A/N: Credits to Patricia for the research and ideas && Imman for the illustrations (which are going up on my blog). :D The events in the story begins sometime late April, assuming that Usui hasn't transferred to Miyabigaoka yet.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Kaichou wa Maid-sama, or any of the characters. Even if sometimes I like to pretend that I do. :D

CHAPTER 1

The smell of antiseptic heavily bathed the white walls as white coats rustled in and out of the room, armed with clipboards, taking careful calibrated measurements amidst a pile of medical tubes coiled like snakes, burrowed deep in every orifice and then some, lifelines they were called.

People spoke in hushed and whispered voices drowned out by the monotonous beeping of the ECG machine. It's mechanical rhythm filling the air with the assurance that all was well and stable...for now.

No one dared to say more than they should. No one spoke out of turn. Everything was well thought of and calculated. No one broke the silence without cause.

"It might take a while"

"We can never be sure how long these things last."

"I asked how long!"

"...Could be a few days, weeks, years."

"Will he get better?"

"We can give no assurance as of the moment. The only thing we can do is wait it out."

The days passed and nothing changed. Tubes were taken out only to be replaced or switched back and forth from place to place. When he was deemed stable, the beeping no longer filled the room as the ECG was wheeled out and a thick and heavy silence filled the room with it's white walls and anti-septic and there was nothing left to do but wait.

Despite being covered in bandages, his blonde hair looked like a happy ray of sunshine amidst the whiteness of the room and the whiteness of the walls and the silence that surrounded him.

He drifted in and out of consciousness from the steady drip of morphine that slithered through his veins drop by drop taking away his pain by rewarding him with fits of vivid and violently colorful dreams. During the rare moments he was free from the seductive clutches of morphine, all he could hear were snatches of conversations, like glimmers and shards of glass that pierced through the veil of his consciousness barely registering as anything halfway coherent.

"What should we tell him about his accident Gerrard-sama?"

"Nothing."

"When he asks, what.."

"He got hit by a car when he was crossing the street."

"What about.."

"That's all that happened. That's all he needs to know."

"What about..."

He found that the squeaky wheels of medicine carts brought in by the nurses were a welcome change from the silence and the beeping and the disembodied voices that always seemed to sneak into the cracks of his mind and drip into his consciousness leaving him confused.

"We're pulling out the morphine and prescribing intravenous analgesics instead. He should be able to wake up then. He's recovery is faster than what we expected and all his major organs are functioning well. There's just THAT left, and the sooner he wakes, the faster we can check and see what we can do."

"What CAN you do about it?"

"Well, we'll have to run some tests first... and see where those take us. It all depends on the results, but everything appears to be normal. After all the accident..."

It felt like he was floating. It bothered him that he couldn't piece anything together. It bothered him that the times when he was not elsewhere, in the dark of his being, he was floating in limbo, hearing things that may or may not be real. It bothered him that there was a familiarity to the voices but he couldn't place most of them. What bothered him the most, was that he could always hear someone crying faintly in the background.

On the 12th day, he opened his eyes.

He could still feel the acute pain of moving around in bed so he decided against it. Barely on pain relievers, he could feel every bump and bruise on his body. The light was a change from the comfort of darkness and though his eyes hurt initially, they adjusted eventually.

"Hello there! It's nice to see you're finally up. We were very worried about you. But we're glad you're okay. The doctors here are the best at what they do. You were in very capable hands but I wasn't satisfied until we got here and brought in my personal medical staff."

"Gerrard? Is that you?" Usui said as he flinched from the pain of moving his muscles as he tried to sit up.

"Yup. I'm glad you remember me. Do you know who I'm with?" Gerrard said, motioning gently to the person standing next to him.

"Cedric?" Usui said uncertainly as he eyed Gerrard's bodyguard standing in the shadows.

"Right again. How are you feeling?" Gerrard asked as he pressed one of the buttons on a panel next to the bed.

Usui winced in reply as he adjusted himself. He was still slightly nauseous and his head was spinning.

"You don't want to push yourself too much. Your conditions is still rather...delicate." Gerrard said as he walked closer to the bed. "It was a rather unfortunate accident." Gerrard continued as he glanced at Cedric.

"What happened to me? How long have I been like this?" Usui asked, struggling with the pain and the sudden vertigo. He felt the room spinning but decided to stay sitting. He looked at his body and saw the bandages that covered most of his extremities.

"You were running while crossing the street when you got hit by a car. You've been in a semi-coma for 11 days."

"Why was I running?"

"Beats me." Gerrard said with a shrug as he settled into a seat next to Usui's bed. "What matters is you're alright. You don't feel...different do you? Besides the pain I mean."

"I feel..." Usui stopped mid sentence as the door to his room flew open and banged against the wall.

It was a girl. She had long black hair and bright brown eyes. What captured him the most were her eyes. Despite the circles under them indicating lack of sleep, they were a warm shade of brown not unlike liquid honey. She ran towards him, her eyes filled with tears and her cheeks were a shade of red from blushing. Cedric made a move toward her but Gerrard shook his head and smiled towards his half-brother instead waiting to see what reaction her arrival ellicited.

"I..I'm sso s-s-so-sorry Usui" She said stammering from her nervousness as she blushed an ever darker shade of red. In her hands were a pack of bunny apples. She handed them to him tentatively, the tears threatening to spill over. He gently took the pack from her trembling hands only to be surprised as she wrapped her arms around him and he let out a squeak of pain as her arms tightened around him, he winced and patted her back, bearing the pain and the confusion.

Cedric got up from his seat, ready to take action, but again Gerrard motioned for him to stay where he was, his face amused.

"Look what I've gotten you into. Baka-Usui. Stop scaring me like that!" She said as she leaned away and looked into his face, her cheeks a beautiful scarlet which he found deeply amusing for some reason. He gently pried her arms off him and registered her confusion that matched his.

"Thank you very much." he said as he placed the bunny apples on his side table, "You are very kind to bring this for me"

..but I'm sorry, who are you?" he finished with a smile.