After his brother died Raleigh wandered across the Alaskan coast, following the Wall, chasing shifts. He didn't look past the next few weeks, looking only for the next open spot on the Wall and nothing more. Stacker Pentecost had asked him if he would rather die on the Wall or in a Jaeger, so he chose and followed him across the sea that swallowed Yancy to Hong Kong to die.
Of course, things don't turn out the way they're supposed to.
Mako kicks his ass and he is fucking thrilled about it when he thought he wouldn't be, shouldn't be. When he first met her he thought that, maybe, he could get another roll in the sack before he goes. She is stern and gorgeous and, as it turns out, just shy of perfect. He feels a wave of the drift pass between them and the moment of its awareness, in the moment she brings the hanbō just an inch to his temple, he feels like he's waking up and seeing the sun for the first time in five years. From that moment on, before either of them even steps foot in a Jaeger, his mind thrums with the thought of her, his blood pumping with her name in his veins. Mako Mako Mako…
[Tendo absolutely does not find Raleigh absent mindedly doodling Mako's name all over an information sheet when he checks in on him and Gyspy before the drift test and anyone who says otherwise can go to hell and he doesn't care what anyone says about him anyways.]
Later, when the others consider their drift test a failure he sees it as a success. It's not a lie when he tells her that the drift was strong between them. It is as strong as it was with Yancy, maybe even stronger, and if he feels any shame or guilt over this fact it is a small enough amount that he can easily push it aside. Yancy would want him to move on and would beat his ass for not doing so until now.
He thinks 'Of course', as he looks at her from across the Conn-Pod for the last time. 'Of course I'd have to see it now.' What he sees is himself building a house for Mako somewhere, anywhere she wants. He sees her tending to their garden, playing with the dog they will eventually get and then with the near perfect children they will eventually have. He sees himself dying as a frail old man in a warm comfortable bed with Mako and their children and grandchildren by his side, not in this mecha in the middle of the cold Pacific. Raleigh tells her he never saw a future until now. "I never did have very good timing," he says with a wry smile and she says nothing but reaches for his hand. She sees it too.
The first night after Operation Pitfall, Mako crawls into Raleigh's hospital bed and sobs. They both had managed to hold it together through hours of medical exams and procedures, the entire time aching for the other even while sitting only five feet apart; and when the last nurse finally steps out the door they finally let their resolve fall as they cling to each other in the small hospital bed in the Shatterdome's med bay. Raleigh strokes her hair and rubs her back while she cries into his neck. It isn't long before Raleigh realizes that he too is crying and it catches him by surprise at first. He hasn't cried since Yancy died, when he curled himself into the tiniest ball he could manage in a hospital bed not unlike the one he and Mako lie in now, not caring who saw or heard and craved, yearned, ached for his brother who still echoed in his head. They grieve for her Sensei and Chuck, who she still considered a friend even after his head grew ten sizes too big. They grieve for the Kaidonovskys and the Wei triplets. They grieve for the little girl in a pair of red shoes and a blue coat she once was. They grieve for Yancy too.
The next day there are fewer tests and more questions. Newt comes in with a near endless series of questions about the Anteverse which Raleigh can't really answer since he really didn't see any of it. Tendo and Herc, now Marshall Hansen, come in to take their statements for the report on Operation Pitfall. As thorough as they are, they try to make the ordeal as quick as possible and Raleigh and Mako are grateful for it.
That night there are no tears. They still cling to each other with the drift hangover still going strong, stronger than the first or second time they entered each other's minds; but there is a small sense of peace settling into their bones.
"I'm gonna marry you," Raleigh says into Mako's hair. It's not a question and Mako just smiles into his neck. There's no need to ask, not after the drift. "And I'm gonna build you a house."
"In Japan," she says into his skin, answering the unasked question that hovered in his mind.
"I'm gonna build you a house in Japan," he continues, playing with the ends of her hair.
"It's a going to have four rooms," she adds almost excitedly despite her exhaustion, having started to plan the layout hours ago, "solar panels, a garden, a doggy door, and a swing set in the backyard."
