The oil pressure and temperature gages read normal as I glance over them before resting my eyes on the dials on my watch. The time reads at 3:30pm and the sun glows its orangy-red brightly on the plane. My name is John Hart. I’m a 35-year-old Navy helicopter pilot. I’m on a weeklong personal leave from the service; I requested this leave upon hearing the news of my father’s death. My brother and I are flying a plane en-route to, taking my fathers remains home, in Colorado. My brother is a commercial pilot for United. This is the first time we have ever flown together. The radio light begins to buzz as a message comes over the comm.

Peter picks up the handset and speaks into it. "Air Traffic Control this is Bell 628416, over."

"CSIA Traffic Control. We’ve got a sever storm moving in North by Northeast at about 8 kilometers per hour. It’s about 4 kilos out from your position. It’s spewing thunderclouds, heavy ice conditions, and high turbulence. Suggest you divert course South by Southeast and come down to 3000 feet. We can reroute you through New Mexico."

"Not necessary, Control. Radar has it spotted tapering off at fifteen thou’. We’ll go up to 18 and we should pass right over it. If not, we can divert to due West and we should beat it past you." Peter responded.

"Inadvisable."

"Don’t worry about it. It’s a typical Midwest/Colorado thunderstorm. It will dissipate before you know it." Peter counters

"Be advised. If you head into the storm, the severe electric flux will disrupt radio communications gear. You’ll be out of contact for as long as you’re in the storm.".

"We’ll, make it. Bell 628416, out."

He put down the headset and I look at him. "You’re doing it again."

"I am not."

Sometimes I don’t know what frustrates me more, knowing I’m right and he’s wrong while he to stubborn to admit it, or worrying that he actually believes he’s right and that he’d be foolish to admit it. "He’s already dead Peter. It doesn’t matter if we’re a day late. We should divert."

"Why do you always, have to be right. You fly your way and I’ll fly mine."

As I look out of the windshield I see the storm clouds racing in like wild buffalo off in the far right. They mirror my mood as I ponder the death of the one man who had kept peace in our family. They are a solid wall of black, with flash-white colored lightning discharges. Though I felt the plane rise back as Peter pulled back on the stick, I knew we wouldn’t make it over the storm.

The front approached quickly, and in less than twenty seconds the plane began to shake from the turbulence. "Coming up to 17,000." Peter remarks as if reading a newspaper.

Images began to flash before my brain, and just as suddenly I was back in the Gulf. The chopper skidded left and right as the terrain following radar showed the obstacles in my path. Anti-Aircraft fire was raining over me as the gunman tried to take range. My finger hit the pickle button as my thumb held the trigger and I strafed the camouflaged desert hideout. My unit showed up brightly on the infrared projection in my helmet as I layed down cover fire for them. The chopper jumped up slightly as one of the rounds found it’s mark, and then it began falling rapidly. "John. John!" My copilot said.

"John!"

"What."

"We’ve hit a low pressure pocket." Peter yells as I feel my stomach drop out from beneath me. "I’ve got a light on engine 2, it’s on fire."

"In a hailstorm?" I respond as I see the fist size pellets slam into the plane. I try not to wince as one of them cracks the windshield.

The plane bucked as we hit a normal pressure again, but no sooner did that happen then the electrical system shorts out. The auxiliary’s come one, but short out as well as the plane begins to nose over yet again.

"Give me the stick." I yell at my brother as we pass negative 45-degree angle.

"NO! Fix the short."

"Do you have a death wish? Give me the stick. I’ve got more experience in landing dead vehicles."

"Exactly. Trust me to fly John. For once in your life relinquish control. Have faith in me to succeed, but the balls to let me fail. Fix the short."

It really comes down to that, trust. Every time I had trusted my older brother before, when it really had counted, he had failed. Little brother had had to come in and get the job done. Cleanup, like a cleanup hitter I fixed all the mistakes, smoothed out the problems and brought everyone home at night. Could I trust him in this situation, one where our lives and our father’s remains were at stake. And yet somehow, I know I must. Even at 40 the eagle must learn to fly on its own. Ripping off the circuit breaker cover I begin to cross-wire circuits, believing against all odds that somehow we can pull it off. I feel the blood start to rush into my head, and experience the beginnings of red out, as my fingers fly fastening, unfastening, pulling, turning, twisting. The edges of my vision began to fade into red as I work almost mechanically at bypassing circuits. It takes 15 seconds, I know that sounds little, but we fell the whole time as I work and then finally succeed at reconnecting the correct leads.

In an almost meditative state Peter glances at me before slowly pulling back on the lever, and the plane levels off at 6,000 feet, safe, under the storm.

"Thank you."

"For what?" I ask.

"You have had, for the first time in our lives, enough faith to believe in me. Even if it cost us our lives, you believed. Dad and Mom never gave me that, but you have and to me that means everything."

I’m not sure what made the tears start dripping from my eyes, but for these moments I finally see my brother through his eyes. Eyes that had seen project after project stolen from him at the slightest signs of imperfection. Eyes that had been criticized and chastised for not being dependable, creative, or useful. Eyes that had been begging for one more chance to make things right.

"Thank you." I say. "Thank you for never giving up, no matter how hard I rode you, how much Mom shunned you, or how much Dad punished you. You believed in me, that I would change; you had enough faith to wait and persevere. Now I feel that we finally have a connection, one beyond that can’t just be traced by common heritage. You faced the furnace with me, and we come out pure gold. We are truly brothers, in mind and soul. That makes us family."