Chapter Nine

"Ha! Beat you again!" Lance yelled silently in the hospital waiting room.

Hunk groaned, putting down his yellow play piece, and dragging his hands down his face. "How come you always win Lance?" He asks.

"Cuz I'm just amazing like that." Lance answers, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Or you cheat." Pidge adds, pushing her glasses up further on her face.

Lance gaped. "I do not cheat. Hunk, Keith, tell her I don't cheat." He says, looking between the two.

Hunk shrugs, and Keith mumbles under his breath that he can sometimes.

Lance groans. "I don't think there is a way to cheat in Sorry!"

"Let me see your last card." Pidge says, holding out her hand and waiting for him to give it to her.

"Uhhh, why? Why- why do you need it?" Lance stammers.

"So I can check you really had a twelve." She answers bluntly like he should have known that.

"Psssh. I totally have a twelve, Keith look." Lance says, shoving a card that says 12 in Keith's face.

"That's your card from last round." Keith points out. "This one is the one you apparently won on." He says while lowering Lance's hand and picking up the card on his lap. He flipped it over while Lance was trying to grab it from his hand. "8." He reads.

Pidge hums in satisfaction. "Told ya he cheated. He read a different number."

Lance groans. "So what if I added 4 more to it? I still won."

"No," Pidge starts. "Technically Keith would've won because his last piece is two more away from home."

Grumbling, Lance moved his last piece to the edge of the hole bridge.

Keith picked a card that read 6 and set his piece in the home circle, declaring him the rightful winner.

Hunk clapped noiselessly in the white and blue chair, trying not to disturb the nurses and patients passing by in the modern, white room.

"Now there's the rightful winner." Pidge says with a small smile.

"Mr. Wilson and Mr. Shirogane?" A nurse calls.

Adam stands up from his chair on the other side of the room and mumbles something in the nurse's ear.

"Oh, sorry. Mr. Kogane." She corrects. Keith got up and waved a small goodbye to his friends, and followed the nurse to room 448 from the forth floor waiting room.

They passed dozens of modern and silver doors, some that were open and some that were closed with a faint sound of a heart monitor. Some with mumbling and murmuring. Some with yelling and screaming Congratulations!

They stopped in front of a metal door with the number 448 at the side. The nurse lead them into the familiar room they had spent hours in the past month, accompanying Shiro as his heart monitor slowly beeped.

As they walked in, they noticed something different right away. And it wasn't a bad thing.

There on the hospital bed, Shiro laid awake, with a dark haired woman with purple tips and pale skin holding his hand, smiling.

"Takashi..." Adam said with his hands over his mouth and nose, tears crippling in his eyes. Shiro smiled toward him and opened his arms wide, waiting for a hug.

Adam slowly runs to him and envelopes himself in Shiro's grasp, hugging tightly.

Keith watches with a soft smile, and as he glancing over to the woman Shiro was with, he notices she's staring at him with wide eyes.

Keith felt both uncomfortable and strangely okay with the weight. She walked up to him and wrapped him in a hug, her chin on his hair.

"Oh, Akira." She said.

Keith's eyes widened, looking up at the woman with a weird look. "How do you know my birth name?"

"It's mom, Keith." Shiro mumbled, voice hoarse from not talking for a month.

Keith looked back up at the woman. "Mom?"

She nodded, hugging him more tightly and slowly shuffling over to Shiro and Adam, going in for a group hug. "My two baby boys are finally in my arms again." She smiles with tears in her eyes, glancing over at Adam. "And boyfriend."

They exchanged small giggles and stayed there for a few more moments.

Backing up, his mom said, "Where's Henry?" She said with a smile, glancing out the door.

Keith sighed deeply. "He uh.. he died in a fire a few months ago." Wiping a year out of his eye, he added, "September 19."

His mom looked at him sadly, and sighing. "Of course Henry would go like that." She said. "Saving people was his speciality. I'm glad he's still remembered though."

With a small smile, Keith nodded. "Me too, mom." She smiled back at him and wrapped him in another hug. "Me too."

~~~

Hope ya'll are as excited as I am for the final chapter! And we will see more of Krolia and finally Kosmo because I may or not have totally forgotten he exists lol.

Cya!