A Little Loony Girl
"We have to go to the VA," Tasmin said.
Allison shivered for a moment. "A fic that starts at the VA is always about someone that's trying to weasel their way into Murdock's life."
"Possibly true. But we get to charge and kill them. That's got to count for something."
"Fine. As long as you don't disguise us as nurses."
Tasmin gave her partner a blank look, turned back to the console and entered the specifics for the disguises. Then she opened a portal.
-oOo-
Allison studied her disguise -- off-white scrubs.
"Not nurses," Tasmin said.
"Orderlies. Hardly an improvement."
Tasmin pulled the remote activator form her duffel bag and adjusted the settings. "There. Now you're a janitor. Happy?"
"We're in a Suefic. What do you think?"
"I think you fell off the couch on the wrong side when the console woke you."
Allison humphed. Tasmin shrugged and turned her attention to the Words.
The Team were in the van discussing who should fetch Murdock. BA said he didn't want to pick him up from the VA.
"I refuse to get that weirdo, and he won't come with me," said B.A.
Tasmin's right eye twitched.
"What's up." Allison gave her partner a quizzical look.
"BA called Murdock 'weirdo'. He's never called him that."
"The first Sue to make BA out of character. Quite an accomplishment."
"It's not an accomplishment."
Hannibal said BA had to go and with a final grump BA jumped out of the van, dressed as a janitor.
"BA doesn't do disguises," Tasmin said. "Ever. And Face is out of character too, if he thinks he can't charm Murdock out of the VA twice in one week."
Now where did they say that lunatic's room was?
"BA doesn't call Murdock 'lunatic'," Tasmin said through clenched teeth. "He calls him fool and crazy fool."
"He's a man of to-the-point vocabulary," Allison agreed. Before her partner could throw her an angry look she pulled a notepad from her pocket and started scribbling.
The agents had taken up position outside Murdock's room and saw BA coming. He knocked on the door.
Murdock opened the door with a smile, but he disappeared when he saw B.A.
"Making Murdock vanish."
Murdock reappeared, in reverse Cheshire cat order, and gave BA a disdainful look. BA told him they were leaving; Murdock gave reasons why he couldn't come. The argument was cut short when BA pulled Murdock out of his room and thrust a janitor uniform into his arms.
"Janitor is a disguise that works in this fic. Perhaps you should try it too." Allison smiled at her partner.
Tasmin chose to ignore her.
An announced switch of scenes caused a momentary fade in and fade out. When light had returned fully, Murdock ran through the hall, back to his room.
"Short mission," Allison commented.
Tasmin merely pointed at the Words.
He flew them in and left them, they never said they had needed a lift back
"Murdock would not leave the Team behind like that," Allison said. "What's so important that he'd have to get back without giving his friends a second thought?"
"The Sue, of course."
"Of course. Why did I even ask?"
"Because you like the sound of your own voice."
"It was a rhetorical question."
"A rhetorical question: a question asked for the purpose of hearing one's own voice."
Allison glared at her partner. The glare lasted only a moment. A time rift knocked the agent off her feet. Allison scrambled up and resumed glaring at her partner, who had managed to stay upright.
The Sue walked into the hall. She frowned at Tasmin, but completely ignored Allison. The Sue knocked on Murdock's door and was let into his room.
"I told you janitors are invisible in this fic."
She had long hair tied up in a ponytail, which was the same brunette colour as Murdock's; had welcoming brown eyes; was around 5"3; her clothes had streaks of oil and grease down them and a few random animal hairs; her voice was soft and gentle, but sounded like it could be stern and serious if it had to be and she had a sense of organized mayhem about her. Overall, she seemed like a nice, down-to-earth girl.
"Nice girls put on clean clothes before they go and visit someone," Allison said.
"She's only 5 inches tall. Can't be easy having to share a wardrobe with Barbie."
The Sue and Murdock hugged and talked about meeting each other's friends. Murdock was reluctant to introduce her to the Team; he had not told them he had a daughter.
"It's not like he's had time and opportunity," Tasmin said. "He's known her for at least a year."
"Does that also mean he's been leaving the Team in the lurch for at least a year?"
"Don't know. I think they would have confronted him about his lack of commitment to their cause."
The two hours Murdock and the Sue spent together passed quickly by aid of a chapter break. BA came pounding down the hallway and banged on Murdock's door.
"Murdock left the Team behind without transportation. How does this Sue think BA managed to travel a distance that requires the Team to fly in for the mission in only three hours more than it took Murdock to get back to LA? Considering he also had to finish a mission when Murdock left."
"Perhaps BA got himself some jet propulsion."
