(Alternative Ending)

Bip. Bip. Bip.

Akashi had fallen asleep to that sound and opened his eyes on it too. He didn't know if he felt more grateful for it to still be there or more devastated for its meaning.

He rapidly check on Ryouta, asleep sitting with his back against the mattress side, and Aomine sleeping on the chair at the other side of the bed with his arms crossed on his chest. Murasakibara was curled up on the little sofa against the wall before the little white bed and Midorima was nowhere to be seen, but his jacket was still with the others on an armrest of the couch so he had to be somewhere.

Seijuro sat straighter trying not to groan for the pain in his strained neck, then his eyes fell on the sheets and he forgot about himself again.

Tetsuya's eyes were closed and the oxygen mask was covering half his face. There was a bandage covering his whole head and Akashi knew there were almost no hair left under it. His arms, hosting far too many IVs, had bandages here and there, but luckily the heartbeat and breathing cadency were regular now.

The clock on the bedpost said it was six in the morning and Seijuro took a second to consider. Tetsuya had gotten out of the surgery room after the intervention to drain the pressure on his brain due to a skull fracture around midnight — and he had gotten in around five in the afternoon — but the anesthetics were bound to last some hours more. He had calculated Tetsuya should woke up around five, but the doctors said that it could have taken more for his friend's body to feet ready to start working again.

Akashi looked at him seeing nothing but the moment the car had hit him, the way his legs had bent, how he had crushed on the windshield, how he rolled over the top of the car and fell behind it.

There were just so many people crossing that street in that moment so why did it have to be Tetsuya?! There were thousands of people who deserved it, but not him. So why?!, what was the damned reason for that all to happen?!

Seijuro got up from his chair feeling his legs numb under him and somehow he managed to sit on the mattress beside his friend without awaking Kise. He laid an hand over his and slowly caressed it with his thumb.

"Give him back." he murmured, as if hushing a kid to sleep, fondly but firmly, "Everything that Ryouta said, I promise them too. We all do."

He spared a look to the other guys in the room and saw the door opening to let Midorima in with a tray filled with glasses of coffee from a vending machine. The two exchanged a tired look before the taller offered him one of the cups.

"Momoi will be here in a few minutes, nanodayo." he warned, "She said she couldn't sleep anyway and that if someone would think bad of her for spending all this time alone in a room filled with guys then so be it. She seemed pretty exhausted, nanodayo."

Akashi sighed but nodded. Somehow he had known since the very second Aomine managed to convince Momoi to go home, the previous night, that she wouldn't have waited long before coming back.

How to blame here? Kuroko's parents were oversea, they were there when the accident occurred, she had — or had had — a crush on him and they were really close… It was hard on them all, in the end.

"Akashicchi? Midorimacchi?"

Seijuro sipped slowly on the hot beverage as Kise brushed his eyes with his wrists and Shintarou passed him a cup trying not to look as the caring mother he partially was. The blond got up from the floor with some grunts that in the end awoke Aomine too. Finally, Murasakibara opened his eyes too and Mirodima could give out all of his coffees but one, that he left on the beside table.

The others stared at him.

"It's for Momoi, nanodayo!" the bespectacled guy justified himself, but they all knew it would have been cold by the time the girl would reach them.

"I see." Akashi humored him with a little strained smile.

They waited silently, Kise stealing Seijuro's chair and Midorima sitting beside Murasakibara. Momoi came in some minutes later, still dressed as the day before and with huge bags under her eyes.

She complained a bit, but in the end gave up and walked to Aomine who made her sit on his lap. She placed her head in the crook of his neck and he slowly caressed her spine in a reassuring way.

It would have been an extremely intimate and embarrassing position and gesture had the situation not put anybody on too much strain to care about convenience and etiquette.

"I want him back." Satsuki uttered after a second and those four words sent a shiver down everybody's spine.

"He'll come." Akashi said, firm, without turning toward her.

"Yeah, Tetsu's too much stubborn, Satsuki. You can't even consider him giving up."

"Kurokocchi's just resting for a while."

"He indeed has a very low stamina, so it's only natural for him to need a lot of time to recover, nanodayo."

"That was harsh, Mido-chin."

"…Tsun-dere…"

Akashi giggled a bit, before realizing whose voice was the last one and freezing. Slowly, as if scared of breaking a spell, he turned and his eyes met the blue sweeps of two twin skies under half-lifted eyelids.

"…Midor-ima…-kun…" Kuroko strived to finish his short sentence, but when he managed he opened up in a little smile.

One that last only a second before he grunted in pain, but that was enough.

Despite Akashi being the closest, Kise managed to be the first one to almost jump on him screaming "Kurokocchi". The others followed short after, each one with their own personal nickname for their friend.

The peaceful dream of a Ghost and Lady Death

It took Kuroko a while to be discharged and rehab was hard, but he had all the Miracles around, helping at their best, and when he finally stepped on the court again, against Aomine in some strange and distorted irony of fate, he was smiling proudly.

He was never told what the others wanted to talk to him about, never knew about their shared dream and how different the outcome might have been had they not chosen to meet for him.