Hey everyone! So, so, sooooo sorry for the late update! But here it is—the last chapter of "Waking Up Again"! Thanks super much to everyone who's stuck with the story thus far, you're the best readers a girl could hope for! Well, after making you wait this long, I'll let you guys get to reading and see you at the bottom!

Note: I'd like to dedicate this chapter to TheNightFury, who's the most amazing little brother in the whole entire world! Love you otouto! ^^

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Tadashi instantly reaches to turn the volume up on the television, hoping to get some sort of answers as to what's going on and why Honey Lemon is hanging on for dear life at the top of a burning building dressed in a superhero costume.

"The vigilante group known as Big Hero 6 is at the sight of the old Takiyama Noodle Headquarters today," the reporter says, narrating the scene. "We've been giving you live coverage for the entirety of this event of this event, and while the rescue operation seems to have been a resounding success, now things seem to have taken a turn for the worse. One of the members of the group appears to be stranded five stories up, and while normally the team would never hesitate to save one of their own, the other are all currently inside of the building looking for anyone that they might have missed. Fire fighters are trying to get a ladder to her, but unfortunately theirs isn't quite tall enough to reach her on top of that, the rescue workers are worried that too much movement might further compromise the structure of the building, endangering everyone inside. Please stay tuned so we can give you more live details as this story progresses."

Tadashi runs his fingers through his hair, panic stirring inside of his chest. Honey Lemon—no, it had to be a mistake! She couldn't be in danger. They'd only just found each other again! He watches in despair as the seconds tick past, knowing that each one was one second closer to Honey Lemon's demise. But what could he do? He feels so ridiculously useless, just standing there doing nothing, his rapid heartbeat reflected by the tiny red dot in his vision—

Wait a minute. The dot—it would lead him to Honey! It's a longshot, but it's better than doing nothing. Not caring that he's barefoot and still dressed in hospital scrubs that he'd slept in, he races out the door and down the stairs. From there, he lets the dot guide him, trusting it to find Honey for him. As long as it's still shining, he knows that there's still hope.

Five blocks and a couple hundred odd or annoyed looks from the people he'd either passed or pushed through, he arrives at the scene of the fire. Now he's actually beginning to feel glad for his mechanical parts since before he never could have made that sprint in under three minute time like he'd just done. Still, this isn't the time to start geeking out about it. He's got to stick to his mission and find Honey.

It doesn't take long to locate her. Between his internal sensor and her cries for help to find her relatively quickly. Fortunately, the majority of the people gathered around to watch are being kept back by the police around the other side of the building, and the firemen have their attention on trying to formulate a new rescue plan, so Tadashi, as just a single person, is able to slip by them with relative ease. As soon he's close enough to the building, he comes to a stop and calls out, "Honey!"

Honey Lemon's eyes, which had been squeezed tightly shut , snap open at the sound of his voice. "T-Tadashi?" she cries in disbelief, looking down at him.

"Yeah, it's me," he answers, smiling to try to keep her form feeling too nervous. The last thing he wants her to do is lose her grip before he can go through with his plan. "Look, you're going to be okay. I know how to get you down from there."

"You-you do?" Honey asks, looking surprised.

"Yes," Tadashi replies, holding his arms out to her. "I want you to let go, and I'll catch you."

"What?" Honey shrieks. "Are you crazy?!"

"No," Tadashi responds, shaking his head. "I'm being completely serious. I promise, I won't let you fall."

"I-I'm scared," Honey finally whimpers.

"I know you are." Tadashi gives her the most encouraging smile he can muster. "But I know you can do it. Just look at me—I was too terrified to even think of leaving your apartment this morning, but now I'm out there with all of these people around. I know you're even braver than I am, so what do you say? Can you trust me?"

Honey Lemon sucks in a deep breath of air, and then nods.

"That's my girl," Tadashi grins proudly. "On three, okay? 1…2…3!"

