A/N

BarbT Hmm… a shared past they don't remember? How mysterious!

Annkathrin2511 Thank you! I won't be using the actual scripts as much as in my Sherlock story 'Like Swans', though but there will be a few more scenes you will recognize. As for what will happen… shit will hit the fan!

I completed the story and I will post a few chapters at once now. Not everything as I first planned because I want to find fitting names for my chapters using Airwolf quotes.

As I got not other comments, I will change the rating of this story to M and upload it as I wrote it, without deleting the steamy bits.

Enjoy!

\A/

Dominic looped an arm around her shoulders and briefly pulled her against his side. She hadn't seen a lot of him lately. String had suddenly up and left again a couple of times, sometimes even for days on end, but whenever she tried to talk to him or ask him questions, all she got were vague replies.

At least Dominic acted friendly towards her and she'd started to consider the older man as a friend. Her only friend actually, if she didn't count her canine friend Tet.

Dominic gave her a broad grin. "Lets have a seat near the fire and let String catch us dinner, eh? To be honest, he doesn't want me within ten miles of the kitchen when he's cookin'. Too paranoid I might slip in some extra protein."

Liona smiled a bit at that when she sat down on the stone hearth near a chair. Within moments, Tet was lying right beside her, enjoying her scratching and petting him.

Dominic let his heavy body sink onto the chair with an appreciative sigh. "Now, how have things been going here? I haven't seen you in a while and, eh, the other day you made yourself scarce pretty quick, before I even had a chance to say goodbye."

Even Tet seemed to look at her, curious for her answer, but Liona merely shrugged her shoulders. "The same."

"I don't know what 'the same' is, Lio. You gotta gimme me more than that."

The sympathy in his voice spoke volumes. Liona hugged her knees and rested her chin on them.

"He's cold, distant. Doesn't really talk to me, unless you count his one-worded responses. He leaves early and comes back late… if he doesn't just fuck off for days at a time without any kind of explanation. So, I guess you could say I'm always alone with no one to talk to but myself and… Tet."

It was hard to see the devastated look on Dominic's face. "That bad?" he asked her quietly.

"That bad."

He sighed deeply. Whatever stellar qualities Dominic had wanted to praise in String, the stone cold reality of her situation had him completely dumbfounded. "Oh, I-I thought it would be difficult with him, but I never…" He shook a weary head and when he sought her eyes, Liona could see that his were brimming with emotion. "He's not a bad guy, Lio. Truly he ain't. He just… Life dealt him a really bad hand."

Liona gave him a sideways look. "Lio?"

Dominic chuckled a little bit. "I tend to shorten people's names. Especially when I like 'em. And I like you, kid, a lot."

Such a simple statement, but it meant the world to her. Liona sniffed a bit. "I like you a lot too, Dom. You're about the only one who makes it bearable here for me. Can't say the same about him though…" She nodded in he direction of the door where String was currently outside, trying to catch them some fish. She'd heard him mention 'trout' once, but she wasn't sure if that was the only kind of fish that lived in the lake or not.

"Eh, Lio… How much do you know about his past?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "Not a whole lot, but it can't be a lot worse than being held captive for thirteen years and finding out you have no family left."

"I can't even imagine what a nightmare that must have been for you. You were so young. I-I know you were a prisoner, but, were you at least cared for in way? I mean, did it get any easier in time?"

Liona saw the hopeful look in his eyes and didn't have it in her to squash that hope. In response she shrugged her shoulders. "I guess. I stopped crying if that's what you mean."

Dom winced at her remark. "For String… the things that happened, they changed him. He was always a sensitive kid. Bit quiet at times, his head always racin' miles ahead. A kind, generous soul."

"String… a kind, generous soul?" Liona snorted as an attest to how ludicrous she found that statement.

