Hi! Sorry about the ridiculously long delay. I've been working, working, working and suffering, suffering, suffering with allergies. It became phenomenally difficult to focus my watering eyes on a computer screen both at work and at home.

Annnnnyway - the usual warning about mediocre writing still stands for this chapter. I picked a random hometown in the Texas Panhandle for Murdock. I couldn't find any canon reference, but didn't really do an exhaustive search. If anyone happens to know this information - please share.

XXX

Cambodia/Vietnam Border, July 5, 1969, 04:30 hours.

Hannibal stuffed down the urge to smoke, though it'd always helped him think.

The eastern sky blushed faintly with the dawn, though it was barely visible through the dense leafy canopy of the Cambodian jungle. He could just hear the quiet, rhythmic breathing of Sergeant BA Baracus under the persistent thrum of insects. They were voracious, those minute jungle warriors. They drew blood. They raised welts. They made this sweltering latrine of a country worse than unbearable. BA, crouched on his right, peered through field glasses and offered no complaint. He knew better.

On his left, First Lieutenant Templeton Peck, called Face by some, scanned the village. He was counting silently. Hannibal's team been reconnoitering for three and a half hours, and according to Lieutenant Peck's sharp eye, there were at least 15 VC, 20 civilians and one United States Army soldier holed up here. The young private had been herded into a hut on the far side of the village, near the pigpen. The miserly moonlight had provided no real aid, though BA was fairly certain that the captured grunt was not Sgt. Will Dixon. It didn't matter. No one would be left to the Viet Cong.

The team agreed to move in at dawn and do what they did best. Surprise, strike, kill.

Hannibal heard a soft squish, and a faint curse from Lieutenant Peck. Leeches. Another joy of the jungle. He derived great pleasure from scorching them with the lit tip of a cigar until they detached and tumbled away with a faint hiss. Hannibal turned to signal BA to move in closer, to confer one last time, and found himself face-to-face with Lieutenant Dixon.

Even in the faint, early light he could see her eyes were huge and wary under her pot helmet. She carried her M-16 with the bayonet attached. He hadn't heard her coming.

"Dixon," Hannibal whispered. "You were supposed to stay with -" he stopped and looked around. Captain Murdock didn't appear to be with her.

"Are you kidding me?" Face whispered harshly. "I told you, Hannibal… didn't I tell you?"

BA turned and tipped backwards, surprised to find Dixon beside him. Face continued whispering incoherent curses. Hannibal held up his hand for silence.

"Dixon, how the hell did you get the drop on us?" he demanded, both curious and embarrassed. That would be a priceless bit of comedy for Stars and Stripes: 'Nurse Ambushes Three Special Forces Officers.'

Despite her earlier stealth, Dixon was shaking. "I-I pretended I was hunting whitetails sir," she said, swallowing. "Sir-"

"Listen honey-" Face interjected "-you were told to stay with the bird."

BA grumbled softly. "Shut up Face. Somethin's not right. She here for a reason, not 'cause she out pickin' flowers." He stopped and looked at Dixon expectantly.

"It's Captain Murdock," Dixon whispered, her voice quavering.

"I knew it! That crazy fool," BA made a fist.

Hannibal held up his hand again.

"What about him Dixon?" he asked.

The words tumbled and broke over her fear, her anxiety. Something about a noise, Murdock leaving, a gunshot. Hannibal closed his eyes briefly.

"When was that?" he looked at his watch.

"Around 03:40 sir."

"About 50 minutes ago," Hannibal looked wistfully at the cigar in his shirt pocket. Captain Murdock was either dead, wounded, or missing. He had at least one grunt to rescue, an unknown number of potential hostages cached in one or more huts, his team consisted of two disgruntled Army killers and a diminutive nurse, and dawn was fast approaching.

"I don't know 'bout this Hannibal," BA grumbled.

Hannibal grinned at the apprehensive soldiers. "Gentlemen -" he winked at Dixon. "This'll be a picnic." He spread a crude little drawing of the village on the ground between them. Until Dixon appeared, He'd had a few snatches of a plan. Nothing concrete, nothing executable. Here in the incipient dawn, he realized that Face and BA hadn't picked up on his uncertainty - despite the weight of their own. They seemed to believe that he had over a dozen schemes in the works before the Huey touched down in the jungle. The sudden knowledge speared him with anxiety. He extracted the cigar from his pocket and twirled it, but didn't light up. Their faith was heartening, and he couldn't discourage them by tipping his hand. This place, this stinking jungle, terrified him. Furthermore, the thought of laying siege to the village, even with two such competent men at his side, twisted his guts.

They leaned in close, even little Dixon, eager to get their assignments. Hannibal pointed to a dot on the map, then at BA, who nodded and melted into the brush. Face, after studying his position on the map, headed in the opposite direction , tossing Lieutenant Dixon a parting glare as he went.

Dixon.

She looked up at Hannibal, eyes wide. Sweat poured from under her pot helmet. The rifle trembled in her hands. She'd made it through basic. She claimed to be a decent shot with a .22.

Right now, Hannibal thought, I need to dig deep and find something in me that believed this tiny woman, a woman who came to Vietnam to heal and not to kill, could do her part.

Hannibal took a deep breath. "So. You're a hunter?"

"I've hunted sir," she said, sounding less than convincing.

Great.

"Turkeys and whitetail. You bag anything?"

"I do all right sir. Will's better."

She sounded more certain this time, so he pressed on.

"You know Dixon, throughout history some of the best warriors were conscripted into service at a time of great need," Hannibal smiled faintly as the M-16 steadied in her hands. "At home, they were simple hunters. Those skills - patience, precision and determination, are the quintessence of an Army sharpshooter."

