Chapter 1: Intestinal Fortitude (B.A.) He shouldn't have swerved. He knew, B.A. knew better, but he still did it. He swerved right into that IED and when he wakes up, their stolen van is upside-down.

Warnings: Minor blood, gore, results of a car hitting a relatively minor IED. Probable intense luck that all four main characters survive fairily easier, with minimal injuries (henceforth known as the "Star Trek" syndrome). Also: B.A. is a Ranger, but he sure as hell isn't a doctor.

The thing was, B.A. Baracus knew better. He knew that the insurgents liked to use decoys, realistically dressed scarecrows, and sometimes real people, to make American vehicles swerve off road and onto IEDs. He knew that, he'd been in Iraq and a whole bunch of other places where that was the case. Being in some forest someplace fleeing from a drug kingpin's compound shouldn't have made a difference. But even though B.A. knew better, he still reacted in that moment. In a flash, his brain knew scarecrow, his eyes saw child, and his hands reacted swerve.

He didn't really remember the explosion. Didn't really need to; his brain filled in the blanks for him. IED under the right front tire, flipping the van. Airbags deployed, vision obscured. Status: screwed.

Hannibal had made friends with some militia operation in a country that B.A. had never heard of, with a population that could reportedly fit inside the state of Delaware, and who were dealing with the fallouts of a government coup and problems with a local drug kingpin. Why and how wasn't really something that B.A. needed to know, ditto on just how they were getting paid (which, given this job, probably wasn't a lot). Disrupting the drug trade was fine by him. One of the perks of being freelance now, rather than Army. One of the only perks, really. B.A. couldn't stomach thinking about much else. So, they were here. Tropical-ish climate, nothing too terribly hot or wet, based out of a rudimentary but well-supplied militia base, whose COs wanted the A-Team to destroy the drug gang's weapon cache and to acquire some intel on their suppliers. Easy, in and out. Hardly even exciting. Well, except for the moment that someone on the other side found an RPG and fired it a little too close to what was to be their escape helicopter before Murdock could steal it. The crazy man was fine, though, a little singed and a lotta pissed about "the murder of a fine, innocent specimen" but that was why Hannibal had back-up plans. B.A. stole an armored van, picked up the guys in true A-Team style, and they drove off towards the militia base with the gang struggling to keep up. Home free.

And then B.A. drove them right into an IED.

B.A. driving, Hannibal in the passenger seat. Face behind Hannibal, Murdock in the seat behind B.A. That was the first bit of information his brain supplied when he opened his eyes. Second came the knowledge of the throbbing in his head, the heat on his face, the chalky stench of the airbags, the crunch of broken glass as he dragged his fingers through it and up, up through the heavy air to his seatbelt. The release came with the barest of pressure, dumping B.A. with a groan heavy onto his shoulders. He rolled out of that uncomfortable position, shimming backwards on his back, hearing the glass crunch underneath him. His head bonked something, something solid that kept him in a curled position, and he reached up blindly, fingers curling around the door handle. B.A. Baracus, all over two hundred pounds of him, tumbled ass-over-head out of the van. Landed on something too, something more than the forest floor. Investigation showed it to be a rifle, but that was easily cast aside to allow B.A. to lay comfortably on his back, eyes on the forest canopy above, his whole body one throbbing bruise.

Get up, fool, he chastised himself. With some effort, his head spinning, B.A. stood. He may have used the open door to do so, but he The van was gone, trashed. Useless, even if it wasn't upside-down. By some miracle it wasn't on fire, and the damage on the far side didn't seem that far reaching. Had the IED flipped them by itself, or had it just helped them over the downhill slope by the road? B.A. was himself enough to scan the road, which save for a small smoking hole, was quiet. For now.

Sounds from inside the van made him jump, and B.A. was crouched down in an instant, arm reaching in blindly. His fingers curled tightly around fabric and he pulled, unearthing one crazy man from the wreckage of his van. When he turned him over, the pilot's eyes were open. "Murdock!" B.A.'s hands found their way to the front of Murdock's shirt, gripping one part center of mass and one part shoulder, just in case he had to shake a response out of the fool.

"Bosco," Murdock replied, as if sounding out an unfamiliar word. B.A. laughed, struck silly by relief, but the good humor was short lived. There was blood on Murdock, and with his hat gone B.A. could see his hair all matted up in it. Grimacing, B.A. used his grip on Murdock's shirt as leverage to see the wound — B.A. wasn't a doctor, but since he couldn't see the crazy man's brains or nothing then B.A. was willing to give him as clean a bill of health as they were going to get out here. Murdock's eyes were a bit unfocused, more so than usual, and that put ice in his stomach.

