Chapter Text
“You made it back!” Hondo swept Maverick into a hug as soon as he could fight through the cheering, celebrating crowd.
“Wouldn’t have survived that landing without my base support,” his friend returned, hugging him back just as fiercely.
Hondo squeezed him tight for another long second, relishing the fact that his long-time friend had made it before releasing him and stepping back, sharing another triumphant smile with Maverick before the man turned back to the crowd to find that Rooster had fought his way through it to see him.
Maverick sent him an awkward, uncertain smile, clearly trying to decide how to celebrate their successful return, and Hondo could read the indecision that finally erred on the side of caution on his face. Maverick’s arm started to move up to offer a congratulatory handshake when Rooster surged forward and pulled him into a bone-crushing hug.
Maverick blinked for a moment, visibly shocked, and then a bright smile broke over his face as he brought his arms up to squeeze back just as fiercely.
Hondo stepped away to give them some space as he watched, his smile almost bursting through his cheeks as the two of them finally got over the bullshit between them and admitted to how much they still cared.
Maverick had clenched his eyes shut as he clutched Rooster tighter, and the naked relief and gratitude on his face was enough to make Hondo’s throat threaten his eyes with embarrassingly grateful emotion, so he looked down to straighten his uniform and feelings back into their proper places.
He tugged his jacket back into place and paused, registering an odd stain on the front that had not been there a few hours before. He tilted his head, considering the dark spot and trying to recall if any of the sea spray had caught him in the excitement. The day was fairly calm, ocean wise, but it only took one ill-timed wave to make a mess, and he almost definitely would not have noticed it in his frantic preparations for the crash landing they had been readying for.
His brow furrowed. That wasn’t quite right, though, he realized as he distantly registered the flight line quieting as someone called the commanding officers approaching to address the pilots. There was one splotch of darkness, not a spray, and it had an odd coloration he wasn’t used to seeing from merely wetting his uniform fabric.
He glanced up, ensuring he wasn’t supposed to be saluting yet and found admirals Cyclone and Warlock just arriving before the fliers.
Subtly, Hondo dipped a finger down to the stain, feeling a wave of ominous foreboding without understanding why, and staring in uncomprehending confusion when his fingers came away red and tacky.
Feeling like he was disconnected from his body, he raised his eyes in horror to Maverick, who had just snapped himself to attention along with the rest of his squadron at the arrival of the commanding officers.
Hondo surged forward, his horror unfurling before his conscious mind fully comprehended why, watching with a crushing certainty of what was going to happen as Maverick’s arm flew up to his head to give both men a crisp, respectful salute.
Hondo felt like he was running through jello. He was moving -sprinting- faster than he had in recent memory, but it wasn’t fast enough. He watched in what seemed like slow motion as Maverick’s face cycled through pain, confusion, and then horrified shock as he broke his stance to stare down at his own torso.
Around him, everyone noticed the odd behavior, helpfully staying still to watch in concerned silence as Hondo darted around them to his friend.
Hondo could see the worriedly furrowed brows on Warlock and Cyclone’s faces, though they were still in the process of lowering their own salutes to investigate and wouldn’t be able to mobilize in time to help.
Maverick’s crew of lieutenants had turned toward him in open concern, Rooster’s eyes going wide as he registered the expression on Maverick’s face and jolting forward, but he was too slow and too far to stop it as Maverick’s eyes abruptly rolled back in his head and his legs collapsed out from underneath him.
Hondo arrived at the last possible second, sliding in on his knees despite being far too old for such a move, and catching Maverick’s head just before it would have bashed against the flight line, pulling the limp man into his arms and immediately slamming a palm over the barely discernible damp section of the pilot’s flight suit.
“Maverick’s hurt!” Hondo called to the crowd around him, a note of desperation and command in his voice. “Call paramedics, tell them Maverick took flak on the mission! Get them out here to us now!”
There was an instant of stunned silence and then the entire area burst into barely controlled chaos. People went running in every direction after shouting out the sections of the aircraft carrier they were checking for the medics on and off duty, and others called that they were retrieving pressure bandages, while still others went in search of the nearest defibrillator.
