Chapter 8: Torn Between Heart and Home

0500 hours, Heeler Household.

On this particular Sunday, Argus awoke as he had for nearly all of his military career. And it was almost exactly like his military career. A simple dreamless sleep, breaking away from the norms that had been every night since he had arrived. A departure from a new normal that Argus was eager to welcome. He had almost begun drinking coffee proffered to him by Chilli his sleep had been so restless. But this was no longer the case. Today, he had woken up more refreshed than he had in days past. Looking forward to the day rather than seeing it as another obstacle. Instead of reading from Bandit's study, this morning Argus went for a run. It had been a while since he had done any real cardio, and he was feeling it. It hadn't been since basic that he had struggled like this. Part of him smiled fondly at the memories.

Memories…

Argus slowed to a stop. His breathing changed from measured breaths in and out to quiet deep intakes of air, followed by slow restrained exhales through his mouth. His heart was still thumping in his ears as the sky changed from orange to blue.

His memories of home began to surface, but he knew better. Nothing would be the same. What would home be like? It may be a while before he flew again, if ever. That was not an outcome he was looking forward to. Maybe he could pursue his master's and go into engineering. He did have his bachelors like any other officer. Argus was a bachelor of the sciences in the field of physics. But he loved flying. Forget his employment, he could suck it up and deal with it if he needed to. What would his social life look like?

He had already spoken with Mr. and Mrs. Bounder, who had been completely sympathetic and didn't blame him one bit. They had even postponed the funeral until Argus could attend. He had been talking to his family and they all had verbally confirmed without prompt, their vehement support. He doubted anyone in the military blamed him for the accident either.

The NTSB in conjunction with the US Navy released a report yesterday evening, citing a crack in one of the turbines. Easy to overlook in maintenance if it was not being looked for specifically and apparently impossible to see during external pre-flight checks made by pilots. The crack had been pushed to a critical point during the exercise, and the advancing of the throttle in order to reach cruising speed and altitude afterward had caused the failure. The fracture grew, causing unstable flow within the engine, prompting the alarm. An unstable flow usually indicated a compressor stall. An easy fix if it were the case. Soon after, the turbine fractured all the way through and was sent speeding out of its containment in all directions. For about 4 hours all US Navy turbine-operated aerial assets had been grounded. Over the next few months, squadrons would be re-implemented into normal operations if their engines had no cracks in the turbines, or grounded until replacements had been inspected and installed. His friends from the 94th, still at sea, had already passed inspection and were feeling the strain of trying to make up for the severe lack of airpower now aboard the USS George H. W. Bush-dog. Seemed he was the unlucky one, though extremely lucky compared to Brainiac.

It was mainly the charge of mutiny that had him worried. Even if he was acquitted, it was an ugly stain present on his record with the US military. At least, in the very likely event that he was acquitted, it wouldn't transfer out with him. But unless all the officers that made up the Jury knew him personally, he could kiss his flying career goodbye. He was certainly a good pilot, but in order to keep flying he would have needed to possess something truly extraordinary. There had been only one air-to-air kill in the last 20 years of naval aviation, and he didn't have it.

Argus looked once more again to the sky, now an infinite blue stretching, seemingly endlessly upwards. The last tinges of orange disappearing behind the horizon. He subconsciously formed his hand around an imaginary hornet flight stick, pulling it this way and that while visualizing a hornet, the one he knew, making the corresponding maneuvers.

Faint, and far away he thought he could almost hear it. He stopped with a sigh, drowning out the imaginary noise, and let his hand drop to the side. Argus was about to turn and walk back to the heeler household until he realized with a flick of his left ear that he wasn't imagining the sound. His head snapped skyward, his ears constantly turning each and every way. He could hear it on the wind, faint and far away. Low and howling. The hornet's blue note, a sound unique to the aircraft. A sound, he would recognize anywhere.

"There!"

Two silhouettes. Sleek and angular in a moderate climb northeast of where he was standing. Black and mostly featureless near the rising sun and climbing too quickly to make out any fine details but otherwise, unmistakable. Two hornets headed west. Argus began to smile to himself.

"Where there's a will, there's a way."

Rather than walking as he had planned, Argus jogged back to the Heeler household, his eyes blankly scanning the path ahead. Using landmarks to guide him. His brain was busy, formulating a plan.

Argus had missed breakfast this morning. He had told Chilli, Bandit, Bluey, and Bingo all the same thing when they all asked where he had gone. A jog, to clear his head. Chilli had found out about the court-martial through Bandit and correctly assumed that this was related. She had instructed Bluey and Bingo to play upstairs before delivering her thoughts on the matter. She'd make a fine sailor.

It was a few hours later when Argus finally had his plan semi-worked out. It would involve lots of extra paperwork, but it would all be worth it. Argus was finishing writing down the last details of his plan when the doorbell rang. Hearing no one jumping at the opportunity to answer he figured he would. Bandit had instructed him on how to deal with the occasional door-to-door salesman. Argus imagined himself as a butler for some rich family answering the door in a tuxedo and telling random people in the most polite and backhanded ways to get lost.

Opening the door he was not greeted by some uninterested teenager wearing a guise of false enthusiasm. He instead was met by the sight of a middle-aged woman, a few years younger than himself if he had to guess.

"Hiii-i?"

"Seriously!? "Hi"? That's the best you could come up with? Real smooth Argus. The voice crack at the end didn't do you any favors either!"

"Erm. Hello. Who are you? Sorry, I was expecting Chilli or Bandit" the woman said, confusion evident on her face.

Argus paused, his thoughts stopping the train of self-belittling and moving into a more analytical role.

