Disclaimer: I don't own Ah! My Goddess or any of the characters therein. Please don't use without permission. Comments and constructive criticism are always welcome. And now, WillZ presents:

The Goddess and the Sky

Chapter 2

Gum in the Ceiling

Keiichi blinked, unsure what he should do in a situation like this. Sure, he had comforted crying girls. He had hugged girls at their weddings, but this was a first. He had never, EVER had to comfort someone because they had gotten married.

"Um," He said uneasily, still patting the crying girl in his arms, "Congratulations?"

Okay. She's crying harder now. I don't think that was the thing to say. He tried to form the words to give the mousy-haired girl some assurance, but he was at a loss.

He had to make sense of what had happened.

First, there was a light piercing the roof.

Then running.

Then crying.

Nope. Still no sense. He desperately needed a butt, or a beer.

Maybe a lot of beer. His shirt was soaked and he had one crying and one smiling girl to deal with. It was almost like he was in some sick, twisted manga, but shouldn't the person in his arms be smiling and the other girl crying? No – that was for love triangles. He had absolutely no blessed idea what he should do!

He decided to try another approach. Maybe the blue-clad woman... Berry-something provide some insight?

"Hi," He said turning to her "I'm Keiichi Morisato."
"Hello!" the other girl waved at him as she spoke. Unknowingly, he mimicked the action, "I'm Belldandy!"

Belldandy! Thank goodness she reintroduced herself! It was almost as if she could read his mind! He decided to find out exactly what happened.

"So," He began, trying to decide how to take the conversation, "You're married. To Sora."

"Yes!" the girl replied. Sora seemed to be too absorbed in crying, to contribute.

"Well, then," Keiichi said, feeling like a fool for not articulating what he wanted to say properly, "Can you… Um… Tell.." He couldn't quite grasp what he wanted to say.

Belldandy seemed to understand, and motioned for him to come inside.

Which he found to be a lot more difficult with a distraught girl clamped to you.

He finally dislodged Hasegawa from his person, and gently directed her inside. She seemed so small and fragile as she sniffled her way to the sofa, yet he didn't know what he could do to help her. He turned to look at Belldandy, to see her smile become a look of concern the minute she locked the door. She darted over to Sora, putting a hand on her shoulder, wiping the tears away with a soft caress and softly spoken words that only the other woman could hear.

"Now," Keiichi began, "Would you please tell me what's going on?"

Belldandy hesitated, torn between explaining everything to Keiichi and tending to Hasegawa. She looked over at Sora, who nodded weakly, still wiping the tears from her eyes. Keiichi waited for Belldandy to compose herself again before she began.

--

Sora sniffled and wadded up some tissues to dab into her eyes. She exhaled a shuddering breath, and somehow managed to get the crying under control. She disliked being a crybaby, yet who would blame her? Her life was ruined, and she didn't' even know if it was even legal for such a marriage in the first place! Maybe if it isn't legal, then there is nothing preventing them from nullifying the wish.

Heartened, she began regaining her composure. Maybe after Keiichi and Belldandy finished talking, she could ask Morisato if he would be able to help them clear this whole mess up, and then, she could pursue Aoshima without problems. She held onto that hope like a lifeline.

As Keiichi listened to the story from Belldandy, Sora decided that she was going to go get a drink from the refrigerator. She felt drained from all the crying, and her throat felt rough; she could feel the tickle of a cough coming on.

Sora got up from the sofa, and wound her way around the coffee table. She was almost past it, when she felt her leg slip out from under her, sending her towards the distracted Goddess. She tried to dodge, but something… pushed her towards Belldandy, causing the two women to collapse in a pile of body parts. She opened her eyes, and was startled to see Belldandy's face barely an inch from contact.

Contact at the lips, no less. She got up and scampered to the kitchen, her face feeling hotter than a furnace.

--

Keiichi blinked. Had Sora almost jumped Belldandy in plain sight? He blinked again, looking over at Belldandy, who was blushing furiously, her righthand barely an inch from her lips.

The same distance, Keiichi noted, that Sora's lips had been from hers.

"A-Anyway," He said, "The tea?"

