The Look Of Love
"It's good to be back in A-Team fic," Allison said as she stepped through the portal into the storage room where the first scene of the fic was set. She spread her arms and took a deep breath. "It feels like ages since we were here last."
Tasmin gave her partner an odd look. "It's not going to work."
"What is?"
"Optimism and a positive mind-set. Badfic has a way of squelching that."
Allison shrugged. "We'll see."
A door opened and the Stu entered the storage room. Tasmin quickly pushed her partner behind some mattresses that leant against a wall, before the Stu turned on the light and spotted them.
This man had graying brown hair and brown eyes. He was dressed in jeans and a tan jacket. He turned on the lights, but still didn't see anything.
"Why are we hiding from a blind man?" Allison whispered.
"He's not blind. He just doesn't register his surroundings very well."
"Should I write him up for giving a description of what he looks like when it's too dark to see?"
"That would be extremely nitpicky."
"Just asking."
Hannibal stepped away from a banner with a clown's face painted on and told the Stu he had found the A-Team. Then he called the rest of the Team to come out of their respective hiding places.
BA drowning in gold appeared
"Quickly, throw the man a lifesaver."
Tasmin slapped her partner in the back of the head.
Allison rubbed the sore spot and scowled at her partner. "I don't think it's the badfic that squelches positive mind-sets."
Murdock lowered himself into the gathering from the ceiling.
"Why's he hanging from the ceiling?"
"Don't know. Probably to show he's quirky. That would be a charge."
"Are you sure? It seems rather nitpicky."
Tasmin glared at her partner.
"So, if you spot it, it's a charge and when I spot it, it's a nitpick?"
"Pretty much."
"Glad we got that misunderstanding out of the way," Allison muttered under her breath. She flicked to an empty page on her notepad and started to scribble.
Meanwhile, Amy took one look at the Team's prospective client -- the Stu -- and gasped in surprise.
Then she tipped her head back, winced slightly and muttered, "I'm in trouble."
"Why would she be in trouble?"
"The Stu is her father. She just said so."
"Well, yes, that would be troublesome, but why would she know that spells trouble for her."
The Stu was equally shocked to see Amy.
"What are you doing here? I want you to go on home right now!"
The agents were shocked Amy didn't baulk at being treated like a child.
"Go home, he says. To his daughter, the investigative reporter."
"I guess that explains why Amy never mentioned any living relatives," Allison said. "I'd keep a relative like that at a great distance."
The Stu asked Amy who the other men were and she introduced them.
Gary Allen was stunned, his little girl, his good little girl, with fugitives?
"If having double standards was a charge, it would now be on the list," Allison said. "He can hang out with fugitives, but his daughter can't?"
"That's how double standards work."
The Stu again suggested to Amy to go home.
"Gary Allen," Hannibal said to Amy's father, "What seems to be the trouble?"
"My daughter is here, and I can't sell you out to the military when she's here too," Allison said.
"That could be a reasonable explanation of this treatment of Amy. Not a good explanation why Amy lets him get away with taking to her like that."
The Stu, however, did not explain what his problem was with Amy in the room, but did elaborate on the situation he wanted to hire the Team for.
"Shouldn't Hannibal already know all this? The client tells Mr Lee why he wants to hire the Team, and Hannibal re-iterates what he supposedly heard from Mr Lee. Then Hannibal, by the way, could have already told Amy her dad tried to hire them."
"Or he neglected to mention that because he wanted to see that look of surprise on her face."
"I'm sure he would have mentioned it, if only to find out why Mr Allen is not going through Ms Allen to hire the Team. I mean, if the Allens are not related, sure, but-"
"With Amy's name frequently appearing in the byline of stories on the Team you'd think that someone who knows Amy would tap her to get to the Team," Tasmin finished. "Charge."
"Unless the Stu wanted to set up the Team and leave Amy out."
"If he wanted to leave Amy out of it, shouldn't he have made sure Amy was actually out? Like out of the country out? No, charge this man with not having an interest in his daughter's career, and with not making Hannibal suspicious. He doesn't send people around town so the Team can check them out just for kicks."
"I don't think my dad is actually that up to date on my career."
"You don't write for a local newspaper. All he has to do is get a subscription and turn some pages. Yours needs lots of headache medication."
