Author's note: as per usual, I don't own these characters, even if sometimes I consider them to be friends.

SPECIAL THANKS to my dear Friend and amazing writer Michele: your help and support are a real gift!

Hutch knelt down in the dust, his arms wrapped around a brown haired girl.

" It's gonna be alright sweetheart… it's all over now. Your mom is talking with my partner, now we'll join them, ok?" He repeated the words with a smoothing and reassuring voice that dissimulated the rage he felt in his rigid jaw in watching such a lovely flower that had almost been destroyed. He stood up slowly, feeling the soft weight of the 8-year-old girl hanging onto him.

Starsky was comforting Abby's young mother, after having asked her a few questions about what had just happened in her home. She looked so vulnerable in her plaid shirt, sitting on the wooden bench in front of her house. Her skinny shoulders were bent by the burden of too much worry and grief and, although she was clearly a beautiful woman, she seemed to be covered by a thick coat of pain that hid her as much as the dust did. Actually dust was all over… on her ponytail, inside the house, on the cars, in the air, under the teeth of everyone around; the large courtyard of the ranch looked like a post-war scenario.

Starsky bent down towards her and, while closing his small notebook and putting it in a pocket with one hand, he reached out with the other to gently touch the ruffled hair of the young woman, as if he could wipe the dust and sadness away.

She looked up to him with red and swollen eyes and simply said, "They saved our life, Officer. They saved our house, our small breeding farm… everything. Nobody could help us, Detective, not even you." With a small nod Laura addressed her "you" to the police cars all around and the cops in uniform walking around in the area. There wasn't disdain in her voice, but a shadow of old resignation.

"They were the only ones who could help us get rid of those people who wanted our land and our business… what could I have done but ask for help? After my husband's death, Bratt's sharks were all over me because they thought that a woman, all alone, couldn't handle such a business and defend it. They keep threatening us, they burnt the barn and I barely saved the horses inside! But police told us there was no evidence. They… they would have taken Abby…. The A-Team decided to help... they didn't even want money in return…" Laura tried to justify herself for hiring a group of outlaws to send to jail those jackals that were now being taken away, battered and handcuffed, in the police cars. But even more than that, she seemed desperate to plead for these "saviours."

"They are good men, men of honour, Officer," she cried, with a broken voice and an silent statement in her eyes, that caught Hutch's attention, while he was approaching with Abby in his arms; did she gracefully mean that maybe those men, full of badges and covered by police uniforms , didn't have as much honour? What she had said while he was easing the kid to the ground and watching her fly into her mother's arms caused a pang in Hutch's stomach. His stomach got a little bit tighter when he cast a glance to his partner and, instead of the usual familiar feedback, he saw that Starsky's eyes were far away and incomprehensible.

"He will be ok, ain't that true mommy?" Abby asked with her voice muffled against her mother's chest.

"Yes, honey," Laura answered quickly, as if she wanted to hide the question and immediately change the subject.

"There was so much blood mom…" the girl went on and there was no chance for Laura to elude the questioning eyes of both detectives.

"One of the guys…. He got shot," the young woman explained in a guilty and low voice, as if this detail could give away the people who helped her so much.

"Who, Laura? Who got shot?" Hutch insisted calmly but firmly.

"Murdock, the pilot… they're trying to take him to hospital… please please detectives, let them do it… please don't take advantage of this to get them caught… they were just helping me," she almost prayed.

"Now take it easy, lady, a doctor will visit you and your daughter and you'll be taken to the police department to give your version of the story. Don't worry about anything ok?"

While Laura was guided by a cop to the ambulance, Hutch watched Starsky with a concerned expression and stated: "She must be confused… I'm wondering if she knows whom she is talking about… Murdock… there is no Murdock in The A-Team…even on TV they have never talked about a pil…"

"She is right Hutch," Starsky interrupted in a blank voice "he's always been part of the team… I could have well imagined he still belonged with them."

"Starsk, what are you talking about?" Hutch was disoriented and a little scared of what was going on.

His partner turned away from the nothing he was staring into, and he looked into his friend's eyes.

"You know you are my pal, Hutch… you know I love you more than a brother, more than myself… you are family. But there are parts of my life that are buried in a place I can't even find anymore."

Hutch knew perfectly what his partner was talking about; he had never really been able to face the topic of his time in Vietnam and Hutch had never pushed him, not even when, during their first years in the Academy, after Starsky's return from that hell, Hutch saw him flinching for a slamming door if he was absent minded… not even when he listened to his friend's confused words during a tormented dream… not even when he saw his partner's blue eyes turning into black holes at the barest memory.

But now, Hutch knew he had to talk… there was work to be done.

"Buddy, if there is something else you know about this A-Team, you should tell Dobey. We are policemen, Starsk… we are the law… these people must be judged in a martial court… there is nothing more dangerous than a mixture of a commando and a vigilante… let alone a whole squad of them."

" I… I can't Hutch…"

"Buddy, I'm sorry to force you… but in this case you have to."

" You don't understand Hutch… I can't because they … I'm sure they are innocent."

