Angel's Lullabye
Allison pursed her lips when she saw their disguises. Fair enough, they were at a club in 1981. Still, was that any reason to become a fashion victim? She shuddered. There was a tune playing in the background and she tried to make the most of the situation by dancing to the music.
"First charge, anachronism," Tasmin said.
Allison stopped dancing and looked at her partner. "What are you talking about?"
"That song you are hearing. That's She's a beauty by The Tubes and was first brought out in 1983. It has no business in 1981."
Allison nodded. She retrieved the pen she had stuck behind her ear and made a note on her notepad.
Face walked in and sat down next to a blonde. He offered her a drink and she offered him her hotelroom.
Allison blinked. "At least she gave her name first." She scratched her head. "Are we going to the hotel too? I'd much rather be disguised as a chambermaid."
"I think it's better we stay here." Tasmin readjusted the duffelbag over her shoulder.
"You're just doing this to spite me, aren't you?" Allison eyed her partner.
"Course I am. My whole reason for being is to get you riled up." Tasmin turned around and walked over to the bar to sit on a stool.
Allison stared after her with open mouth. Tasmin was losing it, she decided. Any PPC agent had one reason for living: to rid fics of Sues. In the in between time they aggravated their partners. Cautiously she went over to the bar, all the while keeping a close eye on Tasmin, alert for any sudden movements.
When Face was asleep the Sue left the hotelroom without waking him.
"At least that's over," Allison tried.
"It's not over yet," Tasmin replied. She scowled at the Words. "In a couple of days they are going to meet again. And she is going to tell him that she is pregnant. With his child."
"What? How? Multiple how? How does she even know this a few days after they had sex? Did she do a pregnancy test already? Are pregnancy tests that accurate? I thought they couldn't tell until the zygote had properly nested in and that takes more than a few days. And how did she find him so quickly? I thought they had a one-night-stand. Did they exchange phone numbers before they fell asleep?"
"Yes, thank you." Tasmin shook her head. "As you may have guessed the fic answers none of these questions."
The Sue further announced she was married and wanted to sign over full rights and custody to Face.
"I don't think she can do that," Tasmin said.
"Huh. She could at least first ask Face if he'd like custody."
"I don't mean that. Her husband has legal parental rights over every child born during the marriage, even if he isn't biologically the father. Both legal parents have to give up their legal rights as a parent for an adoption to be possible."
"I don't think that's a concern for this Sue. All she's concerned about is that she can't afford to divorce her husband."
"Yeah. As if adultery isn't grounds for divorce," Tasmin mumbled.
"And if she really didn't want to have this kid why doesn't she get rid of it before going through a pregnancy? She's probably still eligible for the Morning After pill."
"That I don't think. I guess she really likes to find out what it is like to be pregnant."
"She should talk to my Mum. She's got some stories that make you want to sterilize yourself with a pair of scissors."
Tasmin half grinned. Then she turned back to the Words. "Face is so stunned by all she has told him that he can't even say 'no' anymore. They are going straight over to a lawyer that probably should have his bar license revoked. Signing over a child to a fugitive. Now how is that going to meet the requirement to provide a stable home for the child?"
"I've spotted another anachronism: Face is worried about Decker. In 1981 that would be Lynch." Allison made a tally on her notepad.
''Everything seems to be in order, Monica...'' the man said, coming into the room, shuffeling through some papers.
"Right. Write up the Sue for letting an adoption procedure take minutes rather than weeks."
"Way ahead of you on that one."
After Face and the Sue left the lawyer's office Face told her as much as he thought she needed to know about the Team.
"Which would be nothing."
Allison nodded in agreement.
''The A-Team?'' she repeated again for the fifth time. ''How did I not pick this up?''
"Because you had a one-night-stand and didn't exactly waste time on chit-chat," Tasmin replied.
"Oh, I know how that could have worked. Face was about to come and went 'oh god, oh god, oh I'm a member of the A-Team'."
Tasmin glared at her partner. Allison looked away bitting her lip in an attempt not to laugh.
"You shouldn't snub it though," she said after she had more or less regained composure. "Mata Hari was shot because the French thought that strategical secrets made suitable pillow talk."
Tasmin rolled her eyes. "Face isn't French."
Allison chuckled, but stopped when Tasmin hit her in the back of the head.
Face took the Sue to meet the Team. They talked for a while, but none of them voiced any concern over Face adopting a child.
"You'd think that Face of all people would have an idea of what kind of home life he'd want for a child," Allison said.
"The Sue probably figures that with Face's experience in an orphanage he wouldn't want that to happen to his own child."
"And with Face's own experience as a fugitive he probably wouldn't want that to happen to his child either."
The Team agreed to leave now, but to come back around the time the baby would be born.
"That would give us about nine months to knock some sense into the Team," Allison said.
