What is forgiveness

All characters belong to their respective owners. I don't own any of them. R&R

This has been worked on. Hopefully most of the errors were corrected.

Happy Reading!!



Complete and utter silence reigned in the kitchen. Mother and daughter stood on opposite sides of the table and everyone's eyes bounced nervously between the two. Both stood staring at each other with clenched fists and stubborn expressions. No one had seen this fight coming. Washu stood there in her adult form, a surprising thing in itself. The self-proclaimed Greatest Scientific Genius in the Universe normally chose to remain in a 12- year-old's body. Yet there she stood in her adult form watching her daughter Ryoko.

The princess was the first to notice that the former most wanted criminal space pirate was crying, silently. The two rivals' eyes met and the pirate's expression dared the princess to say something. A look of shock and hurt danced across the princess' face before it was masked by well- drilled manners. The pirate looked away first.

Ayeka knew that she always ragged on the Ryoko whenever she had a chance. But hadn't realized that the pirate believed that she would expose her pain to others. Did Ryoko really think that she, Ayeka, thought so little of her as a person? It made the princess wonder if she had ever as the earthlings said 'poured salt into an open wound.' She began to replay some of their fiercest fights as she looked down at her bowl and chopsticks. Ayeka attempted to remember Ryoko's face before and after their fights got seriously ugly. She recalled once when she'd called Ryoko an uneducated, greedy, backstabbing demon from the void and Ryoko had grimaced as if in pain.

"You admit it demon?" she had asked.

"No princess, your extremely ordinarily dull insults are cheesy," she'd answered, "Maybe you'd do better at fighting, but I doubt it."

Ryoko's voice brought her out of her stroll down memory lane. She could hear the tears in the pirate's voice. She looked up at Ryoko.

"Excuse me for disrupting the meal," Ryoko said before she phased out of the room.

"Ryoko..." Washu started reaching out her hand to her daughter.

Ryoko paused looking at Washu's hand.

"Ryoko," Washu started again, "Ryoko I'm sorry."

Ryoko laughed, a low and bitter sound. "Sure you are 'Mom.' How nice of you to remind the world that I can't actually taste anything. Do you know how frustrating it is to 'remember' how something should taste and not..." Ryoko choked.

"Ryoko stop..."

"Nooooo, lets get them all out," she spat the words in Washu's face. "To recall colors but only see in black and white. To feel only two emotions, pain and relief; both so often intertwined that you're unable to tell the difference. Wanting to be normal but can't because of a river of blood created by your own hands. To remember a love of words but unable to write my own name!" Ryoko's tears were flowing freely now. "Don't you dare say that you were trapped. You ignored my pleas to let me die. You could've helped me from suffering at his hands. Nooo. You wanted to defeat him for making you look bad. While you were safe in your crystal I was out killing people and my own humanity."

"Ryoko stop it," Washu said harshly.

"No, I won't. You never did."

Ayeka found herself standing next to Ryoko. She placed her hands on Ryoko's shoulders. "Ryoko please, look at Sasami," she murmured gently. She realized Ryoko hadn't noticed that she'd been yelling.

Ryoko looked from Washu to the little girl. Sasami sat with tears running down her face as she looked from Ryoko to Washu. Ayeka felt Ryoko's sudden intake of breath at the pain she had caused to one of the few people who accepted her as she was, as incomplete as that was. "Sasami, I'm sorry. Forgive me," she whispered before disappearing.

Ayeka clenched her fists close and held them against her heart. She sat down slowly in Ryoko's place next to Tenchi. The room was still silent until a sob of pain broke it. Ayeka looked up, she thought it might have been Sasami but it was Washu. She was still standing but now she was crying. The elder princess looked at Sasami, who looked completely confused as to whom to turn to. Sasami's pink eyes met her sister's. Ayeka held her arms open. She felt Sasami's arms go around her neck. The Juraian princess held her little sister, who cried as if her heart was breaking.

Looking over Sasami's head Ayeka met Tenchi's concerned and confused gaze. No matter how she taunted Ryoko about Tenchi, she knew he loved her. "Go check on Ryoko," she mouthed to him. He nodded and left the table silently. She sighed in defeat as she knew this was going to be a determining factor in which of them finally would become Tenchi's main concern.