B.A. was driving. Shouldn't have swerved. His fault.

He grit his teeth, shoving that thought away for now. He couldn't dwell on it, not just yet, not when he didn't know if they were safe, if there were enemy combatants coming down upon them right now, if that IED had friends, if Hannibal and Face were okay…

First thing first. "Can you stand?" he asked, but it was a moot point. B.A. picked Murdock up, easily (damn fool needed to eat more), and put the pilots back braced between the open door and the van. He held him there as Murdock found his footing. It was a quiet thing, and that raised his hackles up even more. Murdock was never quiet. Always fine, always yapping about something up to and after being told to shut up.

Only, he wasn't now. He was quiet. Silent. B.A. grit his teeth. "Murdock, I'm gonna need you to say something to me, brother," B.A. urged, sparing one second to glance over his shoulder to check the treeline and the road behind it, but otherwise keeping his eyes on the pilot.

"Ow," was the one word Murdock granted him. B.A. filed it under, better than nothing. The larger man released part of his friend's shirt experimentally, though he kept one hand on him to steady him just in case. When Murdock didn't instantly face-plant, B.A. took the moment to reach down and grab the rifle he'd pulled earlier. He paused a moment he probably didn't have, giving Murdock a good hard look. The man outranked him, but Murdock tended to avoid giving orders at any cost. The question was whether Murdock was with it enough to watch the treeline.

"I need you to show me you're really a Ranger," B.A. said, pressing the rifle into Murdock's hands. He didn't dare look away from those slightly unfocused eyes to check, but it seemed to take far too long for Murdock to actually take the rifle. "And watch my ass."

Nothing set the wrongness of the situation into B.A.'s bones quite like the way that Murdock didn't argue — no, not argue, Murdock wouldn't have argued, not with their lives on the line or even if they weren't, because Murdock was a Ranger but, damn, he should have said something. Anything. The crazy man was never without a joke or at least something mildly annoying to throw alongside the bullets. Instead, Murdock was silent. Checked the clip with bloodied fingers, released the safety, cocked it against his shoulder, and swiveled to watch the horizon. B.A. could tell that most of Murdock's weight was on the door, could guess that the pilot wouldn't be upright without it, but the gun was steady and that was as good as they were going to get. From this side, he could see that Murdock was hurt more than just the wound dripping blood down the side of his face, he was covered in glass and small cuts, but no broken bones. Or, none that B.A. could see. But, those were seconds that B.A. didn't have.

He ducked back into the car, finding Face curled up in a fetal position on the roof. B.A. touched him to give him the same treatment as Murdock, but Face let out such a groan that B.A. released him instantly.

"Wha 'appen?" Face ground out. B.A. didn't answer. He had turned his attention to Hannibal, who was still hanging upside-down in his seat. B.A.'s hands went to the buckle, but it was locked in place and he couldn't quite get his hands in the right place to disengage it. A glance back at Face showed that the other man had picked himself up, mostly, crouched on the roof of B.A.'s van with his arm hanging strangely in front of him. His other hand was fiddling down by his belt, where B.A. knew the other man kept a knife. Satisfied with that plan, glad not to think on it anymore, B.A. turned back to Hannibal. The Colonel's eyes were shut, his face reddened from hanging upside-down, but breathing. Just in case, B.A. checked for a pulse. He didn't move his hand away even after he found one.

Face freed his knife and, with some difficulty, set himself up on Hannibal's other side. "You alright, man?" B.A. asked, though he was afraid he knew the answer already. Face didn't get a chance to answer.

"Company!" called Murdock. Shots followed that declaration, close enough that it was Murdock firing, and B.A. said a silent prayer that the crazy man wasn't so rattled that he was firing at friendlies. B.A.'s eyes found Face's, and wordlessly B.A. willed there to be an order. Anything. The slightest bit of direction. All these fools outranked B.A., and just because he was the only one still mostly functioning right now was no reason for him to be giving the orders.

Face's eyes were glassy, though. More than Murdock's. His shoulder was hanging at that damn angle that screamed dislocation, and Face's expression was grim enough that B.A. knew he felt it. "Go help Murdock," was the only order that Face conjured. "I'll get Hannibal out."

