Hot For Sensei

Chapter Forty-One

PART THREE/SEASON THREE

"-but it's been no bed of roses. No pleasure cruise. I consider it a challenge before the human race, and I ain't gonna lose...we are the champions, my friends. And we'll keep on fighting till the end. We are the champions, we are the champions. No time for losers, cause we are the champions...of the world...."

Ivy clutched Miguel's hand between hers, her head resting on his leg as she sang through quiet tears. She had seen the entirety of his injuries the first time she had come to visit, but she couldn't bare to look at him now. All the braces and tubes and machines, it was scary. And although the reality was that he was in a coma, she preferred to think of him as sleeping. After the school fight, he deserved some rest, and he was taking his time. Her thumb brushed over his as memories of that day flooded her mind.

After the frantic phone call, her grandparents had rushed over to aid her, and they had a hell of a time doing it. She was an absolute mess, but eventually they were able to calm her down. That's when she told them everything, about Tory and the school fight, about Eli, about Kreese and Johnny, and finally about Miguel. Everything spilled from her lips unfiltered, leaving her grandparents shocked, angry and sad. The minute her mouth shut, they forbid her from ever returning to Cobra Kai, and she agreed without question. Johnny's Cobra Kai had died, and she had no interest in joining Kreese in fighting the war inside his head. They also tried to reason with her to get her to come and live with them, but to that she refused. Not because she valued the freedom or privacy that she had, but because when everything finally settled down, she knew that Johnny and Miguel would need her. After Eli left, they were all she had, and she wasn't going to abandon them. She also had a plan brewing that she couldn't have her grandparents around for, and she didn't want their restraints when it was time to strike. Her grandparents eventually relented with that idea, on the condition that she call them at least once a day.

That had been nearly two weeks ago, and things had fallen into a stale rhythm since then. Everyone involved in the fight had gotten suspended for two weeks, with the exception of Robby and Tory, who were expelled. Tory was put on probation because she was her mother's primary care giver, but Robby was on the run, facing full jail time. Ivy had tried to contact him just once to make sure he was okay, but she never got an answer. Robby was fully committed to hiding, and he was good at it. Johnny rarely, if ever, came home. And when he did, he was wasted beyond belief. Ivy hadn't talked to him since the fight. She was too afraid to, and it's not like he would be able to understand her anyway. A part of him had died that day, and she knew the pain all too well. No amount of chocolate or talking would fill that hole.

Although Eli had contacted her several times over the course of the suspension, she had refused to answer him. She knew it wasn't really Eli on the other end, Hawk had taken a nearly permanent residence in his mind, and Ivy was not interested in him. She would not go back to Hawk, he was not who she had fallen in love with. He was nothing more than a vessel for Kreese's delusional hatred now, and although it sickened her, she was at a loss with how to stop it.

"Miguel..." she rasped out without looking at him, the steady beating of the heart rate monitor filling the room, "Miguel, it's time to wake up now..."

But he didn't answer, nor did he even flinch in acknowledgement, but she was eerily used to this. She had visited him many times since the fight, as Mrs. Diaz had made a special request to have her listed as family on the visitation papers, and not once had he ever answered her. The nurses had said that he could hear them, and that talking about happy things might help bring him out of the coma, but Ivy was desperate this time, as she was hours away from getting thrown back to the lions.