The Sky and the Stars - Tom and Sarah Kazansky

-5-

A ladies night sounded great, in fact, exactly what she needed. This testosterone-ridden environment was exhausting, to say the very least. She needed some girl time. 

So with Goose and Maverick watching Bradley for the night, Sarah, Charlie and Carole, with Carole in the lead, hit the town and took to - you guessed it - the O, apparently because Goose and Mav had been raving about it to Carole and she wanted to check it out. 

For Sarah it turned out she was spending more time at this bar than she originally thought she would, but, at least after the first time, she was enjoying it. She recalled what her mother had always told her about first impressions - sometimes they surprised you.

And she was in great company. Not that she hadn't been before, but this was great.

"So I was sitting there-" From their booth Charlie pointed to the bar where she had indeed been sitting that fateful night. "And I was meeting someone."  

"And they came over and did 'You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin','" Carole filled in.

"Exactly."

Carole rolled her eyes.  "Well I apologize on their behalf."

Charlie laughed.  "It's fine, it was quite entertaining."

"With how bad it was?"

"Yeah."

"It was pretty bad," Sarah agreed. "But they got the whole bar to join in, so that was kind of cool."

"Ugh, those too." Carole shook her head but said so affectionally. "You know they did 'You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'' the first time I met them too. Only the roles were reversed, with Goose singing to me. And he's not half bad."

"Okay, that's actually really cute."

"And clearly it worked."

"Well, it was charming. But I made him work for it." Carole winked.  "And the rest, as they say, is history. Cheers ladies." She raised her glass in a toast.

"To what?" asked Charlie. "Certainly not to their singing."

"No! To us!" Carole grinned and took a big swig of her drink. "Oh I needed this!"

They talked about everything: work, marriage, men, the hot gossip of the day. Eventually it got to pilots and all that - clearly none of them were sick of it quite yet. 

"So you're call sign's 'Charlie'?"

"Very original, huh. And you?"

"'Honey'." Carole winked.

"So we've got Charlotte 'Charlie' Blackwood and Carole 'Honey' Bradshaw."

"What about you Sarah?"

"Oh, I don't know. Something space related probably. 'Star', 'Galaxy', 'Constellation'." She shrugged. 

"Fire," offered Carole, eyeing her from across the table.

"Fire? Where does that come from?"

"Pete told me how fiery you were - you shut him right down when he tried to put some moves on you in this very place."

"He told me about that too," added Charlie. 

"Oh..." She wasn't sure how she felt about that. 

"And I can tell too. We're all of us 'take no shit' kinda gals. So what d'ya think?"

"Sure, 'Fire' works." She wasn't sure if she herself thought of it as fitting, but Carole seemed insistent and Charlie clearly agreed. "Sarah 'Fire' Coleman."