Author's Note: I was losing some of my momentum on writing On the Open Sea and I had this story running through my head since last night. It's a nice little one-shot (something that I rarely write). I hope everyone likes it.

Ranma looked over at Akane worriedly. She had been quiet all day, even when he had been inundated with both presences of his "cute" fiancées over lunch. Then she had quietly chewed the contents of her bento, staring at something he couldn't see.

He hated it.

He hadn't enjoyed his lunch, his worry for the black-haired girl making spectacular dishes taste a little like ash. Along that vein, he didn't enjoy that he worried about someone this much – in a way, it suggested that he was dependent on her when the opposite should be true. Kami-sama, he saved Akane more times than he could count.

He immediately hushed the voice that proclaimed how often her interferences had resulted in saving his own life.

Unlike most days, the walk home from school was eerily quiet. Since midday, it was as if every person that would normally take it upon themselves to disrupt the calm could sense the brooding atmosphere. Ranma cursed Akane mentally, for her unusual quiet was making it impossible for him to take advantage of the peace.

They reached the gates of the Tendo household with incident and Ranma decided he couldn't take it anymore. "Akane, what's wrong?" He winced internally at the desperate sound of his own voice.

She blinked several times, as if coming out of a dream. "Nothing's wrong." She smiled at him with a ghost of the smile that could make his heart melt but he could see that her eyes were dark and swimming with some emotion he couldn't identify.

She broke whatever moment they might have been having by turning away and entering the house, presumably to complete her after-school ritual – homework and whatever else she did in her room. Ranma himself usually only witnessed her completing the day's assigned materials. Feeling even more irritated at his fiancée's curious behavior, he wandered into the kitchen for an afternoon snack.

It would be somewhat of a distraction for a bit, in any case.

However, he was in for a surprise here as well. The disc player that Kasumi sometimes used to play popular up-tempo music as she cooked was tuned to some somber ballad. He didn't recognize it but that didn't mean much – Akane was more studied in social culture, including music, than he was. Additionally, most of the counter surfaces were covered with prepared food, from a simple curry dish to exotic French cuisine.

At least, he assumed it was French.

Frowning, he looked over at Kasumi, who was idly cleaning the same spot on the stovetop oven over and over again while her eyes focused on some distant invisible thing. It occurred to the young martial artist that it was the same look Akane had sported all day. As a matter of fact, his brain noted idly, the teachers had not called on her once all day.

It was like everyone knew something he didn't, which only served to magnify his agitation.

"Kasumi, what's going on?" he finally asked in that soft voice that everyone seemed to use with the eldest daughter.

She hadn't been as deep in that unreachable place as Akane, though, for she blinked once and immediately focused on Ranma. "Ranma, how long have you been there?" She blushed prettily and demurely, the way Kasumi did everything, but he could tell she was embarrassed.

"Not long," he told her. He waited for her to answer his question, as she generally would.

"It's an anniversary," she told him quietly and pointed at the calendar that hung on the walls. Kasumi kept colored markers nearby, marking off each day with red. Two days from now was circled with blue and Ranma recognized it as an anniversary of when he and Genma had arrived here. However, today's date was circled in black and decorated expertly with what he thought was a forgot-me-not, a very small, usually blue flower. If he remembered correctly, it was at times used to commemorate the dead.

"Someone died?" The softness had not left his voice but it was now laced with sympathetic pain. He thought he knew who had died on this day.

"Mother," Kasumi told him, reaching out to trace the forget-me-not she had drawn on the calendar. "Twelve years now. We all remember her in different ways. Father fasts until dark, Nabiki stays away from the house until the same time, and I cook her favorite foods."

Ranma now recognized that unknown emotion in Akane's eyes: pain. "What about Akane?"

He watched as Kasumi's eyes flitted away from his gaze, one of the few times that she refused eye contact with someone. "Akane feels so deeply," she started. "It has always been hard for her, having so few memories of Mother. Lately, it's been that much harder."

"Why?" This was a side of Akane that he rarely saw. She spent so much of her time being strong and independent that he sometimes forgot she was more than the fiancée that would pummel him with one false word.

"Auntie Saotome, of course," Kasumi answered. "You might not see it, Ranma, but you are very lucky."

Akane started when there was a knock at her door. "Akane?" She frowned slightly. What did Ranma want?

Using her hand to smooth the lines of the dark floral kimono she now wore, she moved to open the door. She had used her allowance to buy this particular bit of clothing last week in preparation for her own ritual in annual remembrance of her mother. Though homework usually took precedence, this was the one day when it would wait, most often until right before she went to sleep.

This time last year, Ranma hadn't been around, though she couldn't for the life of her remember why that was. She vaguely remembered being grateful that he hadn't been present to witness this particular day of weakness. She could never explain it but this anniversary always hit her very hard.

A dim part of her mind laughed at his expression – wide eyes and mouth – when he caught sight of her. "Yes, Ranma?"

"I—I…" He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, looking like he was trying to steel himself for some reason. "I want to help."

She pressed her lips together, feeling the barriers around her emotions shudder slightly. This was the one day when she dropped every wall, everything she used as an emotional buffer between herself and the rest of the world. "I don't see how you can," she answered truthfully.

His expression drooped slightly and he looked at the ground, his shoulders tensing in a way she recognized. He always had a defensive reaction when he was about to do something nice. "Kasumi said it's really hard for you, especially with… Mom. So, I want to help… even if it's to… go away."

Akane knew instinctively that the words cost him some measure of pride and smiled to herself. Maybe tomorrow everything would be back to flying insults and dancing around their feelings but for today, he could be what she needed, if she just told him how. "Come with me," she told him. Closing her door, she led them to the dojo.

Because her father spent the morning before the shrine and the rest of the day meditating or grieving in his room, the dojo was empty. Kneeling in front of the shrine and instructing him to do the same, she swore that this would not change the ritual and part of her wanted him to know what she would tell her mother.

"But you have to be quiet, okay?"

Ranma nodded, though his face still portrayed some confusion.

So she began recounting the last year to her mother, knowing that she was somewhere listening as attentively as Kasumi has always assured her that she did. Much of it was fun or silly with Ranma at the center, as always. But there were other things, dark things that had caused equally dark emotions to infect her ki. There was her death, which she knew Ranma had tried very hard to forget, and how the darkness of that non-place still caused nightmares. Her account of the failed wedding played a large part of her account as well.

Just telling her mother about them helped to release the pent-up emotions and she talked until the sun was low in the sky. She could feel tears trailing down her face and the sobs were trying to claw past her throat. Inevitably, as she expected, she managed to say one more thing before her body relinquished its control to the breakdown.

"I miss you."

Curling down until her head was in her knees, the sobs suddenly burst from her mouth. All she could feel was the hurricane of her emotions swirling inside, threatening to tear her asunder. Every year that she grew older, it seemed to get worse. Wasn't time supposed to heal all wounds?

Suddenly, she felt the warmth of an embrace. Ranma's arms were twined around her and the side of his face lay between her shoulder blades. "Come on, Akane, it's okay. I'm here. I'll always be here."

And they stayed that way, one embrace protecting another from the world until the storm subsided, until the darkness of night settled over Nerima.