12. Reaching Deep Within

Deep chiming woke Godzilla from a sound slumber. He looked at the grandfather clock and saw it was barely five in the morning. His head felt better, so he knew right away that his fever went down. He swallowed with a slight flinch.

Ouch...throat's still sore. Damn.

Godzilla startled when he heard a sigh, and turned towards its source. Miki, sound asleep, was curled up in the recliner with a blanket around her shoulders. Had she spent the whole night there, watching over him?

He climbed off the sofa-bed and lumbered into the bathroom. Mouthwash wasn't as good as toothpaste, but it'd keep Miki from suffering through his bad morning breath-an embarrassing fate he considered worse than his atomic ray. The house got stuffy overnight, so he opened the front door to let in the cool sea breeze.

Miki gave a quiet snore. Whatever she dreamed about made her smile a little in her sleep.

As gently as he could, Godzilla scooped Miki up bridal style and carried her upstairs to her room. She must have been tired-she hardly moved once he tucked her into her own bed. The growing morning softened her pretty features and cast shadows across his white eyes. He brushed her bangs off her face and bent over, brushing the tip of his snout against her cheek. Right then, he would've given his life just for human lips to kiss her.

Godzilla's throat began to tickle. He hurried out and into his own bathroom before the cough exploded from his chest. Each spasm hurt. He buried his snout in his hands in attempt to muffle the sound.

Probably a flu virus. Great. Two weeks of coughing and snot. I feel sooooo lucky.

The phone rang downstairs.

Godzilla's eyes widened. Who would call at this hour? He rushed downstairs to the kitchen, and his claws scraped a new gouge in the counter in his haste to pick up the receiver. The caller I.D. showed Hideo's cell phone number.

"Hideo, you better have a good reason to call me at this hour." Godzilla growled.

"H-hello?" The voice on the other end wasn't Hideo's. Too throaty and higher in pitch. "Is Miki there?"

"Who's this?"

"I'm Wagura, I'm Hideo's friend."

"Nice. Miki's asleep right now." Godzilla sniffled and cleared his throat. "What do you want?"

"There was an accident on the docks. Hideo got hurt pretty bad, and he's in the hospital. He gave me his phone to call you. I'm still in the waiting room and he's still in surgery. He didn't look too good goin' into the ambulance."

"Goji?" Miki's voice filtered into the kitchen. She always called him Goji when she saw him on the phone.

Godzilla whirled to face her, the receiver still held to his ear. He lifted his index finger and said, "She's right here. Hold on."

The look on his face must have given away how bad it was. Miki's hand quivered as she took the phone and moved it to her ear. "Hi...it's Miki."

Godzilla watched the color drain from her features. Her eyes welled over.

"What? When? Is he okay? Which hospital? Sanno...right, I know where it is. Yes." She pressed her other hand against her brow and looked up at Godzilla like a deer caught in headlights. Her lower lip trembled. The sun came through the open front door in time to make her first two tears sparkle. She sat down hard at the table. "Okay...thanks for letting me know. Tell him I love him for me, please? Thank you. Bye, Wagura." She set the phone aside and burst into tears, burying her face in her folded arms.

"I'm...sorry." Godzilla whispered. He wasn't used to this feeling of pity-he felt his throat clutching at the sight of Miki in tears like this. "Uh...is there anything I can, you know, do for you?"

Miki turned towards him, burying her face against his shoulder. Godzilla tensed for a few seconds before laying his hand against the back of her head. He dragged another chair over with his tail, sat down and put his other arm around her. She let him pull her closer into a hug.

"My daddy's hurt." Miki sobbed. "He might be dying and I'm so far away!"

The pangs in Godzilla's throat shot into his eyes. Tears of...sympathy? He swallowed a growl and lowered his head, his eyes closing. No, it wouldn't do to cuss at fate out loud. He was so close to breaking this curse!

...but this wasn't just about him anymore. Miki had needs far more important than his own. Her happiness mattered. What if Hideo was in that hospital, right now, dying?

Godzilla clenched his jaw and tilted his head back. "Miki?"

"Hm?" She rubbed her lower eyelids, which were puffy from her weeping.

Godzilla made himself look at her. He said, "You should be with your dad right now."

"What?"

"You don't have to keep your part of the deal anymore. I'm...I'm letting you go."

He swore he saw a new sun rising in her eyes. She threw her arms around his neck so tightly that the air rushed from his lungs. Then she ran upstairs to get dressed and pack.

"I can tow you!" Godzilla called up the staircase. "There's a little motor boat somebody left a while back. I always keep it fueled. I can tow you with the rope at least halfway!"

Miki clambered down the stairs in a pink hoodie and jean shorts. She looked like demons were chasing her.

"Thank you so much for this," she panted. "Once I know what's what, I'll call you, okay?"

Godzilla nodded. "Sure."

Several minutes later, he pushed the motor boat past the rock marking the end of his island and dove under the waves. Coughing underwater hurt more than he'd let on. He felt his body grow to its enormous size. The thick rope on the boat looked like a long thread to him.

