Welcome to South Africa

By Kat Fenn

Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters…as countless others before me, I have borrowed them as I hear their voices in my head!

Author's note: PS: I have tried to keep this in the era of the late 80's, so the technology is rather dated.

P.P.S As per some of my reviews I have tried to flesh out String's character a bit and I've tried to do this from his POV. I promise I've worked in some action towards the end – although be warned for die-hard Airwolf fans…the Lady isn't involved in much…sorry!

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Chapter 1

Stringfellow Hawke shifted slightly in his seat. It felt strange to be just sitting, whilst someone else flew the plane he was on. "Well, at least I'm not in the co-pilot seat and sitting on my hands," he thought to himself.

"Anything I can get for you sir?" whispered the air stewardess, startling him slightly.

"How about another scotch, miss? With water and ice, please."

"Certainly, sir. Coming right up!"

String settled back into his seat, adjusting his headphones over his ears. Strains of Beethoven's Seventh symphony sounded in his ears. He looked forward to hearing the haunting melody of the slow movement, which always seemed to him to reflect the composer's true anguish and frustration at being deaf in a hearing world.

The plastic glass of scotch appeared magically at his elbow. The stewardess moved swiftly away in the darkness, trying not to disturb the other passengers, most of whom were asleep.

String went back to his thoughts. Back to six months ago, at his cabin.

Caitlin had said that she needed to talk to him. So he had flown the two of them, in the Jet Ranger, to his cabin. Once settled with a bottle of wine, Caitlin stared into the fire for what seemed to be a long time, until String put his hand on her shoulder. "Hey…what's wrong, Cait?"

She had turned to him with eyes that didn't quite seem to be hers. Instead of the normal sparkle of mischief that was there, he saw something almost sad, an element of hopelessness.

"String…."

Taking her hand in his, he told her she could tell him anything. "What's troubling you, girlie?"

Cait had taken a deep breath, and had told him that she wanted him to listen to all that she had to say, before he said anything. "Uh oh," he had thought to himself. "This is serious."

She had poured her heart out to him – how she felt when they first met, how she had taken the step of coming to find him in California even though her head had told her heart that this was just a stupid, girlish whim…how she felt when she finally found him, and Dom had offered her a job. And then how she tried to fit in, be one of the guys. Where the two of them seemed to be in a tug of war of feelings for each other – first one way, then the other. And how, finally, after four years of her moving to California from Texas, that she had finally screwed up the courage to say all this.

She told him she loved him, and asked if he could love her – if their relationship could go further than just friends.

At which point String stopped breathing. Looking straight into her eyes, he told her that he loved her, but not the way she wanted him to love her. He didn't feel that he could give her what she wanted. And he wasn't sure if what they felt, at various times during the past four years, was the love she so desperately wanted from him.

And she has tested him then – with a long, passionate kiss. Neither of them felt "the sizzle", as Cait so succinctly put it. She apologised for testing him, and wanted to leave right away, but he wouldn't let her go. He had held her in his arms, and just as he suspected, her tears began to fall almost immediately. Tears that fell for hours, soaking the front of his plaid shirt, until she finally quietened and fell asleep. He had covered her with a blanket and left her to sleep on the couch. And then spent a sleepless night on his front porch, telling himself that he deserved to be freezing cold, for being such a cad. But he thought that that was the right thing to do. He wanted her to be happy, and he knew it wasn't going to be with him. He kept on thinking about Gabrielle and their short time together – he knew that he definitely did not feel the same way about Cait as he did about Gabrielle – the love and passion of his life.

The next morning Cait had come into his kitchen while he was busy making toast and coffee, and asked again if he was sure about how he felt about her. When he looked at her squarely, he could see that her eyes were red-rimmed, and tears were not far away. And he had told her, as gently as he could, that there was absolutely no chance for them. He had opened his arms to her, but she had backed away, saying that she understood, and she would never speak of this again. And assured him that they would still be friends.

