[Ranma][FanFic] newRanma 3 - Healing
C. Jones
here without permission.
------------------------------
newRanma 3: Healing
by Chris Jones
------------------------------
Ranma had had migraines before. Some pretty good ones, due to
a certain someone's tendency to use heavy blunt instruments to work
out her irritations.
While she was in and out of consciousness during the surgery,
Ranma had the abstract knowledge that her head was supposed to hurt.
The drugs kept the force of the pain away, making it merely a concept
rather than a brutal reality. It kept her calm, even though she could
feel the cool air blowing over the cut flesh and bone that gave way
directly into her...
She didn't feel it when they actually touched her brain. She
felt some other things, but she couldn't actually feel *that*. Tofuu
told her that she wouldn't, but she didn't believe him until it
happened.
Now that she was awake and the drugs were wearing off,
Ranma's head hurt like hell. She didn't like it. No sir. Not one bit.
"How are you feeling, Ranma?" Tofuu asked from somewhere
nearby.
Ranma clenched her eyes shut, willing the light and sound
away. It just made her head hurt worse as the sutured flesh tightened
slightly over the cut bone in her skull.
"nnnn!!!!"
"Ah. Not well I take it," Tofuu guessed. "You'll be glad to
know that the clot was completely removed. I know that we had you do
it during the surgery, but I'd like you to count to ten again, just
so we know everything's okay."
"wass... afraid ya got the wires in backward?"
"Something like that."
"One two ten," Ranma bit off. "Ya happy?"
Tofuu shook his head and chuckled. "For now. When you're
feeling better, I'd like to run a more thorough battery of tests.
Right now, I think there's someone who wants to see you if you're
feeling up to it."
"Huh?" Ranma asked.
Suddenly, Ranma felt a pair of arms wrap around her. There
was a sobbing, and a wetness on Ranma's face. She opened her eyes a
little bit, just enough to see a shock of bluish black hair. There
was a muffled sobbing in her ear as well.
"Ah Akane... don't cry."
* * *
Over the next week, Akane almost single-handedly monopolized
Ranma's visiting-hours. Ranma was unconscious or asleep most of the
time, but the other girls grew rather irritated with her. They were
all allowed brief, supervised visits however. Quite a few of Ranma's
friends from school dropped by. Hinako-sensei stopped by briefly with
a summary of the week's lessons.
Even Kodachi came and stared into Ranma's sleeping face,
despite the fact that she was female. Wordlessly, she turned and left
after only a few seconds.
On the fifth day, Akane, Shampoo and Ukyou were present to
see Ranma's dressings changed. They got a good, stomach turning look
at the roughly rectangular cut and the large sutures on the side of
Ranma's fuzzy scalp. Tofuu informed them that the doctors usually
used metal staples in the skull for cases like Ranma's, but had used
an organic cement in this case. It slightly lengthened the recovery
time, but Ranma couldn't afford to have inorganic material shifting
around in her scalp when she changed.
Ranma was silent through the procedure. She was more than a
little upset at the noises of disgust the three girls made when her
scalp was exposed.
On the sixth day, Ranma was up and walking around despite
Tofuu's recommendations. When she started doing basic katas, Tofuu
came into her room to watch.
"My balance is all screwed up," she complained after a few
minutes
"You have been laying in bed for almost a week, Ranma. That's
enough to give anyone a little trouble getting back on their feet,"
Tofuu explained.
"nnn..." Ranma grunted, going through yet another repetition.
On the seventh day, Tofuu decided to remove Ranma's bandages
altogether and let her incision heal in the open air. Doctor Najima
argued briefly to put Ranma in a neck-brace to minimize possible head
trauma, but Tofuu recognized the pleading look in Ranma's eyes and
decided not to allow the brace. He did get Ranma a padded boxing
helmet and required the youth to wear it while moving around the
room.
* * *
On the ninth day of Ranma's confinement, she was lying in bed
reading a manga when there was a quiet knock at the door of her room.
"Hey," she said, expecting one of the girls to come in.
