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Chapter summary: Will Sakaki, even posthumously, have won? Will his “parting gift” be the wedge that finally splits Aiko and Mewtwo apart?

Chapter Twenty One – Sakura, Sakura, Hanazakari
(Cherry Blossom, Cherry Blossom, In Full Bloom)

Aiko sat at the kitchen table with Benjiro on her lap while her mother made a pot of tea. In the two months since she’d been back, the toddler had been her constant shadow, as if fearing she’d disappear again if he let her out of his sight even once.

Aiko rubbed her cheek against the top of his fluffy little head, thinking that Benjiro was not the only one of her family to be keeping a close eye on her: Mewtwo was nearly as obsessive as Benjiro, hovering, sometimes literally, wherever she went. She knew he kept a constant watch on her psychic signature as well, whenever he couldn’t physically be with her.

Whether it was the effect of the sedative on her system or whether she’d merely grown into her previously dormant psychic abilities, Aiko’s mind was now sensitive enough to pick up the trace of each of the children as they checked on her whereabouts psychically. She was getting expert enough at it to be able to recognize each one - their minds all had individual ‘flavours’ and ‘textures’, subtle overtones that brushed gently across her mind like a warm scented breeze now and then throughout the day. Mewtwo’s mind was instantly recognizable from his children: his psychic touch was always far more intimate, enfolding her consciousness in a loving caress, like the touch of a soft velvet glove inside her mind.

So Aiko’s family was still watchful and alert, despite the fact that the new security was working well: they now had a small staff of security officers permanently on the island, a ring of electronic detection buoys in the sea to alert them to the approach of unauthorized boats, plus every member of the family had a small identification tag inserted under the skin of their arms to broadcast their location at all times.

There was no doubt that the precautions served to make Aiko feel more secure, although before Sakaki abducted her, she hadn’t felt at risk…

A cup of tea and plate of cookies was set down on the table in front of Aiko, bringing her back from her musings.

“Would you like to eat something now?” Kagami asked her daughter. “You didn’t touch your breakfast.”

Aiko thought about it for a moment, then nodded and reached for a cookie. “I wish that sedative would clear out of my system,” she complained to her mother as she bit into it. “I thought I’d metabolise it faster than this. I’m still queasy a lot of the time.”

“Mummy sick?” Benjiro asked, also reaching across to the cookies on the plate.

“No, no. Just the medicine I had to take while I was away gives me an upset tummy,” she answered the toddler.

Benjiro nodded and settled back against her, closing his eyes while he ate. Now and then he’d smile, as if he’d thought of something funny.

“Well, you were forced to take rather a lot of it,” her mother said soothingly. “Give it time.”

“I thought I might go down to the lab today and take a blood sample,” Aiko continued. “I can work out the levels of sedative still in my system and hopefully how long before I’m back to normal.” She raised her eyebrows at her mother in a silent question and pointed with her chin to the toddler in her lap.

Kagami nodded, picking up with the ease of long grandmotherhood on her daughter’s implied hint to distract the toddler. “I’ll need Benji-chan’s help today,” she announced. “I’m going to make a cake for Grandad’s birthday. I want a big strong assistant to help me mix it.”

Benjiro opened his eyes alertly at this. “Can I lick the bowl afterwards? No shares with Hanako and Hideaki?”

“It’s all yours,” his grandmother agreed, not bothering to point out that the four eldest children were busy in the gym until lunchtime anyway.

“Yay!” Benjiro bounced up and down. “I’d share with my sister,” he added, suddenly serious again. “Only she’s not here yet.”

Aiko met Kagami’s eyes and they shared a smile. Benjiro had been a little disappointed that his mother had not brought his sister back with her from the spirit world; but he’d been telling anybody who’d listen that she was on her way. Aiko had even heard him talking to his imaginary sister when he thought nobody was around.

