Chapter Two

The steady 'beep-beep-beep' was the only sound in the hospital room, apart from the raspy 'whoosh' of the incubator that was attached to the beds occupant. A sweep of dark brown hair was splayed across the pillow, medium length and no extraordinary color. Steadily, the beds occupants chest rose and fell with the assistance of the machines. It was a pitiful sight.

Motionlessly, two red headed figures with bright purple cat ears tied to their heads sat beside the bed, each deep in thought and worried. One (the one to the left) blamed himself for not believing Haruhi and thus not going to the apartment in time to prevent whatever happened from happening. The other, (the one to the right) incorrectly blames whoever the attacker is and vows to use every means he can to find who attacked his friend and make him pay. The doctors had not given them any information yet, using the clause that they were not the patient's legal family, thus no information could be disclosed to them. Impatient and scared shitless, the Hitachiin twins had sent their own personal car to pick up Haruhi's father, in hopes of that they would then get some straight answers.

However, they had no idea what was taking so long, thus allowed their minds to delve into their deepest recesses and dreg up more reasons that this was their fault. If Haruhi never woke up, they would never be able to sleep.

The seconds trickled by and eventually turned into minutes. As time often makes it so, the minutes, albeit, turned into hours and the hours seemed to stretch on forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and then some more. And then some more and then some more and then some more and then some mo—

The door to Haruhi's room crashed open with a sudden swoop of air and in a second, the tall, red headed, cross dressing, glammed out, costumed father of their best friend loomed over to twins, attempting to be quiet and survey the damage. Fujioka Ranka had never been particularly close to the twins. He'd accepted the fact that they were the best friends of his only child, and this made it easier for him to trust him, but that did not mean that he trusted them entirely. Not at all. However, an event like this could only serve to deepen the somewhat stressed relationship between the three.

"Wha...what happened?" he asked, his voice stressed with that little heard parental worry that one would often called 'a bed side manor'.

"Dunno," Hikaru said, slouching in his chair and continuing to brood.

"The doctors wouldn't tell us anything," Kaoru continued. "There was a blond orderly in here earlier, but he just said that Haruhi was fine right now, and that we could sit here. They wanted to talk to you."

Ranka nodded, taking several deep breaths before reaching down to touch the shortest brunette's face. He flinched as he felt the bruised and puffy skin under his fingers and almost immediately withdrew his hand. "Where is that doctor—"

"I'm right here," came a voice from the still open door way of the room.

All three males swiveled around to stare at the dark haired and spectacled man who was now standing in their presence, dressed in a white lab coat and holding a diagnostic board, on which he scribbled something before placing it in the slot outside Haruhi's room and entering the space fully. He walked directly towards Ranka and extended a hand solemnly.

"You must be Mr. Fujioka. I am Dr. Ootori. It is nice to finally meet you." He had a commanding and suave voice that made the nonexistent hackles on the back of the twin's neck raise. This man seemed mysterious and at the moment, anyone who was mysterious was a viable suspect of who was in Haruhi's apartment.

"Doctor," Ranka greeted politely, shaking the other mans hand before glancing back over his shoulder towards the bed. Momentarily, Kaoru thought he saw the glisten of a tear in the older man's eye, but had no chance to confirm this with Hikaru (who was still brooding) before it was gone. "What's wrong with my baby? And why are you Haruhi's doctor now? It was just Dr. Kimiko last week."

The black haired man dipped his head and nodded understandingly. "Well, you see Mr. Fujioka, I am your son's consultant. He just made me his fully fledged doctor last week because he considered my opinion valuable. Also, that was going to be the only way he could get his desired operations and consultations."

Kyouya glanced at the boy on the bed and sighed. Ranka and the two red heads (he remembered their names to be Hitachiin from the sign in sheet) were looking at him with questioning stares and he figured that he'd just divulged some of Haruhi's more personal secrets without knowing it. Dammit.

"What do you mean?" one of the red heads snapped, glaring at him before at the bed.

Resignedly, the doctor tried to recall exactly what he had written on the lab sheets before coming down here. Cursing, he wished he had gotten the orderly to do this. Tamaki always had a better bed side manor than he did. "I take it you didn't know that your son was gender dysphonic?"

Silence greeted his question and although the twins seemed to understand the general gist of what he was saying, the cross dresser still stared at him with a dazed look and slightly glazed eyes.

"It means that he has multiple personalities," Kyouya pushed on. "It means that Haruhi, at some times, actually believed he was a she, and wouldn't remember things 'she' had done as a he. He would buy groceries and then 'she' would too, and not remember when she got the extra food. He would buy a vase and 'she' wouldn't remember it, thus thinking that it was something someone else had left there for 'her'."

