I don't own Sailor Moon or Pacific Rim.

The cracks in my mind.

II.

"New boy in the mess hall" were the first words out of Minako's mouth when she came down the line to their usual bench, her food tray balanced precariously on what could only be a pile of eviscerated textbooks.

Rei should have known better than to expect anything but the worst from the rumour mill.

"Can't people just shut up about it for a few hours," she grumbled. "Just wait 'til after shift when I pass out, I beg you." She picked at the lumpy gravy. "I've heard enough talk about him in the last four hours to last the remainder of my career."

Minako gave an unapologetic shrug as she swept the notebooks and papers into a pile by her feet. "He's very pretty," she commented, unperturbed. "Looks just like Adonis. Kastor says he's your new partner?" She fixed Rei with a pointed look as she sat down – "Will you be okay?"

She appreciated the blonde's straight-forward approach – she really did – and she hemmed a reluctant affirmative. "I met him earlier. I doubt we're going to make it."

"You said that about Adonis four years ago," Mina pointed out through a mouthful of rice.

Rei grimaced. "Yes, and now the man is dead…?"

"This is war, sweetheart." She rolled her eyes as Zephyr, the only man to ever get away with calling her 'sweetheart' announced himself with his usual poetic bullshit. "Casualties abound, no time to mourn the fallen."

She turned with a ready retort, when the words died in her mouth.

"Rei, you've met Jason."

He had that shit-eating grin on again. "We've had the pleasure."

Of course he was here, blond hair and all.

At least he is fully clothed, her traitorous mind supplied. Or maybe we preferred the other...? For the second time that day, her mouth snapped shut.

Zephyr looked at her curiously as they sat down to eat. "Are you okay, Rei? New Drift partners aren't easy," he elbowed the man in question, "And this is all happening very fast."

That's it. "Will people stop asking me that?" Rei fairly growled as she shovelled her potatoes into her mouth. Everything suddenly tasted like cardboard. Dropping her fork with a clatter, she shoved the plate towards Mina as she got up. "You bottomless pits finish it – I'm done here." Fuck manners; she needed to leave before she said something she regretted.

The port of Vladivostok was a veritable fortress, but she knew just the spot to get some air. It was snowing when she emerged in the winter night, the coastal winds whipping up the flakes into great white flurries. She wasn't dressed for the temperature, but couldn't find it in herself to go back. It was colder at the table than it was out here anyway. How could everyone just replace him so quickly? She and Adonis were friendly but they weren't friends – hardly a unique pattern amongst co-pilots. He was always in the back of her mind, like that feeling of knowing someone was behind you without having to turn around. She lived all his memories, his hopes, fears, dreams, and desires, over and over, and that was quite enough without having to share the mundane of every day with him too. But everyone else – they were acting like he had just fucked off back home for the weekend. It was a sizeable operations base but he had sparring buddies, poker buddies, mess buddies, fuck buddies… you wouldn't think, going by the way the world had just rolled on in his absence. Soon, it would be like he hadn't existed at all.

Is that how it was when they died – barely mourned and forgotten like yesterday's news? A choked sob rose in her throat as the sudden realisation of it chilled her to the bone. Yes, this was a war, and they were just soldiers, and when soldiers died they were relegated to the bowels of oblivion. The knowledge of it suddenly made her struggle for breath, and she gasped desperately into her trembling hands.

"Rei, Rei? Jesus—"

She was suddenly enveloped in a huge greatcoat that was still sufficed with body heat, and enfolded into a tight embrace. Shivering violently, she couldn't even bring herself to struggle away from the seeping warmth. The flood gates opened.

"I knew, but I never knew," she couldn't get the tears to stop. She swiped at them impotently; her hands trapped in thick fabric as the strange someone essentially scooped her into his arms and shoved her back through the hatch.

"No partnership ends because one pilot dies," she sobs. "Memorials are for two pilots. So when only one pilot goes, someone new just replaces them and that's the end. Everyone forgets, no matter how close you are. It was a week ago and everyone has already forgotten!" her scream was muffled into what she assumed was his shoulder.

