𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓

↳ 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞
'caught up in circles,
confusion is nothing new'

━━ 𓄼 𓄹 ━━

MIRAMAR NAVAL AIR STATION
San Diego, California

ON THE SCREEN, there was a gray topography map with a large timer in bold lettering. 3:00.

They were all seated in navy blue upholstered chairs that looked like they were ripped right from the body of a commercial airline. Things hadn't changed since the first time they gathered like this; doubles together, singles interspersed. Still just a group of pilots, and certainly not a team.

"Time is your greatest enemy," Maverick said, stepping out in front of them. "Phase one of the mission will be a low level ingress attacking in two plane teams. You'll fly along this narrow canyon to your target.

He said it like it was the simplest thing in the world, but as the electric blue line of the route wormed its way through the canyon, Cam's lips parted in shock. The cliff sides stood out at such harsh angles, it would be a miracle if anyone could make it through.

"Radar-guided surface to air missiles defend the area. These SAMs, they're lethal."

"No shit," Coyote coughed under his breath.

"--however, they were designed to protect the skies above, not the canyon below."

Bradley decided to be the first person to interrupt Maverick's briefing. "That's because the enemy knows no one is insane enough to try and fly below them."

Maverick whipped around with unmistakable disbelief on his face. Fritz let out a wheeze of laughter at the exchange before Cam quieted him with an elbow to the gut.

"That's exactly what I'm gonna train you to do," Maverick said evenly. Every time he looked at Bradley, Cam knew there was a split second where he saw Goose.

Discreetly, Cam turned her head to glance at Bradley. He was sitting in the row across from them, and at Mav's response, he gave a slight shake of his head and looked out the window. The silhouette of his face had barely changed, still the same chiseled lines that she still had memorized. Cam continued to stare until he turned back around. She whipped her head forward again.

"Smooth," Fritz whispered.

This time, she sent a discreet kick into his shin.

"On the day, your altitude will be 100 feet," Maverick continued without missing a beat. "Maximum."

Fritz immediately shared a troubled glance with Cam. Thus far, the hard deck had been 5,000. Even the infamous cobra maneuver hadn't taken them down as far as 100.

"You exceed this altitude–" the screen began to beep as the small mock planes began their flight "--radar will spot you, and you're dead. Your airspeed will be 660 knots, minimum."

By now, everyone was whispering. Each new layer of this mission brought them closer to imminent death. It would be threading the eye of a needle just to fly this route, let alone any air to air engagement that would inevitably follow.

"Your time to target will be two and a half minutes. That's because fifth generation fighters wait at an airbase nearby. And a head to head with these planes in your F-18s. You're dead."

The last word was almost a whisper. Jarring was the realization that even Maverick didn't see how this mission could be completed without casualties. He had a soft heart behind the exterior of his leather jacket, but this level of concern was troubling.

"That's why you need to get in, and hit your target and be gone before these planes even have a chance of catching you. This makes time your greatest adversary."

Fritz smacked her on the arm to catch her attention and discreetly pointed. Hangman was making eye contact with Rooster, and both of them were giving each other the same goading look. A look that was going to cause trouble for everyone.

"You'll fly a route in your nav system that simulates the canyon. The faster you navigate this canyon, the harder it will be to stay under the radar of these enemy SAMs. The tighter the turns, the more intensely the force of gravity on your body multiplies. Compressing your lungs. Forcing the blood from your brain. Impairing your judgment and reaction time. So for today's lesson, we're gonna take it easy on you. Max ceiling, three hundred feet. Time to target three minutes." And then with a grin only Pete Mitchell could give, he said, "Good luck."

"Good luck my ass," Fritz sighed.

There was a saying that all it took was surviving one hard fall for your body to no longer fear the climb. For all her sleepless nights, the worries that still plagued her, she knew this mission was within the edges of her grasp. You wanted a chance to prove yourself. She looked around the room at all the faces of doubt. Take it while no one is watching.

