A/N: I'm so sorry for not updating BlackFalcon, so much is going on it's not even funny. School's starting in five days, and I have to finish my homework (because, being the lazy person I am, waited until the last second)... :| And then my beta got sick... So... yeah. Hopefully it'll be out this weekend! :o So enjoy this look into Verena's past! Inspired by the song I Will Remember You by Ryan Cabrera.
THIRD PERSON
A tinkling laughter filled the open area of Blackhawk Island. The leaves of the trees blew against the wind, carrying the sound through the ears of the two adults that littered around. The sun shone brightly above them all, emitting a slight warm that was indeed the warm summer air.
Smiles were formed at the corner of the adults' lips as they heard the sound, especially one's in particular.
A young woman, almost at the age of thirty, but don't ever tell her that, feigned a confused look. She looked over at her best friend, a young brunette, her sapphire eyes glowing in amusement. "Did you hear something, Nat?"
The woman's friend, Captain Natalie Reed, smiled and looked at her friend with her one visible eye, as the other was covered by an eye patch. "I think I did. I'm not sure. Hey, where's the little runt?"
"I'm not a runt!" a small voice exclaimed from the trees.
Natalie turned her head, her brown eye searching the trees. She smiled when she spotted a young blonde girl, no older than five, standing in between two trees.
The little girl's shoulder length wavy blonde hair, much similar to her mother's, blew against the soft wind, and her green eyes were sparkling, but her cute little mouth was set into a small pout.
'Oh, we have to work on that poker face,' Natalie thought to herself.
"There you are, Verena!" Captain Zinda Blake exclaimed. "I've been looking everywhere for you!"
"No, you haven't, Mommy," the girl refuted. "I've been up in that tree for the past half hour. You were just talking to Auntie Nat." Despite her mother's fib, she happily ran right into the woman's arms. Zinda scooped up her daughter easily, propping the tiny girl on her hip.
"You've been climbing trees?" Zinda inquired, looking at her daughter. She didn't know if she should be proud her daughter could climb fifty-foot-tall trees or terrified that she was climbing them unsupervised.
Verena nodded excitedly, her little curls bouncing as she did so. "Uncle Olaf showed me! I can climb up to that branch!" She pointed a small finger to the fifth branch of one of the trees, which was easily about twenty feet off the ground. "He said I can't climb more unless he's there though…"
Well, at least the Danish pilot placed some rules.
Natalie let out a low whistle. "That's impressive," she commented. "I was still playing with Barbie dolls when I was your age."
Verena wrinkled her nose. "Why? Planes are so much cooler."
"That is absolutely correct!" a male voice exclaimed, approaching the three females. "You're such a smart girl, Verena!"
Major Janos Prohaska, the Polish leader of the Blackhawk Squadron, smiled down fondly at the little girl. "Dzień dobry!" Verena greeted, smiling brightly as she greeted the man in his native tongue.
"Dzień dobry," Janos gave his morning greeting to the little blonde. "Your pronunciation's getting better, malenka."
"No!" Natalie protested. "Speak Russian, Verena! Not Polish!"
"Dobroye utro!" Verena said happily, and Natalie smiled, pleased.
"Can you guys not try to cram twenty different languages into my five-year-old daughter's head?" Zinda asked. Then she looked at her daughter, "If it's too much, just say it, okay?"
Verena cocked her head to the side, confused. "But it's easy, Mommy. And it's not twenty! It's… it's…" Verena trailed off, mentally thinking. She stuck out her fingers and counted, "One… two… three…" and mumbled some more before exclaiming, "Thirteen!"
Of course, she was by no means fluent in the languages, but she could understand and reply a good chunk. That's my girl.
I was only fluent in five languages (English, Danish, Polish, Russian, and Hawaiian), but I could order beer in thirty different languages. Good enough for me.
Figures my daughter would inherit her father's intelligence… and eyes. But that's it.
"You totally just spaced out," Natalie pointed out, just as I began to refocus.
I quirked an eyebrow at her and said, "Yeah. Just thinking about some things."
"Chop-Chop's fixing up a plane right now," Janos said, changing the topic.
"Ooh!" Verena exclaimed, almost jumping out of her mom's arms. "Can I go?!"
Zinda smiled and nodded her head. "Go ahead, Rena." She placed her daughter on the ground, who immediately rushed off to the hangar. "Don't get in the way though, okay?! Listen to them!"
