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Murdock goes crazy like this: at age five his ma dies and he’s left talking to a ghost.
Or maybe it’s: at age 18 he joins the Thunderbirds and nearly crashes his plane when he gets distracted by a flock of geese.
Or maybe it’s: at age 22 he gets taken to Vietnam with no hope of coming back.
Or he works two shady jobs for the CIA and never recovers.
Or he hears the phantom screams of soldiers long dead.
Or maybe it’s all of these things or none of these things, but somewhere along the line Murdock goes crazy and everything changes.
It’s little changes at first. It’s elbow nudges and smiling, ‘you’re crazy man’s.’ It’s a slightly forced laugh when another one of his jokes doesn’t land quite right or a nervous chuckle at his antics. They’re small things, practically unnoticeable, but like most things with him it grows into something large.
Forced laughter turns into near silence, elbow nudges into straight avoidance. Smiles into stern frowns. He’s angry at first. Angry that they can’t see he’s doing his best; angry that they don’t understand, that they just won’t listen. He isn’t...he isn’t crazy crazy, he’s just a little different, a little unique, and as Grandma Murdock always said, there isn’t anything wrong with that.
They just don’t understand his reasoning, that’s all.
They don’t understand that the screams can’t reach you if you sing opera loud enough.
That the blood can’t bother you if you pretend it’s not there.
That the enemy spies can’t poison you if you only eat packaged foods.
That the nightmares can’t trap you if you never sleep.
That he isn’t actually crazy, he’s just making sense in a world that doesn’t.
He tells them so.
“Paranoia,” someone tells him in return, behind a desk like a wall and over wire-rimmed glasses. “Not normal,” they murmur between professional terms, as they lay out his files and ask him to identify objects in blobs that make no sense, and even though they say there’s no right answer he’s absolutely positive that he gets every single one wrong.
— — —
They stop letting him fly and it hurts like losing a limb. Like drowning. Like being shot.
“It’s just for a little bit,” soft voices say, “just until you’re better.”
And he tries. He tries to be better, to be normal . He tries to tell them that there’s nothing wrong with him. That every single thing he does makes sense, and if they’d just look and listen they’d see that. They’d see that he can still operate just fine. He’s just a little...different in the ways he does it. But they just pat him on the shoulder and tell him to rest and leave him alone with his thoughts.
They come back a couple hours later and he smiles and nods and tries to make polite conversation, but all they want to talk about are the neat perfect holes he’s torn in all his socks and the stupid sloppy doodles he’s scored into the ground.
— — —
No one calls him crazy anymore. Instead they use words like “unhealthy,” and “shell-shocked,” and “unfit for combat.” They tell him nothing, but mark him with so many different types of -obias and -enias, that he’s given up all hope of understanding it all.
They talk and talk and talk and never seem satisfied by anything he says.
At the end of each conversation he asks if he can fly again.
They tell him soon.
He doesn’t believe them.
— — —
He misses flying like an addict misses a hit. The thought of it itches under his skin and tugs at his soul. It hollows out his chest and leaves him yearning in a way that frightens him, but he can’t fly unless he’s normal—and he is normal , but they want a specific kind—so he practices.
He smiles just the right amount—not too large, not too many teeth. He speaks normally—with professional, large words, and a British accent thrown in for propriety. He answers every question in the way he thinks they want to hear—it’s an ink blot that looks like an ink blot, the cow is wrong because the rain, cat, and dog are all clearly connected through the idiom.
He’s not...he’s not stupid . He knows they’re diagnosing him with something but they’re careful to not give up any information. And he’s careful right back.
He’s careful and he does everything right and at the end he asks if he can fly—words carefully bland, mouth carefully even. They stare at him, smile tightly, and tell him not yet.
He blinks, his smile wavers, he clutches at his jacket sleeves, his accent dies away. He doesn’t...he doesn’t understand? He did everything right. He did everything right!
They leave in a hurry once he starts screaming and don’t come back for the rest of the day.