The Stu said his problem was a local bully who was threatening shop owners into selling their businesses to him so he could use the buildings for property development. Amy agreed the bully should be stopped. She indicated that she knew him.
Which surprised the agents again.
"If Amy already knows about the activities of this bully, then why did she never try to get the Team involved to help out?"
"She must not like her dad much."
Hannibal shook the Stu's hand and congratulated him on hiring the A-Team. Face slipped him a note with the Team's fee and said it included a two percent discount for being a relative.
"Two percent? That's two free bullets out of every hundred the Team fires off. That's not much of a discount."
Hannibal started arguing with Face that they did not give discounts, which Tasmin thought might be technically true, but considering that the Team occasionally worked for free or took a percentage of the profit they helped establish, she also thought Hannibal was arguing a moot point.
Hannibal and BA left to go to the van. Face grabbed Amy by her arms and looked into her eyes. He asked if she was sure she wanted to work this case with the Team.
"Of course I want to Face," she told him smiling, a very familiar twinkle in her eye. "I can't let you and Hannibal hog all the jazz, now can I?"
"Really not like her dad," Tasmin said. "She cares more about the jazz than about helping out her father."
"We knew from the start that that father-daughter relationship was messed up. There should be no surprises here."
Amy, too, left. Face smirked at her father and the two of them left the storage room too. The Stu switched off the light.
Tasmin rummaged through her duffel bag. "Here, hold the flash light."
"Shouldn't we be moving on to the next scene?" Allison shone the beam of light in her partner's face.
"Murdock's still here."
"He is?"
"Hannibal? BA! Faceman?! Triple A? Surely you guys are going to help me….Pwease?" he whimpered.
Allison quickly scrambled up and rushed to Murdock who was still suspended from the ceiling. She shone the light in this face. Murdock blinked and Allison moved the beam away from him, briefly past her own face to show him who she was.
"What are you doing?"
"I seem to be unable to get down. Can you help? That's why you're here, right? To help me. Or is there another of those Sue women after me?"
"I don't know. Is there?" Allison looked at Tasmin.
"No." Tasmin pulled a machete from her bag and a moment later Murdock landed with a dull thud.
"Ow. Thanks." He got up, rubbing and twisting his wrist. "That's a big knife you're carrying, Tasmin. Remind me to stay on your good side."
"You can, by forgetting you saw us and going to the van." Tasmin put the machete in its leather pouch and returned it to her bag.
"Can I help with your case? I could be a spy. Well, I didn't bring my trench coat, but I could improvise. That's what spies do, and it would be a better persona than alpinist, because, as you can see, I fail at that."
Tasmin took a small cylinder from a box she pulled from her bag and donned a pair of sunglasses. Allison quickly shielded her eyes with her hand. A flash of red light stopped Murdock from rattling on.
"You go to the van. You are the last to leave the storage room because you wanted to make sure the Team had not left any traces behind."
Murdock turned on his heels and started walking towards the back door.
"And you don't call Amy 'Triple A'," Allison called after him.
"No 'Triple A'," Murdock muttered.
A door opened and closed and the two agents were alone in the storage room.
"Was it necessary to flash him?"
"Yes, it was. It's better if he doesn't know there are PPC agents around. Makes it less likely for him to point us out to the Stu. Or the rest of the Team. Do I need to remind you of what happened to agent Delron, who thought it was a good idea if characters under the Suefluence knew there was a PPC agent around?"
Allison shivered. "Murdock's not like that. Team's not like that."
"All the same, I don't want them pointing their guns at me. Again," she added.
Allison grumbled. "Open up a portal so we can go to the next scene."
"The next scene is in the van. It would be a bit too crowded." Tasmin pointed at the Words. "We're reading those instead."
The Words said the whole Team plus Amy and the Stu were packed into the van. The Stu sat in Face's place and gave directions.
"I take it the Stu didn't come to the meeting place with his own transportation."
"Can't charge a man for taking the bus."
"That would be bus fare."
Tasmin rolled her eyes. "Just read the Words."
BA and Murdock argued over Billy, to the amusement of the others until Amy made them stop.
Amy slid back into the seat next to Face, who draped his arm casually over her shoulders.
"What's he doing that for?"
"I guess you missed the memo that this is a Face-Amy romance."
