Archive of Our Own ^beta

Monica Schwartz despises being pregnant. It is so…inconvenient. She has to buy an entire new wardrobe she’ll never wear again and it severely limits the roles she can take for at least a year. She suffers everyone’s concerns that she’s overworking herself, lets them fuss while basking in the attention but bristling at the implication that she’s suddenly an invalid. She doesn’t sneak one sip of alcohol, but she does justify cigarettes because the complete meltdown she’ll suffer without them will be worse for her and the baby than the nicotine.

Her husband doesn’t say a word about it. The baby isn’t his; obviously, when Monica comes back from Amsterdam six weeks pregnant after being gone for an entire summer. But she doesn’t mention it after initially informing him, and it is utterly impossible to get her to talk about something if she doesn’t care to. He has no interest in the details. Monica’s impulsive but she knows her own mind—if she wanted to leave him, she would have already. That he’ll just accept her back goes without saying.

--

Jacob Geiszler is a genius. He works as a humble piano tuner—is happy in his obscurity, his low-paying job and tiny flat and plain little choir instructor wife. Well, not happy enough, Monica thinks. He plays a Bach piece to demonstrate that he’s fixed the piano and she practically tackles him off the bench. Jacob doesn’t really look like much but he’s skilled in all the areas she cares about (if he was rubbish she wouldn’t have let things get so out of hand). Newton isn’t conceived until at least a month later.

There’s just something about Jacob, he’s so sweet and utterly free of the pretense that makes her husband almost unbearable by comparison. But Jacob is skilled enough to be world-famous, can play Bach better than Glenn Gould, went to Berklee for Christ’s sake, and doesn’t do anything with that. It turns Monica’s stomach when she thinks about, makes her want to tear up every adorable letter he writes to her or suddenly hang up the phone when she hears his quiet voice.

It’s really the phone calls that do her in, when Jacob calls and asks how she’s feeling or if she’s settled on a name. Her husband never asks about it (for obvious reasons) and she doesn’t exactly have a lot of friends. It’s actually kind of amazing. He cares, there’s no other word for it, and the experience is rather novel. It would be nicer if she actually wanted to be pregnant, if they were married and this whole family thing were her idea, it's not and she has to accept that. The alternative has never really sat well with her. The risk and scandal aren’t worth it to her and she doesn’t feel like dealing with the guilt. It doesn’t really matter: Jacob already loves the baby. She can’t let him have her, so she’s got to let him have this.

--

The proposals are a little too much. By this point Jacob’s wife has already moved out and filed for divorce. But Monica’s not leaving the musical director of the Berlin Philharmonic for a piano tuner, never in a million years. She kept her maiden name when she got married; she worked hard to achieve prestige on her own merit so marrying him after she’d already distinguished herself was icing on the proverbial cake. But a public divorce involving a baby and an affair (on her part) will ruin her.

It’s not that she enjoys being materialistic (though she kind of does), but she’s paid her dues and she’s not going back to what she was. Jacob is lovely and sweet and gentle but the only person that ever makes Monica happy is Monica herself. Marrying Jacob won’t make anything between them more legitimate or real—it hadn’t for her husband. Marriage is a legal document, one that binds her financially to a man. She can’t help it if she prefers that man to have a steady income and a glamorous title.

--

The epiphany she’s waiting for never comes. She’s spent six hours in labor (no big deal, the way these nurses are talking) and figures that nine months of slow torture and hours of pain should have forced some kind of meaningful bond when she first lays eyes on her son. She’s wrong, though. He’s tiny and red and loud, Jesus. She's got high notes that can shatter glass and she's got nothing on the lungs of a newborn. She tries not to shove him away when he’s bundled up and offered to her, merely shrinking back into her bed instead. A nurse means well when she fetches a mirror so Monica can see how sweet they look together, but all she notices is that she’s sweated off all her makeup and her hair is a mess.

Really, the only thing Monica feels is guilt that she’s not like other mothers—she’s clearly not cut out for this. It’s hard enough to look after herself, honestly, but a tiny human? That’s impossible. Her husband has expressed no interest in coming to the hospital but Jacob has; she very politely declined. The digits of his phone number keep running through her head. While she’s being forced to hold Newton and feed him, she finds herself tracing them into his skin.

Instead of her blonde tresses there is a dark thatch of hair on his head that stubbornly refuses all attempts to tame it. When she wets her fingers with the water from the cup beside her bed to try again, he actually cracks open his eyes and glares at her. Most babies in Germany are born with blue eyes, but his are the exact shade of green that hers are. She supposes it’s something she can take pride in. And with two extremely talented parents, he’s bound to inherit some of their skill.