"We're not gonna talk to the Team. Things always get out of hand when you talk to the Team."
Allison rolled her eyes. "Once," she said. "They did once. And the Team became helpful in sorting the Sue out. They could be here as well."
"We're not dealing with an ordinary Sue here."
"I think not ordinary is a characteristic of every Sue."
"That Sue is doctor Monica Quartermaine. A character from General Hospital
Allison shrugged. "So? Never heard of it."
"It's a long running drama series. We have to return that Sue to her own fandom."
"The sooner the better, I'd say."
"Well, nothing interesting is going to happen here for another nine months. Let's do like the Team and come back when the baby is due." Tasmin got the remote activator from her bag and jumped off her stool.
"And please, some normal clothes for disguises this time."
-oOo-
Allison looked around the living room. "Whose place is this?"
Tasmin pointed to Face sleeping on the sofa.
"No one we're going to meet then." Allison turned her attention to the Words. "You made us skip quite a bit."
"Not much interesting happened in the meantime." Tasmin put down her bag and walked over to Face. She carefully picked up the baby sleeping on his chest.
"That's interesting though." Allison pointed a few sentences out.
"Ahhhh, well... I dunno, Hannibal..." he admitted, raking his fingers through his golden-blonde hair. "A child is... you know what I'm saying here?"
"A heavy responsibility?" he guessed.
"Yes! I..." he almost admitted he was worried about being able to handle it, but he just... couldn't...
"What's interesting about it?"
Allison threw her partner a look. She frowned at her holding the baby. "While the Sue is in labor it finally occurs to him that it may not be a good idea to have a child. Why wasn't that the first thought on his mind? He even sat in that lawyer's office and thought about being a fugitive. Why didn't it occur to him then that fugitive and child is a bad combination?"
"Making sense is not the strongest point of Suefics."
"But it could have occurred to the Sue that none of them have current addresses, with the exception of Murdock, and he's not allowed to adopt due to reasons of sanity. The only one for which I could see this work is BA. If he got a baby that the mother wasn't capable of taking care of he would call his mum." Tasmin didn't reply so Allison continued. "You know what's funny? He named the baby Emily. Hannibal had a daughter named Emily."
"That's just a coincidence," Tasmin replied. "This Emily is going to be a canon in General Hospital."
"Will you put that baby down? We're not taking her with us. We already have Trent and the minis."
"Of course we won't take her with us. As I said, she's canon." Tasmin placed the baby back on Face's chest being careful to place her on her back.
There was a noise at the door and the agents quickly dove behind the sofa.
Hannibal came in and woke Face up. He told him the Team was going on a mission. Face asked the Team to help him interview prospective sitters.
Allison grabbed Tasmin by her wrist. "You are not getting up and applying for the job."
"What makes you think I want to do that?"
"The way you were holding that baby a moment ago."
Tasmin didn't reply, but looked away.
Face turned down all the candidates. Allison groaned about having seen that scene in a movie some time. Finally, BA called his mother and Mrs Baracus immediately flew from Chicago to LA to help out. That made Allison and Tasmin both groan.
"Oh, isn't she just the most precious thing?" Mrs B. cooed, picking Emily up. "Oh, Face, I can see she takes after her Daddy..."
"The child is a week old," Allison mumbled. "At this moment she looks like most babies: small with little hair."
Baby Emily stuck her thumb in her mouth and Face removed it insisting it was bad for the shape of her mouth. Mrs Baracus put some bitter tasting stuff on the thumb to make the baby stop putting it in her mouth.
This made both agents pop their heads out above the sofa to look at the scene with their own eyes.
"Do week old babies already suck their thumb?" Allison asked. "I know they don't really cry yet at that age. They just holler for attention. So there's probably other baby related things they can't do yet."
"Most babies start sucking their thumb at around two or three months of age, but some already suck their thumb in the womb. And it's not a problem they suck their thumb until they get their permanent teeth." Tasmin shook her head. "I can't believe Mrs B. is indulging Face in this. She ought to slap him upside the head and tell him that it's okay for babies to suck their thumbs for the first two or three years."
"I think perhaps Mrs B. didn't come flying all the way out to LA. I think she sent a clone."
"I wouldn't be at all surprised if that was the case." Tasmin ducked down and started to crawl towards her duffelbag.
Allison sat back and looked on in wonder. Tasmin got the remote activator from her bag and opened a portal.
"Where are we going now?"
"Borneo. Or as the Sue calls it Bornio."
-oOo-
The agents sat squatted in the shrubbery overlooking a small compound.
"This looks awfully familiar," Allison said.
Tasmin turned to the Words. "The Team are hired by the WSB, the World Spy Bureau, to get one of their spies out of Borneo."
"WSB? I thought the whole point of spying was that you did it on your enemies. Particularly enemy nations. Who would hire an internationally operating freelancer for that? They'd probably spy on you in return."
