A/N: I am still slowly updating this, I swear LOL. Hope you guys enjoy this chapter! (At this point, we're maybe 1/3 of the way through the timeline that I've got planned for this series, so there' s much more to come!)
2025, January 12 – 07:52 – Hong Kong Shatterdome, Hong Kong, China
Herc Hansen pressed his lips together, closing his eyes. His teeth clicked as he grinded them, silencing the guttural cry stuck in his throat. This moment — he gave himself this one moment to mourn.
No one was ever prepared to lose their children. Herc had tried, God knows he did, from that very first attack in Australia when he thought he'd lost both his wife and son; from that very first deployment with Chuck at his side inside of Striker Eureka; from the very last time he saw his son march into the lift with tears in his eyes.
Nevertheless, he wasn't ready for the absolutely cold and debilitating pain that filled his chest when the readouts from Striker Eureka went completely dark.
As they conducted evasive maneuvers, the belly cameras on the Super Sikorskys showed the titanic wave caused by the detonation. On the console holoscreen, Striker's green dot turned red, blinked once; STATUS – INACTIVE; and then it disappeared altogether.
An abrupt change in the LOCCENT's atmosphere was evident as everyone took in the loss of their Marshal. There was an emptiness in his gut that told him that his only son was gone. The silence was so thick that someone could have cut it with a literal knife.
Dr. Newton Geiszler was the one brave enough to do just that.
"What are they doing?" he asked quietly, watching the feed of Gipsy Danger on the holoscreen. Crippled limb, leaked fuel, breached hull. Their Jaeger was in the red, but even then, Raleigh and Mako pushed on.
With his voice wrought with emotion, Herc replied just as gently, "Finishing the mission…" Herc knew his eyes were shiny with tears; he probably even looked worn, exhausted, just like he felt.
Herc turned slightly, taking in a shaky breath, and was surprised to see Greyson kneeling on the ground. Her head was down, dark hair curtaining her face, with hands mechanically scratching behind Max's ears as he whined. He hadn't even seen her move to console the dog, who likely picked up on the sadness blanketing the command center.
Raleigh's voice broke through the speakers: "LOCCENT, we have the kaiju carcass. We're heading to the Breach."
Greyson's shoulders visibly tensed up, and Herc watched as she raised a hand to palm at her face, swiping at her cheeks.
"You guys better be right. Because one way or another, we're getting this thing done."
Tendo eventually returned to relaying the incoming data. "Almost all systems are critical," he informed them with a sigh. "Gipsy Danger is losing power."
They were so close to finishing out the mission, with two pilots still out on the field. Emotions had to be bottled up, just for a little longer. There was no more time to mourn. There was never time to mourn.
Herc took another steadying breath, blinked back his tears, and squared his shoulders. He was at Tendo's side within seconds, slipping into the role of an Acting Marshal naturally. "Can you reroute it?"
A brief pause as Tendo looked him in the eyes, blinked, and then responded, "I'm trying." His attention returned to the heads-up display feed: Mako's vitals were already starting to drop. Oxygen deprivation. Overloaded damage from the Jaeger.
The remaining external feeds showed that Slattern was making movement difficult for Gipsy Danger's co-pilots, but the two of them had hit the rear jets and jumped off the edge of the sea cliff and into the trench below. Mako drove the Chain Sword into the kaiju and held on; even withstanding the Jaeger's failing systems. Raleigh kept steady, triggering overload protocols and forcing a fuel purge from the chest heat vent, burning right through the son of a bitch.
Slattern's life signature blinked once, and then disappeared as the two of them kept falling. The green dot that was Gipsy Danger turned grey as the instrument readouts estimated them entering the Throat of the Breach.
"They're in," Tendo breathed out. "They're in!"
"It worked," Geiszler remarked. It seemed like everyone let go of a breath they were all holding, all at the same time. There was a small spark of hope again.
