Author's Notes: Holy crap, I can't believe how many positive reviews I got for Chapter 1! I was expecting no more than five or six, but 38 for a single chapter? Wow, you guys are fantastic! Thank you! My rResponses are at the bottom. :)
On an entirely different note, I have a secret to tell you guys: this story scares the hell out of me. There are so many things that I can screw up with the plot and characterization that it makes me sweat nervously just thinking about it. :P It's like a jigsaw puzzle, very delicate; you screw up one piece and the whole thing is shot straight to hell. But I will persevere!
Anyway, on with Chapter 2, and as always, constructive criticism is welcomed!
The Harder They Fall
Chapter 2: Fire In The Hole
On the fourth floor of the Tokyo General Hospital, in a stark white room occupied by a sleeping patient, a surly doctor, and ten fairly young men and women clad in stark white coats, something very strange indeed was happening.
Akane Tendo was not paying attention to her lesson.
"...arrived last week experiencing altered bodily sensations, accompanied by lapses in speech ability, and periods of paralysis in the limbs. Before that, the patient reported a dramatic increase in thirst, frequent headaches, and increased weakness and restlessness. Patient's age is 64." Dr. Hinako paused, giving the students time to scribble down a few notes, before continuing once again.
"Miss Tendo, a preliminary diagnosis, please?"
Akane's eyes snapped up from where they had been staring blankly at the clipboard clutched in her hands. A deer-caught-in-headlights expression flashed across her face briefly, before being replaced by the cool, detached mask adorning the faces of her fellow doctors and students. She attempted to conceal her panic by keeping her voice as smooth and professional as possible. "Could you please repeat the initial symptoms, doctor?"
Dr. Hinako pursed her lips in a way that told Akane that the older woman wasn't fooled by the attempt to cover up her moment of spaciness, but nevertheless, she repeated the symptoms with clipped tones. Akane frantically groped around for the answer that was hovering at the edge of her consciousness. She wished she hadn't been gazing at the chequered floor tiles when they had reviewed the patient's charts.
"Miss Tendo..." Dr. Hinako's normally sultry voice was edged with warning.
"That would be…complications as a result of type 2 diabetes," Akane replied when the answer finally hit her, and she mentally patted herself on the back for possessing such grace under fire. She deflated slightly when she saw the beady-eyed vulture look Dr. Hinako was giving her.
"And what could those complications be, exactly, Miss Tendo?" the curvaceous woman asked, privately and rather childishly enjoying the fact that she had finally caught the brightest, most attentive student in the group in a moment of weakness. Akane's jaw worked up and down like a goldfish's, while the answer rested just on the tip of her tongue.
Shit, shit, shit! Akane cursed mentally. Okay, speech impairment, paralysis, increased thirst, over 60...come on, Akane, you know this!
Beside her, Yuka gave a little cough that sounded like a stream of nonsensical syllables. Akane continued to draw a blank, and Yuka coughed again, this time a little louder.
"HHNS!" Akane blurted out suddenly, correctly interpreting Yuka's hacking. "Er, that is, hyperglycemic hyperosmolar nonketotic syndrome. Recommended treatment is increased insulin therapy, and careful monitoring of the patient to prevent death or coma during sleep."
That alone was a satisfactory answer, but Akane wanted to wipe that irritatingly smug look off of Dr. Hinako's face, so she continued adding confidently, "Further testing is required to determine the cause of HHNS in the particular patient, but possible triggers include infections, heart attacks, kidney failure, uncontrolled blood sugar, blood clots–"
"Thank you, Miss Tendo, that will do," the attractive doctor said swiftly, cutting Akane off with a frown. "However, I suggest you pay attention from the beginning of my lectures from now on. This material may show up on your exam in six months, and I'm afraid Miss Inoue's respiratory problem won't be able to help you then."
With a final steely look, Dr. Hinako turned on her heel and continued marching the group of medical students out the door and down the hallway toward the next patient's room. The male students in the group used the opportunity to sneak glances at her shapely behind.
"Miserable witch," Akane muttered when the witch in question was out of earshot. "She just wants to make me look like an idiot in front of the class." Yuka nodded in agreement as both young women hurried to catch up with the rest of the students.
"She's got a point though, Akane," Yuka whispered so only Akane could hear when they joined the back of the group. "Not the idiot part," she added hastily when Akane looked at her crossly, "It's just that it's definitely not like you to zone out like that. The rest of us, sure, but not you."
Akane half-smiled, listening to Dr. Hinako's lecture with only one ear. She hadalready made extensive notes on this particular pneumonia patient when she and Dr. Tofu had visited him at the beginning of her shift. "I know, I know. And you won't believe why."
"Really?" Yuka asked quietly, shooting her friend a concerned glance. "Should I be worried?"
Akane didn't answer as she struggled to bite back a silly grin, succeeding only marginally. Try as she might, she couldn't seem to rid herself of that funny fluttering sensation in the pit of her stomach, but she didn't need any medical knowledge to diagnose this particular condition. She had a developed a crush on a gorgeous, funny, nice guy whom she had spoken to for five minutes on the train, and it was driving her, Akane Tendo, future paediatrician and every educator's dream student, into a state of distraction. The unthinkable was happening, and a large part of her—the part that wasn't feeling all squishy and warm when recalling how his fingers had caressed hers in the most intriguing way—was disappointed that a man, of all creatures, was tarnishing her reputation as the most promising student in her class.
