Chapter Text
it wasn't that you wondered about aliens, from a young age you knew they existed. it was that when they did come, it was 2013 and instead of an assault from the skies - it was from deep within the pacific ocean. a jagged, gaping hole between two tectonic plates, a rift between dimensions
the breach.
when the beast - known around the world as a kaiju - made land in san francisco it took six days, thirty five miles and more tanks, missiles and guns than the united states army had to offer. by the end, when the kaiju heaved its last breath, flooding desert valleys with it's toxic blue blood, the entire world was watching the ocean. unbeknownst to the planet, life as they had once known it was over. for you especially.
[in the haze of the kaijou's destruction, the world had missed an alien pod smashing into the ground]
[to be fair, so had you. until said alien was on your doorstep, small and shaking]
one day passed and the ocean was still,
two,
three,
and the world began to move on. the event was memorialized as k-day, the dead were buried and mourned. reconstruction took substantially longer, but before plans had even reached committees,
manila happened.
then cabo.
sydney.
and it became very, very clear that this assualt on earth wasn't over. that these beasts, the kaiju, they wanted death, they wanted destruction. with each new creature that rose, the earth got angrier. united by a common enemy, countries, the people of earth united.
you remember the day the pan pacific defense corps was formed because it was the same day they came to midvale. they arrived during dinner, there were the glittering fragments of a broken glass scattered across the floor and an apology on kara's lips when she had stilled.
the knock had followed moments later.
but the government was not here for kara, as had always been the fear.
instead they were here for your father, and with them he went. with the budget of his dreams, his life's work came to fruition in the form of the worlds best shot at stopping the kaiju -
the jaeger project.
you don't remember much about the science in the early days, you only remembered that your father was gone, gone, and you may never see him again. you may never hug him again.
it was, as your mother said 'for the greater good'
but it fell upon deaf ears,
it was a statement you never really understood until you sat in front of the television watching dual piloted jaegers kill their first kaiju in vancouver. until you saw your father stepping out from the physical manifestation of his life's work.
for a while it seemed like humanity was a match for the monsters from the deep.
but more importantly, there had been talk of your father coming home.
had been.
the first assault on tokyo was a devastation unlike any other seen from the kaiju. the worlds first category two crawled up from the depths of hell, it ravaged the city and took two jaegers down with it.
the first to go was that of clark kent and james olsen.
rockstars pilots they were, but you remember sitting next to kara as she watched her cousin die. a cousin she had met all of once.
[james survived, somehow, barely]
it was a grief you didn't understand,
for five minutes.
because five minutes later, killing the kaiju in the city centre, you watched your father die.
you remember moment, the cry of horror ripping your throat.
you remember the day
[may fifteenth twenty sixteen]
the very next day, already seventeen years old and so, so
angry
you enlisted in the jaeger pilot training program. you were the only cadet to show up alone - but you didn't care.
you were there to become a goddamn jaeger pilot.
--
jaeger academy, kodiak island - alaska
september - 2016
you're dripping in sweat, the room is unbearably hot and your opponent is shaking. not from exhaustion, not even from the heat, no -
you recognize what's in his eyes and it makes you smirk.
the fear.
it should surprise you, a jaeger candidate showing visible fear, but if there's one thing you've got a reputation for over the past sixteen weeks, it's beating people. you're not breezing through training, but fueled by the raw agony of loss, you're the top of your class in nearly every subject: tactics, not so basic kaiju biology, jaeger bushido and engineering.
your hand curls around the familiar smooth wood of your staff, moving into a starting position with the fluidity of a cat, you stare him down. you watch the fluttering vein of his neck, the way he gulps.
there's a building moment of silence and then, just as you're about to move -
the door opens.
your head snaps to see who's walked in and immediately the room stiffens for standing in front of you all is a man who's half myth, half legend, but all command
j'onn j'onz.
head of the jaeger academy and the second survivor of tokyo.
[james olsen is the other, but he's a shadow in the p.p.d.c]
you know he knew your father but before now you've never actually seen the man, not in the flesh anyway. you've seen him as a figure on a television screen, smiling and small. he's bigger in person you decide.
