Sorry for taking so long to upload a new chapter! I have this mostly written but real life got in the way, then I went to see the movie yesterday and remembered I have this to finish!

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Raleigh is beginning to regret this. As much as he really wants a place to sleep that isn't ten degrees below freezing and a hot meal, he would prefer to stay unknown. This Kenzie kid is rattling off Jaeger stats faster than maybe even Mako could come up with, and she seems to have a fairly large obsession with Kaiju as well, especially Slattern. Raleigh guesses he should have expected that from seeing the kid's clothes. He's having a hard time not correcting her on some of the details about the fight, but honestly he's just worried she's going to take a closer look at him and realize who he is.

He knows he might be worrying for nothing, because if there is one thing he's learned, it's that people are remarkably unobservant when you are somewhere they don't expect you to be. People tended not to realize who he was when he was on the Wall, and he doubts anyone would expect him to be out here sleeping on the streets. He guesses by now the tabloids will have assumed he's run off with some woman. He hates those kind of things, but he can't say it won't help him.

He doesn't look like himself much either, lately. Since they stopped letting him do interviews, he hasn't seen a need to keep up appearances. He's got the beginnings of a scruffy beard again; even though Mako insists he shave it every time they go for some formal event, it's been…three days now?...since their last speech, and he can feel the thick stubble catching on his scarf. He hasn't been eating or sleeping all that well lately either, and he can tell it's showing. His face is more hollow than it's been since that first winter without Yance, and he looks so damn old, even to himself.

Maybe the universe is on his side for once in his life, because even when she talks about Gipsy, Kensie seems much more obsessed with Mako than Raleigh. "She rebuilt the whole thing and even designed the chain sword. She's so fuckin' awesome," the girl says, throwing her hands wide and almost smacking Raleigh in the face. "Dontcha think Ranger Mori's just the best?"

"Yeah, kid, she's great." He must not have put enough enthusiasm into it, because Kensie turns around and glares at him.

"She's an engineering godesss, and a badass Kaiju killer, and she's hot as hell, and all you can say is "great"? I mean, even if you're into guys, you have to admit she's like the perfect girl."

He nods. It's the best she's gonna get because he knows Mako is perfect. And he left her hanging because he can't cope.

"I wonder if they're gonna give her a new partner." Kenzie sounds wistful. "If I was a few years older…and actually in the Jaeger program…"

"You want to be a pilot?"

"Don't stand a chance. I'm too crazy for them. I break all the rules."

"You know, sometimes that isn't a bad thing." Raleigh knows he's skating on thin ice here, but the kid needs someone to tell her she is better than just scraping by on the streets, doing God knows what to make a living. She needs to know she's worth something. He remembers what it felt like working on the wall, all the thoughts that kept him from sleeping at night. Failure. Weren't good enough. Broke the rules and now you're paying. You don't belong there. You never did. "You know, Mako's old co-pilot was like that."

"Yeah, and his brother died. And he almost did." He knows she doesn't mean to hurt him. She can't, she doesn't even know him. But it's like Knifehead's spike through his shoulder all over again. He stumbles and leans on a lightpole, praying he doesn't pass out, get sick, or spiral down into a memory. Kid doesn't need to deal with him trapped in the ghost Drift.

"Hey, you okay? It's not too much farther." Kenzie is staring at him, a little crease between her eyebrows like Mako used to have when she was worried. "Hey, are you having a seizure or something? Ray?"

"Whatever, Ray." That's officially it. Raleigh can't do it anymore, not with the Hansen kid's voice overlapping this one's. What if being around me gets her hurt too? "I'd like to come back from this…I quite like my life." What if she decided to go on and go to war because of what I said to her? If she did and she got hurt it's on me…"Disappear, it's all you're good at."

"Ray!" Kenzie is kneeling next to him, sounding almost as panicked as he is. He's trying to breathe and he can't, and this is the worst part about having one of these attacks because he died once from lack of oxygen and no one can calm him down by telling him this isn't going to kill him. He can't breathe, and he's going to die. Again.

