Chapter Text
The first letter came without warning or preamble; shoved unceremoniously between his copy of Scientific American and a sheaf of ungraded student quizzes, Hermann almost missed it. It fell out from the pile with something like a flourish, turning ostentatiously in the air before settling on the tile floor. Raising his eyebrow, Hermann simply tucked it back under his arm and made his way back to his office.
He could not remember the last time he'd gotten a letter -- a real, honest-to-God letter. Certainly not since childhood, when he entertained a pen pal from Nice as part of his studies. He hadn't thought of that for years: sitting at his desk at school, toiling away at a French translation of all his silly goings-on, things only a ten year-old would find pressing. Who had contacted him now? Not his family; they'd have simply called. As for friends, well… he'd never had many of those, and still only maintained relationships of a scholarly nature with his peers and advisors. Things stayed simple that way. Yes, and incredibly dull, the far less reasonable part of him complained.
He locked the door to his office as he closed it behind him, as if this nondescript envelope contained some sort of secret that he dare not reveal. Truthfully, and with no small amount of embarrassment, the letter excited him. As much as he adored his field, as deeply as he'd fallen in love with the curves and edges of numerals and integers, the field of quantum mechanics did not exactly foster human connection. A biologist, for example, could appeal to the everyday audience by talking about how deep sea fish glow in the dark, or how octopi could love. For him, the process trying to explain the beauty of numbers often ended up more convoluted and soul-crushing an endeavor than he preferred to entertain.
However, this begged the question: who on Earth felt compelled to write to him?
Examining the letter gave him no clues; the return address cut across the top of the envelope in chicken-scratch cursive so haphazard he could barely read it. Luckily, the sender had typed out the address beneath on a sticker, which read:
Office 211, Biochemistry Dept.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139
Hermann thought hard. Had he ever met anyone from MIT long enough to warrant a physical correspondence? Certainly, he’d gone to enough conferences to recall some passing conversations and names, largely from his own field. He’d even fostered a brief friendship with a young lady pursuing an Astrophysics degree, a rather spunky girl that he wished he’d remembered to meet again. Then again, she hadn’t either. Such is the life of an academic. The bitter thought stuck in his craw like a bad taste. Interminably lonesome.
Before Hermann opened the envelope, he pulled up his search engine and typed in the address, in full. Goodness knows he wasn't about to accept mail from someone unsavory, and plenty of such people existed in academia. After a moment, the first result yielded a name: Newton Geiszler, PhD. He’d never heard the name before, but that didn’t come as a surprise to Hermann; after all, he rarely dabbled in other fields. Nevertheless, the name did sound familiar, and as he scrolled through his profile on MIT’s faculty website, he recognized it. Last summer, while attending one of many conferences, he’d heard a rumor about a young biologist who had earned his fourth PhD, and not without a great deal of fuss, as the stories went. Now, this prodigy had written him a letter.
Hermann couldn’t lie, the fact that such a prolific and talented scientist had reached out to him flattered him, though the mean little voice in his head reminded him that he could have just written to inform him that his field meant little in an era where most people couldn’t even wrap their minds around the idea of astrophysics. It wouldn’t mark the first time he’d endured such criticisms. Hermann chewed his lip nervously; should he even open it?
He eased his finger under the lip of the envelope and pulled.
The envelope had barely sealed, and it snapped right open as Hermann eased the folded paper apart. Inside was the letter itself, along with a business card and, surprisingly, a photograph. He’d already seen Dr. Geiszler in his faculty portrait: he certainly cut an interesting figure with his hair styled upward in a modern cut, contrasting his old-fashioned thick-rimmed glasses. He’d paired a blazer with a top emblazoned with the logo of a band Hermann didn’t recognize, and if he wasn’t seeing things -- no, he almost certainly had worn eyeliner. In the photo he’d enclosed, however, he saw none of that -- nothing but a plain, well-worn T-shirt and a half-cocked smirk on his face. Even the glasses were gone, and rather than looking overstyled, his hair seemed to fall naturally into place, in soft brown waves.
Hermann felt his cheeks grow hot in spite of himself, and unfolded the letter.
Dear Dr Gottlieb,
Hey, Dr G! Can I call you Dr G?
Anyway, read your new article. Totally wack, dude. I can see why everyone’s shitting on it, but like. It’s great. Dimensional physics??? Some ballsy shit.
I've got my own ideas about that -- looking into some deep sea morphology that might confirm your theories. You ever see some of the shit that comes out of the ocean??
Hit me up if you wanna chat. Everyone in my department is sick of me talking their ear off, haha!
Peace,
Newt
Hermann felt completely baffled by this whole situation. For one, this strange man had thought it prudent to send a physical, handwritten letter for a handful of sentences. For another, he sent a photo of himself despite having one readily available online, a photo that barely resembled his faculty portrait. All of that, just to propose an exchange of ideas. What an odd fellow.
