He can't run, can't do anything, or he'd have to drop the injured Herc to the floor. Mako can't either.

"Please step forward," says a man at the center of the half-circle. He looks familiar; Raleigh thinks maybe he's seen him giving interviews on TV.

"Let us go," Raleigh tries. "Our friend is injured. He needs help."

"I understand," the man says calmly. "Set him down and step forward with your hands on your heads."

Raleigh scours his mind for something to do. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the woman aide step forward and raise a gun, her dark eyes calm and composed as the rest of the ju-heads. "Don't do this," he says.

"Please do as the High Prophet says," the woman says.

"What are you going to do with him?" Raleigh says.

"It is not he whose sins are greatest here," she says, and Raleigh's stomach clenches as he parses her words.

He and Mako kneel slowly to let Herc down as gently as possible. Herc doesn't stir, his head lolling to the side as they lay him out on the hard knobbly surface of the kaiju spine. A few of the ju-heads move closer to them.

Mako and Raleigh look at each other and he sees the same idea in his head written on her carefully blank face.

As they rise, Raleigh shoots out a foot and knocks the gun out of the woman's hand. It falls and she stumbles back, surprised. She isn't a trained soldier—he could tell that. On the other side, Mako's done the same with a hoarse battle yell.

They fight back to back, as seamlessly as they fought each other in the sparring room, protecting Herc in their midst. Raleigh sends the woman aide flying back with a kick to the midsection. Two more robes, men, rush in, and he dodges a grab from the first, decks him with his left fist. The wound on his back stings as he twists.

The second ju-head has a dagger, a long ceremonial-looking knife. He doesn't look like he knows how to use it, but Raleigh's been in enough fights to know he still has to be careful.

The ju-head swipes at him. "Surrender, sinner," he hisses. His face is young, a long forehead and thinning blond hair.

"Don't think so," Raleigh says. He waits for the kid to come in, peripherally aware of a solid thunk as one of Mako's punches connects.

When the kid rushes towards him Raleigh twists and brings his foot up to deliver a solid blow to the ju-head's wrist. As he'd expected, the knife drops, too close to Herc's body. He needs to move this fight away from Herc.

"Come and get me," he says to the kid, stepping away from Herc. The kid glares and comes in hot-headed. Raleigh drops him with a bone-jarring uppercut and a stomp to the ribs once he's down. This isn't a fair fight and he's not going to pretend like it is.

He chances a glance over his shoulder. Mako's got two bodies in maroon robes crumpled next to her. That's four down. These guys aren't trained fighters. He starts to hope they can get out of here.

And then the world turns fuzzy and all his limbs lock up. "Fuck!" he yells, or thinks he yells, but he's not really sure—he can't move and all his nerves are screaming—

It stops and he falls, loose-limbed, can't help it. He hits the ground face-first and his nose smashes into hard kaiju bone with an explosion of pain.

"—leigh! Raleigh!" Mako is yelling, and he's vaguely aware of someone touching him, pulling his hands behind his back. Cool metal cuts into his wrists.

They heave him up to his knees and he blinks, feeling blood from his nose dripping down his face. The woman aide steps in front of him. She's holding a taser.

"Stop fighting," orders the High Prophet. "Your partner's incapacitated. We do not wish to have to cause him more pain."

He twists his head and sees Mako, her jaw trembling with fury, step back and drop her fists. Two of the remaining ju-heads approach her—gingerly—and pull her hands in front to lock them into handcuffs.

"I'm sorry," Raleigh tells her.

She looks over at him, her chin high and her eyes hard, the collar of her uniform spattered with blood, and he loves her, God help him, he loves her so fucking much that it rises in his chest and for a moment he's choked with fear and adrenaline and love.

"The sinners must kneel," says the High Prophet, and the robes drag her over to him and shove her to her knees next to him. The backs of his toes touch Herc's motionless body.

"We are not the sinners," Mako says, her voice tight with anger.

The prophet stops in front of them and considers them. "My brothers and sisters," he says. He's short, the High Prophet, his features plain and thin and unremarkable, but his voice is round and compelling. "Join me."

The robes step up with him, the woman with her taser still held loosely in one hand. Raleigh tastes iron and sick despair.

"My brothers and sisters, four weeks ago, we sat together and shared our anguish as we watched our saviors slain and their path destroyed. We mourned together. And together we have worked to earn our Lord's forgiveness for this world."

