Hey-hey, normally I wouldn't post any bull up here at the top (just all the consideration up in here), but I realize it's been half a year since I've updated, so I just wanted to prostrate myself before you (my beautiful followers and favoriters especially) and beg for forgiveness before offering up the continuation to this story. OrZ

Anyways, here it is.

"Excuse me? You two are here for Haruka Nanase, right?"

For a second, the two boys sitting on the floor cradling cups of lukewarm coffee could only stare blankly up at the nurse who had spoken to them. They were exhausted, and clearly their brains were no longer up to processing spoken words.

Then the blond rocketed up from the floor and started babbling about "Haru-chan" and "surgery" and "what the hell did 'critical injuries' mean anyway?" He was practically shaking her.

"Nagisa-kun!" Nitori had finally snapped out of his stupor and was scrambling up from the floor, trying to get Nagisa to shut up and let go so the nurse could speak. Honestly, they'd managed to keep their cool and not start hunting down nurses like b-list slasher film villains for this long, and he thought now – when a nurse had actually come to give them news – was the time to start freaking out. Three minutes ago they'd been playing stupid word games to stay awake… Nitori wondered if Nagisa had a bottomless reservoir of energy he kept in reserve for times of excitement.

Once he'd managed to pull Nagisa back, and shushed him like a particularly irate nun, he turned to the nurse, who had borne the abuse with amazing patience and bemusement. Nitori was horrified to see that it was, in fact, the nurse whose shoes had suffered Nagisa's wrath. At least it looked like she'd had a chance to change. He snuck a glance to his right and saw that Nagisa had realized it too, and was now sheepishly studying the linoleum.

Nitori cleared his throat awkwardly. "Yeah, we've been waiting to hear any news… Is he alright?"

The nurse smiled reassuringly. "Nanase-san is doing fine. He came out of surgery about an hour ago, but he's been under observation to make sure there weren't any complications after the fact, considering his…" she paused for a moment, looking at Nagisa, "considering the traumatic circumstances of his injuries."

Nitori almost burst out laughing as he realized the nurse was avoiding using the word "critical." Nagisa had clearly made his point about vague bullshit, not that "traumatic circumstances" was any better.

"So… so if he's out of surgery and resting, can we go see him?" Nagisa was almost bouncing in place, anxious to see his friend's condition for himself.

The nurse consulted her clipboard for a moment. "You will be able to see your friend. However…" She looked back up at the two boys, who had grown apprehensive again as she paused. "Nanase-san's doctor wanted me to inform you of his injuries before you saw him. So you'd be prepared."

Nitori could almost feel Nagisa's anxiety ratchet up beside him. His own stomach had dropped at least a few inches. Needing to be prepared… He was suspecting that his and the nurse's definition of "fine" was about a thousand kilometers apart. He knew that anything that required surgery would be serious but… but Nanase-san hadn't been helicoptered to a better hospital, after all. If his injuries were so serious, how much worse was Rin?

The nurse was gesturing toward the unholy union of wood and plastic that was meant to be a bench, clearly wanting the two of them to sit. Anticipating the severity of what they were about to hear, they opted for a few minutes of lower back torture and sat, silently waiting for the nurse to start.

The nurse took a deep breath, consulted her clipboard one more time, and began to outline Haru's injuries.

She started by saying that Haru had been relatively lucky. His burns were minor, and only on the left side of his body. He'd also escaped without any head injuries, which was what they'd spent that extra hour monitoring for. So far so not-exactly-devastating, at least in regards to what they'd been bracing themselves for (His face was completely burned off! We had to pull an armrest out of his chest! His organs have been liquefied – like soup!).

But they were still unprepared for what she said next.

Haru had been rushed to the operating room for his left arm, which had suffered a major break and several deep cuts. He was losing too much blood too fast to try and fix the break and deal with the cuts, which went down to the bone and had torn through muscles and nerves, and so the surgeon had been forced to make a difficult decision – to try and save Haru's arm, and maybe lose him completely, or to amputate and have a much higher chance of saving his life.

Of course he decided to amputate.

Nitori brought a hand up to cover his mouth. He was about to turn to Nagisa and see how we was taking it when the blond spoke up.

"Has he… has he woken up yet? Does he know…?" Nagisa's voice, teary and wavery, trailed off before he could finish. He was clearly trying to hold himself together before a wave of emotion could drown him.

