Author's Note: Hi Everyone!!!!! This is the long-awaited (I hope) vacation chapter. But, not all of it. This is just half of their vacation at Pearl Harbor. The next will be up before July 20th, since I have to fly to Bulgaria that day. After the next chapter, chapter 8, you will have to wait until after September 4th, for chapter 9. Hope you like it, and even if you don't, hope you tell me so.
Special thanks to my beta, Katie, who corrects those annoying little typos I always make when my brains are working faster than my hands. LOL.
Luv Ya'll!!!





On the eighth of August, Ron rode, for the first time, in a plane that was not piloted by her brother or her dad.



"Oh! Oh, it's beautiful!" Ron yelped. On her left, Danny was quietly drinking in the amazing view. On her right, her parents stared at the landscape before them. They hadn't thought that it could ever seem alive again.

"Ohhhh! Can I have a lei? Please?" Ron had spotted a vendor with brightly colored wreaths of flowers.

Rafe followed her gaze and bought her and Evelyn bright fuchsia and violet ones.

When they arrived at the hotel, Danny and Ron both dropped their luggage and bounded to their parents' room.

"Let's go!" Danny pulled on Evelyn's arm.

"Come on Daddy!" Ron added.

"We're going to rest today. We can go around tomorrow." Evelyn said sternly.

"But we're not tired!" Danny protested.

"Please?!" Ron tugged at her daddy's hand, looking up at him pleadingly.

Rafe looked at Evelyn, defeated look on his face. "You stay here and rest. I'll take them to the harbor."

"Oh, all right. Just don't wear them out too much. I don't want them sleeping all day tomorrow."

"Yay!"

"Whoopee!"




"Hello. I'm Rafe McCawley. I spoke to you on the phone? About a tour of the harbor."

"Oh, yes. I remember. My name is David Lawrence. Dave."

"This is Ron, and this is Danny."

"Ron?"

"Veronica. But you better call me Ron!" The little girl confirmed.

Dave smiled at Rafe over her head. "Let's get goin' shall we?"

Rafe nodded and ushered his kids forward, motioning for them to follow Dave.




"Can we fly now?" Ron asked at the end of the tour. They had toured the ships and harbor, but not the hangers and airfields.

"Is it all right if I take them up for a bit?" Rafe asked Dave.

"Sure it is. Go right ahead."

"I wanna fly by myself." Danny complained.

Dave looked surprised. "By yourself?"

"Yeah. Rafe taught me. Can I?"

Rafe? Dave wondered. He looked over to Rafe. He was nodding. "Sure. It's fine. Just be real careful!"

Danny nodded.

"Let's go!" Ron tugged her father and brother.

They obeyed. Rafe headed for a larger plane, Danny for tiny one. Ron followed her father and waved to Danny.

"Bye bye!"




Ron shrieked with joy as the airplane rolled over and over. Rafe laughed right along with her, glad to hear her having fun.

"Let's play chicken, Rafe!" Danny said into the earphones. For a moment, Rafe was taken back thirteen years in time. Back to when he and Danny were just cocky young pilots, playing chicken all day while the war raged in Europe. He could have sworn it was Danny's voice he heard in those earphones instead of his son's.

"Rafe?!" Danny asked. "Can you hear me?"

Rafe snapped back to reality. "Yeah. I can hear you. Let's go. You turn right, I'll go left. All right? You ready?"

"What is he saying Daddy?" Ron tugged at her father's hand, keeping one eye on her brother's plane, which was speeding ahead of theirs.

"Oh, nothing. You'll see. It's a . . .surprise."

"Can I try? Can I try to fly?"

He looked at her. "You're not supposed to. Your hand, remember?"

She looked at him so pleadingly it broke his heart. He took his hands off the control, placed her tiny hands (one of which was still bandaged carefully) in his, and put them back on.

"We're flying it together!" He shouted over the roar of the engine.

"I'm comin' at you!" He heard Danny's voice in his ear.

