Lone Wolf
The sunlight glistened on the water of the lake as a shadowy darkness began to set in. Stringfellow Hawke sat on a little camping stool playing his cello softly. The eagle screeched and grabbed a fish out of the water before disappearing into the mountains. He sighed and picked up his stool, taking it back to the cabin. Saint John, his older brother who had recently been rescued after being MIA for sixteen years, had fixed a dinner of fish and vegetables and was setting it on the table as he came in.
"Dinner's ready," he stated simply.
"Ok."
They ate in silence for a few minutes. A lot had happened in both there lives recently and for the last month and a half they'd had a relatively quiet time recovering from injuries and life in general at the cabin.
"We're going up to Santini Air tomorrow, right?" Saint John checked.
"Yeah, guess it's time to get back to work."
After dinner, they cleared the dishes and started getting ready for bed. Saint John settled with a blanket on the couch and soon drifted off. String quietly made his way up to the bedroom in the loft. Soon, he had fallen into a peaceful sleep. Three hours later he was awakened by a sudden noise, - screaming. Startled, he rushed down the stairs to see what had happening. Saint John sat upright on the sofa soaked in sweat and breathing heavily. In a glance, String knew what had happened, nightmare, he thought. He'd had them himself since coming back from 'Nam and still did occasionally. He fixed his brother a drink and sat down beside him on the couch.
Saint John never did go back to sleep that night and neither did String, but they managed to make it to the hangar the next morning by nine o'clock.
"How've you been?" Dom asked cheerily. Santini Air had been closed for awhile, since nobody had been available to run it after the devastating turn of events that had finally led up to Saint John's rescue, but Dom was making the most out of it and already setting up a full schedule.
"Alright," Saint John replied.
"Good, 'cause I have enough work to keep all of us busy for awhile." he commented. Business was good all morning, and they had a film shoot in the afternoon. All had gone well, and after the exhausting day's work, the four went to relax in the small office.
Leaning heavily on his rosewood cane, Michael Coldsmith- Briggs III walked into the hangar. "Slacking off again I see."he remarked sardonically.
"If only you knew," Saint John shot back.
Michael knew they weren't in the mood for games, so he skipped the fancy presentation and came right out with it. "We need Airwolf again. The Libyans have successfully gotten their hands on a weapon that is very possibly going to be used against the US and we can't let that happened."
"That would be bad."
"Understatement of the year." Michael realized how alike the Hawke brothers were. Saint John was taller and slightly more outgoing and optimistic, but in all their personalities were very similar. "Even worse, this aircraft is practically made just to go against Airwolf."
"How so?" String asked skeptically.
"Think Red Wolf with a better pilot."
"So, you want us to go in and take it out"
"No, I want you to give up and hand Airwolf over-Of course, I want you to take them out!" Michael exclaimed.
"What if I said I'm going fishing this weekend?" Stringfellow challenged.
"Then I'd say you had better change your plans," Michael said exasperated.
String didn't really mind the challenge and the Lady could use some air time out anyways, so he gave in. "Fine, you probably wouldn't leave me alone long enough to catch a single fish anyway."
Stringfellow and Saint John Hawke took Mike along for the trip. Marella had arranged a fuel pickup, and as usual they received startled looks when the fueler saw Airwolf, but successfully gathered more fuel and otherwise made a non-stop trip to Libya. They spent the night camped out so that they could start fresh in the morning. Saint John, having found out the cockpit of Airwolf was soundproof, decided to sleep in the helicopter. When he woke, he realized he wasn't alone. He looked in the backseat and saw his brother with surprise. Needless to say, neither one of them had slept well.
"String, what are you doing in here?" Saint John asked.
"I could ask you the same question."
"If I woke up screaming again, I didn't want to wake anyone up,"he sighed. " You know the nightmares."
"Same here."
"You have the nightmares too?"
"Libya doesn't bring back good memories. And who came back from Vietnam who doesn't have those awful nightmares?"
"I guess that's true."
"They aren't there all the time anymore, but certain things make them come back. Libya is one of those things."
