A/N: This is kinda au-is in that it follows the movie canon, and select parts of book canon. Namely, Vanessa exists and she and Hermann dated, but they never got married, etc. They broke up before the start of the fic. Crossposted to ao3. The title comes from the song "You're All I Have" by Snow Patrol.

It wasn't like their relationship had really been terrible. Strained, maybe, towards the end, but not really bad. After they'd broken up, Hermann hadn't really tried to keep in touch, mostly because he was trying to save the world and he, quite honestly and with no malice, had better things to do. He'd hardly even said a word to any of his family through most of his work with the PPDC, especially with his father – whose relationship with Hermann could most certainly be called strained, so it was hardly a surprise that he didn't keep in touch with his ex-girlfriend. Even if she was a reasonably good friend.

Over time, Hermann and Vanessa had just realized that they just didn't work out – not the way they wanted to – she didn't want him working on the Jaeger Program, hoping he could work on something safer and closer to home, and that was only the tipping point. She had tried to be supportive, and really it wouldn't have bothered Hermann that much if not for the fact that he wasn't quite sure he really loved her in that way, the right way, like a boyfriend – which was all he was to her at that point – rather than as simply a close friend.

So when he'd received a call about her, he wasn't quite sure why. They hadn't been together for about nine months now, and if anything it made little sense for him to get a call from Karla about her at any rate.

Which, of course, didn't lessen the impact at all when she bluntly told him that Vanessa was dead.

"I – what?" Hermann had stuttered out. Just because they weren't dating anymore didn't mean he didn't care about her; even if it had, this didn't make sense. She was in Germany, far away from the Pacific area and any Kaiju, and anyway the breach had already been down for a week at this point. Out of all the times and places that she could have died, that was not the one he would have expected.

"-in childbirth" Hermann must have missed the beginning of Karla's sentence.

"Wait, can you repeat that? Childbirth? I didn't even know she was married, much less pregnant!" Hermann said, not nearly as eloquent as he normally was. Vanessa had been his friend, after all, even if they were no longer intimate, and her death wasn't something he'd been prepared for. There was silence on the line for a moment.

"Hermann..." Karla murmured, "Did you really not know she was pregnant?"

"No, I didn't – we haven't even spoken for months," Hermann started, "why does that even matter though? How could she have died in childbirth?"

"She had multiple complications which...well, she shouldn't have died, not with the technology that the hospital had, but everything seemed to fail and...well, it just wasn't a good situation all around" Karla said carefully.

"I'd say it wasn't!" Hermann said, his voice cracking for a moment rather embarrassingly. Or at least it would have been if he'd really cared at this moment.

"But Hermann, there's something else – did you honestly not know she was pregnant?"

"No, I didn't, why in all the world is that what bothers you? Like I said, I didn't even know that she'd been married, we've only been apart for...nine..." Hermann trailed off for a moment. There was silence on the line for a moment, before:

"Scheiße!" Herman said, rather an understatement.

"You..." Karla started to say something, but stopped.

"I suppose I know why it is important to call me, now," Hermann said, trying to keep calm.

"Yeah, it was..." Karla said, then quickly launched into her explanation, "Nobody knew who the father was except for Vanessa's mother, apparently, and Vanessa had planned on keeping to child and taking care of her on her own. When she died it raised the question of who would take care of her; Vanessa's parents would have taken her, but their health is flagging enough that they would not be able to adequately take care of her. So..."

"It has fallen to me," Hermann stated, "I'll take care of her, then."

"I – Hermann..." Karla started.

"It's fine, Karla. I can do it. My work here is over, I see no reason why I shouldn't take care of her. I am her father, after all. I should probably pack up right now."

"Yes, please. As quickly as possible," Karla said. "Love you, Hermann."

"Love you too, Karla."

The phone clicked off and Hermann sat in his room quietly for a moment, trying to take it in. He was a father now, a single father, of a child he hadn't even known existed until minutes ago.

He could do this. Of course he could.

…

"Hermann? What are you doing?" Newt asked as soon as he walked into their shared space. Hermann was quickly but neatly throwing the things on his side of the room into various boxes.

"Packing, what does it look like?" Hermann responded curtly. Newt continued to stand in the doorway.

"Where on earth are you going?" Newt said incredulously.

"Home, of course," Hermann responded, reordering stacks of papers that likely had already been ordered three times already.

"Home? And where is that, when you've been moving from shatterdome to shatterdome for the last, what ten years?"

"Germany. To my family," Hermann said, then looked up for the first time since Newt had walked into the room, "I have to take care of my- my daughter."

If Newt had been drinking something, he surely would have done a spit take. "Your what?"

"Daughter," Hermann said, almost as if the idea was as foreign to him as it was to Newt.

"You have a..."

"As of the few days ago, yes, I do apparently have a daughter," Hermann said, stopping his packing to fully look at Newt and lean heavily on his cane. Newt could tell he was stressed right now, though a different kind of stress than he was used to seeing on Hermann's face. This wasn't stress caused by monsters attacking from deep beneath the ocean – this was some other monster that Hermann had never dealt with and had no idea how to deal with.

"How did you not know about that until just now?" Newt asked, trying for once not to be too annoying to Hermann, who was obviously not having it right now; he couldn't, however, help the fact that he was curious as all hell to know how this situation arose.

Hermann took a deep breath, and to Newt's surprise actually started to explain it to him, "Do you remember Vanessa?"

"Uh, your ex? You two split up a while ago didn't you?"

"Yes, we did. Nine months, actually. Apparently, she was pregnant with my child and didn't feel the need to tell me."

"And now she wants you to drop everything and come home to help her raise her? That-"

Hermann stopped Newt before he could shove his foot too far in mouth. "Vanessa is dead"

"She – dead?" Newt spluttered, "How?"

"Childbirth." Hermann said, leaving it at that. While Newt was confused as to how that could even be a cause of death at this point in time, he left it alone as well.

"So what are you gonna do, then?" Newt said, leaving the door way and walking across into Hermann's side of the room. Since he currently had no kaiju guts dripping from him, Hermann didn't say anything about it. He didn't really have the energy in him to get mad at Newt walking to a reasonable talking distance, anyway. On a normal day, he might have fussed about him leaning against Hermann's desk, but today was most certainly not a normal day, so he let that pass too. And that did everything to inform Newt of just how much this all rattled Hermann.

"I'm going to go home and collect my daughter from the hospital. And then..." Hermann trailed off, "And then I really don't know."

"You could accept one of the billions of colleges that are offering you a job," Newt suggested.

The look Hermann gave him was withering. "I can't take a job like that if I'm trying to take care of a daughter all on my own."

"Sure you can!" Newt said, "That's hardly an issue! You need some way to support yourself, and it's not as if you couldn't leave her in daycare or something like that at times."

"Newton, really? At her age?"

"Okay, not immediately, but..." Newt said, looking away from Hermann. He then proceeded to look at everything in the room except for Hermann's face, though it was obvious he still had something to say. It wasn't like this was a weird offer, they'd been around each other for so long and Hermann knew him at this point – but that might be a reason for him not to want to take the offer, him knowing Newt, knowing what he was like. But as soon as the idea had come to Newt, he knew that he personally wanted nothing more than to follow it through. Love, he could tell himself, made one want to do crazy things. Plus, Newt had always liked kids.

"Do you have something to say?" Hermann asked, raising an eyebrow, his glasses falling down his nose a bit, which only served to fluster Newt yet more.

"Uh, yeah...okay, what if you and I took a job at the same university – I know you and I have some repeat offers, I've seen some of the mail you've gotten – don't look at me like that, you hardly make an effort to hide it – and I could help you take care of your daughter?"

It came out sounding more like a question than a suggestion, but Newt was so nervous about the offer that it probably made sense that he'd ask rather than suggest. Hermann, for his part, didn't say a word about it for probably a full minute, not that Newt was counting it out.

He was.

Eventually Hermann sighed.

"Newton..." he started to say, and Newt braced himself for Hermann telling him that they should separate or give each other space or something like that. They had spent an awful lot of time around each other the past few years, and for a pair who couldn't go for too long without yelling at each other, it was probably for the best. Even if the drift had changed things a bit – less yelling, more Newt staring at Hermann like a pining teenager and hoping that Hermann didn't notice. Point was, Newt wanted to stay near Hermann, couldn't imagine being anywhere other than with him, even if one added a baby to the picture, but he also knew that it was likely Hermann didn't feel the same and was just about to reject Newt's offer while Newt tried not to have a panic attack at the thought. He thought over where he'd left his pills then promptly forgot, knowing he'd rather not deal with them.

Hermann didn't. "Newton, are you really offering that to me?"

"Well, yeah, of course I am! I mean, you and I have shared the same lab since forever, I don't know what I'd do without you nearby to scream at me when I make a mess of something. Honestly, I wouldn't -" Newt probably would have been rambling on like that for a while if not for the fact that Hermann stopped him.

"I don't mean sticking together. I had always assumed that was what we would do, until all of this came up," Hermann responded, and that alone made Newt's heart jump, "What I meant to ask was if you really wanted to help me take care of her."

"I – yes, of course I did," Newt said with a big dorky smile, "I've never been too good with adults, but I've been told that I do well with kids. I mean, you could probably come to your own conclusions on that but I'd hate to leave you to take care of her all on your own when you never expected to be put into this situation in the first place."

"Thank you, Newton. Newt," Hermann said, and the addition of his nickname made him smile again.