The nurse sighed, then nodded. "The surgeon went into his room right before I came out to find you. I can assume he went to try and break the news as gently as he could." She took turns looking at the two boys on the bench in front of her, then smiled sadly. "I'm just glad the two of you stayed. So many people today… they don't have anybody to come see them, nobody to help them through their pain. And after a tragedy like this, it's just too sad that so many people have to be alone. At least your friend… At least he has you to help him with this."

Nitori looked down at his feet and slowly brought his hand back down to his lap. Help? Help? Were they supposed to tell him everything was going to be okay? Or maybe pull an arm out of their asses and duct tape him back together? Maybe Nagisa's presence, at least, would be comforting. At least they were actually friends – Nitori hadn't even seen Haru in six months, let alone spent enough time with him to consider himself anything other than his acquaintance, just a boyfriend of a friend.

And… and Nitori didn't even want to be here, not really. He wanted to be with Rin, see Rin, comfort Rin. Haru would see that as soon as he walked into his room, and someone who clearly wasn't thinking about you wasn't exactly a comforting presence. Nitori was suddenly seriously considering sprinting out of the hospital.

"Can we go see him now, then?" Nagisa spoke up again, sounding desperate and worried; a real friend, Nitori thought, and immediately regretted how selfish his thoughts had become. Here Haru had been in an airplane crash, and had his arm cut off, and he was worried about what? How awkward he was about to feel? That was just embarrassing.

So he shook his head, and took a deep breath to get his head back in order, and stood with Nagisa to follow the nurse through the double doors to the ICU. As he went, he steeled himself, and decided to focus his energy on what he could do here. As they reached the door to Haru's room he took one more deep breath and pushed thoughts of Rin to the back of his mind – he could help take care of Haru, and he would think about Rin again when Sousuke called him back.

He'd be strong a little longer. There was nothing else he could do at this point. So he reached over and gave Nagisa's hand a quick squeeze, then pushed open the door.

Haru's room was dim, and quiet except for the steady beeping and whirring of machinery around the bed. Haru turned toward them as the door opened, but it was impossible to make out his expression. For a moment they both just stood in the doorway, staring, then suddenly Nagisa pushed past Nitori and rushed to the side of the bed.

He stopped short of jumping into his bed, and opted for grabbing Haru's hand. That became immediately horrifying when he realized the hand he was reaching for wasn't there. Mortified, he whimpered out a heart-breaking "Oh, Haru-chan!" Then the dam broke, and while his hands flapped desperately over his friend, huge, choked sobs shook his body.

Haru shifted uncomfortably, then grabbed one of Nagisa's hands as it fluttered past his head. He held it gently while Nagisa wailed about Haru's arm, and his burns, and how worried he'd been, and how he'd thrown up on a nurse.

Nitori sighed, still watching from by the door. So much for being "comforting and supportive." Although Haru was bearing Nagisa's outburst with an impressive amount of patience - he supposed Haru had a lot of practice. Or maybe he was still in shock. Or totally blitzed on pain meds. Whatever it was, he seemed to be dealing with the loss of his arm fairly well. Nitori was relieved; it would have been too alien, too surreal to walk in on Haru weeping and wailing like a normal person. It was better that he was as stoic and inscrutable as he'd ever been.

Nitori stepped a little further into the room as Nagisa's sobs and wails cycled down into sniffles. His eyes wandered over Haru's body, taking in the bandages covering his torso and shoulders, and the massive wad of bandages swaddling his left arm – or what was left of it. Like the nurse had said, Haru had probably gotten off remarkably lucky, but he still looked like a painfully battered chew toy. He finally stepped up to the bedside, next to Nagisa, and Haru's eyes shifted over to him.

"H-hey, Nanase-san." Nitori tried to smile reassuringly, but it felt more like a grimace on his face, so he dropped it. "How're you doing?"

Oh wow, smooth Ai, how do you think he's doing? He mentally smacked himself a couple of times. He could have come out with literally anything else and it would have been a better choice than "how are you?" At least he'd managed not to drown him in tears. He glanced over at Nagisa, who was holding Haru's hand like he had to convince himself that, yes, Haru did have one hand left, and it wasn't about to float off his wrist and out the window. His shoulders were shaking, and he looked like he was struggling to get himself back together, so Nitori gently patted his back to help him calm down.

