DISCLAIMER TIME!!!!!! Ranma 1/2 is used wihtout permission and was created
by Rumiko Takahashi.
=============================================
Ranma 1/2: The Surrogate
=============================================
Ranma, like just about any other person on the planet, hated
hospitals. The cold, sterile walls, the waiting, the uncertainty of having a
loved one in surgery, it was almost enough to drive him insane.
A fibroid tumor, Ranma thought, remembering the diagnosis from
Akane's last visit to her gynecologist. It's probably nothing, she said.
It's benign, not cancer. She'll be fine. Ranma's confidence, which had been
so strong just a week before, was beginning to crumble. The doctor said the
surgery would take an hour at the most, and here it was three. What was
going on!
Two weeks ago, Akane had visited Dr. Keiko Satoshi, her
gynecologist, for her annual checkup. It was then that they found the tumor
growing on her uterus. The doctor had said it was a fibroid tumor, and had
lost Ranma in the process of explaining what it was. Akane had been kind
enough to translate, telling him that most fibroid tumors, about
nintey-eight percent, were benign and as such there was little to worry about.
But sitting in the hospital, able to do nothing more than wait, was
starting to get to him. He looked across at Kasumi, who sat near his mother,
both with worried looks on their faces. Soun and Genma sat opposite of them,
both looking somber and controlled. Nabiki, who was away at college, was absent.
Damnit, what's taking so long! The sound of footsteps approaching
snapped his head up to seek out the source. Was this the surgeon? Were they
finished?
The doctor walked up to them, a thin man with angular features and a
pair of horn-rimmed glasses on his face. His white lab coat was immaculately
neat, as were the rest of his clothes.
"Mr. Saotome?"
"How's Akane?" Oh, he did not like the tone in this guy's voice...
"There has been a... complication... in the surgery." Ranma barely
heard the gasps from the others as his world threatened to crumble around
him. A complication? Something went wrong? The doctor's words came to him
in fits and starts, disjointed sounds that made little sense individually.
"...we had to perform a partial hysterectomy," he finished, his
voice filled with the apology he did not say. A histowhatome?
"Akane's gonna be okay, right?" Ranma asked desperately, a hard edge
in his voice that dared the skinny little geek to give the wrong answer.
"Your wife will make a full recovery, yes," the doctor replied.
Ranma felt relief wash over him in a wave, a great weight lifting off his
shoulders. He almost shouted for joy when he noticed that no one else was
sharing in his elation.
"Hey, c'mon!" Ranma exclaimed, "Akane's gonna be okay! What's the
problem?"
"If you will excuse us, doctor," Nodoka said quietly.
"Of course. Akane is out of surgery now. You can see her in another
few hours." The man bowed once before turning to leave. Ranma watched as the
tears welled up in Nodoka's eyes, wondering just what the hell this was all
about. The doc just said Akane would be all right!
"What's goin' on, mom?"
"Ranma..." Nodoka trailed off for a moment, as though she were
choosing her words as carefully as she could. "A hysterectomy is when a
woman's uterus is removed."
Ranma paused for a moment, lessons from his biology class replaying
themseles in his mind. The uterus, that was where the babies grew before
being born, right? He almost asked what it all meant when the realization
finally hit him. If Akane's uterus had been taken out, then... oh, no....
Ranma slumped back into the hard green chair, his body and mind
numb. Akane was... was... barren.....
============================================
The recovery ward in which Akane Saotome rested was a long off-white
room in which non-critical patients were placed after surgery. Fifteen beds
lined up parallel along one wall, each separated by a thin blue curtain that
surrounded each bed and gave the illusion of privacy.
Akane lay in one of the beds, the privacy curtain in place. A clear
IV tube ran from her hand to a clear plastic bag that hung on a metal pole
beside her bed. Her chest rose and fell with each breath, her sleeping face
almost angelic as she slumbered under the anesthesia.
Ranma stood next to her, the others surrounding the bed with him, as
her eyelids began to flutter. A low moan escaped her lips as consciousness
returned to her.
