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It starts with the crack of Goose’s head hitting the cockpit. It’s then that Mav knows, as he is hurtled towards the cold gray ocean, that something is wrong. There’s something like clarity in those white-capped waves as he floats towards it, seeing the green dye spill out around Goose.
It starts with Mav, clinging to Goose’s limp body in the water, whispering prayers to gods he doesn’t believe in, needing Goose to be fine and alive and whole. He sobs, pressing his face to Goose’s cold wet hair.
It starts when Mav sees Goose, translucent and pale, and floating peacefully above them. Then—
Mav chokes on his own tears as he sees the sadness in Goose’s face, the way he opens his mouth as if to say something, but then Goose is gone with a flash of blue light. Mav is left with nothing but the taste of salt on his tongue, one that he’s not sure if it’s from tears or the water lapping at his shoulders.
That’s how it starts.
They pick him up hours later.
Mav doesn’t notice it in the chaos of the rescue team trying to pick them, doesn’t register the fact that there are more figures than could possibly fit in the chopper. He just watches as the blurry figures stand, watching Goose. He screams at them, asking why they aren’t helping him, how they could just be standing there.
Then, Mav gets dizzy, stumbling as he’s lowered to the floor and he’s out.
Mav wakes up in the hospital, Ice at his bedside.
“Wha—?” Mav struggles against the sedation, the tubes twisting where they’re attached to him. Ice puts a hand on his shoulder
“Maverick.” Mav sees out of the corner of his eye a pale blue figure, reaching out to touch Ice. Mav whines, staring at the figure. “Mav.” Ice’s hand touches his chin, and Mav turns with it, his eyes still trained on the figure. “Pete, look at me.” Mav blinks at the use of his given name, finally turning to look at Ice. His hair is falling into his face, his uniform messy, it’s so unlike his usual pristine image.
“Goose—Where’s—?”
His face falls.
Mav’s breath catches as he blinks back tears, staring at the wall behind Ice.
“You’ve been asleep for a while.” When Mav doesn’t respond, he pulls his hand back, shifting from foot to foot. “They started an inquiry. I think they’re going to talk to you about it tomorrow.” He stops shifting, Mav can see it out of the corner of his eyes, his body tense. “I’m sorry, Mav.”
“Please leave.” It’s a truly childish impulse, but Mav doesn’t give a single flying fuck about being an adult right now. He turns, lying on his side facing away from Ice.
“Mav—”
“Ice.” Something cold and hopeless fills his chest. It feels like he never left that gray, featureless ocean. “Please leave.”
There’s a long silence. Mav doesn’t look back.
“Alright.” Ice sounds almost forlorn. “I—”
Another long silence.
“I’m sorry.” Then there’s the sharp click of boots on linoleum and the slamming of a door, and Ice is gone. Mav keeps his focus squarely on the wall. His fingers tingle, almost like pins and needles.
“You saw me.” A figure fades into view, an old woman, lit up blue by a gentle glow. Mav closes his eyes. This is just a leftover effect of—whatever it is the doctors have found wrong with him. “Hello?” Her voice is wispy, like a breeze. The hand on his chin on the other hand, is cold, shockingly present. “Hey.” Mav’s eyes snap open, the only thing keeping Mav from snapping at her is the exhaustion settling deep into his bones. “You can see me.”
“What?” Mav’s voice is flat.
“I’m dead and you can see me.” She moves to do something, kneeling to get a closer look at his face, the movement stiff and painful. He’d be more worried if he wasn’t currently experiencing the world through a thick woolen fog of apathy. She reaches out her other hand, brushing the hair away from his face.
It’s such a familiar motion. Mav hates it. He doesn’t want comfort, he doesn't want any of it. Goose is dead, and it’s his fault.
“Fuck off.” Mav twists, turning to look away from the woman. He closes his eyes, squeezes them shut, covers the ear that isn’t pressed against the pillow with a hand. He’s vaguely aware of the heart monitor beeping wildly as he struggles to catch his breath. There are more people in the room now, but when their hands touch him, they’re warm.
