OK Number 54 - True Colours

Kallen, fortunately, was ultimately stable once she was brought to hospital and examined; she had second and some third degree burns all over her hands and a ways up her wrist, as well as relatively benign lung damage due to smoke inhalation.

Of course, breathing was incredibly hoarse, with the air rushing up her throat as she breathed grinding against the corroded walls of her trachea, causing intense pain through her chest. It was hardly minor, just comparatively minor.

Comparatively, as at the very least she had been wearing body and face protection, with the arm burns coming from having to clasp with her gloveless hands at various bodies and hot surfaces. The pit crew inside at the time the garage lit up had mostly either changed out of their fireproofs or had never been in them, being IT assistants or the like. Of course, varied second and third degree body burns ran the whole gamut of the people involved, all Rebellion employees but one, a Densō aide who was ferrying something between the garages. However, all would be able to return to work within the month, which, given that Hungary marked the beginning of the six week summer break, the halfway point of the season which allowed everyone to take a break and digest what kind of drugs they had been on for the last four months.

However, one person who would not be doing that, who would not be returning in six weeks, or for the rest of the year, or ever, was Kyoshiro Tohdoh. When the blaze began, the firsthand account of Kaname Ohgi explained that he had fallen back onto a cabinet, with the oils and liquids stored on the top spilling down onto his chest and face before he became trapped. Ohgi, unable to lift it, went to get help, leaving Tohdoh trapped helplessly, the perfect fuel and chemical oxidiser combination right on top of his face.

He had sustained fourth degree burns, a degree higher than Kallen actually knew even existed, to much of the front of his face and neck, with third degree radially fading from the fourth around his forehead and chest, the latter of which compounded the chemical stew that he had breathed in and now sat drying in, moulding in, eating away at his lungs. In several areas, his skin had been eaten away to an extent that bone was clearly visible. He had not woken up since first falling unconscious when the fire had started on the Sunday evening.

Indeed, Kallen's injuries, though they would leave significant scarring and a propensity to sudden bleeding for the rest of her life, were not nearly as significant as that, and her drive to bounce back had not gone away. As soon as she was cleared to walk, she had to be handcuffed to her bed for several hours of the day to make sure she wasn't down in the physiotherapy ward at all hours of the day and further damaging her lungs.

However, she was either incessant or persuasive, and she suspected the former, and the doctors had permitted a limited amount of exercise per day. Kallen would be here for two weeks, and was absolutely terrified of the prospect of muscle atrophy, losing her all the strength that she had gained. It was while she was sprinting on the treadmill, hooked up to a breathing tube to ensure that there was no potentially harmful air as she put her wounded lungs under extreme stress, that he first made contact.

Unlike Kallen, her brother, who was staying at the same hospital, had been ordered to stay in bed, and so his first contact, a week after they had both arrived, had to come via a third party nurse, who had to run between wards for Kallen to hear Naoto's message.

He wanted to see her.

Kallen, who was certainly not going to allow her brief window of allowed exercise to be go to waste, finished her daily training, before taking the elevator up to the burn ward where they were both staying, albeit six rooms apart. She passed by her registrar, making sure she knew Kallen was back and not missing her curfew of ten to eleven in the morning, before looking through the six bed room at the end of the hall, where Naoto was staying with four other Rebellion engineers and the Densō man.

Naoto had at first been reserved for a room for himself, however he had kicked up such a fuss about being taken care of alone that the staff had had to move him back. Kallen had smiled when she heard that. Couldn't have been that badly hurt if he was complaining, she would silently joke, and it was entirely in character for him to want to stay with his team, to suffer with them and feel them be close to him and perhaps even be encouraged by his presence and his solidarity.

She poked her head in, with the attending nurse, applying creams to the arm of another Rebellion engineer, smiling and nodding her in, whispering "It's good to see you, Naoto has been wanting to talk to you."

Kallen nodded back, before walking through the room to the back bed, bed three, where Naoto was assigned. To her surprise, he sat waiting for her in a wheelchair and gown, matching her gaze fiercely.

"Wheel me out, we need to talk somewhere else."

Kallen frowned, before he jerked his chin and repeated "Come on, let's get going. We should be able to find someplace quiet."

Narrowing her eyes for a moment, she sighed and grabbed onto the back handles of Naoto's wheelchair, turning him around, and wheeling him out of the room, signing her name on the dotted line for the temporary supervised excursion. Kallen quickly found a quiet day room, where she parked Naoto, and pulled up a seat opposite him, finally being able to sit opposite him and get a clear view of his face, without extenuating distractions.

