Work Text:
“Tell me again what happened?”
“I… hit my head. On a tree.”
“How?”
Lillian sighed and grinned sheepishly. “Does it make a difference to you, Dr Ayame?”
Dr. Ayame, for her part, gave Lillian a scrutinizing look for all of five seconds before dropping it and shrugging. “No, I suppose not. I take it you’d like Hiro’s assistance on this one? I’ve got other patients to tend to anyway.”
Lillian blushed, looking like she’d been caught. “Yes, please,” she replied curtly. Dr. Ayame smirked just slightly, then gestured with her clipboard to the patient bed in the back left corner.
“You know where to find him,” Dr. Ayame said.
Lillian nodded her thanks, then turned to the patient bed- and the doctor’s assistant- in question. “Hiro!”
The young physician whipped around, startled. As soon as he caught sight of Lillian, however, a warm smile lit up his face, painting his cheeks a faint, rosy, red-pink colour. “Hello, Lillian. What brings you- Oh, my goodness! What happened?” Hiro rushed up to Lillian, already fussing over the bloodied and dirty scrape on her forehead. Lillian flushed a little as he put one hand on her cheek and the other gently beside the small wound, though Hiro seemed oblivious to it. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine, Hiro, don’t worry,” she responded, giving him a meek smile.
Hiro grabbed Lillian’s hand and wordlessly led her to the empty patient bed. “Sit down. Please,” he instructed, immediately turning to the little bedside table and pulling open its topmost drawer.
Lillian, sitting on the bed as told, watched with an amused smile as Hiro rifled through the contents of the drawer. He eventually came up with some gauze pads, medical tape, cotton swabs, and disinfectant.
“What happened to you?” Hiro asked, attempting to sound soft but not quite masking his worry.
“I hit my head,” Lillian answered with a one-shouldered shrug.
Hiro could almost have laughed. “Well, that much is clear. What on?”
“...a tree,” she answered quietly, biting the inside of her lip and leaning away from him as he set his things down beside her.
“A tree,” he echoed in deadpan. “Can you elaborate? Tell me the whole story?” Lillian sighed, hanging her head momentarily before sitting up and adjusting herself.
“Yeah, I can do that,” she conceded. Using her hands to illustrate, she said, “I kind of… Well… You know those, um- those old zip-lines, on the mountain?”
“You ride those things?! ” Hiro exclaimed immediately, almost sounding angry. “Lillian, those things are almost as old as I am!”
“Exactly!” she countered enthusiastically. “That’s not really that old considering how well built they are. And sometimes when I’ve finished farming for the day and running my errands and talking to everyone and all that… I make up some extra pay with foraging, which you know. And it’s helpful, really! The ziplines get me around quickly, and I couldn’t reach some areas if it weren’t for them!”
Hiro sighed, shaking his head. “I don’t entirely agree with the risk, but… Alright. I suppose I can understand.”
A moment passed in silence.
“Wait!” Hiro said, shaking his head again, this time looking incredulous. “You mean to tell me you crashed into a tree using a zip-line?”
“Yes?” Lillian said, shrinking in on herself and hunching her shoulders. She smiled sheepishly.
Hiro looked dumbfounded. All at once he seemed to register her words and bursted out, “You crashed into a tree?! ” He leaned into her space and put his hands on her shoulders. He looked like he would have shaken her for the absurdity of it all, but as an up and coming doctor, he knew better. Instead, he gave her an almost unreadable, highly concerned look that worried Lillian a little.
“Yes? I just said that,” she responded, creasing her brow in mild confusion. “Look, it wasn’t that bad. It happens all the time, I’m used to it!” Hiro looked even more worried at this.
Lillian scrambled to reassure him as she continued awkwardly explaining, “I only blacked out for a minute or two; three minutes, tops! Then I got right back up, see? I’m fine!”
This was, evidently, the wrong thing to say. Hiro’s jaw dropped and a look of deep upset overtook his features. “ Lilian! ” he exclaimed, “That’s not a good thing!”
Lillian looked abashed, her posture dropping a little and her face falling. “I’m sorry.”
“No! No, no, no, it’s okay,” Hiro was quick to assure her. “It’s- I’m just- I’m just really worried about you, is all,” he admitted.
“Smacking into trees and passing out on a regular basis is not a normal thing for most people, and it shouldn’t be for anyone,” he explained gently. Still looking worried, he grabbed some gauze, soaking it with disinfectant, and moved to pat at her forehead.
“Oh,” Lillian said simply, quietly. She nodded as Hiro paused a few inches from her face, well used to their little practiced routine of silently asking for and granting permission just before the sting of washing up a wound.
The word hung in the air as Hiro cleaned her wound with utmost care. He winced in tandem with Lillian each time he hit a tender spot, and Lillian found it strangely endearing.
“There,” Hiro said after a minute had passed. “All cleaned up and disinfected. It should be nice and easy to bandage up, as well, but you must change the bandage out either tonight or come the morning; whenever you next have enough time to clean it up.”
“Thanks, Hiro,” Lillian said softly, smiling at him as he applied a large gauze pad to the area. He swept some of her hair out of the way as he did so, and she flushed.