In total, they keep him for 48 hours, during most of which he alternates between sleeping and trying to ignore the gaping absence of Goose. He doesn’t even really register the ghosts, not really. Doesn’t quite clue into the fact that the old woman standing in the corner of the room isn’t really there until one of the doctors walks through her.
It’s then, at the end of his time at the hospital that the penny really drops.
Viper is talking to him, telling him that there would be more—more deaths at his hands, weighing him down, more grief, more pain—when he notices a young man sitting on the counter. He’s in a flight suit, a helmet flung haphazardly into the sink next to him. He seems to be listening to Viper intently, a look of sadness on his face.
Mav tries to ignore the man as Viper touches him on the shoulder, walking quietly out of the hospital, leaving Mav alone. Mav watches him out of the corner of his eye, not quite sure if this is some new bullshit his brain came up with for killing Goose.
“He doesn’t mean it.” The man’s voice is boyish, not quite yet settled into what if should be—should’ve been. “I mean, come on Viper, you’d think you’d’ve found a better way to phrase it by now.” The man turns to look at Mav. “He really doesn’t mean it, kid. There may be others, but it doesn’t get easier.” Mav turns to look at him properly. The young man starts, his brow wrinkling. He cocks his head, eying Mav. “Can you see me?” Mav blinks, and the young man hops off the counter in a flurry of movement. “You can see me.”
Mav tucks his chin close to his chest. “Seems so.” He shifts. “Look if this is my brain dredging up some ghost of christmases past type shit, I would really rather just go drink until I forget my own name, thanks.” Mav gets ready to turn on his heel when the man gets in his way.
“I’m Nova—Cooper Montgomery. My callsign is Nova. Or, was, I suppose.” Nova touches his shoulder, and just like the old woman it’s ice cold. “I’m dead, Maverick. You’re talking to a ghost.” He grins, and it makes him look incredibly young, his ears sticking out, his hair curling at the ends, golden in the afternoon sun.
Mav turns, a precise, practiced motion, then he’s walking out of the door, leaving Nova behind him.
He knows Nova is following him, can see him out of the corner of his eye as he tries to pick up the pieces of his and Goose’s life together. It feels—selfish. It feels selfish to take anything from Carole and Bradley but god it hurts too bad to think about abandoning all the good parts of him.
He takes Goose’s dog tags. Feels awful about it, but he does. Feels worse when Carole takes his face in her hands, telling him that Goose would’ve kept flying, even when all Mav wants to do is drop to the floor and never get up. He wishes for the cool apathy of the hospital rather than the searing, burning pain of living without Goose, wants more than anything to be back in that sky before his life had been changed forever.
Carole hugs him, her nails digging into his shoulder. He sees Nova through the tears, watching them quietly, perched above where Bradley is sleeping. He gasps out a sob, barely able to breathe. Carole’s arms around his chest seem suffocating.
“How—How do I—I don’t know—” Mav shakes, feeling like he’s falling apart at the seams, “—How do I keep flying knowing that I—?” He hides his face in Carole’s hair. He feels awful putting this on her, but he just can’t—
“Honey,” She hiccups on a sob, “I don’t know. I—I don’t—All I—” she takes a deep breath, “—all I know is that he would be so fucking mad at you if you didn’t keep on going and doing what you were born to do.” She draws back, her face wet with tears. “You were made to fly, Pete Mitchell. Although,” she grabs his lapel, shaking him gently, “doesn’t mean you don’t have to come back down to visit.”
“I don’t know if I can do it.” Mav is tired, and he sags, leaning into Carole’s touch.
“I don’t know if I can either.” She whispers, tucking her head into the crook of his neck. Mav looks over at Bradley, still asleep with Nova watching the tableau with a sad air. “But I have to. I have to just keep going. And I keep hoping that eventually, I’ll wake up and it won’t hurt quite so much.”
Mav lets out a shaky breath, his tears wetting Carole’s hair when he rests his cheek against her hair. “It hurts so much, fuck.” Mav feels his heart shred, the pain raw and jagged.
