Author's note: Hi! Up with my new chapter. Please do review my story and tell me what you think. The review rate recently has been quite discouraging...not many people reviewed. :( Hope you like this chapter, and remember to review! You don't need to be a member of to submit a review, and it doesn't take very long. Do, do review! Alright, I think it would be kind of repetitive if I keep mentioning in the beginning of my chapters that Rafe, Danny and Evelyn are from the movie and the rest of the characters are mine. So I shall put it here once and for all. Rafe, Danny, Evelyn, Red, Gooz, Danny's father, Danny's son are from the movie. Other than these characters, the other characters are mine. I will mention others from the movie if I include them in my story, but other than that, I wouldn't be putting notes like this before my chapters so you can enjoy my story better.


Chapter 4

The sun blazed a glorious red as it began its slow descent from the sky. Everywhere, buildings, vehicles, people, and the sea were bathed in the last rays of the day. A lone figure sat on a rock under a palm tree, looking out on the beach, watching children play in the sand. A small wistful smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as Danny thought of his child. He didn't even know if his child was a boy or a girl. He hadn't had time to find that out before he left. In fact, other than knowing he had a child, he didn't know anything else, not even the name. Just the knowledge that he had a child…

A mother called out to her children on the beach, and two boys ran joyously over to her. She was carrying a baby girl in her arms, and somehow, Danny saw Evelyn in that image: carrying a baby in her arms and smiling happily as she walked back to her husband's side. Not him, of course. Rafe, his best friend, was the one going to be the father to his child, and the husband of the girl he loved.

Danny imagined his child, around one-year-old now, playing around in the sand, possibly in the wheat fields back in Tennessee, and he felt a pang of regret. He would never know his child. Nor would his child ever know him. That was what war did: break up families. The First World War had broken his own family. His father left to fight for the country and came back a changed man, and Danny hadn't had as happy a childhood as he hoped. If only his father hadn't fought in the war, things would have been different. He would have been a happy kid…If only there wasn't a war going on now…if only the war hadn't started… There were so many "if only"s that he could think of, but none of them would ever come true. Simply because what had happened had happened.

The sunset was so beautiful, but in his heart, the sunset at Pearl Harbor would always be the most beautiful of them all. Once, to cheer Evelyn up after they learnt about Rafe's supposed death, he had brought her up in his plane to watch the sunset. He had not done so since, because it reminded him too much of Evelyn, and of what he had lost…

Goodness, what was he doing? Danny shook himself fiercely, fighting back the memories that threatened to break through the careful barrier he had set up around himself a year before, when he left Pearl Harbor. It wasn't the first time he found himself lapsing into wishful thinking of the past, and how things might have been if he had done some things differently. Sometimes it had even become a habit, and a small thing like the accent of that waitress or watching the sunset could remind him of Pearl Harbor. How was he going to get on with his life like this?

He was doing just what he told Evelyn not to do, and that was to dwell on the past. Sometimes he forgot that he had a life to live here. Danny had made many hard choices in his life, and he had gotten over all of them. This one shouldn't be an exception. He could get over his feelings for Evelyn if he was determined enough to do it.

Deep down, Danny knew that his longing for the past was partly because he hadn't fully relinquished his feelings for Evelyn. In fact, he had been unwilling to. Evelyn was someone special to him, and so was Rafe. To have to give them up might have torn him apart, and if he dwelled on those thoughts any longer, it could have already torn him apart. Leaving had been his own choice, to make things better for everyone, so what was he doing making things difficult for himself? When he just left Pearl Harbor, everything was still fresh on his mind, and he could still be quite emotional when it comes to things related to his life there.

Now that he had a year to cool down, he was able to look at things in a much more logical way. It was just that he hadn't gotten down to doing it. Danny was aware that what he had been doing for the past year was avoid his past, as if that would do him any good.

