Title: Your Bones
Author: SecretAgentSmutGirl
Summary: Some things were inescapable; like the pull of the moon on the tide while other things hung in the balance, perched on the precipice of past and future- She sought first and foremost to archive their breakdown. AU: Same Universe as "30 Day Dream", set before the events of that story.
Disclaimer: I don't own this wonderful fandom, or anything else for that matter.
"I've seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness"
Howl –Alan Ginsburg
Previously summer had meant simple things. Things like shedding winter clothes as a chrysalis sheds its cocoon, of switching to cooled southern sweet tea instead of endless mugs of too hot Darjeeling, of long lazy days that stretched on forever and ever- ad aeternum wedged between the season of sakura blossoms and the leaves turning red in their twilight hour. Summer meant mermaid days in Michiru's pool, floppy straw hats and noses turned pink no matter how much sunscreen was applied to skin that was white as snow. With the heat came freedom- but not that summer.
Not that summer. That summer would change the world, tilt its axis just enough to put them on course for their beautiful future- the saccharine sweet setup for a new crystal world.
Crystal Tokyo.
Instead of the normal idyllic, of the halcyon carefree norm of sun and cotton shorts, summer brought sea change and paradigm shift. The upsetting of their fragile peace- their peace of mind seemed to eclipse the summer sun. June brought back the past, the distant glittering past of cabbages and kings, the foundation of their pristine future tied through blood and bone in the form of what they feared most.
Shittenou.
It was that summer when the omens opened wide and their fears were born, fully formed and sprung from the earth just as Pallas Athena had made her debut in Grecian days. Four crystals shattered and in their place stood four leaders of men, so far from home in ages past that it was all the more shocking, the more jarring to set eyes on them in modern Tokyo- but days continued to pass and the world continued to spin.
Like every human they did as humans did, they adapted. It was a strange sight to see Kunzite's proud profile marred by mirrored aviators, so superfluous since his eyes gave away nothing. It was unsettling to see Nephrite perusing a smart phone as he would divine the stars in days of old, and jarring to watch Jadeite exiting a Starbucks.
In truth, Ami had seen neither of these things with her own eyes. She was, as she had ever been too busy for the trivial. She supposed rationally they could be flights of fancy on the part of her princess- as so many things were, but there was something too important- too dire when it came to these men that she reasoned no exaggeration was necessary.
Instead of seeing omens, sights, symbols and tableaus of these reborn soldiers of earth, all she had seen with her own eyes were the arcane texts of her craft. The only men that could snare her attention were Galen and Gray. They say that words have power, and if Ami had her way she would possess them all for use in making sense of the world. Before the world, something so complex, her academic pursuits had her considering and cataloging the human body.
There were seven billion people in the world- but they all had the same building blocks, the same template of complex cells- and their hearts counted down to the same end. She had learned at an early age that there were three hundred and six bones in the adult human body, each so fragile in a skeletal system that just begged her genius mind to deconstruct.
How could so many tiny, fragile things make something as strong as the human body? Out of this, how could a single human- even a single superhuman- change the history of the world? She would think of nothing else until the puzzle was solved.
Ami had decided a long time ago that of all of her parts, her skin and cells and bones- her heart came last.
000
All her life she had found solace in books, had found shelter and fortunes in cups of tea as she puzzled over the nature of her quandary. While Rei divined from fire with supernatural sight, Ami was more of a Roman augury- searching beneath sinew and skin for truths. She dissected and disassembled with delight, watching their backs and patching their wounds while the others burned the world to the ground.
So while the world changed and her sisters altered their patterns and paths to avoid, her discipline ensured that her schedule did not deviate in the slightest.
With her nose in Greys Anatomy she lived her life, dancing through each day with well-practiced steps so well learned over the years that they kept her from wandering into traffic or straying from her goals without one once of her attention needed. She sat in amongst piles of texts and ancient tome, as sure of her destiny and desires as any force of nature. She was as she had ever been; staid and steady.
