Creation began on 12-24-20
Creation ended on 12-29-20
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Hope from the Sky: Smile
"My water just broke," Kaede remembered her mother telling them after the doctor had informed them that her brain was fine.
She felt a reason to be concerned about her mother after hearing this, despite it only being her second child, her sibling. If something went wrong, the medical personnel were prepared with vials of regular Titan Serum in case she couldn't be saved from some kind of error, but that didn't stop the Queen of the Titans from worrying about her.
"Hot chocolate, Kaede?" She heard Shinji say to her, and she was broken from her train of thought and brought back to the hallway where the two were…and had been for the last two-and-a-half hours.
Shinji was holding a pair of paper cups in his hands filled with a hot beverage, and Kaede remembered that he had left to go get them something to drink.
"Thank you, Shinji," she told him, accepting the cup in his right hand. "You know, you really didn't have to wait here with me. You could've left."
"If I did that…I wouldn't be such a good person if I just showed disinterest in what you're going through," he responded, letting her know that he wasn't going anywhere unless it was an emergency that required him.
"Thanks again," she praised him. "I didn't think it'd be this long."
"You can't rush a baby. And this is…something that can take a while."
"Is that your way of saying that labor can take hours or more than a day, Shinji?"
"Uh…yeah."
"That…is very much true."
"How long did it take for you to be born?"
"According to my mother, a little over five hours."
"That doesn't seem like a long time when you think about it."
"Oh, you don't know the other half of it. My mother felt like she needed to walk…or run…or jump because I was not being cooperative with her. In her words, she and my father were ready to meet me…but I wasn't ready to meet them."
"Heh-heh… Who is?"
"Yeah. Who is?"
It was past midnight, yet neither teen was feeling the need to sleep. And Kaede noticed that whenever Shinji looked away from her, he seemed to shudder at something. In fact, it looked as though he had been shuddering for at least an hour.
"Are you alright, Shinji?" She asked him.
"Yeah, I… It's nothing," he responded, but his hands were trembling.
"Shinji…I can tell when you're lying to me. What's wrong?"
"For a random hour on any given day…for the last three weeks…I've been seeing his ghost from a distance. He never says anything…but his cold stare speaks volumes."
Kaede knew he was talking about his father, a man whose death occurred less than three months ago, and while it had been due to his involvement against the people of Paradis, he was among those whose death had yet to be forgotten about by those involved. And everyone from this SEELE group had bitten the dust and became nothing more than faceless, nameless corpses that evaporated into nothing due to using the power of the Jaeger Titans and getting killed.
"Whenever you want to talk about that day, Shinji," she told him, encouraging him to speak with her about what happened, "I'm here for you."
"Likewise, Kaede," he replied. "Likewise."
Then…the girl yawned, just as her stepfather came from further down the hall.
"Your mother isn't even four centimeters yet," Sig told her.
"We don't really have anything else to do," she told him.
"Well, unless the baby decides to rush around or your mother considers the doctors cutting her stomach open, we're all going to be up until the crack of dawn."
Shinji drank the rest of his hot chocolate and sighed.
"Should I go get coffee?" He suggested.
"Yeah," Kaede answered, and finished her hot chocolate. "I'll come with you."
"Can I get caramel with mine, please?" Sig requested. "Like, a lot of caramel?"
"No problem."
"Thank you."
Both teens knew better than to ask if Christine wanted any, as she was in a delicate state now.
-x-
He found himself in a vast expanse of white, wondering why he was here. The last thing he remembered was going to sleep after dinner…and making plans to go to the coastal city and spend time at the beach.
"What is this place?" Eren wondered.
"Most people who believe in the vastness of the future often use places like this to construct ones suitable to their liking," he heard a female voice that was similar to Kaede's, only harsher in tone, as if to seem intimidating. "Places like this are like are like a canvas, a blank slate…and your imagination is the paint while you're the brush."
Eren looked around and saw the Dark Titan, sitting just a few feet away from where he stood, about the size of an adult human (A/N: Think of the way Truth from FMA sits when encountered by Edward).
"Why do I feel like you're here to torment me?" He asked her.
"Oh, you are the only one tormenting yourself, Eren Yeager," she expressed. "Why are you the only one that seems to think that what is now is nothing more than a brief reprieve from the ravages of the conflict? Why must you constantly try to be the only one that feels like the death and destruction will return?"
