SHAME ON THE BUNNY 8

 Part 1 of The Lies We Told Each Other

Fandoms:
Top Gun (Movies), Thunderheart (1992)

Relationships:
Tom "Iceman" Kazansky/Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, Sarah Kazansky/Tom "Iceman" Kazansky, Sarah Kazansky/Tom "Iceman" Kazansky/Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, Walter Crow Horse/Ray Levoi

Characters:
Tom "Iceman" Kazansky, Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, Carole Bradshaw, Sarah Kazansky, Jake "Hangman" Seresin, Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, Ron "Slider" Kerner, Ray Levoi, Walter Crow Horse, Grandpa Samuel Reaches, Original Child Character(s)

Additional Tags:
Trans Male Character, Unplanned Pregnancy, Secret Relationship, Polyamory, Tom "Iceman" Kazansky Lives

Summary:
After three months of visiting her in the hospital, they had gotten used to the idea: they believed Mom would return home when she was better. Unlike Bradley, who could see his mother's deteriorating condition and begin to grieve, Carole's death took Sean, Sam, and Jake by surprise. Like Brad with Goose's death in 1986, Sean doesn't understand what's happening and keeps asking when Mom will come back. Sam goes into Carole's room to cry. Jake, for his part, turned his pain into disbelief.

NOTES:

Vocabulary
Lakota = English
čhiŋkší / čhíŋkš = son
até = father

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Chapter 8: 1998, February

They bury Carole next to Goose in the Miramar Naval Base Cemetery.

It's still winter, the sky is gray, and a cold breeze ruffles coats and dresses, but at least it's not raining, Mav thinks. Because this day is already horrible, there's no need for Bradley to have nightmares about rain.

As the pastor recites something about dust and resurrection, Mav squeezes Bradley's shoulder, trying to give him comfort he's far from feeling, but he must offer.

"I thought I'd bury you, too, in that first year after Goose died," Carole told him when they had already given up on the treatments and were just drugging her to make her comfortable. "Now it's your turn to bury another Bradshaw. I am so, so sorry, Mav."

I'm sorry! What a Carole thing to apologize while dying.

Thinking of other people was Carole's specialty. It is not that she neglected herself or gave in to the will of others. It is that caring was her mission in the world. That's why she became a nurse, married Goose, accepted Mav, raised Bradley, joined Kaiser Permanente in San Diego, adopted Jake, organized the Nurse Practitioners and Health Technicians Union, and the Military Spouse Network. Carole touched many lives just with her willingness to care and allow others to be cared for.

Pete wants Bradley to remember that growing up: her mother believed in generous giving.

"... I will not fear any evil because You are with me."

The pastor is silent and turns to them. Mav takes Bradley's hand. His son looks at him with eyes red from crying.

"I'm with you," he says with the movement of his lips, and Brad slightly nods.

They get up and take handfuls of earth to throw into the pit. Sarah guides Jake take dirt with both hands and throw it too. Then, much to Mav's annoyance, Richard Abbot walks over and drops a white rose —damn hypocrite. The final part is enduring the parade of people giving their condolences. He knows their wishes are sincere, but, like Goose's funeral twelve years ago, he wants to hide Bradley.

The worst part is that Sarah and Tom have to be kept apart. She holds Sean, who turned three years old just three weeks ago, and is only upset by the strange people around. Ice holds Sam in his arms. She has cried a lot in the last week.

Seven days ago, they told the kids that Carole had gone to heaven with Goose, but they didn't understand.

After three months of visiting her in the hospital, they had gotten used to the idea: they believed Mom would return home when she was better. Unlike Bradley, who could see his mother's deteriorating condition and begin to grieve, Carole's death took Sean, Sam, and Jake by surprise. Like Brad with Goose's death in 1986, Sean doesn't understand what's happening and keeps asking when Mom will come back. Sam goes into Carole's room to cry. Jake, for his part, turned his pain into disbelief. His eyes hardened by fury —Ice's eyes— and accused Mav of hiding his Mom, of forcing her to leave. "Brad and I are going to find her, you'll see!" he said that night. "At the hospital, they know she's our Mom. They'll tell us where you took her." And he prepared a backpack with clothes and snacks to escape from school the next day. Only there was no school the next day -it was Saturday- and Jake was too tired from crying, too overcome with grief, to even attempt his plan.

