Sarah Katherine Hawke. The sound of her real name seemed strange to the petite brunette as she tried it out loud for the umpteenth time, the words floating away on the thin breeze that ruffled her shoulder length hair and skimmed over her pale skin. She sighed and hugged her knees to her unconsciously as she stared out at the peaceful lake in front of her from her place on the porch steps of her brother's cabin. The water was a silvery grey with the peaks of the surrounding mountains casting dark shadows. Sarah breathed deeply and let the serenity settle in her soul.

It was so beautiful, she thought wistfully. She turned her head and glanced back at her brother's home. It suited Stringfellow Hawke and his wife, Caitlin. There was something solid and unyielding about the place from the outside yet once beyond the front door, it was softened with warmth – a bit like the couple themselves. Sarah smiled amused at her whimsy. The cabin had been a great place to hide for the previous two weeks since the reunion with her two older brothers. She rubbed her cold hands together as she watched the first glimmer of light break the dark sky.

'There's nothing like a sunrise.'

Sarah's head snapped around to the porch at the quiet words and she put her hand to her chest as though to soothe her racing heart. Her brother stood there dressed in jeans and a thick woollen sweater.

Hawke took in her alarmed expression. 'Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you.'

'It's OK.' Sarah smiled ruefully. 'I'm kinda getting used to your ninja like ability not to make any noise.'

He returned the smile as he walked the few strides that separated them and sat down beside her. His knee nudged hers as he settled into position. They watched the sun come up in silence for a long while.

'You're up early.'

She heard the subtle concern in his statement and almost smiled. She had quickly realised that her brothers had a protective streak a mile wide. 'I woke early.'

'Nervous about today?' Hawke asked gently. It was the first day that Sarah and her young son, Chris, would leave the cabin and begin their lives in LA.

'I guess I am.' Sarah admitted. She glanced over at Hawke who was looking back at her with a steady blue gaze from eyes that matched her own. She gave another half-smile. 'You'll be the same when you have to drop Nicky off at school for the first time.' She gestured. 'You worry if they'll be OK, if they'll make friends, if they'll fit in. You just want so much for them.'

Hawke conjured up the moment when he would have to take his baby son, Nicky, to school and grinned at the image. 'Yeah.' His knee nudged hers again; this time deliberately. 'Chris is going to be OK though. He's a great kid and it's a good school, very secure.'

'I know.' Sarah shivered. She'd never thought security would be top of the list of qualities to look for in a school but with the reality that her family were being targeted by the Mafia, security wasn't only the top of the list, it was in bold capital letters and underscored several times.

'You know Saint John would understand if you didn't want to start work today.' Hawke murmured. Sarah had opted to work at Santini Air claiming she was more comfortable with the familiar set up of an air service than the world of espionage and aerial combat that Hawke and Caitlin inhabited flying a technologically advanced helicopter, Airwolf, for a shadowy division within the Department of Defence.

'I'm OK.' Sarah insisted. 'I can't hide out here forever.'

'No.' Hawke agreed.

Sarah glanced over at him curiously. She figured there had been a time when Hawke had tried hiding out on the mountain. She faced the scenery again. Despite the fact that they had never met until two weeks before, she felt a certain empathy with Hawke. Maybe it was because they were so alike physically, she mused; looking at Hawke was like looking at a slighter older male version of herself unlike Saint John. She bit her lip.

Saint John looked so like their father, it was hard for her to get past that especially given the slightly combative relationship with her parents that had triggered her running away from home. She sighed heavily. She couldn't regret it. If she hadn't run away with Lee Edwards, he wouldn't have gotten her pregnant at sixteen and she wouldn't have Chris. Still, given her wariness about Saint John she was questioning whether she had made the right choice about going to work with him and his girlfriend Jo Santini at Santini Air.

'Nervous?' Hawke asked hearing her sigh.

'Yeah. A little.' Sarah admitted.

'It's a good place to work.' Hawke assured her. ' Saint John and Jo will see you're OK and Lord knows they pay better than Dom ever did.'

He succeeded in raising a smile and she shook her head in disbelief. 'This is just so weird.'

'What?' Hawke asked.

'Sitting here with you.' Sarah said with a chuckle. 'Talking about Dom.' She waved a hand vaguely in the air. 'Dad used to tell us all these old stories about him and his best friend Dom, about their escapades during the war. I always thought he made him up.' She shook her head again. 'I wish I could have met him.'

'Me too.' Hawke said gruffly. 'You'd have liked him.'

'Ah but would he have liked me?' Sarah said lightly. As a young single Mom with no husband in tow she was used to being judged.

Hawke's lips curved slightly as he thought about the likely reaction Dom would have had to Sarah. He could almost see the gap-toothed grin. 'He'd have loved you.'

Sarah ducked her head before she registered the grief in his voice. 'You miss him a lot.'

Hawke nodded. 'He pretty much raised me after we thought Mom and Dad died in the boating accident.'

