Step one you say we need to talk
He walks you say sit down, it's just a talk
"Lieutenant, we need to talk," said Smith. Peck gulped.
"I'm kind of busy now, sir," he said. "We could talk later."
"Sit down," John said with a shake of his head. "It's just a talk."
He smiles politely back at you
You stare politely right on through
Hannibal smiled politely as the Lieutenant sat stiffly. Peck didn't even seem to notice, just stared on through, lost in his thoughts.
Some sort of window to your right
As he goes left and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame
You begin to wonder why you came
"So Hannibal's talking to the kid?" BA asked the team's usual pilot who had a soft spot for the young blond and had begun calling him Faceman, Faceyman, and Face.
"Yeah," he said. "Trying to see if someone's scaring the crap out of him or if he's always like that or what."
"Why you trying to blame this on me?" Ba demanded defensively.
"Hold on big man," he said. "I'm not blaming nobody."
"Whatever fool," BA muttered as he stood and left.
Where did I go wrong
I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
If I'd known how to save a life
"What's the matter kid?" Hannibal asked him. "You don't trust anyone on the team; you don't talk to anyone on the team. I had to force you to eat with the team. Your team is supposed to be like your family so you're supposed to love your team like your family."
Face stopped staring at his lap for a moment then lifted his head slightly. "Love is just another way to get sucker punched sir." Without waiting to be dismissed, he had left.
Let him know that you know best
Cuz after all you do know best
Try to slip out, tears the fence
Without granting innocence
Lay down a list of what is wrong
The things you've told him all along
"Kid," Hannibal had said. "This is wrong. You don't love anyone, you don't seem like you care about anything, and you're always the last one to fall asleep and the first one to wake up." Because I don't want anyone seeing what happens to me when I fall asleep, Face thought. Hannibal seemed to hesitate before adding. "And Murdock told me about what you said when he asked you why you didn't drink."
*Flashback* Murdock sat with an open beer in one hand and offered one to Face. Face had shaken his head without hesitation.
"Faceyman, why don't you ever drink?" he asked.
*Face's Flashback's Flashback 1* The two year old boy sat in the backseat of his mother's car as she drove. The boy was too small at the time for him to know where they were going, but he wasn't too small to remember what had happened next. A drunk driver's car had slammed into his mother's instantly killing his mom and orphaning the toddler.
*Face's Flashback's Flashback 2* "You stupid boy!" the drunken man roared. "Can't you do anything right?"
"I-I'm sorry," the seven year old had cried. It didn't matter to his current foster father as he began to kick Templeton angrily until to sobbing boy lost consciousness. When he had woken up he had been told that his spine was fractured and had been confined to a wheelchair for half a year before he regained control of his legs.
Adults drinking had been the cause of many other problems in Peck's life which was exactly why he had sworn away from alcohol.
"People they-they lose control when they drink," he had stuttered out. "I don't want to lose control like that." He had to leave after that to keep Murdock from seeing how badly he was shaking and that he was fighting off tears.
*End flashback* "He shouldn't have told you that," Face finally managed. "It was private. And I shouldn't have told him that either." And then he had fled, terrified of what his C.O. might think.
Pray to God he hears you
And pray to God he hears you
Where did I go wrong
I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
If I'd known how to save a life
The unit regretted the new guy tormenting they had given Peck. Until Murdock had taken him under his wing and nicknamed him nobody had cared enough to learn his name so he had just been FNG, F*cking New Guy. But the lieutenant hadn't bothered to defend himself so the tormenting hadn't stopped until Hannibal had noticed and ordered the men to leave him alone. But by then the damage was done and Peck and secluded himself from the others even more than he had when he first got there. And it would be nearly impossible to befriend him.
He begins to raise his voice
You lower yours, grant him one last choice
Drive until you lose the road
Or break with the ones that follow
"Just leave me alone Baracus!" Peck shouted.
"Kid, you've got to open up," the big man said, exploding in a storm of words. "You're going to keep going on like this until you can't go anymore and then you're going to be stuck and because you've pushed everyone away no one is going to be there to help you and you'll be alone and unhappy for the rest of your life or you're going to open up and let people know what the problem is."
