A/N

There are a few things I forgot to mention. This story takes place near the end of season 1. There will be some dialogue from two to three episodes, but not a lot. It's merely to set the time frame. I won't follow the entire season 2 and 3. There's no mention of Dom's niece Holly, nor of his daughter Sally-Anne. I always found her sudden existence to be a bit fishy. Also, all chapter names are bits of dialogue from the show!

Now, I also have a question for you. At the moment, the rating of this story is T, but, the way the original story was written, it should be rated M (it has a couple of love scenes). I have 2 options. Or I leave the rating as it is, in which case I need to go back to certain chapters and change them to leave out the steamy bits. Or, I change the rating to M and leave the steamy bits in. If I get no feed back, I will take that as no one having problems with the higher rating. If you do have objections, please let me know. In that case I will leave the rating as is and go back to change those scenes.

Reply time:

BarbT My first review to this story! And by an author of Airwolf stories I greatly admire! Thank you so much! I know you're a String/Cait shipper at heart, so a double thank you for giving this OC story a shot. I'm glad you enjoy it so far!

Annkathrin2511 Thank you for taking the time to leave me a review. I know getting used to an original character is not always easy. Especially when a lot of OC's are badly written and turn out to be nothing but stereotypical Mary-Sues. I hope you will grow to like my leading lady.

\A/

When Liona returned to the cabin, she noticed that String was gathering some stuff. It looked like he was preparing to leave.

"I gotta go away for a bit. I won't be long. Couple of days at the most. There's plenty of food in the storage. Tet can take care of himself, though he won't mind a steak or two." He gave her a tiny smile and left.

Liona stared at the closed door. Her eyes were burning with tears and her throat felt clamped up. She breathed in a couple of steady breaths and sniffed audibly. She was not going to cry! Even if String was leaving her to herself when she didn't even have a clue on how to make breakfast, lunch or dinner. Having spent half of her life in a little cell, always under surveillance, had left little opportunity to learn about things like cooking.

The only warm food she'd been eating were the scrambled eggs String made in the morning. Otherwise she ate fruit, cold left overs whenever String brought anything over or bread with whatever topping she could find. String always returned home late in the evening and seemed to think she prepared dinner for herself. The idiot didn't even seem to notice that no meats were ever taken from the freezer, or that that the garbage bags he took with him contained ridiculous amounts of rotting vegetables. Seemed like she was not going to have any kind of warm food inside of her for a while.

When she heard the whirring sound of an approaching helicopter the next day, she was half expecting Stringfellow to step through the door. Scrambled eggs? Sitting on the couch with an encyclopedia on her lap, Liona's undivided attention was suddenly on the door.

"Where's Hawke?" was the first thing Michael asked her when he stepped inside.

Oh… No scrambled eggs then.

"I don't know," she said with a sigh. "All he said was that he had to go."

"How long will he be gone?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "He said not more than a couple of days."

With a deep sigh, Michael lowered himself to the chair he liked to occupy whenever he was up here. He turned his gaze to Marella.

"He's gonna do it, isn't he?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Damn it," Michael said, heaving another sigh. "Kruger is sitting on one of the most sophisticated weapons systems in the world. And Hawke is gonna go up against it."

Marella delicately cleared her throat and nodded in Liona's direction. When Michael followed her gaze, he seemed lightly embarrassed to find her standing there.

"Right… Liona, can you please forget anything I just said?"

She gave him a little smile. "Why would you want me to forget you asked about String?"

Michael chortled at that.

"We could warn him," Marella offered.

He first gave Liona a surreptitious glance before he answered Marella. "No, we can't."

"Maybe just a little?"

Michael opened a leather briefcase and Liona could see that it had a phone inside. She knew better than to ask if something was wrong and she also wasn't surprised when she was requested to remove herself from the cabin again. She rolled her eyes at that, but did as she was asked.

Tet followed her out of the cabin and together they strolled down the gentle sloping ground in the direction of the lake. It had become her favorite spot to simply soak in the raw beauty of this place, often together with Tet who'd taken to her like a duck to water.

"You know," Liona said to the dog, "you're about as talkative as your master."

Tet gave her a lopsided look and whined. It made her laugh. "Still waters run deep, huh?"

She looked back when she could hear Michael and Marella approaching. They were talking business as they walked up to the reinforced dock where Liona was leaning on the railing, Tet next to her.

"Well, we have to go now, Liona. Did Hawke at least stock up on provisions when he left?" Michael asked her when he walked up to her.

