#sidoni wheaton

I've spent most of the week--which has been, thankfully, quiet--with Sid, picking up last-minute necessities like a wedding gown that won't need to be tailored and a dress for myself and the something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. I picked up her aunt, her one living relative, from the airport and got lifted in the air in a bone crushing hug. I promised Llew a dozen times over that if anyone from our family tried to show up--and they have, trying to mooch off our fame in the last couple years--that I'd punch them in the teeth.

The wedding happens on a Saturday morning, eleven o'clock. I wear a blue dress with a brown sash and carry white roses; Sid carries red. She told me, when we went to the florist this morning, "Fuck all if I'm carrying anything but red roses. They're good luck. Red's my lucky color." I couldn't help but smile.

Llew looks great, dressed in his uniform, and beside him stands someone I've never seen before, though I know him immediately. He's tall, a head and a half taller than Llew, his blonde hair cropped short and messy. Scars over his left cheek and eye mar what would otherwise be a handsome, if weathered, face. He wears a pilot's uniform, a gold band on his left ring finger, and a weak smile that broadens slightly as he inclines his head to me in greeting. I do the same, thinking as I do how little I want to meet him here. I want this to be a happy occasion. I don't want to spend the entire day thinking about letting someone else into my mind.

It's a beautiful ceremony, with the ocean behind Llew and Sid as they promise to love each other forever and to keep the sex hot or something like that. I stop paying attention halfway through because I'm looking at him again. He's clenching his teeth so hard that I can see his jaw moving, but he's smiling. He doesn't look at me, at least not while the ceremony's on, and I wonder what he would see if he did look.

A girl, too pale for a girl living in Southern California, with black hair tied back in a twist.

A girl holding a bouquet of white flowers, smiling, even if it doesn't reach her eyes.

A girl, athletic and toned with a few scars, whose mind he'll enter in the next couple of days.

Suddenly, Llew and Sid are kissing, and her red lipstick smears all over him, and they're laughing and running down the aisle, and I find that it's easier to smile again. They have a future, and in that future, I feel renewed purpose: I will fight to protect them, even if it means I have to share my mind with this strange, scarred man offering me his arm as we follow the bride and groom back down the aisle.

  . . .

  Still, we don't speak until the reception's mostly over.

We both give toasts, mine about Llew and how he saved me and how I know him better than anyone and I know that he'll make Sid as happy as she makes him. When he raises his glass and winks at me, I feel a dull ache in place of the usual hum, but I push it aside and drink my champagne.

He speaks for Sid, talking about how he'd known her for years now, how he and his wife--God rest her soul, he said--had always wanted to see her this happy. Earlier this week, Llew said that he was a good friend of Sid's, and I guess for that reason, I'd expect him to have her staccato New-York-or-Boston accent. Instead, though, he has a drawl that places him somewhere in the Deep South, maybe in Texas. I wonder what brought him to Anchorage, what drew him to the PPDC in the first place.

But I don't have a chance to ask, to really speak with him, until we've all eaten our fill of barbecue and cake and the requisite dances are through and now Sid and Llew and the other married couples have taken to the dance floor under a ceiling twinkling with Christmas light stars. I've taken off my shoes, tapping my foot in the air to the beat of the slow song, and then I feel a shadow above me, and there he is, extending a hand.

"Would you like to dance?" he asks. I nod and bend to retrieve my shoes, but he shakes his head. "Leave 'em," he says. "Ain't nobody payin' attention."

He's right; all eyes are on Sid and Llew, and I don't bother anymore with my shoes, letting him lead me to the floor. His free hand finds my waist and we begin to sway, taking on a posture that's entirely old fashioned, but in a comforting way. "I'm Senkha, by the way," I say. "Senkha Wheaton. Llew's cousin."

He chuckles. "I know," he says. "And you know I'm Oliver MacGlynn. And I'm guessin' you also know we're gonna be partners after this."

I feel my smile weakening, and I look away. "We don't even know if we're drift compatible yet," I point out, and Oliver shrugs.

"No, we don't, but we're doin' good so far, don't you think?" He nods at our feet, and I look down. Without any effort on our parts, we've fallen into step, and we almost look graceful as we make our way around the dance floor. I nod my agreement.

"We're doing well, yeah," I say. I feel Sid and Llew watching us as the song ends and fades into another, a jazzy sort of waltz. "So have you piloted a Jaeger before?"

