As We Are

by VO1

Sequel to "As We Were" The gang is back, with a new nemesis, but internal conflict threatens to pull them apart when they need each other the most...

As We Are. Chapter 1. "Weight loss, wealth, and welfare cheese."

      "How many pairs of socks should I pack, Rei? Do you think it'll be as cold as last year?" Usagi balanced the phone between her chin and shoulder, wobbling a little since her arms were full of balled up socks. She dumped them unceremoniously in her open suitcase on her bed.

      On the other end, Rei sighed. "Don't pack too much! It was bad enough getting all your junk in and then out."

      "Oh, do shut up, Rei."

      Luna was pulling articles of clothing out of the suitcase with her teeth. "Usagi, I really don't think you need two swimsuits this time. You didn't even use the one last year."

      She snatched the swath of spandex away from Luna and tossed it back in. "Yes I do! Maybe I'll go swimming with Ami, and then I'll need them!"

      Luna rolled her eyes as Usagi continued to sweep everything out of her drawers by the armful, the phone glued to her ear. Rei was on the other line, also packing up her belongings to take back to Bryce University, where they would be starting their sophomore year, along with the swimmer slash resident genius Ami, Makoto, who had stayed in America with her boyfriend, Matt Haberman, way up in Seattle, and Minako, who had just returned to Japan after three months of walking the runways of Europe.

      "How many pairs of sneakers should I take? Four?" She started picking at a gigantic knot in the laces of her gray and pink Sketchers. Usagi had adapted beautifully to the culture shock of American university life; where else was it socially acceptable, practically socially required, to attend class wearing what you slept it? And if there was something that Usagi liked more than food, it was her sleep.

      "Four? Are you kidding? I've never seen you voluntarily run."

      Usagi straightened her spine as she stood to her full height, barely five feet. "You know, if I wanted an endless stream of insults instead of packing advice…"

      "OK, OK, I was only kidding! Don't get your panties in a tangle, Princess."

      She smiled despite herself. "Oh, gosh, I'm so excited! I can't wait to—"

      "If you're going to finish that sentence with 'see Mamoru again', please swallow it. I've been hearing that battle cry all summer."

      Usagi's jaw dropped. "Hold the reins, Miss Pissy-Pants! I haven't seen my boyfriend in MONTHS, so pardon me if I can't wait to squish his beautiful little face in my hands and kiss it all over." Her eyes rolled at Rei's vomiting noises. "Whatever, hypocrite! Like you're not excited to see Jay!"

      Rei's voice was funny. "It's cool."

      Usagi's eyebrows arched so high up her forehead that Luna chuckled to herself. "Wait. What's going on? We used to think that if you two didn't connect at the pelvis every few days, you'd both self-combust."

      "Nothing's wrong," Rei murmured. If Usagi could see her friend, she would be immediately suspicious of the priestess's beet red face and compulsive twirling of her hair around an index finger.

      "Luna! Rei's lying to me!"

      "I am not lying! I'm just not revealing all of the truth."

      She bent down to retrieve stray pairs of underwear. "Wait a second. Did you two see each other?"

      "No. Maybe."

      She started jumping up and down and gesturing emphatically to Luna. "You did, didn't you? Who did it, you or Jay?" Luna caught on; she started pacing and muttering.

      "He surprised me!" Rei burst out suddenly. "I didn't know he was coming! Believe me, do you think I would have let him knowing how badly Kevin's going to kick his ass?"

      Usagi started giggling. It was typical of Jay to break rules to surprise Rei, well, or just to break rules in general. They had no idea what they'd find in America; wasn't it typical fate that kept the Senshi's soulmates there, waiting for them to come along? Fate that led them to meet, fate that led them to fall in love again, after a thousand years? Kevin, Jay, Matt, and Zach. Endymion's Guardians reborn.