How was he gonna tell her? How in the world could he possibly break
such news? Ranma cursed the fate that placed them in this position, for him
to be the one to shatter Akane's heart like this. Her eyes slowly opened,
dulled from the residual drugs in her system. They fell on Ranma's face, and
he almost couldn't bear their gaze.
"Hey," Akane said weakly.
"Hey, Akane. How're ya feelin'?"
"A little groggy, but I'm okay," she replied with a small grin. The
grin faded, replaced with a frown of concern. "Ranma, what's wrong?"
"Akane..." Ranma couldn't bring himself to say any more, unwilling
to break down in front of her and everyone. He reached out and grasped her
hand in both of his, hoping to draw the strength he needed.
"What's going on? Everything's fine, right?" He could hear the
nervousness in Akane's voice, and it broke his heart.
"Akane, the doctors found.... other tumors." Nodoka said, her voice
nearly choked. Akane gasped audibly, returning Ranma's grip with a fierce
grasp of her own. "They had to perform a hysterectomy."
The small space went silent for a few moments, as if the world
itself suddenly stopped dead. The sound of footsteps echoed beyond the blue
privacy curtain, a doctor or nurse making rounds as a voice quietly asked
something of another patient.
It started as a low moan, growing rapidly to a keening wail as the
realization hit home. Ranma's heart finally tore itself to shreds as he
draped an arm around Akane's shoulders. Her own arms shot around him,
grasping him as if her very life depended on it.
A nurse poked her head in to ask if everything was okay. Ranma
didn't answer as Akane's muffled sobs hit him like one of Ryoga's punches.
He could feel her tears soaking his shirt, and finally allowed his own to
break free.
"We tried so hard to get them married," Genma muttered, "and now we
face a tragedy like this. What have we done to deserve it?" There was no
answer, nor would there ever be.
===========================================
Akane had been released soon after, returning to the dojo looking
none the worse for wear. Akane spent most of the time sitting in the bedroom
she now shared with Ranma, gazing at the spot where they were planning to
put the crib after their first child was born, the look of longing on her
face almost more than he could stand.
Akane had drawn into herself, the fierce and determined tomboy he
fell in love with nowhere to be found. He had tried everything, even asking
her to cook, but she remained in her own isolation, hardly responsive. The
strain of it was beginning to wear him thin, he wanted his Akane back,
damnit! Children or no, she couldn't stay this way!
"Hey, Akane," Ranma said as he shut the bedroom door behind him.
The lamp on the nightstand cast the room in a soft glow, the window showing
only the darkness of night beyond its glass. The light shone dully on
Akane's hair, which hadn't been washed in over a week. Man, this was really
getting to her.
"Hi, Ranma."
"You wanna go out tonight? There's a new movie out."
"No, thanks. I'm not in the mood."
"Akane, you can't stay up here moping around forever!" Ranma hoped
the hard edge in his tone would produce some kind of reaction, a glare, or a
free trip to the moon via one of Akane's haymakers, but she continued to sit
there, stroking the teddy bear she had when she herself was a child.
Instead, she stayed silent, staring at that one damn spot. "Ya gotta get out
and do somethin'!"
Akane sat on their bed, her mind in violent turmoil despite her
placid facade. She wanted children, she wanted them so desperately she could
taste it, but it just wasn't going to happen. They had planned on building a
family, creating heirs to the Tendo and Saotome Schools of Anything Goes
Martial Arts. They would have created a future for both themselves and their
progeny, then sat back in their twilight years and watch the whole cycle
continue. But that future had been ripped away before they even had the
chance to begin. That knowledge, the empty feeling inside where her children
would have grown into infants, was more painful than any injury she had ever
sustained before. Physical wounds healed, but something like this never
would. Couldn't Ranma see that?
"C'mon, Akane, say somethin'! Call me an insensitive jerk, anything,
just talk to me!"
"Why?" It was her one question, the one asked by countless others
facing such traumas. Why her? Why did it have to be her?