Belldandy seemed to bring herself back to reality, blinked then offered him some tissues form the dining room table. As he wiped his nose, the Goddess spoke, telling him some of the most amazing things he had ever heard, as if it had come from a manga.

"And that is when you must have seen the light penetrating the ceiling," Belldandy finished. Keiichi nodded realizing that, if he had needed real irrefutable proof that what happened was the truth, he had seen it with his own eyes. No illusion could glow that brightly. He wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't a story about this in the morning's paper.

But that wasn't the point right now. The problem was Sora, and making sure that his friend and the Goddess… AAAH! He couldn't think straight! He needed to help, but how?

Keiichi feared that it was going to be a very long night.

--

Sora finished washing her face in the sink, looking at her reflection in the little mirror she always kept close by, especially after one of her cooking disasters almost singed her eyebrows off. Her eyes were less puffy, but her cheeks were still red from both the crying and the embarrassing incident in the living room. She tried to gain her composure, but couldn't; too many things had happened too quickly, and it was still too soon after events for her to even think of how to deal with the situation.

She was at a loss as to what to do next. What was she going to do about her feelings for Aoshima through all this? Her lip trembled, and she could feel the tears building again, so she thought happier thoughts. The tea was marvelous, and she needed to get the recipe from Belldandy, or, more likely bribe the Goddess into making some for her.

The thought of tea really did work. Who would have thought that tea could solve any emotional problem? She almost giggled nervously at the thought.

Sora grabbed a cup from the drying rack and opened the fridge to get the container of water. She reached in to grab the container, but her hand fell back to her side. She sighed, closed her eyes and bowed her head. What was she going to tell her friends? What about her family? She sighed again and closed the door, feeling as depressed as she had been earlier.

She slumped into the chair that was part of the kitchenette set, and rested her head on the table. She felt like she wanted to crawl under the table curl up and never come out, even if the place was an inferno. She covered her head wither arms. What else could she do? She couldn't even get her wish right!

She decided to give up on the drink, making her way numbly to the living room. This time, she made sure that she wouldn't do something stupid by taking the seat closest to the kitchen, sitting there quietly with her hands folded on her lap.

Her entrance hadn't gone unnoticed: Both Belldandy and Keiichi looked over to her. Belldandy smiled wanly and waved her over.

Reluctantly, she complied. She took the seat next to Keiichi, who scratched the back of his head and frowned slightly.

"You know," he said, blushing a little bit as he spoke, his hand still scratching the back of his head, "You should be happy it's her. If I were in a similar predicament, I would be glad it's someone so nice as she is. She worried about your well-being throughout her whole explanation."

"She did?" Sora asked. Keiichi nodded.

"Yeah." He answered, using the words to emphasize the nod, "I had to stop her twice from going to see if you were okay."

Sora blushed, dumbfounded over the revelation. Why would a complete stranger care about someone she just met? This was completely new territory for her and, she could bet Keiichi was out of his element, as well.

Not that Keiichi was a playboy, but because of his demeanor, every girl that had ever had the Auto Club's help would always ask her to pass on their thanks to him. Every time, he'd just smile, scratch his head in embarrassment, and think of it only as if he were doing his best for the club. She wondered how many girls he had unknowingly passed up as girlfriends, if he had only been confident enough to ask Sora for a name and not so fixated on Sayoko.

Not that she was one to talk. Her fixation with Aoshima was the same, to her chagrin. She shook herself out of her funk to try to listen to Keiichi, who was talking to her.

"I'm sorry," she said, smiling weakly, "Could you say that again?"

Keiichi merely nodded before retelling his idea.

"I think we need to come up with a cover for Belldandy," He said, watching Belldandy go to the kitchen to get something for them all to drink.

Sora nodded her agreement. Keiichi continued.

"The biggest problem is that we're going to have to keep her powers secret. Heaven knows what would happen if the wrong person got hold of her powers."

"Yeah," Sora agreed. The last thing she needed was for the Goddess to be taken away by the "Men in Black" before a resolution was found.

"We might want to keep your relationship a secret, too," Keiichi surmised. Sora was about to agree, when she turned to see Belldandy standing near her phone.

"Hi, Neesan!" Belldandy said in a cheerful voice, "Guess what?"

