Disclaimer: The characters and situations of the TV program "SPACE: Above and Beyond" are the creations of Glen Morgan and James Wong, Fox Broadcasting and Hard Eight Productions, and have been used without permission. No copyright infringement is intended. Dylan Mackenzie belongs to me.

This just sort of came to me - so I wrote it down. It's a follow up to McQueen's match.

Once again - MANY THANKS to Karen, she's the Bestest beta ever.


Highland Fling

by

Geek


Chapter 1. Arriving.

It had been raining hard ever since they'd arrived in Scotland. Getting there had been the easy part. They'd hitched a lift from Loxley with some RAF pilots heading home to their Scottish Air Force Base, and were dropped off en route at the rental place, where they'd picked up their car.

It was the journey from there that had proved troublesome. To start with, they'd taken the wrong turning leaving Inverness and found themselves on the wrong side of Loch Ness with no option but to loop around the loch and head back up the other side, or to turn around and head back into Inverness and start again.

They'd chosen to carry on. Lt Cooper Hawkes had sworn he'd told the Colonel to turn left at the lights, not carry straight on. McQueen had just glared at him and carried on in silence, peering into the pitch dark, and praying he didn't drive them into the loch.

And then Cooper had started talking about the Loch Ness Monster, with such passion and fervour that McQueen had begun to wish that Cooper hadn't been invited too. The final straw was when Cooper made him pull the car over, so that he could get out and see if he could spy the monster in the loch.

McQueen had found himself standing, in the dark driving rain, staring out over a black water, looking for something he thought was nonsense. By the time he'd eventually managed to convince Cooper that they weren't going to see anything in the dark, they were both soaked to the skin, and McQueen was well and truly peeved.

They'd missed the turning out of Fort Augustus too, which added to McQueen's temper. He hadn't been prepared for such narrow twisty roads, or the near total darkness. They drove in silence the rest of the way. McQueen because he was angry with Cooper for missing the turnings, and Cooper because he didn't dare open his mouth in case McQueen shouted at him again.

When they'd finally found the place, they were cold and miserable. But they were well prepared for the barrage of questions they'd had to answer before being allowed through the large solid gates, which were the only way in or out other than climbing the stone walls.

Following the directions they were given, they parked in front of a modest sized log cabin, set back from the road amidst tall trees. A column of wood smoke curled up from the chimney through the pouring rain.

They climbed out of the car, stretching their aching limbs, their eyes drawn to the movement in the lighted window facing them.

As he stood there and watched her through the window, singing along to some music as she moved around the kitchen, whilst the rain ran through his short silver hair and down his neck, making him shiver, McQueen knew every moment of the long journey had been worth it. It had taken two days of travelling to get here. Two days out of a 14-day liberty. But he didn't begrudge a single moment of it.


Next : Chapter Two
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