Missing Scenes, "The Truth about Holly"
by Sammie

DISCLAIMER: Not mine. They belong to Belisarius Productions and Universal.

SUMMARY: Missing scenes from "The Truth About Holly". Hawke, Dom POVs on Caitlin.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: I was barely old enough to remember the original run of "Airwolf", but I always had this mental image of Airwolf against a backdrop of hills with patches of brown grass. Yay for Hulu and Retro TV having episodes of the show and for this site's "Airwolf" stories!

"Holly" was a little of a WTH episode for me - Airwolf seemed somewhat superfluous to the storyline ( .:sob:. ). That said, I loved the cracking dialogue between Hawke and Caitlin, which never seemed to pick up again as well as it did this episode, and Caitlin and Dom's interactions. Unfortunately, imho, later episodes didn't use her quite as well.

DPB's next two series' Caitlins (Pike and Todd) both used "Kate" as the spelling of their nicknames, but fanon spells Caitlin's nickname is spelled "Cait", so I will as well.

Episode quotes in italics.

Hawke

Speak of the devil.

He has to admit he's often thought of her in the weeks since they parted. He isn't not sure why, but he has, and now here she is, standing in front of him. Trust her to catch him off guard; she seems fairly good at that. He grins at her. "Caitlin. Deputy Caitlin."

She smiles, and he thinks idly that she has great teeth and a brilliant smile. "I know that."

His grin widens; he can't help it.

She isn't his type. He goes for... the femme fatale: sophisticated, sometimes exotic, well-dressed - not girls in jeans and baseball caps. Yet he hasn't been able to forget this one, even after Dom stopped singing about her and pestering him about her after they came back to California.

"So where do you keep it?" she asks, her nose wrinkling just slightly, and he can just see her bursting at the seams, dying to find out about Airwolf. Her eyes are shining and her voice just lights up with an interest that mirrors Dom's own affection for the Lady. He wonders amusedly if he should feel insulted that, well, she seems more excited about his helicopter than about him.

He teases her, enjoying the upper hand he has over her. He admits that, even if he were allowed to talk about Airwolf, he'd try to drag it out and tease her as long as he can, just to see that cute face, brimming with curiosity.

He's heard her voice in his head the last couple weeks, the sweet soprano daring him to test her, the twang as she thanked him.

He has told himself he was worried; he's often wondered what happened to her, not the least because she is bull-headed and really needs to be more careful. She showed up in that crazy county the morning after she was nearly raped! She has balls, he admits to himself, and he means that in the best way. But he seriously wishes she were less brave so he could stop worrying.

He's smiling as he puts his arm around her and they leave off the Stearman, but the teasing, flirty mood disappears as they approach her vehicle.

He doesn't have the heart to make a crack about driving rather than flying, but just exactly where IS her helicopter? He just looks at her questioningly.

"I'm on leave," she replies, as if reading his mind.

Oh, right.

He reaches for the casket, but she lays a hand on his arm. He looks at her through hooded eyes. "I wouldn't." He ignores her and starts pulling at the first latch. She moves in between him and casket, pulling his hand away and closing the latch. "It's, uh, closed for a reason." At his look, she murmurs, "Heat stroke, blood trails, rattlers and other wild animals. It's really, really not pre - good."

"I need to see."

She frowns, looking at him for a moment. He reaches for the latch. This time she helps him pull up the others and open the cover.

Jimmy.

He can feel her eyes on him, briefly, but she says nothing. He suddenly feels very heavy, and for a moment he leans forward, bracing his arms against the casket. It's hard to surprise him, but he nearly jumps when he feels her hand on his back, resting gently between his shoulderblades, the gentle rub comforting in its touch.

It's gone after just a moment, and he won't admit that he wishes she hadn't stopped.

"You can have all the time you need." She disappears.

"Please tell me that lady over there looking at the Tyler mount wants to hire us," Dom pleads.

"Hi," Holly smiles, sidling up to him. "We missed you at lunch."

Hawke just smiles. At least Holly's looking happy, given the nightmare she's just been in.

"String! The lady over there!"

He doesn't quite realize how long he's been standing there by Caitlin's car; Caitlin hasn't come back to speak with him. He turns to look where Dom is pointing, by the Jet Ranger.

