FLYBY (b. bradshaw)

𝙉𝙄𝙉𝙀𝙏𝙀𝙀𝙉

Lilah was utterly alone on the tarmac.

The wind was blowing, hard, as she pulled herself up onto the wing of her own aircraft. She hadn't bothered to do checks, she wouldn't be in the air long. Less than ten minutes if possible. 

She closed to canopy, and started switching on everything. The left engine roared to life, then the right. 

"Captain Hollis to central, I repeat, Captain Hollis to central." Lilah heard a movement. Someone was listening. "Confirming takeoff."

When the voice crackled to life though the comms, Lilah had never been more disappointed, yet relieved at the voice. She could almost see Maverick staring at her from control tower.

"Denied, Hurricane, you're not getting up there tonight." he said, his voice was soft, sad. "You need to go home, sleep." 

She ignored him. "Is the sky clear?" 

"Yes." he seemed close to lying. Maverick could never lie to her, though. 

"Then I'm going up. See you in ten, Mav." 

Lilah shoved the joystick forward and she was moving. She was aware of multiple voices screaming at her over the comms. She switched channels. 

The end of the runway was approaching. She closed her eyes, wishing, in the moment, that time would just stop. When she opened her eyes back up, she was in the air.

She hadn't felt the sensation of being crushed into the back of her seat, the way her stomach dropped as she pulled up. The adrenaline was pumping though. It pounded in her skull like someone was beating her continuously. 

She switched back to the original channel.

"Put the course into my GPS, Mav." They were the same rank, but Lilah was ordering him to do it. 

"No." Maverick said, mad. "Get your ass out of the sky, or I'm grounding you until further notice, you won't be flying on this mission." 

"Put the goddamn course in, Maverick. Let me do this, I need to do this." 

Her breath sure was catching in her throat and her chest was moving up and down too fast. She shrugged to keep her vision from blurring.

"Lilah, you're not stable enough, you've been drinking." Maverick said, sounding more like a concerned parent than her teacher or captain.

"I sobered up hours ago." Lilah told him, taking a deep breath. "I need to do this, Mav, for him. I need him to be proud of me." 

"He was proud of you, and he wouldn't want you risking your life to prove something we all know you can do." Maverick assured, trying to talk her out of it. "It's dark out there, Captain, one wrong move and it's over." 

"The longer we argue, the longer up I'm up." Lilah countered. "In the dark, so put the fucking course up." 

Maverick didn't respond, but a second later the course popped up on Lilah's navigation system. She didn't bother muttering a thank you, Maverick was already gone off of the channel.  

She kept flying as the voice counted down. "Time to target: 10, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one." 

And then she was flying faster than she'd ever flown. She must've been 50 feet from the ground and the world around her was a blur. She'd never felt so good, flying so risky.