Chapter Text
“WALL OF LIFE”
SITKA, ALASKA
Eddie had no intention of returning to the Jaeger program, not when an open wound was bleeding and throbbing in his head, not when the thought of drifting with someone was almost nauseating. Marshal Nash had a completely different opinion. He came all the way to the Wall and grabbed Eddie by the balls with the sweet talk about the end of the world.
"Took me a while to find you," Marshal Nash said as loud as he could, trying to shout down the roar of the helicopter. In his clean uniform, he looked out of place in the middle of the construction.
Eddie sized him up and shrugged.
"Yeah, a man in my position travels with the Wall, trying to feed a kid."
He volunteered to take on the most dangerous parts to get more ration cards for Christopher. Eddie enlisted in the Jaeger program when he was nineteen. Fighting was the only thing he knew how to do. The world didn't need him outside of the Jaeger. The world didn't even like him without his exoskeleton. But the Wall? The Wall needed everyone.
"Can we talk?"
Bobby was already heading inside the walls. Eddie followed him, feeling like it was easier to let him say whatever he came all the way here to say. Marshal Nash had lways been too persistent for his own good.
"What do you want?"
It was even dirtier inside the half-built Wall. Eddie was so used to being covered in dust and filth he only felt it now, looking at Bobby's clean and shaved face.
"I've spent the last six months activating everything I can get my hands on. There's an old Jaeger, a Mark 3. You may know her. She needs a pilot."
"No," the word Eddie was preparing to say the moment he saw Marshal Nash stepping out of the helicopter. "I can't have anyone else in my head again. I'm done. I was still connected to Shannon when she died. I can't go through that shit again."
Sometimes, especially in the first couple of years, he wished he was dead with Shannon so painfully it pierced him all the way to the spine. If it wasn’t for Christopher, Eddie would've probably been dead right now. His son, who fell asleep in the room with his parents and woke up to the funeral procession with an empty coffin, didn’t deserve to be abandoned. Christopher was a giggly, infinitely curious, happy kid, and Eddie felt alive holding his small body, listening to him rumbling, making him laugh. Shannon didn’t leave them. She was still there, in Christopher's eyes, in his curls and in his stubbornness, and in his laughter. Christopher saved Eddie. He reached for him in the dark with his small hand and the light came through. As long as they were together, Eddie knew they would be okay.
"Haven't you heard, Mr. Diaz?” Marshal didn’t take no for an answer. He frowned and his gaze was heavy and tense. “The world is coming to an end."
Oh, for God’s sake.
"And if you haven't heard, Marshal Nash, I have a kid and I'm all he's got. He doesn't need me to die in the Jaeger just like his mom did. I'm not going back."
"There might be no world for your kid to live in then. The Sydney Wall is destroyed and so will be all the rest. Want to save your kid? Save the world he lives in first."
HONG KONG BAY
1400 H
The shatterdome is dirtier, and more crowded than Eddie remembers. Rangers are no longer the rock stars, they are just living out their days as toy soldiers now, replaced by the Wall and human’s stubbornness. They are no longer the last frontier, no longer heroes from posters and prime-time talk shows. They are as good as their junkyard Jaegers now.
Christopher looks excited. He limps on his crutches through the shatterdome's corridors as if it was a Christmas market. He likes stories about his parents fighting monsters. Eddie wanted him to remember his mother as a hero, as a hope, as something bright and beautiful, no matter how painful talking about her might have been. Chris throws his head up to have a better look at the Jaeger and nearly trips over too consumed by gaping at the gigantic machine. Last time he saw it, he was three years old and now he's nine and probably barely remembers it.
"You had the same look on your face when you saw Gipsy for the first time," Marshal's voice is full of amusement. Eddie did look like that when the academy let them see the Jaegers for the first time. He remembers that feeling, like everything was finally right, all the pieces clicked into place.
It was a revelation.
"Shannon used to say that Christopher's a shatterdome's kid. Everyone was looking out for him".
Bringing a baby to the shatterdome was a crazy idea. Christopher was barely a year old when Eddie and Shannon became Gipsy Danger's pilots. They both thought about leaving Christopher with Eddie's parents, but Ramon and Helena gave them hell for enlisting together and Eddie was afraid they'd just take Christopher away for good. And the shatterdome, drunk on victories and hope, took Christopher in its arms and kept him safe.
Anchorage was their home for three years. Now it feels like a graveyard.
"This time he won't be alone. Two of our people have kids".
"Did you turn the shatterdome into a daycare while I was away?"