— — —
They give him a crossword puzzle one day and ask him to solve it. He stares and doesn’t understand. They’re looking for something, he knows this, because they’re always looking for something, but he doesn’t know what. Doesn’t understand how this could possibly relate to getting him back in the air, but they’re waiting and so, obediently, he begins.
Five down asks for a seven-letter word for crazy and he carefully scratches in M-U-R-D-O-C-K. That’s what they want right? That’s what they’ve been trying to get him to admit for ages and so that must be the correct answer, right?
He spends the rest of the time easily putting everything in order and when a word doesn’t fit against his boldly printed name he simply puts in a synonym.
Five-letter word for garments worn around the legs? Well it can’t be pants, so it must be kilts. Eight-letter word for a boisterous happy sound? Well laughter no longer is available for use so it must be chuckles and so forth.
It takes him less than ten minutes.
He hands it back.
He waits.
They tell him he did it wrong and he wants to scream.
He does scream.
They still won’t let him fly.
— — —
They never let him fly.
Never let him out.
Not officially.
Instead they offer him a mission to grab a group that never made it back across enemy lines.
It’s deadly. It’s impossible. It’s suicide. It’s an escape .
He seizes the opportunity.
“You may not come back,” they warn him.
“I sure hope not,” some distant part of him replies.
— — —
He comes back and he can’t decide whether or not he’s disappointed by that.
Can’t decide so much that he decides he might as well enjoy his freedom while he has it and stays firmly planted in the helicopter’s fuselage. Distantly he can hear someone saying his name, can feel someone grabbing his arm, but he turns and he snarls and they disappear.
He just wants to stay here a while longer, can’t they understand that? He doesn’t want to go. Not yet.
Eventually they yank him out, and take him back, and if he sings operatic laments the whole way back, well no one seems to understand Italian well enough to understand why.
— — —
They send him out again.
And again.
And again.
And each time is heart-wrenching and full of grief, because each time feels like the last. Each time they hand him a mission and tell him never again and each time they lie. It feels like freedom at the end of a chain. Chaffing and suffocating and inescapable. But it’s freedom. More importantly it’s flying.
It’s a type of freedom where he can breathe for just a bit. Where he can just pretend that he exists in the air and nowhere else. It’s a type of freedom that’s better than sitting in a room and watching the walls melt.
So he smiles each time and takes what he can get as they send him out again.
And again.
And again.
— — —
They cut him loose on a Saturday. He remembers because Saturdays are evaluation days and he’d just gotten done with another exhausting round of which-one-doesn’t-belong? The chair, the horse, the dog, or the bird, and he’s pretty sure he got it wrong, even though it’s obviously the bird because it’s the only one that doesn’t have four legs. But they frown and they jot things down and they don’t show him and at this point it’s all routine.
Exhausting and frustrating, but routine.
Then they break routine. Then they cut him loose.
They can’t lose him, they say. Choppers are going down faster than they’re coming up, but not his. Never his. He already knows this. Has always known this. Has watched so many friends fall to the earth like Icarus and drown amongst the Vietnamese. But not him.
Not you, they agree. With funny looks on their faces and an uncertainty in their posture.
But he’s the best and being the best has sudden benefits it didn’t before and they send him back out.
Don’t bring attention to yourself, they threaten. Don’t let us see you again. We don't have time to deal with you.
And he promises. Promises in his blandest, most posh French accent, and flees before they can change their minds.
— — —
He manages, and he honestly thinks that’s the best word for it. Managing. Not enjoying. Not succeeding. Just managing. The trick, he decides, is to only act crazy when no one’s around. To keep everything bottled up nice and cleanly, until it can all explode out later when he’s alone in his cockpit, with nothing but his thoughts and the smell of blood and ammonia to keep him company.
It isn’t a perfect system, but it keeps him in the sky and that’s all he wants.
That’s all he needs.
— — —
He isn’t ready when it all starts to fall apart.
— — —
There’s three men in his chopper.
One of which seems to be trying irrationally to throw himself out the side. Which is stupid and reckless cuz they’re hundreds of feet off the ground and doesn’t he know the human body can’t survive an impact like that? Murdock knows. Has seen it happen, has watched men lose their grip and fall to the planet below. So really, the big brute is much more likely to survive if he’d just fasten his seatbelt and stay up in the chopper where the only things that can get them are missiles and the occasional wayward bird.
