FOLLOWING THE FUNERAL, ALL SKYE WANTED TO DO WAS TAKE A NEVER ENDING BREAK. unfortunately for her, the uranium enrichment site was somehow speeding up its progress. it would now be operable much before any of the pilots and admirals had expected, resulting in their training getting pushed up regardless of where they currently stood. 

skye had, truthfully, been dreading the day that she would have to go back into her jet. for the first time in her life, flying didn't seem like the dream she'd chased for so long. it felt wrong to fly when ice was dead, and when her backseater had just lost her father. 

honestly, skye didn't think that she would be able to fly if maverick had died. her father was the reason she flew. as much as she wanted to say that she enlisted just out of her love for aviation, it wouldn't be fair not to think about maverick. if it weren't for him, she wouldn't have had a love for aviation in the first place. 

losing him, skye thought, would be the deepest pain in the world. even deeper, somehow, than the ache of rooster's rejection, and of him avoiding her. her father was her only family other than katia, and he had always been everything to her.

that was why skye had encouraged katia not to fly the mission.

every single admiral at the base had done the same, only for katia to respond with the same stubborn disagreement. she reasoned that she'd been training for the mission.. she was going to fly it. the admirals disagreed, saying that she was a capable aviator, yet even the best needed a break. not katia.

katia would do absolutely anything to get skye to fly the mission, that much everyone knew. the both of them only wanted the other to be able to succeed; only wanted the other to get everything and more. that was why the admirals had then referred to skye, hoping she could talk some sense into her best friend and wso.

"kat, it isn't a joke." she'd said. "you deserve time to rest, to think. this mission is going to be stressful, and i don't think you need that on your plate right now-"

"would it be too stressful for you?" katia countered. "if you're fit to go on this flight, so am i."

it was true, of course, that neither of them would fly without the other. in skye asking katia not to fly, she was silently telling her that she, too, would not fly the mission. but they were both too determined, and had both worked too hard. they wanted to fly together. 

katia had been stubborn enough, of course, to somehow convince the admirals that she did deserve to go on the flight. the loophole and workaround for all of this was that katia wasn't going to be in the pilot seat. 

with skye in control of most, if not all, of the maneuvers of the plane and of the throttle, it wasn't near as worrisome to think about katia in the back seat. her job in the mission was simply to align her laser with the target, which she immediately insisted she could do in her sleep.

it was a reluctant agreement from the admirals, but it boosted both skye and katia's hopes significantly. maverick still hadn't revealed which of the pilots would actually be going on the mission, and the two women now seemed more likely to be a part of the lucky six.

"wonder who will be team leader." skye had wondered aloud as she and katia were walking out of the admirals office. 

katia shrugged her shoulders, her gaze catching at the photos on the wall. "you know one of them's gonna kill the other, right?" she asked, watching as skye sent her a confused glance. "rooster and hangman. either over you or over team leader.. they're gonna end up tearing each other apart."

skye shook her head. "they're big boys, they'll get over it." she thought for a moment, letting the blonde's words sink in. "it isn't like they have anything to kill each other for over me, anyway."

"have you talked to rooster.. at all?" katia countered.

"not since the funeral, no." skye replied. "and not really before then, either."

katia stopped in the hallway, putting a hand on skye's shoulder. "look.. i know i'm probably not the best with advice right now. but.. you have to talk to him. both of them, actually, before this mission. you do not want to have things unresolved with them. you know.. in case something happens."

skye's jaw tightened as she thought about the possibility of anyone going down on this mission. it was dangerous, and they'd all known that when they'd agreed to fly it. but now that the day of the mission was looming over her head.. skye didn't know if she was ready to face the idea of losing anyone. 

it was later that night that she ended up getting an invitation to maverick's current apartment for dinner. katia was with her family that night, as she had been often recently. skye didn't blame her, of course. it did make the house more lonely, though, with no katia around.

skye was thankful to get out of the house for a bit, but maverick's place wasn't really any less quiet. it was an apartment that felt like a hotel, skye thought, and it was honestly kind of uncomfortable. it was the first place he'd been offered to stay while he was teaching, though, and he'd taken it immediately. 

when skye and maverick had finished their dinner, talking about some miscellaneous thing or other, the man cleared his throat. his brows furrowed in the way that they often did when he had something on his mind, so skye was intrigued. 

"i, uh.. i invited you here because i wanted to see you, but.. i also needed to tell you something." maverick said. "they.. they removed me from the position."

she thought her ears deceived her. "what?"

"i'm not.. i'm not your instructor for the rest of the training." he said. "they thought i needed a break after everything with ice.. cyclone said he's taking over."

"bullshit." skye breathed. "no, seriously, that's bullshit. they're letting katia fly."

it was maverick's turn to give a confused look that exactly mimicked his daughter's. "what?"

"she convinced the admirals to let her fly.. she can fly the mission but you can't teach it?" she shook her head. "that's not fair. and.. and what's cyclone gonna do? no one is better to teach this mission than you."

"i'm glad you think so." he chuckled a little. "i feel like.. i've failed you guys."

skye's mind stopped spinning around the absurdity of the situation and she refocused on her father in front of her. "what do you mean? no, no, you've taught us so much."

"if someone doesn't come back from this mission," maverick said, "it's because i have failed you.  because i didn't teach you enough."

"then come back and teach us more." she argued.

maverick shook his head. "they already told me i'm done. and now that ice is gone.. he was the reason i was still doing any of this. the navy doesn't want me anymore."

"fuck what the navy wants." skye replied, shocking herself with how passionately she felt. "everyone who is in this program.. we all want you to be our teacher. i've never seen anyone better for this than you, dad."

he smiled, putting a hand on her shoulder as a silent thank you. "i appreciate that. but i just.. i can't help but feel like i haven't proven to you that the mission is doable, you know?"

skye nodded. that made enough sense. "then show us that it is."

a smirk came to her father's lips. he already knew that she was suggesting he illegally steal an aircraft, and then run the entire course in it. or at least, that's what he was thinking, and he assumed that great minds thought alike. 

maverick's brows furrowed again in his thoughtful way after a moment. "can i ask.. a personal question?"

"uh.. sure?"

"what's going on with you and bradley? you haven't really.. talked to him in a while when i've seen you two. and i know it's not my business to ask about it, but.. you two were so close, and now nothing." 

skye wasn't expecting that at all. she probably would've expected him to ask almost anything but that. she then supposed that it probably had been obvious how little she and rooster had spoken.. especially with them typically being attached at the hip. 

she cleared her throat. "it's.. it's a long story, i guess. to make it a short one, he.. um.. we're not.. i don't know if we're really.. friends anymore."

maverick seemed confused by this, and he sat up a little taller. "what? what did he say to you?"

"it's what he didn't say, dad." she replied. "he.. he didn't feel the same about me that i felt about him."

skye was reluctant to meet her father's gaze, assuming that he would be absolutely shocked by the revelation that his daughter had had feelings for rooster bradshaw. but maverick seemed simply confused, as if he knew something more than what she did.

"i'm so sorry." maverick said after removing his face from his hands. there seemed to be more depth to his words than skye knew what to do with. 

"it's not your fault." she replied dryly, though she had no idea how much irony was in her statement.

the subject matter changed, and skye and maverick were discussing something else for the rest of the evening until the youngest mitchell had to leave. 

"hey, dad!" skye called as she was about to leave. "don't forget what i said."

"about what?"

she chuckled. "about showing us that this mission is possible." with a final goodbye, she left and went back to her silent house.