CHAPTER TWO

April 17, 1985

Hannibal opened his eyes, awakening from his light sleep to the sound of gravel crunching beneath the van's tires and BA's gruff, "We here." Cramped and eager to stretch his legs, Hannibal rubbed his eyes and focused on the long, winding driveway ahead of them as they passed through dense evergreens. With a yawn, he glanced into the backseat to see if Murdock was still awake. After Kelly had fallen asleep about three hours back, the constant stream of chatter had ceased, much to BA's relief. But Murdock was awake, with a flashlight in one hand and a two-inch-thick book in the other.

They parked the van, and Hannibal stepped out, stretching on his way to the door of the enormous cabin. A pistol was tucked into his belt, resting against the small of his back, but it was only there out of habit, not expectation of need. His gaze wandered over the wooden structure standing amidst the tall pines and birch trees, typical of cooler climates.

"Wow," BA murmured as he shut the driver's side door a bit more quietly than usual, hesitant to break the quiet lull of nature. "Face really outdid himself this time."

Chuckling to himself, Hannibal headed up the steps to the front door. "I think he realizes as long as we're here enjoying ourselves, we're not in LA looking for another case," he admitted. "The longer we want to stay, the longer his vacation is, too."

Hannibal had a key, and as he stepped through the door and looked around, he had to admit he was a little surprised by the extravagance. "Cabin in the woods" didn't quite describe this place. It was instead the sort of place a king might go for a weekend getaway. Leather sofas and a decorative stone fireplace with a bearskin rug covered one corner, a full bar complete with dozens of unopened bottles occupied the other. Just inside the doorway, stairs rose to either side to give access to the bedrooms, and a large gallery on the second floor overlooked the living room. The kitchen was on the other side of an island, tucked neatly into the corner but still bigger and far more modern than anything Hannibal had expected. Perhaps most impressive of all, the entire west wall was made of glass, and he could see the outline of the trees and the calm surface of a small lake at the bottom of the hill. In the distance, the sun was sinking into the mountains, completing the picture of serene luxury.

"Now this is what I call camping," Hannibal grinned with an approving nod.

Murdock poked his head in the door before BA had a chance to respond. But if the pilot even noticed the lavish accommodations, he didn't mention them. "Hey, we're gon' go for a walk," he informed, his West Texas accent unusually thick with relaxation. "We'll be back in a little bit."

"Don't wander too far until we've had a chance to survey this place in the daylight," Hannibal warned. They didn't need any surprises on this little trip, and trouble seemed to come looking for them all too often.

Murdock answered with a confident smile. "We ain't goin' far, Colonel."

He slipped back out the door without another word and Hannibal watched as he jumped down the steps, took Kelly's hand, and skipped off into the trees like a child at a carnival. A smile crossed the colonel's face.

"Man," BA grumbled, "I dunno what she sees in him. But at least he ain't talkin' to his imaginary dog and actin' a fool while she's around."

Hannibal smiled genuinely. "Leave him alone, BA," he chided. "I haven't seen his eyes light up like that since the first time we broke him out of the hospital."

*X*X*X*

Kelly gasped as her back hit the wide trunk of a tree a few feet from the path. Hands clasped around her wrists, Murdock pinned her arms up high, a forceful kiss stealing what little breath she had left following the impact. He'd grabbed a blanket from the van, but it lay on the grass in a heap as he stripped her shirt quickly, not bothering to unbutton it. Shrugging his arms out of the cumbersome jacket, he gasped for breath and groped for her and the two of them struggled together with no small amount of frustration to undress themselves and each other. Finally, in a tangle of limbs, they fell onto the blanket and somehow managed to spread it out for protection from the poky long needles shed by the pine trees.

Psych meds be damned; the sex was amazing.

In the quiet moments of reflection that followed, breathless and contented, he smiled as he listened to the chirping crickets and the soft rustle of leaves in the trees. The air was cool, but her body was warm against his, and he had never been more content than lying there, under the stars and the low-hanging moon with her head resting on his chest.

"I love you," she whispered lazily.

He drank in those words with a long, slow pull of the night air, moving a hand into her silky hair. The way she felt, soft and smooth and tender - but not fragile - made him feel as though he could spend an eternity simply exploring every inch of her body.

