"The bridal shop called today," Carey Navarro said. "You still need to go in and have your tux fitted. Oh, and the caterers want to know if we've made a final decision on the menu for the reception yet."
Sage Date shot an amused glance at his fiancée. "Tell them that as long as nobody gets food poisoning they can serve meatloaf and french fries for all I care."
Carey rolled her golden eyes at him. "Sage, come on. We've confused them enough by trying to combine Japanese and Cuban cuisines. The least we could do is set some parameters here."
"I'm sorry, honey, but I just can't see what all the fuss is about. Personally, I think there's an easier way to do this: we just call up a few friends and say, hey, we're getting married and we'd like you to show up. Then we go to a justice of the peace or one of those wedding chapels, tie the knot in five minutes, and then take everybody out for pizza."
"Oh, that's classy. I kind of think Miss Manners would have something to say about that."
"Who says we'd invite her?"
"You're not helping."
Sage sighed, briefly lifting his violet eyes to the heavens. "Carey, sweetheart, darling, I'm a guy. Granted, I'm a sensitive, caring, and well-bred guy --- and don't give me that look --- but I'm a guy nonetheless. Weddings are a chick thing. I love you dearly and I can't wait until we're legally wed but I just think there are more important things to worry about than what we serve at our wedding reception."
"Such as whether or not we can make it to Rowen's house before we run out of gas?" Carey replied dryly. "You're driving on fumes there, lover."
Sage glanced at the car's gas gauge and swore softly. "Oh, damn. Well, there's a gas station about a block away. It shouldn't take too long to fill up and get moving again. Rowen'll kill us if we're late."
Carey chuckled. "You'd think he was showing off a new baby or something, as proud as he is about this new house."
"The house is his baby," Sage explained. "He's always wanted something like this, something he can really call his own."
"That's a lot of house for just one guy, though, isn't it?"
Sage shrugged. "Rowen doesn't really like apartments --- he says they're too impermanent. He lived in an apartment with his dad for years after his parents split up, and I guess they remind him of the divorce. You can't really blame him, though. Rowen just wants what anyone else would --- something that's his, something that makes him feel like he belongs somewhere, like he has roots."
Carey smiled warmly at her golden-haired, lavender-eyed lover. "Have I ever told you I love it when you get all sensitive and insightful like that?"
Without taking his gaze from the road, Sage found Carey's hand and brought it to his lips. "Why do you think I do it?" he smiled.
They arrived at Rowen's home a short time later, just as the sun was setting. Sage looked around as he unfastened his seat belt. "None of the guys are here yet," he observed.
"Good --- someone else can be the target of Rowen's wrath. Maybe it'll be Kento," Carey suggested, just a bit too hopefully.
Sage rolled his eyes. "You two just can't get along, can you?"
"Sage, I know he's basically a good guy --- you wouldn't be such good friends if he wasn't --- but Kento and I have just never hit it off. He's just too…brash for my tastes. Why can't he be more like Rowen or Cye? Now those two are absolute dolls."
"I'll tell them you said that," Sage teased.
"Don't you dare. That's all I need --- to start off our marriage with all of your friends mad at me."
"What about Ryo? You haven't gotten to him yet."
"Ryo is a nice guy and I do like him," Carey said. "But if you ask me, querido, he really needs to get over himself. Not every awful thing that happens in the universe is his fault. Are you sure he wasn't a Jewish mother in a past life? The guy has a world-class martyr complex --- Angst Central."
"Well, he's had it rough," Sage admitted. "His mom died when he was a baby, his dad when he was six, and he had a lot of responsibilities when he was growing up. It hasn't been easy for him."
"I know, but sometimes I just want to slap him around a bit and tell him to lighten up," Carey said ruefully, and Sage chuckled.
"Just don't do it tonight," he said. "Rowen went to a lot of trouble for this dinner party. I don't think he'd appreciate a brawl breaking out. And no starting fights with Kento," Sage warned as they headed up the walk to Rowen's door.
"I promise I will be on my best behavior, if only so I can look smug when he isn't," Carey assured him. "Besides, I left my pointe shoes at home."
Sage laughed. "I guess I should have warned you --- when Kento comes over for dinner, never leave anything on the table that isn't actual food. Still, I wish you could have seen your face. It's a good thing none of the guys speak Spanish --- you would have traumatized them for life." Carey stuck out her tongue at him.
The doorbell chimed, but there was no answer. Sage waited a few moments, then pressed the bell again. Still nothing. "That's funny," he mused. "Rowen must be home, his car is in the driveway."
