[ The wind picks up in the silence that follows, filling it with the shimmering whisper of sand against distant windows. For the past week it's been getting into things, finding its way into the buildings despite shuttered windows and shut doors. A sign of some danger approaching, no doubt.
Mako knows that she should be focused on it and at the ready, but she's distracted and she's afraid that distraction will come between her and doing her best. ]
Did you ever make plans? [ It's a question she's never asked before, one that she's hardly even considered for herself. They were all meant to die at the bottom of the sea. Some of them did, but all of them. ] For after the war.
[ the wind is punctuated by her voice, and once it ends the sentence a pregnant pause follows it again. Herc lets himself think on it, for a moment; how many times he'd heard fellow soldiers talk about the end. wives and kids to go back to, people that didn't live and breath and sweat the PPDC. when he was in the Air Force, he joined in on those topics of discussion. that he had a boy and he was with his beautiful wife and the kid was learning how to bake. his birthday was coming. that he was going to retire and go back to surfing.
when Jaegers came into the equation, he kept his mouth shut when the conversation came up.
and maybe that's why he answers her honestly: because yeah, he's a marshall now, but he hasn't been for most of his life. he's always been one of the boys, one of the rangers, one of those out there fighting and not calling the shots. putting his life on the line, not watching others do it for him. ]
Nah. [ he answers, and his voice is low and coarse, like he hasn't used it for a while, when in truth it's half to do with his sleep habits. ] Pilots don't retire.
[ he'd heard it somewhere, some kind of lilting rhyme about kaiju getting you first. ]
[ The UNSC has a phrase; Mako has heard it through the grapevine more than once. The phrase goes: Spartan's never die — which is funny, because as far as Mako can tell, they can just fine. But it's not meant to be literal and shouldn't be taken as such. The phrase serves as a testament to the Spartan verve, to how their duty transcends all, even death and how their memory lingers in the same way history eventually passes into legend.
The PPDC has no such slogans. Everyone knows that rangers die. They die all the time.
Which is why Herc's answer doesn't surprise Mako. In fact, in many ways she'd been expecting it. She doesn't pity him in the same way that she doesn't pity herself. If they died, they would do so to the full service of their duty and for Mako there is something honorable in that, not something to be mourned. Most people wouldn't see it that way, she understood, but their lives weren't lived and spent for their approval. And yet, for some reason, his response gives her pause, her next question already waiting for him, held on her tongue regardless of his answer. ]
What if Chuck wanted to retire? [ The question's loaded, maybe more than it ought to be, but Mako isn't about to say I. (He's not her father, but he's as good as. As close as.
And daughters want for their father's approval.) ] What if he wanted something for himself?
[ he doesn't take a breath, doesn't hiss as though she's just slipped in under his defenses and jabbed him with a short blade through the ribs, into his lungs. the question does just as much, because while the question is thinly veiled (what if i wanted something for myself?), Herc gets stuck on Chuck because that's what he's always done.
his gaze sweeps down from the faint city lights, and it betrays the sting her words pack. he rolls both shoulders, not in a shrug but as though he might release tension, or roll off the attack (however unintentional it may be). ]
Then he'd have t'quit while he was ahead.
[ Herc wouldn't see it as lacking; didn't think Raleigh was lacking when he'd left. people have their priorities— Herc knows his own are skewed. knows he'd carved out a destiny for Chuck when he'd dragged him into this war.
it was too late for himself. too late for his son. if Chuck ever wanted something for himself, it was to be better, to be the best, and they never spoke outloud of anything else he may desire. ]
[ Herc looks away and Mako can feel very distinctly the motion of it; she experiences it keenly against her own senses and it turns her expression hesitant and regretful for as long as the moment lasts. This is uncertain ground for her, and while the unknown has never truly frightened Mako, the thought of a personal life is anathema to her. It, in many ways, feels like a failure. (Chuck isn't the only one who wants to be the best. He isn't the only one to be frustrated by it either.) ]
Are we ahead, sir? [ asks Mako.
It's not that she intends to take him up on his offer, but she grew up in a world belonging to the kaiju. By the time she came into her own, everything was so choked up on desperation, she had no idea what it was like to be "ahead" of disaster's curve. ]
[ strangely, Herc feels like he's walking on eggshells, like he's been thrown into a crossfire and left utterly unarmed. like he's facing off Leatherback and their Jaeger is immobile. discomfort has him rock onto the balls of his feet, then settle again. he recognizes he's fidgeting and forces himself to stop. to refocus himself he turns his gaze toward her, the briefest of glances before looking back out. it makes it less about him, just that glance; has him return his attention to the girl who's approached him with an abstract question.
because this isn't about Chuck. ]
Ahead as we'll ever be.
