automatic stop, bradley bradshaw

thirty-four.

THE NEXT DAY, FOR REASONS UNKNOWN TO ANY OF THEM, MAVERICK HAD MANAGED TO GET THE HARD DECK LOWERED. "during the mission," he said, "you're going to be flying at 100 feet. maximum. you'll be pulling 800 knots minimum. you're going to be pulling up so hard, your brains will feel like an elephant is crushing you. today, we're gonna go easy on you. hard deck of 300 feet. you have three minutes to target." 

skye shot a look at katia, who was seated next to her. "holy shit."

they geared up, and everyone did separate runs of the course, following a guided terrain. skye and katia were paired up with hangman, much to their annoyance, and he was doing exactly what they expected him to do; being anything but a team player. 

"c'mon, hangman, we have two minutes to target. you're going to have to slow down." skye said through gritted teeth, following the map of the terrain as best she could.

"careful, ri, you're gonna head into a wall." katia warned her. 

she nodded. "yeah, if this guy will slow the fuck down, we won't have a problem, will we?"

hangman didn't listen, though, and kept moving as fast as he could. inevitably, skye ran into an imaginary wall and rolled her eyes. "we're out." katia sighed.

when skye and katia landed back on the tarmac, skye took her helmet off, holding it to her side with her arm. "what the fuck was that shit?" she asked, marching over to hangman. 

"hey, it's not my fault you guys couldn't keep up." he said through his wicked smirk. 

she seethed. "oh, you fucking asshole. you know why you weren't top of your class? because you can't fucking work with anyone else. you always have to be the one in charge. you can't listen to a single fucking word anyone else says because you think you're better than everyone here."

"hey, hey, what's going on here?" maverick asked, jogging over to them. he looked between his daughter, who was nearly shaking with anger, to hangman, who was still smiling. "both of you take your gear off and head to the break room. we're going to analyze your exercise later." 

skye took another moment to glare at hangman before breaking away, pulling at the velcro of her vest and practically slamming it onto the floor in the locker room. 

"what'd he do?" phoenix asked, looking at her. 

"i lost the exercise because of his bitchass." she replied dryly, putting her gear into her locker. 

she wasn't thinking about the fact that her locker was wide open, and so she was confused when phoenix sat up straighter. "is that what i think it is?" she asked.

"what?" skye asked, turning to look at her locker. sure enough, some things didn't change. in her rush to fly the mission she'd flown immediately after her graduation, she'd never cleaned out her locker. she assumed that the two years that had passed would end with someone having thrown everything in it away. maybe it was just her lucky day.

inside her locker, there was a clipped photo of her, bradley, and katia at about age five (with bradley being closer to nine). they were all holding small f-14 models, grinning from ear to ear at maverick, who had taken the photo. the picture next to it was more recent, from about two or three years prior. 

she was sitting on the piano bench, her knees folded up to her chest as she smiled over at him. rooster was playing said piano, his veins sprouted from straining his voice to yell every single word to the song. 

skye took the photo out of its clip, examining it. she looked so in love with him, so completely mesmerized by everything that he was. she ran her finger across it, brushing off the dust that had started to settle on it.