As the afternoon passed and the A-Team waited for their guest to wake up, they tried passing the time quietly, all the while outside the storm continued to rage on. Murdock knocked the others for a loop by being surprisingly good, he opted to sit on the floor by the couch and stay near M.D. Murdock so they'd know when he woke up, and passed the time by playing a game of solitaire on the floor. It was a bit unnerving but as Face left the room, he turned back and was relieved to watch as Murdock snatched his cards back from an imaginary second player. He went into the kitchen where Hannibal and B.A. were and asked, "Well how long as we going to tiptoe around here before we just wake him up?"

"Face, if we're going to find out what happened, we need him to be as lucid as possible, and after 7 days without any sleep, lucidity we are not going to get if he doesn't get some sleep first, you know that," Hannibal told him.

"Alright, but what do we do in the meantime?" Face asked, "We can't watch TV, we can't talk, we can't do anything we normally would or it might wake up Sleeping Beauty in there."

"Murdock's watching him now," Hannibal said, "I have a feeling once Mr. Murdock wakes up, none of us are going to be getting much sleep so I suggest we rest now while we wait."

"Yeah…I guess so," Face hesitantly replied. He wasn't going to admit it but he was just a little uneasy about having another mental patient in their home; this one he didn't even know, there was no telling what he'd do, if he'd get violent, and if he did if Murdock would be able to restrain him. He went into the living room and quietly asked Murdock, "You gonna be okay watching him for a while?"

Murdock answered by making an 'ok' signal with his hand before resuming his card game. Face nodded and, a bit reluctantly, left the room to go upstairs and lie down for a while.

One hour turned to two, multiplied into four, and it was going on dinner time and their guest still hadn't shown any signs of coming to anytime soon. Murdock had started to nod off himself when he heard the man on the couch grunting and groaning. He opened his eyes and tilted his head back to see what was going on; M.D. had gotten tangled up in the blanket and was trying to get out and, still in the realm of sleep, he got out a very coherent, "Get me out of this straitjacket!"

"I like this guy," Murdock said as he got up and shook M.D.'s shoulder to rouse him, "Come on new buddy, wake up!"

The man shot up on the couch screaming, then when he realized he was awake, he gasped for breath as he looked around at his new surroundings. When he turned to Murdock, the pilot waved his hand and said, "Hi there." The man screamed again, Murdock made a face at him and said, "Well that's a fine how-do-you-do."

The others heard the screaming and came running, they knew the moment of truth had arrived now. The other Murdock wrangled his way out of the blanket and was practically perched on the back couch cushions like a vulture as the other four men crowded in on him. Murdock took it upon himself to be the voice of reasoning and told the others to back off.

"What's going on?" the man asked them.

"Mr. Murdock," Hannibal said as he put his hands up to show they didn't mean any harm, "Try to calm down, we're here to help."

The young man standing on the couch looked at the four of them like a wild beast looking for a way out, he shifted his eyes from one person to another, and asked them, "Who are you?"

"I'm Hannibal Smith, this," Hannibal pointed to the others, "Is B.A. Baracus, Templeton Peck, and that's H.M. Murdock, an esteemed alumni at your residence, the V.A. hospital."

M.D. Murdock seemed to calm down at that and he looked at the pilot questioningly and asked, "Murdock?"

"That's right," Hannibal said, "You're probably familiar with him, he's been one of the star residents there for 10 years."

He shook his head and said, "I heard a little of him but I never saw him, I…" he looked around again and realized he wasn't in the hospital and asked them again, "What's going on here? Where am I?"

"Well right now you're in our summer home," Face explained, "Would you mind getting off the furniture?"

M.D. Murdock looked down and realized what Face meant, so he stepped down from the couch and said to them, "I don't get this…what do you want with me?"

"Well I'd like to say it's very simple," Hannibal told him, "But that is going to depend largely on what you can tell us."

"Yeah, like first of all, what's your name?" Face asked.

"M.D. Murdock," he answered.

"No, your full name," Face told him.

"That is my full name," he explained, "My mother had an…offbeat sense of humor, decided to just give me a set of initials for a name."

Face turned to Murdock and said, "Maybe you two are related."

