Author's Note: So that elusive chapter 5 I have been unable to write for the past few years? Well, it's finally being written! It's not the chapter I expected it to be. But I think that may be why I haven't been able to write it until now. I waited to post this chapter until I was sure the muse would stick with it this time. I didn't want to promise any of you something I wasn't able to give. But the epilogue I'd originally intended as the ending for this chapter has now officially begun to grow into its own chapter, and I feel it should be completed and ready to post before the end of the week. Until then, I hope you enjoy this latest chapter!
XxXxXxXxXxX
Face mounted the steps leading to the hospital staff's back entrance. Angie had escorted him to a circle of trees just shy of the rear door, then left him with orders to give her twenty minutes before knocking. He'd managed to wait nineteen and half. It would have to do.
There wasn't any kind of landing, so he was forced to stand a step below the door. Strategically, it put him at a disadvantage. Whoever opened the door when he knocked would hold the high ground. He knocked anyway. Three seconds later the door opened and he let himself start breathing again.
He hadn't realized until he saw Angie McCabe standing alone in the doorway, just how much he'd feared being met by a dozen or so MPs. Not that he couldn't get away from the military's flunkies. But meeting them here would have all but severed his hope of seeing Murdock again.
"You're early," Angie said, giving her watch a critical look. "By a whole eighteen seconds. I'm impressed."
Face flashed a grin. He liked Angie. She had all the poise of a classic noir film bombshell. Sultry voice, unflappable manner, flint-gray eyes. Like a silver-haired Lauren Bacall.
"I should tell you, Alvin, that if we stand here much longer there'll be more moths inside this psych ward than there are patients. But don't hurry on my account."
There was a playful edge to her snark that Face appreciated. She clearly didn't believe in treating someone with "issues" like they were broken. Good. Pity was the last thing Murdock needed.
Allowing his grin to widen, Face mounted the last step and entered the hospital. He peripherally pinpointed the exits and confirmed the basic layout with the blueprints he'd memorized. If he was correct, Murdock's room was the second door to the right after you made the corner by the reception desk. There wasn't an orderly or nurse in sight.
"Don't stress yourself, kid. I made sure we'd be alone." Angie shot him a look that said she knew exactly what he'd been doing and was amused that he dared doubt her word. Nudging his shoulder, she motioned for him to follow her down the hall. "I think you'll find that this hospital has a simple floor plan. The hallways form a square with the patients' rooms on both sides. Offices and elevators flank the reception desk and all the exits are clearly marked."
Face pressed his lips together to curb his smile. "You delivered that speech well. Very casual."
"I'm glad you approve." She graced him with a side-long look and half-smirk. "Now, about your friend, I'm not sure how much Father Magill told you in regards to his condition, but you need to prepare yourself. The Captain Murdock you remember may be very different from the man you are about to see."
"Appearances can be deceiving."
"Yes. I've noticed that."
Face kept his eyes forward, ignoring the thoughtful gaze being aimed his way. He shoved his hands in his pockets. "The Murdock I know is in there, Miss McCabe. He may be hiding, but he is there."
"You sound certain."
"You sound surprised."
"My mistake. I meant to sound impressed."
Face would've preened at her praise, if his nerves hadn't felt like they were fraying.
The two of them were almost at Room 104.
As soon as they made the corner past the reception desk, Angie slowed her stride and pulled out a ring of keys. The sight of them made Face's step falter. He'd known this was a psychiatric ward, but somehow the implications of that—of this—had eluded him. Even Angie had said this was a hospital, not a prison. But from where Face stood, that distinction had just gotten a lot blurrier.
"Alvin?"
"You lock him in there?" It was a stupid question. One that came out far too hushed and accusatory for Face's liking. When Angie didn't answer right away, he forced his eyes away from the offending keys to the nurse's face. Her steel-gray gaze was waiting for him.
"Yes, Alvin," she said, soft but matter-of-fact. "We lock all of the patients' doors. I'm sorry you didn't know."
And that was the crux of it, wasn't it? Face should've known. If he'd just stopped to think.
"After hours the patients' doors are always kept locked, unless we need to administer medication or an emergency arises."
"Well, I'm not a medication," Face said, almost choking as he tried to force a light tone. "Does that mean I fall under the category of an emergency?"
"More like undisclosed miscellany."
"Ah. My highest aspiration in life come true. I always wanted to achieve the status of undisclosed miscellany."
Angie rewarded his inanities with a light, but genuine laugh. "In that case, Lieutenant Brennar, you have arrived." Flipping through the keys, she continued in a slightly more hesitant tone. "I suppose you've gathered that I'm breaking a rule or three for you boys tonight."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Drop the ma'am's and the Miss McCabe's, son. My name's Angie."