Maybe all children were alike in that respect, Aiko mused as she sipped her tea. Although she and Benji were unrelated genetically, she’d also had an imaginary friend when she was small. She used to talk to her toy Little Mew all the time, holding the stuffed doll close, playing and confiding secrets.

And there had been times, just now and then, but particularly when she was in her bed at night, dozing and cuddling the toy, when she could have sworn he’d answered back, sounding far-off and faint inside her head like a whispering echo, barely heard, or like the light touch of a warm, scented breeze over her mind …

*


The lab was quiet when Aiko unlocked the door and entered. All of the staff had gone home for the weekend, and the only sound was an occasional hum from the computers or the muted gloop-gloop of the gestation unit in the middle of the room.

Aiko went to check on Raku and Raiden first. The embryos had been successfully transferred into the new unit. At eight months old, they resembled kittens, rather than the shiny pink jelly-beans of their earlier months. They were both now at least as large as a newborn human baby, had fully formed arms and legs, long tails, eyes that were firmly shut, and a soft downy covering of fur, lilac on Raiden, dove-grey on Raku. Both babies had their tails twined together, as if even at this young stage they were not only aware of each other, but had bonded.

Aiko gathered the equipment she needed and went to sit at her workstation, staring at the small vials she’d collected for the bloodtest with a suddenly dry mouth. Her heart was pounding and she looked down to see that her hands had clenched into tight fists in her lap.

She drew a deep breath and opened her hands with an effort. The fact was, she was scared, and didn’t want to do this. For she hadn’t told her mother the whole truth this morning. Although she hoped with all her will that her recent queasiness was only the sedative still lingering in her body, she’d had another symptom, one that was ominous in the light of what Sakaki had done.

Aiko had last had her menstrual period two weeks before Sakaki abducted her. And since that time, nothing. Over and over during the past six weeks, at least, she’d examined all other options that could explain the absence: maybe the stress of abduction had temporarily upset her menstrual cycle, or the sedative was still in her system, interfering with her natural rhythm. Or perhaps it was just the fact that she was worried that her period hadn’t shown, worry was a known cause of menstrual delay...

Yes, she thought desperately, it was one of those reasons. It couldn’t possibly be the other explanation, the one that had kept her awake at night, tossing and turning, her mouth too dry to swallow.

Because unless she and Mewtwo had somehow managed to circumvent every biological law she’d ever heard of, she very much feared that she was pregnant with Sakaki’s baby.

*

The blood test was conclusive: there was no longer any trace of sedative left in Aiko’s system.

She told herself not to panic; that still left stress as the most probable cause of her absent menses.

That doesn’t explain the recent queasiness and vomiting, her mind objected. Aiko told her traitorous brain to shut up, but it ignored her, as it usually did whenever she was worried. There’s been a weight gain, too, it reminded her.

Well, she responded, I should hope so. I lost way too much on that starvation diet the nurses fed me.

Her hands shook as she pipetted a drop of her blood for the last test. This was one she’d done many times before: mainly on female pokemon, but it worked on humans as well – pregnancy hormones were pregnancy hormones, and would show up for anything mammalian. Once, years ago, she’d performed it for Suzu, back when they’d still been friends. Suzu had been in too much of a panic about an unplanned and unguarded indiscretion to manage the test herself. In that particular case, Aiko remembered, Suzu’s menstrual period had just been delayed. Aiko mentally crossed her fingers that this was also the case for her.

Anxiously she watched the drop of blood as it splashed into the vial, mixing with the chemical inside. It would just stay that shade of rosewater pink, she knew it would, of course it would, there was just no way it would turn the pale blue that indicated pregnancy…

Aiko couldn’t bear to look. She turned her head instead to gaze out of the large window in front of her workstation. This allowed her an uninterrupted view of the gentle slope leading down to the shore, and on the rocks at one end of the beach she could just make out Mewtwo and her father peacefully fishing, having re-established their comfortable pre-abduction ritual of Saturday morning male bonding.