Most of the remaining people helpfully backed away to allow space for treatment, but Maverick’s students immediately descended on the pair, babbling worried demands and questions.
“Enough!” Cyclone barked, earning an instant silence and the undivided focus of all of their wide, scared eyes.
He strode forward, Warlock at his shoulder, and made pointed shooing motions.
“Give us some room,” he commanded, shooing more insistently. “You will get updates as soon as we have them, but for now we need to assess him. Back up. Now.”
Almost all of them reluctantly did so, Rooster being the only exception, the man continuing to clutch at Maverick’s hand and send both commanding officers a beseeching look.
“You, too, son,” Warlock said, his voice warm and understanding, but firm, and Rooster swallowed hard and gently lay Maverick’s hand on his chest before he backed away, Phoenix and Bob both crowding in on either side to pull him into bracketing side hugs as they anxiously waited.
“He told you he was hurt?” Cyclone asked while he took Maverick’s pulse, his voice gruff and brusque, though Hondo knew him well enough to hear the worry under the curt surface.
“No,” Hondo shook his head, shifting his arm so Warlock could inspect the wound as much as possible without actually releasing pressure. “I don’t think he realized he was hurt, being so high on adrenaline. I just realized when I tried to fix my uniform for the salute and saw I had a blood patch where he had hugged me.”
Cyclone nodded his understanding, holding two fingers under Maverick’s nose to check his breathing, and Warlock’s eyes fell shut for a moment before he took a bracing breath and reopened them.
“Medics!” a voice called loudly, and a path was immediately cleared between the downed pilot and the man and woman carrying the stretcher.
Time was moving oddly again. Hondo blinked and the pair were before him, taking vitals and verbally passing the results back and forth to each other as they moved in perfect sync.
One prepared the pressure bandage, the other carefully removed the top of Maverick’s flight suit, directing Hondo to leave pressure on the wound for as long as possible, only pulling his hands away the instant before one medic whipped the cloth back and the other cleaned the wound and applied the treatment.
Hondo stared in horror at Maverick’s chest, the noise of the two medics working around them fading from his ears as he took in the mess of bruises and swelling that was Maverick’s torso.
Despite how quickly it had been covered with the gauze and bandaging, Hondo had immediately identified the small circular wound pouring blood as an unmistakable bullet wound, which was bad enough on its own -low in his chest, but even though it was not an unavoidably fatal stomach wound, it was far enough in to have potentially clipped a few organs, and he had been bleeding for who knew how long- but the purple bruises deepening in his skin, particularly around his ribs, spoke of a multitude of other potentials for internal damage.
Hondo wasn’t the only one horrified. He forced himself to refocus only to find gasps and worried exclamations from everyone around him as they stared at the limp, bruised, and bleeding Maverick with wide eyes.
“What the hell happened to him?” Cyclone asked, sounding dazed and almost offended by the less than stellar state the man had returned in.
“Some of its from the harness when he was ejected,” Hondo pointed out, gesturing as best he could to the defined line of purples and blues that traced the pattern of Maverick’s seatbelt harness as he tried to stay out of the way of the two medics, who were ignoring everyone around them and barking medical jargon Hondo didn’t understand into their radios.
“He parachuted down to land, not water,” Warlock pointed out, gesturing vaguely at his entire body. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he broke a few ribs on impact, or at least took a rough tumble.”
“… How the fuck did he get shot?” Cyclone demanded, blinking down at the unconscious man who offered no answers.
“Um,” Rooster edged forward, capturing all of their attention, except the medics who continued running triaging hands over Maverick, unbothered by the people around them. “When I saw him, he was cornered by an enemy helicopter that was shooting at him. I took care of the craft, but it had already had time to open fire on him for several seconds first, I bet that was when it happened. And then he ran all the way over to where I had ejected, I guess he didn’t notice in the constant crisis of it all.”
