Ordinary Heroes

After going through the financial arrangements at the doctor's office, Ian was ushered into an examination room by a rather attractive young red-haired nurse. Young is a relative term, and in this case it meant she looked as though she was mid-to-late thirties, which in his way of thinking, was young. She was about 5'4 and had a rather careworn look to her. He was mildly curious as to why, but not curious enough to ask, so he simply looked at her name tag and asked, "Maureen, where do you want me?"

"Just sit on the examination table so I can take your blood pressure Mr. Cameron".

"Please just call me Ian."

A slight smile appeared briefly on her face with the invitation, though it slowly disappeared as she continued with her duties.

The Doctor arrived and they went through the usual deep breath, hold it, and again routine.

"Well Mr. Cameron I don't like the sound of your lungs, and your blood pressure and pulse are both higher than I'd like. I am going to requisition a chest x-ray so you'll need to make an appointment with radiology to have that done. After you've had that done, check in at the office."

The x-ray was set for Friday of that week so Ian dutifully went, got the x-ray taken, and then went to the Doctors office for the appointment later that day. Once again Maureen took him back to the examination room to take his blood pressure. She was not all business this time. She stuck around and chatted a bit before heading out to parts unknown. Ian took the opportunity to take a closer look at her figure. It was nice but not spectacular. Light on the top and a little heavy on the bottom but all-in-all a pleasing package, and as everyone has their own idea of sexy, she fit his tastes perfectly.

When the Doctor arrived, Maureen was with him. Doctor Jones started asking Ian questions, "Did you recently have any sharp blows to your right side? Have you felt any discomfort on your right side?"

"No and yes a little but not anything to write home about."

"Have you had pneumonia recently?"

"No."

"Any severe coughing fits?"

"Well yeah, when the cockpit filled with smoke, I coughed pretty long and hard, until shortly after we landed."

Ian noticed Maureen suddenly looked up at him before continuing what she was doing.

"Well Mr. Cameron it seems you may have managed to do what most people consider an urban myth. You may have broken a rib by coughing, although it's more likely you banged it on something in the cockpit. Not only are your lungs still congested from the smoke but there has been internal bleeding and your right lung is partially collapsed. I am going to insert a large bore needle between the ribs in your back and suck the fluid out to re-inflate the lung. You might feel a little discomfort. Please take your shirt off and sit on the examination table."

Ian asked, "How could I have broken ribs and not know about it? I thought that was supposed to be very painful."

"The break is in your eleventh rib on the right hand side. Since it is not connected at both ends there is nothing that forces movement of the break so the general feeling of tenderness in that area is quite possible the only pain you would feel."

At first Maureen was surprised that he was the 'famous' pilot. It aroused her interest, and she took the opportunity to take a good look at him while his shirt was off. She decided while he may not be ripped, his arms and torso showed he was not a stranger to physical exertion. His shoulders and chest were broad, at 6 feet and 190 lbs, she knew from his chart he was the right weight for his height, but almost looked skinny with his clothes on. She decided his face was ruggedly handsome, almost but not quite lantern jawed with marvelous hazel eyes.

When he sat on the examination table Nurse Maureen, as Ian thought of her, stood in front of him and gave a little smile of encouragement. Ian took the opportunity to take a close look at her face. It was a very nice oval shape none of her features being pronounced or understated. When she smiled the skin beside her eyes crinkled a bit but it was the eyes themselves that really struck him. They were a gorgeous shade of green. If the eyes are indeed the windows to the soul, what Ian saw in those eyes was caring and kindness.

Dr. Jones definitely had a gift for understatement. Holy Moses, Ian had never been in that much pain in his life! He was now convinced Nurse Maureen was standing in front of him to play on his male ego to inhibit him from screaming bloody murder. He sat there and tried to carry on a conversation through clenched teeth. When the doctor finished, Ian breathed a sigh of relief.

The Doctor then told him to get another x-ray the following Thursday and to make an appointment to see him on Friday.

"Wait a minute aren't you supposed to wrap the ribs or something?" Ian asked.

