Chapter Five - A Haunting Resemblance
I don't own Sailor Moon
***
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"I have a really bad feeling about letting that assassin sit in the hospital."
Tenoh Haruka said this is a solemn, pensive voice.
"I have a feeling, but I don't exactly know if it's bad," answered Kaioh
Michiru, Haruka's lover and partner. The two were Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune,
and the only two unmarried Senshi. Being unmarried, the two most powerful of the
Senshi leave Pluto and Saturn, and having only nominal jobs--Haruka was a racer
and Michiru was a violinist--they were usually full-time guardians of the royal family.
"What do you mean?" said Haruka. "It's most probably a bad feeling. She's
an assassin and she was obviously sent here to kill the king or queen. What makes
Dr. Suino and Neo-Queen Serenity think she won't try to pull that trick again?"
Haruka often called the Senshi and their husbands by their formal names when
speaking of them--"Dr. Amesuino", "Mrs. Kogasunasu", "Mr. Hayashino"--even
though she knew them intimately.
"I don't even think she's going to try to pull that trick again," said Michiru.
"There's something about her I sense that is innocuous." Michiru was a bit of a
clairvoyant; although her clairvoyance wasn't as pronounced as Kogasunasu Rei's, it
was still quite strong.
"I thought you said you could hear the sea roaring in your ears when she is
near," Haruka said, frowning. Michiru hardly ever disagreed with her.
"I do, but it's not from her," said Michiru. "I felt the sea roaring from
something connected to her, not directly from her."
"Think she has anything to do with what the sensors are picking up?" Haruka
asked. Lately the intergalactic satellite sensors had been picking up advanced radio
waves from somewhere near. Somewhere halfway across the galaxy, but still a little
too near, and rapidly approaching.
"Maybe so," said Michiru. "But that's not totally it. There is something else I
feel about this young woman..." Michiru closed her eyes. In her mind she formed
the perfect vision of a young girl with short violet hair and piercing, glowing violet
eyes. Then she formed the picture of this young woman, the assassin. She
shuddered when she saw the assassin's eyes flash an eerie violet color in anger.
"Something closer, more intimate."
"Michiru, something is bothering me. Something you said about the assassin
the first night, when she was discovered. You said, 'she doesn't look familiar to any
of, except...' and then you cut off. Then when the king asked you what, you said
'nothing relevant'. What did you feel? What was the problem?"
"I..." Michiru turned her eyes to Haruka again. "It was that feeling again.
Except I also saw something, too, that anyone could see if they looked long enough."
"What did you see?"
"I saw...I saw Hotaru, Haruka."
Haruka's eyes widened. "You, too?"
"You saw it too?" Michiru asked, looking back at Haruka.
"Yes," Haruka answered. "She looks like Hotaru. A little."
"Not a little," Michiru said, shaking her head. "A lot. Very much. Her skin,
her hair, everything resembles Hotaru, except she's a lot taller than Hotaru. She
bears a haunting resemblance to Hotaru. The only thing is her eyes; they're blue,
but they're a blue like no one else's. They're a deep ocean blue, the kind of eyes
that pierce straight through you and come out on the other end. They're so strong,
they're like strobe lights."
"They're the kind of eyes men get lost in," Haruka joked, half serious.
"Exactly," said Michiru. "That's why she's dangerous, especially around
Koikokoro Masaya. I can't believe they would put him up as a doctor to a beauty like
that."
"He's not her doctor," said Haruka. "Ami just asked him to check on her. She
didn't mean for him to follow up on it. In any event, Ami's a gynecologist, and she's
the girl's doctor. She's going to find out if the girl has any diseases that she might
have passed on to the queen, or to us."
"Especially you," Michiru said. "You touched her blood."
"You helped clean it up."
"It's not the same," she said, shaking her head. She closed her eyes again
and thought about the young woman, laying in the bed, blue eyes open. "Her eyes,
Haruka...they look like someone else's, I just don't know who!"
***
King Endymion walked into his office chamber, then closed the door behind
him. Thinking again, he locked it, then walked over to his desk.
