Chapter Three

Written: 13 June 2005

Re-written: 08 August 2006

Edited: 18 July 2012

At first, Anshii couldn't say anything. "M-mother?" she finally stuttered, her eyes wide, "But..." Her hand fell away from Utena's face as the pink-haired girl sat up in her bed, looking up at her imploringly and with more than a touch of panic in her eyes.

"Please, Anshii. I can be a father to the twins, but being a mother...even though I carried them, I just don't feel like the kind of person who can be a mother. The things I loved about my mother, I don't have them. You do. Please?"

Anshii turned her head and looked down, her hair obscuring her face from view as her whole slim body began to quake with silent tears.

"It's . . . not that. It's . . . Utena, I don't even remember my own mother. I don't know if I had a mother! I can't cook. I don't know how to be a mother, what if I'm horrible?"

Utena reached up and gently tugged Anshii's hands away from her face, kissing away the tears from her cheeks and eyelids.

"It's okay. My mother told me, when I was very little, that she didn't know how to be a mother either. She told me, you can't take a class to be a mother. Cooking and cleaning doesn't make you a mother. You just have to love your baby and do your best."

Fresh tears spilled down Anshii's cheeks.

"I do love them. Despite...despite everything, I love them. No matter what, I'll think of them as my babies. But can you really give up being their mother?"

Utena smiled, somewhat shyly, and hugged Anshii tightly.

"I'm not giving up anything. I'm made to be a father, running and rough-housing and threatening to beat up the kids who pick on them. You...you feel like a mother to me at least. Can't you imagine them, running to when they've got a scraped knee, or a good grade, a new club, or a date?"

A look of wonder passed over her face, almost as if she herself was only just beginning to realize the enormity of this change in her life. She looked suddenly timid, "This is forever, Anshii. Children are forever. Do you want that? Forever with them, and with me?"

The dark-skinned girl nodded, bestowing a wet, sniffly smile upon her prince and trying to pat her eyes dry with the ends of her sleeves.

"Yes, I want that. With you, with them. Forever sounds perfect." Suddenly Utena burst out laughing, and Anshii blinked at her, confused. "Utena?"

Utena shook her head a little, sweat-soaked pink locks flying this way and that against the hospital bed, "I'm sorry. I was just thinking...we're basically still kids ourselves, despite everything. We won't even be out of school before they start." Anshii thought about that for a moment, then nodded thoughtfully.

"I suppose that is a little funny. But no matter what the numbers say, you and I are hardly children. Children could not have survived what we did, I think."

Utena smiled.

"You're right."

Later that night, as Utena lay in bed with Anshii in a chair right next to her, they found their fingers clasped together, resting in Utena's lap. Neither one of them spoke for a very long time, apparently reveling in the feeling of their fingers entwined in the darkness and silence of near-sleep for the first time since...well, since the last time, that last night in Akio's tower in their strange, end-to-end beds, holding hands and staring into each other's eyes until they slept.

"Utena...?" came Anshii's quiet voice, after a long period of contemplation.

"Mmm?" Utena replied, sounding faintly drowsy.

"Utena, did you ever get that power? The power of Dios?" The fingers holding hers tightened briefly, and Anshii lifted her head from where it rested on the edge of the bed to look up at Utena, who was in turn looking back at her. Pink bangs spilled forward to partially conceal those limpid blue eyes, and the smile on her face was gentle and a little sad.

"Yes."

Somehow, Anshii wasn't surprised. She hadn't stayed long, after Utena's disappearance, but even then she'd seen things beginning to change, seen chains unraveling from around her brother's captive duelists. A pair of twins walking side by side in peace, no music to come between them. A fierce young woman with blazing orange hair dueling with a petite butterfly of a girl, no pain on either face. Genuine friendship growing between two young men, where there had once been hate with a pretty veneer.

"And you used it, didn't you?" Utena nodded a little, smiling again and turning her gaze back up to the ceiling.

"Yes. Only once, when I first got it, to release people." She purposely left out what had happened in the aftermath of the duel. It would take too long to explain. "Akio," She flinched upon saying his name, as if it hurt, "He bound them, the duelists, to Ohtori with what he found in their minds and memories. He chained them. I wanted to...I tried to, to do it with a light touch, just cut a link here and there and let them escape on their own. The power was too much, though, like...like sailing through a typhoon. I could barely keep it from ripping me apart from the inside, much less use it for delicate work. I did what I could, maybe not as nicely as I'd hoped, but I got it done. I slipped a little, but I pulled it back into myself. That's how I erased myself from Ohtori accidentally."

