Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Brooks had always liked the idea of being in charge. He’d imagined a team of geologists, visiting exotic locations. He’d need a lot of experience first, though, if he wanted his team to respect him without a doctorate under his belt. Ten years’, say - or some substantial discovery. This past three days might be enough to do it.

It hadn’t stopped rankling that he hadn’t been able to try for a doctorate. There had been stifled chuckles at his Master’s viva, though his research had been too deep and his presentation too well constructed to deny him his pass. Afterwards his supervisor, with sadness but also exasperation at his student’s intransigence, had told him he couldn’t carry on being associated with Brooks’ work.

Of course Bill Randa had scooped him up immediately, obviating the need to come up with a plan B. That had been balm to Houston, still smarting with rejection, but more importantly had been a great relief to his parents.

They’d talked to his supervisor after Houston shared a little too much about the opposition he was facing, and had started to think their middle child might have taken his expensive education and taken a running jump off a cliff with it. He’d had a scholarship for his undergraduate years, but just helping him live in Cambridge had been a pull on their income, with his sister still in medical school and his brother about to finish high school. The two years of his Master’s must have been a strain.

He’d come to realize that the warm welcome they’d given Randa might have been less about any personal liking for the man - though he’d certainly turned on the charm - and more to do with gratitude that he was offering their son a paid alternative to several more years in full-time education.

And while Houston regretted not having gained his doctorate, he certainly didn’t regret joining Monarch. It had been a fascinating three years.

Randa had traveled a lot, moving from team to team, and his family was based in Asia. (Oh god. Oh god, he would have to break this to them. Okay, let’s not panic about that right now). But by the time Houston came along, based out of the US office, funding was tight, and Randa had spent much of his time in the US, buttering up committees and taking influential people out to dinner.

Houston had received a masterclass in how to work the funding circuit. He liked to think he’d learned a few things. In fact, he was fairly sure he had swung it for them with Senator Willis on that last day in Washington.

And now Randa was gone, leaving Brooks in charge. This was not what he’d envisaged, not at all. It’d be good for his career, but Christ. Not just the how, obviously no one wanted to rise under these circumstances, but also what he was going to have to do when they reached the Athena. It was daunting, and he wasn’t remotely prepared for it.

It wouldn’t be for long, sure, only until they got back in communication with Monarch. But Captain Hernandez, leading the refueling team, was already asking questions over the comm. As agreed, no one was answering except in the most basic terms, and stuck piloting one of the Hueys there was nothing Hernandez could do about it. When they hit the deck, it would be a different story.

As for Landsat, Brooks wasn’t even sure which of the officers he’d been introduced to would be Nieves’ replacement. What were their names? Briggs, maybe? DiRario, that one he remembered: he’d had a dentist called DiRario.

How the fuck was he going to explain the loss of 46 Sky Devils and five members of the Earth Resources Technology Satellites Program?

It was hard to think straight through the gnawing of his stomach. If the refuel team had brought food, it was on a different helicopter.

He felt a nudge against his foot; looking up, it was Lin. She was giving him an encouraging smile, looking a bit concerned.

Lin. He wasn’t alone. He took a deep breath, holding her gaze.

Yeah. They could do this.

What he needed was a single blanket answer they could repeat over and over again. Like the way they trained soldiers to repeat their name and number under interrogation. It was easier to hold back information when you had something to say.

And he needed to communicate that party line to everyone before they landed. Damn, he should have done all this thinking on the ploat.

Okay, okay: We encountered…unexpected conditions on the ground, leading to the deaths of most of the expedition members. Any further information is classified, and we need to talk to Monarch before it can be released.

Simple and to the point. Yes, that might work. He pulled his notebook out of his pocket, scribbled it down as best he could amid the storm’s air turbulence and handed it to Lin. She looked at it, serious-faced, opened her mouth to say something, shook her head to dismiss whatever that had been, and gave him a firm nod. She added a note of her own underneath and handed it back to him.

Packard became unstable, and his state of mind led to his own death. Give no details. She’d zig-zagged a multiple underline under that last sentence.

Ha. How very Lin, to spot the issue that hadn’t even occurred to him. She was right: Landsat was the bigger problem, in the sense that it had more power over the expedition members - the Athena was their ship. But Hernandez really would need some kind of explanation for Packard’s loss.

Nieves was nobody anyone would miss but his family (ouch, come to think of it there was no way that man didn’t have a wife and kids), and his superiors were a bunch of administrators. Packard was a lieutenant colonel with a solid reputation, and the people leaning for more information would be US Army generals.

