five times she falls

5.

5.

GoGo's fifth fall occurs swiftly afterwards. It's one week after Tadashi's death, and she can no longer bear the suffocating sadness that permeates her surroundings. Honey Lemon has been crying her days through, Fred just hangs his head and doodles the name 'Tadashi' on the piece of paper before him, and Wasabi goes to cleaning up obsessively, as if, done enough, it could bring Tadashi back.

But nothing could. Nothing will. Nothing would bring Tadashi back again, and when she thinks about it, GoGo wants to break down and just cry too.

She refuses to.

GoGo tells herself she has to remain strong. Her friends were all crumbling, breaking, and she has to remain strong for all of them. So she berates them sharply and states that Tadashi would have wanted them to be happy. Her words sound confident and full of conviction, but when all she gets is sad eyes in response, GoGo realises she doesn't know who she's trying to convince. Her friends, or herself.

She goes out for a ride instead. It's reckless, but GoGo hopes the speed can clear her mind. Can lighten the smothering depression hanging over her head, as well as the throbbing pain in her heart. But when no sense of peace arrives, GoGo urges her bike to go faster, faster and faster...

Until she hits a crack in the road and she's sent tumbling onto the hard ground.

That's when she breaks. Not from the physical pain of the dark bruises on her arms and legs, but from the emotional one, manifesting in the form of her broken heart. Because no matter what, no matter how many times she falls from now, Tadashi's not going to be there to help her up anymore, to tease her, to urge her to get up, to push her forward.

Because he's gone.

He's not going to be there in their new makeshift lab, GoGo tells herself. He's not going to greet her good morning with a peck to her cheek, not going to be tinkering with Baymax's parts in his free time, not going to be by her side, not going to give her rides on his moped or rant about his little brother, not going to-

He's not going to be there for her anymore.

"I'll always be there for you."

And god, it hurts.

GoGo's twenty years old when she had her fifth fall. She's twenty when her life feels like its falling apart, and she's starting to lose everything she's ever held dear to herself.

She cries for the first time, because Tadashi Hamada is gone from her life, and she's never ever going to see him again.