〖 chapter four 〗
ready for take off

          "Fucking Admiral Cain," Celine mumbled as she watched the men all walk away from the hangar and prepare for the idea that Maverick had. Hondo nodded his head as he was the last to vanish from the view of the couple and moved out of the hangar to get the people that would roll the plane out of the hangar so that they could not destroy the whole hangar.

"Celine." She turned her head head to look at Maverick, meeting his eyes. The fire slowly burning it as she softly smiled at him. Her hand twitching next to his before his hand wrapped around it, leaving her own hand to tighten her grip on the hand that she felt so safe in. "I am not mad, you understand that?"

Celine took the sunglasses he still held in his hand and stuck them to his shirt, patting his chest with her hand only for it to also be grabbed by him. He did not want the woman he loved to feel guilty for letting her emotions out, he had many years of scoldings about how he should react and even then sometimes his emotions came out. He understood her point of view but did not want her to risk her own career on this project so that they all hear what her thoughts were about the man that was trying to take them from their planes.

"I know Pete." Celine smiled softly as she felt his hand go to her cheeks, his thumbs rubbing them as he met her eyes with his own. His eyes had a fire in them that would not be extinguished until he reached what he wanted, Celine's eyes reflected his after a few seconds of staring until a small flame started to light up in her own. It felt like the flame was brought over by another candle that had been lit by a match that had so much heat in it.

"I just want to be sure." His thumbs continuing to circle on her cheek as he leaned towards her. Her breathing hitching as her eyes glanced towards the open hangar door only to see the sunlight and nothing else except the desert behind the starting ramp and the metal fence. His forehead slowly being placed against her own as he turned her head softly again, "I know you, you were over-thinking my reaction."

"When am I not?" Celine asked as she kept her eyes on the man while she saw him closing them. Her breathing calmed down as Maverick pushed his forehead a bit more against her own, she would not give up in this fight and stood her ground. Her nose brushing against his as she moved her head a bit, a nose kiss before she pressed her lips against the his. A groan left him as she pressed her lips against his, her tongue slipping out of her own and licking his.

"Stop." Maverick pulled away from her, hands still on her cheeks as their eyes met before he pressed his lips against Celine's again. "You do not have to worry about my words. I need you to know that."

"Okay, Mav." Her eyes on his as she heard voices getting closer from the outside, both of them letting their hands fall from her face but Celine would not be the one to retaliate first. She took a step towards him as he moved away, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling Maverick into another kiss. Pulling away as she turned around to walk out of the hangar while he had to go to the other side of the building attached to the hangar.

"Get ready for take off Captain." Celine smirked at his stunned expression as he stood silently frozen in the place she had just kissed him. A chuckle leaving her as she looked at Dark Star before turning around to walk away to get dressed for her own plane that she was supposed to fly behind him so that if he were to crash she could pick him up.

"You too, Lieutenant." She could hear faintly as she moved past a group of people that would take the plane out of the hangar. Her eyes focused on the path she had to take to the all too well known locker room in which she could pull on the black flight suit that she had taken on since she had arrived at base.

The few men she walked past bowed their heads to her but most ignored her. Women had been able to be in the navy for many years and yet men did not fully acknowledge them especially when they had a higher rank than themselves and might even be better at what they were doing than the men themselves. Celine rolled her neck as she turned to the right, hand in front of her as she pushed the door to the locker open and moved towards her metal closet on base.

The grey metal had her call sign at the top on a white strip of tape or paper, she had never tried to identify it but had been told that could be either one of them. Her hazel eyes stared at the word that she had gotten in her time at Top Gun thanks to her loving to fly at night and often go over the speed limit, she had often questioned how she had not been expelled but figured that her Uncle had been the one to keep her in her classes especially because she was still at the top of her class even with the reckless action she had been taken without her former RIO.

Celine pulled the door open and pulled her black flight suit out of the locker, laying it on the bench in the middle of the room before she put the aviators onto the small shelf of the locker. Pulling the flight suit liner out of the locker and putting her feet through it after letting her boots fall from her feet. She pulled it up, until she was able to slip her arms through and pulled the rest of the clothing up. She zipped the suit up, sitting down and slipping her feet once again into her boots and lacing them up.

She stood up, walking to her locker and looking at herself in the small mirror she had placed in it to see if her bun was still good to go. It was and yet she had not done it any different than before she had gotten onto the motorbike of Maverick, she shook her head slightly as she reached for her flight suit and started putting it on. Celine was the one that did not get the special treatment in this so she did everything herself. She walked to the bigger mirror that had been placed in the back of the room and was most likely not know by most people. She turned to look at the suit and if it was strapped up properly with a smile as she realized her ass looked a little better than it had the last time she had stepped into this suit.

"Ready to go, Darling?" she mumbled to herself as she walked back to her locker and took the helmet with her call sign, Comet, on and closed the locker door that she would most likely not open again because what her and Pete of them were doing was very much the end of their careers as naval aviators in passive duty. She nodded to herself before she stepped out of the room, her helmet in her hand while her eyes had seemed to have lost any life in them. She was focused on their mission and that meant not a glint of amusement was able to make it's way through her stoic expression as she made her way down the hall, boots making thumping sounds so that anyone walking around the halls knew that she was coming their ways.