"Yes, he did." Not that it's going to do me any good, but no one has to know about that. She was not going to admit she didn't even know how to boil water.

"Good. It's good to see your bruises are mostly gone. Is there anything else you need?"

Warm food and clean clothes. And instructions on how to operate that damn washing machine. "I'm good. Oh, perhaps… I- eh, I could use some extra clothes."

Marella gave her an utter horrified look. "Liona, those clothes we handed you, they were meant to be substituted with new ones. Didn't Mr. Hawke take you shopping yet?"

Shopping? I'd rather pull out my own finger nails! "Eh, no. I haven't seen a lot of him. You had the size spot on last time though. So, if you could…?"

After giving her a look that told Liona exactly just how displeased Marella was with Hawke at the moment, the woman gave her a curt nod. "I'll see what I can do."

When they left, Liona was up in the cabin on her own for the next day or two before the entire group suddenly came flying in with two helicopters. It was the first time that Liona ever saw two helicopters land on the reinforced dock. One on the usual landing spot and one on the larger fenced dock.

When String approached, he looked dead tired but in a good mood. He actually had a smile on his face! For a brief moment Liona could only gape.

With little to occupy herself with, Liona had dedicated quite some time at watching each and every work of art that String possessed. She'd come to the conclusion that she was not an art aficionado, though certain pieces did strike a cord within her.

She'd spent even more time studying all of the photographs that were scattered around the cabin, on the walls, above the fireplace… On several of these photographs she saw a handsome young man, with a head of sun streaked brown hair, swept to the sides, sparkling blue eyes and a devastating smile.

The man in the pictures was such a far cry from the man she was confronted with on a daily basis, she began to wonder if she'd ever get to see a glimpse of that man. And when his sparkling blues started to merge with her beloved memory, a childhood's innocent crush, reluctantly she began to hope as well.

Now that man came strolling down the walkway, bone tired, but otherwise smiling as handsomely as in the photographs. Until his eyes fell on her… then the smile gave way to a much darker look.

Liona tried to pretend this didn't affect her but dammit, it stung! Still, she wrapped her arms around herself and greeted Dominic who was walking right behind String, talking animatedly to a brunette with course dark brown hair and an engaging smile. He gave her a broad grin and a quick wave. Marella and Michael were the last ones to come walking down the walkway.

And suddenly she was standing there by herself. No one called her to join the group and she wasn't entirely sure if she was even allowed to join them, considering all the secret hush hush recently. She waited outside for a while, unsure of what to do. In the end, it was the crisp air that was the deciding factor. Slowly she walked back to the cabin. If she was interrupting some secret business then they could bloody well take it outside themselves! And they shouldn't have brought it up to the cabin anyway where she was staying as well at the moment.

Inside, she found the group comfortable and settled already in the chairs and the couch. String had even managed to get the fireplace going in that short a time. He was sitting on the stone hearth, the pretty brunette seated in the chair Michael usually liked to occupy. Dom took up the other chair near the fireplace whereas Michael and Marella were sitting next to each other on the couch.

Quietly, Liona made her way to the cushioned window boxes and sat down there. Near the group… just not part of the group. Drinks had been poured already and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves.

"And who is this lovely creature?" The brunette said, raising her gleaming blue eyes to Liona. "Mr. Hawke, you've been neglecting your duties as a host."

String smiled, but Liona could see the smile did not reach his eyes. "Sarah LeBow, Liona Tergesen. We helped Sarah with a problem and… We helped Liona with a problem as well. Liona is currently waitin' to be, eh, relocated."

"Ah, I see," Sarah said, her eyes twinkled when she looked at String. "Now Mr. Hawke, was that so hard?"

We helped Liona with a problem… Waiting to be relocated…

She spent half of her life imprisoned and her father had been forced to commit treason by delivering top secret information into the hands of a notorious warlord. When her father showed signs of rebellion, that warlord retaliated by having the rest of her family killed. She would never see her parents or her siblings again! And all through the years Dumaine had turned Liona, against her will, into a computer specialist so she could find other ways to hand him even more information. Sure String, all of that can merely be summed up as being 'a problem'.

Liona sighed. It wasn't as if String was in a position to reveal the entire situation to this woman. Still, hearing the hell that had been her life being summed up as 'a problem'… was such a gross understatement it made her skin crawl!

And so did the smile String gave that woman, because it made her realize something. If he wanted to be, he could be utterly charming and affable. So, it was by choice that he treated her so distant and cold. For some reason, he simply couldn't stand her and he wasted no opportunity to show it.