Even better, Lin’s brief line revealed enough to make it clear that additional detail would be to Packard’s detriment. That might dissuade the man’s superiors from poking; at worst, it would pave the way for keeping off the record anything they were eventually forced into sharing. He gave her an emphatic thumbs up, then copied the note onto three more pages and tore them out before passing the notebook to Reles.

Mills and Slivko were in the row behind, with the gunners, so they’d see it in a minute. Marlow, Conrad and Weaver were in a different chopper, so the duplicates were needed to press into their hands as soon as everyone met back up.

Lin nodded to him, approving of his actions, and held out a hand for one of the pages. Yes, quicker to divide up the task.

We’re a good team. He realized he was giving her a sappy smile, but by then she was returning it.

If this wasn’t love, he didn’t know what was.

Chapter Text

Marlow might have been open-hearted, but he wasn’t naive. Twenty-eight years of disappointment and loss (and friendship and kindness) had taught him better than that. He knew the kid was right, Mary couldn’t possibly believe he was alive. He’d known it ever since he marked off the tally for the final day of Year Five. (That wasn’t in the current house. That was in that first - no, the second cabin he and Gunpei had built. The one with two rooms).

She would have built a whole new life without him. If she hadn’t married again (which he might as well assume if he was speculating, since most outcomes were closed off if she’d forgotten him), Mary would have raised a child alone. Probably with her parents’ help, as they’d always been close.

She’d have had to get a job. Heck, she might have a career, for all he knew. No flies on his Mary, she was a smart woman, smarter than he was. Her mom was a nurse, she might have followed her. It’d be nice to think she might have become a doctor, but there really wasn’t the money for it, and she’d have had little Hank to look after.

Big things like that could alter a person.

These were all thoughts that had circled his mind for years. He’d played out all sorts of possibilities for her. It was harder to do that for the boy, as Hank didn’t know him at all, which left too wide a field for guessing.

However, there was a whole other set of thoughts that he’d put aside years before, when Gunpei was eaten and any hope of escape was lost. These were suddenly important again, and churned through his mind afresh.

Questions like, what was a marriage made of? Basically, to his view, it took three things. The two people needed to like each other well enough to rub along together in the same house. They needed to love each other well enough to enjoy sharing the same bed. And, crucially, they needed to want the same things out of life, so they could keep heading in the same direction.

In 1944 he and Mary had been doing just fine. But could they still do so now? Their experiences in the meantime - well, there were all the lives he’d imagined for Mary. Whatever had actually happened, it would have changed her. As for him, on the island, living with the Iwis… It went without saying that he was a different man.

Skull Island, he’d heard one of the pilots call it. Whoever was talking over this unnatural headset, made of white stuff shiny-smooth and perfect yet warm to the touch.

Yeah, it was the details that were strange. Everything was slightly off. Slivko had assumed he wouldn’t know about helicopters, but he’d been interested in flight long before the war, had followed developments as a kid, airplanes but also rotor craft. The work being done at Bell and Focke-Wulf. And then during the war he’d actually seen an R4 in Burma, though only from a distance.

His recollection of it was vague, but it had looked much the same as this “Huey”. He wished he could get a look at the cockpit - the boys would probably let him once they landed, but to see it flown would be even better.

The principles of flying this thing would be very different to the flying he’d done. If you weren’t moving forward in a plane, you were falling out of the sky. Now a rotor craft… He couldn’t wrap his head around how you’d keep track of all the extra information.

But anyway, the point he was making was that it wasn’t big things like the Huey that were unsettling. It was the small things. This headset. The scratchy stuff Nieves’ clothes had been made of - a uniform, it must have been, because that other guy had been wearing a matching set. The futuristic rifles they’d been carrying.

These little things would add up to a whole new world. He knew how much had altered in the twenty years he’d been an aware human being back home; in nearly 29 years, who knew what would have changed? No flying cars, okay. But what else? He wondered who would be the best person to talk him through it.

Because if he could catch up, maybe he’d be a bit less like Rip Van Winkle when he turned up on Mary’s doorstep. He wouldn’t want her looking at him like he’d grown an extra head, and if his son laughed at him like Slivko had…well, he could take being laughed at, but he wasn’t a circus act.

He wanted to be taken seriously as a…potential husband. As a real father. He’d have to earn it. He knew better than to think he could just walk back into their lives and take up a place like it was his. But if there was an opening, he’d like to apply.

And doing his homework, learning about this new world he was returning to, was a good place to start.

