Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Darkness.

The smell of petrol.

A flash of light and the taste of salt.

Mako.

Mako.

Raleigh turned in bed to face the window, a soft breeze and the hum of cars on the street below pushing through the blinds. The sterile white of the moonlight, casting long, unforgiving shadows about the room said that dawn was still hours away, and yet Raleigh now felt wide awake.
Great.
Since closing the Breach, and leaving the Shatterdome, Raleigh hadn’t had a single full nights sleep. But he hadn’t had a day living either. He was trapped in flux, between a fallen past and an yet-undecided future. It had been six weeks since the final mission, and every day had been it’s own excruciating whirlwind of waxen faced presenters and prying questions. New York marked the halfway point of the US press tour, but Canada and Alaska had already taken their toll. Wasn’t it bad enough having to watch his mentor, his friends and his brother die without any chance of recovery or salvation, without hearing the stories play out time and again in front of studio lights and live audiences?
Sometimes, in between the godawful TV interviews, Raleigh would find a rare moment to himself and his tiredness would drive in like a tide, bringing dreams in with the surf. Flashes of pain and loss like shocks of electricity. Images of Yancy, now blurred with time like chalk drawings on the sidewalk, were interspersed with crisper, crueler images.

Hong Kong after Otachi and Leatherback.

Crimson blood bruising the Marshall’s collar.

Mako’s eyes when the line went static…

Raleigh turned over again. It seemed sleep had rejected him for yet another night. It was time for a run.

………………………..

All Mako did was sleep.
Everything else felt too impossible. She got up for the interviews and the photo shoots and whatever else the Pan-Pacific’s PR team asked her to do, but as soon the camera’s were switched off, Mako stood up, walked out, and went to bed. The stylists had stopped asking about the days of mascara dissolving under her eyes, or if she could wash her hair for the next shoot. They just sprayed it with powder, layered more makeup onto it the day before’s and sent her out.
For Mako, sleep was her only solace. Because for the hours she was asleep, Mako wasn’t locked in some foreign, claustrophobic hotel room. She was at home, in her cosy, box-of-room in the Shatterdome, the hum of the Jaeger's idling engines filling the room, polaroids of her mother and father peppering the walls. The faces weren’t plastic strangers, but familiar and warm, and that's what Mako loved best. Time had stolen away the faces of the people she knew. They slipped in and out of focus, like once clear ink fading in water, but when she was sleeping, Mako could see them clear as day. Sasha and Alexis playing P’yanitsa in the mess hall, Herc and Chuck walking Max across the pad, and best of all Stacker. The Marshall’s face was his again, kind eyes and stern brow, and the deep timbre of his voice was no longer distant and forgotten.
Waking up felt like losing them all over again.

As soon as the Breach was closed, everyone left at the Shatterdome had been re-mobilised with the mission of getting the word of their victory against the kaiju across the globe. Within hours of their rescue, Mako and Raleigh were shipped out on their press tours as the heroes of Gipsy Danger, with Mako to tour the Eastern Hemisphere, and Raleigh to go home to America and tour the West. There was no celebration, not even a moment to stop and think of the fallen. Grief made for great publicity, and the Pan-Pacific governments were not ones to squander such great opportunity. Within the space of a day, Mako had lost her home, her father, and the man who knew her best in the world.

When the Marshall had first taken her to the Jaeger simulation deck in the Tokyo Shatterdome, he had warned her about how hard movement in a Jeager could be.
‘You are trying to move 2500 tonnes of metal, Mako.’ He had said, ‘Every single sinew of your body will feel the weight of it. It’s a force like nothing you will have ever felt before, so do not worry yourself if it is too much to handle at first’. Mako had been so scared that she wouldn’t be good enough to control the Jaeger, that she might never be good enough to avenge her parent’s deaths.
Stacker had been right, but to Mako, being in a Jaeger was instinct. The weight of the machine was a strength she had never felt before. It galvanised her muscles and pulled every fibre within her taut, till they thrummed like the strings of a violin. The maneuvers became like dancing, with the music borne straight from Mako’s soul. The Jeager was an elemental power and Mako loved it more than anything.

Her grief was a far, far heavier weight to bear.

It drained the air from her lungs and filled them with lead, till the force of it bent her double. Loss was brutal and strange, and it left Mako with a constant, cancerous, burden that clawed and scraped against the walls of her body. When she had lost her parents, Mako had found solace in the Jaeger program, and in Stacker. Iron, electricity, the Drift, all were truths her hands could touch, and the Marshall was her constant anchor. But now they were gone. All of it was gone. And Mako was left to carry the weight alone.

“The burden of Jeager is too great for just one pilot, Mako,” the Marshall had said, “Alone we are fallible and breakable and weak.” Stacker motioned gently to his temple, with the soft, calloused pads of his fingertips. He had explained to Mako about the damage of the neural load and his radiation poisoning as soon as she had joined the Program, not to scare her, but rather show her every level of the risk she was taking. “But,” the Marshall added, “That is why we have the Drift. And why we have Drift Partners. So we do not have to walk these dark paths alone. So that the weight of it all does not destroy us. The drift ties two souls together, with invisible but indestructible thread. The pain if it breaks is...indescribable. But the bond it forges is a gift Jaeger pilots are uniquely blessed with.” Stacker rested his knuckles gently on Mako’s cheek, “Whoever gets the honour of being your drift partner, Mako, will be all the more lucky for having you at their side.”

Mako was left again in isolation. She lay back against the cold linen of her hotel bed, watching a coral sun dip beneath the skyscrapers of Kyoto. Another day of interviews complete, another day further away from the life she had come to love. The hollow feeling continued to rot in her chest, but somewhere, in some far off place, the thread wrapped around her soul gave a comforting tug.

Chapter Text

New York was surprisingly beautiful at night. Yes, the streets were full of drunken party-goers, celebrating a post-Kaiju world, but there was energy in every path, and a thousand possibilities in each step. After Yancy died, Raleigh couldn’t stand the quiet of empty places. It only made his absence all the more stark, like the lack of stars on a cloudy night. He spent so many of those years after Alaska in screeching construction sites and sketchy bars, trying to dull the pain. New York was a city full of people like him, all trying to fill hollow feeling with noise and light. It was one of the few places on the tour when Raleigh could genuinely feel at peace. Running through the veins of this impossible city, feeling soft feet pound the solid tarmac, finally finding the world’s frequency again, fingertips to a pulse.

Raleigh rounded the corner on the alley and all of a sudden found himself among the saccharine neon lights of Time Square. And there, beaming down from the largest billboard of all, him. In all his jaeger pilot glory. The picture wasn’t even real, the Pan-Pacific PR team had just superimposed his official portrait onto a stock image of an exo-suit, and glossed the pair over with layers upon layers of airbrushing. The portrait was old too, his hair was longer and less scruffy, and there was a boyish, lopsided smile on his face. To the world, this was the image of a hero. To Raleigh, it was like looking at his reflection in the ripples of a lake. Raleigh Beckett, but not enough. He was suddenly very glad to have a hood on his jacket, which pulled over his face as he walked across the street. Was this really his life now? Chasing uncatchable feelings in rain-soaked streets, while the other Raleigh Beckett, the one now owned by a world that would never know him, watched from on high. No story ever said what happened to the knight after the dragon was slayed.

Halfway across the Square, the image on the billboard changed. The Marshall, 25 foot tall and indomitable. This picture was real, there would have been many to choose from. Unlike Raleigh, Stacker had never failed, never faltered in his service to the Pan-Pacific Jaeger Corp, even when the rest of the world was telling him all his work was futile. And there he was, like a statue cast in solid iron, still watching over Raleigh and the world even after he’d gone.

Last man standing.

Raleigh felt a sharp pang of guilt when he looked into the picture's eyes. He knew Stacker would not have changed his mind about getting in the Jaeger, even if he had made the choice a thousand times, but Raleigh still wished he had stopped him, somehow. Maybe he could have taken the Marshall's place in Striker Eureka, and had him pilot Gipsy with Mako. At least then they would have both been safe. And Mako would never have had to lose the only father she had ever known.

Most of Raleigh's thoughts came back to Mako in some way. He supposed it was some last gift from Gipsy Danger, the Drift still connecting their minds. He had been broken and reformed in the Drift, it was unlikely that the force of it would ever really leave him. But it wasn't just that. He couldn't stop thinking about all the things he wished he had said on that escape pod. Surrounded by the gentle cadence of the water, Mako's forehead pushed to his own, a pair of iron wrought eyes lifting to meet shifting, stormy blue. That moment had felt like a promise.

Raleigh didn’t know how long the tour would last, but he knew it wouldn't end here. The next few years of his life would be filled with the aftermath of the mission, and though all the Jaegers were gone, the Jaeger programme would still control his life. Anniversaries, parades, memorials, every year he would be wheeled out in front of the crowds to play the part of Raleigh Beckett of Gipsy Danger again and again, airbrushed smile and pristine armour. The idea of it made him feel hollow. But worst of all, he knew it would be a long time before he and Mako saw each other again. There had been only two survivors, but the world was asking for so much more, and Raleigh and Mako would have to pick up the slack.

It was unlikely they would ever live in the same hemisphere again, let alone the same city, and well… Mako was special. I wouldn’t take the Drift for someone else to realise it, and Mako would move on. She had an infinite number of possibilities in front of her, a life she’d barely begun to live, and after the grief had passed, Raleigh knew Mako would transform; The glorious galaxy left after the supernova. But Raleigh had never lived a life without the Jaeger programme. Even on those red-raw mornings on the Wall of Life, his mind had been bound in the diesel drenched sinew of a Mark 3. There had been a part of him, some small, hidden part, that had never wanted the battle against the kaiju to end. He would drag crew out to bars and nightclubs after missions, trying to chase the adrenaline long after the fight was done. Without the fight, Raleigh didn't know who he was.

But, there had been a moment, on the bridge before Gipsy had landed in the Pacific, where Raleigh had seen a glimpse of a future worth living for. He had been so close. And she had been so close.

He'd never been good at timing.

With Time Square’s lights retreating behind him, Raleigh turned back down the alley towards the hotel. Sleep was mercifully drawing in, but the rose colour slowly blushing the sky said that another day of interviews had already arrived, and Raleigh quickly settled for a coffee and a red bull instead. But as he turned into the bodega on the corner, the shrill sound of a ringtone pulled him up short. Raleigh had blocked almost all calls to his phone soon after the victory had been announced. Only a handful of people would get through. For emergencies. As he lifted the chemical bright screen to his ear, he knew the call could mean one thing;

Something was wrong.

Chapter Text

The lights were too bright.

“Is is true that you had only one active mission before attempting to close the Breach?”

The stylist had pulled the knots in her hair too hard.

“How would you describe those last moments with Marshall Pentecost, Ms Mori?”

The back of the chair was too stiff.

“What was the nature of your relationship with Mr Beckett?”

Mako had been called downstairs late in the evening by her liaison for the tour, for a last minute interview with a foreign correspondent. It had been hard to pretend she was too busy when her voice was so thick with afternoon sleep, so like a sleepwalker, unconsciously tracing the walls of their room, Mako had made her way downstairs to the studio in the hotel lobby.

The American interviewer had been pushing the same prying questions for an hour and a half and showed no signs of stopping. Mako’s headache rumbled behind her eyes like growing static, and with every needle-pointed question, she was becoming all the more irritable. Hearing the Marshall final moments spoken of with such...passivity, created such an unfamiliar anger in her.

Don’t chase the rabbit.

“I am sorry Sir, I beg your pardon?” Mako said briskly, pressing her palm to her temple. The question usually made people reassess their line of interview, but the American seemed undeterred.

“I asked what the nature of your relationship with Mr Beckett was, Ms Mori?” He asked again. Mako’s stomach lurched. Almost every interviewer she had come across had asked that question. Certainly, on many occasions, Mako had asked herself the same.

It was unusual for compatible Drift partners to be unrelated, but it was near impossible for strangers to share the neural load. The Kaidonovskys had made headlines when they were given Cherno Alpha, and they had been childhood sweethearts. But somehow, Mako and Raleigh’s connection had been one of the strongest the program had ever seen. After the first drift, Tendo had given Mako the data sheets to help her understand what went wrong. For many first drifts, they charted ebbs in connection, where one mind wandered away from another, to a point where the threads keeping the two hemispheres together snapped and the alignment broke. The sheets Mako saw could not be more different. It was like two friends rushing to talk to one another after years of being apart, dialogue layered and galloping. A rainstorm filling a river in a drought, till the banks broke and the water overflowed. Their minds had been so desperate for one another that the thread had bound so tightly knots had tied it up.

Mako could still feel it. The Drift connection between her and Raleigh had written itself into her DNA, and she could feel it, feel him, as clearly as she could feel her own pulse. He was there, soft and reassuring like winter sun, on the days her mind was so leaden with grief she could barely move, throwing small bursts of light into the shadow. Her heart would rise to match the drumbeat of his, with lungs pushing breath into the air, as he ran through some far off city while she sat in the back of taxis. Sometimes as she slept, her dreams would fade into unfamiliarity and images of snow-bleached Alaskan coves would flood her mind. She would watch Yancy and Raleigh play, with all the clarity and joy of her own memories, knowing their minds had found their ways back to one another again.

They shared a soul with one another, they shared all the pain and love and anguish they had ever experienced with one another. Mako knew Raleigh as well as she had ever known herself, but would happily see herself at the mercy of category 5 before she saw Raleigh hurt.

How could anyone put a connection like that into words?

Don’t chase the rabbit, Mako.

“Our relationship was strictly professional, Sir. I am very thankful for the strength of Mr Beckett and I’s Drift, and what it was able to do in service against the kaiju.” Mako replied methodically. Complementary, assured, and totally mundane. The perfect response. The interviewer sighed, and began slowly transcribing the fruitless response. Mako smiled with a hint of self-satisfaction. Victory, even a small one, still felt sweet.

The mentions of Raleigh and Stacker had scraped what energy she had from the walls of her chest, and sensing a lull in the interviewer’s belligerent stamina, Mako got up to leave. But as she began collecting her things from the floor, the interviewer roused and lifted his cold, bespectacled eyes to Mako once more;

“In light of the recent announcement, how would you like to respond to the allegations being made against yourself and Mr Beckett, as a preface to your trial?”

Mako froze.

Don’t chase the -

“Excuse me?”

“The trial, Ms Mori. The inquest into the damage caused by the Jaeger programme, and specifically the Mark 3 Jaeger Gipsy Danger, during the final missions.”

Mako looked into the unflinching eyes of the interviewer, in the hopes of finding some trace of rumour. A kaiju looked back, relishing the panic of it’s prey. Mako twisted her head to the corner of the studio, trying to find some reassurance from her press secretary, only to see their face contort and blood drain in the pallid light of their phone screen.

Mako felt the lenses of five cameras zoom closer. She steeled herself and tried to steady her voice before pressing on,

“On what grounds, may I ask, is the trial founded, Sir?”