On the count of three, Honey Lemon lets go. For a moment she goes into free fall and Tadashi to get into position. He's terrified that he misjudged the location for a second, but then he feels her land safely in his arms and he lets out a long sigh of relief. It's not a moment too soon—the moment he catches her, the pole that Honey had been hanging from snaps in too and falls to the ground with a sickening thud.

"Oh my gosh!" Honey cries as soon as she regains her ability to speak. "Tadashi, you just saved my life!"

"Well, hey, I wasn't about to actually let you fall," Tadashi answers, trying to hid how worried he'd been by pressing her head up against his shoulder. "And besides, I made you think that I was dead for a whole six months—I think I still owe you for that."

"Let's just call it even, okay?" Honey Lemon responds with a slight smile.

"Deal," Tadashi agrees. Then he brushes some of her long blond hair out of her face and adds, "You know, there's something I've been meaning to do for a very long time and, considering we've both been through near-death experiences lately, I think that now's the time to do it."

"Okay." Honey looks up at him with her big green eyes. "What is it?"

"This." Tadashi leans down to kiss her. It's everything he'd hoped for—sweet, innocent, beautiful—and when it's over, he's left in a raspberry scented daze. Honey, for her part, looks completely caught off guard by it, and he wonders momentarily if he's done the wrong thing, but then she reaches up to pull him back down for another one, and he knows that he had been right after all.

"Honey Lemon!" a slightly annoyed voice suddenly breaking into the moment. "Hello? We're supposed to be rescuing people, not sucking face with a random strang—"

"GoGo?" Tadashi's eyes light up as he and Honey Lemon come apart.

The short raven haired girl with an independent streak as wide as her thick purple highlights goes pale as she sees his face. Her mouth falls open and her gum drops to the ground as she stares at him in disbelief. "T-Tadashi?" she finally stammers, pulling off her yellow helmet as if afraid that the protective lens on the front of it was making him see things.

Before Tadashi can even answer, another figure, dressed in light green and blue costume that's vaguely reminiscent of a genie Tadashi remembers seeing in a movie when he was a kid appears around the corner. "Okay guys, looks like everyone's out of there, so we should probably clear out before any of the reporters start hassling us again about trying to give out our secret identities and—holy shoot!" The male stumbles back a few paces as he catches sight of the newcomer.

"Wasabi!" Tadashi grins and sets Honey Lemon down.

"I-is this for real?" Wasabi looks between Honey Lemon and Tadashi, obviously unsure of what to think.

"It is!" Honey Lemon beams, squeezing Tadashi's hand with excitement. "It's really him!"

"Are you sure?" Wasabi doesn't look fully convinced. "I mean, we had that alternate universe version of Fred show up last month, and you know how freaky that was."

"It wasn't freaky! It was freakin' awesome?" All heads turn as Tadashi feels slightly panicked as he takes stock of the blue, flame covered monster heading their way. But a moment late, the creature removes its head to reveal a shaggy haired boy underneath, and Tadashi relaxes as he recognizes his friend, Fred. The other youth doesn't even seem to notice him as he continues on, "I mean, it was like me, but not me! It's the me I'd be if I went all diabolical and evil, which I'm not planning on doing, but still! It makes me wonder how many other 'me's' are out there? I mean, there could be an infinite numbers of Freds, living an infinite number of lives in an infinite number of plains of realities, that are all different, and yet connected! That's pretty mind-blowing, don't you think, Tadashi?"

Tadashi tries to hold back a creeping smile, waiting to see how long it would take for the realization to set in. It took a full minute of Fred just casually resting his arm on Tadashi's shoulder before the youth's eyes suddenly went wide and he cries, "Oh my gosh, Tadashi! Aren't you supposed to be dead?"

Tadashi snorts with laughter. Fred never did have much in the department of tact. A moment later he finds himself getting squashed in an almost suffocating hug, but he doesn't care. It's awesome just being with his friends. And, on top of that, since Fred's in what appears to be a heavily padded suit, he doesn't have to worry about how hard he's hugging him back.