Someone cleared their throat. Ayeka looked towards Yosho and smiled weakly. He tilted his head towards the still crying Washu. Nodding Ayeka stood still holding Sasami and walked out of the room, touching Washu's shoulder as she passed. The room went silent as the sisters left.

"Sit down Washu," Yosho said gently before tugging the woman gently to the floor.

"Yosho, what have I done?" asked the scientist, contemplating the floor between her feet. "Have I completely lost my child? Yosho... I... I... I don't think I can go through that again. I can't. If that happens it will be the third time but so much worse this time. I don't think I can handle it again," she laughed it sounded almost identical to Ryoko's earlier one. "Like I've handled the two previous times well. It won't be someone else taking her from me, it'll be my own actions."

Yosho sat and listened as Washu rambled, he knew she needed it. She had over 5000 hundred years of motherly frustration and grief to deal with, yet she completely avoided the whole reason she was rambling now - Kagato.

Finally she wound down and started playing with the chopsticks and individual grains of rice.

Yosho felt it was time to speak. "Washu how old was Ryoko when Kagato took her? I know it seems a little nosey but that could be some of the problem, besides the ones that Kagato created within her and between the two of you."

Washu looked at him, her eyes revealing her total confusion. "What do you mean?"

"Now think well before you answer," the priest admonished. "Have you ever tried to ask Ryoko why she won't call you mom? At times Washu, you come across as being very demanding."

Washu sat quietly for a moment. "No, I just try to tell her that I expect her to call me that. She's my child."

Yosho clucked his tongue in disapproval. "Listen my dear, don't you think she knows that you're her mother?"

"Then why does she deny it?" Washu threw the chopsticks across the room.

"Washu listen. Listen to me. Have you seen the haunted look she sometimes gets when you play with Taro or Sasami?" Yosho asked, handing Washu a handkerchief which she took gratefully. "Have you ever noticed that the only time you want Ryoko to call you 'mom' is when you need to run an experiment or test a theory you've developed?"

Washu could always get a general sense of how her daughter was feeling through their mental link but she never used it to probe any deeper than she thought was necessary. She could sense her daughter's frustration and sadness; she'd just attributed it to her feelings about Tenchi.

Yosho watched silently. It wasn't very often that anyone in the Masaki household, including Ryoko, ever saw Washu any other way than a 12 year old. Even though she was angry, Ryoko had shown some etiquette when she'd left. Showing that there was more beneath that façade than a space pirate, just like there was more than a 12-year-old to Washu. He sensed that Ryoko probably would have said more but on some level she refused to cause further pain.

Yosho had noticed numerous times when he had stayed at the house after dinner that Ryoko would isolate herself. She would be in the room with Tenchi, Ayeka, Sasami, Ryo-Ohki and sometimes Mihoshi but not as a part of the group. She would make snide remarks, as would a true space pirate. She would watch them laugh and joke. He wondered if she tried to understand them. After a while she would start drinking sake, then lay there with half closed eyes and a flushed face until Ayeka made some remark about her being drunk. Then Ryoko would laugh and leave, but whenever Yosho saw her leave she looked completely sober. There was much none of them understood about Ryoko. On the surface she seemed so simple yet beneath it she was as complicated as a ball of tangled thread.

"Come on Washu maybe you need to rest, " Yosho said pulling Washu to her feet and towards her lab.

Washu resisted the movement. "What about Ryoko? I need to check on her."

"Right now it would be better if you both gave each other space, let me talk to Ryoko," Yosho counseled

~~~~~

Tenchi found Ryoko seated on the dock staring at her reflection in the lake. Quietly he sat beside her and watched. Her eyes looked dull and bloodshot, tears still made tracks across her face.

Ryoko opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. She closed it again. Tenchi noticed that she was no longer sobbing, but she still had that funny, hiccuppy-sounding breathing pattern some people get after crying for a long period of time. He wasn't going to rush her; she'd never done that to him unless she had no other choice. He knew how she said she felt about him, but she never took it any farther than teasing him until he blushed or Ayeka lost her temper.

"What do you see when you look at me? No don't answer that." Words finally started to come out between the small gasps. "You know, he started out telling me if I killed them it would make the pain go away. At first he'd capture a few random people off a planet and put them in a room. The room was red, always red. I knew this because my whole body would feel as if was on fire. Sometimes I would get to the point where I was throwing up whatever was in my stomach, even the acids in it, or I would pass out. At first I fought."

She paused for a deep breath, then the words poured out, "He would offer me a drug that would help stop the pain. He would give it to me if I killed them. I would still refuse to kill the people, I didn't know why I would refuse but I did..."