“The scale of the collateral damage, of course, Ms Mori. The destruction witnessed city wide in Hong Kong, the irradiation of the ocean ecosystem due to the… erratic choices made by the crew of Striker Eureka, and of course the subsequent strain of earthquakes and tsunamis triggered by the explosive closing of the breach and shift in the tectonic plates.”

Mako was stunned. Bile rose in the back of her throat, threatening to choke her. Of course, it was all true, but Mako never imagined that the responsibility of it all would be laid at her and Raleigh’s feet. They had done everything in their power to limit the damage caused, but the threat of the kaiju was far too great to leave anything to chance. What would any person decide, in the spark-burnt, smoke-filled chaos of a second, than to risk 100 lives to save the world's?
People wouldn’t see the bodies of the Wei Tang brothers and the Kaidonovskys being lifted from the Pacific, paled and bloated by waves, skin and metal fading together into faceless forms. The lives of heroes were supposed to be lost, in the eyes of a world so desperate for salvation, but to Mako, they were family. A no-one would ever look at their sacrifice as anything more than a duty met.

Blood began to pound thick and fast in Mako’s ears. Why had the Pan-Pacifc board not warned her? What would happen if the Trial found them guilty? Any alibis they had had perished at the bottom of the ocean, along with any hope of testifying to the truth of what had happened. Shatterdome recordings would only be so much use without Gipsy Danger’s blackbox to give evidence. Somewhere in the far distance, the interviewer was asking questions again, but what words were spoken were being lost in the static. The world was separating before Mako’s eyes like shattered glass. 6 weeks of being slowly ripped apart. Everything she had ever known, ever hoped for was being lost minute by minute.

She could be sure of only one thing. Trying to push the walls of her vision out of the dark, Mako got up, dragged her things from the floor, and ignoring the calls of the interviewer and her press secretary, walked out of the studio and the lobby and the hotel, out into the clear night.

And she just kept walking.

Chapter Text

“It’s not looking good, Rals. Not good at all.” Hercules Hansen said over the speakerphone. Raleigh sat on the edge of his hotel bed, with the phone balanced on one of his knees. The other knee hadn't stopped shaking since he had picked up the call.

The first light of the day was just breaking through the blinds in pale, golden beams and the rising heat of summer was already suffocating the room. Raleigh's coffee stood cold and untouched on the hotel side table, as one by one Herc listed the Trials charges. Each offence was more damning than the last. He had seen the devastation of the tsunamis and earthquakes with his own eyes. He would never forget the image of his childhood home in Anchorage, greying and small, crumbling away with each brush of the tide and before falling to the mercy of the sea as the coastal foundations finally gave way.

Having newly taken up the role of Marshall, it had been down to Herc to break the news of the trial to Raleigh, but the shock and fear of what was to come had stripped all airs of professionalism.
“As the only surviving Jaeger crew, and the only witnesses to the closing of the breach, you two will be at the forefront of both the defence for the Jaeger programme, and the main target for the prosecution.” Raleigh stayed silent. Herc sighed on the end of line, "I'm so sorry this is happening, Rals. You both deserved so much better than this. After all you’ve lost, after what we’ve all lost, I hoped we’d all be able to move on…. You and Mako,... it shouldn’t be happening to you.”

Mako’s name brought Raleigh out of his stupor.

“How is she? Mako. How is she with the trial?” The line went ominously quiet, till all Raleigh could hear was his sharpening breath and beating heart. “Herc? How is Mako?”

“We, um, we don’t know Raleigh. We don’t know where she is.” His blood ran cold. Herc sensing the tightening on the end of the phone, pressed on, “She left her hotel room suddenly last night and we have no indication of where she went next. She didn’t even take her bags out of her room”
“She found out in an interview, Raleigh. No one told her about the Trial until the cameras were already rolling. I think after everything, it was just too much. She was spotted at Tokyo airport last night, but where she is now, we, um, we don't know.”

Panic began to set in, buzzing like electricity through Raleigh, sparks from the tips of his fingers to the tops of his ears.

Herc continued, “The interviewer was awful, goading her about Stacker and her test scores and training. Needling stuff, to get her worked up. It’s a miracle the daft git didn’t end up with her fist between his eyes, she could have knocked him down without drawing a breath.”
“But, Raleigh, Mako isn’t well. Not physically as such, but she's not good. Not good at all. Everything, it’s scorched her from the inside out.”
Raleigh knew this. Somehow. He could feel her grief everyday. He tried to let her know that it was okay. That all of this, everything she was feeling, was okay. And that she wasn’t alone. Not for one single step of her way.
“Sir, I want to speak to her. When they make contact.”
The ominous silence returned.
“Raleigh, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But you can’t. Not until the Trial has reached its verdict. It was ruled early on that the Drift connection in close contact would make it easier for both parties to falsify their testimonies to match. Any contact between the two of you will be penalised against your case.”
“I tried, Raleigh, I did all I could, I’m so-”

Raleigh pressed the red button and placed the phone face down on the bed. The last bit of hope he had was gone. What was a candle flame against an ocean tide? The trial could last months, possibly even years and if the charges were as damning as they seemed, Raleigh might never be a free man again. He and Mako might never see one another again. The weeks away from her that had felt so painful, now seemed like a pinprick against the agony of looking ahead.

He pressed his hands to his forehead, trying to focus on his heartbeat and the feeling of his body. He tensed and untensed his muscles one by one, pulling on each one in turn like the revving of a Jaeger. He would fight this, and he would win. A knock came from the hotel room door. "The press conference is ready for you, Mr Beckett."

---------------------------

Mako rounded the corner of the street, letting her muscle memory lead her jet-lagged brain. Her eyes were blurred with sleep and her vision crackled, but it didn't matter. These streets were hers, as much as any place in the world could be and as London unfurled beneath her feet, she found her way home.

Stacker’s house stood on the end of a Tottenham street, white stone glowing in the moonlight. For such a strong personality, the Marshal's house was strangely cozy and modest. The garden was brushed with a layer of unkemptness in Stacker’s absence, but the beauty of the place still shone through. Blooms of violet wisteria draped along the upstairs windows, intertwined with wires of emerald ivy. The flowers cast delicate shadows on the grass, light waltzing in the breeze.
As Mako pulled open the gate, she noticed the acer trees, pillows of bursting atomic red, still lining the short footpath to the door. She ran her hands through the soft, silken leaves, relishing the rustle beneath her fingertips.

When the Marshall had first brought Mako home with him, to London, he had asked what she missed about home, back in Tanegashima. Just 13, her parents gone, any idea of home too distant to consider.
She had said she missed the sound of the trees on a windy day.
By the time she woke the next morning, Stacker had planted six acer trees in the garden, and opened all of the windows in the house, just so Mako could hear.

All the lights were off in the house, but Mako had barely reached the lintel before the front door swung upon, and she was secured in a strong embrace. Soap, fresh cotton and a hint of diesel.
Jake.
“It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re home.”
Six weeks of pain and loneliness burned their way through her body, like flame swallowing paper, finally set free. Mako’s knees gave way and they both sank to the floor in the hallway.
“It’s all going to be okay.” Jake said.

----------------------

“Yes, she’s fine Herc, she’s with me. She’s home safe and sound, don’t worry.”

Mako listened to Jake explaining in the kitchen, as she sat on the sofa bent low over a steaming cup of tea. The living room was just as she remembered. Blueprints of the MK I, II and III all looked down on the room from the walls around her, like statues of Greek gods. Old books and folders were scattered among the worn leather chairs and low glass tables, with their pages dog-eared and marked. Stacker’s house often felt more like the home of a librarian than a Jaeger pilot, but the building had grown and adapted to the three of them so perfectly over the years that Mako could not picture it any other way.

Mako could hardly make out Herc’s responses as Jake questioned him. It had been a brief gift to be invisible for a day, but now the reality came crashing down again. The trial. Raleigh. Even Stacker’s memorial had been taken from her, postponed till after the inquest. Mako was losing what little light she had left fast.
“Okay, thanks Herc, bye.”
Jake shut off the phone and took the seat beside Mako, pulling her to his side till she rested her head on his shoulder. “How is everyone?" She asked weakly.
"They're okay." Jake replied, "I think Raleigh's pretty shaken by it all, and he was worried about you. We all were."
Guilt shot through Mako like shrapnel. She swallowed the bitter feeling and looked ahead. "Any news on the trial?” She questioned, wrapping her arms tighter around Jake’s elbow.
“Not much. Just that it’s going to be in Hong Kong, some time in the next few months. I’ll warn you Mako, going back there won’t be easy.” Mako nodded solemnly. Neither of them would ever forget the waves of sadness that would come over Stacker in the days after the memorials, and the stranger who would replace him, the machine of guilt and loss. Mako had always been terrified that one day the waves might drown him. Now she feared the same tide had come for her.

Jake picked up the remote to turn on the TV, and blue light flooded the room. Mako blinked in the glare, but as her eyes adjusted to the light, a familiar form materialised on screen. Everything stopped. Instinctively, breathlessly, Mako leaned towards light, her hands clutched around her middle as if the pressure alone was all that could keep her held together.

Raleigh.

His face a fingertip’s touch away from her, but cruelly unreachable. Camera flashes illuminated his face in staccato blasts of languid light, throwing the drawn shadows of his face into sharp relief. Someone had tried to cover it, but the purple bruising of sleepless nights traced under his eyes, and his lips were red raw and bloodied with bites. Mako took a sharp intake of breath and Raleigh stood from his interview table to speak.
“I, I would like to make a statement on behalf of the Pan Pacific Defence Corp and as a representative member from the crew of Gipsy Danger.” Raleigh forced out the words with an effort that tightened every visible muscle from his jaw to his shoulder. With shaking hands, he lifted a piece of paper from the table and mechanically began to read.
“I first would like to offer my condolences to all those who have lost loved ones in the fight against the Kaiju. I share in your grief and understand the pain of such a loss. I - I, umm”
Raleigh faltered and his fingertips crumpled the edge of the page.
His eyes darted to a point beyond the screen, "I can't do this." He said, and he dropped the script to the floor.
"When I first joined the PPDC's programme, I thought nothing could ever stop me. That being in a Jaeger made people invincible, strong enough to stop acts of god. And then I watched my brother die. I watched his body crushed in the mouth of a kaiju like he was made of glass, and I felt every, single, second of that pain as if it was mine."
"When I was asked to rejoin the programme, just a few months ago, I agreed knowing exactly what I, what everyone in those damn machines, was risking. But I did it anyway. I did it to keep the world safe."
The voice of a journalist spoke up, "But, Mr Beckett, you still caused unbelievable collateral damage to the countries on the Pacific Rim? And, for what we understand, was only for a Category 4."

Mako looked at Jake. So, the PPDC had been lying. They were trying to cover up that there had been a triple event and a category 5 right under their noses, while they were pumping billions into the Wall of Life. Mako and Raleigh were to be the Jaeger Programme's last sacrifice, all to keep their precious business image intact.

Anger flashed across Raleigh's eyes and the veins in his fists contorted with the alien force of it.
"I will stand in front of any court, any jury, in any fucking country of the world and know what Mako- Ms Mori and I did, was right. We wouldn't have taken this goddamn, hellish job if that wasn't the only thing we intended to do. Do you think I liked hearing Yancy's spine break? Or listen to my mentor's last words before he blew himself to hell?" The camera flashes increased their relentless barrage and the whispers of journalists started to seep in.
"You all expected me to condemn the life of the woman I-"
Raleigh's face contorted painfully and he let out a long, laboured sigh.
"I was expected to risk the life of both myself and Ms Mori without a second's questioning for this mission. And I did. I'll be damned if I don't get a bit of peace for doing that."
The fog lifted. The room exploded with the cacophony of camera shutters and voices, but before a single question could land, Raleigh was gone.

Jake turned the screen to black. Mako was paralysed. The man she saw on screen was a stranger, so distant and in pain. The Raleigh she knew seemed lost, and if Raleigh was lost, what hope was there for her? Jake placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Mako?"
All words evaded her and deep sobs began to wrack her body. "What have they done to him, Jake? Why does he look like that? Why-." The pain finally closed its fist around her throat and she collapsed into Jake's chest, breath heaving and ragged. Mako felt two gentle but strong arms slide under her knees and arms, and Jake, with careful calculated steps, carried her to her room.

Mako woke the next morning in the same clothes as the day before, with Jake still sitting in the chair beside her bed, his chin pressed to his collar in sleep. Gently, she pressed her forehead to her brother’s and went downstairs.

Mako spent the morning re-packing her suitcase for Hong Kong, with the whisper of acer trees coming in through the open window.

Chapter Text

“Well, this is where I’ve got to leave you sadly.” Jake said, dropping Mako’s suitcases at the airport gate. Even early in the morning, Heathrow was alive with voices and people; Already so busy that Mako could hardly move without feeling someone land yet another bruise on her arm. She turned back to her brother, and walked instinctively into his open arms. The thought of being away from Jake was already terrifying her, and she welcomed the opportunity to hide herself away from the world in his hug, just one more time.
For the last month, Jake had been the sole thing holding Mako together, and the one person keeping her human. He had washed and brushed her hair on the days she couldn’t bring herself to do so. He had lifted her into the garden behind the house so she could feel the sun on her face, letting the sunshine fill up the chasms. He had kept her fed, he had kept her breathing, he had kept her whole. And now Mako had to walk into the hardest weeks of her life without him.

“Thank you, Jake.” Mako croaked.
“Anytime. And it shouldn’t be long, you know.” He added, “I’ve been asked to speak, on Dad’s behalf, so I'll only be a couple of weeks behind you.”
Mako nodded, face still pressed against her brother’s shoulder.
“We’ll be with you. Always remember that. No matter what the trial decides, I know who you are, Dad knows who you are, and we will never doubt a single choice that you made for one second.”
A sob-slick murmur escaped Mako and she pulled slowly away from the embrace.
“Now go!” Jake said, theatrically shoo-ing her to the gate, “And come home soon okay?”
Mako lifted her chin, and offered the last smile she had left in her to her wonderful, wonderful brother.
“I’ll see you really soon, Jake. I love you.”
“Love you too, Mako”

------------------

Mako wove her way through the labyrinth of the airport, trying to keep her face mask high and sunhat low against the stares of strangers. The plane to Hong Kong was on the other side of the terminal, and she was already running behind. These days, Mako’s energy felt less like the engine of a Jaeger and more like a dated phone battery, so while the Mako of days past would have run the 100 metres with less than a seconds thought, she now drudged the dingy corridors with leaden feet.

She rounded the corner to the departure gate, small pockets of sunrise illuminating the swirling dust motes in the dry air, when a set of double doors swung open at her side. Just as she glimpsed the sign for New York arrivals, a wave of people swallowed her from every side. Mako pushed her way through the crowd, focusing on the red and black board reading ‘HONG KONG DEPARTURES’ in the distance, but suddenly a dark shape blocked her path. A hard shoulder slammed against her, sending her hat flying across the floor and into the masses. Stumbling from the force, Mako looked behind her to stammer out an apology, hearing a deep voice hum out the same, but a brush of familiarity tore the words asunder. A flash of golden hair, a dark-knit jumper, the warming, ecstatic hum of electricity that passed through her, like sundogs breaking through clouds.
But before Mako could say another word, the crowd had swallowed the stranger and they were gone.