He tells the man all this, and for whatever reason, it doesn’t seem to help, because now the man isn’t just screaming about flying he’s screaming about it at Murdock, and honestly, they’ve only just met and Murdock thinks he deserves to be friends with someone for at least twenty-four hours before he starts getting called names.
He also tells the man this.
To which he says that they aren’t friends and Murdock’s confused, because how does that make any of this any better?
He’s about to open up his mouth to ask him as much, when something explodes to his left. The chopper spirals for a moment and behind him someone let’s out an impressive high C, before he gets everything straightened out.
“Not to worry gentlemen!” he reassures, flicking switches and pulling up on the cyclic. “We’ll be fine.”
It’s an easy lie. A reassurance that he’s gotten used to reciting. But he’s only gone down once before and he’s not exactly planning a reenactment of that particularly traumatic event so he’s sure it’ll be fine.
He dips and darts, whips and weaves, and starts considering trying to do a loop-da-loop just to see if he can, when something strong and rough grabs him by the neck and shoulders.
He chokes. Panicking.
“We’re gonna crash!” someone else yells, also panicking. And boy howdy, he would really like to reassure this person because he’s pretty sure it would make them let go, but there’s the whole no-air problem and all he can do is wheeze.
There’s a sudden clang and Murdock gasps as the hands fall away. He whips his head back wildly, because what the h-e-double-hockey-sticks was that? He’s supposed to be the crazy one here, not whoever he’s hauling around in the backseat.
Behind him the youngest member of the crew is holding his rifle in a compromising position, while the old dude wrestles everyone’s favorite aerophobic passenger back into his seat.
Murdock stares.
Who are these people? You can’t just go around putting dents in your own men’s skulls, it’s not healthy, people are using those.
“What are you looking at?” the youngest growls, leaning back like he hadn’t just knocked out someone twice his size.
“Ummmmm,” Murdock says rather unintelligently. Which isn’t fair, because he has a vocabulary like a thesaurus and then some. Shrink #10 had told him so.
An explosion that nearly takes out their left skid has him yanking his eyes back to the sky, despite all the chaos behind him, and he swears.
“Righto, everyone please fasten your seatbelts and stow your trays, because things are about to get bumpy,” he yells, pulling to the left.
Another round of fire. Another heart-stopping moment of adrenaline. Behind him someone lets out a string of expletives, another yelps, but Murdock? Murdock just howls .
Howls as he jerks the chopper sharply to the right and watches as another missile misses them by feet.
He hates flying like this: where your bird is moments away from being torn apart. Where every move could be deadly and every breath may be your last. It’s terrifying. It’s humbling. It's exhilarating . And Murdock loves flying like this.
Loves it for the way that every rule is just to survive and no one cares how you do it. Loves it for the way that every movement has to be deliberate and purposeful. Loves it for the way he can scream and sing and no one in the back cares, because as long as he gets them home it doesn’t matter how crazily he does it.
And he does get them back. He always gets them back, except for that time—no. Best not to think about it. He gets them back and that’s what matters.
He jumps out of the pilot's seat with gusto, bowing as the others exit shakily. The two conscious men carrying their unconscious Sargent between them. They hand him off to a group of waiting privates, and it’s then that Murdock notices that the younger man’s walking back towards him.
A lieutenant, Murdock can tell now that nothing’s on fire and he’s not dying from oxygen deprivation.
A lieutenant who is staring at him, mouth half open, and Murdock beams at him.
“Thanks for flying! Come back soon!”
He expects to be thanked, because, you know, that’s what you’re supposed to do when an ace pilot’s expert flying saves your hide.
“You’re crazy, man,” he says instead.
Murdock’s world jerks sideways. It goes dark around the edges and he finds himself pulling his face into a carefully blank expression.
“Just absolutely howling mad,” the man finishes.
Murdock thinks that maybe he said something in between those two sentences, but it hardly matters. He caught what was important. He knows what comes next.
