Sorry about the long wait, everyone! Not only did I go on a three-week-long vacation, no, a week into that vacation my laptop froze and died on me. The helpful computer staff at Staples in Whitehorse worked a miracle and recovered my personal documents on my harddrive, transferring them to an external one, which was then my most prized possession for the rest of my trip. I lost everything else, though. I'm not even sure how many website links I can't remember. Yes, I backed up all documents before my trip, but I had already written a lot of stuff for Fractal in that first week and that would have been completely lost.
Alas, it didn't happen. Now I have a new laptop, which I have to get used to (Windows 8! Ack!), but writing is still the same.
So there you have it, the explanation why it took me so long :)
Thanks to Ally for supplying me with so much material on Chuck and Herc, for endless discussions on their relationship and our take on it. I know she's currently bouncing to read the fic she helped my braincell inspire.
And as always thanks to Fangirl1138, who gets first dibs at reading over what I write and helping out on the grammar/plot front.
x X XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX xx X
Fractal
originally: from the French or Latin, meaning broken or to break.
mathematically: a never-ending pattern
Prior stories in the Synergy series
1. Momentum
2. Breaking Me Softly
x X XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX xx X
The noise was that of a thunder blast.
Like a massive explosion without a fire.
A loud, eardrum shattering sound that had everyone stop whatever they were doing, freeze, adrenaline spiking.
The crash came from deep within the empty holding bays, followed by an ominous creak, then a thundering rumble.
Metal screamed under duress.
Something snapped.
People yelled.
Then the alarms blared, echoing through the cavernous Jaeger bay.
Men and women in workers' gear started running toward the site of the accident.
x X XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX xx X
"… uncontrolled bleeding…"
"Blood pressure is falling!"
"We're losing him!"
"Heart's dropping!"
"Clamp that leak!"
"Prep's ready."
"Move, people!"
x X XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX xx X
"Marshall Bond."
"Deputy, actually, not that it matters right now. How is he?"
"He dropped a lung and it was touch and go for a while. We almost lost him. We stabilized him and he is responding to all the fluids we are pumping into him. The next twenty-four hours will be critical."
x X XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX xx X
The room wasn't the usual sterile white of a hospital. It was far from a normal hospital anyway. The infirmary of a Shatterdome was set up like everything: efficiently. No great fuss about color schemes and warm, fuzzy feelings. It was functional and did its job.
So the walls were white-washed, with the added architectural feature of no windows, a gunmetal gray ceiling, a floor of the same color, and a small, rather military looking bathroom with just the essentials. All steel gray. The doors were more like hatches and the instruments in the intensive care units looked almost crude in their arrangement.
Not that it mattered to anyone in here.
Not that it mattered to the visitors.
Or the caretakers.
The Shatterdome was a military unit, not a private hospital. There was no gift shop with flowers or stuffed animals for sale. There wasn't a visitors' lounge or a maternity ward, let alone a child care center. It was a functional place.
It was what was needed.
It had also seen its fair share of patients, young and old, male or female. All of them were part of this Shatterdome. Technicians, mechanics, engineers, pilots.
Now one of them was here, in critical condition.
x X XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX xx X
There was blood.
Dried little flakes on grayish pale skin.
Blood that hadn't been cleaned off after surgery, that clung to the skin.
It was only a trace amount, but it was blood. He could see it. He could imagine what was underneath the sterile bandages that protected surgical incisions, lacerations, scrapes and bruises from the prying eye. From infection.
Chuck Hansen knew he owed a lot of people an apology.
Starting with Raleigh Becket.
Raleigh who was…
Chuck faltered. What was Raleigh to him? Was there even a definition? What was it between them that had slowly but surely developed in the past months? What was he to Raleigh and what was Raleigh to him? He had never been one for emotional introspection.
Heck, he usually didn't do any kind of that shit, but here he was, with too much time on his hands, looking at the motionless form of his father in a hospital bed, machines keeping track of his every breath, and his mind had started to wander aimlessly.
He often drew a blank. It was as if he had stumbled into a dead end alley, staring at a wall, and there was nothing. He couldn't move, couldn't think, just stared at this fucking huge wall and his mind was a blank slate.
Chuck dragged himself out of that state after a while, trying really hard, but whenever his eyes fell on the bandages, on the tube breathing for his father, on the blood, he went into another dive.
Disjointed thoughts bounced around his close to paralyzed mind. Memories of the last twelve hours.
Rage.
Disbelief.
Anger.
