The following week came the deadline and Ymir stood up at the front of the conference room, neatly dressed in a suit; the Japanese were quite formal in their meetings, even the workers were prim and proper.
"We need to have the material light but durable...also have reinforcements..." Ymir tried loosening her collar as she spoke out, in turn Hanji translated for her.
Behind them, there was even a presentation for visual aid. Back in LA, these sort of things were more of a casual thing talked over beers and cigarette. This was probably the downside of this trip for Ymir— she had to present herself as a domesticated human being. Something that Hanji was grinning about, knowing that this wasn't her forte.
Krista stood off to the side of Ymir as support and managing the presentation. Ymir had the more powerful voice of the two and was dashing in a tuxedo—she commanded absolute presence which Krista knew she couldn't. As Ymir gave her speech she went to the new slideshow, showing and providing the ratios and costs and percentages of improvement regarding the areas that lacked.
Krista, however, couldn't keep her eyes off of Ymir in the suit. Her longs legs, oh, those longs legs...
Ymir was just about done with the presentation. There were murmurs in the crowd with heads nodding in approval.
Eventually, the head chairman of the committee stood up, saying something in turn.
"They will run it by the next team for further approval, construction will begin by the end of February. They thank you for your contribution." Hanji translated, pleased. Ymir nodded and packed away the laptop as the crowd began to leave.
"Never thought of you the type to give presentations. You did pretty well, almost like a saleswoman," Hanji approached Ymir, smiling.
"Tch, it's stuffy in this thing," Ymir openly complained now that was able to loosen her tie.
"Too much dressy stuff here." She clicked her tongue.
"You'll get used to it." Hanji glanced at the disappearing crowd. Krista was smiling as each businessman went by, giving them a thank you and charming anyone who lingered.
The freckled woman flipped her off as the scientist took to leaving. The conference room was empty with their things stowed away.
It didn't take long for Ymir to come by her wife.
"What's up? You keep staring at me...do I have something on my face or what?" Ymir asked.
"Oh, you noticed?" Krista asked, hands running up Ymir's chest and loosening the tie a little more.
"I just thought you looked good today," she removed her hands, not wanting to have the same incident as the plane ride over.
"You're lucky that you can look good in a dress and suit," she gave Ymir a chaste kiss.
"You also did well," she said regarding the presentation with a soft smile. Ymir was talented in a variety of fields. It made Krista proud of her and also grateful she had such a gifted wife. Especially one who had such long legs and looked good.
"Thanks...though I think you look more better than me in anything really, even nothing." Ymir smiled at her praise, then glanced around, again, the room was empty save for them. Ymir placed down her case and went to hug her from behind.
"...there's a space behind the curtain for us to fit..."
Krista raised an eyebrow, feeling Ymir's chest press against her upper back.
"Is there?" Her hands went behind her, running up Ymir's thighs.
"Not gun-shy at all from the airplane?" Krista moved her hands away and brought one up to Ymir's tie. She pulled it, lowering Ymir close to her face and giving her soft, wet kisses on her jawline as Ymir tightened her embrace on her, pulling her back close to her body.
"Not at all."
-x-x-x-
Hanji got to her office.
Out of habit she usually took her phone out to charge it, but she was surprised to find it missing. Her mind backtracked instantly to the conference room to where she left it on the podium.
She cursed, eyes rolling, and made her trek across the Shatterdome, finally arriving at the conference room. She was suspicious at first when she saw Ymir's laptop case sitting at the desk.
"She's forgetful," Hanji sighed.
She swiped her phone off the podium but then saw a button to draw the curtain. Out of habit, she played by the rule to return things as they are— she clicked it, drawing back the curtain in place.
Much to her utter surprise, she found Ymir and Krista locked in a rather compromising position—Ymir's leg was wrap around Krista's waist as she pressed up against the window, writhing. She could see her pants just left carelessly on the floor. Between her legs was Krista's hand, rapidly moving in and out of her.
Ymir's eyes were rolled back in pleasure as she had apparently reached that high with Krista's face buried into her neck. When her eyes flew open, she made contact with Hanji, speechless.
"Oh...ooooooh no..."
Krista kept her fingers deep in her, savoring the pulsing muscles, but soon she felt another tension. Krista's eyes fluttered up to Ymir, wondering if a second orgasm had snuck in, but realized that was not it at all.
She peered over her shoulder, finding the curtains gone and replaced with a bemused Hanji. Krista felt her face turn bright red, holding Ymir closer to her, trying to hide her wife's body.
Krista groaned and put her face into Ymir's shoulder, unwilling to acknowledge the situation.
Hanji's jaw dropped, then curled into a smile— she tried so hard not to laugh, so hard. She snorted as Ymir slowly untangled herself and winced when Krista finally withdrew her hand. She managed to gather herself, though her hand still clung to Krista's shoulder.
