Disclaimer: I don't own Pacific Rim or any of its characters.
Title: Watch Me Come Alive
Rating: K+
Characters: Raleigh Beckett, Yancy Beckett, Gipsy Danger, Cheung Wei, Hu Wei, Lin Wei, Crimson Typhoon, Aleksis Kaidanovsky, Sasha Kaidanovsky, Cherno Alpha, Herc Hansen, Chuck Hansen, Striker Eureka, mentions of Stacker Pentecost
Summary: The techs whispered. The media worried. The government argued. The pilots knew. In which Jaegers began to develop sentience and react to the world around them.
Warnings: Mild violence
Author's Notes: I tried to give each Jaeger its own individual voice, along with a different relationship with its pilots. For irony, Cherno Alpha despite being the oldest Jaeger has a child-parental relationship with the Kaidanovskys. Gipsy Danger is more like a sister for the Beckett brothers, perhaps as a substitute for their real sister. It's my headcanon that the Wei triplets helped to design and build Crimson Typhoon so they are Crimson's teacher/shifu. Striker Eureka is the Max-the-dog between Chuck and Herc, being the glue that holds them together when in the Drift.

I also wanted to show how the Jaegers developed in time. Cherno Alpha and Gipsy Danger couldn't quite "speak" to their pilots yet, though their pilots speak to them and understand their thoughts through the Drift. Crimson Typhoon and Striker Danger, as the years went on, could communicate with their pilots.

A bubble of warmth spread deep in Cherno Alpha's chassis, down to his snow-covered digits.

папа was going to "propose" to мама. He wasn't sure what "proposal" was, only that "marriage" came after it. But from папа 's Drift, it meant happiness and that he would spend the rest of his life with мама.

"Proposal" and "marriage" confused Cherno. He did not see why папа needed to propose. He thought папа already belonged to мама and мама to him. They were already happy together and they would be together forever with Cherno. мама knew it. Cherno knew it.

Cherno wished that he was given a mouth so he could outright ask папа what these words meant. папа would surely explain, pounding his chest excitedly. And мама would smile a pretty red smile and add to whatever папа said. But only humans, dogs and Kaijus had mouths. After all, he was neither a human, dog or a Kaiju.

Being a "Jaeger" and not human was something Cherno was still trying to differentiate between. папа and мама are human. Cherno was a Jaeger. There were lots of humans but few Jaegers. Sometimes when Cherno was resting in his bay, he wondered if Eden Assassin and Nova Hyperion have become human like him. But he didn't dare ask or probe the limits of his "humanness". They were always being watched. Cherno only trusted мама and папа. So he kept to himself and his brothers remained silent.

Sometimes, it got lonely. папа and мама could be away for long periods of times, though they promised Cherno to return. мама teased him, told him to be good with the crew. папа pumped his fist against Cherno's finger as a way of goodbye. But despite the crew being gentle with Cherno, they were not папа and мама. They did not understand him the way папа and мама did. They did not know that Cherno loved the feeling of warm human fingers intertwined against his. They did not know Cherno loved listening to Ukranian hard house, so папа and мама made sure to play it loud enough for Cherno to hear when they are away. They did not know that Cherno liked playing with the dogs who yapped and ran between his legs during scouting missions with only him, мама and папа.

Cherno did not know how to count the time but he wouldn't mind waiting a little longer for папа and мама to come back for him. They always did.

~.~.~

Gipsy Danger hurt.

Her entire body burned as if it was on fire and every inch of her armor groaned and creaked at the slightest touch. Her crew looked aghast as they saw how she looked like a pale ghost of her former glory. They had to isolate the damage to salvage any part that they could. She overheard a mechanic saying it was becoming costly to maintain her and the other Jaegers.

She screamed as they took off her limbs one by one to inspect the damage. One leg was horribly twisted and mangled deep inside and it took them some time before they could wrench it out of Gipsy's socket with a sickening crunch. They sighed over her missing arm and torn faceplates, quickly removing what they could, ignoring (or not listening to) Gipsy's choked wails.

