This is the first chapter in a story initially posted in AO3. I figured I'd publish a chapter a week on here until I catch up to the one on AO3 and then work from there. Anyway, enjoy the story!

Chance

Chapter 1

Goodbye for Now

Tadashi winced, finding it hard to breathe. He was stuck hanging upside-down, trapped in his seat belt while he felt hot blood traveling from his side to his chest. He closed his eyes, trying not to remember how he got here, how one moment his parents had been traveling to their Aunt Cass's house to drop the two boys off to watching the semi ram into the side of their car. He could hear wet gasps beside him, and he winced, not wanting to look over and see how bad his brother was, not wanting to see anything right now. Especially the fact that his parents' blood now coated the windshield from the impact.

He could already feel panic setting in, and he was gasping himself. This had been his parents' anniversary. They were supposed to be going out for the evening and leaving Tadashi and Hiro with their father's sister. Not… Not this!

He sobbed, feeling the glass in his side shift as hot tears made their way down his forehead to meet his hairline. He didn't mean to argue with Hiro! He didn't mean to cause his mom to yell. He didn't mean for his dad to glance back and try and break up the fight. He didn't mean a lot of things, but they still happened.

A bright light pierced his eyelids then, causing Tadashi to gasp again and open his eyes. There were lights now, flashing lights, and they belonged to the rescue workers outside of the vehicle. There was someone trying to talk to him, but he only gasped louder and sobbed. He turned to look over at Hiro then, trying to see what was happening with him.

Hiro's head was lolled to the side as he hung upside down as well, his face pale as Tadashi noticed a trail of blood dripping down his face from his mouth. He… He had to still be alive, Tadashi reasoned. There were small bubbles in the blood, and Tadashi was just praying that meant his baby brother was still breathing, and that meant that his parents were okay, right?

It felt like an eternity, and Tadashi could taste blood in his own mouth as the rescue workers worked to try and get to those trapped inside. He had croaked out that they needed to save Hiro, that Hiro needed it more than he did, that his parents needed a lot of help and his mom was pregnant and she needed help too and his dad had spent the last few months recovering from a heart attack and he needed help too. All this Tadashi chanted to himself, the information he knew, because he knew the workers needed to know that.

He was in a daze when they finally managed to open the car up, and he could barely wince as the workers eased him from the car and onto a stretcher. A moan finally escaped his lips when he felt the glass shift again, and he felt hands on his face, something being placed over his mouth and nose, a light shining in his eyes as he was moved. He could barely hear the shouts around him, and he soon lost the battle with consciousness.

When next he opened his eyes, he ached all over. There was a needle in his arm, and a hand clutching his. His surroundings were an off-white color, and something was stuck to his nose. Tadashi winced as he shifted, causing the person next to him to gasp. The sound was feminine, and he turned his head, expecting to see his mom, but was greeted with the sight of his aunt instead. Cass looked to be a mess, her shoulder-length hair a mess and her eyes red and puffy. She was holding his hand, and Tadashi was confused. "Where's mom?"

Cass brought a hand up to her mouth, a sob escaping her. Tadashi's forehead creased in confusion, not understanding why his aunt was crying. Sure, he hurt, but where was his mom? His dad? Hiro? He couldn't understand why they weren't here too.

It took a while for Cass to speak, and she squeezed his hand tightly. "Tadashi…" Cass stopped, and another sob escaped her.

Cold dread seized Tadashi, and he swallowed. "Aunt Cass, where's mom and dad? Where's Hiro?"

"Kiddo," she began, and Tadashi's eyes locked with hers. "I'm so sorry. Oh God, I'm sorry. I don't… I don't know how…" Cass trailed off, and the dread that had seized Tadashi now clenched his heart. Something was wrong, horribly wrong.

"What happened?" Tadashi pleaded, wanting to know, because his parents were all right, his baby brother was fine, everything was fine. Right?

"There was an accident. You remember that, right?" At Tadashi's nod, Cass took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment and exhaling. "T-the accident, it was bad. Really bad. Tadashi…"

Tadashi's eyes widened further, and a cold had settled somewhere in his chest. "They're okay though, right? I-I told the rescue people that mom was pregnant and dad had a heart attack and Hiro was worse off than me and they got me better so they had to get them better, right? They had to have done that. Mom and dad and Hiro are fine. They are!"

Cass's grip on his hand tightened further, and she ran her hand through his hair, trying to soothe him. It wasn't working, and Tadashi could already feel pinpricks of tears beneath his lids. "Tadashi… I'm sorry. They're… They're dead. I am so sorry!"

Cass's sobs began anew, and Tadashi felt nothing. It was like someone had scooped out his insides and filled him with ice. All he felt was cold, and it was too much. Cass wrapped her arms around Tadashi, holding him and crying and rubbing his back and it was too much.

He curled around Cass then, his only living relative, and he felt the dam burst and he was sobbing right along with her.

Tadashi sat, fingering the material of the suit he was forced to wear and wishing he could just disappear. Wishing for one moment that he didn't have to be sitting watching strangers walk up to him and offer condolences. He hated it. He didn't want to be here, wanted to be anywhere but here, but he couldn't. Not when it was…

He'd watched them lower his parents and his brother into the cold ground, and all he could think was that they would hate it there, that Hiro was terrified of the dark, that his mom would want to be with his dad and that they should have been together instead of in separate coffins, that Hiro would have wanted to be with them both. He wanted to say something, but ever since the day he'd woken up in the hospital, he hadn't said a word. It hurt too much.

