Author's Note: Damn, I had hoped to get this chapter out before it was Jossed by the sequel, but we already know this is an AU. Generation K's previous installments were written and finished long before we know Jake Pentecost existed, but once we did (and John Boyega was cast) I couldn't get him out of my mind. So here follows my retcon of where he was during Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis and the other prequels, as well as the movie.

Canon Note: Of course, I've read the synopsis that Jake is estranged from Mako, possibly from Stacker too before he died, but that seemed too similar to the Hansens, whose estrangement I spent 49 chapters on. So this tale of Jake's relationship with his father and adoptive sister takes a different tack. Naturally, Jake's mother and grandparents are OCs.

Chapter Eleven: So Lucky To Have Seen You Grow

Stacker said those words to Mako with deep feeling, and they both knew why: he hadn't had that chance with his son.

If Jake Pentecost's mother had lived, it would have been different. Then again, if it weren't for the kaiju, so many things would have been different.

2009...

Her name was Claudia Martin. She came from Peckham in London. She knew Tamsin and Luna before she knew Stacker, another of their rowdy, hard-partying crowd. She certainly wasn't the first girl among Luna's friends to do a double-take upon introduction to Luna's big brother, then give him a sly, lingering up-and-down examination. (Hell, there were a few blokes among Luna's friends who did that.)

Stacker's circle overlapped almost entirely with his gregarious younger sister's, though he was most at ease among fellow pilots. The RAF crowd worked hard and played harder, and Stacker and Claudia often found themselves slightly less drunk (though not at all sober) at the end of pub crawls and parties, recruited by default to the job of herding all the cats back to base.

Claudia was never really a girlfriend. Their relationship progressed after a drunken fling to casual, relaxed, and discreet intimacy whenever they had the same posts. She was a good friend, more inclined towards command positions, as was Stacker, more cautious than Luna and Tamsin.

Hell, Claudia and Stacker were both cautious people, so they were baffled (and rather mortified) that both of their precautions with contraception came to naught.

Jacob Martin Pentecost was an accident; there was no getting around that.

Stacker and Claudia were flummoxed for several weeks after Claudia stammered the news to him in a whisper. But they rallied their scattered thoughts toward decision making, and in the end, Claudia was certain she wanted children even if there was never a husband in the long-term picture. Stacker was...more ambivalent, but not enough to want to dissuade her.

By mutual choice, they kept it quiet except for their closest confidantes and family.

Luna and Tamsin were astonished, but as Stacker knew it would, they quickly shifted to glee, and it took a combination of bribery and blackmail to get them to keep their mouths shut. There was no preventing them from buying a fortune's worth of baby gear, and Stacker and Claudia knew it, so they gritted their teeth and went along with it.

By then, Stacker and Luna were orphans with no other family whose opinions would matter.

Claudia, on the other hand, came from a good family. Her father was a professor of sociology, and her mother a skilled public relations analyst. She'd grown up comfortable, and her parents were wealthy by the time they approached retirement. She was their only daughter.

Gregory and Patrice Martin were, to say the least, less than pleased by the circumstances of their first and only grandson's arrival. It didn't help that Stacker's first introduction to them was after Claudia had broken the news of her pregnancy. Dinner with Claudia's parents was the most painfully awkward experience of Stacker's life - up to and including juvenile criminal court.

There was no mistaking their disapproval of Stacker as an individual, let alone as a mate for their daughter and father of her child. They got their hands on Stacker's youthful criminal record far too easily, and made no bones about "politely" questioning him on the subject. It was clear to Stacker that Claudia's parents regarded him as a ne'er do well, and no amount of evidence of his military record would change their minds.

They protested Claudia's decision to give her son Stacker's surname. "That can't be necessary if you've no plans to marry."

(Claudia and Stacker had deliberately avoided the subject of marriage, and while it was true that they weren't planning on it, it galled Stacker to hear Patrice treat it as a foregone conclusion - or at least her desired conclusion.)

He wondered how Claudia would stand up to her parents, in their handsome house and fine neighborhood, compared to her own meager RAF salary with a baby to support. As stiff as the Martins appeared to Stacker, there was no indication they didn't care for Claudia, and that alone was a treasure he couldn't imagine wanting to jeopardize.

