thelastbecket | Entries tagged with mun: cat

Raleigh leaned into Chuck's side, arms brushing as they walked Max through the local park. It felt like things were finally going their way for an extended period of time. Chuck had finishes his degree and gotten a low key job that he loved, working with people who forgot he was a war hero in favor of debating mechanical engineering with him on a weekly basis. Raleigh taught martial arts at the kwoon Mako had opened once the PPDC converted to a world emergency response unit. He enjoyed working with the kids and determined adults that showed up, but it still left him time to cook, and keep track of the small handful of hobbies he'd finally picked up after nearly getting arrested. He loved this, spending time with Chuck when they were both having good days. It was peaceful and precious. Something he'd never thought he'd have.

A ball rolls across the path quite a ways ahead of them and Raleigh watches it go, until he's distracted by the shrieking toddler chasing after it, and the father after him. The kid picks the ball up when it hits a tree and the dad swoops in and picks the laughing kid up swinging him in a practiced way around in the air until he sitting on his shoulders, bopping the ball on the dad's head and laughing up a storm.

Raleigh gets that weird twist in his gut he's been getting when he looks at kids and finds himself looking for the mom. She's stretched out on a picnic blanket watching as the dad approaches victoriously with their baby on his shoulders and Raleigh's hit with a rush of how much he wants that. He wants to be able to grin at Chuck while Chuck carries their kid.

The war ends and Raleigh's still alive. It's a surprise to him. He didn't have any plans for after because he hadn't planned on there being one for him. He was sure something in the war would kill him, but he had things to do like protecting Chuck and Mako without them noticing, so he fought against those things, coming out on top, and then...then it was over and he wasn't dead so he had to keep living.

He thought about being done with it while they were still sorting things out in the Capital's ruins. He still had a gun and he was so tired of everything. There wasn't a need for him anymore. His body was rendered nearly useless by scars and nerve damage. His limbs didn't do what he wanted them too a third of the time and his mind didn't cooperate most of the time. He was obsolete.

But then Mako showed up and asked him to stand with her and Stacker, just to be seen, not to say anything. Apparently, he had uses he hand't thought of. Mako keeps asking things of him, so he keeps delivering. Then they're settling down. He follows Mako to a part of the country he'd never seen before. There's forest and ocean, a beautiful combination that doesn't remind him of any games, just home and a new start. They fix the remnants of a town not far into the forest from the beach.

Raleigh elects to turn what looks like an old fishing station on a jut of the beach into his home. It's a long walk from the town, but not an unmanageable one for any of them. It's a much shorter distance to the cabin Chuck's built for himself in the forest. It's away from the town, but Mako says he travels into it often and works there.

Raleigh wants to see him, but he can't bring himself to leave the beach and the edge of the trees near his new home. He swims a lot and wonders what would happen if he just stopped treading water one day. He doesn't though, because Mako brings him food in exchange for the nets he makes and the fish he catches, the crustaceans he hauls out of the water. He feels like she'd be disappointed in him if he was gone one day.

Raleigh might have had a little too much of the vodka the Russian techs had been brewing when he stumbles through the Shatterdome towards the medical bay. It's been a while since he's been drunk,and it seem unfair to him that even though his arm and leg nerves are kind of shot again from Gipsy's damage, that Chuck of all people is the one stuck in medical when he was the one most willing to sacrifice himself for the Pitfall mission besides Striker.

He grinned and charmed his way past the nurse on guard until he was stick his head through Chuck's curtains, grinning like a loon. It was a surprised to see Chuck decked out in a hospital gown, sea foam green instead of his usual military prescribed garb. It didn't suit him, but Raleigh didn't think tell Chuck he looked bad in medical was going to win him any favors.

"Chuck Hansen." He grinned and walked into the little sectioned off corner, dropping himself into the visitor's chair next to Chuck's bed. "You're missed at the party."

Raleigh can't get his head on straight. He's reeling from experiencing Yancy's death all over again, Mako's own trauma, and the confrontation with the Marhsall afterwards. He's off kilter, can hardly see the dome around him for the mess that's going on in his brain. He retreats back to his room feeling sick and overwhelmed. He's got to get himself together if he's ever going to figure out a way to get Pentecost to let Mako back into Gipsy with him. It was his fault, he was surprised and off guard. She would never have chased the RABIT without that.

He lays face down on the bed wondering if he could smother the mess in his mind.

{{cont. from: http://bakerstreet.dreamwidth.org/1351973.html?thread=784644389#cmt784644389 }}

Raleigh moved through the stretches and exercises in the kwoon, testing out his body's fresh scars and regained muscle mass now that he had finally been entirely cleared by medical. He couldn't believe they already wanted to put him back in a jaeger. He should have been discharged and sent away. It had almost happened, the UN had wanted to crucify him in the media because obviously it had to be the pilots' lapse in judgement that led to the wreckage of Gipsy Danger and the first mid-battle pilot death since the beginning of the war.

The UN had wanted him dishonorably discharged and Raleigh would have taken it, he would have left without fighting, but the Marshall had fought for him, defending his and Yancy's actions on the grounds that they had indeed saved the fishing boat, kept the kaiju off the Miracle Mile, and Raleigh all alone, had brought Gipsy Danger to shore.

Some days during recovery Raleigh was grateful that his life would still have purpose. Others he hated Stacker Pentecost for not just letting him go. The conditions of his stay dictated an active return to duty. Not just in a training or reserve capacity, but in a 100% back out there piloting a jaeger capacity. Raleigh didn't even know if he could stand the sight of a suit, let alone get in a conn pod with someone that wasn't Yancy.

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Days After the Wall

Entries tagged with mun: cat

Baby Business

The Hunger Games (Aftermath of War Edition)

Drunk Raleigh. While I am drunk.

Soul Mates

Young co-pilots (with Suicidemission)

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December 2013

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