"Guessed I'd find you here," Stringfellow Hawke deliberately kept his voice low, in respect of his surroundings, the hospital chapel, and the only logical place he knew where to look for Dominic Santini, after ascertaining that the old man's jeep was still in the hospital parking lot.

It was the most logical and obvious place to look.

Not because of its religious significance, but because it was the one place Santini could be guaranteed the peace and quiet he needed to pull himself together, and decide what he was going to tell Hawke when he came looking for him.

For Santini knew the young man well enough to know that he would.

"Come to finish what you started?" Santini asked in a solemn voice, his face grey and drawn, his eyes still filled with pain and betrayal.

"Let's go for a drive," Hawke invited succinctly. "We'll use your wheels."

"Busted, huh." Santini pointed toward Hawke's right hand, which he was holding in a protective manner against his side.

"Probably."

"Should get someone to take a look at it. Get it X rayed," Santini suggested.

"Maybe later."

"You got some place in mind?" Santini asked cautiously as he followed Hawke out of the quiet solitude of the chapel.

"Just drive."

Without further comment, Hawke strode purposefully out of the hospital's main entrance into the parking lot, followed by Dominic Santini.

Both men climbed into the Santini Air jeep and Dominic backed out of the parking space, then, guided the jeep out onto the highway, heading for the secluded spot on the coast where he and the Hawke brothers had gone to fish and surf and have fun on long, hot, sultry summer days.

Hawke guessed their destination, when he noted the route Dominic was taking, and he wasn't surprised.

It was as good a place as any to talk.

He sat in stone faced silence, nursing his aching hand and wrist, hanging on to the pain and his anger as a way to keep him self focused on what was to come, and remained seated in the passenger seat of the jeep when Santini brought it to a halt in the dunes, and slid out, stretching his aching back carefully, and turning his face briefly up to the last weak rays of the sun as it sank slowly toward the distant horizon.

"Talk," Hawke slid out of the jeep at last and came to stand in front of Santini.

"What do you want me to say, String?" Santini let out a ragged sigh, adjusting his baseball cap on his head now, feeling uncomfortable under the young man's cold and brutally unrelenting glare.

"The truth."

"Oh, nothing simple then …."

"Dominic," Hawke's tone held a warning.

"You have no idea what you're asking."

"I'm asking you to explain. Giving you a chance, to explain."

"Before you beat the crap out of me again, huh? Oh, I forgot, busted your hand. Maybe the old man don't have a glass jaw after all?" Santini taunted now, almost as though he were inviting the younger man to lay another punch on him.

Because, that would be easier to deal with than the ordeal he knew was surely coming.

Physical pain was preferable to the heartache Santini knew both men had in store.

"I've got another hand. That's all I'd need to deal with you, old man," Hawke warned in a low voice.

"Go ahead," Santini invited. "Make good on your promise to kill me."

"You think I wouldn't?"

"I know you could.. But you won't. You want something from me first."

"So give me what I want."

"I can't."

"Liar."

"So you keep saying."

"Don't mess with me, Dominic! I'm not in the mood."

"Yeah. So I see."

"So tell me …."

"Tell you what exactly?"

"The truth!"

"Who's truth? Yours? Mine? Steven's?" Santini mocked now. "You're just like him you know. Every bit your father's son. Hot headed, quick to jump to conclusions. Always had to be right. He knocked me on my ass too. Threatened to break my neck …."

"Why would he do that? Huh? If, you were such good friends?" Hawke demanded, surprised to hear this new piece of information from Santini. All his life, the only way he had ever heard Dominic Santini talk about his father was with love and affection, pride and reverence and happiness.

"And now, I see history repeating its self," Santini let out a ragged sigh, ignoring Hawke's question and his pointed looks.

"Why would he do that, Dominic? He was your best buddy."

"Oh yeah, that he was. I loved Steven Hawke like a brother. I loved that guy like I've never loved any thing, or any one in my whole life. Except you. And look at us now? You, standing there, with murder in your heart, and in your eyes. Well, go ahead, son. Oh, I forgot, you don't want me to call you that anymore. Well, go ahead, kid. Take your best shot. Kill me. I'd rather be dead than have you make me sully your father's memory."

