Everyone -

Geeeeeez.  It's been ages since I've posted or C/Ced anything.  I guess 
Gary's got me on that point: I've been a bad ffml-er for a while now.  My 
apologies to everyone whose stories I read, liked, and then crapped out on 
replying to (this number drifts up in the thirties...urk).  I'll try to 
reform, really; sleep is for the weak, anyway.

If you've been trying to access Fragments via the www, you've probably 
failed recently because a veritable sea of X-Files fans have been flooding 
my webpage recently for reasons which are too complicated to enumerate, so 
here is Fragments pt II.  I went through a fine-tooth comb, but typos are 
probably still lurking.  You can either punish me for being a loser and not 
C/Cing more, or actually write back, whichever you feel fits. :)  Or, you 
can edit, AND flame me for being lazy!

At any rate, here's the (ungodly) Fragments pt II:

^*^*^

DISCLAIMER: Ranma 1/2 is property of Rumiko Takahashi, its use in this 
original fanwork creates no profit and infringement is intended.

ARCHIVE: Rakhal, Phu, and Reddeath have my express permission, everyone 
else, please ask for permission first at echonymph@msn.com.

RATING: PG-13/R

SUMMARY: Twelve years after a death at the hands of honor, the spell is 
broken and the curse released - Nerima had never been the same after Ranma's 
arrival, and it hasn't been the same after his death.

[For previous sections, go to: 
www.ling.0catch.com/archive/ranma/fragments.html]

^*^*^

FRAGMENTS: PART II
- by ling

^*^*^

Nerima
13 years 4 months previous

There was just no other way about it.

Tanakawa Yuki was going down, and she was going to go down *hard*.

Hibiki Ryoga didn't take crap from anyone, least of all some sadomasochistic 
twit nursing a growing affection for his mortal enemy and rival for Akane's 
love.

After a three-week hospital stay, he was more than prepared to get even.  
Hell, even *Ranma* had gotten out of the hospital earlier than he had!  And 
that was with considerable trauma and a minor skull fracture!  The doctors 
said that he had extensive soft tissue damage (bruises) and if he moved 
around, they couldn't guarantee that his ribs would set correctly.  He had 
spent the entire time wrapped up in bandages staring at the endless monotony 
of the hospital ceiling, thinking up increasingly violent ways to ruin Yuki. 
  He'd come up with no less than a thousand ways to make her bleed, no less 
than a million to make her regret ever crossing paths with him, but had 
finally decided to do something that would make a lasting impression.

He'd paid Nabiki an exorbitant amount of money for a deep background check; 
he'd commanded that she tell him anything and everything, regardless of how 
inane.  He'd hoped that she'd turn up something good, he had not anticipated 
something as good as what he held in his hands.

Nabiki however, had looked wary.

"Did you read the information?" he had demanded, and to her negative reply, 
he had grinned.  "Good, I want this to be a surprise for everyone."

"Ryoga-kun, I know you're angry at her, but this," she had paused, "this 
isn't going to be forgivable if you go too far.  I don't know what's in that 
folder - I haven't looked for myself, but please - don't do anything 
stupid."

Ryoga had only sneered and taken the papers, muttering something about 
things in general that were unforgivable.

So it came down to this: a photocopy of a doctor's report retraced with a 
black, felt-tip marker so every word jumped off the page.  It came down to 
this piece of paper being Xeroxed, and then being taped to every bulletin 
board in the school, distributed to every teacher.  And the final act of 
cruelty, leaving it on her homeroom desk, folded neatly into three parts, 
pressed into a plain, white envelope, with only the word 'Tanakawa' written 
across it.

He had waited for what seemed like hours for the school day to start, hidden 
impatiently in the eaves outside her classroom, unrepentantly angry.  He 
heard the first bell ring, and students started to file into the school, 
some of them glancing causally toward the boards, and their eyes catching on 
the paper there, suddenly fascinated by its words.

The whispers started.

Ryoga grinned, congratulating himself.

Just as the tardy bell rang, he observed from his perch that Akane and 
Ranma, headed off by Yuki were bolting into the schoolyard.  Lucky for Yuki, 
she took the second set of double doors and was in her homeroom just as the 
bell rang, barely on time.  Unlucky for Ranma and Akane, their homeroom was 
right in the middle of the hallway, and they missed catching the bell by a 
few scant seconds, and were relegated to the hall with buckets.

It took a moment, or maybe two, for Yuki to sit down and calm herself enough 
to notice the envelope on her desk.  Her brow furrowed as she looked at it, 
feeling its weight in her hands, biting her lip in curiosity and an odd 
sense of dread.  With steady fingers, she tore away the flap and pulled the 
sheet of white, computer-printout paper from the envelope, looking all the 
more mystified as she unfolded the top third, and pulled open the second and 
last.

Ryoga stared from his spot, now with his face pressed eagerly against the 
glass.

Yuki's teacher sat stunned at his desk, a piece of paper held up before him, 
his face a mixture of disgust and pity, and his eyes were glancing at his 
redheaded student, frozen in place at her desk.  His mouth opened and closed 
like a fish, while no words would come out.

The students sat together, laughing and joking, their end of the hall didn't 
have a bulletin board, they didn't know.  One of them called out a cheerful 
greeting to Yuki, only to be ignored, completely and totally.

Ryoga grinned; this was perfect.

Tanakawa Yuki sat at her desk, hands trembling as she held the document in 
her in fingers, and an expression on her face that Ryoga had never seen 
before.  Her entire body shook like a leaf, and she had turned white as 
snow.  She didn't make a sound.

But it was her eyes that said everything.  That brilliant, immutable blue 
that glowed so carefree in the sunlight, and that turned so dark in sadness. 
  It was no longer blue.  Instead, it had morphed into some black chimera of 
color, mixing grays and browns and dark until it reached an indescribable 
hue, one only known by misery, one personified by despair.

Shame.  Humiliation.  Disbelief.

Ryoga narrowed his eyes and grinned, whispering to himself, "Ruin."

And that was what this was to her.

Yuki was still motionless at her seat, and her friends started to swarm 
about her, concerned about her unusual silence.  But she didn't notice any 
of that, she saw only the worn words on that crisp sheet of paper, and her 
mind only screamed silently as she realized what it was.

-----------------------------------------------------------

HOKKAIDO MEDICAL INSTITUTE - EMERGENCY WARD

PRIVATE HOSPITAL USE ONLY!  FILE SEPARATELY!

Exam Rm: 6a
Date/Time: 10/16/87 - 5:56 pm
Exam Nurse: Y. Mameha
Exam Doctor: H. Tozikashi

Patient: Tanakawa Yuki
Category: PED  Age: 9  Gender: F
Guardian(s): [Unknown - EMS]

Complaints/Symptoms:

Mild concussion, small cut on the back of head.  Sustained dementia, 
possible psychosis.  Various bruises and cuts.

Vaginal tearing and bleeding, complete penetration of the hymen, extensive 
bruising of thighs and vulva.  Torn sphincter, and extensive tissue damage 
to all parts of female genitals.

Prognosis:

Unfavorable, girl is psychologically unstable, unable to maintain extended 
periods of conscious or logical thought.

Treatment:

[See 'Rape Trauma' handbook.]
pap-smear, blood test, (no early menstruation, pregnancy test not 
necessary), X-ray for possible broken wrist.  Early HIV test, and required 
six month, one year, two year, and three year HIV screenings thereafter.

Notes:

See attached police report.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Yuki suddenly slammed the paper face-down on the table.

This was her darkness.  This was what the black place inside her soul was 
filled of, memory upon aching memory of what had happened that late 
afternoon.

Her eyes scanned the room wildly, searching for a pitying face, looking for 
someone who dared to regard her with disgust or sadness.  She finally 
settled on the expression of her teacher, so repulsed and at the same time, 
feeling so terribly sorry for her.  She suddenly heard the whispers of some 
student behind her, talking in a lowered, disbelieving tone, "Yeah!  I saw 
it when I went to the bathroom a second ago.  They were posted up all over 
the school, I can't believe it?  I mean, rape?"

"Poor Yuki-san!  I can't believe it!"

"You mean...she's not a virgin anymore?"

"At nine?  What a whore!"

And the dam broke.

It didn't really surprise Ranma when he saw his friend barrel down the hall, 
tears in her eyes, a horrified scream on her lips.  It didn't really shock 
Akane that Yuki had slammed into the two of them, overturned their buckets, 
picked herself up, and kept running.  After all, they had been standing in 
front of a bulletin board during their punishment.  After all, Ranma had 
seen that paper, and had proceeded to tear it fiber by fiber apart.

"YUKI!  SHIT!  YUKI, WAIT!" Ranma cried, wet and female, started to chase 
after her friend.

All the while, Akane just knelt down to where the bits of paper were, taking 
a handful of the white stuff in her hands, she looked up and out the window, 
just in time to see a redheaded girl collapse in the schoolyard, and her 
identical friend enclose her in a deep embrace.

For the first time in ages, Akane felt a tremor in her heart.  One that 
started as a waver and ended as a storm, made up of doubt and fear and 
subliminal jealousy.  Akane had known of Yuki for more than three months, 
but for the first time, she feared that she didn't know the girl, the 
competition, that lay beneath that quiet exterior.

For months on months, Ranma had been hers.  Her protector, her friend, her 
fiance, her man.  Even as she grew angry with him for the arrivals of 
Shampoo and Ukyo, Kodachi and the endless other assortment of girls that he 
seemed to attract in swarms, she'd never felt threatened.  Because she was 
his strong fiancee.  The uncute one, the girl who didn't take his lip; Akane 
knew he liked that in a woman, of this, Akane was reasonably certain, and 
definitely justified.

But who was this fragile creature?  The broken girl who wept in public and 
shattered when struck?  This mere child who had captured his interest and 
stolen his good intention?  With her red hair and blue eyes, words and 
easy-going smile?  Was that what he wanted?  Was that what he yearned for?

Akane stood there in that hallway, a buzz of whisper and gossip floating in 
the background, and a rumbling inside her, watching as Ranma rocked Yuki's 
shaking body back and forth.

Somewhere on the roof of Furinkan High School, Ryoga's lunacy started to 
wear off, just enough so he could see the scope of what he had done.

She'd broken a few bones and embarrassed him.

He'd pulled her apart, fiber by fiber, flesh from flesh, and left her naked 
and unguarded, her past in full review where any person could cruelly 
dissect her...  Taunt her, ridicule her, hurt her.  Guilt reared its ugly 
head.

Ryoga stood there atop the school, eyes stinging from the unrelenting wind 
(or was it the unkind self-realization?) as he watched Ranma and Yuki down 
below.

Down below where Ranma held her and did what she could to comfort her.

^*^*^

Ryoga shook as the memory subsided.

Yuki narrowed her eyes and hissed, "Here's how it's going to work, Ryoga, 
I'm going to ask you a question, you're going to nod for 'yes', and you're 
going to shake your head for 'no'.  Is that clear?"

Ryoga nodded slowly, in no hurry to bring more flesh closer than absolutely 
necessary to that razor sharp edge of the knife.

"You didn't find this place on your own, did you?  Someone sent you here, 
right?"

He nodded again, eyes trained on Yuki's cool expression.

"Was it Nabiki?"

Ryoga hesitated; he'd learned from past experience that to cross Nabiki was 
a dangerous practice, also.  In his brain, a horrible struggle ensued, to 
betray Nabiki and be bankrupt for several years, or to irritate Yuki, and be 
confined to a hospital bed, or, if he allowed himself to think in that 
direction, a grave, for an indefinite amount of time.

He decided his finances could take a hit when he saw the redhead start to 
tense the hand that held the knife.  He nodded.

"Alright, I was worried for a second that you weren't going to answer me."  
She paused for a moment and tapped her finger against her lip and frowned.  
"Why did she sent you instead of coming herself?"

Shake.  No, he didn't know.

Kimiko scowled.  "You're useless, do you know that, Ryoga?"  All she got in 
return was a glare.  "Fine," she sighed.

Yuki pulled the knife away from his throat and relaxed just a little, a 
dangerous expression on her face.  "You want to know a secret, Ryoga?" she 
asked quietly, and leaning down toward him, one delicate finger millimeters 
away from touching his forehead, she whispered, "I never forgave you."

And with that, she pressed her palm to his brow and slammed his head against 
the refrigerator door, wincing as she saw the dent the impact had made.  She 
untied his unconscious form, propping him up in the elevator.  Once they 
reached the lobby, she settled him into a cab headed toward the Tendo Dojo 
in Nerima.

^*^*^

"I've got the caterers on hold, they still want to know how many chickens 
and how many tunas they need to have on hand!" Nodoka said, she sounded 
entirely serene, altogether much to calm for a woman who was throwing 
together the last few threads of a wedding that was to occur in exactly 
eight days.

"Akane!  Oh, Akane!  Stop running around in that!" Kasumi called helplessly, 
watching her baby sister spring around the house in her insanely expensive 
wedding kimono, arms flailing and her eyes flaming with panic.

"How am I supposed to stop?  People keep telling me to go to different parts 
of this house!" Akane yelled in frustration.

How did she know that a wedding was so much trouble?  The last one she'd 
been involved intimately in all they'd needed to do was hire a priest and 
try to avoid the insanity that trailed her and her fiance.  While they'd 
been able to get a hold of someone to perform the ceremony, they hadn't 
succeeded with their second deed.  But even that didn't seem so bad in 
comparison to what plagued her now, now it was beyond words.

There was utter chaos at the Tendo Dojo.  There were decorations half-hung, 
lighting fixtures partially installed and hanging onto ceilings by a cord or 
two, and sometimes, they fell.  On top of people.  The seventy-five chairs 
and thirty-five tables they'd rented had arrived, the only problem was that 
there was too much stuff in the dojo (women throwing things, bridesmaids 
with their sanity on hiatus, etc.) to fit them all in, so they sat out on 
the lawn.  Twenty-seven yellow rose corsages were lying around the kitchen 
counter, and much to Kasumi's chagrin, she had been forced to cook around 
them, being forbidden to touch them at all.

It was actually a comical sight.

Saotome Nodoka, in her eternal and inexplicable calm sat in between a pile 
of ribbons and fourteen boxes of tealight candles, a phone in her lap and a 
phonebook balanced precariously on a paper lantern, one of many that would 
have been hung up if people had remembered the Tendo dojo didn't afford them 
trees to hang string from, and therefore no string on which to hang the 
lanterns.

Kasumi was on her knees in the middle of the pile of ribbons with a pair of 
scissors, tirelessly curling them one by one by one, and then tying them to 
the small, pale yellow gift bags that they were handing out to the guests.  
Her hair was sticking up in every direction and her eyes her glazed over 
from the lack of sleep.

Yuka and Sayuri, Akane's two bridesmaids, were standing in their dresses, 
being hissed at by the tailor who was desperately trying to hem the skirts 
even as the two of them tried to run and capture the raging demon that was 
their friend.

Dr. Tofu was ensconced in the thirty yards of white banner-cloth that was 
supposed to be tied up and tucked into pretty, flower-shaped bunches at the 
corners of the dojo.  And try as he might, he couldn't seem to untangle 
himself.

Nabiki was driving in the day after the next, having been detained at work 
because of a recent stock slump, apologizing profusely at about not being 
there for her sister.

Tendo Soun had been sitting quietly in his room, offering a smile to 
whomever felt the courage to venture into his domain.

Genma had declined to go to the ceremony, citing that he had a 'frail 
constitution,' and felt terribly ill, not well enough to celebrate Akane's 
marriage.

"Well, at least it's a winter wedding, we don't have to worry about people 
being allergic to flowers and stuff," Yuka murmured helplessly, throwing up 
her hands in disgust, finally surrendering herself to the dressmakers 
threats.

Sayuri threw an unhappy expression toward her friend and leaned over, 
whispering, "Didn't Mrs. Saotome go insane at the florist's?"  Both of them 
turned toward each other and winced in tandem.

"GOD!" someone cried.  "No one ordered a cake?"

And when it seemed like nothing more could go wrong, there came a dreadful 
noise from the front doors, "HEY!  ANYONE HOME?  I'VE GOT AN UNCONSCIOUS MAN 
WITH A BIG CAB BILL HERE!"

^*^*^

There is an inherent difference between a woman, and a woman with child.  A 
woman possesses curves; a pregnant woman is round.  Her breasts grow larger, 
fuller, and her entire shape changes to mimic that of the Earth itself, 
whole and full and bursting with life.  A woman can grow emotional; a 
pregnant woman is a walking time bomb.  Sometimes, she wants to cry, and 
sometimes, she wants to laugh, but she can't ever predict her mood swings, 
and no one else can, either.  A woman shines; a pregnant woman glows.

And as Soichi watched Kimiko wander into that hospital, changed into dark 
blue pants and a gray t-shirt, he sighed in new appreciation.  She'd always 
been a beautiful woman, someone who, in his eyes, could be mud-soaked and 
bedraggled and still remain radiant.  But now, she was beyond words.  It was 
the way her cheeks flushed pink when she saw him staring at her, the way she 
lifted her palm to try and hide the redness, and how she grinned shyly at 
him...

It didn't matter - none of it did.  Not their past, not what happened in 
their future.  It didn't matter what the fathers would try to do, it didn't 
matter if Nabiki tried to drag them back to their old lives.  It didn't 
matter if Akane herself walked into that room and started screaming at the 
top of her lungs.

Because...because...

Even after all those years, after all their tears, after every time he'd 
broken her heart and she'd broken his, they still had this.

Because love is not a certain, constant companion in a relationship, it is a 
momentary gift, one you have to fight to keep, a feeling that everyone 
yearns for, but not anyone can have.  Because she'd fought him, long and 
hard and brutally for the right to love him, and he'd fought himself for 
years, learning to let himself love her back.

Because they had wanted it so badly.

Because when everything else fell apart, it was all they had...

So when she reached him, the blushing smile still on her face, he kissed 
her, long and hard and in front of everyone in the Intensive Care Unit, not 
caring what those who watched them thought.

Because it was love, pure and simple.

Purely beautiful, simply indescribable.

Holding her still in his arms, Soichi felt a sort of freedom that he had 
never truly known before, a weightlessness that filled him with joy.  As he 
looked into her happily confused blue eyes, he smiled again.  "Everything's 
going to be fine, I promise," he whispered.

She believed him because Saotome Ranma had never broken a promise before.  
And neither had Fujikara Soichi.

He'd promised to take care of her, when it seemed that everything was going 
wrong, he'd made it right, somehow.  She trusted him to do it again, just as 
she would for him.  Time and again, over and over, without fear or 
hesitation, he would walk through fire for her, and she would do the same.

Because he had made her his very first promise thirteen years ago, and he'd 
kept it to that day.

^*^*^

Nerima
13 years 4 months previous

She refused to cry anymore; she'd cried for too long already.  Her eyes were 
red and swollen from her tears, and her cheeks were cold white from her 
misery.  She didn't move, she just lay there on her bed, curled up in a 
little ball, her cheek pressed against Ranma's thigh, and her hair fanning 
out over his stomach, her fingers tightly wound in between his, as if to 
break contact was to die.

It had been three days.

Three days since someone had posted those papers all over the school.  Two 
days since Ranma had rampaged through the school, shredding every sheet 
posted or possessed by anyone, telling everyone in no uncertain terms 
exactly what kind of death would befall them if they chose to ever bring it 
up again.  One day since he'd snuck in through her bedroom window.  One day 
since she'd started clinging to him, unwilling to stop crying, and later, 
swallowing her tears and bottling her hatred, she was unwilling to start.

"Yuki," he started softly, his free hand stroking her hair delicately, 
"Yuki, please, cry, scream, yell," his voice gave out for a moment, 
"anything but this."  She was silent still, but her watery gray eyes turned 
upward to meet his own briefly.  All he could see in them was her 
humiliation, how broken she was, her hopelessness.

Taking a deep breath, he tried a different tactic, one that his father had 
once inadvertently stumbled upon shortly after his Neko-ken training.  
Saotome Genma may have been a dishonorable cur, but he was a dishonorable 
cur who loved his son very deeply.

"Do you want to hear a story, Yuki?" Ranma started, his voice low and 
soothing.

There was silence, but then again, he hadn't really expected a reply.

"Once upon a time, there was a very unhappy prince.  Oh, sure, he was 
incredibly handsome and perfect in every way, including his martial arts," 
he paused, quickly formulating more in his mind as he still ran his fingers 
through her scarlet tresses.  "But he was unhappy, his heart hurt."  She was 
looking at him now, eyes opened wide, still numb, still saddened, still 
helpless.  'God,' he thought, 'please, let this work; I can't bear to see 
her like this.  This isn't Yuki - this is, I don't know what this is.'

"Ever since he'd been a very young child, he'd never really had a friend.  
He'd met someone he'd liked very much a long time ago, but it had not turned 
out like a friendship should."  Ranma stopped, biting his lip, eyes still 
focused on Yuki's bland expression, hoping against all hope and reason that 
this would work.  That a stupid, childish fairy-tale would help her in a way 
that no amount of time could.  'If only I could get a hold of some magic, 
Yuki, I'd go back and I'd fix everything, I'd make it so that no one ever 
hurt you, so that no one could ever hurt you,' his mind whispered.

"So when he was old enough to get married, his father started introducing 
him to many girls that he'd been engaged to, each one prettier than the 
last."  She shifted a little in his lap, so that his face was now directly 
in her line of sight.  'Your eyes are so sad,' he mourned silently.  "But 
while he *liked* several of the girls, he didn't really love any of them - "

"Why not?" she interrupted, her voice so soft that it was barely audible.  
Her eyes glimmered briefly, and Ranma steeled himself against a wave of rage 
and sorrow, angry that someone had shattered her strength like this, grieved 
because he could not change her past.

"Well," he started slowly, moving his hand away from her hair and touching 
her pallid cheek, "because all the girls were very nice, but he didn't 
really know any of them.  He couldn't love a girl that he didn't really 
know.  Besides," he added, "he guessed that love was more than being good 
friends with someone, he just didn't feel that way about any of the girls.  
Not even the one that he liked very, very much."

She stared at him, a hint of blue returning to her irises, and Ranma 
unconsciously crossed his fingers.  "I thought the prince *did* feel that 
way about the girl he liked very, very much," she whispered, a desperate 
hush in her tone.

He swallowed hard.  "He did, a long time ago, he did.  Back when things were 
better between the two of them, back when he still thought she trusted him, 
he did love the girl, a lot," he breathed the last part quietly, his fingers 
absently brushing Yuki's cheek.

"Oh," she whispered, and pausing, she asked, "What about that friend the 
prince had always wanted?"

He smiled kindly at her; staring into her eyes he touched her face, tracing 
the line of her jaw with familiarity, with reverence.  "When the prince 
thought that his heart couldn't hurt any more, when he thought there wasn't 
any hope that he'd ever love anyone, he met a girl."  His voice echoed off 
the walls of her room loudly, bouncing back and flooding his own ears with 
sound.

"What was she like?" Yuki asked softly, a faded azure seeping into her eyes.

He grinned.  "Well, she was very smart, and very quick, and she never made 
fun of the prince about the things that everyone made fun of him about.  She 
always listened to him, and she always trusted him."

'Please smile again; your lips are made for smiling,' he thought.

She rolled her eyes, but just a little.  "I meant what she looked like."  He 
blushed, and leaning back into her pillows, he murmured:

"Well, she had this soft red hair, and she let it grow long until it touched 
her shoulders."  He glanced down to her face briefly, just long enough to 
see the faintest hint of a smile on her lips.  "And well, she always had 
this glitter in her eye, like she was planning something great, and you'd 
just have to sit still and bite your nails until it happened, and those 
something greats always did when she was around."

Yuki raised an eyebrow.  "She sounds wonderful."

"She *was* wonderful," he confirmed and continued with his story, "Anyway, 
the prince found himself talking to her more and more often, and telling her 
things that he'd never told anyone before.  Like the story of his mother."  
Yuki winced, and tangling her fingers between his with renewed passion, she 
pressed herself a little closer to him.  "And the story about all the little 
cats."  She growled, low and deep and angry.  "And about how he thought he 
loved a girl, or at least, had at some point or another."  She just stared 
at him, an indescribable expression on her face, a cross between mourning, 
hope, and subdued happiness.  There were no words for how her eyes bored 
into his soul at that moment.

