Mountain Meadow
A/N: This is another instalment of the AU that starts with "Pensacola Punishment", and the events in this story take place the weekend immediately following after the telephone call between Harm and Beth related in "Dragons on Board; Dragons in DC"
"So, and for about the forty eleventh time, 'where are we going'?"
Harm grinned sideways at the impatiently fuming brunette in the Corvette's passenger seat, "Patience, grasshopper – all shall be revealed in due course."
"Damn well better had be," Beth Hawkes grumped, "it's lining up to be one of the hottest weekends of the year so far, and you said to dress warm!"
"Ah, no, I didn't say dress warm I said bring warm clothes with you. There is a difference," Harm said pedantically, drawing another furious glare from his passenger. He was enjoying this way too much, in her opinion, and whatever he had in mind had best be worth dragging her out of bed – where she had plans to spend the rest of the morning doing things that were far more interesting than being crammed into a an uncomfortably cramped muscle car – cramming breakfast down her throat and then dragging her out to face the world, when that world was still trying to find its morning face.
Fortunately for Beth's mental health, and quite possibly Harm's physical health, Beth was distracted by the sound of an aero-engine low overhead. Automatically looking up she registered the sight of a single-engined high winged mono-plane, which appeared with very little warning over the belt of woodland to the right.
She swivelled her head to gaze accusingly at the still-grinning Harm, but before she could speak he performed a slick gear change, and braking smoothly, made a right-hand turn onto the two lane black-top leading into the trees. Less than three minutes later the rally red Corvette emerged from the shelter of the trees and approached a pair of gates set across the road in a chain-link fence to which was attached a large sign welcoming visitors to Charlottesville-Albemarle airport.
The discontented pout Beth had worn for the last hundred or so miles vanished on the instant, "Harm! This is an airport! What are we… I mean are we going flying?"
"Give the lady a cigar," Harm grinned lazily as he brought the Corvette to a standstill alongside one of the hangers and turned off the ignition. Beth watched in admiration as he effortlessly and gracefully unwound his six-foot four frame from the driver's seat, and could only hope that her own efforts wouldn't appear intolerably clumsy in comparison.
By the time Beth had extricated herself from her seat, Harm at the small trunk open and was donning a fur-lined, leather, flight jacket, and once he'd shrugged himself into it, he held Beth's similar jacket for her to slip arms into. Retrieving a small wicker hamper from the trunk Harm secured the car and then secured the key ring to his belt. Seeing a raised eyebrow, he patted the key ring and said, "I really don't want these floating around the bottom of the cockpit, or worse getting lost over the side, so… Better safe than sorry, I reckon."
Beth laughed delightedly, "Now I know you really are a driver… Always prepared for the worst!"
Harm smiled, not taking offence at all, "Hey, this way we cut down on nasty surprises, and we can leave all the worrying to you GIBS's! Now, Madam, shall we walk?" Harm made an expansive gesture in the direction of the hangar entrance and concluded it with his hand in the small of the Beth's back. The diminutive brunette smiled up at him and let him guide her to their destination.
Stepping into the comparative darkness of the hangar it took a second or two for her eyes to adjust from the brightness of the morning, but when they did she could see two rows of light airplanes facing each other across the wide space of the hangar floor. As they entered the hangar they were met by a leather-faced oldster dressed in grease and oil stained coveralls, and shoving a lump of cotton waste into one of several capacious pockets. "' Morning,'Mander, she's all fuelled up an' ready to go."
Harm nodded, "Thanks, Pop, if you can have her wheeled out, we'll get out of your hair and let you get some work done. We shall be heading out West over the GW Park, so comms might be a bit iffy, but we should be back by… say… fifteen hundred, at the latest."
Beth stood back in the wide-eyed astonishment as two of the hangar crew pushed a bright yellow, wartime-Navy-liveried, radial-engined biplane from its place and out through the open hangar main doors on to the tarmac apron. She tore her eyes away from the veteran aeroplane and looked up at Harm, whose own smile could only be described as one of pride. "Is… Is she yours?" Beth managed.
"Yep, sure is. Beth Hawkes I'd like you to meet Sarah Stearman. Sarah was my dad's; he started restoring her but had to put her in storage in the big barn at Gram's place when he deployed, and there she stayed until I went to the farm while I was recovering from that ramp strike. I more or less put her back together as a form of OT, and named her Sarah for Grams. And then once I was assigned to Falls Church, this was about the nearest place I could get hangarage for her. But… We've wasted enough daylight already, so I'll get the pre-flight done and then we can get off.
