WHITEOUT is an original story, inspired by the U.S. T.V. series AIRWOLF. Copyright 2008. This refers to the author of this original material, and is not meant to supersede any copyrights held by Donald P Bellisario or any other persons or corporations holding rights to the television series AIRWOLF and its characters.
Warning: There is some mild use of colloquial swearing in this story, but mainly for authenticity and it touches on adult themes.
For Jan Michael Vincent, who lifted Stringfellow Hawke from the page and breathed life into him, revealing his loyalty, patriotism, strength and single mindedness and most of all, his love for his family and his devotion to his country, playing him with a warmth, sensitivity, charm and charisma that has kept the character alive in the hearts and minds of fans the world over for more than twenty years, and is still winning new hearts even today.
Thank you for giving us a hero we could all believe in.
Best wishes from all of us to you, where ever you are.
Note from the author:
The action in this story takes place at the beginning of Season 1, around the time of the episodes One Way Express which aired on February 18th, 1984, and Echoes of the Past which aired on March 3rd, 1984.
Chapter One
Whiteout Station - The Arctic Circle.
Somewhere on the Polar Ice Cap, Northern Alaska.
Day Thirteen – Thursday, February 23rd, 1984.
Approximately 1pm local time.
"Hey Dom …."
"How ya doin'?" Santini asked as Stringfellow Hawke joined him beside the second space heater that he had put together, and positioned on the other side of the recreation room.
"I'm ok …." Hawke spoke in a rough, gravel voice as he squeezed Dominic Santini's shoulder in reassurance, then pulled out a chair and joined him in front of the heater.
"How's she doing?" Santini inclined his head back to where Leigh Roland still slept.
"Better, I guess …." Hawke let out a long, ragged breath, still shocked by what he had learned, still trying to sort out exactly what he felt about it too. "How about you?"
After her revelations earlier, Dominic Santini had made a silent, strategic withdrawal, leaving the two young people alone to talk, and grieve.
This was their tragedy, and they needed time to come to terms with it, together.
They needed to be able to talk openly, keeping nothing back from each other, and they couldn't do that with him hanging around, Santini had reasoned silently to himself.
Santini knew that there would come a time, later, when Hawke would seek him out, a time when he would come to him, ready to share his inner most pain with his surrogate father, seeking comfort and support and guidance, knowing that Dominic Santini would understand, for as that substitute father, he felt the younger man's sorrow and pain as deeply as if it were his own.
The tragedies that touched Hawke's life touched Santini's life just as deeply too.
They were family.
But, for now, Santini knew that Hawke and Leigh Roland needed to be left alone to work this out together.
Santini also wanted some time alone, to think.
Time, to work out how he could help the young man through this latest ordeal.
Time, to try to find the right words to say.
Time, to come to terms with his own sorrow.
To come to terms with what might have been, and what he too had lost ….
Taking only a flashlight with him, his heart heavy with grief and sorrow for his young friend, and deeply enraged on Hawke's behalf, over yet another tragedy that could have been avoided, firstly, Dominic Santini had gone to sickbay in search of a couple of Aspirin.
After swallowing them down, he had then roamed around the cold, dark, silent corridors of Whiteout Station, poking around, seeing if he could find some crucial new clue, recalling significant events from the past that tied him and Stringfellow Hawke together in a bond stronger than that of blood father and son, and trying to work out how he would help the younger man come to terms with this latest heartbreak, until the cold and the emptiness and the dark, eerie, intimidating silence had forced him to return to the comforting warmth and light and human contact of the recreation room.
He had no idea how long he had been gone, but arriving back there, he had found Hawke and Leigh Roland, locked in each other's arms, snuggled up close, fast asleep, so after getting some warmth back into his hands, needing something to do to take his mind off the fact that he really wasn't feeling so well, and to focus on something other than the past and the things that could not be undone, Santini had found the second gas powered space heater, still in its crate, in the kitchen where they had left it and he had worked quietly to open the crate and set up the heater.
