~ Monaco - May 20, 2006 ~
Inside a small home in Monte Carlo, a woman was getting dressed in her house. She was of mixed ethnicities, namely Japanese, monegasque, and Eritrean. Roughly 6 feet 1 inch in height, far above the average height of women.
Incredibly beautiful at that too, as she might as well have won the genetic lottery pool. With, thick raven black hair, and heterochromic eyes she often hid behind her glasses, with a beautiful pair of grey and reddish purple eyes.
Her outfit was nothing too fancy, just an outfit that worked well enough to keep her comfortable, and not blatantly standing out. She had an appointment to meet with her doctor about something that had been worrying her for quite some time.
Having finally derived the mental strength to get a checkup on it a few days ago, she was scheduled for a meeting with her doctor today.
She locked up her home, heading out into the gorgeous streets of Monaco, as she got into her car and drove off in the direction of the hospital. Keiko, wasn't rich, poor, nor was she middle class. In all honesty, it was a mystery to the few that she bothered to keep as friends, wealthy and low class alike.
Turning on the radio to drown out the silence, her mind delved deeper into thought, as she started thinking about things from her past, all blurs of course. The cocking of a gun. The panting in exhaustion. The shouting back and forth. The sounds of wood clashing.
She snapped back to the present behind the wheel. Soon enough, she began pulling into the parking lot of a hospital there, dropping her car off before heading into the actual hospital building.
"Lockhart, I'm scheduled for a consultation with Dr. Ducasse." Keiko informed one of the nurses on the reception desk.
The nurse nodded as she began checking on her system. "Ahh, yes. He's on the fifth floor, room 510."
Keiko nodded, getting into an elevator and making her way to the fifth floor, getting to Dr. Ducasse's room not long after, as she had been there a few times prior, knocking twice on the door.
"Come in." Dr. Ducasse said without looking up from the report on his desk, but upon looking up to see who it was, he fell silent in shock. "Mrs. Lockhart, I would have escorted you up had I known you were here."
There was a respect, and a good bit of fear mixed in his voice as he spoke. Keiko on the other hand didn't take it to serious and giving a genuine smile.
"Oh come on Olivier, if you did that, people might start thinking I'm your mistress or something... I'd rather not be a point of distrust between you and Marie."
Olivier let out an awkward smile, trying to play it off. "You are quite good at making jokes Mrs. Lockhart."
Keiko on the other hand having taken a good look around the room, determining what had changed since her last visit here before she sat, her next words changing the energy of the office.
"Pleasantries aside, I believe you have a report to read to me."
Olivier flinched for a moment before he sat down, and she noticed, which told Keiko it wasn't going to be good news. He cleared his throat, the paper in his hands now trembling slightly, betraying the tension in the room.
His eyes scanned the report again, as if he hoped it might read differently the second time. Keiko sat across from him, composed yet alert; like a coiled spring waiting for a reason to snap.
"Yes, of course," he finally said, setting the folder flat on the desk between them. "We've run a full battery of tests, and... the results are conclusive."
She didn't blink. "Go on."
He sighed, steepling his fingers. "Keiko, based on the scans, your reproductive system has sustained damage; severe and, unfortunately, irreversible."
She stared at him, unflinching. "From what?"
"There's scar tissue. A lot of it. Some of it looks surgical, the rest... trauma-related. It's consistent with high-impact injuries or long-term physical stress." He looked at her carefully. "Did you ever undergo surgery in the past you haven't told me about? Or experience any kind of major abdominal trauma?"
Keiko looked away for a brief second. Then her eyes returned, steeled.
"I don't remember everything," she said. "But I've had... incidents."
Olivier nodded slowly. He'd suspected as much. Her medical records were piecemeal at best, some foreign, others incomplete. Gaps like someone had gone in and pulled pages out on purpose. It wasn't uncommon in her circles. People with quiet pasts and loud silences.
"Well, whatever happened, it's left your uterus in a condition where carrying a pregnancy naturally would be, at best, dangerous. At worst... impossible."
Keiko didn't speak. Her face was unreadable. But her fingers tapped the armrest of the chair; once, twice, like a metronome clicking too fast.
"We did explore potential solutions," Olivier added gently. "There's the possibility of surrogacy. Or adoption, if you're open to it."
"What about in-vitro?" she asked, her voice steady.
"IVF might work, assuming your ovaries are viable. Which we believe they are, for now. But it wouldn't change the risk of carrying. The womb simply can't support a full-term pregnancy."
For the first time, she closed her eyes. A breath escaped her lips. Not quite a sigh. Not quite grief. Just... air.
"So that's it," she said.
"I'm sorry."
"I'm not," she said, opening her eyes. "I knew. I just needed someone to say it." Silence hung between them again. Olivier shifted in his seat.
"You're remarkably calm," he said quietly.
She gave a small, humorless laugh. "You'd be surprised how often people tell me that." She stood. "Thank you, Olivier."
He rose with her. "If there's anything else I can do—"
"There isn't."
Keiko turned to leave but paused at the door.
"Don't mention this to Marie. You know how she gets. She'll think it's a tragedy."
"And you don't?" She looked back at him, her mismatched eyes unreadable behind the light glint of her glasses.
"No," she said. "Tragedy is when something gets taken from you. I never had it to begin with."
