NOTES: Once upon a time, someone asked for "Raleigh gets the shovel talk from Stacker." And I thought, "Well, he kind of already did in the movie." So this is the story of shovel talks that everyone else gives Raleigh...

Shovel Talks, And Walks Of Shame

A week after Operation Pitfall, Raleigh's still waking up with Mako in his bed, the graceful curve of her jaw peeking through the sleek sweep of her hair as she shifts, drowsily.

It's an exquisite bit of hell, because she rolls over and plasters herself against his back, one soft cheek rubbing against his shoulderblade, her breath brushing his spine like a warm cloud, her fingers resting lightly against the scars on his torso.

But they're not together. It hasn't even been discussed. And she hasn't yet rolled over into him and the jutting monstrosity of the hard-on he has for her on these mornings, so Raleigh hasn't yet had to ask if this is just co-piloting or the more he wants it to be.

"Thinking too loud."

He smiles. "Thought you were sleeping."

"Was. You are too noisy."

Raleigh chuckles. She has no idea how noisy he can get in certain circumstances. But he keeps that thought somewhere where she can't sense it for the next half-hour while Mako wakes up from mumbling half-sleep, and his body calms down enough so he's not sporting a goddamn boner when he gets up to see her out.

He always watches her until she reaches her door. Maybe it's stupid when her door is right there, but it's also courtesy and habit and the desire not to let her out of his sight for a second longer than he has to.

It's usually an empty corridor.

This morning, a small group of Shatterdome personnel – techs, engineers, one of Tendo's LOCCENT staff – are ambling along on the way to or from their shift.

Mako lifts a hand in a casual greeting and seems to think nothing of the fact that she's just walked out of Raleigh's room at 0600 hours in what is clearly her equivalent of flannel jammies and bunny slippers.

As Mako shuts her door, the expressions that turn towards Raleigh range from amused to disapproving.

Raleigh hastily shuts his own door and leans against it with a sigh.

It's a Shatterdome; the co-pilot bond is nothing new. But most co-pilots come into location already paired, the relationship stable and familiar. In Hong Kong, Mako is one of theirs – that's clear in the way everyone treats her: familiar, if not friendly. And in spite of helping save the world, Raleigh is still something of an outsider.

There's no hope that it'll be forgotten, either. Gossip moves through the Shatterdome nearly as fast as the news of a kaiju attack.

By 0900 hours, it'll be a wonder if anyone doesn't know that Mako Mori was caught doing the walk of shame from Raleigh Becket's room.

Herc's already at work when Raleigh comes in from breakfast. He looks tired and grim, but then he always looks tired and grim these days.

Mako is worried, and various members of Striker Eureka's crew have taken to checking in on Herc for spurious and increasingly transparent reasons. Raleigh thinks he's going to have to put a halt on that soon – there's nothing they can do for Herc anymore but let him become accustomed to the hole in his soul, to the fragments bumping around his head that aren't exactly his.

Raleigh knows how that feels. Which is why he doesn't say anything.

"Lightcap and D'Onofrio are on their way in," Herc says without preamble. "ETA ninety minutes. In the meantime, we got a bunch of new transfer requests – LOCCENT put 'em through last night." He gestures at Raleigh's tablet, sitting on the edge of the desk. "Most seem pretty reasonable."

"And the ones that aren't?"

Herc sits back. "There are eight requests for Mako's expertise in Jaeger tech. Smaller-size, the building models. She'll have to look the offers over, of course, decide if she wants to take any of them up." There's a momentary pause. "I heard she came out of your room this morning."

"And every other morning since the Breach." Raleigh isn't going to beat around the bush – not with Herc. Not that anything has happened – yet – but the truth is that if Mako gave Raleigh even the slightest bit of encouragement, he'd be on her like white on rice. Better to have it out here and now. "She's an adult woman, she can decide where she wants to sleep."

"Yes, she can." Herc agrees in that same calm voice. "And the people who care about her can observe that she's just lost her dad, a bunch of friends, and the goal she's been working towards for half her life - and that anyone trying to take advantage of her present vulnerability would find themselves at the business end of a brawl."

Raleigh meets the older man's gaze. "That's fair. But I'm not taking advantage of Mako."

"If I thought you were I'd have led with my fist, not with this conversation." Herc folds his hands over each other, toying with the gold band on his right ring finger. "I've seen the way you look at her – like you'd eat her up with a spoon if you could. I also know what it is to have a woman under the skin, and I know what a guy'll do to keep that."

Raleigh doesn't ask for clarification.

