Chapter Thirteen.
Santini Air Hangar,
Van Nuys Airport, California.
Early Evening.
Caitlin O'Shannessy was waiting in the doorway of the brightly illuminated Santini Air hangar when Dominic Santini set down the patriotically painted Bell Jet Ranger helicopter on the tarmac a few feet away.
She had not been happy to be left behind at the hangar, at Dom's request, so that she could monitor the radio and the telephone, just in case Hawke should try to make contact and it had been an uncomfortable time for her, trying not to allow her mind to conjure up all the horrors that could have befallen Hawke, filling her heart with dread about what Megan Ravenson might learn while she was up there at Hawke's cabin.
Caitlin had reluctantly agreed to Dominic's request, mainly because she did not want to subject herself to the heartache she knew that she would have to endure up at the empty cabin.
She had felt useless and ineffectual here at the hangar waiting for a message that she knew would not come, but she knew that she would have been more upset wandering around the empty cabin, picturing Hawke leaning against the bar or the fireplace, recalling happier times and wondering if she would ever see him again.
Cursing herself for a fool a thousand times over for not saying what was really in her heart, no matter how he reacted.
She loved him.
What did it matter if he did not or could not love her in return?
They were friends, and nothing would ever change that.
The other reason she had agreed to stay behind was because she did not want to be there if Megan Ravenson sensed that something unpleasant had happened to String and declared that he was dead after all.
Caitlin knew that Dominic trusted Megan's so called gift, and while she could not deny that she too had experienced something that had scared her so badly she had had to come home to find out that her two dear friends were ok, she did not completely believe in Megan's insight.
It all seemed just a little too vague to Caitlin.
Of course, she knew that Megan had helped Hawke and Dominic to find Archangel a few months back, but she hadn't been closely involved, left behind again to man the radio and the telephone, but she did know that the whole process had irritated Hawke beyond his usual gruffness, and so it was hard for her to contemplate that he might be reaching out psychically to Megan if he were in trouble now.
Why her, and not to someone closer, someone who loved him?
Jealous?
A little voice had taunted her as she had sat alone, in the uncomfortable silence of the back office.
Jealous that maybe he is in contact with her and not you?
Or are you jealous that she is able to be in contact with him because he has feelings for her and her for him?
Sometimes, when people love each other that deeply, they are connected in ways that other people can't understand?
Is that how it is with Megan and Hawke?
Caitlin had had to silently concede that just for a split second she had felt the rising of the green eyed monster in her breast but had quickly quashed it, knowing that it wasn't productive and that it might just get in the way of Megan doing what needed to be done.
The truth of the matter was, Caitlin knew, she couldn't make Stringfellow Hawke love her and she couldn't stop him from falling in love with someone else.
If that happened, she would just have to accept it and live with it as best she could.
She wanted Hawke in her life, and if that meant having to watch him fall in love with and marry someone else, then she would just have to swallow it, because the alternative was something that she would not even consider, and if that made her a fool, so what?
She would never stop loving him no matter what she had told her father about looking elsewhere, if Hawke didn't show her any sign that he might feel the same way about her as she did about him, and in her heart Caitlin knew that it was would not be right to encourage some other man to love her, knowing that she could not completely commit her heart to him, because part of it would always belong to Hawke.
If she and Hawke were not destined to become a couple, then she would happily settle for friendship.
Some things were just too important and the friendship that she shared with Hawke and the part she played as a member of the flight crew of Airwolf were things that she was not prepared to relinquish under any circumstances.
She needed something to do to stop her mind from wandering and speculating but the radio and telephone remained stubbornly silent, the only noise in the office the impatient drumming of her fingernails on the desk as she continued to wait, her heart heavy in her chest as she seemed unable to shake off the ominous feeling that something really bad had indeed happened to Stringfellow Hawke and they were wasting time looking for him in the wrong place.
Caitlin could not help thinking that instead of waiting for Megan to get the right kind of information from a dream or one of her visions, and decode it properly, or from being at the cabin and touching Hawke's belonging, they should be doing something specific, like taking Airwolf up and using her scanners to hunt for Hawke. Readings from her instruments were more reliable, and she would feel a whole lot better to be physically doing something to find Hawke rather than sitting here alternately drumming or chewing on her fingernails.
She had been in the doorway for a few minutes, anxiously nibbling the skin around a fingernail one minute then capturing her bottom lip between her teeth to chew on that briefly before returning to worry at a different fingernail the next, as she awaited Santini's return from Stringfellow Hawke's cabin with Megan Ravenson.
