~Week 38, Day 262, Evening~

Washu and Sasami are there to meet us at the bottom, the scientist with a wide, tender smile and her hair bundled into an impossible bun, my sister with so much energy she's bouncing on her toes, her pigtails bobbing crazily. "I called Father, he's going to pick up Kiyone and Mihoshi on his way here. Oh, Ryoko, I'm so excited!"

"You and me both, kiddo."

Washu chuckles. "All right, let's get you set up down in the lab. Have you been timing the contractions?"

"Four minutes apart, about a minute long," I tell her, and the redhead's eyes widen.

"Moving right along there, aren't you?" Ryoko just scowls, her hand tightening on mine as another begins. Washu peers into the pirate's face then, her expression calculating. "Try to keep breathing through it." Ryoko's scowl deepens, but she obeys; she can't quite keep it up, though, and is gasping when the pain recedes. Washu's expression softens. "Come on with me, while you have a break." She turns and leads the way inside, holding the storage unit door open for us. She looks at us consideringly, Ryoko starting to sag a little, Tenchi and I watching her like hawks, and smiles. "Aeka, you and Tenchi come on in with her. The rest of you stay out here, all right?"

"Yes, Miss Washu," the Guardians say as one, and Sasami droops, disappointed.

"Okay, but you guys have to tell us as soon as anything happens!"

"Why don't we make some tea?" I hear Katsuhito suggest, and then the door clicks shut behind us. The room we enter isn't the usual lab, though—it looks more like a bedroom, with a Western-style bed and a false window that seems to be simulating the weather outside, and a computer console off to one side.

"Oh…" Ryoko murmurs, looking around. "This is a hell of a lot nicer than the normal lab…"

Washu chuckles. "Well, it's a special occasion! Now let's get those clothes off you and get you up on the bed, and we'll see what's going on in there."

Ryoko looks momentarily embarrassed, then just turns to me and lifts her arms, and I pull the dress off her as Tenchi looks politely away. Folding the dress over my arm, I stare at her, startled that even now in her leakage-proof bra and wriggling awkwardly out of her underwear she could be so astonishingly beautiful; she catches me staring and flushes, but Washu breaks the moment with a polite cough.

"Okay, Tenchi," Ryoko calls when she's gotten herself comfy on the bed; he comes over to take her hand, as mesmerized and embarrassed as I, and we catch each other's eyes across her body. He smiles, slowly, and I can't help but smile back, until another contraction and Ryoko's urgent breathing brings our focus back.

Washu's already got her little transparent laptop out, and she plants herself at the foot of the bed between Ryoko's legs, reaching over to stick a little black square to her belly. "This'll give me all the readings I need," she tells us, her eyes on the computer. "Much better than Earth technology. Aha, there we go! Looks like everything's moving along nicely…the baby's heart rate is good…four and a half centimeters dilated. I guess all that walking down the stairs really got things going!"

"So…then she's pretty close?" Tenchi asks, and Washu laughs, patting Ryoko's knee.

"Well, I'd say we've got a couple of hours to go."

"A couple of hours?" the pirate growls, and lets her head fall back against the pillows. "Washu, you think you could make me a time machine?"

The scientist chuckles. "To speed things up, you mean?"

"No. I wanna go back in time and kill Hotsuma all over again."

~o~o~o~

Ryoko gets more restless as the contractions get more intense; with the little black square constantly monitoring the baby, Washu lets the pirate move around as she pleases—"Whatever makes you feel better," she tells her—and Tenchi and I follow her around like puppies. The hours drag by, distilling down to Ryoko's iron grip on my hand when they peak, her quick breathing, her colorful curses, and then the brief moments of exhausted rest in between. She doesn't say anything, but after a while I can see fear creeping into her expression as the contractions start to flow one into another without a break, and I lean close to murmur in her ear.

"You can do this," I tell her quietly. "You're the greatest space pirate in the universe, after all. You know, before we fell to Earth, people at home on Jurai used to say you were tougher and stronger than every other pirate put together."

"Better lookin', too," she grunts, trembling with effort, and Tenchi chuckles. I watch her face as she takes a shaky breath, and the panic starts to recede again.

At her computer console, Washu's checking the readings as they come in, and nods authoritatively. "We're getting close now, Ryoko, she's moving down, so if you want to push, you push, okay?"

Ryoko just nods, flopping back against the pillows in a moment of respite, her skin pale and shiny with sweat. Tenchi pushes a few limp strands of hair out of her face and she closes her eyes, and we're all still for a moment, silent and peaceful. But it's only for a moment, and soon enough the cycle starts again.

