[ She's undercover, and it was necessary. He was necessary, the key that would unlock the entire thing and put an end to the monopoly that Chau has on crime; Mako and Pentecost had already had it all planned out -- in the eyes of the Bureau there was nothing fake about it; her records as an agent were all erased, her identity remade, she is a branded criminal in the eyes of the law, disgraced and as much a part of the seedy belly of the underworld as she could possibly be. Only Pentecost kept her file, the only man to ever have it, to know who she truly is. Mako struggles with it sometimes, because to be surrounded by enemies on all sides is exhausting, and the faces she puts on every morning and every night as she works her way up through the ranks seem to bleed more and more into her psyche.
What was it they said? Fake it long enough, and soon you'll start to believe it.
But Mako is better than that, she has to be -- gritting her teeth and feeding Pentecost inside information, adding more and more details to the file on Chau and his entire setup, building a net so it would one day close around him -- they'd planned it all, of course, and she had been an active part of it. But the one thing she hasn't planned for was to fall in love with Raleigh Becket, Chau's right-hand man, the one person who's different from all the rest, the one thing in all the mess that she could feel the most genuine about, that struck her hard and true and complete that it scared her.
She's in love with Raleigh Becket, and if she isn't careful, that love will kill them both. And so she approaches Pentecost this night, sends him another piece of information on the drug deal that would go down in Miami in two weeks, and barters with him -- spare Raleigh. Cut him a deal. Let him walk.
I expected better from you, Miss Mori.
I'm sorry. But I want him out. I want him safe. I know you can make this happen.
She's in love with Raleigh Becket, and she takes a dangerous gamble because somewhere down the line, things had changed for them, things had become more complicated. She'd seen the man he could be, the man that he is, when they spend nights together and she becomes his woman and partner, working with him on all that ought to be done. The deals, the crackdowns, the things she hated with all her heart but she did and did well because it's the only way to destroy it from the inside. And oh, she had never felt worse, she had never felt happier than when she was with him, when she's tempted to just turn her back and take his hand and disappear with him into the abyss of all of this. But she can't. She sees the murders and the drugs and she can't, and when she lies in Raleigh's arms at night she barely triumphs over the desire to tell him, to ask him to run away with her instead.
But this is the real world, and he would kill her if he knew, even if he smokes less now around her, even if he smiles a little more and she knows that she's in too deep with him, the lines too tangled and crossed to begin extricating herself from it.
She comes back to his apartment after her meeting with Pentecost, a weight on her shoulders and the sense of betrayal she incites from all sides; caught hopelessly in the middle and oh, she's a good person. She's a Fed. She's a Fed in love with the last person on earth she should ever be in love with. Mako exhales, as she turns the key in the lock (the key he had given her months ago, because he thought she ought to have one, and it's stupid to keep going all the way to the crappy side of town to her apartment when here's closer). But the acrid smell of cigarette smoke hits her, and she wrinkles her nose.
Had he been at it again?
Mako closes the door behind her warily, seeking him out in the dim light ] Raleigh? Are you there?
[Raleigh hears the key in the lock and lights up a fresh cigarette, doesn't bring it to his mouth, just watches it burn until she's inside the apartment. He actually picked up smoking because the smell reminded him of his mom and he misses her a lot more than he ever talks about, almost as much as he misses Yancy, and then just kept with it out of habit and because every one in the club did it too.]
There she is. My girl. The Fed.
[No use in beating around the bush. The guys call her his old lady and you know, she kind of was. It's not an insult, it's a mark of respect actually. It means that at the end of the day, he belongs to her and she belongs to him and no one's going to fuck with that. No one else matters. They've got each other's backs.
[ The guys in the gang call her a variety of names: The Fed, Raleigh's girl; Mako doesn't remember when it became Raleigh's old lady, only that it did, and she liked the guys as well as one can like the people they're about to betray. She liked Raleigh much, much more, and hadn't started to mind when he, when they call her that. It's respect, he tells her one night, when he kisses her and she takes him in her arms. It means you're mine, and I'm yours. He'd smiled the sweetest smile and Mako feared she was lost.
And so when Raleigh calls her the Fed, Mako doesn't flinch, doesn't react even as warning bells go off in her head, a clear sign that this doesn't feel right even if there's no one else in his apartment but them.
Going undercover, after all, takes a specific sort of person with nerves of steel and a special sort of grit, and Mako had a generous amount of daring to go along with it. She bit the bullet and the rap for the gang when a drug deal went south, getting herself fired and thrown in for a two year jail team before getting expelled back out on the streets, back to Raleigh.
I'll take it.
No. It's far too dangerous for you, Mako; we talked about this.
I can get to him, I know how. Let me go.