Ranka drew in a sharp breath. "So…Ootori…Are you telling me that my son…thinks he's a girl half of the time?"

"Yes, generally. Your son, probably at some young age, experienced a traumatic event and was seeking help from an outside source—a way to escape, per say. Thus, this all-powerful and alter ego was created. Haruhi became a girl because he believed that a girl would be unaffected by whatever was going on around him. I'm guessing that, as he got older, it became harder to discern between the boy-Haruhi and the girl-Haruhi, and that's why he didn't remember which he was when, nor what he did in a different persona. Has your friend been forgetting anything lately?"

It took the twins a second to realize that the man was talking to them, and before answering, they hastily glanced at one another before sitting up straighter.

"No," Hikaru said, a look of though plastered on his face. "Haruhi's always been the one who remembered everything…He even remembers our mother's birthday when we don't…" The red head trailed off, a look of realization crossing his features before he looked straight into the doctors eyes. "Wait. Yeah, he forgot a dinner party with us last night."

"And he forgot that you were his doctor…" Kaoru finished. "Haruhi called to ask us who you were—"

"After I called to confirm an appointment?" He received nods before closing his eyes. "Yes. You see, Mr. Fujioka, your son was ready to stop being a boy and a girl, and ready to become just one. So, he had be schedule a sex-change surgery for the seventeenth of next month. And, after that, she would have been prepared to undergo severe therapy to rid herself of the male presence. Now, I know that might be upsetting, but I truly believe that Haruhi is capable of making—"

"—Shhh…" Ranka said, holding a finger up and walking closer to Haruhi's bed. He reached out to touch his sons face, and this time he did not flinch. He brushed the hair from the bruised and battered face that so many pictures he possessed belonged to and sighed. He knew which physiological element had played in Haruhi's break. It was the death of his mother: the accident. But that didn't explain how this whole 'gender dysphonic' thing worked. What had been going on in Haruhi's mind when he inflicted such great injuries on himself, while believing he was a she? "What happened to him?"

Kyouya cleared his throat before reciting the story that the two detectives had told him in the hall. "It is believed that Haruhi had a mental break. Too many variables came into play and the world of him and the world of her crossed over, and, while in the female world, she freaked out. Since he was in the shower, and there was a mirror that was un-fogged just outside the bathroom door, 'she' saw his reflection and thought it was an attacker. Thus, in her disoriented state from the blunt force trauma to her head, she staggered down the small hall and made it half way out of the door before fainting." He looked approvingly at the beds occupant. "I'll give him this, though: not many people would have remained conscious after trauma like that. He's a fighter."

Ranka stood, silent. He brushed Haruhi's hair again. And again. And again. His son. Had he really been that traumatized after his mother's car crash? The one that the boy had walked away from, unscathed and unharmed? Had he felt that, as a girl, he would be better? Ranka sniffed.

Seeing his que to exit, the doctor backed out of the room, but this was not unnoticed. Chair legs scrapped the cool tile of the floor as the younger of the Hitachiin twins lunged after him, following the doctor out into the hallway before directly addressing him. "Sir. Ootori-sama!"

The black haired man turned and nodded. "You're the Hitachiin boy, right? One of them, anyway."

"Yes, I'm Kaoru," he said bluntly, not up for a game of 'which-one's-Hikaru' or beating around the bush much. Being rather frazzled, he cut straight to the point. "What are…What are Haruhi's chances of recovering from the…the incident?"

He'd been working for seven hours straight to console a little girl who's brother had locked her in the closet of their home without any light, as well as smooth out several personal problems with his father, not to mention all the hours he'd just put into the hospital. It was the weekend, not to mention a holiday and with it being Halloween (he looked at his watch and realized that is was the day after Halloween) and this amounted to seventeen drunk drivers, thirteen attempted robberies that ended in violence and a kid who thought he was dying, when he really should have just eaten less chocolate. Wearily, Kyouya blinked for a second before reopening his eyes. The boy was still there.

"That all depends on him…and her." He said, before gesturing towards the room. "You see, your friend's mind has already been muddled, even before the collision with what I assume to be a door. Every person with that injury has a 50% chance of recovering, but with the mental trauma…You see, Hitachiin Kaoru, it takes will to live, and there is an everlasting battle going on inside your friend in there. Personally, I'm not sure if either parts of him contain enough will for it to pull him through this."

And with that he left, leaving the red headed boy with a whole lot more information than his mind could handle, while the familiar 'beep-beep-beep' and 'whoosh' were accompanied by a few, dry sobs and the sound of his brother punching a chair at pure frustration at being unable to do anything.