Disclaimer: puts kindling and gasoline on sparks to ignite them, realizes peps watching. Just trying to keep sparks burning! You know, if I were a rich man, yababababababadiedeldiedel di, all day long I'd bidddybiddy-bum, if I were a wealthy man… but I'm not so here I am writing with characters I don't really own… everyone but Ivy and Ian and random cast members. Oh well, that's life!
Thanks for the reviews. Were you dancing to the disclaimer song Keda? Giggle. Hey thanks to all my reviewers! (I like being repetitive!) Ya'll are hearted and your so appreciated. Cookies for everyone! Yay!
I'm done chatting. Lots of symbolism in this chapter. Hope you like.
Still working on screen dividers.
Hatori awoke with a start at his kitchen table with one word resounding in his head…blue.
He sighed and made his way to his refrigerator with every intention of opening up a beer. Halfway through his sojourn, however, the doctor changed his mind and sighing put water on his stove for tea.
As Hatori awaited the water to boil, he leaned against the counter and cast a glance at the unopened copy of the Disney flick his sister gave him. As he did so a sinking feeling came to the pit of his stomach.
He missed Ivy, he really had. There was no denying that, they were close, virtually inseparable. So why did he have an overwhelming feeling of dread now that she was back? Why did he have a spine tingling feeling that everything was about to change drastically?
Hatori had this feeling twice before in his life and learned from experience not to write the feeling off. The frustrating thing was he didn't know what was making him feel uneasy!
"Kana," He couldn't help but whisper relating the dreadful feeling to the ordeal of his lost love.
Behind him the teapot gave a small shake indicating that the water was ready to steep. Hatori sighed once more, as he usually did when he was uneasy and alone then with his tea in hand sat on his couch hoping to analyze the roots of his foreboding and utterly annoying dream.
As he sat on his couch, sipping his tea all the while inhaling deeply, he couldn't help but remember one night several years ago…
Before Shigure ever got published, and before Ivy had left on tour, the three of them were known as the Sohma family charity case of the century. Shigure's parents like many of the other cursed family members chose to forget him and Ivy and Hatori's mother, was the family floozy, and ran out on them after she could saddle them with an un-expecting relative. Eventually, when the twins became old enough Akito allowed them to live in their own place on the compound and soon Shigure joined the trio of rommies.
In those days, the three were each other's support system and rock.
Hatori recalled that one night, Ivy had gotten a call from the theater group she auditioned for. She had landed the role of Fontine in the French revolution musical, Le Miserables. Of course Akito found out, as he always did, and Hatori still firmly believed that if he and Shigure did not intervene, Ivy would have spent a good part of the month in the hospital.
That night, the guys left Ivy to recover on the couch, and all night made tasks to do in the living room just to keep a watchful eye on her.
It was three in the morning when Hatori had awoken in an armchair with a medical book open on his lap. Shigure was sound asleep with his face in his manuscript on the coffee table. A puddle of drool on the wood beside his pen and a half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray indicated that the future novelist was virtually comatose.
However it wasn't Shigure that had waked the newly graduated doctor up, it was his sister. She was on the couch with an icepack over her left eye that Akito had managed to swell shut with a sound blow thought inconcievable to an outsider. For a good part of the night she had been completely unconscious but now she was stirring just a little bit.
This had set an alarm off in Hatori's head; when Ivy was unconscious or asleep she didn't move a muscle. She was such a sound sleeper, it almost looked like she was dead to an untrained eye. Hatori knew better though and got up from his chair to check on her.
"Hey," Ivy greeted softly with a small smile, "Guess what? I think Akito doesn't approve me taking this role."
As Hatori knelt down beside the couch to get on eye level, he laughed. "Always on top of things, huh Ive?" he paused then asked in his most doctorly tone, "How you doing?"
"Aside from the fact that I have a huge headache and I can't see out of my left eye…I'm estactic! Haa-san, I got the role of Fontine. Do you know how great this is?"
"Fontine dies in the first act." He returned simply.
Ivy laughed and nodded her head slightly, "Point taken but she's still one of the main characters." She paused and bit her lip slightly, "You know, I'm going to take this role even if Akito has to beat me up every evening."
Hatori nodded and shifted his weight then rested his head on the side of his couch. "Your lucky I'm a doctor." He said simply, indicating that he supported her in this hopefully one time endeavor.
Silence followed them for a few moments with Shigure's snores the only thing breaking it. Finally Ivy sighed and settled down again in a comfortable position. Her brother was already drifting off again, and Ivy knew he needed his sleep but she wasn't ready to dream again yet.
"Haa-san," She began, startling him from his brief snooze.
