Chapter Text
San Diego was, quite possibly, the last place on Earth Estelle Perdriau, née Mitchell, wanted to be. Well, that was obviously a bit of a stretch. She didn’t want to be a lot of places. But, San Diego was definitely in her top ten. In large part because she knew her father’s last known location to be the Mojave desert, which was truly just a hop skip and a jump away from San Diego and thus, Fighter Town, USA. It wasn’t that San Diego wasn’t an incredibly beautiful place to be—it was. There was a reason everyone wanted to live in California, and San Diego’s mild weather and sunny beaches were definitely a big part of that.
It was just she wasn’t particularly happy to be going back to the place where it had all started for her—literally speaking.
Her mother had been a nursing student when she’d met Estelle’s father, who’d then been stationed at Lemoore. The pair had dated for about three months—just long enough for Estelle to have been conceived. She’d give them credit—they didn’t try to stay together, to make the relationship work when it was so obviously doomed. And they’d truly tried their best at the beginning. Her mother took a brief leave of absence from nursing school when she was pregnant, and once Estelle was old enough, returned to school. At the time, her father was still stationed at Lemoore, and so Estelle spent the first year of her life while her mother was finishing nursing school staying on a naval air base and being effectively cared for by the wife of her father’s RIO while the woman cared for her son, who was about a year older than Estelle.
But, when her mother graduated from nursing school and secured a job back in Northern California, she obviously wanted to take her daughter with her. And, as the timing would have it, her father got orders for a change of station at the same time. And, of course, the new station was on the East coast.
From there, the custody arrangement that controlled her childhood was decided. Estelle would spend summers and every other school break with her father (with an alternating schedule for Christmas).
When she was really young, Estelle didn’t mind this arrangement. She liked traveling places to spend time with her naval aviator father, so proud of him and so enchanted by his job. But, as she got older, she paid attention to how the already imperfect custody arrangement fell apart due to her father’s job. Sometimes, she was supposed to visit her father only to find out he was deployed. Other times, he was stationed internationally, which made it a bit hard to fly out and see him. They’d managed it a few times, but it was expensive and hard to coordinate. Not to mention the few times where Estelle had flown out to see her father, only for him to get immediate orders a few weeks into the visit. Normally, he’d just book her an early flight home to her mother. But a few times, when he’d been stationed in Oceana or other places in the South East, he just drove her to the same damn RIO’s wife’s house—even if the woman no longer had any naval connections after the death of a her husband three years after Estelle was born—and Estelle would see out the rest of her visit with the small family of two.
Safe to say, by the time she was twelve, she’d truly started to resent her father. Or more aptly, she resented her father’s job. That resentment only deepened after Estelle’s mother died. The illness had been sudden—unexpected. Rare. One day, her mother had been fine, the next she’d noticed weakness in her arms. Within a month, she was diagnosed with ALS; Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a progressive terminal disease of the nervous system where the muscles slowly stopped working until eventually, the most important muscle of all, the heart, stopped too. Within a year of diagnosis, her mother was dead and Estelle went to live with her father full time.
To say that her father had no clue what to do with a grieving fourteen year old who already hated him would be an understatement. However, in a rare moment of clarity, he did something responsible; he called on his connections within the Navy and got his duty station changed to Virginia—to Oceana, to be exact.
And that’s how Estelle ended up effectively living with her father’s former RIO’s wife and son for most of her high school years. Because technically, she was supposed to live on base with her father in base housing; he just wanted to be in Oceana because he knew he needed help in raising a teenager after having been a pretty absent parent for most of her life. But, that her father had pulled strings now pissed off the already grieving teenager even more. As an adult, she knew that there were only so many favors he could truly ask for. Her pseudo uncle wasn’t as high up as he was in the Navy now, didn’t have as much sway. And yes, it did mean something that he’d called the favors in when they’d really, truly mattered.
But at the time, Estelle could only see that there were strings that could have been pulled so that father spent more time with daughter, yet her father didn’t deign to pull them until he suddenly had full custody.
