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Some days Mako thinks she left parts of her at the bottom of the sea – those that were good and meaningful and at least approaching a full person. She catches herself wishing it were a physical thing, like it is for him, and although she instantly feels guilty about the thought, it'd be a strange comfort to know they both lost something tangible down there. As it is, it so often seems that she's expected to be the one who's still whole, between the two of them, and that just isn't true.
***
The first thing she remembers, from when she tore him out of his pod and felt the echo of him back inside her head, is the horror filling him up. It was strong enough to reach her with no technology to bind them, and the engineer in her balked at the thought.
That was before she saw the space where his legs used to be, of course. All of her fell silent for a while, then, too stunned to feel much of anything.
***
We're all just stories in the end. Mako doesn't know where she read it, or when, but it stayed with her, because it rings so true. Good stories or bad stories, sad or happy. Stories of success or failure or tragedy. The worst, maybe, is to not leave a story behind at all.
From that point of view, her and Raleigh are lucky. Their stories will be remembered for generations to come, become history perhaps. Nevertheless, sometimes she wonders what kind of stories they will be, and how those will hold up to the reality of their lives. She doesn't want them to be remembered as tragic, yet heroic but that seems to be where it's headed.
***
For what little time they've known each other, Raleigh and Mako have stood in the spotlight together. When they fought, when they failed, when they succeeded. Now they stand in it to be pitied.
The staff in the mess hall parts like the sea when Mako wheels him in. Maybe it'll become normal, sooner or later, but right now they're still a spectacle. People whisper and stare, and awkwardly look away when she glares right back. She picks fights, gets up in people's faces and yells, telling them to be ashamed of themselves. She does that because Raleigh won't do it himself, can't muster up anything more than a tired glance. Someone starts a chant, something with pathos and platitudes. Most of the room joins in. They probably think they're helping, being supportive. They're not. Raleigh looks at his hands, folded in his lap, like they hold all the secrets of the universe. Mako grips the handles of his wheel chair until her knuckles turn white, bones painfully grinding against each other.
She's standing on dry earth, in a large room full of people, and yet there isn't enough air in her lungs to scream.
***
They sit by the edge of the landing area for the helicopters the next day, eating soup and bread rolls Alison brought them to, as she said, for once prevent them from running the gauntlet for something as simple as lunch.
Down in the city, they're having a parade. It's not the first this month. People seem to have found their taste for celebrations, in the aftermath of not having much to celebrate for so long. They were invited, the two of them. They always are. Mako sounds off about the audacity of that between bites. Like we're puppets on a victory wagon, she says, like we've won much of anything other than our own survival.
She knows that she's wrong. She doesn't mean it. But she can't seem to bite her tongue. He nods and shoots her a smile that wants to be understanding but just looks sad, and it makes her angrier still. He would've been angry too, before. But not anymore. He's not all there, as if he can't quite grasp the emotion or lacks the momentum to try, and Mako remembers the feeling.
It's okay. She'll be angry enough for both of them.
***
What happened, according to the science apes, is that the rift closed too early. The pod made it out intact, but the organic matter still inside – Raleigh's legs, although they didn't want to say it like that – got destroyed.
There's prostheses, old things made of flesh-colored plastic and re-fitted rather than made for him, because the world was at war until a few weeks ago and that's what's available. Physical therapy too, a lot of it, which he grinds his teeth through. She's been in Raleigh's head, she knows he has always been someone who reveled in being in motion, couldn't bear to stand still. To take his ability to move is like taking a painter's eyesight or a musician's hearing: it robs him of the very thing that made him him.
Mako begins to keep her distance. She can't stand to see what he became. She couldn't keep this from happening, she can't make him whole, and she can't stop thinking about either of these things when they're together. She does what she's always done when her heart became too big and too heavy for her chest, too overflown with grief: she works. There's no need for Jaegers or drifting anymore, but there's a world that has to be repaired and rebuilt. If she can't fix Raleigh, she can at least try to help with that.
They pass each other in the hallway sometimes, but Mako always walks on.
***
Before rebuilding, there comes cataloging the debris. Divers are sent to the rift. Heavy machinery is deployed to find every last piece that's left of Striker Eureka and Gypsy Danger.
They begin to bring in the rubble, put it up in the empty Shatterdome to be sorted and salvaged. Mako sneaks in there almost every night, futile attempts among many to make peace with what she's lost. It's there that she finally lets herself cry, tears falling onto torn bits of metal, while she remembers putting Jaegers back together instead of governing their remains. She doesn't realize what it is she's sat on to weep until she stands and consults the chart – not like it really matters. She's curious, that's all, squints in the dark to make out the handwritten notes on the form.
GD, leg, external plate is what's scribbled there, and Mako has an idea.
***
She's no doctor, and she doesn't know much of anything about the medical requirements for a leg prosthesis. They won't be perfect. They don't have to be. Mako's not aiming for a revolutionary invention or something that would stand the long process of testing and registration. She merely wants to help her friend, and she figures she knows everything she'll need to for that.
Transferring the mechanics of a Jaeger's leg to human size isn't without its complications, but Mako has never shied away from a challenge. She fiddles and adjusts and calculates. She experiments and fails and does it all again. She shrinks down the drift technology into a pocket-sized device that should, if she succeeds, allow Raleigh to at least sit and stand and walk.
Sensai hasn't raised her to be vain, but he did teach her to be realistic and confident about her skill. If there's anyone who can make this work, it's her, and she's uniquely motivated too.
***
They're all just stories in the end – that's what goes through Mako's head again as she lays finishing touches to the legs, wires the last circuits together and solders the whole thing shut. But maybe this isn't the end.
She's tested them as much as she could without him. The device to command them works. There will likely be kinks to iron out when it comes to stability and balance, but she's not worried about that. She'll too figure it out. Tomorrow, she'll show the legs to Raleigh. She lays the tools aside and gingerly touches the cold, worn metal – scraps of the old Jaeger that meant so much to both of them, making them whole once more. She smiles.
Their story won't be a tragedy. Not if she can help it.