Washu's Penitence

For Jordan

Tenchi Muyo! and all its trademark characters belong to Pioneer LDC and
AIC.

Chapter 2: Closeness

'And you may ask yourself "How do I work this?"
And you may ask yourself "Where is that large automobile?"
And you may tell yourself "This is not my beautiful house..."
And you may tell yourself "This is not my beautiful wife!" '
- The Talking Heads

'Green grass grows around the back of your shit-house.
That is where the sweetest flowers bloom.
We are flowers growing in God's garden,
That is why He spreads the shit around,'
- David Byrne

' "I didn't raise you to be a good for nothing!"
"You didn't raise me at all." '
- Washu & Ryoko

**

Washu kicked her feet up, accidentally knocking someone's newspaper
out of their hands in the process. It sure was crowded on this bus, she
thought. All these people, all going to new places or going home, or
maybe even just enjoying the ride. This orange bus was like a giant
sardine can of interesting character specimens, she thought with a
smile, as she bent down to pick up the man's newspaper. Handing it
back to him, she saw he'd fallen asleep in his seat already, so she
just placed it in his lap. He must've had a long journey already.
Washu wondered just how long it'd be before he got to where he was
trying to get to. He had a completely different look to the lady he was
sitting next to, for she was concentrating on a laptop computer that
she'd set up on the empty seat beside her. They probably weren't
together. they were too far apart.

"Are we nearly there yet?" Ryoko asked, staring out of the window at
a news agency across the road. It had taken a lot of convincing, but
Washu had managed to get the girl to agree to this trip. Most of the
convincing involved promising never to do something like this ever
again, but Washu had no problem with that. After all, they only had
about five and a half hours before the diagnostic would be completed,
and then there'd be no reason to ask her to leave the house again.

"It's the next stop, don't worry," Washu replied. She had her
'Greatest Scientific Genius In The Universe' shirt on (she'd had
the 'And Mom' part erased, since it would probably look strange for
a child to wear a shirt that proclaimed her motherhood), and was wearing
shorts that redefined the definition of trim. She loved being able to
play dress up in this form. "Why don't we play a game?"

"No," Ryoko grumbled.

"C'mon, I'll start," Washu chirped. "I spy with my little
eye."

"I'm not playing," said Ryoko.

"Something beginning with." Washu carried on, her eyes surveying
the dirty insides of the bus.

"Whatever," said Ryoko, turning away from the scientist and reading
some of the graffiti on the seat she was on. Boy, some girl named Susie
sure got around, it seemed.

"Something beginning with 'T'!" Washu said.

"Tenchi?" Ryoko gasped.

"No, you nincompoop," groaned Washu. "Is that all you can think of?"

"Well," Ryoko began.

"Don't answer that," Washu said. "It was 'ticket',"

"What was?" Ryoko asked.

"This is gonna be a fun day," Washu observed, sarcastically. Out of
the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of some movement. Twirling
around in her seat to see what it was, she realized it had only been her
reflection in the window of the bus. Bemused, she blew on the window and
watched as the air from her mouth condensed on the glass and formed a
sort of foggy effect where her reflection had been. She blew harder and
didn't stop blowing until her entire half of the window was covered in
the misty residue.

"What're you doing?" Ryoko asked, utterly perplexed.

"Try it," invited Washu, pointing at Ryoko's side of the window.
Ryoko took a deep breath, huffed and puffed, and then finally let loose
a gust of wind that probably would have broken the window if Washu
hadn't tapped her on the arm. "That's enough, hun,"

"I don't get it," Ryoko frowned, kneeling on her seat and staring
at their now faded image.

"Watch," Washu said, placing a finger on the window and running it
across the glass, circling and dotting every so often, until she had
formed the words 'Ryoko and Washu' in the condensation. "You try!"

"Hmmm," Ryoko thought. Then, she blew over the second half of the
window's scribble and replaced it with 'and Tenchi', adding a few
hearts to either side of it. "There, that's more like it,"

"Oh, you!" Washu giggled, and the two of them proceeded to fight
over just how the sentence should read, until Ryoko, in a fit of
childish anger, simply rubbed out the entire message.

"There, are you happy now?" Ryoko sulked, dark shadows deepening
under her eyes.

"Ryoko, it was only a game," Washu said.

"I didn't feel like playing right now," said Ryoko. "I'm going
to your damn library, isn't that enough?"

Washu looked into the cloud of clear Perspex that Ryoko had torn into
the misty breath with her fingers. She sighed, knowing that it was going
to be nearly impossible to develop some kind of bond between herself and
Ryoko. She considered simply giving up, and passed her snow-white hands
across the window in dismay, ridding it of their dual exhalation.

Then, within the exposed glass, she saw the reflection of a man who was
sitting two seats across and to the left of her. He was quite unlike any
other man she'd seen before (or at least she assumed this was the
case. There were lots of men from her past that she couldn't remember,
you see), and he instantly struck her as remarkable. Though for what
reason, she couldn't quite understand. The man was rather bulky, and
not from being a muscular athletic sort. His chubby, rounded face gave
away his worn body state. Not that he was unattractive, he could've
looked jolly and fun, if he weren't sitting in a dingy bus that
would've sapped anyone's charisma. His hair was a long, tangled, red
mess, and it passed across a face that looked to be near the palest
shade of grey. His hazel eyes appeared to meet her gaze, as she watched
him with intrigue. He was wearing a light blue sweatshirt that was baggy
enough to hide what was probably a seriously out- of-shape body. Washu
blushed as she envisioned the man worrying about the size of his chest,
and she felt bad for doing so. She turned to him, and almost outright
apologized for doing such a thing. Instead, she felt her common sense
overwhelm her sudden surge of hormonal imaginings, and simply cleared
her throat.

"Hey, Washu," Ryoko said. "Isn't this our stop?"

"Huh?" Washu asked. The bus had stopped while she was paying notice
to the stranger. "Oh, right, we'd better get off then,"

Washu began to sing to herself to keep from looking over at the man when
they passed by, but surely enough, she did anyway. Goosebumps flared in
abundance over Washu's legs, her kneecaps feeling like they could give
way at any moment, as she watched the man sitting there. She was
awe-struck, and couldn't tell why. She didn't even find him cute.
much.

"Please don't let him look up and catch me staring at him, please,
please, please," Washu chanted in her mind.

Perhaps he was some kind of mind reader, or perhaps fate had just thrown
Washu a pair of snake eyes, or perhaps the day had just decided to get
off to a sucky start, but the man did indeed roll back his eyelids and
look up as she passed him by. Attempting to regain her composure, she
stuffed her hands into her pockets and walked stiffly along the aisle,
hoping that if she put on the most ridiculous display possible and
pretended it was natural, it would somehow cancel out how embarrassed
she was feeling. It didn't work, and she started to sweat. The
butterflies in her stomach were having a field day, and her heart was so
pumped up that she could picture it thumping out of her chest in some
out of control, cartoonish way.

"Washu, quit horsing around and get off the bus," Ryoko snapped,
shoving Washu along.

"R-right," Washu smiled, taking one last look at the man before she
stumbled forward.

But he hadn't even been looking at her.

He was looking at Ryoko.

**

The library was warm, much warmer than the miserable insides of cheap
public transit they'd been forced to put up with on the way. Not too
warm, though, like some of the fusion outlets Washu had often needed to
stick her head inside to get a closer look at her experiments. No, this
was a comfortable warmth, and as the old children's story with the
golden haired girl and the three hungry bears went, it was "just
right". Dull red carpets paved cities of shelved books that just
waited to be discovered, their literary magic begging to be unleashed,
and every surface was free of dust. The wood was polished and well
tended, dazzling bronze circlets sprung from the oaken finish, and from
the mauve painted ceiling hung chandeliers tipped with golden orbs of
light. It was a veritable maze of stacked fortunes of art, and all
around them were tourists and travellers, every one searching for
life's answers between lines of text, or just a good book to rest with
for an hour or so. It reminded Washu of her days in the Imperial Science
Academy, students rushing this way and that, information on the tips of
their fingers, struggling to better themselves. This house of culture
was preferable, however, since Washu was always fond of a more relaxed
approach to learning. Not that there was much left for her to learn, of
course.

"Look at all these nerds," said Ryoko, standing beside Washu. "We
could write 'Nerd Convention' in big letters outside, and nobody'd
ever notice there was a difference,"

"How enthusiastic of you," Washu replied. She'd almost forgotten
Ryoko's presence, and was reminded of how the man had chosen to look
to her daughter instead of herself. She let out a sigh. "Listen, could
you try to enjoy yourself?"

"Uh.?" Ryoko grunted, looking down at her.

"Have fun," said Washu. "Please?"

"Oh, sure!" Ryoko cackled, bringing her hands together and charging
up a bolt of electricity with which she intended to knock over a couple
of book shelves like dominoes.

"Safe fun," Washu said, grabbing her daughter by the shirt and
yanking it downwards so that they were at eye level.

"But I would be safe," Ryoko replied. "It's everyone else
who'd be in trouble!"

"Just go read something that'll keep you occupied for a few hours,"
Washu said. "Can you do that for me?"

"I could've done that at home," Ryoko muttered, strolling into the
literary labyrinth with a look of disdain on her face.

"Did it ever occur to you that getting out of the house is good for
you?" Washu asked, catching up to her.

"Hey, I get out of the house a lot more than you do, smart alec,"
said Ryoko.

"That's why I'm out here," said Washu. "It's good for me.
Good for the both of us,"

"You could've just come alone, it's not like I need the exercise,"
Ryoko said, pretending to inspect the bookshelves.

"If you're that against it, why don't you just go home?" Washu
asked, her back to Ryoko.

"You know what? That sounds like a good idea," Ryoko said, fading
out. "Bye, mom,"

"Bye." Washu sighed, turning around to watch Ryoko disappear out
of sight. Fortunately for them, nobody seemed to notice, as everyone
else was too involved in their book reading. Washu grabbed a copy of
Lord of the Flies, and placed herself down at one of the tables
specially reserved for reading. The library didn't feel anywhere near
as comfortable anymore, and Washu felt herself fidget in her chair many
times, as she began to read once again (for the novel wasn't
unfamiliar to her) about Ralph, Jack, Piggy, and Simon.

"What's that, a book about a guy who makes pants?" Ryoko asked,
leaning over Washu's shoulder.

"Heh," Washu laughed, looking up into the yellow eyes of the space
pirate and beaming at her. "Not exactly,"

"Oh no, don't give me that look," Ryoko said. "I only came back
because I knew you'd need me to help explain all the hidden meanings
behind. the. that kid's called Piggy? Hahaha! That's the
stupidest name I ever heard, who wrote this thing?"

"Hey, at least he's not called Spot," said Washu.

**

Lord Katsuhito surveyed his shrine with pride. Though he had grown old,
and he had been forced to pretend that the hands of time had wrenched
from him his youthful appearance, his shrine's beauty seemed to grow
with every sunrise. Very few places in the world could have been as
idyllically picturesque as this, his own home. Then again, what man
could say any different?

"Ah, but it is a home for many," he remarked, rising from his state
of meditation on the hillside. "And this simply multiplies its
covetable brilliance. For every household member I take within these
walls, I am adding to the colors of the rainbow that shines down upon my
home, for it is a true pot of gold,"

"Miaow!" Ryo-ohki agreed, scampering over to his resting place and
hopping about.

"And what magnificent colors even the little Ryo-ohki brings!"
Katsuhito chuckled. "Hello there,"

"Miaow miaow!" Ryo-ohki purred, casting her sight towards the
forest. Not far behind her, Sasami came panting up the hillside and
collapsed, exhausted.

"Ryo-ohki, you shouldn't run off like that when I'm trying to give
you a bath," Sasami wheezed. "She's normally okay with it, I
don't know what happened,"

"Miaaaaow!" Ryo-ohki hissed, pointing with her nose to the horizon.

"What is it, little one?" asked Katsuhito, puzzling at Ryo-ohki's
discontent.

"She just jumped out of my hands and ran out the door," Sasami
explained. "She's so naughty. Baths are important, Ryo-ohki, you
know that,"

"I fear it's more than that," Katsuhito said. "Look,"

"Huh?" Sasami blinked.

Over the hill and towards the edge of the forest, where shadows crept
and leaves turned brown at the edges, something sinister was moving. It
didn't walk, and it didn't crawl, it merely shambled with a purpose.
Slipping under the cover of grass, it snaked its way forward towards the
three of them, crumpling the delicate blades in its path, until finally
it revealed itself to them, unfurling in clumps of hair and teeth.
Ragged patches of flesh and fuzz rolled into a ball, it squinted at them
through one good eye and sneered through gnarled fangs of disgust.

"Oh, it's a bunny!" Sasami giggled, getting to her feet. The
ugliness of the thing was lost to her innocent mind, and all she could
see was something to cuddle and feed and pet 'till it was all grown
up. Katsuhito, however, could see quite clearly what it was.

"Don't go near it, Sasami," he warned, with a cold edge to his
voice that froze Sasami in her tracks. "It could be dangerous,"

"It's just a bunny," said Sasami, though she too was starting to
feel something was amiss. "What harm could it do?"

The creature flared its nostrils, peeling back layers of putrid skin and
blowing snot through scabrous flesh. Baring its sharp teeth, which it
ground with intense revulsion, it slithered forwards in the direction of
the shrine.

"Should we stop it, Lord Katsuhito?" Sasami asked.

"Miaow!" said Ryo-ohki, taking the opportunity to charge forward.

"No, Ryo-ohki! Stop!" Sasami yelled.

It was too late, as Ryo-ohki ran right up to the rabbit and growled
incessantly. Sasami covered her eyes, expecting a brutal display of
clashing claws and teeth, but instead, nothing happened. The ugly rabbit
just ignored Ryo-ohki, and continued on its way to the shrine. The
cabbit, however, ran back to the others, trembling with fear as if it
had just seen a ghost.

"Ryo-ohki," Sasami said, picking the timid little thing up in her
arms. "It didn't hurt you, did it?"

"Miaow," Ryo-ohki whimpered, shaking her head.

The three of them watched the unusual creature as it carried on down the
hill, its hairless behind shifting about between the grass.
Katsuhito's eyes narrowed, as he saw the rabbit turn its head in his
direction and mouth something that, when seen from such an unpleasant
pair of lips, became nearly unspeakable in his mind. The sunlight
fractured as its crooked eyes bent in a sly wink, a glint of metallic
red pricking the air around its pupils, as it once again began to home
in on the shrine.

"I'm late," it had said.

**

"Absolute idiocy!" the blue haired old lady said with as much
strength as she could muster in those flapping gums of hers.

"What, you mean you have a better idea?" Ryoko grinned, putting down
her copy of An Inspector Calls. The entire group of fifteen, including
Washu and Ryoko, was sat in a circle around one of the discussion
tables. Thirteen of them were starting to wish they hadn't taken a seat
at this particular one today. Washu, however, loved watching her
daughter get caught up in heated debate.

"The notion that Inspector Goole is an intergalactic bounty hunter
sent from across time and space," the old lady, whose name was
apparently Megumi, was really getting cross at Ryoko for her admittedly
silly ideas. "Well, it's ridiculous!"

"So's your wig," Washu giggled, prompting laughter from Ryoko.

"Insolence," said Megumi, fumbling with her knitting.

"Well," Washu shrugged. "I do think she may have a point. The
inspector isn't any ordinary officer of the law,"

"Yeah," Ryoko said, pointing at her copy of the play. "I mean,
check it out, he doesn't even have a face,"

"That's just an artistic interpretation," another of the fold, a
young man named Junichiro, piped up. "His facelessness could represent
that he is, in a sense, a characterized misnomer. That the inspector
himself isn't a separate individual, but the visualization of every
character's conscience come into being,"

"You mean they forgot to draw his face?" Ryoko blinked. "Musta
been drawn by a dumbass,"

"I can't take much more of this," said Noriaki, a little man with
reading spectacles and, from what Washu could tell, some kind of
sociality disorder. "Can we please move on to a different book?"

"Hey, Washu," Ryoko said, leaning over to the red head scientist.
"We could do that book about the guy who makes pants!"

Washu smiled and shook her head at Ryoko, who fell back into her seat
and continued to frustrate and infuriate the group with her less than
intellectual observations. Washu listened, simply to hear the sound of
Ryoko's voice, and to remember it. But her eyes were wandering, and
soon she caught a glimpse of something that at first she wished she
hadn't seen.

"Oh man, it's him," she whispered to herself. It was the man
she'd seen on the bus, and he was sitting two tables over. He had with
him a copy of an old H. P. Lovecraft novella, and although he appeared
to be reading, Washu could see him cast a glance over at Ryoko every so
often. She rolled her eyes and signalled for Ryoko to come with her, as
she left the table and sauntered over to a bookcase not far from where
the man was sitting.

"I gotta go, but I'll be back to talk more about this 1984 book,"
Ryoko announced to the group. "From the looks of things, it looks like
this Orwell guy got all his facts wrong. I mean, Earth technology sucked
in 1984 in comparison to what he's claiming. Must've been some kind
of moron,"

Ryoko moved over to where Washu was waiting, choosing to ignore the sigh
of relief that emanated from around the table as she left.

"So, what's the deal?" Ryoko asked. "Did I not look to be
enjoying myself enough? What is it?"

"That guy," said Washu, pointing to the skulking figure. "He's
following you around, I think he's stalking you 'cause you're.
well. cute, I guess,"

"Why that fat headed freak," Ryoko snarled, starting off towards the
man. "I'll teach him a thing or two about who's cute,"

"No, wait!" Washu hissed, grabbing Ryoko and pulling her back.
"Just tell him to stop following you around, don't hurt him,"

"Sure, whatever," Ryoko said.

