He awakens with a sharp stab of pain in his side, eyes snapping open. An ache pulses in waves against the left side of his torso as the smell of sanitizer and faded fabric slowly drift him back to his senses. With blurred eyes, he takes in an all too familiar scene of dimly lit sterilized walls and cotton white sheets. What had he done this time? Another twinge of pain. He grits his teeth and squeezes his eyes shut, vaguely recalling sprinting from a culprit, the woman's eyes blazing in a rage…

"Hnn.."

Ears perking at the foreign sound, he turns his head slowly and notices a newer addition to this setting: his inspector stirring awake from his movements, face scrunched between folded arms on the edge of his hospital bed. Her uniform is disheveled and her hair unkempt, as if she's been waiting there for hours. It wasn't the first time in the well-over-a-year he had known her that this very picture had happened, what with him visiting the hospital wing as much as he did. But it still warmed what was left of his heart just the same.

"Kou...?" she murmurs, lifting her head with returning clarity.

"How long was I out?" he croaks, voice hoarse with lack of use.

She sighs with relief. "Thank goodness...before that, do you remember what happened?"

Kogami scrunches his eyebrows together and attempts to rest a hand over the tender spot, only to pull back with a hiss through his teeth and a fearful glance from Akane.

He thinks back. "We had finally flushed out Ishida." He pauses, voice frail and low. "But she pulled out an old katana and ran towards Kagari and I. And I...I think I tricked her into going after me so I could lead her to Ginoza's squadron..."

"And you succeeded," Akane interrupts. "Until she caught up and impaled your side with it, right as you reached them."

"Ah..."

"It was bad when I made it back." She pauses to exhale a shaky breath. "Kougami, there was blood everywhere. Masaoka was doing everything he could to keep your wound closed, and you were already unconscious. I..." She averts her gaze from those stormy eyes staring back, choosing instead to watch his blinking EKG, a miracle in itself. "The nurse said that your chances of survival were..'slim'. You've been unconscious for a few days."

"A few days?" He chokes, startled into a painful coughing fit.

Quickly she lunges over to the nightstand and holds a glass of water to his lips, his own hands shaking around the cup and the tips of her fingers. Gingerly, she waits until the glass is drained and sets it back down carefully.

"The division has been worried sick. You gave us quite the scare," she adds.

"And the target?"

Akane frowns. "Eliminated. But Kou, this could have been worse. Much worse."

He knows. He could see the fear etched into her eyes, the faint dried tracks of tears. What had happened that day was another reminder that life in their field was fragile. How quickly anything like this could happen at any time. And while he wouldn't regard himself as someone so important in her eyes like she had become to him, he also knew it would be foolish to say they hadn't developed a close connection.

"Have you been here all day?" he asks.

"I stopped by after my shift and must have dozed off…"

He stares back knowingly. For a moment she can't seem to break free from that gaze, exhausted but oddly warm, something she's seen a lot more of this year on the force together.

"ENFORCER KOUGAMI, IT IS GOOD TO SEE YOU AWAKE."

Akane practically vaults off the chair with a yelp as a drone wheels in. "YOU HAVE BEEN IN A MEDICALLY-INDUCED COMA FOR TWO DAYS AND 13 HOURS. HOW DO YOU FEEL?"

"Pipe down," Kougami grunts. "I feel like I was hit by a truck." Akane is trying her best to fade into the wall behind her.

"I'M SORRY TO HEAR THAT."

The machine seems to have turned its volume down by a fraction, which was not much of a change at all. "I HAVE BROUGHT YOU MEDICATION FOR YOUR INJURIES. PLEASE TAKE YOUR DOSAGE NOW." Akane stares as a compartment opens on the robot's front and spits a single pill onto a tray holding a paper cup of water. Resentment bubbles within her towards this apathetic machine that won't even tell him what the pill will do, but Kougami doesn't hesitate, shakily taking the items and swallowing the medicine with a grimace.

"THANK YOU. I WILL BE BACK TO CHECK ON YOU AFTER YOUR CONTINUED REST." It suddenly pivots to her. "HAVE A GOOD EVENING, INSPECTOR TSUNEMORI." Akane mumbles at the callout nervously and looks down as it wheels past her, Kougami's head falling back to the pillow with a relieved groan.

"How can you stand those things?!" she hisses once the robot is out of sight. He snorts a laugh in response.

"You get used to them."

"It didn't even tell you what the pill was!"

"It's probably the usual–a regenerative mixed with a heaping amount of sleep aid to keep me quiet until my labor is worth something again to the PSB."

Akane's eyebrows scrunch together as she mutters something unintelligible. Of course he returns the sentiment, but it's more than a little concerning how her faith in Sibyl's world seemed to wane with every passing day. Not that he was helping; Akane was just as eager to thoroughly question any and all jurisdiction as he had been in his first years at the PSB, and he loved to indulge her curiosity. The system itself, as taboo as it was, was a frequent point of discussion between them.

