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Liking the story but it does seem strange that Nurse would try to dodge telling Hisao what's going on with Lilly, he is her spouse. It's been my experience that the one kept in the dark tends to be the patient.

Thank you, BlackWaltz , for pointing out the misspells on Hisao and the tag. I believe a story is like a diamond; the more polishing, the brighter it shines.
And thanks to everyone for the compliments and tips. It's keeps me going.
Note: I am not a Doctor. I am relying on prime-time television medical babble, so if parts of this doesn't make sense, sorry.
Hm. I'm a little nervous about this part. Bear with me, please.

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Part Six

[Breathlessly]
An hour later we're all sitting back in the office, Hisao, Lilly and myself. Lilly hasn't said anything since she got back. She just sits next to Hisao and holds his hands in her own, gently trailing her fingers across his palms soothingly.

“Hisao, you need to calm down. Think of your heart...”

Lilly doesn't seem troubled in the least by all that's happened. She sits quietly next to Hisao, a light smile on her face, comforting him rather than the other way around. After thinking the problem was with himself for so long, the news must have been doubly hard for Hisao to take. I can see in his eyes he would have wanted any other possibility than this one to take place. He wishes he had an easy way out of the impossible situation he finds himself in.

I can sympathize.

I sit across the room from the two of them, awkward and feeling like a third wheel. There's nothing more I want to do than run across to the two of them and hold onto them as tight as I can.
But I don't.
I stop myself and bury my face in a book.
I don't want to be here. I don't want this to be happening.
I want to go find the library and hide in a corner.

Hisao was wrong. Even after all these years, I'm still weak.
And now I've come between the two of them.
Everything in my life is coming crashing down and I'm quietly reading a book while it all falls apart.

The door clicks open and Nurse walks in, shutting the door behind him as silently as possible.
“Hello, everyone. I'm sorry for the wait.”
He gestures with the folder in his hands.
“Test results are back.”

We're surprised to see Nurse here.
“What about your friend? Shouldn't she be here?” Lilly asks.
“She...thought it would be best if I delivered the news to you personally.“

Hisao holds Lilly's hands like he's going to fall off a cliff.
”What does it say, Nurse?” She asks, her tone level.

Nurse pulls up a chair and sits against the far wall, facing all three of us.
“While I do have some bad news, I also have some good news to go along with it.“

Hisao takes a deep breath. Lilly runs her fingers through his hair and I look up from my book.
“First of all, it's not cancer. The dark spots are clusters of fibroid tumors and they're benign.“
I breathe a sigh of relief along with Hisao. Lilly takes it in stride as if she knew the entire time, wrapping an arm around Hisao to support him.
“And the bad news, Nurse?” She asks.

How can she be so calm? I wonder. Even in the middle of this nightmare, Lilly still retains that majestic aura about her. If she knew the half of it, would she still be so serene?
I'm reminded about how much I used to idolize Lilly. In some ways I still do.
And now I've broken her heart and she doesn't know it yet.

Nurse takes a moment for his news to sink in before he begins talking.
“The bad news is they are extensive. They've caused a lot of scarring, which is why the two of you have been having so much trouble conceiving. The tumors could be removed during operation, but I'm afraid that the damage is already done.“

“How bad is it?” Hisao asks reluctantly.

Nurse massages the bridge of his nose.
“Very bad. Permanent. I'm sorry. Even if Lilly does become pregnant, with the amount of scarring we're talking about here, there would be almost no chance of safely keeping the fetus for the full pregnancy. The likelihood of a miscarriage would be great. Great enough that...it would probably be best for you if you didn't try to have a child anymore. The complications could be dangerous."

Lilly silently puts a hand over her mouth, the only sign she gives that Nurse's words trouble her

I listen to the conversation on my side of the room silently, my hands shaking. I already broke the cover of my hardback and the book lies limply in my fingers.

This isn't fair.
None of this is fair!

Nurse keeps talking and Hisao and Lilly ask questions, but I don't understand half of what they're saying. Even if I did, what would be the point? There isn't a thing I can do to help.