"But...I remember you. I remember everything. I never forgot." Anshii's voice, even in a whisper, was clearly confused.

"Because you're part of the same power, I couldn't touch you, not even to free you. I'm so glad you were able to break your chains on your own, though. I missed you." She lifted Anshii's hand and kissed the knuckles softly. "I missed you so much."

Anshii blushed faintly in the darkness. "I missed you too. I think that's what saved me. I missed you so much, and one day I thought...I have this power too, why don't I use it? So I did, and then I came after you. But...do you think the others will ever remember you?"

"They will, don't worry. What I didn't know is that the power doesn't effect the entire world, it effects the world of the user. That's an important difference. At the time, Ohtori was my world and I was still chained to it, so my power only covered that place. As soon as they leave the school, they'll remember."

"And now? You're not chained to that place anymore?"

"No. My world got so much wider so fast, it's amazing. Dizzying. I've left Ohtori behind, grown out of it. I've seen new places, met new people. I have a new family now, you and the twins, and friends also. Hmm . . . speaking of friends. What happened to Chu-chu?"

Anshii blinked, startled. It had been a long time since she'd thought of her old friend. "He's gone, actually. When I left Ohtori, he vanished. I think it was because I didn't need him anymore." Utena nodded quietly. She hadn't known then, but through the power she'd discovered that the sweet little monkey, rather than being a real animal, was like a small . . . for lack of a better term, a small bubble of Anshii, her power and personality. The monkey-mouse was the Rose Bride's cache of true and positive feelings, held away from her where Akio couldn't touch it.

"You know..." mused Anshii softly, and Utena glanced at the dark-skinned girl from the corner of her eye, tracing the half-seen lines of her face in the gloom.

"What?"

"I think that when I was in Ohtori, when I had Chu-chu to embody my emotions - I don't think that I could have loved you as well, if we had stayed there. I was too . . . too blank, I suppose." Utena nodded quietly, understanding. The embrace of their hands tightened, and they slept.

Three days saw them returning to the apartment. Anshii carried both babies in a large bassinet, and Utena followed her, complaining that she wasn't allowed to do anything. Anshii ignored her.

"I at least want to carry them! Or even just one! I'm not totally helpless, you know!" Anshii slipped the key into the lock and opened the apartment again, leading the way inside before finally replying.

"I know that, Utena," her voice in her newfound lecture-tone, "But the doctor said that the chances of excessive bleeding are increased with the amount of physical labour you do, and after having twins you're already bleeding more than is normal."

"Quoting the doctor at me," Utena grumbled, "I shouldn't have translated for you. Then you'd let me do what I want."

"Probably!" The purple-haired girl replied cheerfully. "Come on, lay down and I'll give the twins to you. I think they're about ready for their dinner, anyway." The younger twin, identified only by the kanji that Anshii had sewn – with much heart, but little skill - onto her knit cap, started fussing and waving her tiny fists around blindly. Anshii reached down to soothe her, but she'd already hit her twin in the head, and shortly both infants were wide awake and fussing.

Utena chuckled softly as she lay down on the bed, relaxing back into the piles of pillows in front of the headboard and sighing happily despite her early protestations of fitness. Anshii smiled affectionately and hung the bassinet from the stand she'd set up the day before, then gently lifted the twins out one at a time, cooing to each of them. She cuddled the infant they were calling Nishiko to her chest, talking softly to her, as she waited for Utena to unbutton her shirt and open the clasps on the nursing bra. She started to hand the baby off, but stopped and frowned.

"Utena? What's wrong?" Blue eyes tilted up to meet hers, and the expression in them had soured considerably. Utena looked almost hopeless.

"I hate this, Anshii. I love them, but I hate this." She gestured vaguely to her body.

"What? What is it that you hate?" Anshii gently set Nishiko back in the bassinet, glad that the twins had mostly stopped fussing. She sat on the bed and wrapped one arm around her love, who looked about ready to break down into tears.