When Mike woke, the other two had already been up for a while, eaten breakfast, and done a thorough flight check. He grabbed a quick bite to eat, then helped finish the final preparations. Ten minutes later, they were in the air.
"How are we supposed to find this anti-Airwolf machine?" Mike asked.
Saint John looked up at the screen in front of him. "Somehow, I think they'll find us."he muttered.
The other aircraft looked a lot like the Lady but it had sleeker lines, and a somewhat more deadly air, if that was possible. Even the paint job highly resembled the original Airwolf's.
"We have met the enemy," Saint John quipped, "and they look a hell of a lot like us."
String smiled at the comment.
It screamed through the air, not bothering with the chain guns that would be useless against Airwolf. It fired two heat seeking missiles, but String managed to dodge them.
"Two more," Saint John reported. Mike deployed sunbursts and those too were history.
Airwolf shot through the sky, and so did her evil twin. "They're gaining on us," Mike warned.
"That's the point," String replied.
Mike looked confused for a brief moment, but returned to his duties as engineer.
"Cut the turbos!"
Mike obeyed and Airwolf practically stopped mid-air. The other helicopter flew past them.
"Load an Agile."
"Loaded."
Stringfellow fired the missile at the other helicopter. It pulled out last minute, but took heavy damage. The pilot, whoever it was, took off with Airwolf on its tail.
"Another missile," String called and lowered the visor in his helmet. The auto targeting box locked onto the other speeding helicopter.
"We're too close," Saint John warned, "we'll get blown out of the sky too!"
String paid no attention. He fired the missile, then banked a hard right. Airwolf shook violently as the nearby helicopter exploded. She plummeted toward the ground at breakneck speed. Closer and closer, the ground the ground rushed up to meet them. Mere feet from the ground Airwolf finally pulled up. Mike and Saint John gasped. The end had been in sight, but they'd made it. String's face was hidden by an impassive mask. Even Saint John couldn't tell if he'd been as scared as they had been, or if he was inwardly laughing at how stupid they must have looked. String leveled out and said, "Let's go home."
He radioed the FIRM headquarters, "the aircraft has been successfully destroyed." He had hardly ended the call when he realized they were being followed by two more of the same type of helicopter.
"Damn," he rasped. "They did what they did what the FIRM tried to do."
"What?" Saint John and Mike asked simultaneously.
"Build a fleet of them."
Once again Airwolf zoomed up high into the sky. String let the other helicopters catch up with him, then released a sunburst, momentarily blinding the occupants of the following helicopter. He pulled back on the stick and Airwolf began a steep climb to then sweep in behind her enemies.
He was now behind the other helicopters, but they knew better than to let him stay there. They slowed trying to make him pass them, but he held his position. He fired a hellfire at them at close range. Only one to go. The last enemy helicopter fired a maverick and barely missed Airwolf's rotors. String avoided when it and dropped a few feet.
"He's got another one," Mike informed as it fired.
Airwolf dropped fast, heading for the top of a nearby sand dune, pulling out only at the last possible second, leaving only the missile to crash into it. The Airwolf twin fired the chain guns at Airwolf.
"Watch the rotors," Saint John advised, too late. The hit damaged the tail-rotor, sending a shudder through the frame of the entire aircraft.
"Turbos," Hawke ordered. Airwolf shot off out of sight for a moment, but the helicopter followed.
"We aren't loosing them," Mike grunted. "Another missile - heat seeking."
"Good."
Good? How can a missile be coming after us, especially now with a damaged tail rotor, be good? Mike wondered.
String let the heat seeker follow him toward the ground. He fired half the remaining arsenal at the ground creating a huge fiery explosion. The missile took the explosion instead of Airwolf's hot engines and also hit the ground, then Airwolf disappeared into the smoke and fire. The other helicopter pilot saw he'd made a hit Obviously, he'd taken Airwolf down permanently, so he turned and left.
Michael Coldsmith Briggs paced the floor nervously. He'd received the transmission about the successful defeat of the Libyan aircraft hours ago, but the Airwolf crew hadn't shown up or radioed in.
