**A.N. Thank you to those who read and enjoy, and a special thank you to you who read, enjoyed, and reviewed. Luck-of-the-Draw-207 (Silver-09) drew something for me that was pretty cool based on a PM conversation we had, you should go check it out! ( art/Rise-of-the-Phoenix-Gogo-and-Tadashi-514727758 ) It meant a lot to me.**

After locking up the café, Hiro headed upstairs to check on Fred and Tadashi. Fred had fallen asleep, and was sprawled out on the couch, while Tadashi sat on the floor, concentrating on the results from the previous tests. He looked like he was mentally debating something as his eyes flicked back and forth aimlessly; he didn't even notice Hiro approach him.

"Teddy." Hiro had to shake his brother's shoulder a little to snap him out of it.

"Hm?" Tadashi looked up, before glancing at the clock. "Is it that late already?"

Hiro laughed before going over to Fred and kicking his leg lightly. Fred muttered in his sleep and turned over, but misjudged how big the couch was and fell off with a loud 'oomph.'

The Hamada brothers laughed, and Hiro lent a hand to Fred to help him up.

"It's getting pretty late, Fred."

Fred hummed and pulled out his phone. He pressed a single button before putting it back in his pocket.

"Heathcliff's on the way." Still half-asleep, Fred curled back up on the couch to doze until his arrival.

Hiro turned to Tadashi with a grin. "Well, he seems normal to me."

"Hm... Maybe." Tadashi frowned. "I'm still confused, though."

Hiro inclined his head, prompting him to continue.

"I mean, he drank them, and he was healed. I didn't." Tadashi poked at his knee. "So, is it contact? If so, how close does it have to be to the injury? Did his chapped lips have anything to do with it?" Tadashi sighed. "There are too many variables..."

Hiro ruffled Tadashi hair, chuckling at the indignant squawks of protest. "You're making this more complicated than it needs to be."

Tadashi crossed his arms, clearly about to begin another lecture on the importance of tests and safety measures, but Hiro spoke first.

"It doesn't have any negative effects, whether you drink it or apply it directly, right?"

"Well, yeah..."

Hiro grinned. "Then who's to say you have to get it right the first try?" Hiro put a hand on his brother's shoulder. "If it can't hurt her, you've got plenty of time for multiple attempts."

"Hmm." Tadashi looked down, before giving Hiro the infamous 'I've made up my mind and I'll pout if you say no' look. "Can we go visit Aunt Cass tomorrow?"

Hiro blanched slightly, surprised by the abrupt change of heart. "Uh..."

Fred's phone gave off a low beep and he stumbled sleepily to the front door, wishing the Hamadas a good night as an afterthought.

Once Fred was gone, Tadashi turned back to his brother. Hiro still looked a bit uncertain. "Well, Wasabi's got class until 3:00, and I can't leave Kyouji on his own on his second day; that just wouldn't be fair. So, maybe after that?"

Tadashi nodded, and made his way towards the kitchen, with Hiro trailing behind him.

"What are you doing?" Hiro was a bit suspicious, but maybe Tadashi was hungry, although there were dirty dishes in the sink that indicated an earlier meal. Hiro didn't do anything further until he realized Tadashi had climbed up onto the stool and then the counter in order to reach the knives.

"Haha, no." Hiro pulled Tadashi into his arms and away from the counter. "Explanation first."

Tadashi frowned at him, before settling more comfortably in his arms so that Hiro's fingers weren't digging into his ribs. Didn't Hiro know how and how not to hold a kid? "I just want to do some last minute testing."

"Of your healing tears... using knives... I'm going to say no to that one."

"But I want to try something!" Tadashi was full on pouting at this point. "I've still got two vials, I can do a bit with one of them and have plenty to spare."

Hiro sighed, before grabbing one of the smaller knives, but keeping it out of reach of Tadashi's grasp.

