"Hey Hannibal, I have a question," Face said as they switched guard posts late that afternoon, "Why did you tell Decker that we had hostages with us back at the garage?"

Hannibal sighed in relief as his head touched the pillows under him and answered, "Why not? The Army likes to spread stories about us doing things like that, terrorizing orphanages and all that, so let them believe their own propaganda, it can't hurt us either way anymore than everything else has, and besides, we chanced having a bargaining chip with Decker that way."

"You wouldn't really hand them over to him, would you?" Face asked.

"Of course not, but Decker didn't know that," Hannibal answered.

"I see," Face dryly remarked.

They both turned their attention to sounds coming from the room next door.

"See if you can make out what they're saying," Hannibal told Face.

The lieutenant went over to the wall and tried listening in, "Eh, no good, the wall's too thick."

"No matter, I'm sure whatever it is we can get a report from Murdock," Hannibal said.

Frankie had woken up from her drug induced slumber and was still slightly out of it, but she was enough 'all there' to speak coherently to Murdock, well, coherently enough that he could make sense of it.

"I know you're not supposed to hate your parents, even the Bible says that," she said.

"Well," Murdock replied, "Hate and honor have never specifically been excluded from one another."

Frankie laughed nervously and said, "It always makes you sound better if you can say something like, you resent your parents but you don't hate them, or you don't hate them, only the things they do or the things they become…but it all comes down to the same thing, you hate your parents." She reached her arm out from under the sheets and held it out beside the bed as if she was signaling for silence. "When you see psychiatrists they want to hear every awful thing your mother ever did. All psychiatrists hate mothers and therefore want all their patients to hate their own mothers, why that is I don't know. It never occurs to those shrinks that fathers deserve much of the blame as well, even more-so than the mothers. I hate them both, Murdock, but most of all I hate my father, and I guess I always have."

Murdock shoved his hands deep in his jacket pockets and asked her, "What do you mean, Frankie cous?"

She looked up at him and said, "I know I'm warped, I can admit it, I know I've never had a good relationship with my father, and I do place the blame with him. As a kid you're not supposed to hate your father, and you don't, no matter how horrible he is, you don't hate him and in fact it never even occurs to you to hate him, because you don't know any better. Then you get a little older and a little smarter and start putting the pieces together. I'm sure a lot of people don't have good relationships with their fathers, but how many of them go through the first half of their life before it finally dawns on them that it is possible for other kids to get along with their fathers? Even as a kid I knew better, or thought I did."

"Watcha talking about, cous?" Murdock asked as he sat down on the edge of the bed beside her.

"I didn't know enough as a kid to hate my father, but I knew something was wrong. You see all the time on TV those stupid commercials for whatever is being advertised, has all these happy smiling people on them, and they love using families, and they love to be open minded and show there are all types of families, here's a nuclear family with both parents and two kids, here's two kids with one mother, two more with one father…here's a boy with his mother, they get along great, and here, here's a father and his young daughter and they're getting along so well together, the father is actually being nice to his daughter, he's not yelling at her, or throwing things, or scaring her to tears, none of that…even as a kid I knew in my mind that that wasn't real, fathers aren't nice, they're not nice to any of their kids but they're especially not nice to their daughters. You know how long it finally took me to realize it's not all fathers, it's my father who is the problem?"

Murdock was starting to put the pieces together in what she was trying to say, but now he was the one at a loss for words. "Frankie, I…"

"Oh I know that all parents, no matter how lousy they are, they all have that 'unconditional love' people love to throw around, but what's that got to do with how they treat you? No matter what their intentions are, it's their actions that speak for them, and anytime my father did something, he always did it wrong. Of course good luck telling him that," she shook her head, "No thanks, I've been yelled at enough times in my life I should've been in military school."