He had also taken one of the hurricane lanterns from the recreation room, and once the heater was working, and the kitchen was feeling less chilled, Dominic had spent some time sorting out the various cans and jars and packets in the store cupboards, trying to put them together in such a way as to make a tempting meal for them all later.
None of them had eaten much in the last twenty four hours, and although his own appetite had now dwindled away, Santini knew that they would all function much better once they had something warm and substantial inside their stomachs.
The problem, he soon discovered, was that it was kind of hard to put together a decent meal with only one small primus cooking stove.
Hawke and Roland didn't eat meat, so he couldn't just throw everything into one saucepan and heat it all together, and he couldn't figure out how to heat several different things in different saucepans and make sure they were all hot at the same time, so, in the end, his head pounding and his legs and back aching, after succumbing to another harsh fit of coughing, he had simply given up and used the stove to heat water for a fresh pot of coffee.
When he had returned from a trip to the bathroom, he had found Hawke and Roland still sleeping, peacefully, and he had immediately noticed that the wind had suddenly seemed to have stopped its perpetual howling and that it was getting significantly lighter outside.
Santini had recalled Hawke's explicit warning about going outside alone, but he was feeling restless, and, he had reasoned silently to himself, if the weather changed suddenly once more, they might not have another opportunity to try to use Airwolf's radio equipment.
So, he had gone outside, hoping that some fresh air would clear his head and make him feel a little better, trudging very carefully through the fresh, heavy wet new snow to warehouse number two where they had stored Airwolf, out of the elements, keenly aware that one slip, one stumble, could result in a heavy fall and any one of his dry old bones snapping like a twig, and then where would he be, no-one knowing he was out here …. Slowly freezing to death ….
Safely reaching his destination at last, Dominic Santini had spent a few minutes checking Airwolf over, finding her to be in good order, and then he had clambered aboard, ducking into the rear avionics compartment, where, mindful of draining her reserve battery power, he had switched on one heating element and then he had powered up the radio and weather radar equipment.
The weather radar had immediately showed one huge storm front moving off to the south, swiftly followed by another, approaching from the northwest, swirling in a clockwise motion around the screen, followed closely by another approaching from the far northeast, sweeping in an anticlockwise direction, all converging on one point, Whiteout Station …. and all that he could get from the radio was intermittent bursts of static and a series of wild, ear splitting squawks and squeaks and whistles and whines.
He had tried on and off for fifteen minutes, alternating the frequencies, calling out to Nome, then trying the Firm's frequency, then trying Nome again, but to no avail.
Feeling despondent, the loud electronic white noise only making his headache worse, Santini had closed down all the equipment and climbed stiffly out of Airwolf, then having made sure that she was powered down to standby once more, and that she was not in any danger from falling debris that might be shaken loose from the rafters and eaves by the ferocious winds, he had secured the heavy door to the warehouse and trudged the short distance back to the main block, measuring each and every step very carefully, noticing as he did so that the skies all around were considerably darker and heavier than when he had set out.
By the time he had gotten back to the recreation room, Santini had been wheezing pretty badly, his legs heavy and hard to move, his heart lurching irregularly in his chest, his whole body shaking with the tension of holding himself so stiffly, so as not to fall and break his neck, he could feel beads of cold perspiration popping out on his brow, and as he retrieved the second heater from the kitchen and set it up on the other side of the recreation room from where Hawke and Roland still slumbered, he had to admit that he was feeling decidedly ropey.
Sipping on another cup of hot coffee, Dominic Santini had plonked himself down in front of the heater, the last of his strength ebbing away, leaning in as close as he dare without setting himself alight, and savored the warmth flooding through him.
He had spent the time since, watching over Stringfellow Hawke and Leigh Roland as they slept, and dozing, off and on, himself.
He had no idea what the time was, but guessed it must be getting on for close to mid day.
"Sleeps probably the best thing for her right now …." Santini answered Hawke absently now, casting a brief glance back over his shoulder toward Leigh Roland. "Poor kid …"
"Yeah. Dom, I asked you how you were …."Hawke reminded, his voice rough, his throat scratchy, feeling some kind of tickling irritant every time he breathed or swallowed.
