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first.last@compass.net (3)	(no subject)	D12 63:19PM
first.last@compass.net (6)	Re: Mission	D11 8:01PM
first.last@compass.net (12)	[text]	D10 9:35AM

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[ it is because yancy's always been comfortable around people, and there hasn't been a ranger that he's outright disliked ( okay, maybe one, but lucky seven and herc hansen mitigated that. the need for a functional jaeger outweighing the fact that scott hansen was a douche. )

she gives him an option. and while he doesn't know her, hasn't seen her face-to-face, there's something in the way she chooses her words that makes him think of raleigh. ]

this is good until my brother can introduce us personally.

[ he doesn't wince at the distance and distinction he's just put between them until he rereads the sent text.

my brother instead of simply rals or raleigh.

yance, what a way to be a jackass. ]

[ She gives him an option and when the decision comes down Mako finds that part of her regrets doing so. She wants to see Yancy and how could she not. (—she remembers the old tree out in the back yard, the one that she, no Raleigh, had begged Yancy to hang a tire swing from for three months straight; she remembers the scar she, no Raleigh, earned on her elbow when the branch had snapped because she was being a jackass but she'd refused to cry even though it hurt because she'd wanted to make Yancy proud of her—) But space is space and Mako understands that unlike the Drift with Raleigh, this connection only goes one way. She's seen him, every part of him that Raleigh knew, while she remains a stranger. Somebody Yancy has returned to, only to find him sleeping in his bed like Goldilocks dozing away in Little Bear's chair.

(The comparison paints her as an unwanted visitor. The thought alone is more painful than Mako had ever expected it to be.)

All this distance, between her and Raleigh, between Raleigh and Yancy, between all of them. It feels wrong, the way an imbalanced sword can throw an entire swing off, like something that is meant to be an extension of her own body is suddenly alien and awkward.

It takes her a moment to respond. Mako suddenly finds herself unsure as to what to say next. (—Yance, please—) ]

I just wanted to extend an olive branch.

[ The metaphor's poor. They're not at war, are they? ]

I know that this situation isn't easy for either of you.
But you know how important one's copilot can be.
So I will do anything to help both Raleigh and you through this, however I can.

[ Yeah that's right, Yancy. You too. She remembers being your copilot once upon a time. ]

If there is anything I can do, any way I can be a resource or a help.
Even if it's space — which I hope it's not, because that will only hurt Raleigh more —
Please don't hesitate to ask.

[ can he have a do-over? he just really wants a do-over of this entire conversation -- no. of this entire freaking week.

maybe not the other parts, but everything that has to do with raleigh and as a result, to do with mako. shit, he really didn't mean it like that— ]

—I'm sorry. That was uncalled for. I didn't intend for it to come off like that.

[ it's just been throwing him off. on text, there are moments when she sounds like rals ( here, on the network ) and he's been turning that over in his head; because he knows that the familiarity on her part is a side-effect of the drift, and he has enough of his mental faculties in order in a way that raleigh clearly hasn't this last week that he should be a little less careless of mako mori's feelings. ]

I really didn't mean it that way. We're not playing tug-of-war and my— [ he catches himself then ] —Raleigh isn't a rope with you on one side and me on the other.

[ he goes silent then, for a good, long, half-minute, before he murmurs: ] We should meet. [ the unspoken: are you free now? hanging between them. ]

[ There's an exhale that comes over Mako's end of the line when the conversation switches to audio and Yancy Becket's voice is suddenly there in her ear. She's never heard it before, not in real life, not really, even though her mind is convinced otherwise by so many borrowed memories. There is something about it so visceral and real, so close after Anchorage and all of the years that came after following the wall up the coastline of Alaska, that Mako has to take a moment as a wave of feelings rush over her, sending an unexpected shock of relief and gratitude and need through her system.

(Like a lamp turned on in a dark room. Like coming home after a very long time on the road. The only other time Mako has ever felt this way was the first time she met Raleigh in the Drift and she'd been certain that she would never feel something like it ever again, and yet.)

It takes her breath away. It really does.