Ranma cleared his throat, and starting once again the slow, comforting work 
of stroking her hair, he murmured, "And slowly, the prince found himself 
discovering that he needed this girl, this friend, more than he had ever 
needed anyone in his entire life."  A soft, shy smile bloomed on her pale 
face.

Yuki's eyes were wide.  "Did he promise to take care of her?"

For just the barest moment, he felt a sob rise in his throat as he realized 
what she was begging for, what she needed from him.  'A promise, oh God, a 
promise.'  How many times had promises gotten him into trouble?  How many 
vows had his father made?  Only to escape them and dump them onto his son?  
How many years of childhood had been destroyed because of unwise promises?

But the way she'd said it, how her voice had shaken as she'd whispered the 
word...  It would not be a promise he would regret.

"Yes, he promised," he said, comforted by the flood of life that returned to 
her eyes.  "Because she was part of him by then, because when she wasn't 
there, it didn't feel right.  But when she was, he felt warm inside." he 
finished, his voice barely a whisper.

Her eyes were trained on his now, an unreadable gray color, sad and serious 
and laughing all at the same time, that confusing mix of emotions that had 
painted her features had receded to her eyes, and they continued to watch 
him, to drink him in.

"And - " Ranma choked out, mesmerized by her, trapped by their closeness, 
intoxicated by the way her skin felt pressed against him, how her hair was 
silky in his hands.

'Oh, God,' he thought darkly and in sudden shock, 'I want her, God, I want 
her.'

The sudden need to be away from her, the need to run as far away as possible 
from that endless expanse of blue eyes and soft skin before he did something 
he *wouldn't* regret overwhelmed him.  He abruptly rolled off the bed, 
letting Yuki's head fall to her pillow with a thud.  He stood there, bent 
over, hands on his knees, panting hard, eyes averted from her face as he 
tried to regain his self-control.

His skin was alive, it screamed and it called and it craved for more of her 
against itself.

'But,' his mind argued loudly, 'she's hurt!  She's sad!  She's as close to 
broken as you can get!  God, how the hell can you be thinking with your 
goddamned dick when she's in this state?'

"Shit," he whispered aloud, eyes rising to meet Yuki's surprised expression, 
"shit, I've gotta go.  I've gotta go, now."

He made a lunge for her window, intent on getting out of that room, removing 
the temptation.

But her voice stopped him.

"WAIT!" she yelled, a desperate tone coloring the word.  He turned back, 
gasping for breath and trying to force the raw heat in his body down.  She 
was perched on the edge of her bed, legs uncrossed and flailed quickly 
across the edge, the shirt of her dark red pajamas bunching upward to reveal 
a band of pale, cream-colored skin, flawless to the eye.

"What is it, Yuki?" he asked slowly, tearing his gaze away from her, begging 
himself to just leave and take a cold shower.

"Ranma," she started, her voice soft but firm, "how does the story end?"

His eyes opened wide at the question, and he whipped back around momentarily 
to see her standing now, one hand tucking a hapless strand of red hair 
behind an ear, and the other reached out, her fingertips almost touching his 
arm.  And biting her lip, she stretched just a little bit more, pressing the 
pads of her fingers to his flesh, wrapping them round, and holding him fast, 
anchoring him to her.

Until he told her how the story ended.

The electric flame that started where her skin touched his refused to be 
doused, and it spread with savage speed through him, making him dizzy from 
the heat of that small, insignificant contact.

He opened his mouth, and finally, in a strangled tone of voice, he 
whispered, "It hasn't, not yet."

And leaped from her window into the comforting cold of the night, safe from 
the wanting that burned in his soul.

^*^*^

He hugged her tightly, standing there under the fluorescent lights of the 
hospital, amidst their fearful surroundings, she felt safe in the haven of 
his arms.

Because he *was* right.

The story hadn't ended.

Not yet.

^*^*^

"Ryoga-kun?"

The soft, familiar voice floated down from above him, and through the haze 
of blurred objects and fractured images, he opened his eyes to the 
too-bright room.  "Oh!  See, he's coming around!" cried another voice 
happily, he recognized the vague, female-shaped blobs before him, and he 
whispered:

"Akane?  Kasumi?  Where am I?"

His eyes cleared.

He was lying on his bed, head turned slightly to stare at where Akane and 
Kasumi were looking at him in deep concern.  In the background, Tofu 
puttered about, content to make himself useful only when encouraged.  Akane 
raised an eyebrow, and brushing her fingertips tenderly along Ryoga's 
forehead, wondering at the bruise there, she asked, "You're home, Ryoga, at 
the dojo, how are you feeling?"

Ryoga blinked hard, and groaning, he murmured, "Like I got slammed in the 
head by a cement block, how long have I been out?"

Kasumi shook her head helplessly.  "We're not really sure, Ryoga-kun, some 
taxi-driver had brought you here from the city.  He said that a nice lady 
had put you in the car and told him where to take you."  Kasumi frowned, 
"Ryoga-kun, you *must* be more careful when you get lost."

In that moment, the fuzziness in his thought processes disappeared, and he 
remembered everything.  The apartment, the photograph, the strange man, and 
... YUKI!  Yuki with the knife, Yuki and her smile, Yuki and the memories 
that she had made rush him, like hungry waves that ate away at the peaceful 
life he led.

"Ryoga?  Ryoga?  Are you okay?  You blanked out there for a moment!" Akane 
asked loudly, a slight tone of worry in her voice.

Then Ryoga remembered the other things.  The coffee cups in the kitchen, how 
they'd been more at home with each other than he and Akane, how much he'd 
wanted to be that mysterious man - because at least he knew who he loved, 
truly loved.

Gasping loudly, he pushed himself up from the ground, a determined 
expression on his face.

"Someone get me a phone, I have to talk to Nabiki, now."

^*^*^

"Kimiko-san?"

The redheaded woman looked up from the phone book, her blue eyes framed by 
reading glasses that she used from time to time, a surprised expression on 
her face.  The shocked 'o' that her lips had made widened into a smile.  
Reaching out her hand, she brushed his cheek softly, and whispered, "Naka!  
You're awake!"

The boy lying in the hospital bed grinned raggedly.  "Yeah."  He paused.  
"And you wouldn't believe the nightmare I had about you," he shuddered, 
"your hair was awful."  His voice was hoarse, his throat having just been 
liberated of the respirator that he'd been fighting even unconsciously.

Kimiko bit back a secret smile as her face grew solemn, and Naka frowned.

He hadn't ever really spent time with Kimiko, in earlier years, he'd mostly 
ignored her, though he knew enough about the woman from comments that 
Fujikara-sensei had made and from intuition to know that she rarely looked 
solemn.  She always laughed, she always smiled, and she never remained too 
serious, believing without a doubt that to do so was to waste a good portion 
of one's existence being edgy.

She released a shuddering breath, and reaching toward him with shaking 
fingers, she clasped his hands, whispering, "Naka-san, I have something very 
important to tell you, okay, please listen to me before you say anything 
else."

His muscles tensed.  Sign number one that something was wrong was the 
honorific that she had chosen to use.  Naka-san?  He'd never heard that come 
from between her lips before.  Secondly, she was shaking.  There was a deep 
and careful *knowing* that promised him one thing: Yoshida Kimiko did not 
shake.  "What is it, Kimiko-san?" he asked quietly.

There was only a deft brush of darkness in her eyes as she said the words, a 
talent learned after years of hearing sad things, feeling sad things, 
knowing sad things.  Becoming sad things.

"Naka-san, do you remember why you're in the hospital?"

The memories of twisted wreckage and flashing lights roared back into his 
mind.  "Yeah," he whispered, "just a little."

"Naka," she paused, "your parents, they didn't - "

She didn't need to finish her sentence.

^*^*^

"Hello?" Nabiki muttered into the phone unhappily.

It wasn't often that someone threw their temper tantrums in her face, and 
even less often that the person was a male.  'Then again,' she thought, 
'Kuzio has always been special.'

Who'd have thought that through all the spineless terror he exhibited at the 
slightest hint of the illegal, he'd have a bitch-factor worthy of a Tendo.  
He wasn't talking to her.  Actually, he wasn't even picking up the phone 
when she called him.  Nabiki had even tried faking him out by calling his 
home number instead of his cell phone.  It hadn't worked.  'Damn caller ID,' 
Nabiki thought hatefully.

"Dammit, Nabiki, are you always in a bad mood, or do you get yourself 
extra-special mad for me?" the voice on the phone asked cautiously.

Her eyes opened wide.  "Ryoga?  Back from Tokyo already?"  There was a 
meaningful pause.  "Well, what'd you find?"

Ryoga replied, a growl in his voice, "Other than that Yuki's as fucking 
terrifying as ever?  Dammit, Nabiki, I can't believe you - "

"Can't believe I what?" Nabiki interrupted.  "I told you what you were 
getting into, now, tell me, what *did* you get yourself into?"

She leaned heavily against the back of her chair, eyes staring hard into the 
opposite wall of her small, cozy office.  It was colored in hues of mahogany 
and green, dark and rich like money in her hands.  It was what she had 
fought toward since she was a child, the one thing that she'd truly wanted, 
truly ached for: power, control, the ability to manipulate and change, to 
make things bend to her will.

She wasn't going to lose all of it because of a ghost from years passed.  
She would fix all of this; she could do it.  With the right information and 
a little bit of tugging at one or two strings, she would make everything 
right; she could set it straight.  And then, Akane could get married, Kasumi 
could go on happily in life, and she -

She could let go of what had happened.

There was a long groan over the phone line.  "Well, she did give me a pretty 
severe concussion, Nabiki."

She snorted.  "Kiss my ass, Ryoga, spill."

He sighed.  "Nice apartment, really high class stuff in that place.  A 
couple of interesting notes and letters, nothing really important.  But 
there was a photo."  He paused.  "She was just standing there, hugging this 
*guy* and beaming."  He laughed.  "I forgot how pretty she was."

"Ryoga," Nabiki murmured, rolling her eyes, "I hope you're not forgetting 
that you're promised to my little sister."

He laughed, softly, bitterly.  "Of course not, Nabiki, I've always been 
promised to her, one way or another."  There was an odd tone in his voice, 
and Nabiki found herself frowning at the sound.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Nothing at all, Nabiki, nothing."

^*^*^

Kasumi stood there in the kitchen, her hands pressed against the aged 
countertops, her eyes far away, haunted, lost.  She had 'accidentally' 
picked up the phone when Ryoga had called Nabiki, and she'd not so 
'accidentally' replaced the receiver.

'She's still alive,' Kasumi thought softly, a hushed awe flowing through 
her, 'after all these years, she's still alive.'  She chuckled softly to 
herself, 'I should have known.  She wouldn't have gone down without a fight 
- well, a better fight than that, at least.'

She looked around the room slowly, to the comfortable blue of the tiles and 
the warm, familiar way the light fell as it had since she was old enough to 
remember.  This was her center, this was her core, this was what sustained 
her through her mother's death, through her teenaged years, through Ranma's 
arrival, through the insanity that followed.

Through her friend's death.

It was what kept her going, the peace that she knew in the kitchen.

She smiled softly, touching her cheek as she watched the sun set slowly, 
dipping its glowing red into the black line of solid land, disappearing bit 
by bit until only the peak survived.

Something finally occurred to her, something that she'd noticed about the 
nature of Yuki's relationships, or at least, one in particular.

"Yuki," she whispered, "you aren't alone, are you?"

^*^*^

Nerima
13 years 4 months previous

She had heard him run into the dojo, slamming the door behind him, panting 
hard, like he'd been sprinting for miles.  At first, she thought that he'd 
been hurt, and bolting toward the dojo, she had only slid the door open a 
fraction when she saw the reality of the situation.  There was a dark flush 
on his face, a harried expression in his eyes, and if someone who knew how 
to read aura's had been around, they'd have blushed bright red at what his 
was screaming.  Loudly.

Years of reading medical books had given Kasumi a little insight regarding 
exactly what was going through Saotome Ranma's mind.  There were a couple of 
things that not even extremely skilled martial artists could hide.  She'd 
blushed and backed away into the shadow of the doorway, wondering how to 
approach him, what to do to help him.

She sighed as she watched him sitting there, his eyes screwed shut, content 
to collapse against a wall and breathe heavily, trying to force down the 
arousal that still welled up inside of him.

She had a vague idea of what put him into this mood, and she'd been 
suspecting something for a while.  Even as Yuki and Ranma had laughed 
together in nearly childish innocence, Kasumi found herself worrying that 
something was building between the two, something that would make Akane cry. 
  Kasumi knew that even though Akane fought her engagement tooth and nail, 
she had started to like Ranma, maybe even more than like; it had just become 
something more than a childish fascination.  It was a tentative, fragile 
place in their relationship, and she was certain it would not stand up to, 
well, whatever Yuki and Ranma shared.

She noted with concern a flash of red from the corner of her eyes, and 
silently groaned as she heard a back door open in the dojo from her vantage 
point at the front.

"Ranma?"

Kasumi's eyes grew wide at the sight.  It was Yuki, dressed in a pair of 
dark red pajamas, her hair tied up in a pigtail, blue eyes simmering with 
unnamed terror.  "Ranma," she started, "please, please tell me what's wrong. 
  Why did you run off like that?"

'Why indeed,' Kasumi wondered.  'And why is she dressed like that?  They 
weren't...were they?  They haven't...have they?' she thought with increasing 
panic.

There was a soft, soughing sound of cloth against wood as Ranma wrapped his 
arms around his legs and slowly rocked back and forth against the dojo wall, 
pleading, "Yuki...Yuki please, leave me alone, I can't see you right now."

"What do you mean?" a slow, heart-aching tone in her voice.

"I mean," he muttered through his ragged breathing, "I mean leave me alone, 
Yuki, you can't be here right now, not with me."

Kasumi's eyes grew wide; Ranma was right: it wouldn't be in her best 
interests to be around him at that time.  She'd watched the boy fight back 
his desires and push away his want to couple on endless occasions, biting 
back something and wandering off somewhere to be alone, knowing that doing 
*anything* would have either earned him the disfavor of his fiancees or lend 
more credence to the universal 'Ranma is a pervert' campaign.  But he was at 
his breaking point now, with his face red from heat and his body shuddering 
for the sweet mercy of release.

But Yuki didn't know this, how could she?

So Kasumi watched as she knelt down at Ranma's side, her bangs falling into 
her eyes, the dark red locks contrasting sharply with the paleness of her 
skin.  Yuki's hands trembled as she cupped Ranma's face, brushing her thumb 
along his cheek.  And with a soft cry she whispered, "Ranma, please, please 
don't push me away; I need a friend right now.  Ranma, please, forgive me, 
please."  Her voice broke into shuddering sobs.  "I was little, Ranma, I 
couldn't stop him!"  She pulled herself away from him, and Kasumi watched, 
silent still.  Horror dawned in Ranma's eyes as he listened to her babble.  
"I'm so sorry!  I'm so sorry!  If you're disgusted, I'll understand, God, 
please, I'm so sorry!"  Her shoulders trembled and she crumbled, her hands 
covering her face as she cried, her fingers slick with tears.

Kasumi gasped softly, realizing for the first time exactly what Yuki was 
apologizing about.

Ranma reached out to her, and grabbing her roughly by the shoulders, he 
hissed, "Did someone tell you that this was *your* fault?  Did some bastard 
tell you that?"  Ignoring his words, she kept sobbing, her voice growing 
softer and softer with her exhaustion.  The dark flush on Ranma's face grew 
darker, angrier, and suddenly pulled Yuki toward him and held her, crushing 
her to him.  He whispered loudly, "Dammit, Yuki!  I don't care who says it, 
or how many times they say it!  *It was not your fault*!"  He loosened his 
grip and stroked her back in slow, circular motions, his eyes pooling with 
tears.  "You were just a kid, how could it be your fault?"

"Didn't - didn't stop!  'M martial - artist, shoulda' stopped him!" she 
gasped out from between sobs, hiding her face in his shoulder.  "Nobody 
lo-loves me 'nymore, nobody, not good 'nuf."

Ranma felt his heart break, just as it had when he was a child being pulled 
away from his mother, torn from his friends.  But this new pain was so much 
sharper, tart and seemingly endless.  He wanted to kill the man who had 
raped her; he wanted to kill whoever had ever said that the horrible things 
that had happened to her were her own fault.  The depth of his hatred 
frightened him; he'd been angry before, he'd never been filled with 
bloodlust, not before he'd met her.

He pushed away from her, one hand clasping her wrist, and the other touching 
her cheek so gently, in such a soft, worshipful manner.  His blue eyes 
darkened into a thick, stormy gray, and in a quiet whisper, he said, "Yuki." 
  And when she didn't listen, Ranma lifted her chin so her eyes met his.  
"Yuki," he whispered again, his voice raspy.  He gasped as he saw the depth 
of her soul, the wounds there, and the hope she felt she had lost.  Drawing 
his finger along the curved line of her face, dipping it down to trace her 
collarbone, and circling the delicate hollow there, eyes still locked with 
hers, he whispered hoarsely, "Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?"

She was perfect, exquisitely, painfully beautiful, flawless.

Her skin was the color of a pearl, and her cheeks flushed pink like cherry 
blossoms.  Her flaming hair always fell in soft waves at her shoulders, and 
her small, wine-colored mouth smirked in time to the smile in her eyes.  She 
had long, tapered fingers that flew from place to place as she talked, 
always pantomiming or brushing against her lips, and on rare occasions, 
teasing his own hands, touching his face.  There was a great fullness to her 
beauty, dark and soulful and rich, vibrant and shimmering.  Something much 
more substantial than a pretty face, than what his other fiancees showed.

'Other...fiancees?' he thought in a strange, surreal tone, his eyes still 
captured in her own.  'Since when has she been one of the fiancees?  When 
did she-'  In that moment, he realized that she'd always been one of the 
fiancees for longer than he'd ever imagined.  Hers was the face he saw in 
the mirror when he was in girl-form, her smile was the one that sometimes 
made him stop and look at himself/herself for an extra moment.  She was the 
strong one, the unbreakable one, the one who was always there, forgiving and 
understanding.

She who had never wanted to hurt him, but who ended up being the cause of 
everything.

"R-Ranma," she whispered in reply, a few more teardrops slipping from her 
eyes to land with soft splatters on the folds of his Chinese shirt.  "What - 
what are you saying?"

He breathed hard, and shuddering, he continued, "You really don't know, do 
you?"  He paused, pulling her hand upward so that it was pressed against his 
own face.  "You don't know how beautiful you are, how, how perfect."

He took her other hand, and holding it open toward the sky, he pressed his 
lips to her palm, inhaling the scent of her as his mouth lingered there.  An 
embrace, a touch that was so deeply sensual, more intimate than a hug, 
darker than lips against lips.  It was a kiss of reverence, as a follower 
hazarded to a goddess.  Her eyes were wide, and her mouth opened and closed, 
gasping for air.  Ranma lifted his head from her hand, feeling the electric 
jolt of sadness at the loss of that contact.

"No matter what anyone ever says about you or your past, Yuki," Ranma 
murmured, sinking into the endless blue of her eyes, "I do."

'I love you,' he thought, 'I love you more than you'll ever understand, more 
than I'd ever let you know.  Never feel like no one cares.'

There was silence in the dojo, not a sound save for the world that continued 
to turn and move and live around them.

But it was enough; Yuki knew, she understood.

Perhaps the lightness of having professed his feelings without faltering in 
his words gave him courage; maybe it was just the way she was curled up in 
his embrace, but whatever made him brave in that moment, it made him brave 
for the rest of his life.

He leaned down to her face, losing himself as he kept gazing into those 
endless azure pools of color, leaning so close that he could feel the heat 
of her skin against his own, so close he could smell the light, female scent 
of her.

And he kissed her.

At first, it was just a brush of skin against skin, the most innocent and 
comforting of embraces, deft and barely there.  But as he broke that initial 
contact, those gentle fingers that he'd placed on his cheek pulled his face 
toward her own again, this time their mouths meeting in a heated, endless 
kiss.  Breath mingling, souls melding, hearts beating.

And she kissed him.

He was lost in the satiny smooth feel of her lips against his own, how her 
body fit perfectly in the curve of his, how his hands felt so naturally at 
home tangled in her red hair.

And they kissed each other.

The way that the first lovers on earth had kissed each other, with wonderful 
curiosity, raging passion, guiltless want, and love.  Because they'd been 
bound at the soul and now, they'd be bound at the heart.

Kasumi tore her eyes away from the scene, tears bubbling up and a hacking 
sob rising her in her throat.  She turned, and slammed her back against the 
wall of the dojo, sliding down to the ground, feeling her legs shaking.

How could this happen?  How could she have let this happen?

Her little sister or her friend?  The sister she'd raised nearly as her own 
child, wiping away her tears and singing her to sleep, or the girl who 
smiled and understood, who listened to her talk and made her laugh?  They 
both loved him, they both loved Ranma like no one ought to love anyone else, 
with the darkest passion and the deepest loyalty.  But only one of them had 
earned his trust, his respect.  Only one of them had touched his soul.

She slapped her hands over her mouth, hiding the sound of her cries.

Deep in her own heart, she knew who she wanted Ranma to be with, and Kasumi 
didn't like the answer, she didn't like that she'd betrayed.  She didn't 
like that she'd choose Yuki.

It was then that she heard a muffled yell and the sound of a struggle in the 
dojo.  Yuki's tear-soaked voice floated through the window, "NO!  Ranma- I 
can't- I can't- Akane- I have to go, I have to go!"

There was the sound of rapid footsteps, and then the uncomfortable silence 
of the aftermath of sin.

^*^*^

Hours passed, and the heavens started to weep heavy, splattering raindrops.  
And while the staff of nurses and doctors grew ill of hearing the near 
silent sound of a child's heart falling to pieces, Kimiko stood her ground.

She held his hand, never breaking the contact, knowing that although his 
fingers were rigid and cold, that if she loosened her hold on him, his last 
tether to the earth would be gone.

He needed her right then, and she needed him to get well, needed him to grow 
up and old.

Not because he was her child, not because she was his sister, but because...

Because she saw so much of Soichi in him.

Because she recognized that dark rage that fluttered in his clear, brown 
eyes, and she knew the casual grace with which he walked.

Because she loved what he made her remember.

^*^*^

Nerima
13 years 2 months previous

"How *did* you get out of the house for the weekend?" she asked, looking 
around herself in concern, for the moment terrified by the taboo 
possibilities of someone finding them together.

Ranma just rolled his eyes.  "Yuki, I told my dad that I was going on a 
training trip, I didn't even finish telling him where I was going before he 
yelled: 'Good son!  Train hard!' and left.  Akane and Ukyo looked sort of 
pissed off, and I saw them tailing me until I reached the train station."  
He shrugged and said, "I figure since they saw that I was alone it was 
okay."  He looked at her in a sidelong glance, "I'm surprised your family 
didn't say anything."

A dark expression fluttered across her face.  "Let's *not* talk about that 
right now."  She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the train platform.  
"Come on!"

The masses of people turned their heads at the sound of feet slapping 
against the aged floors, a few of the older patrons smiled at the sight.  A 
pretty, spirited, redheaded girl laughing as she tugged her companion, a 
tall, handsome young man toward a train.  From a distance, they seemed 
filial, the type of love that brothers - under all the resentment over 
childhood spats - hid for their little siblings.  At closer glance, a 
certain heat pulsed through them, passion.

She'd made him promise that he'd never love her, that he'd never betray his 
engagement to Akane again.  "Because," she said quietly, holding his hand, 
"because regardless, she loves you, I know, Ranma, she loves you."  She had 
looked up at him, eyes dark and filled with tears, "I couldn't take you away 
from her."  So she'd hugged him, crying softly into the cloth of his shirt, 
whispering the whole time, both mourning and reminding herself of what she 
was to become.  "Friends," she'd said, "friends."

But she'd recovered.  And he'd numbed the ache inside.

And now...

Her eyes flashed nearly silver as she turned toward him, the flushed 
happiness coloring her features.  In her spare hand, she clutched a small 
duffle, and she carried her sleeping bag like a backpack.  He looked 
intently toward her, one of those slightly confused, inexplicably charmed 
expressions on his face, fascinated by the way she ran and moved.

And who wouldn't be?  She was stunning.

