"Roricon! Idiot! You're supposed to be at /class/, not sitting here trying to be subtle about waiting for me to go to school!" The sound of a heavy object -- most likely one of his father's medical books -- hitting a wall soon followed, and Shinji bolted out of the study, rubbing his head.

Zen, at eight, had every single one of the prejudices against attempted romance that any boy his age had, as well as first-hand knowledge about both of the personalities involved in this particular relationship. Polishing off the last of Shinji's hotcakes (he had abandoned them to go see Natsuki, of course, so they were free game in Zen's considered opinion), he stared at his pseudo-brother and rolled his eyes. "You know, maybe Mom should stop telling the story about how you proposed to her the second time you met her. I think it's making her insane," he said, then hopped off of his chair and went off to change into his uniform, leaving a rather abandoned-looking Shinji behind.

He waited for a moment, pausing at the door of his room, expecting the outburst any second...

"My /hotcakes/!" came the forlorn wail from the kitchen Zen'd just left.

It was just another of the standard pranks that he pulled whenever possible -- it kept Shinji on his toes, and provided a bit of amusement for an eight-year-old who was really going on... far too many years for a normal child. Zen pulled his uniform out of the closet, dressing as quickly as possible.

The knock at his door was expected, almost welcomed. "I'm coming, Natsuki. Just a second," he called, pulling on his hat with a grimace at his reflection. He'd a couple years to go until he got back to his normal height, but the golden-brown hair and brown eyes were the same as they'd been before.

He couldn't help but compare himself as he was now to how he had been before, though he knew full well that they were, at spirit and in soul, the same person. Shinji had never seemed to have this problem -- he was twenty now, and he'd always been exactly the same as the boy a young juntenshi had met on his first mission to the ningenkai.

"I /not/ going to act like I was. I'm /eight/. Not fifteen. Or however old I'd be now," he told his reflection, jamming the hat further down over his eyes. "I'm /not/."

Natsuki was just slipping on her shoes as he stepped into the main hallway; Shinji leaned casually against the door, watching her. "I'm ready," Zen announced, drawing both of their gazes to him. Shinji's was almost murderous, and Natsuki's was delighted and a wee bit impatient.

He stepped into his shoes, ignoring them for a moment before grabbing his backpack and reaching for Natsuki's hand. This was one comfort he adored: physical contact. It was so human, so real and so very childish that he never failed to remember it every morning.

They lived close to school, but it was still a fair distance; Natsuki nearly ran, hauling Zen (who, it must be said, wasn't quite up to running flat-out) halfway there before he stumbled and fell, scraping his knee and one elbow.

"I'm so sorry, Zen! I didn't mean to hurry, but Masako and Rei say that they have something to show me, so..." Natsuki said, letting her voice trail off as she gently picked up her younger brother.

Zen winced, but didn't cry at the sting of the scrapes. He'd gotten enough of them, even this early in his life, to have become accustomed to the pain, more or less. But it still hurt. Every single time he fell, it hurt. "'M okay, Natsuki. It hurts only a little."

Natsuki looked thoughtful, one slim finger tapping her chin. "You're still my little brother. Let's go. We can have the nurse at my school take a look at your scrapes, and I'll explain to your teacher that it's my fault if you're late," she said decisively, turning down a different street than their normal route.

The twisting roads took them places that Zen had avoided thus far; the hospital he'd stayed in so long ago, the park he and his... well, she was his mother now, so it would suffice. Natsuki had bound his knee with her hankerchief, so he focused on that instead of the road.

When Natsuki stopped abruptly, he looked up.

God had a /very/ bad sense of humor. Or Fate did. Either way, Takazuchiya Kimiko was sweeping the pathway up to the small grocery store, humming a familiar lullabye she'd used so often to sing him to sleep in his former childhood. Worst of all, she'd seen Natsuki and had set her broom aside, smiling at her stunned expression. "May I help you with something?" she asked, making her way over to the frozen teen and child.

Natsuki's whisper reached Zen's ears: "I'm so sorry..." Aloud, she said, "No, we're just on our way to school."

