Chapter Text
They had six glorious months together.
Six months of recovery and laughter, full and drunk on each other and their company. Six months without any worries and a much needed reprieve from life-altering missions.
Month three is when the tide started to turn a bit.
Not in a major way, but enough to spur the safe haven they had created. Alec was given an assignment a few states away, one he had to report to almost immediately. Something to do with weapons systems and development and higher-ups wanting to pick his brain on a few things and test drive new tech they had come up with.
A fantastic mission for someone still relatively fresh out of Top Gun.
A mission he didn’t need Gwyn for.
She had cried every single day between him telling her and the day she sent him off with an airtight hug and choked goodbye. He promised her he would text and call and come back to her just as soon as they would let him.
That had been the first strike against her fragile headspace, the first notice that the contentedness she had created was not as impenetrable as she thought.
The second had been the deployments.
Phoenix had gone first, her and Bob getting whisked away overseas for something she didn’t offer specifics on, then Coyote and Payback. Gwyn had held her breath for when they would inevitably call her away for something. Or Jake.
She hoped she wasn’t the first one to go.
Jake had kept up his same charm and unyielding sense of adoration for her all throughout, even when most of her nights had been dedicated to crying over Alec’s departure.
Some semblance of normalcy returned when she had been approached about staying on Miramar for work, her first assignment since the mission that put her in the hospital, and a fantastic offer at that. She jumped at the chance, glad to stay out and surround herself with Jake.
But then Jake was called away. And the end had begun.
Some position overseas that someone higher up in the food chain than she had decided Jake was perfect for, and shipped him off without so much as two days notice. The goodbye had been rushed, frantic, passionate, and sorrowful, but she knew he’d return and they’d pick right up where they left off.
She still found it harder to lose herself in his touch and caresses that night, though.
The veneer she had scrubbed over their life together was cracking whether she liked it or not, no matter how much Jake assured her he’d visit and call all the time. It was foolish not to consider that they were adults with demanding jobs and that she wouldn’t be able to hold them this close forever, she supposed. But God, how wonderful it felt to be foolish.
Jake’s moving day had come far too quickly. Gwyn had soaked up every minute, hour, moment she had with him. Every box he had her label “donate” or “keep”, every run to the store to buy more tape, every late night beer and slow dance in the kitchen that felt foreign in its emptiness, every small thing she could hold close to her when she found herself lying awake at night.
His departure still came too quickly.
She had driven him to the airport, despite the crack in her heart when the exit creeped up on her while Jake hummed along to a radio station he had chosen, something that played all those old classic rock songs he loved. She had followed him as far as she could, even lingering to make sure he made it through security okay before he turned with one last wave and left for his next grand adventure.
She listened to that radio station on the way home.
And hadn’t switched it since.
True to his word, Jake called or texted at every opportune moment, though they didn’t talk nearly as much as she would have liked. And they physically saw each other even less.
Most of their time together when Jake would fly home (because he was home when he was with her as far as she was concerned) was spent in a mess of limbs and mouths and eager kisses she could never fully throw herself into knowing she’d be driving him back to the airport listening to the same stupid radio station come morning.
Still, it was Jake. And that’s all she wanted.
All she needed.
Alec had occupied her phone when Jake was busy saving the world or whatever they decided they needed him for. Her best friend had spent a considerable amount of time listening to her grumbles and heartaches, always up for a light joke or advice that seemed to soothe the ache. At least a little bit.
An offer to instruct at Top Gun came only four weeks after Jake’s deployment. An offer she took without hesitation.
She’d stay right there, content to wait for him to come back around to her. A pathetic caricature of the life she had envisioned for herself, but one she figured she could learn to love. Because she missed them, she missed all of them. Loneliness was a miserable companion, one she had more often than not found herself inviting to bed when no one seemed available to answer her texts.
Work piled up quickly, a welcomed distraction from her constant pacing and checking her phone calendar to see when Jake would be flying in next or when Alec would have a day off to video call.
And before she knew it, she was back into her routine of focusing on being better, better than they expected of her. If her counterparts were good, she would be great. Had to be. Her instruction style reflected that, and most of her students had surpassed previous Top Gun candidates' qualifications or performances within months of training under her.
