Hey again -

Ryoga's epilogue (otherwise known as "Wanderlust") has
been posted, as well as the companion to "Becoming
Geisha," "Becoming Danna."  They are both available
at:

http://ling.anifics.com/archive/ranma/fragments/index.html

...I'm such a feedback!whore.  I think, what, one and
one half person mentioned Catharsis (well, I'm
counting half because they said, "that other one
you're doing") so I want to post more.  I *will* post
more.  For Catharsis: Hubris parts a-e, go to:

http://ling.anifics.com/archive/ranma/catharsis/index.html

And...now to the new stuff:

DISCLAIMER: Ranma 1/2 is property of Rumiko Takahashi,
its use in this original work of fiction generates no
profit and no infringement is intended.  Definitions
are taken from _Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged
Dictionary of the English Language_.

ARCHIVE: Phu, Rakhal, and Reddeath have my express
permission; everyone else, please ask first at
lifebounce@yahoo.com before archiving my work.

RATING: R

SUMMARY: What if something happened that made *none*
of the fiancees want to marry Ranma any more?  What if
he was abandoned, and the home that he'd so
desperately needed and had later grown to love in his
youth became too hurtful to think of?  And then - what
if - years later Ranma returned to Tokyo's embrace and
fell deeply into something he could not control? 
First Hubris, then Tragedy, then Catharsis.

=====

CATHARSIS
- by ling

=====

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
| tragedy (traj'i de), n., a lamentable, dreadful, or
fatal event or  | | affair; calamity; disaster.  [ME
tragedie < ML tragedia, var. of L  | | tragoedia < Gk
tragoidia, equiv. To trag(os) goat + oide song (see  |
| ODE) + ai -Y^3; reason for name variously explained]
               |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

=====
PART TWO: Tragedy/God's In His Heaven, All's Right
With the World
=====

She'd pulled out her books several weeks ago, but had
not had time to go over them before being pulled in
one direction or the other over the case.  Now, Ranma
had generously 'volunteered' his spare time to work
off any excess paperwork that their outside caseload
involved, and she had an opportunity, one that would
prove to be rare in the upcoming months.

They were not the simplified, translated, and trashy
mass-produced books that Kazuaki had been purchasing
in enormous quantity and bringing to her apartment -
these were her old textbooks.  She flipped through
each of them leisurely, stopping to reread sections
that she found interesting and idly noting all the
doodles in the margins of the pages.  'What a waste,'
she thought briefly.  All those years she'd spent
memorizing how to save the living, and she'd ended
working with the dead, lost causes each and every one.

Her parents had never understood why she'd chosen to
work with the police, and how she'd let herself become
amalgamated into some sort of
psuedo-pathologist/investigator.  Their daughter had
so wanted to save lives when she was younger, what had
changed?  And aside from all of that, they could not
remove the Old Ways from their minds: Michi was
voluntarily making herself an untouchable, and it
drove her mother up the walls and completely insane. 
The arguments over her decisions would never fade from
her mind, as they had been long, loud, and drawn-out,
involving tears and curses.  It was an emotional exile
from a family to which she'd never quite belonged,
though even that fact had not lessened the hurtfulness
of her parents' words.

Her fingers lingered upon the images of first
trimester babies, wrapped in their mothers' wombs,
already so delicate, like tiny, dollhouse models of
people that she saw every day.  She remembered having
loved children, the thought of children, at one time
in her life, and could not fathom why she was not
overjoyed at the thought of having a baby now.  Maybe
it was because she was past her prime, or that she
knew how difficult it was to give birth after thirty.

Maybe it was because she had her own life now, and
didn't want to give herself unto a child, to leave
behind her own identity to foster one completely
separate.

Yes, she concluded, she was just too selfish to have
offspring.

'But,' she added, 'that is something to worry about
later.'

Removing that from her mind, the first thing that
arrived was the ongoing argument with Kazuaki over her
professional decisions.  She had an appointment with
Human Resources later that week to discuss her
employment options with Special Operations after it
became unsafe for her to work the beat.  Would she
simply allow herself to be transferred into something
safe?  A lab position?  It didn't sound too terrible,
but there was no way that she could go gentle from her
post, not when her partner depended upon her ability
investigate.  'I can't quit,' she thought, 'but
eventually, I'm going to have to remove myself from
the line of immediate fire.'  It seemed the least that
she could do for her child: a concession to all the
abuses that her progeny had been suffering so far: the
incessant travel, the sleepless nights and her
carelessness in proper nutrition.  Hell, Michi had
entirely ignored any logos that demanded she slow
down.  Somewhere, deep inside, she wondered if she was
hoping to lose her child, but always banished the
questioning voices; she might have been resentful, but
she was not a murderer. 

She wished that her life was less complicated, but
that had ended along with the life of her first
husband.  Sometimes, she wondered what would have
happened if he had never committed suicide. 
Eventually, their financial problems would have come
to a head: she would have probably dropped out of
medical school to obtain a position until they were
out of the hole.  Life might have been less frivolous,
more stressed, but hardly miserable.  As long as
Takashi had remained faithful to her (and he always
was), as long as he still loved her as fiercely as he
had when he had asked for her hand in marriage, Michi
imagined that she would have suffered anything to make
it work.  She would have gone back to medical school
eventually, and would have eventually worked in a
hospital, probably in the emergency ward.  They would
have a baby, maybe two, and by that time in their
lives, they'd be more comfortable, happier, and she'd
have warm, comforting arms about her when she went to
bed, instead of being surrounded in compensation forms
from work-related excursions and autopsy photos, the
first phone call of the morning from her partner about
lab results.

This, unsurprisingly, did not cheer her.

The phone rang, and distracted, she answered with a
vague, "Hello?"

"I've been thinking, Michi, let's name her Suu,"
Kazuaki said, excited.

"It might be a boy," she replied, tired, resting the
phone between her shoulder and ear and flipping
through a few more pages of her book.  "The male
hormones could be attacking the womb right now."  She
decided not to tell him that the baby already had a
gender, one that would be revealed next Thursday after
she went to her OB-GYN.

"They wouldn't dare!" Kazuaki squealed.  Michi had to
grin: protective of his daughter prior to birth - what
a dad.

In the end, she found herself reading up on symptoms
to pregnancy, and how to deal with them in extreme
cases.  With some distaste, she realized that some
women's nausea just never went away, that they spent
the entirety of their pregnancy on nutrient drips that
doctors had to wheedle away from comatose patients,
bedridden from weakness.  That, and they started to
smell funny from being too weak to move, much less
bathe properly.

With a frown, she shut the book, leaving a paperclip
on the page that started with labor complications,
deciding that dread would do her no good.

=====

To: nerriy@tech.co.jp
From: michi107@yahoo.co.jp
Subject: general discontent

Nerri -

Ugh, urgh, and uauuugh.

The hospital called with my lab results, I'm still
malnourished and frightfully anemic, or so they say. 
If I was so damn malnourished and anemic, why don't I
*look* any thinner?  Oh, God, I've lost my mind.  I�m
at the end of my first trimester and I'm worried about
looking fat.  Save me, please.  This can't go on.

Anyway, I'm happy for Tomo, though I can't imagine
*why* the company is promoting him anywhere above
'peon.'  No, really, I'm thrilled.  Don't worry so
much about the move; it's only going a few hours away,
big deal.  We still have telephones and emails and the
postal system.  And if all else fails, you can always
steal Scottie's matter-transporter-thingy, you
insufferable Trekkie, you.