Their little trip in Japan's public transport system had garnered more than 
a few men vicious glares.  Yuki had no conscious idea how beautiful she was, 
and so she did nothing to hide her loveliness, letting her eyes shimmer, her 
hair fly in the breeze, and her clothes did nothing to hide the curvature of 
her body.  Of course, while Ranma was used to her receiving the catcalls and 
the extra-long looks, it didn't mean he had to be happy about it.

He laughed as he ran plopped down into their seats, watching Yuki settle 
herself directly across from him, a curious expression on her face.  "What's 
so funny?" she asked.

He raised an eyebrow, and taking one of her hands, still wrapped in bandages 
and healing salves, he murmured regretfully, "After you were covered in 
burns and bruises, this didn't seem like such a great idea after all."

Yuki smiled softly, and touching his face gently, she whispered, "Hey, I 
made the choice.  After I saw you and Ryoga fight, I realized that in an all 
out battle, I wasn't nearly in your league without any good ki attacks.  I 
got bruised and burned at my own discretion."

Ranma frowned at her.  He knew damn well that she did what she wanted when 
she wanted and how she wanted at her discretion.  No one was going to keep 
her from doing what she pleased, they might have posed a slight obstacle, or 
even delayed her, but in the end, she'd get what she'd been fighting for.  
He didn't want to teach her the Kachu Tenshin Amiguriken.  He hadn't wanted 
to teach her the Mouko Takabisha, and he'd most definitely had no intention 
of teaching her the Hiryu Shoten Ha.

In fact, knowing her penchant for talking him into and out of things, he'd 
expressly avoided using those attacks in her presence.  But a few days ago, 
Ryoga had decided to show up again, newly filled with some unknown angst.  
Though, had Yuki or Ranma known that it was Ryoga who had distributed those 
flyers all over the school, it wouldn't have merely been property damage.  
Needless to say, in the wake of all the fantastic displays of ki ability, 
Yuki had gotten excited.

She'd pouted, she'd pleaded, and in the end she'd just demanded it.

"Why do you want it so badly, anyhow, Yuki?" he asked softly, watching her 
dig through her knapsack, a mystified tone in his voice.  "I mean, I 
understand that being a martial artists means challenging yourself, but why, 
Yuki?"

She raised an eyebrow at him.  "You did it."

He sighed, "That's different, Yuki, and you know it.  I've devoted my life 
to the art, I'm going to grow up and *live* the art."  He shrugged his 
shoulders.  "You want to draw for a living, Yuki."

"Would 'curiosity' appease you?" she tried hesitantly.  And groaning softly 
as he shook his head, she whispered, "Alright, I'll tell you, but if you 
breathe a word of it to another soul - "

"I wouldn't ever betray a confidence, Yuki," he replied, his voice deathly 
serious.  And smiling softly, he grabbed her hand in his own, realizing for 
the thousandth time how small she was, how fragile she looked.  "Come on 
Yuki, tell me the truth."

"Ranma," she started slowly, pulling her fingers away, *carefully*.  They 
still hurt.  "I will tell you, but you can't interrupt me at all okay, not 
for anything."  He nodded, and comically, he zipped his mouth shut and 
grinned brightly at her as she smiled in return.

"After I was raped," she started, and automatically, she slapped her hand 
over Ranma's already-opening lips, as if she knew that he wouldn't be able 
to resist.  She tried again.  "After I was raped, my parents were very 
angry.  Angry at the world, angry at the police, angry at me."  She 
tightened where her hand was clasped over Ranma's mouth, preparing herself 
for the worst.  "They wanted to know why the future heir to the Rising 
Phoenix School of Martial Arts couldn't fend for herself."  She glanced 
upward furtively, watching Ranma's impassive face.  And with a sigh of 
relief, she moved her hands.

Not half a second passed before:

"I CAN'T *BELIEVE* YOUR PARENTS!  HOW DARE THEY CALL THEMSELVES HUMAN IF 
THEY-"

The hand was back where it needed to be - over Ranma's mouth.  Yuki sighed 
sadly.  "Ranma, please, let me finish, alright?"  He nodded sullenly.  With 
her voice much lower, she said, "After the rape, I went through three months 
where I couldn't do anything, I couldn't practice the art, I couldn't study, 
and I could barely eat.  And finally," she breathed deeply, her eyes 
clouding with a thick, black haze, "one day, while I was sitting in the 
dojo, with my father trying to get me to spar with him, I saw," she paused, 
struggling with the words, "I saw - saw *that man's* face on my father."  
She released a deep sigh, and turning away.  "That's how I got good, Ranma.  
That's why I want to learn more.  That's what's gotten me through all these 
years."  She glanced up at him.  "Hatred.  Bitterness and regret and shame."

He frowned, feeling that same, low ache in his chest as she stopped speaking 
and let that heavy silence fill the air.

And strangely enough, he whispered, "I think I understand."

"Good," she said, hard and final, as if she was closing the topic to further 
discussion.  Settling down in the seat across from him, humor sparkling in 
her eyes, she propped her feet up on the seat next to him and buried her 
face in a book.

He stared at her for a moment, biting his lip in concern.  He was quite 
certain that she'd survived the aftermath of her rape, that she was a strong 
enough person that she'd fought her demons and won the battle.  But he 
sometimes doubted that her heart had completely healed, because on occasion, 
when he'd tease her with a grin or brush her hand, he'd see the cracks 
beneath the exterior, the fear of growing close to someone.

She glanced upward at him and said, "It's 100 yen for every three minutes to 
enjoy the show."

He rolled his eyes and leaned back into the seat, letting his gaze wander 
away from her and toward the city buildings and rush of land, screaming past 
the window as the train peeled away from the station.  Dozens of young girls 
still in their school uniforms stood on that platform, waving their hands to 
their sweethearts on that train, going away for the weekend to their 
mothers' home, or for family business.

'Family,' he wondered slowly, 'family honor.'  In a world of modern 
conveniences and thoughtless betrayals, a place where divorce was simple, 
accepted, and forgiven, the social status in Japan seemed strange to him.  
Sure, he'd grown up in the withering shadow of the all-important honor, but 
he'd never been able to explain it well.

Giri wasn't merely family honor, it was understanding and *being* that 
person and fitting into the place to which you were born.

But what had he been born to?  He never knew what his mother had expected of 
him, he knew of his childhood promise, to be the man amongst men, and 
failing in that, he hoped that maybe she'd have wanted something else, 
something that he *could* do.  He knew what his father expected, for him to 
be the best martial artist in the world, to marry a Tendo daughter and join 
the two lines of Anything Goes Martial Arts.  And someday, in the far 
distant future, perhaps to rid them of the terror that was Happosai, once 
and for all.

He glanced at where Yuki was reading some gaijin book, filled with strange 
words, only a fourth of which he could pick out and understand.  The cover 
was a pale lavender frame, and in the middle, a mockingbird flew toward a 
tree hollow, a sickle moon in the background.  The book was well-thumbed and 
tattered with age.

She glanced up at him, her blue eyes breaking his concentration for just a 
moment, and her voice disrupting the hum of the train.  "What's the matter, 
Ranma?"  He shook his head and grinned, saying:

"You're reading it again, Yuki."

She raised her eyebrows and said, "Well, if you'd paid any attention at all 
in English class, perhaps you could be reading it with me."

He smirked.  "What's it about?"

"Loving people for what they are instead of what society sees them as."  Her 
voice was clear, as though she had no idea the implications of her words, 
she merely smiled at him serenely and turned back to the comfort of those 
letters, lost in the poetry of those words.

'My family and duty, or the one thing that I've ever wanted more than to 
learn the art?' he murmured to himself, 'No one can make that decision.'

He hadn't meant for it to happen, it wasn't his fault.  After all, no one 
intends to fall in love, and if they do, it rarely happens.  'It's 
insanity,' he reasoned, 'lunacy.  This is stupid.  Who falls in love with 
their curse?'  He bit his lip at the thought, and berated himself for 
calling her that.  It was not Yuki's fault he had fallen into that pool in 
Jusenkyo, and it wasn't her fault that her ancestors had accidentally left 
their ki in those cursed waters.

How could he love her?  How could he love her when he was just sixteen years 
old, foreign to the entire concept of devotion?  And yet, he knew it in his 
heart without the slightest doubt that he loved her.

But - but there was always Akane, just in the background of his mind.  The 
rare occasions when she smiled at him burned into the surface of his memory, 
the way her eyes twinkled when she was happy.  He thought that maybe he 
still loved her, maybe just the slightest bit.

You didn't just fall *out* of love with someone, did you?

"Ranma?  Ranma, snap out of it, we're here."

He glanced out the windows of the train and saw that they had, indeed, 
returned to Nerima.

She'd been right, it had been a lovely weekend.  And for all the fears he 
had that she'd end up driving him to do something stupid and selfish - strip 
her down, make love to her, run away and marry her, etc. - he'd had a good 
time.  They'd gotten on the same train two days earlier, and before he knew 
it, he was standing on a peaceful stretch of meadow near a stream.  He had 
watched Yuki knee-deep in its water, soaked to the bone and laughing, trying 
to get him to join her in her fun.

The next two days had been blurry for him, recalling only certain moments.  
He remembered waking up in the middle of the night, and finding that her 
tent was empty.  He remembered the panic, and then the absolute relief that 
had filled him when he realized she was just sitting on the bank, back 
turned toward him, staring out at the moon while her feet hung in the water. 
  He remembered her biting back tears as he wrapped up her hands, burned and 
aching from trying to grab chestnuts out of a campfire, she was more angry 
that she'd failed than crying at the pain.  He remembered trying to explain 
the concept of the Mouko Takabisha, only to hear her laughing about how he 
was the *only* person in the entire world who could turn his ego into an 
actual physical attack.

He remembered how she'd smiled at him when he'd changed when a sudden shower 
had caught them, whispering, "I like your girl-side, Ranma, it makes me feel 
like I'm always with you."

She'd called a cab and gotten them to her house, knowing that if she were to 
drop him off at the Tendo residence, someone would see them together, and 
there would be hell to pay.

He walked her to her front door, and waited until she was halfway into her 
house before he stopped her with just a touch of his hand.

"Yuki," he whispered desperately, "you have to promise me something."

Her brow furrowed in concern.  "What, Ranma, what do you need me to 
promise?"  She could never deny him anything that she could give.  If she 
was able to help him, hold him, love him, for as long as she breathed on 
that planet, she'd do anything for him.  She'd long since given up hope of 
breaking her ties to him; separation was agony.

"I," he started weakly, staring at the ground, "I have a lot of things that 
I've been promised to do in life, Yuki."  He looked back up just in time to 
see the pain flash across her face.  Yuki wasn't stupid; she knew the 
reality of their relationship.  Stolen moments, she knew, were all they'd 
ever have.  He took a deep breath and continued, "And things being the way 
they are, there's the very real possibility that, that I won't be able to be 
with you much longer."

"Ranma - "

"Let me finish, okay?"  She nodded in response.  "Just promise me that if it 
does happen, if I end up marrying someone - "

'Not if I end up marrying someone *else*, if I end up marrying *someone*,' 
she mused to herself painfully, watching him struggle for the words.

"If I end up marrying someone, promise me that you'll forget me," he 
finished, his voice barely above a whisper.  He couldn't possibly say it any 
louder; it hurt him to even think it.  The idea of Yuki smiling at someone 
else, kissing someone else, being claimed by someone else made it hard for 
him to breathe.

There was a long silence.

All she said was, "No."

She wasn't holding his hand, and she wasn't near enough so that he'd miss 
the loss of her presence if she left.  So he didn't know that she'd closed 
the door until he heard the dull thud of wood against wood.  He cursed 
softly, looking upward to stare at her window, he should have known better.

He stared at the heavens, a hopeless, aching expression on his face on that 
cold night.

And silently, he begged the stars their blessing.

^*^*^

"Nothing is hopeless," Kimiko whispered, gently touching Naka's face, "I am 
a monument to that."

In the background, the sound of the clock grew louder in the silence of the 
room.  And Naka started to breathe a little deeper, comforted by the voice 
of someone who had been able to stay.

^*^^

Somewhere far away from the humming drone of hospital rooms and the gray 
drab of recovery, Kasumi still stood in her kitchen; eyes staring toward the 
darkness that engulfed the city, drinking in the ebony blanket that had 
covered all the scars of daily life.

That was when she felt the first pangs.

A low ache that made no sense.

And without warning, her world collapsed inward as she felt a horrible black 
agony building in her stomach, and pain, and sudden emptiness.

She felt a hot liquid dripping down her legs, metallic and unfamiliar and 
wrong, horribly *wrong*.  She screamed into the hollow dim - clutching her 
abdomen.  Her middle that had been so full with her smiling pride, the 
secret she'd held carefully in her heart.

Kasumi felt herself doubling over, felt the life draining from her.

Her secret was dying.

^*^*^

One week later

^*^*^

Her initial reaction was to turn right back around and close the door, walk 
down to the elevator, take three deep breaths, and try again.  Instead, she 
just stared.

It was one thing for a father-to-be to be excited, it was quite another to 
be obsessive compulsive about it.  The "What to Expect When You're 
Expecting" books had not fazed her, the cute little baby toys had given a 
thrill, and the maternity-wear shopping spree he'd gone on was sweet, in a 
way.

But this, this was beyond normal.

When he'd said that he was going to drop by the grocery store and pick up a 
few things that she would need, she'd never bothered to give it a second 
thought.  Perhaps she should have.

The doctor had said that she needed to load up on carbohydrates, take her 
vitamins, get gentle aerobic exercise, eat healthy, and drink plenty of 
liquids.   Soichi had obviously taken this as an invitation to buy four 
loaves of eight-grain bread, five varieties of family-sized vitamins, a new 
"Mommy and Me" exercise machine, and two gallons of juice in addition to ten 
grocery bags that were stacked around her kitchen.

Her head hurt just thinking about the credit card bill.

She sighed dropped her purse on the free space of the counter and walked 
across the room to pick up the handset phone.  Dialing a familiar number, 
she didn't wait for the a greeting on the other end after the phones 
connected to ask, "So are we feeding an army?"

There was a familiar, low chuckle on the phone, "Aw, come on, Kimiko, the 
doctor said that I had to take care of you!"

She rolled her eyes and glanced furtively at the bags on bags of groceries 
stacked in her kitchen, taking up counter-space, and then she glared at the 
'Mommy and Me' exercise machine that took up her floor-space.  They would 
exchange words regarding *that* when he got home.  "I'm eating for two, 
Ranma, not four hundred."

"I am well aware of that, Kimiko, but you I haven't told you the other good 
news, I talked to the social worker, they're releasing Naka in two days, 
he's coming home with us."

There was a momentary trill of terror in her belly, one that that was 
quickly replaced with nervous excitement.  Even as she feared she couldn't 
help Naka, couldn't make him learn to live on after what had happened, she 
rejoiced that she had an opportunity to try.  Biting her lip, she remembered 
what it had been like to face uncertain days and nights, knowing deep in her 
soul that she needed to survive, not only for her sake but for - but for 
someone else's as well.  She never wanted any other child to have to live 
through that.  She never wanted any other child to doubt their deepest 
wishes, and their most sacred dreams.

"That's great, Soichi," she said softly, and looking back up, she smirked, 
"I'm sure Naka will just *love* his 'Mommy and Me' workout equipment."

"Cute, Kimiko," Soichi laughed.

She sighed, balancing the phone between her ear and her shoulder, "Still, 
that's only three people actively consuming food, how on earth are we going 
to get through *ten* grocery bags?"

There was a long, awkward pause on the line.

"Well," Soichi stuttered, sounding agitated, "we'll manage."  Two seconds 
after they'd ended the phone call, he found himself dialing the number of 
the grocery store, hoping against hope that he could cancel the order for 
the *other* five bags before they got the apartment.

^*^*^

Akane stared at the walls of the room, eyes drifting from object to object, 
but always with the same question in her mind: why white?  Why would a 
medical facility choose the universe's most blindingly painful, achingly 
stark color to paint the walls?

Why not Easter yellow or pale pink or robin's egg blue?  They were soothing 
hues; colors that made people's heart rates slow down.  Or at the very 
least, why not pick something *interesting* to put *on* the walls.  Maybe 
some pretty photographs of places far away from the city and near an ocean, 
or even a simple design.

She turned back down to where her fingers were tightly intertwined with 
Kasumi's, that one, insignificant touch the only thing that reassured her 
that her oldest sister was still alive.   Kasumi's face was the color of the 
walls, and her hair lacked the shining luster that is usually held, even her 
eyes were dim, dirt-colored, staring straight at the ceiling.

Akane winced as she heard Kasumi moan, the low, sad keening of a mother 
grieved.  'No one should ever have to lose their children,' she thought 
slowly, and brushing a sweaty-strand of hair away from Kasumi's face, she 
added, 'especially not if you've never kissed them and told them you loved 
them.'

And oddly enough, though Akane would never know, that was what terrified 
Kasumi the most - that her baby had never known love.  That she and Tofu had 
created a child, but that the baby never knew how much Mommy and Daddy had 
loved her, never knew how much she would have been cherished.

Nodoka had gone back to the dojo, bubbling with some unnamed emotion, 
promising to look after Tofu, in her own words, "making sure he doesn't do 
anything that we'll regret letting him do."  Soun was sitting in the 
conference room of the hospital, his face pale and stricken as he heard the 
doctor's words.  Nabiki was on her way.  She'd promised.

Akane sat there in the glooming whiteness of the hospital room and prayed 
for her older sister.  Prayed that she'd survive this, as she had survived 
everything else that life had so carelessly doled out to her fragile heart.  
After all the ages of reassuring herself that she was strong, after all the 
years of wrapping herself in a thick cloud of carefully constructed blissful 
ignorance, the truth of reality and the depth of life had caught up to 
Kasumi in the cruelest way.

'It doesn't matter,' Akane thought, 'none of it does, not in the end.  You 
can't protect something that you can't control.'

And it all came rushing back to her, memory after cruel memory.  Berating 
and teasing and taunting, telling her over and again what her heart had 
denied for so long.

^*^*^

Nerima
13 Years Previous

Akane stared absently into the backyard, wincing slightly as she saw Yuki 
stomping her foot in frustration as Ranma yelled, "You're going to learn it, 
Yuki!  One way or another!  You're going to learn it!"

The anger on Yuki's face disappeared and she released a sigh, replying, "If 
there's a way to make me learn it, I'm sure you'll figure it out!"

Akane knew exactly what he was talking about.  For two weeks, ever since 
Ranma had returned from his training trip (one that he took, thankfully, 
alone - she and Ukyo had followed him all the way until he actually sat down 
in the train), he'd been lolling about with Yuki, trying to teach her 
advanced technique after advanced technique.

Growling, Akane nearly tore her blouse off, stomping over to her closet and 
reaching for a dark jumper to change into.  "Stupid Ranma," she muttered 
aloud to the empty room, "Bastard, wastes all his time teaching darling 
'Yuki' techniques, and never gives a thought to even *sparring* with me."  
Releasing a frustrated sigh, she stopped in front of her mirror, a strange 
glitter in her eyes.  Cupping her hands before her, she concentrated on 
them, hoping against hope that her ki would gather.

She'd seen Ranma do it hundreds of times, in and out of battle.  Sometimes 
he'd do it in school, idly tossing it at different classmates, usually 
inciting a scream of surprise or a giggle.  Somehow, he knew how to control 
the effect of it even when he had left his touch.  More recently, she'd seen 
Yuki do it, snapping her fingers and creating a casual, lavender sphere of 
energy.  But when it came to attacks, Yuki was still lacking, even though 
she tried, it was a much harder process for her.

Knowing that Yuki was having a rough time of it was the only thing that kept 
Akane from going mad with jealousy.

Akane stared for nearly five minutes at her empty, useless hands before 
screaming in anger.  What was wrong with her?  She was a martial artist, 
wasn't she?  She practiced kata's in the dojo, she could break cement blocks 
like an old pro, she used to beat up Kuno, the best in Furinkan, constantly.

'But,' she thought sadly, pulling on the jumper, 'I can't lay a finger on 
Yuki, and she has to go all out to lay a finger on Ranma.'

"Akane!  You promised to help me clean out the attic today!  Daddy really 
wants to find the old family registers!" Kasumi's voice floated down the 
attic steps and into Akane's room, somehow, at the perfect pitch and tone to 
render any argument of the chore utterly useless.

Akane zipped the jumper up along the side, and running up the steps and 
toward the attic, she yelled, "I'm coming, Kasumi!"

Saotome Genma and Tendo Soun were packrats at heart, and both of them used 
the attic to harbor anything that they a: didn't want their children to see, 
or b: couldn't bear to throw away.  As it happened, this bad habit proved to 
be useful for once.  Something about a lawsuit, and how their ancestors were 
owed money, but they had to prove they were, indeed, related to them before 
they could claim any of the settlement.  Both Genma and Soun came from 
proud, warrior clans, the settlement most likely applied to both of them, 
but to be sure, they still had to find their family registers.

Finally hitting the last step, and raising a cloud of dust with her heavy 
foot, Akane coughed, waving her hands before her to clear the air.  Her eyes 
grew used to the dark in a few seconds, and she gasped as she looked around 
the attic.  It was enormous.  It was dusty.  It was filled from top to 
bottom with everything that she'd never thought the Tendo's had owned.

She sighed deeply, and kneeling down in the layer of dust, she began sifting 
through an old box when she heard Saotome Genma's exclamation, "Tendo!  I 
didn't know that Nodoka stored *our* family records here!"

Kasumi answered the question before either of the father's could, "Of 
course, Saotome-kun, she wanted them to stay safe."  They both looked at 
each other with an expression of skepticism, Akane knew exactly what they 
were thinking: 'Nodoka thought this place was safe?'

Akane walked over to where Genma, her father, and Kasumi all sat, flipping 
slowly through the ancient Saotome family register.  Genma's face lit up 
like Akane had never seen before.  She raised her eyebrows, though, in 
retrospect, she decided that she should have known that the only thing Genma 
(excepting food, of course) held dear in his whole wretched life was family.

"The best thing about this book," he started, "is that our ancestors kept 
track of just about everything that happened to our family - births, deaths, 
marriages, acquisitions.  Just everything."  He turned all the way to the 
beginning of the book, and pressing his forefinger against the paper, he 
exclaimed, "See!  Look!  One of my great-great-great- um, someone wrote 
this!  'Fujiwara Tozikoshi was killed by his fiancee's family, the Yings, a 
Chinese clan."  For the moment, Genma looked thoughtful, and murmured, "I 
remember that story from when I was a young boy - my Grandmother told me 
about it one night."

Kasumi smiled and asked, "What was the story, Saotome-san?"

"Well," Genma said dramatically, "It was said that Jin Yin, the youngest, 
most beautiful, and most intelligent daughter of the Ying family was 
betrothed to Tozikoshi at the age of five.  Tozikoshi was raised in China 
near his fiancee, and they grew to love each other."

Akane frowned.  Genma's story sounded suspiciously familiar.

"Anyhow, according to legend, Jin Yin was taught martial arts by Tozikoshi 
her entire life, and one day, they decided to go train at some lake."  Genma 
shrugged.  "She fell into a deep part and drowned.  When her family found 
out, they blamed Tozikoshi, and drowned him in that same lake."  His face 
hardened into a frown.  "It started a feud between the families."  Taking a 
breath, he thought back a while before continuing, "Eventually, the 
remaining daughter in the Ying family married into another Japanese clan, 
the Yamato's, but after that, the Ying's just fell apart at the seams from 
all the bloodshed and bankruptcy of keeping a feud alive."  Slowly, he 
turned the page again, and scanning the names, he stopped on the second one 
from the bottom, the characters circled with a faded crimson line.  "See, 
that's the sign that the family member died in a feud struggle."

Akane heard a squeal in the backyard, and rising from her spot on the dusty 
floor, she made her way toward the small, gray-tinged window.  Pressing her 
hands to the shaded glass, she squinted as she looked down into the 
brilliance of the afternoon sunlight, staining everything a painful, stark 
white in its glow.

And down below, she saw something that made her ache.

Yuki held an inexplicable magic, something that seemed to make Ranma's 
unhappiness disappear, and his slow, dull-witted exterior fall away from his 
deep, laughing charm.  She could bring out the best in him, and forgive the 
worst.