The two months after they're released from the infirmary is nothing but a non-stop, whirlwind press tour all around the world; an endless stream of interviews, parades, fireworks, and memorials that leaves them feeling more exhausted than they felt after being plucked from the Pacific. They're first carted off to visit all the major cities that had seen destruction by kaiju. They visit the shelters that house the displaced where they receive endless streams of thanks from the inhabitants and vow that they will rebuild, children's hospitals where where the small patients look at them wide-eyed and star-struck and give them drawings of Jaegers and rainbows. They meet the Wei triplet's mother who does nothing but cling to Mako's hand and silently cries, and Sasha's father who simply grasps both their shoulders in his large hands solemnly nods his head in thanks and understanding. All Raleigh wants to do is apologize to them and tell them he's sorry he and Mako are standing before them and not their children; sorry they have no bodies to bury.
[Before they left there was a memorial in the Shatterdome with candles were placed in each jaeger's empty hanger, two in Striker Eureka and Cherno Alpha's and three in Crimson Typhoon; Gipsy's held only one for Yancy. After the speeches and silence there was celebration and drinking and a half-drunk Gottlieb loudly calculating just how many babies will have been conceived that week. "A new generation of baby boomers is upon us, a brand new start," Newt added, "we better not fuck it up like our grandparents did."]
When they finally leave the Pacific for the Atlantic and land-locked landscapes, they think they are leaving the most difficult part behind them. They are wrong. The interviews on the Atlantic coast are far more personal; too personal for anyone's taste but the media's and sometimes the only thing that keeps Raleigh from punching a reporter out is Mako's presence and the echo of her voice in his head reminding him to breathe. They breeze through Europe and Mako is disappointed they don't get the chance to actually see any of it. Raleigh promises that they will go back. 'Maybe for our honeymoon,' he thinks.
They don't settle in Japan immediately after the tour. Instead, they find themselves right back in the Shatterdome, spending their days helping to design new smaller Jaegers to aid in reconstruction and finding new ways to utilize drift tech. Families start arriving almost the moment their funds are secured; first Tendo's wife Alison and their baby boy, then Gottlieb's very pregnant wife who Raleigh recognizes from an old fashion magazine he found in an airport.
Raleigh and Mako still have separate quarters but Mako's is the only one that ever gets used if only because her things are there and all Raleigh has is a duffel bag and a stack of old photos. Nothing but sleep ever happens in her bunk save for a few semi-chaste kisses shared before nodding off, having been too emotionally exhausted during their tour to even think doing more than simply laying together in one of their cloud-like hotel beds and then deciding to take their time while sharing a rare private moment in Madrid.
While watching her doze against his shoulder on their way back from Moscow, Raleigh realizes that theirs is the first real romantic relationship for either of them. Sure, he bedded a few women when he was still considered a rock star pilot and Mako isn't exactly pure as virgin snow, but those encounters were meaningless fumblings in bar bathrooms and supply closets. This, with or without the drift, is more. He had been struck by her when he first saw her, not quite love at first sight but as close as a person could get outside of a fairy tale, and he decides that, if they're going to go slow, he's going to do his best to do it right.
"You're going to woo Mako?" Tendo asks as he watches Raleigh bounce his son on his knee like a pro. Apparently, Raleigh is a natural with kids.
Raleigh thinks about the question for a moment. "Well, I had planned on dating her but maybe I should do that first." He's sure there's a difference between wooing and dating. He's, like, 90 percent sure wooing precedes dating; that it's like flirting except it's longer and far more romantic somehow.
"Dude, dating is something people do to get to know each other. You already know Mako. You've been in each other's heads, you probably know her better than I know my wife. Besides, didn't you take her to the Eiffel Tower when you went to Paris? That's, like, the most romantic place on Earth or something, right?"
"No, our handlers took us to the Eiffel Tower for a photo shoot," Raleigh replies with a heavy roll of his eyes. They didn't really get to see Europe and it's something that has been added to his ever growing 'Things to Show/Give/Do with Mako' list. "I just want to do right by her. She hasn't been on a real date before and I want to take her out on one before I actually take her to bed."
"Don't you already share a bed?"
Raleigh gives him a muted glare. "You know what I mean."
Seriously, if Tendo's not going to help him make a date with Mako then he'll just have to go to Gottlieb. His wife's a supermodel, he should know things.
Luckily, for him Tendo stops trying to figure out his friend's weird chivalric logic.
"Look, if you want to do the dating thing right, get her flowers and then take her to dinner. Newt was talking about some fancy place he took one of the drift techs a few a few nights ago."
