He must have dropped off, asleep in that uncomfortable chair, because when he opened his eyes the next time, it was day outside. Well, it had to be from how the lights had been turned up in the room. With no windows, only the level of illumination gave away anything.

Chuck glanced at the clock.

Eight in the morning.

And there was a nurse in the room, checking the IV lines, the equipment, his father's vitals. She gave Chuck a calm, reassuring smile.

He hated her instantly.

He wasn't a child and he didn't need sympathy!

Chuck bit down on the unkind thoughts. He was too close to the edge, too frayed at the ends, to think clearly.

He just wanted the fatigue to lessen.

It didn't, really.

It got stronger.

His own body was aching everywhere, his head hammered, and he wished for nothing but a bed and Raleigh and Max and the world to just turn back to what it had been. He wanted this to be a nightmare.

It wasn't, though.

And, Chuck thought darkly, maybe he had managed to alienate Raleigh enough that he would be fed up with the younger man's shitty attitude. Drift or no Drift.

Right, he heard his own voice snarl. Like he would! Raleigh wasn't like that. He had taken all his abuse for weeks, had taken care of him, had watched out for him while Chuck had healed after he had made it out of the nuclear blast zone alive, and he had patiently trained with him.

Just like he had stood with him in the designated waiting area of Medical, a place not meant for anyone to actually linger and wait. Shatterdome infirmaries had no visitor areas. Chuck had simply claimed an empty office and settled down, the door open to give him a direct view of the proceedings outside.

Raleigh had been there. A steady presence.

And it had rubbed against Chuck's very soul. He had felt so raw, so lost, so close to a breakdown, and he had finally lashed out.

He had exploded into words and furious gestures, venting emotions he didn't know how to deal with. He had never learned.

"Leave me alone!" he snarled.

Raleigh wasn't impressed. "No."

Chuck was close to hitting him. He itched to fight something, anything. A Kaiju. He wanted to tear into the monster, send it back through the Breach in pieces. He wanted to take revenge, wanted his own pain to stop.

He wanted everything back as it had been.

He wanted to turn back time.

"If I leave you alone now, you'll just act like an idiot," Becket continued, sounding so damn reasonable.

"Who are you to judge me?!" Chuck growled, anger and rage battling inside of him.

Raleigh's expression was so infuriatingly compassionate. "Someone who knows."

"You have no idea what it's like!" Chuck screamed at him, pushing the man back. "You never had to sit and wait for someone to fucking tell you if your dad is going to survive!"

"Chuck…"

"You never lost someone like this!"

His vision was clouded, hands balled into tights fists, knuckles white against the skin.

"I did."

"Don't you dare compare my dad to your brother!" he spat. "He's my father! My co-pilot!"

The pain on Raleigh's face was real. Chuck had seen the pain, had felt it, had been there, and still he didn't care right now. He couldn't care. He was deep in this abyss and he couldn't deal with… with Raleigh.

"Loss is loss."

Chuck cracked. Like made of glass, with that blow he cracked in too many places to hold it together anymore.

He swung at him then and Raleigh moved away gracefully, the swing going wide.

But he wasn't done. He wasn't done in a long shot. He needed an outlet and Raleigh had become just that.

With a scream of frustration, pain and helplessness, he launched himself at his co-pilot and partner. He might have landed a blow or two, but Chuck was fighting erratically, his brain no longer guiding him. This wasn't a Kwoon match. This wasn't even a brawl. This was raw emotions boiling over.

Fingers clamped around his wrist when another blow failed to hit Raleigh, not unlike their furious encounter in the hallway that fateful day.

Chuck tugged angrily at the hand, snarling like a cornered animal.

"Chuck…"

"Fuck off! Just fuck off and leave me alone! I don't need you! I never did! Just go away! I don't need anyone!"

Raleigh had left then and for a moment Chuck had felt like a world-class asshole.

Which he was.

No argument there.

He had told Raleigh that he considered his father as his co-pilot. Still his co-pilot. He knew there was no chance for them to be that again, but over six years of a partnership like that was hard to leave behind, even if the Drift with Raleigh was perfect in its own way.

They were partners. Professionally and privately; intimately.

And Chuck had struck where it had hurt the most: in the intimate relationship area.

Raleigh was more than a friend to alienate and then get drunk with to make up again. So much more. For months now. He was who Chuck had needed.

And the man was a saint for all the abuse he had so patiently taken.

Fuck.

He couldn't do this.

And he couldn't ask for help.

He was screwed in so many ways, had always been screwed.

