Lost and Found SJH
Chapter 1
Author's Note: I've already written one story of St. John finally coming home, in my story "Coming Home was Never Going to be Easy, But This…", following the beginning of the 4th season of Airwolf. This story is the way I believe many of us felt it SHOULD have happened.
As always, in my universe, St. John has been a prisoner of various people for almost the entire time he's been missing.
Dominic Santini woke in the early hours of the morning to the telephone's shrill ring. At one time he would have been annoyed at whoever was inconsiderate enough to call at this hour, but now, with both of his foster sons serving in Vietnam, he almost welcomed the calls. When the boys were excited about something, or needed his support, they often forgot which direction the 14-hour time difference went and ended up calling him in the wee hours. He didn't mind. Every phone call told him they were still alive and safe. Not always well; sometimes wounded or ill or even snake-bitten, as had happened to St. John once, but alive and in a place safe enough to access a phone.
"Santini!" he barked into the phone. Oddly, there was no immediate reply other than uneven breathing. He stared at the phone for a moment. He'd heard stories about women getting phone calls like this in the middle of the night, but really? "Who's there?" he asked sharply.
Finally there was an answer. A strangled voice, broken by sobs. "Dom…he's gone..he's gone..I lost him…"
Dom's heart sank. "String?" he asked, his voice quavering.
A deep breath, then "Yeah."
Oh, no. It has to be St. John, that's the only reason String would sound so broken. "Talk to me, String. He's not…not …dead, is he?"
"No! No, he's not dead, I would know!"
Dominic believed him. String had an uncanny connection with his brother, always had. "What happened, kid?" he asked gently.
"MIA. We both went down, I hopped a ride back and picked up another chopper and went to get him. But the ropes filled up too fast, Dom! He couldn't get on and I had to leave him behind with Mace. I went back again, but everybody who'd been left there was gone. I spent hours checking in with all the dust-off pilots, checking the hospitals in case someone else brought them back. They're gone!" The voice, which had been broken and strained, dropped off into sobs again.
Ah, no. Not Mace as well. Mason Taggert, or Mace, was St. John's best friend over there, looked enough like St. John that they'd jokingly referred to themselves as brothers and String as their mutual "baby brother."
Dom knew all too well what MIA meant. Missing in Action. Unable to be accounted for, either dead or alive. It meant sleepless nights, constant worrying, hoping for good news that never seemed to come. It meant that the best thing those left behind could hope for was that the missing one would come wandering in out of the jungle in a few hours or days, or turn up listed as a captive in a POW camp. Not that being a captive was any consolation. It wasn't like the Vietnamese abided by the Geneva Convention. Especially the Vietcong.
"They'll find him, kid," Dom said, praying it was true. "They'll find them. Give them a few days."
"I'll find him," String growled. "It's my fault. If I'd gotten back to him quicker, or…"
"It's NOT your fault!" Dom said sternly. "It's not and you know it!" He had to nip this in the bud. String had done the same thing when his parents died and when his girlfriend was killed in a car crash, taken the blame for something that he couldn't have prevented, and it had made him miserable for years. Dom wasn't sure to this day whether String had ever stopped blaming himself on those scores.
String's voice grew quiet. "It is, Dom," he said tonelessly. "I lost him, and I'll find him." He paused for a moment, then, "Gotta go, Dom. I'll let you know when I find him." The line went dead.
SEVERAL HOURS EARLIER:
St. John Hawke watched in horror as his little brother's helicopter dropped towards the forest floor, barely controlled. It was a good thing his buddy Mace was in the copilot's seat of his own helicopter, because Mace had to take over flying. "String!" St. John bellowed over the radio as the chopper dropped out of sight. St. John held his breath but there was no explosion. Maybe the kid had managed to land safely. String was the best helicopter pilot he'd ever seen, and that was saying something. If anybody could have landed the crippled chopper safely, it was his little brother.
In another moment a voice came back over the radio. "I'm OK, Sinj. Keep up the fight. I'll hop a dust-off chopper and bring back another one to get you!"
"Thank God," St. John breathed. "OK, little brother, be careful!"
"I will. You and Mace watch each other's backs until I can get here to save your butts!"
"Sounds like our baby brother pulled it out again, Sinj." Mace commented as he handed control of the chopper back over to St. John. "How's it feel to have the kid save your ass?"
"Just fine, Mace," St. John replied stoutly. "Don't care who saves it as long as it doesn't get shot off!"
That was mostly true. Some men might have felt ashamed at their little brother saving them, but St. John and String had been keeping each other safe for months, and it was just the way it was. String might be barely 19, but he was damned good soldier, with a head for strategy that many older soldiers never developed. If was honest, he had to admit that if they hadn't wrangled that waiver letting them serve in the same unit out of the higher-ups, there was a good chance he'd already have gone home in a box. Mace too, for that matter.
Suddenly the chopper shuddered and began to drop. "Shit!" St. John swore. They'd taken a hit, too. Carefully, he brought them down to the ground in one piece. "Let's get out of here!"
St. John and Mace left the downed chopper, running toward the sounds of fighting. They passed a body in black pajamas and grimaced at each other. Great, Vietcong. Those wily bastards were damned hard to fight on the ground.
It was a hard, running firefight through the jungle, staying back to back as much as possible to watch out for each other. They ran across a river and took shelter behind a fallen log, St. John scanning the sky. "Where's my brother?" he growled.
Then he heard String's voice over the field phone the man next to him was carrying. "St. John, Mace, where are you? Gimme your coordinates!"
"My chopper went down just yards east of the river!" St. John replied. "String what's holding up the program?"
"Yeah," Mace chimed in. "Tell him we'd like to go home now. This dance is over!"
"Roger, I read ya," Sting's answer came over the airwaves. "Almost in. I gotcha!"
Mace and St. John hopped over the tree trunk and ran toward the chopper coming in low over the river. As they ran, Mace said, "See what happens when you ask for waivers for brothers in the same unit?"
"What could I do?" St. John snarked. "He's afraid to stay home alone!" That was pure bravado. String wasn't afraid of anything, not even of things he should be afraid of, like Vietcong.
"No!" Mace replied sarcastically.
The chopper hovered low over the river, ropes dropping from the back. String yelled, "Hey, come on, move it!"
Running through the river, there was a splash next to St. John and then he dropped.
"St. John!" String bellowed.
Mace echoed the call. He and another soldier ran to St. John and pulled him up, pulling him towards the chopper. Most of the dangling ropes were full of other men. String called again, "Come on, hit it!"
String's copilot tapped him. "Go, Go! The ropes are full, Hawke, we can't take any more!"
String turned to his copilot and growled "That's my brother!" He turned back to look at St. John and Mace standing back to back in the water. St. John waved him off.
"String get outta here! Go on, git!" St. John could see the horror on his brother's face at the thought of leaving him and Mace behind, but it had to be done.
Finally String nodded. He called, "St. John, Mace, you hang on! I'm comin' back!" and swung the chopper away. St. John and Mace watched him for a moment, then St. John said, "Let's get outta here!" He and Mace turned and ran through the water, looking for shelter in the jungle. Shots broke around them, driving them in another direction. Too late, St. John realized they were being herded. Suddenly they broke into a clearing where they found other American soldiers, but before they could organize any kind of attack, small dark men wearing black pajamas broke from the tree line and surrounded them. St. John and Mace looked at each other in dread. They were captured, prisoners of the VietCong.