U is for Umbrella


For most of its history firefighting aircraft tended to be military aircraft that had been pushed out of combat duties but weren't ready to give up the skies. Due to his high military rank, Cabbie was given instant respect by his fellow aircraft and his large size made the ground vehicles that worked with him think twice about crossing him. This led to a 'fairly smooth' transition from his military to his civilian role. But even though the old plane had been lucky to find a safe landing spot, he also recognized not all the vehicles were able to transition to a firefighter's life without major turbulent.

After all, this was a job that required a special type of expertise. One that required a whole lot of experience flying lines that no commercial or general aviation aircraft would dream off. Planes like that tended to have their fair share of ghosts trailing their aft…ghosts that were mighty difficult to outrun.

This fact seemed to be particularly true for their newest aircraft. From the outside, it seemed like the helicopter would have been a poor fit for the team. He was, after all, a civilian who had made his name in show business and shouldn't have anything in common with the washed up former military aircraft who called Piston Peak Air Attack Base home. If he had simply gone into firefighting for the change of pace, he should have ended up in one of the fancy city units where he could do PSAs and strut his stuff for members of the public.

Blade was a shiny piece of metal in the middle of a scrap heap. But if someone watched closely enough they could spot was a familiar haunted look that creeped into the helicopter's expression when he thought no one was looking…then there was the whispers, whispers about tragedy and pity. Whispers that Cabbie had done his best to ignore because he strongly felt that everyone had the right to forget the worst aspects of their past. This was especially true if they were actively trying to run from that past. Blade was clearly trying to hide what haunted him behind a shield of bluster and honestly, he was a mighty good actor…but it is slag difficult to keep up an act once you have drifted off to sleep.

After his shine exterior, the nightmares were the thing that really defined the green recruit to his teammates. They were so common that practically every night, Maru, the base's new mechanic, was stuck rolling over to the helicopter's hanger to calm him down. Which meant that the base now had two exhausted vehicles instead of just one. Even Cabbie knew that a vehicle could not live on coffee alone, but that didn't stop both the helicopter and the tug from trying. It was getting to be a bad enough problem that Air Boss was really wondering if he would have to pull both from the fire rotation because neither were safe in their sleep deprived state.

Cabbie knew that if it would have been up to some members of the team, Blade would have already been shown the hanger door, but those in command had enough experience with shell shock to know it when they saw it. They also knew that Maru would follow Blade and that Blade literally had runout of places to go. The higher ups knew that they also didn't have too much room to complain as the helicopter was far from the only vehicle on base with night terrors. In fact, Cabbie himself, had woken his fellow firefighters up in the middle of the night on multiple occasions.

For the old C-119, he had gotten to know his own triggers well enough that he made the choice to stay up through the night instead of interrupting his fellows sleep. After all, it is far better to only have one exhausted plane than an entire crew of tired firefighters. So, when the weather report indicated a night of storms, Cabbie decided to park himself in front of the TV in the main hanger instead of retiring to his own sleeping mat.

It didn't take Cabbie long to get into his even ritual of casually flipping through the channels. Eventually a flicker at the edge of his vision let him know that he had a visitor. That was not particularly unexpected. Occasionally, one of the smokejumpers would came in to grab a quick snack and might insist on joining Cabbie for an hour or so of mindless watching, but when the plane glanced over there was a very different visitor parked just outside the building. It was clear that the helicopter was doing his best to be sneaky, but it was pretty difficult to sneak into a hanger when opening the door caused the porch light to pour into the space.

"Couldn't sleep?" Cabbie's tried to keep a sigh out of his voice.

"Nightmares…" The little helicopter admitted, his eyes downcast, clearly embarrassed. He was leaning back on his tires in a way that made Cabbie suspect that he was getting ready to bolt back into the stormy night. Which wouldn't do.

