lhudson@ids.net (Laura Hudson) Author's Notes: This is the sequel to Liberating the Water, and the first in a series of stories. This will be the only one based on Ami. Enjoy! ************************************************************ Ripples ************************************************************ I reach to turn on the radio, and before my hand even touches the dial I know what song I'm going to hear... Before I walk around the corner, I know who I'm going to see. Before your mouth opens, I know what you're going to say. That bothered me once, knowing that much. Ami came to see me yesterday. The odd thing was, I knew she was coming. I knew it was her before I opened the door, and yet it surprised me. I had pictured her face so often, expected it so many times that it was almost surreal. My eyes were wide when I saw her face filtering through the hundreds of tiny holes in the screen door. And yet in my heart, I had known she was coming. It was a less tangible prophecy than, say, divining algebra test answers, it was an emotional/precognitive knee-jerk response. I touched the doorknob, twisted it, slid the door open and knew what I was going to see. And yet she surprised me. "Ami!" I remember saying, swinging the screen door open with a creak. "What a surprise!" "I don't think I could ever _surprise_ you, Urawa." she said contemplatively, looking up at me wih blue eyes. "Weren't you expecting me?" I thought for a second. "I suppose I was." I smiled and invited her inside. She removed her shoes in the doorway, setting them to the side. There was something different about her. It might had been one of those little nuances I never pick up on: losing a few pounds, trying a different hairstyle, wearing a new blouse. But it was not a superficial difference, it was more. She was walking differently as I led her into the kitchen. There was a confidence, a self-assured poise I had never seen in her. It colored everything about her, the way she held her head, the *knowingness* in her face, her body language... I recalled the way she used fold her hands or her arms, hunch her shoulders, or just get this pained expression on her face every once in a while. That always bothered me. It was like she was trying to make herself smaller, less obtrusive all the time. Every time she bumped into someone, it was always, "Gomen nasai! Gomen nasai!" with such concern that you'd think she'd done them grievous harm. It was almost as though she considered herself an imposition. When we went to the same school, before I moved, I remember how she acted in the hallway, slipping in between the crowds of people like a timid mouse, afraid to touch anyone or bother anyone. I nearly chucked, recalling it. Bothersome to touch her... what a thought. Her small feet moved nimbly across the white, square tiles of the kitchen floor. It was an airy room, with light pouring through many windows and plants hung here and there. There were lilies in a vase on the kitchen table. "Are you thirsty?" I asked, moving toward the fridge. "We have some soda if you'd like." "I would like that very much." she answered with certainty. I glanced back at her before lifting the plastic bottle off the refrigerator shelf. She was unusually... self-assured, I think would be the word. I opened the cupboard and took out a tall glass. Positioning it under the ice dispenser, I pressed the button. The half-moon cubes inside the refrigerator growled, and then tumbled into the glass. She spoke to me, still seated at the table. "Do you have any-" I pulled a box of straws out of a drawer. She paused, her mouth in the middle of forming an "s" and then shut it. That still impressed her, the little examples of my gift. I could tell she liked it, my knowing what she wanted before she said it. I poured the soda, the dark brown liquid splashing over the ice cubes and fizzing up to the top of the glass. I carried the glass and the box back to the table and set them next to Ami. She took a straw out of the box and set it in her drink. "Aren't you going to have anything?" she asked, touching her lips to the mouth of the plastic. "Naah, I'm OK." I said, waving my hands in front of me. She casually took another straw out of the box and set it in the drink. Suddenly I was thirsty. I leaned toward the drink, close to her face, and had a sip. I leaned back again and smiled at her. "It's good to see you again, Ami-chan." I said. It was a fairly lame comment, one of those pointless conversation fillers, but I honestly couldn't think of anything else to say. She hadn't told me why she had come. Not that she really needed a reason to, but I knew there was one. "It's *good* to see you, too." she replied, and she meant it. Really meant it. I could hear it in her voice, a slight lilt that changed the entire mood. There was very little reserve about her, perhaps that was the change. Everything she felt seemed to register on her face, rather than being hidden inside her. "Ami... what's wrong?" I asked her. She didn't answer at first, drawing the cold, dark liquid slowly up the straw, her eyes still looking at me. She swallowed and sat up. "A lot has happened in the past few weeks." she began. Her throat seemed to dry up and she drank again. "Things... have changed." she said, not making eye contact. She kept tugging at her sleeve, rubbing her arm to the point of distraction. "Ami, tell me." There was concern in my voice, but I kept my tone calm. "Don't you already know?" she asked with a quiet indignation, as though I'd been ignoring her, not caring enough to pay attention. (If I was important to you, wouldn't you already know?) her gaze seemed to