Title: The Last Thing I Said Was

Summary: Angela Hansen's world collapsed in on her. If she was screaming, it wasn't aloud and it was nowhere Herc could hear her.

Disclaimer: Pacific Rim and all things related is property of Guillermo del Toro, Travis Beacham and Legendary pictures.

Notes: for anon prompt via pacificrimkink "AU in which Herc saved his wife instead of Chuck and everything is more or less the same as the movie. (as in they both pilot a Jaeger together, and they're both still emotionally constipated with tons of unspoken grief/anger between the two of them) bonus if it ends the way of the movie".

01: This Song Has Gone On For So Long

Things weren't usually so quite around this time of night when he came home. Stepping inside the house he shrugged his jacket off his shoulders and left it lying on the floor; he'd get admonished for leaving his things lying around, but he didn't care tonight.

He'd spent all day at the base on high alert, mingling with others who'd been nothing except enamored in the events that unfolded over the last six days, almost running on into the next week. It's not as though the attack happened right up the street from where they lived, but it was hard to convince themselves that this was an otherwise isolated incident. Maybe it was, but it left three cities clear across the other side of the ocean in a big fucking ruins. If that wasn't cause for concern for the world at large, he wasn't sure what was.

He went through the motions of checking all the locks on the house, nothing budged, and everything was as it should've been with one exception. Entering Chuck's bedroom revealed the bed was empty and still made; he never slept in it. Leaving the door ajar, Herc tiptoed down to the end of the hall. The door barely creaked when he vied to slip through the space between it and the doorframe.

Angela lay on her side, arms around their son. Herc was never allowed to bunk with his parents after his ninth birthday. They were adamant that he learned to be on his own, sleep on his own. Coddling did neither him nor Scott any good, especially if the goal was that they were to become big strapping men. Angela, on the other hand, was never raised on the stipulation that she had to become independent at a particular age.

Her parents allowed her to sleep with them until she was ready to join her sister in their shared bedroom. She was seven when that happened. She seemed to be using the same parenting technique as her family and he had fight hard not to fall back on his family's rhetoric and shoo their son off to his own bed. The last time he did that, Chuck wet the bed and tried to pass it off as sweat.

Mother and son remained undisturbed as he went through the motions of ridding himself of his civvies. Content with his boxers, he slowly lowered himself on the bed. Angela's back expanded with her breath. Herc rest his chin on her shoulder. "Angie, you awake?"

Angela turned so that she was lying on her back. "Kind've," She yawned. She opened her eyes, they were red and puffy, either from sleep or crying somewhere Chuck couldn't hear her. "How are you?"

"Really, really tired," He replied. "We got debriefed, mostly just sit around reading newspapers waiting for something to not happen."

"Is there anything you can tell me?" She placed her hands over Chuck's ears.

"Only that the American government is setting up an emergency alert system for another situation like this."

"But, it's over now, right?" Angela tried to keep her tone even and her voice low. "They killed it yesterday."

"Yeah, that's the story," Herc said. "I don't think they know, really."

"But, something that big- there couldn't be any more of them, right?" She wasn't looking for the truth, just some kind of reassurance that this one incident wouldn't repeat itself. "I don't know," Herc didn't do her the disservice of lying to her. Removing her hands from her son's ears, she adjusted herself so that he could lie next to her. As he prepared to close his eyes Chuck sat upright, bed haired and ears at attention.

He turned and graced his father with biggest smile. "Dad!" The boy scrambled over his mother, Angela let out an exaggerated groan when his knees punched her stomach. She rolled onto her side, tripping him up as he fell onto Herc. "You're supposed to be asleep, young man," Angela shook her head at his failed attempt to sound like stern parent.