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The first time Hermann Gottlieb remembers feeling the world fall from beneath his feet, he was 24 years old, and just finishing up his second doctorate. There was a group of them, huddled together in the quad under the large television, watching the first Kaiju make landfall in San Francisco. There was a girl standing next to him, and she was shaking slightly as they watched the destruction. Without thinking, he reached over and squeezed her hand. When she looked over at him with a grateful smile, it was the first time he can remember ever feeling companionship in a group of people. That small, bright memory was the only good thing that happened to him for that whole terrible day. For the next two years, for that matter.
~~~
The second time he feels the world fall out from under him is the first time he sees a Jaeger. Really sees one, up close. He had just been accepted at the Jaeger academy; it was his first day.
Years pass after that, with the world steady under his feet.
~~~
The next time he feels the world fall out from under him it is far more literal. He is a member of a large think-tank in Los Angeles, working on predictive algorithms and other aspects of the Kaiju threat. There are at least a dozen mathematicians, and enough biologists, chemists and other hangers-on that he barely knows them all by sight, let alone by name. It is the height of the Jaeger program, and the huge complex he is working in is freshly built and completely modern, a far cry from the dark, rusted buildings he has worked at in the past. One wall of the room he works in is entirely glass, and looks out onto the main hangar. The science wing is on a high enough floor that they are at shoulder height with the Jaegers.
A fresh team of pilots was trying out one of the newest Jaegers, code-named Mammoth Apostle, and all of his co-workers had gone down to the hangar floor to watch their first time out. He was taking advantage of the quiet to get some real work done, his back to the window and all of his attention focused on the blackboard in front of him. He never saw the Jaeger go badly out of alignment, taking one shaky step before the safety systems could engage. And then one giant arm swung out to the side and took out most of the floors below his.
All he hears is a terrific crash, and then the floor is gone below him and everything is black and dust and struggling to breathe, and he can't move and he can't see, and he can't even hear, it seems, over the terrible roar that is the floor and walls creaking and shifting.
Slowly, his world resolves itself back into something he can understand. There is something on top of him, and he can't get the leverage to push it off. He can't move, and one of his legs is a flare of pain. He reaches down with unsteady fingers to his thigh, where he can feel something heavy has pinned it. His hand comes away sticky and wet.
Suddenly, from above him he can hear the sliding, shaky steps of someone nearby crawling over the rubble.
“Hello?” His voice is cracked, and he can barely recognize it as his own. He swallows some of the dust from his throat, tries again. “Hello, is anyone up there?”
“Hey?” There is someone above him. Their voice sounds high pitched from strain, and slightly panicked. “Hey, is there someone under there?”
Despite himself, Hermann impatiently rolls his eyes. “Yes, I am under here.” He tries to stick one hand up through the debris above him, wiggling his fingers. “Over here.”
A warm hand closes around his own, squeezing tightly before letting go. “Alright, I'm gonna try to lift this off of you. Try to cover your head, okay?”
There is a terrible sound as the debris is lifted away, and more dust makes him cough and choke. When he can finally see again, there is another man crouched beside him. His glasses are askew and he is covered in dust and grime. As the other man looks down at his pinned leg, he rubs his head with both hands, a nervous gesture that leaves all of his hair standing on end.
“Hey buddy,” he smiles, trying to act reassuring. “You okay?”
Hermann racks his mind for a moment, trying to place him. He was a biologist, he seems to recall. There are colourful tattoos on his arms that seem familiar. They had been introduced once, and he had seen the tattoos and sneered something about how American scientists always tried to be rock stars, before striding away.
“I am not your 'buddy',” he replies, trying to restore some of his dignity even while covered in dust and trapped under something heavy, “but I appreciate your assistance nonetheless.”
“Great, man.” The other man is still looking at his leg, worriedly chewing his lip. He is barely listening to him at all, Hermann realizes. Without preamble, the other man grabs his face, studying first one pupil and then the other, using his thumbs to pull back his eyelids. Hermann pulls his head away with a scowl, opening his mouth to protest, but the other man talks over him.
“You don't seem to have a head injury, which is good. You're acting normally, so I don't think you're going into shock. At least, I remember you being this much of a prick before this, as well, so I guess you're acting normally.” Hermann opens his mouth to reply, then closes it again, glaring.
“I'm worried about your leg. I think the only thing stopping you from bleeding out right now is the weight of what's pinning it.” He reaches down, starts taking off his belt. “I'm going to put a tourniquet on it, and then I’m going to try to get you out. Help should be here soon, but we need to get that off of you before crush syndrome sets in.” He is speaking quickly, hands moving frenetically as he talks.
“I – ah – I have no idea...” Hermann looks at him worriedly, starting over. “Do you have any idea what you're doing?”
The other man shrugs, bending over him to get the belt around his thigh. “Yeah, actually, I do. I'm a genius, and a biologist, and I actually took the required first aid course, unlike certain mathematical departments who claimed, as a group, that they didn't have time.”
“It didn't seem like a priority,” Hermann replies, gritting his teeth as the belt is maneuvered under his thigh. “At the time,” he amends, seeing the incredulous look the other man gives him.
The belt begins to tighten and he gasps, his world growing slightly dark before coming back into focus.
“I, ah, I actually think my leg may be broken,” he mutters, trying to catch his breath.
The other man looks up at him, knuckles whitening where they grip the loose end of the belt. “I'm going to stop you from bleeding out or dying of renal failure.” He says, his face pale under all of the dirt. “After that, hopefully we can worry about everything else.”
Then he pulls the belt tight, and Hermann can hear himself scream as the world goes black.