Amidst her fevered pain, Gipsy cried out for her boys. Surely they would come and soothe her and make it all better. Every time Gipsy came back in a less than perfect condition, they were always by her side as she was being fixed up, their voices a comfort to her.

" We got that Kaiju good, didn't we, girl?" the younger boy would say. And then he would chat with Gipsy how they hammered fists down on the Kaiju's head or the other time that Gipsy's plasma caster shot that one Kaiju head clean off, despite all the strange looks the crew would give him. The older one would smile and shake his head before reminding Gipsy to take it easy and rest up. " Don't overwork yourself," he cautioned. " You'll be up and running soon enough."

But the crusted blood over her faceplates and the technicians gossiping reminded her that one of them was dead and the other was badly injured like her.

She still felt the lingering despair and grief. The younger boy's mind was oddly blank and numb as he struggled to get the two of them (only two and not three) back to shore. " We got this," he mumbled and Gipsy wasn't sure if it was to himself or for her. " Just a little more. Almost there. We're going to be okay. We're going to make it. Right? For – for – for ..."

When they took him away from her, she wept for both of them. The older boy was gone, violently torn away from their lives. The younger boy was just as lost. She felt his mind as he saw the older boy killed. He felt his brother's death as if it was his own. Perhaps, he wished to die, to join his brother and be free of the agony that ravaged through him.

Please don't die, she whispered, loud enough to make the crew nervous. I'm still here. Please don't leave me.

She would get stronger and he would get better. They would rebuild her and him, and together they would become greater, rising from the ashes. The older boy would have wanted it. He wouldn't want them to remain beaten and defeated.

So she waited. And waited. And waited.

But he never came back. And when they brought her to Oblivion Bay where her kind went to rot, she wondered if the younger boy now hated her and wished she would suffer as if he was suffering.

What use was her as a Jaeger anyways, she bitterly thought as the helicopters dropped her to her grave. If she couldn't even protect her boys?

~.~.~

One moment of patience may ward off great disaster. One moment of impatience may ruin a whole life was a Chinese proverb that his Shifu once told Crimson Typhoon as they waited in the Shanghai port during one mission. Crimson's fifteen digits had all twitched and tapped restlessly against his armor, much to his Shifu's amusement.

" Except," Shifu Cheung had said. " Impatience can ruin more than one whole life. We protect ten million people. One mistake and they all die." And Crimson nodded, taking the lesson deep within his chassis.

But for this day, it felt as if all the patience Crimson had obtained had fled his body, leaving him anxious and troubled. The latest Kaiju attack had left Shifu Cheung injured and rushed away to the Shatterdome's infirmary, Shifu Hu and Shifu Lin staggering behind with splashes of cuts and bruises and Crimson in repair.

He should have seen the Kaiju's third arm come up from his blind side. He shouldn't have been worrying about Shifu Lin who was hissing in pain from the Kaiju crushing his hemisphere of Crimson's arm. The Kaiju's arm slammed into the right side of Crimson's head, digging into Crimson's skull and Conn-Pod.

Shifu Hu and Lin were screaming and so was Crimson but Shifu Cheung screamed the loudest as two Kaiju talons raked across his shoulder and arm. A timely tilt backwards and an uppercut of a rotating claw by Crimson saved Shifu Cheung from being ripped in two.

And now they waited. Crimson had to stay in his bay while the crew assessed and fixed his damage. But he could easily see his shifu waiting just at his feet, having been forced out of the infirmary on the orders of Shifu's shifu.

Shifu Lin was still like stone, hands clasped to his chin, elbows on his knees, back leaning forward. If it wasn't for his steady breathing, he could have been mistaken for a gargoyle. Shifu Hu was the opposite. He paced the floor, feet pattering, fingers tapping restlessly against his leg. His teeth grinded and sometimes he tsked and sighed and opened his mouth to say something, but the words never came, so he closed his mouth and resumed pacing.