Fast forward to two weeks ago, when he and Caitlin had had a long, long talk. He had offered to walk her back to her apartment from their favourite Friday night hangout – the Blues Bar, just two blocks from her apartment. Dom had stayed on at the bar, swapping war stories with Tony, the bartender. As they walked, slowly ambling along, Cait had told him that she had been doing a lot of thinking about their last talk at the cabin. She thought that she could get over the feelings she had for him, knowing that he did not feel the same way about her, and still carry on with her life as normal. She had tried to date other men, and not let how she felt change anything at the hangar. She confessed that she was fine during the day, but the moment she was alone with her thoughts at her apartment at night the tears would fall again. String tried to comfort her by holding her, but he could tell that she held herself stiffly in his arms, not allowing her body to take full comfort from him. It had saddened him. And then Cait had told him that she was leaving Santini Air for a while – to go home to Texas. Where she could spend time with her mum and dad, and try to think about what to do - away from him. Again he had apologised. And said that he was sure that there was someone out there for her – who would love her the way she deserved to be loved. And that she really shouldn't waste her time pining for him – that he really wasn't worth it. She had given him a hug, and a kiss on the cheek, and said goodbye at her front door.

She had left for her Texan home a week after they had said goodbye. Dom had been sad to see her go, but had told her to take all the time she needed, and extracted promises from her to call and let them know she had arrived safely. And had given her a big hug and whispered to her that he was sorry that it didn't work out the way she wanted it to, but that he loved her and perhaps it was better this way.

The plastic glass of scotch was empty. The Classical music programme in his earphones had gone past the Beethoven symphony, into the Chopin piano concerto and then into the Mozart opera before his mind came back to the present.

Shaking himself, hoping to rid himself of the clouds of melancholy that tore at the corners of his brain, String removed the headphones from his ears, unclipped his seatbelt and stood up. Trying to be as quiet as possible, he made his way to the tiny bathroom.

Settling back in his seat, he looked at his watch. It had been two days since he left his cabin in California. Dom had taken him to the airport, and waved him off. He had boarded the Emirates flight, and with a cursory nod to the person sitting on his left, he had sat in his aisle seat and promptly unfurled the newspaper he had with him. It had given him some time to think about the assignment that Archangel had set him – and also the other reason for why he was heading to South Africa. Once the aircraft landed in Dubai, he had three hours to kill whilst waiting for the plane to Johannesburg. He had wandered around the brightly-lit airport terminal, looking at the shops, and shocking himself at the price of alcohol. "Well, it IS a Muslim country, I suppose," he thought to himself, whilst trying to remember when he had last bought a bottle of scotch. Dom usually did his shopping for him. He wished that Dom could have come with him, but he knew that with Caitlin gone, someone would have had to teach her students. Dom had told him not to worry about him, that he would be fine for two weeks, and besides, one of them needed to make sure that the Lady was fine and in good repair, for in case. String remembered telling Dom not to forget to put her landing gear down if he decided to take her for her spin by himself, and that touching the cyclic on the way up through the chimney would just result in scrapes along the canyon wall. And Dom had given him a stern look and told him to piss off, just before pulling him into a big bear hug and telling him to take care of himself, and enjoy his "holiday" in Johannesburg.

His thoughts then turned to the lecture on his experiences in the Vietnam War that he was due to deliver the following Thursday, at a monthly meeting of the South African Military History Society. Not a natural public speaker, he had his meticulously prepared notes and transparencies in his carry on case. He pulled them out on the flight from Dubai to Johannesburg, and flicked through them absently, his mind half on his mission brief. As usual, Archangel had a mission for him. But one that didn't involve Airwolf, just for a change. He still couldn't figure out if Archangel had somehow manufactured the invitation from the Military History Society so that he had an excuse to be in South Africa for the mission, or if the invitation had come first and Archangel had merely jumped on the bandwagon. He recalled Archangel's last words. "Hawke, we are counting on you as a field operative, not a pilot this time. You need to meet the contact for us – he has information on a microchip for us that is vital to our efforts to stem the civil war in Zimbabwe. And bring that information back to me. I trust you, Hawke, and the people of Zimbabwe are counting on you." It sounded easy enough. Meet someone, collect a microchip, and take it back to the States with him.

Looking at his watch once again, he decided that he had had enough of his notes and his thoughts. Standing up to put them away in his carry on case, he decided that perhaps getting some sleep would be his best option. Snuggling under the slightly scratchy airline blanket, he closed his eyes.

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