B.A. wanted to protest, wanted to tell Face to go help Murdock and B.A. would get Hannibal out, but he was moving before the option to dissent even occurred to him. By the time he pulled himself from the upside-down van, Murdock was fielding returning fire. Not for the first time, B.A. was glad that they were in an armored van, with all its modifications, rather than some other stolen car. Murdock hadn't ducked down yet, hadn't moved except to scrunch up as tiny as possible into his position, and when B.A. came to look beside him, he knew why. Their aim was downright disgraceful. Drug dealers, drug pushers, not a soldier among them. Lucky, lucky, they'd been lucky so far. If Hannibal had been planning, B.A. would say that the old man had seen them through again, but this wasn't part of the plan. This was luck, plan and simple. Stupid, plain luck.

It was bound to run out.

B.A. could see them through the treeline, the dozen or so that had been dispatched to deal with them. If B.A. had to guess, he would say that they'd come to investigate the IED, that they weren't part of the paramilitary operation at the plant (or, if they were, this was the B-team), and they had about all of two minutes to get Hannibal's escape plan back on track before the real bad dudes showed up.

Hannibal was unconscious. Face was hurt. Murdock was hurt. His fault, his fault. B.A. grit his teeth, forced that thought away, because he couldn't deal with it right now. He had to get them back on the road. Well, there was a truck. It was right there, on the road. It was uncovered, not very pretty, but it was running. They only had to drive it about five miles to where the militia was set up, and they had a medical clinic there. Only about a dozen guys between him and it, but they didn't have time to pick them off from down here…

"Can you give me covering fire?" B.A. asked, even though it was redundant. Murdock didn't look down at him, didn't answer except through continued fire. B.A. reached into a pack, and produced three clips which he then laid out on the roof of the van by Murdock's foot. "Ammo, to your right," he told him, patting him once on the calf on that side to remind him. B.A. straightened, peeked out over the car door to check. They were still disorganized, and Murdock was doing a surprisingly good job of keeping them clustered by their van. But there were trees to contend with, and disorganization wouldn't last forever. "I'm gonna go see if I can get us a ride out of here."

"Get me something with wings," Murdock replied, enough like himself that B.A. chuckled a little.

"Not on your life, fool," B.A. told him, as B.A. pulled off his jacket. He was so pleased to hear Murdock speaking like himself that B.A. pressed just a little bit more, "Don't shoot me, you hear. Or I'll come back and kick your ass."

Murdock didn't answer. B.A. grit his teeth, casting one last look backwards. The crazy man was intense, silent and steady and everything a Ranger should look like and wrong. Inside the van, B.A. could see that Face had freed Hannibal, but the Colonel still wasn't moving. That was wrong too, so wrong, just like the angle of Face's arm, but B.A. couldn't fix it. Not with incoming fire, not with them trapped in an upside-down van with enemy fire incoming.

His fault.

B.A. tapped the side of the door three times to let Murdock know he was moving, then took off. He heard the bullets popping off, close, Murdock, and heard the plentiful returning fire. Another weapon joined Murdock's, close enough to have been Face's 9mm. Good. Despite the covering fire, B.A. was not entirely safe from bullets heading his way, but it was fine. His team was depending on him. B.A. kept moving. He was up the ditch, feet pounding heavily on the dirt road before he could feel the sting of exertion.

He had thought he might hesitate. Pike was one thing. Lynch was one thing. This? B.A. slammed the heel of his palm right into the nearest man's throat, used his other hand to grab his AK, and kept moving through him as he brought the weapon to bear. They weren't soldiers. Drug pushers, drug runners, with automatic weapons. It didn't take long to clear them out. B.A. didn't even have to change magazines, not with Face and Murdock helping from below. The whole thing was over in seconds, so disproportionate to the pounding of B.A.'s heart that he didn't believe that all the enemies were down for a full minute after they were.

B.A. called the all clear only after circling both vehicles twice, and spent the time it took for Murdock and Face to carry Hannibal up to the road checking underneath the hood, under the car, inside the car - anywhere another IED might've been hiding. He checked the hood again as Murdock and Face got Hannibal settled in the front seat, as Murdock helped Face into the backseat, and it was only when Murdock passed around behind B.A., stumbling a bit, that B.A. snapped out of it. Grabbed Murdock's arm, helped the crazy fool to the car without a word, and climbed into the driver's seat himself. Sloppy, sloppy. This was sloppy. If it were B.A., he'd have thrown everything at them. Not a handful of guys in two trucks. Another attack was coming, before they could get to safety, B.A. just knew it.

