Take My Breath by AwayRealityBetterThanFiction on a03

Chapter 10

Decorations - The colorful pins on the breast pocket of officers in the forces, awards and honors for service. The more you have, the more important you are.

Wings - An aviation insignia that all pilots wear pinned above their decorations and ribbons.

*Reminder to check the trigger warnings in the notes at the beginning of the chapter before reading!

Story starts below...Enjoy!

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Harry sat in an uncomfortable metal chair in the hall outside Captain Cowell's office back on base. After so long spent on the carrier, growing used to the steady sway of the sea, having his feet on solid ground again felt disorienting. They left the carrier this morning just after the sun rose and the pilots had all woken. Harry hadn't needed to set an alarm to avoid missing their call time. He'd been up already, because he hadn't gone to sleep. He hadn't been able to manage after having packed up both his own and Niall's lockers last night. It had been another long night sat in the hangar bay staring sightlessly at his unfamiliar plane.

As he waited, his fingers played with the object in his hands, his pilot wings, pressing down on the pin until he felt sharp pain at the prick. When he looked down, a little dot of blood started to ooze from the puncture on his pointer finger. It was a small wound. Healing as quickly as it was inflicted. But the sight of it made Harry think of the unstoppable stream that had gushed from Niall's head when he'd held him in the water.

Blood. So much blood. Harry would never be able to forget how red it looked against pale skin and fair hair.

It was what he'd been thinking about last night, eyes glued on the picture of them below his altitude gauge, bathed in the red glow of the low fuel lights. In the middle of the storm, he had needed Niall's calm voice keeping him steady, telling him which way was up. He'd become so attuned to Niall's lilt, measuring his whole life by the words of his RIO. But last night, he hadn't been able to hear it. He hadn't been able to make sense of Ed's voice trying to fill the hole. It had just sounded like white noise, a part of the storm around him, rendering him deaf. It hadn't been the storm or the darkness that had sent Harry into a panic. It had been the feeling of being truly alone for the first time.

It's over.

Harry still felt those words as surely as he had after the hop last night, the culmination of the tailspin he'd been trying to right ever since the crash. He'd looked at himself in the mirror and realized that there was no way to do that aside from another ejection.

Harry startled when he heard the sound of the door to his right open and close. He looked up at the soft pad of footsteps coming closer.

"Harry," Liam said. He stood awkwardly in front of Harry for a minute before he decided to join him, taking the rigid chair to his side. "He's meeting with you next?"

Harry shook himself to clear his thoughts and nodded. All the pilots were required to meet with the Captain today for a final review of their performance throughout the program. Then they would clear out their lodgings in preparation for graduation tomorrow. This was the end of the line at Premier Delta. This was the moment they'd all been waiting for, thinking about with giddy hope as they laid their heads down on their pillows each night in exhaustion after another day of spending themselves dry up in the sky. But Harry felt nothing. Because while this was the end of the line for him, it was in a very different sense than it would be for all his fellow recruits.

"Congratulations, by the way. On winning the Pilot's Trophy," Harry told him honestly. Final numbers had come in last night. The tally had been no surprise. Harry didn't have it in him to feel bitter, because he didn't have it in him to feel anything . He figured it would be best to say it now, because he might not have the chance to do it when it mattered. "That's something to be proud of. Good for you."