"All right, Angie." Face flashed a disarming smile. Unfortunately, her attention never left the ring of keys so she failed to be dazzled into forgetting whatever it was she'd been warming up to tell him. He braced himself.
"As I said, I'm breaking a few rules already tonight, but I would like to minimize the damage as much as possible."
"Okay," Face said slowly.
"I can't keep the staff out of this wing indefinitely. They're going to need to use this hall and go about their duties while you and Murdock have your visit."
"Meaning?"
"I'm going to accompany you into that room—"
Face opened his mouth, a few dozen objections hovering on the tip of his tongue, but Angie held up a hand.
"Spare me the diatribe, Lieutenant. I have no desire to intrude on your privacy. But Captain Murdock has a history of unpredictable and, occasionally, violent reactions to visitors."
Mouth still open, Face drew a preparatory breath, only to be cut-off yet again.
"Lieutenant." Angie rounded on him, her expression stern. "Either I accompany you into that room, or I escort you right back to the rear gate. It's your choice."
Okay. So maybe Face didn't like Angie as much as he'd first thought. And maybe he hadn't covered that sudden twinge of hostility quite as well as he'd intended. At least not if the tolerant and sympathetic smile she was directing his way was any indication.
"I know you may not want to hear this, Alvin, but when it comes to the human mind there are no certainties. Maybe you don't believe Captain Murdock would ever hurt you—and consciously maybe he wouldn't. And maybe you believe there's no way the Captain would ever forget you or fail to recognize you. But you are looking at this situation through the lens of personal emotions. I don't have that handicap."
"You also don't know Murdock," Face snapped. It was both the strongest and weakest argument he could make. Angie undoubtedly felt it only served to prove her point: he was thinking with his heart and not his head. She didn't understand yet that when it came to Murdock, that was the only way you could think and remain sane. Which proved his point: she didn't know Murdock.
"I never claimed to know him, Alvin," Angie said, her expression gentling. "Not the way you do. I can't because the only Captain Murdock I've ever met is borderline catatonic."
The words were soft and kindly spoken. A slap would have hurt Face less. He flinched when she laid an unexpected hand on his arm, then stood there blinking dumbly at her.
"I only intend on staying long enough to ensure that the situation is stable. I promise you that."
"And once you think it's 'stable', you'll leave us alone?"
"On my word as a nurse."
Face still didn't like it, but he liked the thought of being escorted back to the gate even less. "Fine. We'll do it your way."
"Good." Angie patted his arm, then went back to fiddling with the keys. "Now as soon as I leave, technically, Murdock's door should be re-locked, but there's no way that's going to happen. I want you to have access to an exit immediately, if you need it. But only if you have no other choice. Remember, the rest of the staff may be moving in and out of the area soon, and we really don't want to get stuck trying to explain what you're doing here."
"No arguments from me on that score, but how am I supposed to get out of here if I don't use the door?"
"There's a phone by the bed. As soon as you're ready to leave, dial extension 218. That's the number for my direct line at the reception desk. I'll make sure the floor is free of staff and come escort you to the rear exit. Is that clear?"
"Clear."
Angie nodded, already inserting the key in Murdock's door. She turned the lock.
The wait was finally over.
XxXxXxXxXxX
Curled on his side, Murdock stared at the window. Venetian blinds tastefully hid the bars—his bars. His prison.
No. His hiding place.
That's what this was—no more, no less—and it was perfect. Right in plain sight.
The idea had come to him at the beginning of his second week here. At least that's when he thought it'd been. Time had become a slippery concept long before his arrival at the hospital and though the regular meals and enforced sleeping periods here had helped, he still lost track sometimes. The only difference now was the slips, when they happened, were purposeful. A byproduct of his own choice to wish away the calendar. The days weren't passing; weren't dragging into months. There was still hope. All he had to do was wait.
Enter the birth of his plan.
Another benefit of the regular meals and enforced sleep periods: his clarity of thought had returned. It let him grasp the beauty of the opportunity before him. Embrace a plan so simple it bordered on infuriating.
Wait. Just wait.
He'd exhausted every lead he had, searched every avenue, played every ace up his sleeve, and still found no trace of the Team. They were the best, after all. They were on the run, and they couldn't risk being found. Murdock's mistake had been thinking his intimate knowledge of the Team's tactics, their inner workings, and their very minds would give him an edge. Allow him to find the un-find-able. He'd been so certain. So confident. Whether that made him foolishly arrogant or hopelessly optimistic he hadn't decided yet. But either way, the truth remained the same: he'd been wrong. He wasn't going to find the Team.
So, he went insane.
