indigo_angels

AN: By the way - I love Piper, just saying!!! :)

Within an hour they were sat up on the deck, beers in hand despite the fact that it had just gone eleven in the morning, and Face’s hair still wet from his post swim shower. Face was buzzing. Maybe he’d been lonelier than he thought out here for these couple of days on his own, or maybe after all the stress and tension with BA it was just good to chill out with a real old friend, someone who knew him, knew what he was like, wasn’t judging him or scowling at him or wondering why the army even paid his wages, someone who just accepted him. Or maybe it was just good to see Piper. Back when he’d been in Hannibal’s unit he was probably the one that Face had got on with the best - apart from Hannibal of course.

He leaned over the little pile of photos that Piper had spread out over the table and shook his head, “Five, Pipes, I mean, five! Where the hell do you keep them all?”

Piper almost choked on his beer as he laughed, “They are children, Face, not hamsters! We don't keep them anywhere!”

Face waved his hands dismissively as he studied the photos, “You know what I mean! You must have one hell of a kick-ass house to fit that little lot in!”

Piper took a swig of beer and thought of his pokey three bedroom brownstone in Jacksonville, currently drowning in diapers and bottles of formula and toys and shook his head casting his eyes around the sleek and stark interior of the beach house that even Face’s usual clutter hadn’t managed to ruin. “You have no idea. Maybe hamster cages are a good idea...”

Glancing up at him, Face frowned, “But you’re happy, yeah, with this lot? You love kids.” Way back before Face’s time with Hannibal’s unit, that was how Piper got his name, the way that, whenever they were on manoeuvres, the local kids used to flock around him, ‘Like the Pied Fucking Piper of Hamlin,’ Hannibal had remarked dryly one day and the nick name had stuck.

“Of course!” the look on Piper’s face was genuine and Face turned back to the photos reassured, “It’s just not the way we would have planned it, that’s all.”

“You never heard of birth control then, Pipes?” Face teased.

“Well, it’s not that we didn’t want another kid, we just didn't bargain for a triple package...”

Face smiled still examining the photos, “So, go on then,” he prompted, “introduce me again.”

Piper put his beer down and picked up one of the photos, genuinely pleased that Face was showing such an interest in his family, “Okay,” he said holding out a picture of a girl who looked about eight, “Megan you know.”

She had been a new born baby when Face had been drafted into Hannibal’s unit, “Man, she’s growing up! Looks just like her mom.”

Smiling proudly, Piper nodded, then shook his head, muttering in an undertone, “Got her mom’s sharp tongue too.” Face smiled as Piper showed him the next photo. “Lottie, you also know.”

Face took the picture from him and ran his finger tip over the chubby face smiling up at him, “She’s beautiful too,” he told Piper putting the picture down next to Megan’s.

“Well, she takes after her godfather,” he told Face, kicking his shin under the table. “Who, incidentally, should stop sending them such extravagant presents at Christmas time...”

Face shrugged, “Well, it’s not like I’m ever going to have any of my own, so why I can’t I buy crazy presents for yours?” he remarked easily.

Piper looked sideways at him, hearing just a touch of longing in that sentence, but when Face didn’t look back he moved onto the next picture, “And these,” he said heavily, “are the reason I have to work so much damn overtime.” The photo was of three blanket covered lumps in a triple buggy, each one with a different coloured bobble hat sticking up on top, “Aaron, Jacob and Caleb,” he said pointing to each in turn.

After studying the picture for a minute Face shook his head, “Sorry, bud, but I can’t really see anything...”

Reaching back onto the pile, Piper picked up three separate pictures, each of a smiling baby laid on a blanket, “Erm, Caleb,” he pointed at the first one. “No! Jacob. Hang on... yeah, Jacob.”

Face laughed. “You can’t tell them apart?”

Looking totally confused and rubbing at his forehead, Piper laid them out on the table next to each other, “Oh, they are fucking identical Face! Identical triplets! Of course I can’t tell them apart! All babies look alike to me anyway!”

“You’re their father! And you’re a paediatrician!”

“That means nothing!” Piper protested hotly, “In hospital they all have these names tags on... and they are just so similar...!”