"No problem," Newt said, fighting the urge to hug him. Even though they had hugged recently, and the drift had certainly brought them closer, he respected that Hermann would probably rather not touch him, or really anyone. Then, to slightly change the subject he simply said, "How about MIT?"

"MIT?" Hermann asked, his eyebrow raised.

"We both have job offers from them, how about we take MIT?"

"How do you – never mind," Hermann said with an ever so slight sigh. Then his mouth twitched into a vague semblance of a smile. "I had suspected that we might end up there, when I saw my offer from them. I can hardly say it would be an undesirable position."

"MIT then?" Newt asked hopefully.

"Yes, that sounds...good. I'll let them know that I've accepted their position soon. "

"And so you're gonna go on to Germany for a while, and then meet up with me at MIT?" Newt continued, and Hermann started back into his packing.

"Yes, I suppose that is what we'll do."

"Sounds great!" Newt said, giving in to his desire to touch Hermann in some way and letting himself pat Hermann on the back quickly before moving over to his side of the room to start attempting to tidy it up so that it could be packed up.

Newt generally tried to avoid staring at Hermann, but he did, a couple of times, have to give in. At least once he noticed Hermann smiling, which pretty much made his day.

…

"Do you know what time it is here?" Newt asked Hermann, his point made moot by fact that Hermann could easily see he was still alert and obviously hadn't been woken up by the call. Hermann was more than aware of Newt's odd sleep schedule. Or lack of one.

"Yes, and I also knew that I'd be more likely to get you at one in the morning than at some other point during the day," Hermann said. Newt appeared to be in his room, at least, sitting on his bed, though his clothes suggested that he hadn't been there long either.

"Touche," Newt said with a laugh. "So, not even gone a day and already wanting to see my face? I'm flattered."

"Don't be," Hermann said, "I could have just as easily called you. I skyped you since I thought you might actually want to see my daughter."

"Ah!" Newt exclaimed, then nodded, "Yeah, I do! Wait, are you still in the hospital?"

"I only just got here, and it's not even that late. There's still a bit of paperwork to do and I still need to get things settled."

Newt had gotten distracted partway through Hermann's explanation when he noticed that he was holding a carefully folded blanket with what appeared to be a baby in it. Hermann seemed to notice what had caught Newt's attention and held her up so that he could better see her. Her skin tone was darker than both Hermann and Newt's, though not that jarringly different. On the top of her head there was already a shock of wavy dark brown hair.

"Wow, look at all that hair she already has," Newt said. Hermann smiled.

"That's what I thought too."

"Huh, I just realized I don't even know what her name is," Newt commented, looking back up at Hermann. Hermann, for his part, looked a bit embarrassed at this.

"Well, that's because she doesn't have a name yet."

"She doesn't have a name yet?" Newt asked, trying to keep his voice down if only for the sake of the bundle that Hermann currently cradled. He'd hate to wake her up when she was currently sleeping so peacefully; that would hardly be a wonderful start to their relationship.

"Well, Vanessa couldn't name her, and I have only just gotten here and I certainly hadn't named her before now so, no, she doesn't have a name," Hermann said, looking down at her, "and that's why I called, really. I'm at a loss as to what to name her."

"And you wanted my help?" the look in Newt's eyes when he realized what Hermann was implying was wonderful, actually, quite adorable, and nearly took his breath away. Hermann looked over at something behind the computer screen in an attempt to hide his embarrassment.

"Only so long as you treat this seriously, and actually give me real names, not something like 'Trespasser' or some other rubbish," Hermann said, trying to save himself from seeming too keen on Newt's help.

"Dude, this is a baby, not a kaiju, I understand the difference," Newt said with a laugh.

"I wouldn't know," Hermann responded, then allowed Newt to look thoughtful. They had allowed him a room in the hospital for the moment, though the nurses that came in every once in while to check on the baby were a little bit unsettled by his choice of skype mate, even if by now they were recognizable enough as the two scientists who helped save the world; they'd been in at least a few press conferences, though not nearly as many as Mako, Raleigh or Marshall Hansen.

Quite frankly, he was also a little unsettled by his choice in friend, but at this point he couldn't find himself anywhere else.

"How about you name her after a scientist?" Newt suggested. Hermann raised his eyebrow in response.

"A scientist?" Hermann said.

"Yeah, like how I'm named Newton and you're Hermann? Seems to me to be a pretty solid idea," Newt said, and Hermann couldn't really say it was a bad idea.

"Like?" Hermann prompted, and Newton shot back "Marie? You know, like Marie Curie?"

It wasn't a bad idea, again, but... "I don't know..."

Newt looked thoughtful for a moment, much longer than Hermann was used to him looking thoughtful. That spoke volumes to how serious Newt was being about this, which made Hermann happy.

"How about Elise? You could call her Lise, like Lise Meitner," Newt suggested, and Hermann found himself liking the name – though he felt it weird to be so quick to attach himself to a name, considering.

"She could be named after a physicist like her daddy," Newt said, wiggling his eyebrows at him, and Hermann tried not to get annoyed at him, since he was genuinely trying to be helpful.

"It's a good name..." Hermann admitted, then smiled at Newt. "I think it fits."

Newt's entire face broke into a grin, if that was even possible.

"Awesome," he said, "Is that what you're gonna go with?"

"I think so," Hermann said, suddenly happy with the name that Newt had suggested and the fact that the bundle in his arms finally had a name to herself.

The two of them were silent for a moment. That moment grew a bit too long for Hermann's taste – the two of them were comfortable, and that wasn't what bothered him. It was how happy it made him, the thought that Newt was so into the idea of helping him out with this, and the fact that Newton Geiszler had just named his child and he suddenly found himself very skittish.

"Well, it is late for you, and though I know you'll probably be awake for another three hours, I might as well go and let you get to that," Hermann said with an awkward cough.

"Ahh yeah, gotta get back to watching this movie," Newt responded.

"Good night," Hermann said quietly, and Newt grinned.

"Good night, Herms," Newt said before clicking the chat closed. Hermann felt some vague annoyance that he'd waited till the very end to call him by such a stupid name, so that he wouldn't have the time to tell him off for it. But that was somewhat overpowered by a sense of affection for the other man which – dear lord, Hermann really didn't want to have to think about that.

He closed the computer and looked down at Elise, who had managed to sleep through the entire exchange.

This might take some time to get used to.

…

The drift had been an interesting experience, to say the least. Hermann hadn't been much able to tell his own memories from Newt's while he was in it, though the kaiju mind had been rather easy to tell apart from their memories. The information he'd gotten from Newt had been minimal, at best, and he could imagine that it was the same way for Newt.

From Newt he'd mostly gotten images of his childhood, of his father and uncle, some memories of school, a few from his love life – all of them had been so short that Hermann himself wouldn't be able to place them without a better frame of reference. He'd also gotten a sense of affection for Hermann himself, one that completely went again the idea one would get from all of their bickering. It hadn't been that surprising to him, once he thought about it, mostly because he'd always known that they'd been friends in some subtly way, and had felt a similar affection back.

They hadn't really talked much about the drift, because, really, what was there to say? They'd been more openly friendly since the drift, but that was to be expected. But Hermann imagined it hadn't changed much; Newt probably would have offered to help Hermann out before the drift.

When the plane touched down in Boston's airport, Hermann was put through the horrifying task of making his way through the airport with luggage and a baby, all while having to use his cane. It absolutely dreadful and he was one of the last stragglers out of the plane, even with the help given to him from one of the flight attendants.

He was surprised at how quickly Newt found him once he was off the plane.

"Gimme something to carry," Newt said, offering his arms out, noticing the juggling act that Hermann was attempting, listing to to the side and trying not to balance too much of his weight onto his cane. His leg had shooting pains going all up it, and he was more than happy to hand something to Newt. After thinking about it for a moment, Hermann passed off his luggage to Newt and lifted Elise a little bit more comfortably. Newt lingered on her for a moment before they were off, to where Newt had parked the car. They walked quickly, though as usual Newt was perfectly aware of how fast was reasonable to expect from Hermann.

When they were finally back to the apartment that he and Newt shared Newt let them in as quickly as he could and allowed Hermann to go in first, himself handling most of the luggage.

For her part, Elise hadn't cried the entire time. Once they were in the apartment Newt showed Hermann around the place. It was small, as could be expected from an apartment in a large city; they had what appeared to serve as both the kitchen and the living room, with three doors in the hallway branching off from that. One was a bathroom and the other two were bedrooms. One of the bedrooms had a crib already in it.

"I put the crib in that room because I've been sleeping in the other room, but if you wanna switch rooms I'm fine," Newt told him, standing in the hallway that separated the rooms from each other, "I don't have any sort of attachment to the one I'm already in, if there's some reason you'd prefer one to the other."

"This is fine," Hermann responded.

"Good, now I dunno about you but I'm starving. We could order Chinese if you want, there's this really good place just a little ways away," Newt offered, pulling out his phone before Hermann even had a chance to give Newt an affirmative answer.

"I haven't even told you what I want, and I've hardly even been home for two minutes," Hermann said, "Though I am hungry. Did you get the stuff for Elise that I told you to get?"

"It's in the fridge," Newt motioned towards the kitchen, "though I don't really think she's hungry yet. You'll know when she's ready."

"Well, I just needed to know that we were ready for when she was hungry," Hermann responded quickly, "Go ahead and order, just don't get anything too disgusting."

"Alright!" Newt said, moving over to flop on the couch and dial the number. Hermann sat himself down at the other end of the couch, only to quickly find Newt's feet in his lap.

