Hopes and Dreams
A/N: Well this is the last chapter before I go to Wisconsin, USA (for all those non-American readers out there), so I want to try and make it a good one. Anyway, thank you lisay, I am flattered that you should think so highly of my work. Well anyway, here is chapter five of Hopes and Dreams.
Lisa slapped her hand to her head and looked out from the virtual mountain of paper work and rolled her eyes and gave out an exasperated groan, "There is so much here to be done, that I will never get it all done," Lisa said to herself and started back to the paperwork.
It had been three weeks since then Christmas Day suicide attack on Macross Barracks and just as long since the new recruits had come into fill the ranks. Lisa groaned about that too, there had been a lot of outrage railing against the RDF using teenagers, but what needed to be done was done and the media slowly found new things to rant and rave about.
Lisa shook her head and told herself that she had a lot of work to do and that if she didn't start now that she would never get home in time to see Rick, who she had heard from one of her aides was equally swamped because of the six thousand new recruits, over twelve hundred of them were found to be Veritech pilot material, and Rick and the rest of the RDF VT wing had drawn the job of helping the over loaded trainers.
There was no need for a very strenuous physical fitness test, the only real test that was required was the "G's Test," where the body was put under tremendous g-force and if that person could handle the g's, they would be qualified, but that didn't mean that a person who was hundred pounds over weigh could be a pilot.
Lisa looked at her watch and gave a groan, it was late, already after eight p.m. and Lisa hadn't even gotten half way through with her paper work and she looked out the window, which by chance had a view of Macross and Lisa could see the lights of people heading home and imagined herself for a moment as one of the civilian type who had a nine-to-five job, she laughed, then another thought popped into her head.
She could see herself now as a house wife, walking around shooing the dog away from breakfast as Rick and the kids would come down to eat, Rick would be in his suite for work and the kids would be all dressed for school, there would be a boy and a girl, and Lisa could see them arguing all the time.
She could see herself sitting down next to her husband and asking him, with his head behind the paper, how he liked breakfast and she could see him grumbling something about it being good and asking her if she could get him more coffee and then he would look at his watch and see he was late and he would get up and get out the door giving her a good-bye kiss with the kids making sick noises in the background.
Then she would hurry the kids off to the bus and stand at the window to make sure they would get on the bus, because that Rick Jr. is a trouble maker an he would skip school of given the chance. Then she would set about doing her daily chores till the kids got home and she'd help them with their homework and then Rick would get home and she would cook dinner and get the kids to bed then Rick and she would go to bed and then do it all over again the next day.
Lisa laughed hard at the notion, here she was an Admiral, the highest ranking person in the RDF and she was having a civilian life day dream. She laughed again and she got up from her desk unable to do anymore work. She walked to the door and grabbed her service coat and put it on and walked out the door turning out the lights laughing that she could even make up such a day dream.
Lisa walked to the trainee barracks and didn't find Rick in any of the trainers or anywhere around so she asked around a bit and found one of the Skull Squadron pilots, "Hey," Lisa said and say him look a her, he barely registered her rank and she knew that he was a veteran, "have you seen Captain Hunter?" Lisa asked him and he nodded and pointed to the gym, Lisa thanked him and left.
Lisa walked in to see Rick in the boxing ring with another pilot, whom as she got closer, could see was Aaron, she smiled, she liked Aaron, he was a good kid a kid who reminded her lot of herself at his age. She watched at Rick and Aaron went at each other and as Lisa watched she could see that neither one of them was getting the upped hand.
Then she saw then back away and Rick's head turn and Lisa saw that he had seen her and had turned slightly to wave at her but the look on her face wasn't that of happiness, but that of a surprised look as Aaron's right hand made contact with Rick's face and sent him off to his left.
Aaron smiled a bit, Rick had been distracted and now was his chance to end the fight by going ballistic on Rick and he started to hit Rick with his left/right hooks and jabs, but Rick responded faster then he had anticipated and he started to hit back and Aaron knew he had lost the fight, Rick was stronger than him and would be able to take a lot more punishment than he would, but Aaron wasn't going to give up and he kept swinging and jabbing.