      Well, everything hadn't run that smoothly. There was that whole deal with Beryl and Metallia, and the four Dark Kingdom generals, who were really nothing more than animated reflections that Zoicite had created back in the Silver Millennium, but not for that purpose…ah, it was a long story. They fought, they died, they came back: just like the movies.

      Usagi couldn't stop giggling. "Oh, God! Wait until Minako finds out! She's going to cream him!"

      "Yeah." Rei switched subjects. "Don't you think she lost a lot of weight?"

      "Minako?" She started rummaging through her closet, looking for Luna's cat carrier. "Well, yeah, but she's a model. They're supposed to be skinny."

      "Airhead, they're not supposed to be THAT skinny! She's a rail! All of her bones poke out now and it's…icky. Her like, boobs disappeared. I'm going to talk to her about it. If she has an eating disorder or a coke habit, I'm going to kick her ass ten ways from Sunday."

      She smiled; Rei was especially snippy about those she cared about the most. "Maybe you should. I don't think anything's wrong, but you know what models are like. They survive on a carrot a week."

      "Which is precisely why you, Usagi, will never be a model."

      "Shut up, Rei!" she barked into the receiver. Someone pounded on her door.

      "Usagi, will you keep it down! First you were jumping hard enough to break through the floor, and now you're screaming your lungs out!"

      "Go away, Shingo!" Instead, he entered her room and plopped down on the bed, shoving aside a pile of clothes.

      "God, this place is a mess." He reached for Luna and started rubbing her head. Surprisingly, he had been more accepting of Luna after she had gone to school with Usagi. Absence sometimes did make the heart grow founder; he had missed her terribly when she left, even though he would never admit it to anyone. He was wearing a BU t-shirt she had brought back from him, emblazoned across the chest with the mascot, Bruiser the Bulldog, and the familiar-yet-annoying catchphrase "WHO LET THE DAWGS OUT?"

      Usagi sighed. "Let me call you back, Rei."

      "I'll talk to you later."

      She clicked the phone off and turned to her brother, who was rifling through her suitcase. "Are you done annoying me yet?"

      "Nope." He pulled out a light purple g-string that had less substance than a shoelace and dangled it in the air like live bait. "Whoa! What are these for?"

      "Give me that, you cretin!" She swiped at them, only to have Shingo yank them out of her reach. "Brat!"

      "Mo-om! Usagi has slutty underwear!" He danced out of her reach and started spinning the panties around his head like a helicopter. "Are these for Mamoru? OOOh!"

      "Shingo!" She shouted, starting to laugh uncontrollably, especially when he pulled the underwear over his head and starting strutting around. She finally tackled him, although by now he was a head taller and a lot heavier than she was, and started pounding at him, like when they were kids.

Simultaneously, an ocean away.

Matt's light was still on, but on the other hand, it could be Aaron's, too. When your house was the size of a fraternity, no, bigger than one (minus the hos and vomit), it was tough to tell whose room was whose, especially if it was after one in the morning and you were exhausted beyond the point of caring.

      Lita was exhausted beyond the point of caring. She literally slapped the gate opener attached to the shotgun sun visor; the force sent a few CDs tumbling down. She swore and tried to catch them, but settled for pooling them on the seat in a pile.

      Is he ever going to clean out his car? This is ridiculous. She caught herself. I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. It had to be divine intervention that she had his car in the first place. Her soiled clothes were stinking it up with grease, too.

      She drove down to the garage and parked under the basketball hoop. It didn't look like rain, and she didn't feel like squeezing between two cars that were worth more than her life. God forbid if she scratched one; Matt would probably weep over his paint job first.

      Her key opened the back door; the front was always locked. The maid, Beatrice, let people in the front in the daytime. THE MAID. Lita hadn't been accustomed to the janitor in the dorm cleaning the sinks in the bathroom after she used them; it was practically beyond her that families would have MAIDS. Much less a maid, a cook, and a gardener/maintenance man, all who lived in the normal-sized house next to the behemoth.