He looked alert, which was definitely a positive, but it was hard to address how he looked without talking about his face. He had a massive area of red, simmered flesh, stretching from perhaps the centre of his fringe, down across his face, tucking in so as to just avoid his nose and taper off where it met the end of the jaw. From the centre of the brow to the left, or from Kallen's perspective right, was a deep red, with a rubbery, frayed texture, cratered and pockmarked like the surface of Mars.

Of course, this was likely of no moment to Naoto, who had had almost a week to become aware of his appearance, however this was the first time Kallen had seen him, and Naoto smirked, raising his hairless left eyebrow.

"That bad, huh?"

Kallen's eyebrows rose in sudden embarrassment, as she shook her head to protest "No, it's… it's just that I've not seen it until now."

Naoto snorted, before opening his arms, putting on a mock smug grin and laughing "One hell of a glow up, hmm? Whaddaya think?"

"You're going the right way to getting me to say it's an improvement."

He laughed, shaking his head, before dissonantly murmuring "You know, they say it'll get better, it'll become less severe. Over time, I'll look a bit less… Nagasaki victim, and more… bad sunburn, spent a bit too long at the beach without suncream. But it won't. I'll die with a face that scares people, scaly, red, like wet cement someone's been walking in."

"What did you want?"

Naoto's falsetto smugness dropped, somewhat disappointed, before he shook his head and let his arms fall back down to his waist, the inertia causing them to smack loudly by his waist. He loudly sighed, tried to begin to speak, then stopped himself, then tried to speak again, again forcing himself to pause before the words reached his lips.

He shook his head, before trying a third time.

"I wanted to say… thank you."

Kallen blinked. She certainly expected something like this, particularly after his display of vulnerability once she had excavated him from the burning garage, however she had expected him to be far more reticent and find it quite difficult to unambiguously, unconditionally thank her, particularly given how their last verbal interaction had gone, all the way back in pre-season testing in Spain. However, Naoto's emotional inertia was only picking up.

"I… I just… you were the only person who was to hand, and… you didn't blink. You didn't even hesitate. I saw the footage, and you just charged in. Like you always do, I suppose, but in this instance probably for good that you did. You ran in and got a taste of what it was like, must have felt how hot and burning the whole place was, but then, when you came out with Keiji, having… having knowledge of what it was like, you then went back in for me. Then, when I asked you to try and look for Tohdoh, I didn't think you would even do it, I thought it would be a fantasy, but you didn't even blink. Having gone in once naïve and a second time knowing what it was like, you then didn't think twice about going in for a third time, let alone for someone you don't care that much for."

By contrast, this turn surprised her greatly. It was certainly not unknown to Naoto that Kallen had historically always been decisive to a fault, at times even being classed as somewhat impulsive. That she had acted with such sudden resolution ought not to have represented new data.

However, there was a second element that surprised her; that he was at all surprised she had made the decision to go in, rather than not intervene.

However, she could not voice these feelings, as Naoto marched on.

"My injuries would have been much worse if you hadn't picked up Kazuki, not even to mention how bad Kazuki himself could have come out if I'd had to just abandon him, which would have happened soon, or I'd have joined him out cold on the floor from asphyxiation. Then there's Tohdoh and… I think you're after saving his life. His face is just bloody melted, even after just a few minutes in the fire and… god, if he'd have to wait another ten, twenty minutes for help, we'd have had a death on our hands and I- I don't know if I-"

He paused, finally juddering and beginning to stall, before falling back into ironic humour as a defence, he coldly laughed "I don't know what the hell I'd have done if that had happened, he's been serving as a good, solid replacement spine over the last few weeks. God if he'd have died…"

Naoto's head finally dipped, and he began to weep. Kallen sat back, watching him empty his eyes, before looking up and observing his sister, arms crossed, waiting patiently to expedite where Naoto's thesis fell down. Once he realised Kallen was waiting for the opportunity to speak, he sat up, looking uncertain of where Kallen was going to go with this.

"Naoto." Kallen began, raising her palm and looking back with as grave face as she could muster. "It was scary, dark, and bloody hell was it sore, but I'd do it again. I could handle it. Lelouch was pretty graphic about what serious injury could do to people, and I won't have another person go through that on my account, no matter what happens to me physically. Over my dead body is there going to be more blood on my hands."

