[A/N]: so, I'm not sure how this happened, but I somehow managed to forget that I hadn't uploaded this chapter yet. And it took me a month to realise this. So I'll forgive any attempted murders (if the reason for said murders is the long wait). It had even been proofread and all...

I'll Follow You
I'll follow you down through the eye of the storm, don't worry I'll keep you warm.
I'll follow you down while we're passing through space, I don't care if we fall from grace.

Letting out a sigh, slowly but surely you felt your energy draining, you crawled back into bed and set the laptop over your crossed legs. When you entered Izumo's password, you were surprised to find that he had already set everything up for you to call Mikoto. A weary smile found its way onto your face as you clicked the call-button, your heart skipping a beat when you realised how much you had missed your redhead.

Then the screen turned into a picture of your King, sitting in a dark room and staring down at the camera. He squinted his eyes at what he saw, and before you could greet him, the view went from his face to his feet in the blink of an eye. In the background, you heard a crash and someone yelled, "Mikoto-san!"

Then the laptop was lifted for a few moments and what you presumed to be a ceiling came into view and you heard the sound of something being pulled over the floor before you could see Mikoto again.

"If you break the table again, you won't be allowed to talk to your girlfriend," the same voice in the background warned him.

When Mikoto glared at the person standing behind the screen, something that sounded like a whimper could be heard. "Wife. She's my wife."

"Y-yes, your wife, sorry."

And with that, Mikoto returned his gaze back to the camera and you almost squirmed on the spot at his penetrating stare.

"What was all that about?" you managed to ask him despite your sudden nervousness.

"...when Izumo told me you were in hospital, I thought it had been a joke," Mikoto responded with reluctance as he, too, shifted around uncomfortably in his seat that looked much like a bed.

You gaped at his picture, shocked. "I-is that your idea of a joke?!"

"No. I thought it was Izumo's idea of a joke," Mikoto replied, a small grin becoming visible on his face.

With a sigh, you shook your head but you couldn't manage to hide the smile that was trying to fight its way to freedom.

"So, how are you?" you asked him to change the subject.

Mikoto quirked an eyebrow at the question, however, and shot back, "I think the more important question is how are you?"

"Hey, at least I'm not the one in prison," you retorted and pointed a finger at the camera to emphasise your point.

"No, you're in hospital." All humour disappeared and you knew that Mikoto really was worried about your condition, and hated the fact that he couldn't be by your side. How you hated that empty spot next to you.

"Not for long, don't worry. They say that if things continue at this rate, I might even get released tomorrow," you tried to reassure him, not liking the sudden sadness in the redhead's expression.

At that, the sadness made place for confusion. "'At this rate'?"

"Yes," you said with a nod before pausing to think whether you should tell this to him, then deciding that you should and continuing, "Ayame came this morning and tried to heal me. While we thought that her healing abilities weren't very effective on clansmen, apparently it's more of a long-term thing and helps the body to recover faster instead of healing it immediately."

Mikoto hummed at that, a thoughtful look crossing his face as he tried to recall why they hadn't noticed that before. When he noticed that you still remained troubled by something, he asked, "What's wrong?"

"Well, it's just..." You trailed off and shrugged before going on, "I have a bad feeling about all this. She came early this morning, even though Izumo planned on coming just a bit later. Nobody really saw her and she didn't wake me. Why all the secrecy just for something like that?"

You received no answer, but you knew it was because Mikoto himself couldn't really offer you any help with this problem. And after all, he had never been very good in cheering others up, but you had come to accept that part of him a long time ago.

"Maybe you could ask Munakata if he has heard anything?" you wondered out loud, thoughtfully stroking your chin.

In response, Mikoto scoffed and you swore that if it had been something he would say, he would have said, "No way José."

You lowered your head a bit, pouted and gave him the best puppy look you could muster, making Mikoto groan as he looked away from the screen. He knew he wouldn't be able to resist you if he didn't.

When that didn't work, you let out a huff and grumbled, "Fine, be that way."