Which was how Estelle ended up living with Carole and her son, Bradley. Carole quickly took Estelle under her wings and became a desperately needed second mother. Carole was the one who helped Estelle learn how to use tampons and pads when her first period came mere months after her mother’s passing. Carole was the one who took her shopping for dresses for various school dances, who attended her parent-teacher conferences whenever her father was inevitably deployed. Carole was the one who helped her grieve her mother, who listened to Estelle’s troubles to adjusting to the East coast. And Bradley, sweet, kind, gangly Bradley, was the one who helped her find friends. And while he left the boy troubles to his mother, he always made sure that no one made fun of Estelle. That she found her niche among the other more studious girls, and that if any boy tried to fuck with her, they’d have to deal with his fists. Because while sweet and kind and gangly was a highly accurate description of the teenaged boy given that he’d yet to fill out his height, he was on the baseball team—the pitcher—and had quite the swing as a result.
So when Carole had died towards the end of Bradley’s senior year of high school and Estelle’s junior year, Estelle had been devastated. Obviously not as devastated as Bradley, who was now an orphan, but still devastated. Her father became both of their guardians for the remainder of the year and did what was probably his best. But, just like he hadn’t known how to comfort Estelle when her mother had eventually succumbed to ALS, he didn’t know quite how to comfort Bradley when Carole had eventually succumbed to cancer.
Emotions had never been her father’s forte.
And then her father did something to piss off Bradley so much that Bradley left the house the second he turned eighteen and was legally able to—after two months of radio silence between the two following a particularly explosive argument that Estelle had been lucky (unlucky?) enough not to be home for.
That was probably about the time that Estelle stopped speaking to her father about anything meaningful. Because she’d lost her mother and she’d lost Carole. But that was just shit luck. Now though, she’d lost Bradley. She’d lost one of her best friends because of something her father had done. And her father wouldn’t even tell her what he’d done to piss off Bradley so much. She didn’t blame Bradley, couldn’t. Yes, she wished to this day that her friend had kept in touch with her but… Estelle could understand why he didn’t. At the end of the day, she was still a Mitchell living under her father’s roof. And then well… then too much time had passed.
So, she kept her father up to date on her life. But they didn’t talk, didn’t even really see each other except for sporadic phone calls and curt email exchanges punctuated by brief coffee dates when they happened to be in the same city.
She’d sent him a photo from her college graduation (he had paid for what her scholarships hadn’t covered, after all). She’d even told him when she’d been accepted into law school. However, she didn’t tell him until it was too late that she’d joined the Navy to pay for law school. She didn’t want to be in the Navy—had even considered joining other branches when it became apparent that either military service or a substantial amount of student loans would be required to become a lawyer. But she couldn’t quite make herself betray the generational service to the Navy on her father’s side. And her Uncle Tom, who she spoke to more than she spoke to her father and who she knew her father got most of his information about her from, managed to convince her that being a Navy lawyer would be far more interesting than being an Air Force or Army lawyer.
And so the Navy paid for Estelle to attend law school in exchange for her service afterwards.
It was at that time that Estelle started going by her mother’s last name. Legally, her last name was still Mitchell. Perdriau, her mother’s last name, was Estelle’s middle name. But, joining the Navy as the daughter of an infamous fighter pilot was hard enough. Doing it as a JAG corps officer while also being his daughter was even harder. So, she pulled some strings with her now much higher ranking uncle and got it so that, in the eyes of the Navy, she was Estelle Perdriau.
At least, unless someone looked at her medical records and saw her next-of-kin.
And, unfortunately for her, naval law was something she excelled at. Maritime and international law were the two areas she excelled in during law school. Blame it on being a Navy brat, blame it on being a Mitchell (you have to know the laws to break them). So, while originally she was just going to serve her time and get out, she somehow found herself on track for a rather prestigious naval career.
Which brought her to the present moment. She was back where it all began, pulled from her position at the Navy Yard because they needed her to consult on a top secret mission and make sure the mission parameters were the least likely to break international law as possible. Apparently, she’d been chosen out of a small group of potential officers to fill this position.
She arrived at North Island Naval Air base early the morning she was supposed to report for duty. She hadn’t been here since her father had attended Top Gun. She didn’t have a lot of memories of the time, but the ones she had were enough to rattle her.
Flashes of a funeral. Of Carole crying. Of her father crying.
Taking a deep breath, she braced herself and prepared to walk mostly blind into her first meeting for this top secret mission. Whatever it entailed, she could handle it. The JAG wouldn’t have sent her if she wasn’t qualified. Briefly, she touched the new pin on her uniform. She was a fresh Lieutenant Commander. Uncle Tom had done the ceremony for her right before his illness had taken a turn for the worse and he’d lost the ability to speak. He’d been so proud of her, tears in his eyes as he conducted the ceremony. The numerous questions she’d had to field regarding her close relationship with COMPACFLT had been worth it just to give her surrogate godfather (the first one had been her father’s beloved RIO) a positive memory to hold onto while his health declined.