He looked across at Weaver and Conrad on the opposite bench. Weaver might be able to tell him about some of the things Mary would have lived through, even if she didn’t have kids of her own. A woman’s perspective on the past thirty years. He’d have to lure her into explaining, though, find something that hooked her interest. That girl wasn’t much of a talker.

He wondered if that was going to be a problem for the pair. Conrad was hers for life, didn’t take a genius to spot that. He couldn’t hardly take his eyes off her, though every now and then he’d drag them away for all of thirty seconds. But their fearless leader was anxious. She was giving him nothing to work with.

Marlow was sure Weaver liked Conrad. He’d even caught her giving the boy some appreciative glances when he wasn’t looking, and who could blame her. He was film-star handsome, and with those blue eyes he’d’ve made the perfect Nazi poster boy, not that you went around saying that sort of thing to people.

But it seemed like she was distancing herself now, and not in the coy way girls sometimes did when they hoped the guy would come to them. If he had to call it, he’d say she was scared, maybe feeling more than she could handle.

Ah well. They’d be on the ship for a good while. It’d all shake out - and if he could nudge them the right way, he would.

Wow, was this what the storm looked like close up?

Chapter Text

San couldn’t wait to talk to the Chen twins. It was so much, so much! She was itching to start writing it all down, every single last detail.

Kong had been amazing, of course, but the skull-crawlers, ghastly as they had been, were zoologically far more interesting. She wondered if Marlow would be willing to talk about them, so she could get a better sense of their habits. It might disturb him to discuss them dispassionately, but he was a very accommodating man.

He had mentioned ants, too, and something one of the Sky Devils had said yesterday suggested that they might also have encountered them. She would make interviewing them a priority: while it should be easy to stay in touch with Hank, once the Griffins returned to the bosom of the US Army, it would be difficult to keep track of them. (She hoped they could stay friends with Slivko. There was something very endearing about that boy).

There were some things she’d rather forget - Brooks’ eyes flew to her as she shuddered - but she was a scientist. She was a professional. Any small thing could be useful later, it didn’t matter if she recognized its importance or not now. Who knew what theories they might come up with as they worked through the material? You never knew what jigsaw pieces might fall into place.

Oh, but she wanted to see the looks on JingJing and Hua’s faces!

What a thrill, to be the one to tell this tale.

What a gift, to survive to tell this tale.

And what a relief it would be to be able to interpose words and interpretation between herself and this tumultuous experience. She desperately needed that distance. She needed to take control of the unmanageable, chaotic horror by pinning it down. First in her neat handwriting on lined paper, and then typed up and stapled or bound.

Just the idea of having it all set out and sitting as a stack of typed pages was reassuring. Ideally on the opposite side of the room from her. Perhaps inside a cardboard box, with a lid. Taped up for shipping.

She let out a breath. Calm.

And then there was Houston, the other blessing this expedition had bestowed upon her.

Was he serious about her? He certainly seemed to be, but only time would tell.

If he was, then it would be complicated. She couldn’t pretend an interracial relationship would be an easy thing to bring to her parents. In some places, they might have trouble walking down the street together.

But Monarch was a welcoming place, founded as it was on the relationship between Bill and Keiko Randa (poor woman), and Monarch was a bubble away from the ordinary world. They would live on a base with their friends, and though they might suffer catcalls or stares out in the world, they could go home at night to a place where they would be accepted.

Lin knew she would never want to work anywhere else - especially not now.

So it was up to Houston. Was that what he wanted?

She suddenly realized he was frowning deeply at his knees. Oh my, of course. What were they going to do when they landed?

Whatever they did, they’d do it together. She stretched out a toe and tapped the side of his boot so he could meet her smile.

Chapter Text

Why was she ignoring him?

She’s not ignoring you. She’s just looking out of the chopper at the…blank wall of cloud.

Hmm.

Not everything is about you. Stop staring at her, you’ll freak her out.

Okay. Okay. Oof, big drop. Controlled breaths, don’t puke.

At least he hadn’t eaten today.

With the island vanished behind the wall of cloud, he felt unmoored, off-balance. Who could believe such a story, without the proof there before their eyes? All they would have to hang on to would be Weaver's pictures.

Knowing that by tomorrow it might start to feel unreal even to him made his stomach tense with panic. Surely not? Their experiences there had changed them. Not to mention all those who had died. Not believing in skull-crawlers wouldn’t bring back Chapman or Randa or Packard.

He shuddered, hard. Was that reaction starting to set in, so soon? Or just the thought of the skull-crawlers?