He gasps in one shaky breath and his vision clears enough to see that Kenzie is gone. Chased her off too, you're too much trouble for anyone.

He doesn't know how long it is that he lays there, lost in memories of fire and heat and a burning sky, and burning lungs and fading heartbeat, until there's a hand on his chest that's much bigger and heavier than Kenzie's and someone's voice telling him to focus. The voice is oddly like Mako's, and that in itself is soothing enough to bring him out of that pure fear. He starts breathing again, and that in itself is enough of a relief that he finally sort of actually passes out.

He's not all the way gone, though, because he can hear them talking. "I don't know what happened. He was fine and then he just freaked out."

"Were you yammering on about Kaiju and Jaegers to him again?"

"He didn't seem to mind. He was telling me some stuff."

"Kenz, I told you, people have bad memories about that. Maybe he lost his family, you ever think of that? Maybe he's a veteran."

"Maybe it's none of your damn business," Raleigh growls, because they don't need to talk about him like he isn't there, he doesn't care if five minutes ago he was passed out on the pavement and is still currently not sure he can get up, and he hates how weak and shaky his voice sounds right now.

"Didn't realize you were still in the land of the living." A man who looks like he could be Mako's father kneels next to Raleigh's shoulder.

Kenzie picks up something laying on the ground, something that makes a metallic chink against the concrete. "You dropped these." She holds up two silver disks on a chain. Yance's dog tags. Raleigh couldn't bear to throw them out like every other piece of ID he had on him. Besides, he'd been carrying them around so long the writing has mostly worn off. But he can still see where they're stamped with the Gipsy Danger logo, Yance's idea when they got her painted. The light catches on the raised metal, and he watches Kenzie's whole expression changes. "Oh my God."

This was officially a bad idea. Raleigh decides nope, the universe actually does still hate him.

"You're Raleigh Becket." He wants to tell her he isn't, that those are just fake, that it's just that he's like her and finds the Jaegers fascinating. But they're going to know anyway. The way he reacted to what she said about Yance…

"Thought you looked familiar," the man says, and extends a hand. "What are you doing so far from home? Your co-pilot's in LA. You get mugged or something?"

Raleigh doesn't want someone else's pity. He's had far too much of it from people who don't, can't, understand his life. "Why don't you all just fuck off and leave me alone?" He wants to curl up in a ball on the pavement and die.

The man looks at him sadly. "I can see you've got some demons you're running from; God knows I've seen it before. If you want to leave, go ahead. But my door is open and you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to, and you don't have to be anyone you don't want to be. You hear?"

He doesn't want to go with them. He can feel Kenzie staring at him in equal parts admiration and confusion, although she's had the sense to keep her mouth shut. Or the guy telling her off is still fresh in her mind. He doesn't want to hang around and feel her watching him, to be a hero to her that he sure as hell is not. Jaeger pilots were supposed to be something that inspired kids like her to make a better life for themselves, to get off the streets and turn their lives around. They're not supposed to be washed-up failures who have lives that are more messed up than the kids themselves.

He also doesn't want to spend a night on the streets, cold and alone with the voices in his head. If he does, he probably won't make it to tomorrow morning. And as much as part of him wants that, the other part doesn't want Mako to have to hear about it on the news and wonder for the rest of her life if it's somehow her fault he snapped, or Kensie's memory of a Jaeger pilot, exactly what she wants to be, being some loser who couldn't keep it together and threw himself off a bridge. Like it or not, Raleigh has other people to worry about and it's just selfish of him (which is even worse than being a failure) to wreck their lives because his own is a disaster.

"Thank you. Guess I might as well take you up on it. No one's made me a better offer." He tries to sound like he isn't desperate for someplace warm to sleep. Laying here on the sidewalk, the cold has soaked into his bones, and he just the voices that come with it to go away.

"Well, then, we ought to be going. Streets aren't safe at night." The man offers his hand again, and Raleigh takes it with his good one, because he hates that he needs the help but he really doesn't think he can stand on his own. "My friends call me Mike."

"Guess you can call me Raleigh."