To them, she'd earned her stripes; of course, others would argue that she had it easy, that she was fucking Chau's VP to get to the top; but it was never that easy -- if it was, she would his whore, not his old woman. She ran with him as an equal, bold and fearless; Mako Mori got the job done, picked up smoking, learned the taste of pure cocaine, to differentiate when dealers were fucking with her, and she learned to kill -- she did everything the men did, and she did it better.
And it's this Mako Mori that comes back into the apartment, plucks the untouched cigarette from his fingers and taps the ash out before taking a long drag. Have a good day at work? There's no possible way he would know; she was careful, and she'd never once left any tracks (or had she?).
Cigarette dangling between long fingers, she smiles briefly and heads over to the fridge to get herself a drink. ]
I didn't go to work today. I thought I told you. [ She plucks out a can of beer, and shuts the door with a bump of her hip. ] Did you just wake up?
[He narrows his eyes at her when she doesn't even react. Fuck, she's good. Obviously, since she's fooled him for as long as she has and seeing it in action right now feels like taking the knife and twisting it hard. Raleigh didn't think that she was that cruel but maybe she is. Clearly he doesn't really know her at all.
He wants to know how much of it was a lie. He wants to yell at her for fucking him to get to Chau, like he's just a pawn in her game. He wants her to tell him that she meant all of it with him and that he's just being paranoid.
But no, he's not because he saw her. Followed her back to Stacker Pentecost's office and he knows that man anywhere. Woke up too many mornings back in the service to Pentecost yelling in the barracks, berating him and Yancy for being lazy, stupid, bad soldiers, all that shit that commanding officers yell out during drills to keep you mad enough to keep on running. Not that Raleigh ever needed the motivation, he had so much energy he could've done his and Yancy's laps combined before Yancy was ever fully awake.
He never bothered to check in with what the old Marshal was doing after he walked from the Marines but he knew when he saw him with Mako that it was no social visit. Because that man did not have social calls, he worked all the time and a couple of calls confirmed that Stacker Pentecost had retired from the service and was working somewhere else in government now.
That's code for Fed. Or spy but in this case, it means Fed. He obviously doesn't have proof but he's got a gut feeling about this and Raleigh trusts his instincts. Might be the only thing left that he does trust.]
Oh? So that wasn't you I saw with Stacker Pentecost?
[Lie straight to his face, Mako, he dares you. He fucking dares you.]
He knows, then. Raleigh knows where Mako's been, and from the look in his eyes he knows exactly why she was there. Stacker Pentecost used to be in the Marines, and it's not surprising that Raleigh would know him -- but what she hadn't expected was for him to come after her and to connect the dots so quickly. She takes a sip of the cold beer anyway -- his favourite brand, and she never used to care for it until recently -- buying herself a moment or two of time.
How much does he know, how much can she salvage?
It makes her heart sink, when the realisation sets in that he knows, and with it comes the inevitable sense of betrayal, and what it looks like when it's all laid out like this in front of him. Mako meets his eyes even if it pains her in ways she can't explain, because he's someone she's never meant to hurt, he's collateral damage and she regrets it, and things would be so much easier if she hadn't fallen for him along the way. She sets the beer aside on the counter, not crossing the distance now between them.
No wonder he's been smoking so much more than he's used to. But there is no excuse for her to use, no denial to issue in the face of such a question, because it's beneath the both of them and he deserves better. ] You weren't supposed to know that, Raleigh. [ Her gaze slides over to where she knows his gun would be, she knows what it means when a mole is discovered in their midst. The gang, after all, had its own rules and laws, and Raleigh is obliged to enforce them; no exceptions. Mako lifts her eyes back to his, the lover she'd never meant to have, and stubs out the cigarette on the counter. ]
[You weren't supposed to know that, she says. Like he'd found out about a surprise birthday party for him next week (it's not his birthday any time soon so that makes no sense either) and Raleigh can't pretend to be surprised about anything to save his life. That makes him a liability sometimes, and super shitty at poker but it works for the most part because he doesn't really care about much. Didn't care about anything actually before Mako walked into his life.
So when she asks him if he's going to kill her, a scowl spreads his face, like he smells something rotten. Like the smell of her bullshit.]
I'm not going to kill you.
[If he wanted her dead, he would've turned a blind eye to when she was stabbed. Simple as that. She didn't mean anything to him and he didn't want her dead then. She means everything to him now and he still doesn't want her dead. For all that his club stands for, for the fear that they invoke, Raleigh's not a killer. Knows how to kill but doesn't take any joy in it and it's like an in secret with the boys that if someone needs dead, you don't go to Raleigh for help and you don't tell him.]
[ No, of course not. It's an in secret with the boys that if someone needs dead, you go to Mako for help and you don't tell him. She doesn't enjoy it, dislikes it on a base level but it's strategically more sound for her to adapt to it, to finish the job with rival gangs, dealers, and walk away from it -- don't let my old man find out, even if it takes away another little piece that's left of her, leaves her unrecognisable to herself in the mirror.