"danvers." he says, and the single word is so much more all at once.
it's
'attention'
and
'come with me'
you keep a grip on your pole and speak, meeting his gaze "yes sir."
he eyes you, then turns "come with me."
you're out the door before you realize you're still carrying your fighting staff. you keep a grip on it, following at a jog, barefoot through the halls of the academy. you pass a group of new trainees, wide eyed and getting shouted at. they split to let you pass and for a brief moment you catch eyes with a girl, dark hair, dark eyes, white shirt and leather jacket slung over her shoulders. she's the only one standing alone, no buddy by her side. she stares you down for a second and you almost want to speak, nod, do something.
but then the moment passes, you're at a half run to follow j'onn j'onz and he rounds a corner.
you must be going to his office.
which means you must be in trouble.
which sets your heart aflutter and stomach twisting over on itself.
"close the door." he says, taking a seat behind a desk.
you do so and opt to stand.
"am i in trouble, sir?" you ask immediately.
he smiles, shakes his head "you're not."
oh.
well then, you grip the staff tighter.
"i'm here with a proposition for you, from the marshall."
you stiffen on instinct, the marshall of the p.p.d.c is a general lane, army and the man who thrust two jaegers into a fight against a category two when he should have hurled three. the man is, in your mind, responsible for your fathers death. and quite frankly you want nothing to do with him.
"no thanks." you say, shifting on your feet.
j'onn continues, with words that send your pulse skyward
"i know about your sister." he says
"what about her?" you ask in careful, clipped words.
"i know that she is the cousin of a man i knew as clark kent, and all that that means." he replies
your blood runs icy.
alien is what he means.
you say nothing.
"i worked with your father, with clark." he says "they died heroes." he tries again.
you refuse to betray anything across your face, and it takes an effort to stay neutral, to stay calm when your insides are on fire.
"you're not touching my sister." you say firmly, frozen words filling the space.
"i'm not here to take your sister." he says "i'm here with an offer."
you blink at him, biting your lip "offer me what?" you ask
"a chance to follow in your fathers footsteps."
you swallow hard, that's struck a different kind of nerve "what do you mean?"
"i mean" j'onn says "that there is no one you share more drift compatibility with than kara. and putting you with anyone else in the program would be a waste of your enormous talents. you could save so many lives."
you hear what he's saying.
you hear the words and you know what they mean, but moreso, you know what they imply. he means to bring your little sister into the jaeger program
"she's fifteen." you tell him "she's too young."
"we'll make a special exception."
no,
you shake your head.
no.
you promised your father years ago, before the jaegers, before the p.p.d.c. that you would protect kara. and you know, with absolute clarity that you can't possibly do that if kara is fighting the kaiju. she's safest in midvale, safest far, far away from the coast.
"no," you say, breaking the silence "i won't do it. she won't do it. she's too young, it's too dangerous for her. i won't condemn her to die in a jaeger."
[you know what you signed up for - and kara isn't coming near it]
"that," j'onn says "is unfortunate."
and there's something in his tone that sets you on edge, even more than the balls of saying
'i know about your sister.'
there's something in the way he's looking across the room at you, so relaxed in his chair, like he knows you'll change your stance in a moment anyway - this initial rejection doesn't worry him. and you grit your teeth,
you didn't come here to play games.
you came here to get inside a jaeger.
"i'll do anything you want." you bite "but kara is having nothing to do with it." you say it with the finality of someone who has decided this is over.
and for you it is.
kara is not getting within three states of a jaeger and she's sure as hell not getting inside one. no way, no how.
you know, part of you knew the moment you got on a bus for alaska, that there's a strong chance you'll die in the next five years, ten in you're lucky. but you also know you never really had a choice in the matter. not since the day your father left. you always knew your life would lead to the inside of a jaeger, to a kaiju.
you've found yourself at the door, hand on the cool metal of the knob, other hand still clutching your staff. you expect j'onn to say anything, something, but what he does say throws you
again.
"kara is already here."
you stiffen, whip around with fury fueling your words "where is she?"
you're seventeen and you know you would fight this man to protect kara and if she's here, if she's already here -
your mind is racing with the possibilities of things that could have already been done to her. your mouth is dry and j'onn is just so,
so,
infuriatingly calm about the whole damn thing.
"we approached her, your mother, this afternoon with the offer." he explains "she accepted at once."
your mouth is dry. there's no way - there's no wayyour mother gave the go ahead for kara to come here. there's no way. she was always drilling it into you, into kara, that you've got to protect her. that she's got to stay hidden, stay normal.