Mikoto smiled at your antics, but also realised that you must have started to grow tired if you had given up after but two attempts to persuade him to do your bidding.

"You should rest," he then said, his eyes searching yours through the camera.

You frantically shook your head and said, "But I'm not done talking to you yet."

The King gave you a sceptical look and you knew that he was wondering about what else the two of you could talk about, with the physical distance between the two of you and the possibility of people lurking nearby. He wanted to hold you close to him just as much as you did, but he also knew that you'd never witness your reunion if you refused to go to sleep when your needed it.

"Just... a few more minutes, please?" you asked him and shot him an innocent smile.

He lowered his brows at you, trying to figure out what you were planning on doing, but shrugged and agreed anyway. "Alright then. A few more minutes."

The majority of that time you spent just staring at his picture on the screen, willing your brain to think of something, anything, to talk about. But even there, the tiredness was causing your concentration to wane and soon enough your mind had wandered off into the past, to better times where you could do whatever you wanted with your redhead, whenever you wanted.

A cough from said redhead brought you back into the present soon enough and he announced that your few more minutes were almost up. He added an 'I told you so' look, to which you responded by sticking your tongue out at him.

"Fine, fine. I'll go and have some rest now." You finally gave in with a dejected sigh, but just before the two of you started saying goodbye, a thought came to you all of a sudden.

"Wait, just one more thing," you said, smiling apologetically as Mikoto began to look rather annoyed by your constant struggling to remain online with him. "I just wanted to tell you, you know, with you letting yourself get caught, and yes we all know you didn't actually resist because you could have fought them off with ease-"

Mikoto shot you another pointed look to cease your rambling, for which you apologised before going on again, "Whatever the reason or your plan or what have you behind your imprisonment may be, I just want you to know that I'll believe that you're doing what is best in that moment, even when you don't tell me why you're doing it. I'll always follow you, got it? But please don't go somewhere I can no longer follow you. Please, just promise me that, will you?"

The redhead nodded, albeit with too much hesitation to your liking, so just in case, you added, "Pinky promise."

"What? No," he shot back and it almost seemed as though he moved away from the screen so as to evade having to do a pinky promise with you.

"Please?" you asked him, quickly using your puppy eyes again before he could look away.

After a few moments of silence, he let out a defeated sigh. "Fine..."

With a grin on your face, you held your pinky finger against the camera on the laptop as you watched Mikoto slowly do the same on the screen.

The grin turned into a genuine smile as you realised that it was now time to end the connection. "Good night, Mikoto. I love you."

The redhead smiled and nodded at the screen before it went black. You closed the laptop, placed it on the nightstand next to your bed, crawled under the blankets and fell asleep almost immediately.

Later that evening, Irene woke you up to check your wounds while a nurse gave them new dressings. When they were done, the doctor informed you that, though normally they wouldn't allow this under any circumstances, you were allowed to go back home the next day, thanks to the abnormal healing rate of your wounds. Though before she left you again so that you could rest some more, she made you promise to get yourself checked at least once a week, just to be on the safe side.

And so the next day, Izumo stood outside of your room as you pulled on the clothes that he had brought from the bar, while the same nurse as the day before made sure you were fit to leave and had made you promise once more to take good care of yourself and to avoid any strenuous activities.

Izumo let out a sigh of relief when he saw you open the door with a huge smile on your face. He had almost feared it to be some kind of mistake and that you would have to stay in hospital for a few more days, but thankfully that wasn't the case.

"Let's go home," he said as he held out an arm for you to hold.

You nodded and slowly, your leg still a little stiff, made your way to the elevator that would take you down. After passing the front desk and answering a few more questions from Irene, you stood outside, where Izumo hailed a cab in an attempt to heed the nurse's advice of taking it easy the first few days.

Though you rolled your eyes at him as you stepped into the car before him, you were thankful for the gesture and planned on enjoying yourself for once. Who could blame you; after all, you had never been in a cab before.

