Flying with Fairies

First Three Chapters

Flying with Fairies - Chapter # 1

Danny Levine passed the last of the paperwork required to be considered for licensure in the practice of medicine in the state of Massachusetts to the lady behind the desk. After examining it, she looked up and smiled. "It is all in order. We should have an answer to you shortly. Do you have plans for the weekend?"

Danny recognized the "I have an unmarried girl friend" look in her eye having seen that look many times before and smiled back. "I think I'll take a short vacation in the Bahamas."

She smiled again, "Well, if you think you might like some scintillating company let me know."

He returned the smile, "Perhaps another time."

"You don't know what you're missing."

Danny shook his head slowly. "I'm flying solo this trip. I am looking forward to all my conversations having to do with choices on the menu and signing up for snorkeling tours. I need to be going. You have a great weekend." He nodded to her and quietly escaped the small office.

Danny walked briskly to the subway. The emergency clinic where he worked as a resident was a few subway stops away. When he arrived, the doctor that supervised him greeted him as he entered the empty waiting room. "Good afternoon Danny, sign your life away did you?" His grin consumed his whole face.

"Yes, sir."

"Excellent. When were you leaving for vacation?"

"Tonight, sir."

"Have you packed yet?"

"No, sir."

The older man huffed at him. He waved his arm at the empty waiting room. "It's quiet today. Go home, pack and enjoy your vacation. Unless you're in trouble, I don't want to hear from you until it is time to come back."

"Yes, sir."

The older man gently pushed him in the direction of the door. "And don't bring me back any diseases I can't cure! Safety is everything!"

The last thing Danny heard as the glass doors closed behind him was the nurses giggling at the joke.

Danny hurried home and tried to decide how to pack. He saw some thunderheads on the horizon. If he hurried, he could use them for cover and leave early. He realized that the most convenient way to travel would be to take the weatherproof camping pack he had purchased last winter. One of his fellow med students who hailed from the mountains of Vermont had convinced him to go on a winter camping trip. What a disaster that had been! Completely disgusted with himself for agreeing to this stupidity, upon returning he had removed the clothing from the pack because it was damp and would mildew, but had left all the remaining camping gear in the pockets. Given that he would not be dealing with airport security he saw no reason to take the time unpack the bits and pieces.

Large droplets of rain from a summer squall spattered on the fire escape as he stepped out. Closing the door carefully, he smiled, took a deep breath and headed south for vacation.

Flying with Fairies - Chapter # 2

Flying up to the rain slicked second floor fire escape on an apartment building in direct sight of a City of Boston Police Precinct Station instead of taking the stairs was probably not one of the brighter things Titania had ever done, but she was in a total panic. Her first secret mission to "THE OTHER SIDE" was going badly. She had narrowly escaped detection more times than she wanted to count. The sporadic rain squalls had not been predictable enough for her to properly use them as cover. She been detected and challenged only once, but that was bad enough. The delay caused by something as seemingly benign as a cheerfully inquisitive teenager could have been disastrous to her mission. In fact, that was why she had arrived at her destination late. The kid had meant no harm, but swearing him to secrecy had held her up. Now she was very late and wet. She trembled with fear.

The man she sought was not at the clinic where he worked. Her intelligence people had told her to wait there for him to exit at the end of the day, but she had been anxious and had gone in to see him only to be informed that he had left early because the patient load had been light that day. The mission had all seemed so easy when they briefed her. A pretty young woman stops to ask a man on the street for directions and then they leave together for parts unknown from which he may or may not return.

She had flown literally, when she thought she could get away with it, and figuratively when she couldn't, from the clinic to his apartment. It was a short subway ride, but she didn't know how to use the subway. She didn't need any special skills to gain entry to the apartment. The cleaning lady had left the back door open while she took out the trash.

A quick scan of the papers on the desk told Titania where he was going but not how he was getting there.

Holding back her fear and the nausea caused by the anticipation of the reaction she would get if she returned home and had to explain her failure and ignoring the consequences of detection, she jetted out the back door and flew as fast as she could south in pursuit of the man she had been sent to bring home because her people desperately needed his help.

