Title:  Remembrance Quartet
Authors: Ange & Kathye
Rating:  PG
Summary:  The Team remember fallen comrades.
Warnings:  

"Do we all holy rites;
Let there be sung 'Non nobis' and 'Te Deum;'
The dead with charity enclosed in clay:"
Henry V

The two men met in front of the black Wall without looking at each other.

They stood without speaking for several minutes. It was almost as if they had both stopped at that spot by sheer coincidence.

The silver haired one reached out and brushed his black gloved fingers across a name. "He was just nineteen, fresh off the farm. He was terrified every day he was over there, but he did his best."

The man with steel gray hair touched another name. "He was a tough guy - nothing scared him. But all the bravery in the world couldn't save him from a sniper's bullet" He paused. "He was a good kid."

The first man looked up and down the long black expanse. He squinted his eyes against the biting November wind. "They were all good kids. And I remember every one of them."

The two walked the length of the wall in silence. When they reached the end the first one said, "Same time next year, Rod?"

The second gave a small smile and said in his gravelly voice, "If I don't catch you first, John."

They walked away in opposite directions, never looking back. Tomorrow the chase would begin again. Today there was only Remembrance.

A heavyset, black Amerasian boy walked slowly up the stairs of the Chicago apartment building. He paused in front of one apartment, took a deep breath, lifted his hand to knock, then stopped and turned away from the door. He slowly walked down the hall and just as he reached the stairwell he turned, ran back to the door and knocked before he lost the courage.

The moments ticked away and the boy was sure that no one was home. Just as he turned to leave the door was opened just enough for the woman inside to look out.

"Can I help you, young man?" the black woman said with a warm smile.

"Um ..." the teenager stared down at the floor before looking up, defiantly saying, "I need to talk to B.A. Baracus."

"My son doesn't live here and I haven't talked to him in months."

"But... I really need to talk to him. I've been searching so long," the young man stammered.

The woman studied him closely before taking the chain off the door and opening it wide. "Why don't you come in for a few minutes and we'll talk."

He came in, looking around as if expecting someone to object.

"Have a seat and I'll make us some tea." Mrs. Baracus turned to go into the kitchen, stopped and turned back to the boy.

"What's your name, son?"

"Tommy. Tommy Nguyen."

Mrs. Baracus smiled. "Pleased to meet you, Tommy."

After she put the water on to heat Mrs. Baracus sat down across the table from the boy. She looked at him and raised her eyebrows as if to prompt him.

"OK, while we're waiting, why don't you tell me why it is so important for you to talk with my son?"

Tommy looked down at his hands, his fingers twisting together nervously.

"Well, ma'am, I'm trying to find out who my father is ... was."

He was interrupted by the whistling of the tea kettle. Mrs. Baracus quickly went into the kitchen, pouring the water into mugs with shaking hands. She put a carefully neutral expression on her face and walked in with the tea.

She put a cup in front of him and watched him closely, not saying a word.

After a few seconds, Tommy continued in a rush of words, as if afraid that if he didn't get it all out in one breath, he never would.

"I was born in Vietnam. My father was an American soldier. I never knew him. My mother died when I was very young, and I was raised by my grandparents. Last year, my grandfather gave me this photograph. It belonged to my mother and it's the only clue I have as to who my father was."

He handed her a faded picture. It showed two soldiers, one of them unmistakably B.A. Baracus. She flipped it over and saw the words "Me and B.A., 1970" on the back. "I got the last name from the uniform. I looked for months to find records of him, and then it took even longer to get this address." He looked up at her pleadingly. "Please. I've waited my whole life for this. My grandparents will kill me if they find out I've come to Chicago alone. I'll never get another chance." She put her hand on his and was about to speak when she was interrupted by a pounding on her door.

"Mama? I'm finished workin' on your car."

She rushed to the door, unlocked it and pulled B.A. inside. He was a little startled to see the young man sitting at her table.

"Mama, who's your new friend?" he asked as wiped the grease from his hands.

She quickly had him sit down at the table next to the teenager. "His name is Tommy Nguyen, and he has something to show you." She pushed the photograph into B.A.'s hand. "I'm going to go into the kitchen and leave you two alone."