There's a pause, filled only by the sound of her catching her breath. Then: ] Someone needs to convince Raleigh of that. [ That they weren't fighting, that this wasn't a contest. That he didn't need to choose anyone and that neither of them were going anywhere. ]

He's frightened. [ And those words are painful because Mako knows that she's a part of it, however unwillingly. But Raleigh Becket's heart is as wide and as deep as an ocean, and if they're not careful, Mako knows that this — they — will drown him. ]

Edited 2013-10-26 14:02 (UTC)

[ The first thing that hits him is that Mako Mori doesn't sound anything at all like he thought she would. It's a strange thing to think, because this is the first time they've ever made contact, but the presence of this girl has been a palpable thing, a reality that he'd had to deal with from the first moment the fact of who she was, was mentioned to him.

Yancy rubs a hand over his mouth, because he's trying not to laugh, trying not to kick himself for how this is making his heart expand, the worry and the tension easing out and away.

( It's a funny thing, when you become someone's copilot, when you practically become their world in the way that you know with absolute certainty that you are theirs.

For a long, long time it was just him and Raleigh, Raleigh and him, play fistfights and tussles and drift-hangover after a takedown in Los Angeles, Puerto San Jose, San Diego and Manila. They'd hung around other pilots or PPDC staff because civilians would find them odd, they way they'd just sit and share a look, one of them twitching an eyebrow or just letting out a laugh, hours upon hours worth of conversation spent without uttering a word.

But there are five years between him and Raleigh now, five years that Yancy can barely wrap his head around and a third person to consider. Even if the of of them falling into the old rhythm is as easy as breathing -- nothing's right; nothing's balanced the way it should be. And that's what's been eating him up, because his brother asked for space and he was all too prepared to give it, in the same kind of capacity that he had agreed to go meet the kid in the classroom when he'd messaged: Hey man. We should talk.

It's a terrible thing, to think that you are displaced from a spot that had always been unquestionably yours, and it is the sweetest kind of relief to know that it doesn't have to be like that. )

Mako Mori doesn't sound like he thought she would and that's perfectly, utterly okay. ]

The thing about Raleigh [ and me, really, he thinks ] is that you tell him not to do the thing, he will do the thing. [ Yancy takes a breath, shifts his hand on the communicator and continues: ] You don't have to tell me that he's scared. Saw it for myself on that first night fresh off the train.

[ He can still hear, see and feel the violence and the despair, his brother's face twisted and all wrong. You're not real. ]

Mako, [ her name feels foreign in his mouth and he wonders if that'll change. In this place, they will likely never have the Pons to meld their minds, so the current will always run one way: the exchange between Mako and his brother a bright and shining thing, and the thread that ties Raleigh to him a well-worn rope tested by time. But there are other ways to get to know a person that don't involve the intricacies of the Drift. ] How did you know?

[ That you and Raleigh were drift-compatible? That you would fit, just so? ]

[ Mako, Yancy says aloud and Mako realizes in the moment that follows after that that is something she's always wanted to hear — her name enunciated by Yancy Becket's mouth, an imperfect shape and an imperfect sound but somehow luminous nevertheless. It feels like a first step down an uncertain path, the cobbles of it unclear to Mako since they have no choice but to feel it out together in the dark. Normally she'd feel uncertainty, grapple with it and then put it aside, but with Yancy there is only a feeling of yes, a feeling of good and a feeling of finally. This is the strange contradiction of the Drift: to know somebody for such a short amount of time and yet to feel like you've known them forever. And while Mako's understanding of Yancy comes filtered through Raleigh, it makes that connection feel no less potent and it makes her own investment no less strong.

Again, an exhale like she's catching her breath. Or maybe she's smiling. (Or maybe it's both.) When Mako speaks her voice is both rueful and fond, colored by an adoration that's held back only by her own reservedness. It's not sisterly but it's not romantic either.

It's — being a copilot. ]

I didn't. [ She'd told him within hours of meeting him that she didn't think he was right for the job and she'd criticized his performance in the kwoon, not knowing that it would lead to her own opportunity. ] I knew that I needed to pilot Gipsy Danger. And I knew Raleigh was the only way I could do that. [ It's not the most shimmering admission, but at least it's true and Mako has no intentions of keeping anything from Yancy. That's the only way she could see this exchange working. ]

But Raleigh knew. [ Maybe from that first moment, when their eyes had met on the helipad, the rain pattering on the crowns of both of their umbrellas. There'd been something in the way he'd look at her, and when he'd asked her later are you a pilot, Mako knew that he'd seen something in her that other people hadn't. ]

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