Author's Note: Many thanks as always for the reviews and feedback! My Tumblr now has a short fanon side story giving a little background on the crew of Yankee Star and Bruce Gage, if anyone is interested.

Chapter Twenty: Really Great Ideas

June 22, 2017, eighteen days prior to launch of Gipsy Danger…

Tensions eased a little on the five-hour flight up north with Bruce to serve as buffer/facilitator of conversation. It didn't hurt that Yancy was asleep and Tanisha was drowsing for most of the trip. There was one thing the right-hemisphere pilots had in common, Raleigh mused: they were both not morning people.

"How long since you were up at Kodiak?" he asked Caleb.

His fellow "lefty" considered it. "Not since we got the simulator up and running in LA... end of August, so almost a year."

"What was the curriculum like when you were a candidate?" Tendo asked. "Must've been a work in progress."

Bruce chuckled. "Oh, it was. The Twobies were really the first actual 'class,' and it was basically us figuring out our Jaegers and telling them what we knew, fall of 2015."

"Pentecost and the Easterners came up with the Jaeger Bushido system to dial up drift compatibility," Caleb told them.

"Don't tell Tessori; we all called it Jaeger Karate," said one of Yankee's techs. "It seemed so Bruce Lee until the first time they started doing it in a Jaeger."

Raleigh grinned sheepishly. "When Yance and I started... we weren't that serious. It was sort of a whim. First time I really, y'know, wanted to make the cut was right before you guys were deployed, when they took us outside to see Yankee Star doing the same drills we were learning. Coolest thing ever."

Caleb's smile was finally unreserved. "We were the first ones who started doing that, y'know. She's meant for shooting, but not like a gun. We had to learn to move in her, so we started adapting the Bushido. It was pretty cool."

Bruce slapped his forehead. "I forgot you were the ones who set that trend! Yeah, Tango Tasmania got us all dancing, but Yankee Star was the team that got us pushing the fighting envelope."

Somebody whistled in appreciation, waking Tanisha, but Yancy just mumbled and buried his face in Raleigh's shoulder. Raleigh rolled his eyes. "Running for miles with double weights, Bushido, biochem? No problem. Getting up before ten a.m.? He still can't handle it."

There were a few groans of agreement, but most of the others laughed. Tanisha rubbed her eyes. "Some people're night owls," she said. "Late at night's sometimes the only time you can get stuff done without people interrupting."

"Oh, Yance is no night owl. He's just a lazy ass." She actually cracked a small grin at that.

"We're about an hour from landing. There's still coffee up there if you want some," Tendo offered.

"Hell, yeah." Tanisha stumbled upright and navigated the narrow aisle to the galley.

"You guys were the first open admission class, then?" Caleb asked.

"Not them, that was the one before: 2016-A," said Bruce. "Eden, Prophet, and Coyote 2.0."

"Oh, yeah, I remember that. A couple thousand applied, about three hundred got admitted, and fifty made the first cut," recalled Penelope Jefferson. "The press was bitching that they had impossible standards." She shot Raleigh and Yancy a look that might have been respectful. "I know Pentecost wouldn't lower the bar when he came in for your class."

"He didn't," Bruce confirmed. Raleigh wished Yancy was awake for this conversation. His brother was still tense about the Yankee crew's opinion of them; it might have eased his mind.

Tendo winked at Raleigh and told the Yankee crew, "We saw these two coming a mile away. Maybe not at the start of first term, but by the end? And when we started drift tests? They were way out in front."

Bruce nodded. "None of the first term requirements are secret. People prepare, they practice, more make it. If piloting a Jaeger was easy, everyone would do it."

"We graduated three teams," Raleigh told Caleb. "This last class had six. Captain D'onofrio said the Chinese and Japanese are pre-testing recruits for drift compatibility."

"I heard that. They're a step ahead of the West in a lot of ways," he admitted.

"Well, the Breach is a hell of a lot closer to them. Their cities are bigger too; they've got a lot of reasons to be nervous," Bruce said. But then he smirked. "I do know they've had their share of personality conflicts, though. Tessori's been bitching out Vic and Gunnar for how bad they've been doing in the group ops."