"Okay!" Verena cried back, just before disappearing out of sight.
"Boy, does she have a set of legs on her," Natalie commented, smiling fondly. The other two nodded before Janos briefed them on a mission.
In the meantime, Verena was making her way into the main Blackhawk hangar. It was open and quite loud as various members worked on refilling their tanks and making sure everything was perfect for their next take-off.
"Chop-Chop!" Verena cried, hoping the male she was looking for could hear her.
"Over here!"
Verena almost lost her footing when she turned abruptly, but caught herself. Though, she didn't go unnoticed, and some Blackhawks chuckled under their breaths as they worked.
The little blonde ran over to where she heard the voice, and spotted a young male, no more than twenty, looking up and down at a jet.
The boy was of Asian descent, Chinese, to be exact. His brown eyes focused on the jet, but his ears focused on the girl's footsteps.
"Chop-Chop!"
At the sound of his nickname, Lieutenant Weng Chan, known to everyone as Chop-Chop, turned around. He smiled and bent down to look at the girl, "Zǎo ān, Verena."
"Zǎo ān!" Verena greeted, hugging Chop-Chop quickly before looking at the jet. "Whatcha doin'?"
"Stan said the jet was a bit wacky, as he put it, as he took the jet for a test flight earlier this morning," Chop-Chop explained. He said it was somewhere in the head of the jet, and I'm trying to find out where exactly, that way I don't have to dismantle the entire thing."
"But what if you end up having to?" Verena inquired, cocking her head to the side. "Wouldn't it be better to just take it all out now?"
"I suppose…" Chop-Chop mused. "But do you think you can go in there and turn on the jet for me?" He didn't miss the way the young girl's forest-colored eyes sparkled. "You up for it?"
"Yes!" Verena exclaimed happily. She ran inside the jet, having a bit of trouble climbing up the rather tall steps, and entered the interior of the jet. She ran over to the controls and looked at the various flips, dials, switches, and buttons.
She furrowed her brows, trying to remember which jet this was and which required to be turned on. She sat down in the pilot's seat for a second and crossed her arms, her brows furrowing in contemplation.
"It's an A-10 Thunderbolt II…" she mumbled to herself, remembering the slick body of the jet, but the large wings. "It's an attack aircraft, so…" She envisioned herself pressing the wrong switch and blowing up the jet. Well, that wouldn't be good. She really had to think hard.
A minute later, she snapped up, and flipped and pressed a couple of switches and buttons, and the jet hummed to life. She gave a satisfied grin to herself. "Verena wins!"
She poked her jet out of the door and was greeted with the sight of Chop-Chop smiling. "Good job," he complimented.
"I could have made the building go boom!" Verena exclaimed, throwing her arms up in emphasis in a firework motion. "Why did you let me turn on the jet?!"
"Because you wouldn't have," Chop-Chop answered confidently. "And you wouldn't have turned it on if you couldn't remember, right?" He looked at the girl.
It was Rule #1: If you can't remember how to work something, don't.
Verena nodded, confirming that she wouldn't have turned it on.
There was a slight whirring sound that to the untrained ear, sounded just like the rest of the jet. Chop-Chop's ears, however, picked up the different pitch. He walked around the jet, rubbing his hand over the slick, smooth surface.
Verena watched quietly, as she had picked it up as well. It was high-pitched compared to the low rumble the sound the Thunderbird would usually give off. "Found it," Chop-Chop declared after a few minutes. "Turn off the jet for me?"
Verena nodded, running back inside the jet. She flipped off all the switches and buttons before skipping out of the jet, down the stairs, and so she was next to Chop-Chop.
Footsteps were heard approaching the two, causing Verena to turn around and look up. A wide smile lit onto her face and she exclaimed, "Uncle Hendi!" She ran to the oldest member of the Blackhawks and circled her arms around his legs.
Captain Ritter Hendrickson bent down and patted the girl's head, his white mustache rising as he gave a small smile. "Goede morgen, Verena. Ready for our lesson?"
"What lesson?" Chop-Chop asked, pulling out his laptop. He was going to check the blueprints of the jet to double-check before he started working.
"Shooting!" Verena jumped. "A semi-auto!"
Chop-Chop raised an eyebrow at the Dutch marksman. "Which one?"