say. "Couldn't your gift have told you?" She seemed disappointed for a moment, that it hadn't, that *I* hadn't understood immediately. I breathed for a moment, unsure of what to say. "It's not always predictable, and it doesn't always work the way I'd like it to." I reached out and touched her hand, resting on it. She stopped pulling at her sleeve. "It's not because I don't care." I said, looking down on her hand. Her expression softened. "I know it's not." "I'd rather have *you* tell me anyway." Ami pushed the chair away from the table and stood up. "Would you mind if we took a walk?" she asked, walking to the sink and setting the glass in it with heavy sound. "No, I'd like that." I said, watching her avoid the question. I took my jacket out of the closet and slipped it on. It was mid-afternoon on a beautiful day. We walked down the street of my residential neighborhood at a relaxed, slowish pace. Ami walked on the inside, closest to the curb, crunching the gathered gravel underneath her feet and kicking like larger stones along in front of her. She lifted her head, and the sun lit upon her face. She closed her eyes slightly and raised one arm to block the glare. "So... where do you want to go?" I asked her, my hands in my pockets. "Here." she said, pointing and then turning abruptly right onto a more rural road. We walked for a bit longer. "And now?" I asked. "We'll be there soon enough." she answered as though to a child. I considered asking, 'Are we there yet?' but decided against it. The scenery around us changed from houses and buildings to dense clusters of pines as we passed into a wooded area. Looking carefully at the trees, she slowed and then stopped definitely on a spot as though an X marked it. I looked around. There was nothing there. She turned towards the forest, stepping up on the curb, and then through small gap in the trees. "C'mon!" she called out to me. I followed her blindly, neither trying nor wanting to know what lay ahead. I hurried to keep up with her, my face in a state of perpetual cringe and my hands in front of me to bear the brunt of any recoiling branches. There had been a well-beaten path there once, but now tree limbs extended across it and undergrowth and spread unchecked. It had been a while since anyone had visited there. The path wound arcs around the forest as though trodden down by a drunk. I stumbled clumsily behind her, without the faintest clue where I was headed and trying not to trip over a tree root and break my ankle. After a minute of two of walking, Ami slowed in front of me, at the edge of a clearing. I could not see what lay ahead, but she could, gazing motionlessly from the entrance. She stepped through and I immediately followed. A little pond lay in front of us. It ran off one side into a stream, and gleamed reflectively like a mirror, glossy in the sun. "I used to come here when I was little." she said, walking up the water edge and crouching down. "My father used to bring me." she looked at me to see my reaction, and I smiled slightly, unsure of how to respond. "He taught me how to swim, you know. I've always loved water, since I was little..." she stroked the surface like a cat's fur. "He told me I swam like a little fish, true to my name. Mizuno, Ami of the Water." She pulled her hand out of the water, disturbing the surface, and shook the water off her fingers. "After he and Mom divorced, we saw each less... lived farther away from each other. He never had time to take me swimming anymore, or play chess with me... or really see me at all. Everything was different. Sometimes I thought that after things changed, he loved me less." Her words struck my heart and I wanted to dispute them, but she didn't need me to argue with her. The best thing I could do for her was to listen. It was the best thing I could do for myself as well. She continued. "Swimming always felt natural to me, like I belonged in the water even if I didn't belong anywhere else. It just... immerses you, literally." she turned to me. "Sometimes when I'm swimming, I just want to sink to the bottom and never come up." I almost jerked backwards at the statement. I must have looked completely horrified because she shook her head. "I don't mean to drown... Just to have the water fill you completely, to become it. Floating in it, swimming through it, I feel like part of the water. It fits around me no matter how I act, or what I become. It always takes you back." She kept looking up me to see my reaction, with a question in her eyes that I couldn't answer. Because she wouldn't tell me what the question was. I walked over to the edge of the pond. She looked at me apologetically. "I'm different now, aren't I." she said, a statement in the form of a question. I did not hesistate. "Yes." _She_ hesistated then, wary to say the words she thought, not wanting to ask them, perhaps, for fear of the answer. They pained her, winded her to muteness because of the threat they carried. The threat of my reply, of one word that could tear her apart. I "looked" rather than make her speak; I spared her that much. "Yes." I answered again, to what she had not asked. She stood and hugged me tightly. "Thank you." she whispered, her eyes closed. It had meant a great deal to hear that, however silly the question seemed to me. There had never been any doubt in my mind. Of course I still loved her. "I'm different now." she said, not asking anything. Her voice was stronger now, declaring without apology. "And so are _we_." "But not... the way I feel." I said, blushing slightly. "That hasn't changed one bit." She took a breath. Still hugging me, I felt her chest rise and fall, her