genuinely baffled.
"It means you do your best to accommodate everyone in the Team except me. I find a place to stay or a restaurant I like, then you guys come hurtling in and screw it up somehow. You get me kicked out of my home or at least make things so uncomfortable for me there that I have to leave before I blow my cover completely and I'm stuck sleeping in the 'Vette for a few nights until I can put another scam together. Someone asks BA for help and you drag the Team into it. An old friend asks you for help and you drag the Team into it. An old friend asks me for help and you won't even consider going unless I pay you, and I have to fight to get you to agree to that. And the worst thing about it all, Hannibal, is that you think it's funny. Everything I do, everything I try and work towards is just a big joke to you."
Hannibal was silent for a long time, thinking this through.
"Why didn't you mention any of this before?" he said at last.
Face shrugged. "I don't know. I guess I thought you'd get angry and kick me off the Team."
"C'mon Face." Hannibal raised his eyebrows, grinning. "Now that is a joke."
The lieutenant glanced at him and managed a wan smile. "Yeah. I guess it is." There was a telling silence, then Face looked away again. "So...what happens now?"
The colonel kept his voice as casual as he could as he answered, "Well, that's up to you, Face. The Team hasn't been the same since you left."
The lieutenant looked away with a hollow laugh. "I don't deserve a place on the Team."
Hannibal shrugged. "Well, if that's the way you feel about it, kid, then that's the way you feel about it. But I'm telling you you're wrong, and that you got that place if you want it." He hesitated, serious again. "Face—"
"No, Hannibal...don't say it. Please."
"Kid, believe me, the last thing I wanna do is drive you away again. But you need to talk to someone about what happened to you. I was right about that, Face. I was just wrong in trying to force you to pick me."
The lieutenant lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, hands folded over his stomach. "I don't remember what happened to me."
"You really don't remember, or you want me to butt out?"
"I don't remember. At least...not all of it. I didn't...I was five years old. I'd walked home from school to find my mom had just upped and left and so I started walking. I don't know, maybe I had some crazy idea about following her on foot. I was picked up by a guy in a car. I was cold. I was hungry. And nobody had ever thought to tell me not to talk to strangers. It was getting dark and he said he had some food and somewhere to stay. So I got in the car. I just...went right along and got in the car.
"There was another guy. Gave me an injection as soon as I got in. Next thing I know I'm in a room with another kid. He's dead."
"What?" Hannibal hadn't meant to interrupt, hadn't meant to say anything at all, but this was too much of a curve ball even for him.
"Strangled. Been dead for a while. You ever seen a strangled body?" Face smiled coldly. "It's pretty colorful."
Hannibal had, but he kept quiet.
"I was lying on a mattress. Damp. Pretty hard. He was sprawled on the other. I tried touching him. He was so cold..." Face continued staring at the ceiling, lost in his own mind. "And stiff. And...the color. You know when a person dies, how the blood settles because it's not being pumped round by the heart? How it just kinda sinks, and the person ends up white on top, darker underneath?"
Hannibal, who had seen more bodies than he cared to remember, nodded. "Yeah. They always seem to miss that little detail on TV."
"Uh huh. I had no idea. I was five," Face repeated, as though Hannibal had sneered at his ignorance. "I just...I dunno. I knew about death, but I'd never heard of rigor mortis. And I really didn't know about the blood settling after someone dies."
Hannibal had met very few people outside the armed forces or medical profession who did, but kept that to himself. Instead he said, "Do you know why he was still there? If he was dead?"
Face shook his head. "No. I think someone just...went a little too far and they hadn't gotten around to getting rid of the body yet."
"Jesus." Hannibal stared at the lieutenant, mouth dry. He'd thought it might be grim, knowing as much as he already did, but this was darker than he could have ever expected.
Face glanced at him. "You still wanna hear this?"
Hannibal hesitated, then said candidly, "No, but I'm still ready to listen."
"Well...aw, heck, Hannibal, I was a really cute kid, you know? Maybe kinda scruffy – personal hygiene was kind of an optional extra at home – but in a way that made me cuter. I had the lovable scamp thing down to a fine art. Young, blonde...just what the customers were after."
"Did they..." Hannibal hesitated, trying to find a way of phrasing his next question that wouldn't make him sound like the world's biggest vulture. "How many, uh..."
"Couple during the day. Few more at night. Like I said, I was popular. I didn't exactly keep a running total, but if I had to make a guess, I'd say the most I ever got was six in a twenty four hour timeframe. Usually it was around four though."
"Around?"
"I didn't exactly keep a running tally, Hannibal! And there were no windows, no clocks, nothing. The only thing I had to keep track of time was food, and that came three times a day. It wasn't much but it was better than nothing. And my mother wasn't big on feeding me, so it wasn't as if I knew any different."
