A/N: Details about Richard "Duke" Mitchell (including his first name) taken from the movie novelization of Top Gun. Details about the history of the F-4 Phantom in relation to the Oriskany taken from the Wiki page on VF-51, as well as other details found there.
Thank you to like-islands for the link to the movie novelization, thereby saving me having to buy it on Amazon for $80. Much appreciated.

Weeks ago...

It was early, before classes for the day, when Viper looked up to find Charlie at his office door, holding a yellow notepad and frowning at it, as if she was trying to figure out a complex math problem. "Charlie?"

She glanced at him, then studied the notepad again, lost in thought. What she said next gave him pause. "The dates are wrong, and you can't have flown an F-4 Phantom off of the Oriskany, because the F-4 was too big for the carrier deck."

Viper frowned, wondering what had made her look into something like that. "What?"

"Stories told over dinner, Mike," Charlie mused, still looking at the notepad. "Stop me if I've gotten any of this wrong, official story or otherwise. A man disappeared, went AWOL, in an F-4 Phantom in November of 1965. This same man, a test pilot with Grumman for the F-14 before he returned to active duty with VF-51... this same man and his wife, according to their son, liked an Otis Redding song that was not released until January of 1968." She looked up from the notepad, frowning at him. "I know for a fact that VF-51 did switch to the F-4, but that wasn't until 1971. So, and I ask this carefully, because not even my security clearance could get me into those files... what actually happened to Duke Mitchell?"

"Get in here and close the door," Viper said automatically while motioning to the chair near his desk. "Sit."

Charlie did as he ordered, saw down, and waited as Viper composed himself. "What about that makes you uneasy?"

"How did you hear the official story?"

"Maverick told me," Charlie answered, frowning again at the sigh that he failed to hide. "The way he talked about his mother set off so many bells, and then there was the classifiedness of what he does know, or thinks he does, about his father. I couldn't not look into it after that, and that was when I figured out that everything about it is off."

"Intentionally," Viper muttered and stood up to look out of his office window for a minute. He wanted to say a lot of things, things he'd been ordered to keep quiet about. When he turned back to her, she was waiting patiently. Then he nodded. "Laos was an even worse quagmire than Vietnam, because of the civil war and CIA involvement. The State Department ordered every last one of us who had survived the mission to secrecy, and Duke's family was told a fabricated story." He sat down again, opened one of the drawers in his desk, and pulled out a thick folder that he set on his desk. Viper stared at the file for a moment, then met her steadying gaze. "I didn't find out the damage it had done until it was too late to do anything, because Duke's wife had moved back to Fort Worth Naval Air Station from Long Island while he'd been gone instead of here to Miramar where VF-51 was and is stationed. By the time I was stateside again, she was deceased and his son was in the Foster Care system."

Charlie nodded slowly. "So I'm right." She paused. "Foster care?"

"That detail stays here," Viper told her sharply. "Why were you having dinner with Maverick, if you don't mind my asking?" It was incredibly unusual for her to get involved with students that came through the program.

"I wanted to hear more about the MiG encounter."

Viper nodded, then tapped the file with an index finger. "I've been trying to find a way to undo the redactions and the secrecy ever since, Charlie. Trying to bring Duke home, as it were, getting report after report from people who were there and survived, but I need someone in Washington. I need you, and I need a Freedom of Information Act Request, a FOIA, submitted to the State Department and the CIA by someone, but haven't found that person yet." He watched her open her mouth and shook his head. "That will not be you, Charlotte. You're under government contract, work here, and that would be tied back to me, and I was sworn and ordered to secrecy."

"You want me to take the promotion if it's offered," Charlie realized, eyes going wide.

"And I'll need you to be social, to make friends with influential people. For me."

"For Maverick," she added. "I remember those orders you put in the welcoming packets for everyone but him and his RIO. Makes sense, now."

"As to what happened, unofficially, and I'm swearing you to secrecy until we fix this," Viper sat back, took a deep breath to calm his nerves. "We were running secret interdiction missions, deep air support, into Laos, in F-8 Crusaders..."

Charlie left his office twenty minutes later with a new sense of purpose.

Two weeks ago...

They were sitting on uncomfortable chairs in the waiting area of the Base Hospital, Ice with his head in his hands that were propped up on his knees because he was emotionally exhausted, and Slider watching him. It had been a long hour or two since landing, and what Slider wanted to do was be anywhere else. He didn't want to think about having watched a plane spiraling toward the ground, panicked voices in his ears... and if he started thinking about it instead of watching his pilot, it would be him needing a minute instead of Ice.

Which was probably why he didn't notice her until she was standing in front of them, hands on hips, and then pulling up a chair to sit in front of Ice. Carole nodded to him, then took Ice's hands in hers and got his attention.

Ice looked up at Carole, puzzled at first, and then he stared at her. "What are you doing here?"

Carole tried to smile, but failed miserably and instead held his hands. "Same thing you are, Tom." She leaned closer, squeezed his hands. "I spoke to Commander Metcalf. He explained."

"I-"

"No," Carole said firmly. "There will be time enough for the rest of it. Right now, here, this moment? I need you to know that it's not your fault. That it's not Pete's fault. Understood? It was an accident."

