In the early hours of the morning, sunlight streams through the drawn curtains. A peaceful scene painted with the colors of sunrise, soon disturbed by the harsh ringing of an alarm.

Cecelia reaches over and shuts the alarm off, putting her arm over her eyes for a few minutes. Turning over, she seeing the still sleeping form of one Mr. Bradley Bradshaw.

Lying on his stomach, hands under his pillow and blissfully unaware of the wakeup call, Bradley continues to sleep. Slowly, without making too much movement, Cecelia leans over and begins to lay light kisses along his bare back, trying to wake him up.

He soon stirs, tensing momentarily before his muscles relax at the tender kisses his love is giving him. Rolling over, he captures her in his arms.

"Good morning baby," he softly says, voice hoarse from sleep. With eyes still squinting from the light, he gently presses his lips against hers, not caring about morning breath.

Cecelia sighs into the kiss. "Good morning my love." Knowing they need to start getting ready for the day, she starts to get up, but Bradley tightens his hold on her.

"No," he whines. "Don't move yet, you're warm."

She laughs lightly, this being a fairly regular occurrence. "Up and at 'em Brad, you've got a busy day ahead of you," she reminds him.

Finally getting out of his hold, she makes her way to the bathroom. As she does her morning routine, Bradley sits up, trying to wake up before he gets ready as well.

Calling out to Cecelia, he asks, "What are you doing today while I'm on base?" Knowing she doesn't know her way around, he's curious to see if he can help her out before leaving for the day.

"I was planning on exploring town a bit, stopping to pick up some groceries since this place is empty," she tells him. "Maybe look for some new clothes or see if there's a gym I can use while we are here. Doctor's orders to keep working on building my strength back up."

Quickly glancing at her knee, he makes sure she's feeling alright. "How's it feeling? I know sometimes being in a plane can make it swell, especially after the surgery."

She smiles lightly at him. "It's doing perfectly fine. No pain at all. I was planning on checking in with physical therapy to see how many more sessions I need. I'm getting antsy to get back to performing, or at least dancing."

"Well, I have no doubt you will be dancing like nothing ever happened in no time at all," Bradley states confidently. "Now, I have to get ready, because as you said, there's no food, so I need to stop before heading into base."

Chuckling, Cecelia heads for the bedroom door. "Don't let me stop you, I'll go see if we at least have any coffee." Pecking his lips quickly, she leaves him shaking his head at her.

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True to what she told Bradley that morning, Cecelia was exploring the town, getting a feel for her home for the next however many weeks.  Being born and raised in New York, there was such a different atmosphere to Fightertown, USA.

While her parents tried to keep them in more of a suburban area of New York growing up, she quickly adapted to the City living during college. And after landing some of her bigger roles, having an apartment in the city was more manageable than living out in the suburbs.

Walking around the town, Cecelia finds many little shops she mentally lists to visit later. A small florist shop, the local book store, various boutiques, even a little photography studio. She could have spent all day just walking in and out of the shops, but she did actually have things to buy. And unfortunately, none of those stores had what she needed.

Finding a gym was easy enough. Entering the front door, she checked with the desk to make sure she didn't need a membership to use the facilities, especially since she would only be there a few weeks. Quite by chance, she ends up talking with the trainer and they take her around the gym, making sure to find the right machines and exercises to work her knee and leg back up to full strength.

After making arrangements to come in after talking with her doctors, Cecelia leaves, wandering around town once more, looking for a grocery store of any kind. Fresh market, chain store, little corner shop, anything that would have food for their empty house.

Finding a few shops that had a mix of everything, Cecelia bought fruits, vegetables, bread, anything you can think of, she probably bought.

And let's not forget the alcohol.

By the time she finished all her running around and made her way back to the house, Cecelia was exhausted. Setting an alarm for an hour later, she settled on the couch for a quick nap.

One power nap later and she was finally ready to call the doctor. Her main goal was to be able to work out normally. Months of physical therapy had helped after such a major surgery, but she wanted to be back at 100% again. She wanted to be able to dance again.

