Title: Every End, A New Beginning (Revised)
Author: S. Mark Gunther
Part: 1/?
Summary: From batchelor to father; the ultimate reality trip.
Pairing: Mousse/Nabiki
Warnings: Language.
Disclaimer: This is Rumiko Takahashi's series. All I do is merely butcher 
it. All praise should go to her and all shame should go to me.
Archive: To anyone who asks.
C&C: Begged for
Notes: Thank you to everyone who commented and wrote me C&C on this little 
draft. I've figured out how I want the plot of the story to go through the 
3rd part and I shall go to work getting it done along with my other 
projects. Again, thank you to everyone!




---
"I only have but one regret in my life: That I was not able to do everything 
over. Life needs a reset button."

-- CrimsonX

I write, therefore I am.
I sing, therefore I am.
I desire, therefore I am.

"...Presence of people not for me,
Well I must remain in tune forever,
My love is music...
...I will marry melody..."


_________________________________________________________________
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-- Attached file included as plaintext by Ecartis --
-- File: EEANB.txt

Every End, A New Beginning
By S. Mark Gunther

     I guess it's my fault that she left. As much as I'd like to think it 
wasn't, as much as my friends here would love me to forget that it even 
might have been, I still know it's my fault she left. And it's tough to deal 
with. It's even tougher that I'm still here and thriving. It's tougher still 
that she declaimed that she would never love anyone else again, especially 
someone as silly and as childish as I.

     Normally people drive others away by being there too much. Overstepping 
their boundaries. Becoming jealous. You know, the little things like that. I 
drove her away by not supporting her when she needed someone to hold her. 
For once in my life, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. She responded by 
leaving. She convinced that old monkey that it was time to go and the biddy 
took the bait. Just like that, I was losing the one thing I had always 
wanted.

     Sometimes dreams merely die. Mine always seemed to crash and burn.

     She did have the right idea, however. She left when she knew she was 
licked. She left when it was all over. She left when her honor had been 
extinguished. I, being the dishonorable bastard that I am, couldn't go back. 
And I didn't want to. Not without her honor and not without my arm around 
her. It was just too much to ask of her, the idea that she could love me in 
time. Hell, she was going to have all she could deal with when she got back 
home.

     And so I watched her leave. I watched her leave and she barely said 
goodbye. The old crone even said more to me than she did. And for that, I 
was able to give Cologne my highest respect again as a person. She at least 
acknowledged that I was far too good for her great-granddaughter. Or far too 
stupid. Whichever came first. She tried to make it sound stern and serious 
but the smile in her eyes and the sad look on her face told me more then 
ever. So it made it a lot easier to know I was going to stay here, alone, 
nearly penniless and without any marketable skills. Nothing that is, except 
my kitchen skills.

     At first I thought it strange that she turned over more and more of the 
cooking duties to me as time passed on. She passed it off by trying more and 
more arcane schemes with Shampoo to gain Ranma's hand in marriage. But soon 
she spent more time then normal with me. Her droning voice in my ear and the 
feeling of her cane against my back kept me learning but it was the subtly 
serious look in her eyes that teetered me on the edge. It both unnerved and 
delighted me that she was teaching and reeducating me the skills I learned 
as a boy. When I watched her and my love leave, I figured it out.

     The old biddy was setting me up for when she'd leave. She knew I 
couldn't and wouldn't come back to the village so she made sure I had the 
skills I would need to get a decent job here and start over. Her final words 
rang in my ears as I walked back to the Nekohanten to pack my things: 
"You're on your own now. Get a job, get over my great-granddaughter and make 
something out of yourself."

     The bitter rasp in her voice stung as I realized that she had 
jettisoned me in a hostile sea called Japan. And yet, as I went for my first 
job interview I knew I could do all right for myself. The chef looked me up 
and down, insulted me at my first demonstration attempt and then marveled as 
I corrected the mistake better then he could. I knew I had suckered him in 
just right. The job was mine and with it came respect and diligent study 
through work.

     I found the joy in work again. I felt good coming off of a shift at 
work. It was painful losing her and painful getting over her, but everyone 
else in the kitchen I worked in had dealt with it. It made it easier to deal 
when I immersed myself in my work. Scrambling to pay my bills, making my 
money stretch further then I thought it could, all of it made me stronger 
inside. The iron in my backbone became tempered steel as the days and the 
months passed. I could deal.

