Danny was a little worried because his friend wasn't talking.
It wasn't like Hank to keep to himself and he could only figure that it was a result of the conversation they'd all had at the beach. His sister wasn't saying much either, but she seemed relieved and slowly began to return to her old self. The situation with Hank must have weighed more heavily on her mind than he thought and didn't like the fact that he'd missed it.
They sat together in their last briefing of the day, as they always did and two weeks after Sarah called things off with Hank they found out that they were being put back in to the rotation. Danny's stomach clenched as he heard the low murmurs of the rest of the squadron because he knew they were feeling as he did, nervous.
Hank glanced at him and Danny sighed.
They were told that they would be headed back to Okinawa in a week's time and between now and then they would be in the air getting ready. At the end of the briefing, the pilots stood at attention as their squadron commander departed and then the air seemed to go out of the room.
"We knew that there was a chance that this would happen when we went to the Academy." Hank said sensibly as he and Danny headed for the door.
"So why is it more difficult this time?" He asked his friend. "It seems that since we've been through it already it would be easier."
"You'd think so, but I think that since we have been through it we know what to expect now."
"This is exactly why I didn't want to get involved with anyone after I broke up with Caroline." He frowned. "It was going to be hard enough knowing my family was back here worrying, I didn't want a girlfriend worrying too."
Hank grinned and it was the first time since Ann's graduation party that Danny had seen it. "It's a little late to be thinking about that now Dan. You made the decision to pursue her knowing that this would happen and now you have to deal with the fall out."
Danny nodded. "I know. We've already talked about this and I try not to keep her in the dark but you know as well as I do that there are some things that I can't tell her."
"Does she understand that?" Hank asked as they walked down the hall toward the outside door that would take them to the tarmac.
"Would you believe that we spent part of our first date talking about it?" He smiled as his friend laughed.
"Only you would talk shop on a date."
Danny shook his head. "Only with Ann. Caroline never wanted any part of it and I think that's the biggest reason that we weren't suited for each other."
"That and the fact that she hates anything having to do with the service." He smiled.
"That too. But at least Evelyn doesn't." Danny was cautious in his comment, but he was curious how Hank would respond. "She wouldn't be working on a military base if she did."
"If you want to ask me something Dan, just ask." Hank seemed annoyed by the remark more than angry. "I would never have taken you for a matchmaker."
"I'm not matchmaking; I'm just making a comment." He replied, not fully convinced that he wasn't doing exactly that. "But since you brought it up."
He laughed as Hank sighed. "Oh jeez."
"Seriously though, I'm really not." He assured his friend as they walked outside and then seemingly out of nowhere Evelyn appeared, nearly running into Hank.
"Could this day get any worse?" He groaned in frustration.
"Gee, such a warm welcome Henry. Thank you so much." Evelyn's voice was heavy with sarcasm as she struggled to keep the stack of files in her arms from spilling all of its contents. "I wonder what kind of a hello I would have gotten if you were in a bad mood?"
"Come on Ev, you know that it wasn't personal." Hank reached for the folders that began to slip out her grasp and fall to the ground. Paper work began to scatter and the three friends scrambled to retrieve the fluttering papers before a gust of wind could carry them away. It didn't help matters that a back draft was being created by a flight of jets taking off nearby.
"I don't know any such thing." She frowned as she grabbed the loose paper from Hank's hands and jammed them between the folders. "And look at this mess! I was supposed to be going over all of this information with the Wing commander and now I'll look as though I came unprepared."
"Well the least Hank can do is buy you dinner when your meeting is over." Danny tried not to laugh because he'd never seen Evelyn so discomposed and he couldn't help but wonder if his friend was responsible.
"Don't think you're getting out of this Dan. If you said something to upset him then this mess is just as much your fault, if not more. If anyone should be buying dinner it should be you."
"I don't think Annie would like that too much Ev." Hank's mood seemed to improve because Evelyn's ire was turned on him. "So you better not tell her Dan."
"Why don't you walk her to the commander's office and help her explain the situation? He might not be so hard on Evelyn if you're there to back her up." Danny suggested without motive.
"No!" They both answered in a panicked unison.
"It's not necessary because I'll tell him the truth." Evelyn stepped away from them and toward the door. "I'll tell him that I ran into a couple of cocky pilots. He would believe it, this is an Air Force base for crying out loud!" She added as she yanked the door open, walked inside and the door closed behind her.
"Did you hear what she said?" Hank stared at the closed door. "I've never heard her say anything so impolite."
"Why wouldn't you walk with her? The commander's office isn't that far and she probably could have used some back up." Danny watched him as his shoulders hunched forward.
"She said it wasn't necessary, or weren't you listening?"
"I heard what she said and you haven't answered my question." He was beginning to wonder how deep Hank's feeling for Evelyn might really be and how she felt about him.
"She could be dangerous." His voice was so soft that Danny wondered if he was meant to hear it. "A girl like her could take a guy's mind off of his job."
"That's not necessarily a bad thing Hank." He answered just as quietly as he put a hand on his friend's tense shoulder. "We get too caught up in our job sometimes and forget that there's something else out there besides the Air Force. Ann forced me to see that and maybe Evelyn can help you see that too."