Marella handed him a note. "It came with the video- I think you need to see it," she explained solemnly. She led him over to the computer. "It's from our agent in Libya. She made a copy of the video Hawke was supposed to have destroyed." She clicked the play button and the video started. It was of the fight between Airwolf and the Libyan helicopter.
"But if he did destroy it, how is the video here?" Michael questioned.
"Keep watching."
After the Libyan helicopter went down Airwolf flew off, but it was soon followed two more.
"They have more?"
Marella nodded. "Evidently."
Airwolf took on the two new helicopters, but suffered damage to the tail rotor before taking down the second. Then Michael watched as the last missile off and disappeared, then the exploded violently, and the Libyan helicopter left. He waited expecting Airwolf to rise above the flames, but it never did.
"They're gone," he noted sadly.
He went back to his office and asked not to be interrupted. As a spy he wasn't ever supposed to get close to the missions or the people involved in them; all it ever caused was sadness and death, but he and Hawke had become friends in a weird sort of way. Now they were gone; he'd lost a billion dollar helicopter and its entire crew. Mike, Stringfellow, and the brother he'd spent so long looking for were dead.
Although he didn't look forward to it, he knew he had to tell Dominic Santini. Dominic had been like a father to the Hawke brothers and he would be understandably angry, but he had no choice but to tell him.
"Marella, get Santini on the phone."
"Yes, sir," she started to dial the number then looked up, "uh, sir maybe you'd prefer to tell him in person," Marella suggested.
Michael looked up and also saw Dominic Santini staring angrily at him. "What's going on?" Dom demanded. "I haven't heard a single thing; and what is it that you were going to call me about?"
Michael hesitated trying to think of the best way to break the news. "Uh, Marella received a video from an agent in Libya."
"So?"
"In the video," Michael tried to avoid the inevitable, "we have reason to believe Airwolf and her crew…. didn't make it.
"Your mission killed String and Saint John?" Dom shouted angrily. "You knew one day they'd get in over their heads! But no, they had to try to please you and finish the mission. You knew someday it'd get them killed, and you've finally done it!" He cursed angrily. "Let me see the damn video. If you can get my boys killed of,f I at least deserve to see how they died!"
"Dominic…"
"Now Michael!" he returned, his voice deadly.
Sighing, Michael reluctantly showed him the video.
Dominic Santini sat in his little office, sadly staring at the multitude of pictures. He had pictures of String and Saint John when they were small and ones that were more recent. Either way, he'd miss the boys he'd raised, just as he'd missed Saint John all those years believing him to be dead. Now though, he didn't even have hope that they were live for he'd watched them die. In the short months Saint John had been back a lot had happened, but it had been great to have him here. He wished somehow that he could bring them back, but they were gone-dead. There wasn't anything he could do. It wasn't possible for them to survive a crash like that, probably a direct hit.
Caitlin came in and saw Dom's cheery attitude was gone and one of sadness and despair had replaced it. Finally she asked what was wrong.
"String, Saint John-gone" he muttered.
"Gone? What do you mean gone?" Caitlin asked.
"Dead."
"No. They can't be. How?" she asked aghast.
"Michael; sent them on a mission and it was more than they could handle. Airwolf went down," he finished gloomily.
"There's no chance they survived?"
"Cait, they were hit, plowed straight into the ground, big explosion and everything."
String was the first to leave the helicopter. He coughed on the smoke still hanging heavily in the air. He'd made an emergency landing under the cover of the explosion, but it wasn't pleasant.
"Don't ever do that again," Mike choked, "you could have killed us."
"That's the point. They'll think we're dead so they don't bother sending more missiles at us," Saint John explained. "If we'd landed somewhere else they'd have seen us and sent a missile straight to us, and we'd really be dead."
"Let's just get this rotor fixed," String snapped impatiently, changing the subject.
They used the heat from fire from the explosion and the limited tools stored on Airwolf to repair the damaged tail rotor. Once the tail rotor was repaired as much as possible Saint John stated, "I think it will hold at least until we get back home and can do it right."
"We're going back."
