Title: Transfer Function
Author: teagrl83
Pairing: Mako/Raleigh
Rating: PG-13, eventual M
The Marshal used to warn Mako about men like Raleigh Becket. Reckless men who had the world in the palm of their hand until one day everything was gone. Then they'd be even more reckless.
Reckless men die.
"You're not reckless," Mako would say.
"No, and I'm alive." The Marshal did not miss a beat. "I'd like you to stay that way too."
"I don't think he's reckless," Mako speaks up after the Marshal has given her permission to enter his quarters.
"Who?"
"Raleigh Becket. I don't think he's reckless anymore."
He continues looking at his reports.
"The loss of his brother ... it changed him. I think he'll be more cautious now."
"Mm." The Marshal doesn't look up from the stack of papers. "Good."
"It's not," she says somewhat stridently, and the Marshal looks up.
He leans back in a deceptively relaxed posture. "Why wouldn't his new caution be a positive development? Couldn't it be a sign that he has matured?"
Mako lowers her eyes. She knows he's testing her. She's used to it, even looks forward to it most days.
"A pilot flies through instinct," she recites. "A pilot needs to follow their nature. They need to mold their nature in accordance to the needs of the battle."
A faint smile tugs at the corner of Marshal Stacker Pentecost's lips. He folds his hands on the desk, interlacing his fingers. "That's a theory, anyway."
"Your theory," Mako is smiling herself.
"But what does it have to do with Mr. Becket?" he prods.
"I choose the candidates based on that principle." She grows more serious as she continues. "Cadets that err on the side of caution to balance him out. But if that's not Mr. Becket anymore..."
"Are you saying you made a mistake?"
She shakes her head. "No, just that I'm...less certain of my choices now."
"Then we'll just have to see, tomorrow."
Mako can't sleep, so she walks down to the Kwoon combat room and goes through several iado forms. She has just begun to break a sweat when she feels someone watching her. In one of the standard moves she turns around and smoothly practices a sheathing move.
Becket whistles. "You're good at that."
She lowers her eyes and smiles. "Thank you."
"You were showing off."
The smile leaves her lips and she looks up. "I-I wasn't!" she stammers.
He raises his hands. "Okay, okay, sorry." A beat of silence passes between them. "Not...not even a little?" he presses lightly.
"Maybe a little," she concedes, inwardly cringing. She doesn't quite know why she admits this. She turns to leave the room.
"You flunked me on a character assessment just a few hours ago and now you're embarrassed?" Mako can hear the humor in his voice.
She doesn't turn around, but she stops. "You asked what I thought. I told you."
"And you knew I was watching. You sure you're not one of the candidates?"
She shakes her head. "Good night, Mr. Becket."
Ralei—Becket, she corrects mentally- starts knocking on her door scarcely ten minutes after the Marshal dismissed her. Mako considers simply not opening, but the knocks get increasingly louder and show no signs of stopping.
She's been crying like she hasn't in years and hating every minute of it. To make it worse, there's all sorts of random images, textures, feelings that she doesn't recognize in her head.
Mako lets the knocking continue for about a minute, until she hears some annoyed cries from the neighboring rooms.
She opens the door mid-knock, his hand frozen maybe a foot above her head. A muscle twitches in his cheek. "Thought maybe you were ignoring me or something."
She sits and crosses her arms over her chest. "I was."
He looks genuinely confused. "Why?"
"Because I'm fine. That's what you came for, right? To see how I'm doing?"
"Yeah, Mako—"
"I don't need you protecting me," she snaps in Japanese. "Not to that asshole, and especially, not to the Marshal. And I don't need you taking responsibility for things that are my fault."
"It wasn't your—"
She switches to English and gestures to the door. "Thank you for coming to check on me, Mr. Becket."
He smiles humorlessly and reaches for her wrist. "Listen, Mako, we—"
Mako breaks the hold easily and slams her open palm against his chest, pushing him back a step. "Out."
Her expression must convince him, because he goes through the doorway. He turns to say something, but she slams the door before he can so much as open his mouth.
Mako wonders if it's the lingering effects of the drift that push her to the Marshal's quarters near midnight. She feels like a walking tangle of nerves as she knocks twice. His voice invites her in.
He's still pouring over reports. She can count on one hand the times she's found him idle.
"I didn't get a chance to apologize," she says. Mako closes her eyes and bows deeply. Part of her wants to touch her forehead against the floor, but the Marshal would think it too much. It'd make him uncomfortable. "Moushiwake gozaimasen." The words come out cracked.
"I told you it was my mistake," the Marshal says. "You're too inexperienced to control your memories in the drift."
"I disappointed you."
The Marshal's hands are at her forearms, gently pulling her up. "Don't say unnecessary things," he murmurs in Japanese. The words have a bite to them, but he follows them up in English. "You don't disappoint me, ever. Experience can be gained."
She looks up at him in surprise.
"Now, I'm not saying it will be the next kaiju, but Becket's not wrong about you."
"Maybe I learned from the best." She stifles a smile at the praise.
The Marshal ducks his head. "Maybe. But it's late, Miss Mori, and I fully expect a report on the test run today by mid-morning tomorrow."
All impulse to smile is gone at the thought. "Yes, sir."
Mako gets to the mess hall late, but the report is on the Marshal's desk. She steps into an awkwardly silent room with her tray, Becket opposite of her, holding his own. The look on his face is two-thirds sullen, one-third hopeful. She approaches slowly.
"I know of a better place to sit," she says loud enough for everyone to hear and strides out with her tray.
The Gipsy Danger comes into view and she looks over to Becket. "Is this okay?" she asks.
He nods, eyes drawn to his—their jaeger. "This is…great."
She sits by the edge and stabs a straw into the juice carton.