"I don't know why, Akane," Ranma said gently, "but it ain't the end
of the world. We can still have kids. Hey, we can always adopt, right?"
"That's not the same!" she snapped. For the first time, the numbness
that clouded her brain had begun to lift, the flames of anger and
frustration finally re-kindling. "I want a child of our own! Not one whose
parents were too lazy to raise it!"
"Akane!"
"Our own baby, Ranma, is that too much to ask?!"
"We can do that, too! The docs said that you still got one good ovary!"
"But I can't give birth!" The flames of Akane's anger were beginning
to die down as despair set itself in once again.
"So? All we need is a surrogate mother for that! Ukyo would gladly
do it, so would Kasumi! Hell, even *mom* said she'd do it!"
"That's not the same, either." Akane recalled what Doctor Satoshi
had said about In Vitro Fertilization. An egg would be removed from her one
remaining ovary, and fertilized outside her body with a sample of Ranma's
sperm. Once the fetus grew into an embryo, it would be implanted in a
surrogate mother until birth.
"Aw, jeez, Akane," Ranma growled in frustration."
"I'm sorry, but... I can't stand the thought of *our* child growing
in another woman's body. It's just.... I don't know... I want our child to
be born from *us*, not from someone else, even if it is Ukyo, or even Kasumi."
Ranma paused for a moment, realizing that, indeed, he had no
alternative. It was something he had considered, he knew he could do it, but
the question was if Akane would accept it. Or if anyone else would. In the
end, however, all it boiled down to was if he actually wanted to do it.
Did he really want to spend the next nine months as a woman?
Pregnant, at that? He could almost hear his mother going through the roof
over that, his father right behind her. After all, why wouldn't Akane just
pick a surrogate mother from one of her sisters, or even Ukyo? This would
eventually tear their marriage apart, and not just from friction between
them. Nobody would let it go that far.
The family lines wouldn't be truly united unless a child was born.
Ranma really didn't want to have a concubine, even though he knew several
girls who would be more than willing. He didn't want someone else, he wanted
Akane. But if they could find no way to produce an heir, a way that
satisfied everyone, then their marriage would end whether by their own hands
or by their family's. And that was just par for the course with Ranma's life.
Our feelings have never mattered, he thought with a sense of rising
disgust. Neither he nor Akane had wanted each other when they first met, but
that hadn't mattered to their parents. Now that they were finally together,
and in love, they may be forced apart. Again, their feelings just didn't
matter. For the first time, to Ranma's surprise, he found himself hating his
family with nearly eerything he had.
Well, not anymore. Their feelings *did* matter, and so help him, he
would do it. Even if it meant losing the dojo, their families, even their
home, he would stick by Akane no matter what. Nodoka and Genma be damned!
Taking a deep breath to calm his crackling nerves, he opened his mouth and
leapt into the great beyond.
"Then I'll do it." Akane just sat there for a moment, as if she
hadn't heard him. Finally, her eyes grew wide and her jaw dropped open as
his statement hit home.
"Wha... wha.... *what*!?" The utter disbelief in Akane's shout hit
him like a brick, but it was the first real emotion she'd shown in weeks.
"If that's what you're worried about, then I'll carry our baby,"
Ranma explained, cranking his determination up to full. "My girl body's got
the equipment."
"But.... but... Ranma, are you nuts?"
"Maybe, but if this is the way it's gotta be..."
"You can't be serious! Can you imagine explaining to our child that
his father is also the woman who bore him?" Ranma had to admit, he couldn't
even begin to comprehend something like that. He couldn't bother with it,
though.
"Listen, Akane!" Ranma exclaimed, his patience nearly depleted, "I
want children just as much as you do! I want to have a child from our own
flesh and blood, too! And if you don't want our baby to grow inside another
woman, then I'll carry it myself! It'll still be our baby, and it'll still
come from one of us!"
"I..."
"No, listen, Akane. I'm not just doing this for an heir! I'll do it
because damnit I love you, and I want you to be happy!" Akane's eyes locked
with his, the confused jumble of feelings behind them plain even to him.
