All right I'm back from my several month long No Excuse hiatus...except for like this last month and a half. I had excellent excuses then. Anyway, if you're still following me...I love you, you're awesome and amazing and I don't deserve you. If you're just following me, well you're awesome and amazing and I'm really bad at updating consistently no matter how much I say I will.

So, cheers! Enjoy!

000

"No." Hermann's voice was flat and unamused. Newt, predictably, started flailing. Hermann pointedly kept his face unimpressed and his gaze on Newt, ignoring that….that thing curled up behind Newt.

"But, Hermann! It followed me here! What was I supposed to do? Just leave her?"

"Yes, yes that was exactly what you were supposed to do, Newton. That thing is a killing machine and quite honestly, the fact that it hasn't eaten you yet –"Hermann paused as Newt's words caught up to him. "What do you mean 'her'?" Newt fidgeted, playing with the end of his sleeves, looking for all the world like a naughty schoolboy.

"Newton," Hermann said, because really, his colleague wouldn't be stupid enough to get that close to the damn thing. He closed his eyes, praying for patience from whoever was willing to grant it. "Please tell me didn't actually get close enough to sex it!"

"Her," Newt muttered petulantly. Yes, apparently his colleague was that stupid. Hermann wondered what he'd ever done to deserve this version of hell on earth. Other scientists didn't have to deal with this on a daily patience. "She's a 'her'." Hermann quite wanted to hit him.

"Did you name it, too?" His voice was only halfway scathing. Newt's face lit up. Of course. If he didn't already have a name picked out, he was working on one.

"I was thinking Be-"

"No," Hermann held up a hand. "No, don't tell me. How did you get it here?" No way was he calling it a 'she', under no circumstances. And now Newton has that fidgety look back and he looked almost pleased with himself.

"I found her during the days everyone was celebrating," he told Hermann. "Her side was all sliced open, see – " he pointed to the wound and Hermann humored him and looked. " – and she kinda came right up to me when I was in the streets and well, she looked all sad so I brought her back here. She really did just follow me home!"

"Yes, Newton," Hermann grit out. "But how?"

"Well….everyone was drunk," Newt said sheepishly. "I just…walked her here." Hermann spit out the drink of water he had just taken.

"You just…walked her – it into the Shatterdome?" Why was Hermann not surprised? And now Newt just looked so ridiculously pleased with himself and no, no that was a bad expression because there was nothing here that he should be pleased with!

"I took her through the empty corridors and erased the footage afterwards," Newt proclaimed happily and the thing behind him chirruped happily in response to Newt's happy tone. Hermann gaped at it and Newt turned around to coo at it, running his hands over its snout.

"Who else knows it's here?" He demanded. Newt glared at him.

"You and I are the only ones who know she is here," he answered, putting an emphasis on the pronoun. And now he had the grace to look sheepish. "You weren't actually supposed to know either. I was gonna set her up in that little cavern through there before you got back." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the large bay door. Newton had begged that his lab be in this room when they first started up here and he discovered it wasn't in use. It was an old storage room that used to be used for Jaeger parts. The bay door was to make transportation of the parts easier and opened straight into the ocean. Considering his line of work and the parts he was dealing with, Pentecost hadn't argued with him. It kept the smell well away from everyone else.

"Well, it's just as well I'm here," Hermann scowled. "You no doubt would've bumbled it up somehow. All right, what were you thinking for her name?" Newt blinked.

"What, really?" He asked in disbelief.

"Yes, you imbecile! You don't honestly think you're going to be able to keep a baby Kaiju hidden for long by yourself, do you?" Hermann pointed at him. "I will help you under the condition you tell Marshall Pentecost within the next month, while it's still a baby and you can convince him it can be trained. Now her name, what were you thinking?" Newt looked like Christmas had come early.

"Well, like I was saying earlier I was thinking Bea-"

"No. Hilda."

"But – "

"Hilda." Newt grinned, ecstatic and conceded. Good. If this thing was going to be here, it was going to have a proper German name.

"I'm not cleaning up after her," Hermann told him, pointing his cane for emphasis. Newt waved a hand dismissively.

"Taken care of." Hermann didn't ask how, he didn't care, as long as it wasn't him doing the cleaning up. The two men looked over at Hilda, who was watching Newt with an expression of adoration (or as close to one as a Kaiju could have, anyway) on her face.

Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.