"Believe it or not, that same kind and generous soul is still there. It's just… hidden away in a fortress with reinforced steel doors. You see, when he was only twelve years old he was out on the lake with his parents. His dad – my best, best friend – was teachin' him to fish while his mother was catching some rays. It was a stupid-" Dom shook his head and pulled his lips into a thin line. When he spoke again, his voice was shaky. "It was a stupid boatin' accident that never should have happened. There was an explosion. The blast propelled String clear from the boat. His parents were not so lucky."

Liona was absolutely quiet. So, String saw his parents die… right in front of him? She winced at the thought.

"If it hadn't been for St. John, his older brother, String might have died too. It was him who pulled String from the water. After that, eh, well… he was never quite the same, ya know? Even more quiet than before. Playin' music, that became his outlet."

"Music?" Liona raised her head. "You mean that cello… it's his?"

Dom nodded with a smile that was part sad and part proud. "Oh yeah, and you should hear him play! He's- he's really good. Anyway, it took him years to recover, mentally, from that accident. And then there was Lou-"

"Lou?"

The mere mention of the name made his eyes glisten. "Louise. Spunky girl. She was the one who managed to pull String from his shell. He started smilin' again, laughin'. High school sweethearts they were.

"String… he intended to ask her to marry him. Then, just before he shipped out to Vietnam, he and Lou were in a car crash. She got thrown against the windshield, snapped her neck… she died instantly. He got flung out of the car and hardly had a scratch."

"Oh, my God…" Liona whispered.

"It screwed with his head. When St. John and String were both in Vietnam, St. John wrote that String was like a man possessed. He began to think he was cursed, that people he cared for were destined to die, leavin' him behind. He became bold, too bold, and his brother had to talk him down several times. 'But St. John,' String told him… 'I always come back. It's the others that die, not me… never me…' Can you imagine, thinkin' like that?"

Dom looked at his feet and for once Liona saw an old, broken man. Each line etched in his face suddenly showing his age. "That's when St. John told String that he didn't have to speed up the process, sendin' his mates to their deaths by bein' reckless. It was the moment his tremendous sense of responsibility kicked in. Still reckless as hell, only now in the service of keepin' his mates alive and damn the consequences for himself..."

They both looked up when the front door opened and String casually strolled back inside, carrying three large fish in his one hand and his rod in the other.

"Done talkin' about me?" String asked them with a wry smile.

"Not yet," Dom shot back, "I was just about to tell Lio about that time with Blaze. Remember him?"

Stringe raised a brow hearing Dom's new pet name for Liona, but didn't comment. "Blaze? Gutsy Blaze? Yeah, I remember him." He walked through to the kitchen area.

Liona was pretty sure String hadn't seen the tears that had started to pool in her eyes. Despite him being a callous jerk, her heart ached for the misery he'd experienced as a boy. "What's this about Blaze?" she asked, quickly dabbing at her eyes. No tears. Absolutely no tears! She loved hearing Dom telling stories, so it was a good thing that Dom absolutely loved telling them!

"We were hired to do some aerial stunts for a movie and String had been givin' the main star Blaze flyin' lessons on the side. The man was terrible at it. String had been backin' him the entire time!"

"Backing him? What does that mean?"

"Oh, that means that while Blaze thought he was flyin' all by himself, String was actually on the controls, correctin' his mistakes."

There was unmistakable pride in Dom's voice and Liona stole a glance at String from underneath her lashes. When he caught her staring at her, she could feel her cheeks heating up. Quickly she averted her eyes.

"Anyway, the superstar had promised Mona Khan a few exclusive shots of him flyin' a helicopter for her tv show. Lio, I was so angry I was spittin' nails! I mean, that jackass want to kill himself, fine! Just not with my equipment!"

His huffing and puffing made Liona laugh. "What happened then? Did you lose the gig because of that?"

"Yeah… I lost the gig alright, but not because of that."

A light chuckle was heard from the kitchen area and then Dom started too. Liona could hardly contain her curiosity. "Come on, Dom… tell me!"