Naoto paused, mulling over this new perspective. Kallen suspected Naoto was still just moving past his image of Kallen as a selfish thug, and the best explanation of her actions through that initial lens was that Kallen was only trying to help Naoto out of purely familial affection. This was certainly an operating motivation, but not the only one. Likely overwhelmed with this new data, Naoto tried to solve another puzzle, that of how Kallen had carried the second engineer and Tohdoh.

"But… that lad, Kazuki, he was unconscious on the floor… how did you carry him out? I mean, you were propping him up on your shoulder, and I was thinking 'Kallen's a twig, how did she do that?' And then, you went back and carried Tohdoh, who's a pretty heavy lad, out from under the cabinet, all while breathing in more smoke than a character in film noir."

Hiding a moment of her chest swelling up with pride, considering it in ill taste, she replied "I didn't spend my winter sitting around once I got the Camelot seat. I thought 'Suzaku's doing well, maybe I can steal a few of his ideas.', so I spent the winter getting a bit fitter. It's paid off in racing, I'm far more able to keep up long, sustained stints of all out pushing, but it's after paying dividends."

"But… I still don't get, why did you go back for Tohdoh?" Naoto asked, confusedly blinking. "Why, into that scary, dark, dangerous place? I was out… all I did was ask, I asked once and you ran straight back in for Tohdoh without thinking."

Kallen, by this point getting irked by Naoto, let out a grunt, slapped her hands on her thighs and turned her head to the side, sarcastically wondering aloud "I really just do not know. Golly gee. I think it's the damn anger management therapy, I can't hold a grudge nearly as well as I used to be able to. I remember, I used to be able to carve a really nice grudge, a really solid one, but, with all this therapy… eh, sod it, too much effort to be doing that."

She sighed, and shook her head. "You're you, I'm me, and… we're just going to have to deal with that."

"I'm serious."

"So am I."

Naoto may as well have had visible confusion etched into his face, before Kallen sighed and tried a third time.

"I'm not playing at anything. Brazil was unforgiveable… I mean, live your truth. We're both adults. You get to set your boundaries, and there's sod all anyone else is going to be able to do about it. I've made my peace with that. It's grand. But you're still my brother. If you ever need something you bet your ass I'm going to be there to help. I don't expect anything back, I'm not entitled to anything back, and you're not obliged. Doesn't mean I'm going to let the side down if you're in trouble. Same goes for anyone in our paddock."

Naoto shook his head, pointing out "You could well have sat back and not even been admitted to hospital. Why did you rush in at all, when you had no reason to-"

"Fucking hell, Naoto cop on!" Kallen shouted, now losing her temper properly. "How'd you think I'd have felt, sitting back, the only suitably dressed person on hand, only person who could actually go in, and doing sod all? What if someone had died? Do you think about how I'd feel? Sure, I'd not have burns on my hands, but I'm much rather be in the state Tohdoh's in right now than have to deal with the guilt and shame I had after Brazil a second time. It's not… fun, to deal with that, it's not a sexy or cool or enjoyable thing to have to do, and I wasn't going to let it happen twice."

Naoto's eyes now widened in shock, as he moved to the back of his wheelchair. Certainly, he had seen her be angry, especially on the cameras broadcasting proceedings in Brazil, but never directed at him, at least not since Kallen had grown into adulthood, and represented a genuine physical threat. However, Naoto did not ever appear to believe that Kallen would ever take this to violence. Rather, he seemed to be finally realising Kallen's motivation, which represented a genuine shock. The fourth time around, it had finally been hammered home, in no small part thanks to Kallen getting angry at him.

She smirked in ironic satisfaction. See, Euphemia? This was an example of where anger was useful, to hammer home a point.

And it had been hammered home, as Naoto then looked down, his neck veins practically popping out, eyes bulging as he tried to wrap his head around the fact that his sister was not the villain he had forced himself to convince himself she was, that Lelouch's injury weighed on her conscience, and that she refused to allow more people to be injured on her account from a genuine empathy as opposed to fear of social consequences.

However, Naoto seemed rapidly to snap, his head jerking up suddenly as his voice suddenly broke up, unsteady.

"Burns… on your hands? What happened to your hands?"

Kallen dipped her head in shame, as Naoto, realising he was hitting on something he had missed, continued, with the insistent voice of a concerned older brother.

"Come here… I want to see your hands…"

At first she resisted, hiding her hands in the folds of her gown around her waist, however Naoto, looking genuinely distressed, came across as more genuine. It was, ironically, Kallen's turn to be surprised; Naoto had not been irritated at her for coming in to help, he had been worried, deathly worried, at why on earth she would take such a risk with her health, not angry but concerned.