"It's a moot point because you know her rule." Hank reminded him.
"I know. But if you think you might be interested in pursuing something with her, you'll just have to convince her that she needs to amend that rule for you." Danny said sensibly. "It doesn't make any sense to me that if two people enjoy each other's company that they shouldn't do something about it."
Hank turned around and his hands were shoved into the pockets of his flight jacket. "You are matchmaking."
It came out as a statement, more than an accusation.
He shook his head. "Not purposely. I was all for you and my sister because I initially thought that you made a good match, but it didn't take long for me to see something was missing. Call it a spark if you want to, but where I didn't see that with you and Sarah I do see that with you and Evelyn. And what makes it even more interesting is that the both of you seemed bound and determined to ignore it."
"You just got done telling me that you didn't want a girlfriend after you broke up with Caroline because of the situation we're in. And now after Sarah's broken things off with me, you think I should turn around and start something with another girl?" He sounded almost incredulous.
"I'm not just talking about any girl Hank; I'm talking about Evelyn." He emphasized. "And as much as I didn't want another girlfriend, my heart didn't give me much of a choice."
"Are you sorry?"
"Not for a second. She understands how this whole thing works and while I might have worried with another girl, I don't with her. We're both Air Force brats and we know what it is to have someone leave and worry that they might not come home."
"Evelyn doesn't know what that is Dan, at least Sarah did. If I did decide to try and persuade her to give me a chance how fair would it be to have to leave her and maybe not come back?" He asked and Danny sensed that it wasn't the first time it crossed his mind. "Dan, do you know why she has that rule about not dating guys in the service?"
He shook his head. "I don't think she ever explained it to me."
"Her mother lost someone she'd fallen in love with at Pearl Harbor. She told me that her mother might never have gotten over it if she hadn't met Ev's father. Her mother only mentioned it once but it had a real effect on her. "
"Was her Dad in the service?" For some reason Danny always thought that Mr. Ahern had been a 4-F.
"He was in the Navy but he was stateside during the war. Ev said he was really disappointed that he was land locked because he wanted to serve on a ship."
The situation with those two was becoming more and more interesting.
"So how did you find this out?" He smiled but his friend didn't seem to notice.
"When we started to sit together at Ann's swim meets; we would talk about different things while we waited for her and one afternoon she told me about that."
"You really should take her out Hank." And when he began to object Danny held up his hand to quiet him. "But because we know she won't go for that, just keep things casual. You've been friends long enough, so it wouldn't be unusual to ask her if she wanted to meet you at the commissary for lunch. Or better yet accidentally run into her when you know she's going to be eating there and sit together."
"Ev isn't stupid Dan, she'd know a set up when she saw it." He frowned and it deepened because Danny was smiling at him.
"I've never heard you call her Ev before and in the course of the last ten minutes you seem to have gotten very comfortable saying it."
It didn't seem to occur to Hank that he'd said it because his ears turned red and Danny knew he'd unwittingly embarrassed him. "So everything that I do or say from now on when it concerns Evelyn is going to be ammunition for you to use against me?"
"How about if we pretend I never said anything? She's obviously a sore spot and I don't want to make it worse. All right?" He was going to have to tread lightly from now on because he'd pushed his good natured ribbing too far and knew if he kept it up he could lose a good friend.
Hank stuck his hand out and Danny took it. "After all the ribbing that you've had to put up with from me it's only fair that I get some of it back."
"We'll call it even then." He nodded his agreement. "So what's on your agenda for the evening?"
His friend shrugged his shoulders. "I hadn't given it too much thought, with Sarah out of the picture my evenings are pretty wide open. What about you?"
"I hadn't given it much thought either. Ann left for Ohio a few days ago to visit her grandparents for a couple of weeks and I'll probably be gone when she gets back."
"That's rough."
He sighed in resignation. "We knew it could happen but I still wanted her to go. She and Shelby and Tom don't usually get back there more than once a year and I didn't want her to miss seeing her grandparents on account of me."
"Shouldn't have that been her decision?" Hank couldn't seem to help but smile.
"We decided it together smart-ass." He grinned back. "Besides, I promised that I would let her know when we'd been put back in the rotation so she would know for certain that I'd be gone when she got home."
"And maybe give her the choice of coming home early?" His smile turned into a grin.
"That will be up to her." Danny told him and felt his neck warm because it was certainly something that he wouldn't mind. He had to admit though that saying goodbye to her would be a lot tougher than having her welcome him home.
"Tell me what's going on inside that brain of yours Dan." He heard the sudden concern in his friend's voice.
"Pre-mission jitters." He tossed off. "And it doesn't help that Ann isn't here."
"Come on Dan, tell me." Hank insisted.
"I didn't have them the first time we flew out because I didn't know exactly what in the hell we were going to be flying in to. But now that we've been through it and found out that even as well trained as we are it's still not enough I've got the jitters."
"Do you have those jitters because you think that you might not come home?" He looked worried.
Danny shook his head. "No, nothing like that because if I thought that way I'd never be able to get into the air. It's odd because you'd think that jitters would have been the norm for our first mission, not our second."