They looked into each other's souls for what felt like and eternity, each
desperately trying to read the thoughts of the other. Eventually, Akane
broke their contact, looking down at the teddy bear she still clutched in
her hands.
"I don't know, Ranma," Akane said softly, "I mean, there's so much
that could go wrong, and what would our families think?"
"I don't care about that."
"Just let me think about it, okay?"
"Okay," Ranma said, placing a gentle kiss on her cheek. He rose from
the bed, hope blossoming in his heart. It would be tough, but at least now
they had a chance...
=========================================
Breakfast the next morning saw the Tendos and Saotomes gathered
around the table, enjoying one of Kasumi's excellent spreads. The morning
sun beamed its heavenly glow onto the ground below, sliers of light glinting
off the gently rippling surface of the koi pond in the yard.
Akane sat next to Ranma, a curious expression on her face that drew
the attention of everyone gathered. Conversation remianed mostly on trivial
subjects, no one willing to broach Akane's condition. Akane herself just ate
slowly, almost mechanically, yet her eyes shone with a strange light as if
maybe she had come to some sort of tough decision and still didn't know if
it was right.
"Ranma," she said, setting down her chopsticks. Her fingers
interlocked with each other, thumbs fidgeting with one another as she
prepared to speak. "I thought about what you said last night."
"Yeah?" The hope in his voice was palpable, drawing curious stares
from the assembled families.
"Uh-huh. And I decided to do it."
"You... have? Really!"
"Yeah. I want to do it." Akane's voice grew happier by the second, a
smile finally crossing her lips.
"YA-HOO!"
"What is this all about?" Nodoka asked, puzzled.
"Akane 'n me are gonna have a baby!" The mood around the table
almost instantly lightened as smiles grew all around.
"Oh, that's great news, Akane!" Kasumi exclaimed, "are you going to
adopt?"
//Uh-oh,\\ Ranma thought. This was the tricky part.
"Well, we decided to do that In Vitro thing," Akane replied, her own
nervousness showing through. Genma asked who they had chose to be the
surrogate mother, obviously misinterpreting the reason for her unease.
"Uh.... me." The happy mood in the room instantly went straight
south. Every eye in the room immediately fixed on Ranma, shock and confusion
creating an almost physical presence in the air.
"Oh, my."
"You... you...." Genma said, his right eye twitching.
"Yeah. Me."
"It's not manly!" Genma practically screamed. "You're a man! Men
don't bear children!"
"Stuff it, pop!" Ranma shouted back. "This is the only way you're
gonna be a grandpa! So deal with it!"
"Ranma, have you lost your fool mind?" Nodoka asked.
"Mom?"
"Son, I don't think you should do it."
"I can't believe I'm hearin' this!" Ranma screamed, shooting up from
his seat. "I ain't doin' this for any of you! I'm doin' it for me an' Akane!
An' if you don't like it, that's tough!"
"Ranma!"
"I want to go through with this, too!" Akane shouted.
"Akane," Kasumi said, "I would gladly..."
"NO!" Kasumi jerked back from Akane's heated response as if she had
been physically struck. Akane felt a pang of guilt at having snapped at her
sister. "I'm sorry, Kasumi, but I don't want our child to come from someone
else. I've thought about it, and this is the way it has to be. End of
discussion."
Silence reigned after Akane's difinitive ending remark, no one
seeming to even breathe as the seconds stretched into minutes and minutes
into infinity.
"Ranma...." Soun said, tears practically pouring from his eyes, "I
had no idea. To think that you would... go so far... to bring us
grandchildren!" Ranma soon found himself inside Soun's crushing embrace, his
ribs beginning to hurt from the force. "I'M SO PROUD OF YOU! MY SON, MY SON!!!"
Ranma managed to extricate himself after a brief struggle, gasping
for air afterward. He could feel the unease in the air, the uncertainty of
the moment like a pressing cloud of heavy gas.