Flying with Fairies - Chapter # 3

"Flying is better than sex."

That was Danny’s last giddy thought before the collision.

He was flying south (Superman style) playing slalom with the islands in the Outer Banks when something nailed him from above and sent him careening spinning out of control falling out of the normally friendly skies.

Wham! One second he was flying along minding his own business excited with the joy of flying and the next he was tumbling from the sky fighting for his life. The collision was so hard it could not have been an accident.

There had been no crunch of metal on impact, only the sound of one warm blooded body hitting another, hard. Of course, from a hundred feet there is not a lot of room to plummet before hitting the water. Danny had been flying solo too long for something like a full on collision make him panic, but seeing the water rush up at him did have a sobering effect. He was able to regain enough control of his descent to turn his steep nose dive into an arc which meant that instead of hitting the surface of the water straight on and drilling his head firmly into the center of a impact crater of soft sand on the ocean floor, he would gracefully carve a path across the surface and his body would fly apart as it cartwheeled.

Actually, though, Danny knew before he hit the water that he would not die and neither would whatever had collided with him and was even now desperately clutching both arms around his neck hanging on for dear life and screaming in terror. The determined if somewhat frantic grasp was complicated by the field pack he carried. Whoever came up with this plan, something had gone dreadfully wrong. Danny was less than thrilled.

The impact with the water knocked him out. He regained consciousness slowly. Not yet having opened his eyes, he did a mental self exam. He knew that he had not only survived the crash, but he was lying on his back in the sand on an island somewhere in the Outer Banks. Not that there was anything wrong with the Outer Banks, but that was not where he wanted to be with someone or something sitting on his chest holding him down.

While one part of his mind assessed his condition, another wandered. The North Carolina Barrier Islands were beautiful this time of year. Flying over them last night, the soft glow of the full moon gave them a mystery that amplified their awesomeness. He had been pretending they were a slalom course and flying a twisting route over the channels between them. Their beauty from the air in the soft moonlight was what prompted the thought about sex being inferior to flying. He still had plenty of time to make his ship in Fort Lauderdale and a little "dodge the radar" game would not cause him to be late. Studying for his medical board exams had left him exhausted. He could relax now that the exam had gone to the committee and he would not hear the results for a few weeks. He was planning a vacation in Freeport, Grand Bahama before returning to work and that was all there was to it.

On reflection, Danny remembered dragging himself out of the water and pulling his backpack above the high tide line before collapsing in the sand. How he got to this sandy beach from where he had hit the water with the weight of the backpack and his less than magnificent swimming was beyond him, but he was there, or at least he thought he was there. Of course he could be dead and not know it yet. Something about the Devil not knowing you were dead until half an hour after you arrived in Heaven or some such nonsense. It was all too weird, but then his life had been weird from the moment he realized he could fly.

It wasn’t that Danny didn't like sex, nor that he had not had his share of great sex with some truly gifted women, but still, slicing the air Superman style at a couple hundred miles an hour did have its own exhilaration. He loved flying. He liked sex, a lot, a whole lot, but then there was the joy of slipping between snow capped mountains and playing tag with falcons, eagles and osprey. They, of course, took flying for granted and vocally expressed their disapproval of his games. The eagles, in particular, were likely to take umbrage at his approach and respond with anger.

All these thoughts raced through his mind in less time than the telling of it. What might take a few minutes to relate careened through his returning consciousness in a matter of seconds. He cautiously opened his eyes. An amply endowed fairy of perhaps four feet in height sat straddling his chest with her knees firmly pinning his biceps. The fairy was calmly attempting to brush a knot out of her long wavy bright red hair with a polished silver brush. Her wings, as much like dragonfly wings as anything else with a span of at least double her height, fluttered gracefully in the cool morning breeze. His mother had told him about fairies when his father was not around to forbid it, but somehow he had never really believed, but then, he could fly like a fairy so maybe he did, or not.