"That explains why he isn't in his own seat."
"Not really. At this point Face and Amy are keeping their relationship private. No one else knows."
"Not for long. Only one of the others needs to turn his head and see Face and Amy cuddle in the back seat and that's the end of that secret."
"Either he's bad at keeping secrets or he wants the others to find out."
"It's generally believed that if Amy started a relationship with any of them, she'd be off the Team," Allison said. "On the grounds of being a distraction and all. So, is Face putting that theory to the test or does he want Amy off the Team, but is afraid to say so to her face?"
"He wouldn't be the only one to not come straight out with his concerns about Amy on the Team."
"If they don't want her on the Team, wouldn't it be easier to just not pick her up before they go on a mission?"
"That's the way the writers eventually went."
Hannibal's preliminary plan was to go to the Stu's house. They drove on in silence for a while, and apparently the Stu had stopped giving directions, because suddenly Amy shouted out that BA had missed his turn.
"Then don't tell me how to drive my van!" BA yelled. Somebody awoke on the wrong side of the van this morning.
"Suggesting that BA sleeps in the van," Allison said.
"Or that he sleeps next to it. Which is probably not thought of as too outrageous in fandom."
Allison turned and shone the light of the torch she was still holding in her partner's face. "Is there any particular reason you are being this forgiving towards this fic?"
"I'm not being forgiving." Tasmin tried to get out of the beam, but Allison followed her moves.
"Did you write this?"
"'Course not."
"Anyone you know?"
"Never met them."
"Did you take any funny looking candy from a baby? Or from a clubber?"
Tasmin glared at her partner.
"Just running down the options."
"And I'm just giving alternative interpretations of what the lines in the fic can mean. And no, that's not the same as being forgiving. It means I want a charge for being too ambiguous."
"I don't think there's a charge like that on the list."
"It defaults under annoying PPC agents. Give me that." Tasmin grabbed the torch and pulled it from her partner's hand. "And stop annoying me, before I charge you."
Allison thought it better not to challenge that remark.
The Team arrived at the Stu's house and all piled out of the van. They went into the house where they met the Stu's wife.
Mrs. Allen was a quiet aging woman, who seemed to adore Murdock.
"Are you sure this isn't another one of those Murdock chasers?" Allison asked. "The man barely set a foot across the threshold and she already adores him."
"I'm sure she adores him in the cute puppy sense."
The Stu's wife gave Amy a hug and then asked her husband who all these people in her living room were. The Stu said Amy should explain.
"He's not much of a talker, is he? Doesn't talk to Amy about hiring the Team, doesn't even mention to his wife he wants to hire the A-Team, and now he lets Amy explain why the Team is at his house."
Hannibal noted Face was rubbing Amy's arm affectionately, but thought nothing of it. He ascribed it to them being friends.
"I've heard the expression that love is blind, and stupid," Allison said. "I never thought it made the people around you stupid as well."
Hannibal and BA sat down at the kitchen table with the Stu and his wife to let them explain the whole situation. Murdock sat down on the floor to play with his dog.
"And Face was stealing kisses from Amy in the pantry," Tasmin said.
"What?"
Tasmin pointed at the Words.
Face and Amy were in their own little world, as Face had his arms wrapped around her, holding her. Of course, they knew they had to be weary of Hannibal, but they figured, that at the moment Hannibal thought that Face was just being a loyal friend.
"Charge for not all of them paying attention when the problem is explained," Allison said. "Can you shine that light this way so that I can see what I'm writing down? Not listening could mean they could miss out on some information that might save their lives."
Face and Amy started to fall asleep. The Stu's wife suddenly jumped up and apologised for not having fed everyone. Face said they were more tired than anything, and Amy asked if they could all stay the night. Which was fine with the Allens.
"Got to love a family that can put up five unannounced house guests at a moment's notice," Tasmin said.
"No, I don't."
Amy was give her old room -- which hadn't changed since she had left home for college -- and Face tucked her in. Amy, who had even been too tired to take off her clothes before getting into bed, fell asleep immediately. Face went back to the living room.
The Allen's had prepared a place for him on one of the couches in the living room for him to sleep, and a place for Murdock and Billy on the other. They told Hannibal that he could have the guest room upstairs.
