As the day progressed on, Jean still wouldn't let on as to how sore she was after the beating, nor would she even consider letting Hannibal exam her. But both Face and Murdock could tell she was having a hard time moving around in comparison to the previous day, so both went out of their way to keep her off her feet and let her rest.
"Maybe now that the cavalry is gone I can take this clown paint off," she said as she grabbed a Kleenex and started to wipe her face with it.
"Don't do that," Face told her, "That's not going to work."
"You know, Peck," Jean told him, "For Smith being the one with all the movie experience, you sure seem to know a heck of a lot about makeup."
Face glared at her like an annoyed cat and he responded, "I've dated a lot of beauticians, including a few students who," he cleared his throat, "Needed a test subject."
"I bet they say that to all the boys," Murdock commented as he went over to Jean's bed, carrying his Bogey Bear with him. He sat down beside Jean and said to her, "I want you to take Bogey for a while and watch him for me." He leaned in to her and said confidentially, "For some reason, B.A. don't like him, I think he'll try and hide him somewhere."
"Murdock," Face said, "I thought that Bogey…" and how could he put this one gently? He remembered when Murdock's teddy bear had been shot to pieces a while back and how torn up Murdock had been, tearing the stuffing out in grief. "You alright, Murdock?" "Yeah, but I don't think Bogey's gonna make it, Lieutenant."
"I thought that he…didn't make it," Face explained.
Murdock looked at Face in mild surprise and he explained, "Oh no, Face, you see, Bogey would never intentionally go into a suicide mission, so what he did was send in a decoy bear in his place and stay out of sight until the fighting was over."
Jean caught the look on Templeton's face and she laughed as he just about lost it. She could hear him murmuring as he turned away, "And I had to sit up with this guy all night when he was crying about the bear dying…" He turned back around to face both of them and added, "Had to have a funeral for that bear, buried him in a shoebox, put up a little stone and everything!"
"Well Face," Murdock said calmly as if it was perfectly logical, "We had to do that to make it look official, that way Bogey would be safe when he came out again."
Now Jean was laughing at the frustrated look on his face as he tried to say something in response to that, and either couldn't come up with anything to say, or choked on what he could.
"Sure, Murdock," she said, "I'll keep an eye on him." She took the bear from him and started feeling around the bear's furry little body.
"What're you doing?" Murdock asked.
Jean tested the back for Velcro and said, "Just checking him for concealed weapons."
"Oh Bogey don't do anything like that," Murdock told her.
"You never know," she replied, "By the way, Murdock, I thought of something the other day. You know how you're always saying that you're crazy?"
"Because I am," Murdock took pride in his answer.
"But have you ever thought about the fact that anytime somebody says they're not crazy, they are, and when they say they are crazy, they're really not?" she asked him.
"For a normal crazy person maybe but I am a super duper crazy person!" Murdock reveled in the title, "The rules for insanity don't apply to me there."
They heard Hannibal and B.A. from the other room and Jean tossed the bear behind the pillows she was propped up against and watched as the other two men entered the room.
"What's going on?" Face asked.
"I'm working on a plan for when we leave here," Hannibal said, "B.A. and I have been going over a map to find the quickest route from here to Chicago, we can get there plenty ahead of schedule and ahead of Grant. As far as I can see so far, Face, the only thing we're going to need you to get us is a wheelchair."
"A wheelchair?" Face repeated, "Why?"
"Never mind that yet," Hannibal told him, "But somewhere between here and Chicago we need to find a wheelchair."
Face turned back towards the two other people on the bed and Jean asked him, "Business as usual?"
"Pretty much," he answered.
Murdock was too deep in his sleep to wake up, but he was awake enough that he could hear the moaning coming from the other side of the bed. He reached over and felt Face's arm and shook him, murmuring, "Face, wake up, you're having a nightmare." Ordinarily it would be a suicide mission to blindly try and wake up a Vietnam veteran caught in a nightmare without taking precautions; he himself didn't recall too many times that he could prove that, but Face had proven dangerous prior to and upon awakening several times. Fortunately somehow over the years there had been some form of recognition established so he knew when he was shaking that it was one of them trying to get his attention.
