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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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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.