Story: Double Trouble

 

It felt like they were being admonished by their parents. Ranma and Akane of the present day were sitting in the training hall, on their knees, while opposite them were their own future selves having mastered the 'we are very disappointed in you' face. Which was helped along quite a bit by an unknowing assistant.

"Papa! Look!" said the little girl currently staring up at Ranma from the present. She was standing in imitation of a standard martial arts defense posture. Legs spread apart at just the right distance, one fist by the waist, the other protecting their head. There were features on her face that reminded him of both Akane and his own girl form, which was rather unsettling. He couldn't quite tell if the eyes were his or Akane's. The determined expression on her face was definitely Akane's. The nose was his. The jaw was Akane's. The hair was his...

But the one thing above all that was his was this new compulsion he was feeling. Must protect. Must protect at all costs. If, at this very moment, a rampaging bull charged through the walls and tried to trample this little tyke, Ranma would throw himself in harm's way without a second thought. Granted, he would do something similar for absolutely anyone - but in this case, he would be far more severe in his reaction time, more brutal in his defense than he normally might be.

"So apparently we used to be really, really stupid," Ranma said. That is, the Ranma of the future.

"Yes, well, I already knew about you," Akane of the future sniffed. She rubbed at her heavily pregnant belly, while looking at the two of them as if they had directly, personally put that bun in the oven. "At least I could pretend that I was more mature and reasonable. I didn't realise I was capable of doing something so absolutely stupid."

"Hey!" present Akane huffed. "It's not our fault! You guys... You're about as discreet as a neon sign! What were we supposed to think after seeing you guys, you know..."

The future versions of themselves had the decency to blush and look away, because despite having changed, they had not changed <i>that</i> much.

"So what's the problem?" Present Ranma asked. "So we hooked up a lot sooner than you did, what's the big deal?"

"The big deal is!" future Ranma said. "Do you know what we went through together before we hooked up the first time?"

"What, misattribution of arousal, was it?" present Akane sarcastically asked.

Future Akane let out a noise somewhere between a sigh and a growl. “It wasn’t just misattribution! It was... complicated!”

Future Ranma folded his arms. “Yeah. We fought through curses, heartbreak, rivalries, kidnappings, magical mirrors, love potions, mistaken engagements -"

“Don’t forget the time you got de-aged by those mushrooms,” Future Akane added, rubbing her temple. “You spent three days stuck in a six-year-old’s body and still tried to pick a fight with Ryoga.”

“That wasn’t my fault!” Future Ranma snapped. “Ryoga was to blame for that one, stupid lost boy.”

Little Himiko let out a delighted laugh and pointed at her dad. “Papa was a baby!”

Present Ranma stared at her, scandalized. “Hey! I was not a baby. I was... battle-ready... just... pint-sized.”

“She made him a pacifier out of a chopstick,” Future Akane stage-whispered to Present Akane, who immediately lost her composure and started snickering.

“Traitor,” Future Ranma muttered. Future Akane stuck her tongue out at him. "The point is, just because you know how it's gonna work out in the end doesn't mean you can just take a big shortcut. Neither of you is ready for this."

"So, what you're saying is," Present Akane said slowly. "You want us to go through hell and back with each other for about two years or so, knowing full well we're getting together in the end, and only then do we get to start our relationship?"

Silence hung in the air for a moment.

"See? Your past self is pretty smart! She get it!" Future Ranma said, earning himself a hard nudge from Future Akane, while Himiko giggled and mimicked the action. Which resulted in present Ranma getting clocked in the jaw. Oof! Man, that really was his daughter, that strong at that age...? Huh! This is new. What was this feeling? Was it... Pride? In someone else? He was so used to hanging out with his old man that he'd never felt it before!

"The point is!" Future Akane said, pointedly twisting her arm, her elbow still buried in her Ranma's gut. "Neither of you is quite mature enough for the responsibility of having a daughter!"

"I dunno," Present Ranma said. Rubbing at his jaw while looking pointedly at the little bundle of adorable that he must, must, must protect at all costs. "She seems happy, she seems healthy, and you've got another kid on the way, right?"

"Besides!" Present Akane said. "Wouldn't you, I dunno, remember all this? If she popped into reality out of nowhere, and then you got knocked up again - how do you not remember that?"

Future Akane opened her mouth as if to speak, but no words came out. She slowly closed her mouth and frowned.

"Wow, only you and mom have been able to make you speechless..." Future Ranma said.

