Top Gun Imagines

Memories [Maverick X Reader]

*Cross-posted from my 30 Days of One-Shots book!

Prompt: Tear-Stained

Title: Memories

Fandom: Top Gun: Maverick

Warnings: Mentions of death, loss, grief and sadness

Word Count: 2,080

Author's Note: I honestly made myself cry again with this one! Also: this one-shot is sorta inspired by this masterpiece by the Beach Boys! Have a listen while you read!

Synopsis: When plagued by memories of the present and the past, Captain Y/N "C/N" L/N, unable to sleep, finds herself wide awake with just herself and her haunted headspace to keep her company. Until someone else stumbles in and notices her seemingly unordinary demeanor, that someone else also struggling with looming memories of the past...

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Memories

Sleep.

Something so many seem to have no problem achieving from night to night.

They just put their head down against their pillow, wherever they might be, after whatever type of day they've had...

And they just sleep.

But for you...

Tonight, the very concept of sleep seems to evade you.

As you lie there, hazy gaze wandering the ceiling, you mentally mutter any sort of profanity that comes to your mind.

Your body is practically crying out for sleep - you need sleep, especially after the day you've had.

Lives were nearly lost today.

And you've had to witness it first hand yet again.

You'd been up there, having agreed previously with your current wingman that the pair of you would intercept the next training exercise, wanting to examine how these pilots, recent Top Gun graduates, react to the idea of a pair of bandits closing in on their position.

They'd reacted as the pair of you had expected - they'd continued.

Continued with the training exercise, even after missing their mark with a deadeye laser.

But after catching up with the pair and easily achieving missile lock on the two fighters, the chaos had begun.

Coyote had been in G-lock, nearly crashing and burning to the ground if it hadn't been for his quick thinking...

A fluke bird strike that left Phoenix and Bob no other option than to bail out of their doomed jet...

Choking back a sudden sob you hadn't even realized that had been forming, you pull yourself to a sitting position, your actions forcing a rather harsh squeak from the thin mattress beneath you.

A relentless rain pounds against the window of the small room on Base you'd been given to call your own when you'd been called back, a mere few weeks ago.

And yet, those few weeks have, at times, felt like months.

Being called back to Top Gun had come as a surprise to you.

When you'd first gotten the orders, you'd felt a twinge of certain excitement, something that you hadn't felt in some time.

But yet, as the days had gone on and you'd finally gotten back in the groove of flying F-18s yet again, the memories had come back to haunt you.