That was not the way to deal with things. He, of all people, should know what to do to make the past less painful. Wasn't that what he did when he left his father so many years ago to join the army, despite his father's wishes otherwise? Even though his father had not been the model of an ideal father, he was still his father, but Danny was sure flying was what he wanted in his life, and so h made that choice. He had pursued his dreams, and though he never regretted his choice, he had to let go of the only relative he had left on Earth, and learning of his father's death soon after hadn't made things any better. For a period of time after that, he had avoided all talk of Tennessee, cutting himself off to prevent himself from feeling the pain of loss. It was only until a couple of months later that he forced himself to return to his hometown, and pay respects at his father's grave. Strangely enough, it made him feel a lot better to be able to stand there and tell his father about his life in the army. It hadn't hurt as much as he thought it would.

So that was what he was going to do now. The best way to let go of the past, was to face it. With new-found determination, Danny rose from his "seat", and strode purposefully towards the hangar. Nothing felt better than flying his plane, and that was just what he was going to do. The first thing he had to confront from his past was his feelings for Evelyn, and he had to get over that once and for all. He shouldn't allow his memories of Evelyn to stop him from taking his plane up at sunset to enjoy the view he loved so much. Evelyn would not have wanted that too.

He was going for a spin in the air, and no amount of rules against flying after 6.00pm was going to stop him.

Oh alright, he would make it short then. After all, he had never been one for breaking rules. Glancing at his watch as he strapped himself into the cockpit, he smiled and started gearing up. 15 minutes to go. This was going to some tight flying if he was going to get back on time. A challenge. He liked that. It wasn't as if he hadn't done it before.


Jeslyn closed her eyes and breathed in the cool sea breeze. She loved the way the breeze tugged at her curls. Her father used to look at her with the smile he reserved for her, and say, "You have your mother's hair." Subconsciously, she reached up and touched her hair, and a sad smile flicked across her lips. Then she raised her head up to look at the sky. It was a brilliant red by now. She loved coming to the beach just before the sunset, and she had been lucky to find an apartment near the beach. Softly, she whispered, "I love you, Daddy and Mummy."

A lone plane flew high overhead. Oh yes, the air base was somewhere near as well, and occasionally she got to see the pilots train when she wasn't at work. This must be one of them out for some late training…no, there never was any planes after 6.00pm. From what she heard from the pilots who frequented the pub, they are not allowed to train after 6.00pm. Though what was the reason for that rule she never understood. Frowning slightly, she looked at her watch. 5.50pm. The guy must be mad. No way was he going to get back on time, unless he was really fast. What was he doing, training at such a late hour?

She watched as the plane made loops in the air, rolled, spun…it didn't look like normal training. Sometimes she came down to the beach to watch the planes fly by during their training, and this was nothing like that. There would always be more than one plane, at least, if it were normal training. She had never seen anything like what the pilot was doing now.

No, wait. She had, Jeslyn realized. There had been a period of time, some months before Pearl Harbor was attacked, when she had watched a plane do something like that too: take off, fly around in some intricate complicated dance in the air and return to the base just before the training time is over. She had thought it was some kind of training, but it had been strange for training to involve only one plane.

The plane did similar stunts for a couple of days, and Jeslyn watched it everyday, growing to admire the pilot's skill, even though she didn't know anything about planes. After some time, the plane stopped coming. She never knew who the pilot was…could it be?

Eyes widening, she watched as this plane before her maneuvered out of a tight loop in the sky and did some other complicated looking stunts. So similar to the plane she watched back then…her mind flashed back to the pilot called Danny Walker. He was the only one she knew who came from Pearl Harbor. Could she have been watching him fly back then?

A few minutes before 6.00pm, the plane dipped its wings at the setting sun, looped around and flew back in the direction of the base.

Jeslyn got up slowly from the sand, brushing her jeans free of the sand. It was almost time for her shift to start.

She couldn't get the image of the plane out of her mind though. Looks like Dania was right. Dania had teased her about Walker since the day she found her staring at him standing in the entrance of the pub. Jeslyn had insisted it was nothing, that she was just curious to see someone from Pearl Harbor here, but Dania only laughed. "You won't forget about him so easily." She had said.

Yeah, true. Even if she wanted to forget about him, she couldn't. He wasn't giving her the chance. Maybe people call it intuition, but Jeslyn had this feeling that this wasn't going to be the last she saw of Walker.


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