Hello! Welcome to this old, never finished fanfic of mine, that is getting revamped (the original German one) and slowly translated. Feel free to let me know, what you think :)
Also, I'm quite clueless about technical details, like weapons or planes, so I apologise in advance for mistakes.

Disclaimer: I do not own any rights of the movie nor do I earn money from this.

Chapter One

Fly One Time

The young woman, some would consider her still being a girl, crept up to the fence carefully. The darkness of the night almost swallowed her. She hesitated. She'd risked so much, had worked so hard. Should she give up now and go back home? No, she could imagine her father's face when he'd learn about her… well, cloak-and-dagger operation basically, he'd be furious.

She took a deep breath, then she had climbed the fence within seconds and jumped down on the other side like a cat. Nobody had noticed her and nobody saw her scurrying over to the hangars and vanishing inside the first that came along.

Alice McCawley was quite flabbergasted, when she saw the planes. They were so much bigger, so much more impressive than her father's crop duster she'd used to train ever since.

Her older brother Rafe had sent her letters soon after he and his best friend Danny Walker had joined the US Army Air Force in January 1939. Since then, her biggest wish had been to fly one time with a real plane. Fly like a bird. And she had worked hard and fought for this wish.

She was here now, finally, on September 23rd 1939, one day after her 21st birthday.

The noise of a door snapping shut brought her back from her memories, hectically she looked around for a place to hide, stumbled hastily and fell.

A soldier came into her direction, he seemed to be on an inspection round, and before she could ty to hide, he'd spotted her. Uncouthly he grabbed her arm and brought her hands behind her back. She didn't realize what he was doing until she heard a clicking sound and felt cold metal on her wrists. He had handcuffed her. Without a word he pushed forward out of the hangar. She tried to peer over her shoulder back at him, but he pushed her again harshly and she had to watch her steps or else she'd fall.

Straightforwardly, he directed her to an adjacent building. In front of a door on a not very appealing corridor he pressed her down on an uncomfortable wooden bench and took the handcuff off her left hand, and she'd already started to hope he'd take them off completely, when he chained her to the metal armrest. Before she could protest genuinely, he disappeared through the door.

From the room, an office supposably, came muffled voices. One – the soldier probably – told the other of an intruder, who was outside. Alice looked around but there was nobody else. Then it came to her, she was the intruder.

The door flung open and the soldier came back out, finally unchained her, pulled her to her feet ungently and pushed her through the door.

"Good evening, may I ask why you were found in an US Army Air Force hangar?" The man on the desk looked up and seemed quite surprised, but she couldn't tell if it was her age or gender.
"So, Miss…?" He covered up his surprise still waiting for an answer.

"McCawley, sir, Alice McCawley."

"Miss McCawley… Don't we have another McCawley here?" He was obviously distracted by this information.

"Err – yes, that's my brother Rafe." Allie wanted to slap herself for making such an unprofessional first impression with this sentence.

"I'm Major Doolittle. But let's get back to my question, for what reason were you found in a military airplane hangar, Miss McCawley?" The distraction hadn't been lasting long enough for her to get around answering that question.

She looked at him with big puppy eyes, when the door flew open with a blast. Alice squeaked in surprise and jumped aside.

"I'm sorry for the interruption, Sir.

ALICE McCAWLEY! What on earth has gotten into you to break into here?! You'll be on your way home in a minute the same way you've gotten here!" Rafe stood in the doorframe snorting with rage.

"McCawley, would you be so kind to solve your family affairs after I've spoken with your sister, what brings us again back to the question I've asked previously. Why you were found in an US Army Air Force hangar? I'm still waiting for an answer."

Doolittle didn't care about Rafe's sudden outburst. Seemingly, he knew the McCawley temper already well enough to not respond to that.

Allie glared angrily at Rafe's back when he reluctantly but obediently left the room. Then she turned to Doolittle and started telling her story, trying to stick to the abridged version. All the time, he kept a straight face.

After she'd ended, he summarized. "So, you want to fly with one of our planes, because you promised yourself to do that one day. Well, we'll see, but I'll have to take you into custody for tonight. But first, you have to face your brother. He seemed to be very angry."

She couldn't read his expression, how serious he was about this, when he shooed her out of his office.

Rafe was waiting outside sitting on the uncomfortable bench. Now he glared at her angrily. She took a deep breath and reasoned what her chances where if she took to her heels. But she never managed to outrun Rafe, so she thought better of it and sat down next to her brother.

"What do you want here?" he squeezed out through his gritted teeth and Allie would not have been surprised if actual fume had come out of his ears.

"Visiting you" she tried a white lie.

"Can't even fool yourself with that. What do you really want?" If he was angry the moment before, what was he now? 'Probably in rage' Allie thought to herself.

"Well, actually it was you telling me in your letters how great flying with these planes was. I have to see for myself if you're not exaggerating."

For a long moment he gazed into space closemouthed. Definitely a bad omen.

"Allie, you're a sheep. Doolittle won't let a little girl without experience fly one of his planes."

