Hermann is seated in a chair across the room. Even in his exhaustion his posture is still all hard angles as he watches in characteristic intense concentration. Newt would usually complain about the position, that it reeks of Hermann's habitual smugness, but the bags under his partner's eyes read weary so Newt holds his tongue. Still, his mouth burns to move so it does so without engaging vocal chords, licking lips and teeth, blowing air, humming. Hermann flinches as he makes an especially loud popping sound with his cheek and Newt can't help but smile. The suitcases and the railway tickets, those are the future, but he is victorious because at the end of it all Hermann is here, with him, in the now. He cannot help but engage in these familiar interactions that are the sole remnants of a ten year partnership, a shared world now disintegrating around them. Newt is glad to share it for a few moments longer.

Hermann pities him for how he clings to their old routine, oblivious to how his own presence is evidence he does the same. Newt does not see this as a negative, for the future will come eventually and what harm does it do to revel in the now as it lopes in to the dusty catacombs of memory? He knows Hermann would prefer a clean break. Past history, personality, the already pristine and chalk free nature of his side of the lab and his own vocal opinions all point towards this. Yet he is here when he has no need to be. Newt knows he is the dependent variable that draws the irascible Dr Gottlieb to a place of vitriolic comfort. He grows giddy with the confidence and similar comfort this knowledge brings and he wishes to extend out this last moment of codependency. So he works as inefficiently as possible, stumbling around his side of the lab, sliding kaiju parts into bags, wiping down counters, rambling about the various celebrations occurring all around Hong Kong.

"I suppose you're going to make some incredibly hurtful jab about how I should have done" kaiju spleen stuff unceremoniously into Tupperware "this" small vacuum hose starting "earlier."

"No."

The vacuum stops seconds after ignition and it sputters in protest, but Newt is too busy looking at Hermann. And he suddenly sees just how deflated the other man is. Newt, always manic Newt, could still feel the adrenaline of victory in his veins that had been maintained for the past few days by jumping from party to party, shoving himself between people who liked him but did not particularly know him. The fun was an impersonal haze; like all the others he was just glad to be alive.

Hermann was never the partying type and, although he could not be sure, Newt felt he would have known if Hermann had attended any of the same celebrations he had. He tried to avoid investigating why he felt he should instinctively know this. It's the drift, he told himself, and went back on to enjoying Hermann free debauchery. What the drift was, what it meant, he did not need to know now. Or did not want to know yet.

"What'd you mean, no? I mean of course it makes sense you'd want a clean lab, yeah, but you don't have to oversee it. Like I can totally do this by myself don't you have things to do other than breathe down my neck. . ."

Now his buzz was slowly fading and as he grew silent he considered that Hermann's brief happiness must have faded long ago. The physicist's mouth hung open, neck tensing as he pushed the next words from his lips.

"I don't care anymore."

"Uhh, Hermann," Newt laughed nervously, "that's not like you. Should I call a doctor? Like a real doctor not us doctors, like a medical doctor."

Near non-existent lips pursed. "I do not think that shall be necessary. I am quite fine. But I do feel I have overspent my time here. I must leave." He planted his cane upon the floor, pushing up to a standing position.

"Or like a mental doctor."

Hermann's head snapped up with a ferocity that Newt did not realize he still had in him.

"If," he growled, "I needed any sort of psychiatric help I am certain you would require it tenfold, since as far as I can see any and all maladies of my mind have originated from you. I can only guess as to the myriad neurosis incubating in your brain."

Newt's shock provided Hermann with the opportunity to angrily stride out and it was only as he reached the door that he heard Newt's unusually quiet reaction. There was no response, no rising to the bait.

"Hey, dude. You know I'm really happy for you. Both of you."

Quiet forgiveness of all things. Not what he expected at all and that chilled him to the core. But he was no expert in Drift mechanics; he had no right to be surprised at its effects despite his few days studying it. While Newt flew the crowded ship of escapism Hermann had embraced the Drift, combing his mind for changes in his self. He had found quite a few, frightening in their depth. So he had followed to Newt to the lab, the first time he could really be alone with him since the victory, and he had watched and overanalyzed and wondered if there were changes manifesting in his partner as well. Here was proof that something had most definitely changed and he was not sure yet whether he liked it or not. He was just as scared as Newt, but spiced with a pang of self awareness. So he planned to do what he always did when he was scared.

He was going to call Vanessa.