Anyway, call me tonight, I wanna throw you a going
away party.  If nothing else, it'll be a good excuse
for you to get sloshed and me to eat like a pig.

Later - Michi

=====  

Ranma decided that paperwork was hell, and that it was
simply unfair that while he and Michi shouldered
primary responsibility for an enormous case as it was,
that they ought to have to fill out forms.

Rather, that *he* had to fill out forms.

It was his own fault, naturally, for running out on
his job and whining to his partner.  It was also his
own fault that he hadn't done any of the paperwork
earlier.  And it was undoubtedly his fault that he'd
allowed Michi to talk him into doing the paperwork to
begin with.   

He scowled, realizing that if he sat there long
enough, memories of his fight with Kodachi would come
again, unbidden.  They would flood him, and he'd end
up depressed, lonely, and over-thirty; though the last
point had more to do with time being a son of a bitch
than Kodachi being a whore.  He had refused to
apologize to her, both in his own mind and aloud to
his bathroom mirror.  As such, he also refused to
waste his time thinking about it.

What distracted him?

He dialed Michi's number (now #5 on his phone's
memory).  

They'd come to a decision about his curse after she'd
been allowed to test it several more times with
various sources of cold and hot water.  In the end,
she'd thrown up her arms in frustration, proclaimed
him a medical ("Not *magical*!" she'd insisted)
miracle and decided that he needed to be dissected
right there on the spot.  She'd taken urine, blood,
hair, and skin samples, sent them out to labs, done a
couple of DNA tests on her own time, and driven
herself positively mad with curiosity.  There was no
interlacing of genes, nothing out of the ordinary at
all.  In fact, all that she'd derived from her efforts
was that in male form, Ranma was distinctly male and
very healthy; in female form, she was distinctly and
separately female, with the *exact* same DNA, save for
a few minor differences allowing for ovaries and the
such.  Finally, Michi had made grudging acceptance,
and they'd stayed at that comfortable stage for almost
two weeks now, ever since their return from Osaka. 
Still, his partner would occasionally fly into a panic
and beg to allow her to dissect him, just a little,
for the sake of science.  It always unnerved him,
despite how she claimed that she was joking, when they
were in an autopsy bay together: Michi just looked too
friendly with those scalpels, and far too curious.

She picked up abruptly, in the middle of the first
ring, and with an irate trill in her voice, she said,
"Look, you can't force the baby to be female just so
can name her Suu.  I don't want to hear one more word
about it, so if that's why you're calling, you can
just hang up and go back to filling out tax forms for
fat, ugly - "

"Suu?" Ranma found himself saying in disgust.  "That's
an awful name!"

Michi paused in surprise before saying, "Ranma?"

"Are you *honestly* going to let him call it that?" he
asked in a huff of fatherly concern.  There was no
doubt in his mind that it was that Other Guy that
would have cursed the baby to such an unforgivable
moniker.  Ranma quietly fancied *himself* to be
Michi's baby's father, despite biological evidence to
the contrary and the overwhelming knowledge that it
was a stupid daydream.  At least on some distant, very
indistinct sort of level, Ranma felt he had a right to
claim paternity, if for nothing other than caring, in
which he had indulged a great deal.  He'd been
watching the baby grow ever since he had discovered
that she was pregnant.  In some ways, he was more of
an expectant father than Kazuaki, as he spent more
time with Michi and fed her more often than her fiance
did.  "Have some ramen, it's got carbs," and "Are you
okay?  Do you think you can keep some broth down?"  It
had reached the point that her standard answer to such
questions was an annoyed variation of, "Shut up or
I'll hurt you."

His partner laughed softly, tension dissolving from
her tone.  "No, Ranma, I'd never let him *actually*
name her Suu."  There was a brief, comfortable pause
before she asked, "Why are you calling?"

He played with his pen.  "I was bored."

She laughed, more loudly this time.  "Well,
unfortunately, I don't think that I'll be much more
interesting."  In the background, there was the sound
of pages being turned.  "Hmm.  I was reading over the
lab results again.  The first four victims, they'd
been roughed up, but ultimately, the causes of death
were heart attacks for all of them."

"Yes," Ranma said, curious.  "Inexplicable, or so you
claimed earlier."

She made a noncommittal noise before saying, "Well, I
was thinking..."

Ranma waited.  "...And?"

"I'll need to check the bodies again," she said
studiously, and he could almost imagine her eyes
focusing on an indistinct point on the other side of
the room, clouding to a dark gray color, very intense.
 "But maybe it was insulin."

Ranma blinked and set down his pen.  "Insulin?  How
can that kill anyone?"  Hiroshi had been a diabetic,
and Ranma had spent at least five minutes of every
lunch period waiting anxiously for his friend to stop
stabbing himself with an impossibly sharp-looking
needle filled with some questionably dingy and yellow
substance which he claimed to be absolutely necessary.
 It did not sit well that Michi thought insulin was a
possible poison.  Ranma fought an urge to run to
Hiroshi's house at that very instant.

"Well, for diabetics, people who don't have enough, or
even just regular folks," she said breezily, "insulin
isn't harmful at all.  But injected in large doses,
one is likely to suffer from it, with results like the
cardiac arrest we saw in our first three victims."

Now Ranma made the noncommittal noise.  "Should I meet
you in the morgue tomorrow then?"

"No, I don't think that'll be necessary.  I'm sure
you're swamped as is," 'Lady,' Ranma thought, 'you
have *no* idea,' "so you can just go on into the
office.  It'd be an external exam; I can get someone
big to flip him for me."  Ranma suddenly had the
mental image of his partner wearing a ridiculously
large pair of thick glasses, staring at the very
unpleasant backside of one of their victims, making a
face and poking it in disgust.  He was unable to hide
his snort of amusement.

"What's so funny?" his partner asked.

"Nothing, don't worry about it," he answered
cryptically.  "D'yah have plans for dinner tonight? 
Or is Kazuaki still at that conference?"

She sighed.  "It's an out-of-town consult, and yes,
he's still there."  There was a brief, noisy pause
where it sounded like she struggled to her feet and
then banged around some pots.  "And...yes!  It looks
like I'll be having frozen, prepackaged sashimi from
the vendor downstairs.  What about you?"

Ranma looked at the sea of paperwork around himself. 
"Ramen."

"Excellent choice," Michi said languidly.  "God, are
we boring."

Ranma didn't think so.  Nor did he think that having
raw seafood would be healthy for the Baby That Would
Most Certainly Not Be Named Suu, so he invited his
partner out for the evening, and told her that he'd
pick her up in half an hour.

=====

To: kasumi@nerimaclinic.org.jp
From: rsaotome@police.go.jp
Subject: Re:[Christmas]

Kasumi -

I would LOVE to come by for Christmas dinner, however,
I'm not sure if my partner will be able to.  She's got
her own family, and other stuff, besides that.  Still,
*I'll* definitely be there.

- RS

=====

They were sitting around an old, kitschy family diner
twenty minutes away from Ranma's apartment complex. 
He'd discovered it about a week after he'd moved in,
and had been a faithful customer ever since.  The menu
wasn't exactly creative, but everything that they did
offer was wonderfully flavorful and warming.  It was
decorated with old family photos, knick-knacks, and
lots of mismatching tablecloths.  Ranma liked it for
all these things: the restaurant was comfortable.

