Hi,
I hope this wasn't too rushed. Nonetheless, I think it's a fairly decent read. ^_^

Troy Thomas

***

Check out my writings webpage. Find my stuff. ^_^
http://ca.geocities.com/therealsilentnova/fanfiction/entrance.html

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The Chaos of Smiles
By Troy Thomas

Ranma 1/2 and its characters are the creations and properties 
of Rumiko Takahashi. Excepting flames, if you have any 
comments or criticisms to make, feel free to send them my 
way.

***

I can be found at the following addresses:
URL: ca.geocities.com/therealsilentnova/fanfiction/index.html
E-mail: Silentnova@go.com

***

Side-Story One
A Saotome Christmas Story

Nodoka Saotome was smiling. She was humming. She was chopping 
a carrot into perfectly equal slices without any moment of 
hesitation.

Her husband, Genma, lumbered into the kitchen, and opened the 
fridge.

"Dear, would you please wait until dinner is finished?" 
Nodoka asked.

"Nodoka, I'm sure nobody will mind if I have a little snack 
before the dinner." Genma responded, with a look of innocence 
on his face.

Nodoka slightly turned her attention towards her husband. "I 
would mind." she warned, emphasising I. When she finished 
with the carrot, she quickly put the slices into a bowl, and 
turned her attention towards a boiling pot of water.

Beside the fridge, Genma sulked for a moment, before turning 
out of the kitchen towards the living room, where happiness 
could be heard.

Quietly, Nodoka said to herself, not knowing her son Ranma 
had just entered the kitchen, "I hope this family Christmas 
dinner is the greatest ever!" She smiled, noting the irony in 
her words, since it was the first dinner held for her family 
in eleven years.

Unknowing to Nodoka, Ranma quietly slipped out of the kitchen 
into the living room.

"I want a Christmas to remember." Nodoka said, gently 
smiling.

***

Ranma looked about the living room. He saw his father 
speaking and laughing with Soun Tendo, an old family friend. 
He saw his fianc�e Akane Tendo, Soun's youngest daughter, 
cheerfully speaking with her friends Yuka and Sayuri.

Nabiki and Kasumi Tendo, Akane's older sisters, were both in 
their own circle of friends. Both were smiling.

"Everything seems alright..." Ranma mentioned to himself. "I 
hope Mom's wish turns out true." He basked in the warmth of 
the room, which he was certain had little to with the heaters 
hung on the walls.

"Ranchan!" a girl shouted, quite gleefully, her voice 
carrying throughout the room.

Ranma's tensefully glanced over at Akane, who had just seemed 
to look away from him, the smile on her face disappeared.

"Ucchan, glad you could make it." Ranma replied, to his 
friend and other fianc�e, Ukyou Koniji. "You enjoying the 
party tonight?"

"It's pretty good, Ranma. Your mom is a good host." Ukyou 
replied." She stepped closer to him. "What'd you get me, 
Ranchan?" she asked, a bit too seductive for Ranma's liking.

"That's a secret." Ranma said, disguising a retreat from 
Ukyou's personal space by turning around and away from her. 
"You'll just have to wait until later on, when we open the 
presents." Mentally, he sighed, 'How can I make sure that 
this is the greatest Christmas celebration ever when I'm...'

"Hello!" A wall crashed down. A girl walked into the room 
with her arm engaged in a wave to everyone she saw. "Ranma, 
Shampoo is so happy to see you!" the girl bounded over to 
Ranma, latching onto his arm.

"Shampoo!" Ranma stammered. "So...uh, good to see you, I 
guess."

"Hey, get off of him!" Ukyou warned. "He was talking to me!"

Ignoring Ukyou, Shampoo said to Ranma, "Ooh! Shampoo is 
thirsty. Let's go get something to drink, okay?" She lead him 
to the refreshments table. "Fruit Punch!" she quealed.

"I'll give you a punch!" Ukyou shouted. "How dare you ignore 
me! I was trying to threaten you!"

"Shampoo don't care. I not interested in easy win fight! 
Tonight is Christmas." Shampoo took a glass cup, and then 
filled it with some juice.

"Easy win...Why you!"

"Uh, if you girls'll excuse me." Ranma said, slipping away 
from Shampoo. "I gotta go."

"Ranma!" both girls shouted, before chasing after Ranma, who 
ran out of the room.

***

The chase, it had two outcomes. The prey escaped or the 
hunter returned home with a prize and a meal.

Never look back. Flow like water.

Ranma ran ahead of his sense, only dreading the beating he 
would undergo when Ukyou and Shampoo caught up to him, when 
they would literally begin fighting over him, as in on top of 
him.

"Man, why do those two got to fight on Christmas, of all 
days?" Ranma asked, between breaths. He let his senses catch 
up to his mind, so he could begin to scope out his 
surroundings.

"Ranma!" he heard two people shout behind him.

"Crap!" Ranma ran into a nearby school yard. "Maybe I can 
lose them..." Slipping on some loose snow and falling onto 
his back when he reached the field's centre, he then took a 
moments rest and looked up to the sky to see the clear winter 
stars. 'How can I make sure that this is the greatest 
Christmas celebration for my mom ever when I'm around?'

"Ranchan!" Ukyou called out. "Are you okay?" She rushed to 
him, and picked him up so he was lying on her lap. "That 
looked like one nasty fall." she said, stroking his hair.

