A/N: Someone asked for the meeting at the hospital, so here it is...

Protector

"That girl," the nurse said hysterically, "has just been sitting there for hours. And when I tried to make her leave, she pulled a knife on me. A knife! Can't you do something about her, Chairperson?"

Yuri Meichi glanced at the blue haired figure sitting stiffly by Ichinose Haru's bedside. "She has my permission to stay there if she wants to. It's fine."

"We can't have visitors waving weapons around in a hospital! It's not orderly!"

With a sigh, Yuri said, "Give me a moment. I'll talk to her." She approached the young assassin and looked down at her with some interest, noting that she'd finally washed her hands clean and had the left one bandaged.

"Azuma-san," she said smoothly. "Try to be a bit better behaved. You're scaring the nurses."

"Don't care," said Tokaku shortly, barely giving her a contemptuous glance.

"You really don't need to do this. Haru has survived her ordeal. No one will be coming after her anymore."

Tokaku frowned stubbornly, staring at Haru's unconscious form. "I'm not going to leave her."

"Oh? And do you think she'll even want to speak to you when she wakes up?"

Yuri had to give the girl credit. Despite how angry she must be, her hand barely twitched towards her knife. "I'm not at Myojo Academy right? So it's fine for me to be here."

"Suit yourself. Just don't threaten the hospital staff. They're the ones who saved Haru's life, after all."

"I won't threaten them if they don't tell me to leave."

"I've already told them you can stay. It's fine."

"Why?" Tokaku finally looked at her properly, brow crinkled in suspicion.

The Chairperson smiled. "I'm not a cruel person, Azuma-san. Whatever you might think."

Turning back to her charge, Tokaku said dismissively, "You stink of death."

"So do you," Yuri whispered as she left.

Alone, Tokaku sighed and clenched her jaw. "I know," she said quietly into the room. She briefly took Haru's hand but quickly let it go again. Her bloody assassin's hands would never be clean enough to touch Haru again.

Waking up was always the worst part. Swimming through a sea of fractured thoughts and waiting to remember the bit where everyone was dead. Having the knowledge crash down on her that she'd lost someone else, because Haru knew that if she was waking up alive in a hospital bed it meant that whoever she'd been with had given their life for hers.

Waking up in a hospital bed meant waking up alone.

She woke up, and she was alone. Nothing but the harsh glare of florescent lights overhead, hurting her eyes.

"I did it," Haru sighed, and it felt like a hollow victory but she accepted it nonetheless. The bad feeling would pass; she knew. She'd recover her optimism. She'd keep smiling no matter what.

But she couldn't always, not in those first few moments after waking up in a hospital bed. That was too much to ask.

Haru looked up with a half-hopeful expression as she heard someone at her door, but it was only a dark haired nurse carrying a pair of fresh hospital pyjamas that she placed down by Haru's bedside.

"You're awake?" the nurse said, blinking at her in surprise. "That's much sooner than we expected."

"Mmm," said Haru, trying to clear her mind of its drug-induced fog.

It wasn't good, not having her wits about her. Hospitals could be dangerous places. Whilst in hospital, she couldn't hide and she couldn't run away. She couldn't risk befriending anyone knowing they might die. She couldn't trust that she wasn't surrounded by assassins. Then she remembered with a flood of relief that it was over; that she'd beaten the clan and won her freedom. No one was coming after her anymore.

Clenching her hands in the sheets, Haru allowed herself the luxury of a few thankful tears but no more. Seeing her sad was not what those who'd loved her would have wanted.

"Well anyway," the nurse prattled on, "at least that strange girl seems to have gone. She's not a friend of yours is she? She gave me the creeps."

"What…girl?" Haru asked.

"A blue haired girl with an unpleasant expression."

"Tokak…Tokaku?"

"I don't know what her name was. She's not a friend of yours, is she? She looked like a bad sort of person to be around. Ah, is that the time already? I'd better get on with my rounds. Goodnight."

"The lights," said Haru weakly, but the nurse had already gone, leaving the door to Haru's room half-open.

Time, thought Haru. If the nurse knew the time, there must be a clock somewhere. She swivelled her head until she found it, hanging inconveniently on the wall behind her. It was four o'clock. In the morning, she guessed, since she could see a square of darkness outside the small, high-up window; the only one in the room.

It was important to be slow and methodical; to not rush putting her mind back together. To take thorough stock of her surroundings and the various aches and pains that plagued her. To remember she was glad to be alive. This was the ritual of sanity and survival that Haru had taught herself bit by painful bit over the years. The things that hurt too much to think about she had to wait until she was ready for, until she was sure she was strong enough to bear the strain.

Tokaku.

Stealthy as the assassin herself, thoughts of her were slipping past Haru's defences. Tokaku saving her in a thousand different ways. Tokaku abandoning her mission and never begrudging the consequences. Tokaku, warm in her arms despite the feral distrust always lurking in her eyes.

Tokaku had been here, but now she was gone.

Tokaku, who had suffered so much for Haru's sake, only to have Haru betray her and force her to dirty her hands with blood, right at the very end.

That probably meant Haru had lost Tokaku too.

She closed her lids against the unforgiving hospital lights, her chest hurting from something worse than the stab wound. Had Tokaku's actions all along only been because of what Haru had done to her? Had she cared when her knife went into Haru's chest? Had she cried? Was it awful that Haru wished on her the pain that meant her feelings hadn't been a lie?

Sensing more than hearing another movement at the door, Haru quickly snapped her eyes open just in time to catch sight of Tokaku's shocked face, blue eyes staring straight into hers, before she disappeared like a ghost.