"Are you still angry?" he asks.
Mako looks up. "I'm not angry. It's enough that the Marshal…worries about me. I don't need to have you worry too. I shouldn't have snapped. I was just…frustrated."
He nods, but says, "You're my copilot, worrying is kind of part of the job." He catches her narrowed eyes and laughs. "I get it. I get it. No worrying. Next time you want to deck Chuck on my behalf, have at it."
She smiles. "You're a good guy, Raleigh."
He chuckles at that, but turns serious. "What I wanted to say last night is that I'm sorry. I should have warned you, first drifts are rough. You weren't just tapping into my memories. You were also tapping into my brother's."
Mako knows. She's tried not to give the drift too much thought outside the cockpit. It seems too intrusive otherwise. She's always been good at compartmentalizing.
Turns out it is the next kaiju contrary to what the Marshal said. With the comms in all but the Gipsy Danger shot due to kaiju evolution, the Marshal has no choice.
It's everything Mako dreams of. In the end, there's a kaiju shot open and another sliced in half. The whole hangar claps for them, the Marshal says he's proud, but the clock is reset.
Her whole body aches, but the adrenaline coursing through her makes it all seem like a fever dream.
She changes and goes to knock on Raleigh's door, fully intending to announce that this time he should do the paperwork for the mission. He opens on the first knock, having traded the flight suit for pants, but lacking a shirt. Somehow she ends up kissing him and his lips are softer than she expected.
"Not to sound ungrateful or anything, but what was that?" he asks, confused.
She shakes her head, wishing she was braver. "You talk too much," is all she ends up saying before she leaves.
Mako ends up writing the report.
The next mission doesn't go quite as smoothly.
The kaiju are evolving faster than the scientists can predict. The Gipsy takes twice as long in taking down the second, and it almost destroys a civilian camp.
It's the elder Hansen, who does their debrief, short and brutal.
"Unacceptable, rangers" he says. "Somewhere between the first mission and this one, your timing is off. For both of you. We can't afford that. One more miss and there would have been thousands of casualties. The Marshal wants a full account of what went wrong. And if we can ground you for the next kaiju, we will. We're the last defense remaining. The whole world is watching."
Mako trudges beside Raleigh on the way back to their corridor, mentally going over the fight.
"It's me," Raleigh says quietly. "I hesitated too much."
She figured as much. "I should have balanced you out. But with your experience…your calculations seemed sound. Conservative, but sound."
"You thought you could give me the benefit of the doubt." He's grim when he says it. "Guess you can't."
Mako nods. She speaks without thinking, "Would you like to do a simulation?"
He laughs without any humor. "A simulation?" It dawns on her it could be an indignity for someone of his experience.
"I'm so—"
He waves the apology away. "No, if you think that would help, sure."
Mako doesn't mention simulations again. They don't go out in the next mission, but in the one after that, Crimson Typhoon has a hard time with a category four and they're strapping in.
They're in the drift and Mako feels Raleigh's concern, his uncertainty.
"Sorry," he says out loud.
It's not necessary.Unlike him, she prefers not to speak when the drift is initiated. Me, you and the Gipsy Danger are one. I can be sure for all of us.
They arrive just in time to see the kaiju pick up a building, about to slam it on the jaeger prostrate below. They grab the kaiju by the neck and the building collapses on top of it. The creature screams, falling back. The Gipsy takes a defensive position in front of Crimson Typhoon.
"Gotta get it away from her!" Raleigh yells out. They guide the Gipsy forward, landing several blows on the kaiju.
Not enough distance
The kaiju screeches, opening its cavernous mouth.
"If it barfs up acid, we're in trouble." She latches onto an image in his mind: severing the kaiju's tongue. The acid would hurt the wound, make it hard for the kaiju to spit it out without pain.
Dental work?
Mako feels his smile. "Dental work."
They bring out the sword, controls reducing it to rapier length. The kaiju darts forward and they reach to grab its snout. It all seems too convenient.
"No, Mako! If its skin is too tough it gets the advantage! We're too close!"
On my count.
She feels Raleigh temper his irritation, feels him fall into line, a single push of purpose melding with her own. The thrust was a perfect synchrony of force as the rapier hits the roof of the creature's toothy mouth. At the background, Mako feels it yank her shoulder, pulling her forward. She continues pushing the blade in, over the eruption of pain at her shoulder, the snaps of light in her vision.
"Sword!" she screams out and the A.I. extends the blade. Gravity does its work and the sword tears through bone and muscle as the Gipsy falls, letting all of its weight crash on top of it. She ends up propped up by the sword, breathing hard, with the kaiju prone below.
Mako's nerves are still on edge as she pulls out the blade, wincing as it jars her shoulder.
"Crimson Typhoon, report," Tendo's voice blares through the comm. "Give me a full extent run down of the damages?"
Static for a couple of seconds. "We're going to need pilot extraction level 2. Cheung will make it, but he's…not good."
Level 2. Critical condition.
The voice continues detailing a long list of damages to the jaeger. "Crimson will probably be out for a while. Sorry."
The frustration bubbles inside her. The kaiju are increasingly dangerous, their attacks multiplying, they can't possibly, can't possibly afford to have a mecha out that long. People will die. They're the only line of defense and no one else is helping! They're watching, just watching us die. Watching!
"Watching them come close to dying while they dream fairy tales of bullshit walls—"
"Gipsy! Gipsy! What are you doing, Gipsy!"
It's the blinding pain from her shoulder that brings her back, and she realizes she's been hacking away at the dead kaiju. Its head is severed from its massive body. She stabs it clean through. Lifts it up, with a pained yell over the throb.
"What else do they need?" she screams. "What the fuck do they need?"