He smiled when he looked at it. It was free of the clutter that he saw looking
at his wife's dresser every day. Serenity's dresser clutter, however, was clutter of
love; all over there were awards and pictures from Chibiusa and the children of the
Senshi, who were like nieces and nephews to her. The endless awards and
insurmountable stack of papers dated all the way back to her the copy she had of
Minako's oldest son's first report card--straight one's. Minako had been so proud of
her baby boy. At the time, she and Mako had been the only ones to have any
children; and Mako's son was only a year old. Serenity had demanded a photocopy
of Masaya's work. King Endymion smiled fondly when he remembered the day
Minako had come to the palace, Masaya in tow, and remembered the huge smile on
six-year-old Masaya's face when he held out his kindergarten grade report. Serenity
had placed it proudly on her then nearly-clean desk.
Now it was full of pictures, school papers, and grade reports from each of the
Senshi's thirteen children, plus Endymion and Serenity's own daughter, Chibiusa.
Even two-year-old Kogasunasu Himeko--who was only two years old--pitched in
when she picked up a pen and scribbled all over a piece of paper. Rei, who had four
other children, was not impressed, but Serenity had been delighted and asked to
keep the paper. Rei agreed, and so that was Serenity's newest addition on her
dresser.
King Endymion looked back at his own desk, clean and devoid of childhood
citations, only with a pencil case and a few stacked manila folders containing
important documents.
'Well,' Endymion thought, 'even if my desktop isn't cluttered with all
the records of treasured children's reports, my heart is.
And my top desk drawer.'
He took out a key and unlocked his desk drawer, pulling it open. Reaching his
hand inside, he pushed aside all the dozens white envelopes and school papers until
he found the one he was looking for. It was lavender and stood out among all the
white ones. It had lacy handwriting on the front upper left corner: *Tomoe Hotaru.
1271 Koganyana. Ayakashi, Aphrodite Pref., 762-04.*
***
Aiyana sat in her chair, squirming. She was waiting for Ami and Masaya to
come back with the results of her pregnancy test, but they seemed to be taking
forever.
When Masaya had told her that he thought she was pregnant, she felt like a
huge steel ball had been dropped on her stomach. 'Me? Pregnant? I can't raise a
child! I'm only seventeen!'
But at the same time, she had felt a certain relief. 'At least now I know
what's been bothering me so much. That's why I've been acting so crazy lately.'
Now she was sitting in her chair, outside the inner lab room, in a totally
different hospital room.
Masaya walked out of the inner room. Aiyana looked up at him hopefully.
"No news yet," Masaya said, shaking his head. He squatted in front of
Aiyana. "It's going to take a little while. Ami's using the error-proof test. It takes
longer, but it's almost never wrong."
"'Almost' never?" Aiyana said, raising an eyebrow.
"As in point zero zero two percent."
Aiyana let out her breath and shook her head.
"Are you scared?" Masaya asked.
Aiyana was about to shake her head no, but she changed her response and
gave a slight up and down shake of the head. "A little, I suppose."
Masaya smiled and patted her hand. "Don't worry about it. Try not to think of
it, if it scares you. Think about something else, if it pleases you. Remember, I could
be wrong."
"You haven't been so far," Aiyana replied, looking back up at him.
"Yes I was. I said that you probably had a sexually transmitted disease."
"If I'm pregnant, then I do."
Masaya laughed. "It's not a *disease,* Aiyana."
"Eek! Masaya, come in here!"
"Coming, Ami." Masaya rose from his squatting position. He walked into the
inner lab room, and a few minutes later Aiyana heard him squeak.
"Do you see what I see, Masaya?"
"Yeah...I see it..."
The two of them stayed in the inner room a few minutes more, then came out
together. Masaya had an apprehensive look on his red face, and Ami had an amused
one on hers.
"Are there...genetic differences between humans and the people where you're
from?" He was being careful not to reveal it. Aiyana felt another little flutter in her
stomach.
"Centurians," Aiyana said. "And the other planet's peoples are Proximians."
"You're from another planet?" Ami asked incredulously.
"Yes," Aiyana answered.
"I didn't hear that. And I'd advise you to make sure no one else does."
"Okay."
"So...this guy...he's a Centurian?"
"No. He...I think he was actually one of our natives, an Andromedan."
"Weird." Masaya shook his head.
"Okay. Enough with that. Aiyana, I have some good news, and then I have
news news. The good news is that you don't have any sexually transmitted diseases.
In fact, you're almost perfectly healthy, with the exception of being malnourished."
Aiyana sighed in relief.
"The news news is...you're pregnant, Aiyana."
***
"Aiyana, are you awake?"
