Jazmine had taken up a causal stance, leaning against her bō, as she watched her brother work his way through the list of potential co-pilots. She fought to keep her expression indifferent, as though the thought of her impending turn was not turning her insides to turmoil. Raleigh was making his way down the list of hand-picked candidates quickly, although, not as quickly as she could see he was capable. He was allowing these Rangers to score points against him, because it was too easy, she realised as she caught sight of his expression. He was bored.

Jazmine bit down on her lower lip. What if, when her turn came, she presented no challenge to him whatsoever? What if he worked through her just as easily as he did the others? What if, when it all came down to it, she was, yet again, not good enough?

No. She couldn't think like that. At the end of the day, she had something that the other Rangers didn't. She knew Raleigh. She had grown up with him, play-fought with him on countless occasions. Actually fought with him on even more (more often than not forcing Yancy to step in and break the two of them apart). She knew his fighting style, his techniques. She knew him, just as he knew her. As far as siblings went, she and Raleigh were close. Or, they had been, before Yancy had died, but even so, if she wasn't at all compatible with him, who on earth would be?

Chuck hung back, hidden from prying eyes by the hoard of Rangers, some candidates, some not, gathered to watch the famous Raleigh Becket find his co-pilot. He wasn't there for Raleigh Becket, though. His attention was fixated completely on a different Becket. Jazmine was watching Raleigh with an unconcerned expression, but Chuck could see the tension in her shoulders, and knew that her indifference was feigned. It wasn't obvious to the untrained eye, but to someone who had grown to notice her habits her worry was deafening. She was fiddling with the ends of hair, which was in a (by his standards) complicated braid. It started on one side of her head and came around the back to the other side. She was playing with the small inch or so of hair at the end of the plait. She ran her hands through her hair a lot when she was wound up, Chuck had noticed. What with her hair being tied up like it was, she was having to make do with playing with the ends.

She glanced to the side and Chuck could see her lower lip caught between her teeth. He felt something stir in the pit of his stomach as he was involuntarily reminded of her doing something similar to his own lips. He pushed the thought away, refusing to relive even a second of the time he had spent with Jazmine. He had made the decision to let her go (admittedly, a decision he was now regretting), there was no sense in dwelling over it.

Except, that's exactly what he was doing, wasn't it? Sure, the argument could be made that he'd come down to watch purely to laugh at the old has-been that was Raleigh Becket, but that wasn't the case at all. He'd come to watch Jazmine, he wasn't quite sure why, or what he hoped to achieve. He knew it was unhealthy and toxic and no good for either of them, yet he couldn't quite stop himself. He wanted to talk to her. No not even that, he just wanted to be around her.

Jazmine's turn came and he saw the knuckles on her left hand whiten as her grip tightened. He didn't have to look at her face to know that her jaw would be clenched and her eyes blazing. It was a look he'd been recipient to many times, although in very different circumstances.

Jazmine stepped forward, her jaw clenched and knuckles white as she clutched her staff. When he looked at her, he could see Yancy. In the way she held herself, in the fire in her eyes, in the clenched jaw, in the pure determination that her expression held. Raleigh wondered if she even knew how much she'd grown up to be like their older brother. He was glad, that if she'd emulated anyone, whether she was aware of it or not, it was Yancy. Yancy had always been, would always be, the better brother.

Concentrate, he told himself. It was hard. When he'd left, she'd been a sixteen year old girl. He'd come back to a 21 year old soldier and he wasn't quite sure how to process th

at. He still thought of her as his baby sister, but she wasn't a baby anymore, not even a little bit. She didn't need looking after anymore, oh no, she was perfectly capable of looking after herself. He still had the bruises to prove it.

Raleigh swung his staff forward, expecting her to step back and avoid him, but she stayed firmly put.

"1-0," he said, "concentrate, Jazmine."

Jazmine stared at him and for a moment he thought she was going to throw down her bō and punch him in the face, but instead she smiled, and he knew he was about to have his ass handed to him. Jazmine countered his swing with the skill and expertise of someone who had spent the past five years training her ass off. He was proud of her.

"1-1," Jazmine said with a smirk, "watch yourself, brother."