"And I guess BA has to sleep in the van again," Allison said.
"That probably explains why he's so grumpy most of the time. I can't imagine the van is very comfortable for sleeping, at least not if you have to sleep there regularly."
A scene break caused a temporary blackout -- not that the agents noticed much of this; they were sitting in a dark storage room -- but when the Words lit up again, a new dawn had broken.
Face woke up in a strange living room and it took him a moment to realise where he was.
As he got up, he rubbed the back of his neck as he thought about his girlfriend….Hopefully Hannibal or her parents weren't suspicious of them or anything. That would be bad! Hannibal has that no fraternizing rule, and he doesn't want Amy off the team, because of them being together.
"If he doesn't want Amy off the Team then why is he fraternising with her so openly?"
"Apparently, he thinks he can put his arm around her shoulder, rub her affectionately and escort her to bed because Hannibal will just think they are close friends."
"If one of my friends escorted me to bed to tuck me in, we'd be having a 'mate, boundaries' conversation."
Face went into the kitchen where he took his coffee exactly the same way Amy did.
"In a cup," Tasmin said. "With a little chip off the rim."
"Good. For a moment I thought they were just nauseatingly cute."
Murdock ran into the kitchen. He had misplaced his imaginary dog.
"I think the Billy card is overplayed here," Allison said. "How often did he mention that dog in canon?"
"Not as often as in this fic. I think he's gotten a mention in almost every scene."
Hannibal calmed Murdock down. Face got up to take a shower, and Hannibal sat down to explain his plan to deal with the bully.
"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine; you make me happy when skies are gray…."
"Charge," both agents said in unison.
"Never mind that it's Amy doing the singing, it's still annoying."
"More annoying," Allison said, "she's singing it because it's Face's favourite song."
"Still more annoying, she's interrupting Hannibal while he's explaining his plan."
"I think we were wrong. She's the one that wants to get her kicked off the Team."
Tasmin considered this option. "The narrative says she doesn't, but her actions speak louder than those words."
"Do you suppose this is crack!fic?"
"Crack!fic is no excuse for OOCness."
After Amy apologised Hannibal told the others about his plan. Face only caught the last few lines, but he knew exactly what to do: take Amy with him on a scam.
Amy put on a tight red dress and then argued with Face about whose car to take, his or hers.
"Does it matter?" Allison asked. "They drove to the Allens in the van. I doubt either car is parked in front of the house."
They took Face's car, and Allison wrote down the charge.
Face's scam consisted of driving to the bully's office, pretend to be a couple looking for a place where they could use their vouchers for a family portrait, and plant a bug. Tasmin pointed out that the flaw in his plan was that it relied heavily on the absence of a receptionist or secretary, or anyone else that could turn away strays.
"Actually, the plan seems to be to run into the bully in the lobby. Where Amy can get frisky with him and drop the bug in his pocket."
"Charge, too much reliance on chance."
When Amy and Face returned from their scam Murdock ran up to them and asked if they had found Billy.
"That flash thing, that's supposed to be harmless, isn't it?" Allison asked with concern.
"It's never been field tested on the mentally ill-"
"Despite the fact there're plenty of insane guinea pigs, I mean agents, walking around HQ."
"But the only thing it should do is make canons forget about meeting PPC agents, and forget about what the Sue has done to them."
"So, we blame his Billy obsession on the Stu?"
"Of course."
Face went to BA to check if the bug had been planted successfully. Hannibal studied him and asked if there was something going on between him and Amy. Face denied there was.
"There is nothing going on between Amy and me! We're just friends!"
"At least he stopped short of spitting on the floor and announcing that girls are icky."
"He can only go so far before Hannibal stops taking him seriously."
Meanwhile, Amy was confronted with the same question by her father in the kitchen. She asked him why he thought that.
"You seem a lot more comfortable in front of him, than anyone else from the A-Team, and because you seem to be spending a lot of time with him," her father said.
"Not interested in reading his daughter's newspaper articles, but interested in reading his daughter's body language. Most dads would be more comfortable with knowledge about their daughter's careers than with their love lives."
"That, or Face and Amy were that obvious about it."
Amy felt uncomfortable telling her dad nothing was going on. She looked for Face and told him she thought they should tell the others about them. Face didn't want to risk it, but Amy said she didn't want to lie to her parents, so Face agreed they should come clean.