She could throw herself into this. Get lost in being the best and not think about how quiet and empty her home felt when she returned back to it after a long day of flying. Or how she sometimes thought about sleeping in one of the dormitories on base just to avoid that heavy quiet altogether.
But nothing could prevent the downfall of her relationship.
Jake’s texts had started slowing down. So had his calls. Then they were maybe sending each other a good morning text once every few days. He was busy, and she knew that, but it stung her no less that he swam through her every thought and he couldn’t bother to spare a few precious minutes to send her a stupid message. Actual visits were rare and distant, no longer passionate or intense, but rather a weird kind of awkward she didn’t think they were capable of. She had become clumsy around him, completely out of touch and separated from him despite everything she tried to rekindle the scraps of what they had.
Jake just didn’t look at her the way he did. His eyes no longer sparkled when she ribbed at him, and he always seemed to be checked out when she would talk about her day or the weather or any subject just to fill the silence. Their time grew shorter, Jake always formulating some excuse to jet back to his place overseas sooner than anticipated. Their relationship spiraled into the poster child of unhappiness and Gwyn could only watch as a bystander in the whole ordeal.
So when the text from Jake finally came through, she wished she could say she was surprised.
This isn’t working anymore. I’m sorry.
She had stared at her phone for what felt like hours, small tears pooling at her cheeks as she read and reread it a million times.
So that was it.
Everything she had wanted and tortured herself for, done in six words.
Six.
Every Sunday spent trying out new recipes they found, every walk through the park with joined hands that felt too clammy to hold but wonderful to feel nonetheless, every late night spent tangled in sheets talking about what might be some day and whispers of “I think I might just make you my wife”.
Done.
They’d never have that again. She would never have that again.
Gwyn wasn’t angry. She wasn’t surprised. She didn’t even know if she was sad.
She was a million things. Disappointed. Vacant. Understanding. Confused.
She wished it could be different. She wished she knew why things had fallen apart, but could accept that they had. At least she had seen it coming, could steel herself against the wave of it before it came crashing down around her.
The quiet that greeted her when she came home now was hollow, like all the warmth within the four walls had left along with him.
Never to return.
Some nights all she could do was weep, fingers curling in the cotton of her blankets as she cried herself into a migraine. Some nights she managed to tumble into bed and fall asleep before those thoughts could even begin. Some nights she was able to answer Alec’s incessant calls and let him coo over her like a lifeline.
Some nights, like tonight, she was too restless to sleep and too worn out to mull over what was and what could’ve been.
It was a Saturday night, warm and balmy enough for her to open the kitchen windows as she floated through, opening cabinets to track down whatever she needed to make cookies.
Her dad had always told her baking fixes the soul, and she prayed he was right. Seven months had passed since that text she never answered had lit up her phone screen and crushed a little part of her. Seven months was way too long to wallow in heartache, and she knew that. She had pushed herself into going out every once in a while, and some days she didn’t think about Jake at all. Some days she was just Gwyn, just a girl with a love for aviation and a goofy grin her fellow instructors sometimes teased her for.
But some days she just couldn’t shake the feel of him on her skin.
Seven months. Her twenty-second birthday had come and gone. Alec had called her four times now to tell her his work was being extended and that he’d be staying away for a few more months. She had been home to see her siblings more than she could count. She had even made new friends and companions in that time.
Seven months.
And still, he was there.
Just at the fringe of her mind now, no longer as centered as he had been in those early days, but still there.
So she whisked together eggs and melted butter while her tired eyes roamed over a tea-stained page in an old cookbook she had recovered from the back of her kitchen drawers. Music drifted throughout the room, laying on the soft breeze and filling her ears.
”Can you see me? I’m waiting for the right time.”
Letters blurred together as her thoughts slipped back to him for what felt like the hundredth time.
What was he doing? Was he thinking of her while doing it? Did he think of her at all?
”I can’t read you, but if you want, the pleasure’s all mine.”
Did he still have her number? Did he ever think about texting her the way she often found herself doing? Did he ever watch a romantic movie and compare it to what they had?
”Can you see me using everything to hold back?”
Did he ever think about how they might have really gotten married one day, the way he used to swear they would? Did he picture their life together?
