Snake in the Horse’s Shadow
By Lord Raa
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Disclaim-me-do: There is no sexy way to remove a leg.
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Part 11
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Kasumi was in deep thought about her options. It was true that she wanted more from life, but it was also true that she felt obligated to look after her father.
“Kasumi?” Ranma asked her as he approached. “Have you made your decision?”
“I… I don’t know what to do, Ranma-kun,” she admitted. “What you’re offering sounds very exciting, but I can’t abandon my father. I'm sorry.”
“You want a life of your own, but you need to make sure your father is cared for,” the long-haired man said in an understanding tone.
“But what about Jolinar?” the brunette asked. “I don’t want to let her down…”
“I’ll find Jolinar a new host; you worry about your father. I’ll let everyone know about your decision.”
“But who?”
“I don’t know yet, Kasumi,” Ranma admitted. “But if you need to look after your family, then you should look after them.”
“Then you’re not angry?” Kasumi asked, she blinked slowly as she felt the energy drain out of her.
“I can’t criticise someone for thinking of their family first; I risked life and limb to rescue my dad from some hellish places. If your family is important to you, then they come first; no doubts about it.”
“I… thank you for understanding, Ranma-kun,” Kasumi bowed politely. When she returned upright, she felt a little dizzy. “Oh…”
“Is everything alright, Kasumi?”
“I’m a little tired, that’s all.”
Before Ranma could ask “Are you sure?” the brunette collapsed like a marionette with the strings cut, with only the martial artist’s reactions stopping her from falling to the floor.
“Crap. Little help here?” he called out. “Anyone? I need a doctor here!”
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Colonel O’Neill had been growing impatient with Ranma’s attempts to convince Kasumi to help get the Goa’uld out of Carter’s head and decided to check up on him.
“I need a doctor here!”
Breaking into a jog, he rushed to where he heard the voices come from and saw Ranma cradling the brunette.
“Ranma, what’s wrong?”
“I don’t know, she just collapsed. Which way to Dr. Fraiser?”
“This way,” O’Neill said as he ran off in the direction of the Infirmary.
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Ranma, for all his faults, knew when he couldn’t help and stood back. He wore a look of apprehension on his face as he watched Janet Fraiser expertly examine the unconscious brunette.
It was a side of his personality that O’Neill hadn’t seen before.
‘Medical emergencies are always humbling experiences…’ the Colonel thought as the medical team put Kasumi on a ventilator.
A few minutes later, Dr. Fraiser approached the two men. “I’m sorry to tell you this, Ranma, but I’ve got some bad news for you: Kasumi has suffered a brain haemorrhage. We’re doing what we can, but brain injuries are hard to predict and we’ll know more in the morning.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Not right now, Ranma, but you should know that if the damage is too severe, Kasumi won’t wake up,” the doctor explained.
“She’ll be stuck there in that bed?” the martial artist asked.
“I’m sorry, but yes, she will be. She won’t even be able breathe on her own.”
Ranma turned away. “I… shit. This is my fault. I knew she wasn’t well, and I made her use the rings…”
“You can’t predict a brain haemorrhage, Ranma. They’re triggered by many things: aneurysms, head trauma, hypertension, brain tumours are all linked with them. She could have had this bleed last week or next month.” Fraiser explained.
“But still, finding out you’re being asked to host an alien couldn’t have helped.”
“Maybe not, but you mentioned she’d been ill. Do you know what it was?”
“Err… some sort of auto-immune disease,” the raven-haired man said, looking a little distracted. “We didn’t really go into the specifics.”
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“Mr. Tendo, I…” Ranma started to say to the empty room. “Crap, I don’t know what to say to him. I can’t tell him the truth.”
There was a knock on the door.
“Yeah?”
“Ranma, I’m sorry to bother you, but Jolinar wants to talk to you,” Jack O’Neill said solemnly.
“I’m not really in the mood to talk to anyone right now.”
“She said it’s important,” the Colonel added.