"Do you ever think about what you would be like if you
had chosen something else?" Ranma asked.

It seemed like the perfect sort of question to
follow-up what they had been talking about.  Earlier,
when he'd knocked on her door, he'd asked her all
sorts of things about the baby, hungry for
information, consuming every bit that she was willing
to share.  And it seemed that Michi was glad to tell
him, to tell *someone*.  She had a wealth of
knowledge, of inane fact and triplicate versions of
her earlier ultrasounds, just waiting for someone to
see.  "Didn't Kazuaki ask to see them?" Ranma had
asked, curious.  Michi had shrugged off the question. 
Ranma decided not to probe any further.  

He had realized quite a while ago that Michi treated
him differently than she treated her other coworkers,
or her other friends.  He didn't bother to hazard a
guess what exact amalgamation of significant other he
had become, but assumed that she liked him, if she
were to accept his dinner invitation.  Ever since the
nausea had started to fade earlier that week, she'd
been ravenous, and he'd been delighted to watch her
eat, to see the sallow glow fade from her skin.  "I
must be acting like a total pig," she'd mourned
earlier that day, on her third bowl of Cup Ramen. 
"No, not at all!" he'd countered.  "This is a lot
healthier; you ought to know that.  Besides, it's sort
of cute."  She'd grinned shyly and dug back in,
satisfied by his words.

Michi looked far away, her eyes growing very pale in
the dim lighting, and lips shining with her newly
applied coat of chapstick.  "You never use lip gloss,"
he'd pointed out.  "No, it's all fruity-smelling and
girly," she'd replied, and made a face.  Ranma decided
that he found this charming.

"What kinds of things different?" she finally said.

He shrugged.  "Like if you'd never gone to med school
or something."

His partner stiffened, and Ranma felt the tension
rise.  Before he even had time to apologize, she
opened her mouth, and said, "Lots of things would be
different if I had never gone to medical school." 
Without another word, she reached for her and her
chopsticks, and poked idly at the sukiyaki that was
quietly grilling before them.

"Oh," was all that he managed, mystified, but
cautious.  Finally, he added, "I wonder what would
have happened if I never went to Kyoto."  Michi looked
at him sharply, but allowed him to continue.  "I
mean," he mused, "I wouldn't have this stupid
reputation following me around."

Michi shrugged.  "Even I was almost called onto that
case; who's to say that you wouldn't have been
dispatched anyway?"

Her partner, holding a piece of beef between his
chopsticks, and ready to chew, bit his tongue hard
instead and yelped in surprise.  "Whahj?!"

She raised her eyebrows at him.  "You didn't know?"

"Gno!" he retorted, trying to move his tongue as
little as possible.

Chuckling, she handed him a napkin.  "Blot.  You're
bleeding."  He made a small, panicked sound in the
back of his throat.  "Don't worry," she said
soothingly.  "In the entire human body, the mouth
heals the fastest.  It's all those incisors; our
physiology isn't dumb enough to pair up a lot of
pointy protrusions unless the soft surroundings had
great regenerative powers."

"Wha goo oo gneam 'bout ah cayh?" he demanded, holding
the napkin to his injured tongue, valiantly pressing
forward.

"I was almost sent to Kyoto to assist.  That's all,"
she said plainly.

"Why weren't you?" he asked gingerly, removing the
paper and wincing.

She averted her eyes from his gaze and picked at the
food on her plate with sudden and great interest.  In
a voice that was so quiet he barely knew she had said
anything at all, Michi whispered, "You."

=====

To: aoi120690@hotmail.co.jp
From: mhirugashi@police.go.jp
Subject: Re:[Mom]

She's fine.  It's normal.  They had her on a
painkiller that behaves (vaguely) like a drug.  Think
of it as Mom going through withdrawal, and you guys
are the methadone clinic.

Oh, and if all you're going to do is call my office
when you know *specifically* that I'll be out *just*
so you can hear my partner's voice, more power to you,
but *he's* getting annoyed, so stop it.

For God's sake, Aoi, you're 23 years old, act like it.

=====

Her eyes were starting to water, as they had started
to hurt nearly an hour ago.  The idea had seemed so
much less toxic when she'd related it to her partner
over the phone: how was she supposed to know that
"examining the corpse" carefully would be such a task?

Most often, it was a simple and almost enjoyable
course of action.  There was a certain, set procedure
about it, and what mysteries arose would be further
divined in a lab setting, through spinning centrifuges
and microscopes.  There was something definitive, and
welcoming about science: there were distinct right and
wrong answers.  Life was too ambiguous; science was a
haven.

Though, there was something undeniably tragic about
how clinical her inspections of people had become:
within the first hour of knowing anyone, she'd already
reasoned a probable cause of death for them, if they
went by natural events.  Her mathematical mind taunted
her with statistics about car accidents and plane
crashes, and occasionally, she decided that someone
had to balance out the figures, and made them sink
into the Atlantic or wrap themselves around a
telephone pole.  She'd only ever admitted this habit
to one other person, and said person was moving far
away in less than a month.  

With a sigh, she set the magnifying glass on the
corpse' left hip, peeling off her gloves and rubbing
her eyes tiredly.  

"Come on, Mr. Fujiwara," she pleaded, her own voice
echoing and bouncing back to her ears.  "Don't you
*want* me to find out who killed you?"  Remarkably, he
offered no response.  

Michi groaned softly.  "I'm losing my mind."

She had no doubt that it was brought on by having
searched for a microscopic puncture wound for the
greater part of the morning and afternoon.  She'd
gotten to the morgue at eight in the morning; it was
approaching three already.

The problem was augmented by the fact that there was a
whole lot of corpse to examine, if she were to be put
it delicately.  At that point in the day, she was
ready to say it: Takashi Soru, Akito Fujiwara, and
Genji Moroboshi were all fat bastards.  Fat bastards,
she'd discovered, with the most heinous backsides
she'd ever been unlucky enough to witness.  She'd
spent a large part of the morning trying to fathom how
anyone could bear to bed them, as she was feeling
nauseated just staring with clinical detachment. 
Maybe it was just the pregnancy thing.  Or maybe it
was because she was grumpy and tired.

The first victim had been almost useless as he'd been
dead so long that any remaining signs of a puncture
wound would be nearly impossible to find.  She
realized feelingly that she loathed him for it on some
level: if she was going to devote her mornings and
afternoons to him for an entire week, he might as well
be cooperative, or rot slower, at least.  The third
died of wolfsbane, determined to have ingested some
hours prior to death, so there'd be no puncture wound
there.  

Michi stared at Akito Fujiwara and his rippling flesh
and sneered.

'This,' she thought, 'is why they call it
"rock-bottom."'

She reached for the magnifying glass again, and
paused, frozen in shock.  She checked once; she
checked twice.  And then she picked up the magnifying
glass and checked a third time.  

Ranma found her in the morgue half an hour later,
grinning ear to ear, and babbling of fortuitous
events.  She'd bagged several samples from the
surrounding tissues, and practically floating, she'd
asked for them to be couriered over to the Special
Operations forensics labs.  "What exactly are they
looking for?" Ranma asked.  She'd grinned.  "I'll know
when they find it."  He'd frowned at her.  "Faith in
serendipity, Ranma!  Faith!" she'd cried.