Raleigh sidles closer to Mako. She's not looking at him, her eyes locked on the Prophet as he speaks.

"We are the only ones to heed his call," the Prophet is saying. "When we sacrifice the ones who committed the ultimate atrocity, we shall convince God that we are worthy of forgiveness. He is powerful, he is merciful," and they all dip their heads and murmur the same phrase back. He is powerful, he is merciful.

"You think killing us is gonna bring the kaiju back?" Raleigh says roughly, wanting to interrupt, wanting to tear open the smooth, gentle, bloodless spell the man is weaving with his voice and expose how ugly it is. "You're even crazier than they say on TV! The breach is goddamn closed. The damage is done."

The man behind the Prophet hands him a long silver dagger with blue symbols like the ones on kaiju hide.

"Forgive them, as you forgive us all, for they do not know what they do," and the Prophet reaches forward to lay a hand on Mako's hair. She jerks away, disgusted, and Raleigh yells, "Don't you fucking touch her!"

"Sssh," says the woman, so gently that Raleigh can barely fucking stand it. "Do not worry. Your blood upon the sacred kaiju bone will appease the angry Lord. The Prophet will cleanse your sins and your journey can end peacefully, knowing you have sacrificed to save us all."

"Peacefully my ass!" Raleigh says furiously.

"He is the one who pushed the button," the man behind the Prophet says to him. "His blood will call to the Lord."

"Yes," the Prophet murmurs, and raises his hand. The ju-head next to Raleigh tangles his fingers in Raleigh's hair and pushes him down to the floor. He goes. He can't put up any resistance; his hands are still cuffed behind his back. Blood drips off his chin and splats on the white bone.

"No!" Mako shouts.

The Prophet kneels beside Raleigh, puts his hand on Raleigh's face. Raleigh snarls, trying to jerk his head away, but the hand is still in his hair, keeping him down. "Be not afraid, brother," the Prophet says. "I am about to cleanse your sins. Join me, brothers and sisters, in the first prayer."

A hum of voices leaps up around them, the robes pressing closer. They raise their voices in unison. A cool metal edge touches the skin on the back of his neck.

"Mako," Raleigh says, his voice tight. He can barely get the words out. He wants to look at her. He has so many regrets. "Mako, I—"

"Stay down!" Mako snarls in Japanese.

Raleigh blinks. In that second she moves faster than he's ever seen her. There's a long flash of silver in her hands.

Above him, there's a shocked, gurgling sound. He stays frozen, because she told him to, and a feminine voice breaks the air with a high-pitched scream.

Mako leaps to her feet and the hand in Raleigh's hair holding him down vanishes. He rolls over onto his back—ouch—and Mako kicks the man behind him backwards and leaps after him. The knife comes down in a deadly arc. He recognizes it—the long silver one the blond kid dropped earlier next to Herc.

Raleigh pushes himself up with one elbow, frantic to get up. He's got his eyes on the woman, the one with the taser. As she starts forward, towards Mako, he gathers his legs underneath him and lunges forward, slamming his bulk into her legs. She goes down and he scrambles over her, looking for the taser. He has to turn around to pick it up with his hands still tied behind his back.

That ends now. With the taser clutched in one hand, he scoots himself over his hands so that they're still bound, but in front. He's less flexible now than he was when he first tried this trick, but it works. Now for business.

He finds the button on the taser handle and thumbs it, sending a long jolt of electricity into the woman. She's already down, but he's not taking any chances.

He looks around. Two of the ju-heads are gathered around the fallen body of the Prophet. Blood is leaking down the front of his chest, mostly hidden in folds of maroon robes. Three are going after Mako, who's wielding the knife in front of her with both handcuffed hands. Another is headed for him.

He aims the taser. The guy goes down without a sound, his limbs frozen. Raleigh holds it down. Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten seconds.

When he stops, the guy falls down and doesn't get up. Raleigh leaps to his feet, tases the two holding the Prophet—it takes agonizingly long, each ten seconds an eternity when he can hear Mako grunting as she holds off the fanatics with her knife, but he doesn't want any surprises. Finally the second one falls, and he charges after the men chasing Mako.

She's cut one of them down when he gets there. "Hey!" he shouts, and both remaining ju-heads turn to look at him. Raleigh tases the shit out of the nearest one.

