Spite is the Mind Killer (So Leave It on the Ground)

Getting Home part 1

A low rumbling sound filled the air and woke Rooster up with a start. He squinted against the bright light that filtered through the thin layer of ice which surrounded their hideout and shook his head to clear the sleep away. The brusque movement apparently woke Ice against whose chest Bradley's head had been leaning just a moment before, because he blinked groggily. Maverick, who sat curled around Ice's right side, didn't react.

"Morning," Ice whispered softly while he stretched his legs out (in the little space they had).

"I think they are looking for us," Rooster answered instead of returning the greetings. The low rumbling sound of a helicopter fluctuated between louder and softer, as if it was flying in circles. Ice frowned and listened for a few seconds, before he nodded.

"Yeah, I hear what you mean."

"What do we do?" Rooster whispered back.

"We don't have any food and Maverick needs medical attention asap so I think we'd better go to their base right now, despite of the chopper," Ice said, repeating like he had done the evening before that their best plan was to go to the runway they had bombed to find something to get them in the air and back home. Rooster sighed, but nodded.

When the rumbling sound started to get away again, he detached himself from Ice's side, shook the emergency blanket from his shoulders and slowly started to shuffle out of the little hole they had made in the snow besides the tree. He faintly heard Ice waking Maverick while he sneaked around to grab all their stuff and drank a bit of water. When he saw a fluff of black hair appear he hurried back to the tree to help Maverick out.

"Yeah, yeah, I can do that, don't worry," Maverick said and he almost sounded like his usual self. It didn't fool Bradley in the slightest (in fact, he tried to pull up one eyebrow like Ice used to do), but it did relieve his heart a bit. Maverick shuffled further and sat down heavily, his breath clouding the air in short and pained bursts.

"You need to leave that other brow down, you know?" Maverick tried to joke, but it sounded rather defeated. Still, Bradley chuckled softly.

"I know, Ice is way better in it than I am," Bradley said and he smiled.

"Way better in what?" the man in question asked as he too grabbed his little flacon filled with water.

"Well, you know. Basically everything," Bradley said semi-seriously while Maverick just smiled. Ice rolled his eyes but smiled too. He made sure that Maverick had drunk some too before squatting down so Maverick could climb (begrudgingly) on his back.

"This is killing your back, Ice, I can walk," he said while he let his interlocked hands hang against Ice's chest.

"You walking will actually kill you, Mav," Ice deadpanned and Mav grumbled but for once didn't reply.

"And besides, Bradley is wearing all my equipment, you are hardly more than I usually carry," Ice said while Bradley shook with his two backpacks (and his suit full of stuff) as a demonstration.

"Oh, okay," Maverick said while he laid his head on Ice's shoulder, seemingly succumbing to his fate.

They took up the trek towards the military airport in silence. Bradley tried to focus on putting one foot in front of the other instead of worrying about the absurdity of their plan, but it was hard. Instead, he tried to distract himself by worrying about Ice and Mav, which was really easy, but not very useful either. When he glanced beside him and saw the strained face of his father (he actually had to look up for that since Ice was walking on top of the snow while Roosters feet sank in it at least a dozen inches), he realized Ice had lied. Maverick was way heavier than Ice's normal load and all the stress of the evening before had taken a toll too (besides the fact that Ice clearly wasn't in his physical prime anymore).