"How are you not angry?"

Carole took a deep breath, let it out, and in that moment, Slider realized that she was, indeed, angry beyond the telling of it. "I am angry, but not at you. What you do in the sky, even when you're not in combat? Dangerous. You know that. You take that risk. You all take that risk." She took another deep breath. "And I'll say it to him later when he wakes up and is ready to hear it, but I'm going to say it now to you: Nick loved flying with Pete. He loved flying, and loved to serve. He wouldn't have been the man I married otherwise." She looked away for a moment, biting her lower lip, then looked at him again. "And I think being here, learning things about how to fly better, is the happiest I'd seen Pete in a long, long time."

Ice frowned at her wording. "I don't understand that part, about the learning to fly better. What do you mean?"

Carole glanced at Slider, then looked at Ice again. "Perhaps you should think on it. If you need me to explain, then you haven't been observant enough about the right things."

"Carole," Slider started to say, and was surprised when she dragged him over and into a three way hug. They stayed like that for a while, communing without words.

Sometime Today, NAS Miramar...

The two forms in front of her looked innocuous, unimportant, except for the information printed on them in clear, precise handwriting, Carole observed as she studied them. The yellow notepad that Jester had produced when Connie had lured Bradley back to the living room didn't seem important, either. She wanted to ask so many questions, to push both Bill and the Lieutenant Commander, but instead she simply studied the content on the notepad for another few minutes.

"Carole..." Bill started to say, but she shook her head to silence him and he sighed.

"Whose handwriting is this?" She asked, finally. "It's too neat to be either of you, too fine."

"Miss Blackwood," Jester admitted. "I don't know if you met her before she left for Washington on Sunday."

"No, I did." Carole glanced at Bill with a slight smile. "She went to lunch with us three weeks ago, before the accident. And... all right. Explain these forms, please. Why are we submitting information requests to the State Department and the CIA, Jester?"

"Technically, we aren't. Just you."

Carole sat back and stared at him. "Me. All right. Why am I doing this, then?"

"Because Viper can't," Bill explained, irritation on his face and coloring his words. "Because Nick couldn't, if he'd known. Because I can't, and I want to do it just to spite them for what they put Maverick and his mother through with lies and subterfuge, and even though I'm technically on an extended medical leave, Viper still told me no. You can, because you are Mav's listed next of kin, on paper anyway."

Carole stared at him a minute or two longer, and then considered the two forms again. And then she signed them and passed them to Jester. "So it's me because I can't be punished for asking about a classified incident from the Vietnam War?"

"Yes," Jester said solemnly. "According to Viper, when Charlie figured it out after listening to Maverick talk about his parents, she wanted to do this immediately and to hell with the consequences."

"Sounds like her," Carole mused, tilting her head to one side to listen for any signs that Connie might need her to intervene, but she only heard the baby laughing and Bradley singing Puff The Magic Dragon with Connie. "And that's the other reason you came all the way to Miramar, Cougar?"

"No, I really did want to see you," Bill said. "I got pulled into a meeting with Commander Metcalf by him," pointing at Jester. "When I asked at the admin building where you were and they realized who I was from my ID card, because they have my file from when I was supposed to be coming here instead." Bill glared at Jester. "That was the fastest I've ever written a report about a traumatic experience, by the way."

At Carole's expression of 'what the hell' directed at Jester, he shrugged. "Character witnesses. You'd be surprised how thick we might need to spread the narrative to get them to actually listen and not just laugh and throw the requests out the window."

"If I'd known ahead of time, I could have gotten those from our entire squadron," Bill pointed out. "Even the ones out on the Enterprise."

"We have enough, Cortell," Jester assured him.

"If you say so."

Carole wanted to laugh at their easy interaction, and settled for changing the subject. In the living room, she could still hear Connie teaching Bradley how to sing Puff the Magic Dragon.

Now...

In the quiet of the bunk room, Wolfman heard mumbling and set the newspaper down to glance around. Mumbling by itself was fine, but not if that was a precursor to nightmares all over again. Ice was snoring, leaning against the wall behind Mav's bunk, while Mav himself was quiet. From there, he glanced up to Hollywood, who had fallen asleep with the book in his hand, and then to Turner... not him either.

Wolfman turned to look up at Slider, wondering when he'd gotten up on his bunk... also not him. Which left Merlin, mumbling about... Wolfman blinked, startled, for it was a mixture of trying to get Maverick to engage, and trying to get Cougar back to the ship. Was he dreaming about both?

He stood and moved to wake Merlin carefully with a shake, ready for him to come out swinging. Merlin's eyes flew open and he started up at him for a few moments before blinking and taking a deep breath, and then another. "Sorry, Wolf."

"Nothing to be sorry about, Sam," Wolfman told him, tone as gentle as he could make it. "Bad days, and you couldn't do anything from behind. I get it."

"You would," Merlin agreed. "All clear?"

"So far. Even Ice is asleep somehow."

At that, Merlin chuckled softly, and peered up at the still-sleeping Corpsman. "I could keep watch if you wanted-"

"No. I got this. Go back to sleep, Sam."

Wolfman waited for him to fall back to sleep, then moved the chair so he could see all of them without turning this way or that, and then sat back down to read for a while longer.