Chapter Text
Mako knew before she drifted with Raleigh. She saw it in how he held his body whenever he was around Chuck - there was some of what he felt about Chuck in his shoulders, the line of his jaw.
The beginnings of what he felt about Chuck.
She knew when he raised his fist to punch him. He hit him before Mako had the opportunity - not because Raleigh felt he needed to defend her, but because he wanted to be the one to hit first. She did not blame him. Chuck was infuriating. But underneath the egoism, bravado, and brash comments was something else entirely. Mako certainly felt, sometimes, that if she hit him hard enough it would come out.
Raleigh saw this in him - after just a day, or two. He was good at reading people. Mako was not. She had only ever been focused on one thing. Reading people had not been a necessary skill to develop. Mako only understood Chuck because she had grown up with him.
At first, they had been expected to entertain each other while their fathers talked about important things. Later, they had been expected to spar and study together. They became the two top students at the Academy and, one day, everyone assumed, they would pilot a Jaeger together.
That was when things had fallen apart.
Most people assumed that Chuck had been the reason they had stopped being friends. It was unfair to him, but Mako did not want to correct anyone’s assumption - no, it was me, it was because I was jealous. He got to be a pilot at fifteen. I got put on a restoration project, each mention of being the pilot of Gipsy Danger cut quickly down as Chuck killed kaiju after kaiju in Striker Eureka.
She had other reasons for wanting to punch him. This was why she allowed Raleigh to do it instead.
The first drift had been chaotic. In the second, she and Raleigh had been burning with pride, focus, and determination to beat back the monsters and show they had a role to play. She did not get a full picture of things until the third drift, as they waited, connected to each other, headed for the Breach.
It took time to get there. Plenty of time for things to wash over her and through her - especially since she and Raleigh were less filtered with each other. It started when she provided one of her interactions with a young, gawky Chuck. All limbs, freckles, really unfortunate ginger hair. Mako had been surprised as anyone when he had turned out as...attractive as he was.
Raleigh responded with his own images of Chuck - and Mako saw a certain focus to them that even Raleigh seemed unaware of. Perhaps it would be better described as a filter. Raleigh had catalogued all of Chuck’s most infuriating facial expressions and the way that he stalked the Shatterdome like he owned it.
Still, she might not have made the connection without flashes of other things as they walked Gipsy to the Breach. There were male limbs, kisses that occasionally scratched, the distinct sensation of being penetrated. It was right behind a lot of other things. He tried to keep it from her. But just like most pilots, he assured her, tried to keep those things.
But she sensed there was some other reason and that it was lurking behind that one. Lurking, like both their thoughts about Chuck.
She focused their drift. Her research on Raleigh, all the way back to his first test, concluded that Yancy had been the one to ground the neural connection. It was rare that two pilots were equals in that regards - Aleksis and Sasha had been rarities. She bolstered the connection with fond memories. Why we fight. She brought in music she had enjoyed, and Raleigh countered, and then they thought of the good meals they had eaten. Raleigh shared Yancy, and she her family, and Pentecost. Together, they brought Gipsy to the two kaiju circling the Breach.
Later, Mako’s tears weren’t just for Pentecost, for her second father - but she had not wanted to interrupt Chuck’s last moment with his father over the intercom. Goodbye, Chuck, she thought. He had been her friend. One of her only friends. If I return, I will watch after your father for you. I will make sure he takes care of Max.
She felt Raleigh object to this, and so she sent through to him - I do not understand dogs. She felt Raleigh grin.
Mako thought of Chuck as they struggled to the Breach, as her oxygen ran out and her brain began to race. He and her father...it should not have been in vain. “Anyone can fall,” Raleigh said. She did not know how she felt about this.
She thought of Chuck when they were in their rescue helicopter, secure that both their deaths would mean something. Not just another dead Jaeger pilot, one last gasp of the once mighty machines.
Then three of their escort formation broke. Even though she and Raleigh had no access to the comm lines and had medics trying to distract them and give them oxygen it was clear something significant was happening. Mako moved to pull her earmuffs off, but Raleigh grabbed her wrist. She nodded and inhaled more oxygen. They were there for a reason.
Raleigh kicked the medic seated in front of him and pointed at the helicopters. He held his hands out, questioning. She glanced around and he raised his eyebrows - I just saved the world, it said.
The medic moved her pointer finger in the air. Then she pointed down at the water. Mako shook her head, and this time, the medic pointed her finger, pointed to the water, and then formed a plus sign with two fingers. She pointed to the water again.
Then Mako understood. She thought, Chuck was going to be pissed, because pilots were not suppose to leave each other. They would never eject another pilot who was conscious and connected - a firm, ingrained rule they learned from the first day of the Academy. No Jaeger would function without complete trust and cooperation.