It seemed that Frankie wasn't trying to go particularly anywhere with this, just wanted to get it all out into the open, and she told Murdock, "If it wasn't for everything else, maybe this whole ordeal with Masterson wouldn't hurt me so much…but my father…" her voice was liquid fire now and her eyes were starting to light up as well as they slanted halfway closed, "If he had ever bothered to know me at all, maybe none of this would have had to happen. But tell me, Murdock, how can you have a kid and never try to figure out what's going on with them? Years pass and it never occurs to you to ask what they like, what they don't, what they think…I think they had it right in that James Dean movie, you know? Nobody talks to kids, they only tell them."

"What about your mother?" Murdock asked.

"Her…" Frankie said still with venom in her throat, but the fire seemed to die out, she shrugged her shoulders and said, "It's harder to hate your mother, mothers are the only parents worth caring about, they're the only ones who ever do anything right. She tried at least, she had some idea of what made me tick, she wasn't completely clueless like my father."

"But?" Murdock asked, knowing there was one.

"But in the end when it came time to make a choice as to whether she believed me or him, she picked her husband of course," Frankie answered, "Isn't that always the case, they always do." She turned to him and said, "Parents always love to throw out that line of they're not mad at you, they're disappointed in you, that's supposed to hurt more I suppose…funny, nobody ever cares if the children are disappointed in the parents, but I certainly am with her."

Murdock reached over and patted her back sympathetically and quietly murmured, "I'm sorry, Frankie."

She looked down at the bedspread and said quietly, "I always wondered how parents could hate their own children…fathers are easy, they hate everything, but how could a mother hate her own kid?" She looked up at the ceiling and lay back against the pillows and said, "You think being dead makes things any easier?"

Murdock felt his blood run cold all the way down his spine, "Why would you say a thing like that?"

"Masterson's no fool, he's killed before and he will again, next time it just might be me, might be all for the best anyway," Frankie said, not wanting to give voice to what was really going through her mind. In her head she was seeing a hundred men in green with guns pointed at her and pulling the triggers. "I won't be a suicide, that much is for certain."

Murdock felt his heart blocking his throat, he didn't know what was going through Frankie's mind but he knew that until he could make a breakthrough in that department, they couldn't chance leaving her alone. He lightly grabbed her arm and suggested, "Why don't you go on back to sleep and get some rest?"

Frankie nodded weakly and slumped back against the pillows and closed her eyes.

MPs had shown up and stormed the hotel, everybody had gotten out just in time but they made their getaway on foot with the army police shooting at them. Hannibal told them to split up, and Murdock and Frankie broke off from the rest and put a considerable distance between themselves and everyone else. In the process however, Murdock let out a yelp and stumbled, but kept on his feet and managed to keep running. He grabbed Frankie by the arm and pulled her along with him. Frankie chanced turning to look at him and noticed a dark stain on the front of his T-shirt, he'd been shot! But he wouldn't stop running and for the time being he didn't seem to even acknowledge his injury.

"Where're we going?" Frankie asked him.

"It's getting dark, we need to find cover, someplace they can't find us," he told her.

By the time they finally stopped running it was dark, Murdock had found an abandoned building that looked like it could've been a storage building but it was built more like a condemned shack of 2 by 4s. The door was unlocked so they went in, he closed the door behind them and looked around using what little light there was from the moon outside.

"Will the others be able to find us?" Frankie asked.

"Sure they will," Murdock said as he looked around and found a pile of boards and some drop cloth sheets, along with a variety of other old junk.

"What if they don't?" Frankie asked him.

"They will, Hannibal never leaves a man behind," Murdock told her.

"You've been hit," Frankie said.

"Ah it's not so bad," Murdock insisted, "I just feel like I got a finger poking me in the back…er…did I get it in the back or the front?"

"Murdock," Frankie started to say.

"Frankie, relax, trust me, Hannibal will find the place soon, don't worry," he said.

"What do we do in the meantime?" she asked, trying desperately not to lose it.

"I found a place we can lie down, we can rest, and so long as we're quiet, nobody else will find us," he told her.

"Then how will Hannibal find us?" Frankie asked.

"The Colonel has his ways, don't worry," Murdock said as he led her over to a cleared spot on the floor, he helped her down and he laid down beside her. He covered them with one of the drop cloths and added, "Just take it easy, Frankie, everything's going to be alright."

