AUTHORS NOTE... I am aware that certain events are a little out of the original Airwolf time line, but I had to have the explosion before Le moved in with String.

CHAPTER 4
Going Home.

Saint John watched as String, Dom and Caitlin worked on the helicopter. They had wires and parts all over the checker plate floor of the plane, as they worked. They had such an easy camaraderie, they worked well together. There was plenty of laughter and teasing going on, and suddenly he felt completely alone. He had missed out on so much, everyone he'd ever known would be like strangers to him. His thoughts turned briefly to Ellie, the girl he'd been dating in Nam before his capture by the VC. After all this time, she would of moved on. Hell even he had moved on, he'd managed to escape his captures for a few short months, and a Vietnamese family had taken him into there home. He remembered the very pretty daughter, she had spoken really good English and was able to translate everything he said to her family.

She had come to him a few times in the night, but in the end he knew he had to leave to protect them. Saint John had urged her to get out of the country, to try to get to America. He hoped she had found safety from the cruelty of her country. A sound from Caitlin brought him out of his thoughts.

"Yes." She punched the air with her fist.

String chuckled at her. He looked towards Sinjin, and filled him in. "She's managed to retract the ADF pods. Now if Dom can get the turbos and radio working." He threw down in challenge.

"Well maybe if I had parts I would." Dom replied huffily. "I can give you turbos kid, but you can't have the radio or radar suppression. The circuits are to fried for anything else." he finished.

"Guess we'll just have to make do with the turbos." String conceded. Glad they had managed to get at least some of the damage fixed for the flight home.

"Ya know there's a plus side to no radio String." Caitlin's eyed trinkled in merryment.

"We don't have to talk to Michael." They all finished together, then burst into laughter.

String walked over to Saint John, and sat down on the floor beside him. "Sorry we've been a bit preoccupied with Airwolf."

"That's ok. What happened," he asked pointing towards the craft.

"We ran into some company on our way out. Both the choppers got a couple of missiles of, we did distroy the missiles. Unfortunately one of them was a bit close to the tail when it blew up, we took some damage to the electrics." He was watching Caitlin as she worked on the Lady with Dom.

"Catlin's really pretty, I can see why you like her." Sinjin said hoping String would tell him more about her.

String nodded, but didn't say anything for a while. "I met her in Texas a few years back. I had a call from an old army friend, he'd got himself into a spot of trouble with the local sheriff. Dom and me took the Lady down there to see if I could help out. We went in at night, I was planning on walking the last mile or so. We came across a truck out on the main highway with 4 cowboys roughing up Cait, they were trying to drag her into the back of the truck. She was fighting them off something fierce, but with 4 on 1 it was only a matter of time." String paused in thought before he continued his story.

"We flicked on the landing lights and scared them half to death, got them to release Cait. You should have seen them high tail it out of there." He said with a chuckle. "Dom dropped me off just outside of town and I walked the rest of the way like we planned. I figured the best place to find anything out would be the bar. I found plenty out, the sheriff arrested me for just being in the town, didn't like strangers. I got myself roughed up a bit and thrown in jail. Then the next morning in walked this fiery red headed female deputy, Caitlin. She was on a mission, demanding to see one of the sheriff's prisoners, except I was the only one there. I gave her my name and asked for her help, I needed to make a phone call to Dom. Well after threatening what she'd do to me if I tried anything, she let me make the call. Only the sheriff came back. He tossed her in a cell and carted me off to the game reserve that took up half the area. Seems the sheriff was supplying human game. Dom was able to pick me up and we hightailed it out of there." String stopped talking, deep in thought.

"You went back for her? Didn't you." Saint John said.

"Yeah, got the sheriff to let her go. That was before I blew the place up, along with him and a few of his cowboys. She tried following us, trying to talk us into turning ourselves in, said we couldn't just destroy the jail like that." He chuckled, "She was real spunky, when she finally realised we weren't going to turn ourselves in, just thanked us. She showed up in Van Nuys a few weeks later, with Jimmy's body. She had quit the Texas Highway Patrol, to many holes in her account of what happened down there. She had left a few things out of her reports about Airwolf and myself and her bosses wasn't too happy about it. She tracked me to the hanger because of my name and pretty much wormed her way in with me Dom and me."

"So how long have you been a couple." He enquired.

String just shook his head. "We're not, just very good friends." He breathed in deeply, then slowly let it out. "I made a mistake a few months back, we'd had a pretty bad explosion at the hanger and we wasn't sure Dom was going to make it. I'd retreated to the cabin, Cait followed me up there trying to get me to talk. I did the worst thing I could to shut her up, I kissed her." He glanced across the plane to where Cait was putting the Lady back together with Dom.

"She slapped you." Sinjin guessed. After the story he'd just heard he knew Caitlin must be a real spitfire.

String shook his head, then turned to look at him. "Worse she kissed me back, before we new it we were in bed. We woke up the next morning knowing we'd made a huge mistake. We agreed for the sake of our friendship to forget about it and we have tried to do just that."

"Yet your still beating yourself over the head little brother." Saint John pointed out. He might have been out of Strings life for 14 years, but he could still read him like an open book.

"She's pregnant." was all he said.

"Shit." He looked across at Caitlin, laugthing at something Dom had said. She was pretty, but in a real girl next door type. ""Does Uncle Dom know?"

"Yeah, he's pretty pissed with me." String shared.

"What are you going to do?" He wanted to know, wondering if Dom had already told String he had to marry the girl.