“Still,” she said to Raleigh, when he posed the question, once they were in medical. “He would have done it for Ranger Hansen.” Pentecost would not have left Herc alone, if he had the option.
“I suppose that is an override,” Raleigh said. They were waiting with oxygen tubes in their noses while a sedative took effect. They were told they were soon going to have full body scans.
All they had heard was that Chuck had been brought back. She knew Raleigh was doing the same thing she was, working through best and worst case scenarios. The worst would be if he died, now.
Tendo came to speak with them after their second scan. “He’s in rough shape,” he said. “He lost a lot of blood, but...he’s in surgery. They had to give Herc a shot of something in the ass - almost bashed in the face of the last doctor who came to give him an update, because he didn’t have much to say.”
“Herc is now in a hospital bed?” Mako asked.
Tendo nodded.
“Room for one more,” Raleigh said. They were both going to have to stay overnight - Mako had broken her right collarbone and fractured several ribs. Raleigh had damage from Gipsy’s arm and leg leg being wrenched off on his side, though he attempted to pretend he was not experiencing pain or numbness. Remarkably, nothing was broken.
Tendo and two of Striker’s crew, Lara and Neil, rolled Herc into their room. He was mostly asleep, but still fairly pissed off. “Becket?” he asked, when he rolled over onto his good shoulder.
“Thought you might like some company, sir,” Raleigh replied.
“Fuck,” said Herc, and he looked at Tendo. “Someone’s got Max?”
“Alison’s got Max,” said Neil. “They gave him a dog sedative, though.”
“Ha,” said Herc, and he got a loopy smile on his face before he sort of passed out. Mako knew that state of consciousness. A Ranger’s sleep, even when sedated.
It took twelve hours more hours before they actually found out about Chuck. Herc had closed his eyes and nodded after the list was delivered. “But he’s alive. He’s stable?”
“Yes,” said the doctor. “The one leg needed to be set with pins and rods, might need more surgery. Internal bleeding is all corrected. We’re mostly concerned about the head injury-”
“Shouldn’t be. He has a thick enough head,” Herc said.
“He will need rehab,” said the doctor.
“I don’t fucking care about that,” Herc said.
This doctor, perhaps remembering the fate of his previous colleague, took several steps back towards the door.
Mako watched, for a moment, then turned away when Herc’s face crumpled and tears streamed down his face. She wished she was not attached by various I.V.s to her hospital bed. “It’s all right,” Herc said. “He’s my son.”
“He’s a good kid,” Raleigh said, and he meant it. Mako thought that perhaps it was a boy thing - many of the Americans on Gipsy’s crew had told her that it was common for them to beat one another up and then be immediately friendly afterwards. Mako had never quite understood it.
She went to see Chuck by herself while Raleigh slept. She cornered his doctor first. He had protested, briefly, about patient’s rights to privacy. She had just grunted at him. “I can’t really predict anything,” he said, after laying out a long list of possible complications because of the traumatic brain injury.
Mako was only able to look at Chuck for a moment. He was in a medically induced coma because of the swelling in his brain. His face was swollen, bruised, unrecognizable. She would not have known it was him were it not for his ginger hair.
“He meant he will need rehab for his brain injury,” Mako said to Raleigh at dinner that evening.
“Yeah,” Raleigh replied. He pressed his lips together. “One of the many specialists we’re getting?” Funding and money had come in immediately after their success hit the world news. Mako felt that, if she had not been sedated when she found out, she would have felt a good deal of rage over that.
There were two orthopaedists for the four of them. The one was appalled at Raleigh’s condition and immediately ordered a special physical therapist for him.
The neurologist was introduced to them and did his best to avoid Herc’s gaze. He turned and left before Herc could properly get up. “Coward,” Herc said.
He finally pinned the neurologist down at dinner, mostly because Herc was more familiar with the cafeteria layout. He was only more irritable. Raleigh shook his head at the doctor - he should have just dealt with it. Mako smiled, slightly. “Really, it was a hell of an impact,” Dr. Schwartz said.
“Nuclear blast will do it,” Herc replied. “How’s it gonna turn out?”
“Well,” said Dr. Schwartz. He shook his head. “It will depend on a lot of factors. And I don’t want to make any predictions until I’ve been able to observe him conscious.” Herc nodded at this. It was a good tactic.
“He’ll be fine,” Raleigh said to Herc, when the doctor left. Mako didn’t say anything, because she was not so sure. Raleigh had not seen Chuck.
“OK,” Herc said. Mako thought she might know how he felt - he should have been there, with Chuck. To protect him and keep him safe and finish the mission with him.
