Hammered out in about four hours because (1) I suddenly really wanted to get something written, and (2) I was afraid that if I left anything for tomorrow, such as editing, I'd just completely run out of steam. Mainly because Monster is such a magnificent work that I feel completely and utterly scared shitless by the temerity of the very idea of attempting fanfic of it. TT

Concrit as always appreciated in truckloads. Especially given that this was hardly proofread at all; my brain was already too far gone by the time I forced out "owari."

I hope this isn't too drively, dear reader.

Monster belongs to Urasawa Naoki, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to tie.

Transference

by Mirune Keishiko

At that godforsaken hour it was pitch black beyond the blinds at the window, and he could see only by what light seeped around the half-open door to the bathroom; but the dimly outlined thermos on the nightstand he recognized immediately. Its metal cap had grown dull with scratches since he'd last seen it, as he reached out he found that the dark red leather casing had become soft and worn from months of use—but it was Nina's all right. The last time he'd been home, he had gone with her on some errands, and she'd bought it to use for her daily coffee.

Tonight, however, it yielded soup—creamy potato and leek from the smell of it, stone-cold and untouched.

He had been careful not to rouse the woman sound asleep on the side of his bed amidst a mess of tousled blond hair; but as he put the thermos back on the nightstand she stirred, and bleary blue eyes smiled up at him through strands that shone even in the darkness.

"You should get home," said Tenma softly. His voice had to fight its way out of his throat. He wondered how long he'd been asleep.

Nina's hands closed tightly around his. Her fingers were cold; Tenma found himself rubbing his thumb across the delicate knuckles feebly, in a near-instinctive attempt to give warmth.

"I wanted to wait till you woke up," she said, smiling in that unabashedly happy way of hers that had Tenma—now, as always—smiling back despite himself.

When the MSF camp had been shelled, the rebels had quickly claimed it was an accident, she told him as she switched on the lights and he realized she'd been sleeping on what appeared to be case briefs strewn across one side of his blankets. He had had to be shipped back to Germany for delicate surgery on the injuries to his legs. Though the multiple operations had been successful, he would need months of rehabilitation now to regain full use of his lower body. It didn't help—and here she gave him a sharp look, as she transferred the soup to a bowl for microwaving—that when he'd been injured in the shelling, he'd been on shift for over forty-eight hours and had skipped not a few meals.

She plunked down the bowl of now-steaming soup on his little dining table as if to emphasize that last point.

"I was going to bring you stew instead, but"—she grinned sheepishly as she offered him a packet of crackers from her bag—"I overcooked it again."

It wouldn't be the first time Nina Fortner forgot about her cooking as she pored over case files. The potato soup nearly burned his tongue; with a feeling of immense comfort, Tenma closed his eyes to savor his first spoonful as it seared its way down into his stomach.

"Your soup is always good," he rasped out at last, opening his eyes again to find Nina watching him silently from her seat by his bed.

She smiled. "I'm glad." From the frank way she continued to look at him, she didn't seem to realize that she was blushing. "Try to eat it all up, then."

It was slow going—he was still terribly weak and his legs being immobilized made him feel even more oddly helpless—but she didn't seem to mind the prospect of a long wait, and if she didn't mind, then he didn't either. Without a word she propped him up with pillows behind his back, so that he could reach the bowl more easily; and she gathered her papers one by one, smoothing out the parts she'd crumpled by sleeping on top of them. The laptop sitting open on another chair blinked back to life with a little musical sound when she pressed a button. A half-written document was still open, the cursor flashing expectantly.

Tenma watched her shut down the computer with a few brisk movements.

"I'll be fine, you know," he said gently as she turned back to him, honest, smiling eyes noting the still-full bowl without judgment. "I should be out of here in a few days. You're obviously busy, you need your rest—"

"—Says the doctor who would have collapsed of fatigue and malnourishment if he hadn't been shelled first." But her tone was mild, and her eyes teased him.

Tenma almost laughed—she had been bringing him ever closer to laughing again, these past two years, and he was beginning to realize, with some surprise, that he missed doing it. He settled for finishing his soup instead, one diligent mouthful after another, as Nina told him how Dieter had gotten into his school's soccer team some months before and was already impressing his coach with his skills, how the puppeteer from Prague had written to tell her that he'd decided to go on a trip across Europe and would stop in at Munich in a few weeks, if they didn't mind. Reichwein and Gillen, meanwhile, were already putting the finishing touches on the book they were co-writing. No one had heard from Eva in a long time, but her kitchens had been featured prominently in several design magazines; she seemed to be doing well.