Rick was momentarily thrown by Aaron's right hook and that was all the time Aaron had needed to start to pummel Rick, but Rick got his own hands moving and using his greater strength and ability to take the shots he started to hit back, and hit back hard. Rick smiled as best he could, he had won the fight because Aaron had made a commitment to try and finish it here and Rick had come back faster than he had thought and now Rick was going to lay him out.
Rick pulled back his right and swung with his left striking Aaron and sending him back, but Aaron too pulled back his right and it seemed that both Rick and Aaron hit each other at the same moment with their respective right hooks. Both men fell back onto the mat and neither one of them moved for a good minute and Lisa made her way to the ring and got in and stood over both of them and looked at them with a stern motherly look.
"What am I going to do with you two? Hmm? I mean I get off working and I come to find you and here you are boxing with your brother and then I watch as you two pummel each other," Lisa said with a mocking exasperated tone. She smiled, she was glad to see that Rick was spending time with Aaron, seeing as how they were related.
Rick was as surprised as anyone when he found out that he and Aaron were related, and they weren't cousins either, they were brothers. Rick had taken it with a cool head and didn't really know what to make of it, but as he asked Aaron he found out that Pop Hunter had sent Aaron to stay with his brother, Rick's uncle, Alec Hunter because Pop was always flying and his mother couldn't handle Rick due to her illness.
But Lisa went to Aaron and helped him up and walked over to Rick and gave him a sigh and shook her head and walked away, "Hey, your not gonna help me up?" Rick pouted as Lisa walked away and got out of the ring, "No, get yourself up, I got to get home so we have something to eat," she said over her shoulder.
Aaron still a bit lightheaded from the blows he had exchanged with Rick helped him up and on the spur of the moment spoke up, "Hey Rick, why don't you go with Lisa an I'll pick something up for us to have, I mean if that's ok with you," Aaron hesitated, Rick looked at Lisa and she looked at him and she nodded her head and Rick jumped out of the ring.
Aaron watched them go and then remembered that he was going to have to find something to eat and quickly went over in his head what there was on the way to the residential military housing and quickly figured that he would get Italian, he was in a particularly Italian mood tonight and went to ring-side and got his cell phone and dialed the number for Ristorante Italiano Migliore and when the other line picked up he quickly rattled off his order for Penne Tomatoes Blue Cheese, Osso-Buco a la Milanaise, and Tiramisu and Kahlua, and as Aaron finished his order he got on a shirt and walked out of the gym.
Aaron got to his car and started to make hi way to Ristorante Italiano Migliore, and before he knew it he was there and he closed the door to his car and walked in, "May I help you sir," the man said with an obvious practiced Italian accent, Aaron looked at him and just nodded and told him his name and the man checked the list, "That will be forty-five ninety-three," the man said and Jacob pulled out a fifty and handed it to the man.
Another person came out with Aaron's food and Aaron realized that you can't have Italian without wine and looked at the selection and saw one that struck his fancy, "Oh and I'll take the Pinot Grigio," Aaron said and the man looked at him for second and seemed to shrug it off, "That'll be another thirty-five dollars, sir," the man said and Aaron pulled out more money and found that he was broke.
'Well at least I'll eat good tonight,' Aaron though as he took the food and wine to the car and made his way to Rick's place, and when he got half way there he realized that he didn't know who's place they were at, so he drove by Rick's and saw that the lights were out so he drove onto Lisa's and saw that a few lights were dimmed.
He grabbed the food and wine and closed and locked the car doors and made his way for the door and knocked on the door, he heard some shuffling and rolled his eyes, 'They could at least have waited till after dinner,' he thought. Lisa opened the door out of her uniform and into some night clothes, he looked a little beyond her and say Rick was too in night clothes, 'Must have clothes at each others houses,' Aaron smiled deviously.
Lisa saw the smile and wasn't sure if she liked it and took the food from him and noticed in his left hand was a bottle of wine and she looked at him with a surprised look on her face that seemed to ask how a seventeen year old could have gotten wine.
"I just asked him for it and he let me have it, after I paid him of course," Lisa shrugged, she didn't care she was hungry and she knew that Aaron had brought food and she was grateful to him for that. She took the food and set it on the table and smacked Rick in the head to wake him up.
Rick woke with a start to see Aaron standing there still in his boxing sweats and a shirt that he had on earlier, "Oh man you are gonna smell, you didn't go home to change?" Rick asked. Aaron showed a toothy grin, "Well unlike you, I'd actually have to go home to get changed and cleaned up, I didn't get to go half way," Aaron said, and all that implied.