Starsky was rarely so reserved, almost reticent, and Hutch wasn't sure of the way he should have handled it. Even after Terry's death, Starsky's silent pain was displayed his expressive eyes, so easy for Hutch to be read.

On the contrary, now he had the feeling he was walking on a minefield and if he stepped onto the wrong spot he could cause massive damage.

"Starsk, if you know they are innocent you should tell…"

"I don't know for sure…"

"Buddy, so we have to…"

"You don't understand…"

"So tell me…"

"They saved my life ok? They saved my butt in that freaking hell, risking their own to do it. I was nothing over there, Hutch. I was a name, a number. I was a gun running in the mud. Nobody gave a damn about my life… there was no Hutch to watch my back there…"

Here Starsky's voice trailed off a little and Hutch felt his gut turning into a knot, while he moved towards his friend without touching him, afraid of breaking the spell and stopping his words.

He couldn't help silently mouthing "Buddy…" as his partner opened his dark blue eyes in front of him, his Adam's apple bobbing frantically. Starsky added, "They didn't even know me, they saved my life just because it was right, because one single life meant something for them, even in that swamp where we weren't human beings anymore. They are that kind of men."

"You're gonna make it, bro…" bellowed BA, while he tried to moisten Murdock's mouth with a wet handkerchief.

" I..I'm really about to die i..if you're calling me 'bro,' BA," whispered the pilot with an attempt of a smile that cracked his dry lips.

"Shut up fool!" BA barked back. "You can't die! You are my friend!"

"Uhh , pal… the bird has been riddled with shots this time… N-No more tweet tweet… But it's fine BA, don't worry. The hunter has been caught and that's good enough."

BA felt his eyes stinging, while he was watching his friend's body shivering on the ground, on a blanket that had been spread out on the grass in the shadow of the van.

He was right: Bratt had been captured and left for the police with strong evidence of his guilt… but, if this had been the price to pay, wouldn't it have been too much for the Team?

Hannibal and Face were staring at the map, laid out on the black hot hood.

"Colonel, this is a bloody mess…. Cops will be all around… there is no way we can get away from here without being stopped. We need the hell of a plan Hannibal or there will be no jazz here, but only a requiem." Face remained silent for a moment, shocked by his own words, but Hannibal understood completely the explosion of fear he felt and laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Lieutenant, listen to me; we are gonna make it ok? We'll find a way and we'll have Murdock back to… normal …" Both men shared a quick smile at the little joke that made everything seem more familiar. Irony was their weapon, stronger than any other gun, useful in the moments of despair and fundamental to give themselves the illusion of controlling the world, even in the most dangerous situation, even when there seemed to be no way out. It was their language, a sort of a liturgy they shared to feel that life was serious enough to be taken less seriously if necessary. But now, this time, the device of irony didn't work. Nothing could work till they had found a way to save their friend.

Decker was right a few years before, when Murdock was shot by Clayton, and he said about the Team: "They think as one, feel as one and act as one. But with a wounded man in their midst they cease to be that. The good of the unit becomes the good of an individual. And that will be their undoing."

"Face, do you remember the other time Murdock was shot? We could hide him in the woods, but here, in California, there is only desert around and there is no way to do the same. Anyway, that time, I had a Plan B in case you hadn't made it on time from the Ranger Station with the first aid stuff. I wanted to show up and make the MP run after me, so you could take Murdock to the Hospital. It wasn't necessary at the time, but I'll do it now! "

"Hannibal, I don't know…"

The Colonel didn't wait for an answer. His men were his friends and had always a role in the decisions of the Team, but at the end of the day, he wouldn't have let any of his guys take a responsibility like this one. It was his duty.

He knelt down near Murdock and, touching his burning forehead, he told him: "We're gonna take you to hospital, Cap'n. Just hold on there and you have my word it will be over very soon."

"No Colonel, please … You just…"

"Murdock, we have already talked about this in the past. We are a Team, we stick together, we fight together, we live together and we die together if necessary."

"Hannibal, y..you guys are everything I've got in the w..world. I wouldn't want to… to live if it meant for you to be stuck in a rotten jail."

A convulsive cough broke Murdock's words and then, with excruciating difficulty, he raised his hand in sign of military salute and added: "Maybe it's better this way Colonel… It was a honour to be part of …."

Hannibal intercepted his Murdock's hand mid-way and held it tight with a fierce pride: "Don't talk like that Cap'n, it's not time to say goodbye yet. And if that time ever arrives, we will be the ones who have to honor you."

Face ran one hand through his hair and noticed it was shaking as it had never had since he was a young officer in Vietnam, before the cold blood of the Green Berets became part of his own soul.

He hadn't prayed in a long, long time, maybe even before the war itself. Probably it last happened at the Catholic Orphanage, when the sisters forced the young guys to pray every single day before dinner and twice on Sundays. Now Face thought there was nothing else he could do: normally, in case of emergency, he was always working to provide what the Team needed to escape or launch an attack… but now… he felt helpless and he found himself saying, "Please God… Please" while he was pressing a red cloth on his friend's wounded side.

"People think this man in crazy but he's got more sense than everyone else."