And Tenma, in Nina's animated face and lilting voice taking a pleasure as palpable as the warmth of the soup inside his body, marveled, not for the first time, at the power of the human being to heal itself. He hoped that the boy called Johan, wherever he was now, was no exception.

Perhaps Tenma too would actually be able to laugh sometime soon. With Nina around, he was sure it would be only a matter of time...

Then he caught himself, and frowned.

When Nina's words were suddenly overtaken by a yawn—which apparently surprised her more than it did him—he glanced out the window and found that the night had lightened to gray. Rising, Nina set aside the now-clean bowl, satisfaction written clear on her pretty face as she tucked the half-eaten packet of crackers back into her bag. The thermos went neatly into her satchel, which bristled with files when she opened it.

"You really should go home now, Nina," said Tenma as sternly as he could manage in his weakened state. Besides, the soup had been too welcome to make him truly harsh on her. "Don't you have to go to work today? You can sleep at least a few hours before—"

"Don't worry, Tenma, it's Sunday." Nina was already removing the pillows propping him up. Her slender hand grasped his arm with understated strength as he tentatively lay back against the crisp white sheets. She grinned back at him over her shoulder as she went to turn out the lights. "And I worked late all week just to get today free, so there's no way you're sending me home before I've had enough of you! You've had me worried sick ever since I found out about the attack," she continued, her voice wavering only slightly in the newly restored darkness, "so you owe me at least a nap right here by your side, and no sending me off home till I decide I want to go."

If the weariness had not come rushing back to him all of a sudden, he might have thrown up his hands in mock surrender or unnerved her with some apology for his concern over her welfare. As it was, he merely lay back against the cool crisp sheets and smiled into the shadows, knowing she wouldn't see.

True enough, she was asleep within minutes, curled up like a cat with her chair pulled up right against the bed, her cheek pillowed on a fistful of blanket. Tenma himself felt the first waves of fatigue start to wash over him, but he couldn't help noticing, absent-mindedly, that the first bright sunrays had begun to streak through the drawn blinds at the window, and that Nina's soft hair stirred gently against the very tips of his fingers as she breathed.

The room was cold in the predawn chill, he belatedly realized; but he ignored the impulse to seek out Nina's hands with his own and instead tangled them in vain into the thin, cold sheets.

Seventeen years, he reminded himself, resolutely turning his face away from the sleeping form at his side and toward the window, toward the steady sunrise. Seventeen—eighteen, even. Numbers, cold hard incontrovertible numbers were always so useful for moments like this, when he could almost convince himself that indeed, human beings had a remarkable ability to transform themselves, to defy cold, hard, and seemingly incontrovertible facts in order to become what they truly wished to be, or to seek what they truly desired to have.

A form of transference, nothing more, as Gillen and Reichwein might say, supposing he actually ever asked them. (Tenma of course had made up his mind never to ask, since—from the two esteemed doctors' none-too-subtle gestures and knowing looks the last few times he'd been home—he'd come to suspect they would actually say something much less dismissive, much more encouraging, and therefore nothing he ought to hear.) It was not uncommon, though certainly seldom approved of, between doctors and patients; and Nina Fortner and Kenzou Tenma had been through both joys and horrors that had brought together even bitter enemies.

At best, a passing infatuation between two people who had happened to be pivotal in each other's lives. At worst, a single-minded admiration that had yet found no one else worthy of the same regard—and though Tenma had not wanted a wife or child in many years, he knew that Nina at twenty-five had yet to bring home any young man to meet her mismatched family, and not for any lack of applicants. She loved her job, she could spare no time for love affairs, he told himself whenever he fell to thinking about it again; certainly she was still very young—hadn't he himself been single and carefree at that same age?

But then—at times like these, when he found himself drawn back unerringly to watch her sleeping peacefully at his side; when she readily cancelled meetings with friends and rearranged work schedules to be with him whenever he ran out of reasons to be deployed by the MSF again—he couldn't deny that it had been only the thought of her that had pulled him through danger and destruction many times, and that it was only when she was near him, smiling, laughing, working, with her quick, clear, honest eyes, that he felt truly at peace.

She stirred when his fingers grazed hers and he froze, apprehension overriding fatigue for just a moment.

"You'll have a terrible backache when you wake up, Nina," Tenma said quietly, willing his hand to inch away from hers. "I'm telling you, you can just come back this afternoon. Go home already. Doctor's orders."

Her smile, when she was groggy as she was, was lopsided through the locks of hair that gleamed in the brightening sunlight.

"Don't be so harsh, Tenma." Her hand closed around his firmly, warm fingers tangling comfortably with chilled ones. Already she was falling back asleep. "I'm already home."

And so, went his last thought as he grudgingly gave in to sleep, was he.

owari