A light hand fell on Herc's forearm, and his eyes met Greyson's. Though brief, there was an unspoken understanding that passed between them. Her mouth was pressed into a firm line and her eyes were red and her jaw visibly shook, but Herc didn't hesitate to move out of her way. She sat down in her seat, sniffing as she found her place back at the console.
There was never, ever enough time to mourn.
The feed stuttered and lagged, breaking out in unnatural sounds and sonic booms. Visuals cut out almost immediately. The Jaeger AI relayed, "Oxygen main: left hemisphere, critical levels. Operating at: fifteen percent capacity."
Herc gripped the back of Greyson's chair, hovering as she attempted to reconnect the valve routes remotely. The red alarms went off in the LOCCENT once more, and she froze. "He's…" The Lieutenant cleared her throat. "He's giving Mako his oxygen."
2025, January 12 – 08:18 – Hong Kong Shatterdome, Hong Kong, China
Raleigh's voice was reassuring over the comms, "It's okay now, Mako. We did it. I can finish this alone." Greyson could hear him limiting his breathing, going shallow. "Anyone can fall."
That bastard, Greyson thought dryly. On the edge of consciousness and he starts reminiscing…
"Rals, are you okay?" a worried, eleven-year-old Yancy had asked when his brother fell off a bicycle.
"I think — augh!" Raleigh had hissed when he tried putting weight on his left leg. "Yance, my ankle."
Yancy, once shaggy-haired, had examined his eight-year-old kid-brother's non-mortally wounding injury, seeing no immediate protruding bone. He made sure Raleigh didn't feel ashamed of falling or not succeeding, stating, "Anyone can fall."
He then asked, "Do you know why we fall, kiddo?" Taking Raleigh's arm on his bad side, Yancy leaned is brother against him, helping him hop along. He gave a side-glance, smiling. "We fall so we can learn to get back up."
There was a questioning arch set on one of Raleigh's eyebrows. "You stole that from Batman Begins."
And Yancy laughed.
Greyson shook her head slightly, ridding herself of the lost memory once glimpsed in the Drift.
The HUD screens and Jaeger statuses started dimming down before going offline completely. And then, it all went online again.
Raleigh had turned on the Crisis Command Matrix, the fail-safe implemented into the machinery. Greyson knew that Raleigh was intimately familiar with how it transferred operations to one Ranger; he was going to take control, pilot on his own again.
Raleigh had done it before. Survived it before. She felt a heavier weight in her chest, having taken in his memories when they'd Drifted — he would need to forcibly think and remember to keep his heart beating, his lungs breathing.
Greyson fell back into her tasks, robotic but familiar. She reached for the comms, relaying, "Rals. Your oxygen levels are critical now. You don't have much time." The pod module ejection protocols had started. "Start the core meltdown and get out of there. Do you hear me?"
No response. Oxygen to Raleigh was restored to 100%.
Greyson's voice remained strained. "You come back to us, Becket."
She and Tendo scanned the Jaeger status screen, the Sikorsky belly cameras, and even the satellite remote scanners. Data from Gipsy Danger slowed down the further it went. Trackers and vitals were still, somehow, going strong.
The simulated graphic of the Throat tracked Pod-1 on its way to the surface. But it was just the one. Only one pod had been ejected before the end of the Breach. Not two, like it was supposed to be.
Still, no detonation.
"This… no, this can't be right," Greyson muttered mostly to herself. The sensors weren't lying. Someone ejected from Gipsy; the countdown hadn't started. Herc slammed the console in subsequent anger of the new data.
Static. "LOCCENT, if you can still hear me, I'm initiating reactor override now."
Warning lights flashed. MALFUNCTION. MANUAL ACTIVATION REQUIRED. The external graphic of Gipsy Danger showed up. TRIGGER OFFLINE.
Herc turned from the large holoscreen in the room, his head angling to look at both Tendo and Greyson. "What's going on?"
