I hope I can finish this
The alarm rings at promptly four-thirty, as it does most mornings, and a heavy, calloused hand comes down on it. Silvery hairs coat the knuckles and the skin on the fingers and palm is rough and worn. The hand of someone who works very hard with little rest in between. Springs creak on an old bed and a hulking shape of a man rolls into an upright position. He looks to be middle-aged, though life has added years to his face that aren't yet there. He's thirty-nine, but could pass for older.
This is Ivan Braginsky. He works at an airfield in North Carolina, though he is originally from Moscow. He does not remember exactly what he had in mind when he first came to America, only that he did not want to be in Russia any longer. He fought in the Great War when he was younger, and hurt his leg, which is why he no longer fights. Instead he walks with a limp and fixes planes. Sometimes he writes letters.
Right now he is pulling on a pair of tan cargo pants over his boxers, which are faded to a light color from many washes. Over his broad, hairy chest he wears a wifebeater that might've once been white, but has been stained with oil and other substances too many times to remain so.
After he is dressed, he goes into the kitchen, pours himself a cup of black coffee and then troops off to work.
The airfield is precisely forty-four minutes from Ivan's house by rusty blue truck at five in the morning. In this early spring month, the sun is beginning to peek over the distant and foggy horizon by the time Ivan approaches the airfield. As usual, it is fairly quiet as he climbs out of the truck and grabs his tool bag, making for the hangars at one end of the field. This is where the planes are housed; this is where Ivan works.
It's not a bad job, really. It suits one like Ivan; one who prefers solitude. Of course, Ivan's preference has come rather by circumstance than choice. He had never been terribly good with people and his hulking frame and tendency to drink did nothing to endear him to anyone. Once he came to America, his thick accent and poor English only alienated him further; at least in Russian he possessed a somewhat eloquent tongue and could string off poetry from all the Russian greats he had studied so avidly during grade school.
Since then, he has retreated even further into silence and speaks little to anyone, even his peers. For the most part, they were all too willing to ignore him; he was an uncomfortable presence for those who paid too much attention to him. Generally he was treated as one of the machines; an ever-present but hardly sentient part of the field.
Of course, he was fairly sure getting into a fight with a snarky pilot from Montana in his second week of work and beating the kid to a pulp hadn't done much to tender the young pilots to him. Montana had started it.
The quiet of the hangars this early, however, was positively blissful. They were big, with so much empty space, and very cool inside. When Ivan whistled old Russian tunes to himself, it echoed off the metal walls and ceilings of the warehouses. There was something infinitely peaceful in being alone in the wee hours of the morning. This was a part of his job that Ivan loved.
There was just something about pilots. A swagger, a cockiness, a cool factor…whatever it was, Ivan was fairly sure every little boy had dreamt of being a pilot at least once. He had. But he had been too big and heavy for biplanes by the time he signed up for the war. No, he had been assigned the lowly rank of foot soldier. Or, as the non-Russian Triple Entente members referred to him and his comrades as—cannon fodder. He really was amazingly lucky to have come out with his life at all, never mind his leg. And he knew that. He still thanked God every day for bringing him out of that living hell safely, though sometimes it felt like it was growing a bit redundant. Besides, he was beginning to wonder what he'd been brought back FOR.
Surely not to polish the wheel wells of planes at an airfield in North Carolina, USA for the rest of his life? The thought made him shudder, but he wasn't sure what else he'd do with himself. Besides, there was one binding factor that kept him here more than anything else could. No…he'd be here a while longer at least.
He settles down to work and has at least a couples hours in peace; polishing, fixing up and doing general maintenance before the first of the voices reaches him. Raucous, unapologetic, calling to some of the others. They always come in clumps, groups, all of the training. They say trouble is brewing in Europe again; they want to be ready. To Ivan, they're mostly all the same. Arrogant, naive young boys desperate to prove themselves and on a fool's hunt for glory, which they are still youthful enough to believe can be found in battle.
He goes on working, not bothering more than a glance up as they enter Hangar 2 (2 of 4) and toss gear back and forth, strapping on helmets and goggles, raring to get up into the sky. They throw open the hangar door and drag their planes out onto the tarmac. Ivan tunes out the noise of them and bolts a new nut onto the wing of an older biplane.