The abyss yawned below him.

x X XX x XX x XX x XX

They kicked him out an hour later.

He threw a tantrum, gave Dr. Weng Lee a piece of his mind – and it was a very uncensored piece – and refused to budge.

They brought in the big guns then: Mako Mori and James Bond.

Mako simply gave him this Look. It was something jarring, something that had Chuck swallow back another barrage of insults, something that reminded him of their many verbal spars from back when they had first met. They had grown up with each other in a way, especially after Striker had been relocated to Hong Kong.

Bond's expression had been deadly. Those eyes were glacial on a good day and had become downright lethal now. He hadn't said much, but Chuck had cowed.

Fuck!

The man had authority in a very different way to Pentecost and also to Herc. He had this dangerous air, the quiet predator waiting to strike, that darkness that seemed to be part of his nature. He was a fierce Jaeger pilot, had his own share of kills, and Chuck wouldn't want to go up against him in the Kwoon. He had been witness to a training fight between him and Q, amazed and startled how easily the former quartermaster of the Vancouver Shatterdome matched him, how well they flowed together. They didn't seem like such a perfect fit when you simply looked at them.

It had been like a beautifully choreographed dance and there had been awed looks, some even envious.

Chuck responded to authority sometimes, though not always. This time he did, though.

He had left the infirmary.

But he would be back.

After a shower and a meal.

He wouldn't leave his father alone.

*
x X XX x XX x XX x XX

He had wandered through the Shatterdome, roaming almost aimlessly, despite his firm plans to shower and eat and then go back.

His brain had a different plan.

Actually, there wasn't a plan. His mind was blank, his feet simply moving along to a command he hadn't consciously given, and he walked past people who might or might not have tried to talk to him.

Chuck didn't want to talk.

He might just have snapped at them, too. He hated pity, he hated sympathy. He hated crowds.

He loved them after a win, after bringing down a Kaiju, bathing in the masses and smiling for the cameras. He loved the adoring public, the fans, the gushing articles about the father-son hero team.

Right now, Chuck wanted to be alone.

When he finally thought clearly again, he found he was in one of the old conference rooms. It was a dusty place, echoing with the emptiness that had filled the Shatterdome for too long. With only the essential personnel left, months away from shutdown, a lot had fallen to neglect.

The windows showed the Hong Kong skyline, lit up like a Christmas tree, visible even through the fog that currently swathed the bay. The light in here was murky, but Chuck didn't care as he sat on the broad window sill, staring through the smudged window.

His head fell back against the metal beam behind him, head turned to the side to stare out into the approaching dark.

His eyes swam with the tears welling up inside and he angrily wiped at them, glaring at the wetness on his fingers.

He hadn't cried in ages. Not for anyone he had lost. Not for fellow pilots, not for the teams. He had lost men and women he had known and trained with in the past six years, and he had never cried.

His anger and fear and grief had come out differently.

He wouldn't lose it now either.

Chuck swallowed at the lump in his throat, but it didn't get any better.

The last time he had truly cried had been for his mother. Alone, sitting in an unfamiliar room, weeks after his mom had been taken from him. Herc had taken him with him to the Sydney Shatterdome and he had waited for his dad to return from a very important meeting. Chuck had been terrified of this place, but he had also wanted to be brave.

There had been talk about a kid in a Shatterdome. The Marshall had argued long and hard with one of his best pilots and had finally relented. There was nowhere else for Chuck to go and Herc wouldn't hand over his son to a stranger.

Chuck's whole composure had shattered that night and he had cried in the bathroom, knees drawn up, face buried against his knees, all the pain coming out.

His mom was dead.

His family, all of them, grandpa, grandma, all had died.

He and his dad were the only ones left in the world.

Chuck had cried for them all, had let his tears run freely, and he had hated himself for being such a baby.

He hadn't cried since.

Not when they had lost good men and women.

Not when Cherno Alpha and Crimson Typhoon had gone down.

Not when he had walked into Striker Eureka without his father.

Until now.

The tears were still there, threatening to fall, and he swallowed a few times, pushing back emotions that were close to overwhelming him. He buried his head against his knees, fingers digging into his hair, the pain hardly noticeable when faced with such soul-deep agony and fear of loss.

He couldn't be alone again. He couldn't lose that last connection he had with everyone else he had lost, his whole family. Herc was all he had left.

There is Raleigh, a voice murmured. You have Raleigh.

It sounded suspiciously like his old man.

He almost laughed. It was more of a sob bubbling up inside him. He had someone he felt close to, someone he had Drifted with, someone he knew so incredibly well now, and still…

… here he was alone.

