Fly me to the Moon
+++++
It was a lazy afternoon in the firehouse. Chris, Victor and Cory were sitting around bored stiff catching up on the dreaded paperwork.
Victor was especially bored. He'd had a great couple of weeks. Linda had given him a flying lesson for his birthday a month ago and ever since he'd taken flying up as a sport. He loved the adrenalin rush it gave him.
Unfortunately for Victor, the flying instructor informed him last weekend of his pending retirement. He was the cheapest instructor around and Victor was saving up for a house for himself and Linda.
So there he sat, wishing he was flying, inanely tapping his pencil on the desk as he thought about what he should write next in this report.
Cory sighed. This report for shoplifting was so frivolous she wondered why she even had to write it up. Couldn't the shop owner just let it go, the kid only stole a candy bar. She felt like marching up to the store and paying the dollar or whatever so she didn't have to write up a report for the incident.
Of course, it didn't help that a certain person was tapping his pencil continuously on the desk.
Cory looked up from the report and watched him tapping the pencil, willing him to stop.
Victor saw her staring at the pencil and stop tapping.
Cory smiled to herself and went back to her report.
Victor slouched in his chair aimlessly doodling on a piece of paper. He started off by drawing a whole heap of squiggles but on examining his master piece he realized that these squiggles reminded him of a plane so he went about artistically creating the beloved aircraft that he'd flown around in for the last month.
After about two or three attempts he was finally happy with his creation and went back to writing the report…and tapping his pencil on the desk.
Chris was filling out forms to renew her medical insurance. She WAS supposed to be writing out a report as well but was utterly fed up with Tc leaving her the entire task while he went out and played gentlemen with Palermo as some meeting in the city.
She'd heard Victor tapping his pencil once before and it had gotten under her skin. She looked over at Cory. Cory just looked up at Chris and rolled her eyes.
Chris dramatically sighed and leaned on her forearms on the desk and glared at the pencil.
Victor noticed Chris watching the pencil and tossed it down onto the desk's surface with a clatter.
Chris smiled and went back to filling in her forms. She had no idea why she had to answer so many questions. Does your family have a history of the following… with only yes/no answers. That was okay for her mother's side of the family but she had no idea about her father's side, being adopted and all.
Victor ripped a piece of paper out of his notebook. For some reason the noise echoed through the firehouse and both Chris and Cory looked up at him.
He started folding the paper into an airplane. When it was finished he gave it a test flight. He took aim and let it sail. For all his origami brilliance it floated like a bird before falling like a rock, underneath Cory's desk which she promptly stood on, crushing it underfoot.
Victor sat back in his chair and looked disgruntled for a few minutes before he realized that Cory wasn't going to be paying any attention to him and went back to staring at the report.
It just wasn't working for him today. He should be out flying. He wanted to be out flying. Even riding on patrol would be better than this.
He picked up an eraser and started playing tiddly winks with it. Each time it clattered onto the desk one of the women would freeze, then when all was quiet again they'd continue writing.
What was with them today, he thought. He picked up a pen and created an ink tattoo on the underside of his forearm. He wanted to get a real tattoo, something along the lines of 'I love Linda' plastered across his chest. He'd even brought the subject up with her and although she was flattered, she'd told him directly that it would be a bad omen and they might break up.
The pen's ink flow started to diminish half way through his 'tattoo'. Apparently it didn't like writing on skin. He tapped it on the desk to get the ink flowing again.
'Victor!' Both women said in unison then looked at each other and laughed.
Victor rolled his eyes and made some smart ass comment to himself about it being 'that time of the month.'
He took out his airplane drawing from before and put a happy little face in the cockpit, complete with spiky hair and cool sunglasses. For effect he put in a few clouds and a sun, also with glasses.
He surveyed his work, quite pleased with himself, and unconsciously tapping his pencil against the notepad.
Chris got up from her desk with a huff and walked over to where Victor was sitting. She grabbed the pencil from his grasp and snapped it in half before slamming the pieces back down on the desk.
'Hey!' Victor said indignantly. 'Now what am I supposed to write with?'
'You should have thought of that before.' Cory said with a smirk.