breath exhaling against me. I had given her the affirmation she needed, to know that who she had become -for whatever reason- was OK. I released her from the hug. I did not tell her I had seen her cringe from the pressure of our embrace on her broken ribs, felt the bandages and bruises through her blouse. I did not tell her all I knew, or that I knew all, for it was her story to tell. "I want to tell you..." she began, and then paused. She looked in my eyes and saw that I loved her. "How I destroyed a world..." - When she finished speaking, there were tears in both our eyes. It was painful story to tell, and to hear. She had suffered much, because of both who she had become and what she had done. Her pain, her terror, her loneliness and her guilt... It had weighed on me as well, having known for so long what she had experiencing, but being unable to help her... We had suffered together. "I love you more now than before." I told her, though I did not have to. She had come to terms with what had happened, with herself and what she had done. And she knew I loved her anyway... She was free. I myself no longer had to live knowing she was in pain, that was my relief. But still I was not truly free... How could I be, chained to the future? I saw everything coming a mile away. Where was the joy of surprise? "Urawa..." said Ami. "Hm?" I answered absent-mindedly. She moved toward me quickly, threw her arms around me and kissed me passionately. Shocked, all I could do was stand there stupidly, holding her. Her lips were hot against mine, gentle and insistent. I was astonished. I was overwhelmed. I was... surprised. We released each other slowly, both from the embrace and from all else that bound us. Ah, but perhaps that it is not true. She was already free, she only had to realize it herself. Perhaps I was not there to liberate her, but for her to liberate me? It was something I had not considered, that I had not foreseen. And therein lies the point. I ran my hands down the sides of her face and I began to understand, began to know. "Ami, will you promise me something?" "Yes." she replied. "Someday, a day when you probably won't want to, I'm going to ask you to smile. Will you do that for me?" She nodded slowly. I held her again, feeling as though I was fading into her arms... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I slam the door to my office, and pictures shudder nearby on the walls. I have a sudden urge the open the door and slam it again, but that is unbecoming of a doctor. And a senshi. We do not indulge ourselves with childishness. We are held to a higher standard, counted upon to be fair, just and righteous. We are expected to be... better. I fall in the cool, white leather of my chair and laugh. The laughs begin to catch in my throat and somehow become sobs. Better. I am no better. I am much less. Three of my patients died today. One of them was an acquaintance of mine. I do not say "friend," because I never allowed him to be that. He reminded me very much of someone I knew very long ago, someone I cared for dearly. But now they are both dead and I could not save them. He was my patient, and I failed to save him. Of course, no one blames me. They say there was nothing I could do, that it was just old age. He was 90 years old. Which frightens me, because it seems only a year ago when he turned 30. I could've fallen in love with him, if I'd let myself. Instead, I kept him at a professional distance to protect myself from... this. From feeling this. So why am I feeling it? I knew almost nothing about him, about his life or his dreams... And yet this affected me so deeply. Part of me regrets not having known him better, and part of me regrets knowing him at all. I may say we were never friends, but nevertheless I weep. Because I will never die, and because he had to. My grief begins to fade, perhaps because it is habitual, and I become aware of my surroundings again. The room feels very sterile around me, without scent or feeling. I have no right to complain, because I designed it that way. The entire hospital is a picture of immaculateness emptiness, one that I created for myself. During the day, there is a humming throughout it of machines, cutting edge technology designed by Crystal Tokyo scientists. But now, at night, there is silence. I dread walking through the hallways, empty and dark with only the sound of my shoes against the floor, echoing between the walls. I feel like flailing sometimes, as though lost in nothingness. I am... lost. I have lost my meaning, my purpose. And without a destination, how can I find my way through the darkness? Serenity worries for me, as do all the Senshi. But they understand, for they have felt it too... The strain of immortality. The others have found things to keep them occupied, purposes to keep them fulfilled. I had always depended on medicine, on the hospital to provide me with that. But it different now, after all these years. Things change when you have lived as long as I. This immortality, it is not always a gift. For the first few centuries, I appreciated it. I dedicated myself to learning every skill, every profession, ever bit of knowledge I could. I saw more, experienced more than any human being could in a normal lifetime. After about 500 years of traisping around the Earth, I settled down in Crystal Tokyo to concentrate on my medicine, to be a doctor. It fulfilled me at first, and I devoted myself to it passionately. With my extensive knowledge base and research in medicine, I discovered cures for dozens of fatal diseases. I perfected and improved surgical procedures, invented new healing techniques... At