"Newt, really?" Hermann said as the phone rang. Newt just grinned at him and shifted so that he was sitting upright. The couch was the only furniture in the living room area, though there was a small table and two chairs next to where the kitchen, and baby chair scooted into the corner away from the living room.

While Newt made the call Elise woke up for the first time since they were off the plane and promptly started to cry. Hermann started looking frantically through his pockets for where her pacifier was, holding it towards her when he finally found it. It seemed to work up to its name as she quickly set about to sucking at the thing placed in her mouth. Hermann started to get up for her milk, imagining that was what the outburst was about.

"Hey."

Hermann turned to see that Newt had finished with the call.

"Yes?" Hermann responded.

"D'you think I could, uh, hold her?" Newt asked, looking a bit bashful. Hermann's mouth twitched into what he knew was the beginning of a smile.

"If you're careful," Hermann said, already shifting her over into Newt's arms and hoping against hope that she wouldn't start bawling like the first time she'd been handed to him.

She didn't.

The contrast between Newt's tattooed arms and the blanket that she was swaddled in was amazing. What was even more amazing was how Newt changed; it wasn't that he was different, but more so that he just seemed more peaceful. And amazingly, he seemed to have some idea what he was doing. Or he was lucky. Hermann thought it was probably the latter.

The pacifier fell out of her mouth, as it was wont to do, and Newt shifted to pick it up off the ground. Elise looked about ready to start crying again, but then Newt started to rock her back and forth, and she stopped, as if mesmerized by his face bobbing through her vision. Hermann shifted out of his seat carefully, his cane muffled by the carpet that filled most of the apartment.

As Hermann pulled one of the many formula bottles Hermann has asked Newt to get. As he was preparing it to give to Elise, he heard what sounded like singing coming from Newt. It was very quiet, but it traveled through the quiet of their apartment easily. It was a lullaby, in German and Hermann could imagine that Newt had probably had it sung to himself to get him to quiet down as a baby as well.

Hermann had heard Newt sing before. This was different. All the times before it had been songs from pop culture that Newt had no interest in singing well; it was the way he sung this lullaby that reminded Hermann that Newt had one time been in a band, back in college. Not because it was the same type of song, but because he actually seemed to care about what he was singing, rather than singing out of habit or because it was just the thing he did when he had nothing else to do.

About that moment was when Hermann realized that he, too, was staring as if he was mesmerized. At the same time, Newt's lullaby came to an end, and he suddenly seemed to become self conscious.

"Uh, sorry about that," Newt muttered, "I just thought that might keep her a bit calmer."

"No need to apologize, it seems to have worked," Hermann said brusquely, trying to pretend he didn't notice that Newt was blushing now, "If it works that well every time you might be singing many more lullabies."

The moment would have gotten much more awkward if not for the doorbell ringing at that moment.

"Here," Newt said, passing Elise back to Hermann as he got up to get the food. Hermann attempted to keep up the rocking in the same way that Newt had, not wanting to wake her up right after she'd gotten to sleep. Newt was back soon.

"Food!" he said cheerfully.

…

While Hermann had initially been against the idea of daycare, they couldn't help it when they sometimes had lectures that overlapped with each other. So Hermann had reluctantly allowed for brief daycare stays when they both had work. Newt hardly thought it would scar her to have to be away from them for two hours every week or so.

On one of these days when they were both scheduled to teach, it was snowing something awful, though snowing wasn't really the right word for it, that's not nearly powerful enough. Worse yet, but the daycare they usually used was short staffed because some of the workers had caught the flu. Newt tried not to worry about it as he lectured his students, knowing that with finals coming up the students actually cared about what he was saying for once.

So of course part way through the lecture his phone went off. He started momentarily, before answering it; anyone who called him would likely know what his schedule is, so it must be important enough to warrant him answering. He wandered over to the side of the room with a motion of apology to the students.

"Hello?" he answered.

"Dr. Geiszler?" the voice on the line asked.

"Yeah, that's me. What's up? I'm in the middle of a lecture, so..." Newt said.

"Oh, well, we're very sorry for the inconvenience. This is the daycare center – we, uh, we tried calling Dr. Gottlieb and he didn't respond, so you were the second contact..." of course Hermann wouldn't answer his phone, he always keeps his off when he's lecturing. But then Newt realized that the daycare would only call if something was wrong.

"Oh! Is something wrong?"

"Well, nothing catastrophic, no. We're just having to shut down for the day. We're so short staffed and most of the workers work further away from the campus and can't know that they'll get home thanks to the storm, so we were hoping that all of the parents could come pick their child up," the woman on the other side of the line rambled. While he had a momentary shock when he realized he was being referred to as Elise's parent, he moved past it. He knew his students would prefer him to keep talking, but he also needed to go get Elise.

"Okay, I'll be there as soon as possible," Newt responded, then hung up before she could respond. He walked back up the the center of the room.

"I'm sorry about that. I really need to leave for a bit, but I can be back – if anyone wants to hear the rest of the lecture, I'll be back in about thirty minutes. So, sit tight if you care about your grade, and go on out if you don't give a shit," Newt said, grappling his coat on as he said it. Most of the room stayed in their seats, settling in to talk to their neighbors or play on their phone until he got back.

Luckily for Newt the daycare center was a short walk for him. The storm seemed to have slowed, if only for a moment, and he hoped it lasted through to when he was had gotten Elise back to class. He left Hermann a message on his phone for when he finished his lecture, telling him that he had Elise and to just come by the lecture hall and pick her up when he was finished, since Newt's lecture would probably last longer than Hermann's at this point.

The woman handed Elise off to him with several apologies and Newt noticed how the center seemed like a ghost town. Most of the children must have already been picked up by now, and many of the staff appeared to have already left.

"It's fine, it's fine. I really need to go now," Newt said, wanting to get moving before the storm started back up. The woman stopped talking and nodded her head vigorously.

Again, luckily for Newt, the storm managed to stay slightly less forceful while he transported the crying Elise to the lecture hall. The moment he stepped into the hall, the storm started back up, possibly twice as hard as before.

"Thank god," he muttered, before turning his attention to the crying Elise, whose pacifier had fallen from her mouth into her hood during the walk. He put her pacifier back in, which managed to get her crying to abate for a while. He wandered back into the lecture hall, pulling both his and Elise's coats off while he walked into the room. The students quieted down once they noticed him enter the room, though there was a resurgence of whispers once they noticed what he was carrying. Once the two of them were better dressed for the heated lecture hall and Elise's things placed under Newt's desk he started back into his lecture right from where he'd left off, carrying Elise back and forth with him as he gestured to the board and attempted to rock Elise without jostling her too much.

Elise, probably in order to make Newt happy, kept quiet for most of the lecture, except for two outbursts when she dropped her pacifier. The students, for their part, listened attentively and realized that he was doing this for them and would probably rather not be having to do this at all.

After about thirty more minutes past when Newt had gotten back with Elise Hermann walked into the room, as quickly as his cane allowed him to do comfortably. Newt paused his lecture momentarily as he shifted Elise into Hermann's arms and pointed out where her stuff was stashed. He nodded to him, with a quiet "thank you" and then he was out of the room and Newt continued on with his lecture.

Newt was glad when the lecture was finally over and he could make his own trip back to their apartment. Hermann was sitting in the living room, reading and rocking Elise in her rocker next to the couch. He looked up when Newt entered the room.

"It's freezing out there," Newt said, an understatement.

"Oh really?" Hermann responded, never stopping the rocking motion.

"Yes really," Newt responded, sitting down next to Hermann once he had pulled off his snow covered outer layers of clothes. There was a beat, then Newt said, "I didn't realize you'd put me down as the second contact for Lise."

"Would you prefer to be the first contact?" Hermann asked, not looking up from his book, though he obviously wasn't reading it at this point.

"That's not what I meant. I didn't realize I was a contact at all," Newt said.

"And why wouldn't you be? If they can't reach me, then maybe they can reach you. You are helping me with her, anyway," Hermann responded. Newt smiled.

"I dunno, I guess I just didn't think about it," Newt said, reclining a bit on the couch. He closed his eyes. "They referred to me as Lise's parent."

Newt couldn't see if Hermann reacted with his eyes closed, but his voice was calm when he responded, "You are the second contact. It's not an unreasonable assumption to make."

"Just thought it was funny," Newt responded, trying to save himself.

"Funny?" Hermann responded, almost as if he had been offended by what Newt had said.

"Yeah?" Newt responded, confused now. He opened his eyes and looked over at Hermann, who was scrutinizing him. Newt turned pink. "If you think I meant to imply that the idea of us being parents is funny, that's not what I meant."

"Of course that's not what I thought, Newton," Hermann responded, looking over at Elise. Newt snorted at the use of his full name.

"That's totally what you thought," Newt said, looking up at the ceiling, "and now you're mad."

"Oh?" Hermann responded, "And why would I be mad?"

"Because I'm implying that the idea of you being a parent is funny," Newt responded, not completely believing what he said, rather saying that as an attempt to cover his butt and fend off some embarrassment.

Hermann responded by laughing, which was honestly one of the most confusing reactions Newt could have expected.

"Yes, of course. That's why I'd be mad," Hermann said, sarcasm in his voice. Newt let the issue drop. He stood up and walked over to where Elise was sitting in her rocker. She was, surprisingly, not asleep, but calmly awake.