He surfaced to see Miki holding into the sides of the boat. She looked up when his head rose above the waves.

"Tie the rope to my biggest spine. Don't worry, they're only radioactive when I use my breath. Gimme a pat when you're ready to go."

"You'll feel it?"

"Yeah, if you bang on the side hard enough. I'll snip the line once we get close to those detection buoys."

Miki smiled softly at him. He smiled back before sinking and turning over, his spines lifting the boat slightly off the water. The second he felt Miki tap on his largest plate, he sank lower and surged forward just beneath the waves. He swam deeper than normal, making sure his dorsal spines didn't break the surface.

Godzilla's cough became a severe annoyance. Underwater, he breathed mostly through his skin. Every time he coughed, he sucked water into his windpipe and that made him cough even harder. He finally expelled all the air in his lungs, and swam in silent agony

Miki...please come back to me when this is all over.

.o

Grateful couldn't begin to describe how Miki felt towards Godzilla. She was fully prepared to camp by the phone, and he let her go. But why did it hurt, leaving him behind?

He's sick, my dad is hurt...I wish I could be in two places at once.

She grasped the sides of the boat when it rocked. Her stomach turned over, but thankfully didn't empty itself. The salty sea spray occasionally splashing on her face felt good in the warm morning. When she looked ahead, the sun burned above the horizon, turning the ocean into a rumpled golden sheet. A pod of dolphins played in the swells a short distance away. Miki watched them, smiling.

Suddenly, the boat coasted to a stop and shuddered side to side. Sea water splashed onto Miki's feet when Godzilla's head broke the surface behind her. He gasped like someone freshly resuscitated.

"This is...as far...as I...can take you." Godzilla spoke in spurts. His voice had more growl to it when he was full sized. He hacked and spat off to the side. The ocean churned around him and the boat. Miki realized the sea was so deep here that he had to tread water just like a human.

She reached out, cupping her hand against the outer edge of his snout. "Will you be okay?"

Godzilla's white eyes blinked. He had a third, clear eyelid that glistened with reflections of the water. "It's probably a flu virus. I'll be fine in a week or two. Your dad is in worse shape than I am."

"Are you sure?"

He flinched and nodded, and turned away to cough hard into the sea foam surrounding his neck. "Yeah," his voice croaked out. "Call me."

Miki smiled a little. She balanced herself and leaned over the back of the boat to kiss the tip of his nose. "Thank you."

Godzilla quirked his reptilian lips into a smile, flashing his gigantic man-sized fangs. "Get your engine going. Don't feel bad if you forget to call. He could be in ICU or...something."

"I'll try not to forget to c-"

Godzilla plunged into the depths with hardly a ripple before she could finish. The water was just clear enough that Miki saw him swim away like a crocodile. Then she faced forward, started the boat's motor and took off towards the sunrise.

What Miki didn't see was Godzilla surfacing to make sure she got away safely. He coughed as he dove again. Blood rose to the surface like red smoke and dispersed on the waves.

Miki arrived at her father's docks in half the time it would have taken without Godzilla's help. She found her phone under her makeup in her suitcase and called Wagura. He was there to pick her up in just under thirty minutes. His dirty white baseball cap had spots of brown, dried blood on the brim. His dusty black Mitsubishi smelled like shrimp. They didn't talk at all on the way to the hospital other than Wagura voicing his surprise at seeing her.

"How did you get here so fast?" He asked her.

Miki shrugged and managed a nervous smile. "Lucky currents, I guess."

Wagura shook his head. He didn't buy it, but now wasn't the time to debate.

"What happened?" Miki asked.

The bald man swallowed hard. "A chain on one of the lifting cranes broke. Hideo saw the new guy-Kenji-was about to get splattered by it. He pushed him aside right when it broke and swung with a full crate still attached. It smashed Hideo into the pile of pallets next to the wall."

Miki flinched and wished she hadn't asked. She stared ahead because she didn't want to put Wagura through reliving any more of that awful memory.

Hideo was still in surgery when Wagura and Miki arrived in the sterile gray and green waiting room. Miki parked in one of the small black chairs and picked up a JJ magazine. Somebody drew a giant phallus over the cover girl's face. Miki flipped it open anyway, and inside the cover was the mermaid ad she'd shot with Aleron. Just looking at his smug, superficial smile made her skin crawl.

"Do you feel like eating?" Wagura asked gently.

Miki looked up, her bangs hanging messily on her brow. "Um, yeah. Toast and a bottled water. I'm feeling kind of sick, but I haven't eaten yet today. I guess I should for the sake of my girlish figure."

Wagura grinned at that. He had a chipped front tooth that he never got around to fixing in all the time she'd known him. They went downstairs and ate in silence. Then they returned to the waiting room and sat in even more silence. Wagura rubbed at his stubble while Miki read a Junon magazine article called Ten Ways to Tell A Guy Is Into You. If her mind wasn't so frayed, she would have giggled about how Godzilla showed all ten signs.

Finally, two and a half hours after Miki sat down, an average sized man with graying hair stepped into the waiting room. He wore green surgical scrubs and his brown almond-shaped eyes gazed around behind square-framed spectacles.