"What about your shoulder?" Frankie asked as she turned her head back to see him, "You're losing a lot of blood."

"Eh, it's nothing," he said, "Just take it easy and try to get some rest. The others will be along before too long."

Frankie listened to his breathing and felt him lean into her as he succumbed to unconsciousness himself. She watched through the windows and waited for any sign that somebody was coming. As the night drew on she felt her back becoming increasingly wet from Murdock's blood seeping on her.

Hannibal and the others did come, but they didn't come until the next morning. They found the building and kicked the door opened and entered. They heard before they saw, and what they heard was Frankie's soft crying from on the floor. Everybody took a few steps into the building and stopped as they saw Frankie and Murdock lying on the floor; Murdock was unconscious and unresponsive, Frankie was awake and looked like she was desperately trying to get out from under him. Hannibal and Face ran over and pulled Murdock off of her, there was a horrible tearing sound as they were separated, and they realized why Frankie was crying, the whole back of her shirt was coated in Murdock's blood that was half wet and half congealed.

Murdock felt something warm and wet touching his cheek and he realized with personal disgust that he had drooled all over his pillow and himself in his sleep. He grimaced in his sleep and debated whether to just wipe it off with his hand or to turn over his pillow for the dry side. Then he realized that something was wrong because his pillow had shoulder blades. He opened his eyes and realized that in his sleep he'd pinned Frankie against the bed and he'd been using her as a pillow and had drooled all over the back of the shirt she was wearing. No wonder she was groaning and moaning so much. As he continued to wake up, and pulled himself up off of her and wiped his mouth with the palm of his hand, he realized Frankie was talking in her sleep, mumbling something hysterically.

"Blood, blood, the blood," that was all she said, over, and over, and over, in a frantic, desperate voice.

"Frankie," Murdock pressed his hands down on her and shook her, "Come on, Frankie cous, wake up, you're having a nightmare."

It took a couple of tries but he managed to wake her up and when she realized where they were and what had happened, or rather what had not happened, she burst into tears and cried in horror of the dream and relief that it had just been a dream. Murdock put his arms around her and held her close and let her wear herself out. The noise got attention from the occupants in the next room and Murdock heard the door open and saw Hannibal standing in the doorway with an inquisitive and concerned look on his face. Murdock kept one arm around Frankie and with the other hand shooed the colonel off; Hannibal didn't look convinced but he slipped out the door and quietly closed it.

After a while, Murdock finally got Frankie to calm down, despite her better judgment she fell back asleep, giving Murdock the opportunity to go next door and speak to the others. He suggested that Mad Dog go and stay with Frankie, and once he left the room, the others had the ground to speak freely.

"What the hell was that about?" Hannibal asked.

"Well, I'm not exactly sure, but it did give me an idea," Murdock said.

"What's that?"

"I don't think that in Frankie's subconscious she was really thinking about any of us taking any lead…she kept going on about the blood, the blood, what blood?"

Face chewed on the question for a minute and said, "What about when the prosecutor trying Mad Dog's case got shot? I mean she always seemed pretty neutral to that but how can you be neutral to having a guy's insides splattered all over you when you're talking to him standing six inches from him when he gets hit?"

"I don't know," Murdock said, "But I want to try something. If we can get Dr. Richter on the phone, I want to try taking Mad Dog back to the night of the murder, maybe I can tap into his subconscious and find a repressed memory, he's got to know more than he's telling us but he can't consciously remember it."

"You're gonna try hypnotizing him?" Face asked, "Murdock, you couldn't even make B.A. think he was a chicken."

"That's different, Faceman," Murdock insisted, "B.A. has never been a chicken…" he glanced over to the sergeant and added, "A big crybaby maybe, but not a chicken." He took a step towards the colonel where it was safe from the sergeant's fury and continued, "Anyway, making B.A. believe he was a chicken would be making him believe something that had never happened, but in this case, I'm going to take Mad Dog back to something that actually did happen and that he was present for, he's going to remember what actually happened that night and tell us what he saw."

"You think it'll work?" Hannibal asked.