God. Was it really over? Was that possible? He knew this wasn’t going to be an easy one to let go. Strangely, he wasn’t sure this was the worst mission he’d ever survived. At least this one had had come with a side of marvels and wonder. (And Weaver). (Stop it).

God, writing the report was going to take a whole day. Maybe two. What was he going to say?

As little editorialising as possible, as usual. Keep it simple, place no blame, and allow his perspective on events to speak for itself. There was no such thing as an objective account, however hard you tried, and he’d learned that appearing to play it straight was an effective way to sell your angle. If they wanted his opinions explicitly stated, they could ask at the debrief.

Equally, he supposed it didn’t matter whether or not Brooks’ people thought he’d done his job well. It wasn’t as though he’d see them again. The joy of freelancing.

Christ. The thought of going back out into the world alone was almost as nauseating as the ride through the storm.

A lightning flash haloed Weaver’s head.

It was a lot to process. (She was a lot to process.)

It was a lot to process, and would be for her, too. She was entitled to some time to think, and she didn’t need him dumping his goddamn issues on her.

Are they just mine?

Let’s hope not, but let’s save 20 Questions at least until tomorrow, eh?

Oh thank fuck, sunlight.

Bloody hell, I’m hungry.

Yeah, focus on that.

And smile at Marlow. He’s giving you a funny look. At least pretend to be a normal human being.

Fuck.

Chapter Text

Slivko was deeply relieved when Reles, wincing with pain as he twisted to face the back row, handed him the notebook. It would definitely help to have an agreed message, and this one looked manageable.

Could they stick to it? Would the others? He liked Hernandez, it’d be hard to lie to him - but then again, they didn’t need to. It was a hundred-foot monkey, surely he’d get that it was classified. (Though Slivko had a sneaking suspicion that Brooks didn’t have the authority to classify anything).

Plus, they could hint that Packard had got a bunch of the others killed, if the captain pushed on that topic. Hernandez might not buy it at first, but if they were all telling him the same thing and he started thinking about it, he’d probably get it. They’d all kinda wondered how the colonel would handle leaving Vietnam: now they knew.

But long term they were going to pay for holding out on their CO. You were supposed to be true to the death, faithful to your fellow-soldiers, loyal to your officers over and above everything else.

Once they were back on base, whatever base it ended up being, they would bring in majors and colonels and people from Intelligence and maybe even the CIA, Christ, whoever. If Brooks and San’s people didn’t have the sheer power and influence it would take to make the US fucking Army back off, he and Mills and Reles would be screwed.

He’d not been planning on making a career of it, and he didn’t think the other two had either, but at this point they’d have no choice. Trouble was, they wouldn’t be able to just walk. They’d have to wait to be demobbed, and if they had information the Army wanted, they weren’t going to just let them go.

His dream of working back with his pops in the shop was starting to feel further away than ever.

Man, at least they’d feed him, though. They’d had nothing since that weird-ass cold porridge on the ploat and he was about ready to eat his own arm.

Chapter Text

There were other things to think about. More important, life-changing things. But he was sitting right there.

It had been fine when he was just some distractingly handsome guy with a voice that made her insides melt. It had been quite something, but she was no fainting violet, she could handle it. She assumed the worst about his personality, she didn’t talk to him much, she was polite, and she reminded herself they were ships passing. Once this gig was over, he’d be gone, as would she.

And then he’d turned out to be…really nice. Thoughtful and considerate. Not to mention intelligent and professional.

Then he’d started smiling at her. That had been hard to deal with. And then, you know, he was saving her life and shit. And that had left her somewhere she really didn’t want to be.

Vulnerable.

The man was unselfconsciously gorgeous, but still aware enough to pick a t-shirt that matched his eyes. How did that even work?

It wasn’t fair. It shouldn’t be allowed; there had to be a law against it. It was too much, and this wasn’t what she did. This wasn’t who she was.

Back in San Francisco, dating would have been easy enough, if Mason had been in the frame of mind for it. But she’d been focused on her political goals, and wary of being pulled away from them by love and marriage, as she’d seen happen with any number of her friends.

They’d been so determined to do everything they could to stop the war, to address racial injustice, to push for prison reform or women’s rights; marching at every protest, covering every court appearance, committed to whichever cause they’d made their own. That was, until they fell in love, got married, and dropped off the face of the earth.

She’d look them up after months of radio silence to find them mired in diapers or working all hours supporting their brilliant lawyer husband through the last years of his education, swearing blind they were happier than they’d ever been.

Not all of them; not by any means. But she was resolved: that was not going to happen to her. No man was going to divert her from her purpose. (It occasionally troubled her feminist conscience that it was a man’s death that had put her on this path in the first place).