      Actually, families in general were beyond her.

      Her stomach had twisted itself into pretzels the entire ride back from school, which was no trip to the store. Matt didn't understand why she was so nervous, and tried his best to cheer her up, even though most of his stories were filed under that category "Stupid things my Friends Have Done."

      "Would you relax? It's just my family!" he insisted after finishing a story about how a drunken Jay had been tossed out of Subway for telling the manager that the cold cut trio tasted like the worst kind of shit known to mankind and insisting on his four dollars back.

      She had gripped the Oh-shit handle hard enough to crack her knuckles. "Yes, and I'm going to mooch off of them. Maybe I should offer to clean the pool daily or something."

      "Lita, you're not cleaning my pool! That's what my parents delegate to us for punishment. And for the last time, they DO NOT CARE. I told them about how you had nowhere to go…"

      "Which is not true. I could have stayed with Raye at her temple." And get on another plane. Which I would not do. I would rather get eaten alive by Egyptian fire ants or listen to Amy talk about mathematical theorems for longer than thirteen consecutive seconds.

      "Bullshit. And get on another plane? Don't think so. Anyway, my mother insisted."

      "I could have stayed at the house. Your lease doesn't expire until—"

      "Hey, remember the part where I said don't worry about it?"

      "Yes," she muttered, slumping in her seat a little. "Are you sure they don't want me to clean the pool?"

      Upon arrival, she instantly reneged her offer. The Habermans' pool was the size of a small lake.

      It must be wonderful to be so rich. And Matt's family was rich. Filthy stinking obscenely rich. Rich like a thousand bucks is chump change. Rich like having a Bentley. Rich like being able to take in another person that happens to be dating your son. And get her a job in ONE of the hotels that you own. And treat her like family.

      She already loved Matt's mother; at first glance, she had been absolutely terrified. Maureen Haberman wore Ralph Lauren separates at home and Escada to work. Her hair was so brown and shiny it could have been varnished; her face was devoid of natural age lines and always perfectly made up. (Matt had coughed the word "Botox" several times at the dinner table. His mother had kicked him hard enough to leave a semicircular bruise on his kneecap.) Lita had held up one shaky hand, her confidence wilting, but instead the woman swept her in an embrace.

      "So nice to finally meet you, dear! Welcome to our home!"

      Home. It was almost beginning to feel like a giant mansion and less like a cramped but neat one bedroom apartment. The Habermans had taken to her like Velcro on pantyhose, even the patriach, Matt's grandfather, Noah Jr, whom Lita had found scary as hell when she first met him. She had never met a real, live multi-millionaire. The old adage that appearances could be deceiving rang true; Noah Haberman, Jr. was probably the least cranky elderly person she had met in the United States; he could play golf with international investors and watch TRL with his grandsons in the same day, and enjoy both equally (except for quote "that rap shit"). He had been especially impressed with Lita when he heard that she had raised herself after her parents' death. It was something that brought them together, since they had shared the same misfortune.

      "My parents died when I was fourteen," he confided to her one night, by the side of the pool lit only by tiki torches. In his hideous cabana wear instead of a three-grand suit and tie, he looked more like a caring, if not sartorially challenged grandfather and less like a scary businessman. "My sister and I raised the rest of them, and that was no small potatoes. You know what it's like, that's why people like you and me have unusually strong character."

      Sitting there in a six-hundred dollar cashmere sweater that Maureen had bought her, she didn't feel very self-sufficient. Noah Jr. noticed her unease.

      "Ah, don't be looking like that. I think you had it worse than I did; at least I had family left; you had absolutely not a single soul in the world. I think you deserve a respite from all the heartache. And if it's as real as my grandson goes on about, then it'll be a fairly long respite." He laughed at the shock on her face. "Don't be embarrassed. You're the first girl that he's brought home that I actually liked, and what's more, I'd like you even if you weren't with him. You impress me. Doing a hell of a job working in one of my hotels. Eduardo's already moping over what he's going to do when you leave, which is probably just mope some more, that damn…"

      "Thank you," she mumbled.