It became a dance. A kind of union. They were breathing in unison, finding the same rhythm in their steps and postures. They struck and parried and dodged, and I was a…not a game. It was like fighting yourself, when the other you could read your mind because your mind was his mind.

Or in this case, her mind.

It was like the Drift.

Jazmine didn't stick around to watch the other candidates, purely because she knew that if she did, she'd only end up comparing herself to them.

"Hey, Jaz!" Chuck's voice rang out behind her. She wondered if there was any way she could pretend to not have heard him. She didn't turn around and refused to break pace in the hopes that he would assume she had not heard him and give up his pursuit. Her hopes were futile. "JAZ!" There was no way she could ignore that.

"Hey, Chuck." She answered, turning around to give him an awkward smile. She wasn't entirely sure what the etiquette was here. Were they friends, enemies? Were they supposed to feign indifference to each other? Who knew? She was surprised that he was seeking her out. Surprised that he seemed to be behaving amicably towards her, despite their last conversation.

"You did well back there. Really well."

Jazmine frowned. "You were there?" She hadn't seen him amongst those gathered to watch the trials, although her mind had been elsewhere, so maybe it wasn't surprising.

"Well, I was, y'know…just passing. Thought I'd stop by for a moment or two to see how it was going."

"And you just happened to stop by in time to see my turn. Convenient."

The merest hint of a smirk tugged at the corners of Chuck's lips. Jazmine pretended not to notice.

"So you and Rah-leigh are getting along now?" Rah-leigh. He was drawing out the first syllable unnecessarily. It irritated her.

"Yep."

"I thought you hated him." He raised an eyebrow and she knew that he was remembering the less-than-warm reception she had given Raleigh upon his arrival. And then the hours she'd spent sobbing in his arms.

"I thought you were too busy saving the world for sex." Jazmine shot back with a bitter smile, effectively changing the subject.

"What's up, Becket? You jealous?"

"Jealous? Please." Jazmine scoffed.

"Really? Because you're doing that thing you do when you're mad. You know, when you smile but your jaw is clenched and your eyes get kinda wide."

Jazmine frowned, taken aback that he'd even noticed a small thing like the face she made when she was mad.

"Yeah, you know what, you're right, Chuck. I am jealous. So jealous of whatever-her-name-is-" Natalya, as she very well knew, "-who gets to strut around this place hanging off of your arm. Why, oh, why couldn't that be me? I really missed out there, huh? What I wouldn't give to be your trophy girlfriend."

"Well, we both know that being my girlfriend has its benefits."

"Yeah? Like what?"

"Apart from the amazing sex, you mean?" Asshole.

"It wasn't that great." Jazmine scoffed.

"I still have the scratch marks that you clawed into my back that would suggest otherwise." He replied, smirking, without missing a beat.

"You're lying." She rolled her eyes.

Without a word, Chuck pulled down the collar of his shirt to reveal a cluster of yellowing bruises along his collarbone. Bruises that Jazmine had a very vivid memory of inflicting. She blushed, but stayed adamant.

"My point still stands. Not great."

Chuck raised an eyebrow before opening his mouth and, in what she could just about make out as a very bad American accent- "Ohhh, God! Oh, God! Oh, Chuck! C-ch-chuck, oh my God!" He stopped and grinned down at her as she stared at him speechless before she recovered herself and delivered a good, hard punch to his arm.

"Ow!" He protested, all traces of the American accent gone. "What was that for!?"

"That god-awful and completely made-up impression of me!"

"Made-up!? Jaz that was a word-for-word quote!"

Jazmine opened her mouth to respond but was cut off by an unfamiliar voice that rang through the corridor.

"Hey, Aussie Boy!" The voice was thickly accented and although Jazmine had never heard her speak before, she knew before she turned who she'd be looking at.

Natalya stood at the end of the corridor. She struck a rather intimidating figure, what with that long, white-blonde hair and stern features. It wasn't hard to see why Chuck had preferred her over Jazmine. Despite the steely glare that Natalya was throwing in her direction, Jazmine was fighting the urge to laugh. Aussie Boy? She glanced at Chuck, who threw her a look that quite clearly said "shut up" before deciding to take her leave.

"Uh, I should go. I'll uh, see you around, Aussie Boy."