     The therapeutic joy I discovered in my work also made the times when I 
couldn't deal so much more able to be weathered. The long nights I spent 
alone walking the streets seemed almost therapeutic. I cursed the sky, the 
gods, my poor luck, and my bad eyesight, everything in sight. I cried in 
bushes and drank with salary workers in corner bars. I did the things only 
older men do before I had even passed my 18th birthday. So when the morning 
came when I realized that I didn't miss Shampoo anymore, that I didn't care 
if she lived or died, had children or remained frigid and barren, I turned a 
cartwheel and cried like a little girl. Tears of joy.

     Years passed. I went to college and got a diploma in Chinese history. 
Ranma and Akane got married and moved to Kyoto to escape the Nerima 
whirlpool that had formed around them. The shotgun elopement they had was so 
sudden and so downright unexpected that it threw everyone for a loop. 
Everyone except me, for I was Ranma's best man. By that time, he and I had 
buried the hatchet and were nearly best friends. Soon I realized just how 
much pain was in Ranma's heart and I helped him mature and grow as I had to 
on my own. I gave him a friendship to grow on, something I never had and 
always longed for. Because of it, I found myself looking down the barrel of 
my post teenage life with more hope and optimism then ever before. By 
twenty-three I was happy and looking forward to going forward.

     Then she had to go and die. That bitch. The silly cunt had to go off 
and be little miss hero for the village. Apparently, she had shacked up with 
some male who already had a fianc�e and got pregnant by him. While I was 
exorcising her demons from my life, she was bringing another life into the 
world. Things came to a head and she confronted the woman her child's father 
was involved with. They fought. She lost. She died to save her own shaky 
honor and the honor of her child. Now that child was coming to me. The 
amazons did not want her. Her biological father did not want her. So I 
became her father, pursuant to the suggestion of Cologne.

     I'm not ready to become a father. Shit, I barely am able to take care 
of myself from day to day! Sure I dress well, work hard, maintain a tidy and 
well-kept house but my internal life is a fly by night, no strings attached 
kind of existence. I'm recently engaged and just now beginning to deal with 
the issues of living with someone else. And now I have to take another 
person into my life. A child, and an impressionable tomboy at that, knowing 
the Amazon family system. And yet...hearing that she was my former love's 
child made me thaw the part of my heart I had frozen over. It hurt to 
remember all the pain I had put myself through and yet knowing I was going 
to carry on her legacy was not the worst thing in my mind to deal with.

     She's coming today. My life changes today. Oh, fuck! I'm not ready...

***

     Mousse stared at the busy runway and sighed. His mind rattled with the 
thoughts that seemed to reverberate endlessly in his head. The life he was 
now leaving flashed before his eyes as he waited for his ward to come off 
the plane. He didn't know what the little girl would look like, what she'd 
act like, how she'd react to now being the ward of a man who only loved her 
mother. His hand shivered slightly as he looked at the people coming off the 
plane.

     "Feeling nervous, Mousse?" Nabiki asked softly, her left hand 
intertwined with his right and adorned with a small yet tasteful wedding 
band.

     "Yup."

     "I could imagine."

     "But that's all you can do. Imagine. I have to live this." A sigh 
escaped his lips as he noticed the last passengers coming off the plane.

     "Sure. But I have to help you with this. I mean, you did ask me out and 
became engaged to me and whatnot," Nabiki said glibly as she gripped 
Mousse's big hand in hers. As much as Nabiki liked to tease him, her heart 
melted for him as she gazed up at his reaction. She had fallen deeply in 
love with the Chinese male after he had graduated from college. Now, she was 
going to hopefully marry the man who had convinced her to give up trying to 
be 'little miss mess cleaner' and deal with her own pain. She knew that his 
heart ached and cracked and she longed to make it all better for him.

     "I know..." Suddenly, Mousse let go of Nabiki's hand and ran forward. A 
small girl emerged from the tunnel being lead by a woman who looked very 
similar to Mousse. The two similar looking people embraced and smiled 
broadly. Mousse couldn't help himself as tears of joy flowed down his cheeks 
as he hugged his sister. "I didn't think you'd come, Ai Xiado..."