"No point, the rib has set itself. Fortunately your muscles held it in the proper place so we won't need to re-break it."

As Ian was leaving the office he ran into Maureen on her way out. As it was near 6 o'clock, he asked her if she knew a good place to eat nearby. She said there was a nice little mom and pop type restaurant about two blocks from where we are. It sounded good so he asked her if she would care to join him. She agreed, so off they went.

The place was exactly how Ian pictured a mom and pop restaurant should be, but seldom is. It had wooden tables with gingham tablecloths, fresh flowers in a vase on the table and the delicious aroma of food being cooked. They sat down at an empty table and ordered.

After their waitress had left Maureen started off the conversation with, "I thought I recognized you earlier but it wasn't until you mentioned smoke in the cockpit that it clicked in that you were the flying forest-fire hero."

He thought, 'Oh well, there goes all possibility of pleasant dinner conversation.'

His thoughts must have registered on his face as she laughed and said, "Don't worry you'll get no hero worship from me, though you and your crew definitely are heroes. I saw you on the show where you spoke out about the volunteers being the real heroes and I couldn't agree with you more. My twenty year old son, Colin, is a volunteer, and I have felt that way about the volunteers for years. I will, however, thank you for what you did on their behalf and on behalf of all the mothers whose children fight those fires. Even though he wasn't at that fire, he could have been and I pray that if he is in that situation, someone like you will care enough to risk it to save him."

The food arrived, and was as good as Ian had hoped it would be.

"I see," he said between mouthfuls, "That explains the somewhat careworn look on you face when we met."

There was a pause then she replied, "No that's not it. I've only been working for the doctor for two weeks, before that I was a critical care nurse at the hospital."

"Okay, how does that explain the weary look?" Ian asked.

"Think about it," Maureen paused for a moment, "a nurse's job is to care for his or her patients. When you are in critical care you know that there is a good chance that any given patient is going to die on you. After a while it becomes harder and harder to give your patients the comfort they need. Over the months the stress accumulates until it starts affecting you. You start to burn out and lose your humanity."

I am thankful I realized what was happening in time and changed jobs. That is one of the things that impressed me about you, your ability to stay cool under stress, that and your ability to love."

"What the hell?" Ian thought, "How did she come up with that?"

"How could you possibly reach that conclusion?" he asked with a bit of skepticism in the tone of his voice. "I am forty five years old and as far as I know, I have never truly been in love. My marriage failed, and although, I cared about her to some degree, and still do, I never really loved her. As far as I can tell she never really loved me. Of course the sex was great in the beginning, but when the crunch came she decided she was better off without me."

"Let me guess at first she fawned all over you then gradually she became bossier until finally she declared she didn't love you anymore and left. Am I right?"

That was eerie. "How did you figure that out?"

"Oh, I'm old."

At this, Ian snorted.

She gave him a dirty look then smiled and continued, "As I was saying, I'm old and have known women like her. At first they are attracted to the much hyped, Right Stuff, the cool, in control demeanor that pilots like you have. They don't seem to realize that it isn't an act, it's who you are. Sooner or later, they decide that they need more excitement and, vows or not, they leave. This kind of woman is the type who becomes infatuated with the strong silent model but does not bother to get to know the man behind the facade, so there is never really love in the true sense of the word."

"Okay, so what makes you think I have the ability and capacity to love? And just how old are you if you don't mind his asking?"

"To answer your second question let's just say I won't see 40 again but I'm younger than you." "As for you first question: John 15:13"

"What?"

"John 15:13 and I quote: 'Greater love hath no man than this; that a man lay down his life for his friends.' And the greatest love of all, in my opinion, is a person prepared to lay down his life for those he doesn't even know."

"Bullshit, we just did what we needed to do to save those kids."

"Bullshit, right back at you. I heard the commentaries from the experts. They say there was no way you could have expected to come out of it alive."

"When we started the run it never crossed my mind that we might crash."

Maureen thought about that for a bit. From what she knew about him she decided that he would have concentrated on getting the job done and wouldn't have thought about crashing.

