Hermann ignored the sight of Newt standing before him, ignored the words he said, ignored the ache in his chest and the way his lungs felt like they would never expand fully again. His eyes burned not from unshed tears but an overabundance and, subsequently, running dry. He took in a shuddering breath and finished packing up his personal affects, cleaning out his desk for when he was cleared to go home.
They saved the world. They saved the world, and the moment the war clock was stopped Newt had fallen to the ground. He did not get back up.
"Have you considered that I might not just be in your head? Maybe I'm okay, maybe I'm actually standing here." Newt blocked his exit, obstinate and rude as ever. The newly appointed Marshal Hansen walked through him like a projection and seemed none the wiser. He looked ragged but clean, posture correct.
"I'm sorry for your loss, Dr. Gottlieb, I understand you were close." He reached out with his sure arm and clasped Hermanns shoulder, both men leaning forward as if in momentary prayer before parting again. Hermann inclined his head.
"The sentiment is mutual, Marshal. Is there something you wished to speak with me about? I'd rather not stay on this subject." His gaze was dragged to the side by Newt rolling his eyes.
"Y'know I saw you blubbering in here? I certainly didn't see my dead body, I'm fucking fine, I am RIGHT HERE!" He threw his arms out, beginning to look more frantic than annoyed.
"Yes, I need a report on Dr. Geiszler's final notes, his research and procedures. You worked with him, knew him best, and if that fails you have the skills to get past his passwords. I'm sorry to do this to you, mate, but you're the best man for the job even if you aren't the right man." He took Hermanns nod as affirmation enough and left the lab, Newt stepping aside to let him pass.
"Yo dude you better not break into my shit, I'll be hot mad. I'm already hot mad. Stop ignoring me." His voice shook and felt like shattered glass inside Hermann's chest. His tongue tripped over bitter words.
"You are deceased, Newton, you no longer get a say in the affairs of those you've abandoned."
Newts brows shot up as he pitched forward, mouth opened in shock. "Abandoned, you think I abandoned you? OH you jackass, if I had abandoned you then I wouldn't goddamn well be listening to you insulting me and planning to break into my electronics . I saved our asses, you need to be nicer to me. Actually don't because that'd be too weird." He shut up only when Hermann grabbed up every piece of chalk from the edge of his board and hurled them at the door.
The mess hall was cavernous without the usual hoards of people, most of which had either left the shatterdome or were helping to helping to convert it to a reserve bunker. As Hermann had told the Marshal; just because the rift was closed now didn't mean this couldn't happen again, and it would do well to be prepared for a next time. He paused with a piece of broccoli at his lips and looked up to see Newt sitting across the table, his arms folded between them.
"You look like shit, dude." The softly-spoken comment cause Hermann to narrow his eyes and chew more aggressively. Newt leaned back and stretched his arms into the air before tucking them behind his head. "You're a special kind of cruel, even if I'm not really here, you can't seem to stop seeing me. What's that say about your penchant for self-punishment?"
Hermann shut his eyes and stabbed the food on his plate to mask how his hand had begun to shake. "You are a figment of my imagination..." His whisper was nothing more than a breath, and he saw Newt get up and leave.
Tendo sat where Newt had been, a little gingerly, a little quietly.
"How you holding up, brother?" He met Hermanns wry smirk with one of his own. "Yeah don't answer that, your secret's safe with me. We're doing just fine."
"If it's all the same to you, Mr. Choi, I believe there's no shame in admitting we are far from fine."
"Hey, speak for yourself, I'm fine as hell." Tendo brightened marginally as Hermann huffed a laugh.
"Indeed. Once you've finished with the clerical work where is it you and Alison plan to go next?" Hermann took a bite of beef without tasting it. A mouth full of ash.
"Ah... A good question. Anywhere cold is right off the table, no more for me after working in The Icebox, thank you. San Fran is out too, I just can't..." He shakes his head. "Spoiled memories you know?"
"Perhaps somewhere Atlantic?"
"Nah, biggest body of water I want to sink my roots near is a rain puddle." The conversation stayed light until they both finished eating and parted ways.
