Disclaimer- I still don't own planes, but I had a lot of fun borrowing them for this story.

Epilogue- Return to the Skies

When Dusty had awoken again five days later, most of his pains had faded to aches and stiffness. His intake filters felt cleaner than they had since he had flown halfway across the country to get to Piston Peak and engine seemed to beg to be brought up to speed. Every inch of him was practically crying to get back into the air…but at the same time there was still that niggling feeling of doubt. Would his spars hold, would his wings take the punishment, would his new gear box work?

On some level, Dusty suspected that Maru was also having some doubts. The mechanic was hovering and running every test that the little fork lift could think of. Dusty had done his very best to patiently put up with it, but he was a plane and between the 3 day to get rescued, 5 days of repairs/sleep, and 6 of testing he was going stir crazy being stuck on the ground.

"Bring things up to idle. Good." Maru didn't bother looking up from his instrument readouts as he spoke. "Now let's throttle it up. Excellent! Power down." Once Dusty's the propeller had come to a complete stop, Maru snapped his cowl shut and gave the plane a huge toothy grin. "Think you are ready to fly?"

"You really mean it."

"Yep, you we are going to have Blade and Windlifter trailing ya…"

"You really mean it!"

"Yes I do kid."

Dusty wouldn't get off the ground quite as quickly as he would have liked. A few thunderstorms blossomed in the afternoon, leaving the atmosphere to unstable for a small planes test flight on a practically rebuilt engine. Then there was also the fact that the two helicopters where both pulled to put out spot fires and were not available to play wingman for a broken down aircraft.

Finally after two day of watching Dusty pace back and forth on the tarmac, Maru decided to bend the rules a little. Cabbie would be the one putting Dusty through his paces. It meant that there would be no aerobatic flying, but really Dusty probably shouldn't be pulling high-G's on his first flight after a practical rebuild anyway.

"Ready to go Kid?"

"Am I ever!"

"Good, I will follow you out."

It was truly amazing taking flight it was truly amazing to fell the wind whistling past his wings. Behind him Dusty could feel the larger plane boxing his wake, before settling in a comfortable position off his port wing. They flew like that for several long minutes.

"So, now that you are up in the air have you ever participated in a rolling scissors maneuver before?"

"No." Dusty replied wide eyed.

"Then you are in for a treat." Cabbie said as he threw himself into the first steps of the maneuver. After a little coaching the two aircraft were comfortable locked in a spiraling dance…one which eventually got Maru's attention and lead to the warplane to get quite a tongue lashing from the mechanic.

"Ground dwellers." Cabbie muttered under his breath as he reluctantly broke out of the scissors and pointed his nose to home. Glancing back at Dusty and seeing he stare longingly towards the canyons the little plane had learned to love, Cabbie chuffed. "Don't worry kid. You will back in the sky before you know it."

Dusty didn't doubt him, but it didn't cure his desire to stay in the air forever.

End Note- Well, that is a wrap. Thank you so much for joining me for the completion of my very first fanfiction chapter story. You all have been amazing readers. Now that we have reached the end, if you have a moment, drop me a note. I am a beginner and your feedback (both positive and negative) will help me write they stories that you guys actually want to read. Lastly, I am already a good 10,000 words into the next story that I am posting. I should be getting the prologue up in the next couple of hours, but to hold you over I am including a sneak peek at the end of this post. Enjoy!

Sneak Peek- Warplane- It was all the Dodge photo's fault. If the photo of the smokejumpers sheltering under his wings while during the Great Piston Peak Fire hadn't got viral, Cabbie wouldn't have had to deal with this mess. But the photo had been taken and the reporters had done their job and now questions about Cabbie's entire firefighting and military career were boiling to the surface. Most were questions that people were asking were ones that the C-119 had been avoiding answering for the three decades...