CHRISTMAS 1983
“Come on, guys, you still haven’t told me what you’ll
be doing for Christmas.”
Sitting in the back of the van, Amy twisted to try and
look at each of the team members in turn.
Although she had asked them a few times what their plans were for
Christmas, they hadn’t actually given her a straight answer. Or, more like it, they hadn’t given her what
she believed to be a straight answer.
Then again, she realised, as she stopped to think about it, she didn’t
actually really know that much about the four men. Their apparent reluctance to tell her what
they were really doing for Christmas seemed to further re-enforce that fact.
“We told you,”
“Ah-ha,” Amy replied, narrowing her eyes. You expect me to believe that? You’re planning something and I wanna be in on it.”
“See, what did I tell you?” Face said from beside her.
Amy looked incredulously across at where Face was
sitting back in his chair, a smug look on his face as he smoothed down his
black leather jacket.
“What *did* you tell them?” she asked, fixing him with
her steeliest look.
As usual Face didn’t react, just turned his Cheshire
cat smile on her. It was a smile she was
beginning to recognise, and one she didn’t like much either. Sometimes she was sure he only did it to
annoy her. She also knew that she rose
to the bait every time despite her constant promises to herself that she
wouldn’t.
She turned to her left instead, trying her flirty
smile in an attempt to get answers.
“Murdock, care to enlighten me?”
It struck her as ironic that Murdock was the one she
tended to get straight answers from.
Ironic, since he barely spoke straight to anyone. With her though, he just tended to speak in
less riddles than the others. Well,
except maybe BA, who really didn’t seem to speak much at all.
Pushing his cap further up his head, Murdock turned in
his chair to look at her. He
grinned. “Nothing to
worry about, muchacha. Face here just had a bet with us that before
the end of the day you would accuse us of planning something we didn’t want you
to be part of.”
“And it looks like I was right,” Face smirked. “Boy, I wish I had put money on it.”
BA grunted.
“You still haven’t told me what you’ll be doing for
Christmas, though” she said as soon as she had regained control of herself.
“Yeah, we did,”
Amy resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “You really want me to believe that while
BA’s in
“Yeah,”
“You’re not going to spend Christmas together?”
“Nope,” Murdock affirmed.
“We see each other too much anyway,” Face
explained. “It’s good to get a couple of
days away from the team once a year.
Anyway, this year I’ve got an invitation to spend Christmas in
“The model you’ve been dating?” Murdock asked.
“Yeah.”
“Nice,”
Face leaned back in his chair,
a cat got the cream look on his face.
“Yeah, I thought so.”
“Still think she sounds like some kind of doll,”
Murdock reminded. “You know, like Malibu
Barbie.”
“Ha, ha, very funny.”
Amy just shook her head. “Okay, what about you Hannibal? How are you spending Christmas?”
Beside him driving, BA just grunted. “More like ‘where’ he gonna
spend Christmas,” he said.
Amy felt a sigh coming on. “Okay, I bite.
The colonel’s grin grew. “Just somewhere nice and
quite. Small
town and all that. Nice company,
soft lighting, bottle of wine…”
“Bad Rock,” Murdock and Face said together.
Amy sighed.
“Okay, Murdock, what about you then?”
“Hospital,” he replied simply. “They always make a really big do out of
Christmas. Wonderful dinner. They even drag Santa away from Mrs Claus in
order to give us our presents. And for
pudding they give us extra whipped cream.
Yummy.”
“And that’s what you lot are all doing then?” Amy
tried again, doubt still in her voice.
“That’s right,”
Amy wasn’t sure she believed him, but she wasn’t in
the mood to push. “Okay, okay, I
give. If that’s what you’re doing,
that’s what you’re doing. I was just
worried you were going to be alone or something. I mean, it’s not like you can spend it with
your families.”
“We’ll be fine,”
“Well, if you’re sure.”
They all nodded.
Amy leaned back in her seat. “Okay then.”
The rest of the journey continued in relative silence. Pulling up beside Amy’s apartment, they
dropped her off first.
“So when can I expect to hear from you again?”
“Probably not till the new year,”
She nodded. “You too.”
They waited until she was in her apartment before
driving away.
“So, what *are* we doing this Christmas?” Murdock
asked curiously.
“Thought we’d go and visit Trish,”
“Ray woulda liked that,” BA
added.
“Yeah,”
Face shrugged.
“Ah, well, wasn’t planning on going anyway. Cindy’s nice and all but there is no way I
want to be introduced to her family.”
*-*-*