Her old man, she thinks, Raleigh's always been a gentle person who'd never much liked the act of killing, preferred to avoid it if he possibly can, and when she sees the look on his face now, there's something that twists inside her, something surprisingly painful that goes beyond the rigours of her job, the demands she makes of herself.
The thought, she thinks, of not seeing him again makes her cold, and her expression falters, just for a moment. Keep him safe, she'd said. Let him walk. Mako could see the hurt in his eyes, so terribly, awfully profound, and the fact that she was the one who put it there -- even in this moment he shows mercy, and she's quiet for a moment, letting the words hang between them.
Funny. In all her years of being in this gang, nothing had hurt her quite as much as this. ]
...You stopped being a piece a very long time ago. [ Did you know that? Of course you didn't. Even I didn't know that before it was too late. ]
[Did he know? Are you fucking kidding him? How would he know if he stopped being a piece if he'd never been aware of that in the first place?
And what does that even change, Mako? Is he just supposed to forget what he saw, what she's more or less confirmed, because she says she cares about him? She's said a lot of things and some of those were likes so why isn't this.]
Yeah? I'm curious how that works. The entire time you've been here, you've been working to turn me in.
[She might be targeting Chau, but the president goes down, and Raleigh goes right with him. Hell, he's pretty sure there's still an warrant out for his arrest for going AWOL.]
[ She's said a lot of things but they, technically, weren't so much lies as careful omissions -- and the things she says to Raleigh were almost usually true. Not that anybody would know the difference, which is arguably the point of the entire undercover thing.
Mako senses the anger that simmers, just barely, under his words, and she takes a long, cleansing drag of her cigarette. The briefest sweep of the apartment, her paranoia kicking in to ensure that there are no bugs, that no one's listening in. It would be so much easier to leave, to inform Pentecost that the operation is a bust -- they'll need to find another way in, but there is Raleigh; Raleigh, who can do more with the life that he has, who can have a purpose that isn't the gang and its interests. ]
It's not you I'm working to turn in. [ She knows that, she knows Raleigh's impossibly tied to Chau. She frowns, stubs out the cigarette. ] You know he's hurt so many people, why are you still sticking with him?
Mako. He goes down, I go down. There's no way around that. What the hell were you even thinking?
[And that's actually not why Raleigh is so loyal. He can talk about her double crossing him and sending him to prison for the rest of his life but that doesn't mean anything, it's not the fear of being arrested that's driving him.
It's that Hannibal Chau has a way of knowing things about people that no one else does and of taking care of his own. It's how he could have had Raleigh killed but didn't, decided to bring him into the club, how he took Raleigh aside one day and said he knew about the accident, knew who the other driver was, and knew where to find him.
God help him but he went there, and of course that drunk driver was a member of a rival club and there was no walking from any of this, no way to pretend like he wasn't involved if he killed that guy. It was like his final exam, kill him, avenge his brother, start a war between the clubs, be Chau's right hand man, and Raleigh passed that test with flying colors.
He doesn't love the things that they do sometimes, doesn't relish in the drugs and murder, but it gives him a purpose, and if he has to tell himself that he's here because of Yancy, for Yancy, then that's just how life is.]
I'm not a rat. That's how this works. I've got their backs and they've got mine.
[That's not the answer she probably wants but he's not telling her that he started because he needed a purpose and stayed because the club helped him get some closure for Yancy and that he's still here because he's so fucking loyal to something, that if he says he'll do it, he'll do it.]
You're not going anywhere. [ Mako says simply, because of course she's considered it, that Raleigh won't be spared if Chau goes down -- he's too far involved in the club's activities to plead innocent, and even if he did no one would believe him anyway.
But she knows, too, that he has an entire lifetime ahead of him, that his talent, his gifts, he is wasted in a life like this, mired in murder and drugs and she knows, too, that he doesn't like it -- Mako's always observed, always knew. He's staying in this club for an entirely different reason that she doesn't know about, and there's more he isn't telling her, but it really isn't like she's in any position to demand, not when this is happening between them.
In the face of impending failure of her mission (which must, under any circumstances, not happen), and the potentially devastating effects of his rejection of her, Mako is honest. Raleigh might not be a rat but it won't mean that the circumstances won't chance, that she won't do her best to help get him out of it.
She stubs out what remains of the cigarette on a nearby ashtray, and finally meets his eyes. ] I went to Pentecost to broker a deal about you today. When Chau goes down, no charge against you stands. [ She'd worked a long time on Pentecost about it, taken a huge gamble because if it turns out that she doesn't know him as well as she thinks she does, she'd be the latest statistic in the club's climbing body count rate. ]
You might consider them your brothers, Raleigh, but you don't belong inside here. You never did. I see it whenever you disagree with the things they do, when you break the rules on your own because you didn't think what they did was right.
