The Bargain

Ranma was escorted to Tatewaki’s room again, to find him looking at photographs. Curious, Ranma took them from him and the other boy allowed him to. Ranma almost gasped in surprise to see Nabiki smiling and hugging Kuno in nearly all of them; it wasn’t a side of her that he had ever seen. The Nabiki he knew was a scheming sexless ice princess. “Why do you torture yourself by looking a these?” he asked Tatewaki.

Tatewaki leveled his dark eyes at Ranma and said, “they’re my memories and I have to accept them, whether they’re happy or painful. They’ll remind me not to be so gullible again when it comes to romance. Now Ranma, may I ask what you’re doing here again? I rather doubt that you want to have an affair with me as Ranko”

Ranma blushed at how Tatewaki had managed to trick him the last time. “You need a friend and I’m here to offer that to you” he stated.

Tatewaki looked confused “you wish to be my friend? But I already have plenty of friends” he said.

“No you have people who fear you and underlings. Okay, who you to normally hang out with on a regular basis then?” he challenged him.

“Well, there’s……..” he began and stopped, when the boy he was about to mention had got himself uninvited from the mansion for attempting to grope Kodachi. ‘I have no real friends’ he realized. “But I thought that you hated me?” he protested.

“I didn’t know you then, you never used to show anyone the real you. Now what do you say? We hang out and do guy stuff together. All of this sitting around and brooding isn’t good for you” Ranma said persuasively.

“What do guys really do together? Except for the obvious type of guys” Tatewaki said with a blush.

“We’re not going to be those sorts of guy; you’re handsome and all, but males don’t do a thing for me. I don’t know. You want to spar? I can teach you some moves to add to your Kendo, that will make it harder to beat you” he volunteered.

“You’d do that for me?” Tatewaki asked suspiciously.

“Come on, let me be your friend. There has to be something you enjoy doing that requires a second person?” coaxed Ranma.

Tatewaki gave him a genuine smile “there’s one thing”

Ranma blushed to feel the other man so close to him, he was being held with Tatewaki’s chest against Ranma’s back “do you really have to get so close to me?” he complained.

“So far, my other methods of teaching the game to you have failed. So just move as I do now, step, step, step and release” Tatewaki instructed and stepped back away from Ranma. Both boys watched as the ball rolled straight and true and took down all ten pins. “You got a strike!” Tatewaki said excitedly and wrote down Ranma’s score.

“Somehow you never struck me as a bowler” Ranma said to the smiling Tatewaki. He also would have never suspected that the mansion contained a full bowling alley, complete with multi coloured bowling shoes to lend to guests. Ranma looked distastefully at the red and green shoes on his feet.

“My father used to play it to relax and I used to play against him,” Tatewaki explained. “Ranma, do you mind if I give you some advice?” he asked.

“Sure” he said, turning to look at him.

“I know that you have used Ranko to entice men before. Are you sure you should be doing that? It could get you into trouble.” Tatewaki cautioned.

Ranma face flamed at what he was suggesting, “I can handle myself whether I’m a girl or a guy!” he protested.

Ranma blanched when Tatewaki mimed giving him a blow to the head “Now you are an unconscious sexy, attractive young girl at the mercy of a would-be rapist. Can’t defend yourself when you’re unconscious; I should know” said Tatewaki.

“Why are you telling me this?” Ranma asked, fear stirring within him slightly. This was one of his worst fears.

“You think that….? No, no, even on my worse days I was strictly a groper. I am just saying this because there are men out there who aren’t and Ranko is hot,” Tatewaki explained sincerely. Ranma realized that this was just Tatewaki’s clumsy way of saying that he did care about Ranma.

“Okay it’s my turn. Do you want children?” he asked.

Tatewaki eyes went wide with shock at the question. “Well yes later on, as the sole male heir, I am expected to have the next one. But I also do from my own self. However with the loads of girl beating my door down, it doesn’t seem likely. Not everyone has four fiancées,” he said facetiously.

Ranma rolled his eyes “would you like two of them? The third one is your sister and therefore, I doubt you want her”

“No, we are a tad odd in this family, but not that odd. Wait, you only want to give away three? Does this mean that things have changed between the lovely Akane Tendo and yourself?” Tatewaki teased.

Ranma blushed “we’ve kissed” he admitted. “That doesn’t bother you?”

“No, I guess that Nabiki changing the focus of my attentions was beneficial to both of you. I would like to apologize for my earlier behaviour” he said sincerely.

“Not a problem. Er, if anything does happen, as someone with sex experience. Could you recommend a good type of condom?”

Tatewaki frowned at how personal the question was again “We didn’t use any, Nabiki was on the pill,” he explained. Ranma gave Tatewaki a look of sympathy when he wasn’t looking. Tatewaki was going to need a friend sooner then he thought. Ranma was planning to befriend him any way, but what he discovered yesterday, forced his hand to act sooner. He had seen Nabiki sneak something into the garbage for pick up early in the morning. Curious why she was acting so furtive, he snuck a peek to discover a small drugstore bag. What it contained caused him to gasp; luckily the instructions were still included with the pregnancy test. Ranma watched as the teenaged father bowled a strike and danced with triumph. He so wanted to tell him, but his honour and duty to Nabiki, as his future sister-in-law prevented this.

Nabiki

Nabiki stood in front of the abortion clinic as she had for many days. Her appointment wasn’t until two weeks but she wanted to make sure that when the time came, she could cross those glass doors and enter into the dark gray granite building. She thought about what the replacement doctor had told at the gynecological office.

