The ride back felt like time sped up. She was smiling ear to ear as they land on the carrier. From above she can see everyone waiting for them to land. The second her feet hit the ground she makes a run for it colliding quickly with Bob. Her legs wrap around his waist as she smiles into his neck.
"You love scaring me to death, don't you?"
She chuckles, "I have to keep you on your toes, right?"
"I love you so much but you're an idiot."
"I love you too but you're such a geek it's adorable."
"After that, I'm letting you go."
"Nooo," she whines holding him tighter.
He laughs, "you're such a child."
"Your child."
He shakes his head, "that's just so wrong."
The two laugh for another minute holding each other. When she lets go she turns around hugging the life out of Reuben. "Thank you for saving me."
He smiles softly, "you looked like you had yourself covered."
She punches his shoulder, "just accept the thank you." He just laughs at her.
To her left spots some other familiar faces, Phoenix and Fanboy. The force of their embrace sends them backward. "Don't do that again!" Phoenix pokes her chest harshly. Finley gives her a look. "I can't imagine what it would have been like to tell your brother you weren't coming home," she cries quietly.
"What about Dylan?"
"Finley!"
She raises her hands in surrender. "Sorry, I don't know how to be serious in any situation."
"Then can you at least pretend?"
Her heart aches to see the pain riding Nat's face. She frowns pulling her into another hug. "I'm sorry I did that to you. I promise it won't happen again."
"It better not!"
She uses her thumbs to push up Nat's chin. The corners of her lips tug up reassuringly. "I'm telling you, it won't." Her eyes plead for her to get what she means.
Nat's eyes widen. "You don't mean—"
"I'll let you know when I talk to Robbie, okay?" Nat simply nods not having the words to reply. She is picked up from behind being spun around. "Bradley Bradshaw you put me down this instant!"
He obeys her command setting her down. She looks back at him, a grin on her face. "So that was your plan? Killing guys and blowing up the place to smithereens?"
She shrugs, "more or less. You know, you're a little bitch for worrying about me."
"I was unaware that wasn't allowed. To worry for you, that is."
Her brain scrambled from what just happened prevents her from giving a good comeback. Instead, she splutters, "asshole."
"Who ate your bowl of sunshine this morning, thundercloud?" Bradley wrinkles a brow. "Oh, that was the only thing you could think of, wasn't it?"
She grumbles, "shut up." She sighs in content eventually smiling up to him. "It's good to see you, big brother."
"It's good seeing you too, little sister. Someone has been worried about you for some time."
He gestures over his shoulder to a brown hair green-eyed man. She sighs looking back at Bradley. "I'll talk to you later?" Bradley tips his head and then walks away. She strides up to Maverick. She stands awkwardly in front of her. He huffs out a breath still trying to process all that happened. "Dad, I'm sorry." His eyes light up at the word 'dad.' Maverick pulls her into his chest giving her a tight hug.
After a while, he separates them. He slaps her lightly upside the side. She grabs her ear feeling the light vibration after the ringing. "What were you thinking? No, don't answer that."
She opens her mouth to respond but shuts it immediately. Maverick shakes his head with a laugh. "I always said 'don't think, just do', but I don't think that applies to you. You don't listen. You're a little too much like me."
"I'll take that as a compliment, thank you."
"Come on, Finley."
"Fin."
"What?" Maverick raises his brows confused by what she had said.
She sighs, "friends and family call me Fin."
"Okay... Fin."
"Oh and we call Oaklynn 'Oak Tree' just to piss him off. Feel free to use that."
He laughs wholeheartedly. "Next time you plan on doing something stupid, at least warn me first."
"Would you have let me do it if you did know?" He doesn't respond urging her to go on. "You said it yourself, I'm a little too much like you. I don't follow the rules, dad, I break them."
"That's the second time you called me dad..."
"The third actually," she mumbles, "I blurted it out when you were unconscious."
He hums. "Stop abusing these privileges."
"You know I won't."
"Yeah, yeah. Go to Bob, he seems to be waiting for you."
She seems to be turning all which ways. She turns some way spotting her husband in the crowd. He watches her with a smile on his face. His hands are interlaced in front of him waiting patiently.
"In a minute," she doesn't look to her father noticing Admiral Bates and Simpson walking up to her from behind her husband. "There's something I need to do first."
She meets both men half way. Everyone stands around celebrating their victory. In all seriousness, both admirals extend their hands to her. She smiles briefly shaking them.
"I may not approve the way you think, but I must admit, you did good, Captain."
She beams up to Admiral Simpson. "Thank you, sir. I know it must of been hard putting your faith in me," she teases.
"You like pissing me off, huh?"
"It's a spur of the moment type thing but it brings me great joy, yes. Though I may sound cocky, I know I'm a valuable asset to the Navy and you'd never get rid of me. Whether my dad was alive or not."
Simpson rolls his eyes at her, Bates smiles gleefully from behind. With that being said she pulls out the flash drive handing it over to her superior. "What's this?" Simpson asks.
"When I was still over there, there were computers with launch ideas. I dived deeper and surfaced a lot more plans they had. This information was lethal to the United States, it could have started a third world war between foreign countries. What I can tell you with this many people around is that the Enrichment Plant wasn't their only choice of weapon. There were others. On that drive is all the intel I was able to gather."
Bates eyes bulge, "other weapons?"
"Yes, those weapons were destroyed when we bombed the thing. Though I wasn't going to let them keep their data and plans to start this all over again."
Simpson stares curiously at the flash drive. "Then we should be thanking you, Captain. You might have just prevented another war."
"Your welcome. If it's alright with you I'd like to go talk to my husband now."
"Of course, Captain."
"Before I do there is one last thing I want to talk to you about..."
A few minutes later she walks up to Bob. "Are you okay?" He asks.
Tipping the corner of her lip, she says, "never better. There is something I wanted to talk to you about though."
He raises a brow, "what's that?"
She lets out a long sigh looking down at the carrier floor. "When I go back to Afghanistan and finish the mission... I want to be done with the Navy."
His jaw slacks like a fish out of water. "You want to retire?"
"We're both thirty, babe. We talked about having a family of our own. We wouldn't be able to do that being on opposite sides of the world."
"You're serious about this? You said the Navy is your life. What about Maverick, or the Admirals?"
She shakes her head. "You're my life. I don't want to have to do something as dangerous as we just did." With a sigh she says, "as for my father I'll break it to him after the mission is complete in Afghanistan. I'm regards to the admirals, I actually just got done talking to them about it. My next step would be to talk to McCoy."
He kisses her sweetly on the lips getting the crowd of people to cheer. She takes his glasses off kissing him more passionately this time. Their foreheads lean against each other.
"Then you finish your mission and let's start a family," his voice says into her ear. She smiles kissing him once more.
She's right where she needs to be.