Unexpected Expectations

Chapter 13: Two Roads Diverged

Xx~~*~~xX

Nanoha took a deep breath. "I just want to tell you-"

"Shh, it's okay, I know," Fate replied, interrupting her. "Me, too."

Nanoha....

"Well, got what you finally wanted; thought you'd be happier."

Yuuno looked up to see himself, realizing it was the other him. "What makes you think this is what I wanted!"

He gestured to the two women hugging each other, displayed on the screen. "I know you; I AM you. That teleport wasn't to save her; it was to avoid facing the truth. It was the easiest path to follow, and thus you did it. You're so predictable that way."

"That's not true!" Yuuno shot back, angry. "I did what I had to, to save her!"

The other him shrugged. "That's a cop out, and you know it. But believe what you wish, if it makes you feel better."

"After all you've put me through, I'm surprised you're telling me that," Yuuno said darkly, then laughed. "And here I am talking to myself; I must have finally gone crazy. Who are you supposed to be?"

"I am you, remember?" his duplicate informed him. "You created me to help you. Everything that's happened, everything I did to you is what you desired."

Yuuno stared at him, incredulous. "All those bad dreams, and you're telling me that's what I wanted!"

The other him laid back and gazed upwards, seemingly unperturbed. "After all this time, you still don't see it. Denial is pretty powerful, I suppose. Very intriguing."

"Well then, if you're supposed to be me, why don't you just tell me?" Yuuno challenged. "What exactly am I hiding from myself?"

His duplicate laughed. "That would be too easy, but I can toss you some hints. The way you ran away, nearly burned yourself in the shower, allowed those amazons to capture and torture you, took them back into the procreat even though you knew what would happen, and ultimately threw your life away. Hell, let's go back in time to the Jewel Seeds, and how you went after them alone. Even after you got Nanoha's help, you wanted to push her back out of it once you were feeling better and continue alone. Seeing it yet? You pride yourself on being a scholar, so it shouldn't be an issue."

"You're saying I always take everything on myself?" Yuuno asked after a few moments of thought, then laughed once again. "That I have some sort of martyr complex?"

"Well now, you are a bright boy after all!" his duplicate sneered. "You *wanted* to torture yourself, so I obliged; that's why we're still talking now, because you're still conflicted. All that stuff you did? Self-destructive much?"

Yuuno was silent a moment. "Maybe I am. I guess I never stopped to think about it. What does it matter now, anyway?"

"You think that if you live, you'll still need to bring pain to yourself and those around you," his mirror image accused. "You don't want others to suffer because of you so much, and thus death is a convenient escape. Life and reality are much scarier to confront."

"And I realize you're only telling me this, because you're trying to torture me some more," Yuuno commented cynically, still gazing at the still frame of Nanoha and Fate. "That is what you said you were here for."

"Perhaps I am," the duplicate suggested with a grin. "For you, living is the worst torment you could possibly endure at this point. You're too pathetic to stop blaming yourself for everything, always trying to think of others, while never thinking of yourself. You fancy yourself somehow noble for doing so, when in reality you're just killing yourself a little at a time. 'Yuuno is a good man, never thinking of others, isn't he so great? He never wants for anything.' Sickening, that's what it is."

Yuuno's head lowered. The sting was straight to the point, but he should have expected that; there was little you could hide from yourself if you were deliberately looking. And one always knew what hurt oneself the worst.

"So, I ask you: Is this what you really want?" the replica challenged again. "Are you satisfied with this? Just giving up?"

Yuuno clenched his eyes shut, the picture fading before his eyes. "No...."

The other Yuuno cupped his ear and leaned in slightly. "Hmm? What was that?"

"I don't want it to end like this...." Yuuno declared under his breath, his fists clenching as he finally faced the truth he had been avoiding. "I was hurt, used, abused.... and I convinced myself that it was what I wanted. To prove it, I continued to abuse myself, justifying it by saying I was doing it for everyone else."

His other yawned. "So? What are you going to do about it? Bit late to finally figure that out, hmm? After all, you're dead."

Yuuno's head came up, fixing his double with a glare. "But now I know your purpose. I created you because I wanted to punish myself, constantly seeking pain as some form of atonement. Perhaps I was running away, but not anymore!"

"Whoa, weren't you watching the movie? You're dead!"

Yuuno grinned. "If I were dead, you wouldn't be trying to convince me to live. Like I said, you're the part of me I created to torture myself; you're still trying to do it. And apparently, you also got the self-preservation part of myself, too. While I wanted to die, you want to live; and if I die, so do you."

