Wait

A Get Backers Fanfic by Rabid Lola

Disclaimer: Don't own Get Backers. I do own their miscellaneous offspring, though. :D

A/N: Just read. Slightly AU, since Ren and Makubex are real, and Himiko's curse was nullified. This is one of my favorites, even if it's sad.

…---…

An old man walked into the graveyard, one calm summer morning.

He had been tall before. Now he was stooped over by age. He still was slim, clad in sober colors, simple clothes. Grey-white hair slipped down over his face in what had the ability to become spikes, but was now lank, soft, drooping. Wrinkles spanned his face; he was old now, very old, his once clear ice blue eyes clouded, the sharpness that had lain in them before losing its edge.

He still wore the purple glasses.

With the means of a cane—one that wore sorely on his pride—he made his way slowly to a stone bench and sat down, facing a simple, well-tended grave.

It could have been no more than a year old.

He sat, for a while, and stared. No one was around, not a soul in sight.

A tear slipped out of his eye, tracing down his cheek. Midou Ban never used to cry. Yet he'd been doing much of that, these past years…

"Oy. Ginji," he said softly.

He remembered those days, more than sixty years ago, when he'd say that in varying tones, swiping a sometimes fond, sometimes rough hand over his best friend's then-yellow head.

So long ago.

"How are things?" he spoke softly again. Really, you'd have to be inches away from him to hear him. Yet he knew that the person he was speaking to could hear.

"Natsumi misses you," he said conversationally. "She would have come, but she can't. Her sickness, you know. She said to send her love.

"The kids are fine," Ban continued, leaning back in the bench a little. He snorted, reminiscent of his old derisive snorts. "Heh. Remember the time when we found out Yamato was in love with your Teshichan? We had to sleep outside their bedroom doors, just in case. They never did anything though, thank God. But that was odd. I mean, our kids were growing up, old enough to fall in love, get married. They've made us old," he sighed. He did not sound, though, as if he regretted this.

"You never made it to great-grandfatherhood, Ginji. Yamato and Teshichan are grandparents, yes. Their Keito gave birth a two months ago. And guess what? Twins. they've named them Ban and Ginji. I said it was hard, there were too many Bans in the family already." He grinned; great-grandfatherhood could put indulging smiles on even Midou Ban's face. "Don't tell them that I'm glad they argued."

He was silent for a while, then he snorted again. "Speaking of the other Ban, doesn't it seem to you like someone, out there, loves making a fool of me? Why did my namesake—your son—have to marry Fuyuki Taki?" Ban laughed. "Not that I mind. She's a nice girl. Yes, monkey-man, I'm calling your daughter nice. She has to be, if Madoka's her mother."

He leaned forward. "By the way, Ginji, how is monkey man? Let me call him monkey man, this once. I can't do it so often now that the grandkids are around. Say hello to him from me, and to Madoka, too. Make sure he doesn't die again of shock, from my sudden burst of goodwill." This was a joke, but the chuckle that followed came out a little empty. "I wonder if he believes I cried in his funeral."

After closing his eyes for a short minute, he managed to produce a small smile. "Well, maybe he does.

"Come to think of it, say hello to thread-spool, too, and Ren. She was younger than any of us, yet she followed soon after Kazuki. And to Hevn, ask her if she finds the dress code over there too constraining. To Master, Emishi, the Kakei siblings…" he suddenly gave a soft guffaw. "If you're not too scared to, Ginji, say hello to Akabane, too. Wish he were here to finish me off.

"I didn't mean that, don't get upset," he added quickly.

Silence for a while, then a soft, serious, "Have you met Kudo Yamato yet?" A pause. "Say hello."

A smile, mischievous in nature, twitched the corner of his mouth. "I can almost hear my lovely wife complaining." A brightness entered his eyes, a gentleness and a fierce, strong love that had not died even when its object did. "Tell Himiko not to worry. I saved her for an individual message since she's so special." Softness came, as he whispered, "Tell her I love her very, very much, as much as I did then, and I miss her with all my heart. So do her children and her grandchildren. They send their love." He shifted slightly. "And tell her not to complain that I'm not talking to her today." Sadness fully entered his voice, and it quavered a little as he finished, 'It is your first death anniversary after all."

His blue eyes cleared, and for a while, he gazed at the grave, as if he could see the body of his friend lying there. "I miss you, Ginji," he said quietly. "You and your happy idiot cheerfulness. You were a happy idiot even when you got married, had your kids, grew old. Every one of the children in our families loved you for it." His eyes twinkled. "They managed to love me, too. I wonder why."

