2020, March 19 – 12:43 – Sydney Shatterdome, Sydney, Australia

"Raleigh, please, don't do this… No. You're just not thinking straight—" Greyson pinched the bridge of her nose, letting out a loud sigh as Raleigh continued to argue with her over the phone.

"I'm a damned left-over, Sonny! It's almost worse than death. What use am I here? Yancy's dead and you just about abandoned me, too—"

"I've been gone ten days! Rals, can't you at least wait 'til I get back? We need to talk about this face-to-face…" She was interrupted when someone called her name. Turning, her eyes fell on the ginger Australian approaching her.

"Hey, Darcy, I was wondering if I could talk to you," Chuck Hansen started when within earshot. Max, his loving bulldog puppy, was attached to the end of the leash firmly in his hand.

She motioned to the phone in her hand. "I'm a little busy right now, Hansen." Greyson made a face when Raleigh made a snide comment. Through the phone, she said, "I wasn't talking to you, asshat."

Chuck followed closely behind, keeping Max beside him. When Greyson realized the young man before her wasn't going to stop following her any time soon, she promised Raleigh she'd call back. "What is it that you want, Charlie?"

"I told you, it's Chuck." Shaking his head, he sighed. A battle for another day. "Look, I think we got off on the wrong foot back in Manila."

"I'm over it," Greyson muttered, almost unconvinced herself. I try to be nice once and it smacks me in the face, she thought bitterly as she looked back to her first meeting with the Hansens.

Greyson had noticed Chuck's obvious distaste for Herc and mentioned how he should have been grateful that he even had his father, as she wished she had hers, flaws and all. He had said he didn't favor a father who'd abandoned his mother to die, and it struck a nerve in her.

"Yeah, no. You don't seem like you're over it," Chuck pointed out, a corner of his mouth turning down. "Look, I'm sorry, alright? I was young and naïve and—"

"You're wearing a 'Shazam!' shirt from, like, Hot Topic right now."

"What? A guy can't have good taste?" His brows rose, defensive. "Fine. I was younger," Chuck finished, extending the final syllable. "My apology still stands."

Greyson stopped walking and turned fully to look at Chuck. Her face was passive, unreadable. The woman's demeanor lightened slightly. Her eyes scanned his. She found sincerity. "Was that all?" she asked quietly.

"I guess?" He let out the words as if asking himself if it were true. "I dunno. I didn't expect to get this far," Chuck continued. "I felt bad and — just... I know that you were close with pilots of Gipsy Danger—"

This time, it was Greyson who cut him off from finishing his statement. "There's still one of them waiting for me back home. The faster I finish these rounds, the better." She pivoted on her heel, turning away from the boy a few good inches taller than she was; four, according to his program dossier.

"You don't know, then."

"I don't know what, exactly?" Letting go of an exasperated sigh, Greyson met Chuck's gaze.

He shrugged at her, assuming, "I'd have thought the Marshal would've told you first, considering—"

"Told me what?" she asked again, frowning that he kept stalling.

He finally relented. Chuck walked up to Greyson, and then fell into step with her as they walked. "You know the Marshal?"

"Obviously." She snorted, amused at his question. "He is our CO."

"Right." Chuck scratched the back of his head, licking his lips as he thought. "Word has it that he knew the reason Yancy Becket was attacked. People say some weird shit is happening up in the Ice Box."

Greyson was dumbfounded. Was this kid a weird conspiracy theorist? The look that immediately found its way to her face gave away her thoughts. "That's impossible," she breathed. "Knifehead killed Yancy, tore him out of the ConnPod. Stacker had nothing to do with it. Weird shit, or otherwise." For good measure, she added, "I'd have heard about it."

A crease appeared between Chuck's brows when Greyson called the Marshal by his first name, but didn't particularly dwell on it. "I know you're familiar with the Drift sequencing; how it helps to balance out the neural load between two Rangers to be able to ride their Jaeger."

"What about it?"

"Who's to say it won't work with—?" Chuck gave her a glance from the corner of his eye, narrowing his eyes. "Never mind. They're just… some stupid theories that've been circulating the 'Domes."

Greyson was convinced that the 'theories' the young Hansen was speaking of were definitely not 'stupid'. She wasn't close with either Herc or Chuck, but she knew enough that they were good Rangers, and they wouldn't believe some crazy, whack job story unless they found a reason.

As she walked away, the lieutenant almost wished he had told her his crazy stories.

2020, March 23 – 14:29 – Los Angeles Shatterdome, California, United States

"Gracie! Sweetheart, come give your uncle a hug."

Greyson excused herself from the other 'Dome workers when she heard her uncle come through the corridor. A smile lit up her face prominently. She met him halfway, calling out, "Tito Jasper! What are you doing back stateside?"

"Work, obviously," he replied lamely. After all but burying Greyson in a hug, Jasper Schoenfeld laughed. "When was the last time I saw you, kiddo?"

She shrugged lightly, pulling back from him. "Hong Kong, I think, when Typhoon was still in development. How are Tita Nancy and Robbie?"

"Well, you know... still divorced," Jasper told her, albeit a little glumly. He continued, "Robert's been good. He's starting high school this September. Real excited, that kid." The professor kept his arm around his niece's shoulders as they walked. He turned his head to look at her. "How are you?"

She answered him forthright. "The last few weeks have been" — Greyson cleared her throat — "eventful."