When Hermann awakens in medical, it is to the warm, soothing feeling of very strong pain medication. Despite the fact that he insists that he feels fine (very fine, the morphine make sure of that), the nurses and doctors seem to be even more obstinate than he is. He is forced to stay in medical for ten days, while they blather at him about physiotherapy (how could he possibly make time for that?) and pain medication (he needs to be able to think, dammit) and how lucky he is to be alive (the utter inanity of that statement actually renders him speechless for a few moments).
He demands to know the name of the man who dug him out of the rubble, and upon learning that it is Newton Geiszler, spends a few moments contemplating this. He's read his work, or course. He might be a biologist, but there are only so many scientists working on Kaiju research, and his work in particular has been ground-breaking.
He then demands a computer, and spends the next few days re-reading every peer-reviewed article Dr. Newton Geiszler, Ph.D., has ever published or co-published. Two things become very obvious as he reads: Newton Geiszler is reckless, hard to work with, obsessed with the Kaiju and, quite possibly, dangerously unbalanced. He is also, quite definitely, one of the most brilliant people Hermann has ever met.
At the end of ten days, Hermann wheels himself awkwardly out of the medical wing in a wheelchair. He isn't sure who is more relieved, himself or the medical staff.
The temporary science wing is in the basement. There are an interminable number of heavy doors between medical and there, Hermann discovers. It is while trying to maneuver through the fifth (perhaps sixth? He was so annoyed he could no longer even count) of these that Newton Geiszler suddenly appears next to him.
“Hello,” he says, grinning slightly as he fiddles with the rolled up sleeves of his shirt. “Oh, hey,” he takes a rushed step forward, “do you want me to help you help you with the door?”
Hermann rolls his chair back slightly so that he can more easily look at the other man. “Doctor Geiszler”, he says, struggling to keep his voice calm. “I am only going to say this once. I do not want your help. I do not want you to do anything for me. I do not want anyone else to help me or do anything for me. All I want,” he takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly, “is to continue my work. That is all. Understood?”
“Uhhh, yeah.” Geiszler shrugs as if that were completely obvious from the start. “For sure. I never even dreamed of suggesting anything else. But - “ and he slows down his speed of talking, as if he were speaking to a child, “I – am going – to the science lab. And you – are going – to the science lab. So maybe,” and he pauses here to smirk at him, “we could go together. Understood?”
Hermann glowers at him, even as he guides his wheelchair through the door Geiszler is holding open.
Newton Geiszler is making fun of him, Hermann realizes. He appears at his side at least twice a day, always with the same shit-eating grin. “I'm going to the commissary, Dr. Gottlieb. Would you like to come with me?” Or, “Do you want me to carry that with you to the other room?” Once, while he was glaring up at a piece of equipment on a high shelf, Geiszler strolled in, looked at him and the shelf, and asked “Could you lift that down with me?” He clambered onto the lab bench and passed it down to him, before leaving the room whistling happily to himself.
Dr. Newton Geiszler is even more irritating, Hermann muses, because he is also so damned helpful.
They make him use the damnable wheelchair for six months. The day the doctor hands him the cane is the day after his transfer to the Hong Kong Shatterdome is approved.
Hermann can see the writing on the wall (literally, the anti-Kaiju wall) and hopes that he might be able to continue receiving funding for his research in Hong Kong. No one might have realized it at the time, but the Mammoth Apostle disaster marked the beginning of the end for the Jaeger program. It was part of a larger problem – cocky pilots, overconfident and making mistakes.
He leaves that day. He doesn't say good bye to anyone, and tells himself that no one will really notice that he has left. He is, he tells himself, terrible at goodbyes.
They announce that they are shutting down Anchorage Shatterdome only a few months later.
~~~
The next time he feels the world fall out from under him, he steps into his laboratory in Hong Kong and finds Newton Geiszler sitting behind his desk.
“They sent me here,” he grins “from Los Angeles. Along with some friends!” He expansively gestures at the Kaiju parts floating in tanks.
“No.” Hermann says, shaking his head slowly.
“Oh, oh yes.” Geiszler gets up, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Oh very yes. We are the surviving members of the K-Science division, my friend.” He waves his hands around, gesturing at the room. “Su casa es mi casa, and all that.”
“No.” Hermann tries to sound firm, rapping his cane against the floor.
“I hate to admit it, but Pentecost himself went over to L.A. to request my transfer. And he said I was to set myself up here, specifically.” He starts towards the door. “But I have lots of other stuff to move in, so you'll have to excuse me.” He bumps into Hermann as he walks past, just enough to make him struggle for balance. “Good to see you up on your feet again, by the way!” he calls over his shoulder.
~~~
The ground seems to fall out from under his feet as he hobbles into the lab as quickly as he can. Geiszler is on the floor, and any fool could tell that he has done something unimaginably stupid. For an instant he actually thinks he might be dead. When he is conscious again, Hermann finds himself almost wishing that he had died, if only to teach him a lesson.
The ground doesn't seem to steady under him again for the next 24 hours. The world is ending, and nothing makes sense, and he knows that his calculations are right, and that they have to be missing something.
Then he drifts with Geiszler and the Kaiju, and it is less like the world has fallen away and more like it has turned upside-down. Not even gravity is reliable anymore, and he is falling upwards, helplessly.
Mankind wins, in the end.
~~~
As the plane takes off, the world seems to fall out from under him. They saved the world less than twelve hours ago, and the celebration is still going strong. He suspects that it will be quite some time before his absence is noticed. When it is, he hopes that they understand. He really is terrible at good-byes, he tells himself.