indigo_angels

Face

It was snowing again and Face moved to the window and looked up and down the road; there was no sign at all of BA’s van.

Hannibal turning up like that had just floored him completely. He hadn’t expected it now, it had been far too long really, those first six months when he was constantly moving around, constantly looking over his shoulder, hiding from both his team and the government, yeah, maybe then, but not after he’d been in Montana for ten months, a new man with a new life and a new name. Just seeing Hannibal sitting in his room, like a figment of one of those damn dreams he kept on having... well, he wondered if he’d finally lost his marbles, if all the Jack Daniels hadn’t, at last, pickled his brain.

And then that letter from Tasha... God, his stomach still did that awful crazy swoop every time he thought of it. When did Hannibal get his hands on that letter? He said they’d been looking for Face since the day he left; would they have bothered without it? If Face had stayed around, kept his phone with him, how long would it have been before Hannibal would have told him? And if he had, would Face have still gone? He feels that he would have done, that betrayal had been just too much to take, but if he’d known about Tasha, at least that would have saved him from sixteen months of torture.

So many questions... he looked out at the empty road, and no one to ask.

Then, as if the letter from Tasha had not been enough, well, then there was Hannibal and everything he had said...

If Face was being truly honest with himself, something he seldom liked to be, then Hannibal’s admissions had not come as a total surprise. Maybe their depth and the honesty with which they were delivered, but, and he knew this better than anyone else in the world, Hannibal was an accomplished liar and conman, just as much as he himself was. Anything Hannibal said to him had to be taken with a significant portion of salt.

But then his mind slipped back to the way that Hannibal had looked at him, looked into him when they had fucked last night and he shivered with the remembered intensity. Could that be faked? And Hannibal had cried, cried, Face had never seen him do that before, never, even when he heard his parents had died, so what did that mean?

Face scrubbed his eyes and leaned against the glass, cold on his already cold skin. What was he doing here? The right thing? Or another fucking monumental Templeton Peck screw up?

Hannibal’s words from the night before came back to him, ‘You think you are some kind of perpetual incompetent.’ Well, was he? Wasn’t he? Would Hannibal have bothered with him all this time if he was? Or maybe that was the whole point, Face’s inadequacies just made Hannibal feel better about himself, having someone who would always fuck up, someone Hannibal could yell at and beat up on every time his plans didn’t come together?

Jesus, he was so confused, his head was pounding, and this time he couldn’t blame the Jack Daniels.

He looked out into the road one more time and then turned away from the window. This was no good, he couldn’t go on like this pulling himself into twenty different directions at once; he’d made his decision, now he just had to follow it. He needed to just get on with this life he’d chosen, he could wrap up all his doubts again and leave them behind. He might be a perpetual incompetent, but this he could do well; he’d certainly had plenty of fucking practice.

As he turned though, his mind betrayed him and flashbacks from the night before assaulted him with such force he actually felt his knees buckle and he grabbed the door frame for support.

‘You are the most incredible person I have ever met’,

‘You’re on this team ‘cause you damn well earn it, every fucking day’,

‘It fucking terrifies me that one day you are going to disappear’,

‘I’m in love with you, kid; have been for years’.

The world pitched like the deck of a ship beneath him and he clung on tightly as images and sounds and smells and feelings battered him from within. And somewhere deep in his mind, a foreign emotion tried to surface, tried to push its way out from under all the crap and locked boxes that had been piled up on top of it since the day that his parents had left him on the steps of that church when he was five years old.

Father David? Sosa? Hannibal? Murdock? BA? It had tried to surface for them all over the years, succeeded to a greater or lesser extent as well, but never managed to fully escape, was always pushed back down again, harder and deeper than ever when things turned nasty. But this time, Hannibal’s words played, totally unbidden, over and over in his head, stoking that feeling, giving it clarity and purpose and strength until it was strong enough to break free and it blazed forth in Face’s mind, lighting everything up, illuminating every dark secret and corner until he could see that there was nothing in there that could hurt him. It stretched out the inner workings of his mind and his heart where he could see them and feel them and suddenly that wasn’t so scary anymore.

He closed his eyes and took deep, long breaths, letting that emotion, that hope that he’d never allowed himself to feel before fill him up completely, his mind, his heart, his very essence. He felt it surging through him, cleansing and healing as it went and he actually welcomed it, wanted it to be a part of him, he never wanted to face life without it again.

He had no idea how long he stood there, gripping the door frame as if his life depended on it, but eventually he felt calm enough to open his eyes and he glanced up out of the window as he did. His stomach flipped as he saw the black van roll to a halt in the snow outside. Both side doors opened and Murdock and Hannibal jumped out.

Murdock looked around him, shuffling up and down on the spot and rubbing his arms against the cold, “Hey, colonel,” his voice carried clearly in the crisp air, “are we in the right place? Are we early or something? We’re not late are we?”

Hannibal smiled but it was a tense one; the stress of the last few days was finally starting to get to him, “No, Murdock, we’re fine. Relax.”

Face pulled himself together and turned to call back into the building, “My ride’s here Shelley, I’m going!”

Footsteps sounded on the carpeted floor and a young woman, black Dare2Be hoody, the exact same colour as her hair, showing off her pale complexion perfectly, walked into the hallway.

“Oh, Rob! Sure you won’t wait for the guys to get back? They’re going to be so pissed they didn’t get chance to see you.”

Face smiled and pulled her into a brief hug, “Sorry, honey, long drive ahead of me. You’ll tell them I said bye though yeah?”

Shelley reached up and kissed his cheek, “We didn’t even get chance to get you a leaving present,”

A quick glance out of the window to check the van was still there and then Face turned back to the woman in front of him, “Don’t worry about it, Shell, I’ve already got everything I need.”

One more deep breath, ‘Come on Face,’ he muttered to himself, ‘you can do this...’ and he snatched up his bag from the floor and headed for the door.

Hannibal

Just as Murdock’s fidgeting was threatening to drive Hannibal insane, the door to the office opened and a tense figure in a black down jacket appeared and stepped out into the snow.

Hannibal looked up, “All sorted?”

Face nodded and Hannibal seemed to relax minutely. Then Murdock bounded forward and threw his arms around Face’s snow soaked black jacket, drenching himself in the process and laughing as he felt Face’s arms come up and tighten around his shoulders.

Hannibal fished a cigar out of his pocket and bit the top off it as he reached out and clapped Murdock on the shoulder, “Give him some space there, Murdock.”

Murdock peeled off and threw a smile over his shoulder at Face as climbed back in the van, the snow increasing to blizzard intensity all around them. Hannibal looked the newcomer in the eyes, “You sure about this?”

Face looked back, “Never been surer,” and then he smiled at him and there was so much hope and honesty in that smile that Hannibal felt his tension slide away.

He pointed at the still open side door of the van and smiled a true smile at last, “Well, jump in then, kid, it’s time we went home!”

With only the slightest skid in the deep snow, the black van pulled out of the parking lot at Snow Business Snow Mobile Hire and BA turned it south, headed for much warmer climes.

Original Ending