She continued on her original theme, "It's what's here," she said touching his forehead, "and here," touching the left side of his chest near his heart, "that matters. That you would think if you could possibly save them, and then, have your heart push you to proceed, shows that you can love. Don't even try to tell me that the thought of grieving parents didn't cross your mind."

"Cripes, that was just depression and a desire to end it all as a Hero!"

With that she burst out laughing at how completely illogical that statement was to what he had been saying about not being a hero.

After a few seconds, when her laughter subsided, she said in a mildly facetious tone, "I can tell by the way you are building up your heroism. Not to mention the 'We chose to take a risk. It's no big deal,' that being a hero is high on your list of priorities."

"Hey, I said I wanted to be a dead hero not a live one!"

"Uh-huh," she said with a grin on her face, stifling another giggle, smiling at how far he had wandered from what he had being saying just to avoid admitting he could love.

She then told him, "I promised some friends at the nursing home I would visit with them this evening. Thanks for dinner and I'll see you next Thursday when you bring the x-rays to the office." She kissed him on the cheek and strode out the door.

Ian had no sooner left the restaurant, when his cell phone started vibrating. He looked at the call display to see the caller was Bert, the flight engineer on his, or what once was his CL-215.

When he answered it the first words out of Bert's mouth were, "Don't you ever answer your phone asshole? Canadair has been trying to get a hold of you for weeks now. They finally asked if I could get ahold of you. They want to fly us up to Quebec to take publicity photos in front of the airplane you toasted like a marshmallow."

"Oh, so now it's all my fault!" Ian responded with mock indignation.

"Can it! I am just as unemployed as you, and I need the money! They are going to pay us. Damn it, I was just about to jump in my car and drag you out if you hadn't answered your cell phone. Just be at the Walla Walla airport tomorrow at 9:00 a.m., you'll be picked up by one of their Challenger business jets."

He hung up giving Ian no chance to protest.

Ian certainly had a lot to think about on the drive back to the cabin.

First there was Canadair. Did he really want to go another round of hero worship? In the end, he decided it wouldn't be fair to the others, and while he wasn't hurting for money, besides there were those fines to pay and who knew when he would be able to fly again, and if he would even be able to get a job. Besides if the Fairy Godmother of Fate was looking his way this one time, who was he to stand up the old girl.

Then there was Maureen. What if anything should he do about her? Since his wife left him, he had few relationships, if you call them that, with women. The few he did have, he bailed out as soon as it was apparent there was no future, usually by the end of the second date, although one did last to the end of the third. Was the problem his? Was he just too gun-shy to get involved in another relationship for fear of being hurt? Her little speech about the head and the heart really got him thinking. Long ago he had read a quote that really resonated, 'Finding someone worth waking up to is better than finding someone to sleep with.'

Could she be the one worth waking up to? Ian spent the final 40 minutes of the trip mulling it over. In the end he figured that he had better go through at least two dates to see if, as usual, he would find a reason to bolt.

***

Ian arrived early the next morning at Walla Walla airport. He had forgotten to ask what they were going to be paid and was a bit concerned he was just wasting his time. On the other hand he certainly had time to waste these days. Arriving early was not a good idea. Ian sat around watching the aircraft come and go. With every take-off and landing he yearned to be behind the controls, while wondering if he would ever get that opportunity again.

He watched an unfamiliar type of business jet approach and figured this was probably his ride. It looked similar to most of its kin, with twin jet engines in the rear under a T-tail configuration. The major difference was the size of the body. Most of this class of aircraft has slim sexy bodies and were like the fashion models of aircraft. This one was still definitely sexy but had more of the full bodied Marilyn Monroe figure. It pulled up to the ramp shut and down its engines, a safety precaution for both plane and passengers so nothing, especially passengers, got sucked into the engine.

Ian had just gotten through the terminal door when the plane's door flipped down, and Bert appeared at the opening yelling, "How the hell are you boy? Get your ass up here."

Ian boarded the plane and sat down in a very luxurious seat. It was soft leather that embraced him with plenty of leg and shoulder room. He had just sat down when the pilot came out of the cockpit and introduced himself as Chuck. After the introductions, the pilot explained that as they weren't paying passengers and it was a private plane rather than a charter, he was alone. He told Ian he was welcome to join him in the cockpit in the second seat.