The next few days were blurred. She had a lot of drugs to take, press conferences she had to attend, and world leaders to debrief.
Mako remembered that Tendo questioned her about her caffeine intake. “Never a good sign,” she said, and Raleigh smiled. She was told not to really drink it, with all of her medications, but there was nothing else to do. It was almost harder to find energy after saving the world.
One of orthopaedists put Raleigh in a brace because of the ligament damage she found in his shoulder. She, Herc, and Raleigh were in identical structures that held their arms close to their bodies, resting on an orthopaedic pillow.
Plenty of journalists called them Hong Kong’s new heroic triplets. Mako wished that print journalism was more prevalent so that she had something to crumble in her good hand.
The first night the three of them slept in medical. The second night she opened her door and sat on her bed. Raleigh smiled at her from across the hall, seated on his own bed. “You want to help me get changed, first?” he asked. “Between us we’ve got two good arms.”
She nodded. It was like being in Gipsy, though - two arms between them. He seemed to be thinking the same thing.
They fought with the sweater he had worn for the press conferences - the sad vintage navy PPDC sweater was the most official thing he owned. Mako gave up after a minute and called for a nurse, because they would only injure themselves further. There was no point in prolonging their healing.
She sat on his bed and watched as the nurse undressed him. She could not help but notice that, sewn into the interior of the sweater’s collar was a panel with Y. Becket on it. She vowed that she would not make another joke about the lumpy sweater. Any of them.
The nurse smiled slightly when Raleigh followed into her into Mako’s room. “Don’t you want to turn?” the nurse asked, when Mako asked her to remove her sports bra as she faced Raleigh.
“We have drifted,” Mako said. The nurse shrugged her shoulders.
There were less than ten people alive who would understand that comment, Mako realized. It was this thought that spurned her long neglected tears forward.
Raleigh wrapped his good arm around her. They both quickly found this awkward and shifted, without comment, so that Raleigh’s back was against the wall and Mako was able to slide in between his legs. She laid her head on his right shoulder and told him why she had started to cry.
“You don’t need to explain,” he said. “I used to cry over...just about anything.” He stroked her hair. “Yance used to make fun of me, but you know what, there are a lot of sad things out there…” He paused, and leaned forward. He nuzzled at her head. “You tell me what you want.”
It took her a moment to realize he meant it two different ways.
“Tonight, I wish to fall asleep with you,” she said. “And I do not know about tomorrow.” She felt him smile against her head. “I do not want to talk, right now.”
“That’s fine,” he said. It took awhile to find a position they were both comfortable in - they settled for both laying on their backs with their hands linked together.
She really did not know what she wanted. She saw many possible paths for them. Their relationship could be romantic, or sexual, or just deep and meaningful without those elements.
At first Mako had wanted badly not to like him. Raleigh had abandoned the Jaeger Mako had spent two years rebuilding. But then she saw his face when he first saw Gipsy again. She had always thought that Raleigh had left her, that he could not possibly love her if he had left. Like many things with Raleigh, though, she was unable to fully understand his feelings until she piloted herself.
What she did know was that she woke that morning and had slept well, despite losing her father, her Sensei, her Marshal. She had dreamt of him, but not the typical images - instead, a quiet moment when he had taken her to a lake in America and she had been able to swim, content in the knowledge the water would not poison her and that a monster would not emerge. They went for ice cream that night and he had pointed out a young boy that appeared interested in her. Mako had blushed.
A lot of the press left after three days and the UN agreed to continue to fund the PPDC and the Hong Kong Shatterdome so that they could continue to conduct research on the kaiju. They had not decided whether they would build more Jaegers - just in case. Mako would have thought she would have been one of the people who wanted to shout their strong opinion about this, but she found now she could not make the effort. Perhaps someday.
The doctors seemed to have waited to bring Chuck out of his coma. Herc sat with him for two hours, then began to pace around the Shatterdome. “I don’t think Herc can really tell Chuck about...and he doesn’t want a doctor to do it,” Raleigh said, as they sat in her old office and filled out paperwork.
“You have spoken?” she asked.
“He keeps walking by with Max,” Raleigh said, then shrugged. Mako looked up and watched. Herc was just pacing outside of their door. The Hansens are incorrigible, she decided.
Herc was trying to be Marshal and to keep together while Chuck was comatose. He had set up an office adjacent to Chuck’s hotel room.
Even if he was being a chicken shit, this was a way to lighten his load. “If you are busy this afternoon,” she said, when Herc paced by with Max again, “I can speak to him with the doctor.”
“That would be appreciated, I’ve got a conference with the UN…” Herc said, and he gave her a smile that indicated he knew that she knew. Mako nodded. “He is a bit wonky,” he added.
