Author's Note: I've been poking at this since the day after I saw Pacific Rim. Mayhaps this will prompt me to get off my ass and finish it? Because obviously that's worked so well the other times I've tried it...

oh, jane, they'll whisper your name
and you won't feel the chains and you won't see the moss
oh, jane there's an art to the game
the aesthetics of love, the athletics of loss

sometimes someone drifts by and our nets get entwined in the sea
and in time i might find they still mean something to me

It happens faster than it should.

They aren't even supposed to be there—their station is in Anchorage, they manage the gulf side, the Russians insisted they could handle anything else to the west—but Cherno Alpha is benched for repairs, the Kaidanovskys filling the airwaves with frustrated Russian chatter, so Gipsy Danger is sent swimming into the Bering Sea when a kaiju surfaces at three in the morning.

"So," Pete says conversationally, bouncing up and down in his suit as they wait for the handshake. "Bering Sea. Any relation?"

"Yes," Myka says, rolling her eyes at him. "I'm related to a gigantic body of freezing cold salt water."

"Had a drink with Dave last night." Pete shakes his head at her. "He seems to think freezing cold would describe you."

"Yeah, well, Dave is a baby," she mutters. Pete winks at her just before the handshake throws their minds together. Myka counts the seconds on her inhale, familiar memories of alcoholism and a lost father winding in between flashes of her own childhood and an adolescence spent scrounging for books and the friendships her sister could so easily develop.

"Here we go," Pete says. "Let's go swimming."

They drop from the sky, Gipsy's feet slamming onto the ocean floor. Pete's knee twinges at the impact—a wrestling injury that hates the cold—and Myka grits her teeth at the pain. Water swirls around them as they make their way to the kaiju, and Pete's determined smirk is identical to Myka's, foreign on his face but constant in the drift.

The fight is short, the kaiju smaller than the last few they took down. They land a metallic right cross to its face, bone crushing under Gipsy's hand, and is staggers back, floundering in the shallows long enough for the cannon to load.

"Say hello to my little friend," Pete recites before they unload three blasts into the kaiju's chest.

"Every time," Myka mutters. "Really? Every single time."

"Correct," Pete says with a nod. Her head nods with his, and Gipsy's with them, metal creaking in the cold, and Myka laughs in spite of herself.

The kaiju—it's dead—suddenly jerks and flops to the side in the shallow water. A scorpion-like tail unfurls, and they duck, Gipsy's hands rattling up protectively, but it's too late. The impact shatters the right side of Gypy's head, crashing Pete from his stance and into the back wall. His helmet cracks into pieces and Myka is thrown from the drift, but she screams anyways, knees buckling under the pain from Pete's crushed left arm.

She manages to keep Gipsy upright, left arm useless tons of dead weight. Blood trickles out of her nose, her skull feeling too small for her mind and all of the circuitry it's connected to, pain echoing inside her helmet. The plasma cannon in Gipsy's right arm warms, and she bites halfway through her lower lip pulling Gipsy to the side to dodge the kaiju tail when it swings towards them again.

The cannon loads, and she pauses, aims, fires right into its open mouth. The blast shoots right through its skull at close range, radioactive blue blood and bits of bone exploding out the back before it collapses.

Gipsy falls, the strain too much for Myka to keep upright. The earth shudders underneath them, waves running away as they fall, but Myka's focus is on the battered form of her copilot until she passes out.

Five Years Later

Myka's in Columbus, Ohio when they find her again. Her hair is longer, her shoulders more rounded, as she works as a bookkeeper for a local construction company.

"Myka." Her name comes on a voice she hasn't heard in years, and she stiffens. She sets her pen down carefully, looking up into familiar stern features.

"Marshal."

"It took me quite a while to find you," he says. His accent is more casual than it was the day she left, his words more clipped.

"The whole point was that you wouldn't." She tugs a hair tie off of her wrist and pulls her hair back into a ponytail. "Why are you here?"

"I need you to come back," he says simply.

"Unless someone's made some brilliant advances in medicine and fixed Pete's—"

"They haven't." Pete appears from behind Pentecost, his voice quiet, eyes smiling. His left arm is tucked into a sling and strapped snugly to his body.