“Fine, lead the way,” the martial artist sighed. “I don’t suppose you’ve got any idea what it’s about, do you?”
“She said something about leaving Carter.”
Ranma silently followed O’Neill to where Captain Carter was being held.
“What’s up now, Jolinar?”
“I… I’m reaching the point of no-return. If I don’t change hosts now, I won’t be able without killing Captain Carter,” the blonde explained.
“Well, I’m sorry, but Kasumi’s lying in the Infirmary with some kind of bleeding in her brain right now,” the pigtailed man snapped.
“I can save her, but I have to act now, Ranma!”
“What’s the problem, Ranma?” asked O’Neill.
“Kasumi,” Ranma sighed. “Kasumi said that she couldn’t abandon her father. I can’t blame her for putting family first.”
“But she’s dying, Ranma. Doing this now saves her and helps out the SGC by giving us Carter back,” the Colonel insisted. “Not to mention the countless lives the Tok’Ra will save from the Goa’uld.”
“I know. But it has to be her choice. I can’t just give the go-ahead for a parasitic snake to take up permanent residence in her head if she’d rather die.”
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Ranma stood by Kasumi’s bed, looking concerned at the tubes going into the brunette.
“Kasumi, I don’t know if you can hear me, but the only way to save you is for Jolinar to go into your head. It means you’re going to have to leave your life behind, but this is your only chance.”
Ranma scratched his head. “I… if you can hear me and you understand and you want to go through with this, squeeze my hand,” the pigtailed man said as he place his hand inside Kasumi’s.
The adrenaline rushing through the martial artist’s veins caused his perception of time to slow.
“Come on, Kasumi, please tell me you can hear me.”
The tension continued to build, but then ever so gently, Kasumi squeezed Ranma’s hand.
“Thank you, Kasumi. I’ll get Jolinar in here now.”
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Ranma returned to the Tendo Dojo and sought out his father.
“Dad, I need to talk to you.”
“What’s up, Son?”
“It’s about Kasumi,” the pigtailed man said with a sense of urgency. He took his father into an unoccupied room for some privacy. “You know she’s sick? Well, she’s gotten worse.”
“How bad is it?” Genma asked, his expression solemn.
Ranma took a deep breath. “She collapsed. The doctors said that she didn’t have a chance.”
“Is she still with the SGC?”
“Yeah.”
“We should bring her back for Tendo-kun. He should see her before she passes away,” the portly man said.
“There’s a problem. You know how I had an idea to cure her of her sickness; it involved her hosting a Tok’Ra, Jolinar. We talked it over, but she said ‘no’ at first. Then she collapsed with a brain thing, I think the doctor called it a ‘haemorrhage’. Her hosting Jolinar was the only way to save her.”
“This is awkward,” Genma sighed. “Tendo-kun relies on Kasumi. He makes first-year university students look like skilled homemakers; he can barely make instant noodles, let alone keep a house running smoothly. Ignoring him having to look after himself, what are we going to tell him when his daughter can’t come home anymore?”
“I don’t know, you know him better than I do!” Ranma countered.
“Even before we left for our training trip, it’d been years since I saw him. Even if he was my brother, I wouldn’t know how to tell him that his first born child wasn’t dead, but he couldn’t see her ever again.”
Silence descended as the two martial artists considered what to do.
“If you were to tell him that you were taking a job in America and that you were willing to take Kasumi with you as your fiancée…”
“Pops, ignoring the fact we’ve talked about you arranging marriages before, I’m not getting married to a Snakehead.”
“You wouldn’t have to get married to her, Ranma,” Genma clarified.
“Pops, Jolinar likes me. She tried to use Carter to convince me we should, you know. Telling her that I’ve got some kind of arranged marriage with her host is going to be like trying to fight off a lion with a steak!”
“If you can think of a better idea, then I’m all ears, Son. Look, what if we tell Jolinar that she’s got to pretend to be your fiancée?” the older Saotome suggested. “Rather than it being a proper engagement?”