Not that it was completely his fault, as much as she would have liked to blame it entirely on his pretty blue-grey eyes. No, she had definitely played a large hand in her current inability to focus, because Akane had done something so bizarre, so risky, so daring, so...unAkane-like, that she couldn't even think about it without feeling like her lungs were about to explode messily inside her ribs. But somehow, it also made her want to break out into a fit of shrill, girlish, highly unprofessional giggles. She would have given herself a hearty slap on the face if she wasn't worried about causing a scene that would disturb the patients.
That, and the psychiatric ward was on this floor.
Akane continued to chew on her bottom lip furiously, refusing to meet the brown-haired girl's curious gaze. She would figure it out in a minute, anyway—Yuka was freaky like that. It was like she had some sort of internal radar for this kind of girly stuff. Maybe a heat-seeking device that detected the warmth of blushes?
As if on cue, a delighted expression slowly crawled across Yuka's features. "Akane...?"
"Sssh!" Akane hushed her friend before Dr. Hinako noticed that twenty percent of her students were no longer even pretending to pay attention, while simultaneously trying not to laugh at Yuka's astonished expression. "I'll tell you about it during break."
"Oh, you had better, Akane. Or else I'll tell the head nurse that you're volunteering to give that old pervert in room 209 a sponge bath."
Akane failed to suppress a shudder. The threat, combined with the somewhat guilty feeling that usually assaulted her when she discussed trivial things in the presence of so many suffering people (despite the fact that casual, frivolous chatter, when appropriate, was encouraged in order to maintain good mental health among the hospital staff), was the final jolt needed to focus her attention back to the remainder of the lesson. In fact, she followed it almost as attentively as she normally did when not distracted by vague thoughts of pigtails, and by knowing glances from other future paediatricians.
"So let me get this straight," Sayuri said incredulously. "Akane Tendo the notorious man-hater flirted with a complete stranger on the train? Not only that, but you initiated the flirting, you let him touch you, and now you're getting told off by your professors for not paying attention because you can't stop thinking about him?" She folded her arms across her chest staunchly and leaned back in her chair. "Alright, who are you and what have you done with my friend?"
"Nothing's wrong with me, and I'm not a man-hater," Akane replied weakly, unable to deny the other statements, despite the sordid way that Sayuri had worded them. She dropped her gaze to the cafeteria table, and picked at her slightly limp garden salad. She hadn't told them the worst—or best, depending on the state of her answering machine within the next few days—part yet.
"Well, maybe not, but you've sure as hell never acted this way about any of the guys I've tried setting you up with."
"That's because they're all a bunch of weirdoes and perverts."
Momentarily forgetting the actual topic at hand, the young nurse looked utterly shocked that someone would insult her matchmaking skills in such a way. "That's not true! What about Kirin?"
"You mean that tall guy from diagnostic imaging?"
"Yes, him! He's smart and good-looking! What's wrong with him?"
Akane raised an incredulous eyebrow. "You mean other than the fact that he carries around a little bento of pickles and rice the way a woman carries a purse?"
"A bento that he packs on his own," Sayuri replied triumphantly. "Which means he can cook. You, of all people should be able to appreciate that."
"Sayuri, he keeps the chopsticks in the bun in his hair," Akane replied flatly, then frowned. "And shut up, my cooking is just fine."
Yuka, who was sitting next to Sayuri, and quietly observing the discussion, decided to make her presence known.
"Akane, you're not telling us the whole story, are you?" she stated with complete certainty. "I know you're not, so spill it. What else happened?"
Akane cursed that internal radar of hers. If several years of being a student of science hadn't beaten any lingering traces of paranormal belief out of her, she would think that Yuka was psychic. But whatever it was, maybe running Yuka's head through an MRI machine a few times would throw it off.
Akane sighed heavily and tried not to mince words. "Alright, remember how I said I was getting ahead on some reading before he showed up?"
The girls nodded, urging her on.
"Well, as I was talking to him, I sort of...I did something…" Akane trailed off and buried her face in her hands, torn between laughing hysterically and moaning in humiliated agony. "Oh God, I can't believe I'm telling you this! I can't believe I even did it! I must be going crazy!"
"What? What did you do!" Sayuri shrieked, earning a few wary glances from the other patrons of the crowded cafeteria. Yuka's expression clearly stated that she would strangle Akane with a pair of latex gloves if she didn't continue her story immediately.
The words spilled in a tangled rush, muffled by the hands covering her face, but still comprehendible.
"I wrote my phone number on a scrap of paper from my textbook, and then I pretended to drop the book on the ground and shoved the number in his jacket pocket as I was picking it up."
It didn't seem possible, but somehow, the words managed to sound even more ridiculous out loud than in her head. She opted for the humiliated moan, shoving her half-eaten salad aside and letting her head drop on the table with a loud thud, but that didn't quite block out the sensation of her two friends' disbelieving stares. A silence settled over the table occupied by the three young women, oddly deafening despite the noisy chatter of hospital employees and visitors buzzing in the background.
"You're lying," Sayuri stated.
"I'm not," Akane replied, not lifting her head from the table.
"But that's—and you—but…this is you!"
"I know!"
"That's mad!"
"That's what I've been trying to tell you!"
"So, what's he like?" Yuka interjected. Sayuri blinked at the question, while Akane quizzically lifted her forehead from the table.
"What's that got to do with it?" Sayuri asked, her tone suggesting that Yuka was somehow missing the real point of the conversation.
