#and the saddest part is that in the latest chapters you can see signs that she's really starting to like her | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

entergamingxp · 4 years

Text

Sakura Wars Gets More Goods, Collabs, Comments From Kohei Tanaka

July 7, 2020 3:34 PM EST

Everything from the latest Sakura Wars stream including a Chain Chronicle collab, new Nendoroids, more goods, and comments from composer Kohei Tanaka.

Sega held the 14th Sakura Taisen Imperial Communication Department’s Broadcast stream on June 19, focusing on Sakura Wars The Animation. We’ve summarized every past Sakura Taisen stream on DualShockers, though on a more timely manner. So while it’s been a few days now since the stream aired, here’s our full summary, as usual.

The stream featured as usual: MC Mami Yamashita (who thankfully recovered from Covid-19), Seijuro Kamiyama’s seiyuu Youhei Azakami, and Producer Tetsu Katano. Present as guests were Kenji Akabane, who is the seiyuu of Kaminski in Shin Sakura Taisen The Animation (Sakura Wars The Animation), and Sakura Taisen series composer Kohei Tanaka. The stream focused on Shin Sakura Taisen The Animation whose final episode aired the same day.

After the introductions, everyone present on the stream started chatting about the anime, and introducing its characters. Most notably Kaminski Valery, captain of the Moscow Combat Troupe appearing in the anime’s story, sequel to the game. The first hilarious moment on stream was how Kenji Akabane was supposed to launch the video introducing his character, but got preemptively cut since he took so long. You can catch that moment at the 14:00 time stamp below:

youtube

Following that, everyone on stream commented various excerpt from each Sakura Wars The Animation episodes. I’ve personally only skimmed through this part to avoid spoilers, as time didn’t permit me to watch the whole anime yet. However, you should definitely check it out if you’re a fan with a grasp of Japanese. This sequence starts at the 23:00 mark and lasts around 20 minutes:

youtube

One particular anecdote Kohei Tanaka mentioned is how the cat often seen in the anime, is voiced by Ryoko Shiraishi, who also voices Komachi.

Following that, Kenji Akabane spoke about his history with the Sakura Taisen franchise. He first got into the series with Sakura Wars The Movie, released on December 22, 2001. Akabane explained he really loves Hidenori Matsubara’s designs in the Sakura anime adaptations and how they adapt perfectly the original design by Kousuke Fujishima. As a reminder, nowadays whenever new Sakura Wars artwork is released, it’s always Hidenori Matsubara drawing it, and I don’t think Kousuke Fujishima has drawn Sakura Taisen artwork for years now, which is a shame. Kenji Akabane greatly praised the movie and how it’s still incredibly great looking even now. He was also really into collecting stickers back then and particularly liked the ones included in some of the OST CDs releases.

Kohei Tanaka too spoke about Sakura Wars The Movie. He explained that back during the movie’s production, when he recorded the BGMs with an orchestra, they had an audience as well. It was a pretty emotional moment as some of the fans watching the stream mentioned in the comments they were there. Back then, they recorded the audience for cheers and applause used in the movie as well.

Following that, the discussion subject moved back to Shin Sakura Taisen The Animation. Kenji Akabane was really hyped to be in the anime because he met Sumire’s seiyuu Michie Tomizawa during the recording. There’s also a scene early on in the anime where Kaminski meets Sumire and praises her, and he was ultra hyped about voicing that one scene. As for Akabane’s initial impressions of Kaminski, he only saw his actual design just before recording, and didn’t see it at the audition, so he was surprised how much of a pretty boy he is. He asked a lot about his personality and goals to the anime staff before recording to be sure to get in the role and voice him accordingly.

At that point on Kohei Tanaka started focusing on the ending theme song, Sakura Yumemishi. It’s sung by the girls of the Imperial Combat Revue’s new Flower Division: Sakura Amamiya, Hatsuho, Azami, Anastasia, Claris, along with Shangai’s Huang Yui, London’s Lancelot, and Berlin’s Elise.

With Sakura Yumemishi, Kohei Tanaka wanted to make something symbolizing the nobleness and frantic feelings of the women fighting in the series. That’s why Ayane Sakura, singing as Sakura Amamiya, has particularly high notes in the song, to show that franticness. Kohei Tanaka really praised her singing and said she pretty much fused with Sakura Amamiya. He praised all the other seiyuu as well, and said they did a wonderful job. He also jokingly apologized for making so many hard to sing pieces Kenji Akabane added he’d definitely refuse he was asked to sing one of the songs because it’d be way too difficult. Kohei Tanaka mentioned it was particularly difficult for Hibiku Yamamura, because she had to stay in Azami’s voice and yet sing very high tones.

Following that, Kohei Tanaka explained the lyrics of Sakura Yumemishi. Nearly every single song in Sakura Wars has lyrics written by original author Hiroi Oji. However, he couldn’t do the lyrics of Sakura Yumemishi, so Shouko Fujibayashi handled it instead. In the Shin Sakura Taisen game, Shouko Fujibayashi also wrote the lyrics for the character songs of Lancelot (Knights of the Round), Elise (Schwarzer Stern), Itsuki (Ruriruran Ginza Roman) and the charasong shared by Sumire, Kaoru, and Komachi (A Star Is Born).

Kohei Tanaka explained he loves working with Hiroi Oji and wants to keep working with him for years to come, but having someone else do the lyrics is also a good change of pace, which can bring a new angle to Sakura Taisen music.

Shouko Fujibayashi wrote many songs for Nana Mizuki, Hiroshi Kitadani, and many other legendary singers in Japan. She also regularly works with Kohei Tanaka as she writes the lyrics of most of the songs he does for One Piece. She writes lyrics for pretty much every single popular kids franchise, Precure, Kamen Rider, One Piece, you name it.