Caitlin is standing directly across from the mount, studying it intently; her head is cocked to one side, her ballcap in her hand.

"Sorry." He grins at Dom's exasperated sigh. "She's here for me."

At that, Dom suddenly looks interested again, while Holly's smile falls from her face. "Really?" Dom beams at him. "Who is she?"

"She's a friend," he corrects, but that doesn't deter the older man, who immediately heads over to where Caitlin is completely immersed in her inspection of the helicopter and the camera. Sighing, he follows.

"Hi!" Dom greets in his booming voice. "I'm Dominic Santini. I run this operation."

Caitlin's about to smile and greet him, and Hawke groans to himself as he sees a look of recognition flash across her face. SO not good.

"Caitlin O'Shannessy," she greets. "It's nice to meet you." She pauses. "Have we met before?"

Dom looks puzzled; he hasn't recognized Caitlin's voice yet, though she clearly has his. "Well, I don't think so."

Hawke groans to himself as he sees confirmation flash in Caitlin's eyes. So he may not have confirmed for her that he had Airwolf or was in the helicopter, but hearing Dom's voice has. She's a cop, he reminds himself, and a pretty tenacious one. She would notice a voice like Dom's, even without an intercom.

"So, how can we help you?" Dom asks.

She gets a mischievous look on her face. "I ain't tellin'!" she singsongs in a perfect imitation of Dom's voice - albeit higher-pitched - and String cannot stop the bark of laughter that escapes him.

Dom stares in indignant shock at Caitlin, who's got a mischievous look on her face, and back to Hawke, who unsuccessfully tries to hide his grin as he pretends to be interested in the paint job on the nose of the Jet Ranger. Holly looks shocked but seems to relax when she sees him laughing.

Hawke opens his mouth to correct Dom's first impression, and he can't stop the laugh that escapes. He attempts to regain his composure, and then he says, "Dom, Caitlin's a helicopter pilot with the Texas Highway Patrol. We met in Texas," he says carefully, giving Dom a meaningful look. "Pope County."

Dom suddenly recognizes Caitlin. "Ohhh! So she's the one we - "

" - I met in the Pope County jail," he interrupts before Dom can give away that he has in fact seen and heard Caitlin himself. "Remember, I told you about her," he says, slowing down the speed of his sentence. "That's how you know."

"Oh, right." Dom nods, catching on to his meeting. "That helicopter pilot!" Dom nods. "Right. Right. String's talked about you."

She clearly doesn't buy a minute of their charade but plays along. "Oh," she deadpans. "Well, it's completely untrue, whwat he says."

Dom blinks, then registers the amusement on her face. He grins wide.

"Hey, uh, now that you and Holly are back," Hawke says, "I'm going to take Cait to grab lunch."

"Oh," she looks startled. "Well, you don't - "

"Come on." He's got his arm around her as he guides her away, and she looks back at Dom and Holly and then at him.

She accompanies him to deliver the body to Jimmy's mother. He feels bad for the older woman; she was a young teenage mother and had nobody except her son and her brother, and now her son Jimmy is gone.

String speaks with her privately, although he doesn't know her very well. He owes it to her.

The older woman connects with Caitlin, however. Caitlin is quiet and respectful and, in Hawke's opinion, far too practiced at delivering bodies to loved ones to be somebody who has done this only once.

They drive the body to the funeral home, and String and Michael both pull some strings to get the funeral in for the next day. It's short notice, but Jimmy's had a long journey and deserves to be finally laid at rest.

Caitlin's subdued at dinner, but he notices it's not because of anything she's going through. She keeps shooting him looks.

"Caitlin, I'm all right," he finally says, and has the pleasure of watching her blush at being caught.

She's eyeing him speculatively, and she blurts, "Even if you'd gotten there a day earlier, it might not have made a difference."

He frowns. "Do you actually believe that?"

She falls quiet, and he recognizes that she's worried about the guilt he's carrying. What startles him even more is that she's managed to see right through him and know what it is that's bothering him. If he'd been a day earlier - they both know that Jimmy might still be alive. Jimmy's time of death was overnight, while String himself was getting locked up.

She doesn't try to offer anymore. She just reaches across the table and squeezes his hand.

