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"Autumn and Spring"
by Angus MacSpon

Based on "Ranma 1/2" created by Rumiko Takahashi.

C&C Welcome!

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- 4 -

Time passed.  [Just for a night or two,] Ukyou had said; but those
nights became a week, then two, and then more.  By the beginning of the
third month, Ranma found he had grown quite accustomed to life in
Ukyou's home.

It was easy to do.  The house itself was large and comfortable; he had
all the space he could want.  And the scenery outside it was wonderful.
The mountains were steep and rugged, spectacularly beautiful, filling
the horizon in most directions.  But the valley where the house lay was
broad and deep; the grounds covered hundreds of hectares, all carefully
tended by the unobtrusive, omnipresent mechs.  He spent days wandering
through the gardens, relaxing and admiring the elegant landscaping.
Before long, though, it palled on him, and he had Ukyou enter him into
the border security system so that he could venture outside the fence,
into the mountains and the rough countryside that surrounded the estate.
It was as wild as he had expected out there, with a beauty all its own;
but when he returned once more, he found himself appreciating the
serenity and artistry of the gardens within, as if seeing it for the
first time.  Which, he realised, was probably the intention.

The time outside the fence, hiking up mountain trails, rock-climbing, or
simply tramping through the hills in peaceful solitude, gave him
much-needed time to come to grips with the loss of Akane.  Time to
reflect back on sixty-six years of married life.  He still missed her
more than he could say; but gradually he was coming to see that he could
make a new life now that she was gone; that her loss did not mean the
end of everything.

It was a time of purging; a time of laying her memory to rest.  He spoke
to her as he walked, telling her what he saw, what he was doing, where
he was going.  He poured out his soul to his wife, there in the empty
hill.  And if, sometimes, he wept, there was nobody to see.

At the same time as he was beginning to come to terms with his loss, he
began to notice how oddly Ukyou was behaving.

She seldom accompanied him outside the house.  At first he thought
nothing of it.  But when she made excuses, again and again -- and when
the excuses grew thinner and thinner -- he began to get suspicious.
There was something she was still hiding, and this was somehow
connected.

The more he thought about it, the more puzzled he became.  Ukyou seemed
to be a bundle of mysteries.  There was her reluctance to step outside.
Her clothing was strange, too; she insisted on wearing elbow-length
gloves at all times, even on the hottest days.  And, he noticed when he
entered the laundry one day, the rest of her clothing was also peculiar:
it had a strange, almost slick texture, though it looked normal enough.

Then there was her cooking.  The Ukyou he had known in his youth had
been a fine cook.  Her okonomiyaki had been second to none, of course;
but she had been more than competent with other dishes, too.  Now,
though, she seemed tense, almost nervous, whenever she was in the
kitchen.  She took the most exaggerated care in preparing the simplest
food.  And when he offered to cook a meal for her one day -- he had, in
self-defence, been the main cook in his family -- she seemed absurdly
relieved.

Finally, there was her curse.  He could not blame her for wanting to
stay in her youthful form.  But she seemed to take it to extremes.  He
realised one day that he had never seen her in her older form at all.
Even after bathing, she emerged from the bathroom as a teenager.  Was
she finishing up with a bucket of cold water, every time?  But why?

Put them all together, and ... what?  Nothing seemed to fit.  He
discarded theory after theory; he could find none that explained it all.

In the end, typically, he solved the mystery completely by accident.

                **********

Several days later, Ranma was doing the dishes after lunch, and
reflecting on the strangeness of his situation.  [Here I am, living in a
cook's home ... and I'm doing most of the cooking!]  Admittedly, Ukyou
wasn't a cook any more.  But she still did it better than he ever would.

A week before, seeing Ukyou busy at work on her computer terminal, he
had offered to cook lunch for her.  She'd been surprised to learn that
he _could_ cook.  (But of course, he'd had to learn, though it had taken
Akane a long time to forgive him; and Nodoka had been a good teacher.)
And once that she knew he could do it, she started to ask him to do it
more and more often.

It was funny, in a way.  In his eighties, he seemed to be turning into a
house-husband for a girl in her teens.  But then, most of his life had
been pretty eccentric.  Why should he expect things to change now?

As he scrubbed away at a patch of congealed sauce, Ukyou came in.  She
seemed surprised.  "Ran-chan ... what in the world are you doing?"

He held up the plate he was washing.  "The dishes."

"But why are you doing them like _that_?  What's wrong with the
dishwasher?"

He laughed.  "Nothing.  I use it most of the time.  But ... sometimes,
it's nice to do it the old way.  It gives me time to think."

Ukyou shot him a look that suggested he was seriously insane.  But she
was interested in spite of herself.  "About what?"

"Oh ... anything.  It's easy to get philosophical over a sinkful of
dirty dishes.  You must remember that, back when you ran the
restaurant."

"Mostly I remember wishing I had a dishwasher so I'd never have to stand
over a sinkful of dirty dishes again."

"Well, there is that," he admitted wryly.  "But simple, manual tasks do
have their merits.  Spiritual benefits, if you like.  That's why we
always clean the dojo by hand, instead of having a mech do it."

"I thought you had your students do that, actually."

He burst out laughing.  "Touche!  All right, I just felt like doing
something with my hands.  Satisfied?"

She pretended to consider.  "What I _don't_ see is why you had to try
and make out you were doing something noble and heroic, when you just
felt like getting your hands wet."

"Now look --" he began.

"Oh, never mind.  I know why."  She smiled sweetly at him.  "Because
you're a man.  And nobody in their right mind would expect a man to make
any sense."

"What?!" he said in mock outrage.  But to his annoyance he could not
think of a good answer.  So he settled for pulling the dish-brush out of
the sink and flicking warm soapy water at her.

Her reaction was startling.  She yelled and threw herself out of the
way, skidding on a spot of grease on the floor and almost falling.
Amused, he flicked her again.

"No, stop --" she gasped, dodging again.  This time she tried to jump
over the spray.  A few drops touched her skirt, but the rest missed.
Laughing, Ranma raised the brush to flick it a third time --

"NO!" she screamed.  "YOU'LL KILL ME!"

Ranma froze.  Ukyou ran out of the kitchen.  A long silence fell.

                **********

He left the rest of the dishes, and went looking for her.  She was not
trying to hide.  He found her in her work-room.  Her terminal was on,
but she was not paying any attention to it.  She was ... what was she
doing?  Scrubbing at her skirt?  Trying to get the dishwater off it?

He cleared his throat.  "Ukyou ..."

She looked up, unsurprised.  "I'm sorry, Ran-chan.  I ... I should have
explained.  Long ago.  But it's hard --"

"It would be easier if you'd trust me a bit more," he said levelly.

"I know.  It's just that --"

"Let me guess.  You're afraid to turn back to your older self."

He hadn't seen it until she screamed at him.  But it was the only answer
that made sense.  It explained almost everything.  Her exaggerated care
to avoid hot water when she was cooking.  Her gloves, and the odd
texture of her clothing -- all water-proofed, he was sure.  Even her odd
moment of anger when they were discussing her curse.

She looked startled.  "How did you --?  No, never mind.  It's more than
that, Ran-chan.  I ..."  She stopped, unable to speak for a moment.  At
last she said, "I'm afraid that my other self is dead."

- End of Part 4 -

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Angus MacSpon                                                Allen Gainsford
http://shell.ihug.co.nz/~macspon            http://shell.ihug.co.nz/~macspon