A Mother's Love - Part Twenty Three
Oct. 25th, 2011 09:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
indigo_angelsSilas adjusted his position and moved the blind back just a shade so that he could see who was getting into the old Chevy in the driveway to the house. He sighed and leant back in frustration, that was Peck and Smith leaving, so it left Baracus and Murdock in the house; did these idiots never go anywhere unless they were in twos?
Two days now, Silas had been ensconced in the house he had managed to rent just down the road from the one that the team were using. At first he hadn’t believed it when he had followed Smith’s car back from the beach and ended up at this picture of suburban bliss. If he’d had to imagine a venue for the infamous A-Team to hole up in, it wouldn’t have been a four bedroom family residence in a quiet neighbourhood with a basket ball hoop above the garage door and a bird feeder in the yard. But then, he’d mused as he’d watched Smith and his quarry wander up the driveway and let themselves in, what better way to hide than in plain sight? No skulking around in the wilderness for them, no, if you were going to be on the run, at least you could do it with satellite TV, full central heating and a side-by-side fridge freezer. He admired their style.
It had seemed easy once he found out that the house two doors down and across the road was available to rent, thought he would camp out there for a day or so, wait until Peck went out on his own, follow him and swoop, a great plan, except that Peck never seemed to go anywhere on his own, none of them did, he even went out running with Murdock. And they never seemed to leave anyone in the house on their own either, it was like a damn school outing, everyone had to go somewhere with their partner.
Even when Silas had had enough and decided that he would take Peck even though he was out with the fool pilot, he’d thought twice when he’d caught a glimpse of a side arm tucked into the waistband of Peck’s shorts as he and Murdock pulled a couple of stretches before starting out on their run. What was the matter with these people? Were they all paranoid or something? Thought the world was out to get them? Silas smiled coldly to himself, all the paranoia in the world wouldn’t help Peck in the end though he knew. Silas had the upper hand, and now he knew where they were hiding out, he could afford to just sit tight and wait for his opening. He knew it would come; it always did.
____________________________
Face wandered back down the mall, carrier bag clutched tightly in his hand, waiting for Hannibal to reappear with their next batch of off the peg phones. This changing number, changing phone business became really tedious after a while, but Face knew it was a necessity, knew that as nice as it would be to have one phone with one number that they could hold on to, it made them far, far too easy to trace and Hannibal’s paranoia had kept them out and alive so far, so who was he to knock it?
Normally Face would have gone with him and they would have bought two phones each, but this time Hannibal had received a message from Adele, his was the only number they’d given her, asking if Face was free to meet her for coffee in the big Starbucks at the mall. Face had wrinkled his nose at the thought when Hannibal had first brought it up, but then he saw the positives, he would only have an hour maximum to spend with her if they met up while Hannibal sorted the phones, and if he saw her today for such a short time, then he wouldn’t feel too guilty about ducking her for the next few days.
In the end it hadn’t been too bad. By the time he got there, she’d ordered a plate of pastries and a couple of coffees and they had sat and made polite conversation while they sipped and ate. Then Face had looked at his watch and told her he had to go, and Adele had produced a couple of bottles of Elderflower cordial she’d bought as a present for him and insisted he took. Face took the bag politely, kissed her cheek and made his escape, the smell of her perfume lodged in his sinuses as he headed over to where he was meeting Hannibal.
He was outside RadioShack now, staring at the sound systems in the window in deep envy when he heard a noise behind him and turned, finding Hannibal smiling at him with his Sprint bag in his hand.
“Ready?” he asked and Face nodded, eager to be away just in case he bumped back into Adele as she did her shopping. “What you got?” Hannibal questioned him, noticing the bag at his side.
“This?” Face said, lifting it up so that Hannibal could see in. “Elderflower cordial. It was a gift.” He still wasn’t comfortable in using either Adele’s name or her title.
Hannibal frowned, “Do you like that stuff?” he asked, puzzled.
“Nah,” Face answered dismissively, “but Murdock does, he was saying so the other night. I’ll give it to him.”
Hannibal was relieved that Face had survived yet another encounter with his mother intact, and so just nodded as they turned to make their way back towards the parking lot.
