They have already been pilots for four years when they meet.
Her partner has been advised to retire – radiation poisoning, they said – and his has left the Corps, the lights the world offers a Jaeger pilot more seductive than anything a fight could offer.
She is seven years older than him and already a legend in her own right.
Aleksandra Yuryeva, the most famous Jaeger pilot the Vladivostok Shatterdome has ever produced.
In another time or place, they would have to undergo testing in the Combat Room before they were allowed into a Jaeger together. But this is Russia, and a Kaiju is already beating at the Wall. As the only two pilots on shift, they have no other choice but to hope that they are Drift compatible.
If they aren't, the Kaiju could very well break down the Wall before another team is called in.
He has spent four years learning every part of Viktor's mind. When the older man left the Corps, he was sure that he would never find that type of comfort again.
But not even four years can compare to feeling of right he gets after a moment in Drift with Sasha.
(There is nothing else he call her, not now that he has experienced her in the most intimate of ways possible.)
He is sure that her mind is what Heaven feels like, and the only thing he is aware of during the fight is the knowledge that this is how he wants to live for the rest of his life. This is how he wants to die, embedded in her mind, with her every thought at his fingertips and his every thought at hers.
Later, they tell him that he spent eighteen hours in the Drift with Sasha, fighting off the Kaiju. They tell him that it was the most stable neural handshake anyone has ever recorded.
He does not care. The only thought he has is the memory of her smile and her faint hum of agreement with his feelings as they stepped out of each other's minds.
They are married a month later.
He dies six years to the day of his first meeting with his Sasha.
He would have liked more time with her, but he finds accepting death easier than he thought it would be. After all, he is in Sasha's mind, and as Leatherback fills their Conn-Pod with water, he feels her smile.
He knows he will see her again.
They die as they had lived, together in each other's minds, and that is all that matters.
I just fell in love with the Kaidonovsys, for some reason, and I felt the need to remedy the horrible lack of fic about them on this site.
Please don't forget to drop a review on your way out - I'd love to hear what you guys thought about this :)