The questions stop and no one says anything for the longest time. Eventually, Lilly speaks up.
“Thank you, Nurse for helping us through this. We greatly appreciate it.“
Lilly turns to Hisao and puts a hand on his shoulder.
“Hisao, I would like to go home now.”

Hisao thanks Nurse hastily and takes Lilly's arm, the two of them leaving. I'm left in the office with Nurse, awkward silence left behind as well.

Nurse turns to me with a hopeless expression.
“Will they be all right?”

I don't know how to answer that.

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The car ride home is totally silent except for the humming of the wheels.
Hisao drives, Lilly sits next to him and I'm in the back seat, although I might as well be a hundred miles from the two of them. No one says a word about what just happened. With everything that has been going on, it's as if the last week hasn't even been real to me.

I look down at the book clutched in my hands. I'm reading 'Alice in Wonderland' again and I can relate to poor Alice as she stumbles through a world of bright and happy colors with a dark and twisted core. I feel like I've fallen down the rabbit hole myself and everything around me is paper thin, as if I could poke and tear through the false scenery around me, slip into the background and never find my way out again.

The house waits silently for us when we arrive. It's seen a lot these past few weeks and joins us in our misery.

We enter and sit down in the living room, nothing moving except the dust lazily circling the disturbed air.
Lilly looks up and with a measured tone speaks to me.
“Hanako, I could use a cup of tea. Would you be a dear and get it ready?“
“Of course, Lilly.”

I head into the kitchen and busy myself with the boiling water and tea bags as fast as I can. I come back out with the tray and set it on the table.
I begin pouring the tea, but Lilly stops me.
“That's all right, Hanako, I can pour. Thank you very much.“

I nod and step back, sitting in my chair again.
Lilly goes about the practiced movements, pouring tea, checking the levels with her fingertips, gently measuring how much to put in each cup, face serene in the normalcy and the familiar movements.

She moves the tea pot over Hisao's cup, the tiny spout catching the handle and knocking it over with a tiny clatter of porcelain. A bit of tea spills out onto the table.
I'm about to use a towel to clean the small spill when I see Lilly's hands begin to shake.

[Cold Iron]
I look up and see Lilly's faded, blue eyes staring sightlessly ahead, tears welling up and over. Her mouth quivers uncontrollably and before Hisao or I can react, Lilly smashes the tea pot into the table, shattering the set and sending bits of porcelain flying everywhere, tea spilling out over the carpet.
I scream and turn away from the hot tea which splashes my arm and burns me.

Lilly's hands are cut and sliced from the porcelain chips, blood and tea mixing freely, livid red marks all over her fingers from where the scalding hot liquid already begins to blister and burn. Hisao and I are frozen in inaction as she pulls her hands away from the mess and grips the sides of her head, fingers coiled in her golden hair, her face contorted. Her shoulders shake and her breathing is ragged.
I hear a sound coming from her which at first I don't recognize.
Lilly begins keening which quickly turns into a scream of frustration.
No, not a scream.
A shriek, a wail, a howl out of a black pit of anguish and loneliness, a place I know and recognize.
Every nerve in my body rebels against the sound coming from out of Lilly and it paralyzes me.

Hisao reacts first, nearly throwing himself onto her, pinning her to the couch. She kicks, cries and screams at him, pushing and clawing with her bleeding fingers, scratching him wildly with her long, carefully painted nails.

“No! It's not fair! It isn't fair!”
"Lilly! Lilly, stop!" Hisao shouts.

Lilly wildly fights against Hisao who wraps his arms as tightly and as lovingly as he can manage around her, pleading her to stop. Lilly pounds weakly at his chest with her balled fists, her eyes staring blankly, tears running down her face freely.

My knees quake in terror and I can't stop shaking as I watch the two of them wrestle, Hisao trying to calm Lilly down, trying to speak to her, while she keeps crying and sobbing inconsolably, Hisao holding her wrists tightly to keep her from hurting herself. I'm rooted to the chair, unable to react or move in any helpful way.