Pain.
Such fury…
He had laid into Raleigh like that very first time they had met; barbed words, hurtful and cutting and meant to push the older man away. Chuck hadn't wanted him close, hadn't wanted him to see… see him, Chuck Hansen, best pilot ever, this way.
Broken.
Close to losing it.
Crying.
Because yes, he had cried. Much to his chagrin and embarrassment, in the early morning hours, sitting in the dark and looking at his father, he had cried. Dry sobs, no tears, the crushing pain in his chest like a vice clamped around every thought.
And he had longed for a reassuring voice, deep and with that familiar rumble, telling him things would be alright.
It was a memory deep inside him, from the time he had cried over his mother, for his mother, and the strong arms around him, keeping him safe.
Herc was his only parent left. He was the only family left.
The only one that counted anyway.
Chuck hadn't heard of Scott Hansen, his father's older brother, ever since his uncle had been dishonorably dismissed from the PPDC. There had been rumors, but never a reason given, a statement typed down anywhere. And until the first Drift with his father, Chuck hadn't known why the Drift between the two brothers had ended so badly.
Now he knew and back then it had shocked him to the core. Even today he didn't really want to think about what his uncle had done, didn't want to be associated with Scott Hansen.
His father had simply looked at him, the truth in his eyes, in his mind, and they had never breached the subject again.
There had been no one else in Chuck's life since then. His father had been the strong point for him to rely on, the one person to turn to, and the one person to hate for letting his mother die.
It had been the cause of friction between them in the months after Angela Hansen's death, but Chuck had come around. He had been twelve, had hated the world, the Kaijus, his father, everyone. He had wanted his mother back.
His mother, who had sacrificed herself for her child.
His mother, who had told her husband to go and get their son, not to drive into Sydney to find her. So Chuck could live.
The dull ache came back and fought the emotional pain it brought.
Angela Hansen's death was stated as 'by Kaiju', but in the past years, with the war, Chuck had come to understand that she had probably perished in the nuclear strike that had taken out the monster – and had taken so many human lives, too.
Guilt had been his constant companion in those early months. It had been so easy to turn it into hatred against the one he had blamed for not saving them both.
Chuck screwed his eyes shut, hating his brain. Dredging up those old emotions, those still not entirely healed scars. It hurt so much to think of this part of his past. It was emotional agony to remember his mother's face from their time together. It hurt even more to remember the agony clearly written on his father's face.
As a twelve-year-old he had refused to see Herc as anything or anyone but the one to lay blame on. He had refused to see the pain, the fraying control, the mourning.
Until the day he had walked into the room and seen his father cry.
Chuck wasn't sure if Herc had known his young son was there, but probably not.
Not until years later, in their first Drift.
Chuck had stared at the man sitting on the bed, a picture of Angela in his hands, tears tracking down his narrow features, and whispering apologies.
It had been the moment something had broken inside the then thirteen year old boy. It had been the moment he had promised himself, and his mother, to be the damned best pilot to ever jockey a Jaeger.
He would make his father proud.
He would avenge his mother.
Now he might just lose his dad.
Chuck looked at the still form, took in the bandages wrapped around Herc's chest and his left arm. One eye had been covered by a taped bandage. There were bruises blossoming around it, staining the naturally pale skin, in sharp contrast to the ginger stubble.
He looked silent, too still, too…
Chuck swallowed and his fingers unconsciously wrapped around the cool, limp digits of his father's good hand.
He felt alone. Lost and alone and so at a loss as to how to deal with this.
Raleigh had tried to be there for him, but he had driven him away. He had nearly bitten the man's head off. It was what he was good at.
He and his fast mouth.
His only defense early on against much older and larger boys at the Academy. His only defense to keep personal things inside, to not let anyone close.
Aside from Herc.
Chuck had unknowingly clung to his sole surviving parent, had done everything to make his old man proud, and he had worked his ass off to be the damned best pilot.
To be worthy.
To get a Jaeger, to show the Kaiju that humanity wouldn't just roll over and die.
And he hadn't accepted anyone as his Drift partner who didn't meet his standards.
Chuck knew he had driven the trainers insane, had had countless sessions with a psychologist, until the day Striker Eureka had been launched.
And his father had Drifted with him.
Because their Kwoon session had been a thing of beauty.
Chuck had known from the very first moment, when they had matched and mirrored, that no one else would ever be able to get this close to him.
