AN: Dedicated to AngeDREAMS. This takes place in a diverging timeline- guess when it happens!

Also, I'm really sorry.

XXX

It wasn't supposed to end like this.

He was supposed to have woken up by now. He was supposed to be ordering her around. Not lying in a bed in the ICU, hooked up to a million machines. Not surrounded by dying flowers that had lived past their freshly picked prime.

Not comatose.

She hated that word. Every time somebody mentioned his still unawakened status, her head lowered, her brow furrowed, her shoulders sagged. The nurse who happened to speak the offending word would always feel the need to place their hand on her shoulder, and whisper false words of comfort.

But she knew they didn't understand. Nobody did. They never felt the awe of his immense power. They couldn't understand how that same power was destroying him from within.

And only she knew how he was destroying her as well.

And so she sat there, unmoving, unwilling. It was only through the furious insistence of the miko that she even ate. But while she was the only one who was always there, she was almost never alone in her solemn waiting. His guardian was usually present, his somber aura permeating throughout the bleak hospital. The short, soft spoken priest, and the smiling student came once a week. The miko, the monk, and the medium visited often as well- though the last felt unworthy after all she had done to him.

Halfway through the second week, the parents arrived. This shocked the thin girl- she had no clue of his true identity until that moment. She began to feel awkward, unnecessary; after all, how could she compare to the people who raised him? But despite her hesitations, the smiling woman grabbed her hand and insisted that she stayed with them. She wanted to hear about how her son had behaved without them. She wanted to know just what the girl thought of him- and how she had managed to capture his heart so thoroughly.

The girl was highly embarrassed, but she answered all of her questions anyways. And while she denied any talk of romance, the love she felt was painted so clearly in the way she leaned forward every time the monitor beeped differently, the way that despite her stomach complaining of emptiness, she never left the room. She spoke enough to fill weeks, but he was still in the bed, still unmoving, still com-

Everyone stood, eyes unwavering, unblinking, staring intently at the patient who had most definitely just moved. They watched as his eyelids fluttered, his heart monitor beeping steadily.

The girl was the first to move again, catching his hand in her grasp as he slowly lifted it. She cradled it to her chest as his eyes parted slightly, for the first time in three months.

The mother quickly called everybody else, informing them of the news, and watched tearfully as her son blinked the delirium out of his eyes. She smiled, noticing how he almost immediately focused on the girl in front of him. Content to be on the sidelines, she allowed them to have their moment.

The girl spoke shakily, trying not to burst into tears. She repeated his name over and over, gently, lovingly. Everything was going to be okay.

But I knew how this would play out.

He smiled weakly at her, the expression lasting only a moment.

The beeping slowed.

Slower.

Slow.

Gone.

And as she stood there, trying to push some life back into his limp hand, barely breathing and yet sobs racking her petite frame, as the older woman wailed and cried, and just as a crowd of doctors, nurses, and friends burst through the doors, my idiot brother rose from the bed to join me.

All he could do was stare. He stared at her, eyes filled with regret, pain, melancholy. I knew this was hard for him. Death was always hard for those who loved too deeply. And so he watched her, watched how she screamed and sobbed, all for lack of him. I knew what was going through his mind- and I knew how much he wished he could tell her.

But this world doesn't take kindly to those who overstay their visit. I slowly took his hand, reminded of the times we spent inseparable as children. We came into this world together, and so we would leave it the same way. We left behind the crying room, the crying people, the crying hearts.

And while he was now looking forward to the future, I knew he had left his own heart behind, in the form of a chestnut haired girl with fire in her blood.

XXX