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"She went missing three weeks ago. She was always such a popular girl, surrounded by friends. One day she said she was going to spend the night with her friend Marcie. She was supposed to be coming back the next morning. She never did."
After dropping the food off and filling BA and Murdock in on what had happened, it had taken the Team just ten minutes to find the woman called Rita again. BA had suggested taking her for a ride in the van and talking to her there, since Sacheton was a small town and at this point he didn't think it would be a good idea to draw too much attention to themselves by visiting the home of a woman who seemed to be under some kind of scrutiny already.
This idea had lasted for as long as it took Face to point out that any woman who was suddenly accosted by four strange men and dragged into a black van was bound to get the wrong idea, which was why the Team was now sitting (or in Hannibal's case, standing) in a tiny living room, surrounded on all sides by pictures of Chrissy Allen.
"I don't even know who you are or why I'm telling you all this." Rita blew her nose, then scrunched up the tissue and threw it into the overflowing waste paper basket. Murdock pulled out a clean one and handed it to her, just like he'd been doing ever since the Team showed up.
"Just think of us as a bunch of concerned citizens, ma'am." Hannibal turned and wandered over to the window – he always claimed he found it easier to think when he was moving – then half turned to face the woman. "Now, you said that Chrissy was a popular girl. Is it possible she may have had a boyfriend that you didn't know about?"
Rita was shaking her head before Hannibal had finished asking the question.
"No. No, she was a good girl. I don't mean she wasn't interested in boys, I mean if she'd met one then she wouldn't have kept it a secret from me."
That was open for debate, Hannibal thought, since most parents really knew very little about what their children got up to.
"Who's Markham?" Face put in before the colonel could think of a tactful way of speaking his mind.
"Jack Markham. He owns the house at the end of the town. Most of the town as well. He said I wasn't allowed to put up these flyers." Rita placed her hand protectively over a pile of the Missing posters, as though expecting the Team to snatch them away there and then.
A smile appeared on Hannibal's face, one his teammates had learned to dread. It signified the colonel was already halfway to being on the jazz.
"Face, this Markham guy knows something, else why would he be so determined to stop Rita here putting up these flyers? What do you say we pay him a little visit, see if we can persuade him to confide in us?"
Face knew his role in the proceedings as well as anyone else, and so he smiled back. "Why, Hannibal, I think that would be a very good idea."
"You can't." Another tissue joined the pile and was replaced by the ever-patient Murdock.
Hannibal's grin broadened. "Lady, the word can't isn't in our vocabulary."
Rita shook her head. "No, I mean you really can't. I tried to get in to see him. He's out on business and not due back until tomorrow."
Hannibal shrugged. "Alright. Come tomorrow, we'll go see what he has to say. Face, you think you can get us a place to stay?"
The lieutenant grinned. "Hannibal, please. Can birds fly?"
"Well, actually, Faceman, if you're talkin' 'bout emus an' penguins—"
"Murdock..."
"Okay." Face looked around the lounge. It was small but nicely furnished, with a couch and armchair arranged around a TV set and vague watercolour prints on the wall. "Well, it's a two-bedroom apartment, so Hannibal and I'll take the master and BA, you're with Murdock. Any questions?"
"Yeah! Why do I always end up sleepin' with the crazy guy? Why can't I bunk in with you or Hannibal once in a while?"
Face hesitated. Because you snore like a jackhammer, while accurate, probably wasn't the best answer he could give if he wanted to keep all his teeth where Nature intended.
"Well, BA...someone's gotta go in with Murdock—"
"So why's that someone always gotta be me? You're his friend, Face; how come you don't go in with him?"
Face debated with himself whether or not to tell BA about the Bigfoot mating call Murdock had tooted on every five minutes last time he'd been stupid enough to share a room with the pilot, then decided it wouldn't help his case any.
"Point one, Hannibal's the leader of the A-Team, so he should get the best room. Point two, I'm the one who got us this apartment so I get first pick after him. And point three, BA, Murdock happens to be standing right next to you, so stop talking about him like he's not here!"
BA opened his mouth to protest this, but Hannibal got there first, a broad grin on his face.
"You mean like that?"
"Aw, Faceman." Murdock wrapped the lieutenant in a bear hug that not only pinned Face's arms to his sides but threatened to crush his lungs as well. "Didn't know you cared."
"Yeah...great...Murdock. Now get off me before you break my ribs."
"Sorry buddy." The pilot released Face, then slung a friendly arm around his shoulders, which Face did his best to unsling without being too obvious about it.
"Face?"
"Yeah?" Grateful for the interruption, the lieutenant ducked away from Murdock and over to Hannibal, who had just opened the door to the master suite and was now grinning broadly.
"Did you, uh, have time to look through this apartment before taking it?"
"No, why?"
"I think you better." Hannibal stepped back, giving Face a clear view of the master bedroom, his grin widening.
Face looked past the colonel into the room. It was large, with fitted closets and a dresser underneath the window, which overlooked the alley and the apartment block opposite.