“I bet Ellie can tell them apart,” Face teased.

“Oh, she can... So can Megan and Lottie! They have my life over the fact that I can’t.” He looked at the pictures again, “Ellie puts them in the same colours every day to try and help me out, but...” he trailed off miserably.

“You can’t remember each colour for each baby?” Piper shook his head. “That’s priceless!” Face laughed, “Wait until I tell the boss!”

Piper watched him laughing again as he picked his beer back up and drained it in one go, then wiped his mouth before setting the bottle down and taking a deep breath, “So, what’s going on with him then Face?” he asked quietly, “Why isn’t he here with you now?”

Face’s laughter died away and he carefully picked up each of Piper’s photos, stacking them together neatly and setting them down in the middle of the table before he eventually answered. “He sent me here to have some time to think about things, that’s all.”

“Right.” Piper frowned, “So everything is okay with you two then?”

Rubbing a hand over his mouth, feeling the stubble beneath his fingers, Face thought about that. “Yeah,” he eventually replied. “Yeah, it is. It’s – other things going on.”

“Thank Christ for that,” Piper muttered reaching another beer from the cooler under the table, “when he told me to come out here I thought he might want me to do some marriage guidance with you. Can’t think of anything worse...”

An ironic smile flitted across Face’s lips, “So, he told you to come over and see me then?”

Piper looked up, was that hurt he saw in his friend’s face? “No! Not really, he sent me a text that’s all, said you were here this week and if I wanted to meet up, to just come over.”

Face nodded, “But, you knew what he wanted?”

“Of course I did... You know the boss, there’s a plan in everything...”

“The thing is though,” Face leaned back in his seat and looked out over the ocean, “if he’s sent you here, he obviously wants you to say something in particular to me, so what might that be then?

Piper looked up and met Face’s eyes, the same bright blue as the sky, “Well, why don't you tell me what’s weighing on your mind so heavily that the boss has sent you all the way out here by yourself, and then we’ll see where it goes from there, hey?”

There was a long silence as Face stared out at the horizon and Piper stared at him and seagulls wheeled above them before Face eventually said, “I want out, Pipes, I can’t do this Army shit anymore.”

If Face had been looking at his old friend he would have seen the surprise that flashed across his face at that news, quickly replaced by an expression of puzzlement, “Why?” he asked gently.

Face dropped his head into his palms and Piper knew that he was forcing back the tears. He waited in silence, knowing that Face never appreciated being pushed, and pushing him when he was upset could more than likely end up in an explosion of some kind. “I just can’t,” he eventually whispered.

“Where did you get that bullet wound on your belly?” Piper asked instead, remembering the livid red bullet track he’d seen across Face’s stomach as he came out of the sea earlier on.

“Pulling the boss out of some attic somewhere,” Face replied without looking up.

“The boss got caught?” Face nodded, “And the mission went south?” Another nod and Piper let out a long breath, “So you suddenly think you don’t make the grade anymore?”

“There’s more to it than that,” Face replied quietly, “I handled everything wrong... it was a total fucking disaster.”

Piper could see the tears standing on Face’s eyelashes and felt his heart tighten for him, “You got the boss out though?”

“I did, but people died.”

“Good people or bad people?”

Face looked up, his expression bleak, “Innocent people...”

Piper let out a long breath, so of course, that was it exactly. He knew Face’s aversion to killing, knew how the kid would throw up even if he’d killed a hostile trying to take them all out with a rocket launcher, and Piper was there with him on that, even more so since he’d become a fully qualified doctor. Was that why Hannibal wanted him here? To commiserate?

It seemed that Face was on the same train of thought as he was, “So, now I want to leave. That’s probably why Hannibal sent you over, because you have left, you know? You can tell me what it’s been like.”

But Piper frowned, that didn’t seem to make sense to him at all. “Face, does the boss want you to go?”

Face considered this for a moment, “Well,” he answered slowly, “he’s not really said. Said he would back me up either way. Even said he would leave with me if I went...” Face smiled ironically at the image of a domesticated Hannibal in his head.