"Cait's keeping it." String told him quickly. "We're both going to raise it, we just don't plan on doing it together." String looked over at Cait, just as she turned to look at him. She smiled and walked over to them.

"Your mad, you need to get a ring on her finger." Sinjin said quietly, hoping she wouldn't hear what he'd said.

"We've got her back together, but she needs a lot of her primary systems repairing. She'll fly and you have Turbos, but Dom's not sure if we should push her speed much. Michael's gonna have to get her a pretty major overhaul when he gets her back." She informed as she dropped down to the floor beside String. "Gonna miss flyin in her. "

String chuckled, "Gonna have to find something else to get your adrenaline going, Miss O'Shannssey." He turned to Sinjin. "I have a deal with the FIRM. I'd fly Airwolf in return for information that would lead me to finding you. Now your home, we'll be handing Airwolf back to them."

"Ok, you lost me with 'The FIRM' Who are they?" Sinjin asked curiously.

"There a government intelligence agency. " String said. Saint John head whipped round so fast, String feared he'd get whiplash. "The FIRM are generally a pain in the backside but, the man we work with is a pretty decent guy. Don't get me wrong he's a sneeky bastard most of the time, but I'd trust him with my life. He's spent the last few years butting heads with his bosses, to keep them of our backs."

"He's also come through for us on a lot of occasion's when things were going to hell. I was dating a guy who decided that Kidnapping me and strapping a bomb to me was a sure fine way of getting the guys to fly him out of the country in Airwolf. Michael was the one that found me, he refused to leave even when the timer got down to the last 30 seconds. He's always given us any information we've asked for on private matter's too. He might be a spy, but he's a good guy to have in your corner." Cait informed. She looked at String, asking. "Have you mentioned Le?"

He shook his head. "Sinj, when you was back in Nam, did you ever know a vietnamese woman by the name of Mai Van?"

"Yes. Have you seen her, is she ok?" He asked hopefully.

"We don't know if she's ok. We've never met her." String paused, before asking a question of his own. "Who was she to you?"

"I managed to escape from the first VC camp I was in. I was in a pretty bad shape and didn't get that far before I collapsed face down in a paddy field. I'd have probably drowned or died from my injuries, if not for some Vietnamese farmers. They took me back to there village and nursed me back to health. The family who took me in had a daughter named Mai and an another daughter who had already left and moved to Saigon. Mai could speak really good English and she was able to translate what I said to her parents." He stopped, looking at String and then Caitlin. He was a bit embarrassed to say any more with Caitlin listening in on the conversation. His brother was staring at him intently, expecting him to say more. "What?"

String didn't say anything, Cait beat him too it."Did you sleep with her?"

Saint John could feel his face starting to burn, he was embarrassed to be talking about his sex life with a woman he'd only just met. He opened his mouth to speak a couple of times, but nothing would come out. In the end he just hodded his head, looking away from them. Then realised Dom had joined the trio, carefully lowering himself to the floor beside him.

"What you embarassed about kid, aint any of us hear that haven't done something similar." Dom pointed out to him.

"I no, I'm just not comfortable speaking about this in front of a Lady I've only just met." He mentioned glancing at Cait.

Cait just laughed. "Seeing as how I'm guessing String has just told you I'm having his baby, think that makes us family."

"Mai had a son, she called him Le Van Hawke." String added.

"I told her to get out of the country, try to get to America. I knew I had to leave there village to protect them. I'd stayed much to long. I knew it wouldn't be long before the VC would come through the village. I didn't want any of them to be killed or harmed because of me. I probably made it another couple of weeks before I met up with another VC patrol. I ended back in another camp, every bit as plesant as the first." He paused letting Strings words sink in for the first time. "Your saying I have a son."

"Yeah, we don't know for sure though. Mai's sister married an American soldier, who brought her and Le to the U.S. Linh had a couple of photos of you that Mai had given to her, but she didn't really know too much." String told him.

"There's a pretty good chance that he is my son. We were together several times before I left the village. Did Linh say what happened to Mai, why she didn't go the US with them."

"No." Dom said, gently from beside him. "The guy who married Linh, eventually used Le to get to us. It's no secret in the MIA community that String has been searching for you since you went down on that mission. Someone used that information to use Le to there advantage. McBride was part of a big drug smuggling ring, planning on using a casket with your name on to get String to move a hell of a lot of drugs off that base."

"The family plot." was all Sinjin said. String just nodded his head in response.

"They had been using the names of MIA and KIA soldiers." Dom spat angrily. He felt for all those families who believed their loved ones had been returned to them. When they believed Saint John's remains were being returned to them, they had been heartbroken but, it was finally going to give their small family closure and a chance to mourn.

"Unfortunately Linh is dead, so we can't ask her anything else. A few weeks back Le showed up at the hanger, said his aunt had been gone a week. We went and had a look, called in Michael to do some checking, and eventually got lucky with a bit of information of a prostitute. Apparantely Linh had come across some information that her sister may have been brought into the country by a human trafficker. The information was incorrect, but the guy wasn't thrilled with her snooping around." String told Sinj.

"Where is he now, is he in care?" Sinjin asked worriedly.

"He's been living with me. No way was I letting my nephew go into care." String told him firmly.

"Thanks." He said letting out a deep sigh. He was so grateful for what his brother had done for him, instantly knowing that their own childhood had played a large part of it. "So what's he like?" He wanted to know.

The 3 friends grinned at one another before launching into all the details they could on Le Van Hawke.