Disclaimer: This story is a non-profit work.  All significant characters are the 
property of Rumiko Takahashi, and their use in this story is not intended as an 
infringement on the intellectual property rights of Ms. Takahashi or Viz 
Communications.
	This story incorporates elements for viewing by adults only.  If mild 
profanity or sexual content offend you, or if you are not old enough to read 
them in your place of residence, you are advised to read no further.

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                            Christmas at Sub-Zero
                              by Sam A. J. Halsall

	Shampoo.  Named for soap.  Soap gets in your eyes.  Tears.
	Nine o'clock and all's Hell.
	How long have you been crying, Shampoo?  Three hours?  Four?  You seem 
such a lonely figure in this giant room, decorated for Christmas.  The room, 
that is, not you.
	A present?  Is that what you hold in your hand, clutched in your fingers 
like a life preserver in choppy water?  Such pretty paper, pretty ribbons.  And 
a tag: To Ranma, Love Shampoo.
	But Shampoo, it's Christmas Eve!  Why haven't you given him his gift?  No 
doubt it's something you've worked very hard to make him.  Surely he'll like it!

	Ah, yes, the wedding album.  Poor girl, you can't keep from looking at it, 
can you?  The wedding was over a month ago, yet still you never go an hour 
without opening this book and reading the words inside.  "Soun Tendo and Genma 
Saotome invite you to the wedding of:"  And here, two names are written on a 
line, a red line like a cut across your throat.  "Ranma and Akane".  You never 
thought you'd be so sad to see his name.
	Go ahead, Shampoo, turn the page.  There's a picture of the couple taking 
their vows.  Kasumi makes a lovely bridesmaid, doesn't she?
	And here's a shot of the crowd, gathered here today to bear witness.  
There you are in the second row.  Looking at your shoes.  Mousse is trying to 
comfort you in what must be the most blatantly self-serving way imaginable.  
Great Grandmother is glaring at the soon-to-be newlyweds, half in anger, half in 
disbelief, as though she's sure something will happen any minute now.  Someone 
will burst through the door and stop the wedding.  A forgotten fiancee, an old 
enemy with a grudge.  Someone.  Anyone.
	The same picture, but this time she's looking at you.  Why is that?  Oh 
right, this is when the priest asked if anyone objected.  Of course.  She's 
waiting for you to stand up and shout, "Ranma Shampoo's first!"  But you can't 
do it.  You're still studying your shoes.
	And a picture of the kiss.  Man and wife.  He's not your Ranma.  She's not 
the callous bitch who abused him.  They're a Couple.  Married.  Lovers.  So many 
of those assembled started crying.  You among them.  Though your tears sprang 
from a different well.
	Much like now, in fact.  If you didn't know better, you'd probably think 
the photos were out of focus.

	You've always loved him.  It's not fair.  You've loved him since the day 
you met him.  You woke up from a blackout, your broken weapon atop your head 
like some bizarre retelling of the trials of Atlas.
	And there he stood.  Your conqueror.  The strongest man you'd ever met.  
The only one who could defeat even you.  You wanted him.  The laws of your tribe 
not only supported your desires, they demanded you act on them.
	You persued.  He ran.  You begged.  He resisted.  You offered.  He 
refused.
	Yet you couldn't stop.  You always were a stubborn girl, Shampoo.

	Fresh tears.  Poor you.  Poor, poor, pitiful you.  How can you be so sad 
with all the festivity around you?  So many decorations.
	Or maybe that's the problem.  Christmas is to celebrate the birth of a 
baby.  And you've never quite recovered from that call, have you?  You thought 
it was someone ordering ramen, so you dragged your self-esteem up onto its 
knuckles and picked up the ringing phone.  And instead of someone asking for 
pork buns, you got Ranma.
	Oh, how your heart leaped, if only for a second.  It was just like the old 
times.  Seeing his face, hearing his voice, even thinking of him would make your 
ribs crush the air from you.  And you felt just like that at that moment, didn't 
you?
	And then you remembered.  And your heart felt like it was dissolving.  
Your eyes felt tight, like a migraine was about to pierce your brain.  Ranma was 
hers.  Not yours.
	Didn't help when he told you the news, hmm?  About the baby on the way.  
Conceived on the wedding night, if your math was right.
	That seemed to hit you the worst; it was proof that they'd made love.  And 
once again, he'd been yours first.