[He really just. Doesn't know how to take what she's saying because she's telling him that she made a deal for him, so that he'd be able to walk. Walk totally clean if he wanted to and obviously, it's not that simple. The FBI wouldn't just grant him immunity because he's her lover and her favorite, Pentecost especially doesn't work like that, he's going to have to give them something.
And-- just no. No they were not talking about his potential and shit like that. He's just stopping that right here because she doesn't know shit about his potential or what he should be doing with his life. He doesn't know what he should be doing with his life.]
So you thanked me by making me a rat too? Fucking-- fuck, Mako. I'm not signing any deal. You've got to be fucking kidding me.
[ Of course he wouldn't walk without giving up something in turn, but it's something Mako knows she has to talk him into -- Raleigh, Raleigh, listen. She doesn't know what he should be doing with his life, but she's seen enough of the look on his face to know that it's not this, it's not what he wants; don't think she hasn't noticed it.
She's in too deep now, and this is the time to lay it all out for him. He has to sign the deal, he must. This case hangs in the balance, and so does her life. ] I thanked you by hoping that I could give you a way out. I had it all planned out, but what I hadn't counted on was falling in love with you.
[ She smiles briefly, tightly, and goes to him, then, the coffee table set between the both of them, and sets her revolver on the glass. Her heart is pounding, because a man betrayed is a dangerous thing. ]
That I would kill for you. And now, here's your choice, because we both know letting me go isn't an option. They will find me, and they will kill me themselves.
[ She turns it around so that the barrel of it faces her, and her gaze on him is steady, unwavering. ] ]
The sense of betrayal and innate urge to do the opposite of what he's told to do, to rebel for the sake of rebelling because that's what he does. He breaks rules and he doesn't follow orders and he bucks at command and all of that shows on his face as he stares at her.
If she loved him, then why hasn't she told him any of this herself instead of sneaking around until he discovered it himself? If she loved him, then she'd know that he doesn't want to leave the club because it's the first place he'd felt something like comfortable since Yancy, he doesn't love it but it's something. If she loved him, she wouldn't be giving him the ultimatum to choose between the club and her.
But no, she's right. He lets her walk and it really just doesn't end there.]
Walk from your side of it then. Actually fall from grace.
[ She had thought of it, in the nights when they were curled up together and he sleeps, and she rests her head on his chest to listen to his heartbeat. He's unwilling, and she knows it, stubborn and rebellious because that's how he is, that's why she loves him.
Did he really think things would change if she told him this herself? What was he going to do if she confessed this to him out of the blue, help her? She thinks of Stacker, her father, the man who had single-handedly brought her up and loved her like his own; and more than anything she didn't want to let him down. ]
[Things might not have been different but he wouldn't have felt so used if she had told him herself instead of him finding out by mistake. Because that would mean that she trusted him like he trusted her.]
[ She's come to trust him, in the most warped way imaginable -- despite his allegiance she knows him, and she feels guilty because despite all the lies between them she loves him; that in all of this, he's essentially become collateral damage.
Mako is silent for a moment, aware that she owes him an explanation, and far more aware of the fact that she's giving him leverage (of sorts) when she says. ]
Stacker Pentecost saved me, when my parents were killed by gangsters. I owe him everything.
If Raleigh looks pissed, it's really not entirely her fault. She's a good portion of why but that's just how his face looks when he's upset. Like he's literally smelling shit right now.]
[ Mako pauses at that -- she never knew, because they rarely talk about Yancy; it's always been a sensitive subject and she never pried. But it adds a whole new spin to things now, the reason why Raleigh stays. She hesitates, only for a moment. ]
[No one knows besides Chau, really. Since the guy Raleigh put a bullet in was the only other person who was aware of his involvement in that drunk hit and run that night, and he's not going to do any talking. Raleigh still has no idea how Chau found the proof, but he did and what tiny measure of revenge that Raleigh has managed to get hasn't put Yancy's ghost to rest in his head, didn't really make Raleigh feel better at the end of the day if he's being honest, but it tied him to the club and he doesn't know how to walk from that.
None of this brings his brother back, the club or the deal that she's waving in front of his face. So what does any of it matter? What does it really matter, when it's all said and done, where he's at. Here, prison, witness protection, in the ground, none of it actually matters without Yancy.]
I might have. But I wouldn't want to say anything to incriminate myself with a Fed.
[ To her credit, Mako doesn't flinch, even if those words are a slap in the face. It doesn't come as a surprise; he's furious with her, and he has every right to be, because to him, Mako's essentially lied since the moment they first met. He'd taken her into his arms, into his bed and his heart and she regrets that this is how she repays him.