"Trigger's offline. He has to do it by hand," Tendo answered, swiveling his chair to the other monitor.
Newt's whispered concern caught Greyson's attention: "He's out of time. He has to self-destruct now."
A ping from the scanner, not unlike a subtle warning. Raleigh had detached himself from the rig's arm, releasing the capture holds to the boot latches. Gipsy Danger's balance was shifted when the bottom of the Throat opened, and Greyson stared at the screens like she could even will him to be safe.
"Manual ov—ride —tiated. Core meltd—n T-minus sixty!"
Greyson's legs began to jerk with the nerves, the balls of her feet tapping on the floor. She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, feeling her brows knit together with worry. Come on, Rals, she thought. One last miracle.
Her heart stopped momentarily as Pod-2 ejected. The Jaeger's signal was gone in the next seconds. It flashed across the screen: GIPSY DANGER – STATUS: INACTIVE. A mere few moments felt like years as the dot disappeared from the radars altogether.
Nobody bothered to speak.
The graphic electromagnetic signature of the Throat started to change before her eyes. Patterns grew and broke down, emitting an energy discharge. Stats of the blast and detonation zone popped up.
Greyson felt her heart begin pumping freely when the screen monitor said: THROAT COLLAPSE. "It's a direct hit!" she exclaimed suddenly, a bittersweet grin spreading across her lips.
Tendo stood up with the news, a rush of relief evident from the way his shoulders slacked. "The Breach has collapsed!" he yelled out.
Cheers and whoops erupted in the command center. Greyson was sure that a few tears were shed by some — possibly all. Newt and Hermann pulled each other into a long-overdue embrace. The former then clapped both Tendo and Greyson on the back.
Greyson let a small, exhausted laugh to slip past her lips when Tendo pulled her in for his own bone-crushing hug. "We did it!" he crowed, pumping his fist into the air like he had just won gold in the Summer Olympics. (Were those still going on, with all the fuss about the Kaiju War? Greyson couldn't even remember.)
After Hong Kong's Double Event, many staffers in the Shatterdome felt as if this last mission, Operation Pitfall, wouldn't be the slightest bit successful. But they were proven very wrong.
Today mankind had won, despite the heavy losses.
Herc gave a sharp order for the pilots to get the Jumphawks and have the nearby Super Sikorskys to pick up Raleigh and Mako when they resurfaced. "The pods," he brought back to attention. "Do we have the pods?"
Greyson turned her head back to the monitors, and the others followed her lead. Tendo took a seat in his chair, isolating the pod stats. Familiar evacuation pod graphics showed the temperature, pressure, and vitals. Pod-1 was glowing green while Pod-2 was in red. The satellite remote sensors picked up on the pod module that housed Mako as it breached the surface.
"Visuals on first pod," announced Tendo as she emerged from the waters. Her oxygen tanks were full. The satellites still continued to scan the depths for Pod-2. "Tracking's solid. Vital signs are good."
Blood pounded in her ears; even then, Greyson couldn't help but notice the hitch in everyone's breaths. Her fingers clacked on the keyboard, raising the visuals when Herc questioned the whereabouts of Raleigh's escape pod. "I'm tracking it," she replied, "but I'm getting no vital signs."
Not him too, Greyson ruminated. There has to be an error. Raleigh couldn't have gone all that way and come back to just—
A few tense minutes passed before Pod-2 broke the surface of the Pacific. Mako's DriveSuit picked up on her spiking heartrate. The weight of her pod lessened. Greyson wondered if she swam after him.
Tendo and Greyson both worked to get the circuitry of the second pod online; it kept repeating the same damn thing: UNAVAILABLE. Greyson looked up briefly when Herc placed a hand on her shoulder, and for the small gesture she was grateful.
The manual release on Raleigh's pod was activated from the outside. Everyone in the LOCCENT was quiet, holding their breaths, as if it made a difference. "I can't find his pulse." Mako's voice broke the tension, but it was like a heavier weight fell into the pit of Greyson's stomach when the words left her lips. "Guys, I don't think he's breathing."