Then she left, heels clicking softly down the hallway, vanishing into the silence of the fifth floor.
Keiko stepped into the elevator and let the silence swallow her. As the doors closed, she rested her head against the cool metal. For a second, just one, her shoulders sank. Then the ding of the elevator hit the ground floor, and the armor came back on.
She walked through the lobby with the same quiet grace she always did. People turned to glance without knowing why. She didn't stand out because of what she wore, or how she moved. She stood out because she didn't try to. It made her feel like a ghost sometimes, real enough to see, too distant to touch.
Out in the parking lot, the sun hit her face. Monaco's beauty was as relentless as ever, cobalt skies, sleek cars, the scent of ocean salt curling through the streets. Keiko stood by her car for a moment, eyes on the horizon.
She thought about the report. Not the paper itself, but what it meant. Finality. Closure, maybe. Or just another locked door. One of many.
She had always suspected something was wrong. The phantom pains, the sharp aches she learned to ignore. The flashes from her past, the screams, the blood, the brutal efficiency of survival. Her body bore scars she never chose. Some visible. Most not.
As she got into her car and started the engine, the radio clicked on again. A soft jazz track hummed through the speakers... smooth, easy, wrong for the mood entirely. She left it on anyway. Silence would be worse.
Driving along the coastal road, Keiko didn't head home. She took the long route, winding past the cliffs, the yachts, the life that never quite felt hers. Her phone buzzed once in her bag. She ignored it.
Her mind drifted, half memory, half instinct. A cold room. Metal restraints. A voice barking orders in Russian. She blinked, refocusing on the road.
'No... Not today.'
She pulled over at a secluded overlook. The sea was restless today, crashing hard against the rocks below. She stepped out of the car, leaning against the guardrail.
Keiko had never been the kind of woman who dreamed about white picket fences or lullabies. But the idea of a child... someone hers, not by blood but by bond, had started to take root in her thoughts over the years. A legacy that wasn't violence.
She remained at the overlook for another ten minutes, arms crossed on the rusting guardrail, hair brushing gently across her shoulders as the sea breeze tugged at it. The crashing of the waves far below was rhythmic, a reminder of nature's indifference. It was, strangely, comforting.
There was no judgment, nor pity. It felt like force meeting stone.
Eventually, she turned back to her car, her movements quiet and precise. Every door she opened, every step she took, was deliberate. Nothing wasted. She slipped behind the wheel and pulled off, tires whispering over the road as she merged back into the thin afternoon traffic.
She arrived home just after dusk.
The air still held the day's heat, but the stone walls of her Monte Carlo home were cool to the touch. She paused at the threshold, key in hand. The lock clicked open with practiced ease, three turns right, two back. Her routine. The little rituals that made chaos feel far away.
She stepped inside. The soft hum of her refrigerator greeted her from the kitchen. Her heels came off first. Then her glasses, which she folded and placed with care onto the small lacquered table near the entrance. Her coat was hung next to the others, all in muted tones. Minimalist. Curated. Such was her life.
The sun had slipped lower on the horizon, casting the terracotta roofs of the city in warm golds and deep shadows. Her house, modest by local standards, was a blend of contemporary and old-world charm.
Ivy crawled up one wall; the shutters were real, not just decorative. She stepped through her front door, locking it behind her with two turns of the key. Habit, not paranoia.
Inside, the home smelled faintly of cedarwood and jasmine. Clean. Ordered. The way she kept everything. Her shoes came off at the door, neatly placed on a matte black shoe rack. She padded through the house in socks, every step whisper-quiet against the stone floors.
She moved through the house like a memory, feet silent against the warm wood floors. Past the sparse living room, low furniture, soft lighting, a bookshelf lined with poetry and philosophy in four languages. A bonsai tree sat in the corner of the room, pruned that morning. She never let it overgrow. Not once.
The kitchen was sleek and minimal, white counters, brushed steel, not a smudge out of place. She set her keys on the tray beside the refrigerator, then turned to fill her kettle with filtered water. Tea first. Always tea. Her collection was curated, not excessive. She chose a tin of gyokuro; a shade-grown Japanese green tea; and measured the leaves with a practiced eye.
Her fingers moved on autopilot as she prepared her nightly tea: Gyokuro, imported from Uji, handpicked, one tin every three months. Two teaspoons. No more, no less. Water just below a boil. Three-minute steep.
As the kettle heated, Keiko moved through her house like a conductor orchestrating silence, she went to the bathroom and washed her face. Warm water, unscented cleanser. A white towel, always folded into thirds. She caught her reflection as she dried off.
A face that did not betray her age. Not nearly. The angles were too sharp, the skin too untouched by sun or time. Yet there were shadows beneath her eyes. Not from lack of sleep, but weight; carried long, hidden well.
Going back out, she opened the window just a crack to let in the dusk air. Adjusted the cushion on the reading chair. Took down a slim volume of poetry from the bookshelf in the living room. Osip Mandelstam. Russian. She flipped to a page marked with a slip of rice paper.
A soft leather chair by the window, her spot. From there, the city lights glimmered below like fireflies in formation. She sat, spine straight, one ankle crossed over the other. Even in solitude, her posture remained impeccable.
All muscle memory and discipline.
'A tragedy indeed.' She thought to herself.