Mako is tangled up with duty and guilt, and the look on Raleigh's face is like nothing she's ever seen before. Not quite like this -- he's shut down from her, and even if she knows that he most likely pulled the trigger, it doesn't change a thing, and it doesn't matter. ]
I'm sorry. [ Cheap words, but heartfelt. ] ...Raleigh, I can't sit back and watch it continue. The drugs, the firearms, the deaths -- [ Her laugh is bitter, short. ] -- God knows I've already contributed a good chunk of that myself.
[Fuck, Mako, it's not like, Raleigh loves those things either, but it's just-- life. It's part of the club. It's not like he's sitting around doing drugs and he tries not to kill when he can help it--
--and the excuses sound pretty weak to him too.
But the simple fact remains that when he was totally lost, when he had nothing to live for at all, the club was there to give him something to get out of bed for. The club brought her to him. And he can't easily turn off his loyalty to that.]
I'm asking you to turn on your brothers. [ Mako lays it all out for him, point-blank, because if she doesn't, he would anyway. Those excuses don't sound very good now, do they? But they were important to him, she knows this. They are important to him, even if he hates some facets of it. This is his home, and Mako wishes, she wishes it wasn't.
She sees what it does to him, when this MC becomes more and more about vengeance, violence and exploitation, when it blurs the lines despite best intentions and they both know it. ]
I'm asking you to leave your home and the life you know, for me. [ It's a gamble, but it's a risk she's willing to take. All that she loses, after all, is her life -- the only way out of this MC is a deal, or a bullet through the temple. ] Raleigh. I'm asking you to stop. [ Then, even more quietly. ] I'm asking you to help me.
[Raleigh turns away from her slightly, can't really look at her right now. Of course she knows exactly what she's asking from him. Of course she's thought this all out. And of course she knows just what buttons to push.
He can't-- think. He needs space, he needs her to not be here, he needs to hit something, he needs a shot, he wants his brother back so much because Yancy, Yance what do I do?
He runs a hand over his jaw, feeling the day old stubble there and focusing on the fact that he needs to shave is so much better than the rest of it. He should kill her. He should take her by the hand and never let go.]
[ Mako doesn't stop him. She's aware of his habits, of what he does when he needs room to breathe, and she gives him to him without comment, her gaze trailing over to the gun on the coffee table. Would he come out after his shower and kill her, or would he tell her yes?
It could go either way, to be perfectly honest. She relaxes, the tension bleeding into exhaustion; she's tired of being mired in both sides at once -- Raleigh's become someone she cannot lose, someone she would fight to hang on to, and she knows, at the same time, if he knew about it he would fight, too, to keep her on his side of the fence, and that would never do. ]
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What was it they said? Fake it long enough, and soon you'll start to believe it.
But Mako is better than that, she has to be -- gritting her teeth and feeding Pentecost inside information, adding more and more details to the file on Chau and his entire setup, building a net so it would one day close around him -- they'd planned it all, of course, and she had been an active part of it. But the one thing she hasn't planned for was to fall in love with Raleigh Becket, Chau's right-hand man, the one person who's different from all the rest, the one thing in all the mess that she could feel the most genuine about, that struck her hard and true and complete that it scared her.
She's in love with Raleigh Becket, and if she isn't careful, that love will kill them both. And so she approaches Pentecost this night, sends him another piece of information on the drug deal that would go down in Miami in two weeks, and barters with him -- spare Raleigh. Cut him a deal. Let him walk.
I expected better from you, Miss Mori.
I'm sorry. But I want him out. I want him safe. I know you can make this happen.
She's in love with Raleigh Becket, and she takes a dangerous gamble because somewhere down the line, things had changed for them, things had become more complicated. She'd seen the man he could be, the man that he is, when they spend nights together and she becomes his woman and partner, working with him on all that ought to be done. The deals, the crackdowns, the things she hated with all her heart but she did and did well because it's the only way to destroy it from the inside. And oh, she had never felt worse, she had never felt happier than when she was with him, when she's tempted to just turn her back and take his hand and disappear with him into the abyss of all of this. But she can't. She sees the murders and the drugs and she can't, and when she lies in Raleigh's arms at night she barely triumphs over the desire to tell him, to ask him to run away with her instead.
But this is the real world, and he would kill her if he knew, even if he smokes less now around her, even if he smiles a little more and she knows that she's in too deep with him, the lines too tangled and crossed to begin extricating herself from it.
She comes back to his apartment after her meeting with Pentecost, a weight on her shoulders and the sense of betrayal she incites from all sides; caught hopelessly in the middle and oh, she's a good person. She's a Fed. She's a Fed in love with the last person on earth she should ever be in love with. Mako exhales, as she turns the key in the lock (the key he had given her months ago, because he thought she ought to have one, and it's stupid to keep going all the way to the crappy side of town to her apartment when here's closer). But the acrid smell of cigarette smoke hits her, and she wrinkles her nose.
Had he been at it again?
Mako closes the door behind her warily, seeking him out in the dim light ] Raleigh? Are you there?
no subject
There she is. My girl. The Fed.