Nitori turned back to Haru when he heard him swallow awkwardly.

"S'hard to talk." He finally croaked. "Throat's raw."

Nagisa was wiping his face with his sleeve, but he dropped his arm when he heard Haru speak.

"Don't talk if it hurts, Haru-chan! It's… we'll… it's okay not to talk!"

Haru shook his head slightly. "S'fine, Nagisa. It sounds worse than it feels." He looked between the two boys standing beside his bed. "I have a few things I need to ask, anyways."

Nitori went and grabbed two of the chairs that lined the wall (thankfully, these seemed to be actual chairs and not some sort of M. C. Escher abominations) while Nagisa tried to convince Haru that no, seriously, he shouldn't be talking.

Haru just shook his head again, and waited for them to get settled in the chairs. Then he shot a sly glance at Nagisa.

"Did you really throw up on a nurse?"

Nagisa spluttered for a moment, caught off guard. "That's what you want to ask about? Out of everything? That's not even important!" Nitori almost burst out laughing. It was unbelievable how easily Haru could handle Nagisa. He'd somehow managed to diffuse the tension that had been choking the room since Nagisa had burst into tears.

"Nagisa-kun was hung-over and anxious, so when he jumped out of his chair to ask a nurse about you, he ended up spewing all over her shoes. I think it's the reason they took so long to let us come see you." Nitori was surprised how easy it was to smile now. Although he had a feeling things were going to take a turn for the serious again soon.

He didn't have long to wait. "How's Rin doing?" He looked at Nitori. "If you're in here… he must be doing alright. Or he's asleep?"

Nitori looked down at his hands, clasped together tightly in his lap. So much for trying to put Rin out of his mind. He turned his eyes back up to Haru.

"We don't actually know anything. About how he's doing, or if he's even okay… or… or anything." He felt tears prickling the corners of his eyes and he angrily wiped his face. He was keeping it together remember? No tears allowed. "A nurse did tell us that… that he was injured badly enough that they took him in a helicopter to a hospital in Tokyo. And Yamazaki-san and Tachibana-san are going there to be with him. They're supposed to call when they learn anything, but we haven't heard anything back from them yet. So."

"Oh." Haru leaned back into the pillows and stared up at the ceiling. He seemed suddenly far away. "We were… Rin was talking to a stewardess, about a pillow or something. Then everything was shaking, and she went flying up the aisle. The overheads opened and luggage was flying everywhere. We could tell the plane was dropping…" He trailed off, and they could just stare at him in horrified silence. Haru turned back to face them. "Do they know… what happened to the plane?"

Nagisa shook his head. "At least, we don't know about it. The hospital turned off all of the TVs in the waiting room. I think they probably didn't want the people waiting to have to watch footage of the crash over and over again."

They sat quietly for a while after that, letting the silence spin out into the room as they thought about what had been said. For his part, Nitori couldn't get the fact that they had known the plane was falling out of the sky out of his head. The dread, the anticipation of the crash – it must have been too awful to bear. He wanted to grill Haru on the details, whether they had been conscious when the plane hit, whether he had seen Rin get hurt… but that was too awful to ask.

Suddenly, Nagisa's hand shot out and gripped Nitori's arm. Startled out of his thoughts, he turned to ask what was wrong.

"Ai-chan, we forgot to call Rei-chan and tell him Haru-chan was awake."

Nitori's eyes widened. "You're right! I completely forgot…"

"You should call Makoto too." Haru's eyes had opened when Nagisa had spoken up. Nitori had thought he'd fallen asleep, but he had probably been lying awake, thinking as hard as either of them.

He nodded. "Yeah. I'll call him too. And, they might have news about Rin by now, and they just haven't had a chance to call…"

So Nitori pulled his phone out and dialed Rei, who picked up almost immediately. Apparently he'd been waiting impatiently for them to call, despite his parents' objections to how much he was fiddling with his phone the whole time. Nitori walked him through the past hour, deciding to leave out details about Nagisa's unfortunate bathroom adventures. Of course, he was horrified about Haru's amputation, and upset that there was no news about Rin. Then he asked to talk to Nagisa and make sure he was feeling alright, so Nitori handed over his phone and settled back into the chair, feeling drained after going over everything. And he'd have to do it again as soon as Rei was done taking Nagisa to task. Apparently he "just knew" that Nagisa had become hung over and felt that now was a good time to lecture him on the evils of drinking. Haru seemed amused at the one-sided melodrama developing in the corner of the room, so at least it was serving as a decent distraction. He actually smirked when Nagisa assured Rei that he was "a grown-ass man" and Rei was "just jealous because he couldn't hold his liquor for shit." Nitori was fairly certain Nagisa was just playing the obnoxious idiot card to take Rei's mind off of the fact that he couldn't be here with them. Most likely it was working – Nagisa was a master manipulator, at least when it came to Rei.