"Do you think I'll stay here when you leave?"
Hermann was currently sifting through Newt's personal files, deleting the porn and memes and abstract reaction image files while emailing the important documents to his own account. He didn't slow his typing to respond. "I should hope so, if you're going to be such a pest I'd rather you haunt the shatterdome than me as a person."
"So you not only think I'm a true to life ghost, but you can't wait to be rid of me. Am I getting this right?" Newt's tone was fragile, but something in it made Hermann's spine grow cold.
"... You are dead. You do not exist, Newton. There's no point in having this conversation." He swallowed hard and refused to look at Newt until the man leaned over his laptop and into Hermann's personal space.
"I'm gonna haunt the shit out of you. I'm never going to leave you alone, because you're never going to get over me, because you are a self-flagellating douche canoe and like you said yesterday, I'm just a figment of your imagination."
"Get away from me."
"Sorry what's that? You're mumbling." Newt's gaze was vermillion rage, cold and steady and breathtaking.
"I need to finish this tonight, leave me alone." His vision blurred, and when he blinked to clear it he was alone.
The flight home to england was nightmarish. The person sitting beside him was afraid of heights and perspired much more than the average human being, there was turbulence just infrequently enough to stay in the air instead of landing, and he had popcorn stuck in his hair from the child behind him. To top it all off every time he looked out the window he saw Newt, as if there were an extra chair right outside the plane.
It was enough to drive him to drink.
He couldn't even get truly inebriated simply because he was surrounded by people and that would draw attention, no, he just drank enough to take the edge off the sharp feeling in his torso he got every time glanced to the right.
"So, I've come to the conclusion that I'm definitely not alive. You were right, you bastard. I'm also absolutely haunting you specifically, instead of where I died. I actually have a theory about that-"
The person beside Hermann got up to use the restroom and when he turned to look out the window, he was alone. Then he heard Newts voice soft and close by his ear.
"The drift totally downloaded me into your brain. I'm a figment of your imagination but that's because I'm part of your imagination." He sounded excited and it made hermanns stomach twist. His brow furrowed. "See, you're thinking about it, it's possible."
"It's impossible."
"Oh is it Hermann?"
"It-" he bit down on his lip and glowered out the window, the tension in his shoulders moving up behind his eyes to throb . Newt was visible reflected in the glass, looking concerned as he brought a hand up to his own nose.
"Dude, you're bleeding."
Between flights, Hermann spent the night in a hotel in russia just at the edge of europe. There was absolutely nothing of any interest on the television besides speculation on the origin of the kaiju and memorial slideshows that made him feel sick to his stomach with grief. He saw a flash of Newt's face and hit the power button father than he could process it. Most of his time was spent scrolling mindlessly through forums for extremely terrible extraterrestrial conspiracy theories and game dev arguments.
Newton slid into bed beside him soundlessly and peered at his phone. "Are you aware that you're not a lefty?" Hermann paused with his finger above the screen.
"Perhaps I'm simply giving my other hand a rest."
"You aren't, though."
"Why can't you leave me in peace, Newton?"
Newt smiled softly as he sat up, pressing two fingers to the top of Hermann's phone until he locked and lowered it. "It's really convenient for you, y'know. That I'm dead."
Hermann's heart jolted. "Just what on Earth is that supposed to mean?"
"Since you're going home to your wife and all," Newt's smile twisted into a sneer before he got off the bed to pace. "You never have to deal with telling her about me, you don't have to choose or work something out. You could, theoretically, move on and live your life and never think about me again."
A feeling of dread and disappointed settled over Hermann's shoulders as he rubbed his face and removed his glasses, letting them hang from his neck. "Newton please, I told her about you a long time ago. How did you know I was married but not that we had an agreement?"
Newt shrugged. "I didn't get it from the drift. Or, no I did but it's all a confusing jumble of thoughts and feelings and wants and memories..." He turned and drifted back to the bed, back to sitting on the mattress beside Hermann. He sighed and tilted his head to press a weightless kiss to Hermann's jaw.
