Linda Shen wrote:

Hey all:

Heh - i was wandering around aimlessly for a while before i noticed a post somewhere far away from here that asked if Fragments was once again on hiatus.  Oh, the guilt.  It's worse than when my *mother* tries to make me feel wretched.  Anyway...

 Shame! Depriving us of something so wonderful to read!

A few notes: Fragments *is* a oneshot, believe it or not, the chapters are arbitrary and defined *only* because I save the text file uploads from posting the story somewhere else.  I don't *like* breaking up the story, and I'm *nearly* through writing it (give or take 50 to 60 pages away from the ending) - so bear with my guys, this *will* be completed eventually.

 Yey!

He'd finally realized what life had been subtly telling him
all along.  He didn't have the foggiest idea what love was.
He hadn't even come close to touching the surface of true
devotion, never even breathed the thick, opiate smoke of
possession, never felt honest, unyielding lust for the
flesh and mind and soul of another.

 That's quite apt, though it occurs to me that he'd like to be _wanted_, too.

The seed had been planted when he'd seen the apathetic way
Akane had responded to their wedding, it had germinated
when she forgot things, and it had grown in the shadows of
his own self-doubt.

 Their wedding, or the idea of their wedding?

The one person who had helped him keep his curse a secret
from Akane.

 Oh, dear... This isn't going to be pretty.

The wedding needed to be cancelled.

 Ryouga: I'll tell Akane last, though. I'm keen on living.

She always talked so colorfully, giving everything a color
and a taste and a scent.  She made things come alive with
hr words, brought into the dull hospital room dragons and
fairies and inept cab drivers, laughing babies and stupid
children.  Parading them one by one through the doorway of
her eyes and mouth and had them reenact their stories
before his very eyes.

 hr -- her

"What are you doing?" Naka asked, seeing that for the
fourth day in a row, Kimiko was bent over a sheaf of
papers, sketching and erasing and redrawing.  She looked up
towards him, a smudge of gray-silver from the pencils on
her face, giving her a childish, innocent appearance, a
little girl who had just been broken of her reverie,
uncaring of how she looked, covered with her fingerpaints
and mud.

 Kimiko: Writing your ransom note.

 Naka: My parents are dead...

 Kimiko: Oh. Right. Forgot.

She turned to stare at it for a moment, an odd, mournful
expression in her blue eyes, "No, Naka-kun, but Soichi
did," she hid the ages-old pain behind a mask and smiled
brightly at the boy, "Maybe you could ask him about it
later."  She cleared her throat and set the paper aside.
Pressing her hands flat against the tops of her thighs, she
glanced furtively towards him over the tops of her glasses.

 Ages-old  -- age-old (?) I think it could work either way, really.

"Naka-kun," she started slowly, "I have a proposition for
you."

 Naka: No. I've seen your husband. He would _kill_ me.

Nabiki now knew without a shadow of a doubt how it felt to
be Satan.  She tapped her finger on the edge of her desk
and frowned, there were things to do, words to say, and
actions to be carried out.

 Nabiki: I bet the Devil has better coffee.

In between inextinguishable chuckles, he managed to choke
out, "It was *so* easy once I realized how to get to you,
Nabiki!  All someone has to do to drive you insane is to
*ignore* you!  A week, maybe two, but being disregarded
drives you up the wall more than any kind of yelling or
pestering could ever do!"  She heard him laughing again as
she crossed her arms hatefully over her chest, her heart
thumping wildly in humiliation and muted fury.  "At any
rate, Nabiki, I forgive your little tantrum."

 Ignoring them gets their attention, eh?

 *scribles down some notes*

"I missed talking to you," he said softly, shy now, "I hate
to admit it, Nabiki, but for all those flowery declarations
of love that I spout at you all the time, and all those
rejections you so eloquently hand back," he fell silent for
a moment, and started again, his voice barely above a
whisper, "I realized that I missed hearing you tell me that
I didn't have a chance."  She could hear his rueful smile
over the phone, "Strangely masochistic, isn't it?"

 Nabiki: No, actually, that works for me. Come over... let me test out my new whip.

 Kuzio: Uh... you know what? I gotta go...

 All-in-all, an interesting scene...

"Look," she said, her voice dangerous, "Soichi, just get in
the damned wheelchair, alright?"  Her husband shook his
adamantly, seemingly immune to the waves of pure fury that
she was sending off.

 Shook his '' adamantly. Shook his what?

 This isn't a lemon, so... ;)

Naka felt back for Fujikara-Sensei, he really did.  It
wasn't the man's fault that he'd been distracted by his
wife as they'd walked down the steps with Naka in tow.  It
certainly wasn't his fault that someone had been so
inconsiderate that they had left that horrible stone column
where anyone who was blind could walk into and trip over.
And it wasn't his fault that he had sprained his ankle.
'But,' Naka decided, 'it *is* his fault for not taking the
wheelchair.'  The boy looked downwards to his own, 'They
aren't that bad, and this one's even got a cool joystick.'

 The '-sensei' doesn't (I think) need to be capitalized. ;)

And, later on, he would realize that it was partially
Kimiko's fault for wearing such a short skirt.

 Soichi: _Partially_?

