Atlas: A Top Gun: Maverick Fanfiction

Chapter 36: The Adventures of Brad-Brad & Duckie

A/N: I know this is kinda short....and I apologize for that.  I just had surgery last week that has left me pretty messed up and I'm just trying to recover from that.  I'll try to have this back on track with updates again!  So the next update will be the second Sunday in June!  Please let me know what you think, what you'd like to see before the story ends, and if you'd like to chat about this story, hit me up on Tumblr: Luminouslywriting 

January had Kelsey feeling much more melancholy than she had in a long while. The holidays were fine for lifting spirits and for helping people feel less alone. It was the after-holiday portion that was always the hardest. And she knew that like she knew her own name.

Knew that the holidays were good because she could be with people all of the time. It was the January snow and skies that brought her thinking about how her parents should have been there with them still. How her family was so entirely fractured and broken and the holidays were just a painful dull ache of those things.

Bradley seemed to understand that. Seemed to feel the same ache and gaping hole in his chest that his younger sister did. No amount of getting with Natasha and going out on a few dates or filling his time with his friends or Dagger Squadron was going to fix that. And there was also the fact that he hated having to take Kelsey to the hospital.

When it was his turn, he seemed to get this bubbling in his stomach of nausea and guilt. As though it should be him in the hospital rather than his precious angel sister who had just been married and was so damn young. She deserved to be living her life to the fullest right now, not sick and sitting in a hospital bed so often. But there was nothing he could do to fix that. He could no more fix that then he could single-handedly fix world hunger.

So understatement of the century? He felt helpless.

Around the second or third time that he had to take her to chemo in January, Bradley decided that he needed to do something more than just take her there and home. So after her most recent bout—wherein she was grumbling and giving him a glare as she got in the car—he had full plans.

"Do you mind if we make a detour?"

"What kind of detour?" Kelsey asked wearily.

"The fun kind. The spontaneous kind. The 'you' kind."

Kelsey blinked over at her brother tiredly. In his dumb Hawiiaan shirts and jeep, Kelsey still found ways to be annoyed with him on the daily. The only difference was that now, she was slightly endeared and on better terms with him than she used to be.

"I mean, sure. Why not? Just nothing—crazy. Okay?"

"You're the one that moved to Italy for a guy, I think if anyone was going to suggest crazy things, it would be you, sis."

She just stuck out her tongue at him. "Are you ever going to let that go?"

"Probably not."

"Okay, whatever," Kelsey mumbled. "What crazy plan are you cooking up in that adolescent mind of yours?"

"One, I'm older."

"Does not mean you're more mature than me."

"Fair point. And two, both of our brains are done growing so I don't think that's how that works. I can't have an adolescent brain."

"That might be the first smart thing you've said in weeks," Kelsey said with a slight grin.

"I have my moments of being smart."

"Few and far between, fleeting and fading."

"You are so mean."

"Yeah, but you love me anyway."

"Most of the time anyway, Duckie."

"Whatever you say, Brad-Brad."

The rest of the car-ride went by quickly until they stopped at a jewelry store and Kelsey just blinked at it, as if trying to process why they were here. For a moment, she just sat in the car and looked between her brother and the store.

"You're giving me that weird look."

"Well you're either here to buy my affection or you're here to buy a ring for Natasha. So which is it?" Kelsey asked, crossing her arms. Bradley mumbled something under his breath and a slow smirk spread across Kelsey's features. "Enough with the mumbling, Brad-punzel, you know I hate it."

"Fine! We are here to get Natasha a ring."

"YES!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After the initial excitement of helping her brother pick out a ring, Kelsey found herself back in the car and stopping at a grocery store. "Do I even want to know?"

"Probably here in a minute, yeah."

Before Kelsey could retort to that particular comment, her phone vibrated in her hand and she glanced down. Finding Jake's name popping up on screen, she looked at the text.

Where r u? U were spsed 2 b here forever ago

Brad-Brad kidnapped me for a playdate, be back at some point??

PLAY DATE?? HOW OLD ARE YOU BOTH??

Kelsey just grinned and slipped her phone back in her pocket as Bradley grabbed a cart. "So what exactly are we here for?"

"Healthy snacks," Bradley replied innocently. Before Kelsey could even question why they were stopping for healthy snacks, he had swept her off of her feet and deposited her in the cart.

"What the hell, Brad-Brad?" Kelsey exclaimed, lightly flicking at his arm. "I'm not a toddler!"

"Yeah but I don't want you to get tired. Think of this as go-karting."

Kelsey just blinked. "I—"

"Don't tell me that you and Coyote wouldn't just do this for fun anyway."

At that, she conceded and gave a shrug. "You've got me there, I guess. Onward, noble steed Bradley."

They got some strange looks as they rolled through the store and Kelsey could only imagine what it looked like. A bald girl with a cap wearing a sweater sitting in a shopping cart with her fully grown adult brother pushing her around in his dumb Hawiiaan shirts. Giggling like they were five year olds as they ran through the aisles as if they were in the middle of a relay race or something.

Once they had gathered all of the sugar-free snacks that Kelsey deemed appropriate and Bradley had given his seal of approval for, the duo set out to the car. Kelsey nodded off not long after that, the exhaustion of the day's chemo hitting her in full force.

It wasn't until they were turning onto a familiar street that Kelsey woke up. And the thing about going home was that you always knew when you were turning onto your street. Kelsey was struck with an odd sense of deja-vu as she blearily blinked open her eyes—landing on all of the neighbors' homes and then finally—the house that she had grown up in.

"What are we doing here?" Kelsey yawned tiredly.

"We're gonna build a fort and have a movie night," Bradley answered, a sweet grin slipping onto his face.

Kelsey couldn't help the fact that her emotions were all over the place. "What?" She asked, voice cracking.

Putting the car in park, Bradley just turned to face his sister. "I know that life hasn't been great lately. And I want you to feel safe. I thought that this would be a good place to start. We can watch the home movies and see mom and dad and maybe—maybe it will feel like old times."

"Oh my God, I love you," Kelsey let the tears spill from her eyes and Bradley just pulled her in for a gentle hug.

"You're my little Duckie. And I'm always gonna be here. No matter what."