I'm suffering a bout of writer's block at the moment, please forgive me.
I'd like any assistance with the existing part of this story that I have
included, though.

JC


Oh My Goddess and all associated characters are property of Kosuke
Fujishima.

****

The smell of dried blood, bile and disinfectants wafted through the air.
A slowly turning fan beat its blades in a futile effort to disperse the
odor, spreading the sickening scent of death throughout the room.  The walls of
the forward field hospital still had fading pictures drawn in crayon by its
former occupants.  The converted school, one of the only standing buildings in the
small village, was a hive of activity.  Writhing near-corpses were being
ferried in on stretchers, terrible holes were gouged out of their barely
living flesh; patched with hastily applied field dressings.

A single nurse sat by the side of a cot in the corner.  Her once properly
creased and starched uniform was smeared with dust, grit and blood.  Her
messy mop of dark brown hair and tired, mud streaked face couldn't hide her
beauty from the sole occupant of the bed.  He could barely see her through his
blood caked facial bandage; his numb fingers couldn't feel the warm hands that
held his hand in her lap.  This didn't matter to the man.  He saw radiance, he
felt warmth.

Thomas knew he was dying.  He could see the glistening blur of the nurse's
face that could only be tears.  Although one of his eardrums was ruptured, he
could hear the soft sound of weeping.  He tried to speak.

"I'll be all right.  My buddies need your help more than I do."

The nurse gazed at Thomas's ruined face.  She tried not to gaze at the dark
brown patch of gauze that covered his damaged left eye.  She didn't have
the heart to tell him that his friends -- his buddies -- that he had dragged a
mile  and a half through the blighted no-man's land to the hospital were dead
already.  She looked down at Thomas's fingers, and attempted to rub away the bluish 
color that was starting to mar his fingertips.

Thomas gasped for a moment and finally managed to focus his good eye on the
nurse.

"I guess I'll talk to you again tomorrow."

He closed his eye and sighed.  His sigh died off into a deathly rattle, and
then an all too quiet stillness.

The nurse sat there for a quiet ten minutes, rubbing the lifeless hand.
She stood up and gently pulled the raw cotton blanket over Thomas's corpse.

A cluster of other nurses came over and consoled the young nurse as she
slumped over the bed.

****

Tomorrow is Yesterday

An Oh My Goddess Fanfic

by James Chu

****

Keiichi sighed inwardly.  Here he was in a small French village with
Belldandy at his side.  He had won a trip to France for himself and three
friends from a race earlier in the year.  Megumi wanted to finish some
schoolwork over the break, so he was here with Belldandy and her sisters.

He had finally managed to find some time alone with his love.  He had given
a fistful of francs to Skuld and artfully steered her toward the nearest
ice-cream stand.  It didn't hurt to note that the apothecary and the
lingerie shop near the stand seemed to distract Urd quite a bit too.

Now that he was alone with Belldandy, he couldn't figure out what to do.

He was happy to stroll around hand-in-hand with her, but wanted to do more.
Unfortunately, whenever she turned her head and smiled at him with that
smile of hers, he lost all his senses and often ended up giving a big goofy smile
right back.

As the two lovebirds rounded the bend around a crumbling wall, Belldandy
gasped in delight.  A small whitewashed schoolhouse stood at the end of a small
cobblestone courtyard.  An ancient, hunched over figure swept the front
steps with a reed broom.  A smattering of hard corn kernels was spread in the
center of the courtyard, small birds pecking between the stones.

Belldandy rushed forward, dragging Keiichi toward the schoolhouse.  She
curtsied to the old woman at the school's front and spoke to the woman in French;
the language seemed to fit her musical voice perfectly.  The old woman seemed
to look somewhat astonished at whatever Belldandy had said -- Keiichi vowed to
learn _some_ French during the remainder of the trip -- and thrust her
gnarled hands inside her apron pockets.  She drew an old brass key and thrust it
into the lock with a shaking hand.  The door opened quietly with a well oiled
silence.

Keiichi looked inside with awe.  This simple, one room schoolhouse managed
to exude the ambiance of a Gothic cathedral.  The light streaming from the
generations old glass seemed to sparkle and change colors as it passed
through the wavy panes and lightly floating dust.  The desks stood in straight
lines, facing a clean blackboard.  The teacher's desk at the far end of the room
stood in front of a small storage closet and the staircase to the room above.

Belldandy stepped lightly between the center rows of desks.  She twirled
around in delight, brushing the desktops with her fingertips as she passed by.
Keiichi followed, with a bemused expression on his face.  The old woman leaned
against the doorframe heavily, smiling wistfully.

Belldandy suddenly stopped twirling around and stared at the teacher's
desk.  Her eyebrows knit together in a gesture of concern.  Keiichi rushed over to
see what was bothering her so much.

Belldandy picked up a picture frame, the sole piece of decoration on the
desk.  She cradled it within the folds of her dress.  Keiichi heard the old woman
gasp and rush towards them.  He looked at the picture.  It was a yellowing
photograph of a snappily dressed service man on a motorcycle with a nurse sitting
sidesaddle on his lap.

