Chapter 2, woot woot! Still don't own anything, hope you guys are enjoying the story and thanks again to those who have reviewed. This takes place (as does the next chapter) in 2025.
She had never answered his question, Raleigh thought, rather bemused, as he followed her and Pentacost inside. It was fine though, she was different from what he expected too. When Pentacost had mentioned "his assistant, and the head technician on the Gipsy Danger reboot" would meet them in Hong Kong, he had been expecting some one older, someone more weathered. Not this slip of a woman, with fire in her eyes and hair the same color as his girl's lights. Looking back, he probably should have realized from the start, from that bright edge, that boldness, that take-no-prisoners stance and walk, that Mako would be another great love of his life.
It had been a mistake to battle him in the kwoon. Not just the point, but the entire fight had been a loss of control. But he had mocked her and neither she nor Pentacost could deal with an affront to pride. And oh, it had felt good to fight, to let all that pent up energy, all that anger and rage and control out on someone who could take it, take it and give it back and then look at her afterward with those sapphire eyes and tell her he felt something. Particularly when that someone was rather nice to look back at. Particularly when he wasn't afraid to look away first. The Kaidanovskys, she knew from their stories, had known they were drift compatible from the first prisoner they took down together. The Weis from the second they knew what drift compatibility was. Raleigh might have known from first fight, but she knew when he walked away from her door.
Bathed in the cobalt light of the dome, seeing Gipsy Danger's heart, he let her see his. All his pain, and fear, and sadness. She wantd to close the milimeter between their two hands, wanted to comfort him with human touch. The Drift, powerful as it was, had its limitations. Today, they had been on full display, sneaking into the weakness of the two pilots, all intentions washed away in a storm. But touch, that she could control. That, she had controlled in the kwoon and wanted to do again. But this was more intimate than that. A touch now would be a deliberate choice, with no pretense to surround it. And she was not quite ready for that. So she let them sink into a silence that was still, and deep, and if it was not quite perfect, well, what in the world was?
It was a dumb question really. "You okay?".
The had just destroyed the two fiercest kaijus ever to come through the breach. Five people, two jaegers were down. They were both battered and bruised, and when they got back to the dome they would have to face Pentacost, who was, by some esimations, far more terrifying than the reptilian monsters could even dream of being. So what could they do besides laugh?
"Yeah. You?"
The ocean was not supposed to be that flaming shade. It was supposed to be cerulean, or lapis, or the dark navy of Raleigh's favorite sweater, the one that used to be Yancy's. This was wrong, this was all wrong this was not how it was supposed to go. Simple, standard two-team formation, that had been the plan, Gipsy Danger covering Striker Eureka's back. Now, Gipsy's lights mocked them as Striker's changed, signaling the world falling apart. The breach, when Gipsy Danger fell, was indigo.
The ocean and the sky met, the first thing she saw when her pod opened up. Then the steel of Raleigh's popped to the surface, and she dove, paying the frigid waters no mind. Distantly, she registered the voices back at the dome, but she ignored those too, clutching desperately to the one thing she might, might have left. Then Raleigh spoke and the volume went back up on the world. But she could hear Max bark, just barely, amid the excitement, and she was picturing Hansen's face. She decided then and there, she would help him to tell Max that his master wasn't coming home.
And then. A third pod came to the surface, on the side opposite from where Mako's was still floating. They looked a each other. They dove.