When Cale woke up, he felt small hands tapping on his right hand. He blearily opened his eyes, noting that the room looked a lot darker now. The light tapping on his hand stopped, and he slowly turned his head towards the small figure.
On was staring at him intently. When he turned, she decided to hold his hand a little tighter to give some sort of comfort to her fath—guardian. Yep, definitely not father. Just guardian.
"Good evening, Cale nya," she said quietly.
"H-Hey On- nhhhgg..." Cale's throat clogged up again.
On, that smart girl, understood and helped him up to drink some water. When he was finished drinking, he asked her what she was doing.
"Mary-unnie taught me how to check someone's pulse." She paused before saying, "Yours is too fast, Cale nya."
"Really?" he asked, for her sake. Cale didn't feel like talking much; he'd much rather listen to On speak.
But On was the quiet type. He reminded Cale—no, Kim Rok Soo—of himself as a child. Way too mature for their young age. Way too quiet for a child who should show tantrums or cause a ruckus. She was even like the mature original Cale, who had kept a strong face after his mother's death when his own father was breaking apart.
Although the little cat girl is older now, Cale knew she never got a chance to be a bratty child like that, even when she was younger.
Even now, On realizes Cale's wishes and begins telling him about her day. That soon transferred to what Hong and Raon were doing, what new magic trick their noona Rosalyn showed them, how good lunch was, and how everyone wished Cale was there for every moment of all of that.
"It's times like this that I wish I had healing powers like Jack-nim so I could help you not be in pain anymore, Cale nya."
Cale frowned. "You shouldn't wish about things like that, On," he said firmly, patting her silver head. "I like your fog power very much. It's also way more useful in situations where we need to save people than it is now. I'm not even in any pain."
On looked at him with almost teary eyes, before saying, "I'm not just talking about this time, Cale."
Cale couldn't say anything about that. After all, it was his fault to let the young kids with a strong sense of justice see people suffering and not be able to do anything about it. Next time he was in pain, he decided, he's going to lock himself up in his room so that they don't have to witness any of it.
(What Cale didn't know was that his hurting had nothing to do with their 'sense of justice' as it had to do with their dear father's suffering. And he'll never get the chance to go through the pain alone, locked in his room, because no one will let him out of their sight.)
On decidedly left out the part about how everyone barely ate at lunch because they were all too busy discussing Cale's condition like it was a war council. The best healing potions and remedies were already being ordered by the crown. On herself had barred her teeth at someone in her cat form and thought that Cale's trust in her maturity was quite displaced.
But even if she wanted to tell her father that, everyone in the room had made a vow of death (Cage was there, of course, because everyone was suspicious about the GoD and had him interrogated. He hasn't disturbed Cage since), to not let anything that happened in the room reach Cale's observant ears. He didn't need the stress any more than they needed to be grounded.
(Not that Cale would ever ground such scary people without fearing for his life ((which they would never dare to hurt)), but just the thought of disappointing Cale was bad enough for them.)

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in sickness and in death (totcf)
Fanfiction"Are you satisfied?" "If you're really me, you should know that I don't want to die." Cale replied, raising his eyebrow at the robed man. Ghost Cale turned away from him and sat down by the hilltop's edge, hugging his knees. "Yes, we are 'dead' in a...