"Pete," Myka breathes out. "Oh my—what are you doing here?"

"You heard the man, Mykes." He smiles crookedly. "We need you back. Real bad."

"Badly," she corrects absently.

"See, you're already helping," he says. "Come on, we can find you a new pilot."

"I—no, no way." Myka shakes her head, arms folding over her stomach. "I can't—I won't let anyone else in my head, it's not going to happen."

"Marshal, can we have, like, two seconds? Maybe two point five. Super short minute."

"One minute," Pentecost says. "We're leaving in ten."

"Roger roger," Pete says with a smile and a salute. Pentecost rolls his eyes and disappears out the front door.

"That guy hates me now, you know," Pete says. "I don't think he knew how much I irritated him until you weren't there to slap me in the head all the time."

"Pete," Myka says quietly. "How are you?"

"Can't complain," he says. "We're set up in Hong Kong now. I'm learning Chinese and Japanese."

"Your arm—"

"Is busted," he finishes for her. "It's a combat injury, Mykes, and it's been five years. I'm okay. I'm probably a better basketball player now than I was before."

"Pete, I can't come back, I can't do this again."

"Do what?"

"Do—this," she stumbles over the words, gesturing vaguely between them. "You're always going to be in my head, I can't put anyone else in there. I won't."

"That's not true," he counters. "We've had people switch to new copilots before without a problem. You know it's not a matter of who's been in your head, just who can fit with it now."

"And what about you? All of the parts of you that are going into the drift with me?"

Pete smiles sadly at her. "I made peace will all of my shit a long time ago, Mykes. I know you're trying to protect me, but I don't care if someone else gets in your head and sees pathetic Pete the drunk, because I'm not that dude anymore."

"You're my best friend," she says weakly. "I can't—who else is gonna be able to go in there with me if they aren't you?"

"We've already got a handful of candidates picked out. Full psych and chem workup, any one of them could work." Pete stands up straighter, his eyes hardening. "Look, okay, we need you to come back. They're scrapping the jaeger program entirely and we basically only have a few left. Gipsy is the only Mark III left, and you and I are the only people who know how to run her. Shit is getting super real super fast, and we don't have time to train a new team from scratch."

He smirks at her. "You're our only hope, Obi-Wan."

"Oh my God, I hate you," she mutters. "I would hit you if you weren't broken."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, threaten me later," he says. "Come on, get your crap and let's go, we have a planet to save."

"Shut up," she mumbles, familiar and affectionate, as she shrugs into her coat and grabs the backpack she keeps behind the desk.

"Oh, hey," Pete says as they head outside. Pentecost is waiting impatiently by a Humvee. "I have a girlfriend."

"No way," Myka says. "Really? Someone is willing to put up with you snoring and stuffing biscuits into your mouth all the time?"

"Shockingly, yes," he says drily. "Amanda's super cool, you'll like her."

"Are we going or are we gossiping?" Pentecost says crossly.

"Going, sir," Myka says. She smiles at Pete and follows Pentecost into the Humvee. Pete is solid and familiar at her side the entire drive to the helicopter, and she leans against him for the flight to Hong Kong.

Shatterdome is a mess, but an organized one, and Myka settles into a room next to Pete's on her first night there. The flight was long, but she was unable to sleep for more than a few minutes at a time. Once they arrived, the only bright point was the squealing cheer of Claudia Donovan, the jaeger technician who had been stationed with Pete and Myka in Anchorage; after that, she had been shuffled from one person to another, meeting physicians who insisted on full body scans and blood work, a psychiatrist who shoved a stack of folders detailing her co-pilot candidates into her hands, and the three jaeger teams left.

The Wei Tang triplets were silent and sullen at the disruption to their basketball game; the Kaidanovskys merely nodded brusquely, shook her hand, and continued on their way. Herc Hansen is familiar and formidable, the same gentle giant Myka remembers from years earlier, but his son is arrogant enough that Myka's hands itch to punch him barely a minute after meeting him.

Her night passes slowly, fitfully, and she makes her way with Pete to the training gym the next morning with circles under her eyes. Pentecost and the six candidates are waiting, silent and still at their mat while the rest of the gym flurries with activity around them.

