He gets back to Indianapolis, and immediately begins a search for Cadie. He calls Mainframe.
"You got any idea where she might be? I'm in town, and I've checked out all the places we used to go, and she's not been seen at any of them."
"No clue, although I've managed to narrow it down to the north end of town, using the DMV records. I'll try looking for her by using her middle name."
Both men keep doggedly trying to track their missing comrade. A couple of months pass when Mainframe suddenly calls James in the middle of the night, scaring the poor guy silly.
"I've found her!" Mainframe tells him excitedly. "I tracked her to a small trailer park on Reinhardt Avenue. She's in unit 42, one that's set a little ways away from the rest of them. Apparently, she's a young single woman not working at the moment, but living off an inheritance. "
"Thanks, Mainframe, I'll be eternally grateful."
"No problem, just don't come back empty handed. All of us here on the base miss her, and we need her bad."
"I'm going out there in the morning. I'll talk with you later."
James finds the address with little trouble. He stops at the office to make sure that she is in the trailer park, and that Mainframe had the right unit number.
"You're the one they call Grand Slam, right?" the proprietress asked, after he had shown her a picture of Cadie. He nods. "She said that her name was Felicitie and she told me that you would probably show up, looking for her, and that I should tell you that she is in unit 42. Be careful with her, sir, she's become friends with a lot of people here, and we wouldn't want to see her hurt."
"Those of us in our unit, ma'am, don't want to hurt her if we can help it. Technically, she's considered AWOL, but there are special circumstances in this case, and no one on the base wants to see her hurt, either." He finds out the directions to the unit his wife is in and heads out of the door, leaving his truck parked by the office. He hikes down the road to unit 42 and stops to collect his courage before he goes and knocks on the door.
"Come in!" Cadie calls as she hears the knock, thinking that it's probably one of the neighbors' kids come to check on her for their parents. She's sitting in the rocking chair in the living room of her trailer, doing cross-stitch on a small pillow.
She looks up in shock as James bursts through the door. He darts across to her and drops to his knees next to the chair.
"What are you doing here? I didn't want you to look for me. You deserve far better than me," she said in evident pain.
"Don't ever run away like that again, little bit. You scared all of us on the base. I need you. We need you. You're the best at what you do, and we need your expertise. And...And I...I...I love you. "
Cadie pushes herself up out of the chair to go check on the loaf of bread that she had baking in the oven, pulling it out and putting on the counter to cool and as she turns, it suddenly becomes very obvious that she is heavily pregnant. James is silent as he digests this new information.
"When is the baby due?" he asks her, grabbing her arm painfully, anguish burning in his eyes and written all over his face. "Were you planning on ever telling me? Why didn't you let me know in that note you left?"
She turns around and looks at him, pain apparent in her eyes. She stretches, putting her hands on the small of her back and rubbing. "I didn't tell you in that note because I didn't know at the time. I'm sorry. I was going to tell you when I found out, but my contact on the base told me that you had already left and he didn't know where you'd gone. I'm due in about four months."
He gets up and moves behind her, pulling her hands away and rubbing her back himself as he calculates the timing. It must have been that first night that they had come together, he recognizes in shock. She moans in pleasure, and leans back lightly against him. He slides his hands around her to rest on the swell of her belly, feeling his child move for the first time.
"Cadie, please don't tell me that you'd have brought this child into the world without a proper name. I don't want any child of mine to be a bastard."
"What are you trying to say? This child would have had a name; mine. Bastard is just a state of mind. I know; I've been there and lived that."
"Didn't that teach you anything? Don't I have anything to say on the matter?"
"Considering how you thought I was so stupid as to let my worst enemy in and let myself get captured, I don't really know. I don't know about anything anymore, James."
He sinks down in the nearest chair, putting his elbows on his knees and dropping his face into his hands.
"Oh, sweetheart, please forgive me for that. I was angry and upset that the woman I loved was being held hostage and beaten, and that I couldn't do anything to protect her. I felt so guilty, like there was something I could have done. I still feel guilty, even now."
"There's nothing to forgive, James. I understand. I figured it out after a couple of weeks. I just...had to have my space to digest all this information... our relationship, and my reactions to it, things like that," she replied, coming over to stand in front of him.
When she threads her fingers in his chestnut hair, he suddenly reaches out and wraps his arms around her waist, laying his head down on the swell of her stomach, feeling the baby move. He smiles in delight. She was carrying his child. The baby was his!