------------------

Hong Kong was a changed place.
It seemed to Raleigh that the city he had left all those months ago had been lost to the pain and grief like everything else. The colour had been bleached from the streets, volume turned down, the once bright world now muted and cold.

The Shatterdome was just a short walk from the airport, but Raleigh felt every single step of it. The foot of each building was ringed with memorials, time slowly stealing the writing from the cards and pulling the petals from the wreaths and bouquets so the tributes bled out across the pavement. People walked with their eyes turned low, and brisk paces. Tsing Yi Island was no longer a place of hope or safety. It was a place to avoid.

A line of sharp suits greeted Raleigh at the doors to the Shatterdome.
“Thank you for your prompt arrival, Mr Becket.” One of the suits droned, “We are yet to hear from your… partner, so we appreciate your communication and cooperation. You will be briefed shortly, in preparation for the trial this week,-”
The voice buzzed on, but the words fell on deaf ears. Raleigh was unresponsive to anything other than the clawing, choking feeling of change. The Shatterdome was an alien place to him now, scrubbed clean and professional. Looking around the foyer was like looking at the crude dissection of a heart; Blood and passion drained from the chambers, leaving cold and sterile flesh behind. Iron and diesel had been replaced with steel and glass, and the place Raleigh had called home not so long ago now seemed as distant as the Anteverse itself.
“Now Mr Becket, I will show you to your accommodation.”
“No.” Raleigh said, breaking out of his vigil.
“Excuse me, Sir.”
“No. I know where to go.”

The lift took Raleigh down deeper and deeper into the Shatterdome and, mercifully, with every floor, more and more of the place he had known returned. When he arrived at the fifth floor, and the doors opened to reveal the corridor of pilot's quarters, it was as though the place had been frozen in time. The hum of Jaegers was gone, but the hiss of the steam pipes and buzz of neon remained as comforting white noise. Scarred walls bore the markers of all the lives that had come and gone within the building and every small shatter and doodle of graffiti was as important as the wreaths that lined the streets outside.

Mind, muscle and memory led Raleigh to the door to his old quarters, but before he turned in for the night, he set his bags down on the steps of his dorm and silently walked to the quarters across the way. He stood before Mako’s door and her hushed and empty room and the distance between them felt greater than ever before. The thread had snapped, fibres frayed and split, and when he tried to pull against it, to recover some feeling of the Drift, all he was met with was deafening silence. Raleigh let his head fall against the iron door, pressing his forehead to the cold metal and repeated his promise to the girl he tied himself to.

Chapter Text

Crowds greeted Mako every morning outside the Shatterdome. Without fail, come rain or shine, they lined the roads. Seas of strange faces, warped by windscreen glass and speeding cars funnelled Mako into her newly formed hell day after day; watery smiles from the sorry, patronising masses and, scattered amongst them, the malignant eyes of those who wished her dead.

The first month of trials had been as close to torture as a humane organisation would allow. Each morning, Mako was led from the door of her car by dark-suited men to a cold, windowless steel box in the very heart of the Shatterdome. She would arrive at dawn, and leave only with the night, after hours and hours of interrogation had bleached her numb and unfeeling. Each week, the prosecutors would focus on a different event, Hong Kong, Gipsy’s trial, Pitfall, and another ‘crime’ to Mako’s name. And then she would have to play out over and over the tragedies of her past with sickening, precise detail. Everyone in that room knew there was no scandal, no gross misconduct to be found in Mako’s accounts of the missions, but each one of them hoped that this broken, half-there woman might just slip up and tie herself to the noose they were too cowardly to claim.

Even the Marshall’s dying words felt mulched and sour now, having had to wrench them out of her heart with every other interviewer’s whim. The pages of her life were being ripped away and cast onto the concrete to disintegrate in the rain and there was nothing she could do but sit and watch. Initially Mako had tried to keep some of those moments safe, brushing over lunchtimes on the girders with Raleigh or training sessions with Stacker. She desperately wanted to maintain the illusion that she was loved and free. But as the days turned to weeks, and more of her was dissected and thrown away, those moments just became distorted words and pictures like everything else.

She could no longer find the people she had loved.

The Marshall, Jake, Raleigh. They were gone, too far to reach.

To Mako it seemed they had been loved by someone else.

---------------------------

Raleigh had hoped that being close to Mako and close to the Shatterdome again might re-twine some of the Drift connection between them, but the days soon turned to months, the intoxicating feeling seemed to only get further and further away. Every night and every morning, Raleigh pulled on the worn thread around his soul and mind, hoping, praying, that she would answer. But no answer ever came. It was excruciating, to have her so near but so totally unreachable, just like when Yancy was dragged out of the Jeager; his soul having passed, but his body only an arms length away.

Some days, as he was being transferred from one room to another, he might catch the fraction of a glimpse of someone who might-be-Mako being led away by their own black-suited guard and even that brief, hopeful brush with her would galvanise Raleigh for days. They weren’t enough to truly sustain him, those fluttering half joys, but if that was all he could have, Raleigh would treasure them like gold.

------------------------------

With the last of her energy, Mako slammed the door of her hotel bedroom closed. The cracking, bone breaking rattle of the lock shook the room, but it was ringed with satisfaction. After spending hour after hour having strangers stare into and pull apart every part of her life like some caged circus side-show, the sound of a locked door and empty room was a welcome mercy.

The poison in Mako’s brain was spreading fast like unguent oil on water, slowly stretching it’s tendrils out to every part of her body. Stabbing beams of shadow shot through her brain, and with so little fight left, Mako was finding their calls harder to ignore. Maybe this was it. Maybe this was the Breach. All she had left to do was to fall.

The Marshall hadn’t been scared when he had pressed Striker Eureka’s detonator, and there hadn't been a hint of hesitation or fear in those final words to Mako. He had known what was coming and embraced it, wholeheartedly. But Mako was terrified. Absolutely terrified. She couldn’t make that choice, and there was still a large enough part of her that hoped she would never have to.

The covers of Mako’s bed were soft and unwashed. She didn’t like the housekeeping seeing the chaotic state she now seemed to live in, so the unwashed sheets and stacked plates all became fixtures of Mako’s little prison cell. Suitcases sat unopened, the fresh clothes inside unworn and Stacker’s books unread. Jake had been holding her together in London, and now without another soul near her, Mako was unravelling. The coils of hot wire that had kept her fighting had sparked out, and all that was left behind was a cold and empty shell.

The hotel room was close and stuffy, and the crowd’s shouts outside the Shatterdome across the square drifted up to the fifth floor room. Mako buried her head into the pillows to shut out the noise and began to claw her way into sleep.

------

Raleigh fell back hard onto his hard cot mattress. The day's interrogations had been brutal and his whole body ached as though he had just gone ten rounds in the Bokken ring, but a itching restlessness still flickered within him. In times gone by, Raleigh would have put on his trainers and run until the buzzing battery in his chest ran out, but now he wasn’t able to go more than five feet without some hard-handed official pulling him back in line. A deep, unpunctured sigh escaped him.

Raleigh hated feeling trapped more than anything else. He found his power in wide open spaces and unbroken skies. Now all he had was concrete. Raleigh’s room was far from comfortable but compared to his wintery dormitory in Alaska on the Wall of Life, his quarters in the Shatterdome were practically luxurious. Raleigh straightened himself out on the bed, hearing the muscles and bones shift and crack across his body. A night’s sleep and then another round with the Kaijus in suits.

----

a shift.

the thread is binding again.

the souls align.

a connection returns.

raleigh is there beside her, golden hair pressed against the soft sheets of the hotel bed.

mako is there beside him, iron eyes facing him on his quarter’s cot.

it’s so good to see his face.

it’s so good to feel her close again.

this is too tangible for a dream, too hazed for reality.

his thoughts and memories are hers again.

her thoughts are his.

how have they survived without this feeling for so long?

the joy and comfort to know their hearts are kept safe by someone else, no matter what.

they reach out their fingertips across the ocean of empty space between them and of a sudden, the sea is just a raindrop.

palm against palm.

a circuit recharged and a thread bound tighter.

a thread once frayed and breaking, now hewn from stone and indestructible.

mako is there.

raleigh is there.

                                                            and he will never lose her again.               and she will never lose him again.

the drift is complete.

Chapter Text

The days became longer and the trials harder, but somehow, Mako was more hopeful than she had been in weeks. When she began to chase the rabbit in her head, filing through all the awful, terrible possibilities that could await her after the inquest was over, a familiar hand was there to pull her back from the edge. The poison in her brain wasn’t gone, it’s shadow was too dense for that, but she was no longer suffocated by the feeling that she was in the darkness alone.

Her mind kept wandering it’s way back to her first time on the bridge of Gipsy Danger. To the panicked girl who transplanted her on that control deck, a bleeding red heart clutched in her tiny hands. She replayed the end of her world over and over in her mind, and nearly destroyed the Shatterdome in the process. But when she finally crumbled under the excruciating weight of the memory, Raleigh had been there to catch her. He hadn’t been angry or confused or shocked. He hadn’t blamed her for dashing his first chance at returning to the Jaeger programme. He had drawn her deeply into his arms, strong hands pressed to her waist, taken the whole weight of her body and her unending grief and held her close as everyone else ran away.

Perhaps Pitfall had broken Mako. Perhaps the Jaeger Programme had broken Raleigh. But Mako knew, without any doubt in her mind, that there was only one thing she felt when Raleigh was there. She felt whole.

-------

A text from Jake pinged up on Mako’s phone as she sat in the waiting room;

Flights stopped from London after a volcano eruption. PPDC say they are limiting entry to Hong Kong because of the demonstrations, but I will be there for the final inquest even if I have to walk there myself. Make sure to eat, and text when you can. J x

Mako sighed and slid her phone on the table next to her Jaeger suit helmet. For what had not long ago been the vibrant, beating centre of Mako’s world, the Shatterdome was a damn lonely place. She often realised at the end of the day how isolated her life had become when she tried to hail a taxi to the hotel and all the unused words of the day foundered in the pit of her throat, coming out only as small, choked sounds.

The waiting room, on one of the top floors of the Shatterdome, was a sterile box of glass and polished black concrete. Mako sat on a long, white sofa that looked directly out across the sea through floor-to-ceiling windows that wrapped around the room. The city glittered with saccharine light in the distance and a halo of smog ringed the tallest skyscrapers, but the skyline was still mutilated with jagged slashes and steel skeletons.

She pulled her eyes away.

She had never been in this room before, and while the space spanned metres, Mako was it’s sole occupant. And this was where she was to wait. For what, she had no idea. All she had been told was a time, and room number, and where to collect her old Jaeger suit from. It made a change to the unchanging four walls she had been trapped in for the last few months but Mako couldn’t ignore the feeling of anxiety, snapping and flickering like a fire coming to burn, growing in her chest.

“What's taking so long?” Mako muttered to the room.

-------

"Mr Beckett? Mr Beckett? We have asked you to accept the neural connection Mr Beckett."

Raleigh had been here before. This feeling was not new to him, but it had been a long time since it had been this strong. The airless feeling in his throat, his lead-lined lungs, and contracting steel fist around his stomach. Painful sparks began to form in his fingertips, and with every desperate breath the sensation grew stronger.

The room was new and unfamiliar. Each element of design was purposeful, but its purpose said nothing but distrust. Raleigh's hard-backed chair looked directly at a dissected rig of a Jaeger, a single hemisphere carved out and stood in the centre of the room. Walls of monitors and former Loccent tech loomed over him from all angles, ready to read every footnote in Raleigh's mind. What Raleigh would give to be back out in the waiting room with the infinite horizon and the cadence of the tide….

The man ordered Raleigh once more.

He couldn't Drift alone. Not again. What if it brought it all back. What if it damaged him, like the Marshall. He would never even know. Not until it was too late and the blood had already begun to flow. What if the solo Drift broke the connection with Mako and she would be left thinking he had left her to suffer alone.

Somewhere, possibly, a voice was growing loud and angry, saying something that might be Raleigh's name. He could not do what they were asking. He would disobey orders, once again. Who knew what damage he would cause this time.

Hands pulled at his arms, pushing and pulling Raleigh to the solo ranger rig, but Raleigh was no longer in control. His breath quickened and light-headedness took it’s firm hold. Just as the world sputtered out, an angry Australian voice broke into the room like a thunderclap, and Raleigh blacked out with the image of Marshall Hansen pulling the power plug and turning the room dark.

‐--------

"Mako?"
"Herc!" Mako turned her head to see the new Marshall of the Shatterdome standing in the doorway behind her. She ran towards him, and after bowing, let herself be drawn into a quick but tight hug.
“It’s so good to see you.” Herc said smiling. Mako returned the smile readily, but couldn't help but notice the heavy tension pulling on Herc’s features, drawing down the ends of his eyebrows and glazing his eyes.
“Is everything okay Marshall?” Mako asked.
A laboured sigh left Herc’s mouth and he placed a hand on Mako’s shoulder. “Maybe we could sit down?”

Hercules took a seat beside Mako on the long sofa looking out across the Bay, passing her a steaming cup of coffee. “As I’m sure you are well aware, the interviews haven’t really revealed anything new for the inquest.” Mako nodded sourly.
“So, the PPDC told the prosecution they could use Drift technology to have access to rangers unfiltered memories.”
Mako started aggressively, but Herc placed a steady hand on her knee.
“I know Mako, I know. God, I knew they weren’t beyond letting their jaeger pilots die to keep up their public image, but using invasive technology to let you and Raleigh take the fall for their fuck ups…Well, the only word I could find was bullshit.”

Herc was right. Using Drift technology as a way of infiltrating pilots minds for evidence was a wild destruction of ethics. For one, there was lots of evidence that solo drifts, even short ones, did irreparable damage to it’s pilots. Stacker had been proof of the health issues, but Raleigh and Dr Geizler showed the psychological effects could be even worse.
Not just that, but using the Drift didn’t just open up one part of the mind or the account of just one day, it opened the door to everything. There would be memories, memories of Mako’s parents, of Stacker, of growing up with Jake, that she couldn’t even remember that soon a panel full of strangers would know. Things a panel full of strangers could hold against her.

But Herc’s face wasn't worried in anticipation. “They have already started haven’t they, Marshall?”
Herc shook his head slowly, “Not yet, but they tried. They tried with- they tried with Raleigh this morning. Fuck, I hadn’t been close authorising it and the prosecution went behind our back to do it. The system’s untested, there’s been no proper trials, anything could go wrong with it, but the effing-PPDC don’t care about anything other than the verdict at this point.”
Mako looked down at her chapped hands, clasped tightly together on her lap.
“What about Raleigh?” She asked.
Hercules paused before answering in a quiet, measured voice.
“Well they brought him in, probably with the same kind of cloak-and-dagger schedule that you got given, and told him the plan to use the Drift to gather evidence for the case. But, umm, Raleigh was unable to go through with it because-”
“Because of Alaska.” Mako finished. Herc nodded solemnly.
“Yes. Someone let on what was happening to me this morning, and I managed to get up here before they started the Drift, but Raleigh was well out of it by the time I arrived. He’s okay, he’s recovering but whatever happened in there, it shook him.”