"Fancy place? Do you think I could get a reservation?"
Now it's Tendo's turn to glare.
"Yeah, Mr. Savior of Planet Earth, I think you can get a reservation. Now give me my baby back."
**
As it turns out, it's easier to make the reservation than it is to get flowers. Well, actually, getting flowers is pretty easy; the problem is in choosing the right ones.
Raleigh has been wandering back and forth across the small flower shop that sits in the shadow of the Shatterdome for the past fifteen minutes and he's having a hard time in deciding which flowers to get without the old man that owns the place giving him weird looks each time he passes the cash register. He wants to give Mako more than just a bouquet of default roses; he wants to give her something that means something. He has a vague memory of the beat up copy of The Language of Flowers his mother had and lost in their many moves but he doesn't think it will do him much good since he's pretty sure flowers have different meanings in the Far East than they do in the West. Or maybe he's just overthinking things and should just pay for the roses he's been staring at for the past two minutes and go before the old man kicks him out.
"Mr. Becket?"
Raleigh jumps and may or may not have given a little shout when the old man walks up to him with a colorful bouquet in his hands.
"My apologies, Mr. Becket, I didn't mean to startle you," the old man kindly says, looking up at him with bright eyes and a measure of gratitude Raleigh doesn't think he will ever get used to. Although, he should probably get a little used to people knowing his name again now that he's a famous hero and all.
"No, it's okay. You didn't startle me at all," he lies like it actually matters. "I was just trying to pick flowers for Ma – for someone."
During the press tour he and Mako agreed that, on top of taking things slow, anything that happened between them would stay out of the press if they could manage it.
The old man smiles warmly and understandingly.
"I believe Miss Mori will like these very much," he says, his amusement shining through his voice as he hands Raleigh the bouquet of what he recognizes to be carnations, daffodils, and daisies.
"Wow, they're gorgeous. Thank you so much!"
Before the old man can protest Raleigh reaches into his wallet and hands him $300, far more than what the bouquet is actually worth.
"Oh no, Mr. Becket, sir, they're a gift –"
"Zhî qû zhè báichī de qián!" Just take the money, you idiot! Says a strong female voice from somewhere in the back of the shop. Raleigh catches a flash of a yellow dress as an old, frail-looking, woman dashes behind a doorway and the old man rolls his eyes and sighs almost in resignation.
"I will accept payment, then; but only for the amount the flowers are actually worth," he says, handing Raleigh back the extra $100.
"Qítā de huā!" The other flowers! The old woman shouts from her hiding place.
"Lěngjìng xiàlái!" Calm down! The old man shouts back and gingerly hands Raleigh a small bundle of bluebells tied with a yellow ribbon. "These are a special gift for Miss Mori, from myself and my weirdo wife, Mai, over there. These you most certainly cannot pay for."
Raleigh accepts the bluebells and delicately holds them in his right hand along with the larger bouquet, afraid that he will somehow undo the carefully tied yellow ribbon. He looks towards the back of the store and sees the loud old woman still hiding behind a dark brown door, peering out far enough for Raleigh to see a mop of dark grey hair and a button nose.
"Is she afraid of me?" He knows he can seem intimidating to some and the last thing he wants to do is terrify little old ladies.
"Nah, she's just in love with you, that shǎguā; acted the same way when she saw The Hoff thirty years ago." The old man smiled mischievously and, with in a hushed voice, said, "Betcha she'd just faint if you went over there."
Poor Mai's eyes were almost impossibly wide when Raleigh came to her hiding place behind the big brown door, but she still tried to stand as tall and straight as she could even through her excited trembling, her dark grey head coming just to below his collar bone.
"Xiètiè." Thank you, he says in a low husky voice, the same one that made Mako just ever so briefly weak in the knees when he asked her for her simulator score, and presses a kiss to the woman's wrinkled cheek. Mai just about stops breathing then and there are tears in her eyes, but Raleigh thinks she looks like she has suddenly become twenty years younger.
He is reminded that the end of the war signals a new start not just for the young but the old as well.
Mako is already in their quarters when he gets back to the Shatterdome, sitting at their shared desk engulfed in one of his sweaters with a set of blueprints in front of her. She just fucking beams at him when he hands her the flowers, looking gorgeous and adorable as she shines and sways in the middle of their room and laughs when he tells her about the old couple in the flower shop.