As that segment of the stream ended, we got the see a clean, non-credit version of Shin Sakura Taisen The Animation‘s ending sequence, with Sakura Yumemishi playing. As far as I know it’s the only way to see this version for now. It’s at the 53:38 mark:

youtube

Mami Yamashita, Yohei Azakami and Kenji Akabane all really like the ED animation, especially the Kamiyama shot and how cool he looks.

An OST CD for Sakura Wars PS4 launched June 24. This is the OST CD containing the game’s instrumentals BGMs only. The vocal songs were in the OST CD included in the Japanese Limited Edition, and were also released on a separate CD, seen on the right.

Kohei Tanaka said he’s never tired of making Sakura Taisen songs and wants to keep doing it forever. He said that when he recorded the BGMs for Sakura Wars PS4 with an orchestra, at the same time he also recorded the BGMs in the One Piece: Stampede movie, so it was really exhausting. But he’s glad he did it.

Kohei Tanaka also quickly mentioned the BGM used in the final battle of Sakura Wars PS4. He explained how the game’s saddest BGM uses the same base as the final battle’s BGM, to represent the sadness and pain of battle.

The Shin Sakura Taisen The Animation OST CD for ending theme Sakura Yumemishi is out since May 27. Kohei Tanaka said there will probably be another CD later on with the rest of the anime’s BGMs.

Volume 1 and 2 of the DVD and Bluray disc release of the anime are out. Cover illustrations are by character designer Masashi Kudo. One of the coolest things about these are the audio commentaries by the seiyuu. Yohei Azakami mentioned he’s in the audio commentary in Volume 3, and it was the first time he ever recorded one. Kenji Akabane is on Volume 4’s audio commentary. Volume 3 launches on July 15. Volume 4 on August 19.

Starting the 1:08:40 mark of the stream, we had the usual goods and new collabs segment, with Mami Yamashita and Yohei Azakami wearing glasses and acting all serious. This is one of the meta jokes of these streams as they always do that for this segment.

youtube

First off, we learned the Shin Sakura Taisen The Comic manga will end with volume 3, launching on July 17, 2020.

最終3巻7月17日（金）発売予定

本日発売のYJ30号に最終話が掲載！

玄庵葬徹を倒した華撃団！華麗なるフィナーレをご覧ください！そしてまた、新たな幕が開くその時までーー…

コミックス2巻デジタル版はこちら→https://t.co/JpNtOL8Uxy pic.twitter.com/7gzwcxvOXn

— 野口こゆり公式【新サクラ大戦 the Comic】 (@kenkouki_) June 24, 2020

The final chapter of the manga was pre-published online in Tonari no Young Jump on June 25, 2020. It has a pretty cool shot of Sakura Amamiya.

The new Sakura Wars goods on sale in Japan since June 17.

As a reminder, each character has been getting goods for their birthdays. Each month, one character gets goods dedicated to them. Special messages from the other characters, wishing them happy birthday, are also published online on the Sakura Taisen Twitter account. The first wave of birthday goods was for Sakura Amamiya in March 2020.

List of Shin Sakura Taisen main characters birthdays, blood type and astrological sign (These were revealed during the 11th stream on January 2020):

Seijuro Kamiyama August 11, Leo, AB.

Sakura Amamiya: March 19, Pisces, A.

Hatsuho Shinonome: September 9, Virgo, B.

Azami Mochizuki: May 15, Taurus, O.

Anastasia Palma: October 6, Libra, B.

Claris: February 1, Aquarius, AB.

The next one in line is Seijuro Kamiyama, they’re selling a t-shirt based on his parka from the DLC costumes. Along with a bunch of other goods. The last one to get birthday goods should be Claris, in January-February 2021.

Sakura Amamiya Nendoroid from Good Smile. They hinted they might make more for the other characters if this one sells well.

The next HG 1/24 scale plamo scheduled to release is Anastasia’s Mugen, scheduled to launch October 2020. Seijuro and Sakura Amamiya’s Mugen plamo released on June 20. Azami’s Mugen plamo launches in July.

Yurakucho Marui shopping mall in Tokyo is also doing a Shin Sakura Taisen collab from June 19 to July 12, selling exclusive goods. Kohei Tanaka made a song for the shop too. Details are on the shop’s site. There’s also a collab café with Princess Café at Yurakucho Marui, and Shibuya Marui. Fans can get exclusive goods there too.

Shin Sakura Taisen collab event in Ekimemo!, the mobile game with train stations turned into cute girls by Mobile Factory.

Collab event with free to play mecha Sega game Border Break.

Collab event between Shin Sakura Taisen The Animation and Chain Chronicle 3, gacha game by Sega.

【コラボ】「#アニメ新サクラ大戦」×「チェインクロニクル３(#チェンクロ )」コラボが開催中

花組キャラクターたちが、SSRキャラクターとしてチェインクロニクルに登場！コラボ専用のオリジナルストーリーにも注目です！#新サクラ大戦 pic.twitter.com/1UYkfQH4nu

— サクラ大戦公式@SEGA (@Sakura_Taisen) June 19, 2020

It’s particularly funny because Sakura Amamiya and the “Heroine” of Chain Chronicle 3, Feena, are both voiced by Ayane Sakura. She voiced a commercial for the collab.

Following that, the stream moved on to its ending corner.

Seeing Shin Sakura Taisen The Animation is over, future Sakura Taisen streams will stop focusing on it. Kenji Akabane said Sakura Ayane didn’t appear yet on the streams, and how she was super jealous of him when she heard he would appear at some point when they recorded the anime volume 4’s audio commentary together.

Kenji Akabane said he was pretty happy to appear on stream, and hopes there’s a “Shin Sakura Taisen The Movie” happening one day. He jokingly said he’ll do anything to make it happen.

