Chapter Text
He could have made a fair guess at the topic of their informal little meeting before arriving, but Sam greeting him with a bottle of whiskey already out only confirms it.
His manner is calm as he pours out two glasses; not a million miles removed from the serious, competent young ranger Goody met in the training program a lifetime ago, but tempered now. The years have given him a certain gravity, time and the demands of the job putting grey in his hair and lines around his eyes. They live and work in what might charitably be called a high-stress environment. As pilots they'd known that the weight of this fight rested squarely on their shoulders, but there's a different and infinitely more frustrating demand in being one of those left behind, sending brash young rangers out to fight and die and being helpless in the moment to do anything but listen.
"I'm sure you remember how this went last time," Goody says lightly, taking a quick, steadying gulp of whiskey before setting the glass aside lest the ripples betray the tremor in his hand. "And the time before. And, if memory serves, the time before that--"
"You know the situation," Sam replies, calm and unyielding. And the problem is, he does. They're desperately hard up for drift compatible pilot pairs, and with the torn up skeleton that used to be Widow Rose mostly repaired and almost ready to be rechristened, they can't afford to wait any longer to crew her. Having a functional jaeger standing idle is appallingly bad for morale. The spiral that's bound to descend into is absolutely the last thing they need right now.
It's been a rough few months. Sam looks tired, sitting against the edge of his desk with his glass cradled loosely in his hands and his head lowered. But then don't they all, lately. They've seen too many jaegers come back in pieces - or not at all, lost to the cold waters of the unfathomable Pacific - for there to be any shine left to wear off. It's almost touching, in a grim sort of way, that Sam doesn't feel the need to keep up the persona of the unfazed, implacable Marshall here when it's just the two of them. Not that there would be much point in it. It's been a long time since they were last in each others' heads, but after all these years, even without the benefit of the drift they still know each other entirely too well.
Goody reaches for his glass again, the burn of the whiskey a welcome distraction from the choice he's being asked to make here. "It'll be just like all the other times, Sam," he says softly, not man enough to look up from his drink. Sam sighs.
"I can't make you." Translation, I can but I'm not going to, a fact Goody is far too pathetically grateful for to resent. "But I need you to try. We're running out of options, and I can't let a pilot of your caliber go to waste."
Goody knocks back what's left in his glass and stands. "I'll think about it," he says, holding Sam's eyes as he sets his glass down on the desk. "I can't promise anything, but I'll think about it. Either way, lord I hope you have a plan B."
Sam snorts something that isn't quite a laugh and claps him on the shoulder. "We're a long ways south of B already, old friend."
He's tense and on edge when he leaves Sam's office, his hands in his pockets, pressed flat against his thighs to still the way they want to tremble. He keeps his head down and greets the people he passes in the corridor with short nods, not slowing his pace in any way that might suggest a want for conversation.
It's late enough that the sheltered little gantry outside the loading bays where the smokers tend to congregate is blessedly deserted when he slips out, the silence broken only by the blustering of the wind and the steady drum of rain beating off the overhang. The air is cool and wet, heavy with the salt tang of the ocean; somewhere beyond the low, dark clouds the sun is slipping down behind the horizon, the already dim light dimming almost imperceptibly further. On evenings like this the shatterdome feels as though it stands on the edge of the world. One last watchtower looking out over the abyss.
Goody's hands are shaking as he cups them around his lighter, guarding the tiny, flickering flame against the questing gusts of wind seeking to extinguish it. If he hadn't drowned his inclination toward poetry in cheap booze a long time ago, he might almost see some metaphor in that; some brief flame, fierce and defiant and ultimately doomed, burning bright for a moment in hands cupped against the cold dark howling to consume it.
The cigarette catches and he inhales deeply, taking comfort in the steadying familiarity of the acrid taste of smoke. He leans against the guardrail and swallows against the sick panic fighting to claw its way up his throat, eyes fixed unseeing on the ash and embers spiralling down toward the dark waters far below, crashing again and again against the foundations of the shatterdome. Much as he's grateful for the solitude, it's a dangerous thing to have too much of. Dark thoughts have a way of creeping enticingly up in quiet moments. It's easier to forget when there's light and noise and conversation for a distraction.