She didn't get further than that: Both Keiichi and Sora had raced over to stop the call. She grabbed the phone away from the girl the very moment Keiichi put his hand over Belldandy's mouth.

"Sorry," Sora said, after grabbing the phone from Belldandy, "She's a little preoccupied at the moment. No, everything's fine, we just need her for her turn at... um... Twister! Yeah! I'll make sure she calls when she's done. Bye." She hung up the phone, letting out a sigh as she put the receiver back on its base.

"That was close," Keiichi said, releasing Belldandy's mouth. The goddess looked equal parts annoyed and confused.

"Way too close," Sora agreed. She didn't know what Belldandy's family would say, but she was certain that she didn't want the wrath of the Almighty on her in any way shape or form. She tried to take her arm away from Belldandy, but it wouldn't move. Sora looked in surprise at her hand, which now had a firm grip on the loose part of Belldandy's dress.

"Um. Help?" She said to both Keiichi and Belldandy. Was this day going to get any less stranger?

After a few moments of tugging and coercion, they finally managed to free Belldandy. Sora's hand ached from the cramp, but it dulled as Belldandy massaged it for her. The tension in her slowly began to unravel.

"Are you okay, Dear?" Belldandy asked once life began going back into her hand. Sora blinked and looked at the goddess warily.

"What?" Sora asked.

"I asked if you were okay," Belldandy repeated, still tending the hand, but the touch seemed more… Tender than it did a moment ago.

Sora snapped her hand back reflexively. "Yes! I'm fine!" She could feel her face go flush and she couldn't look at Belldandy.

The silence held, until Keiichi cleared his throat nervously.

"So as I was saying," he said, averting his gaze from Sora and Belldandy, "I think we need to keep this whole thing under wraps to prevent any problems."

Belldandy blinked. The look on Belldandy's face, and the way she stood silently made Sora feel like she had kicked a puppy. It wasn't helping that Belldandy very likely didn't seem to understand the predicament she had been placed in. Sora wanted to sigh, but refrained from doing so.

"I'll talk to her," She offered. Keiichi nodded, and looked up at the ceiling.

"I'll see what I can do about that hole for you, then."

Sora was grateful to Morisato for his help. Once again, her senpai came through in a pinch. She was going to have to do something nice for him, for all his hard work.

"Thanks," she said, bowing slightly and turning to the Goddess. Sora motioned Belldandy over to the kitchen to get out of the way of Keiichi's construction efforts. After they both had seated themselves at the table, Sora explained Keiichi's suggestion to the taller girl in better detail.

--

Keiichi got to work on inspecting the surprisingly small hole in the ceiling by standing on a chair. It was barely the size of a 100-yen coin, so all he would have to do is use a trick his senpais had used several times before: gum and toothpaste.

Fortunately, the maintenance guys here used uneven stucco patterning for the girl's dorms to give them a "livelier" look from the ones the boys lived in. This meant he didn't have to make it perfectly smooth to conceal it, though the fact that the girls got a bigger living area, their own bathroom with shower, and a kitchen made him a little jealous. He had to share those accoutrements with the rest of his dorm.

As the two women talked, Keiichi took the pack of gum out of his pants pocket and chewed a couple pieces at once until they lost most of their flavor. He also checked the hole for rough spots, finding just enough of them to give the gum a place to adhere to in the wall. He then took two more pieces of gum and added them to his mouth, chewing the whole thing slowly until the two were mixed. He popped the pale gum out of his mouth, rolled it into a ball, flattened it with his fingers, and finally pressed the whole thing into the opening. He carefully smoothed what he could out and checked it for signs of drooping or slipping out of the hole.

Satisfied that it wasn't going anywhere, he stepped off of the chair, and sat in it, staring up at it with a grin on his face. That had gone smoothly, so all he needed was white toothpaste, and the ruse would never be caught by the maintenance crews. He still wondered where Otaki had learned the little trick from in the first place.

Leaving the girls some privacy, he stared at the gum, wondering if Sora was making headway convincing Belldandy. He hashed through a series of scenarios where people had found out, and none of them ended well in the least

The thought struck him then: He wasn't too worried about Sora's marriage to another woman in the slightest. It had nothing to do with anime or doujins, either. He had been surprised, true, yet there was this feeling like everything about it just drifted past the consciousness. Was this part of that System Force thing Belldandy had explained to him earlier? He decided it was best not to think too deeply about any of it.

