Standard disclaimer: The characters aren't mine. This should come as no surprise. I am simply a teller of stories that occasionally claw their way desperately out of my head.
Notes: An Anon on Tumblr asked me to delve into what would happen if Mamoru wasn't around when Usagi went into labour. And then this happened. Anons shouldn't ask me things.
(23 May 2013)
Special Delivery
It had been over nine months. That Chibi-Usa was late surprised no one. She was Usagi's daughter, after all, a fact that Usagi was only too keen to remind absolutely everybody, loudly, at any time, and usually with the endearment of "THIS KID".
As in "THIS KID needs to wake the heck up and get out of here!" and "THIS KID won't stop kicking my bladder!" and the ever-charming "I AM GOING TO KILL THIS KID."
Rei was convinced that Chibi-Usa was doing it on purpose. That somewhere in the future she'd wrested control of the Gates of Time. Rei pictured Setsuna, tied and bound with thick coils of rope, a handkerchief around her mouth, making high-pitched sounds of protest while Chibi-Usa cackled and played with the strings of fate like a spider with a very specific odango'd prey.
Damn, Rei loved that little terror.
Right up until the point when Mamoru had to leave town and Usagi became Rei's problem.
He'd tried putting off the meeting as long as he possibly could, but it was for a major computer security contract with a giant American corporation, and as his company's best network designer, Mamoru's presence was absolutely vital. It was a huge step for his company, a huge step for his career, and a huge step out of this country where he loved his wife beyond all possible measure but good lord if Chibi-Usa didn't arrive soon Mamoru thought he might ask to be frozen for a few hundred years a little bit early.
When Mamoru arrived at Rei's apartment with an entire cheesecake, she'd smiled warmly and invited him inside. She knew what was coming. Mamoru was ragged, that much was clear, and he could doubtless do with a day to himself. She'd been expecting it, and they'd already made plans to spirit Usagi away for a weekend of pampering at the remote spa Makoto swore by. Mamoru would get a day to himself to do whatever it was Mamoru did when he was by himself (Rei and Minako had a bet running, and Rei was sincerely hoping Mamoru wasn't going to go for organizing his sock drawer), and the girls would be treated like the goddesses they were, but in the comfort of a large group so that they could rotate Usagi Duty.
Because Usagi? Not so much fun pregnant, it turned out.
Oh they thought it'd be great. Circumstances meant Usagi was thrust into motherhood backward, and as a result the Senshi kind of took for granted that she was a mother already. The actual pregnancy part was going to be a nine-month welcome home party, they figured.
They were unbelievably wrong.
It started out as expected. Baby showers and shopping trips to buy adorable tiny clothes with feet built-in. Endless plans for spoiling her and taking her to the park and wondering what her first words would be. Chibi-Usa didn't have one mother, she had five.
That lasted for the first couple of months.
Then biology started kicking in, and it became readily apparent that no, there was only one mother here. One very moody, very uncomfortable mother, who was being told she could no longer HAVE THINGS and that now she would have to DO THINGS.
Things like exercise.
Things like balanced meals.
Things like not sixteen of those putrid green sugary drinks she loved.
And as Chibi-Usa grew, so did Usagi's discomfort. Sleeping – one of Usagi's top five favourite things – became a nightly battleground. Then she began to lose bits of herself. Did she still have feet? She didn't know! She sure couldn't see them!
The Senshi did what the Senshi did best, which was support Usagi and give her all of their love, but you know, a "Mars Planet Power" didn't do much against morning sickness, which was a point Usagi rather bitterly pointed out one morning when Rei made the mistake of stopping by.
But it was Usagi, and if anything earned her a bit of latitude, it was carrying that little pink-haired bundle.
And so Rei graciously accepted Mamoru's cheesecake, and without hearing any details, agreed to help out however she could.
Then amidst Mamoru's gratitude she learned he'd be gone for an entire week, over to New York City, and would Rei mind staying at their place rather than Usagi coming here, because she didn't exactly travel well right now.
