Jake couldn't ever have forgotten this room. The tan walls with washed-off crayon scribbles, the smell of Dad's homemade gingerbread coming up from the kitchen underneath him, the tap-tap-tap of a tree branch on the window, posters half-peeling off the walls, each of them one of the old Jaegers. Brawler Yukon. Arroyo Desperado. Coyote Tango, which has a stick drawing of Dad on the visor.
This is Jake's room, the one he remembers best. The last one before the PPDC became the resistance and they started living in a Shatterdome.
"Hello, son." Dad's voice spins him around. Stacker Pentecost, looking years younger and healthier, stands in the doorway. He has his stained Union Jack apron, the one Tasmin bought him as a joke, and one hand is covered in an oven mitt. Jake remembers this day; he'd just made the honor roll in his first year in high school, and Dad made a gingerbread cake to celebrate. Jake hasn't had any since…since Dad died, even though it used to be his favorite. Somehow he knew no one else's would be the same, and he wanted to remember Dad's for as long as he could, but even that was fading. Now he remembers the taste like it was five minutes ago.
"Dad." Jake isn't sure whether he should run to him and hug him, or whether that's something this thirteen-year-old self from the memory would do. Now he's nineteen, all grown up. Should he prove that to Dad by acting like it?
Dad decides that for him, crossing the room and enfolding Jake in one of those massive bear hugs Jake used to anticipate every day, coming home from school.
Dad touches Jake's sweater's shoulder badge, with the redesigned PPDC logo. "McTavish never had any appreciation for simplicity." He chuckles.
"How did you…" Jake glances behind him and, just for a second, sees a shadow with blue hair that darts away like a cat. Mako's here too. He wonders if Dad's already talked to her. He's had time; it's been almost a day now since everything fell apart.
"I hear he graduated you early to put you in Gipsy Avenger with Mako." Jake tenses, freezes for the inevitable tirade. Most people who knew Dad as Marshal would never have anticipated the soft side he had with his children. But his children definitely knew the Marshal in him. There had been many, many stern lectures over the years, for everything from Jake being out later than he should have on his first date, to the time Mako built a neural relay in the living room and it shorted out and set fire to the drapes.
"I joined the Academy after…after the Breach closed." He feels like he should defend this somehow, have a good argument ready before Dad tears it to bits. And he has one, because he's been arguing this same thing in his head for months, only Dad's never been able to respond. "It seemed safe. No more Kaiju, the Jaegers were going to be a peacekeeping and diplomatic force. Respond to natural disasters and all that. I didn't know we were going back to war."
"Of course not. And you were tired of trying to be an engineer?" Dad doesn't even sound as disappointed as Jake was afraid he would.
"I had to go. Jaegers are my life, Dad. Just like they were yours."
"I know. And you're more than worthy of taking the Pentecost name into a new generation of them." Dad looks Jake squarely in the eyes; it's a shock to realize they're almost the same height now. "I'm proud of the man my son has become. I just wish I could have been there to see you doing it."
Jake hugs him, resting his chin on Dad's shoulder to hide the tears streaming down his cheeks.
"I let Mako down, Dad. I was her co-pilot and I was supposed to protect her, and now she's in a coma and I can't do anything."
"It's not your fault. You've done well."
"I didn't do enough. It should be me in there, not her."
"That's not up to you, Jake. Do you know how many times I wanted to trade places with Tasmin? How many times I wished I'd gone to the fighter jets instead of Luna? Jake, this is what a war is. Some people live, some people die, and we have no control over who those people are. This is why I didn't want you in the Academy. I wasn't trying to hold onto you. I was trying to save you from ever needing to know how this feels."
Jake nods silently. He pulls back a little. All this time, I thought you were afraid. You just didn't want Mako or me to become you. "But all we ever wanted was to be you."
Dad must be inside his thoughts, because the randomness of what Jake says out loud doesn't faze him. "I know. I knew I was your hero. I knew, when I watched you two building Jaegers out of cardboard boxes, who you wanted to be someday. But I prayed the war would be over before it happened. I tried so hard to find a way to stop it, because I never wanted you two in it. And then in the end, it was only by letting Mako in that the war finally ended." He claps Jake's shoulder. "You're already well on your way to following my footsteps, Jake. There's no going back to what you were before. All I ask is that you become the best man you can. Not me, not the you you were before this fight. Only the you you are now matters."