Hermann closed his eyes and turned his face more towards Newton, waiting, longing for a physical touch, longing for something he could feel. Even a featherlight brush would assuage the loss of his meddlesome, irritating lab partner. Nothing came, and when he opened his eyes he was pitched forward indecorously with Newt well across the room again, looking defeated. "You're pathetic, man. This is pathetic, you can't keep doing this."
"I will do as I wish-" his voice cracked and he west his lips to cover it.
"You've gotta stop, dude. Go to sleep, go home, kiss your fucking wife it's been like ten years." Newt ran both hands through the wild mess of his hair in discomfort. "You deserve someone you can touch, someone who isn't dead. I can't do anything for you except speak and what makes any of that legit? Am i speaking what you think I would say, am I saying what I would have said up to the point of my death? I hate to be such a downer but what if I'm not actually smart anymore, like, can a ghost take in new data?"
"Stop. Please, I... Want to go to sleep." Hermann didn't want to think about this, and judging from Newts expressions in the fading light of evening he was understood.
"Yeah. Get some rest Herms."
Home for a week and it still felt strange to share a large king sized bed. It should be smaller, it should be empty, and he should be under so much more pressure. It drove him to the couch more often than not, hard as it was to explain in the morning that Vanessa had done nothing to chase him off. He wasn't ready to be in public yet. He wasn't even ready to be near one person, how could he work with others?
He lay on the couch and stared up at the ceiling, Newton beside him on the floor. Vanessa was out, would be for much of the day, so he was working on untying all the knots in his head and heart.
"I guess I'm some sort of immortal, right?" Newts head tilted back against the couch and he sighed, looking tired for some unknowable reason.
"I suppose, at least until I die." He settled with his hands on his chest, fingers linked together. "With you driving me absolutely insane perhaps that'll be sooner rather than later."
"Yeah see, the suicide talk just isn't doing it for me. I'm actually kind of surprised I didn't kill myself, not in the classic sense. I made it to 'accidental death' territory." He wet his lips before continuing. "But seriously don't do that, I'm a little afraid of what'll happen to me when you die. At this point I'm positive I'm only here because of the drift, something weird must've happened."
"Are you unclear because you don't know or because I don't know?" Hermann rolled his head to the side to look down over Newt, to take him in; the disheveled hair, the cracked glasses, the dirty clothes. He had not changed from the last moment Hermann had seen him alive, and that alone sat heavy and hurting within his heart, choking him. Newt brought his thumb up to chew on it, glancing up at Hermann.
"I guess there's no way to know. Did you save my voice recorder?" He wilted when Hermann shook his head.
"I forgot about it, I only moved information over that had been on your computer." Hermann swallowed and shut his eyes tightly. Damn him, damn him if he'd thought of the voice recorder he might have something more substantial to remember Newt by, something closer to real than a few pictures on facebook or his own phone. He wiped his eyes and took a shuddering breath to calm himself.
"Hey it's fine, come on man don't cry. I'm right here, right? I'm still here sort of." Newt hovered over him warily, hands unsure of what to do. Hermann turned away from him.
"I think you should talk to someone. If not me, if not a therapist, maybe someone from the PPDC. There's two living pilots who had a drift partner die, baby you don't have to keep all this inside." Vanessa rest her hand on his from across the table. The restaurant was dim and filled with the low rumble of conversation, wine sitting gently on his tongue. He sighed, ducking his head.
"You are right, of course. But I'm just so adept at not talking." He pressed his lips thin and shot her a look, recieving a dry smile in return.
"No, you're great at talking. For hours even if the right mood strikes you, just never seems it strikes you when feelings come into play. I'll get you those pilot's numbers and you can talk to them, this really isn't something you should be dealing with on your own. Alright?"
Hermann nodded and turned his hand upright to give hers a squeeze. "I'll admit, I thought sure you would think me mad. Seeing ghosts." Newt sat backwards in a chair and looked up from where he'd been zoning out, focusing on the two of them.