"How did you manage to check yourself out for the whole weekend?" she asked quietly, gentle fingers tracing invisible designs on his arm.

Caught slightly off guard by the "truth or lie" confrontation, he stammered a bit before settling on an honest response. "Face got me out."

"He can do that?" she asked innocently.

With a quiet chuckle, Murdock tucked a clump of hair behind her ear before curling an arm up under his head. "Yeah, he can do that."

A shiver ran through him as lightly scratching nails found a particularly sensitive spot in the crease of his elbow. "He should do it more often," she whispered, barely audible over the sound of the rustling breeze that suddenly swept past. "I could get used to this."

Opening his eyes to stare at the canopy above, Murdock breathed deeply. He could get used to this, too. Whenever he snuck away for a night to see her, he didn't want to leave. It got harder and harder every time. Even now, in the blissful serenity of this place, holding her close and enjoying every moment of the time they had together, the eventual parting that would follow never drifted too far from his mind.

"I gotta be careful how much time I spend away," he finally said, mournfully. "I don't wanna lose my government subsidized room and board."

A bit startled by the peculiar description of his situation at the VA, she glanced up. He offered his best smile, stroking a hand gently up the smooth canvas of her back. But it was too late. The question flooded into her eyes before she said a word.

"Why do you stay there, Murdock?" she asked, not for the first time. "You're not crazy."

Prepared for this familiar line of questioning, he retreated behind the lines of well-practiced responses. "Sure I am!" he exclaimed, smile turning broad and full and definitely a bit crazy. "Just ask my shrink."

Neither convinced nor amused, her brow furrowed. He could almost see the cogs turning in her head as she struggled desperately to figure out whether he really believed that or was just teasing.

"You're not," she finally said again. "I know it. Your friends know it, too."

Just the slightest hint of discomfort wriggled its way out into the open as he cut his gaze away. He really hated this conversation. Even though his responses were scripted and well-rehearsed, they always seemed to catch in his throat. "Oh, I'm sure if you asked BA, he'd have somethin' to say 'bout how crazy I am," he replied as lightly as he could manage.

She sighed, and pushed herself upright. "Come on, Murdock, I'm being serious."

Still lying sprawled on the lumpy blanket, he offered a shrug. "So am I," he replied in a perfectly carefree tone. "Or do I need to put on my serious face?"

Furrowing up his brow, he frowned deeply in mock austerity, complete with hollowed cheeks and pouting lips. She laughed in spite of herself, and he broke into a smile again. But the smile and laughter both faded as the diversionary tactic ultimately failed. Finally, with a truly heartfelt sigh, he reached up and stroked her cheek gently.

"Kelly, it's not that I'm trying to keep secrets from you," he said quietly, rubbing a thumb back and forth over her cheekbone. "It's just that... there's some things that you're better off not knowing. For your own safety."

She raised a brow, clearly skeptical. "I'm safer not knowing things like why the man I'm in love with is institutionalized?" she challenged.

He recognized the ridiculous irony, but the full force of her challenge hit him much harder than she could've meant it to. He'd seen some violent mental illnesses in his time at the VA, some genuinely nice people who were legitimately dangerous when off their meds, through no real fault of their own.

"You know I wouldn't hurt you," he whispered. "Right?"

She offered a reassuring smile and nuzzled against his hand. "I just want to understand," she pleaded.

He sucked in a breath and finally sat up beside her, shifting a bit to get comfortable before asking the question she'd been hoping for. "Alright, what is it you wanna know?"

"Why are you in the hospital?" she demanded without hesitation.

His smile well and truly fell now, and he looked away as he felt something hollow and lonely and cold wrap its bony fingers around him. Without answering, he looked out into the darkness settling around them. The trees looked grey in the dim light from the half moon, and a faint breeze rustled the leaves, casting whispered shadows all around. What had been beautiful and peaceful only moments before suddenly felt eerie and uncomfortable.

After a long, lingering silence, she drew a breath and tried again, more gently. "Can you at least tell me what you're diagnosed with?"

She reached for her shirt, nearly tumbling over before grabbing hold of it. He watched without really seeing as she quickly shook it out, sliding her arms back into the sleeves. It was enough of a distraction to give him just a few seconds to gather his thoughts.