"We understood your reasoning, and that's why Hawk decided not to accept your resignation. You're still part of the team, and we need you and want you back, badly."
"R-r-really?"
"Really. As I recall, Hawk and the rest of the gang's last words to me were not to come back without you. I wasn't going to try to come back until I had convinced you that you needed to do one thing."
"What's that?"
"Formally marry me and make me the happiest guy on the base if not the planet."
"Oh James, are you sure?"
"I've never been surer of anything in my life, Cadie. I love you. Will you please stay married to me?"
"Of course, I will. Oh, cripes." She looks at the clock on the wall. "I've got an appointment in about an hour, and it'll take me half an hour to get there. And my car's still in the shop, and I'll bet Patty had to work today."
"My truck is over at the office. Come on. I'll give you a lift." She takes her keys off of the peg by the door, locks it, and they leave. They walk along hand in hand in companionable silence until they get to the truck. He lifts her up and into the passenger seat, leaning into her and kissing her, deeply.
She returns the kiss in full measure. He then goes around and swings himself into the driver's seat, leaning over and getting a small box out of the glove compartment. He tosses it to her as he starts the truck and pulls out of the parking lot.
She looks in it, and reaches up and unlatches the gold chain that she wears around her neck. She threads the ring onto the chain and then reattaches it on her neck.
"What? My fingers are too swollen to wear it on my hand." she explains when she sees the queer look he's giving her.
She gives him directions to the doctor's office, and when they walk in hand in hand, they get some funny looks from the receptionists. Cadie just laughs, while James gets a little embarrassed.
"This the father?" Patty, the secretary, asks as Cadie signs in.
Cadie grins, "Yep. Patty, this is my fiancé, James. James, this is Patty, one of my buddies. She lives a couple of doors down from me."
"Hi."
Patty grabs Cadie's sleeve and pulls her down to talk to her. "He's totally hot! Where'd you find him?"
"We're both members of the same military unit. He's our laser cannoneer and I'm the demolitions specialist."
"You? In the military? As small as you are?"
"Yes, me. And when I first met him up close, I took his butt down, easily, without breaking a sweat."
The nurse appears in the waiting room to get them just before Cadie lowers her body into one of the chairs. James, who is already sitting, jumps up and follows them into the exam room.
"We're going to need a blood sample this time, Cadie. And you know the rest of the routine. The cup is already in the bathroom for you."
Cadie goes to the bathroom, leaving James looking totally perplexed in the exam room. She gets back just as the doctor comes in the room. When Cadie sheds her shirt for the exam, James is taken by surprise when he realizes that her chest has grown, along with the rest of her.
The doctor spreads some gel on her stomach and when he finds the baby's heartbeat with the monitor, James looks around. Cadie notices his baffled look and asks, "What's wrong?"
"Who's banging on the wall? I didn't notice them doing any renovations."
"Nobody, silly. That's the baby's heartbeat." Cadie replies lovingly as James looks at her in awe. The doctor goes into the hallway to get an ultrasound monitor. When he finds the baby with the ultrasound, James can't take his eyes off of his fiancée's abdomen. He recalls what he said to her the night that the baby was conceived, and marveled at how his dreams were coming true, albeit not in the fashion he had originally imagined that they would.
"Do you want to know the sex?" asked the doctor.
"No," both James and Cadie said at the same time.
"We'd like it to be a surprise," says Cadie. "Otherwise, if we knew, it'd take all the fun out of it."
"Is it okay for her to travel, doctor? I need to get her back home on the base before the whole unit comes after us."
"She's fine. And the baby is developing right on schedule. All I need to know is where to send the records, and who to send them to." He leaves the room just as the nurse is coming in.
The nurse comes in to take the blood sample, and James can feel Cadie tighten her grip on his hand when the nurse inserts the needle.
James writes the address for the base infirmary on a piece of paper and hands it to the receptionist on their way out. He decides to take Cadie to the little park where they spent some wonderfully romantic evenings while undercover for a picnic lunch to celebrate. He calls Hawk, letting him know that they would be starting back to the base in a few days, as soon as they got things squared away there.
A/N: I couldn't resist having James react like he did in here. My husband thought the same thing when I was pregnant with our son. I knew that I had to do it this way.