Inspired by reddit and Agent Gibbs

Thank You

Trigger walked up to the hangar located at the farthest end of the Fort Grays airfield, before stopping and looking up at the clear blue sky. He let out a content sigh; the war was finally over, and everything had more or less gone back to normal. He had received a "full pardon" for his "crime" as it was, and was fully reinstated into the OADF once again, but this time alongside Count. He thought back to all the people he had lost along the way; Brownie, Harling ("Rest in peace, old man", he thought to himself, "sorry about the missile I allegedly fired at your ass."), Champ, High Roller, and especially Tabloid, whom he had considered a good friend during his time at Zapland. He shook his head to clear these thoughts, he didn't feel like dwelling on these right now. The LRSSG alongside Count and Avril were the only ones he had now.

Count, despite his annoying demeanour proved himself a worthy enough friend, but still had a bit of his inflated ego. Not to mention, he had proved himself an able pilot in the end, after he finally accepted being humble for once in his life and realised where his place was.

Avril on the other hand, Trigger didn't know what to make of her at first. Champ had called her a "bad tempered tomboy" just by looks alone, but she had proved herself quite a skilled mechanic, working on planes in her hangar in solitude throughout the time he had gotten to know her, and he could confirm that she just wasn't bad tempered, she just preferred being alone. She even helped him out at times, often prioritizing his plane over the others and even told him that she built a new custom part just for him, something she dubbed "Queen's Custom". He chuckled inwardly at the given name before coming back to the task he had assigned himself; thanking her.

He walked in through the hangar doors and the smell of engine oil and metal became all the more apparent to him. In the middle of the dim hangar was his plane, which he walked up to to inspect more closely.

"Make it quick, Trigger. What do you want?"

A voice from the side grabbed his attention and he turned around to see a short woman with an eye catching build barely concealed within her black tank top, darker skin, short, messy brown hair and hazel eyes walk up to him. She had a tattoo of a bird on her right bicep as well. He noticed she still had a limp to her as she brought herself up in front of him.

"Well first off, good to see you too, Scrap Queen." Trigger answered with a smile. "How've you been now that you're a certified mechanic for the LRSSG?"

"Oh you know, same as I've always been, looking after you boys' jets and making sure they're always in top condition, burning up in this heat, making more shit that lets you fly better and make things go boom, all that usual stuff." She fired back at him jokingly.

"Uh huh, how's the leg by the way?" Trigger asked as he shifted his attention to his plane.

"It's gotten better, don't need that metal brace anymore at least." She said as she looked down at her leg.

"Good to hear. How's she doing?" Trigger gestured towards his plane.

"For starters, you fucked it up way too much for a training sortie. Who flies like that for training of all things?!" Avril asked.

"Right, sorry." He chuckled nervously.

"Dumbass, I spent my whole time cooped up inside here fixing this thing. And here I was looking forward to a day off..." She trailed off.

"Really sorry, Avril." He genuinely said.

"Yeah, well what's done is done, and your plane's more or less back to its old self. Just go easy on it, next time, but I know you won't, dumbass." She whispered the last part more to herself. Truth be told, Avril enjoyed working on Trigger's plane. Thanks to his reckless nature of flying, she always had something to do instead of just sitting around and seeing the aircraft take off, something she wanted to do herself dearly but couldn't. It twinged at her heart, knowing that she never got another shot at flying again, after her Starfighter was completely busted. She then looked at Trigger again.

"So, what did you need? Or did you come her just for small talk? You have Count for that, don't you?" She asked before taking a piece of cloth from her back pocket and wiping her face with it.

"Oh right, I wanted to say thank you." Trigger replied with a smile.

"For... what?" she asked slowly.

"For everything; looking after the plane, the custom built parts, all that." He answered. "God knows I wouldn't have made it out of these scrapes or sortie quickly enough at times if you hadn't always been working hard all the time, so thank you, for everything." Trigger put his hand on her slightly sweaty shoulder.

"Right, you're welcome, I guess." She answered back.

A roar from the outside got both their attention as they saw an aircraft take off from the runway. Avril looked at it longingly before letting out a sigh. Trigger watched her carefully all throughout before she turned away from the hangar doors and he realised something.

"Hey Avril, if you don't mind me asking, you never told me why you got sent to Zapland." He asked her.

Avril looked up at him for a few seconds before replying, "Well 'Harling's murderer' (Trigger flinched at hearing that), I got put behind bars for flying my Starfighter right as the war broke out, got shot down, crash landed in an airbase and had my leg fucked sideways from it before being arrested for breaking wartime aviation laws or some shit."

"Yeah, about that Starfighter, you restored it yourself?" Trigger asked her.

"In a way, yes. I had help from my granddad and his buddies, at least till their eyesight started failing them. So instead, those old wardogs barked orders at me while I did everything; putting things together, all the parts, hauling heavy items and restoring that piece of junk best way I could. If anything, I quite enjoyed it, doing all that manual labour."

"Yeah, you ain't kiddin'." Trigger muttered as he shifted his gaze to her arms, which had a surprisingly good muscle tone to them, signifying the years of hard work she'd done.

Trigger shook his head to clear strange thoughts of feeling her arms from his head. "Anyways, where were we at?" He asked.

Avril put her hands on her hips in her signature pose before playfully smiling at him. "We were discussing a series of unfortunate events that landed my ass in prison, quite literally may I add, before you ended up checking me out. I'm flattered Bigshot, I didn't know you thought of me that way."

