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  Out Of The Night 
 by Karen  

 Face was where BA had thought he would be: on the roof. If he didn't go
to ground, he went up high. Like those leopards you saw on the TV, or a
sniper, though he could hide just as well below, be just as deadly if it
came to that. Still, considering what had happened in the basement earlier
that day, ground hadn't seemed the likely choice. And here he was, sitting
on the parapet in the dark, looking over Chicago and wishing... what, BA
wondered; you could know a man well enough to predict his moves but that
didn't mean you always knew what was on his mind, in his soul, eating at
him enough to make him slip away from a party and hide out by himself in
the darkness. Knowing where he'd go if he went wasn't the same as knowing
he'd go, or why...

 BA shut the roof door behind just loud enough for the other man to know
someone was there, not trying to sneak up on him, and looked at him for a
minute, letting his eyes adjust. It wasn't purely dark, of course, this
was Chicago not some wilderness, but it was dark enough, no lights on the
roof and the streetlights three stories below them. Slowly Face came into
focus: arms braced on the parapet beside him, feet touching the wall
instead of dangling, wind messing unnoticed with his hair, and tension in
every line of him. BA stood there a moment longer, and then walked over
towards the edge. Not right up to it, to lean over and look out, but close
enough.

 After a moment Face spoke. "Nice view," and he sounded dead serious. He
probably was; he liked cities.

 "You okay, Faceman?"

 "I'm fine," he said.

 Which meant he didn't want to talk about whatever it was was bothering
him. BA sighed silently. The lieutenant had never been an easy man, but it
wasn't in BA to walk away and leave him. Never had been, back when he was
a little butterbar (what's the most dangerous thing in the army? a second
lieutenant with a clipboard) as green as those raggedy palm trees, and
wasn't now even when they weren't, not really, lieutenant and sergeant.
Second nature gets to be first after a long enough while. BA didn't move.

 After a few minutes Face sighed; his was audible where BA was standing.
He bowed his tawny head for a couple of seconds and then swung around, all
one graceful motion, like one of those gymnasts, lifting his arm for his
legs and finishing up sitting in the same position as before except now
facing BA instead of the city. His face was still in shadow and BA wasn't
sure of his expression, but after a moment he spoke. "That was a nice job,
before, BA. With the bomb."

 BA was surprised to hear him say it. Hannibal had said it before, the
simple "Nice, BA" that was worth any two-page commendation and always had
been, but Face? He'd said, "Could you take a little longer next time, BA?
That way I could die of a heart attack and not have to worry about being
blown to smithereens." Even then, when BA was telling him he could make
the choice next time, he'd known what Face had meant, just as Face had
known what he'd meant... Sixteen years, or was it seventeen? You knew what
the other man meant. Face's ways were as familiar, and as comforting, as
Hannibal's, though they couldn't have been more different on the surface.
For Face to be saying this now, out loud... BA thought back to the moment,
looking at all the things he hadn't been paying attention to then because
the bomb had been taking all of it, and found the right bit. He thought
for a moment about whether to say anything, and then how to say it, and
then said,

 "You know if that bomb had gone off the whole buildin' would'a come
down."

 "I know it." Face sounded a little testy. "I wasn't worried." The silence
lasted fifteen, maybe twenty seconds. "Much."

 "I know that," BA said. Face's retreat to the doorway hadn't been fear;
well, not cowardice, anyway. BA had known Murdock was standing right
behind him, and he had felt Murdock's nervousness, felt him give way when
they'd realized it was a guessing game: BA's wits against the bomber's.
Murdock had backed away, and Face had moved after him, touching him,
pushing him a little, positioning him in the angle of the doorway, as safe
a place as you could get in the time, and holding him there. Of course
Face had been scared, they all had been, even Hannibal, for all his
grinning. BA had been sweating... "I know that," he said again. "But if
the buildin' had come down, he wouldn't'a been safe anyplace you could'a
put him."

 The silence stretched out until Face shrugged and relaxed a little, his
right hand drifting to rest on his stomach. "I know," he said.

 BA didn't say anything. There wasn't much to say, when you came right
down to it. He'd been thinking about second nature becoming first, but
Face protecting Murdock had never been second nature. It had surprised
both of them, BA thought now, but they'd been close from the first day,
when Face had found that town car for Hannibal and found his way inside
the colonel's guard at the same time. All of them's guard. All of them
different, all of them guarding something different for different reasons,
and all of them falling like a ton of bricks for the young Californian.
But the bond between Face and Murdock, who'd already been more crazy than
not, had been strong and instant and all those years it had never even
looked like it was weakening. No matter how dangerous, how crazy, how
anything...

 But there wasn't anything to say, really.

 But BA wasn't sure why Face was out here in the darkness, and that meant
he was sure he shouldn't walk away and leave him. So he looked for
something to say and finally settled on, "Mama was wonderin' where you got
to."

 Face's answer, when it came, was slantways. "I like your mother."

 "She like you."

 "She wants to adopt Murdock."