"That man'll agree to anything if you slip him some tongue," Allison said. "Amy doesn't seem to speak to her parents that often. All Face had to do was ask her to hold out for a few more days and she could have gone back to not lying to her parents by ignoring them."
The Team was getting ready for Hannibal's plan and Hannibal was on the jazz, which Face described as an adrenaline rush. It sounded to Tasmin more like he had a mental disorder, seeing as Hannibal had called Decker to up the ante.
"I want to stretch my legs. Can we go somewhere?"
Tasmin nodded her approval. There was a scene coming up where the Team would meet the bully and some goons that accompanied him. She set the disguise generator to generic extra and opened a portal that made it look like the agents came tumbling out of the car along with the rest of the goons. The scene was nondescript. There was a parking lot -- but no indication of its size -- and the paint shop owned by the Stu. The agents easily spotted the van, but chose to ignore it, as did the goons, and went into the shop.
In the shop the bully greeted the Stu and then all of them just stood around waiting for the Team to show up. They only had to wait a few moments before the Team came in. Hannibal told everyone to put their hands up -- which all did -- and Murdock started to ramble about paint brushes to the bully, who remained unfazed.
Hannibal warned the bully to go away and fired off some rounds near his feet and above his head.
"This is almost like a bad cowboy film," Allison whispered to Tasmin.
"At least in a cowboy movie the bad guy taunts the good guy, to make things interesting. Where's the taunting here? More specifically, the taunting by the good guy? Charge for not taunting, and charge for wrecking the client's place of business without being duly provoked."
Allison nodded in agreement. The action halted again and Allison glanced the Words to see why.
Amy, who had been told to stay in the van, had other plans.
She weaseled her way onto the team for the jazz, not to tag-a-long.
Allison nudged her partner. "As a goon, would I look suspicious with a notepad in my hand?"
"Probably, most A-Team goons are as dumb as bricks."
One of the goons, however, proved clever enough to catch Amy hiding in the back. He brought a struggling Amy into the shop.
The bully immediately caught on to the look on Face's face -- probably aided by the fact he had met the two of them before -- and ordered Amy to be killed.
"Strong talk for a man that held up his hands when Hannibal told him to."
"The balance of power has shifted rather unexpectedly."
"Also note how the Stu is not reacting to this threat to his daughter's life. Could it be shock?"
"Could it be an omniscient narrator that can only focus on one or two characters and their emotions at the same time?"
Face pointed his gun at the goon and told him to let go of Amy. When the goon did not comply, he tossed his gun to Murdock and attacked the goon with his bare hands.
"Who, again, were you saying was as dumb as a brick?"
"Let's just hope this doesn't turn into a free for all punch out. BA looks like he'd welcome the exercise."
When Face was finished that goon, he grabbed Amy, and freed her of Felix Bauer's grasp, and went with her outside to the van, leaving BA, Murdock, and Hannibal to clean up this mess.
The Stu grabbed some brooms from the cupboard in the back and distributed them among the Team. Without a word the men holstered their guns and got to work sweeping up the debris Hannibal had caused by firing his gun indoors. BA whipped up some cove mix to fill the holes in ceiling and floor.
Allison tentatively pulled on her partner's sleeve. "I think we should leave."
Tasmin nodded and the agents cautiously moved towards the door. They were nearly knocked over by Face who came back in to fetch the Team because Decker had arrived. The agents jumped out of the way when the Team stormed out of the shop. Murdock was still clutching a broom, but he threw it away before he hopped on the van.
This time, Amy stayed in the van, knowing that it would be very bad for her to be caught with the A-Team by Decker, especially when he is already suspicious about her.
"Yes, because there would be absolutely no way for her to explain what she's doing at her father's shop."
-oOo-
BA managed to shake off Decker and then drove back to the Allens' house.
"Is that safe?" Allison asked. She and Tasmin were still standing on the pavement in front of the Stu's paint shop. "If Decker knows the Team were at Gary Allen's shop, he might infer they are helping him, and try to find out Allen's home address on a hunch he can catch the Team there."
"I doubt Decker is that smart in this fic."
"Question isn't whether he is in this fic, but whether he could be that smart."