Mako makes quick work of the other one who's turned his back on her, swiping his legs out from under him and smashing an elbow into his face.

They stand there, staring at each other and panting, fallen bodies all around them. Mako drops the knife and it clatters to the bone.

"Mako," he gasps, and suddenly he can't stand to be so far apart from her. He takes three, four long strides and they crash together. Raleigh can't touch her enough; he curses the handcuffs. He opens his arms and drops them over her head, still bound, and she presses her hands and her head against his chest.

"Oh God, Mako," he says again, his voice shaking.

"Itai," she squeaks, and he loosens his grip on her instantly. "Oh—sorry—are you okay? Are you—"

She turns her face up to him with a tiny, wry, bloody grin. "You were squeezing me too hard," she says hoarsely, and he makes a noise that's half an incredulous laugh and half a gasp, burying the side of his face in her neck.

"God, I thought that was it," he says. "I thought—but you, you were amazing—"

She sighs, and he feels some of the adrenaline drain out of her. Her hands fist in the front of his uniform. He wants to pick her up and carry her home.

"Are you okay? Your nose," Mako says.

"Probably broken," Raleigh says. "S'okay, it's happened before."

"We should check on Herc," she says into his shoulder.

"Yeah," he agrees, but neither of them move for a long, long moment.

When they untangle from each other to check on Herc, Raleigh sees the High Prophet crumpled next to the marshall. Blood is pooling around him. Raleigh fights back a surge of hatred for what the man has done, what he's inspired others to do; they can hear sirens and people screaming faintly from outside.

Herc's still unconscious. His color doesn't look great, but he still has a pulse, and his chest is still slowly rising and falling.

"Stay with him," Mako says, "I'll go get help."

He nods, keeping his fingers on Herc's wrist as he watches her limp out of the tent to the sweet sunshine and swirling chaos outside, and tries to calm the part of him that surges up in fear as she disappears.

The media storm that follows is insane. This time they're sheltered from most of it, tucked away in the hospital knitting Mako's cracked ribs and Raleigh's gashes and broken nose. They convince the doctors to put them in the same room. Mako is glad for this; she has a new set of dreams in which she watches the High Prophet bleed Raleigh dry onto the cold hard kaiju bone while she struggles helplessly alongside, and it helps to wake up and see him snoring softly with his mouth slightly open in the next bed.

They spend a lot of time at Herc's bedside, too. He lives, though they had to put about eight pints of blood back in him, and he hasn't woken up yet but the doctors think he'll be okay.

Just once, they turn on the TV long enough to catch up on the aftermath. The bombs hadn't been big enough to kill many people in the crowd, but it had hit the world leaders on the platform harder. Even then, only the Canadian prime minister had been killed; the others were wounded but alive. The death toll stands at 37, a small number alongside the thousands lost to kaiju attacks, but the sorrow is burnt larger by the shock of celebration turned tragedy in an instant. When they see the footage of themselves in the wreckage, in soot-blackened uniforms and bloodied, stricken faces, they turn off the TV and by mutual, silent agreement, do not turn it on again.

Tendo brings them siu mai and pato à cabidela, a deck of cards, and a chessboard. They play a lot of chess. Raleigh gets a little better (a little). He teaches her a game called hand and foot. He's a good teacher, patient and methodical, and she likes to listen to the low, comforting rumble of his voice as he talks about the trouble he got into after Yancy taught him to cheat at cards.

A few of the techs visit, led by Ocampo. His face splits into a grin when he sees them. "You look like shit, my friend," he tells Raleigh, which is true, although the once-spectacular bruising from his broken nose is starting to fade, and bumps his fist against Mako's. "Heard you saved the day," he says.

"Ah—it was nothing," she stammers, because she still hasn't learned to take praise yet. Then she thinks better of it. "Thank you."

"My little girls want to meet you," he says. "Can I bring them by next time?"

"Sure," Mako says, and she smiles. "I would love that."

They stay and chat with the techs, but Ocampo stays late after the others leave. "Hey Ocampo, where's Liu?" Raleigh asks after a while.

Mako's eyes snap to Ocampo's. Raleigh looks between them, confused.

Ocampo pauses, looking uncharacteristically hesitant, and clears his throat. "So, Liu," he says. "You remember her brother, the uh, ju-head. He was at the ceremony."

