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1. Wrap your grandmother's rosary beads around your left hand and clutch them until the beads leave imprints on your skin. You were never really religious the way she was, but you cling to that crucifix anyway, because it's all that's left of your family besides the tattoo on your neck and the blood in your veins. Tie your red bandana around your neatly curled hair, swipe on your red lipstick, and smile, smile, smile, even though you're just a voice over the radio. Sometimes, you're the last voice some of these brave Jaeger pilots will ever hear before they die screaming. Don't ever let anyone see how much it destroys you.
2. Once there were two boys, the brothers you never had, tall and blond and rambunctious. They teased you about the men you tried to date and lifted you off the ground when they hugged you and drank with you in silence when the darkness came creeping in. Now one of your brilliant Becket boys is dead, and the other one quit, and you try not to think about how many more people you love will die before it's all over.
3. Endure this.
4. Get more tattoos. Cameo pieces on your thighs, two great white sharks staring at each other from the inside of ornate Victorian picture frames. A scarlet rose on the back of your left arm, just above your elbow, for your mother, and an anchor in the same place on your right arm, for your father. A connect-the-dots of the moles and freckles on your back that form the constellation Taurus, the stars you were born under. Cover yourself in art so you'll always remember.
5. Don't date men who are your type. Don't date men with glasses. Don't date men who wear tight pants. Don't date men with tattoos. Don't date Newton Geiszler. Don't stare at him when you're supposed to be fixing the computer in his lab. Don't even think about it, because you've done this before, and men like that always either have commitment issues or a secret girlfriend or some damn thing. That particular kind of mania, always so exciting at first, turns aggravating and then impossible to deal with. He would never be able to give you his full attention, you're sure. Don't fall for someone who is only going to treat you as a passing fancy at best. Don't fall for someone who chases danger, because someday soon you know he will get what he's wished for. You're Tina Choi. Stick to what you're good at; stealing girlfriends and boyfriends alike away from the sides of their unwitting partners, unemotional fumbles in someone else's bed, passionate yet passionless. Stick to the occasional furtive groping sessions with Chuck don't-call-me-Charlotte Hansen, in deserted hallways and empty supply closets, rolling your eyes when she whispers please don't tell my dad about this. Stick to indifferent girls and unfaithful boys, and feel nothing. You're supposed to manage chaos, not give it a home in your heart.
6. (In the movie montage inside your head, he knows just what to do with his tongue and his hands, and he's fascinated with you in a way no one else has been, like you're some secret that he's just stumbled upon and he won't rest until he's found out everything about you. In the movie montage inside your head, he stays with you afterwards, tracing the lines of Taurus on your back, looking at you like you're made out of stars. It's utterly selfish, and twice as impossible, and you can't stop thinking about it.)
7. You start finding more and more excuses to be where he is. One day you're called down to the lab to deal with a malfunctioning computer, and the problem could have been solved in twenty minutes, but three hours later you're sitting on the only counter that isn't occupied with strange scientific instruments or kaiju organs, talking to him as he works. Mostly you talk about things you both remember from before, the music that you liked growing up, the embarassing fashion phases you both cycled through before you settled on a sort of ersatz Bettie Page look and he decided to dress like a semi-rebellious member of the Geek Squad. You try not to show him your sadness yet, because you want to be Tina Sunshine for him, all smiles and light, but then he asks you about the rosary around your wrist and the whole story comes spilling out. This was my grandmother's, you say. She gave it to me when she died. We were in San Francisco on K-Day. You stroke the dark beads, smooth under your fingers, to calm yourself. Even after all these years, it still hurts to talk about. Newt puts down the scalpel he's holding, and says, Oh Tina, I'm sorry. I would hug you, but I'm covered in slime. You try to smile but you feel like your mouth is twisting up wrong. You wish you hadn't said anything. Hey, hey, he says, quickly, come here and look at this. He is trying to distract you the only way he knows how, with overly detailed explanations and translucent alien organs. You hop off the counter and come stand next to him, nodding and asking questions at all the right moments as he pokes and prods at some purply-green section of kaiju tissue. Even though half of what he's saying goes over your head, mostly due to how fast he's talking, you have to admit his enthusiasm is infectious.
8. When he asks you to watch a movie with him, say yes. Sit on his bed and share a bottle of cheap wine as he goes on and on about the dinosaurs in this movie and how realistic they looked way back when. The T-Rex scared me so bad when I was little, he says. But there was something so compelling about it that kept me coming back. Also, I kind of always wanted to be Jeff Goldblum. You smile and hug your knees to your chest, glancing towards him, at the way the lights of the television play across his kind face. I kind of always had a crush on Jeff Goldblum, you say, and it feels like a confession without really being one at all.
9. The way he just does things and damns the consequences, the way that (like you) he never gets as much sleep as he should, the way that he trembles and shakes with nerves, humming like a live wire, like his own body can't contain him, all of this worries you. It worries Hermann, too, you know as much from the near-constant arguments they get into, but you could never really get mad at Newt like that, not for something he can't help. You just want to press him close to you and hold him until he's semi-calm again, you just want to tell him to be careful, you just want to tell him, but you don't, you don't, you don't.