𓄼 𓄹

IT WAS uncharacteristically silent as they prepared to head outside. The locker room was usually filled with voices as people grabbed their gear.

The locker door to her left slammed shut as Rooster grabbed his red flight helmet. "Late night?"

Cam rolled her eyes. It was difficult to let it roll off her back when he insisted on starting every day like this. "You saying I look tired?"

"Nah," he said with a loose shrug. His brown eyes darted over her body. "You look good."

She raised a brow and tried to hide her surprise. What the hell was this about? "Was that a compliment?"

Bradley leaned in, grinning. "Don't let it go to your head, Berlin."

Little more than a half smile pulled on her lips. "I stayed out just as late as the rest of you."

"I bet Miles would tell us a different story," Fritz sang out from nearby. Cam shot him a cold glare, but he only gave a toothy grin. "I saw his car pullin' away from the general direction of your apartment this morning."

Bradley's smile faltered only the slightest bit. But it was noticeable, most clearly to Cam.

"Lay off," Natasha said in Cam's defense, slamming her locker door shut. "Just because you're upset you don't get any doesn't mean you need to take it out on anyone else."

Coyote gave a low whistle at Fritz's baffled expression.

There was no story to tell about Miles. They had left at the same time, but they had split in their separate directions in the parking lot. Cam went home to the three missed calls from her brother Max, and a nearly incoherent voicemail.

She had told him to keep it quiet that she was back in California. Her parents asked religiously when she would be coming home, but now that she was back, there was no courage left to face them. A full year of minimal contact wasn't rare for a Navy fighter pilot, but her parents knew better than that. Cam was avoiding home, plain and simple.

"You don't have a free weekend, or something?" Max had asked over the phone, practically begging in hushed tones. It was nearing midnight and the rest of his house would be asleep.

The window was propped open, letting a slight breeze into the apartment. "This is a serious mission, Max. The Navy isn't just going to hand out free time like we're in kindergarten."

A frustrated sigh, typical of an oldest brother. "Listen, Cameron, I can't keep covering for you. You have to at least call them, they know you're in California."

She let her head rest on the back of the couch. The ceiling tiles were uneven, all tilted slightly to the left. "I told you not to tell them."

"I tried not to, but they kept asking and asking."

"So you folded."

"I did, and I'm sorry, but honestly, it's for your own good."

She scoffed. "I have enough to worry about at Miramar."

"Why, Bradley giving you trouble again?"

Her heart skipped a beat. She had been thinking of the mission itself, but apparently, Max had other ideas. "I didn't say that."

He snickered. "I talked to his aunt and uncle and they mentioned he was stateside. Didn't take a genius to figure out you both got called back to Top Gun."

Cam frowned. "Things aren't the way they used to be between us, haven't been for the last ten years. He made up his mind a long time ago about us."

"Did he?" Max asked. "Or did you?"

"He messed up," she maintained. "He's the one that screwed me over in the end, and he never apologized for what he did."

"Give him a chance."

Cam wasn't the only one who missed Bradley; her brothers used to be close with him, too. Their fourth sibling.

"I've given him several. Too many, probably," she said, tucking her knees up to her chest. "What's done is done."

But it wasn't, not even close. Because at the bar, in the parking lot, when Miles had held her hand in his and asked if she wanted to go home with him, she had caught a glimpse of Bradley through the window of the Hard Deck. The first person who had ever truly known her.

Everything that used to exist between them was far away, but Cam knew there was a part of her that wondered if it could come back.

𓄼 𓄹

THE FIRST set of teams had taken on the route with no success. Maverick stood at the front of the room, pacing in front of the screen that Cam couldn't take her eyes off of.

"Why are they dead?"

Phoenix raised her head. "We broke the 300-foot ceiling, and a SAM took us out."

"No." He turned his focus to Coyote. "Why are they dead?

"I slowed down and didn't give her a warning. It was my fault," he admitted.

Was there a reason you didn't communicate with your team?