“Hmm,” Cyclone grunted consideringly, but Hondo and Warlock were both nodding along, deciding that was the most probable time it had happened.
Before anything else could be discussed, the medics moved in perfect sync to smoothly lift the lax man onto the stretcher, Mav’s head lolling slightly to the side with the movement, and it sent a bolt of wrong down Hondo’s spine to see his friend so still and unresponsive.
The next second the trio were gone, the medics disappearing inside just as quickly as they had come, leaving everyone on the flight deck in a baffled silence, all of them wondering what they should do.
Hondo looked down and decided the very first thing he was going to do was wash his hands, and he stood abruptly, peripherally noticing people staring at him, but only able to see his own hands that were drenched in Maverick’s blood.
“I’m going to wash my hands,” he said curtly, not waiting to be dismissed or acknowledged, swallowing hard to try to keep his lunch where it belonged and striding inside to find the closest possible sink.
|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|
Finally, finally, Hondo received the page that Mav was out of surgery. It had been hours. Several unbearably long hours spent wondering if he would need to break out his dress uniform to attend a funeral for the second time in a week.
He physically shook the thought from his head, concentrating instead on striding closer to the medical wing, surprised to see someone pacing outside the double doors like a caged animal.
His confusion cleared a moment later when he registered which lieutenant it was, finding Rooster with a barely contained panic on his face and looking as though he had been waiting outside ever since Maverick had disappeared behind the double doors.
Rooster spotted him almost immediately, turning to him with wide, pleading eyes.
"Are you going to see him?" he asked, hopeful and desperate in equal measure.
Hondo pursed his lips, knowing what would be the instant plea when he released his answer, but reluctantly admitted, "Yes, the doctor paged he is out of surgery."
"Please, can I go in, too?" Rooster said the exact words Hondo knew he would, the lieutenant openly begging. "Please, Hondo, please can I go in?"
Hondo studied him, taking in the red-rimmed eyes and cracking expression, and sighed heavily, but nodded, gesturing for Rooster to follow him.
"Thank you," Rooster breathed, swallowing hard, and Hondo nodded an acknowledgment to the words, but kept his attention on striding through the halls to get to Mav's room as quickly as possible rather than maintaining a conversation.
The hallway seemed to stretch impossibly long, but they eventually made it to the room, opening the door to find a man in a doctor's coat seemingly speaking to mid-air.
“Hello,” the doctor greeted, a small, wan smile on his face. “Come on in, I was just briefing the admirals on the captain’s condition.”
He gestured vaguely to a small red light on the far wall, indicating the room’s communication system was active, and Hondo nodded his understanding, feeling Rooster doing the same at his shoulder.
“Is Mav going to be ok?” Rooster asked, his voice small and scared, and Hondo barely stopped himself from glancing over to check the lieutenant hadn’t been replaced with a five year old when he’d looked away.
The doctor’s face softened, becoming unbearably sympathetic as he focused on Rooster, pressing his lips together as he considered what to say.
“No, most likely not,” he said, tone gentle and apologetic, and the floor spun under Hondo’s feet, though he did his best to make himself keep breathing so he didn’t pass out.
“What?” Rooster croaked, sounding seconds from bursting into tears.
“He…,” the doctor looked regretfully down at his clipboard. “We’ve done everything we can for him, but he took a lot of damage. The gunshot wound clipped his liver. We’ve done our best to patch it up and clean any spilled bile, but even besides the possibility of sepsis, he’s lost a substantial amount of blood. We gave him three transfusions, restarted his heart twice, but his temperature is rising and his system just isn’t strong enough to fight off infection.”
He let those words echo around the room for several long seconds before he sighed heavily and went on.
“Besides the gunshot wound, he also cracked several ribs,” he announced sadly. “If he did survive the infection, he would most likely have a battle with pneumonia as his lungs fail to fully expand. He also has severe bruising across most of his torso which did not help the internal bleeding situation, but is far from the worst thing he is battling.”
Hondo opened his mouth, but no words came out. He shut it, swallowed hard and tried again.
“What are his chances?” he rasped, barely audible.