But the moans continued, now Murdock was starting to wake up, but he still didn't open his eyes yet. Instead he readjusted his aim and pressed his hand against Face's back and shook him, repeating, "Come on, Face, wake up, you're having a nightmare."
Now he heard somebody else moaning and realized that was Face, then who was the first one? Murdock opened his eyes and looked over to the other side of the bed and saw Face was just starting to wake up, and now he was reaching over to Murdock and pressing against him saying the same thing, "Wake up, Murdock, you're having a bad dream."
"Facey, wake up, it's me," Murdock told him.
Face opened one eye and saw Murdock sitting up in the bed, and his second eye opened as well and he turned over and saw they were both in the bed with a foot of space between them, "What happened?"
"That wasn't you?" Murdock asked.
Face was still half asleep and only shook his head and made a small 'mm-mm' sound. Then he realized something, and so had Murdock; there had been three of them when they went to sleep earlier that night and that was why there hadn't been a gap between them before.
"Whoops, she got away," Murdock said.
"Not again," Face groaned as he started to get up, but he felt Murdock pulling him back down on the bed again instead. He turned towards Murdock and saw the man was leaning over the edge of the bed; Face crawled over alongside him and saw what he saw, Jean was lying on the floor with a pillow under her head and nothing more.
"What're you doing down there?" Face asked her.
She had looked either like she was asleep, or like she was posing for her coffin, but with the light from the streetlamp shining in through the window, they saw her eyes open and she tiredly explained, "I already fell out of that bed twice. I'm staying right here until morning."
And they didn't have to guess why she had fallen out, now they knew where the moaning had been coming from; and they could definitely relate, they'd each had their share of nightmares since Vietnam, and they could only imagine what sights haunted her own dreams. Face put his hand on Murdock's shoulder and Murdock turned to him, Face said something into Murdock's ear and he nodded in agreement, and both men sat up in the bed and Face picked up the pillows while Murdock yanked the cover off and the sheet out by its hospital corners.
Early the next morning when Hannibal went into the adjoining room to see if Face and Murdock were up yet, he was met with a very unusual sight, and all he could do was stop in his tracks and take it all in with mild confusion, and slight amusement. Nobody was in either of the beds, all the bedding had been ripped off during the night and was spread all over the floor where there were three large lumps underneath the blankets, and all of them several feet away from one another.
B.A. came in behind Hannibal and stopped behind him and looked around at the odd sight as well, and was just as clueless at what was going on. It almost looked like a bunch of kids had piled their sleeping bags together at a slumber party to build a fort to tunnel through. Hannibal smiled in anticipation of this explanation and, stepping over towards the bed, he stood like he was back in the army commanding his men and called out in a loud and very military voice, "FACE!"
The first lump on the floor shot up and showed his face, and the dazed look showed that Face had been asleep until then, and if Hannibal had to guess, he didn't even know at the moment where he was, let alone why he was there. Then he called out similarly, "SAINT!"
"What?" Jean asked as she sat up three feet away from Face. She looked up at the two men now towering over them and just met their looks with one that made her resemble a cat that had been rudely awakened from its nap.
"MURDOCK!" Hannibal tried again, but this time the third lump didn't move. They all looked around the room, and Hannibal tried again, more subtly this time, "Murdock?"
Face and Jean turned when they heard a noise coming from the other end of the blankets and they saw something moving underneath them; Hannibal went over and pulled up the blanket and revealed Murdock stationary but crawling on his hands and his knees, exclaiming as he surfaced, "I've found the tunnel, Adams, it's this way! We won't pay five dollars for tea, we'll climb aboard the ship and toss it over! We'll make the ocean the biggest cup of tea that ever existed!" and laughed maniacally.
Hannibal looked to Face and asked, "Well, Lieutenant? What went on here last night?"
"Uh…well," Face tried to remember.
"How good is your imagination?" Jean asked Hannibal.
Face sharply turned to her and murmured in her ear, "Don't help me!"
Hannibal watched his discomfort and laughed as they started to get up. Jean grabbed her clothes and went into the bathroom while Face and Murdock replaced the pillows and covers on the beds. Hannibal went over to Face and asked him, "So what did happen last night?"
Face didn't want to go into it with Hannibal, especially since he didn't know himself, so the only thing he said by way of explanation was, "Nightmares."