Ten years since she’d graduated law school, ten years in the Navy. A rising reputation as a JAG officer of impeccable integrity and an uncanny ability to nearly always find the winning argument in court. It didn’t quite feel real sometimes.
But she was damn good at her job. That’s why she was here. That’s why she’d been promoted.
With that reminder, she got out of her car—it was time to go to work.
When she entered the briefing room, she should have expected to see her father. Really, she should have. Top secret mission with a high likelihood of violating international law? That had her father written all over it.
Somehow though, she was surprised to see her father before her. Her only consolation was that he was just as surprised to see her.
She ignored him and his shocked and questioning gaze, turning her attention towards the highest ranking officer in the room. “Vice Admiral Simpson,” she saluted.
“At ease, Lieutenant Commander.” Estelle did just that, following his nonverbal orders to sit down and get comfortable as he introduced her to the other men in the room. She glanced around the room once introductions were finished, taking note for the first time of the projector screen. She scanned the pilots on the screen, pausing when she came to one particular name.
So Bradley had followed in his father’s footsteps after all, just like he’d wanted to. The last she’d seen him, he was storming out of her father’s house in the middle of the night. He somehow looked exactly the same and yet wholly different from her last image of him.
“Those are the pilots with the flight time and experience to run this mission.” Beau filled in the gap for her. “Tell me, Commander Perdriau, what do you know about this mission?”
Internally shaking herself out of the reminiscence the sight of her long lost friend had put her in, she opened her briefcase. Rifling through it, she pulled out what she was looking for from in between her copy of the UMJC and the International Law Handbook. The binder landed with a thud on the table before her, making the men in the room jolt in shock.
It had been a long flight from D.C. to San Diego, and Estelle was nothing if not thorough. She didn’t want people to associate her with her father. Didn’t want to give them any hint that she shared blood with an aviator so unpredictable his callsign was Maverick. Yes, she may share his hair color and his smile, alongside a handful of other facial features. But she’d gotten her mother’s curls and her mother’s hazel eyes. And she had to hope that the difference in appearance (and height if she was being honest, also inheriting that trait from her mother), combined with a stark contrast in attitude, would make sure no one ever made the connection.
The binder before her was thicker than the original file given to her by a wide margin. Not only did it contain the original briefing materials, but carefully hole punched and placed inside were photocopied pages of laws and legal precedents she thought might be relevant from various textbooks and legal handbooks. Color-coded sticky notes stuck out of the binder at various intervals, hinting at the organization revealed when she opened the simple Navy-issued binder to show how thorough she truly was—every inch of blank space on the papers in front of her was either highlighted or annotated.
There was a reason she’d graduated at the top of her class in law school. A reason why she’d only lost two cases in her career so far. Why she was known for always being able to find the winning argument, for being able to craft an airtight case despite the odds in front of her.
“I’m very familiar, Admiral Simpson.” She smiled at the man. “But I’d appreciate it if you could update me on any new information since you last filed a report with the JAG.”
Once she was dismissed with orders to report again in the morning the next day to introduce herself to the aviators who would be flying the mission, Estelle was out of that room as fast as her admittedly long legs could take her. She ignored the sound of who could only be her father running to catch up with her.
“Ellie!”
Her name sounded foreign on his tongue. Like he didn’t say it out loud very often anymore. She ignored him, keeping up her rapid pace as she made a beeline to her barracks room.
“Elle! Estelle!” She heard a huff and a groan behind her before her name was called again. “Commander Perdriau!”
At that, Estelle unfortunately had to still. He may be her estranged father, but he was still a superior officer. Ever so reluctantly and not even bothering to keep her face neutral, Estelle did a practiced about face and turned around to face her father. “Captain Mitchell.”
Her father seemingly didn’t know what to do with himself once she’d actually acknowledged him. Maybe he hadn’t expected her to actually turn around and heed his call. She watched him stumble over his words, mouth falling open and closed. But she’d do nothing to relieve his discomfort—if Pete wanted to pull rank on her, then she’d let him pull rank. But she’d be damned if she made it any easier for him.
And Pete, at a minimum, was aware of that. It was his fault, he knew, that their relationship was what it was. That he’d always put flying first over his daughter. She’d kept him up to date on major life events, and he knew from Tom about her recent promotion and how good she was at her job. But he hadn’t expected her to be the JAG officer assigned to this mission. And he told her as much. “Ice didn’t tell me you’d be here.”