He thinks that he should pull his hand away, but he doesn't want to.

It occurs to him that, again, she is far more practiced with this whole business than seems normal. He wonders if her helicopter duties really were just being a "flying meter maid", as she jokingly refers to it, or if there was so much more.

He sees her over the next day before the funeral, but she doesn't do more than give him her smile and a greeting, though he suspects she is in a silent agreement with Dom to make sure he eats. Dom is taking Holly out for lunch again, and the old man suggests rather bluntly that String take his friend out, too.

He's a little puzzled when Caitlin suddenly stiffens at the suggestion, looking at Holly and Dom and then back to him. She offers to leave; she says she is underfoot. He's puzzled by it, especially when Caitlin shoots Holly another look, and he insists that they go out.

At lunch she seems to relax, and this time no matter how much he insists, she refuses to let him pay. It's not a date, she reminds him, and she still owes him for saving her life. No matter how much he pushes, she refuses.

That settled, she starts in on Airwolf.

So perhaps it's her curiosity which brought and keeps her here. He can tell from the way she asks that she'd been dying to ask about Airwolf from the day they last saw each other. From the way she talks about it, she loves flying and helicopters as much as he does. Airwolf was the first thing that turned her friendly eyes into shining ones - fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman.

Now he's starting to sound like a Regency hero.

He purses his lips over this meal, trying to suppress the smile of amusement that threatens to cross his lips. She's been playing process-of-elimination with her questions about Airwolf, and he has to admit that she's not bad. He accidentally lets slip that he had been a military pilot when he hadn't meant to tell her anything. He's mostly managed to avoid her questions by talking about Dom and Santini Air and distracting her with stories about "that fancy flyin' stuff", which seems to intrigue her as much as Airwolf does - perhaps for the sole reason that he's willing to talk about that but not about Airwolf.

He will admit, however, that he's had fun learning about her. She's got a sister and at least one brother, and knows a lot more about football than he would have expected - though, she IS from Texas. He teases her about having a pony to ride to school, and it's just to see her purse her lips and get that look - one intended to show vague irritation but belied by a smile peeping out as the owner thinks of a way to one-up the speaker. (Never had a pony, she insists.) Her father taught her to fly. Her mother wants...well, she doesn't want to talk about it, but he can guess what her mother wants her to do, and it most likely doesn't involve helicopters, unless they're part of a baby-mobile hanging over a crib.

After lunch, she helps him with the Stearman, and she's pretty good. They're both lying on the ground under the plane, and she's pointing out the problem with the welding repair job that had been previously done before. It's actually rather sad that he hasn't seen it yet, though he does have to admit that neither he nor Dom had checked down there extensively before.

They see Dom and Holly's shoes first, and Hawke rolls himself out and up to greet them, then extends a hand to pull Cait up. He notices that Holly seems upset, but he pushes it out of his mind; she's most likely tired. He mentions the welding issue to Dom, who looks surprised. Caitlin blushes but smiles anyhow.

"She seems nice."

Hm? "Who?"

"Caitlin." Holly twists one of her new scarves in her hands.

He smiles a bit as he sits in the pilot's seat, working on fixing one of the controls. "Yeah, she is."

"How'd you meet?"

"Pope County, Texas." Blasted little place. It's a shame about that deputy - he would have made a far better sheriff than the one there. And it's a shame about Cait, too - she would've made a pretty good sheriff.

His smile widens unconsciously. A mouth like hers plus a minor arsenal and a badge? He'd fly back to Texas just to see her busting chops in that town.

He looks up to see Holly watching him and frowning, and it makes him a little uneasy. Her frown disappears right away when he catches her eye, and she smiles brilliantly at him. "Texas? That's a long way from here," Holly comments.

He has to admit to a little puzzlement at Holly's interest in Cait, but perhaps it's a girl thing. "She's from Texas."

"Oh."

He will wonder, in retrospect, if he endangered Cait even more by what he said.

Holly takes his arm after the funeral, looping her arm through his. She's sweet enough, and he figures that she means well, but he wants to think in private.

Dom insists on lunch together. He acquiesces because, well, he is a little hungry, and, no matter what his own mood is, Holly deserves some normality in her life and Caitlin doesn't deserve to be put through his moods.