"I don't believe that…"
"Don't lie to me, boy. You can't fool me. I can see the truth on your face, hear it in your tone. As the nexus between Kaede and every Eldian Subject of Ymir that has ever lived and ever will live, my keeper and I have access to the memories of everyone that has seen or heard of you. I practically know all there is to know about your past. Your ego, your rage, your…disgust towards other people that don't believe in violence solving the problems that exist. Sit."
Eren did as he was told and sat down in front of the Dark Titan.
"The Rumbling was the only way to get rid of the hatred that existed in the world," he told her. "The Rumbling was the path to our survival."
"Still clinging to a falsehood," she uttered. "The Rumbling wasn't the only way to end the hatred. Eren Yeager, in your mind, the Rumbling was just something you wanted to make happen when you obtained the dark memories of the dark future you saw. You still see your former future self that unleashed the Rumbling, don't you?"
Behind her, he could see his older self, his expression of contempt as clear as day.
"Yes, I do," he admitted.
"I won't even say what you've heard from others, because my saying it would be moot for someone that doesn't want to practice it."
"Why, you think I'm still stubborn as always?"
"No…just something different from what a few people think about you. You're not open to the possibilities of peace. You can't believe in its possibilities and embrace the potential reality for it. You ever thought about the possibility of what could have been if you were presented with the gift of alternatives?"
"What do you mean?"
"Look behind you."
Eren looked behind himself…and saw two doors, both alike, but he got the impression that they were not entirely the same.
"Two doors."
"Yes, two doors…but which one will you choose?"
"Choose only one?"
"That's the way alternatives begin. You get one choice, but you have to wonder what happens when you make the choice that paves the groundwork for where you're going. Do you choose the door on your left…or the door on the right? And when you choose which one to walk through, where are you going once you walk through? There's an old tale about two doors guarded by two protectors. One defends the door leading to paradise while the other defends the door to suffering. You have only one question to ask one of them. What could you ask?"
Eren thought about it, but he was unsure of what to ask if he had to face the guards.
"The point of alternatives being?" He asked her.
"You get to experience a glimpse of what life could've been like for you and those around you," she explained. "The possibilities are vast and infinite. What if you never joined the Survey Corps because they were disbanded before you became eligible? What if the Colossal Titan never appeared that day in Shiganshina because Marley stayed away? Maybe you still meet Armin Arlert…and you decide to make a plane…or a hot air balloon. You try to go over the wall, or under it. What can you imagine happening in your past or future?"
"I can't imagine any of that happening in my life."
"You could at least try to think of something that is devoid of any need to commit acts of violence against others or fight Titans or wage any degree of conflict. I mean, you can even travel to the lands of Wall Sina and see how the people live there, so long as you can see something that is different from what you normally see. Heh, even your mother had thoughts of what your life could've been like if you had been born a girl instead of a boy. Or even if she and your father had twins."
"Really?"
"Yes. But you know what makes any day full of possibilities that are not so disappointing to the imagination of people?"
"No, what would that be?"
"A smile."
"A smile?"
"Yes, a smile. When you smile, the world becomes brighter. People have less reason to look the other way and have kinder personas compared to the ones they regularly chose to show before the Walls came down with less rage."
"I don't believe in smiles."
"If you don't believe in smiles, then why were you smiling when you got to see the ocean after Wall Maria was reclaimed? Why did you smile when you saw the coastal city? Why did you smile when you found out that your mother was alive again?"
"I…I…"
"You should smile when you face the day. A smile without malice, without hatred, or even hidden intentions…goes a long way. Mikasa smiles when she sees you and knows you have a long life ahead. Armin smiles when he thinks about nothing but how the day can go now that everybody is learning to get along. Sasha smiles because she loves to eat…and has found love with a Marleyan man that she met in another lifetime. Historia and Ymir smile because they have each other. Even Erwin Smith smiles because now he knows the history of Eldia and everything his father suspected about the history of the world before the Walls came up was vindicated."
"And Kaede? What does she smile about?"
"She smiles because she's happy, because she has her parents, because she has Shinji in her life. She even smiles over the fact that she's about to be a big sister in the coming hours."
"What?"
"Yeah, her mother's currently in labor at the hospital. Nobody really saw that coming, including myself, for that matter."
"Do…do you know what her mother's having?"
"I do…but because I respect Kaede and her mother's wish to not know the child's gender, I'll keep that to myself."
