It took some doing but the nurses and the pilots were coming home, if only for a week.

Barbara, Martha and Gooz had only been back once since they left Pearl Harbor in 1945. The last time they'd all been together was when they met in Kentucky for the christening of Gooz' daughter in 1948 and they got to meet his wife.

She took their lighthearted ribbing of her husband in good humor and told his friends that she finally understood why he talked about them so much and why he was on the telephone with any one of the pilots on any given evening.

So even though Gooz didn't like to be far away from her and their little girl, Frances Harrison made it quite clear that she wanted her husband to go see his friends in Hawaii. So he went.

Red told Danny and Sandra the day that their friends began to arrive that he'd offered his sofa to Gooz and his friend took him up on it. They became good friends when he and Red had come back to Pearl Harbor after the Doolittle Raid. He told Red later on that he didn't think too much of the pilots that had been transferred from Mitchell and it wasn't until after they'd crash landed in China that he began to reevaluate what kind of a fellow Red was.

Sandra, Danny and Red stood at the gate at Hickam Air Force Base and waited for the transport to come in. They hadn't brought Ann or Shelby with them because it was so close to their nap time, so she asked their next door neighbor Mrs. Monahan to come and stay with the girls. She was a very nice woman who her mother had struck up a conversation with when she'd come out to help after Shelby was born.

Since that time, she watched the girls when Sandra would refuse to ask Red yet again.

Barbara called the night before to tell Sandra that she and Martha would be in the next afternoon on a transport into Hickam and it was that transport that the trio waited for.

After what felt to Sandra to be ages, she was able to make out a small dot in the sky. It got larger as the transport came in for the landing and she watched as it lined up with the runway.

Before she knew it, the plane landed and then the door opened. Portable stairs were put in front of the door and one by one, passengers started to get off. Sandra could feel the arm Danny had around her waist tighten a bit and she knew that he was just as excited as he that their friends would be there for a few days. He would never tell her that, but he didn't have to. She felt the same way.

Finally, Barbara and Martha stepped off and to their surprise Gooz was right behind them.

Danny had expressed his concern to her that neither he nor Red had heard from him about how he was planning on getting to Pearl Harbor.

The look on Gooz face as he got off the plane was one of amusement because he knew that he'd surprised them.

While Danny and Red shook his hand and pounded him on the back good naturedly, Sandra hugged the girls.

"So have you heard when are Ev and Rafe are coming in?" Barbara asked. "She said that she and Rafe would be taking a transport from his air base."

"They'll be in later today. Rafe told me that he would call me from their last stopover in California. So why don't we get your suitcases in the car and we'll go back to the house."

"We really should check in at our hotel." Martha told them.

"That's right." Barbara looked at her and agreed. "If we don't check in before five, we'll lose our reservations."

"And I'd really like to drop my gear at Red's quarters. I don't want to be lugging this damn bag around for the rest of the day." Gooz added.

"If you two want to take the girls to their hotel, I'll take Gooz in my car so we can get him settled in." Red suggested.

"That's a good idea." Sandra said before she looked at her watch. "Let's say we meet at the house in twenty minutes?"

Everyone agreed and while Gooz left the field with Red and headed to his car, Barbara and Martha followed Sandra and Danny to their car. It didn't take them long to get the rooms and to drop their own luggage inside the front doors before they got back in the car.

As Danny pulled the car into the drive, Red pulled up in front of the house.

Sandra watched her friends as they stood in front of the house and looked. "Are you girls all right?"

Barbara nodded. "I'm fine honey. It's just like stepping back in time because this is only the second time I've been back."

She laughed. "It was a little odd for us too when we first moved in. We felt so out of place for the first few months because this had been Ev and Rafe's house."

Danny put an arm around her waist and kissed her cheek. "But she made it ours real quick."

"With a lot of help from you." She smiled at him in answer before she looked at their friends. "Come on in everyone. We decided to keep lunch simple because Danny has something big planned for dinner. So if you want to go into the kitchen we have some bread and cold cuts on the table."

"And maybe a beer?" Gooz asked. "I'm parched after that long trip."

Danny smiled. "Don't worry Gooz. Sandra made sure that the icebox was stocked."

"I like the way your wife thinks Walker." He grinned as they headed into the kitchen.

The telephone rang in the living room and Sandra put a hand on Danny's arm. "Make yourself something to eat and I'll get that." And she walked out to pick up the receiver. "Hello?"

"Sandra, it's Rafe."

"Hello Rafe. May I assume that this call is to tell us that you're almost here?"

"Yea. We just landed and the pilot tells us that we'll be leavin' here in a half-hour. We should be there about five o'clock your time."

She nodded. "Danny will be happy to hear that. So will everyone else."

She heard him laugh. "So we'll be the last one's there?"

Sandra smiled in return. "Yes, but we'll all be at Hickam to meet your transport."

"I'll tell Evelyn."

"We'll see you about five then." She said before Rafe said goodbye and they hung up. She walked back into the kitchen and Danny handed her a plate. She took it and thanked him. "That was Rafe. He said that he and Ev just landed and that they would be here at five o'clock."

"Just in time for supper." He smiled at her and ushered everyone out to the front porch to have a light lunch and enjoy the afternoon sunshine.