Airwolf – Terminal Velocity

Epilogue.

Santini Air Hangar, Van Nuys Airport, California.

Two months later ….

"Hey, String, you want some coffee?" Dominic Santini yelled across the Santini Air Hangar, hoping to get the attention of the young man lying beneath the Bell Jet Ranger which was scheduled for routine maintenance today.

When Hawke did not immediately respond, Santini casually dropped a wrench on the floor and the resounding metallic clang did the trick.

The startled young man reacted by raising his head sharply, banging it on the side strut of the landing skid, and wincing he crawled out to see what all the commotion was about.

"Coffee?" Grinning widely, Santini waved the young man's mug at him in one hand and the empty coffee machine in the other.

"Yeah, thanks …." Hawke's hand absently came up to rub at the sore spot as he scowled at Santini. "Do you want me to make it?"

"No, I can do it. You carry on with what you're doing …." Santini continued to grin, sauntering over to the sink where he ran the cold tap for a few minutes before filling the coffee machine and returned to the workbench to spoon in the required amount of coffee grounds.

"Just don't make it your usual high octane stuff, Dom …." Hawke grouched, rubbing absently at the spot where his head had collided with the metal landing skid once more and wondering why it was the old coot seemed to have a mischievous devil at work on him today. "I'd like to sleep some time this week …."

"You wanna do it yourself?" Santini retaliated, and watched Hawke slide back under the Bell Jet Ranger, grumbling to himself as he did so.

Santini returned to the task in hand and was just returning to the sink to rinse out the dirty coffee mugs when he heard the familiar sound of a well maintained jeep as it came to a halt outside the hangar, and he frowned, sticking his head out around the hangar door to be greeted by the sight of a very attractive young woman clad in the uniform of a US Army Major, as she slipped gracefully out of the driver's side of an Army jeep.

"Oh String …." Santini quickly turned back to again yell at his young friend, who had returned to his prone position under the Bell Jet, and who once again banged his head in response to Santini's holler, muttering and cursing as he scuttled out from under the chopper. "You got a visitor!"

Major Georgina Fellows, US Army, walked gracefully into the hangar and found herself greeted by an older man she immediately recognised as Dominic Santini, clad in filthy coveralls, giving her the sweetest, crispest salute she had had in a while, his ruddy rumpled face split by a huge grin, rheumy grey eyes twinkling in recognition and pleasure at seeing her.

"Sarg …." She greeted Santini with a sweet smile of her own and returned the salute, then noted movement from across the hangar out of the corner of her eye, and her hand fell slowly away from her brow, as suddenly her gaze was settling on the familiar face of Roger Dobbs ….

No, Stringfellow Hawke ….

Sara

Hawke was staring at her now, blue eyes wide and shocked to find her standing there, before him, when it had been two months since he had last laid eyes on her.

That had been when he and Dominic Santini had left her at the medical facility at China Lake and returned to deal with the traitor, Guy Anders.

Unfortunately, Colonel Jardine's men had rounded him by the time they got back there, and Hawke had been left deflated and disappointed all round.

He hadn't even been allowed to sit in on Anders' interrogation.

He had wanted to go back to see how Sara Sykes had been doing, but Archangel had recalled him back to Knightsbridge for an immediate debriefing, and by the time he had had a chance to ask after Sara, all Archangel would tell him was that the Army had transferred her to a specialist burns unit back east after their initial examination, and that as far as he knew, she was out of danger, but that it had been a very close thing indeed.

Now, here she was, standing there looking extremely chic in her uniform, a sweet smile on her lips, and those unusual dark blue eyes fixed unwaveringly on his face.

He was lost for words.

She started to walk toward him, closing the gap between them with confident strides, smiled softly, and then she surprised the hell out of him by stepping right up close, reaching out with her right hand to grab the front of his filthy coveralls and jerked him toward her, the other hand coming up to cup the back of his head as she pulled his face down so that she could claim his lips with her own.

"Sar …."

"Shhhhhh," She breathed against his lips as her mouth clamped down on his hungrily, preventing him from finishing her name.

Shocked and completely non-plussed, Stringfellow Hawke found himself kissing her back, fiercely, passionately, with all the need and joy he felt in his heart at seeing her looking so good, so well ….

So alive.

They devoured each other's lips hungrily, her fingers running through his hair, digging into his scalp, then roaming over back and shoulders and buttocks, his fingers knocking off her cap in their hast to wind into her hair, loosening the pins from her chignon to allow it to fall in a black velvet cascade down her back, his other hand fitting nicely into the dip of her waist and the small of her back as he pulled her closer.

"What took you so long …." Hawke mumbled wryly against her lips then, noting out of the corner his eye, Dominic Santini, eyes wide and sparkling merrily with amusement and a wide grin on his face as he tried to discreetly withdraw to the back office, but Hawke ignored his old friend's mirth, whilst blessing him for leaving them alone, as he used the fingers he had wound in her hair to tip her head back so that he could deepen the kiss even more.

"Still can't wait to be asked, huh?" Hawke teased as they drew away from each other at last, grinning and breathless and unable to tear his eyes off her lovely passion flushed face.

"Getting older by the second, and you would still be standing there thinking about it." And again she pulled his mouth down to her own.

"Call me old fashioned, but I like to take my time …. It's good to see you, Sar …." Hawke drew in a ragged breath as they pulled apart, reluctantly once more and this time she raised a neatly manicured index finger to his lips and shook her head gently

"I'll say," she grinned wickedly up at him, keeping her arms around him, eyes devouring him as she drew in a similar ragged breath, and he noted immediately, deliberately not calling him by name either, and a slight frown began to mar his brow, however, she did not give him chance to voice the question suddenly running through his mind, her hand easing his face back down to hers.

