Kagaku Ninja-Tai Gatchaman Fan Fiction ❯ The Timepiece ❯ Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Roses.

Ken could smell the fragrance of Roses, dozens of them. It felt so good.

He stretched his long limbs luxuriously and opened his eyes. He looked around and found himself lying on a lush carpet of green grass in the middle of a lovely rose garden. There were roses everywhere. Pink ones, white ones, red ones, yellow ones of every possible breed you can name. He got up, looking around in wonder.

"Oh man, where am I? How could I have got here? Wasn't I fighting with Z?" he wondered aloud to himself.

"Ken!" A gentle loving voice called him from behind.

Ken turned around. Beside a large water fountain featuring a beautifully carved angel carrying a pitcher, there was a swing attached to the branch of an old oak tree. On that swing sat a woman in a long gown, the same colour as the water lilies in the fountain. Her long brown hair tied up to a chignon and her features so beautiful that she could be an angel herself. She smiled at Ken.

Ken drew a deep breathe in and ventured softly, "Mama?"

She smiled and extended her hands to him. "Come here, my son, let me get a better look at you."

Ken walked over as if in a trance, "Is that really you mother? Am I dead?"

Still sitting in the swing, she embraced him. Taking his face in her hands, she drank in very part of it lovingly. "My son, you have grown up. I am so proud of you, son. You saved the Earth."

Ken sank onto his knees and buried his head in her lap, "Mama, I missed you so much. All these years." He then looked up into her eyes, "Father died too. Is he with you right now? Are we going to be together?"

His mother shook her head gently, "No, my dear son. Your time has not yet come. You have to go back. But I am glad that you have come to see me. I miss you so much."

"I miss you so much too, Mama"

"Go back, my son. It's not your time yet."

"Mama!" A thick fog gathered around them and his mother drifted away from him. Ken tried to run after his mother but he was blinded by the sudden appearance of a bright light. He raised his hands trying to block it out and was shocked that somebody was blocking his hands in turn.

"He is waking up" A soft female voice sounded somewhere close to him.

"Mama!!!" Ken startled as the strong light subsided into darkness. He blinked a few times before his eyes adjusted to the lighting of the room around him. The garden was no longer there and he was fighting valiantly at whoever it was holding his hands.

"Damn it, Ken. Wake up, you have been dreaming." Came Joe's voice beside him.

"Joe, you dead too?" Ken woke up with a start.

"You wish, Ken. It is not THAT easy to get rid of me." Joe smirked, rubbing his arms where it had been hit several times in Ken's struggle.

Ken tried hard to focus and looked around. He was in one of those private rooms reserved for the team in medical. He remembered the room well, he had been there more times than he had ever wished for. He tried to sit up a bit but found himself hooked up to all sorts of medical equipments.

"Mr. Washio, you are under treatment, it would be best if you would stay put until this round of treatment is over. It would only take another 15 minutes." It's that female voice again. Ken could smell the rose fragrant again, looked like it was the perfume that this woman was wearing.

Ken looked towards the direction of the voice into a pair of caring green eyes, which reminded him of Jun's. But the face surrounding the eyes was definitely not Jun's. The lips were finer, the ash black lashes were longer, the thin straight nose and the cheekbones were both higher. However, the face did not feel like one of a stranger. There was a certain familiarity with this face, though he could not remember where he had seen it.

Ken shook his head trying to clear his mind. "You are?" Ken looked at Yuki in askance.

"I am your doctor, Yuki Washio, from the future." Yuki smiled politely.

"From the future" Ken asked, looking more puzzled.

"Yes, sir. Year 2059. In fact, you yourself had sent me back to rescue the team and to treat your cancer." Yuki was glad that he did not seemed to have taken in the fact that they shared the same lastname. So she would not need to explain their relationship, at least not yet.

"I sent you back from 2059?" Ken repeated as if in a daze. Then, his brows relaxed dreamily and he grinned, "You mean I actually lived to the year 2059? You mean I would not die of this cancer?"

Yuki smiled and nodded, "I think so, Sir. That's what I've been sent back for. To cure that cancer."

Ken felt his breathe quickening and he looked over to Joe with wonder in his eyes, "You hear that, Joe? Could it be true? Oh! This is too good to be true! Z destroyed and I can live? Come on quick, Joe, give me a pinch. I want to be sure that this is not a dream."

Joe did not wait for a second invitation. With an evil grin, he quickly placed a big well-placed pinch on Ken's forearm making Ken almost jump from the pain. As a result, Ken glared death at Joe and cursed at him under his breathe.

