"Richard Lawson" <sterman@uswest.net> wrote:

The past, however, did not forget him.

The past had heard his words, and felt the regret behind him.  The past,
despite appearances, was not capricious.

But the goddess that represents it is...

The master bedroom was next door.  Ranma gently laid Akane on the bed.
She sprawled on it gracelessly.  She *was* unconscious.  Ranma examined
her face.  The same familiar features, but there was something wrong with
it, something he couldn't put his finger on.  As if the slack expression
she had in sleep was the one she used most often when she was awake.

sleep were the one (it's a hypothetical)

"Yes."  Kasumi sounded on the verge of tears.  "Yes, I will let you know.
Please try not to hurt her."

Akane swallowed heavily.

"I understand.  Th-thank you, sensei."  Kasumi slowly hung up the phone.
She stood for a minute with her head hung.  Then she began sobbing, her
shoulders shaking with their force.

Akane briefly considered her options.  Confronting Kasumi struck her as
being the wrong thing to do.  She was under no circumstances going back to
that place she'd awoken in this morning.  That left her one choice, as she
saw it.  Ranma.  She had to find Ranma.  No matter what was going on, he
would stand by her.  He always had.

Seems a bit of a leap for there. Maybe if Kasumi had said something like
"If I see her, I'll let you know right away," Akane's distrust of Kasumi
would be more believable.

"I would not say that."  Tofu spoke with a slight smile.  "I happen to
think that Nouma is quite fortunate to have you two as his parents."

Ranma grinned, then sobered.  "I dunno.  Sometimes I wonder why we did it.

"Well, Ranma, a man and woman who love each other get certain urges,
and...."

"Ranma."  Tofu spoke in a chiding tone of voice, but with a smile.  "I
have seen men twice your age who have no idea how to be a parent.  I've
seen you with Nouma, and Akane too.  You both dote over him, and do
everything you can to make sure he never wants for anything.  Which, given

Um... there's a little more to it than that, Doc.

"Ranma.  She may have had a stroke, or beginning to suffer from an
aneurysm, or any of a thousand other things that might be
life-threatening.  We need to get her to a specialist right now."

That middle sentence isn't quite right... the tense seems to shift in
the middle.

Tofu thinned his lips, looking very sorry for what he was about to say.
"Ranma.  Such an attitude may kill Akane.  Are you certain you want to
take such a chance?"

Geez, don't sugar-coat it, Doc, give it to him straight. :p

Tofu seems a little... cold in this scene. I can understand him wanting
to get proper medical attention for Akane, but the way in which he
expressed himself seemed to lack his usual friendliness. The Spock-like
speech (e.g. "would not" instead of "wouldn't") doesn't help. But I
think with some adjustment it'll be fine.

The Saotome home was quite small.  Ranma's family was by no means rich,
and sustained itself on the commissions Nodoka earned in her work.  Still,
it did well enough for Nodoka to support herself and her husband.

Nodoka has a job?

Another cry and sound of destruction dispelled all such notions.  Akane
clutched her hand in her heads, feeling like she was going mad.  The whole

That should be "were going mad," as it's a hypothetical.

It isn't true.  It's a lie, it has to be a lie.  Ranma is alive, I slept
with him last night.

And all during the engagement you hit him, didn't you?  Beat on him with
your fists or whatever weapon was convenient.  And sometimes he didn't
deserve it, sometimes you did it because you got mad at the world in
general and he was a convenient outlet.

Yeah! And Ukyo always lectured you on it, didn't she? Tried to help make
things better and *never* wanted Ranma for herself or tried to break the
two of you up for selfish reasons or bashed him over the head with her
spatula or...

Um, maybe not. :)

Seriously, this was a very nicely written scene, probably my favorite in
the fic, even if it does suffer from BE-style tunnel vision in that it
*only* considers Akane's violence toward Ranma. Other people used to
beat on Ranma too, including a certain bandanna boy.

Ranma looked at Tofu again, pleading with his eyes.  Tofu grimaced and
spoke in a tone that made it clear he was guessing.  "Akane appears to be
describing some sort of psychosis."

Ranma spoke softly to him.  "What kind of psychosis?"

"Intermittent Explosive Disorder, also known as rage disorder.  It is
often indicated by several discrete episodes of failure to resist
aggressive impulses that result in serious acts of assault or destruction
of property.  The degree of aggressiveness expressed during the episodes
is grossly out of proportion to any of the precipitating psycho-social
stressors."

"But that's just a guess, mind you!"

Ranma blinked at the clinical tone in Akane's voice.  "Is that what you
have?"

Akane said all that? Thought it was Tofu.

Akane studied him closely, her face fearful but with a kind of hope in it.
"You don't blame me?  For killing you?"

Ranma suppressed a twinge and instead smiled gently.  "I... well, I
forgive you."

"Or Ukyo?"

Ukyo, he DOES blame (and rightly so).

Ryoga let out a breath.  This was the hardest thing he'd ever had to do,
and he had no idea if he was doing it right.

"Let's see... top of the page represents east, and..."

Suddenly Akane fell forward.  Her head hit her mother's marker and she
lolled on the ground.

Well, if this is based on the anime, then a bump on the head should cure
everything... :-)

Akane went over to Ranma's marker.  She put a trembling hand on it.
"Ranma.  Thank you for... for what you said, for helping me, for being
alive even though you're dead.  I promise I'll try.  I'll get better
because you want me to."  She leaned over Ranma's marker and spoke in an
agonize whisper.  "But it hurts so much."

agnonized

"Thy Inward Love" is by me, of course.  Consider TIL and TBE to be the
bookends of possible endings to a Ranma/Akane marriage.  :)

I prefer the middle of the shelf, but that's just me... :-)

Thanks to White Wolf for inspiring the OMG angle.  Tell me if it works or
not.

Well, Urd is first and foremost a screw-up. If she tried to fix up
Ranma's relationships, she'd probably end up putting the wrong
personality-altering potions in everyone's food and nearly *causing* the
BE scenario. So it is a little unbelievable that she could pull this one
off without any mistakes, but if you can ignore that then it works OK.

All in all, I liked it. The TIL characters were believable, wiser and
more experienced than in the original series but not too much so.
BE-Akane's disorder was also well-handled, if one can accept that she
has the thing in the first place (and don't get me started on that ^_^).


Gary Kleppe
http://www.execpc.com/~kleppe/comics