"You have compelling eyes, Liona," Sarah suddenly told her. "I don't think I've ever seen eyes that combination of green and gold before, at least not in a human. A lion perhaps, but not a human. And with your hair, golden blonde that gets touched by fire when the sun hits it just right… is that why your parents gave you that name?"

She slowly shook her head. "No," she admitted, "nothing that exotic I'm afraid. My mother simply liked the name. It was supposed to be Leona, with an e, but there was a clerical mistake and my name was-"

"Let me get you a refill," String suddenly said, gesturing at the wineglass that Sarah was holding.

He stood up abruptly and returned with the bottle of wine. By the time he refilled Sarah's glass, other conversations had started, leaving Liona's little tale unfinished.

"If you keep this up, sir," Marella told Michael with a cheeky smile, "the FIRM's gonna have to clone parts of you."

He chuckled and took a sip of his wine. "You like your job, Marella?"

Only then Liona noticed the bandage around Michael's ear. She wondered what had happened to him and, apparently, so did Dominic. "Oh, I-I still can't figure out how it happened," he said, "I mean, by the time you got to the fortress, the shootin' had stopped."

Fortress? What fortress?

Michael audibly cleared his throat. "Well, uh, you see… it was like this," – Michael stammered while nervously rubbing his uninjured ear. – "We were, I, uh-"

Sarah cut in, "Well, Dominic, it… it was my fault." Sarah leaned forward to gracefully set her wineglass onto the coffee table. "You see, he asked me to get out and I wouldn't go and, uh, it gave a sniper enough time to get a shot at us."

A sniper?

"A sniper?" Marella echoed her thought so precisely, it almost made Liona smile. Marella tsked and rubbed a finger along Michael's ear. "I could have sworn these are powder burns."

Michael slapped her hand away, only mildly irritated, but he refused to be the butt of the joke any longer. He rose to his feet. "Would anybody like another drink?" he suggested pleasantly, though it was an obvious ruse to draw the attention away from his ear wound.

Dominic replied with a rumbling laugh, "Hey, for once, you're talking my language." And he got to his feet as well and started to follow Michael to the bar, just as Marella rose up too.

Like the gentleman he was, Dominic allowed her to go first.

"Thank you."

String and Sarah remained seated, Sarah leaning over the arm of the chair to give Tet a scratch. She didn't even seem to mind that Tet was leering underneath her skirt. String leaned closer to her, giving her an incredulous look while he discreetly pointed at Michael. Liona couldn't quite make out what he was saying, though it sounded an awful lot like, "You shot his ear?"

Sarah gave him a provocative look and when she talked, she did so with a clear voice, and just loud enough for Liona to hear. "He just wouldn't take me seriously."

At first String gaped at her, but then he started to laugh and Sarah very quickly joined in.

The transformation in him was so startling, Liona's insides began to churn and she could feel each dull thud of her heart.

With a pang of jealousy, Liona watched the two laugh together as easy as old, longtime friends. String couldn't even treat her politely, let alone with kindness, but with Sarah he could laugh and be charming.

"What's so funny?" Michael asked. His question, coupled with the expression on his face, caused Sarah and String to laugh even harder. Dom and Marella looked at each other right before they too erupted with laughter. Then, String straightened himself, threw back his head and guffawed.

Liona had never even seen him smile, let alone hear him laugh. The fact that, in the right company, he actually smiled and laughed quite easily… it made her feel even more like an unwanted guest.

When no one bothered to tell her what had happened, to explain the hilarity or… anything… it only added to that feeling.

Sarah kicked one booted foot underneath her chair. And, she must've detected something lying on the floor, because she instantly leaned forward to reach underneath and when she came back up, she brought a crumpled piece of paper into view.

A buzzing sounded in Liona's head, because she knew what that was… one of her discarded attempts at drawing Tet. There was nothing she could do, nothing but watch with growing horror as Sarah unfolded the paper and started to laugh. "I do believe I've just had the pleasure of discovering a skill you do not excel at, Mr. Hawke."

Liona began to violently shake her head, trying to draw his attention, to beg him not to…

"Oh, that's not mine. That credit goes to Liona."

"Ah, I- I'm sorry. It's… Well, you know… With practice…"

String snorted. "I doubt it."

Their eyes locked, only briefly, and she knew her pain at his derision was plain for him to see. She set her jaw, her muscles tensing, her throat constricting spasmodically and then she stumbled to her feet.