Chuck’s face was still bruised and swollen - Mako felt sick, because for a moment, she thought he looked beautiful like that, ruined. He looked at her and opened his mouth. No sound came out.
For a moment, he looked constipated. Then he said, “fucked?” His voice was slurred.
“You hit your head very hard,” Mako said. She glanced at the neurologist, who was still trying to hide in a corner. “You had to be put in a coma until the swelling went down. Your leg has pins in it. You will need rehab for both.” Chuck waved his hand over the cast his leg was in and the rods that came out of it and connected to a metal frame. He gave her a no shit look.
“You might need another surgery on the leg,” said Dr. Nydhart, the orthopaedist.
Chuck narrowed his eyes and then looked at the neurologist. “Aphasia is, uh, quite common for traumatic brain injury, as well as a host of other side effects, and no, I can’t predict-” A bit wonky? Mako thought, and she sighed, mostly on Herc’s behalf. “Nor can I say whether or not it will be permanent.” He rattled the long list off while Mako sat next to Chuck.
Chuck rolled his eyes, opened his mouth and then looked annoyed. He moved his mouth, like he was speaking, and his eyes gradually shifted to something that combined anger and fear.
“You understand us, though,” Mako said, just to be clear. Chuck nodded. She turned to the neurologist. “He said fucked, earlier.”
“We’ll need to run tests for reading and written comprehension,” the neurologist said. “And that’s something of a positive sign, with therapy, and time, more will come back, and…” Chuck raised his eyebrows at Mako.
“Max is with Alison or Tendo,” she said. “Is there a reason he cannot come and visit?”
“No,” said the Shatterdome’s main doctor. “Animals are very therapeutic.” Mako imagined that someone had had a very similar conversation with Herc eight or nine years ago.
She let the doctors talk to Chuck more, and interrupted when they were not straightforward about his leg. “There is a small chance you will be able to walk without aid all of the time,” Mako said. The orthopaedist glared at her. She understood. They did not want to cause him stress or make him angry. He could injure himself more.
Chuck clenched his fist. The orthopaedist regarded him. “The breaks were substantial,” she said. Another no shit look met this statement. It was interesting to see how much communication could be done non-verbally. “We’ll do our best, though, but a lot will be therapy.”
Chuck sighed and looked at Mako, then gestured towards the door. “I will go and get Max,” she said.
“We need to do some tests,” said one of the doctors. “It might be best to bring him by after dinner.”
Mako came back with Max after dinner. He wiggled hard in her arms until she deposited him on the bed with Chuck.
Chuck reached both arms out for him like an eager kid at his birthday. Mako could not help but grin. “Watch your leg,” she said. Chuck rolled his eyes. Max went right for his face. He eagerly licked him. The stump of tail he had wagged so hard his entire butt wiggled with it.
“Max,” Chuck said. “Max, Max.” It seemed like he was trying to say something else and didn’t realize he was just saying the dogs name. “Max, Max.” He pulled the dog in tight to his face.
Proof, Mako thought, that Chuck Hansen has a heart.
Mako moved Max’s indoor bathroom set-up into Chuck’s hospital bathroom.
She paused, for a moment, because she had been angry with Chuck for a long time and they had not been friends for years. But it was easy, apparently, to fall back into old relationships with familiar grooves. She had stopped being angry with him in the Breach. How could she still be when he had sacrificed everything for her? To clear a path for the lady.
Chuck rolled his eyes as Max continued to slobber over him and Mako picked up the pad as she sat down. Chuck had always been good at pulling faces. She had thought it was subconscious.
He reached for the pad, and then pulled a sheet of paper from the middle of the pad. Mako scrunched her face at his horrible handwriting. “You will have to work on this,” she said.
“Fucked,” Chuck replied, and Mako nodded.
“Of all the words?” she asked. Chuck rolled his eyes again.
His mouth opened and his jaw worked in a circle, then he said. “Max. Dad.” She couldn’t tell if he had wanted to say those things or if that was what had manifest.
“And fucked,” said Mako. “This show your priorities.” She smiled at Chuck and then looked back down at the paper Chuck had handed her.
He was very proud of you, it read. She had not been prepared for this. She did not like Chuck taking her by surprise. She turned away as tears filled her eyes. He shoved the paper at her further and she read the rest. Only reason he stuffed me in there - knew you and R. would finish the job. Loved you. You honored him.
She looked up. Chuck winced, waved his hand. “You did not have to. Now,” she said. Mako wiped at her eyes.
He opened his mouth again, and for a moment it looked like he was going to vomit. “Yes,” he said, finally, and then his face tensed again. He reached for the pad and wrote quickly. Had to. Wouldn’t if not now.