Santini had radioed his final approach a few minutes before and if she had been hoping to get some clue as to how successful the trip up to Eagle Lake had been from the tone of his voice, then she was sorely disappointed, gleaning nothing from her friend's calm and professional tones over the radio.
After acknowledging Santini's radio call, Caitlin had hurried from the office out into the hangar, switching on the main lights, glad to be physically doing something at last.
Jimmy Flynn had done a good job of tidying up the hangar earlier on in the day, but Caitlin kept herself busy getting the trailer ready to bring in the Bell Jet Ranger and get it bedded down for the night and opening the hangar doors wider, then she had found a spot in the open doorway, close to the hangar telephone extension and leaned against the doorjamb to wait.
Dominic Santini bought the Santini Air chopper in low and graceful and set her down gently on the tarmac a few feet away from where Caitlin stood, watching patiently, as her friend went through the process of shutting down the Bell Jet Ranger, flicking off switches and monitoring instruments as he waited for the main rotor overhead to slow, and then he and Megan Ravenson alighted and walked the short distance toward her slowly.
Caitlin O'Shannessy did not need to be psychic to know that the trip had proved of little value, she could instantly tell from the dejected set of Dominic Santini's shoulders and his slow, lumbering gait as he walked across the tarmac toward her.
Without stopping Santini brushed past her and continued on into the hangar heading toward the back office, then obviously thought better of it and turned back to regard Caitlin with steady brown eyes.
"Any coffee on? he asked gruffly before she had a chance to open her mouth and voice the question on her lips.
"Sure," Caitlin responded calmly, her gaze drifting briefly to Megan Ravenson's tired but passive expression before returning to settle on Dominic Santini's equally tired and emotionless face.
In response to Caitlin's questioning look, Dominic Santini raised his hands in frustration then turned his back on the fiery redhead and began walking back toward the office and Caitlin turned her irritated, questioning gaze back on Megan Ravenson.
"Need some help with that coffee?" Megan inquired politely.
"What happened up there?" Caitlin demanded.
"Nothing happened up there Caitlin," Megan sighed wearily, glancing around the hangar to see if she could find the coffee pot. "I couldn't get much of any thing."
"You mean he's dead!" Caitlin cut in abruptly, eyes growing wide. "That's what you do, isn't it? Talk to dead people!" her tone was haughty, accusing, her grey eyes dancing with anger as she glowered at Megan Ravenson, yet she could not deny that hope was suddenly reborn in her heart.
Hawke couldn't be dead.
He just couldn't be.
But if he was alive, how did Megan know that he was in trouble? How could she be in contact with him?
Caitlin did not understand, could not grasp the concept of even being able to speak to the dead, much less knowing that a living soul was in danger, but she desperately wanted to believe that Hawke was alive.
"Sometimes. Yes," Megan spoke calmly in a soft, low, tolerant voice. "Some times I see dead people, and some times I talk to dead people, but that's not all I do, Caitlin," Megan let out a soft, weary sigh now.
"I once told Hawke that what I really do is try to help the living, reassuring them that the people they have lost are happy or at peace, some times just letting them know that they're not gone at all. That's what I told Hawke, about his brother, that he's right to go on believing that Sinjin is still alive because I never once had any indication that he might be dead," Megan explained patiently.
"There are many aspects to my work, Caitlin, and none of them are straight forward. It's not easy to explain and I don't expect you to understand, but it isn't just about the dead. Some times when people are in trouble, subconsciously they are able to tap into a psychic gift that they didn't know that they had, and without even realizing it, in their desperate need to stay alive, they reach out, transmit that danger, and some times I am lucky enough to be able to connect with them."
"And that's what you think Hawke is doing?" Caitlin frowned, tilting her head to one side, bird like, as she tried to get her brain to accept what Megan was saying.
Hawke, psychic? Was it possible?
"Yes. I think he has some latent psychic ability, Cait, and he may not know that he is doing it, but he is trying to reach out. Maybe that's why I can't get anything specific, because he doesn't have control of it. I think that last night I might have somehow tapped in to one of his dreams, the one about the war and his brother, but as for the other stuff, I know it sounds crazy to you, nonsense, but that's something that I don't have any control over. I see what I see and then I have to try to make sense out of it. It's not always straight forward or literal," Megan explained.
"And you still say he's not dead?" Caitlin demanded, a frown puckering her brow now as though she still could not grasp the fact that Hawke did not have to be dead for Megan to be in some kind of contact with him.
Megan Ravenson nodded her head gently in confirmation that she still believed that Hawke was alive.