"Of course we'll come back, just as soon as we get home and…"
"No," String interrupted. "We're going to finish this tomorrow morning. If we go home and they see us, assuming they don't blow us out of the sky right there, they'll have plenty of time to prepare for our return.
"You're going into combat like that?" Mike asked incredulously.
"Yeah," he replied flatly.
"Will she hold up?"
"She'll have to."
String, Saint John, and Mike were again in the damaged Airwolf flying towards the Libyan airbase. This time the Libyans weren't ready. "Mike, full combat mode." The ADF pods slid down and the chain guns came out from behind the stubby little wings. String fired most the remaining armament at the base and the other deadly helicopter. "Now we're finished."
Airwolf's howl could be heard distinctly. No, Caitlin thought, it can't be. Dom said they were dead. Caitlin convinced herself.
"Didn't anyone miss us?" String asked, "I was expecting a welcome back party or something." The three men walked into the hangar. Dom ran to greet each of them with a hug.
"How did you do it? I saw the video you went down."
"Controlled crash."
"Nothing controlled about it, you got shot down!" Dom disagreed.
"Yeah, but probably not the way you're thinking of."
"They hit our tail rotor," Saint John said. "He took most the missiles left to dig a hole in the ground and cause the explosion. Then used it as cover to land. They thought we were dead so they left and we fixed the tail rotor," Mike explained. "The next morning we flew in and blew that other helicopter to pieces.
Dom looked amazed. "Next time warn me before playing dead," he finally muttered, " but I guess all that matters is that you're alive."
The next morning, the Santini Air crew had a film shoot. The director had asked for nearly impossible angles, but String executed them with precision multiple times, yet the director wasn't happy and called for a retake.
"He's gonna do something stupid," Dom predicted.
String preformed the chase and stunt scene perfectly once again, before making a death spiral toward the ground.
"What did I say?" Dom proved his point. String's helicopter continued its dive toward the ground. "Even he normally pulls out," before Dom noted. He snatched the radio from the director's hand and yelled to String. "Pull out, kid, that's enough." The helicopter was now less than fifty feet above the ground. "String, pull out!" Dom shouted.
The helicopter leveled somewhat, but still headed quickly to the ground.
"What's he doing? He could kill himself!" Saint John exclaimed.
About twenty-five feet off the ground, the helicopter door opened and String jumped out. The helicopter crashed straight into the ground nearby. The remains burned ominously bringing a flickering light to the shadows cast by the mountains in the early morning light. String lay silently and unmoving on the ground.
Dominic and Saint John , followed by Caitlin drove the jeep as fast and as hard as they dared over the rough landscape to the crash site. They saw the burning helicopter, but what received all their attention was the bloody body laying next to it. Rescue showed up only a moment later. The EMTs carefully loaded the limp body onto a stretcher then into the ambulance, then with the sirens blaring it pulled away, heading quickly toward the hospital.
Dom drove the jeep to the hospital with Saint John and Caitlin beside him. Why didn't he pull up? Saint John wondered. Dom had said he'd do something stupid, and he'd heard about his brother doing things like this before, but he always pulled out at the last minute. Why did he jump from the helicopter? Surely he could have at least preformed a controlled crash if something was wrong.
When they arrived at the hospital, they walked straight to the emergency room area. The doctors said he hadn't regained consciousness yet, had a concussion, bruises, and a deep gash on his right arm. They'd already bandaged his arm and were preparing to move him to private room.
String woke up thirty minutes later. He was sore, but knew he'd be alright. Dom, Saint John, and Caitlin sat looking at him expectantly.
"Hey," he said weakly.
He was glad to hear his own voice, weak as it might sound. He hadn't been sure he'd survive the fall, but had figured he would have a better chance than if he crashed with the helicopter. His only regrets were that he would leave Saint John and Dom, and Caitlin would probably miss him too.
"You alright, kid?" Dom asked.
"I'll live." He remembered the stunt he'd once again preformed and his frustration at the director. Then he didn't remember anything except the thought that he had to jump if he was going to live. He had jumped and landed heavily on the ground. That was the last thing he could remember until he woke up here. "What exactly happened?" he asked.
