Face had a brief vision where Murdock was replaced by Father Magill frowning sternly at thirteen year old Alvin Brenner, but then he pulled himself together.

"Explain? Well you see, Murdock, back in 1953 a man named Hefner had a really good idea -"

Murdock gestured impatiently.

"I meant where did you get it?"

"Found it in my room."

"And you thought you'd keep it all to yourself, huh?"

"You mean there wasn't one in your room too?" Face asked, trying to look innocent. "I thought maybe a more liberal version of the Gideon Society had been leaving them in nightstands as a public service."

Murdock scowled and ran back out of the laundry room.

"Guys! Guys!" Face heard him shouting. Face groaned and chased after him.

"Murdock! Gimme that back!"

Face caught up to Murdock in the kitchen. A heavily bundled up BA sat at the table, warming up with a mug of hot milk after coming in from outside. Murdock paced around, waving the magazine.

"…and he's been keeping it to himself all this time!"

BA scowled, but he seemed more bemused than annoyed.

"I thought we agreed," Face said, trying to grab the Playboy, "that anything we found in our bedrooms was ours!"

"We never agreed that." Murdock danced away, swatting Face's grabbing hand. "If we'd agreed that we'd all be wearing the wrong size clothes. And you'd be wearing a dress!"

Two snowmen came into the kitchen from outside. Hannibal and Decker emerged when the snow was brushed and shaken off.

"You did that on purpose!" Decker snarled at Hannibal.

"Hey, I got nailed too." Hannibal grinned. "Snow off the roof," he explained to the others. "I kind of misjudged where it was gonna land. Erm, Murdock is that what I think it is?"

"Face found it in his bedroom and he's been keeping it to himself." Murdock passed the magazine to Hannibal who flicked through and held it up to look at the centrefold. He showed that to Decker, who just gave Hannibal a filthy look.

"Well what do you guys expect?" Face asked. "You think I'm gonna loan it out and have it come back all…" He didn't finish, just twisted his face into a disgusted expression. "And am I the only one? There was a copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover in the rec room book case when we arrived and I've not seen that for a couple of weeks." Face was sure he saw Decker look shifty at that point. He folded his arms, scowling. "Okay, okay. You guys want to borrow it, fine." He made a sudden move and grabbed the magazine back from Hannibal and winced as he heard something tear. "It'll cost you. The going rate, is… is… twenty five bucks an hour!"

"You're going to charge us?" Murdock gasped.

BA snorted and slammed down his mug. "I'm gonna go call the Mounties for the weather forecast." He stamped out of the kitchen.

"That's a little steep, Face," Hannibal said. He smirked. "I could get the real thing for that back home."

"Well we're not back home are we? Okay, twenty. I'll keep an account and you can all settle up when we get out of here."

"When we get out of here you're going to prison." Decker reminded him.

"Well at least I'll be able to afford a good lawyer." Face shot back. "Right, that laundry's not doing itself." He strode out and heard someone hurry after him, heard Murdock's voice.