any medical school, you can find at least six or seven courses dedicated solely to studying my work. They say I've saved millions of lives in my lifetime solely as a doctor. They say I've revolutionized the field of medicine. I... no longer care. I rarely practice any more, instead dedicated to the mechanics of running a hospital. Paperwork and statistics. I don't want to be a doctor anymore. It no longer seems important, and though that pains me I cannot help but feel it. No human can truly understand what it is like to be immortal. The years move more quickly, until soon they seem no longer than months... or days... Some people accuse the Senshi of being elitist, that they think they are superior to mere humans. They say that because they are mortal, and they cannot comprehend. They do not know what it is like to care about someone, to watch their entire life waste away in what seems a matter of months. And then, our bodies whole and young, to bury them and try to walk away. We have all done it, suffered it too often, turned around one day to find another generation of people we cared for buried in the ground. That is why the Senshi avoid human friends... or lovers... we have all made that mistake and paid for it. The others have become somewhat immune to the level of death we must witness, but I... I am a healer. It is my duty to make others well, to cure them. But I cannot cure them of the disease that is their humanity. I have tried, I have tried for centuries more, but cannot cure the frailities of their condition. It will kill them, every one. That is my failure, and there is nothing I can do. In light of that, what really matters? Why heal their brittle bodies when they are destined to die? Why cure men that die in the blink of an eye? Why does it matter, how can it anymore? I have sworn to do no harm, but I no can no longer do good. I am USELESS! What can I do but be witness to billions of deaths that I cannot stop! Tears come to my eyes to the first time in a long time. My head drops to the desk and I am still as silent tears drip onto the cold, metal surface. Perhaps I belong in a textbook, or a museum. Perhaps I no longer have anything to offer the world. Perhaps it is time that I give up. There is a knock at the door. I wipe my frustrated tears away with my hands and open gently what I had thrown shut minutes earlier. It is... Serenity, of all people. She is dressed in a simple white skirt and pink shirt, and she reminds me so much of the girl she once was. "Usagi." That old, forgotten name slips out, and yet the moment I say it I know it is not her. Everything about the way she moves, the way she speaks belies it. She is a different woman now, shaped by time into someone new. She commands my respect as well as my love. "Serenity." I say, correcting myself. And yet I see Usagi in her face. She says nothing, but instead holds out a paper to me, yellowed and cracked with age. It is folded in thirds, and the outside bears an ancient date. I think for a moment and a rare feeling of surprise shoots through my brain. She looks at me contemplatively. "I promised I would give this to you today. It has been recopied several times over the centuries, so the handwriting is not the same..." She presses it into my hand. "But nothing else has changed." The creases crackle as I unfold it and read the carefully penned word. "I write this to you, Ami, from a time that will be ancient by the time you read it. Your memories may have dimmed in the thousand years since, but I *know* you will remember the day you came to me, that evening at the pond when you realized how much you had changed. I told you that I loved you and that that would never change. You thought I freed you... Ami, you have to know that you were wrong. It was I who was set free. "I have lived my life in a state of perpetual stagnancy. By the time I lived a moment, it had already become old in my mind. I thought I was doomed to a life devoid of joy and spontaneity. You showed me I was *not* chained to the future, that the unseen could still be hidden around the corner. That it *mattered*. You gave me back my hope. And now I will give you yours. "That moment in your arms, your life was revealed to me. Deep in the secret part of my mind something flashed, and I *knew*. I saw _your_ future, your tragedies and joys, your triumphs and failures. I saw how the change you underwent allowed you to reach out and help others in ways you could not before. "Liberating yourself all those years ago was like dropping a stone in the water. The way ripples circle out across the water, that change has radiated across the centuries and touched more lives that you could ever dream. You honored me greatly, Ami, for I was the first. "You have made waves through time whose effects can never be measured. I have seen them. I have seen your future, and I know that this is that day that you truly lose hope for the first time. I write this to beg you not to. You have the capacity to help so many other, to change the very fabric of history! Your potential is as great as it ever was, Ami, and I write this to you so that you will again free yourself. "Ami, I will love you forever. I *know* that. But I know just as surely that my life will be only a page of yours. When I'm gone, and you think of me, remember that I loved you. Remember that you touched my life in a way that made it worth living, worth *something*. As long as you remember, I will never die. None of us have to. Smile for me, Ami. Forever, Urawa." I smile, tears running down my face. Oh, Urawa. You knew. http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/5752/laura.html