"Okay, that's got to be our Tadashi," GoGo says with a slight smile.

"Yeah," Wasabi agrees. "No one else would be willing to put up with being hugged by Fredzilla."

"Group hug!" Honey Lemon announces enthusiastically, and Tadashi finds himself being squished even more so, but he just smiles and accepts the love that's being sent his way.

"Guys!" Tadashi suddenly stiffens as he hears a voice—a voice that he knows better that any other and that, six months ago, he was convinced he'd never hear again.

"What are you doing?" the voice continues, sounding part confuse, part annoyed. "We've got to get moving before we get hounded by the press again. C'mon, let's head out!"

The vice-like group hug around Tadashi loosens, but he find the others standing in front of him, almost like a protective wall—whether for his protection or for Hiro's, he wasn't sure.

"Hiro," Honey Lemon finally begins after exchanging a good number of glances with the others. "There's something you need to know."

"Can't it wait?" Hiro protests, and Tadashi can almost imagine him crossing his arms over his chest in the adorably huffy way that he always does when he's impatient.

"I don't think you're going to want to wait on this one, little man," Wasabi answers, and before Hiro can protest any further, he and the others move so that the brothers can finally see each other.

What strikes Tadashi first is how grown up his little brother looks. Maybe he's not that much taller (although he thinks the teen must have gone through a recent growth spurt) and he's still got the messy mop of black hair that he refuses to cut expect when absolutely necessary under the helmet of her purple and black armored suit that he's wearing. But there's an unmistakable aging that's taken place in his face—a sort of quiet wisdom that hadn't been there before. Tadashi wonders if it has anything to do with his supposed passing, or if his little brother's just gained a lot of maturity in the last six months. Either way, though, Tadashi feels a slight stab in his heart as he realizes just how much he had missed.

Hiro, for his part, seems to be going through a whole range of emotions. First his face goes as white as a sheet, as if he can't quite believe what he was seeing. Then it flashes through a series of anger and grief, as if he's reliving every painful moment that he'd experienced since he thought his brother had died in the fire. For a moment Tadashi seriously thinks that he was going to hit him, and even though it hadn't really been his fault that he'd been stuck in the hospital for all that time, he can understand why his brother is so emotionally charged up by this probably very shocking reunion. But then Hiro's face seems to cave in on itself and he cries, "T-Tadashi?"

"It's me, Hiro. It's really, truly me." Tadashi lets out a relieved sigh and he kneels down to open his arms to his little brother and a moment later the two of them are embracing like they're never going to let go of each other. Tadashi is now fully grateful for the robotic limbs—without their help, he wouldn't' be able to hold his little brother, or wipe away the tears that both of them are crying, or know without a doubt that he's strong enough to protect Hiro from anything that might come their way. It's probably a good five minute before either of them is able to speak.

"W-what happened to you?" Hiro finally asks, a few tears still making their way down his cheeks. "I-I saw you going into the exhibition dull, and then there was that explosion and—"

Tadashi shakes his head. "I don't know how I survived. Someone was looking out for me, I guess. I've been in the hospital for the past six months stuck in a coma while the doctors were patching me up."

"A-a coma? Are you okay? Is it anything super serious?"

"No, I'm completely better now," Tadashi responds, hoping that that isn't really a lie. He is better—just not exactly the same.

"Are you s-sure?" Hiro's eyes search Tadashi's. "I mean—there isn't a chance anything could go wrong? That I could lose you again?"

"No!" Tadashi holds his brother closer. "Absolutely not. There's no way that I'm ever leaving you again, so don't even think that way. Everything's going to be fine now, okay?"

"Okay." Hiro nods, looking relieved and wiping the remains of the tears away.

"If it would make you feel better, I can scan Tadashi and check his vital signs."

Tadashi's head snaps up at the sound of a familiar robotic voice. "B-Baymax?" he stammers in disbelief and then grins as he sees the result of his many, many, many hours of work in the lab. Then he raises a questioning eyebrow as he realizes that the soft, huggable design of white vinyl that he'd originally constructed Baymax with had been covered over with a red carbon fiber armor and that the robot had his arms wrapped around the other four young adults, covering their mouths as if to keep them from talking, and all four are looking mildly miffed about it.