"You have any idea how long you were there?"
"Two weeks. Cops raided the place. I don't really remember what happened next, to tell you the truth, it gets kinda blurred. I must've spent a few days being questioned, although like I said, it's not too clear in my mind. Next really clear thing I remember is being dumped at the orphanage where I grew up. As far as those two weeks went...I just blacked them out. Life in that orphanage was tough enough without having something like that lurking in my mind. And kids have no real idea of time, you know? It wasn't hard to convince myself that I'd been running after my mother when the cops picked me up."
"Yeah." Hannibal was quiet for a moment. It was Face who was the mathematical genius – he could do equations in his head that Hannibal struggled with on paper – but the colonel was at least capable of basic mental arithmetic.
Two weeks. It didn't sound like much, and it wasn't, not when you considered that some kids never got out. Four times a day. Sometimes less, often more.
Even if you took four times every twenty four hours for two weeks as a ballpark figure, it still didn't sound like much until you added it up and realised that prior to his arrival at the orphanage, the five year old Face had been raped over fifty times.
No wonder he'd suppressed the memories. At that moment Hannibal seriously wished he could do the same thing.
"Face, if I'd known—"
Face snorted. "You'd have what? Felt sorry for me? Gone easy on me? I didn't want that. Besides, how could you know when I didn't?"
"You never dreamed about it? Back in the orphanage, I mean?"
The lieutenant frowned, not angrily but in thought.
"If I did, I don't remember. I mean, sure I had some pretty bad nights, but my mom had just abandoned me. I never thought any more of it besides that, and neither did anyone else."
"Didn't the orphanage pick up on it?" Even as Hannibal said it, he knew the answer. Face had received food, clothing and shelter from the orphanage, but nothing in the way of emotional or mental support; the few adults he risked getting close to had a habit of leaving or being transferred.
Face shook his head. "Not really. I mean, I never liked being around men, but since ninety nine point nine percent of the staff were female, they just thought I was shy. I thought I was shy."
"But the police would have mentioned what happened."
A shrug. "Maybe. I never saw my own records from the orphanage. Maybe they did say something about it, although since they never made any charges stick against those people, I'm not sure. Maybe they figured I deserved a clean start. It's hard enough getting adopted and a lot of wannabe parents don't want damaged goods. At least, not that damaged. 'Course, it didn't matter in my case, but still..."
Hannibal nodded. "Yeah." He paused, then said, "Well, as far as your position on the Team goes, Face, this doesn't change a thing. You're still one of us, no matter what happened to you before."
Face looked away. "I didn't want you to know that about me, Hannibal. Any of you."
"Yeah. I can understand that, kid. And I won't breathe a word of this to BA or Murdock." The colonel didn't bother adding that he was sure Murdock had figured most of it out for himself. Despite what he'd often told recruits, there was such a thing as too much information.
"So at the risk of repeating myself, Hannibal, what now? We can't stay here forever."
Hannibal raised his eyebrows. "No, we can't. For one thing, we still have a job to do."
"A job?" Face's heart dropped. It's one thing to storm off and tell the world (or at least, yourself) that everyone can go on without you, that they can just pretend you never existed. It's quite another to have them take you at your word.
"Sacheton? Chrissy Allen, or Jolene Hanson, or whoever she is? You remember that?"
"Vaguely." Seeing Hannibal's look, Face added, "I'm serious. I had quite a few things on my mind."
"Do you remember trying to break into Markham's place time after time?"
The lieutenant frowned. "Kinda. I mean, yeah, I remember doing it, but the details are kinda fuzzy."
"Damn." Hannibal had been banking on Face's description of Markham's mansion helping him and the rest of the Team sneak inside and turn the entire place upside-down.
"Sorry."
"It's not your fault, kid. It would just have made things a little quicker, that's all."
Face shook his head. "It's pretty much a blank. If I think of anything, I'll tell you."
A slight smile, the first real one in what felt like years, flickered over Hannibal's face. "Well, that's all I wanted to hear, Lieutenant. Now get back to bed and get some rest. We're leaving first thing in the morning."
Hannibal was halfway back to the kitchen when the rage hit him.
It wasn't just anger for a friend or someone under his command, it was a sudden, blinding explosion of paternal fury. It didn't matter that it had happened fifteen years before Hannibal had first met Face; all that mattered was that a bunch of sick, twisted bastards had viciously and repeatedly brutalised someone Hannibal had come to regard as a son. The urge to find the ones responsible, to get his hands around their throats, to rip, tear, kill...Hannibal felt a shiver run down his spine.
Actually, now that he thought about it, there were plenty of people in Face's life that Hannibal would like a quiet word with, starting with the damn foster parents the kid had had for three months, and finishing with the mother who had abandoned him to that hell in the first place. He wondered if she was still alive and if so, whether she regretted what she'd done. Did she ever stop to think about the little boy she'd driven off and left?