Now it was her turn to snort indignantly. "I'm not a little girl, I'm 5'8" tall and – since yesterday – 21 years old. And I do have experience."

"Ah yes, happy belated birthday." He smiled at her. "But you can't just break in and demand to fly a plane."

"Well, if it hadn't been for this one guy, I'd have just taken one without asking" Allie laid out her improvised plan.

"Allie!" Rafe screamed, raging again.

Allie jumped up and decided it was now time to take her heels. She fled down the second-best corridor and around the next corner, when she recognized Rafe coming closer. Unfortunately, someone else wanted to round this corner from the other side, and she ran right into this person. "Sorry", she mumbled quickly and wanted to continue to run, when the person grabbed her wrist just like the soldier before.

She turned to spit at this person and…

"Alice?" asked her counterpart disbelieving. "Danny!" she exclaimed delightedly. "Nice to see you!" She flung her arms around his neck and had almost forgotten about Rafe.

"Nice to see you too, but what are you doing here, for heaven's sake?" He was seriously staggered, of course. How could he have known he'd meet her here?

In this moment her older brother came around the corner, as composed as possible. "Alice", Rafe struggled hard not to yell at her, "you need to show up in Doolittle's office immediately. He'll take you in custody then."

"Better Doolittle than him" she uttered in Danny's direction and made effort to get out of Rafe's reach as soon as possible.

The young men both watched her disappear around the corner.

"She's grown", Danny said and Rafe could have sworn his best friend's voice sounded a little dreamy and he'd really would have liked to punch him for this dreamy sound.

"You haven't seen her for nine and a half months at maximum, she's grown a quarter inch at most", Rafe hissed. "And what are you doing here exactly?"

"I got worried you'd cut a caper, just because someone might have heard that a certain 'Miss McCawley' is in Doolittle's office."

Doolittle had escorted Allie to a little room that seemed not very comfortable or well furnished. The door got locked behind her. Lackadaisical, she walked over to the window. Metal-grilled, of course. What had she been expecting? But it was dark outside anyway, it was still night.

So, she threw herself onto the bed, in the truest sense of the word, that was surprisingly soft contrary to its look. And soon she'd fallen into a deep slumber.

The next day started not quite pleasantly but ended pleasantly. Allie spent most of her day sitting on the bed and staring out of the window.

"This is your bag, I assume?"

Allie jumped She hadn't noticed someone entering the room. Doolittle stood in the doorframe and held her bag.

"It had been found in Hangar Two", he explained.

"And who exactly did find it?" she wanted to know having strong suspicions.

"Honestly? Well, it was your brother and Lieutenant Walker. They seem to know you quite well, Miss McCawley." He watched her reaction closely.

"Of course they do, I've spent twenty years of my life with them" she started to tell, gesturing widely. She couldn't remember the last time she had been bored to death this much, and the need to communicate was very strong. "Rafe knows exactly that I never leave the house without being prepared for, well, nearly everything. There's always the possibility that…"

"…that", he interrupted her flood of words, "I've spent half my day arguing with my supervisors – don't make such a face, I have supervisors too – what to do with you. And we've decided to give you a chance to prove yourself. You'll be flying one of our planes. But until tomorrow, you'll have to stay here."

She was indeed happy to hear this news, but slowly she stared wondering, if this was worth it. She seemed prepared – regarding the bag – but actually her plan was everything but well-thought-out. She'd been hitchhiking for days and had somehow managed to get through, but she had always focused on her goal. Now, that her goal was within her grasp, she started to have doubts about it.

She tried to push these thoughts far away, but it was not easy without distraction.

Therefore, she was more than glad, when Rafe came to visit her in the late afternoon. He wasn't mad anymore, instead Allie was mortally offended.

"You promised to write more often", she complained. She had noticed some inconsistencies while she had this much time to think about everything.

"Oh Allie", Rafe responded agonized, "you know that I don't like the letters…"

Of course, she knew, but it also had been her who helped him as good as she could. In doing so she had also learned to understand his way of expressing himself in written words, no matter how far away his writing was from proper spelling.

She put her arms around him, after all he still was her brother and they never had been separated this long. And even though they both would never admit it, they had missed each other sadly. They had been there for each other in every concern since their mother had died. Naturally their father had tried to compensate for that, but his work as farmer hadn't left much time for that. And that's why Alice had taken on many chores she actually was too young for, only ten years old.

Danny's mother Grace had tried to take care of the neighbors' kids, but she was already quite busy with trying to contain her own husband without endangering herself or her son.

Last year she had also died, what was one of many reasons for Danny to leave home and enroll.

And so they exchanged news, whereupon Rafe had a lot more to tell than Allie, because somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Tennessee nothing interesting ever happens. Spellbound she listened to his remarks about flying, way more detailed than in the few letters he had written. Now she couldn't wait for tomorrow to come.

Sooner than she had expected the visiting time was over and it had become evening.

After a not very good-looking, but filling dinner, Allie got to sleep with mixed feelings.