Finally, Nagisa ended the call with a cheeky "See ya later, Rei-chan!" and handed Nitori his phone. As he started to dial Makoto's number, a nurse knocking on Haru's door and poking his head in interrupted him.

"Sorry to bother you…" he paused to glance down at, surprise!, a clipboard, before continuing. "Emergency crews have started bringing in luggage and carry-on from the plane… Can you give us a description and we'll make sure to get your things up here?"

Haru nodded and started describing his luggage as the nurse jotted down notes on his clipboard. When Haru was done, he double-checked what he'd written and started to leave, assuring him that he'd get his stuff back. Before he could leave, Nitori suddenly thought of something.

"Uh, wait, please?" he stammered out just before the door closed.

The nurse stuck his head back in.

"Um… our friend got taken to Tokyo… could we get his luggage up here, too?"

The nurse frowned and shook his head. "Unfortunately not. If he's not in the hospital, his family will have to come and claim it. Sorry." He shrugged apologetically and left.

Nagisa was pouting. "That's just stupid. We're his friends, we should be able to pick up Rin-chan's stuff for him."

Nitori just shrugged. "I was pretty sure he wouldn't let us, anyways. It's not like they're going to throw it away, so it's not a big deal. Don't get all heated, Nagisa-kun."

"Hmph. I'm a grown-ass man, remember? I get heated when I want."

"Okay, okay, just chill." Nitori was rolling his eyes, but he was happy Nagisa was back to being goofy. It was definitely better than weepy Nagisa, and about a million times better than scared and/or drunk Nagisa.

Haru cleared his throat. It sounded painful but it got their attention. "Can you call Makoto now?"

"Oh, right of course! I'll –"

"RINGTOOOOOOONNNEEE!" Nagisa's unholy shriek suddenly tore out of the phone in Nitori's hands and he dropped it with a squeak.

"What in the holy hell is that?" Haru was wincing from the racket emanating from the floor.

While Nitori scrambled to pick up the phone and dear lord make it stop, Nagisa was apologizing for turning the ringer volume up between uncontrollable gales of laughter. Finally he managed to snatch up the phone and pick up the call.

"Hey, Ai. Anything new on your end?"

"Ah! Yamazaki-san! We were just about to call, actually. Nanase-san is awake…" one more time he went through the last few hours, telling Sousuke about Haru's injuries and how he seemed to be doing. "Actually, he wants to talk to Tachibana-san. Is he with you?"

"No… he's up with Rin right now."

"With Rin?! Is he awake? Is he –"

Sousuke interrupted him before he could ask a million questions. "Just hold on a second, okay Ai? Rin's out of surgery, but he hasn't woken up yet. They won't let us use phones in the hospital, so I left Makoto up there with him so I could come call you."

Nitori sighed, although he couldn't tell if he was more worried or relieved by the news. "How bad is he? I mean, what did the doctors tell you?"

There was a whoosh of air in Nitori's ear as Sousuke let out a deep breath, and he could feel Nagisa crowding up on him again, trying to listen in. He pulled the phone away from his ear and, with a quick glance at Haru, who was watching them intently from the bed, turned on the speaker function so they could all hear.

"Rin's got some bad burns, mostly on the left side… He broke a wrist and an ankle, too. Mostly the doctors were worried about head injuries. They said it looked like a piece of luggage or something clocked him in the back of the head. There was a bad gash and a lot of bruising. He was in surgery for a while before they could get his vitals stable, and they had him in observation for a few hours, so they wouldn't let us see him… We both decided we'd wait until we could actually see him before we called. That's why it took so long."

Nitori shook his head. "It's fine that you waited. It's better to have real news than just an update." He bit his lip. "You'll call when he wakes up, right?"

"Nah, Ai. I was gonna wait until they discharged him to give you another call. Honestly." Sousuke was actually chuckling.