"This is set early season two, Decker is probably not familiar enough with the Team's modus operandi. Later on, yeah, I think he'd make that connection."
Hannibal, BA, Murdock, and Mr. and Mrs. Allen were all in the kitchen, discussing their next plan of action, when Amy walked into the living room, where they were all gathered.
"I feel motion sickness just from reading that," Allison said.
Amy announced she and Face had something to tell them. Everyone was surprised to hear Face and Amy were dating, except for Murdock who had always thought they'd be a great couple. Some questions were asked, and Amy assured Hannibal that they wouldn't do couple things while doing team things. They'd be just friends on the Team.
"How does she think that works? Love doesn't have an off-switch."
Hannibal, however, was swayed by this argument and the Team all gave their thumbs up to the relationship. Then Amy turned to her parents. Amy's mother immediately welcomed Face into the family. The Stu had some reservations. After all, Face was a criminal and he didn't want Amy to end up as one too.
"He's not a criminal!" Amy shouted to her father, "They're fugitives, because they never committed a crime! They went to a federal prison, because they were convicted of a crime they never committed. They promptly escaped from prison, because they weren't about to spend their lives in prison for no reason."
"Nice to see she retold the opening sequence in her own words," Tasmin said. "Too bad she changed military stockade for federal prison. Those are not the same."
"And she also left out the part where they were accused of a crime they didn't commit. She not the kind of reporter that leaves out important bits of information out like that. I blame the parents for this."
Face managed to convince the Stu of the love for his daughter and the Stu gave his blessing too.
"And all was merry and well in the land of the Allens," Allison said.
"I think we should go to the land of the Allens. Or at least to the Allen house. We've got to catch that Stu some time, and his own house seems like the best place." Tasmin opened up a portal.
-oOo-
The agents stepped into Amy's childhood bedroom just at the end of the chapter. The room was empty; it was safe for the agents. Allison was thus properly startled when a disembodied voice rang out.
Okay, so this chapter was mostly Face and Amy, but it was still good. Plus in the beginning of the chapter, you got to see the MP's chasing them. I would have made the chase more exciting, but I didn't know how to do it. They finally told them all about their relationship, and they all accepted it.
"What was that?" Allison cowered with her hands over her head.
"Author's note. She decided to re-cap the chapter for us."
"In case we'd miss something by going through it?"
"I guess."
"I think I missed the part where it was good."
"The author is entitled to her opinion as much as we are."
The disembodied voice paused briefly and then announced the new chapter. The agents each took a seat in Amy's room -- Allison on the bed, Tasmin on the chair by the desk -- and turned their attention to the Words.
Everyone was gathered in the living room and Hannibal was once again telling them his plan.
"How many times have we been told already he was telling his plan? And how many of those times were we actually told this plan?" Allison asked.
"I count three to one. At least, if you count the mention that this latest plan involves getting caught by Decker."
"How's that going to help get the bully off the Stu's back?"
"I don't know. He didn't elaborate."
"I'm expecting BA to say, 'Oh man, that's a bad plan'."
"Same here."
The only one to show concern, however, was the Stu. He was worried about Amy's safety. Hannibal assured him she was going to be fine and then got up to make a call to Decker -- for the second time since he had met the Stu.
Amy had left the room earlier. When the Stu had inquired about her safety she had felt he was treating her like a little kid. Rather than confront him, or saying, 'Thanks, I can take care of myself', she had walked out of the meeting. Later she passed Hannibal on the stairs. He said, "Hey kid" and she screamed in response. She screamed again when Face called her kid too and locked herself in her bedroom to sulk.
"Guess she'd fed up with being treated like a kid," Allison said. She jumped out of the way when Amy threw herself on the bed. "And she responds by starting to behave like a two-year-old. Makes sense."
A little while later Murdock knocked on the door. He came to talk to Amy. Amy let him in and they both sat down on the bed. Allison, confident neither of them could see her -- they both ignored her -- stood in front of them, her arms crossed, scowling at them.
Amy explained that she was tired of her dad always treating her like a kid, and that she was afraid that the others would start to treat her like a kid too. Murdock exclaimed that she was nuts. The Team would never treat her like a kid, and as for her dad... she should be glad he loved her. He pointed out there were people without fathers.