But Claudia did stand her ground, uncompromising and unmoved by her parents' disapproval. "I like the name, and it's Stacker's son too. He'll be Jacob Martin Pentecost."

Gregory eyed Stacker and all but sneered, "Are you even planning to acknowledge the child?"

Stacker might not be experienced with these two people, but by that age, he'd learned how to freeze into rigid formality. "Of course. I wouldn't be here otherwise, would I?"

Judging by their expressions, Claudia's parents would have preferred both that Stacker Pentecost not be here and not acknowledge the child. "You'll be expected to give you share of support, in that case," Gregory went on, as if in challenge.

Stacker replied steadily, "I intend to. He'll be entitled to my military benefits and pension."

"Well," sighed Patrice. "I suppose that's reason enough for putting the father's name down." In the end, they turned their attention to the practicalities and seemed to try to forget there was any issue that couldn't be solved that way.

"They were furious I joined the RAF," Claudia confessed later. "They wanted university, you see. They had plans for me." She scowled and a put a hand on her stomach. "Soon they'll have plans for him, but they won't carry them out. He stays with me."

Stacker bit back a grumble that parents who cared for the future was a luxury he hadn't had for a long time. Claudia had a right to decide for herself what was best for her son, and Stacker wasn't very amenable to the idea of outside interference either. A part of him wondered if Jacob's grandparents would want anything to do with Jacob.

Practicality wasn't the only reason that Stacker's name would appear on Jacob's birth certificate. He and Claudia were never monogamous romantic partners, but they were close, up until the day she died.

He did find that while the Martins were cold towards Stacker, they were capable of warmth. Despite their disapproval of Stacker, they doted on Jake from the day he was born in December 2009.

They protested Claudia's decision to keep Jake with her when she rejoined the RAF as a flight instructor, but Claudia refused to budge. Jake would live with her in base family housing, always.

Stacker had full access to their son, and Luna and Tamsin were his doting and eccentric aunts (though they scandalized the Martins almost as much Stacker had, but one warning glare from Claudia silenced any complaints they were preparing to make).

2013...

So Stacker, Claudia, and their son were a family, if not as conventional as her parents would have preferred. They traded off caring for Jake during his infancy, and once the boundaries and cool civility were established, Jake's grandparents were allowed to keep him in their care when Claudia traveled for work assignments. They knew better than to challenge Stacker's rights to visit when Jake was with them, and Stacker exercised those rights freely, keeping a close watch as his son grew from a squirming baby to a toddler.

Then Claudia, Tamsin, and Luna departed for a "girls' holiday" in California in summer 2013. It was to be Claudia's first holiday since Jake had arrived - or so Stacker and her parents believed.

On K-Day, all three took off from Travis Air Force Base against the monster that had risen from San Francisco Bay.

Only Tamsin came home.

Luna died in combat, her plane ripped apart by a swipe of the monsters' claws. Claudia's plane was hit with debris from another collision, but she managed to land on a civilian airstrip. Rather than return to base, she went towards the destruction and joined in the rescue efforts.

Trespasser had killed Stacker's sister. The three nuclear detonations that finally took the beast down also took the mother of his child.

Stacker would privately question the decisions he made in the aftermath of K-Day for the rest of his life. Only Tamsin - and Chuck Hansen many years later - ever knew that.

Grieving and in shock, perhaps he acquiesced too easily to the pleas of Claudia's parents that their grandson should remain with them. There were many facts in their favor, of course. It was a stable, permanent home with well-to-do grandparents who were in good health, who loved Jake, and most important in Stacker's mind back then, their home was far, far away from the newly-discovered Breach.

Gregory and Patrice insisted that unless Stacker was prepared to leave military service, Jake, already devastated by the loss of his mother, would be better off with their family. Their solicitor hinted that they would press the matter in court if necessary, and the courts were unlikely to decide that an active military father whose work required both travel and combat would be better for a suddenly-motherless four-year-old who'd never been in the father's full custody. Jake was almost ready for primary school, and Gregory and Patrice could get him into a far better school than Stacker.