He found himself unable to contain his grin at her
joyfulness.

Happiness, he'd realized, like pain, was contagious.

=====

To: mhirugashi@police.go.jp
From: rsaotome@police.go.jp
Subject: Re:[hey, gotta favor to ask]

Sure, I've got the room this morning, but I'll be out
between noon and four, so it's all yours.  Who do you
need it for?

Oh, and about the finding the needle mark: Go Michi!  

(What's serendipity, anyway?)

I called, the forensic lab says that they're swamped,
and results won't come in until at least a day or two
from now.  Still, if your find is worth anything, I
bow to your genius.

- RS

=====

Not even anticipation over lab results could distract
her from the task at hand that day.  In the relatively
monotonous landscape of a relatively unimportant ward
of Tokyo, there was something that stood out in a
surprisingly pleasant way.

Michi's ex-boyfriend from college had come from
Nerima, and as a result, she'd been over to his house
quite a few times as a "special guest."  However, that
had been years ago, long before the walls around the
Kuno mansion had come down.  When she'd inquired about
it during her youth, her significant other had just
brushed it off, dismissing it as one of the town
oddities: the Kunos, the weirdoes, you know.

Now, Michi realized that weirdoes or not, the Kuno
mansion was a thing of incredible and enviable beauty.

She checked the address in the file once more, looked
back up to the house, and whistled in appreciation. 
'Old money,' she thought jealously.  'One of them
probably makes tea ceremony crockery or does flower
arranging or something.  I bet all the women in the
house wear kimonos year round.'  She glanced down
self-consciously at her conservative black suit, the
waist in the pants newly let-out, and scowled.  She'd
never been thin, but she was more painfully aware of
her discomfort with being large than ever before.

Picking up her pace, she slammed the car door shut and
slipped the pad and paper into her pocket, smiling
softly to herself as that morning's events flooded
back into her mind's eye.  When she'd announced early
that day, printing out duplicates of case data, that
she was going to be out talking to a few people,
possibly bringing them back to the offices for a lie
detector test, Ranma had stopped himself just short of
*forbidding* her to go out alone.  Of course, he was
just concerned about her welfare, but still, Michi had
been taking care of herself for 32 years, she could
handle going out to talk to a possible
witness/suspect.  She had given him The Look, and he'd
shut up quick.

She'd been careful not to mention that prime on her
list of five suspects was the Kuno family.  Despite
the beautiful, flowery lies that she'd fed to her
partner, no one seemed to have as much motive nor
ability as the Kuno family: they had the grudge and
the money.  She knew it was horrible for her to keep
things from him, but she didn't have the heart to tell
him the truth.

She sighed, stopping to remember all the gestures that
he had made recently - some appreciated, others not so
much.  He'd taken the liberty of brewing a special pot
of coffee especially for her every morning; careful to
make sure that it was absolute decaf.  In fact, she
wasn't allowed to consume beverages out of his
carefully watchful eye.  He made sure that she
remembered to take her prenatal vitamins, and forced
her from the office every day at five o'clock,
unwilling to see her "work herself to the bone when
she was in such a delicate condition."  She'd promised
herself on more than one occasion that if he were to
ever call the pregnancy "delicate condition" again,
she'd show him some injuries that were *really* worthy
of the title, but had never gotten around to doing it.

She dashed the thoughts from her mind.  Work was more
important.

With a sigh, she stared down the enormously long
driveway, and cursed her taste in shoes.

=====

To: rsaotome@police.go.jp
From: mhirugashi@police.go.jp
Subject: Re:[Re:[hey, gotta favor to ask]]

Thanks.  It's nothing huge, want to bring someone in
and make sure they're telling the truth.  

- Michi

=====

Ranma had never quite gotten a hang of being charming
for the sake of being charming, but he was very
friendly, and mostly agreeable.  Women seemed to like
him, a lot; and if men were a little antagonistic
about him, well, he now had Michi to deal with that
problem.  He glanced about the dour room once more,
frowning, wishing that it could be nicer.  Finally, he
brought two cups of tea and a plate of doughnuts,
hoping that it would be enough to make the
interrogation room look less intimidating.  "Oh for
God's sake," Michi had said earlier in half-annoyance,
half-amusement at his efforts.  "You're not trying to
woo her, you know."   He'd glared and sputtered, too
distracted by the fact that his fourteen-week (or was
that thirteen?) pregnant partner was about to march
out of the safety of the office space and into the
very real, very unfriendly world.  He'd almost blurted
said thoughts out, but remembered at the last minute
that their partnership dictated a certain amount of
distance, of space.  There was a *premium* on space.  

There was a knock, and taking a deep breath, Ranma ran
one hand through his messy hair and released a heaving
sigh before opening the door.  "Mrs. Tsukishiro,"
Ranma said amicably, extending one arm in a gesture of
welcoming.  "Hi, come on in."  If Michi had seen him,
she would have fallen out of her chair from laughter.

Noriko Tsukishiro had called him two days previous,
asking for a chance to talk - but not to Michi, just
to *him*.  His partner had not been amused.  "That
woman - nothing ill - but, but she makes me nervous!"
she'd confided.  "I'm sorry if I wasn't very helpful
that first time you came and spoke to me, but I..."
she'd trailed off, embarrassed.  Ranma had been quick
to placate her, to assure the woman that she was not
the first nor the last to feel nervous before his
partner, and that she didn't have anything to feel bad
about.  After all, his time was her time; they were
all in this together, weren't they?  He had said all
of this very quickly on the phone.  In retrospect, he
thought that it was probably unwise to have had that
particular conversation while Michi was still in the
room.  She'd spent the rest of the afternoon sulking,
and before she'd gone home (read: been forced into her
car by Ranma), she'd 'accidentally' jammed her left
heel into his big toe.

"Why do we need this machine?" Mrs. Tsukishiro asked
fearfully.  She eyed the lie detector with a great
deal of suspicion.  "I thought you said I wasn't in
any trouble - "

" - You aren't," Ranma said soothingly, "I promise. 
It's just standard for when we interview someone here
at the police offices."  He winked at her charmingly,
as if they shared some great and wonderful secret. 
"To be honest, if I *don't* do it, I could be fired."

That, of course, did not mean that if he weren't
required he would save her the trouble of being hooked
up to those sensors.  Any evidence garnered from the
lie detector would be inadmissible, but at least he'd
have a good handle on where to look further, which
questions he warranted further investigation.    

"Okay," she said with a shuddering sigh.  "I'm ready
to talk."

=====

To: mhirugashi@police.go.jp
From: rsaotome@police.go.jp
Subject: Re:[Re:[Re:[hey, gotta a favor to ask]]]

Yeah - but *who*?

=====

"Dost the lady want for a chair, a resting place? 
Nay!  A *throne* upon which to seat her delicate form?
 Or perhaps a chaise?"

Michi managed a narrow smile, and gave a stuttering,
"Anywhere will be fine."  If Ranma had been there, he
would have choked from laughter, died from lack of
oxygen at the scene before him.