So now, the woman was left in a bad state.  Pregnant, with
lunatic hormones racing through her body, shackled to a
stubborn, senseless, momentarily crippled husband, and a
kid who couldn't seem to stop looking scared.

 Soichi: I am _not_ crippled.

 Kimiko: Fine. Then walk.

 Soichi: Uh... maybe a new ki technique...

And Soichi narrowed his eyes, crossing his arms tighter
across his muscular chest, he hissed, "Not.  A.  Chance.
In.  Hell.  I've never sat in a wheelchair before, and I
don't intend on doing it before I die."

 Kimiko: Fine, then you'll sit in it _after_ you die.

 Soichi. Fine!

 Kimiko: Glad we agree.

 Soichi: No, wait!

Kimiko took a deep breath and did something that she had
not felt desperate enough to try for a long time.  She
placed her two hands on Soichi's face, one on each of his
cheeks, and smiling with deceptive gentleness, she
whispered, "So-chan, dear."  Her voice teased the words
gently, letting the 'r' roll of her tongue with such a
dark, sensual tone that Naka gulped and closed his eyes,
determined not to think *that* about his therapist's wife.

 'long time' sounds stilted for some reason. Probably just me, but...

"That's not fair, haven't I mentioned how *unfair* that was
before?"  Kimiko just nodded brightly and took up the
handles of his wheelchair, pushing him towards the cab and
bubbling towards both men:

 Soichi: I _will_ develop a counter for that technique...

"I've cleaned up the apartment, and I cleared out my
office, Naka, you'll be staying there.  It's not a lot, but
the view is spectacular."  Kimiko smiled at Naka, and for
the moment, the boy was able to forget about the
oppressive, sterilized smell of the nurse pushing his
wheelchair, and the fear that Kimiko's earlier outburst had
struck in his heart.  "Oh, and Soichi," she said casually,
"you're going to have to take down your basketball hoop.  I
don't mind the noise when I'm working, but I'm sure Naka
needs his rest, okay?"  She helped her husband and then
Naka into the cab, settling down into the front and telling
the driver directions to Sakura towers.

 Is 'towers' part of the name? If so, it should probably be capitalized.

Naka watched the two of them and felt for the first time in
days that indescribable spike of pain rise in his heart.
That low, dark ache of longing for his mother and father.
He remembered a time like this, long ago when they were
still happy together, and he had broken his leg after
falling out of a tree.  Two parents angry at each other,
but so in love at the same time.  The quiet comfort of
knowing that they could scream and shout and stamp their
feet, and in the end, they'd still tuck you into bed at
night together, smiles on their faces.

 Naka: Nothing to promise that I'll be able to wake up in the morning... or ever again...

She wouldn't let him be alone with his misery.

 Misery: Hey! I _love_ company!

"It's important that you learn another language, Orchid, it
will prove useful in your adulthood," the lavendar-haired
matron reproached.  She stepped quietly just under a beam
from a streetlight, the nearly-neon light falling
gracelessly to her face and hair.  She must have been
beautiful in a past life, in her youth; she would have been
stunning, the bright eyes, and curved red lips, and her
pale, porcelain skin, the smoothness of her figure, and the
curve of her cheek.

 I find it interesting that Shan Pu's daughter is named Orchid... One must wonder.

The old woman snorted derisively, "Says the woman who spent
nearly a year of her life referring to herself in the third
person."

 Shan Pu: I thought it would help my dream of joining the Womens Wrestling Federation. It helped that 'boulder' guy.

The child pouted, "Yes."

"That's my good child," Shampoo whispered happily, "My
wonderful miracle."

 happily, "My -- happily. "My

And she started to remember a piece of some broken memory,
long buried in hopes of numbing the pain that came with it.

 Ranma was unfaithful? Uh-oh...

Midnight meetings on rooftops to compare notes on the
latest Nerima happening (aka fight).

 aka -- A.K.A.

 Also... I've been told that parenthetical author's notes are the most evil creation since TCL. I can code in TCL, and I know it's pretty darn evil.

 But this one seems to work, perhaps because of it's subtelty. ^_^

"So Ryoga fought Ranma again?  Who won?"

 "So, Ryouga..."

"[Shampoo, speak mandarin when Cologne isn't around, no one
is going to punish you for being Chinese here,]" he said,
his voice matter-of-fact and confident.

 mandarin -- Mandarin (Proper names should be capitalized. ;)

She frowned, "[Since when did you grow a backbone?]"

 Mousse: Since I failed that piloting test for those big robots. Why?

He smirked, "[Jealous?]"

 Shan Pu: Yes! I want my hair to be as long and lusterous as yours!

 Mousse: Is that all?

 Shan Pu: Pretty much...

But Cologne had long since stopped asking Shampoo questions
her Granddaughter didn't want to answer, and she'd nearly
forgotten the strangeness of Orchid's existence.

 Should that be Great-Granddaughter?

Being in Nerima made her curious.

 Has that effect on everyone, from what I hear. ;)

All feedback is welcome!

PS - Brian, you may have already C/Ced this part, i'm posting draft form, so don't think that i ignore your wonderful suggestions on correct spelling and commage and things like that. =)

 Oh, I thought I was just being ignored in general. ;p

-ling