Airwolf And I, Vice Versa

Chapter Seventeen

Hawke flew Airwolf up to the Scottish Highlands to the place where Airwolf had had a forced landing two months previous. Hawke walked back up to the rock where he had sat before, where he had first tried to reconcile with Kristien. Kristien walked behind him unzipping her Airwolf flight suit to allow some air. She took in the scenery and sat on the rock to the right of Hawke looking out over the loch.

“You brought me all the way to talk.” Kristien correctly guessed. “You could have done this back at my home you know, although I would guess that I could disappear and hide if I didn’t like what we were discussing and not to mention Carsten looking over our shoulders.” Kristien paused. “How did you convince him to get me up here without him then?” Kristien remembered the tantrum and lecture that Carsten gave Hawke and Kristien on their return from Libya, which then came to an impromtu end when Kristien took out the P-90 that she had used in Libya admitting that it was given to her by Special Agent Redwood, Carsten thought he would go and redirect at Redwood especially as he had read the debriefing report on how Kristien had with one single shot executed the Blackwolf Co Pilot.

“Oh He has told me not to bother coming back alive if anything happens to you.” Hawke told her.

“Oh Carsten does hate paperwork and you would create too much especially as he wouldn’t know how to spell your name.” Kristien informed him. “He can barely spell mine.”

Hawke looked directly at her, damn she was too clever for anyone. He hadn’t put on his glasses to hide his brooding eyes, he wanted to talk.

“What are we going to talk about?” Kristien asked for a subject.

“Us.” Hawke prompted looking directly at Kristien.

Kristien turned and faced Hawke meeting his eyes. “There is no ‘us’.” She corrected him. “If you are wanting to leave to go back to your cabin then I won’t stop you.” Kristien paused realising how it sounded. She wasn’t prepared for this conversation at all and felt out of her depth at being in the middle of nowhere and unable to hide.

“Where the hell did that come from?” Hawke asked her totally stunned. Hawke continued to look at Kristien who was now sitting down leaning against the weathered granite rock that had been there for millions of years. She made her self comfortable and continued to face him. She honestly didn’t know where it came from and felt out of her depth totally.

The silence between them grew as Hawke tried to feel what she was feeling. He felt her fear rippling under her façade of happiness at being away from the estate.

“I’m sorry I can’t do this.” She told him struggling with how to explain what she wanted without letting him know why. Hawke felt her fear bubble more but started to feel a rage developing deep down below that she was barely controlling.

“All I want to know is who you really are.” Hawke replied truthfully hoping to keep a lid on her rage.

“Is that all?.” Kristien thought for a moment. “Let me see. Where would you like me to start? From our first meeting to now, no holds barred?”

“How about from when you were born to now. No holds barred.” He confirmed to her.

Kristien did not look away from his stare. “From when I was born?” She enquired. “You have that in my file.” Kristien was already trying to duck out of the chosen subject.

Hawke knowing that she was starting to evade repeated. “From when you were born. And it’s not in your file, so stop evading.” He pleaded with her.

Kristien looked around realising that they were in the middle of nowhere, with nowhere to run and hide although she could go down to Airwolf and take off but what was the point.
“I don’t think you are ready for this.” Kristien told him knowing what his curse was and what had happened to her in her tragic past and not wanting to hurt him by bringing up similarities in her life for him to his, to brood over.

“I don’t think I will ever be ready to hear it but I want to. I don’t know you Kristie.” Hawke painfully told her.

Kristien sighed knowing that Hawke was right, he knew little about her, more for his safety and sanity. “I…..I don’t want to hurt you.” She stammered running out of excuses.
“How can you hurt me?” Hawke tried to protest and felt her fear grow and the rage subside.
“Because if I tell you my life story you I will need you to leave me and I prefer it was sooner rather than later.” Kristien told him.

“You are wanting me to leave anyway so how about I agree to leave for the moment and in exchange you can tell me who you really are.” Hawke explained his terms to her.

Hawke did not understand any of what was happening but the overpowering need to actually know her was driving him. He moved forward to her, putting his arms around her, holding her tightly, she returned the hug affectionately, holding him closely. She moved back and looked him in the eyes. “Have you ever queried why we are drawn together, why after only meeting twelve hours before you were making love to me?” Hawke still held on to her.
Hawke went to speak but she gently placed her fingers on his lips. “There is no need to justify what you did. I have no regrets, Stringfellow.” She gently removed her fingers from him and placed them on his shoulder. She continued. “Surely that first day we met, you felt it? Especially when I just touched your arm to look at your watch.”