"Oh, come on! Boy or girl?!"
"Akago."
"What does that mean?"
"Look it up. You have access to information you wouldn't have had access to if you went the way of the Rumbling."
Then the Dark Titan began to fade away from Eren's perception.
"Hey, wait a minute!" He gasped.
"Smile more in your life," she told him. "Life gets better when you let it."
And then…she was gone, leaving where he was.
-x-
"Oompf!" Christine gasped as another contraction woke her up. "Ahh…"
She looked up at a clock on the wall, seeing that it was seventeen minutes past the fifth hour of the morning…and she was, without a doubt, nowhere near dilated enough for the baby yet.
"I love you and everything, but you're behaving like your sister a little," she told the unborn child. "What are you waiting for to happen, anyway?"
This child had officially taken longer than Kaede had before she was born, now over six hours, an hour longer than her eldest child. Still, Christine had no desire to know what she was having until after the child was born. She and Sig didn't even decide on a name yet, and that was the most important part of having a new child; they couldn't even argue about names, not that either wanted to, that is.
"Christine," she heard her second husband as he returned from getting another cup of coffee. "How are you feeling?"
She gave him a small frown that spoke of her current discomfort, and he shuddered from the reaction, knowing that he was partially responsible for her condition.
"If I had less restraint over my emotions, I'd yell at you until your ears hurt," she told him. "Fortunately for you, I can't blame you for this…and I am trying not to be frustrated."
"If you yelled at me, I'd least know what you were thinking," he admitted.
"If I yelled at you, Kaede or even Hagen, I wouldn't recognize myself, anymore."
Sig sat down beside her bed and gave her a small smile.
"Oompf!" She groaned again, clutching her belly. "I honestly don't know what is worse right now. The contractions…or the waiting."
"Both, perhaps?" He suggested.
"Where's Kaede and Shinji?"
"Getting coffee again."
"Those two haven't slept in the last few hours?"
"All three of us haven't slept since your water broke, Christine."
"Oompf!"
-x-
"…If I doze off, Kaede," went Shinji, still feeling like he needed to lie down as he downed his tenth cup of coffee, "hit me, please."
"Only if you promise to pinch me somewhere I'll feel it if I start to nod off," she responded, finishing the last of her twelfth cup in the cafeteria. "Excuse me for a minute."
She got up and walked over to the vendor in charge of the coffee.
"Excuse me, sir, are you sure there's caffeine in the coffee?" She asked the guy.
"Last time I checked, miss," the man responded to her. "Insomniac?"
"No, my mother having a new baby."
"Congratulations, Ms. Sogen, but…what's with your friend? He looks like he's ready to collapse over by the table."
"Commitment. Now, I gotta hit him because he dozed off."
"Stomach's less painful than the nose, lady. You feel like you get the wind knocked into you."
Kaede sighed and balled her right fist.
Forgive me, Shinji, she thought, and let her boyfriend have it in the abdomen, hard.
"Hmmpf!" Shinji gasped, feeling like a weight hit him in his stomach. "Ahh… Why?"
"You dozed off, Shinji."
"Thank you."
He got up and went over to refill on coffee.
"Uh, sir, please avoid throwing up near the coffee," said the vendor to Shinji.
"Oh, Kami," he groaned and ran over to a nearby trash bin. "Haaurgh!"
Kaede looked over at the vendor and wondered why she took his advice.
"Haaurgh!" Shinji finished emptying his stomach. "Ah, I feel so much better now."
"Sorry, Shinji."
"It's okay. I told you to hit me. I never said where. I expected you to hit me in the face, though."
"You are not looking at my sibling with a black eye or bloody nose, Shinji. I… Aw, crap! Move out of the way, please!"
She ran over to the trash bin and emptied her stomach. They were both paying for drinking all that coffee now. The worst part was that she had drank more than Shinji had. When she was done, she pulled herself away from the bin and took a new breath, feeling a little better.
"God," she uttered. "I feel better, too."
They left the cafeteria and walked down the hall to where the elevators were.
"What do you think are the chances that my mother's being rushed off into the delivery room?" Kaede asked Shinji as they were going back up to the floor Christine had been moved to after her water broke.
"Can't say for certain," he responded. "I mean, I don't think that she's being moved yet."
Ding. The elevator had reached their stop and they stepped out.
