No Depession

Chapter the First:

The Last Dance

Ukyo sighed as she stood in the doorway of the Ucchan's. She'd forgotten how hard it was running the restaurant by herself. With Konatsu running the other store in Juban, it was once again just her, but in business as in life you could only move forward, the past was immutable as stone. At the thought of stone a memory surfaced, memories of him, his body and how it had looked and felt and could make her feel.

"No," she mumbled softly in a vain attempt to stop the forthcoming flood of painful recollections, a gentle caress, a smile, a look, his smell, a strangely appealing mix of sweat, and pine. She choked back a sob as she remembered the last time she saw him, the look of pain and betrayal that haunted her dreams.

She paused, collected herself, shut and bolted the door and went up to her bedroom, her cold, lonely bedroom. She started to break down again.

"No!" She had to be strong. He would come back, he had to, so she could apologize and explain… tell him how she felt. Then it wouldn't matter what she had done. They would be happy together. She allowed herself to cry.

"Ryoga…" she whispered into her pillow "Please come back."

Three months previous…

It had been a beautiful ceremony, Ryoga admitted to himself. Akane had looked radiant, like an earthbound angel. Even that bastard Saotome couldn't deny that, not that he would want to. He loved her after all. Ryoga sighed; he really should bury the hatchet with Ranma. Not today though, maybe when they get back from the honeymoon, today he needed the…not anger exactly, he wasn't sure what to call it, but that, whatever it was, and the wet bar, were all that kept him from vaporizing the reception hall. He wasn't alone, this had to be the sulkiest wedding ever. A hand on his shoulder shook him out of his brooding.

"Hey, Wallflower," slurred a VERY drunk Ukyo Kuonji "You wanna dance?" As bad as the wedding had been for him he knew with iron clad certainty that it had been at least three orders of magnitude worse for Ranma's 'best man'.

"Ukyo," He said "Are you okay?"

"Okay? R'oga-hon my bes' friends jus' go' married, YAY!" she sort of raised her glass in salute spilling some wine, "Why wouldn' I be okay." Ryoga gave her a concerned glance, then shrugged, who was he to judge anybody.

"C'mon, R'oga-chan, I wanna dance wit shomebody before thish is over, 'sides gotta, prop-prop- thing I wanna ashk you." He nodded to indicate that she should continue.

"Not now, latr' whn' I'm shober," she glanced from side to side the, picture of drunken paranoia, "and theresh not so many earsh."

"If this is another 'break up Ranma and Akane' plan you're a bit late."

"No, itsh not one of thosh itsh a totally new and original plan" she sobered slightly, "Now are you gonna dansh or am I gonna hav' to break your legsh?"

"Ok, Ok." he replied, and took her tentatively into his arms. Then the last song of the night started, normally one would expect he last song to be something upbeat but the band had picked up on the mood of the evening and went into a slow mournful ballad in the style of Tom Waits, kind of like the opening theme for Neia under seven, but different enough to avoid legal action. Ryoga led Ukyo slowly around the floor knowing that when the music stopped life as they knew it would change. About half way through Ukyo started to cry into his shoulder, he knew it was going to happen, he just wasn't sure who would break first, he was kind of hoping it would be him. Vaguely remembering his mother doing something similar he rubbed her back in what he hoped was a comforting manner.

"Uh… there, there?" he said and not receiving a response, continued hesitantly, "there are plenty of um... fish in the err... Sea?" she looked at him and by her expression he could tell that the next thing he said would determine how he ended the evening, on his feet like a man or in a bag, like a thing that used to be a man but due to excessive blunt trauma more closely resembled pate'du foie gras.

"um, what I mean is that a cute, no a beautiful girl like you shouldn't have any trouble finding a great guy, not jerk like Ranma, someone who will appreciate you and …Ack," he had been babbling with absolutely no idea how to stop, luckily Ukyo did it for him.

"Oh R'oga." she hugged him tightly around the neck nuzzling her face into the crook of his shoulder. The tsunami of primal want/need from his id was deftly fielded by the ego and super-ego and relayed to the conscious mind as 'Ukyo smells nice'.

She was also soft and warm, he mused as he comforted the sobbing chef, after a few minutes she managed to pull herself together and separate from him.

"Sor'y, I've been hollin' tha' in f'r sho long,"she sniffled, "I dinn'a wanna spoil th' wedding for them." She sniffed again and Ryoga handed her a bandana, she wiped her eyes, blew her nose and started to return it.

"Keep it." He said wryly. Ukyo smiled sadly and put it away.

The song wound up and the staff started cleaning up the mess. Ryoga and Ukyo stood together at the front of the building.

"Well," said Ryoga, "I guess I'll see you around…"he started to walk off in some random direction. He hadn't gone more than ten feet when she started sobbing again. She sounded so piteous and forlorn that he couldn't bring himself to leave her like that.

"Ukyo?" no response, "Ukyo? Are you alright? Why are you crying?" he felt stupid asking this, he knew it was Ranma, it was always Ranma. So he was quite surprised when she answered;

"You're leaving. E'vrbody leaves me," she paused and coughed a little then started counting on her fingers, "Momma left me, Ran-chan left me, I foun' him a'gn, buh t'hn he left me a'gn." With this she slumped down to the ground. " 'natsu left me."

"When did Konatsu leave?" Ryoga interrupted.

"Las' w'k, snt' hi' to ruh new store in Juban, an'way nah 'portant, plush it's ru' ta inerup, j'kass.

"Sorry."

"S'ah'rgt, jus' don' do it 'gin" she started to sway slightly, "buh' now y'r leavin' too, an I don' know whatta do." She started crying harder. "Why d's evr'bdy leave me R'oga?"

Ryoga sat down next to her, put his arm around her shoulders and just let her cry until she fell asleep.

Last week I sent him to run a new store in Juban, but that's not important, plus it's rude to interupt, Jackass.

It's alright just don't do it again.

Ugh, that's enough of that, anywho that's chapter one, next time; A Man, A Plan, and something else that ends in '-an'. Don't hold you're breath.

This fic brought to you by the last five songs on Slippage: an album by a band I'm sure you never heard of called Slobberbone look it up, good stuff.

Oh, by the way I don't own Ranma1/2