Chapter 21 (Karmi's POV)

The silence seemed to go on forever. There was nothing to break it save for an occasion beep or click imitating from the hospital's monitoring equipment. For a while, I just stared at his heartbeat reflected on the monitor. I watched it rise and fall in a steady rhythm.

He was going to be okay.

I knew that, but it didn't change the feeling of panic still trapped somewhere deep inside me. Because all my brave talk about not being afraid of loss, of living for the moment, it came crumbling down when I saw him lying there, looking half dead. The weight of everything we had to lose felt unbearable. But I wouldn't show that, no not even a hint. So I just sat there, my expression set in steel. Below the anger was grief, I knew all too well. In the hallway, I knew Aunt Cass and everyone else was spinning in their own anxious orbits. We were all waiting impatiently, but for what?

The doctors had already said he'd be alright, but maybe that felt hard to believe. Maybe we each needed to see that for ourselves.

So we waited.

I waited.

Sunlight was starting to spill through the cracks in the blind when he finally began to stir. It wasn't more than a twitch at first, then, at last, his brown eyes flitted open. He stared up at the ceiling in confusion, before he tilted his head to look at me. When our eyes met a smile slowly curved to his face, but I couldn't return it. Instead, the frown on my face only cut deeper. It was my last attempt to stop myself from crying, and I hated crying.

"H-Hiya Karm…" was all he whispered.

"H-Hello, you idiot," I shot back even as the words cut at my throat.

The smile slowly faded from his lips. "I-I'm sorry…" he whispered, even though they were the words I most wanted to say.

I reached to squeeze his hand as I lost the fight to hold back the tears. Instead, they rolled down my face intermingled with my scowl.

I knew I shouldn't blame him. He was only doing his duty. He was the hero. But I…

He pulled himself upright slowly. "Karmi…I'm okay, and I promise…I'm not going anywhere."

"Y-You can't make that promise… No one can!"

We both knew I was right. He knew better than anyone. And for a few silent moments, we just let that fact linger in the air between us. Let it seep into every crack of our reality. Only then could I let my defensive walls crumble, because I couldn't lie to either of us.

We had to accept the truth of every risk.

It was that realization that seemed to hurt the most.

And yet…some small part of me, just wanted to be happy, now, in this moment, that he was alive. That part grew until it overtook everything else.

"Please don't hate me," he whispered again, some hint of playfulness in his voice.

I held his hand tighter. "I don't hate you, Hiro," I replied honestly. "That's the problem."

Relief washed over him, and he reached to pull me into a hug. "I can deal with that problem…"

We stayed that way for a long time. When I finally pulled away my anger had mostly melted into weariness. I was exhausted, and he could see it plainly.

"You're really tired, you need to go home and rest, I'm fine. The baby is a lot more important than me."

I let go of a sigh. "We're fine, Hiro, really. We'll all go home soon. The doctor said you can probably leave today. You've been beaten like a pinata, but you should be fine."

He rubbed at his bruised forehead. "What on earth did you tell the doctor caused this…?"

I finally managed to smirk. "I told him I beat you up good, and that you deserved it."

He rolled his eyes. "Never mind, sorry I asked."

I walked over to the door and placed my hand on the knob. "Anyway, everyone else is outside and waiting to see you."

He nodded. "Sure, send them in."

But before I could open the door he stopped me. "Karmi…"

I glanced back at him. "Yeah?"

He hesitated before a sober look came over him. "How's Callaghan…?"

I heaved another sigh before answering. "Worse off than you, honestly… But he should pull through."

The added reassurance at the end didn't seem to do much to put Hiro at ease. It wasn't his fault, but I knew he must have felt responsible all the same…

By about noon we were all finally allowed to leave. Hiro looked like a hit-and-run victim, with his forehead wrapped and his face accented with a purple splotch or two. Not to mention the fractured ribs underneath it all. But all in all, he had made out better than Callaghan. Hiro had explained most of what had happened, but my brain wasn't ready to process any of it.

