The Inheritance of Classical Rock

Author's Note:Another heads up before anyone reads this. This story is another companion piece, this time to both The Die is Cast and Take Me Away which is focused upon Haruka and Michiru, though you don't need to have read those pieces to know what is going on in this one as they are all separate from one another. I guess this is sort of becoming a series so I need to come up with a name of what exactly to call it. Hmmm…If anyone has any suggestions as to what to call it feel free to put them out there! I'd be happy to hear them! :D

Disclaimer: I do not own Sailor Moon or any of its characters (as much as I might like to ;).

Chapter One: Hope Has a Place

January 27, 1986

The end of his cigarette was glowing, a spot of charged orange light in the darkness of the room. Kenshin Tenoh leaned back in the chair of his corner office and let a steady stream of smoke bellow out from his parted lips. That done, he opened and closed his mouth lazily before reaching up abstractly to push his thick black rimmed glasses back onto the bridge of his nose.

Why did it have to be so cold in Tokyo in the wintertime? Oh why oh why couldn't the snow and the abrasive wind take a holiday for once?

Taking a few long drags off of his cigarette, he rolled his neck, listening to it pop as he prepared to stand and leave the office for the night. It was a Tuesday, so tonight would be curry rice for dinner which he didn't mind in all honesty. His wife Moriko was a fabulous cook and no one starved in their household. Least of all the guests, when they had them, though they had welcomed fewer and fewer into their home since Moriko had told him she was expecting, much to his wife's chagrin.

Making his beautiful better half angry was about as taxing on Kenshin's health as smoking was and a much more immediate threat to his quality of life. He had tried his best to make life easier on her since she had told him she was pregnant and he had damn near tried to exile her to one side of the house once they had found out she would be having twins (though an ultimatum from him wasn't saying much—especially since she would be the one bringing two little creatures the size of rotisserie chickens into the world through an opening in her body that was considerably smaller than they would be—and she was never going to let him forget it either).

There were days that Kenshin was definitely grateful for a job that was not only miles away from home, but that also safely stowed him twenty or so floors above his wife and mainland Tokyo.

They were the Tenohs.

They, mind you, they—two twenty-three year old university graduates who couldn't cook real food, neither of them, and didn't own a pet for fear that they would forget to feed it—were going to be the parents of TWO children at once! Ever since his young wife had found out, she had begun to worry, naturally, at their candidacy for their random lucky streak in nature's twisted lottery.

But after the first few months of being pregnant. After morning sickness, swollen ankles, impeded movement forwards, backaches, and the loss of the ability to clearly see her own feet, Moriko had warmed to the idea of being a mother twice over—though it was lost on Kenshin why such agonies would make his wife do a full 360, but she did and he was happy for it. It would make his job as supportive father easier. He probably wouldn't do very well learning on his own, but so long as he had Moriko to guide and yell him through it, he was pretty sure it would turn out to be a successful, if otherwise interesting adventure for the both of them.

The door to his office propped open a spec before he had the chance to get through it.

"You ready yet, son?"

It was Okida, his father-in-law, ready to ride with him on the train home. He hated the train. It was hot, stuffy, and crowded. He much preferred his bikes, but his motorcycles made his wife nervous and she'd asked him to lock them away in storage until the babies were born—when she was hoping they would be able to trade them in for a family vehicle.

It was just one more indication that his days of freedom, of unattached abandon where his only obligations had been to his bike, the road, and himself were finally over.

"Almost." He replied.

Kenshin exhaled the last of the smoke from his lungs and leaned forward to snub the stub of his cigarette in the ash tray hidden in his drawer. As a finally precaution, he plugged in the air filter at the other side of his office and then moved back to plug in the air freshener by his desk.

Okida watched him with a blank expression on his face.

"You should really work at kicking that habit, Kenshin. It could get you fired."

Kenshin's last measure was to pop a mint into his mouth from his coat pocket as he threw it on along with his hat.

"And you need to learn how to be on time, Okida."

It was the second time in two weeks that Kenshin's mother-in-law had invited he and Moriko to their home for dinner and the first time they'd refused. Moriko had said she just didn't feel up to it and after a day like he'd had at work, Kenshin agreed.