"I was focusing on–"

Maverick cut the words in their tracks. "One that their family will accept at the funeral."

Coyote swallowed hard and Cam felt the air leave the room. "None, sir."

"Why didn't you anticipate the turn? You were briefed on the terrain."

Coyote opened his mouth again, grasping for an explanation that would never be found.

"Don't tell me," Maverick said. "Tell it to his family."

There was a hollow noise in her head, one like the distant echo of an ocean wave. All the voices silenced at once, the taste of salt. Sun burning the back of her neck raw. Nikita Kasper's blur of blonde hair. There are no words that a family will accept.

"Earth to Berlin."

Cam stirred from her thoughts and looked up to see Fritz standing in front of her. "What?"

"We're up."

Considering their success against Maverick, it was no surprise that Rooster and Berlin were paired together for their first attempt at the route practice. It was going near as well as Cam thought it would.

"Rooster, we're 20 seconds behind and dropping," Fritz said from the back. "We're tryin' to cook with gas here, not water."

"We're fine. Speed is good," Rooster maintained.

"He's delusional if he thinks we're gonna make the target," Cam muttered.

"Your com is on, Berlin."

"I know, jackass."

Fritz didn't let up. "Increase to 500 knots, Rooster."

"Negative. Berlin, hold your speed."

"Rooster, we're late!" Cam yelled, straining against the force of gravity as she maneuvered around another corner.

"We're alive. We'll make up time in the straightaway."

Her breathing echoed hard against her mask. "We are not gonna make it," Cam repeated.

"Just trust me. Maintain your speed. We can make it."

Green rolled beneath her and she thought of her dad. Mira, the world looks like a quilt, verdad? His eyes would light up in a way she rarely saw on the ground. Like his one true love would always be the sky. Nothing could go wrong in such a pristine world.

Trust me.

They made it to the target, but by that point time was up and they might as well have been shot.  It never would have worked in a real situation.

Back inside, Maverick stood again at the front of the room. "Why are you dead? You're team leader up there. Why are you, why is your team dead?" he asked Rooster.

Phoenix sighed, hand pressed to her temple. "Sir, he's the only one who made it to the target."

A quiet scoff. "A minute late. He gave enemy aircraft time to shoot him down, he's dead."

"You don't know that," Rooster argued. Cam's mouth parted in slight disbelief.

"You're not flying fast enough. You don't have a second to waste," Maverick told him.

"We made it to the target."

"And superior enemy aircraft intercepted you on your way out."

"Then it's a dogfight."

"Against fifth-generation fighters?"

"Yeah. We'd still have a chance."

"In an F-18?" Cam interrupted. All eyes turned to her. "This is the kind of arrogance that gets people killed. Thinking you can take on an advanced aircraft like that is foolish."

Rooster scoffed. "It's not the plane, it's the pilot."

"Exactly!" Cam nearly yelled. "It's the pilot's human mistake that gets people killed! No one will blame the aircraft at the funeral, Rooster."

In the wake of the raw sound of her voice, Cam cleared her throat and sat back down. She felt like an exposed nerve.

He rolled back his shoulders, taking on that sheen of confidence he had in high school. The one that drew the attention, the awe. "There's more than one way to fly this mission."

"You really don't get it," Hangman drawled. "On this mission, a man flies like Maverick here, or a man does not come back." He took a long look at Cam. "No offense intended."

Bob leaned forward, lips pursed. "Yet somehow, you always manage."

"Look, I don't mean to criticize. You're conservative, that's all," Hangman continued, letting the silence linger.

"Lieutenant–" Maverick warned. Hangman had already gotten himself decked one too many times.

"We're going into combat, son, on a level no living pilot's ever seen. Not even him. That's no time to be thinking about the past."

Cam stiffened in her seat. Hangman must have been digging in more records than just her own.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Bradley asked. The words were red hot, laced with a threat.

"Rooster–" Maverick tried.

"I can't be the only one that knows that Maverick flew with his old man."