“I felt such peace between us, I always have.” He told her. “I don’t understand it and I don’t question it.”

“You believe that through the deaths of your parents, your girlfriend, the disappearance of your brother and then the death of Gabrielle, you have a curse.” Kristien spoke softly. “That anyone you love or might love will die.”

Just the mention of the deaths brought instant grief to Hawke.

“Well, Stringfellow Hawke have you ever anaylised your curse to see if actually they are just coincidences? Because what I am about to tell you will defy everything.” Kristien told him. “Oh and your curse will never work on me.” Kristien added.

Hawke took a deep breath and was just about to launch himself into the ‘don’t promise what you can’t keep’ lecture that he had given to so many women but he stopped realising somehow knowing that what she was said was true.

“So how can I cancel out your curse?” Kristien said. “I was born dead that’s why your curse doesn’t work. My heart stopped and so they had to perform an emergency ceasarean and for all intense purposes I was dead.” Kristien replied.

Hawke took another deep breath realising that when he and Kristien was together and especially when they touched the serenity that was generated between them was amazing and he could never explain it, but Kristien just had. Whilst he felt he had the touch of death it never felt like that with Kristien, just inner peace.

Kristien continued to explain her life story. “My father should never have ruled Dubawi, he was the youngest of the family and so married a westerner, a Lady of the British Aristocacy my mother. Everything was fine, having a son and naming him Byron after Lord Bryon of course, but then an accident claimed my father’s elder brother and an assasination on the middle brother then made my father by birthright the next Ruler. The normal ‘heir and a spare’ is usual however, two daughters were born all before me who all died at a very young age very mysteriously. My mother quite sensibly kept it quiet that she was 7 months pregnant with me, she went on the state visit to the States where she somehow she induced Labour whilst at the White House with the President and was rushed to a Washington Hospital. An emergency c section was performed as my heart stopped due to fetal distress but I was brought back. It made all the news that a royal baby was born on US soil, this guaranteed my existance, very cleverly done.”

Hawke remembered his parents talking about this as he was just twelve years old at the time and indeed it made all the newspapers and news channels having a Royal Baby being born on USA soil.

“Alfred came over and took me back as my Mother also had me christened Kristien, can you believe that, to an Arab Skeik that must have been one of the final insults.” Kristien smiled wishing she had known her mother better. Alfred told Kristien on a number of occassions that she reminded him of her mother. “Alfred had a premature 2 day old baby girl who would not sleep, so they read to me, the whole household took it in turns to read to me, which apparently kept me quiet, that and horses.” Kristien continued. “Well I was walking at 6 months, reading the library around the age of one and then being tutored by Alfred’s old professors who visited the family home”

“When I was four years of age, the chauffeur and the housekeeper had taken me out in the bently, which then was flattened by a truck when the truck driver fell asleep at the wheel, they died. When I was 8 of course you know I was visiting Dubawi and had my parents murdered in front of me. Archangel stormed the palace and brought me back home. He also arranged that I visited Harvard and MIT. When I was twelve one of the MIT Professors sons had taken a few of us out including me, a drunk driver totaled the car, I was the only survivor.”

“Can you see a pattern emerging here.” She hinted.

Hawke couldn’t see a pattern but thought that her curse was worse than his. “Nah, but I think you do seem to have a curse like mine.”

Kristien looked at him and then helped him. “So four years later when I was 16! We were race riding 4 horses together when the lead horse had an embulism, it dropped down dead before it hit the floor, the three horses behind had nowhere to go but down, one person died, the other two ended up in hospital with fractures, I walked away.” Kristien remembered that day. “So doesn’t that bring us up to really when we met when I was 19. But I turned twenty and got slung on that Kuwaiti plane over 100 people died with that plane blowing up.”

“Now tell me you can see a pattern.” Kristien asked him.

Hawke realised that every four years something seemed to go wrong. “So what happened last year then?” He asked hoping that the jinx had been fixed.

“Oh the hurricane hit here, a hurricane in Britain!” Kristien said. “Never saw that one coming, neither did any of the weather men! Carsten had taken a vacation, if you can call going to the White House for training a vacation. He left here one of the nicest Special Agents I had ever come across, very sweet, everyone called him Pops. He had only just finished thity five years looking after the President and came here really to take it easy. We were out in the hurricane trying to get all the horses in. We had over 300 trees down over the whole of the estate. We were getting the yearlings in when one of the oak tree’s just up rooted, Pops pushed me out of the way and died instantly.”

