DISCLAIMER: I own nothing. A/N: SORRY ABOUT THE WAIT! Heh, I really didn't mean for it to take this long to get out! But I hope you enjoy it! ^_^ God Bless!!
Ranma yawned, and rolled over in his bed. This normally wouldn't have been a problem, had it actually been only him in the bed. Instead of going back into a dreamless sleep, the boy soon was yelping in pain at a tiny, fanged set of teeth biting into his arm.
"You disgusting pig!" Ranma screamed, sitting straight up and flinging the piglet across the room when he jerked his arm quickly. "It's Sunday! Can't you give it a rest?!"
The piglet glared at the boy with tears in its eyes, snarling the whole time. Both opponents made eye contact. They readied themselves for their attacks, but both left out the lurking variable.
Akane and her mallet.
"I told you not to pick on him!" Akane warned. She didn't like it when her boy-they fought, but to be waken up roughly by Ranma jumping out of the bed to pound on her P-chan just made it ten times worse.
"Get back here bacon breath!" Ranma threatened, running out the now open door after the little black piglet.
"RANma! Leave him alone!" She too, climbed from the nice warm bed to chase after the boy and pig-- mallet in hand and ready to swing.
Nabiki sighed with every CRASH, Ukyo's eyebrows rose with every 'JERK!', as Soun's eyes cried another river with every 'Dumb Tomboy!'. Glancing over at their uninvited guest, Nabiki wanted to bang her head against the table as Ukyo's smile began to form.
"For them being married, you'd think they wouldn't fight so much." She calmly said, pouring the tea for the weeping father.
"Even married couples fight Ukyo." Kasumi chimed in, placing the last of the dishes down before taking her seat.
First was the sound of money flying out the window, as a tiny black piglet was thrown threw the closed window of Akane's room.
"LEAVE HIM ALONE!" Akane's shout came second, followed by a second crash from the same window. Ranma screamed, hit the Koi pond, and popped her red head out of the water.
"I didn't start it!" A soaking wet Ranma exclaimed to the window where Akane stood, mallet still in hand. Climbing out of the pond, the girl muttered under her breath and sat down with a plop at the table.
A few minutes later when Akane walked in, sat down she turned to her female husband and replied, "I don't care who started it, point was I finished it." And then promptly stuck her tongue out at the glaring red head.
"'KANE!" Ranma screamed, avoiding the larger puddles, and splashing through the rest. "Hey 'KANE! Wait up!" The umbrella had done good so far with protecting him from the rain, but not his 'wife' simple reason being that she didn't have an umbrella.
"What is it Ranma?" She asked, annoyed, finally stopping for him to catch up.
"Kasumi's worried sick. Where've you been?" Ranma's voice was demanding, and had she known better one might even say concerned. "Last anyone heard from you was after school. Geez, 'kane, whatcha doin' out here on a night like this?"
Akane, for her part, had tears in her eyes as she stared up at pigtailed boy. "I'm looking for P-chan! He's probably cold, wet, and starving! And all thanks to you!"
Giving the girl the one over, Saotoma concluded that the Tendo girl was more likely the cold, wet, and hungry one. She'd catch her death if she stayed out in the elements much longer, and a sick Akane was no picnic-especially if she blamed him, which this being her, she would. Instead of putting it nicely, or even in a friendly manner, the boy cocked an eyebrow and said, "You look like a drown rat."
"If that's all the help you're going to be then you can just go back to Ukyo!" the blue haired girl said, taking a swing at him with her school bag.
Easily avoiding the flying satchel, Ranma added, "Besides, I'm sure P-chan is fine. He has a way of worming his way into any girl's arms."
Chewing on this information, the girl slowly nodded, "He IS cute, and he might be home already-or at least somewhere nice and warm..."
Ranma could only roll his eyes as the girl started back towards the dojo, under the safety of the umbrella, and continued to rattle on about how great her pet was.
"There's no electricity? OR hot water?"
"I'm afraid so." Kasumi said down heartedly. "You'll have to use candles if you want to do your homework."
"This is perfect, I'm freezing!" Akane complained, dropping to her knees at the dinner table. To prove her point, she let out a tiny sneeze.
"Oh my, why don't you go get out of those wet clothes, and dry off?"
"Why were you running around in the rain anyway, Akane?" Ukyo inquired, lifting an eyebrow as she passed the girl what remained of the warmest tea they had. "Have another fight with Ranma?" This she said a little to cheerfully for Akane's liking.
"NO." Akane snapped, making Ukyo frown. "I was looking for P-chan." The youngest Tendo could feel the sickness coming on, but decided not to say anything, she was too strong to get kicked in the stomach by a little cold!
