indigo_angels

..1..

Face lounged back against his pack, warm and content to be near the fire with his boss and his team. In twelve hours they were bugging out, back to the states and Face was heading into New York with some of the others for a long weekend of fun. Twenty years old and he’d never been to New York, he almost couldn’t believe it himself.

In fact there was a lot about his life he couldn’t really believe at the minute. He wasn’t really used to landing on his feet, but with this boss, with both of them, he conceded, flicking his eyes over at the General, he’d well and truly struck gold. Hannibal especially seemed to get him, understand that he didn’t really screw up on purpose or because he was incompetent, just didn’t always think about things in the right order. Or at all... But he was okay with that, would talk to Face, ask him to work out for himself where he’d gone wrong, how he could be better next time, so much more useful than a reaming out.

Life was good.

“Ow!” Hannibal’s exclamation brought him back to the campfire and he looked as his CO yanked a trouser leg up, examining the back of his calf in the firelight, “Some little bugger just bit me,” he muttered, rubbing the offending skin vigorously.

“Hey, boss,” the voice came from the far side of the fire, impossible to see where exactly through all the smoke, “That’s a weird scar on your leg, where’d you get it?”

Face, along with everyone else in their party let his eyes slide down to said scar curving around Hannibal’s knee. It was a perfect curl, like the letter C, and silvery white in the firelight. “Nowhere,” Hannibal answered gruffly, dragging his trouser leg back down, “I fell,” and he obviously hoped that was the end of it.

Morrison’s laughter from across the fire quickly put paid to that idea and Face could see his boss frown.

“Hannibal! Come on, tell the boy the truth! You wouldn’t deprive these soldiers a good story now would you?”

Hannibal busied himself in his pack, determinedly not looking Morrison’s way. “Russ, no one wants to hear that story...” he muttered.

Wrong response. The night air was suddenly full of cries of indignation and encouragement and Face could see that Hannibal knew he’d lost; he looked over to his second lieutenant and shrugged and Face smiled back in sympathy.

“Now, I bet a lot of you boys would never guess that old Hannibal Smith over there has spent his fair share of time as a...” Morrison paused for dramatic effect, “UFO hunter...?!”

There was a stunned silence and Hannibal just shook his head before one of the guys, Penfold, a self confessed geek, looked at him in complete awe and whispered, “Really? Oh, boss, that’s just awesome! Everyone knows they are real... you find any aliens you can tell us about?”

It was like the whole camp fell silent, people stuck in their own thoughts of alien abductions and weird cutting implements that cut in perfect C shapes, hanging on the edge of their perches, waiting to hear Hannibal spill secrets about Roswell, Area 51, Fox Mulder...

“I was ten, Penfold,” Hannibal eventually supplied, ruining the moment for everyone.

Morrison rocked back in his chair, roaring with laughter as dissatisfied rumblings spread round the fire, but he wasn’t done with his story yet, “But!” he interjected and the mumbling died down, “He was still one hell of a UFO tracker, and had come up with a plan, a damn fine and cunning plan that would get him right into the heart of the alien empire!”

The silence was back and Face continued staring at Hannibal as he poked the fire with a stick.

Leaning in to whisper, Morrison continued his tale, “So, young Hannibal over there decides that he will disguise himself as an alien, then when the UFOs land, he can sneak aboard as one of them and infiltrate their scheming lair!”

Despite himself, Hannibal’s lips were twitching.

“But,” Morrison’s hands are splayed out at his sides, “convincing alien costumes were not easy to come by in 1960’s Nevada, so our man improvised.”

That brought a smile to everyone’s lips, if there was one thing that Hannibal was known for, it was his excellent if slightly out-field improvisational skills.

“He raided his mom’s kitchen cupboards and came up with all kinds of possible props. Kettle, bucket, colander, bed pan,”

“There was never a bed pan,” Hannibal interjected.

“But found that the old pail they used to milk the cow into was perfect as a helmet!”

Hannibal dropped his head into his hands, rubbing his face tiredly.

“So young John tried it on for size,” it was obvious to Face that they were getting near the punch line as Morrison was struggling to keep his face straight, “Obviously it was a bit big, went right down to his shoulders, made it a little tricky to see where he was going, but John liked the effect. So he walked about in it for a while, trying it out,” a few of the others had started to smile although Face still had no idea where this was headed, “Unfortunately,” the General’s voice was a whisper, “He’d forgotten all about the rest of his stuff lying around, tripped up, landed on the upside down colander, sliced right into his knee, almost all the way round...”

Sympathetic groans of pain and snorts of laughter sounded from around the fire in equal measures as Morrison laughed loudest at his own story, “Almost cut his knee cap right out! On a colander!!! Oh that’s got to be a first! Wish I'd been in that Emergency Room!”

Face looked at his colonel and raised his eyebrows and Hannibal just shrugged, “Needed twenty seven stitches kid, fucking hurt...”

And at that point Face laughed too, more at the thought of Hannibal ever being that innocent, that naive, than anything else.

___________________________________

Face comes back to himself in the recliner with one finger absently trailing round the silvery C shape on Hannibal’s leg. If he looks really closely he can see the marks from one or two of those stitches, but he doubts he could find all twenty seven.

He glances up at his boss, worried that his trailing finger will contravene the ‘stay still’ order and he’ll be evicted, but there’s no need to worry. Hannibal is still engrossed in his book and so Face lets his finger wander a little higher, up the curve of his leg, to rest on the slightly pink, slightly puckered, M&M sized scar on the outside of his thigh and his blood runs cold. No need for Morrison for this one, he was there himself and he remembers that night in all its horrendous detail.

Next scar...