The doctor winced almost imperceptibly, and Hondo steeled himself for the answer.
“He has about a five percent chance of living through the night,” the doctor for said in a heavy tone. “If he survives to morning, his chances raise to about fifteen percent, which more likely means he would live through the infection just to die of pneumonia.”
“If we coordinated air support to a mainland hospital, would his chances increase?” Cyclone asked, voice crackling through the small speaker in the wall, heavy and somber.
Hondo cast the small, discreet speaker a speculative look, intrigued by how affected the admiral sounded, but quickly refocused on the doctor.
“His chances would actually lessen,” the man said apologetically. “Transport is hard on any patient, but especially one with so much internal trauma. Being still would be the best thing for him.”
“If he pulls through,” Rooster started, a desperate kind of hope in his eyes that broke Hondo’s heart to see, “what would his recovery plan look like? Would he need to do PT or anything for the abdominal muscle damage?”
The doctor sent him a compassionate look that just barely stayed on the right side of the line from open pity.
“Lieutenant,” he said, gentle and kind and undoubtedly preceding horrible news. “We… we haven’t made him a recovery plan. If he miraculously pulls through the week, we would talk about options then.”
Tears filled Rooster’s eyes, and he looked mere seconds away from shattering, but he clenched his jaw and gave a jerky nod of understanding.
The doctor’s face was unbearably sympathetic, and Hondo had to pull his own gaze away to try to keep his emotions in check, staring studiously at the far wall until his own tears subsided.
“What’s his expected timeline?” Hondo croaked, voice rough and barely understandable. “Are we talking minutes? Hours?”
“Hours,” the doctor answered, turning to him more directly. “But not many.”
Hondo’s throat closed, leaving him unable to breathe, let alone speak, so he nodded once that he had heard and did his best not to release the tears steadily rising.
“We will -,” the doctor cleared his throat and started again. “Due to his situation, we are waving visitation rules. People may visit him throughout the night, but he isn’t expected to wake from the anesthesia from the surgery.”
The room was spinning, and Hondo couldn’t breathe, but he somehow forced himself to nod to the words that he had heard and understood.
The doctor seemed extremely aware of how much emotion was swirling around the room and nodded, shifting backward to give them more space.
“If you need anything, there is a call button on the railing of the bed,” he said, quiet and unobtrusive as he slipped out of the room, leaving Hondo, Rooster, and Maverick in a heavy silence.
Hondo took a deep breath and forced himself to turn to the bed, taking in the man that looked remarkably small and fragile laying in a hospital bed.
Mav had always seemed larger than life, despite his small stature, filling any room he entered with his abundance of personality. Seeing him still, and limp, and broken on a hospital bed seemed inherently wrong, casting a miserable pall around the room.
The heartbeat monitor beeped evenly in the background, his vitals steady, if weak. That wasn’t supposed to last long, though.
Hondo swallowed hard and turned his attention to the other occupant in the room.
Rooster was… devastated was too casual a word.
The lieutenant walked forward, moving like he was in a daze, and all but fell into one of the seats beside the bed, reaching out with a noticeable tremor to take Mav’s hand.
"We were supposed to talk,” Rooster whispered, wet and heartbroken, staring at Maverick's face with a soul deep regret. "I finally decided I missed him more than I hated him and -, and -,"
Rooster's mouth clicked shut, face spasming for a moment as he fought with himself not to cry.
Hondo faced a similar battle, carefully breathing deep breaths for a long minute until he felt like he had a steadier hold on his surging emotions.
“Did Mav ever explain to you why he pulled your papers?” Hondo asked, already knowing the answer was no.
Rooster shrugged, clenching his jaw, though Hondo noticed the expression was full of hurt and regret rather than rage.
“He said I wasn’t ready,” he answered, his voice tight and clipped, and Hondo sighed, moving closer to the bed.
“That is both true and not true,” he said heavily, earning Rooster’s undivided attention for the first time since he walked in the room, the lieutenant still holding Mav’s hand where it rested on the mattress, but no longer flicking quick glances back at the vitals screen every few seconds.
