I wanted to write what happened after everyone woke up and I'm a sucker for whump and h/c so this fic was born :)

Klein woke up crying. Not just crying, but sobbing, which must have been agony on his disused body, but he didn't remember that—didn't even feel it. He felt the Nerve Gear, sticky against his head, he felt the covers on the bed and the bright lights so he knew he was in a hospital. Tears streamed down his face. It was far from his concern. He replayed those last few moments of SAO in his brain.

Kirito accepted Kayaba's challenge in order to end their ordeal twenty-five floors early. Klein knew it was too soon, that even Kirito, the strongest player wasn't at Kayaba's level. But his and Agil's protests were ignored. Kirito always had to carry the burden—he didn't understand that a friend's protection was a two-way street.

Then Kirito had lain Asuna's paralyzed body down and faced off with the creator—god—of SAO. Kirito talked to Agil, then to him and that's when Klein knew Kirito knew it was as much of a suicide attack as those World War II Katen attacks against Allied ships. And that's when he started crying.

Because Kirito wasn't planning on making it out of this—even after the years of training he'd put in to be able to escape the world. And he had the gall to apologize to Klein for not taking his guild with him at the beginning of the game. After two years, he felt guilty for something he'd done on Floor One.

He knew it was selfish but Klein would have taken those twenty-five floors in a heartbeat instead of letting the sixteen-year-old Kirito facing off against the god of SAO. And God, when Kirito had accidentally activated a sword technique and Asuna jumped in front of him, Klein knew it was over. He couldn't even speak or yell to him through the thick panic in his throat. That was it.

Back in the hospital, there were dozens of frantic footsteps of doctors and nurses. "They're waking up! They're waking up!" They shouted.

Klein was too immersed in the debilitating flashback. He had done nothing but watch in mute panic as Kirito tried grabbing the shattered pieces of Asuna's digitalized soul. Agil next to him struggled, he was next to tears too. Kirito was crushed. Klein knew first hand what Kirito had been like after the deaths of the Moonlit Black Cats. He'd done everything he could for the swordsman but he barely came back from the brink. There was no way Kirito was in any sound mental condition. Klein worried he'd sink to his knees and curl up right there. But Kirito was a fighter, even if he couldn't live without Asuna.

He picked up his swords, still trying to cut Kayaba. The boy was functioning on auto-pilot, fighting not for his future, but for the other victims of SAO. Klein didn't need to see his best friend's eyes to know they were twin voids—even worse than after Nicholas the Renegade. It didn't dull the near physical blow Klein took when Kayaba thrust his sword through Klein's oldest in-game friend. It was as if Kirito didn't even feel it—didn't comprehend it. No one moved as the strongest of the players SAO had to offer watched the Black Swordsman's HP drop to nothing.

Agil screamed something that wasn't words as "DEAD" appeared over Kirito's head. A second passed and Kirito's body started to fade. The shatter pieces of his image exploded. Klein felt as if he might black out as he pushed up against the paralytic with all his might. He'd take Kayaba's life himself, he'd obliterate him—for Kirito's sake.

But Kirito's image only wavered, becoming iridescent. "DEAD" still appeared above his head like a grave marker to the lifeless form holding onto sentience. What the hell was happening? No one had ever seen this before, it was always an immediate dissipation. What was he holding on to? Was Kayaba prolonging his suffering?

Kirito let out a scream, jarring all the stunned players yet again. The Black Swordsman gripped his sword and thrust it into the game maker's heart. Like Kirito's, his health dipped on zero. Kirito's body slumped on the sword he'd been fatally impaled on. They both broke apart into fragments.

It was as if gravity shifted for Klein as the paralytic wore off and all the strength he used pushing against it threw him several feet forward before he lost his footing and tumbled back on the ground with a broken cry. Five seconds passed with thick, painful tears running down Klein and Agil's faces before the world short-circuited and he felt himself back in his body.

