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Fanfiction of Fallon Lewis's characters and basic concept. I do not own these characters: Kooper, Henry and Fallon. Please feel free to review with criticisms, suggestions and requests.

The Crash

Kooper had grown up in a family with strong opinions and beliefs: you go to church every Sunday and you beg the Lord for forgiveness of your sins during confession; you vote Republican or you were a traitor to America; and most relevant to the current political situation, Communism was evil. So, when he decided to join the military, his family had been immensely proud of him. He'd been watching the Vietnam War unfold on the television for the past decade, and had been eager to join when he'd turned eighteen, but at the time his father's wartime injuries from the Nazi war had been acting up and Koop couldn't just leave the ranch. It had taken three years to help put the ranch in a place where Koop could put familial responsibility aside and see to his patriotic duties.

Basic training had been hell, but the strict way his father had run the house had prepared him surprisingly well. It pushed him to his limits, but all that hard work meant that he did better than any of the other recruits. His fellow soldiers had asked him why he'd joined the Air Cavalry when he was so keen on serving his country. Many of them had joined to avoid being drafted as infantry; less likely to get killed that way, they insisted. Koop had thought about joining the Marines as a grunt. He had no qualms about laying down his life and killing Commies but the years he'd spent daydreaming about traversing the sky had been nagging him at the back of his mind when he'd been at the recruiters. Such delight overwhelmed him when the recruiter had mentioned offhand a position as a helicopter pilot was open that Koop found himself interrupting the monotone droll of the man to say breathlessly, "That one. I want that one."

The recruiter snapped out of the uninterested expression he'd settled into once he had realized that Koop didn't need convincing to joining the military. He glanced back at the list of positions he'd been mindlessly repeating and asked, "The engineers?"

"No, the helicopter pilot," Koop had said eagerly.

"You got any experience with flying?" the recruiter eyed him, not trusting the sudden excitement in the man.

"I cleaned the planes in the airfield as a kid and the pilots would teach me the controls instead of paying me," Kooper explained.

"But you've never taken a bird into the sky, have you?" the man bit on his dirty toothpick.

"No sir," Koop admitted.

The recruiter gave him a long considering gaze, but then shrugged, "Fine. Birdie pilot it is, kid."

The day he'd been fully trained and wore the sleeve patch of the 1st Air Cavalry Division had been the proudest day of his life. He was finally able to lay his life down for his country. He was sent to Vietnam the next day and had been a dedicated soldier since - focusing on transporting troops and supplies in and out of combat zones and serving his role in the war against the Commies. He'd settled into a comfortable routine, got to know his fellow soldiers and was known as a reliable pilot that wouldn't bail at the first sign of trouble; the troops knew that when Kooper Royle was sent for the extraction, he was going to try his damndest to make sure no soldier got left behind. He was shamelessly proud of that reputation, though he'd never admit it.

That pride turned to folly so slowly that he never realized he was taking it too far until it was much too late. In a moment of arrogance, he kept the helicopter hovering just that moment too long and they were hit.

He tried to veer them to safety by steering the smoking helicopter away from the combat zone, but the controls just weren't responding like they should've been. There wasn't time for anxiety and fear as Koop's mind focused on a single goal - survival. There were six other soldiers in the bird with him and their lives were in his hands, now more than ever.

He pushed the last of the fuel through the engine in a big spurt which lurched the helicopter forward; the blades whirring and whining with the sudden strain. The entire left side assembly was useless, but he used what little the right side could do to aim them towards the canopy of a thatch of trees. There was screaming in the copter from the passengers who were demanding to know what was going on, but Koop had no time to waste on their fearful questions if he wanted them all to live through this. He cut the fuel so that it was only momentum that carried them forward.

"Hold onto something!" he snapped. His grip on the controls was already so tight that his knuckles were white and a vein in his neck stood out from the strain. The crash into the treetops rocked the copter and Koop could hear the tail snap off. The blades kept whirring for a long, long minute; chopping the trees and throwing the debris through the windows and doors. Even before they could slow down, the pressure of colliding against bark and tree trunk was crushing the delicate blades even as they decimated the tree - like a dark caricature of mutual destruction.

There was groaning behind him, meaning that at least someone had survived. Holding tightly to the frame of the helicopter, he tried to unbuckle himself only to find that his seatbelt had seized. He reached for the blade he kept tied against his seat. He swore when he couldn't feel it in its place. He didn't have time to wonder where it had flown off to. He needed to get out of the helicopter and get his passengers safely out of there before the Charlies - one of the slang names for the Viet Cong soldiers - got to them. It didn't matter that his heli was trashed, he was still the one that was supposed to get them back safe dammit.

"Hey, pull your shit together soldier," the voice finally permeated through his anxiety and panic. He turned his head to blink at the medic who was trying to get him to calm down. Once he had Koop's attention, Henry asked, "Can you move?"

