Mako opened her eyes, squinting at the sudden brightness of the sky after so long in the dark depths of the ocean. She blinked rapidly, trying to orient herself in the sudden onslaught of fresh, salty air and sunshine, and sorting through the rush of images coming back to her. She bolted upright, rapidly looking around to find the one she needed. The one who had to be there. Seeing nothing but open ocean, she stood up on the floating device to see further, but still nothing. She tried to quell the panic growing inside her. Surely-surely, he hadn't stayed behind? He must have come right behind her, sending his pod ejecting right after hers. But where was he?

She took a shaky breath and tried to remain calm and think rationally, nearly jumping out of her skin when a loud splash came from behind her, cutting through the silence like a gunshot. Without any conscious decision, she leapt from her pod into the ocean, swimming frantically in its direction. In no time she was pulling herself up and straddling Raleigh's escape pod, grabbing hold of the release and sending the lid flying off. She felt the blood drain from her face when she saw him, his eyes closed and his body still.

"I can't find his pulse," she said to whomever might be listening on the other end of her radio. "I don't think he's breathing." She called his name over and over, pleading with him to wake up, ignoring the response she heard in her ear from the team back at the Shatterdome.

"Listen, Mako, there's a chance the sensors aren't working-"

She batted the words aside, bending over and shoving her arms under Raleigh's back and hauling him up towards her. She tried to stifle the sobs rising in her chest to no avail. She crushed him to her chest, silently praying to whomever might be listening that he not leave her. Grief for her father bubbled just below the surface of her thoughts, and she couldn't lose Raleigh, too. Not today.

"Don't go," she sobbed, "Don't go."

She buried her face in his shoulder, the tears falling freely from her eyes and mixing with the salt water on her cheeks. She couldn't live without him. She couldn't; not after all they had shared together, both in the Drift and out. She didn't understand the depth of her feelings in that instant, but she didn't care. She felt hysteria rising in her chest the longer his silence went on, and she silently begged whatever god might be out there to let him live. A sudden tension in his limp body made her freeze, her breath catching in her throat.

"You're…squeezing me too tight," Raleigh's voice came out in a muffled rasp against her shoulder. She pulled back from him immediately, and his hazel eyes found her brown ones.

"I couldn't breathe…" he told her, a slow grin sliding up onto his face. Mako let out a gasp that turned into a laugh as she stared at him, hearing the distant sound of cheers coming from the communication device still transmitting in her ear from the Shatterdome.

She and Raleigh simply stared at each other, something she couldn't name passing between them as the silent air slowly filled with the sound of their rescuers heading toward them. The voice in her ear said help was on the way, but she ignored it. What did it matter, really, as long as he was awake? He was alive, and the relief that swept through her was almost painful, leaving behind an exhaustion that was bone-deep. Almost unconsciously, the pair leaned towards each other, their foreheads meeting in the middle of the space between them and just existing there together. With his skin against hers, her world felt complete, if only for the moment. She closed her eyes and let out a slow, shaky breath as the sound of the approaching helicopters grew nearer.

The few moments they spent with their heads together seemed to last a lifetime, to Mako, at least. She felt a crushing sort of relief at Raleigh's closeness to her, and she somehow wanted to be even closer. Her head felt jumbled and cloudy, full of thoughts and memories and feelings that both were and were not her own. She did not know how to put it into words, but she knew instinctively that she didn't need to; Raleigh could feel what she felt and understood her without needing to hear her say a word.

He pulled her closer, wrapping her in his arms and burying his face in her hair. She felt tears brimming in her eyes and bit her lip to keep them from falling, but they did anyway, sliding down her cheeks one by one. She turned her face away from Raleigh's and took a shaky breath, trying desperately to get herself under control even though she knew it was useless to try and hide from him. He sensed her mood and tilted her chin back towards him, bringing her eyes to his.

"We're safe now, Mako," he whispered, brushing away a tear with his thumb and bringing his forehead back to rest against hers, "We made it back."

She nodded numbly, swallowing hard and trying not to think, though not succeeding at all.

You will always find me in the drift...

