Author's note: Sorry for the late post and thank you so, so much for the lovely reviews. I would like to apologise for all the sloppiness of my previous chapters, and add that I have done my best to revise them. Any constructive criticism will be welcomed, and I will do my best to improve my writing style. On an extended note, I also apologise if any characters seem OOC, as I have not watched the movie for some time, and this story veers in another timeline with a darker setting. Regardless, I hope readers enjoy!
"Nothing?" Hiro repeats, flabbergasted. "You really found no-one when you went out?" He's looking at GoGo as he says this, because he doesn't think there's anyone able to outrun the adrenaline-junkie with such a small time-window. Between Tadashi's sudden appearance and Fred and GoGo's departure, there's barely a minute left for the culprit of the explosions to escape.
"Nothing," GoGo repeats flatly. "We scanned the area as the fires were being put out. There wasn't anyone that was even remotely suspicious, but the culprit could have hidden among the chaos anyway." GoGo frowns in an unusually bitter fashion.
"It's okay," Hiro tries to comfort her, even though the disappointment stings and sears between them. "We still have–" Hiro indicates the seated Tadashi vaguely and GoGo narrows her eyes.
"Scan complete," Baymax is announcing as Hiro and GoGo move closer to the exchange. Honey Lemon, Wasabi and Fred are standing behind the white robot, peeking out cautiously from their makeshift shield. "You require rest and treatment for your bruises and cuts. I suggest icing the bruised area for–"
"Yea, yea. I get it, Marshmallow," Tadashi snaps, folding his arms over his chest. They haven't restrained him, seeing as his injuries are enough to discourage him from moving, but Honey Lemon still has her fingers hovered over her chemical bombs just in case. They've spent ten minutes minutes interrogating him before GoGo and Fred's return, and the information they've garnered is barely enough to fill a single sentence.
"All right, back to business," GoGo steps in, all no-nonsense and business-like. Hiro briefly marvels at how well she can hide her fear and worries, then decides it's not necessarily a good thing if she somehow goes overboard and cracks from the stress. "Who're you working under?" GoGo demands, even though she already knows.
They've all been informed. Twice. But none of them have accepted it anyhow. Hiro doesn't blame them. He doesn't want to think that the good-natured and wise professor whom he's admired almost as much as Tadashi, whom his brother (almost) sacrificed his life for, was capable of stealing his microbots. And given how bitterly Tadashi has described Callaghan, and the fact that he attributes the earlier explosions as another one of the latter's destructive plans to kill him, the pedestal everyone has built for Callaghan is falling apart.
"I was," Tadashi spits out empathically, "Working under Callaghan." Nobody says anything even when GoGo flinches very slightly. "But thanks to someone–" Cue bitter look at Hiro, who stares at his shoes uncomfortably, "He decided I was of no use to him and disposed of me."
"What did you do when you were under him? What did he teach you?"
"How to kill. How to control the microbots fluently. How to… how to lie." Tadashi's eyes clouded with an emotion Hiro cannot decipher.
"What can you remember after the fire?" GoGo pushes on. Her black and yellow helmet has been removed once she entered to the room. Now, it's wrapped in her grip, which is tightening with ever word she exchanges with Tadashi.
"What fire?" Tadashi asks, sounding puzzled for the first time. "How do you know anything about a fire?"
It's also the first time that GoGo looks blatantly uncertain. She breaks her iron gaze from Tadashi and turn to Hiro. There's an unwritten question on her face – Do I tell him? Hiro steps forward and shakes his head imperceptibly. I will.
"The… fire," he begins, looking at Tadashi for any signs of reaction. "Do you… remember? It was after my–" He wants to stop, but he can't, because it's his job as Tadashi's little brother (even though Tadashi doesn't even recognize him anymore) to tell him how he supposedly died. Inn a senseless sacrifice for someone who's been manipulating him all this while.
"After I was accepted by the university, we were supposed to go for a celebration. We stayed behind to– to talk," Hiro pauses as his throat starts to burn uncomfortably. The room is quiet, and the sounds of firetrucks and ambulances are fast fading. Hiro decides that he needs to stop thinking back to the past, and the hundred what-ifs lingering in the corners of his mind. What if they just stayed there and talked? What if they left for the celebration and never saw the fire?
What if… Tadashi Hamada never died on that day?
