Tokyo Babylon: Sound part 2: Weeping / Hesitance Midori set the tray down and knelt on one of the cushions scattered around the table, watching Subaru as he sat down across from her. He hadn't changed, she thought to herself. Well, maybe just the slightest bit... his face was no longer as haunted as it had been when she'd first known him, and the odor of cigarettes no longer hung around him. Little things that she hadn't noticed the night before. Carefully, she poured two cups of hot tea and passed the first cup to him. It was Japanese tea, but she was not serving it in traditional cups. She wouldn't have been able to stand a tea ceremony now, not with the way her nerves were jangling about in her head. Untraditional as that thought may have been, she was far too Westernized to be the perfect Japanese woman. She always had been. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a second, calming herself. This was going to be a rough conversation, no matter what she could foresee. Emotionally definitely... physically probably not... and vocally possibly. She still loved Subaru, and knew it. He had never loved her... but they were tied together. They had a son. They had a past. If only they had a future.... She opened her eyes and looked into his. * * * "You've found me, and him," Midori said softly. "What do you want to happen now, Subaru?" Subaru smiled to himself. Midori hadn't changed too much if she still made it a challenge to him. He wasn't going to use his powers, not before her. She would know if he tried to touch or manipulate her emotions. Besides, he didn't know if he could, even if he wanted to. Her powers as a Balancer were something he had never been sure of. "Tell me what happened since the last time I saw you," he requested. "And then tell me about Subaru." Midori nodded, closing her eyes momentarily as she took a breath before beginnning. "I left the hospital in the middle of the night," she started, "and went to the bank. I took out all the money in my accounts, which was considerable, and left Tokyo. I traveled the world for months, going anywhere but Japan. I was in Canada when I found out I was pregnant." She smiled softly; it was obviously a good memory for her. "I decided to continue moving on. I travelled, exploring, getting ready to be a mother to your child. You might call it a spiritual journey; I was finding out who I was without being the Balancer. I think I liked who I became during that time, who I grew into being. Then, when the time was right, I came home to Japan, bought this house, and had our son. After a few years, I got a part-time job in a day-care center. When Subaru started going to school, I took my test, and got a teacher's license. I'd completed enough home schooling in the intervening years to be eligible for it. A local high school happened to have an opening, I got hired there, and that was that." "And Subaru?" Subaru asked. "Subaru is the smartest child in his class at school, the most gifted. It's not that he's a genius so much as he's simply adaptable. He can do anything he tries. He's gentle, but very determined. He's almost completely lovable." Her face glowed with pride, and Subaru felt a small stab of jealousy that her smile was not for him. Her opinion mattered very much to him, and he wanted her affections bestowed upon him as well.... "Oh, Subaru, you should have been here to see him so often... he's such a charming child. Everyone loves him... all his teachers, his classmates, our neighbors...." She paused, and her eyes glimmered wetly again. "I've stolen that from you, haven't I? I'm sorry... I couldn't blame you for being angry at me, now..." Her eyes closed, and a single tear broke from her eye and rolled down a cheek. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "Why did you want to keep him from me?" he asked quietly, sensing an undercurrent of emotion that told him there was a reason she had never contacted him. "I didn't want him to be like you," Midori replied, closing her eyes and bowing her head down. "Your life is dangerous, Subaru, and exclusive of me. I already lost you to your being an onmyouji... I don't want to lose Subaru too. He has the potential for it; it's merely untrained. It's not supposed to happen that anyone can be a Balancer and the Balanced at the same time, but he could be... and it will be a danger to him. A great danger...." Subaru closed his eyes and breathed, simply feeling. Midori. And their son. It began there. He had seen too much, seen too many people die, been a part of too much of the Earth's fate, to react to anything in anger anymore. He had lost new-found, tentative friendships during the Holy Battle for the Earth, and found his own peace when not only he, but his mirror as well, Sakurazukamori, had managed to survive. He never intended to see Seishirou-san again, and knew that the Sakurazukamori would not seek him out, but the fact of both of their existances kept things within him "balanced," as Midori might say. Midori had run from them, and he did not blame her. She was the most innocent of the three of them, and despite her training and bravery in being what she had to be, she had been scared of what had happened. It had happened too fast for her to take, so she had fled. He smiled to himself; Midori had always had a greater sense of self-preservation than he had. Subaru wondered what would have happened if she stayed. But she couldn't have, not and been the same Midori. "We've grown apart from where we were then," he said slowly, voicing thoughts that he knew Midori would understand, "but certain things have not changed, and some that have may have changed so for the better. Where do we begin again, Midori?" he asked. "Where can we begin again?" He opened his eyes, and was not surprised to see her prismatic silver ones looking back into his. But he refused to read her beyond what he could see there. "... Where did we end?" she asked in return, her voice quiet, calm, mature. "And what has happened since then? I have become a mother, and you have become more yourself than you were even then. Subaru..." Her voice was gentle as she spoke. "We start all over at the beginning." * * * Subaru stared at the television screen for several seconds, until Seiji quite blatantly nudged him in the side. He blinked and returned his attention to the video game they were playing, setting one part of his mind to work on the problem that had distracted him. Next door, talking to his mother, was his father. He had known about his father since he had first been old enough to surmise the significant difference between himself (who had no father) and those around him (who did have fathers), and ask his mother about the it. Subaru knew that his father had not known before of his existance, though he surely did now. And he knew a little of the circumstances under which his mother had left his father, nine months before he was born. Subaru wondered how much he did not know, and how important that would be. He desparately wanted a father, needed a father. He was tired, already, of being labelled a bastard and being picked upon for having an unknown father. And were it not for his mother's silver eyes, hypnotic to those who did not have sufficient power of spirit to resist their effects, Subaru knew he would have had it a lot rougher than he had. The fact that his mother made her own living, supporting the two of them by herself, made him criticized enough at school as it was without the other things. And his schoolmates didn't even know about his being a Balancer, much less anything about his mother's and father's families, all of whom were sorcerors in some respect or another. He didn't know if them knowing that would make it better or worse for him, having inherited the powers of two clans. Subaru knew he was supposed to be more than just a Balancer; he could feel a power burning inside his skin sometimes that had nothing to do with what he had learned. The only problem was that he had never had anyone to teach him what he needed to know. His mother had no gifts in onmyoujutsu. Perhaps his father would teach him. Wasn't that what fathers were supposed to be for?