Paper Planes Back Home

BOARDING . ONE

It's been a while since Anna had called and attended to a code blue, and she's still reeling, feeling like her knees are going to buckle underneath her as soon as they cleared out of the room. But she still has rounds to do, so she sucks it up and heads to 1127, where she rests her back against the door upon shutting it behind her.

Deep breaths, Anna. Deep breaths. You can do this.

She presses her eyelids tightly shut and counts to ten, breathes. When she opens her eyes again, she smiles at the patient on the bed. "That must have been quite a racket you've heard from the other room...," she says, willing her voice to be a bit cheerful. "But you don't have to worry now. 1126 is fine."

* * *

"Gianna, wake up."

Skylar's cloud bumps into hers, and he reaches out to touch her. She has paper planes all over her, enveloping her like a blanket to keep her warm.

"Gianna, you really sh—"

He hears a soft rustling from behind him, like a soft breeze blowing past the leaves of his tree. Curious, he turns around and sees a white object dangling from one of the low branches.

A paper plane.

Jeannie.

He moves to get up, but stops himself when he remembers his companion still lying unconscious on her cloud. He's seen this before as well—Heather, a woman in her thirties, had fallen asleep on her cloud and drifted away with it.

He remembers himself and Sam trying to wake her up, and then they watched helplessly as the cloud drifted farther and farther above them until they could no longer see it.

If they'd only known then that there was another means to save a soul from drifting away...

"Gianna," he says, louder this time as he reaches for her shoulder. "Wake up!"

Another rustling. And another. And another. Skylar turns around, and his jaw drops. Paper planes were falling, landing against the lush green leaves of his tree, one after another. Three, seven, ten, fourteen...he counts in his head. These are few compared to the horde of paper planes Gianna had been getting since she came, but already, Skylar feels like his heart is going to explode.

Finally. Finally, someone remembers.

"Skylar..."

There's a faint smile on Gianna's face when he turns to look back at her. She's slowly getting up from what seems to be a short nap, and she's seeing this too. She feels relieved, somehow.

"Someone remembers me...," he says happily, blinking away a tear. Like a child, he runs carelessly toward the tree, jumping up and down to grab the paper planes from the low branches, and resorting to climbing it when he couldn't reach the others. He gathers a total of eighteen paper planes, and he has them held against his chest when he walks back to the edge of his cloud. Although Gianna had already decided that this soldier was a jovial kind of person, she thinks this is the happiest she's seen him since she'd arrived. His smile finally reaches his eyes.

"Someone you know?"

He replies with confidence. "Jeannie."

"Your girlfriend?"

"Yeah."

Seconds later, he's sitting face to face with Gianna and unfolding one of his paper planes eagerly. Watching him with anticipation, she holds one of her new paper planes and notes an impression underneath her fingertips. It's like someone wrote with such a heavy hand that she could feel the lines and curves of the person's handwriting from the paper's surface.