"Where did you hear that name, Heero?" Usagi whispered. Her voice shook, and her eyes were wide. She had actually gone pale at the name, and he had weirdly experienced the brief urge to take the question back. Instead, though, he left it out there.
"Duo mentioned it. It's something from a kids' story, but it was about your time, when you came from." And that was never going to stop being weird to think, much less say aloud. "Does it mean something to you?"
She bit her lip, glancing away from him for a brief moment before she sighed and turned back to him, her face wan and her voice bitter. "I've heard of Sailor Moon. She was supposed to be the hero of Tokyo and defender of the Earth. She wasn't very good at it."
He felt both eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. Of all the answers he had been expecting, this had not been one of them. "So she was a real person then?"
Usagi nodded slowly. "Real enough, if incompetent, brash, and unable to help her friends when they needed it most." She sighed heavily. "When they needed her most."
There was no diplomatic way to say this, but when had diplomacy ever been his strong suit? This was as close to it as he got, now, hinting around something he wasn't sure he was ready to say just yet. "It sounds like you knew her."
Usagi nodded again. "I knew her. I knew her well enough to be disappointed in her for letting happen... whatever it was that happened." She shook her head hard, wincing her eyes tightly shut as if to ward off tears again. Frankly, he really hoped that she was successful. He wasn't too good with tears. "I can't remember." Her voice broke harshly in the middle of the word, and she wrapped her arms tightly around herself, fingers gripping her arms so tightly that the skin was turning white around them. "They were all dying, then there was only Sailor Moon and a few others left, and Galaxia wanted to take over and destroy the universe, but I can't remember what happened next. Of all the things I can't remember, why did it have to be that?" But then she seemed to reverse her own thoughts as she shook her head again desperately. "I don't want to know the rest. What I do remember, with all the fighting and so many people I cared for dying, I don't want to see what happens after that."
What in the world was he supposed to be doing now? Follow your emotions, said that annoying voice in his head that popped up from time to time in emotionally stressful times. 'Just hold her and listen if she needs it,' replied another one, one that sounded amazingly like Duo. Duo usually gave pretty good advice, so he went with that one, climbing up on the bed and wrapping his arms around her. She buried her face in his shirt, but she wasn't crying. In fact, it was more like she was hiding: from him, from herself, from her past, and maybe even from the world itself.
So Sailor Moon was real. Duo's children's story had actually been true-or at least had some elements of truth to it. It sounded like Sailor Moon had indeed fought evil, and she may have even had friends along to help her. And it sounded like the end of the story was true too: that one day, Sailor Moon and her band had met an evil they could not defeat, Galaxia, if he was following Usagi's story correctly.
But the ending... There was no way to know if the ending was correct or even if there was one yet. Because according to what little he had been able to find in his research, Sailor Moon and the Sailor Senshi had all disappeared when the dome fell in Tokyo.
He couldn't believe he was even thinking about asking this, but he had to know. "Usagi?" She didn't budge and didn't say a single word, but he did get the feeling she was paying close attention to his words. That was something, he supposed. "Were you Sailor Moon?"
At that, she pushed away, looking all too ready to climb to her feet. Whether it was to leave or to pace or even just to hide in the bathroom, it was something he shouldn't let her do. He had promised himself that he and Usagi would be together when they got Duo back, so she wasn't allowed to leave. He had seen the condition her feet were in--and how she hadn't said anything the entire walk back into town, he had no idea--so she really shouldn't be pacing. And he knew for a fact that it was bad to try to hide from the painful parts of your own past; once you started that, it was nearly impossible to stop hiding, to stop running.
So instead, he wrapped both arms around her anew and pulled her close to him. "There is no right or wrong answer here, Usagi," he stated plainly, doing everything in his power to keep his voice level and calm. Almost without thought, he started running a hand over her hair; he still couldn't get over how incredibly soft it was; and to his relief, she seemed to respond to the motion, relaxing slowly into his arms. "There is no right or wrong answer," he repeated. "In fact, you don't even have to answer, not unless you want to."
Part of him actually wanted to keep rambling on, but he held that bit of himself firmly in check. He had an idea why that urge had hit him. It was too quiet here without Duo. He missed the other man being here, filling up the silences before they got to be a bit too long and helping to bridge the gaps in this relationship.
"I..." Usagi sounded... He couldn't put a word to how she sounded. Lost? Detached? Miserable? Any one of them worked, but none of them fit. Eloquence like that wasn't his strong point either. "Once upon a time, I was known as Sailor Moon."
Never once in a thousand years would he ever have expected to get an affirmative answer to that question. He had only known about Sailor Moon for a day, maybe even less than that, but between what Duo had told him and what his own research had turned up, the entire thing seemed too fantastical to be real. Suddenly, the words Usagi had said some time before, about feathers and magic and the world's ending, made a whole lot more sense.