Their Drift had been a revelation and a closure in one. The neural bridge had joined their minds, had opened them to each other, and for the very first time since Angela Hansen's death, they had talked. Really talked, even if it was through the Pons.
Chuck would never forget his father's expression, the tears in the older Hansen's eyes, and he would never be able to erase his own reaction to it. That night, both men had gone out for a beer, barely talking and still saying so much.
People muttered that the Hansens didn't get along outside the Drift, that they only ever talked when connected, and maybe that was true, but Chuck didn't need more. The Drift was as personal and intimate as it came. Everything else was like a muted, incomplete version, a bad copy, packed in cotton wool and barely even scratching the surface.
Sure, they talked. They had shared quarters for six damned years!
It was simply a fact that the Drift was… so much more.
Raleigh had understood. He and Yancy had been the same. All pilots understood, Chuck mused. The Kaidanovskys… husband and wife, never ones to be chatty, and still so very much in sync. The Drift was nothing an outsider could imagine.
He gently massaged his father's hand, needing the contact, needing to bring warmth back into the cool skin.
Touch was a rare form of communication for them. They didn't touch like that, aside from Herc holding back his son before he did something stupid.
x X XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX xx X
It was close to three a.m. and no one had kicked him out.
Chuck wanted to see them try. He would be back, fighting everyone, and they knew it.
James Bond had taken over as Marshall for now. He had been Herc's second for a long time, sliding into that position seamlessly, and Chuck knew the Shatterdome would keep running efficiently. He had also told everyone to give Chuck room.
As if the young Ranger wasn't able to get himself that room all on his own. He grimaced at that thought. He had already alienated everyone.
Like Raleigh.
It was painful to think of that moment, looking into the blue eyes, so filled with compassion and the need to be there. Chuck had been close to getting physical. He had wanted to hit Raleigh, had wanted to bury his fist somewhere, even in a wall, and he had snarled at the other to keep the fuck away.
It was how his father had felt when his wife had died.
The memory was very clear in Chuck's head.
Herc had fought everyone, every little shred of compassion and help, and he had focused on his only child. A child who had accused him of killing his own wife by leaving her behind.
Now Chuck was feeling the same way, those old Ghosts, and he felt his own helplessness.
"You can't die," he told the still figure.
His voice sounded rough, hoarse, and it was wavering with the tears he felt well up in his eyes.
Shit, he was about to cry again!
Fuck!
Chuck angrily wiped at his face, fingers coming away wet, and he drew a shuddering breath.
It had been such a stupid, senseless accident!
Six fucking years of fighting Kaijus and the worst Herc had come away with, aside from a few bumps and bruises, had been a broken arm just before Operation Pitfall. It had been a shock back then to Chuck, to see his father hurt, to know they were sitting in a dead Jaeger, a Kaiju outside, and they would die like this.
Helpless.
It was how he had felt.
And Herc had been so bloody angry, at himself, at everything. He had refused help, had torn away from his son, and Chuck had been…
Helpless.
Like now.
The emotional tidal wave grew larger, threatening to become a tsunami of uncontrolled dimensions, and he bowed his head over the limp hand, fighting back a sob.
He had to be strong.
He was alone.
You can't die, he thought again and again. You're all I have left.
Ghosts, still there after such a long time of not Drifting with the man, lingered, mingling with those left behind by Raleigh.
Raleigh.
You have him. He's there for you. He would be right at your side if you weren't such an arse!
Chuck knew all that. His inner little voice didn't have to tell him. But he couldn't bring himself to turn to anyone, even the man he had no idea what to call. He wasn't some swooning teen, drawing hearts around the name, thinking of Becket as his boyfriend. They were… not fuck-buddies. It was more. Raleigh was a lot more.
Chuck had known it when they had Drifted for real that very first time. He had seen it, felt it, had been there for the whole show, and he knew Raleigh was serious about it.
Before that he had barely dared to hope for more, to believe in them. Yes, he had let Raleigh close; closer than anyone before. Well, anyone but his father. He had had women hanging off his arms, he had had bed companions, both male and female.
He had never opened up.
Raleigh had found a way in.
He was a persistent little fuck and he was… good. Damaged and broken himself, but good for Chuck. He had made him see beyond his narrow perception of the world. He had torn down his defenses and he had made Chuck want something other than praise and approval and the proud look in his father's eyes when they had taken down another Kaiju.
But until the Drift, Chuck had still retained a sliver of wariness, of fear.
Months of rehab, of Raleigh at his side every step of the way. Months of bitching and yelling and biting at him, of glaring and exploding into his face at the slightest push against raw, open nerves. Months of dancing around each other and then finally surrendering to the thing between them.
