Ripcord finally reached down and slowly turned the knobs of the shower, reluctantly killing the jet of hot water that had been running over him. He slowly stepped from the shower, grabbing a towel off of a small metal rack as he headed for the bathroom's sink. He quickly ran the towel over his body as he stepped in front of the large mirror just above the counter top, his eyes taking in the details of his war-weary body. His chest still looked like hell. The sight of the deep blue and black marks on his flesh caused an unintentional wince to cross the face of the paratrooper. As if that wasn't enough, there was the plastic and gauze that covered his left forearm. Ripcord didn't want to do what he had to do next. He had to check the damage. Ripcord carefully removed the plastic covering from the limb and set it aside while he picked up a pair of scissors from the counter top. Working very carefully he cut the bandages free, causing the soldier to wince as the bandages fell away and his forearm came into view. The mangled flesh had scabbed over and was even starting to fade to scar tissue in some places, but the sight was still gruesome enough to send a shutter through him. Ripcord quickly coated the destroyed skin in an anti-bacterial cream before rewrapping it in several layers of fresh gauze. As soon as he gauze was taped shut, he quickly placed the plastic covering back over the bandages as he tried to push the image of his damaged arm out of his head. He then scooped up his towel off of the counter top and wrapped it around his waist just before he reached for the door handle. Much to his surprise, the door swung open before his hand was anywhere near the knob. The door swung open to reveal Covergirl standing speechless in the doorway, clad only in a sports bra and panties, holding her shorts and a sweatshirt in one hand. Both soldiers froze as soon as their eyes fell on the other, both just standing wordlessly on opposite sides of the door frame. Ripcord let his eyes scan over Covergirl's body before for a quick moment before adverting his eyes. The female soldier did the same in addition to raising her sweater to cover herself as best as she could.
"Sorry, I thought... I didn't know anyone..." Covergirl stumbled through her incomplete string of short sentences.
"No, I was just leaving..." Ripcord responded quickly before he unintentionally trailed off. After another short moment had passed in silence, Covergirl broke it with a short laugh, which brought a small smile and a slight blush to her face.
"Well, this is awkward..." She started before shifting her eyes back towards him, swinging them down towards his chest. "Jeez, Wally, your ribs look like sh...look terrible." Her comment caused Ripcord to throw a quick glance down at his own chest before he shifted his gaze back towards her.
"It's fine. They're still sore but they're healing fast." He responded with a slow shrug of his shoulders.
"Good." She responded with a nod as she diverted her eyes away from his battered chest. "I was just going to take a quick shower, if it's okay."
"Oh..." Ripcord said with a shake of his head, suddenly realizing for the first time that he was in her way. "Yeah, be my guest." Almost immediately both of the two moved forward at the same time, bumping lightly into each other, causing them both to smile and shake their heads. "Sorry." he said again as he moved aside, allowing her to enter the small bathroom. With a glance at Covergirl, he quickly slipped out of the bathroom, pulling the door shut behind him.

Ripcord stepped into the sizable kitchen of his family's house, drawn in by the smell of eggs and bacon. As he stepped in he saw Kitty setting a bowl of scrambled eggs and plate of bacon down on the small table in the back of the kitchen. The soldier took in all the details he could, images of home were the one thing that could never be taken from him. The aroma of the simple, home cooked breakfast. The sight of the hazy, mid-morning sunlight filtering in the through the small windows of the room. His sister setting the table, the light playing over her dull white dress and the bright red hair that cascaded down her shoulders and back. He let each small detail assault his senses, hoping that they could block out the disturbing scenes of battle that had embedded into his mind. He was broken free from his thoughts as his sister turned, the sunlight reflecting in her bright green eyes and on the gold cross around her neck.
"Well," She said with a warm smile, "Are you gonna eat or just stand there all morning?"
"Yeah, I can eat." Ripcord said as he returned his smile and headed for the table.
"You get a chance to say goodbye to Mom before she left?" Kitty asked as she filled a plate for her brother.
"Yeah, I did." Ripcord responded as he took the plate from his sister and slid into one of the four seats. As he and sister began to dig into their breakfasts, she spoke again.
"You two make quite the couple. You guys really care for each other don't you?" Kitty asked, keeping her eyes down at the plate in front of her.
"I don't just like her Kitty. I don't just care for her. I love her. I've never felt this way about anyone. I'd die for her. She's what keeps me going." He responded as he stared out of one of the small windows and out into the cloudless sky.