Beth followed him as he carried out painstakingly careful visual and tactile inspection of the Stearman, starting at the port wing and working his way clockwise around the airplane to end up at his starting point. Opening the stowage Hatch aft of the rear cockpit he carefully wedged the wicker hamper in place before turning to Beth, "she's a mite different to an F-14, in this bird the RIO sits up front, so climb aboard, you'll find she's got a pretty standard five point harness, not too different from a Tomcat's".
"You can't tell me those are an original fitting, surely?" Beth asked.
"No they're not, but neither are the modern disc brakes on the undercarriage. Purists may quibble, but I prefer to be safer than retro." Harm said seriously.
Beth nodded in appreciation of his point of view and stepping up onto the reinforced inboard section of the lower plane she threw her leg over the front cockpit coaming and settled into her seat. Harm smiled and climbed nimbly into the rear cockpit and after securing his harness leaned forward and tapped Beth on the shoulder, and once she'd turned to look at him, indicating that she should put on the headset that was hooked over the front cockpit's control stick. Once she had done that he tuned the radio to intercom, "All set?"
"You bet!" Beth assured him, her excitement clear even through the medium of microphone and headsets.
Harm turned the key in the ignition and pressed the starter button, and with its characteristic double cough and puff of exhaust gases, the nine-cylinder Lycoming engine burst into life. Harm let it run for about twenty seconds before he called the tower for clearance to taxi to the runway threshold. Permission received, he released the brakes and gently nudged the throttle open and in the manner of all large engined, tail wheeled aircraft the Stearman weaved its way along the asphalt. Holding at the runway threshold Harm again spoke to the tower and receiving clearance, opened the throttle to its fullest and the little yellow airplane rolled down the runway its speed increasing until its wings bit the air and it lifted, seemingly effortlessly, off the ground.
Harm always said later that Beth's whoop of excitement as the Stearman lifted off, could be heard in the tower even without the benefit of radio. Beth really was enjoying what for her was a totally new experience, she had completely forgotten about being awoken at oh Christ double oh hours, being forced to accept a breakfast that consisted only of toast and coffee instead of the fruit, pancakes, maple syrup and Canadian bacon she had been keenly anticipating and then being bundled out of the apartment before she felt fully ready to face the day. True, she spent at least half her working week in the air, but that was in the back seat of a Tomcat, where she was fully occupied with monitoring her scope and the various instruments she needed to master for her role as an NFO. But this was different, the open cockpit, the blast of air on her face and through her hair and the leisure to observe the terrain below, at a much lower altitude than that to which she was accustomed, well, this was flying! And Harm put the frosting on her cake when some ten minutes into the flight he asked, "Do you want to take her, for a bit?"
"Do bears crap in the woods?" she replied with a laugh.
"Okay... You have control!"
"I have control," Beth replied as she settled her hands on stick, throttle and rudder pedals.
"Okay, have a little play but keep her on this general heading," Harm instructed, and settled back to enjoy the ride. Like all NFO's Beth had undergone elementary flying training in the T6 Texan, including aerobatic and IFR training, so Harm was fully confident that she could handle the less powerful but slightly more responsive Stearman.
After letting Beth play, including some exuberant aerobatics once she felt confident in her handling of the Stearman, Harm sat forward in his seat, "I am taking control," he said.
"Roger, you are taking control," Beth responded, and even as she spoke she felt the added resistance on the stick as Harm grasped it.
"I have control," Harm completed the next line of the litany.
"You have control," Beth ceded regretfully as she relinquished the stick and slid her feet clear of the pedals.
Harm had been keeping an eye open for a familiar landmark, and once it had come into sight had taken that as his cue to resume control of the airplane. He flew in a wide circle above a small mountain lake, nestling between wooded hills on either hand, before he lined up along the valley and brought the Stearman down to a gentle landing on the deer-cropped grass.
Once he had switched off the engine they both became aware of the deep silence that surrounded them, made even deeper by the pinging of hot metal as the motor cooled down.
Harm unbuckled his seat harness and climbed out of the cockpit, and standing just clear of the lower plane's trailing edge he grinned up at Beth, "Well, are you coming to join me, or are you going to just sit up there on your six all day?"
Beth fought down a flash of irritation, as Harm unknowingly broke a moment in which she had felt an inexplicable feeling of identification with her surroundings. Sighing, she too unfastened her harness and climbed out of the cockpit and carefully made her way to the ground. "Harm, this is a fantastic place, it's so beautiful… How on earth did you find it?"