10. In the space of maybe three hours Newt's managed to drift with a fucking kaiju and get lost in Hong Kong as two more go on the rampage, and you clench your fists, unclench them, breathe in, breathe out, trying to keep calm. Don't ever let anyone see how much it destroys you. If it destroys you then you lose. You can't afford to lose. Breathe in. Breathe out. Don't fall for someone who is either dead already or about to be. Think of the sharks who glide through the water and form no attachment. Clench your fists. Unclench your fists. Focus on the task at hand. Breathe in. You're okay. Breathe out. You're okay. Five by five.
11. When Newt storms back into the LOCCENT, rumpled and bloody but gloriously alive, you almost cry you're so relieved. Hermann is close behind him, holding his hand, both of them yelling a mile a minute, and even though things are so close to disaster, it seems like everything is going to be alright.
12. (The world is saved. The dead can rest easy. The living can take their first few shaky steps into a future without fear. You can let out that breath you didn't know you were holding. There will be time later to pick up the pieces. To grieve for Stacker Pentecost, the fixed point the rest of this little world spun around, and for Chuck don't-call-me-Charlotte Hansen, a mess of bravado and nerves and bitterness who will never get the chance to resolve herself. To remember. But right now, the only thing that seems important is getting really, really drunk.)
13. At the party afterwards, dance with him, limbs flailing out of time, spastic and uncoordinated and awful. There is glitter and confetti sticking to the side of his face, and he's beaming as he tries and predictably fails to twirl you around, and looking at him makes you sure that you have never been happier. Get reckless, get brave, wrap your fingers around his wrist and yell I need to tell you something in his ear so he can hear you over the music, don't be nervous (and jesus, why are you so nervous, why do you feel like a baby deer caught in the fucking headlights when you've done this so many times before). Lead him to your room, and close the door.
14. What- what- why, Newt splutters, and you start to think that this was a terrible mistake, but then he says, why didn't you say something earlier, oh my god, Tina, and he's twisting his hands together from nerves, I've really - I mean, I - I like you too, alright, fuck, that sounds really stupid, look can I please just be kissing you now, and you practically shout yes! Yes, of course, yes. He's gently cupping your face with one hand and pressing his mouth softly to yours, your noses bumping a little, but oh, that's alright, because this is so nice. Lips parted, hearts pounding, you just keep kissing and kissing and kissing, roaming to foreheads and cheeks and noses, occasionally slipping each other a secret delighted look like you can't believe this is really happening. You pull him on top of you as you lie down, breathing harder, his kisses moving to your neck, hard enough to bruise, and Tina, he whispers, are you sure. He has the worst boner right now and you grind your hips up just enough to make him gasp as you sigh back, Yeah, yeah, I'm sure. The more frustrated you make him the more he starts to lose control, and the next time he kisses you he can't figure out exactly what to do with his tongue, and you pull away, whispering shit, Newt, get it together. For an awful moment of hanging silence you think he might have taken it a different way than you meant it, but then a low chuckle wells up in his throat that explodes into real laughter, and before long you're both laughing so hard you're shaking and crying. It takes you a full five minutes before you can even try kissing seriously again, and even then he does have to pull away once so he can giggle helplessly into your shoulder. It's not too long before his shirt and your pants are off, and he's kissing his way up your inner thigh, nipping in a way that will leave little red marks later, until he's licking and teasing you through the thin mesh of your underwear, and you could slap him, because really. Somewhere along the line someone had told him that trying to get a girl's underwear off with his teeth was a super sexy, rockstar thing to do, and after his first few failed attempts you just sort of go, oh god, here, and take them off yourself. Then your legs are on his shoulders and his face is buried between your thighs, and it's just like you imagined it but better, because he's real, he's real, he's real.
15. I was really worried about you, you mumble afterwards, lying on your side, both of you sticky and gross and very, very happy. Oh yeah? Newt says, raising an eyebrow and giving you this absolutely insufferable smile. You press your forehead to his and say, very seriously, I was. He has little freckles on his cheeks and you want to kiss them, so you do. Don't, kiss, ever, kiss, do that again, kiss. He sighs, and nuzzles into your neck. Don't worry, I won't ever get to, he says, and then, you are not going to believe the day I had. You know he's just itching to tell his story, but he's waiting for the right cue, so you whisper tell me everything, and he does. He tells you about the secret room full of kaiju parts, and the moment in the streets when he finally saw Otachi up close, and all the running and screaming. I wish I could say it was so beautiful I forgot to be scared, he says. But it wasn't, and I couldn't, and I just - there's something from another world that knows I exist, and that's the weirdest fucking thing. And what if, what if they just open another Breach, what if they come back, because of something I did? You cling to him like a worried octopus, so grateful that he got away with only a nosebleed and a couple scrapes after all of that, and he clings back. They won't, you say. They won't. He is still and you are still, and everything is quiet, and after a while you think he might have fallen asleep, but then he whispers hoarsely hey, hey Tina, I need to ask you something. In the sleepy darkness you shift a little against him and mumble, what, and then he asks how do you feel about open relationships? Because like, this is great, don't get me wrong, this is really, really great, but as of about three hours ago I also have a boyfriend apparently, and like, I don't know if I can choose. You kiss him again, softly, and say, oh, that's alright. You don't have to. 'Cause I like you, really I do, the most out of anybody, but I also really like fucking girls. Newt smiles at you, although it's a little hard to see, and kisses you on the nose. That's great, he says. Okay. That's great. When you fall asleep, you sleep on your stomach, sprawled half across him, and the last thing you remember before you slip into dreams is his fingers gently tracing your constellation tattoo, the lines and dots that make up Taurus, following your stars.