As the stream ended, unlike with most streams until now, they didn’t announce a date for the next stream. Though they stressed out there will be more streams coming. As we covered in a separate article, they also teased a Shin Sakura Taisen sequel could be coming. Shin Sakura Taisen The Stage, the stage play, was re-announced as well.

【6月19日(金)生放送終了】皆様、ご視聴ありがとうございました！

TVアニメ『新サクラ大戦 The Animation』本日最終回放送です！お見逃しなく！#新サクラ大戦 #アニメ新サクラ大戦 pic.twitter.com/xmli41IknA

— サクラ大戦公式@SEGA (@Sakura_Taisen) June 19, 2020

帝劇宣伝部通信をご覧くださった皆様、ありがとうございました！#アニメ新サクラ大戦最終話直前ということで大いに語らせていただきました！僕らリアタイは厳しそうですが、皆様は是非、さくらたちの勇姿を見届けてください！神山隊長！間に合えー！！！#新サクラ大戦 pic.twitter.com/ADGyHDhm67

— 阿座上洋平 (@azakami_youhei) June 19, 2020

The usual end of stream photos with everyone present. Every Japanese stream has similar social distancing setups like these nowadays. Usually they sit much closer.

Be sure to check out our review of Sakura Wars, and why did the game was titled “Sakura Wars” in the west. You can also check out our summaries of all the previous streams so far. DualShockers also recently had the opportunity to interview the Sakura Wars development team, and the full interview is coming later this week.

Sakura Wars is currently a PS4 exclusive and can be bought on Amazon.

This post contains affiliate links where DualShockers gets a small commission on sales. Any and all support helps keep DualShockers as a standalone, independent platform for less-mainstream opinions and news coverage.

July 7, 2020 3:34 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/07/sakura-wars-gets-more-goods-collabs-comments-from-kohei-tanaka/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sakura-wars-gets-more-goods-collabs-comments-from-kohei-tanaka

0 notes

lovemenowmr · 7 years

Text

Chapter twenty-six

“Auntie run faster!” Xiana screamed.

We were playing hide and seek in the garden, it was Wednesday and I only had three days left home. However the little time I had spent home it had been successful, I had been able to pick up with all of my school work and I even finished two work projects which where due to mid-April.

I was hidden behind a tree with Xiana when I heard my phone rang inside the house, I let it rang and when the round finished I went inside to pick up the phone. I had a missed phone call from Marco, for a strange reason I had been avoiding his calls and messages. It happened without realizing it the first time but then I did it again and now I didn’t want to explain why I wasn’t picking the phone.

“Everything OK?” my mother asked at the front door.

“Yeah,” I said “Everything’s fine. I’m picking up some snacks, I’ll take them outside in a minute”

She went outside to make the most of the good weather we were enjoying – a strange thing in March – as I made some sandwiches and placed biscuits in a bowl. As I was picking up the drinks to the tray I my phone went off once again, I saw the screen light up with a message “Why aren’t you answering my calls? Is everything ok?” I chose not to answer and took the snacks outside instead. As we were eating I heard my phone rang once again but I pretended I didn’t listen.

“Who are you ignoring?” Xoan asked “That phone has been ringing since you came”

“Marco” I said lowly after debating whether to tell them or not.

“What has he done?” he asked enraged.

“Nothing, he has done nothing” I said “It’s just me”

“What happened?” Sandra asked tilting her head from her notebook. “You seemed fine the last time we talked about him”.

“It’s just… It’s just that I feel very dependent on him” I said “If I’m not with him, I’m with his family or with his teammates girlfriends. You know I just feel I hadn’t really found my place besides being with him and the saddest part is I’ve been thinking of staying there next year”

“NO” my mother said “You can’t stay there just because of a boy”

“Mom’s right” Xoan said “You do you, you gotta take care of you first and you wanted to go to Amsterdam next year so you go”

“I know” I said almost whispering “But I don’t even know if I want to anymore”

“That’s bullshit” my brother said “What has he told you? What has he promised you? Don’t believe him, he’s probably just doing that because he wants you to stay for now, but he’s also going to dump you for a model the first chance he has”

“Xoan, stop” Sandra said grabbing his hand. His voice had been going up, ended up screaming with anger , he was very protective of me, specially with boys given my latest history. “You don’t know him” she said softly.

“Famous people are all the same” he said “They think because they have money and fame they can do what they want”

“Marco’s not like that” I said.

“He has just not shown” Xoan said “Don’t let him fool you, be smart for once in your life” he spat getting up “I’m going home” he said as he left.

“Don’t listen to him” Sandra said after we stayed silent for a while “You know how he is”

“Well, I think the opposite” my mother said “Your brother only wants to protect you and he has a point. We don’t know the guy but we know you. You like to travel, you like to know places and you should not change your plans for a boy you just met, being as good as you think he is. I’m going to tidy the table and when I’m back I don’t wanna hear a thing about it”

We decided to change themes and talk about anything else, the mood lightened up considerably and we also played board games with Xiana, forgetting about the little fight. When it was time for it, we went inside to make dinner, Sandra and Xiana were staying as well, but Xoan has not yet return.

As they were cooking I step outside and sat at the garden, I was looking at the last text Marco has sent me and thinking about what had happened this afternoon and about what Xoan and my mother had told me.

Adi, I don’t know why you’re upset but if it is for something I had done I want to apologize. I hope we can talk when you get back to Dortmund, I’m letting you relax for now. I know you had been so stressed out lately and you deserve a good rest.

I love you. Call me when you come back”

It was true I was very naive when it came to relationships, I had been fooled so many times before – I had been cheated on, controlled... – and this time it could also be true. But there was something that told me that was not the case. I sat there wondering if I should answer or not and I realized I was just scared. I was scared he would grew tired of me and I was too invested in the relationship. I was scared to give my all because it hadn’t work ed for me at all the previous times.