In that streaming sunlight that late afternoon, Akane started to realize 
why.

There had been hints, there had been inklings of understanding, and there 
had been fevered dreams of red hair and blue eyes, mist-filled places where 
the one thing she treasured and didn't dare to love was taken away from her. 
  For all of that, Akane had never truly seen what Yuki was.

Now, it was clear as the light that filtered through the treetops and 
fluttered so gently to the damp skins of the people lying on the grass.

It was an unseasonably warm day, absolutely beautiful.  Yuki was lying on 
her back, head at Ranma's feet, hands cupped above her, shooting off little 
circles of ki, sometimes purple, sometimes blue, but always beautiful.  The 
sparks of energy rising up into the sky, flashing in the light, like 
miniature fireworks.  Her bare legs made such startling contrast with the 
green of the grass, and her black t-shirt seemed to bring out the red of her 
hair.

"What makes clouds?" Ranma asked, a tone of wonderment in his voice, his 
hands idly brushing the grass beside him.

Ranma lay flat beside her, eyes opened wide to the heavens, a peaceful smile 
on his face, hands linked together and making a pillow for his head.  There 
was a certain sense of serenity about him, a simple, open happiness that 
Akane hadn't had the pleasure of experiencing often, or for that matter, 
coercing from his usually mercurial temperament.  His dark pigtail was 
flailed carelessly to one side, and his blue eyes shimmered in the light.  
The wind rustled his clothing, and his left foot tapped out some soundless 
beat in the air.

Akane smirked, thinking, 'The weather, stupid.  Condensation in the 
atmosphere gathers.'  She found the smirk softening into a grudging smile, 
and with a vague tone of affection, she added, 'Gosh, don't you listen 
*ever* in class?'

Yuki, down below, replied in a soft voice, "Well, according to textbooks, 
it's something to do with condensation," paused, and giggling, she said, 
"but what I *really* think is magic."

Ranma laughed.  "You think magic makes clouds?"  The grin on his face was as 
wide as a mile, pure, unadulterated, containing no malice or sarcasm.

"Why not?" Yuki asked, defensive amusement in her eyes.  "You've had no less 
than three curses at any given moment in your lifetime, and you've been 
constantly attacked by mythical creature after prince after monster, and you 
laugh at magic?"

The sun passed over a little, changing the shape of those shadows across 
their chests, and making the trees rustle ever so slightly.

"Hush, Yuki," he said slowly, a smirk on his face, "I didn't say I didn't 
believe you," he shrugged, "it's just nice to hear someone say something 
like that for once."

"Always glad to be of service," she commented.

Yuki had given Ranma what he'd always had to earn or force: affection 
without strings.  He had two *very* friendly fianc�es (and Akane, of course) 
at his side in any given moment, but to have them be kind to him, to garner 
their favors or to simply be *friends* with them required for him to pay in 
decision-making.  "Choose me, Ranchan!" or "Choose Shampoo, Airen!" or "What 
the hell are you doing, you perve?" from Akane.  There was always a catch, 
always a line of fine print.  Yuki didn't seem to have any; she came and 
went, and gave no guarantees, but when she arrived, she always offered 
everything that she had, and never asked anything more than what he was 
willing to give in return: equaled passion, equaled friendship.

"This is nice," Ranma whispered, closing his eyes.  Yuki sighed, and rolling 
from her place on the ground to a standing position, she started to walk 
away, a gentle expression in her eyes, and her hair flying in the breeze.  
Without rising from his place on the ground, Ranma said, "Later, Yuki."

Without turning back, she waved over her shoulder.  "Yeah yeah yeah, see you 
in detention."

And for some reason, their laughter echoed in the evening.

Akane slowly sunk to her knees, her numbed fingertips drawing a clear, clean 
streak against the gray dust of the windowpanes.  She couldn't feel her 
legs; she swore that she could feel nothing but the hollow ache in her 
stomach, and nothing but the burning jealousy in her soul.

But what could she do?

She had no real claim over him, just a agreement between two flawed men with 
warped minds, just a series of broken promises and crushed hopes.  She had 
nothing to offer but herself, but would Ranma even accept her?  The 
engagement was official, but what if the feelings weren't?  For a span of 
time in their somewhat odd courtship, Akane had been very nearly certain 
that he had feelings for her, even if they only bordered on mild interest, 
and that had fueled her.  That had made her strong.  No one could tie down 
the wild horse, not Seven Lucky Gods, not incredible feats of magic and 
martial arts; if Ranma didn't love her, no engagement would change that.  
Not even honor and its implication could make him want her.

She had hurt him so many times that he'd become numb to her anger, 
ambivalent to her pain, and more or less frightened by her happiness, seeing 
it as merely a prelude to his punishments.  There was no penance now that 
could right that, not when there was someone else who had never placed scars 
across his heart to begin with.

Yuki was her polar-opposite.  He delighted in her happiness, and smiled when 
she was content because it made him calm.  She had reached into his 
beautiful blue eyes and brushed the soul beneath.  First shy caresses, and 
now, she was deeply woven into the fibers of his heart, the very center of 
his being.  She didn't care if he was stupid or rash: she could forgive; she 
could love.

Akane felt herself slump against the wall, ignored by her father and Mr. 
Saotome as they quietly snuck downstairs to avoid the oncoming storm, and 
carefully watched by Kasumi.

While she wanted to cry, she instead felt angry.

'Yuki,' she thought, 'he's mine, Yuki.  You can't have him.  He's mine.  And 
I'll make you see it - one way or another.'

^*^*^

Akane winced at the memory.

She had been angry.  Angry enough to do something that would shatter the 
punctuated calm of her existence, and bring her more pain than anything else 
she would ever know.

She slowly turned her thoughts back to her sister.

'I'm so sorry, Kasumi.  So terribly sorry,' she whispered silently, her 
mind's voice so heavy and thick with her sadness.  'Because, you see, though 
you'll never believe me, I know what it feels like to lose something you 
wanted so desperately to possess.'  She bit back the sob that made its way 
to her lips.  'Because I know what it's like to see happiness, and then 
watch it die.'

^*^*^

Ryoga was lost.

Though, for the first time ever, not literally.

He'd finally realized what life had been subtly telling him all along.  He 
didn't have the foggiest idea what love was.  He hadn't even come close to 
touching the surface of true devotion, never even breathed the thick, opiate 
smoke of possession, never felt honest, unyielding lust for the flesh and 
mind and soul of another.

He'd convinced himself that a crush was enough.

The seed had been planted when he'd seen the apathetic way Akane had 
responded to their wedding, it had germinated when she forgot things, and it 
had grown in the shadows of his own self-doubt.

He growled softly, berating himself for being so selfish that he'd worry 
about his own happiness when Kasumi had lost hers.  She was a sister, a 
friend, a confidant. The one person who had helped him keep his curse a 
secret from Akane.  She hadn't wanted to, but she'd weighed her options.  
Tell the truth and watch Akane's heart break, again, or keep it secret, and 
live a sin in return for a moment of happiness?  Naturally, Kasumi, being 
Kasumi, had chosen the latter of the two.

Slowly, he picked up the phone in the dojo office; he started dialing the 
number of the caterers, his mind whirring quietly for the familiar digits 
belonging to the priest, the florist, and the band.

The wedding needed to be cancelled.

^*^*^

She always talked so colorfully, giving everything a shimmer and a taste and 
a scent.  She made things come alive with her words.  Naka supposed that he 
was one of those rare, lucky individuals who had someone who persisted on 
caring even when he'd given up trying.  Even as he ignored her and did not 
give response to her questions - she kept talking, kept telling, kept 
hoping.  Hers was the kind of optimism that did not extinguish itself.

Fujikara-sensei was otherwise detained as of late, for some strange reason 
that Kimiko-san refused to tell him.  But whenever she mentioned it, there 
was a twinkle in her gaze.  "He's working on some official business, Naka, 
don't worry, he'll be back soon."

And now - something had caught his eye.  The corner of something she was 
working on, something dark with pencil lines and gray with dirty 
fingerprints.

"What are you doing?" Naka asked, seeing that for the fourth day in a row, 
Kimiko was bent over a sheaf of papers, sketching and erasing and redrawing. 
  She looked up toward him, a smudge of gray-silver from the pencils on her 
face, giving her a childish, innocent appearance, a little girl who had just 
been broken of her reverie, uncaring of how she looked, covered with her 
fingerpaints and mud.

She gave no indication that she was even a bit surprised that he was 
breaking his many days long silence.  She looked down to the pad of papers, 
and grinning, she replied, "I'm just working on something.  Would you like 
to see it?"

He nodded and she held the pad up, making him gasp in surprise.

It was a stunningly detailed pencil sketch of an enormous house.  With lines 
and angles shaded with a sort of casual familiarity, as if she'd seen it a 
million times before.  Though Naka didn't know how it could have happened; 
there weren't houses like that anywhere in urban Tokyo.

"That's beautiful, Kimiko-san," he whispered.  "Did you grow up in that 
house?"

She turned to stare at it for a moment, an odd, mournful expression in her 
blue eyes.  "No, Naka, but Soichi did," she hid the ages-old pain behind a 
mask and smiled brightly at the boy, "Maybe you could ask him about it 
later."  She cleared her throat and set the paper aside.  Pressing her hands 
flat against the tops of her thighs, she glanced furtively toward him over 
the tops of her glasses.

"Naka," she started slowly, "I have a proposition for you."

^*^*^

Nabiki tapped her finger on the edge of her desk and frowned, there were 
things to do, words to say, and actions to be carried out.

Kasumi had been taken into the hospital a week ago, suffering a miscarriage. 
  A baby that she'd kept secret from Tofu, hoping to tell him on their 
anniversary only two days away.  Her sister was heartbroken.

And all she could think of was how this could help her appease her 
conscience, pay the debts of her past.  Nabiki sneered in disgust at 
herself, glaring into the Tokyo skyline, staring distantly at one large 
glass and metal building.  A building that, on the twenty-second floor, 
possessed a secret that would destroy the calm of Nerima, free her from the 
guilt she'd carried with her for a decade, and one that could soothe 
Kasumi's soul.

Startling her out of her reverie, the phone rang, a shrill, impatient noise 
filling the room and making her jump at the sound.  She lunged forward 
toward the handset, and quickly pressing the 'talk' button, she gasped out, 
"What's wrong?" her voice was urgent with worry.  Could there have been 
another complication in Kasumi's condition?  Had something else gone bad?

She was met with silence over the line.  And after half a minute of this 
treatment, a voice replied, "I have the information that you wanted, 
Tendo-san.  And I'm calling to set up a time to meet and exchange papers."

At first, she was confused.  No one who she regularly contacted for 
information was this formal in their speech, hell, half of them couldn't 
speak in a complete sentence, having been holed up with their computers 
hacking their way into the United States Department of Defense files for 
half their life.  Her mind whirred through her mental archives, desperately 
trying to place the voice with a face.  She finally hit upon something that 
wouldn't necessarily be right, but couldn't possibly be any more wrong than 
her other guesses.

"Kuzio?" she whispered strangely.

There was a nervous cough over the phone line.  "Tendo-san, please, don't 
address me in such an informal manner," he paused, and now, with renewed 
derision and a hint of bitterness tainting his soft, mellow tone, he said, 
"After all, you pay me to do the work, I haven't got any right to anything, 
least of all earning your respect and admiration."

If Nabiki could have kicked herself with looking like a total ass at that 
moment, she would have done it.  She sighed darkly, and in as remorseful and 
as humble a tone as Tendo Nabiki could muster, she said, "Kuzio, I apologize 
for the way I treated you earlier.  It was unfair of me to talk to you in 
such a low manner, you deserve more than the respect I afford you," she 
winced as she heard herself go on, ego slowly shrinking as the words kept 
flowing from between her lips, "and you have done more than enough to earn 
my admiration in these years we have been in contact."

Then there was silence over the phone line.

Moments later, she heard Kuzio laugh boldly into the phone, "I *knew* it!  I 
just *knew* it!"

Nabiki felt her hackles rise and her face turn dark red.  "Knew what?  And 
why the hell are you laughing?"

In between inextinguishable chuckles, he managed to choke out, "It was *so* 
easy once I realized how to get to you, Nabiki!  All someone has to do to 
drive you insane is to *ignore* you!  A week, maybe two, but being 
disregarded drives you up the wall more than any kind of yelling or 
pestering could ever do!"  She heard him laughing again as she crossed her 
arms hatefully over her chest, her heart thumping wildly in humiliation and 
muted fury.  "At any rate, Nabiki, I forgive your little tantrum."

For a moment, her eyes sparked, and opening her mouth, she was about to bark 
about how she didn't *need* his forgiveness, and that she *didn't* mind 
being ignored by him, not at all! - when Kuzio's voice stopped her.

"I missed talking to you," he said softly, shy now, "I hate to admit it, 
Nabiki, but for all those flowery declarations of love that I spout at you 
all the time, and all those rejections you so eloquently hand back," he fell 
silent for a moment, and started again, his voice barely above a whisper, "I 
realized that I missed hearing you tell me that I didn't have a chance."  
She could hear his rueful smile over the phone.  "Strangely masochistic, 
isn't it?"

Nabiki took a deep breath.  She turned her head to glance out the window, at 
the slowly setting sun, a liquid red sphere that dipped itself lower and 
lower into the jagged skyline of urban Tokyo.

It was undeniable now; there was no way she could avoid it.  There was 
something in her that refused to be silenced, and after all those years of 
focusing on money and on power, she'd stumbled upon what she could not sway 
nor purchase with the power of the yen.  Kuzio wasn't some perfect prize to 
be jumped at, and neither was she.  They both had their flaws, too 
sarcastic, callous, and thoughtless in their actions.  They could hurt each 
other so badly, but they could also bring such joy.  She'd never taken a 
chance on something she didn't know for sure would turn out in her favor -

There was a first time for everything; an IPO of emotion, so to speak.

"Kuzio," she said softly, idly running her fingers through her hair, "could 
we talk over coffee?"

^*^*^

On the east side of Nerima, near the docks, a trio of voices went up in the 
night: one old, one new, and one very, very solemn.  None of them sounded 
too happy.

"[Great-Great-Grandmother-]" whispered a small, purple-haired child, her 
eyes the color of autumn leaves.  She clung to the old woman's hands, the 
contrast between her tender, sun-soaked and golden flesh making the skin on 
elder so much more tired.  The girl couldn't have been any older than eleven 
years old, bright and filled with energy that only children and a few, lucky 
adults manage to possess.

"Call me 'Grandmother,' child, and remember to speak in Japanese," the elder 
cautioned, lovingly bopping the child on the crown of her head, a smile on 
her aged face.

"It's important that you learn another language, Orchid, it will prove 
useful in your adulthood," the lavender-haired matron reproached.  She 
stepped quietly just under a beam from a streetlight, the nearly-neon light 
falling gracelessly to her face and hair.  She must have been beautiful in a 
past life, in her youth; she would have been stunning, the bright eyes, and 
curved red lips, and her pale, porcelain skin, the smoothness of her figure, 
and the curve of her cheek.

The old woman snorted derisively.  "Says the woman who spent nearly a year 
of her life referring to herself in the third person."

The woman scowled, and in a winsome tone of voice, she muttered, "Shampoo no 
appreciate that."

The young child laughed, and clapping her hands, she giggled, "Mom, you- you 
talk funny, really talk like that, long ago?"

Shampoo gave barely a glimpse of a smile before ruffling the child's hair.  
"Yes, I did.  I didn't bother to study my grammar very much," she paused, 
and looking serious, she asked, "But you will, right?"

The child pouted.  "Yes."

"That's my good child," Shampoo whispered happily.  "My wonderful miracle."

For that moment, Cologne watched Shampoo, standing there in the lamplight 
with her daughter, and stared at the color of Orchid's eyes.  They were a 
strange gray, cool and blue and wonderfully deep.  They were so strangely 
familiar, and at that same time, so wonderfully impossible.

And she started to remember a piece of some broken memory, long buried in 
hopes of numbing the pain that came with it.

^*^*^

Nerima
12 years 11 months previous

Mousse was confused.

He was *positively* certain that Tanakawa Yuki hated him, without a doubt.  
Why wouldn't she?  He'd spent the first two days he'd known her attacking 
her, *convinced* that she was another one of Ranma's horrible perverse ploys 
to steal Shampoo's virginal innocence away from its rightful owner, himself.

So why was she being nice?

"Stupid Mousse," she murmured, wrapping a bandage around his arm and shaking 
her head, "why do you always throw yourself at her to be beaten when she's 
in a bad mood?  I mean, if you're trying to cheer her up, buy her punching 
bag instead of being one yourself."  And tucking a strand of red hair behind 
her ear, she sighed and leaned back on the chair, surveying her handiwork.  
She had discovered him a quivering, bleeding, bruised mass in the ally 
behind the Nekohanten - a victim of Shampoo's bad humors and indirectly, 
Ranma's insensitivity.  And with a long suffering sigh, she'd dragged him 
into the restaurant, half-carried, half-pulled him up the steps, and dropped 
him down into a bed.

But that wasn't enough for her, it seemed.

So she had stayed, making him some tea and bandaging up a few hard to move 
places, spraying him with bactine as kindly as anyone could, and chattering 
happily in his ear.

"Look, Yuki-san," he said, his voice confused, "I don't mean to be rude 
but," he paused, "why are you helping me?"

She looked confused for one moment, her eyes curiously blue in the afternoon 
sunlight.  She was holding one end of a roll of medical tape, and tugging 
off of lengthy strand, she tore into it with her teeth, ripping it from the 
roll.  And with it still hanging from her lips, she asked, "Vah vu oo ween?" 
  And taking the tape from her mouth, she blushed shyly and repeated, "What 
do you mean?"

Mousse fought the urge to twiddle his thumbs, and said slowly, "Well, to 
tell the truth, Yuki-san, I haven't really been very nice to you since I met 
you," and listening to her laughter in the background, he continued, his 
voice somber, "so why are you being so nice to me?"

Yuki frowned, and grabbing his other arm, she started to bandage up a cut 
he'd sustained when Shampoo threw him out a window.  She sighed.  "That's 
the thing I don't understand about this city, before I moved here, I used 
martial arts exclusively in the dojo, and on rare occasions, I used it to 
break up fights."  She gently dabbed the wound with rubbing alcohol, 
apologizing softly when he winced.  "Since I've moved to Nerima, I fight *at 
least* once a day, whether its because of Kuno or Ryoga or one of a million 
other reasons."  With the utmost care, she carefully placed a folded piece 
of gauze over the cut, and started wrapping the tape about his arm.  "And 
ever after all the carnage I see you guys deal to one another, I can't stand 
to see anyone hurt."

Mousse looked at her for a beat, an expression of respect in his eyes, an 
amused smile on his face.  He needed a friend.

And smirking, he asked saucily, "Even Kuno?"

She stopped, and raising an eyebrow at his expression, she grinned, saying, 
"Well, maybe not Kuno."  And they both laughed, comfortable in each other's 
presence at that moment.  As her giggles subsided, she asked, "Why'd she 
beat you up this time, anyhow?"

He rolled his eyes.  "Why else?  I asked her on a date when she was in a bad 
mood."

She stared at him for a second.  "And you say you love this girl?"  He 
nodded, vehemently, and Yuki whistled softly.  "I don't understand the 
masochism here, either."  She let her eyes drift out a window, a dark, 
longing expression in them.  "They come, they go, and sure, they're 
beautiful, but the way they treat people, it's inexcusable.  Sometimes, I 
think it's because they love them too much, others, I think it's just 
cruelty."  Her voice was soft.

"Who is 'they'?  And who is 'them'?" Mouse asked.

Yuki looked surprised that he didn't know.  "Why," she said, "the girls and 
boys of Nerima, of course!"  She laughed ruefully.  "Starting off, there's 
Kuno, who just couldn't get a clue about the 'pigtailed girl' or Akane if 
his life depended on it.  And then there's you," she paused, "who could beat 
Shampoo for her hand in marriage but loves her too much to hurt her," he 
found himself blushing as she whispered, "and Ranma."

Mousse bit his lip.  He wasn't as dense as most people took him for; he knew 
that Yuki loved Ranma, or at the very least, liked him a great deal.  He 
knew that it hurt her to see him with his fiancee, especially a fiancee who 
didn't appreciate him.  'I know how you feel, Yuki-san,' he thought quietly.

She laughed sadly and whispered, "Ranma who loves Akane too much to - " she 
cut herself off abruptly.  Forcing a smile and standing up to go, she said, 
"Sorry, Mousse-san, my mouth has run away with me."  She grabbed her 
bookbag, and standing up, she said, "Sorry, I'll - I'll leave you alone 
now."

Mousse found himself saying, "Wait!  Hold on!  Lets just talk a little 
longer."  Whether it was because he was lonely, or he felt that she was 
lonely, neither really knew.  For some strange reason, his request that they 
talk a while became an afternoon of conversation.  That led to midnight 
meetings on rooftops to compare notes on the latest Nerima fight, and 
learning techniques, and throwing things at each other during spats.  For 
some strange reason, Mousse became her friend.

While Shampoo and Cologne weren't looking, things changed.  It was subtle at 
first, the feeling that something just wasn't right, that something was 
missing.  First the glomps and embarrassing attempts to win the 
lavender-haired Amazon's affections disappeared.  Mousse started wearing a 
new pair of glasses, ones that didn't look quite so goofy.  He grew quieter, 
and smiled more.  Shampoo's rejections stopped being so terribly painful to 
him, and her affirmations grew sweeter.  Somewhere in between Shampoo 
ignoring him, Mousse had grown up quite a bit.

"What Mousse doing?" Shampoo asked quietly, watching him with a curious 
expression in her eyes.  He was reading a book, endlessly slowly, he'd been 
at it for days, and he was barely past page ten.  He glanced upward at her, 
the light from his gray-blue eyes catching her by surprise.

"[Shampoo, speak Mandarin when Cologne isn't around, no one is going to 
punish you for being Chinese here,]" he said, his voice matter-of-fact and 
confident.

She frowned.  "[Since when did you grow a backbone?]"

He shrugged, blushing slightly as he turned back to the book, murmuring, 
"[I'm a very different person than who I was when I first came to Japan, 
Shampoo.]"  He paused, looking up at her quickly.  "[Do you think that I've 
changed a lot?]"

She raised an eyebrow and sat down on the side of Mousse's bed, directly 
across from his desk and chair where he always slaved over the book.  
Smirking, she said, "[Well, you don't grab me anymore, and you got a new 
prescription, so you don't grab other people anymore, either.]"  Mousse had 
the good nature to blush bright red.  And laughing, Shampoo continued, "[I 
find not being manhandled rather pleasant.]"

"[I do apologize for my previous actions, Shampoo. In Yuki's words, I was 
being an ass.]"

Shampoo looked solemn at that.  "[You two seem to be spending an awful lot 
of time together, Mousse.  You and Yuki, I mean.]"

He smirked.  "[Jealous?]"

"[Of course not!]" she stuttered, bright red at the very thought of being 
jealous over *Mousse*.  "[I was simply inquiring about your new friend, 
nothing more.]"

Mousse nodded, a sad smile on hi face, "[I know you're not jealous, 
Shampoo,]" he paused, "[but it would be nice if you even pretended, just one 
time.]"  Shampoo felt a stabbing pain in her heart at his words, and 
tentatively, she reached her hand out to his, and brushing lightly against 
his knuckles, she whispered:

"You be surprised, Mousse, how jealous Shampoo be sometime."  He looked up 
at her in surprise.  "It hard to say in Chinese, strange, no?  I can say in 
Japanese, but not own words."  She stared down at her feet, murmuring, 
"Mousse always weak around Shampoo, make me shame, did Shampoo make you that 
way?"  She lifted her chin and stared at Mousse's face, tears welling up in 
her eyes, "Then Shampoo see Mousse with Yuki," she sighed softly, "Mousse 
strong with Yuki."

She stood up, walking quietly across the room; she hesitated at the door, 
turning around slightly to ask, "What book Mousse read?"

"It's called 'To Kill a Mockingbird'," he answered, his voice oddly 
dreamlike, confused by her words, and shocked by the sincerity of her tone.  
She'd never spoken so honestly about her feelings before, much less spoken 
so honestly about her feelings to *him*.  He'd never known that he'd seemed 
weak in her eyes, his fumbling proposals and requests had always been made 
with the best of intentions, and warmest affection, how could he have known 
that they would have come off...so unattractive?