Several of the Gipsy crew - Raleigh included - started snickering. "Uh-oh, is Tessori one of the planners?"

"Yeah, hell, he's one of the senior Fightmasters for the whole Corps. Why?"

Now Cady, Antwan, and Raleigh were cracking up. "Muh?" Yancy grunted as Raleigh jostled him.

Shooting a wink at the other guys, Raleigh said, "I may not have thought this through."

Bruce and Team Yankee were staring at them. "I'm missing something, obviously," said Bruce.

"Hang on - so, Yance, still mad at Tessori about the Final Spar?" Raleigh asked his groggy brother.

Coming back with her coffee clutched to her chest like a talisman, Tanisha shot them a startled look. "Wait, you're talking about the - the guy Tessori put in a choke hold last year?"

"Nuh-uh! That was one of the little guys," Caleb protested.

Now Raleigh was astonished (and rather offended) as his former classmates burst into laughter. "Little guys?!"

Tendo joyfully pointed at Raleigh and crowed to Bruce and the Yankee crew, "Seriously! That was him!"

"And Master Tessori is on Big Brother's shit list to this day!" Antwan announced. "Yancy was this close to jumping in there! Cady and me were holding him back with five other guys!"

Now awake and following the conversation, Yancy scowled, which only made the others laugh harder. "He went overboard."

Raleigh couldn't believe Yancy was still torqued about that. "He didn't hurt me, dumbass."

The crew of Yankee Star, most of them United States Marines and combat veterans, were thunderstruck. "God. Damn," Penelope breathed. "Everyone was talking about that. Did Pentecost really have to stop it?"

"Uh..." Raleigh's memory was a bit fuzzy on the details of how that fight had ended, but Antwan and Cady were nodding.

Bruce was staring at him like he'd never seen him before. "I can't believe I never made that connection! The rumor mill said it was one of the younger guys."

"The youngest," Tendo confirmed. "Or at least the youngest after first cut. I didn't see it. Wish I had, but we all heard about it too."

"It was epic," sighed Cady. "Some guys went longer, the ones with more fight experience, you could tell, but this kid kept going until he couldn't even crawl and would... not... quit. All the judges were looking... kinda like you guys are looking right now." He saw Yancy's expression and cracked up again. "Aww, Yance, you're so cute when you get protective."

"Bite me," Yancy grumbled.

"Sorry, babe, you're not my type. Why don't you tell that story more?" Cady demanded of Raleigh. "Shit, I'd be bragging about that to everybody!"

"Truth is, I... hadn't really thought of it like that." Raleigh grinned sheepishly. "And I also don't quite remember how it ended."

That got them all going again. It was a novel sensation. Even after making Ranger Ready, it still threw Raleigh to imagine that he'd really done something noteworthy, let alone separate from Yancy. Maybe that's the real reason he's still in a huff about it after a year. That thought occurred before he could squash it.

"Pentecost bitched you out for letting your ego run away with you," Yancy informed him.

Now Raleigh's own memory was running not to the Final Spar, but to a brawl in a bar in December, and the disastrous conversation leading up to it. Fortunately, Antwan intervened, his tone exasperated. "Yancy! Use your brain! Anjin Tessori is a master martial artist, fighting for longer than any of us have been alive! If he had wanted to truly beat Raleigh or injure him, Raleigh could not have freed himself from any of those holds, let alone in the end." Now Yancy frowned, and Raleigh blinked. "Each time, it was the same for all of us. He put us down, asked if we were finished. If we said no, he let us go and continue, in whatever way we could manage. He knew exactly what he was doing."

"I was fine the next day," Raleigh pointed out. "Antwan's right. By those last few rounds, I shouldn't have been able to get loose at all. Tessori let go."

Some of Yankee's crew were goggle-eyed. That was incredibly gratifying. Tanisha was still mostly straight-faced, but there was a funny little twist to her mouth, eyebrows just a little up, as if maybe, just maybe, she was impressed.

