[ He takes a drag from his half-smoked stick and kills it on the rail before slipping it into the empty first pack that he keeps around to collect the butts in. It's a habit from his days as a cadet in Kodiak working on the proving grounds as a junior j-tech. Pilot or not, the instructors at the Jaeger Academy were hardasses who were particular about keeping them all in line You're free to smoke but your work stations are to be treated like your personal space, so if you shit in your space then what you are is disgusting.

He'd had a suspicion that she might have known something about the kid's disappearance, and when he walks over he reaches out to cup the back of her neck with the hand he didn't hold the cigarette with before he presses a kiss to her forehead.

She looks a little bit sick with guilt and worry. ] I think that the kid needed space, and he wasn't going to get it here.

[ They are the hardest words he's ever had to say because Raleigh's older brother was his best friend and Yancy's gone, buried at the bottom of the Pacific because the ocean was too greedy to give his body back to them. ] I want to believe that he'll come back, but the chances of that are slim.

[ He notes then how she continues to pick at her nails and feels his heart go out to her. ] Hey, hey. [ He takes both of her hands in his. threads his fingers through hers and watches her face, his voice soft, gentle. ] None of that, gorgeous.

If you need to hold onto something, hold onto me instead.