Crimson longed to beg for their forgiveness at his carelessness. I shouldn't have been distracted, he wanted to tell them. Should have been faster. Should have protected Shifu Cheung better. It was my fault. Please. Shifu Hu? Shifu Lin? Please?

A door opened and his Shifu's shifu came out, a tall and imposing man. Shifu Lin leapt to his feet and Shifu Hu remained still at his arrival. They talked quietly for some time while Crimson strained to hear, his digits twitching impatiently as they once did before. At last, his Shifu's shifu clapped a hand to Shifu Hu's shoulder and gave Shifu Lin a nod before leaving. Once he was gone, Shifu Hu collapsed on Shifu Lin's shoulder, head pressed against his brother's neck, shoulders shaking.

What did that mean? Crimson dreaded to know, feeling his impatience and fear eat him alive.

Finally, Shifu Lin looked up at Crimson and smiled. [Brother will be all right,] he announced out loud, to the confusion of the working crew who looked up to see who he was addressing. [He is recovering and will be back to normal in a few months.]

Shifu Hu was laughing and wiping away the tears from his cheeks. [Already, he wants to come see you.]

There was nothing at that moment for Crimson that could have been sweeter than to hear those words.

~.~.~

If passing humans glanced uneasily at his twitching hand just itching to clench itself, Striker Eureka didn't care.

He was furious. So was his humans. Striker knew enough from his humans that the way the young one was shouting and that the older one was frowning told him that they were angry. And rightly so. Other humans wanted to "decommission" him. The word was strange and foreign but a quick search in his humans' memories and language told him that other humans wanted to retire him.

" It's because you're ... well, becoming sentential," the older human explained to him later after the decommission with Striker still seething and the older human solemn. His eyes looked sad and tired for some reason, though Striker didn't know why. " They're afraid of you. Those with suits and ties. Afraid of what you would do."

He wondered why these "suits and ties" were afraid of him.

" The media is whipping this into a storm," the older human sighed, rubbing the side of his head, a strange human action. " They're saying things like the damage you could do and how you could hurt people."

That was untrue. Striker wouldn't hurt anyone other than Kaiju. Just the other day, the younger human was teaching Striker how to pet his creature. Striker made sure to be very gentle like his human had told him, barely twitching his finger to stroke the creature's head. The creature let out a happy sound and pressed its slobbering face against Striker's metal. His human grinned one of his rare grins and said that he would make a "dog lover" out of Striker yet.

He told his human as much, who suddenly looked much older. " I know," he heavily said. " Chuck and I, we know you wouldn't hurt any of us. But they just won't listen."

The younger human had a different perspective on the matter. " Those bastards can go screw themselves," he had snarled, pacing agitatedly on the balcony near Striker's arm. The creature, always by his human's side, growled and yipped in agreement. " We've been single-handedly winning this war. And now they think they can just shut us – you down?! After all we've done? To hell with them!"

He continued to rage and rant with Striker agreeing and chipping in. They loudly discussed the ways they could get back at the other humans, including showing up at their fancy inland homes and scare them witless. The ridiculousness of their plan made Striker chuckle and even the younger human managed a small smile.

Striker's hand then turned and moved as close as it could to the balcony and to his human without denting the railing, like the time he had done before and his humans' Marshall became upset and warned them (and him) not do it again. Will I be brought to the graveyard? he quietly asked.

The young human's eyes softened slightly. He knew how terrified Striker and the other Jaegers were of Oblivion Bay where Jaegers are abandoned and forsaken once they become useless. " No," he firmly said. " I won't let them. Neither will my old man. If I have to, I'll put you up in a Jaeger museum. It will be better than the Bay. Anything would be better than that. And we can come visit you. As often as you like."

Striker thought about that. Museums were dusty old boring places from what he found out from his humans' minds. But if his humans could come and visit him, then maybe the museum wouldn't be as dusty, old or boring.

I would like that, he murmured and when his human reached out and placed a tiny hand on his large brass knuckle as a farewell, if he was human, Striker would have shed a tear.