He only accepted the truth when he saw Carole's body at the morgue the following Monday. Getting him there caused quite a stir among the hospital staff, but Mav knew who he was dealing with: Jake was born to Tom Kazansky, and they both trade with facts and evidence.

Now, as two of his sons stand at each side of him, listening to the condolences, Pete can see Ice's influence on them. They are upright, with impassive faces and gazes fixed on a distant point. They're the perfect image of the martial dignity expected of two Marine kids, and the distance they project also keeps people from stopping to say too much empty niceness.

Mav knows that his own face doesn't invite closeness either. He has just buried his companion of almost fifteen years after two months of fighting -until they were told that cancer had spread so much that it was impossible to stop the metastasis- and another month in which she lived in intermittent states of lucidity and delirium -because suppressing the pains of multiple tumors requires many, many opioids. It was not about physical work -there were three adults to share the responsibility of the home and the children- but about the spiritual odyssey of seeing her leave little by little. When Goose died, Mav was almost killed by guilt. Now he is drowning in impotence. If grief over the loss of his sister seems from the outside grief over the loss of a lover… Well, he's sure no one would dare ask him the precise nature of his relationship with Carole.

Except…

He can see Richard Abbot in the periphery of his field of vision. He looks appropriately contrite: he nods when condolences are offered and shake hands when offered. All according to protocol. No one knows who he is, but they assume that if he's standing next to Bradley, he must be part of Carole's family because everyone knows that Mav has no one now but his faithful friend Kazansky.

Mav looks a few meters away, where Tom and Sarah are waiting for them. Ice's eyes are fixed on Richard like daggers of pure hate. It was espected. The man first did not have time to say goodbye to his sister -they called him when the diagnosis arrived and after Thanksgiving when they knew there would be no happy ending- and then... Pete is still unsure what Richard Abbot expected after his sister's death, but that phone call was strange.

“Richard Abbot's office, how can I help you?”

“Hello, it's Mav … I'm Carole Abbot's husband, Pete Mitchell.”

“Good afternoon, Mr. Mitchell. How can I help you?” The secretary repeated. Her tone is  professionally detached but with a drop of joy that probably put her clients in a good mood.

Mav winced, realizing that Abbot hadn't told his secretary that his sister could die at any moment. Across the table, where he was studying the menu for the reception, Ice looked at him questioningly. Pete took a deep breath and forced himself not to mistreat the woman on the phone, who was not to blame for his pain, his children's anger, and much less for the fact that her boss was a bastard. Except that, he's not in the best of his days either -twenty-four hours ago, he lost his sister- so, with a gesture, half childish and half miserable, he puts the phone in speaker mode.

“I need to speak to Mr. Abbot.”

“Mr. Abbot is busy. If you give me your message, I assure you he will receive it soon.”

"No, I have to speak to Mr. Abbot," he insists through gritted teeth.

“Mr. Mitchell,” the secretary replies with professional patience, “Mr. Abbot is a very busy man. I can't interrupt you for any personal matter...”

“Carole is dead! Is this a personal matter important enough to pass on to your boss?”

“Oh!” the woman says, and there is surprise in her voice and a slight panic.

Pete is huffing and gripping the edge of the table tight. Tom gets up and wordlessly begins to massage his partner's tense shoulders. Mav forces himself to breathe and expel his anger. No amount of rage will bring Carole back, let alone make her birth family any less unpleasant.

"Wait a minute," the secretary finally says weakly. "I have to put you on hold while I locate Mr. Abbot."

Generic music starts coming out of the speaker. Tom leans down to kiss the corner of his lips. He won't risk talking -the connection can be reestablished anytime- but this is his silent way of supporting him. They finally hear Richard's voice sometime later —which Pete didn't bother to measure but seems unbearably long. Tom sits down next to him again.

