Author's Note: I like this pairing and think they have potential, and so here it is! Enjoy ^_^

HE WOKE UP feeling extremely disoriented. The first thing that registered was that the ceiling was not the hospital's panel ceiling and neither was it his room's. So he did not fall asleep in the rest room. He felt groggy but it wasn't the grogginess that comes with hangovers, but a more pleasant feeling. Add to the fact that he was warm (He didn't have a blanket this fluffy) and his body felt like lead. Did something happen to his left arm maybe? It felt numb and wouldn't move.

He moved his head slightly and was alarmed to see another head resting on his left shoulder. One slender and bare arm was slung across his torso and it worked like no hangover medicine could. Aizawa Kosaku sat up in a shot.

There was a confused sleepy yelp as whoever was half-sleeping on him was rudely woken by the moving pillow (namely, him). The sound of that voice made him twice as alarmed, though his stoic mask kept most of it in. And the events of last night came rushing back in a torrent of images and disjointed words…

… Everyone gathering at Shiraishi Megumi's apartment to celebrate their graduation from the Fellowship.

Everyone (except him) left shortly after midnight. He had stayed behind because although she looked fine, there was a shuttered look in her eyes that much reminded him of his own. And Megumi had trusted him enough to reveal to him why – the anti-cancer drugs her father was on had begun to take its toll on his aged system. He didn't allow her to come back, and Megumi was slowly but surely being torn apart from the worry.

He supposed it was normal for her to feel that way. She loved her father and respected him; two things he didn't feel for his own father. The only thing he could relate to was the foreboding sense of loss when his grandmother could not recognize him. For someone who was used to keeping things in it was hard. For Megumi who wears her heart on her sleeve, it must be devastating.

When she began shaking with silent sobs, he had held her close because he felt it was the best thing to do. Like medical treatment, you don't deliberate choose a bad decision for the patient. And she had cried for quite a while. He simply held her, not realizing he was stroking her hair gently. Not realizing it until it occurred to him that she had very straight, very smooth hair. Unlike his own, which was unruly until he found a suitable hair product to keep it tidy. Dr. Kuroda may have liked the rugged unkept doctor image, but Kosaku wasn't going for it.

Thoughts of Dr. Kuroda inevitably involved thinking of his arm, a loss in more ways than one. Dr. Kuroda lost his job as a surgeon, and the medical world lost a fine doctor. The Fellowship lost its guide, and had to persevere on alone. And Megumi… Megumi lost her confidence as a doctor – something that should never happen to an intern.

Thinking back, he reflected that it was from that point on that he began paying attention to her. At first he was simply worried that her mental state would interfere with her duties, but eventually it went beyond that. She was not confident like Mihoko or dense like Kazuo so small things could get to her easily. Her concentration though strong, could shatter with the right pressure. He tried to make her see that her worries were unjust, that she had no time to be thinking of such things… had to make her see that Dr. Kuroda did not blame her for it.

Afterall, Dr. Kuroda was the one who gave the order to cut off his own arm. And the one to cut it off was Kosaku.

It was a give-and-take situation, he mused. She had entrusted her fears to him, and he felt bound to reciprocate. Perhaps that was why he told her about his mother's suicide. Perhaps that was why she told him about her father's illness. Why they did not share this with others, they didn't know. But Kosaku felt his secret was safe with her, and hers with him. Give and take.

But give-and-take could not explain why he was holding her like she was going to break apart. Give-and-take could not explain why he wanted to say things that had never occurred to him before; things that had no place in a surgeon's mind. And when Megumi had finally calmed down, he found that he couldn't bring himself to remove himself from her. She pulled away slightly to look up at him and it was then; when her tear-filled eyes met his, her brave little smile and her trembling voice thanking him, Kosaku did something he knew he should never have done.

He closed the little gap between them and gently kissed her.

Of course doctor instincts kicked in a second later but while his was commanding to pull away, Megumi had done the exact opposite. She kissed back.

And the rest were best kept in lockdown for the time being. He had to concentrate on the current problem. Fast.