“Pops…” the pigtailed martial artist sighed, “Are you really telling me that you don’t see this going wrong?”
“If you’ve got a better idea, I’m all ears, Ranma.”
Ranma finally conceded with a sigh. “Fine, but you better not try anything. It’s going to be hard enough getting Jolinar to pretend as it is.”
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Samantha Carter blinked slowly. She hadn’t felt this bad in a long time. After a few minutes contemplation, she had come to the conclusion that her current condition could be described as bad hangover combined with a dose of the flu, minus all the mucus.
“…ugh…” she groaned exhaustedly.
“Captain Carter?” Dr. Fraiser asked, looking up from her clipboard. There was another groan, this one answering in the affirmative. “You’ve been out for two days. How do you feel?”
“Drained. How’s Kasumi?”
“She’s been unconscious since Jolinar was transferred,” Janet answered. “Since we’ve never really seen Goa’uld healing up close before, I asked Teal’c about this. Apparently, it’ll take some time for her to get up to speed, despite the symbiote.”
“Y-yeah,” Carter agreed, flashes of memory surfacing when she thought about the Goa’uld blending process.
There was a knock on the door, drawing the two women’s attention to Jack O’Neill.
“About time you woke up, Carter,” the Colonel joked. “We were beginning to think that we’d need to find a replacement scientist.”
“You won’t get rid of me that easily, Sir,” the blonde smiled.
“Glad to hear it, Captain. Doc, what’s the official medical advice?”
“At least another day here in the infirmary for observation,” the doctor replied. “Then a week’s leave before she can come back for desk duty. A week of that, and we can talk about more strenuous work.”
“Paperwork? Ouch,” Jack sympathised. “Still, it beats a lifetime in a cell with a snake in your head. How’s Kasumi and Jolinar doing, Doc?”
“Jolinar is still working on healing Kasumi, Colonel. Brain haemorrhages are complicated things to repair, let alone when there’s an underlying auto-immune condition. I can’t say when she’ll be fit enough to travel, but her condition is improving.”
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“Saotome-kun, when did Kasumi say she’ll be back from visiting her friend?” asked Soun Tendo.
“Are you getting tired of my cooking, Tendo-kun?” Genma teased.
“I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful, but Kasumi’s been gone for nearly a week now. It’s not like her to just leave like this.”
The stockier of the two men took a deep breath. “Tendo-kun, there’s something I need to tell you. Ranma has been offered a job based in America; it’s something that he can’t turn down.”
The moustachioed man looked downhearted. “Oh, but what about...”
“He’d like Kasumi to come with him.”
“You mean, they’re willing to get married?” Soun asked, suddenly feeling elated.
“Eventually, yes,” Genma nodded. “But she’s going to have to leave Japan. I don’t know when she’ll be able to come back to visit you.”
“The last of my girls is leaving me…” the long-haired man sighed. “I… what do I do now?”
“Ranma will return with Kasumi and they’ll tell you the details, Tendo-kun. But in all honesty, you’ll need to learn how to look after yourself. You’re my friend, I won’t let you be abandoned to a life of squalor and takeaway food.”
“Thank you, Saotome-kun.”
“And if you’re a helpless student, I’ll just have to help you find a new wife,” Genma teased.
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Back at the infirmary in the SGC, Ranma sat by Kasumi’s bed. He was beginning to wonder if Jolinar was able to heal her new host.
He had been told Captain Carter had already woken up, albeit with her feeling like she shouldn’t have.
“So why aren’t you awake yet, Kasumi?” the martial artist rhetorically. “I thought those Goa’uld were able to heal pretty much anything.”
“The here are limits to what the symbiote can heal, Ranma Saotome,” Teal’c said, drawing Ranma’s attention away from the stirring body to his left. “But as a general rule, they will guarantee long life and good health to the host.”
“So why isn’t Kasumi awake? Or even Jolinar?” Ranma asked.
“Because it took some time for me to heal this body, Ranma,” Jolinar said, surprising both men. “If Kasumi had agreed earlier, then the blending process would not have taken as long.”