Rick made a sour face, but didn't have it for long as Lisa plopped down next to him with a plateful of food and Rick made a unhappy face, "Hey, where's mine?" Rick asked. Lisa just ignored him and kept on eating and Rick was forced to get up and get his own food.
Aaron stood off to the side and watched as Rick went and got some food and walked back to the couch and sat down next Lisa, and suddenly Aaron felt very out of place and decided that he would go, and made his way carefully for the door and got out of the house without being noticed.
Aaron started his car and was thankful he had gotten a silent running care so the engine didn't make any noise as he started it up and he pulled away from the house and started down the road and after about fifteen minutes he got to his quarters he shared with a lazy technician who sat around all day. He walked in and saw that his roommate had left a mess as usual and started to clean up and after what seemed like forever finally got the house to a semblance of clean.
Aaron looked around and saw that he still had the wine and went and opened it and took a drink from it, he made a face and let the taste fill his mouth, he took another drink and sat down on the couch and turned on the TV and was immediately put off by what he saw, there was Minmei singing a song on TV. He groaned he didn't really like Minmei; an he didn't like her singing.
Aaron started to drink more from the bottle and felt himself calming down, he was about to fall asleep when he heard his telephone ring and looked at his watch, it was half past nine. He got to the phone and picked t up and said groggily into the receiver, "Hello?"
Rick was on the other end of the phone, "Hey why'd you leave," he asked, "I thought you were going to stay." Rick said and Aaron smiled to himself, "I don't know, I felt very...out of place, I felt sorta like the third wheel," Aaron said truthfully, he heard Rick give a sigh and heard some aimless chatting with Lisa.
"Well get your ass back over here," Rick said in a stern tone, but Aaron wasn't going anywhere, not now anyway, "Naw, that's ok I think I'll stay here and you know, live up the party by myself. Besides I am a little drunk and I'm tired an all I want to do it get wasted and go to sleep," Aaron said with a note of finality.
But what Aaron hadn't noticed was that the phone had changed hands, and now it was Lisa on the line, "You are going to just get drunk alone, all by yourself in that house you share with that fat tech?" Lisa asked with a trace of exasperation rising in her voice. Aaron now after drinking a quarter of the bottle was losing his grip on himself and felt his faculties slipping away.
"Yeah," Aaron said rather harshly not meaning too, "I do think I am going to get drunk, pass out, wake up tomorrow and drag myself through the whole day with a wonderful hangover," Aaron said now angry that he was being prodded, Lisa could tell that she wasn't getting anywhere with a drunk seventeen year old and that it was best to let it go.
"Well, next time we won't let you go get food, cause if you're just gonna sneak out while we're not paying attention, how will we ever get to know you any better?" Lisa asked really trying to get to know Rick's only blood left alive. Aaron smiled, "Well, I dunno, can we talk about this some other time when I am in better shape for it, cause right now I don't know if I could talk like this for a long time."
He listened for a minute and heard the click and hung up the phone and went back to the couch and corked the bottle back up. Aaron went to the bathroom showered, and went to bed, it had been a long day and now he was tired and all he wanted to do was go to bed and get ready for tomorrow.
Aaron climbed into bed and just as he was about to fall asleep he heard a monstrous explosion and bolted up and ran to his door to see the smoke rising from a building not a few blocks down the road from him. Aaron shuttered, it was another suicide attack and he could see other groggy RDF personal start to make their way into the cold, cold night to help the survivors, and Aaron too found himself swept up in the rush to go and help.
Aaron got to the building and saw that it had been an apartment complex and that it looked like it had had a been gashed down the middle due to the large opening running down the middle and the completely blown open rooms and the obvious bodies everywhere. The RDF personal started to work feverishly to help everyone they could from the fire, and as fire teams and rescue teams arrived, the RDF personal began to filter back to their homes, an for the second time in a month, Macross had been devastated by a terrorist attack.
A/N: Ok, that chapter wasn't what I had been hoping for, but it is a filler for when I return the 8th of July and begin Chapter 12 of What If and Chapter 6 of Hopes and Dreams, and I promise the Bunnies, and Sterling's will make another appearance. An Admiral Gloval will be mentioned some more too.