"Maybe I should stop worrying about salvaged Jaeger parts and start worrying the old women I'm in competition with for your heart."
"No way, my heart only beats for you."
It's an insanely cheesy line and Raleigh almost regrets it the moment it leaves his mouth but Mako is still smiling up at him, holding her flowers like the bride she will one day be and lighting up the room like a Christmas tree.
"No boy has ever given me flowers before," she teases into her carnations.
"And no boy's ever taken you out on a date either."
Mako shakes her head solemnly. Everyone knew she was Stacker Pentecost's daughter and any boy who was brave enough to even consider asking her out eventually fell under the Marshal's scrutinizing gaze. A number entered his office with the intent to take ask for permission to take her out and none walked out with it even though all they had to do was bypass the Marshal and ask Mako directly.
"It is a sign of respect to the parent to ask them for permission to court a woman; but it is a sign of disrespect to the woman if they do not ask for her permission first," Sensei had told her when the first boy came calling and no boy since then has ever asked her what she wanted. Until Raleigh.
Raleigh hadn't asked the Marshal for permission for Mako to be his co-pilot, he had demanded it and questioned when it wasn't granted; not because it was just what he wanted but because he knew she needed it as much as he did. He had fought for her, defended her, when no one else did and she knew that her Sensei would approve if he had had any choice in the matter.
"Miss Mori, would you like to accompany me to dinner tomorrow night?" His voice is low and confident and Mako can't help but admire how handsome he looks in his soft black leather jacket and light blue sweater. She feels like a teenage girl in one of those old high school movies she used to watch with Tamsin, the ones who giggled whenever their crush glanced their way. She loves it.
"It would be my pleasure, Mr. Becket."
Their first date goes exactly like how Mako always imagined first dates to be like.
She wears simple black cocktail dress she had been gifted by Macy's in New York, and he a suit he is pretty sure is supposed to be from Armani. Mako is surprised at first when Raleigh knocks on her door instead of just walking in like he usually does, but he says he had wants this to be a traditional first date and "people don't just barge into each other's rooms on first dates, Mako, this is going to be perfect". They walk arm in arm to the cab that waits for them outside the Shatterdome and are seated at the best and most private table in the restaurant where they drink wine and eat well and talk about their favorite movies and books and where Raleigh learned to speak Japanese.
When they get back to the Shatterdome Raleigh walks Mako to her door, chastely kisses her goodnight, and then somewhat awkwardly stands at her door with a small smile on his face when she opens it to let him in.
"You're not coming to bed?" she asks, watching him with a half-confused, half-worried expression growing on her face.
"I thought I'd sleep in my own room tonight, because, you know, people don't usually go to sleep together after their first date," he explains, still standing at her door with that stupid grin on his face. "And my grandpa always told us that it was proper etiquette to wait until the lady closed the door before leaving to make sure that they get home safe. Which you are. Because you're standing in your home." The stupid grin begins to slide away. "I think I did this wrong."
Luckily for him, Mako just smiles warmly and manages to pull him into the room before closing the door behind him.
"You didn't do anything wrong, you baka." She takes his hands into hers and soothingly runs her thumbs across his knuckles. "It was a perfect first date for us. We've been in each other's heads, Raleigh; I'm fairly sure most people haven't done that before their first dates either. We don't have to follow normal rules of courtship; we can make up our own," she says as she moves her hands slowly travel from his to play with the hair on the nape of his neck. "Besides, aren't we practically engaged already?"
Raleigh's stupid grin comes back as he pulls her closer, wrapping his arms around her small waist and flushing her up against him.
"Miss Mori, are you trying to seduce me?"
"Yes, but for cuddles, not sex. I don't put out on a first date."
God, she's adorable.
"I can live with that."
The next morning Raleigh wakes up to Mako languidly kissing his scars and her hands wandering over his pelvis, managing to ignore a familiar half-snorting/half-snuffling sound coming from somewhere near the dresser. They both would have managed to ignore the sound entirely if the source of it hadn't knocked the chair over on his way out the door with one of Raleigh's sweaters in his mouth.
"Max!" Raleigh shouts, chasing after the dog sans shirt, knowing that chances are pretty damn good that the bulldog is carrying his favorite sweater in his mouth. "That's not yours, bring it back!"