"What's up, Lise? Was today too cold for you, because it definitely was for me," Newt said conversationally, as if he expected her to respond. Her response was to laugh and hold her arms up at him as if she wanted to be picked up. Newt was more than happy to oblige, and picked her up and started to make faces at her, which served to make her laugh more. He then spun around the still mostly empty living room with Elise, all the while pulling faces.

Newt loved the moments when he could see Hermann's expression while he made faces at Elise. Mostly because he could pretend that the affection was for him and not Elise, the way he was actually smiling at them like he'd want nothing more than for Newt to actually be Elise's parent.

It was moments like that that Newt lived for.

…

"Here's your salad," Newt said, sitting the food down in front of Hermann with one motion; his other hand was full of the sandwich that he had picked up for himself. Hermann nodded his thanks, but didn't look up from the stack of papers in front of him, and the various calculations that were spread out on the table. Thinking better of using the table himself, he turned and ate his sandwich over the kitchen counter. Once he had finished and turned around, he could see that Hermann had begun to pick at the salad with one hand, but was still intent on the work in front of him.

"Where's Lise?" Newt asked, and Hermann motioned to the rocker in the living room. Newt wandered in there and picked up a comic book to read. He really wasn't in the mood for work right now, and Hermann seemed intent enough on his own work for the both of them. He settled down on the couch next to Elise and started to read.

A few minutes later Elise started to fuss, not crying but definitely getting close to it. Newt reached over to start rocking her, but it didn't seem to do much good. He looked over to Hermann, who looked annoyed but was also looking over at them every once in a while, as if wondering if he should come over there and try to quiet her down. So Newt decided to scoop her up and take her back into his room, to make her and Hermann happy. Hermann gave him a look of thanks as he closed the door behind him.

Hermann spent the next hour or two – he lost track of time – muttering about the equations in front of him and the computer that was set up next to them. His only movement was to scratch something onto the paper, type something into the computer or to push his glasses back up on his nose.

Finally, though, he got to the point where he was satisfied with what he'd done. He hadn't heard from either Newt or Elise since Newt had brought her back to her room, and thought now would be a good time to check up on them, as he shut down the computer and shuffled the papers into orderly piles that he then placed into his work bag.

He pushed the door open slowly and quietly, in case Elise was asleep. Once the door was open he picked his way into the messier room, strewn with dirty clothes and a few books, as well as a couple toys of Elise's. Newt didn't seem to notice Hermann's entrance into the room.

Newt appeared to be reading to Elise, who was sitting in his lap so that she could see the pictures. Elise looked like she was asleep, but she was a tricky child sometimes, and you couldn't really tell if she was completely asleep. So Newt kept on reading the book, some sort of godawful picture book about kaiju that Newt had somehow managed to find somewhere.

Hermann stood quietly, listening as Newt continued to read the book, which sounded like both an adventure story, as well as describing characteristics of the various kaiju. Only Newt could have found something as completely silly as this book.

But as Hermann stood there, it hit him just how good Newt was with children. At least Elise. It was probably because he was himself a child at the best of times. What was normally an annoying habit of never stopping his movement turned into a way to lull Elise to sleep; his tendency to talk about kaiju for hours simply made Elise laugh; and his tattoos had caught her eye as soon as she had the presence of mind to notice them. And he legitimately enjoyed playing with her. He never would have guessed it before, but he actually was good with kids.

And Newt's comments on how funny it was, the idea of the two of them being parents, they caught his attention to the point of distraction. They were already raising his daughter together. And Hermann, as much as he'd tried not to think about it lately, had wanted for a long time to kiss the other man.

Well. More than just kiss.

But that all hit him suddenly as he listened to Newt finish up the story.

Damn, Hermann loved Newt. Had there ever been a time when he didn't?

Newt finished the book and closed it, noticing Hermann standing near the door and smiling at Hermann, completely unaware of Hermann's thought process at the moment.

"Did you enjoy story time?" Newt joked, putting the book down on the bed and standing up. Part of the mess of Newt's room could be chalked up to Elise, since most of it were toys or books that Newt hadn't put up when she'd dropped them. Newt was careful not to move Elise too much, for fear that she'd wake up.

"Greatly," Hermann said lightly. Newt smiled at him. "Only you'd be able to find a children's picture book on kaiju."

"Oh no, there are plenty of them. It's pretty much a genre at this point," Newt said, moving to stand in front of Hermann. Hermann didn't really know what to say to Newt then, standing there and holding Elise with such care and then Hermann was pressing a kiss to Newt's lips, softly and moving away quickly, mindful of Elise in between them.

"Oh." Newt said. "Didn't realize you'd like the book that much. Should I read it more often?"

Hermann started to laugh, quietly. Newt looked down at Elise and then exited the room, returned soon afterward without Elise.

"I thought it'd be better if we let her sleep without us talking over her," Newt said, looking Hermann in the eyes. After he said that, he cautiously stretched up and met Hermann's lips with another kiss, this one not as short as before. Hermann's arms wrapped around Newt's waist and Newt threw his arms around Hermann's neck, pulling him in for the kiss. When they eventually found it pertinent to separate for air, Newt said into Hermann's neck, "that was a bit unexpected."

"Newt, how was that unexpected in the least? You've been helping me raise my child for the past ten months; we've pretty much been married the whole time," Hermann responded, and Newt started to laugh into his neck, the puffs of his breath ghosting along Hermann's neck and giving him goosebumps.

"I wish you would have clued me in on that. Maybe a kiss or two earlier would have been nice," Newt said, slightly muffled by being pressed up against Hermann's neck. The movement of his lips against Hermann's neck caused a flush to go over his cheeks.

"Oh really? Was not the idea of us being parents funny at one point?" Hermann asked pointedly, prompting another laugh from Newt, no less pleasant that the last one. Newt pulled his head away from Hermann's neck so that he could Hermann in the eyes.

"First off, I knew you were mad about that! And second off, dude, I've been in love with you since – well, since I can remember, really," Newt said, then seemed to realize what he'd said. "I mean, I dunno if me saying that is moving fast but you did say we've been practically married for almost the past year, so I d-" Hermann kissed Newt again, cutting off his embarrassed rambling, dropping his cane on the floor with inattention and leaning onto Newt with the kiss.

"I love you too," Hermann responded. Newt's eyes widened a bit.

"I shouldn't be surprised since you've just been sucking my face off but I am," Newt said, and Hermann swatted at Newt's arm.

"I haven't been sucking your face off," Hermann said incredulously, a blush apparent on his face.

"Kinda have been," Newt said with a cocky grin, which definitely made Hermann want to wipe it off his face.

"Oh really?" Hermann asked, and went in for another kiss, backing Newt up against the wall as he did. There was a dull thud as both of them leaned their weight onto the door. Newt moaned when Hermann pushed his mouth against Newt's this time. Once he'd gotten over the surprise of Hermann being so forceful, he responded in kind.

At some point during this the two started to hear a noise, and Newt quickly disentangled himself from Hermann to realize that it was Elise, who had woken up and was presumably upset at being alone in the other room. Newt extricated himself from Hermann to go calm her, turning around and leaving a peck on his mouth before rushing into the other room.

Hermann, meanwhile, was a bit in shock. Firstly, at the fact that they had finally kissed, and secondly, by the fact that he almost didn't mind Elise interrupting them to see that Newt was more than willing to go take care of her. He was left leaning heavily against the wall, staring into the other room, where Newt was currently singing a lullaby to Elise.

…

"So, none of the possible babysitters are gonna work out, but we can still order food and watch a movie?" Newt said after hanging up the phone. Hermann looked up from where had been playing with Elise and her dolls.

"We'll have to get Lise to bed first," Hermann said, looking down at the little bundle of energy who had grown bored of Hermann and the dolls strewn about the room and had taken to somesaulting around the room ungracefully.

"We can do that," Newt said, sitting down on the couch, "Can't we?"

"Yes, I suppose so," he said as Elise crawled back over to where Hermann was sitting and crawled into his lap. Hermann grimaced as she momentarily pushed on his right leg with too much force, but then she shifted and he was better. Newt lay down on the couch dangled his arm over Hermann's chest, which Elise took as permission to look at his tattoos and trace where they were. Her giggling rebounded around the room.

"She seems more energetic than usual, did you feed her something weird?" Hermann asked Newt.

"Nothing weirder than usual," Newt responded, his mouth close behind Hermann's ear.

"Let's hope she can tire herself out, or we'll have to postpone our date," Hermann commented as Elise began to bounce in his lap.

"Aww, Herms, don't sound so disappointed," Newt whined into his ear. Newt could almost feel him rolling his eyes in response.

"I'll try harder next time," Hermann responded, turning around and pecking Newt on the lips quickly, which satisfied Newt for the moment.

Newt left Hermann to play with Elise for a while as he read a book he had sitting next to the couch, though he couldn't help joining in at one point by pretending to be a kaiju interrupting what seemed to be a tea party she and Hermann had been playing for a while, much to Elise's delight.

Which did eventually tire her out, after Newt had fed her and rocked her to bed with a lullaby. Hermann stood in the doorway as Newt settled her into her crib.

Newt started to say something as he walked out of the room, but Hermann cut him off by saying "Godzilla is already in the dvd player," which caused Newt to smile and kiss him.

"I love you, have I ever told you that?" Newt said as they walked to the living room, leaving the door slightly ajar so they could hear Lise if she needed them.

"A few times," Hermann said with the hint of a smile on his face.

"Good. Because I do," Newt said as he sat down on the couch, pulling the blanket up over them and settling himself in against Hermann's left side, leaning his head onto Hermann's shoulder. Hermann gave him a look before reaching down to tangle their hands together under the blanket.