Cam felt it in her chest. She watched Bradley flinch and saw the years of hurt coming rolling over him like a stone. All those days, all this time, and not one ounce of forgiveness had survived long enough to change his mind.

"That's enough."

"Or that Maverick was flying when his old man–"

"Lieutenant, that's enough!"

It erupted in an instant. Bradley surged forward, arms already swinging towards Jake. Cam was a second behind, grabbing him by the bicep to pull him back while Coyote did the same to Jake. Everyone was standing, split right down the middle of the room with the clamoring sound of their shouts.

"You son of a bitch!" Bradley spat, eyes narrowed. Beyond anger, beyond reason, this was hurt embodied.

"Hey, come on!" Maverick shouted above the noise. Slowly, the tension fell.

Jake let out a cold chuckle as he brushed Coyote off. "I'm cool, I'm cool. Hey, hey." Talking over Bradley's head, he told Maverick, "He's not cut out for this mission."

"That's enough!" Maverick bellowed, but there was no heart in it. When Mav glanced at Rooster, there was no denying what he believed. Jake saw straight through it, too.

"You know it. You know I'm right."

"You're all dismissed," Maverick told them, completely and utterly defeated. "You're receiving temporary leave for the weekend.  Not by my choice, but I'll admit you could use it. Come back better than this, or you're risking more than just this one mission."

And with that, he was gone and out of the room.

𓄼 𓄹

BRADLEY sat outside of the base, contemplating what he was going to do with the time he had. It was a bright day, the kind that would have sent him outside for hours when he was a kid. Planes cut through the blue as they took off, and he found himself replaying everything.

No one will blame the aircraft at the funeral, Rooster.

That's no time to be thinking about the past.

I can't be the only one that knows that Maverick flew with his old man.

He hadn't been looking for her, but he couldn't deny the elation that struck him when Cameron Mejia pushed open the doors and stepped outside. What's more, when she turned and saw him, she looked relieved. She had been looking for him.

"Hey," he said. "I'm sorry about earlier."

"This isn't easy for any of us," Cam told him. There was no anger left in her voice, and for a second he couldn't place the tone. When he realized what was going on, he wanted to laugh. She was nervous.

He pointed to the keys in her hand. "Goin' home?"

She nodded and sucking in a breath. "Not to the apartment, I'm going to my parents."

He raised a brow. "Yeah?"

"There's a very real possibility that someone isn't coming back from this mission. And if there's even the slightest chance I don't come back, I want to see my parents. Is that selfish? Immature? I don't know. I just know that with the time we have off this weekend, there's the perfect amount of time to drive out and back."

He smiled. "You're gonna go alone?"

"I mean, Basil will keep me company."

Messing with her now, he said, "Mhm. Well, I guess I'll see you in a few days."

She tilted her head, annoyed. Soft curls had fallen to frame her face, and her cheeks were slightly pink. "I know you know why I came to find you. Stop making this so difficult."

"I wanna hear you ask," he laughed.

She pursed her lips with that indignant pride of her's. "Now I don't want to."

"Fine, I'll do the honors. Do you want me to go with you?"

She gave him a look, and he knew she was close to hitting him over the head. "I'm reevaluating now, but I did five minutes ago."

"Well in that case, I don't know if I wanna go."

They were standing barely a foot apart now. Close enough that he could see every single freckle on her face, a constellation charting lines that he had never forgotten. "You don't have to," she said.

He heard the honesty. The desperation. The protective instinct within him jumped. Whatever was going on, the things that had happened to her, they were eating her alive. There was more to this story than she would ever let on.

So he told her, "'Course I'll go with you, Cam."

It didn't take long for either of them to pack.  That was the beauty of the Navy; you learned to live with a lot less.  Soon enough, they were on the highway out of Miramar and Cam's truck rolled steadily away from the ocean and towards the sprawl of desert suburbia.  They had been driving for twenty minutes without saying a word, the only sound was the classic rock filtering through the static of the radio. And Basil,  of course.  The dog was panting loudly in the back seat with excitement.