"If that's the case, I...I should probably head home. You need your rest." She starts to stand, but stops when he suddenly begins to scoot over to the left of the hospital cot, a question in his eyes. It wasn't demanding, nor forceful.

"...will that robot be back anytime soon?" She whispers.

"Depending on that dosage, it can be anywhere from 10-12 hours."

Smiling shyly in understanding, Akane slowly inches onto the offered spot, careful to avoid the twists and turns of the tubes attached to Kougami. He smiles as she carefully braces a hand beside him, lowering down to lay her head on an all too familiar space on his chest, right above his quickening heartbeat. Tugging an already heavy arm over her shoulder like a shawl, he weakly lifts his other to encircle her gently in an embrace, sighing softly.

This occurrence wasn't foreign to them anymore, like it would have been months ago. Since the day Akane had fallen asleep on his shoulder after a long shift, the pair discovered a level of comfort in each other that had expanded, with what once started as naps between shifts in his quarters to much needed rest that could only be found in each others' companionship. Nothing beyond sleep of course; even as an enforcer he wasn't low enough to drag her reputation down with him. Still, it proved to be strangely therapeutic. Most nights for Kougami, sleep was desperately sought in vain, save for the times Akane decided to visit.

Of course, before all that, he vividly recalls the day his feelings had crossed the fine line from where he deemed her an incredible woman to...something more. However…

He starts from his thoughts when he feels Akane gently tracing her finger around the bandaged spot where he was speared, a quiet huff escaping her.

"It meant a great deal to see you instead of this depressing room when I woke up," he murmurs.

She's quiet for a moment. "I thought I had lost you," she finally whispers, almost to herself.

A guilt settles over his heart. "Tsunemori…"

"I'm sorry."

It takes him off guard. "What for?"

"I don't mean to get this worked up." Her eyes mist over, and he instinctively brings a hand over her arm, giving it a squeeze. "It's just...it was reckless. I know it's in your blood to make a call at your own expense, but that was a terrible call."

Kougami had seldom ever needed to comfort anyone about his own wellbeing before Akane, and it always proved to be a challenge.

"Hey, it's alright. It'll take more than that to kill me." He pauses, her questioning eyes meeting his. "I'll live to fight another day."

She stares at him. He's starting to feel the effects of the drug as the pain in his side mercifully begins to ease.

"It's not just that." Akane is clearly thinking something over.

"I…" Kougami's eyebrows scrunch together in concentration. The narcotic was starting to dull his reasoning. "Well, I can't really promise my own safety, being here-"

At that she groans loudly, his head flicking up at the noise. "I know that," she mutters, face heating at his sudden attention. "And that's not it, either."

"What do you mean, then?"

Her mouth twists like she's in pain, and suddenly she draws a deep breath. He can feel her square her shoulders against him.

"I… just want you to be more conscious that you mean a lot to many people here. Especially…" She hesitates, taking another breath. "Especially me. You're…very important to me. I don't want to lose you."

He's not sure if he's understood her implications correctly. "What do you-"

"-and I think," she interrupts, pulling herself up to sit pressed into his uninjured side instead, "That what I'm feeling…isn't so one sided."

Was the drug moving faster than usual? Surely he's mishearing something, but he masks his face as best he can and tests the water, to be sure.

"What made you come to that conclusion, Inspector?" Shit, his voice cracked a bit in surprise. Of course she catches it, and a shy smirk plays on her lips.

"I can't be too sure, but…" she trails off, and oh-so-gently raises a hand to smooth his cheek. "Call it 'detective's intuition'." And she nods to that damned EKG beside him, now recording an increased jump of 15 bpm.

At that a blush creeps to his cheeks, so rare and adorable that she can't suppress a giggle. "Did you bring this up now," he sputters, "to interrogate me with that thing?"

"Of course not." She frowns, taking an air of seriousness. And to prove the point, she takes his hand in hers and lays it flat over her own racing heart, a pace surprisingly mimicking his own. "See?"

He dares to look into her eyes and doesn't see a trace of humor in it. No, it certainly wasn't the first time the thought crossed his mind that she might have felt something more for him too; it was hard not to consider it, with their current arrangement. But as far as actual confessions went, the subject had never come up. He assumed that was for the best; what they had was more of an unconventional solution to the stress that their job brought. Someday it might have somehow become more, if only he wasn't chained to his fate.

He swallows thickly. "I know this incident scared you, Inspector." She makes a face at the title. "But think about where you're treading for a moment."

She smiles sadly, and belatedly it struck him that she, impossibly, might have thought of it just as much as he had. "Why didn't you ever tell me?" She asks instead, voice a whisper.

Pausing at the revelation, he huffs a deep sigh.

"It's not my place, Tsunemori. Just because we have mutual comfort here, doesn't mean I'm going to ask you to stop living your life."