“Sorry about that,” the pigtailed man apologised.
“Your apologies are not necessary; I understand why there was a delay, Ranma,” the Tok’Ra said sympathetically. “Kasumi wishes to speak with you. In private.”
“I will tell Colonel O’Neill and the others that you have awakened,” Teal’c said before bowing and leaving to allow some privacy.
When they were alone, Kasumi’s eyes returned to their normal colour.
“¬How are you feeling, Kasumi?¬”
“¬Ranma, I… everything feels so strange. I’m tired, but not in the way I felt last week.¬” There was a pause as Kasumi looked away for a moment.
“¬Is everything alright, Kasumi?¬”
“¬Soon after Jolinar started to communicate with me, I started to get these visions.¬”
“¬What kind of visions?¬” Ranma asked.
The brunette blushed. “¬I… they were, well, I… they were experiences of being with a man.¬”
The martial artist scratched the back of his head. “¬Ah. There’s something that I need to tell you. Because you’re now part of the Tok’Ra, you can’t stay in Tokyo.¬”
“¬But what about Father?¬”
“¬As far as he’s concerned, you and I are engaged.¬”
“¬Engaged?¬” Kasumi asked. At first she was somewhat shocked, but then the situation filtered through to Jolinar.
“¬It was the only way to explain why you had to move away from Tokyo. We have to keep the truth about aliens under wraps,¬” Ranma explained. “¬But this way you can come back to visit your father; you just have to pretend when you’re around him. The rest of the time, you can do whatever you like.¬”
“¬Oh, I’m sure that I’ll find a suitable solution…¬” Kasumi smiled as Dr. Fraiser walked into the room.
“I see you’re feeling better, Kasumi. Do you mind if I examine you?”
“I’ll leave you in peace,” the long-haired man said with a polite bow. “I’m going to check up on Captain Carter.”
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Ranma knocked on the door to the room where Carter was resting.
“Come in,” the blonde said in a tired voice.
“I just came to see how you’re doing,” the martial artist said as he approached the bed.
“I haven’t felt this tired for a while,” the Captain answered. “How’s Kasumi?”
“She’s awake, but I think she needs to rest up before she goes through the Stargate. Looks like she’s not the only one.”
Carter smiled. “Ranma... I... I wanted to thank you.”
“What for?”
“For refusing Jolinar’s advances. I could tell that you two had a history, and I know that there are men who wouldn’t have been so noble.”
Ranma sat down next to the bed where Carter was now sitting up. “Even if I didn’t believe in people being free, I didn’t want to have to deal with you trying to kill me. We’ve had our disagreements, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”
Carter smiled. ‘Well, I can see how Jolinar was charmed by him.’ “Agreed. Friends?”
The martial artist shook hands with the scientist. “Friends. I heard you’re going to be stuck behind a desk for a while?”
“Yeah, I’ve got another day’s observation, a week’s medical leave and then a week’s desk duty before Dr. Frasier will even consider letting me go through the Stargate.”
“Ouch. Still, I guess you’ll have an excuse to look at the naquadah reactor I gave you. You do still have it, right?”
“Yes,” Samantha nodded. “I haven’t had much chance to investigate it properly.”
“Good,” Ranma smiled. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to work out how to tidy up this thing with Kasumi.”
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Ranma returned to Kasumi’s room, surprised to see her standing up.
“Kasumi?”
“Jolinar, actually. So, I hear that you’re going to be my husband?”
The pigtailed martial artist winced. “Something like that. It was the only way to keep you, Carter and Kasumi alive and free.”
“Oh well, I suppose that I can pretend. Might make a few people jealous when they hear what’s happened,” the Tok’Ra smirked.
“Yeah, about that,” Ranma said his face serious. “If you go around blurting out how you’re my fiancée, people will try to hurt you. I can think of several aliens who’d happily skin you alive just to get at me.”