They were half way through the movie before Newt leaned over and pressed a kiss to Hermann's lips. Hermann seemed a bit surprised by the kiss.

"I thought you were a bit more engrossed in the movie than that," Hermann commented.

"It's a good movie, but that doesn't mean I haven't wanted to make out with you like a fucking teenager pretty much since the movie started," Newt answered.

"Oh." Hermann said eloquently. Newt grinned at him.

"Oh?" Newt asked.

"Well, if that's the case," Hermann said, turning and pressing his lips against Newt's. Newt's answering squeak made Hermann smile into the kiss, as Newt tried desperately to gather his bearings in the situation. Eventually he managed to untangle his hand from Hermann's and wrap both of his arms around the lankier man's neck, the sounds of the movie muffled in the background and the blanket falling to the floor. The first time they came up for air didn't last long, as Newt this time pushed himself towards Hermann.

There was a moment, and then they both managed to end up sprawled horizontally on the couch, Newt balancing so that he wasn't pressing against Hermann's bad leg. Newt pulled away momentarily and met Hermann's eyes, and the smile on his face – one that he'd never let slip on a regular basis – made Newt's insides light up on fire. Unable to help himself, he found himself kissing Hermann's neck, which was met by a muffled moan by the other party. Smiling to himself, he started to alternate between the kissing of Hermann's neck and sucking on it, prompting yet another moan.

"Are y-you really doing that?" Hermann asked him, as if Newt was planning on stopping just because he started talking to him. "Mein Gott, you are, you're such a teenager."

"I hardly see you complaining," Newt responded into his neck, only to continue what he had been doing. Hermann's hands had made their way up into Newt's hair at some point during this, running his long fingers through it.

Hermann sputtered, "Then what am I doing now?"

"I dunno, but it's certainly not complaining," Newt responded, pulling up to look at Hermann, who just gave him with a look that was probably meant to be withering but was just a tad bit too affectionate to hit the mark. Newt smirked back at him and met Hermann's answering frown with a kiss, which he certainly didn't return with vigor.

…

Usually the noises leaving Lise's mouth didn't make any discernible sense; she hadn't really passed the whole gurgling stage yet.

Which is why when one of her gurgles took a specific form, Newt almost missed it, bouncing her up and down while flipping through one of her picture books. Hermann, seated in the same room, looked up from his reading, a look of astonishment on his face.

"Did she just-" Hermann started to say, and then Newt's brain caught up with the present and realized that one of her gurgles had just sounded distinctly like her saying "kaiju."

"She did, she totally did, Lise just said kaiju oh my god!" Newt said, looking down at the girl, who gurgled happily and smiled at him. As if to prove that she had done it and was perfectly aware of it, she pointed in the direction of the book that Newt was holding and said something resembling kaiju.

Newt broke into a huge grin.

"Yeah, that's a kaiju, Lise! Or, a version of one in a book, but you know who really cares about technicalities!" Newt said, putting the book down and lifting Lise up, who laughed and reached out towards him.

Hermann sat his book down carefully, watching as Newt did a little dance across the room with the little girl, prompting her giggles. He couldn't even bring himself to be annoyed that her first word was "kaiju," of all things. He was happy that she'd said her first word, but certainly found Newt's happiness at Lise's first word much more infectious. He picked up his cane and wobbled upright, moving over to where the two were bobbing around the room.

Newt moved Lise so that she could easily see her dad, and she made her happy baby talk noises at the taller man too.

"Isn't it so awesome, her first word was kaiju, she said her first word!" Newt said excitedly.

Hermann answered with an affectionate smile, "Yes, I think I've heard."

Newt spun her around one more time and, after pecking Hermann on the cheek, left him smiling stupidly at both of them from the center of the room as Newt spun his way around him, like celestial bodies.

…

"She really is doing well," Hermann reassured the woman on the other side of the video call, cradling Lise in his arms as she played with a doll.

The people on the other side of the line looked at each other.

"It's not that we doubt you, we just don't see her a lot," said the woman – who happened to be Vanessa's mother and the man next to her her father.

"I know about that, and I'm sorry. I just kinda ran off with her once I had her; I didn't really know what to do when it first happened. I'd been offered a j-"

"Hermann," the man interrupted, "we understand, completely. You don't have to explain yourself to us."

"We would like to see her more, though," Vanessa's mother added quickly, which prompted a tentative smile from Hermann.

"Yes, of course. That's not unreasonable," he responded.

He and Elise were both situated at the table in the apartment, Hermann's computer sitting on the table. Hermann could hear Newt doing something in another part of the apartment. It sounded like he was coming closer, though, so Hermann imagined that introductions would soon be in order.

He wasn't wrong.

"Hey Herms – oh, hello. Um, should I come back later?" Newt asked, attempting to put on his tie – he had a class to teach soon.

"You have to be to class soon anyway, go ahead and ask," Hermann responded.

"Oh, I was just making sure that you had Lise this time, like, no classes or anything," Newt said, looking over at the computer screen quickly, noticing the two sets of eyes that were focused on him as he fumbled with his tie.

"Yes, of course," Hermann said to Newt, then said, "Here, let me introduce you, these are Vanessa's parents, and, um, this is Dr. Newton Geiszler."

"Call me Newt," Newt responded by habit; he already had to keep himself from holding his hand out to shake, used to the many years in the shatterdome of being introduced to anyone and everyone.

"It's nice to meet you, Newt," the Vanessa's mother responded amicably, her father following quickly behind. Newt smiled at them then looked at the clock on the wall.

"Crud, I'm gonna be late," Newt said, finishing with his tie, kissing both Hermann and Lise on the top of the head by habit. "Later!"

Lise gurgled at him in response, and Hermann turned back to the screen.

"I'm sorry about that," Hermann said, then noticed the looks on their face.

"Was he your..." Vanessa's mother started to ask, then trailed off, not sure exactly what to ask. She looked vaguely nervous, and Hermann was yet again stuck by just how awkward his relationship with the two of them was.

"Boyfriend," Hermann supplied, cringing a bit at the immature term, though he lacked a better one.

"Ahh. Well, he seems like a nice guy," she responded carefully.

"He can be," Hermann responded, bouncing Lise a bit, prompting both of them to chuckle a bit.

"So, uh, how has Lise been again," Vanessa's father asked, eager to get back on the subject of his granddaughter, anything about her at all.

Hermann started to tell them all about Lise, anything that he could think to tell the two of them, to bring them back into her life.

…

"You okay?"

Hermann looked up from the spot on the floor that he'd been staring at for – what, how long? Too long, that's it. He'd been absentmindedly massaging his leg, which had been hurting like hell all day. He'd mostly been trying to block out the pain and the stress from the job.

"No, not really," Hermann said with a crooked smile, which then turned into a grimace. He didn't want this to turn into an argument, not really at all, but he and Newt slipped into those like second nature, at least on days when Hermann was feeling thoroughly shitty. Like today.

Hermann hadn't noticed the weight next to him at first, not until he felt another hand massaging his leg. He opened his eyes, which he also hadn't realized he'd closed, and looked over at Newt, whose face was covered in a sheepish smile.

"I'll go away if you'd rather me to," Newt responded, surprisingly understanding. But no, Hermann didn't want Newt to go away – he just couldn't handle himself today. He also wasn't sure if he could stand Newt sticking around if it was going to lead to a fight – and it would, knowing the two of them.

"No," he responded anyway, against his better judgement, "Don't go away. It's fine."

"You don't look fine," Newt responded, which was a wonderful thing to hear – though a part of Hermann wondered if he'd just rather Newt to have lied or not.

"Thank you," he responded without thinking, sarcasm dripping from his voice, "Glad to know I look it – more so than usual, anyway."

"No, man, that's not what I meant" Newt scrabbled to find a way to fix what he'd said, "You just don't seem fine, you still look every bit as attractive as usual!"

"As much as usual, huh?" Hermann responded. Usually he looked like bug eyed man who needed to use a cane in his thirties, the exact opposite of what most people would refer to as "attractive."

Newt seemed to catch what he meant by that, "Dude, no, stop, you're super attractive all the time. Like seriously, that shouldn't even be up for discussion."

"Yes, of course," Hermann responded, sarcasm still apparent in his voice. Hermann didn't know how this is the topic that they end up discussing, nor did he care. He was feeling like shit and his lack of sex appeal was what they ended up talking about.

"Herms, you are so hot," Newt said, his tone completely serious but the words – well, the words could hardly be taken seriously.

"Newt, in what universe is anything about me 'hot'?" Hermann asked genuinely, looking him in the eyes. Which was a mistake, because Newt was so genuine and he could see it in his eyes and it just hurt Hermann physically, to think that Newt was putting up with Hermann and his problems when he could be somewhere else, doing something productive. Or not. Just not dealing with Hermann's bullshit.

"This one!" Newt responded enthusiastically. Hermann glared at the floor, kicking his cane so that it fell on the floor, avoiding Lise, who was playing blissfully unaware on the floor nearby.

Hermann sighed, "Newt, I'm not-"

Whatever Hermann was about to say was lost as Newt leaned forward and smashed his mouth into Hermann's. The kiss didn't last long, though the force behind it was certainly something. Hermann noticed Newt look over at Hermann's cane, as if to point out that even if Newt was attracted to him in some way there'd still be that thing to set them apart and why was he even thinking about this.

Through his angry musing he almost missed the next thing that Newt said.

"What?" Hermann asked.

"Marry me."