Mako and Herc sat in silence for a moment, watching the morning mist recede from the spray of the tide like a developing picture, sipping on their cooling drinks. Mako could feel how tight the thread was pulled, and couldn’t imagine what Raleigh had been thinking of in that room. Neither of them could keep battling through life like this for much longer.

“Of course, we are going to tell the PPDC that the Drift method won’t work-”
“No.” Mako said, her voice echoing around the room.
Herc turned to face her.
Mako stared out of the windows, with a forgotten determination strengthening her voice.
“No, Marshall. If the Drift can prove Raleigh’s and I’s innocence, then we use it."Mako stood from the sofa and walked to the window with her back to Hercules. She placed her forehead against the cool glass and tried to absorb some of the ocean's ceaseless resolve.
"The Drift has given us all many things. It gave me the power to avenge my parents. It keeps me connected to Sensei, and keeps you connected to your son." Mako said, turning back to the Marshall. "It brought me to Raleigh.
“There is a chance, if the PPDC gets the verdict they desire, that I may never live a free life again. Everything I have found in the Drift and everything the Jaeger programme has given me will be taken away.
“I have lost so much in my life, Sir. But I always hoped I would have a future, a good one, somehow. It’s what kept me going. If the Drift can give us all that, I think it might be Raleigh and I’s last chance. Our last shot at a future worth thinking about.”

Mako turned her head down, suddenly aware of all she had said. The room rang with a fluxing, electric energy, but for a moment, all stayed still.
“You remind me so much of Stacker.” Herc said sadly, and Mako looked up to see the Marshall’s eyes brimmed with tears.
He cleared his throat with a sputtered cough and stood in front of Mako. “It’s bloody brave, I'll give you that. He’d be so proud of you, you know.”
Mako felt pressure building at the back of her throat and she turned her eyes downwards. “Okay. Okay, I’ll go back to the PPDC and say we can go ahead with the Drift methods.” Mako nodded, satisfied and apprehensive.
“But,” Herc added, forcing Mako to look back up at him. “I will not be letting any Drifts go forward until the witnessed section of the Trial, and I’ll be bringing on Tendo again, to make sure everything is as safe as it can be for you.”
“Thank you, Sir.” Mako said with a tentative smile.

Herc walked Mako to the door of the waiting room and handed her back her helmet and phone. “I can’t imagine how hard this has been, Mako, but I just want you to know how grateful they would all have been. All of them. For what you’ve done.
And to that end, if there’s anything I can do, anything at all, please ask.”
Mako bowed her head and began to walk down the corridor to the lift that would take her back to her grim hotel home. Even days where her schedule was light had her drained and lethargic within hours, so she was ready to rest.

Mako’s fingertip hovered over the elevator button. She called behind her, as Herc closed the waiting room door.

“Actually Marshall, there is one thing.”

Chapter Text

“I can’t keep doing this.”

The shakes and tremors across Raleigh's body had finally started to falter, but they left him with a raw feeling and aching tiredness. He was used to panic attacks, but it had been years since one he’d had one so bad.
Raleigh could remember the last time with razor-sharp clarity;
Clawing his way through snow and sand and glass.
The red feeling of pain pouring from his side.
A scream in his head he would never not hear, and never hear again.

Raleigh bolstered his voice and looked to Herc, his commanding officer, who he was about to disappoint yet again.
“I can’t- I haven’t got anything left in me Marshall.”
“Raleigh,” Tendo said, passing Raleigh a cold paper cup of water, “Let’s be honest here, you’ve been giving those shits too much of yourself for too long now. And you’ve been well and truly fucked over in return. I would have shown them where to stuff it like, ten awful months ago, and yet here you are, having not vandalised a single piece of PPDC property! Look at you mate!”
A smile crept up on Raleigh’s face. It was good to have Tendo back. He was always the perfect amount of childish and cuttingly sincere.
“Tendo’s right, Raleigh.” Herc added. “You don’t owe the PPDC anything. You never did.
“There was a time when we were making these,- sacrifices-,” Herc’s voice broke on the word, “We were making them for something greater than any of us. For something worthwhile. But now? Now we’re just being used as pawns. Cheap propaganda and warm bodies to use up. What do we have to show for it, really?”
Tendo and Raleigh felt the hurt and anger radiate from every one of the Marshall’s words. Each was a spark landing on the dry kindling of his grief. On the loss of his son, his friends and the years of his life he gave up for the ‘Greater Good.’
Herc’s brow furrowed. “And do you know what, Raleigh?” He said, looking up to meet Raleigh’s stare. “I think it’s about damn time we took something from them for once. Grab your coat, kid. There’s somewhere we need to be.”

-------------------------------

Mako brushed her hands over the smooth, varnished wood of her Bokken sword. She had asked the Marshall for access to the Kwoon during her down time, per Jake’s suggestion during their last phone call, but now she was here, the request seemed pointless. Half an hour had elapsed, and Mako had barely mustered the energy to get to the equipment room. Ghosts haunted these halls. She had drawn her energy, her courage and her fight from them and now they were gone, the absence of their spirits seemed to drain her the most. Mako sat silently on the edge of the mat, next to her neatly folded jacket and straight-set shoes, and willed the room to fill with life.

“Kenjutsu is not a fight, Mako.” Stacker had said, wrapping her small, pale hands around the wooden hilt. “It is a dance of balance, give and take. Just like piloting a Jaeger” A look of polite confusion must have flitted across the young girl’s face, because Stacker knelt down beside her and wrapped his own strong hands around Mako’s unsteady ones.
Together, he pulled their hands back, swiping the sword back in a smooth, precise stroke. “Do you feel that?” The Marshall said, “Feel how much easier and lighter that was?” Mako nodded. “That’s because we did it together. We found one another’s weaknesses, and filled in the empty gaps; Just like Drift partners do.” Stacker smiled fondly and stood away to raise his own sword. “Now, when we start, try to find where I’m going wrong and meet me to match it.”
“But Sensei,” Mako asked in a small but sure voice, “The point of fighting is to win, not to be matched. How can we beat Kaiju if we keep trying to balance?”
Stacker returned to Mako’s side, and brushed the hair out of her glittering, determined eyes that had begun to brim with tears. “You have had to fight far too much, far too young. Your mind will always be full of fight and revenge.” He whispered. Stacker pressed his finger over Mako’s heart, “But in here, that’s where the real power is. That’s where that balance is, where love is. Your mind will change many times in your life, Mako. Believe me. But this heart, in here, that will never change.
“People think the Drift is all about the brain, the part that the machine uses. But it’s not you know. It’s about what Drift partners use to connect. And that is always the heart.”
Stacker brushed an errant tear from Mako’s cheek and stood in front of her.
“Life is not always a fight, Mako. Sometimes it’s a dance.”

Mako stood slowly and gingerly walked her way to the centre of the mat. A thousand well-drilled rituals broke their way to the surface of her thoughts and she raised her arm to begin the routine.
Her muscles wrenched and pulled with the disuse as she waltzed, deadly, across the floor. Her sword hissed against the force of the air, but her feet, featherlight and calculated, barely whispered. Sweat began to break across Mako's brow, and the lacquered wood drew blood from the dry cracks in her hand, but she did not stop. Fluorescent lights and steel beams blurred into a grey mist as Mako let the sword and her memories lead; Forgetting the trial and the grief in a singular moment of purpose. Her head span, no longer used to such exertion, and after a final loaded strike, Mako collapsed dizzily onto her knees.

Her heart drummed in her ears and her fingers shook, but as the world began to return to focus, Mako became distinctly aware she was no longer alone.

----------

"You are not to tell a soul that you're here, do you understand?" Herc said sternly at the locked door of the Kwoon. Raleigh assented, but couldn't help but wonder why the Marshall’s plan to bring him here was such a dissent of the PPDC. The Kwoon was always available to Raleigh, so long as he was chaperoned, and the PPDC had very little interest in these older parts of the Shatterdome anyway. At least he might be able to blow off some real steam down here. "Of course, Marshall." Raleigh said, in a voice far less questioning than he felt, "Not a soul."

The Marshall took a last look at Raleigh, and then stared deeply at the great metal doors. A battle raged behind his eyes, conscious and duty at odds with one another. Whatever it was about, within seconds, consciousness had prevailed.

The Marshall thumbed a code to the lock, and with a last press of the buttons, the doors to the Kwoon slid open.

----------

Mako was on her feet before her mind had the chance to think. Her breath, moments ago ragged with effort, was now even and strong. Her heart still thundered in her ears, but now it beat with an electrifying energy. The Bokken sword slipped from her hand as she walked across the mat and the rest of the world became farther and farther away with every quickening step she took.

A mirror image materialised out of the shadows, their own strides being pulled wider as the thread reeled them in. Shadows still obscured their face, but they drew closer to the light second by second.

There were moments in life where the only option was to be led by instinct. When Thought seemed slow and clumsy. When Soul was all that was left to lead. All inhibitions melted away and branching veins of possible paths became a singular, forging stream leading to one place, and one place alone. Instinct gave you the power to take that last step into the unknown, or to find the hilt of a sword in the maelstrom of a battle. Instinct made you reach for a hand in the dark.

Mako stopped dead in the centre of the mat, the room's solitary light casting a pale ring around her.

Wordlessly, the figure took a final step and broke free of the shadow's shroud.

Raleigh stood in front of Mako, golden as winter sun.

Chapter Text

Mako was brilliant.

Brilliant as starlight and flint fire.

She stood in front of him, her chest rising and falling rapidly with breath, and her unflinching iron gaze fixed on Raleigh. To anyone else, Mako was unchanged, but he could see the careful marks of time.

Her hair had grown, and the bright aquamarine tips of her hair had faded to a pale, hydrangea-like blue. Against the stark black of her hair, they seemed to glow with a friendly luminescence, mirroring the glisten of her eyes.
Everything about her now was softer and warm. She was no longer sharp-edged and taut, but fluid and relaxed. Before Mako had been a bold ink drawing, now she was a watercolour. Mellow and clear.
There was also sorrow. Fresh, raw and tangible, no longer protected by the haze of the past. Spreading through the fearful look in her eyes. Her hands and lips were chapped with cold and they writhed and twisted together on her stomach. Raleigh had worn such a look himself once. It was the face of someone who feared hope.

Instinctively, Raleigh drew closer to her, tentatively putting out an open palm to clasp around her shaking hands. He hesitated, terrified that Mako might turn away, seeing Raleigh simply as a living reminder of all she had lost and a in turn a person to be rid of. He made to draw his hand back, to save Mako the trouble of having to move away, when he felt the delicate pressure of fingertips across his palm. A hand wrapped it’s way around Raleigh’s own and within another breath, Mako had buried her face into his chest.

The release was indescribable.

Every fibre of Raleigh’s body sang with an electrifying current, like a circuit re-aligned. In the silence of the Kwoon, the room seemed to resonate with Mako and Raleigh’s own frequency. A signal once transmitted, now resonating back at long last. Raleigh wrapped his arms tighter and tighter around Mako’s slight frame as if binding himself to her with every second’s contact. A shivering sigh escaped her and Mako’s arms wound their way up Raleigh’s back, pulling him closer and closer. Raleigh’s breath caught in his throat, but it was not the claustrophobic choking he knew; Rather the feeling of breathing cold sea air after years of being locked away.
Mako had begun to shake beneath Raleigh’s hand, whether from the shock, tears or laughter he could not tell, but he felt her arms tighten around his waist with a strengthening grip. Raleigh slid his palm to rest at the small of her back, and a euphoric feeling began to rise from the pit of his throat. It burned warm and warbling like the roar of a petrol engine and as the deep, heady laughter escaped him, it bounced off the walls of the room with an orchestral peal. The gentle, musical sound of a giggle rose from the voice at Raleigh’s chest and he looked down into Mako’s bright eyes and a wide, unbordered smile stretching across her face.
The pair sank to the floor softly and sat intertwined on the mat. Mako pressed Raleigh’s shaking hand against her tear stained cheek, relishing the feeling of heat and security and felt the chambers of their hearts fall into united beats again. Mako could feel Raleigh’s mind whirring to find the first words, the right words, to mark the reunion, but Mako knew already.

“I’ve been imagining you differently.” She said, pressing her forehead against Raleigh’s.
Raleigh closed his eyes and drew Mako in tighter.
“Hey.” He said with a smile, “Better or worse?”

Chapter Text

"Why do you do it, Sensei?" Their voice asked.
"What Mako?" Stacker replied.
"The flowers, the leaves, why do you care for them?" They pressed.
The image of a garden, Stacker’s garden, pale and familiar. The smell of freshly turned earth and spring air mingled together, but a breeze still clinging to winter's chill touched the flesh on their arms and bare feet with cold.
"Why do I garden, you mean?" Stacker smiled, wiping soil from his strong, calloused hands on to his denim trousers. The word was new to them, rounded and sure. They liked it.
They nodded, looking into Stacker’s eyes. His face blurred and shifted slightly, as though they were viewing it from behind frosted glass. They didn't mind. It was just so good to see him.
Stacker lifted a small bulb, golden-brown and topped with a delicate green sprout. He placed it gently in their small hand.
"We are sadly very similar, Mako. We have both had to say goodbye to people far sooner than we should have. And cruelly, our minds can sometimes make us lose even more of them as we grow old. We lose memories and moments every day."
Stacker leaned over the planter's edge and began parting dark, rich soil with his fingertips.
"For a long time, that made me very sad. Very, very sad. And I felt there was nothing I could do. A feeling in life we all experience too much really."
Stacker put out a hand for them to take. Their free hand wrapped around it, and he pulled them closer to the planter and the newly dug hole.
"So now, for every person I have cared for, and sadly lost, I plant them something. A flower, or a tree, or a shrub. And every time I come into this garden, I remember them. And what a gift it was to know them."
Stacker led their hand to the hole in the soil and together they dropped the bulb inside.
"For Oto-san and Okaa-san." Stacker said and together they filled the hole with soft earth once more.

Raleigh woke feeling disjointed and with a strange ache in his heart. He stretched out on the armchair, twisting stiff limbs in the air and shaking out pins and needles from his wrist. The room was dark, save for the yellowy bulb in the corner and the room so quiet that every movement Raleigh made seemed to echo. He couldn't remember falling asleep, but he did know that his dreams had not been his own. The bittersweet feeling was not new to him but after months of distance, the newly-returned strength of the connection would take some adjustment. Drifting dreams had always been strange, even with Yancy. It was like seeing someone wave from a distance and feeling that small rush of anticipation and simple elation, only to find that they were waving at someone else.

