A/N: Hey everyone! I know it's been forever since I updated… sorry about that. I'm currently fighting writer's block and that's killing me. A huge thanks to Katherine for her advice and opinions! Well anyway, here's the next chapter. It deals with more of the factual stuff than my usual, but I thought it was important… okay, I'm done blabbering. Here's the story…

The pilots selected for the mission—which included Anthony, Goose, Red, and a few others that Danny and Rafe had met briefly before as well as some they had never seen—arrived at a training field later in the day. The flight had been full of quiet talk about where they were going, what they were going to do, and why they had been the chosen ones, but once they got to the base, things got down to business.

The men were all gathered together in front of Doolittle, who appeared to be running the operation himself, and a tall man who had already been there when the others arrived. When Doolittle asked for them to stand in a line facing him, they murmured quietly but did as he asked.

"You all know that you're here for a very special mission," Doolittle began in a straightforward, honest voice. "I won't lie to you. It's extremely dangerous. Take a look at the man beside you. Should you go on this mission, chances are that in the next six weeks either you or he will be dead."

Danny looked to the man next to him, seeing that he was being examined in the same way by the guys, and silently prayed that what Doolittle said was just a precautionary warning to scare off the men who spooked easily. Somewhere inside of him, though, he knew better than to take the colonel's words lightly.

Doolittle gave them a brief moment to process this information before he continued, "Anyone who wishes to do it, not knowing what exactly but knowing its importance, step forward."

Simultaneously, the whole row moved forward. None of them expected anything different—they had all experienced the loss of Pearl Harbor, they all knew that since it was such an important mission, it had to be something big. Not only did no one want to miss out, they all believed that they needed to step forward and stand up for fallen comrades who never had the choice to say yes or no.

Doolittle took in the sight of brave men with watchful eyes and nodded to himself. "You men are going to have to do things never done before. Your grandmothers can take off in a B-25 with a mile of runway. You're going to have to learn to do it in 467 feet and fly like a fighter—30 feet off the ground." He turned to the man standing beside him. "Meet Jack Richards, from Navy Aviation. He's going to help you lighten the planes."

Rafe and Danny looked at each other around the stranger that stood between them. A 467 foot takeoff was definitely not something they were prepared to do, and they both knew that whatever else they were going to do was sure going to take a lot of work.

They spent the afternoon working on their planes with Jack yelling at them, "These are some fat ladies we got here, boys! We need skinny ladies!"

"Is he insane?" Danny murmured to Rafe after taking out some of the machinery that Jack had said was too heavy to stay in.

Rafe laughed and shrugged his shoulders at his friend, trusting that the man knew what he was doing even though he agreed with Danny. Making the planes lighter was fine and dandy for a 467 foot takeoff, but what good would they be in the air if there was nothing left inside of them?

When the planes were considered light enough, the pilots were allowed to break up and go to their rooms to rest. Danny, Rafe, Red, Anthony, and Goose, as well as a guy named Theo, were in their room unpacking when Rafe remembered what Alex had said to him earlier before he took off. He turned to Danny, a questioningly look in his eyes. "Hey, Danny, what did Alex mean earlier when she said she had something important happened last night that she wanted you to tell me about?"

Danny, caught off guard by the question, froze and dropped the photograph of Alex that was in his hand. He took his time in picking it up, trying to figure out the best way to tell his friend about his engagement. "Well, you see, last night Alex and I talked a lot about our future," he began, looking straight at Rafe even though he could feel the interested eyes of Red, Goose, Anthony, and even Theo on him.

Rafe's eyes narrowed slightly with suspicion when he began to see what Danny could be headed at. "And…?"

"And… well, Rafe, we're engaged," Danny announced, hoping that Rafe would understand that he loved Alex and wanted nothing but the best for her. A fight with his best friend was not something he needed, so before Rafe could respond he rushed on, "I know that you probably don't see this as the best decision, but it feels right, Rafe. And we won't rush into anything—I mean, we probably won't get married right after you and me get back anyway. We'll just wait a while and then—"

"Stop babbling, Danny," Rafe chuckled, finding the rambling pretty amusing but wanting to spare his friend the nervousness. Normally he might have been mad about this announcement, but he had seen the love in his little sister's eyes when she looked at Danny—it was almost more powerful than anything he'd seen before in his entire life. The only thing stronger was the love in Danny's eyes when he spoke of Alex, or even heard her name. That alone made it obvious that he would never treat Alex badly.

