Hey, guys. So this chapter's a good chunk longer than the others, but that's because there was a lot I wanted to fit into it. I really wanted to fit the entire "team talk" scene into this one, but it looks like that isn't going to happen. Still, I had a lot of fun with this chapter, and I hope you all enjoy reading it :)

Lunar Eclipse

Chapter Twelve

Yamaguchi was struck with a weird sense of deja vu walking into the boys' gym for the second time in one night. It was like some sort of altered reality, a dream that felt just off balance enough that he could tell something wasn't quite normal - and it only took him one glance around the gym to figure out why.

The rest of the team, though most of them were trying not to express it outwardly, was tremendously agitated. Even Kiyoko and Yachi sat on the bench by the wall, gossiping discreetly, every so often glancing nervously at the rest of the team, who were seated near the center of the gym.

Wait. Yamaguchi interrupted his own thoughts as he impatiently scanned his team. I'm not the last one to show up. Tsukki isn't here yet. Tsukki may never be early to team meetings, but he was never late, either. Even Nishinoya, who usually was late, was twenty feet in front of him talking Asahi's ear off. Hinata sat wide-eyed, looking around the gym while Kageyama waited beside the tiny spiker with his teeth clenched and his eyes focused straight ahead. Daichi was the only one who looked even close to calm as he sat behind everyone else, probably to make sure the team behaved as coach delivered his emergency message. Even Ennoshita, Kinoshita, and Narita were there, sitting in a small triangle talking quietly among themselves, their strained voices barely audible over Nishinoya's nervous babbling.

As Yamaguchi crossed the gym to sit with his team, he followed the unsettled glances towards the front of the group, where Coach Ukai and Sugawara sat waiting for everyone to gather. Yamaguchi's first reaction to seeing Sugawara sitting with the coach was shock. He couldn't have been more surprised if someone had thrown a full bucket of ice water in his face - Sugawara looked terrible. His face was haggard and pale, purple bruises hung under bloodshot eyes, and both of his hands were bandaged - Yamaguchi could clearly tell he not only hadn't slept, but had been crying terribly. Whatever coach's emergency was, it obviously had something to do with Sugawara.

As Yamaguchi approached the team, Daichi stood to greet him. Placing a hand lightly on his shoulder, he made easy conversation.

"Hey, Yamaguchi. How's your dad?" Yamaguchi mustered up the courage to give the captain a half smile.

"He's okay. The stroke didn't appear to do a whole lot of damage, but they're keeping him overnight for monitoring just to be sure."

"That's good. Give him my regards." Daichi gave his teammate an encouraging smile and sat back down in his place. Yamaguchi watched as Daichi's expression morphed from comforting to deeply concerned as he shifted his gaze to Sugawara. Following Daichi's apparent train of thought, he wondered what kind of emergency could warrant not only such extreme emotion from Sugawara, but would also cause coach to call a team meeting in the middle of the night. Yamaguchi pondered the situation as he sat down alongside Daichi. Just then, Ukai stood to speak.

"I want to begin by apologizing to all of you for calling you here so late, eh - early. You all know me, and you know I would never call a meeting like this unless it's absolutely necessary."

Yamaguchi whipped his head frantically around the gym, looking desperately for his closest friend. There was no way he could have missed him. He's the tallest person on the team, and, not to mention, the only one with bright blond hair. Yamaguchi could pick Tsukki out of a crowd without a problem. So then if he wasn't here, where was he?

"Normally, I would have waited for practice tomorrow to give you all any sort of important news, but this is a time-sensitive matter, so..."

Why would coach start such an important meeting without Tsukki? There's no way he would start without counting heads and making sure everyone was here, so there's no conceivable way he could miss Tsukki on accident.

"Sugawara made a promise that he would do this next part himself, so at this point I'm going to turn you over to him."

Yamaguchi's mind was reeling. Coach had to call everyone's parents to let them know to be here, right? So maybe Tsukki's mom just told coach he wouldn't be able to be here. Except Mrs. Tsukishima would never do that. His dad might, but not his mom. She's too much of a free spirit to restrain him like that if there was an emergency. Despite how much he tried to convince himself that his best friend was simply at home asleep, the guilty and traumatized look in Sugawara's terrified eyes fueled the nagging flame in the back of his mind that told him he wasn't.

Sugawara then stood and approached the team.