He taps ash absently off the end of the cigarette and takes another deep drag on it. He'd tried to quit once, years ago now; back when it still seemed to matter if he got lung cancer when he was sixty. These days, making it that far seems a hilarious fantasy. And even if he does manage to live long enough for his pack-a-day habit to catch up with him, it still seems an easier way to go than trampled underfoot in a landfall or burning alive in kaiju blue. Let the cigarettes kill him. At least he got to decide that's something he's at peace with.
Light spills out onto the gantry as the access door swings open, and Goody glances over, tensing, only to relax again as he recognises the familiar silhouette stepping through it. Billy nods amiably in silent greeting as he ambles over to join him at the guardrail. Loose hair flutters around his face in the wind, the collar of his jacket turned up against the elements. Goody offers him the pack of cigarettes.
Billy shakes his head. "Got my own," he says, producing a roll-up from somewhere in the depths of his jacket. If he were a suspicious-minded sort, Goody might take Billy's predilection for rolling his own in conjunction with the peculiar smell of the smoke from them, and conclude that perhaps they contained something a little more exciting than tobacco. Fortunately for everyone, though, he's an innocent soul. One of these days he might even be able to say so with a straight face.
They smoke together in companionable silence for a while, shoulder to shoulder against the cold as the wind blows fitfully around them, and despite himself Goody can't help but relax a little. There's always been something steadying in the air of unruffled calm Billy carries with him.
"I didn't see you around at dinner," Billy comments after a while, inspecting the smouldering end of his cigarette critically.
"I had a meeting with our fearless leader," Goody replies offhandedly, as though he doesn't know perfectly well that he's inviting all kinds of questions he doesn't want to answer regarding the nature of said meeting. He takes another draw on his cigarette and makes a face, flicking away the burnt-down stub and reaching for the pack to pull out another.
Billy offers him a light. "Rough day?"
"Aren't they all?"
Certainly they have been recently. Things have been difficult since they lost Widow Rose, dependent on other shatterdomes to pick up the slack for them until they can make up their complement again, and the lack of success of the scramble to find a pilot pair to crew the repaired jaeger is wearing on everyone's nerves. They're too used to being stretched thin to deal well with this kind of limbo. It reflects poorly on all of them to be unable to field a functional jaeger in case of emergency, and the longer that state of affairs draws out, the more people start to wonder if they're making a difference at all.
Goody sighs. "Chisolm asked me to try to find a copilot again," he says quietly. The silence that draws out in the wake of that admission is heavy with unasked questions.
"Does that mean you're finally going to let me try?" Billy inquires eventually, all faux-innocence. Goody smiles broadly as though the thought of letting Billy get any more intimately acquainted with the shipwreck that is his subconscious - to say nothing of certain filthy fantasies in which he has a starring role - isn't viscerally terrifying. He isn't rich enough in friends to be willing to risk losing one of the closest he has left. Perhaps he's fighting a losing battle by even trying to pretend to be a well-adjusted and functional human being, but if nothing else he still has some pride. He'll hang onto this damn facade for as long as those around him are polite enough to act like they buy it.
"I'm sure you have enough on your plate without letting yourself in for that," he replies, affecting a flippancy he certainly doesn't feel. If nothing else at least there's no need for him to elaborate. Billy had been there for the aftermath of the last disastrous attempt, seen it spiral beyond recovery before LOCCENT pulled the plug. He knows it was his own damn fault for letting himself be goaded into even attempting a neural handshake with Faraday. There wasn't a snowflake's chance in hell of it going well in the best case - no-one's ever been able to stop him from chasing the rabbit - but even they could never have predicted just how cruelly their demons would feed into each other.
Billy nudges their shoulders gently together. "Bet you I've seen worse," he says, a trace of a wry smile curling the corner of his lips.
Lord and he probably has. Billy has precisely the opposite problem to Goody when it comes to being paired up with a copilot; steady as the proverbial rock, calm and self-contained, his neural handshake record remains yet untarnished by a failed attempt. Accordingly, he's been stuck on the reserve list for some years now, kept back in case of emergency. Command tend to give preference to pairs that work only in unique combination. Occasionally frustrating as that may be, there's an undeniable logic to it. It makes little sense to waste the only partner who'd work with a given pilot by pairing them up with someone who can drift with essentially anyone.