She let out one small, quiet sob as she remembered her father's final words to her. She knew that Raleigh knew what she was thinking when he held her even tighter and whispered in her ear "He loved you so much. He went out on his own terms and saved the world while he was at it, like the hero he always was. Remember him that way."

Mako nodded silently, pulling herself away from him and roughly wiping off her face as the soft hum of the helicopters grew to a harsh buzz as they arrived overhead. She looked up, squinting into the sun and sea spray rising around her to see one helicopter stopped directly above them, with one man in a harness attached to a line, quickly repelling down towards them. Wordlessly, Raleigh pulled away from her, giving her a quick once-over as the rescuer landed on the pod behind her, trying his best not to jostle it. Raleigh held her by the shoulders and spoke over her head to the rescuer, "Take her first."

Mako's eyes widened as she felt a clip being attached to the back of her ranger suit, the rescuer winding one arm around her waist in preparation for their ascent into the helicopter. Her hands tightened around Raleigh's upper arms, suddenly unwilling to be separated from him. Raleigh gave her a small smile in response, quickly pressing his forehead to hers once again and whispering "It's okay. I'm right behind you. We won't be apart for long."

She didn't know how he knew about her fear of being separated from him, but he did. She took a deep breath and nodded at him, releasing his arms and closing her eyes briefly as her feet left the pod and became airborne, tugged along with the rescuer like a fish on a hook. She watched Raleigh grow smaller and smaller as the distance between them increased, but his eyes never left hers. In a matter of minutes, she was secured in the chopper and he was being pulled aboard, the rescuer insisting on doing a triage on both of them. By some miracle, neither had sustained any serious injuries in their time in the Jaeger, either above sea level or below, and they were each given nothing but a mild pain reliever and an ice pack for the ride back to base.

Mako sat stock still, trying desperately not to think about anything that had happened in the last 24 hours, feeling debilitating grief just waiting to seep in. She sat in her seat, her back ramrod straight, staring ahead without seeing anything. She felt the pressure when Raleigh laid his hand gently on her leg, and she covered his hand with hers without conscious thought. She closed her eyes and leaned back into her seat, thinking that maybe if she could fall asleep at least she would be able to stop thinking for a while. Raleigh's hand on her leg provided a comforting sort of weight, and she slowly drifted off.

She woke suddenly, jolted by the sudden landing of the chopper on solid ground, the blades coming to a stop and the crew beginning to unclasp their seatbelts. She felt disoriented, looking around in confusion at the people around her and feeling panic starting to well in her chest as her heart rate began to increase. She inhaled sharply as a dark mass hovered over her, triggering some deep-seated claustrophobic instinct buried deep inside her subconscious.

"It's okay," came Raleigh's quiet declaration, "I'm here."

His scent filled her nose, creating a sense of calm that she had not expected. His fingers deftly unbuckled her safety harness and gripped her hands, gently pulling her to her feet. He slung an arm around her narrow shoulders as they headed towards the exit of the helicopter, gripping her tighter as they stepped down onto the tarmac. He held her the entire time they walked, from the landing strip to the top of the Shatterdome, and, despite her usual dislike of physical contact, she did not push him away.

After what seemed like an eternity, they entered the Drivesuit Room and were immediately swarmed by what seemed like a battalion of technicians, all chattering excitedly, never seeming to realize that their pilots longed only for quiet solitude. Raleigh knew they needed the techs' help to get out of their Drivesuits, but that didn't mean he was happy to see them.

A quiet, dry sob escaped from Mako as Raleigh steered her to a quiet corner of the room, free of personnel. She tried her best to stifle it, covering her mouth and averting her gaze from the technicians around her, but she knew it was no good.

"Can we have a minute, please?" Raleigh's loud voice was both polite request and firm demand, leaving no room for protest. He had no authority here, but Mako knew that nobody would challenge him. Not today. Not after what they had done at the Breach.

The people around him quickly faded away, retreating to the other end of the room and doing their best to remain quiet. Mako was sure they hovered within earshot of her and Raleigh, but she didn't really care. She looked up at Raleigh through eyes that were slowly brimming with tears, biting down on her wobbling lip as hard as she could to keep the tears from falling.

