𝘚𝘰𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 | A Top Gun Fanfiction

Chapter 2: 𝘎𝘶𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘪𝘢𝘯 𝘈𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘭

The Top Gun academy is half a day's flight from the training carrier. One of the guys on my team, Cobra, escorts me to Top Gun. I've finally started sleeping normally again, my nightmares becoming less frequent. They don't disappear entirely, but they've watered down enough for me to get back to sleep after startling awake. Over the course of my last week at the carrier that's become a sweet familiarity, like the comforts of home, I've busied myself packing and mentally preparing to get back into a cockpit again. After the crash, my superiors and team mates wanted me up in the air, they said it was good for me. It'd help me recover, get over trauma. The doctors told them my burns needed time and so did my mind. Although part of me wishes I'd been shoved into the pilot's seat sooner, just to get the bone rattling fear over with, I'm glad I've had such a long time to just relax.

To stare at the wall over her bed.

Remembering old conversations late at night about flying, about horses and boys and girl things that the other lieutenants wouldn't understand.

They're guys, who can blame them?

"Cobra to Stirrup, we're tipping down. Coming in for a soft landing, roger?"

Uh...I clear my head and my throat unceremoniously. "Roger."

True to his word, Cobra guides the jet down towards the runway. My hands find the glass on either side of me, pressing against it as my stomach drops. Every inch of my body tingles, an uncomfortable mixture of excitement and fear. I used to smile at the rush. I'm a pilot for God's sakes! Of course I love the swoop in my gut! It's one of the best feelings in the world, like the butterflies of young love or the goosebumps raised by a cool summer breeze. But the farther we tilt, the lower we drop, the greater the tension in my arms. They strain to hold my body firm in my chair. I close my eyes and focus on steadying my breathing. In and out, I tell myself.

Hey, her voice whispers.

Hey, I reply sheepishly, eyes glued shut.

Open your eyes.

Uhhhh, I chew my lower lip furiously, drawing blood easily after gnawing on it out of nervous habit for weeks. Shit!

Language, she giggles. Open your eyes, Stirrups, c'mon.

Ok, I submit, squinting - half expecting to see her there, squatting down to my height. She is ten times taller than me when standing, always has been. But she never teased me about it. One of the many things I love about her.

As fate would have it, she isn't there.

But her voice hums in my ear, look outside.

V- Before I can whine her name, my thought cuts off. A sharp stab penetrates my heart and a shudder ripples across my chest beneath my aviator jacket. Why does it hurt so badly to hear her name, but when I hear her voice in my head, like she's alive and speaking directly to me, I'm comforted? What power does her name have - her call sign have - that holds me in this terrible limbo?

These questions distract me, coaxing my subconscious towards the glass, until my forehead - or should I say helmet - has come to rest against the windshield. I see a flicker of my reflection and can't help but admire the way my blonde hair falls out of my helmet. It hurts to have it up beneath the helmet, so it's always down. Just like her's was. Only she had a mass of red curls, loosely framing her long, beautifully carved face. I always admired her beauty. The way her eyes, a discreet hazel, mistaken for brown when shadowed by her flight helmet, retained a righteousness that I have yet to see in another. She always seemed to glow. Ethereal and unworldly. Someone with a soul immortal and yet tangible in the most human ways.