For some reason, Washu felt pangs of sorrow as she heard the
indifference to this man in Ryoko's voice, as if simply not caring
whether or not he was infatuated with her was a completely foreign idea
to Washu. She watched Ryoko wander around the bookcase and over to the
man, hoping Ryoko wouldn't do anything rash. Of course, hoping for
something like that is about as useful as praying the sun won't rise
in the morning.

"Just what the Hell do you think you're doing?" Ryoko asked him.
The man looked up, bashfully. Washu noticed that, even in this warm
environment, he still looked quite pale and lonesome.

"Um," he said. "Have we met?"

"No, but you sure seem to want to meet me," said Ryoko, bending down
with her elbows on the table. "So, c'mon, let's talk. Who are you,
where are you from, what the Hell's your problem, etceteras?"

"I'm sorry," he replied. "I don't know what you mean,"

"You've been following me," Ryoko snapped. "Admit it,"

"I, uh," the man stuttered.

"Listen, I can tell you're probably a real lonely guy," Ryoko
said, a dry smile etched on her face as she tweaked at his self-esteem.
"But this is no way to go about fixing that. Get some exercise, bud.
Stalking people's not gonna get you anywhere,"

". Okay," the man said, rather confusedly.

"There, another patient cured by Doctor Ryoko," she sang happily, as
she skipped away from him. She opened her arms proudly upon reaching
Washu. "How'd I do?"

"I should probably go and apologize to him," Washu sighed.

"Huh? For what? What'd you do?" asked Ryoko, but Washu had already
tip-toed over to where the man was sitting.

"Ahem," she coughed, shyly. He turned to look at her, and for the
very first time, Washu saw the brightness in his face as he smiled,
those rosy cheeks of his rising up and turning his eyes into crescent
jewels.

"Hi," he said.

"My name's Washu," she said, shuffling her feet. "I'm sorry
for the way my friend acted, she can be a little brash at times,"

"I understand," the man smiled, understandingly. He reached out with
his right hand and invited Washu to shake it. She did so, blushing.
"I'm Jerry,"

"Hi, Jerry," she said.

"Hi, Washu," he said.

"Hi, freaks," Ryoko said, butting in. "Say, Washu, why are you
being chatty with the guy who was following me around like some animal?"

"I'm sorry, but I think you've got the wrong idea," said Jerry.
"I wasn't following you, I'm just been sitting here reading,"

"That's not what Washu s-." Ryoko began.

"Yeah, Ryoko," Washu interrupted her. "How could you be so
paranoid? Honestly, sometimes I wonder why I hang out with you,"

"Wh.?" said Ryoko, taken aback. "Washu, you little runt!"

"It was just a misunderstanding," said Jerry. "Forget about it,"

"Yeah, Ryoko," Washu repeated. "It's all in the past, quit
livin' in the past,"

"Washu, a moment ago you said-."

"See!" said Washu. "The past,"

"But you were-."

"Didn't I tell you to stop living in the past?" Washu asked.

Ryoko went cross-eyed trying to think of a way to use the present or
future tense in relation to what Washu had just been saying previously,
and instead opted to put one foot in front of the other as she headed
back to the reading group.

"She's such a silly," Washu mumbled.

"She your sister?" Jerry asked. Washu felt tingles all up her spine,
thankful that he was choosing to keep their conversation going.

"No, we're just friends," Washu said. She moved to sit down next
him, and a rather surprised look appeared on his face. "You don't
mind me sitting here, do you?"

"No, that's okay," he replied.

"To tell you the truth," Washu continued, noticing just how large he
was next to her. Sure, in her child form everyone towered over her, but
even if she'd changed to adult form right now. oh, that idea made
her quiver. "I kinda told her you were following her. I thought you
were, 'cause I saw you on the bus outside looking at her. I guess I
shouldn't have jumped to conclusions,"

"Well, that's okay," he said. "If you must know, I wasn't
really reading, I was listening to you guys talk. Funny stuff,"

"Really?" Washu asked.

"Sure," said Jerry. "The way your friend, Ryoko, had all those
guys believing she really meant all that stuff. hilarious, really,"

"Right," Washu laughed. "You don't know the half of it,"

"You ever read any Lovecraft?" he asked, showing her the book he had
been pretending to read. Its cover showed an ascending pillar of pained
faces, with wild red eyes and gaping maws that didn't look like they
belonged with one another.

"I'm not really into that horror stuff," she shook her head.

"That's a shame," said Jerry.

"Is it?" she asked.

"To me, horror is like all the different genres rolled into one,"
explained Jerry, putting the book down so he could face Washu. "You
can have all sorts of stuff happen in a horror story. You can have
elements of romance, or action, or mystery, even comedy, all at once in
a good horror, and have each of them be just as prominent as the scary
parts. But you can't do that with any other genre that I can think of,"

"I guess you're right," Washu said. "The horror stuff always
seems to be so overdone, though, monsters and stuff,"

"I find the monsters in real life far scarier than any storybook
ones," Jerry said.

"Huh.? I don't figure," said Washu.

"People, I mean," Jerry said. "Some of them can be real monsters,"

"That's true," Washu said, quietly. She didn't realize how soft
her voice had gotten. Some of the things he was saying she didn't
exactly agree with, but it felt much nicer to nod along with him and let
him show that jolly face she'd somehow preconceived in her head. "I
know some real monsters,"

"Ryoko?" Jerry said. "She doesn't seem that bad,"

"No, I mean. never mind," she said, deciding not to reveal her
extensive knowledge on the subject of the supernatural.

"That's a cute shirt," Jerry said, looking down at her chest.

"Oh, you like it?" Washu asked. "I made it myself. It's true,
y'know, I am the greatest scientific genius of the universe!"

Washu expected Jerry to say something mildly condescending or
patronizing along the lines of "Of course you are,", but instead he
just smiled and nodded like she'd just made a comment on how nice the
weather was outside.

"So, what do you do for a living?" she asked him. "I bet you
probably have about five different business companies world-wide, with
your own private secretary and everything,"

"I wish," he laughed. "No, I don't really have anything going on
in my life, right now,"

"Me either," said Washu. "Except for being the greatest scientific
genius of the universe, and all,"

"Must make school kind of a drag," Jerry said.

"School?" Washu asked. "Oh, right. Yeah, it bores me. But it's
fun to be able to answer any and every question the teachers put to me,
and watch the looks on their faces when they can't stump me,"

"Do you really think you have all the answers?" he asked her.

There was something about him that Washu couldn't put her finger on;
he captivated her attention like an anomalous test subject she'd been
experimenting on. Maybe it was the way he listened to everything she
said, and didn't judge her for her apparent age. He treated her just
like any other mature human being, not as a child. She didn't even get
that kind of respect from much of the Masaki household. Was it all to do
with her size, or her attitude? But Jerry, it was as if he could see
through all that. He was a true rarity. She wanted to analyse him in so
many, many different ways.

"I don't know," she eventually replied.

"Well, there's one you don't have," Jerry pointed out.

"That ain't fair, ya took me off guard," said Washu, shoving him
playfully.

"Heh, sorry," said Jerry. He hid his smile for a second.

"Don't apologize, it's nothing," Washu said.

"Sorry," Jerry said.

"You're doing it again!" giggled Washu, jabbing him in the ribs
with her elbow, forcing him to break a grin through once more.

"Okay, I'm not sorry," he said.

"That's better," Washu said, placing her hands on her hips and
pouting. "Now, don't ever let me hear you apologizing again,
y'hear?"

"Yes, ma'am," Jerry said, with a mock salute.

"Did you call me ma'am?" Washu asked. She blushed, holding down
the urge to insist he call her Little Washu.

"Yeah," he said, softly. He cocked his head at her, probably amused
by the color of her face (which was quickly turning the same color as
her hair).

"I like that," Washu said. "Want I should call you sir, now?"

"No, that's alright, I don't know if we want people to think we
have some weird relationship going on," Jerry said, with more anxiety
in his voice than he probably intended to let out.

"Perish the thought, sir," Washu said.

**

Mihoshi pirouetted about the house, ducking past an angry Kiyone and
almost running straight into Sasami, who was sitting on the stairway
playing with Ryo-ohki. This was a very special time of day for her, as
it was time to clean the rooms. And, as always, she would do the rooms
sequentially in her special little order, which she'd written down on
a special little note which was kept inside a special little drawer in a
special little.

"Oh my, what comes next?" Mihoshi thought, trying to remember all
the special little things in the house. "A special little. flowerpot?"

She lifted up a flowerpot from the windowsill and looked inside.

"Nope, just a flower in there," she giggled. "Sorry, Mr. Carnation,"

"Mihoshi, just what are you looking for?" Kiyone asked, eyeballing
the blonde Galaxy Police officer.

"Something very little and ever so special!" Mihoshi exclaimed.
"It's vital, and without it I simply can't get anything done!"

"I think you mean your brain," Kiyone grunted.

"No, that's definitely not it," said Mihoshi. "I wouldn't be
able to fit a piece of paper in my brain,"

"You don't say," said Kiyone.

"I do say," said Mihoshi.

"Well, please don't," Kiyone said, entering the living room.

"Mihoshi's so silly, isn't she, Ryo-ohki?" Sasami chuckled,
petting the cabbit's belly.

"Mia!" Ryo-ohki replied. It looked like the cabbit had a brainwave,
and before Sasami knew it, Ryo-ohki was flitting up the stairs and into
one of the rooms.

"Ryo-ohki?" Sasami called after her, but it wasn't long at all
before the cabbit was heading right back down again with a clearly very
special (and really quite little) note. "There you are, heh-heh! Good
girl,"

"Oooh, may I see that?" Mihoshi asked, bending down and taking the
note. She unfurled it and squealed in delight. "Wheeee! This is it!
Thank you, Ryo-ohki!"

"Miaow mia-mia," Ryo-ohki took a bow.

"Of course!" Mihoshi gasped. "A special little order, on a special
little note, in a special little drawer, that's in a special little.
Ryo-ohki! It fits!"

"Mia.?" asked Ryo-ohki.

"Let's see," Mihoshi said, walking along in her very own train of
thought. "First, I must clean Tenchi's room,"

Leaping over the blue haired girl and her friend, Mihoshi bounced
upstairs and, nearly tripping on numerous occasions, made her way to
Tenchi's room. She stood outside the door, holding her breath as she
placed her tanned fingers tightly across the handle. Opening the door,
she leaned inside and saw that Tenchi wasn't around.

"Wheeeeeee!" she cheered, gambolling about as she set to work
dusting and polishing everything in sight. She just loved to clean and
clean and clean everything, and it was especially fun when it was
Tenchi's stuff because he was always so nice to her when she did it
and it was just so.

"M-M-Mihoshi?" she heard him say.

"Oh, Tenchi, I was just." she opened her eyes and saw that she had
been polishing the boy's face, as he sat beside the door. "Oh my
word, I'm sorry!"

"That's okay," he said, rubbing his face. "I'd better go wash
this, though. Is Ryoko around?"

"Well, no, I don't think I've seen her all day," Mihoshi said.
"Are you two playing hide and go seek?"

"Not exactly," he replied. "She thinks I'm at school,"

"Oh, right," Mihoshi said. "Wait, you mean you're not?"

"It's a Sunday, Mihoshi," Tenchi explained.

"Oh my, you're two days late!" Mihoshi squeaked.

"Don't worry about it," Tenchi coughed, putting something down
beside him. Looking at it, Mihoshi could see it was a portrait of his
mother that she had cleaned many times before.

"Did you not want me to clean that picture for you?" she asked.

"Oh, this?" he picked it up. "No, I was just looking at it. I
don't know why, but for days now, I've been fascinated by it,"

"It's only normal for you to be missing your mom, Tenchi," Mihoshi
said, smiling all the while. "I mean, sometimes I miss my parents too,"

"It's not that," said Tenchi. "Well, not just that, anyway. Ever
since dad broke it, I've found myself just staring at it, like
there's something wrong with it and I can't quite figure it out.
It's probably just my imagination,"

"Maybe it needs a good cleaning," Mihoshi suggested. "I'll be
sure to try and fix it up for you,"

"Thanks, Mihoshi," Tenchi smiled, bowing his head as he left the room.

"Now, let's see if we can't get you nice and clean for Tenchi,"
Mihoshi bubbled, picking the portrait up in her clumsy hands. "Oh no,
oops, uh, whoa!"

The picture fell out of her grasp, and she nearly fell over herself
trying to stop it from hitting the ground as hard as it did. But it was
to no avail, and she watched as the glass casing shattered and the frame
snapped like fragile leaves on a winter morning.

"Oh no, oh no," Mihoshi cried to herself, picking up shards of glass
while tears dripped down her blouse. "Tenchi will be so angry with me,
I bet, and he'll. he'll."

Something behind the portrait distracted her from whining anymore. It
certainly wasn't supposed to be there, she thought to herself. Not
that she'd really studied the art of painting, so she couldn't
really be certain, but she did feel fairly sure that it was strange
nevertheless. Her curiosity getting the better of her, she reached out
and pulled the broken frame away from the portrait itself.

"Oh my." she could only whisper, as out from the framework fell
enormous tufts of human hair. This didn't seem right at all, she duly
noted with her patented keen Mihoshi senses.

**

". And vast infinities away," Jerry read aloud, as Washu listened
with baited breath "Past the Gate of Deeper Slumber and the enchanted
wood and the garden lands and the Cerenarian Sea and the twilight
reaches of Inquanok, the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep strode brooding
into the onyx castle atop unknown Kadath in the cold waste, and taunted
insolently the mild gods of earth whom he had snatched abruptly from
their scented revels in the marvellous sunset city,"

He had been reading to her for what must have been over two hours now,
and never once had he stopped to check if she was still listening. He
didn't really have to, for she had devoted to him her undivided
attention, and it would remain his for as long as words passed between
his lips amidst every breath he took. Now that he had stopped, however,
she sat back in her chair and realized she'd foolishly stuffed her
shirt collar in her mouth while she had been concentrating on reading
his lips. The story he'd been telling had passed over her like a warm,
reminding breeze, and she couldn't honestly remember much of it. All
she could tell was that he clearly loved the style and the feelings
behind the words, and she enjoyed watching him love.

"That was nice," she said, suppressing all those big, bountiful
words she desired to use in his presence, for fear that too much
enthusiasm would scare him away, back to whatever paradise he'd been
sent from. "It felt more like a fairy tale than a horror story,"

"Well, true horror doesn't necessarily have to scare the pants off
you," said Jerry.

"Hmm," Washu said, considering the concept of removing pants.

"Though it helps," he continued.

"Right!" Washu agreed. "What's the scariest story you ever read?"

"Any auto-biography by a professional wrestler," Jerry smirked.

"You read those things.?" Washu asked.

"Well, to be honest, no," Jerry admitted. "But the fact that they
expect us to believe that these guys can even put pen to paper is
scarier than any spook story,"

"Certainly," Washu chuckled. "Maybe that's why they call them
ghost writers,"

"Maybe so," said Jerry.

"Hey, are you two nearly done talking?" Ryoko asked, taking them
both by surprise. She was sitting across from them, on the other side of
the table, leafing through a magazine. "It's getting late, you know.
Don't you lovebirds have to get back to your nest?"

"Huh?" Washu blushed; half of her wanting to scream at Ryoko and the
other half wanting to sing like a lovebird. "Why, what time is it?"

"Oh, man," Jerry said, looking up at the cream colored clock on the
wall. "I should've been home an hour ago,"

"I'm sorry," Washu mumbled.

"Hey, I thought we had an agreement," Jerry said. "That neither of
us should apologize to one another,"

"Aww," Washu laughed.

"Blech!" Ryoko mimed hurling beneath the table, much to Washu's
annoyance. "C'mon, you two, wrap it up. If we wait any longer
you'll be turning into some kind of Disney movie,"

"I guess it'd have to be 'The Princess and The Pauper'," Jerry
said jokingly, as he stood up.

"I dunno, Washu isn't that poor," Ryoko said, slapping her knee
jovially.

"Here, let me help you with your stuff," Washu said, bending down to
pick up his backpack, simply so she could hide the strawberry color of
her swollen face. She handed it to him once the redness had faded.
"There you go,"

"Thanks," he said, taking it from her. They exchanged solemn looks,
as they both realized it was time to say farewell. "I guess I'll see
you around, maybe,"

"Yeah, I guess," Washu said, feeling like a student at the Imperial
Science Academy once more. Then, a flash of inspiration brightened her
face, and even though for a genius it was a mere fizzle of an idea,
right there and then it could've been the beginnings of an award
winning invention. "Hey, why don't I give you my phone number?"

"This is too much," Ryoko grinned, remembering to tell the others
when they got back.

"Ahem," Washu coughed, stealing a glance at Ryoko. "Just so that
we can talk some more, and stay in touch,"

"Really?" asked Jerry. Washu couldn't quite translate the look on
his face; it was either shock or wonder. She sure hoped it was the
latter.

"Sure!" Washu said with glee, her hand springing to her pocket
notebook. She quickly wrote down the number for the Masaki house, and
placed it into Jerry's pink, pudgy fingers. "Call me anytime you
like, I'm normally free,"

"Alright," Jerry said. "Thanks,"

"No problem," said Washu. They gazed into each other's smiles for
a moment, and then Washu turned to Ryoko, who was having trouble
containing her laughter. "Shall we go?"

"Ready when you are, mom," Ryoko snickered.

"Don't call me that!" hissed Washu, as she pulled Ryoko along with
her towards the exit.

"Oh, but I thought you liked it when I called you mom," said Ryoko.

"That's not funny," Washu sighed. "I ought to box your ears when
we get home,"

"But what kind of a mother would you be then, huh?" said Ryoko,
clearly enjoying herself. "You're so abusive to me, Washu! I'm
going to run away and join the circus, because the bearded lady
understands me more than you ever will,"

"You're such a loon," Washu muttered, looking back to see if she
could see any sign of Jerry as they left the library. But he was nowhere
to be seen, and slowly every day life and the passage of time faded back
into normality, as her heart stopped thumping with such a high
frequency.