"Come here," he said, his voice gentle now. He held her to his chest, letting her bury her face against it as the tears began leaking from her eyes. Raleigh held her tight as another sob escaped from her, pressing her face into his chest. He stepped back from her for a moment, sitting down on one of the nearby desk chairs and pulling her into his lap. She froze, not used to being so close to anyone, but his hand began stroking her hair so gently that she relaxed almost instinctively. Her father's final words flashed through her mind yet again, and she squeezed her eyes shut against the memory, trying desperately not to think. She had a feeling that Raleigh could tell what was going through her mind, because his arms tightened even more around her. The pressure was almost painful now, but she was glad of it nonetheless.

"Does it ever go away?" she whispered. She didn't think she needed to clarify that she meant the pain she was feeling from her loss. Raleigh stiffened ever so slightly, and she wondered whether that was an offensive question to ask, but he took a few breaths before answering.

"Not entirely, no. But it gets a little easier every day. You'll wake up one day and find that you don't have quite such a deep, empty void inside your soul. I miss my brother every day...but I guess now I can remember the good things about him and try and focus on that instead of…what happened to him."

He got quiet then, and she took a shaky breath as she tried to get herself under control.

"It's okay to be sad," he continued. "It's important, even. You need to mourn your father and be sad that he's gone, because you can't move on without accepting that first. I wouldn't accept Yancy's death for a long time, and it made it impossible to heal. It's the reason I left the Jaeger program and took on dangerous jobs that nobody else would do. It was a downward spiral...and I won't let you go down that path, too."

He said the last part so seriously that a shiver ran down her spine, and she took one last deep breath, inhaling his now-familiar scent, taking comfort in his closeness. She nodded into his shoulder, the only response she could make at the moment, and he gave her a gentle squeeze. She looked up at him as she wiped the tears from her eyes and tried to make a weak sort of smile, and he returned a sad one of his own.

"Now," he said, "Let's call those technicians back over to help us out of these suits and we can get out of here."

Once they were out of their Drivesuits, Raleigh and Mako headed towards the barracks, outfitted in borrowed uniforms that they had been given by a helpful technician. Having finally shaken off everyone who wanted to have a moment of their time, they enjoyed the quiet of each other's company. Raleigh supposed it was natural to want to speak with or be close to those who had succeeded in helping to close the Breach and effectively ending the biggest threat to the world as they knew it, but it didn't make him want to speak to anyone. Luckily, it was near-impossible for any outsiders to gain access to the inner areas of the Shatterdome, and he and Mako took comfort in the silence as they headed towards their respective rooms.

He felt jumpy and hot, like his skin was too tight and he could not bear the thought of sitting still. He supposed it was the lingering adrenaline from the past several hours, but part of him felt sure that Mako was at the center of the feelings. She walked beside him like a zombie, her eyes glazed over and staring straight ahead without really seeing anything. He should know what to say, but he didn't. He had worn that same expression after Yancy died, and nothing anyone did or said had made a bit of difference.

He could feel her sadness inside his mind, a side effect from the Drift, and he did his best to push it aside. He wanted to be there for Mako, and he could not do that if he succumbed to the grief alongside her. He felt sadness at the loss of Marshal Pentecost, to be sure, but not in the way she did. He looked at her for probably the tenth time in the last two minutes, glancing sideways at her without turning his head as they walked side by side. She was biting her lip again, hinting that she was ready to dissolve into tears at any moment. He hesitated for a second, then gently laced his fingers through hers, ready to let her go immediately if she protested the contact. She looked down at their joined hands, then lifted her gaze to his. She looked puzzled, but not irritated, and allowed his hand to continue holding hers.

"You should eat," he said abruptly. He was not sure why the thought popped into his head, but as soon as the words left his mouth he realized that he was hungry, too. And he was desperate to be doing something of use. "We both should. I know you're probably not hungry, but skipping food won't help us any." He took the next turn in the hallway, guiding them towards the mess hall.

