AN: The Vietnam flashback is inspired by a real event recounted in the book "Rattler One-Seven" by Chuck Gross.

Awareness returned painfully, slowly, as if he was dragging himself up from the bottom of a swamp. The air tasted medicinal, and something was tickling his nose. He swiped at his face clumsily, and his fingers touched plastic tubing.

Oxygen, his brain supplied, conjuring up memories of blue sky and a glass canopy overhead. His fingers told him of thin cotton fabric against his chest-pajamas?-and thicker cotton fabric at his side. Memories tumbled over him, memories of a military hospital, of Nhi Huong's coffee-colored eyes, of chaos and voices and-

He felt like his brain was on fast-forward and rewind at the same time. One thought managed to cut through the morass: Find Dom.

Hawke wasn't quite sure how he'd managed it, but a moment later he found himself stumbling along a brightly lit hallway, carpet underfoot and white walls careening in his peripheral vision. Hurried footsteps came up behind him, but he was a man on a mission, and shook off the hands that grabbed at him.

A tall, thin blonde in a nurses' uniform blocked his way. She spun him around and gave him a none-too-gentle shove into the arms of a sturdy-looking orderly. "Get back," she hissed. "Get back! You shouldn't be here!"

It took a moment for Hawke to realize that the last sentence wasn't directed at him, but at a young dark-haired woman in an elevator at the end of the hallway. The girl froze, looking like a deer in headlights, her dark brown eyes wide in surprise.

"This floor is private," said the blonde nurse, her voice dripping with ice. "Get lost. NOW!"

"Sorry!" squeaked the girl, and the door slid shut.

The hallway swam and dipped in Hawke's vision, and he blacked out. When he came to, he was flat on his back in a hospital bed. The blonde nurse was bending over him.

He felt like he was on fire; he could feel the sweat trickling down the sides of his face. "Where...where am I?"

"You're in a hospital," said the nurse, her tone even, her eyes concentrating on her work as she did something to his arm. There was a brief, sharp pain in the skin of his forearm; the thrust of a needle. "You were in a helicopter crash," said the nurse, as she secured the needle with surgical tape.

What? He looked up at her. "Wait—how long have I been here?"

"Shush." The nurse patted his arm in a manner Hawke supposed was meant to be reassuring. "Rest now. Dr. Rothschild has been called for, and he'll answer all your questions when he gets here."

Hawke frowned, more confused than before. There was something about the nurse's bedside manner didn't jive with what happened in the hallway... "What day is this?"

The nurse briefly warmed her stethoscope between her hands and placed it against his chest. "It's Wednesday," she said, her tone that of a patient mother explaining to a child.

He had just been at the cabin, what day had that been? Sunday? Monday? "I have to make a phone call," he protested. "I have to call Dom."

"It'll have to wait," said the nurse, her voice gaining a sharp edge as Hawke struggled to sit up.

The nurse's hands seemed to be everywhere he turned, and he thrashed from side to side, trying to escape. "It can't wait," he growled.

"It already has," Mr. Hawke," said a smooth male voice. A tall, middle-aged man in wire-framed glasses and a white coat stepped into the pilot's field of vision. "You've been comatose for the better part of a year."

What? It was as if all the fight left Hawke's body, and he fell back, exhausted. The room was beginning to blur.

The man smiled. "I'm Dr. Rothschild. I've been your physician for the past eight-and-a-half months."

No, thought Hawke, that's not right... Everything felt too raw, like he'd just left it undone yesterday. He had something important to do...

"Why don't you go back to sleep for a little while, Mr. Hawke," Rothschild suggested, with a glance at the nurse. "Don't try to sort it all out right now. Just give yourself a little time." He dropped his hand to Hawke's shoulder and gave him a kind smile. "I'll be back later, and we'll get started on your road to recovery."

Hawke sighed and let the nurse rearrange the bedclothes into some semblance of order. "Doesn't look like I have much of a choice," he grumbled. His eyelids were heavy, and he was asleep within seconds.

He was flying, silently skimming over an endless ocean of deep green. The motion was effortless, beautiful; he was free. In the distance, he saw a glimmering ribbon of gold-a river, glinting in the light of a gorgeous red-orange sunset over smoky blue mountains.

Slowly, he became aware of a low, droning hum in his ears, punctuated by bursts of sharp noise. The atmosphere around him began to thicken, almost as if the air had a physical weight against his skin.

The scene before him dipped and swayed. A deafening miasma of sound assaulted his ears; voices shouting, the heavy chatter of M-60 machine guns, the deep thrumming of chopper blades cutting through tropical air.

A voice crackled to life over the radio. "Tomcat one-four, Tomcat one-four! String, where the hell are you?"

Hawke frowned, scarcely able to believe his ears. "Saint John?"

"String!" His brother's voice held an unmistakable note of panic. "Charlie's all over us! Get us out of here, little brother!"

"I'm coming, just hold on!" Hawke felt the Huey respond to his commands, but suddenly there was a cry of alarm from behind him, and the chopper began to shake violently.

He keyed the frequency to his crew's headsets. "What's going on back there?"

"We've taken a hit in the transmission, Mr. Hawke," said the crew chief. "She's leaking bad; it doesn't look good!"

Hawke threw a glance over his shoulder and saw that the open deck was a slippery mess of reddish fluid. His crew chief met his eyes with an anxious stare while the gunners tried to keep their footing.

"Damnit," Hawke swore, switching back to his brother. "I've taken a hit in the transmission," he reported. "I don't know if I'm gonna make it to you!"

"Don't leave us here! Please, String! Help us!"