Sarah reached out and tangled her hand in his to comfort him and ease the pain she could hear underlying the simple statement. He frowned at how cold she was and rubbed at her fingers, warming them.

'You really think we're going to find them?' Sarah asked. She had given up hope of ever seeing her parents again when she'd become separated from them and her younger brother. She had known the score, she told herself firmly. Their parents were on the run from a revengeful Mob family called the Cordelli's, they had to keep moving even if that meant leaving her behind.

'Larry Mason is the best there is.' Hawke said referring to the information analyst who was tracking their parents down. 'If anyone can find them, it's him and all the information you provided has got to help.'

'Do you really think Dad's still alive? I mean with Yahara thinking he was dead.' Sarah had been shocked to find out that the revengeful Japanese pilot who had prompted Hawke and Saint John to look for their family had thought their father had died of a heart-attack.

'I'm hoping he was wrong.' Hawke admitted.

'I can't believe I'll get to see them all again. I'd given up hope of ever being able to tell them how sorry I was.' Sarah murmured.

'You were only a teenager.' Hawke said gently. 'Give yourself a break.'

'I made their lives hell.' Sarah corrected. 'I never really understood why they were so protective, I just felt smothered. Even when they told me about losing you and Saint John, I didn't get it.' She felt him squeeze her fingers lightly. 'It wasn't until I had Chris that I understood.'

'Rebellion's fairly normal for a teenager.' Hawke commented.

'Did you rebel?' Sarah asked.

'I really wasn't a normal teenager.' Hawke said wryly.

'Seb never rebelled either.' Sarah said referring to the youngest of the Hawke siblings, a brother Hawke and Saint John had yet to meet. She felt a pang of regret. She had never paid too much attention to Seb; he'd simply been her annoying geeky younger brother but finding Saint John and Hawke had made her realise how much she missed him.

'Maybe rebelling is an elder child thing.' Hawke mused. ' Saint John did the whole rebellion thing. He tried to run away and join the army.' He smiled at her. 'You two have more in common than you realise.' He caught the flicker of doubt in her eyes. 'You just have to give him a chance.'

'I know.' Sarah said defensively. 'It's just…'

'He looks like Dad.' Hawke said.

She looked at him surprised he'd worked out why she was having a hard time connecting with their older brother.

Hawke shrugged. 'Cait worked it out.'

'Oh.' Sarah looked down at the worn patch of grass at the bottom of the steps. She really liked Hawke's wife. There was something immensely likeable about the pretty no-nonsense redhead. It had been Caitlin who had found her in the kitchen in the middle of the night when she'd had a nightmare about being abducted by Harold Watson. Somehow for Sarah confiding in the woman who had saved her from rape had been cathartic not least because Caitlin had shared some of her own experiences and offered to teach her some self-defence. 'She's a clever woman your wife.'

'Yes, she is.' Hawke said.

Sarah felt a pang of envy. She wondered if she would ever find a man who would speak about her with the same mixture of love and pride, and who she would look at the same way Caitlin looked at Hawke. Maybe one day that was possible now, she thought. She wasn't running anymore. She wasn't exactly safe yet; she understood that but she was done running. It was a good feeling. She might be nervous but she was also excited about Chris starting a new school, and starting her new job. She'd have to look for a place too, she thought a little regretfully. As much as she had enjoyed the sanctuary Hawke and Caitlin had offered, it was time to find somewhere closer to Chris's school and Santini Air.

'It's going to take time for us all to get used to each other.' Hawke commented as he rubbed her hand between his. ' Saint John understands that.'

'I know. I wouldn't be working at Santini Air if I didn't think so.' Sarah said trying to reassure him. 'It's just…it's not just that he looks like Dad but he sounds so like him too.'

'Really?' Hawke's eyes widened. 'I hadn't thought of that.'

'He'll say something and I'll turn around expecting to see Dad and it's him.' Sarah shook her head. 'And it's been a little difficult getting him on his own to talk to him about it.'

Hawke's eyebrow quirked upward. 'Jo?'

'She doesn't seem to leave him alone.' Sarah observed trying to lighten the words with a smile.

'Well, they've just got together.' Hawke said. 'I think Caitlin calls it the can't-be-without-each-other stage.'

Sarah remained diplomatically silent. Saint John and Jo had stayed at the cabin with them for the first week and she and Jo had gotten along but she hadn't clicked with the blonde pilot in the same way as she had clicked with Caitlin. She sighed. In many ways she was beginning to question why she had chosen Santini Air where she would be working on a daily basis with Jo and Saint John when she got on so much better with Caitlin and Hawke. Guns scared her, she reminded herself; that whole world of spies and missions scared her.

Hawke patted her hand. 'I think we should probably head in. Get the day started.'

She nodded and he released her, going back into the cabin as silently as he had come out. She glanced back at the sunrise; the light had turned the lake to a shimmering gold. A new day, she thought; her own new beginning.