     "Sure I'd come, Muu. You're my brother. And you're about to become a 
father. I wouldn't miss this for the world," Eyeshadow said with a broad 
smile. She handed Mousse a small suitcase and looked down at the girl with a 
smile. "Mousse, this is Po Xian."

     "You look like my daddy," Po said shyly as she looked up at the man who 
was to become her new father.

     "I do?" Mousse replied softly. Po shook her head affirmatively and 
hugged Eyeshadow's legs tightly.

     "Goodbye auntie," Po said with a twinge of emotion in her young voice.

     "Well, I'm not leaving you just yet, little one," Eyeshadow said as she 
looked at Mousse. "You think you have room at your place for me for a night 
or two?"

     "When does your plane leave?"

     "3 days from now, but I might try to leave in 2. I just need some time 
away from the village...to think about things..." Eyeshadow's voice trailed 
off into the distance a little as she stopped speaking and she smiled as she 
felt Mousse's hand on her shoulder.

     "It's totally fine if you stay around a while. Mayhaps we can decide on 
a few other things while you're here," Mousse replied as he turned and 
looked at Nabiki. "Nabiki, come on over and meet Potion..."

***

     Nabiki sighed and waited for the water to boil in the small coffee pot. 
Her hands shook a little as she looked around the small yet efficiently 
situated kitchen. The gas flame roared and the simmering sounds of the water 
in motion threatened to soothe her into a peaceful and placid state of 
being. And yet with every wandering footstep of her mind in her mind, she 
kept coming back to the state of affairs she was in. Her main thoughts still 
centered around Mousse and his new ward.

     She remembered with a smile that he seemed more then a little bit 
fatherly as they went out for dinner after leaving the airport. Little 
Potion was well behaved and very observant of her table manners as they ate, 
and the evening was both pleasant and refreshingly devoid of tension and 
acrimony. And yet, when she caught Mousse's eye, the sparkle that had 
regenerated in his eyes during the time she knew him intimately seemed oddly 
muted. Almost as if the screensaver in his face had been paused by an unseen 
hand. A man in slow motion. She didn't like the idea that the bright and 
vibrant young man she fell in love with was beginning to worry about the 
things any father would worry about.

     The whistling kettle shook Nabiki out of her reverie and she poured it 
into the teapot with a steady hand. She brought the pot into the kitchen and 
set it down at the low table. The room was lit with candles in strategic 
places and the entire glow seemed to be emanating from the fire and 
reverberating from all the corners and crevices in the room. The warmth 
seemed to rise up slowly from the vents and a soft din of sound from the 
streets below could still be heard from the paper-thin walls. It was as much 
her home now as it was Mousse's and she loved being here. But as she put the 
teapot down, she couldn't shake the feeling that days far darker then any 
she had dealt with in her own house were arising.

     "I see you've made the tea," Mousse said softly, his lean body leaning 
against the doorframe leading to the hallway.

     "I have. Come join me," Nabiki replied softly, her normally stripped 
down voice taking on an even more curt and direct tone. Mousse obliged and 
sat next to her at the low table. He poured his own tea after she had served 
herself and for a long moment they did not speak. Each sipped their tea and 
formulated their thoughts into tangible strings.

     "You've been very quiet, Nabiki."

     "I have reason to be."

     "You don't want me to have Potion here..."

     "That's not it, Muu Tzu. You know that."

     "Then what is it, Nabiki?"

     "I..." Nabiki started to speak her many jumbled thoughts but fell 
silent as she decided to retreat and try again. "I'm just worried about your 
ability to take care of a child. You're working, and finishing up 
school...and you simply do not have the time for the girl who needs your 
attention and your love. You can give the love but in my opinion you can't 
give the time. Not right now."

     "I couldn't give the time to you at first, Nabiki. And you wormed your 
sneaky little way into my heart. I don't think it's that much harder to do 
with a child," Mousse replied quietly as he put his teacup down and rubbed 
at his eyes. The eye surgery that he had endured had improved his vision 
greatly but to read and work he still needed to wear glasses. As a result 
the headaches that seemed to pop up at the most inopportune moments seemed 
to knock him down to his knees with their strength. And now was definitely 
an inopportune moment. "This is the last link to Shampoo that I have, 
Nabiki. I must try to be a good father for Potion."