Celine smiled tightly at the people working on her jet. She put her helmet onto her head before climbing up the ladder that was connected to the plane. She swung her leg over the edge and slowly settled down on the seat, straightening the helmet, pulling the straps tight enough so that it would not move before she reached for her oxygen mask to connect it to her helmet but did not yet put on as she connected the rest of her technologies.

"Tower, this is Dark Star. We are taxing with information Alpha." Celine could hear as the few people around her slowly vanished. She did not dare glance at them, she had her eyes set on the sunrise while the darkness of the night crept down. The moon slowly vanishing on the other side of the celestial plane while the sun rose, stars disappearing in the glowing state as everyone left her to be the lone star in the sky.

"Dark Star, you're clear to taxi. Runway 21. Winds 210, 10." Celine listened to the voice of the tower before she could hear a bit of a crinkling as if the connection was interrupted before she heard the voice of Hondo in her ears instead of the one of the Tower.

"Connecting to Shooting Star." Celine chuckled her head shaking as she took her mask into her hand and held it near her face.

"Tower, this is Shooting Star. Ready for take off to follow Dark Star," Celine replied as she closed the the canopy of her jet. Her hands patting for the medical kit that she had on the backseat in her two seater called Shooting Star. She smiled when her fingertips brushed over the package before turning to strap herself in with the seatbelt of the jet.

"Sending you to 'Screech'" Hondo said to her before she heard a female voice speaking to her instead of the man she was so used to. She could not hear any of the conversation that was going on with Maverick but she felt safe and at peace. She rubbed her hands faintly on the console and inside of the plane as she watched the last of the sun go down. They would be flying at dawn which could have been night if they had not waited any longer, she would have loved the darkness wrapping around her, after all she had loved flying at night because it was the way to be closest to the stars and be a comet.

"You ready, Comet?"

"The sky is made for me," Celine simply replied with a smirk on her lips as she wrapped her fingers slowly around the control stick. She rolled her shoulders once as she inhaled deeply, she knew that she did not yet have to put her oxygen mask on but decided to rather do it now then when she was in the sky as Screech was speaking to her.

"Comet, Admiral Cain just pulled up to the gate. You still wanna do this even though you know what will happen?" Celine's shoulders and hand tensed for a second as she heard the words. She exhaled, turning her head a bit to the starting line where she could see Dark Star standing with her engines on and read to take off into the sky. Celine imagined that Maverick was also glancing at her so she nodded her head to herself, she would not be backing down even if it meant never seeing a cockpit again as long as she would be in the night sky once more with Maverick somewhere with her.

"Where Maverick goes I go, Screech and who really thinks that Captain Mitchell does not need a babysitter?" Celine could hear the woman on the other side chuckle faintly, the blonde in the cockpit smiled to herself as she watched Dark Star take off. Her boyfriend was in the skies and he would not come back down until he would have to and she admired him for that, her eyes brightening before she started her own engines.

"Comet, ready for take off. Connection to Control, Tower and Maverick stable." The sound of Screech stopped before she heard Hondo again in her ears.

"Don't let him be an idiot."

"I can't stop something he already is Hondo." Celine pushed the control stick forward as she rolled forward, her eyes set on the sky that she would be entering for maybe her last time. Her hazel eyes glanced to the picture she had in her cockpit, eyes meeting her own just they were so much younger and not with so much pain in them. Her hair was choppy to her shoulder and brown as it was in it's natural form and she was in the arms of a man that looked a lot like her, yet it was not her father. "Last one ride, Knight," she whispered to the picture before a smile stretched on her lips.

Celine pushed her throttle forward, not hearing any words that were spoken in the time frame of her simply enjoying the quiet in her second home (not even the offended yell of Pete when he had registered what she had said), while pulling the control stick back so that she would be ready for the sky. She rose from earth, leaving her to be in the skies with the stars and the moon and hopefully some comets and meteors, after all the jet was not called Shooting Star for no reason. She was the fighter jet and the fighter jet was her as she started to speed up even more, following the rout that Maverick took way above her and with a lot more speed as she slowly even out to stay on a certain amount of height.

"Transitioning to scramjet," Maverick simply said as if he had no care except for the thing that was right in front of him, the sky and the feeling of Mach 10 that he had to reach not only for him but for everyone that worked on the project. Celine followed slowly, raising slowly with time so that she would be over the clouds while hearing words be spoken in the communication from Hondo and Maverick.

"Eh Mav, Admiral Cain is asking— Ordering that we bring her down." Not even a mention of the second plane was said meaning either she was unimportant enough to be looked over by the Admiral that was trying to bring them out of the sky or she had not been sighted when she had made her way into the sky to be the usual babysitter to her older boyfriend. And then she could hear the practical smile on Pete's face when he replied to his friend in Control.

"Op . . . Oop . . . Alpha three, oh . . . As sing . . . Ach . . . I've . . . Point 4, and . . . Within six—" Celine chuckled at the imitation of distortion before she had been called by her call sign by the same man that had tried to get Maverick to land the plane that had been working with for many years so that the jet would obviously take the G's and the heat that would come with every Mach they had trained.

( fibi's notes ! )

✈ did i forget to post this in april? yes. is it at leas here now? yes.