It was the middle of dinner time now, and the place would be full. He felt her hesitation as they arrived at the door, hearing the crowd of people inside, and felt her desire to stay away from the crowd of people who would be waiting to ambush them, both to demand details of their adventures that day, and to give thanks and congratulations for them. He stopped short of entering the door, then quickly led her further down the hall to a separate door that he knew from his time in the Jaeger program led directly to the kitchen. He pushed through the swinging door, pleased to find only a few people working in their immediate vicinity.

He saw recognition flash across the faces of those working closest to the door, and he placed a finger over his lips in a silent request that they not give away his presence. Sitting Mako down on a small stool in the corner, he walked up to a woman wearing the white outfit of a chef.

"Have you got anything we can take with us to eat elsewhere?" He asked, flashing her a smile. "We really don't want to be bogged down by all the chaos in the kitchen tonight. Can you help us out?"

The chef smiled and nodded. "I imagine you wouldn't want to go in there just now. I'll get a few things you can take with you." She set about pulling a few things from her counter and stovetop, assembling a quick meal and placing it inside takeout boxes, and then inside a large paper bag. She added a couple small desserts from the fridge to the top of the bag, then handed it to Raleigh, along with two bottles of water. "This should do for both of you. If you ever want to eat without the crowd, you can always come here." She smiled kindly and added quietly, "Thank you for your service."

Raleigh gave her a small smile in response and took the bag, turning around to see Mako staring blankly at the wall. He held out his had, waiting for a moment while she focused on it before placing her hand in his and standing up to follow him out of the kitchen. He led them back to her quarters, waiting patiently by her side as she unlocked the door and then following her inside. She immediately sat down on the bed and put her elbows on her knees, bending over and placing her face in her hands and taking a few deep breaths. Raleigh cracked open a bottle of water and sat beside her, placing a hand on her knee and pushing the bottle into her hands.

He pulled the bag of food onto his lap while she took a small sip and removed a takeout style box of noodles and a pair of chopsticks. "Will you eat?" He looked at her as he cracked the chopsticks apart and opened the lid of the box, grabbing a chunk of noodles. She looked at him doubtfully and made a small shrug; he took the signal to give her the noodles. She bit her lip again, but opened her mouth as he held the noodles out to her like she was a toddler, and cracked a small smile at the silliness of the gesture. They sat there on her bed for a while, him feeding her noodles and Mako feeding him bites of dessert in turn, both of them laughing quietly together. He knew it was only a matter of time until the grief hit her with full force, and he wanted to delay it as long as he could.

Eventually, though, she began to fade. Her eyes became less and less focused, and it was taking a great deal of effort for her to keep sitting upright.

"Mako," Raleigh said, "Why don't you get ready for bed? You really need to sleep. We both do."

Her eyes darted up to his, and he registered the fear in them at once. "I don't want to sleep," she said in a panicked sort of whisper, her eyes focused and alert now. "If I sleep, dreams will come for me and I…I'm afraid of what I'll see." Her voice was nearly inaudible at the end, and Raleigh knew how much it cost her to admit that fear, even to him.

"Listen, Mako. I'll sit here with you until you fall asleep, okay? Would that make you feel better?" He would be happy to stay here all night, but he felt that might be crossing a line with her. He knew she was not one for physical contact, even if she had relaxed that standard slightly for him, and he felt like offering to share her bed might throw her into a panic. In this moment, he knew instinctively that it would.

"I'll just sit here in your chair," he continued, hopping off the bed and into the plain wooden desk chair that was sitting a few feet away. He arranged his face into an expression of determined innocence, and she let out a small giggle. It eased a tightness in his chest to hear that small sound, and he relaxed just a little more.

She smiled faintly and nodded her agreement to his offer, then stood up and cleared away the food containers from her bed, placing them in the small recycling box she kept near the door. She turned to her dresser and opened the drawer that held her pajamas and pulled out a small pair of shorts and a spaghetti strap tank top. She debated briefly just getting changed right there, but quickly dismissed it and headed into the small bathroom that adjoined her room.