"Speaking of the circus, which one do you think Jerry escaped from?"
Ryoko continued to pester the little red head, until they'd both
teleported back to the Masaki Shrine.

**

"Bon appetit!" Nobuyuki, Mihoshi, and Sasami said in unison, as they
all delved into the feast that lay before them on the dinner table.
Their chopsticks were a blur as they crammed food into their collective
mouths without mercy. In fact the only person who didn't seem to be
eating, surprisingly, was Washu herself.

"Aren't you hungry, little Washu?" Tenchi asked, attracting the
attention of the little genius. "I haven't seen you eat anything all
day, you're normally such a hungry thing,"

"I guess I'm just not feeling too good today," she replied,
twiddling her thumbs.

"Yeah, she's got other things on her mind," chuckled Ryoko, her
mouth full of noodles.

"You mean like mathematical equations and stuff?" Sasami asked.
"She's always got that stuff on her mind, it never bothered her
before,"

"No, this time she's got much bigger things on her plate," Ryoko
grinned, hoping to stir some kind of hateful reaction from her mother.

"She's not got anything on her plate though, that's the problem,"
Mihoshi said, pointing to Washu's empty plate. "C'mon, Washu, have
something,"

"Ryoko, while we're here," said Ayeka, brandishing her chopstick
at the space pirate. "Did you forget to clean out the baths when you
last used them?"

"What're you talking about?" Ryoko asked. "I haven't been home
all day, Washu and I were out,"

"Don't play dumb," Ayeka snapped. "The pipes were all clogged
with your hair, I couldn't get any warm water out of them! What do you
have to say for yourself?"

"Sorry, I thought you were used to being so frigid," said Ryoko,
ducking a chopstick that Ayeka threw at her.

"That's not funny! Tomorrow, you should clean all your disgusting
hair out from those pipes, and I mean it," said Ayeka.

"Whatever," Ryoko yawned, stuffing more noodles into her mouth.

"Hey, Mihoshi," said Tenchi. "I haven't seen that portrait since
I gave it to you. Did you finish cleaning it?"

"Uh, um, about that, uh," Mihoshi giggled, nervously. "I kinda.
broke it. sorry,"

"Not again," Tenchi sighed. "Is the picture okay?"

"Yeah, the picture's okay," Mihoshi nodded. "The frame fell off,
though, and it was all. bad and stuff,"

"You should really have come right out and told me," said Tenchi.
"Oh well, I'll just pay to have it fixed again,"

"Mihoshi, you're such a dunce," Kiyone frowned.

Washu watched them all in silence, never reacting to anything that was
said or interrupting them with something funny she had to say. She was
too busy remembering Jerry, and how he'd treated her with such
equality. That was really all she'd been looking for all this time.
Tenchi had it, for sure, but she thought it had all been part of his
miraculous personality that was so one of a kind. To know that there
were two people, or even more than that, who could see through her with
such clarity; he was like an epiphany she'd had in a dream that had
become reality.

Or maybe she just had a crush on him.

"It's funny," Mihoshi said. "When it broke, there was all this
hair inside it, it was gross,"

"Hair?" Tenchi asked. "Why would that be?"

"Ryoko, did you fool with Tenchi's portrait?" Ayeka accused her.

"I never touched any portrait!" Ryoko scowled. "Maybe it was
little miss innocent over here,"

"Why would I want to cut off my hair and stuff it inside a portrait,
hmmm?" asked Ayeka.

"I don't know. Why would I?" Ryoko replied.

"Because, you're reckless!" Ayeka growled.

"Stop it, both of you," said Tenchi. "Mihoshi, do you still have
it?"

"The hair?" Mihoshi asked. "Ewww, no, I threw it away. But it was
brown, not like Miss Ryoko's hair, or Miss Ayeka's,"

"Brown hair?" Kiyone asked. "None of us have brown hair,"

"Miaow!" Ryo-ohki chirped, pointing out her brown fur.

"Ryo-ohki, are you shedding?" Sasami asked the cabbit.

"Miaow," Ryo-ohki replied, shaking her head.

"That's good," Sasami said, taking out a bright purple comb and
brushing the cabbit's fur. "You have such beautiful fur,"

"Maybe Ayeka dyes her hair," said Ryoko.

"I do not!" replied Ayeka. "You're the one with the ridiculous
hairdo!"

"Shh,"

"Oh yeah?" said Ryoko. "At least I didn't get mommy to cut mine
when I was little,"

"You never cut yours, that's how uncivil you are, you monster!"
said Ayeka.

"Shh,"

"Hey, I'm not the one with the disturbing facial hair," Ryoko smiled.

"What?!" Ayeka gasped, rising to her feet in anger and nearly
knocking the table over in the process. "I've had just about enough
of you!"

"Shh!" Washu said, one final time. Everyone shushed.

"What is it, little Washu?" Tenchi asked. Washu didn't reply, and
just held a finger to her mouth. Indeed, there was some kind of noise in
the background, rather like a low rumbling, as if a herd of giant
elephants were storming by the Masaki Shrine. Then, all of a sudden, an
inhuman roar filled the room as loud as a pyrotechnic display in
Wisconsin.

"Sorry," Nobuyuki said, bowing in shame. "I have gas,"

"Rrrgh," Ryoko grunted. "I was almost scared. How about you,
Princess Wetpants?"

"Is it gone.?" Ayeka asked, crawling out from behind the couch

"Not quite," Washu said, pointing to one of the pots of steaming
noodles in the centre of the table. It was vibrating and bulging as if
it were possessed, and underneath it thick strands of brown hair bulged
outwards.

"W-what's going on?" Tenchi asked, standing up and taking a step
backwards. Sasami and Ryo-ohki joined him, while Kiyone and Ayeka dove
behind the couch (with a giddy Nobuyuki not far behind). Ryoko, however,
wasn't slightly phased by this bizarre turn of events.

"I'm gonna lift it up," Ryoko said, leaning across the table.

"I wouldn't do that," said Washu, who was also inching away from
the bowl.

"Oh, what's it going to do?" Ryoko asked, grabbing the bowl and
preparing to pick it up. "Explode?"

"KABOOM!"

"That's not funny, Washu," Ryoko said, frowning at the supposed
genius.

"Oh, c'mon, it made you jump," Washu grinned, covering her head.

"Bah, I'm just gonna-" Ryoko began.

KABOOM!

Brown hair sprayed over every corner of the room. It got on the food,
the furniture, the fireplace, the windows, and more than anything else,
it got on Ryoko. From her head to her toes she found herself coated in
ghastly fur, it got in her mouth and eyes, and even in her hairdo. It
even got in her clothes! She went into an itching fit, falling over
backwards as she tried to get the hair off her body.

"Ryoko!" Tenchi said, coming to her aid.

"We'd better get the baths ready," said Kiyone, pulling Mihoshi
along with her as she ran out.

"Good luck with that," Ayeka chortled. "There's hair in all the
pipes, it looks like she'll be having an extremely cold bath!"

"Ayeeekaaaa!" Ryoko snarled through the hair in her mouth, but she
was too busy itching and scratching at herself to attack the princess.

Washu watched all of this from the corner of the room, unable to speak.
She wasn't shocked because of the hair, or because of what had
happened to Ryoko, or even because of how little she had managed to eat
before the food had become ruined.

What shocked her was that the explosion had sounded just like her voice.

**

Tenchi placed a warm cup of coffee beside Washu's desk, as she worked
tirelessly at her console once more. She had a cold towel wrapped around
her head, as she went over and over (and over) the events of the day so
far. Hair had apparently been appearing all over the Masaki Shrine, in
places that very few of them had been to in the past week or so. At
first, she had thought it was some kind of malfunction in the simulation
network she'd had running all over the Shrine itself, but when she'd
gotten down to her lab, she remembered she had turned that specific
simulation off before they'd left to run a diagnostic. Nothing was
making any sense, and to top it all off, Ryoko was going nuts upstairs
due to the nasty incident with the hair.

"You can't find anything wrong?" Tenchi asked. "Maybe you
accidentally left the simulation running, and it continued to
malfunction while you were gone,"

"Negative," said Washu. "I've checked all the logs. While I was
gone with Ryoko, the simulation was shut down and there's no way the
outside environment could have been affected in any way, shape, or form
by my computer. The only thing I left up was the simulation net itself,
but without a program it shouldn't actually create images like this,"

"It's got to be something else," Tenchi said. "Maybe like a
sub-dimensional demon that's. throwing hair at us?"

"Unlikely," Washu replied. "I haven't detected any temporal
anomalies or rifts in the past month, nothing could have gotten into our
world without my knowing it. So, unless my entire system is broke."

"Did you check that?" asked Tenchi.

"You really think I wouldn't be able to tell if my system was bust?"
Washu asked, looking at the boy through the corner of her eye.
"C'mon, remember who you're talking to,"

"Right," Tenchi said, blushing a little. "What on Earth could it
possibly be?"

"Well, I'm going through my files," said Washu. "Looking up all
possible entries from the Juraian Science Academy database that mention
spontaneous manifestation of hair. Not getting anything yet,"

"What's that thing on the right of the screen?" Tenchi asked,
pointing to a small yellow box with a red crab icon next to it, with the
words 'phone not in use' written on top of it. "It's been up the
whole time, I've never seen it before,"

"Oh, uh," Washu mumbled. "I'm keeping a check on the phone,
y'know, monitoring it just in case someone should call for me,"

"The phone? You mean, our phone?" asked Tenchi.

"Yeah," Washu said. "You don't mind, do you?"

"Well," Tenchi said, rubbing his chin. "The others might, but. I
guess it's okay with me. But Washu, we never get any calls for you,"

"That's okay," said Washu. "I have reason to believe I'll be
getting a call within the next couple of days,"

As they were speaking, the red crab icon began to blink rapidly, while
the tinny sounds of a phone bell rang on and off from the computer's
speaker system. Tenchi listened, as eventually there was the sound of
someone lifting the phone's receiver, and the familiar warblings of
Ayeka's high pitched greetings buzzed over the line.

"Hello, Masaki residence?" she said, as the icon changed from a
picture of a crab to that of Ayeka's squashed face. The message now
read 'Phone in use - Ayeka'. Mihoshi, Kiyone, and Sasami were all
tending to Ryoko, so obviously Ayeka was the only one of the girls
available to take the call.

"Hi, um, is Washu there?" inquired a distant, unrecognizable male voice.

"See!" Washu giggled, jumping from her floating cushion and skipping
past Tenchi. "Just keep an eye on things while I take this call, okay?
Make sure nothing weird happens, like a system failure. do you know
what that is?"

"Uh," Tenchi shrugged.

"Just make sure nothing blows up," said Washu, as she backed through
the subspace portal. Then, as she faded out of the lab, she cupped a
hand to her mouth and called to him. "And no listening in!"

"Right," said Tenchi, as he looked for a way to turn off the speaker
system so Washu could have her privacy.

"Alright, woohoo!" Washu cheered, rounding the corner and almost
bumping into Ayeka. "Hey, watch where you're goin', princess! Make
way for the greatest scientific genius in the universe!"

"Miss Washu?" Ayeka said, trying to get Washu's attention as she
scooted down the hallway in the direction of the phone. "You have a
phone call!"

"And you haven't!" laughed Washu, thoroughly confusing Ayeka.
Whistling happily, she picked up the receiver and brought back her most
innocent, child-like voice. "Hello?"

"Hey, Washu?" Jerry's voice, it sounded just as wonderful as it
would have if she were standing right beside him. "It's Jerry,"

"Oh, hi!" Washu replied, feigning surprise. "I thought you might
have forgotten about me,"

"Nah," said Jerry. Washu pulled a floating cushion out of a pocket
in subspace and placed herself down on it, savoring his words as if she
were seeing her reflection next to his in a golden nugget of precious
memories.

"Heh," she blushed. "I guess I am kinda hard to forget,"

"I really enjoyed talking with you today," he said, as Washu felt
her head swell. "It's not very often that I get to do that,"

"Well, we only just met," replied Washu.

"No, I mean, talk to people in general," said Jerry.

"I'm sure it could happen more often if you wanted it to," she said.

"I don't know," he said. Something about his tone didn't sit
well with Washu, he sounded almost afraid.

"You did okay with me," said Washu, soothingly. "C'mon, I bet
you'd be a real chick magnet if you just tried,"

"Maybe," the tone refused to leave.

"Jerry, is something on your mind?" Washu asked, pressing her face
close to the receiver. She could make out little jitters on the other
end, like something was being rattled close to the receiver on his end,
and try all she might she couldn't hear him breathing. "Jerry?"

"I'm here," he said.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

"I'm okay," he said. But he wasn't, she could tell. He sounded
desperate, like he'd been reaching out for something and had only just
caught onto it. Like a man who'd fallen down a long, long cliff and
had only just grabbed hold of a branch to steady himself. He was crying.

"Jerry," Washu said.

"No, I'm okay," he sighed. "Damn it,"

"Jerry," she said again, much quieter this time. "What is it?"

Something struck Washu as she began to think about Jerry's apparent
condition. She'd seen him in a crowded bus, all alone, and somehow
she'd felt drawn to him. He seemed shy, and not very confident in
himself, but there had always been this sense that he cared deeply for
those surrounding him. He did seem weak, for sure, but this was only a
physical thing. He was tender, not cowardly. He was crying to her on the
phone, crying to a little girl. Not because he was pathetic. because
he trusted her to hear him cry. He respected her enough to know she
wouldn't laugh at or berate him for opening up like this. Not even
Tenchi would cry for her. Did Jerry know she liked him this way? Could
he feel the way she saw him? Or did he just feel so low that the only
person he could muster up the strength to talk to, was a little red
haired girl who didn't seem to have a care in the world.

But she did care. and she wanted to care about him, with him, for him.

"Maybe I should start at the beginning," he said.

"I'm listening,"

**

His full name was Jerry Alan Hoskins, born to Mr. Gregory Hoskins and
Mrs. Helen Julianna Hoskins (previously Helen Julianna Barnes) in 1974,
and then given away to the Fallen Cedar Orphanage Clinic in
Philadelphia. He'd been adopted by a young Japanese couple, who had
prised him from said clinic before he had a chance to realize his
predicament as a parentally challenged child. He was moved to Tokyo, and
officially became Jerry Tanaka, and it took him all of twelve years to
discover that he looked different to all the other school kids for a
reason.

During his teenage years, depression set in like thick cement, dragging
him down into a bottomless ocean of despair. He didn't seem to be able
to communicate with the other kids around him. Maybe they thought he was
some kind of freak, or maybe he just wasn't very good at the language.
Either way, as a friendless boy whose parents didn't really know what
to do with him, he made his way through his teens alone. Would it have
been the same if he'd been left in that cold orphanage, where the drug
stained carpets and cold handed nurses struggled to tend to a plethora
of underprivileged children? Who knows. He might not have been so
detached from society, though. But is there any real difference between
being locked away in a cheap hospital for the lonely and abandoned,
compared to being shut off from the world around you by a couple who are
very new to this whole "love" thing?

When he did finally set out on his own, life brought him little solace.
He was drastically out of shape (for his parents had overfed him as a
cheap substitute for their affection), and the hard working moral
attitude of the Japanese workplaces didn't really take to him. He
tried with all his might to keep up, but the world moved a step to fast
for him, until finally he was trapped in a bubble made from his past.
Unable to break out or latch on to anything that would've held any
meaning.

So he stopped trying. Happiness had overtaken him, and he didn't have
the strength to catch up. With no way of locating or contacting his
biological parents from this desert island of a mass producing populace,
and no way of breaking through to his new parents (who now simply gave
him money when he begged them for help getting his life back together),
he lost all hope and sat back on his own miserable carcass. He barely
even left the house. He had no job, no life, no friends, and no
self-esteem. He had nothing except the air in his lungs, and it felt
like it was only a matter of time before this polluted planet sucked
that from him too. For he, quite clearly, was a waste of air and space.

**

"Don't say that!" Washu said, louder than she had expected to.
Jerry almost audibly shrank away from her as she snapped through his
diatribe. "Look. you can't be so hard on yourself,"

"Why not?" he asked, his voice soaked in self-pity. "Life's been
hard on me, it's only a matter of time before I conform to its will
and just."

"Oh, cut that out," sighed Washu. She didn't want to let on that
he was upsetting her, but so much of what he said had really pained her.
"Listen to me, you aren't alone. you have me, now. You wanna know
something? I'm surrounded by people. My friends, my family, they're
all around me. but there are times when I feel like the loneliest
person in the universe. There are long stretches of silence that I
can't fill, where words escape me and time stands still, and it puts
everything into a horrible perspective where I feel like I'm going to
break down and cry. All alone in my. my room, when I'm working hard
on my homework, at times it all seems so meaningless. But you know what
stops me thinking that way?"

"What?" Jerry asked, barely able to speak.

"My friends," said Washu. "I could be working in a big office
building with ten thousand workers below me, filing out orders and
barking instructions, with everything resting on my shoulders as the
boss. But what would I be without my friends? I could be the success
story of the year, with my poster on every billboard across the country.
I could be the greatest scientific genius in the universe! And I am, ya
know. But do you think I'm as proud of that as I am of the friends
I've made? Touching another person's life, and watching with them as
they touch another, and another, and another, filling the whole world
with a radiant ripple of respective love. that's something to be
proud of. That's life,"

"I don't have any friends, though," Jerry said.

"Well, now, who're you talkin' to, then?" asked Washu, trying to
put a smile in her voice.