And well, shit.
... ... ...
It was only because of Ami's okay that it happened at all, and Rei swore that one day Ami would pay for that.
Ami wasn't officially Usagi's doctor, as Ami wasn't an OB/GYN, but she really may as well have been since every single official doctor's visit was followed up by a personal exam by "the best doctor in the entire universe yes you are Ami-chan stop blushing". And Ami had said that she thought Chibi-Usa would hold off for one more week, and as far as Usagi was concerned, Ami's word was law.
Clearly, what the hell did Ami know.
Ami had suggested inducing. Suggested it several times in fact. Usagi in a rare burst of wisdom (her one or two allotted every year) had declined, figuring that the time stream was already a bit of a precarious thing and not wanting to force it. Nature would take its course, she said, and Chibi-Usa would come when she was ready.
Apparently she was ready when they were 50-something miles in the middle of absolutely nowhere and Mamoru's plane was still a good twenty minutes from returning him home.
Their overnight visit to the spa had been a huge success. The expert staff had even managed to make Usagi feel beautiful, and after a week of Usagi needing CONSTANT ASSURANCE that she was still beautiful, Rei was deeply appreciative and tipped well.
But the constant need for reassurance was just one of the side-effects of living with a very pregnant Usagi. Also included were unreasonable food demands at literally any hour, foot massages (the proud avatar of Mars giving nightly foot massages, that was a mental image not apt to leave Rei's mind any time soon), and crying jags that made Rei pine for the tranquility of when she and Usagi had first met.
The side-effect that Rei had come to hate more than any other were the false alarms.
Usagi existed in a certainty that she was going to have THIS KID at any second. Which, to be fair, she kind of was, but the long wait and anxiety left her second guessing her own body, and absolutely everything was the mystical final signal that Chibi-Usa was coming.
Rei fell for it exactly twice.
The first time occurred when she had been in Usagi and Mamoru's house for under an hour. Mamoru was tucked at the airport, Usagi had just finished crying about it, and Rei was doing remarkably well dealing with all of this if she did say so herself. She'd comforted Usagi and gotten her to calm down enough to have some tea, and she was just thinking to herself that this was going to be easy, she was Rei-chan, she's GOT THIS, when Usagi began repeatedly calling her name with increasing panic.
Rei had the car packed with everything she could think would be of use and had Usagi in her arms and halfway out the door before Usagi burped and called the whole thing off.
After that had been another crying session where Rei had to pinky swear no less than a dozen times that she still loved Usagi, would always love Usagi, no this didn't change anything, she was fine, yes you're very beautiful, Mamoru-san loves you dearly, he'll be back before you know it, I already told you I love you, yes fine you can have ice cream whatever you want just stop crying.
Leaving Usagi to nap on the couch, Rei began unpacking the car. She'd included a VCR, what the hell?
After that, Rei decided she needed a plan. Mamoru and Usagi already had their own suitcases prepared for when the moment struck. Rei grabbed a spare and did the same. She repeatedly coached herself on not bringing VCRs with her, as they were unnecessary. She visualized the big moment until she was sure it would go off without a hitch.
That's when the second false alarm came.
And the very less said about that, the better.
The end result was Rei in a "boy who cried wolf" situation, where she simply refused to believe anything at all. Chibi-Usa herself could have appeared in front of Rei and said "Hi, I'm ready to be born now!" and Rei would have said "Yeah, right," and gone back to her teleconference. And this worked. This worked for the next sixteen times.
Oh but that seventeenth time.
... ... ...
"Really Rei-chan, I think this might be it," Usagi said worriedly as her hand rested on her stomach.
"Uh-huh." Rei's eyes didn't stop sweeping the room, making sure they hadn't forgotten anything.
Mako threw her arm around Usagi's shoulders and squeezed. "How're you two doing?" she asked, talking directly to Usagi's abdomen.
"I think maybe it's time?" Usagi said tentatively while chewing her lip.