"Me too. Thunderstorms and I are not good companions…" The old plane spoke in the same tone that he used with spooked smokejumpers, and he was somewhat pleased by the way that Blade's eyes flicked up in surprise when Cabbie admitted his own weakness. It was almost as if the helicopter was realizing that other vehicles on base also had deep running scars. Cabbie hummed slightly to himself and opened up just a little bit more about his past. "When my eyes are closed the thunder becomes the explosion of bombs and the flashes of lightning becomes muzzle fire…so it is best to be watching something else when these types of storms blow up. Would you care to join me?"

Blade bobbed slightly on his tires, his eyes locked on Cabbie. Every fiber of his being clearly screaming that he didn't want to be alone, even though some roadblock in his brain seemed to have him convinced that he wasn't worthy of comfort. Luckily once Cabbie scooted over the younger aircraft at least had the common sense to come and settle down in front of the TV. The soothing images of the far away places seemed to help, but the helicopter was clearly still on too much of an adrenaline high to properly calm down. When his breathing started to speed up again, Cabbie decided to try something different.

"You are a bit large for this…" Cabbie muttered under his breath before shifting his weight and levering himself into a position that would allow the plane to slip one of his wings carefully over Blades rotors.

At first the helicopter stiffened, after all sheltering was a normal activity for helicopters. Because of their delicate rotors they were used to having nothing but the sky or a hanger roof above them. For a few moments, Cabbie wondered if he had made a mistake…then as quickly as Blade had stiffened the helicopter sank deeper on his tires as he released some of the tension that he had been holding.

"Thanks…" The helicopter breathed, clearly slipping just a little bit closer to sleep. Cabbie didn't bother using words to reply, instead bringing his wing just a little bit lower in a position he used to protect his smokejumpers from stormy weather.

In under five minutes, Blade was out cold and Cabbie settled in for a long night of standing watch. What surprised him is less than an hour later, he had a second nocturnal visitor. This time it was an exhausted but clearly on the edge of panic Maru. He hadn't realized that Maru's nightly forays to Blade's hanger were not just for the helicopter's comfort.

"I couldn't find him…" Maru words were barely a whisper.

"He was having nightmares." Cabbie said with a slight shrug of his wings. "And I was up anyway."

"He could have…" Maru started, but his voice trailed off as he allowed his eyes to look straight into Cabbie's. "You could have gotten me. I wouldn't have minded."

"You needed your sleep." Cabbie noticed how Maru flinched at the words as though the plane had just made a comment about the mechanic's will or ability to be a friend, so the C-119 decided to defuse the situation with humor. He yawned. "Plus, I was feeling lazy and we were in the middle of a documentary about submarines, so I didn't feel like moving."

"I am sure…" Maru said, not hiding his skepticism.

"I like submarines." Cabbie countered with complete honesty. "Knew many of them during Korea and can actually have a passible conversation in in VLF." Maru actually looked fairly impressed by that, but it was still pretty clear that Maru wasn't happy with the current situation. "You are welcome to join us."

"I…"

"I am sure that would find this particular documentary interesting and there is plenty of space next to Blade." Cabbie motioned with his propeller. "Go close the hanger door and come settle in."

Maru looked at Cabbie, then at the hanger door. His eyes flickered back and forth a few times before he seemed to make a decision, rolled over to the door, and pulled it shut. Rolling back he parked himself between Cabbie and Blade, with his side pressed up against his friend. The tug was practically snoring before his wheels topped turning, which caused the plane to chuckle a bit…but the vibration seemed to help the helicopter drift deeper into sleep so the plane couldn't complain. He simply flicked on the closed caption and continued his meditative channel surfing.

There would be may more nights in the future where Blade would find himself seeking a form of comfort that not even Maru could provide, and he would tuck himself under Cabbie's wing to hid from the nightmares. On those nights, the tug usually would sneak in and also park himself under the protective arc of the old plane's wing to catch up on the badly needed sleep. Even though Blade's size made the whole set up rather uncomfortable for the old plane, and left Cabbie sore for the next couple of days the C-119 would never complain. Because if Blade and Maru needed an umbrella to shelter them from the worst of their internal storms, then Cabbie was more than willing to make the sacrifices to be his teammate's shelter.