“He loves you so much,” Piper whispered, one of the very few people in the world who would ever speak like that about them both, who saw what they had as something more than sex, “I can’t think for one minute he really wants you to leave. So why would he send me out here? Me, who is glad I’ve left, who has finally found the thing that suits me.” Saving, rather than killing, he had almost said, but Face didn’t need to hear that right now.

“I don’t know what he thinks, all I know is it was the first mission I led with this new team he’s put together, and I made a huge balls-up. Maybe he thinks I don’t cut it anymore.”

Piper shook his head, that was a preposterous thought, he knew that Hannibal had never rated anyone as highly as Face, ever. “But you got the boss back! So it wasn’t a complete disaster! And what about the mission objectives? You get any of those?”

Face shuffled awkwardly, “Maybe...”

Piper recognised that look, “You got them all, didn't you?” Face nodded. “So, I fail to follow why that makes it a complete disaster!”

“It was the way it all went! It was like I was lurching from one fuck-up to the next the whole damn time!”

“You measuring yourself up against the boss, there Face?”

A shrug was all he got as Face went back to his beer and Piper watched him, his mind a busy whirl. And suddenly it was there, the answer he’d been looking for, why the boss wanted him here with Face, the story he wanted him to tell. He leaned over the table, “Look, he’s not perfect you know.”

Face’s eyes flashed over at him, “I’m not some wide eyed recruit, Piper, I know he’s not.”

Piper ignored him, “He had to start out somewhere as well, he had to struggle to make the team work, to make those decisions that got the job done.” A shake of the head was all the response he got. “He did, Face.”

“Not like this,” Face insisted, “I’ve had eight years to see him in action Piper, and he has never been like I was, never.”

Now it was Piper’s turn to shake his head, “Kid, I’d been with him for six years before you even showed your cute rookie face with us. I know what it was like in those early days for him, I was there. You weren’t.” Face just looked at him. “And that’s why he wants me here; he wants me to tell you.”

____________________________

The sun was staining the sea a burnt orange colour as Piper took a long drink of slightly warm beer to ease the ache in his throat from talking for so long. He looked over at Face who was frowning as he gazed out at the sea and Piper knew he was processing everything he’d been told, weighing it all up, preparing a verdict and wondered which way the kid was going to fall. He’d said very little as Piper had told stories all afternoon of his early days with the boss.

About Major Grant McInnerery who’d been so peeved that Hannibal had been promoted above him that he’d gone out of his way to undermine every mission that Hannibal led, every order he was given, until he’d taken that insubordination one step too far and almost got them captured. Then Hannibal had finally stepped in, bawled him out and started disciplinary procedures, ending up with his being permanently reassigned.

The trouble in Panama when their intel was wrong and they mistakenly attacked a convoy of villagers trying to flee the fighting.

The time when Bunter was first assigned as XO and found trouble at every corner with Hannibal’s unorthodox style, was constantly quoting rules at him and questioning his decisions.

That Marine Colonel who took exception to the fact that Hannibal had busted one of his guy’s chops in a bar in Manila after seeing him man handling a local woman, and tried to get even with the unit every chance he had for six long months.

Face rubbed his eyes tiredly, but Piper could see he was not convinced, “And come on, buddy,” he prompted, determined to do the job that Hannibal had wanted him to do; “things weren’t plain sailing when you arrived either!” Face looked over, thinking hard. “You remember you had that fight in the shower block with those two thugs from 3^rd Infantry? How the boss didn’t let you explain, just chucked you in the stockade, started court martial proceedings on you? Was that one of his best decisions?”

Face frowned, “He didn’t realise...”

“Yeah, ‘cause he didn’t ask!” Piper put in. He wasn’t a huge fan of bashing Hannibal, but he hadn’t been a huge fan of him then, either. He remembered when the boss had shown up in his quarters after finally discovering that Face had been preventing some new recruit from being raped and eventually signed the kid out of the stockade. Face had been badly beaten, stinking and mistreated, still only a teenager and Hannibal had left him with the MPs for three whole days without checking on him once... As Piper had stitched and cleaned him, he’d constantly thrown dirty looks Hannibal’s way, knowing damn well that the boss was aware how he felt about the whole mess.