"My diagnosis varies depending on which doctor you ask," he answered truthfully as she finished the last of the buttons. "Shrink I been seein' on and off the past ten years says I got paranoid anxiety delusions and intermittent memory loss. But he don't really believe that. And I've gotten just about every other diagnosis in the DSM since I came back from 'Nam."

She huffed, shoulders rising and falling as she dropped her hands into her lap. "What does that mean, really?" she asked, still not satisfied.

"Alright, look," he bargained, shifting to find a more comfortable spot on the cold, hard ground. "I'll tell you what I'm not, okay?"

He glanced at her to see if that would suffice, and she nodded. Although a part of him felt relieved, he was just as sure she wouldn't be satisfied with the answer.

"Okay." He took a deep breath. "I'm not schizophrenic. I'm not manic-depressive. I don't suffer from derealization, or narcolepsy, or dissociative identity disorder." He was counting them off on his fingers now, and a smile crossed her face. "I'm not obsessive-compulsive, or paranoid delusional, or affective reactive. I don't have a sadistic, schizoid, or schizotypal personality disorder and I may or may not have some memory loss depending on what day of the week you ask me."

"Then what does that leave?" she laughed.

He sighed. "Look, I get..." He struggled for a way to explain, shaking his head and looking away uncomfortably. "I get confused. My brain starts runnin' and it just goes a million miles a minute and there just ain't no stoppin' it when it starts and I gotta deal with all the thoughts and how fast it goes... and it gets real confusing."

She didn't need to know how much of the confusion was probably the side effects of the medication itself. In fact, he didn't need to think about that. It had been his baseline normal for so long, he wasn't sure what his brain would be capable of if it ever got completely off the meds. It might be the same, it might be worse, it might be better. In any case, he had long ago learned how to cope with the confusion, and how to function in spite of it.

He watched her carefully, reading the concerned expression. "Sometimes the words don't come out how they sound in my head," he continued. "Sometimes they're in the wrong order or they just don't make any sense at all. Sometimes it's not just the words; it's the whole scene or scenario that I started thinkin' and it's playin' out like a movie on a big screen right on the back of my eyes. And sometimes it gets to where I can't think at all and I kinda... lose reality. So I try to keep it from doin' that by givin' it other stuff to think about. Kinda like the way you try an' distract a bored child so he won't go get into mischief 'cause there's just nothin' better to do."

Hearing all of this come out of his own mouth made him very uncomfortable. He looked away as he continued. "I hear voices, but if it's just me and not the meds, then they're usually really just my own voice."

"What do you mean, not the meds?" she interrupted, concerned.

He sighed. Damn it, he hadn't meant to say that. "The drugs are..." There had to be a better way to explain this. Unfortunately, he couldn't think of one. "A lot of different doctors have tried to diagnose me with a lot of different things. Everyone wants to fix me. I'm..." He sighed again, searching for words. "Some of the medications - most of the medications - have side effects. Auditory and visual hallucinations, blurry vision, headaches..."

"You take medications for illnesses you don't have?" she asked, wide-eyed.

He laughed uneasily and rubbed the back of his neck. "I take whatever they give me. And they take my blood every week to make sure I do."

Her gasp of horror was audible. "Murdock, that's dangerous!"

"Well, yeah, kinda." Actually, it was probably very dangerous. But that did depend on one's definition of danger. "It can make you hear things. See things. But you learn to recognize what's real and what's not. If I'm hearin' voices, I know I'm hearin' voices. But most of the time, it's just my own voice holding fifteen different conversations with itself at the same damn time in my head. Only time it ever really shuts up is when there's something going on in the world outside that takes up all my concentration. Like..." Slowly, he turned back and looked at her uneasily. "Like you."

She watched him for a moment. Clearly struggling for reassurance he hadn't been able to provide, she smiled tightly in the lingering silence. "I guess that's why I've never seen that side of you," she assumed.