She picks the name Newton, not because she immediately thinks of Sir Isaac Newton, but of a William Blake monotype depicting the scientist. She finds it ironic that the artist spent so much time depicting a man he despised; after seeing the work in person during a holiday to London she’s still struck by it. She can only hope one day someone will hate her enough to create a famous work of art. She’ll buy a print and hang it on her wall.

--

Three days into motherhood Monica shows up on Jacob’s doorstep with Newton. She’s can’t handle the diaper changing and midnight feedings and all the goddamn crying, but she knew all that before she even had him. She did the hard part of actually carrying and delivering him, so she figures it’s Jacob’s turn now. He wants the baby more than she ever did; now his dreams are coming true. Monica knows he’s excited but makes sure Jacob’s going to be okay at this—she’s not a total fuckup.

She tries not to squirm at the look on his face as he gazes down at his son—it is, after all, the way she was supposed to be looking at him after he was born (and for the past three days). She turns down the coffee and tea she’s offered and resists the urge to smoke lest Jacob level her with one of his rare but devastating judgmental glares. She relays the story of how she named Newton and he laughs, muttering something about how it’s “very Monica,” whatever that means.

It’s awkward as hell but she doesn’t want to leave. On a completely objective level she cares enough to know Newton will have a much better life with Jacob than he will with her. She doesn’t know how to be unselfish, and just because she can admit that doesn’t mean she can stop being the way she is. Every time she’s tried looking out for others it never seems to work out well for her. She’d like to think Newton’s too young to screw her over, but he’s really not.

--

Jacob always sends lots of pictures, letters, and cards. And even though no one knows (or would believe her), she reads and keeps all of them. Touring makes it impossible to visit regularly, sometimes months will go by. Thankfully Illia is there to help (his first name always makes her think of the human pelvis, so she calls him by his middle name, Gunter, like everyone else). He’s actually really good with kids, with the exception of having absolutely no sense when it comes to what’s age appropriate for them. (She can’t exactly make him stop letting Newton watch The X-Files when she’s thousands of miles away but seriously, this should be an obvious one.)

She doesn’t think of Newton often, at least not as often as she thinks she should, but there’s a literal piece of her that lives and breathes on the other side of town. He’s being raised by a good man who could be great. She wonders if Newton will be the same way, similarly blessed with immense talent but unwilling or unable to pursue it. The very thought of this plagues her, that she’s going to somehow contribute to his failure by leaving him with Jacob, but she’s forced to laugh at her own folly: what better chance would he have with her if she even wanted him? Anything she nurtures is bound to turn into a narcissistic little monster like she is, she just knows it. It’s probably why children scare her so much.

Her visits every third weekend when her schedule permits are as much for her to see Jacob as they are to see Newt. It’s not about sex, since Jacob refuses to even entertain the idea with Newton around, so it’s got to be something else, and Monica’s not sure she knows what that is. Even from a young age it’s apparent Newton has the attention span of a fruit fly; once he attends school she actually gets a neat little list of everything people think is wrong with her son. It hurts more as a strike against her, that she’s somehow produced something flawed. Maybe if she spends a little more time with him she’ll understand it a little better.

She tries to schedule an actual, honest-to-God, real vacation for them. It’s not even Lake Como, just some little knock-off resort, but Newton loves it. Her schedule is so packed he barely gets to see her, but she’s trying harder than she ever has. She’s still performing, but manages to spend several consecutive days in his presence. Apparently he knows everything there is to know about every single species of fish in the lake, but it doesn’t really surprise her. He’s smart.

Newton drives her a little batty with his endless recitation of facts, but before they ditched her, her parents never gave her the time of day when she was young and really passionate about something. Monica figures she can listen, even if she doesn’t understand half of what he’s saying. Yeah, she’s humoring him, but she’s not condescending about it. There are so many things that go over her head but this isn’t one of them. She doesn’t necessarily care about the words—she's seen countless eyes glaze over when she talks about her job—but knows the important thing is that Newton is the one saying them.

She visits for lunch and is surprised to find that Jacob can cook very well. She feels more spoiled after a meal of roasted fish and russet potatoes than she ever has after a meal at a four-star restaurant with her husband. Money really isn’t the be-all and end-all; Monica knows this on a theoretical level. But a family dinner with Jacob asking after her concert last night and Newton explaining the respiratory system of the latest thing he’s dragged out of the lake is are experiences that can’t be bought. (She also can’t believe that dinner was the very thing Newton just described to her, that he caught it himself just that afternoon and Jacob transformed it into something delicious, but that’s straight up black magic right there.)