Hawke listened to Kristien’s troubled and tragic life and started to put his into perspective.
“So Stringfellow Hawke, if I were you I would not be around me in 1991, stay clear.” Kristien warned.

“These could be all coincidences.” Hawke reminded her. “Certainly the plane and the hurricane. You know wrong place and wrong time, just because you were there.”

Kristien frowned at him. “Oh no you don’t get to have the worlds monopoly on curse’s you know.”

It suddenly dawned on Hawke what he had just said. He had explained to Kristien probably his own curse too and that coincidences can happen.

“So there you have it.” Kristien relaxed a little having given her life story over. “So I think you need to go back to your cabin and have a think about life and where you would like it to go.”

Hawke was just about to throw caution to the wind and tell her that he would stay with her when again she placed her fingers gently on his lips. “Oh no you don’t. No knee jerk decisions here.” Kristien had read his mind again. “You have Airwolf to think about and I cannot see Archangel being happy with Airwolf here all of the time nor thinking about it will Carsten.” Kristien paused and removed her fingers from his lips and allowed her lips to meet his. Their embrace was deep and powerful.

“So you want me to leave.” Hawke whispered to her fighting back the tears.

“I am not kicking you out.” She replied softly.

“But you are not allowing me to stay either.” Hawke told her.

Kristien looked deep into Stringfellows eyes. “I know and I am sorry if it feels like that. But I want you to be sure at what you are doing and why you want it.” Kristien explained. “You have all the codes to the estate in Airwolf so my hangar door is always open to you.”

“Kristie…..” Hawke could not say anymore as Kristien embraced him again.

“Stringfellow, this is non negitiotiable.” Kristien told him. “For the moment, lets just be flexible about what we have and not going down a tunnel, however inviting and secure it may feel. I don’t think I have enough sports cars to blow up when I feel the need to nor do I have my own Airwolf to throw about in the skies when I feel your uncontrollable anger, I have my own rage to deal with.” She replied remembering when she had felt his rage at Archangel and how she had struggled to deal with it. “What we have here is beyond any explanation.”

Hawke replied with tears starting to form in his narrowing blue eyes. “How the hell can I live on the opposite side of the world feeling what you are feeling everyday?”

“You’ve managed the last five years.” Kristien reminded him.

“You were blocking me.” Hawke told her. In all the years she was missing, he knew she was still alive but he could not ever find where she was. Such was their bond.

Kristien looked directly into Hawke’s watery eyes knowing he was right her not trying to return what she felt to him over the years. “Please……please don’t make this harder than it already is.” Kristien was starting to fall apart at seeing what her decision was doing to Hawke. Life was always a burden. “Please go and think about what you want without me as a distraction.”

“So we are together forever but apart we will live.” Hawke replied fighting back the tears.
“Something like that.” Kristien replied her eyes too becoming watery. “Just think of all the fun we will have seeing each other again.” Kristien forced a weak smile.

“And to say good bye.” Hawke replied as he kissed her hard and full knowing he could not change this painful decision that she had made to protect the both of them. All he could do was to agree to it for the moment.

Hawke looked at Kristien knowing that the both of them had given each other their hearts, bodies, minds and souls to each other on their very first day of meeting. Neither of them had ever said those three words to each other. Their feelings for each other were beyond love, their souls were united eternally.

Hawke took Kristien in his arms and allowed their passion and emotions to consume them both. Hawke gently lay Kristien down, both of them enjoying each others heightened feelings, out in the natural wilderness. Hawke closed his lips over hers, Kristien emotionally exhausted after giving her traumatic life story to Hawke for the very first time, surrendered to his deep, long passionate kiss. Feeling her submissiveness Hawke undid her flight suit, willing to explore her acquience to him, she responded to his lightest touch and she deftly removed his flight suit. He gazed down, his eyes savouring what lay before him, he would never get tired of making love to her, each time was different. As he rolled over her, he kissed her long and hard, teasing her, prolonging the moment when they would join their bodies and be unified physically. Hawke continued to stall, now slowly kissing her, extending her burning desire for the moment to come when she would be satisfied. He drew her out even more, he had never had her as submissive as this, ever. He paused, hovering over her and she looked deep into his eyes and he saw the burning desire start to consume her. Now, he thought. Now I will take her to a level she has never been to.

Hawke kissed her hard and full, she responded, pulling him down on her, both of them eager to say their good byes away from any constraints from their very complicated lives.