Title: Health and Peace

Category: Pacific Rim

Characters: Luna Pentecost; Stacker Pentecost; Tamsin Sevier

Summary: Luna and Stacker on the last birthday they celebrated together after the fact. (Happy Birthday, Stacker Pentecost: 12.30.2013)

Disclaimer: Pacific Rim and all things related are property of Warner Bros., Legendary Pictures and Guillermo del Toro.

You spend most of your life - well, your childhood, really - waiting to grow up. Your birthday centers itself around presents and how many years you can count off with your fingers before you're too old to be pushed about by your parents. But and when it happens, there's a point where you're not sure if it's the worst thing to ever happen to you or the greatest. There's the responsibility of course, the things you can accept, and the things you wish you didn't have to deal with.

Then there's there are the freedoms that come with the onset of adulthood and the perceptive that changes how you saw things as a child - literally or metaphorically. You realize older people aren't automatically all knowing (maybe you realize it a little earlier, but you never allow yourself to accept it until you're too old to fall back on the age old belief that your parents aren't God); people aren't indestructible and when they leave - be it by the hand of death or their own agency - there are certain "holes", as it were, that can't be filled because they meant or mean that much to you. You just find it in you to accept that they're gone.

Mum and Dad were like that. People we thought we couldn't live without once they were gone. She recognizes us less and less, but it's always nice to see some moment of recognition, even when it hurts to know she'll go back in that hole of hers and forget everything all over again. There's a new establishment where the old clubs used to be, Mr. Mundy's and "his", but I can still see the black marks where the fire left its mark on "his" club (after you beat him senseless), the people that still remain even when things have changed so much it's not really same neighborhood we grew up in. Then there are the badges you and I wear, the lives we've built around steel, regime and jets, fuel, and the friends we've made.

We could spend the better part of our adulthood slogging through the hardships our lives and focusing only that, but then I remember I've still got Tam and I've still got you, Stacker. The life we live and lived with our family. It's not all bad.

This was supposed to be a happy letter.

Happy Birthday, little brother. Here's to another ten or twenty odd birthdays before we're all cold in our graves.

Love:

Lulu ^_^

Stacker finds her up on the second to last floor of the parking lot of Tamsin's apartment, watching the busy traffic below. He hasn't seen her since February of last year, but not much has changed about his big sister as far as looks are concerned. She chooses not to acknowledge him until the last second, when he's in ear shot of her voice.

At his present distance, she is reminded at his height and has to remember how she pictures him in his head sometimes doesn't fit the picture of the strapping big man that tends to be mistaken for the elder of the Pentecost siblings. Stacker settles next to her with a sigh and she stands a bit straighter, years of training suddenly choosing then to kick in. "Tamsin called, said you were in town," He said.

"Tams never could keep a secret," Luna sighed. "I was plannin' on surprisin' you."

"You know I don't like surprises, Lulu," Stacker reminded her.

"Surprises are good sometimes, especially for someone as so preemptive as you."

They don't say anything to each other for a long time, content with the ambience of city life around them.

"Did you get my letter?"

"I did. A bit late, isn't it? What is it, January now?"

"According to the mailman, it got lost in the mail," Luna explained.

"It was a bit melodramatic," Stacker said.

His sister shrugged, not entirely sure if she should feel guilty or flattered. "I was in a mood," She told him. "Did Tam make you a cake at least?"

"She did. I've had better,"

Luna smacked her brother on the arm. "You didn't tell her that did you?"

"What do you think I am, heartless? No, I ate it without complaints. It wasn't terrible, it just wasn't-"

"Mum's?"

"No. It wasn't yours," Stacker corrected.

The smile on his sister's face spoke for itself.

FIN.