Chapter Text
Prologue
Everything that dies can find its way back.
They’ve repeated the mantra in his ear since Jake could barely see over the dinner table, still startlingly blond and soft cheeked, perched on his grandmother’s knee. His father used to spread his armory out on the cracked old wood of their porch and show Jake how to clean the barrel of a gun with sharp precision. He used to flip through all the booklets of I-O-Us, thumbing through the pages with awe.
Now, he’s laying down his own weapons in front of Maverick: a confession and close to a decade of caring thrumming in his bones so deep it aches. All of it with nowhere to go and an instruction manual in his blood to fix it.
Drops of sea spray hit his face. Jake squints directly into the sun.
Maverick’s eyes are wide, blue and fragile. But he’s in: Jake knows he is. There’s no world in which Pete Mitchell does not try to raise Rooster from the grave.
“Where do we start?”
It always starts at the hearth. Home is where restless souls seek and that’s where the whole process has to begin. The issue is: Bradley has no home. Not one Jake is aware of. They’re all notorious for being people on the move but Rooster is on a whole other spectrum. He’s fickle, slippery: Jake would know. It’d taken all his best tricks to pin him down, once upon a time.
“Where,” Jake asks, “Would Rooster call home?”
It’s only when Maverick chews his bottom lip that Jake realizes he might be asking the wrong person.
“I don’t know, kid,” Maverick sighs. “I know he kept his mom’s old place, but last I heard he’d been in Japan, then Oceana. But before this, we hadn’t talked for close to a decade.”
Jake doesn’t rub salt in the wound by saying he’s more familiar with Bradley’s deployments than Maverick is. He’s done many, many cross-continent, three-stop flights just to see him. He’s not here for Bradley’s current; he’s here for his secrets, the things that might surprise him and set this whole endeavor at risk.
“But home. Somewhere important and pivotal.”
Mav flicks the button at the cuff of his jacket. “Something to do with his mom, then.”
Jake nods. It’s a fair assessment. He knows that much about Bradley pre-flight school: he’d worn a charm of hers around the same chain of his tags, and never missed an opportunity to boast about her famous blueberry cobbler. No one in their class figured out about Goose until much later, but they all knew Carole Bradshaw by name within the first month through the countless stories Bradley used to keep her alive.
“Their house out in Mission Valley is a good bet.” Maverick offers.
Jake shakes his head. He’d ruled it out on the basis of being deep in renovations: Bradley had been trying to uproot all the bad memories in favor of new floor tiling. “Too easy.”
Maverick’s nose twitches. “Gotcha.”
Jake’s hackles rise but he reminds himself any sadness he’s feeling is likely two-fold for Pops, as impossible of a weight that must be. He remembers only being able to bear witness to Bradley’s life from the periphery, and he wouldn’t have handled it well either, if someone had come up and paraded proof of knowledge. But Jake’s not asking Natasha. He’s asking Mav, because for all of Bradley’s bluster and tight-lipped avoidance, Jake knows how much his boyfriend still cared.
Maverick, Jake realizes, is far better at reading people than he lets on. “Look – you two were…”
“Partners in crime,” Jake deadpans.
“Headache-inducing during training,” Mav chuckles, though there’s no humor. “But I’ll take your word.”
“Thank you, sir.” Jake restrains from rolling his eyes. He’d fought tooth and nail for his relationship: it’s a weakness he can’t shake, how it manages to be a sore point when everyone on the outside inevitably questions it.
Mav puts his hands up in surrender. “What I mean is: I think you’d know better than I do.”
“I do,” Jake replies, no longer holding back from being rude. The sun is vibrant, low and ominous above the ocean and he misses how Bradley would always be snapping a picture. “I know him better than anyone in the world, and then some. But he’s got Do Not Pass zones like fucking Monopoly, and you’re one of them.”
“That’s some of it,” Maverick remarks, not nearly shaken by Jake’s annoyance as he’d like.
“I’m covering my bases,” Jake explains; he forgets he’s not talking to someone who knows the rules. “Home gets tricky for most folks who don’t live in a small town their whole lives, let alone Navy men. I’m not going to chase down every single base housing Bradley has ever stayed in. If we don’t get this first task right, then it’s a no-go for the whole thing.”
Maverick picks up on the desperation coloring Jake’s words. “There’s a time limit?”
“Two weeks,” Jake grits through clenched teeth. The sea has gotten choppy and they pitch against the rails. “Fourteen days. Then they’re cold forever.”
“So you’ve got,” Maverick checks his watch, “Thirteen more. Okay.”
It’s too little; Jake would spend the end of time chasing for a way back, but the rules only work when the death is fresh. There doesn’t need to be a body – thank goodness – but a clock ticking is a clock ticking down.
“I’ll think on it,” Maverick nods: if there’s anything he’s certain of it’s Maverick and his ability to recognize acting fast on precious time. Jake has enough faith in the man to know he won’t keep him waiting. “Give you better options.”
“I’m surprised they let you out of medical,” is what he says goodbye with. Two ejections in less than a month. A body needs to fracture at some point.
Their team leader flashes white teeth his way, already turning back into the carrier. “Don’t you worry about me, Hangman.”