Perhaps if she'd experienced just a little bit of compassion from the moment she was rescued, her life suddenly flipped upside down, perhaps then she would have felt mentally stronger and more indifferent to the cold treatment she was receiving on a daily base. As that was not the case, right now she felt the urge to sob rise in the back of her throat. The desire to simply crumple up and scream was almost overwhelming. But she couldn't; she didn't. One, it would be too humiliating to break down and cry right in front of him. Two, she knew that once she started to cry, she wouldn't be able to stop. Not for a very long time.

"Excuse me," she managed to say before she jerkily moved to the door, her limbs feeling wooden. When she opened it, Tet whined and then went right after her.

As quickly as her stiff limbs would allow her, Liona walked around the cabin and found a quiet hiding spot, squashed in a corner between the back of the stone shed and the cabin. There she sat down, and Tet loyally sat himself down right next to her. Again, she threw her arms around his neck, using him as emotional support, it was the only kind she got around here.

There she remained, fighting against the tears, until first one helicopter took off and then another. With the visitors gone, she was once again at the mercy of String and his awful mood swings. Not feeling up to face him yet, Liona waited and waited… until dusk turned to night.

As she used to do whenever she felt sad and alone, from the moment she was first captured, Liona tried to envision the two boys who'd come to her rescue once, but she could only recall a few vague bits and pieces. The memory that used to shine so brightly, that once had been a beacon in the night, was now nothing but a collection of blurry images.

Liona softly started to sing her comfort song, her voice catching and breaking as she powered through. "If I had words… to make a day… for you." She sniffed. "I'd… s-sing you… a morning golden… and new… I would make… this day… last for all time..." She stopped singing, suddenly feeling more alone than she'd ever felt before.

Finally, with the cold night air chilling her to the bones, Liona struggled herself to her feet, all of her muscles screaming in protest. When she looked up at the starlit sky, she realized that String had not even called out for her once. She could be dying outside in the cold and he wouldn't care.

"Come on, boy," she whispered, "let's go back inside."

Inside, she saw that all the lamps had been turned down, except for the display lights illuminating all of the artwork. String had gone to bed.

When a sneaky tear managed to escape, she angrily slapped it away. So what if that horrid man couldn't be bothered to check if she were alright? So what if he could be the epitome of charm and wit when he wanted to be? So what if he… disliked her so much? Clearly there was no love lost between them.

Then… why was she now on the verge of tears?

Quietly, Liona gathered a pile of blankets and a cushion from the window boxes. Then she proceeded to strip off her clothes and she wrapped herself in one of the blankets, before covering herself with the others.

As she stared at the last dying embers of the fire, she thought to herself she actually preferred Dumaine's treatment of her to the emotional neglect she was experiencing now. Not that Dumaine had been such a fountain of support, but even as his prisoner she'd never felt this alone. For the first time after her 'rescue', she actually wished she'd never been rescued at all. That way she could have pretended her parents were still waiting for her to find her way home and fantasize about how for once Ariel would not tease her but hug her close and cry with relief. So would her brother, Thomas. But all that was gone now. At least in her dreams she was saved again...

"Leave her alone!"

She was crying. Her mouth felt icky and the bad taste almost made her puke.

A branch snapped against her back. She wailed even harder. Another mouthful of dirt made her choke and gag.

Through her tears she saw a boy jumping over the fence, a snarling look on his face. Another boy came running towards her and then crouched down while the other jumped on her bullies.

The boy said something to her, but she couldn't hear him. She didn't remember. She couldn't even see him clearly. Either of them.

Sounds of fighting behind her. And a song started to drift towards her – her sweet and comforting melody. Then it drifted away. And… she drifted away too.

\A/

FIRM Headquarters, Langley

Michael was sitting in a chair in his office, looking through the large window without really seeing anything.

A subtle knock and someone entered his office. Without looking, Michael knew that his assistant, the highly capable Marella, had arrived.

"You wished to see me, sir?"

"Yes. Now that you've had a better chance to observe Hawke and Liona some more… What do you think?"

"There's definitely something there. And not just from his side either."

"And Hawke?"

Marella folded her arms and looked off into the distance. "Was he like this with Gabrielle?"

The question made Michael snort. "Good Lord, no! The way he acts towards Liona… makes him and Gabrielle seem like long, lost friends when they first met."

"He's fighting his attraction to her, but whenever he thinks no one is paying attention, he's watching her. Same goes for her. In my opinion, they are both remarkably drawn to one another, more than is rational even for such a short acquaintance. I stand by my earlier assessment. I really do believe this could become a win-win situation for all parties involved."

"Including us," Michael stated.

Marella nodded her head. "Including us."