“Greetings, Pete.”

Mav almost wants to bang his head against the table. "Greetings"? Really!? But he's not doing this for him, so he resists the urge to hang up.

"Greetings, Richard. I'm calling to tell you that Carole died yesterday, Friday."

"Yes." He pauses. "Suzanne told me. Was it calm?"

Mav looks at Ice questioningly. What the hell is he asking? Ice nods, and Pete decides to trust his judgment.

"Yeah. In the end, they only gave her painkillers to keep her comfortable."

"That's good." Another pause. "How is the kid?"

The kid? Does he call him that because he doesn't remember his name or for another reason? Brad will be fourteen in June. Definitely not a kid. Ice makes a placating hand gesture, and Pete again avoids snapping back.

"He's sad, but they were three months of agony," he won't let him forget that he didn't come to see her. "so he had time to get used to the idea."

"Good, good." Richard sounds thoughtful now. "It is important to accept the losses and move on."

Ice and Mav let out simultaneous grunts of disgust. When is this man going to show any feelings?

"So when is the funeral? You want me to cover half of the expenses, right?"

Ice's eyes widen, and whatever he sees on Mav's face isn't good because he shakes his head in silent pleading, but this is too much.

"Excuse me, what the hell are you talking about? Do you think I'm calling to ask you for money?"

Richard has the nerve to let out a short laugh.

"Come on, Mitchell, you don't have to play hero with me. I know you put my sister to live with another officer's family because you couldn't afford her a decent house. I am sorry that marrying an Abbot did not bring you the prosperity you hoped for. You people -and it is unclear if he is referring to aviators or the army in general- like to believe the world is very simple, but in my family, we know how to take care of what is ours. Carole liked aviators because she was a romantic, one wasn't enough for her and... Anyway! One must not speak ill of the dead."

Mav swallows hard and struggles to breathe. Across from him, Ice stares at the phone with criminal intensity. He must be wondering how many favors it would cost him to get rid of that body, calculating how many years it would set back his climbing within the Navy ranks. It would be satisfying but not productive.

He has to end this conversation.

“I do not want your money. The funeral will be next Friday, in the Miramar Naval Base Cemetery, at ten o´clock. At eleven, we will have a reception at the Kazansky family´s house."

And he hangs up.

"How such a family produced a woman like Carole is beyond me," says Ice.

Mav just nods and looks for the following phone number on the agenda. He still has a lot of calls to make.

Richard seems to have understood that they only reached him out of obligation because he only called again yesterday, Thursday. A call to say that they had arrived in the city and were staying at the San Diego Hilton. As if anyone at home cared. They understood the plural in the cemetery, for Abbot arrived accompanied by a very elegant red-haired woman, who must be his wife Tracy, and a burly adolescent with bright blond hair, his son Chad.

When the mourning parade ends, Pete and the kids are exhausted. Many people came: colleagues from the hospital, union representatives, and naval officers, among others. One group that surprised Mav was Bradley's baseball team. The boy's face brightened a little when he saw them, and he smiled clearly when Denise -the stats girl- offered her condolences.

“It is done, Dad?" Bradley asks as the last person in line separates from Richard.

"Yeah. Go with your team and tell them they are welcome at the reception, okay? The company will do you good."

Bradley nods and jogs off toward the group of teens, standing awkwardly with the coach.

"Jake, go to Sarah and tell her I'll catch up with them soon."

The boy nods and walks over to Tom and Sarah. He can recognize Ice's worried expression from here, but he must do this. He turns to Richard, a piece of paper already in hand.

“Here are the instructions to get to the reception.”

The man looks at the sheet in amazement. It is an electronic printout that includes the mailing address and a map of how to get from Miramar to University City. Ice had one of his Naval Base San Diego assistants set it up.

“Thank you. About the money...”

“Don't talk to me about money, please. I just buried my wife. Carole's lawyer is out of the city on another case. He said he'd call you if anything concerns you.”