What he feared the most.

Raleigh wants to be with you. He's more than a co-pilot. He knows the pain, knows how to deal with it.

If you let him.

Chuck didn't move. He stayed in here as the darkness fell completely, only the lights of Hong Kong filtering through the fog over the bay and the grime on the windows. He pretended that his soul didn't ache, that the Ghosts of old didn't come back to soothe and caress his mind.

You can't die, he told his father, drifting through a mixture of memories that were both Herc's and Raleigh's.

x X XX x XX x XX x XX

Chuck left after a while, each step heavy, feeling exhausted and like he was walking through the very same fog that shrouded the Shatterdome. There were hardly any people and even if there had been one or two passers-by, he didn't register them.

He knew he looked like shit.

He felt like it, too.

The tight knot in his chest hadn't grown any less; neither had the lump in his throat.

His eyes burned with fatigue and more.

He was so tired, felt so empty, nothing but the churning darkness, the abyss, working inside him.

He needed to sleep. To eat. A shower.

And he needed to get back to his dad.

Chuck had no idea how he made it back to the quarters he and Raleigh had been assigned. Every step was like scaling a mountain and his whole body was trembling from exhaustion, lack of sleep, hunger.

But he made it.

No one was home.

He felt numb.

x X XX x XX x XX x XX

He walked into the shower, dropping his clothes left and right, uncaring. The water was hot, steaming up the glass, rivulets running down the panes.

Chuck let it beat against his tired body, let the heat loosen muscles, and he hung his head, palms resting against the wall, the water cascading down.

Tremors ran through his frame.

He couldn't stop himself.

Everything was falling apart, all his perfectly construed shields were cracking, all the masks were sliding away. He was an open book, had always been, but that had been a lie.

He was what people had wanted him to be: the hero, the asshole, the smart mouth, the egotistical jerk. Striker's pilot. The best pilot. The only pilot for the Mark-V.

Him and his dad.

They had been the best fucking team and he had played it for the media. He had been a rock star, as Newton might put it.

Chuck had milked that image, had lived it, had been right there, in the middle, shooting off at the mouth, the star. He had lived a life that had felt like his own and had never been. He had thrived under pressure and still it had torn him apart without his conscious realization.

He had walked another man's shoes and the man hadn't been his father. He was a product of the war, the Kaiju attacks, everything.

That was all in the past now.

Chuck Hansen had a different life now. He was in a steady relationship, he still had the job he loved as a Jaeger pilot, he and his Dad could work together, even without a Drift to help them get past the emotional barriers, and now…

… everything had blown apart again.

"Fuck!" he hissed, water spraying around him. "Fuck it all to hell!"

The numbness was still there, this absence of real emotions. Just echoes, hollow sensations of fury and pain and despair. Nothing seemed real and still everything was.

Chuck closed his eyes, refusing to let the burning sensation behind his eyes become more.

x X XX x XX x XX x XX

It was a long time later that he finally emerged, the whole bathroom filled with steam, and he didn't really bother with the old clothes. He toweled himself off and found a pair of sweats and a t-shirt that looked reasonably clean. A brief glance in the fogged-up mirror told him he really needed a shave, but he didn't care.

He was so tired.

So angry.

But the anger could no longer keep him going. It was like he was still at the edge, but a slight breeze would push him over.

If he didn't take the last step himself.

Chuck bounced his fist against the wall, the tiles still damp. He wanted so much to hit something, hurt himself, have physical pain chase away the darkness.

Exhaustion weighed him down, had him drag himself out of the bathroom.

Maybe there was coffee.

Because he couldn't sleep. He didn't want to sleep. He didn't want to dream.

He stopped abruptly as he stepped into the living room area, frozen, mind blanking.

Raleigh.

Raleigh was here.

He was… here.

Chuck, hair damp, feeling a few rivulets run down his neck from his hair, simply stood there and stared.

Raleigh was there, looking at him, his expression slightly unsure.

He hated it. He hated seeing the man that he lo… liked…

Liked. Yeah. A lot. Deeply.

His mind stalled.

Sputtered.

Creaked and groaned around the thought.

The man he… trusted. Yes, he trusted the American. He trusted him with his life, his mind, his memories. He had felt what Raleigh felt for him and he drew a blank as to how to describe it.

Love?

More, something murmured. So much more.

It was everything. Raleigh was completely invested. It should be scary to have someone feel so intensely, to know it had built over the time that they had grown closer. That he was that person for Raleigh.

