Chapter Text
The sky opens before him in an endless blue expanse. Cold, still. Brittle enough to crack. Below, the snow-drenched mountains blaze a blinding white.
For a single, infinite second, Maverick hears nothing but the sound of his own breathing, crackling through his mask quick and controlled. His heart thuds, once, twice, echoing in his ears like the beat of the ocean surf. Adrenaline arcs hot and sharp through his stone-steady fingertips. The chatter of his comms recedes into deathly silence.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
“Shit, I’m out of flares!”
In the end, it’s easy.
He jerks back the control stick, inhaling through the sudden, brief nausea as he drifts up and over, as he slams his fist into the switch. Flares fire behind him in swathes of scarlet light and white smoke; Rooster shoots by underneath, a flash of sleek gunmetal. Always, always safe, under the shadow of Maverick’s wings.
Rooster, and safe. That’s all that matters, and for a moment, it really does seem like his stupid stunt succeeds, no harm, no foul.
Looking back, if he’d had the chance, Maverick would’ve told Rooster that he meant it. We’ll talk, he’d said. After, he’d said. Because finally, finally Rooster had been willing to listen, and suddenly Maverick needed more than anything to explain, needed more than anything to make him understand; needed, with an almost suffocating desperation, to recover something he’d thought irrevocably lost. Especially—especially now that—
It’s time to let go. And Maverick had meant it then, too, sitting in that sunlit office with its dust motes dancing in the air, with its four-star flag billowing just beyond the window, Ice gazing at him with calm eyes gone gentle with age. “I don’t know how,” Maverick had rasped, and not just about Rooster, or his career.
It’s Ice he thinks of now, as the explosion rocks the airframe. Rooster gives a strangled shout of his name over the radio, one that Maverick barely hears over the blaring alarms, the frantic beeping, the roar of flames.
He thinks of Ice. And then he thinks of Goose, his genial grin thirty years lost, his laughter muted and faded sepia in the fringes of Maverick’s memory.
Maverick yanks the ejection handle. The canopy pops with a hiss; every bone and fiber in his body lurches violently as he’s catapulted into the bitter cold. Did I do good by you?
Maybe, he thinks, as his vision goes black—he’ll finally find out.
He jolts awake.
Hands, check. Helmet, check. Mask on, legs strapped in. Upright, sitting.
No.
Upside down.
“Watch the birdie!”
The air punches out of Maverick’s lungs. He rights the jet on instinct, levels out. What the—
Snap.
“This is a great shot, Mav. I should be a photographer.”
—fuck?
“Mav?”
His hands are trembling.
Maverick has been flying for thirty-five years, and his hands are trembling.
“Cougar,” says Goose, because it is Goose; it’s his voice, crystal clear like it hasn’t been in Maverick’s memories, in his dreams, in decades. “MiG One’s bugged out; nothing to it, you’re good to go. Hey, Mav, what’s up? You went quiet.”
“I’m fine,” says Maverick. His voice comes out hoarse. He clears his throat. Wills his hands to steady, and takes a deep breath. In, out.
He looks down. The instrument panels, the consoles—he looks about—the whole damn cockpit is different. Older. Much, much older: buttons, dials, radars. Sorely familiar. It’s been, he thinks, incredulously, hysterically, a long ass time since he’s been in one of these.
It’s a dream. It has to be a dream.
His pulse thunders in his skull, drums insistent white flashes behind his eyelids. He blinks hard. Beneath him, the jet rumbles and vibrates. Around him, the clouds glide past.
Focus, Maverick. You’re in the sky. Dream or not, you can’t lose your shit now.
“We’re running low on fuel,” says the ghost in the backseat, says Goose. He still sounds concerned, but he doesn’t pursue. “Let’s head home.”
Sure. Okay. Just.
Give him a second.
But his hands know exactly what to do. It’s been twenty years since Maverick’s last handled a Tomcat, and his eyes still know exactly where to look. So, so familiar, everything, all of this. Like a fragment of yesterday sliced straight out of the dearest corner of his heart. His fingers curl around the control stick between his legs.
Merlin speaks. His voice sends another jolt through Maverick’s gut, another strum through the strings in Maverick’s closet, stirring up a cloud of dust. “Hey, Cougar, man, you alright?”
Suddenly, Maverick remembers.
“Cougar,” he says.
“What was that?” says Goose.
“Cougar,” Maverick repeats, over Goose. Keep your shit together, Maverick. “What’s your status?”
No response. A heavy breath, perhaps.
“C’mon, Mav,” says Goose. The fuel indicator beeps incessantly in Maverick’s ear. “We gotta head back.”
Maverick swallows. What happens if he does? Would it disrupt the dream? Fuck with his memories enough to wake him up?
What would happen to Cougar? Does it matter? This isn’t real. It can’t be real. Maverick’s lived his entire life already, over thirty years of service demarcated by Before Goose’s Death and After Goose’s Death, Before TOPGUN and After TOPGUN, Before Ice and After Ice. Whatever this is—no matter how solid the stick feels under his palm, no matter how his sweat stings his eyes—this isn’t real, and neither are the consequences.
