Down to Earth

Down to Earth

May 25th, 2005

Furu grimaced as the Mountain Dew Vending Machine-shaped TARDIS fell oh him.

He grunted as he pushed the large green machine off of his body, allowing him to breathe again, which felt a lot better than being crushed. The TARDIS fell over to the side with a crash, and the sounds muffled pain could be heard from within. Grunting a little, Furu got up of the floor and brushed himself off, giving the green machine a glare and then sighing. It was going to be one of those days.

"You know," he said to the TARDIS' occupants, "That thing IS a little heavier than it looks..."

"Moh..." Minako groaned, clambering out of the TARDIS, and adjusting the straps on her dress. "Why did Furufurufurufurufurufurufurufurufurufurufurufurufurufurufurufurufurufurufurufuru-chan knock it over??"

Furu's eye twitched a little as he tried to ignore the possibly 100% accurate idea in his head of what was going on in there. "It tipped OVER on me. I had to do something to get it off, or would you of preferred I waited until you guys had....finished?"

So much for the ignoring.

Minako blushed for a moment, flushing beet red. Then she chuckled and shoved Furu gently on the shoulder. "So Furu-chan's reached that time of life, ne? Maybe I'll get X-chan to teach you about the bards and the breakbeats." She smiled and walked past Furu with a slight stagger.

*....That wasn't even CLOSE to right*, Furu thought to himself. He span around and flailed his arms about a little. "Don't you think you're dodging the issue a little here?! I was smushed! If it were anyone else under that thing, they would of needed an freakin' rescue team...or...somethin' like that!"

Minako quickly spun on her heels, long blonde hair swirling around her for a moment as she learned forwards and looked Furu in the eye. "Ne... how come you were so close to it, then??" She stood bolt upright, in shock. "Masaka... you weren't... listening, were you??" The expression in her eyes became one of exaggerated fear.

His face turning red, Furu found himself without a response. He managed to quickly stammer one out. "I...well...um...wanted a Dew. They just seem to fall out randomly, ya know..."

Minako was about to make a joke, but then her expression changed, became more serious. She looked around. There was no one in the house right now except for her husband, and he would be sleeping like a stone for several hours. She looked Furu in the eyes, gazing deeply, and put her hand on his left shoulder. "Furu-chan..." she began slowly, quietly.

Furu looked back into her eyes for just a second, and then found himself looking away. Here comes another chance for a girl to make me look like a total idiot, he found himself thinking a lot more bitterly than he normally would. "W-what is it?"

Minako nodded to the Venus sofa, the softest and most comfortable sofa in the house, covered in plush red velvet that was soft to the touch. It was a spot usually reserved for her and Xadium, and sometimes Artemis and Sakura. No one else used it. Ever. "Sit with me," she said slowly.

"...Huh?" The word was out of his mouth before he could think about it, and he regretted it as soon as it left, simply for the sheer stupidity it indicated. Furu certainly hadn't expected this. "I mean... A-are you sure?", he asked.

"Onegai," Minako said in almost a breathless whisper, sitting on the sofa and sinking into it a bit, crossing her long legs and settling in comfortably. She patted the cushion next to her, on which a Xadium plushie sat.

"All right..." Furu looked down at the plush doll of the man who was, as far as his crazy "family tree" went, was his brother-in-law. He lifted the toy up and sat it on the arm of the sofa, taking care to make sure it didn't just flat out fell off. The green-haired jinzouningen then took its place, and his first thought as his sat down was...*Wow. This thing really IS as comfy as it looks.*

Minako smiled slightly and looked Furu in the eyes. "Furu-chan," she said slowly, still quietly. "How long have we known each other?" She tossed her hair a little.

"Uhh...that's a good question..," he thought out-loud. Furu scratched the side of his head idly and squinted one eye as he tried to think back as far as he could, searching both his human brain and the mechanized parts Gero had inserted. "....Over a year, maybe?"

Minako nodded. "Furu-chan... I know I pick on you sometimes, but I mean it when I say you're like my kawaii little brother." She ruffled his hair, and exhaled, suddenly looking sad. "And I trust you... so..."