      "Thank you. You and me are a lot alike, Lita." He took a sip of his whiskey sour and smiled. "If only I were a few years younger."

      "Pop, are you hitting on my girlfriend?" Matt called from the water.

      "Hey, I'm an eligible bachelor, junior. May the best man win."

      "I think the hot young guy would whup the Jimmy Buffet-looking old dude pretty quick. How's that gout?"

      Noah Jr. glanced down at his parrot-festooned shirt. "Is that a crack at my shirt? Or my unfortunate medical condition? I can still put you over my knee, you know."

      "You might break a hip in the process. The AARP will up your premium."

      "I'll up your premium, you little bastard. Chicks dig retirement benefits."

      She laughed a little as she punched the security code to open the back door as she remembered the two of them bantering. She tiptoes through the darkened house and up the back stairs, to her bedroom. There was a note on her bedspread.

      "Lita," it read. "Tomorrow's your day off. Why don't we go for lunch and shopping? There's an adorable Gucci that I want to get for you. See you in the morning! Love, Mom."

      Love, Mom. Maureen insisted she call her "mom", and it became easier to address her that way as they grew closer. She was like what Lita remembered about her own mother: warm, caring, concerned. The only part that was different was her tendency to buy Lita lots of material objects that she couldn't even fathom affording on her own. Her excuse was her lack of a daughter for her to spoil.

      "Let me indulge my whim, please. I was sure that Aaron was a girl, and all I could think about was prom dress shopping. I'm making up for lost time."

      "This is too much," Lita had insisted, nearly tossing her cookies at the sight of all the numerals on the price tag of the pink evening dress.

      "Nonsense! You never know when you'll need formal wear, and this one's actually long enough. Let's get shoes to match."

      Now, towards the end of the summer, she had more designer labels than Mina. The net worth of her clothing had soared considerably. Payless to Prada.

      She pulled off her work clothes, her arms aching from constant repetitive motion. Stir, shake, mix, beat, toss, chop, artfully arrange. Somehow she had managed to splash extra-greasy olive oil down her front and through her shirt. She grabbed her robe and headed for her bathroom.

      Well, technically, the bathroom she shared with Matt and Aaron. She was still finding them stuck here and there in the enormous house. It felt kind of weird, getting lost in a house. Usually everything was just a few feet away, especially in her old dorm room at BU, which bore a striking resemblance to solitary prison confinement. Matt's dad had offered her the pool house, which was considerably smaller and allowed her much more privacy, but Maureen had instantly negated the idea, stating that Lita wasn't there as a servant.

      The hot water felt great on her back; the steam billowed up around her face and lulled her into a state of semi-consciousness. Her eyes closed and mind drifted away as she leaned her exhausted head against the wall.

      Almost robotically she scrubbed her hair and body, and forced herself to turn off the water, so that the air instantly chilled her as she stepped out of the shower. She was so tired, she didn't hear the door open behind her as she toweled off her hair.

      Aaron was standing in the doorway, a smaller, skinnier version of Matt with longer hair. His reaction to Lita's stay was strange: he had barely spoken to her for the first month or so, and then made a considerable effort to be noticed in her presence, doing things that Jay would have even considered annoying, like throwing pretzel Goldfish into her cleavage, or loudly pointing out her granny Hanes underwear when it poked out of the top of her jeans.

      Actually, that was kind of right up Jay's alley.

      At the moment, though, his jaw was nearly brushing his toes. Lita let a scream escape her as she clutched the towel to her breasts, which were very uncovered.

      "Oh my God! Sorry!" Aaron responded automatically, though never tearing his eyes from her body. He blinked. "I'm sorry!"

      "Go!" she cried, humiliated nearly to tears but strangely, feeling in the pit of her stomach like she was going to laugh. He looked so funny there, like he was standing on the edge of a skyscraper about to jump off.