[ he finally concedes, and tucks his hands back into his pockets. ]
[ It isn't about Chuck but, in a way it is. It's about children who were raised within the shatterdome's walls, children who grew into adults that don't know how to live in a world without war. For all that Mako and Chuck seem different — his anger and her quietness, his ego and her reservation — they are more alike than most people will ever realize. Herc, however, has a better idea than most. He'd seen them grow, seen them stunt and then flourish but in incomplete ways (good soldiers, better rangers, but half-made people at the end of the day).
It isn't about Chuck but it could be. (If he'd survived. If.)
Mako clears her throat and when she finally speaks, her voice is quietly confessional. ]
—I don't feel ahead, sir. [ It's a difficult thing to admit. ]
[ he hums, which isn't really an answer, but her statement doesn't exactly ask for one. he gets it, knows why she points to Chuck the same way Chuck points to her and they all point at Max. there's a conduit there because their rangers and that kind of talk isn't easy. can't be, when you go into battle every day. wearing your heart on your sleeve doesn't work when you're going out to fight a war.
but as much as Herc is a soldier, he's also a father. he was also married, once. so he hazards a guess: ]
[ Mako makes a face which is almost too childish to qualify as a wince. For all that she plays her cards close and for all that she tries to maintain a composed exterior, there are certain emotions that her features betray far too readily and sentiments that express themselves not only in her face but her entire body.
She doesn't like feeling that she's been obvious or clumsy with the conversation and the fact that Herc already can guess the problem (he's a father, and sometimes fathers know these kinds of things) makes her feel gawkish and inelegant. To overcompensate, she resets her shoulders and juts her chin a little in stubborn reassertion. ]
He wasn't always a soldier. [ He knows what it's like to want things and he speaks a different language than Mak and Herc and Chuck. That makes things difficult sometimes. ]
[ it's a process of elimination, and to Herc's eye the only thing the rangers have is one another. he can't imagine anyone else getting under Mako's skin this way, and while he doesn't know the intimate going-ons between the others (even Chuck's life, here, is half a mystery to him— made more so with the lack of a drift) it could be none but Raleigh.
he's a father, and that plays into it, but he'd never been much of a good one. if asked, he'd shrug off that particular detail. ]
Nah. [ Raleigh's been a civilian longer than any of them, the years he'd backed out to climb the Wall ] But you figure it out, or it falls apart.
[ things with his wife hadn't fallen apart (he'd been retiring for a reason), but they'd never had a chance to. he pauses, briefly, before adding: ]
War's over. It's something you can think about now.
With all due respect, sir— [ Mako doesn't have to say it, but she does. ] —you don't. Chuck doesn't. [ They don't talk about it, but she knows. It's in his demeanor, the way he stands and the way he talks. As far as Chuck is concerned, there will never be more for him. His sentence has already been written, with a period tidying it up at the end — a closed loop into which nothing new could be allowed. (They're soldiers, always have been. It's not something that they lament.)
Raleigh had told her once, (a brief moment in the conn-pod, seconds before the dead drop of initialization), I never thought about the future until now and when he'd said it she'd known (the Drift connecting them) that he'd meant the both of them and that, in knowing her, he'd imagined an entire life together. And to be honest, that thought that made Mako more nervous than any engagement at the bottom of the sea. Not fear, per say, but a roiling kind of anxiousness that spoke to her in ways that nothing else in her life ever had.
Mako continues to stare out at the city. The next question is difficult to eke out, but she tries not to struggle with it. ]
Would he have wanted this for me?
[ He. It's the first time Mako has spoken about Pentecost to Herc since their arrival in the city. Even with his passing, the thought of him lingers and even with him gone, Mako is still struggling to be the daughter she thinks he hoped she would be. ]
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heracleidae) wrote2013-09-06 11:57 pm
( i x : d 1 : late night )
Mako knows that she should be focused on it and at the ready, but she's distracted and she's afraid that distraction will come between her and doing her best. ]
Did you ever make plans? [ It's a question she's never asked before, one that she's hardly even considered for herself. They were all meant to die at the bottom of the sea. Some of them did, but all of them. ] For after the war.