“I just need time to think. We’ll talk when I’m back”

I pressed send just as I felt someone approaching me.

“You’re ending the silent treatment?” Sandra asked sitting next to me.

“It’s not fair for him” I said “He’s done nothing wrong”

“What’s happening to you?” Sandra said “Don’t listen to your brother, you know he’s very protective of you”

“I’m scared” I said “It’s not because of Xoan”

“Scared of what” she asked.

“Falling in love with him” I said “The worst part is I already am”

“And has it been bad so far?”

“No, it’s been great but...”

“But you had let Xoan get into your head” Sandra said before I could finished my sentence “Listen, just because it hasn’t work out in the past it doesn’t mean it’s not gonna work this time, it means the other guys were not the right ones but maybe Marco is. And even if he’s not you’re still very young it’s not a tragedy.” she said.

I look up to her and lean my head on her shoulder, letting what she has said sink into me. I knew she was right and I knew I had to risk it, because I felt something special with Marco. I decided I had to talk with him as soon as I arrived back to Dortmund, with renovated energies and without all the stress I was carrying when I left.

“I love you too” I added after going to bed.

Xoan came back the next day with Xiana, who wanted to play with me, and apologize. I knew where he was coming from the previous day so I told him to just forget it and enjoy the last days I would be home.

We took Xiana to an aquatic Park on Friday and when we came back I packed my clothes once again as I was leaving Saturday night and we decided to spend the day at Santiago instead of going straight to the airport.

Santiago was a beautiful city, specially the old town with its stone pavement streets and houses, its narrow streets, it was only missing the sea. We all had a great time, walking around and doing some shopping, we had lunch together at a restaurant and at six o’clock we headed to the airport, since it was time for me to go. I checked my luggage in and went to say goodbye. My brother asked once again for forgiveness but I just told him to shut up, I’ll see them all again on June, once I had finished my exams.

I arrived at Madrid’s airport around ten and I got myself into my other plane, which would get me to Dortmund, making another scale on the way.

Sunday morning I arrived to Dortmund. I was super tired and grabbed a taxi to get home. It would be more expensive but It h was really tired to get a bus to get to the city and then another one to get home. As soon as I got home I headed to my bedroom and I lay myself on the bed, not even bothering to take my clothes off and I slept till Monday morning.

I went to school at nine and then I had lunch at my neighbor's cafe because I was still tired. I payed for my lunch and headed home, it took me the whole afternoon to unpack, which was incredible because I hadn’t even brought that much stuff with me. I called my mom when I finished to let her know I was in Dortmund and that I had arrived just fine, Xiana was there too because Sandra was studying and my brother was working so I spoke to her too, she was sad because school had started again that day and because he couldn’t play hide and seek with me but I reminded her she could now play with her friends at school and she forgot about it. She also told me whispering about her little boyfriend Oscar, who had gifted her one of his coloring pens, which was apparently a sign of love among four-year-old children and it made my heart flutter, we say goodbye when it was time for her to have dinner and go to bed and we send each other a lot of kisses through the phone.

Afterwards I though of calling Marco but the idea of it just tired me because, even though I knew I had to I really didn’t feel prepared for the talk I knew it was waiting for me.

Instead I went to the kitchen to grab some lunch but I didn’t make it since there was something in the living room table that called my attention. There was a huge and very beautiful bouquet of flowers, I realized then that was why my apartment smelled so good. They were pale pink peonies combined with white roses and they were placed in a white vase with a golden bow around it. I reached for them, wanting to touch them, and saw a little paper note attached to them:

Brought you these flowers so you would have something beautiful to look at when you came back. - M

I smiled and breathed the scent, it was very sweet but soft, I put them into another vase and watered them because I didn’t know how long they had been there. I also took them to the bedroom so I would look at them first thing in the morning, every thing that would get me into a good mood in the morning was welcomed. I made myself dinner and while it was in the oven I reached for my phone and called Marco.

“Hey beautiful” he answered not long after, there was a lot of noise in the background.

“Thank you for the flowers” I said.

“Did you like them” he asked, I hummed wondering if he would hear me “Glad to hear that. Listen I’m with the National Team I didn’t remember when we talked last week, but we’ll talk when I come back if you want”

“Yeah” I said “That’s alright”

“I’m sorry” he said.

“No problem” I said even though I was a little disappointed.

We stayed silent for a while, hearing each other breathe – plus all the noise that was coming from Marco’s side of the line.

“Liebe” he said when I was thinking of hanging up.

“What is it?”

“I love you so much. You know that, right?”

“I know” I said intermediately.

We both stayed silent for another while, the noise that was surrounding Marco has die out, maybe he has moved to another room. That meant the line was now silent and I could hear his nervous breaths perfectly.

“Am I loosing you?” he asked.

“Let’s not do this over the phone, Marco” I said after a while “Please” I whispered.

“Liebe” he said “I love you”

“I love you too” I said quietly. “Good luck with the match”

“And why do I not believe you?”

“I’m just confused” I said “But I love you, I really do. I promise”

“OK” he said “See you when I come back”

He hung up before I could say goodbye and I stayed at my kitchen, looking out of the window with the phone still in my ear. I was now the one feeling I was loosing him, and I knew it was all my fault. I was loosing him because I was afraid to have him, and it tore me apart. The city lights started to go off, they were fuzzy because of the tears on my eyes, for the time I realized I was crying a horrible smell reached my nose. I turned around and I saw smoke coming out of the oven, my dinner was burnt.