      The moment ceased to be humorous when Matt, appearing out of nowhere, tackled and started pummeling him. "OW! Get off! It was an fucking accident!"

      "Accident my ass!" Matt forced his brother into a headlock.

      "Matt!" Lita shouted, wrapping the towel around herself; her hair streaming rivulets of water down her bare shoulders. "Let him go! I can do it myself!" She jumped in the foray, holding up her towel with one hand and shoving her fist into Aaron's stomach with the other. Her hair dripped water over everyone.

"Lita! I swear to God it was an accident! I just got up to piss! OW!"

She started laughing and attempted to dead-leg him, but since that particular endeavor used both hands, the towel slipped off her chest and left her naked from the waist up. She shrieked and scrambled for the towel, but it seemed to have gotten tangled in the mass of limbs. "Oh my God!"

      "Hey!" Matt shouted, reaching over with a free hand and attempted to pull the towel out, but it was firmly entwisted under Aaron. "Move your leg!"

      His brother complied; his shin shot up and kicked Matt in the chin. "OW! Not like that!"

      "I'm still naked!" Lita gasped, grabbing the towel with both hands and yanking. She flew backwards, barely covered by twists of terry cloth, and landed on Maureen, who had heard the noise and came to investigate.

      "Oh!" Maureen's arms flew up in the air as she was knocked on her back; the skinny spaghetti straps of her silk nightgown snapped like dental floss. The entire garment shimmied down to her waist and exposed her bare chest. Both of her sons screamed.

      "Shit!" Matt shouted at the same time Aaron screamed "Oh God!" They quickly distangled and started separately freaking out, which consisted of lots of hopping around and groaning and covering their eyes. Lita quickly gathered her towel around her and tried not to either burst into tears or erupt in laughter.

      Maureen's Botoxed face was purple as she gathered her torn nightwear around her chest. "Oh," she moaned.

      Matt was rubbing his face, hard. "Gross! Ugh! I just saw my mom's tits! I think I'm going blind!"

      "Oh God, oh GOD!" Aaron squealed, clawing at his eyes. "I have to wash out my brain!"

      Maureen was so indignant that, without thinking, she let go of her nightgown and put her hands on her hips. "It's not—"

      "AAAH!" they both screamed and turned away as she flashed them again.

      "What's going on?" Matt's father wandered into the foray, a bit grumpy from being awakened. "What's all the noise—" he swallowed his sentence as he noticed his wife shielding her bare chest and Lita clutching a towel to her still-wet body, her eyes as big as tea saucers.

      "We saw Mom naked!" Aaron informed him, making retching noises. Matt was still doubled over and whimpering.

      "I don't think I can ever eat again."

      His father waved his hand dismissively. "Shut up the two of you; it's not that bad. I've seen it plenty of times."

      This time, Lita joined in the groaning. Aaron bolted down the hall and slammed the door to his room. Matt shut his eyes, his face a mask of pain.

      "Thanks, Dad. You've somehow reached new plateaus in embarrassment."

      Maureen covered her face in embarrassment. "Noahs! Stop."

      "He started it! He alluded to the fact that you two have…you know! Oh God! Now I'm making it worse." He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. "Bad mental image! Getting into my brain! Need a smoke!"

      His mother let out a strangled noise and attempted a kick at him. His father started laughing and led her away by the waist. "I think we've sufficiently traumatized our children enough for one night. Good night, kids." They disappeared down a hallway.

      Lita's lip started trembling. "I'm so sorry—" she started, but Matt held up one hand to shush her.

      "It's not your fault, really. It's my asshole brother's. But I don't think I can have sex for a very long time after that. I need therapy. Lots and lots of therapy. And some bleach to pour in my eyes."

      She smiled a little, shivering as rivulets of cold water ran down her back. "Are you sure?"

