Chapter Text
“You in the helicopter, do you read me? We can see you on the launch pad.”
Feuilly and Bahorel exchanged a glance from where they were working to strap themselves into the seats of the helicopter. The wind whipped around them, and the ocean water churned under the starry sky. White-capped waves extended as far as they could see. The transmission was muffled in the headset, barely audible from the earpiece resting against the dashboard. They had only just climbed into the helicopter, having finished removing the tarp, hinting at its age in the number of mismatched patches scattered across its surface, only moments before.
“Uh, yes?” Bahorel fiddled with the microphone on the headset. He cranked his head over his shoulder and squinted in the direction of the horizon.
“This is Chrome Brutus.” The sentence was slick on the Pilot’s tongue, as if his words were slipping on glare ice. “We’re closing in on the coast.”
Feuilly’s hands stilled. They dropped from the seatbelt that he was attempting to lock into place and fell like dead weights into his lap.
“If they could have held out for a few more minutes…” he said, his voice catching in his throat. He leaned forward and rested his head against the dashboard. He focused on the sensation of the cool surface on his forehead while he gathered his thoughts. He swallowed to choke down a completely inappropriate laugh at how the timing had worked out. Fighting the urge to laugh distracted him from the tears welling in his eyes. Reinforcements had been so close.
“We picked up an escape pod on our way in. The readings on the vitals are steady,” the man reported. “We, uh, honestly didn’t know there was an operational Shatterdome this far south.”
Bahorel stared at the headset with a blank expression. Feuilly wouldn’t be surprised if Bahorel hadn’t heard any of the transmission. He extended his hand. He waited until he felt the telltale weight of the headset settling in his palm before raising his head and opening his eyes. He took a deep breath. His shoulders shuddered as the air rushed into his lungs.
“Zeke, is that you?” Feuilly inquired. He positioned the mic near his busted lower lip, still stained with blood from where his teeth had torn into it.
“Feuilly!” the man exclaimed, the tone of his voice visibly brightening. “You running this operation?”
“You could say that.”
“We were still fifteen miles out when we saw a Jaeger and a Kaiju disappear from the radar,” Zeke said. “We had to divert our course to avoid the debris from the explosion.” He ended his sentence with an upward inflection of his voice. His unspoken question hung heavily in the air.
“I’ll explain when you get here. By any chance, do either of you have medical experience?” Feuilly asked with bated breath. He waited patiently as the transmission went quiet. Feuilly listened to the Pilot’s breath as he spoke. The air sweeping over the microphone obscured the beginning of his message.
“Luckily, I have Flint with me. He’ll be able to help you out. You might recall that he has extensive medical experience at the Anchorage Shatterdome.”
“Perfect,” Feuilly said, the word exploding from his mouth. His heart picked up its pace in his chest, hammering against his ribcage. “We have a Pilot here suffering from neural overload.”
“We’ll see what we can do for him.”
“Thank you,” Feuilly breathed. Something twinged in his chest. It took another moment for him to identify the spark of emotion coursing through his veins. Hope.
Maybe they could save one more life.
Courfeyrac couldn’t do anything but stare up at the tiles of black metal that intersected to form the curved roof of the escape pod.
He’d been in one only once before, and he’d been able to see what was going on outside. But after the way everything else had turned out, he wasn’t the least bit surprised that the escape pod wasn’t functioning correctly. He surrendered himself to the surrounding darkness, willing himself not to feel anything at all.
The thoughts he did have were jumbled and incoherent. His fists ached from the repeated slamming on the sides of the pod. He kept doing it, his clenched fists beating out a staccato rhythm. After another minute, he let them drop down to his sides. No amount of pounding was going to change what had happened.
“Courf? Can you hear me?”
The words tumbled around in Courfeyrac’s mind. He squeezed his eyes shut at the assault of light. His eyes had only just adjusted to the darkness. It took a considerable effort for him to actually understand what was being said because none of the words seemed to be sticking.
A rush of cool air caressed his face. He decided it was time to open his eyes. He blinked once, then twice. He realized he was lying on the concrete floor of the loading area, gazing up at the arched ceiling of the Shatterdome. In his peripheral vision, he could see a sky blue Jaeger parked in one of the empty spaces, the engines whirring and steam rising from its legs as its systems powered down. He figured he was hallucinating and tried not to dwell on it.
“Courfeyrac?” Feuilly repeated. Cool fingers pushed the hair matted to his forehead with sweat away from his eyes.