He inhaled sharply, feeling the same tingling in the center of his chest that he usually associated with being out of breath. Explaining himself to the team was going to be much harder than he'd imagined, much harder than talking to Tsukishima's family. Tsukishima's mom and brother were incredibly understanding, there were only two of them, and they were strangers. His team, though... These people were his closest friends. They were his whole world, and if they judged him harshly for what he'd done, he would be forced to either live with it or give up both volleyball and all the people he cared about. It was a huge risk, one he knew he didn't want to take. But it had to be done. Just like Tsukishima's family, they deserved to know. Besides, it wasn't like he could back out now.

"I, uh... I want to begin this by apologizing. What happened is my fault. So... I'm sorry. I'm sorry that what I'm about to tell you will change the team. So before you all hate me... Let me apologize for ruining everything."

"Suga, what are you talking about?"

The tense, paternal voice was Daichi's. Sugawara refused to look him in the eye, afraid of the judgement he would find staring back at him.

For the umpteenth time tonight, Sugawara could feel the familiar pressure just behind his eyes that signaled the oncoming wave of tears. Never in his life had he ever been so sick of crying. He didn't even have the strength to fight it. It was as if he just trusted that he was empty enough that a few more tears wouldn't matter. He let them flow without resistance.

Swallowing his fear, he looked Daichi in the eye. When he spoke, it was with the smallness of a child.

"Daichi... I really screwed up this time..." Daichi's eyes softened as he replied.

"Suga, it's okay. Just tell us what happened."

By this point, he had the entire team's focus. He could feel fourteen pairs of eyes staring him down, each with the potency of a laser. Every team member, Kiyoko and Yachi, even Takeda-sensei was concerned. He tried to give the impression he was looking at all of them, but in reality he was staring past them, avoiding looking anyone in the eye except Daichi. He especially avoided Yamaguchi. When he spoke his voice quivered.

"... Tsukishima's in the hospital."

Sugawara held his breath as he watched the team absorb what he'd just told them. Losing his nerve, he closed his eyes and let the tears roll down his cheeks. If his team was going to react, he didn't want to see it. He didn't want to watch them judge him. He didn't want to watch the heartbreak he'd caused. The room sat in unbearable silence for several seconds before Daichi spoke up again. He spoke slowly and deliberately, like a parent having a heart-to-heart with a crying child.

"Why is Tsukishima in the hospital, Suga? ... Please. He's our friend. We need to know."

"Well, after Yamaguchi left practice to go be with his dad, I realized Tsukishima was going to walk home alone, and I offered to walk with him. We stopped at a convenience store not far from my house on the way home, and while we were inside, someone tried to rob the place... w-with a gun. We tried to hide behind some shelves... We hoped he would just take the money and leave, but... but when he started yelling I, uh... I panicked. Tsukishima tried to calm me down, but I just - I couldn't... The robber heard us... and I was terrified... I ran for the door."

Sugawara paused to take a small peek at his team, nobody seemed to be judging him yet, he figured, they all seemed to be wearing expressions of surprise. Except for Daichi, who seemed to be forcing his emotions from his face.

"Guys... you have to understand... I - I didn't mean to put Tsukishima's life in danger like that. I don't even remember deciding to run. I just... ran. I think I startled Tsukishima, because he tried to run after me. He... he was only trying to keep me safe. The robber... the robber turned his gun on us. By the time he'd probably registered what was going on he'd missed me. But... he'd recovered quickly enough to... to shoot Tsukishima."

Sugawara watched his teammates' expressions morph from surprised to horrified.

"I never even saw what happened - Tsukishima was behind me. I didn't even realize what I'd done until I heard the gun go off. I heard a loud sharp sound, followed by the sound of him hitting the floor... It wasn't until then that I realized... that I realized my stupidity had probably just gotten my teammate killed... After the guy left the store, the cashier and I ran back to where... to where he was shot... I - I was frozen. He was covered in blood -"

"That's enough, Sugawara."

Daichi again. Sugawara couldn't read his captain's voice, and it scared him. He closed his eyes again and decided to wait out the resounding silence in darkness. The less he could see his teammates' faces, the less he would have to feel guilty. Except, you know that's a load of crap, Koushi. You're going to feel guilty no matter what. It was like he could hear everyone else thinking, hear them judging him. He stood there, at the front of the gym, eyes closed, tears streaming, fists shaking at his sides. It was like waiting for the end of the world.

"Well, Tsukishima's gonna be okay, right?"

Sugawara opened his eyes again and found Hinata staring straight at him, breaking the leaden silence with his innocence. He'd forgotten how much they'd all come to depend on the team's resident ball of sunshine to get them through the day. If there was anyone he could depend on to be optimistic through all this, it was Hinata. But it was painful, seeing how little he understood about what was going on. Didn't he realize that they could lose Tsukishima literally at any minute?