"You want the truth, kid …. I'm not feeling so hot," Santini confided with a rueful look.
"Me neither," Hawke admitted, his voice deep and gruff.
"It's a lot to take in, kiddo …." Santini agreed, and Hawke frowned at the older man, wondering if he was quite with it. His mind seemed to be wandering, just a little. Hawke had been talking about his physical condition, but Santini was obviously still thinking about the scene he had witnessed earlier.
However, Hawke decided to go along with him, for now.
"I just can't understand how it happened …." Hawke sighed raggedly now, confusion clouding his somewhat flushed, handsome features.
"I think I know …." Santini confessed, and this immediately drew Hawke's curious blue gaze, the expression on his face clearly saying; What now?
"Dom …" The younger man prompted when Santini did not immediately begin to speak.
"Well … You see …. Look, String …. I never told you this, because well, I figured you didn't need to know. Couldn't see that it would do any good you knowing …. But …."
"C'mon Dom, spit it out."
"Well, ya see, kid …. I got a telegram, telling me that you had been killed in action, April,1972 …."Santini spoke in hushed tones now, and then turned away from Hawke's startled face as he paused to swallow down the lump that had suddenly formed in the back of his throat at the memory of that dark day almost twelve years before.
He had thought about nothing else since that poor young woman had made the startling revelation to Hawke earlier that morning, and the guilt that had suddenly slammed through him as he realized his own part in this terrible tragedy.
"Well, I guess I don't have to tell you how that scared the crap outta me …. For about all of thirty seconds!" Santini turned back to face his young friend, smiling softly as he reached out to pat the younger man's knee.
"I wasn't gonna believe no damned telegram, especially as I'd just had a letter from you a couple of days before, and in my heart, I just knew you were alive, kid …. Not like when I heard about Sinjin …. I just knew in my heart that it was true, that he really was gone …. But I know you don't believe that, so …."
"So, I got straight on the horn to an old friend who was still serving, and he got on to some of his friends in the top brass, called in a few favors …. Pretty soon I got a call back saying yes, you'd gotten shot down, but by all accounts you were very much alive and well, because according to your CO, Colonel Falcon, you were giving 'em holy hell down there in that field hospital!" Santini grinned now.
"Geez, Dom …."
"My friend apologized, said it should never have happened, and that he would get to the bottom of it. He called me back a couple of days later, to tell me that he'd kept up with how you were doing over there, and that there was some talk of sending you home when you were well enough, because you'd done your time …." He paused briefly to draw in a soft breath.
"He also told me that in looking deeper into the matter of the telegram, as far as they could make out, it had been some kind of administrational snafu," Santini explained.
"Seems someone, somewhere had some how managed to transpose a serial number and the damned computer spat out your name, instead of one Captain Stuart Hawkins …."
"Hawkins!" Hawke exclaimed, recognizing the name immediately and realizing that he had known the man that Dominic Santini was talking about.
They had been in the same unit, 382nd AHC, but not the same squadron, and, he now recalled, there had been several mix ups with orders during his last tour, despite the fact that Hawke was a helicopter pilot and Hawkins had been a spotter, the man they set down on the ground before a bombing raid, or aerial attack to hunt out Viet Cong targets and then guide the others in to their precise co-ordinates.
Hawke now recalled that while he had been recovering from his wounds in the field hospital, he had indeed heard that Stu Hawkins had been killed in a separate raid, the same day that Hawke himself had been shot down.
"Ohmygod …."
"Easily done, I suppose. Same initial, same rank, same unit …. In all the confusion, I guess it would be easy to write numbers down the wrong way …. People do make mistakes. But, somehow, I don't think it will be much consolation to poor Dr Roland …." Santini inhaled deeply then let the breath out raggedly as an audible hiss, rubbing his tired eyes with the back of his right hand now.
"Maybe I should have told you, String, but it didn't seem right somehow. You already had enough on your mind, and I figured it was counter productive …. The last thing I wanted was for you to come home thinking that you were bullet proof, that you could do just about anything and survive, because you'd already been officially declared dead once …. Nobody can die twice, right?"