#marco reus #marco reus fanfiction #marco reus fanfic #marco reus imagine #Football Fanfiction #football imagine #borussia dortmund imagine #borussia dortmund fanfiction #bvb imagines #bvb #love me now marco reus #chapter twenty six #bvb fanfiction #borussia dortmund

3 notes · View notes

snickerl · 7 years

Text

Elixir Vitae

AU fanfic set around the time of IWTB.

A/N: This chapter got a bit out of hand. I cut the previous chapter in two because I didn’t want it to exceed 4000 words. Now this chapter alone exceeds more than 5000 words because I just couldn’t stop writing.

Find previous chapters here: Chapter I / Chapter II / Chapter III / Chapter IV / Chapter V / Chapter VI

Chapter VII

“Tell me about our son, Fox!”

No! Please, no!

It’s Sunday morning and we’re sitting at the breakfast table. I’m buried in the paper and she’s been leafing through a magazine until now. I noticed her mind was elsewhere, but I had no idea where it was. She’s brutally yanked out of my current state of Sunday morning bliss with her question.

She must feel my reluctance to answer her because she insists, “you once promised me you’d tell me the whole story.” As if she senses my agony, or maybe the fact that my face has turned to stone betrays me.

“I know I promised, but I wished you wouldn’t ask me to keep my promise.”

Look outside, Scully! It’s Sunday morning, the sun is shining, a wonderful day is ahead of us.

I thought I could take her to the little flea market downtown. She loves strolling past the various sales counters searching for a little something to decorate our house with. We could have one of those wonderful homemade ice cream cones from that infamous Italian parlor on Main Street; strawberry cheesecake for her, double chocolate chip for me. We could walk hand in hand through the park. We don’t have to talk, just enjoy each other’s presence.

Please, have mercy on me, Scully! Don’t make me tell you the saddest story of your life. Not today. Maybe tomorrow. Or the day after tomorrow. Next week? … Ever?

“You said he lived. Why doesn’t he live with us?”

Oh, how I wished he was sitting with us right now, stuffing pancakes into his mouth, babbling about his latest Lego construction or pleading with us for the umpteenth time to get a dog. I wished there was a bike carelessly thrown somewhere in the front yard, neglected by a seven-year-old. I wished the upstairs spare bedroom was furnished for a boy to live in, stuffed with books and toys, all messy, with a bunk bed for his best buddy to sleep over. I wished we had appointments to make with teachers to discuss his scholar merits and with pediatricians to give him flu shots.

To be consciously missing all this hurts so damn badly, she’s got no idea how lucky she is to have no remembrance of what it’s like to have lost a son. I know I’m being unfair. She must feel the hole in her heart, the void William left behind. She just can’t quite explain it, and her scientist’s mind longs for answers. I understand she can’t go on forever without knowing, but does it really have to be today?

“It’s a long story,” I hear myself say.

“I don’t need the whole story, I just want to know more about my son than his name. How old is he?”

I knew my hope that I’d be allowed to leave it at that had been futile. I take a deep breath before I finally answer, each word feeling like a stab in my heart.

“He turned seven not long ago.”

“Why isn’t he living with us? Is it because of me? Because of the amnesia? Do the authorities think I can’t take care of a child because of it?”

“No. Your amnesia has nothing to do with it.”

“Did they take him from us because we were FBI agents, because our jobs were too dangerous for us to be caring for a child?”

“No. He wasn’t taken from us.”

“He wasn’t taken from us? You mean…you mean we gave him up?”

The total disbelief in her voice almost kills me.

Don’t do this to me, Scully, please! Don’t make me tell you what happened to William!

I look into her big, questioning eyes and I see how she longs for answers, but sometimes it’s better not to know the answer to every question.

“Fox! Talk to me! I have a right to know!”

My tongue feels thick and heavy and my mouth is so dry it sticks to my palate. I’m not sure I’ll be able to get a single word out, although she’s absolutely right. She has every right to know, and I’d have to tell her sooner or later anyway, so why not get it over and done with?

My stomach churns because the story has the potential to devastate her. I’m trying desperately to think of a way to break it gently to her, but my brain is not cooperating. I’m coming to the conclusion that the best I can do is to be straightforward and clear, to save her from any misunderstanding. Therefore I supply before my courage deserts me, “you gave him up for adoption before he turned one.”

As was expected, the information knocks her off balance. I can literally see the color disappearing from her face and the air leaving her lungs. Her mouth falls open and her eyes widen in shock.

“What…did I do?” she whispers, although I’m quite sure she understood me very well.

“You had no other choice, Scully,” I’m trying to explain but the words don’t reach her.

“I gave my son up for adoption? I? You didn’t say ‘we’, you said 'you’! What kind of a mother was I to give my child away?”

I have to intervene before she talks herself into something that has nothing to do with the truth. This woman knows nothing about what led her to that terrible moment in her life, of course, she’s jumping to conclusions.

“Scully, listen! Things were very complicated back then. There’s so much I have to explain to you about the circumstances.”

“What’s there to explain? Mothers give their children up for adoption when they can’t…or when they don’t want to care for them. Or when they hadn’t wanted to have them in the first place, when they want to get rid of them.”

“Stop it! Now! None of this applied in William’s case, now shut up and let me explain, will ya?”

But she’s not listening. My harsh words don’t even make her flinch. She buries her face in her hands and starts crying violently. Her shoulders are shaking with every sob that escapes her chest.

This went so awfully wrong! I can’t believe I haven’t thought about how to do this properly, how to spare her those wrong conclusions.

I get up from my chair, kneel beside her and peel her hands off her face before I appeal, “Scully, please listen to me! Listen carefully! I’m going to need some time to explain everything to you, but there’s one thing I want you to understand right away: you weren’t a bad mother. The complete opposite is true. You were the best mother William could have, and you’re not to blame whatsoever for what happened to him. Would you please take that fact for granted? Can you do that for me?”