"You, Spatula Girl, is job of wife to soothe husband's hurts. 
You not wife!" Shampoo shouted, flinging a snowball at Ukyou.

"You're not his wife either!" Ukyou responded, dropping 
Ranma's head onto the ground, standing to face her opponent.

Ranma tilted his head, and thought, 'This is not what I 
need...' Standing, he noticed the girls tossing snowballs at 
each other. 'I guess I should leave now.' he decided, before 
sneaking away.

***

"Akane..." Nodoka slowly approached her future daughter-in-
law. "Have you seen Ranma? He's gone, and I haven't seen him 
for a long time..."

"He decided to go flirt with Shampoo and Ukyou instead of be 
here." Akane replied, her mood a little sour. "The jerk!"

Nodoka blushed. "Such manly behavior. He makes me so 
proud..." She brought her hands to Akane's, and almost seemed 
to beg. "But, I'd like him here, with his family. Otherwise, 
it just feels so...incomplete. How can I have a family 
Christmas, if he's not here?"

"Um, okay." Akane responded, her eyes glowing with 
understanding for Nodoka.

***

Ukyou and Shampoo at the same time dodged a pair of nasty 
looking snowballs.

"Ooh!" They growled at each other.

"Ooh!" a group of children squealed, running into the field.

"Wha?" Ukyou asked, before being bombarded by a barrage of 
snow.

"She's on my team!" a child yelled.

"Then the other big kid's on mine!" a different child yelled, 
pointing to a confused looking Shampoo whose shoulders were 
covered in an inch of snow.

"Aiya!" Shampoo quietly said, before having a snowball fly 
into her face. She burned with anger before seeing the child 
who had flung the snow at her squeal with delight running 
behind a snowdrift. A mischievious glint grew in her eyes 
before laughing and tossing a snowball at Ukyou.

Ukyou looked at Shampoo, who was laughing, and then herself 
began to laugh. She packed some snow together...It was 
definately time to begin enjoying Christmas.

***

Akane jogged through the streets, keeping all her senses 
aware of activity around her. 'Why am I always looking for 
the dork?' she wondered to herself quietly. 'He's always 
running off...'

To her right, there seemed to be a snowball fight...The 
people seemed to be enjoying themselves, but Ranma wasn't 
there.

Continuing, Akane soon approached a bridge. Seeing nobody on 
it, she then looked down at the water. To her surprise, she 
saw Ranma looking up at the stars, standing on the frozen 
water. He looked a little chilly.

"What happened to you?" Akane asked, before quickly climbing 
down onto the ice to where Ranma was standing. She handed him 
his jacket, which Nodoka had made sure to give to Akane 
before leaving the house. "You fall down? You look all wet."

"Hmm?" Ranma shook away a daydream, and looked at the 
intrusion, which wasn't unwelcome. "Akane?" He took his 
jacket, and put it on. "Yeah, I just wanted to get away from 
Ukyou and Shampoo, and ended up down here."

"Why'd you run off in the first place?" Akane asked.

"I heard my mom say she wanted a great Christmas...How is she 
supposed to have one with me around?" Ranma replied.

"How is she supposed to enjoy Christmas if you're not there?" 
Akane responded. Her question shocked Ranma, causing him to 
take his stare from the stars to her face. "She wants to 
spend Christmas with her family, which is what this season is 
all about, you dummy."

Ranma couldn't answer Akane's statement. Instead, he just 
stared at her face. 'She's right. That was pretty stupid of 
me.'

"What are you looking at?" Akane asked, blushing. The cold of 
the night gave her blush more expression. However, she 
couldn't bare to look away from Ranma's face...his eyes, 
which looked deeply into hers.

"Hey you two!" Nabiki called out. "What are you up to, huh?"

Ranma and Akane in great surprise looked up to the bridge, 
and saw Nabiki waving and pointing down at them. However, 
Nabiki wasn't looking at them but at others who were 
apparently with her.

"Did you two plan a Christmas rendezvous, and not invite your 
families?" Nabiki asked.

The couple under the bridge began to sputter out denials, but 
were interrupted by Kasumi, who stood beside Nabiki, "Oh my, 
is this true Akane? A secret romantic meeting on Christmas?" 
She smiled at the awkward denials her younger sister was 
replying with.

Soun, Genma, and Nodoka peeked over the shoulders of Nabiki 
and Kasumi. The three parents wore genuine and knowing 
smiles.

"I guess we should be getting back to the house." Genma 
stated.

***

The air of the house seemed warmer, cozier, and truer. Nodoka 
basked in the feelings and smiles all the people there were 
giving and sharing. She warmly watched her son speaking with 
Akane, smiles on their faces, awkward -the two would never 
admit so- love in their eyes.

A while later, Shampoo and Ukyou arrived with a parade of 
children in tow. Nobody was dry, but nobody in the group 
cared.

Nodoka squeezed the hand of Genma, who was laughing with 
Soun. She was happy. Everything, for one night, was brought 
together in a perfection.

Everything was merry. Everything was Christmas.

End Side-Story

***

Author Notes:
This was definately the stronger of two ideas I had for a 
Christmas story. I hope the readers enjoyed it. It was a tad 
rushed, but I'm certain it's a fairly decent read. Thanks for 
taking the time to read.

Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year.

Troy Thomas

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