[No use in beating around the bush. The guys call her his old lady and you know, she kind of was. It's not an insult, it's a mark of respect actually. It means that at the end of the day, he belongs to her and she belongs to him and no one's going to fuck with that. No one else matters. They've got each other's backs.
He had hers. She put a knife in his.]
Have a good day at work?
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And so when Raleigh calls her the Fed, Mako doesn't flinch, doesn't react even as warning bells go off in her head, a clear sign that this doesn't feel right even if there's no one else in his apartment but them.
Going undercover, after all, takes a specific sort of person with nerves of steel and a special sort of grit, and Mako had a generous amount of daring to go along with it. She bit the bullet and the rap for the gang when a drug deal went south, getting herself fired and thrown in for a two year jail team before getting expelled back out on the streets, back to Raleigh.
I'll take it.
No. It's far too dangerous for you, Mako; we talked about this.
I can get to him, I know how. Let me go.
To them, she'd earned her stripes; of course, others would argue that she had it easy, that she was fucking Chau's VP to get to the top; but it was never that easy -- if it was, she would his whore, not his old woman. She ran with him as an equal, bold and fearless; Mako Mori got the job done, picked up smoking, learned the taste of pure cocaine, to differentiate when dealers were fucking with her, and she learned to kill -- she did everything the men did, and she did it better.
And it's this Mako Mori that comes back into the apartment, plucks the untouched cigarette from his fingers and taps the ash out before taking a long drag. Have a good day at work? There's no possible way he would know; she was careful, and she'd never once left any tracks (or had she?).
Cigarette dangling between long fingers, she smiles briefly and heads over to the fridge to get herself a drink. ]
I didn't go to work today. I thought I told you. [ She plucks out a can of beer, and shuts the door with a bump of her hip. ] Did you just wake up?
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He wants to know how much of it was a lie. He wants to yell at her for fucking him to get to Chau, like he's just a pawn in her game. He wants her to tell him that she meant all of it with him and that he's just being paranoid.
But no, he's not because he saw her. Followed her back to Stacker Pentecost's office and he knows that man anywhere. Woke up too many mornings back in the service to Pentecost yelling in the barracks, berating him and Yancy for being lazy, stupid, bad soldiers, all that shit that commanding officers yell out during drills to keep you mad enough to keep on running. Not that Raleigh ever needed the motivation, he had so much energy he could've done his and Yancy's laps combined before Yancy was ever fully awake.
He never bothered to check in with what the old Marshal was doing after he walked from the Marines but he knew when he saw him with Mako that it was no social visit. Because that man did not have social calls, he worked all the time and a couple of calls confirmed that Stacker Pentecost had retired from the service and was working somewhere else in government now.
That's code for Fed. Or spy but in this case, it means Fed. He obviously doesn't have proof but he's got a gut feeling about this and Raleigh trusts his instincts. Might be the only thing left that he does trust.]
Oh? So that wasn't you I saw with Stacker Pentecost?
[Lie straight to his face, Mako, he dares you. He fucking dares you.]
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He knows, then. Raleigh knows where Mako's been, and from the look in his eyes he knows exactly why she was there. Stacker Pentecost used to be in the Marines, and it's not surprising that Raleigh would know him -- but what she hadn't expected was for him to come after her and to connect the dots so quickly. She takes a sip of the cold beer anyway -- his favourite brand, and she never used to care for it until recently -- buying herself a moment or two of time.
How much does he know, how much can she salvage?
It makes her heart sink, when the realisation sets in that he knows, and with it comes the inevitable sense of betrayal, and what it looks like when it's all laid out like this in front of him. Mako meets his eyes even if it pains her in ways she can't explain, because he's someone she's never meant to hurt, he's collateral damage and she regrets it, and things would be so much easier if she hadn't fallen for him along the way. She sets the beer aside on the counter, not crossing the distance now between them.
No wonder he's been smoking so much more than he's used to. But there is no excuse for her to use, no denial to issue in the face of such a question, because it's beneath the both of them and he deserves better. ] You weren't supposed to know that, Raleigh. [ Her gaze slides over to where she knows his gun would be, she knows what it means when a mole is discovered in their midst. The gang, after all, had its own rules and laws, and Raleigh is obliged to enforce them; no exceptions. Mako lifts her eyes back to his, the lover she'd never meant to have, and stubs out the cigarette on the counter. ]
Are you going to kill me?
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So when she asks him if he's going to kill her, a scowl spreads his face, like he smells something rotten. Like the smell of her bullshit.]
I'm not going to kill you.
[If he wanted her dead, he would've turned a blind eye to when she was stabbed. Simple as that. She didn't mean anything to him and he didn't want her dead then. She means everything to him now and he still doesn't want her dead. For all that his club stands for, for the fear that they invoke, Raleigh's not a killer. Knows how to kill but doesn't take any joy in it and it's like an in secret with the boys that if someone needs dead, you don't go to Raleigh for help and you don't tell him.]