"Look at me! I'm fat, and I'm sore and these-" she gestured at her breasts, "They got bigger. I can't wear my normal clothes or my normal bras, and nobody ever tells you the crazy things birth does to your body. I'm miserable!" She leaned into Anshii and sighed, "I wish it would all stop." Anshii wrapped her arms around Utena and stroked her hair slowly, unsure of what to say. They were quiet for a few moments before Utena lifted her face again, and this time a small smile crept across her features.

"But . . . really, I love the twins with everything in me. I complain, I'll probably keep complaining, about all of this, and about being forced to rest even more, but I love them, and I love you. I'll try to remember that when I get upset that my stomach muscles have vanished and that I can't pass for a boy anymore." Anshii couldn't help it, she started giggling. She pressed one hand to her mouth, her eyes dancing with amusement.

"Utena, you...trust me, you were always too pretty to be a boy. As for the rest, as long as you promise to rest properly for the next week or two, I think it should be safe for you to exercise, and then I'm sure that you'll have your muscles back shortly. As for your breasts . . . well, I like them, but I seem to recall that they might shrink again, after the babies are weaned." Utena blushed and couldn't help but giggle as well, relaxing into Anshii's embrace comfortably.

"Only two weeks? The doctor said three or more, didn't she?"

Anshii tweaked her nose playfully. It was such an out-of-character move for the once-somber girl that Utena found herself smiling, as silly as any girl in love.

"Don't be silly. You know as well as I do that the power should speed up your healing. Really, I'll be surprised if it even takes an entire week for you to be up to exercising again." They shared a quiet smile, then spent a moment just relaxing with each other, soaking up the closeness just like they had done with every other moment of contact in the last few days. They had a long time to make up for.

But soon enough, the spell was broken by the increasingly loud noises made by a hungry newborn, and they separated once more.

"Are you ready this time?" Anshii asked, lifting a baby once more.

"Bring it on," Utena declared as she unclasped her bra, accepting both the baby and a kiss on the forehead from her lady. The baby set to nursing happily – something Utena was grateful for, as there had been no guarantee – and her little fists clenched as her mouth worked busily. Utena supported the infant carefully in her arms, and watched her nursing with an undisguised expression of adoration, stroking one silky cheek with a fingertip.

Anshii spared a moment to watch the two of them, her heart feeling over-full, before going to get the older Nishiki. Not wishing to favour one baby over the other, she cradled the other little girl in her arms, rocking her back and forth soothingly and talking quietly to her while her sister nursed. It was only a few moments until Nishiko was done nursing, and then they switched babies, Nishiko being held and talked to while Nishiki ate with equal gusto.

The twins were blissfully asleep in short order, so Anshii placed the children back in the bassinet and covered them up, then sat on the edge of the bed slowly pushing it, singing to them as best she could while Utena watched fondly, until all that came from the bassinet were tiny infant breaths. Anshii then returned to her prince's side and sat beside her.

It was a sort of unspoken agreement that they would be together from now on. What was neither spoken nor unspoken were the exact living arrangements. After a brief nap of their own and after turning on the baby monitors, Utena was allowed out of bed just long enough to demonstrate her new domestic skills by preparing them a light dinner. Anshii smiled and praised her efforts, and they sat down to eat. They ate in silence for several minutes, until Anshii brought it up.

"Um, Utena...how much do you really like this apartment?" Her tone was casual, as if the answer really didn't concern her very much.

Utena shrugged, answering between bites of her salad. "I don't know. It's a roof, right? And it's alright, I guess. Why?"

Anshii shifted uncomfortably, toying with her fork slightly, "Well, because I was wondering if you would like to move into a house instead. I know you want to be careful with your trust, but I have...well, without going into details, I live comfortably. I only just arrived in America so I don't have a place to stay yet, but I was thinking of trying to find a home near here and-" She was babbling by then, talking just a bit too fast, but a look from Utena cut her off, and she blushed. "Um, I mean that is if you want to. If you like it here, I would be glad to stay..."

Utena set down her fork and looked thoughtful for a moment, while Anshii squirmed a little in her seat. After a moment, the pink-haired girl frowned. "Hmm...does it have to be here? Could we move to a different area?" Anshii blinked, then smiled and resumed eating.

"Of course, Utena. We can move anywhere that you want to."

"How about back to Japan?"

END CH. 3