Now his smile falters. "A good three years or so in Anchorage, yeah," he says. "My son was my co-pilot, and he was gifted, he was. Not necessarily at fightin', but he wanted to be a doctor, and he had a good mind for it and good hands. He said he'd fight the Kaiju 'til there was none left, then he'd go on to medical school."

I feel my smile returning. "That's what I want to do," I admit. "Is he in medical school now?"

Oliver shakes his head. "He's gone, my boy," he says, and I fall silent. I want to ask the details of this gone-ness, but I can't. Not now.

"I'm sorry," is all I say, and that brings a smile back to his face.

"And I'm sorry I'm not Llew," he answers.

We dance together the rest of the night.

  . . .

  Our first spar happens the next morning, oh-eight-hundred sharp. We draw a crowd, because everything a Jaeger pilot does draws a crowd. We wear little but workout clothes--tank tops, sweatpants, no shoes--and because of this, I can see Oliver's scars trailing down his left side. I don't ask about them; I begin the dance.

As I begin the dance, our eyes meet, and neither of us breaks gaze with the other, even as our staves flash through the air and meet, even as our feet skip against the ground together. Four hits to a win, and I get the first, knocking his feet out from under him, because I am faster. He gets the second because he is larger and more experienced.

We fight differently. I am more acrobatic, and always have been, jumping and dancing around the floor, barely staying in one spot for more than a few seconds. He is slower, steadier, waiting for the best opportunity and then striking. Oddly enough, however, we complement each other. The longer we spar, the more I feel at home with him--not as much as I did with Llew, but enough that when he gets the final hit and wins the match, I feel better about our partnership, and I can tell from his smile that he feels the same way.

  . . .

  The next day, we drift for the first time.

"I should warn you," he says. His voice is shaking as he speaks. "I should warn you... what happened with my boy, it may've done shit to my head."

We're already hooked up to the machine in the stark, white lab. We're dressed in scrubs, reclining, and the doctors are just outside, watching. "Whatever it is, I can handle it," I say. "I'm tough. I've seen a lot of shit for my age, trust me."

He looks as if he wants to protest, but instead, he just shakes his head. "I hope you're right, Senkha," he says, and he leans his head back and closes his eyes. "I'm ready."

I nod and follow suit. "We're ready,"  I repeat, and then comes the crisp announcement, Initializing neural handshake.

And that's when it happens.

It is a shriek, metal on metal, the sound that a subway car makes as it careens down a track, but it's not a sound at all. It's the feeling in the back of my mind of nails on a chalkboard, a screech that causes me to bite my tongue so that I don't cry out in pain. Silence is necessary for the Drift, I know that. I feel tears on my cheeks, but I let the Drift take me, trying to ignore the shriek.

Oliver Tavin MacGlynn.

45 years old.

Wife named Adeline. Bigger woman, God love her, short black hair. Cancer took her, five years before the Kaiju came. Thank God, thank God she never saw it.

Jazz music playing. That's Louis Armstrong, ain't it? This whole thing'd be easier if she wasn't so pretty, even if she don't wanna smile.

Son named Chadley. Chadley MacGlynn. They were a team. They Drifted together. He was gay, he had a boyfriend at the Anchorage Shuttledome, he wanted to be a doctor. Short blonde hair, brown eyes, like his father's, an attempt at a goatee, a slanted and shy smile.

I'm crying. Oh God, I'm crying, but I'm biting my lip. I won't let them take us out of the Drift, no matter how heavy the memories get.

A difficult day in middle school; Mother's voice, crisp and polished as her twisted red hair. "You wouldn't have to deal with people calling you a freak if you didn't act like a freak." Knees pulled to chest, eyes screwed shut, hands over ears.

Jazz music playing. His hands are warm and rough, the hands of a working man, and maybe in another world, they're made for holding and loving, not fighting.

The bedroom window creaks open, Llew slips in. "Come on, babygirl. We'll run away together." It's a long climb down. The ground is soft and wet with dew. It's starting to rain.

23 years old.

Senkha Melina Wheaton.

He's crying, too. We're both crying, but we won't make any noise, and they end the exercise. Our noses bleed, and neither of us can breathe at all because we're crying and our noses are bleeding and stuffed with tissues and cotton. But the doctor says, "That was very good. Your connection was strong. We'll try again tomorrow."

And in unison, we say, "Alright."

  . . .

  Chadley MacGlynn died in a Jaeger. Not many Jaeger pilots have died, but Chadley did. He was snatched out of the cockpit, the same swipe of the Kaiju's acid-drenched claw causing the burns on Oliver's face and torso as it forcibly severed their neural connection. Their Jaeger, the Trinity Reaver--and I wondered, when I learned this, why they got such a badass name while I was stuck with the Capital Stallion--fell inoperable and Oliver stood, paralyzed by a screaming headache from the severance as his son was torn into pieces.