When Ian told him of the suspension, Chuck replied, "What they don't know won't hurt them."

It was a couple of minutes later when Anne boarded the plane, saying sorry but she had been caught in traffic. She was introduced to the pilot as the co-pilot of the CL-215. Chuck looked at the statuesque blond and quipped to Ian, "I guess you know who will be flying second seat on the return trip."

Suddenly, what Ian had feared to be a long boring trip across the continent proved very interesting with Chuck explaining all the innovations on the Challenger. Although he was a Bombardier staff pilot, he had never flow a CL-215 and was very interested in Ian's thoughts on its abilities.

Sadly in Ian opinion, he didn't get to fly the plane as it was on autopilot for most of the trip, and when it needed to be hand flown, he was not competent enough with the aircraft to fly it.

They arrived at Cartierville Airport, just outside St.Laurent which is a suburb of Montreal, at about 5 p.m. local time to be greeted by the executives of Bombardier Aerospace, who had bought out Canadair several years earlier. Interestingly, they did not receive a hero's welcome. In the company's eyes, it was their plane that was the hero and they, the crew, were just fortunate to be there because of the plane's heroics. Be that as it may, they were quickly taken to the hanger were Drencher was stored awaiting a major overhaul. The photographers did their work quickly and efficiently, and in no time, they were done.

They were then whisked off to the Ritz Carlton Hotel for dinner, and told they had a three bedroom suite for the night and would be departing early the next morning by the same means they had arrived.

The dinner ended about 9:00 p.m. local time they went up to the suite and staked out our rooms. One thing about Bombardier, they certainly knew how to treat their guests. Ian being the Captain of the crew immediately took dibs on the master bedroom which turned out to have an en suite bathroom. The tub was huge with water jets. It was big enough that it could fit two people easily, three if they were close, close 'friends'.

As it was only 6: 00 p.m., west coast time, Anne and Bert decided to go out for a night on the town. Ian decided to stay in and go to bed early as the lung problems really wore down his stamina. Knowing those two, it would be a frenetic evening with way too much alcohol, and little or no chance to hook up with someone even if he wanted to. Not, that he was a one night stand guy in any event. With Maureen on his mind, he wouldn't be good company, so all in all staying in seemed like the best plan for all concerned.

He had a hot shower having decided he wasn't interested in a bath without company, or at least a life guard, watched some TV then went to bed about 9:00 p.m. Washington State time.

Sleep eluded him. Ian lay in bed wondering why after one date, hell it hadn't even been a date, had Maureen affected him so much. He had learned from his failed marriage that caring for someone lead to being hurt and had trained himself not to care too much about people. Caring about doing a good job was one thing, but caring for people led to heartache. He had, long ago, essentially become a loner on the theory that if you don't let people get too close, you don't end up getting burned caring too much for the wrong person. While he wouldn't admit it to himself, whenever he dated his subconscious looked for reasons not to care about the woman.

Ian woke up the next morning at 9:00 local, 6:00 Pacific time, which worked nicely, as he normally, got up at 7:00 anyway. He had no idea when Anne and Bert got in, but they were dead to the world. He banged on their respective bedroom doors giving him the pleasure of rousing both of their, what he suspected were, hung over asses to make sure they were ready when their pick up came at 10:00 to take them to the airport.

Not wanting to wait around to see if they got up, he went down to the dining room for the complimentary breakfast.

They finally arrived just as Ian finished, but they did not look as hung over as he thought they would. Asked about their evening, they told him they had gone to a couple of Montreal jazz clubs. After they left the second club, they decided to just walk around enjoying the beautiful night and taking in the sites of the old city, Montreal being one of the oldest European settlements in Canada.

They were met at the airport by one of the Bombardier Aerospace executives. After being thanked again, they were all handed envelopes got on the plane and took off for Walla Walla. After Ian sat down, it occurred to him that he never asked how much they were being paid for this assignment.