"Idea poverty." Tasmin shrugged.
"And even if there was such a thing, can't they take care of their own? James Bond never needed the A-Team to get him out of a pickle."
"That's because the A-Team are always particularly incompetent in Borneo," Tasmin said as BA, Face and Hannibal stormed the compound and managed to get caught, again.
"This is that episode again!" Allison exclaimed. "It already got mangled by a Sue once. By the way, a Sue that also thought it was a good idea for Face to take care of children. What is it with Sues and Borneo that it makes them want to nest?"
"What is it with Sues and wanting to butcher One More Time?"
"Because it's fun to see the Team stumble into the kitchen?"
"It's not like the Team didn't stumble into things any other time."
Both agents watched as the events of One More Time unfolded in the absence of both female characters that had been present originally.
"Hey, is Amy going to make an appearance at all in this story?" Allison asked. "What would she make of a fugitive raising a child?"
"I don't know. Let's go see." Tasmin took the remote activator and opened a portal.
-oOo-
Allison looked around the apartment. "Where are we now?"
"Mrs Baracus' apartment. After the Borneo mission Face took care of the baby a couple of days and then she went to Mrs B.."
"Wouldn't it be easier to just leave her with Mrs B.? Best chance for a stable home life."
The Team and Amy arrived and received a warm welcome from Mrs Baracus.
Amy, though, nearly got the shock of her life when she saw Face go to the bassinett and lift up a baby-girl that was unmistakably his...
"The baby is now two weeks old," Allison said. "The only thing unmistakable at first glance is that BA isn't the father. Unless she has 'Face's girl' written across her bold little skull in waterproof marker."
Tasmin slapped her partner upside the head.
"All right," Allison said stepping out of arm's range of Tasmin. "She doesn't have anything written on her skull."
Amy was surprised to hear Face was raising a kid on his own.
"Why are we the only two bothered by the fact that Face is going to haul this child across country on a regular basis?" Allison exclaimed.
"It gets even worse. They're going to drop Amy off in LA and then they are going to drive to Port Charles to visit the Sue."
Allison blinked. "LA is in California."
"And Port Charles is in New York."
Allison shook her head. "It's bad enough Americans don't know world geography. But to not even know your own geography. Is there anything in the Words to imply that they took Amy to O'Hara airport so she could take a flight to LA?"
"Nope. It says they dropped her back in LA."
"They drove two-thirds across the country to give someone a lift home? And then they drive all the way across country to pay someone else a visit? With a baby on board? I hope the child cried all the way so they realized the stupidity of their actions properly."
"I blame the Internet : it makes distances disappear."
-oOo-
In Port Charles the Sue convinced Face to let her take out the baby and Tasmin and Allison decided that this was the time to step in. The Sue had taken the baby to her place of work. Which was good, according to Tasmin; it meant she was in her own canon.
"Monica Quartermaine, could we talk to you for a moment." Tasmin flashed her a badge.
"Uh, yes, I guess so. I think we better step into my office where we have a little privacy."
The agents followed the Sue as she led them into an office.
"Do sit down. What is this about?"
"We understand you recently had a baby." Tasmin looked pointedly at the baby in the Sue's arms. "And then you signed over full parental rights to a known fugitive."
"He is the baby's father. But it this is about him ... I don't know where he is right now."
"So he just left you holding the baby?" Allison asked.
"Yes, he did."
"We don't believe you," Tasmin said. "But that is not the point. We're here because your involvement with Face is screwing with the canon: it makes Face think of Decker years before they first heard of him; it makes them meet Amy and Mrs Baracus years before they first met them; it makes them stumble around Borneo years before they ought to; it makes them run up the mileage on the van, what with them based in LA and their nanny in Chicago."
"I don't see what the problem is."
"The problem is that it is distorting canon. If you wanted to have a baby with Face, okay, have a baby with Face, but could you at least take into consideration that he is a fugitive and a soldier of fortune? The A-Team is an 80s TV show. These guys are not metrosexuals. They'd probably laugh at metrosexuals and call them Sissies."
"I don't see what can be done about that now."
"We want you and that baby out of Face's life." Tasmin pulled a small metal case from her duffelbag. She opened it and gave one of the sunglasses in it to her partner. The other she put on herself. Then she took the neutralizer from the case. "Please look into the red light." She pressed the button and the neutralizer emitted a red light and a high pitched sound.
Monica, formerly the Sue, sat back in her chair, dazed.
Tasmin packed up the equipment. "Let's take that baby to her proper place in canon, and go home."
Allison picked up the baby. "She going to be all right, you think?" She nodded to Monica.
"She's going to feel a bit groggy for a few hours, but she'll be okay." Tasmin opened up a portal. "Let's go."