Hello, all. I understand that it's only been a few days since I posted the last chapter, but this one was done, so I figured I'd post it. Consider it a little apology for the last couple chapters taking so long. With that said, please enjoy chapter twenty-three :)

Lunar Eclipse

Chapter Twenty-Three

By ten o'clock that night, Amaya found herself wondering how she had been able to keep herself awake this long. It had been almost two days and every cell in her body felt like it was made of lead, her eyelids heavier with each passing second. But she couldn't give in. She couldn't sleep. He'll be taken from me, she brooded, eyes glued to her son's heart monitor, I'll close my eyes, and he won't be there when I open them again.

The hospital was quickly returning to the way it looked the night before. The bright natural sunlight that had filled her son's room earlier in the day, so intense that Amaya had to close the blinds to keep herself from getting a migraine, had been replaced by the artificial white light from the hospital's fluorescent bulbs. The room glowed unnaturally, and it reminded Amaya of a fever dream, a world just a little too bright to be real.

The worst part is that you can see the shadows. Amaya hated that. The fluorescent bulbs glowed so obnoxiously that she could see every tiny shadow all over the room. As she continued to stare at Kei, she studied those shadows - every bruise: the gaunt purple ones that filled the hollows of his eyes, the tender circular one that blossomed where the doctors had given him his IVs. She saw the tall thin shadow cast by the post holding his IV bags, the large expansive one cast by the underside of his bed, all the different shapes attached to Kei's medical equipment, black and bleeding into each other, creating one solid mass of shadow in that corner of the room. It reminded Amaya of a horror movie, as if some unknown creature would climb out of the darkness and claim her son before her eyes.

Feeling a sudden spike in her fear, Amaya pulled into herself. Folding her knees and bringing her feet up onto the chair with her, she wrapped her arms around them and buried her face in their darkness as white hot tears tore down her cheeks for the umpteenth time. Raising her head slightly, she reached into her purse and removed her treasured photo of Kei and Akiteru as young children. Holding it firmly in her shaking hands, she watched as her tears fell onto the plastic lamination, delicately obscuring the image.

"I'm glad that's the one we decided to keep."

Amaya whipped her head around to the room's entrance to find her husband Yoshirou, clad in a slightly rumpled suit, carrying both a briefcase and rolling a carry-on bag, standing in the doorway to greet her. Too shocked to move, Amaya simply sat and stared at her husband as he crossed the room and set his stuff on the floor. He shrugged off his suit jacket, draped it over the back of the chair, and sat down beside her. Wrapping his arm around her shoulders, he continued to speak.

"The picture, I mean. I'm glad that's the take we kept. If you remember, we'd been trying all afternoon to get a good photo, but it just wasn't happening. Akiteru had gotten into the sodas earlier, so he was on too much of a sugar rush to sit still. And Kei had just discovered he could move around on his own, so anytime we sat him somewhere, he turned and crawled in the other direction." Pausing the story, he chuckled lightly at the memory.

Amaya snuggled into her husband's embrace as he reminisced. Just having him there, hearing his voice, somehow made everything a little more bearable.

"I remember," she said, eyes focused on the photo, "Luckily, Kei was teething at the time, and I finally had the idea to get him to sit still by giving him his dinosaur toy to chew on. You were upset because it was covered in bite marks and slobber and you didn't want it in the picture. If I remember correctly, your reasoning was that you wanted a 'nice' picture."

"Yep. And you insisted on giving it to him anyway."

"And I was right. It worked. Kei was content long enough for us to take the picture, and Akiteru got so excited; he thought it was the cutest thing in the world."

"And it turned out to be the best childhood picture we got of them. Who knew something so simple would last all this time?"

Yoshioru smiled faintly as he lost himself in the memory. As he thought, his expression took a dark turn as he stood up from his chair and approached Kei's bedside. He reached out and ran his fingers down his son's arm, stopping at the IV lines taped to his wrist. Reaching up a second time, he took a small amount of his son's hair into his hand, brushing his forehead and letting his hand follow the lines of his face. How could this have happened to such an innocent boy? His son? When he spoke again, his voice was heavier, thicker with emotion.

"So, what happened? What did they tell you?"

Amaya stood from her chair and joined Yoshirou at their son's bedside, explaining what the doctor told them about the bullet's path and the damage it had done. As she recounted the information, staring agonizingly at her son's unconscious form, Amaya was not surprised to find herself crying once again. Every glance at Kei's helpless, fragile body tore open the wound that had been trying desperately to heal over the course of the last twenty-four hours. The grieving mother couldn't help but to feel weighed down, almost magnetized to the floor by the solid mass of lead that seemed to be sitting in her chest every time her mind wondered to last night's plight. Kei was in a massive amount of pain, struggling to keep what hold he did have on his young life. Akiteru was dead, crudely stolen from her at the height of her fear. Perhaps all her life, Amaya Tsukishima had been naive, and it took this frigid, tragic slap in the face to teach her that as much as you loved life, life was under no obligation to love you back.