Instead, the door opened slowly. After a few minutes,
Tatewaki Kunou stepped gingerly into the room. He was carrying a
bouquet of roses.
Ranma rolled her eyes and groaned quietly. She stuffed the
manga under her pillow and stared the kendoist in the face.
"Hey, Kunou."
Stepping around her as if she was made of glass, the blue-
robed youth quietly sat the roses down on the table next to her bed
and rushed out of the room.
Ranma sighed and put her sore head in her hands. She didn't
know what bugged her more, the fact that Kunou showed up or the fact
that he was now afraid he would hurt her.
* * *
Later that day, Tofuu, Kasumi, Nabiki and Akane took Ranma to
the hospital cafeteria for lunch. It was a welcome change from the
tray lunches she had received for the last several days. It was also
quite an entertainment to watch Tofuu switch from 'full Kasumi-itis'
mode into a more serious medical mode whenever any of the other
doctors stopped to talk to him.
Ranma would have doubled over laughing if not for the
persistent pain involved in moving her head too much.
On the way back from lunch, Akane was happily wheeling Ranma
along in her wheelchair when Tofuu directed the group down a hallway
that Ranma hadn't seen before.
Pretty soon, they were going through a ward that housed many
seriously injured patients. Ranma had been attached to EKG and EEG
monitors for a few days, but many of these patients had a whole array
of apparatus surrounding them.
"What is this place?" Ranma asked, nervously eyeing some of
the twitchier patients.
"This is the head trauma ward," Tofuu explained. "You were in
here briefly just after you arrived. We moved you to the CCU after we
figured out that you had a cranial bleed."
"Ugh," Ranma whispered.
"Ugh, exactly," Tofuu agreed. "I brought you in here so that
you could see what you were up against."
"Huh?" Ranma asked in confusion.
Somewhat guiltily, Akane let Tofuu take over wheeling Ranma
down the long corridor.
"You're staring to move around again. That's good, because it
shows how fast you're recovering, but it's also bad, in the sense
that you're not fully healed yet. An accident at this stage of the
game could have a lot more serious effects than you might think."
"I don't get what you're sayin', Doc," Ranma replied
nervously.
"Let me be a little more explicit, then," Tofuu said,
dropping the hammer. "I'm going to restrict your actions until I feel
that you're fully healed from brain surgery, Ranma."
"What?"
"No acrobatics and no martial arts other than basic katas for
three months," Tofuu said as Ranma's expression became angry and
contrary. "No sparring whatsoever. No exceptions. No running to
school on the fence, either. I've seen how you do that and you could
easily lose your balance and fall."
Ranma glared darkly at both the doctor and Akane, who
couldn't bring herself to look Ranma in the face.
"What if I don't wanna?" Ranma asked in a petulant tone.
"I'm not going to treat you anymore if you don't," Tofuu
said. "And in the worst case, you could end up back in here. I don't
want that and I don't think you want that. Do you?"
Grumbling, Ranma crossed her arms and pulled her feet up into
the wheelchair.
"I'm sorry, Ranma," Akane said. "But you really do have to
have time to heal."
"It's for the best," Nabiki agreed from where she and Kasumi
were trailing slightly behind the other three. "A few months of down-
time against the possibility of a whole lifetime of disability. Think
about it for a bit."
"It will be okay, Ranma-kun," Kasumi assured the redhead.
"I'm sure all your friends will wait until you're better to play,
don't you think?"
"Promise us?" Akane asked.
Defeated by Akane's pleading expression, Ranma nodded. "I'll
promise, but I won't like it."
"I'll give you some books," Tofuu said in a consoling tone.
"You can learn some Shiatsu while you heal. I know it's not as
exciting as the other arts you practice, but I've found it to be
invaluable knowledge. Think of it as a challenge."
"Shiatsu, or not getting into any fights for three months,"
Ranma asked in a petulant tone.
"Both," Tofuu said.
* * *
Ranma was released from the hospital two days later. She
hated being pushed out of the hospital in her wheelchair, but was
even more upset by the taxi that Soun and Genma had waiting for her.
"I can walk!" she protested.
