Less than an hour since the seal of the Breach, the PPDC scrambled to gather reconnaissance. With the world's saviors safely tucked away inside Hong Kong's Shatterdome, teams were scattered to formally asses the damages in the light of day. Against the odds, recovered alongside Striker in the aftermath of Otachi's demise, Aleksis Kaidanovsky laid dormant on an examination table. Void of emotion, he stared at the ceiling, dissociated from the doctors rushing around him. They swore in various tones of Cantonese, panicked to see to the man's wounds. Much to their benefit, he obliged, making no fuss when they shoved or prodded. Not out of respect or submission, but of indifference.

His mind was at sea, fighting the pull of the waves as the chopper pilots hauled his oversized body from the open ocean. The unified shock of the crew was disheartening. With strength escaping him, Aleksis demanded his wife's retrieval, insisting she was trapped in the hull of their Jaeger. But they refused, endlessly. Cherno's exposed reactor was too dangerous to navigate, and his condition was critical. Shouting in disbelief, they reported their find to Loccent as their sister team secured Striker.

They left her.

Aleksis, at last, empathized with the Beckett brother. Death was inevitable in war, in life. But to be stripped of an entity, what heart was there in existing as a half. As the doctor's readied the man's IV, Hercules was granted permission to the room. He approached the wounded pilot cautiously, both in stature and speech. The newly acclaimed Marshal personally assembled a crew for the recovery of the Wei Tang brothers and Mrs. Kaidanovsky. With a heavy heart, judgment clouded, his regret for the mission was instantaneous. These Rangers deserved to be memorialized everywhere as heroes, not graves. Bleak was his ambition for more survivors.

"The Breach was sealed at 'o' eight hundred hours. Striker ran point, with Gipsy at the 6. Marshal Pentecost and-" There was a slight hitch in his voice. "Chuck Hansen were killed in action. No sign of other survivors, yet." He struggled to keep purely statistic; the Lieutenant deserved to know the scope of his sacrifice. Hercules moved as the doctors shuffled around him.

"I've sent my men to scour the bay, and a squad to search the wreckage with proper shielding," He upheld the most respective tone. "We'll find her." Aleksis did not acknowledge his former equal. He did not budge. The Marshal hesitated, but determined to dull the edge. Offering some news the pilot might like to hear, Herc took a seat, approaching as a friend.

"You can thank Gipsy for avenging your Jaeger, mate. Lit up the big ugly bastard - cut the other one in two. Turns out it could fly. Impressive sight that, a Jaeger falling fifty-thousand feet." He ended his sentiment with a smirk, negating the calamity of the event. The Russian was not nearly as amused. "Seen our first category 5, son of a bitch that one," Herc paused, a weight in his chest. "Me own kid went toe-to-toe with the damn thing. You believe it?" Whether the intention was rhetorical or not, Aleksis couldn't be damned to respond. He lay stoic, lost with thoughts for his wife.

He couldn't feel her.

The familiarity of her presence, physical and mental, had imprinted him. Like groping into the darkness, he reached for something. Everything. Any sign that she was still with him. But there was only silence.

"Had I listened to my son, Cherno might be safe. Typhoon too," He paused, eyeing a doctor as he fed an anesthetic into the pilot's arm. "But, I was determined not to disobey orders. And now those brothers' lives, my son's life-"

As the father spoke of his son, Aleksis faced his bridge, alone. There was no longer her temper to steady, the potency of her spirit intoxicating him to press on. The ghostly tendrils of their splintered connection bore into him, dragging him to a depth humanity could not reach. She was stripped from him as flesh and blood, and he was a wound lay bare. The internal pit of his grief mocked the breach itself. He was a man in mourning, unwilling for human contact.

"I do not have room for your grief, Marshal."

Uniformity shattered with his boom of a voice, and the room froze. Despite the toxin slick in his veins, the seemingly lifeless patient suddenly roused to the offense, shielding his heart. Hercules stopped, refined in his withdrawal. He was callous in his own pain, too far such to honor the boundaries, and remember the loss around him. But the line was easy to redefine for a Kaidanovsky.

The Marshal stood, bowing his head in apologetic dismissal before he turned to leave. Aleksis stared on, eyes narrowing as darkened jaws closed in around him. He could not justify life, and as he had defied his fate, he had received an end most cowardice. To leave them - her, their Jaeger - with nothing, while he was gifted the world, an undeserving victor. As the narcotic worked to seize his senses, he yearned for one more casualty.