(Thirty years ago, Cougar abandoned his wings for the sake of his family. Maverick ran into him by chance ten years after that, eating lunch with his teenage kid at a corner cafe, glasses on his nose and laugh lines around his mouth. They’d smacked each other on the shoulder and chatted a bit and then Maverick had continued on his way.)
No. Maverick won’t leave him.
“It’s fine,” he tells Goose. “We can make it. Status, Merlin.”
“I dunno,” says Merlin. “I think that MiG fucked him up. We’re runnin’ low on gas over here, too.”
“No worries,” says Maverick, eyes ahead. He blinks again, lowers his shoulders, then straightens up. “We’ll take you back. Nice and easy.”
They land. Cougar comes in too low, wobbling dangerously, but he gets his shit together long enough to raise the nose and hook the cable. Then Maverick lands, and he hooks the first cable, not the third. Acceptable, but not perfect; perfectly rusty, in fact. Strange, in an unreality. You’d think that his subconscious would have him land like a pro, no matter what.
And then they’re taxiing down the flight deck, getting chained down. The canopy opens. Maverick checks the instruments, the console. Unstraps himself one harness at a time, slowly, deliberately. Lifts his helmet with white-knuckled hands.
After that, there’s nothing left for him to do but turn around.
In his dreams, Goose’s face is an undefinable blur. Always has been, since his death; recognizable only by the vague pitch of his voice, the hazy sound of his laugh, Maverick’s deep, visceral knowledge that yes, the man standing next to him is Goose, his long-departed friend.
But here—here Goose looks up at him as he removes his helmet, too, his hair askew, every feature rendered in high definition down to the bristle of his mustache and the creases in the corner of his eyes. There’s a deep furrow between his eyebrows, and the padding of the helmet has left pale indents against the flushed red of his temples.
Maverick staggers.
“Whoa, Mav!” Goose exclaims, reaching for him, but they’re too far apart. “Seriously, man, are you okay?”
Maverick is not fucking okay. “Goose,” he croaks. “Hey, Goose.”
“Do you need a medic? We should bring you to the sick bay,” says Goose. He’s already scrambling for the ladder as the flight crew surrounds the jet. “Can you climb out on your own? Hold on.”
Maverick pinches his forearm. Pain flares in a sharp sting. Nothing.
The world is crystal clear around him, from the various aircraft parked on deck to the jagged protrusions of the bridge spearing the sky. The air smells like salt and jet fuel and the thick refuse of the galleys. The ocean waves crash against the hull far below, a steady, rhythmic rumble amidst the clamor of the activity above.
Maverick raises his head to the clouds, dark and wispy over a horizon gone tangerine-orange against the setting sun. The wind chills the perspiration dripping down his hairline. He shivers, then startles, badly, when a warm hand wraps around his wrist.
“Mav,” says Goose gently. “Come down.”
Maverick stares at him.
He has photos of Goose tacked all over his workbench, back at his hangar. Goose with Bradley, Goose with Carole, Goose and Maverick yelling themselves hoarse into a wide blue yonder. Awake, Maverick has never truly forgotten his face, but—
Goose looks so young. The realization hits him like a blow. Rooster is older than Goose is now.
Goose pushes forward. He tugs on Maverick’s arm, insistent, so comfortable and easy in Maverick’s personal space.
Maverick comes down.
“Easy,” says Goose. He hovers anxiously until Maverick’s boots touch the deck, then hovers anxiously some more. “Easy…”
“Don’t worry,” says Maverick, through the lump in his throat. “I’m fine. Just got a little woozy for a second.”
“‘A little’?” Goose shoots him an incredulous look. God, when was the last time Maverick’s seen that? “You looked ready to faint. Are you hurt?”
He doesn’t remember this part. “Right as rain. Really.”
Goose’s frown deepens. “If you say so,” he says, but it’s apparent he’s unconvinced. He continues to shoot glances at Maverick as they make their way down the flight deck, but Maverick doesn’t acknowledge him. Can’t acknowledge him. They lay below, their boots thundering down the rickety metal grates of the ladder.
Maverick fights to stay calm. Even the track of his footsteps is clear-cut, logical, sequential, distinctly un-dreamlike. The ship rattles around them. They pass through the plethora of claustrophobic passageways bristling with unconcealed pipes and ductwork, narrow and humid, the maze-like layout slotting like a long lost puzzle piece in Maverick’s head. If he’s not mistaken…
Ah. There he is: an LTJG, who stops them at the door to the ready room. He redirects them to Stinger’s office.
Just like last time.
Maverick inhales. It lingers in his lungs, suspends tight, dizzying. Goose nudges him with his elbow, another unfathomably solid touch, and Maverick flinches again.
“Mav?”
Maverick moves forward. Don’t think.
Stinger’s office is just down the passageway. The door swings open just as they make it to the threshold; Cougar steps out.