"Sage, look," Carey pointed out. She pushed gently on the door and it swung open easily. She shot her fiancé a puzzled glance. "It wasn't closed all the way. Does Rowen always leave his front door open like that?"
"No, he doesn't," Sage replied slowly. Something was wrong, he could feel it…. "Come on." They walked into the brightly lit house, both of them now alert. "Rowen?" Sage called. "Rowen, is everything okay?" Silence.
"Sage, something's not right," Carey said. She sniffed the air. "What's that smell?"
"Kitchen," Sage said tersely. They went into the kitchen, and Carey let out an exclamation of dismay. She hurried over to the oven and quickly turned it off, then opened the door. A cloud of dark gray smoke billowed out. Coughing, Sage opened a window as Carey turned on the fan. Sage regarded the carbonized lasagna with a raised eyebrow. "Well, I guess some things never change," he said wryly.
Carey shook her head. "This doesn't make sense. Rowen leaves his front door open and then just forgets about the dinner he's fixing? I know he can be a little absent-minded sometimes, but this goes way beyond that."
Sage looked around the kitchen. Foodstuffs and utensils were neatly arrayed on the counter --- the way Cye always taught us, Sage thought. Have what you needed ready and nearby so that you didn't overcook anything while you were hunting for the oregano or whatever. A drawer was open, and Sage glanced over its contents --- batteries, a hammer and assorted nails, a tape measure, but nothing cooking-related. A junk drawer. Why would he have gone in here while he was fixing dinner? There's no sign of a struggle…it looks like he just walked away for a moment. That feeling of wrongness was getting stronger. "Let's check the house," he said aloud.
They moved through the silent house, calling Rowen's name but getting no answer. Sage went upstairs, while Carey prowled the first floor. Finding nothing, she was about to go rejoin Sage when she noticed a doorway to her right. Carey cautiously moved to inspect it, seeing that it was, in fact, a basement entrance. "Rowen?" she queried as she started down the steps. "Rowen, are you down here?" She glanced down…and froze in horror. "Oh, no," she whispered, then found her voice. "Sage! Sage!"
Sage heard his girlfriend scream and rushed downstairs. "Carey?"
"Sage, the basement! Hurry!"
Sage raced to the top of the basement steps. "Carey, what --- oh, my God!" He practically vaulted down to where Carey knelt beside their injured friend.
Rowen lay crumpled at the foot of the stairs, unconscious, his face white. Blood from a gash on his forehead had matted in his hair and formed a small pool on the cement floor and his right hand was black and blue. Carey dug a penlight out of her purse and shone it in each of Rowen's eyes. "Breathing is shallow and his pulse is rapid and weak," she said quickly. "Pupils reacting normally. I think he's going into shock. He needs an ambulance like yesterday."
"He must have fallen and hit his head on the stairs," Sage noted. He pulled out a cell phone and dialed 911. "Carey, go get a blanket and a couple of --- "
"Clean towels," Carey finished for him. "I'm on it." She ran up the stairs as the 911 operator answered Sage's call. "I need an ambulance right away," Sage told the operator. He gave her Rowen's address, then listened to her questions. "It looks like he fell…no, he's not conscious…yes, he's breathing and he has a pulse…I don't know, we found him like this, but I'd guess it's been a while."
Carey returned and draped an afghan over Rowen's still form. "The head wound has stopped bleeding," she observed. "That's one good thing at least. Is the ambulance on its way?"
"As we speak," Sage replied. "Damn. What do you think happened to him?"
"I don't know. He hit his forehead, which means he fell forward. Tripped, maybe?" She looked back at the stairs. "There's blood on the second step from the top. Must have been where he hit." Carey rose to her feet. "I'm going to go outside and wait for the ambulance. And Ryo, Cye, and Kento should be here any moment, if they aren't already --- I'll head them off and let them know what's happened."
"Good thinking," Sage agreed. Carey vanished up the stairs, and Sage knelt by Rowen's side, gently holding his friend's uninjured hand. "It's okay, buddy," he murmured. A siren wailed outside. "Hang in there. It's going to be all right."
Three hours later, Sage looked up as Cye Mouri walked into the hospital waiting room. "Any luck getting hold of Ryo?"
The redheaded Ronin shook his head. "No. Nothing. I waited as long as I could, but he never showed, and he hasn't answered his pager. I hope he's okay. This isn't like him."
"What I want to know," Kento Layfang spoke up, "is how Rowen managed to bash his head on the stairs like that. He's not usually that klutzy."
Carey wound a strand of her hair around her finger. "I wonder if it really was an accident."
