Control Alt Delete (A BH6 crossover)

Chapter Nineteen: Open the door

(Note at the end)

Hiro sat on the edge of the bathtub and tried to control his roiling emotions. If only he'd listened to GoGo back at the hospital, before all of this craziness began, things would have gone much differently. Chances were good he would still be with them, instead of shot in the chest, dead, just like she'd warned him would happen.

If he were thinking logically, it would have made more sense to go with her plan. But he hadn't. He'd been so sure things would work out, that the man would just back down once he saw reason. Now he wasn't so sure. Maybe it would have been better to do as she'd suggested. Except he wouldn't have had the weird opportunity to change things and bring Tadashi back. But he couldn't cry about that. Crying would hurt. A lot. Because it wouldn't be just a few silent tears he'd shed, but great heaving sobs.

Instead, he squeezed his eyes shut, fists following the same example. If he had listened to GoGo, would he have the opportunity to save Tadashi? Probably not. It seemed worth it though. And he never thought he'd actually get his wish. That was a miracle in of itself. If it could be called a miracle. So far he'd done a bang up job of saving his older brother. Universe Two, Hamada zero.

He knew he was still forgetting something, though. Something important. What was it? Going from one chance to the next messed with his head. He couldn't see things clearly. And there were a few odd things he should think about, like Tadashi's behavior the night before.

Where had his brother gone after dropping him back off at the café? He'd said something about having other projects to work on, but Hiro couldn't remember any mention of such things from his previous time lines. So just what was Tadashi up to? Or had he been telling the truth and Hiro just hadn't paid attention the first time around? He wasn't sure. It was getting harder to think straight.

Aunt Cass knocked on the door. "Hiro? You okay in there? You've been in there for a while now."

Hiro closed his eyes, ignoring his aunt's inquiry. The painkiller was wearing off and he hurt, in more ways than one. And his skin itched. Not just where the bandages were either. He probably needed his dressings changed, the tape irritating the skin around it. But he wasn't ready to face anyone just yet. There was too much going on in his head. It reminded him of a fun house at a carnival, where all the shattered images are reflected back at the viewer over a hundred fold. He wasn't sure which images were real and which weren't.

Maybe trying to get into SFIT wasn't a good idea. But then what was? He kept going back and forth on it. Sure, he could put in a kill switch on the microbots. That would solve one problem. But Callaghan would still try to steal the them, setting a fire that Tadashi would likely try to go into to save people who didn't need saving. People trapped-

That's what he was forgetting. He'd almost forgotten the last time too. Callaghan's daughter. He grabbed onto the thought like a lifeline. She was trapped inside the portal. Maybe if he could convince the man that his daughter was alive, he'd stop trying to destroy other people's lives. But, then again, Hiro had seen the man's raw emotions on that matter. Chances were good he couldn't be reasoned with, in any time line. Which left him back at square one.

"Hiro? Open up!"

The knocking on the door was more pronounced this time as Tadashi joined the party. Just how long had he been sitting in there anyway? Hiro wasn't sure. He didn't have a watch on him and his aunt didn't keep a clock in the bathroom. That and his sense of time seemed to be malfunctioning. Had it been minutes? Hours? Days?

"Come on, Hiro. Open the door!"

Hiro rubbed at his forehead. All this thinking was giving him a headache. Why did figuring everything out have to be so hard? He was beginning to doubt his own ability to cope with everything. His throat felt thick, as if with tears, but when he tried to clear it, it felt raw. That was new. It had felt a bit gravely earlier, but this... this was painful, and thick. Why did it feel thick? Like his airways were trying to close off on him.