“Okay, but we will fly back early Sunday morning. There are things that I would like to deal with as soon as possible.”

Pete snorts and tries to stall for time by adjusting his scarf. But, yes, it will be better to deal with this fast.

“Very good. We can go to the office when you get to the house, and we will deal with whatever you want. So you can take your son to the San Diego Aquarium tomorrow.”

That last seems to shock Richard, but Mav doesn't stick around to hear his answer and walks towards the car where his family is waiting.

Arriving at the house, Mav takes refuge in the kitchen bathroom to recover his energy. Usually, he would go straight to his bedroom, where the scent of his lovers would help ease the tension, but he can't afford to now. They will have too many strangers during the reception, so they have locked the two access doors to the upper floor.

He pisses —he really needs it— then washes his hands and face and leans against the sink with his head down.

"You can do this, you can do this," he repeats softly like a mantra. "Only until night."

Mav straightens up and studies his image in the mirror.

"Come on, you're Pete "Maverick," Mitchell,” he adjusts his tie, "you can do this. Your children need you."

That reminds him that Richard will be here any minute with Chad, whose bullying ways can be seen from miles away. He's unsure if the boy will dare to do something with so many people around, but he's not interested in finding out. The faster he dispatches the Abbots, the better for Bradley.

Two knocks on the door brought him out of his musings.

"Dad," he recognizes Jake's voice, "I really need to go."

He immediately opens the door.

"Sorry for the delay, son. Go on."

But the boy looks around uncertainly: the kitchen is filled with staff from the caterer and guests.

"Do you want me to stay watching the door?" At Jake's enthusiastic nod, Mav smiles. "Very well, go, and I'll stay here. Remember to wash your hands, huh?"

When Jake comes out of the bathroom, his father walks him into the yard, where they've set up a play area to keep the child's energy from damaging anything. Since it's Friday, only a few people brought their little ones, but half a dozen are climbing the children's obstacle course. Their laughter and exclamations brighten the cold morning air. They are infants, and few things hold their attention for long, so they have already forgotten the severity of the cemetery.

Bradley and his baseball team are near the end of the yard. As Mav approaches, he finds that they have sat in a semicircle, talking quietly. They have a tray of food and lemonade -a nice touch from Sarah, he is sure- and his oldest son has Sean in his arms. Asleep.

"Is everything okay here?"

He is answered by an out-of-sync chorus of "Yes, Mr. Mitchell" and "Yes, Commander Mitchell," as the team has both civilian and military family members.

"Very good. Jake, are you going to play with Sam?" -the girl is climbing the helmsman's tower with cries of triumph.

"No, I'm going to stay to give love to Brad," says his son very seriously.

He goes to sit cross-legged next to Brad and hugs him. It is unclear who offers comfort to whom, but the adolescent does not seem to mind. He rearranges Sean, so Jake can lean against his torso, kisses him on the head, nods to Mav, and goes back to discuss some baseball stats with Denise.

All settle on that side, Pete returns to the house. As expected, Richard is in the center of the room. His suit and the folder in his hands make him an incongruous figure in this space, where most wear navy uniforms or the more relaxed wardrobe of health workers. He can see Tracy talking to a group of women with martinis in hand —ah, alcohol brings people together— but Chad is nowhere to be seen. He's not worried. Brad is in good company in the yard.

He addresses his brother-in-law with a determined step.

"Come," he tells him and continues without pausing toward the office on the other side of the house.

The office is nominally Ice's, and he uses it when he has to study at night, but in reality, it is a family space. Brad has been doing homework here since he entered middle school. Carole held several union-organizing meetings in this room. Sarah occupies it when she works on transcribing Grandpa Sam's Reaches notes, which include traditional stories, cooking recipes, and precognitive dreams. They carefully checked the room twice to ensure there weren't any misplaced classified documents or anything revealing about their private life. They did the same with the entire ground floor.

Pete motions Richard to a seat, closes the door and sits behind the dark-wood bureau that dominates the room. He leans back in the padded chair, resting his elbows on the arms of the seat, interlocking his fingers.