Flashback

“You’re blood test is positive and due to the results, I would say that you are about four to five weeks along”

‘But how? I took my pills at the same time every day without fail. I even have a special alarm on my cell phone to remind me” she said, numb with shock.

“Birth control pills don’t always work. That’s why it’s recommended that you use two birth control methods at the same time. I take it you didn’t?” she inquired.

“No” she said.

“Weren’t you worried about STD?” the woman asked rather harshly.

“My last test was done right before we got together and it was clean and he was a virgin. He’s no longer in the picture,” Nabiki said in a cold voice that was meant to disguise her shock.

“Well Miss Tendo, as you are about to become an unwed teenaged mother, you have some decisions to make.”

End Flash Back

She’d chosen this place because it was far away from her neighbourhood and referral free. She’d just needed to give them her test number to make the appointment. They’d refused to perform her abortion until the sixth week, giving her time to think about it and second-guess herself. It was to be the D&C method, involving a vacuum, which was supposed to take just a few, unpleasant minutes; just a few minutes to take ‘it’ out and then she would resume her normal life with no one ever knowing she’d been pregnant.

She’d worried about how marrying Kuno would effect her life; that was nothing compared to this! Her father would mostly likely kick her out and disown her. Even if he let her stay, she would have to quit school and get a job to bring income into the household to support her child. She had her savings and bonds for Harvard, but had given quite a bit of money to Kasumi to keep the household running. Why there were four martial artists living in the same house, where no one taught classes in the dojo, was beyond her. Kuno would discover about her condition and would probably offer to help her or demand marriage, while thinking she’d planned this on purpose to get gain his wealth. Tainting any chance of happiness they could hope to have and tainting their child. Or she could move away and somehow support herself for the nine-month, but that meant she could never return. No, the best option was to rid herself of this parasite, she thought, strengthening her resolve.

She turned to leave the clinic, knowing that in two weeks; her problem would be taken care of. When a beautiful woman with long, dark hair and friendly eyes approached her. “I see you here everyday and as I used to do myself” she said in a kind voice. She handed Nabiki a plastic replica of a human fetus. “This is what your baby is going to look like at six weeks,” she explained. Nabiki looked at the doll in her hand; it had legs, it had arms and a head. Then she realized that what was inside her, wasn’t an ‘it’ or a parasite; but a baby capable of emotions and dependant on her for survival. He or she would have dark eyes and dark hair, like both parents and possibly its father’s happy smile. She was having a baby, Kuno’s baby. This hit her for the first time and she started to cry.

“I can’t do this,” she sobbed to the stranger.

“Come on, let me buy you a tea,” she said, leading Nabiki to a small café.

“So you are a pro-lifer?” she asked the woman, whose name was Akira.

“No, I believe abortion to be perfectly acceptable in the cases of incest, rape or where the pregnancy is a threat to the mother. I only approach girls about your age; fear isn’t a reason to get an abortion. I am studying to be a psychiatrist and plan to specialize in family counseling for unwed teenaged mothers. I want them to be aware of all of their options before they run to an abortion clinic. I’m sorry about my harsh methods, but I wanted you realize what was actually involved before you did it. I was once like you and couldn’t go through with it either.” She handed Nabiki a picture, ‘this is my husband and our daughter, she’s two”

“But you said you were in university?” questioned Nabiki.

“My husband and I got married while still in high school and we moved in with my parents until I got my scholarship. Then we moved into married student housing. The other young mother’s in the building and I take turns watching each other’s babies while we attend classes. My husband also got a scholarship, which helps us. We are hardly rich, but have each other and our daughter, because I didn’t step through those doors. Nabiki, I don’t mean to sound preachy, I don’t know your situation. Would you like to talk about it? I’m a good listener.” Nabiki found herself confiding everything to the stranger. Akira nodded “that’s why causal sex rarely works, normally at least one person develops unwanted feelings for the other. Now, is he poor and can’t afford to help you?”

“No, he’s stinking rich,” admitted Nabiki.

“Do he suffer from mental problems?” Akira asked.

Remembering his past behaviour “not any more” she said.

“Do his parents object your match?” Akira persisted.

“His mother’s dead and his father’s estranged from him,” Nabiki explained.

“Is it that you don’t have feelings for him?”

“I think I care too about him,” Nabiki whispered.

“Sounds to me that you should talk to him and give him a choice about your child, it’s his child too. This is a decision that should be made together, before you sneak off and get an abortion you might both regret someday,” Akira advised

“You’re right,” said Nabiki, reaching a decision. “Thanks for the tea and the advice” she said, hugging the dynamic young woman.

“Hopefully you can do the same for another frightened young girl one day” said Akira.

Kodachi

Kodachi was dancing around when the saw the test results that her hired doctor faxed her. She called the woman immediately “so it’s true!”

“Yes, she’s about four weeks along”

“Beautiful, she was still with my brother at the time. Did she say anything?”

“Yes, she seemed really numb with shock and then asked if I knew of an abortion clinic”

“What?” Kodachi yelled and hung up on the woman in anger. She saw all of her hard work slipping down the drain. She saw that she would have to step things up.

So she called a print shop “hello, I need to get about two thousand fliers made up and delivered to Furinkan High School; it would be to announce someone’s pregnancy. I’ll email you the flyer in a few minutes. Can you prepare them for Monday morning? I’d don’t care if the rush job costs extra, just do it! Oh, what would the price be to hire a couple of people to pass them out in front high school?” she asked smoothly.