After Ami had told Aiyana that she was pregnant, she had merely stared at
Masaya and Ami for a few moments. It was eerie; it looked as if she hadn't heard
anything. Just when Masaya was about to reiterate what Ami had said, her eyes
widened and she said, "What?"
Ami had repeated her statement.
Aiyana had buried her head in her hands.
Masaya, startled and worried, had bent down to see what was wrong. She
had picked up her face and the two's eyes had met. They locked their gaze for a few
moments--maybe two seconds, but to them it had felt like two days. Then they had
both quickly looked away.
"Are you all right?" Masaya had asked in a very concerned voice.
Aiyana didn't reply, just kept her face in her hands.
"Aiyana, it's not the end of the world," Ami said gently, kneeling down next to
Masaya and gently pulling Aiyana's hands away from her face. "In fact, it's not even
bad at all. Being a mother is something wonderful. You think now, 'I'm pregnant',
but pretty soon you'll think 'I'm going to have a baby' instead. And once you do
have the baby, you'll never, ever regret it. A child is a lot of work, but it's also a lot
of love and fun also."
Aiyana looked down at Ami, then at Masaya. Masaya didn't say anything, just
squeezed her hand and smiled, his eyes full of warmth.
Now it was the next morning, and Aiyana was recalling this image in her mind
as she heard Ami's voice. She pulled the covers farther up over her head, trying to
cover her face and hold onto her dream.
"Mmmm-hmmm," she mumbled reluctantly.
"You hiding under there?"
Aiyana didn't respond; instead she snugged farther down under the thick
blanket. Ami had given it to her; it was dark blue on one side and lighter blue on the
other. She had also given her a clean new nightgown. This one was white and it
was much warmer than the thin lavender one she had been wearing the first few
weeks. Ami had told Aiyana that she needed to keep warm; the baby might drain
body heat from her.
"That happened when I was pregnant with my twin girls," she'd said. "I don't
know how. They do it sometimes, though."
"Are you hungry?" Ami asked now, sitting down in the chair where Masaya
usually sat. "I've got some food for you."
Giving up the battle to hold onto her lost dream, Aiyana rolled over and
looked at Ami. She shook her head.
"Come on, Aiyana. Sit up and eat. You've got to eat for two people now. If
you're not going to eat for yourself, eat for the baby."
Aiyana sat up a little bit more, the blankets still wrapped around her. "Who
made it?" she asked timidly.
"Today's one of those crawl-in-a-hole days, hmmm?" Ami asked with a smile.
"Actually, Masaya made it. He knew you probably wouldn't feel like eating, so he
decided to make something special for you to entice you into eating."
Aiyana sat up just a little straighter. "Can he cook?"
"Yes, very well. When he was in college he took several culinary courses. He
didn't know whether he wanted to be a pediatrician or a chef. He chose the former."
Aiyana scooted a little closer to the night table and looked at the food. It
*did* look good. "What is it?"
"It's called quiche," Ami said, pronouncing it "keesh". "It's like a breakfast
cake, except it has peppers and cheese and egg you can taste in it. It's really good.
When Masaya was still in college he made it for us at my house. The boy--well, I
guess I should say the man--can cook." Ami smiled and sighed a little. "It's hard
not to think of him as a boy. I still remember his first day of school, and then the
day he came over to give me his first grade report."
Aiyana took the pair of chopsticks from the night table top and severed a
piece of the quiche. She picked it up and ate it. "It tastes good!" she said in delight.
Ami laughed. "Yes, I know."
Aiyana took another piece from the quiche and ate it. She began to eat a
little faster, smiling after a while. "This is very good," she said. "Did Masaya get
good grades in his culinary class?"
"Very good grades. Straight ones. In fact, he's always gotten straight ones.
I remember one time he was actually *mad* because he'd gotten a two in the third
grade in history."
Aiyana smiled.
"But he's very intelligent. He took an associate's degree program in high school, graduated a year early and went to med school for seven years. He's actually a novice doctor, he's being assisted by me and another doctor who's a pediatrician. He's the youngest doctor in the hospital. Everyone likes to tease him. But he's still such a good doctor. He's wonderful with
children, and I know for a fact that he wants plenty of his own...if he ever finds
someone to have them with."
Aiyana continued to eat, looking down at the food but smiling to herself. She
liked hearing about Masaya. Especially the part about him wanting children.
Although she hadn't really ever thought about the prospect of starting a family until
now, coming to Earth and now being forced to, she thought maybe she would like
having children and a family. Maybe.