"I'd hate to spoil your record," Goody replies, automatically deflecting. He doesn't doubt Billy's almost supernatural ability to keep a connection stable, but he's had too many failed attempts over the years to grant himself the luxury of optimism. He was consigned to the scrapheap from the day he woke up in the infirmary with the wounds that killed his copilot seared in circuitboard patterns into his skin.
Billy shakes his head. "Just...think about it."
Goody gives an entirely insincere promise to do so, and quietly excuses himself.
He doesn't sleep well that night. Not that he does most nights, waking up gasping and shaking from nightmares on the rare occasions insomnia doesn't haunt him til dawn. Every rivet and rust spot in the ceiling above his bunk is familiar.
The shatterdome is never silent. The low hum of the ventilation systems underpins every moment, so all-pervasive as to only ever be noticeable in the rare spaces where it stops; the distant tread of feet and murmur of hushed voices from the night shift echoes through the corridors. They've all made a home of sorts here, this disparate collection of people, holding close to each other in the dark and stubbornly building their lighthouse at the edge of the world. Sooner or later their cliff face will crumble, worn away to nothing by the inexorable beating of the waves below. They know that. But for now, every attack turned back is a victory. Every person who gets to die an unremarkable human death from old age or illness or stupid accidents is a victory.
It wasn't always like this. Once upon a time they thought they could win. They could drive the kaiju back, seal the breach, make the world safe again. That would have been a cause worth dying for; to ensure that no-one else had to ever again. But instead they're left with an uneasy equilibrium, a limbo state with no promise of an end. Young pilots die in their jaegers so that the next generation will have their chance to do the same.
Sometimes, in the hazy space between sleep and waking, he forgets. He'd do anything to know how to hold onto that fleeting moment of blissful emptiness; thoughtless, mindless, untouched by memory. He'd do anything to know how to stop feeling his copilot die over and over again in his nightmares.
It seems an eternity ago now that he'd joined the jaeger program, recruited straight out of the military along with so many others. They'd taken so much pride in what they were doing back then. There was a sense that they were part of something so much bigger than themselves, doing together what no-one could alone. They'd built their tools out of scrap metal and stubborn determination, setting out to hold the line at all costs. And they'd done it. They'd fought and won, again and again. The day he and Sam got to mark their first kaiju kill on Aura Blue's armour was one of the proudest of his life.
And then, so slowly they'd barely been able to see it happening at the time, the tide started to turn. Pilots started getting sick, poisoned from the inside out by the ride-or-die seat of the pants technology they'd cobbled the first generation of jaegers together out of; Goody had spent nearly a year benched after medical consigned Sam to the command centre, waiting on a new copilot. Jaegers started not coming back. Support was withdrawn in favour of the Wall project, and slowly a grim resignation started to creep up on them.
Looking back on those early years, it's hard to believe how much everything has changed. Back then he never would have believed for a second that he'd ever be afraid to step into the drift.
He'd be a liar if he said he'd never considered Billy as a copilot. They've known each other a long time now, grown close and comfortable in their friendship without the benefit of the drift to put them right on the same page. Billy's companionable silence has a way of steadying his worse moods, keeping him on the level when the weight of old guilt wants to send him spiralling...put like that, it's tempting to believe that it could work the same way in the drift. But he knows better than to oversimplify it that way. Everything is so much rawer when the neural bridge is active, nerves flayed tender and close to the surface.
For as long as it never happens, he can believe that maybe it would work. He can tell himself there's still a chance. He doesn't know what he'd do if he was forced to confront that attempt inevitably failing like all the others. No-one's ever been able to stabilise him, not since what happened; even stepping into the drive pod and feeling the link initiate is enough to tip him over into a blind panic when it triggers the visceral memory of feeling his copilot's pain and terror in those last screaming seconds before the connection was violently severed. He doesn't want to let Sam down, but god, he can't face the humiliation of another publicly failed handshake.
In the morning, he'll go and make his apologies. He can't do this. He should have admitted from the start that he can't do this.
While it does nothing to assuage his guilt, sleep at least comes a touch easier with that decision held firm in his mind. He dozes off sometime around dawn, the distant sounds of the shatterdome starting to wake echoing through the halls.
If he dreams, he doesn't remember it.