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bakerstreet2013-08-19 08:58 pm
absurdities) wrote in bakerstreet2013-08-19 08:58 pm
(no subject)
dusk has fallen, and your nerves are on fire.
you are not looking forward to tomorrow, for whatever reason - perhaps you're in the ending stages of war and the final battle is imminent, perhaps you'll be leaving for an extended period of time, perhaps you're set to go into a risky surgery. whatever's going to happen, it could be the very last night you have, whether it's in this city, in this dimension, in this life. how are you going to spend it? will you say your goodbyes to your loved ones, spend time reminiscing, or just go about your everyday life and try not to think about it?
the choice is yours, but you'd better make it soon. you don't have much time left.
instructions →
1. post with your character.
2. tag others.
3. spend your last night wisely.
sergio d'onofrio | pacific rim
gdit i tried something else but this would do here have some feels
There was a time all Caitlin ever had to deal with was sadness and a visible lack of self-worth. She had been one of the most gifted minds in the country by the time she hit thirteen, with scholarships and grants paving her way through school and then a career in her chosen field. But the workplace meant dealing with people who didn't understand boundaries, who did things in drastically different ways, whose ethics weren't always aligned with her own and suddenly the things she loved doing were things she couldn't complete and no one seemed to get that it isn't like she didn't want to submit on time or that she didn't want to deal with her colleagues it was just so hard when they kept on pushing buttons that they didn't care not to push.
But then Jasper came along and so did the jaeger program and while in the end she realized she didn't love him like that he knew her and respected her enough to be friends. Because Sergio was there and while she doesn't like voicing out romantic claptrap because the Drift is so much more than that, it's instinctive and unequivocal trust in another human being, something she never realized she could actually do. Well. It was like the world shifted on it's axis and for once was right again.
This isn't sadness that she feels now though, standing in the wreck of their living room, fists balled angrily because what else did she expect the of course goddamn beauracracy would cut off funding whose shitty idea was the Wall anyway the kaiju won't stop coming but at least with jaegers they could fight back Stacker I am so sorry, do you need us to fly over to Hong Kong I can help I want to help you found Becket? Good. With Mako? Well. She was always a gifted girl but are you okay with- alright, it's your call.
It's the end of the world and not because the monsters are coming out in droves but because stupid shitheads run the country goddamn.
This is how he finds her, standing in the middle of the room, books from her shelf littering the floor, her arms wrapped around her like the flimsiest of shields. They bit the bullet with all that radiation poisoning and they're clean but she suddenly wishes she were halfway across the world getting into a jaeger because her colleagues in the PPDC are not just her friends but her family and she's stuck on the stands watching them die. ]
no subject
Not that the kid ever did actually anything to earn that distinction. The only thing he did was die but that was the first time that a Jaeger had fallen like that, because to hear Raleigh recount the story, the kaiju knew they were in there. It wasn't slashing blindly, it was hunting for the pilots. And that was when they started to realize it-- the kaiju were adapting.
Then it was just like dominoes. First went Gipsy Danger and then the rest of the Jaegers, one by one (in Sydney, two went out at the same time), fell in defense of their planet. The kaiju kept getting bigger and oh, of course they made stronger Jaegers but it wasn't enough. They could only dream so big and so much with so little money that it was perhaps only a matter of time before they reached this point.
The TV in the background has footage from the attack on Hong King last night, shots of Cherno Alpha (fuck, he didn't think anything would ever claim the Kaidonovskys), and Crimson Typoon (those triplets always gave him the creeps but God rest their souls) fall and Gipsy Danger of all the fucking things kill not one but two kaiju. He barely glances at it when he comes into their living room, doesn't care to watch the reality of all they'd worked for and stood for for years come crumbling down.]
Doc. [He still calls her that, even after all these years.]
We can still head to Hong Kong if you want.
no subject
She wants to throw something. To maybe pick up one of the coffeetable books and to pitch it at the wall, but instead she turns to him and steps into his arms, her own coming up and around his shoulders to hold on to the one steady thing left. ]
It can't end like this. It can't. [ It can't have all been for nothing. Because she always had hope, because underneath all her rage she still wants to believe that what they all worked for was for something. ]
I'm scared. We're a thousand miles from all the fighting, but I am so scared.
no subject
Sergio's arms come around her waist and his head drops against her shoulder, an automatic response to her embrace.]
