Written for the Stargateland challenge, Prompt 3: Luck
In Hopes of Flight
I:
He is 12 years old, standing with his mother, eyes on his shoes as she continues to berate him.
"What were you thinking?" She demands again. "What if Colleen had been hurt? You could have been killed!"
He shifts his shoulder, wincing as his arm moves in the sling. He says nothing, merely waiting, face guilty, shoulders sorrowful. Finally, his mother finishes sorting out the insurance information and settles payment with the emergency room attendant, and they step out into the shock of frosty air.
The drive home is quiet, his mother's anger finally abating as they navigate the snowy streets on their way out of town; back to where his sister and grandmother are waiting anxiously for news of his arm.
As they pull into the low dirt driveway, he follows his mother's gaze to the sharp, sharp rise of the hill at the end of the road. Another child is making the steep climb, dragging a toboggan behind them, and his mother tsks irritably.
When she speaks, though, her voice is softer. He hears the worry that fuels her anger now. "You could have been killed..." She whispers, wrapping her arm around his good shoulder. "You were lucky."
He nods silently, and knows he can never explain to his mother how in that one, perfect moment, it was all worth it, because he was flying.
II:
He is 19 years old, standing with his hands clasped, eyes on his shoes. The preacher's voice rises and falls with a gentle lull, but he finds he can't focus on the words.
The coffin rises up before him, solid and lacquered and there. He looks to the hinge of the lid, imagining it opening, imagining Ben sitting up, laughing. This is surely all a joke, he thinks, and his thoughts are as numb and frozen as his tightly-clasped hands.
The wind whips around them, ruffling hair and black lace and flowers. He watches a few loose petals of the center arrangement go tumbling off into the dry grass of the cemetery. Tries not to think about the brakes on a car and a river and a wall.
There is a raw, wide scrape on his face and he still tastes glass in his mouth when he swallows, even though it has been days.
His sister puts a hand on his shoulder, squeezing before dragging down to tug his hands apart, taking his right in her left. Her fingers are warm behind the wool of her gloves. He says nothing as the attendants crank the mechanism to lower the coffin into the earth for the first and last time.
He wishes he had been allowed to see Ben's face one last time; even though he knows intellectually this would have been a terrible idea. He knows he is lucky to be alive and that his best friend is dead.
Closing his eyes, he turns his face into the cold December wind; and thinks of flying.
III:
He is 27 years old, running through an open field. The wind is warm on his face, and he holds tight to the small, plump legs hooked around his neck.
As they turn abruptly to the right, the little boy squeals with delight, making his heart sing in agreement. He ducks lower as he charges up the slight hill, before making a noise like an engine whining as they reach the ascent.
He feels the air shift around them as his nephew lifts both arms, thrusting them straight out to either side like wings.
Eventually, he loses his balance running full-out down a gentle slope, and they tumble to the ground, rolling across sweet-smelling grass to land in a tangle of limbs.
He hears a woman's voice calling across the field, so much like their mother's now, inviting them to clean themselves up for dinner.
Taking the small hand in his, he returns to the house feeling ten years younger; his smile as bright and wide as the boy's. Tonight, he will tell them about his assignment, that he will be gone for an unknown amount of time to an unnamed place to do things he can't discuss. The post had been highly-sought after, and he has beaten out hundreds of qualified applicants for the job. He's lucky, they tell him, and he believes it.
He knows his nephew dreams of growing up and following him into the Air Force, a thought that fills him with pride and dread. He is only three and there will be plenty of time to think it through, to discuss the costs and benefits of a life in service, how it is both everything and nothing he expected.
For all his years of waiting and dreaming and training, he has never flown a plane. Still, he realizes in that moment that he would never trade it for anything.
IV:
He is 30 years old, hands behind his back. He can't feel his legs. The knowledge that they are there wars with the feeling that they are gone. His hips seem to terminate into a hazy field of pain, wet and heavy, like the air in summer when there is no breeze.
He thinks back to the sharp crack of pain across his skull as a bullet raked his temple. A few weeks, but it already felt like years. Lucky, they'd said. Unbelievably lucky.
He meets the eyes of the man leaning over him, forcing his neck to move, his head to nod. He blinks, realizing the man's outline is hazy, and it is only then that he realizes he is crying.
The weight of the hand over his mouth is gentle and oh-so final. He tries to close his eyes, but they snap open. He focuses on the other man's eyes, bright and shiny in the dim light with tears of his own.
For a moment, he shudders, his lungs screaming, begging for air. He thinks of the short, shallow breaths they'd all been reduced to their first day on Destiny, and the cool, sweet relief that followed the limestone.
A cold sweat breaks across his brow and his vision swells with black, losing sight and sense of everything except one last, brief glimpse of his commander's eyes.
Riley struggles for one last breath. When it doesn't come, there is nothing.
And then he is flying.
"and now your sense of life is gone
by all you thought you'd overcome...
and now I pray you'll turn your thoughts in hopes -
in hopes of flight..."
-ThouShaltNot