He slumped back against the couch in their modest bungalow, his feet, still complete with dark socks propped up on the coffee table. His hands were thrown up across the couch back and his eyes were closed. If it hadn't been for the slow rhythm of rising and falling from his chest, then he would have looked dead.

"Sweetheart?" Moriko called from the kitchen somewhere behind him.

Kami, he didn't want to answer. He just wanted to fall asleep here.

"Kenshin."

The call was more low pitched the second time around, more demanding.

He sighed and sat up a bit, running both hands through his disheveled blond hair as he leaned over the coffee table.

"What?"

This was the grumpy part and the ugliest reality of pregnancy for an expectant father.

"Kenshin Tenoh, you lazy good for nothing ingrate, get up off of that couch and get in here!"

Kenshin sighed and stood up, taking a few deep breaths before he walked into the kitchen. When he looked up he was surprised at what he saw. His wife was gripping the counter top and staring down at a puddle of water that had collected between her feet. He swallowed and didn't make a move to get any closer, just pointed to the puddle on the floor.

"What is that?"

Moriko's eyes had been as wide as saucers, but when she looked up they narrowed along with her sharp tone, "What in the hell do you think that is?! My water just broke."

Kenshin just stared at her some more.

"Kenshin please, make yourself useful and go get the suitcase I packed last week and call a taxi and the hospital while I clean this up." Moriko ordered him.

He swallowed again and turned down the hall and pulled a suitcase out of the hall closet. Then, getting back into the living room, he picked up the phone and dialed the number for the hospital. After he was done with that call he held down the receiver and then released it, dialing the number for the Taxi company. A man had just come over the line when he heard a strange noise come from the kitchen. It sounded like water being spilled and something falling.

Giving in to his better judgment, Kenshin hung up the phone and walked into the kitchen. A bucket of water was spilled all over the floor, mingling with a trail of blood that led him to the prone body of his wife sprawled by the counter.

Kenshin Tenoh was his father's second son. He'd never been good at doing what was expected of him and almost nothing had ever been expected of him so he'd been short changed in both ways.

So he was useless in a lot of situations and particularly in a crisis.

He'd called the hospital back and had an ambulance sent out to get them. That much he knew how to do. And the paramedics knew their jobs well too.

They'd taken all of Moriko's vitals and had determined that her blood pressure was high and that was what had caused her to pass out, initially. When they had arrived at Tokyo General, the paramedics had taken her into surgery and left him in the hallway.

And there Kenshin remained. Seated on the floor, knees pulled up to his chest, back to the wall, head in his hands and his fingers gingered through his hair.

He hadn't thought to call anyone else, not even his in-laws and he wasn't sure what he would say to them if he did. Kenshin Tenoh had never been gifted with words. Whenever he and his wife went out with friends or to a work party she usually did all of the talking for him and stayed close by him so that he wouldn't feel or appear out of place.

It usually did the trick. It usually made him feel useful or at least wanted. But he didn't know what to feel when he wasn't feeling either one of those things.

Kenshin ran a wrist over his eyes, rubbing each one individually.

It'd been two hours and no one had told him anything. Was that normal?

Kenshin remembered the night he'd met his wife. At the house of a friend who lived near him in student housing. His friend, Eiji, had had a small gathering at his house whom he'd cooked dinner for and had invited over for a drink if they would like.

Originally, Kenshin hadn't been invited. He'd been in his apartment, repairing a part on his motorcycle on his kitchen counter. Once he'd retweaked the part he was sure was broken he put it back on the bike and revved it up—again in the middle of his kitchen. This had backfired when the bike—not braced on the floor sturdily enough and held back by nothing but his own hands—got away from him and slammed into the railing of his balcony, which stopped the bike but caused his right side mirror to go smashing down onto the balcony of the apartment that had actually belonged to his friend during his party.

Well, not being endowed with patience among other things. Kenshin had gone down stairs in his jeans and grease stained t-shirt to ask for his mirror back. The grad student had let him in and once he had gotten his mirror, he had actually talked him into staying. Against a backdrop of button up shirts and well groomed appearances, Kenshin knew he was nothing impressive so he didn't even try to impress anyone there.

But apparently he had impressed someone, Moriko. The way she told the story. He had sat in his chair and ate with manners that seemed to suggest that he was more than just an uncouth grease monkey. And she'd wanted to find out if there really was more to him than there'd seemed to be. Well after six months of dating she had been and was now convinced that he had more potential than he gave himself credit for in many ways.

