The First Sorrow, a xiaolin showdown fanfic

Disclaimer: In some dimension they may be mine, but not this one.

A/N: The result of watching too many Xiaolin Showdown videos on YouTube while waiting for midnight on December 31st. Yup, no New Year shindig for Scribbler.

Continuity: Pre-canon.

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The First Sorrow

The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new. -- Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh quotes (Indian Spiritual leader, 1931-1990)

Uncle Shinji once told her she looks like her mother, and since she doesn't really remember her mother, she believed him. Papa doesn't talk about her much, either, and Kimiko has learned to keep away from the subject.

Yet like all little girls she's curious about what life was like before she was born. It's an intriguing concept, that things happened before she was around for them to happen to. So when she finds the scrapbook in the back of the bureau she's understandably intrigued. She has a scrapbook of her own with her rosettes and swimming certificates in it, but it's mostly empty while this one bulges.

It's too heavy to carry all the way up the grand staircase to her room. Instead, she settles under a blanket in the den to read it. The spine creaks from disuse and there's a fine layer of dust that come off the pages and make her cough as she turns them.

And what pages they are! Glossy photographs, magazine articles, newspapers clippings and ticket stubs – everything taped neatly into place and marked in a scrawled hand that looks remarkably like Papa's. The same woman appears in each picture, and by carefully sounding out the words like they showed her in school Kimiko learns her name is Marcy Nussbaum, and that she is a singer.

She's just reading about how Miss Nussbaum sang in the Sydney Opera House when she hears the door open and Papa call her name.

"Kimiko? Are you in here?"

She tries to close the book, somehow knowing that she wasn't meant to find it. It snaps shut on her fingers as Papa whips off her blanket.

His expression is playful, but changes when he sees the scrapbook. His smile falls off his face in a solid lump, leaving behind a grim line like a twist of wire. He scowls behind his glasses. "Why do you have that? Give it here!"

Kimiko fumbles and drops the overlarge book. It bursts open. Photos spread out across the carpet, their sticky tape dried out and their carefully arranged order ruined. One or two bend, making tiny white creases that mar Miss Nussbaum's beautiful face.

Kimiko squeaks at Papa's thunderous rumble. He drops to his knees, scraping the photos together like a man digging barehanded in sand for buried treasure. "Stupid girl," he snaps, in a way she's never heard from him before. "Look what you've done!"

"I'm sorry, Papa, I didn't mean to -"

"Get off, you're getting horrible fingerprints all over them!"

"But I'll help - "

"Stop touching them! You're only making it worse!"

Her hands curl in towards her chest like they're on a piece of elastic. Tears fill her eyes, but Papa doesn't even notice. Usually the merest sniff is enough to make him wrap her in a comforting hug, or fetch his newest, shiniest toy for her; but now he doesn't so much as look up. Neither does he move when she jumps to her feet and runs out in a flood of tears.

Her bed is pink, garlanded with drapes that look like some exuberant interior designer's attempt to simulate intestines with frills. Her stuffed unicorns peep when she throws herself facedown among them, eventually sobbing herself dry and curling up with her favourite toy – Nojiko, a battered doll missing an eye and most of her hair.

It seems a long time before her door creaks open, though it's only about fifteen minutes. Papa doesn't announce himself. Kimiko feels the mattress go down as he perches on it.

Another few minutes pass. Papa coughs. She doesn't uncurl.

"I'm sorry, Kimiko," he says at last. He sounds sincere.

She turns over and regards him without sitting up. "I didn't mean to look. I was just curious. I'm sorry."

Yet he shakes his head. "No, it is I who should be sorry. I overreacted. I frightened you."

She scrubs at her eyes. "A little."

"Do you forgive me?"

She doesn't even have to think about her answer. She loves her father with an unequivocal, childlike blindness. "Uh-huh."

She scrunches over to the edge of the bed and they sit for a while, his arms around her like a barrier between her and the rest of the world. She likes it when Papa hugs her. He smells of mint humbugs and that special Papa smell. The only way she can think to describe it is as that particular scent that fills your nose when you open the first present on your birthday – excitement and sugar and hope. It's the same feeling she gets when he delays going to the office on Sundays and gives Cook the day off so he can make pancakes for their breakfast.

Kimiko Tohomiko is a very precocious girl. Everybody says so. She was the first person in her class to use the word 'denigrating' in a sentence – unfortunately she used it on a teacher who was trying to explain how to use Microsoft Office. Nonetheless, even the most precocious child can benefit from a warm hug and a heart-to-heart.