He propped his chin on the edge of his cane, continuing to fix his stare on the grave. "Ginji, life would not be as it is now, if I hadn't met you. I would never had become a Get Backer. Never had gained a conscience. Never had met other people I could actually call friends.

"The active days of the Get Backers—who can forget those, Ginji? I'm almost sorry we retired." Ban laughed. "Can you believe that? We actually made enough money to support our families, buy a home, and retire! After many, many years, of course. Retirement never seemed to suit us.

"If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have those days to look back on. In fact, I wouldn't have these days now. You wouldn't have met Natsumi, I wouldn't have met Himiko again, or even if I had, I would have been the cold bastard Raitei fought in Mugenjou. Incapable of love and hell, way unlovable." He shook his head, grinning ruefully. "Midou Ban-sama would have been some unknown, bitter pile of bones and dust, killed in a selfish fight, somewhere out there in Shinjuku. I owe you a lot, Ginji."

He leaned back and sighed. He closed his eyes. "The Get Backers. Neither of us ever forgot the S." He opened his eyes and smiled up at the sky. "That's why I can feel you now. As long as the S is there, you're never alone. I haven't forgotten it, Ginji, I never did. I may be eighty-nine, but my memory's still as good," he finished smugly, tapping his temple with his finger. He made a small noise of discomfort as a creak of pain shot out somewhere in his body, as if to contradict his words. "Agh. Eighty-nine, Ginji. Inherited the long life from the old witch lady." He stopped, though for a while, decided. "Oh yeah. If you meet her, say hi to her, too."

He brought out the everlasting cigarette pack, and Yamato's lighter. He lit a stick, and began to smoke. He snorted. "How come I get to live long and I'm the one who smokes?" he coughed, cleared his throat, and glared with no real ill will at the grave. "Eh, you had to go get cancer. Ahou," he said fondly, brokenly.

He flexed his right arm. Even that limb was no longer strong, no longer muscular. "Aesclepius is getting tired. Maybe when he chooses to vacate my arm—which is soon, I can tell—I'll leave. Maybe that's why I'm still alive. Damn snake. Hah." He flicked ash off the end of his cigarette, and seemed to be pondering something. "Then again, maybe it's better that my curse keeps me alive, than kills me slowly or turns me into a monster, like the one of Yamato. And Himiko." He shuddered. "Thank God we were able to nullify hers. Thank you for that, too. You helped me out there more than anyone else.

"I won't leave before Natsumi does, though," Ban said, getting up slowly. "I promised you I'd take care of her. It won't be long, now," he said softly, sadly.

He sighed. "I feel sorry most for Makubex," he said. "He'll be left alone here. He's in good condition, for eighty-two. He'll have ended up burying us all. At least he has his grandchildren, and is happy with them. His grandson Gen is as much a prodigy as he is, and is ruling Mugenjou well. It's a happier city, now, really, it is."

He hobbled over to the grave, and knelt, stiffly. He put one hand down on the soft turf, and thought of his partner, as Raitei, as Ginji, as the Get Backer, as his best friend…

"I love you, my brother. More than that, actually. My best friend," he said in a barely audible, suddenly raspy voice. Tears began to slip down again, he stopped them with a quick swipe of the hand holding his cane. Midou Ban never used to cry, never used to break down. Yet he did cry when his friends had died, and he had broken down when his wife, then, three years later, his best friend, had left for the other world. The hand clutching the grass trembled, a little, he clenched it into a tight fist, and uprooted some of the turf. And then he relaxed again, tired, slumped, sad, but not regretful. Even if he'd lost them, at least he'd had them in the first place.

Through his sadness, he smiled. "We were like twins…you know? Almost. Maybe it is right that there is a new Ban and Ginji in this world, and that they are twins, by blood."

He stood, and began to hobble away, slowly, back out the gate of the graveyard, back to a decent look-alike of his old 360, back to where his granddaughter Yuki was waiting, to assist him the rest of the way and drive him home, to comfort her father's father even as she worried about her grandmother, slowly dying in the hospital. Yuki smiled comfortingly, brightly, a smile Ban could see a mile away. Like her mother Teshichan, she had inherited a beautiful mix of Ginji and Natsumi's wide smiles.

"Natsumi and I will come soon," he flung over his shoulder as a farewell, too far for Yuki to hear. "You, all of you, try to wait for us, till then…

"Ja ne."

end