"If I can get Dr. Richter to help I'm sure we can pull it off," Murdock said.

"Only problem is we can't risk calling him, the army could have his phone bugged," Face said.

"Why would they?" Hannibal replied, "Murdock's a mental patient, he's not competent under law so he's no threat to anybody, and also can't possibly have any ties to us, right? So why would they be interested in hearing Dr. Richter talk to his crazy patients?"

Murdock's eyes lit up and he asked, "So then can we try it, Colonel?"

"Why not?" Hannibal replied, "Maybe now we'll finally get some answers around here."

"Hypnotizing somebody over the phone, just when I thought I'd seen everything," Face commented as they stood back and quietly watched Murdock while he worked.

"Shhh," Hannibal told him.

After talking with Dr. Richter over the phone and having him talk to M.D. briefly and then Murdock talked to him again, something happened and changed with the young man. He lay down on the bed and his eyes were closed and he almost looked asleep. Murdock stood by the bed speaking softly to the boy as he tried subconsciously taking Murdoch back in time.

"Mad Dog, it is now three years ago, you are 22 years old, and today is Frankie's 17th birthday, do you remember?" Murdock asked.

He was silent for a few seconds, his chest rising and falling slowly and evenly as if he was actually asleep, then he answered, "Yes…I remember."

"What do you remember?" Murdock asked.

Slowly, M.D. explained as he recollected, "Frankie came over that afternoon, we picked up a cake from the bakery and took it back to the house. We went out for dinner to get a pizza. We were at the pizzeria, and…"

"What happened?" Murdock asked.

"Frankie jerked around in her chair, she said that Masterson was there, that he followed us to the restaurant. I look, but I don't see him. She says I don't believe her."

"Do you?" Murdock asked him.

"I think Masterson has terrorized her to the point that she's traumatized…paranoid, lately she just sees him everywhere. A few minutes later, they bring out our pizza."

Murdock watched the changed look on Mad Dog's face and asked, "Was something wrong with it?"

"It tasted different, Frankie noticed it too, she thought someone put lettuce or onion in it, but we didn't want to make trouble so we ate it anyway. Then we went home. We cut the cake, ate part of it, and then…"

That's where the memory gap always sank in, Murdock leaned in closer to him and asked, "What's the next thing you remember?"

Mad Dog took in a deep breath and answered, "I'm in bed, I don't remember how I got there, but I'm there now, and there's someone in the room with me. I get up," he jerked like he was being pulled out of bed, "And I go downstairs…it's quiet, I know it's still night."

"Do you see anything at this time?" Murdock asked.

"No, I still feel half asleep, it seems like a dream. M-my feet are cold, I'm on the tile floor in the hallway, and now I feel the carpeting under me, I'm going into the living room."

"On your own?" Murdock asked.

"I feel someone holding onto my arm," M.D. reached his right arm over and grasped his left arm right under the elbow, "I feel a shove…and I go down. I open my eyes and I see a woman lying on the floor, she's got dark stains all over her, they're blood…bloodstains. I see something in my hand…it's a knife, and it's covered in blood." His voice was more frantic now, his chest was heaving up and down as his breathing became more rapid and harder, "Frankie…Frankie's upstairs…gotta find her…don't know what happened."

"Murdock, can't you bring him out of it?" Hannibal asked, "He's about to lose it totally."

"Yeah I know," Murdock said, he grabbed two handfuls of Mad Dog's shirt and said to him, "Alright, M.D., it's now 3 years later again, you're 25 years old, and you're in a hotel in Los Angeles, with Frankie and the four members of the A-Team, wake up!"

Mad Dog's eyes flew open and he shot up on the bed, his chest heaving even heavier than before, he covered his mouth with one balled up hand as he neared hyperventilation. Murdock leaned down and patted him on the back and said, "Take it easy, M.D., it's over now."

"Murdock," Hannibal spoke up, "Maybe you better take him into the bathroom."

"Good idea," Murdock helped the shaken young man to his feet and escorted him into the next room and closed the door behind them.