There was a long silence, as Washu took a look around to see if anyone
was listening. She felt a little embarrassed; she'd never really had
to pick someone up from sheer despair before. Jerry had sounded so close
to losing it, that she feared he would have done something rash if she
hadn't been able to convince him he was worthy of life. She reflected
on his adoption. She'd never known anyone who'd been adopted before.
It gave her chills, to think that someone would wilfully cast aside a
child, one full of hopes and ambition, and so full of love. Across the
hallway, she saw the now re-fixed portrait of Tenchi's mother, with a
silver painted frame and candles side by side, keeping their watch of
vigil over the painting. She thought of Tenchi, and how he'd lost his
mother at such an early age. Closing her eyes, she thanked the heavens
above that he hadn't lost his father too.

"My friend," the voice over the phone said. Washu came to her senses
and remembered what she had asked him. "You're my friend,"

"And you're my friend, too," Washu said, wriggling her toes about
inside her shoes joyfully. "And if I have my say, that ain't gonna
change anytime soon, you hear?"

"Okay," Jerry said, with a laugh, making Washu feel proud of
herself, but especially proud of Jerry. "That sounds like fun,"

"Listen," began Washu, lowering her voice so that nobody could hear
her even if they were listening in. "I'd like to talk to you again.
You know, in person?"

"Oh, sure," Jerry replied. "I'd like that a lot,"

"Really?" Washu beamed.

"Of course," he said, without hesitation. "You're a fun person,"

"Awww," Washu said, thankful that he hadn't used the word 'kid'
instead. "And not to mention I'm the greatest-."

". Scientific genius of the universe, right," Jerry finished.

"You're catching on good!" Washu exclaimed.

"Well," said Jerry. "I should probably go now. I don't want to
keep you too long. Besides, if we're going to meet up again, we can
save all we have to say for then,"

"Right," smiled Washu. She liked his way of thinking. "How about
tomorrow?"

"Isn't tomorrow a Monday?" he asked. "Won't you have school?"

"Oh," Washu said, looking at the makeshift calendar that was hanging
above the phone, a picture of Tenchi and Ryoko from the family album
pasted upon it with a green background. Ryoko was wrapping her arms
around Tenchi, almost smothering him, while he struggled to get free. An
extremely frustrated Ayeka had been edited out of the photo, it seemed.
Above them the word 'May' danced in multicolored lettering. Sasami
was quite the artist. "Yeah, um, I have a day off,"

"Really? That's great," Jerry said, enthusiastically. "I'll
meet you at the library?"

"Okay then," Washu said. "We can take a walk together and stuff,"

"You really want to be seen with me," Jerry said. It was more of an
amazed statement than a question.

"Of course," she replied, anyway. "All the other girls'll be
jealous, I tell ya,"

"Yeah, I guess so," Jerry snickered. "Not to mention some of the
guys,"

"And all those in between!" Washu said, continuing their 'joke'.

"Right, right," Jerry said. "Anyway, I'll have to get off the
phone. Thank you for listening, Washu,"

"It's no problem," she said, finally realizing what Sasami had
thanked her for the night before. Confidence, it seemed, was like a
germ, and it was her task to infect everybody with it. "See ya
tomorrow,"

"Bye," he said, as the dial tone rudely blared into Washu's ear to
signify his leaving, like some monotonous royal trumpet. Placing the
receiver down, Washu began to stroll away from the desk in the hallway
when she found herself confronted by the overly inquisitive face of
Ryoko.

"Dah! Where'd you come from?" Washu asked, nearly jumping out of
her shoes.

"Who were you talking to on the phone, huh?" asked Ryoko, poking
Washu in the chest. Her hair was wet, and she was shivering as if
she'd had her feet dumped in a bucket of ice.

"Nobody you know," Washu grinned, winking at her daughter. "How
was your bath?"

"It was that guy, wasn't it!" said Ryoko, waving a book in
Washu's face. "The guy from the library that you met!"

"Were you listening in on me, or something?" asked Washu, tilting
her head at the miffed girl.

"No," Ryoko replied. "Ayeka said that you'd gotten a phone call,
so I just came to find out who the Hell would wanna talk to you,"

"Well, if you must know," Washu said, folding her arms behind her
head in childlike bliss. It gave her goosebumps to be able to boast to
her daughter about a guy she'd been chatting with on the phone.
"Yeah, it was him,"

"Hmmm," Ryoko said.

"Hmmm?" Washu asked.

"Hmmm!" replied Ryoko.

"I see," said Washu. "What's that book you're reading?"

"This?" Ryoko asked, looking down at the book in her hand. On the
cover were the words 'Little Women'. "Heh, I think it's about
freaks like you. See, 'cause you're little! Ha! And. you're a
woman! Ha! Um."

"I sure am," Washu giggled, and with a skip in her step, she ambled
past Ryoko and re-entered her lab.

**

"Do you like vanilla or chocolate?" Jerry asked, offering two
ice-cream cones to Washu, each of a different flavor. He had a red tee
shirt on now, with the top button undone so she could see the pale skin
below his neck and just above his chest. He still wore jeans, even
though she'd told him he would probably feel more comfortable in this
heat if he wore baggy shorts. Maybe it was just her way of trying to get
him to wear fewer clothes. He did have nice skin, though, and she liked
to look at it. Fortunately (though it depended on how you looked at it),
he had lots of skin for her to look at. "Washu?"

"Huh?" she asked, looking up at his face. "Oh, uh, vanilla's
nice,"

"Alright," he said, handing her the vanilla one.

They'd come to a park in the centre of town, where there were lots of
people. Jerry had been a little against it at first; he wasn't one for
places where there were lots of active crowds of pedestrians to look
upon him. That's why he came to the library. Sure, there were people
there, lots of them, but most of them came there to be left alone so
they could sit and think. One of the few quiet places left in this town,
he'd said. All around them were bushes, like miniature hedge-mazes,
with hedge cuttings shaped like farm animals and the occasional white
picket fence. The park itself covered barely any land at all, with roads
filled with raucous motor vehicles all around, all scraping past one
another in order to get to their various places of work or rest in a
hurry as they circled the park like sharks. Washu and Jerry had made
their way to the very epicentre of the grassy island, far from the
hustle and bustle of suburban Japan, where they followed the sound of
sweet instrumental jingles and found a conveniently placed ice cream
van. It felt almost like a make believe date, even if Jerry didn't
consider it as such (for obvious reasons).

"Sure is a beautiful day," Jerry said, squinting up at the sunshine.
His statement almost echoed Washu's sentiment about their outing,
except that hers was on a much more romantic note. "We couldn't have
picked a better one,"

"Affirmative," Washu nodded, licking her ice cream. It was already
starting to melt, and she didn't want too much of it to get on the
ground. Already, there were blades of grass that had now grown white
tips like snowflakes. She smiled, as she noticed Jerry's ice cream was
dripping onto his shirt. She reached forward and caught the brown drops
on her fingertips. "Here, you got a little."

"Oh," Jerry said, flinching a little. He was so timid at times, like
a baby. Then again, he'd never had any real parents, so it was so easy
to mother him like this. Washu felt so attached to him for this reason.
"Thanks,"

"My pleasure," Washu said, understating the fact. She licked her
fingertips and blushed. "So, what do you want to do with me?"

"You probably more about this town than I do," replied Jerry.
Washu's question, from any older woman in her shoes, would have felt
like an absolutely flirtatious remark. But, in both their minds, it
never even registered as such. "Why don't you choose?"

"Hmm," Washu said, looking around.

The more she thought about it, the more she noticed she had no real clue
as to where she was. The few times she'd left the lab were to go on
family outings, or stuff like that, and she'd never really paid any
attention whatsoever to her surroundings. Sure, she could have just
reached into subspace and pulled out a map of the area, and then she
would have been able to read off any number of tourist attractions or
parks or libraries. But if Jerry saw Washu reach into thin air and bring
out a map, or a compass, or anything, he would have been more confused
or afraid than impressed. Those certainly weren't the emotions she
wanted to make him feel, not on their first date. Because in her mind,
it was just that, and she wanted it to go perfectly.

And the more she looked. the less perfect this place was.

"I know just the place," she smiled to herself.

"Oh? Do tell," Jerry said.

"How about your place?" Washu said.

"My place.?" Jerry asked, looking a little worried.

"Sure, if that's okay with you," said Washu, giving him a look
that stirred memories in her heart. It was a look she had long since
forgotten even using. A look she'd given her only son when he
couldn't sleep, as she sang into his ear softly, in a time before he
was taken from her. "Is it?"

"I." he said. A smile crossed over his chubby face, almost joining
at his eyes. He was totally relaxed, as he answered her without fear or
anxiety. "That'd be fine,"

They didn't hold hands as they walked. They didn't even walk side by
side. They didn't cuddle or hug, or even exchange a kiss (Washu knew
that Jerry didn't have that on his mind). But something about the way
their shadows passed over one another behind them as they both trotted
in the direction of the sunlight, gave off a more romantic feel than any
of the other kissing, groping, and fondling couples in the entire park
area put together. The way Washu's shadow, being so small and
delicate, was completely absorbed by his hefty shadow as she stepped
behind him and cooled herself in his shade; it all felt so unreal. Of
course, if you had asked them, they would have to tell you that it
wasn't, that this was just a leisurely walk they were taking to
Jerry's house. Perhaps that was what made it so unreal, so dream-like.

"Here it is," Jerry said, after they had walked several thousand
miles. Or maybe it was two feet, Washu couldn't tell. She'd been so
entranced by their journey that she almost walked right into his
backside when he stopped in his tracks. Taking a step back, she looked
over at the side of the road he was facing.

And there it was. Stuffed in between a dumpster and a long since
demolished flat, his bungalow waited in quiet solitude. It was a real
mess, with litter thrown all over the place (most of which didn't
appear to be Jerry's, unless he had some use for all those condoms and
toilet paper that Washu didn't know about), and most of it looking
about ready to fall down at any moment. It was isolated, too. There
wasn't another house in sight, unless you counted the demolished flat
nearby. The surroundings consisted of a small forest, most of which
seemed to have been cut down leaving white bristle-like stumps on the
floor, and a burning pile of rubber tires in a granite enclosure that
left a musty smell in Washu's nose. This was hardly the fantasy land
that the park had been, Washu noted.

"She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts,"
Jerry said, as he looked at his feet bashfully. "Star Wars,"

"Huh?" Washu blinked.

"The movie, you know," said Jerry, turning to her. "Han Solo.
Millennium Falcon. that thing,"

"I don't watch movies much," replied Washu. She stuffed her hands
in her pockets and raised an eyebrow at him. "Sorry,"

"That's okay," he said, setting off towards the greying slag heap
of a house. "I'm just a bit of a movie buff, too, I guess,"

"Sounds like fun," Washu said, following close behind.

"It is," he said. "Though I guess it stems from my social
inhibitions. I also collect comics,"

"Can I see?" Washu asked.

"Uh, sure," Jerry said, pushing open the unlocked front door. Washu
covered her ears as the door's hinges made a piercing groan sound that
seemed to sand her eardrums. "Sorry about that, I haven't gotten
around to fixing. anything around here,"

"I understand," said Washu. It wasn't because he was lazy or
incapable, it was simply a question of lack of motivation. Motivation
that Washu felt sure she could supply.

They stepped inside, and Washu was certain she'd see an even messier
interior to the house. She pictured in her mind what Ryoko's room
would have looked like as a teenager, if she had ever been one (or,
indeed, if Washu had ever been around to see her as one). But instead,
what she saw was the emptiest room she'd ever seen. Not just a lack of
furniture, but a lack of home spun warmth also. No wonder he enjoyed
going to the library, compared to this it was a palace of comfort. Washu
felt a little bad for seeing his house in such a miserable light, but to
be truthful there was no other way to see it. After all, it represented
Jerry's predicament quite accurately. Claustrophobic and dark, the
ceiling was very low and covered in stains of some sort. Washu started
to wonder what Jerry had done with all the money that his adopted
parents had handed to him in place of the pieces to his life.

"Spacious," Washu said, trying her utmost to think of a compliment
that best befitted the place.

"You could say that," Jerry said. "C'mon, let's go to the
bedroom,"

"Huh.?!" Washu blushed profusely.

"You wanted to see my comic book collection, right?" he asked her.

"Oh," said Washu, breathing a concoction of relief and
disappointment into the air. "Right, yeah. That'll be nice,"

He walked through a hole in the wall (for it didn't resemble a doorway
in any shape or form that Washu was aware of), and beckoned her to
follow. She walked in, and rather than be greeted by a bed or even a
mattress, Washu saw that Jerry's bedroom was so called because it had
the unique distinction of being the only room in the house with a
blanket on the floor. It wasn't even an inviting blanket, it was
tattered and torn, and Washu dared not wager a guess as to how many
animals had lived in it previously. The only other noteworthy additions
to the room were a cupboard on the left-hand wall, and a another doorway
of sorts that led into what was presumably a bathroom (though Washu
didn't want to check that out anytime soon). Washu almost felt bad for
deciding to leave the cozy park, where instead of broken shards of glass
there was ice-cream covered grass, and rather than the stench of burning
rubber there was the sound of laughing children and the jingle of
fanciful refreshment. Then, she felt Jerry's hand touching her
shoulder, and as she looked to him she had all the parks in the world to
play in.

"They're in the cupboard," he said, pointing to the dirty wooden
mini- closet on the wall. Washu walked over to it and turned one of the
handles. "Oh, uh, be careful you don't-."

The sudden force of dozens of board games, comic books, war memorabilia,
video cassettes, and other random objects falling onto her caused Washu
to stagger backwards and fall down to the ground with a thud. She felt a
stinging pain on her knee, and as she looked down she saw that the skin
on her kneecap had been cut and blood was welling up from the wound. She
started to laugh, lifting the piles of objects off her chest with ease.

"Oh man, are you okay?" Jerry said, sounding very worried. "Oh
God, you're cut. I'm sorry, I should've."

"It's no big deal, silly," said Washu. It truly wasn't, to her,
for she had an endless supply of medicines and bandages in her subspace
lab. But that wasn't exactly something she could just let Jerry in on.
"It's not that bad,"

"No, I'm sorry," Jerry sighed, putting an arm around her and
helping her up. Washu felt as if she were floating; she couldn't even
feel his hands against her back. "I wish I had some bandages. Maybe
I should just take you home, I'm no good at handling this kind of
thing."

"What did I tell you about apologizing?" Washu giggled, placing a
hand on his face. "I feel perfectly safe with you,"

The words, so few that there were, meant so much to them. It was the
effacement of all that bordered their relationship as friends; those
around them would believe that Jerry was a threat to Washu's
innocence, or her very safety. A miserable man, whom life had stricken
with a cancerous upbringing, it would be quite easy to believe he would
want to lash out at those around him for being a part of that dreadful
cycle which caused him such grief. But Washu could see through that,
whereas others could not. She could see a man who'd refused to succumb
to all of life's woeful tragedies, each of which had hit him square
on. An honorable man who refused to be kept down, who had reached out
and touched her because he knew the only person who would understand was
someone whose very understanding was not clouded by the common
perception that grown ups kept within themselves. Someone who would not
see him for the car wreck he lived inside. Someone who refused to judge
a book by its cover.

"I feel safe with you, too," Jerry said. "You're sure it's not
that bad?"

"Positive," said Washu, kneeling down and sorting through the
disarray. "Help me put this stuff back,"

They knelt together and carefully weeded through the video tapes, board
games, etc, and placed them all back in the closet. Washu wondered for a
moment why he would need videos when he didn't even have a television
set in his living room, when she noticed a compact black and white TV
stuck in the back of the little cupboard, complete with a dusty old VCR.
It was a wonder that thieves hadn't stolen all this stuff in the
night, though it probably helped that Jerry slept right next to it.
Washu wouldn't want to be Jerry if a burglar ever did prowl by this
mangy old house, but she would want to be able to protect him in some
way. Maybe she could construct some kind of complex burglar alarm
security system in her lab that'd keep him safe; she could always tell
him she'd gotten her parents to buy it for him. She sighed. Keeping a
relationship with Jerry was going to take a lot of little white lies.
White lies that would probably end up burying her under a mat of
distrust. She could feel it coming even now.

"You have quite the collection," she admired, trying to take her
mind off the future. It was true; he had a vast number of comics from
all sorts of different companies and series. Spiderman, Batman, X-Men,
Sandman, you name it. If it had 'Man/Men' at the end, he seemed to
have it. "I never really read any comics,"

"Why's that?" asked Jerry.

"I guess I was just too busy," she replied. "I can see why you'd
be attracted to them, though,"

"Oh?" he asked.

"Yeah," Washu grinned, holding up a brand new X-Men annual. "All
these women in tight leather. What better reason could ya have?"

"Heh," Jerry said, putting that edition back on the pile. "No,
it's not that,"

"Then why?" she asked him.

"Superheroes," said Jerry. "Well, that kind of character. their
powers often come from some kind of misfortune that they've suffered
at the hands of fate, something completely beyond their control. Peter
Parker gets bitten by a radioactive bug and gets super arachnid powers,
Bruce Wayne sees his parents gunned down and dedicates his life to
fighting crime, Clark Kent is fired out of a rocket when he's just a
baby and lands on Earth where develops superhuman powers as he matures
and is hailed as a hero."

"Right," Washu said. She could see where he was going, but she
wanted to let him say it. He had probably been wanting to say it to
somebody for a long, long time.

"My whole life has been full of." he said, trying to find the
right words. "I've been S.O.L. my whole life, you know? I guess you
might not know what that means. uh."