Monica’s husband actually argues with her over the time she spends with Newton, because Lord knows she really should be practicing instead. It’s the most emotion she’s seen out of him in years, and it’s not that he’s angry about her blatant attachment to a family that isn’t their own—it’s that he feels her music is suffering. She wants to get angry right back, but can’t bring herself to when this is the bed she’s made for herself. It’s not as if their marriage is based on love, but she’s rather offended he’s critiquing her performances when his health is declining by his own hand every day.

Hypocrisy and all that.

--

If Jacob was vindictive, Monica would think he’s moving to America to spite her, but alas, he’s not. He’s going back to school for his masters in piano performance, and Gunter’s tagging along to the U.S. for shits and giggles, Monica supposes, because he’s not even living in the same city. Jacob is attending Carnegie Melon and Gunter’s heading to Philadelphia to check out the local music scene, so at least they’re in the same state. Even the five hour distance between the two still offers Newton more stability than she can, so with no small degree of self-loathing she sees them off with her blessing.

Why couldn’t she be this interested when Newton was close? Now that he’s far away she’s suddenly wondering things like how much English did he know before he left and how many friends he’ll have to make. Letters take days or weeks, but the time zone different puts a damper on satisfying her curiosity; what’s Newt going to think when his mother calls him in the middle of the night? She suddenly wants to know things she should already know, like his favorite color and his favorite movie and his favorite book. It says horrible things about her and what if he finally realizes it, that she only pays attention about her forgotten little toy when it’s being taken away from her? Sometimes she really does hate herself for being less than a human being.

Her mood plummets. It’s not like she even visits Newton that often but knowing he’s close is always a source of comfort. (Knowing Jacob is close is always one too.) Her husband copes with her mood swings with more drinking that borders on irresponsible. His liquor intake doesn’t let up even after he moves out after eighteen months of fighting. They never formally separate, so when he dies six years later from cirrhosis she inherits a sizable fortune that she promptly locks up in a trust. It’s one of the only things she can be proud of when it comes to her son, who is graduating from high school at the age of fourteen.

She hasn’t seen Newton since the lake that one summer, and that’s been literally half his life. They still write letters; she tells herself the frequency is diminishing on her end because she’s so busy, but the idea that Newt doesn’t need her anymore (if he needed her ever) is starting to drive her crazy. And sometimes, she admits only rarely and privately, she is. She calls them episodes and her therapist calls them something else—she stopped going before the word “bipolar” was ever uttered, just in case. Jacob only alludes to their son having mania, and mental illness isn’t exactly the legacy she wants to leave.

Now that her husband’s dead Monica has no reason not to be more involved, she reasons. She doesn’t feel bad for not missing him; the only difference is that now without her husband’s backing it’s harder to navigate the opera scene, but only just a little. She’s one of the best in the world, and it’s not arrogance that compels that line of thought. Her schoolmates used to liken her speech to a screech owl but her singing voice is nothing short of angelic. It’s why her husband fell in love with her, at least according to her. Sometimes it seems like the only reason people like her at all, until she remembers than Jacob has never heard her sing.

--

Newton as a teenager is just as terrifying and awesome as she predicts. His English is perfectly Americanized; she did study at Juilliard and her highly-trained ear can detect no difference in it from his peers. His German is still flawless (the Geiszlers would expect nothing less) and he’s even learning some French. This is where his accent is so tragic she recommends he learn Italian instead. The day after his celebratory graduation dinner (and hilarious commencement speech) she gives him some language tips. He points out that MIT is in Boston, not Europe, and that makes her sad for more than one reason.

“Don’t you want to come back home?”

Newt’s mouth quirks into a weird shape and he gives a little huff that’s supposed to pass for a laugh. “Mom, I am home.”

At the time Monica tries to brush it off. She consoles herself with a bottle of pinot noir later that night in her hotel room (she refuses to stay at their apartment). Newton didn’t say anything she didn’t already know. He’s so like her, just saying things like that. Unlike her, his aim is always honesty.

Even in her opera singer bubble she’s heard of MIT. To be so successful at such a young age…Monica wishes she could take any amount of credit for it. Jacob doesn’t completely take her by surprise when he takes her aside and proposes to her again. She doesn’t want to start from the ground up in a new place, and Jacob isn’t exactly shocked when she turns him down. Newton’s brilliant, stunning eyes are exactly like hers, and she ignores how they burn holes into her back when she leaves.