“I just keep thinking—one step at a time, Carole.” She says, her voice heavy with tears but trying to be positive. “So,” she sniffles, “one step at a time, Mav.”
Mav kisses the top of her head, hiding his face in her hair. “One step at a time.”
“Hey.” Nova sits close to him, sprawled across one of the tables, irreverent to the paperwork he’d be crushing if he were corporeal.
Mav stares at him. He has seen other ghosts, now, has come to accept that maybe it’s not just his grief-stricken imagination creating the coltish young pilot who has been following him around like his own personal shadow. He doesn’t quite know what Nova has chosen to follow him around. The other ghosts don’t. The other ghosts seem to follow around people they were connected to in life. The rare glimpses of Ice that he’s gotten since the hospital have shown that same old woman he first saw following him around.
Nova doesn’t follow anyone around but him, but they’ve never met before. Mav kind of wishes they had, wonders about how bright he must’ve been when he was alive.
“Maverick,” Nova says, catching Mav’s attention. He’s got an easy grin on his face, his eyes soft. “Back with me?”
Mav shakes his head, trying to get his head back in the moment. The moment being, of course, that he was found not at fault for Goose’s death. Mav lets himself collapse against the table across from Nova, staring at the place where just a few minutes ago the tribunal was deciding his fate with the Navy. “I guess so.” The weight of the not-at-fault decision feels crushing.
Mav feels a cold arm wrapping around his waist, pulling him close to Nova, his body cold where it rests along Mav’s side, his head on Mav’s shoulder. It’s almost soothing, the cool weight of him. He’s never really had genuine, kind touch from another man aside from Goose, and to find it now, from a dead man is…
“They’re probably going to get you in a plane later today.” Mav swallows. “You gonna be good?”
It’s an easy answer. No. Mav feels his hands start to shake, already feeling sick at the thought of being up in the air again, of having someone rely on him.
“I wish I could help.” Nova mumbles, his leg bouncing against Mav’s. “I used to be a great backseater—back in the day.”
“You were a RIO?” Mav feels something sick twist in his stomach.
“Yeah.” He shakes his head, his hair brushing Mav’s collar. “But that was a long time ago.”
It doesn’t seem like Nova really wants to talk about it, his voice going quiet. Mav drops his head into his hands, trying to breathe.
“Kid.” Jester’s voice sounds from behind him, making Mav jump.
“Yes sir?”
“Come on, we’ve got a hop.” He says gruffly, his shoulders squared, hands behind his back. He wavers, though, not quite solid. Mav almost misses it when he says, “I’m sorry, kid.”
Mav’s heart thumps in his chest hard enough that he can feel it behind his eyes. His teeth are clenched, almost painfully. Sundance is screaming at him from the back seat, Jester is talking to him, but Mav is frozen. Every muscle is locked in place. They’re telling him to engage, to just get on with it.
He’s barely breathing, the world dizzyingly far away. He’s not able to make out the individual voices anymore, they blend with the wind blowing past his ears. There’s no more protection from the cockpit, he’s just adrift. He floats, beyond time for a moment.
There’s something cold on his knees, a cold hand on his face.
He hurtles back into his body, into the panic.
“Pete.” Nova says, serious. “Breathe.” Mav squeezes his eyes shut, a muffled whine leaving his mouth. “C’mon. You got this.”
Mav blinks, his eyes blurry as he stares at the desert. He watches the miles of dirt click by below them, watches the bright blue sky, watches the plane that he’s supposed to be dogfighting. Second by second, it seems to get more real. Nova is still muttering and cursing under his breath, reminding Mav to breathe every once in a while. He can finally hear what Sundance is saying—what Jester is saying.
He’s right behind Jester, almost too close, and Mav has to fight with himself not to pull back wildly on the controls. He’s in a good position, the small part of his brain that’s still able to think analytically says, he could get a shot in. Sundance is telling him that—loudly.
He hears his own voice telling Ice to get clear or take a shot. He knows it isn’t real, knows that it’s just in his head but he just can’t—
He tastes saltwater on his tongue.
