Disclaimer: I do not own Tenchi Muyo, or any other Tenchi universe titles. This is a work of fanfiction, and is not being published for profit. Thank you.

A short story that explores what might happen if Tenchi finally made a choice.

Apologies for any grammatical errors that I might have missed.

We Were, Then

Ayeka looked back up at Washu. The diminutive scientist's face was pinched, her lips strained with a concern she was trying to hold at bay. When her own mother wore such an expression, it degenerated into hysterics: into episodes of ear-piercing wails, and lung-collapsing embraces. Such behavior from her own mother stung Ayeka's nerves. And, as a young woman, she chafed at her mother's attempts to change her daughter's reticence toward demonstrative affection. Whole afternoons of shrieking from behind palace doors, of refusing food and comfort, all because she would not, at fourteen, call Empress Masaki, 'Mommy.'

Eventually, Ayeka learned that appeasing her mother was by far the most peaceful, if not satisfying, solution. Oddly enough, it was one of the only times that she remembered her father giving her advice that had nothing to do with matters of education or state.

"Ayeka," he'd said, his voice heavy with a sigh, "your mother, well...you will find that it is far better to accept how someone is than to fight how someone is. You will find that, sometimes, that is how we best show our love to them." As if sensing he'd stepped too far out of his usual, kingly role, he cleared his throat, and asked, "Do you understand?"

She hadn't understood. Not at the time. But, after she'd stopped fighting her mother's need to be eternally 'Mommy' and not 'Mother,' life had been easier. Her relationship with her mother was stable, somehow...even if it wasn't always sane.

This was why it was so strange to see a genuine maternal concern on Washu's face. Not to say that her life had been devoid of such an example. For Mother Funaho, of course, was always serene, and warm. As a child, Ayeka saw Funaho as everything a mother should be. She was kind, but not indulgent. She was stern, but fair. She soothed, but did not coddle. Her eyes were as placid as a lake on a windless day: no thing and no one could seriously rattle her soul. But, although she held Funaho in her heart as a mother, Ayeka could never find emotional purchase on the shores of Funaho's tenderness. Somehow, she knew that although Mother Funaho loved her, she couldn't run to her when her heart ached. She couldn't slip into her bed late at night when nightmares kept her awake. She couldn't find that spark of intimacy she so yearned for.

Lord Tenchi had remarked, just the once, that Mother Funaho reminded him of his own mother, Achika. Thinking on it then, Ayeka could not help but silently disagree. Surely, the two women were similar, being of the same family. And, Ayeka could admit, that the woman in the photograph on Nobuyuki's desk held that same serene expression that Funaho carried. But, having been blessed to meet the young Achika, so far and away in the past, living and fighting with a vibrancy that illuminated all the life around her... No. Achika was not like Mother Funaho, at all. She was something special all her own. Just like her son.

Perhaps, this maternal concern was even stranger for the fact that Washu looked like a twelve year old child. Having lived with the scientific genius for so long now, Ayeka supposed that she should be used to such dissonance. But, somehow, the way Washu looked at her now made the situation starkly surreal.

After all, here they were, two aliens on planet Earth, sitting on a dock in the middle of rural Japan. Just two of many alien women living in the Masaki household. Just two of many women who loved one, human man. Here they were on a backwater planet, saving the universe one day and, the next, trying to figure out the agricultural complexities of growing an alien tree in earthen soil, and discovering the meaning of things like Valentine's day, and chores, and family.

Surreal, always. But, more real to Ayeka than anything else in her life.

Perhaps, this was why, when Washu asked her, again, if she was really okay, she answered. Why when this goddess turned human, woman turned child, asked her with the most human of expressions, 'How have you been alright? Now that they are married? Why do you stay here with so much pain in your heart?' This was why, two months after the wedding, Ayeka finally answered honestly:

"I was told once, Miss Washu, that sometimes the best way to love someone is to accept who they are, and not to fight who they are. I didn't understand it, then. To me, it was the same as giving in. It was living day in and day out for someone else's wishes, and not for your own. That was why I stayed-that first day I crashed here, on Earth. Yes, my heart moved for Lord Tenchi...but, more than that, I was finally living for myself.

It sounds like that typical story Miss Mihoshi likes so much, doesn't it? The princess who leaves her world behind, and finds love, and freedom. It makes things seem so paltry. When it's really you, when you're really that princess and it's your life and not a story, nothing happens the way you believe it should. Nothing ends. It just keeps going whether you wish it to, or not.

But, I don't think Miss Washu, that I really understood loving someone. That not knowing-Lord Tenchi always faltering between the two of us-it was hope. I thought I had learned now what it was to love, and not to adore. I knew why it was different, my love for Lord Tenchi, and not the illusion my adoration of Brother Yosho had been.