The drive back to the militia base was silent and uneventful. As if nothing had happened at all. It took Face's hand on B.A.'s shoulder to get the ex-ranger to let go of the steering wheel once they were parked outside the tiny hospital.

XXX

B.A. Baracus made himself the menace of the tiny militia hospital. It was set up in a former government building, which meant that the A-Team could have had separate rooms should they wanted, but after a near miss like that… Well, it just made it easier for B.A. to harass them. It was the best way he knew to make sure they were alright.

Murdock, it turned out, needed stitches in the crazy head of his. The doctor treating Murdock was quite disturbed to see how, to quote Murdock, "over the moon" B.A. was to hear this news. "Tell him you want a lightning bolt. Or, better yet, let me do it. Come on, Murdock, you owe me that much. Come on, here, I'll be your doctor. Yep, just give me that and I'll give you a lightning bolt. You'll be just like what's-his-name — Harry Potter!" That last comment got him what he had been aiming for: it got Murdock laughing. Face and Hannibal were chuckling before that, no doubt at the deer in the headlights look Murdock was giving at even the threat of B.A. coming near him with a needle and thread, but that wasn't really funny. Not to B.A., nah, it was never a good thing to see Murdock shell-shocked and quiet. Crazy man might drive B.A. up a wall sometimes, but Murdock was meant to be loud, a presence in whatever room he was in. B.A. only walked away after earning that laugh, loudly declaring it was because the doctor wouldn't let him do lightning bolt stitches, pretending not to hear Murdock's "I would've swerved too, man."

Face was easier. B.A. held him steady as they put his shoulder back into place, wincing right along with him as Face rode out that wave of pain. Face had already laughed at B.A.'s exchange with Murdock earlier, but the pain of having his shoulder re-set wiped the good cheer from his face. Sneaking him a six-pack of beer later was all it took to put the smile back on Face's pale, tired, but relatively intact features. B.A. talked loudly about some hot nurses he saw in the hallway over Face's attempted "thanks for getting us out of there."

Hannibal was easier still. Bossman had only had a concussion, in spite of being the closest to the explosion. There were a few cuts and bruises here and there, but they all had those. That didn't make Hannibal special. The doctors made him promise to stay off his feet for twenty-four hours, minimum, but other than that gave him a clean bill of health. B.A. made sure he stuck to it, too. It was easier with the three of them in one room. After his stitches, Murdock had passed out, face-down on the bed, and had proceeded to snore loudly. Not loudly enough to wake Face, who had fallen asleep half-seated, back propped against the wall, with a half-empty bottle of beer tilting dangerously in his hand. That made watching Hannibal even easier to watch. They talked of the things surrounding the mission without actually speaking of the crash, but the look on Hannibal's face told B.A. that he was only biding his time. It was severe enough to rattle him after a while, and B.A. turned to the duffel bags for a distraction, producing one of Hannibal's cigars.

"Don't know if you're still wanting this, Bossman, but if you do you've probably got about five minutes before the docs come back and take it from you," B.A. said, aiming for nonchalant and missing spectacularly, holding the cigar out to Hannibal.

Hannibal took it, but didn't bite down on it. "It's not your fault, B.A.," Hannibal said, gently, and damn if it didn't kick B.A. straight in the gut. It was the tone that got to him more than the words themselves, it was Hannibal's do-we-need-to-talk-son? tone, and B.A. did not want to hear it right now.

"That's some bullshit, bossman," B.A. responded, automatically, not dropping his gaze from Hannibal. The Colonel's expression turned somewhat softer, and B.A. thought he might've seen disappointment in his eyes. Or was that sympathy? "And you know it."

Hannibal was quiet a moment. "I'm not sure that I do, B.A.," he told him. B.A. shifted uncomfortably, looking away. He knew that Hannibal was waiting for him to say something, but B.A. didn't really want to. He didn't want to have this talk with Hannibal, not now. Not ever, frankly. But the silence was stifling and B.A. could feel the Colonel's eyes on him, so he looked back up into that softer expression, hating to see it.

"You alright, son?" Hannibal asked quietly.

B.A. hesitated before he answered, glancing away. His eyes found Face first, B.A.'s lips curving upwards in a smile when he saw that the beer was starting to leak from the bottle as it slipped in Face's grasp. He found Murdock next, the crazy fool laying so he couldn't see his face but the snores broadcasting that he was absolutely alive. By the time he drew his eyes back to Hannibal, B.A. had his answer. "Yes, sir," he said, quietly.

So long as there were still four of them, then B.A. was alright.

Story also published on my tumblr, behindthescarydoor.