Thistle ~ Bradley Rooster Bradshaw

One

The door to the large home, more like a mansion Lucille had thought, opened to reveal Sarah who looked tired.

Not physically, mentally.

"Sarah" was the only words to leave Lucille's lips, she didn't know what else to say. Words had escaped her, which was very uncommon for her.

"Lucille, come in" she gave a sad looking smile, as if she were trying to convince Lucille that it were genuine but she didn't have the strength to. Lucille entered closing the door behind her while Sarah walked to the table, looking out the large windows into the garden. Kids running around, laughing, oblivious to the obvious pain their mother was in.

Lucille stepped closer putting a hand on Sarah's shoulder.

"He wanted to see you, he misses you keeping him on his toes you know" she looked toward the wall to see the photo in a brown wooden frame, it caught Lucille's eye, it was a photograph with Ice in the middle surrounded by the Top Gun aviators the year Lucille came first. She stood proudly beside him smiling in the photo. "He's in his office" Sarah pointed to the closed door across the room.

"I'll get to him, he can wait" Lucille laughed slightly earning a broken chuckle from the woman before her. "How are you?" Sarah pulled her into a hug, Sarah was a hugger, but this was different.

"It's back" Sarah revealed what Lucille had already guessed. Lucille's heart fell.

Ice and Sarah had been kind to Lucille, they'd taken her in for however many months after her mother had died, Lucille was lost and they helped her find herself. Ice saved her backside from the warning she got not long after the passing. An event she didn't want to talk about, a warning she was glad didn't come up very often.

Lucille never knew her father, only that he was American and his mother and father signed the documents and stayed in contact with her mother hence her duel citizenship. Her mother refused to tell her who her father was, claimed he left them after she was born. Wanted nothing to do with her. Sarah knew Lucille's mother, which meant she had someone to talk to after everything happened. Lucille's mother passed when she was 22, young and terrified of a life with no family.

Until Ice and Sarah had treated her like family. Although she knew it wasn't the same. They were just kind.

Lucille squeezed Sarah tighter, "he's strong, just like you" she breathed heavily as she spoke, still trying to remember that herself, convince herself that the only somewhat father figure she had, even if it were only for 9 months or so, would be okay.

Sarah sniffled as she pulled away.

"Go get him kid" she chuckled a little at the saying. I've always called her kid, no matter how often she convinced him she was no child.

Lucille squeezed Sarah's hand as she walked away, toward the office.

She could hear his coughs as she got closer, opening the door and sliding in quietly she spoke halfheartedly, knowing how sore he'd be, "look who's getting old" trying to cheer him up. Even slightly. His head turned and he stood laughing at her comment.

He pointed to a chair indicating she sit there.

He sat down, waiting for her to do the same.

"How are you keeping Tom?" She smiled, using his name, not his call sign. He smiled widely at the girl before him before turning to type on his keyboard, Lucille watched as the words became a sentence on his screen before her.

I've been better.

She gave him a concerned look which he shrugged off before erasing that message and typing again.