"Found it last year," he replied, "Meg and I had had a pretty rough week of it, down in Colombia, so when we got back, I took Sarah up and it was a bit later in the day, and I was just fooling around up there, on my own, and I pulled a vertical bank and the sun reflecting off the lake here damn nigh blinded me, so I naturally had to come and see what was causing the mirror effect. I made a note of the lake's position and then the following weekend I drove out here in a rental truck and checked the ground to see if it would take the weight of take-offs and landings. It looked okay so I flew in the next day, and I've been back here, oh, this will be my third visit in thirteen months."
"Okay, shyster, now that you've got me here, what are you going to do with me?"
"I thought we might go for a swim, and as you no doubt guessed, there's food and drink in that there wicker basket, and then, after lunch, we need to talk."
Beth looked slightly troubled, "Harm, I should probably have told you before, but I don't swim well, and I don't enjoy it, even when I have a swimsuit with me, which I don't, but you knew that… Didn't you? Harmon Rabb, you are just full of surprises!"
"Well, it wouldn't be a surprise if you can just get it out of your head that I am a prude!"
"Yeah, I'm beginning to think I may need to re-evaluate that judgement," Beth smiled. "But as swimming is out, I've no objection to kicking off my shoes and paddling with you." Her smile developed a wicked tilt, as she continued, "In fact, while it's this warm I've got no major objections to pretending we've been skinny-dipping and letting the sun dry me off!"
Harm paused in the act of unloading the hamper and a red, plaid picnic blanket from the Stearman's stowage compartment, and grinned over his shoulder at Beth, who had already shrugged out of her flight jacket, had pulled off her sweater and whose hands were already busy with her blouse buttons, "Woah! Not so fast, Florida Girl," he admonished her, "there's plenty of time for that, after we've dabbled our toes in the water, and after we've eaten."
Beth grinned wickedly, but it seemed she acquiesced. At least, she let her hands full from her blouse, but it didn't escape Harm that she made no move to refasten the three buttons she had already undone. Harm looked at her quizzically, "You were the one who offered to go paddling instead of swimming. You ready to make good on that offer?"
"What? Renege and give you the excuse to sue me for breach of promise? I don't think so! I know how you shysters think." She added darkly, but with her grin creasing the corners of her mouth.
Harm laughed softly and slipped his arm around her waist, "Come on then, let's get our tootsies wet."
They spent nearly half an hour strolling along the edge of the lake, scrambling over the small boulders, until they froze into stillness as a huge bull-moose, his giant palmate antlers still sheathed in velvet, paced majestically out from between the trees and down to the water's edge to drink, no more than fifty or sixty feet away from them. Harm and Beth stood transfixed by the spectacle of a four or five minutes the Lord of the forest took to drink his fill, and then having satisfied his thirst he raised his head and bugled his dominance over all lesser creatures. And then as silently as he arrived he was gone, lost in the darkness of the forest the second he stepped into its shadow.
Beth Beth turned towards Harm, "Wow…" she breathed softly.
Harm returned her gaze and smiled softly, "Wow, indeed," he agreed.
Beth nodded, "You know, I don't think we'll top that, so I think I'd like to head back," she breathed.
"Yeah, you're probably right."
Unable or not to top that experience, neither were any great rush and the return stroll was just as leisurely as the outward had been, so that by the time they returned to the airplane, the morning was sufficiently advanced to make a lunch an attractive proposition.
The picnic lunch that Harm had prepared turned out to be more than just attractive. The heart of the meal turned out to be a mushroom and red pepper quiche and roast vegetable stuffed ciabatta, but accompanied by a variety of vegetable crudités with a selection of dips, a green salad with a blue cheese dressing and all washed down with sparkling grape juice that had been chilled before being wrapped in a thermal sleeve and carefully stowed in the hamper.
Once they had made sure that no rubbish had been left unpoliced, Harm lay down on his back on the plaid blanket and pillowing his head with one large hand he patted the space next to him in invitation. Beth lost no time in accepting. Within seconds she snuggled alongside him, his arm looped around her shoulder, while her head rested on his chest.
"Okay flyboy, you've smiled and been cheerful all morning, but there's something, isn't there, you want to tell me what it is?
"Yeah, there is something, and maybe I should have told you the other day when I called in as soon as I got back to the apartment but I really think we need to talk this one through face-to-face," Harm said slowly.
"Are you deliberately trying to scare me?" Beth asked softly.
"No, but it's one of those things that perhaps I should have been more open about than I was… but I wasn't expecting to have to come to terms with it quite so soon."
"Go on, it can't be as bad as suddenly telling me all about your ramp strike," Beth encouraged him softly.
"You might think it's even worse," Harm said gloomily, "and it's sort of connected to the ramp strike too, although the story begins years before that, back at the Academy. There were four of us, me, Jack Keeter, Sturgis Turner and Diane Schonke…."
