A/N: So, I've always been a little irritated at how lacking in depth the movie is in respect to how Raleigh feels when loosing Yancy. I always figured there would be so much more evolution to him. And maybe there is, since there wasn't a whole lot of time to expand on character personalities with as much bad ass fighting as there was. However, this is kind of my take on that. This is a direct link to my last fic, so the time line is the same as it was there. And, in case you were wondering, any and all information I have in my stories comes from the movie and ONLY the movie. In my opinion, if they wanted it cannon, they should have put it in there. But I will admit to picking and choosing some information that is out there on the web. Mostly jaeger and kaiju names cause I just can't name them that well. Eventually this will probably turn into a series of short stories and one shots that rewrites the movie. Oh well, :)
"Only listen to me!"
Not many people knew what it was like to be in the drift. What it was like to share your mind with someone and be totally at ease with them inside your memories and looking into your deepest, darkest secrets. Of course it's easier if you have the kind of sibling relationship where you are inseparable. Twins, triplets or not. They just understood it better. Complete strangers though? They had no clue how to even begin processing that sort of information.
Even before the drift, Raleigh had always had a special bond with his brother. Knowing that one day there was a chance that he simply wouldn't be there anymore because of kaiju? Hurt. A lot. But to have him taken away after they had drifted with each other was a whole other matter. The former was awful and unimaginable, but the latter was just unfair.
However, just like there were too few people who understood what it was like to drift with someone, there was only one person who knew what it was like to have that person torn away from them while still in the drift. Other pilots could try and sympathize, but they only thought about the horror of it. Not the pain and the heart ache that left you awake in the night screaming for that person to come back. Even if it's silent.
Raleigh was alone in this.
They arrived only a few hours after help. He didn't remember much. He had gone into shock and had lost consciousness. Pentecost was there, he knew that. Had said some garbled account of what he assumed was the recovery of Gipsy Danger and subsequent transfer to the Alaskan Shatterdome for repairs. He didn't care.
He had multiple visits from people in the hospital. Onlookers who couldn't believe who he was or what had happened to him. Those who tried to ask him why the infamous Golden Boy Beckett was alone. Where was his brother, Yancy? Was his jaeger really just ten miles off the outskirts of their little city? Was he the only Beckett in the hospital? Did the other one go with the recovery crew?
Why hadn't he stayed to look after his younger brother? Some brother he was... Doesn't he know that the kid almost died?
His neural scans are off the charts!
If he was my brother...
Why didn't he go to the Shatterdome? I heard his Jeager was heavily damaged.
I saw it! The head was torn in half!
Well where is the other one? Where is the other Beckett?
Where is Yancy?
Where is Yancy?
Why did you leave?
He was removed from the local hospital to the Shatterdome as soon as he was no longer in critical condition.
It had been three weeks. The news had broken. Yancy was dead.
There was a public memorial. Murals, walls of posters, calls of relatives to help them mourn.
Alaska seemed like the only reasonable place he was mourned for. Yes there were memorials, candle lit walks and songs of prayer for his safe passing from this world. But at least they didn't glorify his memory. Make him larger than life and try and use that to gain access to his brother. They didn't demand to find some imaginary sister to put on the news and make the tragedy a kind of joke. They had lost a local hero.
In a way, Yancy had been the big brother to everybody there.
Raleigh would have appreciated that. If he had been conscious. Though, to be honest, he didn't really try to be.
Yancy was still there, inside his mind. A hangover some called it. Ghost drifting. Raleigh knew better. He knew that these were actual pieces of his brother that were left over from the second they had been torn away from each other. That these were memories that Yancy had wanted him to keep, tearing away the bad ones.
So he stayed in them. Hiding from reality as he held onto his brother.
"I'm sorry, Sir. But he just isn't ready to be seen. He hasn't even spoken since he woke up a week ago," the doctor whispered. Standing outside the door to the young man's room. The ranger scowled at him, his son's matching expression made the small man fidget in the wake of the three much taller people.
"I don't give a damn," the younger man hissed, shoving past the sniveling doctor. Though his father never appreciated the rude personality, he silently applauded the fifteen year old.
"Sir," the balding man whispered frantically, grabbing onto the ranger's elbow as he tried to pass. "There is something you should know."
Curiosity piqued, he paused outside the door to listen. Next to him, his brother shared a similar expression. The man tugged his elbow, leading him a short distance away.
