Recognition

Author: Sirius

Rating: T, for now. Let me know if you think it needs to go up.

Disclaimer: Shea, Stevie, Damien, Gabriel and Maggie are mine, but anyone you recognize from Airwolf belongs to Belisarius. The story is a crossover with Kung Fu: The Legend Continues (parts of that timeline have been moved up a touch to mesh with Airwolf, and some – well, a lot – of Kermit's background has been recreated by yours truly, because the show's not on DVD yet, and I can't remember everything, although I did find an episode online that confirmed Kermit's eyes are actually brown – strange, since I thought they were green). The KF: TLC characters likewise are not mine. This story may also end up being a crossover with as-yet-undetermined series later, in which case, the recognizable crossover characters also do not belong to me.

Timeline: This begins during the Airwolf Season Two episode, "The Hunted" (after Villers is shot down, but before the final scene at the Lake), with many references to a prior episode – "The Truth About Holly."

Author's Note: At the moment, the story and timeline are very rough, as the mutant muses aren't giving me the time to research everything that I should before even thinking of putting words to paper (or computer screen). They're being quite insistent that I write the story now, and consoling me with thoughts that I can go back and fix mistakes later (they're completely ignoring the fact that I'd rather not make the mistakes in the first place). If you see any glaring inconsistencies – aside from the OCs that I add – let me know. Also, of note, I've given Cait a lot more background than just the stint with the Texas Highway Patrol – Aerial Division (particularly since, according the THP website, Texas Highway Patrol officers are not referred to as Deputies).

Summary: Sometimes, the past comes back to bite you… and sometimes, it comes back to save your life.

Airwolf~~~Airwolf~~~Airwolf~~~Airwolf~~~Airwolf

Prologue:

Cait woke suddenly, sitting straight up in bed, shuddering as she recalled the last moments of the dream. Nightmare, O'Shannessy; call it what it is. And that's exactly how it ended, too. The recent events of her first few weeks on the job at Santini Air had left a bad taste in her mouth, and touched off a few memories she would have preferred to leave buried.

Holly McMathews. Cait could honestly say that the girl hadn't been the first thought in her mind when she'd realized the helicopters had been sabotaged. It had occurred to her that she might be the target, rather than Dom or Hawke… but none of her enemies were in any position to know she'd gone to L.A. As far as the Texas Highway Patrol was concerned, she was still on leave, though she'd be resigning from her position there shortly. No one on her 'watch list' from her life before the Highway Patrol would be able to track her to Texas, much less here, and they wouldn't choose to target her here even if they had. They'd want to send a message by taking her out on home ground, and in their minds, that would be somewhere that former co-workers couldn't fail to notice her corpse. Or so she'd thought, until Robert.

To be honest, Cait knew that the enemies she'd made throughout her career in law enforcement were the type to prefer shooting her if they wanted her gone; rigging a helicopter would be a waste of time to the likes of them. None of it surprised her. She'd known that being hunted by vengeful, vicious people was a distinct possibility when she joined up; the U.S. Marshals Service had made that painfully clear. They just hadn't prepared her for the concept of being betrayed by one of her own.

Cait stood and stretched, running a hand through her short, red hair, and wincing as her left shoulder notified her in its own special way that she had pushed things a little too hard lately. Her right wasn't much better, and she had the same person to thank for both injuries. Given recent events, she was inclined to think that he'd had a friend – or at least a stooge – she'd not known about.

With a rueful chuckle, she gave up any idea of going back to sleep, and set about getting ready to face a new day. She knew that if Santini did any kind of background check into his newest employee, he might wonder at her career choices, but she couldn't bring herself to care. For the moment, she contented herself with the knowledge that she was harder to kill than most of her enemies gave her credit for… whether those enemies consisted of a delusional girl with little chance of succeeding in her attempts to kill Cait… or an old friend who'd had much better odds.

Airwolf~~~Airwolf~~~Airwolf~~~Airwolf~~~Airwolf

TBC... The KF:TLC cross comes into play in the next chapter, if anyone's interested. I'm a little worried that where I'm going with this is not plausible in the slightest, even if the rabid plot-jackrabbits make it all sound so logical. Let me know if I'm going completely around the bend with this.