Herc doesn't offer it. What he does offer is a very direct look. "I like you, Raleigh. You're a good man. But do anything to Mako that would make me have to come after you, and I promise that liking you won't count for shit."

It's been seven years since Raleigh last saw Dr. Lightcap, back when he and Yancy were stationed in LA. She came through the Shatterdome with Lieutenant D'Onofrio one afternoon. The first successful pilot pair took the time to meet all the Jaeger program personnel who were available, to shake hands and quietly tell them they were doing a good job.

Raleigh remembers the way Dr. Lightcap talked to him and Yancy, the sharp intelligence underpinned by the droll humour, her unfettered interest in how they found the new PONS system in the Mark IIIs, the way she smiled at Sergio D'Onofrio when he suggested that she not monopolise the Becket Boys with technical details.

He remembers Yancy teasing him about his crush for weeks after he blurted, "We don't mind being monopolised."

"I'm so sorry about your brother," Dr. Lightcap says, when she moves on to Raleigh after greeting Herc and Mako with familiarity and tenderness. "I know it was a long time ago but…"

But, as the woman who developed the PONS system, who made the decision to leap into the neural bridge with Sergio D'Onofrio and changed the fate of the world thereof, Dr. Lightcap understands that the parts of Raleigh that Drifted with Yancy are still there and always will be. That the loss eases, but never goes away.

"Thank you."

She smiles, and it's still luminous, although thinner and more tired than he remembers. "Congratulations on closing the Breach with Miss Mori. She's done amazing things with Gipsy Danger, bringing it up to modern standards from the Mark III specifications. I know Marshal Pentecost was proud of her work on the Jaeger."

Raleigh glances over at Mako, who is accepting D'Onofrio's sympathetic hand on her shoulder as he says something that makes her smile through the tears stinging her eyes.

"Mako's amazing." Raleigh doesn't mean to be quite so emphatic about it, but it's true, and anything less would be selling Mako short.

"She is." There's a pleased note in Dr. Lightcap's voice. "And if you hurt her, I will beat you to death with my tablet and bury you where nobody will find you."

It takes Raleigh a moment to actually hear what she said.

She's still standing there when he turns, frail and blonde and innocuous and smiling – and, at that moment, more terrifying than a Category 5 kaiju.

"A vague disclaimer is nobody's friend," says Dr. Lightcap, patting him on the shoulder.

In his attempt to avoid the stares and glares, Raleigh somehow ends up in the K-Science department – where even the most judgey of Shatterdome personnel don't venture.

"Ah! Fresh meat!" Geizsler's proclamation isn't exactly encouraging, but Raleigh figures it's not personal. "Come to see what's become of those kaiju you killed last week, eh?"

"I sincerely doubt Ranger Becket cares about the disposition of the corpse after it's ceased to become a threat," Gottlieb sneers from his computer modelling. "His job hardly leaves room for interest in the entrails of the beast – let alone your hobby-horse for today."

"Today?" Geizsler says cheerfully as he yanks at goo-covered nodules. "Today, we're looking at the sex lives of the kaiju. It's really quite fascinating, as a matter of fact."

Across the room, Gottlieb rolls his eyes. Raleigh can't say that Geizsler's idea of fascinating matches his, but he ducked in here to avoid being eyeballed by everyone who thinks he's taking advantage of Mako. He can't really duck out without appearing rude.

He can be polite to these guys for half an hour; it doesn't cost him anything, and it's an escape. So he leans back against a desk that at least seems dry and clean of kaiju entrails, and folds his arms.

"Sex lives of the kaiju?"

"Did you know that up until Otachii, all the kaiju that came through the Breach – all the ones we had the leisure to examine, that is – were neutered? The earliest ones didn't even have the genitals with which to reproduce! Of course, after a couple of years it looks like someone on the other side decided that a self-replicating population would be an advantage – assuming they survived long enough."

"Not that it made a difference for those coming through the Breach," Gottlieb notes dryly. "Seeing as most were given the snip."

Raleigh winces and hopes his surreptitious shift of the hips isn't too obvious.

"Unsatisfactory performance, perhaps," Geizsler pushes his glasses up his nose with the back of his hand and studies Raleigh as he yanks something thin and tubular out of something thicker and tubular. "Questionable behaviour. Acting in bad faith."

"Sleeping around. Breaking hearts." Gottlieb eyes Raleigh. "That kind of thing."

It dawns on Raleigh that he's getting The Talk. Again. "This is about Mako?"

"And the penny drops!"

"We like to think of ourselves as…moderate men, Mr. Becket."