"I was just about to ask you the same thing," Caitlin returned. "I saw a beautiful stunt then a death spiral. You jumped out about twenty-five feet up, why I have no idea."
"I-I think," he stammered, "I passed out for a minute. I knew I was gonna crash, maybe I could make it if I jumped."
"Why didn't you just pull out?"
"Tried. It was jammed," he coughed.
The doctor came in. "If you don't mind, I'd like to keep him just overnight for observation to make sure he is alright. Not many people could make a jump like that and end up so minorly injured, especially under circumstances like that."
"No," String answered wearily, "I'm fine."
"Ah, String, it's just one night. It'll be alright," Dom encouraged. "Just one night."
Stringfellow Hawke had many bad experiences with hospitals, one just recently, but finally conceded. "Fine," he said, "one night is all," He figured if it got too bad , he could figure out some way to snreak out like he normally did.
Dom and Saint John went home to let String rest and Caitlin decided that was best too, but she couldn't help thinking there was something more. Hawke was a good pilot . Surely, he could have at least made a controlled crash. There must be something he wasn't remembering.
Caitlin and Dominic were running Santini Air while Saint John went to pick up his brother at the hospital. Saint John walked to the nurse's station to check his brother out. He filled out the necessary paperwork, then walked to his brother's room. String sat on the edge of the bed looking out the window. Other than the bandaged arm and bruises he looked perfectly fine.
"You ready to go?" he asked.
String nodded.
"Sorry for having to spend the night here, I don't blame you for wanting to leave."
"No, it's ok. It's given me time to think," he said. "I don't think it was an accident, it was planned. Someone is trying to kill me."
As they walked out of the hospital toward the jeep, a gunshot rang out through the air. The two brothers instinctively ducked and ran for cover. String automatically reached for his gun, but it wasn't there. Of course it wasn't there, he thought disgustedly, he'd been in the hospital.
"We have to make it to the jeep," he told his brother quietly. A moment later he made a quick dash for the jeep and hopped in. Under the seat he found the gun. But whoever had been shooting at them was gone. Saint John joined him. "Any idea who that might have been?"
"Just whoever is trying to kill me, this time."
They drove back to the hangar in silence, both deep in their own thoughts. Dom came out to greet them. "Where've you been? You've been gone an hour and a half."
"String thinks someone is trying to kill him," Saint John started.
"It's probably nothing, people make mistakes all the time and things happen. It doesn't always mean someone's out to get you."
"I believe him," Saint John replied. "We were shot at leaving the hospital and I could have sworn someone was following us for awhile, but we finally lost them."
"Any idea who?" Caitlin interrupted.
"None."
A week later, Saint John was out to pick up some lunch. He was on his way back to the hangar when someone in the car behind him started shooting at him. He managed to grab his handgun out of the glove compartment and shoot back, but that didn't explain why they were shooting in the first place.
As he walked into the hangar carrying lunch he said, " String was defiantly right - someone is after us! I almost got run off the road today then the guy started shooting at me, and I'm pretty sure it was the same guy who tried to follow String and I from the hospital the other day."
"Sad as I am to say it, I think we need to pay a little visit to El Blanco," String muttered.
Dom shook his head at the idea, but he knew something had to be done.
Michael watched as his quiet empty office filled with the conversation of the three men entering. He looked surprised to see Stringfellow, Saint John, and Dominic walk in. Rarely did they ever come in unless it was related to one of his missions, and he hadn't assigned a mission in weeks.
"What's the occasion?" he asked.
"We were hoping you would know," String replied evenly.
Michael gave a questioning look at the statement, the bandage on String's arm, and the bruises.
"String was flying a stunt," Saint John explained, "but he thinks his chopper was rigged. It practically just fell out of the sky."
"Some things just happen; maybe someone didn't do a good job on the flight check."
"I always do a good job on the flight check," String snarled.
"When I went to pick him up from the hospital the next morning we were shot at, then followed, and almost run off the road. I don't think it could all be coincidence," Saint John finished.
"I see what you mean," Michael agreed. "I'll see what I can find; meanwhile, I suggest you lay low, maybe at the cabin or out of town."