"Alright…Mister Murdock, were you aware that the hospital had you scheduled for an operation tomorrow morning?" Hannibal asked.

He snorted and said, "Not an operation, a lobotomy!"

"Do you know why?" Hannibal asked.

"No," he shook his head, "Why?"

"We were hoping you could tell us that," Face said.

"Oh," he sat down on the couch and said, "I'm sorry I can't help you with that, but the truth is I really don't know anything."

"Alright, how about this one," Hannibal said, "Why were you in the V.A. in the first place? We checked, there's no record of you belonging in the military anywhere."

"That's because I never served," M.D. told him as he rubbed his head like he had a migraine.

"Then why were you in the hospital?" Face asked.

"I don't know," M.D. told them, "I didn't even know what hospital it was, they transferred me there from another one, moved me in during the night when it was dark, I couldn't tell where we were going."

"Murdock," Hannibal looked to the pilot, "Is that standard protocol for bringing in new patients?"

"Not as I know, Colonel," Murdock answered, "Can I ask some questions now?"

"Go ahead," Hannibal told him.

Murdock went over to M.D. and asked him, "So what's your case? Schizophrenia, multiple personality disorder, manic depressiveness, paranoia, kleptomania, post traumatic stress, pyromania, delusional disorder, or how about exhibitionism?"

"Huh?" B.A. asked.

"That's a term for people who like walking around with no clothes on, B.A.," Face explained.

"I know what it means, sucker," he replied.

"I don't know what you're talking about," M.D. said, "I'm not insane."

"Now don't be that way, cous," Murdock said as he put his arms around the notably uncomfortable man, "The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem, besides," he leaned over and said into the man's ear, "People who say they're not insane generally are."

"Well I'm not," M.D. told him as he shrugged out of Murdock's grasp, "I already told them all of that, I told everybody, but nobody would listen."

"What do you mean?" Hannibal asked.

M.D. looked at him and said, "I was locked up in a mental hospital two years ago, I told the doctors there, I told everybody at the time it happened that I wasn't insane, but nobody believed me."

"Well I believe you," Murdock told him, "You're not fun enough to be insane."

"Don't mind him, Mr. Murdock," Hannibal said, "He's always this way."

"But I still don't understand, where am I?" M.D. asked, "Why am I here?"

"Well that's a little harder to explain," Face told him, "You see…your file got mixed up with Murdock's and they were going to give him the lobotomy, when we got that mess straightened out, we got curious about there being another patient in the hospital with his name."

He looked at them with wide, unbelieving eyes and asked, "And you got me out? How?"

"It wasn't easy," Hannibal answered, "Believe me."

Hannibal knew that they weren't going to get anywhere unless they confided the truth in him, so he took it upon himself to break the news, "You see, Mr. Murdock, we are the A-Team, and," he pointed to Murdock, "This is our pilot. We break him out of the hospital whenever we need him to fly us somewhere for a mission, that's how Face happened to be at the hospital today to find out all of this stuff."

M.D.'s eyes widened in disbelief and he repeated, "You're the A-Team? I don't believe it."

"Why not?" Murdock asked, "You've never seen any of us before, you can't say that you're surprised."

M.D. looked at them and opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it and closed it again.

"You're the A-Team?" he said again, and laughed nervously, "Go figure." He looked to Murdock and asked, "Is he really insane?"

"We think so," Hannibal said.

"Uh-huh," M.D. said dryly, "And you trust him to fly you guys?"

"Well just because he's insane doesn't mean he doesn't know what he's doing," Face pointed out.

"That's right," Murdock said with a sharp nod, "They may have taken my pilot's license but I can still get any bird in the air."

"You should," B.A. told him as he rolled his eyes, "You' a dodo yourself, fool."

"Don't pay too much attention to them, Mr. Murdock," Hannibal said, "Where they come from that's just small talk."

"Uh, just call me Mad Dog," he replied, "That's what all my friends used to call me."

"How come?" Face asked.

He shrugged and said, "Just did, and then it stuck."

"Huh…" Face turned to Murdock and said, "Howling Mad and Mad Dog, that's a hell of a combination, Murdock."