"All I want is the truth, Dominic," Hawke sighed, drawing in a deep, ragged breath. "Just tell me what you know."

"What I know? Hell, String, I don't knowanything! Not for sure."

"Then what makes you think that my father, is Ginny's father?" Hawke demanded impatiently.

"She told me …."

"Ginny?"

"No. Eve."

"She told you that she was having an affair with my father?"

"Not in so many words. She told me that she'd met someone else, that she'd fallen in love. She hinted that it was Steven. She knew how close we were. She taunted me, with her foul innuendos, that he'd had to have what I'd had! And that, he was so much better at it than me, too!"

Santini was breathing hard now, as he began to pace up and down in the loose sand at the foot of the dunes.

"But, when I confronted Steven, when I asked him, out right, he knocked me down on my ass, and told me never to speak to him of it again. Said he'd kill me, if I ever asked him about it again. I never saw him so mad. Not before, or since."

"He didn't deny it though?"

"Of course he did! Later. A long time later. He swore to me that he hadn't laid a hand on Eve, that he would rather die than cheat on Connie, but …."

"But, you didn't believe him?"

"I saw the way he looked at her. Eve Archer. I saw the way he acted around her. Protective. Always jumping to her defence. Never wanting to hear a word against her. It ate me alive for the rest of our damned tour in Korea. And, it took Steven and me years to patch things up properly. Years later, I finally plucked up enough courage to ask him, once and for all, and he swore to me String, on yours and St Johns' lives. He swore that there was nothing between him and Eve. So, I had to accept that he was telling me the truth."

"But, despite that, all these years, you really believed her! Believed that she betrayed you, with your best friend. Your best buddy. Your blood brother." Hawke sneered.

"I tried hard not to, but, I guess, deep down inside …. He was a man, String. Just a man. Flesh and bone and blood, like all the rest of us," Santini sighed wearily then, as though all the fight had suddenly gone out of him.

"Just an ordinary Joe, prone to the same needs and weaknesses we all are. You know what it's like, in the middle of a war zone, lost and alone and so far from the things that really matter. A man will seek comfort any place he can. You know that. You must have seen it Vietnam. Steven Hawke was no different to the rest of us."

"And yet, you've spent all these years building him up to be some sort of God in my eyes!"

"He was my friend, and I loved him," Santini said simply. "And he was your father. I didn't want anything to spoil your memories of him String, because, I knew that they were all you would have of him for the rest of your life. My friend. Your father. Steven Hawke, to me, he was a kind of a god. He was everything that I wanted to be. The best damned friend a man could ever ask for! He was a good man, String. He didn't deserve to lose everything precious in his life, because of one slip. One moment of weakness …."

"How long have you known?"

"I already told you, I don't know nothing, for sure!"

"How long, Dominic?"

"How long have I known that she might be Steven's child?" Hawke nodded then. "Not until the doctor back there told me the results of the paternity test. Up until then, I'd hoped, wanted, believed, prayed, wished, with all my heart, that she was my daughter, because, I knew, if she wasn't mine …. Then there was a strong possibility that, she might be his."

"Still think he's such a good friend?" Hawke sneered again now.

"Yes," Santini confirmed simply in a soft voice. "Yes. I forgave him a long time ago, String. I had to. I didn't want to lose his love and friendship. Just like I didn't want to lose your love, and friendship. That's why I was trying to protect you."

"You're a better friend than he deserved, Dominic."

"Don't say that!"

"I don't think I could have done what you did, all those years. If I could have lived with what he did to you."

"We don't know that he didanything! But, if he did, it was all her doing. Not his. All Eve's doing. I know what she was like. Bewitching. Beguiling. Manipulative. Demanding. She would have pulled out all the stops to get what she wanted, String."

Santini paused briefly to draw in a ragged breath before continuing.

"I forgave him. And, you will have to learn to forgive him too. None of us are perfect, String. Not you, not me, not Steven. But, it doesn't change the fact that your father was a good man, a kind, generous, brave, loving, wonderful husband, father and friend …."