"Ah," Hannibal replied somberly in understanding.
Hannibal felt an immense force poking his shoulder and turned to see what it was B.A. wanted.
"I got an idea," he told Hannibal.
"What is it?"
Hannibal had told Face and Murdock later that day to keep a close eye on their guest and to make sure she didn't find her pills; which they considered to be a safe bet because the only person who knew where they were was Murdock. Since they'd already succeeded in getting Lynch off their tail, they weren't going to ruin their good luck by leaving the hotel and going out in public until they took off for Chicago, so this made for another day spent going stir crazy in their hotel room. Shortly after lunch Face noticed that Jean, who had hardly moved from her spot on the bed all day, had suddenly become groggy and her head moved from one side to the other as she started to nod off and fought to stay awake, and then without warning she just collapsed on the bed unconscious. Face went next door and got Hannibal and told him what had happened.
Hannibal and B.A. followed Face into the room and saw the girl passed out on the bed, Hannibal only consulted his wristwatch, and taking the cigar out of his mouth, said to the man behind him, "Ten minutes, you were right, B.A."
Face looked back at them, "Right about what?"
"I told Hannibal to give her the same knockout stuff you give me before we get on a plane," B.A. explained, a murderous gleam in his eyes at the last word.
"That way, I can better examine her without her trying to kill us," Hannibal added, "She wouldn't let me take a look at her before but she doesn't have a choice now." He turned back to B.A. and told him, "Now we had to alter the dosage greatly since she's a lot smaller than you are, but I don't think there's a chance she'll wake up before I'm done, however if she would…"
"I get it," B.A. said, he turned to Murdock and said, "Come on fool, we'll wait next door till this is over."
"And what about me?" Face asked Hannibal curiously.
"You're going to stay here and help me turn her over," Hannibal answered, "If she would wake up, somebody's going to have to hold her down."
"Oh joy," Face dryly remarked.
B.A. absentmindedly paced around the room waiting to hear what the verdict was and how bad Lynch's men had messed the girl up. Turning to pace again he caught Murdock standing by the door with his ear pressed against it.
"Get away from there, fool," B.A. told him, "You ain't gonna hear anything."
"Now that's where you're wrong, you big angry mudsucker," Murdock replied, replacing his ear to the door, "I do hear something."
"What' you hear?" B.A. asked.
Murdock turned and said, "They're coming," and moved away from the door.
The door opened and Hannibal and Face came in, met immediately with the obvious question from B.A., "Well, how bad is it?"
"Pretty bad," Hannibal answered with a sober look on his face, "The MPs got her pretty good when they thought she was Murdock. She's got bruises all over her front and back, running from top to bottom, and they all look like they were made at the same time, so there's no question that they all came from the same source."
"And, based on their shape, I'd say it definitely confirms her story of being hit with their rifles," Face added, looking a little green all of a sudden.
Face and Hannibal both noticed the murderous glare in B.A.'s eyes when he heard that, and they knew exactly what was going through his mind; and they also were aware of the futility of it all because the people he wanted most to make suffer for what they'd done, were the last ones any of them would ever be able to touch.
"So what do we do now?" B.A. asked.
"Well nothing seems to be broken, and I'm still not convinced she's in bad enough shape to actually need those morphine pills," Hannibal explained, "She ought to be knocked out for a couple hours now, that'll give her some time to rest, it'll be night soon and first thing tomorrow we're getting out of here and following Grant to Chicago and to Saunders."
"And then getting her back to her mama," B.A. added.
"Absolutely," Hannibal told him, and added jokingly, "We can't keep her with us, we don't have any use for her."
Hannibal hadn't missed the grim look on B.A.'s face and when Face and Murdock returned to the second room and it was just the two of them left, Hannibal asked him, "What's the matter, B.A.?"
Of course he could guess what a large part of it was. They all still felt horrible for what the Rhodes girl had put herself through in order to help them; there was no way they would've ever condoned a plan like hers if they'd known about it ahead of time. But apparently what was bothering the sergeant was something else entirely.
"Aw Hannibal, ain't there some way we can get a hold of her parents and let them know she's here so they won't have to worry so much?" he asked, "At least they'll know she's alive."
