Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chuck Hansen was pissed, that much wasn't new, but this was different. He'd been fuming that the Marshal felt that Striker wasn't good enough for the bomb run and they needed backup in the form of that rust-bucket and her has-been pilot.

But that anger had paled in comparison to what he felt now. They'd arrived in the hanger, Chuck still in his drive suit, and both Herc and Max had gone to greet the small party that held one Raleigh Becket. Chuck looked across at the group and the minute he laid eyes on the man - his vision blacked out for a moment.

Memories came flooding back to him. Many lifetimes of memories, and they all contained the man stood across the hanger from him. He didn't always look the same, but Chuck knew, somewhere deep inside of him, a surety that he couldn't question, that it was Raleigh.

~~~~~

In every memory, Chuck knew that they were soulmates, each other's perfect half. They went by many different names across the lifetimes, but Raleigh was new.

He'd never spent a lifetime, not one since he could remember without the man. There had been times when they had met in their old age, but they still had spent those final months or years together.

But Chuck had been alone, the last time he had seen Raleigh was in 1894 - as Ray in London, England, they had lived in a small terraced house, and Ray had passed 2 years before Chuck or Charles as it was then. He'd been heartbroken as he was every time, but he carried on as he knew that he would see older man soon enough, and they could do it all again - together.

Chuck then became Charlie Duckworth, born, again in England in 1896. But 1914 came and the world turned to war and he died alone and afraid in no-man’s land. It wasn't the first time he'd died due to un-natural causes, but it was the first time in all his many lives he'd died without knowing Raleigh, not that he knew it at the time.

Unfortunately, one of the joys of reincarnation is that you can be born just 9 months after you died, so Charles Taylor was born in Queensland, Australia in 1917. So, for the second time in a quarter of a century he fought in a great war, and for the second time he died alone and afraid.

Carl Johnson was born in 1945, in New York and was selected by the draft lottery for Vietnam, he didn't die there but spent the rest of his rather short life plagued with nightmares and failed to ever really connect with another soul. Yet again the notable absence he felt in his life was always present but he had no way of knowing what it was.

~~~~~

Chuck saw all of this. All the happiness that he had experienced with Raleigh and all the emptiness that he had felt for the last 3 lives because Raleigh hadn't been there. Hadn't come for him and he was more than angry. He felt betrayed.

But of course, he had this earth-shattering revelation, that he wasn't just Chuck Hansen, but that he'd lived countless lives, and Raleigh was none the wiser. Because Chuck was always the first to remember.

Raleigh had always theorised before that it was because the man was closed off and abrasive and would never normally go up to a stranger, wouldn’t see the point in bothering. So, Chuck remembered everything the moment he laid eyes on Raleigh just like every other time, but Raleigh wouldn't remember until he touched Chuck.

Most times, Chuck always found a reason to go straight to the other man and greet him, force contact, force him to remember.

But this time he couldn't bring himself to, because Raleigh had abandoned him to so much pain and loneliness, and while he might remember his past selves, he wasn't them.

He was Chuck Hansen who could hold a grudge for an unreasonable amount of time even to his own detriment, just ask his father.

~~~~~

Chuck spent the next few hours wandering aimlessly around the shatterdome with Max in tow.

He had faced 3 reincarnations each with an awful war that had either ended his life or destroyed what remained of it, and here he was in yet another war.

A war that had not only taken his mother from him but had stolen his relationship with his father and corrupted it. Chuck couldn’t help but feel old in that moment. Far older than he should feel at just 21 but then he wasn’t really 21, was he?

Because even though Chuck may not have lived all those lifetimes in this body, his mind remembered them all and he felt ancient and all alone.

He knew logically that if he could just get to Raleigh then he wouldn’t be alone any more. That he’d have his soulmate back. But at that moment in time Chuck wanted Raleigh to feel as alone as he felt, as he had felt for the last 100 years.

~~~~~

Herc had invited Raleigh to sit with them and it took everything Chuck had to not reach out and accidentally brush his hand against Raleigh’s.

Instead he found himself trying to rile the older man up, he knew it was pointless. There was no way Raleigh would realise who he was without skin to skin contact, but Chuck still wanted to needle him.

