In the locker room, Nat and I were getting ready for the day when she finally broke our comfortable silence. "Okay, seriously, talk to me," she said as she closed her locker. Her eyebrows raised at me and I didn't have to take a guess on what she was referring to.

    So, I sighed and sat down while I laced up my shoes. "I don't know, Nat. He's super hot, I'll give him that, but I don't really think this is the time to get involved with anyone."

    She sat next to me and copied my actions. "There's always a fling, you know. Or, you never know. You two could seriously hit it off and he could be the one to pull you back out," she suggested.

    We stood and I smoothed down the front of my flight suit. "I have no idea what you mean," I said back, fully knowing what she meant. "Come on, don't wanna be late," I said and we left the locker room.

    "Would you stop dodging me, Lia?" she asked and gave my shoulder a playful hit with her own. "We don't have to trauma dump right now, but at least don't shut yourself out completely. I have great intel that Rooster's pretty interested in you, too."

    I sighed and rolled my eyes, but a smile still spread on my face. "How about we talk about something else. Like, where have you been? Whatcha been doing lately? You know, typical catching up type questions."

    "You'd love that, wouldn't you?" she asked with a glare. I just smiled back and we pushed the doors open to the hanger our first class was in.

    We weren't the first in, but also not the last. Rooster was the first person I saw, standing and talking to the others. Halo was there, too, having left the locker room while Nat and I were still getting ready.

    "What's up?" Phoenix and I fell into easy conversation with the others. We all stood around in a larger group talking about so many random things. What we thought this was, making plans to hang out tonight at the bar or outside our housing, who was gonna be the mission leader- over all a good conversation.

    Fanboy made a joke at Hangman's expense and we all laughed. My eyes drifted over to Rooster to see him looking at me. I just smiled at him then looked back over at Hangman who was trying to save his ass.

    A few moments later, we had to sit down- the higher-ups would be coming in shortly. I looked at the desks in front of each chair and saw they were assigned seats. "What are we, middle schoolers?" I mumbled to Nat. She laughed and went to go sit next to Bob.

    I found my name next to Rooster's and resisted the urge to groan because of course. It's not like they're matchmaking, but Nat will be overly thrilled when she sees where I sit.

    I sat down and waited for Rooster to come over and sit next to me. He walked up and smiled. "Looks like this is me," he commented and sat down.

    "Looks like it," I said back. I moved my head to look over at him and smiled. "I feel like it's the first day of school, you know? And the teacher's got this nice little seating chart all nice and set up."

    Rooster chuckled. "Well, at least I don't have to complain about this one," he said and finally turned to look right at me. I could've gotten lost in his eyes if it hadn't been for where we were.

    "Attention on deck!" At once, the whole room went up up and stood as Admirals Simpson and Bates came in. Admiral Bates came up to the podium situated in front of all of us.

    "Morning," he greeted and I had the urge to say it back. The middle school mindset was killing me. Assigned seats? Stupid crushes? I was so over it already. "Welcome to your special training detachment. Be seated."

    Just like before, everyone moved at once and sat back down. I settled myself in, leaning over to the side a bit so I could see Warlock at the front of the room better. Coincidentally, that meant just a little closer to Rooster.

    "I'm Admiral Bates, NAWDC commander. You're all TOPGUN graduates. The elite. The best of the best," he said. I never said it out loud, but I liked the compliments quite a bit. Gave me some serious confidence boosts considering who I was and where I was. I almost never took them seriously, but at least coming from a man Admiral it felt more real.

    And then: "That was yesterday." I could feel my own and everyone else's smiles dropping from our faces. "The enemy's new fifth-generation fighter has leveled the playing field. Details are few, but you can be sure we no longer possess the technological advantage. Success, now more than ever, comes down to the man or woman in the box."

    Rooster bumped his elbow against mine and I stifled a chuckle, opting to elbow him back. I looked passed Rooster to see Nat, on the other hand, giving a discreet middle finger to someone, most likely Hangman.

    Admiral Bates kept going. "Half of you will make the cut. One of you will be named mission leader. The other half will remain in reserve." Admiral Bates kept on about our new instructor and I saw Hangman glancing back at Rooster. The two made eye contact, but nothing more.

    "Not a huge fan of him, are you?" I whispered.

    "Not really."

    I tuned back into Admiral Bates' introduction when I heard footsteps coming in from behind. "And he's considered to be one of the finest pilots this program has ever produced." I saw Hangman look down the row to see who it was and then watching with joy as his face dropped and he quickly looked back to the front with a hand over his face.

    "What he has to teach you may very well be the difference between life and death. I give you Captain Pete Mitchell. Call sign: Maverick." The Captain came up to take Admiral Bates place and I quickly figured out why Hangman had the reaction he did. In fact, a couple others had very similar reactions considering they literally threw him out of a bar last night.

    Rooster's reaction, on the other hand, threw me off. I could feel him tense up beside me and he lost all of his excited and upbeat demeanor.

    "Good morning," Maverick greeted, giving a knowing nod to an embarrassed Hangman. It made me smile but I kept my laughter in check.

    Beside me, Rooster was still very tense and upset. I gave him a very small nudge. When he looked at me, I mouthed 'You okay?' He shook his head very lightly then we turned back to the front.

    Maverick held up a manual. "The F-18 NATOPS. It contains everything they want you to know about your aircraft. I'm assuming you know the book, inside and out."

    A few scatter replies were thrown, and I added a, "Yeah we do."