Hermann supposed he could just jot him down a quick reply via email, but after all the trouble Dr. Geiszler had gone through, shouldn't he at least try to reciprocate? The idea of sending a photograph of himself to a man he'd never met felt odd, but then again, how was it any different than posting himself on those blasted dating profiles, the ones he always ended up deleting in his anxious despair? Besides, this way he could control the image he presented to Dr. Geiszler, and perhaps avoid him finding more embarrassing images later.
Hermann toiled away at his reply all afternoon, jotting down a word or two in between grading assignments. He tried to keep it professional, despite Dr. Geiszler's apparent disregard for such veneers, and upon reading it through with his afternoon tea, found himself entirely satisfied:
Dear Dr. Geiszler,
Thank you very much for your interest in my research. It flatters me to find someone not only willing to read it, but so able to see its relevance to future scientific endeavors. I rarely get to enjoy conversation about my particular area of interest, even among my peers. I will be sure to reciprocate.
If you would like to peruse my other work, I can send you a copy of my manuscript in progress. I have also enclosed a photo of myself. Quid pro quo ?
Best,
Dr. Hermann Gottlieb
Hermann sat back and read through the letter once more, wondered briefly if he had tried to hard with the Latin, then slipped it into the envelope before he could change his mind.
He didn't really expect another letter, or another, or another, but they came. They arrived as regularly as his weekly grade reports and department newsletters, each bursting with as much unmitigated enthusiasm as the one before it. Dr. Geiszler regaled him with stories about his father and uncle, both of whom apparently lived in a coastal house in Boston after having retired from their jobs. He explained every single dissertation he’d ever written, including the ones in progress -- the man wanted six PhDs, absolute insanity. He also asked Hermann things: what was his family like? Was his dad really Lars Gottlieb? How did he compensate for the lack of data regarding planar energy when compiling his article on dimensional physics? The man never stopped; he wrote as if he starved for information, for connection. Hermann, understanding this, always wrote back.
After a while, Hermann came to the conclusion that Dr. Geiszler knew the meaning of loneliness; after all, people with friends rarely decided to write letters by hand to total strangers. Hermann wondered if he, too, spent nights awake in his bed, staring at the ceiling with his hands clutching the sheets, wondering if anyone else in this wide world could see or hear him. At times, Hermann fixated on that image a touch too long, and had to run to the washroom for a quick splash of water to his face.
All of Hermann's silly ruminating would come to nothing, of course. He'd never meet Dr. Geiszler; when would they have cause? What could possibly bring them together, other than chance?
Chance, as it turned out, would arrive in the guise of catastrophe.
Catastrophe -- the only word strong enough to describe their first meeting. Hermann had entered Anchorage Shatterdome bursting at the seams with emotion: for one, his father had come to the Dome as well, his services requested for the construction of Jaegers to combat the new Kaiju threat. His father had requested him specifically for aid in coding and programming them, and of course he'd jumped at the opportunity to show him his capabilities. For two, perhaps even more thrilling than that, Dr. Newton Geiszler had also found himself deployed to Anchorage. At last, he would meet this brilliant, handsome genius he'd corresponded with for the past two years. At last, their friendship could truly thrive.
The first time Newton Geiszler laid eyes on Hermann, he laughed. Later, he'd insist that Hermann's facial expression had just caught him off guard, that he'd taken it far too personally, that he needed to “chill out”. Hermann knew better; over the years, he had come to intimately recognize when he'd been rejected.
From then on, the two men orbited each other like the moons of Mars, always threatening to collide or veer off course. While Dr. Geiszler studied his eyeballs and entrails, Hermann summoned all his powers of intellect to the task of programming the Jaegers, learning each machine front to back, inside and out. In them, he found a new purpose. Perhaps, in time, he'd even find himself in the cockpit; after all, his father had assured him that even an average human could pilot a Jaeger, so long as they could withstand the Drift. For now, he spent his time climbing the scaffolds towering alongside the Jaegers, testing lines of code and analyzing functionality, trying to ignore the familiar, gnawing ache of solitude growing inside him.
Then, when things felt as if they could not get any worse, he fell.
Hermann tried to piece together what happened as he laid in his hospital bed, mind hazy and body broken. He remembered climbing up to a panel, maybe forty feet up, with the mind to test its circuitry. He’d had a busy morning; the newest models had been experiencing a number of technical malfunctions, not to mention that he and his father had gotten into a spectacular argument only an hour before. A thick cord, coiled on the scaffold like a hungry constrictor, had caught his foot, and then… darkness, and terrible pain.