"Ami...could I ask you a question?"
"Sure."
"I don't know if this has anything to do with me being pregnant, or just being
on Earth, or something else...but I keep getting these strange...feelings."
"Feelings?" Ami gave her a confused smile. "What kind of feelings?"
"It's not a sick feeling, or even a bad feeling. It's just...sometimes it feels
good, but other times it just feels...weird. And it always feels different, but yet the
same."
Ami smiled. "There are a lot of things like that in a woman's life."
"Sometimes it's a tingly feeling I feel all over my body. Sometimes it's like a
little flutter in my stomach. Sometimes it's a big flutter in my stomach. And
sometimes it's a warm feeling all over..."
Ami smiled broadly. "Hmmm...does it happen to happen every time you look
at a particular person?"
"Look?" Aiyana looked down at her quiche. "I don't even have to look. I just
think about him and I get the feeling."
"Masaya?"
Aiyana looked down into her quiche and blushed.
"Yes," she said.
"Ah, you've got a crush on him," Ami said, smiling.
"A crush?"
"Yes. It doesn't have anything do with you being pregnant, but it has a little
to do with you being on Earth. A crush is just a good feeling that you get when you
think about or see or touch someone you like. Like, as in *like* romantically. But
not exactly like romantically...'like' is a term that teenagers thought up. It simply
means that you look at a person of the opposite sex in more than a platonic way...do
you get what I'm saying?"
Aiyana nodded, still looking down at her quiche.
"Do you want anything to drink?"
"Just water, please."
"Are you going to eat the rest of that?" Ami pointed to the quiche; most of it
was still there. Aiyana looked at it and shrugged. "I don't know. I feel a little
sick..."
Ami held up her hands. "Okay," she said. "Just take it slow. The
combination of the morning sickness and your malnutrition is going to make eating
hard for a while. I'll kind of plan out an eating schedule for you so your body will get
used to eating three square meals a day."
"Okay," said Aiyana. She still wanted to ask a question. "Um, Ami..."
"Yes?"
"Is it normal to think about him almost *all* the time? Even in your
subconcious?"
"When you dream, you mean?" Ami grinned. "That's what you call a *big*
crush. It's no different and no unhealthier. Let me go get you a glass of water."
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I don't own Sailor Moon
***
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"I have a really bad feeling about letting that assassin sit in the hospital."
Tenoh Haruka said this is a solemn, pensive voice.
"I have a feeling, but I don't exactly know if it's bad," answered Kaioh
Michiru, Haruka's lover and partner. The two were Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune,
and the only two unmarried Senshi. Being unmarried, the two most powerful of the
Senshi leave Pluto and Saturn, and having only nominal jobs--Haruka was a racer
and Michiru was a violinist--they were usually full-time guardians of the royal family.
"What do you mean?" said Haruka. "It's most probably a bad feeling. She's
an assassin and she was obviously sent here to kill the king or queen. What makes
Dr. Suino and Neo-Queen Serenity think she won't try to pull that trick again?"
Haruka often called the Senshi and their husbands by their formal names when
speaking of them--"Dr. Amesuino", "Mrs. Kogasunasu", "Mr. Hayashino"--even
though she knew them intimately.
"I don't even think she's going to try to pull that trick again," said Michiru.
"There's something about her I sense that is innocuous." Michiru was a bit of a
clairvoyant; although her clairvoyance wasn't as pronounced as Kogasunasu Rei's, it
was still quite strong.
"I thought you said you could hear the sea roaring in your ears when she is
near," Haruka said, frowning. Michiru hardly ever disagreed with her.
"I do, but it's not from her," said Michiru. "I felt the sea roaring from
something connected to her, not directly from her."
"Think she has anything to do with what the sensors are picking up?" Haruka
asked. Lately the intergalactic satellite sensors had been picking up advanced radio
waves from somewhere near. Somewhere halfway across the galaxy, but still a little
too near, and rapidly approaching.
"Maybe so," said Michiru. "But that's not totally it. There is something else I
feel about this young woman..." Michiru closed her eyes. In her mind she formed
the perfect vision of a young girl with short violet hair and piercing, glowing violet
eyes. Then she formed the picture of this young woman, the assassin. She
shuddered when she saw the assassin's eyes flash an eerie violet color in anger.
"Something closer, more intimate."