“What do you mean?” Rooster asked, his voice small and fragile, and Hondo sighed again, deciding he had already said too much to be having doubts and he would need to carry on.
“He may have done it and he may have agreed with the reasoning but…,” Hondo made himself hold Rooster’s wide eyes. “But it wasn’t his idea to do it.”
“What?” Rooster whispered, sounding remarkably young, and Hondo tried to push away the pang it sent through his chest.
“He did pull your papers, but it wasn’t his idea originally,” Hondo told him, soft and serious. “Your mother begged him to.”
He let the silence hang for a long moment as Rooster visibly struggled to comprehend his words but he eventually continued.
“He faced a court martial for it, I told him he would,” Hondo said, voice slightly hollow as he remembered. “He told me the night before he did it. I warned him he could be dishonorably discharged for falsifying someone’s file like that, but he… he was all but sobbing when he told me he promised your mother he would do it. It was her dying wish. She told him he was still family, she had never hated him for what happened to Goose, kept loving him as the little brother he’d become, but that didn’t mean he did not owe her for even however little a part he played in it.
She told him the way he could make amends was making sure you didn’t take off as a hot shot flyer right out of the gate before you had the age and level head to get you back home again. They weren’t stupid, they knew you’d apply again, but she wanted to make sure you were old enough to truly understand the risks you were taking.
She made him promise on her deathbed, and he finally told her he would do it. He would delay your career so you wouldn’t immediately be put on the most dangerous missions. Would give you time to grow out of any cockiness before you potentially went on the Top Gun track.”
Rooster stared at him, eyes wide and full of swirling emotions.
“Your mother loved you,” Hondo told him, soft and sincere. “She wasn’t trying to control you, she wasn’t trying to tarnish your navy record or stifle you, she was just scared and leaving and desperately needed to know that you would have a way to outlive her by decades instead of years when she was gone.”
Rooster swallowed hard, tears springing to his eyes, though he still didn’t speak.
“Maverick loves you, too,” Hondo said, letting his eyes drift to his prone friend. “You, your mother, and your father were his family, his only family.
Temporary instructors share quarters, and when he didn’t come back after your first day at Top Gun I went looking. I found him trying to drown his sorrows in one of the janitor closets. He’d been avoiding people, but he drunkenly cried to me about what you said on the tarmac. You were right when you told him he was afraid he doesn’t have anyone left that would mourn his passing. Well, mostly. He isn’t afraid, he’s convinced. Iceman was the last of his crew, and you were at the admiral’s funeral last week.
Mav’s never been good at being able to tell when people care about him, never fully believed that the test crew and I love him as much as he loved us, that the woman he’s been sweet on for three decades is just as in love with him, that all the ground crew he cares about care back. He’s never been able to believe affection unless people shout it loudly and repeatedly in his face, and he truly believed that Goose, Carol, and little Roo were his only family, and if the baby bird hated him, he didn’t have anyone else.”
“He does,” Rooster croaked. “He has all kinds of people that love him, he knows that he has friends on base. He’s practically mister popularity. Everywhere he goes people wave him over and greet him by name.”
Hondo shrugged with a sad smile on his face.
“Just because someone likes you well enough when you’re there, doesn't mean they will mourn you when you’re gone,” he explained, voice gentle, and Rooster swallowed more tears as the words hit home.
“I’ve been trying to slam through his thick head I care about him for more than a decade now, and I think he’s only just now starting to get the hint,” Hondo shrugged, trying not to let show the deep ache in his chest that appeared whenever he considered how Maverick saw himself.
He sighed, shook his head, and re-centered himself.
“Anyway,” he moved them on, “the point is, he loves you, kid. More than anything. He loved you enough to follow through on what your mom asked even if it meant losing you, and never whispering a word or defense to you that it hadn’t been his idea.”
“But why?” Rooster asked, his voice cracking on the last word and freeing teardrops to silently streak down his face. “I’ve been awful ever since, the things I said when I found out -, or even on the flight line here, I said -, I told him -, why?”