"I will not allow it," Nodoka stated, matter-of-factly. "Ranma, you
are my son. My *son*," she said, giving particular emphasis to the last
word, "and I will not stand for you behaving in such a shameful fahsion."
"Shameful?" Ranma choked, unable to believe what he was hearing,
"What's shameful about it? Our families get united, an' me an' Akane don't
need someone else to carry our child! You get what you want, an' we get what
we want! Hell, you oughtta be thrilled!"
"How dare you speak to me in such a fashion!" Nodoka shouted, her
face beginning to take on a crimson shade. Ranma stared into his mother's
eyes, at the tears that were yet to be shed. He was hurting his mother, and
as such himself, but he couldn't back down now. It was their last chance.
"Please, stop it!" Akane screeched, bringing the arguement to a
crashing halt. Ranma looked over at her, at the tears streaming freely from
her eyes and felt his heart break for what had to be the thousandth time.
"Akane," Nodoka said, "surely you understand what is at stake here?"
"I do, more than you know," Akane replied in a shaky and uneven
voice. "What's at stake is your honor, your pride. What Ranma and I want
doesn't make a real difference, does it?"
"That is not..."
"It is," Akane said, cutting Nodoka off. "Ranma, I want our own
baby, I really do, but I don't want to cut off your relationship with your
mother. She's been such a small part of your life, and I don't want you to
lose her now." Akane then rose to her feet, eyes downcast and shoulders
slumped in defeat. "Then I guess... I'll.... have to take the honorable way
out." With that, Akane turned and ran upstairs, wrenching sobs trailing
behind with her thundering footsteps. Ranma cast a glare at Nodoka, fleeing
upstairs after his wife.
Nodoka just sat there as the silence stretched into eternity after
the sounds of footfalls and a slamming door vanished. Akane would rather
commit sepukku than have her child in anyone other than herself or Ranma. By
all rights, Nodoka should have been satisfied, everyone's honor would be
served and things could move on. The arrangement between the Tendo and
Saotome clans would have been resolved with an honorable action. But why did
she suddenly feel sick?
Ranma's look, she thought suddenly, remembering the glare he cast
her before chasing his wife. It was a look she had never seen before, so
full of anger, disgust, even contempt, all aimed directly at her. At that
moment, her heart had frozen. In that one space of barely a second, Nodoka
actually thought that her son had come to hate her.
Honor was one thing, but family quite another. Ranma had been gone
so long from her life. Missing his childhood had left a great void in her
heart, one that would never truly heal, and Akane had become so dear to her
as well. Perhaps the only thing that was permanent really was change...
======================================
The night blanketed Nerima in its star-strewn darkness, the glow
from the deck lights mounted on the dojo wall glinting off the koi pond by
which Nodoka sat.
Not for the first time, she found herself cursing her decision to
let Genma take her son away for so long, to train him in the Art he loved so
much. Ten years gone, never to be replaced. It was almost enough to make her
cry.
Life would have been easier on everyone if she had told him no, to
just train him at home, right? He could have met with Akane, and the
arranged marriage could have gone as planned without all that strange
interference. No Ukyo, no Shampoo, Cologne, or Mousse, no curses, life would
have been more or less normal. Of course, those two Kuno children would pose
a few problems, as would Ryoga for a time, but Hibiki would get over it and
the Kunos would hopefully just drop out of the picture. Life would be as it
should have been.
Of course it wouldn't, Nodoka thought sourly as she dashed her own
vision of Ranma's perfectly normal life. She had heard the stories of Kirin,
of Toma, and of Saffron. If Ranma hadn't had such prowess in the Art, if he
hadn't learned those secret techniques from Cologne, then he would never
have defeated Kirin. Akane would have been wed to that misguided prince and
Ranma would have been dead. If Happosai hadn't twisted him first, that is.
Many times, it seemed that the events in life were manipulated by
some great unseen hand, every event planned out by an intellect far greater
than her own. After all, a life as strange as Ranma's could not be the
result of pure coincidence alone.