Lowering his eyes, he let the breeze rustle the trees again before whispering so quietly, it was almost inaudible. "I am crazy, Kelly," he admitted. Gently, he reached out and took her hand, wishing he could offer something to make it all sound not as bad as it really was. "I been crazy all my life. It just got a whole lot worse after I came back from 'Nam. An' the drugs do tend to make the party in my head real interesting. But I would never, ever hurt you. You gotta believe me when I say that."

At that, her smile turned more genuine. Reaching up her free hand, she cupped his cheek, drawing his gaze up. "I know," she assured him. "I know you wouldn't."

He nuzzled against her hand a little. "Good," he answered quietly, taking a deep, refreshing breath. "'Cause as crazy as I am, I will never forget just how much I love you. Not even for a second."

Her laugh was the reassurance he needed, and it made him smile again. Sliding his arms around her, he felt the relaxation as she settled in. Finally, with a heartfelt sigh, he kissed her hair and closed his eyes.

September 22, 1969

The Special Forces division of the Army was relatively small and highly selective. That also made it rather incestuous; everyone knew everyone. It was rare to put together a team of SF soldiers who hadn't previously toured together somewhere, somehow. If not directly acquainted, they had mutual friends. Finding someone who knew the whereabouts of an old buddy was never hard. With all the time he'd spent hanging in their circles, Murdock was surprised he'd never met any of the soldiers in this room.

"So who the hell had the bright idea to call this thing at 2:00 in the freakin' morning?" the bleary-eyed, shockingly young blonde muttered with obvious irritation as he trudged into the TOC with his shirt in one hand and a tin cup of what passed for coffee in the other.

His dark-haired teammate grinned with amusement. Leaning back against the sandbag wall with boots crossed and hands folded over his stomach, the man who answered to the nickname "Boston" seemed perfectly happy to be awake at this hour. Murdock wasn't certain what his real name was; his uniform was distinctly lacking a name tape, or any identifying badges for that matter. Sterile fatigues were the norm for special ops.

"Element of surprise, Face," Boston replied, just shy of taunting.

The tone earned a brief glare as the boy grumbled bitterly and staggered to the wooden bench against the far wall. "Yeah. Surprise! It's too fuckin' dark to see your hand in front of your face. Never mind that big ass snake under your boot."

Clearly, "Face" was not a morning person. In fact, he looked thoroughly pissed off at having been woken up at 0200. Crumpling up his shirt, he tossed it on the bench beside where he finally plopped down without so much as acknowledging Murdock's presence. With a vaguely sympathetic smile, Boston reached into the pocket of his dirty fatigues and withdrew a pack of cigarettes, tapping one halfway out of the pack before extending it to Face. Sighing with tired resignation, the kid - who looked no older than sixteen - grabbed the cigarette, retrieved his own Zippo from his pants pocket, and dragged hard before leaning back, eyes closed and arms hanging limply at his sides.

"Fucking exhausted," he muttered under his breath, but the complaint wasn't acknowledged by either Boston or the muscular black man standing with arms crossed against the other wall, quietly observing with an unreadable and generally unpleasant expression. He hadn't said a word since arriving, and Murdock couldn't even venture a guess as to what he thought about this middle-of-the-night briefing.

Keeping his head down, the pilot inspected each of them as covertly as he could manage. He didn't have to know their names to know their abilities. They were all parachute qualified, multilingual, and at the top of their class in whatever their specialties. They were also cross-trained in at least one other area - usually two. And chances were pretty good that they were some of the rowdiest soldiers outside of the Navy SEALS. When it came right down to it, Murdock had found the Special Forces soldiers to be ruthless, war-loving sons of bitches, by and large. He loved them for it.

The stereotype cast the Green Berets as undisciplined. Many of them lived up to that reputation. A fair number of the highly publicized embarrassing incidents that the Army had to deal with came directly out of Special Forces - the most recent being the rather dramatic "TWEPing" of a double agent in the Fifth Group. While the term "CIA" was still a forbidden utterance both on and off base, the rumor had circulated quickly that they had been the ones responsible for the orders to "terminate with extreme prejudice." But regardless of who gave the order, ultimately the responsibility fell back on the men who'd carried it out. That was all part of the risk when dealing with the Agency, and the Agency always seemed to like employing Special Forces.