The good news was that it also had a bed for him and Hannibal to sleep in.
The bad news was that it was a double.
"So, sweetheart—" Hannibal's grin was now so wide he was having difficulty forming his words— "which side do you want?"
"Ah. Uh. Heh heh." Face drew back, closing the door, and turned a speculative gaze on the couch. Friends he and Hannibal may be, and the colonel was one of the very few people that Face did consider a friend, but there was still no way he was going to share a bed with the guy. "You know, I've been thinking, Hannibal...maybe we should let BA take the master, I mean, he does have a point, he rarely gets the best room—"
"Face, if BA hates the idea of being in the same room as Murdock, how on earth were you planning to break the news to him that he's got to be in the same bed?"
Face glanced at BA, who was occupied in raiding the fridge for milk, then back at Hannibal and put on his best, most charming grin. "Well, I was hoping you might consider..." He let the sentence trail off hopefully, then, when the colonel refused to finish it, groaned. "Right. Okay. So how about if BA takes the bed and Murdock takes the couch? The guest room's got two beds, right?"
Hannibal opened the door opposite to check, then closed it again. "Yeah."
"Right, so you and I can go in there. Or maybe I could take the double and—"
"Not on your life, kid. I haven't slept on the couch since I got divorced, and that was before I went to 'Nam. You and I can take the twin beds, BA can have the double and Murdock can go on the couch. Maybe they can trade tomorrow night, but I'm not going to share a room with BA or Murdock since I wouldn't get any peace with either of them. You, on the other hand, don't snore, and at least I can count on you not to wake me up."
Face sat bolt upright in bed, shaking all over, sheets clinging to his sweat-soaked body and one hand clamped over his mouth to stifle the scream. He could feel his heart hammering in his chest, so fast it was physically painful.
He ran trembling hands through damp hair and squeezed his eyes shut, shuddering. His muscles seemed to have turned to water. It was a long time before he was able to summon the strength to stand and even then he had to clutch at the nightstand for support. The stench of his own sweat in the small bedroom was overpowering and Face fumbled around the window, trying to open it.
"Looking for this?" Hannibal's voice was very quiet as he held out the key.
The lieutenant was still shaking so badly it took him two attempts before he managed to take it and another three before he could unlock the window and open it, gulping at the fresh night air. Putting his hands on the sill, he thrust his torso outside so fast that for a second Hannibal half thought he was going to throw himself out.
A breeze wafted against his skin, cooling him, soothing him, and Face closed his eyes, relishing the sensation.
He stayed there as long as he could manage, in the somewhat vain hope that Hannibal would have gone away by the time he got back in.
No such luck. The colonel was still standing there, watching him...not that Face had really expected anything else. Hannibal was concerned, that much was obvious, but there was a hard light in his eyes that said he wasn't going to let it go this time.
"So much for not waking me up."
"I'm sorry." Face barely recognised the hoarse voice coming out of his mouth as his own.
"It's alright. You feel better?"
Face, realising that the question wasn't so personal that he could reasonably ignore it, contented himself with a nod. Past experience had taught him that whenever he actually spoke to Hannibal in these situations, he always ended up saying far more than he'd meant to. Admittedly Hannibal had never repeated anything Face told him, but that wasn't the point.
"Good. What's going on?"
Face shrugged, then realised it made him look like a sulky teenager and decided to risk a few words.
"Nothing. Nothing's going on."
"Come on, kid." When Face looked away and refused to answer, Hannibal shook his head. "You know, for a con artist, Face, you're doing one heckuva lousy job of lying to me."
"I'm not lying, okay? I'm fine. I don't even remember what I was dreaming about." The lieutenant turned to go back, and Hannibal sidestepped neatly in front of him.
"Don't give me that. You're pale, you're dripping with sweat—" and that was putting it mildly, Hannibal thought, since Face's hair was currently plastered to his head with the stuff— "and you're shaking all over—"
"I'm not. See?" Face held up a hand, palm down, and managed to stop it trembling by the simple process of clenching every single muscle from the shoulder down. The overall effect was somewhat spoiled by the fact that the rest of his body was still quivering.
"—and you were talking in your sleep."
The lieutenant's head snapped around to stare at Hannibal so fast the colonel knew he'd been lying about not remembering the dream.
"I was?" Face swallowed, attempting to keep his voice and expression casual. He failed on both counts; he now looked panic-stricken. "What...what did I say?"
Hannibal met his gaze. "No. Please. And something about not wanting to go into the dark room."
Face wondered whether to have had a traumatic experience involving the high school photography club, or a form of torture in the POW camp that only he'd had to undergo, then reluctantly dismissed both stories as being too easy for Hannibal to disprove.
"Oh." He forced a laugh. "That. Back at the orphanage, if you wanted to get to the dining room you had to go through this tiny little corridor. It was usually well lit but one time the bulb burnt out as I was walking through and the whole place went dark. Gave me the creeps. Guess it's kinda stupid really, huh?"
