Timeless

Chapter 37

Kathryn truthfully wasn't sure how she had talked them into allowing her to be on the mission with them. It probably helped that she had wheedled Ken Lemmons into wanting to go on the mission as well—and so the two of them ganging up on Crosby and Rosie seemed to do the trick.

Besides, Kathryn was entirely certain that if she was ever going to be safe in a plane, it was going to be a plane that was flown by Gale Cleven, Robert Rosenthal, accompanied by Ken Lemmons, Harry Crosby, and James Douglass. The plane was somewhat cramped and she didn't envy the pilots one bit as she sat in there, her brother's stupid jacket around her body.

But as she emptied the chocolate rations over to Harry Crosby, there was a smile on her face. "We've got some gum, some chocolate—thank you Kathryn—and hey, look at this!" Crosby exclaimed, holding up the first orange she had seen the entire time she'd been in Europe. "First fresh oranges we've seen in months, probably years for the Dutch!"

Buck passed her by, a smile on his face as he made his way to the cockpit. "Let's go feed some people," he exclaimed.

Kathryn couldn't lie—this mission excited her in a way that she had never felt excited before. They weren't dropping bombs or being tools of destruction. They weren't the harbingers of death from the skies above. They were mercy fliers, delivering food straight to the people that had been oppressed and starving for years .

It was kindness—that was what Kathryn Egan had been missing. Over the course of the war, she had felt the coldness and the brunt of inhumane behavior and treatment. She had seen men do terrible things in order to further a cause that they believed in. And she had seen people suffer in ways that she didn't ever want to remember but would haunt her for the rest of her life. But this? This was the way that they took back the narrative. This was the way that they put humanity back into mankind.

Buck made his way into the cockpit, sinking into the left-hand seat and feeling, for the first time in a long time, like all was right with the world. He felt that this is where he was supposed to be, what he was supposed to be doing—and it felt damn good.

"I hope you don't mind, but I usually take the left seat. Always, actually," Buck apologized as Rosie made his way to the seat beside him.

"I'll get the General on the phone," Rosie said, gaze narrowing. He waited a beat before grinning and elbowing Buck slightly. "Nah, I'm just kidding." He said, taking a seat beside him. "It's an honor. And not just because your girl can't shut up about you."

Buck cracked a smile at that and shook Rosie's hand gratefully. He was starting to see why Rosie and Kathryn had been friends while he and Bucky had been gone. Rosie was just that kind of likable guy—in a similarly charismatic way to John Egan. But Rosenthal was not as loud about it, certainly not as pushy about it. He was just simply a good man.

"Ready the pre-flight checks?"

"Never any readier," Buck replied.

"4-1-A?"

"Checked."

"Controls and seats?"

"Checked."

In the back of the plane, Crosby made his way to where Lemmons, Kathryn, and Douglass were sitting. "I still can't believe you two convinced Brass to let you come," Crosby said, shaking his head.

"100 bucks says you can't think of a better flight engineer or flight doctor," Douglass retorted. "Plus, Lemmons oughta get a kick out of actually flying in one of these things."

"You've never flown in a plane before?" Kathryn blurted, eyes wide at Lemmons. She shouldn't have been all that surprised. Before getting on the plane from Paris to here, she hadn't ever been on a plane either.