AN: This story contains violence and references to "cutting." Please don't read it if that offends you. My purpose is to share a story that is floating in my head with other people who may enjoy it, not offend the sensibilities of my readers. Standard disclaimer: I do not own the copyright to Fruits Basket or any of the characters in that series of Japanese graphic novels. If I did, I would not be wasting my life sitting on my ass working as a receptionist at a college in Arizona, feeling like a major loser who wasted six years of her life and spent $55,000 to earn three college degrees so she could answer phones; I would be happy and sitting in my office in Tokyo, crafting new stories and refining my drawing techniques, loving my fabulously successful, lucrative, and creative life. Hmmm…..Magpie, bitter much:::Waddles off to drown her job dissatisfaction in a pint of Ben and Jerry's and wash it down with a Dr. Pepper::::

Now I will tell you what I've done for you-

Fifty thousand tears I've cried.

Screaming, deceiving and bleeding for you-

And you still won't hear me.

(Going under)

"Going Under" by Evanescence off their "Fallen" CD

I sighed and put the stethoscope against her chest, listening carefully. Her heart rate was a little elevated, but that wasn't too surprising given the circumstances. "Breathe in deep and hold it," I gently instructed her, moving my scope to listen to her lungs. They sounded clear. "Release," I said quietly, moving to the other side. She let the air out with a slow exhalation. We repeated the process and I found that side to be clear too. I put my scope back in my black bag and I silently gestured for her to show me her arms.

Akito held them out in front of her, her face an emotionless mask that nearly succeeded in hiding the turbulence of her emotions. Her slender wrists were each wrapped tightly with gauze and ace bandages. I carefully unwrapped the left wrist, almost afraid of what I was going to find. Long, ragged looking red cuts ran down the interior length of her forearm; undoubtedly I would find its twin on her right arm. Looking beyond the immediate wounds, scars in varying degrees of healing and regeneration crisscrossed the surface of her skin as well. Obviously this was not the first time Akito-sama had acquainted her flesh with the wrong end of a knife.

Still holding her arm gently, I looked up at her. Within her eyes I saw a flash of defiant anger; they seemed to be daring me to judge her for her self-mutilation. I refused to be baited and I merely reached into my black bag and pulled out some betadine to apply to the wound before preparing to stitch it shut. She winced and her eyes filled with tears as the antiseptic seeped into the yawning cut. Gently, I swabbed the excess fluid from her with a clean piece of gauze.

"How long has this been going on, Akito?" I asked quietly as I threaded the catgut on to my needle and knotted it at its end. She didn't answer at first, watching me with distrustful eyes as I prepared to stitch her shut. Perhaps she expected a lecture or angry recriminations from me. Maybe she thought I would scold and ridicule her actions as stupid and childish. But I wasn't inclined to act on either of those options. I had learned a long time ago that emotional arguments carried little weight and caused the recipient to feel defensive and stop listening. I was far more likely to be heard out if I were to maintain an air of objective detachment and logic.

I laid her arm carefully across the table next to us with the injury facing up and I adjusted the lamp to shine greater light on it. Taking great care, I pinched the edges of the wound together and inserted the needle through both. She stiffened with pain and bit down on her lip and I drew the thread through. I paused to dab away some seeping blood with the gauze. When it became apparent that I wasn't going to attempt to nag an answer out of her, she drew a deep breath.

"It's been a while now, Hatori," she said quietly. "I don't quite remember when I first began." She fell silent again, stiffening with pain as I drew the needle and thread through her flesh again, gauging my response to her words. I maintained my non-judgmental detachment, focusing on keeping the stitches small, tight and neat.

"What motivates you to do this, Akito?" I asked quietly, tying a small knot in the cat gut and using my sheers to cut off the thread. She looked up at me with a venomous glare.

"You couldn't possibly understand, Hatori, so why bother asking?" I re-wrapped her stitched up arm in a fresh bandage. "None of you juuneshi would understand." I checked the bandage to make sure it was not too tight and then I gestured to her to show me her other arm. She held out the right arm, suppressed rage making her movements stiff and jerky. She continued to wait for my response as I carefully unwrapped her wounds, her impatience and fury evident in her short, rapid breaths; but I refused to be baited.