"My God, Dominic …. I can't imagine what you must have been going through, what that must have felt like …. Especially after Sinj …."
"Yeah, it was tough, String, but I couldn't help thinking about the other guy's poor family. Had to be tougher on them. Getting a telegram to say that their son had been shot down, but was safe and recovering in a field hospital, only to then find out that there had been some kind of mix up, and that instead of being alive and on the list to be sent home, he was dead …."
"Yeah …." Hawke let out a ragged sigh, realizing that Santini was right. "I'm still sorry it happened …."
"No kid, I'm sorry …."Santini let out a deep, ragged breath now and turned sad, remorseful grey eyes on the younger man.
"If I'd said something back then, maybe you would have realized that the same thing happened to your young lady …. Maybe you'd have done something about it. Maybe you would have gone back to Sydney, tracked her down, found out once and for all if she had disappeared because she knew that there was no point waiting around for a dead man to come home, or if she had simply forgotten all about you the minute you shipped out, and moved on …." Santini spoke in low tones, full or remorse and sadness.
"I know it wouldn't have changed anything …. But at least you would have known about the babies …. And maybe you and she would have had a chance to work something out …. It's all such a damned waste …."
"It's not your fault, Dom …." Hawke spoke in a whisper, knowing that his old friend was right, he should have said something, but there was nothing that either of them could do to undo it.
Who knew how he would have reacted back then, Hawke thought miserably.
He had been such a wreck.
Maybe he would simply have been too numb, too battle weary and shell shocked to realize that perhaps Leigh had also been misinformed about his death ….
Maybe Dominic was right, and he would have become blasé about taking risks, because as Dom had already said, a man can't die twice ….
His sole purpose for living each new day was to find St John and bring him home. Nothing else had mattered beyond that.
Maybe Leigh Roland would have become just another casualty of his crusade after all.
Knowing that back then he had already been staring into the abyss, Hawke could not help thinking that maybe finding out that his sons had died at birth, would have been just one tragedy too many for him to deal with.
"You didn't know …. You couldn't know …. Getting that telegram …. It can't have been easy on you, Dom. You'd already lost St John …. You thought you were doing the right thing, not saying anything, and you did it for all the right reasons, Dom. Because you cared about me, and wanted to save me, from myself …. Thank you for not giving up on me …. For trusting your instincts …. It must have been a terrible shock …. I'm sorry it hurt you …."
"Forget, it, kid. The most important thing is that you were alive, and I knew it, in here," Santini gently thumped his chest in the region of his heart and smiled gently at his young friend, then let out a deep wheezing breath and coughed several times.
"I trust this, more than anything else, and it was telling me you were alive, String. I just wish …." Santini patted his young friend's knee once more, when he had recovered from the coughing fit and gotten his breath back, noting as he did so the concern in his young friend's familiar, loving blue eyes, then suddenly Santini was frowning at the younger man as he really looked at him for the first time that day.
"Hey kid, you don't look so hot …."
"I don't feel so hot …." Hawke tried to smother a wry grin.
"Ah, crap …." Santini mumbled.
"You can say that again …."
"Shoot! Ya think we got it? What ever it is?"
"I think that's probably a safe bet, Dom …." Hawke felt his throat constrict and raised his hand to his mouth as he too succumbed to the tickling spasm in the back of his throat causing the involuntary reflex to cough.
"Oh hell …."
"Ya. You can say that again …." Hawke drew in a deep, ragged breath when the coughing fit had passed, wiping the spittle from the corners of his mouth with his sleeve.
"What about her? Dr Roland? Do you think she's got it too?"
"Probably …."
"But she was already sick before we got here, String …."
"Yeah, I know, but I don't think it can be the same thing, Dom. She seems to think this thing has a pretty short incubation period, and going by the way I feel right now, I'd say she's right. Whatever it is she has, she picked it up while she was away from Whiteout Station. She probably did just have a head cold in the beginning …. Maybe that's all we have too. If we're lucky …." But Hawke's tone was doubtful.