This time Hiro did notice the colour on her cheeks, and his lit up to mirror it. “Of course,” he replied fondly, with the same softness.
“B-but you have to promise me something,” he added abruptly. Lillian turned her head at him curiously, waiting for him to continue.
“Be careful,” he said after a moment. He looked up at her and almost startled at how attentively she gazed at him, finding himself distracted by her eyes. “Be more careful, I should say. I-I know you’re careful. But… be a little extra attentive on those scary, old ziplines. Please .”
Lillian giggled at that, hunching over as she trembled slightly from her own amusement. “You think they’re scary, huh?” she teased.
Immediately Hiro bristled in defense, giving her a semi-serious pout, which proved only to make Lillian laugh harder. “Hey! Those things move fast, and they creak just when you get near! I don’t understand how you do it, they terrify me. Especially the one right above the waterfall. What if you lost your grip?”
“You go for a swim?” Lillian suggested jokingly, putting her hands up in an exaggerated shrug. Hiro looked aghast at the very idea, gaping at her (ironically) like a fish.
“Go for a swim?” he echoed incredulously. “In the rushing, cold waters of a waterfall whose bed is both rocky and dangerous? You’ve shown me bottles and boots and old toys and fish skeletons you found in that area, there’s absolutely no way it could be safe to swim there! Just hitting the water from such a height would hurt!”
Lillian burst into full-on belly laughs- loud and joyful. “I’m joking, Hiro! I would never do such a thing, I promise! Breathe, ” she said, reaching out to pat him on the back.
Hiro blinked owlishly at her, taking a moment to catch up. At that point, he did breathe, letting out a deep, held breath. “Good,” he said, nodding once. “It’s bad enough you crash into trees.”
“Yeah, I know,” Lillian said, letting out a breath of her own. Allowing the air to settle, she eventually annexed, “Sorry about that. But… I promise. I’ll try to be a little more careful.”
Hiro smiled at her, and Lillian returned the action warmly. “I’m glad to hear it,” he said with a small hum.
A moment passed, each of them digesting the conversation thoughtfully. Before either could come up with something more to say, Dr. Ayame’s voice cut in.
“Hiro! Sorry to interrupt your impromptu date, but I could use a hand here. We’ve got another two patients after yesterday’s storm who’ve come in to the clinic,” she said, poking out from around the corner of the front of the building.
Hiro’s face all but exploded with colour and he jolted. "Ayame!” he exclaimed shrilly, turning to her with all the indignance of a ridiculed child. Dr. Ayame just laughed, as did Lillian, who thought the action adorable.
“I’m just telling you how it is. Now come on. Unless Lillian’s got some more boo-boos she needs kissed better, I’m afraid you’re out of leisure time.”
Hiro huffed, embarrassed. “I understand,” he said. Resigning himself to the next part of his work day, he turned back to Lillian and said, “Apologies for Dr. Ayame’s inference. She likes to tease.”
Lillian giggled. “I don’t mind. Really.”
“Oh,” Hiro said, kind of dumbly. Lillian grinned at him, and he offered a bashful grin in turn before saying, “W-well, I suppose I can let it be, in that case.”
“Okay,” Lillian responded cooly, grinning harder at Hiro’s increasing blush.
Another moment passed in silence. Eventually, Hiro had to awkwardly end it by saying, “I should probably go. But it was nice to see you again, Lillian. I always look forward to your visits. Although… preferably without injury, in future cases.”
“Hah, yeah. Agreed. And, you know… I’m always happy to see you, too,” she said. She slid off the bed, turning briefly to pat smooth the wrinkles she’d left behind. Hiro belatedly moved to put the medical supplies back in the drawer, chewing on her words, and as the two of them finished their respective tasks in silence, Hiro found himself glancing over his shoulder at Lillian.
“I can… walk you to the door?” he offered, holding out a hand for her.
Lillian hummed. Then, instead of taking his hand, she surged forward and linked her arm with his, which he jolted at in surprise. “I’d like that,” she said, not leaving much room for him to change his mind.
Together they walked back to the front of the clinic, grinning and blushing like love-struck idiots. Dr. Ayame, though she had busied herself with checking in one of the aforementioned new patients, smirked to herself as she watched them in her peripheral. Hiro studiously ignored her.
“Well… Here we are,” he said, pausing just a few feet from the doors to the clinic. “Good luck with your work, Lillian.”
“Thanks. You too,” Lillian replied, regarding him fondly. She took a breath in, reveling in the sterile but comfortably familiar scent of the clinic right where it met the stairs up to Hiro’s and Ayame’s living space.
Reluctantly, the two unlinked their arms, and Lillian turned to face him, just in front of the door. “I’ll… see you again tomorrow?” she said hopefully. The question was a little silly; she stopped by every day, whether Hiro was there or not, whether she needed something or not. She seemed to do that with everyone, but rumour was she spent longer and longer at the clinic- certainly more so than anywhere else.
“It’d be my pleasure,” Hiro said, half bowing.
With that, and a little giggle on Lillian’s part, they bid their farewells, waving at each other as the girl gently pushed the door open. She gave one last glance over her shoulder, already categorizing the rest of her day’s tasks in her mind as the warm, flower-scented air of late spring rushed to greet her.
Then, the door closed, and she was off.