"Moderate men who are very fond of Mako, and who possess tools suitable for taking apart a kaiju." Geizsler picks up what looks like a meat cleaver, and starts carving something lumpy out of the gelatinous mass in front of him in the way a gangster might start cleaning under his fingernails with a six-inch switchblade. "Just so you know."

Raleigh puts down a box of parts in the indicated place, steps back, turns around, and finds himself facing a small crowd – about ten women of varying ages and disciplines in the Shatterdome. There are Jaeger techs and Drift operators, a couple of women from LOCCENT, and at least one woman he remembers working with Alison Choi in the Weapons Division back in Anchorage.

He looks at Anna – one of the tech Chiefs who worked on Gipsy Danger back when he and Yancy first started piloting, and the one who asked for his help today – and sighs. "You couldn't have just said you wanted to talk?"

Anna brushes black curls out of her face. It looks like a sweet, motherly face, but Raleigh remembers that, when faced with the choice between a lecture from Pentecost and a lecture from Anna, he'd take a lecture from Pentecost any day. The old man was hard as nails and cold as the Icebox, but at least his disappointment didn't sting the way Anna's did.

"I needed the boxes moved, too, Raleigh. And you were always a helpful boy."

It's probably not the time to remind her that he's twenty-seven and not a boy anymore. Raleigh figures he'd better get the conversation moving instead of waiting for them to beat around the bush. "Can I just point out that Mako's old enough to make her own decisions?"

"You can," Anna says, mildly. "And I can point out that I gave you and your brother a box of Trojans each that first weekend you were off-duty in Lima, and you'd blown through yours by the end of the weekend. Pun very much intended."

Raleigh's cheeks and neck and shoulders and chest go hot as several of the women titter. Isn't there a statute of limitations on bringing up this kind of thing? "I was nineteen and that was eight years ago!"

"The thing is, we know how you operate, Raleigh. And Mako's not one of your Jaegerflies."

"No, she's not." It's a soft statement, but fierce. She's Mako, his co-pilot, and his anchor. Even if she doesn't want him sexually, he will never give up this connection between them. Yes, Raleigh Becket wants everything Mako Mori has and is and will be, but if all she can offer him is co-pilots and friends, then he'll be content with that. "She's…important. I'm not playing, Anna."

"Good to know." Anna sounds conversational. "Because if we hear that you've been fooling around…well, you know me, and you know Alison and a few of the other girls, but there are a lot more of us than are here right now, and I promise you won't see us coming."

"Basically," says one of the engineering techs brightly, "don't fuck this up, Mr. Becket, or we'll fuck you up. Capiche?"

"So," says Tendo in a quiet moment during the LOCCENT inventory, "I hear you're seeing Mako."

Raleigh grimaces as he checks off workstation parts on a checklist. "Don't even start, Tendo!"

But when he dares a glance up, his old friend is grinning. "Actually, I was going to ask if you wanted me to go and threaten her, just to even the stakes." When Raleigh blows out a long breath, Tendo adds, "Alison told me what the women did – I'd have run an intervention if she'd told me earlier."

"No," Raleigh says after a moment, finishing the checklist for this workstation. "It's okay. They only knew me from before. And they were worried for Mako."

"There's a big fat 'but' in there, Becket boy."

"We're not—I mean, she hasn't—" Raleigh climbs out from behind the row of terminals and tries to find a way to explain things. "It's not like that. Not yet, I mean..."

"Ah," says Tendo, in his most annoying 'older and wiser' tone of voice. "The sweet sound of frustration. Balls as blue as a kaiju, then?"

"You're not helping."

"You know, when I first started dating Alison – serious, exclusive dating, I mean – I got a visit from the Shatterdome Gal-Pal Brigade in Anchorage. Terrifying isn't the word for it. I nearly didn't ask her out again."

The thought of Tendo Choi – charmer extraordinaire and Shatterdome Romeo – terrified to ask a woman out, makes Raleigh grin. As Tendo probably intended.

Raleigh remembers the women at other Shatterdomes looking out for each other, too. It made seeing any of them a risky business, which was why he and Yancy limited themselves to the fangirls and the Jaegerflies. They were still careful, of course – respect and consent and enthusiasm and protection – but at least they didn't have to worry about their lives being made hell by the women of the Shatterdome for hurting one of their own.

But that's not an option here. This is Mako.

"So, I got a question for you, Becket Boy." Tendo waggles his brows. "You're interested, and Mako clearly likes your ugly face enough to not mind waking up to it in the mornings, and last I checked the beds in those rooms are barely big enough for one let alone two. So how, exactly, is it 'not like that'?"

