CHAPTER 8

“Sir,” the nurse addressed in a futile plea for sanity.

“It’s Hawke, not sir.”

“Hawke,” the woman amended. “Please, think about this for your own sake.”

“I’m leaving one way or another.”

“But you can’t just leave,” she objected, “you’re hardly keeping down any food, don’t sleep, and are just getting over an infection, not to mention you’ve only been to you therapy class once, and you walked out of it.”

“I can just leave and I plan to; that’s why I’m checking myself out. I can keep down some food, especially the ones that don’t taste like cardboard; I don’t sleep much anyway, and a whole hell of a lot less when you all decided you need to wake me up every two hours. I’ve already been given enough antibiotics to last me a lifetime, and playing the cello by the lake will be a lot more therapeutic than watching members of you so called therapy group argue with each other. If you have any more problems with me leaving, and I’m not sure why you would considering I’ve been a complete pain and disruptions to your life the entire time I’ve been here, I’m sorry but I really don’t care.” He stood up and stumbled to the nurses’ station desk. “I’m leaving all my paperwork here for you and highly suggest you not wasting your breath on my brother because he doesn’t seem to be in the mood.”

The astonished nurse turned just long enough to see the other new patient she had come to know as as much of a pain, if not more of one, than his younger brother drop a pile of signed paperwork on the desk and join her argumentative nightmare as they exited the building together.

\A/

“So now what?” Saint John asked. “You’ve helped me escape a POW camp and now a hospital, but what am I supposed to do? I never thought I’d make it out, so I didn’t exactly make any big plans.”

“First, it’s time to make someone else mad at us, then we get the real recovery treatment. So the question is - do you want to meet Cait and have her mad or Dom?”

“Why is it necessary to have either one mad? I don’t think I’m in Dom’s best graces anyway, and Caitlin seemed pretty nice, but someone I’d like to stay on her good side all the same.”

“It’s that or steal a helicopter to get back to the cabin.”

“The cabin as in our grandfather’s old cabin complete with millions of dollars worth of artwork? You still have it?”

“As far as I know; it was there before I left for Cambodia and I’m going to be real upset if someone took out the Strad and Tet.”

“Tet is…? Sorry, the only Tet I can think of is the Tet Offensive.”

“My dog.”

“Oh. How often do you get out there these days? I know you must keep pretty busy.”

“Fairly often,” String answered with a sly smirk. “I live out there now other than an occasional stay at the hangar when we have an early morning film shoot.”

“I guess you do get out there pretty often then.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m not invading your solitude though am I because I’m not trying to cause any more trouble than I already have?”

String stopped short and looked at his brother as if he’d grown a third head. “You haven’t caused any trouble and don’t ever think you’ve been a burden or forced me to do anything I didn’t do willingly.”

“I almost got you killed though, and I doubt that you would have spent half your life looking for other POWs if it hadn’t been for me.”

“Maybe not, “the younger Hawke allowed, “but I don’t regret it. And if I can make other people’s and their family’s lives better while I’m at it, all the better.” He returned to the task of summoning a taxi, his point made, but the impact would remain.

A taxi pulled up and they climbed inside, heading for the hangar.

“You never did answer my question. Who do you want to tick off? Of course we might be able to ‘borrow’ a chopper, but then we’ll have both of them after us when they realize what we’ve done.”

“I’m leaning more towards borrowing.”

“My thoughts exactly.

Rummaging through his wallet, String paid the driver as they disembarked outside the hangar. There was no chance of a clean escape though. Dominic was already leaving the hangar muttering a tirade of Italian that only increased when he saw them. “What are you two doing out of the hospital?! Two days ago you could barely get out of bed on your own and now you’re just leaving. You need help - that’s why you got flown here from Cambodia in the first place.”

‘I didn’t just leave this time,” String rebutted matter of factly, “I officially checked myself out, and Saint John did the same. I even managed to refrain from decking the nurse even though she felt the need to give me the same speech eight times while I filled out my paperwork.”

“I’m sure she appreciates you not inflicting any bodily injuries and doing you paperwork, but that don’t change the fact you shouldn’t be out. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to see you’re doing better, both of you, but what are you going to do if it’s not all better? If you are holed up at the cabin - which is undoubtedly where you were intending to go - and you collapse, what are you going to do then? You’re not near any major hospitals, can’t get any help because you have no neighbors. And if something were to happen to one of you, I’m not sure the other could physically do anything about it.”

“Foxridge is only fifteen minutes by helicopter, and if worse came to worst one can call life flight.”

“That’s not going to do you much good if it is a life or death situations. If Foxridge is fifteen minutes by chopper, it’ll take them another fifteen to get back. You wanna wait half and hour when your life is hanging in the balances?”

“I think you’re being a little overdramatic. I could just as likely be perfectly well and fall down the stairs and break my neck, or tip the skiff and drown. It may not be exactly what the doctor ordered, but it is still a way for us to heal. They say time heals all and while I may not totally agree, it sure does help.”