Hondo sighed, sending Rooster a sad, wan smile.
“He thinks he took your dad from you,” he said, soft and somber, feeling as though he were confessing something rather than answering a question. “The board found that there was absolutely nothing he could have done differently to detect or save the situation, but he still thinks of himself as Goose’s murderer. He thinks he took your dad from you, he wasn’t about to take your mom too.”
Rooster pressed a hand to his mouth and failed to stifle a sob, clenching his eyes shut as another wave of tears ran down his cheeks but he took a shaky breath a moment later and opened his eyes again, sending Hondo a wet, plaintive look that begged for more of an answer.
“He knew you’d hate whoever kept you from following your father’s footsteps, even if it was just delaying your path long enough to keep you from following them all the way to the grave,” Hondo whispered, pushing down tears of his own. “There was no way in hell he was going to let that person be Carole, even if it meant losing his baby bird forever.”
Rooster’s shoulders racked with another round of sobs and he pulled Maverick’s hand to his chest as he dropped his head and cried harder.
Hondo stepped forward to rest a bracing hand on his shoulder, but waited several long seconds before he went on, giving Rooster’s sobbing time to lessen slightly in intensity and let him hear.
“He was court martialed for it when admiralty found out,” Hondo admitted, knowing that the scathing reprimand was something that had not been widely publicized, as the navy still needed Maverick’s skills in Iraq enough to save him from a dishonorable discharge, even if it earned him a solo seat on several of the flights presumed to be suicide missions.
Rooster gasped his sobs quietly, but seemed to be doing his best to stop crying so he could hear Hondo’s words, so Hondo pulled the nearby seat over so he could be closer and more easily understood.
“I’m sure you’ve heard the other officers on base giving him shit over still being a captain after thirty years?” Hondo asked, waiting for the confirming nod from Rooster before he echoed it and continued. “Granted, Mav wants to fly, but still being a Captain wasn’t by choice. That’s because of his court martial. He will never rise above his current rank. They found him guilty. They would have dishonorably discharged him had we not been at war. They sent him everywhere, Iran, Iraq, who knows where else. They gave him the missions that were essential, but no one expected the pilot to come home from, but he is so damn good he beat the odds again and again.”
Rooster raised his head to stare at Hondo, doing nothing to hide the fact his red rimmed eyes were pouring tears as he listened for more in a horrified shock.
“Mav knew they were sending him on suicide missions as ordered flights rather than acknowledged volunteer assignments,” Hondo admitted, tone heavy. “He could have reported them to ethics, he’d have had one hell of a solid case, but he didn’t because he figured it was paying his dues, and….”
Hondo pursed his lips, studying the devastated face of the crying pilot before him, but sighed and decided he owed the kid the truth.
“And he told me once -three sheets to the wind and way too drunk to remember anything the next day- that he knowingly took those missions because he had driven away the last person in his life that separated him from being someone who was loved and someone who would be just another forgotten name on the remembrance wall. As a verbatim quote, he said he had no one left to mourn him so he might as well take the missions so people who still mattered didn’t have to.”
Rooster’s sobbing picked up again, and he clutched Maverick’s hand to his chest even tighter.
“Mav matters,” he declared, rough and shaky, but fiercely adamant and understandable, even through his tears.
“He does,” Hondo agreed softly. “Even if he’s too stupid to see it, Mav matters to all of us. I’m not telling you this to make you feel guilty for the past, and I am definitely not telling you this to make you hate your mom -she was a scared mother that desperately loved her son and was trying her best, even if you don’t agree with the method- but I thought…”
His gaze skittered away for a moment before he took a deep breath and made himself drag his eyes back to Rooster’s.
“Mav is probably going to die tonight,” he acknowledged, his voice growing thicker by the second as his own crying tried to crowd in, “and I -, I just… if it were me, I would want to understand. I know from your point of view it was like your favorite uncle you loved so much -the uncle that helped raise you for years- betrayed you, and if it were me I’d… I’d want to understand.”