"You're almost late, you know. Especially your little brother -- he's got a way to go, if he goes to the school I think he does," Kimiko replied, trying to get a peek at Zen. He'd reacted instinctively, hiding behind his sister to save his former mother pain. She'd aged, from what he had seen; her hair had wings of grey in it, and her face, though still beautiful, had matured. "Now, there's no need to be frightened of me."

Oh so reluctantly, Zen stepped out from behind Natsuki, pulling his hat down over his eyes. "I'm not frightened," he said. This was bad. The promise he'd made to himself and the promise his parents had made still held in his heart: he wouldn't see them until he was completely healthy. Normally, this wouldn't have been a problem, but the scratch...

"Oh dear. Did you trip?" The motherly concern nearly undid Zen's blank facade -- it succeeded entirely in making him look up, revealing his face to the sunlight. The quiet gasp told him all he needed to know. Natsuki had gone entirely still next to him. Kimiko -- his former mother -- examined his face, turning it this way and that with a gentle hand upon his chin. "You look so like my son," she whispered, tears forming in her eyes.

He desperately wanted to say, 'I know' and hug her and wipe away those tears.

"You're so young, but you look exactly like Zen. What is your name?"

/I am Zen. I always have been.../ He sighed, unhappy with the outcome of this morning; not only was he in pain, he was causing pain for someone he loved dearly. But what could he do but reply? "Nagoya Zen."

His mother froze for a moment, then smiled wistfully. "I wish you were truly my Zen. But-" She stood, reaching into a pocket of her apron and withdrawing a bandage. "-you can't be, and I apologise for making you worry about an old woman like me. Here. Let me fix those scrapes."

It was here that Natsuki spoke up as though prompted from within. "I think you met our mother at one point, several years ago. A girl who knocked down a lot of tins, with brown hair and brown eyes. She... she knew your son. I think she'd like to see you again."

Kimiko's hand froze over Zen's scraped knee, her expression vaguely shocked... and the tiniest bit hopeful. "I think I do remember her... it's been so many years, though. But she seemed to be the sort that is difficult to forget," she said slowly, thoughtfully. "She was one of Zen's friends." Her hands, as gentle as they had ever been in his former life, drew out the small flecks of gravel that had embedded themselves in Zen's knee, then wrapped the bandage around his knee. She gave it one last soft pat, then smiled at him. "I doubt you would want me to kiss it better, so I shan't."

The shock of the moment had definitely driven Zen into immobility -- though he desperately wanted to jump behind a cart and hide there and try to cover his face with his hat, he couldn't. He could only stand there with his mouth open and mentally scream at his older sister for ever suggesting that his mothers (such an odd thought!) meet.

"I know that Mama would like to meet you again..." Natsuki repeated, reaching for Zen's hand. The warm touch brought him out of his paralysis, but he said nothing; to say what he thought would hurt his mother more than his arrival had. "Zen would, too."

Oh, by God, he hated it when Natsuki turned all cryptic.

His mother smiled then, though there were traces of pain in it. "I would be delighted to meet one of Zen's friends once again." She turned her smile upon him, still kneeling in front of him. "And you, Zenda-chi."

Zen turned red and pulled his hat down over his ears as Natsuki giggled merrily, all trace of her serious self gone. The nickname. He almost suspected his mother /knew/, the way she was acting.

God, he /hated/ this situation. It added to the guilt.

***

Maron's hands were working on the dress, but her mind was elsewhere. It had been eight years since Zen had arrived back in their world, and she still hadn't become accustomed to the feeling of theft. It was worse than she had ever felt while sealing demons -- she had at least left another painting behind, and had done a necessary thing for the world -- and she truly didn't know how to understand it.

She and Chiaki had taken Zen from his previous lives. He had been sick in the first, true, but he had been alive and with the family who he belonged to, who had created him. His mother had loved him, she knew. And all of that had been taken away by a single word: checkmate.

Chiaki had long since been forgiven for what he had to do, but Maron had always had such trouble forgiving herself for past mistakes. It had taken a thorough verbal beating by Miyako for her to forgive herself for Fin's death, and there was no way to explain this to anyone, truly.