Chris pointed. 'You have a pen you can use, but I guarantee you, if you start tapping that I'll shove it where the sun doesn't shine.' She went back to her desk and sat down.
Victor sighed. 'I'm bored.' He announced.
'Gee you think?' Chris said sarcastically.
'Well I am.' He protested. 'My flying instructor quit on the weekend and just when I was starting to get the hang of it.'
'Did he have a problem with you tapping?' Chris asked.
She and Victor exchanged smirks.
'Well, you know Chris can fly. Maybe she could teach you.' Cory said and smiled sweetly when Chris turned around to glare at her.
Victor shook his head. 'No. Bad idea. Besides, Chris probably couldn't fly anything that didn't have a gun attached.'
Chris glared, but then looked thoughtful. 'Come to think of it Victor it might be fun to get up in the air again. I'm game, unless you are too chicken.'
'Me? Chicken? Never! You name the time and place and I'll be there.' Victor put the two ends of the pencil together and stick tapped them in place.
'Ok. 7am Saturday morning, Santa Monica Air Field, hanger 32. I have a friend that owes me a favour.'
Victor wrote it all done. 'Done.' He said with a grin and started tapping his pencil again.
Chris picked up a rock that she was using as a paper weight. It had some fake gold or something through it, all Chris knew is that it was a rock and it was sparkly…and from her angle, she could get that pencil.
She tossed the rock onto Victor's desk and it landed on the pencil, breaking the sticky tape seal Victor had so carefully devised.
Victor frowned and held up his mangled pencil.
Chris smirked at him and went back to writing.
+++++
Victor arrived at the hanger on Saturday morning 7 am sharp. At first he didn't see Chris, just Cory chatting with a grey haired man.
Then Chris came around from the other side of an aircraft, pushing and nudging certain parts of the plane to make sure they were stable.
'Now remember, it's not quite the F-14 you're used to. Just take it easy with her.' The man said to Chris.
'Well in that case you should have given her a thicker skin.' Chris replied.
The man spotted Victor approaching. 'So is this the poor pawn that'll be going up against our Nutcracker?'
Cory grinned. 'Yep, that's Victor. Victor this is Ray. He's an old navy friend of Chris's.'
'Thank you Cory. I'd gathered that from the nutcracker bit.' Victor put out his hand to the man. 'How do you do Sir?'
Ray shook his hand. 'Sir, now I haven't been called that in years.'
'Well if you didn't take off with the Captain's wife the same week you jumped off the ship in the middle of the ocean you may still be a sir.'
'It's nothing on what you used to get up to Christine.' Ray answered getting an oily rag thrown at him for his troubles.
'Ready to go?' Chris asked Victor and heaved herself into the cockpit.
Victor nodded, then caught Cory's smirk. 'What do you know that I don't?' He asked her.
She just grinned. 'Have a good time up there.' She and Ray went to sit in some beach chairs set up near an esky.
Victor climbed into the other seat in the cockpit.
'Do you know how to take off and land yet?' Chris asked fiddling with dials in front of her.
'Hey, I'm good but I'm not that good.' He was wondering what torture Chris was going to put him through. No doubt she had some scheme cooked up for him.
'Fine.'
Fine? He thought. Not, well today is your lucky day, you'll be given a crash course in landing.
Chris started up the engines and let them roar for a while before taxiing to the runway, just to soak up the feeling. She didn't like to admit it too often but she did miss flying.
Victor sat there wondering what was taking so long. What was she doing? He nearly jumped out of his skin when the plane started moving.
The plane rolled out of the hanger and down the road to the runway.
At the end of the long strip Chris cranked the engines. The plane started going faster and faster until the wheels lifted and they were airborne.
When they were a few hundred feet in the air Victor hear Chris's voice over the radio system. 'Now you take over. You can do this right?'
Victor scoffed. 'I'm a pro at level flying.'
Chris just laughed.
It was true though. While Victor was behind the stick all they did was fly level in a straight line.
'Ok, now turn her around else you'll end up in a restricted zone. They don't like it if you fly to close to skyscrapers.' Chris said.
'Then you'd better take over.' He said. 'I never learned how to turn.' He could almost feel Chris rolling her eyes.
