Disclaimer: Don't own any of it.

Authors Notes: This is the most rapid work I've done on a fic ever. This is a filler chapter, basically it was not RPed out before I wrote it. So, once again, Ryuichi's personality will be sporadic thoughout the story from where I fill in for him, to where the Role Player plays him. Please forgive any confusion. Enjoy.

Noriko's Story

Time either means everything, or nothing.

Some say life is all about timing. Others say live for the moment.

Meaningful. Meaningless.

Time can be a precious commodity, something treasured, every second. But when you want it to end, to put the Day to rest, tuck it in beneath the ocean, hide it behind the mountains, what does it mean then?

Every person you see rushing because they are late… are they trying to catch up with Time, or were they late to avoid it?

More questions… always more questions than there are answers. The answers bring more questions. An endless cycle of baggage.

Why am I late? Which answer do I have?

The Façade Of Family

I knew I was pregnant before I took the test.

I knew I was pregnant before I missed my period.

I knew I was now a statistic.

I knew I was going to be a single parent.

I knew I could handle it.

What I didn't know was how everyone else could handle it. I didn't know how everyone else could handle their lives without me. I was the mediator. The middleman. The clown. The confidante. The lover. The friend. The caretaker.

I made things flow when a damn was put up. I worked hard to keep the machine of my friends' lives running smoothly.

But what now?

Now I had someone to truly take care of. Now I was going to be thrown into reality head-on. Now I was going to experience the horrible joys of motherhood and childhood all at once.

Now, I was an adult.

I was at the threshold of my youth and my impending adulthood. I could no longer idly spend my afternoons doing whatever I pleased. Now I had a list to organize my life. To keep it in order.

It was the only thing I could do to keep myself sane.

I made that list, and others day after day, sticky notes and papers littered my house, my Synth collecting dust. That was my oh-so recent past. That was my youth. I could no longer have the dreams of grandeur of becoming someone famous. You couldn't play on stage with on hand, a child in the other. You couldn't exactly tell a roaring crowd to hush because they'll wake the baby backstage.

I made the lists, followed them to a 't'. My habitual late habits were suddenly gone. I had organized and researched the best doctors, pediatricians, OB/GYN's within my town. Within the neighboring towns and cities. I would drive as far as I had to, to make sure nothing could go wrong. Nothing matter except the health of my child.

My grades improved greatly while I tried to get my life in order. Instead of letting the homework Ryuichi brought me everyday pile up. I worked on it all until it was finished, then went back to my lists.

I went to go see the owner of the bar I always played at, we became fast friends from the moment I had started coming by. I told him my problem after denying a drink, which he would usually offer me. He agreed to let me work as a bartender and play in my spare time if I wanted, he'd count it as working hours too.

I wouldn't play for the crowds anymore, changing my hair color every so often to distract the regulars from their probing questions.

When you see a girl with purple hair, are you really going to ask if she's gained any weight?

I begged Ryuichi to do whatever he had to, to keep Tohma from coming by my house and the bar. And for a while, it succeeded. But after a few months, he did come by, knocking on my door after school, sometimes during school when I knew he should be in class, waiting for me to open up.

I left him there standing for three hours one time. And he stood. He did not sit on the steps in front of the doors, he didn't pace. He stood stock-still for three hours, knocking every once in a while, leaving me a note.

Noriko-chan,

Ryuichi has been acting funny all these months, and you have fallen off the face of the Earth. I know for a fact you are still here. You're car comes and goes every now and then. The people at the bar say they see you often, almost everyday.

What's happened? Have we done something wrong?

Please, Nori-chan, come back to us. We'll help.

Tohma-kun

I cried after reading it over and over again. Only to get up and file it away silently with the other pleas from friends and family.

I told the people at the bar, the ones I knew who had spoken to Tohma, to keep their mouths shut. I ducked in the back room every time I saw a flash of blonde and pink.

I stopped answering my phone, erasing the messages left as they only caused me more tears. Speaking only to my parents who congratulated me on my grades, told me to visit and call more and asked if I needed anything.