"She knows Bandit and Chilli well enough to call them by their first name, and now that I look at her, she looks almost exactly like Bingo. Must be a relative. And she mentioned Chilli first, more likely Chilli's side of the family then."

A moment went by before Argus snapped back into the conversation.

"I'm Argus Hunter. Chilli is upstairs, and Bandit is probably in the kitchen" Argus was about to ask for her name before a pair of voices sounded off behind him.

"Aunty Brandy!"

Argus looked over his shoulder before stepping aside and letting Bluey and Bingo speak to "Aunty Brandy". Chilli walked at a slower pace behind them and gave an apologetic smile before moving outside to greet the woman, who was probably her sister. Argus was about to leave for the backyard, some sun might do him some good before he began bringing his plan to fruition, when he heard a near scream behind him.

"ONESIES!"

Turning around, he saw Bluey and Bingo excitedly rushing into the foyer and breaking into a pair of onesies. A cheetah and zebra themed respectively. This all seemed well and good except for the fact that Bluey's was a few sizes too small, and Bingo's was a few sizes too big. Rather amusedly they would be perfect fits for each other.

Argus made his way into the kitchen where, as he predicted, Bandit was. He was leaning against the counter phone in hand.

"Hey, Argus. Did Brandy arrive yet?"

"Chilli's sister? I believe so" Argus said.

"We should introduce the two of you" Bandit suggested.

"Well, I sorta greeted her at the door" Argus explained.

"Righto. Feel free to join us" Bandit said as he left the room.

"I'll keep that in mind," Argus said after Bandit and made to head outside when he heard a chorus of yells and a loud thud.

Abandoning his former planned activities, Argus turned on his heel and moved as fast as he could without bumping into anything.

The sight he came to was strange, to say the least. Bandit was playfully fending off Bingo, while seriously fending off laughter. Bingo, who was now wearing the cheetah onesie, had seemingly tackled Bandit and was proceeding to claw him to "death".

Bluey and Chilli were seemingly trying to make their escape unnoticed, while Bandit was being "eaten" but Brandy seemed too shocked to move. That and her eyes kept moving off of the reenactment of the circle of life in front of her to look at him. Quickly, Chilli and Bluey got Brandy to run with them out through the front door, with Bandit getting up to follow, Bingo hot on his heels. Argus stood still for a moment before shrugging. It hadn't been the weirdest thing he had seen in his life.

It was about 15 minutes later when he saw Brandy lying down on the grass, face up. He was no expert on canine emotion, but she seemed sad for lack of a better term.

"Incredibly detailed, Argus" his internal monologue deadpanned.

Argus moved into the backyard and prepared himself internally. He had never been a great conversationalist, six years of nothing but crude jokes in the ready room and flight terminology hadn't been a boon to his social skills.

"Uh, hi. Again. Ms…?" Argus began.

Brandy looked up into his face, her eyes subconsciously following a small bird that flew overhead.

"Cattle. But call me Brandy, Mr. Hunter."

"Just Argus is fine. Am I correct in assuming you're Chilli's sister?"

"You are."

Argus sat down next to her, his legs folding inwards and his back straight. He saw Bingo "on the prowl" by the tree. She had been looking around out front when he had made his approach.

"Everything okay?"

"Not really."

"Want to talk about it?"

"Sort of? It feels weird divulging this information to someone I barely know. No offense."

"None taken, but if you really want to get this stuff off your chest, we can fix that."

Brandy supposed she really didn't have much else to do. "Sure, tell me about yourself."

Argus did just that. Where he was from, what he did for a living, and how he arrived in the Heeler household. He did leave out parts about Brainiac and the court-martial, he didn't need her to disregard her own problems in favor of his. Finally, he got her to open up.

"Well, I suppose what I want more than anything is to have children of my own. And maybe someone to raise them with. I was married, but then I was divorced after I and my ex-husband found out I'm… I'm infertile."

Argus sputtered at that.

"Are you okay?" Brandy asked.

Composing himself, Argus responded.

"Just a strange coincidence. I had a five-year relationship end for the same reason just before my latest deployment. We were never married, and I was dumped because I'm infertile."

Brandy stared at him, eyes wide and jaw open before she snorted and began to laugh.

"Who- Who would have thought? Huh?" She managed to get out between laughs.

Argus began to chuckle too.

It was during this bout of laughter that Bluey and Chilli made their reappearance. They spoke with each other in hushed voices as they approached Argus and Brandy, Brandy motioning for them to run. Apparently, there was a trap that Argus had managed to avoid springing, and Bluey and Chilli didn't get the message.

"Aunty Brandy, were you shooing a fly?"

"It's a trap!"

Bingo was upon them in a moment, tackling Chilli to the ground.

"Run Bluey! Run Argus!" Chilli said through laughter.

Bingo immediately lunged at Argus, who backpedaled away, turned, and bolted to the tree. In a display of acrobatics, Argus ignored the attached rope ladder, instead pulling himself up directly onto the branch, and then again into higher branches. Deciding that this prey was too agile, cheetah-bingo turned and chased Bluey. Who ran back around to the front of the house. Argus decided to lounge, relaxing in his high perch as Chilli and Brandy left to help Bluey, however they would accomplish that. A few minutes later, he heard laughter floating on the breeze.

Argus looked up, admiring the blue sky. Simply watching the clouds drift lazily overhead as birdsong, quiet and lilting, saturated the area. Sometime later, he felt his phone buzz. He hadn't been expecting any messages. Maybe just more well wishes from his brother? Despite their somewhat distant childhood, they were pretty close these days. He was surprised to find an unknown number.

"This is brandy"

"Chilli is making me bother you sorry"

"That's fine by me," Argus said to himself.

A/N: I am on a roll! Thank you so much for reading, please rate and review if you feel so inclined.