Months…
Chuck smiled dimly at the memory of their first time. It had been an explosion of emotions, good and bad, and he knew it had been a little intense, but there had been no going back. And afterwards… things had been different. Still fighting, snarling and throwing around names and words, but it had been different. There had been this connection…
… and then the Drift…
… and he had finally believed that Raleigh wasn't simply after the famous Hansen kid…
"You really think I'm that cheap?" Raleigh asked, grinning.
"I would be," Chuck replied, anger in his voice, trying to push the softer emotions away.
Raleigh laughed, warm and tender, making Chuck's insides do strange things. He pulled Chuck into a gentle kiss.
"You wouldn't. And I like that body of yours. A lot. But it's not why I wanted to sleep with you. It's not why I'm your personal scratching post and target. I'm not that much of a masochist."
Chuck stared at him, drawn between snapping something hurtful and just kissing the other man senseless. He took option number two.
Still he had physically pushed Raleigh away, kicked him out, refused to talk, when he needed support the most. When his father was fighting for his life, surrounded by machines, unconscious, in an artificial coma. Chuck hadn't been able to stand the touch, the look in those blue eyes, the sympathy…
Because he wasn't… couldn't deal with it. Couldn't deal with compassion and empathy.
Raleigh understood. Chuck knew the man was a lot deeper, carried an incredible pain, had clawed his way out of an abyss that now yawned under Chuck. He had lost everything and survived. He had lost part of himself, of his very soul, and he was still going. Raleigh could open up and share.
That wasn't Chuck.
Exhaustion rolled over him and Chuck sniffled a little, embarrassed by his breakdown. He wiped his eyes again, aware that they were probably red-rimmed and puffy, and he grimaced.
The investigation into what had really happened was still on-going and James would get to the bottom of the Jaeger Bay accident.
Chuck wasn't really clear on a lot of things. What he was clear on was his reaction to hearing that a worker had crashed a repair crane, had life-threateningly injured his father, and that the man was probably drunk. He had messed up the controls, had nearly killed the Shatterdome's Marshall, his father, and Chuck had lost it.
He had lashed out. First at the worker, then at the hands holding him back. And finally at Bond, who had reacted accordingly.
He had lost control. He had attacked a superior officer.
Right now, Chuck didn't give a flying shit about consequences.
It had taken three hours to get to Herc.
Three fucking hours!
Chuck had been a nervous wreck by that time, barely able to stand anyone close to him, tolerating only Bond, because the man had an air of authority around him that Chuck reacted to instinctively. Raleigh… Raleigh had been there.
Chuck couldn't recall much else. There were fragments of something or other, but the shock had wiped out a lot.
The shock at seeing the rescue team carefully bring out the broken, bloody form of Herc Hansen. Clothes torn, blood everywhere. Blood… so much blood. His face barely recognizable under the grime and caked bodily fluids. Stabilized, pressure bandages on his hand, the paramedic on the scene yelling orders to get Hansen directly into Medical, to prepare ICU…
Yeah, he knew he had hit the deputy Marshall then and there when James had tried to hold him back from turning the stoned tech into mincemeat. He knew he had probably ruined his career. And alienated everyone else.
But Chuck didn't fucking care any longer.
x X XX x XX x XX x XX x XX x XX xx X
The doctors had told him that Herc was in a bad way. Blood loss, shock to the system.
They had nearly lost him once on the way to Medical, then a second time when he had been on the table.
For the emergency surgery, to relieve pressure from the punctured lung. To repair the damage done by the parts burying him after his fall.
Herc was now in an artificial coma as long as he needed the intubation. They hoped to stave off an infection. They hoped that the replenished blood would do the trick.
They hoped.
Chuck hoped.
He had never prayed before in his life, his belief shot, but he was doing something like it now. Hoping and talking to whoever or whatever listened.
The back of Herc's head had impacted with the ground. There was swelling, a sizable bruise, as well as an open wound that had been stitched closed. It spoke of the force with which he had collided with the hard metal floor. The suspected concussion was mild, considering the other wounds. There was no skull fracture, thank god, and no bleeding in the brain.
Just more wounds everywhere else to worry about.
Like two parallel cuts across his right temple and into his hair.
Like the cut on his throat that had luckily not gone deep.
Like the deep laceration from shrapnel that had sliced through the upper left arm, biting into the muscles, severing some, and it had needed extensive stitching.