He will do one of two things
He will admit to everything
Or he'll say he's just not the same
And you'll begin to wonder why you came
Hannibal and Murdock expected him to lash back at BA, saying he just wasn't the same as everyone else and then BA would storm away angrily, muttering about how there was no point even trying with the kid. But Face began to shake and shake. Nervously, Murdock helped him sit on his bed and the kid pulled his knees up to his chin and began rocking back in forth slightly.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. Tears began to fog his eyes and a few slipped down his face. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I'm a bad boy. I'm an idiot boy. I'm a stupid, useless boy. They were right, they were right. They were right!"
"Calm down Lieutenant," Smith ordered. It took several minutes for the Lieutenant to calm down and Hannibal had to keep his arm around him and rubbing his back in a protective way.
"I'm sorry," he said again. But Hannibal shook his head.
"You don't have to be sorry," Murdock said. "Just tell us what happened." At that the Lieutenant started sobbing and by the time they had calmed him down he had fallen asleep.
Where did I go wrong
I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
"No… no, don't… I'm sorry…" BA looked at the Lieutenant and saw he was still sleeping. "Sister Mary said you would love me," he whimpered. Hannibal had been closest to Peck and was already moving towards him. He grabbed the lieutenant wrist and clenched them together, a practice he knew to do when a soldier was having a nightmare in order to keep them from lashing out in their sleep.
"This why you wait until everyone else is asleep before you sleep and then wake up first every day, isn't it?" Face had simply nodded.
Where did I go wrong
I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life…
…How to save a life…
How to save a life
"What's the matter Hannibal?" Murdock asked. Hannibal rubbed his forehead for several seconds before replying.
"I couldn't tell that one of my own men was abused as a child," Hannibal said with a shake of his head.
"Aw… don't feel bad Hannibal. Facey's just a good conman," Murdock said.
You've got that right, Hannibal thought. After Peck had admitted to him the real reason he didn't drink he had done some research. His record said that he was twenty four, but according to a news article that told of a seven year old boys abuse he should currently be barely sixteen. Hannibal wouldn't tell any of his men, they would never had the same respect for Face if they knew that he had out ranked all of them before he could legally drive. It was remarkable that he had been able to con everyone into believing a false age, but without a real family to deny his age there was no way to prove that he wasn't twenty four.
Where did I go wrong
I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
Faceman had taken the worst of things in the POW camps. It was obvious that he was the youngest man and it nearly drove the men mad seeing his body being tossed back into the cage battered and bloody. They had put him in solitary for a month and when they had finally gotten him back he had simply begged for them to keep talking. After watching men beat Face senseless and laughingly play hangman on him with a knife until he guessed the correct letters Murdock created Billy so that none of the men would ever have to be alone with something like that.
Once when they through him in they would've thought he was dead if it wasn't for the trembling and sobbing. Hannibal had pulled Face's head onto his lap and at first the men had been confused about where all the blood was coming from. There were wounds, of course, old and new but there was also blood on parts of Face that weren't freshly hurt.
"They killed her," he sobbed. "They killed her because I wouldn't talk."
Hannibal had rocked him back and forth, shushing him like a little boy and he knew that as soon as the sun rose the little boy would have to become a man again in a place that wasn't suitable for anybody. The unit had stayed up with him all night, rocking him protectively if he cried and waking him up while holding his wrist together if he was having a nightmare so he wouldn't lash out and hurt someone else or himself, and staying up even after he had been too exhausted to dream and had fallen asleep about an hour before the sun rose.
He hadn't cried since.
Where did I go wrong I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
If I'd know how to save a life
…How to save a life…
…How to save a life…
Face always thought that the unit had saved his life. Murdock had taken him under his wing and been kind to him when no one else had thought he was worth the effort. BA had forced his to let something out and trust the team some. And Hannibal had been the one to go the extra mile to know enough to help him, but never tell anyone else his secrets. And they had all been there for him on one the worst nights of his life.
They had saved him.