"What do you want to talk about?"

"I have to admit, Mitchell, when I found out that Carole shared a house with Kazansky's wife, I didn't expect this," and he makes a wavering gesture with his right index finger toward the ceiling. "It's a very nice house."

"Very big and expensive, you mean. I'm glad to disappoint you, Abbot. But you were the one in a hurry, right?"

Richard nods. He pulls a multi-page document out of the folder and pushes it over to Pete.

"I'm in a hurry to take the child, yes. The quicker he returns, the quicker he'll forget all of this," he makes the wavering gesture again, "and accept his place in the family."

Pete doesn't even look at the document. He knows what it is, generally speaking. Shortly before she died, Carole realized that no one from her blood family had traveled to San Diego to say goodbye and warned him that it would happen: that they would try to take Brad to Texas. He thought it was a drug-fueled paranoid idea. He suppresses the urge to look at the ceiling.

"No," he pushes back the document with the tip of the finger. "Bradley is my son, and he will stay here with his family and community."

Abbot's face loses the expression of cold calm that characterized him until now and becomes condescending.

"Save the sentimental lines with me, Mitchell. You're just an absentee father with a high-risk job, a history of insubordination, and a son with no known mother. No one will give you custody of a child who has already lost both of his biological parents when in Texas, a large, respectable family awaits him and with the economic capacity to guarantee his future."

Pete grins like a predator.

"You mean the family he last saw five years ago? The one who maintains "contact" -and makes quotation marks with his hands- through Christmas and birthday postcards? The family that didn't come to see his mother as she died? That didn't come to his father's funeral in 1986, either? That's rich. The Abbott family cut Carole off when she married Nick. You know that. I know that. The Navy knows that. No lawyer you hire, no matter how expensive, can deny the cumulative evidence of eighteen years of neglect, supported by the testimony of Navy officers, your late sister's colleagues, and, if necessary, even Bradley's teachers."

Richard doesn't budge, either.

"No one will give you custody. Would you rather let him go to the system? Sure, I wouldn't be surprised if, with your personal history of abandonment, you will think it's better to sabotage the child's only chance for a normal childhood."

Pete closes his eyes and takes a deep breath to stay calm. He knew that his childhood would come out. Every officer who has tried to provoke him in his nearly twenty-year career has referenced Duke Mitchell or his life at foster homes. Abbot is not the first, nor is he the cruelest. He takes a document from the right drawer and pushes it to the other side of the bureau.

"There will be no discussion about custody because I am Bradley´s legal father. We began the adoption process before the marriage, with the final paperwork completed in the summer of 1994. Since Bradley was nine, the process included social worker interviews and psychological evaluations. It was our present for his tenth birthday: the promise that he would never return to Fredericksburg, Texas. I plan to keep my word."

Abbot stares in disbelief at the San Diego family court record confirming the legal adoption of Bradley Bradshaw by Pete Mitchell, with all the rights and duties that go with it. Dated June 15, 1994. From his expression, Pete confirms that his watch on Carole wasn't that close, or he wouldn't have missed something like this.

He understands that Richard operated all this time under the assumption that Brad was a liability that Pete had accepted in exchange for Carole. It was the other way around: Carole proposed their marriage as a tool to protect her son from the Abbot clan and Pete from DADT. That's why it wasn't enough to get married. She dragged them through the tortuous process of courts and lawyers to ensure that, in her absence, their son would remain in this family, the one they built.

"You can take that photocopy, as a souvenir."

The man nods silently, puts the two documents in his folder, and gets up. At the door, Mav is tempted to say something sarcastic to reaffirm his victory but holds back. The important thing is that he fulfilled his sister's wish and kept Bradley safe. The quicker this sordid business is over, the better.

But Chad Abbott doesn't know that his father's plans have failed. He only remembers the humiliation he suffered almost five years ago, during the weekend of Cousin Priscilla's wedding, and rejoices at the prospect of having Bradley as a younger brother. His father said it would be his duty to teach him his place in the family, and Chad already imagines how much fun it would be to break Bradley.