    There was a small hesitation on Maverick's end where he looked at the Admirals, then he dropped the book into the trash. I leaned back and raised an eyebrow, then looked over to Nat who was giving me a similar look. We looked back at the front.

    "So does your enemy. But what the enemy doesn't know, is your limits. I intend to find them, test them, push beyond. Today we'll start with only what you think you know. You show me what you're made of." He paused dramatically and looked around at us.

    "Get ready to fly, aviators. We start with some basic flying exercises." We were dismissed and started to walk out to the tarmac and get ready.

    Nat was waiting to walk with me but I stopped and looked at Rooster. "You doing all right over there?" I asked, trying to come off pretty light but still being meaningful.

    He looked at me, with a very pissed expression, but it softened when we made eye contact. "Yeah, I'm fine," he answered. Before I could retort and say he very clearly was not, we walked off.

    Nat came up next to me. "Do you know what's going on with him?" I asked her, knowing they knew each other pretty well.

    Sadly, she shook her head. "Not really, no. I'll talk to him later about it. For now, we gotta focus on kicking ass up there!" We laughed and followed the others out to the tarmac and got ready to get up in the air.

~~~

    By the end of the day, I was the only one who managed to 'shoot down' Maverick. He was extremely impressed and the others surrounded me in congratulations when I got out of the plane.

    "Oh come on, calm down, it's really not that big of a deal," I said. This much attention made my skin crawl with memories. The last time a crowd surrounded me like this, I had just been taken out of the rescue helicopter and was being checked for injuries and checked on by teammates.

    Nat interrupted my self-destructing thoughts by pulling me into a huge hug. "Oh come on, stop being like that! You're one step closer to being team leader, which is a huge step more than Hangman is," she said.

    I laughed at this and Hangman made an offended noise. "Harsh, Phoenix. Real harsh."

    "Am I wrong?" she asked. "Come on, we need to go out tonight and get some drinks to celebrate how amazing you are."

    That was where I stopped. "No, come on, I don't want to go out tonight. Let's just have some beers here and hang out," I suggested. The others agreed and we started leaving the tarmac.

    I saw Rooster still doing his pushups and wanted to go over and make sure he was okay, but hesitated. We didn't know each other that well. At this point, I don't know if I could tell him what causes me to wake up nearly screaming at night, why should he tell me what's wrong?

    But the image of him and Maverick's interaction from the beginning of the exercise stuck out in my head. Something happened between them, and it was enough to throw Rooster and get him doubting.

    "I'll catch up," I said to Nat. She nodded and walked with Halo back to the locker rooms. I turned back and walked towards Rooster.

    Hondo was saying something to him, but when Rooster didn't respond the former ended up walking away and leaving Rooster to stew in his thoughts. A couple more seconds, and he finally stopped his pushups, nearly collapsing.

    "You're not a very good liar," I opened with, my arms wrapped around my stomach. He looked up at me, squinting from the sun shining behind me, confused. "You told me you were okay, but that flight with Maverick... that didn't say 'okay.'" I kneeled down in front of him, moving to sit down with my legs crossed in front of me.

    He didn't answer me right away, just looked away and continued his recovery breaths. I didn't say anything. The floor was open to him for whatever he wanted to do. "He pulled my papers. Set me back four years," Rooster finally answers, moving to look at me again. It didn't take a genius to figure out what he meant.

    I sighed and felt myself frown. "What?" I asked, genuinely confused. As far as I knew, they had just met today. Clearly, I was wrong. "Why would he do that?"

    Rooster didn't answer right away again, instead shrugging. "Never told me why," he responded.

    We stayed quiet for another second, him and I just sitting on the asphalt as the sun moved behind a hanger. I didn't know what to say in the moment, I didn't know Rooster or his past at all. We had only met yesterday.

    But I needed to say something- do more than sit across from him. "I don't know what your history with Maverick is- I didn't even know there was a history to begin with. What I do know is that if you keep breaking hard decks and ignoring rules, you're gonna leave us flying with Bagman. Nobody wants that," I offered, the corner of my mouth quirking up at the end. He didn't need to think I was being a complete jerk.

    He let out a breathy laugh. "Yeah, that wouldn't end well for anyone but him," he joked. I smiled and he gave me a small smile back. After another second on the ground, Rooster got up to his feet and offered a hand to help me. "We should get changed with the others, they might start to worry."

    I took the outstretched hand and he pulled me off the ground. When I was on my feet, expecting him to let go, he held on for just a second longer. I looked at our hands then moved my gaze up to his face.

    He was already looking at me, and I felt like I was being studied under his gaze. A blush peaked out on my cheeks- just light enough so it could be chalked up to heat.

    "You really were impressive in the air today. I don't know if I've ever seen anyone so excited over their superior doing pushups, let alone an entire squad," Rooster said.

    Now I blushed harder, no longer able to blame it on the heat. "I got lucky, everyone here could totally beat him. A lot even got really close to doing so."

    "Yeah, but only you did."

    We stared at each other for a moment and I found it hard to look away. Romance books always talk about someone's eyes, something I've never truly understood until I got lost in Rooster's. Brown eyes were gorgeous, especially on him.

    After what felt like forever, he looked away, taking his hand with him.

    "Um, yeah, so we should probably head inside," he said awkwardly. I chewed on the inside of my lip and nodded. We awkwardly walked back to the locker rooms side-by-side, but didn't speak again or dare touch.

    There was no way we each had middle-school level crushes on the other, right?

A/n: and another chapter down! Please let me know what you think! I know, the lead up is almost always the worst, but next chapter it gets a lot better, so please stick around!