Both of Cam's hands were on the wheel, lips pursed in concentration. Bradley thought she wasn't watching when he turned the dial to switch the station.

"--cold beer on a Friday night."

She smacked his hand off the dial so fast he nearly flinched. "Don't you dare play that country bull shit in my truck."

He widened his eyes, a laugh of disbelief at the sudden aggression. "Okay, okay!"

She turned it back to the rock station and relaxed into the seat. She was so on edge, it was sucking every thought out of his brain and turning it into mush. He was at a complete loss of words for all the conversations they still needed to have.

"But do we really need to listen to static?" he leaned forward again before she could stop him.

"Don't!"

Too late. He turned the dial over between a pop station, news radio, more static. Cam swerved slightly, hitting the preset button to turn it back to classic rock.

Bradley's eyes widened as he looked out at the busy highway ahead of them. "We're gonna get in an accident!"

"Then stop touching it!" she seethed. Click.

Click. "The static is giving me a headache."

Click. "Don't be such a baby."

Click. "Don't be such a hardass."

She slammed the button with her fist. Now, instead of the Rolling Stones, they were met by the empty sound of silence.

Cam cursed under her breath in a flurry of Spanish. "Look what you did."

"Me?" He pressed a hand to his chest in disbelief. "That was you!"

She shook her head testily. Basil barked once in the back before resuming the happy panting he had done for the duration of the ride. "If you hadn't started touching it, nothing would have happened."

The silence was awkward. He wanted to keep talking and fill it, but there was nothing to be said. Every topic felt off limits. So instead, he opened the glove box and started rooting around.

Cam bit her inner cheek. "The CDs in there are all Max's. He was using the truck before I came back."

Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Hall & Oates. There was one without a cover, only one word scrawled on the clear case in Sharpie: MEZCLA. An old mix.

"Let's see what this is," he mused, popping it into the CD player before she had a chance to protest.

The first bars of a disco pop song echoed through the truck. Cam scrunched her nose and turned up the dial. Recognition dawned on her features and she broke into a wide grin.

Bradley let out a low moan. "No." At the same time, Cam leaned forward and shouted, "Yes!"

"I wasn't jealous before we met."

"You've got to be kidding me," he lamented, pressing his hands to his forehead. "Not ABBA."

"Oh, no," she laughed, grabbing him by the wrist before he could eject the disc. "You're not touching that again."

Suddenly, he was years in the past. In a car, sitting in the backseat, humidity leaching through his baseball uniform while Cam sang the same song. Almost shouting to be heard over the sound of Bradley yelling at his aunt to turn it off.

And now she was laughing. She was here. This was real and not another memory.

You made your choice. Do you regret it yet?

"And all I've learned, has overturned, I beg of you," she sang, not one word off key.

It was catchy, even he admitted it. Giving in to the chorus, he scream-sang, "Lay, all your love, on me!"

Basil barked at the sudden noise. Cam let out a loud, honest laugh, unable to contain it. He could get drunk on the sound.

His stare was unbroken, focused only on her. "I missed that."

She looked at him from the corner of her eye. The freckles over the bridge of her nose, just visible underneath the rim of her sunglasses. "Missed what?"

"You."

He said the word like it meant nothing. A simple statement of fact. She cleared her throat, said nothing. Moved her hand and turned the volume back down.

The silence stretched for ten miles before she spoke again. "I need to stop for gas."

━━ 𓄼 𓄹 ━━

a/n oooo look who's back!

I have to tell y'all that this update is only coming because I just watched maverick again and happened to realize I had almost a full chapter's worth of drafted scenes.  we're coming up on my fav part of cam's story (off-script home visit!), but I'm not entirely sure when the next update will be.  I'm in a very busy, hectic time of college right now and the only time I have to write is being eaten up by other things.  long story short, this book will find its end someday!!

--nat<3