“So, when was the last time you jockeyed, Ray?” Chuck knew the name would mean nothing to the man across from him, would just seem like Chuck didn’t care enough to learn his actual name. But Chuck wanted to see, needed to know if Raleigh remembered anything at all, even though he knew he wouldn’t.

“About five years ago.” The pinched look that appeared on the older man’s face, told Chuck enough that he didn’t want to go down this line of questioning. But only because he didn’t like what was in his past from this life. Well Chuck didn’t like what was in the past from his last 3 so welcome to his pain Becket.

“What have you been doing for five years? Something pretty important, I reckon.” Chuck asked but he didn’t listen for the answer, because it wasn’t the question he wanted to ask, and he wasn’t asking it to the man in front of him at all, he was asking it to the universe as much as anything.

Why had he been left alone to suffer all these years?

~~~~~

Chuck honestly wasn’t surprised when it all came to a head after Gipsy’s trial run. He knew eventually Raleigh would snap.

Chuck relished in the feeling of Raleigh’s fist colliding with his face. Enjoyed the fact that Raleigh’s eyes glazed over for a few seconds and when they refocused on Chuck, a look of shock and understanding crossing his features.

Well Chuck relished in the opportunity to punch Raleigh straight back.

He wanted Raleigh to know how much he hurt, the pain he felt deep inside his soul. But Raleigh was a better fighter, and Chuck was far more focused on his rage than his technique, so it was no surprise that Raleigh had pinned him twice before Herc intervened.

Chuck could see the hesitation on Raleigh’s face, he wanted to follow, he wanted to talk to Chuck, he wanted to understand, but he knew better than to do any of it at that moment in time.

~~~~~

For once Chuck was nervous for the drift, they were about to drop on a double event and his dad could be exposed to all the chaos that was going on inside Chuck’s head.

It was bad enough for Chuck who remembered everything, and it at least made sense to. Imagine how his dad would feel finding out that not only are reincarnation and soulmates real things but his son is technically millennia old.

Turns out all the other Chucks' memories, didn't work like his own. They were almost like memories gained in a drift themselves and so they didn't filter through to Herc, and honestly Chuck couldn't have been more grateful.

He realised that if they survived this then he was going to have a lot of fixing to do in regard to his relationship with his father. Having remembered his pasts, some of which he'd been a father himself in, and wasn't that just strange? He knew parenting wasn't easy, and sometimes the decisions you think best, hurt them in ways you didn't realise.

~~~~~

Chuck was stood in the hanger as everyone else congratulated Gipsy's pilots and Chuck knew at that point having seen Raleigh almost die through a set of binoculars, that he couldn't hate the man forever.

He left for his quarters just as Stacker dismissed them, and he managed to get inside and was seated on his bunk trying to take stock of everything that had happened in the last 48 hours, when there was a loud knock at the door.

He knew without having to look who it was and opened the door, turning away almost immediately to sit back on his bunk. He was exhausted and knew that this argument wouldn't be over any time soon, both men were and always had been far too stubborn for that.

Raleigh walked in accepting the silent invitation, closing the door behind him, before walking over to lean against Chuck's desk.

They sat there for a few moments neither wanting to make the first move, Chuck felt the wounds all too clearly and Raleigh was just confused, he could only remember leaving Chuck over a century ago, with nothing but love and kindness in both their hearts.

Raleigh's voice was quiet and layered with hurt when he asked "Why?" and Chuck wanted to hide his face in his hands at the obvious pain the older man was in.

"Because you left me." and Chuck's voice came out small and broken, and he fought hard to not let it crack, to not let the tears from all that pain, most of which wasn't his, pour out.

Raleigh's immediate reaction was to go to the younger man, to pull him tight against his chest and just hold him, but the anger that thrummed under his skin at the accusation came bubbling to the surface almost unbidden.

"For fucks sake Chuck, I didn't leave you I left the PPDC. I didn't even remember until a few hours ago you know that!" His voice became louder, enough that Chuck wanted to bury his head under his pillow and just hide for a week. "You could have touched me the minute you saw me in the hanger, so don't blame me for this. You started the fucking fight."

Chuck had always had the more natural temper of the two men, but when it came to each other their emotions were always more intense, and Raleigh had always been fiercer when it came to Chuck.

Chuck looked up and met the older man's eyes, he could see the anger flickering like a burning fire there, and just shook his head. Any fight that Chuck had in him had evaporated and all that was left was a seething ball of hurt that made him want to be 6 again and to curl against his mother's chest and just sob.

"No," the quiver in his voice was obvious enough that it made Raleigh's expression soften, "I mean you left me in 1894, Ray." He used the name intentionally again, noticing how different the other man’s reaction was to it this time.

Raleigh's voice came softer this time, the anger layered behind something that Chuck couldn't quite place, "It's not like that was the first time, Charles." Chuck tried not to flinch at the returned name, "You've left me first before, but I always come back you know that."

Raleigh began to move towards the younger man, but something he saw in Chuck's posture made him stop as Chuck shook his head again, less control over his movements as the emotions threatened to swallow him whole.

"No Raleigh, you didn't come back." Chuck's voice was barely audible over the sound of Raleigh's breathing, "You left me all this time, I died on two battlefields alone and afraid. I practically died on a third, and all that hurt and pain, it came flooding back the moment I saw you. 3 lifetimes of loneliness because you never came back."

Raleigh was frozen in shock, his mouth partially open, and Chuck could practically see the cogs working in his brain as he tried to process the information. "But that's never happened before, we always come back together." His voice was thick with confusion and worry, "I just assumed we both skipped the last century."

Chuck could hear the regret in Raleigh's voice, and before he knew it Raleigh was sat next to him on the bed, pulling the younger man into his arms and holding him tightly. "I'm so sorry, Chuck." Raleigh's voice was thick with emotion and Chuck just wanted to cry against the man's chest. "Please know I didn't have a choice. I would never leave you if I had a choice, I love you, I always have, and I always will."

At that Chuck couldn't hold back the tears any longer and he began to sob, Raleigh just held him through it whispering words of love and encouragement.