"I know, I thought about the same thing," Hannibal told him, "But I don't want to take a chance on using the phones here incase Lynch would've had the lines tapped as a precaution. Maybe once we get to Chicago, but I'll be honest with you, B.A., I don't want to get their hopes up incase something would go wrong. It's very tempting to just take her back to New York while she's still out cold, but that wouldn't mean the end of anything, she'd only find her way back and she'd be out for even more blood than she already is. Unfortunately we have to take her along with us and see this through to the end, once we deal with Saunders and Grant, then we'll be able to take her back, but until then we'll see what we can do about getting in touch with the Rhodes and giving them some good news anyway."
"Good," was B.A.'s only response, and it was the same threatening tone when he was about to punch Murdock's lights out.
Hannibal had a good idea why this case was such a sore spot for B.A., he was the only one of the A-Team that still had a mother; Murdock's had died when he was five, Face had been abandoned by his parents, B.A. still had his but due to the situation of their lives, he rarely got to see her and the colonel knew that it was hard on his sergeant, and probably, equally hard on his mother. And since he always felt like a father to the other three men in the team though he would never admit it, he could understand the parent's frustration in such a situation of never being able to see their child; and he realized that Jean's situation was not all that different from their own. The reasons why she couldn't go home were different but she had been right; if she went back before this whole ordeal was over, she and her parents would all be targeted and at risk, so it only made sense that she was going to stay away until everybody in the ring was dead and it would be safe to go home again. But the real question was would it ever be safe to go back home?
Around 2 o' clock that afternoon, Face was sitting in a chair by the bed watching TV, but his attention was quickly drawn to Jean when the unconscious girl started moaning into the pillow and trying to get up.
"I guess that was a weaker dose than normal," he commented.
Murdock was making his way back from the bathroom when his foot hit something and he yelped and bent over to grab his foot and started hopping around on the other.
"What happened?" Face asked.
"Oh…" Murdock groaned, and yelled through to the next room, "B.A.! Next time watch where you drop our luggage, would ya?" He looked down to see just what he had kicked and saw that it was one of Jean's bags and it was half open with stuff falling out onto the floor. Murdock bent down to put everything back in the bag before she woke up and accused him of snooping through her personal belongings when he realized what in the bag he had kicked that hit his foot so hard. He pulled out three old hardback books that practically stuck together in one large volume. Prying them apart one by one he looked over the covers and spines and read the titles, "The Emerald City of Oz, The Lost Princess of Oz, and The Magic of Oz."
"Hey!" Murdock almost dropped the books when he heard Jean and he looked to the bed and saw she had her eyes open, but was still groggy and had only been able to move her head around to see him, the rest of her body hadn't caught up with her yet.
Murdock got up and went over to the bed with the books in hand and he tried to explain but something got jumbled in the translation, "I, I, I wasn't…I was just…"
"Give me those," Jean swiped the books out of his hands and gripped them in her own, "This is one thing from home that I still have, I'm not about to have anything happen to them."
"I'm sorry," Murdock said, but he wasn't about to leave it at that, he pointed to the books she placed under her like a pillow and said, "I remember when I was a kid they read those to us in school."
That didn't seem to faze her any, but she strained her neck to turn and see Face when he added, "Yeah, me too, I remember somebody at the orphanage had gotten the whole collection for the kids. Boy that was a while ago."
"Oh really?" Jean forced a weak smile and asked, "How old are you, Peck?"
"Uh uh," Face shook his head, "You never reveal your true age."
Jean turned back to Murdock and whispered to him, "I think I was onto something with the makeup thing." And she laughed.
"How're you feeling?" Face asked, hoping to change the subject.
"Cheap," was her response, and with a knowing glare in her eye she told him, "I had this horrible dream that these two morons were looking me over like they were checking under the hood of a car."
"Oh boy," Face murmured.
"You drugged me," Jean accused as she tried to sit up, "You knocked me out and felt me up."
Did that stuff make people hallucinate? Face got up and went over to the bed and told her, "We had to see for ourselves how bad the damage was."
"Damage?" she repeated, "You talk like I'm the smashed-in grill of a car, you had no right to do that, Peck, neither you nor your precious colonel."
