Sorry this took a little longer, I'm working on a chapter I'm going to add into the middle of the story - taking a review I got into consideration.
I'm actually pretty happy that this story, in my word doc, is exactly 50 pages.
Grammer is a mythological creature that exists only in one's mind. My mind is not one of those it exists in.
Don't. Own. BH6. I do, however, own the computer in which this story was written on. XD
(-)
Chapter Eleven
Just as Cass was going to give Tadashi a call to see where the two were, her phone had rung with an unknown number on the screen.
"Hello?" She answered as she went around the corner into the back room of the Café, away from the chatter of Tadashi's friends.
"Cass Hamada?" A deep, masculine voice questioned.
"Y-yes? This is she, who's calling?" Sudden fear gripped her heart. Phone calls that started out like this were never good calls.
"Officer Michaels, ma'am." He started. "I'm afraid I have some bad news." He was hesitant to begin.
"My nephews? Where are they?" Cass's quiet voice rose in pitch as her imagination ran wild.
"Hiro is being taken to the hospital right now, he's being treated for smoke inhalation and a concussion." Officer Michaels told her. "A-and." He trailed off.
"Oh my gosh." She whispered in slight relief. While Hiro being taken to a hospital was a bad thing, at least he was alive. He was alive and was going to be fine. "Tadashi?"
The officer didn't reply right away. "Um,"
"Sir? Where's my oldest?" Her back straightened even though she was leaning against the wall, she didn't like how the officer fell quiet.
"The college's showcase building caught on fire." He tried to avoid getting to the answer to her question. "According to Hiro, Tadashi was in the building after the fire started but shortly before it exploded."
"Where. Is. He?" She demanded, tears already streaming down her face. She knew, but needed confirmation.
He sighed. "I'm sorry." He paused. "He, he didn't make it out."
Cass didn't feel herself fall to the floor, sliding down the wall she was leaning against for support, and dropping her phone in the process.
"Cass?" Honey Lemon and Gogo rushed to the sound of her sobbing.
"Cass what's wrong?" Honey asked, kneeling down to be eye-level with the woman.
"There-" Cass started, but her voice wasn't cooperating with her. "There was a fire at the school."
"Are they alright?" Wasabi asked as he and Fred stood in the doorway.
She shook her head, hands going to cover her face. "Hiro's being taken to the hospital." Her breath hitched as she tried to take a breath and cry at the same time. "Tadashi didn't, he was in-" She couldn't finish.
The group sat in silence, all crowded into the small workroom around the sobbing and heartbroken baker.
(-)
Cass ran into the waiting room of the hospital, leaving the group at the café, them promising that they would help the staff close up for the night.
She stumbled, not being about to see through the tears in her eyes, to the receptionist's desk.
"Hiro Hamada." Cass mumbled to the lady at the desk.
The older woman gave Cass a small smile as she put on her glasses and started typing on the keyboard. "He's getting an MRI at the moment, then he's going to have a few chest x-rays, just to make sure the smoke he inhaled didn't damage anything."
"Is he going to be okay?"
"Are you family?" The receptionist asked.
"I'm his aunt, his legal guardian." Cass whimpered. Her only family left, and she was his.
The lady smiled. "He should be fine, he was in stable condition when they brought him in, and it says right here that he's still stable." She motioned to the empty chairs along one of the walls. "The doctor will be coming from those doors in a while."
"Thank you." Cass muttered as she made her way to one of the chairs to wait.
This didn't just happen. This isn't happening. Wake up, Cass! Wake up!
(-)
Cass shoved her way into Hiro's hospital room the minute the doctor let her, sending her off with the knowledge that the youngest Hamada had a mild concussion and moderate smoke inhalation. He just needed to stay the night to be monitored.
"Oh, Hiro." She cried. The tears started up again when she saw her only family member left's devastated face.
Hiro pulled the oxygen mask away form his nose. "Aunt Cass." Was all he could say as he was pulled into a gentle, but firm hug from his aunt.