"where is kara?' you demand.
"of course now that you're saying no we'll have to adjust." j'onn says casually, ignoring your question "there are some unfinished experiments your father was conducting with clark, we'll resume them in due time. unfortunately there's not a mind as brilliant as your fathers left on earth, he could never quite work out a way around the pain."
this was a losing battle from the get go you realize. sitting on j'onns desk is probably your file with every psychology test you've ever taken, not to mention your father probably told him how close you were to kara. how protective.
[there's a memory somewhere of your first black eye. of kara pressing herself into a row of lockers with too much force and the fear clear on her face. you remember the way she touched your bruise later, sitting on your bed in the dark, the way that's how she learned what human touch was, how much force to put behind her muscles]
you were always going to say yes.
you sigh.
you turn around.
"okay." you say "i'll do it. but first," and this is not an argument, you're standing before him, arms folded across your chest, still holding a staff with a force to break it "i'm going to see kara."
"of course," j'onn says with a nod "that's the answer i expected."
well that confirms all of your suspicions.
"where is she?" you ask, angry and worried all at once.
"cafeteria."
the rest of his sentence is lost on you. it's probably breaking some sort of code to walk out on the director of the jaeger academy, but you don't care, you can't care - not when kara is somewhere in this building.
you're running, barefeet hitting cool tiled floor you're running a path you know by memory at this point. it's close to dinner, so there are cadets flooding the cafeteria in orderly lines, but you're pushing past all of them.
you walk into the cafeteria and pause there, in the doorway. your heart is in your throat until the moment you see kara sitting. she's at the corner of a table, looking so much younger, so much smaller than anyone else here.
you walk over to her as quickly as you can, and she sees you as you're almost there. she's in your arms before you've stopped moving.
"alex," she breaths into your neck.
"i'm here." you say, far quieter than you usually would "let's get out of here." you say, knowing that there are too many eyes and too many curious ears.
you find kara's hand and she comes easily from the cafeteria. she follows you in silence all the way to the combat room. a room where you feel calm and in control and right now, you feel neither of those things because kara is here.
and she shouldn't be. god she shouldn't be.
the door shuts with an automatic thwump, leaving just you two in the silence, a beat,
then,
"alex-" kara starts
in the same breath that you say "what were you thinking?" it's more of a hiss, it's more of a question begged.
kara takes a step back, she looks at you with angry defiance "i can help too." she says "and i know you would," she gestures "would put me on top of a mountain if you could, but alex," she says and her next words are in a language you recognize but can't speak.
there are times when kara slips into kryptonian without even realizing it, mostly when her emotions are high and she's struggling to find the right words in this language to say.
you read her stress in other ways as well. you can see it in the way her shoulders are pinned back, her hands clenched into fists with white knuckles. her breathing has quickened and it hits you then,
an emotion you can't quite place.
you reach out and run your fingertips down kara's forearms, curling your hands around hers.
she stops talking, eyes wide and looking at you.
"i'm sorry." you say softly, because you realize now what that emotion in your chest is.
you recognize how it's twisted with guilt -
guilt for leaving.
guilt for telling kara it's not okay to work out her grief in the exact what you did.
"you're all i have left." kara chokes and you pull her into you again, her head pressing against your chest "i can't lose you too."
and oh,
of course.
your hold her closer, impossibly so.
how could you have not seen this? how could you have not understood?
you should have.
she's already lost one world, she - the last kryptonian - how could she not fight for the one that adopted her?
"i'm sorry." you whisper, smoothing her hair with a hand.
"you just left." kara says quietly "and i - they came last night, they said i could help, i could save lives, with you."
you swallow hard "it's dangerous." you reminder her, not that she needs it.
"i was sent here to protect kal," she says quietly "but i failed that. i have to protect earth."
you nod "we'll do it together." you promise her "we're better together."
[and it's true.]