He'd gathered every toy that Hiro had loved and tried to put them with his baby brother, but had broken down at the end of it, he'd tried to make sure that his mom had her favorite dress, or that his dad wore his favorite tie. However, every time he tried, he broke down, and he felt practically useless. He'd tried, he'd tried so hard to help them, and he couldn't. Mom was never having her baby, dad wasn't getting better from his heart attack, Hiro wasn't…

His throat tightened and he felt sobs coming again. He'd cried so much over the past week, and he couldn't help but cry again, and again, and again, until he was sure that he should be dry. But he wasn't. He didn't know how much crying a person could do, but he was finding out it was a lot. He was nine years old, and his whole world had been shattered because of an argument.

He'd been staying with Aunt Cass since he was released from the hospital. He didn't have anywhere else to go. His grandparents had died years ago, and he remembered one funeral for them vaguely, but it was nothing compared to the fact that Cass was now the only family he had left. He knew he had to have other family out there somewhere, that it wasn't just him and his aunt, but they were distant at best. He'd never met them.

She had been trying too, trying to help a boy that had no one left, and she was trying really hard. She kept asking if he was alright, she had closed down her shop for a week to help to get Tadashi settled in, but it just wasn't the same. He wanted his mom to be there, to be the one that brushed his tears away, to be the one that held him after the nightmares. However, it was Aunt Cass every time. She was always the one that came when Tadashi woke up screaming, who hugged him and tried to soothe a boy that had lost everything in his life. He wanted it to be his dad that could tell him that everything was fine, that things happened for a reason, that they would get through it. Aunt Cass was doing it instead, trying to reassure Tadashi that the world wasn't over.

Worst of all, he wanted to see his brother again, wanted to have arguments with him, just to wake up to Hiro hopping on his bed and trying to get him to wake up at five in the morning to play or build something. Aunt Cass couldn't do that. She was too much an adult, and she couldn't be the same. She couldn't fill that void. Tadashi just wanted his brother back so he could hug him and apologize for being an awful brother for so long.

There was so much that Tadashi wanted to do, to say, wished would happen that just wasn't going to happen now. It was too late for everything, and Tadashi was floundering. He didn't know what was going to happen, and the reality that he was facing was so much worse than anything he could have imagined. The bad dreams were nothing compared to what now lay ahead for him, because he was supposed to live for three people now.

Tadashi looked around the room. His aunt had him helping him move things out of the attic, and she had explained that this was going to be his room. Tadashi didn't know what to say about that, not since he hadn't had his own room in three years. He'd wanted his room back since Hiro was born, but he didn't want it back this way.

"I figure that we can go down later today to pick up some furniture for the room, and you can pick it out yourself. What do you…" Cass had come up the stairs after moving another box down, and stopped walking as she took a look at Tadashi. He knew he looked a mess, bags under his eyes from nights spent waking up to nightmares that left him sobbing and looking for people that weren't there anymore. "Tadashi?"

"It's not right. Hiro and I… We always shared a room. Where's his stuff going to go?" It was the first words he had spoken in over a week, and his voice cracked. He winced, looking around again before looking over to Cass.

"Oh, sweetie." Cass walked over and hugged the young boy. Tadashi collapsed against her, silent sobs wracking his form as she held him close. She smoothed a hand through his hair, murmuring things Tadashi couldn't really hear as he clung to her shoulder.

It took a while, but eventually Cass withdrew a bit, looking Tadashi over as she tucked a bit of his hair behind his ear. "Hey, I have an idea. Why don't we go down to the shop and I can make us something for a snack? We've been up here working for a while, and you probably need a break."

He nodded and followed her downstairs, and seated himself at the counter while Cass busied herself with grabbing a few things from the back. She returned with a few pastries and a glass of milk, setting them down before the boy before snagging one of the pastries for herself.

It was a silent couple of minutes while Tadashi picked at the food before him, not really hungry but knowing his aunt was probably trying to get his mind off of everything. However, he ended up shoving the plate away, giving his aunt a look as he bit his lip. "It's not fair."

Cass sighed as she came around the counter, taking Tadashi's hands and giving them a squeeze. "I know. I know it's not fair. I know I'm not your mom or dad. I know that Thomas and Mae aren't here anymore. I know that nothing can replace Hiro either. But, we're here. Together. I know I'm not your mom or dad, Lord knows that Thomas was a genius when he was alive, and I know I can't help you in some of the same things that him or Mae was able to. But, I'm going to try. I know I'm just your aunt, but maybe that's enough? We'll try together, okay? Besides, we're Hamadas. We can do this. It'll be hard, but we can."

Tadashi curled against Cass, trying and failing to control the tears he was trying to keep bottled up. He was so tired of crying, but that was all he knew how to do right now. His aunt didn't say anything, but ended up rubbing circles into his back, and the two sat like that for a long time while life moved on.

To Be Continued...

For those of you curious as to why Tadashi and Hiro's parents are switched up in regards to race, I want to explain how Cass somehow has their last name despite not being Japanese. In canon, San Francisco was rebuilt after the 1906 earthquake. According to the wiki, "San Fransokyo is set in an alternate future where after the 1906 earthquake, San Francisco was rebuilt by Japanese immigrants using techniques that allowed movement and flexibility in a seismic event. After the city was finished being rebuilt, it was renamed San Fransokyo due to it being a city with Japanese and American architecture combined." Therefore, it can be reasoned that these immigrants eventually married and had children with those of European descent. As such, it stands to reason that Cass is a descendant of one of these immigrants.