Instinctively, Raleigh’s soul called out for it’s companion. He looked over to the makeshift bed in the corner of the room, where Mako’s slight, crescent-shaped form lay. Silently he walked over to her, crouching by her head at the bedside till his face aligned with her own. Large, weighted tears slid across Mako’s cheeks as she slept, pooling on the pillow at her cheek. Her body shook intermittently as her mind led her though hundreds of once happy memories, now sharp and cutting like shards of glass.
Bitterness rose in Raleigh's throat, imagining the months and months Mako had been forced to live in isolation, trying to wade through this inescapable grief without comfort. He pushed away a teardrop from the corner of her eye with the pad of his thumb.

There was a small knock at the Quarter door.

"Two minutes, Raleigh. We need you both back where you're supposed to be by two." Herc whispered on the other side.
Raleigh hummed a note of understanding and gently tried to rouse Mako, stroking a careful hand down her arm.

The bare skin beneath his palm moved abruptly. Mako lurched awake with a strange start, her hands seizing Raleigh’s like clamps. Her knuckles turned white with the pressure, and her eyes flitted erratically around the room, before settling on Raleigh. Her gaze softened immediately. A shuddering gasp pushed through Mako’s lungs and she collapsed against Raleigh’s shoulder, breath heaving. Raleigh froze for a moment, stunned, but then he fell into a familiar routine.
“In through your nose, out through your mouth.” Raleigh said, rubbing softly between Mako’s shoulder blades. He tried to mimic the memories he had of his Mother and Yancy, moving the way and whispering the words that used to soothe his own panic attacks. He levelled his breaths, pulling oxygen deep into his lungs, and after a few minutes Mako’s own breathing fell into sync.
“I’m sorry.” Mako murmured into his shoulder, rolling her forehead against Raleigh’s collarbone.
“For what?” Raleigh replied, brushing the hair stuck to her pallid temples. "You've had to put up with my snoring, I'm the one who should be apologising." Mako gave a short, hollow laugh and pressed her hand to her forehead.
“We should get going." She croaked "It’s past one.”

The pair collected their things silently and returned pillows and lamps to their homes, leaving no trace of their being there. It had become a routine over the weeks. Herc finding some empty supply room or unoccupied quarter in the Shatterdome, leaving notes with strange times and strange locations for Mako and Raleigh to find after their meetings. They both showed up, every time.
The stolen hours passed quickly and quietly. Sometimes they would talk of small things, things that could be held in the palm and passed safely between one another without pain or panic. Often Mako would fall asleep and tuck herself into some small corner, and Raleigh, finally finding some peace in his mind with Mako safe beside him, would rest too. There were always dreams. Always memories. And one of them would always wake up crying.

At first, these stolen rendezvous had been coveted, relished by the pair of them. But with every night, Raleigh and Mako’s small hideaways become more and more suffocating with all the things left unsaid. A quiet hung between them now, heavy and demanding. But neither Mako nor Raleigh had the heart to address it. They just danced their sombre waltzes about the room and made for the exit.

Raleigh opened a crack in the door so that his eye-line could catch Herc’s signal that the coast was clear. Mako stood beside him silently at the door frame, eyes downcast. She stole a glance at Raleigh at the handle, trying to catch her own signal in the calculated movements of his eyes. The fluorescent lights in the corridor highlighted the soft lines in his skin, the blurred gaze of someone very tired who cannot ever seem to get enough sleep, the brushing of stubble across his jawline. And somewhere beneath it all, that look of regret Mako was so fearful of. She swallowed, hard.
“You don’t have to do this anymore.” Mako whispered. Raleigh’s focused gaze turned immediately on her at the sound of her voice. “You don’t have to look after me or take up the place of people who aren’t here. I’m not your responsibility, Raleigh. You don’t have to stick around just because we were drift partners.”
A stricken, agonising look flashed across Raleigh’s face. Mako’s heart stuttered. So she was right.
Raleigh’s lips tried to shape themselves around soundless words, his voice sinking in his throat. “Mako,” He began, drawing closer to her, eyes desperately seeking out her own.
And then Herc’s voice called from the doorway and Mako knew the conversation had ended. Even a second too late and someone might see them and the trial would be called in the blink of an eye.
Raleigh had only agreed to this for her. For her. And she could not keep asking him to take these risks for her sake. Maybe if he hadn’t chosen her as his Drift partner, none of it would ever have happened. It had to end here.
She pulled the door open fully and strode past Raleigh, who stood frozen under the threshold. Even one glance behind her and she knew her strength would fail. But she would be strong. Just as she had always been. Alone.

“It’s for the best.” Mako murmured to the floor and she walked away down the hall. Fresh tears had begun to fall before she even made it to the lift.

Chapter Text

“Raleigh missed his hearing again yesterday.”

Hercules sat across from Mako, pages of preparation for the third day of questioning laden on the table between them. Half-empty mugs hid beneath the leaves of paper and the semi constant hum of phone vibrations rumbled among them. The first days of the trial had passed in a haze of pomp politics and staged photos for the news outlets, but when the list of charges were officially announced to the jury in their bleak, bleak reality, the burden of what was coming pressed down upon them all.

Few places could have housed a trial of such a scale, but the Shatterdome had been built in the image of giants. The launch-pad, the cathedral to Jaegers and their pilots, had been deconsecrated and a great courtroom hastily built in its place. Rows upon rows of steel chairs surged up from the concrete floor and the altar where judges' pedestals stood. Each day hundreds of people took their seats, the jury sitting beside the stuttering heart of the Jaeger programme. The PPDC took their comfortable place in the prosecution's bench close to the judge’s side and in the very centre of the room, crowned with blinking monitors and idling switches, sat the dissected hemisphere of a Jaeger rig. This afternoon, Mako would be made to stand within its arches and drift alone. The moment could decide her and Raleigh’s fate. But in the same instant, all manner of things could be lost.

Mako tried not to feel Herc's eyes focusing on her, taking in her red-rimmed eyes and the worried skin around her nails. She ignored him determinedly, flipping over the nearest PPDC stamped booklet in an attempt at nonchalance. The familiar list of accusation and charges stared back at her:

THE UN-PPDC COALITION CHARGE THE HONG-KONG SHATTERDOME AND THE CREW OF GIPSY DANGER WITH THE FOLLOWING:

Article A. Responsibility for the collateral damage that occurred in Hong Kong following Gipsy Danger response to the Kaiju double event in the city (CODENAMES OTACHI & LEATHERBACK)

Article B. The mis-management of the Mk.3 Jaeger known as Gipsy Danger due to the lack of training and processing given to its crew, Ms M. Mori and Mr R. Beckett.

Article C. The extraneous force, incl. nuclear weapons, used by Gipsy Danger and the crew of Striker Eureka on the Category 4 double event encountered at the Breach during Operation Pitfall.

Article D. Responsibility for the large scale collateral damage caused by the use of nuclear force and the incurring global effects of closing the breach incl. natural disasters (earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, coastal decay) experienced globally. Article E. Endangerment of all human life and the culpability in the deaths of Mr C. Hansen and Marshall S. Pentecost.

Mako pushed away the booklet as if she had been burned. The final article sat in her mind like a tumour, pressing on her skull and crushing every feeling and inhibition until everything was a haze of pain and guilt. She could picture the interrogator now and the way his eyes sharpened when she had been made to recount Marshall's final moments. The fervent glance he had given his evidence book as she spoke his loving words with her own bitter tongue. He had found the final nail for Mako’s coffin and this one would go deep.

“Just talk to him Mako. He just wants to understand.”

Mako raised her head angrily and pressed her hands flush against the table to stop them shaking. “What is there to understand, Marshall? Hmm? We were putting our whole case on the line for those little meetings! And for what? So I didn’t have to cry on my own? Because I needed someone to look after me? I’m not a fucking child, Herc!”

“Mako,” Herc replied steadily, “Those meetings weren’t just for you.”

“Weren’t they? Because it sure did feel like I was the only one who wanted them! Raleigh looks at me like I’m a regret, like a weight on his shoulders he can’t shake off, like a shadow. Stacker was forced to take me too. I wasn’t old enough, I couldn't release Sensei from that burden, but I can now!”

Herc tried to rise against Mako’s growing agitation, reaching across the table palms forward in surrender. “Mako, Mako, Stacker loved you. More than anything. You must know that.”

“Because he HAD to! Because an orphan with one shoe walked in front of his Jaeger and he was too kind to let her go. But he should have. Everyone should. Everyone I love ends up dead.” Mako’s voice broke in disjointed, heartsick sobs. “I’ve read that booklet a thousand times. And every single one of those charges comes back to me. Not Raleigh, not you. Me. How much death is that Marshall? How many lives? If I hadn’t stepped into that ring, if someone else had piloted Gipsy with Raleigh, then they would have been there when Otachi first hit Hong Kong. The Tang Weis, The Kaidanovskys, your

son Marshall, would all still be here if it wasn’t for me.” “That is not true, Mako, none of it. You kept us alive. ” Herc fought back, his voice kind but commanding.

“Raleigh. Raleigh kept us alive. He should be being treated as a hero, but instead he’s stuck here facing god knows what. It has to stop, Marshall. The pushing blame, the sympathy. It ends now.” Mako pushed her chair back firmly and walked to the door, scattering reams of paper in her wake.

“Where are you going? Mako?”

“I am going to plead guilty to all charges this afternoon. I want to be free of it. And then Raleigh can finally be free of me.”

Chapter Text

Mako’s hotel room was not empty when she returned. The shadow of a man sat on the corner of her bed carefully paging through one of the many unread defence packages the attorneys had given her to revise from. For a selfish second, part of Mako hoped that it was Raleigh sitting there, that he had sensed that the words she had spoken to him had been empty. That he knew deep down the thing she wanted, more than anything, was him by her side.

But then the shadow moved and Mako was hit with a different wave of joy. One with soft, gentle edges like a summer tide.
“Jake!” Mako whispered breathlessly.
Jake rose from the bed and gently brought Mako into a hug. “I’m sorry it’s taken so long. But I’m here now.” Mako sank into the hug but quickly Jake stretched out his arms, his hands on Mako’s shoulders.
“What’s happened, Mako? What’s wrong?”
Mako pulled herself away from Jake’s grasp, laughing mirthlessly. “It would be easier to say what’s not.” She replied, sitting down heavily on the empty bed. Her whole body curved around her centre, hands lying limply in her lap and her shoulders dropped low.
“Is this about you and Raleigh?” Jake asked tentatively.

Mako wasn’t sure how much or little her brother really knew about what had gone on over the past few days, but she gathered anything Herc knew Jake had made it his business to know too. And while she wanted to feel angry at the fact, Mako couldn’t help but feel relieved that for once she might be able to talk to someone without having half the lines in her head crossed out.
“Yes.” Mako answered. “Yes and no. And yes.”
She sighed deeply and looked up at Jake, questioning and pleading and fighting all at once. “It’s everything, Jake. I know that pleading guilty is the right thing to do. It will spare Raleigh, give the PPDC the ending they want and people the closure they deserve. Mathematically, that is the best course of action to benefit the most people. But -.” Mako faltered.
“But what?” Jake asked gently, returning to sit beside her on the duvet. Mako’s face contorted ever so slightly, the effort of the words and sentences lying on her tongue reading on her face.
“But I don’t want to do it, Jake. It feels wrong too. I would be lying, to start, lying about things not just that I did, but that other people sacrificed themselves for. Yes, Raleigh and Herc would be free, but not really. The PPDC would have them dishonourably discharged, the world would blame them for what happened, they would be remembered for destruction, not heroics… Raleigh would still be in pain and I would have risked it all for nothing.”

Mako got up and began to pace about the room. A feeling had planted itself in the centre of her chest and began blooming outwards.
“And I don’t want to give up my life. Not again. I don’t want these half-lives anymore. I can’t survive on blurry memories and stolen moments, I just can’t. And if I go down for this, that's all I’ll ever get to have.”
Mako could picture it so clearly; Her, ten years from now, in some concrete tomb of a cell, her life defined in faded photographs of her parents and the Pentecosts and visitation hours. Maybe in the first few months or years, people would come to see her. Let her know how the world was recovering outside of the four walls. Maybe, on some anniversary, she would be interviewed about her time in the Jaeger programme, a glitzy talk show host sat in a lollipop-colour studio cashing in on the tragedy whilst interest was high. But then it would pass, like all things did, but Mako would still be there. In the end, age and isolation would take their tolls and Mako would be left with nothing.

“You deserve to live.” Jake said, his voice strong and unshakeable. In that moment, with the lights low and the deep timbre of the words reverberating in the air, Mako felt as if it was Stacker in front of her. Her mentor and her father saying the words she had yearned for so long to hear. Then Jake moved out of the shadows and Mako saw the kind, youthful face of her brother in front of her again.
“You joined the Jaeger programme because of your parents, because you wanted to avenge them. You trained and kept going because of Dad. Because you respected him and you wanted to make him proud. But we both knew he wasn’t going to survive Pitfall. You knew the moment he put on that exo-suit that it was it. But you kept fighting the kaiju anyway. Why?”
A chill went down Mako’s spine and her face flushed to the tips of her ears.
“I- I don’t know.” She stammered.
She truly didn’t. The greater good is too big a concept for humans to fight for. When the Category 5 call came in and even her adrenaline wasn’t enough to keep her going, it wasn’t the protection of the entire human race that pushed Mako forward. People fight for the little things, for the joyful, tangible, mundane, magical gems of life. They are what makes life worth living.
“It was Raleigh, Mako. It’s been Raleigh, since the exact moment you two met. And you know deep down you can’t plead guilty because that life you want is with him. And you’ve done all of this because-”
“Because I love him.” Mako said.

The feeling in her chest exploded like a supernova, light filling every hollow. The words, sweet as summer flowers, lay languidly on her lips and her mind cleared like sunshine burning through dawn mist. Those words had been so frightening and so immediate for so long. They had been there that first afternoon in the Kwoon ring, and on Gipsy Danger’s bridge. They had been there on the girder, sitting in the centimetres between their fingertips as the golden sparks of the Shatterdome glinted around them. And then on the escape pod, as the warm Pacific waters lapped around them.
Mako had been so close to Raleigh, so close to saying it. But what bravery it took, and what sadness it might bring.
But standing in the hotel room, the words now loosed to the air, Mako was willing to do whatever it would take to keep this feeling forever.

Jake's smile lit up the entire room and for the first time in a long time, Mako’s face matched it. Jake took both of his sister’s hands in his own and pulled them close towards him. “You are not going to plead guilty. We’re going to fight this case with everything we’ve got and we’re going to win. And then, Mako,” Jake looked into Mako’s eyes with a steel-wrought determination that could have put his father to shame, “ You and Raleigh are going to live the best fucking life imaginable.”

