Warmth
All the doctors and interns in the office are trying not to eavesdrop but it's hard not to listen as Shiraishi gets pummeled by Kuroda's words, like blows to the face. Aizawa doesn't know how she's going to take it. His answer comes quickly as she dashes away from Kuroda, towards the outside, where the rain is pouring down in sheets.
Aizawa doesn't even think. They others are all just standing there but he bursts into action, running with a fear that even he can't understand, chasing after her, calling her name.
She stops short of the fence that keeps the helicopter safe and begins hurling her belongings to the ground. He rushes towards her, wants to hold those frantic hands and calm them the way that she calms her nervous patients. But she shakes his fumbling fingers loose and continues on her wave of destruction.
Selfishly, he wants to tell her that he knows how she feels. He knows what it's like to second-guess yourself now, to look back and wonder if you did the right thing. He'd never known it before, but now he has and he can feel just the tiniest echo of the remorse that has her throwing everything she's ever dreamed of to the ground. But she doesn't want to listen to his empty comfort. She cuts him off, the words pouring out of her and rattling to the ground like her stethoscope just seconds ago.
All he can do is reach out and put his hand on her shoulder. He can't do any more, just lets the fingers rest there. The rain strikes against his skin, soaking through his uniform and drenching his hair. Forget the heat of operation... The only thing he feels now is cold. This cold--Shiraishi's shoulder shuddering under his touch--is more terrible than that heat could ever be. He's afraid of that chill, afraid of losing her to the flood of tears and rain.
"Shiraishi," he says finally, his voice hoarse. "Let's go inside."
She bends closer to the ground. He can barely hear her high, light voice through the smack of raindrops on the blacktop.
"Please, just go away."
Aizawa almost feels better, now that he's opposing her instead of being in sympathy. He can handle difficult patients. She's shaking, whether from cold or emotion he doesn't know, but he says anyway, "You're cold. Let's get inside."
She's a doctor, she knows that he's right and she's mostly cried out anyway. So she stands. She makes no effort to go retrieve her scattered belongings, but Aizawa wants to be with her first now, so he too just lets them lie. He'll tell Hiyama and Fugikawa. They'll do something about it later.
His hand is still resting on her shoulder and it stays there as they walk in silence, back down the long blue runway to the shelter of the ER office. Once inside the building, he lets her go on in ahead of him and then follows. He's surprised to see her head towards her desk, clearly ready to start working again.
"You need to take a warm shower," he interrupts. "You don't need to catch hypothermia."
She doesn't even have the spunk to be startled or evaluate his advice, just shuffles off to the locker room, avoiding everyone eyes, looking down at her shoes.
"You should take your own advice," Hiyama says, looking him up and down. "You're soaked."
When Shiraishi re-emerges, everyone sits in awkward silence until Aizawa says, "Better?"
She nods, but from the way her eyes look down and then glance nervously at Kuroda-sensei's bed, he knows it's a lie.
"Come on," he says.
She doesn't ask any questions, just follows him past Hiyama's inquiring gaze and Fugikawa's yawns into one of the examining rooms.
"Lie down," he says. "Sleep here tonight."
"But I can't." Shiraishi is awake enough to know hospital protocol. "I'm not a patient."
"It won't hurt anyone," Aizawa says patiently. "And if there's any trouble, I'll just say that I diagnosed you at-risk for hypothermia."
She's too tired and serious at this point to laugh, but her wide eyes are almost the same thing.
"Really?"
"Really," he says, refusing to meet her eyes. "Just lie down."
She does, and carefully pulls a blanket over her. He goes ahead and sits down at the desk, putting his head in his hands.
After a moment, she asks, "What are you doing?"
"I'm going to stay here."
She curls up a little tighter. "You don't have to do that. You must have more important things to do."
Aizawa doesn't answer that. He *does* have more important things to do, things that would certainly keep him away from his grandmother if she were in the same situation. But somehow he doesn't see why any of them should make him leave. He wants to be *here,* holding Shiraishi's hand and keeping her safe.
Almost without thinking, he rolls his chair towards her bed and absently finds her hand with his own. Shiraishi shifts nervously but then settles down and her hand squeezes his.
"Why are you so perfect?" she murmurs. "You never do anything wrong. You never make mistakes. You're taking care of me. How do you do it?"
Aizawa doesn't know how to answer and luckily she has drifted off to sleep. He stays awake though, mulling over her question and holding her hand, slouched over in the chair.
The next thing he knows, there's a tug at his shirt. He half-opens his eyes and all he sees is a swath of blue fabric. His head is propped on the mattress and the rest of him is piled on the floor. Shiraishi is attempting to pull him towards her.
"You can't sleep on the floor," she whispers sleepily. Aizawa realizes that she's barely half awake. He agrees with her and is about to stand up and head for the lounge when her delicate hand catches his own.
"Please...stay with me..." The words are slow, sleepy and Aizawa knows that she won't remember them in the morning. Now is his chance to leave, while he's awake enough to stagger down the corridor and pull a blanket over himself in the lounge.
But something inside won't let him. That troublesome heart, the new organ that seems to have spontaneously erupted in his chest over the past few weeks, tightens and sends him back towards Shiraishi. He lies down on the mattress and pulls her to him At first she struggles a bit in her sleep, but she then relaxes, cuddling into his front, arms working their way around his neck to cling tightly. He holds her closer, hoping the pressure of her torso will flatten the small butterflies of uncertainty that are inhabiting his chest. He feels the roughness of her scrubs, the silkiness of her hair, but most importantly, the warmth of her hands and face. For a moment he forgets that he's worked his whole life to achieve a *surgeon's* mind and hands, moving without thinking, diagnosis automatic. Maybe this is what his hands were truly made for, this warmth against his body is what he's been wanting for so long.
Sleep is waiting for him, clouding the edges of his mind. His head nods, dangerously close to her half-opened mouth. He brushes their mouths together in the briefest of kisses before darkness overtakes him and he remembers nothing.
Aizawa wakes before she does. He hopes she spent the whole night asleep and won't remember anything, because he's not sure how he can explain this to himself, much less anyone else. He would never have done this before coming her. This hospital and these doctors had shown him his weaknesses. He wasn't strong enough to resist these people and their passion and it had affected his work. Shiraishi was the worst. She wore her feelings on her sleeve and that was rubbing off. The thing was, he was even starting to believe that there might be something to that wide open heart, that transparency that could not be clouded, something just as important as steady hands and clear sight.
For now, he had to pretend that nothing had changed. That he was still the cerebral, impersonal doctor of before, who cared nothing about cold or hot except when it interefered with his surgical ability.
Still, all day he feels his heart burning within his chest with an unexpected warmth.