"And you're still defending him."

"Yes. Till the day I die! Because, I still love him. I still miss him. Every day, dammit! Every time I see your face, I see him too. I see him in you. Your moods. Your mannerisms. You're just like him."

Santini's voice caught in his throat now and he hung his head briefly, closing his eyes against the tears he felt stinging there.

"And no matter how angry you might be with him right now, String, it doesn't change who he was. If …. If he and Eve Archer …."

"If he did cheat on my mother!" Hawke supplied the words Santini was struggling to get out now, on a sneer.

"If he did, and I'm not saying that he did, it doesn't change the man he was. The man you remember. And love. And. something good came from it."

"You think!" Hawke spat at him in disgust now.

"Yeah. I think. I know. You can't see it right now, because, you're too damned angry, but, yeah, something good came out of it," Santini paused then to draw in a long, ragged breath. "Ginny." this drew a sharp look from Hawke now. "Your sister."

"Yeah, God dammit! My sister! The woman I fell in love with, Dominic! How the hell could you stand by, and letme fall in love with own sister!"

"That ain't fair, String!" Santini shot back at him now. "I didn't know! I didn't know about the two of you, how close you were becoming. You'd only just met her for God's sake! I'm not a mind reader. You were barely speaking to me. How was I supposed to know you'd …."

"Made love with her, for God's sake, Dominic! I made love with her! I made love with my own sister! How the hell do I live with that? How the hell do I ever reconcile myself with that!"

"She might not be," Santini reminded weakly. "But. love is, love …."

"Not like that!" Hawke raged. "Not like that! It has a name, Dominic, a not very nice name. It's called incest."

He turned his back on Santini then, before he gave into the desperate need to grind the old man's face into the sand, clenching his fists at his side, only to wince as he felt the sharp pain in his right hand once more.

"How long would you have waited before you finally told me, Dominic? As I as stood at the top of the aisle, waiting for my lovely bride to arrive on our wedding day?" Hawke spat as he span around to confront the older man once again.

"I hoped I would never have to tell you at all," Santini sighed. "And God knows, I would do anything to make it not true."

"Even go on pretending that she was your daughter?"

"Yeah. Even that. If it meant that you were happy, that your memory of Steven was kept pure."

"But, it isn't true, Dominic!"

"Yes it is. The man you remember …."

"Isn't who he really was!" Hawke shot back scornfully.

"You're wrong, String. The man you remember. That man loved you and your brother and your mother more than he loved his own life. None of this changes that."

"You really believe that?"

"Yes."

"Then you're dumber than you look, old man!"

Hawke marched around the front of the jeep and climbed back into the passenger seat.

"Drive!" He ordered, as Santini slid into the driver's seat beside him a few seconds later.

"String …."

"Drive."

"What are you going to do?" Santini asked as he put the key into the ignition and turned the engine over.

"Find out the truth. Once, and for all."

Back at Good Shepherd hospital, both men sat in uncomfortable silence, one at each end of the corridor that ran outside Ginny McBride's room, neither acknowledging the other's presence, until at last, unable to bear it any longer, Dominic Santini returned to the hospital chapel, seeking sanctuary and solitude.

He lit a candle and knelt stiffly at the alter table, crossing himself and bowing his head, as he offered up a silent prayer, then he rose awkwardly and sank down wearily in to the nearest pew.

Lord, but it had been a long day.

And it wasn't over yet.

Not by a long shot.

This one ranked up there as one of the worst days of his life ….

Along side the day his mother had died ….

And, the day he had heard about the boating accident on Eagle Lake, that had claimed the lives of Connie and Steven Hawke, and almost claimed the life of young Stringfellow.

He'd almost gained a daughter.

And he had almost certainly lost a son.

Stringfellow Hawke.

His relationship with the young man would never be the same again.

As he had known.

Christ, life was so damned unfair some times!

As if just living from day to day wasn't hard enough!. Why did loving people have to make it more complicated?

Throw love into the mix and you definitely had a recipe for disaster.

Maybe Hawke had the right idea after all ….

