The Journey is the Destination Chapter 8 By poetheather Another day dawns on the Saotome household and things seem to be getting back to normal, with Ranma's girlhood becoming slightly less than an issue. Or had it?

Ranma opened her eyes a little and sighed, content. She was warm and comfortable in a way she had never really been before and it wanted to lull her back to sleep, so she didn’t fight it and let her eyes close again. A familiar voice called out from right next to her. “Ranma, we need to wake up.”

“Unh..’kane, fivmrmints.” She snuggled closer to the warm body she was being held by, resting her head on the other person’s shoulder.

There was a sigh and then, “Fine, a few more minutes.”

Ranma’s mind began to process everything slowly as it was growing more awake by the minute. There was a warm, soft body next to hers and then Akane’s voice was right next to him. Warm body… Akane’s voice… warm body… Akane’s voice…?

Ranma was suddenly standing against the far wall shaking, hands over her head to protect it. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

She heard the creak of the bed and kept muttering her apologies, hoping that might have her life spared, crouching down to make a smaller target. Akane’s pace was measured and she stood in front of the cowering redhead. Ranma whimpered slightly. This was going to hurt.

She took her arms and pulled them away from her head. Ranma winced in preparation of the Malleting of Doom that was sure to be on the way. There was another sigh and then Akane said, “Ranma, I’m not going to hit you for something I did. Now come on. I want to run before all the excitement starts today.”

Ranma blinked a few times, her brain trying to reboot and make sense of what had just happened or rather not happened. “You… You’re not going to hit me?”

Akane shook her head and she pulled on her running clothes. “Ranma you were having nightmares last night and you needed the comfort. So I got you into my bed and that seemed to help.”

Ranma couldn’t recall that but then she was often glad when she couldn’t remember her nightmares. Akane had been there for her, had taken care of her and had kept her safe. She said softly, “Thank you.”

Akane turned and hugged her fiancé. “You’re welcome. No hurry up and get dressed. We have a big day and I want to have finished our work out before your mom shows up.”

Ranma smiled and got dressed quickly.

Their run did her a lot of good and she felt invigorated. Akane certainly had something with this whole running thing she did every morning. Maybe she needed to do this in the morning because waking up with the panda wasn’t any fun. She really hated it when she woke up and was flying through the air, not really knowing if she was up or down, or even where the ground was. It scared her a little each time it happened, not that big tough Ranma Saotome would ever have admitted that to anyone. There had been so many things he had to pretend didn’t bother him all the time because he would look soft and it seemed as if violence and anger were the only feelings his father didn’t call soft.

Ranma sighed. All of that crap her father had given her to believe in, that girls were worthless and weak, that the Art was the only thing that mattered, the whole way she had been asked to live with the constant attacks, the fighting for food, all of that was making him a caricature of a real person. Thankfully, her mom seemed to have gotten over the man’s man nonsense and was trying to help her. Why wasn’t she allowed to just be Ranma? Why did it have to take wearing a dress to be allowed to feel what she felt and act the way she wanted to act? Why did she have to be a girl to have a means of escape from that nonsense?

At least he had been able to tell Akane before this all took place that she loved the tomboy. That had been the most important thing she had ever done and she was quite aware of that. After almost losing her during the fight against Saffron, she just couldn’t bear not telling her. The crap at the wedding spooked him, making him angry and nervous, so he had blurted out his insults like normal, protesting everything. That she had gone and done that really embarrassed her. She knew she had hurt Akane’s feelings and she was trying to make up for that.

Akane put on her gi and Ranma her Chinese clothes, ready to get some forms and sparing practice in before breakfast. They walked outside and could hear Genma still snoring upstairs. The two girls giggled and got into the dojo, ready to work.

After they bowed at the small shrine in there, they started first with some of the kata, to warm and stretch their bodies. As they went along in the forms, Ranma did less and less of her own form and more and more helping Akane with getting her katas correct, helping her to adjust small problems here and there. They went through three of the forms and Akane was starting to autocorrect some of the problems by the time they were on the last one. The two girl’s smiled at each other and bowed once they were finished.

Akane got into her fighting stance and Ranma stood there, hands behind her back, the whole thing reminiscent of when the two had met. Ranma giggled as she recalled that and asked, “You do Karate don’t you?”

With narrowed eyes, Akane was trying to figure out what Ranma was doing. She hesitantly answered, “A little.”’

“Then let’s have a match. Just for fun. Don’t worry. I won’t hurt you.” Ranma grinned broadly.

Akane finally caught on to what Ranma was referencing and smiled back happily. Ranma loved that smile. He would do most anything for that smile.

They launched into their attacks and the match got more and more serious, going from the simple sparring to more what Ranma had done everyday with her father. After a bit, Ranma stopped things and gave Akane some pointers on how to make her attacks more effective and her defense stronger. Then the fight was back on. It went back and forth like this for a while before they called it quits. They bowed to each other, bowed to the shrine and headed out. Ranma said, “Akane, do you want the first bath?”

“No, we’ll bathe together like we have been. It’ll be okay.” Akane was beaming happily. She had missed that sort of instruction, that type of help with her fighting and it made her feel good, like Ranma was giving her respect for being a martial artist.