“I don’t understand,” she whispers.

“Then let me explain. Let me explain how much you loved that child, what he meant to you, and that giving him up was a selfless sacrifice on your behalf and not a sign of you lacking motherly love.”

“You’re just saying that to make me feel better,” she sobs, her voice shockingly thin.

“No, I don’t. William was a miracle. God, where am I to begin?”

She looks down at me, and I’m dumbfounded for a moment because I have to look up to meet her eyes. Usually, it’s the other way around. It’s not easy for me to keep my own emotions under control and I curse myself once again for not having made a plan about how to explain this to her. At least, I managed to pull her out of her self-loathing mode. She seems willing to listen to me. She wipes the tears off her face with her hands, straightens her back, tucks some loose strands of hair behind her ear, and looks at me expectantly.

I have to stand up because my knees are aching; I’m not in my twenties anymore. I motion for her to join me on the couch. I don’t want to sit opposite her as if in an interrogation. I want to put my arm around her shoulder and hold her when I tell her. I’m glad she follows me willingly. But when we’re seated, she pulls her knees to her chest and embraces them, like to shield herself from what she’s going to hear. I let her, although I’d prefer more physical closeness. She’s not ready for it, apparently.

She picks up my last line, saying somewhat defiantly, “every new life is a miracle of nature.”

“In our case, it was so much more than that.” I brace myself for her reaction before telling her, “you had been diagnosed with POF.”

The doctor in her instantly understands. “Premature Ovarian Failure? At the age of…uh, how old am I?”

“You’re 43 now.”

“So I was 36 when he was born. When was I diagnosed with POF?”

“A few years earlier.”

“Well, that was definitely premature. I take it we resorted to reproductive medicine.”

She’s fully in doctor’s mode now, and somehow I’m glad because it leaves her detached and less emotional. But we’ll get back to the emotional part, I’m quite sure of it.

I nod. “In vitro. But it didn’t take it.”

I’m not going to tell her that we weren’t together at the time, that she’d asked me as a friend to be her sperm donor and not as her spouse to father her child.

“What did we try then? Gestational surrogacy? Which would mean I didn’t give birth to him, but I found some faint stretch marks on my body. I must have been pregnant at least once in my life.”

“We did not try any kind of surrogacy. And two times yes, you carried him and you gave birth to him. He’s our child. We eventually made him the old-fashioned way.”

“The old-fashioned way? How?”

“You’re a doctor, you know how babies are made.”

Stupid, Mulder! You’re so stupid!

This is not the time for a light banter, and sure enough, she narrows her eyes and shoots warning looks at me.

“You aren’t taking this to a joking level, are you?”

“No! No, I’m sorry.”

“I do know how babies are made, and I can imagine we had intercourse as a married couple, but how come I conceived? If I had POF, I was barren. Without a donated and artificially inseminated egg, there was no chance for a pregnancy.”

'No lies,’ I hear Dr. Pratt whisper into my ear. 'Never bend the truth to cover up something, never let her draw conclusions that are at odds with the truth. You have to be absolutely honest when you talk to her about her past. What seems to be a comfortable loophole at a certain moment will come back to you as a wrecking ball to your relationship when she finds out you were untrue. She’ll find it hard to trust you again. She might never be able to. So, no matter how difficult it is for you, no matter how painful it is for her, tell her the truth. Always.’

“We weren’t married.”

I inhale deeply and hold my breath.

“O-kay. That surprises me a bit, but hey, a lot of couples nowadays choose not to marry.”

“We weren’t even a couple. Not in the proper sense of the term.”

“Not in the proper sense of the term? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Goddamnit, Scully, it was so complicated! We…were so complicated. Nothing was ever easy for us. I don’t know how to explain this to you.”

“For heaven’s sake, Fox, try!”

Okay, I guess now is the time to stop beating around the bush. I need to be very clear on this. “I loved you. And you loved me. But we weren’t involved. Physically involved, I mean. We were like…like…platonic lovers.”

“Well, not so platonic after all if I got pregnant the old-fashioned way.” She draws invisible quotation marks in the air and sounds a little annoyed. She grimaces at her own lame joke, her expression freezes the very next second, though. “Are you not the father? Have I-”

“No,” I interrupt her, “you haven’t! Absolutely not! Jesus, why do you get it all wrong?”

“Because you’re only giving me bits and pieces here! Incoherent, contradicting information that doesn’t make a reasonable whole!”

She jolts up from the couch, taking one of the cushions with her and holding it in front of her chest now, subconsciously shielding her heart. Only that a cushion can’t save the heart from emotional pain.

“I’ve had enough of this!” She’s almost yelling at me. “This is so confusing! I don’t know what to make of all of this. I need some time to sort this out.”

“No!” I grab her sleeve to keep her from leaving. “Please, Scully! You’d be making up countless theories in your head and none of it would be even close to the truth because our lives back then were so out of the ordinary. Give me ten minutes to explain. Please. Just ten minutes.”

She’s standing still for a moment, her back turned toward me. I can tell she’s struggling with herself about what to do.

“Ten minutes. That’s all I’m asking for, and I promise you’ll be wiser afterward.”

She turns around slowly and meets my eyes, hers watery. I’m not sure whether because she’s anxious or sad, or maybe just because she’s angry with me for having been so cryptical so far.

“Promise to tell me the truth,” she demands.

“I promise!” I let go of her sleeve and motion for her to sit next to me again.

She inhales deeply, then places herself on the couch, further away from me this time. Her knees are up again, offering her chin a place to rest on. I don’t know why she needs that distance between us, why she can’t look at me as I speak.