_______________________________
Murdock swirled on his seat at the computer, pencil in his mouth, ideas spinning through his head. His plans he get hold of Adele’s real medical file had been severely dented when he discovered that the medical practice that she was really registered with in New York still held all their files in paper format only. So that meant in order to get hold of them, he would have to actually travel to New York, something he was loathed to do at present, leaving Face at the mercy of that woman, even with Hannibal and BA to look out for him was not something that Murdock relished doing.
So... non-starter? Or was there another way? As he swung lazily from side to side he considered his options and a thought started to form in his head. He smiled widely to himself as he realised that yes, this might just work. If he got started now, he could have Adele’s real and no doubt leukaemia free, file in his hands in three or four days...
_________________________________
Hannibal looked at the folders spread out on his desk in a neat fan shape and tentatively lifted the top one from the pile. He opened it and found himself looking at the surveillance pictures that Face and BA had taken in the days preceding Adele’s arrival into their lives.
He refreshed himself on the prospective client’s names and their reasons for needing some help. The job was in Florida, not somewhere they would choose to visit in the hurricane season, but maybe a little trip out of state was just the thing they needed. He took a deep breath and blew it steadily out through his lips, but then maybe Face wouldn’t want to leave right now, maybe he wanted to stay with Adele during her last few months, if indeed these were her last few months. Or maybe he would be glad of the break?
Hannibal had no idea how the kid would react to this, his faith in his own ability to second guess Face had taken a severe and perfectly justified knock over these last few weeks. He needed to ask him, that would be the best route, just come out and ask him and as if he had conjured Face up with that thought alone, the lieutenant suddenly appeared in the doorway, lounging against the doorframe, silhouetted by the light from the hallway.
“Boss,” his tone was tired, reflecting the late hour, “how long are you gonna be? I fell asleep waiting for you to come and watch Jaws with me.”
“Jaws?” Hannibal laughed, “You know every time you watch that film you won’t go in the sea for weeks afterwards, why do you do it to yourself?”
“Because I thought I’d have you to cuddle up to,” Face replied, his voice a low scratchy whisper that found a home right in Hannibal’s pants, “and protect me from the big, bad fish.”
Hannibal smiled and closed his folder; he’d ask Face about that job another time, right now he had the demise of a big fish to watch and then maybe he would get a chance to see what he could catch.
__________________________________
Three days later...
__________________________________
Murdock stood in the front window of the house that had been the team’s home and headquarters for the last six weeks, a long time in their recent history of houses. He was waiting, not too patiently, for the mail man, hoping that today would be the day that Adele’s medical files would arrive from New York. It had taken him a while to set the whole thing up, the carefully constructed headed paper, just the right type of medical jargon, more than a touch of luck, and he’d had the positive reply through e-mail just the other day that they were, finally, on their way.
That news hadn’t filled him with any great sense of joy, however, just a massive, massive jolt of relief. It was a good job that he hadn’t been trying to set up the con now, the way he was feeling, he was lucky he was actually able to set up his X-box... Murdock shivered sand rubbed his hands up and down his arms, cold even though he knew it was a warm, sunny day and wondered how much longer he would be able to keep the terrors of his mind at bay.
For a couple of days now they had been creeping ever closer, fluttering in the corner of his eye, itching just under the surface of his skin, a burning, right inside his head that no amount of scratching ever seemed to ease. He was heading for full blown episode here and he knew it, the only thing he didn’t know was why.
Usually, Murdock wasn’t afforded the dubious luxury of knowing an episode was approaching, usually it was on him fast and hard before he had the slightest chance to duck. So, really, he supposed he should be glad that he at least had this warning, that he had some time to prepare and get as much of his plan to free Face from Adele’s poisonous grasp as he could before it was too late. And maybe he could even do something about heading it off completely, he knew what all his various cacophony of tablets were for, could tell you the exact role or function of each one which meant that he was fully aware of which ones were the anti-psychotics. Maybe he should increase the dosage, double it perhaps just for the next few days, give him the opportunity to get this business up and running before handing over to the others and sliding off into that state of anxiety and confusion that he knew could last days, weeks even.
But remaining still was the question of why...? Why now? There’d been no great emotional trauma, no torture, injury to the team, threat of or actual capture, so what had triggered this most unwelcome of episodes? Sure, things had been a little off with all the business with Face and Hannibal and Adele, but it hadn’t been that bad, Murdock hadn’t felt that out of control...