A sympathetic look was all Jasper gave Greyson in return. "I heard about the Beckets. I'm so sorry."

She reminisced in the days when everyone was younger, happier. During birthdays, the Schoenfelds would fly out to Anchorage, and the Darcys would travel down to California when theirs came around. Pulling her from the old memories, Jasper muttered absentmindedly, "Now which of the brothers was it again? Raleigh, right?"

"No, it was, uh, Yancy... the older brother," Greyson corrected, all enthusiasm having been sucked out of her. The woman played with the edge of the holoscreen in her hands. "Raleigh has been put through some therapy. Medieval stuff, really."

Jasper nodded as she spoke, shifting to shove his hands into his pockets. "I couldn't imagine what he's had to go through, losing his co-pilot like that."

"He's thinking of quitting," she blurted out. "Says a left-over isn't fit to be milling around any Shatterdome for too long, unless he gets re-stationed."

Greyson's maternal half-uncle stopped short of his stride. "I never realized it was that bad." Sheepishly, Jasper scratched the back of his head. "If it's any consolation, you and your crew are welcome to accompany me and Lars into town for dinner tonight. Give you a break from work, you know?"

A genuine smile started to tug at the corners of Greyson's mouth, and she eventually found herself grinning up at her uncle. "I'll talk to the others later. The fresh air could do us all some good."

This was the day that Greyson Darcy first met the man behind the Wall of Life Program and got on the bad side of things with Lars Gottlieb.

2020, April 7 – 06:12 – The Ice Box, Kodiak Island, Alaska, United States

"With all due respect, sir, what the hell do you mean he was dismissed?"

Marshal Pentecost didn't look up at Greyson as his eyes scanned the papers scattered across his large desk. "Miss Darcy, let me make it simple: Mr. Becket voluntarily withdrew from the program."

Greyson wouldn't have it. Raleigh wouldn't do that. At least not while she was gone. Would he? "Sir, there's got to be an explanation why he'd—"

"Mr. Becket had made a decision, and it was to leave the Jaeger Program on his own terms." Pentecost's fingers folded atop his desk. His eyes flickered upwards to Greyson's steady form, her feet planted firmly. "As it is, he has suffered from clear post-traumatic stress, not to mention survivor's guilt."

Off of her stiff nod, the Marshal changed the subject: "Now, I've been to see the files you created while on your assignment; however, your overall report hasn't been filed."

"It's… getting there, sir," Greyson replied bleakly, avoiding the obvious truth: her procrastination skills had usurped her attention with any paperwork. She cleared her throat rather loudly when she realized that Pentecost probably realized she'd bent the truth. "…I'll start on it," she finished sheepishly.

A corner of the Marshal's lips turned up ever so slightly. "So I'd thought."

"Permission to be dismissed, Marshal?"

"Actually, no; there was another reason I had called you here." Greyson watched as Stacker Pentecost stood up from his greatly official-ized desk chair, buttoning up a slot from his blazer. "As I come to understand it, you have recently become aware of a little problem the Defense Corps has run into the past few years." He walked around the large oak desk before sitting on its edge.

Greyson held her hands behind her back, interest piqued by the change in the Marshal's approach. "I assume we're talking about Dr. Lars Gottlieb, sir?" The Marshal's eyes never moved from hers. An amused smirk painted the expression Greyson now wore. "We didn't divulge very far into the topic after I had thrown the remaining contents of my Cherry Coca Cola at him."

Knowing full well that was not what he had wanted to hear, Greyson continued on with her story: "From what he said, the Jaeger Program was close to being null and void."

Pentecost's eyes narrowed as he asked, "How so?" Momentarily, she watched him lock his fingers in front of him.

"Many representatives in the United Nations believe that our program is only a hypothetical benefit to humanity," Greyson explained, relaying what the senior Gottlieb had said before; "that we're throwing away our currency on useless, pampered, gargantuan sparring G2s."

"Was this when you drenched him in your Cola?" an uncharacteristically amused Marshal inquired. The bitterness in his voice implied he didn't quite appreciate his old friend comparing the three-story mecha protectors to man-sized fighting 'bots.

"Absolutely not, sir." Greyson had eased a bit, the riled up tension from before dissipating. "Gottlieb said the KJs wouldn't think of attacking the dubbed Wall of Life, the Anti-Kaiju Wall that he had proposed. Said something along the lines of, 'the coastlines and our wallets would be safe'." She just couldn't help but to roll her eyes. "When I had asked him how the UN had planned to get rid of the live kaiju without nukes and endangering the water and the people's environment, he pulled some shit out of his ass — pardon my French," she added in side-bar, "and then I doused the good doctor."

Greyson was ready to be given a lecture about the proper ways of handling critique of such nature, but she still believed that Gottlieb fellow deserved every drop. The others seemed to have had a great time, especially her uncle.

"After the 'Dome report, I expect you to file a follow-up memo about the Wall."

Was he kidding? No, no, the Marshal never kids. This would be the first, if he were. "Sir, yes, sir," she said in giddiness, saluting the Marshal before being dismissed.

As she was leaving the Marshal's office, Greyson heard the beginning of his phone conversation. She lingered by the door. Sometimes she forgot that his life didn't begin and end with Pan-Pacific Defense Corps.

"…that's good, Jake, keep at it. I'll see you both once your term ends. I miss you, too…."