He may have been confused about his belief in fairies, but there was one thing of which he was certain. This was another redhead! That was all he needed. Redheads always equaled trouble, always, always. There was the one in college that almost got him killed. There was that one in med school that cost him the woman he almost married. There was the redhead next door in the trailer park he grew up in always creating mischief of some kind. He got detention more times because of her than because of anything he did on his own. Independent free thinkers, redheads attracted him like a moth to a flame. A half dozen of them over the years had driven the painful lesson deep into his soul, but he still could not resist them.

This current redhead was sitting on his chest pinning him down. This was not the first time he had been pinned like this, but it was the first time he was naked. Pogo Magillicuddy had done that to him once in seventh grade. Pogo quickly threw Danny to the ground. Holding Danny down, Pogo had straightened up to line up a punch to Danny's face, but Danny had suddenly and quickly reached up with his feet, hooked his heels on Pogo's shoulders and straightened his legs to throw Pogo to the ground, leaped on top of him and broken his nose. That seemed like a good plan now except that whatever held him down had immobilized his legs. He could wiggle his toes and his fingers, but not move his legs or his arms. The movement of the muscles in his torso as he attempted the turn-about maneuver revealed a surprise. The fairy was naked under her diaphanous skirts. The delicate patch of feminine fur tickled against his chest.

He guessed it made sense that fairies would have pubic hair, but it had somehow never occurred to him. His mother certainly would never have mentioned it. He wondered if... He never finished the thought. The one part of him that was not restrained started to rise. Suddenly he was embarrassed, but she was beautiful and she was sitting naked on his chest and his reaction was typically male and he was a typical male in that regard.

She turned around to see the increased tumescence and said, "Ahcch, Doctor Danny Levine, I see ye are awake. It's a fine greeting you give me this morning as if you had nothing better to do!" The roll of her "r" and the guttural sound of her "h" reminded him of the elderly Irish gentlemen he had met working as an intern in one of Boston's inner city hospitals. Her "ye" sounded more like "y'i" than like the "yee" most preachers affected.

Danny grinned and blushed all over. He could feel the warmth under her body and it felt good. Whatever she was up to, she intended him no harm. He knew that, although how he knew that he was not sure. Applying one of his other talents, Danny examined this lovely creature holding him captive and mentally probed her body for her medical condition. This was one of his better skills.

He remembered the first time he had healed someone. He and his friend Brian had gone off into the woods one winter Saturday morning to challenge "Dead Man’s Rock." It was little more than a hill but one side had a cliff with a fifty foot drop. They were ten at the time. Brian had slipped in the ice on top of the hill and had lost his balance. He had rolled off the top of the hill and over the cliff. Danny already knew he could fly and quickly dropped down beside his friend. When Danny had reached him at the bottom of the hill, Brian was unconscious and his breathing was labored. Danny knew if he left Brian there to get help, the feral dogs would probably get him, but if he didn’t, Brian would die there in his arms. He was afraid to pick him up and carry him because the motion would drive his broken bones out through his skin and Brian could bleed to death. Uncertain of what to do, he wrapped his body around Brian’s to keep him warm in the hope that Brian would wake enough that maybe they could walk far enough out of the woods together that someone might hear their cries for help. As he lay there with his hands on Brian’s face to keep him warm, he hoped that Brian might not die.

Danny lay there what seemed like forever crying and trying to picture the damage inside Brian’s body. After an hour Brian opened his eyes, "Danny? Am I going to die?"

"Don’t talk like that!"

"Danny, I don’t hurt so much as I did before."

Danny was at a loss as to what to say. "Okay?"

"Danny, stay with me."

"Sure."

"Danny? Are you doing something? I can feel kinda like fixing things inside my body."

"I don’t think so."

"You are. Danny, I feel better. Stay with me."

Danny was terrified that sunset would find them both on the side of the hill and they would freeze to death in the night, but his fears were unfounded.

An hour later, Brian said, "Danny, can I sit up now? Hold my hand."

An hour after that, Brian said, "I think I can stand now."

Danny helped Brian to his feet. He was wobbly, but the legs that had been bent and broken in the fall were straight and held his weight. "Danny, we must never tell anyone what happened today. You must promise me you will never tell my mother we were on Dead Man’s Rock and I promise never to tell anyone you can heal."