      He looked at her, long brown legs exposed except for the last inch or two of thigh, her wet hair dripping onto her bar shoulders, eyes wide, cheeks flushed with excitement, lips swollen and slightly parted. He crossed the distance between them in two steps, grabbed her and pressed her against the wall with his body. He put his mouth on hers.

      She closed her eyes as they kissed. Her breath caught a little as his body pressed her against the wall, his brick-hard chest pressed against hers, and…other hard things pressing in other places. He moved his mouth to her neck and his hand down between her legs.

      Lita gasped. "Not here. I'm cold and wet."

      He picked her up and carried her to his bedroom. "Well, I'll make you warm and wet. How's that?"

      She leaned her damp cheek against his shoulder. "I can live with that."

**************************************************************   

      "Goodnight," Minako murmured into her cell phone, a dreamy smile on her face, even though it was only around seven in the evening.

      "Night," Kevin mumbled sleepily, and justifiable so. It was what- the middle of tomorrow back in California? and he had doubles for football that day. She punched END and put it down next to her alarm clock, just in case something happened and they needed to go into battle…

      But that hadn't happened in months; they were all in a state of suspended relaxation. She had nearly sweated every moment in Italy, and not from the hundreds of cameras and people or the four-inch heels her feet were compressed in, or the fact that her tenuously positioned clothes could fall off her body any second, but that the Senshi would be called into battle, risking their lives, and she wouldn't be there to hear the phone ring.

      Luckily, there were no such incidents.

      She paused to pull her shorts up a little; her clothes hung off her body like Hefty sacks, especially her tops. Her C's were now barely B's, and as ridiculous as it sounded, she missed them. It wasn't like she intentionally lost the weight; it just sort of came off along the way.

      She had lived in a tiny apartment that Ford had set up for her, with two other models in the same company. Lauren, a stunning brunette whose olive skin was smooth as popcorn butter, hailed from upstate New York and was a senior at Georgetown. She and Minako had bonded like sisters. The third girl, Brynn, was from Dallas, Texas, and was still in high school. She was rather aloof, and smoked like a chimney, but Minako had chalked it more up to being homesick than intentional rudeness. Her mother called frequently, and she reminded Minako of someone who would shoot the girl that got her daughter's place on the cheerleading squad.

      Both girls ate like birds, Lauren voicing her concerns over a salad the night before a fitting. "I hate this part; it's worst than Rush Week."

      "Oh?" Minako asked, confused. She had pledged DZ, and Lauren herself was a Tri-Delt. "How?" Brynn had nervously swallowed a mouthful of green matter.

      "Trust me. Unless your name is Kate or Gisele, you're going to feel like shit."

      Lauren was right. The next morning a very gay tailor with a shiny bald head examined her chest in a ruffly top. "God!" he muttered in Italian, pinching one of her breasts. "These belong in the Playboy mansion, not on the runway! You look like a nursing cow!"

      Minako's eyes nearly bugged out, but she didn't say anything. A week later, at a shoot for Mui Mui swimwear, she noticed the wardrobe assistant giving her a strange look.

      "Put this on first," he said, handing her a turquoise bikini that was mostly string. She obliged, but the top seemed to be a little small. The triangle tops covered maybe half of her breasts, and that was being generous. She suddenly felt like a porno queen. If my friends could see me now, they'd be laughing their asses off.

      The photographer nearly had a fit, speaking in rapid Italian. Later, she learned that she was supposed to shoot with another model, but the girl was skinny and completely flat-chested; the two of them would have looked disproportionate. They had to shoot separately, and book another model for the ad. It was easier to get another rail than someone with Playboy boobs.

      She didn't know how to feel when she returned home; Lauren and Brynn were a little on the small side, and their best efforts to cheer her up unfortunately involved cigarettes. "You could always do Victoria's Secret." Lauren said. "Or Maxim."

      "Been there," she muttered.