Tears began at the corner of Hawke's eyes. "Just hang on!"

"Oh, God, String, here they come-"

"Saint John!"

Someone grabbed his shoulder and was shaking it. "Mr. Hawke!" It was his crew chief. "Mr. Hawke!"

"...Mr. Hawke."

Stringfellow's eyes snapped open. "Saint John," he gasped, but strong hands pushed him back down.

"Time to wake up, Mr. Hawke," said a smooth voice-Dr. Rothschild, he realized-overhead.

Looking up, Hawke muzzily tried to bring the doctor into focus.

"You were dreaming," said Rothschild.

"More like a nightmare," muttered Hawke, relieved to find that the dream didn't match his memory of the last time he'd seen Saint John. His brother had bravely given up his spot on String's rescue flight to a wounded soldier and then seemed to vanish in the confusion of a firefight.

"It means you're on the mend," said the doctor, turning away to fiddle with the knobs of an evil-looking device at Hawke's bedside. "Your brain is returning to its normal functions-REM sleep, and so on." He took a penlight from his pocket. "Now look at me for just a moment."

Willing the nightmare back into the dark depths from which it came, Hawke obeyed. The pinpoint of light flicked this way and that, and after a few moments, the doctor nodded in satisfaction.

"Your pupils are working like the aperture of an expensive camera, Mr. Hawke," he said. "It's a good sign."

Hawke felt the itch of adhesive on his forehead, and turning to his left, saw a bundle of thin wires that trailed down his pillow. He followed the wires to the machine, which reminded him of a sci-fi version of a player piano with its moving roll of paper. A dozen needles flickered and danced over the paper, inscribing peaks and valleys like a seismograph. "What is that thing?" he asked.

"This is an EEG machine," explained Rothschild, gesturing to the device. "It measures the electrical impulses of the brain, and tells us if there's been any damage done."

Hawke blinked, wondering if he could have brain damage and not know it. A flash of panic registered deep in his chest; if he was impaired, the FAA could pull his ticket and he'd never fly again. "There's no chance of—"

Rothschild seemed to sense his fear and broke in before Hawke could finish the sentence. "There's always a chance when someone's been comatose for a long time," said the doctor, making a notation on the rolling sheet of paper. "Do you remember anything of the crash?"

Hawke frowned in concentration as memories washed over him. Feelings of vertigo, a blurry instrument panel, and then fire and the coppery taste of blood... "Bits and pieces," he admitted.

"We think you had a heart seizure at the controls of your helicopter," said Rothschild gravely. "Shortly after you arrived here, you went into complete cardiac arrest. Clinically, you were gone for several minutes."

Hazy images tickled at the back of Hawke's mind at Rothschild's words: Impressions of chaotic activity going on all around him, fading away to be replaced by the elfin beauty of a young, dark-haired woman. Her kiss had left a whisper of calm in his mind, and then she too had disappeared into the darkness.

For the moment, Hawke pushed aside the images. "Did a man named Dominic Santini come to see me, ever?"

There were a few heartbeats of silence. "There's lots of news that you have to catch up on, Mr. Hawke," said Rothschild smoothly. "It's best if we move slowly."

A warning bell of alarm began to trill in the back of Hawke's mind. "Doc," said String, clamping a hand on the doctor's wrist. "It's a pretty simple question: Did Dominic come to see me?"

There was a flash of pity in the doctor's eyes, and Hawke's stomach began to do a slow, queasy roll.

"Yes," said the doctor with a tight smile. "He sat in that chair beside your bed day after day, talking to you for hours. He was convinced that you could hear him, even though you didn't answer." Rothschild paused, as if trying to control his emotions. "He was a good friend."

No... It was warm in the room, but Hawke shivered. "What do you mean,'was'?"

Rothschild sighed. "Mr. Santini's dead."

Hawke stared at the doctor, blinking owlishly in disbelief. Dom was a good pilot and an even better mechanic; an accident would have been someone else's fault. Hawke finally found his voice and forced out a single syllable. "How?"

"He and another man raided a prisoner of war camp in North Vietnam that was still holding Americans prisoner. Your brother, Saint John, was among them. Saint John was rescued, but Mr. Santini and another man were killed in the process."

Another memory flashed through Hawke's mind: Moore, leaning up against the wing of a biplane, a sad smile on his lean face. "I had a brother once; lost him a couple of years ago in Rhodesia. It's on the house. Even an old whore like me has a heart buried somewhere."

Hawke was dimly aware of the EEG skritching away like crazy beside him. "Saint John's here?"

"Yes," the doctor said with a kind smile. "He's on his way back from Alexandria, Virginia. We called him last night as soon as you came to."

There was a buzzing in Hawke's ears, as if a swarm of angry bees were locked inside his skull. Through the splintering pain in his head, he glanced up at the doctor through slitted eyes. "When was this raid? And who was the other man?"

"The raid was way back in July." The doctor made a notation on the paper. "The other man was named..." he trailed off as if casting back in his memory. "...Coldsmith-Briggs."

A wave of cold nausea washed over Hawke. "Archangel," he slurred, Michael's codename slipping out before he could stop it.

When the doctor merely nodded, Hawke had the strong feeling that something was not right. It was too pat, too convenient, and a thought pinged in the pitch-black tumult of Hawke's thoughts: Next he'll tell me they were in Airwolf...

The doctor patted Hawke's shoulder. "We're done with the EEG for today. Rest for a while."

The words were almost a compulsion, and Hawke found he could not resist. He wanted more details about his brother, but at the same time he was relieved to escape into a dreamless sleep, far beyond the reach of grief and shock.