They wish their father would treat them like a kid, because they would know they were loved.
"Yeah, love is all you need. Never mind about being respected as a person."
Amy thought Murdock was right and hugged him. Her dad treated her like a kid because he loved her.
"You could argue -- which you probably won't, but I will -- that her dad loves the kid version of her," Allison said to Murdock and Amy. "He doesn't love the person that she is. So, technically, he doesn't love her at all."
Tasmin frowned. "There's not much canon evidence on how Murdock would feel in this debate, but I don't think he would go all out love trumps respect."
Murdock and Amy got up and went down the stairs. It was time for the Team to put Hannibal's plan into action.
The agents waited until they heard the van and Face's Corvette drive off. They knew it was time to put their plan into action. Tasmin pulled her Colt M1911 from her bag and screwed a silencer on. She opened the door to Amy's room. She held a finger to her lips. Allison nodded. Cautiously, the agents left the room, crept down the stairs and walked into the living room.
The Stu and his wife were sitting on the sofa. They looked up when Tasmin coughed. They startled when they saw her gun, but not much.
"Darling, who are these people?" The Stu's wife nudged her husband.
"Gary Allen, we are Protectors of the Plot Continuum," Allison said. "We are here to charge you with crimes against fanfiction and against A-Team fiction in particular."
"What are you talking about?"
"I will elaborate. You are charged with tense switches, some bad spelling and the occasional poor choice of words." Allison looked at the Stu. He returned a blank look. "Moving on. We charge you with making all of the Team behave out of character. Not many get BA to be unlike himself, but you did. You made him not question the stupidity of Hannibal's plan to call Decker. We charge you with making Hannibal call Decker. Twice. Granted, the guy loves the thrill of the chase, but he isn't as stupid as to call Decker -- repeatedly -- to play cat and mouse.
"We charge you with telling one thing, and showing another. The narration says Face and Amy want to keep their relationship a secret because they don't want the others to find out and kick Amy off the Team. Their behaviour, however, tells a different story. They are openly affectionate, and in Amy's case, openly defiant of Hannibal. This makes it look like they do want to get her kicked of the Team.
"We charge you with using caricature as a substitute for characterisation, to wit, making Murdock rappel from the ceiling, talking about paint brushes and making him overly obsessed with Billy. We charge you with using the nickname Triple A. That's not Amy's nickname. Hannibal only once ever noted it were her initials. We charge you with making Face's scam rely entirely on luck to run into the mark.
"We charge you with having Amy sing a song while Hannibal is explaining his plan. We charge you with mistaking a stockade for a federal prison. I'm sure Amy knows the difference. And she'd also know that a person doesn't become a fugitive just for not committing a crime. There's a little more to it than that. We charge you with Amy not confronting you when you treat her like a five-year-old. We charge you with Amy starting to behave like that five year old. We charge you with Amy still thinking you love her, even though you did not respond at all when the bully threatened to kill her." Allison looked at the Stu. "Much like you are not responding now.
"Let's see. We charge you with making everyone look stupid. Hannibal with his plans to call Decker; Hannibal not thinking anything of Face and Amy are cuddling; Face throwing his gun aside to beat someone up; Amy for thinking she can't explain her presence at her father's shop to Decker; Hannibal for not doing a good security check on you and finding out that you are related to Amy, but did not go through her to contact the Team. I find that very suspicious.
"We charge you with having the Team wreck your place, and then cleaning up their mess. We charge you with annoying PPC agents. I'm done." Allison closed her notepad. "I'm a bit hoarse. I need some water." She turned around and grabbed Tasmin's duffel bag to search for a bottle of water.
The Stu, his wife, and Tasmin all looked at Allison. Tasmin was the first to speak. "You have been charged," she said to the Stu. "Your punishment for these crimes is death. Do you have anything to say?"
The Stu crossed his arms. Tasmin shot him through the head. Then she turned to the Stu's wife. "We charge you with not having a personality, adoring Murdock the moment he sets a foot across the threshold, with not offering BA a bed other than his own van, and with stealing Face's and Amy's cars." The Stu's wife was shot too.
Allison took the last gulp of water and screwed the cap back on. She smirked at her partner. "I love it when a plan comes together."
"We still have to find the bully and his main goon."
Allison drooped her shoulders.