Stacker had given in. He did manage to get a written agreement endorsed by the courts that he would have access to his child any time he visited, and that Jake would be permitted to visit him on base when the boy grew older. Stacker couldn't help wondering if Claudia's parents agreed to those provisions on the gamble that in practical terms, there wouldn't be much opportunity for Stacker to enforce it.

If so, they gambled on a winner. Maybe.

Stacker was able to uphold his duties as a father regularly at first. He visited Jake nearly every week and took him on short holidays to Scotland and Wales with Tamsin, pretending the world wasn't reeling with each subsequent attack.

Then came the Seoul conference, in which Stacker accepted a position with the fledgling PPDC. Jake's grandparents insisted (not without justification) that it was far too unsafe for Jake to accompany Stacker overseas into a growing war zone.

So Stacker's relationship with his son was relegated to Skype. A less tenacious man might have given up early on, in the face of so many "missed calls," though Claudia's parents denied ever deliberately dodging Stacker's communications. But Stacker was nothing if not stubborn, and finally cornered Gregory and Patrice for a frigidly-polite discussion. He reminded them that the PPDC, in its eagerness to recruit and retain talent, provided excellent benefits for personnel families - including use of specialist attorneys, should the need arise.

Patrice and Gregory yielded, and Jake never missed a scheduled call from his father again.

2016...

Stacker did have to involve a PPDC-funded solicitor in early 2016, to arrange a visit from his son to Tokyo. Jake, now seven, had been begging to see a Jaeger (and his father) "in the flesh" ever since watching the launch of Coyote Tango on television. Stacker had hesitated, worrying that a Shatterdome was no place for a child so young, but Tamsin had convinced him that a brief holiday during the next leave would be just the thing.

So after much legal wrangling, they arranged for Jake and his parents to meet them at a secure Tokyo resort, with the special perk of a brief guided tour of the Shatterdome, and a look up at Jake's father's Jaeger. Even with the grandparents scowling through most of it, Jake was elated, and those two weeks were Stacker's happiest memory for a very long time.

Then came Onibaba, and somehow, Mako.

But soon followed the closest thing to a genuine legal battle between Stacker and his son's grandparents. Grounded from combat and new parent of an orphaned girl, he thought to take custody of his son. He even considered resigning his commission and bringing his children to Hawaii with Tamsin.

Claudia's parents refused, ranted and raved, hired a solicitor, and ultimately having the most impact, they begged.

"He's all we have left of our only child! We've been with him since he was born! You can't just rip him out of our lives! If you're really intent on living with him, then come back here with this new one you've picked up!"

Stacker bristled, but even the child psychologist he had working with Mako warned that Jake might not adjust to being uprooted. "Unlike Mako, Jake has loving extended family who desperately want to keep him, and whatever the circumstances, his grandparents have raised him. He has adjusted very well to a long-distance relationship with you, but suddenly reversing roles and forcing his aging grandparents to only see him via Skype would be hard on all concerned."

That brought Stacker up sharp, and all the doubts he'd ignored in the past few weeks rushed back to the forefront of his mind. "Have I done him a disservice by adopting Mako?"

Dr. Schneider gave him a knowing look. "That would require a black and white assessment, which should never be used with children. Will he resent it? Very possibly, although he's still young enough to adjust, and from what you've told me, he's just as interested in meeting her. This world has become a very unorthodox place since giant space aliens attacked us from under the ocean. Many of the old rules about child-rearing simply no longer apply to people fighting this war - but it's unrealistic to think none of you should have families."

So as always seemed to be the case with his son, Stacker compromised. Jake would remain with his grandparents in London, but once Stacker and Mako were installed in Lima, he would join them for the first available holiday during a non-alert period. Jake would be given full email and Skype access to talk to Mako whenever he wished, and vice versa.

Jake was also permitted to learn Japanese in school, and Stacker learned with no small amount of gratification that this had been Jake's idea.

Apparently, it didn't occur to seven-year-old Jake to be resentful. Stacker knew from the beginning that this wouldn't always be the case.

2017...

Stacker Pentecost's adopted and biological child met face-to-face for the first time in January 2017, at the resort hotel in Lima where Jake and his grandparents stayed for the visit.

