Soun Tendou was awakened by the twittering of a family of swallows that had nested outside his window. They were noisy birds, but he didn’t mind; swallows always reminded him of his wife. She had loved to watch the birds feeding their nestlings; listening to the chirping made her seem close again. This was his favorite time of day, early in the morning before anyone else was up. He dressed, folded his bedding, and opened the little shrine.
“Ranma came back yesterday, Kimi-chan,” he told the smiling picture. “He and Akane are getting along so well now, I’m sure they will marry soon. And Kasumi is going to be a mother. If only you were here with me… but you are, aren’t you?” He could almost sense her presence as he closed the shrine and went to the kitchen to see if Akane had started breakfast yet.
She hadn’t. The kitchen was empty, as neat as Kasumi had left it the night before. This was unusual; Akane was usually up before him. He went upstairs to call her.
Something was wrong. Her door was wide open; she always kept it closed. And inside…
Her room looked like it had been through a typhoon. Drawers had been pulled out of her dresser and dumped, their contents tossed everywhere. The storage boxes in her closet had received a similar treatment. It took him a moment to see through the mess and realize that her bed hadn’t been slept in…
All he could think of was the time she had been snatched away by a flock of great black birds, and all the insanity that seemed to follow Ranma as surely as water flowed downhill… no, not my baby, not my little girl, not when she finally has her happiness after so much pain… he was running, running down the hall to the guest room, this was all Ranma’s fault, the boy had to do something… he flung open the door…
And froze, staring in surprise and embarrassment at the tangle of limbs and bedding on the floor. Ranma sprawled on his back, one arm around Akane, who was curled up against him with her head on his chest. Both of them naked, Akane’s pajamas and Ranma’s boxers flung to the corners of the room. Akane was smiling, the same happy, contented smile that he had loved to watch on Kimiko’s sleeping face. He had always thought that Kasumi was the one of his girls who looked most like their mother, but now Akane’s resemblance to her stabbed his heart. He remembered…
She pulled him inside quickly. “Come on! I don’t think any of the neighbors saw you.” It was highly doubtful they could have seen; the fog was so thick he could barely make out the far side of the street.
“What’s the big secret?”
“Everybody’s gone!” She smiled at him, that special smile that twisted his heart and made her seem like the cutest girl in the world, and then she twined her fingers in his hair and pulled him down for a very thorough kiss.
“Anou…” he managed to mumble when she finally let him up for air. He had never seen her like this. What could have happened to her?
“They all went out! We’re alone,” she repeated, kissing him again. “Come on!” She led him up the stairs to her room.
“Ma-masaka,” he stammered, scratching the back of his head in embarrassment. “It’s only a few days… you mean you want to…”
She looked into his eyes, her own serious and determined, as her hands moved to the fastenings of his shirt. “I know. It’s only a few days until our wedding. Have you thought about what that means? All of them, everybody, downstairs. Listening for us to make any noise. Waiting for us to do it. Thinking about us doing it, like they were watching.” She looked down, tears starting. “I don’t want it to be like that,” she whispered. “Not our first time. I want it to be special, just for us.” Her hands stole under his unbuttoned shirt and ran up his back, cool against his hot skin. “Please?”
He slipped his hand under her chin, tilting her face up for a kiss. “I want it to be just for us too,” he said, and began undoing her blouse, his hands awkward on the small buttons.
The sound of a car door snapped her fully awake. “Psst! Wake up!”
He mmmed in drowsy contentment, and tried to pull her down beside him again.
She jabbed her elbow into his middle. “Wake up, baka!”
“Mmph? Hey, whaddya do that for?”
“Idiot, I just heard the car! You have to get out of here now!”
He sprang out of bed, hastily pulling on boxers and pants, fumbling with shirt-fastenings. She flew into her clothes, pulled the covers over her bed, and opened the window. “Be careful, the tiles might be slippery.”
He kissed her one last time, wanting to keep the feel and taste of her as long as he could. But he could hear voices in the house now, and a step on the stairs… he swung his long legs out the window and was gone over the roof, silent as the mist that cloaked his departure. Behind him, the window closed and locked.
And he remembered what came after…
“Stop pacing, son,” his father-in-law grumbled.
“I can’t help it, Otousan. It’s been so long.”
“Worrying and pacing won’t help her, it’ll only wear you out.”
“I know that – I just feel so helpless!” He stared unseeing at the thick mists outside.
“You can go in now.” He whirled, startled; he had been so lost in his own musings that he hadn’t heard the door open and the nurse come in. The two men followed to a small, white room.
She looked very small in the complicated bed with its rails and cranks, pale and tired, but so very proud and happy as she gazed down at the tiny pink bundle next to her. “Look, isn’t she perfect?”
“She’s beautiful – just like her mother,” he said with that special glow in his eyes.
“And the next one will be a boy, na?” her father put in. “A son to inherit the School of Anything-Goes Martial Arts.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, dangerously sweet. “After all, girls can be martial artists too.” She turned to the sleeping baby. “Maybe you’ll grow up to inherit the dojo, ne?”
“Not this one,” her father replied. “She’s going to be a perfect little lady, won’t you, hime-chan?”
The baby slept on, sweetly oblivious to the adults’ plans.
“So, son, what are you going to name your daughter?”
He looked out the window at the thick mist, so like the mist on the night she’d been conceived… “We’d thought of calling her… Kasumi.”
One thing hadn’t changed: Ranma could still sleep through an earthquake, and Akane was little better. As quietly as he could, Souun slid the door closed and, cat-silent, padded downstairs. Let them sleep; he’d go freeload breakfast from Kasumi.
NOTES, EXPLANATIONS ETC.
Kasumi, of course, means mist. If you’ve seen the video for “In the Middle of Class in Elementary School” then you’ve noticed how much Akane resembles her mom as a girl. The swallows come from that video too.
The idea that the dojo originally belonged to Soun’s wife’s family comes from one of Joseph Palmer’s fics. I know there is no canonical name for Mrs. Tendou, but it’s awkward to use her in a story without naming her, so I followed the lead of many others. I tried renaming her Tsubame (which means swallow) but it just felt wrong.
Love-in-a-mist is a pretty blue flower. I just used that as a title because of this possible origin of Kasumi’s name. (Also see “Red” and “Yellow” by Palmer, though I really wasn’t thinking in that direction when I wrote this.)