The sea was endless. Nothing but dark skies and crashing wave mixed with the roar of the maelstrom. Frigid saltwater crashed against her panels as she fell back.

Half blind she searched for him. She could hear his voice on the wind, crying out a name that wasn't hers. Like dying embers she could feel him drifting away, his fear and desperation trailing behind him like ash.

Blood mixed with water and still she couldn't find him. With the roar of a monster at her back she dove in, reaching as he was dragged further and further down.
She needed to reach him, to save this other half of herself, but her strength seemed to fail her, her wires and beams melting down into something more fleshy and frail.

A scream escaped her newfound lips as his visor cracked and his lungs began to fill with sea water. That's when something grabbed her hand.

Gipsy's eyes snapped open, lungs heaving for air as she shot to the stormy surface. Coughing and spluttering, she flailed around in the dark ocean, the spray battering her face as the waves threatened to drag her back under.

"Quit squirming! Don't make me drown you!" Striker let out a snarl as he fixed his grip around Gipsy's waste.

"Yancy! YANCY!" She screamed into the wind, golden eyes wild with a desperate light as she clawed at something that wasn't there.

This idiot is going to drown us both if she doesn't snap out of it. "Shutup! Yancy's dead! He died a long time ago!"

"No! He's still out there, Raleigh! I can still save him!" She struggled further, making him lose his grip on the broken piece of boat he was clinging to.

"Gipsy, snap outta it! You're caught in a memory!" Even through the dark, he could still see the fear etched onto her face. He had never seen her look so terrified, so in pain. He didn't like that. The Gipsy Danger he knew wasn't supposed to look like that.

"Let me go, I need to save him! He's dying!"

"Gipsy!" He pulled her close till her back was right up against his chest. He could smell the saltwater soaking into her hair as he whispered into her ear. "Gipsy, please…"

He needed to do something, anything, to break her out of this. And only one thing came to mind.

With a swirl of water he pulled her around to face him, and before she could even protest he had pressed his face up against hers. Striker could taste the frigidness of her lips against his, cold skin clashing against cold skin in an intimacy he had never known before. The kiss was awkward, rough, even, but it did the trick.

When he pulled away, her eyes were clear. "Uhhh….wha-? Where am I? WHERE DID THE BOAT GO?!"

"We got capsized," he said more gruffly then he wanted to, struggling with the surge of strange and new feelings coursing through him. "You must of hit your head pretty hard or something cuz' when I pulled you up, you were stuck in a drift memory."

Gipsy blinked, shivering against him, too cold to mind their proximity as they shared the board together. "Y-yeah…I remember that….I thought it was so real. How did you get me out of it?"

The Aussia stared at her, confounded. "Wait so you don't remember-?!"

"Striker, why are you blushing?!"

"N-nothing! Just shutup!" He quickly looked away from her, his heart racing frantically.

"Aw, come on! Tell me! Was it weird? Did you have to pick my nose or something?"

"Y-yeah, that's it," he laughed nervously, "you got me. Now let's go find the others."

"Oh!" Gipsy suddenly gasped in horror, "oh no, I hope they're alright! Do you think Coyote…?!"

"Cherno and Crimson may be stupid, but they're not stupid enough to let him sink to the bottom of the ocean. I'm sure he's okay, now let's go," his relief of being able to change the subject was placed by the sudden apprehension of his missing friends. He needed to find them, he owed them that much.

Picking a random direction, they began to kick, calling out various names into the waves, hoping, praying for an answer.

After about an hour, they're voices were too hoarse to continue. Fortunately, the waves had let up, settling into an eerie calm. Slowly the sky became brighter, bright enough that they could see the flickering lights of the shoreline, off in the not-too-far distance.

Two tired teens sighed with relief. They hadn't been washed out to sea, so that was one thing to be thankful for.

Another half hour of kicking and paddling went by before Gipsy decided to break the tired silence. "You know, that was my first real memory," she spoke through chattering teeth. To Striker's horror her skin had become frosty pale and her lips were turning blue.

"Whaddya' mean," he replied distractedly as he ushered her up onto the board, where she lay, shivering.

"That memory…hallucination thingy I was trapped in. That was the first real memory I ever had. The first time I ever really became aware of myself was when Yancy died," an unusual sadness crept into her eyes, her voice nothing but a whisper as she curled up. "It's funny how that works, huh? The first thing I ever really felt was his pain."

Striker was silent for a moment, then slowly, tentatively, he reached over and squeezed Gipsy's shivering hand. She flinched in surprise.

"My first memory…the one thing I really remember, was back at the Hong Kong Shatterdome. I remember standing there in my bay, suddenly realizing that I could see, and the first thing that I spot….well…"

"Well, what?"

"The first thing I saw was you being rolled into the hanger."

"Oh…" she didn't know how to respond to that. He had never seen such an emotion on his face before, and it confused her.

Their eyes locked for a few seconds, until Striker decided he had to break the mood. 'Yeah, and from the second I saw you, I knew that you were nothing but a ditzy bucket-head!"

"KAIJU-BUTT!" Roaring, she grabbed his head and dunked it underneath the surface.

"Hey, it sounds like Gipsy is murdering Striker over there, let's go watch!" A familiar voice cut through the pre-dawn darkness. Both jaegers stopped trying to kill each other and turned in the direction of the noise.

'Crimsy, is that you?!" Striker couldn't hide his grin as he shouted back.

"No, it's Slattern, come back from the grave to annoy you," came the jovial reply.

"I AM HERE, TOO!" Another voice joined in, causing Gipsy to whoop too happily for Striker not to be jealous.

'CHERNO! YOU'RE ALIVE!" She fist pumped the air as three figures floated into view on the half sunken remains of the boat.

'I-I-I-I'm not dead, either," Coyote sat shivering between his two friends, trying to smile weakly. "Th-th-though I really don't like the ocean anymore. A-A-Ariel lied. It's n-n-n-not better down where it's wetter. "

Striker and Gipsy both led out thunderous cheers at Tango's return to the world of the conscious.

"Come on, let's go join them," Gipsy slid back into the water and began to paddle.

"-Then after that lets go home and move to a place where we never have to see the ocean ever again," Striker let out a snicker, trying to hide the pain in his eyes, the ghost of a kiss still lingering on his lips.

TO BE CONTINUED! The StrikerxGipsy part was only supposed to take up a few paragraphs of this chapter...then I really got into it, haha. Apologies for it being kinda one sided (for the moment) I just wanted to give Striker a little bit of grief after all the jerky things he said and did in this story, and perhaps try to use this as character development for him. :P Anywho, I hoped you liked this special edition double update! Reviews, please? *holds up chibi cherno*