Mako nodded, and sighed. “Can I get you anything? Did I bring the right things for Max?” She let Chuck inspect a bag where she had put some of the things she had found in Chuck’s room. She had not liked going in there. She had not liked to see the lack of things he had brought with him from Sydney. Like he knew. But of course he did. Chuck had always been pragmatic.
She had quickly put in some well-worn squeaky toys and a blanket with blue printed bones on it. The blanket had been on the edge of Chuck’s bed and made Mako frown. It made her reconsider if Chuck had really become so different from the awkward boy with a puppy that she had first met.
Chuck flipped several pages. BORED, it read, and Mako nodded. It was good forethought, on his part, to have this prepared.
“You have the movies?” she asked, and glanced behind her at the television mounted in the room. Chuck wiggled his fingers at her, and she understood - after spending years training and, in his case, piloting, it was difficult to just sit down and watch something. “I will see,” she said.
She tried to think about something, but nothing came to her. It was not until later, when she reflected how difficult it must be for Chuck to have to write things. It might be like, she thought, her when she had first moved in with Stacker. She understood English well enough but was not confident speaking it.
This had been when had first met Chuck. It was only two weeks after Pentecost had taken her in. He assured her Chuck was a nice boy and would be good for her to spend time with. She had frowned. She was frightened of other people, still, of anything but Pentecost. He knelt down and told her Chuck’s mother had died in Scissure a few years ago. This had made her feel better.
Mako had instantly been jealous of Herc when she met him. She was angry that Chuck did not understand how good he had it. She did not understand his anger.
They were told to wait in Chuck’s room while their fathers spoke. Mako had thought, like many boys, Chuck would pull out a video game or a movie. Instead, he dragged a plastic tub from under his bed and opened it. Inside was an array of colored pencils, paints, canvases, sketch papers… He had shrugged at Mako, and she had nodded.
It was hard not to recognize his talent - he blushed, slightly, when she took one of the sketchbooks but then he nodded again. While he started to draw, she looked at the pictures - outdoor scenes, vague anatomical sketches that you did as exercises that gradually evolved into detailed studies of his father and others around the Shatterdome. Then light sketches of machine parts and inputs. Jaegers followed. She inhaled sharply when she saw Coyote Tango, towering over a distant coastline, waves crashing against his shins.
“Oh,” Chuck said, and smiled at her. “Do you want it?”
“No,” she said, and shook her head. Then she furrowed her brow, because she could tell he was disappointed - that perhaps he had wanted to give it to her. “I - yes. But-”
“Right,” he said. “You want me to know I don’t have to, but...yeah.” He carefully removed it from the sketchbook and handed it to her. She nodded and put it on the small bedside table in his room. “I’m going to be a Jaeger pilot someday,” he said.
“Yes,” she replied. “I will too.” Chuck nodded, then returned to his sketch. It was Nova Hyperion, emerging seemingly from his memory. Mako picked up a colored pencil and began to draw shapes, as her mother had taught her. Zen tango, to ground and center herself. Many people did not know that Mako had always been angry and frustrated as a child - that Tokyo had just amplified it, funneled it.
She had kept the picture of Coyote Tango. For a long time she told herself it was not because of Chuck.
“We need to go shopping,” Mako said when she ate dinner with Raleigh that evening. “I hope we will find what we need.”
She had gone back to Chuck’s room after bringing him Max. She was surprised that there were not art supplies. There might have been, but she had not wanted to look through the boxes under his bed. She presumed, if he still drew, their evidence would be more obvious. And Herc had shrugged when she asked.
“We need things?” Raleigh asked, and he glanced down at his shapeless sweater and pressed his lips together. Mako resisted the urge to laugh.
“For Chuck. To keep his mind off of things.”
“I thought we had access to tons of television and movies-”
“A hobby,” Mako replied.
“Chuck has hobbies?” Raleigh asked.
“He draws,” Mako replied. Raleigh raised his eyebrows and grinned. “It is not any...more silly than you. Knitting.”
“Not easy to find thick sweaters in Nome,” Raleigh replied. Mako shook her head. “Sort of a demand.”
“Maybe we will get better yarn,” she said.
“How is he? Leg bothering him?” Raleigh asked, and it suddenly occurred to her that she had not told him about Chuck’ at all.
“He cannot - there is a word, for it,” she said, and pulled out her phone. She typed in several things in Japanese before she was able to get what she figured was the term to translate. She showed the result to Raleigh.
“Aphasia?” he said. “He can’t talk?”
“Few words,” said Mako. “Max, Dad, fuck…” Raleigh laughed. At first she thought that it was just about the small group in his vocabulary. Then she realized it went deeper.