Shampoo smiled wanly, her hand on his doorframe, "Yuki tell you read, yes?"  
He nodded.  "What it about?"

Mousse's throat went dry for half a beat before he replied, "A very strong 
man," nearly choking on the irony of the statement.

Shampoo turned away.  "Maybe that her secret."

She left, abandoning Mousse to a thousand questions wrought by a tortured 
mind.  They screamed through the cool, gray-blue of his eyes, strange and 
mystical and singular, leaving in their wake sparkles of light.  The answer 
came shortly, 'I think,' he thought, 'I think I have a chance.'

^*^*^

There was no explanation save for magic as to explain the miracle of 
Orchid's birth.  Shampoo was not married, and as far as Cologne knew, none 
of her lovers had eyes quite like that.

Orchid's father by public recognition was Mousse.  How it could be, no one 
quite knew.  Mousse died in Nerima, years before Orchid was even born, years 
before Shampoo became pregnant.

But Cologne had long since stopped asking Shampoo questions her 
great-Granddaughter didn't want to answer, and she'd nearly forgotten the 
strangeness of Orchid's existence.

Being in Nerima made her curious.

^*^*^

"This is your house?" Naka asked softly, an awed tone in his voice, looking 
around at his lush surroundings.

Kimiko laughed, tossing her jacket onto the sofa.  "Don't be fooled, Naka, 
we're not wealthy or anything.  It's sort of a bargaining thing."  She 
paused.  "I do all the advertising layouts for Sakura Towers, and we get 
this apartment rent-free."

Naka raised his eyebrows.  "Pretty sweet deal, Kimiko-san."

She smiled.  "Isn't it?"  She took Soichi's hand, and helping him limp into 
the bedroom, she said over her shoulder, "Naka, could you just wait out here 
for a second?  I'm going to help Soichi to bed, and I'll be right back out."

Soichi grimaced and moaned, "If you were *really* going to help me to bed 
you'd do lovely, dirty things to my poor, abused body."  Naka laughed out 
loud.  Kimiko slapped Soichi upside his head, a smile on her face.  Soichi 
smirked, muttering, "How you got knocked up with that sort of attitude 
toward me, I'll never know."  He winked conspiratorially toward Naka, and 
submitted to Kimiko's attempts to move him.  The limping husband and the 
redhead wife disappeared into the doorway of the bedroom.  The sound of 
cloth rustling was heard, and the soft sound of bedsprings being depressed.

Moments later, she reappeared in the living room, greeted by Naka's 
surprised question, "You're pregnant?"

She blushed prettily, and tucking a strand of dark red hair behind one ear, 
she took Naka's arm, keeping him steady as she walked him toward a room down 
the hall.  "Yeah," she said, her voice warm.  "Sorry we didn't tell you 
earlier."  She stopped in front of a closed door, and fumbling with the 
doorknob for a moment, she apologized:

"I hope you like the room, Naka.  It's the best I could do with such short 
notice."

And she pushed open the door.

A double bed was pressed against a wall.  Opposite that, a slanted, flat, 
design desk, and a bookshelf full of hundreds of markers, pens, inks, 
pastels, papers, paints, and endless other art supplies was behind it.  
There was a small bureau and an open door revealed a tiny closet.

But what caught Naka's attention was the view.

One entire wall was an enormous picture window.  It had wide, vertical 
blinds that were all pushed to the far right side.  Through that spotless 
glass was the most amazing cityscape Naka had ever seen.  The neon glow of 
Tokyo was lit in all its electrical glory, purples and pinks and greens and 
yellows spelling out words and lighting up buildings.  Endless pinpoints of 
glowing light were scattered across the vast blackness of night.

For a moment, he was so caught up in the swirl of light and dark and life 
that he forgot that his parents were gone, something as painful and real as 
the stark, cruel ebony of the midnight sky.

"It's beautiful," he gasped.  Kimiko smiled gently, helping him toward the 
double bed as he just stared out that window.  He eased himself down slowly, 
wincing as he felt his ribs ache, but that pain was still overshadowed by 
the awe he felt at the sight before him.

Kimiko sat down on the bed next to him, her hands pressed flat against the 
bed, propping herself up, an enchanted expression on her face.  "Isn't it?"  
She paused, quiet for a second, "This used to be my office, Naka, and I used 
to come in here late at night, sit at that desk, and just stare out at the 
lights."  Her face grew serious for a moment, "It makes you realize how 
absolutely gorgeous it is, doesn't it, Naka?"

"How absolutely gorgeous what is?" he asked.

She shrugged.  "Everything."  And turning to him quickly, she said, 
"Alright, enough with my nostalgia.  Come on."  She stood up and ran out of 
the room, returning in a few seconds with his duffle bag and suitcase.  
Throwing open the suitcase, she dug through it for a few moments and found 
his pajamas.

Naka turned bright red as she came at him with the clothes in her hands.  
"You're - you're not going to dress me, are you?"  She raised an eyebrow at 
his facial expression.

"Naka, you're recovering from three broken ribs, you've got a ten stitches 
in your right arm," she smirked at him and crossed her arms over her chest, 
still holding his pajama top in her hands, "and you're honestly protesting a 
little help?"

He sighed miserably and closed his eyes, "Fine."

Kimiko rolled her eyes, and started pulling at the hem his gray t-shirt, 
commenting softly, "Did you know, Naka, that I lost my parents when I was 
your age?"  With a quiet apology, she tugged it up and over his head, easing 
it down his bruised arms.  She helped him put his arms through the sleeves 
of the pajama shirt and didn't meet his eyes as she continued to talk:

"It was strange, and scary, and it hurt," she whispered.  "I didn't know 
what to do, I was all alone.  I didn't have any older brothers or sisters.  
And I had to take care of a friend," her voice died for a moment, "who was 
very, very sick."

She told him to lie back in the bed, and tugged off the soft, worn 
sweatpants he was wearing.  Smiling gently at his embarrassed expression as 
she helped him put on the pj bottoms.  Sighing, she continued:

"I didn't think I'd make it.  No one would take me in, and no one would help 
me or my friend."  She sighed, throwing open the covers and waiting until he 
slid under them before tucking the sheets back around him, warm and safe.  
She stroked his hair as she sat down on the bed, s soft, watery look in her 
eyes.  "But you know what, Naka?"

"What?" he murmured, his vision blurring with exhaustion: the combined 
effect of days without real sleep, grief, and the soft, wooly covers.

His last memory that night as his eyes fell closed was the sight of Kimiko, 
framed with the dazzle of a Tokyo night, her red hair dark and lustrous in 
the dim light, the kind expression in her blue eyes, how her palm felt 
against his forehead.  And her voice as she said, "I *did* survive, Naka, 
and so will you; I promise."

^*^*^

When he awoke, the immediate strangeness of his surroundings assaulted his 
senses, sending him into a spinning panic.  He threw away the covers, 
bolting up in bed and then gasping for breath as the searing pain in his 
chest overwhelmed him for a brief moment.

Wincing, and slowly opening his eyes to the gray light of early morning once 
again, Naka looked around the room, finally recognizing where he was and why 
he was there.

'Mom,' he thought, 'Dad, oh, God -' he shook himself without moving his 
chest too much, an effort in and of itself, and gasping again, this time in 
a vain attempt to stop the tears, he whispered, "Why not me, too?"  Covering 
his face and ignoring the pain, he moaned, "Why leave me here all alone?"

It had been easier to wake up in the hospital.  He was always assured that 
upon each dawn that Kimiko would be sitting by his bedside, either looking 
like hell with her hair in the most horrific fashion, or looking like she 
normally did, kind and gentle and soft.  But she'd be there.  And later in 
the afternoon, Fujikara-sensei would sit with him, distracting him and 
talking about a million different things.  Baseball, basketball, why it was 
wrong to deny teenaged boys pornography.  Any of a hundred strange and 
wonderful, funny and heartbreaking topics, things that the hospital reminded 
him of, things that Naka would mention.

He was never left alone with his thoughts.

Never alone with his fears.

He wanted desperately to pull himself into a small ball, and to be safe in 
the tiny confines of his breathing space, slowly dying of his grief.  To be 
with his parents instead of stranded here - somewhere south of heaven and 
north of hell.  He wanted nothing more than to grieve.

But he couldn't do it.

And though the tears would come, and the pain would make him dizzy, he 
couldn't grieve.  He wasn't accepting their death; he was simply reacting to 
their disappearance from his life.  'Who'd have thought,' he wondered, tears 
running down his face and a fist in his mouth to stop the despairing noises 
from escaping, 'that I'd be praying for more misery.'

And he sat there for a moment more, wrapped up in the grayness of his 
middling anguish until the first chords of a song struck him.  Strange and 
hypnotic, playing softly somewhere in the apartment.

Naka rolled softly out of the bed, shuddering as his bare feet pressed 
against the cold, wooden floors.  The apartment was chilly, and he carefully 
rubbed his hands together, trying not to upset his broken ribs.  Walking 
quickly toward the door, and easing it open, Naka heard the music grew 
louder.  With one hand pressed against the wall, he edged toward the source 
of the sound, still without a clue as to what the lyrics of the song meant.  
And finally stopping at the entryway to the kitchen, he saw something that 
made his heart slow it's panicked beat for just one moment:

Kimiko and Fujikara-sensei - they were *dancing*.

Naka sighed quietly in appreciation, his eyes trapped in the haze of bare 
light and spidery shadows.

Kimiko suddenly opened her eyes, as if someone had sent a chill through her, 
and trained her slate-blue irises on him.  For a moment, Naka was terrified 
that she would be angry with him for intruding on her private moments.

Without a word, she pressed her hands to Soichi's chest, separating the two 
of them, and grinning upward at him, silently asking something.  Her husband 
smirked and stepped back, easing himself down into one of the breakfast 
table chairs.

Naka furrowed his brow in confusion; at least until Kimiko turned back to 
him, blue eyes bright in the soft light.  She held out one hand, beckoning 
him to her side.  He pointed at himself, raising his eyebrows in surprise, 
and seeing her nod, he shook his head rapidly.  Laughing, she took three 
steps forward and wrapped her fingers about his hands, tugging him back 
toward the middle of the kitchen.

Without a word, she took one of his hands in her right, holding it out to 
their side, and placed the other on her waist, her lips slightly parted, and 
her hair wild.  Naka opened and closed his lips rapidly.  Panicking, he 
looked to Soichi for help, silently drooping his shoulders.

Soichi shrugged, hiding a grin behind his hand, ignoring his patient's 
unhappy scowl.

At first, his motions were jerky, and then they were slow, cautious.  But 
her smiling face, her silent encouragement edged him toward that greater end 
that she wanted.

And for the first time in forever, he felt freedom in that loose embrace, 
feeling the cool air of the room brushing by him as the music pulsed and 
moved, as she laughed, and as they twirled, watched by friendly eyes.

He found himself smiling the barest amount, and felt the tiniest spark 
return to his eyes as she pulled her fingers away from his shoulder and 
twirled away from him, extending their held hands, throwing her head back 
dramatically, red hair gleaming.

When she looked back up, she flashed her husband a wink before rolling 
herself back into Naka's arms, giggling and laughing, free and alive.

And suddenly he felt dizzy, wrapped up in that flurry of tiny, happy 
moments.  Shaking his head, he let go of her hands, laughing and retreating 
from her twirling, dancing form.  Setting himself down on a chair as Soichi 
once again renewed his position - hand in hand with his wife, cheek to cheek 
with half his soul, smiling all the while.

She didn't say a word to him, just quietly held Soichi with her soft, white 
arms, warm and welcoming, like a fire to a weary traveler.

Naka watched in fascination as Soichi bent his head to his wife's, pressing 
their foreheads together, and closing his eyes.  They seemed so content to 
revel in that tiny contact, so deeply in love, and so connected by that 
brevity.  There were no feverish kisses, no heated groping, just gentleness, 
the surrender of control to something larger than them.

She'd didn't push, and he didn't pull.

There was no longer any question in Naka's heart about the nature of love.  
He didn't need to ask Fujikara-sensei how he would know what it was, or how 
to sustain it.  He'd learned everything he'd ever need to know about love 
that morning, just watching two people dance in their kitchen, bathed in the 
soft light of morning.

He remembered asking Fujikara-sensei what he thought love was, once a long 
time ago, and he recalled what he thought was a strange answer at the time.  
"Love is motion, love is rest, love is comfort, and love is hate."  The 
doctor had grinned, raising his eyebrows.  "Love is everything that you'll 
never be able to control, and everything you'll desire to subdue.  Love is 
lust; love is gentleness.  Love is everything, Naka."  He had smiled.  "And 
one day, Naka, you will find *your* everything."

He'd been skeptical at the time, "That's rather ambiguous, isn't it?  I 
couldn't ever say you were wrong."  Fujikara-sensei had merely chuckled and 
shook his head.

"I could lecture you about love and all of its painful and joyful facets for 
days, Naka, but we haven't the time to explore that," he'd paused, "but I 
will assure you one thing."

"And what is that, Fujikara-sensei?" he'd asked.

The doctor had smiled, clasping his hands together and leaning forward in 
his chair, resting his elbows on his knees.  "I can promise you this: When 
you love something, or someone, Naka - you'll feel the worst pain and the 
greatest joy you'll ever known, and you'll remember that for the rest of 
your life."  He'd looked satisfied by that revelation.  "And that is how I 
know you'll look back on this and see the truth of my words."

Naka closed his eyes as the music slowly faded from the room, feeling that 
bubbling mixture of hatred and sadness and joy fill him all at once.

Fujikara-sensei had been right.

Love was everything.

And that everything included grief, it included lust, it included happiness 
and loss and depression.  It was all-consuming and always distantly 
unattainable.

He opened his eyes again, to see Kimiko stand on her tiptoes and plant the 
gentlest of kisses on Soichi's lips, separating after a moment of contact.

'God,' he thought to himself, 'how do you survive *falling* in love, if 
loving itself is so painful?'  He didn't worry about it too much; there 
would be questions later, and Fujikara-sensei would answer them.

This grief that wouldn't come was just part of loving his parents, part of 
growing up.  One day, he'd understand it, for now, he'd just listen to the 
reasons why.

^*^*^

"Kasumi?" Tofu asked, his voice grave.

It had been a week of near-silence now.  She didn't say a word, just sat in 
bed, listless and pale.  He feared the worst, but hoped for the best.  
Stroking her dark hair, he murmured, "Kasumi, please, come back to me.  
Please, please, you can't leave me here, Kasumi."

For the first time in her life, Kasumi closed her eyes to him and 
disappeared into the endless black comfort of memory, desperately seeking 
some happier moment in her life rather than to face her reality, to survive 
her loss.  She met with resistance, her minds eye flooded with images of 
fire and hatred, of tears and of finding two people clinging to one another 
on the brink of their destruction.

"I," Kasumi whispered slowly, her voice hoarse, "I can't even remember nice 
things."  Her husband looked up in time to see her close her eyes again, 
surrendering to the darkness that contained the nightmares and horrors of a 
decade of secrets.

Akane watched from the other side of the room and wondered of what did 
Kasumi dream in that strange place halfway between death and sadness.  Did 
she remember their mother's death?  Did she cry over Yuki's death?  Or did 
Kasumi remember the same things that bubbled in her own heart?  Terror of 
self-realization, and the beginning of loss?

Akane cursed herself, 'Why do we only remember sadness in sad times?' she 
thought, 'Shouldn't we remember what is happy?  What we hold dear?'  Her 
heartbeat thudded thin and dull in her chest, like the distant, tired 
rumbling of a drum.  And the helplessness ran through her, filling the 
hollows of her soul and flooding her doubting heart.

Helplessness that had been a visitor in the turbulent spaces of a haunted 
mind before, helplessness that she'd earned through months of distrust, and 
one broken afternoon of snow and anger.

And though she feared she wouldn't survive...

And though she worried that she'd never stop...

Because her heart demanded it...

Akane sunk into the painful chill of a white-colored day, and felt herself 
drown in the memory.  The recollection of an afternoon that had started 
everything.

^*^*^

Nerima
12 years 11 months previous

There hadn't been any significant snow in a decade and a half, so when the 
first dustings of the powder-white stuff had come down, the entire city had 
rejoiced.  Everyone took the day off from work or school or whatever 
troubled them to sit around in the blustery air and admire the lacy flakes 
that fell from the clouds.

"Isn't this awesome?" Ranko said dreamily, her hands clasped under her chin 
in a manner that would have driven even the most hardened of 
uber-kawaii-haters to smiles.  Akane scowled at the sight, while Nabiki bit 
the inside of her lip to preserve her reputation.

It was mostly Auntie Saotome's fault.

When the Saotome matriarch had visited, Ranma and Genma had done their usual 
'Panda-chan', 'Ranko-chan' routine.  And after some initial fumbles and 
badly thought out lies, Nodoka was informed that while Genma was out 
unhappily repaying a debt (something she'd readily believe, considering how 
many debts her husband had accumulated) Ranma was somewhere in China, no 
doubt being 'manly' with many women, maybe even many women at the *same 
time*.

Nodoka nearly swooned with joy at that revelation.

While, on the other hand, Ranko-chan seemed to have a terribly hard time 
breathing thereafter.  Then again, it wasn't hard to understand.  The idea 
that Ranma, her (most certainly) manly son doing something carnal could 
knock the breath out of *any* girl.

The point was this: when it had started snowing, everyone had immediately 
tumbled outdoors.  Whereupon the *strangest* thing happened.  Nodoka wasn't 
too clear on the exact sequence of events, but she knew what her own two 
eyes had seen:

There had been a flash of red hair, unbound and hanging freely, the same 
color but not the same style as Ranko's.  This was followed by a muffled 
shriek, the sound of bodies being dragged away, and then almost immediately, 
Ranko popped up again in front of her, newly dressed in a completely 
feminine outfit and hair down.  She spoke more politely, and for once, she 
seemed to be civil, if very cool toward Akane.

Needless to say, Nodoka had been delighted.

Ranma on the other hand, back in hiding behind the house, was being forcibly 
restrained by Soun and a Panda, yelling, "NO!  NO!  Look at what she's 
doing!  The people in this town know I'm a man!  SHE'S SKIPPING!  YE GODS!  
My reputation!"

"Quiet, son, take it like a man and let that girl make the town think that 
you're the girliest girl that ever lived!" hissed Soun desperately, fretting 
over what would happen to the dojo if it fell into anyone's hands *but* 
Ranma and Akane.  The Panda "Growf"ed in agreement.

Meanwhile, Nodoka watched Ranko with an expression of surprised happiness, 
and said, "Why, Ranko-chan, you seem so changed from the last time I came to 
visit you!"  Winking girlishly, asked, "Have you found yourself a boyfriend, 
Ranko?"

"Auntie Saotome!" the girl cried, scandalized, holding a hand to her 
blushing cheek.  "Of *course* not!  Gosh - how could you even - gosh!"  She 
was so flustered that Nodoka found herself laughing again even as she 
apologized to her for being so invasive.

Akane stood at the side, watching with quiet loathing as Nodoka lavished 
attention on the redhead, wondering what had changed the situation so much 
that the Saotome matriarch would completely forsake her future 
daughter-in-law.  Nabiki tossed Akane an annoyed expression and whispered, 
"Akane, cut it out!  If you glare at her any more, you're going to burn a 
hole in the back of her skull!  And that just *won't* look good!"  Akane 
ignored the advice and continued to stare hatefully at the pair.

Not that they seemed to notice.

"Now, honestly, Ranko.  Why *is* it that you haven't had a boyfriend yet?" 
Nodoka pressed.

Ranko blushed again.  "Auntie, it's just that with school and martial arts 
and - " she paused, throwing up her hands in defeat, " - oh, what the heck, 
the truth is, I haven't found the right boy yet."

Nodoka smiled softly, "What kind of boy would you like?"

'Someone like my fiance,' Akane thought darkly, watching Yuki play off the 
masquerade a bit too convincingly.

"Well," Ranko said slowly, drawing the 'l' out into a long, soft sound, her 
eyes carefully studying the ground, and occasionally darting from side to 
side in nervous excitement.  "I'd want someone smart.  He'd have to be kind, 
and happy.  It would be nice if he knew martial arts, or if he was 
handsome," she blushed, "but those things aren't really that important to 
me."  She looked down shyly again.

"All very reasonable demands, Ranko-chan.  Any truly manly man - "

"Like Ranma," Nabiki interrupted, grinning.

" - Right, Nabiki-chan, like Ranma, would possess these characteristics," 
Nodoka said seriously.  She leaned down to the redhead, and throwing a 
not-too-subtle glance toward Akane, she whispered, "You know, Akane does not 
seem too fond of Ranma - so if that doesn't work out, *you* can always marry 
my son."

There was a deathly quiet where Ranko started to stutter some sort of 
protest, Nabiki winced, and Kasumi closed her eyes in frustration, Akane bit 
her lip so hard that she could taste the blood that flooded her mouth.

"Why - Why, Auntie!  I couldn't - Akane's his rightful fiancee," Ranko 
managed to choke out.  "I - I couldn't do that to her!"

Nodoka rolled her eyes, saying, "Pish posh!  It's an engagement between 
children, they're only teenagers, not likely to have built real feelings 
yet, and from what I can tell, Akane isn't keen on marrying *anyone*, 
right?"  She looked expectantly at the girl.

"Uh - um.  Right," Akane finally forced, feeling the irritation that she'd 
held in for the past three hours bubble to its height.

"See," Nodoka grinned triumphantly, and seeing the pallid expression on 
Ranko's face, she giggled and said, "Oh, child!  This is all just talking!  
If we were to ever *officially* transfer the engagement to you, there'd have 
to be all sorts of things done, and we'd never make you marry someone you 
didn't love!"

'Shut up,' Yuki thought desperately, 'stop talking about it, I can 
practically *see* the anger rising off of Akane!  Don't talk about it!  
It'll only make it worse!'  And as if a prayer had been answered, Nodoka 
dropped the whole subject, and turned to admiring the house cloaked in snow.

The morning festivities drew to a quiet close, and as they waved goodbye to 
Nodoka, already barely a dot on the horizon, Yuki released a sigh, 
muttering, "That was close."

Ranma's fiancee scowled darkly, turning to the uncursed redhead at her left 
and saying, "Yeah, well it wouldn't have been close if *someone* hadn't 
decided to show up."

Yuki merely rolled her eyes and bore it with good-natured civility, content 
to stand there in the still-drifting snow and enjoy the coldness of the 
world for what it was.  Refreshing in a cruel, strange sort of way.  
"Ranma's mother is wonderful."  Turning, she smiled brightly at Akane, 
saying, "Well, I'm gonna get going, I've caused enough chaos this morning."  
But as she turned to leave, the youngest Tendo grabbed the girl's hand, 
yelling:

"WAIT!  I want to talk to you."

Yuki turned back, a curious expression on her face, and nervously, she 
started, "Well, talk then."

Akane looked around, just to make sure that no one else was there.  
Realizing that there wasn't, whipped back toward Yuki, reared her hand back, 
and slapped the girl soundly across the face.  The redhead was so stunned 
that for half a minute, she couldn't even talk.

When she gathered her breath, she became quite vocal.

"What the hell was that for!?"

The only response she got was Akane gearing up for another strike, only this 
time; her hand was balled into a tight fist.  There was nothing like the 
prospect of loss to make a Tendo woman angry, and nothing like anger to make 
a Tendo woman dangerous.  Yuki was ready, and she had no qualms about 
beating up girls.  With a heavy hand, she caught Akane in the gut, knocking 
all the air out of her and landing the girl on her bottom in the snow.  
Panting slightly and rubbing her cheek where Akane had gotten her the first 
time around, she asked, "What is wrong with you?  I do you all a favor and 
sit in as 'Ranko-chan' and I get *beaten* for it?"

Akane stood back up, gasping for breath and hissing with deadly tone in her 
voice, "Keep away from Ranma, Yuki.  I'm not pissed off at you because you 
helped, I'm pissed off because you showed up in the first place!"

Yuki narrowed her eyes, and crossed her arms over her chest and said, "Who I 
visit on my own time is my own business."  Seeing Akane seethe, she grinned 
wickedly, calculating how angry the action would make her opponent.  "I can 
understand if you're jealous, Akane," she smirked, "Ranma does have some 
very," she lowered her voice until it became disconcertingly lewd, "*very* 
attractive 'assets'."