Chapter Text

Raleigh’s knee ached from shaking. He sat alone in the green room, haunted by the black mirror of the TV screen and starting at every sound of footsteps outside the door. An assistant, whose name he had been told but could no longer remember, came in every once in a while with tea and schedules for him to look over but both sat untouched beside him. Instead grasped tightly in his hand, were his own notes. No official titles or cold legal terms. Just familiar names next to times, small handful of letters belying the magnitude of the day.

Raleigh knew what Mako intended to do that afternoon, and having relinquished his own opening statement, he could do little to counteract her plea until the next day at earliest. The helplessness was agonising, and cruelly familiar.
Every time he closed his eyes, all he could see was Mako’s face in that hallway the moment she walked away. He should have run after her, pulled her, screamed, done everything in his power to stop her from leaving.
He wanted to be with her every second of every day and in all the spaces in-between. He wanted to laugh with her, to see the world with her. She was his responsibility just as an organ in his body was. Raleigh could no more be without her than he could his heart or his lungs, a piece so singularly significant in his life that to be without it was no life at all.

But Raleigh had been forced to realise what he was to Mako. A friend, perhaps. A Drift Partner, unavoidably, thanks to his dragging her into the ring all those months ago. But anything more, anything close to love, had been suffocated under the mounds of sorrow and trauma she had been forced to live through. Raleigh had always said the Jaeger programme was in his blood, that it was no more removable than a limb. And now that fact made him a symbol of all of Mako’s keenest pains.
The Drift was a fantastic thing, an unimaginable connection that Raleigh had trusted with his life. But he was still human and with every hour he spent away from Mako, he began to wonder how much of what they had was real and how much of it was his own fantasies, tangled up in the thread.

Raleigh took a sip of cold coffee and tried to push away the choking hot feeling at the back of his throat. The sudden flickering of the television screen suddenly offered an unexpected distraction, as did Marshall Hercules Hansen bursting through the door with a ringing crash. Sweat glistened on his brow and a wide smile shone across his face, pulling Raleigh immediately out of his stupor.
"H-Herc? What-"
Panting heavily and leaning on the door frame, Herc raised a hand to stop him. "Give us a minute, mate. I had to run all the way here. Let's sit down, the trial’s starting any minute."
Herc bundled himself into the chair next to Raleigh, sitting on the sheets of paper and empty cups scattered across it without a thought. Raleigh started but Herc cut him off once again, his words tumbling over one another in excitement. "I've spoken to Mako. Well, Jake spoke to Mako. Jake is Stacker’s son, got here early this morning. He spoke to her and then found me, he's just about to go in for a statement-"
"Herc." Raleigh grabbed the man's wrist, stopping the indecipherable stream of talk. "What's happened?" He said, his own voice wavering with Herc's contagious excitement.
Herc took a deep breath and re-settled with a broad grin still illuminating his face.
“Mako’s not going to plead guilty. She’s going to tell them what we know is the truth and she’s going to do the solo Drift to prove it. God only knows what Jake said to her but bloody hell, it looks like all our skins have been saved by a Pentecost yet again!” Herc laughed deeply.
A wave of relief and disbelief ran over Raleigh. What could have possibly changed her mind so dramatically, he thought. Whatever the change was, Raleigh could feel it, deep in his centre, like the shifting of a tide.

—------

Mako watched Jake take the stand from her little room. The television coverage of the trial was sadistically expansive and while Mako couldn’t shake her revulsion at the gladiatorial spectacle being made at their expense, she was damn thankful that she could find out what was happening without having to take a step near the courtroom.
Jake followed the regular routine of oaths and declarations with no issue, despite the audible gasp that rose from the room at the announcing of the Pentecost name. And then the prosecutor rose from their table and the fight began.

“Ms Mori is an adoptive sibling of yours, is that right Mr Pentecost?”
“My sister, yes, that is correct Sir.”
“But of course there have been periods in your life in which she was not known to you, before her adoption obviously and in times of separation, due to the nature of your father’s work.”
Raleigh could see Jake tense uncomfortably at the question. He did not have the stern quality of his father and the nervousness at where the line of questioning was already heading read clearly across his face.
“Umm- well, yes. Mako joined our family when I was seven and she had her biological parents before that, but my father and I saw her just as family. And Mako and I accompanied him on as many postings as it was safe for us to do so, he took great care that none of us were separated for too long.”
The prosecutor leaned forward, voice heating as though Jake was being obtuse in his responses. “But not all his postings?”
“No, as I said it wouldn’t have been safe-” Jake started.
“So there were large periods of parental absence for Ms Mori, which undoubtedly affected the child’s development.”
Jake’s discomfort became more and more pronounced. “Mako and me were always well cared for, my Dad was an incredible parent to us both.”
The lawyer gave a patronising smile about the room. “Of course, Mr Pentecost! No-one here is doubting that your father was a truly great man. We are all here because of his valiant service.” The prosecutor placed their hands against their heart in a play of heartfelt theatrics. As was the way of the world, venerating the dead whilst condemning the living.
“I am sure we can all agree however that Ms Mori had a somewhat tumultuous childhood, similar to the disjointed youth of Mr Beckett, which could have over-complicated the nature of the pair's neural Drift.” The lawyer looked round, like a comedian testing their audience, and was awarded with the scribbling of jurors' pens.

“Let us proceed then to the question of Ms Mori’s training, which must be examined for especially pertinent reasons. Were you aware, Mr Pentecost, that Ms Mori only had one test Drift with Mr Beckett before being deployed for the Hong Kong mission?”
“I was.” Jake replied coldly.
“And that said test Drift went so poorly that the LOCCENT failsafe had to be used in order to protect the safety of the entire Shatterdome operation?”
“Yes.”
“It seems to me then that there were great issues regarding Ms Mori and Mr Beckett’s Drift Compatibility. Of course there is no-one to vouch for Ms Mori’s early training-”
“Excuse me, Sir, but that’s not true.”
The energy in Raleigh and Herc’s room changed like the sparking of a match.
“I began my Jaeger training as Mako’s contemporary.”
“But you would have only been-” The Lawyer interrupted.
“12. That’s right, Sir. The youngest ever on the programme. It made quite the headline. My father was a mentor to us both and I can assure you, our training was more rigorous than anyone else because of it. I’m sure the PPDC still have the hours of logged training to prove it, if they’ve been keeping the records like they should.
“I was my sister’s Drift partner in the early years of training and not once was there any kind of issue beyond what you would expect from putting children into robots and telling them to fight monsters from Hell.”
Jake’s voice was filling the room now, strong, steady and powerful and the prosecutors bench fidgeted restlessly under the Pan-Pacific panel’s accusing gaze. Their lawyers had promised them an easy win this morning, but now they had a Pentecost not only knocking back their charges, but laying all kinds of misdemeanours at their feet. A panel member tried to push the Prosecutor on, but Jake would not be stopped.
“If you will try to insinuate that my father was in any way neglectful, I do need to remind you that there are countless recordings of test drops and ring fights, all of which had the Marshall present in order to safeguard our wellbeings. Not only were we trained by inarguably the best Jaeger pilot on the planet, one of only two people ever to solo Drift and survive to tell the tale, but we were protected by the most caring and selfless father we could have asked for.”
The courtroom was silent, hanging off Jake’s every word.
“As for the Drift Compatibility between Mako and Raleigh, anyone who has seen them together couldn't question its strength. I’d guess that's why you made sure to keep them apart for so long, to the detriment of both of their health.” An indistinct, discontented murmur rose up from the jury.
“But if you need proof, the stats Mr Choi took of their first Drift should cover it. Strongest neural handshake ever recorded. I wonder if the PPDC has destroyed that data as well.”

Chapter Text

“Did I do okay then?” Jake asked. Mako eased her iron-gripped hug to look him in the eye but her words of thanks came out as bubbling happy sobs. Jake chuckled and pulled her back into the embrace. “I’ll take that as a yes then.” He laughed.

Mako laid out the tea set on the hotel coffee table, with gossamer spirals of steam spreading a homely scent of steeped tea leaves. The set had been her mother’s many years ago and some of Mako’s earliest memories were of her knelt beside its delicate umber teacups with her softened, angular hand on the teapot’s golden handle. Mako had brought it back with her to Hong Kong, as a token of another one of her many lost homes, but it had spent the months there untouched in her bag. Wrapped in the same time-thinned tissue that her mother had first unwrapped it from, gathering dust alongside Mako’s unread books and unworn clothes.
And then that morning, without a physical thing having changed, Mako had gotten up and unpacked. She changed out of her worn clothes and laid out a new outfit for the day. Then the books went on her shelves, Mako taking the time to place each one methodically where it belonged. Then she took a hot shower, washed her hair and sat out on the balcony. The sun yielded warmth and she let her hair dry in the soft breeze, teasing out knots with her nimble fingers. It was longer than she realised, and the dark wefts gathered between her shoulder blades making her smile. Hope wove its way into her heart again. A slow dawn after the long night.

Mako passed Jake a cup of hot, amber coloured tea which he took eagerly with a smile. “Are you ready for this afternoon then?” Jake asked, taking a careful sip. Mako nodded, collecting some of her materials from around the sofa in preparation, “I think if you can handle it, I will be fine.”
Jake furrowed his brow in mock offence. “And what is that supposed to mean, Ms Mori?”
A wicked smile flashed across Mako’s face. “All I’m saying is, one person in this room has defeated a Category 5 Kaiju and the other can’t get a blood test without fainting.”
“Hey!” Jake exclaimed. “That’s very common actually and it has nothing to do with how brave someone is or isn’t. It's about blood sugar levels or something…”
Mako chuckled loudly and settled with her back against the sofa arm. It felt good to laugh again.
“Oh, and speaking of Category 5s, we should probably check how Herc’s doing.” Jake said, opening up his laptop on the table in front of him.
“What do you mean how Herc is doing?” Mako asked. “Won’t his hearing be televised like everyone else?”
“No, the PPDC decided against it. Because he’s a Marshall but not on trial and therefore still affiliated with the Programme, they don’t want him saying anything that will make them look bad.”
Mako rolled her eyes at her brother. “So in simple terms, it is your fault.”
Jake rubbed the back of his neck, smiling. “Yeah, guess they didn’t take too kindly to my questions this morning. They agreed to put up a transcript though, they just don’t love the whole ‘live-studio-audience’ aspect.”

Mako searched for one of the big news outlets to see what had gone on, but she need not have bothered. On every search engine and homepage, the headlines for the trial were running and the words 'CATEGORY FIVE LIES’ and ‘PITFALL PARIAHS’ were emblazoned on every pixel.
Jake began to raise objections, but Mako was already engulfed in the articles. Her eyes darted across the page frantically, trying to find some question, one statement to hang on to but there were none to be found. Anger, scalding hot and untameable as an oil fire overcame her. Her ears rang with pressure, hot red blood pounding through her veins. Over it she barely made out her brother’s voice.
“Wha-What’s happened Mako?”
Mako took a deep breath out, her voice quivering with rage. “They don’t believe us. The PPDC, they're saying there is no proof of the triple event or of the Category 5. They are saying it was double Category 4, there's no mention of the 5. Pushing that it was nothing more dangerous than the attack in Hong Kong and that by extension our actions were unjustified and over-extreme. They don’t want Pitfall’s effects recorded as collateral, they want it recorded as gross destructive intent. They want it registered as a war crime.”
“But what about the evidence!” Jake exclaimed. “The charts, the recordings, everything!”
Mako rambled with furious rapidity. “The Cat. 5 occurred too quickly to be officially named and therefore was never logged. The PPDC will have wiped the radar charts and LOCCENT data before we even had time to think of them. The only evidence is in our words which mean nothing and in Eureka and Danger’s black boxes, both of which were irrevocably destroyed. Even if we could magically salvage Eureka's black box, they recording will cut- it won't cover Raleigh and I. If Herc and Tendo can't prove it, I certainly can't. We have nothing, Jake.”
Jake stared out of the window intently, across the balcony and the coastal defences at the undulating waves of the Pacific. They had asked everyone, exhausted every witness. Who else was left?
An idea sparked into Jake's mind like a plug wiring into a switchboard.
He stood abruptly, narrowly missing the teacup balanced on the table and immediately grabbing his phone from the sofa he made for the door.
“Where are you going?” Mako called after him, startled by the sudden commotion. Jake looked back at her with a look of pure determination.
“Go and get ready for your hearing. I’ll be back, but you have to trust me, okay? I think I might just have something.”
He was gone without another word.
Mako trusted him, of course she did, but she was no believer in miracles. She steadied her breath and with a final sip of tea, headed to the Shatterdome.

Chapter Text

There weren’t many things about the last few months to miss, Raleigh thought, but Mess Hall lunches might just be one. Freshly baked bread, steaming jacket potatoes, thick steak burgers and not a single ration coupon in sight. A little bit of bliss. He walked along the buffet line, loading his tray high with enough food to push around his plate for the next couple hours. He hoped someone was making sure Mako was eating. She forgot things like that when she was nervous and with her hearing, Raleigh knew she wouldn’t remember. He’d remind Herc when he saw him.
The canteen was quiet, considering the usual madness of the dinnertime rush. Most of the Shatterdome crew had been asked to help set up the Jaeger rig for Mako’s Drift and none of the PPDC would dare come so deep into the base, where they would be more likely to get a swift kick to the shins than a hot meal. Raleigh took a seat on the second floor, hidden behind a large iron girder, hoping he might pass the next hour or so with a level of relative privacy.

He slipped his phone from his back pocket and placed it on the table beside his tray. 12:35 the screen read. Mako’s hearing started at 1:00 and Raleigh hoped for all their sakes that she wouldn’t be in there for more than a couple hours. The sooner it was over, the sooner they could move on and regroup, and the sooner the worried, spiked panic in Raleigh’s chest would subside. He put his phone back down with a sigh and picked up his fork to eat, but all of his appetite was gone. Raleigh looked around the grand hangar, its yellowing paint and crackling bulbs, avidly people-watching in hopes of distraction. That’s when he saw Jake Pentecost barrelling down the stairs towards him.
Jake’s eyes were fixed so determinedly on the horizon, that it wasn’t until Raleigh stood nose-to-nose with him that the man even realised he was there.
“God, Raleigh, hi!” Jake beamed, stumbling back slightly like a bird blown off course. “I’m Jake, Jake Pentecost. Don’t think I've had chance to say hello with everything going on!” He grabbed Raleigh’s hand and shook it giddily.
Raleigh couldn’t help but smile at Stacker’s son. Stacker and Jake’s appearances and talents were so akin to one another, but their personalities were day and night. Raleigh returned the handshake readily.
“Headed off for the hearing?” Raleigh asked, nodding his head down the corridor Jake had been rushing along.
“Oh, no actually.” Jake replied, “I don’t think I'm allowed in after this morning, I think I've been labelled as a bit of a trouble-maker, so to speak.” He smiled with a slight satisfaction.
Raleigh offered him a place on the opposite side of the table.
Jake sat down and took a hungry sort of glance at Raleigh’s still steaming plate of food.
“Help yourself. I don’t think I'll be hungry for much for a little while.”
Jake smiled gratefully and slid the plate towards him. “Thanks, I forgot about breakfast this morning with everything going on around here.”
Runs in the family then, Raleigh thought.