Expecting another comeback, Yuuno was surprised instead to see his double slowly clap his hands. "Congratulations, ferret boy. Took you long enough." His face turned serious, as he slowly dissolved. "I'll be watching you, you know. Waiting for you to slip up, to torture you again. Because you will call me again. Perhaps to cut your wrists or something."

"We'll see about that," Yuuno told his other self as it completely disappeared, then he looked up and closed his eyes. "But now, I have some place I need to be."

x~~*~~x

His eyes shot open and he took a deep breath, instantly panicking at his lack of movement; he felt constricted, sluggish, his limbs unresponsive. And then his brain fully registered his location in a hospital bed, a breathing mask over his face, and a blanket covering most of his body. He still couldn't move much, but he gradually calmed down.

[Is this real?] he wondered. [Did I do it?]

And then as his eyes roamed the room, he noted the girl with familiar brown hair beside his bed, leaning over with head down and resting on her arms, and he smiled.

[If this isn't real, if it is some sort of dream, perhaps I don't want to wake up,] the thought came to him, but then he chastised himself; that's what got him into this mess in the first place.

His slight movements must have disturbed her, for she slowly raised her head and rubbed her eyes, blinking as she noticed the patient in the bed looking back at her.

"Yuuno-kun!" she cried, leaning forward suddenly to hug him. "You're awake!" She pulled back suddenly. "You are awake, aren't you? You remember everything? How do you feel?"

"Yes," he managed to say with a hoarse voice, then grimaced. "Throat... dry..."

"Oh, hold on, there is something we can about that," she told him, reaching down and pulling up a tube, lifting his breathing mask a bit to hook one end of the tube into his mouth. "You were in a coma for over a week; Shamal wasn't sure you'd pull through, considering the damage you sustained. Okay, I'm gonna squirt some water into your mouth."

He swallowed the small amount of cool liquid, his speech improving as a result. "Thank you, Nanoha. And I want to say.... I'm sorry. For what I did to you, for running away after, and for wiping your memories. I know you don't remember, but-"

"Shh!" Nanoha commanded, something in her tone making him curious. "Stop it! I remember everything. Strangely, it all came back to me when I saw you begin to fall. Shamal thinks my mind magically protected those memories of you, because they were so connected with my magic so my subconscious just buried them.

She reached down to take his left hand in hers, squeezing it. "I already forgave you for what happened when we were inside that lost logia; it wasn't you who raped me, and I know it hurt you as much as it hurt me. But I know you would never willingly harm me if you could help it. I let you, so that you wouldn't suffer. I forgive you for running away, too. It hurt, I'll admit, but I probably wasn't ready to face you right away. And it was I who decided on the mind wipe, again, because I didn't want you to suffer, and I could see you were. " She smiled sadly. "I think we both messed up, doing bad things we shouldn't have, because we didn't want the other to suffer."

"I never knew..." Yuuno stated softly, staring at her, then laid his head back and let out a single laugh. "I guess we were both a couple of idiots, then."

"Yeah..." she replied, then gave his hand a squeeze. "But I'm glad you're back, Yuuno-kun."

Yuuno closed his eyes concentrating on the feeling of his hand in hers. "Me too." But there was something more. "Nanoha... I realized a lot of things while I was out. Things I wanted to hide, because I felt it was for the best. But I know now, I have to be honest with myself, and with everyone else."

"Yuuno-kun?" Nanoha questioned, her voice unsure.

"Part of why it hurt me so much, to see you hurt," he replied softly. "I never wanted to hurt you, and yet I ended up doing it anyway. But the real reason was because of... how I feel about you. I want to do what I can to help you raise our child, but I'll leave it up to you, as to how much you want me involved. I don't expect you to feel the same; I just want you to be happy. And I didn't want to be conflicted anymore."

"Shh," Nanoha told him again, leaning down to hug him. "I know, I understand. Perhaps I always knew how you felt, and never confronted it myself. I don't know how I feel right now, but we'll work something out, I promise. This is your baby, too, and I want the child to know what a great man his or her father is. And no matter what, I can promise we'll always be friends. We've been through too much together; I'd be a terrible friend if I let it end over a few small bumps. We all have our issues, even me."

Yuuno smiled finally feeling the weight begin to lift, as he closed his eyes and managed to lift his arms to hug her back. "That's all I wanted to hear, thank you."

x~~*~~x

"Oh, Yuuno, welcome!" Fate said with a smile, as he came in through the door. "How was it?"