Raleigh didn't give his trust and his emotions lightly. Chuck knew that now. He had seen it in the Drifts. Becket had made a leap of faith, had trusted Chuck with his very soul, a soul that was scarred and missing a huge chunk.

Damaged.

Jaded.

Huh. It described them both. For different reasons, in different ways.

Raleigh had been terrified of Chuck seeing that part of him. He still vividly remembered walking into the mess at ass o'clock in the morning, hearing the conversation between James and Raleigh, and it had shocked him.

He had called Raleigh an idiot back then and given him a piece of his mind.

Of course Chuck knew how damaged Becket was, and he wasn't a completely healthy-minded human being either.

The Drift had been good.

"Uh, hey," Chuck mumbled, fidgeting like a little child.

Raleigh tilted his head. It was this oddly endearing gesture. Chuck felt something inside of him yearn for a touch.

"I… listen… I'm…"

His mind blanked again. There was an apology waiting for him to make it. There was so much he had to make up for and he couldn't. He had never been good at that and he had never apologized to anyone for anything.

Not even his dad.

Raleigh was silent; waiting. Patient. So fucking patient! It was what had defined their relationship, this patience, this solidity. Raleigh, after everything that had gone down in the Breach, had come back almost grounded. Like he had grown roots. He felt so much more real to Chuck, so much more… himself. And when they had finally Drifted together, that sensation had sunk into Chuck as well.

Raleigh Becket had become an anchor for him, this weight that didn't hold him back or weighed him down. It was the reassurance that someone was there, like his dad.

His dad…

He couldn't lose him, couldn't be alone, couldn't imagine…

Chuck's breathing became more ragged. Desperation rose inside him.

He couldn't lose another person. There had been too many. Too, too many. He couldn't… not to a bloody stupid accident…

Not Dad.

His stomach felt like a cold, hard pit. He wanted to throw up.

"They kicked me out of medical," Chuck managed, fighting to take control.

He sounded like a little child. Like a stubborn boy.

He ran a trembling hand through his already unkempt, wet hair, then let it fall to his side.

"I know. Dr. Lee told me when I went there to check on you."

Chuck curled his hands into fists and he evaded those intense eyes.

Raleigh had come to check on him.

After everything.

After…

After biting everyone's head off, proverbial claws flashing. He knew he had thrown punches at people who could have him thrown out of the PPDC. He knew he had skirted an edge, had played with the abyss, and he knew… he knew he was a real mess.

Chuck had been an ass and everything he had flung at Raleigh had been meant to hurt. To hurt badly, to push away, to make them all leave him alone.

Chuck had wanted him gone. He had wanted to be alone. He had wanted…

Something tore through him, almost made him cringe in soul-deep pain. He had tried to make it hurt more, to drown out everything else, every thought, every emotion.

Because Chuck Hansen wasn't used to having friends. Close friends. Or Raleigh.

He almost laughed at the thought.

No, he wasn't used to Raleigh and he had fallen back into an old defense mechanism: push away, no matter what it took.

There were few people who knew him closer, most of them dead now. Only Mako had remained.

"He also told me Herc's doing fine. The lung's healing," Raleigh added mildly.

He swallowed.

When Chuck looked up, Raleigh was so much closer.

"Chuck."

His name. Filled with so much. A question, a plea, seeking permission.

"I know," Becket added when Chuck remained silent.

Of course he did. The bloody Yank was too empathetic for his own good!

And he had lost his brother. He had lost everything. He knew the pain and Chuck was in the comfortable position that Herc wasn't dead.

Arms curled around him, drew him to that broad chest, and against his better judgment he went, his hands clenching into the black t-shirt, holding on for dear life. He clung to the other man like a life line. Chuck felt the tears again, hot and embarrassing in his eyes, and he heard a wrecked sob leave his lungs.

Maybe there were even more embarrassing, broken whispers leaving his mouth. Maybe he was spilling his soul.

Maybe it was alright.

Maybe it was okay to finally crack, to maybe break entirely.

Maybe he could blame it on sleep-deprivation, on emotional trauma, on being Chuck Hansen.

Yeah, the third option was the best. It always was the best explanation for the stuff he did, the stunts he pulled.

Tears streamed down his face and another sob hiccupped through. His tight control was finally unraveling, but there was no one there but Raleigh to witness as the cocky, self-assured and arrogant Chuck Hansen broke.

Raleigh wrapped himself tightly around him, both men sinking down the wall, Chuck safely ensconced in a protective embrace as silent tears ran down his cheeks.

tbc...