While You Were Gone, Chapter 3

A/N: Thanks for the follows and reviews! It's been fun hearing what you guys think. Good luck to those of you who have finals. Not sure when the next update will be - I have stuff written, but work is busy & I have travel coming up.


Tadashi doesn't stay awake for long: he tries to ask questions, but Cass can't make out most of what he's trying to say, and he seems to decide that it's not worth the work of repeating himself. The only question she does understand is Hiro? and it's a fairly easy one to answer: Hiro is fine. He's at school. He'll visit later.

After she tells him, of course - and how in the world is she supposed to do that? Cass reaches for her phone, but there's no response to the messages she's sent him. He's probably still in class, and getting Hiro to check his phone is a struggle most of the time anyway.

She's had to tell him - both of them - so many difficult things already. Things that should be spread out over a lot more years, that seriously should be spread out over a lot more people. It wasn't very long ago that she was crying with Hiro in a different hospital, and she's never going to forget the day she had to pick up a completely clueless Tadashi from elementary school.

She turns her attention back to her older nephew. There's a lot they need to tell him too. How are you supposed to tell someone that they've been unconscious for ten weeks? That life has changed a lot since they were last awake?


Ugh, Aunt Cass. Hiro scrolls through his messages and there are three texts from her: "let me know when u get this," "i need 2 talk 2 u," and "CALL ME." Did Baymax say something he wasn't supposed to? Nah...he should be crammed into his luggage right now. She probably just wants him to get milk on the way home. Or cat food. Mochi is such a huge pig.

"sorry, had class" he texts back, shouldering his backpack and heading out of the lecture hall. The vending machine is calling his name - hopefully they've restocked that thing. There's no way he can eat one of their disgusting oatmeal bars again.

His phone starts vibrating and he digs it out. Cat food is not that important! "Hi, Aunt Cass," he greets her, trying to balance the phone between his ear and shoulder so that he can find a dollar for the vending machine. No gummy bears, but there are BBQ chips!

"I've been trying to reach you all afternoon!" Aunt Cass says, not even bothering to say hello. Well okaaaaay. She sounds strange over the phone, and Hiro can't decide if she's annoyed or upset or what. "Something happened today. Do you have any more classes?"

"Just lab, but then I was going to do some stuff with people." Great, she probably needs him to help at the cafe. And why won't the machine take his dollar?! Hiro smoothes out the corners and tries to feed it in again. Seriously, these things should just take cash cards.

"I want you to come and meet me at the hospital as soon as your lab is finished," Aunt Cass instructs him.

"I'm supposed to get burritos..." Hiro protests, irritated as the machine spits out his dollar yet again. "Wait, did you say hospital? Are you sick?"

"No," Aunt Cass responds, thankfully. She's not supposed to get sick. "I'll get you something to eat here. It's Koseki hospital, okay? Call me and I'll meet you in the lobby."

"Yeah, but what's wrong?" Hiro stuffs his rejected money into his pocket. Chips maybe aren't so important. If Aunt Cass isn't sick, then why does she want him to go to the hospital? She hasn't booked him a doctor's appointment, has she? "I don't have to do that allergy test thing, do I? I don't need that."

"Hiro, please. Just go to your lab and then come here." Aunt Cass sounds like she's running out of patience. Probably not a good idea to push it...

"Okay, fine," Hiro agrees. Great, something's up. And he's going to miss out on burritos.


Hiro knows that something is seriously wrong when Aunt Cass buys him a Coke. She doesn't sell Coke at her cafe - it's bad for you and rots your teeth! Yeah, like filling people with sugary desserts is any better. He tries to watch her as he twists off the cap, but the thing won't come free and he has to look down instead.

"Straw?" Aunt Cass asks, holding one up when he lifts his head.

"Thanks," Hiro says, tentatively accepting it. He plunges the straw into the bottle and takes a sip - now what? She's dragged him down to the cafeteria - which still smells like hospital - but she hasn't dropped any hints as to why they're even here.

Aunt Cass just watches him for a long moment, like she's deciding what she wants to say. "Hiro," she starts, tapping her fingers against her lemonade. "There was...well, a big mess the night of Tadashi's accident."

"It wasn't an accident," Hiro spits out, shoving his Coke to the side. Why's Aunt Cass want to talk about this now? Why here? He was having a good day too...if she wants to talk about Tadashi, can't they just swap nice stories or something instead?