“Thanks, Maverick,” he says, and Maverick barely manages a nod before he pushes past them.
(Just like last time.)
“What the hell’s going on?” says Goose.
I’m having the most lucid dream of my life, thinks Maverick. That’s what’s going on.
“Maverick, Goose,” comes Stinger’s voice from inside, and fuck if that isn’t just as nostalgic as Cougar and Merlin. Maverick hasn’t seen Stinger in twenty years. Last he heard, the old coot retired as an O-6 to the coast of Florida. “Come in.”
Goose waits just behind him. Maverick can feel his worried eyes on the back of his neck.
Alright, Mav. Just follow the motions. They’re going to walk in there, and Stinger’s gonna send them to TOPGUN. No reason to believe otherwise.
His heart shivers.
Maybe this is where the dream ends. Any time now, he thinks. Maybe in an hour, when Maverick crawls into his rack and lies there rocking back and forth with the slow sway of the ship. He’ll wake up, and he’ll be lying facedown in a snowfield, and it’ll be cold and wet and uncomfortable. He’s probably dying of hypothermia right now, actually, so if he wakes up faster that’d be fantastic, thanks.
Stinger does choose them for TOPGUN. Time marches forward. Afterward, Maverick stands before the tiny mirror in the head, toothbrush hanging from his teeth. Never mind Goose being young; every single line on Maverick’s face is fucking gone. The persistent ache in his knees is gone, too, now that he’s paying attention.
“Don’t freak out,” he mumbles to the stranger in the mirror. Hysteria threatens the edges of his vision. He quashes it forcefully. “It’s fine.”
“Huh?” says Goose, from two fixtures down.
“Don’t worry about it,” says Maverick.
Like he predicts, he crawls into his rack within an hour. Lies awake, waiting for the inevitable. It takes another rebuttal before Goose finally leaves him alone, God bless him, and his concern squeezes Maverick in a carved-out space where he never thought he could be hurt again. Despite this, Maverick desperately needs to be alone.
He checks on Goose one more time, nevertheless. He’s already asleep in the rack below, blankets twisted between his legs, chest moving up and down, up and down.
What was once so commonplace sits oddly in Maverick’s brain. He’s always remembered Goose’s sense of humor, his easy charm, because everyone else remembers that, too. It’s the mundane things, like Goose snoring in that steady soft wheeze, like the way Goose looks to him for their next step, always, full of trust—that Maverick forgot, that Maverick took for granted.
He pulls himself back from the edge and stares up at the scratched underside of the rack above him, tries to focus on the cacophony of the ship around him instead of the uncertainty growing like a cyst between his ribs. The longer he lies there, the more real it feels. He spreads his hands over the threadbare, scratchy bedding, then rolls over on his side. The pillow is equally scratchy and pitifully flat beneath his cheek.
Is this reality, then? Was the past thirty plus years of his life the dream?
How the fuck is that possible? It can’t be. Maverick remembers too much. Maverick knows too much.
Fuck. He hopes everyone got back to the carrier. He hopes Rooster got home safe.
“God, Goose,” he murmurs. “If only you could see him now.”
If only, if only. The hurt jabs his heart. The tightness grows. The darkness amplifies the throbbing of his blood, hollow and all-encompassing, crescendoing into something rapid-fire and panicked.
Rooster had been right, that day. Maverick has always been alone. He’s never held onto anything serious, in the decades after Charlie. It was something he’d never minded, not with the sky above him and the world spread far below, not when he had Carole to think about, and Bradley. Not with Ice always at his back, after TOPGUN, after the Gulf; after Carole died, after Bradley left. After Ice himself was married.
But oh, God, did he yearn, sometimes. If only to relieve that aching, piercing loneliness that rears its head in the dark of night, that slithers into Maverick’s dreams in the form of a small, warm smile, of steady, sure arms around him, nebulous and fragile like smoke. And maybe Penny could’ve been that—would be that, if Maverick does in fact wake up in the reality he knows, fully understands. But she isn’t here now and a part of Maverick—a part of Maverick actually shies away from it, because—because here—
Here, Goose is alive. Goose is alive. And if Goose—who has been dead for thirty years, who Maverick remembers only through murky impressions and old, faded emotions, can be here, tangible, the contours of him bold and real and warm, then—
Ice. God, Ice. Ice is alive, too. Maverick lost him only three days ago.
The pain that strikes him is as sharp and sore as it was the moment Warlock broke the news. So what if Ice had married, had started his own family, had never known the shape of Maverick’s deepest, quietest truth? Ice had never once left him behind. Had never once left him truly alone—not until now. Maverick misses him like death.
Footsteps clatter on the deck above. The ocean waves swell and break in a low cadence outside.
“Talk to me, Goose,” he whispers.
A snore answers him. But that’s okay, because it’s an actual fucking answer, and Maverick laughs quietly to himself, shoulders shaking, heart lurching, and the tears he’d thought himself empty of finally come.