Yuka rolled her eyes at the young nurse. "Everything. After all, for Akane to do something like that, he must have left a pretty good impression on her."
Protesting seemed useless at this point, so Akane settled for blushing heavily. "I-I don't really know. Like I said, I only spoke with him for a few minutes–"
"Cut the crap, Akane." Sayuri—who was now equally curious—demanded in that no-nonsense tone usually reserved for fussy patients. "You must know something, so spill."
"Well, his name is Ranma…" Akane began slowly. She shot Sayuri a questioning look when the young nurse let out a short giggle. "What?"
"Nothing! It's nothing!"
"Yeah, right," she retorted. "What's so funny about the name 'Ranma'?"
Sayuri fidgeted in her seat. "It's just…you know…'wild horse'…" she explained, trailing off with a suggestive quirk of her eyebrows.
The two young medical students exchanged brief glances of confusion. Then the clouds parted.
"Oh, grow up, Sayuri!" Yuka cried at the giggling woman when she caught on to the suggestion. To think that they let this girl give out medication.
"Look, do you want to know this or not?" Akane demanded, trying to remain dignified despite the embarrassed blush that had now spread down to her neck. She was surprised with the amount of will power it was taking to beat away the images that Sayuri's words were conjuring. Bad Akane!
"Yes, yes, sorry," Sayuri replied, letting out a final giggle before pulling herself together with a deep breath. Her face became comically stoic. "Continue."
"Anyway," Akane said, glaring at Sayuri, "His name is Ranma, he's a martial artist—"
She was interrupted again, this time by her two friends exchanging knowing glances.
"Well, that explains it," said Yuka, as Sayuri nodded in agreement.
The long-haired woman sighed, wondering why she even bothered with gossip. Apparently she wasn't very good at it, since no one seemed to want to listen to her. "Does it now? Well, please, enlighten me."
"Please, Akane, we all know you've got a thing for martial artists. It's like a standard manufacturing requirement with you."
"Yep, it's true," Yuka chimed in, nodding. "Some women like funny guys, some women like sweet guys, you like guys who can kick ass."
"It's not a standard manufacturing requirement, as you so eloquently put it," Akane retorted, rolling her eyes. "It's called sharing a common interest. Martial arts is an important part of my life, so of course I would be…interested in someone who likes the same things as me."
"And it doesn't hurt that martial artists have hot bods by default, does it?" Sayuri winked. Akane decided that the young nurse was being quite the pervert today, and ignored her.
"Okay, besides that, what else did you find out?" Yuka asked, swiftly changing the subject. "Is he cute?"
An image of blue-grey eyes, hair as dark as coal, and a cute, lopsided grin came to mind. She smiled slightly. "You could say that."
Yuka and Sayuri were familiar enough with their friend's evasive ways to know what that really meant—he was a total stud. The topic needed no further elaboration.
"Anything else interesting?" Sayuri asked with a smirk.
Akane considered the question for a moment, and let out a small chuckle, her earlier irritation slipping away completely. "He's a gardener," she replied, her eyes dancing with guilty mirth. She burst out laughing when she saw the dismayed glances her two friends were exchanging, amused at having anticipated their reactions so well.
"As in, by profession?" Yuka asked weakly.
Akane nodded, still grinning. "Yep. And I know what you're thinking, but look at it this way—it probably keeps him pretty humbled, right? Not that there's anything wrong with planting flowers for a living, but it's pretty hard for a guy to be macho about it, don't you think?"
It is a truth universally acknowledged that Akane Tendo couldn't stand arrogant men. They made her want to do stupid, adolescent things like break cinder blocks with her bare hands.
"And you probably make a lot more money than him, as well," Sayuri added, starting to understand Akane's point. "If that doesn't deflate a man's ego, I don't know what will."
"Of course," Akane replied, suddenly feeling very amused with the entire ridiculous situation, and she wondered why she had been making such a big deal out of it. Spearing a cherry tomato onto the end of her fork, she dug into her salad with renewed gusto, and decided that the whole thing had been the result of some temporary bout of insanity. Or perhaps it had been some sort of an allergic reaction to having been persuaded—well, more like bound and gagged—by Sayuri, as well as her sisters, her father, and even a grandmotherly cardiac patient into going on bad date after bad date. It was probably an act of rebellion on the part of her subconscious, fed-up with the notion that simply because she was a single woman in her twenties, she needed to immediately be fixed up with any living, breathing, reproducing male before all of her prospects ran dry. Because heaven forbid that she should put her career first.
So, really, it didn't matter if anything came out of her little stunt, so long as she'd successfully proven to others that she was capable of handling the reigns on her own love life.
Still, she felt a little twinge of an unhappy something at the thought of him not calling her. After all, she'd gone through a lot of trouble—it would be pretty jerky not to, and he didn't seem like a jerk...
Though infuriatingly stubborn and argumentative sometimes, Akane was not a stuck-up girl by any means, but she did pride herself in three things – the first was being a member of the medical profession. It was a career path that very few people ever managed to travel with any amount of success, and required a lot of skill, dedication, and let's face it, smarts. The second was her martial arts ability, and to become as good as she was took nothing short of Herculean determination, especially since she had been largely self-taught.