“If it makes you feel better,” she sighed, “he didn’t tell me either. I’m sure the JAG knew,” because of all the people in the Navy, the people responsible for her assignments had to know of any potential conflict of interests for her, including anything involving her father, “but they also didn’t tell me.”
His sharp green eyes met her unwavering gaze at the words she’d left unspoken. Clearly, the powers that be had determined that it didn’t matter if the two Mitchells were on the same assignment. Either there truly was no conflict of interest, or their respective skillsets outweighed any possible conflict of interests. “Have you… have you seen Ice, recently?”
Estelle shook her head, a crease appearing between her eyebrows. “No, I… Not since I made Lieutenant Commander. I keep in touch with Sarah, I… I know he’s not doing well.”
Pete nodded in confirmation. “Not much longer now.”
Making a decision then, she let her guard down. Not a lot—barely at all, really—but enough to make the conversation more familial than professional. “Mav,” she addressed him by his callsign, noting how he winced at it. She hadn’t called him a variation of father to his face since Bradley had walked out of the house and she knew it bothered him. “We just need to get through these next few weeks. And I’d appreciate it,” she gave him a knowing look, “if you didn’t bring our relationship out into the open.”
At that, her father smirked. “You don’t think the Navy can handle a Mitchell being the voice of reason?”
Estelle suppressed a laugh, shaking her head at her father’s far too apt statement. Her father and her grandfather had both been pains in their superiors' asses. She was the Mitchell who was, so far, breaking the trend. She was a pain her superiors’ asses, sure. But she was a pain because she called them out on their shit, not because she started it. “At a minimum,” she smirked, “it might make the Vice Admiral’s head explode.”
Pete allowed himself a soft chuckle at that. The tension between the two men was palpable, and it was clear as day that Beau disagreed with the decision to involve Pete in this mission; even if Pete truly was the only aviator qualified to teach it. “That might be hard to explain in a mission report.”
Her own soft chuckle followed before a thick, crushing silence fell between them. Pete gulped, meeting her intense stare and knowing he’d have to be the one to break it. “Can we… can we at least spend some time together while you’re here?” He asked, his voice painfully uncertain.
Maybe it was the location. Being back in the place where everything had truly started to go tits up. Because while Estelle didn’t really have a lot of memories of Nick, she did of Carole. She knew that Carole had given Pete a lot of shit over the years for not being a present father, and she had to think that, if Nick had lived, her childhood would have turned out different—that her father would have been more present. Maybe it was just the impending death of a man who was important to both of them. Whatever it was, it softened something inside of her enough to agree to his request.
“Okay.” She acquiesced. He just started sighing in relief when she gave him her stipulations. “But not anywhere on base,” she warned, “and no Navy hangouts.”
Pete’s sigh turned from relieved to accepting. “Okay then.” He agreed. Beggars couldn’t be choosers after all. “Dinner tonight? Somewhere up the coast?”
Estelle nodded. “Dinner.”
“It’s good to see you, Ellie.” Pete couldn’t help but try, her childhood nickname falling so easily off his lips. No matter the time or distance between them, she was still his little girl—his Ellie. The small, premature baby he’d held against his chest right after she was born—all five pounds five ounces of her—shaking and terrified but knowing that he was holding the most important thing in the world to him in his arms. He knew he hadn’t shown it well over the years, but she was more important to him than flying. It’s just… Pete didn’t know how to be a father. He knew how to fly though, how to use his preternatural talent in a cockpit to provide for his daughter financially.
He wasn’t really good at anything else. But he still remembered calling Nick from a hospital payphone, terrified out of his mind that he was now a father, that he, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell had somehow managed to create a daughter so beautiful, so perfect, that her mother and him had felt nearly duty bound to name her their little star.
Estelle stilled at the familiar nickname. Her father had never liked calling her by her full name, and Estelle and her mother had long ago decided it was a fighter pilot thing. And as a child, Estelle had liked being called Ellie. It was a name only a select few people could call her. As an adult, however, she largely went by either Estelle, or, if she was friends with the person, Elle. She gave him a long look at the nickname, at the familiarity she didn’t think he still deserved. Her lips pursed as she considered her answer, making him sweat for an uncomfortably long time.
Just when he thought she wasn’t going to answer, that she was going to walk away from him without saying another word, she spoke. “I hope it’ll be good to see you too, Mav.”