[there will be records with your names on them, not hung on walls but whispered across the lips of the people]
--
shatterdome - anchorage, alaska
december - 2016
there is a first time you drift with kara.
it's been months of training, kara playing catch up and the academy bending all the rules to accommodate her, well really your, special circumstances. she studies hard, and the only struggle is hiding the notes she takes in kryptonian. she translates them from english at night, in the privacy of your bunk, when you can sit with her and ask about symbols and characters and kara is a good teacher when it comes to this.
you don't mind studying with her, spending long hours going over notecards and textbooks, because really you're still learning about kara. you know she's incredibly smart, loves engineering almost as much as you do - except she has to intentionally fail some of the exams.
kara hides her difficulty with biology - kaiju anatomy where it's really leaning another language atop the ones she already speaks. things change when you discover that kara can draw, to be more accurate, she paints. but it gives you an idea. so one day, instead of bringing notecards, you dig up photos, old photos of kaiju killed.
[tokyo is missing]
you tell her to draw the skeletal structure and you watched her face light up. from them on biology was easier, and sure kara preferred painting really, but the imagery helped. creating the images herself was even better.
you supposed you should have figured she would always be more tactile when it comes to learning.
[you still remember the press of her thumb against the shadow of your bruises, gauging what hurt, what hadn't]
drifting is a different story all together. there was never a question of compatibility, but still, there was palpable tension in the room when you stepped into the jaeger for the first time.
the jaeger you step into now is the jaeger that will become yours. you are the first pair to perform the neural handshake within it. but even now fighting days are aways away. today is a step towards that.
first is the preparation, there's a raging storm outside, leaving the entire building cold and creaking - a sign of the times when the defense of the world is left in, basically, an old shed.
the first layer you put is a grey-ish set of coveralls. yours fit, more or less, but kara is practically swimming in hers. it's almost comical, fifteen year old kara walking onto the deck of bay eight, hands lost to the depths of her sleeves.
almost immediately techs and their trainees step forward. the next layer is a neoprene type material, laced with circuit boards; it's design is to interface with your nervous system, specifically guided to mute the pain enough to not cripple you - depending on the injury. after much shimmying and shifting, the slick of a zipper up your back makes you swallow hard.
armor is next, black polycarbonate designed to protect you from the stresses of being inside the jaeger. it's also, apparently, bullet proof. not that the kaiju have come out shooting, yet.
last - besides the helmet, is the spinal clamp.
this is your first time seeing one new. battered ones were handed around in lectures, but this one, this one is yours.
[you wonder where your fathers is]
it's lifted carefully from a foam lined box, to you it looks like some sort of parasite. they attach it to the suit at the base of your spine, vertebrae by vertebrae it clicks into place and you hear kara's doing the same.
last, but not least,
the helmet.
lined with conduction gel to enhance communications, the helmet is also custom fit, and once snug, provides you direction communication to laccon, and also at this stage kara.
but once inside the drift, you won't need it. you'll both speak anyway, but that's out of what will become habit.
she's about to enter your head, you realize, as you're guided into the head of the jaeger.
"how does it feel?"you ask
"the coveralls are itchy." kara replies
you laugh, stepping into place at the left side of the jaeger. you glance over at kara locking her feet into the right and a third voice comes into play
"alright, today we are only going to initiate the neural handshake, the jaeger will not be deployed."
the voice is that of j'onn j'onz, a man who you've come to like a great deal more since your initial meeting. what won you over was, on your birthday, when he knocked on the door of your bunk, presented you with a photo, a candid.
you keep it taped to the underside of kara's bed, and at night you look at the photo,
your father, helmet in one hand, a photo in the other. the photo caught between thumb and middle finger is small, but you recognize it, recognize yourself.
you wonder, sometimes, about the photo. when it was taken, where he kept the one of you, did he looks at it often? questions you want to ask j'onn, but can't bring yourself to relay. there's too much vulnerability in them.
"remember," j'onn continues "this will be intense, but do not follow the rabit."
random
access
brain
impulse
trigger
the acronym had been hammered into you from the beginning. people spoke of the true dangers in chasing the rabit, in letting the memories overwhelm you.
apparently there was a hole in the wall of the sydney shatterdome from a pilot chasing the rabit, firing a mark-3 jaegers plasmacaster through the wall.
it was lucky no one died.
you're not worried about the rabit here and now, you know the memories will come, you know they will be all of your most painful times rushed to the surface.
you don't worry about yourself because you worry about kara.
you can't imagine what pain must be lurking under the surface for her.
but when, finally, j'onn gives the all clear and
"initiate neural handshake."
comes through
your world fades away.