Akane screamed.

Just as the two girls charged each other, the reason for the argument 
arrived on the scene, very concerned by what he saw before him.

In the grand scheme of things, the resulting events were mostly Yuki's fault 
because it was cruel to have teased Ranma's fiancee with things like that.  
But it was also unwise of Akane to lose her head in a fight and lash out 
with only anger and bullheaded determination on her side, especially since 
Yuki's mind was working at top speed.  It wasn't Ranma's fault that he had 
horrible timing, but it probably would have been smarter just to back away 
and pray that nobody died.

Whatever the prelude, the end was the same:

Ranma, disoriented and in pain, was being slowly dragged away by Yuki.  All 
the while, the redhead tried not to wince overmuch from the dull ache that 
originated from the bruised ribs she'd earned.  And Akane was slowly being 
carried toward her room, sore and utterly incensed.

She'd made phone calls afterwards; she'd rallied for a dramatic action to 
*do something about Yuki*.  Her desire required that for perhaps the first 
time since Tendo Soun's 'other daughters' the fianc�es all work together 
toward a common goal.  She hadn't thought about the consequences of it.

Meanwhile, somewhere further away, in the pleasant setting of Yuki's 
bedroom, Ranma was being tucked under covers by gentle hands and hushed by 
soothing words, neither of the two realizing that the stage was set for the 
last months of their existence.

^*^*^

Akane closed her eyes, feeling the tears roll down her cheeks, and 
swallowing the sadness that rose in her throat.

Now wasn't the time to feel sorry for herself.

And opening her dark eyes once again, she walked to Kasumi's bedside; 
shaking Tofu, and leading him from the room to get some much needed rest.

She had never realized how much something like this could affect a family, 
never truly understood the ramifications of a death.  It didn't hurt just 
one person, it hurt everyone, and the pain it caused didn't fade in days, it 
lasted for as long as people persisted on loving, persisted on living, and 
persisted on remembering whomever they had lost.  She didn't want that kind 
of agony for her sister.

Only...Akane feared that Kasumi would never forget.

^*^*^

"You're late," Kuzio said nervously.

Nabiki stared at him for a whole minute before sitting down opposite him at 
the small cafe table, and then finally said, "Um, I'm early, according to my 
watch."

He looked at the napkin holder intently, as since Nabiki's arrival at the 
caf� two minutes before instantly transformed every inanimate object within 
sight into the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen.   "Oh," he said 
sheepishly.

She coughed quietly, and called out, "Can I have a mug of Jamaican Blue 
Mountain?  No cream, no sugar, but a little honey."  Somewhere in the 
background, there was the sound of coffee being poured and served, the 
ceramic of the cup clinking against the art-deco metal tables.  Kuzio was 
unable to hide a sneer of disgust at her order; he was a purist, his coffee 
was either to be taken black, or with sugar, damn it.

This was the cafe where they had first met, a strange, confident creature 
searching for someone to find information, and then to fade into the 
background.  She wasn't an insider trader by any means, preferring to rely 
on her on intuition, but sometimes, it was nice to know a little extra about 
the companies she was investing in than they told in their publicity 
brochures.  And it was that order that had sparked their first conversation.

Nabiki, apparently, was remembering the same things.  She passed an idle 
glance over his left pant pocket, and said, "So, Kuzio, this time around, is 
that *really* your phone, or are you just happy to see me?"

He blinked at her, flushing as red as a beefsteak tomato.  With shaking 
hands, he pulled a Sony Clie out of his pocket.  "Overjoyed; PDA," he said 
with a shaking voice.

And their laughter filled the afternoon.

Two people clueless as to what to do together.

But terrified of what it would be apart.

Nabiki gulped down her coffee.  She didn't feel dread very often, not in her 
line of business: one needed not only to present a visage of fearlessness; 
you need to live it.   She'd only been this frightened three times in her 
entire life.  The first, when her mother passed away, the second was the 
fateful day she watched someone start to die, and realized that she was the 
one who had facilitated her murder, and the third was the morning she'd seen 
it all end in a fiery explosion of hate and shame.

She bit back a sigh as her mind tugged her slowly toward the second of those 
fears.  It caressed and it teased and it promised that maybe, maybe if she 
recalled, the ending would be different.

^*^*^

Nerima
12 years 10 months previous

"I only really started letting myself think about it a couple of days ago," 
Yuki said softly.  She was sitting on the edge of the Tendo's porch, her 
legs dangling off the side.  Her eyes were far away, a pale, gray color on 
that freezing afternoon.  It made Nabiki's heart ache to look at this girl, 
but she couldn't move.  Her guilt cemented her to the spot.

Turning around, Yuki stared straight through Nabiki's eyes and into her 
soul.  "And it occurred to me that whoever posted those flyers around school 
would need information," she pushed herself up and walked three steps 
forward, now no more than inches from where Nabiki was frozen in place.  Her 
eyes were cold.  "I'm not going to do anything to you, Nabiki, because you 
gave out the information," she laughed bitterly, "for all I know, you just 
handed over a folder and never read the contents."  She broke her gaze and 
looked down at the floor, "I just want to know who did it."  She breathed in 
and out softly, barely making a sound, waiting for Nabiki's response.

Nabiki coughed.  "W-Why do you think that I could tell you that?"  Her voice 
was trembling; she could hear it so loud in the echoing silence of the dojo.

Why today of all days?  Why did Kasumi and Akane and Ranma and the fathers 
leave the house?  Why did they abandon her at the mercy of guilt and 
retribution?

She had suspected after the posters had been found all over the schools, 
she'd had the tickling fear that it was her folder of information that had 
led Ryoga down the primrose path to an ultimate cruelty.  She's spent three 
sleepless nights worrying, and then, she'd tracked the lost boy down, and 
asked him herself.  His reply had made her scream.

But she wasn't prepared to admit her part in the sin.

Yuki stared at her, eyes cold.  "Because if you don't, then what people say 
about you is true; then you'll have proven that you don't have a soul."  She 
took a deep breath.  "Because if you don't, then I'd be ashamed to claim 
that you're a woman, that you're like me, Nabiki."  She paused.  "You *know* 
what that was like for me, you should know what it would be like for you."  
She turned and stared away.  "I just want to know who did it."

Nabiki swallowed hard, and realized that she had reached a crossroads.

Before this day, she'd never thought to betray her clients, and she'd never, 
ever given a second thought to any of a million amoral things she'd done for 
the greater good of her finances.  'But,' she thought mournfully, 'even I 
think I went too far - do I tell her, or do I keep to my ethics?'

And she almost laughed, standing there inches away from someone she'd helped 
break, she almost burst into fits of giggles.  It was strange that she'd use 
the word 'ethics' to describe her business standards, because that's what 
they were based on, weren't they?  Or at the very least, a *lack* thereof.

"Don't you ever look at yourself in the mirror, Nabiki?" Yuki asked softly.  
"Don't you ever wonder, 'What have I *become*?'"  Yuki stopped, staring at 
the Tendo girl for a moment longer.  "For once wouldn't you like to be able 
to answer, 'Someone good'?"

The wind whistled outside, capturing in its coldness the last leaves of 
autumn past, and the barest traces of the recent snowfall.  And while the 
world outside kept turning, everything had stopped in the quietude of her 
mind.

Looking at the road signs on either side of her choices, Nabiki bit her lip, 
thinking hard.  To choose the easy way out, to swallow the secret and 
consume her shame, ignoring it as it left her, or to expose it and suffer, 
letting it leave scars where she'd point to one day, citing it as a lesson 
learned?

"Yuki," Nabiki whispered, "if I tell you must never tell anyone else."  The 
redhead nodded, saying:

"I wasn't planning on it."  She paused.  "I have no desire to exact revenge 
on whoever did this, Nabiki.  If I try, Ranma will find out, and if he 
knows, then there will be consequences."  She bit back tears.  "I just can't 
sleep if it keeps going like this."  It was sick curiosity, futile passion 
for knowing something that could hurt her.

'She has to know,' Nabiki thought softly.  'God, she actually *has* to 
know.'

In that afternoon, the secret was broken, the silence of a darkness withheld 
shattered, and the ends, for once, justified the means.  While Nabiki sat 
sill in her room, running her forefinger across her lower lip slowly in 
thought, Yuki wandered out into the street, falling into step next to a 
familiar, dark-haired boy.

Her secrets her own, and Nabiki's no longer.

There were things Yuki would never tell anyone.  And there were things that 
Ranma would never know.  But Nabiki understood that; she appreciated it.  
For the first time, she respected herself for breaking a trust.

^*^*^

Nabiki sighed as the memory left her, filtering away in the scent of good, 
strong coffee, and the soft, nearly undetectable smell of panic and earth on 
her companion.

She smiled softly, looking up to meet Kuzio's eyes.

She'd learned something that afternoon long ago: that secrets kept were not 
necessarily good, and that telling someone something that wasn't theirs to 
know wouldn't necessarily end in disaster.

'Who knows,' she thought to herself, still smiling at the man before her, 
'maybe it's time I tell him a secret of my own.'

^*^*^

"I don't want to talk about it," she said firmly.  Her back was turned to 
him, and all he could see was her flame-red hair and the color of her 
pajamas.  Her shoulders were tensed, and he found himself frowning at her.

Sighing, he asked, "Why not?  It's not like I'm asking you to remove a body 
part!  It's just a prenatal check up."

There was such a thing as the maturity factor in their relationship.  It was 
constantly in flux.  While on the whole, Kimiko found it delightful to be 
frivolous and fanciful, giggling and acting like a teenager, she couldn't.  
And while on the whole, Soichi would have liked nothing better than to 
tinker with his computer all day and practice katas, he couldn't do that, 
either.  But for both of them to be horribly stately and reasonable on a 
consistent basis, there would be necessary divine intervention.  And 
sometimes, Soichi feared that not even the archangel Uriel would be able to 
make a good decision.

So they took turns.

Sometimes, Kimiko would be the one who dragged him away from the newest 
Playstation 2 games display, and sometimes, it was Soichi who would 
literally have to tug her step by step from the frosted, sugary, candy-store 
window.

It was a matter of situation.

'Obviously,' Soichi thought darkly, watching his wife's shoulders tense 
again, 'it's my turn to be the grown-up.'

She whirled around to him, eyes shadowed.  "Look, I don't want to fight with 
you about this, okay?  I'm just not going.  That's final."  She was 
certainly serious about it, the way her face was set, how her mouth had been 
drawn into a fine, pale pink line, and how her hands grasped the edge of the 
counter hard enough to snap it into pieces - all of these things promised an 
argument if he pursued it.

But - but this was a *baby*.  This was *their* baby.

How could he *not* pursue it?

He growled, "How can that be final?  It's a medical and natal health 
procedure!"  She stared blankly at him as he continued, "Thousands of women 
all over Japan get them every day.  It's a visit to a damn doctor!"  He 
grabbed her arm and pulled her toward him gently.  "Look," his voice much 
softer now, "I don't know why you're so dead set against this, but-"

She looked up at him, blue eyes watery.  "Please, I don't want to go."  Her 
voice was hoarse, and filled with tears that she didn't want to shed there 
in that kitchen.  Taking a deep breath, the ugly, violent side of herself 
rising, she whispered, "And you can't make me."

Soichi probably would have sighed and let the subject drop for the morning 
if only she hadn't said *it*.  He probably would have bitten back whatever 
response was planning on falling out of his mouth and walked away; content 
on deeply exploring why his wife would be so against the doctor.  She didn't 
seem to mind her physician, but the gynecologist, what was the big 
difference?  He probably wouldn't have said something cruel and stupid.  
Then again, Kimiko said something dumb, too.

In the grand scheme of things, it was probably destined to happen.

"I can't believe you!" he yelled.  "What the hell is wrong with you?  Don't 
you love this baby at all?  Or are you so fucking prepared to add another 
chapter of melodrama in your life because of a miscarriage?"

He gasped as the words left his mouth, and she gaped at him in horror.

She would have cried, but she couldn't breathe, and she couldn't gasp to get 
the tears out.  She would have screamed, but she couldn't talk, she couldn't 
see to shout.  She stood there in trembling silence for a few moments more, 
frozen by the darkness in his accusation.

^*^*^

Naka ventured out of his room for the second morning, yawning, a faint smile 
on his face as he remembered what he'd come upon the day before.  'What's up 
for today?' he wondered briefly, 'Giving each other flowers, love poems?' he 
chuckled under his breath.  As he walked toward the kitchen, he heard a 
splash of water and a woman yelp in surprise.  Grinning, he stopped to 
listen, hoping that he wouldn't intrude again.

"You asshole," Kimiko's voice hissed, tear-soaked and heavy with anger and 
frustration.  "How could you - how could you ever say *that* to me?!"

Naka's eyes grew wide.  'Crap,' he thought, 'they're having an argument.'  
He winced.  'And from the sound of it, a bad one, too.'

There was another space of quiet before a slap echoed throughout the 
apartment, the sound of a palm against someone's cheek loud and splintering 
in the morning.

Though, not as loud as the sound of a woman's scream.

Naka's mouth fell open.  'Oh, no - Kimiko-san,' he thought in a panic, and 
taking three rushed steps forward, he was just in time to see the redheaded 
woman run from the kitchen, tears streaming down her face as she bolted down 
the hall, into the bedroom, and slammed the door closed.

He stared down to where she'd run for a moment before a hiss of a steaming 
kettle distracted him again.  Turning back, he saw Soichi standing in the 
kitchen and staring out the window, his face was pensive, guilty.

And then his blue eyes brightened in that false light as he looked at Naka.  
Sighing softly, he glanced at the ground.  Without a word, he passed by the 
boy in the hallway, not meeting his gaze as he wandered toward the bedroom 
door.

The slap still echoed in Naka's mind, shadowed by Kimiko's scream, and 
haunted by the expression on Fujikara-sensei's face - that frustration, the 
muted guilt, and the anger that still simmered underneath it all.

^*^*^

"Kimiko," he started slowly, easing the door closed behind him.  "Kimiko."  
He took three steps toward the bed, toward the curled up shadow of red hair 
and swollen eyes, toward a beautiful woman.  'Yeah,' his mind hissed 
angrily, 'and you with all your fucking bastard eloquence made her cry 
because you lost your damn temper!  You're a *psychiatrist*!  She worked 
three jobs to put you through school so you could learn to listen.'

His only reply was silence.  "Kimiko," he murmured again, "please, I was 
wrong - just, just talk to me.  Tell me why you don't want to go to the 
doctor."

There was another pause before she sniffled,  "I..."  Her voice was thick 
with tears, heavy with shame, and he felt the smothering weight of guilt 
descend upon him.  She whispered, "I *can't* go to the gynecologist, he's 
the one who - " she paused, gasping, "he's the one who told me I could never 
have our baby in the beginning."

She, as an educated and forward-thinking woman, understood how backward and 
irrational this belief was above anyone else.  At that moment, she could 
reconcile her intellectual verities with what her heart was saying.  
Motherhood was stroking her mind with soft-light, gently painted scenes of 
babies and prams and tiny yellow rain slickers and laughing blue eyes.  
Motherhood would not allow her to do anything harmful to her child.  And 
after her horrifying experiences over the years, after the clinical 
detachment with which she'd faced her (supposed) sterility and how she'd 
relieved her rape, over and over again, mentally picturing how one afternoon 
had destroyed the most fundamental parts of herself, she was not prepared to 
look at anything with an air of cold logic.  There would be no mindful 
separation of fear and action; the doctor was intrinsically tied to failure, 
and her gynecologist was the wicked, hateful woman who brought back papers 
with lab results written upon them, time and again crushing her hopes.

Soichi sighed and bit his lip, sitting down on the bed, stroking her red 
hair softly, and closed his eyes.  It was an unfounded fear.  Not every 
gynecologist would mean bad things for her, and intellectually, she knew 
this, she must have.  Still, he supposed that since he had not been the one 
wearing the paper dress in a cold room, listening to the doctors as they 
told her that she was broken, somewhere deep inside, where no one could make 
it better, he couldn't relate.  He'd only been there to hold her hand, feel 
saddened that they would not have a child together, at least not one of 
their own blood.  He had only felt indirectly what must have been a slap on 
the face, what felt like a personal failure on her part.  He'd heard her say 
once long ago that she'd never realized how much Mother was a part of Woman 
until she'd been stripped of it; even then, all he offered was his support, 
no answers, no cures, to magical words to sooth her.  Learning to work in 
this delicate balance between past heartaches and survival was what Soichi 
had spent years in college trying to do.  While he could placate the fears 
of his patients and calm their hearts, he could offer his wife - *his own 
wife* - no comfort, no reprieve from her terror.  The stark truth of this 
cut far deeper than he would have anticipated.

He lay down beside her, and by instinct, with blue eyes wide open, she 
turned to bury her face in his chest, breathing him in deeply, wrapping her 
arms about his neck as she said, "I'm just afraid.  What he might tell me."  
She paused, tearful as she murmured, "I don't know if I could take it."  
Kissing her forehead, he murmured:

"Remember that promise that I made to you, Kimiko?"

She nodded.

"I intend to keep it; nothing could make me hurt this baby."

She nodded again.

"So when I say I want you to go to a doctor, a *new* doctor, I mean that I 
want you to go so the baby can be healthy.  The moment you feel bad, we'll 
leave and find another one.  Is that okay?"

She didn't say anything, just breathed in and out, safe in the comfort of 
his embrace, scarred and sad, but forgiving and forgiven - life revolved, 
and love continued.  She hated him almost as much as she loved him, and she 
needed to run just as she needed to stay.  She realized long ago that before 
being with him, before having met the pigtailed martial artist way back in 
another lifetime, she'd never felt true hatred, nor true pain; it was only 
after she'd exposed herself to the very core, dared to love another human 
being, bared her soul, that someone had had the power to cause her hurt or 
to make her hate.  There, then, she hated his ability to cripple her with 
his words, and loved him all the same for being able to mend her with a 
touch.  But the in-between place, the silence that existed only in the 
calming tones of his presence, it was where she was at peace, it was where 
she could stop, and gather herself before venturing out again.

"It was just like today," he murmured, "where I knew what to do to keep you 
safe, and there was no way for me to do it."  He closed his eyes.

"You aren't angry anymore?" she asked.

"Just frustrated, that takes a while to fade," he replied, and sighing, he 
continued, "Sometimes, Kimiko, you remind me of a wave."

She blinked, turning to look at his face, momentarily forgetting that she 
was still mad at him.  "A wave?"

He smirked, stroking her hair.  "Yes, a wave."  His mouth curved downward 
into a frown.  "A crazy, stupid, unhearing wave, huge and fast and 
frightening.  So caught up in your own sound that you can't listen to anyone 
else - or you refuse to."  She was silent; no one liked to hear their own 
flaws, it was worse coming from his lips.  "And I feel like I'm standing on 
the beach, watching you ram toward the sharp rocks there, knowing you'll 
hurt yourself if you don't slow down and smooth out."  He sighed, hugging 
her closer.  "And sometimes, you overwhelm me, like water rushing over 
stone, and I just let it go."

She bit her lip and pulled away from him a little, thinking of pots and 
kettles.  Still, she bit back whatever commentary she wanted to make, too 
tired for another argument, and unwilling to start one if she knew that 
losing was certain.  "I didn't know," she said finally, "that I was like 
that."

She could see him forcing down a smile, and he replied, "I know that you 
don't notice it.  A lot of times, I can just change your mind from doing 
something stupid, sometimes I have to yell."  He shrugged.  "I don't like 
yelling at you."

She frowned.  "And I don't like being yelled at."

"I noticed," he answered wryly.  And there was a pause before he added, "I 
shouldn't have said what I said today."

She nodded.  "No, you shouldn't have.  Those were very cruel things."

"I know.  I didn't mean it," he said, "I was mad."  She turned to stare at 
him, eyes big and watery in the dim light.

"Then I hope I don't make you mad often," she whispered.  Standing up, she 
headed toward their bathroom, wiping away at the tears that still glistened 
on her face.  Her small, white feet making soft, padding noises across the 
floor, a quiet sort of 'frushing' sound every time she brushed again the 
wood.

"Kimiko?" he asked suddenly, voice too loud in the room.  She stopped for a 
moment at the door to the bath, not turning around to meet his gaze.  "Are 
we going to be all right?"

He could see her shoulders loosen, and the tension start to unwind from her 
form.  "We will be," she answered softly, and stepped into the tiny room, 
shutting the door firmly behind her.

And Soichi was left there in a tangle of sheets, staring at tearstains his 
wife had left on her side of the bed.  All he could think was that sometime 
long ago, he'd promised her happiness.

Crazily, he realized that he must have failed.

'There must be more than this.'

^*^*^

"You kept this place, after all these years?" Shampoo said in bewilderment, 
staring at the cobwebbed corners of the old Nekohanten, the dusty chairs, 
still neatly stacked from their last, aching afternoon in Japan.  She 
remembered that restaurant, remembered sitting in the kitchen, leaning 
against the stove, with her face covered to hide the wracking sobs that had 
taken her body.  She remembered curling up into a ball when she realized 
that for once - Mousse would not be there to see how she was.  "But, how did 
you pull it off?  The rent must have been horrible!"

Cologne shrugged, and herding Orchid into the store, she smiled gently, 
closing the door behind them.  "It wasn't that bad.  With Nerima's infamous 
wrecking crew, realtors were glad for any stores that would keep paying the 
rent and staying in town - so they let me have it cheap."

"Mom, this where you work as girl?" Orchid said, a tone of awe in her 
faltering Japanese, and Shampoo couldn't help but to smile as the memories 
rushed through her.

"Worked?" Cologne snorted good-naturedly, "I'd say more like wreaked havoc," 
the old woman grinned at her great-great-grandchild, "Your mother was the 
hell-raiser to shame all hell-raisers.  You think your cousin Jade is bad, 
you should have seen your mom in her younger days."

"Great-Grandmother!" Shampoo hissed, scandalized.  "Would you stop it!  I 
was not a hell-raiser!"  Orchid giggled.  She so rarely saw her mother 
flustered - she had to admit, it *was* funny.

"You most certainly were!  Think of how many times this poor restaurant 
suffered because you and Mousse-" Cologne stopped her words at the dull fade 
of light in her great-granddaughter's eyes.  She kicked herself mentally for 
having mentioned it.  Sometimes, it was too easy to forget, too easy to 
think that he was just out of town, or still back in the village, or 
something.  His presence pervaded Shampoo's existence.

The lavender-haired woman forced a smile for her daughter's sake, and said 
cheerfully, "Anyhow - that's not the point."  She turned to Orchid.  "Go 
take your things upstairs, my room is the second one on the leftm and 
unpack, take a nap, I know you're tired from the trip."  The girl complied, 
seeing as she didn't want to be in the quiet, too-tense room any longer, and 
that her mother's prediction was right, she was tired.

The two older women waited until Orchid was out of hearing range before 
turning to each other again, two pairs of eyes dark and turbulent.  "Why did 
you want us to come, Great-Grandmother," Shampoo asked softly, her voice 
low.  "What do you want with Nerima again?"

Cologne sighed.  "Child, it's a matter of honor."

"Honor?" Shampoo whispered, her voice incredulous.  "Honor?" she repeated, 
mind whirring back to the wretched month she had spent locked away in the 
Nekohanten after what had happened a decade ago.  She couldn't stop the 
images from flooding her mind.  "FUCK HONOR!"  Shampoo slammed her hand 
angrily against a desk, and Cologne winced at the sound of voices and wood 
echoing around the room.  "I wasted years and years of my life mourning the 
results of this sick, twisted ideal of *honor*.  I'm not willing to ruin my 
life again for something that isn't worth it!"

"Ranma isn't worth it to you?" Cologne yelled in reply, feeling her 
frustration rise.  "Your intended, the marriage that would have brought 
strength to the Amazons - that doesn't matter anymore?"  As soon as she said 
it, she regretted it.  She had not meant to bring up that old wound; in 
fact, the existence of the old promise wasn't even the reason that she'd 
wanted to come back to Nerima.  That was not the honor that was at stake.  
There were far greater sins than a misbegotten marriage, and Cologne knew 
she had committed one very long ago.