"I can tell." She responded with a nod of her head as she offered a warm smile to her brother. "Besides, it's about time you felt that way, it comes off too freaky if just she's obsessed."
"This is another Anna joke isn't it?" He said with a roll of his eyes.
"You know it." Kitty returned with a grin. Ripcord shook his head at the comment before he caught sight of movement in the corner of his eye. He shot a glance over to the doorway as Covergirl stepped into the kitchen, nodding to the two siblings. Ripcord's face immediately lit up as she entered the room, finding instant comfort in her warm blue eyes. She came to stop in front of a section of the counter that had a coffee maker situated on it. As she went about pouring herself a cup of coffee, she turned her head towards the table, her strawberry blonde hair slowly swinging with her motion.
"What time did you want to head back today, Wally?" She asked, flashing another warm smile.
"Later this afternoon." He responded, offering his own smile in return. After a brief moment the warm smile widened into a grin. "Something we gotta take of first."
"Should I even ask?" Covergirl responded after a quizzical glance.
"I wouldn't tell you anyways." He said with grin before sliding back one of the two open chairs at the table. "Hungry?"
"Nah, coffee's good." She stated with a shake of her head as crossed over to the table and sat down in the offered chair.
"Suit yourself." Ripcord said with a shrug. After taking a short moment to look over the details of her face, he shifted his gaze to his sister and began to grin. "I'd tell you that the food is good but I wouldn't want to make that big of lie."
"Oh shut up Wally." Kitty retorted, "My cooking is not that bad."
"Yes it is." He responded with a false flatness to his statement. "You're just in denial."
"Fine," She started in a playful tone. "See if I ever cook for you again."
"No big loss there." Ripcord said with a grin and a shrug.
"It's great how you both get a long." Covergirl said as she took another sip of coffee before a smile crossed her face. "I'm really glad I got to meet you Kitty. And judging from yesterday, I don't think your cooking's that bad."
"Thank you." Kitty responded with a nod of her head.
"Don't believe her," Ripcord started in a playful tone. "See how she's not eating now? She's just tryin' to let you down easy Kitty."
"Oh shut up Wally." Kitty shot back with a shake of her head as she stood. She quickly carried her empty plate over to the sink before crossing back over to the table. She stepped in behind her brother, wrapping her lightly around his neck and chest in hug. "Well I really have to go, but it was great having you here. Even if it was just a day." She said as she planted a quick kiss on his cheek.
"Thanks Sis," He responded as he gave her forearms a reassuring squeeze. "Great seeing you again too. I'll drop in when ever I get the chance to, same as always."
"Yeah," she said as she reluctantly broke her hug away before heading towards the door of the kitchen. "Bye Wally."
"See ya Kitty, stay outta trouble." He called out, getting a nod and a final look from his sister before she disappeared thought the doorway. Ripcord stared at the doorway for moment before Covergirl's voice brought him back to reality.
"Your sister's great." She said, flashing a warm smile. "Must run in the family."
"Yeah," He responded with a smile as he closed his eyes and shook his head for a brief moment. "A regular Superman and Supergirl."
"I'll say." She said with a nod of her head. "For what it's worth, I'm glad you brought me. I was a little nervous about it at first, but they really are good people."
"Yeah. Yeah, they are." Ripcord said in a slow sentence as he looked back at her, a bit of depression showing in his eyes.
"You okay?" She asked as she placed one of her hands over one of his.
"Just gonna be hard, going back after this week." He said after a heavy exhale.
"I know..." She trailed off, dropping her eyes. After a brief moment, she seemed to perk up again. "But we still have seven days in Hawaii and I can't think of anyone who I'd rather spend them with."
"I feel the same way." He responded as he reached over and ran one of his hands down her cheek, taking caution not to touch the butterfly stitch on her temple. He let his hand linger on the side of her face as he continued after a long moment. "I just worry at times." He stated in a worried tone. "Each time I pull that trigger out there I feel further away from who I was..." his voice trailed off for a moment before he reluctantly continued. "And the scary part is that it keeps getting easier."
"I won't let you slip too far." She returned as she offered a brave smile and moved her hand towards her face, resting it on top of his hand. "I promise."
"Thanks Courtney." Ripcord said with an uncertain smile.
"I don't make promises I can't keep, Wally." She stated before changing her tone to a more light hearted one. "Besides, like I said, we have eight more days off, and I believe, Wallace Andrew Weems, you owe me a date."