Holly rests her head on his shoulder. She asks him several times whether he's OK.

At lunch, the meal begins in silence. That seems to unsettle both Dom and Caitlin, and the two start up a chat. He can't help his amused smiles, despite his friend's death and his own guilt; Caitlin's arch sweetness is often enough to catch Dom off guard, and she gets a few shots in - which he picks up right away but Dom takes a second to catch. Dom can be sarcastic and funny, but apparently the older man has been caught off guard by Cait's bright-eyed amiability; he always seems surprised to hear such cheek coming from the wholesome-looking pilot. "Hey!" he exclaims at her last shot, and Caitlin's smile widens even more.

This time he can't stop his chuckle, and Dom makes a face at him. Caitlin gives him a warm smile, which returns with a small one of his own.

The waitress approaches to refill his drink. He grins and thanks her. When he turns back to Caitlin, she's no longer looking at him; her smile has dimmed ever so slightly, and her eyes are darting back and forth. He tries to follow where she is looking, and for a second she seems to look at Holly and then the departing waitress, but he can't be sure; when String looks at the visiting pilot again, Caitlin's smile is back. It doesn't reach her eyes, however.

Holly pushes her plate away and says sharply she's not hungry; Caitlin moves to engage her and is successful, drawing her into conversation and somehow managing to get her to start eating again.

Dom's about to pull her off the stunt, and she pulls a cheeky comment out, punctuating with an air kiss. Dom looks shocked, and he and Holly can't help but laugh at the expression on his face. The whole act makes him smile, and clearly she enjoys surprising Dom as much as String enjoys watching her do it.

She clearly didn't think that a kiss would be in the cards, and he can feel her nervousness. Her first time in California, her first flying stunt, her first movie, and she's being asked to kiss a stranger - OK, not a complete stranger. He tilts his head, and surprisingly, she gives him a businesslike peck and pats him on the shoulder professionally before stepping away. He's slightly surprised; his eyes flicker to her, but she's not looking at him - she's already turned to the director.

He is sympathetic. If he kisses a pretty woman, he's acknowledged as a lucky guy; but for her, she potentially loses her hard-earned respect. A state-issed badge, a gun, a warrant, and a helicopter weren't enough to convince a punk in Pope County to listen. If she had shown any more femininity, they would have taken it as acquiescence.

Still, it doesn't diminish his own enjoyment on the second round. She must have more than managed on her first kiss; she's a great kisser. Pretty, to boot.

He's most certainly in the wrong business. There's something to this movie stuff, he muses as he wraps his arm around her a little more tightly. Flying helicopters and kissing pretty girls...

There are bombshell types, and there are the sweet homegrown types, and she's one the latter - mixed with football and helicopter-flying. Her embarrassment is just as fun for him, not because he likes to see her humiliated or anything - she doesn't have anything to be humiliated about anyhow - but because he hasn't had the chance yet to see her embarrassed. She's not into histrionics, but he has to admit he likes seeing her just caught off guard; her expression and heightened color he won't forget soon. Her freckles kind of disappear when she blushes.

Any of that is shortlived; Carlson breaks them apart, and the rapid deteriotion of events that follow don't help. The stupid director keeps radioing for more bordering-on-disaster flying, and the fact that she is not pulling out when he yells for her to do so sends him and Dom running. For a moment he's afraid that that explosion wasn't special effects. His reassurances seem naive in retrospect, though there was no way he would have known that the helicopter had been sabotaged.

It's an odd relief at the sight of her throwing her gloves at her the plane in anger, and this time the slim, firm hand handing over a wingnut is not accompanied with a smile.

She may be frustrated - he rather suspects it's her fear, acting out in anger - but she's some pilot to handle a problem as serious as that one.

And he deserved that scolding. He should've asked how she was first.

He's gotten Holly carefully ensconced away in the helicopter, ready to go to his cabin. He returns to the hangar to grab his jacket. She's got the paper from Holly's "gift" in front of her, her forehead crinkled slightly in thought.

She jumps when she hears him and sets the note back down before gathering up the extra tools she's going to need. "Holly all right?"

"Yeah. I'm just grabbing my jacket."