A/N: Well this is the last chapter before I go to Wisconsin, USA (for all those non-American readers out there), so I want to try and make it a good one. Anyway, thank you lisay, I am flattered that you should think so highly of my work. Well anyway, here is chapter five of Hopes and Dreams.
Lisa slapped her hand to her head and looked out from the virtual mountain of paper work and rolled her eyes and gave out an exasperated groan, "There is so much here to be done, that I will never get it all done," Lisa said to herself and started back to the paperwork.
It had been three weeks since then Christmas Day suicide attack on Macross Barracks and just as long since the new recruits had come into fill the ranks. Lisa groaned about that too, there had been a lot of outrage railing against the RDF using teenagers, but what needed to be done was done and the media slowly found new things to rant and rave about.
Lisa shook her head and told herself that she had a lot of work to do and that if she didn't start now that she would never get home in time to see Rick, who she had heard from one of her aides was equally swamped because of the six thousand new recruits, over twelve hundred of them were found to be Veritech pilot material, and Rick and the rest of the RDF VT wing had drawn the job of helping the over loaded trainers.
There was no need for a very strenuous physical fitness test, the only real test that was required was the "G's Test," where the body was put under tremendous g-force and if that person could handle the g's, they would be qualified, but that didn't mean that a person who was hundred pounds over weigh could be a pilot.
Lisa looked at her watch and gave a groan, it was late, already after eight p.m. and Lisa hadn't even gotten half way through with her paper work and she looked out the window, which by chance had a view of Macross and Lisa could see the lights of people heading home and imagined herself for a moment as one of the civilian type who had a nine-to-five job, she laughed, then another thought popped into her head.
She could see herself now as a house wife, walking around shooing the dog away from breakfast as Rick and the kids would come down to eat, Rick would be in his suite for work and the kids would be all dressed for school, there would be a boy and a girl, and Lisa could see them arguing all the time.
She could see herself sitting down next to her husband and asking him, with his head behind the paper, how he liked breakfast and she could see him grumbling something about it being good and asking her if she could get him more coffee and then he would look at his watch and see he was late and he would get up and get out the door giving her a good-bye kiss with the kids making sick noises in the background.
Then she would hurry the kids off to the bus and stand at the window to make sure they would get on the bus, because that Rick Jr. is a trouble maker an he would skip school of given the chance. Then she would set about doing her daily chores till the kids got home and she'd help them with their homework and then Rick would get home and she would cook dinner and get the kids to bed then Rick and she would go to bed and then do it all over again the next day.
Lisa laughed hard at the notion, here she was an Admiral, the highest ranking person in the RDF and she was having a civilian life day dream. She laughed again and she got up from her desk unable to do anymore work. She walked to the door and grabbed her service coat and put it on and walked out the door turning out the lights laughing that she could even make up such a day dream.
Lisa walked to the trainee barracks and didn't find Rick in any of the trainers or anywhere around so she asked around a bit and found one of the Skull Squadron pilots, "Hey," Lisa said and say him look a her, he barely registered her rank and she knew that he was a veteran, "have you seen Captain Hunter?" Lisa asked him and he nodded and pointed to the gym, Lisa thanked him and left.
Lisa walked in to see Rick in the boxing ring with another pilot, whom as she got closer, could see was Aaron, she smiled, she liked Aaron, he was a good kid a kid who reminded her lot of herself at his age. She watched at Rick and Aaron went at each other and as Lisa watched she could see that neither one of them was getting the upped hand.
Then she saw then back away and Rick's head turn and Lisa saw that he had seen her and had turned slightly to wave at her but the look on her face wasn't that of happiness, but that of a surprised look as Aaron's right hand made contact with Rick's face and sent him off to his left.
Aaron smiled a bit, Rick had been distracted and now was his chance to end the fight by going ballistic on Rick and he started to hit Rick with his left/right hooks and jabs, but Rick responded faster then he had anticipated and he started to hit back and Aaron knew he had lost the fight, Rick was stronger than him and would be able to take a lot more punishment than he would, but Aaron wasn't going to give up and he kept swinging and jabbing.