"Thank you," Rooster whispered, shutting his eyes even as tears continued streaming silently down his cheeks. "It does... thank you, Hondo, it does help. I wish Mav had told me, even if mom made him promise not to, because it does help -,"
"Carole didn't make him promise not to tell you," Hondo cut in, shaking his head. “She only begged him to pull your papers. I wasn't there, but I think she had assumed Mav would tell you she wanted him to. Mav decided not to on his own because he didn't want to risk you hating your mother when she was gone and couldn't defend herself."
"Oh," Rooster said, almost inaudibly, looking like he had been struck for a moment before he sucked in a bracing breath and nodded.
"Of course Mav decided that," he acknowledged a long second later, sounding fond and rueful under his heartbreak.
"Of course Mav decided that," Hondo nodded an agreement. "Mav never planned to tell you because he never wanted to risk you hating your mother, but I think you've had enough time now, and you're far enough from it, that you won't. That and...," he paused to swallow, re-gripping his emotions before he finally continued, "and when you think about Mav, I want you to be able to grieve him as a good man that loved you."
The way Rooster's face crumpled was heartbreaking, his crying picking back up again as he clutched Maverick's hand. He tried to take a deep breath to respond, was crying too hard to speak, and tried several more times before he managed a wet, broken, "Thank you."
Hondo put a comforting hand on his shoulder, leaving it there for a long minute before he pushed himself to his feet, reluctantly retracting his hand.
"I'm going to go tell the other lieutenants," Hondo said softly, feeling hollow as he watched his dying friend and the crying wingman. "I'll have them give you a little time alone with him, but we don't know how long... they'll probably be down pretty soon."
Rooster nodded that he understood, but didn't seem able to speak, so Hondo gave his shoulder another squeeze and turned, forcing himself to walk out of the room.
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It didn’t surprise Hondo in the slightest to find the five other lieutenants that had flown the day’s mission waiting in the small medical waiting area, looking worried and tense.
Almost in perfect unison they all sprang to their feet when they saw him in the doorway, and he held up a hand to stem their anxious questions on Maverick’s condition.
“He is out of surgery,” he said, his tone heavy and slightly hollow, but he took a deep breath and tried to keep himself together. “Rooster is in there…. Saying goodbye. Maverick isn’t expected to make it to morning.”
There was a deafening silence after his words, all of them staring at him with wide eyes, looking more like terrified children than fiercely competent adults.
“You can go see him if you’d like,” he went on after a long moment. “Rooster’s in there now, but I don’t actually expect him to leave until… Medical waived normal visitor rules, so no one is going to kick him out, and I highly doubt he leaves without being physically removed.”
He tried not to absorb the heartbreak shining off the faces around him, wanting to finish as quickly as possible and find some privacy.
“We’re allowed to visit him?” Phoenix double checked, her voice small and hesitant, and Hondo sent her a reassuring nod before his expression hardened as he refocused on the blond next to her.
"You," Hondo said, sharp and firm, looking directly at Hangman, who's eyes went wide in alarm. "If I hear of you giving Rooster any shit over Goose or Mav, I will throw you overboard without hesitation, do I make myself clear?"
Hangman shrank back, looking intimidated.
"G-Goose, sir?" he asked, voice small and meek.
"Rooster's dad," Hondo clarified, eyes narrowed and tone clipped, and comprehension passed across Hangman's face.
"I won't, sir, I promise," he said, earnest and sincere, and Hondo let his hackles lower slightly as he nodded an acceptance.
"Good," Hondo said, letting his acknowledgement sound like a warning, a warning Hangman clearly caught if the look on his face were anything to go by.
“Alright,” he said in a less overtly threatening tone, nodding toward the doorway he had just come from. “You all had better go on if you’re going to, there’s no telling how long Mav is going to stay with us, and I’ll be stopping by to say my own goodbyes after I talk to the admirals.”
They nodded their acceptance and hurried out of the room, leaving Hondo to take a deep breath, brace himself, and then force his own feet to take him onward.