Twelve stitches.
It would leave a scar.
One of many, Chuck mused dimly, wondering where that had come from.
All pilots had them. From various injuries, be it in training or a true fight. Some had them from their prior lives, before the Jaegers and the Kaijus.
There was also a deep cut in his hand from where he had apparently tried to hold onto something, but it had luckily not nicked the bone or cut through all muscles and tendons.
Be grateful for little things.
There was no apparent nerve damage.
The whole arm was swathed in bandages. His father would have to wear a sling again. He would probably bitch about it; loudly.
Chuck smiled at that.
There was another cut across Herc's left eye, running very close to the eye itself, together with a contusion, which had necessitated the bandage over the eye. It had swollen shut anyway. So far, no one talked about possible permanent damage to the eye. The doctors were positive that when the swelling went down, Herc's eye would be fine.
Most of his father's body was a motley assembly of bruises of varying degrees, but none of them were life-threatening, just painful, just now coming into full bloom, some peeking out under the bandages.
It was a miracle he hadn't broken any bones, Dr. Lee had told him. It was amazing and slightly unreal, considering the long drop down, the hard impact. But aside from the deep bruising, there wasn't a single fracture.
Yeah, small miracles.
It was the only bright side.
And Chuck… he was at a loss
He felt emotionally and physically drained.
He can't die.
He couldn't lose his father. For all his bitching and needling and strutting around the Shatterdome as if Chuck Hansen was the only one of Striker Eureka's team who counted, he knew he would be nothing without his father.
Hercules Hansen, the strongest man he had ever known. A man he respected more than he had ever respected any Marshall, even Stacker Pentecost.
He remembered the moment of amusement in the one and only Drift with the Hong Kong Shatterdome Marshall. Just before they had kicked the Breach's ass.
And Pentecost's words? They had hurt. Deeply. It had been a shock to be told so straight-forward and without sugar-coating a single word what his superior officer thought of him
Egotistical jerk with daddy issues.
Chuck still cringed.
On some level he knew he was a very screwed up ass, but to hear it, just before going on the most important mission of mankind?
Fuck…
It had been a weird Drift, the first without Herc, and one that hadn't felt right. Yes, Stacker hadn't brought anything into the Drift, had been this neutral, strong presence, but they weren't a true match. Pentecost was able to Drift with anyone, Chuck had realized. He was just that man who could adjust to a partner. But Chuck hadn't wanted him.
At the time he had thought it was a suicide run and he had been prepared to go out in a blaze of glory with his father, piloting Striker, the best of the best. That had changed in a heartbeat and he had been left adrift in so many ways.
Pentecost had seen it all, had felt it all, and he had already had a plan anyway.
Fuck that old man, had been Chuck's thought back then. He had known what he had wanted to do and he had done it.
Chuck had survived.
Only to sit at his father's bed and watch the rise and fall of his bandaged chest, watch machines breathe for him, feed him, keep him alive.
Herc was someone no other Kwoon partner had ever lived up to. Like Pentecost he easily matched and mirrored others, but Chuck had been his only co-pilot since Scott. He had been so damned proud of it, rubbing the fact under Becket's nose that very first time in the mess hall.
His father, his co-pilot. Fuck off, old timer! Back to the hole you hid in! No one needs you! Least of all me!
Now that old timer, that has been, was his co-pilot and they matched, too. Their first Drift had been amazing and Chuck had been slightly breathless, feeling the other mind. Despite the damage done to Raleigh's brain, he had been able to Drift with Mako and then with Chuck.
It had been an amazing moment.
Taking Epic North out that first time had been like being in Striker when she had first launched. It had been a revelation. It had been a moment when the last barriers had fallen, when the two men had looked at the other without pretense or masks. It had been when Chuck Hansen had… he had fallen.
Herc had known. The bastard's expression had been tell-tale. Proud, and so much more.
Back to Raleigh, Chuck thought tiredly.
Always back to him.
Part of him yearned to have the other man close. They were so fucking close anyway. Not just Drifting. They shared one of the old apartments, they lived and slept together, they were…
Shit, back to that again.
What were they?
Part of Chuck, the human side, the rattled, unsure, scared side, wanted Raleigh to be with him, hold him, calm him down. The hard-ass pilot refused to be so weak. He had lived with no one but his father for moral support for far too long to be this needy!
Mako would kick his ass and call him an idiot.
He gave a soft, broken laugh at that.
Yeah, she would.
And he deserved it.
tbc...