The neural handshake wasn't a one off, feeling someone in the drift wasn't like watching a movie of their lives and then waking up to your own. It was like diving into their soul, pulling apart the tangles of their deepest memories and most searing emotions, and then bathing in their essence. Even when the jaegers were off, when all the monitors had gone silent, and the scientists said that the neural link was over, it was still there. An echo, a heartbeat, a life inside your mind that wasn't yours, but was. How could you feel that for someone, and not love them? In fact, that she loved Raleigh hadn't given Mako a second's pause, not when she could feel the space of him inside her mind. That wasn't what she had been staring into the depths of a mug of tea for three hours thinking about.
She hadn't thought much about love or loving someone when the apocalypse was still looming. What was the point? Odds were that if she'd loved anyone, they were going to die, or she would, avenging her parents. She hadn't been expecting the world to fall back into order with herself still in it. And she sure as hell hadn't been expecting someone like Raleigh to stumble in and confuse everything that she had ever thought about herself. Her love for her parents was an instinct now, a low burning that called for vengeance even after the last of the threat had died. Perhaps it always would. Her love for Stacker was different, complex, but it had evolved to be effortless. She had grown to trust him, to respect him, and to adore him. To be without him now hurt with every breath. But these loves she could understand, could categorize.
This, this was different. She could no more change the way that she felt now than cut out her own heart. He had changed the structure of her mind, and permanently. But just because it was inevitable, did that mean that it was right? She had been given no choice, left no option to refuse, to find someone else. Could she even love someone else, after knowing a connection like this? Her cheeks ached from the grim set to her features, but she could not manage to relax her face with the thoughts that swam in her mind in endless circles. She took a swig of the tea, cold and bitter.
The sound of someone sitting down across from her sent a wave of heat from the crown of her head to the tips of her fingers. She didn't need to look up to know it was him. She could feel him there, like she'd found something she'd been missing.
"Careful not to burn yourself on that tea there." She could hear the smile in his voice. Her eyes dragged upwards to his face unbidden. His lips were twisted in a grin that pulled one corner further than the other, but his eyes were searching hers, concerned. Her heart clenched in her chest painfully, and she was pulled in two contrasting desires, like she was every time she saw him. To crush her lips against his so that he could feel the fire burning under her skin, and to catch him up in her arms and hold him, shield him, care for him. Her grimace intensified. "Mako," he began again, "are you okay?" She pulled at her features until they rearranged themselves into a terse smile, and she nodded. Raleigh, rather than be comforted and leave her alone to stew in her thoughts, reached across the table and took her hand in his. She let him touch her for a few moments before pulling away and standing, leaving her discarded tea sitting on the table.
"I am very tired. I think I am going to go to bed." She turned on her heel and practically jogged away, but it was only moments before she heard him scrambling to catch up with her. She had a decent lead, but his longer legs gave him a slight advantage, and he caught up with her just as she reached the metal entrance to her quarters. He slipped in before she could close the door in his face, as was her habit.
"Mako, what in the world is going on? Did I do something to upset you? All you have to do is let me know, you know, talk about it." She was breathing a little harder than before, though she couldn't tell if it was from the jaunt to her room or frustration.
"No… yes… I don't know," she trailed off in an unintelligible grunt, pacing lightly in the small space between her bunk and Raleigh, who was blocking the exit, as if she was a flight risk. He chuckled deep in his chest, a warm sound, and before she could react, he had pulled her into a hug. She hadn't hugged him since she thought that he was dead. The memory brought a sharp pain lancing through her chest, and her arms wound around him in tight response to the embrace.
The planes of his chest were impossibly warm, and the gentle thud of his heartbeat below her ear synched with her own in an effortless tandem. He was whispering soothing words into her hair, and she could feel the vibration in his chest, but she couldn't understand them. Reluctantly she pulled her face away to look at his. As soon as their eyes met, the nonsense words that had been falling out of his mouth on instinct, stopped, and they simply looked at one another. Then, suddenly, he moved a hand that had been embracing her to the edge of her jaw, brushing his thumb across her bottom lip, and then pulling her face to meet his. Her brain didn't have the time to catch up before she had fisted her hands in the loose sweater he was wearing, pulling him closer, closer. The fevered touch of lips and teeth and tongue was a head rush, cresting over her whole body in a blissful crescendo that left her fingers tingling.
Just as suddenly she was pushing him away, catching him off balance, until they were a meter apart, chests heaving. Their first time sparring sprang to mind. She shook her head vigorously, as if that could clear away the memory. He was looking at her, his face a mess of hunger, pain and confusion. His eyes were searching her face, wary, hopeful. She groaned and pushed back her hair in a staccato burst of frustration.
"No," she ground out between clenched teeth, "no, I did not decide to have feelings for you. I can't even tell if I want to. I didn't get to choose. It's not fair." She had shifted her gaze to look at the floor during her tiny, hushed, rant but they shot back to his face when he let out a sharp bark of laughter. He was looking at her, face frozen in mirth for a second before her confused expression was apparently too much for him. He burst into what could only be described as guffaws, laughter that dragged out as she simply looked on in growing annoyance. He even slapped his knee. Ridiculous man. Finally his laughter eased, and he wiped his eyes. He could not, however, remove the smile from his face.
"Mako, when has a single thing in either of our lives ever been fair? My brother, your parents, the god damn apocalypse. I thought I was going to die. I thought the world was going to end, and never once did I think I would look at you and see my future. Maybe this is all one cosmic joke and we were never meant to meet each other. I don't know. All I know, is that even if I didn't decide to love you, even if I wasn't supposed to, I do. And that's not going to change." His hand reached out, hanging in the air between them, his other hand against his chest, as if it was remembering where she had been. And in the silence, she reached for him too. In the end, what choice did she have?