Aken was in prison, but I supposed it was still possible Enkei was working for him on the outside. And the neural chips, was this what they all were capable of? We had so much to process, but the larger questions would have to wait. Dealing with the emotional ramifications came first.

Before we left the hospital Hiro wanted to check on Callaghan's condition. He was being kept in a private ward with more than a dozen armed guards blocking all exits. But I thought it was sad… If what Hiro said was true, then he'd been a victim in all of this. Still, the crimes of his past would haunt him for the rest of his life…

At Chief Cruz's orders, they let us into the ward close enough to look in through the observation window of his room. He was still unconscious, and his vitals were weak. I wished I could take all the pain and guilt Hiro was feeling away. Wished I could somehow feel it for him, but all I could do was stand there beside him…

Beside him through it all.

Finally, after a while, he broke the tense silence. "Let's go…" he whispered. "You're tired, we need to go home."

I couldn't argue that I was exhausted, but I thought Hiro needed the time most of all.

When the next morning came, Hiro looked a little better, but that wasn't saying much, honestly.

"Tell me the truth, I look awful, don't I?" he asked, from over the rim of his coffee mug.

I squirmed in my chair a little, feeling like he could read my mind. "Well…"

He sighed. "Great, I knew I was just a few punches away from being ugly…"

"You're not ugly," I shot back firmly. "You just look like someone handsome who's been hit by a truck."

He squinted at me. "Is that better?"

I grinned a little at him. "Yes, it's a lot better. A black eye and a bruise or two can heal. It's only temporary. I'm just worried about how you feel."

"Like I've been hit by a truck. I thought you already mentioned that?"

I leaned into my hand, a little frustrated with him, but too happy he was alive to even be angry. "I don't just mean physically, I mean how do you feel, feel."

He paused thoughtfully. "Like…I've been hit by a truck metaphorically?"

He was trying to be funny, but I knew it wasn't too far from the truth. There were still times when he tried to keep his feelings hidden from me. Now I had the feeling he didn't want to burden me, given the baby.

"It has a been a lot to take in lately…" I whispered a little more seriously.

"And I'm sorry you've been mixed up in it…" he countered sincerely.

"Are you still trying to play that 'stoic superheroes should suffer alone' thing again?"

"Wow, I didn't realize you'd given it a name…"

I smiled a little. "Yeah, I have, because you keep bringing it up so often."

He couldn't argue with that, instead, he just got a little quiet. Poking at the bagel crumbs on his plate he seemed hesitant to say what he was really thinking. "I uh…just don't want to put you through all this Karm…"

And there it was again.

I leaned back in my chair, crossing my arms. "Yeah, it is a lot, isn't it?"

He glanced up at me, the frown on his face telling me he hadn't been expecting me to agree.

"Being married to my best friend, being happy, I don't know how I cope most of the time…"

"Very funny…" he mumbled, before smirking at me. "But you know what I mean."

"And," I added defiantly. "You know what I mean."

He sighed again before glancing back up at me. "You're really great, you know that, right?"

I smiled wider. "Yes, I absolutely do."

Seeming to put the discussion to rest he pulled out his phone and glanced over his messages. I knew he was waiting to hear news about Callaghan, but thus far he was still unconscious.

"Alright, I need to call a meeting at HQ, we've got a lot to go over."

"You can conduct your secret meeting just as easily from the couch, Captain."

"Seriously, just 'Captain' I must be mangled up…"

I chuckled before doubling down on my point. "You have at least two fractured ribs, you don't need to move around any more than you have to, at least for a while. You can call everyone over here to talk."

"Fine, but I don't want you waiting on me, you shouldn't move around a lot either."

"I'm not doing gymnastics, Hiro, but no one said I couldn't move for nine months."

He frowned playfully. "I know, but it makes me nervous. If I had my way I'd put you in Fred's sealed comic book vault."

I grinned. "Well, it does have great temperature control. But no, not gonna happen, I'd be insane sitting around doing nothing for months."