It's only when a voice of a different pitch reaches his ears that he reacts; he knows that voice, and what plane the voice will seek. He quickly hops down and moves off to the next plane, positioning himself on the far side of it so he can watch, but also duck behind the body if necessary. The whole thing is patently idiotic and he feels like a numbskull schoolboy doing it, but he does it anyway. It can't hurt to take precautions.
There is once voice, amongst the rest, which is not the high tenor of a prepubescent boy, nor the smooth bass of one finally crossing into manhood. There is one, which is a woman's voice. Because there is but one woman at the airfield. Ivan doesn't know her name, but he knows her face and he knows her plane. He can pick her out from amongst the others no matter how high they charge; he can tell just from the way she flies her plane.
The liberal young pilots she spends her time with dubbed her "The Freedom Fighter"—Ivan is about 60% sure it has something to do with her protesting for women's rights, but he can't be entirely sure, since he's never actually spoken to her. In any case, she liked the nickname so much she painted it on the side of her plane in red, white and blue. It makes it quite easy to pick her plane out amongst the others, even if he hadn't already memorized what it looked like.
As he peeks over the edge of the plan, feigning fixing a loose bolt, he can see her bounce into view—and bounce she does. There's no limit on the Freedom Fighter's energy; she's always zipping from one thing to the next, exuding confidence and zeal wherever she went. Her short blonde hair curls around her face, curls jostling about as she makes her way to her plane with a swift step, throwing words over her shoulder to a companion. At last she turns forward and Ivan catches a glimpse of the brightest, bluest eyes he's ever seen in his life before she pulls her goggles down over them and prepares the plane for flight.
This, of course, is the reason Ivan has been content here as long as he has. He had been becoming discontented with it for some time when, like a star blazing across the sky, the Freedom Fighter dropped in and lit a firecracker into the darkness of his existence. He was always terrified she'd drop out of it as quickly as she had flown in, but so far (for the past year and a half or so) she seemed fairly stable here. He always put a bit of extra effort into caring for her plane, though that was hard, since she was so dedicated to it herself. All the men who knew her said it was a shame she couldn't have flown in the Great War; that America would have whooped the Huns even faster. Ivan could believe that.
In fact, from what he'd seen of her, he wouldn't entirely put it past her to disguise herself as a man and go in if America went to war again.
The rest of the day passes without much event; he goes from hangar to hangar performing basic maintenance on all the planes, save for a few that required a real job on them. He catches a few glimpses of the Freedom Fighter out in the sky before she brings her plane back and heads home for the day, exchanging jests with a few young men whose names Ivan never bothered to learn, even though they've been coming by for far longer than she has.
The sun starts to descend and Ivan puts his things away, climbs back into the car and drives off. Back home, a thickset brown cat is waiting on the doorstep. It doesn't meow when he approaches, but rises to its feet and looks hopefully up at him. He closes the door without letting it in.
Ivan no longer keeps pets; he'd hurt one or two in a drunken rage when he was much younger and since then was too afraid to cause any more damage if he did drink to excess around an animal again. So instead he leaves food outside for the cat and lets it sleep beneath the eaves if it wants. He pours some milk into a bowl now and sets it out on the doorstep, where the cat was still waiting. It begins to lap up the milk and when Ivan returns to the stoop later, the bowl is empty, though the cat is nowhere to be seen.
Relieved and yet disappointed, Ivan collects the bowl and washes it with the rest of the dishes before retiring to his creaky old bed.
The next morning the cycle repeats.
And repeats.
And repeats.
And.
And.
And.
Tighten a bolt on the tail.
Refill a deflated wheel.
Watch the Freedom Fighter.
Avoid Damian, who is German and hates Russians.
Leave out scraps for The Cat.
Repaint the nose.
Watch the Freedom Fighter.
Put ice on a sore, aching knee.
Fix a torn wing.
Watch the Freedom Fighter.
Watch the Freedom Fighter.
Watch.
Watch.
Wish.
Until one day something changes.
And that thing begins with the Freedom Fighter showing up bright and early at the crack of dawn, before anyone else is there. Save for Ivan, of course, who prefers to get as much done before the arrival of any pilots as possible. In fact, he's not even entirely sure the airfield is open this early, but he's hardly going to kick her out.