--

Her career is better than it ever—a collaboration with a local composer turns into a smash hit when the film he’s scoring gets picked up for international film festivals and wins top prizes on the awards circuit. She hadn’t exactly been hurting but this break is remarkable, truly. She doesn’t think anything is missing in her life, so she’s dreading her visit for Newton’s MIT graduation. What if Jacob proposes again? She’s not sure how she can justify saying say no. Love is a complicated concept to wrap her head around, but she makes an effort to on the plane ride into Boston.

Most people that proclaim love just leave. Her dad left her mom when she was six and her mother left her when she was just thirteen, dumping her with an aging relative that died only two years later. Monica never loved her husband, never proclaimed to. She liked traveling with him, performing with him, living a lavish lifestyle with him. But he told her often, in the beginning, how much he loved her. Granted, she’d had an affair and an illegitimate child, but neither of them had been happy for a long time before that. She picked him over Jacob and Newton and he still left. Everyone realizes there’s something broken and horribly wrong with her eventually. If Jacob offers his hand and she takes it, who’s going to save her when he inevitably takes it away?

Gunter is flying in from California, his flight arriving within an hour of hers. He manages to appear pleased to see her, even introducing her to his daughter, Ursula. (She has the thick, unruly Geiszler hair and dark eyes, and even at ten years old her good looks stun Monica into a momentary stupor—thank God she doesn’t resemble her father.) The celebration dinner this time is at a nice Italian restaurant. Jacob sneaks a glass of wine to Newton—the American drinking age is very perplexing to Monica—and Gunter smuggles him a beer. Everything is just…nice. It’s special, because it’s for Newton, but it’s also one of the most normal things she’s ever done.

Newton's early graduation before the spring semester, just weeks before he turns eighteen, give him ample time to prepare his syllabus for fall. He’ll be teaching kids his age or older—nothing new—and she hopes they’re the audience he’s never stopped looking for. Her son, a professor at MIT…her heart fills with pride. She and Jacob aren’t exactly stupid (she’s pretty sure Gunter might disagree) but Newton is just beyond anything she can fathom. The consummate scientist, he’s very observant.

“Don't take this the wrong way, but I’m glad Dad’s stopped getting his hopes up. The proposals were a little ridiculous. I mean, it was sad watching him pine after you like that.”

“You don’t want to have your family together after all these years?” Monica asks, because that’s supposed to be something kids want, right?

“If you really wanted to be there for us, you’ve had almost twenty years to do it. You’ll always be my mom, but you’re not really a part of this family.”

The next morning he smiles at her like he’s never said it. She hugs him and tries not to hate herself on the flight home. Jacob always says the right thing. Newt…well, he’s always been a little different. Monica picks at the hem of her skirt and thinks that Newt has her ambition, her creativity, and her energy, but none of Jacob’s calmness, patience, or compassion. Her son isn’t unfeeling but he’s not good at reading them in others and adjusting his behavior accordingly. It occurs to her that she isn’t good at that either, but at least on her end it’s usually intentional.

She’s known this for some time, but she's never really thought about which is worse.

--

There’s a second doctorate, then a third, all the way up to six. Her son is a marvel, truly. She has contributed fifty percent of his genetic material (though Newton will later inform her that’s not exactly how it works) but only about two percent of his upbringing (another number he’ll later dispute). She visits him on campus once and is indescribably happy to see how much his students adore him. He’s still awkward as hell out of the classroom but at least he’s self-assured now. If he’s going to be right all the time he should be acting like it.

Just about the only dark spot in his life is Gunter, of all things. After a cancer scare in his late teens, he’s still smoking like it’s going out of style and is finally paying the price. He’s participating in a medical study—some weird, experimental, super expensive drug/chemo treatment that probably won’t work—but he’s still in his usual high spirits from everything that Newt tells her. Even though they’ve never been close, Monica’s tempted to see him. Gunter helped raise her son, after all. She owes him more than one visit can ever express, although what either of them would get out of it is debatable.

She not sure she can handle the sight of him deathly ill so she chickens out and sends her feelings to him via the post office instead. It’s not just some store-bought bullshit card, but a genuine, heart-felt letter. She may borrow heavily from song lyrics, but Gunter would appreciate the references and any words she pulls from her own mind are going to sound even more clichéd anyway. She encloses some pictures her son has sent over the years (after making sure she has digital copies on her tablet) along with some letters where Newt’s love for his uncle is clear. There are lots of references to Godzilla, bands she’s never heard of, IPAs, and silly little anecdotes about him, for some reason most of them involving Beyoncé.