"Listen to me, Rei." The man grasped her arms and wide-eyed, she realised it was the blond brother – Jason. "No one's going to forget Adonis, okay?" Her legs gave out, and he folded her to the floor before she could crumple into a heap all by herself. "Everyone copes different. Mourning is private. What you are seeing are just coping mechanisms."

She hiccoughed, trying to bury herself deeper into the coat. "All I could think about was myself," she said in a small voice. "We really were lucky to be pilots together, and then his carelessness took it all away. I told him he was stupid," she shivered at the memory.

"Stop." Jason's eyes were closed tightly. "The moment I found my brother was also the moment I found out he was dead. For a kid raised in the projects, you don't know how—" he broke off with a shake of his head. "I don't even know what he looked like. Jesus."

"'course you don't know — you're just a scam," she cracked weakly, trying to get her teeth to stop chattering.

He chuckled softly. "Everyone says we look alike, you know. It's always the first thing they say. The hair and—" –and as he turned to look down at her, he broke off, cursing loudly. "Christ, Rei, your skin is— your lips are blue."

"Is cold," she mumbled. He was shameless, trying to hit on her at a time like this, and she told him so.

"Gods' sakes," he muttered.

The world heaved and shifted, and she was weightless for a blissful moment. Then every movement started reverberating to her skull, and she screwed her eyes shut.

Later she would be told – to her mortification – that Jason had carried her all the way to the infirmary, bundled like a lost puppy in his giant wool coat, only to be told by the fractious medic on call to have some vodka and keep the hatches shut the way nature intended, and that they were being 'vere drematic'.

Welcome to Vladivostok, Adonis 2.0. Enjoy the Russian climate and all the irascible characters that cross your path.

In her quarters, she lay wide awake, the bright green numbers of her clock mocking her from their spot on the windowsill. It was four in the morning, and Mina was enviably snoring away nearby, spread-eagled under her duvet.

Rei climbed out of bed gingerly. Someone – probably the aforementioned blonde – had changed her into the thick red onesie that lived balled into a corner of her shelf (except on Christmas Eve). The skin of her hands and feet were tight, like the skin had been over-pulled, and she tried to refrain from scratching as she walked over to her desk.

In a drawer was a pile of dusty relics. She'd kept it tidy and reverent a few years ago, but over time, these had become the memories she found progressively harder to revisit. He was right. People did mourn differently. She ran her itching fingers over old mementos, curled photographs. There was one she reached for – their training cohort from four and half years earlier. Someone had sneaked the shot in the mess hall while everyone was mid-mouthful. There was Icarus; Yaren, Peleus, Iona, faces distorted by chewing motions, and time. It was a lifetime ago. She traced her fingertip over the face of a blond man: younger, leaner, with long blond hair and a shit-eating idiot grin.

Tugging on her boots, she padded out into the hallway with the photograph, ignoring the few early birds already up for dawn shift. She rarely made her way through the base like this, and even rarer was this trip to the quarters at the other end of the compound, but she knew the way as if she had walked it every day for years. Adonis'– no, now Jason's room, tucked in a tangle of corridors that reminded her of the inside of a submarine. Left, right, left doorway, and there it was, the inscription AL for Adonis Lan not yet scratched off the door. She stood there awkwardly; now she was here, she had no idea what she wanted to do. She pinched the photograph between her fingers. There was enough space under the door—

She was, of course, interrupted by the door suddenly swinging open to reveal the man himself, as shocked as she was to find her hovering there.

"You're up," he floundered for the words. "You're here." He was holding a bag and a towel, evidently on the way to some morning exercises. His fatigues slung low on his hips, and his dog tags clinked against his sternum as he shifted his weight.

Unfamiliar warmth bloomed in her chest. "Uh." She fumbled. "I came to give you this." She proffered it by its corner without much ceremony. "And… thanks. For earlier," she added abruptly. She could feel her cheeks reddening, and she didn't wait for him to examine the photo before turning on her heel.

She let her hair fall down to shield her face, but her steps felt somewhat lighter than before. No more tears. She suddenly broke into a jog, then a sprint. She tore down the hallways, her heart beating hot in her chest, the breath burning in her lungs and her throat as she rounded corner after corner like she was beset by the hounds of Hades. But somehow, this time, alive and panting and her legs on fire, it no longer felt like she was running away.

Author's note

Yum.

xx