The door, when she'd pressed the bell nearly fifteen
minutes prior, had been opened by a servant.  When
she'd asked to speak to the master of the house, she'd
just nodded and scuffled away.  A few moments later, a
handsome man with dark hair and light eyes appeared. 
He'd smiled winningly at her, in a friendly-like
fashion.  Michi had found these things quite charming,
and was momentarily taken with the rather stunning
profile of the gentleman before her.

And then he'd opened his mouth.

She had promised herself shortly thereafter that if
Ranma had known about this man, this *idiot*, and had
not warned her about the dangers of Nerima despite the
fact that he *must* have known she was going there,
she would shoot him between the legs.  

The man looked concerned, and taking her small, white
hand between his large, calloused palms, he stared
into her eyes meaningfully.  "Are you quite certain,
madam?  Your eyes...like pools of storm clouds...they
speak of some pain, some ill-treatment!  My lady is
exhausted!"  She opened her mouth to protest, but he
interrupted cheerfully.  "No matter!  You are in my
well-versed hands now, Miss, and none shall treat you
poorly from here on."  He glanced over his shoulder,
still holding her hand very tightly, and yelled,
"Knaves!  Hurry and bring this lady a chair, a chaise,
a *throne*!  By God - hurry!  She is faint!"  He
tugged her over the threshold none-so-gently.

Michi thought that she would know damn well if she
were faint, and frankly, she felt quite well oriented,
if very irritated.

But the feeling was passing, and she felt her mouth
drop open in awe at the interior of the beautiful
house.  It was all green and gold and muted scarlet,
the colors of old money, wealth that was imbued into
every square inch of brocade and velvet, the heavy
silkiness of the room beckoned her.  It reminded her
strongly of the scenes described in The Tale of Genji,
of the splendid rooms with tatami mat floors and
draperies everywhere.  She was completely immersed in
beauty, and she felt as if she was drowning in it all.

The 'Knave' arrived hurriedly, balancing a
heavy-looking upholstered chaise lounger in a manner
that (had she not seen it with her own eyes) Michi
would have sworn was physically impossible.  The
short, squat servant set it down, and begged "Master
Kuno" for forgiveness in his tardiness.  The man
begged her to be seated, ignoring the servant, and
dropped to one knee in front of her, as if he were
proposing marriage.

Michi felt very put out.

Staring at her intensely, the man murmured, "Aye,
Mademoiselle, thou possesses great beauty.  Why hast
thou arrived at this door?"  Michi opened her mouth to
answer, but was interrupted again.  "To this
household, on the day I refrained from my labors in
the buildings of glass and steel!  Oh, sweet, gentle
fate!" the man cried enthusiastically, tears of
emotion gathering in his eyes as he raised a fist to
the ceiling.  "I sing your praises, gods!  For
Providence is kind!"

'Oh, my God,' Michi thought in a doomed sort of voice.


====

To: rsaotome@police.go.jp
From: mhirugashi@police.go.jp
Subject: none of your business

Note subject line.

(Also, changed the date to next Tuesday, scheduling,
you know.)

=====

The air in the small interrogation room had settled to
a chilly sixty-eight degrees, which left Mrs.
Tsukishiro and her four hundred dollar cashmere
sweater in a lovely, fuzzy place.  Ranma didn't notice
that it was cold.

He'd been watching the machine idly, marking things
down on the paper, continually reassuring her that he
was simply making notes, that the machines were highly
unpredictable.  "Actually," he said lightly, wondering
if he was making a mistake, "I can't even use anything
from the lie detector in court.  You know, it's that
*iffy*."  Mrs. Tsukishiro had started to smile and
tell him to call her Noriko at that point.  He
wondered when his soul had started to shrivel into
nothingness, where it obviously lingered now.

"Is your name Noriko Tsukishiro?" he asked, going
through his mental list of control questions.  She
nodded, and he proceeded through all sorts of inane
things, her birthday, her gender, etc.  He did not
think about the interesting consequences of his own
answer to that question.

He leaned back in his seat for a moment, regarding
her.  Noriko Tsukishiro must have been a beautiful
woman in the past.  She had amber-colored eyes and
dark, ebony-black hair, despite her age.  There were
no laugh-lines about her eyes, but the liberal
sprinkles of worry-made creases on her forehead were
prominent.  This was a woman who had married for love,
and done so in an extremely foolish way.

"Do you know of anyone who might have wanted to hurt
your husband, ma'am?" he asked politely, frantically
wracking his mind for a gentle way of asking if she
had anything to do with the murderer.  Noriko paused,
and the up-and-down lines drawn on the tape paper
coming out of the lie detector were behaving wildly,
finally released.  Ranma made a mark with the number
five next to it.  "Ma'am?" he pressed.

"Kaneda...," she started awkwardly, "Kaneda had a
tendency to fall in and out of love very quickly, and
upset his share of girls."  She paused, gathering
herself.  "But I don't think that any of them would
want to *hurt* him."  Ranma glanced idly at the tape
to affirm what he was thinking: she was lying, of
course.

"Hm," he said nonchalantly, revealing nothing of his
thoughts.

Inside, he was teeming with contradictions.  He
couldn't banish Michi's earlier words from his mind. 
"I'm going to go talk to some people," she'd said so
casually.  She'd turned her back on him, without her
suitcoat on, and he'd seen the gunmetal shine of her
firearm for just the briefest moment before she'd
shouldered her jacket and left.  It had been an
unwelcome shock: he'd almost forgotten in between all
the endless paperwork and lab coats that she was an
officer.  One who had an undeniably delicate
condition.  Still, what plagued him more, and more
viciously, was the knowledge that despite how much she
might try to secret her investigations, there only
existed two or three options for who might have caught
her suspicions.  Besides, her computer had been opened
to the MapQuest page for Nerima.  She was about as
subtle as a car wreck, especially if one knew what or
who to look out for.

"Even if no one wanted to hurt him, Mrs. Tsukishiro,"
Ranma said kindly, "do you know of anyone who was very
upset?  Someone who had even the slightest potential?"

She bit her lip.  

The machine went nuts again.

=====

To: mhirugashi@police.go.jp
From: rsaotome@police.go.jp
Subject: Woah.

Getcher ass back here.

Oh, and how's Nerima?  Met Tatewaki Kuno yet?

=====

"Look, it's really not that complicated," Michi
explained, her ire rising.  "I'd just like to ask your
family to come down to the police department.  None of
you are in any trouble, and I assure you, we will be
discreet."

"I'm afraid that'll be impossible, Ma'am," the older
man said coolly, folding his hands one over the other
on his lap.  "Kuno Incorporated has an image to
maintain.  Don't you think the ravenous carrion birds
that call themselves our media would just *leap* at
the opportunity our visit to the police department
would bring?"

Kosaku Kuno, Michi decided, was someone to be reckoned
with.  He sported a dark, golden tan, and despite his
years, was trim and broad.  Though, there were lines
about his eyes and on his forehead, as if he'd aged
very quickly some time ago, while the rest of him was
still young.  He'd arrived home an hour or so after
Michi had knocked on their front door, and after
pulling his very enthusiastic son out of the room,
apologized profusely to the flustered woman sitting in
the ridiculously expensive chaise.  "I'm so sorry,
Miss!  My son is...easily excitable."  To her credit,
Michi had simply nodded mutely and proceeded to
conduct what would be considered by any observer to be
a remarkably professional interview.  

