HARD DECK
a top gun: maverick fanfiction

CHAPTER TWELVE: DIAGNOSIS

Summer dreamt of Rooster's lips. She dreamt of his hands, his mouth, that mustache. His muscular body.

She also dreamt of death.

She woke covered in sweat, soaked through her pajamas, despite the fact that her air conditioning was cranked and her home was a cool 65 degrees.

She'd done exactly what she swore she'd never do, and it had backfired miraculously.

And now she was dreaming about him.

Summer wouldn't spend any more time denying her attraction to Bradley Bradshaw. She liked him. She did. But nothing could happen between the two of them. Nothing had.

She took a cold shower to cool herself down, though all that really did was send a chill straight down her spine, and she immediately jumped out of the shower, shrieking and flinging water all over her bathroom. After turning the water back to a normal temperature, she resumed showering, wondering why the hell people glamorized cold showers.

All the cold water did was make Summer temporarily miserable, and it'd done nothing to take Rooster off of her mind.

He was going on the mission.

Of course he was -- he was a damn good pilot.

He was going on the mission.

The mission everyone said he might not return from.

This was the reason she didn't allow herself to get close to the pilots. If they weren't being sent halfway around the world on a dangerous mission, they were leaving for another reason. It'd been easy to ignore the pilots and their endless advances. For the most part, they were a bunch of cocky meatheads who just wanted to get in her pants.

It'd been easy until Rooster.

Talking to him was easy, and flirting with him was even easier -- to the point that Summer didn't immediately realize she was doing it. She felt herself drawn to him, like two opposing magnets, or a moth to a flame.

They always seemed to find themselves together, whether it was in Summer's office or the Hard Deck or the parking lot. She couldn't escape -- not that she wanted to.

But she needed to.

Things had changed. Summer owed it to Rooster and herself to put an end to ... whatever it was ... before anything truly started. Rooster had his mission, and Summer had ... the phone call.

It made her slightly nauseous, to think about it. She'd had inklings about it returning, though she couldn't diagnose herself without bloodwork, even as a doctor herself. She'd been feeling weaker, losing her breath easier. Getting dizzy if she stood up too fast.

She thought she was anemic, low on iron or something, so she'd stocked up on leafy greens and iron-rich meats. It hadn't gotten better.

Then the bloody nose happened.

She'd barely bumped her nose on the cabinet, and it'd started gushing blood. Ordinarily, it should have stopped. But it kept bleeding and kept bleeding.

That's how it had started the first time.

She was in gym class, in high school, when someone had elbowed her in the face playing volleyball. Her nose bled for such a long time that her P.E. teacher thought she'd broken it, so he sent her to the school nurse, who promptly called Summer's mom with instructions to take her to the hospital.

A few blood tests and a lot of worried doctor's visits later, they'd come back with a diagnosis: Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.

It was the most common blood cancer for children under eighteen, but that didn't stop Summer from feeling like she'd been sentenced to death. Her doctor assured her that she was lucky they'd caught it early, and that her prognosis would probably look good after many rounds of chemotherapy.

It was the "probably" that Summer latched onto. The "probably" told her that there was still a very likely chance that she would die.

But then she hit remission.

She stopped chemo, her hair grew back, her body grew stronger. She graduated high school, she went to college, she graduated college, and then med school.

She thought about it less and less until it was a semi-distant memory.

Until the nose bleed.

She made an appointment with her physician immediately. It was a new doctor, a different one than she'd had at sixteen. He definitely thought she was being paranoid, but because she was also a doctor, he obliged her.

He'd been surprised when her bloodwork came back abnormal. Summer had not.

Summer dressed in a pair of scrubs and headed to the kitchen, where she packed her lunch and made herself a sad breakfast of coffee and a spoonful of peanut butter. For a doctor, she wasn't particularly good at taking care of her own health. Not that it seemed to matter, anyways.

She drove to work, blaring the radio and singing loudly along with Billy Joel, Adele, and just about everyone in between. Anything to distract her mind.

Lieutenant Bradshaw would undoubtedly find his way to her office at some point in the day, so Summer was somewhat relieved she wouldn't have to seek him out. She needed to set him straight -- set them both straight -- sooner rather than later. They were working with limited time.

She was at her desk, working on paperwork, when a knock at her door sounded, causing her to jump in her chair. She looked up, relieved to see that it was just one of the nurses.

"Jesus, Dr. H. Didn't mean to scare you," Lucas said as he walked into the office, closing the door behind him. He studied her face, his brows furrowing together. "Are you okay? You look a little ..." he trailed off, unsure of how to continue. How did one tell their boss that they looked a little rough around the edges?

"A little what, Lucas?"

"Well, umm, pale?" Lucas said in a tiny voice, his face turning bright red as he backed against the closed door. He really was the sweetest kid, and Summer didn't think he belonged in a hardened place like the Navy. Then again, he always seemed to be more scared of her than anyone else on base.

"Did you need something, or did you just come in to suggest that I need to work on my tan?"