Newt didn't say as if he was asking, but it definitely wasn't a command either. It was exactly what it seemed like – an offer.

"I'd love to spend the rest of my life with you. Quite frankly I can't see myself anywhere other than with your grumpy butt, and I love that. S- so, let's make it official," Newt said, the stutter on the last sentence making it obvious that even though Newt seemed confident, he was still nervous. Though of what Hermann had to wonder, because he didn't seem nervous about the offer itself. He was perfectly willing in his offer, and the hesitance seemed to come from somewhere else. Could it be that Newt was nervous about how Hermann would respond?

A million things flashed through Hermann's mind after that, and all of them really only led to one answer. Like Newt said, there really wasn't any possible future where the two of them weren't inexplicably linked.

"We've already more or less been married for years," Hermann responded, and Newt laughed, somewhat nervously.

"Let's make it official, then."

"Of course I will, you idiot," Hermann responded, pulling Newt into a kiss.

Lise's giggling followed quickly after.

…

Getting married to Hermann Gottlieb didn't really change much about his life, which most people would assume came as a given. Actually, very few things actually changed about their life; like Hermann had said, they'd more or less been married for several years, just without all of the formalities.

Neither actually wanted a ceremony – it was too much work, planning, etc, to really get into. They didn't have anyone close by who they'd want to invite to the ceremony, anyway, so they just got papers signed and the formalities straightened out.

Neither wanted to change their names. They were partial to their own names, and already had recognition under their own name. Neither really wanted to change their names. Hermann did, however, insist on one name change: Elise Gottlieb became Elise Geiszler-Gottlieb, though Newt tried to talk him out of it.

"Why bother, if we're not doing anything with our names?" Newt had asked him one last time, though they'd had the debate several times already.

"You are just as much her father as I am, and your name should be hers too," Hermann answered, too tired to start the conversation over again, but decided to add one more part this time, "and I want her to have your name too. I don't want us to change our names, but we can change hers. It's one way to show that we actually are married." That argument finally shut Newt up – he'd always assumed that Hermann was doing it out of some duty to him. Which, apparently, he wasn't. Newt was struck with how sweet it was that he wanted some sort of actual representation of their marriage.

Another thing that changed was the addition of the rings. Both of them wore rings, which would be otherwise unremarkable if both of them weren't thoroughly taken with the idea of the rings – though neither would admit it out loud that they liked the fact that it made their marriage more obvious.

Newt's ring had Otachi's name inscribed on the inside, where other people couldn't see and question him for it, but it was an acknowledgment of their drift that Newt was happy about. Newt had caved and gotten Hermann a simple silver ring, as Hermann had insisted he didn't want anything fancy. Elise had wondered why they'd been making such a big deal out of the rings; she'd taken to playing with them whenever she was allowed to see one of her parents' hands.

While they hadn't had a wedding ceremony of sorts, Lise had insisted upon getting a dress to celebrate, though she didn't understand exactly what she was celebrating. Nonetheless, she got a bright green dress that they assumed she could just wear anytime there was any sort of formal occasion that warranted it.

And really, nothing changed.

They'd been together for so long, the formalities really weren't that big of a deal.

Except that both Newt and Hermann were thoroughly happy to be finally married.

…

"What if we went to visit my family for Christmas?" Newt asked Hermann, out of the blue. Hermann looked up from his work to look at him incredulously.

"You know I don't even celebrate Christmas," Hermann responded, putting down his pen and looking at the other man as if something was wrong.

"And neither do I, or my family for that matter," Newt commented thoughtfully, which confused Hermann greatly.

"If that's the case, then why would we ever visit them for Christmas?" Hermann asked, crossly.

"Well, I mean, my family does kinda celebrate Christmas. When I was growing up, at least. It was just...secular, I guess. I just thought it'd be nice to see my family, since I haven't even seen them since I joined the PPDC," Newt rattled on, "And, I mean, it'd be nice to introduce them to you and Elise, I thought."

"Newt, you could have simply said that," Hermann responded, looking down at his papers, "I suppose it's hardly unreasonable to want to visit your family." Hermann heard Newt get up from his seat on the couch and walk over to where Hermann was seated at the table.

"Thank you!" Newt said loudly, kissing Hermann sloppily on the temple, before going to tell Elise about their new plans. Hermann sighed good naturedly and looked back to his work.

Elise was ecstatic about the idea of visiting family – all while being very nervous. Newt reassured her that there was no reason to be nervous, but Hermann knew that there was no stopping it, since Elise had never met any of her family who were not Hermann and Newt. She had no idea what to expect. Combine that with the idea that she was going to have to deal with a long car trip just to visit them, and she was bouncing back and forth between being excited about the idea and dreading it.

Once the car trip actually rolled around, it was... well, exactly what one would imagine a four hour car trip with a two year old would be like.

So everyone involved was very, very happy when Newt pulled the car into the driveway and parked. Hermann's leg was cramping up from the trip, and Elise had started asking them if they were "there yet" after being in the car for thirty minutes, so she was clearly just glad to be out of the car when Hermann picked her up from the back seat. Newt went about pulling their luggage out of the car as Hermann stood awkwardly with Elise, not knowing what to do. He surely didn't want to walk up to the door without Newt – even though he had seen both Newt's father and his uncle over skype, he had never spoken to either for long when he did see them. Hermann found himself suddenly nervous at the idea of meeting his in-laws, which was stupid and pointless.

Newt held most of their luggage in his arms when he started up to the door. "Hey, Elise, could you ring the doorbell for me?" Newt asked, and Elise happily rang the doorbell. Actually, she happily rang it three times before Hermann had to stop her.

"I think they got the picture, honey," Hermann said to Elise, who giggled. The three of them stood on the step for a moment before hearing the door start to open.

"Newt!" yelled the man who opened the door, pulling him into the house and waving Hermann and Elise in as well. Newt dropped all of the luggage as soon as they were in the house and went to hug the man, who Hermann remembered as his uncle.

"It's been too long, you really can't go this long without coming to see us anymore," Illia Geiszler told his nephew, and behind him he could see a second Geiszler coming up to where they were standing.

"There's our big, important scientist," Jacob Geiszler said, clapping Newt on the back and beaming at him.

Hermann and Elise both stayed quiet while they did their brief catching up at the door, standing back a bit from the proceedings. Hermann was still holding Elise, who had stuck her head into his neck, as if hoping that that would hide her from the unknown men who were talking to her Daddy. Hermann allowed her to cling to him and hide, because he could understand. He was probably taller than all of the other men in the house, but both of the older Geiszlers intimidated him in ways he wasn't quite used to.

"Now, Newt, I don't know where you got your manners from, but you haven't introduced us to anyone yet," Illia said, nudging him and looking over to where Hermann was standing with Elise. Hermann heard Jacob mutter something in Illia's direction that Hermann couldn't catch, and there were some elbows thrown back and forth between them.

"Alright, alright," Newt said with some huffy laughter, then walked back over to where Hermann was standing. Hermann felt Newt's hand rest on his lower back, and Hermann took it as a cue to walk forward to meet the two other men. "Dad, Illia, this is Hermann and Elise."

"Nice to meet you," Jacob said, starting to hold out a hand to shake until he realized that both Hermann's hands were otherwise occupied, one with Elise and the other with his cane. Newt seemed to notice this at the same time and leaned around to look at Elise, where he could look at her from behind Hermann.

"Hey, Lise, how about you let me hold you for a moment," Newt said, reaching out for her, and she nodded and leaned away from Hermann. Hermann allowed her to be taken from his arm and then reached out to shake Jacob's hand. Once in Newt's arms she quickly went to hiding herself in his neck as well. "Elise, what if you let your grandpa and great uncle look at you?" She tentatively pulled away from Newt so that she could look at the others.

"What pretty green eyes you have, Elise," Illia said, looking at her. She smiled tentatively.

"How old are you, Elise?" Jacob asked, conversationally.

Elise looked down at her hands for a moment, then held up three fingers.

"No, Lise, you're not three yet. You'll be three in a few weeks, though," Hermann corrected her gently. She nodded and lowered one of her fingers to correct herself.

"Oh!" Jacob exclaimed, looking around at the bags Newt had dropped once they'd come into the house, "We should get you all settled in now, shouldn't we?"

Jacob and Illia went out to get the rest of the luggage, and Newt handed Elise back to Hermann so that he could lug the bags up the stairs to where they were staying. Hermann hung back downstairs with Elise while the three of them situated the bags upstairs. Jacob was the first one down, and he made his way to where Hermann was standing in the living room.

"You can sit down, you know?" Jacob said with a smile, gesturing to the various seats in the room. Hermann moved over to the loveseat nearest him, and Elise promptly sprawled out over top of him and some of the rest of the couch.

"You can also calm down a bit, I'm not trying to size you up right now," Jacob continued, somewhat sarcastically.

"Of course you are. This is your first time meeting me, so-" Hermann said, and Jacob started laughing.

Newt walked downstairs about then, coming into the room. After finding his father laughing and Hermann looking vaguely disgruntled, he asked, "What'd you do to him?"

"Your husband assumes that I hate him, I am sure," Jacob said in German, "and he doesn't seem to believe me when I say that I'm not judging him."

"To be fair, you can't just say that and expect him to believe you," Newt responded in kind. He sat down in the seat next to Hermann and allowed Elise to sprawl out on top of him. He put one arm on the back of the couch, laying it ever so slightly on Hermann's shoulders. Hermann wasn't quite sure if Jacob realized that he could understand what they were saying, so he kept quiet.