The third thing was not nearly as important to her as the first two, but nevertheless, her impeccably good taste in men had saved her an enormous amount of time and effort since she had hit puberty—time and effort which she had effectively used in bettering herself as a student of the martial and medical arts. Despite numerous offers, she had only ever gone on a grand total of two dates throughout her entire high school career, one with Yuka's cousin, and one with a boy whose father had been a member of the city council with Akane's own dad. She had agreed to that one largely because the city council was one of the few things Soun Tendo had continued to feel any sort of emotional attachment to after the death of his wife, and Akane didn't want to jeopardize that by refusing to go out with his superior's son.
Before that was a childhood crush on Dr. Tofu, the kind, handsome man whose quiet dedication to serving the sick and injured that arrived daily in the ER had been a great source inspiration for Akane, and whom she was now proud to call her brother-in-law.
And then there was the only real relationship Akane had ever been in.
Shinnosuke Sagara had swept the unsweepable girl off her feet after a year of being one of the only male friends she had ever had. Akane had met him on her very first day of classes at Tokyo University, when the endearingly absent-minded boy had asked her for directions to his Introduction to Cell Biology class. As fate or luck would have it, it was the very same classroom Akane had been fruitlessly searching for herself, and the two had put their heads together, arriving to class nearly thirty minutes late and with plans to meet for lunch the next day.
For a year, they had dissected various creatures together, stayed up until dawn studying for grueling exams together, practiced martial arts together—he had been quite adept with the bo, a skill which Akane was sorely lacking in—, laughed together, and when news had arrived of Shinnosuke's beloved grandfather's death, they had cried together. Then, at the very start of the following year, he had wasted no time in asking Akane out on a formal date, and she had been surprised with how willing she was to turn their close friendship into something more.
Looking back, Akane could still safely say that it had been love. He had shown the jaded young woman that not all men under the age of thirty were hopeless pigs, but more importantly, he had treated her with kindness, and allowed her to open herself up to another person in a way she had never dared to before, treating that privilege with respect, and never using her trust in him to hurt her.
A year had gone by happily, but they slowly found themselves drifting apart, not by any fault of their own, but simply by circumstances leading them down different paths. They had eventually broken up without any hard feelings, and even now, four years later, Akane still felt no regrets and could remember their time together with fondness. In fact, she had run into the young veterinarian-in-training a few months ago at the grocery store, with a pretty woman that she had been pleased to hear was his fiancée.
And that was it.
I'm getting soft in my old age, the young woman thought wryly as she recalled all of the stupid, pointless dates she had gone on since then. I don't have the energy to fight off all the wannabe Cupids in my life anymore. As a teenager, all she had to do was adopt that fiery glint in her eye, and maybe do a bit of yelling, and the subject would be dropped without hesitation. It just wasn't that easy anymore.
She glanced at the clock and noted that it was time for her and Yuka to resume their rounds with Dr. Hinako, and for Sayuri to go home for the night. Chucking her empty salad container into the garbage bin, and wishing their friend goodnight (after childishly pinky-promising to inform her of any developments on the Ranma front), the two girls made their way past the noisy front lobby, and into the oversized elevator. Rolling her shoulders and mentally steeling her will, Akane took a deep breath, and let herself slip out of gossipy female mode and back into professional medic mode.
The lift doors split open, revealing the familiar organised chaos of the ER. Surgeons in pale green scrubs hurried past with cups of cheap coffee grasped in one hand and patient charts in the other, while nurses scurried from room to room, administering daily doses of medication with routine accuracy. Everything ran with purpose and precision, and despite the fact that Akane would be working in the more sedate paediatric ward after graduating, she still strangely felt at home amid the frenzy.
"Akane, Yuka!" the plump, matronly head nurse called out from behind the nurse's station. "Dr. Hinako's been called away for an emergency, but she wants you two doing rounds for the next hour."
The two women glanced at each other and shrugged. It was unusual for students to be assigned rounds, but both had done it before, and as anal as she was, Dr. Hinako wouldn't assign her students a task that she didn't think that they could handle. They accepted copies of patient schedules from the head nurse and split up in different directions to cover more ground.
Stepping into room 202 and cheerfully greeting the teenaged boy who was in with several broken ribs from a skateboarding accident, Akane idly mused that when it came to having a career or a love life, it was best just to stick to what you were good at.
The patient in room 210 was surprised with at how relaxed and at ease he felt. He knew the assortment of painkilling drugs coursing through his system may have had something to do with it, but it was still highly unexpected. Had someone told him he would feel as light as a feather only hours after being shot in the head, he would have told them to seek professional help.
The floating sensation would have been much lovelier had the left side of his skull not felt as though it were being chipped away with a dull spoon. Still, it was better than the jackhammer drill of the previous hour, and infinitely nicer than the eighteen-wheel lorry when he had been lying in the alley.
All in all, Frederick Henderson realised that he had quite a lot to be thankful for. He was alive, for one thing, and apparently had all of his faculties in tact. All ten toes were wriggling the way they were supposed to, and he was not missing any bits of earlobe, or nostril, or other such important aesthetic body parts.
He was also quite thankful to the clever people behind his Harrods chinos, for including a seemingly-useless spare change pocket concealed within the larger front ones. The thugs hadn't even thought of looking anywhere but inside his jacket before they shot him and left him for dead.
God, how he wished he had stayed in Oxford.
At the moment, he wasn't quite willing to offer his right arm, or any other limbs for that matter, but he would have paid a lot of money to hear the sounds of his rowdy Advanced Economics class shouting play-by-play recaps of the latest Chelsea vs. Real Madrid football match, as loathsome as he usually found the sport. Or really, anything other than the sound of his own heartbeat being repeatedly converted into an artificial, electronic blip.