They have told him to go to the patio. "The children are there so they can play without breaking anything," they told him. He swallowed the comment that he was no longer a child but a fifteen years old teen and obeyed.

The backyard is as massive as the house. In the center is a children's obstacle course, where half a dozen brats run around. Further back, there is another obstacle course, but the size and difficulty of the challenges imply that it is designed for adults. On the sides are shrubs and fruit trees, bare from the winter weather.

He sees his cousin almost in the fence, sitting on the ground. He has a child in his arms and another resting on his thighs. His father explained that Mitchell married his aunt Carole to make her take care of his son, and then, since they had no money, she had to go live with another family as "domestic help." A totally embarrassing and unnecessary situation for an Abbot, of course. It's clear that Bradley hasn't a shred of family pride and isn't shy about acting like the Kazansky family servant, even around other people.

He goes to him determined. This has to end now! Because Bradley Abbot won't be ashamed to act like a fagot, but Chad won't let this go on. It's better to set the record straight before they even get on the plane to Texas.

Bradley sees him approaching and growls. The group looks at him curiously, but Chad is a specialist at ignoring what doesn't affect him.

"Have you packed yet?" He questions bluntly.

Bradley's expression goes from annoyed to confused. Beside him, Mitchell's brat straightens up and gives him a distasteful look.

"Who is this?" asks a black boy sitting beside the Mitchell brat.

"He's my cousin Chad Abbot. We met when my mother took me to Texas for a cousin's wedding." His voice becomes mocking. "He crashed into a poplar when he was going to hug me."

A chorus of sly giggles ripples through the group, and he realizes Brad has shared the football history with these people. He shakes his shoulders. Something like that will never happen again, of course. Brad managed to get him to crash into the poplar tree just because it took him by surprise, but he's been a babysitter for five years. Chad can handle him now.

"The only time you managed to fool me, Bradley. Things will be different from now on."

"From now on?" repeats his cousin.

It's his turn to smile.

"Don't you know? Now that your mom is dead, you're coming with us to Texas. My father and Mitchell are signing the papers."

A series of astonished gasps follow his statement. Brad's face has gone stiff and expressionless, as in the graveyard.

"Lie!" squeals the Mitchell brat and attempts to launch himself at him, but the black boy grabs him by the waist. "You can't take my brother!"

"Silence, Jake." The steel in Brad's voice contrasts with the tenderness he kisses his forehead. "You don't want to wake Sean, do you?"

Jake silently shakes his head, but all can see him shaking with rage and fear. Very good, that's what it must feel like before an Abbot.

“On your feet,” Brad says, and to Chad's surprise, the dozen teens around him comply.

Oh! Maybe his cousin isn't a hopeless case after all. He might be a good second in command when his obedience is secured.

Bradley exchanges a look with the black boy to his left, and he tightens his grip on Jake Mitchell. He then turns to the girl on his right.

"Can you hold Sean?" When she nods, he passes the child into her arms.

Only then he looks back at Chad.

"Can you explain why you think I'm going to fucking Fredericksburg with you?"

But Chad isn't intimidated. He knows he has the upper hand in the long run. No matter what Brad thinks he has here in California, when they come home, he will be his.

"Because you are an Abbot, of course. Your mother has died, so you must return to Texas with your real family."

He hears someone say, "Oh my God," and another voice asks, "Is this guy for real?" but he doesn't turn to see who are they. Chad is only interested in Bradley's reaction. His cousin has a lost look and a small, sad smile.

"You know? My mother warned me this would happen, but I didn't want to believe her. I couldn't believe Uncle Richard was so," he stops, his expression turning from sad to scornful, "so stupid."

"Hey! Be careful how you talk about Richard Abbot."

"I'll talk however I want," Brad interrupts, "because your father has no honor and certainly no power over me."

"He's your uncle. He'll be your father in all but name as soon as we get to Texas."

"Your father didn't do military service!"

Chad hears several horrified gasps around him. Of course, in this Navy corporate town, thinking about one's skin instead of fighting in foreign wars sounds like the ultimate offense. He ignores them again.