"What Ivy?"
Silence followed for a moment until she continued, but when she did, Hatori had to fight the urge not to hit his head on the couch.
"If good grapes are made into wine, and bad grapes get made into champagne, then what do they use for grape juice?"
'Why did she have to be this random in the morning?' Hatori silently pleaded. His silence lasted a few seconds, not long but long enough for his twin to repeat he question.
"Seriously, Haa-san, do they judge grapes like students? You know like the 'straight A grapes' get made into wine, which should be like… I dunno, getting into a university; and the 'stupid' grapes that can't add get corrupted and become the criminals of the grape world. So do the average, run of the mill grapes just live out hum-drum lives like the average person?"
"Ive," Hatori quietly groaned, "Your babbling, grapes are grapes."
"And I asked you a question and we both know I'm too stubborn to let this go once I start pondering."
The doctor paused for a moment then concluded hastily hoping his answer would satisfy her, "We only drink grape juice from concentrate."
"So there's no such thing as real grape juice?" She softly laughed, "Give me a break. That's like saying North Dakota up in America doesn't exist and it's an extension of Canada."
"It isn't part of Canada. It's a part of the United States."
"Exactly, and to get something from concentrate one has to have at least a small percent of the thing, right?" she did not wait for an answer, " So do the average grapes turn into grape juice?"
Hatori cracked a small smile and replied, "I guess they just breed the right grapes for juice, like concord grapes or something, and breed another type for alcohol."
Ivy nodded, satisfied at this explanation. In that brief moment however, the twins could not banish an image of an elderly balding gentleman setting two purple grapes on a hotel bed and urging them on by saying, 'Breed little grapes, breed!' before leaving the room with a "do not disturb" sign on front.
At this thought, the two laughed, knowing the others thoughts.
"Oh, yeah, you're going to be fine, Ive." Hatori diagnosed, as she laughed soft enough to not wake Shigure up.
Once more silence enveloped them until Ivy spoke up again, this time in a sage like tone. "We're like grapes you know."
"How in the world do you conclude that?"
Ivy sighed and explained, " The wine grapes represent the successful people in the world, right? Well, every once in a while, they, like the wine might get a compliment. You know like, 'Oh he's a philanthropist,' would be like, 'damn, this is good wine.' And if one should say that the one is dry it could mean that the person is a miser. Or if the wine is too strong then the person has too much power and the only reason folks drink/ put up with him is because he's either a damn expensive wine or very influential.
Then you have the champagne, the bad grapes, the scum of the earth, yet ironically, we drink it on special occasions whereas wine could be consumed causally. Therefore indicating that in our society today we pay more tribute to the bad grapes and criminals rather than to the juice grapes who are just like your everyday person."
"We're like the wine grapes though, Ivy."
"You're like the wine grapes. You got a future as a doctor…and I see how you look at your assistant. Now Shigure could be a wine grape, he's trying,"
"And so are you."
"Haa-san, I didn't go to college, I'm living off the family and I'm waiting tables for pocket change,"
"Which is why your doing this musical and if I have to treat you for your squabbles with Akito every night and talk about grape psychology at three thirty in the morning, I'll do so." He paused then continued, "You're by no means a juice grape."
Ivy smiled, grateful to have her brother support her this fiercely. She gave him a peck on the cheek and thanked him before she settled into a comfortable sleeping spot. Hatori watched her eyelids droop with a mixed sense of relief about him that she finally decided to sleep again and a tampering fondness for her strong analytical moments.
He sighed once more, realizing how much he sighed and positioned himself comfortably between the couch and coffee table. As he did so, he could hear Shigure mumble in his sleep about high school girls. The doctor smiled, grateful to have family like Ivy, Shigure and Ayame who made him wonder everyday how he stayed sane.
Finally he closed his eyes, and after a few minutes of drifting off, he swore he could hear Ivy mumble, about how it could be better to be the champagne grape, but the doctor wrote it off as her talking in her light sleep. He was too tired to respond anyway.
A/n: What do ya'll think? Got ya'll thinking the next time you pour yourself a glass of wine? Heck, next time you have a glass you could be drinking a slew of Bill Gates and Oprah grapes. Don't mind me, I have my wild moments in the wonderful world of symbolism. Hope you like. I'll update soon, maybe tell why Ivy sleeps so still and what she thinks of Tohru and vice verse and if poor Shigure got a lucky break in Candyland.
Oh! And would you like to see more of the Fiddler cast and Ian? They're just chilling in the back round for no apparent reason but if their development can enhance the story, I'll so develop them like "Woah!"
Please review, for the grapes and cookies.