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Maverick’s deployed when it happens. Late one night, somewhere in the middle of the ocean he gets the call from Slider - Carole’s cancer is back and it’s not looking good.
He tries as best he can to comfort the other man over the phone, asking after Bradley and the girls, offering useless platitudes to his friend in hopes of keeping the man’s spirits from completely crashing. When the call ends, he immediately dials Ice knowing his fellow pilot could help Slider far better than Maverick ever could.
Within hours Maverick has requested immediate personal leave, wanting, needing, to head stateside and see Carole and Bradley - make sure his family is set up to be ok.
He lands in Texas nearly a week after Slider’s call and goes right to the hospital. He finds Carole alone in her room, Slider off to grab something from the house, the kids at school, and nearly breaks down as he pulls her frail body into a hug.
It’s happened so quickly, when he shipped out last month she had been the Carole Bradshaw he knew, bubbly and full of life. The Carole in front of him now is only part of that, just as fierce and strong as he’s always known, but so much smaller.
He barely lets her go as he composes himself, finding himself in a nearby chair, her hand firmly held in his. They use their time alone to catch up, laugh about old memories, and gossip about Slider and Ice. It’s like Carole knows she won’t be walking out of this hospital room, so she’s using the time to wrap up every joke, every neighbourhood gossip session see can, to pass on what she needs Pete to know.
At some point Slider returns, joining them, pulling Carole’s other hand into his and joining her on the bed, keeping her as close as possible. Maverick’s heart breaks for him, he’s got three kids at home and he’s about to lose his wife.
When they’re all settled, Carole makes her request. She knows she won’t get to see her Bradley graduate. Won’t see him fall in love and get married, maybe have babies of his own. She won’t ever know him past 17, but she needs to know he’ll make it to 30. She needs him to grow old, maybe hit 50 or 60, or if she gets what she really wants 70 or 80.
So she asks them to keep Bradley from the Academy.
She tells them both to do whatever it takes to keep him from the Navy, convince him to pursue something else, pull his papers, it didn’t matter, just make sure Bradley was safe. She begs them to keep her family safe, to take care of each other.
Maverick promises her that he will and Slider nods along. They both know they can’t keep Bradley from the Navy, the boy wants it too much, but they reassure her they’ll try.
It’s enough for Carole.
She dies a week later, surrounded by her family.
After the funeral Slider realizes that Maverick had taken Carole’s last request seriously, that with Ice’s help he’d pulled Bradley’s application. Maverick tells him that he had to do it, for Carole and Goose he had to try, even if they both know it won’t do anything.
Bradley finds out a few months later and reacts worse than anyone could have expected. He won’t talk to Maverick. In their last confrontation he’d told the older man he hated him along with some other truly horrible things.
Slider wants to fix things, Maverick asks him to let it lie, the kid is upset.
He wishes Maverick had told him what he was going to do, but the pilot tells him he couldn’t, that Bradley had lost enough, he didn’t need to be mad at the only family he had left, as if the self-sacrificing idiot wasn’t also Bradley’s family.
For years Bradley refuses to talk to Maverick.
He doesn’t answer his godfather’s birthday cards, or pick up when he calls. When DADT is finally repealed and Ice and Maverick get married, Bradley is missing, and even Ice himself gets cancer Bradley refuses to budge.
Slider gets closer and closer to losing it on the kid, ready to remind him that this isn’t what Carole would have wanted, that Maverick was almost as important to her as Bradley was, that the man was he family. He wants the kid to grow up and shape up, but Maverick won’t let him say anything.
He reminds him of their promise to Carole, pull his papers and keep him safe. Maverick’s done his half, but they can’t keep him safe if he won’t talk to his step-father. So nothing changes.
Until it does.
It’s a Tuesday when Ice dies.
Slider’s the first one at the Mitchell-Kazansky house after he gets the news. Merlin, Hollywood, Hondo - most of the class of ‘86, along with the Slider’s daughters and Ice’s family show up to comfort Maverick, but Slider’s the only one he really lets in - the only one who knows what it’s like to lose their partner like this.
Slider holds his friend as he breaks.
When Maverick finally falls asleep, Ron joins rest of the family downstairs only to learn what Bradley had told his godfather. Slider can’t believe it - he’s sitting in a room full of people that would mourn if something happened to Maverick - and for him it’s enough.
After the funeral he pulls Bradley aside and tells him to get his shit together. He tells him about Carole’s request and finally calls the kid out on the hell he’s put his godfather through in the years since. He says it’s time for him to figure out how to forgive the older man because the pilot needed his family now and he wasn’t going to keep playing the balancing game of keeping Bradley pacified when Maverick needed Slider most.
He doesn’t ask how they resolve it - Slider’s long been out of the Navy and doesn’t want to know the danger his family puts themselves in - but they do. In the months after Ice’s death, they patch things up and Slider notices a change in Maverick. On one hand, the man looks more broken than ever, mourning his husband, figuring out how to live alone for the first time in decades, but on the other he looks content, happy even when Rooster is around.
That year for the first time since Bradley turned 18 they spend the anniversary of Carole’s death as a complete family - Bradley stateside on leave, Maverick finally a part of the family again. Slider holds them both, along with his girls, as they visit the grave.
Together they all spend more time together, Rooster popping in more to visit his sisters, often bringing one of the daggers around with him, Maverick swings by every Sunday for football and dinner, comfortable again at the house, not afraid that Bradley might walk in and be upset.
For the first anniversary of Ice’s death, it’s Bradley who gets the family together for a drink in the man’s honour.
A few years later Carole gets her wish, Bradley turns forty, an age Slider doubted he would reach with his self-destructive history. They celebrate with a few surprises - his 40th year is the the year Bradley gets married, becomes a father, leaves the Navy. It’s the year he gets all the things Carole had wanted for him.
It’s also the year Slider gets a surprise of his own in the form of a 5’7” former naval aviator.
Over the years they’ve been holding up the biggest part of Carole’s last request - to take care of each other, to keep her family safe - a family that was so much bigger than just Bradley.
Maverick’s everything take care of Slider and his girls over the years, and Slider’s done what the laws of the universe would allow to keep Maverick as safe as possible - he couldn’t keep him totally safe, Maverick was too reckless for that. But they’ve taken care of each other and in the wake of Ice’s death, they’ve become even closer.
Which is why he shouldn’t be surprised when things change between them, but at 65, having been single for almost 23 years, Slider can honestly say he wasn’t expecting to ever fall in love again. But that’s Maverick for you - you never get what you expect out of him, always something far better.
As he stands holding his granddaughter, Maverick at his side, Bradley laughing with his sisters and wife across the room, Ron knows they’re exactly where Carole wanted them to be.