Even to String, who usually enjoyed the quiet peacefulness of his lonely cabin, this was getting to be too much. "Whoever is after us better not ever show his face again or, I swear, I'll let loose on him with everything remotely dangerous in the area," he muttered. Caitlin had gone into town, but promised she would stay out of sight as much as possible and wouldn't be gone long. String glanced at his watch. She'd been gone for hours, so much for not being gone long.
By dinner she still hadn't returned. Dom paced nervously. "What if something happened to her?"
"Exactly what I was thinking," Saint John joined.
"I think it's time to get the Lady," String remarked.
"But who do we go after?" Dom questioned.
"Whoever gets in our way."
They searched for Caitlin anywhere they could think of that she night go and a few places they knew she wouldn't willingly go. She was still nowhere to be found.
Michael radioed in. "I might have known I'd find you in Airwolf, so much for laying low."
"Caitlin is missing," String retorted.
"Oh," Michael said apologetically. "I'll see if I can't find any clues to her whereabouts as well.I still haven't found out anything about you or your brother's incidents." The screen went blank.
"Let's take a break," Dom suggested. Reluctantly, String landed Airwolf in a nearby clearing and turned the engines off. They spent the next fifteen minutes working out the tension from the long flight and taking a coffee break.
"Let's go," String broke the silence.
" You want me to fly?" Saint John offered. "We'll find her, soon."
String relinquished the controls to his brother.
After being in the air only twenty more minutes, they received another call from Michael. "We just got a clue where Caitlin is, but it's not good."
"Where?" the Airwolf crew asked in usion.
"We have a randsom note."
"We'll be there in a few minutes."
String, Saint John, and Dom walked into Michael's office for the second time that morning. Michal looked worried-that was bad. He gathered a few papers off his desk and handed them over. String flipped through the pages.
"What does this mean?"
"Maybe if you actually read it instead of looking for all the pretty pictures, you'd know what it meant," Marella said.
String sent her an icy glare.
"It's the Libyans. I think they're a bit upset about you blowing up three of their finest aircrafts."
"Ok. So how did they get Cait?" String asked.
"With another one. Evidently they had three out when you destroyed their wolves. They aren't really interested in her though. They want you. Since you were able to destroy three of their best pilots, they want you and your Airwolf, Caitlin's just bait," Marella explained.
"How are they planning on making me work for them, they should know I won't. I don't like them and they don't like me."
"Torturing or brainwashing is my best guess."
"Then I guess we have to get Cait without loosing me," Hawke reasoned.
Before Michael could even fully realize what was about to happen, the three men were already gone, and there wasn't a thing in the world he could do to stop them. The only thing he could do was to supply them with fuel and armament and hope they could pull it off.
Airwolf, fully armed and refueled, floated effortlessly over the water toward Libya. String piloted Airwolf to the area where the base and other helicopters had been.
"Run scans, thermal, standard, and audio," he requested.
"Running," Dom confirmed.
They continued to fly over the silent desert. "I think we've found them," Saint John said.
Two Airwolf look a likes appeared from behind a sand dune. "Stringfellow Hawke," the other pilot said, "land that bird. I want you alive, but if you refuse I have no problem becoming the next - world's best pilot."
"Not a chance."
"Fine. We'll do it the hard way," the other pilot returned. Ascended higher into the sky. Once he was up, he fired two heat seekers before Airwolf had time to move. Saint John deployed two sunbursts and the missiles exploded underneath them.
"I'm in no mood to play games," String said coldly serious.
"Neither am I; I mean business." The other pilot was too busy radioing back to see the missile Airwolf had launched at him. He yanked the stick to avoid it, but it was too late. The helicopter exploded and the remains of the shell fell back down to the ground. The other pilot looked like he was going to be just as brave. He fired a multitude of missiles at Airwolf then retreated to safety. With a couple of sunbursts and some quick maneuvers Airwolf evaded all the missiles. Stringfellow fired a hellfire toward the other helicopter; it went toward the ground but didn't crash. The other pilot managed to land and was getting ready to fire a manual rocket launcher.
"String watch out!"