You know as well as I do that Pentecost has one last thing up his sleeve. He's got two Jaegers left, he'll get it done.
no subject
Two more jaegers - Striker Eureka, Gipsy Danger. The Hansens, Raleigh Becket and Mako Mori.
These are people she knows and respects and cares about and loves. Herc Hansen was one of the first string of pilots she had the privilege to work with, and though they haven't really spoken much since their days at Kodiak, Caitlin remembers the man fondly for the fact that he was someone you could trust to watch your back, who made her laugh by simply being his charming self, who made her heart hurt because he put his son first in everything and how could you not admire a man for something like that.
And then Charles. She reads all about how much he's grown from that gangly, quiet little kid who had lost his mother to the ranger he is now (highest kill count to date) and she doubts if he remembers her anymore but Charles had once been a sweet but damaged little boy, his shoulders so tiny for all that grief he carried with him.
(She'd voiced concern over letting him Drift to the Marshal, because Charles had so many unresolved issues and Hercules had just gone to them about stripping Scott of his ranger status, but she'd watched the video log and brain scan analysis sent over by Tendo of the father and son's first neural handshake and she couldn't help but feel strangely proud that they had made it work.)
She presses closer to her husband, the hand with the ring he gave her the day he proposed curling into a fist. ]
They're going to try to nuke the Breach. [ She hadn't been in on the details of Operation: Pitfall, had only been briefed in that conversation with Pentecost because... she isn't sure why the Marshal had told her, but now that her mind races over it, now that she's voiced what the PPDC has planned, the gravity of what they're doing makes her sway a little.
They've tried nuking the Breach before. It never worked. They had to stop the attempts because too many would irradiate the ocean, since each time they tried, the goddamn portal just spat back out whatever they could throw.
But if they were trying again.
She buries her face in his shoulder, unable to stop the way her shoulders shake, her thoughts running past the Hansens and towards Raleigh Becket and Mako Mori - she and Sergio never had kids, couldn't have kids because of the radiation poisoning but these pilots, they were like her children she can still remember the day the Beckets walked into her office for the Pons Training briefing and Mako, oh Mako, the teenager so determined to make the cut.
She's crying again.
She hasn't piloted a jaeger in years but she knows what a suicide run is. ]
no subject
And Stacker thinks nuking the breach will help, Sergio can't argue with him. He wouldn't try if something hadn't changed.
Sergio runs a hand down her spine, over and over trying to soothe her. He knows how attached to these kids she is, more than he ever was but he's got a different relationship with them. She looked into their brains, he made them cry sometimes.]
They're good kids. They'll do what they have to.
no subject
( In the background, the news has turned to commentary. About the cut in funding, the takedown at Victory Bay, speculations on what the PPDC will do next given the truth that they are functioning on limited - and are quickly running out of - resources.
She glances over and sees a montage of images dedicated to the fallen pilots - the Wus, the Kaidonovsky's. )
Politics. Stupid, self-serving politics. ]
If nothing works. If the Marsha- if Stacker's plan fails. I want to fly to Hong Kong. [ She knows he won't like what she has in mind, but she says it anyway. ] We're still pilots.[ Just benched for health reasons that won't matter if the kaiju aren't stopped. ]
no subject
There's also the point of, where would they even get a Jaeger? Brawler Yukon was taken apart for scraps years ago and there's only two left now, Striker and Gipsy and they both have pilots.
So when Sergio sighs, it's not at the plan, it's the sigh of a man who was taught to fight and defend since he can remember and a man who isn't able to do that anymore.]
If it succeeds, we're going to Hong Kong.
no subject
( He'd been the same the night they started suiting up to meet Karloff in Vancouver. She'd been equal parts determined and terrified when the call had woken them in the middle of the night, but Sergio had held her close, whispered words of encouragement in her ear that went 'we' and 'us' and 'let's do this, doc' so when Jasper had run up to her panicked in the hall, she'd found her courage. She'd been brave.
And she will be brave now. ] Yes, I'd like that. I think they can send a jet for us. And if ever, I can make a call to Tendo.
[ The television commentary is still running, the focus this time on what little the media knows about the pilots. There's a whole bit dedicated to Chuck and Herc, well-known as they are ( there's no mention of Pentecost, but then the media wouldn't know about that bit of information ), and then some speculation on Mako, interjections about Raleigh and a recap of the Knifehead incident in Anchorage all those years ago. ]