'It's easy. Just gently push the stick to the direction you want the plane to go…unless of course you're too much of a wimp to give something new a go.'
'Whatever.' He said and pushed the stick. To his surprise, the plane actually turned without rolling or anything. He did it right! He was so proud of himself.
They circled the airfield a few more times before it was time to land the plane.
'Tell me you aren't going to make me do this.' Victor said as Chris lined up the plane.
'No thank you. I value my life.' Was her response. The plane started to descend.
About 150 feet from the ground Victor decided he might try to scare Chris. We're all gonna die!' He yelled out.
The plane started to rise again.
'What are you doing?' Victor asked half-panicked. 'I was just kidding you know.'
'Yeah but I realised that I'm not going to be flying again any time soon so I thought I might have a little fun.'
'Fun?' He asked. 'And what is your idea of fun? You know, I saw 'Rat Race'. You aren't planning on dropping in on any ex boyfriends are you?'
Chris laughed. 'No, I'd probably end up with a nice fine for doing that, however…'
The plane banked suddenly and before he knew it, Victor was flying through the air strapped to a torpedo. 'What the hell are you doing!' He yelled.
'You don't trust me Victor?' Chris asked innocently as the plane stopped spinning and just cruised through the air, upside down.
'If I say yes will you put the plane up the right way?' He asked holding his head so it stopped feeling like it was floating away.
'But where's the fun in that?' She righted the plane for about three seconds before putting the nose in the air so the plane did a back flip of sorts. They went upside down again before nose diving towards the ground. She pulled the plane up just in time and it climbed almost vertically back into the sky.
'I think I'm going to be sick.' Victor groaned as the plane started to spin like a torpedo again.
'You are such a baby.' Chris said levelling off the plane and turning it around for the runway again.
This time as she descended to the runway there was no smart remarks from Victor. In fact there wasn't a sound heard from him until they'd landed and taxied back to the hanger where he quickly climbed out of the plane and dashed around to side of the hanger to throw up.
Ray just shook his head and Chris jumped down from the side of the plane. Cory grinned and came over to her. 'You are bad!'
'Amen to that sister.' Chris said.
+++++
It was a lazy afternoon in the firehouse. Chris, Victor and Cory were sitting around bored stiff catching up on the dreaded paperwork.
Victor was especially bored. He'd had a great couple of weeks. Linda had given him a flying lesson for his birthday a month ago and ever since he'd taken flying up as a sport. He loved the adrenalin rush it gave him.
Unfortunately for Victor, the flying instructor informed him last weekend of his pending retirement. He was the cheapest instructor around and Victor was saving up for a house for himself and Linda.
So there he sat, wishing he was flying, inanely tapping his pencil on the desk as he thought about what he should write next in this report.
Cory sighed. This report for shoplifting was so frivolous she wondered why she even had to write it up. Couldn't the shop owner just let it go, the kid only stole a candy bar. She felt like marching up to the store and paying the dollar or whatever so she didn't have to write up a report for the incident.
Of course, it didn't help that a certain person was tapping his pencil continuously on the desk.
Cory looked up from the report and watched him tapping the pencil, willing him to stop.
Victor saw her staring at the pencil and stop tapping.
Cory smiled to herself and went back to her report.
Victor slouched in his chair aimlessly doodling on a piece of paper. He started off by drawing a whole heap of squiggles but on examining his master piece he realized that these squiggles reminded him of a plane so he went about artistically creating the beloved aircraft that he'd flown around in for the last month.
After about two or three attempts he was finally happy with his creation and went back to writing the report…and tapping his pencil on the desk.
Chris was filling out forms to renew her medical insurance. She WAS supposed to be writing out a report as well but was utterly fed up with Tc leaving her the entire task while he went out and played gentlemen with Palermo as some meeting in the city.
She'd heard Victor tapping his pencil once before and it had gotten under her skin. She looked over at Cory. Cory just looked up at Chris and rolled her eyes.
Chris dramatically sighed and leaned on her forearms on the desk and glared at the pencil.
Victor noticed Chris watching the pencil and tossed it down onto the desk's surface with a clatter.