The card he sends back is penned in his hand. He doesn’t have much strength, so it’s brief, but she still cries when she reads it. He’s tried to draw her something, and to her dismay she can’t make it out. She doesn’t want to ask, because Gunter used to be an excellent draftsman and this is just heartbreaking. It turns out to be the last correspondence they ever have, and not for the reason she thinks.

--

The monsters frighten her, there’s no shame in admitting that. She knows that logically San Francisco is nowhere near MIT, but it’s August and Newton had mentioned visiting Gunter sometime that month. She curses herself for not remembering the exact day and when she’s finally able to reach him fifteen hours later he reminds her that the visit was a week ago. Gunter would have totally preferred being killed by a giant monster over succumbing to disease, it’s true, and he only had days left to live, Newt reminds her. She tries not to wince at the excitement in his voice.

Monica listens to Newt complain that his MIT teaching contract doesn’t run out until the end of the spring semester in 2016. It had seemed like a great idea at the time, negotiating for a position when pretty much every college was being forced to make cutbacks, but now it’s just a three-year-long prison sentence he can’t get out of. He’s talking a mile a minute, more to himself than to her, and Monica is overwhelmed by the idea that had her son’s visit been just seven days later she would not be talking to him now or ever again. She’s upset and Newton does a shitty job of consoling her, so when they’re done talking she immediately calls his father.

Jacob, bless his heart, listens to her cry for half an hour. When she hangs up she realizes that not once did she offer sympathy for his brother’s death and actually breaks the window with her phone in her rage. She is such a terrible person, only thinking about herself. Jacob has been the only person in her life that wasn’t similarly self-centered and she’s never been wise enough to notice. When her son inevitably runs back to California and gets some kind of lethal condition or poisoning from the monster that finished off his uncle, it’s going to be all her fault because Newton is exactly like she is. He’ll go after what he wants and if he gets hurt—if other people get hurt because they care about him—then they’re just unfortunate collateral that he never asked for. It’s their fault for caring.

--

She doesn’t like the fact Newton joins the PPDC but really, it's not like he stood a chance against their offer. She knows it was only a matter of time, but the idea of him putting himself deliberately at risk fills her with anxiety. She’s been adjusting her performances and repertoire for audiences that crave more popular and nostalgic kinds of music in the wake of the attacks, and her son jokes she’s more Celine Dion and Sarah Brightman now than Joan Sutherland (she nearly hangs up on him for saying such a thing). She’s world famous, a household name, but in her narrow way of seeing things she’s really rather bitter that the kaiju have changed the direction of her career. How dare they show up and change the world? How dare they lure her son away, when he’ll be helpless to resist them?

Monica was a millionaire since marrying her husband, richer even still when he died. Money doesn’t count for quite as much when everything costs a fortune, but it isn't doing anyone any good except her. She has no tethers to anything except Jacob and Newton, and they’re both a continent away. It’s only an ocean, and not even the dangerous one, so the only thing that’s stopping her is herself, and that’ just unacceptable. She can finally admit what wants, and even though a part of her has always wanted it, she’s hasn’t been able to justify the weakness until now.

The flight to New York is astronomical. She knows she should call first but risks losing her nerve if she does. No one ever says no to her, not ever, but what if they start today? She throws herself on Jacob’s mercy and begs him to accept her money and all the good it can do for them, and of course he says yes, because she comes along with it. They get married at the courthouse with Gunter’s daughter as the witness. Ursula doesn’t look particularly pleased or surprised, exactly as Gunter would be if he was still alive, but she’s not rude or off-putting at least. Monica’s still beautiful but she’s feeling a little upstaged by Jacob’s niece looking unfairly gorgeous in a pair of cutoff shorts and a band tee. (She spends the ceremony typing on her iPhone and at one point Monica swears she's using headphones, but it's only out of the corner of her eye and she can't prove it.)

Newt doesn’t come. He can’t, really, while attending the Jaeger Academy and all, but Monica gets the distinct impression he doesn’t approve when she tells him over Skype. Sometimes she needs things explained to her, but this? She understands this. Her motives are always selfish; she can’t really help it that Jacob’s aren’t and that he’s somehow managed to pass on a tiny piece of that to their son. Newton doesn’t think she won’t break his father’s heart, not when she’s been doing it steadily for over two and a half decades. She’s only here because she’s scared of being alone. Newt’s not wrong for thinking that.