He shivered again and decided he needed to go and get a jumper on, and maybe while he was upstairs he might just get another one of those good pink tablets.
_____________________________
Adele stared frostily out of the window of her taxi as it inched along in the last few rays of the evening sunshine. There was a hell of a lot riding on this meal out she had planned, a hell of a lot, so she was taking this enforced crawl through LA on her way to the restaurant as an opportunity to go through it all.
Silas was incredibly conspicuous by his absence, and Adele, incredibly suspicious person that she was anyway found that she couldn’t bring herself to trust him one tiny little bit. From being so pushy that he was always in her face, poking her for every bit of information he could get, he’d suddenly disappeared right off the scene and that set every one of Adele’s early warning alarms off with gusto. At least when he had been around, she had known what he was doing. Now...
So, if Silas was planning his own private coup de grace then Adele needed to get in there pretty damn quick with hers, and now she knew exactly what she was going to do. It had taken a great deal of planning and a great deal of thought, but at last she was convinced that she had the perfect plan in her head to get Danny to hand that money over.
Over the last few days when Danny had consistently refused her offers of meeting up Adele had had plenty of time to plan and consider, and she’d spent a lot of that time analysing what she had learnt about her son, looking for that back door in that would be so useful, and then she’d found it.
Danny obviously carried his own scars over the way his childhood had turned out, she’d seen that in the way he struggled to control his feelings, the way he seemed to be able to switch personality at the drop of a hat, the way he couldn’t cope with strong emotions if they caught him unaware, and she wondered how he managed all that, why he wasn’t in a straight jacket somewhere, and then it had struck her. Where did Danny get all his strength, his resilience, the ability he had to resist the draw of his real mother after all this time? His team, or, as he’d said himself, his family. Suddenly it was obvious. Get Danny away from the team, and he would be putty in her hands.
___________________
Adele and Face arrived at The London hotel at almost the same time, and Face only raised his eyes at the news that she had reserved a table on the rooftop terrace. He knew how hard those tables were to get, she should have just asked him, he had done a number of favours for Jimmy, the Maitre d' here over the years and usually managed to get a table whenever he wanted. He had no idea, of course of the effort Adele had gone to to get them booked in. No idea of the lies, threats and mentions of her food critic status, before a table had been found for her, a good one at that. It was fortunate for Face that he had no idea, or he would have died of embarrassment at the scene she had caused.
“Ah, Mr. Davis,” Jimmy greeted him using Face’s usual dining out alias. “I had no idea this table was for you, your companion should have said and I would have made sure you had your usual one!”
Face flushed slightly at the way Adele turned to glare at him and smiled apologetically at the Maitre d’. “Oh, it’s fine, Jimmy,” he reassured him. “I’m simply the guest tonight.”
For the first time Jimmy let his eyes move to Adele and Face couldn’t miss the hostility he saw there, despite Adele’s best disarming smile being bestowed upon him. He wondered what on earth she had said to Jimmy to get him so wound up.
“Of course,” Jimmy simply stated, turning back to Face once more. “If you would like to step this way? No, Mr. Jones tonight then?”
“No,” Face answered, glancing quickly to see if Adele was listening, “he’s busy. Just us.”
Jimmy nodded and showed them to their table, pulling Adele’s seat out for her, but then pushing it in just a little too enthusiastically before giving them both a menu and retreating back to his station.
“Mr. Davis?” Adele asked, one perfectly sculptured eyebrow raised in question.
“An alias,” Face told her quietly, eyes fixed on the menu. “And don’t try to tell me that you’ve got this table booked under your real name either.”
Adele just shrugged. “And Mr. Jones?”
“Hannibal,” Face answered shortly.
“You two come here often?”
“Occasionally.”
“Just the two of you?”
Face nodded.
“Often enough to have a ‘usual table’?”
Face looked up from his menu, his expression calm and neutral. “Do you like chorizo? They do an excellent warm chorizo salad as a starter here.”
Adele just stared at him and then let him dodge the question as she turned her eyes to her own menu.
___________________________
Face watched as Adele finished off the last bit of loganberry cheese cake and then pushed her plate away, reaching for her coffee instead; for a slight woman, she sure could put some food away, if he ate like her he’d be five hundred kilos by now. Then she turned her eyes to him and smiled, managing to look like she might just have meant it. “So, this is nice,” her smile widening as she looked him over, “I love spending time with you,” then she sighed. “It will be awful once I go back.”