"Well, it's a bit early to be exerting yourself, don't you
think?" Soun asked.
"I'll ride with you," Nodoka offered.
In the end, Ranma, Akane, and Nodoka ended up riding in the
taxi back to the Tendou dojo. Ranma was appalled at the price but
kept her mouth shut.
"It's quite all right, dear," Nodoka said after she paid the
driver. "I took out a very large medical insurance policy on you and
your father some time back. This came out of that money."
Ranma blinked. "I was kinda wonderin' how we were gonna pay
for the hospital bills."
"There are a few expenses that haven't been addressed yet,
but I think we'll be okay," Nodoka said. "You shouldn't worry about
it."
Ranma's shoulders slumped. "Ah well. It's good to be back,"
she said.
* * *
Two weeks passed in which Ranma did little but soak up bed
rest and Kasumi's cooking in vast quantities.
She hated to admit it, but the combination of such an
intrusive surgery *and* a week in bed had all but decimated her
stamina. She worked out a little each day, but found that she didn't
really want to break Tofuu's restrictions yet.
Since she was no longer able to spar with her father, he and
Soun had actually started taking a few students at the dojo with
beginning and advanced kenpo classes. Ranma guessed that most of the
extra money was being used to cover some of the 'expenses' that her
mother had mentioned, but signs of it did show up around the house.
Nodoka had some new clothes, including a pretty, modern dress that
Ranma thought she was beautiful in, and Kasumi bought a few more
things for the kitchen. Akane was bringing her a new manga every day
after school. Nabiki, as usual, played her cards close to her chest.
Ranma couldn't tell that the extra money affected her at all, even
though she was certain that she was extracting a good share from her
father.
Genma seemed to have a hard time talking to her. Akane had
pretty much recovered from the incident that triggered Ranma's odd
behavior and tipped them off to the brain injury, but it seemed that
her father felt mostly responsible for the original injury in the
first place. Ranma was irritated, but felt no need to confront the
man.
Instead, she learned to play go with Soun, and rapidly
learned all the man's best techniques, including all the best cheats
and distractions.
In just a few days, Ranma was up to doing two or three hours
of katas a day while Akane was at school. She never realized that she
could actually *want* to go to school, or even how lonely she could
be at home by herself.
It was just a few days before she was scheduled to return to
school that Ranma found Kasumi watching television in the main room
one afternoon. It was quiet, but there was a dramatic scene on the
screen riveting the older girl's attention.
"Hey," Ranma said, greeting the girl.
Kasumi's attention never wavered.
"What are you watching?" Ranma asked, sitting down next to
Kasumi. She stared at the show for a few minutes before realizing
that it was a soap opera.
Great. Kasumi was a soap-head. Who knew?
With nothing better to do, Ranma bit the bullet and tried to
decipher the complex story. She gave up after a few seconds and
pulled out a manga to read while she waited for the show to finish.
A few moments should be spent here describing what was
otherwise a completely plotless show. 'Nurse Academy' revolved around
the personal relationships between several very attractive and very
interchangeable young women and the doctors they spent their time
with.
Needless to say, there were no end of faithless marriages,
duplicitous affairs and completely unsurprising plot twists.
The first lacy, bra-clad bosom shown as two of the
interchangeable lovers got into a steamy makeout scene ripped Ranma's
eye away from her 'Dragonball' manga and glued it back on the screen
She blinked twice, not really sure of what she was seeing.
"Eimi's the licentious one," Kasumi explained quietly,
blushing at the scene but not looking away. "She's so naughty, always
stealing Kakeri's boyfriends. She even... *ahem*... slept... with
Takara's husband!"
"Urr..."
The next day, Ranma again joined Kasumi for 'Nurse Academy'.
She was there anyway, and there was the implied guarantee that at
least one of the girls was going to be in *some* state of undress
sometime during the show. As it was however, Ranma made a mistake and
began to look for plot where there was none in order to cover her
secret intentions.
"So what's that guy do again?" Ranma asked of one of the more
muscular male characters, who seemed to have the best luck getting
into the raciest situations.