"I guess we'll find out soon enough …. You will let me know if you get the urge to part my hair with a fire ax …." Hawke smiled ruefully at Santini, but the older man suspected that he was only half joking.
"Oh boy …. You still think they were playing with something nasty up here?" Santini quizzed, his expression growing anxious now.
"No, Dom," Hawke sighed expressively, feeling a stabbing pain between his eyes now, and raised the thumb and index finger of his right hand to squeeze the bridge of his nose to relieve the pain and tension.
"So now you believe her …."
"Yeah," Hawke gave a huge, shoulder raising sigh now. "I knew she was hiding something …. And I just had to ask, didn't I …." Hawke drew in another ragged breath. "But at least now I know she's telling us the truth about this place, Dom," he added before Santini had a chance to pursue with him his feelings about the rest of Dr Roland's revelations.
It was too soon.
He needed more time to think it through. To come to terms with the fact that he had fathered not one but two sons, and that he and Leigh Roland had both been unjustly robbed of the chance to see those two lives flourish and grow, and to develop into unique individuals.
His sons ….
Even now it tore at his heart to think about it.
His sons ….
His boys ….
They would have been almost twelve years old now …. Not quite young men, but not babies either ….
What would they have been like?
Would they have favored him, or their mother?
Leigh had said that when they were born, they were so like him, but as they had grown older, maybe he would have been able to see something of his father, or his mother, or maybe even St John in them ….
And if they had survived ….
If he had known about them, would he have gone back to Leigh, picked up where they had left off? Maybe brought her and their sons back to the States to start their life together here?
Under those circumstances, would he have turned his back on St John?
Would he have let go of this obsession, relinquished his crusade to find his brother and bring him home, in lieu of raising and protecting his own small family ….
Stop it!
Stop it, right now ….
You can't do this, not now ….
This isn't the time or the place, buddy ….
Hawke took a moment to pull his errant thoughts together, aware of Dominic Santini's silent scrutiny, aware too that the older man could see all too clearly the thoughts racing through his mind, and that he was once again feeling a stab of guilt and sadness that he had somehow, unwittingly, contributed to the sorrow and grief that he could see in his young friend's eyes.
"And …." Hawke drew in a deep breath now, trying to get back on track. "That means that if this thing, what ever it is, didn't originate from inside Whiteout Station, and the crew of the supply plane didn't bring it in with them, where the hell did it come from?"
"So, you tell me …." Santini muttered absently.
"There is only one possibility, Dom."
"Sorry …." Santini frowned at Hawke now, scratching his head briefly, finding it hard to concentrate because of the jack hammer banging away inside his skull. "You lost me, kid …."
"The scientists had to have brought it back with them when they came back from looking for the meteorite," Hawke spelled it out for Santini now.
"But didn't Dr Roland say that they didn't actually find the damned space rock?" Santini reminded now, forcing himself to concentrate.
"I have a theory about that …. The only person who survived that ill fated trip out on the ice to retrieve the meteorite was Dr Sven Sorenson …." Hawke reminded.
"The same Dr Sven Sorenson who had a bang on the head and conveniently couldn't remember what happened to the rest of his party, and the next day boarded the supply plane home, and ended up dead in a plane crash …."
"Coincidence? I don't think so. It occurs to me that maybe Dr Sorenson did find something out there on the ice, maybe recognized it, knew what it was and realized that it was something significant, and decided that he had to have it all to himself …." Hawke theorized now, an expression of deep concentration etched on to this face.
"So, maybe there was a struggle, maybe he fought with the others, maybe he even killed them …. The storm would have made a pretty convenient cover up for murder …. So, now he had the prize all to himself, and I figure he managed to keep it hidden until he left here with it, but, whatever it is, it didn't do him any good …." He paused to organize his thoughts before continuing.
"And we have to find it, Dom, whatever it was he found, we have to find it, because it may just be the key to everything that happened here, and the only chance we might have of getting out of here alive …."
"Ah, String …. You're not saying what I think you're saying, are ya?"