If only he could say the same for his brother. "You were on your feet, but you had more bruises than I'd have thought possible over break."

"You're a stick in the mud," he grumbled.

And, worse, Raleigh couldn't stop thinking about it after that. Once they were off the plane at Kodiak, away from prying ears and headed for Gipsy's bay, he hissed, "Or is it really just you being tetchy because I managed to outscore you for once?"

Yancy stopped in his tracks. "For fuck's sake, are you doing this again?!"

"Are you?!"

He thought for a minute that this time Yancy was going to take a swing, or just throw something at random, then his brother was stalking towards the Assembly Building so fast that Raleigh had to run to keep up.

"Hey, guys!" Priya exclaimed when they came in. "Listen, we're still testing the interface, so she's not ready for a run until tonight - "

" - Okay, we'll do a sim, then. C'mon." Raleigh had no time to do more than wave apologetically at the engineering crew before hurrying to catch up again.

The Assembly Building sim lab was occupied by Team Yankee. Worse yet, Dr. Lightcap was in the Academy sim lab. "Sorry, boys, the Marshall's decreed no more team sims until after drills tomorrow."

"That's fine," Yancy said distractedly. "Can we do a solo? Not even a combat, just... to check the... handshake?"

She blinked at him, startled by his urgency, then narrowed her eyes as she looked from one Becket to the other. "Oo-kay. I'll give you a cognitive. It's been a few weeks, I guess. You can... see how it works out. I hope it does." Setting the program, she let herself out. "It's yours for an hour. Any longer than that and Psych will start sniffing around."

"Thanks," Raleigh mumbled, then turned to Yancy. "What the hell are you - "

"Just come on!" Yancy suited up with a scowl, treating the equipment in the sim room with more force than necessary. "You don't believe me?" he hissed. "You think this is about competition, that I'm really that fucking petty? Fine! I'll fucking show you!" He fidgeted until Raleigh had the rig on, then barked, "Activate handshake!"

They plunged into the drift, and Raleigh was overwhelmed in a heartbeat. This rabbit chased him.

He was watching his brother pinned down on the Kwoon floor, face twisted with pain, heart hammering, head throbbing - "You're hyperventilating!" Cady hissed in his ear.

He couldn't stand, he couldn't fight, no, it wasn't real, it was only a test, but it didn't matter, Yancy couldn't fucking handle seeing his brother get hurt -

His restraint fell apart when he saw Tessori's arm around his brother's throat. Arms held him back, voices hissed, "Don't!"

Raleigh's eyes were rolling back, he was going limp -

STOP STOPSTOPSTOPSTOP! Panicpanicpanic -

"That's enough!" Tessori let go and his opponent dropped limp onto the mat, senseless -

Raleigh fell forward in the rig, coughing and panting even though he'd been living that scene from Yancy's perspective that time - when he couldn't breathe in the Kwoon, Yancy couldn't get his breath either -

Do you get it? Well, do you fucking get it now?! I DON'T LIKE SEEING YOU GET HURT! HE WASN'T SUPPOSED TO HURT YOU!

"YANCE!" Six months ago, he might not have had the control to push a rabbit back, let alone one as powerful as this that Yancy was actively driving. But reality came back into focus, and he saw his brother's pained, angry face next to him - only to fall over both of their heads into another nightmare.

Yancy, so beaten down, exhausted, and miserable after the talk with Jazmine and Diane. Raleigh hated seeing him that way, how dare they do that to him, it wasn't his fault!

"Warning: Both hemispheres out of alignment."

The cool, dispassionate voice of the pod simulator broke through the flood of memories just enough, and Raleigh croaked, "End simulation!"

"Deactivating handshake."

"Wait - " Yancy began weakly, but Raleigh shook his head.

"No. We're stopping." If there'd been a bucket still in the room, he'd have probably used it, but managed to keep a grip. "This isn't - not the way. Not gonna work, not drifting - " He fumbled his way out of the rig, and this time he was the one hurrying Yancy along until they were back in the empty lab. Neither of them could make it any further, and they both had to sit down.