"Well, what can I say, when there's a pretty woman I get distracted easily." Trigger nervously answered before mentally slapping himself; he had no idea of what he was saying.

"How sweet of you dumbass, I'm going to contract diabetes." She answered back in a sarcastic tone.

"Right..." Trigger whispered, before getting back to the topic. "So anyways, you wanted to fly, right?"

Avril let out a sigh before answering in a soft tone Trigger had never heard her speak in before, even softer than when she told him to take care before he took off from the Andersen to combat the drones; "More than anything. Just soaring the skies and drag race across the deep blue." She shifted her gaze away from Trigger and looked down at her gloved hands.

Trigger looked at her with a hint of sorrow, before he had a gem of an idea. "Hey, wait here a moment." He requested before he took off outside the hangar and towards the control tower leaving a surprised Avril behind.

He returned a while after wearing a flight suit and another in his hands which he tossed to her.

"I remember what you said to me once I came out the Space Elevator, you asked me what colour the sky is. I didn't forget."

He gestured to a Tomcat outside the hangar that was used for training rookies before giving her a bright smile and saying two words that sparked disbelief and joy within her,

"Suit up."

Runway

"Alright, Trigger you can bring your plane up to the airfield, everyone clear the field." The Control Tower Operator said.

"Give me the signal when you're ready." Trigger replied before shifting his attention to the woman sitting behind him. "How're you feeling?"

"You know you could have let me flown, dumbass." She cheekily replied, her voice seeping with excitement.

"Now what kind of a gentleman would I be if I did that?" He laughed back.

The radio sparked back at them, "Alright you two, I want to see safe and clean flying , no dirty business, ya hear?"

"You know this isn't a boxing match, right?" Trigger asked the Operator.

"Nah, but I did have a wish to have a spokesman gig for wrestling and such. Now show your lady a good time in the skies, but not too good, alright? Enjoy your date, you two. Strider 1! You're cleared for takeoff!"

Trigger pushed down on the throttle and the Tomcat lurched forward slowly before reaching a steady speed. He could almost hear Avril's excitement in his own helmet. Once the aircraft reached the required speed, Trigger pulled on the flight stick and the nose of the aircraft pulled upwards and soon after the plane itself was off the ground.

The Tomcat's afterburners launched the plane forward and sent it streaking into the clear sky upwards.

"How's that?" Trigger asked his co pilot.

"Come on, go faster and higher!" Avril could barely contain her excitement as the Tomcat took off towards a few clouds and broke through them. Her eyes widened as she saw what she had always wanted to see but lost her chance at first. The deep dark blue of the stratosphere. The ground thousands of feet below her. She felt like her heart could burst out of pure adrenaline and joy that she was feeling until-

"I CAN SHOW YOU THE WORLD!" Trigger sang horribly off key.

"And you fucking ruined it, dumbass!" Avril yelled at him, before bursting into laughter herself at Trigger's singing.

"SHINING, SHIMMERING, SPLENDID!" Trigger continued butchering the song.

"You keep this up, I'm going to bash you with my wrench once we get back on the ground." Avril half-threatened half-joked with him.

But Trigger didn't know that. "Alright, alright I'll stop." He laughed nervously. "Feisty isn't she." He thought to himself, before he let a small smile crease his face under the helmet. "I like it."

They continued soaring across the sky for some more before they finally had enough. Trigger requested clearance to land once they got close to Fort Grays.

"Back already, you two? How was the date In the skies?" The Control Tower Operator chuckled.

"It was going great till this dumbass started singing." Avril replied.

"Trigger sang for you? Good God, I'm surprised you haven't gone deaf."

"Hey! My singing isn't that bad!" Trigger responded in a mock-hurtful voice as both Avril and the Operator laughed.

"Alright, Strider 1, you have clearance to land."

The Tomcat touched down gracefully onto the runway before coming to a stop. Trigger opened the canopy and took off his helmet before climbing out onto the mobile stairway placed next to him. He then turned around and offered his hand to Avril.

"Ma'am." He said as Avril glared at him before giggling and taking his hand.

"Corny dumbass." She said as she climbed out with Trigger's help, but her leg suddenly gave way.

"Whoa, hey, take it easy, you OK?" Trigger asked in a concerned voice.

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine, thanks." She muttered through gritted teeth as she climbed out.

"Here, let me." Trigger put his arms around her petite waist before gently lifting her out and seating her on the staircase.

Trigger sat down next to her and both of them looked ahead.

"That was fun, wasn't it?" Trigger asked her.

"Sure was... at least till you started singing." She let out a small laugh.

"Come on, it wasn't that bad." Trigger laughed along with her.

"No, no, you're right, it wasn't that bad, it was goddamn horrifying."

Trigger pouted before turning away from Avril.

"Aw, don't be such a baby." She laughed harder before snaking her arms around his waist and resting her head on his shoulder. Trigger let a smile show as he let his own head rest on top of hers as they sat down. Neither of them spoke a word, but felt content with everything, for now.

"Hey, dumbass. One more thing." She said as she looked up at him beside her.

"Hmm?" Trigger shifted his gaze to her.

She reached forward, closed her eyes and pressed her lips softly against his. Trigger let a brief smile show again before closing his own eyes and going into it and reaching an arm around her to pull her closer.

Avril broke the contact and rested her head against him even more comfortably before saying,

"Thank you, for showing me the deep, dark blue."

To be continued.