"I'm saying we need to go back to the plane crash site and bring back all three of those bodies, so that Leigh can do post mortems on them all. Find out if Dr Sorenson was maybe sicker than they thought when he left here …"
"I think he was very sick, at least in his mind. I think maybe during the flight, the pilot got antsy, noticing something odd about Sorenson's behavior, and maybe decided to turn around and head back to Whiteout Station, and Dr Sorenson couldn't have that ….
"So, maybe he lost control, maybe he tried to take over the controls of the plane and …. That's what caused the crash …."
"I'm saying we need to see what it is he was trying to take with him. What was so important it maybe made him kill for …."
"String, I went out to the Lady, while you were resting …." Santini informed now, and saw the hint of disapproval in his young friend's eyes. "I know what you said, but the weather suddenly cleared and I was worried we might not get another chance," he hurriedly explained.
"I tried to get the radio to work, but there was way too much interference, and I took a look at the weather radar while I was there. It's not good, String. This storm may be clearing, but there's another one hot on its tail …. We seem to be stuck right in the middle of a cluster of storms …. "
"Then we'd better get moving. We need to do this Dom, and we have to do it before the weather closes in on us again. It might be the last chance we get, old friend …." Hawke was reaching out to pat Santini's knee now, fighting back the desire to cough once more. "Before we're both too sick to go anywhere …." He concluded softly.
"Oh hell …."
"I'll go and wake Leigh, tell her what we've decided …."
And with that, Hawke rose, a little stiffly, and ambled back across the recreation room to wake Leigh Roland, having to pause on the way, reaching out to grab a nearby chair for support, his legs suddenly growing weak for a moment, unaware of the look of horror that now crossed his old friend's face, as Dominic Santini watched as the younger man was suddenly consumed by yet another fit of hard, hacking coughs, before recovering at last and continuing on his way.
/a\
"You're both crazy …." Leigh Roland intoned after she had had a few minutes to shake the remnants of sleep from her dull mind and digested what Hawke had just told her.
Upon wakening, she had been a little wary of him, despite the fact that they had talked, really talked.
She had told Hawke everything, unable to stop now that she had started, wanting him to know it all, pouring her heart out to him, about how she had felt to be carrying his child, that she had felt neither shame nor guilt, but had been looking forward to welcoming the new life into the world ….
She had told him about the hopes and dreams and aspirations she had had as she felt the life within her stir. About how difficult life had been for her, being alienated from her family, clinging on to the desperate hope that he would one day return and that perhaps they would be able to pick up where they had left off.
How she had almost died in the delivery room, from blood loss and shock.
How she had wanted to die, when she had learned that her babies were stillborn, and that the trauma of their birth had left her unable to have any more children …
And how, left with no other choice, she had learned to cope with facing each new day, alone, all those years.
She told him too, how she had never stopped loving him, had never thought to love anyone else, until Greg Chandler had come into her life, ten years later, and unexpectedly won her heart.
And how there was never a day that went by without her thinking about her boys, and how they might have grown up, the people they might have become, the things they could have done with their lives ….
How there had not been a single day when she had not thought of him too, and that not once, through it all had she ever regretted loving him.
And bless him, Hawke had listened to every painful word, silently, his gentle fingers stroking her hair, her cheek, her hands ….
Until at last, utterly spent, she had finally drifted off to sleep in his arms.
She was still feeling a little withdrawn, shell shocked, but now that it was all out in the open, she was finding Hawke a little easier to deal with.
For one thing, she wasn't mad with him anymore.
He was alive.
How could she ever be sorry about that?
Her previous anger had all been centered round the shock at finding him alive, and the realization that everything that had happened after she had been told of his death had been a pointless waste ….
Her babies had died in vain.
All these years, she had harbored a small hope that maybe the three of them were all together, that if she could not have her sons with her in this life, they were growing in the light and protection of their father's love, in a better place ….
And then she had found that he was alive ….
And with that discovery had come the stark realization that her sons were alone.
Two nameless babes laid side by side in an unmarked grave on the other side of the world, cold and so very alone ….