He stared at the ceiling, feeling ever like the stranger in a strange land.
Accepting the offer had seemed like a good idea at the time. After all, he was a long-time widower—may God rest his beautiful Anne's soul— without any children, and had nothing much to look forward to other than a retirement filled with recreational polo, weekend visits to the Continent, and afternoon tea.
Proper earl grey, with milk and honey. Not that herbal rubbish the Japanese seemed to love.
As he lay in his hospital bed with tubes connected to his arms, some sort of intrusive piping in his nose, and a bullet in his skull, he wondered what on earth had been wrong with having a dull retirement. Why had a luxurious apartment in Tokyo proper seemed so much more appealing than his peaceful summer house in Bristol? As for money, not only had he been a professor at Oxford bloody University for thirty years, but his father had once held a position in the House of sodding Lords! He had inherited enough money to keep himself several levels above comfortable for many years, yet here he was.
But it hadn't really been about the money. It had been the opportunity to explore new lands, learn new languages and meet new people that had appealed to his inner youthful adventurer. But now he knew better. Home is the safest place on earth, and one could easily have such adventures sitting in front of the fire with a Rudyard Kipling book.
The increasing sense of detachment from his body was telling him that his adventuring days might soon be drawing to a close. If not now, then his assailants would find out that he had survived, and come back to finish the job.
But he wasn't done yet.
As a young man, Henderson had once served as a soldier in Her Majesty's Royal Navy, and if there was one lesson that his commanding officers had drilled into him, it was to serve your country to the best of your ability and beyond. Aside from the rubbishy tea, the attempted murder and the circumstances surrounding it, life in Japan had been good to him. And although she was not his country by birth, he was going to answer the call to duty.
The question was, how?
As this thought crossed his mind, the door to his room opened and a pretty young doctor in a grey skirt and pink blouse entered. He smiled with relief. The jackhammer drill in his head was starting up again.
Akane stormed out of room 209 with her teeth grinding, her fists clenched and her blood boiling like molten lava. Nurses exchanged understanding glances and stepped out of the raging young woman's way.
She couldn't believe that disgusting, foul-mouthed, gutter-minded little...pervert! Hippocratic oath or not, one of these days she was going to kill that lecherous old goat, slowly and very painfully. And she would laugh gleefully while she was doing it, and maybe even throw a party afterwards.
He was supposed to be incredibly weak with the effects of liver damage as a result of a lifetime of drinking. How he had managed to reach up Akane's knee-length skirt and pinch her bum was completely beyond her ability to comprehend. But she only had herself to blame. How silly of her to think that the notorious Happosai would refrain from groping the woman who was injecting morphine into his I.V.
He might think twice about groping the woman holding a scalpel over his head in the dark.
Akane stopped stomping down the hall and realised that she couldn't safely continue doing her rounds until she could think with a clear head, so she employed some of her more effective tension-relieving exercises. She took a deep, cleansing breath and pictured a sunny field of flowers. She slowly counted to 50 by fives. She recited the alphabet. And finally, she hummed The Beatles' 'Yellow Submarine' under her breath until her fists unclenched and the tendons in her neck relaxed.
Much better.
Checking her schedule, she read that her next patient was a 58-year-old man named Frederick Henderson. She grimaced slightly when she read that the poor man had been shot in the head, with the bullet still lodged. He was awaiting surgery, and was conscious with a stable condition for now. She also noticed that there were no names listed under permitted visitors, so he was probably alone in the country.
Entering his room, she saw an elderly Englishman lying in the bed. He had sharp blue eyes and a distinguished mustache perched under his aristocratic nose. His steely grey hair was just visible under the stiff white bandaging that wound around his head, and he looked strangely out-of-place in the standard issue blue hospital gown. She thought tweed might suit him better.
She smiled when she saw his gaze land on her. "Hello there, Mr. Henderson," she greeted in English, hoping to put him at ease. His insurance forms stated that he had been living in Japan for less than two years, so she wasn't sure how good his Japanese might be. "How are you feeling?"
"Quite wretched, actually," he replied with a wan smile, also in English. His accent sounded just as posh as she expected. "And yourself?"
Akane laughed good-naturedly as she consulted his charts for the appropriate dosage of painkillers. "Oh, I can't complain."
"Good, good," the elderly man replied with solemn nod. "Lovely young ladies such as yourself mustn't be allowed to have anything to complain about."
This drew another laugh from Akane, as she took an instant liking to this grandfatherly man. He seemed a far cry from the pervert in the next room. "I'm glad to hear that you feel that way, but I'm afraid that sweet words will only get you so far around here, Mr. Henderson. You'll still have to eat the food we give you."
He gave a sigh of mock defeat and settled back into his pillows. "Ah. Well, a man is only as good as the amount of effort he puts forth, am I right?"
"Absolutely," she replied, searching through a nearby cupboard for a syringe. "Which would put you right up there with the very best of them."
He chuckled weakly and went silent for a moment before he spoke again. "Your English is very good," he complimented.
Akane smiled at him warmly. She couldn't imagine anyone purposely trying to shoot this man, and concluded that he must have been an innocent bystander standing in the wrong place at the wrong time during a gang brawl or something. "Thank you. I've learned that it's a very useful language when you work in a city that attracts as many visitors as Tokyo does." It was true—the hospital admitted at least half a dozen English-speaking patients during the course of any given week.