"She was the most beautiful woman I ever met," Papa tells her as they pore over the scrapbook. "I was just a simple office monkey back then, while she was a transfer student from Germany, but oh, when our eyes met across the photocopier…"

Kimiko giggles in the way of children too young to appreciate romance. "But this says she was a singer."

Papa's eyes darken again, but this time his voice stays soft. "She was a singer. That came afterwards. To begin with she was a translator, and I delivered the mail. She was the one who encouraged me to take a chance, so I sank my life savings into a tiny video game firm that was on the verge of going under. I had a knack for making good business decisions, but nobody listens to the office mailman. Nobody except her, that is. We dated while we were both humble, so when the firm turned around and I started to be worth something I knew she didn't just want me for my money. Other women came sniffing around, but she was the only one for me. My Marcy… She never really wanted to be a translator, so when things were secure I cashed in some shares and financed a record label to produce her music."

"Wow. And she was popular?"

"Very." He doesn't need to say more. The scrapbook speaks for itself. "We married just after her first single was released, but she performed under her unmarried name."

Kimiko touches one yellowed edge of a newspaper article. "What happened to her?" she asked quietly.

For a moment Papa doesn't answer. "Not long after you were born … she was supposed to stay home to recuperate, but she had a contractual obligation. Do you know what that means, honey?"

"Uh-huh. It means there was legal stuff and she had to do something even if she didn't really feel like it, because she'd signed her name on a bit of paper."

He nods. "Well, because of that obligation she spent Christmas in Beijing. I tried to fight it, but by that time the label had really taken off and it was out of my hands. She hated missing your first Christmas. You were so precious to her … she was so eager to get back and spend New Year with us that she got a cab from the airport instead of waiting for the limo to pick her up. It'd been raining, and then there was a frost. She got back at one in the morning, the coldest part of the night …"

Kimiko notices that he's trembling, his hands gripping the scrapbook so tight his knuckles have blanched. She touches his hand and he relaxes a little, but not much, so she pushes Nojiko under his arm to make him feel better. He smiles and ruffles her hair, takes a breath and continues.

"There was a terrible accident. Her car skidded on the road. I … I blamed myself when I heard. If I hadn't pushed her to be a singer she would've been able to stay home, with you, instead of being out that night. If I'd thought to write her contract myself instead of letting my idiot lawyer do it, she never would've had that obligation…"

Kimiko looks at her father. "Now that's just silly."

"Excuse me?"

"It wasn't your fault, Papa. It wasn't anybody's fault. That what an accident means – that's there's nobody to blame. Even I know that."

He stares at her for a long moment, the same way he looks at toys the designers bring in which excite him and make him want to take them apart to see how they work. "When did you get so wise?"

"I'm not wise. I'm precocious." Kimiko studies a photograph of a party with people in sparkly dresses and tuxedoes. Everybody's smiling and laughing, and in the middle of it all, in the shiniest, sparkliest dress, stands a woman with blue eyes and blonde hair twisted into a chignon. "I wish I could've met her."

"You know, you have her eyes."

Kimiko drops her gaze. Kids at school make fun of her eye colour, calling her names and telling her she isn't normal. She is too normal! She's just special with it. Still, she feels better knowing her eyes aren't an abnormality. They're just her Mommy looking at the world through her.

Her Mommy. Her Mommy. Gosh, that feels weird.

Papa turns to the very back of the scrapbook. There, on the last page, is a single photograph. It shows a much younger Toshiro Tohomiko alongside Marcy Nussbaum. They both look exhausted but happy, and Marcy is carrying a small bundle of lemon-yellow blankets.

"The doctor took this at the hospital when you were only a few hours old," Papa says sadly. "Marcy – your mother, I mean – she didn't want to be photographed because she had no make-up on, but I told she looked lovely anyway. She was in labour with you for fourteen hours."

Kimiko boggles. "Really?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Wow. Papa?"

"Yes, honey?"

"Thank you."

"I should've done this a long time ago. It wasn't right, and it wasn't fair not to talk about her. You're such an intelligent little girl, you must've had so many questions. Marcy would've shouted at me for keeping you in the dark. I'm sorry, Kimiko."

"Don't be. I love you, Papa."

He wraps her in another safe, sweet-smelling hug. "And I love you, my little Kimiko. My little blue-eyed girl."

Kimiko thinks he's crying because the top of her head is getting wet, but she doesn't pull away or say 'yuck' or anything. She just sits and lets him, because Papa may be a very intelligent man, but even the most intelligent men can benefit from a warm hug and a heart-to-heart.

Fin.

The death of a mother is the first sorrow wept without her – Anonymous