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It turns out, even with the jaegers at the bottom of the ocean, even with the equipment cannibalized for parts (because, apparently, Newt and Hermann have that habit--of all habits--in common), even with a whole continent between them, they dream towards each other.
The first time it happens, Raleigh is certain it's just a regular dream. Mako smiles at him, and they talk about what they're doing the next day. "I'm going to go see some people I knew before," Raleigh says. "Before Hong Kong I mean."
"People you knew with Yancy?” Mako asks.
“Yes,” Raleigh says, and his throat tightens, and he makes himself cough to clear it. “I think, maybe it’s time, you know?”
“Yes,” Mako agrees. “I know.”
She calls him two days later and asks how it went.
“How what went?” Raleigh says. He’s outside a bar, two beers in, and he took a monumental amount of shit for the way his face lit up when he saw her name on his caller ID.
“Fuck you,” he’d told his friends—and god, they’re still his friends all these years later, still so happy to see him—“She’s my co-pilot.”
“Seeing your friends,” Mako says. “Your before Hong Kong friends.”
“I didn’t—” the dream comes back to him, and Raleigh stops cold. “Wait. That was a dream.”
“We’ll always have the drift,” Mako says. “Even when you don’t think you do.”
“You are nothing but a barrel of surprises,” Raleigh says, and Mako laughs, and it makes him smile even wider. “Anything else I didn’t already know?”
“I’m behind you,” Mako says.
Raleigh spins around, and there she is, in jeans and a t-shirt and a cardigan. She is beaming at him as she puts her phone in her pocket. Raleigh opens his arms, and she runs to him, hugging him tight. “Did you come all this way to check on me?” he asks.
“I came all this way for the ribs you talked about,” Mako says. She looks up at the restaurant sign, which proclaims ‘Best Ribs in the State.’ “And for you a little bit.”
“A little bit?” Raleigh says, feigning disappointment. Mako beams at him, and he wants, suddenly to kiss her. He swallows it back. “Do you want to meet them?” he asks. “My friends. They’re loud, and they swear a lot, and they probably think they can drink you under the table.”
“They sound fun,” Mako says, reaching down and taking his hand. “Show me.”
He does. They end up staying up all night, laughing and drinking and eating ribs and then more ribs—and it turns out Mako not only out-drinks the table (“Cherno Alpha,” she says when someone asks her favorite place to grab a drink, and Raleigh laughs at the same time as he feels immensely sad and proud), she also out-eats them all. When they leave, it’s dawn, and Raleigh waves goodbye to his friends and turns towards Mako. She watches his friends reach the corner and turn, and then she slumps against him, her eyes closed.
“I need to sleep,” she says.
“I can’t believe you made it the whole night,” Raleigh says, curling his arm around her shoulders and leading her towards his hotel, a few blocks over. “You had to cross, what? Four time zones to get here?”
“Three,” Mako says. “I have a tolerance for it.”
“Pentacost?” Raleigh asks.
Mako nods against his chest. Her eyes are still closed. She’s trusting Raleigh to get her where they’re going. “We moved ‘domes as needed. Some people needed him more than others.” She burrows in a little closer, and Raleigh is tempted to just pick her up and carry her.
“He needed you most of all,” Raleigh says. Mako doesn’t answer, but her arm tightens around Raleigh’s waist.
“Here we are,” Raleigh says a few minutes later as he opens the door to his room.
“Sleep next to me,” Mako says.
“Okay,” Raleigh agrees. They both toe off their shoes and collapse on the bed. Mako curls in close to him, and Raleigh turns towards her so they’re parentheses holding what they feel for each other in the curve of themselves.
When he dreams, Mako is there again, smiling and giggling as he waltzes her around the dance floor of his mind.
“I’m going to wake up tired,” she says.
“Then we’ll just sleep again,” Raleigh says, and he laughs when she dips him.