She closed her eyes for a long moment, as if trying to will up the words. But she couldn't. Not yet.

"What do you think of X-chan and me?" she asked frankly.

Furu's mind froze, fortunately not in the literal sense that came with his faulty brain's crummy OS. "W-what do you mean, 'think'?," he stammered out.

Minako's look got even sadder. She raised her left hand and looked at her golden wedding ring sadly. "It's not a joke, right??"

A look of surprise replaced the nervousness on Furu's face. His sister was obviously in distress, and he certainly hadn't expected this. "Of course it's not!", he said, turning to her on the couch. "What gave you that idea?"

"Furu-chan," she repeated, going deadly quiet for a few moments. Furu blinked, tilting his head slightly as he regarded her. He bit his lower lip a little as he tried to think of a way to break the leaden silence, but these moments were always somewhat awkward for him. As he opened his mouth to speak, he was startled by Minako lunging towards him and grabbing him by the shoulders, a look of wild panic in her crystal blue eyes.

"Furu-chan I did something *horrible* to him while we were gone, and he just looks and me and smiles, like nothing happened!! He won't talk about it at all! I don't know what to do!!" She released him and leaned back on the sofa, limp and somewhat lifeless as she looked past Furu, not seeing him, yet still somehow paying attention to him.

After a few agonizingly silent moments, Furu managed to open his mouth, but found nothing coming out. He know what he should do. He should be consoling, should be supportive, should be doing the cheer, optimistic, "Everything will work out" act he did with everything else. Instead, all he could do was force himself to say the obvious question: "...You still love him, right?"

Minako clenched her fists a little and just nodded numbly. "But you don't understand..." She winced, and tears began to well up in her eyes. When she continued, her voice was small and meek, almost like a little girl's. "I hurt him... I stabbed him... I killed him... again and again and again and again and ag--" her voice cracked, and she began to sob uncontrollably, leaning on Furu for balance.

Furu moved slightly, placing his hand on Minako's shoulder. The weight of this must of been killing her a little every day, and somehow he knew that there was a very slim chance he could help at all. But he had to try. He owed her that much. He waited for the crying to stop before he spoke. "Mina-neechan...I..I've never really told anyone this, but I used to be a...very bad person."

Minako looked at Furu dully, her once bright and cheerful complexion puffy and bleak. She didn't reply, but did not turn away.

Furu looked his big sister in the eyes, and continued, his own voice becoming unsteady as he forced himself to remember things he promised he'd make himself forget. "The people that crea-..that I worked for were horrible. Beings that cared nothing for life. All they wanted was destruction, and I was happy to give it to them. I may not seem like it, but...." Furu trailed off, wondering how to go on.

"My hands...." Minako said slowly, the words just rising to her throat unbidden, "They were moving... and doing things... and *I* was making them do them. I knew it... but... it wasn't all me... I can't explain..." She held up her hands and looked at them, seeing the fingers that had wrapped around her lover's throat, closing around it and crushing the life out of him even as they had shared a passionate kiss. "Inside me... there's someone else... someone I used to be... who I still am... and she made me kill him and I couldn't stop her!!"

".....It never gets any easier." That's all Furu could think of to say. "Killing people...blood on your hands. It's the one thing about life that stays with you." He looked down at the floor and lowered his voice, as if he ashamed for anyone to hear it, even himself. "It's a weight you have to carry, something you have to cope with every day...but it wasn't you that killed him. You couldn't."

"But I DID!" Minako yelled. "Don't you see? In my soul, I AM Venus no Megami! I did it to him! This wasn't some outside force... some part of ME wanted my HUSBAND DEAD!" Minako sobbed and kept sobbing as she spoke. "It wasn't an outside force, Furu-chan... he loved me, trusted me, and yes, he did something wrong, but it was for me... and I repaid him with...." She choked on her grief and quieted down in a state of semi shock.