She nodded, but offered no comment. The colonel beckoned her to follow, and she did. If he couldn't hear the whisper of her breathing, he'd have never known she was behind him. He had men on his A-team who made a greater racket.

He paused at the base of a large tree, part of a dense clump at the edge of the clustered huts, at the farthest point from the pigpen and the prison hut. Hannibal pointed up to the tree.

"Lieutenant. I need you to take your rifle and climb this tree. Quiet as a mouse, quick as a snake. You're our eyes in the sky." He watched as she tilted her head up, assessing the branches. "This isn't hunting whitetail." He detached the scope from his own rifle, and fitted it to hers.

"No sir," she said gravely. He saw that she knew.

"We're outnumbered Dixon. You cannot waver. There are US soldiers in that camp, and they're not going to spend another day in VC custody," Hannibal paused and rubbed his forehead. "You're my ace in the hole. When we make our move - shoot to kill."

Her face was pinched with fear, and Hannibal watched as she shouldered her rifle, snapped a salute and crept up the tree with the ease and stealth of a spider. Within moments, she disappeared into the canopy.

He refocused his attention on the village and there, in the dim light, a small VC patrol returned, dragging what looked like a jumble of firewood. They dumped their burden unceremoniously just inside the door of the prison hut. Hannibal could just make out two long, splayed legs and the cuff of an A-2 flight jacket.

Captain Murdock.

xxx

In the dark of the Texas panhandle, lights blinked and chased furiously around the sign for the Wonder Drive-In. It was the only attraction in Spearman, Texas - and on a Friday night, it was the cultural hub for anyone under twenty-five.

Murdock stepped out of the cab of his Ford F-100 pickup, marveling at the forgotten pleasure of civilian shoes. In this case, a dusty pair of snip-toe cognac colored boots. Boots he thought he'd lost before heading to basic - but they were here now, peering out from beneath the frayed cuffs of his second-skin blue jeans.

He'd awoken from a maddening dream this evening. A dream about a distant jungle. He could only recall snips and flashes - a helicopter hunkered in a small clearing, a sleeping girl in the cockpit, the flash of a pistol in his hand, the feel of fists and feet pummeling him like stones, the warm tang of blood in his mouth just before the dark veiled his eyes. He woke up on the tired brown couch in his grandmother's living room. All was right with the world.

The girls lined up at the concession counter, and true to their Texas roots - most of them sported mind-bendingly voluminous hair. Skirts came in various lengths, though none of them were immodest, considering the rampant conservatism of Hansford county. Most wore traditional western shirts in various colors, and they seemed to his beauty-starved eyes like candy. Sweet, but insubstantial.

Murdock made his way to the counter, then ordered a Coke and their famous cheese fries with jalapenos. He wasn't sure when his tour ended, or how he'd ended up on his grandmother's couch, but now he didn't care. In a chopper, in the moment, all of his life fell away and he became someone else entirely. Sitting here at the drive-in on a Friday night, with the aimless chatter of women pattering around him like rain, made his chest tighten with forgotten longing for the comfort of home. A basket of fries, drowning in cheese and dusted with chopped jalapenos appeared before him. He dug in, fairly gobbling his food, but he didn't care.

A small, slender hand plucked a fry from the basket. Murdock looked up abruptly, momentarily annoyed. She was petite and dressed rather like he was. Boots, check. Tight jeans, check. Blue gingham blouse, che- no. His gray t-shirt read "ARMY". Close enough. The girl gave him a mysterious smile. The twin tails of her light brown hair pooled on the crisp shoulders of her blouse. She looked like Dorothy Gale, only… better. After what he hoped was an inconspicuous glance at the curve of her denim-clad thighs, Murdock pushed the basket of fries between the two of them and smiled. She sipped her Coke and grinned around the straw, her freckled nose crinkling. Then it hit him.

"Katie?"

"That's right Captain," Katie said, leaning against the counter.

"What're you doing in Spearman? Shouldn't you be in Iowa? In Parkersburg? When did your tour end?" The questions tumbled forth and he grabbed her shoulders in his excitement. Her blue eyes widened.

"I'm not in Spearman, Captain," she said.

Murdock ignored the incongruity of her statement. "HM. Call me HM. Please?" He hadn't released her shoulders and now gave them a tentative squeeze. "We're not in the Nam anymore. Call me HM." It sounded like begging, but he didn't care. Here in the incandescent glow of a drive-in concession stand, everything fell into place. She was steady, smart, and filled with such inherent goodness. The way she filled out her jeans, he told himself, was only a secondary consideration. Though he couldn't piece together how he got here, or what was happening - here was Katie Dixon. He pulled her close and leaned down, his long, roman nose brushing hers, small and sharp. Her breath was sweet with Coke and he could feel the heat of her mouth as she spoke, their lips nearly touching.

"It's not your time Captain," she said. Murdock could feel her little heart hammering away against him.

He shook his head as the whole scene dissolved into mist.

"You never left the jungle, Captain Murdock." Katie said, as she faded in his arms. "Now it's time for you to go back."

xxx

The smell was so strong that he could taste it far in the back of his throat. The overwhelming stench of spoiling meat. The suffocating heat pressed in around him, brutally severing whatever threads of the dream he still clung to. His entire body throbbed, and breathing was an exercise in pain. Murdock focused on a dim blur of light. He could see two VC standing by the crude door and sharing a cigarette.

A faint moan drifted from a far corner.

Wherever he was, he wasn't alone.

XXX

Alas, poor Murdock - you're hell and gone from Spearman, Texas. Thank you for reading, and sticking with the story so far. ^_^