Robbed of their lives, denied the warmth and love of their mother and father, deprived of the right to their bright, hopeful futures, the final humiliation for Leigh Roland had been that because they had been denied a Christian burial, because in the eyes of the Church they had never lived, she had no idea where they had been laid to rest, and had therefore been denied a place to go to remember them and grieve for them ….
She could just about accept that for their father, after all, he had never truly belonged to her ….
It was only right that his body be returned to his loved ones back home in America, so that they at least had a place to go to remember him, and grieve for him ….
But not for her sons ….
Seeing him had brought it all back to her, and she had not known how to deal with any of it.
This morning, she had known immediately she had woken and opened her eyes to find him smiling softly down at her, that something was different now.
Firstly, he had come bearing a gift. Fresh, steaming hot coffee. Secondly, his smile had been warm and genuine. His whole manner had changed. Gone was the whole aurora of cold indifference and rigid, barely restrained anger.
He was gentler, less cold and threatening, softer some how, but she had been able to see the hurt and the grief in his eyes, so clearly.
And something else.
Fever.
She had felt the heat radiating off him as he held her, but had thought that it was because of their proximity to each other, his high emotional state.
Now, she could see the tell tales signs of fever burning in those beautiful sky blue eyes, and a deep flush coloring his cheeks.
So it was beginning ….
She had no idea what the hell it was …..
And she had nothing with which to fight it!
She had patiently listened to his proposal to return to the crash site, retrieve the bodies and bring them back here, and his theory about what he suspected had happened aboard the plane, and she knew that what he was proposing was partly to give himself something else to focus on, and she could empathize with him on that.
She also understood that he was trying to show her that he believed her now. That he trusted her.
Demonstrating that he was thinking more clearly. Rationally.
And, she could not help thinking that he was right.
They didn't have all the pieces to the puzzle, and there was no way that they would get the answers that they needed without those missing pieces.
Sven and the crew of the supply plane could provide them with vital clues ….
"Leigh, I don't see that we have any choice …." Hawke protested gruffly now.
"Look, I agree you have something, Hawke. I'd pretty much reached that conclusion for myself last night, but …."
"You need to check the bodies to see if they have the same symptoms as Dr Preston," Hawke insisted, trying to hide the fact that the room was suddenly closing in on him, spinning wildly, just for a moment.
"No, Hawke, what I need to do is check you and Dominic over. I'm still running some tests in the lab, on Shane's blood, so I need to draw blood from all of us, for comparison …."
"Do it when we come back," he snarled.
"No, Hawke, I need to do it now …." She glared at him, and Hawke knew that he wasn't kidding anyone, that he should have realized that he could hide nothing from her knowing eyes.
"Besides, I think you're forgetting something," she drew in a deep breath, trying to stay calm, but unable to hide her irritation at his stubbornness.
Although, she silently conceded, she shared his frustration and the need to be physically doing something to resolve their situation.
He was a man of action. Not made for sitting around, biding his time and waiting when there was something he could be doing to get the answers they needed.
He was on the right track, she was sure of it, just looking in the wrong direction.
He had also obviously forgotten the limitations placed on them by the location and the climate.
"The storm. It didn't just hit here, Hawke," she reminded softly. "The wreckage of that plane will be under several feet of fresh snow by now. I know you can find it with that fancy ruddy helicopter of yours, but do you really think that you and Dominic are up to digging it out?" She reasoned gently now.
"Besides, you say there's another storm on the way. I'm not so sure you'd have enough time to get out there, find the wreckage, dig it out and get back here before the weather deteriorates, or before it gets dark. It's already getting foggy out there. Take a look."
She waved toward the windows and Hawke strode over to peek outside, only to be greeted by a murky gauzy curtain of thick white fog hanging from a dark grey sky.
"I think you could be right, about Sven …. But, all I am saying is, we should look on going back to the plane crash site as a last resort, Hawke …."
"We have to find out what it is we are dealing with, Leigh. How can we fight it, if we don't know what the hell it is! You're a doctor Leigh, you should know that!"