"I'll say," Murdock agreed, "This ought to be great." He went over to Mad Dog and asked Hannibal, "Can't we keep him, Colonel?"

"Murdock, he's not a puppy," Hannibal reminded him, "In any case you have Billy for that." Murdock opened his mouth to respond but Hannibal cut him off and shook his head, "No no, Mr. Murdock here has his own family to take him back as soon as we can figure out why he was in the hospital."

Mad Dog snorted and said, "That's what you think."

"What's that mean?" Face asked.

"My mom died when I was 18, and I never knew my father," he told them, "No brothers or sisters, no aunts or uncles, and my grandparents died when I was a kid, I got nobody looking for me, believe me."

This seemed to make Murdock hopeful again and he tried asking Hannibal again, but once more the colonel shook his head and said, "Sorry, Murdock, it just wouldn't work."

"Well you don't know," Murdock wasn't ready to give up, "He could still be my cousin, he could be a long lost cousin or first cousin twice removed, or something like that."

"What's he talking about?" Mad Dog asked.

"Nothing," Face tried to assure him, "Just his usual crazy talk, you learn to tune it out after a while."

"Alright, Mad Dog," Hannibal said, "You say you're not insane, the hospital said you were, if you weren't why were you put in there? Especially seeing as how you yourself pointed out, you have no family to commit you?"

Mad Dog looked down at the floor and told him, "It's a long story."

Hannibal turned to Face and said, "I told you we wouldn't be getting any sleep tonight."

Face only nodded in response and rolled his eyes.

"Can I ask you guys a question?" Mad Dog asked, "It's not that I don't trust you guys, but…"

"You don't trust us," Face finished the sentence for him.

"Well I'm just wondering how I'm supposed to know that I can," he said, "After the two years I've had, I find it hard to put anything past anybody in the way of what they're capable of doing."

"Well it's a fair point," Hannibal concurred, "Unfortunately the only answer I can come up with is that you don't have any choice."

"I suppose I don't," Mad Dog responded, "But what do you want with me?"

"If possible, if what you say is true," Hannibal told him, "We'd like to try and help you."

"I doubt you could," Mad Dog said, "I doubt anybody can help me."

"Well calm down, cousin, no need to get all testy just yet," Murdock told him as he grabbed the man's arm to get his attention, "Let us try, now come on, what's going on? How did you wind up in the padded room hotel?"

Mad Dog turned to him and retorted, "How did you?"

"That's an even longer story," Murdock told him.

"Mister Murdock," Hannibal spoke up, "Perhaps you could at least tell us, who beat you up? How did you get those bruises under your shirt?"

Mad Dog lifted up the hem of his T-shirt and saw the yellow marks Hannibal had been referring to.

"I got in a fight," he sheepishly answered as he lowered his shirt, "Well actually I was just attacked, by half a dozen orderlies and doctors."

"They restrain you?" Hannibal asked.

"Sometimes," he answered, "Sometimes they tie me to the bed, other times they just put me in a straitjacket."

"Did you ever do anything to warrant that treatment?" Hannibal asked, "Did you ever get violent with them first?"

"Me? Get violent with those nuts? Are you crazy?" Mad Dog asked.

"No, I'm crazy," Murdock told him.

Something occurred to Mad Dog and he said, "Wait a minute…if you broke me out of the hospital, then they're going to be looking for me, aren't they?"

"Not with the story we gave them," Hannibal shook his head.

"Are you sure?" Mad Dog asked.

"Positive," Hannibal nodded.

Mad Dog let out a long exhale and looked like he was about to collapse.

"Alright, now let's try and figure this out," Hannibal said as he bit down on a new cigar and lit it, "Why would the doctors at the V.A. suddenly come up with the idea to perform a lobotomy on you, somebody who had only been there two weeks?"

They all tried putting their heads together on that one to come up with some answer. Unfortunately Mad Dog couldn't think of any reason why, and since he couldn't it was a cinch nobody else could come up with a good enough reason to justify cutting a man's head open and taking out part of his brain. They all stood in the middle of the living room trying to come up with a possibility, when an idea seemed to hit Murdock. Out of nowhere he started yelping 'ooh! Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!' with his hand in the air and hopping around, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

"Murdock," Face said dryly, not in the mood for Murdock's antics, "You know where the bathroom is."