Rick was momentarily thrown by Aaron's right hook and that was all the time Aaron had needed to start to pummel Rick, but Rick got his own hands moving and using his greater strength and ability to take the shots he started to hit back, and hit back hard. Rick smiled as best he could, he had won the fight because Aaron had made a commitment to try and finish it here and Rick had come back faster than he had thought and now Rick was going to lay him out.
Rick pulled back his right and swung with his left striking Aaron and sending him back, but Aaron too pulled back his right and it seemed that both Rick and Aaron hit each other at the same moment with their respective right hooks. Both men fell back onto the mat and neither one of them moved for a good minute and Lisa made her way to the ring and got in and stood over both of them and looked at them with a stern motherly look.
"What am I going to do with you two? Hmm? I mean I get off working and I come to find you and here you are boxing with your brother and then I watch as you two pummel each other," Lisa said with a mocking exasperated tone. She smiled, she was glad to see that Rick was spending time with Aaron, seeing as how they were related.
Rick was as surprised as anyone when he found out that he and Aaron were related, and they weren't cousins either, they were brothers. Rick had taken it with a cool head and didn't really know what to make of it, but as he asked Aaron he found out that Pop Hunter had sent Aaron to stay with his brother, Rick's uncle, Alec Hunter because Pop was always flying and his mother couldn't handle Rick due to her illness.
But Lisa went to Aaron and helped him up and walked over to Rick and gave him a sigh and shook her head and walked away, "Hey, your not gonna help me up?" Rick pouted as Lisa walked away and got out of the ring, "No, get yourself up, I got to get home so we have something to eat," she said over her shoulder.
Aaron still a bit lightheaded from the blows he had exchanged with Rick helped him up and on the spur of the moment spoke up, "Hey Rick, why don't you go with Lisa an I'll pick something up for us to have, I mean if that's ok with you," Aaron hesitated, Rick looked at Lisa and she looked at him and she nodded her head and Rick jumped out of the ring.
Aaron watched them go and then remembered that he was going to have to find something to eat and quickly went over in his head what there was on the way to the residential military housing and quickly figured that he would get Italian, he was in a particularly Italian mood tonight and went to ring-side and got his cell phone and dialed the number for Ristorante Italiano Migliore and when the other line picked up he quickly rattled off his order for Penne Tomatoes Blue Cheese, Osso-Buco a la Milanaise, and Tiramisu and Kahlua, and as Aaron finished his order he got on a shirt and walked out of the gym.
Aaron got to his car and started to make hi way to Ristorante Italiano Migliore, and before he knew it he was there and he closed the door to his car and walked in, "May I help you sir," the man said with an obvious practiced Italian accent, Aaron looked at him and just nodded and told him his name and the man checked the list, "That will be forty-five ninety-three," the man said and Jacob pulled out a fifty and handed it to the man.
Another person came out with Aaron's food and Aaron realized that you can't have Italian without wine and looked at the selection and saw one that struck his fancy, "Oh and I'll take the Pinot Grigio," Aaron said and the man looked at him for second and seemed to shrug it off, "That'll be another thirty-five dollars, sir," the man said and Aaron pulled out more money and found that he was broke.
'Well at least I'll eat good tonight,' Aaron though as he took the food and wine to the car and made his way to Rick's place, and when he got half way there he realized that he didn't know who's place they were at, so he drove by Rick's and saw that the lights were out so he drove onto Lisa's and saw that a few lights were dimmed.
He grabbed the food and wine and closed and locked the car doors and made his way for the door and knocked on the door, he heard some shuffling and rolled his eyes, 'They could at least have waited till after dinner,' he thought. Lisa opened the door out of her uniform and into some night clothes, he looked a little beyond her and say Rick was too in night clothes, 'Must have clothes at each others houses,' Aaron smiled deviously.
Lisa saw the smile and wasn't sure if she liked it and took the food from him and noticed in his left hand was a bottle of wine and she looked at him with a surprised look on her face that seemed to ask how a seventeen year old could have gotten wine.
"I just asked him for it and he let me have it, after I paid him of course," Lisa shrugged, she didn't care she was hungry and she knew that Aaron had brought food and she was grateful to him for that. She took the food and set it on the table and smacked Rick in the head to wake him up.
Rick woke with a start to see Aaron standing there still in his boxing sweats and a shirt that he had on earlier, "Oh man you are gonna smell, you didn't go home to change?" Rick asked. Aaron showed a toothy grin, "Well unlike you, I'd actually have to go home to get changed and cleaned up, I didn't get to go half way," Aaron said, and all that implied.