Why had she even considered stripping down in front of Raleigh? Not that she was overly modest; after all, she had lived in what basically amounted to a barrack with a dozen others while she was in the Jaeger training program, so she had gotten used to not having much privacy. But this was Raleigh she was talking about; why would she want him to see her without clothes, even if it was only a brief glimpse? She shook her head and quickly pulled removed the clothes she had been given in the Drivesuit room and swapped them for the pajamas. It felt better, being in her own clothes instead of the borrowed, ill-fitting ones that made her feel like a kid playing dress-up. She admitted that the borrowed clothes had been warmer, and she felt a chill run through her as the air conditioning kicked on, causing goosebumps to rise on her skin. She looked down at her chest and wondered if she should put her bra back on, but she dismissed the idea at once. They were hardly even noticeable, and she was far more comfortable without it on, anyway, so she tossed the clothes she wasn't wearing into the small hamper before heading back out to the bedroom.

He was still sitting there in her desk chair, looking around her room in interest. She didn't have many personal things in here, aside from a few family photos and some Jaeger schematics from when she had first begun working in the program. His eyes rested on the large Gypsy Danger photo she had tacked up near the desk, his expression unreadable. She walked over to him and placed a hand softly on his shoulder.

"Are you okay?" She asked.

It occurred to her that he had a long history with that Jaeger in particular, and she wondered how it made him feel that it was at the bottom of the ocean now. Hell, even deeper than that, really. He jumped slightly at the feel of her touch, but quickly relaxed when he looked up at her face.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "Just...thinking about Gypsy and everything. I guess it's weird to think I'll never see her again, after all the time I spent in there. First with Yancy and then with you..." he trailed off, looking embarrassed. "It's silly, being nostalgic over a machine. It's just hardware." He sounded like he was trying hard to convince himself of those words.

Mako smiled down at him. "I don't think so," she said gently. "She was part of you for a long time. I think it's normal to feel sad about her being gone. I feel that way, too. Both because I worked on refurbishing her and because of piloting her. It's a kind of loss, I guess."

He gave her a small smile in return, and Mako saw his eyes widen slightly as they passed over the hardened buds poking out from under her shirt. She blushed and quickly pulled her hand back and folded her arms over her the area, turning towards the bed as she did so. She pulled the covers back and slid into them, comforted by the familiarity of the bed sheets. Raleigh still had a small smile on his face, but he said nothing. He stood up and pulled his chair over until it was right next to the bed. He laid his hand over hers before he sat back down.

"Do you think you'll be able to sleep? I have some sleep aids in my room if you want one."

She shrugged and said, "I'll try without them for now." She gave him a sleepy sort of smile as she closed her eyes, cuddling into her blankets but leaving her hand outside the covers so his hand still covered hers.

After a few minutes, her breathing slowed and regulated, and Raleigh could tell she had finally found some peace in her dreams. Though he was beginning to feel the tingling sensation in his arm that told him that the extremity was falling asleep, he didn't want to let go of her. A silly thought, but there it was all the same. He sat there, contemplating the feelings he felt surging inside him, trying to sort through which ones were his and which belonged to Mako. He felt calmness on the edge of his consciousness, which he supposed she was feeling now that she was asleep.

There was a strange desire inside him to stay close to her; he imagined crawling into the bed next to her, wrapping his large, muscular body around her smaller, softer one. The thought was entirely too desirable to him, and he shook his head to try and rid himself of the image. He couldn't tell what feelings were real, and which were the result of the Drift and everything that had happened in the last few days. Shared trauma could create feelings like these between copilots, he knew, but was that what was happening? He had been attracted to Mako since they first met, particularly after their first sparring match, so it was not entirely a trauma-based attraction. Not for him.

He sighed. He was not going to get this all sorted out tonight, and even if he did figure out his feelings…he had no idea what hers would be. He gently disentangled his hand from hers, pausing as she made a small sighing sound and mumbled something in her sleep. He walked to the door to her room and opened it as quietly as he could, and was out on the step before her mumbled word had really registered.

"Raleigh."

He smiled and closed the door quietly behind him, walking the few feet across the hall and heading to his own room, wondering if he'd be able to fall asleep at all that night.