She was NOT as strong as she thought. As Ranma and Akane lay in bed that night, Akane was freezing. Not only from the sickness, but the lack of glass in her windowpane, Nabiki said that the weather prevented the carpenters from replacing the window. Akane only shivered.
Ranma, on the other hand, was also freezing. Not because of sickness, no indeed, because his charming 'wife' had stolen her blanket as well as his and was wrapped up tightly within them. It was raining, and there was no hot water, therefore he didn't want to chance waking her up in a bad mood...but this was Akane, she always woke up in a bad mood.
"Stupid tomboy," he muttered, curling into a tight ball, shivering against the cold.
"Where's the happy couple?" Nabiki asked after a quiet and normal breakfast.
"When I went to wake them up, they both had fevers. I'm afraid they're sick. Can you get their homework assignments? You know how much Akane hates falling behind in her classes." Kasumi answered, preparing a breakfast tray for the sick couple.
"You mean they're going to stay in the same room all day? AND the same bed?" Nabiki was as shocked as she ever showed, which wasn't much. "Glad I'm going to school."
"Oh yes, Ukyo left early this morning and forgot her lunch, will you bring it to her, Nabiki?"
"Since when did I turn into a servant?"
"This is all your fault you know." Akane muttered, bringing the blankets up to her nose.
"How the heck is it my fault? You were the one that stole all the covers last night!" Ranma defended, sneezing promptly afterwards.
"I wouldn't have taken all the covers if you hadn't broken the window!"
"I wouldn't have broken the window if your stupid pig didn't bite me!"
"Don't blame P-chan! You start it, you always start the fights!"
"Bull! You started this one! I wasn't even goin' to talk to you!"
Akane flinched, her eyes getting a hurt look before she rolled over on to her side, her back facing Ranma. "Well then don't. It's not like we can have a intelligent conversation anyways."
"How would you," he took a moment to sniffle, "know? We've never tried to!"
Akane looked over her shoulder, waiting till Ranma looked at her, then she stuck out her tongue and turned back over.
"Oh that's mature."
"Shut up."
They had been repeating this conversation for the better part of the morning. Driving the other one's will slowly into insanity. Kasumi had insisted that they try to get some sleep, but whenever the other one would fall asleep, the sleeping one would steal the covers, and then would wake up when the other one stole them back. They'd even protested to get out of the same bed, saying that Ukyo wasn't there, therefore they didn't need to keep up the charade for the day, but this, again, was denied.
It was lunch at Furinkin High, and Ukyo was on the hunt. She had left early that day to catch up on some homework with a tutor, but had failed to see Ranma-honey OR Akane, that bothered her. So her prey was Nabiki Tendo, that money rat knew everything and told everything as well-for a price. Ukyo shuddered and unconsciously tapped her back pocket for her wallet.
Finally finding the girl sitting with her henchgirls and henchmen, the brunette confronted the middle child. "Where is he?"
"He?" Nabiki replied innocently, "Who ever do you mean?"
Sighing, the girl fished out her wallet and handed over ten thousand yen, "Will this jog your memory?"
"He and Akane our back at the house, sick as a pair of dogs."
"WHAT!" Ukyo didn't wait for an answer to her second question, "If he's sick he needs me to be caring for him! Poor Ranma-Honey! Trapped with ~that~ girl all day!"
Akane sighed, and turned over to where Ranma was propped up, flipping through a manga he'd read a few times already. She had been chewing over his comment for the past thirty minutes, and it was time to talk again. Assuming he didn't say anything that would get him malleted into the first floor of their house.
"Lets try it," She said simply, painfully sitting up in the bed, propping herself against the headboard.
"Huh?" Ranma's eyebrows retreated to his bangs as a colorful thought ran through his head.
"Don't get any ideas, I mean, lets try talking to each other without killing each other. No insults-"
"NO mallets."
"I can live with that," Akane snorted, crossing her arms over her chest. "so, what do you want to talk about?"
"I dunno." Ranma threw the comic down to the floor beside its kin, and then copied his 'wife's' arm cross.
"How can we try to get into a conversation, if you don't have anything to talk about?!"
"You started this, YOU think of something." Ranma pointed out, glaring at his bedmate.
"Fine. Let's do this the easy way, one of us ask a question, and the other answers it. YOU go first."
Ranma pondered over a question for a moment, trying to weed out the stupid from the suicidal. He heard Akane sigh in annoyance at the time he was taking, but she wasn't on the receiving side of her temper. Inspecting the room for some source of inspiration, his eyes landed on a pair of worn tan skates, "Got one."
"About time." She muttered.
Ignoring that, "Who taught you to skate?"
"Uh," Akane uncrossed her arms, and started to pick at the stitching of her covers, "My mom."
