I'm waking up, I feel it in my bones/Enough to make my systems blow

[fromfryingpantofire]

It's been six months since Sam had last gone out in Archangel Sword. Not that anybody ever calls her that; the Jaeger's name is "Baby" according to Dean and always will be. Most of that has been in recovery from the last fight. The Jaeger had been damaged when it took out the Kaiju -- codenamed "Ruby" -- and Sam's life support system had been flooded with Kaiju blood.

Sam doesn't remember it. Doesn't remember the fight at all, really. He'd been comatose for a month afterward, waking to find things had changed. He'd changed. Literally, actually, because he can't connect with Dean in the drift any more. Nobody's certain what happened, whether it was lack of oxygen or something in the Kaiju blood that Sam ingested while trying to breathe, but the result is the same. Sam can't drift with Dean any longer.

There's no good reason why he can't find somebody else to drift with again, though, which is why he's been in the kwoon combat room at least once every few days for the past two weeks. Now that Sam's back up to scratch, getting him back out into a Jaeger is important. Luckily, Dean had found a new drift partner fairly quickly, a newish recruit named Castiel. They'd taken to each other so easily that Sam almost couldn't feel too bad about being sidelined.

Almost.

He sighs, rolling his shoulders as he walks into the kwoon room, having been ordered there by Marshall Singer. Probably to face off against more new recruits.

"Marshall Singer," he says, kicking off his shoes at the edge of the mat before looking around and letting his eyes catch on the only other person in the room.

Comments

[redeemedhimself]

Sam wasn't the only one who had been ordered into the kwoon room that day. Gadreel had been without a Jager since Eden had fallen nearly a year ago. A good pilot had died and while no official blame had been cast, opinion among the other pilots was that the fault had been his - that somehow Gadreel had failed and not only cost the life of his co-pilot Eve, but the lives of a thousand civilians along the coast when the Class IV Kaiju, codenamed Lucifer, had decimated the city.

Since then he'd been a pilot without a Jager. Aimless. Court-martialed and cleared, but only by a razor thin margin. Marshall Singer had been the deciding vote.

Gadreel stepped out of his shoes, taking the mat before Sam, staff in hand. This was his last chance. Prove himself here or linger forever in disgrace.