Full Circle -- Prologue
This story starts in the middle, as most stories do.
The claim that the best place to start a story is at the beginning is a particularly trite falsehood. What people purport to be the beginning of a story is just the middle of another, longer story. Unless you go back to the beginning of time itself, you'll always start in the middle.
Sometimes, though, you start the story at the middle, get to the end, and come all the way around to the beginning again. Full circle. Though again, with a circle, there's nothing but a series of middles.
I'm getting sidetracked. I'll start where I can and let the rest sort itself out.
Let's start with a beginning.
--
Nodoka and Genma met, courted, and fell in love. They married, and eventually, what happens to many married people happened to them. Nodoka was pregnant, Genma was proud and frantic all at once, and they were generally happy. Genma often sat near his wife and talked excitedly at her sizeable abdomen, telling his future offspring about the training and honour and the amazing things that were coming for the school of Anything Goes Martial Arts. Genma was looking forward to having a son, and he could feel it in his gut that Nodoka was pregnant with a boy.
Aside from Genma trying to teach martial arts through his wife's belly, the pregnancy was uneventful. After the requisite nine months, Nodoka ended up in the office of her local doctor. Neither her nor Genma particularly liked hospitals, and the doctor was a family friend that had spent the better part of the last few years patching Genma up after his training misadventures.
Nodoka's doctor -- not for the first time -- sized her up and laughed heartily.
"Twins!" he enthused. "I'm sure of it. Not only are you huge, but I can feel their auras. The yin and yang is very strong. You'll have both a son AND a daughter by the end of the day!"
Nodoka was less enthusiastic than her doctor was. Her back was killing her, she felt as though she were the size of a bus, and she was having second thoughts about this whole giving birth thing. It was uncomfortable at best, blindingly painful at worst. Genma was hanging around the edges of the room, unwilling to come too close to his wife. He loved her dearly, but Nodoka had started giving him the "you're the one that did this to me" glare about an hour ago.
The nurse kindly came over and ushered him out into the hall. Her face was covered with a mask, and her hair was under a cap, but she had bright, smiling eyes that calmed Genma immediately. She assured him everything would be just fine, and he could come back in once his child -- or possibly children -- had been born.
The doctor followed Genma out into the waiting room, telling him reassuring things about his wife and his children and how soon martial arts training could start. He waved at the nurse, wordlessly signalling that she should come get him when the real action started. The nurse closed the door behind the two men, and their loud conversation eventually faded as they moved away.
The nurse's smiling eyes and cheerful demeanour calmed Nodoka somewhat (though the departure of her husband and noisy doctor was at least partly to thank as well), and she closed her eyes, trying to meditate a bit on keeping herself calm and comfortable. Well, as comfortable as could be expected.
The nurse reached out and put her palms flat on Nodoka's belly. Immediately, Nodoka's features relaxed and her breathing slowed. She gave a small sigh, and fell asleep. The nurse didn't move her hands, and furrowed her brow slightly, a look of concentration creasing the visible part of her face. She stood like that for several minutes, unmoving, hardly even breathing. She may have gritted her teeth behind her mask. Presently, she gave a great sigh, exhaled heavily, and let her hands drop from Nodoka's body. She moved smoothly around the room, prepping this and that, while Nodoka drowsily opened her eyes and yawned.
"My goodness, did I fall asleep? Does that happen when you're in labour?" she yawned.
The nurse smiled at her from behind the mask, her bright eyes twinkling as they creased around the edges. "Only if you're lucky."
In short order, the nurse stepped into the hall and called the doctor back into the room. She helped him wash up and put on some clean gloves. He tied his own mask on, turned to Nodoka and smiled, "Well, let's meet your children."
Messy details aside, Nodoka's labour from that point on was uncomplicated. She breathed when she was told to breathe, pushed when she was told to push, and in a relatively short amount of time (which seemed interminably long to HER, it's worth pointing out) her confused and disappointed doctor was holding a baby boy. Clearly, it was the only baby she had inside her, and it was causing him some consternation.
"I could have sworn you were going to have twins today, Nodoka. I've never been wrong about this sort of thing before."
Nodoka only shook her head. She obviously didn't mind at all.
The nurse gently took the baby from his hands, and wrapped it up in soft blankets. The baby boy -- "Ranma," Nodoka had whispered -- opened his eyes as he squirmed around, softly crying. Briefly, for just a split second, his eyes met with the nurse's, and his crying paused. She smiled at him as she brought him to Nodoka's weary, waiting arms. As she passed the boy over to his mother, she whispered, "Welcome aboard, you two."
The doctor and the nurse opened the door and let the anxiously pacing Genma into the room. He rushed over to Nodoka's side, and they quietly laughed as he hugged her and smiled at his new son. The nurse closed the door behind her, and left the family alone to enjoy their new beginning together.