So, I waited. And, I waited and waited for so long, it was like flying. Just being suspended there. Floating on hope. It's like you're a child, again, and the whole of your life is being imagined, yet. Everything is color, and light...those memories so vibrant that even the bad times are precious. I think I fell even more in love with Tenchi waiting for him.

And, then he came to me-that day in fall. I remember the sweet potatoes were just cool enough to eat, and you could smell burning leaves...a bite of the winter to come in the wind. We'd just gotten him back from Haruna's dreamworld. You remember, Miss Washu. How hard we searched, and worked, and longed for him, and then he was just back and we were all eating sweet potatoes, again. It was hard to pretend I didn't still feel what happened. It was hard to see Lord Tenchi and know-k-know he'd been with another woman. That way. We all knew. We all felt it. Tenchi was changed, somehow. We were changed.

He asked me to walk with him. I think I knew even then, walking just a step behind him on the path, through the orange and red of the trees-I knew what he was going to say. But, that hope kept me paralyzed. For years I'd just been breathing in hope, so that I didn't know how to go on without it...without suffocating.

I waited.

Tenchi led me to Ryu-Oh. He took my hand, helping me across the stepping stones to the little island where Ryu-Oh grows. But, he didn't let go. I didn't know what to do. He'd always let go before, and I...I held on tighter. I couldn't help myself.

His eyes went down to our joined hands. I'll never forget his eyes just then. Usually so warm-his brown eyes-but, then, downcast like that...they held a dread I'd never seen in him before. A frown turned his handsome face. My stomach dropped at the sight of it. In my dreams, when I imagined this moment...our hands entwined together, he'd been smiling. It was harder to breathe. I tried to take my hand away.

But, he held on to it more tightly. He wouldn't let me go. As if he couldn't bear to speak without holding my hand. As if he couldn't bear to to tell me the contents of his heart without an anchor. It is the only purely selfish thing I have seen him do in all the time I have known him.

I don't know how long we stayed like that. Suspended for just one moment more as we had always been, as we were in the beginning: an innocent boy from earth, and the princess from the stars that gave him her heart. I think we both felt it. That if we dared to speak, if we let go, that everything that might have been...all those memories tense with meaning, so much beauty and joy, would suddenly and irrevocably be lost. Teetering on the brink of that loss, we both froze. Afraid, aching...beyond consolation.

In the end, he didn't even say anything, at all. I had fallen in love with him, first. Given him my affection before he knew it was there. And, I was the first to fall, again. I broke. My free hand shook in front of my eyes as my vision blurred, and I tried to stifle a sob. I couldn't. My throat was on fire. More and more the world bled away into heat and pain. I'd finally, really, fallen to earth.

He did hold me, then. Pushed my head against his chest, and apologized. Kind Tenchi...he shouldn't have apologized. It wasn't his fault, not really. It's our strange plight, humanoids, that we can control so much...transform planets and rule galaxies, but we aren't lords of our own hearts. Even all your science, Miss Washu, cannot bend the heart to love someone else.

I thought about all that later, of course. Then, and for months after, I was only burning from the inside. I thought there was nothing left to consume...no feeling that had not been utterly turned to ash by the time the wedding came. I had this futile thought that I would smile, but feel nothing. Be as I was raised: regal, but removed.

You know that I did not succeed. Not for long. You know that Sasami found me. She told me it was alright. We were still Tenchi's family. We were still loved. He would not make us leave. And, then, suddenly, it was not just her holding onto me. We were holding each other. She'd finally voiced her own fears, and let them drown in the safety of a sister's arms, in the silence of our room.

I was, of course, late to the reception. I'd never considered his bride a woman of grace, but when she didn't mention my tardiness...I knew I had misjudged her. And, despite myself, I wondered how many other things I had wrongly judged her for: how many times I had accused her of ignorance, and been guilty of it myself.

Don't cry, Miss Washu. Oh, there now. Just remember how Miss Mihoshi caught the bouquet...and the banquet table all at once. Yes, even at the time, that made me smile, too.

But, you understand now? When you ask me if I'm alright? No, I don't think so. Not yet. You ask me why I stay? It's because I finally understand. I know what it means to stop fighting who he is, and accept him. To stop fighting where his his heart lies. It's how I can show my love to him. There's some peace in it, Miss Washu...in understanding something of that kind of love.

And, would you believe it? I can finally call my mother, 'Mother.' It seems I'm not a child, anymore. Everything is moving...

I can, too. I will. There's new hope there, I believe, for us. Our family."