“No, I’m not,” he denies, and his heart is racing and his palms are sweaty and where was that exhilarating joy from just moments before? Why can’t he find it anymore? He grabs at the cuffs of his fatigues.
The man blinks, “Excuse me?”
“I’m not crazy,” he snaps.
“Woah, easy there, no need to get upset,” his hands come up in a placating manner. Murdock wants to swat at them. “I was just making conversation.”
“Make it elsewhere,” and he knows he’s being rude. Knows that his grandma would be mortified, but he doesn’t care.
“What seems to be the problem here?” Murdock jumps at the new voice, whirling around to see that the colonel’s snuck up on his other side.
Murdock takes a step back so he can see them both. Then another just for good measure. He clutches tighter at his sleeves. He tries to keep his face normal.
“Nothin’,” he growls. “Ain’t nothin’ going on.”
“It doesn't seem that way to me,” the old guy says.
“I was just talking,” the younger one scowls.
“I ain’t crazy,” Murdock reaffirms. Just in case the colonel missed it from before.
The colonel’s frowning at him now, eyes burrowing into Murdock in a way that’s too reminiscent of doctors and shrinks. Like he can see things that even Murdock isn’t aware of and he’s just waiting for the opportunity to use them.
“What’s your name son?” he asks.
“Clark Kent,” Murdock snaps back, before making a hasty retreat.
— — —
He panics for a good hour after that. Curls up under his bunk, where no one can see him, and tries to breathe. He shakes instead. Shakes and gasps and tries to reassure himself logically that they don’t know his name. They’d never seen him before today, and if Murdock can help it they’ll never see him again.
They know nothing about him, he reminds himself. So it’ll be okay. He crawls out from under the bed and collapses onto the top of it. Eyes closing. He’s exhausted. Physically. Emotionally. Everything feels like it’s shutting down. Like there’s a leak of pessimism somewhere that he just can’t seem to stop up. But it’ll be okay, he promises himself.
They can’t possibly find him.
— — —
They find him.
They corner him—all three of them—on the outskirts of the base where he’s been hiding and Murdock hates them for it.
“We’ve been looking for you,” says the colonel.
And Murdock wants to snap. Wants to tell them that obviously they’ve been looking for him because they’re here now and that’s just basic math and reasoning. He wants to snap back that if they could do that math that they’d also realize that he didn’t want to be found, but apparently they can’t. He wants to say all this, but swallows and holds it all in instead.
Crazy thoughts have their place and that place is a medical facility with white walls and no planes and he can’t go back there.
So instead he leans against a building, slyly, like Steve McQueen, and acts normal.
“What for? You need help tunneling out of this joint?”
The lieutenant blinks, the sergeant frowns, the colonel doesn’t miss a beat.
“Not quite, I’m looking for a pilot.”
Murdock blinks. He’s a pilot.
“I’m a pilot.”
“Yes, I’m aware,”
There’s a spark of something in the colonel’s eyes and Murdock squints at it, trying to place the emotion. He thinks it teeters somewhere between brilliance and insanity, but he isn’t about to say so.
“Stop milking it Hannibal,” the youngest one says, “and get on with it.”
That makes Murdock squirm, “Get on with what?”
“We need someone crazy enough to go along with Hannibal’s plans,” the guy built like a tank growls. “And you’re on the menu.”
“I’m not crazy,” Murdock denies automatically.
The older guy—Hannibal?—frowns at that, “So you keep saying, care to tell me why?”
“No,” and Murdock means it. Ain’t no reason to tell these three strangers his life story and there ain’t no way he’s ever going back to where he came from.
Hannibal nods, “Fair enough, but the point still stands, we need a pilot and we’d like you.”
There’s something like hope brimming inside Murdock and he struggles to squash it. Ain’t no point in getting hopeful over snake oil pitches.
“Why?” he asks instead.
“You’re the best,” Hannibal says plainly, “and I only deal in the best. We need a sharp mind and quick thinker like you. That was some impressive flying the other day and I want that kind of reliability when I’m out with my team.”