or, it intensifies. for a moment you're not sure you have a body at all any more. but then you're slamming back into what feels like a body but is,
different.
more.
oh, oh, it's definitely more.
there's a rush of something else, memories flooding by and it feels like you're standing on the edge of some vast river. like you're on the bank of two great shores and on either side of you, memories are rushing past. One of them are not yours, or they weren't. you realize now that they're kara's memories.
you see what must be krypton.
you see her planet exploding.
you never knew she saw it.
what overwhelms you the most is the pain. and it isn't new, it isn't washing over kara, this is her stasis. this, you realize, is what she lives with every single day.
you have to pull yourself away, focus on the words in your ears, the voice of your liaison with loccan - a kid named winn who seems like he might be kara's age
"nueral handshake successful."he says
you let out a breath, letting yourself adjust to the feeling of having someone in your head. to having kara inside your head, and being inside hers.
"alex," kara says, her voice quiet and different "this is wild."
you have to laugh at that, this communication may not even be happening out loud and you don't care "yeah," you laugh "this is wild."
the rest of the time is a blur. but you're pulled out pretty much immediately after that, to smiles and mild applause. this is, apparently, a big deal. there have been far worse first connections between pilots. instead, you're left reeling from what you learned about kara.
it must show because j'onn gives you the afternoon off with a concerned look. it takes you far too long to get back to the room, to the quiet and the peace and the door closing feels like a release on your emotions.
you'd been warned that the first drift could be intense, but no one had prepared you for your little sisters last memories of her planet. or what it felt like for her to watch the only other person like her, maybe in the whole universe, get killed.
it's hard, you realize, impossibly hard, to balance such pain and grief and anger with the person that you know, that you love.
"i forget," kara says with a shaky voice "the colour of the sky at sunset. i want to remember but i -" her voice wavers "i don't think i ever will."
it breaks you, to hear the wavering in her voice and all you can do is pull her into your arms because
you understand
more than you ever could have imagined, you felt her pain.
she cries, you cry - standing there, in what is supposed to be home. and you realize what you've always known,
you're fighting for the planet's survival.
if only so kara never feels that same pain again.
--
the pacific - roughly los angeles, california
october 2017
your first kill in dark storm comes off the coast of los angeles. you face a category two called yamarashi. it's gritty and bloody and painful, but in the end you stand triumphant over the body of a kaiju and the first thing you realize is that kara is quaking. you feel it because still linked like this, you're also shaking and it's not from pain you realize. it's from something else.
"dark storm, return to shatterdone, well done." comes j'onns voice and he's undeniably proud of you, but right now you can't think of anything but kara.
on the way she, you, feel almost sick. like she might be ill.
"kara," you say, speaking so it's just between the two of you "kara you're okay."
you don't leave it as a question, because even though you know she isn't okay, she needs to make it back to the shatterdome, you have to get out of this, get away from the monitors and the prying eyes and ears because she isn't fine and you know why.
you can see the thoughts racing through her head, the memories threatening to overwhelm kara.
"don't follow the rabit," you say quietly "we're okay. we'll get back."
and somehow you do.
somehow you get back to the shatterdome, out of the jaeger. you look at j'onn who seems to sense something is wrong because there should be excitement, celebration - and part of you is /buzzing/ - but right now you've got kara tucked under your shoulder and you're eighteen and she's still your responsibility so you steer her away, you steer her to an empty medical bay.
she's listless, her eyes are glazed and unfocused, she's still shaking.
"kara," you say quietly, closing the door behind you, locking it, turning the windows opaque with the press of a button.
you get no response from her.
"kara," you say again, reaching for her hands - it reminds you how much she's grown now that her coveralls actually fit "kara look at me."
she does.
"why didn't you say?" you ask, voice barely a whisper.
for a long while kara just seems to stare past you, through you. you don't force a response, you just hold her hands in yours, you let her take this time to think, to process in the privacy of her own mind. away from you, away from j'onn and the loccan.
when she does speak, her words are carefully chosen and her voice trembles.
