Hannibal woke to the sound of voices. A glance at the digital display by his bed revealed the time to be Way Too Early Even For The Army o'clock. Still, he pulled himself out of bed and dragged a chair over to Murdock's cot. Settling himself in and stretching his certainly-no-stiffer-than-the-average-young-man's muscles, he took in the scene before him.

Murdock was curled in a bastardised foetal position on his bunk, sheets tangled and vibrating with the force of his tremors. His legs were curled underneath him and he was bent forward, nose almost touching his knees and hands convulsively clutching and releasing at his hair. Face was crouched near the head of his cot, murmuring lowly and rubbing the pilot's back. Neither of them looked up as Hannibal moved over, but the Colonel could tell by Face's slight shift of body language that his Lieutenant knew he was there.

"I just want it to stop," Murdock was saying through gritted teeth. "I can't-" He broke off with a low sound of pain. "I hate this. I want it to stop."

What could you say to that? "Here, have a sleeping pill, things won't be better in the morning but you won't have to deal with them for a few hours"? "Yeah, I know exactly what you mean, pesky psychosis"? There was nothing to say to make it magically better, so Face wasn't trying. He could talk his way out of nearly any situation and charm the pants off a monk, but now he was muttering soothing nonsense.

"I know," he said, still rubbing circles on Murdock's back. The way the pilot was curled, his vertebrae made ridges in his sweat-soaked shirt. "I know. It's okay. I'm here. Listen to me, don't listen to them. I'm here. It's okay."

For the first time, Hannibal truly appreciated what Face had said to him that day in his office, about Hannibal not being qualified to make judgement calls about Murdock's mental health. He'd read the files, spoken to the doctors, thought he'd known all the relevant facts, but seeing the manifestation of those clinical terms and (sketchy, at best) diagnoses was a whole other monster.

From the information Hannibal had found, Murdock had experienced his first auditory hallucination at age 14. At age 16, he was diagnosed with anxiety disorder and prescribed fluvoxamine and began seeing a clinical psychologist. At 17, he experienced an increase in auditory hallucinations and reported his first visual hallucination. He suffered a psychotic break in the same year, his psychologist noting that paranoia, memory loss and uncharacteristic verbal and physical aggression towards himself and others were present during the attack. Murdock was prescribed thorazine and buspirone and his diagnosis was changed to schizophrenia.

After that, the file read like a roulette board of diagnoses, symptoms and treatments. Spin the wheel, see where it lands. What had drawn Hannibal's attention at the time, when he was first alerted to Murdock's talents by an old doctor friend from Korea, was that throughout all this, Murdock was gaining his pilot's licence at the youngest age of any American since the sixties. The Army accepted him, whitewashing his record because they knew damn well that he was the best. If they could use him and he could fly when and where they needed him to, they didn't care about the rest.

At the time, Hannibal had thought that this demonstrated Murdock's good old-fashioned toughness and a no pity, no bullshit attitude. He'd thought that his pilot could simply take a few pills, maybe have a session or two with his old doctors if he needed it, and be fit for service. Hannibal could put up with some eccentricities: Hell, it was damn entertaining to watch some of Murdock's antics around base when he first arrived, and the pilot had been so transparently thrilled about being back in active service that Hannibal had been sure he'd done the right thing. If he was totally honest with himself, he'd admit that he felt pretty proud of himself for being this troubled, brilliant young man's White Knight. Swooping in, rescuing Murdock from oppressive doctors who didn't understand that a bent mind didn't mean a broken spirit.

Watching his boys now, Hannibal tasted something bitter in the back of his throat as he realised that he'd been the one who hadn't fully understood. Was he right to have Murdock on his team? He'd never change his views on that score. But it wasn't going to be as clear-cut as he'd thought. Hannibal, for the first time in a long while, felt like a fool.

On the cot, Murdock twisted and shook, hands pulling viciously at his hair now as he tried to get away from something in his own head. Face stopped rubbing, but didn't take his hand off Murdock's back.

"I'm sorry," Murdock moaned, voice muffled by the angle of his head, tipped down towards the mattress. "I'm sorry. I can't. God." His hands fisted in his hair, jerking out and slamming back into his skull. He made that awful, low sound again. "It's so loud. I hate this. Fuck. God, it's so loud. I can't."

Face glanced at Hannibal helplessly. Hannibal didn't want to intervene – didn't want to remind Murdock of being cornered, pinned down by orderlies (or worse) – but if Murdock escalated and got violent, there could be no other option.

Reaching over, Face tried to pry Murdock's fingers open to loosen the grip on his own hair. "Hey, buddy, it's okay," he soothed. "You're not gonna like it tomorrow if you have big bald spots. That cap can't cover everything, yeah? Come on, let go for me, it's okay."

He was alternately stroking Murdock's fingers and pulling, but it didn't seem to be working. Murdock made a choked sound and groaned something incoherent.

Suddenly, to Hannibal and Face's surprise, BA was there. Swatting Face away impatiently, the bigger man grabbed Murdock's wrists and dug his thumbs into the pressure points at the base of Murdock's palms. The reaction was instantaneous: With a gasp, Murdock released his hair and raised his head, eyes red and surprised, if unfocused.

BA didn't give anyone time to question him. "Get on the bed," he told Face in a tone that had Face scooting in beside Murdock before he had time to realise that he'd just been given an order by a Corporal.

Nearly picking Murdock up off the bed entirely, BA easily manipulated the pilot so he was uncurled, practically lying in Face's lap because the cot was so small. The larger man perfunctorily arranged Murdock's arms around Face, looping around his back and across his midsection, before drawing back.

BA glared at Murdock. "Don't go pullin' at your damn hair, fool," he said sternly. "You hear me?"

Murdock nodded, jaw slack and body still wracked with tremors.

BA grunted and stomped back to his own bunk, muttering something about "crazy fools" and "gotta do everything myself" and "two thirty in the goddamn morning" as he climbed under the covers and settled himself again, back to the group.

Murdock swallowed and sniffed, fists now gripping Face's tee and warping it out of shape. Hannibal knew that it was a sign of the Lieutenant's affection for the pilot that he didn't protest the maltreatment of his nightwear. The Colonel looked over to BA's bunk, watching his breathing settle as he went back to sleep.

Well. That was unexpected.