"Difficult, as always," he admitted.

She smiled. "Counseling sessions are like that. But just think of Aina, who has more physical therapy to go through later."

"Yeah, and I promised I'd take her over, before I head off on my trip," Yuuno told Fate, walking with her into the living room.

"Going to see Quin and Mallory?" Nanoha called from the kitchen as she prepared dishes. "I almost wish I could go with you, to meet them. All I have are the letters you've received, with them thanking you for all you did. If you hadn't of gone on your trip, Mallory would be dead now."

Yuuno laughed once. "At least something good came of it. That's what Dr. Leann says anyway."

A crying sound emanated from somewhere in the house, causing the three to sigh and smile, and Nanoha to begin to remove her apron.

"Oh dear, I should have known she wouldn't stay asleep until after dinner," Nanoha commented.

"I can handle it," Yuuno offered with an amused smile, holding up his hands "Don't worry about it.

Nanoha's smile let him know she was grateful. "Thank you. Here, take this bottle in case she's hungry; I kept it warm."

Yuuno accepted it, pointedly trying to avoid turning red at Fate's very pleased grin as she set the table; she was really enjoying seeing "daddy" be put in these situations. As Yuuno traveled to the baby's room, he had to admit he was finding himself enjoying it, too, although he tried not to let it show too much. Despite the method of conception, having a child was somehow soothing to him, deep down.

[Still,] he thought with a sigh as he opened the door into the darkened room, [it might be nice if she was a little quieter.]

He set the bottle down as he picked up his crying 3-month old daughter from her crib and began to rock her in his arms. "Shh, it's okay Momoko, daddy's here."

Surprisingly, she began to quiet down, settling for some occasional frustrated cries, which made him feel proud inside for some reason. He started to hum a low song, a little useless ditty he remembered from his own childhood, thinking about everything he wanted to teach this young girl.

"That was beautiful," Nanoha said from the doorway, startling him as he finished his song; he didn't even realize he had switched to a low singing voice.

He blushed. "Just trying to calm her down, which I think she is now."

"You are good at that," Nanoha remarked with amusement, coming to stand beside him. "It usually takes me twice as long to calm her back down. I take it she's not hungry?"

Yuuno shook his head, as he noticed Momoko's eyes were closed again. "Doesn't seem like it; might have just been a bad dream, and she just wanted some reassurance. Speaking of food, didn't you need to watch dinner?"

"Fate's taking care of it," Nanoha replied, reaching out to gently squeeze his upper arm. "You're a good father."

Somehow, that simple phrase meant more to him than anything else, but it also caused his cheeks to redden again. "Thank you, although I don't know what I'm doing, or where I"m going most of the time."

"One step at a time," Nanoha told him. "That's all any of us can do. There's a lot I still don't know, either. But we'll take it one day at a time. You, me, Fate, and Momoko."

Yuuno nodded, in full agreement. "One day at a time. That's good enough for me."

Xx~~*~~xX

Author's notes:

As a fanfic author, sometimes we find ourselves with multiple directions we could go, and then we realize the beauty of writing fanfics, is that we can explore several directions. The previous chapter could have ended there, and indeed, if you feel it makes for a better ending, you can stop there. But I wasn't able to have Yuuno confront himself in that, and I guess I'm a bit of a sap that likes happier endings, so I wrote this. Personally, it could be an AU ending, or the real thing, but that's something I'll leave for the reader to decide.

Some of you may recognize the title from a Robert Frost poem, where he contemplates which path to take. And how, in the end, he took the one less traveled by, and that made all the difference. His poems and short stories are some of my favorites, especially after I sang quite a few of his peoms-turned-int-songs in high school. While some say he may have been obsessed with death, I think he was more into the unknown; that he'd rather avoid the easy path, because the harder one made him a better person. But that's just my own view, heh.

So that's what this was, the exploration of another path, that I'll leave it to the reader to decide.

As for shippings or pairings, I'll leave that up to the reader, too. I didn't say what Nanoha or Yuuno are, or even what Fate is in this, but if someone wants to write a fic based off this ending, or the "ending" to the previous chapter, feel free. And take whichever interpretation you'd like.

In the end, I just wanted to do the unexpected, and explore something a bit different. Mainly just to try everything, and to grow as a writer.

And now, I have to finish Red Jewel Diaries, and make a decision, heh. See you next time!