Ripcord let a huge grin creep across his face as he finally pulled to a stop off to the size of the squat metal hangar. He slowly opened the door of Stingray and stepped onto the tarmac as his eyes took in the sights of an environment almost as familiar as home. Icarus Skydiving. He saw several people milling about through the massive open doors of the hangar, which was partially taken up by a C-47. The C-47 was painted in the same olive drab color scheme common to World War II era Skytrains, with the notable except being the winged 'I' emblazoned on to the vertical tail stabilizer of the aircraft. The old airframe had its engines half-way dissembled, apparently it was due for an overhaul. Parked off to the opposite side of the hangar was another C-47 twin engine plane, this one painted in yellow with red stripes running the length of the airframe, the same winged 'I' clearly seen on the same spot of the aircraft. Ripcord gave himself a brief mental shake to bring himself back to reality before he crossed over to the passenger side of the bright red Corvette. He took another moment to grin at the sight of Covergirl anxiously sitting in the passenger seat, her eyes hidden by a bandana that had be used as a make-shift blindfold. He let out a small chuckle, hardly believing he'd actually managed to get her to keep the blindfold on from the drive between his house and the airport. He reached down and opened the fiberglass door, before reaching down and taking a hold on her hand. He carefully guided Covergirl out of the bucket seat and helped her steady herself to stand on the dry tarmac.
"All of your dates start out like this?" She asked as a faint smile crossed her face.
"Nope, just this one." He said in a playful voice as he slowly moved in behind her and removed the blindfold.
"So you weren't kidding..." Her voice trailed off as the already faint smile completely disappeared. Her eyes took in the sights of the area around her for a long moment before she managed to muster another half smile. "You know there's something wrong about throwing yourself form a flying aircraft, right?"
"Says who?" Ripcord retorted playfully as the grin on his face broadened.
"I'm starting to wish you were the take-a-date-to-a-diner type." She said with a slight shake of her head. "At least it won't be twenty thousand feet."
"Twenty eight thousand actually." The paratrooper stated flatly with another grin. "On such short notice the only flight I could work us in on was with a group of more serious skydivers."
"Like back in England?" She said in a small voice as a look almost resembling terror crossed her face.
"At least it'll be daylight and everything will be over once we touch down." He said as he gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. Before anything else could be said between the two, a flash of movement caught the corner of Ripcord's vision. He panned his gaze over to see the approaching form of a short, older man dressed in an unmarked military issue flight suit. "Chuck!" Ripcord called out as he saw the man's grizzled face and neatly trimmed gray moustache.
"Wally!" The slightly overweight man said as the two paratroopers each slapped one of their hands together, putting the other's in a white knuckled grip. Strain started to show on each of their faces, almost turning to pain before their clamp on the other was broken and they each let out a laugh. "How the hell have ya been boy?" The older jumper asked with a large smile still dominate on his features.
"Good, I've been good." Ripcord responded with a smile and a nod.
"Whoa," Chuck said with a low whistle as he finally caught sight of Covergirl. "Your taste has improved I see."
"Chuck, this is Courtney. Courtney, this is Chuck." The younger paratrooper said with a slight laugh as he shook his head. He watched Covergirl offer a nod and the same half hearted smiled during the introductions before he continued. "Chuck here is the guy who taught me how to jump. He's also the one who sparked my interest in the Army. Hell, I wouldn't be who I was toady if not for him."
"Nah, I just offered you a little guidance." Chuck responded with a slow shake of his head. "You wouldn't be one of my best success stories if you didn't have the natural skill and down-right craziness that you do."
"I can vouch for that." Covergirl added with her first full smile since they'd reached the airport.
"What? The down-right craziness he has?" Chuck asked rhetorically before continuing with a laugh. "Hell little lady, everybody can vouch for that."
"Okay Chuck, how much longer we got till the jump?" Ripcord asked through his laughter.
"Well, as you know the C-47s can't go that high so we gotta wait on the C-123. It's inbound and due back shortly." Chuck let a wide grin cross his face before he continued. "You and her goin' tandem or should I break out some gear for her?"
"Yeah, she'll need some gear." Ripcord responded, shaking his head at the comment.
"Okay..." Chuck trailed off as he looked over Covergirl. "She looks about the same size as Jennifer and she's gonna be buried in paperwork all morning, so I'll round up her equipment. I'll have it sitting in the hangar in a few." Ripcord nodded as his mentor turned and headed back in the direction of the squat metal structure.
"Check all seals on the suit, mask and goggles locked and tight, otherwise I'll freeze quick. Chute timed, grace period, call out when chute pops..." Covergirl trailed off with a heavy sigh.