"Mr. Beckett has suffered from a sever trauma. We have no idea how to go about helping him. I'm not sure what Marshal Pentecost told you, but he was connected with his brother through the drift when Yancy Beckett died. Since then, he has been displaying strange behavior: lack of response, insomnia, loss of appetite and even identity. And that doesn't even cover his neural scans. You are aware that those who are drift compatible display higher brain function, yes?"
"Yes, Doctor. What's your point," his brother snapped, crossing his arms in an impressive mirror to him. The little man gulped, but managed to soldier on.
"Mr. Beckett's scans have always indicated that he has a higher brain function that anyone in the Jaeger Program. Both of them. We never knew what that could mean, but it was enough for the marshal to keep an eye on the two of them. However, since they were the only two like that, it's safe to assume that they were only drift compatible with each other. Since the death of his brother in the drift, Mr. Beckett's scans have drastically altered. He's even more compatible than he was before. Perhaps to the point that he could be compatible with anyone. Or still with no one. It's unclear as of yet. However, it's because of this that he was able to pilot his jaeger to shore. Alone," he finished dramatically.
Both pilots blinked; they had known that. But to hear that it was because his brain was different, more advanced than theirs? It made them feel a bit inferior to be honest.
"So what does this all mean?" His brother, Perseus, asked gruffly, huffing a small bit.
"I have no doubt that loosing his brother affected his brain the way it did. But, he has parts of his brain active that we have only ever seen when sleeping in conjunction with his conscious mind. I don't know exactly what that means, but there is reason to believe that there is more than just his own memories in there. There is no telling if it is permanent or if he will even continue to survive like this," he finished, mumbling as he began to play with his hands. Herc didn't quite know what to think, neither did Persy.
He and his brother had always had a relationship similar to the Beckett Boys, so to even consider having the same thing happen to them. Well, he really didn't want to.
"That kid's got it rough," Persy murmured, leaning against the doorframe of Beckett's room after dismissing the doctor and returning.
"He always will," he agreed. It had only been a month since the incident, but the kid had already changed. Having lain on his back the whole time, he was just a skeleton. A shadow of the Golden Boys his son idolized.
"He won't die from this. He survived that kaiju..."
"So he won't die from his own brain," he finished.
"That won't be us, Kid," Perseus decided, determined, clasping his shoulder in his hand. Herc wasn't quite convinced as he watched Raleigh.
"Hey."
He didn't even blink. Didn't flinch, twitch, nothing. Panic pinched in his chest, but Chuck brushed it off.
"Hey," he said a bit louder. "Look at me when I'm talking to ya!" Still, the pilot didn't move. His blue eyes were glazed over, listless grey and glassy. The formerly rock hard planes of his arms and chest were covered in pale skin and white bandages. Chuck had heard of pilots getting circuitry burns from their drivesuits but hadn't considered it being so horrible to look at. The few pieces of the wounds that he could see were covered in a simple cooling salve, the least severe didn't need to be covered. But that wasn't all that marred him. Chuck had known that the Gipsy Danger had suffered massively from the fight with the kaiju, Knifehead, had heard that the beast had practically exploded from the force of the point blank overcharge from the plasma caster. But he hadn't really expect Raleigh's skin to be covered in bright blue burns from kaiju blood. There weren't many of them, but it was still sickening.
"Hey, Raleigh," he tried again, pressing his fingertips to the sunken skin of the blond's forearm lightly. A reaction: he flinched, blinked and released a heavy sigh.
"You ok?" He pressed, pushing his hand to wrap all the way around the appendage. Raleigh only pulled himself away, closing his eyes.
"Would you just answer me, dammit?" Chuck demanded after a few minutes, his fear and panic growing. The pilot did nothing, his eyes remaining stubbornly averted from him. He grit his teeth for a moment and tried to calm himself. Clenched his eyes and his fists tight, one hand still wrapped around the man's arm. He couldn't believe this. He may not have known the guy for very long, but this wasn't the hot shot, fiery pilot he had met a little over a year ago. The man laying on that bed was different. He was absent, void. Just a shell of someone that he had known.
"You're pathetic! I can't believe you would let a kaiju get the better of you," he finally snapped. His eyes were still glued shut, tears had begun spilling down his cheeks. How could he? How could he just let Yancy die? Why did he live and Yancy didn't too? It was just like his mom all over again.