The screeching shriek is because of that, he figures.

He and Adeline raised chickens in Texas, but when she died, he was left alone with Chadley and no real love for the farm. They moved around, settling into ranch hand work in the Santa Ynez Valley until the Kaiju came, and then they both enlisted, eventually joining the Jaeger program out of Anchorage. They were a team until Chadley died, earlier this year. Oliver didn't even have a body to bring back to the plot where Adeline is buried, just Chadley's dog tags, which he gave to his son's boyfriend, and his Bible. Chadley never went anywhere without that Bible, except in a Jaeger, and Oliver buried that. It's not that he doesn't believe in God anymore, he says, but that was Chadley's Bible, not his.

By the end of the week, I'm exhausted. I know everything I could know about Oliver; there are no more surprises that could sneak up on us when we first set foot in the Stallion again.

He knows me, too. He knows about the circus, the carnival, being a freak. He knows about my envy for both Llew and Sid, that they have a future outside of a Jaeger, and that their future is with each other. He knows the crisp perfection of my mother's voice and how the first time I heard the computers at a Shatterdome, I had to stop and remind myself that it wasn't her. He knows how the taste of lemonade and popcorn always brings me back to the carnival and the good times, the late nights under the stars, with nothing to fear but the ghosts in the stories we all told each other.

But the big things aren't enough. We know, without saying, without seeing, all of the little things: that I always fall asleep in a fetal position, that he uses a spoon when he eats spaghetti, that I hate wearing socks unless I absolutely have to, that he taps his toothbrush on the faucet when he's done brushing his teeth. It's an unbearable intimacy beyond what anyone who's never been in the Drift can understand, and it requires trust.

And I trust him.

  . . .

  Sims are next, dozens of simulations to ensure that our fighting styles gel as well as our spars indicated they would. We find our footing about five minutes into the first sim, and after that, we're unstoppable. A month in, we're at thirty-five drops and thirty-five kills, and that's what they like to see.

Only one Kaiju comes through the Breach while we're training, and it's heading for Russia, so we have a reprieve and watch with the rest of the world as the Kaidonovskys rack up their third kill. "I love that Jaeger," I tell Oliver as the Cherno Alpha makes its way back to shore. "Something about the cockpit's design makes me feel safer when I know it's out there."

"Don't think you'd like fightin' in it, though," he points out. "It's a slow 'un, more about slow buildin' power than about your fancy footwork."

I snort and roll my eyes at him. "Nothing wrong with fancy footwork if it gets the job done, and the Stallion can take it," I say, and he laughs.

"We'll see."

The next day, we take the Stallion out for our first test run, not to fight--they say it'll be a couple of months at least until the next Kaiju attack--but to test our reflexes and how well our style of movement works with the Stallion's design. We test reflexes first: hands opening and closing, arms moving, head turning, walking. The Stallion's been repaired from her last time out, though now her blue headlights seem to face in different directions. Oliver can't stop laughing at this, even once we're in the Drift, and I soon find I'm laughing, too.

  . . .

  The screech is still a problem, though, even when we're not Drifting. It's started to invade my dreams, which always turn to nightmares when I feel it. They aren't my nightmares; they're Oliver's, but that doesn't make them any easier to handle.

It would be enough to dream of his son dying again and again; that's something I see every night, something I feel every time we enter the Drift. I can't say that I'm used to it, but it no longer shakes me the way it once did. I no longer find tears on my cheeks when our neural connection is established and strong.

Instead, I dream that I die, too, because Oliver dreams of his own death. I see Chadley, the son who isn't mine, screaming as he's torn from the Jaeger. My head hurts, a migraine that blinds me, and I'm shaking and drenched in sweat, and then the Kaiju's claws reach for me and pierce my abdomen and tear through muscle and bone, and I'm soaked in my own blood and I can't stop screaming.

The first time it happens, I wake and throw up immediately, but I don't tell anyone, not even Oliver. I don't want anyone to think we can't do it. I throw up, and then I clean up after myself and spend the rest of the night awake.

When Oliver finds out the next day, he tells me that I should sleep with some sort of music playing. He says it always helps him, and after we go through the day's training--two hours in the Drift in the morning, physical training, lunch break, a walk in the Stallion, and then an hour of sparring before dinner--we create a playlist of the songs that best soothe him when the nightmares come. We talk, as the playlist winds through itself, about everything and nothing, and then I stop when I hear a familiar song, the one that played when we first danced at Llew and Sid's wedding.