Mako's back snapped and locked to attention. "Time? TIME time?"
"Ignore it," Rei advised Mako. She produced a ginger ale and packet of crackers from nowhere and thrust them into Usagi's hands.
"But it feels different," Usagi said, spraying crumbs from around the handful of crackers she'd already shoved in her mouth.
"Different!" repeated Mako urgently, like this one word was the highest possible importance and how could Rei be calm when a word like "different" was now in play!
Rei wasn't impressed. "Drink your drink," she simply said, and while Usagi's brow didn't stop making its little worried crinkle, she did as instructed.
The door to their room swung open and Minako burst in, followed by Ami. "Okay gang! Car is fueled and packed, that one guy would not take the hint and ask for my phone number so screw him, and we are ready to blow this soda stand."
Ami eased past Minako, her full attention on Usagi. "Are you feeling okay?" she asked, placing a gentle hand on Usagi's stomach.
"It's 'DIFFERENT'," Mako said in a loud whisper, pointedly delivered in Rei's direction.
This brought a frown to Ami's expression. "Different how?"
Usagi thought for a second and scrunched up her face. "I don't know."
"Because it's not. Trust me, I've been through this," Rei exuded confidence and superiority. She'd had an entire week to become the expert in all things Pregnant Usagi after all. "Twenty minutes, tops, she's fine."
But Ami still wasn't sure. "Maybe we should have her see someone here at the resort, just in case. It's a long drive back to Tokyo …"
"If we don't leave now, we'll be stuck in traffic for who knows how long and be late picking up Mamoru," Rei countered. As expected, that did the trick.
"We're getting Mamo-chan!" Usagi crossed her arms and nodded her head firmly, and that was that.
Minako swooped in and supported Usagi by the elbow. "By the queen's decree!" she announced as she led a giggling Usagi from the room. "Let no one stand between her and whatever crazy-ass hormones are happening all over the place!"
From out in the hall, they could easily hear Minako yelling at everyone to make way, lest Usagi mistake them for her husband and jump them then and there.
Mako shook her head and made to follow. "Oo, mint," she said as she snatched one from the complimentary "okay you're leaving goodbye now" pile on the table by the door.
"Are you—" Ami began.
"I'm sure," Rei finished.
... ... ...
"You said you were sure!" Ami accused.
"I was at the time!" Rei yelled back.
The two of them knelt on the ground next to the passenger side of Rei's car where they'd pulled as far off of the highway as possible, Rei could absently feel the roadside gravel digging into her knees, but it was a distant, irrelevant pain compared to the relentless bone-crunching of her fingers.
"YOU. WERE. WRONG." Usagi punctuated each word with a sharp intake of breath and another turn of the vice that had become her grip on Rei's hand.
Some distant part of Rei's mind considered that Flame Sniper was not going to be a viable attack for a while.
"Ami-chan," Rei said in a steady voice that was not the voice of screaming intense agony that she wanted to be using at this particular moment. "How is Usagi doing?"
Ami had her computer out and was using it as unobtrusively as possible, shielding it from the otherwise prying eyes of the bumper-to-bumper traffic on the highway proper behind them. She punched a few more buttons, and if Rei didn't know better, she'd swear Ami was deliberately taking her sweet time.
Usagi gasped as another bolt of pain shot through her. "Rei Hino if I give birth to my daughter on the side of the road I swear I will go back in time and tear out all the pages of your favourite colouring book!"
It was odd, as far as threats went. Rei just gave Usagi her most calm "trust me" face. She'd won her first two promotions based on that face alone. "You won't," she promised.
Squeezing her eyes tight (and wrenching another digit or two out of place at the same time), Usagi growled, "I'll break the crayons too, Rei-chan!"
Rei was trying to decide the best course of action to these threats when Ami nudged her. Rei looked over and Ami showed her the computer screen. There was a lot of stuff Rei didn't understand, but she got the jist.
Chibi-Usa was coming.
Chibi-Usa was coming FAST.