( i x : d 1 : late night )
when Jaegers came into the equation, he kept his mouth shut when the conversation came up.
and maybe that's why he answers her honestly: because yeah, he's a marshall now, but he hasn't been for most of his life. he's always been one of the boys, one of the rangers, one of those out there fighting and not calling the shots. putting his life on the line, not watching others do it for him.
]
Nah. [ he answers, and his voice is low and coarse, like he hasn't used it for a while, when in truth it's half to do with his sleep habits. ] Pilots don't retire.
[ he'd heard it somewhere, some kind of lilting rhyme about kaiju getting you first. ]
( i x : d 1 : late night )
The PPDC has no such slogans.
Everyone knows that rangers die. They die all the time.
Which is why Herc's answer doesn't surprise Mako. In fact, in many ways she'd been expecting it. She doesn't pity him in the same way that she doesn't pity herself. If they died, they would do so to the full service of their duty and for Mako there is something honorable in that, not something to be mourned. Most people wouldn't see it that way, she understood, but their lives weren't lived and spent for their approval. And yet, for some reason, his response gives her pause, her next question already waiting for him, held on her tongue regardless of his answer. ]
What if Chuck wanted to retire? [ The question's loaded, maybe more than it ought to be, but Mako isn't about to say I. (He's not her father, but he's as good as. As close as.
And daughters want for their father's approval.) ] What if he wanted something for himself?
( i x : d 1 : late night )
his gaze sweeps down from the faint city lights, and it betrays the sting her words pack. he rolls both shoulders, not in a shrug but as though he might release tension, or roll off the attack (however unintentional it may be). ]
Then he'd have t'quit while he was ahead.
[ Herc wouldn't see it as lacking; didn't think Raleigh was lacking when he'd left. people have their priorities— Herc knows his own are skewed. knows he'd carved out a destiny for Chuck when he'd dragged him into this war.
it was too late for himself. too late for his son. if Chuck ever wanted something for himself, it was to be better, to be the best, and they never spoke outloud of anything else he may desire. ]
( i x : d 1 : late night )
Are we ahead, sir? [ asks Mako.
It's not that she intends to take him up on his offer, but she grew up in a world belonging to the kaiju. By the time she came into her own, everything was so choked up on desperation, she had no idea what it was like to be "ahead" of disaster's curve. ]
( i x : d 1 : late night )
because this isn't about Chuck. ]
Ahead as we'll ever be.
[ he finally concedes, and tucks his hands back into his pockets. ]
( i x : d 1 : late night )
It isn't about Chuck but it could be. (If he'd survived. If.)
Mako clears her throat and when she finally speaks, her voice is quietly confessional. ]
—I don't feel ahead, sir. [ It's a difficult thing to admit. ]
( i x : d 1 : late night )
but as much as Herc is a soldier, he's also a father. he was also married, once. so he hazards a guess: ]
This about Becket?
( i x : d 1 : late night )
She doesn't like feeling that she's been obvious or clumsy with the conversation and the fact that Herc already can guess the problem (he's a father, and sometimes fathers know these kinds of things) makes her feel gawkish and inelegant. To overcompensate, she resets her shoulders and juts her chin a little in stubborn reassertion. ]
He wasn't always a soldier. [ He knows what it's like to want things and he speaks a different language than Mak and Herc and Chuck. That makes things difficult sometimes. ]
( i x : d 1 : late night )
he's a father, and that plays into it, but he'd never been much of a good one. if asked, he'd shrug off that particular detail. ]
Nah. [ Raleigh's been a civilian longer than any of them, the years he'd backed out to climb the Wall ] But you figure it out, or it falls apart.
[ things with his wife hadn't fallen apart (he'd been retiring for a reason), but they'd never had a chance to. he pauses, briefly, before adding: ]
War's over. It's something you can think about now.
( i x : d 1 : late night )
Raleigh had told her once, (a brief moment in the conn-pod, seconds before the dead drop of initialization), I never thought about the future until now and when he'd said it she'd known (the Drift connecting them) that he'd meant the both of them and that, in knowing her, he'd imagined an entire life together. And to be honest, that thought that made Mako more nervous than any engagement at the bottom of the sea. Not fear, per say, but a roiling kind of anxiousness that spoke to her in ways that nothing else in her life ever had.
Mako continues to stare out at the city. The next question is difficult to eke out, but she tries not to struggle with it. ]
Would he have wanted this for me?
[ He. It's the first time Mako has spoken about Pentecost to Herc since their arrival in the city. Even with his passing, the thought of him lingers and even with him gone, Mako is still struggling to be the daughter she thinks he hoped she would be. ]