Chris smiled and went back to filling in her forms. She had no idea why she had to answer so many questions. Does your family have a history of the following… with only yes/no answers. That was okay for her mother's side of the family but she had no idea about her father's side, being adopted and all.
Victor ripped a piece of paper out of his notebook. For some reason the noise echoed through the firehouse and both Chris and Cory looked up at him.
He started folding the paper into an airplane. When it was finished he gave it a test flight. He took aim and let it sail. For all his origami brilliance it floated like a bird before falling like a rock, underneath Cory's desk which she promptly stood on, crushing it underfoot.
Victor sat back in his chair and looked disgruntled for a few minutes before he realized that Cory wasn't going to be paying any attention to him and went back to staring at the report.
It just wasn't working for him today. He should be out flying. He wanted to be out flying. Even riding on patrol would be better than this.
He picked up an eraser and started playing tiddly winks with it. Each time it clattered onto the desk one of the women would freeze, then when all was quiet again they'd continue writing.
What was with them today, he thought. He picked up a pen and created an ink tattoo on the underside of his forearm. He wanted to get a real tattoo, something along the lines of 'I love Linda' plastered across his chest. He'd even brought the subject up with her and although she was flattered, she'd told him directly that it would be a bad omen and they might break up.
The pen's ink flow started to diminish half way through his 'tattoo'. Apparently it didn't like writing on skin. He tapped it on the desk to get the ink flowing again.
'Victor!' Both women said in unison then looked at each other and laughed.
Victor rolled his eyes and made some smart ass comment to himself about it being 'that time of the month.'
He took out his airplane drawing from before and put a happy little face in the cockpit, complete with spiky hair and cool sunglasses. For effect he put in a few clouds and a sun, also with glasses.
He surveyed his work, quite pleased with himself, and unconsciously tapping his pencil against the notepad.
Chris got up from her desk with a huff and walked over to where Victor was sitting. She grabbed the pencil from his grasp and snapped it in half before slamming the pieces back down on the desk.
'Hey!' Victor said indignantly. 'Now what am I supposed to write with?'
'You should have thought of that before.' Cory said with a smirk.
Chris pointed. 'You have a pen you can use, but I guarantee you, if you start tapping that I'll shove it where the sun doesn't shine.' She went back to her desk and sat down.
Victor sighed. 'I'm bored.' He announced.
'Gee you think?' Chris said sarcastically.
'Well I am.' He protested. 'My flying instructor quit on the weekend and just when I was starting to get the hang of it.'
'Did he have a problem with you tapping?' Chris asked.
She and Victor exchanged smirks.
'Well, you know Chris can fly. Maybe she could teach you.' Cory said and smiled sweetly when Chris turned around to glare at her.
Victor shook his head. 'No. Bad idea. Besides, Chris probably couldn't fly anything that didn't have a gun attached.'
Chris glared, but then looked thoughtful. 'Come to think of it Victor it might be fun to get up in the air again. I'm game, unless you are too chicken.'
'Me? Chicken? Never! You name the time and place and I'll be there.' Victor put the two ends of the pencil together and stick tapped them in place.
'Ok. 7am Saturday morning, Santa Monica Air Field, hanger 32. I have a friend that owes me a favour.'
Victor wrote it all done. 'Done.' He said with a grin and started tapping his pencil again.
Chris picked up a rock that she was using as a paper weight. It had some fake gold or something through it, all Chris knew is that it was a rock and it was sparkly…and from her angle, she could get that pencil.
She tossed the rock onto Victor's desk and it landed on the pencil, breaking the sticky tape seal Victor had so carefully devised.
Victor frowned and held up his mangled pencil.
Chris smirked at him and went back to writing.
+++++
Victor arrived at the hanger on Saturday morning 7 am sharp. At first he didn't see Chris, just Cory chatting with a grey haired man.
Then Chris came around from the other side of an aircraft, pushing and nudging certain parts of the plane to make sure they were stable.
'Now remember, it's not quite the F-14 you're used to. Just take it easy with her.' The man said to Chris.
'Well in that case you should have given her a thicker skin.' Chris replied.
The man spotted Victor approaching. 'So is this the poor pawn that'll be going up against our Nutcracker?'
Cory grinned. 'Yep, that's Victor. Victor this is Ray. He's an old navy friend of Chris's.'
