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“Like my father always said. If you have a shot, you take it.”

The whole plan’s gone FUBAR. It was supposed to be a four-team drop. He was supposed to walk through the wreckage with his dad and drop the bomb right into the jaws of hell and then walk away. Apocalypse over. World saved. Instead there’s two of them against three Kaiju and his only way out of this is in pieces.

It’s easier, neater this way. Poetic even. Maybe he wasn’t born in a Jaeger, but that’s where he grew up, became a man. Seems like the right place to die too. Maybe, if he’s lucky, he’ll become a hero for it.

In some cowardly lizard brain part of himself Chuck’s almost grateful. It means not having to worry about ‘after.’ He’s spent his whole damn life single-mindedly working to end the apocalypse to the point he’s never thought of what he’ll do when it’s done. No mates, no partners, nothing other than the enemy and the weapons humanity had at its disposal. It’s a strange weakness of character that makes him accept his own death with a semblance of grace.

Going out like this means he won’t be a Jaeger pilot in a world with no need for them. He won’t have to fade into obsoletion like a wreck into Oblivion Bay. His dad, the people in the Shatterdome, and–hell–the two lovebirds down in Gipsy Danger have tomorrow. Chuck has now. Now is all he needs.

Distantly, he can hear Mako and Pentecost saying their goodbyes. His dad doesn’t say anything and Chuck can’t blame him. Their whole life is made up of things gone unsaid. Goodbyes now will just be forced. More to the point, they’ll be painful. So instead they have actions. He has a shot and he’s going to take it. He’s going to clear a path for the lady.

“It’s been a pleasure serving with you sir.”

As one, he and the Marshall reach out, hit the button, detonate the payload. If anything else is said he doesn’t hear it. His heart beats hard and he swears he can hear it, hear his whole body panicking against the forced tranquility of his brain. They’re not gonna survive and that’s okay.

For a second, everything burns. Chuck doesn’t close his eyes. He’s going to look death in the face when he goes, like a real Ranger.

When the metal and smoke and light clear, Chuck finds himself lying on his back, staring up at floating cliffs. His whole left side feels ravaged and his mind feels carved–the echo of a broken Drift. Everything hurts and he has no idea where he is. He tries to sit up, stares around uncomprehendingly, and then lays back in the grass.

“Well shit.”

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It isn't entirely unfamiliar, this method of arrival. Raleigh remembers it from his own arrival at the hotel and he rushes over, trying to see who it is. He knows the face, of course, because it's Chuck Hansen but damn if he doesn't wish it was Mako or Pentecost. Even Herc would be nice.

Still, after the scientist showed up, he'd kind of been expecting another arrival from their world and here he is.

"Bad day?"

"The hell are you doing here?" If he finds out that Becket someone skipped loose instead of finishing the mission, Chuck is going to find a way to get to his feet and beat some sense into him.

"Finish the mission and then ask that question."

"Time doesn't pass here. I haven't even gone on the mission yet," Raleigh tosses back. It's weird, he guesses, but he's not inclined to question it when it means he gets a break whenever it all gets to be too much.

"What just happened?"

Chuck groans, closes his eyes against the light and the image of the impossible floating cliffs.

"You were right there in Gipsy, don't try and take the piss. Where am I."

"It's called the Nexus. It's some hotel that's between dimensions. And sometimes there's a time lapse because I'm not in Gipsy and there's a scientist here from when Otachi attacked. Maybe we're just all in the Drift but I doubt it," Raleigh says, shrugging.

"Maybe the doc can explain it better than me."

"We were in the middle of Pitfall. Everything went to shit." He doesn't have it in him to outright say he thinks he's dead now. It takes a little more courage than he can muster to say as much in front of Becket, of all people.

"If it's the excitable guy from k-science, I'm not sure it'll make much sense."

"Oh, it is. The one with the G name, the American guy," Raleigh says, snorting a little. "So is it just you? Pentecost didn't come through?"

If there were someone he wanted other than Mako or his brother, it'd be the marshal.

"Newt," Chuck concludes. He's been in the game and working with Kaiju science long enough to know exactly who that means.

"Just me. And, hell, I'm surprised I'm even in one piece."

"This place seems to oblige that way," Raleigh says. "Been here off and on for the last two months or so. I haven't figured out the rhyme or reason to it."

Chuck bites down on a sarcastic comment, wondering just how hard Becket would really want to work in an apparent magical break room. Maybe when he can feel his left side he'll be more like his usual self.

"Wonderful to hear it. D'you mind going back wherever you came from and finishing the mission first."

"Yeah, you're as dumb as you look. Look, I'm not abandoning my post or whatever, time doesn't pass, I can be here for weeks and y'all won't notice back home," Raleigh says, exasperated.

"Can't a man want to know he didn't just blow himself up in vain?" There. He's said it. It feels a painful admission, but he's done and said it. "Even I like to have a little reassurance."