     "I'm not a child, Mousse. I work and go to school as well. I understand 
how it is. But how will your daughter deal with the fact that her new daddy 
is too tired to play with her? Or too exhausted to help her with her 
homework? And have you even begun to consider the idea that she might not 
understand life here in Tokyo?" Nabiki couldn't help that the words that 
tumbled out were bitter toned and startlingly aggressive. She felt herself 
clutch at the leg of the table with one hand as a nervous reaction.

     "I'll work it out."

     "That's it? That's all you've taken the time to think of? You'll just 
'work it out'?"

     "That's all that needs to happen. It needs to be worked out. Potion is 
a part of my life now, for better or for worse. If she wants to go home to 
China, I'll find a way to get her there. If she cries from being homesick I 
shall hold her and kiss away her tears. If she has problems fitting in I'll 
help her as best I can. But I can't let go of her now. Just like I can't let 
go of you." Mousse smiled sadly as he finished speaking, the worry lines in 
his face now becoming more evident despite his apparent lack of surprise or 
even concern.

     "You know you're a bad liar, Mousse..." Nabiki said softly with her own 
sad little smile. Both laughed softly for a moment as the first of many 
storms passed over their heads. "I'm sorry I snapped at you. I...I'm 
probably more nervous about you becoming a father then you are."

     "Are you kidding? I'm scared shitless. I have no idea what I'm doing 
and not a damn clue about the best things to do for Potion. Or myself. Or 
you."

     "All you need to do when you worry about me is remember that I can do 
it on my own. I'm a modern Japanese woman and I don't need anyone to take 
care of me," Nabiki replied with a flip voice and a playful smile, her 
normally cheerful demeanor beginning to break through the clouds on her 
face.

     "But you do need someone to love you. And someone to love. I apparently 
fit the bill."

     "1 carat certainly says so, better then any flight of fancy that you 
could come up with," Nabiki said as she leaned over to kiss Mousse's lips. 
For a long moment they embraced and kissed, nearly knocking over the tea and 
the table as they leaned. Finally mindful of the situation they were in, 
they separated and rose from the table. Walking to the small studio couch 
that sat in the corner of the room, both held hands and sat down together. 
Soon Mousse lay out on his back and Nabiki climbed to the top of his well 
built yet toned body. Their kissing began once again as they settled, soft 
and passionate yet urgent and needy. Their hands stayed locked in the 
positions they had always been in ever since their first kiss so many months 
ago.

     "You're still as sweet as ever," Mousse said with a satisfied smile.

     "I'm a woman. Women are sweet to the taste and honey on the tongue of 
those who love them."

     "I see that book of French poetry I gave you for your birthday is being 
put to good use..."

     "Yes it is." Both young people smiled and continued to caress one 
another softly. The house began to settle into a silent sleep as the rest of 
the outside world slowed down. At least, that's what it appeared to do to 
the two lovers on the studio couch as they gazed lovingly in one another's 
eyes.

     "I've got my sister here in my room, Potion and she are both sleeping 
in my bed and I'm making out with my fianc�e on the couch we're about to 
sleep on. What are the odds that this would've happened to me if I has 
stayed with Shampoo?" Mousse mused out loud in a soft reflective voice.

     "Not good."

     "Not good?"

     "Yes. Especially considering you were still madly in love with Shampoo 
and she didn't think of you as anything more then a casual friend..."

     "I guess you're right."

     "But aren't you happier now that you have a beautiful career woman in 
your life and a beautiful young daughter to raise as your own? And we don't 
even have to buy baby food! Not right now, at least..." Nabiki trailed off 
in her speech as she felt Mousse's hands on her rear, caressing her and 
tenderly loving her.

     "I guess I am happier..."

     "Then show me how happy you are...let's fall asleep together here, arm 
in arm, Mousse-san..." The pair kissed again as their bodies shut down with 
the stresses of the day bleeding off. Soon their vision began to blur as 
their kisses became slower and their touches trailed off into suspended 
animation. In time, the pair drifted off into a sleep fraught with 
interesting dreams, furtive glances and hopeful thoughts.




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