Murdock stopped hopping around and punched Face in the back in response to his comment and said, "No, Face, I've got it, I've got it."

"What?" Face asked.

"Cat on a Hot Tin Roof."

Face turned and exploded, "What?!"

"No no no, I got that wrong," Murdock said, "But I'm close…Hannibal," he went over to the colonel and said, "Hannibal, you remember that old movie where Elizabeth Taylor's aunt is trying to have a lobotomy performed on her?"

"I don't think that's quite right, Murdock," Hannibal said, "But yes, I remember, why? What's that got to do with anything?"

Murdock had the floor now, and he rolled with it as he explained, "The aunt tried to have the procedure done to shut her up, so nobody would find out the horrible secret that she told everybody and nobody believed. The aunt was worried sooner or later somebody would believe and ordered the lobotomy to silence her. What if that's the same thing going on here?"

Hannibal and the others looked back to their guest and asked, "How 'bout it, Mad Dog? Is there any reason anybody would want to have you silenced?"

"Sure, why not?" Mad Dog replied flatly, "We all got enemies, right?"

"I'm serious," Hannibal told him, "You said you told them you weren't insane and they didn't listen, if you're not, then why were you in the hospital in the first place?"

"Like I said, it's a long story," he responded, "In any case, why would you believe me? Nobody else has."

"Well we're not everybody else," Face reminded him, "We're the good guys, and we always believe the people nobody else will."

"Yeah well…I doubt you could believe this one," Mad Dog told them as he sat down again, "And I doubt that you could help me either."

"So let us try," Hannibal said, "If we fail, what've you got to lose?"

"My life maybe," he said.

"No, cous, we won't let that happen," Murdock said as he sat down on the arm of the couch by him, "We won't let anybody get their grimy paws on you again."

Mad Dog looked from Murdock, to Hannibal and told him with a shake of his head, "It ain't gonna be easy to explain."

"We've got time," Hannibal assured him.

Mad Dog's eyes widened and he shot up from the couch again and said suddenly, "Wait a minute, what about Frankie?"

"Who's Frankie?" Face asked.

"If I'm going to explain this to you, Frankie's got to be here too so you get the whole story," Mad Dog told them.

"Alright, calm down," Face told him, "We'll find Frankie…uh, who is Frankie?"

"She's my girlfriend, or was," Mad Dog answered.

Face turned to Murdock and asked, "That's a woman's name?"

"Alright," Hannibal said, "We'll get Frankie, where does she live?"

Mad Dog covered his mouth with his hand and looked like he was going to be sick.

"Where is she?" Hannibal asked.

"In the hospital," he answered.

"That can't be," Face shook his head and he explained to the others, "There aren't any women at the V.A., the nurse told me as much."

"Not the V.A. hospital," Mad Dog told him, "She's in the Freemont Psychiatric Hospital here in Los Angeles."

Face glanced over at Hannibal uncertainly and said, "I've heard of that place, it's relatively new…but what's she doing there?"

"Please, you've just got to get her out, she can tell you why," Mad Dog said, "She's not insane either."

"Huh," Hannibal said, "Seems to be an epidemic. Alright, we'll go over there, check it out, and find a way to get her out. What's her full name?"

"Frankie Lynn Murdock," Mad Dog answered.

Everybody did a double take and glared back at him.

"Seems to be an epidemic of that too," Face murmured to Hannibal, then he raised his voice and said, "Another Murdock? Just like you?"

"No, her name is Murdock with a K, I'm Murdoch with an H," Mad Dog told them.

"This just gets crazier and crazier," B.A. said disgustedly.

"Yeah, don't you just love it?" Murdock asked.

"No I don't, sucker!" B.A. told him.

"You don't really mean she's called Frankie, you mean her full name is Francis Lynn, right?" Face asked.

Mad Dog shook his head, "Frankie, that's the name she was born with."

Face turned to Hannibal and asked him, "Does everybody's mother have a sense of humor when they name their kids?"

"Mine didn't," Hannibal answered with a shake of his head, "Just plain old John Smith, you can't get much duller than that."