"Heh, it's okay," Washu smirked. "I have a pretty good idea,"

"My whole life has been that way," he continued. "A constant
downer, with absolutely no way of changing it. I hope. I pray that
I've developed some kind of super power, my own unique way of reaching
out to people.. to help them. I wish I was a hero, and not such a
villain to myself,"

"Jerry," said Washu, leaning close to him as she traipsed a finger
across one of the glossy covers of a ragged Superman comic. It showed a
picture of a young Superman, bursting out of a pod laced with
Kryptonite, punching a fist into the air triumphantly as he soared.
"You'll always be my hero,"

They sat there in silence for a long time. Jerry couldn't even begin
to put into words what he was feeling, but Washu didn't need to hear
it. She held herself closer to him, and felt the beating of his heart
against her face and marvelled at his reviviscence.

**

Tenchi sat next to the phone. He wasn't using it, and he wasn't
waiting for a call. He wasn't even looking at the phone. He wished
that were what he was doing, though. Instead, he had his eyes fixed
straight ahead, facing the opposite wall. For he simply could not take
his mind off the portrait of his mother.

In the background, he could hear mixed warbles of activity, all blending
together to create an almost hysterical collage of sounds. Mihoshi was
somewhere causing a fuss, unintentionally no doubt, and Kiyone was
yelling at her. Sasami and Ryo-ohki were preparing dinner, with the
little girl singing a happy song to keep Kiyone's screaming out of her
head, and the cabbit attempting to join in (without much luck). Nobuyuki
had just returned home from work, and was sitting down in front of the
television set to enjoy some channel surfing, so the variant clicking of
the remote accompanied by whatever garbage he'd tuned into was mixing
together to compose a disjointed unisonance. Needless to say, none of
this was helping his concentration any. Though it also didn't help to
take his mind off the portrait, it simply made him want to focus harder.

"What is it with this thing?!" he asked nobody in particular.

"What thing?" Ryoko asked, hovering down from her place on one of
the supportive beams that went across from the side of the staircase.
She placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. It was a little too
comforting, as she began to attempt a simple massage and ended up nearly
squeezing the life out of his muscles. "C'mon, Tenchi, tell me,"

"Ahhh! Stop that!" Tenchi said, finally able to break out of the
trance. He looked over at Ryoko, who looked back into his eyes and
wagged her tail mischievously. He sighed, reluctantly. "This portrait,
I haven't been able to take my eyes of it for days. It's on my mind
when I'm at school, it's in my dreams. it's just about
everywhere! I can't get it out of my head,"

"Who's the chick?" Ryoko asked, looking at the picture closely.
"Man, you'd think whoever painted this would bother to ask this girl
to turn around before he painted her, she must have felt so ripped off,"

"It's my mother," Tenchi said, frowning.

"Oh, right!" Ryoko smiled, taking it in her hands. Tenchi stood up
and warily snatched it from her. "Hey, now what was that for?"

"It's already been broken twice, I don't want it happening again,"
he replied.

"You really think I'm that clumsy?" Ryoko asked. Tenchi looked
back at her. "Okay, so maybe I'm a little careless from time to
time. But that's always Ayeka's fault! She's so annoying, and
stupid, and she never takes any responsibility for what she does! Plus
she insults me when I'm not even around! What kind of person would do
such a thing?"

"I just wish I knew why I'm so swept up by this picture," Tenchi
said. "At first I thought it was just 'cause of the hair that
Mihoshi found wedged inside the framing. But even after I combed every
inch of the thing and removed every single hair, I'm still fascinated
by it. like there's something wrong with it, or something I'm not
quite seeing,"

"Maybe it's a knock off," said Ryoko.

"Huh?" asked Tenchi.

"You know," said Ryoko. "A fake. A forgery. A phoney,"

"Ryoko," Tenchi sighed. "My dad painted this,"

"Then maybe you should ask him if he faked it?" Ryoko suggested.
"I'm sure that's not the only thing he faked when he was with your
mom, if you know what I mean,"

"Ryoko!" Tenchi snapped.

"What?" she asked, innocently.

"Is this girl bothering you again, Tenchi?" asked Washu, appearing
out of thin air beside them.

"Little Washu," said Tenchi, putting the portrait back on the wall.
"You're back! You've been gone all day,"

"Yeah, I know," Washu said, blushing slightly. "I miss anything?"

"Well, n-no, but." Tenchi began. He was about to ask where she'd
been, and what she'd been doing, when all of a sudden he was
interrupted by her perky demeanor.

"Good!" she sang. "Then if ya don't mind, I'm gonna head down
to my lab and get some work done in private. Call me when dinner's
ready, won't you?"

"Uh, sure." Tenchi replied, watching her leave through her very
own subspace portal. He turned to Ryoko, but she had started to storm
after the little scientist. "Hey, Ryoko, where're you going?"

"After her," she muttered.

Ryoko shoved the doorway to Washu's lab open so fast that it nearly
sprang from its hinges. Fortunately, it had been modified by the
greatest scientific genius in the universe so that it would be angry
space pirate proof, so there was no fear of breakage. She found herself
standing behind Washu, who was sat at a group of consoles, typing
frantically. The familiar rattle of Washu's door crab resounded
through the lab as the door came to a firm stop.

"Who is it?" Washu asked. "I'm a little busy, so you'll just have
to-."

"You!" Ryoko snarled, grabbing her by the shoulders and lifting her
up to face level. "Just where the Hell have you been?"

"Uh," replied Washu.

"No, you don't need to tell me," Ryoko growled. "I know,
'cause you had that stupid little look on your face when you came
back. You were with him, weren't you?"

"Him?" asked Washu, snickering slightly as she struggled in
Ryoko's grasp. She remembered one of the comic books Jerry had shown
her today. "You mean the arch nemesis of the Powerpuff Girls?"

"Oh, so you think this is a joke?" asked Ryoko, shaking her mother
about like a rag doll.

"Um, no," replied Washu. "But I don't know what you're so
upset about. Is it a bad thing that I have a new friend?"

"Oh, cut the crap, Washu," Ryoko said. "I can see that you're
falling for him. I'm not blind,"

"Well, you're the expert on that, I guess," Washu shrugged.

"I ought to punt you like a football, you little pipsqueak," Ryoko
threatened her.

"Just tell me what the problem is, Ryoko," Washu said, realizing
that Ryoko wasn't just playing mad. "We can work this out."

"Damn it," Ryoko said, putting Washu down on her floating cushion
and stepping away. She ran her fingers through her hair and shut her
eyes. Washu had rarely seen her looking so stressed out about something
so trivial that didn't involve Ayeka. "Washu, why are you doing this?"

"Doing what, exactly?" Washu asked.

"Falling for this guy, of course!" replied Ryoko.

"First of all, he has a name," said Washu. "It's Jerry,
remember? And second. why on Earth is it a bad thing that I've
fallen for him? Hmm? It's not like I'm infringing on you and Tenchi,
so what're you complaining about?"

"He could be dangerous," Ryoko said.

"Ha!" Washu laughed, heartily. She folded her arms and lifted an
eyebrow at the silly girl. "Dangerous? Him? He wouldn't hurt a fly,"

"You don't know that," Ryoko said.

"Don't tell me what I do or don't know," Washu said,
authoritatively. Standing on the cushion, it almost felt like she was in
her adult form, as she stared across at her daughter. "I'm the
greatest scientific ge-."

"Oh, so you're a scientist, big whoop!" Ryoko mocked. "That
doesn't make you an expert on human nature, now, does it?"

"I've seen more people come and go than most humans could possibly
imagine meeting in a lifetime," said Washu. "I think I know a little
bit about how people are, and what makes them tick. I don't just study
inanimate objects, you know,"

"Yeah, you've seen all those people," replied Ryoko. "But from
what I can tell, you can't even remember half their names!"

"Just what the heck is your point, Ryoko?" asked Washu, nearly
falling backwards off the cushion.

"Look at you," her daughter said, floating forward. "Sitting in
your cold, dark laboratory, all alone. You're sad 'cause your
daughter is so free spirited and sensual, whereas you can't even
pleasure yourself without the aid of all these electronic devices you
surround yourself with. Face it, you're friggin' lonely,"

"Would you get to the point, please?!" Washu demanded.

"Washu, guys like him prey on lonely young women like you!" Ryoko
said, as if it were a matter of fact. "I hear about them all the time
on the TV! He's a pee. peedo. peeder."

"Ryoko," said Washu. "I may not know him well, but I know him a
heck of a lot better than you do, and I swear if you keep making these
harsh, baseless judgments about him. I will never forgive you for it,"

"Look at what he's done to you already, Washu!" Ryoko said,
continuing to hover towards her. "You're turning against me, your
only daughter,"

"Since when did that ever matter to you?" Washu asked. "Ryoko,
we've never seen eye to eye,"

"That's 'cause you're so short," Ryoko grunted.

"See, that's the difference between you and Jerry," said Washu.
"He doesn't notice my size. As far as he's concerned, I'm a
bigger person than he is,"

"Well, that just shows what a total loon the guy is!" Ryoko said.

"Ryoko," whispered Washu, turning around on her cushion and sitting
down. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave,"

"Leave?" Ryoko asked. "Washu, I'm trying to help you,"

"Then leave, and be quick about it," Washu said, beginning to type
in a security code that would refuse entrance to her laboratory if Ryoko
ever tried to come in again.

"Fine," said Ryoko, fading away. "And don't think I'm coming
back, because I won't!"

"Trust me," Washu frowned, as she prepared to enter the final code.
"I already knew,"

A look of sorrow and regret passed over Ryoko's face as she
disappeared into nothingness, leaving Washu very alone in her lab. All
the things she had said burned deeply in Washu's heart.

"Ryoko," she said, once more. There was no reply.

Washu pressed one final button, and the security codes were deleted.

"I can't lock her out forever," she sighed to herself.

**

"That stupid old bitch," Ryoko grumbled, making herself comfortable
once again on top of the supportive beam above the telephone. She had
her very own cushion up there, just so she'd be cozy while she read
the novels that she'd swiped from the library. Leaning back on it, she
stared down at the picture Tenchi had been admiring, and wondered just
what was so special about the whole mother-child relationship that drew
so many women to it. "Maybe it's the feeling of superiority,"

"What did you say, Ryoko?" asked Mihoshi, who just happened to be
passing under the beam. "Hey, be careful up there, won't you?"

"I can levitate, Mihoshi, I'm not in any danger," Ryoko said,
rolling her eyes at the blonde airhead.

"Yes, but I still don't like you being up there," Mihoshi replied.
"What if you do some damage or something?"

"Trust me, I'm not going to break anything when I'm reading,"
said Ryoko.

"Oh, you're reading?" Mihoshi squeaked, excitedly. "That's so
magnificent! What book are you reading?"

"Just a little thing called." Ryoko began, rooting around under
the cushion. She removed the book that was under there and pointed it
towards Mihoshi, proudly. "American Psycho, by Bret Easton Ellis! Ever
read it?"

"Um. no," Mihoshi blinked. "It doesn't sound very nice,"

"Aww, c'mon," Ryoko grinned, toothily. "Don't you want me to
read it to you?"

"No, that's okay," Mihoshi whimpered, stepping away slowly. "I
have to go set the table,"

"Just be sure to check under the table for any psychopathic
murderers!" Ryoko laughed.

"Waaaaaah!" Mihoshi cried, as she accidentally bumped into a lamp
that was standing behind her. Leaping frantically into the air, she
careened around the corner and crashed headlong into Sasami, who was
carrying the dishes. "Oops! Aieee!!"

"Mihoshiiii!" Sasami squealed, dropping them all at once. There was
a loud smashing sound as the dishes all tumbled onto the floor, all of
them breaking at once. "Oh no, now look what happened,"

"Hahahahaha!" Ryoko laughed her socks off, almost falling off the
beam in the process. "Oh man, that was too funny! Mihoshi, you're
such a clown!"

"I'm sorry," Mihoshi apologized, as she picked up the pieces of
the broken dishes. "I couldn't help it,"

"That's okay," said Sasami, also gathering the pieces.

"What's all the racket? Is it time for dinner or something?"
Washu's muffled voice broke through the subspace portal, as the red
head scientist leaned out from behind the door beside the staircase.
"Whoa, what happened here?"

"We had an accident, Miss Washu," Sasami explained.

"Hmm," Washu said. She turned her head up to the ceiling and took a
look at Ryoko, who returned her look with a vicious scowl. "I see. You
guys'll be needing my automatic matter reconfigulator, then!"

"Does that make new dishes?" Mihoshi asked.

"Even better than that!" Washu chuckled, producing a rectangular box
from thin air. She began tapping buttons and shoving broken dishes into
a small slot on the underside of the box. "It fixes the broken ones!
In fact, it fixes just about anything that's been damaged,"

"Ooooh, wow!" Sasami gasped, catching the fixed dishes as they
popped out of the top of the box. "That's amazing, Washu! You really
are a genius,"

"Pretty impressive stuff, huh Ryoko?" Washu asked, turning back to
her daughter.

"Meh," the space pirate replied.

"Okay, everyone, time for dinner!" Kiyone's voice emanated from
the kitchen.

"Coming!" Sasami called back, scampering through the door with a
tray of dishes in her hands. Mihoshi followed close behind.

"Fancy eating with us today, Ryoko?" invited Washu, attempting to
put an end to their brief little feud of hurt feelings.

"I'm not hungry," Ryoko replied, lying down on the beam with her
head on the cushion.

"Well, suit yourself, I guess," Washu shrugged, as she left. "All
the more for me!"

"Yeah, go stuff your face," Ryoko muttered. "See if I care,"

Ryoko buried herself in the novel, so deep that even if an explosion
went off beside her she probably would have continued reading about
Patrick Bateman and all those helpless women he loved to mercilessly
execute. The gruesome words on the pages perfectly complimented her
mood, and she began to envision Washu being hacked to pieces or mangled
by a chainsaw, as page after page went by, full of lists and endless
sacrifices. Soon the images in her head stopped swirling about at random
and came into clear focus, and she could see so well the faceless form
of Jerry swiping down with a meat cleaver and chopping the bonds that
tied herself and Washu together. Blood filled her sight as she threw the
book against the wall, and it hit the ground with a thunk.

Thunk.

Thunk.

"Oh my, I'm so late, I'm late, how very late I am!" a
chattersome voice rushed about inside her head. "Late, late, late! Oh
my, how late could I possibly be? This is the latest I've ever been,
never before have I even dared to be so late! LATE LATE LATE!!!"

It wasn't long at all before Ryoko realized the voice wasn't in her
head. No, it was coming from outside the Masaki house. the front door,
to be more specific. And that thunking sound she was hearing, it
wasn't the book she had thrown. It was someone knocking on the front
door. She peered downwards, and saw with paralysed perplexity that
beneath the doorway there shone an eerie pale blue light that sneaked
through the crack and broke into fingers of flashing illumination.
Through the corrugated glass windows either side, she saw a silhouette
reminiscent of that anthropomorphic rabbit that Washu had shown her in
that old book.

"It can't be," Ryoko told herself.

"LET ME IN!" the voice screeched. It sounded as if a thousand young
sows were squealing to be fed at once. "I'M LATE! I'M
LATE-LATE-LATE! LAAAAAAAATE!"

Without really knowing what she was doing, Ryoko hovered slowly down to
the front door. She hesitated, her hand shivering as she reached forward
to turn the knob, when suddenly for no reason the door blew open all on
its own.

Stood before her was the third most hideously repulsive thing she'd
ever seen (the second most hideously repulsive thing being Kagato on a
good day. You can probably guess what the first was). It stood, in the
most foreign sense of the word, around four feet tall, covered in matted
brown fur and patches of loose pink flesh. Shaped like a rabbit, it had
tentacles that intertwined and groped at each other so much so that they
appeared to be a couple of solid ears that flopped and flailed atop its
scrawny head. Bulbous parasites full of dripping juices buzzed and
delved in its skin, coating it from head to toe. Even its eyes, which
were as scorching red as a forgotten sunset, seemed alive with the
things. It brought its stump-like arms up to its misshapen chest as if
it were protecting itself from Ryoko, quivering with a mad fever. It
appeared have once had claws, but these had apparently been gnawed away
as if it had attained some extremely nervous habit of biting its nails.
With foam spotted lips, it rabidly gnashed and snarled with its mouth
and somehow spoke with a perfectly polite English voice, though probably
loud enough to awaken the Gods. All the while, its top hat span in
ludicrously fast cycles, rotated by those clutching tentacles that
dripped with puss which mixed gruesomely with a steady stream of sputum
that oozed from its mouth.

Oh, and it wore a waistcoat.

"Out of my way! I'm late!" it bellowed as it barged past Ryoko,
its hunched shoulders slipping past Ryoko's shirt and leaving large
numbers of the inflated parasites on her body. She scraped them off
hurriedly as the creature made its way across the hallway. "I'm
late, late, late! Later than late! Late!"

Finally, it reached the entrance to Washu's laboratory, where it
paused and sneaked a peek through the purple circular window on its
front. Its pointed noise pressed right up against the glass, leaving
globules of steaming white fluid that stuck to the surface. Keeping its
face pressed right against the window, it rolled its pupils into the
back of its head and began to open and close its mouth. Ryoko watched it
for a moment, unable to comprehend exactly what it was trying to do,
until she then realized. It was trying to bite through the glass with
its gnarled teeth, as if it were so desperate to break through that it
had completely neglected to remember how to operate a simple door.

Then, after tireless minutes of biting and scratching, the glass seemed
to snap in two as if it had been designed to fold in on itself should
any demonic rabbit creatures need a special entrance of their own.
Without looking back, the rabbit shrank back on its hind legs, making
itself look like a furry concertina. The creature's waistcoat wrapped
itself around the rabbit like a cloth cylinder, neatly squashing it
enough so that the only parts of the rabbit that Ryoko could still see
were two floppy tentacle- ears that popped out of the top of the
cylinder, and two poised feet beneath. She couldn't believe what she
was seeing. but she was seeing it, nevertheless.