So she'd married him, the grease monkey, convinced that he was a talented boy with the potential to become a great man.

It wasn't a story Kenshin wasn't particularly proud of, but Moriko could tell it at a party and make it sound cute.

He leaned his head back against the wall and let his arms hang down to the floor, green eyes staring up at the dull polyester ceiling as if expecting a miracle.

This was why Kenshin didn't immediately notice the man come out of the double doors down the hall and start towards him. When he was almost on top of him, the man called his name.

"Mr. Tenoh?"

Kenshin scrabbled to his feet and the man extended his hand to him.

"My name is Dr. Olen and I need to talk to you about you wife."

"Is she—"

"No, she pulled through alright and she's going to be fine, but there are still things we need to discuss."

He motioned Kenshin towards a small seating area at the end of the hall by the elevators. Once they were both seated, the blond glared up at the other man and the doctor cleared his throat preparing to begin.

"Well, like I said, you're wife is going to be fine, but as for the twins…only one survived." Here he paused, letting the news sink in, "There were two initially a boy, who was born first, and a girl, but only the girl survived the birth. You're wife said you'd both agreed on a name?"

The floor seemed to sink from beneath Kenshin's feet. A girl? What was he going to do with a girl? The boy was supposed to be for him. They were supposed to be able to build model cars together, do wheelies on manual peddle bikes, and race real ones one day. What was he going to do with a girl?

Kenshin shook himself internally and nodded, "Haruka."

He hadn't been prepared for this. His mind stopped.

"I'm sorry", Dr. Olen began again. "This happens sometimes with first time pregnancies. The body just can't handle carrying two healthy babies to term. Now, about your wife, she's going to need a lot of support right now and we recommend bringing in extended family for this as well, since the loss of your son will be as much a loss to her as it was to you. Mr. Tenoh—"

But Kenshin had gotten up and started down the hall in the other direction. He didn't even bother with the elevators. He took the stairs and kept going until the ground floor. Once he was outside the building, he took one look back at the hospital behind him, and then hailed himself a taxi.

The driver didn't take him to the bungalow. Instead, he dropped him at a large storage complex. Kenshin got out and flicked him off, shrugging his payment. The driver went away shouting obscenities at his back, that Kenshin refused to hear. He descended the stairs that would take him to the garage floor. There, Kenshin, unlocked the door with trembling hands and slammed the door behind him. Switching on the light, twelve motorbikes, each one a different make, model, year, and color staring back at him.

Impatience and his former life had taken its toll on him. He wasn't cut out for this. He couldn't believe that he had ever thought he would be.

He needed to find shelter someplace, to ride as far and as long as the road would take him…in a cave maybe, in some mountain where no human soul, not even people with the resources his family had, would be able to find him and bring him back.

Kenshin chose the red Suzuki closest to one of the garage doors. Keying into the hidden door beneath the leather seat, he lifted it up to reveal the storage compartment where he always kept his helmet and a matching jacket as well as a pair of clothes in a vacuum sealed bag.

He reached up and undid the tie from his neck hastily, throwing it onto the ground and stepping on it before he started on his button down shirt. He didn't even bother to undo the buttons, instead in his frenzy to just get away, he ripped through all of the buttons down the center. Angry now, he shrugged off the shirt and threw it at the door across from him.

Taking a few deep breaths, he wiped at his eyes, not calming down any and shrugged into his leather jacket. Once both layers were zipped up, he put on his helmet and kicked back the kick stand, leading his bike towards the still closed garage door. Approaching it, he reached up and pushed a button and the garage door opened for him. Kenshin paused as he looked down at the streets beginning to get slickened by the rain that had just started coming down, but only momentarily as he wheeled his bike out into the open.

Once outside, the sensor on the door closed it as Kenshin Tenoh mounted his bike, riding out into the street and away into the night.

"I had seen birth and death but had thought they were different."

-T.S. Eliot-

(1888 – 1965)

"Death, like birth, is a secret of nature."

-Marcus Aurelius-

(A.D. 121 – A.D. 180)

"A man never knows what he has while he has it, but never forgets what he loses once he's lost it."

-Anonymous-