Title: Home

Prompt: 090. 'Home'

Word Count: 400

It’s early evening somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Texas. Crickets sound a relentless chorus, the heat of the day is finally seeping off into a pleasant coolness, and there’s the faintest rumble of a summer thunderstorm moving in. The freeway is far enough away that the sound of it is nothing but a seashell echo.

They’re on their way back to LA after a mission in Arkansas, of all places; one bad guy dispatched with a minimum of fuss, one small farming co-op saved. The biggest expenditure on this one has been distance – 3,200 miles round-trip. Flying would’ve been faster: but they’ve put BA on three planes already this year, and sometimes a long drive is worth it for the sake of Team Harmony.

So Hannibal is making his way back from the local grocery to the motor court where they’ve made camp for the night, breathing in the scent of nightfall in Texas and feeling at peace with the world. It’s been a long drive, and most of it is still ahead of them; but for tonight they’re settled into one of the cottages at the Yellow Rose Motor Court, with no MPs for a hundred miles and no real hurry to be back to LA anytime soon. Hannibal’s between films, Face is between girls, Murdock is supposedly at a mental health facility in Oregon until the end of next week, and BA is . . . Hannibal chuckles. BA is BA; if the big man wants to take off work for a week or a month or an undisclosed period, nobody argues with him.

Hannibal shifts the brown paper bags of coldcuts and chips slightly, waves at the motherly lady who runs the motor court, and makes his way to the end cottage. The lights burn yellow in the Texas dusk, and as Hannibal draws nearer he can hear Murdock and Face talking baseball from inside. BA is sitting on the battered chair on the cottage porch, keeping watch; he nods as Hannibal comes up the porch steps and stands wordlessly to follow him inside.

Hannibal pauses at the door to the cottage, takes a deep breath of summer-smelling air, and thinks, briefly, of how different this place is from Montana (where he came from) and LA (where he’s headed). Then he shakes his head, pushes the door open, grins.

“Hey guys.” He announces. “I’m home.”