He idly gazed over at the clock, noting the time was 1:00 in the morning. He yawned, and decided that he could come back tomorrow and finish the rest of the patchwork up. He should see if anyone in the Auto Club had any spare white paint left over from when they had to replace the aluminum window frames in the President's office.

He got up, grabbed his jacket, and slung it over his shoulder. He peeked in the kitchen and waved at both of the women when they caught sight of him.

"Good night" he said, waving, "I have an early class, but I'll see about coming over after noon. It was nice meeting you, Miss Belldandy."

"Good night," she replied nodding her head slightly in lieu of a bow, "Thank you for your help tonight. It was a pleasure meeting you."

"Bye, Morisato," Sora said. She looked a lot better overall then when he first appeared at her doorstep. The puffy cheeks were there, but her overall demeanor was back to the Sora he knew.

"See you at class tomorrow," She added. They both waved and he returned the gesture before making his way back to the dorm.

--

Now that Keiichi had left, Sora felt totally drained. She stifled a yawn behind her hand and blinked the sleep out of her eyes. She took a look at the time, and realized why the boy had decided to leave. One in the morning is not constructive to a college student.

Yes, she had been up before when studying was involved, but she never stayed up late the night before a test, since the lack of sleep would ruin your grade worse than if you hadn't studied enough.

She and Belldandy had pretty much finished talking about the wisdom of proclaiming her powers to the rest of the mortals on Earth, and had been talking about each other's likes and dislikes. They were most likely going to spend a lot of time with each other, so it was better to know who they were dealing with.

"Ah, look at the time," Sora said in a semi-wooden voice, "I have classes tomorrow, so I should be going to bed.

The goddess merely nodded, placing her hand on the tea cup. It hadn't been the wonderful elixir from earlier, but it had been good nonetheless; she had felt a lot of the remaining tension draining from her shoulders.

Sora took herself to the room, undressed, and donned her favorite pajamas of a tee shirt and an old pair of sweatpants she had bought a long time ago. She noted that the cloth on both pieces was getting threadbare in a few places, and she resolved herself to the fact that she would eventually have to toss the set for a new one. She gently rolled the corner of a sleeve between two fingers, feeling how smooth and soft the material was from age.

With a slight frown, she put her hand down and went into the closet to get her futon. After several seconds of fighting with it that had become part of her daily routine, the bedding gave way, nearly putting Sora on her backside, had she not stepped and turned sideways to take her away from the path of its momentum.

She dropped the mass of cushion and blanket onto the floor, unfolded it, and straightened the blankets, before pulling the blankets back to gain access underneath. Sora tucket the material under her chin, turned to lay on her left side, and closed her eyes.

She opened them a moment later, undid her blanket cocoon, took off her glasses, placed them on her desk, and began the whole process of getting cocooned again.

With an annoyed grunt, she thought if there was something she had forgotten, but when nothing came to mind, she closed her eyes, opened them again, grabbed her headband, and tossed it at the empty futon closet with annoyance. Somehow she missed, which made her sigh in frustration before she gave up and hid herself under the covers.

After several minutes, she realized she couldn't sleep. She knew she had to, but either the caffeine in the tea, the adrenaline from so many mood changes in such a short time, or the sheer weight of those same events prevented her from sleeping.

The worst part was the feeling of it. She felt lightheaded and slightly dopey, sure signs that her mind wanted to rest, but her hands, whenever she unclenched them, shook slightly. She was sorely tempted to go into the medicine cabinet and take a couple of sleeping pills. If the test she needed to take tomorrow weren't for part of her major, she would have blown off the test and retaken the class during the summer term.

Just as she decided that the sleep was important enough to justify the use of at least one sleeping pill, Sora heard something she hadn't expected.

Belldandy was singing.

But the song was nothing she had ever heard before. It was sad, and soft and ethereal, yet you didn't feel that way; it was as if the tones elicited even more complex layers than you heard. The sound carried only to the bedroom, or so it seemed to Sora.