Danny looked at him in silence and awe.

"Please Danny? Promise?"

"Promise."

It was one of the reasons he chose medicine. Armed with modern medical knowledge he could make what he was doing look normal even while it was something else entirely. He could touch someone and diagnose their illnesses. In some cases, he could even heal them, but he never let that be known. He could make a diagnosis in a matter of a few seconds, but healing could take hours or days.

Being a healer was what doomed his relationships with women. He loved them and he enjoyed sex with them, but nothing matched the joy of seeing the smile on a child’s face after he had relieved their pain. There was nothing any woman could give him that matched that feeling. He had almost been found out once and the experience had made him doubly cautious.

The redhead who had gotten between him and the woman he wanted to marry accosted him one day after work toward the end of their second internship together. "How are you always right? How do you know?" She had screamed at him in exasperation as they walked through the subway station.

"I don't always know. When I do it's a guess."

"Bull S**T!" She punctuated her expletive with a sharp fingernail poke in his chest. "It's never a guess. You always know what tests to run and you're always right!"

"I guess it's all that extra reading." He tried to downplay what was becoming a scene in the subway station. The fact that Danny spent more time than the rest of them in the medical library studying was well established. It was true that he spent every waking hour that he was not in classes or labs in the library reading everything he thought might be of value.

"That kid this afternoon had a disease none of us had ever heard of!"

"I must have read about it somewhere," he said softly, averting his eyes.

"New England Journal of Medicine twenty years ago! Mordecai looked it up! How did you know?"

"Lucky guess?" He knew luck had next to nothing to do with it. He had read that issue of the Journal a few months ago. He remembered everything he read. Of course, if he had not read that particular issue of the Journal he would have been just as clueless as everyone else.

"And what about that kid with lead poisoning?" Her tone was downright accusatory.

"Lots of kids in that apartment complex have lead poisoning. They should tear those buildings down!" He had shouted back momentarily forgetting that the subway station was full of people who were staring at them.

Suddenly Danny came crashing back to the present. The redheaded fairy sitting on his chest had lead poisoning.

Stunned, he stopped to concentrate. Was he really aware of what he thought he was aware of? Could this be real? A beautiful, winged fairy sitting with her naked bottom in solid contact with his naked chest about whom he had prurient thoughts who had a measurable case of lead poisoning was just too weird. His medically correct rapid self exam told him he was not drunk or dreaming. Of course there was nothing in his experience that said fairies could not have lead poisoning, especially given that this was the first fairy he had ever encountered. But still it seemed odd somehow that this PREGNANT fairy with her naked bottom on his naked chest should have lead poisoning and the level of lead in her system was high enough to endanger the fetus now only a few weeks old. The speed with which he had gone from being a hapless victim lying captive on the beach to being a miracle worker of some skill surprised him.

Danny gasped and quickly set to work. Friend or foe, he was a doctor and he would heal her. He could command her various organs to flush the lead from her system, and she would eventually recover but rescuing the baby was another matter.

"What are ye doing!?" The fairy demanded as he took control of her heart rate and respiration.

"Saving your life, and if I can, saving your baby!"

"What baby?"

"You're pregnant."

"Ye mock me!"
"No. Three weeks old I guess. I trust you know who the father is."

The fairy stopped brushing her hair. "Perhaps it is best if I did not say. I fear he does not love me." A tear dropped from her eye.

"Do you want this baby?"

"Could ye take it from me?"

"If you wish it, yes, but I would not unless you were really certain you did not want to carry this child."

"I wish to keep the baby even if its father does not love me."

"Then sit still and let me work."

"Doctor Danny, are ye a healer then?"

"I am a doctor."

"Not the same. Are ye a healer?"

"Yes, I am a healer. Now shut up and sit still so I can save your baby."

The fairy put down her brush and leaned forward to rest both hands on Danny's shoulders. He noticed the fullness of her breasts as they swung forward until her hands made contact with his shoulders. They stayed there immobile while the healing power repaired the damage to the baby and the mother. By the time Danny finished, he had long ago missed his boat to Freeport.