All I wanted was my life back.

But there was no time for regret and self-pity. Between driving to doctors an hour away, working as much as possible to pay the bills, morning sickness (which is really anytime sickness) and having to avoid anyone I knew whenever I went out, I had no time for breathing it seemed.

Ryuichi came by every morning to pick up my homework and every afternoon to drop more off. I kept our visits short, although I wanted him to always stay longer. Play house for a while maybe.

Get me out of my head.

But I knew any time spent away from Tohma would make the blonde suspicious. Then, everything I was trying to hide would fall to shambles. I'd ask only the necessities: How was Tohma? Did he suspect anything? Is he still looking around? How was he doing? Was school going okay for him? How was their relationship?

Small things. It made me feel like I was still, in some small way, a part of their lives.

Ryuichi seemed to get sick of this routine one day, coming over to my house after school, books in hand, as usual. I opened the door, smiling as I took them from him, asking the questions.

He asked me some back.

"How're you doing?" Ryuichi asked me quietly.

I blinked, taken aback. "Uh… as well as I can be doing, I guess."

He nodded slowly. "How far along are you now?"

"'Bout five months."

"You look good."

My eyes watered up, and I wanted to hug him, but I blinked them back. "Thanks… guess you should be going now…"

Instead, he slipped past me into my house, stopping to look around. Everything was neat, clean, organized, papers and sticky notes everywhere.

"I… needed to get things in order for myself," I whispered, holding the books tightly to my chest, bowing my head over them.

All I could see was the watery outline of my growing stomach.

I shut the door softly, turning around, sniffling quietly.

"Do you have a doctor?" Ryuichi asked, breaking the suffocating silence.

"Yeah… been going once a month like I have to, giving the blood they ask for every time."

Another long silence.

"So… your parents know then?"

"No," I confessed softly, the tears falling. "I've been working down at the bar. The owner and I are friends… he had no issues with it."

He hummed lightly in response before turning back to face me. "Do you need anything, Seaweed?"

A silent sob hitched in my chest, and I shook my head. "No… I'm fine… I'll be fine…"

"Let me help…"

The tears ran faster and I shut my eyes, shaking my head jerkily. "No… I can't let you. Tohma…"

"Seaweed… just let me spend more time with you… be there with you for this," he said, voice sounding as though it were bordering on exasperated.

"I can't-"

I didn't get to finish. I'd been feeling nauseous all day and every cracker I had eaten to try and sooth the feeling with was now about to come back up. Hurriedly I placed the books on the couch and sped-walked to the bathroom, not able to even close the door before retching.

I moaned softly… puking hurt when you were heaving an extra person with every retch. I shut my eyes, still crying as I waited out the rest of the nausea. I felt a hand on my head and looked up, blinking.

"It's… purple," he said, fingering the ends of my hair.

"Yeah… I'd liked this color the best… for work," I rasped gently.

He lifted his eyebrows. "How is dying your hair a requirement for work?"

"Takes the distraction off the rest of me," I said with a weak smile.

"C'mon," Ryuichi murmured, helping me to my feet and into the living room, setting me on the couch.

He went into the kitchen and came back with a glass of water. "Here."

I started to cry again as I took it from him, shakily pressing it to my lips. Fucking hormones. I'd never cried so much in my life over the stupidest things.

"Thanks," I murmured, setting the glass down on the coffee table.

Ryuichi sat down next to me. "I'm going to be a part of this."

"But… Tohma…"

"I can deal with that when it comes up," he sighed, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth.

I had no choice but to agree. I was far too tired and realized I need some help to take some of the load off.

Ryuichi was nice enough to continue with my homework, helping me get to my appointments when I became too big and was worried about driving, picking up the groceries I needed and argued about my job.

He said the secondhand smoke couldn't be healthy for the baby. I told him I was worried too, but the baby has been just fine. And I needed to pay the doctors with something.

Tohma continued to stop by sporadically, I'm guessing in hopes of finding me. Ryuichi never stayed the night, he never stayed longer than an hour. Two tops. It was easy for him to make up excuses to Tohma with those time limits it seemed.