"Well it's true. I've heard more than enough from you – more than I ever really wanted to know, to be frank – to feel the need to judge him," Jacob said, Illia entering the room at that moment and taking the recliner near Jacob.

"It's quite obvious he loves you, anyway," Illia commented from his spot, which prompted a slight blush to appear on Hermann's cheeks – he'd rather not think that he was broadcasting that quite so obviously to Newt's family.

"Oh really?" Newt asked with surprise, "What makes you say that?"

"Aside from the fact that he puts up with you?" Illia asked, clearly joking. Newt huffed anyway.

"He's looked terrified since you two walked in, worried about what we'll think of him," Jacob commented in answer to Newt, "Also, anytime you interact with Elise he gets this soft look on his face like-"

Hermann started coughing, and Newt looked over at him, his expression a mix of embarrassment and amusement.

"I'm rather fine if you leave it at that, thanks," Newt told his family, saving Hermann from whatever his dad was about to say.

"Yes, please," Hermann commented under his breath, causing both Illia and Jacob to start laughing for all they were worth.

"Way to go, Newt, you found a keeper," Illia said, switching back to English with a grin that sent a red color onto Hermann's face.

"Well, I did marry him, so I would hope he was a keeper," Newt said back pointedly, only fueling their laughter further.

...

"Bird!" Elise yelled and pointed to where several birds had taken flight from a tree.

"Yep, that's most certainly what those are," Newt said, holding onto the other hand that isn't pointing and naming everything they passed by – Elise had taken to words and talking quite quickly and was having fun learning new words. That's one reason why she loved coming to the park. She could ask about all kinds of different things.

And also, sometimes, she liked to chase things. Like now.

"Whoa!" Newt exclaimed as Elise started to drag him after the birds, currently still in flight over the park. Hermann had long ago given up trying to keep up with them, and was currently walking along slowly some distance behind them, laughing to himself as Elise dragged Newt across the grass after the birds.

Just as suddenly as she had started, she stopped, leading Newt to almost fall over on top of her.

"Ack!" Newt squawked as they came to a halt.

Elise also had a habit of talking to the students who were trying to study in the park area. Luckily, most were used to it and would humor her, since she was usually asking them what certain things were called. The students, for their part, mostly found it amusing and found the idea that their usually gruff professor or the one with boundless energy were the ones trying to deal with the tiny bundle of energy.

She found two female students who were sitting and chatting in the grass, textbooks spread between them. Newt was dragged along, and Hermann had time to catch up to them and hear what Lise was asking them about this time.

"What's that?" Elise asked, using her favorite phrase and pointing at the ipod one of the girls had sitting in her lap.

"That's an iPod," she responded with a laugh, looking up at a breathless Newt next to the little girl. Newt nodded to the girl, who he thought he recognized from one of his classes. Hermann stood next to Newt, who turned and gave him a tired look, which was really saying something.

"And that?" Elise pointed to a bracelet that the other girl was wearing, who happily told her what it was.

Hermann decided to rescue both the girls and Newt.

"Elise, we should probably be getting back. It'll be dark soon," Hermann told her, putting a hand on her shoulder.

"Is not! Still early!" Elise responded quickly, "I wanna stay, Papa!"

"I think he's right," Newt interjected, "Don't want anything to come get you...who knows what stuff lurks around here at night. Overcaffeinated students, probably, but still not something you'd wanna deal with in large numbers."

"Daddy!" Elise squealed. But what he said got to her, and she looked around and grabbed his leg. "Fine. Carry me!"

"Lise, don't tell me what to do. Ask me politely," Newt said, knowing Hermann wouldn't want him to simply give in and pick her up like he often did.

"Please!"

"Oh alright," Newt said, scooping her up and turning around. "Sorry about bothering you," he called back to the students, who simply laughed in response.

Hermann kept up better when it was Newt and not Lise setting the pace, and three walked home comfortably in the growing darkness. Whenever he couldn't fight the urge any longer he wrapped the arm that wasn't busy with a cane around Newt's back. Newt gave him a grin as they kept walking.

…

Newt had already been running late with Elise when he found the sign on her daycare saying that they were closed today. Already vaguely irked, he just kept on walking to class.

"Where are we going, Daddy?" Lise asked him, holding his hand and skipping along, trying not to trip over the overly long scarf she had on and the trench coat that made her look too much like Hermann.

"The daycare is closed today, so you're gonna have to sit tight at my desk while I teach, okay? As long as you stay quiet it'll be fine," Newt said, wondering where in the world he'd gotten to that he was the one telling people that they needed to stay quiet. Usually people were telling him that.

"Aww," she muttered.

"You can play with my chalk board," Newt said, and she brighten up a bit. Hopefully his students will be able to pay attention to him, and not the small child at his desk. He pulled out his phone and carefully texted one handed to tell Hermann to come get Elise when he was finished with his class.

He walked into the lecture hall five minutes late, walking Elise up there with him. The class room's volume didn't change, though they did certainly start talking about why she was there rather than whatever they had been talking about before then.

"Here, just sit in my chair," Newt said, lifting Elise into the giant chair and handing her both the chalk board and some crayons that he kept stocked in his desk just in case something like this. Throwing some blank papers in front of her, he kissed the top of her head and walked over to the center of the room.

"Sorry about my lateness, I had some issues with the daycare on the way here," Newt said with an awkward cough, "I'd greatly prefer if you try to actually pay attention to what I'm saying and not her. At least as much as usual," he continued, garnering an scattered laugh.

He pulled up his displays and launched into his lecture, occasionally looking back to make sure Lise was okay (and panicking a couple times before he realized that she was hiding under the desk).

She did stay quiet most of the time, which made Newt decide to treat her to something later that day to reward her.

After teaching for about forty minutes with her in the room there was a noise of the doors opening and Hermann clacking in quietly. Upon seeing him enter the room Elise broke her silence to say "Papa!" loudly enough for him to hear and then made her way over to him, hugging his good leg and then reaching out for his hand. Newt had simply smiled and waved at them, so engrossed in his lesson that he didn't even feel the need to make a show. Hermann smiled at him in turn and pecked him on the cheek, in front of the entire class, before making out of the room with their daughter. Which was, for the record, quite the unprecedented show of pda for Hermann, which caused Newt to be much more chipper for the rest of the lesson and at least part of the rest of the day.

He convinced Hermann to let Lise have a tiny cupcake from one of the bakeries near their apartment as a reward for behaving herself.

…

"What if they're mean?" Elise asked mournfully, which didn't make Hermann's job any easier than it already was.

Newt took it upon himself to answer this one, crouching down in front of Lise. "Well, Lise, kids are mean sometimes. But if they're mean to you, they're not worth hanging around. Just try to have fun. This is like daycare, only longer. And you'll learn stuff!"

"But..." she sounded incredibly dismayed at the idea of being away from both of her parents for the entire day. Newt leaned over and kissed her head, then held her shoulders so that she'd look him in the eyes.

"Lise, this is a great opportunity," Newt told her, "You're gonna make tons of new friends and learn tons of stuff. It'll be great, I promise."

"Promise?" she asked.

"I do. I'll pinky promise," Newt said, holding out his pinky. She looked at him, confused. "Just link your pinky through mine."

"Okay..." she said, linking her pinky with his.

"You see that, Lise? Now I promise you'll have fun. It won't be that bad, you'll see," Newt said, pulling her into a hug. Hermann remained standing behind him, but waited for his turn. Rather than having her hug his legs, Newt lifted her up so that she could hug him around the torso.

"Let's walk you in, now, okay? You have to promise me to do what the teacher says," Newt said, sitting Lise back down on the ground.

"I will," she responded, grabbing for his hand, then grabbing Hermann's open hand. The three of them made their way into the preschool building, meeting the teacher just inside, behind which several children were running around, while others still were playing on the floor around them.

"Hello, you must be Dr..." the teacher asked as she approached, fumbling on which one was which.

"Newt," Newt told her, "and that's Hermann." Hermann rolled his eyes but didn't correct him – they'd been through the routine so many times before that he didn't even feel the need to bother. Newt was well aware of what he'd said.

"And you must be Elise," the teacher said, looking down at her. Elise nodded her head slightly. "That's good. Elise, I'm Ms. Dana, and I'll be your teacher. I'm sure you're gonna have tons of fun here. Here, lemme show you around," Dana said, holding out her hand for Elise to take. Both Hermann and Newt let go of her hands at the same time, with Newt leaning over to kiss her on the forehead and push her towards Ms. Dana.

"Go on, Lise. She's gonna help you out," Hermann told her, and Elise eventually grabbed hold of her teacher's hand, though not before waving at her fathers tearfully. Once Ms. Dana started her tour the two of them walked quietly out of the preschool.

"You promised her that she'd have fun even though you can't know that," Hermann commented as they walked home.

"I did," Newt said, "Because sometimes you just have to give reassurance like that. She really will be fine. She's a social butterfly, she'll make friends soon, simply by talking about what a butterfly is."

And to nobody's surprise, she did.

…

"There are so many stars!"

Newt started laughing, which made Lise turn around and give him a look, as if daring him to make fun of her for what she said. "Yeah, there really are," he responded to her with a nod, and she decided against being mad at him for his imagined slight to going back to staring up at the sky. It was quite dark outside, but the light from the millions and millions of stars in the sky, as well as from the moon, made it somewhat easier to see what they were doing. Newt continued to move the small telescope into place while Elise asked Hermann where certain stars were and asking him to point out the various constellations.