I take a deep, calming inhale of breath myself and start telling her about what led her to the point of giving William up for adoption. Of course, it had to be a short version, otherwise, I wouldn’t be talking for ten minutes but ten hours straight, or maybe ten days even.

She shows no reaction, simply takes all the information in, as if she was listening to a lecture at college. She lets me talk, she’s not interrupting me with questions or demanding I clarify things. I’m not even sure she’s really listening. I pause for a moment to incite some kind of reaction; a movement, a sigh, a word. Nothing. So I conclude my narration.

“We’d unmasked a government conspiracy leading directly to the Bureau with some of our direct superiors being involved. We’d exposed ourselves, Scully. We were abducted, misled, threatened, harmed in many ways, but we never gave up. We couldn’t let those sons of bitches get through with their vile intentions. What used to be my quest had become yours too, and you chose not to leave my side although you had the chance. But when William was born, the stakes were too high. You’d become a mother, Scully, and you had to protect your son. The decision you’d once made for yourself, to put your life on the line for me, couldn’t apply to him. For you, there was no way out anymore, but there was one for William. That’s why you gave him up. The adoption was his one-way ticket away from the omnipresent danger our lives would’ve held for him. That’s it.”

That’s it.

I swallow.

She’s still not moving, isn’t saying anything. She just closes her eyes and a tear rolls down her cheek. I’d like to brush it away but I fear to wake her from her trance-like state and startle her. I have no idea what’s going on in her mind. Does it make any sense to her? Does she think this is all too crazy to be true? Does she remember any of it?

She’s still staring straight ahead, avoiding my eyes, when she speaks eventually. “I couldn’t protect my son.”

Although she heard a lot of reasons why she had to do what she did, that her motives had been beyond all blame, she narrows it down to a point where she’s accusing herself. I know that regardless of what I tell her, she’ll feel guilty. I try anyway.

“Nobody could. Not without denying him a normal life, and that’s what you wanted him to have.”

“You never blamed me for what I’d done?”

“Never.”

“Not even a tiny bit? Secretly?”

“No.”

“You promised to tell me the truth,” she reminds me.

“I am telling you the truth.”

She looks at me with her clear blue eyes, her face unreadable. To my complete surprise, she folds her knees away, leans in and places a gentle peck on my cheek, breathing a soft 'thank you’ in my ear.

“You don’t have to thank me. I owed you the truth.”

“I meant for not casting a stone at me.”

“I was in no position to do that. I would’ve wanted to do the same for him, I only doubt I would’ve had the courage and the strength.”

“That’s why I felt my heart was heavy when you first mentioned his name. I sensed there was a sad story behind it although I couldn’t remember it.”

“It was a shattering, life-altering experience for you, Scully. It’s been branded into your soul, even if you don’t have any access to it at the moment.”

“Probably.”

“How are you?”

“I’m good. I need some time to let it all sink in, though.”

“Take as much time as you need. I’ll be right here whenever you have more questions.”

“Do we some pictures of him? Anything that reminds us of him?”

“Yes. Would you like to see them?”

She nods.

I rise from the couch and cast her a smile.

“Why don’t you make us a pot of tea and I go and fetch what we have.”

There’s a box in the attic. It’s shoved into the rearmost corner, so that we don’t stumble over it every time we pick up something from up there, like the deck chairs in the spring or the Christmas decoration in the winter.

It doesn’t take long for me to find it, although it’s just a usual cardboard box like many others up here, unlabeled and hidden behind a pile of spare tires. I know exactly where it is because unlike Scully I’ve had a look at it from time to time. When she was in the hospital on a double shift, for example, or away for the weekend with her mother. At moments like those, when I felt lonely and my mind wasn’t distracted enough, hence it kept wandering around until it made its way up to where that box was located.

When I return to the living room, the teapot sits on a warmer. Instead of mugs, she put two teacups on the table, along with honey and some milk.

I place the box in the middle of the coffee table.

“It’s small,” she notices.

“Yeah, well, I guess keeping more things wouldn’t have made it any easier.”

We sit for a moment side by side staring at the box like deer caught in the headlights, then she pulls it on her lap and opens it.

I don’t have to look in there to know what’s inside. The only things that remain from our son are the blanket he was wrapped in after he was born, a onesie with a baby giraffe on it, a pacifier, a baby rattle, a piece of paper with imprints of his tiny hands and feet in blue ink, a few pictures, eight, to be precise, and a copy of his birth certificate.

It took me a long time to figure out why she made a copy of it. I guess she wasn’t supposed to because of the adoption being a closed one, but she did anyway. She needed proof that all of it had really happened. The span of this baby’s presence in our lives was so short. In mine, it was just for as long as the blink of an eye. One moment, he made a miraculous entrance into my existence, the very next he was gone. Scully, being prone to relying on hard data as a scientist, kept the written document as a piece of evidence. Not so much for the outside world, but for herself. Although I’m not sure she’s ever looked at it after she handed off the original to the social worker at the adoption agency.

I know I’m not mentioned as the father. The space on the certificate where the father’s name is usually put is blank. Scully and I agreed that it was better this way. Safer. Little did we know that this particular safety measure along with all the others wouldn’t protect him enough. Now I wished my name was on that birth certificate, for the same reasons Scully kept the copy.

The first thing she pulls out of William’s commemorative cardboard box is his onesie. It’s the one I sent her through tortuous paths when he was half a year old and I was separated from my family, having to hide to keep them safe. She puts the garment to her cheek.

“It doesn’t smell like him anymore,” I say. I can almost feel the sensation on my own skin for all the times I’d done that, too, hoping to connect with him somehow. But other than the softness of the fabric there is nothing there.

“Has it been washed?” she asks.

“Probably not. I guess the smell has just faded. It’s been more than six years, Scully.”

“Sure,” she sighs.