This is crazy …. Hawke found himself thinking as he planted his lips firmly against hers.

And wonderful and way past time ….

And he loved her ….

They came together again, for another long, hungry kiss, and this time when they parted, there was amusement in both their eyes, as they grinned breathlessly at each other.

"I've wanted to do that for so long …." She confessed, a delicate blush beginning to creep up her cheeks when she drew away at last. "I needed to make sure I didn't dream you."

"I'm real enough …."

"Yeah."

"You look well …."

"I am well, thanks to you. You saved my life …." Her voice caught in her throat, briefly then, and she reached up now to caress his cheek lightly with her fingers. "I'm sorry they wouldn't let you see me … Afterward …."

"Archangel told me they shipped you back east."

"Yes. I was in a specialist burns unit for a month, and then I had to go give my report to my CO and get debriefed, and then I got thirty days leave, so after a week of boredom at home, I hopped on a plane and came out here to spend some time with my father, he lives in San Diego." She quickly explained. "He asked me to thank you for your help in bringing my sister's murderer to justice."

"I didn't do much," Hawke protested now.

"You stopped him murdering his other daughter. That's a debt that neither of us will ever be able to repay."

"What happened, Sar …." Hawke tripped over her name, and now she dropped her gaze, briefly.

"He, Anders, told me that he was always suspicious of me, but didn't understand why, until he overheard us talking, and then he recognised me from a photo he saw on Claire's desk …."

All the time she was talking, her hand was doing delicious things to his spine and Hawke was finding it hard to concentrate, as he gazed down in to her big deep violet eyes.

"He followed us outside that night, wanting to see what we were up to, because he was suspicious of you too. Your showing up just after me distracted him. He didn't know which one of us was there to oust him, or if we were working together, so he snuck out after us, and then he went back inside and waited, eaves dropping on our conversation."

She paused to draw in a soft breath and now her hand drifted to his exposed forearm, where she traced her finger delicately up and down slowly, playing with the fine hairs just above his wrist.

"And then, he jumped me …. Came at me from behind so I didn't get a chance to show him my moves …."

She grinned again now, to lighten the mood, and then surprised him by moving back from him, bending down gracefully to retrieve her cap from the oily hangar floor, and after winding her hair back up, pushed it back haphazardly underneath it as she set the cap squarely on her head, and then she reached out, taking his hand and began walking back across the hangar, drawing him after her, which made Hawke frown.

"Time to say goodbye …." She told him with genuine regret as they stepped out into the sunshine.

"Goodbye? After that hello?" His tone was incredulous as he reached out to slip his arm around her waist, drawing her in close.

"Afraid so. Only a flying visit. I've been redeployed, back to my old unit. They're in Germany," she told him in a soft voice. "But I couldn't go without coming to say thank you. Without knowing …."

"Knowing what?" He asked softly, but he thought that he knew the answer.

It was a question that had been burning in the back of his mind too, since the last time he had seen her, only now, he had his answer.

"If it was Hawke or Dobbs I care about …. Roger or Stringfellow, I fell in love with."

"And?" He breathed raggedly.

"I guess it's both," she sighed deeply, dropping her gaze shyly now.

"Me too. Sara and Georgie …." He confided raggedly, and this drew her unusual eyes back to his face now. "So where does that leave us?"

"I don't know. Hell, I don't even know what to call you …."

"I don't care what you call me. Right now, I'd settle for Roger damned Ramjet, if it meant that we might be able to see each other again …."

"Oh, we will …." She reached up to cup his strong, chiselled jaw tenderly now. "I promise. Stringfellow. Roger. A rose by any other name …. I won't be in Europe forever, and my father doesn't live that far away …. And if you're ever in Germany …."

She stepped in close to him once more and wrapped her arms around his neck, her hand coming up behind his head to guide his lips down on to her own once more as she breathed:

"I love you …. Whatever the hell your name is. I love you …."

"I love you too …." He breathed against her lips, then found himself unable to speak as she moved her mouth hungrily against his once more, leaving him breathless and unable to think clearly.

"It's not goodbye, just so long for now, and see you around …."

She drew away at last, her lips lingering against his, eyes filled with passion and love and a promise for the future as she again reached up to caress his cheek with her fingers.

"When the time is right, we'll find each other again," she gave a gentle sigh.

"When you're done saving the world, and I'm done paying back Uncle Sam for my medical education. Somewhere down the road, our paths will cross again. When that time comes, we'll both know who we are, and what we want, and names won't matter a damn."

She moved back from him now, and Hawke reluctantly dropped his hand from her waist as she stood up straight, squared back her shoulders and offered him a crisp salute before turning gracefully on her heel and walking purposefully back out into the sunshine.

Stringfellow Hawke watched as she climbed gracefully into the jeep and drove away, waving cheerily, but not looking back as she guided the jeep down the strip, leaving him breathless, giddy, elated and speechless, yet wondering, despite what she had said, if he would ever see her again.

How can you possibly doubt it?

She'll come looking for you!

That's my girl.

Straight to the point, no messing around ….

Not afraid to take what she wants ….

My beautiful …. Lawyer, doctor, injun' chief …. Major ….

It was hard to watch her driving off, out of his life without so much as a backward glance, but of course, he knew that she was right.

Maybe it wouldn't be forever ….

They both had their real lives to live, their own paths to follow for now, but he could not help smiling as he found himself wondering, if the next time Archangel had a mission for him in say, Russian, or East Germany, if he couldn't somehow find time to take a detour to drop in on his precious Psycho Sara.

The smile that curved at his lips now was warm and soft and filled with hope and anticipation, and it grew even wider as he promised himself that next time he saw her, she wouldn't have to wait for him to think about asking, and that he would finally get to show her his moves ….