All of that felt impossibly long ago. Saigon, which had been her reality for two years now, was a completely different ball game. Everyone was away from home, working hard and playing hard; any relationship formed was presumed to be temporary.

Most of the press corps stayed safe in the city, relying for their information on the five o’clock follies put out daily by the Joint US Public Affairs Office. She had no time for those hacks.

There were other journos who stayed in Saigon but produced impressive reporting, working a wide network of sources and not just passing on JUSPAO’s drivel. Perhaps not coincidentally, these people were generally not involved in the dating scene.

If they were, they tended to be kinda intense, and if you got too close their despairing friends or exes would warn you off getting involved. Or maybe it was just that Mason had been such a baby when she’d arrived that she’d triggered their protective instincts.

The final group took advantage of the transportation freely provided by MACV to get their stories from the field. Many of these were, of course, photographers - while some were allowed to rely on shots of press conferences, there was more pressure from their papers and newsrooms to get out and get some real photos.

It was dangerous, and people generally played it as safe as they could. Almost all of the battlefield photos and video coming out of Vietnam showed aftermath, not events. Even so, 60 people had died over the years.

She’d taken it a step further by shadowing MACV’s Special Operations Group, and yes, she’d nearly bought it a few times. (She wondered sometimes whether the reason her mother wouldn’t speak to her was less her politics and more that she couldn’t take the stress, and had decided to opt out). That had earned her quite a reputation, both as a risk-taker and for bringing back the shots that counted.

So, when Mason had indulged in a brief fling, as she had a couple of times in the first year, both had been with guys in this last group, who’d been impressed with her record and whom she’d respected in return. One had subsequently returned home amid rumors of a nervous breakdown and/or drug addiction. The other had turned out to be an asshole. And married. Fucker.

At that point, swearing off men until she got home had seemed the rational decision. She wasn’t in the mood to play games, anyway.

Except with the troops withdrawing, she was at the point of going back, and she’d started wondering, who would she be able to talk to at home? Who would understand?

She’d told herself it’d be fine. There were plenty of people who’d been out here and gone back. She could find one of them, and they could be fuck-ups together.

Because she was pretty sure Vietnam had fucked her up for life.

And then, this.

Weirdly, the last three days felt like they’d gone some way towards healing her. The Iwi had been entrancing in their harmony, their dignity and unity. They were John Lennon’s wet dream living real lives in the real world - because however impossible, the island was very real indeed.

Marlow himself was something of a wonder, so open and accepting and generous of spirit.

Kong - Kong was inexpressible and unforgettable.

And none of that had anything to do with Conrad.

Except that she wouldn’t be here on this Huey headed home if it weren’t for him. And Kong would be dead.

Apart from that.

She resisted the temptation to turn around and look at him. There was no doubt but that she’d find him looking right back at her.

He wanted her. He wasn’t making any secret of it, but he wasn’t pushing her. Hadn’t even said anything. She’d spent her life suffering men’s presumptuous hands around her waist, on her backside, occasionally even squeezing her breasts. One guy had patted her on the head, Jesus. Conrad hadn’t touched her once without cause.

She found she could remember every single time he had touched her, and exactly what it had felt like. Usually a guiding hand light at the small of her back. God, she’d dropped into his arms from the crashed chopper, and he’d kept even that professional. (She wasn’t ready quite yet to think about that morning by the marsh).

She did not wish he’d pushed his luck more. Said something. Done something.

She thought for a moment about how she really did not wish that even slightly.

The beauty of it was, he was fucked up too. No well-adjusted member of society stayed in Saigon from choice. She got him. He got her. That was a rare and precious thing.

The worrying thing was, though, that yes, he was fucked up too. He’d been killing time in Saigon, kicking his heels between jobs, with nothing to do but get himself into trouble. Saigon was a great place to indulge just about any bad habit you might have, and add a few more. And she had only really known him three days.

That was the crux of it.

She lifted her chin, barely noticing the precipitous drop as the Huey hit an air pocket.

Mason Weaver was a journalist. She would investigate.

She turned to Conrad, camera in hand. He was studying his boots, shoulders rounded. She snapped him as he sat there, framed by the doorway beyond.

He’d brought them out of - no, not hell; there wasn’t a word that could encapsulate everything the island had been. But he’d brought them out of it alive, at least some of them. Almost all those he’d had proper charge of.

Why, then, was dejection written in every line of his body? Was he so much the perfectionist? Or was he just feeling queasy?

A question was a good place to start.