I've had this for a little while, so I decided to see what the
responce would be.

	I came up with the idea in a fit of silliness over a year ago,
and finally got ti typed in Friday night.  I haven't edited it since,
so C&C is quite welcome.

(in case anyone cares, I wrote this one in vim, and tend to use either
vim or emacs for most things)
ja ne,
	Suika
-- 
Who's the little old man?
	He belongs to Paul.
					-The Beatles, "Hard Day's Night"
wrobert2@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu

------------------------------ cut here ------------------------------

	``Ranma, Why don't we call you Mother and Father like all of the other
kids?''  Miyuki asked as she shed her shoes in the genkan.

	``Would you like the long version or the short one?''

	``The short one, please.''

	``When your elder sister was really small we decided it would look
funny.''

	``Tell me the long version.''

	``OK.  You know about the training trip we were on when Rei was born,
right?''

	``Un, I've heard the story about how when Akane annouced that she was
in labor Ryouga fainted into a stream and Auntie Akari had to pull him out
before he drowned.''

	``And then Akane started giggling at the thought of what would have
happened if she hadn't already known about his curse.''

	``Ouch.''

	``Lucky him that she knew.  As you know Rei's birth was very easy, by
the time we got back to Tokyo and the dojo she was a couple weeks old and
looked like a human baby instead of a pink monkey...''

	``Hey!  That's rude!''

	``It's true.  When you were first born you looked like a pink monkey
too.  A very cute pink monkey, quite worth the effort of carrying for nine and
a half months, but still a pink monkey.

	``Your grandmother just sort of fainted as we walked in, Akane was
holding Rei and promising to feed her as soon as she found a spot to sit down.
When she came to Akane had Rei to her breast, Rei was quite happily
ignoring everything else, and Akane and the rest of us were wondering what was
wrong.  She all but dragged the two of them to the hospital to get checked.
They were fine, but the doctors took some of Akane's blood, she wouldn't let
them have any of Rei's, and said to call back in a week.

	``We called back and they asked us what my blood type was, and when I
said that it was $1 they said that we needed to come in.  When whe got there
they said that Akane had antibodies for $1 type blood in her system, and the
doctors were concerned, or, more accurately, certain, that we would not be
able to have more children together.''

	``Why?  Antibodies just protect against germs that have been
encountered before . . . Oh!  Both Rei's and my blood type are the same as
yours.''

	``Pin pon.  So we plotted as we came home, thinking about what we
could do about it, whether we wanted any more children, that sort of thing.
Akane came up with the idea we eventually used.  `You always brag about how
you look so much better as a girl than I do, you carry the next one.'  I think
she meant it as a joke, but after we thought about it we decided to ask for
second and third oppinions.  Kodachi and Ukyou thought it was a decent idea,
so long as we could set things up so that I wouldn't end up the topic of
someone's research.  Tofu pointed out that we would need to keep me from
changing, and trying to avoid hot water just would not do.''

	``Understatement.  Whenever you try to stay one gender or another you
always end up soaking wet.  Remember that parent-teacher conference last
year?''

	``How could I forget it?  `Could you please have your father come to
the meeting?' `Sure.' `Who's this?' `My father.' poke poke.''  Ranma scowls at
the memory.

	``Hey! it was funny.'' Miyuki giggles.

	``You obviously think it still is.''

	``Of course it is.  That is why we don't call you tou-chan, ne?  I
admit it would have been rather hillarious to have Rei calling you tou-chan
while I was nursing.''

	``It's not quite as funny as how you called me `Tittie' no matter what
form I was in until you were four.''  Ranma pokes back.

	``I did what?!''

	``What, you didn't know?  I copied the habit off of Akane, I don't
know where she picked it up, who knows, maybe she just thought it up on her
own, of asking you if you wanted some tittie whenever you looked hungry or I
felt you needed to be fed.''

	``Felt I needed to be fed?''

	``Un, When you're breastfeeding you produce enough milk to feed
whoever you're feeding.  If you wait too long the milk accumulates and is
rather obnoxious.''

	``From your tone you are understating again, birth-mother.''

	``I'm not sure that's the right word.''

	``Understatement?  Or birth-mother.''

	``The second.  It doesn't sound right.''

	``Oh well.  Find me the proper one and I'll call you by it.'' (I
admit the last bit of dialog loses something in translation.  :/ )

	``Don't bother.  Enough chatter, you are not going to get out of
today's practice session.  Your elder sister is off learning from obaba, so
you get do do a bit of one on one practice today.''

	``Hai, hai.  Iku ze!'' Miyuki shifts tone from absolute boredom to
enthusiastic yell in an instant, slamming her right heel into the side of
Ranma's face, flinging him into the pond.  *Worked.  That aerial spin kick
shouldn't have, though.*  >Thump!<  *That was stupid* Miyuki reasured herself
as she countered the rest of the attack.

	In the end the score was about even, old age, skill and treachery only
slightly overpowering youth, skill, and treachery.

	``If we want to wash off before Akane gets here we should go in now.''
Ranma states, heading into the house, only dripping slightly from her last dip
in the pond.

	``You're washing my back.'' she continued, stripping off her shirt and
dropping it on the floor.