Koop momentarily admired the way Henry's trained eyes were watching his pupillary response and his hands were checking his pulse at the side of his throat. That's right, they just needed to fall back on their training right now. Pleased that his voice was calmer than his mind, Koop responded, "The belt's stuck and my knife's flown out."

"I'll cut you loose," Henry nodded. "Stay still. The belt is tight. Any tighter and it'll start cutting off your circulation real fast." Koop nodded as Henry pulled out his knife and awkwardly reached around to Koop's front from behind the seat to cut him loose. The near side wasn't an issue as Henry's sharp blade shredded the belt fibres after a couple sharp slides of the blade, but the far side was going to be harder.

"I'll get it," Koop started to say, but then hissed in pain. He glanced down at his side and the bloodstain finally registered along with the pain.

"I told you to stay still," Henry snapped. "You've probably got a broken rib or two with the way you smashed against that lever. I got this." Henry squeezed in between the lever and Koop, intent on reaching Koop's far side in the tight space with tree branches poking through the windows on all sides of them. Luckily none of them had speared the pilot.

Breathing had gotten a little harder since his injury had registered, so Koop held his breath for a moment. Henry pressed closer and that's when the helicopter lurched. A tree branch had given way and the back of the helicopter fell another two feet. Koop grabbed onto Henry as the angle of the floor changed abruptly so that the medic didn't slide down. He would've smashed into the back of the helicopter or fallen down to his death.

And for a moment Koop wished he had. He had the strangest sensation that Henry had breasts… The man was crushed against him, with Koop's shoulders resting firmly in what felt like a valley on the man's chest.

Kooper Royle, he chided to himself, you have clearly been without a good woman for too long.

Koop and Henry were the last one on the ground. They took a minute to catch their breath and as Koop turned around to thank Henry for the rescue, the medic was mysteriously gone.

His attention was momentarily distracted by the other five soldiers he didn't recognize trying to figure out which way they should be hiking. Koop put his two cents in, having been the last one to see the lay of the land in the air. By the time Henry came back from behind the cover of some other trees, the others had made a plan.

"Where'd you go?" Koop asked.

"Just needed to take a piss," Henry waved off his question. "Let me take a look at that before we head out."

Koop frowned at the explanation as the medic took a look at his wound. The way Henry had been adjusting his shirt on the way back didn't jive with stepping out to take care of business. The knockers, his mind reminded him, but he reprimanded his foolish mind for taking a pain induced fancy as reality.

He had broken three ribs, Henry declared, but had proceeded to quickly set them, staunch the blood flow and advised him to speak up when the pain got bad. Henry revealed, "I have some pills for the pain, but not many. We'll stretch them out as long as we can so I'll give you one when you think you really need it."

They started the hike soon after, not wanting the Charlies to find them. The smoking helicopter above them was quite the red arrow pointing at them, after all. In accordance with Koop's intel, they were heading towards a U.S. outpost not too far from their current location, but it was already late in the day and it would probably take them until the next afternoon to reach it. Walking around these jungles at night was just asking to get lost, so when the sun disappeared, they looked for a place to hide.

By the side of a stream, the roots of the trees stuck out where the ground had shifted and the water had swept away the dirt only to leave smooth wooden caves behind. The spaces weren't big so they split up into a couple different trees in pairs. Koop found himself sharing his accommodations with Henry.

"When's room service coming, do ya think?" Koop joked, trying to keep his spirits up and his mind off the pain in his chest.

"Here, take one of these," Henry offered a pill and his water canteen.

"Nah, don't need one," Koop shook his head. "Give it to one of the others."

"The others have scrapes and bumps, not a bone sticking through their skin and another two pincering their lung," Henry replied sardonically. "Take the damn pill."

"Yes, medic sir," Koop grinned, taking the offered pill and washing it down. He was quite relieved at Henry's insistence, even though he'd been trying to refuse the offer earlier. They hadn't managed to salvage much food from the accident and they didn't dare light a fire, so they were sharing a cold ration as they listened to the water trickle by and glimpsed at the part of the starry sky they could see from their position.

"You should get some rest," Henry advised. "We still have quite the hike tomorrow."

"Right," Koop nodded. He leaned up against the side of the tree wall with his uninjured side, not wanting to lie down and fall into a deep sleep only to roll onto his injured side and do some unwitting damage. He was out before he knew it.

He awoke with a start later that night as an arrow of pain jabbed his ribs. He adjusted his position so that the pressure was alleviated and turned to Henry with thoughts of asking for another pill.

But Henry was curled up on the ground nearby, sound asleep. It took him a few minutes to really process what he was seeing but his mouth fell into a gape almost immediately. Henry's shirt had been somewhat damaged in the crash and the buttons had popped off. It wasn't a big deal while they were upright, but from this angle it was easy to see down the shirt.

And he could see straight to the wraps of cloth tightly binding her breasts.