Belldandy seemed to stare inwardly for a second.  She murmured something
quietly to herself.

The old woman had reached their side.  She stared at Belldandy and then
gingerly pulled herself onto the desk.  Belldandy leaned forward and whispered in
her ear for a few seconds.  The old woman smiled.

She hopped off the desk and motioned for the two to follow her upstairs.

Keiichi started to blush once he realized that in the process of following
Belldandy up the staircase, his head only reached up to Belldandy's
derriere.

He spent a few moments admiring how her dress subtly accentuated the gentle
curve from the back of her thighs to the gentle swell of her rear.  He
nearly walked into Belldandy before realizing that the short trip upstairs had
ended.

The old woman was rummaging through an old hope chest that lay in the far
corner of the single room upstairs.  Keiichi noted the tidy but small stove
near the staircase, the porcelain bathtub beyond the stove, and the small
bed adjacent to the hope chest.  It was a simple room.

The woman found what she was looking for.  She placed a brittle matchbox in
Belldandy's hands and talked to her animatedly.  Finally Belldandy leaned
forward and exchanged kisses on the cheeks with the woman.

Belldandy turned to Keiichi, tilted her head slightly and spoke.

"Let's go to a cafe, Keiichi."

****

Keiichi wondered how he ever got into such strange situations.  The goddesses 
and mortal were travelling on the back roads of northeast France in a small
Renault Twingo.

He was driving and Belldandy was navigating.  It seemed so natural to him.

It was Belldandy's sisters that were driving him nuts.

Urd had mentioned to Keiichi that she needed to sit behind him because she
needed the extra legroom.  Skuld had promptly replied with a not-so-subtle
allusion to the wideness of Urd's thighs.  The two sisters continued to
bicker and poke at each other in the backseat if the car for the past two hours.

Keiichi had to admit that he was sorely tempted to bind and gag the two
girls -- contrary to Urd's protests, he considered her to be every bit as immature
as Skuld sometimes.

Belldandy kept him from following his natural impulses by pointing out the
various landmarks and interesting scenes as they passed by.  Somehow,
Belldandy had the ability to make even the most banal cow pasture seem interesting
and delightful to him.  He was reassured by her very presence -- the soft touch
of her breath when she leaned over to tell him something, the warmth of her
hand when she put it over his when he was shifting gears, her humming when she
was looking out the window, and the silken feel of her hair when she rested her
head on his shoulder.

He was broken from his minor case of driving daze when Belldandy poked him
in the ribs, gently.  They had arrived.

****

The Renault Twingo turned off the highway and barreled down a narrow,
barely paved road.  In the distance, Keiichi could see the steeple of the small
church rising above the quaint little hamlet.  He turned his attention back to
driving.  French drivers always faired quite well in the rally races that he enjoyed
so much.  Now he understood why.  The road alternated between partially paved
segments and deep tractor ruts.  It took every last bit of strength to keep
the car steady.  Eventually, the road decided to become a fairly regular
cobblestone street.  Keiichi pulled the car into a small parking spot
besides a greengrocer.  An empty crane towered above the small stone
buildings, its operator off for the traditional French lunch break.

Everyone piled out of the car.  Urd made a great show of stretching out her
long legs (which attracted the eyes of a few old men who were playing
pitain in the yard besides the church).  The group made its way across the
street to a small bar.

Keiichi blinked rapidly as his eyes adjusted to the smoke and darkness that
dominated the bar.  A dusty, silent hulk of an old radio sat at the far
corner of the bar, its days of glory far behind.  A large color TV on a wall mount
above the radio cast a green glow about the room as it broadcasted a
football game.  He was about to walk in further when he was bowled over.

"Wow!  A real vacuum tube radio!"  Skuld vaulted over Keiichi's body in her
mad dash to the radio.  Belldandy carefully pried her love from the floor
and propped him up in a nearby chair.  She helped him brush off the dust and
dirt that clung to his sweater and then sat down at the other end of the small
table.

A balding, middle aged man came out of the back room -- clutching a bunch
of lilies in his fist -- and chided Skuld harshly.

"Don't you dare touch that, miss.  It's my pop's radio...  Uh..."

The man stopped his scolding of the child as Urd sauntered up to the bar.
She artfully displayed a bit of cleavage when she hopped onto a barstool and
crossed her legs.  She put her hand on the man's cheek and lightly drew it
under the chin and gave him a light tug on his beard.  He drew his head
closer obediently.  She whispered in his ear as he attempted to discretely
admire her decolletage.  She finished whispering and kissed the man lightly
on the right cheek and then his left.

"Uhhhh...  Well... I guess that you can try to fix it miss," stammered the
man.  He then remembered that there were two more customers sitting at the
tables and rushed over to give them the drink menu.

Belldandy smiled as the man gave her a card.  She scooted her chair over to
Keiichi's side and gently pointed out the various choices in the menu.