She returns to work. He disappears into the office and grabs his things. As he exits he can hear her humming to herself and running the vacuum cleaner again. He lingers a moment, then comes to stand right behind her as she backs out of the helicopter. She turns quickly, and suddenly he finds himself toe-to-toe with her. She squeaks in surprise - not very tough for a helicopter pilot.

Despite everything, he can't help but be amused. His hands rest loosely on his hips, and he suppresses a smile. Apparently he hasn't done such a good job with it - that seems to be a recurring theme when he's around her - because her surprise shifts back into her normal amiable smile when she sees his less-than-scary expression. They stand off for a few moments more, each staring the other down, daring the other to speak first. Normally, he wins staring contests; this time, no.

Well, he's just as skilled on the offense. The corners of his lips twitch. "Beef?" he says in a tone that indicates he clearly knows they weren't talking about meat.

"I AM from Texas," she drawls, not breaking their gaze. She offers no more information and just dares him to ask for more. When he doesn't, she returns the shot. "Turkey?"

"'Bout as likely as beef," he retorts.

She returns with an engimatic smile; she's obviously not going to say any more about what she and Holly had been talking about. "Turkey's out of season - huntin' or eatin'." She raises an eyebrow at him, a smile playing on her lips, and it's his turn to stare back. After a moment, the smile he's been biting back flashes briefly, and she takes that as a well-deserved win and flounces back to work, effectively ending the conversation. The vacuum cleaner starts up again, and she's back to humming to herself as the machine runs.

He can't believe that she just dismissed him like that, and it intrigues him. She's not his type, he reminds himself, yet this cracking sense of cheeky humor fascinates him. It seems it's Caitlin's regular personality, and it's getting under his skin in a way he hadn't anticipated. Of course, he hadn't quite expected this from their first encounter with each other, but being threatened with gang rape two days in a row isn't likely to help anybody's sense of humor. Apparently now her natural personality is coming out the further away the events of Pope County get.

He's met a great deal of women who are confident enough to laugh at his jokes, and some who can be sarcastic, but this one has been able to match him shot for shot nearly every time. The last time he teased somebody like that, about eating a cute, woolly little lamb, all he'd gotten was a glare from Gabrielle, who -

He jumps when he feels a hand on his arm. She's looking up at him, her face filled with concern. "Hawke?"

"Yeah." He snaps out of his melancholy thoughts. "I gotta go. Holly's waiting."

She nods but has obviously seen what he hadn't meant for her to see. She pauses, then turns towards the counter quickly, then back. "I'm - " she jerks a thumb back towards the counter. "I'm going to be here for a while tonight, and I'll be done vacuuming soon." She's babbling now. "So...I'll be able to hear the phone when it rings, if - if you need to t - anything."

His jaw tenses of its own accord, and he looks back at her with his normal intensity - none of the fun bantering they've had. She doesn't flinch, nor does her expression change; she just returns his gaze, as steady and as kind as it had been that morning. He nods. She gives him a smile, pauses one more moment, and then turns to head back to work.

He reaches out for her instinctively, grabbing her arm, and she turns back, her expression puzzled but still as generously kind as she ever was. "Thank you."

He doesn't make friends easily.

It's just easier to maintain a distance. Less obligation. Less responsibility. Less pain when things end badly. Those who end up becoming his friends generally end up being those who won't leave him alone. A sad state of affairs, he has to admit.

Yet he meant it, earlier this evening, when he told Holly that Cait was a good friend. Driving several hundred miles to bring the body of a man she didn't know to a man she barely knows is enough to inspire his own feelings of friendship. He knows that she is grateful to him for saving her life, but he feels that he was just in the right place at the right time. She went out of her way to be at the right place, and her quiet support tonight at the hangar was neither requested nor unwelcome.

He turns over onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. All this, and he barely knows her.

He has to admit to surprise at the depth of Holly's jealousy. Apparently she's the only one who seems to feel that way, he's sure. Caitlin doesn't seem jealous of Holly, and if she is, she sure doesn't show any of it - and he thinks he's got a good enough read on her character. Holly had said Cait was like one of the guys - at least until Cait won him; while he doubts the latter part, perhaps his sense of ease does come from that. He doesn't quite feel like he's putting on the romantic show with her.

In retrospect, it all makes sense.