"I'm sure you didn't," Raleigh says, softening just a little. "Sorry. You know, I was you, once. Cocky. Didn't gain me anything."?

Becket's sympathy, no matter how slight, runs a little too close to pity for Chuck's tastes. It would from anyone, really, but from him especially.

"Lovely, good to know." Chuck says, trying to push himself into a seated position at least. The burns and bruises all over his left side spark and needle at him with pain but Chuck grits his teeth and forces himself upright.

"I'm just saying, it doesn't always work out for good," he says, offering a hand to the other man. "Here, let me help you up so we can get you checked out. It hurts like a bitch when they hit you, even in a jaeger."

There's no blustering that he's not that badly hurt, not after what Becket just saw and how much Chuck hurts. Instead, silently, he takes the offered hand and struggles himself to his feet.

"Triple event. Pretty hellish."

"There's never been a triple before," Raleigh says, whistling lowly. "I guess that means it's the end, if we don't pull off a win. Worse than I thought."

"Suppose I'm not supposed to tell you the future or some other science fiction nonsense like that."

Standing on his feet opens up whole different channels of pain, but he swallows it. Pretends he's had worse.

"I already know there's a triple event now," Raleigh points out. "And the world didn't collapse so I think we're good."

He watches Chuck carefully for a moment. "You need help or do you think you can walk?"

In truth, he's pretty sure the answer is yes, but he's also a ranger. He's not going to give in just because of a little pain.

"We'll see."

"Jury's still out?"

Raleigh has dealt with battle injuries before, the worst being after Yancy had been ripped away from him in Gipsy Danger. He knows the pain of it, both physical and mental, and doesn't wish it on his worst enemy. "So uh, your Drift partner. Does it feel like they got ripped away or anything?"

So. Time for the hard questions. Chuck shrugs, like he can't feel the traces of grief and loss and the empty places carved out by two minds not his own.

"Hard to say. Was busy feeling myself die."

"Fair enough," Raleigh says, falling quiet. He thinks nobody, except maybe Pentecost, knows exactly what it feels like to have someone ripped from you in the Drift. And Pentecost isn't exactly a talker.

"I just...nobody's ever had it happen but me."

"What, you want me to share? Talk about things you already know."

Things that are still ringing around his head. If he blinks too fast, Chuck isn't sure whose eyes he's looking out of.

"I just thought it might be nice for you not to be alone with it," Raleigh snaps.

"It's tough shit."

"I got two deaths buzzing around my head and it feels like shit."

What is he supposed to say?

"Deal with it, I guess," Raleigh says, shrugging. "Or you could talk it out with one of the few people who gets it. Either or."?

Chuck nods, unsure of how to accept that he wants the help, much less say it. Instead he shrugs and focuses on the pain throughout his body.

He should be dead, but he's upright and walking like it was just a bad battle.

"Trying to figure out if I'm actually dead."

"Maybe you are. But why would you come here if you were?" Raleigh is under the impression that the door between here and the Shatterdome is another rift and one that can't be breached by kaiju yet, considering how peaceful it is here.

"Doesn't make sense to me. Maybe you fell through the rift and came here instead of going to wherever kaiju are from."

"Look, mate, there wasn't enough of me to fall through the rift."

It's nauseating to think about that, the fact that he's somewhere at the bottom of the ocean at the consistency of chunky salsa. if that.

"I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to be dead."

"And yet, talking to me," Raleigh says, shrugging again.

"I would just go with it and see what happens. At least this is a mostly decent afterlife, if that's what it is. No kaiju, no mayhem and destruction, a pretty decent bar."

"Not sure which sounds better right now. A world without Kaiju or the presence of a bar."

It's the first, of course it's the first. That makes it worth it, sort of. Hopefully the rest of the worlds follow suit.

"Always wanted to retire before I was thirty."

"You're still young enough to enjoy it," Raleigh says, laughing a little.

"It's pretty calm here, all told. I don't mind that."

"Tell me that's where we're going first."

The hell with the infirmary, right now he feels like a stiff drink will do him better.

"If you want, I can spot you the drink," Raleigh agrees.

"Might not be the best thing if you just crawled out of a jaeger but I'm no doctor. I'm not going to call you out if you want something to take your mind off it."

"I'm already half-dead. What more harm is a drink gonna do?"

He says it with an attempt at a smirk but then a misstep sends pain through what he thinks are cracked ribs.

"Are you sure you don't want the infirmary?"

Broken ribs hurt like a bitch and Raleigh isn't sure he wouldn't want to go get his taped up before having a drink but that's just him.

Chuck tries to summon up the bravado around the pain.

"Don't want it, mate, but I'm pretty sure I need it."

"We could do that first," Raleigh offers.

"Then we can get drunk." Not too drunk, he doesn't carry around enough spare change to get Hansen drunk, but drunk enough.

"Probably save on anesthesia." It's not a good joke, but he's having a very bad day. He's dead and yet not and dependent on the pity of Raleigh Becket. It's not the situation he would have chosen.

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