Shutting love out of your life, hardening your heart, maybe that was the answer to the meaning of life?

Don't love or let your self be loved.

You lived longer that way!

Yet, even as these thoughts raced through his mind, Dominic Santini knew that he loved the young man as deeply as he ever had.

That he loved Steven Hawke as deeply as he ever had. And always would.

They were as much a part of him as his hot Latin temperament and his love of flying.

But after today, nothing would ever be the same again.

Some times, not even love was enough to mend some rifts.

He should be sitting up there, beside Hawke, supporting him as he waited for the results of the blood tests that the doctor had taken, to see if he was a match with Ginny McBride, but the young man had shut him out, deliberately, refusing to look at him, or even acknowledge his presence.

As far as Hawke was concerned, they had nothing left to say to each other.

Nothing left between them. Period.

Santini hung his head and let the tears flow freely, knowing that if anyone should enter the chapel they would think that he was praying, and that no-one would bother him.

However, after hearing the soft squeak of the door as it opened, and waiting for several seconds to hear it click shut once more, Santini finally raised his head and glanced backward, wondering if the priest had maybe come in to ask him to leave so that he could get ready for a service.

Stringfellow Hawke stood in the doorway, his right hand encased in fresh white plaster of Paris and his face a rigid emotionless mask.

"Dr Cook just told me he has the lab results back," Hawke said in a flat voice. "He'll see us both in fifteen minutes."

"Both of us?"

"Yeah. I want you there. I want you to hear what he has to say. You're involved in this as much as I am."

"String …."

"Let's not keep him waiting."

"God forbid!" Santini muttered raising his eyes heavenward as he heard the chapel door click shut behind Stringfellow Hawke.

"Mr Hawke. Mr Santini," Dr Michael Cook regarded each man warily, as though he were worried they might start throwing punches at each other again, and he might accidentally get caught in the crossfire.

"You got the results back?" Hawke demanded gruffly.

"Yes."

"And?"

"And, I'm afraid you're not a match either, Mr Hawke."

"I'm not?" Hawke sounded both surprised and disappointed, and Dominic Santini dropped his head for a moment, unable to bear the look that settled on the younger man's face, or accept what the news meant for poor Ginny McBride.

"No. I'm sorry."

"But …."

"The test is conclusive, Mr Hawke. Your blood type is O negative, and Miss McBride is B positive. There is no way you would be a suitable donor."

"But I thought …." Hawke faltered then, dropping his head in his hands, all the fight suddenly draining out of him, as he realised that his one last hope to save Ginny had turned to dust.

"We thought that there was a chance that she might be his sister," Dominic Santini stepped in now, when words failed Hawke.

"Oh? But I thought …."

"We only just found out."

"Could she be my sister?" Hawke dragged his gaze back up to look the doctor squarely in the eye now.

"Well," Cook let out a deep sigh. "I have to say, that I doubt it very much, Mr Hawke."

"Wouldn't the blood tests be able to tell for sure?" Hawke demanded gruffly now.

"You mean a DNA test?"

"Sure. Whatever."

"We use Mitochondrial DNA, to determine family relationships, Mr Hawke. That's DNA from the mother."

"We have different mother's," Hawke offered.

"Then a DNA test wouldn't be of much help."

"Is there any way to find out, for sure?" Hawke demanded again. "I need to know."

"Well, let me see, a little basic high school biology might help. Do you know what blood type your father was?"

"O Negative," this came from Dominic Santini now.

"You're sure?"

"Sure I'm sure. I fought along side Steven Hawke in two wars. Knew his tags as well as I knew my own. Name, rank, serial number, and blood group. We all had to know it. Basic survival," Santini explained and Hawke knew that he was right.

Things hadn't changed much when he had shipped out to Vietnam. Every soldier was required to know their blood type, in case they were wounded and they lost their tags.

That one simple piece of information could save a soldiers life on a battlefield.

"Besides, Steven Hawke's blood type was the same as mine. O Negative. I gave him a little of mine in '44, and he gave me a lot of his in '51, when I took a round in the shoulder, in Korea."