"Hold up. Mom?" Present Ranma asked.

"Ah... You know what, at this point you should probably meet her..." Future Ranma grumbled. "I mean, it's only right she meets her grand-daughter -"

"They're not having a daughter!" Future Akane insisted. "Not until they're ready!"

"Okay!" Present Akane said. "Himiko! Have we been good parents to you?"

"Yeah! Love momma and poppa lots and lots!" Ack! That smile! It was - it was far too precious!

"Well there you go then!" Akane smugly replied, taking Ranma's hand. "We are now an item. We have our father's blessing. I don't see why we don't just... get married tomorrow and bypass the whole ordeal."

"Yeah, what she - " Ranma began, but then the little gerbil in his brain climbed out off the wheel it had been running in, grabbed a piece of chalk, then drew on a blackboard 'she just proposed to you, and you are verbally agreeing to it'. The gerbil then took a smoke break, which caused all the gears inside his head to stop turning all at once.

"Urgh! You two... Idiots!" Future Akane threw her hands up in the air. "Ranma! Bring me a boiled egg dipped in chocolate. And asparagus! As much as you can carry! I'm feeling cravings!"

Future Ranma shot the pair of them a look, and then strolled off to the kitchen with his heavily pregnant... Wife? Were they actually married? They'd better be married. 

“Wait, cravings?” Present Akane blinked. “That’s a real thing?”

“Everything is a real thing when your uterus is doing gymnastics,” Future Akane muttered, one hand on her belly, the other massaging her temple. “You try being emotionally stable with a hormonal baby inside you and a toddler outside you mimicking everything you say. Half the time I’m arguing with my daughter in stereo.”

“Stereo!” Himiko cheered, then added, “Stereo means two!”

Ranma leaned in to Present Akane. “...She’s kinda a genius.”

Future Ranma popped his head back in from the hallway. “She is a genius. She beat me in a game of shogi yesterday using her own rules and I still don’t know how I lost.”

“You tried to use your old man’s ‘anything goes’ philosophy in chess, didn’t you?” Future Akane called after him.

“Look, in my defense, the knight should be allowed to backflip,” Future Ranma grumbled from somewhere near the fridge.

Present Akane looked down at the little girl now clambering into her lap like it was the most natural thing in the world. She didn't even flinch. Just... let it happen.

“Wow,” Present Akane murmured. “This doesn’t feel weird at all.”

Ranma rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah. Kinda feels like she’s always been around, huh?”

“Which is terrifying, because she absolutely has not,” Future Akane muttered darkly. “Time doesn’t work like that. You two are screwing up the space-time continuum and I swear, if a time-traveling panda with a monocle shows up, I am blaming both of you.”

“You think that’s not already happened?” Future Ranma asked as he walked back in, balancing a plate of oddly gourmet-looking cravings. “You blocked it out. Like the wedding. Or the octopus bride incident.”

“Shut. Up.”

“Hold on,” Present Ranma said slowly. “If she’s been around you this whole time... and she’s ours... doesn’t that mean we already did this? Like, we already made the mistake? So isn’t that actually the right thing to do now?”

There was a long pause. The kind of pause that only happens when causality is gently whimpering in a corner, wondering what it did to deserve this.

“That’s not how paradoxes work!” Future Akane snapped, then caught herself, groaned, and dropped her head into her hands. “I can’t believe I’m arguing temporal theory with myself.”

“Don’t worry,” Present Akane said, with a bright, satisfied smile. “Sounds like future us have this parenting thing handled. So I guess we’re doing okay.”

“And she’s so cute!” Present Ranma added, as Himiko started trying to braid his ponytail. Badly. “How do you expect us to not want this?”

“Because I remember us!” Future Akane shouted, throwing a pillow at them. “We are—were—still disasters! We couldn’t even have a conversation without threatening to clobber each other! You think you can just skip to the happy ending?”

“Well, yeah,” Ranma and Akane said in perfect unison, which somehow made everything worse.

“I’m going to lie down,” Future Akane groaned, dragging the pillow onto her lap and flopping sideways with the elegance of a beached manatee. “If the universe implodes, it’s your fault.”

“You say that like it hasn’t already,” Future Ranma replied, then looked at his younger self and winked. “Congrats, by the way.”

“Uh...” Present Ranma flushed. “Y-Yeah. Thanks...?”

“You’ll get there,” Future Ranma said, with the smirk of someone who knows exactly how long it takes.