It turns out that, despite his stubby little legs, Max is surprisingly fast and Raleigh barely catches sight of him dodging into a secluded alcove near Chuck's old room. He is readying himself to wrestle for his sweater back when he the sight that greets him as he turns the small corner stills him.
In the small alcove, on top of both Raleigh's favorite sweater and what looks like one of Herc's dress shirts, lies a light brown chow chow and her three newborn puppies, watched over by a very proud looking Max.
"OH MY GOD!" Mako gasps from just behind Raleigh, wrapped in a light grey cotton PPDC issue robe, her eyes bright and her smile child-like. "KOINU!" She practically squeals, keeping her hands clasped under her chin in an effort to keep from reaching out and picking up one of the white and light brown pups. Raleigh hadn't even heard her run after him.
Suddenly, a booming Aussie is heard coming from down the corridor and the puppies whimper, making Mako coo.
"MAX! YOU GET BACK HERE WITH MY SHIRT YOU LITTLE-" Herc, wearing his dress pants and an undershirt, turns the corner and his harsh shout immediately becomes a surprised whisper, "motherfucker."
Raleigh, with a shit-eating grin, claps him on the back. "Congratulations, Sir, looks like you're a great-grandpa now!"
Luckily for him Herc is preoccupied by the dress shirt his new great-grand babies are currently burrowing themselves into and what the hell he's going to do with six dogs in a Shatterdome, anyway? "I have a teleconference in five minutes and those little buggers are all over my only clean shirt," he has the decency to not shout.
It previously was his only clean shirt. Now it's covered in dog hair and other…stuff.
"Can we keep one?" They ask him in unison and Mako squeals once again when he says 'yes' with a roll of his eyes and a heavy sigh and Raleigh catches the sight of tears in her eyes.
"Mako, are you crying?"
"Look at their little rolls!"
When it's all said and done, Mako lets Herc borrow one of Sensei's old shirts and seven weeks later Tendo, Newt, and Mako each walk away with a puppy in their arms.
Mako names her puppy Sparkplug but Raleigh calls her Sparks.
A few months after their first date the PPDC announces that they're opening a new branch in Tokyo and Mako jumps at the chance to go back to Japan. Their visit during the press tour was far too brief for either of them, so brief that Mako didn't get the opportunity to visit her parents' resting place and tell them everything she had accomplished, even though Raleigh is sure they know.
The month of May sees them renting a small apartment and buying two acres of land in western Hachiōji, with Mako commuting to the city for meetings and Raleigh staying behind to build their dream home. They had added to their plans for their house during the press tour and afterwards, discussing the colors of the walls and number of rooms and their purposes in the late night hours in what became their shared quarters at the Shatterdome. Half the men in a nearby village volunteer to help build it, a way to say thanks to the people they consider their saviors; and at first they politely decline their aid until Raleigh (very quickly) figures out that although he's an ace at building walls, he knows jack-shit about constructing roofs or putting down floors and ends up hiring them anyways.
By the start of July their house is complete and they start to settle in with Mako planting roots for the first time since Onibaba ripped hers from the ground and Raleigh since his mother died and his father left. The house is not too large, but large enough for them to have room to grow, with two bedrooms, an office, and a spacious attic. The kitchen is large, too, and they use it as incentive to learn how to cook more than just eggs and toast. They build a fence, if only to keep Sparks from wandering off as they are currently a good half mile from their nearest neighbor and Mako immediately begins planting vegetables and flowers in her small garden. It's been years since either of them has lived in an actual house and it's the first time either of them has had something that they can safely call their own.
The first night in their house, as Raleigh lies in bed and watches Mako brush her still blue-tinted hair, it hits him.
"We're adults! Holy shit, we're actual grown up adults now!"
Mako watches his shocked and mildly horrified expression through her mirror and doesn't even try to hold back her giggles because, like almost always, she understands him perfectly. Although they were physically grown, they seemingly transitioned immediately from children to soldiers (Mako especially so), living in Shatterdome after Shatterdome, wall segment to wall segment, growing up in a war they never thought they would survive. And yet, here they are – sitting in their shared bedroom in the house he built for her with a dog and jobs in the city, married as married can be without papers and rings. Grownups. Holy shit.