The others turned to look at her. "What do you mean?" Cye asked.
"Well, maybe I'm jumping at shadows here, but --- Rowen was in the middle of fixing dinner when this happened. He left food cooking in the oven; wouldn't he have turned it off if he had to go to the basement for any length of time? And why was he in the basement in the first place? Plus, if he tripped, wouldn't he have hit his chin when he tried to catch himself instead of his forehead? I don't know, it just seems like something doesn't add up here."
"Thank you, Nancy Drew," Kento said sardonically. Carey glared at him.
"Don't even start, you two," Sage warned. He wearily rubbed his eyes. "The only one who can tell us what happened is Rowen, and he's still being fussed over by the various doctors inhabiting this place. What the hell is taking so long, anyway?"
"I think we're about to get an answer," Cye replied as a balding, bespectacled man in a white lab coat entered the room. He seemed surprised to see four young people gathered in his waiting room. "Are you Rowen Hashiba's family?" he asked.
"For all intents and purposes," Sage answered, shaking the man's outstretched hand. "I'm Sage Date; this is my fiancée, Carey Navarro; our friends, Cye Mouri and Kento Layfang. How is Rowen?"
"I'm Doctor Araki," the doctor said, taking off his glasses and wiping the lenses. "I'm a neurology specialist. Your friend is a very lucky young man. He has a lot of bruises and he's cracked a bone in his right hand, but fortunately nothing else was broken. He's sustained a concussion, and he needed a few stitches to close the laceration on his forehead; however, X-ray shows no skull fractures and the CAT scans show no bleeding or swelling of the brain. Of course, we won't know anything for certain until he's fully conscious, but for now I'd say the prognosis is good."
"Thank God," Sage murmured, as the others sighed with relief. "Can we see him?"
Dr. Araki nodded. "Of course, but not for very long. He's still very groggy from the concussion and the pain medication and keeps drifting in and out of consciousness. You won't be able to talk to him much, but I'm sure he'll feel better knowing that you're here. This way." The doctor led the small group down the hall to a room. "He's in here. Don't stay too long though. He needs to rest."
"Thank you, Doctor," Carey said. Dr. Araki nodded to her and moved over to the nurses' station.
The room was dimly lit, and most of the space was taken up by the bed in its center. A monitor beeped softly but the Ronins ignored it, their attention focused on the bed's occupant. Rowen's forehead and right hand were bandaged, and a purple bruise on his cheekbone stood out in stark relief against the pale skin. Kento let out a long, low whistle. "Wow. Poor guy. He looks like hell."
"Quiet, Kento," Sage scolded his friend. He and Carey moved to stand to Rowen's right, Cye and Kento to his left. Sage gently picked up Rowen's bandaged hand. "Rowen? Rowen, can you hear us?"
Rowen's dark lashes fluttered, then lifted slowly. His midnight blue eyes were clouded from pain and the drugs, and he struggled to focus them. "Guys?" he whispered.
"Shhh, we're here," Sage reassured the injured man. "Don't try to talk. You're going to be okay, but you have to rest."
Rowen didn't seem to hear him. His gaze moved slowly from one face to the other, as if he were searching for something. "Ryo…"
Cye took Rowen's other hand, careful not to disturb the IV line. "Ryo's not here, Rowen. We couldn't get in touch with him. But don't worry, we'll let him know what's happened."
A small whimper of pain escaped Rowen as his head moved restlessly on the pillow. "Ryo," he murmured again.
The others exchanged puzzled glances, and Carey bent close to brush Rowen's blue hair away from his bandaged forehead. "Ryo what, sweetheart?" she asked gently. "What's wrong? Is he in trouble?"
Rowen's eyelids fluttered as he struggled to stay conscious. He seemed to be trying to talk for a moment. "…did this…" he finally managed.
Carey, Sage, Cye and Kento froze, stunned, unable to believe what they had heard. Finally Sage found his voice. "What do you mean, 'did this'? Come on, buddy, stay with us. Did Ryo do this to you?"
"Said…it wasn't…over," Rowen mumbled weakly. "Said armors…made us…been looking for…us…" His voice faded out and his eyes closed as Rowen slipped back into unconsciousness.
"Rowen?" Sage prodded gently. "Rowen, what do you mean?"
"Forget it, Sage, he's out again," Kento said. "Come on, we're not going to get anything more out of him tonight. Let the guy rest."
Sage nodded and placed Rowen's hand back on the bed. Carey dropped a soft kiss on Rowen's head above the bandage, Cye squeezed his hand, and Kento touched his shoulder. They filed silently out into the hall, then just stood looking at each other for a moment. It was Kento who finally spoke. "Now what do we do?" he asked.