"Understandable, Mr. Kuno," she said agreeably. 
"However, I must insist, as your family's situation
disallows me any other avenue of action."  She stared
at him hard.  "I'd hate to have to have a police
escort come and take you down when you could just as
easily make it on your own, and with much less fuss."

The man before her stiffened at her ominous words, and
met her eye to eye, noting the seriousness in her tone
and the stony expression on her face.  This woman knew
the truth, he realized.  This woman who was small,
round, and soft knew everything about his family's
past, and she was brave enough to step onto their
property and demand they listen.  

He could crush her, financially, professionally, and
probably socially.  

But she could ruin him just as easily.

'Equal footing,' he thought darkly.

He was more than prepared for an average
interrogation; he'd been subject to them as long as
he'd had the Kuno business empire.  Most of those
occasions were much less pleasant than the presence of
a well-groomed, polite,
vaguely-smelling-of-honeysuckles woman sitting in
front of him at the moment.  She'd lulled him into a
false sense of security, and then struck, vicious,
like a snake, and sunk her sharp teeth into his
jugular.  

"I understand your wife was checked into the Nerima
Psychiatric Clinic many years ago," she had started. 
"I'm real sorry to hear that."

He'd pasted a gracious smile to his face.  "So am I." 


He'd been about to offer her some tea, maybe some
food: distract himself; distract her.  Back before,
way into the past, he'd once been very popular with
women.  He still had charm; it was the reason auditors
sent to Kuno Incorporated were always men.  He'd
gotten away with so much when it came to women.  He
was magnetic when he wanted to be, when he wasn't lost
in dreams of Hawaii; it was how he'd met his wife, and
why they had married.  He assumed Detective Hirugashi
would be no different than the others.  He would deal
with her quickly, clinically, and she would be out of
the door and slightly confused any moment, wondering
how exactly she'd ever had her suspicions about the
Kuno family.

She'd pierced him with her cold gray eyes.  "How is
she doing now?"

It had gone downhill from here.  

When she left five minutes after he'd finally
acquiesced, he ran to the window, watching her make
her way carefully down his driveway, and into her car.
 

=====

To: rsaotome@police.go.jp
From: mhirugashi@police.go.jp
Subject:Re:[Woah]

See, if I *had* gone to Nerima (which I didn't), and
if I had met up with Tatewaki Kuno (who I didn't,
because I didn't go to Nerima), your ass would be
seven kinds of dead if you had known about my
hypothetical going to Nerima, and not warned me of
hypothetical problems.

Lucky you, right?

- MH

PS, I've been working on my target practice again -
instructor says I could castrate a small mammal at
about a hundred yards.  Impressive, isn't it?

=====

They bumped into each other outside the interrogation
rooms.  Michi was looking harried and rumpled; Ranma
looked exuberant.  They both began speaking at the
same time, animated and effusive.

"Mrs. Tsukishiro just about gave away everything the
suspect is and - "

"I've got such a lead it's not even funny and I'm
sorry to say it's - "

They both stopped, laughed in embarrassment, and
started anew.  Michi decided to be gentlemanly, and
motioned for Ranma to speak first.  

"Mrs. Tsukishiro," he said, "she was like this
treasure trove of knowledge.  Admitted to tons of
things with her heartrate."  Ranma looked proud. 
"Look, she said that a *lot* of Kaneda Tsukishiro's
partners and coworkers "could have killed him" for
some of the practices he had," Michi raised her
eyebrows at his, "so I'm going to start going through
those lists tomorrow."  He looked at her
inquisitively.  "What about you?"

"Well," she started, hesitating.  She'd been gung-ho
about attacking this new avenue of investigation, to
plunge into the Kuno family, no-holds-barred.  Still,
her initial excitement wavered as she looked at her
partner's face; did he still care about Kodachi? 
Personally, she thought that he'd been rash and that
Kodachi had been cruel, but that it'd been a stupid
argument nonetheless.  There was no doubt in her mind
that not only would Ranma be uncooperative if she were
to finger the Kunos, he'd be downright obstinate and
counterproductive.  

Still...

"I'm sorry to have to say this, but your girlfriend's
family looks like prime fodder for the suspect list." 
She tried to sound apologetic.  

Ranma thought that if she was trying to sound
apologetic, she had failed spectacularly.  

He said the only thing he could.  "Well."

Michi regarded him seriously, and was torn between the
screaming urge to slap him roughly on the shoulder, to
tell him that the weeks he spent with Kodachi he'd
seemed happier than she'd ever seen him before.  She
wanted to tell him that everyone made serious mistakes
in the past, and that his reaction had been the very
reason Kodachi had hesitated so long in telling him. 
She wanted to make him go back to her.  However, on
the other hand, the investigative instinct she had
told her to hush her emotional struggle, that it was
for the best, after all, that Ranma not get himself
involved with someone who was a potential murderer and
who would obviously upset the impartiality of their
investigation.  It was the most primitive conflict:
the disagreement between her heart and her mind.

With a soft sigh, she murmured, "Sorry."

He shrugged, glancing away from her pitying gaze. 
"I'm fine."

She cocked an eyebrow at him, disbelieving, but
decided not to pursue the issue as she noted the
tension in his broad shoulders.  She opened her mouth
to try and say something consoling to him, remembering
any of the million things that had been told to her
after her husband had died, hoping to smooth his
ruffled edges.  None of them had helped, but they all
melded together into an almost-comforting white noise.

In the end, she was saved from having to be eloquent
by the ringing of her cell phone.  A few short words
later, she tugged at his sleeve gently, garnering his
attention, and declared, "It's the lab."

=====

To: mhirugashi@police.go.jp
From: rsaotome@police.go.jp
Subject: Re:[Re:[Woah]]

Uh...

He didn't *do* anything to you, did he?

I mean, I can kill him if he did.  Really.

=====

"Oh, honestly, do you *really* think that they'll
figure it out?"

The smoke was heavy and thick.  There were too many
bodies and there was too little room, the music was
nearly overwhelming.  From his seat near a
particularly dark and brooding corner, nursing a sour
apple martini, he saw the golden-toned flesh pounding
and gyrating on the dance floor, flashes of silvery,
flaunting cloth, and the plastic glitter of false
affection.  If nothing else, the cheapness of it all
was mesmerizing.  Now if only that voice would let him
focus...

He sighed, setting the glass down.  "They're smarter
than you give them credit for.  It won't be nearly so
easy as you make it sound."

And she *was* underestimating their opponents. 
Greatly so. 

The woman rolled her eyes and tossed her hair over her
shoulder, annoyed that there was contention to her
thoughts.  "Don't be such a pussy.  It's foolproof." 
She narrowed her eyes.  "If anyone is going to mess up
our chances, it'll be you."

The man frowned.  He regretted ever having stumbled
upon the ugly truth to the woman's evening activities;
he regretted not telling the pretty little brunette
who had knocked on his door and getting her to mark
the Other Bitch from one hundred yards, like he
imagined she could in his mind's eye.  Michi Hirugashi
had made him nervous, thrown him off-kilter.  If he
was one for dramatics, he would have said that she'd
thrown his world into a tailspin, set his heart
a-thumping, terrified him, shocked him to the very
core.  Oh, not due to love or lust or obsession or
anything as puerile as that; no, the brunette had
*that look* in her eyes, as if she knew exactly what
was going on, and was circling leisurely until she
found the last puzzle piece.  It had been
disconcerting to say the least.