"Out of curiosity," she went, "what do you think I'm getting? A brother or sister?"
"Whichever one life throws at you. I won't argue about what could've been."
"Have I ever told you how much I love you?"
"You have…and I love you, too."
They slowly progressed towards the room…until they heard a scream.
"Aaahh!" They heard Christine yell. "Aaaurgh!"
That had the young couple wide awake and they ran around the corner, seeing two nurses move a gurney with the pregnant woman on it, accompanied by her husband.
"What happened?" Kaede asked Sig as they followed behind.
"Your sibling just decided to come out," he revealed.
They stopped in front of the line on the floor that prohibited Shinji and Kaede from going into the delivery room with Christine and Sig.
"It's about time," said Kaede, relieved that the baby was ready to be born now, smiling.
-x-
Eren found himself in a dream that reflected on his past before the world around him changed forever. He was back in the land just outside of Shiganshina, barely nine years old, just sitting under a tree where he could see the scenery that included the Walls. Even without the thought of Titans attacking the people, there was a peace that felt like it had been overdue…and he had to admit that he liked it. He liked it a lot. There was no need for aggression, for unnecessary carnage, or even the feeling of desperation.
I can't believe I had forgotten about this feeling, he thought.
I can't believe you're smiling like you used to years ago, he heard Mikasa's voice in his head, and looked over to his right, seeing her as she was when they were little. You look better when you smile.
Eren raised his hand to point to her, wondering if she was real or just a figment of his imagination, but then noticed Armin with her, pointing over toward the wall…where the Dark Titan was sitting, looking down at them.
"She reached out to you two, as well?" He asked them.
"We got the most history out of everyone from Shiganshina, Eren," Armin stated. "I was about to investigate a pyramid leading into a tomb when the Dark Titan appeared and asked me to come see you in your dream."
"You were dreaming about a pyramid?"
"A pyramid, the tundra, a mountain that reaches high into the sky, a dark forest, a city underwater, all the places I never thought we'd be able to go see. What do you dream about?"
"I don't do much dreaming."
"You seriously need to go traveling with me when the establishment for the global travel bureau is setup. The first place I plan to explore is this trio of pyramids. Annie and Bertolt are coming with me."
"You don't find it a likelihood that they might have seen pyramids already?"
"They haven't been anywhere outside of a war with other countries. Bertolt wants to see mountains that would put the Colossal Titan to shame, and Annie wants to see what places ended up underwater."
"Do either of you know what the word 'akago' means?"
"It mean 'infant'," Mikasa revealed to Eren. "Why do you ask?"
"The Dark Titan told me that Kaede's mother was having a new baby, but she wouldn't tell me if it was a boy or girl out of respect for Mrs. Sogen's wish to not know until it was born."
"After meeting her mother that day after it was revealed that her daughter was the Dark Titan, I'd respect her desire to not know the child's gender until after the birth," Armin expressed; it wasn't every mother's worst nightmare to find out that their child was a Titan Shifter and had been forced to hide it as they tried to move on with their lives, fearing that they'd be killed or reduced to a research specimen with no rights afforded to any other civilian. "Why do you care about the baby's gender, anyway?"
"Just curious," Eren defended.
"You do know what curiosity did to the cat, right, Eren?"
"I'll drop the subject."
"Good choice."
"Un-huh."
Mikasa looked over at the Dark Titan and saw her disappear.
"So, what were you dreaming of before coming here, Mikasa?" Eren asked her.
"I was dreaming of being a lady samurai," she answered him.
"A lady samurai?"
"A feminine martial artist skilled with the sword."
"That sounds…impressive."
"Thank you."
-x-
The doors opened and Sig came out, half an hour later, spotting Kaede and Shinji sitting on the floor against the wall.
"You two were really committed to sticking around," he told them.
"My body demands that I sleep, but I refuse to nod off until I know who I'm a big sister to," Kaede responded.
"I had to go to the bathroom for a minute, but I came straight back after splashing water on my face," Shinji admitted. "How is Mrs. Sogen and the baby?"
"Doing great," Sig smiled. "They'll be out momentarily back to their room."
"Boy or girl?" Kaede asked, wanting to know now.
"You have a little sister, Kaede."
Kaede smiled. She had a little sister now, someone younger than her who she could be a good example to as they got older in the coming years.