A nurse got to Klein five minutes after the initial rush of nurses, helped him remove the NerveGear and got him ice chips for his throat, already sore from crying. Dammit, he'd lost his best friend in the last moments of that godforsaken game. The nurse informed him of where he was—a hospital specialized to take care of those who were stuck in SAO. Everyone they'd fought with was here. Which meant, somewhere in this hospital, Kirito's brain had been fried, seconds before the gear shut off for good. And his mother and sister would never see him again. He curled up on his side and sulked. Eventually, the nurse stopped pressing him and shut the door and turned off the lights behind him.

Three days had passed in a strange limbo of relief he was free and utter misery his friend wasn't. Klein got a visit from his sister in Tokyo and a few of his friends, but he hadn't really been close with anyone outside the game—not enough that they hadn't moved on. Klein had improved enough he could walk to and from the bathroom himself, he'd already gained a pound or two back in pudding cups, and his hair was washed and cut to normal length. His nurse walked in with a binder as he was sitting up in bed. He accepted it without thinking but stared at her in confusion.

"The survivors. Everyone who made it out. I think it could do you some good, give you some closure." She checked his vitals and gave him privacy. Klein wanted to throw it against the wall. Why would he want to read something he already knew?

He moved to chuck it but his grip wouldn't release. He dropped it back in his lap and flipped to the first page. They seemed to be listed by avatar name. The hospital had accounted for them not knowing each other's real names. One of the first names on the list stood out to his immediately.

Agil (Mills, Andrew) Room 403

Klein could have smiled at Agil's name but looking a little further down the page stopped him.

Asuna (Yuuki, Asuna) Room 200 (Unconscious)

Klein's heart skipped a beat. Asuna was still alive? How? She'd been cut by Kayaba's sword in a heroic sacrifice, same as—- Klein's still-numb fingers fumbled through the thin pages of the binder. He tore through the K's as quickly as his tired eyes could, ignoring the hopeful beat of his heart. He found it.

Kirito (Kirigaya, Kazuto) Room 337 (Unconscious)

Klein didn't dare believe it. It must have been an error. He'd seen his best friend speared through. He had the word "DEAD" scalded into the forefront of his memory for the last three days. Kirito had saved them and in doing so, he'd paid the greatest price. Still, Klein pulled himself out of his bed and stumbled over to his wheelchair. He was in Room 329. If that binder was right, he and Kirito had been in the same hallway this entire time. With all the chaos that the hospital had been in the last few days, the overtaxed doctors and nurses probably wouldn't have noticed the Level 25 Boss lumbering through the hallways, much less a recovering patient.

He made it into the room in a minute although his arms were shaking from exertion, and pushed forward into the room. Klein was out of his wheelchair like a springboard, the door swinging shut behind him. He was at the bed in a heartbeat.

Kirito was alive. Klein couldn't restrain the waterfall of tears any more than he could resist reaching out a touching the unconscious boy's face. He looked just like he did in Sword Art Online except a devastating fifteen pounds lighter and with sheet white skin and bruise-like shadows under his eyes. His arm had an IV and he was hooked up to a heart monitor which was beeping lazily along and he had two electrodes attached to his forehead connected on another screen. "K-Kirito." He snuffled, laying his head into the starchy fabric of the sheets. He was shaking so badly.

He was startled up when he felt something spasm underneath him. He looked up in surprise. Very slowly, Kirito's eyes were working open. Klein grabbed his friend's hand, anchoring him to consciousness and slowly, his eyes focused on the salamander wielder.

"Klein…" It was more a breath or a rasp than a word but it sounded like the best thing in the world to Klein.

"Kirito…" The two remained in silence while Kirito tried to make sense of his surroundings.

"We made it out." His words sounded painful from disuse but his eyes were sharpening somewhat.

"Yeah, we did, thanks to you." He pat Kirito's hand, ignoring how thin they both looked.

"Eep!" Klein turned around the see a woman in the doorway. First, he thought it must have been a relative of Kirito's but then realized she must have been Kirito's nurse. "Who are you?"