B.A. stared at the photo, and then carefully examined the young man. He finally said, "You Hoa's boy?"

He jumped to his feet and leaned across the table. "Yes! That's my mother's name."

B.A. motioned for the boy to sit. "I know what you wanna ask me. The answer's 'no', I'm not your daddy." He gestured to the other man in the photo. "But *he* was." He raised his voice a little as he said, "Did you hear that, Momma? And since you're listenin' anyway, you might as well come in and hear the rest."

She poked her head out of the kitchen. "Now, B.A., you know I would never listen in. But it's a very small apartment, and your voice travels so well."

She sat next to Tommy as B.A. started to speak.

"His name was Dylan Reeves. I met Dylan 'bout two hours after I arrived in the 'Nam. We were both assigned to the same unit and since we was both fresh meat we stuck together and watched each other's backs." B.A. paused and looked over at Tommy before continuing. "Dylan met your mom when we was doin' some humanitarian work in a village near our camp. It was jus' your basic stuff, help the locals rebuild their huts, make sure no one tries to shoot the Doc while he's tryin' to give the kids shots, that type of stuff. Your momma was tryin' to bring her cousin to get checked by the Doc when the kid took off into a mine field. Dylan went in after him."

BA paused and Tommy jumped in, "What happened next?"

"Well, after that he kept volunteering to help out in the village and he eventually he fell in love with your ma."

"You're wrong, Mr. Baracus! He didn't love her. If he had loved her, he never would've left her alone." Mrs. Baracus tried to calm the boy down while BA figured out what to say next.

"Look, brother, it ain't that simple. 'Bout three months after your dad met your ma, I got picked by Colonel Smith to be on his team. We tried to keep in touch, but it wasn't that easy. There wasn't no set bases. We was in the middle of the jungle and sometimes we would be outta contact for weeks or months at a time.

"One day we met up with the old unit, an' they tol' me that Dylan was dead, killed by a landmine. I went ta look for your ma, but the village was destroyed and no one knew where she an' her family had gone. If I'd known about you, I'da looked harder. You have to believe that if he'd had a choice, he woulda never left you." B.A. stood up from the table and. pulled a metal box down from one of his mother's shelves. He shuffled through the papers and photos inside until he found what he was looking for.

"I got somethin' I thin' you should have." He handed Tommy a picture of a young, black American soldier with his arm around an equally young Vietnamese woman. "This was the last time I saw them. You hafta believe, they were very happy."

Tommy clutched the photo with both hands, while tears welled in his eyes.

"Thank you Mr. Baracus. My grandparents won't talk about my mother or my father. They say they don't want to bring up sad memories."

"Don't blame them, they had a real hard time over there. People got the right to remember what they want to, but no one should be forgotten. Dylan should be remembered."

B.A. walked over to the phone and picked up the receiver. "First thing we're gonna do is have you call your grandparents and tell them where you are. Then, I'm gonna call a friend of mine who's real good at finding things. Dylan talked about his momma and daddy and brothers. We might just find you even more family."

Tommy looked up at B.A. with tears of joy running down his face. "I ... I don't know what to say."

"Then don't say nothin'. While we're waitin' for your grandparents to come get you, I'm gonna tell you everything I can remember 'bout your daddy. Lemme tell you about the time he decided that we had to have a Christmas tree..."

"Thanks for the ride, Mrs. Pearson," Lexie turned and looked at her best friend, Sara, who was seated in the back seat of the car. "I'll call you later tonight, ok?"

Sara nodded and waved to Lexie as the car drove away. Lexie ran up the sidewalk to the house and opened the front door, quickly entering her personal access code into the alarm system before it went off. She dropped her backpack on the floor in the entryway and as she walked through the living room, dropped her coat and went into the kitchen. "Dad, you'll never guess what happened in school today..." Her voice trailed off as she realized that he wasn't in the kitchen. Grabbing a bottle of juice from the refrigerator she wandered down to the basement.

As she came down the stairs, she heard music coming from the den. It was a song that she had never heard before.

Lexie knocked on the door, "Dad?" Getting no response she slowly opened the door. There was her dad, sitting in his leather chair in his den, looking at a photo album. There was a single candle lit on the small table in front of him. He obviously hadn't heard her come in because he didn't look up. She watched as he turned a page in the photo album, feeling a little scared when she noticed a slight tremor in his hand.