This cut was worse than the other, blood was oozing out in time with each beat of her heart. I focused on cleansing it carefully with antiseptic. It would do her no good if I was to stitch up bacteria into her flesh. I felt her eyes boring into the top of my head as she watched me swabbing the gash gently. I paused in my ministrations and met her eyes, taking care to keep my expression free of any trace of frustration or pity; either of these emotions would free a torrent of abuse, both physical and psychological from Akito, and not necessarily on me. Judging by her scars, Akito was as cruel to herself as she was to the juuneshi.

Under the weight of my gaze, Akito's angry visage seemed to falter and then crumble into sheer misery. I watched the tears well up her glittering onyx eyes and her face contorted with an effort not to crumble into sobs. She angrily blinked the tears away and turned her face away from mine. I looked back down to her arm and began stitching the gash closed.

"You don't know what it is like, do you?" she said softly, her voice resonant with suffering. "To be surrounded by people, and yet completely alone and utterly reviled." She convulsed and choked back a small sob. "Father told me that I was born to be loved and cherished by all the juuneshi, that you would never leave me. That we would be happy together forever." Her voice became quieter. "But you hate me. You all hate me. The more I try to hold you all close, the more you all try to leave."

I listened quietly, carefully finishing up my last stitch, knotting the catgut and pulling it tight. She winced and fell silent. I unrolled some fresh gauze bandages and applied them to her wrist, gently wrapping them in place with an ace bandage. As I gathered up the remaining gauze and bandages to put away in my "little black bag," Akito caught me by chin, forcing me to look her in the eye.

"Do you know what it is like to be hated by everyone you know? Do you know what it is like to be hated by your own mother?" Her eyes took on a feral look, and she seemed as though she was looking past me, seeing something in her mind's eye that haunted her. "Do you know what it is like to have your mother seduce away the only person who has ever loved you? She fucked him, Hatori, and then she came to my room to tell me all about it."

She let go of my chin, her hand dropping limply to her lap as she sat woodenly at the table next to me. Tears ran freely down her face, but she didn't seem aware of them. My heart surged with compassion for her that I didn't dare express; Akito was hypersensitive and far too likely to take any expression of empathy as pity. I wanted to comfort her, but I didn't dare try; the last time I had angered Akito, I had nearly lost my eye to her.

"She tells me I shouldn't even be alive, Hatori. She says I should have died instead of Father." Her voice sounded flat and monotone; her posture radiated despair. "Sometimes she comes in my room and talks to me for hours about how much you all hate me. How much he hates me and prefers her."

I knew she was referring to Shigure, and I wondered at Shigure's gall. Why the man would choose to sleep with Ren when he knew of the bad blood between her and Akito was beyond my capacity to understand. I watched a single tear slowly make its way over her delicate, ivory cheek, gaining speed as it descended into the hollow beneath the cheek bone and down her long pale neck. She sat back in the chair and pulled her knees up, wrapping her arms around them and hugging them close to her like a frightened child.

"Sometimes the pain becomes so great that I feel myself going numb," she whispered while I strained to listen to her words. "Then I can't feel anything. I'm just numb, deadened to the world, insulated by my own pain. I find myself wondering if I am even alive, if I am real." She began rocking gently back and forth while still hugging her knees close to her.

"I sit alone all day, wondering if any of this is real," she whispered. "But when I cut myself, and I feel the sting of the blade on my skin, and I see the red of the blood spilling on to my kimono, I can feel, I am real." Her voice grew a little stronger. "If I can physically feel pain, I'm real."