"Oh."
"She was really good at it, even though my dad wasn't." She laughed at a memory as it played in her head, Ranma was surprised as the anger melted away into a happy smile. "You and him are equals on the ice. Can't skate to save your life."
"Hey!" Ranma grumbled after the blue haired girl shot him a playful glare. "Okay fine, I might not be perfect at skating, but at least I was good when it mattered."
"Yeah, you were." Akane cleared her throat, deciding it was best not to travel down that road at the moment. "So, what's something you remember your mom teaching you?"
"Uhm," Ranma seemed to roll over the years of his childhood with a fine tooth comb and at last answered with a yawn, "I'm tired, g'night." And ha flipped over quickly.
"That's not fair!" Akane protested, poking him in the arm. Ranma didn't answer, and she finally gave up and settled in for a nap as well. Sometimes boys were just so childish! Grumbling under her breath, she turned her back to him.
Ranma, on the other hand, was facing the wall, his shoulders tense. He didn't want to embarrass himself, or have her sympathy because he couldn't remember anything about his mother. Sure, he had some memories, but nothing more than flickers of a foreign face.
Akane woke up to the most unpleasant experience of her life. She knew exactly who was responsible for it too. Glaring over her shoulder at her 'bedmate' she found a set of steel blue eyes glaring back at her.
"You're disgusting!" She shrieked, clamping her nose shut with her fingers.
"It's not me, it must be you tomboy!" Ranma protested, covering his own nose.
"I'm a lady! I don't do things like---like that!"
"Sure you don't." They continued to shot daggers at one another, until their concentration was broken as a happy Ukyo nearly kicked down the door. This caused both occupants to shot up in the bed to a sitting position.
"Ranma-honey, I've made you some medicine." She announced cheerfully. "And some for you too Akane." The brunette added in a strained sweetness.
Ranma's eyes were double in sized as a suspicious tray with a bowl giving off green vapors was placed on Akane's desk. His 'wife' seemed to have the same fear of the 'medicine' and scooted back from the desk, hitting the young man in the chest with her back.
"Uh, that's okay, Ranma it's all yours, sweety." Akane gestured towards the bowl, and took all the strength she had to muster a smile. When Ukyo began to prepare the bowl for eating, the blue haired girl suddenly didn't care what it took to get away from the stuff, and climbed over Ranma. He made a good shield.
"Chicken." He muttered as she peeked over his shoulder, her hands planted firmly on either side of his shoulder blades.
"She's your fiancee, it's your duty to die for honor." Akane pointed out in a whisper.
Her breath on his ear sent shivers down his spine, but defiantly not in a bad way. "USE to be, and anything has to be better than your cooking."
"JERK!" Akane shouted, pushing the boy forward with all her strength.
Ranma, being unprepared for the shove, pitched forward and in a second was face first on the floor. Ukyo and Akane looked down at the prone figure with the black pigtail.
"That wasn't called for." Ukyo muttered, putting the bowl down and helped the smaller girl drag him back in bed. "For being a wife, your sure don't act like one."
"Since when did you become the expert? I don't recall YOU ever being married." Akane pointed out in an icy voice.
Ukyo shrugged, and then said she'd return when 'her' Ranma-honey was awake to take the medicine she made. After asking where she got the recipe, Akane jaw almost dropped, it was the same recipe she had used when Happosia was on his deathbed. This knowledge made the 'Saotoma' girl cringe.
"How's the odd couple?" Nabiki whispered later that night to Kasumi who had just left the room.
"Both fevers are broken, but they still need some rest." Nabiki nodded and headed to her own room. Kasumi waited till her sister's door shut before she smiled a secretive smile and walked away from the room.
No matter what they said, what she had just seen was enough proof for her not to give up hope on the two thickheaded teenagers yet. Inside the room the healing couple lay. That was nothing to give encouragement since Kasumi had to put up with their shouts all day, but now they were asleep. Apparently Akane was cold, and Ranma had the warmth she needed or vise versa.
The picture of their blankets still separating their bodies, while Akane was snuggled up to Ranma with her head on his chest, and his arm serving to keep her there by being around her waist was truly a hopeful image indeed.
Yeah, I know "What on earth took you SO long?!" Well I kinda had writer's block in the middle. And do NOT worry, Ryouga will make another appearance to get the full lecture of what's going on. As for the next chapter...
Everything is going TOO well, Akane and Ranma are actually getting along, Ukyo has to leave for a convention, and nothing could go wrong! EXCEPT...where on earth is Shampoo? What took her so long to make an appearance? And what is the one thing she asks of Ranma that could completely blow the developing relationship up? Not to mention, have Ranma hating the Amazon? Stay tuned!