Herc breathed out, "Can you read his pulse?" His question was focused towards the control techs. A small sign of hope was in his voice; hope that something had changed. "Does he have a pulse?" he asked once more.
Greyson shook her head slightly, but it was enough for him to see.
Tendo called out to them over the comms. "Mako, listen to me. It could be that the sensors aren't working." He stole a glance at the red sensors of Pod-2, with the same word mocking them: UNAVAILABLE. "We can't be sure," he said, trying to sound optimistic.
It was silent in the LOCCENT again. All celebration had ceased. Greyson's chest felt tight, and tears pooled in her eyes. Not him too.
Then, a strained "You're squeezing me too tight" was heard coming from the speakers. The Lieutenant exhaled when she heard Raleigh cough. "I couldn't breathe," he said with a slight laugh.
Greyson watched from the corner of her eyes as Herc stepped forward to the console comms. Again, this time aiming to speak over the Shatterdone's PA: "This is Marshal Hercules Hansen. The Breach is sealed." A tense moment arrived that everyone had been waiting for over a decade to come. "Stop the clock!"
The celebrations returned abruptly: Coworkers hugged each other once again. They all turned to the large overhead clock in the LOCCENT and watched as it rushed and flipped down to zeroes all across the board, never to be started again.
While everyone around her seemed elated and relieved, Greyson felt the harsh bit of reality blanket over her once more. It was… devastating. Lonely. This was not the scene she'd pictured when Operation Pitfall had first been developed; too many people were missing.
Max began barking to his old heart's content. He must have been able to feel the renewed excitement and change of atmosphere; felt the joy and exhaustion surrounding them. However, Greyson felt slightly envious of Max in that he couldn't feel the pain his lone master was feeling. Later on, when it would be bedtime and Chuck's bed would be empty; tomorrow, when he expects Chuck to take him out for a walk around the tarmac; a week from now, when Chuck never returns; maybe then he would realize the absence.
Greyson watched solemnly as the new Marshal looked down at his bulldog with a sullen, but amused expression. When he looked back up, Herc let out a silent sigh. Or did he? Greyson couldn't be sure; the tears were so thick that she couldn't even see two feet in front of her.
She had always believed she was the strong one when it came to parents dying or those who walked out; Rangers dying or those who defected. Greyson thought that she was strong enough not to cry and sniff and sob in the middle of the LOCCENT, but it was when Herc came close and pulled her into his chest with his good arm, letting her stain his shirt with her tears, did she fall apart at the seams.
Sometimes being strong meant having the capabilities of crying in public and sobbing very loudly.
There was a sort of poetry to Herc's compassion as well. His first act as Marshal was to comfort a grieving loved one of a lost pilot, be it Greyson or himself.
It was a sunny day. The twelfth, she thought. Sunday. The rest of the world probably wasn't going to end today, but Greyson's world already had.
2025, January 12 – 14:40 – Hong Kong Shatterdome, Hong Kong, China
No one had come to find her all afternoon. Most people had given Greyson Darcy a wide berth throughout the day. She hadn't talked to anyone apart from Herc. There was… an unspoken agreement between everyone: To let her grieve on her own.
She had gone to the hangars, climbed up to the gantry, and sat against the railing. Just sat there and stared at the empty Jaeger bay that used to house Striker Eureka. The Shatterdome seemed significantly emptier without the sentinel-like mechas standing watch over the thousands of workers. There was an obvious feeling of loss, the heaviness in her chest remaining.
Her cellphone was lost somewhere within her unit, having been tossed aside in an uncharacteristic act of subsequent annoyance. After news of Operation Pitfall was revealed to the public, her call log and text messages didn't stop coming in. Close and distant relatives, forgotten friends, acquainted reporters — they all asked the same thing: What happened?