"You're fucking pathetic! Why couldn't you save him too? Why couldn't you both have lived? Why was it only you? It just like mum! She died, but didn't have too. You could have saved him! Now look at you! You're so broken-"
"I know." The words were rough, strained not just with disuse but with pain. Chuck started, looking up to see eyes brighter than the sky, bluer than the ocean looking straight at him. An anger burned in their depths and an incredible, haunting sadness gnawed at the face of those eyes.
"I know," he whispered again, his arm pulling free of the teenager's grasp and reached out slowly for him. Chuck expected the hand that grabbed his shoulder to either push him away or pull him close. Instead, Raleigh just held him there, like he was trying to ground himself.
"I know, Kid. But, I didn't. Will you-" he choked, the grip tightened.
"Will you-" he tried again, taking a deep, ragged breath. "Help-" he continued but he couldn't say anymore.
Chuck really didn't know if it was what the blond wanted, but he didn't care if this wasn't it. It looked like the pilot needed something to hold onto, someone real to be there for him. Carefully, he sat on the edge of the bed, kicking off his boots and tossing his jacket onto a nearby chair. Gently rearranging their bodies, Chuck laid himself next to the sickly frame of his idol. Raleigh's arms wrapped around the gangly frame of the teenager, holding on tightly.
Sobs wracked the pilot, but no sound escaped him. Soon both were silently mourning, holding onto each other.
Raleigh felt sick. He was enraged.
Barely out of bed and still heavily bandaged, he was forced to be here and watch. Thousands passed, coming for the funeral that had been postponed until Raleigh could stand long enough to last through it. It was easy; there was no body to keep preserved. The coffin was empty. Fucking empty.
Just like all their words, their condolences. Not one of them had known Yancy. Known him the way he had. Never the way he had. And all this bullshit about a sister? This Jazmine? Screw her! She didn't exist.
He wanted to get away, to be alone and free of all this crap. These people had no idea what it was like to be a part of a duo, a half of a whole. They had no clue what it was like to have it torn away from him. None of them.
But here he was, standing here and watching as his brother's fucking funeral was turned into a huge public event. Some publicity stunt to garner sympathy towards the PPDC by the UN. Fuck them! This was his brother's funeral. He should be the only one here. Him, Tendo, Chuck and maybe even the marshal. But not these people.
They wanted him to say something for his brother. The American Ambassador had come to see him personally and ask him to speak at the funeral. Given him a speech and expected him to just roll over in his grief. If anything, it only pissed him off more. But he hadn't said anything, his headaches were getting bad and he didn't want anyone to see. He wouldn't tell anyone of his pain. Not even Chuck. The kid was hurt enough. Though, come to find out that he was Hansen's kid? That hurt. Even if a part of him told him that he already knew that.
"Please accept our deepest condolences," they murmured. The old, the young, the sincere, the fake.
He didn't so much mind the people coming to see him, to grieve with him. It blew his mind away to see the populace of so many cities come to mourn for the loss of one man. A man who, until five years ago, had been just another candidate in the academy. Another nobody. To have so many pay their respects, it was humbling. It helped to ease the anger and stopped him from snapping at them all.
But fuck them all if they thought he was going to speak. If he was going to put up with this. He still had to figure this out. Figure himself out.
The headache was swelling, his eyes blurred and he knew that if he wasn't sitting down, he would be swaying.
He had to get out of here.
"Only listen to me..."
Most people thought that the last words that had been passed between them before Yancy died were the ones that had been recorded. Some thought that they may have shared a brief 'I love you' before Yancy was torn away. In a way, they were both right.
But, in the seconds between the kaiju claws sinking into the hull of Gipsy and the ones before the link was broken with Yancy's neck, they shared something even more intimate.
Nobody knew it, because he never told them at the Shatterdome and hadn't spoken much since he left, but Yancy was still with him.
Not all of him, no. Just pieces, fragments that still filtered through his subconscious. Shards of personality that had been cut out and stuck into the holes he had. Nobody knew that either. They just assumed that they had been separated enough for him to come out himself. That wasn't true. You're never two people when you pilot a jaeger. It's always a single unit. One entity. You, your pilot and your jaeger all joined together in this fine tuned conglomeration of metal and flesh and memories. Thoughts and core processors. Emotions and sensor readings. Nobody but pilots understood that.