I didn't say anything. What could I say? Akito was obviously not well. I had been unaware of the extent of her mother's abuse, and I certainly hadn't known about Ren and Shigure. Akito needed more help than I felt qualified to give. I may be a doctor, but I was a family physician, and Akito clearly needed the intervention of a psychiatrist at the very least. Except that Sohma Akito was the head of the Sohma family, the figurehead representing the entire rich and powerful clan to the rest of society; no one was going to allow word of her weakness to leave the inner circle of clan elders. If the clan leader was mentally ill, the entire clan lost face. Social dictates would necessitate that Akito's personal needs be sacrificed for the greater good of the family.

I felt bitter bile rising in my throat; I could relate to having my personal needs sacrificed for the "greater good." Isn't that what happened to each of us juuneshi? Born without a choice into an ancient curse, our roles were determined for us before we had even drawn our first breath. I thought of Kyo and the special role he played in this family drama, and I saw the parallels between his situation and that of Akito. Both Kyo and Akito had been made into monsters by the curse lying on diametrically opposing ends of the spectrum. Both held in a position of fear and disgust by the other members of the juuneshi. While Kyo had Kazuma to provide him with unconditional love and support, Akito had Kureno to hold and love her; but whereas Kazuma was willing to temper Kyo's melancholy and rage with common sense and wisdom, Kureno merely waited out Akito's furies with patience. While he provided her with unconditional acceptance, he did nothing to help her grow and learn to cope with the misery of her situation the way Kazuma helped Kyo. And so God and the cat-monster traded roles, with the cat finding love and acceptance among the juuneshi, and God finding herself isolated and rebuffed.

I sat helplessly watching her silently rock back in forth, her eyes empty of any hope or life, wondering if there was anything I could say or do to reach out to her and pull her back from the narrow emotional precipice on which she perched. I knew myself to be somewhat emotionally handicapped at providing effective expressions of genuine compassion, but I also knew I had to try. I would want someone to reach out to me if I was going under.

I reached my hand out hesitantly towards her shoulder, gently rubbing it in what I hoped would be a comforting gesture. She flinched at my touch, her eyes darting toward me with a glare of hostile resistance. I withdrew my hand and watched sadly as the rage and distrust flowed into her eyes.

She reached out and slapped me across the face hard. My skin stung across my cheek where she had struck me, but I made no move to flee or retaliate. I watched her expressionlessly as she quickly stood up and glared at me balefully.

"Don't pity me you bastard," she growled. "I know how much you and the others despise me. You are all waiting for me to die so you can be free. You just can't wait to leave me can you?"

I watched the flush of anger climbing up her neck and spreading across her face. Her eyes were wide with rage, pupils dilated. I made no move, reasoning that the best way to behave when in the presence of a maddened animal was to make no sudden movements to provoke it. I wasn't surprised that my awkward attempts to provide comfort to her were being met with rage; just disappointed.

My non-responsiveness seemed to infuriate her further and she picked up the chair she had been seated in and she flung it at me. I felt a sharp pain and saw a brilliant flash of white light as one of the legs caught me in the temple, before thousands of black pixilated dots swarmed my vision and blotted out all my awareness.

When I awoke, I found myself lying on my back in bed in a strange pale room. With a sense of bemusement I realized that I was awakening to a new perspective of a familiar scene: I was in the hospital, but as a patient instead of as a doctor. The fluorescent light of the room was uncomfortable to my eyes, and I made a mental note to myself to have the lights replaced with something easier on the eyes after I was allowed to return to work again.

"Oh Ha-ri! You have awakened at last! Speak to me and reassure me that the grievous injury you have sustained has not forever rendered you witless!" I winced at the sound of Ayame's strident voice trumpeting across the room and turned my head to face him. Ayame stood poised in an alert attitude at my bedside, somehow managing to infuse his genuine concern with the drama that informed his every action. I absentmindedly noted how even a stressed and miserable Ayame managed to look inhumanly beautiful, with his eyes glistening with tears and the color flushed high in his cheeks, and I again found myself wondering if nature had somehow erred when it made my cousin a man.

"Oh Shigure," Ayame whispered dramatically. "Will he ever speak again?" Shigure raised an eyebrow at his theatrics.