The rocket neared Airwolf, but String didn't move. It shot right past them. Saint John loaded a sidewinder and his brother didn't hesitate to shoot it. It blew up scattering debris everywhere. They stared for a long moment as the last Libyan Airwolf was destroyed.
"I guess Airwolf was meant to be a lone wolf," Saint John said.
"Yeah, I guess so."
After they were sure there weren't any more Libyan helicopters, String broke the silence. "Let's go find Cait."
"Let's go," Dom and Saint John agreed.
Airwolf flew over the Libyan desert searching for life signs. Nothing. She's got to be out here somewhere, Dom thought. He enjoyed having the perky little redhead around and would have liked nothing better than to have her sitting safely beside them right now. Dom glanced back down at screen then gasped, "Oh no."
String looked out on the sand and saw the same thing. Caitlin lay stranded alone in the desert. He remembered Gabrielle; after Moffet had stolen Airwolf, he tortured Gabrielle and left her in the desert to die. She had promised she wasn't like the others, that she wouldn't die, yet she had died in his arms before he had a chance to help her. Now Caitlin was out there; he feared the same would happen. He landed Airwolf on the soft Libyan sand and ran towards her. "Dom, bring the canteen," he yelled as he ran. He knelt down beside her cradling her head in his arms. "Cait, it's alright, you're ok now," he said softly. Dom brought the canteen and handed it to String who offered her a little drink and dabbed it on her dry skin.
"I've thought about you, your brother, and Dom at the cabin," she said weakly, "I knew you'd come for me." Her breathing became more shallow.
"No! Cait, I can't loose you too," his eyes began to tear. Gabrielle, he remembered sadly, died like this. He couldn't let Caitlin too. He didn't think he could stand to loose anyone else. "Saint John, radio Marella and have her prepare room in the nearest hospital and give us coordinates."he yelled. His attention turned back to Caitlin. "Come one Cait, let's get you to Airwolf."
She tried to sit up, but just collapsed into his arms. He gently picked up her limp body and carried her to the back of Airwolf's cockpit. He settled her in the jump seat. Saint John volunteered to fly, seeing his brother was upset and Dom sat upfront with him. String stayed in the back doing all he could for Caitlin.
String, Saint John, and Dom sat impatiently in the waiting room. Marella came to give them the news. "She was barely hanging on to her life, severely dehydrated and burned," Marella shook her head slightly. "Like Gabrielle, but I think Caitlin will make it. She's hooked up to an IV now and hopefully in a few days will be strong enough to go back to a hospital in Van Nuys."
String sighed in relief. "Can we see her?"
Marella nodded. "But not for long, she needs her rest.
"Hey, Cait," String called as he entered the room. "How are you feeling?"
"Horrible," Caitlin admitted, "but it's been a lot better since you and Airwolf showed up." She avoided his steady gaze. "I'm sorry for any trouble or bad memories I caused."
"It's alright. I've caused plenty of trouble myself," he sighed, "and don't worry about the memories. That was before I even met you. For now just worry about getting better so you can go home. Santini Air won't be any fun without you," he joked half seriously.
Caitlin smiled slightly then fell asleep. String quietly slipped out of the room.
In the next two days she showed signs of improvement and the doctors said she could be transported back to California, so String had volunteered to fly her back.
Once everyone was back in California, business at Santini Air went on as normal, but String, Saint John, and Dom visited Caitlin regularly, and she was well on her way to a full recovery.
The next week Caitlin was discharged from the hospital. String and Saint John had both suggested that the cabin was a good place to finish recovering, but Caitlin had declined. Honestly, she would have loved to spend the weekend at the cabin, but she knew two already living there was enough.
Before long she would be back at the hangar flying again assuming all went well and Michael didn't have any more missions for them, but that would have been ok with her too, as long as it didn't involve Libya.
Just the thought of lying helplessly alone in the desert only hoping someone would find her before it was too late, was enough to make her shutter. It must have been a terrible thing for String, she thought remembering the tears that had trickled down his face. He had watched Gabrielle die like that and was probably afraid I would do the same. No, she thought, I want to be right there waiting for him whenever he needs me.