"Oh, hun." She murmured into his hair "I'm so sorry."
"No, no, I'm sorry." He pulled away to take another breath from the mask.
Cass shook her head. "This isn't you're fault." She ran her fingers through his tangled, soot covered hair.
He yanked the mask back off. "If I had held on to his arm just a little tighter, or for a little longer he wouldn't have ran in there!" The tears cut more trails down his face, clearing the ash and dirt that covered him.
"This still isn't your fault." She sat on the edge of the hospital bed.
"But-" He started, but got cut off when he began to cough a deep, chest-rattling cough.
"Put the mask back on." Cass instructed, guiding his hand back to his face. "Hiro, he chose to run in there, that isn't your fault."
He mumbled something into the mask that she couldn't quite make out.
"Do what?" She asked.
He sighed and pulled the mask off, again. "But I could have tried harder." He repeated, the tears had yet to stop falling down his cheeks since his brother pulled from his grip oh so many hours ago. He hiccupped as he placed the oxygen mask back on his face.
His aunt just shook her head as she reached over to him again to pull him into another hug.
(-)
"Dr. Pat called." Cass softly spoke when Hiro finally made his way down stairs to the kitchen. Three days after he returned home, and that was the first time he left his room.
He didn't say anything, but nodded to let her know he heard her speak to him.
"When did you want to reschedule your next session?" Cass spoke as if she were walking on eggshells. She watched as he got a cup of juice and made his way into the living room with her.
"I don't want to continue." He muttered. He didn't want to think of anxiety now. The whole reason he went was because Tadashi talked him into it, because Tadashi had found him panicking, because Tadashi was the first one Hiro ever talked to about his anxiety, because Tadashi was the whole reason for it. Hiro was always subconsciously worried about his brother being ripped from him in the blink of an eye.
And now that Tadashi had been, Hiro just wanted to sulk and be depressed and grieve in peace.
Cass sighed. "Hiro, I know you don't believe that-" She hesitated. "I think these are good for you. Especially now."
He shook his head.
"Hun, you need someone to talk to." She turned toward him. "Past experience says you probably don't want to talk with me about your feelings. And you seemed to have benefitted from your previous sessions…" She trailed off.
"I don't want to." He whispered, not meeting her eyes.
Silence enveloped them for a handful of minutes.
"How about this." Cass said, more determination in her voice. "I'll make you another session."
Hiro turned to argue that he didn't want to do that but was promptly cut off.
"Now, wait, let me finish." She held up her hand, her almost-parental voice coming into the tone. "You go to another session, then decide if you want to continue or not."
Hiro rolled his eyes and stood up to stomp back upstairs.
"And you better actually try. I will ask Dr. Pat if you were any more talkative as you normally are during these." She called after him.
He didn't acknowledge her.
(-)
He stayed curled up underneath his blankets for the remainder of the day, back facing Tadashi's side of their – Hiro's, now, just Hiro's room. He couldn't bear to so much as breath towards the empty side hidden behind the thin rice paper partition; he couldn't bear to think about how that side of the room was waiting patiently for it's inhabitant to return; he couldn't bear to think about how the aforementioned inhabitant would not be returning to that side of the room, or any room for that matter.
He couldn't cry anymore. He did enough of that the night it happened, and the day following. He wanted to, he wanted to keep crying, keep crying for forever but his eyes wouldn't allow it. His heart wanted to, but he just couldn't physically cry any longer.
His already small family was even smaller now.
And it was his fault.
If he had never have gone bot fighting, then Tadashi wouldn't have dragged Hiro to see the lab he worked in at school with a fib of 'forgetting something', then Hiro would never had met Callaghan and wouldn't have been inspired to actually attend the famed 'nerd school', he never would have invented the Microbots for the showcase, and they never would have been remotely near the building when flames decided to dance there.
A chocked, dry sob escaped his lips as he buried his face in his pillow.
This was all, no matter how indirectly, Hiro's fault.