It came from a place Kallen had not expected. She had expected some arrogance, some sense of 'I had it all under control, I didn't need your help', however she had found something else altogether; he was concerned about her health.

He still loved her.

She sighed, and let her hands out from their hiding place, holding them in front of her like she was preparing to receive Communion. With palms faced towards the sky and in parallel with the ground, she displayed them; red, fierce, raw red, like a lobster shell, cracked and seared, with hardening, scaly ridges forming long trenches of blisters, hardened into a redness as bright, vivid, and tough as her helmet.

"Jesus, you-" Naoto whispered, looking down in horror at Kallen's hands. "You're burned up so… god I'm such a fool. I shouldn't have called on you at all… I should have gone in myself. I'm such an idiot..."

"Could be worse." Kallen shrugged, before giving a frustrated, sardonic side-eye. "Look at it this way. If being an idiot were a criminal offence I'd have been locked up long ago."

Naoto shook his head, before replying back "I hurt you. I caused you to have both of your arms get fried up. It's my fault, and- god, damn it. I should have gone in myself, I was just a coward, and now you're injured. God damn it, this had nothing to do with you, getting Tohdoh out was what I wanted, and instead of doing it myself I just dispatched you. Ach…"

Kallen's immediate instinct was to lash out, however she bit her tongue. It wouldn't be useful this time. Instead, she jerked her chin to the side, visibly frustrated her lips with her teeth, before looking back to Naoto with an expression, deliberately a little too earnest for Naoto to be at ease as she tried to calm herself before speaking again.

"I had to use my anger management tricks there, and a good few of them at that. Let's do a little test, why do you think I had to do that?"

Confused, Naoto replied, hesitantly "I…"

"Your legs are barely good enough to go without crutches, you were doubled over, barely able to stand, you'd been in there for ages trying to resuscitate that one sod and had inhaled more smoke than James Hunt, not to mention you didn't have a scrap of fireproof clothing! Do you think you could have lifted the cabinet, or him? You couldn't even lift Kazuki. And that wasn't your fault, you literally broke both of your legs. No one would have expected you to do even as much as you did."

Naoto looked mixed, however he hardly had the verve to cut off Kallen, who had built up a momentum of her own.

"You asked me to get Tohdoh, and I did. Do you really think that your grovelling was the only reason that I could possibly have to go back for him? As soon as I knew there was another person inside, I would have gone back, whether you told me or anyone else, because I was the only one in fireproofs, the only one who could do, anything. It doesn't matter who told me, doesn't matter who it is in the garage. These burns are nothing compared to what Tohdoh's dealing with, and I'd take these burns all over my body for him to not be as hurt, for Lelouch to not be as hurt, for you, for Kazuki or for you. I'd swap my condition with Tohdoh's if I could, if it meant that someone else would have it a bit easier. I can take it. Do you understand, like, at all?"

Naoto wasn't as shocked as he had been when she had first introduced this concept, as Kallen was silently pleased to see the Kallens understanding of acceptable risk percolating in Naoto's consciousness, finally penetrating. He seemed to finally get it, as he breathlessly spoke up, sounding close to tears.

"Kallen, I'm sorry. I think definitely… you've grown. I can see it. It's… I'm really sorry. You did a good thing, Tohdoh is safe. It's just… ach..."

"What's wrong?"

Naoto, head now firmly facing the floor, sounded like he was crying as he answered "What was one of the best days of my life… ever, just, I was back from a two year injury, I'd been told I'd never drive again, and I'd just won a race. It was, up to then, the happiest I think I've ever been, but it turned from the perfect day to one of the worst days of my life… I think only Japan 2017, and… us becoming homeless, that was worse, but seeing Tohdoh get burned half to death definitely makes the podium. I keep… thinking through it. If I hadn't been injured, if I'd been wearing fireproofs, if I had tried to do it myself, or help you when you were going in… would he be in as bad a shape as he is? Probably, but it's just…"

Now Naoto was crying, and making no secret of it. Unable to stop either herself or him, she moved forward to try and cradle his head and shoulders, comforting him as he whispered "I think… we're done."

Slowly, still holding onto him, Kallen rose, moving over to unstick Naoto's wheelchair and begin to wheel it back to the ward, before she realised something.

"Also… I thought… we weren't speaking?"

"Just a brief… ceasefire. We're still not back at that level yet. Not yet."

Not yet. Not closing the door, but more time is needed. Be well y'all.

~G1ll3s