"So all those old stories are true then?" He actually hadn't meant to say that out loud, but those words had actually slipped from him. After that, there was no taking them back--and he wasn't sure he wanted to anyway.
"I don't know what stories you've heard, Heero." She plucked at the duvet on the bed listlessly. "There were a lot of very unusual things that my friends and I did or fought or even were. You'll have to be more specific."
Given her previous reactions, he wasn't about to ask her too much else about it. He also wasn't going to tell her much of what he had been able to find. "I guess that's how you know someone who can see the future."
She looked like she wanted to say something, maybe correct his tense, but she didn't. Instead, she explained quietly, "Rei-chan, or Mars, the Senshi of Fire. She could see small glimpses of the future, though she was better at telling if evil was coming or detecting it. Her power wasn't like yours, Heero, but it did make hearing about yours easier. Duo's..." She shrugged.
"He always has to be unique," he deadpanned.
"Oh, so we have more unusual things to look forward to." It could have come out bitter. He thought, if he had said it, then it probably would have. It didn't sound that way with Usagi, though. Maybe she was more interested in the unusual and fun things they could do with Duo and his abilities and everything else about him. They just had to get him back, and they would, if he had any say in the matter-and he liked to think that he did.
"Oh, plenty more. Duo isn't happy unless he's being different than everyone else."
"I'll bear that in mind," she commented. She sounded better. That was a good thing, as far as he was concerned. "You've known Duo a long time, haven't you?"
"Two years, give or take," he replied. How one went about measuring time in a war--in two wars--was difficult at best. But maybe Usagi knew something about that. He was coming to suspect that much anyway. "The first time we met, he shot me."
At that, Usagi sat up straight to stare down at him in very obvious and very frank disbelief. "What?!" It wasn't quite a shriek, but it wasn't too far from it.
"I was holding a gun on Relena--and I was trying to blow up... some things." This was something he wasn't too sure he wanted to get into. So why had he brought up the subject to begin with? He needed to back out of it as quickly as he possibly could. How would Duo put this? "One thing led to another, and he shot me. But he eventually broke me out of the hospital where I was being held."
Twin arms entwined themselves around his waist. "Oh, Heero..."
It didn't seem like she was going to continue, so he pressed on. "I guess I paid him back by stealing parts from his Gundam." And he wasn't going to mention setting his own leg. That always got the most grossed out expressions from Duo, and he didn't want to see what it would do to Usagi. "I was a little surprised he was willing to work with me after that, much less try so hard to... be my friend." The words seemed inadequate for the effort Duo had put into him over the years, but it would have to do.
"I'm sure there's never a day that goes by that Duo isn't glad he's your friend, Heero."
And that was awfully mushy, even for Usagi. He wasn't going to say anything about it, though, in part because he didn't want to find out what other sappy thing she might be holding onto to say. More than that, though, he didn't want to admit that she had cut pretty close to something that always worried him: the possibility that one day Duo might realize he wasn't worth the effort and would leave him for good. So he pushed at Duo: leaving whenever the other man found him, ignoring the flirting that had gone on for years, refusing to let himself get any closer to the other man for when the inevitable finally happened.
And now it had. It wasn't quite like he had pictured it, but Duo was indeed gone from him. And it felt just as crippling as he had feared it would. But at least this time he wasn't alone, not like he had always thought he would be.
"Heero." Usagi's voice cut through his thoughts, her voice severe. "I can feel you thinking dark thoughts from here. Stop it. We will get Duo back, and then we aren't going to let him out of our sight again for at least a month." She paused. "Or more like a year. Okay, forever. But we are going to get him back, and if I have to chain him to a bed to make sure no one else takes him, I will." She poked his side viciously, and he was surprised enough by it that he had to squirm away a bit. "And if I have to poke you until you're happy, don't think I won't do that either, Heero."
"You sound so certain about this, Usagi. What if..." He didn't want to even think of it, but it was a possibility. "What if we can't pick up their trail and find where they've taken Duo?"
"They want me. They'll make certain that I can find my way to them."
"And if they just grab you like they did Duo?"
She sighed and poked his side again. "Then I give you full permission to stick a tracking device on me or something. As long as I get to do the same to you. We will find them. We will get Duo back. I promise, Heero." She pulled her tight against her body again. "I promise you."
03 August 2012
Whoops... Guess what I forgot to do yesterday? Sorry!
So, the story is finished. I'm uploading a new chapter per 50 hits.
I'm also participating in the August Edition of Camp NaNoWriMo, with another crossover story. Betrueger fans, please, bear with me: the story is being unbearably difficult. My muse has departed, and I'm struggling to get words in for you guys.
And that's about it.
See you next chapter!
Apollymi