'Thank you Cory. I'd gathered that from the nutcracker bit.' Victor put out his hand to the man. 'How do you do Sir?'
Ray shook his hand. 'Sir, now I haven't been called that in years.'
'Well if you didn't take off with the Captain's wife the same week you jumped off the ship in the middle of the ocean you may still be a sir.'
'It's nothing on what you used to get up to Christine.' Ray answered getting an oily rag thrown at him for his troubles.
'Ready to go?' Chris asked Victor and heaved herself into the cockpit.
Victor nodded, then caught Cory's smirk. 'What do you know that I don't?' He asked her.
She just grinned. 'Have a good time up there.' She and Ray went to sit in some beach chairs set up near an esky.
Victor climbed into the other seat in the cockpit.
'Do you know how to take off and land yet?' Chris asked fiddling with dials in front of her.
'Hey, I'm good but I'm not that good.' He was wondering what torture Chris was going to put him through. No doubt she had some scheme cooked up for him.
'Fine.'
Fine? He thought. Not, well today is your lucky day, you'll be given a crash course in landing.
Chris started up the engines and let them roar for a while before taxiing to the runway, just to soak up the feeling. She didn't like to admit it too often but she did miss flying.
Victor sat there wondering what was taking so long. What was she doing? He nearly jumped out of his skin when the plane started moving.
The plane rolled out of the hanger and down the road to the runway.
At the end of the long strip Chris cranked the engines. The plane started going faster and faster until the wheels lifted and they were airborne.
When they were a few hundred feet in the air Victor hear Chris's voice over the radio system. 'Now you take over. You can do this right?'
Victor scoffed. 'I'm a pro at level flying.'
Chris just laughed.
It was true though. While Victor was behind the stick all they did was fly level in a straight line.
'Ok, now turn her around else you'll end up in a restricted zone. They don't like it if you fly to close to skyscrapers.' Chris said.
'Then you'd better take over.' He said. 'I never learned how to turn.' He could almost feel Chris rolling her eyes.
'It's easy. Just gently push the stick to the direction you want the plane to go…unless of course you're too much of a wimp to give something new a go.'
'Whatever.' He said and pushed the stick. To his surprise, the plane actually turned without rolling or anything. He did it right! He was so proud of himself.
They circled the airfield a few more times before it was time to land the plane.
'Tell me you aren't going to make me do this.' Victor said as Chris lined up the plane.
'No thank you. I value my life.' Was her response. The plane started to descend.
About 150 feet from the ground Victor decided he might try to scare Chris. We're all gonna die!' He yelled out.
The plane started to rise again.
'What are you doing?' Victor asked half-panicked. 'I was just kidding you know.'
'Yeah but I realised that I'm not going to be flying again any time soon so I thought I might have a little fun.'
'Fun?' He asked. 'And what is your idea of fun? You know, I saw 'Rat Race'. You aren't planning on dropping in on any ex boyfriends are you?'
Chris laughed. 'No, I'd probably end up with a nice fine for doing that, however…'
The plane banked suddenly and before he knew it, Victor was flying through the air strapped to a torpedo. 'What the hell are you doing!' He yelled.
'You don't trust me Victor?' Chris asked innocently as the plane stopped spinning and just cruised through the air, upside down.
'If I say yes will you put the plane up the right way?' He asked holding his head so it stopped feeling like it was floating away.
'But where's the fun in that?' She righted the plane for about three seconds before putting the nose in the air so the plane did a back flip of sorts. They went upside down again before nose diving towards the ground. She pulled the plane up just in time and it climbed almost vertically back into the sky.
'I think I'm going to be sick.' Victor groaned as the plane started to spin like a torpedo again.
'You are such a baby.' Chris said levelling off the plane and turning it around for the runway again.
This time as she descended to the runway there was no smart remarks from Victor. In fact there wasn't a sound heard from him until they'd landed and taxied back to the hanger where he quickly climbed out of the plane and dashed around to side of the hanger to throw up.
Ray just shook his head and Chris jumped down from the side of the plane. Cory grinned and came over to her. 'You are bad!'
'Amen to that sister.' Chris said.