"A .22 caliber," Hendrickson replied. "But only if she can assemble one."
"I practiced!" Verena exclaimed proudly. Her mother had let her borrow her .22 caliber (unloaded, of course) the night before, and she had practiced disassembling and assembling it. If anything, the little girl was nothing but confident.
"Hop on it then, kid," Hendrickson said.
Verena straightened up, locking her heels together and giving him a salute. "Yes, sir!" she exclaimed before dashing off.
Hendrickson and Chop-Chop took a quick glance at each other and let out low laughs before the older man walked off after the little girl.
He quickly found her in a private shooting room, bouncing on her toes excitedly. He chuckled and unhooked the .22 caliber from his hip, handing the girl the gun.
Just before Verena could grab it, Hendrickson pulled the gun away from her reach. "What's the first rule?"
"Always treat a gun as if it was loaded," Verena dutifully replied.
Hendrickson gave an approving nod. "That gun really is loaded, alright? First things first: disassemble it." He pointed to a nearby table and Verena did as she was told.
Her eyes completely focused on the slick weapon in her hands as they worked as fast as possible, disassembling the gun to pieces so it was useless.
"Good," Hendrickson nodded. "Now put on some protection before assembling and then shooting that target." He pointed over to where there was a shooting target silhouette.
Verena skipped over to where the eye and ear protections were, and grabbed her customized earmuffs and glasses. She slipped them on easily, as this wasn't her first time. She shot her first gun when she was four, after all. As she bounced back to the table, she saw Hendrickson was already wearing earmuffs and his own glasses.
She looked at the parts of the gun and grasped the handle of the gun, and began to work. She grabbed the spring first, sliding it in before placing the barrel around it. Grabbing the magazine, she slipped the bullets in before pushing it up the butt of the gun.
Verena turned off the safety, aimed, squinted, and fired. She her faint bangs as she shot, and the recoil forced her wrist back, causing her aim to be slightly off. Realizing that it did that, she adjusted her aim without losing her rhythm and fired rapidly.
When all the bullets were gone, Verena sighed and pulled off her earmuffs and glasses, before looking up at the silhouette. With her keen eyesight, she saw that the first bullet had it in the eight zone above the X.
Two bullets landed in the nine zone. Two others landed inside the circle, near the X in the center. A smile appeared on her face when she noticed that the location of the X was nothing but a hole, showing that she had hit her target.
"Oh, good job!" she heard a voice exclaim, before she was scooped up from the ground.
Verena let out a happy laugh and wrapped her arms around her mother's neck, as Zinda nuzzled and kissed her daughter proudly. Verena had been so focused that she hadn't noticed her earlier.
Zinda pulled away from her daughter after kissing her forehead and looked at Verena, smiling brightly. Her ocean blue eyes shined brightly and she pulled the little girl close to her.
"I'm so proud of you," Zinda muttered quietly, intending the words to be for her daughter's ears only.
VERENA BLAKE
I opened my eyes and blinked, adjusting to the brightness of my room. I heard the shower running in the bathroom, and realized Dick was in the shower.
I looked up at the ceiling, the light blue simply staring back at me.
Has it really been eight years?
A glance at the calendar that had the year 2011, which confirmed my thoughts. Wow. Eight years since that memory. Four years since I've left Blackhawk Island.
"Morning, Sleeping Beauty," a voice drawled.
I rolled my body, too lazy to sit up, and saw Dick leaning against the doorframe of the bathroom, a pair of jeans hanging low on his hips and a towel draped around his neck.
I watched as a drop of water dripped from the tips of his bangs, landing on his chest, sliding down his light scars, before hitting the waistband of his jeans.
I glanced back up and saw him smirking. I flushed.
"It's okay," he brushed off easily. "I check you out all the time."
That only forced my cheeks to redden even more and I grabbed a pillow, chucking it in his general direction.
When I heard his bratty laugh in a different location than where I threw the pillow, I knew I had missed my target. I glanced at my nightstand, and saw the picture of the Blackhawks and me from my ninth birthday.
'I miss you guys,' I said silently in my head. 'But I'm happy where I am right now. I'll always remember you guys.'
A/N: I was going to write about many other Blackhawks, but I didn't want it to be too long (because that also means that it'll take longer to post), so I'll probably save that for another day. :P Remember to review~ ;)