	Remember that night?  What was it, six, seven months ago?  He came to your 
home, shivering in the frigid night wind that sliced through the town.  That 
gash on his face -- there were splinters in it.  What do you suppose the bitch 
hit him with?  A mallet?  A wooden sword?  Or did she simply throw him through a 
wall?
	Whatever she'd done, she'd hurt him more than she could possibly have 
known.  And you could see it in every motion, every expression.  It wasn't the 
physical pain, no, not Ranma.  He could take hundreds of times that much 
punishment.  No, it was something inside.  He'd been wounded somewhere Dr. Tofu 
couldn't touch.
	And you held him as he wept silently.  You wanted so much to take him, 
didn't you, to make him yours, but you just couldn't.  Not like that.  You 
couldn't take advantage of the one you loved when he was so vulnerable.
	What a surprise it must have been for you when you kissed his cheek, and 
he responded by kissing you full on the mouth.  What you must have felt at that 
moment.  Did you see fireworks?  Did reality slip away like water through your 
fingers?
	Seperating for a moment, you looked at his face, trying to read him.  To 
see if there was some scheme, if someone was playing a joke on you, or if Ranma 
just didn't know what he was doing.
	And there was none of that.  Nowhere to be seen.  He wanted you, needed to 
be as close to you as was humanly possible, needed you.  And in that moment, you 
needed him.  All the horrors of your life, the crimes against your poet's soul 
committed by a culture that simply didn't care, the unfairness of everyone who 
had ever seen you as a means to an end.  These things vanished in that instant.  
There was only you and him.
	Where was Great Grandmother that night?  She must have been at the 
restaurant taking care of some business.  Certainly, if she'd seen the two of 
you undressing each other there on the living room rug, she'd have approved.
	When Ranma slid your robe off your shoulders and left it dangling around 
your waist, did you wonder for a moment whether you were doing the right thing?  
Silly question -- of course you didn't.
	And even if you had, all such thoughts would have disappeared once his 
lips closed around your nipple.
	Oh, how you looked at that moment!  Your jaw slack, your head tossed back, 
a light sheen of sweat shining on your flushed face.
	Do you even remember him taking his clothes off?  It's doubtful, since 
your eyes were clenched shut at the time.  But when his tongue finally stopped 
flicking at your stiffening nipples, you opened your eyes.  And there he was, as 
you'd imagined him for so many years.  It certainly didn't take you long to cast 
off your robe as though it were feeding poison through your skin.
	His fingertips on your collarbone, on your breasts, on your stomach.  It 
was all fingertips with that boy.  All your lovers before him -- Amazon women, 
Japanese men -- all martial artists with something to prove, convinced they had 
to display their strength even in the bedroom.  Not Ranma.  Never Ranma.  He 
wanted to show you his gratitude, his love for you.  Because you never judged 
him, loved him without condition or demand.
	His breath.  It never felt quite like this.  It warmed so much more than 
your skin.  It seeped through your pores, into your bloodstream, into the marrow 
of your bones.
	But that was nothing next to the heat down below, was it?  The liquid rush 
you felt as his fingers found the mark you'd so desperately hoped he'd find.  
How easily they slid back and forth across your bud, the nerves singing a 
soprano chorus in your mind.  And when fingers were replaced by tongue -- well, 
conscious thought pretty well went out and slammed the door behind it, right?
	Your hands were busy themselves.  They were so timid, barely brushing his 
flesh, as though you were scared he'd be like the others, insulted by you even 
wanting to be anything but passive.
	A fruitless fear.  Remember how he gasped when you found him already hard?  
How he moaned when you stroked him?
	And then he lay on his back and coaxed you on top of him.  You wanted to 
take in the view of him lying there, his body on display for you and you alone.  
Not an accidental encounter in hot water or a glimpse when he didn't think you 
were looking.  He wanted you to see him, all of him.  But you couldn't tear your 
gaze from his eyes.  The smile they gave that his mouth couldn't echo.
	Was it like your first time, Shampoo?  When you first felt him slide into 
you?  There he was, underneath you, his most vulnerable part engulfed within 
you.  Completely in your power.
	You must have wanted it to last, so slowly you moved.  All that martial 
arts training keeping you from bucking like a frightened mare.  Or maybe you 
just felt it was right, that hard and fast would have ruined the moment.  
Whatever, you got no complaints from Ranma.  Much as he got no complaints from 
you when he took one of your nipples in his his mouth and cupped the other in 
his palm.
	Your breath was so ragged when you neared your climax.  As if you'd just 
fought a tournament against the best the world had to offer.  The look on 
Ranma's face as he watched you come, heard your strangled scream.  And the look 
on your face when he cried out, and you felt him washing into you.
	How long did you lie there afterwards, enfolded in each other's arms?  How 
long did you watch him sleep?  How strongly did you wish it could be like this 
forever?