He threw his arms around Yancy's neck, hugging his brother harder than he'd done in months, as if the flash-flood of drift was still trying to wash them both away. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't know, I'm sorry!"

"'m not jealous," Yancy mumbled into his shoulder. "I'm not. Rals, I just hate it - "

"I know. I do, I get it now. I - Yance, we're Jaeger pilots! You're the one who keeps thinking about the risks, what're we supposed to do?!" And how do I handle seeing you like this?!

Yancy shook his head and wiped his face on his shirt, keeping Raleigh in a one-armed hug. "It's not... when we're in the pod, it's different. I'm with you. I can do something." He took a gulping breath of air and shut his eyes. "That I can deal with. Not just having to watch. Damn it." He pulled himself upright with Raleigh's help, neither of them quite steady enough to let go entirely yet. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize you thought it... meant I was pissed at you."

What did it mean for Gipsy if they both freaked out so easily over the sight of the other in pain, even non-physical? Seeing Yancy immobile with Jaeger-head had been hard, but seeing him like this... Raleigh felt ready to fly apart at the seams.

What did it mean that they were still misunderstanding things after almost a year of drifting?

They couldn't rely on the drift alone. And they definitely couldn't try this again; it had almost drowned both of them. If you've got something to say...

"I just wanted you to be proud of me," he said in a small voice.

He wanted to take it back immediately, because he knew from the way Yancy flinched that he'd hurt him again. But luckily, he couldn't see his brother's face; Yancy pulled him into another fierce hug. They'd hugged more in the past nine months than probably all the rest of their lives combined.

"I am," Yance insisted, sounding desperate. "I thought you knew that."

Maybe he should have. Maybe the problem really was Raleigh, not Yancy.

There was a knock on the door, and they jumped apart as it opened and Dr. Lightcap slipped back in. "Sorry, guys. Everything okay?"

"Uh..."

"Er, yeah."

Bullshit, and anyone who looked at them for ten seconds could figure that out. How screwed were they now? But Dr. Lightcap's smile was gentle. "Between you and me and the currently-malfunctioning camera," she winked, "you're not the only team that's been unsettled these past couple of weeks."

Well, that was reassuring... maybe. Raleigh smiled weakly, and Yancy said, "So that means we're not headed for a disaster here?"

"Well, the Breach is still open, so technically, yes, we're headed for disaster, but not because brothers argue. Or significant others, or spouses, or friends." Dr. Lightcap stiffened at something on her monitors and whispered, "Go wash up!" jerking her head at the bathroom. They scrambled to obey as someone else came into the lab.

"Sorry, Doctor, we need to look at the security camera."

"Again?! What the hell is wrong with that thing?"

"I wish I knew, ma'am, it's been spotty for weeks. Maybe a short in the wiring." Washing his face, Yancy nearly choked himself and Raleigh had his fist in his mouth to stifle his laughter.

Lightcap was a better actor than they'd ever given her credit for. "Great. With our luck it'll burn the building down. Should I just shut down so you can get up there?"

"Do you mind?"

"Knock yourselves out. Hang on, let me transfer this. Okay. Later!" She came strolling out past the bathroom with a blithe smile. "Walk with me to the Assembly Building, Rangers, I'll finish my analysis there." Once they were outside, she murmured, "My husband has some hidden talents at electronics."

"What if he gets caught?" Yancy fretted.

"They'll assume he's trying to get them off my back. Relax. What're they going to do, fire me?" She slipped between them. "My duty is to report 'behavior of concern,' and contrary to what the psychs seem to think, I can tell the difference. Anxiety, frustration, and arguments aren't 'behavior of concern' and don't merit any of you being dragged into a team meeting for them to peel your head apart like an onion. If anything, that does more harm than good."

Yancy stopped, gazing at the sky as if just enjoying the nice weather. "Doc, do you... when you first started drifting..."

She waited, then prompted, "We're not on the record, Yancy. Ask. I won't tell."

"Did you feel like you..." he looked nervously at Raleigh. "Like you changed?"