Shampoo felt the tears she didn't let herself cry rise.  "I wanted Ranma; I 
wanted honor," she gasped, "and I helped break him, Great-Grandmother, I 
helped ruin him."  She stopped; voice low, "Honor killed him."

"He's not dead, did you not hear?" Cologne asked, annoyed that her 
great-Granddaughter didn't seem to understand the concept.

Shampoo ignored her.  "Honor ruined two people, it destroyed two lives, 
don't you understand?"

And then she couldn't stop it, the flood of voices and sounds and light from 
the afternoon she spent facilitating the downfall of two human beings who 
hadn't deserved to be crushed.  "You weren't to blame," Mousse had told her 
so many years ago.  "You didn't know."

"But neither did she, neither did they," she had replied, "no one did - they 
were safe, don't you see, I killed them, I started it when I translated 
those texts for Akane."

Blame and guilt, feud and fight, the spark that started it all, just because 
she had agreed to help.  She couldn't escape what her memory refused forget, 
and she couldn't outrun what didn't chase her.

^*^*^

The hospital waiting room was a familiar sight now: drab and boring and 
painful to look at.  They'd been there for the past weeks, always there, 
waiting at a faithful vigil, worried and scared for a woman who had always 
loved them as children.

Tendo Soun had fared much worse, his fragile mental state finally snapping 
when he realized that his beloved daughter had to be taken to the hospital 
in critical condition.  He'd refused to eat, refused to drink, refused to 
sleep, and was eventually dragged into ER by Ryoga.  He was passed out 
somewhere in a familiar wing of Nerima General Hospital, comfortably numb.

Akane and Ryoga sat across from one another, still and serious, waiting for 
word on whether or not Kasumi would be well enough to go home that day.  No 
one was asking the real question: had her fractured mind returned?

"You know, Ryoga," Akane said softly, "if I didn't know any better, I'd say 
that something cosmic and great is trying to keep us from getting married."  
She laughed bitterly, shallow brown eyes looking upward to meet his 
endlessly dark gaze.  "The first time, you get lost for three months, the 
second time, your mother died, and now," she paused, "Kasumi's baby is 
gone."

Akane stared down at her fingers for a moment, eyes drawn by the way the 
early morning light fell upon her pearly skin, how it nearly hid all the 
calluses and cuts and scars from a lifetime of breaking bricks and breaking 
hearts.

And then she turned to her side, looking over at Ryoga's sleepy-eyed form.  
She supposed that he was handsome, what with his sloppy bangs that sometimes 
ducked low enough over his face to get into his dark eyes, and his rakish 
half-grin, half-sneer.  She liked the way that he always woke up before her, 
and how he always asked her if she liked him.  She enjoyed sitting around 
and talking to him, because with him, she didn't feel as if something was 
expected of her.  She liked holding his hand, feeling the sun-browned 
heaviness of his fingers twined with her own delicate palms.  She liked 
kissing him on the cheek and then stepping back to see his eyes twinkle.

She liked him.

Did she love him?

Several months after Ranma had died so long ago, she had mustered up enough 
courage to ask Kasumi what love was like.  Not family love, not loving a 
pet, as she loved her P-chan, but what loving a man was like.  Her sister 
had stared at her for a moment, eyes strangely watery.  "Why do you ask 
this, Akane?" she'd whispered.  Followed with, "I'm not sure, I've never 
been in love.  But I suppose that it's wonderful, I suppose that it's like 
feeling free and safe and scared and happy all at once," and paused, "all 
the time."

Did Ryoga do that?  Make her free and safe and scared and happy all at once 
and all the time?  Akane bit her lip, staring at her fiance.  He reminded 
her of a tornado, wild and strong and angry, but once the perfect conditions 
were taken away, he faded into the background once again - but the presence 
always there, warm and kind and pulsing against her heart.  She had been 
right earlier - they were comfortable with each other - they'd achieved the 
familiar loving acceptance that most tumultuous couples yearned for.

But where was their passion?  Where was their tempest of emotion and lust 
and love and tears?  Where was their moment of excitement and fear?

"Kasumi's stronger than we give her credit for, Akane," Ryoga said, his 
voice low and gravelly, eyes turned toward a window.  "She'll make it.  
She'll be fine."

Akane cocked her head to one side.  "You think so?"

"Of course," he reasoned, frowning at her.  "No one can forgive and survive 
as much as she has without being strong."

Akane laughed.  "Forgiveness does not mean strength, Ryoga."

He glanced at her, a faintly worried expression in his eyes.  "What if I 
wished that it did, Akane?"

"Why would you wish that?" she asked.

He shrugged.  "Then I'd know that regardless of what you found out about me 
- you'd forgive me."

She smiled softly at him, wrapping her own hand about his.  "Ryoga, I've 
known you for over a decade; I know everything about you, I accept 
everything about you."  She hesitated before continuing, "That is what a 
good relationship is built on, that is why we get along so well together."

He looked at her strangely, and intense, fearful expression in his eyes.  
For the moment, she was reminded of another pair of eyes, blue instead of 
brown, that had borne the same shades as Ryoga's did at that moment.

So Akane was torn for the quiet monotony of the hospital waiting room to the 
first time she saw her life clearly, and the first time she'd ever 
understood.  Tied up in a whirlwind of jealousy and confusion and hatred and 
joy all at the same time.  Free and safe and happy and scared - she'd come 
to see what her life was - what *she* was.

And all of this excitement stained by a black omen, the promise of disaster 
that was yet to come, the whisper of something darker just over the horizon.

^*^*^

Nerima
12 years 9 months ago

Akane's plan had gone badly.

The challenge had been issued and accepted, and four girls had met at an 
empty lot, prepared to have three one on one matches on three successive 
days.  Unfortunately for Yuki, Akane, Ukyo, and Shampoo, none of them had 
patience, and all of them let loose a few inflammatory statements.

Their only saving grace was that Ranma had heard the screaming and cursing 
and dropped by to stop the cat-fight.

But as they were being dragged to their respective homes, Yuki and Akane, 
still sputtering with anger at each other, had decided to finish the fight 
with words.  The Tendo girl had cried:

"You're going to get yours, you damn hussy!"

And Yuki had answered, "Not fucking likely, you cow!"

To which Akane had replied with a string of nearly unintelligible curses 
involving increasingly creative and anatomically impossible things that she 
wanted Yuki to do in the privacy of her own home.  The whole long tirade 
ending with, "I challenge you to another match!  No special attacks, no 
tricks, just plain martial arts!  Loser *never* sees Ranma again!"

Of course - Yuki, being Yuki, agreed with shortsighted enthusiasm.

And in the aftermath of that heated afternoon, Akane had started feeling a 
low dread in the pit of her stomach.

Engagement was such a heavy word, formal and public.  Something that 
everyone respected and acknowledged.  While on the other hand, love was 
entirely different.  Affection was so sneaky in its ways, so quiet in its 
onset, but so terribly painful not to see.  For all the mindless denial that 
drove the three fiancees, for all their heartbreaks and jealousy and 
rivalries throughout the time they had known each other - they'd never been 
faced with something like Yuki before.

She had no legal claim to him, and didn't desire to make one.  She had no 
romantic aspirations for him - or so she said - but she had him wrapped up 
in her hands.  She was flawed and she was used, but he still wanted her 
presence.

It could not be accepted - Akane all knew that something had to be done.  
Shampoo and Ukyo both adamantly refused to get involved, mentally shuddering 
at the memory of Ranma's visits to them earlier that week.  His eyes had 
been the color of ice, and his tone had been even cooler, and in no 
uncertain terms, he had instructed that if they were to touch one hair on 
Yuki's head without the deepest and most loving intentions, he would make 
them regret it.  Kodachi was a different story.  Threats wouldn't have 
worked on her.  Thankfully, an exorbitant bribe given to the doctors and 
nurses and the Nerima Psychiatric institute had brought upon her a new round 
of medication, and she was too dazed to do anything when she heard news of 
the match.   Akane - well, Ranma really couldn't do anything about Akane.  
Not really.  Sure, he could say stupid, boneheaded things and convince her 
that he hated her and make her believe that he was cheating on her (which he 
wasn't - not anymore, at any rate), but he preferred to survive the next few 
days with as little rancor as possible.

"Akane," he said respectfully, catching the full attention and curiosity of 
the entire Tendo/Saotome household.  Cautiously ignoring their expressions 
and focusing on his fiancee - who was *still* radiating a dangerous blue 
aura - he continued, "Do you really think this is a smart thing to do?  I 
mean, fight with Yuki?"

She scowled.  "Look, if you're going to protect her, do it during the fight, 
you're not going to change my mind about battling with her, not just because 
I - " she cut off her sentence abruptly, and Ranma, momentarily, wondered 
what she'd wanted to say.  Like so many times before, and so many other 
half-finished phrases, there were meanings behind meanings, clarity that 
they disallowed themselves.  They were too shy; it was too early; it was too 
much to ask such young people to do and speak of emotion as people would if 
they were adults.

Sometimes, Ranma thought about this.  The difference between being an adult 
and being a child, was it simply age?  Or was it something more, something 
substantial?  It seemed very foolish to him that two years could change 
their maturity and their outlook on life like no experience or wisdom could. 
  Would he become a grown-up if he told Akane how he had felt, and when he 
had felt it?  Or had he already done his part?  Was it that *Akane* was the 
child?

"I'm not trying to protect her, Akane.  She can take her falls like any 
other martial artist, but you haven't been training as intensely as she has, 
you might get hurt," he reasoned, easing himself down next to her at the 
breakfast table, eyes lowered to the wooden surface, unwilling to meet her 
gaze.

He could feel her stiffen next to him.  "And why do you think I'm not being 
trained as intensely, Ranma?"  Her voice was low, almost sad, and he 
couldn't help but to look up to her endless dark eyes, filled to the brim 
with tears that she wouldn't cry in front of him.  "Why do you think that I 
haven't improved my martial arts since you've come here, since Daddy stopped 
training me?"

"Akane - " he started, but did not finish because his fiancee raised her 
tone and lowered her eyes.

"Because you won't train with me, Ranma."  She looked up at him again; tears 
flowing freely down her pale cheeks, and the hands that were shaking.  
"Because you don't take me seriously, because you don't want me to win this 
damn fight!" she cried.  Irrational connections, dangerous leaps of logic, 
all these things screamed in Akane's mind, and the carefully learned 
level-headed side of herself disappeared in a puff of confused jealousy and 
inexplicable fear, as it always did when it came to Ranma and other girls.

He felt anger boil in his stomach, and ignoring the warning bells that rang 
in his mind, telling him *not* to rise to the argument, he roared, "NO ONE 
can win this fight!  Not you, and not Yuki!"

There was an echoing silence in the room for the moment when Ranma stopped 
to take a breath, flames still burning in his eyes and logic and sense still 
taking leave of his mouth.

"What do you think will happen if someone gets the upper hand?  Hell, if 
*you* lose, your father would throw a damn fit, and you'd just sniff and say 
that you were my official fiancee, embarrassing Yuki, yourself, *and* me!  
If Yuki loses, she gets banished to her family!" he cried.  "They're worse 
that our fathers, do you understand that, Akane?  Can you even begin to 
think what it would be like if she wasn't allowed to have a friend?"

Akane's tears came faster as the sinking desperation overwhelmed her.  She 
couldn't lose him, not when she was nearly sure that she loved him, not when 
she wanted so much out of the possibilities he held for her, not when she 
wanted him to keep her safe.  "Friend?  Is that what you're calling it?  
DAMN IT, Ranma!  I'm your fiancee!"

"THEN ACT LIKE IT!" he bellowed.  "You never give me the benefit of the 
doubt, and if you aren't ready to love me, then at least be my friend!"  He 
paused, breathing hard, "It's all in the maturity, Akane!"  He stood up from 
his seat at the table, eyes not leaving Akane's stunned face.  "You want to 
be my fiancee and yet you refuse to treat me with the basic decency and 
respect that *I* more than deserve!"

"I treat you with all the respect I treat everyone!" she answered in return, 
standing to meet his gaze, eyes flashing with pain.  "But you're such an 
ass, too, Ranma!  Sometimes I just can't help it!  Think of all the times 
that you've said horrible things to me, all the times you've ignored me, 
didn't take me seriously!"

"I'm not saying I'm perfect," he answered quietly, his tone surreally 
peaceful in the explosive atmosphere.

It seemed as if the two teens had entirely forgotten that they had an 
audience: the fathers, Akane's sisters, and anyone within hearing range.

He looked at Akane hard, eyes lowered so that they were pupil to pupil, 
speaking with a harsh honesty that they'd never dared to allow, and with 
force that no one had ever seen erupt in between the two of them before.  
There was a simmering passion beneath the annoyed exteriors of these 
children, and the people surrounding them only feared that the passion that 
bubbled and boiled was not one that would lead them to each other - only 
apart.

"I know I'm a screw-up, Akane," he said quietly, "I know my grades in school 
aren't good.  I know that I could do better if I tried.  I know that I'm a 
knucklehead and that I say mean things and don't think before I act."  He 
stiffened.  "But I also know that I am an honorable person, that I'm not 
cruel, and that I never hold grudges.  I know that I have enough good in me 
to balance out the bad - do you know who told me this, Akane?"

She didn't speak; she didn't want to know.

"It should have been you," he whispered, blue eyes shimmering black, "It 
should have been my fiancee, the girl I would marry and love and take care 
of.  But you only convinced me that you hated me."  He laughed bitterly.  
"God, Akane, didn't you know?"

"Know what?" she asked tonelessly.

"All I ever wanted was for you to tell me that it was okay," he whispered, 
"you know, me being *me*.  Redheaded or not."  He smirked at her.  "I never 
got that, Akane."  He breathed deeply.  "But Yuki was forgiving, she was my 
friend, she told me that it was all right.  I can't let you hurt her.  It's 
like when you protect Ryoga, it's because you," he seemed to choke on the 
words, "because you care about him.  It's the same, Akane - I can't let you 
hurt her."

She was spiraling.  Akane could see all the flashes of light and dark and 
color and sound that she'd hidden from her mind's eye all those times.  She 
could finally remember all the cautious touches, how happy she'd been in his 
rare embraces, and how she'd stopped being the flawed, inadequate youngest 
child of a mother who had left her when she needed a mother the most.  She 
saw all those times her awkward words hadn't been enough to convey to Ranma 
that she had accepted him, liked him, God, maybe even *loved* him for who 
and what he was.  All that time, all the arguments, all the hatred and 
misunderstanding and jealousy - all of it came down to a simple fact:

They'd never had clarity.

She wouldn't lose him now; she knew how to love him, knew how to make him 
love her in return.  She wouldn't abandon her future's happiness for the 
sake of past mistakes.

"Ranma," she said, her throat constricted, "I *will* win this fight."  She 
felt the tears roll down her face as he closed his eyes in weary defeat.  "I 
*will* prove that I care; I *will* prove that I - " she paused, "prove that 
I accept you for you.  I'll make up for every time we didn't understand each 
other."

^*^*^

"But what," Ryoga's voice interrupted her reverie, "but what if I *did* have 
a secret, a very bad one.  Would you forgive me?  Or would you leave?"

She wanted to tell him that she'd *never* leave him, not for anything or 
anyone or any opportunity in the world, she wanted to say that she could 
give it all up so she could be near him, that the loss would be worth it.  
But even while half of her screamed for her to say it, another part 
hesitated, flashing back to images of Ranma, to an unnamed man, someone 
else, anyone else, there was a world of possibility.  How was she to know 
that he was the only one for her?  Wouldn't it be better to cut her losses, 
not promise what she couldn't offer?  She turned to look at her fianc� 
again, noting his pleading expression, desperate to be understood, accepted, 
exonerated of whatever he may have done or would in the future.

But in the end, she decided to stay silent, willing instead to lie by 
omission rather than to shatter his fragile heart.

^*^*^

Soichi frowned.

It was slightly disconcerting to see one of his best patients, the one who 
seemed to like him the most, glaring at him as if he were some strange, 
offensive, mutant scum that had attached itself to the bottom of his shoe.  
And considering Naka had held that rather upsetting gaze for half an hour, 
Soichi decided that something had to be done.

"Naka," he started, "is something about me upsetting you today?"

"Not me," the boy growled, "but Kimiko-san, maybe."

Soichi raised his eyebrows.  'Damn,' he thought to himself, 'he must have 
heard the fight this morning.'  Clearing his throat nervously, he said, 
"It's okay, Naka, I'm touched that you're concerned, but it's really sort of 
a private thing-"

Of all the reactions in the world that he was expecting, nothing of this 
magnitude ever came to his mind.

Naka sat straight up in his chair, eyes flaming, and yelled, "YOU ASSHOLE!  
'PRIVATE' MY FOOT!"  Soichi just stared as the boy continued on his rant.  
"I can't believe you, man!" he yelled hatefully, "I used to - I used to 
think you were the best damn person in the world - the coolest.  My *role* 
model!"

"Hey!" Soichi yelled, he was certainly used to insults, but this was 
unwarranted, "Look, Naka, I know you really like Kimiko, but you've got to 
respect me a little, too.  Married people have fights."

"Not fights like this they don't!  And if they do, they shouldn't!  It's 
just wrong!" Naka cried.  His parents, as much as they has quarreled while 
they were alive, had never struck one another in anger.  Oh, there were 
tears, long silences, and days of tension, but inevitably, and somehow, 
they'd return to the status quo, the quiet, pleasant marriage that Naka had 
grown used to.

"It would be creepy if married people didn't fight!" Soichi reasoned, his 
tone loud but still calm.  Some part of himself kept saying that married 
people did not say such horribly cruel things to one another, but as Ranma's 
psychological instinct was busy with other things at the moment, he quickly 
squashed the thought and brushed it away.

"But it's creepier when a husband hits his wife!" Naka retorted.

And silence flowed throughout the room.

Finally, Soichi gathered up enough oxygen to talk, "You - you - you think 
that I - "  He paused, gasping for breath before he managed to choke out, 
"You think that I *hit* Kimiko?"

Naka felt the lightest bit of tension in his chest.  From what he knew, 
Fujikara-sensei was a very good martial artist, one who (at least, according 
to his actions that morning) had a very bad temper.  Maybe it hadn't been 
the smartest thing in the world to piss him off.  But in a fashion of 
overwhelming, unthinking stupidity and rashness that would have made even 
Saotome Genma proud, he continued his diatribe:

"Yeah, you!" he said.  "I don't believe you!  She's pregnant, with your 
child, and you *hit* her, have you no soul!?"  He stared straight into 
Soichi's stunned eyes.

Soichi growled, standing and glaring down so he was at eye-to-eye level with 
Naka, "Look, kid, I don't know what you're ramblin' on about, but I don't 
hit girls, got it?  I got more honor than that."  Naka's verbal barbs were 
all striking in his soft, unguarded underbelly.  Soichi had enough issues 
with his wife, and how she'd come to take that position, and he felt bad 
enough without some snot-nosed patient toying with him.

Naka blinked, hard.  His therapist didn't say things like 'ramblin'', and he 
certainly didn't use such bad grammar.  Fujikara-sensei had always been the 
upstanding totem of good language and eastern, meditative philosophy.  But 
this was all glossed over for the greater good of his main cause.

"Look, Fujikara-" he paused, and continuing without the honorific, he 
yelled, "I *heard* you two yelling at each other this morning, and I heard 
someone slap *someone*-"

"How the hell do you know she didn't slap me?" the doctor cried.

"Because then I heard a woman scream!" Naka answered, triumphant.

To the boy's surprise, the intense, angry expression on his therapist's face 
melted into one of understanding, and then contorted into one of utter 
amusement.  And then he burst out laughing, holding his abdomen and slapping 
his knee, trying not to double over from mirth.

The door to Naka's room flew open, and Kimiko ran in, her hands filled with 
his lunch tray, and a panicked expression on her face, "I heard yelling," 
she paused, setting the tray down and staring at the scene before her.  She 
raised her eyebrows, saying slowly, "And now I see the cause of it."

"He," Soichi gasped between chuckles, "he thinks *I* hit *you* this 
morning!"  And he collapsed in yet another round of laughter, breathing 
hard.

Kimiko blushed a color akin to a beefsteak tomato.  "I don't see what's so 
funny about abusive husbands!" Naka howled.  Much to his consternation, 
Soichi just laughed harder, saying:

"What about abusive wives?"

Kimiko just turned a darker shade of vermilion as she yelled, "All right, 
stop it, Soichi!"

"Aw - Kimiko, you ought to watch your tone, I might," Soichi paused to laugh 
harder, "*hit* you or something."

She narrowed her eyes and sighed in defeat, ignoring her husband's guffaws 
as she turned to Naka.  "I know that you must be incredibly confused about 
what happened in the kitchen - we are talking about what happened in the 
kitchen, right?"  The boy nodded dumbly, far past the point of argument.  
Kimiko sat down on the edge of his bed, directly facing both Soichi and Naka 
as she murmured:

"There is something very, very important about us that you must know, Naka.  
I apologize for not telling you earlier, we had hoped to be able to keep it 
a secret - so you wouldn't be burdened," Kimiko said, her eyes serious.

Soichi interrupted, "Don't worry, Naka, we're not axe-murderers or anything, 
just a little low-level magic."  His wife glared at him as his patient just 
stared in bewilderment.

"At any rate, Naka - first off, Soichi *did not* hit me this morning in the 
kitchen, and he has never struck me in anger, and he will never strike me in 
anger, understand?"  Naka nodded again, deciding that silence was his best 
bet.  "What you saw - probably a hand slapping a woman who looked like me, 
or something like that - was a function of a curse."

"Jusenkyo," Soichi supplied, his face stoic, "a valley of magical springs in 
China.  I went there as a young boy on a training trip, and I fell into the 
spring of the drowned girl - I came out looking like, well, her."  He 
pointed at Kimiko.

The two of them waited expectantly for a reaction.  Which they got.

Naka blinked twice and decided that Fujikara-sensei and his wife had been 
replaced by alien drones.  Probably earlier that day, because the *real* 
Fujikara-sensei wouldn't ever hit his wife, and was even less likely to make 
up the fantastical lie that he'd just been fed.  He blinked again, and 
decided that it was impossible, because alien drones were too smart to come 
up with such a crappy story.

"Jusenkyo," he said tonelessly.

"Right," they replied.

"Cursed to look like Kimiko-san," he added.

"Correct," the redheaded woman said, a smile on her face.

There was a short silence.

"You're fucking with me," he concluded, eyes angry once again, and arms 
crossed over his chest.  "First off, there's no such thing as curses; 
secondly, how the *hell* would that explain what happened this morning?  And 
third, that was the *absolute worst lie* I have every heard in my *entire* 
life."

Kimiko looked at Soichi and they both rolled their eyes.

"Oh, come on, Soichi, this could be sort of fun," she said, handing him the 
glass of cold water that had been on the tray.  He gave her a positively 
hateful stare and said:

"Yeah."  He took the glass from her hands, "like a mild case of dysentery."  
He sighed, raised the cup and said, "Cheers."  He started tipping its 
contents over his head.

"I still don't know what you guys are trying to pull, because it is such 
*absolute* crap that you'd be - "

Naka suddenly lost his voice.

Because in front of him stood two Kimiko's.  One with long, feminine hair 
dressed in khaki pants and a navy-colored sweater.  The other with mannish, 
wet, and very short locks, dressed in a familiar pair of jeans (now awfully 
loose) and an enormous black t-shirt.

He might have been able to retain consciousness had they not asked him, 
"Well?" in perfect unison.

^*^*^

Two weeks had passed since Kimiko and Soichi had broken the news of their 
little secret to Naka.  And being tolerant people with plenty of access to 
both hot and cold water, they'd let the boy experiment on poor Soichi for 
nearly an hour before telling him to stop before his therapist became 
violent.

He believed them - what else *could* he believe?

And after a day of nervous tension, Soichi's easygoing attitude and Kimiko's 
smiles had dissolved the awkwardness surrounding the whole situation.  And 
now, all three shared a wonderful, if sometimes irritating secret.

"Doesn't it get on your nerves?" Naka had asked, curiosity in his eyes, "It 
would drive me nuts."