"i didn't -" she starts, stops, shakes her head "i was sent here to protect this planet." she says, but it doesn't sound like her words.
at what cost you wonder, looking at kara because she just killed. she just killed and
"i was supposed to be better than that." she says quietly.
and somewhere in your mind, kara's memories surface, a conversation with her parents. she was eleven, maybe younger and they were so certain in this description of being above killing but,
"they didn't know what you would face." you say "the kaiju, they will kill you, kill me, kill everyone if we let them."
kara nods, she leans forward, head resting against your collarbone, she takes deep breaths "i didn't like it." she says "killing."
you don't entirely relate. not really. because for you, killing a kaiju is something like vengeance. it's something like retribution for the lives their species took.
[mostly your father, but still]
so you just pull kara closer, you say instead "it wasn't senseless."
perhaps justification in the killing, in the murder, is what she needs. and kara nods against you, she takes a deep breath, she says
"i know." and she steps back, still looking conflicted, still looking dark and twisty "i want a nap." she says "and pizza."
a smile flickers across your face "i'll go get pizzas." you say "you get some rest."
all that really means is you taking a trek down to the cafeteria, but also perhaps you'll stop by j'onns. you take a moment to be excited, to relish the fact that you did it, that you killed a kaiju, that dark storm is a force to be reckoned with.
"kay," kara says, nodding "be fast."
you kiss her forehead "go rest."
she moves first, then pauses by the bathroom door "you did good today." kara says
"we," you correct "we did good."
she shrugs, closing the door, leaving you to get to the cafeteria. you see j'onn waiting for you at a table, a stack of three pizza's in front of him.
[you forget how well he knows you both at this point]
"sit," he says, and you nod "how are you feeling?"
for the first time you let out smile "it-" you start "is it bad to feel happy?"
j'onn shakes his head "not at all, but the clock has been reset, it's time to focus again. how's kara?"
you consider "she's good. hungry." you say, nodding to the pile of pizzas "killing the kaiju," you start "it was harder than she anticipated."
you don't want to let him know any more, but you also know his concern is genuine.
"is it serious?"
you shake your head "i don't think so."
"let me know if that changes."
"will do." you say, pulling the pizza's across the table.
"and danvers," j'onn says, standing now "good work today."
you smile, because yeah, you killed a fucking kaiju today, in record time.
when you get back to the room, you expect kara still showering, or collapsed onto her top bunk, or merely asleep on the floor. instead of that, she's standing in front of the wall, a piece of canvas taped to it. she's got her paints in one hand, and in the other, a paintbrush.
on the wall, coming to life in a series of brush strokes, is the kaiju.
she turns and sees you standing there, she looks to the painting, swallowing hard "i want to remember it." kara says slowly "we killed it for a reason, for a purpose, but it was a living thing."
"i think that's a good idea." you say honestly, setting a box of pizza down, open on the bed by her "i'm going to shower."
kara nods, already absorbed into her painting again.
and when it's done, she puts it away. you don't know where, or if she looks at them, but you do know that for every kaiju you kill after that, she paints.
she paints the kaiju you kill, she does it in silence. sometimes you're there, showering, resting, nursing a bruise, but you always let her have the time. you guard it, her, fiercely. this is her reconciliation, with her god or gods perhaps, or maybe just with herself.
--
the miracle mile - anchorage, alaska
december 2019
you've always known you were going to die in a jaeger. and when kara became your copilot, when you started to become one in the same, you realized that the kaiju have taken your father,
and it's a matter of time before they take you as well.
one day your mother will have, like so many others, lost everything to the kaiju. and perhaps, you realize, today might be that day. you push the thought, the pain, from your mind, dragging yourself back to the present, to the now -
you're out in dark storm, in the middle of a winter howler that's brought ice, frozen winds and a kaiju up from the depths of the pacific. you're facing the first category four the world has ever seen.
the first category three hit guatemala over a year ago. you watched with baited breath as reckoning, a mark 4 jaeger with a pair of pilots who you haven't met, blasted a hole through it's beating heart.
[maggie sawyer they say, takes nothing into the drift. you aren't sure how it's possible, remind yourself that it's only a rumor - like the rumors of her partner being a firecracker, the wildcard, and the only person she could pair with, was sawyer. but then again, they're just rumors, and they're just rockstars, or they were]
but this is not guatemala, this is not a category three, this is a four. this is a monster and you are the only thing in it's path. and it looks like even dark storm may fall, this could be the kaiju that takes you down, that adds your names to the wall of the fallen.