"We're not an army anymore, Eddie," Marshal says with a soft sadness in his voice.
Eddie doubts Bobby misses anything about the army itself. He always was more like a father figure to them than the high command. But them, not being an army anymore, means fewer defense forces to save people, fewer Jaegers, fewer pilots. They’re the resistance now, and Eddie knows the difference. They're not soldiers, but survivors. The taste of the apocalypse is bitter on the tip of his tongue.
"Is it your Jaeger?" Christopher asks, pointing out at the robot he's been drooling over since they entered the Jaeger shed.
The Jaeger is massive and heavily armed. It's a new model, the one and only Mark 5 Jaeger.
"No, bud. It's Striker Eureka, she has her own pilots".
Eddie picks Christopher up so he can have a better look at the parked Jaeger. It doesn't make a lot of difference. They both still have to throw their heads back. The Jaeger is covered with scaffolding and people scurry around, looking like ants compared to the gigantic machine. Striker Eureka was the one in Sydney after the Wall was breached and still bears marks of kaiju’s claws and teeth.
"Speaking of them. Chimney and Hen," Marshal waves to the pilots. "Hen's wife, Karen, is our lead k-scientist and their son Danny is about Christopher's age".
"Isn't it Eddie Diaz himself?" Chimney's still holding his helmet in his hands and Christopher fidgets in Eddie's hands, clearly pushing down the urge to try touching it. "Saw the report from Anchorage. That was rough. And when you took over the Jaeger's control alone? Wow."
"And that was a really inappropriate way to greet someone. I'm Hen," the second pilot offered Eddie her hand. He awkwardly shakes it, still holding Christopher.
Eddie's grateful to Hen for saving him from saying something to Chimney's comments. He clings to Christopher tighter. It's who he is forever now. The guy who survived piloting a Jaeger alone after his wife was torn out of it by kaiju. Eddie hates it.
Chimney shakes his hand as well and Eddie can see that he means no harm. It truly doesn't feel like an army anymore. All of them now are just a bunch of scared people clinging together.
"Who's this cute guy?" Hen, bless her heart, turns the attention from Eddie's bleeding wound to Christopher.
Christopher shifts in Eddie's hands, clearly demanding to put him down. He wants to talk to people like he's an adult and Eddie's terrified of the moment when it becomes true. He's alive because his kid needs him. He doesn't know what to do with himself when it stops.
"I'm Christopher!"
"I'm sure Danny and Harry will be thrilled to have a new buddy." Hen bends down and shakes Christopher's hand.
"Can I meet them?" Christopher turns to Eddie with a pleading pout.
"Right after we get settled, kiddo," Eddie says, ruffling Christopher's hair.
"Harry's Athena's kid. She's a J-Tech Chief. She coordinates all our deployments. And maybe one day she'll deploy our Marshal on a date," Hen winks and Bobby softly groans, shaking his head. "We're on the edge of apocalypse, Bobby, let us have something good to talk about".
"Abby Clark didn't join you?" Eddie used to hear her voice through the comm during deployments. She guided him and Shannon for three years. She was there that night.
"She did at the very beginning, but her mom's health got worse and she decided to spend all the time they had left together".
There's something about Abby that remains unspoken. Hen looks at Chimney and then at Bobby. They shift uncomfortably at the mention of Abby's name. Whatever the story is, they're not sharing it with him. Eddie nods. He understands Abby. When the world is ending, there's no right or wrong answers. When his world ended, he quit the PPDC and focused on his son. He doesn't blame Abby for doing the same. If Marshal trusts Athena, so does Eddie.
They’re walking again, leaving Hen and Chimney to rest and eat after the Sydney deployment. Eddie says "it's fine" to Chimney's apologizes for the conversation opening, and braces himself for even more to come.
Eddie feels the eyes on him. That's how children look at a broken toy that was their dream once, but now it's just hanging down on broken hinges. He doesn't care. There's nothing of the boy who flaunted a leather jacket around the Alaskan shatterdome in Eddie anymore. Eddie is now wrapping himself up in sweaters in Hong Kong. Leather jackets are a thing of the past, where Shannon was alive. And Eddie was, too. Something that once glowed brighter than Gipsy's nuclear reactor inside of him burned out. Only stripes of scars on his left side remain, as if Gipsy melted herself into him. Eddie is marked with Shannon's death, with the loss of his co-pilot, with a wild, incomparable grief.
