✔ᵉⁿᵍˡⁱˢʰ Starscream [Top Gun Maverick]✔

16

Meanwhile, you need disclaimers or other warnings for everything so that no one can complain in the end. It's terrible. Sorry, but it is. This chapter is not meant to be disrespectful. Not in any way, shape or form. The main point here is that there are two "worlds" colliding. Two views. While Kim may have grown up with a father in the Navy, still a person doesn't have to agree with everything or just accept/accept everything and be of the same view.

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He's dead.

Not another syllable; not a word, not a single one that served to explain, Jake heard from Kim, who simply got up and left the room. Something had come from the pilot, but what it was she could not say. It was as if this one was too far away, although this one had been just a hand's width away from her.

Kim had been prepared for this day for years, but now that it was here, she was not. At all. The cancer her dad had never really wanted to go away. Every time it looked like the throat cancer was gone, finally beaten, the disease came back, until eventually it got to the point where her dad was no longer able to speak properly. At last, it went to some extent, but what does such a thing already mean or like it to mean, if someone is ill with cancer? Not much. Something always remains.

The training was still in full swing and would last a few more hours. Just about half, were done for the day and had completed their training, while the rest of the group still had their flying lessons ahead of them, which meant Kim's day was far from over as well. Actually.

"Hey," Kim walked into Beau's office unannounced and without knocking, and also just stopped in the half-open doorway, "If Pete asks, I'm at my mom's."

"As far as I know, training isn't over yet," the admiral replied, looking from his papers to the door, "Next time, knock. Is there a reason to just leave when you basically shouldn't be here anyway?"

"Ten minutes ago my dad died," Kim replied, causing Beau to lose all expression on his face, "Is that enough? Fine."

"Excuse me....?" it escaped Beau perplexed, who immediately rushed in behind Kim because she had left after delivering this news and the door had long since slammed shut, "Wait.... Kim."

"Just leave it," Kim turned around with her arms outstretched and continued walking backwards a few steps, "You didn't know him. Leave it at that."

No one knew about the thing between Beau and her. Too complicated it would have become then and after the dead, it was more than good, well, advantageous, that nobody knew about it. And even more so, after the separation. Fourteen months or so. The way it all went, Kim personally couldn't call it good, but it could have gone far worse, and the way it went in the end, without an internal investigation, because she was carrying on a relationship (that was known) with an admiral and former pilot, it was good. It was a matter of interpretation.

•●•

Kim could only dream of a funeral in a small circle. Her father's funeral was made into an event that amounted to a spectacle. Yes, her dad was in the service of the country, but shouldn't it ultimately be up to the family what kind of funeral the person gets? No. Everything, from the floral arrangements to the entire process, was predetermined.

"I'm not going," Kim said after someone from the Navy had been with them to let them all know how the 'funeral' was going to go, "When it's over, all these people are gone, then I'm going. What does it have to do with respect when hundreds of people who didn't even know Dad, or own to do, are going to be there when we would like it to be in the immediate family and real circle of friends? We are...."

"Kim," the brown-haired girl was interrupted by her mother, causing her to shake her head, "It's part of it. We can't change it."

" 'I'm sorry,' 'my condolences,' 'I looked up to your husband,' 'he was a role model,' or 'he was a great man,' that's what we're going to hear," Kim snorted disdainfully, because it was the one thing where funerals are unlikely to differ, "Some hollow phrases from petty people. Is it our duty now to join in this circus? You can't ask that?"

"No, I can't. You're long old enough to make your own decisions," and this was what parents like to say to their children when they don't want something, "This isn't about us, Kim, it's about your father. He was in the Navy for over forty years and he loved his job like he loved us. You don't have to like it, it's just about the final honor. A few hours and your Navy story will be over for you. It can't get any worse than this your sophomore year in college, can it?"

A few hours, compared to several months, a little difficult to compare, but Kim knew what Mother was getting at.

You'll probably be able to pull yourself together for a few hours.

•●•

Of the hundreds of faces present at the funeral, Kim knew twenty when it came up, but that was only because Pete's pilots were also present. Why? The same reason so many people were here. It was expected of them. Or, because these wanted to pay their last respects to Admiral Kasanzky. The gesture might be nice, but if you didn't know a person, where was the reason to do this?

The news that Iceman had passed away came as a shock to many. Despite everyone knowing of his illness and current condition, Tom Kasanzky's death came as quite a surprise. More than that, it was to Pete, before the news was broken to him, that he had nearly lost three of his airmen. An already bad day was followed by far worse news. That same evening, the captain had stopped by Sarah and Kim's house to see if everything was okay and to offer his help. This was rejected, however, because everything was 'okay' and her mother was much better prepared for the day than Kim.

"You'll be okay?" asked Pete, looking up the stairs where Kim was standing to see who had come by again now.

"Do I always come," assured the brown-haired girl, whose voice didn't possess a slightly disinterested undertone, as it usually did, or was saccharine when it came to insulting people in an indirect way, "We all knew this day would come one day. We all die someday. Nothing is more certain than that. Thanks anyway."

Some things were inevitable, like this day.

A photo, the coffin with flag and shots fired in air. Then the flag was neatly folded and, with the usual condolences, handed over to her mother. Last, before Kim's dad was passed to the earth, Pete stepped forward, took a pin from his uniform and placed it on the wood where the metal piece was attached with the bottom of his fist. A salute was given and four fighter jets flew over their heads.

"Can I go now?" turned Kim in a whisper to her mother, who looked at her daughter in disbelief, "I don't think Dad would have wanted this circus. Do we really, really have to put up with the rest of the hypocrisy?"

"Kim," the brunette heard her name called, with an admonishing tone in her mother's voice, "Your father...."

".... valued honesty," Kim finished her mother's sentence, and it wasn't what Sarah had in mind, " 'No matter how harsh or cruel the truth, every person is capable of bearing it.' One thing each of us must learn.' His words. 'Before it's too late.' My words. Look around you. Do you recognize in this, dad? I don't.

Walking across the cemetery to her car, Kim put a hand on Pete's upper arm and heard a faint 'I'm sorry,' which she returned with an 'everything will be fine.' It will, in a way. It won't be like before, but it will be. Life went on and the dead, just because they were dead, would not want anyone to stop living.

Among the guests, Kim also spotted Penny and raised her hand. One thing they both had in common was being the daughter of an admiral.

A funeral that became a public event.