"Oh, Hinata..." Sugawara muttered, a small squeak in his voice. Before he could say anymore, Kageyama joined in to relieve him of his burden.

"Shut up, dumbass!" he shouted, shoving Hinata over onto the floor, "Can't you see Sugawara's upset?" Hinata sat back up and shoved Kageyama in return.

"Hey, don't call me a dumbass; I was just trying to be polite! I mean, of course Tsukishima's gonna be okay! He's the only one who never complains he's tired after practice, so that means he's in really good shape. Of course this is no problem!"

"Hinata, you're an idiot! Don't you know anything!?"

"Hey!" Daichi shouted in a much more serious voice than Sugawara was used to hearing from Daichi, even when he scolded them, "You two are going to shut up right now, or I'm locking you out of the gym until you've calmed down. This is not the time to fight about this, especially in front of Sugawara and Yamaguchi."

Yamaguchi. Everyone in the room turned to look at Yamaguchi. He hadn't moved since Sugawara delivered the news. Tanaka gave a quick "hey," to get his attention, Nishinoya scooted closer to him, reached out, and shook his shoulder, but he simply sat staring into the mindless abyss in front of him. His eyes looked almost glassed over, like he'd completely lost touch with reality. He didn't twitch. He didn't blink. He simply stared as Sugawara's guilt piled higher with each passing second.

"Guys, he - he's not okay..." Asahi mumbled, pale and shaking, nearly as freaked out as his teammate. Daichi intervened. He made his way to Yamaguchi and took a knee in front of his blank face. He spoke in a firm voice.

"Yamaguchi." Yamaguchi tipped his head ever so slightly to the side. He spoke in a small terrified voice.

"... Daichi?"

"Yamaguchi. You with us?" Yamaguchi suddenly flew to his feet.

"I-I'm sorry, I need to go." He ran to the club room and slammed the door. Having watched the scene unfold, Ukai ran after him, and Sugawara, having watched the exchange as well, ran to follow.

"I need to go, too."

Daichi jogged to catch up and caught his co-captain by the wrist, stopping him in his tracks.

"No, you don't. You're coming with me. We need to talk. Besides, Yamaguchi needs some alone time." He turned to the rest of the team, gesturing around the room.

"That goes double for the rest of you! Nobody had better bother him until he comes out by his own free will. Let him process this." After that, Daichi led Sugawara outside.

Daichi closed the gym doors and sat down on the far side at the top of the small set of concrete stairs, his long legs bent slightly, his feet resting on the ground below. Without speaking or turning to look beside him, he patted a spot on the stair next to him. Sugawara swallowed hard and sat down beside his captain. They sat there for a full minute or more: Sugawara unable to take his eyes off Daichi, horrified at how angry his close friend seemed, and Daichi unable to look at Sugawara, terrified that he would lose control of his emotions and say something he would regret. The tense air hung around the pair, stretching the inches between them into miles. Just when Sugawara thought Daichi might never speak to him again, he opened his mouth and spoke deliberately.

"Suga, what's this nonsense about it being your fault?"

"... I talked to Tsukishima's mother right before coming here..." Daichi turned to Sugawara and raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"His mother told you it was your fault?"

"No! No, she didn't. Actually, it was sort of the opposite... She forgave me." Daichi didn't really know what to say. To be in the impossible situation Mrs. Tsukishima would be in right now, and be gracious enough to forgive the kid who (although accidentally) put her son's life in danger was an inner strength he was certain he didn't have. After Daichi remained silent, Sugawara tried a different approach.

"Daichi, does the team call me the 'team mom' a lot?"

"That depends on your definition of 'a lot.' They don't say it to your face often, probably because they're afraid it'll embarrass you, but I hear it in the club room or whenever you're out of earshot. So, yeah. I guess they call you 'team mom' a lot. They certainly trust you like one. Why do you ask?"

"... I like it. It's flattering, being the one everyone goes to because they trust you." Daichi shifted so that more of his body faced Sugawara.

"Of course it is. You care about them. You're a responsible person and you feel responsible for them. Because they're younger than you, whether it's physically like the first years, or emotionally like Asahi. Because you feel like you need to protect them. Is that it?" Sugawara look down at the concrete sidewalk at his feet.

"Yeah, I think so."

"If it makes you feel any better, I feel the same way. I need to keep them in line. I need to keep them in my own little protective bubble because if I don't, they might hurt themselves or others, and I couldn't bear to see that happen. And yeah, I love volleyball. But I don't just want them to be the best for me, because I want to win. I want them to be the best for themselves, too."