Minako didn't seem to mind her constant distraction or lack of care for the return of Mamoru's advisors; she had enough righteous fury for the both of them and was willing to voice her frustrations in whatever café was the study venue of the day.
That day it was the Crowne- nearly empty in the lull between breakfast and lunch but for a few stragglers crowded around the ancient Sailor V console.
The subject of her textbook that day was remedial anatomy, but Mina had another subject on her mind.
"Usagi is playing house with them because Mamoru trusts them, despite my protests might I add, living la vida dolce like they are not cold blooded killers!"
The blonde huffed so hard she blew the foam right off her cappuccino and across Ami's notes, turning highlighted passages a golden ombre. "Rei won't even speak to Usagi about them, she just purses her lips and stares holes in the wall until the subject changes."
Ami didn't have the heart for the fight, to point out that Rei always ran hot when they fought, or even to fix mixed up pop culture references. So she nodded in agreement in all the right places and turned the page because she could change the world but she would never change Minako's mind.
"Perhaps they have changed. Have you spoken to any of them?" She asked this mildly, already knowing the reception her words would find. Raising her eyes proved her right because Mina fumed, in her fury she channeled Aphrodite spurned and in that moment Ami could see the root of her denials.
She could see Danburite through her friends' eyes- feel his poison and hear his warnings.
"They will be our doom, Ami. Mark my words."
But what Amy heard was another pronouncement of doom- You will always choose duty over love.
It was mind over matter; even if the bitten down nails and tense set of her mouth did not betray that her mind was still well and truly conflicted. Ami considered debating the topic further, of reasoning with the scowling blond and confronting the subject herself.
Instead she turned back to her textbook and picked up her highlighter.
The next day she tackled the nervous system in her notes, leaning against the counter of the visitor desk at the Hikawa Jinja while Rei stirred up dust and dead blossoms- somehow keeping the red of her priestess hakama pristine and her pansy colored eyes as remote as the stars.
It was truly a study in nerves to watch Rei go through the motions of her work, an extended exercise in calisthenics and distraction. They were not so different after all, for fire and ice complimented and balanced each other as no other two elements could. Her routines kept her grounded, as Ami's kept her safe.
How then would the world end; with fire or ice?
The soldier of war never once brought up the change, brought them up but when Ami spared her a glance she could see how tightly wound Rei's shoulder were set, how close she was to cracking her perfectly serene miko mask.
Without a word she conveyed her fears of history repeating, of letting her wounded heart and pride confirm what the fire and her experience with men in this life had already told her.
It would be better to have no heart to break.
000
The cardiovascular system was the work of a week and on the first day she heard that Makoto had braved the known and unknown, welcoming the Shittenou into the world, her café and her heart. Like all those with a gift for nature and nurture she could not balk in the face of what came naturally, be it in instinct requiring another pinch of cocoa in a recipe or a loneliness that called for allowing Nephrite to wear her heart on his sleeve.
Ami wished her sincere joy as she nibbled a brownie at the café, suddenly curious about how the chemistry of baking could mimic the body chemistry of those in love through caffeine and chocolate. Makoto smiled all the brighter when she asked for another, before plying her with more sweets and letting her go back to her pursuits. There was something different about her in that moment, something confident and steady where loneliness had been before.
Makoto had made her decision with no regrets. Ami thought then of Venus and Mars and their hot blooded passions as compared to the steady, loving single-mindedness of Jupiter. Her own inclinations were no less singular, but they were more solitary in pursuit, more clinical and cold. This had never stopped her from finding fullness in life, from finding company to share the air with or a coffee.
Her friends had found a way to include her and to love her despite their own inclination.
How, then, was this any different?
Ever a creature of habit, it would not be hard for him to find her, should he wish to find her in the first place. Usagi had smiled and assured her that he had inquired about her from the start and had not been offended by her failure to adjust her schedules on the edge of finishing her internship.
