![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Striker Eureka’s dot on the screen blips out and Mako stares at the screen, seemingly unfazed but feeling dead, lost, and hollow inside. Herc feels it too; literally feels it the moment that his son dies because they’ve been Drifting so long that the bond is just that strong and he doesn’t know how he’s still standing up and giving orders.
Raleigh feels how dead Mako feels inside and he falters but she just shakes her head - Finish the mission, she tells him, eyes cold steel, hands flexing in her gloves, Gipsy’s moving in response. We have to finish the mission.
And they do; they finish it and she’s caught up in the moment, smiling and holding on to Raleigh like he’s some kind of life raft that’s keeping her afloat – though in a lot of ways, he is.
He’s all she has left.
The choppers pick them up and she sits next to Raleigh, leaning heavily against his side, after effects of the Drift forcing her to keep contact, keep her hands on him in some form or another. His arm is slung around her shoulders and he’s silent while everyone else celebrates, because he felt her pain, her anguish, her loss. He still feels it, and he’s so, so proud of her and so sorry too, but he knows there’s nothing he can do to alleviate to hurt.
They’re taken almost immediately to medical, but both pilots refuse to be separated from one another so they’re put in the same room and they sit side by side on the hospital bed, thighs and arms touching while staff takes vitals and verifies that they’re fine, they just need rest – lots of it. They’re left alone and Mako can’t face the roaring crowd that is the Shatterdome and neither can Raleigh so they just lay there in that tiny hospital bed together, curled and tangled up with one another until they fall asleep.
Mako wakes up with her face wet and she thinks maybe it’s because she’s been crying but it’s hard to tell because Max is on the bed and licking her cheeks while Raleigh is sitting up beside her and talking to Herc, debriefing him even though he’d heard it all.
Protocol. The Marshal did so insist on his protocol. It makes Mako smile and twists her heart at the same time and she has to excuse herself to the bathroom so that she can break down in peace. She allows herself to lose her shit for approximately a minute, then splashes cold water on her face and emerges, coming to sit next to Raleigh so that she can verify what he has said.
Herc looks rough, like he’s been hit by a truck and Mako thinks that she understands to a degree exactly how he feels. His eyes meet hers and there’s a flicker of understanding, of mutual pain and loss and then the moment is gone and the contact is broken because Herc is looking down at his papers and flipping through them, asking Mako questions in a robotic voice and she answers just as dully and mechanically.
Mako doesn’t know how much the Marshal knows about her relationship with his son. She doesn’t know if he’s aware that sometimes, when they were all tangled up with one another, he was actually happy, that he’d smile just because she was there with him. She doesn’t know if Herc saw anything the last time they Drifted, because she knows that while Chuck was wild, passionate and often let his feelings go unfettered, he was an experienced pilot that likely didn’t take his sex life into the Drift.
She doesn’t know how much she should confide in Herc later, how much would make it worse, how much would make it easier to swallow.
Who is she kidding? Nothing will make this any better. Nothing at all. Stacker was gone. Chuck was gone. Nothing will make this any easier to bear and she clears her throat, whispers to Raleigh I cannot do this right now and gets up and simply leaves the room, making her way through the Shatterdome to go straight back to her quarters.
Raleigh feels how dead Mako feels inside and he falters but she just shakes her head - Finish the mission, she tells him, eyes cold steel, hands flexing in her gloves, Gipsy’s moving in response. We have to finish the mission.
And they do; they finish it and she’s caught up in the moment, smiling and holding on to Raleigh like he’s some kind of life raft that’s keeping her afloat – though in a lot of ways, he is.
He’s all she has left.
The choppers pick them up and she sits next to Raleigh, leaning heavily against his side, after effects of the Drift forcing her to keep contact, keep her hands on him in some form or another. His arm is slung around her shoulders and he’s silent while everyone else celebrates, because he felt her pain, her anguish, her loss. He still feels it, and he’s so, so proud of her and so sorry too, but he knows there’s nothing he can do to alleviate to hurt.
They’re taken almost immediately to medical, but both pilots refuse to be separated from one another so they’re put in the same room and they sit side by side on the hospital bed, thighs and arms touching while staff takes vitals and verifies that they’re fine, they just need rest – lots of it. They’re left alone and Mako can’t face the roaring crowd that is the Shatterdome and neither can Raleigh so they just lay there in that tiny hospital bed together, curled and tangled up with one another until they fall asleep.
Mako wakes up with her face wet and she thinks maybe it’s because she’s been crying but it’s hard to tell because Max is on the bed and licking her cheeks while Raleigh is sitting up beside her and talking to Herc, debriefing him even though he’d heard it all.
Protocol. The Marshal did so insist on his protocol. It makes Mako smile and twists her heart at the same time and she has to excuse herself to the bathroom so that she can break down in peace. She allows herself to lose her shit for approximately a minute, then splashes cold water on her face and emerges, coming to sit next to Raleigh so that she can verify what he has said.
Herc looks rough, like he’s been hit by a truck and Mako thinks that she understands to a degree exactly how he feels. His eyes meet hers and there’s a flicker of understanding, of mutual pain and loss and then the moment is gone and the contact is broken because Herc is looking down at his papers and flipping through them, asking Mako questions in a robotic voice and she answers just as dully and mechanically.
Mako doesn’t know how much the Marshal knows about her relationship with his son. She doesn’t know if he’s aware that sometimes, when they were all tangled up with one another, he was actually happy, that he’d smile just because she was there with him. She doesn’t know if Herc saw anything the last time they Drifted, because she knows that while Chuck was wild, passionate and often let his feelings go unfettered, he was an experienced pilot that likely didn’t take his sex life into the Drift.
She doesn’t know how much she should confide in Herc later, how much would make it worse, how much would make it easier to swallow.
Who is she kidding? Nothing will make this any better. Nothing at all. Stacker was gone. Chuck was gone. Nothing will make this any easier to bear and she clears her throat, whispers to Raleigh I cannot do this right now and gets up and simply leaves the room, making her way through the Shatterdome to go straight back to her quarters.