"I'm ready for ya!" He answered, carefully keeping his eye on the boy's plane, which was steadily approaching.

Ron shrieked. "Why is he coming at us Daddy?"

"Let go of the controls Ron."

"No, I want to fly too!"

"Let go right now." Danny's plane was speedily advancing. "I'm not kidding Ron! Let go!"

"No!"

"Let go or we're gonna hit!" She refused to remove her hands. He grabbed the control, her hands and all, and prepared to swerve.

"Shit!" He whispered. Which way had he said he'd turn?!

"Ready Rafe? Remember: I go right. You go to your left!"

"Thank you Danny!" Rafe's whisper wasn't audible over the roar of the engine.

He leaned left, ready to twist the control, along with his daughter's hands, which were firmly implanted on it.

"Owww!" Ron squealed with pain. Her hand! The scar! The stitches! She hushed at the sight of her brother's plane coming straight at theirs. Her eyes widened in terror, but refused to shut. The plane turned sideways, narrowly missing Danny's, which had turned in the opposite direction.

"That's called chicken!" He father announced to her, a note of anger in his voice. "And if you'd let go of the control, we would have been able to turn earlier."

The plane landed roughly and the little girl bounced in her seat on her daddy's lap. She turned to face him, clutching her hand tightly to her body.

The plane skidded to a complete stop and Rafe turned the motor off. They stared at each other silently.

"My hand." She whispered, tears of regret and pain sliding down her cheeks.

His eyes widened. He had forgotten about her scar. It still hadn't healed properly after only a month.

"I'm sorry! Oh, are you all right?" He examined her bandage. The wound hadn't opened, thankfully. He looked back into her guilty brown eyes. "But if you'd let go, your hand wouldn't be hurting, now would it?"

She shook her head, eyes lowered.

Danny knocked to the door of the airplane.

"Aren't you two getting out?"





That evening, after dinner, Evelyn took Ron and Danny to the beach while Rafe went to bed. She walked silently her children on either side of her, wind blowing her hair back softly. Ron's special dress billowed, Marilyn Monroe style, around her. She brushed it down, staring at her mother's face.

"Mama?" She asked softly.

"Hum? What Ron?" Evelyn tore her mind from the overwhelming memories of the past, to the present.

"Tell us about your time at Pearl Harbor. Before the bombing."

"Yeah." Danny agreed. "Please?" He added, as an afterthought.

"Well . . ." Evelyn paused at the sudden loss of words. There was so much to tell. Where they too young to hear it all? " Your Daddy, " she interrupted herself to pat Ron's head. " had just left for England. He went to be a big war hero. After he left, I was shipped off here, along with five other nurses and a bunch of other pilots. Including your father's best friend, Daniel Walker. Who I had met once before, the night prior to Rafe's departure. He seemed kind of shy." She paused, looking at her son, whose head was level with her shoulder already.

"Days after days I would sit here, on the beach, and write letters to Rafe." She continued, pointing to a row of small boulders half buried in the sand. "He said it was very cold in England, so I would try to describe the warmth here as best as I could, try to send it to him through my words."

She spoke more to herself than to her silent children, who were drinking every word in hungrily. They had stopped walking now, and were sitting on the boulders, with their bare toes buried deep in the sand.

"Until on day, about two months after I had arrived here. I had just finished stitching up a cut for a very nice sailor, I think his name was Dorie, when I saw your father," She placed her arm around Danny's shoulder protectively. ". . . get out of a taxi."

I hadn't seen him in three months or so, and he looked so terribly sorrowful. I just knew it was bad news. When he hugged me, I was certain. I knew Rafe was dead."

Danny and Ron nodded. They had heard the story of Rafe's brush with death a great many times.