The man tossed back the rest of the drink and picked
at his shirt unhappily, his mind swimming with
uncomfortably familiar memories of the Hirugashi
woman.  "If I'm going down, I'm taking you with me."

The woman across from him snorted, as if he was the
type of make idle threats.  "I'm well aware."  A
pause.  "And if worse comes to worse..."

The man smiled, vaguely reassured.  "We just show her
the checks."

=====

To: nerriy@tech.co.jp
From; mhirugashi@police.go.jp
Subject: song

Nerri -

I thought this was just too perfect, what do you
think?

"If It Makes You Happy" by Sheryl Crow

I've been long, a long way from here.
Put on a poncho, played for mosquitoes,
And drank till I was thirsty again.
We were searching through thrift store jungles:
Found Geronimo's rifle, Marilyn's shampoo,
And Benny Goodman's corset and pen.

Well, okay, I made this up.
I promised you I'd never give up.

If it makes you happy,
It can't be that bad.
If it makes you happy,
Then why the hell are you so sad?

You get down, real low down.
You listen to Coltrane,
Derail your own train,
Well who hasn't been there before?

I come round, around the hard way.
Bring you comics in bed, 
Scrape the mold off the bread.
And serve you French toast again.

Well, okay, I still get stoned.
I'm not the kind of girl you'd take home.

If it makes you happy,
It can't be that bad.
If it makes you happy,
Then why the hell are you so sad?

We've been far, far away from here.
Put on a poncho, play for mosquitoes.
And everywhere in between.

Well, okay, we get along.
So what if right now everything's wrong?

If it makes you happy,
It can't be that bad.
If it makes you happy,
Then why the hell are you so sad?

...Right, you don't speak English very well (haha,
Nerri's stupid - oh, God, we're too old for this sort
of crap...), but it basically translates into: we've
done everything, and our life still sucks ass, but
what the hell?  If what we're doing makes you happy,
then why are you so upset over the end results?

Oddly applicable, if you think about it.

Ugh.  Partner asked if I ever thought about what life
would be like if I hadn't gone to medical school; I
froze like a deer in headlights.  My God, how do you
answer that sort of question?  Oh, hell, of course I
know: my husband wouldn't have killed himself over the
bills, I wouldn't be pregnant and marrying Kazuaki,
hell, I probably would have never met him.  Ugh.

Lets go, I just got paid.  I saw a faux rainbow
mother-of-pearl cellphone cover with little
pearl-esque dangly chains in Ginza.  I ache for
something utterly and completely tasteless.

Later - Michi

=====

Things were going incredibly badly.

Certainly, as people who worked together on an imposed
team, they'd had their share of professional
disagreements over professional matters.  But they had
learned how to get along outside of work, and the day
to day paperwork and drag of the office almost never
spilled into the comfortable rhythm of familiarity
they shared in their somewhat touch-and-go friendship.
 It was the only way that they could survive.  Even
without the horrifying and graphic details of the
serial murder, they had other cases, other bodies, and
sometimes, if they dwelled on that too often, they
were certain they'd go insane.

Unlucky for them, circumstance and fate conspired to
drag Ranma's private life into the ugly business fray,
and all hell broke loose.

When Michi had returned to the offices of the Special
Operations center late that afternoon, exhausted from
her trip to the labs, she'd revealed that her
hypothesis about the injections were true.  "I was
right about the insulin," she'd said tiredly.  

With that taken care of left one more gaping issue:

Kodachi.  And how Ranma felt about her.

She would have to hit the issue head on: the Kuno
family was going to be at the Special Operations
offices in less than two hours.  While she'd told him
to leave, get out and away, she thought that they
might as well iron this issue completely.  Maybe,
maybe they *could* go to the chief, and with any luck,
he'd make it one of those quiet, courteous removals
from the case; no face or reputation lost or further
damaged.  Any way she looked at it, they had to talk
about it; all her avoidance tactics had failed and
time was running out.

"Ranma," she said impatiently.

He glanced at her innocently.  "What?"

Michi frowned and turned away, cursing herself as she
did.  

======

To: mhirugashi@police.go.jp
From: rsaotome@police.go.jp
Subject: Re:[none of your business]

Office is booked at your leisure.

Please, please, please tell me who it is?

=====

"Hey," he said lazily, staring at her through hooded
eyes.  

She raised an eyebrow at his expression, unfamiliar
with this facet of his personality.  Vaguely, she
answered with a noncommittal "Hey, you," and peeled
off her coat, dropping her briefcase on the floor,
kicking off her shoes in the entryway.

Kazuaki glanced at his watch, his blond hair looking
brown in the dim lighting.  "You're late," he said
lightly.

Michi frowned, taking a peek at the hall clock.  It
was half past ten: late indeed.  She'd been all
finished and ready to go from work at just after six,
but then there'd been a minor crisis with a toner
cartridge and Ranma's shirt, followed by feelings of
general hilarity and pity.   It had been the first
time she'd laughed in the whole day, and she'd been so
grateful for the opportunity.  Her partner had offered
to feed her, which she rarely demurred, and they'd set
off laughing down the hallway to the kitschy
restaurant that they now frequented.  Ranma asked her
whether or not she had to be home, but Michi said that
Kazuaki wouldn't be home until the next morning, and
she was perfectly content to stuff herself silly with
him.  He'd gotten a big, stupid smile on his face, and
mumbled something about how it was "nice to have
friends again."  And then they'd gone to Ginza to buy
a birthday present for his older, sorta-sister,
Kasumi.  He'd offered to drop her off, but she'd
begged to go along, citing that she would be helpful,
really.  

She shrugged.  "I didn't know you were coming home
early."

His face hardened.  "I left a message for you; I sent
an email."

'Damn!' Michi thought; the tiny, cartoon version of
herself living in the back of her mind stomped her
feet and crossed her arms over her chest in
irritation.  This was *just* the sort of thing that
always happened to her.  Ignore her email one day,
have massive fight with her fianc�.  And it was going
to result in a fight.  Reading all the signs, Michi
wagered that several things would occur as its result:
she would 90cry; Kazuaki would pound on a table; and
finally, in a coup de grace, she'd throw her
engagement ring at him before he stormed out of the
apartment, threatening to go find a prostitute because
"she'd make better company!"

Since they'd started dating, such a thing had only
occurred five times, and since they'd been engaged,
twice.  She threw the engagement ring at him both
because it was a spectacularly wonderful feeling to be
rid of it, even if just for a second, and because it
made a statement that could not be ignored.

She forced a contrite expression to her face.  "Sorry,
then."
 
He closed his eyes for a moment before heaving a
breath.  "I called the wedding planner today."  He
glanced at her as if in challenge, to see if she would
change the subject as she had so many times already. 
"She thinks that if we haul a little ass, we can have
the wedding in just two weeks.  All the preliminary
planning was done months ago."

Michi froze.  Her hand balanced her against the wall,
and she stared at Kazuaki as if he was an apparition,
a ghost, sitting so casually in her living room.  And
it was *her* living room; some small part of herself
declared that he didn't belong there, just as the ring
didn't belong on her finger, just as the baby didn't
belong in her belly.  Just as this macabre sequence of
events did not belong in her life.

'This isn't what I signed up for,' was all she could
think.

"T-two weeks?" she managed.  "That soon?"

