The steady beep of the heart monitor fills the silence. Rhythmic. Grounding. A reminder that you're still here.

Ochako hasn't moved from the chair beside your bed in hours.

Her hero costume is gone and replaced by a simple borrowed jacket over a hospital gown of her own. Bandages peek out from beneath the sleeves, wrapping around her torso where your strike had landed. The medical staff tried to convince her to stay in her own room, to rest, but she refused. Stubbornly. Tearfully.

She needed to be here when you woke up.

Her brown eyes are fixed on your face, tracing the rise and fall of your chest beneath the thin hospital blanket. IVs snake from your arm. Monitors track your vitals. The wound you'd obtained healing, but slowly.

She remembers everything.

The rage in your eyes. The way your hands shook as you raised that knife. The blood, so much blood. Hers. Yours. Mixed together on the battlefield.

But she also remembers the moment it changed.

The moment you stopped.

When her broken, desperate, sincere cried and yells finally reached you through all that anguish. When you looked at her not as an enemy, but as someone who understood. Someone who saw you.

And then you'd done something she still can't fully comprehend.

You'd given her your blood. A transfusion born of desperation and something deeper, trust, maybe. Connection.

It saved her life.

Now she sits here, one hand resting gently near yours on the bed, not quite touching, but close. Like she's afraid you'll disappear if she looks away.

"You're such an idiot," she whispers, voice hoarse. Her eyes are glassy. "Giving up your blood like that when you were already hurt..."

But there's no anger in it. Just exhaustion. Relief. Something that feels dangerously close to devotion.

A tear slips down her cheek.

"Please wake up," she breathes. "Please. I need to tell you—"

She swallows hard, the words catching in her throat.

"I need to tell you that you were right. About everything. About how much pain you were carrying. About how no one saw it." Her fingers curl slightly against the sheets. "But I see it now. And I'm not going anywhere. Not until you're okay. Not until you know you don't have to carry it alone anymore."

The monitors beep steadily. Your chest rises. Falls.

Ochako wipes her eyes with the back of her hand and settles back into the chair, never taking her gaze off you.

Waiting.

Watching.

Refusing to leave your side.