This drew a surprised look from Stringfellow Hawke.

Something else he had never heard from the old man before.

So, he and Steven Hawke had truly been blood brothers after all.

"I asked Miss McBride's permission to request her mother's medical history and she agreed. I checked Mrs McBride's records, and her blood group was also O Negative. So, that means, Ginny can only have gotten her blood type from her father. A man with blood type B positive."

"Not Dominic? And, not my Dad?"

"No."

"So, she's not my sister?"

"No, Mr Hawke. I'm afraid Ginny is not your sister."

"What happens now?" Hawke asked after a lengthy silence while he and Dominic Santini took in what the doctor had just told them, and its implications.

"We carry on as we are. Blood transfusions," Dr Cook let out a soft sigh of resignation then. "We make her comfortable."

"How long?"

"A few days."

"And, there's nothing else that you can do?" There was a crack of emotion in Hawke's voice now.

"I'm sorry," Cook shook his head sadly and watched as Stringfellow Hawke rose swiftly from his seat and left the room without a backward glance.

"Thanks, doc," Dominic Santini rose slowly from his seat and offered the young medic his hand. "We know you're doing your best for her. Thank you," and with that, he too left the doctor's office, without a backward glance, knowing that his place now was beside Stringfellow Hawke, even if the young man resented his being there.

He shouldn't be alone at a time like this.

And Dominic Santini was determined to be a father to the young man, one last time.

Dominic Santini found Stringfellow Hawke just a little ways down the corridor, standing outside Ginny McBride's hospital room, head bent, shoulder sagging, and his arms hanging limply down by his sides, and Dominic Santini knew that tears were not very far away, but, that left to his own devices, the young man would fight them down and shove them away somewhere where he didn't have to deal with them, and then up would go his chin, and the defiance and determination would return to his eyes, and another pain would be stored in his heart, just waiting to surprise him with a coronary maybe twenty years down the line.

Knowing that he was risking yet another knock down fight in the hospital corridor with the younger man, Dominic Santini strode quickly and purposefully up behind the young man, and without giving him time to protest, or even think about it, span him around and pulled him roughly into the strong circle of his embrace.

Startled and no longer able to control his feelings, Stringfellow Hawke gave into instinct, and allowed himself to lean heavily into the older man's barrel chest, to savour the sensation of his strong, sure, loving old arms as they came around him, and held him tightly, as the dry sobs wracked his body and he dropped his head down on to Santini's substantial shoulder.

Neither man spoke.

There was no need.

Each knew without the need for long speeches what was in the other's heart.

They were in perfect harmony.

Spent at last, Stringfellow Hawke lifted his head from the older man's shoulder, and realising that the moment was over, Dominic dropped his arms from around the younger man's back and waited for him to draw away.

As they parted, Stringfellow Hawke could not mistake the questioning look on the older man's face.

Where do we stand now?

Did we say too much?

Go too far?

Do you really understand what I was trying to do?

Can you ever forgive me?

Hawke closed his eyes and drew in a deep, refreshing breath, then opened his eyes, and looked back at Santini with an expression that was meant to convey to him that it was the younger man who had said too much, overstepped the mark and gone too far.

That he knew he was the one who should be asking for forgiveness.

"Why did he do it, Dominic? Why did Dad risk losing your friendship and allow you to go on believing that he had betrayed you with the woman you loved?"

"Because he was my friend, but, ya see, he wasn't just my friend, String. There were a lot of guys out there. Young guys, foolish guys who could only think of living for the day, because tomorrow, tomorrow, they might be gone. I figure Steven knew who the guy was, that he was someone in our squadron, maybe even some young punk under his command. I figure Steven knew the kind of woman Eve Archer was, and decided to protect him, and he knew that our friendship was strong enough to withstand the strain. That we cared enough about each other, to forgive, if not forget."

Hawke took a moment to think about Santini's words, and then nodded mutely in acceptance.

"So?" he spoke in a low voice a few minutes later, shamefaced and feeling emptier than he had ever felt in his life, just now beginning to contemplate just how lonely and bleak and meaningless his life would be without the old man in it.