“And Somali?” Piper prompted, “You remember that dead end gully the boss led us up? Made us target practice for those rebels?”

“He didn’t know there had been a landslip, Piper!”

“Cambodia? You saved his ass there Face if I remember rightly.”

“He had to go back, Bunt was shot!”

“Iran? Jesus, Face, you barely made it out alive after that FUBAR, and you certainly weren’t all in one piece!”

“Alright!” Face snapped, the disastrous mission in Iran the last place he wanted to be right now. “You don’t have to drag all this shit up! Hannibal is a good CO, the fucking best!”

“I know...” Piper soothed, leaning in across the table to Face. “You don’t need to tell me that, I know he is. He’s the very best there is, and things still go wrong for him, Face! Don’t you get that? Don’t you see that’s the point I am trying to make!” Face met his eye, “The difference is, when things go wrong for the boss, he puts them right, or he makes sure he has the people around him who can put it right for him. People like you, kid.”

Face slumped down in his seat and Piper knew that, at last, his point was taken.

“None of that matters though,” Face’s voice was small, far away sounding and even though it was starting to get dark, Piper knew the tears were back. “I just don’t think I can do it anymore.”

Piper frowned, “It Face? You keep saying, it. What exactly is that?”

“You know Piper...” Face whispered out towards the beach, “You of all people know exactly what I mean.”

There was a long sigh of defeat as Piper leant back in his chair, “The killing?” He saw Face nod, and scrubbed a hand through his hair, “The boss know this bit?”

This time Face’s head shook. “How could I tell him that, Piper? That I’m too chicken-shit to kill anyone?”

“Face, you aren’t too chicken-shit for anything.”

“I can’t kill.”

“Why not?”

Face closed his eyes and rested his forehead on his clenched fists, “Every time I close my eyes I see them there...”

“The civilians?” Face nodded and Piper leant forward again, “What happened Face? How’d they die?”

There was a pause, “I slit their throats...”

Piper winced and was glad Face wasn’t looking at him. “Why did you kill them?”

Face blew a long breath out and stayed staring at his thighs as he answered. “They were hunting us.”

“I hardly call that innocent!” Piper exclaimed.

Face’s head flew up, “They were farm boys Piper! They’d been press ganged into this private fucking army, forced to carry guns, forced into hunting us down!”

“And they’d have killed you!” Piper interjected, “Come on, Face! You know they would have done! You had no choice.”

Face’s head fell into his hands once more and his voice drifted across the noise of the surf to Piper’s ears, “I think I know that, really, but... it still doesn’t change what I feel. I just don’t think I can do it anymore.”

Finally, Piper understood the problem, “You think you will freeze up in the field?” He watched as Face nodded miserably. “You need to tell the boss.”

“I can’t!” Face’s voice was full of such misery that Piper actually winced. “What will he think of me then?”

“The same thing he thinks of you now.” Piper said firmly, “You know how he feels about you. You know he loves you.”

“I’d be letting him down.”

“Not telling him is letting him down.”

Silence fell and Piper watched as Face just sat, head in his hands, misery coming off him in waves. Piper’s heart ached in sympathy for him, but he just didn’t know what to say. Minutes ticked by until Piper shivered as the breeze from the ocean picked up a bit. “C’mon Face,” he broke into the silence, “I’m starving,” the frozen pizzas that Face put in the oven a few hours ago seemed a dim and distant memory now, “There’s a bar I drove past a couple of streets back, let’s go get something to eat.”

Face looked up, sadness swimming in his eyes, “You don’t need to get back to Ellie and the kids?”

Piper shook his head, “No, you got me all night if you want me!”

The relief in Face’s expression tugged at Piper’s heart and he was glad he had said that; it was worth the awkward phone calls he would need to make to Ellie to say he was staying over and then to his mother to see if she would go and help with the night feeds just to see that look of relief. Ellie would be fine he reasoned as he wandered down onto the sand to make his phone call as Face went to get changed, she, much like the entire female population, had always had a soft spot for Face, and his mother would love a chance to spend more time with the triplets. And even if they weren’t, there was no way on earth that he was leaving Face alone tonight, not after the afternoon of soul searching they had just had. No way at all.

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