“Sorry, just...for all the trouble his mouth got him into…” Raleigh looked at her, and seemed to find it strange that she did not share his amusement. “Sorry.”
The disconnect was all the more jarring for everything they had shared in the drift - it was hard for her to remember that she had not been a complete open book, nor had Raleigh. That there were still things about each other that they didn’t know. That they were two separate people.
“Irony,” Mako said.
“Yeah,” Raleigh replied. “It’s not...I want him to get better. Go back to insulting me, I guess.” Something flickered in his eyes. Mako pushed it aside.
“They are getting him a tablet that speaks,” she said. Raleigh nodded.
“Still.” He tilted his head, as if trying to figure out what had turned on Mako’s protective tendencies towards Chuck. “Anything else on your shopping list?”
“You will see,” Mako said. She wanted some real chocolate, not the granular stuff that they were occasionally given in rations. This, she figured she had earned.
It was slow going, her with one arm and Raleigh using a cane, his leg still cramped and causing difficulty. People recognized them, too, many with cellphones with cameras. They did their best to smile and sign whatever was pushed in their faces. These were the people who had stayed, or who had to stay. They had been brave as well.
Mako and Raleigh were able to locate colored pencils and a sketch pad. Raleigh had smiled when they found a store with knitting supplies. He bought several sets of needles and a lot of yarn. The shop clerk thought he was adorable. Mako did not translate what she said about him. Raleigh seemed to bristle when people spoke about being puppylike.
“Do you need all that?” Mako asked.
“Thought Chuck might…” Raleigh shrugged. “He could make Max a sweater.”
The thought was so absurd that Mako snorted a slight laugh. Then she shook her head at Raleigh. If she had two arms, she might have embraced him.
That night Raleigh was able to help her undress. He had convinced Dr. Nydhart that he did not need to wear his brace. She was not pleased with him. He had not taken care of his initial injuries, of injuries he received on the wall. He needed extensive therapy to prevent him from being crippled when he was older.
Raleigh had just nodded - but looked at Mako. As though she was supposed to make this decision for her.
They found a way to curl into each other that didn’t hurt their arms or hurt Raleigh’s body. He seemed fine now, but she knew it was mostly painkillers. “A little more press tomorrow,” she said.
“Interview pieces,” Raleigh replied. “Why did you decide to dye your hair blue? What was life on the Wall really like?”
“No,” said Mako. “These are the ones who ask the…” She knew what word she wanted in Japanese. How Chuck felt had to be worse.
“Intrusive?”
“Yes,” she said. “They ask them like they are easy. Tokyo’s Girl in Blue. Sydney’s Saved Boy.” She paused, wondered how they would characterize Raleigh. Someone, she was sure, would come up with a Jesus parallel - the Savior that Came Back. It made her feel sick.
“Yeah,” Raleigh said, and he stroked her arm.
“Stacker was good with press. With their stupid questions. Could always give an answer - but never what they wanted.” She felt tears begin in her eyes again and wiped at them with her good hand. She still needed him. He had so much still to teach her.
“I know,” Raleigh said. “I know.”
That night Mako was able to lay on her side and Raleigh spooned behind her. Raleigh seemed to do better with human contact - he was a tactile person, Mako thought. He and Yancy had always been affectionate. She drifted off to sleep thinking about it, Yancy’s hand on Raleigh’s arm as they drank, Yancy’s arm around him as they walked back from the bar, a tight hug after their victory…
They both went to see Chuck the next morning. Mako brought their items in a large bag. Raleigh hung behind her, still awkward with Chuck - with the sudden change in dynamic. “We have some things for you,” Mako said, and set the bag on his hospital table. She brought out a sketchpad and colored pencils.
She did not anticipate his response. She had thought he would find it presumptuous. Instead, he gave her a slow smile and then looked a little sad. He pressed his lips together and gave them a larger, dimpled smile and then flipped through his tablet to a page that had THANK YOU written on it.
“And this, if you get...tired of that,” Raleigh said, and reached into the bag. Chuck looked surprised. Raleigh pulled out the knitting needles he said were good for beginners. Chuck narrowed his eyes. “I knit,” Raleigh said.
Chuck wrote quickly. I don’t know how. He flipped the page. I don’t need a fucking sweater. Raleigh glanced down at his own sweater.
“Well, you wouldn’t be able to start with that,” Raleigh said, voice patient. “You could make something square. Like a square.” Chuck’s eyes widened and he looked over at Mako - as though she was responsible for what came from Raleigh’s mouth.
Chuck drew a rectangle. “Or a rectangle,” Raleigh said. “If you want to do that.”