Furu looked back up, seeing the sorrowful expression on Minako's face and the streams of tears coming down her face. It was hurting him, being unable to make her feel better, and he was out of anything he could say to do that. He truly was incapable of helping people, but he knew he had to keep trying. "Mina-neechan, what your other self did...that's NOT you. I know you. You, Aino Minako, could NEVER hurt Dr. X, you have to realize that. There's nothing you can do...but keep going." On an impulse born of desperation to do something, anything, to help, Furu hugged Minako tight, and felt himself starting to cry too. "...I can't stand you being sad like this. Hating yourself..."

Minako hugged Furu back, sobbing for a few more moments, but then calming down quite a bit and sniffling. "I just don't know where to go from here, she said softly, pulling away from Furu. "I mean, you heard us." She smiled a little. "Everything seems normal... he still smiles at me all the time, treats me kindly, would do anything for me... but there's a look in his eyes sometimes... something sad, and distant, and maybe a little scared..." She gulped a little. "Oh, Furu..." She took a long breath. "I was always so happy because I knew he was a Time Lord and they lived a long time, and so I thought we could be happy and live together for a long time.... but... I might have robbed us of our happy future.... What if he..." She paused for a moment, almost unable to say the words. When she did speak it was barely audible. "...dies?"

Furu folded his arms, thinking very carefully about this. He managed to get a little bit of a nervous half-smile on his face as he spoke. "I guess...you'll have to make sure that doesn't happen. He'll be more careful now too...he knows you couldn't stand losing him, so if nothing else, he'll make sure he stays alive for you."

Minako smiled slightly, and pulled out a handkerchief, wiping away some of Furu's tears. "Gomen," she said in a cracking, but not sad voice. "I didn't mean to dig up your memories." Her stomach was a queasy knot. There was so much more she wanted to ask, wanted to say, hoping that Furu would tell her the magic words about how to live, how to carry on. But she had burdened him enough. Still... something gnawed at her.

"Furu-chan," she asked seriously, no hint of teasing in her voice. "Is there someone you like?"

Nodding, Furu smiled for real as he thought of the person he really did love, even if she didn't feel quite the same. "Yeah, there is. Someone I like...a lot."

Minako looked at Furu blankly.

"Really?" She asked quietly.

The jinzouningen nodded. "Yep" he said more happily than anything else in a while, glad to be on a subject he could cope better with. "I mean...she doesn't really like me..I think. She sees me like a member of the family, but I can deal with that."

Minako wanted to smile for him. In her heart, she was glad, no, joyous that Furu had finally found someone he might one day be able to love. He deserved that... that happiness that she had gotten the day she had fist decided to stay with her beloved X-chan... that happiness she had almost destroyed. The cost of that painful night in the TARDIS, of that savage bloodletting, was only now becoming clear to her. More than just her blissful afterglow of marriage and the honeymoon, and the arrogant storybook notion of "Miracle Romance 2.0". She had lost something more-- something she was only just beginning to miss.

"Furu-chan," she said blankly, "I couldn't tell that about you at all. I couldn't sense your feelings."

"W-what?" Furu asked in shock. For a brief second, he considered that maybe this was because of him. Maybe he didn't really feel what he thought he felt. The next second, though, he realized that would just be a lie in itself, something he'd make himself think so he could tell Minako things weren't that bad. "...L-look, I'm sure that's just..I dunno..a fluke or somethin'."

Minako made a soft noise of denial, shaking her head. "I can't feel X-chan's feelings either. I used to be able to sense his love for me..." She wrapped her arms around herself and closed her eyes, as if trying to relive the sensation. "... it was so warm, so soft... a part of me that I carried wherever I went, that always made me feel so comforted and safe. I knew that no matter what, he was with me. But after..." Her eyes opened, and she looked down. "Even when we were..." She blushed. "I couldn't... and I thought... maybe he hates me now, or the love between us died, and he's just keeping up a show."

She looked to Furu. "But If I can't sense you either..."

Minako took a long, lingering look at her hands. "She's gone... or hiding... her powers..." she blinked and tried to adjust herself to the idea.

"I'm not the Ai no Megami anymore."

Furu stared blankly at his "big sister", the woman he considered to be closer to him than everyone but his own father, and realized that he had nothing left to say. He hugged her tight, one last time, and wondered if everything would really turn out all right this time.