"You too, huh?" Raleigh murmured.

Dr. Lightcap didn't hesitate. "Yes. It caught me unprepared too. At first I wasn't sure whether it was good or not." Raleigh and Yancy looked at each other, but she waited until they looked at her again. With conviction, she finished, "I am now. It did change me, but for the better. I don't regret it."

Raleigh wasn't quite sure why he felt so relieved, but it was as if... he had wanted to hear that answer. Really, desperately had wanted to hear it. "The psychs talk about it, but half the time I can't make sense of what they mean."

"Yeah, that happens a lot." She snorted. Even in the time he'd known her, it seemed like she'd gotten more laid back. Maybe that was just getting to know them, having them become fellow Rangers... or maybe she was still changing. She went on, "What it boils down to is barriers. The drift knocks them all down between you and your partner - demolishes them, really. Some people can't handle that even with someone they love and trust. That's why it's so hard to establish drift compatibility. That's why we use the milder semi-drift for second term testing instead of the full drift. To decide whether it's even worth the shock and trauma."

"Does it change everybody?"

"I think so. If I just based it on what I've experienced, and what others have told me - naming no names... my theory is that we human beings spend our entire lives building walls. The psych theories do back me up there; it's human instinct to try to protect ourselves even more emotionally than physically. Drifting shatters those walls, and the longer, more consistently you drift, the more total it is. I think... after getting accustomed to that, for those of us who can manage it, we start to find there are some walls that we don't even need with the general public."

That was so much less intimidating an explanation than what the psychs tended to throw around. Raleigh found it easier to smile again. "It's overwhelming sometimes."

"It is. That's why I wouldn't let you use the drift again the way you tried today. It's impossible to just explain why, but now you know. A lot of the crews have tried using the drift to resolve issues, but it's like swatting a fly with a sledgehammer. I'd only worry if you made a habit of it. We all still have to rely on old-fashioned communication, even with drift partners. Ironically enough, drifting made me less afraid to talk."

"That's not really a problem we've ever had," Yancy admitted, and she laughed.

"Maybe not to other people, but to each other? About serious things?" She had them there, and they knew it. Linking arms with both of them, she started them walking again. "Changing tactics has churned up a lot of doubts, even with the experienced teams. And you two are less than a month away from launch. It's perfectly normal to be nervous. But I will tell you - and I've told the brass, on the record - I'm not worried about you at all. You'll be ready. You're already ready."

Back at the Assembly Building, they saw Tanisha and Caleb coming out of the sim pod, looking frazzled. Raleigh and Yancy stared at each other. "Ya think..." Yancy murmured.

Raleigh opened his mouth to speculate, then caught himself and grinned. "None of our business, is it?"

To be continued...

Coming this weekend: The clock is ticking towards the launch of Gipsy Danger - and also towards the next kaiju attack, everyone knows. But preparing for the public launch of their Jaeger means training for more than just combat. Raleigh and Yancy have to manage team exercises as well as public relations in Chapter Twenty-One: Front and Center!

PLEASE don't forget to review!

Original Character Guide

Tanisha Davis and Caleb Mitchell: The pilots of Yankee Star, America's Mark II Jaeger. Enlisted Special Ops Marines whose battalion worked with an Army unit where Bruce Gage was pilot. After K-Day, they were in Warrant Officer training as sharpshooters when the Gages transferred to the Jaeger Program. Late 20s, Tanisha is African-American from south central Los Angeles, while Caleb is white from a small, rural town in central Oklahoma.

Penelope Jefferson: Yankee Star's LOCCENT Support Chief, former Chief Warrant Officer with the US Marines. Mid-30s, African-American from Los Angeles.

Cady Spencer: Filipino-American from Oregon, age 25, one of Gipsy Danger's LOCCENT technicians along with Tendo Choi.

Antwan Ferrier: Jamaican national, age 39, a personnel coordinator for Gipsy Danger's strike troops

Anjin Tessori - one of the senior martial arts instructors/fightmasters at the Jaeger Academy. Japanese national, age mid-60s