Yes, indeed she did know that, but what he had failed to realize while he was puzzling everything else out, was that if this thing did all start after finding the meteorite, if the scientists here had started to get sick after bringing back the rock from outer space, then, even if she was able to identify the contagion, there might not be any way for her to fight it.
However, Leigh Roland kept these startling and very unnerving thoughts to herself for the moment.
He'd gone ballistic when he thought that they were dealing with chemical or biological weapons ….
She had no idea how he might react if she raised the possibility that what they were actually dealing with was a virus or bacterium of extra terrestrial origin.
That thought scared her witless.
But if they had all been exposed ….
She couldn't see that knowing the cause would help the others to fight it.
Right now, she would worry about that, and give Hawke and Santini something else to focus on.
"Then try looking a little closer to home, that's all I'm saying!"
"What?"
"The labs," she told him, her expression growing solemn and sorrowful now as she inevitably thought about the horror that awaited anyone who went out there. "Something had to have caused the fire, Hawke …. And we need to know if anyone was inside when it went up …."
"She's right, String …." Santini ambled up beside Hawke and peered out of the window into the freezing gloom beyond, a shudder running down his spine.
He did not relish the idea of stepping out there again, but it was infinitely more appealing than flying back to the site of the plane wreck and spending hours digging through heavy, wet snow, feeling sickly and fighting to stay one step ahead of a storm, and nightfall.
"Hawke, I've been asking the same bloody question since we got here …. Where the hell did every body go?"
Setting down her empty coffee cup on the floor and rising agilely from her perch on the mattress, Leigh Roland came up to stand between Hawke and Santini, slipping her arm through the crook of Hawke's right arm gently now, coaxing his gaze away from the blinding white wilderness outside.
"They can't all have just disappeared," she reasoned gently, then allowed her gaze to drift back to the window and he knew that she was thinking about the other block of Nissan huts and the bodies that might be inside.
"Ok, with the three men lost out on the ice, Sven gone on the supply plane, Shane dead, and me off the station that still leaves …. Nineteen people unaccounted for," she withdrew her arm from Hawke's now and began to pace up and down, a frown tugging at her brow.
"Until we know for sure what happened to all of them, we're still only guessing that this illness is a major factor. For all we know, Shane was the only one who died from it," she reasoned, stopping to look back at Hawke and Santini.
"Maybe the others got sick, but survived. Maybe they were able to put out a mayday call and were evacuated by the Russians, and it was the Russians who set fire to the labs to contain whatever it is ...."
"Great theory, Leigh, only it isn't contained," Hawke threw her a meaningful look. "Dom and I both have it …. Maybe you too …."
"We don't now that for sure, Hawke …. That's why I need to run some tests …."
"And if the Russians evacuated the scientists, why haven't they told our side about it?" Dominic Santini asked logically.
"Maybe they thought it would be an ideal opportunity to grill our people about what they were doing here, maybe get in on the action, I don't know …." Her voice was rising in both pitch and volume and she began to pace more quickly, much to Hawke and Santini's amusement now.
"But 'struth, Hawke, nineteen people don't just evaporate, and if there are bodies in the labs, they may give us the answers we're looking for!"
Hawke knew that she was right.
Nineteen people didn't just disappear into thin air, and checking out the labs was less risky than taking Airwolf up, when he and Dominic were feeling below par, and had a storm bearing down on them.
"Look, I know you're not feeling great right now, and I'm not prepared to stick my neck out and say one way or another whether you've been exposed to something or not until I've done some tests, but I'd say that's an even better argument for you not flying out of here on a wild goose chase…." Leigh reasoned gently now, large, luminous amber eyes gazing back at him appealingly.
"What if you get really sick and can't make it back here? What then, Hawke? What happens to me?" she asked softly, hoping to prod his conscience now. "Let me check you over, run a few tests …."
"Oh, alright, dammit …." Hawke hissed impatiently, knowing that she was right about almost everything that she had said.
He still wasn't buying the Russian rescue mission scenario, but everything else she had said made sense.
"Stick your damned needles in us if you have to, but hurry up about it. I want to make a start before it gets too dark …."