"I'm a friend of his." Klein explained before looking back the younger boy. "Why hasn't he gotten better like the rest of us?" There must have been something in his voice or tear tracks down his face because the nurse lost some of her fight.

"Kazuto's consciousness came back not long after the rest of yours but the NerveGear was trying to destroy his brain before it got shut off. It takes about ten seconds for the NerveGear to render someone brain dead and he went through six seconds of the electricity. He's been having some health and cerebral problems for a few days know but he should recover. He's just looking at a longer recovery time, both physically and mentally."

Kirito's eyes followed his nurse as she grabbed some ice chips and fed him them before changing the IV bag and leaving them alone again. When Kirito spoke again, his voice sounded a little better.

"Asuna hasn't woken up yet." He rasped.

Klein's gut clenched. He remembered seeing how many people on the roster were still unconscious, almost three hundred. They weren't in Aincrad, it had been destroyed, so where were their consciousnesses? "I know buddy, but she'll be back, she just needs time to recover. Like you."

"How about Lizbeth and Agil and…" He broke off with some hoarse coughing. When he was done, Klein had to resist grabbing a towel and wiping the sweat off the boy's forehead.

"They're fine too." Klein hadn't really checked anyone else's but he wasn't going to give a brain-damaged, feverish Kirito any bad news. He'd saved the world, now his only responsibly was to rest.

His face suddenly brightened a little. "Hey, can you walk?"

"Yeah, was back on my feet within twenty-four hours!"

"Nurse Aki wouldn't even let me try." He sulked. Klein suddenly noticed that Kirito hadn't moved much at all yet.

"Well why don't you start with something more simple? A high five?" Klein held up a hand for Kirito to high-five, which admittedly took his own muscles a few seconds to respond to, and waited for Kirito is reciprocate. The swordsman's face screwed up in concentration before his arm twitched. Slowly he slid his non-IV arm out of the covers and lifted it unsurely into the air. His arms were thin, something Klein, who had spent time with the Swordsman version of this boy, had not been ready for. His arm was shaking slightly as the muscles tried to operate again. When he finally went to high-five, it was a good six inches away target. Kirito looked at his arm in surprise and frustration, trying to control his fingers. Klein's stomach dropped a bit. This must have been a result of the brain damage. And his comatose state surely didn't help. The nurse had been right, Kirito's recovery would be a considerable one—not only did he have to retrain his muscles, he had to re-train his brain to do things even a toddler could do.

Instead on sinking further into terror, Klein smiled warmly at his young friend and ruffled his hair. "Hey, you'll get there."

Klein stayed in Kirito's room for almost a half hour before the mental and physical stress of finding Kirito started to dip his eyelids and he was ushered back to his room. As much as he wanted to protest, he wasn't missing much, Kirito hadn't said more than a word after the high-five. It was concerning that such a small (and unsuccessful) action and conversation had tired him out so fully. When he was wheeled back to his room, he settled back into the bed and checked the names of the others.

Everyone in his guild was alive—that made him grin wildly. Not once in that death game had he lost a guild member. Lisbeth and Silica were fine too. He'd have to arrange to see all of them and drop flowers off in Asuna's room.

Still, the next day, his first stop would be Kirito's room. His condition was scaring Klein. He simultaneously didn't want to see his best friend like that and wanted to be there to lend a hand at every possible moment. God knows he wouldn't have been given the opportunity if they were still in-game—he would, without a doubt, sulk in a locked room in an inn or go challenge a mini-boss solo or something equally as reckless. At least, until he met Asuna, then Klein didn't feel like he had to worry that every time he saw him might be the last time (he mostly only thought that within the six months after the loss of the Moonlit Black Cats). So Kirito was down one pillar of support. Well, more than one, most people were too busy recovering and his family had visited him sparingly. He didn't think they were dealing with the fact that he was back so suddenly (and with brain damage) very well. So Klein would be the one to help.

I'm planning on writing at least one more chapter but tell me what you think!