~~~~~

"Ryoko look, what's in this syringe will make the fire stop. Just do as I ask." Kagato said kneeling next to the balled up girl on the floor.

The people watched in horror as the man taunted the cyan haired girl who alternated between those awful sounding dry heaves and tears. Yet they could hear her continued denial of what the man wanted. The man had given them some drug that amplified their senses, yet numbed their reflexes. They could smell the tainted, ironish smell that coated the room. The smell of death haunted the red room. They could do nothing to help the child but watch as the man tortured her and pray for a quick death for themselves.

~~~~~

Ryoko shifted her position and watched the expression on Tenchi's reflection in the lake. "In the beginning I used to ask them for forgiveness when I could no longer control my own actions. He would use my body to kill them, not totally though, and then he would release me..."

~~~~~

Ryoko sank to her knees, holding the dying woman with arms covered in the woman's blood. The woman had seen the change come over her killer. She saw when soft, golden orbs, full of self-hatred and horror of what had been done, replaced the red, demonic eyes of the monster. She had seen the glow fade and saw into the girl's soul. The woman raised a bloody hand to her murderess' face. The face held the look of a lost child. "Child where's your mother?" she whispered.

Tears ran down the girl's face. "He said she didn't want me anymore."

"Who?" the woman asked softly as life seeped out of her broken body.

"Him," she whispered.

"Why?" the woman knew her death was close but she waited.

"Momma told me not to hurt people, it's wrong. I've hurt a lot of people. He said she won't forgive me. He said she didn't love me, she couldn't. He said it would make the pain go away. It has only gotten worse. It still hurts. I should be sorry but I don't know how. All I feel is pain... "

The girl stopped talking when the woman places a bloody finger over her lips. "Hush child. What is your name?"

"Ryoko. My name is Ryoko."

"Listen and listen well Ryoko. If you feel pain at what you do, that's being sorry."

"But he..."

"Shh. Listen. Little Ryoko your mother loves you; remember that. A mother will forgive her child even when her child has done great wrong."

"Will you forgive me?" the girl asked, hope showing on her beautiful, bloodstained face. "Why should you forgive me? I've murdered you and your family."

The dying woman smiled. "I see the difference in you and I see you are sitting among the dead, holding the dying. Look around you, you and I are the only ones left. I will forgive you because you asked."

~~~~~

Ryoko threw a small pebble into the water and watched the ripples it made. "The woman had me prop her against a wall. I laid my head on her lap and she sang to me until she died, I didn't move. It reminded me of something I couldn't remember at the time. I closed my eyes and slept until he came back to get me. He knew what happened, he was livid. It was a long time before he allowed me to control my own actions again."

Picking up another stone, she threw it at her reflection. Tenchi took Ryoko's hand and held it between both of his.

Ryoko ignored the contact. "It's strange that I remember that. I'm sleepy suddenly."

"Come back to the house and go to sleep then," he said softly.

Ryoko stood and floated away from him. "No."

"Why not?"

She turned away, still floating above the dock. "Sleep brings nightmares and nightmares brings memories. The thing that makes this so difficult to deal with is that she forgave me. Jurai, to a degree, has forgiven me too but it's worthless. Worthless because I can't and won't forgive myself. I don't feel I should be forgiven. Why should I? What have I done that could be called retribution or atonement?"

"What about Ayeka and me?" Tenchi asked, moving next to Ryoko grabbing her hand again.

"So I saved two lives, both Juraian Nobility, from Kagato. Two versus the uncountable number I murdered."

"What about Washu?" he questioned gently. Ryoko pulled away from Tenchi and stared at the night sky. "What about Washu? Why does she want to claim me, whatever I am? Why should she care?"

"Ryoko," Tenchi said, gently taking her hand again and drawing her to him. "Let me tell you about a woman I know, a woman who lost everything once..."

To be continued



Notes: Some of this was influenced by different fanfics I have read here and elsewhere.

Thanks to BobR, Krust, and co. for reading and stuff that makes writing fun.

M~