Chapter Text
“Arthur,” Bella said. “Please. We can move from here, we can leave.”
This would be the last time they held this conversation. The last time she would ask.
Arthur had always been selfish. Even under the guise of selflessness. He hadn’t known it would be the last time, but it wouldn’t have changed a thing.
“Bella.” Arthur said, a finality to his words that pursed her lips. “We can’t just pretend it will all go away if we move to England.” Arthur gave a gentle smile and wiggled his fingers as he noticed Faroe looking at them.
Softly backlit by the tv broadcasting a colourful cartoon she smiled widely at him, accepting his wave and turning back to her show.
“It’s not about everyone else though, Arthur,” Bella said softly. “Just about us, about Faroe.”
“I fight for Faroe, Bella, don’t you get that?” He crossed his arms over the chipped tabletop, leaning against them.
She shifts, a move Arthur recognized as her crossing her legs. A move that meant she was preparing to land a blow, “I’m not sure if that’s true, Arthur, I’m just not.”
The same fight, over and over. Arthur was sick of having it. She was out, Bella was done. But that didn’t give her the right to pull him out too.
He stood, uneven legs of the chair he’d been sitting in scuffing loudly against the laminate flooring. “I’m going to train for a bit, I just need to think about it.”
Bella sighed and turned to check on Faroe. Eyes only for her daughter as she addressed Arthur, “If you don’t find a partner, will you come?”
“I’ll never find a partner like you, Bella.” He said, a wistful note to it as he made his way over and bent to give the toddler a kiss goodbye. “Bye-bye sweetie, daddy’s going to work.”
Faroe gave him the loud uncoordinated smooch only a toddler can give and waved him bye-bye.
Bella said, “You know that’s not what I mean.”
Arthur opened the door, “And yet it remains entirely true.” He stepped out into the dingy metal hallway of the military base and clicked the metal door of their dorm room shut behind him.
There isn’t a way to hide things in the Drift. Once connected that was that. Two minds as one.
That was how he found out Bella believed she was pregnant.
Arthur felt all his terror of raising a child in this world hit him all at once. The fear he felt was so sharp and sudden it knocked them completely out of sync.
They’d never really found a way to bounce back from it.
Bella was beautiful, strong, brave, and way out of Arthur’s league.
Faroe was a perfect mirror of all of Bella’s strengths. All the things he loved most about her beamed out from chubby cheeks and curled hair.
His fear tarnished her, his horror dulled her glow. That was what scared him most. That somehow his own wretched childhood would be forced on her. That she would be doomed to deal with the Kaiju alone.
He wouldn’t. He couldn’t abandon her to that fate.
The only thing standing between his beautiful daughter and a peaceful life would not be some fucking wall. She would not live in a cage, unaware of when the Kaiju would crash it down and destroy everything she loved.
Bella was heartbroken.
Their friendship was seemingly held together by threads. Threads Arthur was desperate to hold firm. Tie them up into the tight knit family he’d always craved for himself.
Yet he pulled away, refused to quit. The first time he told her he wouldn’t be moving away, that he needed to fight, he’d never been more sure of anything in his life.
It was a mistake.
A mistake he would be forced to live with for the rest of his life.
A mistake Faroe would live with for the rest of her life.
When Bella and Arthur Drifted for the first time it was as though everything fell into place perfectly. Their compatibility was incredible for two individuals who, ultimately, had very little in common.
Petra Saltzman was nothing like Bella.
The cousins both shared that same wind-chime laugh, the same quirk of their eyebrow when they secretly found his antics amusing but didn’t want to let on.
But Petra was a hurricane to drift with.
Where Arthur would describe Bella as a gentle breeze, notes softly pulled from that wind-chime soul - Petra was an orchestra in a maelstrom.
Virtual flight tests together went well, really well.
The practical tests in Petra’s Jaeger, Show Pony were another story.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” Arthur yelled.
Petra laughed, “Oh relax, would you!” Her posh American accent seemed to mock him.
Arthur said, “Relax? Petra! You’re going to fucking kill us both!” He felt her amusement through the drift. Amusement which grew with each complaint and spike of fear from him.
“It’s just a test, darling! Don’t tell me you never let Bella test the weapons! No wonder you two couldn’t make it work.” Her fake pout pushed through their drift.
She ignited the boosters contained in their Jaegers legs, boosters that were commonly used to assist in quick manoeuvres in the water. Only she aimed them directly downwards, causing the two of them to launch a total of 3 miles directly upward into open air.
A frankly reasonable fear induced delay in his drift with her caused his timing to the boosters to be off. A lack of sync which caused them to, instead of landing upright, plummet down to the sea below backwards - Arthur began to wonder if Petra’s full time partner, Jan, truly was suffering from appendicitis, or simply from Petra.
LOCCENT, the ground control of the Pan Pacific Defence Corp crackled to life over their comms, “You two alive out there?”
Arthur groaned, reaching out to flick the comms on, “Oscar,” he said. “She’s trying to kill me out here.”
She cackled in response.
They simply didn’t sync well. They’d been at it for weeks and had only abysmal report scores to show for it.
He didn’t want to open up, was afraid of giving too much of himself. Meanwhile she had no shame in her past mistakes. Metaphorical arms wide open to accept him in the Drift.
He couldn’t keep up with her. Couldn’t find it in him to give up control in a way that would sync them. His Drivesuit was too tight, he missed his own Jaeger, The Yellow King… he missed Bella.
They got benched.
It was understandable, they were too unstable together. But… It was the reason why Arthur hadn’t been able to help.
It was why his daughter was hurt.
He couldn’t give up one single fucking shred of imagined control, and everyone suffered for it.
He didn’t blame Petra, of course, he blamed himself.
The Kaiju that made land was fast. Even if Arthur and Petra had managed to gear up and drop, they would’ve been too late.
The team called in did their best, they handled the threat. But the Kaiju’s rampage had killed nearly 200 civilians. People who’d had no idea the threat was even coming.
His Faroe.
He didn’t remember if he had said goodbye to her that morning, if he had told her that he loved her.
He made himself sick.
Faroe had been trapped under that collapsed building, terrified, for hours before rescue came. Her teacher and half the students in her class hadn’t made it.
As he sat beside her hospital bed, tucking the blankets gently around the mass of bandages that had once been his daughter’s leg. He knew Bella was right.
They needed to move back to England.
But not with him.
He spent the next days? Months? Years? In bars. Drinking until he felt a facsimile of forgiveness. Not drinking to forget, no, drinking to get sick, drinking as punishment for what he felt he caused.
It was in one such bar, (The very same bar Arthur would later share in the Drift with John,) that he met Parker.