Loyalty

“I love it when a plan comes together!” Hannibal chuckled as they walked into the front room where Face was lounging on the sofa, looking decidedly disgruntled. When the others saw this they immediately stopped smiling – everyone except Frankie.

“I know Johnny, best mission so far if you ask me!” he laughed as he jumped down onto the spare sofa.

“Well, it’s good to hear some one had a fun week” Face said, no even trying to hide the sarcasm behind the words.

The others just looked down, almost ashamed that they had a good mission whilst Face was forced to stay behind. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t wanted Face with them, in fact they had tried to smuggle Face out with them, but Stockwell had been waiting for this eventuality and had the Abels escort Face back to the house. So they had gone of the mission without him, they, like everyone else, had abandoned him Hannibal thought to himself. Similar thoughts were clouding B.A and Murdocks minds, but Frankie seemed to be totally unaware of the tension in the room.

“Hey, Faceguy I dunno what you’re complaining about. I mean you got a week holiday! That’s never gonna happen again, you should count yourself lucky!” Frankie said, patting Face on the back whilst leaning back into the sofa.

Face didn’t even dignify the statement with a reply and simply left the room slamming his door behind him. Hannibal and Murdock didn’t move, B.A on the other hand marched up to Frankie and pulled him up by his vest and slammed him hard against the wall. “Look Sucka! Faceman feeling bad enough as it is, he don’t need you saying anything else stupid and making him feel worse! Got it?” B.A growled.

Frankie just nodded, and stayed still until B.A was out of throttling distance before going back to the couch. “Sorry guys, but it’s true! Face got a whole week off, we’re never gonna get anything like that! And this means he got out of a mission, I don’t see what the big problem is” he said, keeping an eye on B.A to see what he would do.

“The big problem Frank, is that we never leave a man behind!” Murdock yelled.

This outburst just kicked Frankie into another rant “Come on! He is I.N.J.U.R.E.D for petes sake! He would have held us back” Frankie shouted, now standing directly opposite Hannibal.

This time neither Murdock or B.A said anything . Frankie took a step back, still looking directly into Hannibal’s now furious eyes. “It’s called L.O.Y.A.L.T.Y Santana. We have never left a man behind, injured or not!” Hannibal said, not yelling or growling, just speaking in a hard, even voice. Frankie said nothing and just let Hannibal continue. “Face is a member of our team. The A-TEAM! We will never leave him behind, and if you have a problem with that – you can leave”

After that there was silence. Frankie just sat down, and bowed his head in surrender.

B.A and Murdock went to the kitchen to prepare dinner, whilst Hannibal went to check on Face.

When he entered Face’s room he was surprised to see Face waiting for him. Before Hannibal could say anything though, Face spoke. “Thanks”.

With that Hannibal smiled, and then began telling Face about the next mission – and what he’d be doing for them.