Raleigh pulled out two skeins of yarn in a blue-green that was the closest approximation to the Striker Eureka Jaeger logo he could. He had asked Mako to compare colors for half an hour in the shop.
Chuck took the yarn and ran his hands over it. “Max,” he said, and closed his eyes. His jaw was set hard and it was clear he was trying to say something - or wanted to say something. A rehabilitative specialist was on their way, an American who had worked with many Iraq and Afghanistan war vets who had suffered from similar traumatic head injuries. “Ss,” Chuck said, finally.
“Soft. Yeah, it’s good wool,” Raleigh said. “You could make Max a blanket?”
Chuck waved his hands, and Raleigh slid closer to him to show him how to hold the knitting needles. Mako picked up the television remote, surprised.
“Should I put something on?” she asked. Chuck nodded, and she clicked through the library - she wanted something as far from their reality as possible and so she eventually chose Law & Order, which she knew was ideal from her own past experience in the medical wing.
“OK,” Raleigh said, and he smiled at Chuck. “First thing that we have to do is cast on - and, I’m, not as good as I should be, nothing is moving right, but-” Chuck shrugged his shoulders and watched Raleigh carefully.
Mako wasn’t surprised that it did not take Chuck long to figure out how to manage a basic knitting stitch. Soon, he and Raleigh were both clacking away and she had to raise the volume.
“Isn’t that a bit big?” Mako asked, watching the long strand that Chuck was working on.
“Max,” he said. He pointed at the blanket at the end of the bed. “Max.” He clenched his teeth together and flinched. She wanted to know if they should be helping him along or letting him struggle. So much of how she thought of Chuck - well, Chuck- she realized, was the brash and stupid things he said. Even as friends, he’d said plenty of stupid things to her. Chuck just couldn’t help himself.
Chuck exhaled. “So he can snuggle into it, right?” Raleigh asked, and Chuck nodded at Mako.
Raleigh was knitting quickly held whatever he was working on up for Chuck, who nodded - as though, after ten minutes, Chuck now understood all of the secrets of knitting. Raleigh set his needles down and then ran his fingers along Chuck’s stitches. “This is really nice,” Raleigh said. “You have a natural tight stitch, really good control - you haven’t dropped one, miscounted.” Chuck rolled his eyes - he didn’t need to write out that expression, but Raleigh just smiled at him.
Dr. Gottlieb and Dr. Geiszler arrived after an hour of knitting. Mako was relieved. She did not admit that Raleigh had been right and she should have got needles for herself. He probably had, and was just waiting for her to admit to it.
Newt was amused. “Hey, that’s really good,” he said to Chuck. “You have a natural stitch.”
Chuck narrowed his eyes at him, then shrugged his shoulders.
“We have your tablet prepared, Ranger Hansen,” Dr. Gottlieb said. “I took it upon myself to rectify some of the code errors while Dr. Geiszler downloaded extraneous voices for you to utilize.” Chuck smiled at this. Well, he probably smiled at the word rectify.
“Just want to make sure you have everything you might need,” Dr. Geiszler said. He bent down and pet Max, who had taken up residence at Chuck’s feet.
Dr. Gottlieb leaned back in the corner of the room and watched Mako, Chuck, and Raleigh with some degree of interest. “I’ve ensured more fluidity with the software, so it should speak nearly as fast as you can type,” he said.
Chuck carefully set his knitting aside and held his hand out for the tablet. He glanced down at it and poked at it with a single finger. Mako furrowed her brow for a moment, but then - of course Chuck would not have had to learned how to type.
Go folk yourself, came a bland, American voice from the tablet.
Chuck looked immediately at Dr. Gottlieb. “Aw, c’mon, dude, you seriously turned off swear words?” Dr. Geiszler asked.
“What - no, Newt, in fact, it is not possible - rather, Ranger Hansen must have made a typographical error and the tablet merely did its best-” Dr. Gottlieb shook his head.
Chuck glanced down and then nodded his head. Go fuck yourself, the tablet said. Why the fuck do I sound like Becket?
“Standard setting?” Dr. Geiszler asked, but then he grinned and leaned in close to Chuck. “But you just need to - see that drop down menu, there? That’s where the so-called extraneous options are-”
This should sound more like it, Chuck typed, and he looked appalled at what had to be the Australian setting. It sounded more like the Crocodile Hunter than Chuck or Herc did.
“I didn’t necessarily preview them,” Dr. Geiszler said.
Chuck sighed, and Mako watched him carefully - it looked like he was confused, for a moment, about what he was doing. He looked down at the tablet, then at Dr. Geiszler, and then at the keyboard interface on the tablet. He exhaled.