He shakes his head, so small he doesn’t even think anyone notices.
“Look, Maverick.” Nova is there again, and Mav struggles to focus on him past the taste in his mouth. “You know this. Take a breath and look. Where is he?”
“Tally one, 12 o’clock, high.” He mutters under his breath. He hears a quiet what from Sundance, but he ignores it.
“Good, Mav.” Nova puts an arm around his shoulders, cold and surprisingly weighty. “Are you in the weapons envelope? Do you know what you need to do?”
Mav nods, even if his mind can't process it, his body knows instinctively.
Nova leans close to him, speaking directly into his ear. “Then take the shot.”
Mav does.
He doesn’t know how he gets onto the ground, his body shaking with adrenaline and fatigue. He collapses against the fuselage of his plane, hanging his head. People buzz around him doing post-flight checks, Sundance is talking to him, his lips pursed. His hands are slippery with sweat, and the strap of his helmet slips from his fingers, hitting the ground with a crack. He doesn’t keep himself from flinching, his shoulders hunching.
He ducks away, the world blurring with tears.
He doesn’t see Iceman stop by his plane, murmuring a few quiet words to Sundance before he picks up Mav’s helmet, tucking it carefully under his arm.
“Mitchell?”
Ice is behind him. Who else would it be? Ice always has to be there to see his greatest failures. Mav stands, trying not to cry. He doesn’t turn, knows if he does, if Ice says one more thing about how he’s dangerous, how he got Goose killed, he will just break. He’s so ready for one more jab, one more dig at him, at his family, at his flying.
“I’m sorry about Goose.” Mav feels the tears he had only just stopped fighting back well in his eyes again. It’s not fucking fair. “He was a good man.” The context of and Mav isn’t isn’t lost on him. If there was one fucking person that deserved to be here, it was Goose.
“I know that.” Mav bites back the rest of the anger and vitriol. He knows that Ice doesn’t deserve it. That dubious honour rests on his stupid shoulders.
“I’m sorry.”
He feels the heat of Ice’s hand close to his back. His hand hovers there for several endless seconds. He’s not sure if he moves, or if Ice does, but Ice’s hand wraps around his shoulder warm and solid.
Mav’s shoulders cave in, hunching in on himself. There’s a fine tremor in his body as he takes a shaking breath, choking on tears. He bites his cheek, trying to keep in the small pathetic noises he knows he’s going to make. Mav swallows, leaning forward, resting his forehead on the painted MAVERICK of his locker
“It’s…okay.” Ice sounds so stilted and awkward Mav can’t help but laugh, quickly descending into sobs, loud and echoing in the empty locker room. “It’s okay.”
“You’re not great at this.” It’s wavering, doesn’t have the bite that Mav wants it to have.
Ice snorts. Mav feels Ice lean in, hesitating. Mav wonders if Ice is going to hug him. He wants him to as much as he doesn’t. “I’m really, really sorry, Mav.”
“I know.”
The ocean laps at the rocks, a gentle in and out that Mav tries to match his breathing to.
He doesn’t know why he comes here. Goose had always teased him that the ocean was the closest thing to the sky he could find on land, and that’s why Mav was drawn to it. Now it’s just—pain. Like he says, he doesn’t know why he comes here. The salt on his tongue makes him feel sick.
“Mav.” Mav opens his eyes to see Nova sitting next to him, floating slightly off the ground. He sits awkwardly, with none of the ease he usually has. He’s staring out into the ocean too, not really looking at anything. “I think we should talk about it.”
“You too?” Mav chuckles, the sound getting stuck in his throat, coming out more choked than he means it to.
Nova sighs, flopping onto his back. “Yeah. Me too.” He traces swirls with his fingers across his chest. “Just listen for a moment.” Mav expects him to say something right away, but he just taps his fingers a few more times, watching the waves. “I was a real shithead as a kid, not bad, just troublesome, always causing my parents grief, you know. And I didn’t really ever mean to, I just—” He blows air out of his mouth, “—you know.” He shrugs. “My Dad used to say I had more audacity than common sense, so he was so hopeful when I went into the Navy, thought it would straighten me out or something. I learned to fly, figured out I was better as a RIO—although I gave those pilots a run for their money—and I got deployed.” He sits up, his hands hooked under his knees, a frown on his face. “But that’s not what I—hmmm.”