To Stacker's surprised relief, Gregory and Patrice liked Mako and had nothing but praise for her, both to her face and to Dr. Schneider. Mako was sweet. Mako was intelligent and a good influence. Jake was four years younger, but nearly her size, and was learning Japanese almost as quickly as she was learning English. He was boisterous and physical, to the point that Stacker worried he'd overwhelm Mako, but she was overjoyed to have a playmate when most of her other contact with children was via video conference. They played together with surprisingly little property damage.

The only time Gregory and Patrice really seemed to disapprove was when they played Jaeger pilots. Stacker heard Jake whisper to Mako (in Japanese) that Gran and Gramps didn't let him play that at home.

"Is it war they disapprove of, or his father?" he couldn't help muttering to Dr. Schneider.

She might have been hired to treat Mako, but sometimes analyzing Mako's father was part of the job, and both Stacker and Dr. Schneider had recognized that from the beginning. "I think we both know the answer. For what it's worth, even at this young age, your son is well-aware of their feelings too, but he hasn't let that sway his admiration or love for you."

Stacker supposed it had to help that Jaeger pilots and the Jaeger Program were held in such high esteem around the world. Neglecting my son for "the greater good" as it were, apparently that's enough for him to not recognize it as neglect.

On more optimistic days, he dared to hope that maybe Jake's esteem went beyond just the influence of PPDC propaganda, and that Stacker himself had done enough to be worthy in his son's eyes.

His son was a gentle, sensitive boy who rarely expressed any resentment against his father for his absences. His grandparents didn't - at least not to Stacker's knowledge - ever stoop to outright trying to alienate him. There was no way Jake could have missed that his grandparents didn't like his father, but for some reason that seemed to lead Jake to admire Stacker more.

By the end of that visit, Jake and Mako adored each other. In the years that followed, they saw each other once or twice a year at best, but that bond never weakened. It was almost as if they were drift compatible.

2023...

Trouble did find Jake Pentecost, as Stacker rationally knew it would. No child grew up without trouble, and the world was a troubled place. As humanity's attitude towards the Jaeger Program soured, Jake's attitude toward humanity soured. Schoolmates who'd once been friendly of him began to sneer at him, and he reacted with growing anger and bitterness.

Gregory and Patrice were distressed enough to talk to Stacker about it (rather than let him learn everything from teachers' reports like usual), and tried to form a united front on discipline. Stacker managed not to point out that they probably wouldn't have much traction by simply complaining that their grandson's behavior didn't make them look well.

"He's unhappy. Perhaps you should address that with his guidance counselors rather than trying to make him ashamed of his 'attitude.'"

Jake's grandparents paid no more mind to Stacker's opinion than they ever did.

It all came to a head when Jake was fourteen, in year nine at school. Stacker got a mandatory message from one of Jake's teachers:

Dear Marshal Pentecost,

I'm sorry to inform you that your son was in a physical altercation with a classmate today. Jacob and Timothy Bertram (year 10) had an argument in which Timothy and several other elder students made disparaging remarks about the Jaeger Program and Jacob's family. Jacob reacted aggressively, although witnesses report that Timothy shoved him first. However, Jacob retaliated by hitting Timothy until he fell to the ground, then kicking him until teachers intervened.

Please understand that administrative discipline is necessary. I will inform you of the teacher and supervisors' recommendations within two business days, and allow you to respond before a decision is made. We have also informed Jacob's custodial grandparents.

Regards,

Mrs. Bellcott, Everhald Preparatory Academy.

Stacker was still digesting it when a second emergency message arrived, this one from the Martins:

Jake has run away.

As long as he could remember, Jake had known that Gramps and Gran didn't like his father at all. They were civil when they talked to each other - and nothing more than civil. When Jake was little, he'd dared to ask why.

Gran and Gramps had dodged the question, occasionally admitting, "We didn't care for the fact that your mother decided not to attend university because of a boy, no. But your father has paid his support for you as he should, so that's something."

Apparently, in Gramps and Gran's eyes, that wasn't much. Jake was sure there was much more than money that his grandparents somehow couldn't see - or refused to see.

They'd always told him Everhald Preparatory Academy was one of the finest schools in Peckham and that it took "more than money" to be admitted. They were never quite clear on what they meant. Sometimes they said it was character. Other times, they hinted that it was reputation.