"Michiru, something is bothering me. Something you said about the assassin
the first night, when she was discovered. You said, 'she doesn't look familiar to any
of, except...' and then you cut off. Then when the king asked you what, you said
'nothing relevant'. What did you feel? What was the problem?"
"I..." Michiru turned her eyes to Haruka again. "It was that feeling again.
Except I also saw something, too, that anyone could see if they looked long enough."
"What did you see?"
"I saw...I saw Hotaru, Haruka."
Haruka's eyes widened. "You, too?"
"You saw it too?" Michiru asked, looking back at Haruka.
"Yes," Haruka answered. "She looks like Hotaru. A little."
"Not a little," Michiru said, shaking her head. "A lot. Very much. Her skin,
her hair, everything resembles Hotaru, except she's a lot taller than Hotaru. She
bears a haunting resemblance to Hotaru. The only thing is her eyes; they're blue,
but they're a blue like no one else's. They're a deep ocean blue, the kind of eyes
that pierce straight through you and come out on the other end. They're so strong,
they're like strobe lights."
"They're the kind of eyes men get lost in," Haruka joked, half serious.
"Exactly," said Michiru. "That's why she's dangerous, especially around
Koikokoro Masaya. I can't believe they would put him up as a doctor to a beauty like
that."
"He's not her doctor," said Haruka. "Ami just asked him to check on her. She
didn't mean for him to follow up on it. In any event, Ami's a gynecologist, and she's
the girl's doctor. She's going to find out if the girl has any diseases that she might
have passed on to the queen, or to us."
"Especially you," Michiru said. "You touched her blood."
"You helped clean it up."
"It's not the same," she said, shaking her head. She closed her eyes again
and thought about the young woman, laying in the bed, blue eyes open. "Her eyes,
Haruka...they look like someone else's, I just don't know who!"
***
King Endymion walked into his office chamber, then closed the door behind
him. Thinking again, he locked it, then walked over to his desk.
He smiled when he looked at it. It was free of the clutter that he saw looking
at his wife's dresser every day. Serenity's dresser clutter, however, was clutter of
love; all over there were awards and pictures from Chibiusa and the children of the
Senshi, who were like nieces and nephews to her. The endless awards and
insurmountable stack of papers dated all the way back to her the copy she had of
Minako's oldest son's first report card--straight one's. Minako had been so proud of
her baby boy. At the time, she and Mako had been the only ones to have any
children; and Mako's son was only a year old. Serenity had demanded a photocopy
of Masaya's work. King Endymion smiled fondly when he remembered the day
Minako had come to the palace, Masaya in tow, and remembered the huge smile on
six-year-old Masaya's face when he held out his kindergarten grade report. Serenity
had placed it proudly on her then nearly-clean desk.
Now it was full of pictures, school papers, and grade reports from each of the
Senshi's thirteen children, plus Endymion and Serenity's own daughter, Chibiusa.
Even two-year-old Kogasunasu Himeko--who was only two years old--pitched in
when she picked up a pen and scribbled all over a piece of paper. Rei, who had four
other children, was not impressed, but Serenity had been delighted and asked to
keep the paper. Rei agreed, and so that was Serenity's newest addition on her
dresser.
King Endymion looked back at his own desk, clean and devoid of childhood
citations, only with a pencil case and a few stacked manila folders containing
important documents.
'Well,' Endymion thought, 'even if my desktop isn't cluttered with all
the records of treasured children's reports, my heart is.
And my top desk drawer.'
He took out a key and unlocked his desk drawer, pulling it open. Reaching his
hand inside, he pushed aside all the dozens white envelopes and school papers until
he found the one he was looking for. It was lavender and stood out among all the
white ones. It had lacy handwriting on the front upper left corner: *Tomoe Hotaru.
1271 Koganyana. Ayakashi, Aphrodite Pref., 762-04.*
***
Aiyana sat in her chair, squirming. She was waiting for Ami and Masaya to
come back with the results of her pregnancy test, but they seemed to be taking
forever.
When Masaya had told her that he thought she was pregnant, she felt like a
huge steel ball had been dropped on her stomach. 'Me? Pregnant? I can't raise a
child! I'm only seventeen!'
But at the same time, she had felt a certain relief. 'At least now I know
what's been bothering me so much. That's why I've been acting so crazy lately.'
Now she was sitting in her chair, outside the inner lab room, in a totally
different hospital room.
Masaya walked out of the inner room. Aiyana looked up at him hopefully.