“I can hear you,” Courfeyrac mumbled. His words didn’t feel like his own. He ran his tongue over his lips, hoping to alleviate his chapped skin. Feuilly and Bossuet’s hands worked around him, checking him for abrasions and bruises.
There was another clicking sound and he felt a current of air spread across his legs. He vaguely heard Feuilly tell Bahorel he only had a gash on his arm from where the escape pod had scraped him as it was closing over his body.
“Would you like to sit up?” Feuilly asked him. Courfeyrac nodded once. Feuilly and Bahorel helped to ease him to a sitting position. Bossuet appeared at Feuilly’s side with a bright orange shock blanket. Courfeyrac pulled it tightly around his shoulders. He gazed at the disengaged escape pod around him, the parts scattered like puzzle pieces.
“Did Combeferre make it?” Courfeyrac managed to ask. He hung his head and fiddled with the loose threads in the seams of the blanket as he waited for the answer.
“He’s not doing so well,” Bossuet informed him. “But he’s hanging on.”
Courfeyrac slowly raised his head. The back of his neck ached with the effort. “Take me to him?” he pleaded.
With Feuilly on one side and Bossuet on his other, they clutched at his elbows and helped him to stand. Courfeyrac lifted his arms and draped them over their shoulders. With their support on both sides, Courfeyrac retraced the path in reverse he had taken with Enjolras and Grantaire. He bit down on his lip, the sharp taste of blood filling his mouth.
Don’t think, his brain ordered.
Bahorel, who had been following behind them, edged around Feuilly and pressed the button to call the elevator so that neither of his supports would have to readjust their grip.
The elevator was eerily quiet as it took the three of them back to the control room. Courfeyrac lifted his face so that he could better feel the feeble current of warm air overhead. He couldn’t remember when the heater in the elevator had begun working again. The stainless steel doors opened to admit them into the hallway and Bahorel rushed forward to hold open the door.
Every step that Courfeyrac took sent waves of pain cascading down his spine. He knew he wasn’t badly injured, but his muscles were strained and fatigued from the physical exertion of moving the Jaeger. Even the smallest motion of his soles shifting in the black leather boots of his Jaeger suit triggered pin-prinks of pain. He staggered along on unsteady legs, with Bousset supporting his right side and Feuilly supporting his left. Their arms overlapped across the curve of his spine. Courfeyrac lost track of how long it had took them to walk down the hallway and into the control room.
Courfeyrac grimaced as he realized he had finally come full circle.
“I’ll bring the Pilots up,” Bahorel said. His voice was unnaturally quiet.
The comment didn't make sense to him, but Courfeyrac didn’t have the energy to voice his confusion. Never was he more grateful to have Feuilly and Bossuet holding him up. In the corner of the room, Joly supported Combeferre’s head in his lap, running his fingers through Combeferre’s hair. Courfeyrac didn’t need to see any blood to know how bad it was. He pretended not to notice.
They led him over and helped to ease him down. The sensation of the floor against his tailbone sent a new wave of pain ricocheting up his spine. Without needing to be told, Joly edged over a few inches, still supporting Combeferre’s head. He waited until Courfeyrac was in the proper position before easing it back down into Courfeyrac’s lap.
Combeferre bent his arm, positioning it in a way that allowed Courfeyrac to take his hand over his shoulder, even if the position of his twisted arm was awkward. Combeferre’s hands felt heavy and his fingers were unresponsive. Courfeyrac sensed what he was doing and helped him to thread their fingers together.
“Hey,” Courfeyrac said, blinking quickly to remove the tears from his vision. If he didn’t clear them, he wouldn’t be able to see and he’d never be able to forgive himself for that. “I told you I’d come back.”
A half-smile crossed Combeferre’s face, but he did not open his eyes. Courfeyrac ducked his head and pressed a kiss to Combeferre’s burning forehead.
“You’re okay,” Courfeyrac told him. He inhaled in short, ragged breaths. “I’m here now.”
Thank god, thank god, thank god.
The voice in his head finally sounded like it belonged to him.
Two weeks later
The mattress dipped as Courfeyrac climbed into bed. He looked around at Feuilly’s guest room as he waited for Combeferre to adjust his position.
The paint on the walls was still the same shade of off-white and the sheets on the mattress were still the same, albeit sent through the washer numerous times to remove the bloodstains, and the same lamp was positioned on top of the dresser. All of this had stayed the same, while the rest of their world had irrevocably changed.
