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The wind caressed her face, the cold stinging her cheeks as her eyes glistened in the setting sun. The sky was such a beautiful violet. Blue and red mixing in an indescribable touch of iridescence against the black sky. The bridge looked so far from the roaring water below. She choked and the tears fell.

Is this really the end of me? I'm twenty and what have I accomplished as sailor moon? Or as a person even? Is my existence that shallow and wasted?

The answer, as much as she denied it in the past, was yes. The world was safe for the moment and she was no longer needed. It was made painfully clear to her when she walked in on her soul mate fucking her closest companion, mina.

She had come home early, absolutely thrilled with herself. She had gotten promoted at the animal shelter she had been working at to a full time staff manager. She ran home to tell Darien.

And now she was here, frigid air biting at the moisture at her cheeks. Darien hadn't even noticed when she walked in or when she turned and walked out. What had bothered her the most, at least on the surface, was that she had strayed so far… so far from anything she was meant to accomplish or become.

There was no crystal Tokyo and no new world just for her and Darien, only the mundane routine of everyday life. She shriveled in this simplicity, the routine killing her spirit as her hopes died with her freedom.

Life never got better.

It took Usagi her entire life to finally understand it. Life, although cyclical, never changed in it's many twists and turns. Same shit, different day.

Oh how she craved to be free… To be a bird and fly away to somewhere different, somewhere new. She gently removed her shoes and stepped up onto the rail, the ice gathering turned her knuckles white and stuck to her soft pale hands.

She could see the beautiful rainbow lights of the steering wheel across the river. A sad smile graced her childish features as the snow began to fall, adding an alluring and ethereal look to the theme park where she had spent many afternoons after school. So beautiful.

"Please God, give me wings so that I might fly from this place…"

She fell forward, and for a few seconds, she felt like she could actually fly.

Heero Yui, a mere boy at twenty two, arms stuffed with groceries, walked in a long stride down the dirty, green stained concrete of the street leading to the dismal, two bedroom apartment he shared with his charismatic co-worker Duo Maxwell.

Through much coercion and the clever theft of his gun from under his mattress, he was persuaded to walk down to the gas station across the street to buy a six-pack and snack food, which Duo had so lovingly written up a list of. Bastard.

Heero Yui was no damn errand boy and nor was he up for supporting Duo's unsavory habits. He was lucky, he supposed, in the fact that his apartment's backyard was somewhat scenic. A park, in fact, with a man maid lake and so on.

It was quite beautiful and he often enjoyed sitting on the lonely park bent at all hours of the night thinking. Approaching the entrance to his apartment, he stopped. Duo could wait for his fucking booze.

Leaving the bags on the entry matt, he walked into the park, intent on being aimless. He felt free in this park from some unexplainable reason. He was alone, free to do what he wished when he wished it. He felt like the world was his and his alone.

Approaching his bench, he saw something unexpected… and stunning all the same. She was slender, pale, and had the oddest blond hair he had ever seen. It descended from two identical balls on either side of her heart shaped face in an endless cascade of gold and silver. It was striking and it left him speechless.

She had not noticed him, keeping her eyes eerily locked on the calm surface of the lake and the bridge, faint in the fog and in distance. He could barely see it over the tops of the buildings scraping through the low clouds.

He cleared his throat and she paid no mind, continuing to stare; So he sat, arms folding awkwardly in his lap and head down. It had been five years since the war and he still had not developed a knack or want for conversation. An aspect, he found irritably, that was not perfect about himself.

He remembered the last mission J had given him in such disturbing clarity.

'Heero,

I know you must fell listless now that the war is over. There is no need for perfection anymore dear boy, and over the last couple years I've realized what a wrong of done you. I denied you what is the essence of your being and have made you into a machine. I struggled with it for so long and I want you to know how sorry I am.

So, I have on last mission for you son. I want you to be free… From me, from the war, from the idea of being perfect. I want you to live.

Accept or Deny?'

Of course he had no choice. Heero Yui did not decline missions. So, he accepted, and found that for the first time, he was inept and untrained. How does one live? He was without purpose, and therefore without life. Where did that leave him?

Throughout all his thinking, he didn't realize that the enchanting woman sitting next to him had shifted her focus and was now staring at him with glowing cerulean eyes.

He suddenly felt small and uncomfortable as she continued to stare and not say a word.

"Hmm… Nice weather?" He wasn't looking at her, but rather at the dark sky. She said nothing.

Finally, as he twitched nervously, he turned to her.

"You live around here?"

She was gone.