She didn't bother answering any of their questions; they would all find out eventually. There was, however, one person who had sent Greyson a message that she did read. He was saved in her contacts as 'S.H.', and they hadn't spoken in years.
All he said was, He called me before the deployment. I'm sorry.
Greyson stepped to the railing, leaning her arms against the cold metal. Scramble Alley was nearly empty, save for a few techs and staffers coming and going. Soon everything on her mind was just out there, out in the air, and no one was present to judge her for saying any of it.
"You broke your promise, Charlie…" Her tears were hot as they started to roll down her cheeks. Chuck had made her a promise, to come back, and now he was just… gone. It didn't hit Greyson until that moment that the last thing he left behind in the world was an unborn child.
Chuck was selfish sometimes but had a heart of gold. Always with that branded grin on his lips. He was loving. Stubborn. A big damn hero.
Greyson sobbed.
2025, January 13 – 02:54 – Hong Kong Shatterdome, Hong Kong, China
Small bouts of sadness had hit her throughout the day, before little things would come as distractions and ease her mind from the pain. Work still had to be performed, and Greyson shoved the grief and heartache away. Consequently, nothing lasted forever.
Greyson had tried to push everything away, to forget what had transpired for a moment. She tried to go to sleep, to leave her worries to her consciousness, and to regain her energy. But that attempt completely failed as the hours dragged on.
Except for the pain. The pain was always constant.
Her chest hadn't stopped aching since Chuck had left with that last kiss and left a hole in her heart that was the shape of him. His smell was faint, still lingering on her sheets, but it was the thought of his empty bed and unwashed clothes that got her out of her room.
The walk to Chuck's old unit was a blur; she'd done it a thousand times. However, it wasn't until she'd unlocked the door that she was pulled out of the dizzying haze.
In the dark, she could see there was a body laying down in Chuck's bed. With wide eyes, she tentatively reached for the light beside the door. When it flashed on, the person moved, a head poking up to reveal—
"Herc?"
"Sonny," the new Marshal muttered hoarsely. Clearing his throat, he pushed himself up in bed. "I, um… Would've thought you'd be having a rest for the first time in a while."
"Couldn't;" that one word was all that came from Greyson's lips. How could she, really? What was she going to do now? It was too loud and too quiet. Too cold.
Too lonely.
They stared at each other for a silent moment. The Lieutenant rubbed at her wrist with one hand while the Marshal ran a hand through his short-cropped hair. "I, uh… Shut the door, come in. Sorry, I was—"
"Don't worry about it," she replied softly, pulling the door closed and moving to sit at the chair beside Chuck's old desk. Things had been left they were before. Nothing was moved at least, from what she could tell. The only thing different was the view of wrinkled sheets where Herc sat, blinking himself fully awake.
Silence. That was all there was. Surprisingly, Greyson was the first one to break it. "How are you holding up?" she asked, not looking in Herc's direction as she did so.
"I feel like I'm the one that's supposed to be asking you that," Herc truthfully remarked, almost dodging the question. He threw the sheets off of his legs, inching his way to the foot of the bed to be able to talk with his Lieutenant.
After another lengthy silence, Greyson sighed. All that came out of her mouth was "I miss him."
"I do, too, kiddo," Herc muttered, his head falling slightly. Greyson watched as his bottom lips disappeared between his teeth, and then he was standing up, moving to the small bedside table and pulling something out from its drawer.
When Herc turned around, Greyson's eyes focused on the holoscreen in his hands. "Is that…?"
"I haven't been able to unlock it," Herc informed her. "Don't know the passcode."
She smiled slightly, getting to her feet and moving to his side. "It's just 'HERC' in numbers," answered Greyson as she took a seat beside him on the mattress. The Filipina Lieutenant held her hand out for the device and immediately typed in '4-3-7-2'. She added, amused, "Chuck changed it a year ago. Said you'd never be able to figure it out."