But I never want to see you again either.
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Her old man, she thinks, Raleigh's always been a gentle person who'd never much liked the act of killing, preferred to avoid it if he possibly can, and when she sees the look on his face now, there's something that twists inside her, something surprisingly painful that goes beyond the rigours of her job, the demands she makes of herself.
The thought, she thinks, of not seeing him again makes her cold, and her expression falters, just for a moment. Keep him safe, she'd said. Let him walk. Mako could see the hurt in his eyes, so terribly, awfully profound, and the fact that she was the one who put it there -- even in this moment he shows mercy, and she's quiet for a moment, letting the words hang between them.
Funny. In all her years of being in this gang, nothing had hurt her quite as much as this. ]
...You stopped being a piece a very long time ago. [ Did you know that? Of course you didn't. Even I didn't know that before it was too late. ]
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And what does that even change, Mako? Is he just supposed to forget what he saw, what she's more or less confirmed, because she says she cares about him? She's said a lot of things and some of those were likes so why isn't this.]
Yeah? I'm curious how that works. The entire time you've been here, you've been working to turn me in.
[She might be targeting Chau, but the president goes down, and Raleigh goes right with him. Hell, he's pretty sure there's still an warrant out for his arrest for going AWOL.]
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Mako senses the anger that simmers, just barely, under his words, and she takes a long, cleansing drag of her cigarette. The briefest sweep of the apartment, her paranoia kicking in to ensure that there are no bugs, that no one's listening in. It would be so much easier to leave, to inform Pentecost that the operation is a bust -- they'll need to find another way in, but there is Raleigh; Raleigh, who can do more with the life that he has, who can have a purpose that isn't the gang and its interests. ]
It's not you I'm working to turn in. [ She knows that, she knows Raleigh's impossibly tied to Chau. She frowns, stubs out the cigarette. ] You know he's hurt so many people, why are you still sticking with him?
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[And that's actually not why Raleigh is so loyal. He can talk about her double crossing him and sending him to prison for the rest of his life but that doesn't mean anything, it's not the fear of being arrested that's driving him.
It's that Hannibal Chau has a way of knowing things about people that no one else does and of taking care of his own. It's how he could have had Raleigh killed but didn't, decided to bring him into the club, how he took Raleigh aside one day and said he knew about the accident, knew who the other driver was, and knew where to find him.
God help him but he went there, and of course that drunk driver was a member of a rival club and there was no walking from any of this, no way to pretend like he wasn't involved if he killed that guy. It was like his final exam, kill him, avenge his brother, start a war between the clubs, be Chau's right hand man, and Raleigh passed that test with flying colors.
He doesn't love the things that they do sometimes, doesn't relish in the drugs and murder, but it gives him a purpose, and if he has to tell himself that he's here because of Yancy, for Yancy, then that's just how life is.]
I'm not a rat. That's how this works. I've got their backs and they've got mine.
[That's not the answer she probably wants but he's not telling her that he started because he needed a purpose and stayed because the club helped him get some closure for Yancy and that he's still here because he's so fucking loyal to something, that if he says he'll do it, he'll do it.]
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But she knows, too, that he has an entire lifetime ahead of him, that his talent, his gifts, he is wasted in a life like this, mired in murder and drugs and she knows, too, that he doesn't like it -- Mako's always observed, always knew. He's staying in this club for an entirely different reason that she doesn't know about, and there's more he isn't telling her, but it really isn't like she's in any position to demand, not when this is happening between them.
In the face of impending failure of her mission (which must, under any circumstances, not happen), and the potentially devastating effects of his rejection of her, Mako is honest. Raleigh might not be a rat but it won't mean that the circumstances won't chance, that she won't do her best to help get him out of it.
She stubs out what remains of the cigarette on a nearby ashtray, and finally meets his eyes. ] I went to Pentecost to broker a deal about you today. When Chau goes down, no charge against you stands. [ She'd worked a long time on Pentecost about it, taken a huge gamble because if it turns out that she doesn't know him as well as she thinks she does, she'd be the latest statistic in the club's climbing body count rate. ]
You might consider them your brothers, Raleigh, but you don't belong inside here. You never did. I see it whenever you disagree with the things they do, when you break the rules on your own because you didn't think what they did was right.
[ A pause. ] You broke the rules for me.
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And-- just no. No they were not talking about his potential and shit like that. He's just stopping that right here because she doesn't know shit about his potential or what he should be doing with his life. He doesn't know what he should be doing with his life.]
So you thanked me by making me a rat too? Fucking-- fuck, Mako. I'm not signing any deal. You've got to be fucking kidding me.
seriously this game of chicken
She's in too deep now, and this is the time to lay it all out for him. He has to sign the deal, he must. This case hangs in the balance, and so does her life. ] I thanked you by hoping that I could give you a way out. I had it all planned out, but what I hadn't counted on was falling in love with you.