Kazuaki nodded, pushing himself up from the chair and
walking toward her slowly.  He understood very clearly
that he was approaching a frightened animal: the Michi
he had met years previous was battle-scarred and
commitment-phobic, and with good reason; she was apt
to run.  When he'd first told her that he loved her,
she'd almost broken into tears.  It wasn't until the
details of her first husband's death became clear that
he'd understood why she was the way she was.

He loved her; that was very clear to him.  If he
couldn't make a marriage work with her, then he'd
never be able to make a marriage work with anyone. 
They moved in rhythm; they had a pulse.  They had bad
times; they had good times; they had incredibly
hopeless moments.  But at the end of the day, if he
couldn't gather her into his arms and breath in the
smell of her hair, touch the side of her face, and
linger there in her embrace, then he didn't know what
he'd do.  It might not have been the most perfect
passion, but it was what he could manage, what they
could do, and that was more than enough for anyone who
knew what love was really like.

"I know you're scared, Michi," he whispered, reaching
out toward her carefully.  "I know this is a lot for
you."  He looked at her hard, his eyes flashing with
anger as he remembered why she was so afraid.  "I
*promise* I won't do what Takashi did to you, okay?" 
Her eyes widened.  "Just," he started, "just please
stop running away from me..."

As his hand brushed along her arm, she jerked away,
fire in her gaze.

"*Don't*," she hissed, beyond rage, "*don't* ever talk
about him like that."  She pulled away further,
backing herself against the wall, all hissing tones
and defensive gesture.  "You don't know anything."

And the panic welled up in his chest; he was losing
her.  

"I didn't mean it like that, Michi," he said,
desperately quiet.

She stared at him for a few moments more before
relenting, too exhausted to go through the motions. 
Her fingers were too swollen to pull off the ring and
throw it, anyway.  And she yearned so much for
comfort, the softness that his arms provided.  She
cursed some part of herself for resigning, for letting
him lay waste to the memory of her former husband,
past lover, first soulmate; but she was *so tired*.

She bowed her head, and Kazuaki released a shuddering
breath.

He pressed no more that evening, but couldn't leave
her, knowing that giving her even an inch would lead
to escape; she'd flee.  And so, carefully, he took her
to bed, gathering the covers around her and pressing
his lips to her pale brow, rubbing her back until she
stopped shaking, until she stopped hiding her tears
and they poured from her soulful eyes, large and
afraid.  She was all broken inside from the murders
she'd been seeing, from the child she was carrying,
and from the burden her first husband forced her to
bear: Michi was a woman fractured between conflicting
interests of varying degrees of guilt.

"I'm so tired," she whispered as he'd slowly
unbuttoned her shirt, kissing her tenderly, if not
sweetly.  It didn't mean "no," not that night.  There
was an understood agreement to their love that night.

And they both knew that if she wasn't tired, it would
have ended.

Sometimes, he would later think, in mute gratitude,
exhaustion was the only thing that bound a man and
woman on the brink.  Sheer inability to force
separation, the sluggish, reflexive familiarity of a
relationship had saved many of heated evening from
turning into a heated divorce.  

The real trial would come when both parties were
recovered.

=====

To: m_tanekada.psych@tokgen.or.jp
From: mhirugashi@police.go.jp
Subject: consultation

Mio -

Thanks so much for the favor.  I know you're already
busy with your regular caseload/client
responsibilities, but this is a really important case.
 Just want to verify a few things from the profile
available to us.  It just seems a bit...I don't know,
formulaic.  

Later - Michi

=====

The bar was filled with the acrid smoke of too many
years of nicotine addicts gathering in too small a
space.  The smell of it was almost choking, and the
immediate need to escape into fresh air was nearly too
much to resist.

But she was there, and that was better than alone.

She was *almost* like The Other.  She had dark hair
and dark eyes; though the hair was too auburn, the
eyes too green, altogether wrong altogether.  Still,
she had a way about her, one that had drawn him to her
once almost a year ago at a party, and they'd fumbled
about in a back room briefly before they'd come to
their senses.  Two shots and a couple of calmer
moments later, they'd escaped into the nightscape,
understandably toward their respective significant
others at the time.

"So," he said, looking at her expectantly.

He had been surprised when he'd gotten the call that
evening.

She smiled at him faintly.  "I didn't want to be alone
tonight."

'Neither did I,' Ranma thought oddly.  "I got that. 
How are you?"

She shrugged, cupping an ice cube in her tongue,
talking around it in all brandy-colored slurs, "Not
bad, really.  My husband's gay."

Ranma raised his eyebrows.  "That so?"  Nerima
prepared him for anything.  He'd walked into the bar
as a woman and been hit on by a crossdresser before
stepping into the men's room and remerging with a
penis firmly in place.  Gay wasn't worth batting an
eye; weird was his forte.

She nodded, unperturbed by his reaction. 
"Apparently."  She smiled at him ruefully.  "Surprise,
surprise!"  She threw back the rest of her drink and
stared around the bar, noting the people there: all
reasonably young professionals, not of the generation
where men all left their wives to sing karaoke, but
old enough to have their own troubles to drown away in
liquor.  She caught Ranma's gaze again and said, "Do
you mind?"

He blinked.  "Mind what?"

She looked annoyed.  "The agreement was pretty
simple."

"Oh," he said hastily.  "That.  Not at all."

Ranma had been introduced to the concept of a "booty
call" sometime during his twenty-third year of being
alive.  He'd unwittingly involved himself in such a
tactic agreement by exchanging fluids once with a girl
in college; he had not known that the invitation was
permanent until something else intervened.  In the
end, it had not been so much of a bad experience as it
had been bizarre: he'd never cheapened sex so much
that it could be contracted, offered and granted in
the form of "Well, yeah, I *did* screw you *last*
week.  Guess it's fair."

Now?  Now, he was grudgingly in love with a woman who
had whored herself out, gotten herself caught, and
been a heroine addict.  Now, he was still patently
obsessed with a dark-haired, purple-eyed goddess who
grew flowers to hide her ugly past and all the secrets
and lies and the quicksilver tongue that had cut him
deeply.  Now, he had a flighty partner who seemed
half-convinced she wanted her baby half the time, and
half-convinced she wanted to get as far away from her
job and her biological state as possible.  Now, he
didn't have time to romanticize the physical process
of sex; it was release, and he needed it desperately. 
If she hadn't called him, he would have called her.

And he needed to pretend *so badly*.

He flushed deep red as they were stepping into her
apartment.  "You care what names you might here
tonight?"  Calling out the wrong name was a particular
concern: casual sex + names = possible disaster. 
There were only so many ways to trivialize fucking.

She snorted, peeling off her jacket and grabbing his
tie, pulling him toward the bedroom as he ran his
hands under her shirt.  "As long as it ain't Kenji..."

He couldn't help it, drowning in recrimination, filled
with anger, and buzzing with liquor coupled with
confusion, he pounded into the satin-soft hot of her. 
For the moment, for however long they lasted together
before he gave up and gave in, spilling useless, dead
seed in her, they would be apart from themselves,
something more than their component miseries, above
their mistakes.  

For the moment, they were free.

He heard her breath catch, and he didn't try to hold
back.  They shattered together, so grateful for this
moment, and terrified of what they'd return to once
they came back to themselves.

=====

All feedback welcome. :)

- ling




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