Rei felt a familiar tingle, and she and Ami both glanced up as Mako and Minako burst from the tree line in front of them. The woods followed the highway and provided excellent cover for transforming and checking out the traffic situation at Senshi speed.
"We ran about two miles up," Minako reported as Mako circled the car and worriedly peered in on Usagi. "No movement. I don't know what happened, but we're not going anywhere for a while."
"It's a plot," Usagi panted. "It's a plot by some new enemy, here to keep me from my Mamo-chan and comfy beds and lots of drugs."
Mako made the mistake of trying to lend comfort by touching Usagi's shoulder. Faster than anybody had ever seen her move - and this was after more than a decade of seeing Sailor Moon in action – Usagi lashed out and seized Makoto's hand. It was a third larger than hers, significantly stronger, and yet Usagi had no problem treating it like a fistful of play-doh with her next contraction.
OW! Makoto mouthed soundlessly at Rei. Rei could only widen her eyes and make tight, rapid nods of wholehearted agreement.
"It's not a plot, Usagi-chan," Ami said without looking up from her computer. "It's just an unfortunate—"
"IT IS A PLOT AND I WILL NOT FORGIVE IT."
"TOTALLY a plot, absolutely," Minako quickly agreed as she helped upright Ami from where she'd pitched over. "And there will be all kinds of punishing in the name of things. But that's for later. First, we gotta figure out how to get you out of here."
Usagi responded with pained, guttural noises.
"I think getting out of here is rapidly becoming not an option," Rei said.
Then she yelped as Usagi's face was suddenly an inch away from her own. Makoto's hand was free (and quickly rescued) as Usagi had grabbed a fistful of Rei's shirt and yanked her forward. "YOU PROMISED. CRAYONS, REI-CHAN. DON'T MAKE ME."
"Unless anyone has a better idea, I don't think we have a choice," Ami said, making sure to position herself behind Makoto this time. "Chibi-Usa is coming. Now."
"Now." Minako just dropped the word like a stone. All the colour drained from her face. "It's happening now."
"Oh god." Mako began to bounce anxiously in place. "Oh god, oh god."
"Guys, it's okay," Rei said, leaning back to peer around the side of the car as much as Usagi's deathgrip on her shirt would allow. "I've mentally been through this like sixteen times. I'm practically an expert."
"The important thing is that nobody panic." Ami's voice was smooth and tranquil and totally ignored.
"Water!" Minako exclaimed suddenly. "Water!" she said again to Makoto.
"Yes! Water!" Mako dove into the back seat and pulled out a half-empty plastic bottle which she thrust at Minako like it was alive and wanted to kill her with the burden of responsibility for absolutely anything happening today. "Water!" she announced.
"It's a human baby, Mako-chan, it needs more than a swallow or two!"
"I didn't bring any more! I didn't want to have to stop to pee every ten minutes!"
"Guys, please just take a deep breath …"
"Ami's got good advice, Usagi. Just breathe, come on. Inhale—"
"STOP BEING CALM. I CAN'T HANDLE YOU WHEN YOU'RE CALM."
Ami suddenly found the water bottle in her hands. "Fill it!" Minako ordered. "Then Rei you boil it! TOWELS!" she suddenly exclaimed.
"Towels!" Makoto repeated, and again dove into the backseat. There was frantic activity, and then she emerged a second later with a candy wrapper stuck to her forehead. "WHO THE FUCK PACKS TOWELS?"
"I knew I should have stolen absolutely every single towel this weekend!" Minako lamented, beseeching the heavens. "We'll just have to make do! Mako, get Rei's suitcase!"
Rei popped her head back out from around the side of the car. "Why mine?!"
"Your fault, your stuff."
Rei's splutters went unheeded as Mako tossed Rei's suitcase on the car roof and popped it open. She reached in and pulled something out. "Soft and absorbent!" Mako reported, tossing a shirt over her head.
Minako easily snatched it out of the air and placed it lovingly on Usagi's stomach. "Give birth on that!" she said. "It looks like crap on Rei anyway."