"Oh my god..." Yoshirou muttered, running his hand over his face and taking in a deep breath, "Did they tell you anything else? What they were going to do now?"

"They said they were going to keep him under sedation for twenty-four hours after the surgery, which means they're going to wake him up tomorrow morning. Other than that... no... not really." Yoshirou was silent for a few seconds.

"They might be waiting until he's awake to explain the recovery process. Did you have any problems with the insurance forms?" Amaya looked away.

"No... everything was fine."

"I see."

Yoshirou paused and left Kei's bedside, wandering over to the window. He grabbed the cords dangling from the blinds and pulled, opening them and letting a touch of moonlight caress the edges of the window. Amaya turned to watch him, absorbing the sullen nature of his aura. It was a something she had experienced from Yoshirou time and time again: swallowed by his inability to deal with his own emotions, her husband did not want her to follow him. After a few seconds of silence, he spoke.

"... Did Akiteru have life insurance?"

It was like a punch to the stomach. Amaya couldn't believe her ears.

"Your son dies, and that's all you have to say!?" Yoshirou's voice became noticeably more strained.

"Amaya, it's an important question. Funerals are expensive, and we don't have the extra cash. Kei's insurance will cover the bulk of this mess, but not all of it, so we'll have his medical bills to think about as well, not to mention the charges for whatever procedures they did for Akiteru."

Amaya was outraged. After waiting for him all day, wishing he could be here so she could talk to her husband and share their grief, wallowing in her agony all day without rest, the only thing he was worried about was money.

"How in the hell am I supposed to know if he had life insurance? What twenty-two year old thinks about life insurance?"

"Some workplaces offer it upon hiring," Yoshirou stressed as he turned around to face his wife, "I just wanted to know if Akiteru's job did."

"I don't know! Funny enough, it never occurred to me to ask. I never thought I'd lose him before he graduated college!" Amaya shouted as her voice shook. She hadn't felt these tears coming, they had simply sprung to the surface mid-thought. There was a very conscious part of her brain that was completely unbelieving of her current situation. She never believed that she would be arguing with her husband over the validity of their son's death. She just couldn't imagine how he could be so focused on money when the lives of their children were a much more pressing matter. It was infuriating, and it made her feel completely alone.

"Can you settle down for one minute? I'm trying to make sure this doesn't put us on the street."

Yoshirou had always been a very restrained man, but even now Amaya's emotional outburst was trying his patience. Why couldn't she see that he was trying to save their family, that dwelling on their emotions wasn't going to get them anywhere?

"Does money have to be so important right now? I'm trying to grieve our child! You haven't said one thing about his death since you walked in here! Do you even care!?"

It was in that moment that Yoshirou lost his temper. As the words left Amaya's lips, she saw the switch flip behind his eyes. There was a burning fury there now - She had definitely crossed the line. As Amaya began to recognize the magnitude of her mistake, Yoshirou bounded back towards her, stopping inches from her face. His voice started eerily calm, but quickly grew in volume and emotion until he was shouting.

"Listen to me. Say whatever you want about my priorities or my personality, but never, ever, tell me that I don't care about my son! Do you think that twelve hour flight was easy for me? Knowing that my son was lying dead on the other side of the world and my wife was barely holding herself together? Do you think there was even one second where I wasn't grieving Akiteru? You aren't the only one who lost someone last night, Amaya! Don't think that because I'm not a blubbering mess, it means that I feel nothing." Now crying violently, Amaya could hardly get her words out.

"Then stop talking about money and grieve with me! Help me carry this burden because I've been doing it alone all day, and I need my husband to hold me together because I can't do it anymore!"

Overcome with an intense sympathy, Yoshirou opened his arms and took his wife of thirty years into his embrace, letting her collapse, crying sniveling, into his chest. As he felt her hands wrap around his back and clutch his shirt, he buried his face in her hair and stood still for a moment, inhaling her scent. He couldn't smell the rich strawberry scent of the shampoo she'd worn everyday since she was in high school, evidence that she hadn't been home to shower. She's been here all day, then. She probably didn't think to bring anything with her to change or refresh herself.

It wasn't like that surprised him at all. Amaya had always been a woman of strong convictions. She wasn't loud or forceful by nature, but she was kind, gentle, and most of all stubborn, especially when it came to her sons. Her kindness and her gentleness were her strongest traits because they were what made her an excellent mother, and the stubborn undertones of her personality meant that there was nothing she wouldn't do for her children. If Yoshirou was being honest with himself, it was why he fell for her in the first place - never abrasive but never yielding, he knew from the moment he laid eyes on her that if she could ever love him, she would be loyal to the very last. Refreshing, yet strong like the nighttime rains she was named after, Amaya's love could move mountains.