"Bering," Pentecost says with a grimace that might have been welcoming on another man. "Ready to get started?"

"Good morning to you, too, Marshal," Pete says. He grabs a staff off of the rack and tosses it to Myka.

"Lattimer," Pentecost grumbles. "Don't irritate me this early in the morning."

Myka smirks as Pete rolls his eyes, spinning the staff experimentally in her hands.

"Need a minute to warm up?"

"Nah," Myka says after a moment. She slips her feet out of her boots and sets them to the side with her jacket. "Let's get started."

Fifteen minutes later, her staff clatters loudly against her opponent's—Jeremy, 28, helicopter pilot with a Ken doll jawline and a truly unflattering haircut—and she ducks under his counterattack and twists around him, the tip of her staff pressing lingeringly between his vertebra, just below his skull.

"Four hits to one," Pentecost's assistant says quietly.

Myka sighs, stepping back from Jeremy. "This isn't going to work," she says. "No offense to you guys, but it just…we're not compatible." She pauses to bow in Jeremy's direction, paying her respects habitually, before taking a set on the steps next to Pete.

He squeezes her knee comfortingly, glancing up at Pentecost, whose head is bowed with his assistant's as they flip through files. "They're all—boring," Myka mumbles. "No creativity, no innovation, no thinking."

"Well, not everyone can be as fantastic as me, it's true," Pete drawls. "The last guy was pretty, at least. Some nice eye candy for you while you embarrassed him."

Myka snorts, elbowing him in the ribs, and stretches, glancing around the gym. Her gaze lingers momentarily at her last opponent. "Yeah, maybe," she says. Pete nudges his shoulder against hers, winking, and Myka ducks her head, ignoring his low wolf whistle and resuming her scan of the gym.

One mat over, a class of teenagers are being lead through a muay thai striking combination. Myka pauses, watching with interest as the teacher—brunette, British, confident—demonstrates the combination against another teacher. The combination is unusual, one Myka's never seen before, and the students are clearly confused as the instructor slides through a flurry of strikes, her movements fast and fluid and effortless.

"Who's that?" Myka pokes Pete in the arm and nods over towards the class.

"What, all of them?"

"No, the teacher."

"Oh, Helena," he says. "Helena Wells. Friend of Claudia's, apparently she's some kind of super genius tech-head."

"And she knows muay thai," Myka says slowly.

"Mykes, no, bad idea," Pete says. "She and Pentecost do not get along, she's been trying to pilot for years and he's been turning her down cold every time."

"Yeah, well, apparently you guys need me or something," Myka says. She stands to face Pentecost and points over her shoulder with her staff. "Let's try her."

"Excuse me?"

"Miss Wells is not a suitable candidate," Pentecost says.

"Then prove it." She points at the assistant. "Go get her, I want to try a bout."

Pentecost glares at Myka. "You have no authority to give orders here, Ranger."

"Go get her, please?" Myka folds her arms over her chest, staring him down. "You came to me, remember? Do you want me to be any good to you, or do you want to be childish and stubborn?"

Pentecost stiffens, and Myka holds her ground, until he finally grimaces. "Wells!" he shouts. "Get over here."

She jogs over, a skeptical look on her face. "Marshal," she says, pretention and diplomacy honeying her voice.

"Get a staff," he says shortly. "Bering wants a bout."

Myka smirks and makes her way to the center of the mat, waiting for her opponent. Pete stands by Pentecost, chewing on the thumbnail on his good hand, as Helena collects a staff and meets Myka in the middle.

"Bering isn't your first name, is it?"

"Thankfully, no," Myka says. "You ever used one of these before?"

"Once or twice," Helena says vaguely. "I don't suppose you're going to tell me why I'm using one now?"

"Call it a vibe," Myka says, equally as vague. "Watch your fingers."

"I think I'll be alright," Helena counters with a smirk.

"Any day now," Pentecost says gruffly.