”I guess this could be worst, walking out the door with your bags.”
She switched the radio off with a bit more force than necessary.
Because what did she gain by thinking these things? What could she possibly find in these traitorous thoughts? Surely not closure, or anything close to it.
But it felt so nice to think about the white picket fantasy they had dreamed up together. And she had allowed herself that dream once. But not anymore. Not when seven months and a birthday had passed and she had other things to do, other things to pour herself into.
Other things like the call she had received the morning before.
She had just made it on to base and into her office when the admiral swung by to let her know to expect a call. The ringing had started about fifteen minutes later.
Some higher up who didn’t bother to properly introduce himself filled her in on the details. She was being called in for a detachment he couldn’t really disclose over the phone, and she’d be expected to report to the airport come Monday morning.
Whatever it was, it was a big deal, something any one of her coworkers would kill to have a piece of. And it was hers.
So she’d take some time away from Top Gun and get back to flying again, and she would still be the best there, and then she’d come back and do it all over again.
Time was split between ‘Jake’ and ‘After Jake’. And everything in the ‘After’ laid itself at her feet for the taking, opportunities thrown at her wherever she looked.
And none of it mattered.
None of it mattered if she couldn’t share it with him.
She would call Alec and share the news eventually, when she knew the parameters and how much she could say. But it wouldn’t be the same.
So when she had found herself on the precipice of tears for the first time in months, she had thrown the sheets from her body and stomped into the kitchen to track down something to make.
Traces of what he had done to her spread throughout her life, little dents in her otherwise stable day-to-day. Small things, unnoticeable to anyone else but her. Like the blank space on her photo wall where she once had a picture of their beach trip. Or the brand of milk she still bought even now because he had sworn it was way better than the cheap generic carton she always gravitated towards. Or that same shitty radio station she refused to change for whatever reason.
It haunted her. Try as she might, she couldn’t outrun every last lingering thread of them. She had been on a total of three dates since the breakup, each one more disastrous than the last, and she wondered bitterly if they were so terrible because they weren’t him.
Jake Seresin had ruined her, mind and soul.
And she wished she hated him for it.
But she didn’t. She couldn’t. Not when she let herself get too close to those small moments, little glimpses of that precious thing they had and how much it meant to her. He had loved her so fully and so completely that he left no room for anyone else. His affection had consumed her, eaten away at her, limb by limb, until she was nothing outside of what she was to him. She’d always be Gwyn, always be the aviator with the smart mouth and love for the skies.
But she’d always be his girl, too. Maybe before anything else.
And maybe it wouldn’t sting so much if she hadn’t thought they were so much more than a blip in each other’s lives.
There had been a day where she had asked for his phone, hers lost somewhere between couch cushions no doubt, to look up movie times for some film he had wanted to see that evening. She had pulled up his browser and frozen at the web page pulled up.
A ring.
A simple band with a simple stone, something only she could love enough to wear, but a ring nonetheless.
An engagement ring.
She had opened a new tab in a rush, head swimming too much to even type correctly before she gave up and tossed his phone back on the counter with a swallow.
She had never brought it up.
And neither had he.
Because within a month, they were drifting apart. Within two, they were no longer together.
So yes, she dwelled on what they were sometimes, a bitter taste settling on her tongue when she thought over what was almost hers and how happy she had been to think she would live out the rest of her days with him, as his other.
It didn’t make sense to her, the way they had fallen apart. Maybe the story behind it wasn’t for her. Still, she hoped she found something like that again, or at least close to it, just to fill the empty space she had come to hate.
She wondered if she’d even want that.
So tomorrow, she’d pack her things, only whatever she could fit inside whatever shitty military-issued apartment they’d squeeze her into, and ask her neighbor to water the plants while she was away. Then she’d sleep and think of him all night before peeling herself from her bed for the last time for who knows how long and usher herself (and Disco) to the airport where she’d find a new life and sense of purpose on the other side of the tarmac.
But tonight she’d just bake in total silence, too wretched and miserable to even listen to her breakup playlist, and soak in one of the last nights of peace she’d have for a while, no matter how fragile it felt.
And if she thought of him and how she’d truly always be his girl so long as her heart completely lived with him…
Well then, that was for her to deal with.