"...nice show," was all Hanji could say, she was growing red herself.
Ymir stared at her.
"...please, don't tell me you want to join..."
Krista felt her face burn when Ymir told her fears. She shot her a glare.
"Ymir," she slapped her wife's naked rear in protest then glanced back at Hanji, who was still there looking like she wanted to laugh.
"God," she put her head back down on Ymir's shoulder. She couldn't even process what was happening. It was all too embarrassing.
"Can I—?"
"Don't," Ymir snapped briskly as she got her clothes in order. She shucked them back on, face red.
Hanji merely shrugged and then turned, going down the aisle, but not without laughing hard. Ymir readied to get her shoe off to throw it at her— her arm went back, lining up the shot to get her.
Krista took Ymir's arm down from throwing the shoe.
"No,' she sighed even though she wished Ymir did it. Instead, she helped Ymir buckle her pants back on. Her hands went up, quickly readjusting the tie.
"I'm sorry," Krista said, "I should've told you lets go to the bunks."
Again, Hanji had to walk in on their fun, leaving the situation thick with confusing and aggravating emotions.
"I can't believe she took the joke serious," Krista kept glancing at the door and back at Ymir.
"At least it was her," she tried to reason. She doubted the businessmen would've approved as much as Hanji did.
"Well, it was my fault. Besides, what were the chances that she'd come back?" Ymir asked. She took Krista's hand to kiss her palm once she finished tying the tie.
Krista felt herself calm down but her heart gave a soft ache of love and longing at Ymir. Her wife was the only one to reach climax, but it was worth seeing how vulnerable and gentle she looked in the moment.
"You're right," she tip-toed to kiss Ymir's lips softly.
"Maybe we should go do something productive other than Christian every room in the Shatterdome," Krista gave a small wink and smile.
"I think we should Christian every Shatterdome around the Pacific," Ymir suggested, taking her case as she followed her. They were outside, making their way to nowhere in particular.
"Who else will if not us?" She couldn't keep a straight face as she giggled.
"It's our destiny and right of our newly found religious group," Krista replied.
Ymir could only smirk before shrugging.
"Well, I was thinking of doing nothing considering we just did a whole meeting...kinda just wanna laze about, maybe go sight-seeing or whatnot."
"Sounds nice. It'd be nice to go somewhere private without worrying about our mad scientist," she agreed. She took Ymir's spare hand. Ymir held her hand close, keeping her by her side.
"Where should we go then?" They were advised to not go too far in case of a Kaiju attack, especially if they were unfamiliar with the area.
"Hm...just stay in our bunker," Ymir sighed, her legs were weak from earlier and she needed a moment to straighten her walk.
Workers left and right waved at the couple, Ymir merely have a weak smile and continued on.
They entered the work floor's third level to watch Titan being cleaned up by the crews, ensuring it was well oiled for battle.
As they neared the end of the walkway, a pair of people dressed in sparring outfits greeted them.
"You must be Ymir and Krista. I am Franz, and this here is my fiancé Hannah." The heavily German accented man greeted. He was a heavily built figure, reminding Ymir easily of Reiner. His partner was a reddish-haired brunette with numerous freckles atop her pale skin.
The woman smiled to them both.
"We're Rangers for the Faust."
"Faust— Devil in German, right?" Ymir asked.
He nodded.
"Impressive little guy...if only you were there for Marco…" Ymir's attitude had changed, she was suddenly pissed.
"We had hold-ups with the technicians," Franz admitted, ashamed.
Krista was quiet, listening to what the other pilots had to say.
"What kind of hold ups?" She frowned. In the L.A Shatterdome they sometimes fell short but not once had it cost a life. Yet.
Krista kept thinking of that failing knee joint in Colossal.
"...miscarriage," Hannah admitted.
Ymir stared at her as though she were speaking a foreign language.
"What?"
"Radiation," Franz clarified.
She nodded slowly, silent.
Krista stared at Hannah and Franz.
"What?" A fear began to creep up Krista. Hannah was once pregnant and from the sounds of it she wasn't a Jaeger pilot for too long.
The anger Ymir had that lingered in her head disappeared, only becoming guilt. Ymir nodded again, slowly.
Radiation poisoning had left her barren.
Krista instinctively clutched her stomach.
Ymir had her ovaries removed.
That left only one of them able to have a child. The back of her neck felt strained and her eyes felt icy.
"That's horrible," she tried to hold down the uneasiness, the doubt, and the dread that was coming. Her memories kept flooding back to the talk show and admitting they'd have children.
"I-I am sorry to hear that." She couldn't look at them. The urge to run to Hanji and ask for immediate tests was becoming stronger with each second. Even if the woman just saw them doing something embarrassing she was scared. That perfect image of them on the beach with children that was made of their love was cracking before her eyes. It was the future she held close to her heart to stop from snapping.