Suddenly, without warning, the cylinder flung itself upwards and through
the new opening in the door. In its new shape, the creature slotted
perfectly through the hole, and in moments was nowhere to be seen. The
only thing left was its frustrated voice, which eventually faded into
nothingness as the creature plummeted into the depths of the rift that
separated our world and subspace.

"Hey, wait!" Ryoko said, coming to her senses. She ran forward and
gawked at the hole the creature had passed through. Through it, Ryoko
could see nothing. Which was extremely strange, because usually whenever
Ryoko were to pass through subspace and into Washu's lab, she would
always see a dim aura of violet that spanned an infinite distance before
she crossed over. Now, however, there was nothingness, a black void.
"Washu.?"

Ryoko expected the little genius to appear and explain every single
thing that had just happened. After all, she was only a room away. But
either she was too busy stuffing her face with dinner, or she just
didn't care that Ryoko had something on her mind. Whatever it was,
Washu didn't answer.

"What the Hell is going on?" asked Ryoko, sticking her head through
the hole to investigate further.

This proved most unwise, for as soon as her face reached through and
touched the thin air of the inter-dimensional rift, she felt something
pulling at her from the other side. At first, she thought it was just
the change in air pressure and that she would just have to yank herself
backwards to escape the force. It dawned on her when her body had
deflated and morphed into the shape of a small barrel, leaving only her
head intact, that this was no simple scientific occurrence, and that
whatever force was now yanking her downwards into the unlimited depths
at the speed of light wasn't natural. Quite the opposite, in fact.

"Tenchi?!" she called out, as she saw her life flash before her
eyes. The faded pinpricks of light in the distance blended with the
images of blissful youth, painful solitude, and orgasmic release from
her past. She fell down so far that she was soon starting to believe
that there simply was no bottom to this vertical vortex.

"Welcome!" said a friendly voice. "I trust your journey wasn't
too hazardous,"

"Huh?" said Ryoko, opening her eyes. Her feet were now on solid
ground. Or at least, she hoped it was solid. She was on a platform
hovering in mid- air, suspended above further unknown depths. All around
her was the dark emptiness that had scoured her eyes as she had taken
her fall, and she wondered just how long she was going to have to fly
before she reached the top once more. But before she could take off, she
felt her legs give way beneath her and she collapsed. It seemed that
something (or someone) was sapping her powers. "What's going on?
Who's there?"

"Do not be alarmed," the voice cooed in her ear. "I'm not going
to harm you,"

"Yeah, that's what they all say," Ryoko grumbled. "Then they
imprison you or torture you until one of your friends has to come and
rescue you. So, just as a warning, I'm a ferocious space pirate who
doesn't take kindly to evil, disembodied voices that drag me down a
big hole, and if you're not careful I'm likely to fry your ass with
a bolt of liquid fire,"

"Charming," the voice chuckled. "But I'm afraid your powers
aren't going to function down here. Though it looks like you found
that out for yourself,"

"What do you want?" asked Ryoko, turning her head to one side to try
to get a good look at whoever was talking. On the far end of the
platform, a figure was standing in front of a brilliant light source
that completely absorbed all detail from his features. She could,
however, make out that this person was child-like in stature, wearing
what appeared to be a robe that billowed out behind them, though there
was no wind to cause such an effect. "If you're looking for Washu,
you've got the wrong girl,"

"Washu?" the voiced asked. It slowly became something far more
masculine; a deeper, darker tone throbbed in its velvet vibrations.
Ryoko watched as the figure stepped closer and closer, with every step
that it took it seemed to age a few years. The echoes of its footsteps
sent ripples through the platform, and as each of the ripples passed
beneath Ryoko's body, she slowly felt her strength return. "No, it
is not Washu that I seek. I wish simply to talk,"

"Well, I got news for you, pal," Ryoko said, waiting 'till she had
enough strength to power out of her incapacitation. "I'm not the
talkative type,"

"I'm sure," the figure replied. He now looked to be the size of a
teenager. "I still think I might show you something. Something that I
think will interest you greatly,"

"Unless you happen to have a microscope and tweezers," Ryoko
snarled, clenching her fists. "I'm afraid it's highly unlikely,"

At long last, she felt rejuvenated. Flipping onto the small of her back,
she swung herself upwards and landed with great agility on her feet.
Looking directly at the figure (who had now taken the form of a
fully-grown adult), she sprang forward and lunged a closed fist towards
his face with enough force to take his head right off. Before she could
make contact, Ryoko felt as though her entire arm had become encased in
lead, and it fell limp to her side. Always the stubborn one, she lunged
at the figure with her other fist, only to have the same thing happen to
that arm.

"Want to try kicking me now?" he asked, a sneer in his voice. "Or
would you like to retain the use of those lovely legs?"

"What's going on?" she asked once more. "Where am I? Who are you?"

"I'm sure all of your questions will be answered once you decide to
co- operate," he said.

"Rrgh," Ryoko replied, seething at the man. She would have spat on
him, but she really liked being able to use her mouth and didn't want
that to become as numb as her arms. "What do you want from me?"

"Not much," he replied. From behind his back, he produced a small
device. It looked like a pair of overlarge goggles, with indentations
around the rims filled with underlying wires, bulbs, and other
mechanical gadgetry. Painted a sunny red, with pincer shaped handles,
they looked almost like something Washu would make. If she had been in
any other situation, she probably would have laughed at their farcical
appearance. She looked up at the man, whose face and body were still
strangely hidden, and gave him a quizzical look. "Just put these on,"

"Sure," Ryoko grinned. "Just give me back my arms and I'll do
that right away,"

"On second thoughts," the man said. "I'll put them on for you,"

"Hold on a second," said Ryoko, taking a step back. "You're
saying you don't trust a nice young girl like me?"

"Would you?" he asked.

"Hmm," Ryoko frowned. "You have a point. Okay, put 'em on, but
this had better not hurt,"

"Nothing to worry about," he said, placing the goggles across
Ryoko's face. They felt cold around her ears, and Ryoko got shivers up
and down her spine. "Now, just relax and enjoy the show,"

"Show?" she asked. "What are you-."

Before she could finish her question, Ryoko's vision went blank.
Blanker than it had been before, when she had been falling through total
darkness. She couldn't feel her body, and though she tried to move,
she was rooted to the spot. Then, little spots of pink luminosity
started to dance across her field of vision, undulating in a parade-like
fashion. Then another line of spots appeared, from a completely
different direction, and crossed paths with the first congregation.
Ryoko started to wonder if this guy had just invited her to the unknown
depths of space just to show her a pretty light show, when suddenly the
pink lights exploded from their centres, dazzling Ryoko with an almost
blinding display of beauty. Ryoko had to squint for fear of losing her
eyesight, and then, as quickly as they had appeared, the pink lights
faded. With their departure, a cool breeze arrived and guided Ryoko's
invisible, bodiless form forwards, where out of nowhere appeared a
familiar face.

"Tenchi!" she gasped, running forwards to embrace him. "Tenchi, I
must have been dreaming, it was so."

But Tenchi didn't react to her cries. Instead, he turned around and
walked away.

"Tenchi?" she asked. Behind her, she could hear the sounds of
girlish laughter, and turning around she found herself staring at the
joyful princess she loathed so much. "Ayeka, what's so funny?"

"Just look what you did to Tenchi, you're such a beast!" Ayeka
replied, laughing the whole time. Ryoko frowned. If Ayeka was so upset
about what happened, why was she laughing so much-

SLAP!

"Hey, why'd you slap me?!" Ryoko snarled, as she stepped forward
so she could wring Ayeka's ugly little neck. Ayeka didn't even bat
an eyelid, as if she was so used to Ryoko's anger that it just
didn't faze her anymore. But before Ryoko could give her a reason to
become disconcerted, she found herself tripping over the oblivious
figure of Sasami.

"Ryoko, watch where you're going!" Sasami warned, waving a finger
at the space pirate. "You're always making such a mess, I dunno why
we have you around anyway,"

"Miaow!" even little Ryo-ohki agreed.

"What's everybody's problem?" Ryoko asked, rubbing the sore spot
on her face where Ayeka had slapped her. It felt like her cheek was
about to turn blue and fall off. "Isn't anybody happy to see me?"

"No," they all replied.

"Ohhhh, I see," Ryoko laughed, noticing the blank expressions on all
their faces. "This is all some weird illusion that this guy's
putting on to try and make me feel bad about myself so it's easier for
him to control me. Well, it ain't gonna work! None of these guys even
act like the real deal,"

"Maybe that's because you don't see things their way," a voice
piped up from below. Ryoko looked down and saw the childish form of
Washu floating upwards through the nothingness until she finally came to
rest at Ryoko's feet. As she ceased to move, the other characters
around her disappeared, and it was just Washu and Ryoko alone in the
void.

"You?" Ryoko asked. "What do you want?"

"You think this is all an illusion?" said Washu. "Well, maybe it
is. Or maybe it's your world that's the illusion, Ryoko. You tell
yourself that you aren't a problem, that it's everyone else who has
the problem. Everyone else has to work, while you get to play. Nobody
else can have Tenchi, because he's all yours. Ryoko, I'm so
disappointed in you,"

"What?" Ryoko blinked. She took a step backwards, but then put a
hand across her face and laughed, uneasily. "C'mon, Ryoko, don't
pay any attention. It's not really Washu,"

"You wanna know something?" Washu continued. "All those rabbits
you've been playing with outside aren't even real. I created them on
a simulation, because I knew you were too stupid to understand that
there wouldn't be any. Too weak to handle the fact that not everything
goes your way,"

"Shut up!" Ryoko snapped.

"You wanna know how I know that?" Washu said. "Because I created
you. I know how weak you are, how imperfect you are, how very flawed you
are. You're my biggest disappointment, Ryoko,"

"STOP IT!" Ryoko screamed as she put her hands over her ears, hoping
it would shut out the voice that sounded so real, so honest. It
didn't, and Washu's voice rang in her ears like biblical thunder.

"I wish I'd never created you," she said.

"NO!!!" Ryoko cried, running forward and grabbing the phoney Washu
by the throat and strangling it until she heard the bones in her neck
snap. All the while, Washu had that perky little smile on her face,
enjoying watching Ryoko's futile tantrum. It couldn't stop the truth.

"Enjoy your little show?" the man's voiced asked, taking the
goggles from Ryoko's face and placing them behind his back once more.
Ryoko tried to respond, but instead she broke down into tears and stood
there sobbing.

"You bastard," she hissed.

"Hey, don't shoot the messenger," he replied. "Are you telling
me you'd prefer to go about in denial your whole life?"

"Washu would never say that stuff to me," said Ryoko. She wanted to
kill him in so many different ways, all of them painful and humiliating.
But she felt so weak. maybe it was some kind of power he had over her,
or maybe it was from the illusion she had just experienced. Maybe she
really was just weak and ineffectual.

"You're right, she probably wouldn't," he shrugged. "She sure
thinks it, though,"

"That's a lie!" Ryoko hissed. If only she wasn't on his turf,
she could do so much.

"Is it?" he asked, the light glimmering off one of his eyes for a
second. Ryoko wanted to see his face, so that she could properly
envision stomping it in.

"Just. let me go," said Ryoko, breathlessly. "I don't give a
crap about you or whatever you're trying to get across to me, just let
me go back,"

"Don't you want to hear my offer first?" he asked her.

"No, I don't want to hear your goddamn offer!" she lied.

"Now, now," he said, soothingly. He placed a warm hand on her
shoulder and fondled it as he spoke. Ryoko wondered how hard it would be
to just snap it right off and club him to death with it. "Don't be
so hasty. I know you want to hear what I have to say,"

"Screw you," Ryoko cursed, trying to turn around. She couldn't, of
course.

"All I'm offering you is a place where all your dreams really can
come true," he said. Ryoko stared back at him, not blinking. "You
think I built this place for my amusement? Look around, it's drab and
dingy. I can't see more than five feet in front of my face. Now, with
a sweet young girl such as yourself, I'm sure I could brighten this
place up with a few fantasies."

"I don't care," Ryoko snapped. She suddenly found herself able to
back away from the man, but not come forwards. Rather than look a gift
horse in the mouth, she started to slowly step away from him. "You can
just go to Hell. I don't make deals with freaks like you, okay? I just
want to go home,"

"But you can have a home here!" the man replied. "The home you
always wanted, living together with Tenchi, with no nasty princesses in
sight!"

"I prefer reality," Ryoko narrowed her eyes to slits, wondering just
how this guy knew so much about her.

"Tenchi will never love you there," the man said, causing Ryoko to
stop dead in her tracks.

"You don't know anything about Tenchi," she said. Her anger was
really starting to bubble over, and she was afraid she might lose
herself in the volcano of rage that she was becoming. "You certainly
don't know anything about love,"

"You have no idea," he snickered.

"Who the Hell are you?" Ryoko asked. "Tell me, really,"

It felt as if the man were about to reply, to let Ryoko in on all the
secrets he had kept and all the ones he'd kept for others, but instead
he turned around and began to walk back along the platform.

"You may return to your world now," he said, his robe fluttered
about as if he had grown black wings. "It seems I will have no use for
you after all,"

"Wait!" she called after him. But it was too late, and the walls of
darkness that surrounded them both began to close in on her. She felt
like she were about to suffocate, as wisps of dark air found their way
into her nostrils and clouded her eyes. The thick smell of sulphur
burned her throat, and as she tried to cry out for help she found
herself smothered by a blanket of perpetual suppression.

**

"Wake up, Ryoko!" Mihoshi's nervous voice called into her ears. It
felt like somebody had wedged a lemon on the tip of a sharpened spear
and was using it to clean out her eardrums. "Wake up, come on sleepy
head!"

"What happened?" Ryoko asked, coming to. Above her, she could make
out the supportive beam she had been reading upon before the strange
disturbances had begun. Below that, the door to Washu's subspace
laboratory sat in perfect condition. There was no breakage, and no sign
that any demonic rabbits had been near it recently. Directly in front of
her was the babbling noodle noggin, Mihoshi, who was shaking Ryoko to
wake her up. "Get off me, you idiot! I'm awake,"

"Oops, sorry," Mihoshi giggled, letting go of her. "I guess I got
carried away,"

"I must have fallen asleep, I guess," Ryoko said to herself,
ignoring Mihoshi. She sat up and scratched her head as she thought.
"Then I guess I fell down off the beam and imagined all that,"

"Imagined all what?" Mihoshi asked, eagerly. "Did you have a
dream, Ryoko? Oooh, tell me about it! I love trying to analyse dreams,"

"I dreamed I fell down a long hole," Ryoko said, humoring the galaxy
police officer as she stood up and dusted herself off. "Then there was
this guy who showed me a vision of all you guys treating me like I was a
piece of dirt. Then he let me go,"

"Umm," said Mihoshi, pressing a hand to her cheek as she pondered.
"That means you're hungry!"

"Fascinating," Ryoko groaned.

"Well, you didn't have any dinner, Ryoko," Mihoshi explained.
"So obviously you'll be a bit peckish,"

"Mihoshi, trust me," Ryoko said, hovering into the living room. "I
didn't envision a dark figure offering me the power to live out my
fantasies because I felt a little hungry,"

"Well, duh!" said Mihoshi. "That's because you're thirsty too!"

"Go away," Ryoko muttered, sitting down on the couch and flipping a
button on the remote so that the television lit up.

"I'll fetch you something to eat while you watch TV!" Mihoshi
offered as she left.

"Just leave me alone," Ryoko said. She couldn't quite get the
dream out of her head, and all of Washu's words kept ringing below her
consciousness. She needed to find a way to take her attention away from
the dream. On the television, a weatherman was singing and dancing in
front of a projected image of Japan, letting the world know that it'll
be yet another sunny day, while reports of rising stock flashed across
the screen below him.

"Ryoko, there you are," said Tenchi as he walked into the living
room. He seemed happy to see her, and Ryoko shared that feeling right
along with him. "We all missed you at dinner,"

"Tenchi," Ryoko simply said, smiling up at him. Before she knew it,
he had taken a seat right next to her. He was so close that she could
just swivel around in her seat and brush her chest against his arm, if
she were so inclined. She blushed, and turned back to the television.
"So, uh, did you figure out what was wrong with that old portrait?"

"Huh? Oh, that thing?" Tenchi shrugged. "Nah, it's no big deal.
I haven't even thought about it since I last looked at it,"

"That's good," Ryoko smiled and nodded.

"I've had other things on my mind," Tenchi continued, looking down
at his feet.

"You have?" asked Ryoko, turning and looking at him. He really
looked embarrassed. Sure, that wasn't such a rarity that Ryoko had
never seen it before, but it was still curious. "Like what?"

"Ryoko, would you like to go for a walk?" he asked, looking into her
eyes. There was something not quite right about this, something Ryoko
couldn't figure out. Everything seemed completely normal. except that
Tenchi had just offered to take her for a walk. Maybe that was it; maybe
it was just the shock of such a proposal coming from the man she loved
so dearly. Yes, that must have been it.

"Sure, Tenchi," she beamed, and to her amazement he took hold of her
hand and eased her off the couch. This wasn't like Tenchi at all, she
told herself. He would never be so physical with her.

Wait a minute, physical? He just held your hand, go along with it. Why
do you care if it's weird? You're enjoying it, aren't you?

"Yes," she murmured to herself, as she followed Tenchi through the
hallway and through the front door.

The weatherman had been right; it was certainly a sunny day, to say the
least. That burning ball of fire in the sky shone down on the two of
them like a spotlight, as Tenchi skipped across the polished tiles of
the patio and past the stony tarmac that surrounded it, ploughing their
way into the field. Moments later, Tenchi started to outrun Ryoko,
letting go of her hand and diving into the long grass.

"Tenchi!" Ryoko giggled happily. "Where'd you go?"

"Shhh," she heard him say, from somewhere off to the right. She
followed the sound of his voice and found him crouching beneath the long
grass, he looked as if he were hiding from something.