Murdock nods in agreement. He is the best, that’s why they let him back out.
“And,” Hannibal continues, “if you’re with us you don’t have to be afraid of being a little crazy sometimes.”
Murdock freezes at that, counts backwards from ten twice, and breathes. He forces himself to relax, contrapposto-like, and smiles, “I already told ya I’m a normal guy. Can’t help you with that crazy thing.”
“Shame,” the colonel sighs, pulling a cigar from who knows where. “I’m a little crazy myself and I think we could’ve used a little more of that. You seemed like a promising candidate.”
Murdock swallows, he is a promising candidate and the offer’s tempting...only...only there’s so much he could lose. He doesn’t have a great thing going here, but it’s okay, sometimes even good, and he’s not sure how to risk it. Not to mention the fact that it is going. There’s the occasional sputter here and there, but he stays airborne and that’s all he wants. He shuffles, he clutches at the sleeves of his jacket.
Then, “We can keep you safe.”
Murdock’s head snaps up, staring past Hannibal at the lieutenant that’s spoken.
“You won’t go back.”
The lieutenant’s staring at him now, perfect face frowning, and eyes all too knowledgeable and Murdock can’t breathe. He knows . And if he knows then the old guy probably knows and if the old guy knows then...then...Murdock blinks. His heart slows. If the old guy knows that means he came to Murdock anyway. That means he wants Murdock anyway.
“I can’t go back,” Murdock tells them and he means it. He can’t do it again.
“You won’t,” and the old guy is speaking again.
“Ain’t no way you’re crazier than Hannibal anyways,” the big guy scowls.
“So what do you say?” Hannibal offers a hand. “You game?”
Murdock stares at the outstretched hand. He stares at the others looking for deceit and finds none. He stares back at the hand. He releases his hands from his jacket and hesitates.
“I won’t go back.”
“Not unless you want to.”
“I won’t,” he promises and takes the offered hand.
Hannibal beams, “Fantastic, I do love it when a plan comes together.
— — —
He flies after that. Not the casual flying he’d been doing before, but the flying that he loves. The kind where he sings louder than the bullets and howls sharper than the missiles. The kind where his heart takes off with the plane and stays up in the air long after he’s landed.
The kind that he’s been missing since well before white coats and wire-rimmed glasses.
And maybe sometimes, most of the time, BA complains and calls him a fool. And maybe sometimes Face gives him weird looks when he tries to explain why he only eats packaged foods. And maybe sometimes Hannibal frowns when he eats his shaving cream. But they never threaten to send him back and he never lets them down and for the first time in a long time Murdock feels like he can breathe.
— — —
No one’s prepared for it to all go sideways.
— — —
Murdock sets his unit down just outside of Hanoi, smiling goofily as he watches BA practically fall out of the chopper in his hurry to reunite with solid ground.
The others follow suit much more gracefully.
“Good flying,” praises Hannibal.
“See you in a few,” Face jokes.
“I ain’t flying back,” BA lies.
He salutes them all and takes off. He doesn’t wish them luck, they don’t need it. They’re his unit and they always come back.
He isn’t prepared for when they don’t.
— — —
They take his unit.
The bank gets robbed, the base blows up, soldiers die, and they take his unit. His people.
They take them and won’t let him follow. Because he was “just the pilot.” Because he isn’t technically a part of the team. Because he’s still slightly insane and can’t be held accountable for his own bad life choices. Because he’s a good pilot and they can’t afford to lose him, too. Except that...except that he could follow. Knows how to follow.
He bursts into their tent before the fears are able to stop him, head held high, smile too wide, and eyes slightly manic.
“I’m crazy again,” he tells them.
“Excuse me?”
“Me, I'm crazy.” He insists. “Stark, raving, howling mad, you have to send me away.”
A sigh, “And why do you think you’re crazy?”
“Well, Ma’s been stopping by again for some ghostly chats and lately I’ve been having this craving for shaving cream and...and…” he splutters, thinks, and reaches down to grab a...a..an imaginary dog! He looks down, visualizes the mutt and then plops him right down onto the officer’s desk. “And see this here is my dog, um, Billy!” He pets him then looks back at the officer in front of him.