"We slapped those Mark 1 Jaegers together in fourteen months," Franz said, "the Mark 2 is supposed to have reinforced plating for the cores. After that, they found out radiation was a big risk factor. Because of it, we need back up until we have enough forces to replace us. Again, last ones here."
"My condolences..."
"Ymir...you're different than what Marco's said." Hannah spoke, uncertain, and they left the other pilots— Ymir never muttering anything else.
Krista felt selfish for brushing off Hannah and Franz, but her concern was with herself.
How was her body?
Would she be able to have children?
Krista couldn't bring it up with Ymir.
There was a lump in her throat. Instead, she gave a squeeze to Ymir's hand.
Ymir held her hand back.
"C'mon...let's go back to our bunk..." Ymir shook her head.
Krista only followed Ymir.
.
.
.
"I think we should get ourselves checked for any radiation," Ymir finally told her as they laid in bed.
"We've done a total of three runs together, but it's better to try anyway."
She curled her body against hers, holding her close as she faced her. She kissed her forehead gently, trying to comfort her own self.
While radiation poisoning was a common knowledge to all, it was often overlooked in times of desperate measures— Dancing Titan was built as one of the beginnings of the Mark 1s. Surely a plating for protection was skipped.
She never remembered such a thing in the blueprints.
Krista buried into Ymir, wrapping arms and legs around her.
"She had a miscarriage," Krista repeated. It would've been a couple more years before children were a part of their life, but it was Krista's hope. Her dream was a quiet life with Ymir and their children.
Radiation poisoning was now something else that threatened to take it all away.
"What if...she can't have children... at all?" Krista licked her lips.
"I...I don't want that to happen," Krista held tighter onto Ymir.
No matter if it would ruin her chance for children or not, they'd still have to be Jaeger pilots until the end of their time at the program. It was inevitable.
"I'll have Hanji look into it for the specifics," Ymir assured her, though miscarriages were the last things to happen to Ymir given she wasn't up for carrying children herself. She thought of the other consequences, the cancers— it was way worse than getting black lungs. Instead of dying in a fit of coughs, she'd probably end up in a hospital bed, weak, nothing left to fight with.
She didn't want to die in a Jaeger. She didn't want to die in bed.
Even if Krista were there, she didn't want that.
"Most likely, if it happened once, it'll happen again for her," she mused.
"What if it happens to us?" Krista squeezed her eyes shut.
"When we settle down...and I can't have kids?"Her head was light but thick of a sickening miasma that made her stomach churn. She felt her anxiety roaring back up-new place and a crack in their future.
Ymir didn't lie.
She hated lying.
But...she did it.
Never before she wanted to leave the Program so badly as of that moment.
"It won't," was all Ymir could offer. She felt herself sick giving Krista a false promise. She pulled her close, keeping her away from the world. Krista could hear the hesitation, the pause before her answer, but she took Ymir's words. Her wife's body was warm but Krista felt cold from the inside out. Her jaw was tense as she tried to push thoughts out but it was no use.
Krista gripped Ymir's shirt till her knuckles were white.
When their last drop happened, Krista felt confidence that she never had before. She had clarity and control of her body in the Jaeger.
But, now, as she thought of Dancing Titan, she saw a coffin— a graveyard that took piece by piece of her dreams, burying them in their suits, sickening and rotting until it bred a feeling of necrosis in their bodies. As time would go on, their future children, the imagery and dreams of them, would be slabs of stone in the Jaeger's pit, never there but always haunting.
"...let's run away," Ymir said suddenly.
Krista shot her head up, narrowly headbutting Ymir.
"What?" Unshed tears were in her eyes.
"No, we can't do that...Ymir, you have a sentence...We can't." Krista could see a mixture of her and Ymir's smiles on a child's face, but she could also see jail cells. Where there was the beach, there were shackles washing up on the shores.
However, there was hope where the sun sat on the waters, there was unruly, brown hair and freckles on a child that led her from the Shatterdome.
"Please," Krista looked into Ymir's eyes, "please...don't say that."
If Ymir kept bringing it up Krista's resolve would chip away until there was nothing but the longing to run.
Ymir looked downcast, she brought her back down to her arm to cradle her head.
"I'm sorry...it was just a thought. I just...I want to live, and I'll do anything to stay alive, even if it's just to discard one option already taken in favor for another."
Krista gave a small nod.
"I know," she ran her hand through Ymir's hair, trying to comfort her wife. She didn't realize till now the fear that might be going through Ymir. She was so worried about their future she wasn't seeing the current situation.
"We will get through this, babe," Krista held Ymir closer to her neck.
"We have a future to uphold, remember?" Krista gave soft kisses up and down the side of Ymir's head.
"We'll get through this." They had to.
"Yeah, we will," Ymir returned to her.
"I won't let anyone hurt you, or take you away from me. I promise."