For just a moment Face resisted, but then, as always, he caved in. “Back where? Are you leaving?”
Adele sighed again, long and loud and sad. “I need to go back east, I don’t have enough money to stay out here any longer.”
Face toyed with the remains of his beer. “Maybe you are better off there?” he hedged cautiously, “After all, you will be seeing your own doctor.”
“Without the money for treatment, there is nothing he can do for me,” her voice was an almost whisper. “I would simply be going there to die.”
Scrubbing at his face with his free hand Face tried to stop himself from cringing, if he had the money to save her, he would do in a flash, pay her off and get her the hell away from him.
“I wish you could come with me...” and there it was, the barbed hook that Face had been expecting ever since she had started this entire conversation. He sighed. Maybe it wasn’t quite the barb he had been expecting but it was still a sharp one, a really, really, sharp one.
“I can’t come with you,” he explained patiently, “I have a job I need to do out here.”
“A job?” Adele flashed hurt eyes up at him. “You’re on the run from the government, a mercenary, what does it matter if you take a few weeks off, just until your mother, your only living relative, dies?”
Face frowned, “God, don't let Hannibal hear you calling us mercenaries. He hates it. Makes us sound far too much like Pike.”
Adele froze, “Pike?”
“Yeah,” Face threw back the last of his beer, “Some guy we knew in Iraq, the whole damn reason we’re in the mess we are in.”
There was a thick silence before Adele offered, “I know a Pike.”
“Yeah?” Face looked only mildly interested, “Common enough name I suppose. Don’t worry, it’s not our Pike, he’s dead. Been dead years now, but he was a mercenary and so Hannibal hates it if that’s what we get called.”
Adele nodded, satisfied for now. “But even so,” she continued, “however you spend your days, you must be able to have few weeks off without it being the end of the world? Come over to New York with me, let John and the others cope without you for a little while.”
Face stared hard at the condensation running down the sides of his glass.
“Just a few weeks?” Adele wheedled, “Just until I die?”
“Alright!” Face snapped wondering how on earth she got him into this situation in the first place, “I’ll talk to Hannibal!”
Adele lifted her coffee cup to hide the smile that was creeping over her face.
Next
Two days now, Silas had been ensconced in the house he had managed to rent just down the road from the one that the team were using. At first he hadn’t believed it when he had followed Smith’s car back from the beach and ended up at this picture of suburban bliss. If he’d had to imagine a venue for the infamous A-Team to hole up in, it wouldn’t have been a four bedroom family residence in a quiet neighbourhood with a basket ball hoop above the garage door and a bird feeder in the yard. But then, he’d mused as he’d watched Smith and his quarry wander up the driveway and let themselves in, what better way to hide than in plain sight? No skulking around in the wilderness for them, no, if you were going to be on the run, at least you could do it with satellite TV, full central heating and a side-by-side fridge freezer. He admired their style.
It had seemed easy once he found out that the house two doors down and across the road was available to rent, thought he would camp out there for a day or so, wait until Peck went out on his own, follow him and swoop, a great plan, except that Peck never seemed to go anywhere on his own, none of them did, he even went out running with Murdock. And they never seemed to leave anyone in the house on their own either, it was like a damn school outing, everyone had to go somewhere with their partner.
Even when Silas had had enough and decided that he would take Peck even though he was out with the fool pilot, he’d thought twice when he’d caught a glimpse of a side arm tucked into the waistband of Peck’s shorts as he and Murdock pulled a couple of stretches before starting out on their run. What was the matter with these people? Were they all paranoid or something? Thought the world was out to get them? Silas smiled coldly to himself, all the paranoia in the world wouldn’t help Peck in the end though he knew. Silas had the upper hand, and now he knew where they were hiding out, he could afford to just sit tight and wait for his opening. He knew it would come; it always did.
____________________________
Face wandered back down the mall, carrier bag clutched tightly in his hand, waiting for Hannibal to reappear with their next batch of off the peg phones. This changing number, changing phone business became really tedious after a while, but Face knew it was a necessity, knew that as nice as it would be to have one phone with one number that they could hold on to, it made them far, far too easy to trace and Hannibal’s paranoia had kept them out and alive so far, so who was he to knock it?