"No news yet," Masaya said, shaking his head. He squatted in front of
Aiyana. "It's going to take a little while. Ami's using the error-proof test. It takes
longer, but it's almost never wrong."
"'Almost' never?" Aiyana said, raising an eyebrow.
"As in point zero zero two percent."
Aiyana let out her breath and shook her head.
"Are you scared?" Masaya asked.
Aiyana was about to shake her head no, but she changed her response and
gave a slight up and down shake of the head. "A little, I suppose."
Masaya smiled and patted her hand. "Don't worry about it. Try not to think of
it, if it scares you. Think about something else, if it pleases you. Remember, I could
be wrong."
"You haven't been so far," Aiyana replied, looking back up at him.
"Yes I was. I said that you probably had a sexually transmitted disease."
"If I'm pregnant, then I do."
Masaya laughed. "It's not a *disease,* Aiyana."
"Eek! Masaya, come in here!"
"Coming, Ami." Masaya rose from his squatting position. He walked into the
inner lab room, and a few minutes later Aiyana heard him squeak.
"Do you see what I see, Masaya?"
"Yeah...I see it..."
The two of them stayed in the inner room a few minutes more, then came out
together. Masaya had an apprehensive look on his red face, and Ami had an amused
one on hers.
"Are there...genetic differences between humans and the people where you're
from?" He was being careful not to reveal it. Aiyana felt another little flutter in her
stomach.
"Centurians," Aiyana said. "And the other planet's peoples are Proximians."
"You're from another planet?" Ami asked incredulously.
"Yes," Aiyana answered.
"I didn't hear that. And I'd advise you to make sure no one else does."
"Okay."
"So...this guy...he's a Centurian?"
"No. He...I think he was actually one of our natives, an Andromedan."
"Weird." Masaya shook his head.
"Okay. Enough with that. Aiyana, I have some good news, and then I have
news news. The good news is that you don't have any sexually transmitted diseases.
In fact, you're almost perfectly healthy, with the exception of being malnourished."
Aiyana sighed in relief.
"The news news is...you're pregnant, Aiyana."
***
"Aiyana, are you awake?"
After Ami had told Aiyana that she was pregnant, she had merely stared at
Masaya and Ami for a few moments. It was eerie; it looked as if she hadn't heard
anything. Just when Masaya was about to reiterate what Ami had said, her eyes
widened and she said, "What?"
Ami had repeated her statement.
Aiyana had buried her head in her hands.
Masaya, startled and worried, had bent down to see what was wrong. She
had picked up her face and the two's eyes had met. They locked their gaze for a few
moments--maybe two seconds, but to them it had felt like two days. Then they had
both quickly looked away.
"Are you all right?" Masaya had asked in a very concerned voice.
Aiyana didn't reply, just kept her face in her hands.
"Aiyana, it's not the end of the world," Ami said gently, kneeling down next to
Masaya and gently pulling Aiyana's hands away from her face. "In fact, it's not even
bad at all. Being a mother is something wonderful. You think now, 'I'm pregnant',
but pretty soon you'll think 'I'm going to have a baby' instead. And once you do
have the baby, you'll never, ever regret it. A child is a lot of work, but it's also a lot
of love and fun also."
Aiyana looked down at Ami, then at Masaya. Masaya didn't say anything, just
squeezed her hand and smiled, his eyes full of warmth.
Now it was the next morning, and Aiyana was recalling this image in her mind
as she heard Ami's voice. She pulled the covers farther up over her head, trying to
cover her face and hold onto her dream.
"Mmmm-hmmm," she mumbled reluctantly.
"You hiding under there?"
Aiyana didn't respond; instead she snugged farther down under the thick
blanket. Ami had given it to her; it was dark blue on one side and lighter blue on the
other. She had also given her a clean new nightgown. This one was white and it
was much warmer than the thin lavender one she had been wearing the first few
weeks. Ami had told Aiyana that she needed to keep warm; the baby might drain
body heat from her.
"That happened when I was pregnant with my twin girls," she'd said. "I don't
know how. They do it sometimes, though."
"Are you hungry?" Ami asked now, sitting down in the chair where Masaya
usually sat. "I've got some food for you."
Giving up the battle to hold onto her lost dream, Aiyana rolled over and
looked at Ami. She shook her head.
"Come on, Aiyana. Sit up and eat. You've got to eat for two people now. If
you're not going to eat for yourself, eat for the baby."