"Then we went back and found… the university in flames. You ran in, because you heard someone say that Professor Callaghan was in there, and you wanted… You wanted to save him." Tadashi's eyes flicker and he flinches at the name 'Callaghan'. His reaction makes Hiro's chest constrict more than he initially expects. "Then the building exploded and… we thought you died."
It's painfully quiet, and the silence is briefly punctuated by Tadashi's heavy, controlled breathing. His face is pale, and he looks frightened. It's the only time Hiro sees any shred of emotion that isn't anger or suspicion bubbling from his face. Tadashi stands suddenly, and the shrill scrape of the chair against the floor is enough to snap everyone out of their briefly unguarded states. Wasabi eases himself back and tightens his fists unconsciously. Honey Lemon grips her chemical bombs even tighter. They flinch again when Tadashi starts taking in large gasps of air and breaks into a shuddering cold sweat. His eyes are alight with horror. Fred looks uncertain and confused, as if wondering whether to comfort him, while GoGo can only stare at him hesitantly. On the other hand, Hiro doesn't dare to move. If he does, he thinks he'll run to his brother and give him a bear hug, and he doesn't think the current Tadashi will appreciate that.
"I–" Tadashi says, suddenly, in between shuddering breaths. "I remember a– a fire. I'm in the middle of it; I'm surrounded by flames. It hurts. Everything hurts. I can't– I couldn't breathe." His voice is shaking unnaturally much and Hiro finally realises that Tadashi is crumbling.
"I'm– I'm looking for someone. But the fire is so bright. I can't see a thing." His brows are furrowed and one of his hands subconsciously strays to the burn marks on his face. "Then I see someone – I can't remember who, and I'm running towards him, shouting his name, then there's a falling beam and–" Tadashi's expression clears, and he looks dazed. "And I… can't remember anything else."
Hiro doesn't point it out, but he thinks Tadashi wanted to say that he died in that fire. It's not that inaccurate anyway. Tadashi Hamada died in that fire. Tadashi survived. Subconsciously, Hiro starts approaching Tadashi. He looks completely and utterly lost, and in a flash of impulse, Hiro wraps his arms around his brother.
Tadashi's loud breathing stops abruptly, and his body stiffens under the hug. Yet, hesitantly, he places his arms over Hiro's shoulders slowly. Hiro tries not to cry because his brother is alive, alive after some horrible mess he was put through by Callaghan, alive even after he's lost his life, his identity, his memories…'
Then Tadashi pushes him away.
"How…" His breathing is falling back to its regulated, even pace now. "How did you know about the fire. How did… How did you know me before this?" His expression is guarded and his eyes are narrowed in suspicion. Hiro's starting to find it easier to ignore the jagged burn marks on his face.
"I'm Hiro Hamada," He takes a deep breath. "Your brother."
"Hiro?" It's GoGo that approaches him first.
"I'm fine," Hiro replies quietly before she has the chance to ask. He gives her a tired grin, because they both know that's not true.
"He's still asleep," GoGo reports, changing the subject quickly. Hiro resumes his gloomy expression. He recalls how, after his confession, Tadashi fell into a stony silence, staring at him, blank-eyed. The awkward and palpable silence only fell when Baymax piped up, urging him to sleep.
It's a little surprising, Hiro decides, but justified – given well, everything – that Tadashi has descended into slumber so swiftly. He still goes back to check on him every ten minutes, not really knowing what to think whenever he see his brother. Is he still Tadashi Hamada, the older brother that he's always loved and adored? Or is he a stranger now, with no memories of ever having a family, or younger brother? Will he ever regain his memories? Hiro hopes that it's a yes. Will he ever be the same again? Even if he regains his memories, Hiro doubts so.
"What are we going to do with him?" Hiro finally mumbles aloud to GoGo. He feels guilty for referring to Tadashi as 'him', and he knows he's making a fuss out of nothing. But every time he wants to call out Tadashi's name and tack it verbally to the term 'brother', he hesitates and it feels like his throat is closing up. He's being foolish and unnecessarily dramatic, but he doesn't think this mental block (or whatever that stupid symptom is) is going away any time soon.
"If we leave him here, it might be dangerous for Heathcliff," GoGo admits, popping a new stick of bubblegum in her mouth. She's doing it for often now, Hiro thinks. Chewing on gum, fidgeting, moving, stepping in. He wonders if all this is done to distract herself.
"And we can't exactly tie him up. He's not a threat. We just–" Hiro pauses.