	Ten o'clock, tick tock, and you're crying again.  Poor Shampoo.  Will you 
never learn not to torture yourself so?
	The present falls from your hand and lands on the floor.  Should you pick 
it up again?  Well, even if Ranma will never see it, it still won't do to have 
it on the ground like this.  Great Grandmother will have a fit if she finds it 
lying on the floor in three days when the restaurant opens again.
	Oops.  All that crying has left you weak.  You fall to the floor as you 
reach for the present.  It seems appropriate, somehow, to lie on the floor.
	What are you looking at?  Ah, your gaze has fallen toward the Christmas 
tree.  There's a present under there, where none was before.  And the printing 
on the tag, is it -- Ranma's?
	Carefully, almost frightened, you crawl over to the tree and retrieve the 
foreign gift.  Look, it IS from Ranma!  And it's for you!  Your hands tremble as 
you struggle to make sense of the writing on the tag, the words suddenly as 
foreign to you as if they were written in German.
	Now the big question: can you bear to open it?  What if it's a picture of 
him and Akane on vacation somewhere?  Your heart would be pulped as surely as if 
a maniac with a shotgun pumped buckshot into your chest.
	No, you seem resigned.  You tear the paper oh so gently, as though it were 
Ranma's own skin.  And inside, you find a note...
	"Shampoo:
	"I'll never forget.  You mean more to me than I can ever say, and you are 
the reason why I am who I am today.  If ever you need a friend, I will be proud 
to be the one you call.
	" Love Ranma."
	And in the box is a keyring with a little cat on it.  Just like a million 
other people have bought from the biggest store in Japan.  But this one has been 
hand-dyed pink.  And you realize why Ranma's been wearing gloves for the past 
couple of days.
	More tears, Shampoo?  Wait, these are different.  These tears sparkle.  
Sparkly tears.
	You bound to your feet, more energetic than you've been in months.  You 
pause just long enough to snatch his present from the floor where it fell.  Then 
you're sprinting for the door, smiling through the tears, and shouting, "Ranma 
you wait!  Shampoo have something for you!"
	And you skid round the corner and disappear into the night, headed for the 
home of the truest friend you will ever have.
	Merry Christmas, Shampoo.

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Author's notes:

	Two days after I finished this story, Viz Video announced the release of 
the upcoming Ranma 1/2 video "Soap Gets in Your Eyes".  So the opening paragraph 
is not a reference to any of the events on that tape.
	I realize this one's a little melodramatic.  I just wanted to try 
something different from the usual Shampoo raping/being raped stories.  Plus, 
it's my first shot at fan fiction.  Let's hope those six years of writing 
courses paid off somehow.
	For anyone who's interested, the story took me about an hour to write.  
That was after I spent a couple of days kicking around the idea.
	Comments or questions?  Write to SHalsall@Cedar.Alberni.NET.