-x-
It was about an hour later that Christine awoke from her slumber and noticed that the sun was rising outside her room. She felt exhausted, but that was normal for her; she still remembered sleeping for four hours after Kaede was born. Luckily, she had Hagen to look after her while she recouped. This time, she had Sig, Kaede and Shinji, and she was grateful.
"Huh?" She went, hearing a snoring sound nearby, and seeing Sig asleep on her left side. How could I forget that you snore sometimes?
She pulled her pillow from behind her back and swung it at Sig's head.
"Whaa! What?!" He gasped, waking up, looking at Christine. "What'd I do?"
"You were snoring," she told him.
"Sorry. Ahh… How are you feeling?"
"Only half-rested, sore below the waist, and my lactating is making my breasts sore right now (she feels her breasts in front of him and sighs at their tenderness)."
"Again, I apologize for what I put you through."
"Please…you did nothing wrong. Thank you for putting up with my behavior."
"Any time. I do, however, have one thing to ask you about our new daughter: Have you thought of which of the girl names to call her."
"Oh… No. You?"
"Un-uh. We can't hold off on that any further. I can't decide on any names; they're all the same when I think about them."
"In what way?"
"We know or heard of people with names like them. It's basically 'Fred, Richard or Larry'…or 'Samantha, Maxine or Rachel'."
"Heh-heh-heh… I think we need help on this."
"Yeah. Where are Kaede and Shinji when their aid would be greatly appreciated?"
"Yeah, where are those two? And where's our new daughter?"
"Maternity ward. I think our daughter's the only one currently occupying it."
-x-
Sleep was different this time for the two, since neither one was doing a sentry around the coastlines of the island. They just collapsed on the floor in front of the maternity ward's observation window where Kaede's sister lay in a bassinet and dozed off.
"Are we really just going to let them sleep there on the floor?" A male orderly asked his female friend as they saw the two teens.
"They were up all night waiting for her sister to be born," she told him. "I say let them take the time to rest. The war's over, so there's no problems left to be worried about…except our everyday ones. Let sleeping dies lie."
"I'm just not exactly sure why they stayed up all night for a little girl to take her first breath in this changed world."
"All I know is that my kid niece is among those that call her the Queen of the Titans. If her sister's birth was important to her to stay up late, then it's worth letting her and her boyfriend sleep in the hall until they wake up."
"My buddy's nephew admires the lady."
The doors down the hall opened up and a dark-haired man came into the ward, pushing a wheelchair occupied by a dark-haired woman.
Christine looked over by the wall opposite of the observation window at the two teens and chuckled at how they were asleep.
"I guess the coffee didn't have enough caffeine for them," she suspected.
"They drank too much of it and ended up throwing up," Sig told her, pushing her wheelchair to the observation window.
It was true, their daughter was the only newborn currently in the ward; any other women that gave birth long before Christine left days or weeks before she arrived. And Christine had a better look at her new daughter as she lay asleep in her bassinet. The girl was about the size Kaede had been when she was a baby, with soft, pinkish skin and strands of dark hair on her head. And her eyes, when she was awake and crying a minute after her birth, were a shade of green, like her father's on his side of the family.
"She's very beautiful, Mrs. Sogen," they heard the voice of the Dark Titan, and turned to see her head floating by a strand mass of Titan flesh exuding from behind Kaede's neck.
"Does Kaede know you're here?" Christine questioned, looking at her eldest daughter.
"She doesn't, but I'm not going to wake her up. I am merely being respectful of her new status as a sibling. You have much to be proud of."
"Thank you."
Then, the Titan head melted away, returning to wherever it resided beyond the world they inhabited. While this had Christine somewhat relieved, she still had to wonder how Kaede was every time she used her power, even if she wasn't in danger of dying in a few years or becoming an invalid due to fatigue. As the only Titan Shifter left in existence, this made Kaede invaluable to Paradis, and after she was gone, the power of the Titans would probably go with her…unless she tried to pass the power back to the people. But she didn't want Kaede doing that, even if it was possible; the chances of the Titan power being split between people with different opinions or agendas that didn't see eye-to-eye ran the risk of something like what happened in the past to repeat itself again in the future.
"Mm…mmm…" Shinji mumbled as he moved his right hand up, moving his head.
"Hmm…" Kaede went, stirred from her slumber because of Shinji. "How long were we…"
She looked up and saw her parents.