I hated doing this to him. Having this huge lie to hide from his boyfriend. That's why I wanted to do it on my own. Why drag him down? And there could be less blame on Ryuichi if he did stay away, than now when he was around, when Tohma found out.

I knew he would one day. It was just a matter of what day it was.

Before long I had to take leave from work. My due date was a few days away and I wanted to be home to get to the hospital. Not in a bar full of drunks.

I asked Ryuichi if he could spend the night on those days leading up to my due date. I was scared, nervous and I wanted someone there with me. He relented after a bit, for which I was thankful.

In truth, I wanted nothing more than Ryuichi and Tohma with me as I woke up in the middle of the night gasping and clutching at my swollen belly. Stumbling out of bed to dress, panting, moaning, calling for Ryuichi. There was a moment of fear when I didn't hear him coming. When I thought he had left and I was finally, truly alone. But he was at my side soon enough, helping me, taking up the over night bag and getting me to the hospital.

The nurses fluttered about smiling and giggling in a tizzy of excitement and I clutch Ryuichi's hand, not letting him go, pleading through the spasms of pain that he would stay with me throughout it. He agreed, though pale and when they wheeled me to the delivery room, the drugs taking their effect, I was already crying my apologies, for which his stricken face did not know how to react to.

The labor was long and strenuous on my body, and I screamed until I was hoarse, only to scream more. The voices of the nurses and doctors where not what I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear Ryuichi's, telling me something, anything. I wanted Tohma to be at my other side, smiling and patting my hand like I knew he would be.

I wanted the only people who I felt were family. Ryuichi had to be escorted out of the delivery room just as our child was born. He had begun to freak out. His voice murmuring in a high pitched frenzy, grating on my ears, making me cry harder.

And then I was alone.

There was silence, and I felt empty, still sobbing, though silent as I waited, not able to look around for my child.

Something grayish pink was placed against my chest and my arms went around it softly. Panting, I looked downward at… my child. He was here. Finally he was here. All my time and effort and planning seemed useless. Nothing could've prepared me for this one moment when I knew that O had just given birth, life… to something this small.

The hospital released me in a day or two with our child, Morimoto Musuko.

We gave him a different last name than ourselves because we had made a decision on what to do. I struggled, argued against it internally. But soon my grades were slipping again, I wasn't able to keep up with anything and Little Rabbit needed better.

Ryuichi was holding him after school when he voiced it. "Nori… I think we need to put him up for adoption. It'd be for the best."

"I can't! He's my son!" I cried desperately, feeling violated at the idea.

"Noriko," he said calmly, looking down at our son, a slender finger smoothing over one of his round cheeks.

Eyes identical to mine opened and smiled up at him. A trait in my family are our strange Mulberry colored eyes. Little Rabbit had inherited them.

"Alright," I whispered, hands clenched in my lap. "Alright."

We an orphanage just outside of our town, and we left him there with the people in charge and I demanded these things be given to him when he was old enough.

A stuffed pink copy of Kumagoro with a golden heart locket around it's neck, a note tucked away inside. On the locket I had engraved Little Rabbit, and the short note had taken me hours to write. To make it right.

Little Rabbit-

I don't know where you may be when you read this, or if you ever will read this. I hope you do though. Please, don't hate your father and I. We were far to young to ever give you the home you needed. We were still kids ourselves. But, please, if know that if anything, we love you. That will never change. I'm so sorry, it hurts thinking about what may happen to you, but it's the best for everyone.

Always, Forever, Promise.

No names… Ryuichi had thought it best. But I did sneak pictures of us in the locket without his knowing. I wanted Rabbit to know me somehow.

And that was the worst day of my life. Abandoning our son. Leaving him with figments of people that had left him.

Maybe if it had been a little later in my life, I would've argued harder to keep him. Maybe not. It just wasn't our time to be together.

Timing really was everything to me now.

Hello!

Chapter six is done, and I'm not starting seven yet, which is a surprise!

I'm in a hurry, so please review!

SL