Aiko felt her hands clench once more into fists. What would she tell Mewtwo if the test was positive? But of course, it was not going to be positive. The liquid in the vial would remain pink and unchanged, and Aiko would know that she just had a virus or something similar to explain every anomalous detail of her symptoms …

She forced herself to turn her head back to the desk, slowly, like a child not wanting to look in case the monster you thought you heard behind you turns out to be real.

The chemical within the glass had turned a bright and cheerful shade of blue.

*


Aiko met up with Yutaka and Mewtwo on the path just outside the boat shed. Mewtwo carried the tackle and net, fishing rods slung over one shoulder, while Yutaka held the bait bucket with exaggerated care.

“Get anything?” Aiko greeted them, trying hard for casual. Even in her own ears her voice sounded odd; too high, forced. She peered into the bucket. It was half-full of water, and contained a single small, brightly-coloured fish. “Oh! How pretty!”

Yutaka rolled his eyes in a show of mock exasperation. “Your husband,” he said, “won’t let me eat this. Apparently I have to put it into the aquarium in the lounge room.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Mewtwo gave Aiko a quick smile in greeting, his eyes bright with amusement. “He’s the soft-hearted one. I wanted to throw it back.” He glanced down at her, and seemed to notice something amiss in her expression. His voice echoed telepathically in her head: “What’s wrong?”

“I need a quick word with you in private,” Aiko said. “You don’t mind, do you, Dad?”
“You want to talk about the surprise birthday party I don’t know I’m having,” Yutaka said, nodding wisely. “There’s been whispering going on all week in this family, whenever people think I’m not listening.”

“Something like that,” Aiko answered, not meeting her father’s eyes. “Oh, and Dad, don’t go in through the kitchen, will you? Mum and Benji-chan are making you a cake. Don’t let on that I told you.”

“I didn’t hear it from you. Come on, fish.”

As Yutaka headed on up the slope towards the house, Aiko followed Mewtwo into the boat shed. Motes of dust drifted and danced in the bright sunlight coming in through the window. “Boat shed” was a misnomer; it had never had a boat inside it, at least not to Aiko’s knowledge. The building pre-dated the Mewtwo family’s arrival on the island and was now used for storage, tools, tins of paint, and of course, fishing gear.

Aiko seated herself on an old wooden crate and watched as Mewtwo casually levitated the fishing equipment up onto one of the shelves lining the wall. She still had no clue how to begin; for how do you tell your husband that you’re pregnant to another man? Or to another male, at least.

She felt slightly nauseous, and this time knew it owed nothing to morning sickness but had everything to do with the fear of loss. She stared at Mewtwo as he stowed the gear. She loved watching his graceful body, the way his lean muscles moved so smoothly under his soft, strokeable fur. She loved gazing at his face, such a chimeric blend of human and feline that it shouldn’t work, he shouldn’t be beautiful, yet he was, he was. She knew every curve and line of him in intimate detail, and the fear that she might lose him over this was almost more than she could bear.

Would Sakaki, even posthumously, have won after all? Would this baby she was carrying be the wedge that ultimately drove them apart? Maybe they couldn’t physically separate, not with the risk of Pershan Syndrome recurring. Yet how could Mewtwo ever look at her after this news and not see that Sakaki had claimed her body in the ultimate insult?

They’d been so happy together, here on the island, building a family, a species, together, and never minding that others might find their life choices bizarre or aberrant. But it could never be the same again, not after this.

She had the option of saying nothing, she thought desperately. She could go to the mainland and have an abortion. But even as she thought it, she knew it would never work. Quite apart from the fact that Mewtwo had hardly let her out of his sight these past months, she couldn’t countenance lying to him by omission. They’d always been totally honest with each other. She knew that he’d sense something was wrong if she began now.

Aiko realized that she was shaking, and gripped her hands together hard, staring at the ground. It did nothing to help the dryness in her throat, or ease the ache in her heart.