[ She smiles briefly, tightly, and goes to him, then, the coffee table set between the both of them, and sets her revolver on the glass. Her heart is pounding, because a man betrayed is a dangerous thing. ]
That I would kill for you. And now, here's your choice, because we both know letting me go isn't an option. They will find me, and they will kill me themselves.
[ She turns it around so that the barrel of it faces her, and her gaze on him is steady, unwavering. ] ]
So you either kill me yourself, or come with me.
you will be my prison bitch
The sense of betrayal and innate urge to do the opposite of what he's told to do, to rebel for the sake of rebelling because that's what he does. He breaks rules and he doesn't follow orders and he bucks at command and all of that shows on his face as he stares at her.
If she loved him, then why hasn't she told him any of this herself instead of sneaking around until he discovered it himself? If she loved him, then she'd know that he doesn't want to leave the club because it's the first place he'd felt something like comfortable since Yancy, he doesn't love it but it's something. If she loved him, she wouldn't be giving him the ultimatum to choose between the club and her.
But no, she's right. He lets her walk and it really just doesn't end there.]
Walk from your side of it then. Actually fall from grace.
i hate you
[ She had thought of it, in the nights when they were curled up together and he sleeps, and she rests her head on his chest to listen to his heartbeat. He's unwilling, and she knows it, stubborn and rebellious because that's how he is, that's why she loves him.
Did he really think things would change if she told him this herself? What was he going to do if she confessed this to him out of the blue, help her? She thinks of Stacker, her father, the man who had single-handedly brought her up and loved her like his own; and more than anything she didn't want to let him down. ]
I can't.
no you don't
[Things might not have been different but he wouldn't have felt so used if she had told him herself instead of him finding out by mistake. Because that would mean that she trusted him like he trusted her.]
I MIGHT
[ She's come to trust him, in the most warped way imaginable -- despite his allegiance she knows him, and she feels guilty because despite all the lies between them she loves him; that in all of this, he's essentially become collateral damage.
Mako is silent for a moment, aware that she owes him an explanation, and far more aware of the fact that she's giving him leverage (of sorts) when she says. ]
Stacker Pentecost saved me, when my parents were killed by gangsters. I owe him everything.
that's it thats the whole tag
If Raleigh looks pissed, it's really not entirely her fault. She's a good portion of why but that's just how his face looks when he's upset. Like he's literally smelling shit right now.]
Chau helped me find Yancy's killer.
lmaoaskdhf ILU
...And you killed him.
dont laugh i hit enter too soon :C :C
None of this brings his brother back, the club or the deal that she's waving in front of his face. So what does any of it matter? What does it really matter, when it's all said and done, where he's at. Here, prison, witness protection, in the ground, none of it actually matters without Yancy.]
I might have. But I wouldn't want to say anything to incriminate myself with a Fed.
jakshdjhf ilu
Mako is tangled up with duty and guilt, and the look on Raleigh's face is like nothing she's ever seen before. Not quite like this -- he's shut down from her, and even if she knows that he most likely pulled the trigger, it doesn't change a thing, and it doesn't matter. ]
I'm sorry. [ Cheap words, but heartfelt. ] ...Raleigh, I can't sit back and watch it continue. The drugs, the firearms, the deaths -- [ Her laugh is bitter, short. ] -- God knows I've already contributed a good chunk of that myself.
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--and the excuses sound pretty weak to him too.
But the simple fact remains that when he was totally lost, when he had nothing to live for at all, the club was there to give him something to get out of bed for. The club brought her to him. And he can't easily turn off his loyalty to that.]
Do you know what you're really asking from me?
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She sees what it does to him, when this MC becomes more and more about vengeance, violence and exploitation, when it blurs the lines despite best intentions and they both know it. ]
I'm asking you to leave your home and the life you know, for me. [ It's a gamble, but it's a risk she's willing to take. All that she loses, after all, is her life -- the only way out of this MC is a deal, or a bullet through the temple. ] Raleigh. I'm asking you to stop. [ Then, even more quietly. ] I'm asking you to help me.
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He can't-- think. He needs space, he needs her to not be here, he needs to hit something, he needs a shot, he wants his brother back so much because Yancy, Yance what do I do?
He runs a hand over his jaw, feeling the day old stubble there and focusing on the fact that he needs to shave is so much better than the rest of it. He should kill her. He should take her by the hand and never let go.]
I'm going to take a shower.
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It could go either way, to be perfectly honest. She relaxes, the tension bleeding into exhaustion; she's tired of being mired in both sides at once -- Raleigh's become someone she cannot lose, someone she would fight to hang on to, and she knows, at the same time, if he knew about it he would fight, too, to keep her on his side of the fence, and that would never do. ]