"Like from where?"
Allison shrugged. "He's already out of character. He might as well be a Transformer."
Murdock told the Sue to hide in the wardrobe before he opened the door to BA.
"The door has a window. BA has undoubtedly already seen who's in the room with Murdock."
BA shoved the door open. He demanded to know who Murdock had been talking to. Murdock said he'd been talking to Billy. BA didn't believe him. He yanked the door to the wardrobe open and saw the Sue. Murdock hit BA over the head with a book and knocked him out.
The dark of a scene break obscured how Murdock managed to get BA from his room to the van.
"I vote plot hole," Allison said as she followed Tasmin down the hall. "There's no way he could have gotten BA out of the VA without drawing attention. Where are we going?"
"To the van. No explanation given doesn't mean there can't be a logical explanation."
"How logical do you want that explanation to be? The only way I can see him manage this, is if he loaded BA onto a stretcher and wheeled him out of the VA while all the staff were on their coffee break."
"There you go. Perfectly logical explanation."
The agents reached the VA parking lot. Allison frowned at her partner.
"Don't give me that look. Absence of explanation is not the same as plot hole. We can't charge the Sue on shaky grounds."
"I think we've charged plenty of Sues with making the ground shake."
In the back of the van BA regained consciousness. Hannibal and Face were in the van with him. BA said he'd seen a girl in Murdock's wardrobe. He wanted to get back to talk to Murdock.
After you went and people heard the crash, people came running and we just managed to get you out.
"So, the explanation is that lots of staff ran to Murdock's room and Face and Hannibal got BA out under all their noses," Allison deduced. "Makes sense."
Tasmin rolled her eyes. "You may write down plot hole now."
"Are you sure? This plot is easily explained by the fact that the Sue has given Face and Hannibal superior powers of stealth, and made them hang around in the VA, just 'round the corner. The reason no one saw them is because they are disguised as janitors."
Tasmin hit her partner in the back of the head.
There was a scene break. When light returned, the van was parked in a different spot and BA was behind the wheel. Face jumped out of the side door holding a stethoscope.
"I guess some time has passed."
"These scene breaks are almost as annoying as no scene breaks."
The agents followed Face back into the VA. He did not stop to tell anyone why he was at the VA or for what reason Murdock should leave. He went straight to Murdock's room. He heard laughter coming from the room. Female laughter. A passing nurse told him to go in.
"Oh, just go in, no use knocking. When he's with her it's like his insane side is gone, no talk of "Billy", or anything else mad. It's nice that his family still visit him, especially since she's his daughter, I do like Loony, she's a nice girl if a bit boy-ish. She always comes here covered in oil, grease and animal hairs, I heard she works with cars and anything else which has an engine, nice girl though. Wonder what her real name is? I don't think it's Loony," she walked off smiling.
"Thanks for the exposition," Tasmin said to the nurse when she walked passed them. "I particularly admire that you got all that out without slowing down your pace."
The nurse gave her a startled look, but because the fic dictated that she kept walking, she could not respond to Tasmin before she had to turn a corner.
Face, meanwhile, stood by the door contemplating whether to go back and tell BA he had been right, or to go in and tell Murdock his secret was safe with him.
"I think Face would go in and try to find out whether the nurse was speaking the truth and why Murdock kept this a secret," Allison said.
Face decided to go in and tell Murdock he was going to keep his secret. He asked to be told about the Sue. Murdock and the Sue decided to give Face the full story.
"Shouldn't Face be trying to hurry Murdock out of the VA? He came in for a reason; I doubt it was idle chit-chat."
Face was too in awe with the Sue to think of his mission, or even his safety. He was in no hurry to leave. The Sue, among other things, was a gun and explosives expert, and at fifteen had her own team, which worked missions in the UK.
"You know what this means," Tasmin said.
"If you can't find them, maybe you can hire their UK clone."
"I was going to say that we'll probably also have to deal with a bunch of Stus -- her team members."
"Could she be our most powerful Sue yet? She's got Face so OOC he takes time out of his busy schedule to listen to her rambling on about how special she is. It would have been more in character if he had involved her in his scam to get Murdock out of the VA. She could have told him all about her misspent childhood in the van."
"Then we'd still be stuck with a boring chunk of exposition."
"Can't win 'm all." Allison shrugged.
After an hour Face remembered why he was at the Hospital.
"Also a charge that Hannibal and BA are out of character," Tasmin said. "They would have tried to find out what was taking Face long ago."
Face and Murdock rushed out of the VA and the two agents ran after them. Hannibal turned out to have not been in the least concerned. He'd been sitting in the van smoking. Face and Murdock hopped into the van.