"Wagura Goto?"

"That's me." Wagura jumped up. "I have Hideo Saegusa's daughter here. This is Miki."

The surgeon nodded and approached. "I'm doctor Sahara." He bowed politely. "Hideo made it fine through surgery."

"Oh, thank God." Miki sighed in relief and refocused on the surgeon.

Doctor Sahara adjusted his glasses and went on, "I had to remove his spleen, and then had to rebuild the humerus-" he indicated his upper arm with his hand, "-in his left arm with plates and screws, as it was in three pieces. He told us he lifted his arm to protect his head at the last second and the crate slammed into his upper body, knocking him into a pile of pallets. He was very lucky the flat side of the swinging crate hit him and not a corner. He could have been hurt a lot worse. He might need therapy to regain the use of his arm after it heals, but outside of that he should make a full recovery. Right now he has a drainage tube in his side, but that will come out once he's healed a bit."

"Thank you so much." Miki said with tears in her eyes. If doctor Sahara wasn't a stranger, she would have hugged him right there. She almost took her phone out to call Godzilla, but stopped. He might be asleep, and she didn't want to wake him while he was still sick. She asked, "When can we see him?"

Doctor Sahara smiled. "He's still waking up, so half an hour or so. Someone will inform you when he's ready for visitors."

"Thank you very much, doctor." Wagura said, bowing politely.

The surgeon dipped his head just as his pager went off. He waved before leaving the waiting room.

Miki sagged back into her chair with her head in her hands. All the frightening worst-case scenario visions she had of her father surrounded by scary medical equipment slowly melted away.

Wagura and Miki puttered around the gift shop until a nurse called Wagura's last name. She led them to a room at the end of the hall. The walls were white and the window curtains a pale shade of gray. The privacy curtains for the beds had green and gray stripe patterns. An unoccupied bed topped in white sheets sat by the door, but the bumps of feet were visible in the bed nearest the window.

Wagura took his hat off and scratched his bald head. "Hideo?" He peeked around the privacy curtain.

"I'm awake." Hideo croaked.

That was all Miki needed to hear. She pushed past her father's friend and hurried to his bedside. "Dad!"

"Miki? Miki! Oh! What are you doing here?" Hideo's wrinkled face broke into a smile as tears poured across the creases in his sun-worn skin. He had gray stubble in the places where he'd missed shaving. A clear drainage tube attached to a bag protruded from under the gauze taped onto his left side, and his left arm was splinted in a sling that he kept propped up on a pillow. His T-shirt tan lines told the story of his life as a fisherman moving in and out of the sun.

"The big guy told me to. He said you need me more." Miki clutched Hideo's uninjured hand. "I was so scared when I heard...I'm glad you're okay."

"Nobody died...Kenji is okay?" Hideo asked.

Wagura answered quickly, "He doesn't have a scratch. You saved his life."

Hideo let out his breath and visibly relaxed, his strong, callused hand still clinging tightly to Miki's.

"How do you feel?" Miki asked him.

He shook his head, smirking. "I'll know when the medicine all wears off and I remember that I have an arm. Then I'll tell you. Wagura? Are you gonna be okay, buddy? You look white as a ghost over there!"

Wagura laughed and slapped the foot of the bed with his hat. "If you saw what you looked like, you'd be white as a ghost, too!"

Both men chuckled.

"Well, I should get myself back onto those docks. The guys need to know you're okay and all." Wagura leaned on the foot of the bed and went on, "Call me if you need anything, all right?"

Hideo nodded slowly, yawning. Wagura gave a quick bow and hurried out, his sneakers squeaking on the white tiled floor. The moment the other man stepped out of hearing range, Hideo focused intently on Miki.

"Are you all right, Miki?"

"Mmhmm." Miki answered. She pulled up a chair to sit down and set her suitcase near her feet. "Godzilla...he's not so bad. We're great friends now."

"That thing? You're friends with that thing?"

Miki looked down and petted his fingers. "Daddy, calm down. He's just like anybody else if you...I dunno-look past what he is and what he does. He let me go and told me the deal is off so I could come down here to take care of you."

"He let you go?"

"Yes." Miki replied. She almost spilled the secret about who Godzilla really was, but bit her tongue at the last second. "I told him I'd call him and let him know how you are once I knew anything definite."

"You-want to stay in contact with him?"

"Why not?"

"Miki..." Hideo shifted under the sheets and winced.

Miki gazed out the window at the clear blue sky. It was close to eleven in the morning and bright, like a summer day should look. The world only knew Godzilla as a city-wrecking monster, and maybe he was. Did anybody out there see what she saw? Someone lonely and insecure because of how he looked, yet possessing amazing talent?

"Do you plan to go back to him once I'm healthy again?" Hideo asked her.

"I don't know. I'll have to see," she said. "You rest up and I'll go home to take care of the house. I'll be back later tonight."

He moved his head in a nod and pushed his sheet aside. She bent down, kissing his cheek, and then left him there to rest.