He struggled to keep her head above water, the rain pouring over them like they were nothing more than a pair of moths caught in the drain of a public pool.

He'd choked down five mouthfuls of the flowing river, inhaled it even, on his way down to grab at her shirt, her arm, her torso and neck. The burning in his lungs and nose worse than ever when he breached the surface to be pelted with the stinging of the rain and wind.

They were both so small and shouldn't have been out of the house when there had been a storm warning since the sun had risen behind black clouds on the horizon that Saturday, but he'd been avoiding his mother's judgement and she'd been contemplating things most twelve year olds shouldn't have to deal with.

She hadn't meant to lean so far over the side of the railing, but she'd paused from her own mental agony to contemplate the fish in the stream that might have been hiding or swept away in the rapidness of the current. Too far forward, and seeing him down near the water's edge tossing rocks into it like unlikely wishes.

Slipping forward, no time to gasp, and under the water with just the slightest glance his way.

He hadn't thought before jumping in, merely diving forward into where she'd made the hole in the river and keeping his eyes focused on her bright hair and bright dress.

Dragging her through the mud with tired arms and feet having lost his shoes, he slipped and slipped but instinct told him to make up for being so stupid and be there or she wasn't going to wake up again.

She hadn't stirred, but her lips weren't quite blue, so he tried to remember everything from health class, everything that could and should be used in such a situation.

He performed mouth-to-mouth, trying to ignore how his own lungs felt like a furnace and something in his stomach squished around uncomfortably, like he might be sick and accidentally heave more than air into her.

Shouko honestly hadn't expected to wake up from that; swirling around and not being able to breathe, with nobody but Ishida around to see her fall.

If she had planned it, it would have been perfect and maybe she wouldn't have been so scared.

Which was why, when she did find herself in her own body, with a pulse and breath caught in her throat when she jolted awake, it took her a moment to realize she wasn't dead.

Not dead, not in the water, but...warm.

And...shaking?

No, no. The shaking wasn't her own, and neither were the futon or the blankets.

Or the arms wrapped both loose and tight around her that felt too cold.

Wiggling very slowly, like a caterpillar from under leaves or through grass, Shouko turned herself and her head to find that the person that had apparently wrapped her in warmth and safety. Her clothes in a puddled pile in the corner, sealed in a plastic bag; a fresh and too big shirt fitted over her, but no new underwear-towels, bigger than the both of them, wrapping her even more securely to soak up the wet and keep in the heat.

Shouko would have panicked, should have panicked, but Ishida's eyes were closed, his frame still wet from not changing clothes himself, his entire body shaking not from the cold (or, no, that wasn't right; it was partly from the cold if the pale tinge to him spoke truly) but from the way he was taking in air with a rattle and wetness she could feel through the arms still around her.

Her eyes widened as she looked over his head.

Her hearing aids were on his study desk, batteries taken out of their shells and all the pieces with tissues wrapped around them, two Q-Tips discarded beside them to soak up the water that would have caused them to stop working entirely.

Two of the tissues in the waste basket under the desk had blood on them.

She hadn't expected the power to be out and there to be no grown-ups in Ishida's apartment when she finally stopped freaking out, practically having burst out of her blanket cocoon to pat him down with the towels that had been between her legs and still mostly dry.

She tried to stay calm when she found the source of the bleeding had soaked into his shorts through his boxers; a nasty gash as long as her wrist to pointer finger, trying to clot and dry, but having a hard time of it because of the state he was in.

Shouko had to shake him awake, with the barest success; Ishida was really out of it, eyes unfocused and seeing right through her as she lifted his arms to take off his shirt, and had him bend his knees to get his shorts off.

He'd almost pulled off his boxers with the shorts and she had probably only been saved that strangely terrifying situation by his balling into himself with another fit of what must have been wet coughing; all of his body flexing and flinching from the effort. She'd hooked her thumbs into the rim of his underwear and let him pull off the shorts with little trouble after that.

Except she had to find her way to the bathroom in the half dark, moon showing through his window doing little to help her as she banged around before finding a roll of toilet paper and bringing it back to where she'd left him.

It wasn't a very good use of her extremely limited first aid knowledge, but she managed to soak up the rest of the blood around the wound and put pressure on it in a neat if gaudy makeshift bandage she tightened with the other towel he'd wrapped around her, knotting it tight.

Searching around his little room, she found one of his many black shirts he always wore to school and got it one his still shaking frame without much bother, save for when the hacking jerked him too close to her face and he'd almost actually seen her, instead of just silently taking delirious instruction from what he probably assumed to be a product of his imagination, half a dream out of actual sleep.

When she had him lay back down, she almost cried when he automatically started reaching for where she'd been, not stopping until she'd relented and found herself laid down beside him, but this time with the many blankets nesting both of them.

Shouko smiled into Ishida's clean shirt when he tucked her head under his chin and wrapped his arms loose but secure around her, both their legs twining together like roots below ground from two different trees.