~~~~~

When the Kaiju alarm sounded, Chuck barely managed to convince himself to let go of his soulmate and report to the hanger. He felt like he'd been flayed alive, his emotions still felt raw and painful, but there was a healing aspect to the pain. Like all the bad had been taken away and he could begin to heal properly.

~~~~~

As Herc came towards him, tears in his eyes and his heart on his sleeve, Chuck told him that he already knew. That he knew his father loved him and that he loved him back, and Chuck vowed that if he made it back from this suicide mission, he'd never stop trying to fix this barely healed and fragile thing between them.

~~~~~

And as Chuck faced down that decision, he realised that while he was going to die on yet another battlefield, at least this time he wouldn't die alone and afraid.

No, he would die knowing that sometime, be it 10 years or 100 years from now, he would find Raleigh again.

Chapter Text

Raleigh came to with Mako’s arms wrapped around him and her tears hot against his cheek. It took him all of 20 seconds to remember the flash of blinding light and the feeling of his heart-breaking into a million pieces.

It wasn’t the first time he’d lost Chuck so young, but it was the first that they’d had barely 48 hours knowing one another and he just wanted to weep.

They held each other as they waited for the choppers, listening to Tendo updating them on the ETA, when Raleigh spotted something in the distance.

He was leaping into the water without a second thought, forcing himself to swim as hard and as fast as he had ever swum in his life. Slowly, far to slowly closing the gap between him and the escape pod in the distance.

It felt like a lifetime had passed between his pod ejecting and him reaching the other pod. Every part of his being was pleading with the universe, that for whatever reason it kept bringing them together, that it would give them longer this time.

Raleigh hauled himself up onto the pod, looking down at the release handle and pleading once more to let this be Chuck, to let him be ok, before pulling the latch.

~~~~~
The last thing Chuck remembered was blinding pain in his head and then darkness. Normally that would be it until he saw Raleigh again but here, he was remembering the pain. Suddenly light was pouring in through his closed eyelids, and he was being wrenched upwards by his shoulders.

Chuck’s eyes flew open to see a soaking wet and half crying Raleigh Becket sat across the top of his escape pod looking at him as if someone had just given him the moon.

And as Raleigh pulled him close and kissed him Chuck couldn’t help but thank the universe that he didn’t have to live without Raleigh again for a good long time.