Ch 3

The next day Lee woke up with Zak pounding on his door. The younger man was obviously in a hurry and Lee laughed when he saw his brother so worked up.

"What is your problem?"

"Bro, I've gotta get to training but I wanted to know if you'd come by later on and see me fly."

"I'd love to little brother. I thought while I was here I'd look up some old friends of mine but how about if I come by in the afternoon?"

"Sounds good, look for Kara, she'll know where I'm at. Then maybe we can hang out afterwards? I miss you and I kinda wanna catch up some more."

"It's a plan. Now can I go back to sleep?"

Zak laughed and waved his brother back to bed as he took off running for his class. When Lee woke again, this time at a more reasonable hour, he dressed in his sweats and t-shirts and went searching for his friends. Later that afternoon he was walking across a tarmac next to a hanger when Kara ran up beside him.

"Well it's about time you got here! I've been putting off Zak's run all morning so he could show off for you. C'mon!" she took off running and Lee had no choice but to follow her.

Zak lifted off smoothly and his flight was decent but Lee saw several things that could have been done better. He was proud of his baby brother though, and he decided to wait until later to bring up pointers. When Zak landed his Viper, Kara dismissed the class for the day and grabbed the brothers, one on each arm and pulled them out into the sunny day. They walked around the base for a while talking and swapping raunchy jokes and just enjoying the day. They stopped for a rest in a small park that was at the center of the base and started talking about what they wanted for dinner when Lauren wandered up. She looked sad and Kara immediately asked her what was wrong.

"Well it's not bad really, I got that transfer I wanted."

"The one to Geminon? That's great!" Kara patted Lauren on the shoulder in encouragement.

"Yeah, but I ship out tomorrow. I was kinda hoping to be able to spend some more time here," she looked pointedly at Lee who was standing behind Kara at the time.

"Well then, I guess we're gonna have to party extra hard tonight. Can't have you flying outta here with out one hell of a hangover now can we?" Kara turned to Zak and Lee and explained the situation and they both agreed to help with Lauren's send off. Lee noticed that Lauren had a camera hanging from her neck and asked her what it was for.

"Oh I wanted to take some pictures of the base and my friends, ya know so I can remember it all. I've been taking pictures of all the places I love around here all afternoon and I was headed over here to the park when I saw you three."

"Oh well surely then you'll need to have several pictures of you and those two goofballs then huh? I'll take them for you so you can be in the pictures," Lee offered, holding out his hand for the camera.

Lauren smiled and thanked him by handing him the camera. She huddled close to Zak and Kara and the three of them posed in a bunch of crazy poses while Lee snapped away. After she felt that there were enough pictures of her friends she reached for the camera again and Lee gently handed it back to her.

"Hey, how about a picture of you three? Who knows when I'll see you three all together again huh?" She directed Lee to go stand over next to Zak and Kara who were in the middle of a warm hug. Kara was looking at Zak while Lee and Zak looked at the camera. "Hey, that's great, hold it!" She smiled as she snapped the picture and Lee couldn't help but feel a tingle as he shared her enthusiasm.