Soichi had laughed, "Imagine having it at *your* age when gender and 
distinction is so important."  He had paused, adding, "Actually, I'm 
grateful.  With this curse, I know more about myself and about women that 
most men will ever be privy to," he grinned in a leering fashion.  "Besides, 
if Kimiko is ever out of town on business, I can *still* see her naked."  
Naka had turned bright red and the woman in question had stuck her head into 
the room, a scowl on her face, saying:

"Fujikara Soichi, either you stop telling perverse things to that poor child 
or I'm going to kick your ass."

And it had gone on like that, pleasant mornings where they'd eat breakfast 
together in the kitchen - now that Naka could hazard the trip every morning 
- and then Kimiko would leave for her office, citing her recent absences as 
something that would weigh on her under-worked conscience.  Soichi would 
drive Naka to the physical therapy center, and then leave for his practice.  
Five hours later, Soichi would pick him up and the two of them would share a 
late lunch.  Naka would be returned back to the apartment, and either watch 
tv, catch up on his homework, or nap until six, when Kimiko would burst 
through the front door, reading something interesting out loud from the 
newspaper.

And their lives fell into a calm, familiar swing.

Much of her firm was away in Hokkaido for a conference, and she'd demurred 
from joining in on the traveling, preferring to take the opportunity for a 
needed rest day.

She was on the sofa, bowl of chips perched on her slightly rounded belly, 
and the remote control in hand when Naka walked in through the front door, 
barely a limp in his step, a beaming smile on his face.  He'd laughed at the 
sight of her slacking off, mentioning that it was the first time he'd ever 
seen her in such a state of disarray.

Nothing out of the ordinary - everything was fine.

Which obviously meant that something horrible was brewing.

^*^*^

Liking was very different from loving.  Every turbulent child remains to 
love their parents, but can honestly say that they don't like them.  The key 
to a good marriage is to be able to claim both, or at least one of them 60% 
of the time.  The other 40% is filled with children and work.

Soichi and Kimiko had a strange balance.  Whereas they did work, and hard, 
they hadn't had children to fill 30% of the void, and had either to like 
each other, or fight.  More often than not, they did the latter and then 
made up.

The whole thing was cyclical, sometimes they've be in love, other times in 
like, and on the best of days, they'd have both, and be deliriously happy 
with one another.

Tonight, they were very firmly in like - with very, very vague underpinnings 
of love - more rooted in Soichi's odd, almost inexplicable feelings rather 
than any steadfast emotion.  Kimiko watched her husband warily as he stared 
back at her, his blue eyes flashing with something she couldn't quite name.  
Had she been paying more attention to all the times she'd laughed with other 
men, or hugged them, she might have been able to call it petty jealousy.

"*What* is wrong?" she asked finally, placing her hands on her hips and 
pursing her lips.  She might have made a threatening figure had she not been 
dressed in oversized men's pajamas, with her dark red hair tied in two 
pigtails.  As it was, Soichi only smiled at her, saying:

"You're going to make a wonderful mother," and pausing, added, "you've 
already given all of yourself to Naka - and he's not your biological child, 
I can't wait to see how you raise our baby."  Kimiko stared at his honest, 
solemn face for just a beat before smirking and muttering:

"No, Soichi, that's not what you were going to say."

He looked surprised.  "Well then, would *you* like to tell me what I was 
going to say?"

She grinned.  "You were going to say that I was spending too much time on 
him, and projecting, pushing myself off as a mother figure, and as such, you 
were probably feeling neglected."  She raised an eyebrow at him, "Am I 
wrong?"

"Yes," he said stubbornly.  "The words 'mother-figure' and 'neglected' never 
came up.  Just 'mother' and 'abandoned'.  Completely different."  He watched 
her sigh in amused frustration.

"You've backed off recently," Kimiko said a moment later, an odd expression 
on her face, "you've cut the number of your sessions, you've stopped 
obsessively seeking him out to talk.  What's going on?"  Soichi smiled at 
her in return, murmuring:

"There's something they *don't* teach you in psych school, and that's that 
sometimes a patient would rather have the love of a good woman than a 
concerned man caring for them.  I think you're good for him."  He leaned 
back against the pillows of the bed.  "Besides, he needs the experience with 
girls."

His wife threw a pillow at him.

^*^*^

Nabiki was doing something strange on that late winter's day: standing in 
her living room, dripping water out of her hair and reading something with 
rapt attention.  This wouldn't have been so terribly unusual except that the 
day was perfectly fair - not a drop of rain - and that she was dressed only 
in a towel.

But then again, the words on paper were enough to make just about *anyone* 
stop in their tracks.

She wanted to shriek, she wanted to ask how *anyone* could have gotten away 
with it, but most of all, she just wanted to laugh.  She wanted to laugh and 
call Akane and tell her that her broken heart could mend.  She wanted to 
call Kasumi and tell her to cheer up, that her little sister had the perfect 
cure to her heartache.  She wanted to call Genma and Nodoka, to tell them 
that they hadn't lost anything.

She wanted to make it all better.

And now, finally, she could.

She grinned, silently thanked Kuzio, and picked up her phone, dialing an 
unfamiliar phone number for a 22nd floor apartment somewhere in Tokyo.

^*^*^

"Hello?" Kimiko greeted, holding the phone between her shoulder and ear, 
cutting a deck of cards with her fingers and smirking at Naka's crestfallen 
face.  It was their third round of blackjack, and if the potato chips they 
had played for equated actual money - he'd be in the hole several hundred 
thousand yen by that time.

"How did you pull it off, Yuki?  I mean, how could you get away with it?" 
whispered the awed voice over the line.  "You could have run, and you could 
have hidden, but *him*!"  The woman laughed, "How did you do it?"

Kimiko's eyes grew wide, and all the cards fell from her hands.  "Nabiki?"

"I mean, *if* it was humanly possible to survive that death-blast, you'd 
still have to drag him to the nearest hospital, convince the authorities 
that it was okay for you to leave, and *then* get a name change!  That 
requires bribes, Yuki!  *Huge* bribes!"

Kimiko sighed, the sudden shock wearing off, and groaned, ignoring Naka's 
worried expression as she said, "Nabiki, who have you told?  Who else 
knows?"

"No one, of course," the Tendo replied smartly.

Kimiko closed her eyes angrily.  "Of course - because you want me to do 
something in exchange for that information staying secret."

Nabiki became solemn.  "Nothing harmful, I assure you, Tanakawa Yuki - and 
don't try that "I'm Kimiko" garbage with me now."  Kimiko bit her tongue and 
flashed Naka a reassuring expression, whispering:

"Don't worry about it, kiddo, just an old friend, why don't you go get ready 
for your session today - the doctor told me this was your last time."

"New boyfriend, Yuki?  Cheating on Ranma?"

"Fuck you, Nabiki," she said seriously, trying not to watch Naka's eyes grow 
as wide as saucers.  She remembered that she'd never used such harsh 
language in front of him before.  "Now tell me what you want and leave me 
and mine the hell alone."

"It's easy, Yuki," Nabiki said matter-of-factly, "Kasumi's suffered a great 
deal in the last months, she's not quite well."  Her declaration was treated 
to silence.  'About time, Yuki,' she thought, 'you've been running for 
twelve years, it's about time you started paying your dues.'  "I want you to 
go back to Nerima, you knew you couldn't avoid it, that it would happen 
eventually."

"And what will you do if you don't?" Kimiko asked, her eyes very blue in the 
afternoon light.

"Imagine what it would be like to watch the reality you've built for 
yourself to crumble before your very eyes," Nabiki paused, taking a breath, 
and just before she hung up the phone, she added, "and multiply that by 
five."

^*^*^

"Kimiko-san!" Naka cried, wincing as the redhead jerked him toward the 
parking garage where her car was parked.  It *was* her car - on some select 
days, Soichi chose to drive it.  But since Naka could make his way to and 
from the physical therapy center on his own - and preferred to do so - he'd 
gone to taking the subway again.  "Kimiko-san, please, just tell me where 
we're going!"

"To Nerima," she said loudly.  Not turning back at him, she ran to her side 
of the vehicle and opened the door in a rush.  "Go back, go to the 
apartment!"

He frowned at her, crossing his arms (with some effort) across his chest.  
"No!  Not until you tell me what's going on!"  His eyes hardened.  "How many 
secrets do you two *have*?"

His last question made her frantic motions come to a halt, and she looked up 
to him, her eyes surprised.  Naka had never seemed so brave before that 
moment, always shying away from the really difficult questions, always 
prepared to fade into the background if it was easier.  Naka, she decided, 
had changed a great deal.

With a sigh, she said, "Get in the car."

^*^*^

Soichi frowned.  His last patient had just vacated the office, and even the 
secretary was gone.  It was raining outside, and he had no desire to attempt 
getting to the subway without being splashed by water.

He had called, knowing that Kimiko would have her cell phone wherever she 
was, and wanting to ask for a ride.

She wasn't picking up her phone.  Which was strange and worried him.

'Maybe she accidentally turned it off,' he thought glumly, staring at the 
sheets of rain that poured out on the city street.  Sighing, he put on a 
rain slicker, grabbed his umbrella, and readied a thermos of hot water.

Fujikara Soichi was going to venture out into the wetworks.

^*^*^

She couldn't take it any more.

What with her miscarriage and her father's subsequent breakdown, she was 
more commonly lightheaded than grounded, and the worry and fear overwhelmed 
her.

She just wanted a little time to feel, time to cry, time to mourn.

So she'd watched carefully as her family member's filed out of the house one 
by one early that morning in the gray light.  Giving Tofu a soft kiss and a 
promise not to do anything foolish as he stepped off the Tendo family 
property.  And as soon as they were all out, she'd shut the door with a 
chilling finality.

Kasumi had wanted for just a day's peace away from the vibrant colors of 
life and fast pace of living.  There were too many sounds in the dojo, the 
loud yells of students, their giggles and calls of triumph that used to draw 
smiles to her face making her want to scream.  The familiar footsteps of her 
family made her think of pattering feet, and their hollow absence.

With Akane, Ryoga, Soun, Nodoka, and Tofu gone, she leaned against the 
cast-iron doors and slid down to the ground sobbing, finally free to be sad.

It was hard to describe what she felt.

There weren't words for the slow burn inside of her: that blackness of 
failing in her role as a woman, as a mother.  She couldn't help but believe 
that it was her fault that her child had died, that she could have done 
something to make sure that the baby would have been safe.  There was a hole 
where there should have been a glowing beam of light, of life.  Instead, she 
felt the blank where her child should have been.

Would the baby have smiled at her?  Would the baby have been a girl or a 
boy?  Either would have been welcomed with open arms, arms that yearned to 
hold a soft, giggling child filled with hopes and dreams.  Would the baby 
have loved her?  Of course the baby would have loved her!  The baby would 
have loved her mother, looked up to her mother, letting her eyes spark with 
that indescribably wonderful and altogether unattainable beauty that came 
and went with the passing of a childhood.

She'd spent a lifetime taking care of people, nursing their illnesses and 
wiping away their tears.  She'd helped her family survive a death while 
mourning by herself in silent.  She had been strong enough for everyone.

How had she lost her child?

How had she failed the one person who depended on her the most desperately?

It was unthinkable.

And sitting there with her back pressed against the door, she hid her face, 
covering the blotches from hours of crying, and hiding the redness of her 
eyes.

^*^*^

Nabiki had never disliked Tanakawa Yuki until she'd killed Saotome Ranma.  
She had found the girl intriguing, admired her strength and wondered at how 
she was able to live day by day with such heavy scars across her heart.  And 
deny it as she had, Nabiki had *despised* Yuki for taking Ranma's smile and 
good will away from the Tendo's.  He'd been their friend, a fixture in their 
otherwise common existence.  Without him, so too went the excitement and 
money-flow.  His absence left their bereft of funding *and* friendship.

So of course, Nabiki had loathed Yuki for her crime.

But that was no longer an option because neither Tanakawa Yuki nor Saotome 
Ranma was actually deceased.

Nabiki stepped onto the train from the platform - non-stop service to 
Nerima.  There were things to do back home, and disasters to avert.

She knew what would happen when Yuki barreled her way into a past that she'd 
forsaken, and she also knew all-too-well that Ranma would inevitably follow 
her back.  Hell would break loose.  Property damage that Nerima hadn't seen 
since the Wrecking Crew broke apart would run rampant.  Her father would 
drown in his own tears.

She frowned at the thought.  Tendo Soun had been sent to the hospital a few 
days ago, citing wooziness and general unnamed discomfort.  He was spending 
more and more time there lately, and thought she loathed to admit it - 
Nabiki thought that maybe this was going to be a good thing for the Tendo 
patriarch.  It would force him to face reality, instead of spending ninety 
percent of his days in a haze.

She had to get to Nerima, she had to get there before Yuki did, and she 
needed to create the calm before the storm.

^*^*^

"Kimiko-san, what are you doing?" Naka asked pitifully, hands clutching the 
dashboard so hard that his knuckles were white from the exertion.  "Please, 
just tell me?"

She turned to her side, slowly easing the car back down to normal speeds and 
feeling slightly cruel for having frightened him so earlier.  "I have an old 
friend there that I need to see in Nerima."

Naka frowned at her.  "You grew up in Nerima?"

"Well," she said cautiously, changing lanes and exiting off of the highway 
onto a quiet, mostly desolate interstate that would take them straight to 
the Nerima district.  "I spent most of my childhood on the outskirts of 
Tokyo - so I wouldn't say grew up there, but I *would* say grew into myself 
there."  She smiled at him thinly.  "I met some interesting people."

Naka's memory suddenly clutched a figment from his martial arts classes that 
triggered a smile on his face.  "Kimiko-san," he said in a rush, "did you 
know Saotome Ranma?  Like, in person?"

For a moment, she almost drove off the road.  But when her heart rate 
returned to normal, and Naka stopped staring at her as if she was insane, 
she replied in as steady a voice as possible, "Why do you ask, Naka?"

After a moment's pause to catch his breath again, he murmured, "We studied 
him in my advanced kempo class.  My teacher told us how he was once one of 
the world's best martial artists.  He said that he'd once had the honor of 
seeing the kid at a competition, fifteen years old, and whipping ass."  Naka 
quietly edited out the following segments where the said kempo teacher 
berated his entire sixth-year class for an hour about how they were all 
pathetic excuses for martial artists and would be lucky if they could tread 
on Saotome's skin flakes.

Kimiko smirked, trying to imagine her husband's face if he heard that 
previous sentence.  "'Was'? 'One of'?  You're looking at the CURRENT world's 
*best* martial artist, baby!  Avert your eyes before you go blind from the 
glory of my skills!"  She tried not to laugh as she replied, "The best?  
You've never heard of a man named Happosai, or of a woman named Cologne, 
have you?"

He looked confused.  "No.  But what does that have to do with anything?"  He 
saw Kimiko bite back a smile.

"Absolutely nothing," she said studiously.  "But in answer to your question, 
yeah, I knew him."  His eyes grew wide and he fell speechless as she 
continued, "In fact, Naka, I have a great story to tell you about him."

Her eyes focused on the road as her mind focused on the past, and words 
tumbled from her lips.  Anecdotes and intimate secrets about a girl named 
Yuki and a boy named Ranma.  She spoke of his fiancees, and of his 
heartbreaks, about how the girl was broken, and that Ranma had made her 
whole again.

All the while, she tried not to drown in the memory, not to die from her 
fears, tried not to lose herself in her past even as the wheels of the car 
and the road led her closer and closer to the deep end.

^*^*^

Nerima
12 years 8 months previous

"BOY!  GET AWAY FROM HER!"

Yuki and Ranma both whipped around at the sound of Genma's enraged voice, 
and their eyes grew wide at the sight that before them.  Tendo Soun, Saotome 
Genma, Akane, and Nabiki with a video camera, ran toward them at ungodly 
speeds, all of them looking furious.

The two teenagers looked to each other again with an 'oh shit what did we 
do' expression.

But the moment only lasted briefly before Genma tore his son away from 
Yuki's side, his elbow shoving her roughly to the ground.  "Pop!" Ranma 
cried.  "What the hell do you think you're doing?"  He stepped forward to 
try and help his friend up from the ground.  His attempt was stopped when 
Soun placed an iron grip on his shoulder.

"I wouldn't do that, Son," the man said stonily, "do you know who this girl 
you've been associating with is?"

Yuki looked annoyed, and pushing herself back up into a standing position, 
she muttered, "He's well-aware of my name, Tendo-san, I wish you'd just tell 
us what this is all about."

Genma looked horrified, and pulling his son further away from the redhead, 
he declared, "Have you no mind, girl?  Has your family not educated you in 
your clan's history?"

Yuki's annoyed expression became angry.  "I damn well know everything about 
my clan's history, you talking tub of lard!"  She took an angry breath, and 
Ranma smirked as she yelled, "So think carefully before you accuse, you 
dirtbag."

Genma's face grew red, and barely restraining his fist from making 
full-contact with Yuki's nose, he yelled, "You have no right, Tanakawa, if 
it wasn't for your family, the Saotome line would not be in misery!"

Silence abounded throughout the scene until Yuki blinked twice, and in a 
mystified tone of voice, asked, "What are you talking about?"

Genma pointed at her dramatically, "Your ancestral clan is the Yamato's, do 
you deny it?"  Yuki turned a strange shade of red, and Ranma started to 
frown, memory upon memory of his father's late night history lessons 
impacting upon his present like bombs.  Words and scars and poorly reasoned 
logic, things that his father had mentioned about a feud, about bloodshed, 
flooding his mind.

"I do not!" Yuki yelled in return, "They were one of the most famous Samurai 
families in Japan, I've nothing to be ashamed of!"

For one sudden blink of infinity, Ranma willed her to stop talking.  For 
every time he'd prayed that her soft voice could lull him to sleep,  he was 
desperate for her to stop.  He wished for just another moment of guiltlessly 
wanting for her.  Because he was starting to piece things together, 
remembering the circles of red in the Saotome family register, and the 
horror stories of brutal murders and confrontations by which he'd been 
enthralled.  The images and sounds of a thousand different things that the 
Yamato clan had done to the Fujiwaras falling from his deep-buried conscious 
into his present like rain from a watershed, spilling loudly against the 
rusted tin and muddying the earth around it.

Genma looked triumphant, yelling, "Only you've forgotten the one thing that 
makes the Yamato clan one of the most interesting families ever to exist in 
Japan!  The Yamato clan's feud with the Fujiwara Samurais - the most famous 
blood spilled created the most famous feud ever!"

Yuki didn't notice the color that drained from Ranma's face.  In the corner, 
Akane smiled with a dim satisfaction, and Soun looked worried.  Stamping her 
foot, the redhead bellowed, "I am well aware!  The Fujiwara clan's son 
killed his fiancee.  The feud was started.  The Ying's other daughter 
married in the Yamato's, they've continued the feud ever since - but the 
Fujiwara clan disappeared a hundred years ago, the last anyone heard of 
them, they'd gone to China, too cowardly to fight."

Genma smiled darkly.  "That's what you think, Tanakawa."  He paused and 
said, "Yes, the Fujiwara's have disappeared, but it's only because the last 
descendant of the line married into the Saotomes - and we honor the feud, 
girl."

Her eyes grew wide and her mouth fell open, unable to speak as Akane's 
solemn tone filled the shocked quiet.  "I was researching your family school 
for our match; I wanted to see what exactly I was up against," the youngest 
Tendo girl grinned, "Your family name reminded me of something - and I 
checked the Saotome register," she shrugged, "that was it."

Yuki's eyes narrowed, and in a strangely panicked tone of voice, she said, 
"No - Saotome is one of the most common names in Japan, it could be any of a 
million families."

"But it's not any other Saotome," Akane said calmly, she walked over to her 
fiance, still motionless in shock.  "It's Ranma."  She placed her fingers on 
his shoulder, the brief, ineffectual touch making him shiver and sending a 
wave of nausea through Yuki.  "Blood feud, Yuki, do you know what that 
entails?"

And in the flash of an instant, everything rushed her.  Yuki's blue eyes 
grew black in the horror of realization.  Every single smile, every doubt, 
every whisper of fear that she'd felt when she'd seen Ranma smile so 
brightly at his rightful fiancee, the girl he'd admitted to loving at some 
point, and perhaps still did.  She relived every dark knife of jealousy that 
had rendered her weak in the knees and made her heart race in anger.  She 
remembered all the times she'd wandered past the two of them sitting 
together during lunch on the Furinkan high school grounds.  On good days, 
he'd be smiling at her, and on very good days, they'd be smiling at each 
other - two beautiful people destined to be.  Both of them forgetting the 
strange mirror image of a curse that would stand watching their happiness, 
feeling hollow like a shell.

Akane had won.

Was there ever really a competition to begin with?

Akane was his betrothed, an agreement decided at their birth and then 
honored at their first meeting.  "I think I loved her," Ranma had told her 
once late at night, "I think I really did - I might still like her," he'd 
shaken his head, "But it's just hard if she doesn't try."

She was trying now.

She was everything now.

Yuki had always known deep in her heart the reality of her situation.  Not 
only was she blocked by honor and the fact that Ranma deserved more than her 
- she'd always seen Akane out of the corner of her blue eyes.  Tendo Akane 
was one of those girls that you'd look back upon later in life and wonder at 
even in the wisdom of your age.  She was beautiful and she was effervescent. 
  Her intellect and her charm seemed to sparkle, and her temper seemed to 
spark.  She was a domesticated rose, beautiful as she was fragile, always 
drawing admirer after admirer to shield her from the cruel world about 
herself.

Yuki knew that her own overt and unintentional cruelties made Ranma frown.  
She knew that her tendency to hold a grudge and impatience for both 
slightly-slow-witted and too-intelligent people made him roll his eyes.  She 
knew that he'd hidden more than one ghastly expression when he thought back 
to what had happened to her on one sunny afternoon when she was nine years 
old.  She knew that she couldn't ever be all that he deserved.  But until 
then, she'd had hope.

It wasn't even the feud that weighed on her mind.

It was the loss of his presence.

"Blood feuds, Yuki," Akane said softly, like a cat toying with its prey, 
"involve the shedding of blood - he's supposed to kill you - "

"Akane.  Shut.  Up."  Ranma said.  With a quick hand, he removed her fingers 
from his shoulders, and turning to look at her, he hissed, "Did you and Pop 
make up this crap?  All these stupid lies just so you can get me to abandon 
my *one* and *only* friend?"

Akane's eyes grew shocked, the pain bubbling up at his accusations, and she 
protested, "NO!  Ranma, I'd never lie to you!"

"Bullshit!" the boy cried in return.

"This is all true!  Shampoo translated the ancient text for us!   You are 
Fujiwara Tozikoshi's descendant, just as she is the last daughter of the 
Yamatos!"  Akane grew angry, and grabbing Ranma's hand to get a hold of his 
attention, she cried, "I'm doing this for you own good, Ranma!  Do you want 
to dishonor your family line?"

And it was quiet once again.

Yuki chose that moment, that agonizing second where the man she loved and 
the woman he was meant to live with touched each other and spoke of her 
doom, and she started to run.

She didn't care where, and she didn't care how far.

She didn't listen to the echoing voice in the background, and she ignored 
the painful threading of her heartbeat.

Because what had been held was all she'd had left - and now, even that 
momentary glimpse of happiness was taken away - her fragments stolen from 
her fingertips.

^*^*^

Kimiko's voice died and the car was filled with the comforting, familiar hum 
of the road and the wind for a moment, absent of people and life.  Naka was 
silent, and finally mustering his courage to speak, he asked, "How do you 
know this?"

Kimiko laughed harshly.  "Everyone knew this, Naka.  The Nerima crew's 
business was everyone's business."  She paused.  "The one thing that no one 
ever knew was how much the girl, Yuki, really loved Ranma.  No one ever 
believed her, or if they did, they thought she shouldn't have."

"Why not?" Naka probed, a curious glint in his eyes.

"Because she wasn't one of his fiancees, that's why.  Because she had no 
right to him, because she was used material, because she was the daughter of 
his foresworn enemies."  Kimiko sighed, and turning briefly to watch Naka's 
intent expression, asked, "So, what do you think?"

"I think," Naka said quietly, "I think you should tell me more of this 
story, Kimiko-san."

And after taking a deep breath, she did.

^*^*^

There you go.  All feedback is welcomed.

-ling

PS - I SORTA have an excuse...I had to take these things...SATs...and you 
know...get into college...and...like...not flunk out of...ALL my classes...




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