"Well, String offered to ride shotgun to make it legal."

"What?"

"Oh, for insurance purposes. They could never get coverage for their main star for somethin' like that, so String had to be there… You know, just in case. Blaze was so full of himself, he could've sustained himself for years to come without eatin' a morsel of food!"

Liona chortled softly at that and Dom gave her a fond look.

"Anyway, String got inside, arms crossed and feet off the controls... and allowed Blaze to show Mona how well he could fly. Pretty soon, he was all over the place but not in a good way. If I hadn't known any better, I'd have thought he'd lost a tail rotor. Then the buffoon started doin' laps around the set, forcin' people to jump out of the way… And String just sat there, arms folded, cool as a cucumber…"

The image she saw in her head made Liona erupt with sudden laughter. Dom stopped talking and gave her the most peculiar look. When she looked back at String, he too had this unfathomable look on his face. Perhaps they'd told and retold the story so many times, it had lost the humor for them, but Liona thought it was hilarious. "Ple-ase," she said as she hiccuped with laughter, "don't stop. I- I can just see it happening right now…"

"Well, Blaze managed to get some lift with the helicopter again and then he decided he'd had enough. He tried to land but… he was out of control. My heart was in my throat! He was about to crash straight into a set of large studio lights, people had to actually dive out of the way and then… at the last possible moment… the helicopter shot right up in a perfect vertical climb, to the point where it nearly stalled… then the nose dropped and its direction of flight was reversed."

Liona was hanging on his every word. "Don't tell me this trailblazer suddenly figured out how to fly-" Then her face nearly split with a grin. "It was String, wasn't it?"

"Ssh… So, there we were, on the ground, watchin' the helicopter perform a perfect hammerhead stall. To that point, I'd never seen one done by a helicopter before. And let me tell ya, that is a very challengin' maneuver to make. Even with years of experience.

"Then, the helicopter came back soarin' down and for a moment I feared it might still crash… but at the last possible second, it touched the ground in a perfect landing. Smooth as a baby's bottom. Pure as the driven snow. Yeah, String had taken over the controls and Gutsy Blaze was huddled in his seat, tremblin' all over. He was so scared he'd wet himself!"

Dom was having so much fun in telling the story, that his laughter at the conclusion was so loud and boisterous, Liona couldn't help but join in.

By the time the fish was ready, Liona and Dom were still laughing about that story and a few others he had decided to tell. The fish – it was indeed trout according to String – was perfectly cooked with herbs and seasoning and… and butter. As the three of them ate together, Liona could feel a wave of warmth crashing through her. For the first time in weeks she felt like she wasn't a complete outsider.

At the end of a lovely evening, after Dom had long gone home, it was also the first time String told her, "Good night."

That night, String was lying in bed, one arm folded behind his head as he looked up at the ceiling, his heart in turmoil and his mind a whirlwind of warring emotions.

Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Gold Bug' lay discarded next to him. Why he suddenly felt an urge to read that book, was beyond him. It certainly hadn't provided him with any answers. And it frustrated him. Just as the past weeks had frustrated him. Heck, the past weeks had been a living hell!

If only Liona was just a pretty face. It would have been so much easier to deal with simple physical attraction. After all, there was a perfectly normal way to dispense of those kind of tensions. It wasn't as if he'd never had sex either. But, he always made sure that afterwards he could walk away with his heart safe and intact. No attachments. The last time he'd made an exception was with Gabrielle. Another tragedy he could put under his name.

His heart lurched when he started remembering things about her. Her hair, her smile. The way she'd been near tears when he ate the trout she'd begged him to release. The soft touch of her lips… She'd promised him, dammit! She'd promised him she wouldn't die and then… just hours after that… she died in his arms anyway.

String released a harsh shuddering breath and twisted his fingers into the bed sheet. Physical attraction. God, why couldn't it be just that? Things wouldn't be so ugly as they were now if it had just been that. But, from the moment their eyes first met, she'd somehow gotten under his skin for reasons he simply couldn't grasp.