“That would explain why you’ve been reluctant to take a mate,” Jolinar mused. “I thought you were just being indecisive.”
Ranma’s eyes narrowed, but he remained silent. “Moving along, when do you think I can take Kasumi to say goodbye to her father?”
“We can go now, if you like.”
“Get dressed first. It’s going to be awkward enough as it is.”
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Before leaving for Nerima, Ranma and Kasumi had been called into General Hammond’s office for a one last conversation.
“Miss Tendo, Jolinar, thank you for your help resolving the issue with Captain Carter,” the bald man said, bowing his head respectfully. “I understand that you’re making a great personal sacrifice.”
“You’re welcome,” Kasumi hesitantly replied in English. She was still getting used to the idea of knowledge being in her head that she hadn’t learned herself. But a few strange things was more than worth being able to move without pain.
“Yes, thank you, Kasumi. You too, Ranma.”
She looked to see Ranma nodding at Colonel O’Neill.
“Don’t worry about it. I like to help,” the pigtailed martial artist replied with a modest shrug. “I’m just worried how Kasumi’s father going to take it when I tell him I have to take his daughter away with me.”
“It could be worse, you could have gotten Kasumi pregnant,” O’Neill smirked. “That said, she is technically eating for two now...”
“Don’t even joke about that,” Ranma warned.
The Colonel blanched. “Yeah, I saw what happened when we saw the Baroness... I’m sorry Ranma.”
“The Baroness?” Kasumi repeated.
“Long story which we’re not going into right now,” Ranma insisted. He turned to face General Hammond. “Thank you for your hospitality and help getting my father home. If you need my help, you know where to reach me. Well, when I’m on Earth, I mean.”
“Where will you keep your ship?”
“Not telling,” the martial artist replied. “If you don’t know, you can’t tell anyone. I’ve learned that the hard way.”
“Fair enough,” O’Neill nodded in approval. He was reminded of his previous classified missions.
“I’ll let you know when I get back,” Ranma said moments before the transport rings on his ship descended around him and Kasumi.
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There was a flash of bright light inside the Tendo dojo.
“I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to that,” Kasumi said as she looked around and realised that she’d been teleported several thousand miles.
“That’s nothing to the delights the galaxy has to offer,” Ranma replied with an honest smile. “Jolinar should share some of her memories with you. There are a lot of beautiful things out there and we can see some of them when we visit the Tok’Ra.”
“That would be nice,” Kasumi said absently as she started to make her way to the house.
“It’s been that long since you last walked without pain, huh?” the martial artist asked.
“I... yes,” the brunette admitted in a quiet voice.
“Don’t worry about it. I had a shard of metal in my shoulder for three months. Hurt every time I moved my arm,” Ranma smiled. “We’ll give your father the news and we’ll head off in the morning.”
“So soon?”
“If you want to stay for a few days to say goodbye, you can. I just thought that Jolinar would want to get going.”
“I should at least say goodbye to my sisters, Ranma,” Kasumi chided. “No wonder, Captain Carter thought you were uncivilised.”
Ranma paused. Kasumi had a point, he and his father did tend to depart quickly. But in defence of the Saotomes, it was often a good idea for them to keep moving. Though Ranma and his father regularly debated whether it was worse that the reason for slipping away was people trying to kill you or marry you.
“You’re right, Kasumi, I’m sorry,” the pigtailed man apologised with a bow.
The brunette allowed herself a small smile. After all, being interesting didn’t mean you had to be impolite. Bracing herself, Kasumi opened the door to the house and announced her return.
Soun swept up his eldest daughter in his arms and wept for joy at her return.
“Kasumi, my darling!”
“Father, please,” the brunette said, trying to keep her shoulders away from the tears streaming from her father’s face.
“I’m sorry, Kasumi, it’s just that you’re leaving...”
“Not for a few days, father. I do want to say goodbye to Akane and Nabiki. Plus, I need to make sure that you’ll be able to look after yourself while I’m gone. I don’t know when I’ll be able to visit.”
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To be continued....
