Chapter Text
Eastern Reconnaissance Squadron
Okinawa, March 1943
It’s freezing cold in his mind. In his dreams Snafu reaches out for another’s thoughts and finds only a vast, howling emptiness. He shies away from it, not liking the exposure, and can’t quite get away. It’s like there’s a hole torn in his brain, the edges jagged and sharp. He wakes sporadically, sometimes aware enough of his surroundings to know that he’s in the med bay back at base camp. He has no idea how he got back here, doesn’t care much either way. There’s only one thing he’s sure of in spite of the cold and the pain med induced haze.
Hamm is dead.
When he wakes up enough to know where he is Jay is there, sitting on a camp chair next to the cot. He helps Snafu sit up and props pillows underneath him, Snafu is still shaking from the cold and his right arm is tied to his side, so Jay lights two cigarettes and sticks one in his mouth for him. They sit in silence while Jay flips through the pages of a battered old paperback pretending to read and Snafu hears over and over the scream of rending metal, the howling of the empty sky.
Jay’s gone the next time he resurfaces, but Burgie is there instead. Dimly he wonders if they’re taking turns watching over him and can’t find the strength to tell them not to bother. The doctors come in and talk to him in a low voice as they run tests. The cold is still there, Snafu’s head aches from the shivering. Apparently it’s a side effect of being ripped out of the drift, a symptom of feeling somebody die. They treat him for hypothermia and shoot more tranquilizers into his IV bag.
Snafu waits until they’ve left then rips the needle out of his arm. When he turns Burgie’s watching him, head cocked to one side. “You gonna call them back in?,” He snarls and Burgie shakes his head.
“Are you breaking out of med bay?,” He asks in a mildly curious tone, as if he’s caught Snafu cutting holes in his shoes again.
“Not likely with this arm,” Snafu mutters, he curls forward and rests his forehead against his bent knees. “Hamm’s dead, isn’t he.”
Burgie doesn’t say anything, but his hand grips Snafu’s shoulder and stays there.
They release him from med bay about a week after on light duty. Be careful of the shoulder, do the exercises Doc recommended et voilà; you’re walking wounded. Snafu thinks he’s going to be relieved to be out, at least now he’ll have something to do besides lie there and think all day. He doesn’t expect to walk into the tent he shares with Burgie and Jay and find a ghost waiting for him.
Hamm’s bunk is still made up as he left it the day they went out on patrol. His mess kit, his shaving blade, and the rest of his gear are stowed neatly away beneath it. Snafu approaches the bed cautiously, like it’s a wounded animal about to attack him, and reaches under the pillow; as he expected Hamm’s flight jacket is wadded beneath it.
The jacket trembles in Snafu’s hand; for a moment he wants to hurl it against the wall, set it all on fire and never have to think about Hamm again. He winds the thick material around his fists, presses it to his face. The oil coated material is rough against his skin, and it smells like Hamm, like the tide pools out on the rocky outcrops on the east end of the island, like fire and flying. He doesn’t know where they take the rest of Hamm’s belongings when they come to remove them, but the jacket goes into Snafu’s footlocker, carefully wrapped in his old rain poncho.
There’s no shortage of tasks at an outpost so close to the Pacific Rift even for a maimed Jaeger pilot. Snafu takes his turn at the sentry posts, and pulls overnight shifts in radar surveillance, scanning the ocean for any signs of approaching Kaiju. He rather learns to like the women manning the station with him. They’re too busy with their own duties to expect him to talk, but when someone goes on a coffee run a steaming hot cup always finds its way onto his station as well.
Most nights there’s nothing, some nights they send signals to Hunter Squadrons at bases in the Solomons, Jakarta, Alaska - all around the Pacific - to scramble to meet an oncoming threat. It’s a different perspective of the war than one Snafu had before from the controls of a Jaeger. He’s beginning to see how the larger picture comes together, and one thing is clear: The Jaeger pilots are losing. He sees it when he watches a hunter squadron limping back to base with some of their number missing, and when he watches the same exhausted pilots scramble again night after night as the Kaiju throw everything they’ve got at a particular area.
Even with the help of the Japanese and Russian squadrons they’re losing pilots faster than they can train new ones. An experienced Jaeger pilot is too valuable to leave in a radar tower for long, and Snafu knows it’s only a matter of time before they make him start testing with the spares, trying to find him another co-pilot.