Once More Into the Breach

Rebirth

His lungs feel like they're on fire when he awakens. Oliver can barely breathe and his throat feels raw, making it burn, too. He doesn't have to ask to know he was screaming, deep in the throes of a nightmare. It isn't surprising and it certainly isn't new; whenever he knows crawling into a Jaeger is imminent, his subconscious mind decides to remind him of all the reasons he shouldn't. As much has he wishes he could stop thinking about Tommy's death, a part of him thinks it serves as a good reminder of what he's willing to risk on these missions.

What is new, however, is the way the door swings open. Frowning, Oliver squints at the small beam of light coming from the crack in the door. There's no mistaking the face in the door, and a part of him wonders how Felicity managed to hack into the keycode. Belatedly, he remembers that she's Felicity and she once hacked into the Pentagon. A simple electronic lock was probably child's play to her.

With a twist of the dimmer switch, she allows some light in the room, but not enough that he feels blinded by the harsh fluorescence. She's in a pair of black pajamas covered in brightly colored cartoon cats of various design, her hair sticking up at odd angles, squinting without her glasses. "Are you okay?" she asks into the space quietly. "I didn't want to wake you, but I could hear you screaming across the the hall. I wanted to make sure nothing was wrong."

"I'm fine," Oliver assures her, but he doubts the rasp in his voice aids in convincing her. Sure enough, the look on her face says she isn't buying it. Because there's no point in trying to lie to the woman he's going to Drift with in a few hours, he admits to her, "I have nightmares about what happened the last time I was in a Jaeger."

Instead of pity, sadness washes over her expression. "You know..." she starts casually, "I don't want to get in a Jaeger so bad that I would sacrifice your health to do it." Oliver opens his mouth to protest, but she holds up her hands. "If you have doubts, you should let me know before we do this in..." Felicity glances over to his clock. "Three hours."

He sighs, trying to find the words, and his new co-pilot pulls a chair from the table in the center of his quarters. She turns it backward before sitting down, resting her arms on the back of the chair. It makes him smile; instead of pushing for information, she just lends a supportive ear. "Felicity," he breathes out. "I want to do this." When he smiles, this time there's no happiness. "I used to love being a Jaeger pilot. To my parents, I was a screw up until Dad threw me into a trial arena. Being a pilot is the one thing I've ever been good at." Meeting her eyes, Oliver assures her in a firm voice, "I want to do this."

To his surprise, that's the end of it. She nods immediately. "Okay." Rising from the chair, she turns toward the door before declaring, "I'm going to take a shower and get dressed. In an hour, you better be down at the mess hall." Felicity points at him, and Oliver can feel himself swallow at the ferocity of the expression on her face. "And you better eat everything on your tray. I've watched you pick at your food for weeks, but you'll need that for energy today. I want you in full condition to Drift."

Though he's known Felicity for less than a month, it's long enough to know that arguing with her when she's like this is pointless. Throwing on the shirt by his bed, he answers, "I'll be down in the med bay." The confession takes her by surprise, so he explains, "I blew my knee out when the Alpha Omega crashed. I'll need pain meds if I'm going to be in peak condition."

Part of him doesn't want to tell her the rest of that truth, though she'll know it soon enough. While physically he can be one half of the Jaeger, the neural load is exhausting to him. Tommy had been his best match-up in his Ranger career, but the assault on Oliver's brain meant migraines by the end of an hour piloting the mech. His last partner had still taken most of the neural abuse—to the point that he had the trademark ocular hemorrhage. It had taken Oliver all of ten minutes to finish off Knifehead solo after Tommy's death, but by then he'd already ruptured the blood vessels in his left eye, his nose was bleeding, and he had the signature "shakes" that occurred just before what the pilots call "lights out." In his five years of piloting the Jaegers, he'd never been closer to death than that moment.