"But you said you didn't get anything," Caitlin reminded impatiently.
"No, Caitlin, what I mean is that I couldn't get any sense of him right now, that's all, but I most certainly did not get anything that might indicate to me that he is gone," Megan assured swiftly.
"I don't understand it myself Caitlin, it's like there's a big hole where he should be right now and I can't get any connection to him, but I'm working on it. Believe me, I'm working on it and right now, a cup of coffee would go a long way to helping me stay awake so that I can figure it out," Megan smiled benignly at the younger woman now.
"Maybe you should just go home and see if you can have another one of those dreams of yours," Caitlin snapped and turning on her heel walked swiftly away from Megan Ravenson.
"Okay," Megan breathed the word as she watched Caitlin O'Shannessy storm across the hangar and snatch at the door on the other side, and then quickly disappear through it and then despite herself, began to smile, a little ruefully.
"I guess it's just another day at the office after all," she mumbled sarcastically to herself, although she somehow suspected that Caitlin's problem with her was not so much to do with her psychic ability as her feminine wiles and how she might have used them on Stringfellow Hawke.
On any other day, the fact that the younger woman saw her as a love rival might have been a compliment, but today Megan was just too tired and frustrated and although she hadn't shown it to Dominic Santini, she was worried about this sensation of disconnection and detachment she was feeling with regard to Hawke because it was something that she had never encountered before.
She could not help wondering if it meant that somewhere out there Stringfellow Hawke was perhaps badly injured, his life in the balance, and that he was suspended in some kind of limbo, conducting a silent debate with himself about whether to keep fighting to stay alive, or to simply let go, to cross over and be reunited once again with the people that he had loved and lost.
Megan had no answers, either for herself or for Dominic Santini and Caitlin O'Shannessy and all she could do was have faith in her gift and hope that something more concrete would come to her and soon.
0-0-0-0
Caitlin O'Shannessy found Dominic Santini in the back office, standing beside the filing cabinet where they kept their supply of aerial maps, his hand hovering over the section labeled with the letter W.
Her abrupt arrival in the office distracted him from his task of locating the Washing State map he had been seeking, and he knew immediately from the angry look on her face what she had come here for.
"Dom, I know you trust Megan and have faith in her gift, but we're wasting time. I think we should go get the Lady and start looking for Hawke ourselves," Caitlin spoke quickly, breathlessly, wringing her hands as she rushed on, her eyes imploring him to listen to reason.
"So you do still think that something has happened to String? You don't think it's all a bunch of hokum?"
"No," Caitlin's voice wavered just for a moment. "I know in here," she laid her quivering hand gently over the top of her left breast and fixed steady grey eyes on Santini now. "I know something isn't right, Dom, and that's why I know we shouldn't be leaving it all to Megan. We should be out there looking for him, Dom, turning over ever damn stone with our bare hands if we have to!"
"And where should we start, Cait? It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack," Santini reminded regretfully, weariness and dejection making his shoulders sag once more.
"We know where Hawke planned to land, we could start from there."
"Do you have any idea how big Washington State is, Cait?" Santini sighed, turning away from her to resume his search for the right aerial map, locating it quickly and pulling it out of the cabinet drawer. "The kind of terrain we'd be up against out there?"
"Dom, we can't just be sitting here!"
"I know it's not in your nature, Cait, but some times you just gotta have a little patience," Santini moved from the filing cabinet and sat down heavily at the desk, setting the folded map down on the already cluttered surface then turned steady brown eyes on his young friend.
"I believe that something has happened to String too. Oh, no, not because I feel it, I'm sorry to say that I don't, although there have been times in the past when I have felt that he was in danger, or that I might have lost him," he told her in a sorrowful voice.
"I know something ain't right because I know you and I trust you, and I know that you don't get worked up over nothing, and, I've never known Megan to cry wolf."
Santini paused momentarily to draw in a long, deep breath then expelled it as an equally long and audible hiss.
"You're right, Cait, I do have faith in Megan's gift. I've seen what she can do, given a chance. I have good reason to believe in her, honey, and she is still our best chance of getting a fix on where String is," he told her bluntly.
"If we take the Lady up now, Cait, we'd be flying blind. We could go around and around in circles and never find Hawke, but if Megan can get something from the map, give us a general direction to start looking," his voice trailed away and he dropped his head and let out another deep sigh.
"Why is it so hard for you to believe that Megan can help us?" he asked, raising his head once more and pinning Caitlin with steady questioning brown eyes. "Look at you, you're standing here because you had some kind of weird feeling that convinced you that something was wrong here and you came rushing back because you believed it without question," he reminded her solemnly.
