December 17th: Wednesday

Theme: 23. Bells

Hiro woke up to the familiar roof of the Hamada household. As he sat up, gray blanket falling off, he wondered why he was here. Then it hit him. Yesterday, the snow, the crying. Hiro flopped back down on the bed and covered his face with his hands. Okay, that wasn't a bad dream about him having a complete and total emotional breakdown.

"You okay Hiro?"

That would be Tadashi. "What am I doing here?" Hiro asked.

Hiro didn't need to see the shrug that Tadashi gave. "You cried yourself to sleep yesterday. Since I didn't know where you lived, I brought you back here," Tadashi explained. He took a seat on the roller chair next to the bed.

Hiro gave a tired sigh. "So now what?"

"I still want to know the answer to my questions," Tadashi said as evenly as he could. "But only if you want to tell me."

Hiro thought about it. Did he want Tadashi to know? Logically speaking, Hiro has only known Tadashi for sixteen days, of which four of them, he spent avoiding the older man. Why not Jack? Hiro was confident in his friendship with Jack and arguably had known Jack longer. Jack already knew bits and pieces of Hiro's past, at least in regards to his family.

'But Tadashi sees,' his mind whispered. 'Tadashi sees the loneliness, sees the grief, sees it all. How many people saw you smile and never noticed anything was wrong?'

Hiro looked at Tadashi, saw the way the taller man struggled not to push, not to ask. Hiro knew that if he didn't want to say anything, Tadashi would let it drop and never ask again. Honestly, Tadashi has been just too nice.

Turning his gaze back up to the ceiling, Hiro mentally started counting the wooden boards. "I graduated from high school when I was thirteen," Hiro said. "Had my bachelor in electrical engineering by the time I was fifteen, my master in EE and my bachelors in mechanical engineering and physics by age sixteen. My masters in ME and Physics by age seventeen and finished my doctorate in EE by age eighteen. That was when the government approached me for a program they called Silent Sparrow. To briefly sum it up without breaking too many laws, they wanted me to build a wormhole that made teleportation possible." Hiro paused to gather his thoughts.

"An Einstein-Rosen Bridge?" Tadashi said, in shock. "You figured out how to actually build one? That's amazing, Hiro!"

Hiro gave Tadashi a cocky grin. "I'm awesome after all. It only took a year to puzzle out the calculations, build the portal and move on to human testing." Hiro's expression melted into grief.

"That was when I met Abigail Callaghan, Robert Callaghan's daughter," Hiro said, wistfully. "Being an only child and having practically no friends growing up, Abigail took me under her wing and treated me like a younger sibling."

"Professor Callaghan talks about her a lot," Tadashi said quietly. "She always sounded like an amazing person."

"She was. She had a laugh that sounded like bells," Hiro said. It had been painful this holiday season, to hear bells everywhere. Hiro would often stop, expecting to see Abigail only to find she wasn't there. "Always laughing at something, finding joy in everything she did, everywhere she went."

He stopped for a moment, mourning the loss of the woman he had considered to be an older sister. "Abigail had volunteered to be the first human test subject for my project. I… obsessively checked over everything to make sure it was in perfect working order. I was so sure, so confident…" Hiro trailed off.

"What happened?" Tadashi asked.

Hiro gave a bitter laugh. "The one thing I couldn't predict, nature itself. We had just launched Abigail's pod into the portal when an earthquake hit New Yosaka. New Yosaka rarely has earthquakes; it wasn't even that bad of a serious one. A 5 on the scale. It was enough to shake the building, though, enough to take our delicate experiment and throw it out of alignment. I never did a stability test for the influence of outside forces. New Yosaka hadn't had an earthquake in over 50 years. The structures were so huge, it would have to be something like an earthquake to impact it. That tiny shift happened just as the portal pulsed which caused the wormhole to destabilized, drawing in objects into the portal before the energy powering it exploded outward."