"Baymax, what are you doing?" Hiro laughs, apparently more used to this behavior than Tadashi is.

"Crying is a natural human response to pain," Baymax responds cheerfully. "I wished to make sure that you could process through your emotions in peace. Have you satisfactorily processed through you emotions?"

"Yeah, it's fine, let them go," Hiro answers, waving for Baymax to release the other, who all breathe huge sighs of relief.

"I have also currently distracted the reporters by sending a cute cat video to all of their phones," Baymax announces proudly. "We have approximately 3.6 minutes before all of them finish watching it to make our ecape."

"Let's get going then," GoGo says, putting her helmet back on and looking like she's preparing to take off down the street. The others seem to be doing likewise, and Tadashi stands to join them. But then he knows Hiro whispering something to Baymax and a moment later, there's a familiar "whirring" noise and then the words "scan complete". The words Tadashi had so rejoiced over his creation finally learning to say months ago suddenly sound like a death sentence. He and Honey both turn back to watch in slight horror to find that Hiro's already removed the robot's chest plate and Tadashi's entire health profile is being displayed. Baymax seems to be having a hard time figuring out what to make of the data he's received, but after a moment he finally says, "I detect large amounts of inorganic material in Tadashi's system."

"What the heck?" Hiro leans in for a closer inspection, apparently noting all of the areas in the diagram which show the parts of Tadashi which had been replaced in the lab. "What is all that?"

"None of it appears to be adverse to Tadashi's health," Baymax continues, his voice as cheerful as ever. "However, it is not in my programming to diagnose what exactly they are. I can run an analysis of the chemical compounds that they are made of—"

"Baymax, that won't be necessary," Tadashi says with a slight sigh, cutting the robot off short. "I can tell you exactly what they are." If there's a time to come clean, now is it. He feels more confident than he had earlier about it after his talk with Doctor Elephun, but it's still somewhat hard to admit, and he feels grateful when Honey Lemon slips her hand into his for support. "They're—robotic prosthetics," he finally admits after a moment's internal struggle. He doesn't look up to see the expression on the other's faces as he quickly hurries on with his explanation. "A lot of me was lost in the fire. There was a doctor who was doing research in the hospital—he took my case, and he pretty much rebuilt everything that was gone. It was pretty much the only way that I could go on living a semi-normal life. I mean, it doesn't really change anything about me, it's just—what had to be done." He finally pries his eyes off of the ground to see what the others' reactions are. They are all staring at him in various stages of shock. It's Hiro who finally breaks the silence.

"Are-are you serious?" he asks, looking at Tadashi with a look that's impossible to read.

"Y-yeah," Tadashi agrees, hanging his head, wondering if Hiro will still be able to accept him now that he knows the truth.

"That. Is. Awesome!" Hiro punches the air with excitement.

"What?" Tadashi looks back up at him with amazement. "You're-you're not freaked out at all by this?"

"Not unless you mean that it's freaking awesome!" Within moment he descends on his older brother like an over-eager child with a new toy. "Oh my gosh, this tech is sick!" he cries as he examines Tadashi's arm like it's some priceless artifact.

"Um, wrong arm bro," Tadashi laughs, more from relief than anything. Hiro quickly switches to the correct arm, and the others gather around for a closer inspection.

"So—you're all okay with this?" Tadashi asks as everyone looks him over with what almost seems like awe.

"Are you kidding?" Wasabi looks at him incredulously. "This is amazing! I've never seen anything like it before—it's completely life like. Why wouldn't we be okay with it?"

"I just thought—well, that maybe you'd think it was weird or something," Tadashi replies with an embarrassed shrug.

"Tadashi, I think you forget that we're all nerds here and basically obsessed with technology," GoGo returns, cracking a slight smile. "Technological adages are to us are what tricked out rims are to a biker."