"Okay," he replied, trying to read in Rafe's eyes what he thought.

Rafe smiled, knowing that Danny had to be in love to babble more than he himself. "I've always thought of you like a brother. I guess this'll just make it real."

Danny sighed with relief, a grin taking over his face. "So you're okay with it?"

The older boy nodded after a moment's consideration. "You're what she wants, Danny. And I guess you were right before—who better to take care of my little sister than my best friend?"

Anthony, who had been quiet up until then to see what was going to happen between the two, jumped up from his bunk grinning. "You and Alex are gettin' hitched? That's great, Danny!"

"Yeah, congratulations," Red threw in with a smile.

Rafe looked at Danny and waited until he caught his eye to say, "I know you two will be real happy together," wanting to make sure that his friend knew that it was how he felt. He knew that Danny was as concerned about what he thought of the couple as Alex was. As long as the friends stayed together, they could take on anything life threw at them.

The next day was the start of official training, when the pilots were expected to start trying to reach the goals set for them by Doolittle. It wasn't easy—no one could do it, not even Rafe. The guys tried and failed again and again to the point where they were going crazy because of it. More stuff was taken from the planes to make them lighter and easier to get into the air, but still it seemed to be an unbeatable challenge that they had to spend many, many days on.

At night Rafe and Danny wrote letters to Evelyn and Alex, making sure to carefully watch what they wrote because they would be read before they were sent to make sure no one was leaking information. It didn't matter much, though—they only wanted to tell the girls that they were safe and still thought about them all the time. Somehow they were sure that thousands of miles away in Pearl Harbor, they were being thought of as well.

~*~

About a month later, the men in training had managed to successfully do the takeoff that many had believed was impossible and they had moved from the training base to the USS Hornet. Their normal routine of days, usually filled with training, was interrupted when a meeting was called and the men all gathered in a briefing room with Doolittle.

Danny's heart was in his throat as he sat next to Rafe in the room, knowing that something huge was going on. He wasn't a stupid man—he knew that their move to the Hornet meant something significant was going to happen. The only thing that worried him was that the big mission would soon be done with, leaving him free to go see his love… or never be able to see her again.

Alex was on Danny's mind whenever he had time to think of anything that didn't relate to training, and sometimes even when he didn't. The few pictures that he had of her did nothing to fill his need for her. Her laugh haunted his dreams, the silky soft texture of her hair and skin remained in his mind when he laid down to bed at night, and her sometimes he swore he could hear her voice when he was working. It was frustrating.

Rafe snuck a look at his friend, who seemed somewhat less spacey than usual because of the meeting. He knew of how often Danny thought of his sister. Maybe even more often than he thought of Evelyn. In any case, he was just glad that soon the waiting would be over, one way or another.

Doolittle stood at the front of the room, his usual commanding presence quieting the pilots without having to ask for silence. "You men have been very patient with this mission," he began. "Now I'll let you know what we're doing. We're going to go to Tokyo… and bomb it."

There were a number of whoops throughout the small room as the men heard Doolittle's words, but Danny and Rafe just sat there, half shocked, half pleased, and definitely determined. So revenge might be theirs… and they had a lot to get back at those Japs for.

"We're going to take off from this carrier 400 miles from the coast," Doolittle went on when the original reaction had quieted. "We're going straight to the heart of those bastards, hit them hard, and get out of there. Now, the department wanted me to supervise this operation and be on the carrier when it went home. But I'm not going to do that. I won't send you, who I've worked with and learned to expect, out there into danger while I sit back safely. I'll be leading the mission."

This also brought about mixed reactions. Danny and Rafe looked at each other in surprise and the expressions on their faces clearly read, "This is worse than we expected." A few clapped because they were proud to be a part of a mission lead by such a man, and others were stunned into silence.

One of the guys made a coughing noise as he half-raised his hand. "I have a question. Is it even possible to land on a carrier?" he asked, getting the question that had been on his mind for a while out in the open.

"It doesn't matter," Doolittle answered. "The carrier is heading back as soon as we've departed." Everyone stared at him in confusion. What he said next only added to the surprise of the young men in the room. "I have a phrase I want you all to remember. It means 'I am an American'—in Chinese."

Danny and Rafe turned to look at each other again. Well, the mission sounded truly… interesting.

~*~ Please review! It really helps me write, plus I want to know if you guys like where this is going. Thanks!