[your fathers name is there, you hate it]
part of the armour has been eaten away by a spray of acid, you feel the acid burning through the hull, eating at the electrics, like it's eating away at the sinew of your muscle. you're not crying, but your jaw is clenched and you're leaning heavily into kara's mind here. kara who feels the pain, but has felt worse. she's calling every command, every action she takes and time is running out,
the rabit is coming.
the drift,
"use the sword." j'onn is saying
like you don't already know that.
like you aren't already giving all of yourself just to move your arm, just to pull it from the sheath. the sound of metal grinding and snapping into place, the blade flashing against the pounding waves - it gives you a moment of clarity.
and in that moment you realize, you really realize
you won't make it through this.
you're down a leg, you're limping heavily, you muscles are being eaten alive by this acid and all you can think about is watching your father on the tv,
watching him die.
was he like this?
did he know?
"alex," kara is shouting, voice heard above the gale "alex come on we can do this."
she sounds desperate.
she sounds scared.
you're fighting, you have enough within you to bring the sword up, but then, then you swear the acid has reached your bones and you can't. you can't.
the world is closing in, the kaiju, with a clawed hand, is coming for you, but the machines are screaming. the machines are telling you, telling everyone you've fallen out of nueral alignment.
you're going to die.
you've killed kara.
your last sounds are going to be the wailing of machines, the sound of kara breathing in your ears and the feel of icy rain against your face.
this must be dying you decide,
when the world seems to go quiet, the machines silenced - your hearing must be gone.
your vision is certainly blurry.
you're on your knees, breathing erratic, maybe not breathing at all.
death must be slow.
[was it for your father]
your eyes flutter shut and the last thing you see, the last thing you hear is kara saying
"i can do this."
do what, you wonder?
do what?
[you've never felt so close to your father than you do sinking into the abyss]
[will you see him in whatever comes after death and dying?]
[you hope so]
[you don't]
you do not die.
instead you wake up in a medical bay. the same one you talked to kara in you realize, the one you see her in now. she's standing next to you, her hand in yours and when you open your eyes, her head snaps up.
"alex," she breaths softly "alex thank god."
you squeeze her hand, trying to speak and instead forcing a cough to rip through your chest. there's a cup of water in seconds, kara gone and back again in a flash, she helps bring the straw to your lips, coaxes you through small sips.
"better?" she asks
you nod slowly.
you take a deep breath, ask "what happened?"
kara fiddles with her hands, looks down, looks away "we killed the kaiju." she says, but you know that can't be quite right.
you know you never reengaged, you couldn't have helped kill the kaiju, which means, if it's dead -
"you killed it." you say quietly.
kara is still for a moment, then she nods "yeah," she says "i - i piloted the jaeger on my own."
you blink at her for a moment, trying to process, trying to understand what she's just told you.
as words, the sentence makes sense. but in context, you shake your head - the reason a two pilot system exists is because no human could -
oh
no human.
you look at her "you - you completed the nueral handshake with the jaeger on your own?"
kara nods.
you reach for her hand again "kara," you say quietly, breathlessly "you saved my life."
"both our lives." she says quietly, looking away still, her eyes getting brighter "they say kal, he - he could never quite do it on his own. they tried and tried, but-" she shakes her head "It was always too painful."
and words come rushing back to you, from an eon ago,
j'onn speaking of projects done and tested, of pain never quite under control.
this, you realize, this was what your father had been working on.
clark kent and a jaeger to himself.
where he had failed, kara had gone and done it.
if only to save you.
"that's amazing." you say quietly.
but kara is still caught up in the memories of kal, of the battle. you're reminded that she's only eighteen. that the weight of a world should not rest on such shoulders.
but they do.
"come here," you say quietly, urging her into the bed with you, never mind your aching ribs.
you can feel her restraining herself, careful not to jostle you, but you pull her closer, you feel her shallow, unsteady breaths and you let her cry.
you let her cry against your shirt.
[your time will come]
[for tears, for fears, for anger]
[but now is not that time. now is for kara, and the only kaiju she will never paint]
if you're being honest, part of you is glad kara piloted on her own. because you know it means they'll let her keep doing it. the focus will come to her, not to you, because you're hours fresh off nearly dying and the last
the absolute last thing you want to do is get inside a jaeger again.
you're not sure you'll ever want to do it again.