Normally Face would have gone with him and they would have bought two phones each, but this time Hannibal had received a message from Adele, his was the only number they’d given her, asking if Face was free to meet her for coffee in the big Starbucks at the mall. Face had wrinkled his nose at the thought when Hannibal had first brought it up, but then he saw the positives, he would only have an hour maximum to spend with her if they met up while Hannibal sorted the phones, and if he saw her today for such a short time, then he wouldn’t feel too guilty about ducking her for the next few days.
In the end it hadn’t been too bad. By the time he got there, she’d ordered a plate of pastries and a couple of coffees and they had sat and made polite conversation while they sipped and ate. Then Face had looked at his watch and told her he had to go, and Adele had produced a couple of bottles of Elderflower cordial she’d bought as a present for him and insisted he took. Face took the bag politely, kissed her cheek and made his escape, the smell of her perfume lodged in his sinuses as he headed over to where he was meeting Hannibal.
He was outside RadioShack now, staring at the sound systems in the window in deep envy when he heard a noise behind him and turned, finding Hannibal smiling at him with his Sprint bag in his hand.
“Ready?” he asked and Face nodded, eager to be away just in case he bumped back into Adele as she did her shopping. “What you got?” Hannibal questioned him, noticing the bag at his side.
“This?” Face said, lifting it up so that Hannibal could see in. “Elderflower cordial. It was a gift.” He still wasn’t comfortable in using either Adele’s name or her title.
Hannibal frowned, “Do you like that stuff?” he asked, puzzled.
“Nah,” Face answered dismissively, “but Murdock does, he was saying so the other night. I’ll give it to him.”
Hannibal was relieved that Face had survived yet another encounter with his mother intact, and so just nodded as they turned to make their way back towards the parking lot.
_______________________________
Murdock swirled on his seat at the computer, pencil in his mouth, ideas spinning through his head. His plans he get hold of Adele’s real medical file had been severely dented when he discovered that the medical practice that she was really registered with in New York still held all their files in paper format only. So that meant in order to get hold of them, he would have to actually travel to New York, something he was loathed to do at present, leaving Face at the mercy of that woman, even with Hannibal and BA to look out for him was not something that Murdock relished doing.
So... non-starter? Or was there another way? As he swung lazily from side to side he considered his options and a thought started to form in his head. He smiled widely to himself as he realised that yes, this might just work. If he got started now, he could have Adele’s real and no doubt leukaemia free, file in his hands in three or four days...
_________________________________
Hannibal looked at the folders spread out on his desk in a neat fan shape and tentatively lifted the top one from the pile. He opened it and found himself looking at the surveillance pictures that Face and BA had taken in the days preceding Adele’s arrival into their lives.
He refreshed himself on the prospective client’s names and their reasons for needing some help. The job was in Florida, not somewhere they would choose to visit in the hurricane season, but maybe a little trip out of state was just the thing they needed. He took a deep breath and blew it steadily out through his lips, but then maybe Face wouldn’t want to leave right now, maybe he wanted to stay with Adele during her last few months, if indeed these were her last few months. Or maybe he would be glad of the break?
Hannibal had no idea how the kid would react to this, his faith in his own ability to second guess Face had taken a severe and perfectly justified knock over these last few weeks. He needed to ask him, that would be the best route, just come out and ask him and as if he had conjured Face up with that thought alone, the lieutenant suddenly appeared in the doorway, lounging against the doorframe, silhouetted by the light from the hallway.
“Boss,” his tone was tired, reflecting the late hour, “how long are you gonna be? I fell asleep waiting for you to come and watch Jaws with me.”
“Jaws?” Hannibal laughed, “You know every time you watch that film you won’t go in the sea for weeks afterwards, why do you do it to yourself?”
“Because I thought I’d have you to cuddle up to,” Face replied, his voice a low scratchy whisper that found a home right in Hannibal’s pants, “and protect me from the big, bad fish.”
Hannibal smiled and closed his folder; he’d ask Face about that job another time, right now he had the demise of a big fish to watch and then maybe he would get a chance to see what he could catch.
__________________________________
Three days later...