Yoshirou turned his attention back to his wife's shaking, sobbing frame and held her just a little bit tighter, knotting his fingers in her hair and massaging the back of her head. The fact that she was so severely rattled now was a sure sign of the frayed state of her nerves. How long had she been awake?

"Yoshirou..." she cried, her voice muffled by the fabric of her husband's dress shirt, "I miss Akiteru. I miss our little boy."

"I miss him, too, Amaya."

"I'm sorry I accused you of not loving him. I'm just so... empty. It's all too much. It's just all too much..." Her voice trailed off into more heart-wrenching sobs. Gently, Yoshirou guided her back to their chairs and sat down with her, letting her press herself into him and continue to sob into his chest. He let her cry herself out, waiting until she'd calmed down before speaking again.

"When was the last time you ate? Would you like me to grab something for you from the cafeteria?" She shook her head.

"No, I don't want food. I can't eat. Thinking of food makes me nauseous." As Amaya answered, Yoshirou noticed the sheer exhaustion dripping from her voice. That combined with her hyperactive nerves worried him more than he was used to.

"Okay," He paused, "Have you slept since you called me last?" When Amaya answered she sounded almost defensive.

"How could I? With everything that's happened, I had to keep an eye on Kei."

Yoshirou sighed. He had a feeling she would say something like that. With how stubborn she was, combined with her abounding love for their family, it was no surprise that Amaya would insist on overseeing their younger son's recovery entirely on her own, without rest.

"You haven't slept in two days? Amaya, you need sleep." This comment seemed to agitate her, and she tore herself from Yoshirou's embrace, facing him.

"You don't understand! What if something happens?"

"If something happens, the doctors will take care of it and let us know." But Yoshirou could tell from his wife's expression that it didn't matter. If her own two eyes weren't watching their son, then as far as she was concerned, he wasn't being watched.

"Yoshirou, I can't. I refuse. I'm not going to leave again! Not again!"

And that was when it sunk in. She wasn't just scared. She was traumatized.

"You can't blame yourself for Akiteru's death. It wasn't your fault. You could never have known." But Amaya was hysterical again. She was crying, and her voice jumped from a tremulous whisper to a petrified shout.

"I left for thirty minutes! Why did I choose then to run home? If I had just stayed I could have caught it before it happened. If I had just been there, I could have gotten a doctor at the first sign that something was wrong!"

"Amaya, there was no way you could have known that something was going to go wrong while you were gone."

"I abandoned him!" she shrieked, her hands balled into shaking fists, the anger and hurt welling up in her chocolate brown eyes, "At the moment he needed me the most I left him!" Yoshirou stood from his sitting position and took Amaya by the shoulders, making her face him.

"You didn't abandon anybody. You left to get Kei's insurance card, right? So you could fill out his forms?"

"So?"

"You were taking care of your younger son. Your attention was on Kei because at that moment, Kei was the one who needed it. You had no reason to believe that something would happen to Akiteru last night because there was no indication. Amaya, it was a freak accident. That's what the doctor told you, didn't he? That he mistimed doses? It could have happened to anybody, but it happened to us. That's the way life is."

He paused, taking the time to reach up and brush a few strands of fly away hair from her face, tucking it behind her left ear. God, she was beautiful. Even with ruined makeup, greasy hair, and worry lines from years of dealing with their struggles, Amaya was still the most radiant woman he'd ever seen.

"Amaya, I love you. And I meant what I said before. It'll be next to impossible, but we're going to make it. I promise."

Having calmed down significantly, Amaya's expression passed from a hysterical fear and sadness to a much calmer, gentler pain. Eyes screwed tight, she once again buried her face in Yoshirou's crumpled dress shirt.

"I love you, too." She muttered, squeezing him as tightly as she possibly could.

"How about this: Since I'm here now, I'll keep an eye on Kei while you get a little sleep. Then we can both drive home and get a real night's rest, and we'll be here bright and early for them to bring Kei out of sedation in the morning. Can we do that?" Amaya hesitated for several long seconds as she contemplated her answer. What she gave was the hardest admission she'd ever had to make.

"... Yeah. Okay. But we have to be here early."

"Absolutely. Anytime you think necessary."

With that, the exhausted couple made their way back to the visitor's chairs. Yoshirou set them across from each other, with the seats facing each other. He sat down first, stretching his long legs across them. He then let Amaya crawl on top of him, letting her curl up on his legs under his suit jacket, resting her head lightly on his stomach. As Yoshirou looked down at his amazing wife, the woman who gave birth to his two beautiful children, he felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude. What had he done in his life to deserve the strength of her love? As he watched her drift off into much needed sleep, Yoshirou Tsukishima figured that, despite his recent tragedies, he was incredibly lucky to possess the affection of a woman so strong.

After all these chapters, I was finally able to get back to Yoshirou. This scene was a lot of fun to write, and I hope you all enjoy it! As always, review if you feel inclined, and constructive criticism is always appreciated :)