“Hmm?” Mav feels his eyes drift out to the horizon, watching the rain fall from the heavy clouds above.
“The point is that I died a long time ago, and in that time I’ve seen a lot of people lose people. I’ve seen them do all sorts of things in the face of—” He holds his palms up towards the sky, his fingers spread wide. “I think it just goes along with being a ghost.” He hums something short and tuneless. “So—if you never set foot in a cockpit again, that’s ok. If you—if you find that you have to get back in the cockpit to make you feel closer to Goose—that’s ok too. You want to do something else entirely, ok, cause, it’s hard, it’s so hard to just keep going. But I need you to promise that you’re going to make that decision for you, Mav. Not for anyone else, you. Because you’re the one that this matters to, Mav. You matter.” He stops, turning and smiling at Mav. “And as long as you want me here, I’ll be here, no matter what.”
“I—thank you, Nova.” Mav squeezes his eyes closed, slow tears squeezing out of the corners of his eyes. “I just—” Mav trails off, listening to the wind blowing around them. A cold hand twines their fingers together, holding his hand as they listen to the wind.
After the Layton, after the partying, after the excitement, Mav crashes hard in his bunk. With the adrenaline gone, he’s barely hanging on to consciousness. His eyes are about to close when he feels the prickle of eyes on him. He turns, his head lolling. Nova sits across from him, a wry smile on his face.
“Take a picture, it’ll last you longer.”
“Funny.” Nova says, stretching forward to poke Mav in the shoulder. “How are you doing?”
“I’m ok. I think. I don’t know. Like—” He pauses trying really hard to understand what he feels, what’s going on, “—I’ve got nothing.” Mav has to laugh a little. “I feel like shit, I feel like I’m on top of the world. I’m exhausted. I—I miss Goose.” Mav clenches his hands in Goose’s dog tags, never able to get rid of them. “Yeah. Dunno. It’s a mess.”
Nova snorts. “Yeah, it is.” He is quiet for long enough that Mav stops paying attention, listening to the quiet lap of the water against the edge of the boat. Then Nova speaks again. “Do you know what you want to do next?”
“I made my choice, didn’t I? I keep flying.”
“No choice is forever Mav.” He shuffles, leaning on Mav’s bunk, his hair spread over the edge of the mattress. “Have you thought about teaching?”
“Can you imagine me teaching?” Mav shakes his head. “The brass would hate me even more than they already do.”
“You don’t want to have more little Mavericks running around causing them chaos?” Nova winks, his smile soft, teasing. Mav feels his heart fall.
“The world doesn’t need more of me.” Mav's eyes focus on the bottom of the bunk above him. "The world doesn't need more Gooses."
“So you keep flying.”
“I keep flying.” The sound of the waves fill the room again and Mav’s mind as it always does when given a moment of calm, turns back to Goose. “Nova, why can’t I see Goose?”
“I’m sorry Mav. It just doesn’t work like that. Not everyone stays behind.” Nova ducks his head. “If he hasn’t already shown up, he’s probably already—” Nova shrugs. “You know.”
“Oh.” Mav shuts his eyes.
“I never got to say goodbye to my pilot either. He left, and I stayed. It’s just—random—I guess." He grabs Mav's hand, squeezing it. "I wish you could’ve said goodbye to him—Goose, that is.”
“I wish you could’ve said goodbye too.”
“Thanks Mav, that means a lot.” Mav hears him move, feels the cold leave his hand, but Mav is beginning to feel the edges of sleep pulling him under. He fights it, waking slightly when he hears Nova hum. It’s an old song, one he remembers from a long-ago memory of his father singing him to sleep.
It’s hard to tell, but in the blurry seconds before Mav drifts into sleep, he thinks he hears Nova speak.
“He’s every inch your son, Duke.”