Technically, he went depressed with sides of anxiety and paranoia. None of them were hard to fake. Mere amplifications of his own inner dilemma set just this side of extreme. All designed to keep unwanted visitors at bay, the doctors uninformed, and himself locked inside this room. It was his fortress, his rendezvous point, and he was determined to keep it secure. No matter what it cost him. No matter how closely he had to tread the razor's edge between reality and insanity. No matter how much that edge began to smear. Because this time the Team would be coming to him.
It was so basic, it was ingenious.
All those weeks he'd been wandering deeper and deeper into the jungle chasing ghosts, when what he should have done was hunker down and send up a flare. Let the Team come to him on their own terms. And they would come.
They always came.
Murdock rolled onto his back, arms folding behind his head, and stared at the ceiling. They always come.
There were a few things about his plan he regretted, of course. The most obvious was that it did not involve planes, a helicopter, or explosives. In short, it lacked any shred of the Jazz. But he could live with that. He might be bored to tears, but he'd live. The other regrets, though…
Murdock blinked, but his eyes refused to focus on the dappled, white ceiling. And he wanted to see it. Wanted to see every boring splotch and shadowed inch of it. Anything rather than the images playing out in his head. Some were memories—the ever-encroaching jungle, the blood, the terror, the death. Others were horrific blends of reality and fiction, that twisted the present and the future.
All of them centered around the Team.
He tried to imagine the Team finding him here. Imagine them hearing about his hideout and grinning at their friend's boundless ingenuity. Merrily going mad had saved him once before, after all. He'd gone for something in the way of an off-the-shoulder manic/schizophrenic ensemble then, with great success. The prosecutor'd had no choice, but to realize the futility of trying to force Murdock into testifying against his guys. Granted having the Army take away his wings and slap him with a Section 8 hadn't exactly been Kosher. But sometimes you just couldn't have your double cheeseburgers with chili fries and eat them, too. Besides, the look of laughter and appreciation on his friends' faces as he'd melted theatrically at the prosecutor's feet and begun mewling like a cat had been well worth it.
He pictured them laughing now, imagining all the ways Murdock must be finding to drive the psychiatrists here psychotic, then riding in with a hail of bullets to carry him off into the sunset. It was a glorious picture. Exhilarating. Fun. But a traitorous part of him couldn't seem to leave the flip-side of that coin alone. The side where his Team didn't know this was just another performance. He knew he played fast and loose with reality sometimes, and not always by choice. But it hadn't really been a problem until the Camp. They'd been there for almost four months according to the calendar. Only Faceman knew Murdock struggled to remember even a third of that time. The gaps had haunted him at first. Just the idea that he'd been alive and functioning to some degree, yet couldn't hang a solid memory on them. He'd been strangely ashamed of it, too—until he'd told Face. The reaction had been immediate. His friend had sank onto the cot beside him, almost trembling, and smiled. A shaky, disbelieving, and overwhelmed smile of relief. It had been like watching the sun breakthrough lingering clouds you hadn't even realized were still there. Murdock had stopped being ashamed after that.
But what would happen this time if the Team thought this was like… then?
He imagined Hannibal pacing the floor, puffing worriedly on his cigar, but not coming up with a plan. Because he feared Murdock belonged here.
He imagined B.A. shaking his head and pounding a fist into some unwitting cement truck. Because, 'Murdock always been crazy!'
He imagined Faceman's smile fading beneath a wave of resurging clouds. Because of him.
Jaw tightening, Murdock blinked harder. No, he wasn't going there. The Team would know he was okay. They'd know this wasn't like before. They'd come for him. He just needed to stay focused. The ceiling. He was supposed to be looking at the ceiling. That was safe. Unlike his own mind. Idly, he wondered if he should be worried by that.
The thought slipped out of his brain as unobtrusively as it had appeared. Like the shadows playing along his ceiling.
He frowned. Normally, they didn't do that. Someone must be moving around outside his door. He'd heard footsteps out there and the soft patter of voices, but hadn't paid them much attention. There was some kind of sound proofing in the walls here, he thought. Though nothing was completely blocked out from either side, there was a certain amount of muffling. Just enough distortion to make eavesdropping too much work for him to bother.
As the lock to his door clicked open, he decided he might have to revisit the wisdom of that policy.
Stare at the ceiling. The ceiling is safe. Don't talk. Don't say a word. Keep the Team safe. No one must know who you're waiting for.
And it was obvious he was waiting for something. The fact he was still dressed and laying on top of his covers gave that away. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
He closed his eyes. That edge was getting slippier all the time.
The lights in the hallway were dimmed at night, but the opening of the door still cast a fluorescent glow across the room. Murdock could see it in the way the insides of his eyelids changed tint. He was busy trying to put a name to the sickly color they had turned when he heard her voice. He should've known it was McCabe.
"Captain Murdock?"