During the black-out caused by the scene break, Murdock hopped from the van and returned to the VA. The van disappeared.
"I hate stories where nothing happens unless the Sue is involved. I used to think I hated them because the Sue was out shining everyone. I've realised I hate them too when really nothing happens. At least when the Sue's out shining everyone there's some action."
"There's probably something going to happen at the VA," Tasmin said. The agents turned around and went back inside.
"The Sue's probably going to come and visit again. You'd think that if the Sue has her own team there'd at least be some action in the fic, a mission where she can show off her kick-ass skills."
The agents caught up with Murdock in the hallway, where he was told off by a nurse -- a spitting image of the one that kept on walking, or rather, equally generic looking -- for leaving the VA for a few days.
"Pretending the VA is not a closed facility."
"Ah, with the ease Face walks in and out of the VA..."
"True, but he never used the excuse he wanted to take Murdock for a spin in his car. He always flashed some badge or showed some forms that overrode the VA's inpatient policy."
The nurse also told Murdock that Lynch had called. Called as in came to visit, because when Murdock returned to his room he found Lynch sitting on his bed.
Lynch requested Murdock's help in catching the A-Team. He mentioned he knew where Murdock's daughter was.
Murdock didn't like this veiled threat to the Sue's well being.
"Oh, your daughter has friends within 'gangs' so she has links to them, even if those 'gangs' haven't done anything wrong or even if their crimes are tiny, I can fit her and her friends with large crimes and get them sent down for life. Do you really think your 15 year old daughter would survive in a brutal women prison?"
"She's fifteen; she'd be sent to a secure training centre."
"She's superSue; she can handle herself against some female criminals."
Murdock had heard rumours that women's prisons were much tougher than men's prisons. His mind was racing.
Tasmin rolled her eyes. "There's probably more bitching, but there isn't more violence."
Then Lynch came with the clincher: he had the Sue.
Murdock whispered he would help. With a smug look on his face, Lynch marched out of the hospital room.
"Isn't he forgetting something?" Allison asked. "Or is he so pleased with himself that he's going to take a celebratory piss before he's actually caught the Team?"
"Yeah. He's been so close to catching the Team many times. He wouldn't waste any time to let Murdock lead him to the Team, or lead the Team to him. He wouldn't leave Murdock alone to work out a double-cross. Lynch isn't the brightest bulb in the box, but he'd know better than that."
"Where's the Sue now?"
Tasmin looked at the Words and smirked. "Not in a position to give us much trouble."
the next thing she knew she was a stone room;
Murdock found his way back to the Team and the van where he confided in Face that Lynch had taken his daughter and wanted his help in capturing the Team. Face wanted to know if Murdock was going to help Lynch.
"Rather than immediately offer to sort Lynch out."
"This guy couldn't be further out of character if this story was set in a mirror universe."
Hannibal overheard Face and Murdock talking, and Murdock decided it was time he came clean about his daughter. Fifteen years ago, he said, he had gotten friendly with a British major.
I think she was the only female Major in Great Britain or America
"Major Houlihan was a major in the Korean War. So there probably were also some female majors in the Vietnam War."
"Major Houlihan is fictional," Allison pointed out.
"True, but if her rank had had no ground in reality, she would not have had it. Charge for letting Murdock make stupid assumptions."
"Got that one already. Multiple times."
As a result of that friendliness Murdock now had a fifteen-year-old daughter.
"And charge for making Murdock bad at math or biology."
In addition to giving full disclosure on the Sue, Murdock also mentioned who her teammates were. They were coming over to help him free the Sue. There was a moment of silence in the van after Murdock had stopped rambling. Hannibal was the first to speak. He asked if he could meet the Sue.
Tasmin and Allison simultaneously slapped a hand to their forehead.
Hannibal asked what the Sue's real name was.
"I'm starting to think that this fic was written for the sole purpose of exposition."
It's May Luna Murdock; May from her mum, Luna because she was born on a full moon night at night and Murdock, from me. We call her Loony
"Bullies would call a kid named Luna Loony," Allison said. "Luna's a loony. Parents are supposed to not mentally abuse their kids with awful nicknames."
The Team drove to the airport where Murdock had arranged to meet the Sue's team.
The agents took a portal.
-oOo-
Tasmin, however, had entered the wrong coordinates and the agents skipped the introductions of the team of Stus. They arrived just after Hannibal had explained his plan to the two teams. A quick glance at the Words showed he had not bothered to tell the reader.
"Before any plan can be set into action, they first have to find out where the Sue is kept," Allison said. "So far I have not seen any mention that they know where she is."