"Daichi..." Sugawara began without looking up from the ground, "I don't deserve to be the team mom." Daichi sat sideways on the top stair, his right leg folded in front of him, his left stretched out along the stairs. He felt the coarse surface of the concrete bite into his calves as he sat under the full moon.

"Why do you think that? Because you couldn't protect him? Because you couldn't stop it from happening, so that somehow makes you unfit to be the team mom?" Sugawara turned himself so that he was mirroring Daichi. It always dumbfounded him how easily his captain could read him.

"When Mrs. Tsukishima forgave me... I didn't feel forgiven. I felt like an impostor who was only now realizing that's what he was. I saw that all this time of feeling flattered, of being happy the team trusted me... I realized they had no reason to. I don't deserve it. I can't actually protect them from anything, I'm just like them. Scared and vulnerable."

"Suga, you care a lot about Tsukishima as a member of the team and as a friend, but you can't compare yourself to his actual mother." Sugawara looked away from Daichi as tears began to swell in the corners of his eyes.

"Look, Tsukishima has an older brother in college, right? So that makes him, what? 20? 22, maybe? That means this woman is most likely in her late forties to fifties, right? She's lived about half of her life and raised at least two kids. You, on the other hand, are an eighteen-year-old high school student. See the difference? Of course she's better at being his mother than you are - she is his mother, and she's lived decades longer than you have. You don't have the same life experiences. How could you, when you've never even graduated high school?"

"I don't understand how any of this is supposed to make me feel better. You're just telling me that I'm right in feeling inferior."

"No, I'm telling you it's natural that you're feeling inferior. Suga, we're kids. I understand you feel guilty for not being able to stop what happened, and you especially feel guilty for freaking out the way you did, but how could you have helped it? You've never been through anything traumatic like that, right? What you did was your body's natural reaction to the fear you were experiencing. And besides, even if you had been at the top of your game, what could you have done against a loaded gun?" Sugawara turned back around and faced Daichi, tears streaming down his face.

"Daichi, are you angry?" Daichi took a moment to respond.

"Yeah. Yeah, I am. But not at you. I'm angry at fate, I guess. Tsukishima didn't deserve this. Nobody deserves this." More silence.

"Do you think I'm selfish? For comparing myself to Tsukishima's mother?"

"Maybe a little. But we're human. I think in a way, it's natural for us to be selfish." Sugawara lowered his voice to a whisper. He knew what he was going to say next, and he was terrified Daichi would judge him for saying it.

"I hate myself for being like this, Daichi." Daichi looked at Sugawara with an intense and earnest expression.

"Don't. Please, don't hate yourself. In a way, you've defined yourself by your identity as the team mom. Now the one time it counts rolls around, and you fail. Even worse, one of your teammates could die for it. If that happens, then tonight will follow you for the rest of your life. That guilt will eat you alive, and it terrifies you. Suga, your self-image shattered the moment that gun went off. You realize now that the world is a lot bigger and scarier than you first thought it was, and you can't protect the people you love as well as you thought you could. It's normal. We learn. We adapt. We move on."

The wind picked up again as the pair sat in that moment, in silence. The night air, still heavy with moisture, hung on them like gym weights. Sugawara imagined that even lifting his head would feel like a work out. He felt the strong breeze caress his hair, tickling his forehead, and he wondered if he could stay in this moment, free of the outside world, forever.

"How do you know all this?" Daichi gave his friend a gentle smile.

"My mom's a psychologist. I get lectures like this from her a lot." Sugawara scooted closer to Daichi as the two re-positioned themselves so that they were sitting normally again. As he relaxed his legs he felt his knee bump lightly against his captain's.

"Your mom sounds like a wise woman."

"That's one word for it. She's weird by normal standards, though. She's always coming home from work with these little trivia facts. It drives me nuts sometimes." For the first time all night, Sugawara smiled.

"Come on," Daichi said, nudging Sugawara in the shoulder as he stood, "Let's rejoin the rest of the team. See if Yamaguchi's gotten everything out of his system, yet." Sugawara stood, and the pair re-entered the gym.

There's the first half of the "team talk" scene. This conversation with Daichi is actually the entire reason I decided to use Sugawara for this story and not Yamaguchi. The Tsukishima/Yamaguchi tragedy has been done before (done well, but done before) and I wanted to put my focus in another direction. I realized that Sugawara's identity as "team mom" would be fun to play with, so I decided to give Sugawara a trauma-induced identity crisis and string the story together using the whole mother motif. Let me know what you think, and as always, constructive criticism is always appreciated.