Mewtwo sat down on his haunches beside her, his blue eyes wide with concern. He put his front paws on her hands, holding them tight between his in a steadying grip. It didn’t stop them shaking, but it helped a little. He ducked his head to look up into her face. “Aiko? This isn’t about Yutaka’s party. You have something to tell me, don’t you?”

Aiko met his eyes for a moment, then, swift as a bubble popping, the tension became too much. She burst into tears, covering her face in her hands. She felt Mewtwo’s warm arms go about her, felt him lift her off the crate and pull her against him, hugging her in wordless comfort against his chest.

“Shh,” the thought vibrated in her head. “Don’t cry, my heart, please don’t cry. It’s going to be alright …”

Aiko leant into his embrace, her hands resting against the soft fur of his chest, trying to control the sobs. No, she thought, it wasn’t alright. Not any more. Sakaki had seen to that.

Slowly the crying slackened, became little hiccuping gasps, then finally stopped. Aiko stayed where she was, curled against Mewtwo, drawing comfort from him even though she knew the worst was still to come.

Mewtwo gently brushed the tears from her cheeks with one paw, his eyes full of concern, and Aiko put her hand up, holding his palm against her face just for a second, drawing strength from the contact, before turning her head slightly to kiss it. She took a shuddering breath.

“Mewtwo,” she whispered finally, “I’ve got something I have to tell you. Oh,” she cried, raising her eyes to his face. “I don’t even know where to start telling you … ”

“I know what this is about,” Mewtwo said gently. He cradled her against him, his paw still stroking her cheek tenderly. “You’re having a baby, aren’t you, my Aiko? Sakaki’s baby.”
Aiko didn’t know what she’d expected him to say, but certainly not this. She realized her mouth had dropped open in amazement, and managed to shut it with a click. “What … but how … how did you know?” she managed to stammer at last.

“Humans have no sense of smell,” Mewtwo said, but he smiled slightly to soften the statement. It was a comment Aiko had heard from him many times before, however, so she ignored it, still trying to get her mind around this revelation.

“I know your body’s rhythms and times like I know the sound of the waves on the beach,” he continued. “And since you’ve been home, your cycle has altered. You haven’t bled at all, and you haven’t ovulated. At first I thought it was the effect of the abduction. But your scent has changed. The hormones I can smell on you lately remind me of the Abras when they were having babies – subtler, but definite.” He smiled down at her astounded face. “And you must know that I’ve been keeping watch on your signature telepathically, whenever I can’t be with you?”

Aiko nodded, still trying to assimilate this amazing news.

“You have a signature that is a clear blue-green, like the sunlit water over a coral reef,” Mewtwo told her. “But now there’s something … someone else there, as well. A tiny spark, like yours, but separate. It’s blue, as well, but a different shade, not so much green in it. It’s superimposed on your colour. Curled up, inside of you.” And he laid one paw onto her stomach.

Aiko sat up, still letting him support her, but enough that she could look him squarely in the eyes. “How long have you known? And why didn’t you tell me?” Her voice sounded breathless in her own ears.

Mewtwo looked down, as if embarrassed. “I should have said something before this. But I’ve only really understood what I was sensing in the last week or so. At first I didn’t put it all together. I kept telling myself that you still had the after-effects of the drug in your system. But that little spark inside you is very real, and it’s growing. I can’t deny its existence. I wasn’t sure if you knew what was happening, and decided to give you time to get used to the idea; I knew you’d tell me when you were ready.” He sighed, and it sounded regretful, and very human. “I’ve learnt enough biology to realize that it can’t be mine. That just leaves Sakaki.”

Aiko put a hand on each side of his face and met his eyes squarely. “I wish it was yours,” she said, and felt her eyes begin to fill with hot tears again. “I’d give anything in the world for this to be your baby … ”

Mewtwo hugged her again. “I know, my little mate, I know. But it’s impossible.”