"I'm sure he will Aya, just as soon as you stop speaking long enough for him to form a coherent thought," Shigure said, his amusement evident in his wry tone. I closed my eyes momentarily, idly wondering if I could will myself back into unconsciousness until they left. But when I opened them again, they were still there, Ayame staring worriedly at me and Shigure waiting expectantly. I sighed.

"How long was I out?" I asked, discovering that the very act of speaking created the most unpleasant sensation of throbbing pain behind my right eye.

"Oh, only about twenty minutes, Ha'ri. Akito panicked and ran for help after she clubbed you in the head," Shigure said smirking. "Apparently even God knew she went too far this time. Although you would have hoped she learned something from what she did to your eye last time." I closed my eyes again, this time in an effort to push away the memories of how I nearly lost my left eye. Two years hadn't yet dulled the pain of that day, of how much it cost me. Of who it cost me. Ayame, ever sensitive to my emotions, immediately noted my reaction and chastised Shigure.

"'Gure, don't tease my Ha'ri-san like that," Ayame said reprovingly, swatting him upside the back of his head with the hand-painted pink silk fan he had been fanning himself with. Shigure grimaced at Ayame and rubbed the offended portion of the back of his head. Bemusedly, I began to understand exactly why it was that I had instituted a limit on visiting hours at the hospital. It was rapidly becoming clear that any patient with a family like my own would never get the necessary bed rest to recover while his or her family was present. Clearly, I was going to have to go home if I was to rest at all.

I raised myself up on my elbows and tried to scoot myself into a seated position. My abrupt activity roused Ayame into shrill exclamations of concern and hand-wringing, and distracted Shigure from his self absorption long enough to get him to come over and help me sit up.

"Should you be sitting up already, Hatori?" Shigure asked. I was wondering that myself as a small Caribbean steel drum band marched and pounded its way discordantly across my skull, blotting out my vision with the sheer volume of pain; but I indicated I was fine…mainly to get Ayame to quit pawing at me and silence his histrionics.

"Really Shigure, Ayame, I will be fine. I'm sure it's just a minor contusion. A day of bed rest in the insolated quiet of my home should be more than enough to put me to rights," I said quietly, scanning the room through squinted eyes for my personal effects. I really was going to have to have a word with the other hospital administrators about changing out these fluorescent lights with something softer. Seeing my shoes sitting by the sink in the corner of the room, I carefully swung my legs over the side of the bed and I slowly stood up.

Convincing the nurse on duty to discharge me from the hospital was not as easy a task as convincing my idiot cousins. Intoxicated by our sudden shift in the balance of power, she argued strenuously in favor of keeping me overnight "for observation." I settled the argument with my feet; I walked out of the hospital with her running after me, shouting ineffective orders for me to halt. What was the hospital going to do, send security to restrain one of the hospital's chief administrators? It was with great relief that I finally relaxed in my own recliner, in my own home, no hovering Ayames or smug Shigures to shatter the blessed silence, no pushy, power mad nurses to nag me. I lit up a cigarette and inhaled deeply, enjoying silence.

As I smoked, I reflected on my encounter with Akito. I was deeply troubled by the fact that she very badly needed serious therapeutic intervention and was not likely to be allowed to receive it. Even more of concern was the likelihood that the Clan elders would look to me to provide the treatment for the head of the family. The fact that my medical training specialized in physical maladies would by no means discourage the elders from ordering me to play shrink to our troubled God. I felt my temple begin throbbing harder in time to the staccato beat of my rapidly rising blood pressure, and I ground my cigarette butt out in the ashtray beside me. It looks like I better brush up on my knowledge of psychopharmacology and dust off the old Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders tomorrow, because like it or not, I knew I was going to find her name written into my schedule book by the end of the week for a psychological evaluation.

AN: Believe it or not, this story started out as an oneshot and it somehow transformed into a chapter story. I blame Gwen the Kakashi Obsessed. It's all her fault. She's the one who suggested I make it longer. As always, please read and review. Reviews encourage and inspire me, motivating me to continue writing. Thanks for stopping by and trying out my new tale! Magpie