Rick made a sour face, but didn't have it for long as Lisa plopped down next to him with a plateful of food and Rick made a unhappy face, "Hey, where's mine?" Rick asked. Lisa just ignored him and kept on eating and Rick was forced to get up and get his own food.
Aaron stood off to the side and watched as Rick went and got some food and walked back to the couch and sat down next Lisa, and suddenly Aaron felt very out of place and decided that he would go, and made his way carefully for the door and got out of the house without being noticed.
Aaron started his car and was thankful he had gotten a silent running care so the engine didn't make any noise as he started it up and he pulled away from the house and started down the road and after about fifteen minutes he got to his quarters he shared with a lazy technician who sat around all day. He walked in and saw that his roommate had left a mess as usual and started to clean up and after what seemed like forever finally got the house to a semblance of clean.
Aaron looked around and saw that he still had the wine and went and opened it and took a drink from it, he made a face and let the taste fill his mouth, he took another drink and sat down on the couch and turned on the TV and was immediately put off by what he saw, there was Minmei singing a song on TV. He groaned he didn't really like Minmei; an he didn't like her singing.
Aaron started to drink more from the bottle and felt himself calming down, he was about to fall asleep when he heard his telephone ring and looked at his watch, it was half past nine. He got to the phone and picked t up and said groggily into the receiver, "Hello?"
Rick was on the other end of the phone, "Hey why'd you leave," he asked, "I thought you were going to stay." Rick said and Aaron smiled to himself, "I don't know, I felt very...out of place, I felt sorta like the third wheel," Aaron said truthfully, he heard Rick give a sigh and heard some aimless chatting with Lisa.
"Well get your ass back over here," Rick said in a stern tone, but Aaron wasn't going anywhere, not now anyway, "Naw, that's ok I think I'll stay here and you know, live up the party by myself. Besides I am a little drunk and I'm tired an all I want to do it get wasted and go to sleep," Aaron said with a note of finality.
But what Aaron hadn't noticed was that the phone had changed hands, and now it was Lisa on the line, "You are going to just get drunk alone, all by yourself in that house you share with that fat tech?" Lisa asked with a trace of exasperation rising in her voice. Aaron now after drinking a quarter of the bottle was losing his grip on himself and felt his faculties slipping away.
"Yeah," Aaron said rather harshly not meaning too, "I do think I am going to get drunk, pass out, wake up tomorrow and drag myself through the whole day with a wonderful hangover," Aaron said now angry that he was being prodded, Lisa could tell that she wasn't getting anywhere with a drunk seventeen year old and that it was best to let it go.
"Well, next time we won't let you go get food, cause if you're just gonna sneak out while we're not paying attention, how will we ever get to know you any better?" Lisa asked really trying to get to know Rick's only blood left alive. Aaron smiled, "Well, I dunno, can we talk about this some other time when I am in better shape for it, cause right now I don't know if I could talk like this for a long time."
He listened for a minute and heard the click and hung up the phone and went back to the couch and corked the bottle back up. Aaron went to the bathroom showered, and went to bed, it had been a long day and now he was tired and all he wanted to do was go to bed and get ready for tomorrow.
Aaron climbed into bed and just as he was about to fall asleep he heard a monstrous explosion and bolted up and ran to his door to see the smoke rising from a building not a few blocks down the road from him. Aaron shuttered, it was another suicide attack and he could see other groggy RDF personal start to make their way into the cold, cold night to help the survivors, and Aaron too found himself swept up in the rush to go and help.
Aaron got to the building and saw that it had been an apartment complex and that it looked like it had had a been gashed down the middle due to the large opening running down the middle and the completely blown open rooms and the obvious bodies everywhere. The RDF personal started to work feverishly to help everyone they could from the fire, and as fire teams and rescue teams arrived, the RDF personal began to filter back to their homes, an for the second time in a month, Macross had been devastated by a terrorist attack.
A/N: Ok, that chapter wasn't what I had been hoping for, but it is a filler for when I return the 8th of July and begin Chapter 12 of What If and Chapter 6 of Hopes and Dreams, and I promise the Bunnies, and Sterling's will make another appearance. An Admiral Gloval will be mentioned some more too.