Cold and sterile. A hospital always lies. Nurses smile and claim things will be fine as someone dies in the next "room", sectioned off by a thin pale curtain. It's too bright, a place full of death and grief shouldn't be so clean, so white, so bright even as the moon flies overhead, as bright white and untouchable as the hospital itself. People come and go from the waiting room, following strangers beyond the doors with hope in their eyes. Sometimes they come back with hopes dashed and tears rolling down their cheeks. Some don't come back at all.

Hiro hoped Aunt Cass wouln't be crying when she came back.

Tadashi was somewhere in that beyond. Somewhere alive, or dead. Schrodinger's Tadashi. Tadashi was a cat last Halloween.

Hiro shook his head. A cat? Really? Maybe they messed up and his minor concussion was actually fairly serious. His head did hurt, as did his elbow where he landed on it, but nothing compared to the ache that was Tadashi. His brother had just been about to enter those doors when The exposition hall exploded, blowing the two of them back. Hiro had landed on his elbow and then slammed his head on the pavement. Tadashi had been thrown down the steps and burned by the flames.

Hiro didn't want to think about Professor Callaghan.

It was his dream to study robotics under Robert Callaghan, and that went up in smoke. Literally. Hiro snorted, then felt sick. A man was dead. Tadashi could be dying. Why wasn't Aunt Cass coming back.

Hiro suddenly felt very small and very alone in the cold waiting room. He still wore the smoke-smelling clothes from the explosion and soot greyed his black hair. The hard plastic chair dug into his back and his bottom. GoGo, Wasabi, Honey Lemon, and Fred had all left already, though unwilling. Wasabi needed to take GoGo and Honey home after the two fell asleep on each other, though GoGo refused until Aunt Cass urged her to go and promised to call as soon as there was news. Fred had left soon after hanging up his cell from a mysterious call. Hiro wished they had stayed as the emptiness swallowed him.

There was a woman across from him who kept crying, a small girl next to her kept asking where her daddy was with a tiny, scared voice. Her mother just cried harder, pressing the heel of her hand into her eye. Hiro looked up at the speckled ceiling instead. Where was Aunt Cass. He just wanted to go home with his brother and lie down and not think anymore. His head gave a particularly painful throb and he squeezed his eyes shut, hands buried in his fluffy black hair and curling up in the uncomfortable chair and wished for this nightmare of a day to be over.

It had been going so well, he'd finally presented his microbots to Robert Callaghan. Robert Callaghan. And he had been impressed with him! He was living the dream. Tadashi was proud, Aunt Cass was making a feast to celebrate, and he was going to study under the greatest robotics inventor this side of anywhere. But then the exposition hall caught fire, his dreams blown apart, and his brother fighting for his life somewhere in the hospital.

"Hiro, honey, can you open your eyes for me?" Aunt Cass quietly said into Hiro's ear, a warm hand gripping his shoulder. Hiro wondered when she had come back.

Hiro blinked and looked up at Aunt Cass, but couldn't see any fresh tears rolling down her face, no telltale wobbling of her lower lip. Tadashi wasn't dead!

"How's Tadashi? Is he ok?" Hiro was upright faster than Megabot could reassemble and regretted it as another throb pulsed through his skull.

Aunt Cass looked away then and Hiro felt his stomach drop.

"Hiro, Tadashi was hurt pretty badly," Aunt Cass began.

"And the doctors patched him up and Baymax will take care of him at home for a while, right? Can we go get him now? He's just signing some papers, right?" Hiro desperately hoped he was right.

"Hiro, Tadashi isn't coming home with us tonight. Tadashi is in a coma, but the doctors are hopeful," she said quickly as Hiro's face dropped as quickly as his heart, "we can go see him, but only for a little while, you need rest too."

Aunt Cass gently steered Hiro out of the waiting room and through the mystery doors. Behind them a nurse approached the mother and daughter. They screamed and cried as the door swung shut.

The hallways were a putrid puke green colour. They passed rooms and rooms of patients and equipment, but Hiro had no idea how he had gotten to the foot of Tadashi's bed. His big brother, his nii-chan was hooked up to monitors and an IV hung eerily, like a long thin snake biting into Tadashi's wrist. A soft slow beeping filled the silence, reminding Hiro his nii-chan was still alive. Where there's life, there's hope, right? Hiro wanted to believe that more now than anything. Tadashi's left side sported bandages, including up his neck and on his face, covering his eye. A nasal cannula was nearly lost among the bandages.

"They said the scarring wouldn't be too bad," Aunt Cass said, again in a quiet voice. Like she didn't want to wake Tadashi, even though Hiro doubted anything would wake his brother up right now. "But they did say something about his eye."

Hiro slowly moved around the bed, making his way to his nii-chan. He gently held Tadashi's unbandaged hand with both of his own. He couldn't help the sniffle, it burst out of him, and it opened the floodgates. All of the emotions he had been holding back burst out of him as he felt his brother's warm hand between his own. Fat, salty tears rolled down Hiro's cheeks as he wailed. He clung to Tadashi like a lifeline. He was alive. Gloriously alive and breathing, if not whole and healthy. It was more than Hiro had hoped for an hour ago.

Hiro hiccupped as his crying stopped, unaware of when he had sat down in another uncomfortable chair or when Aunt Cass began rubbing soothing circles in his back.

"Shh, he'll be fine. He's a strong boy, you both are. And no boy of mine is going to be kept down for long," murmured Aunt Cass, making Hiro smile.

Hiro yawned, emotionally and physically exhausted, but he didn't want to let go of his brother's hand. Now that most of his worry had dissipated all his hurts ached. His elbow pulsed with pain and his head was making him dizzy. Hiro listed to the side before Aunt Cass caught him and propped him upright.

"I think we should get going home. Mochi is probably dying of hunger, and you need to get to bed."

Aunt Cass helped him out of the chair and back down the hall, and if she carried him more than led him, Hiro wasn't going to tell.