"Uh…how long were you two…"
"Just three seconds," Sig cut her off. "Your mother and I need assistance."
"Huh? What kind of assistance?"
"We still can't come up with a good name for your sister," Christine told her.
Kaede then shook Shinji to wake up.
"Huh? I'm up, I'm up," he uttered, looking around and seeing the Sogens. "Is it still morning?"
"Yeah, the sun came up not too long ago," Sig told them. "Do you have any suggestions for a good name for a little girl?"
"I, uh… Just a handful of names, but they're mostly gender-neutral."
That clearly came with the territorial fact that Shinji came from a place where the majority of people's names were designed to be used for men and women. But he probably knew certain names due to having worked with people from the previous organization before he ended up in their world and later defecting to the people of Paradis, which might've been difficult for him to offer as name suggestions.
"Um, well, something original," Christine suggested. "Kaede's original; there's nobody else on the island that has her name. Any name that doesn't bring up memories or reminders would suffice for us. Even a word that's pronounced differently that can be used as a name is good."
Shinji thought of words that could be used as good names, and had less than ten to go along with the gender-neutral ones he knew.
"There's 'umi', meaning 'sea'," he started, "'hoshi' for 'star', 'yami' for 'darkness', 'eikō' for 'glory', 'chikyū' for 'earth' and…"
"Question. Is there a word for…for 'miracle'?" Sig asked.
"In my language, it's pronounced 'mirakuru'," he answered. "And there's 'midori' for the color green…and 'shirubā' for 'silver'."
"I like 'Midori', 'Chikyū', and 'Mirakuru'," Christine expressed.
"Me, too," Sig agreed.
"Um," went Kaede, needing to ask something, "is there a word in your language for…for 'smile', Shinji?"
"Smile?" He asked, wanting to make sure he heard her right.
"Yes."
"It's 'sumairu'."
"Sumairu?"
"That's right."
"Sumairu," Christine uttered, making sure she was pronouncing it properly. "It sounds pretty."
"Su…mai..ru," went Sig, and then he nodded his head in agreement. "It does sound pretty."
Shinji and Kaede got up and then left the parents to decide on which suggestions to use for the new baby's identity.
"I can't believe it's taking my parents this long to decide on a name," Kaede told Shinji as they sat out on the hospital garden on the eighth floor.
"Any parents would take their time deciding on a name." Shinji responded.
"Shinji…when we go down that route…we shouldn't take until the birth to decide on a name for any of our kids."
"Heh-heh… Gender-neutral names?"
"I can live with that if you can live with that."
"I can live with that, Ms. Sogen."
Kaede laid back on the grass and stretched her limbs.
"Hey, Shinji?"
"Yeah?"
"What do you think they'd look like when they're older? Our kids, I mean?"
"Black and blue eyes, muscular, petite, gray hair."
"Hey, if even one has your hair color, that'd be enough for me."
"Heh-heh-heh. Really?"
"Yeah. Boy, girl, twins, triplets. I'll draw the line with triplets, though. It's asking for some difficulty. You?"
"Triplets is going close to difficulty."
"When we're ready…we should pray for single-child births…just in case."
"Ha-ha-ha! Yeah."
Shinji laid back with her…and then dozed off again.
Kaede felt the drowsiness return and allowed herself to return to the sleep they had both been ignoring for the past few hours.
Meanwhile, Christine and Sig had finished having their conversation on the chosen name of their daughter, and had written down on the nametag they had. It had been an original name, as there wasn't a single person alive with that choice for a name.
"You think Kaede will be able to remember her sister's full name after hearing it once?" Christine asked Sig, cradling her daughter.
"I'm having a hard time repeating it in my head, but it's pretty good," he responded.
"Heh-heh, it is pretty good. Don't you think it's a good, Sumairu?"
On the right hand of the newborn was the nametag…and on it was the name that would follow her for the rest of her life: "Sumairu Sogen".
To be continued…
A/N: There's more to the new name, but that's for another time. But what did y'all think? And how many people choose to sacrifice sleep just to wait for a child's birth? How many parents want their child to have a unique name that will follow them till the end of time? I honestly don't know any.
Who here is happy for Kaede? This had been personal for her since her mother told her, and she had to put her darkest affair in order before her sister took her first breath of life in the new world. I'm glad she was able to bury her problem and move on. This may very well be the last chapter of this godforsaken year that hasn't been so well for most. Peace.