Was it because of the familiar pain he saw reflected in her eyes? Was it because of the memories that kept bubbling up whenever he looked at her? Whatever the reason was, each time he looked at her a strong sense of protectiveness surged through his heart, while his mind kept flashing a warning signal.

It was his own personalized hell from which there was no escape, not even when he was working with Dom at Santini Air or working on an Airwolf mission. No matter how hard he tried to push her out of his mind and thoughts, she was always there… sometimes taking the spotlight, sometimes lurking at the furthest edges.

But always, unrelenting, there.

Her eyes were starting to haunt him even in his dreams whenever he wasn't reliving the hell he'd been through in Nam, or watching Gabrielle die in his arms. Now, when he woke up with a jolt at night, the words 'Leave her alone!' strangled in his throat and his skin damp with sweat, it was her image and her eyes that slowly faded away. Brilliant green and golden eyes that spoke of things better left untold.

The first time he noticed the urge to take her in his arms and kiss that pain away, he'd nearly thrown her out. He'd taken a dive in the lake instead. His conflicting emotions were slowly making him mad. For only a madman would be lying in his bed, thinking of a woman he wanted to hurl out of his cabin, out of his life, while at the same time some part buried deep within him, all but forgotten, yearned to draw that same woman into his arms and never let go.

'God, what do you want from me? ' he raged in silence. It was not the first time he'd asked that question. Through the years he'd often wondered what the hell he'd done wrong that could warrant such a lifetime of hurt. He asked, he prayed, he blamed… but never received an answer.

With each loss the pain had been more agonizing and it took longer and longer to get his head on straight again. First his parents, then Lou, St. John… Tess.

Damn… he hadn't thought about Tess in years.

Tess, who came breezing into his life like a breath of fresh air. A woman he'd loved. A woman he once believed loved him too, but who didn't think that what he had to offer her was enough.

His dreams back then had been as simple as they were now... building up his life again after Nam, living quietly and peacefully up in the mountains. She, however, dreamed of Hollywood and money and riches. When she got pregnant, he couldn't be happier about it. Turned out, she couldn't be more miserable.

Tess and the baby… they were the reason he'd accepted the job working for the FIRM as one of Airwolf's test pilots. The job paid well, only downside was the strict NDA and the enforced rule of no contact with the outer world for the duration of testing. Seven months he'd gone off grid and when he was finally done, he expected to find Tess heavily pregnant welcoming him back home. Instead he found a letter informing him there would be no baby. She'd terminated the pregnancy and left him.

Another person he'd had to mourn. Another wound to a heart that no longer knew which way to beat.

Images of Liona surfaced to the front of his mind. The way she'd laughed tonight, her eyes shining brightly, without a trace of the pain that was usually there. He didn't know why he was drawn to her so, but he was. It was as if she'd become to represent all the things in life he could never have, but wanted oh so much!

God help me, he thought, I don't have the strength to resist anymore. He swallowed past a lump in his throat, tasting the saltines of a tear that had managed to trickle between his lips.

\A/

Another evening was spent in silence and Liona had enough. One way or the other, she'd make him talk to her. String was sitting on the stone hearth, looking off into the distance while scratching behind Tet's ear.

Liona was sitting in one of the chairs going through a book about birds of prey with the most glorious photographs. She couldn't concentrate though with String sitting so close by. He was in one of his contemplative moods and couldn't be bothered to feign even the slightest interest in her.

"I'm sorry it's taking Michael so long to find me a different place to stay. I know you want me out of here."

He briefly turned his attention to her, snapped his brows together in a frown, but said nothing. Then he looked away again.

Liona sighed deeply, feeling very annoyed. "Look, it's not my idea of fun either, being cooped up in here with someone who obviously wants me as far removed from this place as possible. Can you at least tell me what it is about me that bothers you so much?"