And if she knew that this is what marriage was supposed to be like, she would have never married her first husband. Money doesn’t mean everything—it doesn’t mean a goddamn thing—because somehow Jacob soothes insecurities and fears that she’s suffered for decades. Someone loves her genuinely, makes her feel worthy of it even when she knows she isn’t. For the first time she thinks that maybe when her parents left her it was their fault, not hers. She knows what it did to her—what it still does to her—and knows what it did and still does to Newt.

--

Having her own son doubt her motives is really no less than she deserves, so when Newton elects to wait two years to visit them, she can’t lie to herself that he’s just really busy. She fawns over her Doctor Geiszler and how he’s working so hard to save the world. The pride gushing out of her is something Jacob feels every day, and how the hell does he hold himself together when their son is so special and perfect when he’s passionate about something? God, she just missed so much, everything important. She doesn’t deserve to see him now and call him cute little nicknames but she does anyway. She can’t really help it—saying them over and over is just making up for lost time.

Newt’s happy to see his father and cousin. Perhaps he’s not unhappy to see her. He spends hours talking about how amazing kaiju biology is, how incredible they are even when they wipe cities off the map. Monica frowns at the tattoos that disappear under his shirt sleeves but she gets obsession better than most people. She asks him if he’s met anyone at work; if he’s going to get married; if there will be any little Newt Geiszler juniors in the future.

“I don’t want to get married.” And well, that makes sense. “I don’t want children. What if they turn out exactly like me?”

It’s supposed to be a joke but Monica spends a good three hours crying over it that night. Jacob understands his son and his wife and the knowledge that they’ll always be a little too much for each other and just offers her tissues throughout. Monica never wanted a family until it was too late. But explaining that to Newt is just going to make him resist the idea even more.

And Newton is exactly like her, in all the ways she fears. Even though he is brilliant and good-looking and successful, he’ll be just as lonely as she was. She doubts there are many people like Jacob Geiszler left in the world, so forgiving and accommodating and so worthy, willing to accept him when he finally realizes he’s made a mistake in shutting people out. This is all her fault.

--

The first Jaeger goes down and then a second. The people are demoralized. There’s talk of defunding the program. Monica went to school with Lars Gottlieb, used to be his friend (and maybe in love with him; it doesn’t really count if she never said it), and knows he’s smart and stubborn enough to be a real problem. Newton doesn’t like to think people will believe in something as foolish as a wall, not when some of the kaiju have goddamn wings, but he should know by now that the world will always disappoint him. They want to be comforted, and hearing that they’ve barely scratched the surface of understanding their enemy after crushing losses is not what anyone wants to hear. Newt’s never been good at pandering—no one’s really done it to him—so this goes over his head.

Monica starts calling every famous musician she’s ever worked with—people who don’t need the money or the press, but genuinely want to do the right thing. Not everyone can pilot a Jaeger or pinpoint the location of the breach, but that’s okay. And Newton will say he doesn’t need her help, but this is something she can do, perhaps the only thing.

There have been attempts made before, mostly by greedy assholes that should hang for war profiteering, but this is going to be different. Monica’s performed at dozens of charity events and benefit concerts. She knows the ins and outs—knows that many cost more money than they raise—but she’s going to make sure every dime goes where it should. She’s helped raise millions of dollars for causes she didn’t care about.

She cares about this one.

--

It’s a stroke of brilliance to invite PPDC members to audition, if she does say so herself. The public goes crazy; Bruce Gage’s audition video gets so many hits the first hour it breaks youtube. And it should be a simple matter, this: her son is a self-proclaimed rock star but he shies away from her request that he try out, uncharacteristically tepid. She still doesn’t really know him, so she’s not sure what to do and why he’s resistant to the idea. But she can’t help but think it isn’t like him, turning down the opportunity to show the world that he’s got more to contribute than just science. Trying to convince him just makes things worse, and for the first time he actively avoids her calls.

The date is getting closer; she’s managed to time it a few weeks before his birthday, because she’s awesome like that. Her son’s just been stationed at Hong Kong but she made sure he’s being flown in to Los Angeles for this along with a few other senior officers. It’s hard to keep tickets out of the hands of scalpers (because that money’s not going to the PPDC anymore) but she does the best she can. The prices are outrageous but this is something to feel good about being involved in. Why shouldn’t people that have the money be contributing financially to saving the world? If it takes them getting something out of it then yeah, okay, fine. She only feels a little bit manipulative about twisting their arms.