*If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before
I will speak no more
I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will

"It wasn't your will though, was it Andy?. No more than it was mine. None of us ever had a choice. The army and the VC never gave us one."

Lexie jumped slightly when he spoke. She knew he hadn't been talking to her, but somehow thought that she should say something. "Dad?" she spoke just barely louder than a whisper.

Templeton Peck looked up then and she was shocked to see tears in his eyes.

"Lexie," he glanced at his watch. "You're home already? It can't be that late." He shook his head slightly as though to clear out some cobwebs and took a deep breath.

"Dad, what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong sweetheart; I was just lost in old memories."

"Memories of Vietnam?"

"Yes." He stood up abruptly and blew out the candle. He started to walk out of the room.

"Dad, you never talk about it." She turned and stood so she blocked his path.

And draw us near
And bind us tight,
All your children here
In their rags of light;
In our rags of light,
All dressed to kill;
And end this night,
If it be your will.

"It was a war, not exactly the type of topic that one normally discusses with their children." He looked down at her. He took her hand and led her to the couch and they sat down.. "I fought there so that kids like you would never know the horrors of war."

"But you met Uncle Murdock, Uncle BA and Uncle Hannibal in Vietnam." Lexie looked at him in confusion.

"Yes, I did, but a lot of other things happened that I would forget if I could." He reached over and lifted her face to look at his. "Do you understand?"

Lexie shook her head. "No," she said in a small voice.

Her dad nodded as if he had expected that answer, stood and went over to pick up the photo album. He sat back down on the couch and opened it.

"Ok, let's see..." he muttered as he flipped through the book looking for a particular picture. "Ah…yes, here it is." Lexie curled up next to him as he told her about his friend that had died long before she was born in a country she had never seen.

*"If it be your will" by Leonard Cohen

"Hey there, Jim ol' buddy. Long time, no see. I know I should've called, but after I was declared sane, I needed to put some space between me and the hospital. I didn't know I would be gone so long.

"Hey, did you hear that after I was released I took off to Virginia to be with my team? You wouldn't believe some of the stuff we've had to do. I'd tell you all about it, but then the government would have to lock you up in a mental ward or something to keep it quiet. Yeah, I know ... not funny.

"The hospital sure hasn't changed. Just as dingy and antiseptic as always. Boy, is Dr. Logan ever going to retire? I thought it was your mission in life to drive her crazy. How about the time you and I and the rest of the ward talked backwards for entire month? Then and now every it do still I.  I thought that she was going to end up locked up with us. Guess things got easier for her after I left.

"Oh, and did I tell you that I saw Scott Johnson a couple weeks ago? He's doing really good - running a small charter airline out in Nebraska. Do you remember that one leave that the three of us took in Saigon? We were wild men, but you topped us all. I still can't believe you took the General's helicopter, just to give that stripper an aerial tour of the city.

"He showed me pictures of his grandchildren. Can you believe that we're old enough to have grandkids? Me, I've never had anything more than invisible pets. I'm not sure I'll ever be stable enough to have a family. Sometimes I wonder what my life would've been like if I could've coped with what happened.  If I hadn't ...

"We were the best, amigo, the best. We could fly everything, we would go anywhere, and nothing scared us, but it didn't matter, did it? We still broke in the end. I broke into a million itty-bitty, infinitesimal pieces, each one with its own name and personality. My friends were never exactly sure how crazy I was. Hell, I wasn't sure. But still they trusted me, and, with their help, I was able to put myself back together. Some days I didn't think that I could do it, some days I didn't want to do it, but here I am, all cured.

"Jim, you were always the stronger one. I wasn't sure about me, but I always thought that you'd make it out someday. I guess this is your way of doing that."

Murdock patted the arm of the man in the wheelchair who stared blankly out the window. He adjusted the blanket covering his lap and gently touched the bandages covering the side of the man's head.

"Goodbye, buddy. I hope that where ever you've gone, you've finally found some peace. I'll come back and we'll talk again. I won't forget."

(Original source unknown.
Inscribed on the Minnesota Korean War Memorial)

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