Either way, it didn't match up with the kids Jake met there. Gran and Gramps had a nice house (nicer than anything Jake's father could raise him in, they sometimes reminded Jake) in a nice, green neighborhood, but most of the kids at Everhald had a lot of money. There were kids from around the world, but the majority were English by many generations - and white. Jake's family might have been English, but he could point to no nobility or celebrity in his bloodline, and along with his skin color in the eyes of a lot of his peers, that meant he was trash.

By the time he was in secondary school, he hated Everhald Academy. Most of his real friends were online, people he talked to on Skype and via IM along with Mako.

Ignoring the rich brats around him got harder, the older he got. He swore up and down that it was the other kids who got meaner, but Gramps and Gran kept scolding him for being cheeky and having a bad attitude. "Of course, it's wrong for other boys to have a go at you for being black, but racism has always existed and always will. There's nothing to be done but turn the other cheek."

Jake tried. He really did.

He walked away when other boys whispered slurs or made fun of his accent. (Jake didn't think he even had one, but evidently a lot of boys thought he did.) He formed cautious alliances that sometimes progressed to friendliness to some of the foreign kids who were targets of the "lord-kids," as Jake called them. Like at Mako's school, there were kids at Everhald who'd come from the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, children of wealthy businessmen and nobility with practiced manners, but they all felt the sting of the lord-kids' disdain.

The problem was that most of them weren't permanently in London. Their parents moved on to different embassies or different business postings, and Jake was back to all his friendly voices being heard over phone and computer.

From what Mako told him, her prep school in Pennsylvania was different. She made lots of friends there, both local and foreign. Maybe Jake's attitude really was the problem. Or maybe not...after all, Mako wasn't black. She might not be white, but she wasn't black.

Still, she was Jake's sister, and until the scrum with Tim Bertram, the closest Jake ever came to hitting someone was when another boy saw Mako's picture and called her a name that was as nasty for a Japanese girl as Jake knew the n-word was for a black boy.

(Probably the only real reason he didn't hit Alfred was that Mrs. Penniwuther heard it and hauled Alfred away by the ear before Jake's shock had even worn off. Alfie was made to apologize to the whole class later, but everyone knew he didn't mean it.)

By 2023, everyone having a go at Jake's dad and the Rangers - that tore it. He started answering back, first snapping, then shouting. In calmer moments, he knew his reactions were like blood in the water to a bunch of sharks, but in the heat of the moment, he was so bloody angry that he didn't think about it.

"Worthless, the whole lot," Tim Bertram had sneered on the football pitch during a schoolwide break. "They're dying like rats out there in those big rusted Transformers. The whole thing was a stupid idea from the start."

Jake wasn't the only one who snapped. "Those're people!" hissed a boy Jake's age from China who wanted to be an engineer and did all his projects about Jaegers. "Show some respect!"

"They're a joke," Tim retorted, sneering. "All those pilots are the same as every other chav who joins the military - they can't hack it at anything else!" As Jake half-hoped, half-feared, his gaze slid lazily in Jake's direction. "Ohhh, Pentecost, your old man's in the Jaegers, I forgot."

No way had he forgot. "Shut up," Jake growled.

Tim's sneer widened. "Not just that, old man Pentecost joined up way before the kaiju came in, right? Just goes to show, doesn't it? Once a slogger, always a slogger."

"Shut UP, Bertram!"

"Seriously, who joins up and stays joined up and goes even closer to giant sea monsters when they've got anything to lose? Makes you feel sorry for the poor bugger. Only smart thing he ever did was knock up a rich girl - " Jake roared in chorus with several other boys, but Tim drew himself up to his full six feet (several inches taller than Jake) and laughed. "What're you gonna do about it, ghetto boy - " He shoved Jake, and that was what Jake had been waiting for.

Jake and Mako practiced their martial arts for each other on a regular basis, and Mako had given Jake a lot of coaching, since unlike Jake, she was allowed to study more than one fighting method in school.

She and Jake's teachers always talked about the importance of control, but the first time Jake really put it to the test outside a class spar...he had to admit control had never been further away. He just swung and swung and relished the noises Tim made with each blow. Jake was half-aware of the possibility of a retaliatory hit and ready for it, but it never came, and Tim's hands just flapped uselessly trying to ward Jake's fists off until he crashed to the ground, whimpering. Then Jake kicked, and it felt good.