The song was magical, but not in the way one would expect from a Goddess. It was the clarity and feeling put into the song through voice that moved Sora. She had uncovered her head to soak in more of the amazing melody.

Twisting to lay on her back, she just listened, hearing Belldandy change the song several times into unique pieces of their own, yet all of them fit with one another to seem to weave a long story, threaded by the notes that the goddess weaved together with precision and delicacy.

Sora rubbed her eyes to get the sleepy sensation out of them, but the mere act semed to make her eyelids heavier. She found herself being taken away by each note, almost like the Disney movie "Fantasia" she remembered seeing when she was a child. She exhaled deeply, and felt completely at peace.

A few minutes had gone by since the last switch in the song, and this time, with very little effort, the music soothed Sora to sleep.

Not long after Sora had finally fallen asleep, the music faded away, and Belldandy peeked into the bedroom to see if the girl had fallen asleep. With a smile of relief, the Goddess returned to the kitchen to clean up the dishes.

Not too long after that, she undid the apron she had worn, folded it, and put it back on its shelf. She then went over to the sofa looked up at the hole in the roof, frowning slightly. She would have fixed the holes herself, but Keiichi's offer had been honest and direct, and she couldn't refuse it. The frown was in place because of the puzzle this now left her; she could have reversed the time on the damaged areas, but now that would be difficult. She tried an alteration to the prayer, hoping it would repair everything but the spot she was staring at intently. After a few minutes of prayer, she opened her eyes to see the piece of gum still in place.

Satisfied with the work she had done, she entered the bedroom, changed her dress to pajamas with another prayer, and slid into the bed beside Sora. Belldandy draped an arm across the girl, snuggled her head onto her shoulder and promptly fell asleep.

--

Keiichi walked home slowly, absorbed in his thoughts. Everything from the point where he saw that blinding blue beam of light pierce through the roof of the girl's dorm seemed like it was a dream.

But it wasn't. Hoo, boy it definitely wasn't! It was like something out of an anime!

The thing that bugged him though, was the fact that there hadn't been any fanfare regarding the incident. Why not? People would surely talk if they had seen an abnormal blue light in the middle of a quiet city like Nekomi. The city was too large to be a town, and too small and quiet to be a proper city, so, he knew, the gossip over such event could easily make it to the front page off the power of gossip alone.

Yet, there hadn't' been many people, if any, milling about the street at half-past eight at night.

If there had been pedestrians or motorists around, where were they? There hadn't been any police, paramedics, or fire trucks, let alone the usual crowd that gathered for such events in a heartbeat. It was too "clean."

That usually meant that you were either extremely lucky…

… Or unlucky.

In his experience, it always leaned towards the unlucky aspects. It was as if he were born under a bad star or something. The thought did nothing to ease his mind, either; Sora was a friend, and he didn't like seeing his friends have problems he was unable to help them with. He figured it had to be because of his "Mister Fix It" mentality added to his concern for the people close to him.

He unconsciously reached into his pocket for his smokes found them missing yet again. He was very tempted to go back to the trash bin he tossed them into and dig them out, but decided to let any vagabonds in the area benefit from his fit of pique.

Why had he just up and decided to quit? He didn't know, but he hoped, for what it was worth, that it would stick. The thought was promising, indeed.

Maybe it was his thoughts about Sayoko that did it; Miss Mishima had been interviewed several times as the Nekomi Tech's Queen, and in one, he remembered her saying that she disliked smokers.

Well, whatever. He would stop, and stay clean for as long as he possibly could. He bet Sayoko would approve of his choice. The thought of her approval made a smile start at the corners of his mouth.

He stopped, absently scratching the back of his head. Why was he thinking of her so much all of a sudden? Maybe it was due to Belldandy; he did see a lot of Sayoko's grace and inner strength in the Goddess. Yeah, that was most likely the crux of the matter. Maybe he shouldn't give up on trying to ask her out just yet. Who knows? If he were lucky, he might even get to take her on a date, or at the least have her recognize that he even existed.

But you never knew with things like this. Look at Sora! And it was all because of a careless mistake in a compliment!

He took the gum out of his pocket, and popped a piece into his mouth. With determination and care, he might just convince Sayoko of his good points.

At least, he hoped so. It sure as heck beat giving up without trying…