"Yeah. Not as stupid as you seem to think I am, though."
"What?" The lieutenant blinked. "Sorry Hannibal, I'm not with you."
"Sure you are, Face." The lightness in Hannibal's tone never reached his eyes. "You really expect me to fall for that cock-and-bull story?"
"It's not a story." It wasn't – the incident had really happened, and it had been several weeks before Face was wholly comfortable going along that corridor again – but it wasn't what he'd been dreaming about either.
"It's not what caused this either." Hannibal's voice lowered, became more serious. "What was it really, kid?"
"'Nam." The lie came too quickly to Face's lips. "I dreamed I was back in the POW camp."
"No you didn't." Hannibal wasn't arguing with Face; he was stating a fact and they both knew it. All four members of the Team still had the occasional bad dream about 'Nam, but never like this. Face's dream hadn't even been a bad dream; it had been a full-fledged screaming nightmare. A part of Hannibal ached to comfort the lieutenant; the other part knew that Face would never let him.
Yeah Hannibal. Give him a nice, warm hug or something. That'd really freak the poor kid out...not to mention you. While Hannibal was prepared to watch over his team and quite literally die for them if he had to, he wasn't exactly big on displays of physical affection beyond a clap on the shoulder, and Face was even less comfortable with it.
That said, he'd seen Murdock hug Face before, but then he'd also seen Murdock hug dogs, complete strangers, helicopters, trees and on one particularly strange day, his own leg. (The pilot had claimed that since it was his right foot that did most of the legwork when driving, his left leg had started to get jealous and so he'd had to reassure it that it was still just as loved and appreciated as ever).
"Yeah I did."
It wasn't a particularly good lie – certainly not by the lieutenant's usual standards, and Hannibal had been so caught up in his own thoughts that it took him a second or two to remember what Face was talking about – but that didn't matter much, since Hannibal was the one person that the lieutenant had never been able to fool.
He'd tried when they'd first met, because back then lying and cheating had been as natural to the twenty year old Face as breathing, and unlike now, he didn't care whether he scammed his own people or the enemy. He'd marked Hannibal as a potential target, only to find the colonel two steps ahead of every scam he attempted to pull. As time had gone on, it became less about getting something from Hannibal, and more about the actual challenge of outwitting him.
"There was no dark room, as you call it, in the POW camp." Again, the same matter-of-fact tone. They'd both undergone every form of torture that the camp commander could devise, Hannibal more often than Face. "You're lying."
Face shot him an icy look, lip curled. "So what?"
"Lieutenant..." It was a warning. Casual and informal they may be, but Hannibal would still only tolerate a certain amount of insubordination.
"Just leave me alone, Hannibal!" Face spun away, then added in a quieter tone. "I'll see you later."
"Where are you going?"
The lieutenant paused in the doorway, then fixed Hannibal with the hardest stare he could manage.
"To the bathroom, to take a shower, since as you so kindly pointed out, I'm dripping with sweat." Drawing himself to attention, he added, "Permission, sir?"
"Don't take that tone with me, lieutenant!"
"Then butt out!" Face snapped. "Look Hannibal, I'm not gonna freak out during a firefight or any other time when it really matters, so what do you care if I have a bad dream?"
The words I care because I care about you shot up Hannibal's throat, and it was only with a supreme effort that he was able to choke them down again. Past experience had taught him that Face really didn't react well to statements like that. Plenty of people have a fear of rejection, but the lieutenant was the only person Hannibal had ever met who seemed to have an equal fear of being liked and accepted.
Probably because the only people who ever said they liked him did so just before kicking him in the teeth, Hannibal thought grimly.
He wasn't stupid enough to say any of that to Face, though; all he said was, "If you keep having these nightmares, you'll be too tired to be any use to the Team."
"Keep having? I've had one." The lieutenant shook his head. "You know, I could understand you acting this way if this had been going on all week, but it's the first time. You wanna give me another few nights before you start launching into the third degree?"
It sounded like Face, but Hannibal couldn't shake the feeling there was something missing. The kid's mouth seemed to be running on automatic, saying what he felt was necessary without paying too much attention to his own cover story. In this case, though, he did have a point; one incident was hardly a serious problem.
What the hell. Maybe the kid's right. Maybe I'm overreacting.
But even as he thought it, he knew he wasn't.
"If it happens again—" he began.
"It won't." Face pulled the door open.
Hannibal folded his arms. "Lieutenant?"
Face paused and looked around. "Yeah?"
"Don't even think of trading beds with BA or Murdock tomorrow night." If Face kept having nightmares like this one, the colonel wanted to know about it.
The lieutenant gave no sign that he'd heard; he just continued looking at Hannibal for a few seconds to see if he was going to say anything else, then turned and walked out, slamming the door behind him hard enough to vibrate it in its frame.
Okay, hopefully the next one should be up a little faster (operative word here being 'hopefully') In the meantime, hope you enjoyed this one and if you read, please review!