No answer.

"Is it something I did?"

No answer.

"Is is something I said?"

No answer.

Liona sighed again, closed the book and put it on the table.

When he suddenly did answer her, it came as quite a shock. "I can't tell you what I don't know."

At least it was now in the open that she did bother him in some way, for he didn't deny it. But for him to acknowledge it and in the same breath admit he didn't know why, that raised her ire. "So, you hate my guts and you can't even tell me why?"

"I don't hate you."

"You sure as hell don't like me!"

At that he gave her such a murderous look she cringed back into the seat.

"Seems we are stuck with each other for some time," he then said. "I suggest you keep to yourself and I will keep to myself."

"Oh, joy! What a lovely prospect… more evenings spent in stony silence."

He didn't reply, though Liona could see a tiny muscle tic in his cheek. "You know, as you've already shown you actually can be pleasant to others, this cold shoulder you keep giving me really does wonders in making me feel welcome."

String gave her an arctic look. "I wasn't tryin' to." He then got to his feet and walked over to the bar where he poured himself a drink.

"So I've noticed. Why did you take me in?"

Again, she was met with silence and Liona rolled her eyes. She stared into the flames of the fire without really seeing them. "I know you heard me, String," she said listlessly. "Can you at least feign some semblance of human decency and answer me when I ask a question? You've made it glaringly obvious you can't stand the sight of me. So why offer me a place to stay at all?"

"Because I didn't know," he said after a long moment of heavy silence.

What the hell kind of answer was that? She was getting so tired of trying to understand him, to accommodate him, when he was making no effort at all to even be friendly to her.

"Didn't know what?" she asked, gnashing her teeth together.

When he again didn't seem to find it necessary to grace her with an answer, Liona turned in her seat to look at him. The moment he noticed her eyes were on him, he casually shrugged his shoulders, then he sighed deeply and looked at her from underneath his lashes. "That you bein' here would drag up so many memories. I don't like it."

Liona knew there had to be more to it than that. "So? I look like the girl who drowned your dog or something? And for that I deserve to be punished? Are the thirteen years I spent in a little cell really not enough for you?"

When he raised his eyes to meet hers, there was something so vulnerable in them, Liona had to repress the urge to go to him and comfort him, while she was the one hurting.

"I'm sorry for what happened to you, Liona. You were just a kid and deserved none of it. And you deserve better 'n what your gettin' right now. I'm sure Dom already filled you in on some stuff. You can fill in the rest yourself."

Her jaw dropped a little. It was the first honest moment she had with him. She wasn't sure why, but for some reason it felt like… he just admitted he did like her in some weird way. The answer, she was sure, had to be in what Dom had already told her about him. She wanted to ask him more questions, but the sour look on his face – a look that could curdle milk – told her he was done talking.

No longer in the mood to exchange another word with him anyway, Liona got to her feet and with numb fingers she started to undress herself.

"What the hell do ya think you're doin'?" String barked at her.

Her hands dropped the gray overalls to her feet. "Getting ready for bed. Or the couch since I don't actually have a bed here." She stepped out of the overalls and gave him a quelling look. "I'm tired and I'd like to get some sleep."

String's eyes glittered strangely and seemed fixed on her body. It made her movements a bit more awkward. Turns out there was a big difference between knowing you were watched as you undressed and actually seeing someone look on as you undressed. Or was it because he was now watching her? She only knew for certain the camera's that had always been monitoring her every move had never been this disturbing.

He then shrugged his shoulders and quirked a brow. "By all means, don't let me stop you."

Liona rolled her eyes as she went through her duffel bag to dig up her nightdress. "Does it look like you are?" she asked, her voice biting, as she discarded her bra and pulled the nightdress over her head.

For a moment it looked as if String was about to retort with an equally biting remark, but he kept silent, swiveled on his heels and disappeared up the stairs.