 "She think he need lookin' after," BA answered what hadn't been said. Or
at least what he thought was on Face's mind.

 More silence. Face's hand made circles on his stomach while his eyes
looked at something inside his head. "He's not taking his meds," he said
finally.

 So that was it. It wasn't that surprising, really. Murdock was so much
better now than he had been; it hadn't been that long ago they wouldn't
have dared bring him on a mission even though getting him out of the VA
had often seemed to work wonders. Seven years, BA thought, seven years
they had thought they'd never get him back. He and Hannibal, they'd hurt
over it but they'd have accepted it if it weren't for Face. Face had never
accepted it, not once he'd seen a glimpse of hope. Face was like that guy
in that old story: he'd have fought Death to save Murdock, fighting
Insanity didn't take a second thought. Even though his way of fighting it
sometimes seemed more like participating to BA, he'd never given up. And
nowadays Murdock was pretty functional, if still crazier than a Betsy-bug.
Seemed to BA that Face ought to be feeling pretty good about that.

 He said, after a moment, "He don't like takin' his meds, Faceman. He
never did."

 "That's not the point."

 BA shrugged. "Fool's crazy, Face. What you want from him?"

 "I want him to take his meds." Face's voice was sharp. "I want him to
straighten up, damnit."

 The words hung in the Chicago darkness.

 BA was silent. The swearing was unusual. Even though Face had, in spite
of his youth (or because of it) sworn like a sailor in 'Nam at first, he'd
pretty much stopped after a while. Hannibal didn't like it, nor did BA,
and somehow their unit just hadn't. Swearing shows a deficiency in
imagination or vocabulary or both, Hannibal said, and, well, people just
didn't want him thinking they were deficient. In anything. Not that BA's
vocabulary was all that extensive. But it suited the image people wanted
to have of him... The swearing was unusual. But the sharp-edged anger was
more so. BA waited.

 Face sighed. When he spoke again, he sounded calmer. "I want him to be
normal. I want him take his meds and get well and be who he would have
been if he weren't who he is and I know that doesn't make sense, all
right, so don't tell me so."

 "Wasn't gonna say that," BA said, shaking his head. "'Cause it do. Here."

 Face turned to look at him, eyes wide-pupilled in the dark, whites a
little wider too from surprise, or something. He took the bottle and
looked down at it, then back up at BA.

 BA shrugged. He knew Face liked the brand; seemed expensive to him, but
then again the lieutenant never had been a man who lost himself in his
booze, so taste probably mattered. Besides, he always did go for the
expensive brand of anything when he could. Sometimes, if it was a choice
between cheap and nothing, he took nothing. It came, BA supposed, from
growing up having nothing, and from defining himself by what he had
instead of what he did... Sometimes, you just wanted to take him by the
scruff of the neck and knock some sense into his good-looking head, that
was for sure.

 "Thanks," Face said finally. "I can use this." He reached into his
pocket, pulled out the slender Swiss Army knife he'd carried for over a
decade now--a black one, BA hadn't even known they came anything but red
but since they did it was like Face to own a black one--and opened the
bottle. BA put a glass down on the parapet next to him; it wasn't a wine
glass, but just now, in this particular night, he doubted Face would care.
He didn't: "Thanks," he said again, pouring the dark liquid into the
glass. It was red, BA knew, but in the darkness it looked black, too:
black as the knife, black as Face's mood.

 "'Sallright," BA said. He took in a deep breath and leaned up against the
parapet. "Thing is," he said after a minute spent watching Face drink, "he
is who he is. Cain't be anybody else."

 "He's somebody he isn't half the time," Face said.

 BA thought about that. "He don't choose it," he said finally, thinking
about the way Face, too, slid in and out of different people but seeing
that the difference was that Face knew what he was doing, made the choice,
and never really, deep down, believed in it.

 "He does, though," Face said. "When he stops taking his meds he's
choosing..."

 BA heard that trail off and filled in the end of it for himself. He
wasn't surprised that Face would see it as some kind of rejection, of
normalcy or him or both. BA didn't like getting into other people's lives
but Face wasn't other people, after all. "He choosin' to be himself when
he do that," he said gently. "The meds, they make him someone he ain't. He
don't like the meds, he never liked 'em. Make him feel like his mind is
all wrapped up in something soft and sticky, like he's all slow and
fightin' to think. After a while, he just rather be crazy again."

 "That's crazy." Face seemed to hear himself and actually managed a slight
chuckle. "I guess that's the point."

 "Yeah," BA nodded. "It is. Fool is crazy, an' that who he is."

 Face poured more wine, drank. After another long while he said, "I
suppose so." He filled his glass again.

 BA looked at him but didn't say anything. Face didn't lose himself in
drink, but every now and then he gave it a try. He settled himself to wait
until the lieutenant was done drinking; he'd carry him downstairs if need
be. Mama didn't think Face needed looking after, like Murdock did, and
that was Face's own fault. BA knew better. He always had.

 And he always would.  
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