He smiles too widely with all his teeth and in a perfect Italian accent says, “You see Billy is not just a simple dog, but also a certified crazy person detector and he says my readings are off the charts. Seven-letter word for crazy, that’s me, Murdock. Don’t you remember the crosswords?”
He does. Vividly. The crosswords and the pills and the tests that make no sense, but that doesn’t matter, because they took his unit and he needs to get to them.
The officer stares at him behind a desk like a wall and over wire-rimmed glasses, before carefully setting a file aside. He leans forward, hands resting beneath his chin.
“If you do this,” he says, low and threatening. “You’ll never fly again.”
The air leaves his lungs, his throat constricts. He can’t not fly. He can’t, he needs it...only his unit needs him too. His unit, his people, who are across the sea and he needs to get to them, they need him. So he swallows all his fear away and says,
“I know.”
The general stares back unimpressed.
“Get back to work, Captain Murdock.”
Murdock scowls at him and leaves.
He lasts two more years.
— — —
He thinks that somewhere along the line he might’ve snapped for real. That he might’ve blurred the line between fake and real so much that not even he’s sure which is which.
Because he gets shot down again and he doesn’t even remember it—not really.
Because he can’t smell ammonia anymore without feeling like he’s gonna puke.
Because he’s losing time in large chunks and Billy’s becoming oddly solid at his side.
Because his unit is over 7,500 miles away and he can’t handle the fact that they left without him.
They come for him on a day where he can’t seem to move his body. They ask him questions and run tests just like they used to in white-walled rooms and he just stares blankly at them.
“You know you’ll never fly again,” they remind him and Murdock doesn’t remember answering, but he feels flying in his bones. In his marrow. In the very nucleus of his cells. He remembers every trip he’s ever taken, can he really give that up? Only he doesn’t remember answering and he doesn’t remember flying stateside.
He thinks that should scare him more than it does.
He also thinks that it should scare him that they keep mentioning a chopper crash he knows nothing about. He tries to remind them that they’ve got the year all wrong on that there crash, but they just stare at him with sad eyes and look away.
Intermittent memory loss, they explain to him as he sits in a too soft chair and stares out at nothing. Gaps in his memory that are so common now that not even he can say what they are. Except...except that he’s got a good memory? Near photographic and he’s never forgotten anything before and he tries to explain this to them. Carefully recites every line of his fourth grade essay on penguins to prove he’s still got it, but they just nod and smile sadly and something in his stomach churns uneasily as they tell him he can go.
— — —
He lays that night on his back and, with his eyes closed, carefully pictures every control of a Bell AH-1 Cobra and then a Boeing CH-47 Chinook and then every other thing he’s ever flown and he can see it all. Can practically picture each dial and knob in his hands.
Then he tries to picture the chopper crash.
It has to be there somewhere he reckons. Hidden, distant, but it has to be there.
If he’s forgotten this, what else has he forgotten? Who else has he forgotten?
He lays there and waits and tries and is met with nothing but darkness and a vague sense of fear. His heart quickens, his left leg aches, and he throws open his eyes with a gasp. He gulps in air like a drowning man, except that he can’t remember what he’s drowning in. Can’t remember why he’s supposed to be scared. Only that his mind and his body won’t get on the same page and it isn’t just crazy. It’s terrifying.
Then it’s gone.
He sits there. He blinks. He clutches his shirt sleeves. His mind feels empty. The bed feels too soft.
Solemnly he drags his blankets onto the ground, pulls his legs up to his chest, and dreams of fire.
— — —
The guys don’t come for him on day one like he’d hoped. They don’t come for him on day 105 like he’d prayed. They don’t come for him on day 200 when he’s realized that there’d been a flaw to his plan.
He and his unit haven’t spoken in over two years.
He doesn’t have a way to contact them and they don’t have a way to contact him.
He doesn’t even know if they’re still stateside and they don’t even know he’s here.
It’s a classic comedy of errors except that there’s no live studio audience. Just him. Alone. Like before, and it hurts worse than a chopper crash he doesn’t remember.