They were too young to take this seriously. They were given a cool weapon and told that they could save people and become heroes, and they rushed into battle intoxicated by it. Death didn't exist for them. Eddie thought he and Shannon were immortal. And when it happened, the realization ripped his chest open, turning it into a never ending wound. Shannon's death broke Eddie. It shook him to the very core, frightened, ruined a beautiful fairy tale where he was a hero in a shining exoskeleton.
There's pain, anger and fear in Eddie's head. No one should drift in his state, but Eddie has nothing better.
HONG KONG SHATTERDOME
1800 H
It's dinner when Eddie meets other pilots. Hen takes his food tray and disappears between the long tables, leaving Eddie no choice but to follow her. Christopher's already laughing at the kids’ table and Eddie's heart clenches. How did he manage to raise such a happy kid with his broken heart?
The table is full. People introduce themselves one by one and Eddie learns that a Mark 4 Jaeger Whiskey Tango with a lot of modernization is piloted by Lena and Ronnie. Lena calls Ronnie “Cap” and apparently he trained her in the academy. Lena also is going to be at the candidate trials for Eddie's co-pilot. Eddie doesn't want to break an existing bond, but Lena seems easy and sure and Eddie needs that in a person who's gonna be in his bleeding head. Eddie also gets to know Taylor, another k‐scientist. She's young, smart and obnoxiously keen on knowing everything there's to know about the kaijus. Lena matters "Kaiju Groupie" under her breath and Eddie can swear they fucked at least once. Taylor's hands are covered in kaiju tattoos, one of them is Yamarashi from 2017 and Eddie declines a plea for the story time in what he hopes is a polite tone of voice. Eddie also meets Hen’s wife Karen, Athena and her oldest daughter May, who’s also a part of the shatterdome’s tech team.
It fascinates Eddie. In his experience, most co-pilots are relatives or lovers. That’s how Shannon ended up enlisting with him. In the academy, he struggled to find a drift-compatible partner, and they suggested he should try it with Shannon. It worked. They threw away the initial plan where Eddie was the only one enlisting, went through the training, and became rock stars. Looking back, Eddie’s not sure if their marriage would’ve survived if Shannon had stayed home alone with Christopher. But these people created that kind of connection with their friends, their mentors. This shatterdome’s literally built on meaningful relationships.
The last person at the table is Buck. He picks food on his plate and doesn't even try to take part in the conversation. Buck looks like he’d rather be anywhere else, including kaiju’s jaws, and irritation oozes from his words every time he has to say something to Eddie. He’s Marshal’s son, which is a surprise since Eddie knows for a fact that Marshal’s family died in the very first kaiju attack. Eddie doesn't get any more information and, frankly, he’s not a fan of being looked at with that sour expression. Buck’s younger than him. Eddie guesses they have around five years between them. That’s enough of an age gap for high school Buck to have Eddie’s posters on the wall. Eddie knows what Buck thinks. Such a waste of a hero.
Yeah. Eddie’s seen this face before too many times.
He leaves the table when Christopher comes to him. Karen promises to figure something exoskeleton-y out to replace Christopher’s crutches and Eddie says his goodbyes. He's not meant to hear it, but Buck's agitated voice still reaches his ears halfway.
"What do we need him for?"
That's the question Eddie wants to hear the answer to as well.
SHATTERDOME GYM
0000 H
"What's your problem, man?"
Eddie runs into Buck in a gym later that night. The shatterdome is unusually quiet. Eddie sneaks out of bed as soon as Christopher falls asleep. Eddie can’t sleep. Too many memories hide in the walls and creak with the closed doors. The gym is just a bunch of stuff for lifting, with half of it looking like broken Jaegers parts. Eddie wasn’t planning on starting a fight, but he feels Buck’s eyes on him following every move, trasing burn scars on his body.
“You,” Buck takes a step closer and Eddie almost wonders if he’s going to get punched in the face. “You're my problem. You ran away with your tail between your legs when things got rough. You can’t just waltz in the shatterdome. We stayed with Marshal when PPDC fell to pieces, not you."
People made it clear what they thought of Eddie's desertion. People believed he should've kept protecting their peaceful lives, killing monsters after everything that happened. Eddie doesn't think he owes them a damn thing. He’s already given the PPDC everything he had: his wife, the mother of his child, his integral part, his co-pilot. But Buck just can't deal with it, can he? Something itches inside of him, seeing how the hero of his wet teenage dreams turns out to be made of flesh and bones and fears and doubts and not of Jaeger's steel.
"I left after I felt my wife dying in the drift," Eddie says in a calm and cold voice. "I'm not here to step on anybody's toes. I’m here to do the job Marshal asked me to do. Whatever it is you’re going through, you don’t need to take it out on me."