	``Don't I end up doing that most of the time anyway, kaa-chan?''
Miyuki asks, adding her own clothing to the untidy pile that Ranma would have
to wash later.

	``Kyaa! Tsumette!''

	``If you didn't insist on using ice water you wouldn't scream so
loud.''

	``Then what fun is there in it?  And I've still washed your back far
more times than you've washed mine.''

	``I must admit that I'm not sure.  And that is only becouse you have
twenty years on me.''  Miyuki replies as she soaps Ranma's back.  She finishes
in silence and Ranma scrubs her back before entering the tub.

	``I still have to cook dinner.  Fugh.  You did a number on my face
with that kick earlier.  I'm going to have a nice purple bruise to explain to
my students tomorrow.''

	``Just one?  I can see a good five from here.''

	``Hey!  Don't look!''  Ranma pulls himself into a tighter ball, eyes
closed to better enjoy the hot bath.

	``I meant ones that would show up when you have clothes on!  Che, you
are so etchi.''

	``I am not, I just think about the kind of person I was at 11 and act
accordingly.''

	``See!  Etchi!''

	``What, are you saying you aren't?''

	``Why would I say that.  You've seen some of the things I read.''

	``Tadaima!''

	``Okaerinasai!'' The two in the bathtub call.

	``I suppose you are going to make me cook dinner tonight, even though
it isn't my turn, right?''

	``No, I'll be getting out in a moment to cook it.  If you want one of
us could wash your back for you.''

	``OK!  I'll be up in a moment.''  The sounds of groceries getting put
away waft up from the kitchen.

	``Yet another question, why do you two always argue about who is going
to cook?''

	``Akane couldn't cook until she was almost twenty five.  It was the
contest that finally convinced her to learn.  She'd been trying before, but
she never made the leap that seperates awful from decent.''

	``Contest?''

	``Yeah, Kodachi challenged her to a contest to see which of them could
poison the most people.  Non-fatally.  Kodachi got something like the entire
male population of Fuurinkan High and a few of the female students as well.
Akane poured twelve grams of LSD into the Nerima water supply.''

	``Twelve grams!?!?''

	``Yep.  The really scary part was that it took the athorities in other
parts over a week to realize that there was anything wrong.  Most of Nerima
still doesn't trust the water supply.  Kodachi was at Ukyou's when they both
started tripping.  Ukyou had enough presence of mind to tell everyone to go
home and lock the doors, but assumed that when Kodachi didn't leave she was
just one of the hallucinations.  Kodachi has said that she originally was
going to sit out the trip somewhere quiet and go home, for she thought that
someone at her house had spiked something she ate or drank.  By the time she
realized that Ukyou was losing it she tripping pretty badly, and so appointed
herself to keep Ukyou from damaging herself during her bad trip.  By the time
the LSD was flushed from the water supply and the after affects had begun to
wear off. . .'' Ranma's story was interupted by Akane's entrance, a quick
janken to determine who got to wash her back (which made Akane break out
laughing) and the loser, Miyuki, washing Akane's back before they both got
into the tub.  ``Ukyou and Kodachi were a set.  LSD makes you really open to
suggestion for a few days after you do it, and they had spent almost two weeks
tripping, and they recovered together.  They went from being just shy of
mortal enemies to freinds to lovers over the course of the month and a half
that it took to deal with the LSD in the water supply.''

	``How?''

	``If you spend a lot of time talking with someone, each of you letting
out secrets that you wouldn't tell others that you don't trust implicitly,
holding each other when things get really bad, dropping the facades that you
keep up when others are around, you first begin to trust, then it can go
further, especially if there is no one around who wants to stop it. Kodachi
wasn't totally sane before that happened.  She had no one she could trust,
no one she could count on to take care of her or help her take care of
herself, no one that she didn't feel the need to pretend around.  Ukyou was
trying to deal with the fact that Akane and I had finally stopped fighting and
were together.  They both needed someone really badly, and they volunteered
each other.  I admit it was a shock when I first saw them walk in together,
Ukyou's arm about Kodachi's waist, and her head on Ukyou's shoulder.  Neither
of them had parents, so they felt pretty safe about being open with the fact
that they were more than just `romantic freinds.'  Even so there were a couple
attempts made by official types to split them up.''

	``What?  Why would they do that?''

	``It was almost fifteen years ago.  Before they got over most of that
gender discrimination crap, dear.'' Akane answered, ``They did that to anyone
who was involved in an openly physical lesbian relationship.  They make the
parents move one of the girls and the parents forbid contact between them.
Mean, huh?''

	``Yep.  Very.  I'll go cook dinner since I lost today, and you look
tired Akane.''

	``Just so long as it isn't avacado and mozerella on microwaved french
bread anything is OK.'' Akane tells her daughter as she dries off, before
dunking her own face in the bathwater.

	``Aw.  That is my favorite kind of sandwich.  I'll make something
interesting, then.''  Miyuki replies in an agreived, then threatening tone.

	``At least your `interesting' isn't as bad as what Akane used to cook.
Ite!  Hey! Your cooking is a lot better than it used to be!  Really!  I even
look forward to eating it!'' Miyuki heard the sounds of Ranma being dunked
into the tub by main force, shook her head, and went to the kitchen to find
things to add the the avacado.