At that a flare of anger sparks in her eyes. "Stop living my life? Kougami, were you expecting me to use you for my own benefit, and eventually replace you with someone else?"

At that his gaze casts down. "I wouldn't stop you."

She tips his chin back up to face her. "And you can look me in the eyes and tell me you'd be okay with that?"

Not for the first time, he's racked with the thought he tries to push back every time she smiles just for him, or she snores softly while crushing his arm in one of her strange (and frankly adorable) poses she twists herself into, or the way she's become the divisions impressive, stoic leader, yet always softens when they share a moment alone. Of course he wouldn't be okay. Of course he couldn't imagine the jealousy that would course through him until he couldn't see straight. A rage that he could do nothing to contain, the weight of powerlessness that would crush him.

In the end he doesn't have to answer at all; the silence following and the grimace he tries to hide in vain are incriminating enough.

At that, she wraps her small hands around his cheeks and forces him to look her in the eyes.

"Listen to me." He hesitates, startled by the piercing glare that seems to knock away the approaching fog of medication. "You don't get to decide how I want to live my life. I honestly couldn't care less what anyone would have to say about it."

"And the limitations?" He interrupts, eyes darkening. "A future that doesn't exist outside these walls? How can that be a prospect where you're happy?"

She leans in closer, so close he can see every fleck of light illuminated in her golden brown eyes. Placing her hand over his heart, he can feel it skip a beat under her touch. "Because my happiness is here. With you." At that her cheeks turn a lovely scarlet.

How was he supposed to push her away after that? It was already hard enough, but that little hand over his chest seemed to crush any resolve he had left. Cautiously, he wraps his larger hand over hers.

"Of course I feel the same," he whispers, smoothing a thumb slowly over her knuckles. And nothing would make me happier." He pauses, noting a small tear rolling down her cheek, and gently brushes it away. "But how could I possibly give you the relationship you deserve?"

At that she laughs, small and a bit choked up. "What do you mean? You already have."

And suddenly her lips are pressed to his, soft but waiting, waiting to see if he would dare to cross this bridge with her. And perhaps it's the painkillers, or the sleeping drug that's starting to take effect. Perhaps it's because he'd do anything to stop the tears welling in her eyes. But at this moment, as he takes her lead, the barrier that had separated them all this time seems to have never existed at all.

Regulations be damned, he wanted it more than anything, and so did she.

As she slows and stares lovingly into his eyes, breath fanning his hair, well. If fate was truly allowing him this happiness, he wasn't planning on wasting it.

"Kou, I-mmph!" She doesn't get a chance to finish before he's kissing her back, deepening it with as much passion as he can muster. When they do break apart she's panting for air as he sinks them both into the mattress, the action itself seeming to drain the last of his energy.

"If we're really doing this," he mumbles into the crook of her neck, "you should start calling me by my name, Akane."

At that she laughs embarrassingly into his shoulder, still enamored at this unexpected side of him. At least he chuckles with her, pinking quite a bit himself.

"May I stay by your side, Shinya?" The name itself is like a bolt of electricity, new and exciting. She can feel a smile tug on his lips as he leaves a lazy trail of kisses down her neck while she squeals in delight.

"It would be my honor."

And then like it's the most natural response to this situation, he yawns, his entire body straining. Akane smiles at the sensation of it, his eyelash fluttering against the fabric of her collar.

"Maybe this was too big a decision to make, in your state?" she queries.

"Nah. The division already suspected it, anyway."

And with a heavy arm, he topples her to his side and instinctively curls around her, Akane laughing with mirth.

"But maybe we could continue this conversation in the morning?" He tries, halfway through another yawn. Carefully, she wiggles closer into his arms, wiping the last of her tears away with the heel of her palm.

"Of course, Shinya." He laughs sleepily at that, nuzzling against her. The medication is certainly the culprit for this unabashedly tender version of him, and she'd almost be sorry to see it go.

He's quickly falling insensible as his eyes slide closed when he suddenly hums something, so low she cannot quite hear.

"What was that?" She whispers, tilting closer.

"Mm...love you…"

Stunned, she carefully kisses his arm wrapped around her and he smiles softly, already falling into a deep doze.

"I love you too."


Wow so...I guess it's been 5 YEARS since I wrote anything for the fandom? I'll admit I fell out of the fandom, and knew if I re-watched Psycho-pass I would get sucked back in to an insane amount-so I held myself back for a while! BUT NOT FOREVER HEHEHEH

This is a fic I found half-finished in my docs from that time, and after 3 REWRITES of the ending I'm very happy to have it out there! (and not driving me nuts)

A very special thanks to thewrathofbombast and Jedi_of_Books_and_Snacks for helping me beta! Especially thewrathofbombast who I made re-read it multiple times to help the ending make sense, it made a HUGE difference!