"Hey! But YOU asked me to do so!" Joe protested.

"Yeah right! I told you to jump from the rooftop too. How comes you didn't do it?" Ken continued to glare at Joe. Then, reality struck him again. "So I am going to live, you hear that??? I am going to live!" Ken almost pulled the equipments, trying to jump up from the bed.

"Sir! Sir! Just a few more minutes. Please stay put!" Yuki darted here and there, trying hard to save her equipment desperately while Joe gently pushed his brother back onto the bed.

Ken recollected himself and apologized for almost pulling all the equipments onto the floor. However, Ken was too happy with the news to settle down, he kept shifting on his bed. And his eyes shone with a bright light, making his already handsome features more handsome than ever. His first thought was to make up for the time he had lost due to the war and his duties. He had just missed out too much in the past few years, his education, his youth, his health and yes, girls. There was one person whom he would want to make up to most. He woke up from his dreamlike state with a tender smile and looked around.

"Joe, where is Jun?" Ken asked after not finding her in the room.

It was then that the rest of the team burst into the room laughing.

"Aniki!" Jinpei was the first one to burst through the doorway. With a hop and a skip, he jumped onto Ken's bed.

"Careful Jinpei, I don't have any spare equipments with me." Yuki chided the boy half jokingly.

"Yes, Jin, if you broke anything, I'd strangle you." Jun walked in the doorway with Ryu following close by.

Jinpei razzed Yuki and then turned to tease Jun, "Yes, Oneechan, I'd be a perfectly good boy and not risk spoiling the chance for YOUR Ken to get better."

Jun raised her hand in mock anger as if going to hit him and he jumped off the bed and hide on the other side of the bed. "Aniki, Oneechan is trying to kill me!"

Everybody in the room burst out laughing. Yuki looked at the clock and announced that the round of treatment was finally done. She went over to Ken and started to carefully remove the wires and tubes that were attached to Ken's naked upper-body.

"If you continue with this, I won't wait till your Oneechan decides to deal with you" Joe growled at the kid menacingly, while his eyes never wandered from watching Yuki getting the equipment off Ken.

Ryu walked over with a sheepish smile, "Well Joe, you'd better lay off the kid unless you want to spend your entire weekend playing the Xbox with me."

Joe smirked, "Yeah right, as if you wanted me to shoot you when you cheat. And anyway, Jun would not allow him to continue doing that for too long. You know, if he fails his Maths again this time. Hahha!" Joe made the gesture of snipping the line. Jun laughed and nodded at Joe's suggestion.

Jinpei sneered at Joe, " You don't have to remind her of that, Joe. You didn't do too well in Maths either when you were my age. And Yuki said that in the future, kids no longer need classroom tuition. You just put on a headset and you get the knowledge imbedded into your brain. Just like that." Jinpei snapped his fingers to show how easy it would be.

"Well, I'd hate to burst your bubble, Jinpei, but that does not happen until 10 years from now. And by then, you would be too old for it anyway." Yuki smiled while removing the last piece of tubing from Ken. She then helped him adjust into a sitting position.

"D'oh!" Jinpei struck a standard Woe-is-me pose which caused everybody to laugh.

After checking Ken over again, Yuki nodded to Ken. "You are responding to the treatment very well, Sir."

"Ken, please. It's awfully strange to be called `Sir', you know."

Yuki smiled and nodded. "Ok, Ken. Well. I will leave you all for a moment. We have just got the approval from my seniors to assist with the ISO research on Time Travel and Cancer treatment. So I have to go over to see Dr. Kamo about this. You guys take your time but don't wear out the patient, okay?" With that she excused herself and left the team to themselves.

Jun walked over to Ken and sat beside his bed, "Welcome back, Commander? So, how are you doing today?"

"I am feeling much better." Ken smiled back at Jun and looked at her so intensely that her heart jumped. She lowered her head, blushing prettily. Ken looked her over, he could see that Jun had been worrying over him and he felt guilty about it. Actually, he felt guilty about all the time that Jun had been caring for him and he had been acting like an idiot towards her.

Joe saw the look in Ken's eyes and caught on that Ken might want some privacy with Jun, so he announced. "Well, first one to get to the canteen gets a free Banana Split."

Before he could utter another word, one big and one small shadow sped past him into the hallway. Joe winked at Ken, then left the room, closing the door behind him

*********************