"Why are you questioning what Meg can do, when you just did it too? And while we're at it, you don't have a monopoly on loving String, Cait. I love him too, and there isn't anything that I wouldn't do to find him and that includes using someone like Megan, even though I can never hope to understand how she does what she does."
Santini stopped speaking when his voice began to quiver with emotion and he felt tears stinging at the corners of his eyes.
Drawing in a deep, calming breath, he waited until he was once again in control of his emotions and then continued.
"Some times it boils down to a question of faith, Caitlin, and I do have faith in Megan, just as I have faith in String to do his best to try to help us to find him, and just as I have faith that you will do whatever needs to be done, and faith in the big man upstairs that he ain't ready for the kind of aggravation and grief String can bring down upon him for making him go before he's good and ready."
Santini paused, watching the war going on behind Caitlin O'Shannessy's eyes as she struggled to accept what he was saying and quash her innate need to be doing something physical to find their friend.
"Cait, I know this is tough for you. Something happened to you that you don't understand and you can't explain, and you don't like how it has left you feeling," Santini regarded her steadily and reluctantly, Caitlin nodded. "So why are you standing in judgment of Megan? This happens to her all the time," Santini reminded her pointedly.
"I've seen what it does to her, Cait, the physical pain and the mental anguish, but she never gives up, because she knows that sometimes what she does can make a real difference. I've seen her tear herself apart, driven to find answers that other people can't, and I've seen the abuse, the derision, ridicule, scorn and hostility that she constantly has to take, from the very people that she is trying to help, and she keeps taking it, on the chin, like a real trooper, and she never asks for anything in return, not belief or even understanding and certainly not praise."
"She does what she does because she doesn't have any choice, Cait, it's not something that she can turn on or off on a whim, and she keeps taking the garbage that people throw at her because if she refused to help a lot of people could lose the one chance they have to save the people that they love."
Caitlin O'Shannessy listened patiently to everything that Dominic Santini was saying and felt a cold hand of shame grip her heart.
He was right.
She didn't know what had happened to her and she certainly couldn't explain it, and yet she had acted on that feeling and come rushing back to be with the people that she loved, uncaring if her family thought her crazy, just needing to be sure and see with her own eyes, and yes, she did feel foolish and as though she had no control any more, not knowing which way to turn, and if this was how Megan Ravenson felt all the time, no wonder she was cautious about what she said and who she said it too.
Dominic had said that Megan had never cried wolf.
He knew her well enough to believe that she would not have come to him with her concerns if she wasn't absolutely sure that something was amiss. She would never scare him unnecessarily, especially about String, because she knew how much the younger man meant to Dominic. Indeed, Megan had gone out of her way to play things down, and to state categorically that she believed that Hawke was still alive.
"I'm not asking you to understand, Caitlin, only that you have patience and let Meg do her thing. Work with her. For my sake, and for String's sake, please, work with her, don't fight against her, and I promise you, when the time is right, you and me and the Lady will go do our thing and bring our boy back home."
Santini let out a deep, ragged sigh and pinned Caitlin with a questioning look.
"Can you do that, Cait?"
"Of course I can, Dominic," Caitlin responded calmly, a small note of defiance in her voice, knowing that although in his heart Santini understood why she was reacting this way, he was disappointed in her behavior toward Megan Ravenson.
He was right about that too.
She hadn't been very fair with the woman, Caitlin silently conceded, partly because she could not help wondering what she meant to String, but she had been wrong to allow jealousy to drive her.
There were lots of things in this world that she didn't understand, but she didn't get angry with them or poke fun at them. She had always thought of herself as having an open mind, and she was ashamed now to realize that perhaps she wasn't as open minded as she had believed.
Caitlin moved to the desk slowly and reached out across it, laying her hand down gently over Dominic Santini's slightly bigger paw and gave it a gentle squeeze. He regarded her curiously for a moment then nodded softly, allowing his lips to curl upward in a small, weary smile.
Caitlin withdrew her hand and span around on her heel, marching back across the office on purposeful strides making for the still open door.
"Where are you going now?" Santini asked in a bemused voice, a frown tugging at his brow beneath his baseball cap.
Caitlin came to an abrupt halt and turned back to face Santini.
"To fetch that coffee you asked me for and to apologize to Megan. I wasn't very tactful, I'm afraid," Caitlin admitted, although she suspected that he already knew that, hence the need to set her straight on a few things.