Mako hoped it was the painkillers, or that he was tired. She had read several articles on traumatic brain injury on her own tablet, and had been concerned at the myriad medium and long-term side effects Chuck may experience. Things they could not necessarily diagnose right now.
“But, look, there’s a couple different - like, maybe try non-Regional Australian diction? I downloaded the, uh, non-regional diction package.” Dr. Geiszler said, scrolling down for Chuck. Mako’s eyes were able to read several of the options, many which appeared to be appalling - she did not want to know what the voice titled Comrade Chuck was going to yield.
Is this any fucking better? came from the tablet.
“Doesn’t sound like you, but doesn’t sound like someone doing a bad Australian accent,” Raleigh replied.
Chuck was getting a little better with typing, and he narrowed his eyes. Thanks. A lot better than the pad. He waved his hand over at the legal pad. Dr. Geiszler nodded.
“Thanks, I would go, like, nuts, if I had to write out everything - so, nothing to it.”
“The rest of us, of course, would find our sanity preserved,” Dr. Gottlieb interjected.
Yar, ‘tis still going to make things a lot easier, Chuck wrote, and it came out in a very stereotypical pirate voice. Raleigh and Dr. Geiszler grinned at him.
“I find it difficult to believe that, given all the trials and tribulations of our time, someone decided the best use of their intellect would be to program a pirate voice for that particular platform,” Dr. Gottlieb said.
Raleigh shrugged. “You either have to do something useful or useless, right?”
Dr. Gottlieb considered this for a moment, instead of issuing one of his normal grouchy retorts. Then he nodded. “Yes, I suppose so,” he said, and then looked over at Newt.
“If you are even implying-”
If you two are going to flirt with each other maybe do it somewhere else? Chuck typed, back in the standard Australian voice.
“Flirt?” Dr. Geiszler asked.
I meant fight, Chuck typed. Mako had to smile, slightly - this, at least, soothed some of her fears about his mental capacity. Dr. Gottlieb’s one nostril flared, while Dr. Geiszler looked clueless. Mako was not aware whether he was, or not.
Before they left, Dr. Geiszler said, Where’d you learn to knit, by the way? Chuck, already back to his blanket, pointed his needle at Raleigh. A light bulb could have appeared over Dr. Geiszler’s head.
Hermann rolled his eyes, but Newt looked completely clueless. Of course he was.
As soon as they left, Chuck looked over at Raleigh. “Where the hell did you learn to knit?”
“Therapy,” Raleigh said. Chuck inhaled and nodded. Then he reached for the pencils and began to sketch.
Mako knew that Chuck’s good spirits would not last. He waited until Raleigh left to go and see the orthopaedist.
Perhaps it was conscious, perhaps it was not. Mako was a little bit tired of trying to figure out about the exact dynamic between the two of them.
This fucking sucks, he typed.
“Yes,” Mako replied. “But you have not seen the specialist yet-”
Chuck met her eyes as he pounded on the tablet. She made a slight tsking sound, though technology, at least, was something they were not in short supply on. It was one of the few things that was not scrimped on, even as their budget shortfall loomed. What difference is it going to make like they’re going to be able to do anything to make it better Mako I’ve looked things up on my own you know.
It took her a moment to parse the statement out. Then she nodded at Chuck. “This may not be your only side effect, either,” she said. “But you are alive.”
Chuck looked at her and nodded. He exhaled, and she was surprised to see tears form in his eyes. She had not seen Chuck cry once - not even when he had once taken a forceful kick to the balls in the Academy’s kwoon.
“Chuck, I did not mean that-” Chuck shook his head. Mako stared straight ahead. She did not want to say something wrong, again. Tears trailed down his face, and the sight of it was enough to make her feel a bit nauseous. Chuck Hansen did not cry. So she pulled herself a little closer and took his hand, because it seemed that it was the right thing to do.
Chuck stared at their hands, together, and then at her. He used his other hand to type slowly, and the words came out one at a time as though there was a period between them. My leg is fucked and I can’t fucking talk and I never should have left him.
“No,” said Mako. Never leave your co-pilot. She had not understood when she drifted with someone though. “You did not leave. He put you in the pod.” She made sure to meet Chuck’s eyes. “He did not mean to dishonor you.”
Tears kept coming down Chuck’s face and she wondered if this was one of the side effects - depression, anxiety, behavioral changes and sharp changes in mood. Oh, Chuck, she thought. Even without the brain injury - he was more damaged than they knew.
Mako didn’t say anything further because it would not have the desired effect. Chuck did not want to hear anything right now. Instead she sat with Chuck.
Eventually his breathing regulated and his hand went a little slack. He was asleep. She was relieved. She was not very good at things like emotions.
That was what Raleigh was for.