A/N: Have another hinabn drabble. C:


Hanna's going to die.

I know it, and I think his zombie knows it too. Hell, I know he does. It's in the way he stares at him, practically screaming his concern with that look that Hanna's too stupid to see through despite how obvious it is to everyone else. The idiot's going to keep doing the terrifying shit he does on those cases of his, and he'll never understand how close he comes to dying every time.

But…

I wonder sometimes though. When he watches me, watches the others, and a softness creeps into his eyes. Something like affection, but that's not it. It warms you up from the bottom of the heart, being looked at like that, but it makes me think.

Maybe he does understand.

And a chill runs down my spine when I wonder if Hanna knows what he's doing to himself every time he goes too far. If he understands the constant strain of working days, working nights, catching a few hours of sleep here and there, rushing out into the darkness and shadows to keep a city safe that will forget he ever lived and swallow him up into oblivion the day he gives too much—just another name in a row on hallowed ground.

Somehow…I wonder if he just presses on anyway. Ignoring the lurking dangers, the obvious ones, all of it—and just goes ahead. Not bravery, not heroics—I see in his eyes what it is.

A resignation. But now—a fulfillment, too.

He doesn't know much about me, really. And I don't know anything about him. But I wonder.

I wonder why someone as bright and persevering as Hanna was caught and held by a city like this. I wonder how he managed to remain a central light in so many lives, how the world hasn't managed to dim that glow. I wonder why he puts so much of himself out there for people who will never give back.

And I wonder why he looks at us like he's about to die. Why he looks at us like he's okay with it.

I wonder, and I worry. But then he looks at me, nothing in his eyes at the moment but joy, inviting me to share in the laughter, and a new thought occurs to me, one that never has before.

I want to save him.

It hurt that it was hopeless. There's no way I could get through to him. He would just laugh me off, wave me away, reassure me that "I'm fine, Connie, you worry too much!"

But as I watch him stop to catch his breath, running around with Veser, I see that zombie of his walk over at once, lean over him, talk quietly and receive a heavy nod from a much less energetic redhead. I watch Hanna walk back with him, sit in the offered chair and gaze up at him with an open adoration in his eyes.

And I watch that glowing orange smolder with intensity and realize I'm not alone in one regard.

He wants to save him too.

The only difference is that he'll get to.

fin.