They trade points, escalating to a tie at three quickly, trading loud blows as the staves crash against one another. Helena moves fluidly and quickly, dancing in and out of Myka's longer reach easily, until they skid to a halt simultaneously. The tip of Myka's staff hovers an inch from Helena's forehead, Helena's staff tickling the underside of Myka's jaw.

"Four hits to four," Pentecost's assistant says.

Helena smirks, winking at Myka and stepping back to bow. Myka returns the bow and shifts her gaze from Helena's smile to Pentecost's scowl.

"She's my copilot," Myka announces.

"No," Pentecost says.

"Excuse me, why the hell not?" Helena says. Myka glances over at her, one eyebrow raised. Her eyes are flashing, her shoulders set stubbornly.

"She's my copilot," Myka says again. "We're drift compatible, and no one else is."

Pentecost's jaw clenches, his forehead creasing with his glare. Pete looks uncertainly back and forth from Myka to Pentecost; Myka stares coolly back.

"Test run in Gipsy this afternoon, 1400 hours. No promises." Pentecost rotates on his heel and stalks out of the gym.

"Well," Pete says, hopping down the stairs. "That was fun, let's not ever do it again."

Myka prods him with her staff, rolling her eyes, before turning to face Helena once more and holding out her hand. "Myka Bering," she says.

"Helena Wells." The handshake is strong, her smile confident.

"Good to meet you." Myka cocks her head to one side, looking Helena up and down. "So why doesn't he like you?"

"Whoa, Mykes, maybe scale it back—"

"I need to know who I'm getting into this with," Myka says firmly. "It doesn't mean we aren't compatible, I just need to be prepared."

"He thinks I'm too arrogant," Helena says. She smiles wolfishly at Myka, shrugging. "He's probably right."

"Right," Myka drawls. She hands Helena her staff. "Well, I need breakfast. See you this afternoon."

"Righty ho," Helena says with a wink. She salutes them comically as they leave.

"You would find the hottest woman in the entire organization to be your pilot," Pete grumbles as they leave.

"Pete!"

"What? She is! I don't know how you keep finding the hot brunettes to be your copilots, but—"

"Oh, please," Myka says. "Don't flatter yourself. You're not hot."

"Excuse me," Pete says indignantly. "I'll have you know that I am in very high demand with the ladies here."

"You're adorable, not hot," Myka says. She pats his cheek, backing through the door into the mess hall. "Like a puppy, or a toddler."

"Oh come on," Pete says. "I'm not adorable!"

"Keep telling yourself that," Myka called over her shoulder.

Stepping back into the suit for the first time, Myka's left arm starts to ache, a dull throb pushing at the back of her mind.

"Why'd they change the color?"

"I have no idea," Pete mumbles. His free hand tugs at the plating, and she slaps it away from her chest with a warning glare. "I think Claudia wanted a Robocop look."

"Less reflection," Helena says from behind them. She's already suited up, helmet propped against her hip. "A couple of pilots were having issues with sunlight bouncing off of the white and creating a glare."

"Oh." Myka shakes her head and flashes half a smile. "You ready for this?"

"As ever," Helena says brightly. "After you."

Myka grips at Pete's hand for a short second. "You're fine," he says quietly. He presses a kiss to her forehead. "Go be a badass."

Myka smiles sadly at him, squeezing his hand once more, and follows Helena into the cockpit.

"You two are still close," Helena states.

"He's my best friend," Myka says quietly, stamping her feet into place. "Have you ever done this before?"

"Can't say that I have. You're my first." Helena winks, and Myka rolls her eyes, flipping switches on autopilot.

"It's—rough, the first time," Myka says. "Probably harder in this case than usual, because I still—Pete and I were in each other's heads so many times that his memories are in there, too. There's going to be a lot going on at first. You just have to—be still, as still as possible. Don't go chasing rabbits."

Helena hesitates, mouth opening and closing twice, before Claudia's voice crackles into their ears. "Okay, ladies, let's rock and roll. Ready to go all Vulcan on this bitch?"

"Ready when you are, Claud," Myka says.

"I don't know what half of that means, but yes, ready," Helena adds. Myka glances over at her, smiling and mouthing It's going to be fine.