Harm continued in a low monotone, briefly describing the complex nature of the interrelationship between the four, whom he described as The Four Musketeers, but as he admitted with a hint of a wry grin, not unmixed with pride, other midshipmen referred to them darkly as The Gang of Four.
"Diane was a year behind us, but that didn't seem to matter to any of us, she was a good friend, fun, witty, clever, mischievous and a math genius, and a kind of little sister to us all. She was the D'Artagnan of our group, always the one with the wild ideas and wacky schemes… Of course, she was the one who was never caught, and finished up with a spotless reputation, and I doubt if she ever walked as much as one hour punishment post. After our graduation, Keeter and I went on to flight school, Sturgis went to be a bubblehead, and Diane of course still had a year to go. During that year I kinda figured out that I didn't really see Diane as a sister any more. It was tough; you know what the last year at Annapolis is like, and then I was still learning to fly Navy-style, but we kept in touch as best we could and we both thought that we were feeling our way forward. Then, when Diane graduated she went on to crypto school and I went to the fleet and that made connecting even more difficult."
"Yeah, you've mentioned her a time or two, she helped you recover after your ramp strike," Beth encouraged him.
"Yeah, yeah she did. She reserved her commission, and came up to Belleville, to Gram's farm, kicked my six out of the sulks and more or less pushed me into the barn to start work on Sarah, there. By the time she'd been with us six months, Sarah was almost airworthy and I'd worked myself back to a state of physical fitness. Diane reactivated her commission and I reported to the medical review board at Bethesda. We continued to keep in touch as I worked my way through law school, but as these things usually do, the letters became shorter with longer intervals between them, and then the letters became the occasional postcard, as one or the other of us found ourselves in some exotic location or other. Until by the beginning of this year it had been over twelve months since I'd heard from her. Then came that investigation aboard the Seahawk the week before last. I'd been on board two days, and I was in line for chow in the wardroom, when a pair of arms threw themselves around my neck, I was hugged almost to death, and Diane was squealing my name right into my ear."
"Oh wow, talk about a small world!" Beth breathed.
"That's not quite what Diane said," Harm smiled, "She said something like 'of all the chow lines in all the wardrooms in all the ships in the Navy, you have to go and stand in this one!'"
Beth shared Harm's smile, "A bit of a misquote, but it's a classic."
"Yeah, anyway, we sat and had lunch together and she told me that she'd only been on board to, maybe three weeks, the previous crypto officer in her billet had been granted emergency family leave after his pregnant wife hit complications, and she swore blind she had a postcard to me, half written of course, in her bunk. Then over the next couple of days, between me flying to and from Naples we tried to organise things so we took our meal breaks at the same time, and by about the Wednesday Diane made a suggestion that may be we could go back to where we left off and try to see if we had something other than just friendship and trust. It… It got kind of awkward for a few minutes, but I told her about you and me, about what I thought we had, where I hoped it would go. I hated that it hurt her, she put a brave face on it, but I could see the hurt in her eyes, but she smiled and said something about being too dumb to take the bull by the horns while she had the chance and not being surprised that somebody else had at last taken me off the market. She sorta smiled, wished us well, and said she hoped to meet you if you were lucky enough to get the Seahawk once you join your Squadron. But Beth, despite the hurt, she still tag-teamed with Meg to run interference with Krennick once the trial was over, and for those couple of days was almost like we were back at Annapolis again. But I think we both got some closure; I know I did, and although I am still very fond of Diane, it's in a sorta nostalgic what-might-have-been-way, and I know that I am not, and I never was in love with Diane Schonke."
Beth felt her breath catch in her throat as she caught the regret and sorrow in Harm's voice stop swallowing hard to clear her throat she propped herself up on one elbow, her other forearm resting across Harm's chest, ready and willing to offer comfort to her man, "is that what's been bothering you ever since I got home last night?"
"I guess, I was kinda worried about how I'd tell you. See, Diane and I have got so much history and I don't want to invalidate or trivialise that, and I don't want to give up being friends with her. I especially didn't want to do this over the phone, and I was a bit worried too about how you take it." Harm confessed.
Beth dropped a gentle kiss on Harm's lips, "Dumbass, I'd have been far more upset if you thought that I would have you cut all your old friendships just because you were afraid one or two of them might upset me!"
"Beth Hawkes, you are a wonder, a marvel, and a pearl beyond price."
"Oh, shut up, and kiss me, sailor!" A furiously blushing Beth Hawkes scolded him as she smiled through tear-glistening eyes.
The End
(For The Time Being)