[he listens, quietly, but something about the use of his full name gut-punches him. no one calls him that. it's so rare that it feels like yobisute, somehow, even though that's not at all the same thing and he knows it.]

['memories we shared'. 'we fought, we won, we sometimes lost'. 'I wanted to be beside you'. the words echo through his head.]

[he takes a moment to steady himself, but something catches in his throat, and when he speaks it's rough, like he's about to cry.]

Yeah. I guess that's true, isn't it? I am who I am because of you, even after all this time. And you're the same. And everything we fought for, it was always...

[he takes a deep breath, tries to hold it together and keep from breaking down entirely.]

I-- I've never told anyone this. But when you were-- after the crash, they kept putting me under. I fought it. Kept telling them not to-- you couldn't fight. I said... a lot of things, I think, morphine is a hell of a drug. But I tried, more than anything, to protect you. To fight for you when you couldn't do it yourself. It didn't work, Zero would have taken you no matter what, but I always thought... wondered if...

Shit. I don't know where I'm going with this, telling you how I did my best to run a small hospital out of seda-- morphene's not supposed to be used as a-- that's not the point.