She had stolen Zen, not once, but /twice/. And that made her uncomfortable and not a little bit guilty.

"You're feeling guilty about what Natsuki told you, aren't you?" Warm arms enfolded her from behind and warm breath tickled her ear. "About Zen's mother, right?"

Maron turned slightly, halfheartedly trying to escape Chiaki's arms before finally settling into the comfort he provided. "A little," she admitted. "I always wanted him with me, even though I thought it wasn't possible." There was no way to express this in words. Chiaki simply knew. And that was why they loved each other; not fate, that tired old word, and not because of simple physical things, but the knowledge of each other, both physical /and/ mental, that they held.

He kissed her neck, sending a thrill of feeling through Maron. She turned in his arms, catching his eyes. The smoky look in them made her nebulous fears flee as though chased by a gale. The dress was forgotten, the delicate silk left crumpled upon the floor as the two took comfort from each other.

***

"What is Mom supposed to tell my mother?" The sheer incongruity of his words struck him as entirely appropriate as he paced back and forth, crushing his hat in his hands. "That I really /am/ Takazuchiya Zen, just come back to life?" he demanded, halting and staring up at Shinji with all the outrage an eight-going-on-eighteen year-old could muster.

Shinji sighed and knelt, placing his hands upon Zen's shoulders. "Maron will do what is right, what has to be done." In a more philosophical tone, he continued, "And I doubt that anyone who had paintings 'stolen' would want to press charges, even if they could. So the secret is not so important to keep any longer. It's a matter of whether your former mother will believe the tale. God hates for us to be unhappy, and so sometimes things just... happen."

"But! What happens to Mom if Mother wants me to stay with /her/ instead of with Mom?" Zen paused, blinking slightly at the sound of his own words. It simply wasn't fair, was it? "Ha." It wasn't a child's giggle, and he could see Shinji twitch slightly in reaction. Perversely, he thought it was just perfect that he could make Access Time twitch when so little else could, so he did it again. "Ha. I just want to be a /child/."

"You /are/ a child." The very dryness of the comment gave Shinji a clue as to who spoke. As he turned, his suspicions were verified: Minazuki Miyako, detective and special friend, stood there, hands on her hips.

She had aged more than Maron had, though she was still remarkably pretty. There were laugh lines at the corners of her eyes from years of marriage, silver hair mixing in with the black that she swore was the result of Shinji, and a stubborn crease between her eyebrows. And she was still as fiery as she had ever been. "You think you're so pitiable, stuck in a child's body with an adult's mind," she said, stepping into the room -- Shinji stepped aside hastily -- and shaking her finger at him. As he opened his mouth to protest, she silenced him with a firm shake of her head. "You claim to remember your past life as Takazuchiya Zen. Do you remember your childhood? I doubt it."

"But-!"

"Don't you dare try to contradict me." She kneeled suddenly, placing her hands upon his shoulders and staring into his eyes. Offhandedly, he wondered if Shinji knew he'd picked the same thing up from her. "Children never believe they are children. They're always changing, and so is the world around them. And so children aren't what they seem to be. And you've forgotten that you /are/ a child, in spite of the fact that you know more than those who don't remember a lifetime before." Miyako smiled and hugged him to her, and he couldn't resist, such was his shock. "So be a child and let the world grow up with you."

Applause from the background broke the moment of thought: Yamato and Shinji were standing in the door, an amused smile upon the former's face, a purely impish one on Shinji's. "I never knew that you were such a wisewoman, Mom," Shinji quipped, then fled. And was pursued by Miyako just as quickly.

"Aah, I live in such an insane family..." Yamato said, taking off his glasses and polishing them with a handkerchief as the sounds of shrieks and yelps rang down the hallway. He offered Zen a warm smile, then poked his head through the doorway into the hall, withdrawing with arched eyebrows. "Well. I have to say, I'd thought that application of frying pans was only possible in those American cartoons."

Zen fled as quickly as possible.

***

This has been sitting on my hard drive for over a year now, actually, and I kept on intending to expand upon it. Well, I never did, save for a partially-written scene after this one. So... enjoy this. ^^