So some wouldn't have been very surprised to find that it wasn't just him inside his head anymore. That he wasn't even whole. That there were memories of his brother's inside his head that were disjointed, unfiltered and incorrectly categorized because they weren't the same person. There were holes in his own memories. Anywhere between tiny details that somebody would call him out on to whole years missing. Sometimes growing bigger as time passed. And then there were the other memories. The ones that were from drifting together. Were it wasn't just his memories but Yancy's too. That their conjoined minds had experienced the events at the same time and it was a mess of point of views and emotions and sensor data and monsters. Because they had created these memories as a whole and relived them with each other the same way. Through their ghost drifts, so there was no way to tell who had experienced what.
That the moment Yancy was torn away was the worst memory he couldn't remember.
Sure, he could see it, feel it, hear it. But it was so filled with inconsequential data and information that it hardly computed with his grief stricken mind. He felt not only fear of dying, the pain of dying, but also the fear and grief and anger of being taken away from himself, from his brother.
It was all too confusing for him to originally understand.
He supposed that was why he had the headaches. They were his mind trying to sort itself out, but it was proving too difficult a task. He wondered if it was because there was more than one mind trying to fill the empty spaces of his brain. But he chose to ignore it, drown it and his pain out with alcohol and work.
He found that putting all his energy into working on a project would help. Using his hands and body to their full extent brought his body back from the sickly state it had been in when he left and gave him time to focus on what and who he was now. That's how he found himself on the wall. Moving from shift to shift as he searched for answers or just for food.
He could see on the news that he was just the first to die to the new kaiju assault. Fear and panic had begun to spread through the people again and he could smell it, feel it. He hated it. So he climbed to the top of the wall, first to start in the morning, last to stop at night. The cold helped his head too, like nature's painkiller.
He began to hate himself.
He stopped drinking when he found it didn't help. Found that working hard was easier to control his head than the booze. He found that he liked welding, building things, reading schematics. He got quite good at it. But he turned down every chance of promotion he got. Hated the idea of leading men and creating a team, only to loose one of them. So he stayed on the top of the wall, avoiding the world in favor for the one in his head.
Raleigh began noticing personality shifts in himself.
It began with a bar fight. Where as he would have joined in to stop the fight (or just kick some ass), he found himself shying away. Watching how it turned out from afar. The second he caught himself, he left. That's what Yancy would have done. Let him work out his anger and frustration towards Pentecost and the kaiju out on anybody he thought deserved it and pick his ass up afterward.
Next, it was the cloths he wore. Earlier in life, Raleigh wouldn't have chosen to wear sweaters and preferred to keep himself warm through exertion, but now he found himself picking up any woolen sweater that looked like it could keep its shape for more than a few months. He didn't care about color or size, so long as it fit and was warm. It made him laugh the first time he wore one. It was bitter, but there was humor in it. If he had a choice of them though, he still chose anything blue. It was mom's favorite color, that hadn't changed.
Years after he died, Raleigh found himself eating things he previously hated. With a passion. Things Yancy used to make fun of him for hating. He also began slowing down. Not in age or fatigue, but in general. Finding the things that made the world worth seeing. Finding people who were good and still needed saving. Fighting off jerks instead of just fighting them. Picking up men he worked with off the bar stool and putting them back in their bunks. Looking out for people, even if they didn't want it.
He stopped chasing girls- he had done that after Yancy died, but now it was because he wanted something else. What his parents had had. Raleigh had been too young to remember them very well. Had only really seen his aunt and uncle go at each other and didn't know what it was like to see people actually in love. But Yancy did. He had been in his mid teens when the car flipped and burned. Those memories had been transferred over.
Raleigh wondered if Yancy had done that on purpose. Always had it planned in case he did die like that. To leave behind the best of himself and take away the hurt in his little brother. His kid.
"Only listen to me..."
Raleigh is done figuring himself out. The headaches have faded and he is more indifferent to the cruelty of the world. He's been on the wall long enough to know it won't work. It may have kept a few of them out, but the attack on Sydney only proves him right. He's older now. Been out of the loop for five years, but he's not stupid. Not oblivious. He can understand that they are on the loosing side of this battle and the wall is just the government grasping straws as they try to stay in power and keep order. Or a semblance of it.