Eddie leaves before everything escalates. He walks around the shatterdome before ending up in front of his favourite girl. He climbs the scaffolding till he’s right in front of Jaeger’s engine. His girl, his brave Gipsy Danger, as tattered as he is, is still stupidly beautiful, and Shannon's place is still painfully empty inside of her. Eddie knows exactly what Gipsy feels — he is as shattered as she is. To be honest, he still feels empty and disgusting inside, and the person who said that time healed could shove himself, along with his optimism, into the kaiju's jaws. The same place where all the Mark 3 pilots went. Except for Eddie.
Not that he feels particularly alive.
KWOON COMBAT ROOM
1000 H
Candidate trials are about to start. Eddie sees all the people that were selected to the last part of the drift compatibility test process and feels nothing but weariness. Marshal Nash is there along with Buck. He looks like a kicked puppy. Buck sizes Eddie up with his lips tight together and it’s hard to believe, but he looks even more bitter than the day before. Chimney stops beside Eddie.
“What’s his problem?” Eddie asks.
“Marshal doesn’t let him pilot the Jaeger,” Chimney doesn’t even need to look to know who Eddie’s talking about. “Buck’s overall score in the Jaeger simulator is 51 drops and 51 kills. He hoped to get Gipsy when she was activated, but Bobby was obsessed with getting you to join instead.”
That actually explains a whole lot. “51 out of 51? That's really impressive. Even I didn't have that in the academy.”
“He set a new record,” Chimney grins. “He's a good kid, Eddie. He’ll warm up to you, eventually. But I feel like he might do something stupid if Bobby keeps pushing him aside. Like sue the PPDC or something.”
“Ranger Diaz,” Marshal doesn’t look pleased as well. Eddie’s willing to bet he and Buck had a fight about pilot thing right before the trials. “Let’s start.”
The first candidate’s name is Ravi. He stepped by the table during the dinner and Eddie remembers his shy smile. He’s tall and thin and young and Eddie’s scared to break him during the match. He wins four points to zero and feels nothing. It’s not a dialog. It’s not even a proper fight. The second match is over even faster. Eddie fights candidates one by one with little zeal. He’s like a programmed dummy, moves just enough to wipe the floor with another potential pilot. There’s nothing even remotely close to what he felt with Shannon. Lena comes the closest. At least she loses two points to four. Eddie feels something between them, something promising, but so quiet he brushes it off. It’s not enough to overpower the deafening fear in his head. No one here's a good enough match. Eddie gets more frustrated with every new person stepping on the tatami, and when Buck sighs too loudly, he snaps.
"Hey, puppy eyes. Wanna try?" Eddie asks, turning to face him. “Marshal, can we add him to the list?”
It’s not that Eddie wants to have a right to punch him. Well, maybe a little.
“Absolutely not,” Bobby cuts. “Stick to the approved list”.
“I could’ve been on that list if you’d let me,” Buck hisses. “We’re drift compatible.”
“Give him a shot, Marshal. I promise not to make your son cry.”
Buck shoots him a glare and looks at Bobby again. Marshal stares at him for a second and sighs. “Go.”
Eddie feels something when Buck takes off his shoes and steps on the tatami, and something in him trembles. Buck makes him feel something other than apathy and grief. He sparks something inside Eddie.
“Remember, it's about compatibility. It's a dialogue, not a fight. But I'm not gonna dial down my moves,” Eddie says.
“Yeah. Neither will I,” and Buck means it.
They fight. Buck’s good, but Eddie expected that. He set an academy record, he’s Marshal’s son. He also has impossibly long legs and almost growls when Eddie wins the first point. They dance around and Eddie waits for a moment when Buck understands that he has to calm down before making another move. It takes one more point to snap Buck out of his emotions. Two-one and there it is. Two-two and Eddie can feel the air vibrating around them. It’s good. It’s so good Eddie misses Buck’s move and ends up on his knee with a bō in front of his face.
“Two-three,” Buck says with a boyish smile on his face Eddie’s never seen before.
Eddie feels like he’s ready to give a new drift a chance, to let someone in his bleeding mind, torn apart by kaiju’s claws near Anchorage five years ago. It doesn’t seem as hopeless and painful as with a dozen potential co-pilots before Buck.
“Enough,” Bobby’s voice tears the bubble they’ve been in. “I’ve seen what I needed to see”.
“Me too,” Eddie says, standing up. “He’s my co-pilot.”