"It will be a girl," Danny said finally.

"Do ye know that now?"

"Yes, and you have plenty of time to decide on a name. Speaking of which, what is your name?"

"Titania, kind sir."
"Queen of the fairies?"

"No, it is a common name since Willie Shakespeare made it popular. I am but a common fairy."

"Well, even a common fairy is beautiful in my eyes."

"Thank you, kind sir."

"If I remember my fairy lore correctly, I have done you a favor and now you must do me one and the one I ask is to be allowed to continue on my way as if this encounter never happened."

"Alas, such is not to be. Ye have done me a great service for which I will no doubt repay ye. I will be forever in yer debt, but I was sent to bring ye home with me. We have need of yer special skills."

Danny sighed. The week in the Bahamas vaporized in his mind. Freeport would have been a nice change after Boston. "Where are we going?"

"We must go to the other side."

"I thought fairies lived among us."

"Some still do. We live other places on other worlds, too. We travel back and forth from time to time. It's been tougher lately. We discovered we could be seen on radar. It didn't take too many UFO sightings for us to realize that the Air Force considered us a threat. We could not outrun their jet planes so most of those who remained left before the radar became good enough to catch us leaving. One of our scholars referred to where we are going as parallel inter-leaved reality, whatever that means."

The remark sounded too much like something Stephen Hawking might have said for Danny's liking and he let it drop. "So how do you plan to evade the great and magnificent Homeland Security's wonderfully expensive ubiquitous radar blanket covering the coast protecting us from terrorists so we can go to this mythical place on the other side? Do you follow the drug smugglers? Homeland can't seem to stop them," Danny said sarcastically.

"Do not be quick to judge, Doctor. There is a Delta rocket which will launch from the Space Center in a few hours. We will ride it."

"This I have to see."

"And so ye shall. We will not really ride it, but we will use it as protection. The rocket is merely a distraction, hiding our escape."

Danny scratched his head. Still skeptical, he asked, "How do we breathe on our way to this mystical place?"

"Once we clear the atmosphere, it will only feel like a minute. Ye hold yer breath. We will come right back down on the other side."

"And how do we not explode like a popped balloon?"

Titania sighed, "Oh ye of little faith. Am I no' a fairy? Am I no' a magic creature just as ye are a magic creature? Why can ye not believe what I say?"

"Because fairies do not always deal honestly with humans."

Anger flashed across her face. "Doctor Danny Levine ye are not like the stupid fools that try to trick us! Like it or no' ye are a magical being as I am! Quit fightin' with me! We must GO!"

Titania's wings lifted her up and she hovered over his chest for a moment. Without touching anything, using the motion of her hands, she swept his belongings from where they had been drying scattered over the sand into the pack carrying no small amount of sand with them. With an angry pout she pointed at his clothes. "They'll be dried out by now. Put them on so ye don't freeze!"

No sooner had Danny dressed and settled his pack on his shoulders than Titania grabbed a fistful of his hair and they lifted off. They raced low over the water making a bee line for the Space Center. As they approached the launch pads they could see the rocket's engines start to fire. They swooped in gracefully staying low over the water and grabbed a hand hold near the top of the rocket. The rocket's sensors adjusted for the slight amount of increased weight as if it were a random gust of wind as the heartless mechanical fire breathing dragon with a brain of silicon roared skyward. Because they were flying on their own and merely using the rocket for guidance and cover, they only added a few pounds to the giant's mass, but if anyone took the time to carefully analyze the data, they would see the unexpected increase in the rocket's mass two seconds after lift off.

All Danny knew for certain was that wherever he was going would be unlike any place he had ever been. Somehow, though, that was oddly reassuring. Danny watched with detached interest as the rocket's first stage fell away and the second stage engines fired. He realized that he was having no trouble breathing in spite of what he knew to be very low air pressure at this altitude. He noticed that he did not feel the rush of air past him that he should have felt traveling at this speed. Titania must have been using some kind of shield to protect them from an environment that otherwise would have killed them in seconds.

Reviews

[Susanna F]

This is a really fun story, very vividly written. I hope you will be writing more of it!