He slowly made his way to the sofa where I made him prop his feet up. "Yeah, I get that, but you rode on Baymax over stormy waters to an island you knew was an active combat zone. How is that okay?"

"And you went alone on what could have been a suicide mission. How is that okay? Did you really want me to have to tell our kid they were grown in a lab, just to avoid having to mention the sad truth of their late father's demise?"

He blinked at me. "You'd really tell them they were grown in a lab?"

I paused in a playful threat. "Maybe."

He rolled his eyes as he tapped out the text to everyone.

Within the hour everyone was there and it was time to try and sort out this mess. Fred, of course, had his own thoughts on the recent developments…

"This is a classic ploy. You redirect attention from the true villain with a clever distraction!"

"So…" Gogo mumbled. "Callaghan was just a red herring?"

"Yep, and double yep!"

"That's fine," Wasabi thought out loud. "But who's Enkei? How does she know Obake?"

"Evil twin!" Fred gasped. "Or old girlfriend or…or robotic evil twin!"

"P-Possibly…" Honey Lemon said placating his enthusiasm. "But how are they in communication when Obake is still in prison? And how did they get to Callaghan to implant the neural chip in the first place? We have so many unanswered questions."

"One thing's for sure, we know he has a chip. The doctors have already removed it." Gogo confirmed. "The best guess we have on how they implanted it is through an injection. According to Watashi's work, she hoped to perfect the technology to the point where invasive implantation wasn't needed. Something about making it pass from the bloodstream directly through the blood-brain barrier. At this point, I think it's safe to assume she's secretly already reached that goal."

"So…" Wasabi went on. "That survivance footage we saw that showed Callaghan walking out on his own, that was likely after he was already under their control, right?"

Honey Lemon nodded. "Enkei likely broke into the prison and forcibly gave him the injection. Afterward, once under their control, he could simply walk out with Enkei as if he really wanted to join her. It seems safe to assume that Enkei tampered with the footage to remove any evidence of injecting Callaghan. If the red herring was going to work we couldn't suspect that someone was using Callaghan against his will."

Hiro had been mostly silent, but he finally spoke up. "I'm not sure it's just a red herring…"

"What do you mean, Hiro?" Honey Lemon asked.

He frowned somberly. "I suspected Obake from the start, I even told him as much. It's true Callaghan distracted me for a while. But just a simple distraction doesn't seem like the real purpose. It felt a lot more personal than that… I'm thinking about something Obake told me that day I saw him in prison… He said that blaming him would be easier than facing my demons. He went on about wanting me to reach my so-called potential. I think…"

He swallowed sharply, the emotion still raw in his voice. "When I think about what Enkei said on Akuma Island, I think they wanted to torment me to the point that I lost it and killed Callaghan when I had the chance. I guess they thought that would change me enough to join Obake finally."

He frowned deeper. "Maybe he's still hoping that. Enkei warned me that if Callaghan died from our fight it would be my fault."

I reached to take his hand. "You know that isn't true, Hiro! You were only defending yourself to save Aunt Cass."

He nodded hesitantly. "I know, but Obake is playing a mind game with me like always. It's almost impossible, but we have to outthink him somehow."

Outthinking Bob Aken was no small task, but we'd done it before. I wanted to open my mouth to reassure him of that, but the sound of his phone ringing stole our attention.

"It's Chief Curz…" Hiro breathed nervously before answering.

I knew he was desperate to hear any news about Callaghan's condition. I held my breath, some feeling in the pit of my stomach telling me it wasn't going to be good news. We all watched helplessly as Hiro's face paled; his eyes dilating in shock. He nodded along to whatever he was hearing, mumbling out weak whispers of acknowledgment before he lowered the phone from his ear.

For a few long seconds, he just sat there in tense silence. None of us dared to ask what had happened. But finally, I gathered my courage and looked at him directly.

"Hiro…is Callaghan…?"

"He's awake…but his vitals aren't strong."

Our eyes met, and for one brief moment, I thought I saw the full weight of his fear.

"W-We might lose him…"