“So what was the rush?” Raleigh asked, nursing his mug of coffee.
“God!” Jake spluttered, his mouth full of bread and potato. “I never said did I! After Herc’s hearing, I couldn’t stop feeling like there was someone else we could get to witness, who might be able to help.”
“Oh? I think Herc brought in everyone he could get a hold of.”
Jake pointed with the end of his laden fork. “Exactly, everyone he could get hold of. I know a lot of people didn’t want to get mixed up in it but I knew, I just knew there was someone we were forgetting, someone we hadn’t managed to contact.” The mess hall was even emptier now and Raleigh couldn’t help thinking back to the last meal he had there before Pitfall. How full the hall had been, hundreds of people eating and laughing as if they weren't facing the impossible every single day. People he came to know as friends, family. People he came to love. Everyone who could defend them had done so, there was no-one left to fight.
“I don’t think I'm following Jake.” Raleigh frowned.
“Think about it; Someone reclusive and antisocial, someone official enough to use as a witness and the only other person beside you and Mako who understands what really happened inside the Breach…”
“Newton!” Raleigh gasped, his voice echoing around the empty iron hall.
Jake slapped his hand across the table, dashing the salt and pepper shakers across the steel. “The very man!” He said triumphantly. “Only issue was getting a hold of him. Obviously there weren’t any regular channels, otherwise Herc would have collared him already-”
Raleigh could tell Jake was rather enjoying the theatrics of his story. Perhaps at another time Raleigh would have been more anxious to hear the conclusion, but Jake’s enthusiasm was as infectious as it was perfectly distracting.
“So I thought my Dad’s contacts might have a chance. And sure enough, I managed to get a hold of the bugger! Well, through Gottleib at least. Apparently after the Drift, Newton’s become a bit of a technophobe, which I suppose makes sense, he did-”
“Is he going to give a statement?” Raleigh interrupted.
“Oh, yeah. Apparently the pair of them have been kicking about Hong Kong just in case we needed them. He’s down to give a statement tomorrow.”
Raleigh sat back on the bench and he let out a sigh of humoured disbelief. Someone was still fighting after all, only this time their defender was less of a steel titan and more of tattooed kaiju groupie. Well, beggars can’t be choosers, Raleigh thought.

Jake stood from the table, taking one last heaped forkful from Raleigh’s greatly depleted plate as he leaned away from the table. “Sorry I can’t stick around longer, but I said I would meet Newton to help him organise his statement. I was glad to have something to take my mind off the, well, you know.” Raleigh nodded.
“I didn’t get a chance to tell Mako about it though, I didn’t want to get her hopes up in case I couldn't get a hold of Newton.” They both looked up at the large flip-book clock on the wall. 12:48. “Bit too late now.” Jake sighed.
“No, thanks for catching me up. It was great to finally meet.” Raleigh replied warmly. He reached out a hand for Jake to shake, but Stacker’s son pulled him into a strong, determined hug.
“Thank you.” Jake said softly into Raleigh's ear, “For looking after her.”
Raleigh pulled away slowly. He smiled at Mako’s brother, hoping desperately that he couldn’t see the pain behind his eyes.
“It’s what Drift partners do. And anyway, It’s me who should be thanking her. I wouldn’t be here without Mako.”
There was a pause. Jake looked at him searchingly, eyes narrowed. “Do you really think that?”
“What?” Raleigh replied.
“That you two are just Drift Partners?”
Raleigh was caught off guard. No, he didn’t think that. Of course he didn’t think that.
From the moment he saw her under that umbrella, he knew they were more than that. That’s why he chose her. Not because of her aptitude in the tests, or her potential as a ranger. Not even because she was the only person who could match him in the ring. He chose her because from the second he saw those eyes, he knew he had found the other half of his soul. Chambers of his heart he had thought had closed and crumbled after so much loss had been filled with perfect silver light.
Raleigh stammered as he tried to reply. “Well, yes- no, no I don’t it’s- and well Mako.” He faltered and sighed, avoiding Jake’s gaze. “I just don’t think she feels the same.”
Jake patted Raleigh on the shoulder as he walked past him, headed back down the aisle he had been running down not a quarter of an hour ago. Raleigh looked up to see a small but defined smile on his face and before he was more than two strides away, Jake turned to face him. “Remember your feelings aren’t always your own, Raleigh. My Dad always said the emotions we feel the strongest are the ones we share. And god, for a man who’s piloted a jaeger for the better part of a decade, you’d think you’d trust your Drift connection by now.” The man chuckled and turned away with a small wave over his shoulder.

Raleigh stood dumbfounded in the empty mess hall, his mind spinning and heart racing. He pulled on the thread, their thread, feeling how strong it felt around his mind. Could she- could Mako feel what he felt? Could this be a hope they had shared all along? Raleigh had to know. He looked at the clock, pointing less than ten to the hour and Raleigh took off running. He knew the Shatterdome like the back of his hand. Raleigh would get to the courtroom before the hour was out.

Chapter Text

Mako opened and closed her gloved hand rhythmically. The scales of polished black carbon-fibre glinted under the neon lights as she curled her fingers, one by one, over her palm. She still couldn’t bring herself to look up at the countdown above the door to the courtroom, so Mako made her own clock. One finger, one second. It was easier to focus on something small, something familiar. In fact, Mako had followed this little routine before taking the rig on each and every drop. She could still remember Stacker doing the same little motion before his meetings, probably a carry-over from his own piloting days. He’d passed it on to Jake and Mako when they started at the Academy as a way to help centre them before the Drift. Opening and closing an armoured hand over the soft, dark fabric of the palm. Covering vulnerability, bit by bit. After their first Drift, Raleigh adopted the routine too.

Minutes passed silently. Mako didn’t notice someone take the seat beside her until the fluorescent lights glinted off the polished wood of a cane.
“Pardon me, Ms Mori. I should have asked if the seat was taken.’ Hermann Gottlieb blustered, ‘Mr Pentecost, Jake Pentecost, your brother, told me I should find you as soon as possible, but I must say I had forgotten what a walk it is.’ He took a small pocket handkerchief and dabbed his brow. So much had changed in the past few months, but it seemed the scientist’s eccentric streak had survived through it all. Mako sat for a moment, hoping that the next second might be the one where Gottlieb would explain why exactly her brother had sent him hobbling down to the deepest depths of the Shatterdome, but moments were in short supply. “I’m sorry Dr Gottlieb, but would you mind telling me what it was my brother sent you to find me for?” She asked, turning to face him with a soft, if slightly impatient, smile. Gottlieb returned the smile absentmindedly, before rousing again abruptly. “Of course, yes! My apologies Ms Mori, my mind seems to hop around a little more than it used to these days.” Gottlieb straightened in his chair, filling his lungs as he clasped his two hands on top of his cane. “Your brother and Marshall Hansen wanted me to take the witness stand! I must say, I was somewhat offended that I hadn’t been approached earlier, I am the world’s leading k-scientist as you know…”
Well, that was what I’d thought. But alas Miss Mori, I am as tied to my lab partner now as I was in the Shatterdome. I rather feel your brother got in contact with me simply as the more reliable half of a useful brain. Newton’s become rather the technophobe after that whole solo drift debacle -threw his phone into the sea a few months back- and begrudgingly I must admit our dear Dr Giezler will be far more useful to you and Mr Beckett’s plight.” It was at this point Dr Gottlieb’s hand shot out from its clasp and held Mako’s own with a firm grip. “I’m so sorry to you both for not being here sooner.” Mako bowed her head in thanks and placed her free hand over the doctor’s. “You’ve saved us at the last minute before, Dr Gottlieb. Let us all hope you can do it again.”

After a few minutes of comfortable silence, it was time for Mako to go. She wasn’t sure if it was the warmth of a familiar face or the new hope of Dr Gottlieb’s news, but Mako’s soul felt lighter and stronger. She was nervous still, yes, but now it was laced with some strange form of excitement, one that sat deep in her chest. What exactly it was she was excited for, she had no idea. As Mako stood up, readying herself to say goodbye to Dr Gottlieb and walk to the witness box, the doctor’s voice rang out in the quiet. “Do you like jigsaws Ms Mori?” Mako turned to face him, confusion clearly written across her face. “Puzzles, I mean.” The doctor continued, “The cardboard kind, that you played with as a child? You know, after that first drift with my Newton, all I could think about was jigsaws. How every other relationship in my life was like building a picture of a person, piece by piece. All the misplacements and frustration, and god sometimes I didn’t even like the picture at the end!” He laughed. Mako wasn’t sure why but her heart began beating, quicker and quicker, throbbing to the tips of her fingers. “But with Newton… You see, the Drift made it so different. It was like someone building the jigsaw for me, perfectly, in full colour. It was beautiful. But without all the parts in between, it made me feel like I’d done it wrong, or that it meant it wasn’t real.
“I hope you know, Ms Mori, that you can trust it. That feeling, the feeling you get from the Drift.” Mako stammered, a blush blooming across her cheek despite her strained nonchalance. Dr Gottlieb simply smiled. “I’m a man of science and statistics, please remember that matters of the heart are not something I dedicate much time to. But what you feel in the Drift, and what I suspect Mr Beckett must feel also, well. That connection is as real and honest as an equation. Do not waste it on miscommunication and distrust. Let the jigsaw be the picture that it is. Love need not be a task, sometimes it is allowed to be simple.” The doctor raised himself up on his cane, and bowed her head to Mako. She returned it, with gratitude and respect. Mako turned, with a deep galvanising breath, and pushed through the double doors to the courtroom.

Dr Gottlieb smiled to himself. There was so much of Stacker’s stubbornness in that girl, but so much softness too. He left the room and began walking slowly down the corridor to find a screen to watch Mako’s inquest. It was only when a flash of navy wool and dirty blonde hair rushed past him did he realise who had been barrelling along the corridor the other way. “Mr Beckett!” Dr Gottlieb called out, waving his cane.
“Sorry doctor, I’m trying to get to Mako” Raleigh called back, breaking his stride for just a second.
“You’ve missed her, pilot. She’s just taken to the stand.”
Raleigh exhaled, crestfallen. He would have to wait. Again. As he bent over, his hands on his knees, recovering his breath, Dr Gottlieb approached him. “I think she’d appreciate it if you were there though.” He said. “I know it’s not allowed but I’m sure there’s a way to sneak you in. Ms Mori would know you were there somewhere.” Raleigh nodded, casting his eyes around the corridor. Mako’s trial would start any moment, and just as he began to panic, Raleigh’s eyes fell on an old service door. If he remembered correctly, it would lead them up the girders just high enough to avoid being spotted. “Right as always, Doctor Gottlieb. This way.” Raleigh replied.

Chapter Text

Walking back across the hangar was strange. It was like walking round an old house years after moving away, all the comforts and marks of life having been scrubbed away and painted over. Something where you once belonged, now making every effort to tell you that was no longer the case. Where Mako used to stand with her clipboard tight to her chest, guiding Jaeger mechanics between the iron girders and flying sparks, the Jury gallery now sat, stretching up in rows and rows of solemn faces. At the platform where the Mk. 3’s arms would brush the rails sat the PPDC’s panel, facing resolutely towards the witness stand illuminated by the acrylic green and blue of Loccent screens. The stand Mako now made her way towards. g The last time Mako strode across this hangar, her and Raleigh were celebrating their first win against the kaiju. She had walked in surrounded by applause, sweat still beading on her brow, Raleigh beaming at her side. Her walk had ended face to face with her Sensei, his brow lifted and eyes softened with real pride.  This time, the hangar dropped silent the minute her feet had hit the polished concrete floor. Thousands of eyes- the friendly, the fearful and the vengeful- turned to her with laser precision. Mako looked ahead. Stacker was not waiting for her this time. There would be no pride, no warmth. The thought was enough to make anyone crumble. But Mako held tight to the feeling deep in her middle, swirling and bright. She held onto it like a lifeline, her rope in the dark. She straightened her shoulders, listening to the exo-suit’s click of assent and held her head high and strong. She fixed her eyes straight onto the panel in front of her and walked with long strides, not flinching, not blinking, until she stood in the rig before them. “Ms Mako Mori, you stand before this court here assembled to answer to the crimes set before you.” The judge listed off the articles of the case monotonously, one by one. Mako knew the articles by heart, she could have listed them off herself like some sadistic scripture that was now forever printed on her mind. The document must have been read countless times since the trial began, but somehow the jury still found it in them to gasp and sigh like the perfect Greek chorus. Mako would not feed into their dramatics. She refused to let anyone see her react, not even when the final, soul-wrenching article was listed. Mako kept her lips pressed firmly together and kept her eyes fixed on the panel before her. There was a moment's silence, and then the Judge proceeded- “Ms Mori, how do you plead?”

“Not guilty.” Mako replied.

A chorus of whispers and the insect-buzz of scribbling pens answered back. So word had got around about her original plan, it would seem. Mako allowed herself one quick look at the defence. Tendo gave a small wave and Herc looked back with a strained smile. The lawyer leading Mako and Raleigh’s case began to move from around the bench to address the court, when the Judge raised his hand to halt him. Panic began to brew in Mako’s throat. Something was wrong.

“My apologies to the defence, but in light of new evidence, the Panel has decided that the prosecution must lead this particular proceeding.” Mako’s lawyer retreated looking as confused as Mako felt, and the intrigue caught like flying sparks in the jury. It was only when Mako once again sought out the Marshall’s face at the bench did she realise what was coming. For a brief second, Mako and Herc caught eyes with one another. Mako’s panic was met with the Marshall’s sadness. His eyes turned away not even a second after meeting hers. It was an apology. It was guilt. Mako felt her heart drop, and she turned round to face large screens replaying each and every one of her and Raleigh’s secret meetings. The storage cupboards, the separated camp beds, the broken access lifts, all of them were captured in grainy CCTV videos- videos that were now looping for all of the hangar to see. The prosecutor paced in front of the screens, with the self-satisfied strut of a hunter showing off their exploits, before facing Mako with a patronising downturned smile. 

“As I’m sure the jury will be informed enough to remember, the validity of the defence has constantly been at odds with the nature of Drift compatibility- many leading scientists involved with Drift technology have hypothesised that the Drift, if the partners were still in close proximity, could allow for a shared synthesis of a defence.” The lawyer paused dramatically, before taking a loaded sigh. “With this knowledge, we made the difficult, but necessary choice to separate Ms Mori and Mr Beckett and to deny contact between them for the duration of the trial. But as you can see,” The lawyer pointed to a video showing a rare occasion where Mako and Raleigh had sat side by side on the camp bed. In the black and white footage, the low light made them look closer still, "It seems separation was not something Ms Mori and Mr Beckett had on their minds.” The jury did all but clutch their pearls and gasp. Mako almost laughed. She and Raleigh had barely been able to touch since that first evening in the ring, and now the world thought they couldn’t keep their hands off each other.