One after the other, she takes the other items out of the box. She smiles at the hand and footprints, unfolds the baby blanket, and furrows her brows at the birth certificate. She looks at the pacifier and the rattle, maybe trying to picture herself calming a baby boy with them. She sets all the things on the coffee table next to the teapot without a word. She then retrieves the envelope containing the pictures we have of our son, all eight of them.

I don’t know why there are only so few. Maybe she didn’t take so many, maybe she threw them away in agony after he was gone, but most likely she deliberately chose the few she kept, each one marking a special moment.

There’s the one of us three, the only one of us three, a few days after he was born. Frohike took it in Scully’s apartment. William had just been nursed and fallen asleep in his mother’s arms. I’m sitting next to Scully in that picture, my arm around her shoulder. She’s beaming into the camera and I’m flashing a somewhat goofy grin. There’s an inscription on the back in Scully’s hand. It says, 'We’re parents!’

Without looking at the back, she holds the picture out to me. “We look happy.”

“We were happy, Scully. Very happy,” I answer and my voice almost deserts me.

There’s a photograph of William in his crib, the crib Scully and her siblings had spent their first months in, showing a toothless smile. On the back she’d written, 'our baby in the family crib’.

There’s one she took of me while I was sleeping on the couch with William resting on my chest, looking at Scully as if he wanted to say, 'look, mommy, daddy passed out’. When I’d first read what’s on the back, 'my two men’, my heart bled even more than when I was looking at the picture itself. The words still have that effect on me.

There’s a picture with just the word 'grandma’ on the back. It shows a smiling Margaret with William on her lap, feeding him a bottle.

“How did my mother take it?”

“She needed some time to get over it,” I tell her. Scully had never told me about the many discussions she had with her mother, arguments even, but Maggie had. “You should talk to her about it one day. When you’re ready. She can tell you much more about him than I can. She babysat him quite a lot.”

The remaining four pictures are only of him.

William sitting on a blanket on the floor with the rattle in his mouth. The back reads, 'bothered by his first tooth’. William in his high chair, carrot mash smeared all over his face. The back reads, 'having fun with the first solid food’. William on all fours, crawling towards the photographer, his face beaming. The back reads, 'getting ready to conquer the world’.

And then there’s the last one. It shows William in a jacket and a funny hat, buckled up in his car seat. It’s slightly out of focus as if taken in a rush. It’s the only one without anything written on the back. Even without any explanation, I have an idea of what I see in this picture.

Scully’s eyes are glued to it now. Then she looks at the others again, one by one. It must strike her how different that one is. Eventually, she speaks out loud what I never dared to ask her about.

“This is the last picture we have of him.”

I only nod.

“We don’t know what he looks like today, where he lives, who his parents are.”

These are no questions, just findings from her assessing everything she’s heard about William’s adoption from me today.

“Is there any chance for us to get in touch with him?”

I shake my head no.

“To find out his whereabouts or how he’s doing?”

Again, I have to shake my head.

“Can he get in touch with us? If he wants to, maybe when he’s a teenager? In puberty, adoptive children often develop a longing to learn everything about their biological roots.”

“No,” I answer, “it’s been a closed adoption. All information is sealed. It had to be done this way to keep him safe.”

I’m not telling her that there is a person who knows. Skinner. He knows the name of the couple who adopted William and he knows where they live. Our former boss keeps an eye on our son, just to make sure the forces Scully tried to protect him from haven’t tracked him down after all. It’s calming for me to know Skinner’s looking out for him, but it’s also a constant temptation to pry the secret information out of him. I wonder if I will ever hold him at gunpoint, yelling at him to tell me where William is.

“So we will never see our son again.” Scully sighs heavily. “We know nothing about him and never will.”

There’s nothing further for me to say.

We sit in silence for a long time and sip our tea. She looks okay, a bit exhausted maybe, but not devastated or broken.

“Thank you for telling me everything.”

“I promised.”

“Yes, you promised, but still, it must have been difficult for you. He’s your son, too, and you lost him. I understand now why you wanted to keep it from me when I first asked you about him. I hadn’t been stable enough at the time to deal with it. Thank you for taking such good care of me, Fox.”

Despite her frequent use of my first name in the past months, I’m simply not getting used to it. It has, and it will continue doing so, a weird ring.

Scully, it’s me, Mulder!

“You’ve always been my favorite patient, Scully,” I say and make her laugh.

She places the box on her lap and puts the William memorabilia back in, piece by piece, very carefully and gently. She sets the box on the coffee table and puts the lid back on.

“What do you say we keep it down here from now on instead of hiding it in the attic? Maybe not here in the living room, but how about our bedroom closet?”

“I like the idea.”

I really like the idea. I love it actually. Maybe we’ve just taken a huge step toward dealing together with the loss of William. Maybe it’s going to be one good thing this damn amnesia brings along in its wake. If we stop trying to cope with it separately, if we start sharing our grief and our guilt feeling, maybe then we’ll be able to halt the downward spiral we’d definitely been on before Scully was taken. We’d been drifting away from each other, slowly but gradually, each of us alone in trying to come to terms with the emptiness our son left behind. I felt it but I couldn’t do anything against it. If this is meant to be the onset of a new way for us, then I swear to God I’ll never curse that fucking amnesia again.

“You know what?” she says and rises from the sofa, “I’d like us to go for a walk. Do you know that Italian ice cream parlor on Main Street? Francesco’s Gelato? Their ice cream is heavenly. Have your ever tried Bacio? It means 'kiss’ in Italian. It’s a delicious mixture of hazelnut and chocolate. I’m in the mood for one of their cones. What about you?”

I’m definitely in the mood for a kiss!

“My treat,” I say.

to be continued

#xf fanfiction #msr #William #eight pictures #Bacio

30 notes · View notes