"Sifuru?" Kasumi responded. "He's the head of the grounds
department. He's actually a plant for the Ministry of Intelligence,
but is working at the Academy to eventually expose Kituto. What
Kituto doesn't know is that the girl he's having an affair with,
Mikao, is actually Sifuru's daughter."
"Wait a sec... That girl," Ranma pointed to the tight
uniform-clad nurse as she pranced across the screen, "is supposed to
be that guy's daughter?"
"Sifuru was played by a much older actor when I was in high
school," Kasumi explained, "But when Akumi-san left, he was replaced
with this actor to boost ratings."
"Okay..."
The next day, Ranma decided that she was pretty damn sick and
tired of being a girl, and spent her time moping around the yard
while Soun and her father conducted a Kenpo class in the dojo. When
three P.M. rolled around, Ranma was more than happy to have the
distraction of watching 'Nurse Academy' with Kasumi. Secretly, she
was a little disappointed that none of the girls took off any of
their clothes, but enjoyed the discussion of the show with Kasumi
nonetheless. It was nice to have *someone* to talk to.
When Akane and Nabiki came home that day, Ranma found that
she was having a difficult time *not* discussing the show.
The next day, a Friday, was a school holiday. It was also the
last school day Ranma was scheduled to stay at home. Akane and Nabiki
were home for the day. Akane spent the first part of the day
puttering over Ranma, and trying to get the recovering girl to let
her wrap bandages around her head. Nabiki, in turn, took extra time
to tease Ranma about the amount of schoolwork she was going to have
to catch up on. After the initial rush on Ranma, the redhead
relocated to the dojo to read her Dragonball manga. Ranma found
herself waiting for three o'clock with tapping feet.
It was because Miki was getting into a deepening relationship
with Dirk, the gaijin brain surgeon. There was a fairly decent chance
that she'd take off her blouse again.
(It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Moto had
setup a secret date with Eimii at the same time his fiancee, Kakeri
had a business presentation to make for the hospital at the same
restaurant.)
Ranma worked her way back into the main room about ten
minutes before the main event. She flipped on the television to an
innocuous gardening program, and settled down in the back of the room
with her tankouban. Her usual pattern was to wait for Kasumi to come
in and change the channel.
To his surprise however, Nabiki and Akane marched in five
minutes before the show started.
"Sorry, Saotome," Nabiki prompted, nudging Ranma with her
foot. I know you're sick and all, but you'll just have to take off.
Our program is about to come on."
"What?" Ranma demanded, hurt and a little disappointed.
"Akane, Nabiki, are you going to watch with me today?" Kasumi
asked as she came into the room from the kitchen.
"You betcha, Sis!" Nabiki announced, holding up her copy of
'NHK Serial Weekly'. This is Miki's date with Dirk and Kakeri's big
presentation. It's only because we got the day off that we can watch
it with you!"
"Kakeri's big presentation..." Ranma wondered aloud.
"That's right, Ranma," Nabiki cautioned. "Boring girl stuff.
You wouldn't like it."
"Uhh..."
Akane did her best to placate the girl. "It's okay, Ranma.
We'll let you have the television back right after 'Nurse Academy' is
over, okay?"
Ranma's jaw dropped open in surprise. They *all* wanted to
see...
"Where should I look for you?" Akane's question interrupted
Ranma's train of thought. "In your room? In the dojo?"
Ranma *could* relocate, so as to distance herself from any
risk of being seen watching the show, but...
She *really* wanted to see Kakeri give it to that bitch,
Eimi!
"Uh... I'll just read here in the back. I'll be okay."
"Okay, Ranma," Nabiki replied regretfully. "Don't say we
didn't warn you."
Ranma was glad to have the company as she watched the soap.
-----
~to be continued...
--
* * *
C. Jones - gui...@furinkan.net - http://www.furinkan.net
Public Key: http://www.furinkan.net/key.txt
Everybody in the room stared at Mihoshi. The policewoman
began to cry."I didn't mean to infect the world! I'm so
sorry!!!! WAHHHAHHHHHHH!!!!"
- From 'The Virus'