"Tenchi, what's wrong?" she asked, crouching down next to him.
"You're acting kinda strange,"

"Ryoko, how long have we known each other?" Tenchi asked.

"Um," Ryoko frowned. "Well, it's been around half a year since
you released me from that damn cave, so I guess. seven months?"

"Seven months," Tenchi said, as if he were getting a feel for the
words. "No, it's been more. A lot more. Ryoko, even when you were in
that cave, I felt like I knew you were there. I just wasn't aware of
it. I've known you my whole life. it's just dawned on me,"

"Okay," Ryoko said, unsure of what the big deal was. "Look,
Tenchi, um, do we have to talk about this out here? I mean, it's kinda
uncomfortable,"

"I have to," he said. "It has to be just us,"

"Alright," she replied.

"Ryoko," Tenchi said, holding his breath. An eternity seemed to pass
between his words. The sun was setting, and everything around them
reflected the passage of time. The hills climbed so high, and the grass
brushed about their heads like they were a pair of children. Even the
trees, which swayed about the sky like giant paintbrushes, seemed to
have been planted to be there at this very moment. "I love you,"

"Tenchi.?" said Ryoko. She had pictured this moment in her head
for so long, and now that it had come to pass, she felt shocked. It had
always been such a fantasy for her, a fairy tale. She never really
expected it would happen now, so soon. Their friendship had only just
started to blossom, and he was looking into her face and confessing true
love. This wasn't exactly how she imagined it would come about. She
thought it would have been a great deal more gradual. They'd never
really gotten along, why now did he decide that she was the one?

Who cares? He loves you. Isn't that what you want? When you want
something, isn't it right that you should take it when the opportunity
arises? Why are you so doubtful of him? Aren't you certain you love
him? Is that what this is? Don't be so picky. He can't be expected
to choose the right circumstances to let you know of his feelings. Make
do, otherwise tell him where to get off.

"Ergh," Ryoko grunted. She felt so woozy, and that voice in her head
was so loud, it didn't even feel like it was coming from inside of
her. But it was right, right about everything. It didn't really matter
if the timing or the place was right, Tenchi loved her! That was all
that mattered to her, and as he reached out and touched her on the side
of her face, right then and there she knew that it had been right all
along. Pressing her lips to his soft, loving skin, she kissed his hand
lustfully, feeling his fingers with her tongue and nibbling ever so
slightly on his fingertips. This was love. this was real love.

"Tenchi," she whispered.

"Ryoko," he said in return.

In that field they made passionate, fantastic love. Love so strong that
the field itself seemed to move with a vigorous edge. Tenchi held her so
close that she felt like she would never be able to leave his side,
always there with him. It was her fantasy come true. It was almost
unbelievable. But it was real. It must have been. And even if it
wasn't. she didn't care.

And overhead, the moon watched over it all.

And the man in the moon smiled to himself, for he had watched the seeds
of his plan come to fruition in that field of dreams.

And with a whisk of his robe, he vanished.

**

"Man, what a day," Washu said, leaning back on her floating cushion.
She was all alone in her lab and she had set the environment to dusk,
leaving a backdrop of dark blue nightlight. The shadows on the walls
twitched and jerked with the movement of heavy machinery, as the little
scientist sat underneath it all and admired it, proudly. "Time to
close up shop for the night, I'd say,"

With a clap of her hands, all the machines and gizmos ceased their
whirring. Only a few select devices continued their important chores
through the night, but those were silent as little robotic lambs. Washu
grinned to herself and reached over to press the off button on her
console.

"Time to catch forty winks, too," she said with a yawn. "Boy,
I'm tired,"

The crab icon on the right hand side of the screen caught Washu's eye.
Usually, it would display the words 'Phone Not In Use', but now it
read 'Phone Ringing'. Obviously, someone was trying to get through
to the Masaki house.

"Now who would be calling at this time?" Washu asked herself,
looking at the gigantic crab clock that counted down the time from atop
a pillar in the centre of her lab. It was well past two in the morning.
"Whoever it is, I bet there's nobody awake to answer it."

Washu sighed to herself, and with a snap of her fingers hovered through
the subspace portal and out of her laboratory, landing in the front
hallway once more. She rubbed her eyes and slumped down beside the
telephone. Sure enough, it was ringing quite loudly. Loud enough to give
her a genius sized headache.

"Don't worry, I'll get it!" Washu called, just in case anyone
was listening. "After all, I wouldn't want any of you guys to have
to actually come down here and answer your own phone,"

Grumbling under her breath, she lifted up the receiver.

"Hello, Masaki re-."

"OHHH!" a female voice on the other end screamed. "DO IT TO ME!"

"Um. excuse me?" Washu blinked.

"YES! OH YES!" a male voice replied.

"Uh, heh," Washu laughed in surprise. "Whatever you're selling,
we're not buying. Goodnight,"

She slammed the receiver down.

"Lousy prank callers," she muttered, adjusting her hair. "Anyway,
now that that's been settled with,"

Washu started off down the hallway, too sleepy to concentrate enough for
a teleport right now. However, she'd only gotten halfway to the lab
entrance when once again the phone started to ring.

"Grrr," she growled, picking up the phone. "What the heck do you
want?"

"Hi, Washu," a male voice replied.

"Um. Hi?" she replied, totally startled. She didn't recognize
the voice one bit.

"Remember me?" it asked.

"Refresh my memory," she said, leaning on the table while she idly
chewed on the inside of her mouth.

"I shouldn't have to do that," it said. Whomever it was, they
didn't sound too pleasant.

"Uh. Jerry?" she asked, taking a stab in the dark. She certainly
hoped she was wrong.

"Heh-heh-heh," the voice replied.

"That a no?" asked Washu.

"Do you want him to fuck you in the ass, is that it?" the voice
asked, a sinister growl nearly covering the words it used. Whatever was
on the other end of the phone sounded far from human.

"Okay, if you don't tell me who the Hell this is, I'm going to
hang up," Washu threatened.

"You like the way he looks at you, don't you," the voice
continued. In the background, Washu could hear loud noises like a saw
cutting through wood. It was different, though, almost breath-like.

"Get bent," Washu frowned, and slammed the receiver down almost hard
enough to knock the phone itself off the table. She started to cry a
little, nervously. Whoever it was sounded like they knew about Jerry,
and if they were as dangerous as they sounded, they could easily do
something to him. Washu felt so utterly helpless, she just wished she
had some idea of what to do. "Why is it so hard to be a genius when I
need it the most?"

RING! RING! RING!

"What?!" Washu shouted, picking the phone up once more.

Rather than hear some profane remark snapping in her ear, Washu found
herself catapulted backwards into the wall, her head slamming into the
portrait of Tenchi's mother. At first, she was unsure of what had
happened, but when she opened her eyes, she saw a veritable geyser of
brown hair pouring from the receiver's ear-piece. It was coming out
with such a force that it appeared to be a solid mass of hair, terrible
and nightmarish.

"Nightmare," Washu said to herself. "This is just a nightmare."

But the hair continued to gush out of the receiver at an incredible
rate, despite Washu's insistence that this all be a bad dream. Instead
of continuing to watch the hairy fountain, Washu turned around and found
she was now staring directly into the portrait behind her. In the
painting, Tenchi's mother overlooked the entire suburban area that
surrounded the Masaki Shrine. As she watched, Washu could see one
specific part of the town that Tenchi's mother seemed to have her
attention fixed on. Looking closely, she saw to her horror that it was
Jerry's little beaten down old shack, all lit up like a church house.
Washu found herself unable to turn away, as the picture became animated
and the shack she cared so dearly for filled with blood. Blood that no
doubt belonged to her beloved Jerry. Blood that began to flood the
suburbs and spread like wildfire, never stopping until it reached the
Masaki household. She could hear the groan of wood, as the front door
began to cave in. the blood was too strong for it.

Washu awoke, alone in her lab. Her screams carried far into subspace,
reverberating from wall to wall, making it sound as if the lab was
screaming right along with her. She found herself seated on the floating
cushion once more, and realized she must have dozed off at the console.

"Jerry," she panted. "Jerry. Jerry."

In her panic, she must have accidentally teleported out of sheer worry
for her friend's life, for the next thing she knew she was standing in
the middle of a litter filled road outside the dusty, one-storey wreck
of a house that belonged to Jerry. This wasn't the first time she had
translocated herself by mistake after a bad dream. Once, she had
teleported right back to the Imperial Science Academy when she had
dreamed about being late to hand in her studies. She couldn't even
remember a time when she had been late to hand those in, so it was a
really strange dream for her to be having.

"Jerry?" she said, telling herself that she'd just go teleport
right back home if he didn't answer. He didn't answer. She didn't
teleport. Instead, she padded slowly across the road, listening to the
sound of the crickets. It must have been past three in the morning, now.
There was no way he could be awake. She still felt compelled to check on
him, though. After a nightmare like the one she'd had, who wouldn't?

She pushed the door open, for it had been ajar much like the first time
she'd been here. The saw-like sound that she'd heard over the phone
line in her dream was here. It chilled her to the bone, listening to it.
She didn't like the idea of a saw coming anywhere near Jerry's
precious skin. She stepped through the pitch-black living room (if you
could call it that), and entered the room where she was hearing those
dreadful noises.

"Oh," she whispered, breathing a sigh of relief. It was just Jerry,
sleeping under his raggedy blanket, snoring away to himself. It was
rather amusing, for he didn't even fit completely under the blanket,
and his tubby belly was the only thing that was covered by it. Still, he
was able to make do, and Washu felt more at ease knowing he was sound
asleep. Washu considered just teleporting away and leaving him there,
for it was clear there was no real danger to him right now.

But something about the way the darkness pressed against the walls,
almost stealthful in its nocturnal watch, frightened Washu. She didn't
want to leave Jerry alone in this room. It didn't feel right, tonight.
So, she crept over to where he was lying, and sat down beside him. She
could see he hadn't even changed his clothes, and his sweat was
pungently strong. Still, she nestled her head close to his chest and
shut her eyes.

The beating of his heart set the rhythm of her dreams, and she was soon
sleeping right along with him. The ominous darkness parted around them,
and they were safe together.

**

Ryoko lay there in the field beside Tenchi, exhausted but happy. She
stroked his naked chest, feeling every muscle, hair, and blemish under
the palm of her hand. She'd never been so close to him before in her
life; he was beautiful. So strong and handsome and loving and heroic.
There wasn't a thing about him that Ryoko would change for the world;
everything about him was so perfect. She could feel how absolutely
flawless he was through her fingertips, and it exhilarated her.

She leapt up from her place on the ground and flew naked through the
air, doing cartwheels above the sleeping prince. She felt so free,
flying above the treetops and nearly touching the sky, that she almost
lost control of her flight path. Nearly crashing into the Masaki
household, she instead passed nimbly through one of the walls and landed
deftly on the other side. Looking around, she found herself standing
naked inside Ayeka's bedroom. The princess was in slumber land,
clinging to her sheets like a baby. Ryoko snickered and hovered above
the poor dear.

"Oh, Ayeka!" Ryoko sang quietly, as not to wake her. "Guess what
I've been doing? Heh-heh, I've been rockin' Tenchi's world, is
what! I'm so sorry you couldn't have been there to see it. But
don't worry, I think he almost said your name a few times if it's
any consolation,"

"Mm?" Ayeka squeaked, slowly coming to. She looked up and saw the
nude space pirate that flitted above her head, and a look of sheer
confusion appeared on her face. "Um, Ryoko, what exactly are you doing?"

"Huh?" Ryoko asked. She hadn't meant to wake Ayeka, but now that
she had woken up. she decided she'd have a little fun. "Hello,
princess! It's me, the future wife of Tenchi! I think I might wear
this to our wedding, what do you think?"

"Ryoko," said Ayeka, sitting up. "You're not wearing anything,"

"I know!" Ryoko cackled. "I sure hope our priest'll be able to
keep his mind on the ceremony,"

"Did you wake me up just to tell me this?" yawned Ayeka, stretching
her arms. She didn't seem to care that Ryoko was laying claim to
Tenchi's position as a bachelor. Instead, she fell right back into her
bed and pulled the sheets over herself once more. "Go to sleep, Ryoko,"

"Sure, I'll go to sleep!" Ryoko chuckled, readying to protect
herself from a barrage of power logs. "With Tenchi,"

"That's nice," replied Ayeka.

"Huh?!" Ryoko spluttered, quite miffed at Ayeka's indifference.
"I just said I was gonna sleep with Tenchi, and you're okay with
that?"

"Sure," said Ayeka. "Sounds like fun. Go right ahead,"

"Wha. the. huh?" Ryoko stammered, trying to get a grasp on
things. Seething, she grabbed Ayeka and yanked her out of bed with a
squeal. "Cut that out! I can tell you're just playing with me. Read
my lips! I'm. going. to. sleep. with. Tenchi! Right now!
We're gonna have S-E-X! For the third time tonight!"

"Mmm-hmm," Ayeka nodded, with the expression on her face continuing
to remain as steady as ever. "Just don't make too much noise, okay?
I'm trying to sleep,"

"Ayeka, snap out of it!" Ryoko shook the princess violently. She was
really starting to worry, now. "Aren't you in the slightest bit mad
at me for suggesting I'd make love to him?"

"Ryoko," Ayeka said, looking at the naked girl through one eye. "I
realized a long time ago that you were the only one he could ever want
to be with. I accepted it, maybe you should too,"

"Whaaaat?!" Ryoko replied. "Ayeka, we've been fightin' over
him for the past half a year! There's no way you would've done that
if you thought it was pointless! That's not like you at all,"

"Well, I've grown a lot since then," Ayeka attempted to explain.

"You grew that much in two days.?" Ryoko asked.

"Sure, why not?" Ayeka giggled.

"Ayeka, are you drunk?" asked Ryoko, for it was the only other
rational explanation she could think of. She couldn't smell alcohol on
the princess' breath, though.

"Just let me sleep," sighed Ayeka as Ryoko released her grip on the
princess, and she lay down in the bed again.

"This is so confusing," Ryoko said, trying to gather her wits about
her. "This has to be some kind of joke that everyone's playing on
me. that's it."

But it couldn't have been a joke, unless Tenchi had decided to
sacrifice his virginity for the sake of a simple bit of practical
tomfoolery. Ryoko racked her brain, trying to remember any clues as to
what was causing all this bizarre behavior.

"Let's see," she said to herself, as she hovered out of Ayeka's
room and into the corridor outside (She, of course, had no problems with
public nudity, especially around the Masaki house at night. Besides, the
last thing that was on her mind right now was where to find some
clothes). "First of all, I had that dream. Then, I woke up and I was
with. Mihoshi!"

She dove headfirst into the galaxy police officer's room and tore off
the bed clothes to get at the blonde airhead, for she would no doubt
hold all the answers to this.

Mihoshi wasn't in her bed.

"Aha! She must be behind all this if she's hiding somewhere,"
Ryoko exclaimed. "Now, to find her,"

Floating from room to room, she checked each and every chamber in the
house, but Mihoshi was nowhere to be seen. She was about to give up,
when she heard the familiar humming of the television set downstairs.
Flustered, she flew down the staircase and swung herself downwards by
use of the supportive beam that spanned the hallway above the living
room door and Washu's laboratory, landing directly inside the living
room itself.

"Alright, Mihoshi!" Ryoko frowned, having found Mihoshi sitting on
the couch. "Own up, what've you done? Why's everyone acting funny?"

"I made you some food, Ryoko!" Mihoshi squeaked, showing Ryoko a
plate of very cold noodles, around which buzzed flies and other bugs. It
didn't look appetizing in the least. "Boy, Ryoko, you'll probably
catch a cold running around like that, you know,"

"Mihoshi," Ryoko began. "How long have you been sitting there?
That stuff's gone right off!"

"Ryoko, I told you I was making this food for you," said Mihoshi.
"Then you left with Tenchi, so of course it's gone off! You never
came back,"

"Mihoshi, if I didn't come back after ten minutes, you should've
just forgotten about it and gone to sleep," Ryoko said, exasperated.

"Don't be silly, Ryoko," Mihoshi guffawed. "You have to eat,
otherwise you'll starve. C'mon, eat!"

"Get away from me!" Ryoko grumbled, backing off from the crazy
galaxy police officer that was now coming toward her while brandishing a
decidedly cold meal.

This was getting ridiculous, Ryoko told herself. First, Tenchi said that
he loves her from out of nowhere. Then, Ayeka said that she had no
problem with that. And now, Mihoshi was behaving as if she'd had her
brains removed. Everyone was acting so out of character!

"Wait a minute," Ryoko said. "That's perfectly normal for
Mihoshi, what am I thinking?"

"Eeeeat fooood!" Mihoshi encouraged, waltzing about the room with
the plate.

"Definitely normal for Mihoshi," Ryoko nodded. "So I guess not
everything is screwed up around here. but there must be some reason
for the strange behavior that Ayeka and Tenchi were displaying so
exuberantly,"

"Exuberantly?" Mihoshi mimicked. "Wow, Ryoko, are you feeling
okay? You're acting funny; you don't normally use big words like
that. That's usually something Washu does,"

"Washu!" said Ryoko. "That's it! Washu! I was outside Washu's
room when I woke up. She's probably been experimenting on Tenchi and
Ayeka or something. Wait 'till I get my hands on her!"

Ryoko stormed out of the living room and slammed into the door leading
to Washu's subspace laboratory, expecting it to simply open
automatically. To her shock, the door remained steadily closed, refusing
to budge even an inch for her. She frowned and gave it a good solid
kick, but it still wouldn't give.

"Okay, now the world has officially gone insane," said Ryoko,
pushing with all her might against the door. "Washu's subspace
entrance never gets jammed, she designed it so that it couldn't,"

"Oh, that's right," Mihoshi said, coming up behind the straining
space pirate. "Washu told me to leave you a message,"

"She did?" Ryoko asked, as she turned around. "What message?"