Hermann soon received the verdict from his physician: a broken pelvis, a femur nearly cracked in two, a fractured L-4 vertebrae. The entire left hemisphere of his body thrummed with pain, and the rest of him felt heavy, exhausted. What’s more, as the doctor explained the nature of the injuries, the extensive therapy and healing they would require, he realized that any hope of piloting a Jaeger had shattered along with his body. He’d had such dreams of flying his whole life, of experiencing that awesome connection between machine and man. Now here he lay, wings clipped.
He received a phone call from his father nearly three days after the accident, long enough for Hermann’s disappointment in his absence to curdle into rage. Lars had little to say, despite his son having nearly lost his life, but he spoke in a strange, shaky voice that Hermann could not quite read. When Hermann asked why he hadn’t visited, Lars said nothing. When he asked how long he’d have to stay in the hospital, Lars said nothing. It took Hermann little time to abandon all hope of breaching his father’s impenetrable walls, and when Lars wished him well, he simply hung up the phone and cursed himself for caring.
For hours, he would aimlessly stare, clutching his sheets and trying to lose himself in the geometry of the ceiling tiles above him. Time lost meaning. He knew he’d be in this bed for weeks, braced and girded for months, rehabilitated for years -- perhaps the rest of his life. Cards and gifts trickled in here and there, gifts from his brothers and sister in Germany, but the growing shrine of well-wishes only served to widen the gulf between himself and real life. He’d thought he’d understood loneliness; this dwarfed anything he’d ever experienced before.
Finally, on one of her regular shifts, a nurse brought Hermann’s dinner and with it, a folded up piece of paper. He almost missed it, shoved beneath his plate of uneaten food. He recognized the scrawl that cut across the front of the envelope immediately as the haphazard hand of Newton Geiszler. For a brief moment, he considered crumpling it up and cramming it into his empty pudding cup for the trash, but found himself opening it up all the same. He hadn't heard anything from hardly anyone since his accident, and truth be told, he craved a message from outside these four white walls.
He began to read, and felt his chest grow tight:
Herms,
Heard about your accident from one of the guys in J-Tech. Fuckin’ unbelievable. You could have died. Died , Hermann. That’s fucked up.
I guess you probably won't be piloting Jaegers any time soon, but for what it’s worth… I’d rather you be here than out there. After all, who else is gonna put up with my big mouth?
I’m glad you’re alive. I’m glad you’re gonna be okay. I've been pretty worried, I guess.
When you get out, drinks are on me.
Hang in there, dude--
Newt
Hermann’s eyes stung as he finished reading, folded up the letter, and slid it underneath his pillow, beside his head. Out of everyone in his bloody life, the one person who had tried to reach out to him had been Newton Geiszler. Hermann knew very well the last things he’d said to him had not been kind. He thought back to the letters they’d written, how he’d stashed them in his closet, hidden away in an old shoebox. For a moment, that small flame of excitement he’d felt, once guttered, now sprang back to life. His lips curled into a shaky smile, and for the first time in days, he fell asleep with ease. How strange, that the man he had least wanted to see had sent him the words he most desperately wanted to hear.
I'm glad you're alive.
When Hermann returned to the Shatterdome, nearly four months after his fall, he found all of his things removed to the K-Science department, along with his chalkboards and tea kettle and even his favorite pens. Things had returned to normal, and yet had totally changed. He could no longer walk without the assistance of a cane, which still made his arm and shoulder ache from the effort. When he walked through the halls, people who had once never paid him any mind now watched him with pity as he made his way past. He received his new brief from the Marshal -- to study and analyze Breach appearance patterns, and create projections for use in the event of future attacks: a task he’d already begun, months earlier, but had fallen by the wayside when nobody else quite understood the mathematics behind it. At least Hermann knew he was needed, something which did not quite take the bite out of his new way of life.
As soon as he stepped into the lab, he noticed something else that had not changed: Newton Geiszler. The man ran back and forth across the room, bumping into other scientists, leaking Kaiju fluids on the floor, screaming at the top of his lungs ridiculous things like “Move, I’m gay!” as if he didn’t have dozens of coworkers who fit that description. Hermann sighed and rolled his eyes, making his way to his desk. Preposterous man.
“Hey, Herms! Good to see ya, man!” Newton hollered and waved, splashing entrails on his assistant, who glared and wiped her glasses.
“Good morning, Newton. I see you’re as much a terror as I remember.” Hermann retorted. When his eyes fell on the monitor of his computer, he paused, swallowing the lump that rose in his throat. Newton had left dozens of Post-It notes tacked to the screen, most of them quick thoughts about his research jotted down, others things like pizza orders (why?), little doodles of Kaiju, well-wishes from other people. They were silly, they had made a mess on his workstation, and on his first day back! Yet he couldn't summon up the will to get angry. In fact, he didn't quite know how he felt: warm, perhaps a little sad, but mostly... he felt at home. For all of Newton's rough edges and obnoxious ways, he always knew what to say, even if he didn't say it. Hermann smiled in spite of himself.
“It’s good to be back.”