In spite of the extra paperwork they incurred, these "undisciplined" men who would've walked hand in hand with Article 15 had they been stationed stateside were the ones Murdock wanted looking out for him in the midst of no-holds-barred jungle warfare. They were the ones who would not hesitate to kill or be killed - and the former happened more often than the latter. SOG men had a kill ratio of a hundred to one. From what little he had managed to glean in the twenty-four hours since he'd met Colonel John Smith, Murdock had learned that Smith's unit more than doubled that number. Furthermore, in their last six-month active rotation, they'd only lost twelve men - all Yards, none of them Americans. The statistics were shockingly impressive.

"Where's Cipher?" the black man demanded impatiently, his words gruff and clipped. It was just the sort of voice Murdock would've expected from a man of his broad and imposing stature. "He supposed to be here."

"So is Hannibal," Boston pointed out with a smirk.

Murdock never quite got used to the nicknames used by SOG soldiers. The best he could figure it, the nicknames were part of the cut they made with their born identities when they entered SOG. It wasn't any kind of written rule, just standard practice accepted by all of them. Stripped of their identities, and even their names, many of them no longer considered themselves those same people. They were nothing more than soldiers. For many, the fact that they managed to maintain that distinction was probably what enabled them to walk into death without a second thought.

Boston lit a cigarette of his own, and cast a lingering glance at Murdock. "You're the pilot, I'm assuming?"

Murdock had flown for SOG since arriving in Vietnam; he knew this reception. There were several variations - the condescending welcome, the genuine and grateful admiration, the casual disregard - but it all stemmed from the same reality: he was an outsider. Frankly, he wasn't even sure why he'd been invited to their briefing. Here for one mission and gone the next, he would only be a part of the team for a brief while. He was not like them and they knew it. Depending on just what kind of men they were - what kind of men they considered themselves - that could shape their opinion of him in either direction.

Managing to keep his expression completely neutral, Murdock nodded as he answered the unassuming question with a simple, "Yes."

Opening his eyes again, Face gave him the same lingering look. "You know where we're going?" he asked, though his tone suggested he didn't really give a damn. He was definitely the "casual disregard" type.

"Colonel Smith hasn't told me much," he answered safely, keeping his eyes on the boy.

A derisive chuckle, and exchanged glances all around made Murdock shift a bit uncomfortably as Face took another long drag and shut his eyes again with a dry, "Great."

Having seen his share of bad-asses in this war, Murdock had come to expect a certain amount of bravado and arrogance from any SOG soldier. But seeing the role played by such a young and frankly pretty kid struck him as almost comical. If he hadn't been in such deep and serious shit after the fiasco with the Skyraider, Murdock would've sworn this was someone's idea of a joke; at any moment the real soldiers would arrive and laugh hysterically at their parody counterparts.

"Morning, everyone."

Murdock stood instinctively straighter as Colonel Smith, coffee in one hand and a folder in the other, stepped into the small, sandbag-walled room and cast a quick glance around. Bright-eyed and radiating energy and enthusiasm, he shrugged the rifle off his shoulder and set it carefully on the shaky plywood table.

"Morning?" Face challenged, opening his eyes and abruptly sitting forward. "Did you not notice it's the middle of the night?"

Smith cast him a sparkling smile. "Oh, quit bitching, Lieutenant," he said dismissively. "You know you love it."

Murdock almost choked. Good lord, the kid was a lieutenant? He looked like he was fresh out of junior high! Surely, this had to be someone's idea of a joke.

"Bitching?" Face repeated indignantly, sitting up straighter.

Smith didn't seem fazed by the challenge in his subordinate's tone. In fact, it appeared to amuse him. Still smiling broadly, he dropped the folder on the table, took a sip of coffee, and grabbed a rolled map off the shelf against the back wall.

"He means knock it off!" the black man shot, with a tone that could make almost any man snap to attention. But the smile from the colonel and the mock glare from the lieutenant made it clear this sort of exchange was all part and parcel to the camaraderie they shared. They communicated seamlessly, all the way down to matching non-verbal cues.

"Where the hell is Cipher?" Smith demanded, glancing around. As he did, he briefly locked stares with Murdock before moving on. It was just enough to acknowledge his presence, not quite sufficient to make him feel welcome.