"It doesn't matter. What matters is that Mitchell doesn't have to put up with you anymore, so he's going to give you back to us."

"My brother is not a burden! You… you… fat boy." Jake yells again.

"He's not your brother," Chad spits at him, watching with satisfaction as the boy's face turns red with rage. "He was your stepbrother, but that ended. He's coming with me to Texas, and you'll never see him again."

Jake roars and thrashes but can't break free of the boy holding him. The baby is awakened by the noise and begins to cry. Chad turns when he feels light, rushing footsteps in his direction. He falls to the ground from the momentum of a small tornado of dark hair crashing on him. The girl grips his chest with her thighs and delivers surprisingly hard blows to his neck and face.

"Sam, no!" Brad yells.

Chad doesn't wait. With a push, he throws the girl to the ground, turns, and stands up. He returns to the ground almost immediately from a punch from his cousin.

"What the hell? She attacked me!"

"You are not going to take my brother!" The girl does not seem intimidated and gets up to charge again.

"Nathan!" Brad barks, and a redhead grabs the girl. "Sam, Jake, you have to calm down. What he says is a lie. I'm not going anywhere."

"You will go, my father said..."

"I don't care what your father said or believes," Brad interrupts. "I'm not going to fucking Fredericksburg to be your punching bag. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell adopted me when I was ten. He's a war hero, and whoever tries to destroy our family will have to fight the damn US Navy."

"Language, Bradley," a man's voice admonishes him.

Two-thirds of the boys stand to attention and salute.

"Captain Kazansky, sir," they say in chorus.

Chad wants to roll his eyes at the pathetic spectacle, but he stops himself. He keeps looking at Bradley. Kazansky appears from his right and takes the baby from Bradley's girlfriend's arms. It turns out to be the tall man with dark blond hair and blue eyes he saw in the cemetery very close to Pete Mitchell. Although he is in his dress uniform, he takes the boy and puts his face dirty with tears and snot on his chest. Sean's howling subsides quickly. Kazansky turns and seems surprised that the group is still standing at attention. It seems to amuse him.

"At ease."

It's some kind of code because they immediately let go of Jake Mitchell and the punchy girl, Sam? They run to hug Kazansky's waist. The man looks at them tenderly for a moment. When he raises his face, that tenderness has disappeared. He looks between Bradley and Chad with evident displeasure. Oh! This will be good! To witness the captain humiliate his cousin for not fulfilling his babysitting role will be the perfect ending to his life in California.

"What happened here?"

Chad and Bradley look at each other challengingly. Who will speak first? Unfortunately, the pause is taken advantage of by Jake, who begins to talk between hiccups.

"He said that Brad is not my brother. He said we are not his family. He said he was taking Brad to Texas, and I'll never see him again." he starts crying again.

Kazansky strokes his head, the contact seeming to calm him down.

"It is Okay, Jake, čhiŋkší, it's okay. Don't worry. Até is here, and nothing bad will happen."

The words have a soft, sweet intonation. Chad is surprised because Kazansky's face is flushed with rage, but his voice doesn't give it away. The voice changes again when he addresses him.

"Do you have anything to say, Mr. Abbott?" The tone is harsh, with a note of hostility.

Chad puffs out his chest and shakes his head.

"I'm sorry I woke your little boy, Captain Kazansky." Brad makes a dismissive noise, but he ignores it.

The man looks him up and down. Contempt has been added to his hostility. Chad holds his gaze.

"Your father and Mitchell are finished in the office. It's time for you to go, Mr. Abbot."

Chad nods and looks at Bradley, victorious.

"You heard the man. Come on!"

"No. You are leaving, Mr. Abbott. Go back to terrorizing kids in Fredericksburg. I suspect it's your only talent."

"My father said…"

"This may surprise you," Kazansky interrupts condescendingly, "but your father is not above the law. Bradley stays here with his family." he smiles, but his eyes are hard, cruel. "That's how we do things in the Navy."