“What should I do?” Aiko said, and she couldn’t keep the quaver from her voice. “I’ve been so scared this last month. I don’t want to lose you over this.”

Mewtwo’s eyes widened in genuine surprise. “Why should you lose me? Don’t you know by now you’re my world?”

“Yes, but … I’m having Sakaki’s baby. How can you just accept that so calmly?” She got to her feet, and began pacing the room, unable to sit still any longer. “This is a baby conceived by rape. That’s not the sort of thing a child should grow up knowing. Perhaps – perhaps it’d be better to book myself into a clinic on the mainland, and – just get rid of it before I’m too far along…”

“Is that what you want to do?” Mewtwo’s voice was calm. He stayed seated cat-fashion on the floor, watching her intently.

Aiko shook her head. “No,” she said, her voice low. “But what’s the alternative?”

Mewtwo stood and took both her hands again in his own, stopping her restless pacing. “The alternative is that you have this baby. We raise it with the other children, and love it just as much as we love them. But it’s your body, Aiko, and you have to be the one to decide. I have no right to dictate to you what you should do.”

“Yes, but you have a say in this as well,” she reminded him. “How would you feel if we did decide to raise Sakaki’s baby alongside our own children?”

“I feel like Sakaki has given me a gift to remember him by,” Mewtwo said quietly. “For this child is part you, and part Sakaki. And remember, I share Sakaki’s genes. So this is the closest I can ever get to naturally fathering a child with you, without using gestation tanks and clones. I would be the baby’s – what is the word, for the brother of a father?”

Aiko stared up into his serious face. “Uncle,” she murmured. “You’re the baby’s uncle … ” The idea that Mewtwo might want to keep the baby had never occurred to her, but she realized that he had a valid point. For this child would be related to him genetically, far more than his daughters were, who were the same species.

Mewtwo nodded. “I am this baby’s uncle,” he agreed. “I have no problem raising her.”

“Her?” Aiko quavered. “You can tell that, too?”

Mewtwo nodded. “She’s like you: a latent telepath. I can feel her broadcasting at the moment.” His eyes got a faraway look as he concentrated. “Her thoughts are basic, not really thoughts yet, just emotions.” He smiled gently. “I’m getting … flashes, primitive feelings. She can hear your heart beating, it’s the loudest and most constant noise in her world. She can feel the vibrations of your voice as you talk, as well, and is gently rocked with every pulse and movement of your body. She’s feeling warm, and safe.”

Aiko sank back down on the crate, feeling as if her legs would no longer support her as the implications sank in. Another thought occurred to her, and she looked back up at Mewtwo.

“Benji!” she exclaimed. “He knows! His baby sister is all he’s talked about since I got back! And he gets that same look on his face that you did just then, when you were sensing … her.”

Mewtwo considered this, then nodded. “You’re right. He must be able to feel her presence too.” He sat back down in front of her, flicking the tip of his tail neatly over his front paws. “You know my feelings now. What will you do?”

“What will I do?” Aiko repeated blankly. She hadn’t a clue. But there was a growing sense of relief inside her, unstoppable as a high tide. She wasn’t going to lose Mewtwo. He was with her, whatever she decided.

You haven’t won, Sakaki, she thought, a feeling of growing jubilation beginning to fill her. We’re together still, our love can’t be conquered by anything you could do!

Aiko got off the crate and sat back down beside her husband, cuddling close. Mewtwo laid his cheek against the top of her head, his arms circling her protectively.

“We’ll need to get another cot for the nursery,” Aiko said, feeling breathless all over again, though for a far different reason this time. “And how am I going to tell Mum and Dad they’ve got an unscheduled grandchild on the way?”

She felt the vibration of Mewtwo’s chuckle, felt it change to a loving purr.

“And a human grandchild, this time,” he murmured. “Trust this family to be different!”