__________________________________
Murdock stood in the front window of the house that had been the team’s home and headquarters for the last six weeks, a long time in their recent history of houses. He was waiting, not too patiently, for the mail man, hoping that today would be the day that Adele’s medical files would arrive from New York. It had taken him a while to set the whole thing up, the carefully constructed headed paper, just the right type of medical jargon, more than a touch of luck, and he’d had the positive reply through e-mail just the other day that they were, finally, on their way.
That news hadn’t filled him with any great sense of joy, however, just a massive, massive jolt of relief. It was a good job that he hadn’t been trying to set up the con now, the way he was feeling, he was lucky he was actually able to set up his X-box... Murdock shivered sand rubbed his hands up and down his arms, cold even though he knew it was a warm, sunny day and wondered how much longer he would be able to keep the terrors of his mind at bay.
For a couple of days now they had been creeping ever closer, fluttering in the corner of his eye, itching just under the surface of his skin, a burning, right inside his head that no amount of scratching ever seemed to ease. He was heading for full blown episode here and he knew it, the only thing he didn’t know was why.
Usually, Murdock wasn’t afforded the dubious luxury of knowing an episode was approaching, usually it was on him fast and hard before he had the slightest chance to duck. So, really, he supposed he should be glad that he at least had this warning, that he had some time to prepare and get as much of his plan to free Face from Adele’s poisonous grasp as he could before it was too late. And maybe he could even do something about heading it off completely, he knew what all his various cacophony of tablets were for, could tell you the exact role or function of each one which meant that he was fully aware of which ones were the anti-psychotics. Maybe he should increase the dosage, double it perhaps just for the next few days, give him the opportunity to get this business up and running before handing over to the others and sliding off into that state of anxiety and confusion that he knew could last days, weeks even.
But remaining still was the question of why...? Why now? There’d been no great emotional trauma, no torture, injury to the team, threat of or actual capture, so what had triggered this most unwelcome of episodes? Sure, things had been a little off with all the business with Face and Hannibal and Adele, but it hadn’t been that bad, Murdock hadn’t felt that out of control...
He shivered again and decided he needed to go and get a jumper on, and maybe while he was upstairs he might just get another one of those good pink tablets.
_____________________________
Adele stared frostily out of the window of her taxi as it inched along in the last few rays of the evening sunshine. There was a hell of a lot riding on this meal out she had planned, a hell of a lot, so she was taking this enforced crawl through LA on her way to the restaurant as an opportunity to go through it all.
Silas was incredibly conspicuous by his absence, and Adele, incredibly suspicious person that she was anyway found that she couldn’t bring herself to trust him one tiny little bit. From being so pushy that he was always in her face, poking her for every bit of information he could get, he’d suddenly disappeared right off the scene and that set every one of Adele’s early warning alarms off with gusto. At least when he had been around, she had known what he was doing. Now...
So, if Silas was planning his own private coup de grace then Adele needed to get in there pretty damn quick with hers, and now she knew exactly what she was going to do. It had taken a great deal of planning and a great deal of thought, but at last she was convinced that she had the perfect plan in her head to get Danny to hand that money over.
Over the last few days when Danny had consistently refused her offers of meeting up Adele had had plenty of time to plan and consider, and she’d spent a lot of that time analysing what she had learnt about her son, looking for that back door in that would be so useful, and then she’d found it.
Danny obviously carried his own scars over the way his childhood had turned out, she’d seen that in the way he struggled to control his feelings, the way he seemed to be able to switch personality at the drop of a hat, the way he couldn’t cope with strong emotions if they caught him unaware, and she wondered how he managed all that, why he wasn’t in a straight jacket somewhere, and then it had struck her. Where did Danny get all his strength, his resilience, the ability he had to resist the draw of his real mother after all this time? His team, or, as he’d said himself, his family. Suddenly it was obvious. Get Danny away from the team, and he would be putty in her hands.
___________________
Adele and Face arrived at The London hotel at almost the same time, and Face only raised his eyes at the news that she had reserved a table on the rooftop terrace. He knew how hard those tables were to get, she should have just asked him, he had done a number of favours for Jimmy, the Maitre d' here over the years and usually managed to get a table whenever he wanted. He had no idea, of course of the effort Adele had gone to to get them booked in. No idea of the lies, threats and mentions of her food critic status, before a table had been found for her, a good one at that. It was fortunate for Face that he had no idea, or he would have died of embarrassment at the scene she had caused.
