Wings

The smell of rubbing alcohol, latex gloves and Old Spice after-shave hung heavily in the air as the sound of rubber stamps pounding down on paper cut through the various conversations in the room. That rubber stamp was the making or breaking of every pilot there. It told them whether they would keep their wings, or suffer a broken heart.

Alex Carras was never very good at handling broken hearts. Her father had been heart-broken when her and her twin sister were born girls, and made up for it by giving them both boy names and raising them as tomboys, much to her mother's despair.

Alex, however, had never grown out of it.

And if the stamp broke her heart, she didn't know how she could mend it.

"Next!" called the blond nurse with the heavy New York accent in front of the line for chest exams.

The painfully short line of eighteen to twenty-eight-year-old young men shuffled forward, Alex herself only two from the front. She yanked on the hem of her white wife-beater, bringing it down another few centimeters from the waistband of her white boxer shorts. Playing with the tab on the smooth poster board folder with one hand and her dogtags with the other, she managed to make an impressive amount of noise. So much that Red Winkle, who was in front of her, turned and gave her a skeptical look.

"W-w-w-would you stop moving around so much? You're making me n-n-nervous." He complained to his squadron-mate, absently rubbing the goosebumps sprinkling his bicep. "W-what's the m-m-matter, Alex? Ya got a heart problem?" he raised an eyebrow to colour of his namesake in question.

"Naw." She replied in a perfected deepened voice with just enough of a southern accent to charm any drill sergeant. She ran a hand through her sandy blond hair, lengthy for a boy but surprisingly short to her female fingers. "You know me, Red. I'd get nervous taking a urine test." She flashed him a toothy grin. A grin that faltered as the two heard a young man pleading with the blond nurse just ahead of them; a grin that faded altogether as the doctor stamped a red "Medical Rejection" on the pilot's forms.

Red bit his lip. "Don't w-w-worry, Alex; you'll pass." Alex nodded. It wasn't a health problem she was worried about. It was the fear that-while she was as flat chested as she had been at age eight, climbing the trees in her lawn-the doctor would notice that she wasn't exactly 'Carras, Alex Michael: male' as her forms read but was 'Carras, Alex Michael: female' and he'd take her wings.

She watched holding her breath, a thin layer of sweat slicking her brow, as Red went up to be examined. There was no way to tell if the nurse would ask her to remove her shirt because Red wasn't wearing one. She closed her dark green eyes, hearing Red's stamp of approval and the New Yorker once again call, "Next!"

She took a deep breath and stepped forward with legs made of lead.

"Alright, flyboy," the nurse started, putting the stethoscope ends to her ears, "This is gonna be a little cold, but you're a big bad army man, I'm sure you can handle it." She teased, sticking the stethoscope up the back of Alex's shirt, it's frigid metal chilling her skin and calming her racing heart. She was going to be fine.

"Take a few deep breaths for me…one more…okay, everything sounds good." With that Alex's form was stamped and she was sent to eye exams, leaving the most nerve-racking minute of her life behind her.

Waiting impatiently once again for an exam that would take a mere minute at most, Alex let her gaze wander around the room, it quickly settling on Rafe and Danny, two of the pilots from her squadron. The best two pilots in fact. She saw Rafe leaning on the desktop talking quietly with the nurse and Danny's deep voice offering a comment or two every now and again. Straining her ears, she managed to hear him say, "Please don't take my wings." And her heart sank, feeling his pain but knowing only the fear, and not the feel of the situation staring her in the face.

Alex knew that Rafe had excellent vision though, he was the number one pilot out of the thirty in the Terrors of the Skies. But she also knew that he wasn't the best at reading and writing, and there had been many exams during which she had overheard Danny's soft whisper reading the questions to his best friend.

"Hey! Kid, you're next aren't you?" an anonymous brunette called out. Alex snapped her head back to front, tearing her eyes from Rafe's desperate face.

"Huh? Oh…yeah." She nodded, stepping forward. The nurse handed her a plastic spoon-type-object and she quickly finished her eye exam, once more being confirmed of her 20/20 vision. When she looked back over, though, Rafe and Danny had both disappeared.

* * *

"Alright guys, bring 'em down." Captain Conner's tinny and static-ridden voice ordered from the headsets of all thirty pilots in the New Jersey airways.

One by one each of the young men-and Alex-landed on the airstrip, Joe-who didn't even like flying-first and Danny-who you could barely pry out of his cockpit-last.