He tries once to reach them. On day 185 he steals a phone, holes himself up in a corner and manages to get ahold of a local radio station. He has them play California Dreamin’ ten times over the course of a day, before they realize he’s the same caller with different accents and stop taking his calls. He waits. He hopes. It doesn’t work. And he thinks that maybe he should’ve been more specific than using stupid versions of his name. Except that Harriet Margaret and Henry Michaelson had gotten him two more plays so who’s he to complain?
— — —
On day 190 he writes to BA’s Ma’s address out of desperation and on day 198 receives a letter back saying that a Ms. Baracus doesn’t live there anymore and they’re so sorry, but they don’t have a forwarding address.
Murdock tears the letter up.
But the stupid, little black words sit in his memory, and refuse to go wherever the chopper crash went.
— — —
On day 200 he decides they must’ve forgotten him.
Which is fair.
He thinks he might be forgetting himself too.
— — —
On day 205 he doesn’t move from his bed for a whole 24 hours. He just lays there and watches the sun rise and then fall as he rolls over and tries not to think about day 206.
— — —
Things change on day 210.
“Murdock?”
Murdock blinks over at the sound of his name, takes in the lab coat and the stethoscope and goes to lay back down.
“Already took ‘em,” he mumbles. Which is true...sort of. He did take them, they just didn’t double check his mouth and so he took them and put them in the trash.
“HM,” the doctor says again and Murdock scowls at the ceiling.
When the doctor flicks on the lights, destroying Murdock’s carefully concocted darkness, he sits up to yell at him only to freeze.
“Oh well this just isn’t fair,” Murdock whines, because it isn’t. Billy is one thing, but a real life sized hallucination of one Templeton Peck is just a bit more than he can handle. Especially one that’s also, apparently, capable of turning on the lights.
Not-Face blinks, “Um, I’m sorry?”
“You should be, you can’t just expect to walk in here as a figment of my imagination and come dressed like that. Couldn’t you have at least come wearing something cool? Like that Scarecrow costume from Wizard of Oz ?”
He gets up as he speaks, walking over to get a closer look at his newest problem. His memory’s aged Face, which he personally thinks is an interesting choice, but it gets that bewildered look just right.
“Murdock, I’m real?”
And bless his heart it sounds like a question. Even his hallucinations don’t realize they’re fake.
“If you’re so real why can I do this, huh?” And he goes to swipe his hand through his head.
And makes contact.
Murdock stares and stares and stares. He thinks maybe he should remove his hand from where it’s stuck against Face’s...well face, but it sticks there like glue. Who knew desperation was such a good adhesive?
“Uh, Murdock? You okay there buddy?”
He reaches out with his other hand to grab a hold of a very solid, very real shoulder. Which to his disbelief, is attached to a very real, very solid, Templeton Peck.
“Face?” he laughs. Only it sounds high and off-kilter.
“Hi Murdock,” Face smiles.
Murdock stares, bewildered.
Then he laughs again, pulling his friend into his arms. His real, solid, definitely not a hallucination, friend. Who is here .
“We found you,” Face breathes.
Murdock cries.
— — —
They find him.
They find him like they found him in the corner of an army base, only this time it feels like being saved.
And suddenly it doesn’t matter whether there’s gaps in his memory or not, just being with them helps. And over time things get better. Some things come back, most things don’t, and for the life of him he still can’t figure out how he learned Chinese, but things get better.
Just being needed is enough, just knowing the sacrifice he made was worth it is enough.
He’s finally back with his unit. That’s what matters. That’s what’s important.
“Do you miss it?” Face asks one day, after he’s busted him out by claiming his Grandma—dead five years come October, may God rest her soul—is gravely ill.
“Miss what?” he asks back, mouth full of Captain Bellybuster's Burger Heaven. Which after days of various mashed foods, is delicious.
“Flying,” Face says and Murdock freezes.
He swallows dryly, and hacks when the burger gets stuck in his throat. Even after it’s gone there’s still a lump there.