If Zoisite was in this brave new world, as he had been in the past- he would be both intelligent and intuitive.
In the end she was not disappointed.
000
So it was that he infiltrated her life- weaving a place for himself in the dance of hers without disruption or as much as a ripple.
First, one morning she caught his eye one day when she boarded the bus to the hospital and he smiled before looking back to the contents of his ipod. One afternoon he held the door for her when he passed her at the café, calling back his thanks to Makoto for the pastry of the day or the heart so carefully crafted into the foam of his cappuccino. Day after day he was there, criss-crossing her path without pressure or intent.
On the last day of her internship, with clinical rotations and board exams behind her Ami walked out of the hospital and for the first time in months let out the breath she was holding then raised her eyes to the glorious sun.
When she lowered her gaze he was there, ivy green eyes intent on her in a way that made her quirk a crooked smile that he returned without guile. "Congratulations, Doctor Mizuno."
"It's just Ami," she protested, but stopped when he took her hand like it was the most natural thing in the world. Her heart raced at double time, if that were possible and she laughed. "I suppose it's just Ami, for you."
"It's only Ami for me," he agreed and if she were the poetic sort in that moment she would have thought that the sun loved him, he was so golden and earnest and so very warm and human to touch.
In this life, like the last, he was tall enough to make her look up at the play of light on his impossibly long eyelashes, presence familiar enough to make her resist reaching up to straighten the collar of the rumpled oxford shirt he wore- to brush her thumb across those graceful cheekbones and oh. Just, oh.
She suddenly felt so removed from the months and months and years of stark texts and easy camaraderie with the senshi that left her without a moment to even consider a future that involved men. Down the rabbit hole, she felt a bit like Alice but still so very much like Ami caught up as she was in her insecurities and her cerebral considerations.
Faced with him she realized it wasn't quite the puzzle she had feared.
It only took a moment, this moment with her hand in his and her quest behind her to realize that she could love this man again. She would love him and this time they would get it right, because the potential for a single human to do great things was indeed limitless despite their symmetrical features and their varied yet baseline genetics.
They had a future to defend; they had a destiny before them and a past to learn from.
It was as easy as that.
It was madness she realized, a fated folie à deux, as her fingers felt for the varied bones that constructed his delicate hand while her brain supplied words like metacarpals and sesamoid. Idly she felt his pulse that mirrored the staccato rhythm of her own heart and felt her involuntary blush.
"I can see you thinking," Zoicite noted with fondness, green eyes searching her face. There was laughter there, when he stated solemnly, "I would hate to be a distraction."
They had fallen into step, headed towards Makotos bakery because she always went there when she left the hospital- he had learned her patterns long ago but that was then and it was different now. It was time for something new.
They were something new.
Ami stopped their steps, their synchronized steps but not the way their hearts beat in tandem. She mentally re-reouted them then, cast aside her routines but she also took a moment to focus on the crooked smile that belied his words. "You know I'm always thinking, that can't be helped but I think I've come to a conclusion," she stated earnestly, her smile impish and eyes intent on his. "I'd hate to be unclear about things."
"I would expect nothing else," he affirmed.
"Good. With that being said; I've decided that I would like very much for you to distract me." He laughed out loud, and used their joined hands to spin her around until she was in his arms and pressed against his chest.
If she were taller they would be heart-to-heart, but she knew they were even if she was so much shorter and when she raised his chin to ascertain the emotion in his eyes he leaned in close and brought their lips together and it was warm and wonderful and after a moment Ami had to tear herself away to laugh in delight.
He joined her in laughter and despite the crowd they had attracted with their lovers tableaux, they set out for a new destination that would break old routines and replace them with new patterns, new adventures and whatever the world could throw at them. Ami knew she wouldn't have it any other way
Their lives were utterly mad and like Alice in her mirrored Wonderland had said- all the best things were.
FIN.