"Nope, not this time." Ripcord responded with a grin. "We're not in a hurry and you're not a first time jumper anymore. You're operating the chute by yourself this go round." He gave her another reassuring squeeze of her shoulder before he continued. "Welcome to the real world of freefall."
"I didn't sign on as a jumper, Skyboy..." She trailed off with a shake of her head but with a smile on her face. As she glanced up she was him flash her a warm smile, causing her to offer a thumbs up. "I'll do fine." Ripcord only nodded at the comment, still wearing his warm smile.

Ripcord took another look around the dull gray metal of the C-123's cargo cabin. In front of him were two columns of four people, all dressed in thick insulated jumpsuits of various colors. Only the sounds of the aircraft's prop driven engines and the noise of his slow deep breaths inside his oxygen mask were able to be heard. He slowly shifted his gaze off of his side, seeing a familiar figure dressed in a black jumpsuit with yellow lightning bolts streaking across the material, additionally a matching parachute and helmet were worn. It was Jennifer's gear. Ripcord smiled under his oxygen mask as the memories of the middle aged woman he'd learned to jump with came into his mind. However, the thoughts were shook free as he saw that the usual confident brown eyes behind the plastic of the goggles weren't there. In there place were an equally familiar set of blue eyes that darted around the cabin nervously. Ripcord broke from his position and stepped over to Covergirl, giving her gloved hand a reassuring squeeze to catch her attention. As the female soldier shifted her eyes to meet the paratrooper's, he offered a single wink to her. He saw her give one of her hand signs. He recognized it from before. What was it? Walk in the park. As the realization of the sign hit him Ripcord gave another nod of his head and gave Covergirl's hand another squeeze. Before he could do anything else, a rush of chill air assaulted the inside of the aircraft, causing Ripcord to look towards the back of the aircraft to see blue sky beyond the slowly lowering ramp. He began to hum 'Paint It Black' as he stepped back to his position in the opposite line. He took up his position and waited in the line, still calmly humming the tune as a klaxon sounded and the lights in the cabin burned green. In a well practiced, two by two sequence the multitude of jumpers ran off of the aircraft's loading ramp. As the last two in the group, Ripcord and Covergirl's turn finally came but unlike those before them while running towards the ramp the paratrooper suddenly shot his hand to her arm just before the two leapt from the ramp. As the feeling of freefall over took the duo, Ripcord immediately shifted himself into a good jumping position, followed shortly by Covergirl shifting into a mimicked position. As the two continued their descent the paratrooper slowly let go of Covergirl's arm and began to move his hands over her body, shifting her figure into the optimal freefall position. As soon as she seemed used to the standard fall position, he showed her how to slow down and speed up her fall. As they continued to fall he used hand motions to instruct her go the various positions, having her fine tune her movements through the air. After a time that seemed all too short for the soldier's tastes, he began to see parachutes appear below him. He quickly guided himself over to tap Covergirl on the shoulder before pointing to a handle on her harness. Almost immediately Covergirl pulled the cord and was jerked upwards with the unfolding chute. Inversely, Ripcord kept falling. He glanced quickly at the altimeter on his wrist ticked down before focusing on the other skydivers disappearing above him. Finally after fall just a little longer than the others, he grinned as the parachute lazily deployed while the ground still rushed swiftly up to meet him. Mere seconds before he hit the ground, the silk of the black parachute fully deployed and slowed his decent to safe levels. He landed perfectly on his feet without a sound, removing his goggles as he grinned to look up at the still falling chutes. He quickly rolled up his chute and stripped out of the thick olive drab jumpsuit before folding the equipment in a neat pile on the soft grass on the field. Dressed only in the military issue flight suit he'd worn under the jumpsuit, he plopped down on his equipment. After a cursory glance at the edge of the field to reveal an approaching truck, he focused his eyes skyward, wearing a grin as the first of the other skydivers started to touch the ground. "Amateurs." He muttered under his breath as the others went about collecting their gear. With a finally small chuckle, he focused his eyes on the from of Covergirl approaching his position.
"So that's what a first date with Superman is like?" She asked with a smirk.
"Well I'd offer you a romantic dinner too but we just don't have the time." Ripcord playfully retorted.
"It couldn't top this, anyway." She said with a single, satisfied nod. "But you're right. Long drive we should get going."
"Yeah." Ripcord stated as he began to gather his gear up. "And you're half way there by the way." He stated cryptically
"Half way?" She asked in a dumbfounded voice.
"Two more jumps and you'll be airborne." He responded with a wink.