[Newt considers Rita's words carefully, arms encircled loosely around his knees; there's a thread there that he fidgets with, feels the unpleasant squeeze of the twine around a finger as it pulls taut. He tries to picture a world where Newton Geiszler and Hermann Gottlieb run into each other and actually stay together long enough to recognize they're not as wretched together as they had thought in a cafe; would there even be a cafe involved? He isn't sure. Mako Mori would get to have her family, though. Raleigh Beckett would have his brother. Herc Hansen would have his son and wife. Pentecost would have his life — and his health. So many good things.
And yet, Newt is sitting here, pining for something so small in the grand scale of the world. There are many fish in the sea, right? He'll have to move on eventually, even if he feels some great, considerable loss in thinking about it too long.
He realizes he's been quiet for longer than seems permissible for him, and shifts, as if preparing to physically hold up the things he's about to say.]
The orb wanted me to fess up about a dream that hasn't been accomplished, you know? And the answer was pathetically easy to figure out, Ri. [Ah, Rita Farr has been struck with nicknaming conventions; the shorthand feels right in the moment, anyway.] My partner back home... I don't know if you got to meet him here — his name's Hermann, and we've basically been living in each other's pockets since the war got real bad. We were the last two left at the K-Sci division.
We totally hated each other at first. That kind of... respectful hate? Like, we drove each other crazy, but we knew how brilliant the other was. And Hermann, he was so genius. It almost pissed me off, how he knew some things better than me. I'd have never admitted it then, but...
[He swallows, taking his glasses off, scrubbing a smear off against his knee.
Keeping his hands busy as he admits:]
I kind of ended up — you know. Everything we'd been through, all the work we did... I kind of ended up in love with him. At the end of everything.
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And yet, Newt is sitting here, pining for something so small in the grand scale of the world. There are many fish in the sea, right? He'll have to move on eventually, even if he feels some great, considerable loss in thinking about it too long.
He realizes he's been quiet for longer than seems permissible for him, and shifts, as if preparing to physically hold up the things he's about to say.]
The orb wanted me to fess up about a dream that hasn't been accomplished, you know? And the answer was pathetically easy to figure out, Ri. [Ah, Rita Farr has been struck with nicknaming conventions; the shorthand feels right in the moment, anyway.] My partner back home... I don't know if you got to meet him here — his name's Hermann, and we've basically been living in each other's pockets since the war got real bad. We were the last two left at the K-Sci division.
We totally hated each other at first. That kind of... respectful hate? Like, we drove each other crazy, but we knew how brilliant the other was. And Hermann, he was so genius. It almost pissed me off, how he knew some things better than me. I'd have never admitted it then, but...
[He swallows, taking his glasses off, scrubbing a smear off against his knee.
Keeping his hands busy as he admits:]
I kind of ended up — you know. Everything we'd been through, all the work we did... I kind of ended up in love with him. At the end of everything.