Actually, rarely having used a car at all, you ended up enjoying the view of the city from behind a window. Staying in the outskirts most of the time, where it looked much more like a neighbourhood of a town or something, it felt weird to witness the skyscrapers filled with electronic billboards for what felt like the first time in forever. Though you felt that with the amount of people bustling about, it might have been faster to walk home than to hail a cab. Slowly but surely, however, the buildings became smaller until you were back in what you considered 'your streets'.

Izumo had been fiddling with his phone throughout the whole ride. You guessed that his schedule had become much busier with all that had happened. You sympathised with him for how he, too, had to try his best to keep everything stuck together, even though you could understand if he wanted to flop down on a couch somewhere and just do nothing for a few days. You mentally shook your head at that thought and promised that you would try even harder to help him as much as possible.

When the car stopped just in front of the bar, you got out as fast as you could and pulled your bag of dirty clothes with you before Izumo could even get out himself. He raised an eyebrow at your antics while you grinned and walked past him. He paid the fare and you made a mental note to check your bank account to see how much you could pay him back right now.

Actually, you stormed into the bar, only throwing curt greetings at the occupants of the room, be they from HOMRA or not, who welcomed you back and only stopping to scratch an anxious Frank behind the ear. Behind the counter, you dropped your bag after pulling out Izumo's laptop. Then you placed it on the bar, flipped it open and began typing away at once. Everyone stared at you, confused, and all their gazes automatically switched to the bartender as he stepped into the room. Izumo shrugged in response, but before he could join you behind the bar to see what you were doing, you bounded up to him with a huge grin.

Your smile disappeared when you turned to look at the wall that you had burned during your fight with the two goons and said, "Sorry Izumo. I wasn't careful enough and damaged your wall."

Izumo let out a sigh and ran his hand through his hair, trying to muster up the energy to at least pretend he wasn't all that sad about it, but you interrupted him before he could say anything.

"But!" you started as you pulled out your wallet and slapped it against his shoulder. "I just checked and I have saved enough money from working for you to pay you back. For everything. I only stayed at the hospital for two nights, so that won't be too much, and I can repair the wall and pay you back for the taxi."

"What-" Izumo began, wanting to tell you that you didn't have to pay back the taxi fare, but you pressed your wallet against his lips to silence him.

"Not going to listen. You accept all my money or none of it," you said with a grin and watched as Izumo's eyes went from your face to the gaping, black hole through which he could see the kitchen, and back to your face... Then he closed his eyes and shrugged.

"Fine."

You smiled again before pocketing your wallet again and then going to sit with the other HOMRA-members who had watched the confrontation in silence. It seemed that Misaki was still out, leaving only Rikio, Saburouta, Shouhei and Anna, who you hadn't seen until now. They smiled at you as you joined their company, feeling that at least some things were what they were supposed to be once more.

It was a few hours later when you felt something was missing. "Ayame still hasn't returned, has she?"

Izumo, who had reclaimed his spot behind the counter once more and was cleaning glasses like always, shook his head at the question.

"Actually, we haven't seen her since she left yesterday morning," Rikio answered and the others nodded.

"When I asked her where she was going, she said that she had something important to do," Shouhei added and shrugged his shoulders. "I can't blame her for not wanting to be here. There are so many memories of Totsuka-san."

A hum of acknowledgement went through the group and everyone lowered their eyes to their drinks in remembrance. Some frowned, while others had small smiles. You, on the other hand, merely watched them as your mind drifted towards Ayame, not wanting to linger on any memories of Tatara right now.

She had left to heal you, but after that she hadn't been seen? Where could she possibly be? Were they right to believe she just needed some alone time, away from the bar? You had a feeling something else was going on. This didn't seem like anything the Ayame you knew would do, at least not without telling anyone.

Whatever the case might be, all you could do right now was wait for her to return, and so that is what you would be doing in the next few days. For that day, however, you were content to relish sitting with and talking to your friend. You laughed at Misaki's surprised face when he entered the room with slumped shoulders, only to perk up at the sight of you sitting on your usual spot, with Frank lying on the ground beneath your legs.

For just a few hours, everyone could forget the situation and enjoy what was left of their group.