The lockscreen of Chuck and Greyson disappeared to reveal the middle page and background, this one a family photo of the Hansens, when Chuck was younger. Greyson watched Herc's reaction closely, but his face didn't reveal his thoughts. She handed the holoscreen back to him, and he immediately found the Task Manager, opening the last application used.
The files gallery was filled with a lot of things; pictures of Greyson, of Max, prints of numerous Jaegers, mission reports, and videos. Tons of them. Some looked to be minutes long, others mere seconds. All of them had Chuck Hansen written all over.
Herc clicked on a video. It was focused on a sunset falling behind the horizon of an empty beach. Waves were crashing against the shore. The camera panned to the left, zooming into a younger Greyson Darcy. She was wearing an oversized PPDC sweater (obviously Chuck's) and sitting relaxed on the sand.
She was staring, admiring the light, and then she noticed the person beside her. Greyson suddenly covered her face in the video, pushing the screen away. "Chuck, oh my God, quit it!"
Laughter. His laughter. The Greyson in present time felt her heart to hear it again, whole and real and heavy in his chest.
The video flipped to show Chuck. He donned a red bull cap atop his head, and he was wearing a grey hoodie. Chuck was smiling — beaming, really — and he leaned into Greyson's side. He started to sing: "You're insecure, don't know what for. You're turnin' heads when you walk through the doo—"
Greyson laughed. "Shut up." With a grin, she pressed her lips against Chuck's. The video stopped after the device fell into the sand.
Another video was chosen: "You're gonna be a grandfather, old man."
"Keep tellin' you never to call me — what the hell are you doing?" The Herc shown in the video had walked out of the bathroom with nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. "Boy, best cut that or I'll—"
Herc cleared his throat beside Greyson, and she chuckled. The next video was just of her eating cereal in the mess hall. "Are you doing videos again?" It cut off abruptly.
Before he could turn off the holoscreen, Greyson pointed at the video thumbnails. "Wait. That's… that's new, I think."
They played the video, longer than most of the others. From out of frame, Chuck sat down in front of the camera. "January the eleventh. Pitfall's going to continue, even without Dad. You'd think 'Okay, I get it, I'm prepared for the worst', but you hold out that small hope, see, and that's what fucks you up. That's what kills you. I think some writer said that, but right now I'm the one saying it." Chuck's voice was low, barely being picked up by the built-in mic, but it was enough.
"Hopefully, all goes as planned and we get out of this alive." He looked down at something in his hands. Chuck snickered bitterly, shaking his head. "As if things have gone as planned lately…" He leaned onto the desk, fiddling with a black box in his hands. "Two Jaeger teams down, Mori's barely back on her feet, and now there could be more kaiju popping onto the grid…"
Both Herc and Greyson sat in anticipation, keen to listen on what Chuck was going to say next. Had said, rather. Greyson's attention stayed trained on the small, square box that he fiddled around with, focusing on it even as his words washed over her.
"I hope it's not too late to be the man my father always wanted me to be," was what Chuck continued with. "I need to do this to keep the three of them alive, to give them their best shot; give them lives. Hoping it'd be with me, so this thing's going to get deleted anyway."
Chuck's eyes focused dead center on the camera lens, and it felt as if all the air had disappeared from Greyson's lungs.
"But if that doesn't happen, well… No one's going to be missing this mug all too much." A sad smile masked the worry clear in his voice. "Love, if you're watching this, then it means we failed and we're all dead anyway. Or maybe you just got to this before I did – in that case, sorry. If it isn't the latter, I wouldn't want the little one to grow up without a dad now.
"And Dad…" Chuck's eyes fell slightly, and then he looked back into the lens. "You've always known everything. Too many things left unsaid, and all that shit." He hesitated when he reached forward to turn off the camera, and then just stopped all together.
"I'll catch you in the Drift, Dad."
A/N: Reviews and favorites are my life's blood. I appreciate emoji spams and keyboard smashes! Happy new year to everyone~