Good Morning

Twenty-ninth Morning

His lungs burn with every breath, like he can't get enough air no matter how hard he tries. Everything is fuzzy, and his whole body hurts. It isn't until he can hear his teammates shouting, and Nya's voice piercing through them all, that he vaguely remembers falling over the edge.

Something must have broke his fall, but not  enough to leave the wind knocked out of him and his leg screaming in pain. His body is shaking, and he can hear footsteps near him, but it isn't until he feels a warm, soft hand gently touch his cheek that he looks up.

It's Nya. She's alive, and safe, and she's here.
But she's pale, like she's just seen a ghost. Or watched him almost die.

Her hand slides from his face and gently grasps his own. "We're going to get you out of here, okay?" she whispers.

He can hear his teammates getting into position, and his heart sinks when he realizes what's going to happen.

"Nya," he croaks, but she cuts him off.

"Shh, I know. We'll make it quick, and we'll fix you up at the monastery. We'll keep you safe." She leans forward, her forehead resting against his own. "I'll keep you safe," she whispers, her lips just barely grazing his.

His heart jumps at her closeness, and her warmth. She's safe. He did his job, keeping her from getting hurt, even though he paid the price of getting knocked off the roof by the enemy. Totally worth it.

It's in that moment that he finally allows himself to blackout.

***

They both slept like the dead that night. And it made her feel a little better knowing she wasn't alone with all her demons in the night.

It didn't make much sense at the time, but then again, she never thought of much sense when it came to him.

The next day wasn't any easier either. She kept waiting for him to push her out of bed and call her out for stealing his blankets or for him to start singing obnoxiously to wake her up. It never came. He never said a word. He just let her do her thing and just looked like he really needed a shower, but that was the least of her problems.

The world still didn't make much sense. It just became a little more apparent the more she interacted with him. The way he could make a joke of anything was endlessly contagious, and she wasn't sure what to think about the fact that he could go from a cackle to a grimace without even noticing. It made her head hurt a little, and it made her think about how much of a careless idiot she could be. It wasn't a very pretty sight, and she wasn't exactly looking forward to it, but she wasn't too far off her game that day. She just wasn't sure whether it was the quiet, the stress or if he really did look fine.

But it didn't change much as she busied herself in the training room and made him practice all his forms for the umpteenth time since his fall. He was slow. She could see the exhaustion on his face, and he still somehow managed to make a joke of it, "You're not even trying to break me."

She rolled her eyes at that. "It's a nice change of pace," she bit back. She wasn't exactly sure why she did it. She just wanted him to be okay, and the best way of knowing that was making him get back into the swing of things and make him realize he wasn't really dead.

He threw her a crooked smile, "I'm honored, Nya."

And the only response that really made sense to her was to cut him off from whatever he was going to say next.

"Don't push it, hotshot."

He rolled his eyes. "Alright, alright," he sighed and just dropped it for now.