The kid on the news is cocky, arrogant. But smart. He says just enough to shove the failure in their faces, enrage the masses, but keep them out in the dark to the real situation. That there are too few jaegers to be effective. Raleigh can keep score. But the kid is familiar to him. A reoccurring image of kids kicking feet and metal clanging jumbles in brain. In makes no sense, but the prick on the tv is familiar. On a personal level.
A helicopter swirls the air outside, disrupts the sounds of people working and clambering for a seat or the use of a microwave. He knows who it is. He heard of somebody asking about him. He had never told anyone what his name is. That was just stupid. People may not recognize him with a welder or with his golden hair covered in a hard hat, but the name was still fresh on the tongues of the Alaskan people. And Sitka wasn't that big.
The black machine descends on to the frozen ground, snow flies in the wrong direction, a familiar face emerges and he knows what he's about to be asked. He's got his answer ready; he's not going back. He spent too long getting himself figured out for that. Spent too many years searching for a way around the pain and loneliness to allow another person in his head. He's thirty two for Christ's sake! And while he isn't dumb enough to believe he will ever find another person to help fill the void Yancy still leaves in him, he knows that someone else in his head isn't going to help with that either. He still feels the pain bite at his throat, claw at his mind.
The nightmare never stopped. Never ceased to haunt him. The kaiju wreak havoc on his sleeping mind and it's all he can do to sleep a few extra hours every night. No. Another person in his brain wouldn't help with that. They didn't deserve that.
"The world is coming to an end, Mr. Beckett. Where would you rather die? Here? Or in a jaeger?!" Pentecost demands of him.
And Raleigh knows. He can feel it.
He's lost. What is remaining of Yancy in his mind is screaming at him that they are going to see this stupid war through. Put these kaiju bastards back where they came from and prevent another pilot from dying.
He gets on that helicopter with a clear conscious.
By the time he gets off, returns to the life he once knew, he's a new man.
"It's breached the hull!" He shouted. The claws were coming in; he was afraid. This had never happened before. They were a team! They killed kaiju, not the other way around.
Metal screamed and Gipsy cried out with it; sensors clambered and sounded and cried and echoed. All he could see was white hot panic edging around his vision as he searched for something, anything to get them out of this position. The help them win. To kill that fucking kaiju and save his brother.
They only had seconds before they lost all control.
Calm acceptance fell over him and he knew. That he would loose him; that he would die. That they would die. There was no way around that. No way to stop it. The calm crept through them, slowing time as it soothed the drift. The drift was silence; that's what they were trained to expect. But that's not what they had. They were loud and bright and colorful and filled the voids for the other. To ease the pain of what had happened in their lives.
Time wasn't important in the drift. Words didn't need to be said. Thoughts didn't need to be conjured. They knew.
In these last few seconds, they had all the time they needed to say goodbye. To delegate themselves into their separate identities and be half again. They chose not to. They chose to take the good and the bad and meld them together and reforge themselves into a perfect conglomeration of two. A beautiful harmony of minds that had been together since the beginning. Casting out the bad and burning it away in the bright light. It hurt. It would hurt so much when it was all over. But they didn't think of it then; couldn't anticipate it.
Iron screeched and he turned to look at him.
"Only listen to me!"
Sparks flew; Gipsy reared in self defense. Iron and circuitry collapsed and was ripped away. He watched as he flew out. He screamed- No! This can't be the end! He cried and raged. They weren't done. There was more to do.
Pain flashed and their minds broke. He was gone, flailing and falling. He could feel him. No! Come back!
Acceptance echoed in the drift. Their minds still intertwined as the kaiju screamed. He would survive this. Their basic instinct was to die fighting. To always fight. The water raced towards him. Rain fell all around him- Stop this!
"Hey, Kid." Sad, lonely, accepting. Nothing they can do.
"Yeah?" Hesitant and enraged. This can't be happening. Don't leave- don't leave me!
"I love you." Be strong. Remember us.
"I love you too, Yance." I will survive this. You are always with me.
His neck broke, the caster exploded: the Beckett Boy's were dead.
A/N: Yes I know. That last bit was confusing because you don't know who's point of view it was from. That was on purpose. If you remember, Raleigh mentions earlier in my fic that drifting in a jaeger isn't just two people controlling a robot, but a single entity. So they were one in the same.
Well I hope you liked it. And yay for Chuck and Herc being in this fic.