Po hadn't stopped crying.
Tigress sat on a nearby rock as the panda lay there sobbing. Under normal circumstances, Tigress would have gotten to her feet and slapped some sense in to the hyper-emotional bear.
But now?
She honestly felt like joining him.
They'd just begun their journey back from the children's hospital.
The Furious Five had visited the Hospital often enough; to cheer up the sick children and entertain them with stories, acting as ambassadors of the Jade Palace.
This visit had been a little different.
During the routine mail sorting, they'd found a letter mailed from a little girl in the children's hospital. She wanted very badly to meet Po and Tigress, her 'very favorite' warriors. Her name was Hoang Shi, and she was six years old. Her favorite color was purple and she loved noodles. She was the best writer in the ward and one of the smartest in her class.
And she was dying.
Nobody really knew what was wrong with her. She'd had weird headaches, and suddenly became very ill. No amount of chi seemed to be helping her, as a matter of fact, it seemed to be making things worse. Whatever she had was some sort of continual illness that evaded the greatest healers in China and was slowly taking a little girl away.
The first time the two warriors had seen her, she was curled up in her bed with a book. They kept her away from the other children now. Whatever illness was destroying her apparently made her very susceptible for illness. She was very lonely. She looked very tired.
However, the second she saw the two mighty warriors the little rabbit's eyes lit up like firecrackers. For the first time in a long time, she laughed.
For several hours Tigress and Po cheerfully told her some of their favorite stories. They even told her a few that they hadn't told Shifu or Po's fathers, like the time Monkey had been pick pocketed by a sloth and hadn't noticed. A sloth.
Po had even carved a set of action figures, one of a kind, for little Hoang. Her own two warriors to help her keep brave.
Even though her headaches nearly knocked her out on multiple occasions, little Hoang wanted to stay with the warriors for as long as possible.
And so they stayed. With her parents sitting on either side of her, Hoang listened to some of Tigress' and Po's greatest stories. She even watched Tigress demonstrate her strength… when she punched a hole in the door. She was aiming for Po's fist but "missed", much to the amusement of the children.
Hoang fell asleep just as Po was getting to the good part in the saga of "The Furious Five battle the Wu sisters on demon mountain, which is surprisingly demon-free." Everyone went to bed shortly after Po had finished his tale, and Tigress and Po managed to cram themselves onto a single cot for the night.
Hoang never woke up.
Somehow, someway, the two warriors kept it together. They comforted and mourned with Hoang's parents. They spoke with the other children and spent almost a full day tell them wonderful tales as well.
At one point though, it was time to leave. Hoang's family needed peace.
So they left.
Both were nearly silent the journey back, until they had to camp for the night.
Tigress, unable to sleep, simply stood guard nearby. Tigress felt a heavy lump in her chest as she remembered the joy and adoration in little Hoang's eyes. She knew that adoration and saw it everyday in Lei Lei. Tigress felt sick. Whatever could have taken little Hoang wouldn't blink at Lei Lei.
A fog of darkness seemed to cloud Tigress' thoughts. Nobody had been able to heal Hoang from her illness. What if the same illness took hold of one of her friends? She turned to look at Po, who appeared to be asleep. The darkness made her wonder what the bear would look like as sick and weak as little Hoang had been.
Or what of the other five? Mantis? Monkey? Viper? Crane? Tigress sat down as the weight seemed to get heavier. She couldn't stand the thought of losing them, let alone having them suffer for so long. Seeing a tiny, innocent girl taken so heartlessly…
She started a little when she heard a faint sob. Po was crying.
Tigress shook her head and tried to chase the dark thoughts away. She couldn't do that right now. She needed to be strong, hardcore. Getting to her feet, she approached the Panda.
"Po?" she asked softly. "You okay?"
Po didn't answer. Tigress sighed.
Kneeling down next to him, Tigress extended an arm and wrapped it around him, bringing her head to rest on his. After a few minutes, she felt Po wrap his arms around her and he dragged her into an (admittedly) rather bone-crushing hug.
There were no words to be said, really. As the two slowly calmed into sleep, arms around each other in a comforting embrace, they simply felt the other's soft breath and listened to their heartbeats and sound of life, both fighters realizing, for the umpteenth time, that it could be their last. Every fight, every struggle, at home and in the battlefield, could end in defeat.
But that was for tomorrow. Or another century entirely. It didn't matter. The past is history, tomorrow is a mystery. If the next day were to bring certain death to both warriors, Tigress was sure she wouldn't regret the time she spent curled up with her best friend under the stars, mourning a little girl they barely knew.
As she drifted off to sleep, Tigress was almost certain there was a new star in the sky.