Not every family owned a airplane, and most families that did certainly didn't own a World War II Combat Aircraft, but the Summers family did. Yes sir, Christopher Summers's de Havilland Mosquito, which he had rebuilt himself from almost the ground up, was his pride and joy. Sometimes his wife Katherine pondered to herself whether the day their children were born was the best day of Christopher's life like he said it was, or the day he found the plane for auction in an old junkyard.

Yes, their children, That's who this story focuses on though;

Alex, their firstborn son, who was ten, and Scott, the second-born, who was six, though only a few short days away from turning seven, so a three year difference was between them.

There was another child on the way, who was a boy and didn't have a name yet and was probably only a few days away from being born, though the parents were reluctant to tell either of the two boys about this as Scott and the new baby were most likely going to have disastrously close birthdays, which meant less presents between them and Scott would not like that at all.

The brothers sat in their seats in their winter coats and Scott murmured about how cool the plane was and made machine gun noises and machine gun motions and talked about how he was going to join the air force like his Dad one day, which got a chuckle out of Christopher and a smile out of Katherine and an annoyed sigh out of Alex because even though he loved his little brother very much Scott had told him this exact thing five times in the last hour and it was getting rather repetitive.

They'd just been on a camping trip, a fun one, and were returning home up the coast to Alaska, and Scott was starting to get tired as six year olds do and just as they got rather close to home a large 'thunk' could be heard and a flash of red could be seen and this obviously meant something not very good was about to happen and ruin their nice flight back to Alaska.

Being children, Scott and Alex didn't really know what was happening other than it was bad and Dad was yelling and so was their Mother;

"WHY did you have to buy a old piece of junk like this, Christopher?"

"Well, Katherine, I hate to say it but a unknown projectile, hitting the plane doesn't have to do with it's age... was that debris? Oh god, oh god, Kathy- We're going to die."

- and that the roof of the plane had been torn off and just as Christopher had gotten some kind of control of it, the controls burst into flames and they knew they didn't really have any other option than what Chris and Katherine were about to do.

Grabbing a hold of the rather frightened Alex, they quickly explained to him the situation, "We don't know what's happening, we think we've been hit by something, but there's no chance of the plane surviving, you have to listen to me, and take care of your brother, Alex." Katherine had said, clipping the parachute around him, she pushed Scott into his arms and then tied the two together.

Within a few moments they were standing at the edge of the doorway and mostly all that could be seen is flame and the forest below.

"Scott," Christopher started "Keep a very tight hold of your Brother for me, okay?" Scott nodded in reply, and as the parents gave their last goodbyes and their last "I love you", Katherine pushed them out of the plane and they went plummeting down, down, down, down. Alex, trying to push back his panic, though he could feel it in his throat and he could feel the force of the wind making his skin feel like it was burning, kept relatively calm and collected, which his younger brother most certainly wasn't doing as he was crying probably the most he'd ever cried in his life, and constantly letting go to wipe his nose which this really wasn't the place to be doing that.

"You've gotta hold on tight, Scotty. Dad said so- Oh, He-..hot dogs-" He quickly pulled the parachute cord and out it came which made their fall slower, but as he complained once again about Scott not holding on tight enough he noticed that the parachute they were trusting their lives on was now burning into a crisp and they went back to plummeting down and down and down, and then Alex got flipped in the air and they crashed into the dirt and it started raining heavily as anything and as he regained a grip on himself, he noticed Scott-who had got separated from him during the landing and was about a meter away- was oddly silent and his usually light brown hair was now looking rather.. Cherry red. Alarm bells went off in his head, that's for sure. Alex coughed and spluttered and crawled over to Scott and he rolled him over, "Scotty?"

"Mm.. Aalex, whas' happen'? Wassat?"

He pulled Scott onto his lap and held him, pushing him forward quickly to inspect the back of his head. Blood. A lot of it. "Oh... god." His skull was.. cracked like a damn egg. Who knows if he'd even survive. He choked. "N-nothing- what'd you say, Scotty? Oh.. shoot, shoot-" His parents weren't around, why was Alex still censoring himself? He probably was never seeing his parents again, he should just let himself swear, he thought.

"Whas' happen'?"

"... Uh, you.. I don't know what you're- it's okay, doesn't matter." He could feel tears welling up, and he pulled Scott closer to him and held him as tight as he could and wished that this would all be a dream. "Do you feel okay? And be honest, man."

"... 'M fine, yeah, I'm good." Scott looked rather contented, and he closed his eyes "Can I sleep.. 'm gonna sleep."

Alex shook him, "No, Scott, you can't sleep, stay awake, okay? Please? Look, your nose is runnin'.. c'mon." He pulled his sleeve down and wiped Scott's nose with it, "There, now you're good."

"Heuh.. Booger lover.. You touched snot. Germss.."

"... I sure did." He felt oddly offended by this.

Even at a time like this, Scott was still only six... and Alex was still only ten.

Alex started to cry, he couldn't even help it, he just sat there in the cold and held Scott and sniffled and then noticed that Scott had gone limper than he already was and that he'd fallen asleep so he finally let himself panic and he shook him and he yelled at him and hoped he'd wake up but he didn't so he bawled his eyes out and waited for what felt like days, but was in reality was only about an hour, when he saw what was a literal light in the darkness, two campers- a man and a woman- with a large torch were there to save the day.

It wasn't like a day like this could be saved, though. Not when Scott was probably dead, and if he wasn't dead he was probably brain-dead, and so were his parents and he'd never get to go home again and Alex really really didn't like this at all.

As the two were being carried away, Alex started thinking again. Why was he stopping himself from swearing?

For Scott. He was doing it for Scott.