"Hey, Sou-chan!" Nagisa suddenly blurted into the phone.

"Nagisa? What? Am I on speaker phone?"

"Yeah, yeah, you are. Were you able to reach Rin-chan's mom? And Gou-chan?"

Another sigh from Sousuke, the brief humour gone from his voice. "Yeah, I got a hold of them. They… didn't take it well. I guess you figured that. They're on a plane back now, which is… hell, a bit terrifying to think about. The plane lands in Tokyo, and they're going to come straight here."

"That's good, though. Maybe they'll be there when he wakes up." Nitori was definitely starting to feel relieved.

"Yeah, although I'm hoping he wakes up sooner than that – Hold on."

Nitori could hear someone shouting Sousuke's name, muffled through the phone.

"Makoto?" Haru had somehow recognized the voice. "What's happening?"

Nitori shook his head. "I can't hear anymore. He covered the phone."

Suddenly there was a beep, and Makoto's voice came through the speaker.

"Haru! Are you all right? Your arm… You're holding together okay, right?"

"I'm fine, it's fine, what's going on there? Why were you shouting?"

"Well it's… Oh jeez…" Makoto trailed off, sounding worried and distracted. He took a deep breath and continued. "Alarms started going off in Rin's room, and doctors rushed in and forced me to leave. They said not to worry, but… I mean…"

"What happened?!" Nitori demanded. "You said… Yamazaki-san said he was stable, and they'd been observing him for hours!"

"Look Ai," Sousuke was back on the line, "We don't know exactly what's going on. We're going to go find out, okay? So don't worry, it's probably nothing. He probably went into shock, and they need to stabilize him again. It's nothing that's not expected with something like this. So don't worry. We'll find out, and then we'll call. I promise, okay? I'll call you back."

"Wait!" Nitori practically screamed into the phone, but Sousuke had already hung up. He looked up desperately at Haru and Nagisa, shocked and terrified.

Nagisa carefully pushed Nitori down into one of the chairs before he could collapse into it. He put both hands on Nitori's shoulders.

"Ai-chan… You heard Sou-chan. He's going to be fine. It's normal for him to relapse a bit."

"But, but, b-b-b-but…" Shit. He'd finally lost the battle with his composure. NItori suddenly broke down into a squall of tears and choked sobs. He couldn't hold back anymore. It was like a dam had broken, the floodgates had opened, all those clichés about crying, here they were, live and in person and absolutely awful to look at. "W-w-what am I g-g-going to d-do if he, if he d-d-d – "

"He's going to be fine, Nitori." Haru didn't let him finish the thought that was in all of their minds.

Nagisa was nodding his head frantically, rubbing small circles on Nitori's back. "There's no way anything's going to happen to Rin-chan."

Nitori was trying to bite back the sobs, upset that he'd broken down when he'd tried so hard all this time to keep it back. He jammed the heels of his hands into his eyes to try and force the tears to stop.

He managed to take a deep, shuddery breath, then another, and another, and it helped a bit. He'd let his mind take him down a dark road, to a place without Rin, and it had terrified him. But Haru and Nagisa were right. Rin was way too stubborn to die such a stupid death. And crying wasn't going to fix anything.

Honestly nothing he did could fix anything. He was stuck here, waiting, and nothing he did was going to affect Rin either way. All he could do was wait.

It was all any of them could do now.

Haha! It's me again! I feel like my drama~~~ game is running somewhere near Young Adult Fiction levels, but that's not always a bad thing. This chapter is pretty long, huh... About 4100 words all in all. I think from now on chapter lengths will be a bit shorter than this. Although honestly, chapter length is pretty much dictated by what I find feels right for break-off points and creating a good pace for the plot to advance... Anyways.

If you're the kind of person who likes insight into the writing process, I wrote this chapter mostly while binge-watching Code Black, a show where horrible things happen in an ER. It actually threw me off my game, instead of getting me in the right mindset. Who'dathunk?

As always, a very grateful shout-out to future FBI agent red-head who kept asking when I was going to bother to write this chapter, and then proofread it even though it was Thanksgiving and she was with her family. (Four for you Glen Coco, hohoho).

And again, as always, I'd be forever grateful if you'd leave a review. Whether you think it's good (or garbage), I can't improve if I don't know what people are thinking.

Thanks for reading!