Raleigh's lips part. "Oh," he says slowly. "But he wasn't one of the ones who—"

"No," Ocampo says heavily, "because Liu killed him."

She can see the shock in Raleigh's face, layered with disbelief. "She killed her brother?" he repeats, and Mako knows there is no way for him to understand the act.

"He helped plan the attack," she says quietly. "I saw him. Before the bomb blew. He knew it was going to happen; he had earplugs in."

Ocampo nods grimly. "I think he was going after you, to join the others. But Liu realized what was happening, and she..." He trails off.

Mako swallows. "Is she okay?"

"It wrecked her," he says. "Like it would anyone. But Liu's strong. I think she'll be okay. You know. Someday."

Raleigh's silent for a long time after Ocampo leaves. Mako slides out of bed and sits on the side of his bed, reaching hesitantly over to brush her fingers against his. He opens his hand to interlace their fingers.

"I can't..." he says, and he can't finish the sentence, but Mako knows. His brother is still a gaping wound, only half-healed, and she's not sure how much it ever will. "I know," she says, and he tightens his grip on her hand.

Ocampo, bless him, brings over Raleigh's motorcycle the day they are discharged. "You wanna drive?" Raleigh says, tossing the keys to Mako.

Her eyes light up and an only slightly wicked grin curves her mouth. Raleigh's getting used to his heart turning over like that, though, so he barely even gulps.

"Do you want to go straight back to the Shatterdome?" she asks.

"Not really," Raleigh says.

He climbs on behind her and slides his arms around her waist. She revs the bike and they speed out of the hospital bay onto the streets.

Mako takes them past the turnoff to the Shatterdome, out of the city towards the ocean, and Raleigh feels his heart and mind and lungs expand as the wave of fresh salty air hits them. She wends the bike along curving roads, leaving the city further and further behind, up and up, dune grass blowing alongside the roads as they pass.

On the last curve they come around to see a deep blue bay spread out before them, ringed with green grass and a thin stripe of white sand.

Mako slows the bike at the top of the mountain, and they get off, shucking the helmets, and walk to the edge. There's a low rock ledge and they sit down next to each other and look out over the bay. The water is lovely, clear and blue, nothing more evil than sea urchins hidden in its depths.

Peace, it feels peaceful, and for the first time since the breach closed Raleigh feels it, really believes it: they are at peace from the war they've been fighting for twelve years. Peace. He's not stupid, he doesn't know if it'll last, and they'll never be free from the uncertainty, but damn does it feel good to have kicked the goddamn monsters out of their world, for however long it lasts. And people, people they can deal with. The kaiju hadn't beaten them and neither had the ju-heads.

At his side, Mako clears her throat. The wind blows her black and blue bangs back from her face, long eyelashes framing her lovely dark eyes. She looks as beautiful as the ocean.

"Raleigh," she says. "You said, before we left for the breach..." Her fingers twist in the fabric of her pockets, and Raleigh's heartbeat starts to speed up. "You said that you were thinking about the future, and then, in the Drift..."

He waits.

She takes a deep breath. "Do you still want to—because I—"

"I thought you'd never ask," Raleigh says, and he leans over to tip his head against her forehead, taking in the look of surprise, then delight, then fear, then determination as she moves forward to kiss him. He smiles against her mouth and she deepens it into a sweet, open-mouthed kiss, lingering and warm, poignant and bright with the future.

"Mako," he sighs into her neck when they stop, feeling her hands tangling in the hair at the nape of his neck.

He folds her in his arms, careful of her healing ribs, and drinks in the feeling of just holding her. His heart beats with the promise of the kiss. She hums softly, and he can feel the vibration in his chest.

"Raleigh," she says curiously. "If you wanted...why didn't you say anything before?"

"I wanted to wait for you to make up your mind," Raleigh says.

"Oh," she says, is quiet for a long moment. Then she says, "You mean we could have been doing this earlier?"

He grins against her collarbone. "Mako," he says, "we got all the time in the world," and lifts his head for another kiss.

A/N: Well that's it folks! Hope you enjoyed :) Because the bunny bit, I have, uh, another one in the works. This one is an AU, which is more my normal speed, and I'm gonna turn the apocalypse dial up to 11, because there wasn't enough apocalypse already? Anyway, I'm really excited about writing it!