“Murdock? You okay? Sorry we don’t have to—“
“No, no, I’m fine. It’s fine,” and it is. Sort of. He made his choice. He doesn’t regret it, not really, he’d rather have Face, and Hannibal, and BA than a plane any day and he hopes that they’d rather have him too. He fiddles with the corner of his jacket sleeve.
“I miss it,” he says at last, cuz what’s the point of lying?
Face nods, he pats his shoulder, “We’ll take care of it.” And Hannibal must be a bad influence, because he doesn’t expand on that sentence for the rest of the day.
— — —
Hannibal comes to visit him, which is a rare treat—BA never comes to visit him, which Murdock tries not to think about. Instead he focuses on his boss and compliments the man’s black wig as they play chess. Murdock is losing, but he’s planning on starting a rebellion against both sets of royalty so it hardly matters.
Hannibal moves his queen two spaces to the right and watches Murdock.
“How’re you feeling Captain?”
“Oh you know,” Murdock carefully moves a pawn to be closer to the others, they like to travel in groups. “Same old, same old. Dr. Ritcher started taking me out once a month, so that’s been nice.”
Hannibal moves one of his pawns forward towards Murdock’s—see, groups. “How would you like to get out more than that?”
Murdock frowns, looks away from the board and up at Hannibal, “You mean like what Face does? Cuz let me tell you Colonel, there’s only so many times I can fake polio before these folks here catch on.”
“Not quite like that,” Hannibal responds. “You see Captain, we’ve been running small missions around LA—just helping those who can’t seem to help themselves—and it’s been doing us good. It keeps the mind and body in shape and money in our pockets.”
Murdock looks back down at the board, he moves one of the pawns away from the others, “Sounds fun.”
Hannibal nods, “It is, but you see there’s this new client we found who wants some help out of the country in Canada and we could drive, but I’ve been thinking flying would be much faster.”
Murdock freezes, his fingers still on his game piece.
“See Murdock,” Hannibal says, gracefully sliding a rook over. “For this next mission I’m in desperate need of a pilot.”
“I’m a pilot,” Murdock confirms, just in case Hannibal’s forgotten.
Hannibal nods, “I was hoping you’d say that. So what do you say, Captain? I’ve heard that Vancouver is great this time of year, care to join us?”
“Would I ever!” And Murdock slides his bishop two spaces to the left and announces, “Checkmate!” Before rushing off to grab his things.
— — —
Vancouver goes sideways fast.
By the time they get back, Murdock’s missing a shoe, has three fingers in a splint, and a fantastic new scar on his left thigh that he’s named Hubert. He can also now say with certainty that potatoes make excellent projectiles and that bad guys don’t like it when you try and quote Othello at them during their poor life choices.
They roll back into the parking lot at the VA at 2am, but Murdock hasn’t felt so awake in years.
“We’ll be in touch,” Hannibal promises as the van stops.
Which is another nice touch, they have a van now. Black and red and beautiful and Murdock’s 90% sure that BA is sleeping in it, but that just makes it all the more special.
Murdock nods, “Will we be flying again?”
“I ain’t flying Hannibal,” BA scowls. “I don’t know how you got me on the plane today, but I ain’t letting you do it again. I’ll die before I fly.”
And he means it, but Hannibal’s got that same look in his eye from all those years ago—insane and brilliant—and he beams at Murdock.
“We’ll fly again,” he promises.
And BA is screaming and Face is complaining about just wanting to sleep and Murdock howls the whole way back to his room.
— — —
Murdock stays crazy like this: he fills his room up with thousands of LEGOs that no one can quite figure out how he got and dares people to enter.
Or maybe it’s: he starts bringing Billy on missions because the dog gets lonely at the VA.
Or maybe it’s: he makes regular phone calls to a mother long dead on a line with no answer.
Or he donates his 20th kidney in as many weeks and no one seems to question it.
Or he just wants to keep his unit safe and this is the best way to do it.
Or maybe it’s all of these things or none of these things, but somewhere along the line Murdock stays crazy and ensures that everything stays the same as a result.
In the end, that line of reasoning doesn’t seem too crazy at all.