One of the Stus pointed out a flaw in Hannibal's plan. The agents involuntarily leaned in a little from their hiding place behind some crates, to hear if he had seen the same flaw as Allison. Alas, he said Hannibal's plan did not account for the fact that 100 of their associates wanted to come over and help too.
"I thought these associates were all British gang members."
"Looks like we are going to have another British invasion."
"If I have to destroy any tea merchants to help fight them off, I will," Allison said with a grim look on her face.
Hannibal said he could make some adjustments to his plan. The new plan apparently involved everyone storming the military compound where the Sue was held and take her out of it by force.
"That's going to be a blood bath," Tasmin said. "We must prevent this." She grabbed the remote activator and opened a portal.
-oOo-
The agents stepped into the stone room where the Sue was sitting on a wooden bench, singing about walls and bottles.
"Who are you?" She looked at the sudden intruders with suspicion.
"We're the advanced rescue party," Tasmin said. She grabbed the Sue by a shoulder and all but threw her through the portal.
-oOo-
"What are you doing? Where have you taken me?" The Sue crossed her arms and glared at Tasmin.
"Not sure," Allison said. "I think this was the hide-out the Team used to discuss the plan of attack with your mates. It's not much to look at, is it?" Allison indicated the grey walls.
"We're Protectors of the Plot Continuum," Tasmin said. She pulled her Colt M1911 from her bag lest the Sue should get any ideas. Self-preservation had not been a big issue in the fic so far, and she wasn't sure how the Sue rated her chances against the two agents. "We're here to charge you with crimes fanfiction in general and A-Team fiction in particular. Allison?"
"I always like to start these chargings off easy. So, I charge you first with bad grammar, bad punctuation and the occasional poor choice of words. You are not a stone room." She smirked. "If you were, you would--"
"Don't finish that sentence," Tasmin warned.
Allison scowled. She briefly consulted her notepad. "Speaking of words, BA does not call Murdock 'lunatic' or 'weirdo'. That's another charge."
"C'mon. A little variety livens things up."
"Sure, but BA's speech pattern doesn't need livening up. We're comfortable with him using 'fool' and 'crazy fool' only. What we're not comfortable with is that Murdock left his team in the lurch to be with you. That's out of character behaviour, and a charge. We also charge you with giving Face and BA total disregard for their own safety. BA just walked into the VA because he needed to have some words with Murdock; Face completely forgot why he came to get Murdock and stayed for an hour to chat with you. These are wanted men. They go into the VA in disguise, or under the guise of night. They have quick-in quick-out plans, because they don't want to risk anyone recognising them and calling the military police.
"We charge you with being Murdock's uncanonical daughter, and with him keeping you a secret from the Team for pretty much ever since he's known them. We charge you with everyone being so in awe with you that they put their own lives on hold to learn more about you. They forget about time, their jobs, or what is actually relevant, to ask how you take your tea."
"No one actually said that."
"That must be the only bit of information they don't know about you. We charge you with making a nurse sing your further glory and the positive effect you have on Murdock. We charge you with using exposition as a substitute for character building. We charge you with having your own team and working your own missions in Britain.
"We charge you with making Lynch more stupid than he already is. If he really believed Murdock could lead him to capture the Team he would put far better surveillance on him. He would not give Murdock too obvious an opportunity to come up with a way to falter his plan.
"We charge you with Hannibal thinking of a stupid plan that involves a lot of minors storming a military compound. We charge you with making all the members of the A-Team behave out of character. In short, we charge you with being a Mary Sue." Allison closed her notepad. She folded her arms in front of her. "Your punishment for these crimes is death."
The Sue did not flinch. "You'll never get away with this. I have friends--"
What exactly was threatening about these friends the agents never learned; Tasmin had put a bullet in the Sue's head.
The agents left the Sue where she had fallen. The place was uncanonical and would fold in on itself in a matter of minutes, crushing the Sue along with a few items of furniture. Tasmin opened a portal to take the agents to a location where they could deal with the Sue's team mates. Strangely enough, they did not find the young lads storming a military compound. Rather, they were running around a basketball court playing two on two, with BA on the side line shouting instructions.
"I guess that could work," Tasmin said.
Allison looked at her. "You did this, didn't you? Create an alternative story line for them so you don't have to shoot them."
Tasmin shrugged. "It didn't seem right to shoot them. I mean, we never even saw their faces. They might as well not have been in this story."
The four lads disappeared from the basketball court.
"I guess they aren't."
Tasmin pushed a button on the remote activator and opened a portal to their response centre. "And in a moment, neither are we."