"There's not much we can do," Sage replied. "The police are checking out the scene and will tell us if they find anything suspicious, but I'd rather not tell them about Ryo being missing just yet. Anyway, we can't file a missing-persons report for twenty-four hours, and hopefully he'll show up before then. All we can do is wait and see."
"Should we stay here and keep an eye on Rowen?" Cye asked.
"No, I don't think it would do much good. The nurses won't let us stay in his room, and we can't do anything from the waiting area. Besides, his room is right next to the nurses' station, and they'll have to check on him frequently because of the head injury. We can let them know to watch for any visitors besides us, but all in all I think Rowen's in good hands. The best thing we can do now is to go home and try to get some rest so we can figure all this out tomorrow." As the others nodded, Sage turned to Carey. "Honey, why don't you head on out to the car?" he suggested. "I'll be there in a minute --- I want to talk to the guys."
If Carey was surprised by this --- Sage had never excluded her before --- she kept it to herself. "You two take care," she said to Cye and Kento. To Sage she added, "Don't be long --- I know it's not the most important thing on your mind right now, but we have an early appointment for premarital counseling tomorrow."
"You guys haven't even gotten married yet and you're already in counseling?" Kento asked incredulously. Cye hid a smile as Carey rolled her eyes.
"It's required for a church wedding, Kento," Sage explained with exaggerated patience. "Don't worry, koibito, this won't take long." Carey nodded and kissed him briefly, then turned and headed down the hallway. When she was out of view, the smile melted from Sage's face, leaving a grim expression in its wake. "So what do you think?" he asked his fellow Ronins.
"I can't believe it," Cye murmured. "Why would Ryo attack Rowen?"
"What makes you so sure he did?" Kento demanded. "You really think Rowen is actually thinking straight right now?"
"But why else would he accuse Ryo like that?" Sage pointed out. "Something's not right here, guys."
"Sage, Rowen is stoned," Kento replied. "He just cracked his head open and he's been drugged on top of that. We could probably tell him the Easter Bunny attacked him and he'd believe it right now. You know, guys, I think we're all making a big case out of what was probably just a simple accident. Besides, it's not fair to trash Ryo when he's not here to defend himself."
"Which brings us to my next point --- where is Ryo?" Sage asked. "It's not like him to just not show up. Cye, you couldn't reach him at all?"
Cye shook his auburn head. "No. I tried his home and left several messages, he wasn't at work, and he hasn't answered his pager. What I'd like to know is, if this was just an accident, why did Rowen look so scared when he woke up? What did he see that frightened him so much?" A sudden thought struck him. "Sage…Rowen mentioned the armors. Carey doesn't know about them, does she?"
"No, and it'll stay that way if I have anything to say about it," Sage replied grimly. "I can probably convince her that Rowen was delirious or something. He only mentioned them once, so maybe she didn't notice."
Kento snorted. "Yeah, sure. Sage, I may not always understand what you see in her, but I do know one thing --- she's not stupid. If Rowen mentioned the armors, then she heard it. She doesn't miss much," he muttered resentfully.
"Like the time she heard you describe ballet dancers as 'narcissistic poofballs'?" Cye said archly. "Or the time you tried to eat her new pointe shoes?"
"A, she was in the kitchen and wasn't supposed to hear that, and B, they were on the table with the food and why did she put them there in the first place?" Kento defended himself. "And anyway, she didn't have to hit me with them." He scowled at the memory. "Those things are hard," he grumbled.
"Served you right," was Sage's unsympathetic reply.
"Sage, you should tell her," Cye suggested gently, but Sage shook his head.
"No," he said firmly. "I don't want her involved with that. Besides, what would I say? 'Oh, by the way, honey, when I was in high school my friends and I wore mystical armor and battled demons and saved the world a few times'? She'd think I was nuts." He shook his head again. "No, Cye. That part of our lives is over, and I for one don't intend to go back." Sage shrugged on his jacket. "'Night, guys. Call me if you hear anything."
When Sage had gone, Kento turned to look at Cye. "Do you really think it's over?"
Cye sighed unhappily. "I hope it's over; I pray it's over," he replied quietly. "But no, Kento, I don't think it's over."
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querido: Spanish, lit. "desired/wanted one"; a term of endearment used for a lover.
koibito: Japanese, "sweetheart"
pointe shoes: the stiffened shoes worn by a ballet dancer that enable her to dance on the tips of her toes.