She could at least have dumped him at the orphanage, given him that much.
"Colonel?" Murdock's voice was strained, although this fact flew over Hannibal's head in light of another, stranger one: while he'd been with Face, the pilot's hair had somehow changed from brown to a greasy black and a chunk of it had been brushed forward to cover up his receding hairline. The hairstyle suited him – it made him look his age, instead of about fifteen years older – but Hannibal was less sure about the color.
"Do I want to know?" He'd thought that Murdock could have stayed sane a little longer, in view of their current situation.
"Boot polish, Colonel."
"There's a car parked outside, Hannibal." BA's low voice unnerved Hannibal; the fact that the sergeant hadn't launched into a tirade against Murdock told the colonel how serious things were. "Just been sittin' there with its lights on for about an hour."
Hannibal grew very still. "Decker?"
"Yeah, could be." There wasn't a mirror in the kitchen, so Murdock put the finishing touches to his boot-blacked hair in the microwave door and added a little to his eyebrows for good measure. "Maybe he's jus' waitin' for one of us ta go out so's he can nab us."
"That's not Decker's style."
BA shrugged. "Could be that's the whole point. Man's figured out his style don't work. Maybe he decided to change it."
"No, he'd have to be flexible for that. Where does the boot polish fit into all this, anyway?"
Murdock grinned. "Well, since I ain't wanted by the MPs, they can't do anythin' ta me if I decide ta take a little walk outside for some groceries. But jus' 'cause they don't want me, it don't mean they can't recognise me an' with Faceman like he is...well, we can't take that chance. So I figure a little disguise, a new accent, a pair a glasses—" Murdock donned a fake set of owl glasses with tape around one of the legs— "an' I'm all set ta do a quick recon an' report back. How do I look?"
Hannibal scrutinized Murdock closely. "Not bad. You'll have to leave your jacket here, though; they'll recognise that even if they don't recognise you."
"Take off my jacket?" Murdock squirmed for a few minutes. "Aw, Colonel...you know I can't do that."
Hannibal raised his eyebrows. "Why not?"
It was something he'd often wondered, why Murdock insisted on wearing that heavy pilot's jacket over a t-shirt (and very often a shirt as well), even in the heat of LA. He was expecting something along the lines of the fairies don't want me to or this jacket gives me superhuman strength, but instead Murdock said, "'Cause a these."
The colonel looked down to where Murdock had pulled back his jacket sleeve and the sleeve of the shirt underneath, revealing the variety of scars he'd picked up in the POW camp back in Nam.
"I see." Quieter now. Even BA didn't seem able to find a tough remark for Murdock. Both he and Hannibal had become so used to the pilot's crazy excuses that it hadn't occurred to either of them Murdock might have a genuine reason to want to keep his jacket on. "Well, at least take mine instead. Like you said, we can't take a chance on being recognised."
Murdock hesitated, then took the colonel's offered jacket and shrugged his own off. Hannibal's didn't quite fit him – the older man was a few inches shorter and considerably broader across the shoulders – but it would probably do.
BA waited until Murdock had sauntered out the door before saying, "How's Face?"
Hannibal felt the bile rise up in his throat again at the thought of his and Face's most recent conversation, but all he said was, "He's fine. Or...he will be. BA, how soon can you pack?"
"Hannibal, I ain't even had time to unpack yet!"
"Good; we're leaving in the morning. Go on through and get some rest. I'll keep an eye out."
"Where we goin'?"
"Back to Sacheton. I want to find out who and/or where that girl is, and I think Markham knows a lot more than he's telling us."
BA frowned. "What d'you mean, Hannibal? We know who she is."
Hannibal glanced at him, then remembered that BA hadn't been present when he'd brought back the other Missing flier and so he passed it to the sergeant.
BA read it through, then shook his head. "Man, Hannibal. This is messed up."
Everything had been messed up, in Hannibal's opinion, from the moment that damn song had started playing on the radio and caused Face to freak out, but he didn't say so.
"How's Face gonna take it?"
"Fine. I already spoke to him about it. We can take that rental you got, since you blew out the tires on my car—"
"I wouldn't had to do that if you hadn't lost the van!"
"—and as soon as Murdock gets back with those groceries and you get some sleep, I'll see about making some sandwiches for the road." Hannibal didn't add that sleep was impossible for him, that he was still too furious to even consider it.
"Hannibal—"
"Goddammit Sergeant, I gave you an order! Now move!"
BA stared at him for a few minutes, then moved. Unlike most people the Team dealt with, he knew when he was pushing his luck.
Okay, so next up...the mystery of the missing girl is (finally!) solved! In the meantime, hope you enjoyed this and if you read, please review!