"We had every right to know," he replied defensively, "We're trying to get you back to your parents alive, we don't need you dropping dead on us prematurely."
She glared up at him through eyes that were half closed again and she told him, "I wouldn't waste my time on it if I were you, when they see me again they're going to wish I was dead."
Now Face was sure the drugs had to be making her delusional, she was making even less sense than she already had been in the last couple of days. Murdock tried talking some sense into her and she barked accusations at him too, and tried to turn on her side but she collapsed against the mattress groaning in pain. Murdock picked up the pill bottle by the bed and took a few out for her to swallow.
"That's why we had to know," Face tried to reason with Jean, "We're getting out of here tomorrow to follow Grant, remember that part of the plan? And when he meets up with Jack Saunders we're all going to have to be in the best physical condition possible."
"Well don't worry about me," Jean bitterly told him, "I'll manage just fine, I always have."
Murdock saw the fingers on Face's right hand starting to curl and uncurl into a fist absentmindedly. They were from the generation that was raised not to hit girls and that was something they'd carried into their adult lives as well, but Face looked like he was about to break with the tradition, but instead he got just a few inches away from her face and he told her, "You know what, kid? You're just lucky that we felt sorry for your parents, who went to so much trouble to find us because they wanted us to find you and bring you back. For the life of me I can't figure out why they would want you, you are the most ungrateful, selfish brat I've ever seen and trust me I've had more than my share!"
"Face!" Murdock couldn't believe what he'd just heard.
"By all means, Peck, feel sorry for my parents, I certainly do!" Jean responded as, ignoring the pain caused by any sudden movements, she hoisted her whole upper body into a sitting position, "I feel sorry for them that they had to only have one child in their whole lives and that they get one kid, can't even do anything right, everything I've ever done all I've done is screw it up and this is my one chance to try and make things right and I'll do it just fine without your help! I'll say it again, Peck, and don't you forget it, I never asked any of you to come along and help me! If I'd had it my way I would still be working alone, just as I like it because when there's nobody else to worry about having to trust, there're no problems. But you just had to come in trying to be the heroes, and I told you no, go waste your time helping somebody else, somebody that needs your help, somebody who actually wants your help, but did you listen? No!"
Even Murdock would admit you knew things were bad when the crazy one of the bunch had to step in and be the referee, and before he was aware of it that's just what he was doing; he'd gotten between the two of them before either could try doing something that they'd regret later, but he quickly became sandwiched between them as Jean tried to get past him to punch Face. He tried to talk some sense into both of them but it didn't work, and he didn't know whose hands had grabbed him by the throat but he felt his head shaking back and forth like they were trying to make a doll's head fall off, thankfully his had been screwed on a bit tighter.
Hannibal and B.A. heard the fight from next door and came rushing in to see what the problem was and the scene before them would've been funny if it wasn't serious. Hannibal ran over to the bed and pulled Jean off of Murdock, and as soon as that piece of bread was out of the mix, Murdock turned around and locked his arms around Face to restrain him, so he couldn't get away and do something he might regret either.
"What's going on in here, Captain?" Hannibal asked Murdock.
"I'm not sure, Colonel," Murdock replied, and he nodded towards Jean and said, "But I think the angry mudsucker's mean streak is starting to rub off on her, either that or those knockout pills make the subject more aggressive upon awakening."
"And what about the Lieutenant?" Hannibal asked.
"I have no idea," Murdock answered. But that wasn't entirely true.
"Get him out of here and let him cool off," Hannibal advised Murdock.
"Right, come on Faceman," Murdock grabbed him by the arm and walked him into the next room, leaving Hannibal, B.A., and Jean in the room.
Hannibal still had Jean from behind with his arms locked around her ribs and she tilted her head back to glare at him, but before she could say anything, he moved one arm up so he had her by the neck as he glared down at her and firmly explained, "And as for you, Brutus…I don't care if you are injured or not, if you ever do anything like that again I'm going to stuff you so full of those damn pills that you don't wake up until next Tuesday, would you like that?" He shook her a bit to get his point across. "No? Then behave yourself," and then he let go of her. "You may have had free range of what you could do when you were by yourself but you're with us now, and I don't let anybody treat my teammates like that; and I don't care what you've been through, you're no exception, you mess with one of my men, you will be sorry."