The prosecutor carried on. “With this definitive breach in the terms of their defence, I move that the Ms Mori and Mr Beckett be denied their opportunities for spoken defence and that their judgement be based solely on the unimpeachable testimonies of the remaining LOCCENT information, and the objective account that will be found in their individual drifts.” Mako’s lawyer stood immediately. 

“Objection! There is no reason to believe that the hypothesis around partner proximity has any effect on their defences, and even if it did, what makes you believe it wouldn’t affect their memories in the Drift as well?”

It was not the prosecutor but a member of the Panel who replied, “The solo jaeger rig has been adapted to access and extract short-term memories as well as long, which will uncover any alterations that have taken place in Ms Mori’s psyche.” They flicked a switch and the screens switched to show reems of green text code. “As you can see, all our calculations show that this new solo drift has a 80% greater probability of giving truthful evidence.”

Mutters from Mako’s defence bench rose to shouts. “I didn’t green light this.” Tendo barked, “This equipment hasn’t been tested!”

“With respect, Mr Choi, you no longer have authority in these matters.” The head of the Panel snapped. Eyes once again turned to Mako. “Ms Mori, please connect to the Jaeger rig.”

Mako looked to her side, hoping that someone would be there, that for once someone would get her out of it. Tendo slouched crestfallen, hands balled in anger. The defence lawyer scrabbled desperately through the files and pages set in front of him, pulling at fragments as they flew left and right. And sat in the middle, unable to even lift his head, sat the Marshall. Herc had let Mako down when she’d needed him most. Mako swallowed the sour bile in the back of her throat and stepped backwards into the rig.

“Sit down, Mr Beckett.” Gottlieb hissed. Raleigh stood, fury itself, and scanned the platform for the nearest ladder that would lead him to Mako. He could feel fear fighting against the walls of his chest- fear that he knew did not belong to him. It belonged to the Jaeger pilot on the hangar floor, trying with every fibre of her being trying to stay calm as attendants clipped and snapped her into the dissected rig. But the anger beneath it? The red-hot, cruel anger building to nuclear meltdown all across his body. Oh yes, that was Raleigh’s. Hercules Hansen, their teammate, their sole guide and sole confidant, their friend , had failed them at the very last hurdle. Not just failed, Raleigh thought, but condemned them. Was this what he had planned all along, was this why he arranged that meeting in the Kwoon? Yet again, Raleigh couldn’t help but feel that everything would have gone a lot smoother if he had just been strong enough to let Mako go. 

When the doctor once again pleaded with Raleigh to sit down, to stay out of sight of the jury, Raleigh crumpled back into his chair like a damp strip of paper. Dr Gottlieb placed a first-tentative, then-firm hand on Raleigh’s shoulder. “I’m sorry Mr Beckett. I fear you would be little help to Ms Mori now, possibly even a hindrance.” He whispered, “We must let events take their course.” Raleigh nodded stiffly, his head downturned. He could hear the LOCCENT booting up and the Panel readying themselves for the Drift. It could be minutes, or seconds, until Mako took the full weight of the Neural Load. If he lingered on the thought for too long, Raleigh could almost feel it. That crushing, grinding, rusting force on his brain, his body. But if he could feel it, then so could Mako. Raleigh levelled his breathing and looked down at an open palm. One by one, he closed his fingers over the empty space. 1, 2, 3, 4…

It was strange that even given the circumstances, being stood in a Jaeger rig felt like second nature. With her helmet on and machinery buzzing around her, Mako could almost block out everything around her. Of course, she could still see Tendo being escorted out, yelling and shouting as he jostled against the guards. She could still see the screens, one with a close up of a face, her face, and the other blank, soon to be filled with the gauzy visions of kaijus in Hong Kong. She could still see the Jury surrounding her, leaning forward in their seats before the show began. But somehow all of this just washed over her. Sea over the shore. She was peaceful, in a way. Mako was far more familiar with worst case scenarios than happy endings. Perhaps she was relieved that she would end this chapter of her life in the way she had ended so many others. She would end it with a fight.

__

The Drift is everything. The Drift is nothing. It is everything in between. When the brain first takes the neural load, there’s a feeling like dropping into a deep sea, only with a current that flows in every direction, with the pilot as its only destination. At first, the pilot is weightless, thoughtless, blank. The Drift takes it all. 

And then it gives it all back. Everything, anything, all of it. It gives it all to the Pilot, even the things they had forgotten or tried to let go. The Drift gives you everything back to remind you why you fight.

In all other Drifts, the weight rebalances once the handshake is made with another pilot. The Drift carves a river and lets the current flow both ways. Another person's thoughts can never be as heavy as your own. 

There is no such relief when someone Drifts alone.

Raleigh didn’t need to be looking at Mako to know the Drift had connected. The force of it dragged him to his knees. The thread around his soul pulled sharply, winding tighter and tighter, leaving him breathless. Just before it started to choke him, the tension loosened and Raleigh looked down to the Hangar floor to see Mako’s memories being flipped through like the pages of a faded picture book. Every once in a while, for half a second, Raleigh would make out a familiar face in the haze, sometimes Stacker or Chuck or Tendo. Often, it was his. He knew most of these memories as well as his own, but even Raleigh felt guilty for seeing them like this, so raw and unfiltered. When it came to Mako’s memory of their first Drift together, the Panel began scribbling furiously. You could see Mako’s panic and the rawness of her childhood memory even in her mind's imitation, and Raleigh sighed a relief when the moment passed and he once again found his face on the screen- this time looking down, a picture of relief, as he held Mako in his arms. Thankfully after a few more disordered vignettes, a Kaiju materialised and the Drift forced its way into Mako’s memories of Hong Kong. Of course, this footage would have been nearly identical to Raleigh’s own memories of Otachi and Leatherback, so the Panel paid particular attention.

The Kaidonovskys, dead. The Twins, dead. Striker Eureka could only be seconds away from it too. Panic, red-hot and barbed rose from the centre of her chest to the back of her throat. She had to stay calm. If she broke the neural handshake for even a flash of a second, it would be over. For everyone. They were the last ones. She would stay calm. The last wave crested over Danger’s knee, and they made landfall with a crash like thunder. She’d done this a thousand times in training, Stacker had prepared her for anything. And Raleigh had taken one down all alone. This was child’s play. She pushed another stride into Hong Kong. If anyone could do this, they could.

The memory was identical to how Raleigh remembered it, shipping-container-knuckle dusters and all. The damage was, he had to admit, pretty extensive but it was far better than the pictures of Sydney Chuck used to show around. Levelled high-rises and decimated streets were all that were left once the Wall failed and the Kaiju broke in. It was hard to imagine that anything would have survived if Striker Eureka hadn’t been deployed. If the Hansens hadn’t been there. Apparently, some of the Panel members were having similar remembrances, and many of their faces had an unmistakable air of ‘well, it could have been worse.’ For a second, Raleigh was glad the trial had taken the turn it had. It would be nigh-on impossible to argue against Gipsy Danger’s actions that night on any drop, let alone one that had begun four Jaegers strong defending a city of seven million souls. The Panel was right, this kind of evidence was invaluable.

She was moving forward again. Memories passing faster and faster, skipping and merging like onion skin paper. Like the paper at Sensei’s old typewriter. Like taught skin over blue veins. She wanted to linger. Linger on that warmth, linger on flesh rather than metal. But the pull was too strong. She moved forward. A slide clock flipped down. Blood dripped. Crimson bruising Naval blue. A blue sea sank into a dark ocean. Looming, consuming. Two shadows, closer, closer. Three shadows, closer still. Three shadows. 4,4,5. They were coming towards them now. Impossible to see in the black. For a moment there was warmth. Then light. Then light and warmth were suffocated. Pain replaced them. Such choking, scorching, killing pain. It was feasting on her, every part of her. There was so much sorrow to feed upon. Teeth and jagged claws, rending flesh and bone and crimson blood. The blood would drown them. Metallic like rusting iron in their lungs. The blood would drain and pain would replace it. It was everywhere. 

Raleigh saw it before anyone else. A wire-thin shard of glass, made of light. White-hot and sparking. He saw it burst forth from the thumb on Mako’s right hand, then from her ring finger, then her palm, and then her wrist. Just like at Anchorage. Raleigh raced to the safety ladder on the girder platform as the light made its way up Mako’s arm and its shards buckled the layers of armour like magma beneath tectonic plates. The reflective black of the exo-suit was now ablaze with blinding, searing white, shooting out tendrils across Mako’s back and around her neck. A clamour went out in the jury and there was a hurried scuffle of chairs, but it was too late, too late. Raleigh hit the bottom of the ladder just as Mako started to scream. A desperate, ravenous, unnatural scream. It shook her whole body, turning her visor opaque as lungfuls of air fogged the glass. It came in through the speakers, reverberating through the concrete floors and steel scaffolds; a human voice torn up and shredded into grit and metal. For Raleigh, the world had shrunk to a pinprick, to the tip of a watch’s second hand. It didn’t matter now who saw him, what it would mean. He could feel the thread that ran between them, that had tied them tighter and tighter together becoming limp. The thread wasn’t just being cut, it was burning like a taper. Raleigh felt fear like he had never known.

Raleigh raced through the feeble ring of technicians surrounding Mako’s rig, and found Tendo already desperately pulling away at the countless plugs and wires feeding into . Raleigh pushed his way through to help, but was struck with the look in Tendo’s eyes. Tendo Choi had seen a thousand drops and a thousand different pilots. He had seen first drifts and solo drifts, victories and defeats. He had seen heroes made in a jaeger, and he had watched those same souls perish just days later. Tendo Choi looked at Raleigh Beckett as if he had already said goodbye.

Power cable after power cable was ripped from the machine, but the light blazing across Mako’s body failed to diminish. It was fuelled by the Drift now, and it was unstoppable. So close to the rig, Raleigh could feel the heat of the light coming off in great, scorching waves. Mako would not be able to endure it for much longer and Raleigh was powerless to stop it. 

But if the end of Mako Mori’s life was to be in a Jaeger rig, then Raleigh would be damned if he wasn’t there with her.

He stepped up onto the rig, wrapping one arm tightly around her waist and bringing the other up to cradle her head. He could feel the sparks beginning to catch on the sleeves of his jumper. He traced his fingers down the back of Mako’s helmet until his fingertips caught on the latch that released it from her suit. It fell into the light that surrounded them without a sound. Raleigh brought his hand to Mako’s cheek, her head strained taut with muscles of her breaking body. He traced his thumb across her jaw, as her face softened and then went limp. ‘I love you, Mako.’ Raleigh whispered, resting Mako’s head in the hollow of his neck. The great wave of white light came crashing down, and everything went black.

Chapter Text

The trial was adjourned indefinitely. The PPDC had cut the cameras as soon as the first spark had appeared on Mako’s rig, but the sounds still came through. Millions had been watching the stream, televised on news networks across the globe, hungry to see everything there was to see. Their intrigued curiosity was replaced with sickened guilt by the end, as they listened to Mako’s cries pierce through the static. Attempts were made to cover it up, blaming the audio on glitches and crossed airwaves, but when the jury members started finding journalists and the old Shatterdome crews started taking to the Hong Kong streets, it was clear the truth would win out. ‘Another martyr of the Jaeger programme’, the headlines read, ‘but, we are the Kaiju now.’

Mako was used to being injured. She was used to getting lost in the Drift. But this was something wholly unfamiliar. Time ebbed in irregular patterns, blurring her memories and her mind into swirling eddies. Sometimes she could make out silhouettes or light hitting her face, but as soon as her mind was able to grasp on to something, anything, a sharp spasm would run through her and the thought would whirl away again into mist. This went on for hours, or years, or seconds, but after a while her footholds became stronger. She noticed rich golden light trickle in and watched as it cooled and softened to silver. The silhouettes began taking familiar shapes, the slopes of shoulders, the curve of a lip. The shapes would move around her. They started to make sounds that Mako could hear, but not quite make out. One set of shapes seemed to be recurring, returning often between the gold and silver light. Mako started to feel better when they were near. The shapes wanted her to know she was loved. And Mako felt it. And she knew. 

Raleigh wasn’t there when Mako woke up. Jake had taken over the watch. ‘She’s not going anywhere, Raleigh.’ Jake had pressed, ‘Go get some rest, mate.’ Rest had never been in Raleigh’s nature, so he had settled for coffee instead. Well, coffee was a stretch. The vaguely brownish liquid that spat and sputtered from the hospital coffee machine was hardly cafe material, but it was hot so it would do. Raleigh pressed the paper cup closely between his two hands, letting the warmth radiate up through his wrists. Judging by the light outside, there were still a few hours before dawn and the cold sea air had settled into the bones of the building, leeching all the heat from the long, white corridors. Raleigh pushed a hand through his hair, and the long ends snagged between his fingers. He still couldn’t quite remember how he had got Mako to the hospital, all he remembered thinking was that he needed to get her out. Out of the rig, out of the Shatterdome, out of the hell the PPDC had created just for them. Gottlieb and Tendo had remarked on how the sparks had gone out once Raleigh held Mako, on how he pushed through the crowds with her in his arms, eyes burning with something dark and elemental. But Raleigh didn’t remember any of that. All he could place was the moment he had crashed through the hospital doors, collapsing to his knees, cradling Mako’s body in his arms.  

‘That stuff’s revolting.’ A young man in scrubs hummed as he walked up to Raleigh. ‘We’ve got a much nicer one in the staff room, if you’d like some.’ Raleigh blinked back into the real world and smiled at the nurse. ‘Just something warm to hold, but thanks for the offer.’ Raleigh replied warmly. The nurse smiled again and started to walk up the corridor. After two slow steps he turned back to Raleigh. ‘We’ll keep the ward closed, as long as you need it. We won’t let anyone through, not unless you or Mr Pentecost tell us to. Not a soul.’ The nurse said solemnly. He looked straight into Raleigh’s eyes, and spoke again with fire in his eyes. ‘You can count on us.’

Raleigh returned the gaze. ‘Thank you.’

‘And seriously, please let me get you some better coffee, that’s basically motor oil.’

‘Well, I’m used to that.’ Raleigh laughed, ‘But thanks, some proper coffee would be great.’

The nurse started to walk down the corridor with Raleigh beside him, ‘So, have you got any plans for-’

Raleigh’s cup of coffee fell to the floor with a dull clatter as he took off running back down the hospital. 

‘Don’t worry, I’ll get you a new one!’ The nurse called after him.

Raleigh ran and slid across the lino floor, back to the room he had spent months holding vigil. Where he had changed dozens of vases of flowers, eaten countless crap canteen meals, watching as millions of apologies and atonements rolled in from across the world. Where he had spent every single day making sure the person he loved more than anything was safe. Raleigh burst through the door breathless and there, an arm across her brother’s shoulder and a hand holding steady on the metal bed-frame, stood Mako.

‘Hello, Mr Beckett.’ Mako said.

‘Hello, Ms Mori.’ Raleigh replied.