Atlas: A Top Gun: Maverick Fanfiction

Chapter 26: Do Something, Babe, Say Something

A/N: What if I just appear with this and then dip until February? MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!! Can't wait to see how you react to this one 😈

In all of her years, Kelsey never really foresaw herself returning to her childhood home. Sure, the house was still in the family—and technically—though the water had been turned off, Uncle Ice had made sure that the house would forever be their property.

It's just that neither Bradley nor Kelsey had really been back since their mom's death.

The jarring feeling of staring at the house nearly took Kelsey's breath away. And it wasn't because she was slightly tipsy and just really missing her mom at the moment. It felt like she was a totally different person than when she was here last—and that was true enough.

Kelsey Bradshaw had been a whole lifetime ago. Kelsey Bradshaw had been an angry teenage girl. She had been acting out and didn't know a single thing about who she was or who she wanted to be. She was a mess and all over the place all of the damn time.

But she knew who she could count on. She knew three immutable facts:

Life sucked. She knew this one from day one and the day that she was old enough to understand what had happened to her dad. She knew this when she was bullied in the third grade and when mom got sick. She knew this when she got assaulted by one of Bradley's football buddies and she knew this when her mother died. She knew this when she and Bradley fell apart and when Ice got cancer. She had always known this one.

The Bradshaw Family didn't quit. They didn't give up. But Kelsey hadn't wanted to be one of them. She didn't want the sheer grief and pain associated with a man that she had never known—except for when she looked in the mirror and she saw her father's eyes. Eyes that seemed to haunt her, eyes that were not her own, and a permanent mark that even when she changed her name, the Bradshaw's would never leave her.

Guard your heart. She had, admittedly, forgotten about this one. But people like Kelsey, they were empaths. They fell in love wildly, deeply, truly, irrevocably. And not just romantically—but with friends, with family, with strangers, with life itself. Kelsey loved too damn deep and she had forgotten to guard her heart against the tide. When you love something, you run the risk of losing that thing.

She wished more than anything that the Universe felt like it owed her something. Taking her dad, taking her mom, taking her brother away from her—taking every single part of her passion and heart and soul—and trying to take Jake away from her was just too damn much.

It was a strange thing, unlocking her own house and stepping into the dark plane of former existence. Her breath sat in her throat, unable to escape as she just stared at everything.

They had kept things the same. Nothing had been moved since her mother's death—not even anything from the closet or the bedroom. It was like stepping on glass as she walked through the house, passing by pictures.

Every surface of the room was a raw and real reminder that her mother was no longer here. That her laugh would not fill this house. That their awful singing as a family was no more.

And it was so much worse stepping into her mother's bedroom. Because it was dusted, quite regularly, by a paid maid service. A hollow ache filled her bones as Kelsey stepped over to the dresser, eyes falling on the perfume that her mother always wore. She couldn't help but spray it in the room—

The scent of sandalwood and pineapple filled the room and tears sprung to her eyes.

What happened next was totally out of her control. Kelsey felt her legs collapse beneath her, betraying her to gravity's cruel laws. Her knees hit the carpet and something built up in her chest.