Chapter 1: Somewhere A Clock Is Ticking
"Oh simple thing where have you gone?
I'm getting older and I need something to rely on"
-Keane
Ami Mizuno straightened lengthwise in her chair as her ears
picked up the sounds of bustling feet and the soft silent coos
that Makoto was making. Ami pushed back her glasses and
smiled warmly at the bundle that Makoto held that had just wet itself.
"Little bugger...." Makoto murmured shyly.
"Haha...all babies are like that Makoto," Ami replies trying hard
not to make Makoto feel that her presence was a problem.
The two sat there for a long time watching the babies' small little
fingers clench at the front of Makoto's shirt. Life. That's what Ami
loved to see just the thought of being a doctor and saving whatever
small life she could brought meaning into her existence. Melancholy
wrapped around the two, making the moment more real, and gave the
cold room some warmth. This was what Makoto had made in all her
years of destroying Youma she thought she could nothing else but
fight...but now here she was, a mother of a very healthy baby boy.
"Have you decided what to name him, yet?" Ami asks tickling his
soft stomach.
"No. Motoki and I agreed that we'd name him together and since he's
at the hospital now for further testing it wouldn't be fair...I could've visited
him you know? But....the drugs he said made him feel like he just wasn't
really there, you know?" Makoto replie,d a hint of sorrow edging itself into
her voice, making it waver and almost break under the strain.
Suddenly the beauty and melancholy of the moment lost its appeal to Ami
like a bath of icy cold water had just poured itself in over her heart. More
importantly, Makoto who looked so young and childish just now tending to
her first newborn, now had the look of someone aged far beyond their years.
Ami felt the small dribble of guilt work itself into a knot in her stomach tightening
and unwinding.
"It's always the good people that get punished....always," Ami whispers surprised
at how rough and brusque her voice sounds.
Makoto looks up hesitantly her long brown hair rippling to the side of her beautiful head.
Her chestnut eyes regard Ami closely, worriedly.
"It's not your fault Ami. It's no ones....it's just fate I guess," Makoto shrugged trying to
make it look like it was no big deal.
"Oh, don't try to act so tough Makoto...you know you've never been happier when you
were with Motoki. Just when we were finally getting a little bit of happiness for ourselves
fate just had to one-up us all," Ami grounds through her teeth her sentence as the guilt seems
to bubble up in her, more than anger ever did.
Makoto hesitantly reaches out for Ami's hand squeezing it softly, trying in her own way
to tell Ami not to worry, even though she herself had about driven herself up the wall
with cooking to get rid of her stress.
"Don't worry my flower shop makes enough money to pay for Motoki's treatment.
Don't you worry he'll be back and up on his feet in no time," Makoto said cheerfully
trying to convince herself.
Ami hung her head wretchedly replaying the ill words the doctor had told her just
after Makoto had made her way into Motoki's room.
"there's no hope....even if he has the treatment....he'll never live...."
"What?" Makoto asked, as Ami had mumbled something incoherent under
her breath.
When Ami looked up however, Makoto felt her heart clench for some unknown
reason, as if Ami had just grabbed it in a vice grip and squeezed. Ami's eyes smarted
and quivered with unshed tears, she had promised never to cry again, not for
something she did, or chose to do. She had told Usagi that she would deliver
Makoto the ungarnished truth...
"Makoto there's no hope....the doctors said...that even if he has treatment done
he would never survive....Usagi and I, we tried to tell you, but it was....oh Makoto."
Upon seeing Makoto immediately tense up at her words Ami had moved forward to
hold the chestnut haired woman in a warm embrace. Makoto sat as still as a block of
wood, she didn't even notice when the baby started crying fitfully, as if it felt the blunt
of his mother's sorrow no longer caged in by the strong front she always tried to wear.
Ami herself couldn't keep back her tears as she cried gently into Makoto's shoulder, but
Makoto herself did not shed a tear.
It was if Makoto was now finally seeing things through with a crystal clear clarity,
as if everything that had gone on in her life had now been cleaned, and now did not
shine as well as it had the first time she set her eyes upon them. Everything up to that
one point in her life where she had seen Motoki in bed with her sleeping just peacefully
next to her was irrelevant, because the next day she had woken covered in blood as
well as he....
"I'll never forget that morning...he had suffered bloody noses from before, but it was
much worse than before. Before they stopped after a day or two...they did. I just thought
it was a cold. I thought it was me you know...because I was still weak from the pregnancy.
He was so happy that we finally had a child....I made him happy...." Makoto murmured her
voice trembling.
Ami could do nothing more but lift her head from Makoto's shoulder sniffling. Ami hated
this part the most...because she could never even begin to comprehend Makoto's pain,
so she could never let past her lips the words "I understand". Makoto needed someone
else...someone who could speak from the same experience...
"Makoto, we need to start worrying about quality of life right now. They're going to
give him medication, so he can come home and live out the rest of his....time here...with
you. So you can name your baby boy," Ami whispered these words fearing that any
louder would cause Makoto to crumble away.
At these words Makoto seemed to snap back to her semblence of self as she stared
at Ami as if Ami had just drove a knife into her.
"You're asking me....to just stand back and watch him die?"
Ami winced at those words she had never wished any of this especially on
Makoto. Makoto then interrupted Ami before she had stated her apology. Makoto's
voice held venom to them, much like when she was younger and still a schoolgirl,
and she was facing a Youma, but this time it was a friend it was directed at.
"You're just like all of them. You don't give a damn about Motoki you just
want him to lay down and die! You don't know what the hell I'm going through..."
"Now, Makoto I would never wish harm on you or Motoki! I'm just
telling you how it is!...this isn't like when we were younger and we could
get by just by scraped knees and broken bones...be rational," Ami shot back.
Makoto herself took a step back at Ami's words as if Ami was now a
flaming pit of fire instead of a friend. Then suddenly in a burst of strength
Makoto grabbed Ami's shoulder fiercely with one hand, and holding the baby
with the other, brought her face close to Ami's forcing her to look into her eyes.
"Fuck you. FUCK YOU!"
Ami flinched visibly not by the use of the words, but the force behind them
that slowly, unfastened all the screws in her usually controlled exterior. The baby
in Makoto's arms recognizing the anger in his mother's voice let out a high-pithced
wail seemingly scared of his own mother's voice. Makoto issued another string of
curses as she rocked the baby back and forth attempting to quiet him, when he
refused to be quiet Makoto angrily spat at Ami to go. Ami reluctantly willed her feet
to move, and just before she closed the door she saw out of the corner of her eye,
Makoto viciously scraping away a tear with her knuckle as she rocked her child.
In her car Ami sat shell-shocked as she turned on the ignition not knowing where
else to go. She had to get to a hotel or somewhere....somewhere far away where
she could wallow in her guilt and self-pity, at her inability to console Makoto, but she
knew deep in her heart of hearts, that as a friend she could never give Makoto what
she needed, because Makoto's heart was far far away deep in Japan's most renowned
hospital, clinging onto his every breath.
Ami drove around until her car broke down and she counted the number of ticks
on her watch before it burned out. She found herself by the beach watching as the
waves ate away at the shore, wishing that the waves would just eat away the ache
that was forming in her heart...