"So?" Santini said back in an equally soft voice. "What do you want me to say, String?" he asked with a plea for understanding in his eyes. "I'm sorry that she's not your sister? I'm glad she's not your sister," Dominic let out a ragged sigh now, and saw a look of hurt return to his young friend's blue eyes. "Both would be true," he explained quickly.

This drew a puzzled frown from Hawke now.

"I'm sorry she's not your sister, because it means that you can't help her. Save her."

Santini's voice caught in his throat just for a moment as he caught the sadness and grief in the younger man's eyes, but carried on, needing to finish what he had set out to say.

"But, I'm glad that she's not your sister kid, because, that means that it's ok for you to love her. In the way you love her. Not as a brother loves a sister, but as a man loves a woman."

Hawke took a moment to digest what the old man had said, and then he nodded again, almost imperceptibly, in acceptance and understanding.

He turned his back on Santini then, squeezing his eyes tightly shut as he took a small step toward Ginny McBride's hospital room, and then, opening his eyes, he turned back to look back at Dominic Santini once more.

He couldn't just leave it like that.

There was still something that he needed to know.

"Dom? About us?"

"What about us?" Santini asked, tilting his head slightly to one side to regard the young man with a softer look.

"Are we …. Are we going to be ok?"

"That would be up to you, String," Santini told him without hesitation. "Nothing has changed for me," he told him, with a weak smile forming on his lips now. "Nothing has changed the way I feel about you, kid. Oh yeah, we have our moments. Our up's, and downs. Who don't, huh? But, there is nothing, nothing, that you could do, or say, that would ever change the way that I feel. I love you. I always will. No matter what. I could not more stop loving you, than I could willingly stop breathing. Both would kill me. I love you, plain and simple. And I will always be there for you, String. As, a friend."

"I've always known that you love me, Dominic," despite his best efforts, Hawke's voice cracked with emotion then. "I guess I just never realised how much. Until now."

This time Dominic Santini nodded gently in silent understanding and acceptance of the young man's offered olive branch, then turned slowly away.

"You're not leaving?"

Hawke's words had the effect of stopping Dominic Santini dead in his tracks, and he turned around slowly to give the younger man a wary look.

"I thought," he mumbled. He'd felt sure that the young man wouldn't want him hanging around like a bad smell. He was usually very private about his emotions, not wanting even those closest to him to see him grieving.

"Now who's not using his head?" a half smile tugged at the corner of Hawke's lips now, and Santini felt his heart leap for joy in his chest.

"Huh?"

"Stay," Hawke said softly, then coughed to clear his throat and when he spoke again his voice was a little stronger, surer, more confident. "I'll need a ride home. Can't ride that motor cycle with this damned plaster on my arm," the smile spread slowly to the other side of his mouth now. "And maybe later, we could talk? Really talk?"

"Sure," Santini smiled gently back at the younger man.

It would be ok.

They'd made a start at least.

Building those bridges Cait was always talking about.

Hawke had let down his defences and given Santini a tiny opening.

"Sure, kid! You want I should stay, I'll stay. You wanna talk, we'll talk, about anything you want. Like I said, I'm always here for you, kid."

"I know that, Dominic. I love you too. I guess it's time I told you just how much."

"No need, son. I already know. Now, go on," Santini indicated with a slight movement of his head toward Ginny McBride's hospital room then. "Every minute you have with her is precious. Don't waste a second. I'll be right here. When you're ready."

Stringfellow Hawke nodded gently and blessed the older man with a truly warm and genuine smile, before drawing in a long, calming breath and reaching out to open Ginny's door, then disappeared quietly inside, thinking as he closed the door behind him and took up the seat beside Ginny's bed, taking Ginny's small hand in his, and smiling loving at her, as he realised that she was awake and smiling happily up at him in return, that maybe Dominic Santini had been right when he had said that everything in life happened for a purpose. A reason.

Maybe this had happened at this moment in his life, to test him?

And, to show him how truly lucky, blessed, he was, to have the unconditional love and true friendship of a good man like Dominic Santini.

Just as, his father before him had.