CHAPTER 8

"No visible improvements so far," the doctor informed them, "but at least he doesn't appear to be getting much worse."

"Much?! If he gets much worse he'll be dead, he's barely hanging on as it is! The only reason I'm not demanding you let me in to see him or threatening to break down the door myself is because you so adamantly assure us you're doing the best thing for him, so he can recover more quickly. So why aren't we seeing any improvement?" he railed.

"String," Caitlin said, laying a restraining hand on his shoulder, "it's ok."

"No, it' not ok. We have a right to see you son."

"Come on, String, we'll come back later," she said, pulling him away and guiding him down the hall.

He could have easily pulled his arm away from her grip, but chose to give in for her sake, at least for the moment.

"What gives, Cait?" he demanded once thee were back to the jeep. "Don't you care if you ever get to see him again?"

"It's not that," she replied, silently starting up the engine and driving back in the direction of the hangar.

"Then what is it?"

Caitlin remained quiet, intentionally over concentrating on the road.

"Caitlin."

The redhead continued to ignore him as she pulled into a parking space outside the hangar and climbed out, slamming the door shut behind her. He followed her to the Jet Ranger, thankful for the few seconds of took for the rotors to gain enough lift, knowing that otherwise he would have been long left behind.

"What did I do, Cait?" he asked again, starting to get irritated.

"It really shouldn't be anything and I know it, but it is."

"What is?"

"Just let me focus on flying please. We can talk about this later."

\A/

Coming up the stairs, he spotted Caitlin right where he thought she might be. Sitting down beside her, he wrapped his arm around her shoulder, snuggling her to him. "Are we ok?"

"Yeah," she answered hoarsely, finding it more difficult than she ever would have believed possible to say that single word. "We'll get through it."

"You want to tell me what I did then?"

"Not really," she admitted.

"Please? If nothing else, so I don't do it again."

"It shouldn't be anything. It's just, I know how you feel, I've been through the same thing before when you had gone off to England after Chrissy Moffet. I remember watching you slip away right in front of me and there not being a thing in the world I could do to change it. Chance had a lot more faith I'm afraid. That was his first word, you know - Daddy. I kept thinking I wasn't sure if I could do it alone, but he has about as much tendency to listen to the doctors as you do. I could see you getting worse, the doctors had already had to restart your heart once, figured you were within a few hours… but Chance insisted you'd be ok… Now it's like the same thing all over again, only him instead of you." She buried her face against his chest, tears falling generously. "I know I can't do it alone, I'm just not sure I can do it at all…"

"Shh, we'll get through it," he soothed. "At the end of that story I made it, didn't I? Why then should he be any different? You know me, and I just got a little impatient back there, but it'll turn out alright in the end," he said, pulling her closer to him and planting a soft, reassuring kiss on her forehead. "Don't worry. I fit's just a virus like they said, he should start showing signs of improvement soon, and at least it is just a virus, not some mysterious slow acting poison no one even knew existed until then."

"I guess you're probably right," Caitlin conceded, "you sure better be."

"Of course I'm right; when have I ever lied to you?"

"Well there was a certain offer you made last time you were playing hooky and making me go do all you work at the hangar that you have still yet to fulfill."

"Oh? What offer might that have been?"

"You don't remember? We were sitting down to breakfast, Chance had just dropped his bacon in the floor and I made the comment about raising another fish and veggie boy…"

"Oh, that offer. You know, you have the strangest ways of changing the subject, but maybe I can see what I can do about filling my end of the deal…"

\A/

Le sat quietly next to Saint John in the car, debating how he was supposed to tell him his news from school. He wouldn't like it, but he had to be told just the same.

"Everything? You're awfully quiet today."

"Someone was at the school today; he came and talked to me about you."

"What'd he say?"

"He said… he said you'd better watch out because someone was out to get you, me, all the Hawkes."

"Do you know who it was?"

Le shook his head, "Said he didn't know where to find you, but he found me through the school. He asked if I knew Saint John Hawke and I said yes. He thinks you might remember him from Germany. He gave me some funny name, can't remember what it was and that a bunch of people had gotten away and described a helicopter he saw that helped them. He said you got in it and left, but the guy who had been in charge got really mad and vowed he'd get whoever destroyed his camp and took his prisoners."

"Anything else?" Saint John queried, his interest sparked.

"I don't think so. He kind of left all of the sudden, like he wasn't supposed to be there. One more thing though, he gave me a note." Le searched through his backpack until he finally pulled out a wrinkled piece of scratch paper with some numbers scrawled across it. "He said to give this to you."

Saint John pulled into an empty parking spot and shifted into park, taking the note and reading it for himself. What could it all mean? Germany? The helicopter? Prisoners? And now a string of numbers? How did it all fit together?

"Seven, seven, seven, and forty nine….. Seven, seven, seven is supposed to be lucky triple sevens and forty nine is… That's it! Lucky, his number was 777 in Germany. Asgar Fleischer is after me and my family because we escaped, nearly killing him in the process I guess. I would think it would have killed him for sure, but evidently not."

"What are you talking about?" Le asked, now finding himself even more confused.

"When I was held in Germany, one of my cellmates had three sevens tattooed on his arm by a previous warlord in Laos because he was the seven hundred seventy seventh prisoner, but he liked to think of them as lucky sevens because he was one of the few who had survived. Forty nine is the German international code, meaning he's talking about our time in Germany. Fleischer must have been the name you were talking about, the one who was in charge there. And he's coming after the Hawke family because it was them who helped me, another Hawke, and all the other prisoners escape."