“Ah, Mr. Davis,” Jimmy greeted him using Face’s usual dining out alias. “I had no idea this table was for you, your companion should have said and I would have made sure you had your usual one!”
Face flushed slightly at the way Adele turned to glare at him and smiled apologetically at the Maitre d’. “Oh, it’s fine, Jimmy,” he reassured him. “I’m simply the guest tonight.”
For the first time Jimmy let his eyes move to Adele and Face couldn’t miss the hostility he saw there, despite Adele’s best disarming smile being bestowed upon him. He wondered what on earth she had said to Jimmy to get him so wound up.
“Of course,” Jimmy simply stated, turning back to Face once more. “If you would like to step this way? No, Mr. Jones tonight then?”
“No,” Face answered, glancing quickly to see if Adele was listening, “he’s busy. Just us.”
Jimmy nodded and showed them to their table, pulling Adele’s seat out for her, but then pushing it in just a little too enthusiastically before giving them both a menu and retreating back to his station.
“Mr. Davis?” Adele asked, one perfectly sculptured eyebrow raised in question.
“An alias,” Face told her quietly, eyes fixed on the menu. “And don’t try to tell me that you’ve got this table booked under your real name either.”
Adele just shrugged. “And Mr. Jones?”
“Hannibal,” Face answered shortly.
“You two come here often?”
“Occasionally.”
“Just the two of you?”
Face nodded.
“Often enough to have a ‘usual table’?”
Face looked up from his menu, his expression calm and neutral. “Do you like chorizo? They do an excellent warm chorizo salad as a starter here.”
Adele just stared at him and then let him dodge the question as she turned her eyes to her own menu.
___________________________
Face watched as Adele finished off the last bit of loganberry cheese cake and then pushed her plate away, reaching for her coffee instead; for a slight woman, she sure could put some food away, if he ate like her he’d be five hundred kilos by now. Then she turned her eyes to him and smiled, managing to look like she might just have meant it. “So, this is nice,” her smile widening as she looked him over, “I love spending time with you,” then she sighed. “It will be awful once I go back.”
For just a moment Face resisted, but then, as always, he caved in. “Back where? Are you leaving?”
Adele sighed again, long and loud and sad. “I need to go back east, I don’t have enough money to stay out here any longer.”
Face toyed with the remains of his beer. “Maybe you are better off there?” he hedged cautiously, “After all, you will be seeing your own doctor.”
“Without the money for treatment, there is nothing he can do for me,” her voice was an almost whisper. “I would simply be going there to die.”
Scrubbing at his face with his free hand Face tried to stop himself from cringing, if he had the money to save her, he would do in a flash, pay her off and get her the hell away from him.
“I wish you could come with me...” and there it was, the barbed hook that Face had been expecting ever since she had started this entire conversation. He sighed. Maybe it wasn’t quite the barb he had been expecting but it was still a sharp one, a really, really, sharp one.
“I can’t come with you,” he explained patiently, “I have a job I need to do out here.”
“A job?” Adele flashed hurt eyes up at him. “You’re on the run from the government, a mercenary, what does it matter if you take a few weeks off, just until your mother, your only living relative, dies?”
Face frowned, “God, don't let Hannibal hear you calling us mercenaries. He hates it. Makes us sound far too much like Pike.”
Adele froze, “Pike?”
“Yeah,” Face threw back the last of his beer, “Some guy we knew in Iraq, the whole damn reason we’re in the mess we are in.”
There was a thick silence before Adele offered, “I know a Pike.”
“Yeah?” Face looked only mildly interested, “Common enough name I suppose. Don’t worry, it’s not our Pike, he’s dead. Been dead years now, but he was a mercenary and so Hannibal hates it if that’s what we get called.”
Adele nodded, satisfied for now. “But even so,” she continued, “however you spend your days, you must be able to have few weeks off without it being the end of the world? Come over to New York with me, let John and the others cope without you for a little while.”
Face stared hard at the condensation running down the sides of his glass.
“Just a few weeks?” Adele wheedled, “Just until I die?”
“Alright!” Face snapped wondering how on earth she got him into this situation in the first place, “I’ll talk to Hannibal!”
Adele lifted her coffee cup to hide the smile that was creeping over her face.
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