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Phoenix could hear them laughing. A joyful unrestrained sound, like it had been when they first met before the fighting and the resentment had swept in . They had all been happy then, nothing more than four nuggets trying to find their way fresh from getting their wings .
God, it had been so long since she had heard Bag-Jake’s laughter, his real laughter, the one that made his eyes crinkle and his body shake as if he was a little kid giggling . It hurt to think that they had been so close but so far away in recent times. That every interaction had been nothing but petty comments. That she would throw the callsign that he hated to his face every opportunity she got.
It hurt to wake up and know that there was no text from Bradley, no silly postcard from halfway across the world waiting for her . There would be no more songs, no more midnight waffle runs, no more forcing Bradley to sit through another rom-com movie or terrible military movie with too many inaccuracies for them to nitpick .
She missed them.
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Don’t leave your wingman.
Rooster had run out of flares. It was a dogfight all the way to the boat, and Rooster had run out of flares. But Hangman had been there, and they all had seen how his jet took the hit that was meant for Rooster.
Maverick had told them to never leave their wingman, he had told them to come home, but in the end, someone wasn’t going to come home . It was a price they had acknowledged and accepted. Until then.
Why are you dead?
Rooster went back for Hangman. For Jake Seresin, who liked to sing while cooking and was a sweet, kind person behind the title Bradley had branded him as . He went back and his plane was shot down. And Phoenix followed orders and made her way back to the boat. She followed orders and stood in front of Javy and didn’t know what to say.
How do you explain to someone their brother died when your heart is breaking for the one you also lost? How do you look a father in the eyes and tell him you left his son behind?
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Jake and Bradley died together, they died for each other, and in the end, they stayed together.
Their laughter, their banter haunted the halls of the boat they had gone in, haunted the halls of Top Gun. Their jets appeared in the sky, burned gold from the sunlight, they would flicker in and out of sight, a mirage almost .
“I saw them,” Bob says, his face paler than usual, “I saw them standing on the deck”
And Phoenix wants to be angry, she wants to snap because if they don’t talk about it then she can almost convince herself that none of it is real, but she doesn’t . Natasha Trace just breathes through the pain that threatens to swallow her and says, “I know, I heard them.”
And Javy, who stands upright with tense shoulders, says nothing.
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Javy thought that the sky would be an escape. That getting away from the damn boat would mean that he would stop seeing Jake, he would stop hearing his voice.
Part of him longed to stay, to keep what was his last connection to his friends, to his brother. But it was painful to hear that sarcastic tone and remember that Jake was gone.
So he went back up, he went back to flying because he knew Jake wouldn’t want him to quit, because maybe up there he could tell himself that the weight on his chest was from gravity .
And then, from the corner of his eye, he saw it.
His wingman, flying right on his wing like he always had done before the mission, the black helmet was the only thing that identified who the other one was, and Javy just knew that he was sporting that mischievous grin like he always did when he won a bet .
On the horizon, another jet appears, and like a moth to a flame, Jake goes to it. Javy had forgotten how beautiful it was to see them fly together, to see Jake fly freely without the burden of trying to be perfect and Bradley let go of his concerns and his restrictions.
Afterward, he finds himself making an emergency landing, Maverick rushing to meet him the moment his feet hit the tarmac and there is a concern in the other man’s gaze but also understanding.
Words get stuck in his throat alongside a sob, he wants the scream, wants to demand “Why didn’t you warn me? Why didn’t you tell me?”
But he doesn’t, he simply shakes as tears fall down his face, the vision of those gunmetal jets engraved in his mind.
Later Javy will wonder if Maverick has ghosts of his own, if Rooster’s father haunts Pete Mitchell the way Bradley hunts him, if Iceman Kazansky flies next to his wingman every time he goes up.
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Fathers aren’t supposed to bury their sons.
Maverick had ghosts of his own, some more real than others. Goose was a voice that he could hear every day, a shadow that followed behind him but was never there when he turned. Ice was more present, following him into the air, into the sea. His guardian angel.
And now his son. He had helped raise Bradley, had been there when he was born, the guilt of seeing him grow up instead of Goose had never disappeared and he had always refused to say it, but Bradley had been his son, his only son .
Bradley was supposed to come back, to live and be happy. To sing songs older than himself, to laugh. They were going to fix the Mustang together just like they had spoken.
But Bradley was gone.
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There were talks of sending them all back to their squadrons, but despite the loss they had suffered the mission had been a success, and so they had become an official squadron.
Yet they struggle, fights break out over the simplest things, there is a silence where before there was laughter and jibes.
But they stick together, they go out even when none feel like it, they eat together, and it’s easier to handle the pain together, to sit with others .
Javy and Phoenix find themselves spending time together once more, the surviving half of a whole . They hold onto each other as if they were at sea, trying to keep each other afloat. There is no rescue coming from them, but still, they try and keep going.
One day they will sit together, they will stare at two rowdy boys playing in a garden, Jake and Bradley. The ache will always be there but they will learn to look back and speak of their memories without choking on the grief .