"Alright gentlemen. That's enough for today. I'll see you all bright and early. 0600 hours, be on time." He warned, glancing at Tucker-who ducked his head-pointedly, then laughed and waved his hand in dismissal. The pilots all started walking towards the barracks, several in pairs or trios and then one large group of twelve.

Red Winkle, Danny Walker, Rafe McCawley, Alex Carras, Billy Blake, Joe Brewer, Anthony Fusco, Tucker Peterson, Chris Kilkenney, Jake Conner, Paul Bishop and Bryce Matthews. The dozen did everything together. There wasn't much one didn't know about the other eleven; or so they liked to tell themselves.

This particular evening everyone was ready for bed. Nothing else, just a long night's sleep after a long day's work.

At least, they all wanted that except for Paul.

"C'mon guys!" The twenty-year-old whined in his heavy New York accent. "We lift a couple planes, land in a sweet spot, and bada-boom we club all night. No one'll be the wiser!" He was met with groans and a pillow thrown his way via Tucker. Paul rolled his eyes and chucked it back at the raven-haired Californian. He turned to Alex, "C'mon Carras. You like having a good time, let's ditch these wet blankets."

"Paul, not only am I too tired to move but really, stealing planes? We will be thrown into the brig so fast even you won't be able to get a word in edgewise."

"Alex, Alex, Alex. C'mon man, you're like family to me! Do you really think I'd do anything to get you in trouble?"

"Paul, Paul, Paul. Everyone is like family to you; and intentionally get me in trouble? No. Get me in trouble? Yes. Now go to bed, we have to get up early."

"Fine, fine." The blond griped "Never lettin' me have my fun." But his grumbles fell on deaf ears; the rest of the pilots were already asleep.

* * *

"Alright! Terrors of the Skies! Inspection in fifteen minutes! If I were you I'd hustle!" Captain Conner yelled to the sleeping squadron through their open door before continuing his journey.

"He's gotta be kidding me." Danny groaned, putting his pillow over his head to block the glare of the fluorescent lights from his sleep-filled eyes.

"It's a conspiracy." Jake -to whom everything was a conspiracy or foul play or spying- informed them from his bunk above Joe, who looked at his watch.

"No, it's four am. I think Conner's finally snapped."

"That happened awhile ago, Brewer." Alex quipped, throwing her legs over the side of her bed below Red's. "But we still have to follow his orders. Makes you question the system." She made her bed quickly, the result of many months' practice in boot camp-"Morning Night" exercises- and started for the bathroom.

"Nuh-uh, Babyface. Some of us need to shave. You get to take second shift in the john." Anthony informed her, entering the bathroom as fourteen others called dibs and followed him. Alex stuck her tongue out at his retreating form and went back to straightening out her area while inwardly glad they thought she didn't need to shave because she was only nineteen rather than a girl.

Fifteen minutes later the thirty pilots in the squadron stood at rigid attention next to their personnel bunks while Captain Conner walked past, conducting his surprise inspection. As luck would have it, as he passed Paul and Tucker, Paul let out a huge yawn.

"Did you get enough sleep last night, Bishop?" the Captain yelled two inches from Paul's face. Paul could smell, practically taste, the bacon the older man had had for breakfast and fought to keep his stomach from rumbling.

"Sir yes sir, sergeant, captain, ma'am, sir!" Paul answered in the classic military style.

"Did you just call me ma'am, Lieutenant?" Captain Conner barked.

"Sir, no, sir! Well, yes, sir! But not on purpose, sir!" Paul fumbled.

"Get down and give me fifty, Lieutenant!"

"You know sir, I never liked the number fifty…I've always personally preferred numbers like two…or zero even. Fifty just isn't really a good number for me. You know, my grandpa died when he was fifty, so it's kind of unlucky-"

"Is one hundred more to your liking, Lieutenant?!"

"That's fine, sir." Paul dropped to the floor, starting on his one hundred push-ups as the Captain continued inspections. As he was about to leave, he looked back over at Paul-who was muttering "eighty-four…eighty-five…"- and said, "That one looked faulty, Bishop! Start over!" and left the room, knowing Paul would follow his orders whether he was there or not. That's what Captain Conner liked about being an officer in the military: the respect and obedience.

A/N: Well, there you be. This one is a chapter story, don't worry I didn't end it there. And it goes out to Gi (cause she'd kill me if it didn't, hehe) for passing all her exams!! Yay Gi!! Woo-hoo!!! Anyways, tell me how you like it, aight? Thankums.