Blondie- A Jake 'Hangman' Seresin fanfiction

Chapter 18

There was silence for several minutes before the admiral spoke again.

"Jake, I think we need to accept the very real possibility that she's not coming home."

For the first time in that very long day, Jake cried.

"She can't die," he insisted. "She's got too much life left to live. She can't die like this. If she's going to die, she's supposed to do it heroically, sacrificing herself for someone else. That's the kind of thing she'd do."

"I remember when I found out her mother was dying," the admiral said, staring at the ceiling. "This was the woman who I'd fallen in love with because she was so strong, this was the woman who had raised our two girls practically by herself, and her own cells were killing her. Death never seems appropriate."

It was five a.m., the sun newly risen above the horizon after a night spent contemplating the worst, when the phone rang on the admiral's desk.

"Yes?"

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"Lainey! Lainey, wake up!"

"What is it?" Lainey asked groggily, sitting up from where she'd been laying on one of the benches in the helicopter.

"There's a helicopter flying about above the trees," Georgie explained, "they've found us!"

"Bloody took them long enough!"

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After the admiral told him the good news, Jake quickly rang Rooster and Coyote, and when told they weren't allowed to wait outside in case of an emergency, they waited in the ready room where the squadron spent much of its free time.

The admiral met the pilots off the helicopter, told them that they were free to go, and directed the three girls to the ready room. He then headed for home himself, having got no sleep during the night.

The boys grinned at each other when they heard them coming down the corridor.

"Don't be such a drama queen," Lainey was saying. "It was only 20,000 feet."

"I'm telling you, if those trees weren't there to slow us down, we all would have had it," Phoenix replied, swinging open the door. "We only nearly died," she announced to the room before allowing herself to be folded into Rooster's arms.

Georgie practically collapsed into Jake; her head pressed into his shoulder.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Fine," she assured him. "Are you?"

"Well, I don't know if you've noticed, but that's the second time you've nearly died in the last month. I'm not sure how much more of this I can take. I think it's my turn for a near death experience."

Georgie laughed quietly, taking his face in her hands. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I don't want to hurt you."

As if in response, he kissed her, barely able to comprehend that just a couple of hours before he'd thought he might not get to do so again.

"So, what happened?" Coyote asked them. "Do you know?"

"The first we knew of it we were falling through the air," Lainey said.

"Ruined my nap," Georgie murmured, looking into Jake's eyes, her arms still around his neck.

"We fell through some trees, which slowed us down enough that we didn't die, but the cockpit... nothing in the cockpit made it," Phoenix added quietly. "We didn't even get to bring their bodies back."

"After that, we just had to wait to be found," Lainey explained. "Payback and Fanboy did a horrible job of making a fire, and we slept on the helicopter."

"Take me home?" Georgie asked Jake quietly. "I want a hot shower and some sleep."

"Me too. I didn't sleep much," he replied.

"I'm sorry," she repeated. "But I'm here now."