"That's my favourite shirt!" Rei yelled, but it was now destined for another life as Usagi's favourite handkerchief. She scooped it up and buried her face in it as she burst into tears. Rei tried her best to not look too disgusted. She didn't entirely succeed.
"Mamo-chan!" Usagi wailed. "He needs to be here! He can't miss Chibi-Usa's birth, he just can't!"
She drew the last word out to about ten extra syllables, and then to Rei's unending horror blew her nose into the shirt.
"I think I might have an idea about that," Ami said, then looked furiously at Minako as, once again, she was overrun.
"FORCEPS!" Minako suddenly exclaimed, having stumbled on another tv birth cliché.
"Yes!" Mako readily agreed, then added, "What are they?!"
"Like salad tongs," said Minako, pantomiming with her hands but not getting anything even remotely approximate to a proper "salad tong" gesture. Turned out she didn't need the visual aid.
"Oh I have those!" Mako exclaimed with sudden joy at her impending helpfulness.
Minako waved Makoto at the trunk. "Get them, get them!"
Mako rushed to comply and threw her handfuls of Rei's clothes in the air. Rei watched as a pair of her underwear was picked up by the wind and smacked into a car windshield several meters away. She steadfastly refused to make eye contact with anybody. Possibly never again.
A second later, Mako's head popped out from the trunk. "Wait, I don't have them HERE, they're at home. You know. For salads."
"Well we are BONED," said Minako, throwing her hands in the air.
"Would everybody please just be quiet for two seconds and listen to me?!" Ami yelled.
She had been trying for the past several minutes to politely attract everyone's attention. It had gone about as well as expected. Unfortunately she chose the exact moment when chaos had decided to piss off for a coffee break to make her dramatic stand, and so was left yelling in dead silence.
Needless to say, she very quickly had everyone's undivided attention.
That Ami wanted to crawl away someplace private and die a thousand deaths was a given. But that would wait. First:
"I think I have an idea. It'll probably take a bit out of us, but I think we can use Sailor Teleport to get Usagi-chan to a hospital."
"No. No way," Rei said. "She can't transform right now. We don't know what that'll do to her in her condition."
"I mean us. We'll do the teleporting. Usagi-chan will just be a passenger."
Mako frowned. "But you always said the four of us don't have enough power to do that alone."
"Well," Ami said, more than a little sheepish, "that was a long time and a lot of power-ups ago." Her voice dropped significantly in volume. "And to be fair we only ever really tried the once."
"Wait wait wait. You mean all this time I could've been traveling Senshi Express?" Visions of endless hours wasted in cars, trains, and planes danced before Minako's eyes.
"Not the point!" Usagi called from the car. She was done crying, and was back to belligerence. Rei's absently wondered at which point the nerves in her hand would simply give up and die. Soon, she hoped.
"Not the point," Minako agreed. "Okay, let's try!"
The relatively short trip from the car to the protective cover of the woods wasn't exactly an easy one. In the end Mako just scooped Usagi up and carried her, which was rapidly revealed to be a bad idea when Usagi seized a handful of Makoto's pony tail and couldn't be persuaded to let go for all the pizzas in the known world. Mako wound up with her head wrenched back at a 90-degree angle while Minako and Ami led the way. Rei was too busy alternating between helping Usagi breathe and trying to remember how to breathe herself. Was there ever a time where her hand wasn't being squeezed into some twisted non-hand shape? No, impossible. Those days were myths.
Finally though they were away from the prying eyes of motorists, transformed, and deep in concentration. On the plus side, Rei finally managed to pry her hand away from Usagi with the fervent promise of both impending Mamo-chan (and drugs) and only being a few feet away. On the downside, Minako now had Rei's hand, and if she didn't ease up they were going to have to take their chances on this Teleport thing with three Senshi.
It was astonishingly simple. "Oh!" was all Ami was able to say when they arrived. Minako rapidly detransformed and ran into the hospital to get help, and within minutes, Usagi was checked in, lying down, and feeling a thousand times better.