"You are though, mad as a fucking hatter." He smirked and rest his cheek on his arms. Vanessa got his attention again by laughing.
"No, anything's possible until proven otherwise, and the drift is… such a huge thing, it's incredibly under-studied with how important it's been." She shook her head, curls bouncing.
Newt began bouncing his leg. "So are you going to do it?" It gave Hermann pause, but after a moment he sighed.
"Alright. Alright, if you get me those numbers, I'll speak with someone about this. About him." He bit the inside of his cheek when Vanessa took both of his hands, making the ache between his ribs throb.
The call had come and gone, and Hermann had agreed to meet with Marshal Hansen in his home. Another uncomfortable week working through a loss that wouldn't function like proper grief, another flight, and he was shaking hands with Hansen in a room covered in wood shavings and tools. The beginnings of a boat and a nearly finished surfboard were moved to the side to make room. Hansen inclined his head with a ghost of a laugh.
"Bit messy in here but I can't ah, bring myself to visit the rest of the house much." He sat down in one of the chair brought in from the parlor. Hermann took a seat as well and clasped his hands between his knees in a fashion unlike his own mannerism. If Hansen noticed, he stayed quiet. "You two drifted then, I read the report but I hadn't done more than skim and and pass it along."
Hermann nodded and drew shapes on the back of his teeth with his tongue. "Yes we, well he drifted once with Mutavore's damaged brain a few days prior to our drift." He stalled out, pressing his palms together. "We believe that paired with the extraneous activity of him running around hong kong, plus the shock from being face to face with Otachi is what…" Hansen nodded and he stopped trying to explain it.
"So you've been seeing him where he aint really supposed to be, yeah?" At Hermann's affirmation he continued. "Not all that weird, not especially with the cobbled together garbage you two were using. Even I get caught up sometimes, talking to Chuck. Haven't seen him anywhere, not like you described, but I've heard him." Hansen looked at the surfboard propped up on a workbench, then ducked slightly as he pointed at it. "That was gonna be part of the celebration, when all this shit finally ended."
Hermann looked at it and took in the same kaiju symbols along the edge that had been on Chuck's jacket. "I'm sure that would have been… pleasant." He pressed his lips together. He had no idea how to console someone, he had no idea how to console himself, and he had no idea how to reach out for consolation.
"Something like that." Hansen brushed wood dust from his sleeve, seemingly for lack of anything else to do. "So do you see him now?"
"Yes."
Newt was standing in the doorway with his arms crossed, looking conflicted. Hansen followed Hermanns gaze, but saw nothing. "I think Becket mentioned something like this, seeing Yancy after he died. They were still drifting when Yancy passed though, think maybe that's a little different. Maybe not."
"I can't claim to understand the drift, it was never my area. I did the code for the mach ones but I never stepped on Lightcap's toes. Newton however, he loved stepping on toes. Sticking his nose where it didn't belong." He closes his eyes so he wouldn't see the way Newt narrows his eyes, face scrunching up until his teeth showed.
"If I hadn't we'd all be dead."
"He was a right mad cunt." Hansen laughed, rubbing his face with large, worn hands. "I think we all were, to an extent. We were all out of our minds."
"Only way to stay sane." Hermann looked up from his hands and, finally, allowed the twitch at the corner of his mouth to turn into a smile. "Do you believe he's real? He s-" He cleared his throat. "He said it was like the drift… downloaded him into my mind. Do you think had he lived he would have a similar version of me inside his mind?"
"I have no idea, mate. Maybe. I think what you're describing is just a strong drift pair, once you're inside someone's head you are inside their head, you don't leave just because there's no live bridge."
They fell into a silence that sunk into the floorboards.
"If he's not real, is it too unhinged of me to not want him gone?" Hermann glanced over at Newt again and saw his shoulders relax, face softening.
"Dr. Gottlieb, I wouldn't give up the conversations I have with my son for anything that would take away the grief. If that's insanity, then I think we deserve to choose it for ourselves."
Hermann smiled again, closing his eyes. "I think I can live with that, Marshal."