"Well, I must say that there are few things lovelier than being in a foreign land and hearing one's mother tongue spoken in such a beautiful voice."
If all patients were as sweet as this man, Akane decided that she would never leave the hospital. She held a syringe up to the light and slowly began filling it with clear liquid. "And I must say that you're being much too charming for your own good. I can't imagine how your wife must feel."
"I'm afraid there isn't a Mrs. Henderson anymore, my dear. There hasn't been for some time now." He sighed, suddenly seeming much older than he had a moment ago. "No, I'm just a lonely old man trying to live out the rest of his days the best he can."
Reminded of her own father, Akane felt her heart aching at the sadness in his voice. "I'm so sorry to hear that. Did you two have any children?"
He shook his head wearily. "No, Anne and I didn't have nearly enough time together for that. I've had to settle for being a kindly old uncle to my sister's children." His twinkling blue eyes studied her face contemplatively. "In fact, I have a niece about your age who is about to make a grand-uncle out of me. You remind me of her just a little bit, so perhaps that's why you seem familiar."
"I should be so lucky as to have an uncle like you," Akane said as she smiled at him and reached out for his I.V. stand. Tapping the syringe to remove any air bubbles, she carefully began injecting the contents into the tube leading into his forearm. "But now I think you're making things up."
"Really?" he asked, already looking slightly drowsy. "Why is that?"
"You're far too young to be anybody's grand-anything," she replied smartly, throwing the used syringe in a nearby hazmat disposal bin.
He chuckled again, his eyes slowly losing focusing and his eyelids dropping. Sleepily, he reached out and took Akane's free hand, giving it a small squeeze. "Thank you, my dear. Now tell me, what is your name, so I may tell my family about the angel of a doctor who administered the lifesaving injection that brought me from brink of death."
"You're hardly on the brink of death, Mr. Henderson," she replied with gentle reproach, though that wasn't entirely true, "And it's just a little something to dull the headaches and help you sleep."
"Oh, but that's not nearly as interesting a story."
She giggled and shook her head, bringing her other hand up to clasp his between her palms. "Well, in that case, my name is Akane Tendo, and I should let you know that I'm not a doctor yet, I'm still a student."
He let out a jaw-cracking yawn in response, shutting his eyes and muttering, "You'll make a very good one, dear child. Thank you."
"Thank you, Mr. Henderson," she replied quietly, squeezing his hand once more before laying it to rest on top of the blankets. "Goodnight."
Just ask Akane was turning to leave, her ears perked up the sound of Mr. Henderson's heart monitor rapidly picking up speed. She spun around again to face the elderly man and saw that he seemed to be trying to fight off the sleep-inducing effects of the drugs. His eyelids flickered as he struggled to lift his head from the pillow.
"Mr. Henderson, what are you doing?" she asked, rushing back to his side. "You need to rest!"
She felt a tiny flicker of panic as his heart rate continued to rise, but she didn't call for help just yet. Snatching his charts from the foot of the bed, she quickly flipped through the pages again, checking to make sure he didn't have any drug allergies that she may have missed. There were none.
For a moment, she fretted over what to do. She couldn't give him another calming injection without the doctor's permission, or else she would be risking overdosing the patient. Instead, she clasped the man's right hand as he was lifting it, and tried talking him down. Some patients found the instantaneous fatigue brought on by tranquilizers to be a frightening sensation, and reacted with panic. "Ssh, Mr. Henderson, it's alright," she soothed in a hushed voice. "Just calm down and rest, you're just fine."
"Tendo?...Your surname is Tendo...?" the elderly man managed weakly.
Akane wondered what that had to do with anything. "Yes, it is. Now just go to sleep, I'll be back tomorrow evening and we can talk some more then."
"No...need to...give you something..."
Akane drew back slightly, startled, then recovered herself when she saw that his heart beat was not slowing down. "Whatever it is, Mr. Henderson, I'm sure it can wait until later."
"No!" he gasped, struggling against her grip. She loosened her hand slightly, fearing that she may have been hurting him, but he yanked it away and pointed vaguely at the piece of furniture to his right, next to the I.V. stand. "In the...night...table..."
Despite herself, Akane gave in to the curiosity, and reached for the drawer's plastic handle to slide it open. Inside were a few medical pamphlets, an eyeglass carrying case embossed with the letters "F.H.," a wallet and wristwatch, both of which she presumed belonged to him as well, and an unlabeled black computer disk. Normally the administration desk held on to a patient's belongings when they were rushed in by ambulance for emergency treatment, but Mr. Henderson must haverequested to keep his things nearby.
"The disk...keep it...safe...!"
Akane threw him a troubled glance, but his eyes were unfocused and glazed. His movements became even more weak and sluggish as he continued to lose the battle against the drugs coursing through his system. She reacted quickly, trying to get an explanation out of him before he went under completely.
"Mr. Henderson, please, what do you want me to do with this?" Akane asked as calmly as she could, holding up the disk.
"Don't show...anyone...but...na..b.."
"Show anyone but what?" she whispered, fearing that one of the nurses would walk by and hear. What on earth could possibly have this man in such a panic all of a sudden?
But the elderly man's eyes were shut completely now, and he didn't seem to understand her. "Promise!" he rasped.
Akane bit her lip in dismay, and realised that agreeing was probably the only way to calm his racing pulse. She really didn't want to, since there was the off chance that he may not survive his surgery tonight, but she saw no other alternative. "I promise, Mr. Henderson, I'll keep your disk safe. Now please, calm down, it's alright! You have to rest or you'll aggravate your injury."