"Something along the lines of." Mihoshi began. "Tell Ryoko that
I never want to speak to her again, and that she put a security code on
the door that disallows your entering into the lab. hey, neat, I think
I remembered the entire message for a change,"

"She said what?!" Ryoko gasped. "Mihoshi, you must've gotten the
message totally confused. she wouldn't just kick me out of her lab
forever, not without a good reason,"

Then it struck her; the short lived tiff they had gone through
yesterday. In Washu's warped little mind that could easily have been
reason enough to warrant complete and total isolation from her daughter.
Ryoko pounded on the door with her fists, without really caring if she
woke the entire household in the process.

"Washu, you crazy old fool!" she yelled. "Let me in! C'mon! I
know you can hear me! Get your butt out here, now!"

"Maybe she's not listening?" said Mihoshi.

"Of course she's listening," Ryoko replied. Though after a
straight minute of knocking, even she decided it was fruitless to
continue doing so. Furrowing her brow, she realized she couldn't make
head nor tail of what was going on around her. The situation seemed so
topsy-turvy, like she was living in an upside-down world. And it had all
started when. when. "Damn it, if only I could remember that dream
I had,"

"Dream? What dream?" asked Mihoshi.

"Mihoshi, you remember!" Ryoko leapt forward and placed a finger on
Mihoshi's neck. "When you woke me up, I told you I'd had a dream
and that's when you said I was hungry,"

"Really? I must've forgotten," Mihoshi giggled.

"Try and remember, Mihoshi," Ryoko urged the giddy galaxy police
officer. "You woke me up and.?"

"And. you said you were hungry," Mihoshi replied.

"No, that's not what I." Ryoko started to say, but she was cut
off by a train of thought that drove right across the tracks she was
making with her sentence. Her memory became a blur, and suddenly she
couldn't even remember what she'd been saying. "You're right,
that's exactly what I said."

"Mmm-hmm!" Mihoshi nodded.

Ryoko brushed the hair out of her eyes, trying to remember exactly how
she'd come to be in this position. Naked and upset about a few
frivolous moments of the day that really didn't matter all that much.
So what if Tenchi had surprised her with his confession of love,
surprises were always romantic. And as for Ayeka's reaction.
wasn't it what she'd always wanted? To stand beside Tenchi and have
no bothersome princesses in the way? Yes, that's exactly what she'd
hoped for all her life.

"And it's such a beautiful night too," Mihoshi added, as if she
were reading every thought in Ryoko's head. "Everything's right in
the world, you should be happy!"

"Right," Ryoko murmured. "I should be,"

So why wasn't she? Something. something that had just happened,
something to do with. Washu? Was it Washu? Why did it even matter?
Washu had never been a concern to her before, so it couldn't have been
Washu. Still, she couldn't get the name out of her head, like it was
stuck in the back of her mind and someone was trying to scrape it off.

"Ryoko?" Tenchi's voice echoed through her head. She looked up and
saw Tenchi standing in the doorway that led outside. He was naked, and
had an expectant look on his face, as if he was waiting for her. "I
woke up and you weren't there. I got worried,"

"Tenchi," Ryoko blushed. "Sorry, I was just talking to Mihoshi
here,"

"Mihoshi?" asked Tenchi, looking around. "I don't see her,"

"Huh? She was right here," Ryoko said. But indeed, Mihoshi had
apparently vanished. "I don't understand,"

"You probably just imagined it," said Tenchi, stepping forward and
placing a hand on her bosom. "Maybe you were sleepwalking,"

"No, I definitely." Ryoko began. Once again, the thought process
in her head was washed away with an incoming tide of artificial
memories. "You're right, I must've been,"

"Here," Tenchi said, lifting Ryoko up in his arms and carrying her
into the living room. There, he lay her down on the couch, and strangely
all the lights dimmed to a more elegant, subtle mood. Caressing her
hands, he sat down beside her and gazed upon her with wonder. "Let's
make love again,"

"Tenchi," Ryoko laughed, quietly. "First of all, we'd wake
everybody up. And second of all, I really do need to get some sleep,"

Tenchi's grip tightened on her hands, and as he squeezed it sent sharp
signals of urgency to her brain which she deduced reluctantly. She let
herself go, giving into his masterful prominence. All the doubt and
confusion in her mind began to dissipate into acceptance and lust for
Tenchi. After all, she had never wanted anything more than she had him.
Whatever mystery she had been puzzling over could wait, as long as she
got to be this close to him, and feel his love. His truly real love.
That was all that mattered.

"Tenchi," she said, yielding herself unto him as they began to make
love once more.

**

Washu awoke from her dream. One side of her head felt extremely cold and
uncomfortable. Looking down, she saw that she was resting her head
against a pile of comic books that made for a makeshift pillow. Slowly
coming to, she remembered the events of the night before, and how she
had slept with Jerry. or beside him, rather. She smiled to herself,
and tossed the phrase about playfully in her head. Beside him, with him.
there was no real difference in the meaning, but deep down she felt
tingly when she imagined telling everyone back at home that she'd
slept with the man she loved just last night.

Her dream had been most disturbing. Less so now, after she had woken up
to such a welcome series of emotions, but the images from her slumber
still refused to leave her. She had been standing on a stationary
treadmill of sorts, one that floated above a deep ocean filled with
scaly, shadowed things that she couldn't quite make out from such a
height. On one end of the treadmill stood Ryoko, and on the other end
stood Jerry. Neither of them appeared to be able to move away from the
edges, for if they could have done so then they surely would have. After
all, it was obvious to Washu that they didn't really enjoy being so
close to a sheer drop that led down into the depths of Hell itself. In
front of Washu had been a lever, and she had known that if she pulled
the lever one way then it would caused Ryoko to fall down to where those
innumerable creatures dwelled. It had followed that if Washu pulled it
the other way, Jerry would be the one to take the fall.

The decision had been far too hard a one for Washu to make, and instead
of using the lever, she began to run towards Ryoko. She just wanted to
hold her daughter one time out of sheer desperation, but in doing so she
caused the treadmill to kick into action. The hairy strands that wrapped
around it like a belt whirred with motion, and Washu watched in anguish,
unable to stop Jerry falling into the waters of certain death.

"Good morning," she heard him say, as she watched his chubby carcass
resurface in her mind. Shaking herself, she sat up and found she was
wrapped in the blanket Jerry had been sleeping under. It felt strangely
touching that the thing covered her almost completely, but could barely
even encompass Jerry's belly. She looked up and saw him sitting beside
the wall, reading one of his comic books. On the cover, a green headed
figure stood in a white uniform in front of vast multitudes of
television monitors, all of which depicted the blonde haired hero
falling to his doom. He smiled at her, though he did seem a little
bewildered.

"Hiya," she said, arching her back and feeling the bones click
inside her neck. She giggled and waved at him, playfully. "I, uh, hope
you don't mind that I crashed here for the night,"

"It's no problem," he said, putting the comic to one side. "But
I do have to ask. is everything okay with you? At home, I mean,"

"Sure, everything's fine," she replied. "Why?"

"Well," said Jerry. "Did your parents get mad at you, or at each
other, or something?"

"My parents?" Washu asked. "No, they're. quiet as ever, I
guess,"

"They aren't mistreating you, are they?" he asked, his anxiety
really starting to show. "Because I really can't let them do that to
you,"

"Um," Washu blushed, rubbing the blanket between her finger and
thumb. "It's really nothing,"

"What I mean is," Jerry sighed, standing up. "You know, you're
really not safe here either. This isn't a nice part of town, and all.
I can't have you just coming over and sleeping with me if you have
nowhere else to go. I'd prefer you to be safe,"

"Jerry, it's okay," said Washu.

"No, it's not!" Jerry replied. "If your folks are driving you
out of your house in the middle of the night, it's not okay! You
understand that, right?"

"I understand," Washu nodded, getting to her feet so she could
properly address him. "And I appreciate your concern, but my parents
don't treat me badly. Heck, they don't treat me much at all,"

"Do they neglect you?" Jerry asked, causing Washu to laugh a little.

"Jerry," she said, poking him in the gut. "You have to stop
worrying about me like this. I'm fine. There's absolutely nothing
wrong in my life. If there's anyone you should be worrying about.
well, to be honest, it's you,"

Jerry looked down at his toes, which Washu noticed were almost as grey
with dirt as the floor. She sighed, picked up a pair of discarded socks,
and began to put them on his feet.

"Just because you seem to have lost touch with your guardian angel,"
she said. "Doesn't mean you have to try and be mine. I have plenty
of angels looking out for me,"

"I always do that," Jerry croaked.

"What? Forget to put your socks on?" Washu teased, tickling his
feet. Noticing that he didn't flinch, she turned her head upwards
hoping to get a look at his face. His belly was sticking out too much,
though, so she had to stand up again.

"Try to help people," he said.

"That's a good thing, though," Washu smiled, attempting to get him
to buck up. "Right?"

"It should be," he said, dejectedly. "I guess things that should
be so simple for everyone else, just tend to have an inverse effect on
me,"

"What're you talking about?" Washu asked, genuine concern pulsing
from her voice.

"Whenever I help people," Jerry explained. "It just seems to take
away from me everything I give to them. The few friends I had in my
life, every one of them I held dear to me. but they had no problem
letting go of me, my memories, my love. every time I love and respect
somebody, they end up hating my guts,"

"That's silly," said Washu, not really able to understand. "You
respect me and. stuff. I don't hate you,"

Jerry looked down at her. He looked to be on the brink of crying, but
rather than let her see how weak he felt, he bent down and wrapped his
arms around her. She could feel his tears dripping down the back of her
neck, and although she wanted to comfort him, she couldn't quite make
sense of what he was telling her.

"Jerry," she said, patting him on the shoulder. "What happened
with your friends? Why did they end up deserting you?"

"You don't want to know," he replied.

"Don't give me that!" Washu said with a harsh tone. "I know
you're depressed, but don't go around pitying yourself like this.
You're better than that, you know. Now, whoever these so-called
'friends' were, they can't have been all that close to you if they
just ditched you like that. So, what happened?"

"She was going to be my wife," Jerry sighed.

Washu paused. At first, she couldn't believe she'd heard those
words, but she knew that he'd said them. To think that he'd loved
someone already, and that she hadn't even been there to see it. That
he might have shared such sweet moments with another girl before her,
and come out such a wreck. it just didn't seem possible. How could
love have treated him so poorly? What if he was still in love with this
girl? Washu couldn't bear to think about that, and she put it to the
back of her mind.

"Who was?" she asked softly into his ear.

"Rita," he replied. "She was beautiful,"

"Okay," Washu said, hiding her slight jealousy. "And what did she
do?"

"Stole my heart," he said. "Her family was close to mine, you see,
and I knew her for such a long time. It seemed only logical that we get
together. I felt like I knew everything about her, that I could trust
her. I wanted to take care of her, so I'd have someone there who could
take care of me too. She was the first person I ever met who I felt in
touch with. I didn't even share that kind of bond with my parents,"

"You really loved her," Washu told herself.

"Yes," he said. "Too much,"

"What happened?" she asked.

"Remember how I told you that my adopted parents gave me money
whenever I came to them asking for help?" he reminded her.

"Sure," she nodded, looking around. It can't have been much money
if all it had gotten him was this place, she noted.

"I spent. I blew all of it on her," he visibly shuddered. "Every
last penny. I spoiled her rotten, that's what I did. I loved her so
much, you see. I was such an idiot,"

"No," Washu shook her head.

"If I had any sense in me, I would have saved that money and seen just
how much of a parasite she really was," Jerry ranted, the anger in his
face turned to revulsion as he stared around at his home. "If I'd
just cut off that precious cash flow, I would have seen that it was the
only thing holding her next to me. Not my arms, not my warm embrace.
the money, the goddamn money kept her by my side,"

"That bitch," Washu growled.

"No!" Jerry shouted, as he started to pace about. Washu felt as if
he were about to turn on her at any moment, as if she'd stirred
something inside of him that hadn't seen the light of day since his
bride-to-be had left him. "Don't say that about her. I loved her,
it was my fault that she screwed me,"

"You're punishing yourself because you loved her?" asked Washu.
"Snap out of it! Can't you see how illogical your behavior is? From
the sounds of things, you were putting in your share of the relationship
just fine. Stop blaming yourself for everything,"

"So much shit happens to me," Jerry cried. "It's got to be my
fault for being such an idiot. I'm a bad person,"

"If you were such a bad person," Washu said, stamping her foot to
emphasize her point in the face of such misery. "Then you really would
have never spent a penny on the woman you loved. You wouldn't care if
my parents were or were not treating me badly. You would blame everyone
else for your mistakes. You're just confused, Jerry. Your life has
been tumbling so fast that you're not seeing things clearly,"

Jerry stopped circling the room, and he came to an abrupt stop by the
pile of comics he had stacked beneath Washu's head so that she could
sleep properly. He appeared to be contemplating them, as if he had just
realized what a kind action it had been. Then, he sat down and brought
his knees up to his belly as he began to weep. Washu placed herself next
to him, her arms behind her back and one foot cocked upwards in careful
attendance.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I can't be much of a friend to you if I
keep breaking down like this,"

"Hey," Washu said, touching him on the head. "You're the first
friend I've ever had that respects me enough to be able to show me
such a vulnerable side. I'd never change you,"

"I would," he sighed. "Isn't that just so terrible? I'd take
anything over this place. Anything. I don't want to be stuck here
anymore,"

"Well, I can understand that," said Washu, ruffling his hair.
"But, you know, if you'd found a way out of here, we probably
wouldn't have met,"

Jerry glanced at her for a minute, a paling look of near warmth on his
face. For once, he almost looked to be at home in this place, this
moment. Everything about what she had said made sense, though it
wasn't long before the irrepressible traces of self-doubt crawled back
across his countenance.

"Nah, we'd probably have met anyway," he replied, half-smiling to
himself. "I would still end up going to the library, and we would be
just as close,"

"I wouldn't be so sure," Washu said, crouching down beside him.
"Be proud of every choice you've made in life, and every path
you've taken. The minute you start to regret a single one of them,
that's what starts you down the road to failure. If you'd become a
successful business man with all sorts of companies world wide, I
don't think you would have had time for a girl such as myself,"

"I don't know," Jerry trailed off.

"Exactly, you don't," said Washu. "And if you spend your entire
life worrying about things you don't know for sure, and things you
could have been, all those things you know for sure in your heart that
are true, like love and friendship. they all just pass you by. Sounds
kinda silly, huh?"

"Washu," Jerry said, leaning against her shoulder and feeling the
reality of her love for him. This was as close as she was ever going get
to telling him how she felt, she thought to herself. She braced herself,
and feeling those queasy butterflies being let loose once more from the
jail cell of her stomach, she began to speak.

"Jerry, I."

"You know what the most pathetic thing is?" he asked, fiddling with
a few clumps of Washu's hair that were dangling over his chest. He no
longer sounded sad. His voice seemed to have been cleansed of all regret
for the wrongdoings that had been committed against him as he turned
'round every corner of his life. "Rita couldn't even bring up the
nerve to be honest with me, even at the end. Rather than simply let me
know that she didn't love a hair on my head, she just lied to me about
some stupid dream she'd pretended to have where I killed her and our
future child in their sleep with a knife,"

"She did.?" Washu asked.

"Yeah," he nodded, finding it all to be quite laughable now. Washu,
however, wasn't quite as amused, as she turned to look at the doorway.
"It was like the dark, deadly macabre icing to top off the great big
cake of lies that she'd been feeding me. To think that someone would
lie like that. did she think I wouldn't understand or have realized
that she just didn't love me? To create this dream, this forged
nocturnal rumination of paranoia is just so childish. so lacking in
trust or respect. It's crazy to think that I actually loved her,"

Washu looked down at herself. The clothes she was wearing reeked of
contempt for herself; the baggy, meadow green shorts, the ruby red shoes
that her toes tucked into like sleeping lambs, the impishly striped
shirt that circled her like children skipping around the mulberry bush.
She had dressed herself like a child, and was putting on the image as if
she were this very thing. Her whole life she had felt justified in doing
so, for it had never been a lie. She had always been so open about her
disguise, never utilizing it as some kind of trick. But sitting here
with him, basking in the glow of his unchanging respect and admiration
for her courage in standing by him without question, she had been doing
just this. Lying to him bit by bit, inch by inch, so much so that she
had built herself a ladder of falsehood; one that she would eventually
have to take a drop from. The more she lied, the longer the fall would
become, and the higher the chance of Jerry losing all respect and caring
for her. It was a foreign feeling that Washu had never known or touched
before, and her outlandish behavior towards the man she loved nothing
short of disgusted her.

"I think I have to go," she whispered, no longer considering herself
worthy of his attention.

"What?" Jerry said, as she began to walk away. "Wait, Washu,
what's wrong? My story didn't upset you, did it.? I didn't mean.
look, I'm pretty sure her dream didn't mean anything, I was. I
wouldn't."

"It's not that," replied Washu, as he floundered with his words.
He was desperately trying to retain their moment, whilst she began to
wish every moment they'd had together would never have occurred. "I
just don't feel right about myself,"

"I don't understand," Jerry said, rushing over to her as she stood
by the front door. She saw he had tears in his eyes, and silently she
cursed at herself for causing so many of them. "Washu, please don't
walk out on me like this. I like you, you're my friend. you're a
much better person to me than Rita ever was,"

"I'm not," Washu sighed, opening the door and stepping out into
the piercing sunlight of dawn. "I'm just like her,"

Jerry watched as she left, the door between them swung backwards and hid
her from sight and sound.

"For you see, I love you," she breathed, and began to teleport
somewhere far, far away. "And I don't even deserve to,"

**

End of Chapter Two...