"I'm going to check his room. Just in case he's got a woman under the bed!"

~~~~

"Oh, Sergeant," Baker said. "I'm glad it's you. I've got something for you."

"For me?" BA asked, surprised.

"It's a Christmas card. Colonel Decker's adjutant sent it on to me. It's from your mother."

"My mama sent me a card?" BA smiled. That was Mama. He'd never known anyone who sent so many Christmas cards. It seemed that if she knew where you lived and you'd never actually tried to kill the A-Team then Mrs. Baracus was sending you a Christmas card.

She'd told BA once that she wrote a card for him every year and put it up on the mantelpiece, since she had nowhere to send it. They were all saved up in a box for him. Well at least this year his mother actually knew where he was at Christmas to send him a card. The only problem was it couldn't actually get all the way here.

"I can keep it somewhere safe until you can get it," Baker said. "Or if you want, I can open it and read it to you." Till I can get it? BA thought. On my way to prison he means. He sighed to think that there was a big chance that his mother would have an address to send a card to next year too.

"May as well open it."

"Okay." BA heard paper tearing and then Baker spoke again. "The picture is of the three wise men, following the star of Bethlehem. They're riding camels."

BA smiled and nodded. When he was a little boy he'd always liked the three wise men part of the nativity story best of all. He used to wonder how come they hadn't actually arrived on Christmas Day. In his head he'd made up thrilling adventure stories about them fighting bandits and wild beasts as they travelled to Bethlehem.

"The message inside, the printed one that is, says 'Wishing you a joyous Christmas'. Your mother's message is..." Baker paused a moment, cleared his throat and went on. "'My dear son, I'm praying for you this Christmas, as I do every day. I know the next few months and what comes after that won't be easy for you. But I know you are strong enough to deal with it and to help your friends too. Always remember that whatever happens I will never stop being proud of you. Keep warm, baby, and pass on my love to Hannibal, Face and Murdock. Happy Christmas and all my love. Mama.' She adds several, ah, kisses at the end of the message."

After a pause BA managed to speak. "Thanks." His voice was hoarse and he couldn't say anything else for a few moments. He sat in silence for a long time. Then something he'd just heard sank into his mind. Oh no.

"Sergeant, who's Murdock?"

BA's heart jumped into his mouth. Baker said the army had sent the card on. Had they already opened it? He'd heard Baker tear it open, so had it still been sealed? But maybe it had been put inside another sealed envelope after being opened. If the army had read that name… His mother must have tried to contact Murdock and when she found he wasn't at the VA she'd figured he was here with them. Of course she didn't know that the Mounties didn't know Murdock was here.

"Sergeant, are you -?"

"Our dog!" BA said, the words coming out in a rush. He took a breath and went on more slowly, trying to sound natural. "Yeah, ah, that's our dog. Murdock's our dog." This time the long silence came from Baker.

"You have a dog there?" Baker said eventually.

"Yeah. Didn't we mention that before?" BA grimaced. Dog? Where the heck had that come from? This place was making him crazier than the fool.

"No you didn't. I, um, didn't realise the A-Team had a dog." He sounded like he wasn't quite buying it and BA didn't blame him. BA also figured Baker would check it out. The man was a cop after all. But now BA had said it he was committed.

"Yeah, he's sorta our secret weapon," BA said and almost giggled. A dog. Oh boy, Murdock had better start working on his disguise right now.

~~~~

Decker was not enjoying his Christmas Eve. There was only one other time he'd not enjoyed a Christmas Eve as much as he wasn't enjoying this one. On that occasion he'd been waiting for a med-evac flight with a bunch of grenade shrapnel in his leg.

Taking out the garbage was his daily job today. So this is what his life had come to. Taking out the A-Team's garbage. Cooking for them, washing their damn clothes. The idea that they were all in the same boat was no comfort. So far as he was concerned an aircraft carrier was too small a boat to share with the A-Team.

He upended the crate full of flattened cans into the bin marked for metal waste. Next the glass, already broken, so it took up less space in the bin. He had to brush a thick layer of snow off each bin. The wind whipped at him, flinging hailstones. It was almost noon and theoretically the station should be enjoying some brief daylight. But the clouds were so thick the sun might as well not have made the effort.

The only part of the garbage duty Decker liked was taking the kitchen scraps into the greenhouse, feeding them into the composting barrel and then giving it a couple of turns. Decker's father had been a keen gardener and considered himself the king of compost. He hadn't used any new-fangled barrel of course. His compost heap sat in the corner of the garden, being fed more carefully than the family dog. On cold mornings it steamed.

Decker thought they could have some good compost by the end of January, as long as the team didn't mess it up. None of them had a clue about the art of composting. Well if they wanted some fresh fruit or vegetables before they left here then the compost was one thing they had to let him be in charge of.

But now he was outside in the cold, not in the warmth of the greenhouse and Decker grumbled to himself as he filled the hopper of the garbage compactor with anything that couldn't be burned in the incinerator or saved for recycling. Nicotine cravings held him in an unshakeable grip. He still had some butts saved up, but despite searching the station high and low he'd found no cigarette papers. His plans had now turned to figuring out what he could use to improvise a pipe, a hookah or even a bong.

He went to turn on the compactor and a movement caught his eye making him look up. His hand inches from the switch, Decker froze in place.