Author's Note: Don't kill me! Please!!! There is a epilogue after this, then this story, after two plus years, is done! Yippe!!! Come on, be happy!Disclaimer: Ranma doesn't belong to me.
He'd run away! Akane still couldn't believe it still a week later. She had no idea what the banging around had been until Ranma had been dragged down the steps by his Panda father. The Panda had two packs strapped to his back, Ranma in one paw and a sign saying 'Training Trip. Bye!' in the other. She had barely gotten to her feet before the Panda had disappeared.
She had been so furious about it at first, Akane had started to stomp after them until Kasumi had gently laid a hand on her shoulder.
"Perhaps this is for the best," her oldest sister recommend with a sad smile. "To give you both time to heal."
It wasn't until that night that the girl had allowed her anger to be rained on by the tears her eyes just wouldn't stop crying. Even a full week later, she would still start to tear up because of the cold hard truth.
Her mind was thick with negative thoughts about why she was let go. Thoughts and ideas such as she wasn't good enough, she embarrassed him and the like ran around her mind and made it hurt.
When Akane was hurt she got angry, when she got angry she got the blocks out. Towards Friday, there was a rather impressive pile of broken blocks and dust in the back of the yard. The girl who was responsible for their destruction threw the last one into the pile and wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her sleeve.
It was hot today, not a cloud in the sky and the weather man said there would be rain.
Akane stared up to the sky and a voice laughed as it made a comment that it would be flooding if Ranma were here. That boy was a water attracter. At that thought, her brief, ghost like smile faded.
"Dummy." The girl muttered sadly, tightening her gi belt and starting a kata.
There was something about the lack of warm body next to her, even during the hot nights, that made Akane shiver. Hitting herself lightly on the head with a fist, she reprimanded herself for acting like such a fool. It was his choice.
So what if he didn't choose her? So what if he wasn't 'man' enough to tell her good-bye? Did that make her worthless? No. Did that make her not important? Nope! So why was she suffering so much?
Akane's brown eyes settled into a stiff glare. Ranma probably wasn't even thinking of her one wit and here she was burning more thinking oil on him than she had on her homework! It was ludicrous!
After all, she was the one who left it up to him, knowing very well that he was probably going to do what he did. Okay, so he didn't leave doing back flips screaming 'I'm free!' but going on a training trip directly afterwards seemed pretty close.
Just like the last time they had gotten into a fight. What had it been about? Oh yes, taking his name. He was so stubborn about her being Akane Saotome, not Akane Tendo that they were literally making her windows rattle.
This fight was different. There wasn't one harsh word uttered in the other's presence, though there were many shouted when she was practicing in the dojo, and they didn't make a scene or do any property damage.
Trying to get her stubborn brain to let it soak in, Akane muttered to her pillow something she hated to hear from anyone. "It's not like he ever said he loved me or anything."
It was finally Sunday when Akane was able to go to sleep with some help from a sleeping agent. Actually, it wasn't her who slipped it into her food but rather Nabiki. The middle sister had grown weary of hearing her sister 'bang around' at five in the morning and not settling down till after midnight.
The brunette pointed out that though Akane might be okay with looking like a drugged raccoon, Nabiki had no desire for such a look.
Too bad for Nabiki that due to her constant working out, Akane's metabolism was quick and processed the pill within a few hours. There were several random thunks and a single crash before the house settled down for the night. Amazingly, the youngest Tendo found it easy to sleep through all this.
It was when there was a familiar noise that she stirred. Akane woke up slightly when she heard the squeak of the floorboard right in front of Nabiki's door. She groaned and rolled over slightly…or at least she tried to.
When she tried to again, and failed, Akane's mind decided, reluctantly, to wake up enough to find out what the duce was going on. Her sleep fogged mind considered that she probably had gotten tangled, once again, in the sheets and that was what was restricting their motions.
But the sheets were never quiet this heavy, nor were they this warm and firm.
The girl decided in a flash to be scared and craned her neck around to look at the offender straight in the eye.
In his beautiful, blue eyes.
"R-Ranma!" Akane jumped and tried to twist her body around at the same time, leading to her falling over the edge of the bed in a graceless heap. The blankets from the bed went with her and captured her legs in cotton handcuffs. Pushing her self up, she sat on the floor wide eyed and the laughing boy looking down at her. "What are you doing here?"
Stifling his laughter, Ranma cleared his throat and smirked. "I had been trying to sleep before you showed me your new circus trick."
"B-but what are you doing in my bed!" Akane scrambled to her feet, her back side lightly throbbing from hitting the wood floor.
Ranma, casting a casual glance up at her, smirked. Folding his arms behind his head, he shrugged. "I didn't know."
He was teasing her? That arrogant, ditch-and-run boy was teasing her? Genma must have hit his head a little too hard in the last training trip!
"What do you mean you didn't know? And when did you get back?"
The pigtailed boy scratched the end of his nose before tucking his arm under his head again. "I got back about three hours ago. I thought for sure you'd hear us."
"Uh," Akane absently remembered some noise, but had been so nice and warm and completely tired that she had ignored it. "I--must have slept through it." Before he could make a witty remark about her rock like tendencies of sleeping, she snapped her eyes towards him and glared hard. "You didn't answer my first question."
He sighed and found her significant enough to actually sit up in the bed, allowing the sheet and blankets to pool around his waist.
"Why do you think, 'kane?" Ranma asked absently.
"If I knew, Ranma, I wouldn't have asked." The words start out biting but towards the end, they were brittle. "Why are you here? Didn't your dad leave you any room in the guest room?"
"I'm not going back there." He took a quick inventory of her facial expressions and added, "because I don't belong there."
"Legally, you don't belong here either." Akane found her feet interesting at this time. Ten toes poking out from under baggy yellow fabric of her favorite pajamas. "Not to mention morally."
She couldn't see it, but Ranma gave her a genuine smile. "Legally, I do belong here. Seeing as how I am still your---husband, 'kane."
Her head shot up so fast, you could almost here the rush of air. "What?"
"I didn't sign the papers. I didn't want to." Never before has Ranma been so thankful for the darkness. She couldn't see him blush like the setting sun in the dark. The down side of the darkness was he couldn't see her smile as he bloomed on her face. "You said you took my choice away, but you gave it back."
Akane bit her lip, too afraid of saying the wrong thing and disrupting this precarious balance of openness Ranma was showing her.
"You gave it back to me which is more than what the others would probably be willing to do if they had me, uh, in the same situation. So, it was my choice to stay here." The awkwardness of teenage confessions had settled in to the room.
"With me?" Akane said, as she gingerly started to edge the covers back.
"With you." Ranma replied, laying on his back as his wife slipped between the covers and sighed happily. This was a perfect moment---for any other couple in the world. The black haired martial artist just didn't feel like all this mush was fitting of their relationship. With a smirk, he decided to due something about that.
"Now pipe down, tomboy and get some beauty sleep." Ranma waited only a second. "Because, man, do you ever need---WHAMP!"