"It's like you're a stinkin' cyborg!" Fred cries enthusiastically.

"Not helping," GoGo sighs, elbowing him in what must have been the one weak point in the suit because he instantly keels over slightly.

"Just look around," Honey Lemon says, laying a gentle hand on Tadashi's shoulder. "All of us use technology to do what we do. I have a purse that mixes chemical compounds for me. Fred has a suit that creates flames. Wasabi has plasma blades, GoGo uses electro-mag suspension to get around faster, and Hiro's suit works with Baymax's to go flying."

"Wait, Baymax can fly now?" Tadashi stares at the robot in disbelief.

"Flying makes me a better healthcare companion," Baymax answers cheerfully.

"I see." Tadashi looks over at Hiro, who smiles somewhat sheepishly up at him, and then shakes his head. "You guys are right. I'm sorry that I didn't trust you enough to tell you on my own. I should have known that I could count on you to accept me, robotic parts and all."

"Hey, it's what we do," Wasabi says with a shrug and a grin.

"We're a team, and teams look out for each other," GoGo adds, popping a new piece of gum into her mouth and cracking it loudly.

"That is, if you want to be a part of the team." Hiro says this last part, looking hopefully up at his older brother.

"Well, I think maybe you'd better explain what exactly it is that you guys are doing," Tadashi answers with a smile. "But yeah, I get the feeling that I definitely want to be a part of it."

Hiro grins like he's just won a million dollars and opens his mouth to answer when Baymax suddenly pipes up again. "I hate to interrupt, but the cat video that I sent the reporters will be over in approximately thirty seconds. Now may be the appropriate time to leave before they come looking for you."

"Oh man, we've got to go!" Hiro cries. "Those paparazzi are stinkin' relentless!" He runs over to Baymax and climbs up onto the robot's back, and the others similarly prepare to beat a hasty retreat. "Meet at Fred's like usual, okay?"

"Okay!" comes the resounding response.

Tadashi can't help but smile slightly at that. His little brother—a leader! He couldn't be more proud.

"Hey, do you need a lift?" Hiro calls to Tadashi as he and Baymax prepare to take off and others go their various ways.

"Nah," Tadashi responds, suddenly feeling just a tiny bit mischievous. "But I'll race you!"

"Wha-?" Hiro doesn't even get a chance to ask what he means because Tadashi takes off down the street at full speed. "Hey, no fair!" the younger Hamada shouts. A moment later, he and Baymax are airborne and in hot pursuit. It quickly becomes a contest of wills, with Hiro and Baymax pulling justa tiny bit ahead, then Tadashi, then Hiro and Baymax, and then Tadashi again. It doesn't take long for the flying nursebot and his rider to start outpacing the elder boy, but he doesn't mind. He's got his family, his friends, and his life back. He's going to be interning in a position which is pretty much his life long dream and where he'll be able to help lots of people like himself. And, from the sounds of things, he's soon going to be joining a small group of superheroes and be able to help even more people. Maybe his life is going to be a lot different than it was before the fire. But no, more than ever, he's so grateful that he'd been able to wake up again.

~The End~

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Well, as Porky Pig once said, "T-that's a-all folks! Thanks again to all of my wonderful reviewers and everyone who's been reading this story! I hope that it at least gave y'all a little something to smile about, if nothing else. Now, before you ask, this is probably as far as this story's going to go—but that doesn't mean that my work with BH 6 is done. Fairly soon (hopefully!) my otouto and I will be posting a co-written fanfic called "Deviant Week", following Hiro and Tadashi as they go through pretty much anything and everything imaginable (Tadashi getting genderbent, a spirit who's convinced that Hiro is his son taking over Tadashi, and Hiro getting turned into a toddler, to name a few!) over the course of one very hectic week! It will be insane, but it will most certainly warm your heart with all of the adorable brotherly fluff! ^^ Hope to see y'all when we start posting, and, until then, God bless and thanks for reading "Waking Up Again"!