Tadashi's eyes widened in understanding. "The explosion in New Yosaka a year ago," he said. "That… made the front page news for weeks, months while they investigated the cause behind it. Professor Callaghan was called in as an expert witness."

Hiro smiled bitterly. The explosion destroyed the entire building they were housed in, over 37 people were injured, but the only death was Abigail who was in the portal when it destabilized. "Yeah… due to the public reveal, the government was forced to launch an official investigation. It took months, my work was scrutinized, every piece examined. Ultimately, I was cleared of all charges, that it was simply a string of bad events that caused my experiment to fail. My reputation took a hit at first, but as more and more people realized the impact of what I accomplished, that turned into amazement and actually boosted it. The newspapers were prevented from printing my name since I was young despite being over 18 at the time. Plus the government wanted to protect me because I was their golden goose so to speak. But a bit of research would have made the connection anyways, just a year earlier they were singing my praises for working on building a working wormhole in the papers."

Hiro ran a hand through his hair, trying to calm himself. He had been horrified by the destruction and people wanted to praise him? "The job offers actually increased once the investigation was done. Alistair Krei from Krei Tech wanted me to join his company to finish my research. Nothing changed the fact that my experiment killed Abigail though. I couldn't even step into a lab without an overwhelming guilt hitting me. I didn't want to continue inventing and experimenting anymore." 47 wooden boards made up the section of the ceiling that Hiro could see. He sat up, pushing off the blankets.

"I managed to personally apologize to everyone injured, built a new series of prosthetics for the few that lost a limb because of the explosion. The only person left was Professor Callaghan whom I knew of but never met. I figured to kill two birds with one stone, apply to SFIT to get a new degree that wasn't engineering or science related and work up the courage to personally apologize for Abigail's death. Six months later, here I am," Hiro said. He let out a weary sigh. Hiro was just… exhausted, exhausted by everything. He grieved over Abigail's death for over a year now.

The question now was what was Tadashi going to do about it?

Tadashi sat with a pensive look on his face, deep in thought as he digested what Hiro had told him. Just as he opened his mouth, Cass came storming up the stairs.

"Tadashi!" she said. "Why are you still here? Your final exam starts in twenty minutes!"

"Aunt Cass," Tadashi started.

"Don't you start, young man!" Cass scolded. "You told me that this exam was 40% of your final grade! Now get going!" That was when she noticed Hiro was awake. "Hiro!"

Cass reached over, placing her hand on Hiro's forehead. "How are you feeling sweetie?" she asked. "Tadashi said you hadn't been feeling well lately when he brought you home yesterday. Hmm, it doesn't feel like you're running a fever. You are much warmer now. Good, you were ice cold yesterday."

Hiro was thrown mentally. Where did Cass get this energy from? "Yeah, I'm feeling better," he said.

Cass leveled her gaze at him. "You still look exhausted. You should rest more. Are you hungry? I'll get you some soup."

"Aunt Cass," Tadashi started again.

Cass threw a glare at her nephew. Hands on her hips, she frowned. "Tadashi! Why are you still here? Get going mister! I'm going to grab some soup from the cafe for Hiro. I better see you coming down the stairs when I come back up!" She headed back down the stairs.

"Go Tadashi," Hiro said. "We can continue this talk later."

Tadashi hesitated before relenting. "Alright. No more running away," he said.

Hiro gave him a weak smile. He laid everything in front of Tadashi, what more was there to run from? Either Tadashi would hate him for this or… well, Hiro didn't know what would happen. "Okay. Bye Tadashi"

"See you later, Hiro," Tadashi said with a wave.

The ball was in Tadashi's court now.

Annnnddd done! If I stop posting tomorrow it's because I've accomplished all I wanted with this story \ o / (Which is a shaky but possible notion as Day 18 needs polish and Day 19 only has a single paragraph, never fear though, I will solider on.) Thank you so much guys for the wonderful response, all the lovely reviews, favs and watches.