Courfeyrac rested flat on his back, his head supported by two pillows. Combeferre clung to his side, his leg entwined with Courfeyrac’s. He rested his head on Courfeyrac’s chest so that he could listen to his heartbeat. Courfeyrac’s arm circled around Combeferre’s shoulder, pulling him closer still. Rain slipped down the windowpane. A single raindrop raced down the surface of the glass. The house was still.
“How are you feeling?” Courfeyrac asked, moving his head so that he could rest it on top of Combeferre’s. He closed his eyes as he waited for the answer.
“Better,” Combeferre said. He clutched at the fabric of Courfeyrac’s t-shirt, bunching the material in his fist. He thanked his lucky stars every day that the Pilot who treated him had had extensive experience dealing with neural overload. “Did you see the paper today?”
“Yes,” Courfeyrac replied. The Kaiju attack was front page news, which was especially important in a place that did its best to communicate only critical news in a printed format. Paper was a commodity. But this had been an extraordinary circumstance that constituted the printing of a special issue.
The worst part about it was that no one would ever know exactly what Grantaire and Enjolras had done. All they knew was that a Jaeger had shown up while they'd been hunkering down in the public shelters and taken down a Kaiju. They wouldn’t know how they had made the decision to self-destruct the Jaeger in order to protect them. They wouldn’t know that two Jaegers, one authorized and one unauthorized, had been involved.
They would never know what those two people had done for them because no evidence remained of their deed apart from the still-standing city. They would only feel the absence of two people in the group that gathered at the Musain and left forever wondering what had become of them.
Every so often, someone would gather up their courage to voice their question, but then they’d see the pain in Courfeyrac’s eyes and think better of it. So they wove together their own stories with the flimsy threads of idle speculation.
“Did you see the announcement underneath it?” Combeferre asked next, drawing Courfeyrac out of his reverie.
“The one from the President of the Anti-Kaiju Wall Initiative sending additional funding to rebuild and reinforce the Wall?”
“That’s the one.” Combeferre smiled against Courfeyrac’s shirt as he felt Courfeyrac run his fingers through his hair. His thumb idly rubbed clockwise circles into the back of Combeferre’s skull, provoking a quiet hum of satisfaction from Combeferre.
“I have something to tell you,” Combeferre said. He hesitated.
“Is this about what I said before I left about our wedding?” Courfeyrac guessed.
Combeferre struggled to come up with a proper response. “Well, sort of. I mean, you’re probably going to end up meeting my parents eventually and I just want you to know right now that I don’t see eye-to-eye with my father.”
Courfeyrac frowned in confusion as Combeferre pulled away from him. He propped himself up on his elbow, his head tilted up so that he could gauge Courfeyrac’s reaction.
“What? What does you father have to do with any of this?”
Combeferre spoke slowly, hoping to ease the impact of his words. “Reinforcing the Wall isn’t a viable long-term solution,” he said. “Though it was thoughtful of him to increase the funding for this sector.”
“Your father - " Courfeyrac struggled, the pieces finally falling together in his mind. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, that explains a lot.”
Courfeyrac groaned as he heard the chime of the doorbell.
“Hold that thought,” he said. "And I'm not done talking about our wedding yet."
Courfeyrac sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He made sure Combeferre was properly tucked in before remembering the reason that he had dragged himself out of bed in the first place.
He peered through the peephole and frowned at the sight of a six foot tall man waiting patiently outside, his hands clasped in front of him. He wore sunglasses, even though it was overcast. Rain fell in a curtain behind him as it sloped off the roof sheltering the front porch. Courfeyrac wondered how the Commander of the Jaeger Initiative had known to look for him at Feuilly’s house.
Courfeyrac turned the deadbolt and opened the door slowly.
“Commander Valjean,” he said, bowing his head in a display of respect. His hand was still clutching the doorknob. “It’s been a while since the last time our paths crossed.”
“It has,” the Commander acknowledged. He spoke quickly, not one to mince words.
“Would you like to come in? I can make you a cup of coffee or something,” Courfeyrac offered as he pulled the door open wider. The Commander remained where he was, his feet squarely placed on the welcome mat. The roof hanging over the front door protected him from the wind and rain.
“No,” the Commander said curtly. “I only came here to ask you a simple yes or no question.”
“Alright, then,” Courfeyrac said, using his hip to prop open the door.
Though he could not see his eyes through his tinted lenses, Courfeyrac imagined his superior narrowing his eyes at him. A clap of thunder sounded as the Commander opened his mouth to speak. Courfeyrac looked over the Commander’s shoulder at the streak of lightning illuminating the sky.
“Would you like to rejoin the Jaeger Initiative?”