"We're not—She doesn't—It's just not," he says, more embarrassed than he probably should be given that this is Tendo who's asking. "We haven't talked about it yet."

"After today, I'd recommend it. Probably with less talking." A hand comes down on his shoulder. "And Raleigh?"

"I know," he says with a sigh. "If I hurt her, you'll brain me with your clipboard."

Tendo grins. "I was going to say 'be careful'. But I could brain you with my clipboard if you prefer."

Raleigh doesn't see Mako until they're at dinner when she falls in beside him on their way to the mess hall.

"Have people been giving you trouble?"

He's not surprised she's heard. "They're just worried about you."

"But they don't need to be." The little crinkle between her brows is the start of a frown, echoed in the mutinous pout of her mouth. It's gorgeous and adorable, and makes Raleigh want to laugh, because she's thinking about ways that she can fix this – as though anything's broken.

"You can't stop people caring, Mako."

She waits until they're seated at one of the tables with their trays before answering him. "But they should not bother you."

It warms him to know that she's worried for him, not about him, the way everyone else in the Shatterdome seems to be.

"I can look after myself, you know," he teases as he dabs his bread through the stew. "I'm a big boy."

"Well, I would not know that." Mako says. And although her voice is perfectly prim, Raleigh goes hot and cold all at once. He thinks he's misheard her inflection. Then her mouth quirks with an impish tilt. "But we should probably talk about it."

He holds her gaze. "Just talk?"

It's hard not to grin at the blush that creeps up into her cheeks, hard not to lean in and take when she lifts her chin in unfaltering challenge and draws his attention to the soft curve of her mouth. And if he keeps looking at her like this, he'll just be plain hard and might very well commit something that skirts the edge of public decency for the pleasure of tasting Mako.

"That's what we must talk about," she says softly, just as Alison Choi and her son arrive and sit down.

"Hey, do you mind?"

They both assure her that it's fine…and spend the next twenty minutes working to keep the baby boy from crawling all over their dinners, and crab-walking himself along the table just because he can.

In the end, Raleigh wolfs his dinner, and hauls young Caleb up and out of the mess hall to be entertained long enough for his mom to get some food in her. And probably to grill Mako on exactly what is going on between her and Raleigh.

Mako gives him a small smile as he leaves the table, and Raleigh nearly leans across the table to kiss her. Except that they haven't had that talk yet, and he doesn't want to presume that she wants him – even if all the signs point that way…

When she calls his name as he reaches the entryway, Raleigh thinks he must have forgotten something of Caleb's. But Mako's hands are empty as she comes towards him, along the aisle of tables and benches.

She comes right up to him, her hands fisting in his sweater as she pushes him back, rises up on her toes, and fits her mouth over his. Someone wolf-whistles, and there's a smattering of cheers and claps from the dinner crowd, but Raleigh barely hears them.

Mako's hot and perfect in his mouth, her body sandwiching him against the doorway from breast to knee, her fingers flexing against his chest and belly. He opens his mouth to her, angles his head so he can taste her deeper, his tongue into her mouth – oh, yes, so soft and sweet. Gloating heat rushes through him, intoxicating and heavy, pooling in his belly. And Mako throws herself headlong into the kiss, nipping and teasing and drawing him out before pushing him back again.

God, who taught her how to kiss like this? Raleigh isn't sure whether to high-five them or punch their lights out. He only knows that he doesn't want it to stop until he's had his mouth on every inch of her body, and she's panted her way through an orgasm. Preferably twice, but he'll give it time before he learns all her sensitivities.

But there's a hand patting his cheek. A little hand scraping tiny nails down his skin. Caleb. Mess hall. AUDIENCE.

Shit.

Mako pulls away – drops back, her cheeks pink, her mouth swollen. Her expression is exactly how he feels – dizzy, punch-drunk, triumphant.

"We will talk later," she says, stepping away. "Yes?"

"Yes." What else can Raleigh say? Other than that she's going to have to make an honest man out of him, because his mouth is swollen and he's got a boner in his pants – very obvious and not exactly something he can hide when she saunters away, a woman who's just claimed her personal property in front of God, man, and Hong Kong Shatterdome.

"Buh?" Caleb asks, his hand still resting on his cheek.

Raleigh exhales. "Yeah," he says, and knows his voice trembles. "We're going now."

He walks out of the mess hall, past the personnel who stopped to stare, past the still-laughing diners in the line, past the grinning servers dishing out the food.

He walks out, publically marked, slightly dazed, visibly turned on, and trying not to grin like a fool.

It's not the walk of shame.

It's much, much better.

fin