When they came downstairs for breakfast, with both of tem wearing skirts and Ranma again having a ribbon in her hair, everyone was sitting there but the mood was a bit tense, as if a black cloud of tension hung over the table. In fact, it looked as if Genma was trembling for some reason. The two girls sat down, a bit confused, and waited, knowing it wouldn’t be long for food to arrive. Sure enough, Kasumi came out with the bowls of miso soup on a tray. And then, Nodoka followed her out with the rice.

Ranma remembered the conversation yesterday and leapt to her feet, calling out excitedly, “Momma!”

Nodoka and Ranma hugged and the older kissed the younger on the forehead, clearly happy to see the redhead. All around the table there were people who had face faulted over this display, who had all been quite sure that this encounter would end in fire and destruction and seppuku. Nodoka held Ranma out at arms length, “And how is my daughter today?”

“Just fine. I missed you.” Ranma beamed happily at her mother. Once she had found out that she was still alive, Ranma had really tried to reunite with her and was glad that she had finally succeeded.

“I know that the training trip was long and hard, but look what a beautiful and strong woman you have become. I am so proud of you, daughter.” Nodoka hugged Ranma again.

The sound of brains breaking was almost audible. Genma was the one thrown most of all and he started looking back and forth between Nodoka and Ranma as if that would help him figure out what was going on, as if this were some sort of strange action free tennis match. Did he actually have a daughter? Had he always had a daughter? Surely Nodoka would have made him commit seppuku for dressing like a woman if he were actually a boy, right? And he did actually have a son, right? It was too early for this and he needed sake.

Nabiki was trying to sort this out as well. If Mrs. Saotome was in on it then there was little chance of finding out what was going on as having Kasumi and her working together was a frightening proposition. She had to wait for one of them to screw up and she was beginning to get an idea about how unlikely that was. She gritted her teeth in frustration, trying not to let it show. There was something going on here and she wanted to know about it. Not knowing things made her feel incompetent, like she had utterly no clue about anything going on around her, like she was a failure and she hated that. Ever since her mother had died, Nabiki had been focused on making money for the family and on knowing everything that she could about everything going on around her. If she had known what to do, she might have been able to save her mother.

Ranma sat down again and they all called out before eating, “Itadakimasu!”

Genma sat there uncharacteristically quiet and not eating. He just sat there and stared at his wife and his son… daughter… child… whatever he had. Why were they not committing seppuku? This didn’t make any sense. At this point, he was positive that he needed a lot of sake just to barely cope. What had he done in his life that justified this?

Nodoka smiled at the two girls sitting next to each other, “So girls, what did you have in mind for today?”

Akane smiled back, enjoying getting to know her eventual mother in law. “We were going to maybe do some shopping, get Ranma’s haircut again, watch a movie, something fun and relaxing.”

“That certainly sounds like fun.” replied Nodoka. “Do you need any money daughter?”

“Yes please.” Ranma gave her cute look and Nodoka and Kasumi chuckled. “I usually don’t get any as Pops is stingy.”

“Here you go sweetie. Just don’t spend it all on ice cream.” chided her mother.

“But Mom… I like ice cream.” Ranma whined a little.

Akane laughed. “Aunt Saotome, I’ll make sure she doesn’t spend it all there.”

Ranma blushed at that and looked down. Was it her fault that she liked ice cream so much? She had never had anything like that when she was on the road with her father. It had all been camp rise and occasionally some sort of stolen food. She was making up for lost time. There were years worth of no ice cream that had to be made up.

“Oh, girls, can you go to the store for me first and bring back what I need for dinner?” asked Kasumi. “It isn’t a large list.”

“Sure. I guess we do that really quickly and then get to our fun.” said Akane.

“I wanted to make something special for dinner tonight and I have other things to do with the housework. This really would be a big help for me.”

“No problem Neechan. Since we don’t really have any plans that should be just fine. Well run off and get that taken care of.”

The two stood up, got the shopping list, and said their goodbyes to everyone. They headed out and when they had turned around the corner, out of sight of the Tendo Dojo, Ranma sighed, her shoulders slumping a little. Akane looked over and asked, “Are you okay?”

“It is kind of hard to play like a girl all the time. It exhausts me some times and I have no idea if I am doing a good job. It is good to get to a place where I don’t have to be as on all the time, like I am around the family.” Ranma hung her head a little at that.

Akane reached over and hugged the girl, her fiancée who she really loved. “It’ll get easier Ranma and you have been getting better, acting more like a girl.”

The look that Ranma gave her was full of hope. “Really?”

“Yes. You should be fine. I believe in you.” Just hearing that made the redhead smile broadly.

“Thank you Akane.” Ranma skipped a bit ahead and turned around, walking backwards, facing the tomboy. “You have really been more help than I could ever have imagined. Thank you for everything.”

She bumped into someone and instantly turned to apologize. “Gomen nasai.”

The face she looked into was very, very familiar and stole Ranma’s voice away. The muscular boy she had walked into turned, his hair held back by a yellow and black bandana. He looked apologetic until he saw who he had bumped into, “Gomen. I didn’t… see… Ranma?”

Ranma smiled at the Lost Boy nervously, unsure what to do here. “Hi Ryoga. Where have you been?”

The Lost Boy stared at him and he grew slowly angrier. “Why are you dressed like that? Are you trying to trick Akane? You jerk. Ranma Saotome, prepare to die!”