"He's probably still asleep," Face grumbled, leaning back again in the perfect snapshot of a moody teenager.

"He didn't get in 'til ten," Boston added.

Suddenly, a wicked smile crossed the young lieutenant's face. "I'll get him up." The dark mischievous tone left his intended method to the imagination.

"I'm here, I'm here..." The voice came from the entrance, boots squishing in the mud for the last few steps before another blonde stepped into the room, this one a more reasonable age with bloodshot eyes and hair a bit longer than regulation permitted.

Murdock recognized him immediately. He'd met Sergeant Jack Harring a few times, including once on a brief R&R in Thailand in March '69. Harring had a reputation as one of the "rowdy" bunch, but he was also entertaining. He'd turned the bar of choice for the GIs in Bangkok into a tourist attraction almost overnight with his various antics, like rappelling from the overhanging gallery down to the dance floor or cutting off the power for an impromptu game of hide-and-go-seek.

"You're late," Smith pointed out, not looking up.

"Yeah," Harring grinned, "but you should've seen her."

Murdock could feel the welcome before he heard it - the instant the soldier's eyes came to rest on him. "Howlin' Mad Murdock! Man, what the hell are you doin' here?"

Murdock couldn't help the smile that crossed his lips. "Harring, good to see you."

"I see you two are acquainted," Colonel Smith observed, glancing up briefly.

"This man, right here," Harring started, clapping a hand over Murdock's shoulder as he spoke to the colonel, "is the best damn flyboy I ever fucking seen."

Suddenly, Murdock had the eyes of all three soldiers, minus Smith, locked on him. He swallowed hard, but didn't flinch as Harring continued. "I was at Dak Pek before hooking up with Hannibal."

Murdock lowered his eyes, but kept his chin up. Of all the stories to tell them...

"We came under fire an' he was the first to respond. I hear his voice come over the radio with this god-awful howl." He paused to laugh. "Blows the holy-living-shit out of the whole area around the summit and then he lands right in the fucking center of it all, drops off his guys, and hangs around while they drop down five sorties worth of nothing but fucking napalm. There he is with one of those fucking Green Hornets, dodging RPG-7 rockets with a gunner hanging out of either side 'til the fucking guns run dry."

Murdock's eyes flickered briefly to the amused looks of the blonde lieutenant and the dark-haired man. The enormous black guy didn't look at all impressed.

"He just keeps going back and forth, wipes out half the fucking sappers flying right on over their heads at maybe - maybe - ten feet! I thought for sure he was gonna go down in flames." Harring laughed. "I never seen a chopper fly like that before or since."

"I've never seen a pilot take that kind of risk," Boston said, eyeing him cautiously. "It's a good way to get shot down."

"He comes back every day the next three weeks we were under fire," Harring continued. "Scatter their sorry asses all over wire. And then! The kicker! He gets two days R&R right? Well, he comes out to Dak Pek! Drops into the LZ with his arms full of cigarettes and whiskey."

Murdock smiled tightly, digging his hands into the pockets of his fatigues. He didn't like the attention, but at least it eased away the awkward unfamiliarity of being the odd man out.

"Anyway, you met everyone?" Harring asked, not waiting for a reply. "This is Sergeant BA Baracus." The enormous man made no attempt at a friendly introduction, only scowled. "First Lieutenant Templeton Peck, Face." Murdock received a two fingered, half-assed salute as the boy stood and walked to the table, turning his attention to the map the colonel had laid out. "And First Sergeant Ray Brenner, Boston." The dark-haired man nodded his greeting. "And of course, you know Hannibal."

"Your legend seems to have preceded you, Howlin' Mad Murdock," Boston offered, with more recognition in his voice than Murdock had been expecting.

"Don't believe everything you hear," Murdock answered with a tight smile.

Boston smirked. "Might be better for you if I did." He looked the pilot up and down, quietly scrutinizing. "You really as good as they say you are?"

Murdock stared back with no visible reaction to the challenge. "If I wasn't, would I even be here?"

With a chuckle, Boston nodded and rose to his feet, heading to the table where the others had gathered to look at the map of their intended territory. "Point taken," he offered, leaving sufficient space for Murdock to approach beside him. "Though I guess we'll find out, won't we?"