By Your Side // Bradley Bradshaw

Chapter Eight

Screaming flashes through Sophie's mind as she desperately calls out for her lost WSO. She can feel the waves crashing against her body as she fights to stay above the surface. She sees a giant piece of metal from their now-destroyed jet plow into her head. Then, she feels nothing.

Suddenly, Sophie's eyes shoot open and are immediately hit with a blinding light. She tries to sit herself up but finds that she doesn't have the strength. Her head throbs as she unsuccessfully tries to move to see her surroundings. When her vision finally clears up, she realizes she was no longer in the ocean fighting for her life but in a hospital. She tries to remember how she got here, but her mind comes up blank.

She hears a tapping on the ground nearby that hasn't stopped since she awoke. It was irritatingly the only thing she could focus on as the noise grew louder and louder in her head.

"Can you please shut the fuck up," she hears a familiar voice say.

"Oh, I'm sorry that my nervous tapping about whether the love of my life is going to be okay is a bother.  Let me just stop to accommodate you," he spits back. The doctors said that Sophie would be fine and make a full recovery, but he'd feel much better when he saw her wake up. He was also a little worried about how she was going to handle everything. She was so hard on herself sometimes.

Jake rolls his eyes at the man. "God, you're insufferable."

"Even on my death bed, you two can't stop bickering for five minutes," Sophie manages to croak out.

Both men turn to look at her and rush to her side. Bradley grabs onto her hand while Jake notifies a doctor that she was awake by pressing some buttons on the side of her bed.

"How are you feeling?"

"Like I got in a fucking plane crash." Her thoughts drift to Mark. He was with her, but she couldn't find him. She mentally freaks out before asking, "Where's Mark? Is he okay?"

"Well, I think she's all right. Her dry humor is still the same," the dirty blond chuckles.

"He's fine," Bradley answers her question. "He's in another room and already awake. We visited him a little while ago."

She sighs in relief, grateful that he was alive. Now, her mind was filled with a million more questions. "Is he all right? Does he hate me? When can we fly again if he doesn't," she spitfires out to him, causing the men's brains to go all over the place. They were amazed that someone who just woke up after being in a pretty serious crash could talk at the speed she was. That was Sophie though. Nothing kept her down for too long.

Luckily, the doctor walks in at that moment, saving Hangman and Rooster from having to answer the thousands of questions. He stifles a laugh at the liveliness of the girl. "You and your partner are going to be just fine. You have a concussion and a bruised lung, but you'll both recover. However, you will be grounded for a minimum of four weeks while you heal."

"Four weeks," she scoffs, pouting her lips. "That's a long time to go without flying."

"Consider yourself lucky you'll be able to fly at all. This could've been a lot worse." This wasn't the first time the doctor had dealt with Navy pilots. They were all the same. Taking away their flying was like taking away their lifeline. They all eat, drink, and sleep aviation. So, when they were grounded, even for a short time, they tended to be very stubborn on the matter.

Before Sophie could moan and groan anymore about her timeline for healing, Jake speaks up. "Is there any way we could maybe put Mark in a wheelchair so he can come visit over here?"