He let out a deep sigh and his muscles finally relaxed. Akane glanced at his heart monitor and saw that the green spikes were gradually separating, the beeping no longer so incessant. Exhaling the deep breath that she hadn't realised she had been holding, Akane glanced around nervously before sliding the disk into the breast pocket of her white coat. She wasn't sure what she was going to do with it yet, but after witnessing Mr. Henderson's panic attack, leaving it lying around where anyone could find it seemed like a distinctly bad idea.
Adjusting Mr. Henderson's blankets around his torso, Akane gave the puzzling man a final, thoughtful glance and exited the room. The earlier hustle and bustle had died down almost completely. The corridor lights were turned down low with the late hour, giving the hallways an abandoned, almost eerie, feeling. She glanced at her watch and saw that it was ten to midnight, meaning that her shift was nearly over. On most nights, she would wait for Dr. Tofu to finish up and he would drive her home, but tonight, she decided that the train seemed like a more appealing option. She needed to do some serious, uninterrupted thinking.
As she made her way to the staff locker rooms at the far end of the darkened corridor, Akane's mind was buzzing with questions. Why had Mr. Henderson reacted like that after hearing that her last name was 'Tendo'? Did he know one of her relatives? Her father, maybe? But that was unlikely, since her father hardly ever left the house, and he definitely would've mentioned making friends with an Englishman.
Something didn't feel quite right.
Standing in front of her opened locker, Akane slid the disk out of her breast pocket and after hovering uncertainly for a moment, she slipped it in a concealed pocket inside her shoulder bag, not without a considerable amount of guilt. This was stealing, she realised. It didn't matter if Mr. Henderson had asked her to take it, if someone found out that she'd taken a patient's belongings—while he was under the effects of drugs no less—she would be in a mountain of trouble. The smartest thing to do was turn her butt around, march straight back into Mr. Henderson's room, and drop the disk back in the drawer. No one would ever have to know that she had even touched it.
Akane glanced at her pensive expression in the small magnetic mirror hanging inside the door. On the other hand, if he didn't survive his surgery, putting the disk back would mean breaking a dead man's promise. She hoped with all her heart that the sweet, charming old man would survive, but she had enough experience in the field to know that when it comes to life and death in the operating room, things don't always go as planned. It wasn't the most logical mode of thinking, but did she really want something like that on her conscience?
But what would she do with the disk if she did hang on to it?
There's only one thing for it, she decided. Put the disk back, hope and pray that Mr. Henderson makes it through the night, and come back for it tomorrow. Hopefully, she would catch him while he was awake, so maybe she could get a few more answers out of him.
And if he didn't survive...well, she would just have to find a way to sneak into his room and stea—acquire the disk again before the hospital sent his belongings home.
Yes. That's what she would do.
Akane tugged off her white coat and hung it inside the locker, revealing her three-quarter sleeve top and bare forearms. Then she snapped her hair clip open, shaking her head and letting the partially bound locks fall free around her shoulders and down her back. Glancing at her reflection once last time, she gave herself a stern look and a quiet "stay out of trouble, girl" before shutting the door resolutely.
"Heading home for the night, Akane?" asked a cheerful, thirty-something nurse named Junko as Akane paused in front of her en route to Mr. Henderson's room. She seemed ready for a long, boring graveyard shift, with her feet up on the nurse's station, and a paperback novel resting in her lap.
"Yep, just stopping off to, er, say goodnight to one of the patients, then I'm gone," Akane replied. She wondered if her night could possibly get any weirder. First, she'd chatted up a tall, dark, and handsome stranger on the train, then she'd been given the third degree by her girlfriends, then she'd been groped by a three-hundred year old pervert, and now she'd gotten herself into a very sticky situation involving a mysterious Brit and a piece of computer hardware. "Thank goodness. It's been one hell of a night."
"And I've still got six more hours to go," the auburn-haired woman groused, and Akane smiled wryly. "Well, goodnight, sweetie, and be safe. You never know what crazy lunatics you'll run into this time of night."
I wouldn't be surprised if I did. But let 'em try something. We'll see who comes out on top. "I will. Have a good night, Jun–"
"Hey, you!" Junko shouted suddenly, leaping to her feet. "What d'you think you're doing!"
Akane stared at the woman, startled, until she realised that Junko wasn't addressing her, but someone over her shoulder. She whipped around and spotted what had caught the nurse's attention—a tall, wiry man dressed all in black was exiting one of the patient's rooms.
Room 210. Mr. Henderson's room. The 'lonely old' Mr. Henderson with no relatives in Japan.
Akane's heart leapt into her throat.
"Visiting hours are over sir, I'm going to have to ask you to leave," Junko called out.
Something is definitely, definitely not right here, Akane thought frantically as her feet started carrying her away from the nurse's station and toward the dark figure. The man noticed this, and started walking away quickly. He appeared to be fumbling with something in his hands.
No! He can't get away!
"Stop!" Akane shouted suddenly, "Stay right where you are!"
The man shot Akane a split-second glance over his shoulder, then suddenly set off at a sprint, his footsteps pounding in the darkened corridor.
Akane's instincts were screaming at her to keep this man in her sight, no matter what. Tossing her shoulder bag away roughly, her martial arts training kicked into high-gear and she shot after him, blood pounding in her ears from some untraceable fear.