"Tokaku-san! Tokaku-san! Come back!"

Haru meant to yell but it was more of a piteous plea.

She wasn't alone after all. God, if she could not be alone, just this one time…

Tokaku slouched back into the room with the utmost reluctance. Dragging footsteps brought her to Haru's bedside and she looked down at her with a too-stoic expression that did nothing to hide the torment in her eyes.

"H-Haru," she said, her voice less steady than when she'd stabbed her. "I'm sorry. I can't possibly ask you to forgive me—"

Haru had thought it when she'd raised her own knife against Tokaku, but she didn't have the luxury of saying it then. Nothing was going to stop her now. She grabbed Tokaku and pulled her down into a kiss, Tokaku's quick reflexes automatically making her brace her arms on either side of the bed so she didn't fall on top of the injured girl.

It wasn't much of a kiss, not much more than their lips touching, sweet and warm in the glare of hospital lights. But it meant everything. It meant that Haru wasn't alone. It meant she hadn't lost someone else who was precious to her.

"Takaku-san," Haru whispered, as soon as she let her go. "I love you."

She held Tokaku's eyes with her own, watching the blood rush into her cheeks, watching as her cool fearful gaze heated to blue fire.

"Haru…" Voice husky, Tokaku reached out a hand. She caught herself and stopped for a moment, hesitating, fighting some inner battle, before just touching gentle fingers to Haru's face. Looking at her all the time with the wondering expression of a sinner who'd been granted redemption beyond all hope of forgiveness.

"I thought I was alone," Haru said, leaning into that longed for caress. "When I wake up like this, I'm always alone…"

She didn't say the reason why. She didn't need to. One look at Tokaku's face confirmed that she understood it was because everyone was always dead.

"I just went to the washroom," said Tokaku, a crooked smile unexpectedly ghosting over her lips. "I wasn't leaving. I wouldn't leave you alone in a place like this."

Every ounce of softness vanished as she heard a movement behind them, and before Haru could stop her Tokaku had turned with a knife in her hand, glaring murderously at the poor nurse who'd been unfortunate enough to enter the room.

She was a different nurse to the one before, younger with ash coloured hair. She froze when she saw Tokaku's knife, eyes going large with fright.

Probably the fact that Tokaku suspected the nurse might have seen her with her defences down made her doubly dangerous right now. And on top of that she'd be overly anxious to try and make up for what she'd done; not a good thing when there were no real enemies to fight.

Haru tugged insistently at the back of Tokaku's shirt, the only part of her within reach. "Tokaku! Tokaku, it's fine. You don't need to do this anymore. You don't need to be my protector. All that is over now."

Making a sound of shock, Tokaku whirled to look at her, the old distrust creeping back into her eyes. "Then…Do you not need me here?"

Taking advantage of Tokaku's distraction, the nurse quietly backed up and fled the room. Tokaku barely paid her any attention.

"I didn't say that," said Haru, shaking her head.

Despite the kiss, despite Haru saying that she loved her, Tokaku was still having trouble working it out. Grabbing her hand and suppressing her own exasperation, Haru pulled her back over to the bed. "The danger is over now. That doesn't mean that we're over. I just want you to stay with me. You don't need to do anything else. Having Tokaku-san here is enough."

Relief flashed over Tokaku's face before she frowned with her customary fierceness. "I won't stop being your protector."

"Eh?"

"Even if no one's coming after you, there's other things I can protect you from. Being lonely. Being sad. Being by yourself in the world. I…broke my promise not to hurt you, so I have a lot to make up for." Her grip tightened on Haru's hand, eyes still tentative as those of a wild thing. "Right?"

"I told you those who reflect on their sins will be forgiven," Haru reminded her with a smile. "I have things to make up for too. Not telling you the truth. Holding information back from you. Trying to hurt you to save myself. Let's both start again. Protecting each other."

Tokaku agreed with a nod, her expression half-crumpled with the effort of holding back tears.

A wave of exhaustion spilled over her and Haru sank further into her pillows. Her reserves of strength were almost gone for tonight.

"Tokaku – would you mind turning out the lights? They're hurting my eyes."

With a sound of assent, Tokaku rose from where she'd ended up sitting on the edge of Haru's bed and flicked the lights out, closing the half-open door while she was at it. The hospital staff wouldn't like that, but then, they probably didn't much like a knife-wielding protector beside their patient's bed either.

Haru sighed a little when Tokaku returned and availed herself of the chair by her bed.

"What?" said Tokaku.

"Nothing," Haru replied.

Perhaps half an hour passed, during which the ticking of the clock was the loudest sound in the room. Drifting in and out of sleep, Haru watched Tokaku sitting immovably in her chair, arms crossed, hair glinting like cold steel in the reflection of some far distant light outside the window.

She was careful not to react when Tokaku finally did move, keeping her breathing just the same, not even letting an eyelid twitch. As she'd half suspected, more than half hoped would happen, Tokaku joined her, abandoning her watch for Haru's bed, stealing in with all the furtiveness of her former profession.

Two damaged girls in a hospital bed, slowly beginning to heal.

Tokaku cried for a little while, barely making a sound, curled into Haru's side with an arm slung low over her hips. Haru would have comforted her, but she suspected that it was easier for Tokaku this way, easier to let go when she thought no one was awake to see.

Her scent, Haru thought, hadn't changed. She still smelled of the freshness of the forest.

She still smelled wild.

But most importantly, she was free.