"No, I did need something," he stammered, thrusting a pile of papers at her. "Palewski and I completed the health assessments for the special mission crew. We just need you to declare them okay to fly."

Summer thought the secondary health assessment was a little over the top, seeing as they'd just done them for the entire group a few weeks ago, but she looked over the paperwork nonetheless.

"Anything out of the ordinary?" She asked as she scanned page after page of vitals, bloodwork, and x-ray imaging.

"No. Picture of health, all of them," Lucas replied. "Even Captain Mitchell."

Summer let out a snort. "Even if his assessment wasn't perfect, I doubt Maverick would let something like high blood pressure keep him out of the sky."

Lucas laughed in agreement. "I wouldn't want to be the one to tell him he was grounded over something like that."

She smiled as she finished reading the papers, signing her name to the bottom of each. "Well, good thing we don't have to worry about that."

Her eyes caught Rooster's name on the last page, and she felt her heart lurch in her chest. She quickly handed the stack of papers back to Lucas. "Could you find Lieutenant Bradshaw for me, Lucas?"

Lucas's eyes widened and he looked down at Rooster's papers. "W-why? Did we miss something? I was certain everything was --"

"No no, nothing like that. I just need to talk to him."

Lucas's eyebrows went up, but whether he suspected something or not, his face gave nothing away. "Sure. Yes ma'am," he replied with a quick nod before quickly leaving her office.

Summer had just glanced back at her computer screen for a few moments before there was a quick knock on her door, and Lucas stuck his head inside.

"Dr. H? Rooster's actually in the waiting room. I guess he wanted to talk to you, but Palewski told him you were busy."

Summer had told Palewski she was busy, but that was only because he was annoying her with questions and she didn't want to talk to him specifically. Obviously she'd made time for Lucas -- her favorite of the two -- and she definitely could find the time for Rooster.

"Send him in," Summer said, her stomach twisting nervously as Lucas nodded and left the office once again. She stood, crossing her arms over her chest, suddenly unsure how she should stand. Her heart raced and her hands shook, and her face was most definitely pale, as Lucas had told her so.

The door opened again, and it was Rooster this time. As she met his warm brown eyes, it felt like someone had dosed her with a rapid-acting alprazolam or something. She felt her sweaty palms go dry, her heart slow, her breaths even out. He was like her own personal Xanax.

God, she could never say that out loud. Joey already made fun of her for how obsessed with her job Summer was. Now she was comparing pilots to antidepressants.

"Hey," he said once the door was closed, a smile dancing on his handsome face.

"Hi," Summer replied, twisting her hands behind her back. "I've been --"

"I wanted --"

They laughed, each waiting for the other to continue.

"Go ahead, Doc."

Summer sighed and took a seat, gesturing for Rooster to do the same. "I've been thinking," she said, chewing on her bottom lip. "Look, last night was a mistake."

Rooster dipped his head, a sad smile filling his face. "I figured you were going to say that."

She studied him for a moment. "Don't you think so?"

"No, I don't," he said firmly, folding his hands in his lap. "Doc, I like you. I think you're brilliant, I think you're beautiful, and honestly, you've been most of what I've been thinking about since I arrived in San Diego." He leaned forward, and in a lower voice, added, "And I've been wanting to kiss you like I did last night since we met."

Under normal circumstances, Summer might have folded. Under normal circumstances, she would have hooked up with him in the Hard Deck bathroom. They wouldn't have been interrupted by her phone call. Rooster wouldn't be going on a life-ending mission.

"If things were different, I might feel differently," she admitted, meeting his eyes. "But these are the cards we've been dealt, Rooster. I can't let myself get attached to you. I just can't."

He was silent for a few moments, his eyes studying the nameplate on her desk. "I might come back."

"And then what?" Summer replied in a shaking voice. "And then you're sent on another dangerous mission, and another dangerous mission, all around the world for the rest of your life."

He reached across the desk, taking her hand in his. "Summer --"

She stood, pulling her hand from his. "No. It's not fair, Rooster. Not to me, and not to you."

She couldn't tell him the truth, that she was sick again. He couldn't afford any distractions.

He stood silently, giving her a brief nod. "You're right," he said, before turning to leave her office.

"Wait," she said before stepping out from her desk. She grabbed his arm, pulling him to a stop. He looked at her, his brown eyes heavy. "If things were different..." she trailed off, letting out a long sigh. "If I was different."

He nodded curtly before turning away and leaving the office.

Summer knew she was lying to herself, and lying to Rooster. She said she couldn't get attached to him, but she already was. If anything, she had to make sure he didn't get too attached to her.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ author's note ✫・゜・。.

some of you might be mad at me for this. some of you might say it's cliche, or that it's out of left field for this story. 

let me tell you that it is very much not random. this has been my intention from the beginning! i've been foreshadowing all along. this is all part of the grand master plan that is in my brain, and if you trust me, then hold on, this is just the beginning.

i hope you trust my vision!

thanks for reading, and please let me know what you thought.

new chapter coming soon :)

xx,

madi