Take My Breath Away

Epilogue

Mood Music:

Home - One Direction

Brother - NEEDTOBREATHE

Fly - Nicki Minaj and Rihanna

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Harry's eyes scanned the sky, tracing the horizon and the rocky coastline as he cruised over the shimmering waters of Thurso Bay. He could hear the chatter on the radio from the recruits, apprehensive and alert, considering it was a half hour into their first hop and they'd yet to see any action. But that was the plan.

" Make them sweat ," had been the order. Harry figured by now their collars were sufficiently damp. He knew what that felt like. He sympathized. He also knew that it was the best way to separate the pilots who would thrive here from the ones who would fail. It was the only way to determine a pilot's ability to succeed outside the safety of the 1D bubble. The training had to replicate the reality they would face in just six short weeks. It was a grind, there was no question, but it was necessary. After all, this wasn't Harry's first go round here at Premier Delta. He knew both sides of the game now.

A voice crackled over the radio, the channel to which the poor, panicked recruits wouldn't be privy. "Hiya, Pigeon. Nice day for flying, innit?"

Harry smiled and looked off to the North where he could see a little speck in the distance, growing steadily closer. It only took a moment, and then there was a shining A-4 at his side. It was an exact match for his own jet, except for the pilot's name stenciled over the wing.

"Lovely day. Olivia and I are enjoying the view," Harry agreed lightly over the increasingly flustered ramblings of the recruits. He patted Olivia's windscreen, humming along with the buzz of her engine. "On the morning walk with the dogs I was thinking, this is a fine way to start another cycle." Their dogs, Bogey, a French Bulldog, and Bandit, a Black Shepherd, had been extra enthusiastic - and less well behaved - this morning when Harry had leashed them up and taken them for their routine walk along the coast before he headed to base. It was as if they too could feel all the excitement that came with a new recruit class arriving at Fort Acaiseid. "You did feed them like I asked, right?" Harry added.

"Of course I did," Louis scoffed, as if he didn't have a track record of it slipping his mind and then having to run back to the cottage after their first morning class to give the dogs their forgotten brekkie. It was a slow process, but Louis was learning. It had been easier teaching Bandit to sit and stay. But at least Louis had better capability to learn than Bogey. Bogey was lucky he was so cute and cuddly, because he was pretty much hopeless in everything else. Louis was marginally better. Just.

"So what's the plan?" Harry asked, turning their conversation back to the task at hand.

"I've got my sights on a fresh flock of geese who were honking this morning in the hallway about how they're gonna beat the famed Sparrow and Rogue. Wanna help show these little goslings who they're up against?" Harry looked into the cockpit of the A-4 next to him and could almost see the waggling of Louis' brows.

Harry shrugged. "Might as well," he said. Then he and Louis were darting off to close in on the recruits who scattered like actual startled geese.

Louis reprimanded them over the radio, "Oh come on ! You act like I'm actually going to shoot you. If you can't handle this, how do you expect to take down a real bogey who would very much like to send a missile on a one way ticket up your arse?"

"We've heard the stories. About how no one's ever won against you," one of the bolder recruits said as he tried to shake Louis off his tail. His efforts were not successful. Louis got him on lock a moment later.