Ursula informs her about sixteen hours before the concert starts that her “publicity stunt” has triggered a depressive episode in her son and that he’s using his holiday leave to sleep for eighteen hours a day. Seeing her in person will probably flip the manic switch because Monica can’t mind her own goddamn business and resist the urge to insert herself into the media for even more coverage. She’s a little floored: is this really what Newton thinks? She’s accustomed to people misinterpreting her (more than often they’re right, though) but she can’t let this go on. Christ, she’s not using a world tragedy to get rich and famous, and she’s actually kind of pissed he thinks that. Being a terrible mother and an occasional terrible person doesn’t make her evil.

Newton is petulant when he agrees to meet with her, but like Monica, can recognize it and even suffer guilt for feeling so personally affronted when there are more important things to be worried about. It’s the longest conversation they’ve ever had, and certainly the most meaningful. They talk about feelings, ugh, but getting everything out in the open helps. She’s not doing this to buy his affection, she explains, and knows there’s nothing she can do that can possible make up for not being there for him when he was younger. She’s taking an interest and getting involved; finally something has come along more important than she is, and it’s not just the end of the world, it’s him. She’ll never be good at this, but she’s trying hard to be there for him now, even when he makes it impossible.

Later that night Newton dresses up in the Armani suit she bought him when he graduated MIT, and that’s one hell of a peace offering. He’s always cleaned up spectacularly, a fact which seems to take the PPDC members by surprise (she just smiles when she watches one of them repeatedly side eyes her son’s blue and red patterned silk tie—shining purple in the bright lights—like it personally offends him). Monica takes the stage with a clean conscience and a lighter heart. She’s never sounded better. She sees tears stream down her son’s face and thinks that she deprived herself of this for too long.

Newton still refuses to perform during the actual televised concert, but a few hours after everyone has cleared out, a handful of PPDC staff members and some musicians from the band decide to play around before they pack up the next day. Admittedly they’ve all been drinking and some of Newt’s song choices are hilariously predictable, but it’s wonderful. Newt will never play the piano as well as his father or sing as well as she can, but he’s a natural performer, belting out Queen and Nine Inch Nails like the modern classics they are. Monica herself sings a few torch songs in honor of Marshal Pentecost’s mother, a club performer, and even an aria for Newt’s science coworker who admits to loving opera.

It’s pure magic that lasts until the sun rises. The casualties of their revelry are strewn all over the place. Jacob is reclining in a chair, possibly the most dignified of all of them. His niece is curled up under a table. Newton is sprawled haphazardly on the floor, drooling all over the coworker he fell asleep on; it’s twenty degrees (Celsius, not Fahrenheit) and the man with the cane is still zipped into the world’s heaviest coat. She and Marshall Pentecost are the only two people awake. She’s teaching him a few bars of his mother’s favorite song. He’s got a nice singing voice, and she can tell he doesn’t get the chance to enjoy music much anymore.

“Monica, I’d like to thank you for all you’ve done for the PPDC,” Stacker says quietly.

“It’s not enough, is it?”

“It’ll never be enough as long as Lars Gottlieb is opposing us,” Stacker admits. “He almost had this thing shut down before it even started.”

Monica snorts. “Tell me about it. That bastard’s using these attacks to become the next prime minister or something. I know I’m plenty opportunistic, but at least my arrogance isn’t going to end the world.”

Stacker tilts his head at her but doesn’t say anything.

“I put all this together to raise money, truly, but I also really hoped my son would start talking to me, maybe for the first time. Lars and I are pretty much tied for Worst Parent of the Year, but I’m really trying to get better. I still kind of suck and I probably always will, but I figure a belated effort is better than nothing. I need to try while I’ve still got things left in this world worth saving.”

Head bowed, Stacker thinks about Mako training in Anchorage at this very moment. She wasn’t strong enough to save her family when she was younger and she’ll never be able to get them back, but she isn’t helpless anymore. She’ll be able to save new lives—other people’s lives—but the ones she cares about most are lost to her forever. Still, it’s moving forward, it is progress, and anything’s better than dwelling on irretrievable things.

Monica can see a hundred emotions lurking in Stacker’s eyes. The only words she’s really good with were written by other people, so that’s exactly what she uses. Her fingers attack the keyboard as she tears into another song.

“Boy, you’re gonna carry that weight, carry that weight a long time…”

--

Newt’s been stationed in China for what seems like an eternity. He says the Shatterdome there has the best food but some of the shittiest weather, the latter of which shouldn’t really influence him much considering he’s usually holed up indoors in a lab. It’s pretty hard to get flights approved traveling in and out of the city, but Stacker’s not cold hearted. The news that Newt’s father is dying gets him a plane ticket and two weeks leave. It’s not really the reprieve from Hong Kong he’s looking for but he doesn’t exactly have a choice.