Her train of thought was broken by the sound of a soft footstep
behind her. Nodoka started violently, whirling around as best she could to
face the darkened form of her son. Ranma stood behind her, the air seeming
to cool slightly as he looked at her.
"How is Akane?" Nodoka asked through a suddenly dry throat.
"She's okay." Ranma's voice was flat, toneless. "I managed to calm
her down. She's sleepin' now."
"Good. Sit, Ranma." Ranma didn't move, still a stationary patch of
shadow. "Please." Ranma complied, moving to sit next to her on the cool
ground. She noticed him cast one wary glance at the tranquil water as he did so.
"Ranma," she said, "I know having a child is important to you and
Akane. In many ways, more than it is to us. But you must understand that
your solution is..."
"Wrong?" he asked with a note of acid in his voice.
"I suppose that is a good term. Why do you want to? Kasumi would
gladly carry your child."
"Mom," Ranma began, nervousness creeping into his voice. He was
silent for a moment, as if contemplating his words. Nodoka knew that
expressing his feelings was a difficult task for him, another effect of not
having a mother, and her heart went out to him. "I don't wanna use Kasumi or
Nabiki like that. I mean, it took me this long to finally realize that I
love Akane. I can't see myself doing... well, you know... with anyone else."
"I understand that," Nodoka replied, suppressing a giggle. She
understood all too well. "And I commend you for such fidelity. I can only
hope Genma was as faithful to me as you are to Akane.
"However," she said, again in all seriousness, "the doctors have
said that they can fertilize one of Akane's eggs to place in another woman.
That would prevent you from having to have sex with either of Soun's other
daughters."
"Yeah," Ranma consented, "but Akane don't want her baby growin'
inside anyone else. It's kinda hard to explain, but... well... she wants our
baby to be from us, y' know? To be our blood, but from one of us, too. I
know that's hard to understand, but..."
"No, Ranma, it isn't hard to understand at all," Nodoka said softly,
draping a motherly arm around her son's shoulders. "The reality of not being
able to bear children is a hard one for a woman as young as Akane."
"What about you?"
"I am past my child-bearing years, Ranma," Nodoka replied, a note of
sadness escaping her control. She had been deprived of the best part of
motherhood, raising her son into a man, but that was neither here nor there.
That had been her own decision, and she would have to live with it.
"Ranma," she said, "I am not without sympathy. I know how much you
love Akane, especially to want to go so far for her. Such devotion to one
you love only proves how much of a man you really have become, despite your
time with Genma."
"An' I'll still be a man," Ranma protested, "on the inside."
"Yes, yes you will. I am still against the idea, but if this is what
you and Akane truly want... I will not stand in your way."
"You... really?" The hope in her son's voice healed some of Nodoka's
broken heart.
"Yes."
"That's... Thank you, mom!" Ranma's arms shot around her, holding
her in a tight embrace that she readily and eagerly returned. To actualy
hold her son in her arms, the wait had been worth it. Perhaps Genma had done
something right on the road after all. "I love you. ma."
"I love you, too, son." They held each other for a moment longer
before Nodoka reluctantly ended the embrace. "However, there are things
about pregnancy that you do not understand. It is a joyous time, true, but
also one of the hardest on a woman's body and mind."
"I don't care about that," Ranma returned, his words full of
determination. "I ain't afraid!"
"You will be," Nodoka said, "you will be." Ranma just looked at her,
confused. "But that is for a later time. Come, we must go back inside."
Ranma shot to his feet, extending a hand for Nodoka to take. Grasping his
waiting hand, she pulled herself up and both mother and son made their way
back to the dojo.
"Hey mom?"
"Yes?"
"About pop, he didn't cheat on ya."
===========================================
AUTHOR'S NOTES
Okay, now I know some pundits out there are gonna claim that the
movies aren't canon. Well, too bad. :P
Now for some notes on Nodoka. Some portray her as some twisted
manliness-freak. Others as a hard-assed honor nut. Me, I like to think that
while she does hold to traditions, she is not inflexible. I guess I jsut
wnat to show her as a real person. So, how'd I do?
Jed