I lose all track of time in the pattern; Ryoko's grunts of effort, Washu's calm instructions and explanations, my voice and Tenchi's melding into a broken record of encouragements. "Aeka, get her leg, pull her knee up toward you a bit…" The pirate releases my hand reluctantly and keeps a death grip on Tenchi's. "That's a good push, Ryoko, give me another one…there you go!" Then suddenly I find myself staring with complete fixation at the top of the baby's little head, all covered in tufts of pale blue hair.

"Oh, she's got your hair, Ryoko!"

"Push, don't get lazy now, you're almost done."

"Oh my…"

"Can you see her yet, Aeka?"

"That's it, keep pushing, and there's her head!"

"I see her, Tenchi, she's so tiny!"

"You're doing great, Ryoko, just one more push and we'll have her."

And then suddenly she's there, a little tiny thing all slick and wrinkled, and Ryoko's cradling her against her chest and crying, and then we're all crying. I lay my head close to Ryoko's to look into Yaseiko's face, and I think I've never seen anything so beautiful.

We spend a long moment like that, Ryoko and Tenchi and I staring at the baby's scrunched-up face as she wails, with Washu flitting around us doing whatever needs to be done. Then the redhead leans in to cut the cord, wraps a blanket around Yaseiko and kisses Ryoko's forehead with a tender expression. "All the readings say she's hale and healthy! Now you give her to Tenchi or Aeka when you're ready to let her go, and get some rest. I'll go break the good news." Then she's gone in a whirl of efficiency, and the three of us—the four of us—are alone.

"She's beautiful," Tenchi murmurs, touching the baby's tiny head. "You're beautiful."

Ryoko laughs softly, her gaze still riveted, and she traces the dark markings on Yaseiko's forehead and taps her little canine nose. "She is beautiful…but I'm sure I look like hell."

"We won't hold it against you," I tell her, grabbing a sheet draped over the foot of the bed and pulling it up to cover her. She chuckles, then lays her head back with an exhausted sigh.

"Aeka…"

"I've got her." I lift the tiny girl into my arms, thinking suddenly of Sasami when she was born, and then the door opens and Sasami's there, along with everyone else. They crowd around me, grinning like Cheshire cats, and Nobuyuki's got his camera running to capture the whole thing for posterity. My sister, enchanted, turns to Ryoko with a hopeful expression.

"Can I hold her?" The pirate smiles and pats the bed; Sasami hops up beside her, and I lay Yaseiko in her arms. "Hello," she murmurs to the baby. "I'm your Auntie Sasami…welcome to our family."

~o~o~o~

Later, when Ryoko and the baby are both asleep and Washu's fixed up Tenchi's broken fingers—"Ryoko's got quite a grip," he admitted—the rest of us are sprawled out in the living room drinking sake and eating the inevitable barrage of snacks Sasami made during the long hours of Ryoko's labor. Tenchi's so quiet when he gets up that I almost don't notice him slip out of the room and into the unfinished nursery; I set my sake down and follow him.

He's standing there, looking around at the room as though imagining it painted and decorated, and he smiles when he sees me come in. "Quite a day we've had, huh Aeka?"

"Yes," I answer softly, and close the door behind me. I join him in the middle of the room, turning all around, taking it in. "Will you paint something pretty for her, on the walls?"

He cocks his head consideringly. "I've been thinking about it. Ryoko asked me to do the space-scape on the ceiling, too. She said she'd get me a star chart of what she wants."

I nod. "We should start making plans for our Tenchi Anniversary party, too," I muse. "It's so funny, that the baby was born so close to the day we all first met." Tenchi grins.

"Yeah, weird how that worked out…"

Then the sake I've had makes me bold, and I turn to him. "We never got our kiss." He blinks at me, startled by the change of subject. "In the cave, this afternoon."

His eyes light up with understanding, and he grins. "Well, that's easy to fix." Then he takes my hands to draw me close, pressing his mouth to mine. It's not the same as kissing Ryoko was, not at all, except for the way my heart flutters. I fold myself against his chest, so lost in his sweetness that I almost don't hear that familiar electric hum, and then Ryoko's silky voice.

"Hey, save some for me."

"Ryoko!" Tenchi exclaims, startled, then chuckles. "Aren't you supposed to be in bed?"

She shrugs. "I'm done with resting. Washu said to let the baby sleep a bit more before I feed her, she suggested I take a soak in the onsen…care to join me?"

Tenchi blushes furiously, and I'm sure I'm blushing too, but I loop my arm through Ryoko's anyway. "Sounds good to me." Ryoko and I both turn our eyes to Tenchi, and he chuckles, defeated.

"Well, how can I say no to the two most beautiful women in Okayama?"

Ryoko laughs and ruffles his hair. "In the universe, you mean. You know, Tenchi, we've been asking that for years."

"Truer words were never spoken. Come on, Ryoko, give us a lift." So she wraps her arms around us both, and all together we vanish, leaving the nursery still and quiet behind us.