She doesn't try to argue with him about whether or not it was an accident. Instead she reaches her hands across the table, trying to cover his. Hiro stuffs them into his hoodie pockets instead. This conversation needs to be over. Soon.

But the talk doesn't end - it's just on pause while Aunt Cass thinks over how best to drop the bomb.

Tadashi isn't dead.


The room she brings him to has a window that faces the hallway: all the patient rooms in this part of the hospital do. Hiro supposes it's so that the nurses can keep a close eye on them - you know, make sure they're alive and stuff. This is where he parks himself, on the outside looking in.

Aunt Cass says the it's Tadashi on the other side.

She's answered all the questions he asked to protect himself from false hopes: The police and hospitals are still trying to figure out what happened, but they do know that there were two people who arrived at Sanfransokyo General with burn injuries around the same time. They're not sure how the mix-up happened. Tadashi couldn't tell them anything because he was already unconscious and then they had to put him into a drug-induced coma. They didn't recognize his face because he burned it.

"Oh," he had responded to that answer, and he didn't ask anymore questions before she brought him here. He doesn't like the thought of Tadashi getting burned and being unrecognizable. He peers through the window now: there's a nurse or someone in there messing with machines and talking to the guy in the bed. There are a lot of bandages and tubes. Way too many.

Aunt Cass says they haven't told this Tadashi very much yet: he doesn't know anything about Callaghan setting the fire or stealing the microbots or anything. He doesn't know that they thought he was dead. He doesn't even know that they haven't been visiting him at the hospital.

If this is Tadashi, all he knows is that he ran into a building to help someone and that he got hurt.

Hiro strains to see the person's face, but all he can see are tubes and a bad haircut. Tadashi might have been a major nerd, but his haircut was okay.

"Do you want to go in and say hi?" Hiro suddenly feels Aunt Cass's hands on his shoulders, and she tries to catch his eye.

"Are you sure that's him?" Hiro asks, gesturing towards the person inside.

Aunt Cas relaxes enough so that she's hugging him from behind. "It's Tadashi," she answers. "I'm sure."

But something is telling him that he shouldn't believe her, not yet - he's had too many unusual and bad things happen to him to just accept this. So he shields himself with another question. "Why's his hair so bad?"

Aunt Cass looks as though he's just asked the most ridiculous question ever. "Are you serious?" she asks, and she looks like she's going to continue, but instead her expression softens and her shoulders drop. "I don't know. He probably singed it off."

Well that makes sense, at least.

She gives him a push towards the door. "Come on. He was asking about you."


Tadashi figures all his medication must be wearing off because everything is sharper: the details of the hospital room, the soreness in different parts of his body, the desire to move despite feeling exhausted. He can follow the nurse's conversation without a lot of extra effort: she's been going on about teaching her kid how to drive for the last few minutes, but his mind easily drifts to other things.

They say he's been out for ten weeks.

He wants to think they've been kidding him, but he's too tired to rationalize his way out of it. It feels like it's been two or three days at most. Wasn't he just at the showcase with Hiro? The fire wasn't really ten weeks ago, was it?

But maybe they're right, because Aunt Cass is sliding the door open and Hiro's with her and he's wearing an SFIT hoodie that Tadashi doesn't remember him owning.

Hiro lingers near the door. What's up with that? Tadashi wishes he had his voice so that he could just tell his brother to come closer. He moves his un-splinted arm, but he can't really even smack the bed to get the message across. Unbelievable. He wakes up after ten weeks in a coma and Hiro isn't even happy about it.

But then Hiro makes his way over and grips the side rail. He looks like he can't decide whether to talk or cry or smile or what. "Does this go down?" he finally asks, his voice catching as he presses down on the side rail.

"Sure," the nurse says. She steps over and lowers it. Hiro immediately drops into the visitor chair and buries his face in his arms on the empty part of the mattress.

"He's just a little overwhelmed," Aunt Cass says awkwardly, nudging Hiro's shoulder. It's strange, Tadashi thinks. Hiro gets upset and angry, but he doesn't cry easily. Why isn't his kid brother excited or relieved like everyone else? Honestly, Hiro should have a million smart-ass comments saved up for this reunion.

Hiro chooses this moment to look up. "Don't ever do that again!" he says forcefully. He doesn't sayyou scared me but that's the message Tadashi gets loud and clear.

It's like being hit in the chest with a brick of guilt. I'm sorry, he thinks, mouths, tries to say. And maybe Hiro gets his message, because he doesn't follow the same rules as everyone else: the hug is crappy, one-sided, and careful, but it's a hug all the same.