He's so not expecting anyone that he doesn't even hear her come in; he's completely absorbed in changing the nuts on the wheels of her plane. They don't really need it, but these ones are getting rusty and they'd be harder for her to remove if she needed to take the wheel off or change it. She actually watches him for some time before speaking, and when she does, she startles him so badly he nearly falls off the bucket he'd been using as a seat. Spinning around, he confirms that it's the Freedom Fighter speaking to him and proceeds to nearly pass out. He hasn't felt this panicked since seeing the Germans barrel towards their trenches on the Russian boarder.
"You take care of my plane an awful lot," she says. He stares at her dumbly, unable to even fumble for something to say; his mind has simply gone blank. It appears she expects a response and when he does not give one, she goes on. "More than the rest of them, I think."
Oh, hell. Oh, hell. She's got him now; she's going to say something, tell him to leave her alone, to stay away from her plane; if she says anything to his boss, he'd be out so fast it'd make his head spin. The formerly friendly relationship the United States had with Russia is deteriorating like paper in water and it would be no great loss to anyone if they had to find a more American mechanic.
Now he is struggling for something, anything to say, to defend himself, excuse himself. She gives him a bit of a curious look, no doubt thinking he might be touched in the head by now.
"Well I appreciate it," she says at last, removing her hands from her hips, where they had been resting until now. Up close he can see she wears a bomber jacket on top of her unusual pants and blouse combination. When he still says nothing, she frowns a bit. "Do you…speak English?" she asks, her eyebrows furrowing slightly, no doubt wondering if she had been wasting her time with this conversation entirely.
"Da!" he exclaims helpfully, in his haste to assure her he can understand her blowing past English entirely. He winces. "Yes!" he corrects himself hastily. "Yes, I speak…English." Great. Just great Braginsky; this is going just wonderfully. He twists the wrench around in his hand, for a moment too taken in by seeing her brilliant blue eyes up close to think of anything intelligible to say in English OR Russian. At length he says, "I did not think you noticed." The Freedom Fighter hesitates a moment as well before replying.
"I did. Thank you." She nods. "I was actually hoping to catch you here…there's a panel on my wing I damaged yesterday; Thomas bumped into me; it's not too bad, but I should change it and I can't hold it and bolt it at the same time."
Already he is nodding.
"D—yes, I can help with that," he replies, rising to his feet.
"Swell!" She grinned and Ivan flung out a hand to grasp at the plane to keep himself on his feet. "I left the extra panel right over there!" She gestured and then hurried off to grab it. Ivan stood there and kept repeating over and over in his head "I'm talking to her."
She returns with the panel and an extra ladder. With one of them on each side, Ivan holds the panel in place so the Freedom Fighter can fix it on and do away with the damaged one. He keeps trying to think of something to say to her, but trashes everything he comes up with, or wimps out before he can actually say it. He feels a bit like a coward, but being so close to her is absolutely intoxicating and he doesn't want to open his mouth just to say something stupid and ruin the first conversation he's ever had with her. Fortunately it seems she's a bit of a chatterbox and talks plenty without needing much of a reply or response from Ivan. At last the wing is repaired and she looks up with a cheery expression, thanking him for his help.
"I'm Amelia," she adds, thrusting her hand out for him to shake, never mind the grease on it. He takes it without hesitation, enveloping her small hand in his massive paw. "Amelia F. Jones. Thanks a lot for your help, sir!"
"Of course!" He nods stupidly and shakes her hand, not even thinking to offer his name in return. She stares.
"What should I call you?" she asks when it appears that he is not going to say anything else. His first thought is to marvel that she wants to call him anything. But when the silence begins to stretch on again, he hastens to answer.
"Ivan," he said. "Call me Ivan."
"Ivan, huh?" He can already hear his name sliding from its proper pronunciation "Eey-vuhn" into "Eye-van", as most English speakers call him, but in this case he doesn't mind so much. In fact, he's fairly sure he wouldn't care what Amelia called him, as long as she called him. "Well it was nice to meet you, Ivan!" she said, giving his hand a firm shake before leaping down from her ladder. "And thanks again for your help!" She's off putting things away and Ivan moves slowly away from the plane, gathering up his things to move on to the next one as she pushes hers out to fly.
Amelia. Her name is Amelia. Amelia Jones. As he polishes a small plane windshield, he watches her prepare her plane out on the tarmac in wonder, thinking that Amelia is quite possibly the most beautiful word he's ever heard in his life.
Amelia.
He's in love with Amelia.
Good to know for future disappointment.