He liked McCabe, honest he did, but she also scared him. Out of all the people in the hospital, he feared she was the one most likely to jeopardize his mission. She just couldn't seem to leave well enough alone. It had become her objective, it seemed, to pick and pound away at his depression. She brought him things that, despite his firmest intentions, made him smile. It was irritating. He was supposed to be chronically and incurably depressed, didn't she know that?
"Captain Murdock, you might as well open your eyes. I know you're not asleep."
Another one of her faults: she was much to perceptive.
A shadow passed, altering the shade of color tainting his eyelids, followed by the return of the sickly light—and another shadow. Another shadow? Another person. Yep. He could hear it now, the distinct sound of their footsteps. Where McCabe's tennis shoes went shush-squish shush-squish, this person's shoes went thunk-thum thunk-thum. It was a soft thunk-thum, but most definitely a thunk-thum. So, not a big person maybe. Light on their feet, but with heavy footwear. Boots?
The light which had appeared on the heels of the second shadow, slowly faded. The door latched closed.
"Captain Murdock, you have a visitor."
A visitor with boots in the middle of the night with McCabe. Not good. A tingle traveled down Murdock's spine.
There was a click and still more light invaded the skin shielding his eyeballs, this time coming from the opposite side of the room. It fell over his face, sending a cast of warm colors across his lids. So much prettier than the dimmed hallway fluorescents. He recognized it instantly: someone had flipped on the light in his bathroom.
Again, a shadow interrupted the flow of light and he visualized them passing in front of the open bathroom door as they came closer. Thunk-thum, thunk-thum, thunk-thum.
"Murdock?"
His eyes flew open.
The face of the man standing alongside the bed was cast in shadow. An unfamiliar ball cap even shielded his hair from catching the light, but it didn't matter. He smelled of automotive grease mixed with faint traces of a cologne Murdock didn't recognize, but that didn't matter either.
"Face?"
The man smiled and, even in the dark, the perfect white of his teeth lit up the room. "Hey, buddy."
Murdock shoved himself upright against the headboard. Was he dreaming? It was late. They weren't allowed visitors at night. But McCabe had brought Face to him. She really knew how to mess up a guy's depression. But how did she know? Was Face in danger? Maybe leading the guys here wasn't such a good plan after all. He knew Hannibal liked going in through the front door, but to send Face in here unarmed and with McCabe on his heels... Couldn't they tell McCabe was dangerous? She saw too much. Remembered too much. Cared too much.
Everything-d too much.
Face's smile started to dim. "Murdock, you okay?"
Was he okay? The urge to laugh hysterically rose in his throat. Face was the one in danger here, not Murdock. All McCabe could do to him was try and wreck his mental-instability, but Face… if she knew, if she ever found out…
And yet, even with the tumbling surge of fears, Murdock couldn't help but pray that this was real. That Face was real. It was unforgivably selfish of him, but after spending so many weeks alone, searching, hoping, waiting—
"Look, ah, I know it's late," Face said. "In more ways than one. But I— I'm here now, and I understand if you don't want to see me, but I'm really sorry I couldn't get here sooner, and if you'll just give me a chance to explain…"
Murdock listened intently to the sound of Face's voice, but tuned out the words. Face was rambling which meant he was nervous and Murdock wanted to fix that, he really did, but he had to make certain of something first.
Rolling onto his knees, Murdock snatched the cap off of Face's head in one smooth motion.
It was real.
He stared at it, barely noticing the other man's sputtered protest. Mesmerized, he relished the texture of the hat between his fingers. Real. Solid. There.
Not a dream.
"Murdock?"
With a whoop, Murdock threw the hat into the air and launched himself at his best friend. He wrapped Faceman in the biggest, tightest bear hug his arms could manage. He felt Face stagger back just a step, then tense. Unlike Murdock, Face hadn't grown up with much in the way of physical affection. The first time Murdock had hugged him, the conman and been so shocked he'd just stood there like a post.
Exactly like now.
For a wild moment Murdock thought he'd been wrong. Maybe this wasn't real. Maybe he actually had been dreaming and was currently hugging his chest of drawers. The thought made him hold on tighter. No. No, this had to be real. It had to. It—
Arms gently wrapped around his back, silencing his mental spin-out. His chest of drawers had never done that.
"I'm real, Murdock."
The assurance was whispered—for Murdock's ears only. Something else his chest of drawers had never done.
There was a soft chuckle that was pure Face, then another whisper. "I'm not a chest of drawers, Murdock."
Murdock snorted. Had he really said that out loud? Or did Face just know him that well? When he felt Face's hold on him tighten, hands fisting in his jacket, he decided it didn't matter.
The door to his room opened again, then slowly closed. He held onto Face until the last shush-squish faded down the hall.
TBC...