My dad's worth fifty of you. My mum was worth a thousand of you and every one of your snot-nosed lord mates. You fucking, sniveling coward -

Then a couple of the minders got their arms around Jake from two directions and dragged him away.

He knew he was in trouble, but he couldn't bring himself to be that sorry.

He knew what Gramps and Gran were going to say, and they said it: "Do you know how humiliating this meeting at school is going to be? Why don't you think about how your behavior reflects on us before you act?"

"I can't always think ahead when Bertram's talking shit about my mum and dad!" Jake protested, but Gran huffed, turning away.

"And just as we feared, now you're starting to act like your father!"

Jake froze. "What do you mean by that?"

Gran rounded on Jake and pointed at him, her lip curling in a way he'd never seen...not exactly anyway. But this was like... as if the way she'd looked at Jake's dad but always held something back, as if this was the way she actually wanted to look at him and talk about him. "Your father was a delinquent when he was your age, Jacob! He almost killed a man and burned down a building; is that the kind of example you want to follow? Is everything we've done for you a waste?!"

Jake leapt to his feet. "That's not fair! My dad wasn't some psycho! He went after the bastard who killed his dad, and he was right!" Gran recoiled, hands to her heart all melodramatic, and Jake scoffed. "Oh, get off, you know the first time a boy at school told me about that? I'd not been there six weeks, and they were rubbing my face in it! Now you do it too!"

Gramps huffed wearily. "The boys may not have been kind about it, but it's true - your father went down a terrible path, and your grandmother and I are trying to prevent you from doing the same. My boy, you can show the world that you're not the violent sort like your father - "

" - I knew you hated my father. Is that really the only reason why, something that he did when he was twelve and bloody made up for?" Jake demanded. He pointed at Gramps. "My dad knows you hate him and he's never said boo about you - "

"That's enough! Go to your room!" Gran ordered. "And stay off the Internet, while your grandfather and I decide how to handle this disgrace!"

Jake stalked to his room without a word. He thought to ignore them and Skype Mako. Surely she'd understand even if she wouldn't approve of Jake kicking Tim Bertram's arse (well, Mako's friends had once told Jake that Mako had kicked a grown man's arse when she was only thirteen).

But Gramps and Gran must have planned ahead of his return home in "disgrace" and changed the wifi password. Jake nearly punched his screen.

They hate my dad. They think my dad's a criminal. Everytime I do anything they don't like, they tell me not to be like my dad...well, that's what they mean even when they don't say it. They hint it. Today's just the first time they've said it. They even hate their own daughter for being with my dad.

Jake had asked sometimes about the relationship between his mum and his dad. Gramps and Gran had always referred to it as a mistake.

Dad had said different. "I was very fond of your mother. No, we weren't married, but we were dear to each other. She loved you very much. She was good friends with Aunt Luna and Aunt Tamsin as well."

Going back to school was going to be dismal. Jake would be made to apologize. Maybe Tim Bertram too - or maybe not. Other boys said Bertram's mum, some countess lady of something-or-other, always threw a fit if he got disciplined for everything, so the teachers all looked the other way. Everyone in Tim's year who didn't suck up to him simply hated him. But plenty of kids sucked up to him.

And there would be Gramps and Gran, talking about how ashamed they were and how sorry they were that Jake had behaved so badly, telling their friends at tea how embarrassing Jake was.

Packing his travel bag felt sort of like hitting Tim Bertram again, a sort of haze that felt frenzied and out of control, but also freeing. Jake had both a passport and PPDC travel credentials. He didn't even need a ticket; he'd discovered that when he was ten. He could board a personnel plane from any base and nobody would even question him.

Gramps and Gran have been trying to turn me into something I'm not. I should be with my dad and Mako, people who aren't ashamed of me. People who actually are trying to do something in this war instead of just stand on the other side of the planet and look down their noses. Time to go where I really belong.

To Be Continued...

Coming Soon: Jake's nerves fail, so he seeks out sympathy and support from his adoptive sister to make his case for living with his father, and Stacker faces the reckoning with Claudia's parents that's been brewing all of Jake's life in Chapter Twelve: Your Father's Son.

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