When Newt had finally set up Elise's telescope he turned around to find Hermann leaning up against the hood of the car with Elise sitting on it next to him, with her chattering on and allowing Hermann to answer every once in a while. With them sitting next to each other he could definitely see the family resemblance, in the shape of Elise's face and the way she held herself. It made him smile stupidly, the thought of it, and he tried to put it out of his mind as he walked over to where they were. A wind gusted through and Newt wished it wasn't still technically winter. Also, that they couldn't have waited until a warmer month to get the telescope for Elise, even if it did make sense to get it for her for Christmas.

"It's set up now, Lise, if you wanna try it out," Newt commented, and Elise darted off of the car, nearly falling in the process, as she rushed over to the telescope. She nearly knocked the telescope over as she approached too quickly, but managed not to actually hit it. Once she was actually there she stood for a second, confused.

"What do I do?" she asked, staring at the telescope confusedly. Newt walked over and began to point out where to look into the telescope and how to move it to see other things. As soon as Elise knew where she was supposed to look she stopped paying attention, rather exclaiming about the stars she could see in the sky through her new toy.

Hermann approached Newt and the two stood silently, allowing Elise to ramble on about the various stars she could now see, and at one point Newt tried to focus the telescope on a nebula or two for her to exclaim about, which only made her more ecstatic.

Eventually Lise quieted down and was just admiring what she could see while Hermann and Newt smiled at her. At some point during their time there Newt's arm had snaked around Hermann, "to keep him warm" he'd have said if anyone had asked. Which, no one did, of course.

…

Five years after the successful closing of the breach, Drs. Gottlieb and Geiszler were extended an invitation to go on a short celebratory tour around the globe. It was supposed to last for a month, during the summer before Elise started kindergarten.

Newt was psyched. It'd been awhile since he'd been hailed a rockstar, and it was about time he had his ego stroked again. Hermann was ambivalent, and mostly went along with it because his husband was excited about the opportunity.

Elise, however, was ecstatic. After they had brought up the idea to her she'd been unsure, mostly because she didn't really know what it entailed. Once she learned it meant that she'd get to go to other countries and meet the Jaeger pilots, she was more than ready to go. She was ready to go yesterday.

So she didn't enjoy the actual waiting for the trip to get there, or the packing for the trip, or the hassle to get through airplane security – though she did thoroughly enjoy the plan ride – she was more than ready to meet Mako and Raleigh – who, thanks to her Daddy's influence, already referred to them on a first name basis.

As they were in a lot of cases, they were late getting to the first engagement, and left the rest of the members of the team wondering if they actually planned on showing up. Contact over the years had been minimal, and so nobody really knew what happened to either of them after they'd left the shatterdome five years ago, aside from the fact that they had sent a note telling them that they would be there.

"So are they even planning on showing up?" Herc, now Marshall Hansen, muttered angrily to the rest of the group, scattered around behind the stage where they were going to make their appearance. Mako and Raleigh were sitting on the ground nearby, and Tendo was picking at his shirt a couple feet away.

Then, all of them heard a small girl's voice say, "I'm tired, Daddy, carry me,"

"Lise, we haven't even been walking that long. And if your Papa can handle it, you can," they heard in the voice of an excitable kaiju groupie.

"Please?"

"Uhh," came the response, "Fine."

"Newt," came the disapproving response from another voice the group recognized.

"Is that what I think it is?" Raleigh asked before the three voices gained bodies and emerged backstage.

"So sorry about the wait!" Newt crowed, holding a child in his arms who couldn't have been in school for long, wearing what appeared to be a sweater vest over a short sleeved collared shirt and shorts.

"We ran into a couple of difficulties," Hermann said, giving Newt a knowing look.

"Hi!" the girl exclaimed, waving at everyone gathered there.

"Sorry, Lise, but we're too late to introduce you yet, we can do it after this appearance. Remember what we told you earlier," Newt said.

"Stay quiet and look 'tenttive," she responded with a grin.

"Close enough," Hermann said, kissing her on the forehead, and the rest of the group didn't get in a word edgewise before they were introducing themselves on stage.

The sight of the tattooed kaiju scientist holding a small child was likely a bit surprising for the crowd, but after the introductions most people lost interest in her over paying attention to Mako and Raleigh, who had both made multiple appearances in between the time of the breach closing and now.

All of them introduced themselves and what role they played in the end, with Newt and Hermann introducing themselves together as "Dr. Newton Geiszler and Dr. Hermann Gottlieb, who drifted with a kaiju and gained valuable information to make the closing of the breach possible" and after a moment of indecision, Newt also introduced Elise simply as "Elise," not wanting to start anything about the fact that the two of them had gone and gotten themselves hitched and had a child (even though it would surely, eventually, make the rounds).

After the presentation and some awards were given, the group was allowed some time to catch up – and by that, they were stuck there answering questions for a while, before eventually being allowed to leave for food. They all eventually went to some nondescript restaurant near the venue, hoping not to be pestered too much for their troubles.

Which was around when the questions started, since Newt and Hermann were the ones who hadn't really had time to visit before the event, and had also not kept in touch with any of the others very well.

It started with Raleigh's question, "So...are you guys...what are you guys?"

Rather than torturing him, and Hermann knew Newt would, he answered the question as he knew Raleigh meant it, "Married, if that's what you're asking, then yes. We're married." The facial expressions in response to that were really quite funny.

Elise was using Newt's lap as a chair at this point, though she had her own seat in between Hermann and Newt, and took this time to interject.

"What was it like punching kaiju?" she asked loudly, looking at both Raleigh and Mako.

Newt started laughing, both at her straight forwardness and at the looks on their faces. "She was so excited to meet the Jaeger pilots, I'm sorry about that."

Mako took it upon herself to answer, "It was, um, both scary and exciting."

Elise grinned at her, happy to have her question answered. She looked ready to ask more questions, but the adults kept talking.

Mako asked, of both Newt and Hermann, "Did you two...adopt?" She was obviously unsure about how to phrase it, but was less tentative than Raleigh.

Newt and Hermann looked at each other.

"No," Hermann answered, "She's my biological daughter."

"Um," Tendo said, "I, uh, how exactly did that work?"

"She's my biological daughter with my ex girlfriend," Hermann clarified as Lise played with the crayons she'd been handed by the wait staff. The eyebrows on most everyone on the table raised, which caused Newt to burst into laughter.

"They're confused about you having an ex girlfriend, oh wow," Newt said, then continued the explanation for Hermann, who was looking vaguely ruffled, "Neither she nor him knew that she was pregnant when they broke up, and when she found out she planned on taking care of her for herself. Sadly, there were complications with the birth and she died, leaving Elise in Hermann's care."

Hermann was silently grateful that Newt had explained it for them, and also that he'd called him Hermann and not "Herms" though he didn't really mind the name at this point.

"Ah," Mako murmured, as the others at the table had the grace to look embarrassed about their assumptions.

"What's it like to drift?" Elise asked Mako in German, who looked at her confused.

"English, sweetheart," Hermann said to her.

"Oh! What's it like to drift?" Elise said, shifting back to English as if she hadn't realized she'd switched into German.

"Haven't your dads told you the answer to that?" Mako asked.

"They have, but it's gotta be different when you're in a jaeger," Elise said, staring at Mako.

"Well, it's like..."

The rest of the dinner went similarly, though they sometimes managed to move away from Elise's constant questions and talk about other things, how everyone's life was going after they'd canceled the apocalypse.

On the walk back to the hotel that they were staying at, Hermann said to Mako, "Lise idolizes you, just so you know."

"Really?" Mako asked, sounding surprised.

"If she'd been born earlier, I imagine she'd have wanted to be a Jaeger pilot," Hermann said, looking over to where she was chattering to Raleigh, "As it is, she just likes to hear stories about them."

"She wouldn't want to follow in the footsteps of her fathers?" Mako asked innocently.

"Well, she does love astronomy, but I don't see how that would have been helpful," Hermann said, then continued, "Don't tell Newt, but I think she'll get more into physics when she grows up."

Mako giggled a little bit, and the squeeze on Hermann's hand signaled that Newt had indeed heard the comment, as he suspected he would. Hermann looked over to check on Elise only to find that Raleigh was now carrying a half asleep Elise in his arms. Hermann nudged Newt to look over at her.

"Oh, Raleigh, I can get her if you don't wa-" Newt started to say, but Raleigh cut him off.

"No, I don't mind. It's kinda nice. She's a sweet kid," he said with a smile.

"Out of all of us to have children, somehow I'm surprised that it's you two," Tendo commented innocently.

"Somehow?" Hermann responded at the same time Newt said, "Me too." Tendo laughed. Newt untangled their hands to wrap his arm around Hermann, looking up at him as if to ask if that was okay.

Hermann didn't say anything, which Newt took as the go ahead to stick close to him.

Once they entered the hotel Newt took Elise from Raleigh, making their way up to their room. Newt settled her into the bed that the three of them were all going to share. Hermann started changing as soon as they were in the room. Once Newt had stepped out of the bathroom Hermann was already laying in the bed with a sleeping Elise clinging to him. He flipped off the lights and tried to get into the bed without bothering either of them. Hermann draped an arm over top of Newt and Elise, who was in the middle of the two of them.

"Night, Herms," Newt whispered.

"Good night, Newt," he responded sleepily, leaving a kiss on the corner of Newt's mouth.

"Night Papa, Daddy," Elise murmured in her half asleep state.

Newt smiled sleepily at both of them.

He was quite happy with the hand that life had dealt him, for the first time in a while.