I never thought I would ever see Lilly like this! Her calm exterior has been shattered and replaced with a wild misery I never knew possible.

I've helped students deal with this kind of pain before, when their own bodies rebel against them. But never with someone so close to me, who I once relied on for the very same reasons.
I want to run, screaming from the room, plug my ears and try to ignore Lilly's crying, but I know I can't.

I tear myself from the chair and step around the small table, approaching Lilly and Hisao, joining Hisao's struggle against his wife. I wrap Lilly in a hug, her height and frantic state giving her a steely strength I have to fight against. Hisao and I hold Lilly as she cries and screams in heartbreaking frustration, holding her still with our own bodies, waiting for her to calm down and tire herself out.

I catch Hisao's eyes as we both hug Lilly, she falling limply against Hisao's chest and weeping into his shirt.
The look in his eyes is the same look he had that night Lilly left for Scotland.
Hopeless, broken, inconsolable.
Then, like now, there's nothing I can do to change that.

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It takes Hisao and me a half hour of holding Lilly before she goes slack against us. Breathing steadily, she falls asleep out of pure exhaustion.
I fetch the first aid kit from the kitchen and Hisao uses it to clean Lilly's hands, using a pair of tweezers to remove the slivers of porcelain from her cuts and treating the tips of her burned fingers. He does everything very slowly so as not to hurt her, each movement slow and methodical, driven by care and concern. Still, his face has that pained, agonized expression and his eyes have a glossed over look to them as he works.

I clean the table and the carpet and we work in total silence. We don't say a word to each other, our work gratefully taking all of our attention. When we do help each other, it's silently and with as little interaction as possible. Even as he helps me wrap the burns on my arm we don't talk.

With the mess cleaned and Lilly taken care of, Hisao picks her up his his arms. She clings weakly to his chest as he carries his burden, his broken heart adding to the weight he has to carry.

I open the door to their bedroom and Hisao enters to put Lilly in bed.
I don't dare enter myself.
There's something about their bedroom I try to avoid. Like it's sacred or forbidden for me to even step through the door frame. We've lived together for years and I've only been in their room a few times and always invited for a specific reason, to help Lilly in the morning or for cleaning.
With everything that's happened recently, the oppressive atmosphere keeping me out is redoubled. I hesitate at the threshold, watching Hisao tucks Lilly into their bed, troubled concern in every measured move he makes. She still shakes and her cheeks are stained with tears.

Hisao walks back to the door and stands on the other side from me.
“H-Hisao, c-can we talk...?”
Hisao looks at me miserably. Not blaming me or judging me, just consumed by sadness.
“No, Hanako. We can't talk.”

He slowly shuts the door and I'm left staring at another new barrier between me and them.
I go downstairs, switch on the television, turn the volume up a little high and I cry into a pillow.

I must say that with this latest development, the grasp this story has on me has increased tenfold.

This is brilliant, keep it up, I cannot wait for what will happen next.

This isn't a fun saishuudokin story any more

You people are trying to make me bawl, are you?

Rob hasn't been around to give me my posi-feels, so now you and Doomish have to go and overload me with nega-feels ("the sads").

I'm dyin' here.

I love the level of detail that went into that. It really helped me picture the horrifying scene...

Gah! You're evil! Poor Lilly... what have you done?!

Another well written chapter. You're churning these pages out pretty quickly; it makes me wonder - have you got a plan for this, or are you just making it up as you go along?

I just want to let the record show that this story is amazing and emotional and I love it. I really hope you see this through to completion, though I don't have any doubts you will.

Doomish wrote:I just want to let the record show that this story is amazing and emotional and I love it. I really hope you see this through to completion, though I don't have any doubts you will.

You tainted his story you evil beast! i know it was you! Great story none the less though i love it.