Her son is looking more tired than she remembers, but the news his dad's going to die understandably wears on him. Things like leave and vacation are pretty much gone. Some people are just taking off and never coming back; most of his dwindling PPDC coworkers would just walk—they would use the time they had left (and it’s not much, not now) and spend it with their loved ones. But it’s not an option for him. It’s not just because the kaiju are still the coolest things ever, but because the world still needs to be saved. Brute strength isn’t working; they need to know more. Monica wishes people would understand that about her son.

Jacob manages to hang on long enough to see Newton and say goodbye. Monica swears she is all cried out until seeing them together sends forth a fresh wave of tears. Family means so much to Jacob and he never gets to see his son anymore because of goddamn monsters climbing out of the sea. It isn’t fair that he has to die in order to see Newt one last time, but there are millions of people across the world robbed of closure and reunions and farewells.

Newton stays for the funeral and books a flight back the next day. He technically has nine days of leave left—bereavement leave does still exist—but the only thing he’ll be doing if he stays is thinking about how much work he should be doing half a world away. Her son doesn’t ask if she’ll be okay. It’s his hypothesis that she’s lived so long without Jacob by her side that going back shouldn’t be too difficult. It isn’t a spiteful assumption. She’s changed since the attacks, isn’t quite so needy without knowing it. She’s made a measure of peace with the kind of person she is. She’ll never be proud, but she'll have to settle for not being quite so ashamed.

She talks to Jacob’s ashes every day—even takes them on tour with her—something she would have criticized in others before appreciating the value of it herself. It slowly creeps up on her daily, missing him: Jacob was breathing, her heartbeat, the rising and setting sun—things she needed to live but never gave much conscious thought to. He was so easy to take for granted because he never asked for recognition. He didn’t like fuss. Even when he performed it was all about the music, never him. Monica is the opposite, always the consummate diva. But she’s always underestimated Jacob’s great qualities because he wasn’t flashy. She’s trying to appreciate little, unseen things, but it’s difficult. She’s always had to try hard to be noticed. It's counterintuitive that good things might try and stay hidden, that part of what makes them good is humility.

Monica watches Newton’s plane take off and wonders if he felt this way every time he watched her leave him. She and Newton will never be close, she can admit that, but they do love each other. It’s not the traditional, unconditional love it should be, but it’s hard-won and now that she’s finally willing to embrace it she’s not letting it go. She jealously guards it because life has a way of taking away the people that matter most to her.

--

She gets a call from Newton the day after the Breach is closed. She tries to activate the webcam but he warns her she’s not going to like what she sees so for once she doesn’t argue and just listens. She can’t get mad at him for taking risks, not when she’s done some pretty spectacularly stupid things herself, and manages to be thankful that her son is coming back to her when not every parent is so lucky. There are limits to her influence, she's still learning, and Newton is a force whose actions may be accepted or rejected, but never controlled. Her life isn’t about being lucky or deserving of what she gets, not when it comes to her son.

Ursula drives in from Las Vegas (where she’s been making bank as a burlesque performer, masters degree be damned) and the two women manage to amicably pass time together until Newt inevitably arrives. Between medical clearance, government debriefs, PPDC red tape, and every airline being overbooked for like, forever, it’s pretty amazing he’s managed to find a flight at all. He only has two weeks before he’s sucked back into the victory circuit or thrown into academia again.

They’re not exactly anyone’s first choice for the person they want to be there for them when the world didn’t end, but with the three finally under one roof it’s the most complete they’ve felt in awhile. They try out new restaurants and visit all the New York landmarks they walked by every day and never noticed. They watch three yoga DVDs and take a cooking lesson and fall asleep in front of the television streaming terrible movies. They’re all trying a little too hard but they’re all feeling similarly vulnerable and bruised. They have to make new connections, because the fond memories of Gunter and Jacob are just that—memories.

Life will go on now. It’s scary. Ursula’s going to actually have to use her masters in psychology. Newton has no excuse not to become a legitimate rock star now. Monica has no Jacob as her beacon and soon enough Newton will be leaving, and she’ll need to find her way without them. She’s spent her life either rejecting or being rejected by family. Newt probably feels the same way. They’ve been through the wringer and still misunderstand one another and are still dysfunctional as hell but he’ll take it.

So will Monica.