[ Four minutes is more than enough time for Mako to find her center and quell whatever odd apprehension she might be feeling in her stomach. When she'd faced the kaiju her hand hadn't so much as shaken and yet now she found herself bothered and restless. She'd been the one who'd asked to talk in the first place but what did she have to say really that needed to be said (that could be said, given the history that bound them together).
When she answers the door her posture is a mirror image of his, her hand lingering on the doorknob, the lines of her face giving away nothing but her eyes betraying some deeper sentiment. Mako looks at Chuck for a long moment as he stands out in the hallway. He's not wearing his armor anymore and neither is she but their defenses are up and they stand like soldiers nevertheless. For some reason she imagined he would look larger, the way memories often fail to measure up to real life. Mako's eyes move back and forth across his face like she's searching for something but they stop abruptly just as she catches herself.
She tries not to think of him as Chuck and instead tells herself: this is the man who kept sensei's last stand; this is the man who cleared a path.
It makes it easier to bow to him (a bend at the waist, an incline of her shoulders). Not the short tic of her chin she might give someone else, but the bow offered to someone greater than.
(A sign of respect. Deference. Chuck had earned as much in those last moments.) ]
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When she answers the door her posture is a mirror image of his, her hand lingering on the doorknob, the lines of her face giving away nothing but her eyes betraying some deeper sentiment. Mako looks at Chuck for a long moment as he stands out in the hallway. He's not wearing his armor anymore and neither is she but their defenses are up and they stand like soldiers nevertheless. For some reason she imagined he would look larger, the way memories often fail to measure up to real life. Mako's eyes move back and forth across his face like she's searching for something but they stop abruptly just as she catches herself.
She tries not to think of him as Chuck and instead tells herself: this is the man who kept sensei's last stand; this is the man who cleared a path.
It makes it easier to bow to him (a bend at the waist, an incline of her shoulders). Not the short tic of her chin she might give someone else, but the bow offered to someone greater than.
(A sign of respect. Deference. Chuck had earned as much in those last moments.) ]