"If it's that important to you, we'll try it on me." When Tadashi started to protest, Hiro interrupted him. "It's that, or not at all. I won't do any serious damage that I couldn't live with. Besides, don't you want to make sure Fred's wasn't a fluke? I mean, it was chapped lips and a headache; those go away pretty quickly anyway. Trying it on another person might settle your mind."

Hiro had him there. Tadashi made a small sound of assent before he was lowered to the ground and went to grab the extra vial. Hiro grabbed a couple of paper towels and a small cup, and took a seat on the kitchen floor. When Tadashi came back with the vial, Hiro poured a small amount into the cup before recapping the vial and setting it aside.

"Since we know one thing that does work, let's start with what we aren't sure about." Hiro made a small nick on his thumb with the knife, wincing slightly. Tadashi didn't look too happy about it, but Hiro waved off his concern.

"Bottoms up." Hiro downed the liquid, but there was no visible change. "Hm. Didn't think so, but I guess we'll wait a bit."

Tadashi looked a bit worried, but Hiro simply placed one of the paper towels under his finger and watched the clock on the kitchen stove until five minutes had passed. His finger was still bleeding. "I guess drinking it doesn't work, then."

Hiro opened the palm of the injured hand, and with a little help from Tadashi, poured some of the tears into his cupped hand, before simply holding them for a bit. There was no change. "Okay, not just contact."

Hiro looked like he was contemplating something, before he indicated towards the knife and held out his other hand. "Can you make another small incision on this hand, so I can see something?"

Tadashi hesitated, before realizing that Hiro could just heal himself with what he had in the palm of his hand. Taking the knife, he applied as little pressure as possible to Hiro's pointer finger and stopped the second he saw a hint of blood.

"Thanks." Hiro then lowered his thumb into the palm of his hand where the liquid was and watched it seam back together flawlessly. He then watched his other hand expectantly. Tadashi looked at him questioningly.

"What are you-"

"Yes! I thought so!" Hiro held out the finger Tadashi had cut towards him.

It was completely healed.

"It travels through the bloodstream, definitely." Hiro looked very certain.

"But Fred-"

"Had chapped lips. He'd made them bleed, don't you remember me telling him off for it?"

"Yeah..." Tadashi's brow creased in concern. "But that means Aunt Cass would need to have an open wound..."

Hiro gave him a deadpan look, as if he was missing something obvious. "You're the medical nerd. Think for a sec."

"But—oh." Tadashi paused as the thought occurred to him, but quickly shook his head. "Isn't putting things in someone's IV without authorization illegal? And won't that cause problems?"

"Well... it could." Hiro grinned. "Unless you know how to get away with it."

Tadashi glanced up at him. "...I have some concerns."

"No, don't worry. We just need a diabetic insulin needle-"

"Which you need a prescription to buy."

"–or we could inject it directly and risk someone seeing the injection site when they are checking her over before sending her home."

"Wouldn't the tears just heal the injection site if we did that?"

"I—oh, yeah." Hiro ran a hand through his hair sheepishly. "I guess we could do that, if it would ease your conscience... though that's probably just as illegal."

"At least this way we aren't messing up medical equipment."

Hiro simply patted his head as he stood up and made his way to his room. "Whatever helps you sleep at night."

Tadashi paused. "And why do you know how to mess with an IV, anyway?"

"Wow, look at the time, I better be getting to bed." Hiro feigned a stretch, ignoring Tadashi's question.

"Hiro?" Hiro still refused to answer his question. "Hiro. Hiro. Hiiiiiro. Hiro. Answer me, Hiro."

"Teddy? Teddy. Ted-dy. Two can play at this game. Teddy, Teddy. Teddy."

"Augh! Hiro! Just tell me!"

"Tell you what?" Hiro grinned down at Tadashi, who just threw his hands in the air before going over to his bed and climbing up onto his chair to flop onto the bed.

"Mf mifh muf."

"Sorry, I didn't catch that." Hiro turned on his computer, and light spilled across the darkened room.

"I said: I give up. My brother's a delinquent."