"Neural handshake in five….four…"

Myka closes her eyes, focusing on the steady timbre of Claudia's voice as she counts down. Her entire body snaps with tension when she's yanked into the drift, a thousand flashes of memory rushing around her. Her rough father, her cowardly mother; Pete's last drink; the first kaiju attack that flattened the hotel room she and Sam were staying at in San Francisco and his mangled, broken body; Pete walking his sister down the aisle at her wedding; Helena's daughter lying dead on the ground; Pete's arm being crushed and his mind yanked from the drift—

A rough cry rips out of Myka's throat, her left arm sagging; Helena's and Gipsy's do the same, the entire machine lurching in its harness. Somewhere, Claudia's voice echoes in the background, drowning under the cacophonous sound of Gipsy's cold metal and the wind over the Bering Sea, the pain in her arm, the acceleration of her heartbeat.

"Myka! Get it together!" Pete shouts in her ear. She gasps out a breath, her chest aching, and forces her eyes open. She's in a hangar in Hong Kong, not falling apart off the coast of Alaska. Pete is safe, she's unharmed, Helena is—

Myka's stomach clenches, the air pushing out of her lungs, and she's sucked back into the drift, standing behind Helena, watching dumbly as the other woman tries desperately to save her daughter's life. The pavement under them is stained with blood from the scattered birdshot wounds, more and more of it pumping out of the body the harder Helena tries.

"Helena," Myka says weakly. "You can't—Helena, this is just a memory, you have to get back to now. This isn't happening again, this isn't real, you're just—"

She stops the CPR abruptly, bowing over the body. Myka's mouth snaps shut, her breath fogging the inside of her helmet as her eyes start to water when a broken, animalistic scream echoes around them. Helena's entire body shakes, shoulders jerking with every sob, her fingers clenching into the stained material of her daughter's coat.

A series of gunshots goes off behind them, and Myka ducks instinctively, spinning around in search of the noise. They're in an alley, the air heavy with smoke and dust. The ground shudders periodically, the familiar sounds of a kaiju and a jaeger ricocheting off of the alley walls; in the street, people are running to and fro, firing shots into the air and breaking shop windows.

"Looters," Myka breathes out. More shots ring out, and suddenly Helena is stalking out of the alley, bloody hands curling into fists. "Helena! Helena, stop, get out of this memory."

Myka's head aches, Helena's memory warring with Pete's voice and Claudia's efforts to pull them out. Somewhere in the distance, Gipsy's hands curve into fists as well, the action triggering the plasma cannon in the right arm.

"Helena!" Myka shouts, sprinting down the alley. Helena stalks out into the fray, grabbing the nearest looter by the collar and throwing him to the ground, foot slamming into his ribs. She grabs the gun out of his hand, throws a punch to his jaw, moves onto the next one. She works her way systematically through the looters, breaking jaws and ribs easily on her way to where a man is stuffing jewelry from a pawn shop into his jacket pockets, a shotgun slung over one shoulder.

"Helena, come on, you can't do this, not in here. You need to get out of this rabbit hole, Gipsy is still responding to you—"

Helena grabs the man with the shotgun, rage radiating off of her and pulsing through Myka, and throws him to the ground, dropping down with a knee on his throat. She yanks the shotgun away from him, cocking it with one hand and pressing it against his stomach, the handgun jamming into his cheekbone.

"Helena, no!" Myka shouts, even as Gipsy follows Helena, cannon cocking back and aiming at the ground. Her stomach lurches as Gipsy sways, off balance as Myka tries to keep control through Helena's rage.

Helena's hands shake, knuckles white around the guns and fingers trembling over the triggers. Her thumb flicks the safety off on the handgun.

"Helena, get out of here!"

They snap back to the present abruptly. The hangar appears in front of her, people still sprinting out of the way of Gipsy's cannon; Myka yanks her helmet off and jerks out of the harness, powering Gipsy down and scrambling over to Helena's side. The other woman all but collapses, falling out of the harness half-unconscious. Myka slides to the floor, Helena crumpling, catatonic, into her lap.

"It's okay," Myka says, panting. She pries the helmet off of Helena, pushing her sweaty hair back out of her blank eyes. "It's okay, you're okay. It was just a memory, you're okay."