"I can't believe it," Face said, "He actually did it." He looked from Hannibal to B.A. and said again, "He actually did it! Murdock was actually able to hypnotize him."

B.A. scowled at that thought and responded, "Fool did something alright, but how do we know he's telling the truth?"

"You have doubts, B.A.?" Hannibal asked.

"I ain't saying that that sucker Masterson didn't do anything, Hannibal, I just don't know."

"Well," Hannibal said, "I believe it. For one thing, Mad Dog didn't tell us anything now that wouldn't have saved us all a lot of time and trouble in the beginning, if he was making any of it up, he wouldn't have waited until now to disclose it. For another, what Mad Dog just said gives us Masterson."

"Or somebody," Face replied, "He never saw the person who got him out of bed."

"Who else could it possibly be?" Hannibal asked.

"The problem is all that just happened here was he said the same thing that Frankie did when she put the pieces together about what happened between when they went to sleep, and when Mad Dog woke her up."

"Maybe Murdock needs to try hypnotizing Frankie too," Hannibal thought, "Frankie said when she woke up, Murdoch told her 'there's a woman downstairs, I think I killed her'."

"So?" Face asked.

"So," Hannibal replied as he let out a huff and reached one hand behind to feel the back of his head, "When Mad Dog was recollecting what happened, he didn't know that he had blood on him, and he didn't think that he had killed the woman."

"Well…mix being drugged with being in shock, I guess that's understandable," Face said.

"Murdock," Frankie came running into the room once Hannibal, Face and B.A. had left and it was just the two of them, "Murdock, I gotta talk to you."

"Sure thing, cous, what about?" Murdock asked.

"Hannibal and the others went to Masterson's house, didn't they?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"What'd they find?"

"Pictures," Murdock answered.

"Of what?"

"Of you, and other girls," he told her hesitantly.

"Anything else?" Frankie asked.

"I don't think so, why?"

Frankie's eyes glanced towards the door as if to make sure they weren't interrupted, she looked back to Murdock and said, "He doesn't know."

"Who doesn't know what?" Murdock asked.

"Hannibal…now he guessed that Masterson had a second blade he used when he killed Alice Arden, one that he actually killed her with and a second he left behind to frame Mad Dog with. But I never told him about the cake server missing that night. And now they've gone to Masterson's house, turned it upside down, and found nothing. If he did use a second knife, then he kept it as a trophy, didn't he? But they didn't find one, they didn't find anything."

Murdock scratched his head as he thought about it and said, "Could be hidden in plain sight. If he cleaned it and put it in the utensil drawer, nobody would know any different."

"Would he though?" Frankie asked, "You take a trophy from a killing, why would you clean it?"

"So you don't get caught," Murdock answered.

"Then why take a trophy at all?" she replied.

He shrugged and guessed, "Something to remember it by is better than nothing at all I suppose."

"Without that server, there's nothing that can tie him to the murder," Frankie said, "And your guys are thorough, they had to have been all over that house, and found nothing."

"Well why don't you tell Hannibal about it?" Murdock asked.

"I can't," Frankie told him, "Don't ask me why, I can't tell him."

Murdock didn't get it, "Why not?"

"I told you," Frankie said, "You could've told him at any time but you didn't, why?"

Murdock shrugged helplessly and replied, "I don't know."

"Well this is a fine mess we're in," Frankie noted as she leaned back against the wall and sank down to the floor, "Both of us knows something that may be vital to the case but neither one of us is willing to tell your big bad leader about it. What about Mad Dog? Did you manage to get anything out of him?"

"He confirms pretty much what you told us," Murdock told her, "He never saw Masterson but he knows somebody was in that house with him, somebody who disappeared as soon as he became lucid enough to see."

"Masterson always did know just when to take off and make himself look inconspicuous," Frankie nodded slowly. She looked up at Murdock as he paced over to the window and she asked him, "So now what do we do?"

Murdock pulled back the curtain and checked down below to make sure the Army hadn't found them yet. "Right now we gotta wait."

Frankie rose to her feet and slowly walked up behind him and looked out the window and asked him, "For what?"