"Junko!" she screamed over her shoulder, "Call security! Now!"
Akane only made it a few metres when suddenly, her world exploded. The wall of room 210 burst apart, sending a thundering wave of unbearable heat and debris over her body. Instinctively throwing her arms over her face and spinning away from the explosion, Akane had just enough time to glimpse the wall of flames as it sped down the hallway towards her.
Then everything went black.
Author's Notes: Mwah. Mwahaha. MWAHAHAHA!
>:D
I'm so bad. I make you guys wait for so long, and then I leave you with a cliffhanger. Hopefully I made up for the long wait with the sheer length of this chapter (almost 8,000 words!). It took forever to write, and the conversation between the girls turned out about twice as long as I had planned. But you know how we girls are—get us talking about a cute boy, and we never shut up. ;) But not to worry, I swear that you won't have to wait nearly as long for Chapter 3 (entitled 'Second Encounters' hint hint). I'd say it's already about 30 finished.
I felt awful killing Henderson (by the way, that's what happened at the end if you didn't catch it). He started out as just a name, and then he just kept evolving into this fully-fledged character until I remembered that he had to die, or else there would be a humongous plot hole. It was very upsetting.
Harrods is a very famous British department store. Very posh, very expensive, just the sort of place an Oxford professor would buy trousers. I've heard the Queen shops there.
Rudyard Kipling is the author of The Jungle Book.
I made up that statistic about English-speaking patients in Tokyo hospitals. And did you know that 92 of statistics are made up on the spot?
I didn't make up any of the medical jargon about HHNS. I found it at webMD, which is a very useful website, but will turn you into a raging hypochondriac if you spent any more than five minutes there.
Chelsea is my dad's football team, Real Madrid is mine and my brother's. :D
I have nothing against Japanese tea. :P
Shinnosuke's surname is Sagara because 'Sanosuke Sagara' has such a nice ring to it. :D
I guarantee that singing 'Yellow Submarine' will remove a bad mood like OxyClean on a grape juice stain.
And finally, fifty points to Gryffindor for whoever can spot the Jane Austen reference.
Review Responses:
ranmababy: You made a good guess in there!
Roja-Cyd: I was so pleased when I saw that you'd left me a review, I love your stories! And I'm glad the cliché didn't turn you off. I kinda tried to take a tired idea and turn it on its ear. Here's hoping it works. :P
morgannia: You are on to something, I can tell you that. :)
TheEtherway: I find researching little details is one of the most fun parts of story writing, so I'm glad you noticed. :) And yeah, don't worry, R and A wouldn't be so lovable if they didn't bicker. They just got a better first impression of each other in this story than in canon. ;)
AnnechanB: I've gotta say, your question kept me awake at night when I first read it, because I honestly hadn't thought about that! Congrats on stumping the author! ;) But I think I've come up with an answer to that question (with FrameofMinds's help) that will show up later in the story. Thank you for reading so closely!
Angela Jewell: Another review I nearly had a fit over—I love your writing so much, so it's incredibly pleasing to hear that you like my stuff. :) Plus yay for thorough reviews! I hope I'm doing a good job portraying Akane in a positive light in this story, and I really hope that this chapter was as good as you were expecting. :)
Koala Kitty: Firstly (fangirls all over you). :P I really like mystery stories as well, but I've just realised that they're very hard to write, so here's hoping I can keep the pieces straight! And after their first meeting, I think it's a bit too late for R and A to actually hate each other, but that doesn't mean they won't bicker entertainingly. :D
TashinH: That was very nice of you to return a review. :) And I know what you mean about crappy Ranma fics, it's like an epidemic. But I'm glad that you consider mine to be one of the good ones, because I just love yours. I've reread Total Knockout waaay too many times for it to be healthy. :P
Indygodusk: Wow, you got two out of three things right in there. :) I won't tell you which ones, but I'm impressed.
Pinku: (fangirls all over you, too) Your entire review was just lovely, because I think it's really nice when a reader picks up on the little details and lets the author know that no, people haven't missed them:D And I know, I would blush like crazy is I had someone do that with my hand as well! Anyway, I'm glad to hear that I changed your mind about Ranma fics, and you're very, very welcome for the review for Solar Demise. It really is a wonderful story, and if you ever think that no one writes good Ranma fics anymore, just take a looksie at your own writing. ;)
Ayumi Omoide: You are too sweet! Your review definitely made me smile the most. And I agree, I think that no one stays an angry teenager forever (I know, I used to be a pretty pissy 16-year-old myself), so our favourite couple had to do a bit of growing up for this story to work. And I know, I would definitely not complain about a hot guy holding my waist either. ;)
Sweetest Taboo: My computer goes through mood swings too, but how sweet of you to come back and review! As for the little Ranma-canon references, I like sprinkling them throughout my stories because it helps connect the story with the original series better. :)
Also, many hearty thanks to Fangorn, nishikaze, jade30, Manachan, jazz, CleverWitch, KiraIzazuma, ranmakane-4ever, Ningen Demonai (silly! No review is ever lame!), Trevelyan Duke, KittyShampoo (you're welcome for the review!) cherrybloss9, Jak0TheShadows, Kchan, Vampire and Li, ForgottenSmile, Priestess Kohana, Iatok, Achava, luna, Leina, Jace3, SkippyPanda, ImSmiles, and lOserFACEladiie. I apologise if any of you were looking for a particular response, but if anyone wants one, just tell me in another review. ;)