"We just can't trust him." GoGo finishes the sentence for him. "We don't know him yet." They fall back into a depressing silence, and Hiro tries to get his mind to stay on course. He can think about tracking Callaghan later, and beating the pulp out of him because it's his fault that Hiro now has an amnesiac brother to worry about. First things first, he needs to decide where Tadashi is going to stay.
"Do you think you can try… bringing him home?" GoGo is hesitating even as she says this, because, despite Tadashi's injuries and amnesia, he is still potentially dangerous, still a possible threat. Still someone who has the ability to kill, if the training he revealed Callaghan has given him was anything to go by. They're treating their best friend as something akin to a fugitive and it stings.
"Home? Home home? Like Lucky Cat Cafe home?" It's a horrible idea. It's a dangerous idea. It's a bad idea and the only idea worse than that is Hiro's first armor for Baymax and assumption that he can hold his own against Yokai and his microbots–
Then he remembers that Yokai is, and was, Tadashi. And that realisation still hurts a little bit.
"Are you serious?" Hiro demands, shaking his head and plunging on without waiting for an answer. "No! What about Aunt Cass? It'll be dangerous– What will even tell her?" He rolls his eyes upwards and starts imitating the exchange. "Oh, hey, Aunt Cass. We have a guest for dinner tonight. He's actually your nephew, Tadashi, whom we all thought died in the fire that night. But rest assured, he's alive. He only lost all his memories, been groomed into a would-be assassin, burnt half of his face off and tried to kill his best friends and I. Twice." His voice has reached an unnaturally high pitch by now, the mocking jokes he made searing into his brain like a mark of insensitivity.
Thankfully, GoGo maintains her calm facade, which is lucky, because Hiro is already feeling bad for exploding at her like that now. "Hiro, I don't want to endanger Aunt Cass either. But bringing Tadashi back might make him remember something. After all he's been through, the least he deserves is to go home."
"But what about Aunt Cass?" Hiro falters. He wants to bring Tadashi home. He does. But how is he supposed to explain the situation to Aunt Cass, without letting slip that he's been sneaking out to find a murderer, nearly been killed by his own brother, twice, and is trying to locate a criminal in the midst of this chaos too?
GoGo looks back at him, saying nothing, and that's when Hiro knows.
"I'm not going to tell her, am I?"
"I don't have the right to tell you to do anything, Hiro," GoGo points out, and suddenly, she sounds so tired. It makes him feel a pang. GoGo's been one of his strongest pillars of support ever since he's decided to pursue this case, and she still is, even now. She's the one who trains til the latest and the one who rises the earliest; if she even goes to sleep at all. But even her infallible strength can't hold the suffocating weight of all her friends' lives forever.
"But this Tadashi isn't the Tadashi we know. He's lost his memories, and he may as well still be a target for Callaghan." GoGo bites down even harder on her bubblegum when she mentions the Professor's name. "I just think that the less Aunt Cass knows, the safer she'll be."
Hiro can see the logic in GoGo's words. Despite the faith he has in all his friends, he doesn't think it's a good idea to trust Tadashi with anyone but himself.
Yet even as he says this in his mind, he can still remember Aunt Cass after Tadashi's death – How she binge ate until she vomited on her favorite carpet once, and threw it away just so Hiro wouldn't suspect. How she stood at the empty doorway of their room when she thought Hiro was asleep, staring quietly at her late nephew's bed. How she cried into her pillow at night, a mixture of muffled screams and hot tears, not knowing that Hiro can hear everything because he's just outside her doorstep. How she's always extra chirpy after the nights she spent crying, so they can both pretend she doesn't have shadows under her red-rimmed eyes.
It's like hiding Baymax, Hiro thinks, only far, far worse.
When GoGo and Hiro return to the room, Hiro can tell that everyone has been pacing. There are three different footprint patterns on the velvet carpet. Fred, Honey Lemon and Wasabi glance at him anxiously as Tadashi starts blinking groggily, looking around to ascertain where he is.
"C'mon," Hiro takes a deep breath and shoots Tadashi a hesitant smile. "I'm bringing you home."
Extra notes:
GoGo's role as (to my interpretation) the group's second-in-command and Hiro's advisor (when she prevented him from killing Callaghan) has been expedited to before the reveal of Yokai's identity, and she receives a heavy chunk of characterisation in this chapter. I will do my best to step up my game for Honey Lemon, Wasabi, Fred, Baymax and even Tadashi as well, and hope that I have succeeded in exploiting the angst in this chapter's scenarios