"Then, three months later, I met Danny again, at a movie theater. We hadn't seen each other since he had told me the news. So we went out for dinner, talking about Rafe. Exchanging fond memories, even though our wounds reopened at the memory of his name." She stared down at her hands. "Apparently, not opened enough. I forgot my handkerchief at the table. He came over, at ten thirty, to return it. He was so nervous." She laughed, remembering the expression on Danny's face.

"The next day, he took me up in a plane, showed me the sunset." Danny and Ron glanced at each other at the mention of the word plane. Ron had told her brother everything that had happen during their flight. "It was beautiful. Magical." She tore her eyes from the setting sun before her eyes to look at her children, whose attention she held in the palm of her hand.

"I'll tell Rafe to take you two up tomorrow. Then, in the next few days, we spent days here at the beach, swimming in the cool water. This island seemed so perfect. Magical, like I said. It was a paradise. We were so happy."

Her eyes searched the horizon. For what, she didn't know. Maybe for a sign of the time that had passed since those nights of watching the sun set with Danny. Or, perhaps, for a sign of Danny himself.

Ron and Danny exchanged looks and silently agreed to let their mother be alone. They sensed her need to be alone. They walked to the waters edge, strolling in the small but strong waves, wind caressing their tresses and clothing.

Evelyn never felt them leave. She was too deep in thought. But the tinkle of their laughter brought her back to Hawaii 1954. She stared at them, enchanted. Their figures just silhouettes against the horizon.

She had received her answer. They were her answer. They were the result of the years that had passed. They were the result of her romances. They looked so, innocent, together. So perfectly expressed her emotions. They had different fathers. That was what brought them close. Their differences.

The sight struck her magical. And for a moment, she could see their fathers in them. Hidden just below the surfaces of their skin. Hidden just in the depths of their eyes. Hidden in their laughter.





For the next few days, Ron learned every nook and cranny of the airbase and the ships docked in the harbor. The sailors soon got used to the sight of the little blond girl in the old hula print dress roaming around their ships and playing anywhere and everywhere.

On her third day in Hawaii, she had met another eight year old girl, whose father was a pilot. She had lived her whole life on the airbase.

"Helen! Come on!" Ron yelled at the gangly girl with the waist long brown tresses.

"Wait! My shoe's untied!" The girl, Helen, was bent over her foot, struggling with the bright blue laces of her once-white tennis shoes. After the third attempt, her fingers finally tightened the knot enough for it to not come untied during one of Ron's long and tiring games of hide and seek.

But the both loved the games. There was only one rule about hiding. You could hide anywhere, except the buildings. On any ship, in the cockpit of any plane. But they weren't allowed to go up in the air with anyone. One game of this kind of hide and seek could last for a whole day.

So each girl carried a book with her, to read while hiding. It was quite boring just staring into space for hours at an end, waiting to be found. You had no guarantee that the person who was searching for you didn't decide to check your hiding place last.

" . . . one hundred!" Helen lifted her head from her hands, where it had been cradled against the wall. She took a moment to stare around herself for any sign of a movement. Knowing Ron, well, sort of, she was probably hidden well away from hearing distance.

Helen decided to try the hangers first, since they were Ron's favorite place to hide. There was six in all, spread well around the huge runways.

She semi-jogged to the nearest hanger and began searching, clear blue eyes wide, searching for the tiniest signs of movement. Well, at least I'm getting enough exercise, Helen thought, shrugging to herself.




A week into the trip, Ron had visited the beach, the harbor, the military hospital where her mother had worked, the diner where her mother and Danny's dad had talked, the movie theater, as well as the airbase.

But her favorite place of all was inside the water. It was a clear and glassy turquoise, and just the perfect temperature. Not cold, and not warm exactly. Just cool. She and Danny sat in the water in their bathing suits for hours at an end and listened to either of their parents tell them stories about this paradise of an island. At the day's end, they got out, skin pruned from the long stay in the watery heaven, and they would sleep deeply at night. Dreaming of the stories and of their parents' adventures in this exotic world.




A/N: That little box, right below this sentence, is there for a REASON! (lol) USE IT!