The phone rang, pulling Zelda from her fitful sleep. "Hello?" she mumbled into her cell, not even bothering to open her eyes.

"Ma'am?" the voice belonged to someone who sounded official, too official at one in the morning. "I'm calling from Mercy General, is this-"

"What's happened?" she barely managed to breathe the words into the phone as she sat up.

"Your husband and his partner have been admitted into the hospital for gunshot wounds ma'am... your husband is in surgery."

XxX

Zelda rushed to the hospital, tugging a half-awake Toon behind her as she burst through the automatic double doors in the Emergency Room section. "Can I help you?" the nurse at the desk inquired politely and Zelda whirled to face her.

"Yes goddesses please I-"

"Zelda!" Samus ran forward, usually perfect blonde hair mussed up. "I'm glad you're here I-"

"Where's Link? Where's Ike?" Zelda knew her tone was showing her panic, but at that moment she couldn't have cared less.

"Link's in surgery and Ike is-"

"Zelda," Ike appeared, seemingly out of nowhere to the stunned and frantic woman. Zelda was happy to see him up and walking, a weight lifting off her shoulders as she moved to him and wrapped her arms around his torso gently. It registered in the back of her brain that he was now wearing a plain grey t-shirt, not the button up he left her house in, and his usually amazing two armed hug was reduced to one arm, the other held tight in a sling. She backed up half a step, taking in his beaten expression.

"Goddesses Ike tell me he's okay," she saw him tense slightly and she felt her stomach hit the floor.

"He's in surgery right now, I really don't know much," he said instead and reached out a hand to take hers.

"It doesn't look good does it?" she asked, bracing herself.

"N...not really," he answered and Zelda felt tears pricking at her eyes. "Let's go wait by the doors to surgery and-"

"Ike," Toon stepped forward, confusion in his sleepy voice, and Zelda watched as Ike fell to his knees and hugged her son tightly with one arm, a loving smile cutting through the depressed look on his face.

"Detective," a nurse cleared her throat and Zelda looked up at her unsmiling face, "we need to get an x-ray on that shoulder of yours." Ike nodded and stood up on shaking legs.

"I wanna go with you Ike," Toon tried to grab Ike's hand and Zelda felt her heart lurch as Ike kissed Toon's forehead gently.

"I need you to stay with your mom right now kiddo," he said softly. "I'll be right there after this okay?" He ruffled Toon's hair and looked to Zelda. "I'll be right there." She managed a nod, a hand over her mouth.

XxX

Someone led her to the surgery doors, sat her on an uncomfortable and unforgiving plastic chair, and vanished. So there she sat, eyes on the tile floor at her feet, the dots forming vague shapes as she watched nothing, brain refusing to function beyond breathing. Zelda felt numb. She was scared. Scared of everything. Terrified to cry, terrified to move, to blink. She didn't know how to process what was going on in her brain.

She knew Toon was beside her, knew he had asked her a few times what was going on, but found herself incapable of looking at him. Her own son. She felt sick. Finally he stopped asking, grew quiet as sleep danced around him, his blonde head drooping to the side as he began to nod off into oblivion.

Something in her periphery caught her attention, pulling her unwilling eyes from the light green dots on the tile. Ike was walking towards her, a grim look set to his features. His shoes squeaked on the tile, Toon beside her jolting awake. "Ike!" he leapt from the chair in a move at any other time Zelda would have found adorable and ran to him. She watched, numbly taking in how Ike winced as the tiny body collided with his roughly. They moved back to her hand in hand, his other still in a sling. An ominous dark blue sling.

His lips moved, words she couldn't hear as he sat beside her. His good arm pulled her to him, and she shut her tired eyes, unable to do anything else. His voice sounded so far away as he kept talking to her. It was as if they spoke different languages underwater, his words garbled and lost in translation as she tried to focus.

A doctor appeared out of the surgery wing, the doors swinging mockingly behind him. Ike stood up, Zelda following suit. She looked up at the face of the doctor, taking in his expression. He wasn't smiling, he wasn't happy. He looked like he had bad news, news bad enough to accompany the blood staining his scrubs. Blood. Link's blood? His lips moved, the words lost on Zelda once more. All but one.

Dead.

The world spun. If Ike had not been standing there holding her shoulder, she would've collapsed to the floor. The doctor spoke some more, but anything else he had to say was lost as the tears that clogged Zelda's mind and throat tore out and she wailed. Ike held onto her, his grip almost painful as her legs gave out under her.

Dead. Her husband. Link. Her everything. The boy that had given her goofy grins and handpicked wildflowers. The man too nervous to ask her to marry him the first time, even as he held the thin ring in his fingers as he knelt before her. The man that had cried as he held their son for the very first time. Dead. How was it even possible?

Ike eased her back into her chair as the doctor walked off, his face a blur to her as he crouched in front of her. Tears poured from her eyes as she tried to focus on Ike's face, focus on anything other than the smile she would never see again. His lips were moving, words she now couldn't hear over her own sorrow. She blinked as the tears left trails on her cheeks, anguish mirroring her own etched into Ike's features. His lips kept moving, words unheard, as he put his hand on top of hers. She jumped and yanked her hand from his, guilt making her stomach flip. He let her pull away, standing up and turning to Toon who had at some point gotten up.

"Mom?" Toon's voice, confused and scared, broke through the cloud and she buried her face in her hands, unable to look at their son. Her son now. The thought brought on yet another fresh wave of agony and she stuttered out more tears, finding it hard to breathe past what her body was doing. Her dinner bubbled up from her stomach, joining the green dots on the floor.

XxX

Ike didn't know how to process what was happening. Link... dead? It couldn't be. His partner and close friend, gone? It seemed too surreal. Ike had been shot too, almost in the same spot. Why did he survive? How could any deity allow a single man to live and let a loving father and husband die?

He held Toon, crouching down to do so with his one good arm. Ike tried to soothe the scared look from his small face and wide eyes. Zelda was wailing, crying, and screaming. He wanted to comfort her, but the way she pulled from his touch made him think that perhaps right now wasn't the best time. He watched her slump after she vomited up her dinner, the emotions too much for her body to deal with.

"Sam," Ike croaked out the name of the blonde respectfully standing a few yards away. She swooped in towards them, wrapping her arms around both him and Toon.

"I'm here," she mumbled into Ike's hair as she kissed the top of his head gently.

"Get Toon," he mumbled and she nodded. Ike moved in a daze akin to a sleepwalker, somehow pulling Zelda to him. Pain shot through his shoulder down to his toes as he began to walk with Zelda in his arms. He made it a few feet before a nurse leapt forward, demanding he put her down.

"You're going to hurt your shoulder worse!" she snapped, pink painted fingernails on her overweight hips.

"I don't care," he snapped as he kept going.

"Detective-"

"Fuck off!" he growled.

"Detective, you haven't been released I cannot allow you to-"

"I don't give a fuck about me," he said in a low voice, dark blue eyes locked on her light green ones angrily. "I'm not letting these two go home alone." As he spoke the nurse paled and stepped aside. With that, they let them leave.

XXX

Much love to my readers and reviewers (concisponci and FireEmblemNerd0909, always loving the reviews!) Let me know what you think! Much love, Leigh