When Stars Collide, a BH6 x Dr Who crossover

Chapter Twenty Three: Memories

Krei was halfway down to the parking garage when he had second thoughts. It wouldn't do to just head over to the café, unannounced. At least that's where he assumed Hiro would be. The other likely places included at the Ito Ishioka Lab on SFIT campus, or at one of his friend's places. Any were possible. And if it were at the SFIT campus, he didn't know that he wanted to lave such sensitive documents lying around.

He checked his stride. An alternative solution was to have a messenger deliver the documents in a secured pouch. But, if he was going to do that, he should call ahead to make sure someone was there who could take them, someone who wouldn't question it too much. Definitely not Cass Hamada.

Deciding this would be a better course of action, partly because he still had a company to run, Krei headed back up to his office. He'd give each place a call first, starting with Hiro's cell phone. On second thought, maybe he'd just have Hiro's cell phone tracked. Those things weren't all that secure, after all. Anyone could be listening in.

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Tadashi Hamada had always been a fantastic older brother. Hiro just hadn't told him that before his time had come. He was sure his brother knew it, but he'd never actually said it, at least not in so many words. Now, floating in the ether, he remembered how awesome his brother was, feeling quite acutely just how unfair it was that he'd been taken from him.

When they were kids, back far enough that Hiro had a hard time really remembering, one memory stood out. He wasn't sure when it was, except that it was after their parents died, before they went to live with Aunt Cass.

At the age of three, it was kind of hard to understand why his parents weren't ever coming back. But Tadashi had always been there. One day, Hiro had somehow managed to scrape his knee doing some dumb trick. Tadashi had been there to wipe away his tears, clean up the blood, and comfort him until he felt secure again. Maybe that was partly why he not only saw Tadashi as an older brother, but as a mentor and surrogate dad.

He'd known Tadashi wasn't really like their dad. And when Aunt Cass came along, it was easier to let her take the lead, not that it had really changed things. They'd always been thick as thieves, even when Tadashi went to high school long before Hiro had shown an interest in it.

In his own right, Tadashi was a sort of genius, though he never flaunted it, only wanting to use his talents to help others. Hiro supposed he admired him for that, though he'd never really understood why until after he'd lost him.

Hiro sighed as he continued to float. It almost felt like he was standing in a giant sphere of snapshots from his life. If he focused on any particular one, he could remember the incident depicted. But if he didn't really look at it, all he got was a vague impression. And there were so many floating about. It was rather difficult to focus on any one.

Snatching one image from the air, he took a good long look. He smiled as he remembered the event, his high school graduation. Despite being the shortest, and youngest in his graduating class, his aunt and brother had cheered him on louder than any other parents had. His heart gave an almost painful squeeze as he thought about it, letting the image slip from his fingers.

So many memories. Most were good. Some were not so great, like when he'd gotten in trouble for trying to fix Aunt Cass's latte machine and ended up making it explode instead. He'd been five, or maybe six, at the time. Needless to say, though, after that, he didn't help out in the café.

And after his real genius kicked in, his aunt was more than willing to give him and Tadashi their space. Perhaps she had been a bit of a free spirit herself, doing things her own way. Hiro wondered if that was why she'd always been so tolerant of her nephews' odd ways.