It was perhaps her only fault, that some times she wasn't as guarded with her tongue as she should be. It went along with the fiery nature, but some times, it got her into trouble.
There were times when speaking your mind was required, but there were also times when it was prudent to shut up and keep your thoughts to yourself, and Caitlin had yet to master that particular art.
"Be right back."
"I'll be here," Santini assured, allowing the smile to grow just a little wider then returned his attention to the still folded map lying on the desk before him as Caitlin disappeared back out into the main hangar.
Santini fleetingly wondered if there wasn't something else going on behind Caitlin's attitude toward Megan, but if the younger woman was harboring suspicions that Megan had feelings of a romantic nature for their mutual friend, Hawke, then Santini knew that she was barking up the wrong tree.
Many years before, Megan, seeing him as her father confessor, had confided to Dominic Santini that she had had it with men. She had told him that she was never again going to commit her heart to any one man, and, he had quickly realized that she was not unlike Stringfellow Hawke in that respect.
Megan had fallen in love when she was still very young and had trusted her heart and her future to her childhood sweetheart, only to have that trust thrown back in her face and her heart broken when her husband could not come to terms with her unique gift and grew tired of 'playing second fiddle to it' as he had told her as he stormed out of the marital home.
After a particularly painful and acrimonious divorce, Megan had vowed never to go down that road again. It was far too difficult, she had told Santini, for someone who didn't possess the gift themselves to understand how it affected her every day life, and how it drove her, and that no matter how much love there was, it was just too hard to have to try to explain to strangers and friends alike, the sudden lapses in memory or concentration when she was unexpectedly assaulted by a vision, how she knew things about them and their lives before they told her and why, suddenly, out of the blue, she felt compelled to rush off on some apparent wild goose chase.
No amount of love or patience or tolerance or understanding could really equip a person to live that kind of bewildering existence, and in the end, Meg's husband, Tony, had simply given up on trying and had walked away.
At the time, Dominic Santini had found himself thinking that some where out there, there was a smart young fella who would understand and be prepared to accept Megan for who and what she was, and he hadn't changed his mind in the intervening years, but Megan had already decided that she had been too badly hurt already, once bitten, twice shy, so why subject herself to all that heartache again.
Santini couldn't help thinking that it was such a pity, because she was a lovely young woman and a beautiful human being, and she had a lot to give, especially love, but Meg had chosen to throw herself into her work and her teaching, and now her pupils benefited from all that love, and in the main, Megan seemed at peace with the choice that she had made.
For all that he loved Hawke; Dominic Santini doubted that his young friend had had any influence in changing Megan's mind, especially after their initial meeting.
There had been fireworks between them but nothing to indicate a mutual attraction between them, quite the contrary, Santini now recalled with a wry smile.
Unfolding the map of Washington State out on the desk before him, Dominic Santini now allowed himself a genuine smile.
Poor Caitlin, she had it real bad for Hawke and it was getting harder and harder for her to try to conceal it. However, he couldn't help thinking that it was wise that she was trying to conceal it, because if Hawke realized just how much she cared, he would deliberately try to kill her love for him stone dead, because he couldn't work with her and love her and hope to keep her alive all at the same time.
Of course, Santini had his suspicions about Hawke's feelings for Caitlin too, after all, he had known him for a lot of years and knew all the signs when he was interested in a certain girl, and Santini recognized all the signs where Caitlin O'Shannessy was concerned.
However, he suspected that Hawke himself wasn't even aware of just how deep his feelings ran, and until he was ready to admit it to himself and confront those feelings and his fears that history would once again repeat it's self, poor Caitlin would have to be patient and keep her feelings to herself, satisfying herself with loving him from afar and calling it friendship.
Knuckle heads, the pair of them! Santini found himself thinking with a mixture of mild amusement and irritation, but he had learned a long time ago to keep his nose out of such matters where Hawke was concerned, so all he could do was continue to watch and wait and hope that things would eventually resolve themselves to everyone's satisfaction.
And they'd better hurry up and get their act together because he wanted to enjoy his grandchildren while he was still young!
And that could only happen if they found Hawke, alive and well, so they had better come up with something, but fast.
C'mon kid, don't make a liar out of me. Help us if you can. Show us the way, String, give us a place to start.
Santini appealed silently, his mind suddenly presenting him with a picture of the young man's happy, smiling, loving face.
We love you, kid.
We need you. So where ever you are and what ever else you might be doing, don't you give up on me. You hold on, kid, just hold on and we'll come and get you. I swear.
You've got so much to live for, son, so much still to do and people who love you, so hold on, String, hold on.