It happens so fast, one moment she was walking across the street, the next minute she realizes she's bleeding and she wasn't standing anymore. She's vaguely aware that she's being surrounded by people that someone is shouting to call 911 and that soon the world is going fuzzy. She feels like she's almost floating and she can hear the faint sounds of an ambulance coming closer. The last thing she remembers is a familiar face that she swears was a dream and being lifted into the air.

She was wrong and he visits her every day for a week, staying for as long as his job would allow him to be there.

They talk about the old times, when they were both heroes, about everything that they possibly could. He catches her up on his life, she smiles when he laughs about how his new job is fun, that he's glad he can keep on helping despite losing his powers. She shakes her head and calls him an idiot when he says he catches her playing in private joints some days, that she's grown up to be a beautiful woman and that the flowers he brought her don't even match how lovely she looks even sitting in the hospital, wearing no make up and looking like she was just run over. She doesn't understand how he can take time out of his day to come visit a girl he knew years ago, how he could pick up where they left off. She doesn't even understand how her heart manages to ache after she told herself that she didn't have a chance with him even now.

She thought she was over that. She breathes in and tells him that Keith retired last month, that she saw him living his life as a regular Joe with a woman he met the year that Kotetsu retired. She tells him about how Pao-Lin has a boyfriend and that Ivan is involved with Edward. He beams and always shakes his head.

Twice, he reaches out and ruffles her hair. She blushes and glares at him, tossing her hair over her shoulder and huffing. He doesn't get why, she realizes, she doesn't know if it's a blessing or a curse.

Flowers cover the whole room, from all of her fans and family, but she can't stop looking at the tiger-lilies that he brought her the first day he visited her, she swears they smell the sweetest and they keep making her know that she was lucky he was there to save her once more.

She smiles every time he talks about how his kid is growing up to be such a perfect lady, that she's a fan of Karina Lyle even through the year of her dating Barnaby Brooks Jr and disastrous break up scandal that came after it. She offers to meet the girl, but he just laughs and shakes his head, saying a soft; "Maybe someday, Karina."

She doesn't understand how her head managed to betray her and almost break all over again.

The day she's released he drives her home, she lives in a slightly run down building, he doesn't believe it at first, but she explains that she lives in the loft on the top floor. He understands (or pretends too) and mumbles something under his breath about musicians and needing space. She smiles faintly, shrugging her shoulders and not bothering to correct him or explain it any more.

She takes a chance to ask him up to her apartment for coffee and he smiles slightly and says he'd love to. Her heart soars. She asks him questions about how he feels about his life, is there anyone special in his life, would he mind if she saw him more often. She's pleased when he says he wouldn't mind seeing her more, that he'd love it and that his life is amazing that he can spend time with his daughter and still save people. She laughs at his dumb jokes and relaxes, she feels at home with him.

It's then he asks her to dinner.

She feels like she could've died happy. She says yes, eyes narrowing and cheeks colored red.

He smiles back, mumbling something about how he feels much better about the week after that.