The doctor told her, if she was able to see a doctor where she was for some x-rays and have them sent over to him, he could give her either the official clear or thr news of needing more time.

And with that information in mind, Cecelia got to work finding doctors in the area. But before she could delve to far into the realm of internet searches, the front door opened and closed, rather roughly.

"Bradley, is that you?" She calls out. "Wait, don't answer that, of course its you. There are only two keys, duh," she half mumbles to herself for the stupid question.

"How was the first day? Anything you're allowed to share with me?" She questions, quickly taking noticed to the angered expression on his face and the exhausted look in his eyes.

Bradley doesn't make direct eye contact with her, knowing the moment he did, the dam would burst on all his emotions. "We don't know much about the actual mission yet, today was more of a 'see what we've got' type of thing."

Cecelia just keeps looking at him. "Ok, that's kinda sucky, but that doesn't explain why you're so tense. You've done missions many times before, what makes this one so different?" She's worried because she's only seen him this angry and upset a handful of times.

"Because none of those were being led by the one person I thought I could trust before he stabbed me right in the back," Bradley replies vehemently. His breathing is shallow, trying to keep his anger in check so he doesn't take it out on Cecelia. All she's ever done is help him, so he tries his best not to let the job make its way home.

Cecelia looks puzzled for a few moments before realization hits her like a train. "Maverick," she whispers. A man she's only heard of a few times, most in anger. One or two times, she was able to pull the history out of Bradley, knowing Maverick was like another father to him after his dad died.

But to find out he was now training Bradley, as well as about a dozen others for a mission they don't even have details on? That was not something she never expected to happen in a million years.

Walking slowly towards Bradley's heaving figure, she reaches out to grasp one of his hands. "Hey," she calls out lowly, "don't let him get to you. You were called back here for a reason. That being you're one of the best damn pilots in the Navy, maybe even all of the armed forces. You proved him wrong for whatever reasons he had for doing what he did."

Bradley takes a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself down. Looking up, he finally meets Cecelia's eyes and behind the obvious anger, all she can see is hurt. Hurt and what Maverick did, what he prevented, what he knew Bradley wanted anf stood in the way of.

"I know it's been years and I know I've proved myself. But despite it all, there's still a part of me that wants his approval of what I've done. What I've made of hyself," he whispers to her. The atmosphere no longer tense, but simply sad, like the slightest of noises would cause everything to fall apart.

"He stopped me before I got to my plane," Bradley recounts what happened earlier in the day. "No matter the fact that he said it was up to me whether or not I'm up for this mission, I can't help but feel like he's gonna stop this too."

"If that would happen, we take it in stride," she tells him. "And besides, if he pulls anything like that again, he's got to deal with me. And you of all people should know what I'm like when I'm angry," she tries to get a smile out of him.

It works, as it always does.

"Enough with my day, what did you find around town?" Bradley asks her, trying to lighten the damper of a mood he brought into the house.

Cecelia perks up at that. "I found all these cure boutique shops that I will be exploring while we are here. And a beautiful flower shop I might stop into and start looking at potential flower arrangements," she starts planning. "Oh, and get some new clothes, because winter is different here than it is in New York."

"I told you to pack some more light clothes, but you insisted you knew what you were doing," Bradley wastes no time in teasing her, knowing this would happen before they had even left New York.

She gives him a light shove while laughing, knowing he's right. "Yeah well, lesson learned."

A small moment of silence overtakes the room as they just soak in each other's presence. One that is quickly broken by the sounds of a stomach crying out for food.

"So what do you want for dinner?"

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Word count: 1,713

I wanted to give you a peak into their domestic lives a bit. I know not a lot happened this chapter, but it sets up some things for the future.

Also, I am not a medical professional, nor do I dance or play sports. I am a very non-athletic person. But I've got many friends that are and have had injuries, so I'm basing all my knowledge of of them and their healing experiences. Sorry if it is not correct, I'm a design major, not exactly equipt for biology/anatomy.

I hope you enjoyed a look into domestic life for the lovelies. We will see some more movie scenes next chapter (with something that I'm pretty sure wouldn't happen in real life, but I'm taking creative liberties so….)

Bye for now!