automatic stop, bradley bradshaw

forty-one.

THE NEXT MORNING, SKYE DIDN'T THINK THAT HER CONVERSATION WITH ICE HAD ACTUALLY HAPPENED. after all, there was no way that she had told iceman kazansky that she was in love with rooster before she'd admitted such a thing to rooster himself. 

skye knew how she felt about him, and she knew that it was genuine. but she was so terrified of getting into a relationship with someone that she'd known for as long as she'd known him. the chances of him rejecting her were too high for her liking.

what was worse than getting rejected, skye thought, was if they got into a relationship only for it to be much too awkward for them. what would happen then? they'd break up, but they wouldn't be able to go right back to being friends after admitting that they had feelings for each other. 

skye was an overthinker at heart, and was thinking about all of this as she lay on her back in her bed, clutching the sheets to her body. she reluctantly woke up as her phone alarm (which was aggressive bagpipes) sounded again. 

"you awake?" she heard, looking up to see katia walking into her room already fully dressed. "come on, get up. we have training again today. mav only has one day to go easy on us."

skye groaned as she rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. "i know, i know."

reluctantly, she got onto her feet and got dressed and ready. she and katia rode their motorcycles side by side to the base, parking them outside in their normal spots. 

"mitchell and kazansky." maverick said as they walked in. "you're late."

skye smiled a little. "my apologies, captain." 

"since you're here late, you two can go first." he smiled.

his daughter's eyebrows raised, looking between him and the screen behind him. "what are we doing, sir?"

"the most difficult part of the mission." maverick replied. "you're going to pull up here in pairs for an inverted dive. a laser guided missile will drop on the uranium container. the second pair will make the same dive and then blow up the opened space. you'll then immediately go back up. you're pulling at least 9.5 g's." 

skye nodded, watching as the planes on the screen followed the pattern he described. "so.. it's like the death star?"

"pardon me?" her father chuckled, his arms behind his back.

"the death star. they have to explode the one part two get to the actual part they wanna explode. it's really poor engineering, actually, on emperor palatine's part. or whoever it was that.. that designed the death star." she replied.

maverick gave her a blank look. "okay, yeah, it's like star wars. did you not hear the 9.5 g's part?"

"piece of cake." she assured him, fist bumping katia. "when do we go?"

"gear up." he sighed, shaking his head fondly.

 the two women moved into their women's locker room to put their full flight suits and gear on. as skye was velcroing her jacket onto her body, she heard katia start talking to phoenix. she looked up with a smile, happy for her best friend. 

when skye had finished lacing up her shoes, she flung her bag over her shoulder and walked onto the tarmac. she made her way over to her jet, running her hand along the nose of it as one would do to a dog. 

"excited to work together again, mitchell?" she heard, looking over her shoulder to see rooster standing there with a smile. 

"am i your wingman today?" she replied, a smile spreading onto her lips as she took in his laid back posture.