Relatively speaking.
"IF MAMO-CHAN DOESN'T GET HERE IN THE NEXT FIVE MINUTES, I CALL DIVORCE!" Usagi swore. The contractions were getting closer now, and Rei was beginning to wonder if sacrificing her good hand to this next wave was really such a great idea.
"No you won't," Rei said indulgently, then ground her teeth together and swore under her breath as she heard something crunch. Something important that she probably needed.
"No, I wont," Usagi agreed, beginning to tear up again.
Rei smoothed Usagi's bangs back from her forehead. "Mako and Minako are getting him. They'll be here any second."
Usagi smiled up at Rei for a moment, then brought their clenched hands to her lips and kissed Rei's red and swollen fingers. "Thank you, Rei-chan."
"Don't thank me," Rei said. Usagi smiled at that, but Rei wasn't done. "I mean it, don't thank me. Not like that, anyway. You have an entire lifetime of thanking me ahead of you, and I don't want you thinking you've gotten off easy."
"You're so mean," Usagi said.
"I know," Rei replied.
It was then that Mamoru burst in. His hair was a mess, his suit and tie disheveled, and Usagi couldn't possibly have cared less. She let out a cry, and Rei was finally able to extract herself just as Usagi flung her arms around Mamoru's neck. Rei, Mako and Minako lingered a moment longer, blinking back their own tears as Mamoru peppered Usagi's face with kisses. Then Ami said it was time to begin, and the other three hurried out of the room, deciding that was about as intimate as they were willing to get for one day.
... ... ...
A couple of hours later, and the Inner Senshi were standing by the window to Usagi and Mamoru's room. The curtains were back so they could watch the happy family inside. Mamoru had climbed into the bed, and Usagi was leaning back against his chest. He had one arm around her, but otherwise his entire focus was on the little girl in Usagi's arms. He couldn't seem to look away, and kept gently stroking her cheek with one finger, marveling at the sensation.
Usagi, exhausted but too thrilled to sleep just now, looked up and saw her Senshi. With her free hand, she pointed enthusiastically at Chibi-Usa, as though saying "oh my god look what I did today!"
In the hallway, the Senshi were huddled close together, all of them wanting to feel the closeness of the moment. Minako had her arm around Rei, who rested against Minako's shoulder. Ami had threaded her arm through Rei's, and Makoto was loosely hugging Ami's neck and resting her chin on the other girl's head.
Rei's hands were bandaged and throbbing dully. Mako had ushered her in to see a doctor, just to be on the safe side, and she'd come away with instructions to keep her hands immobile for a few days and some anti-inflammatory medication. Her parting gift was some pretty intense bruising, as it turned out. Rei watched the scene inside the room, felt her friends around her, and had no regrets.
"They're adorable," Mako said, breaking the silence.
Minako smiled. "We did good, ladies."
"Yes," agreed Rei. Chibii-Usa gave her first yawn, and Usagi's squeal of delight was so shrill they could even hear it outside. "Yes we did."
"It feels like everything we've been through has been for this moment," said Ami.
They stood that way for several heartbeats, watching their future queen, king and princess.
Then a thought struck Makoto. "You know, they're young yet. And a thousand years is a really long time …"
"You're wondering if they have another kid?" Minako asked, and Mako nodded. "I was thinking that too. I mean we only ever met Chibi-Usa, but that doesn't mean she's an only child."
"It could be there are several children," Ami said thoughtfully. "Especially with some of the time theories I've been studying. I believe the future is fluid, and changing constantly."
"There could be two," Mako said.
"Three," Ami said.
"A whole flock of them!" Minako waggled her eyebrows. "I mean the way those two go at it, I'm frankly surprised we don't already have an entire brigade of little Usagi's running around. This might have just been round one. We might be doing this for the rest of our— Huh?"
Rei had extracted herself from the group cuddle and was all but running for the exit.
"I quit!" she yelled without looking back.