I have to butt in here and note that this is either going to be a depressing disaster – or a hell of a setup for a happy ending. Think about it rationally based on the medical facts we have in front of us – Lilly cannot have a child because of something physically wrong with her womb – that means the rest of her reproductive system is intact. There is no medical reason (based on the information we have at present) why they cannot have an in-vitro fertilization of Lilly’s eggs and Hisao’s sperm and implant the zygote into Hanako to produce a healthy child that belongs, at least spiritually, to all three of them. It’s not like that doesn’t happen in the real world all the time (at least if you have the money to afford it). I think that nicely solves all of their current problems and does not require anyone to die

Mahorfeus wrote:You people are trying to make me bawl, are you?

Rob hasn't been around to give me my posi-feels, so now you and Doomish have to go and overload me with nega-feels ("the sads").

I'm dyin' here.

I'm around, just not producing anything at the moment.

Also: Great story. And my money is on either the surrogate Hanako theory or a bizarre "Make everyone happy in some way" tryst between Hanako and Hisao. I can't say I'd mind either option.

Hisao walks back to the door and stands on the other side from me.
“H-Hisao, c-can we talk...?”
Hisao looks at me miserably. Not blaming me or judging me, just consumed by sadness.
“No, Hanako. We can't talk.”

These lines made the story about ten times as good as it was before.

If the entire chapter was a setup for this; you're freaking brilliant.

Keep freaking writing, loving it!

Adm. Kirk wrote:I have to butt in here and note that this is either going to be a depressing disaster – or a hell of a setup for a happy ending. Think about it rationally based on the medical facts we have in front of us – Lilly cannot have a child because of something physically wrong with her womb – that means the rest of her reproductive system is intact. There is no medical reason (based on the information we have at present) why they cannot have an in-vitro fertilization of Lilly’s eggs and Hisao’s sperm and implant the zygote into Hanako to produce a healthy child that belongs, at least spiritually, to all three of them. It’s not like that doesn’t happen in the real world all the time (at least if you have the money to afford it). I think that nicely solves all of their current problems and does not require anyone to die

Short version: Have Hanako be the surrogate mother for Lilly and Hisao's child.

I've thought of this myself as a possibility for a happy-ish ending, but there's a problem: Hanako avoiding everyone because of the kiss she took from Hisao before finding all this out. It's already been shown that she feels that the kiss is going to tear the three of them apart and they'll have to overcome this before talk of surrogacy could start.

Here's how I could see things playing out:

After a few days or so, things calm down a bit. Lilly and Hisao talk with Nurse about having the surgery to remove the scar tissue, and set the operation for a later date. Hanako manages to catch Hisao at Yamaku and they talk... and talk. About the kiss and everything else. Once that's taken care of, they both tell Lilly what happened between them and Hanako, in her usual manner, apologizes profusely for "everything." Shortly before the operation, Doctor Nurse (Yeah, I felt like I had to say it at least once. xD) suggests that they freeze and store some of Lilly's eggs for later, giving Hisao and Lilly a quick mention about IVF and surrogacy. Once the surgery is complete, while Lilly is recovering, her and Hisao talk a bit more about the idea of finding a surrogate mother for their child, coming to the obvious conclusion that it would be best to ask Hanako about it before going further. Once Hanako does her own research into being a surrogate mother, all 3 of them talk things out (Yeah, they do a lot of talking.) and agree that it would be good for everyone to do it. Nine months later and Lilly and Hisao, with Hanako, welcome their first child into the world.

That's a good happy-feels ending. A bad ending would have Lilly, for some reason or another, not surviving the operation to remove the tumors. A kind-of neutral ending would have Hanako never work things out with Hisao and Lilly and running away from them, moving out on her own and leaving them to themselves to work things out (Lilly still chooses to have the tumors removed). A double-bad ending would have the doctors miss one of the tumors, it metastasizes into something much more lethal and Lilly dies. With Hanako gone, Hisao is left alone.



I tried to put all that in spoiler tags, but you could see what I made into a link despite them, so they were removed . And while I thoroughly enjoy happy endings, I keep thinking about how things can go from bad to worse. No clue what that says about me. :\

There is a potential problem with Hanako being a surrogate, especially considering how extensive her scarring is. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7673308

Oh, good God, you guys are making me really nervous now.
I pray I can deliver.