"What song is that?" I ask, and I lean in to inspect the title. La Vie en Rose. Louis Armstrong.

Oliver ducks his head in uncharacteristic sheepishness. "I liked it when I heard it at the wedding," he says. "It helps me relax. I like jazz."

I nod and change the subject, but later that night, I listen to the entire playlist--La Vie en Rose is the only jazz song on it.

  . . .

  More and more, I fight the urge to run to Oliver's bunker when the nightmare returns. The music helps, but something still draws me down the hall. I almost knock on the door once, but think better of it and return to bed, leaving La Vie en Rose on repeat until I fall asleep again.

  . . .

  Our first chance to fight a Kaiju comes in October, and we're ready for it. We're thinking of different things as we suit up: I think of Llew and Sid and their baby--a girl, they confirmed this morning; Oliver thinks of Chadley's birthday in less than a month.

I speak first, to bring us back to some sort of center. "Weird, isn't it, the weather around here? It doesn't change much from season to season, not like when you go north."

Oliver smiles, and I can tell he's grateful for the distraction. "Like it was in Texas. Y'ever hear what they say about our seasons down there? We got four, just like everywhere else, but we call 'em different: hot, really hot, goddamn fuckin' hot, and mud."

I laugh and relax, releasing a breath I hadn't realized I was holding, and we make our way to the Stallion's cockpit. We close our eyes and relax, and we hear the words again: Initializing neural handshake. The screech grows more noticeable, and we're in the Drift.

Adeline, tossing a two-year-old Chadley above their heads in the hot summer sun near Dallas, his chubby legs kicking as he giggles and falls back into her arms.

Helping a drunken Llew back to bed, tucking him in and pouring a glass of water to leave beside his pillow with an Advil, then curling up above the covers and falling asleep, oddly happy to be right fucking here.

Hold me close, and hold me fast... her hand is so small and cool, so smooth... the magic spell you cast... he smells like cologne and old leather... this is la vie en rose...

And we're in.

Oliver gives me a smile; he's the right and I'm the left, since we were used to those roles before we met. The cockpit locks in place and we take our first steps out to sea, our orders to destroy the Kaiju advancing on San Diego.

It's a Cat II, the biggest Cat II I've ever seen, but still a Cat II. It's got terrifyingly sharp teeth and claws, and its codename is Biter. "Christ, these names are stupid," I say aloud, and Oliver laughs.

"Let's be quick about it, then," he says. I notice that he doesn't speak with an accent when we're linked, and it's the first time I notice it. It's a bittersweet realization; I'd grown used to his accent, both in his thoughts and in his speaking voice.

When we reach Biter, he's thrashing about and furious, just under the surface of the water. We pick him up by the neck, trying to choke the life out of him, but he's too strong and lunges for us, clawing at the Stallion's armor. Everything holds, though, and we switch strategies, now lunging forward to punch Biter's head and disorient him. It works, and the Kaiju staggers, giving us a chance to regain our ground before it leaps at us again.

This time, mostly by dumb luck, one claw pierces the cockpit, and I feel Oliver tensing up and freezing. "Not now!" I say, and though he's still shaken, it's enough to draw back his focus. We bring our hands down, two enormous blades falling into the Jaeger's palms, and we begin to tear into Biter, pieces of it flying everywhere.

"The scavengers ain't gonna like all the work we're makin' for 'em!" Oliver crows, and I laugh because he's alright, not still shaken by a memory. But the Kaiju roars and fights back, so we retract the daggers and lift it high above our head before tearing it in two, letting both halves fall to the ocean floor and creating mighty waves. To make sure it's dead, Oliver insists on driving the blades into its head, and it twitches once and then it doesn't move at all.

We hear the cheers in our headset, but as soon as Biter stops moving, Oliver closes his eyes and bows his head, and we remember Chadley's death. We remember the claws tearing through the cockpit and ripping a screaming Chadley away from his father, and we remember the connection severing, the migraine, the weakness. And it's only for a moment before Oliver shakes his head to clear the memory away, and we return to the Shatterdome, where everyone greets us with thunderous cheering and applause.

  . . .

  The screech returns that night, louder than before, and the nightmare feels realer than ever. When I jolt awake, I'm drenched in sweat from head to toe, shaking so hard that I can barely tug on a tank top and sweatpants before I stagger down the hall and pound on Oliver's door.