Aiyana sat up a little bit more, the blankets still wrapped around her. "Who
made it?" she asked timidly.
"Today's one of those crawl-in-a-hole days, hmmm?" Ami asked with a smile.
"Actually, Masaya made it. He knew you probably wouldn't feel like eating, so he
decided to make something special for you to entice you into eating."
Aiyana sat up just a little straighter. "Can he cook?"
"Yes, very well. When he was in college he took several culinary courses. He
didn't know whether he wanted to be a pediatrician or a chef. He chose the former."
Aiyana scooted a little closer to the night table and looked at the food. It
*did* look good. "What is it?"
"It's called quiche," Ami said, pronouncing it "keesh". "It's like a breakfast
cake, except it has peppers and cheese and egg you can taste in it. It's really good.
When Masaya was still in college he made it for us at my house. The boy--well, I
guess I should say the man--can cook." Ami smiled and sighed a little. "It's hard
not to think of him as a boy. I still remember his first day of school, and then the
day he came over to give me his first grade report."
Aiyana took the pair of chopsticks from the night table top and severed a
piece of the quiche. She picked it up and ate it. "It tastes good!" she said in delight.
Ami laughed. "Yes, I know."
Aiyana took another piece from the quiche and ate it. She began to eat a
little faster, smiling after a while. "This is very good," she said. "Did Masaya get
good grades in his culinary class?"
"Very good grades. Straight ones. In fact, he's always gotten straight ones.
I remember one time he was actually *mad* because he'd gotten a two in the third
grade in history."
Aiyana smiled.
"But he's very intelligent. He took an associate's degree program in high school, graduated a year early and went to med school for seven years. He's actually a novice doctor, he's being assisted by me and another doctor who's a pediatrician. He's the youngest doctor in the hospital. Everyone likes to tease him. But he's still such a good doctor. He's wonderful with
children, and I know for a fact that he wants plenty of his own...if he ever finds
someone to have them with."
Aiyana continued to eat, looking down at the food but smiling to herself. She
liked hearing about Masaya. Especially the part about him wanting children.
Although she hadn't really ever thought about the prospect of starting a family until
now, coming to Earth and now being forced to, she thought maybe she would like
having children and a family. Maybe.
"Ami...could I ask you a question?"
"Sure."
"I don't know if this has anything to do with me being pregnant, or just being
on Earth, or something else...but I keep getting these strange...feelings."
"Feelings?" Ami gave her a confused smile. "What kind of feelings?"
"It's not a sick feeling, or even a bad feeling. It's just...sometimes it feels
good, but other times it just feels...weird. And it always feels different, but yet the
same."
Ami smiled. "There are a lot of things like that in a woman's life."
"Sometimes it's a tingly feeling I feel all over my body. Sometimes it's like a
little flutter in my stomach. Sometimes it's a big flutter in my stomach. And
sometimes it's a warm feeling all over..."
Ami smiled broadly. "Hmmm...does it happen to happen every time you look
at a particular person?"
"Look?" Aiyana looked down at her quiche. "I don't even have to look. I just
think about him and I get the feeling."
"Masaya?"
Aiyana looked down into her quiche and blushed.
"Yes," she said.
"Ah, you've got a crush on him," Ami said, smiling.
"A crush?"
"Yes. It doesn't have anything do with you being pregnant, but it has a little
to do with you being on Earth. A crush is just a good feeling that you get when you
think about or see or touch someone you like. Like, as in *like* romantically. But
not exactly like romantically...'like' is a term that teenagers thought up. It simply
means that you look at a person of the opposite sex in more than a platonic way...do
you get what I'm saying?"
Aiyana nodded, still looking down at her quiche.
"Do you want anything to drink?"
"Just water, please."
"Are you going to eat the rest of that?" Ami pointed to the quiche; most of it
was still there. Aiyana looked at it and shrugged. "I don't know. I feel a little
sick..."
Ami held up her hands. "Okay," she said. "Just take it slow. The
combination of the morning sickness and your malnutrition is going to make eating
hard for a while. I'll kind of plan out an eating schedule for you so your body will get
used to eating three square meals a day."
"Okay," said Aiyana. She still wanted to ask a question. "Um, Ami..."
"Yes?"
"Is it normal to think about him almost *all* the time? Even in your
subconcious?"
"When you dream, you mean?" Ami grinned. "That's what you call a *big*
crush. It's no different and no unhealthier. Let me go get you a glass of water."
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