Murdock had poured a stiff drink for Face, who accepted the glass, and swallowed about half of it before he seemed to calm down.
"Feeling better, Facey?"
Face shifted his gaze towards the floor but nodded and gasped out, "Yeah, thanks."
Murdock wasn't sure if he should ask what was the matter; he felt that he didn't really need to ask, he could guess what it was. Face, being the youngest of them, never looked at things from the angle that a parent might, like Hannibal did, but at times, as a child would, and here was one child, an orphan, being jealous of another child because she had parents and seemed to be taking them and their very existence and their love and concern for her, for granted. All the little things that she seemed to brush off without a care were the same things he would've killed for as a kid just to have somebody to belong to who wanted him.
Face finally looked up at him and snapped at him, "Don't look at me like that! I'm not proud of what I said, I don't know what made me do it."
Murdock looked up towards the ceiling trying to come up with something to say in response, finally settling on, "It's alright, muchacho, we're all on edge, this is something difficult for all of us to deal with."
This was definitely not a normal job for the A-Team, though then again, what was?
Murdock wasn't sure if he ought to tell Face what his own thoughts about the girl were, but it didn't matter because he didn't get a chance; Hannibal was calling them back into the other room.
"Oh boy," Face groaned, he knew this wouldn't end well. Murdock walked behind him with a firm hand on his shoulder to reassure Face that he'd be on his side. When the two men returned to the room they saw Hannibal sitting at the head of the bed and Jean was out on the edge in the middle with her arms crossed and she looked over to the wall instead of facing them.
Hannibal looked at Face with his usual 'set of teeth playing with my mind' smirk and said, "Get over here, Lieutenant, since you two want to act like children so much, I want you both to apologize."
Face went over to the bed and looked at Hannibal, but their colonel pointed over to Jean instead and explained, "Not me, apologize to her." But she remained with her back turned to him, and Face was only too happy to repay the favor. He sat down on the bed beside her with his back to hers and his arms folded against his chest to match her perfectly.
"Oh man," B.A. chuckled, "They's a couple of bookends."
"Might be, B.A, might be," Hannibal replied with a knowing grin, "But it's giving me an idea."
"Uh oh," Face and Jean said when they heard that, and, each being surprised at hearing the other speak, they turned around and faced each other, and the tension broke when they both looked at each other and grinned.
"Maybe her behavior can't be justified but I guess I can understand it, Hannibal," Face told him later when they were in the first room, "She goes on about she doesn't have anybody she can rely on, that she can trust, and then you knock her out to examine her."
"And I can understand her position but it still had to be done," Hannibal replied.
"I know," Face said, "But I got to thinking earlier...also, if Murdock's right and she was taking those Hydromorphone pills, now that she can't find them she's got to be going through withdrawal and you know how violent people can get then."
"And in that case it's just a matter of time before she starts ripping the rooms apart looking for them," B.A. added.
Hannibal turned to Murdock and asked, "Do you still know where they are?"
Murdock only nodded incase Jean would've been listening at the door.
"Good, whatever you do, make sure she doesn't find them," Hannibal told him, "We're leaving first thing in the morning."
"Hannibal," Face said, "I was thinking about that, if we're taking a shortcut to get to Chicago ahead of Grant, how're we going to know that he's actually going there and not going to give us the slip?"
"I thought about that," Hannibal replied, "Remember a while back when that gang followed us by placing a tracking device on the van?"
"How're we going to find out which car down there is his?" Face asked, "We didn't see what he got here in."
"No, but we will tomorrow," he responded.
Face grimaced and said, "I have a feeling I'm not going to like this plan either."
"Have faith, you haven't heard my plan for once we get to the next hotel," Hannibal said.
"And that is?" Face asked.
Hannibal's trademark grin was back as he explained, "We'll be going in as a family."
Face looked horrified, "Aw Hannibal, don't tell me I'm going to be your 'slightly retarded' nephew Harold again? We've done that one three times when we have to get a hotel room on short notice, and I'm getting sick of it. It's embarrassing."
"Nope, I've got something better planned," Hannibal replied, and laughed lightly at his friend's pending misery.