"I don't think you said that much."

"Hm."

Tadashi watched as people came in, got their orders, and left for three hours. Glancing at the clock again, he wondered if he could force time to go faster. So far, he had proven unsuccessful. The hour hand was still stubbornly stuck at ten, and the minute hand was taking its sweet time to get to the five.

He also had a bad case of the jitters. It was so bad that at one point a kind lady had asked if he needed to know where the restroom was. He'd gone along with it, even thanking her when she pointed it out. What else was he going to do?

No, ma'am. I'm just anxiously waiting for my friend to get out of his doctorate level classes so my bigger younger brother can take me to see my comatose aunt, who could possibly die at any second, but I could heal her, if I could just get to her. We could be there right now, but apparently getting the general populace their daily coffee on time is more important.

Tadashi sighed and buried his head in his arms. He knew he should probably go do something productive, but he just couldn't focus. He heard the obnoxious bells on the door ring, and he looked up to see another person enter the café.

Hm, wasn't expecting to see her.

Gogo stopped by the counter, exchanging a few words with Hiro and Kyouji, before she turned and made her way over to where Tadashi was sitting.

"Come on, Teddy. I've got something to show you."

"But I-"

"Need to be back by three, yeah, I know." Gogo started towards the door, and Tadashi hurried to keep up with her.

"Where are we going?" Tadashi looked up at Gogo, who simply continued walking once they were outside the café, instead of leading them to a vehicle of some kind. "Gogo?"

"It isn't far." Gogo grinned down at Tadashi. "Do you think you can make it, Teddy?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Not really."

Gogo led Tadashi to something that looked like a cross between a garage and an amusement park... if the rides weren't allowed to be connected to the track.

This suits her...

Tadashi followed closely behind Gogo, flinching when a cyclist swerved away from them a little later than he was comfortable with. Gogo seemed completely unperturbed as she let the chaos flow around her and made her way to the back of the building. There were a few concrete cubicles, and Gogo made a sharp turn into the second one on the left.

Tadashi entered just as Gogo was removing a small metal contraption from a stand and hanging it on a bicycle mount reminiscent of the one she had had at SFIT.

That is a bike. That is a small bike. That is a kid-sized bike. Oh no.

Gogo took a step back, clearly proud of her work, and took out a small notepad.

"So, what do you think?"

Tadashi took a better look at the bike, noting that the wheels were maglev suspended, though there was a connector on both sides to hold them in place, as opposed to the single-sided one he remembered from Gogo's prototype. Other than that, it looked like a normal bike, except...

"Please tell me this has brakes." Tadashi was not reassured when Gogo started jotting something down on her notepad.

"...add brakes... Okay, anything else?"

"And kid's bikes usually have training wheels..."

"You don't need them." Gogo said this with absolute certainty, but Tadashi was well aware that he didn't have the balance that he used to possess. However, it would be nearly impossible to convince Gogo otherwise; he was surprised she had so readily agreed to brakes.

"Uh... okay. Um..." Tadashi was drawing a blank. "I can't think of anything else."

Gogo nodded and was about to put away the notepad when she turned again to Tadashi. "What color? I was going to just paint it pink, but Honey Lemon would probably steal it from you, then."

Tadashi laughed as he pictured Honey Lemon in her high heels and lab coat on the tiny pink bike, making her way through the streets of San Fransokyo.

She could do it, too.

"Could it be green... or yellow? Can you make it both?"

Gogo rolled her eyes, as if he had asked a stupid question, but smiled anyway. "Of course I can."

Tadashi grinned. "That, then."

Making a quick note, Gogo walked over to the cluttered desk that had been shoved in the corner of the room. "Last chance for any suggestions."

"I'm good."

"Okay." Gogo set the notepad amongst the other various items scattered across the desk. Tadashi hoped she would be able to find it again, or at least remember that brakes were necessary.

**A.N. I'm planning on having the Aunt Cass visit in the next chapter, which will be out faster than this one was.**