"She'll be here when we get back, if that helps." Hank said and smiled again. "Then you'll get a nice welcome home like you did this last time."
"Our parents were sure surprised by that." He grinned with embarrassment. "I didn't think about it until later that I probably shouldn't have kissed her the way I did. I know she didn't mind but I'm sure about our folks."
"If anyone would understand about homecomings Dan, it would be them. They've had more than their fair share over the years."
"I know but I think it's a little different when it's your son and your daughter." He reasoned.
"You've got a point about that. But you said yourself that Ann's parent's went through the whole war without really telling anyone that they were seeing each other, even though all of their friends knew it. They had their reasons I guess."
Danny laughed. "With our families we didn't have a choice. But you are right though about our not keeping things under wraps and that was because we didn't want to."
"If I ask you something, will you give me a straight answer and not be a smart-ass about it?" Hank grew serious again and Danny nodded. "What do you think about Evelyn?"
"I don't follow."
"I still have a hard time admitting this, even to myself but she's been on my mind in the last few months. Maybe one of the reasons that things didn't work for Sarah and me was the fact that she is such a part of the military. Her father was a combat pilot in two different wars and her brother is a combat pilot in this one and a graduate of a military academy. She lives on a military base and has never known anything but this way of life. Evelyn grew up in a civilian life, like I did and she knows a different way to live than Sarah did. She works here but she lives off base. She separates the two parts of her life for her own sake and has made a hard and fast rule about mixing the two."
He wasn't sure what Hank was getting at. "You're babbling Henry, so take a deep breath and just ask me whatever it is that you want to ask."
He seemed to shake himself mentally and did as Danny advised and took a deep breath. "Do you think Evelyn is worth my going out on a limb for?"
Danny wasn't trying to be uncooperative, but it seemed to him that Hank just answered his own question. "Do you think she's worth going out on a limb for?"
"That wasn't what I asked!" Hank was irritated and Danny knew it.
"I know but it seems to me that the fact you're asking tells me that you already think she is. And if it's how you really feel, you have to figure out how to persuade Evelyn to change that rule for you. Who knows, she might think that you're worth it too and isn't sure where you stand."
"I hadn't thought of that."
"Well then I think it's time you do. You just gave me a laundry list of reasons why things didn't work with you and my sister. Maybe you need to draw up another laundry list of reasons why things could work with you and Evelyn, don't you think?" He asked sensibly.
"I don't want to be wrong about her Dan." He sighed.
"No guy ever wants to be wrong. But you'll never know for sure until you give it a shot and it seems to me that you think she's worth it." He reinforced his point as the topic of their conversation came through the door.
"Why are you still here?" She glared at Hank as she gripped the folders in front of her. "Thanks to you Commander Allen let me know in no uncertain terms that he didn't appreciate my sloppy presentation and told me to return to his office first thing in the morning with everything in order."
"I'm sorry about that Ev."
Her face flushed and Danny couldn't be sure, but it seemed that she was finally registering the fact that Hank was being familiar with her name. "Don't call me that Henry, you haven't earned the right." And she walked away.
"Evelyn, don't be like that." He called after her.
She spun around. "You're just as cocky as you always were and frankly the charm of it has worn off."
"Then give me the chance to show you that I'm not." He blurted out and Danny tried to hide his grin. "I am partly to blame for those folders being such a mess. Let me help you set things to rights so you'll be ready for Commander Allen tomorrow."
"I don't need your help."
He smiled and Evelyn's face turned a deeper shade of red. "From the look of things, I think you do. Why don't you meet me at the Black Cat for dinner and we'll get a booth. The table will be big enough so we can organize everything and get those folders back in order."
She stood silently and Danny could see that she was fighting a battle with herself. He wasn't sure what she was going to do and she sighed. "Another pair of hands wouldn't hurt."
"So is that a yes?"
"Is this a date?" Evelyn asked and looked very wary.
He shook his head. "Absolutely not. Reorganizing folders isn't exactly high on my priority list of things to do on a date."
She looked unsure if she should accept his answer and Danny couldn't say as he blamed her. Hank seemed to have made the decision to jump in with both feet and he wasn't going to look back. "Just so you understand."
"I know Evelyn, no servicemen."
He thought she was going to balk because she didn't say anything else for a few moments and then she sighed again. Was it resignation? "All right. Give me a chance to go home so I can get out of my work clothes and into something more comfortable then I'll meet you there in a half-hour."
"That sounds like a plan. If I get there first do you want me to order anything to drink?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "Order yourself what you like but since we'll be going Dutch Treat I'll order something when I get there."
The battle of wills was on.
It seemed as though Hank wanted to say something but couldn't quite get up the nerve, so he passed. "Well, seeing as how this isn't a date that would seem fair."
"A half-hour then." And she walked away.
"Don't say it Dan because I know what you're thinking." Hank stopped him before Danny said exactly what his friend suspected he wanted to say. "I'm only going to help her clear up a mess I helped create."
"One step at a time Hank." He smiled and clapped his friend on the shoulder as they walked toward the officer's parking lot. "One step at a time."