      After that, she started eating like them, drinking gallons of water, doing Pilates at night while watching Russian game shows. In the back of her mind, she knew that she would get skinny, and she kept it to herself. Her friends and Kevin would just worry; Jay and Matt would probably be angry with her for purposely losing "titty-mass".

      Thus, three months later, when she hugged her mother at the airport, Mrs. Aino's first words to her daughter were: "You're skinny as a rail!"

      "Mo-om," she whined like Usagi. "I got the wedding gown for Dolce and Gabbana! Do you know how cool that is?"

      "Absolutely not. What have you been eating? I thought Italian food was filling!"

      "It's mostly cheese. Cheese is icky."

      "How about I buy you a well-done slab of angus? That'll put something on those bones," her father asked, in perfect British. You could take the man out of his country, but you couldn't take the country out of the man.

      Now, there was only a week left with her family. She didn't think she would have missed them as much as she did, but she nearly burst into tears when she passed her old house in a cab during a stint in London. The lamp-posts looked the same, especially the one she would swing around on like a circus performer. The driver had noticed her distress and took it as an opportunity to hit on her.

      Her mother knocked softly at her door. "Minako?"

      "Yeah?" she said, standing up and cursing the cheap elastic in her shorts as they almost slipped off her hips.

      "Need some help packing?"

      "Oh, no, I'm an old pro at this, Mom. I've been living out of my suitcase—" Her mother stood in the doorway, many inches shorter than her leggy daughter, her smile tight and wistful and her hands clasped in front of her. "Well, yeah, I could use some help." She amended, smiling.

      Her mother drifted towards the piles on her bed and picked up a picture frame: Mina and Kevin at the DZ spring formal. "You look good in this picture," she commented softly. "Better than you did when we saw you on E! What were you wearing?"

      "The Betsey Johnson show? I have no clue. I think it was plastic wrap held together with staples."

      "It's not the clothes—although that dress is a little too showy for my taste…" Minako had borrowed a dress off one of her sisters: silver sequined and short. She had felt like a mirror-ball, and Kevin had made no less than a thousand pointed references to the length of the hemline, and what it would do if she had to, say, bend over, or walk, or stand completely still, and what other males' reactions would be to the aforementioned dress and how badly he would subsequently alter their faces. The picture had been snapped at the exact moment that he was yanking it down in the back. "You're nice and filled out. Your face is filled out. And you're smiling."

      "It was a good time." Plus I had about six vodka and cranberry's in me by then. She shrugged. "My shoes were off, I think. Can't happen on a runway." She glanced wistfully down at her tattered ankles: straps from endless pairs of heels had ground the skin on her feet into twists of scars.

      "Yes, well…" Her mother drifted off without finishing her sentence. It was one of the things that drove Minako crazy.

      "Well?"

      "Nothing." She picked up a stack of tank tops and began refolding them. "We missed you this summer."

      "Oh, MOM!" Mina rolled her eyes; she hated when her parents got like this, it made her emotional. "Stop, I'm going to get all weepy."

      Mrs. Aino smiled. "Forgive me for indulging in a little empty nest syndrome now and then. It was just strange, not having you around. I used to take you everywhere with me, and now it's like we're two ships traveling by night."

      She thought a second. "I think it's 'Two ships passing away the night'." Mother and daughter exchanged a glance, and then shrugged.

      "Whatever." They said in unison.

      "Mom, quit stressing. You're coming to see me this year. You can meet Kevin."

      "Oh, I know. You're father's thrilled. If 'thrilled' meant 'apprehensive'."

      "Stop it! You'll both like him! I swear to you, he is not a jerk, idiot, asshole, alcoholic, bank robber, gangbanger, white supremacist, close talker, re-gifter, religious fanatic, wife-beater, or any one of the other numerous things you and Daddy have probably thought up of already."

      "We haven't—does he have any children?"

      "What!?"

      "Just checking! Never mind; get dressed. We're going out to dinner tonight. Your father is determined to bring you back to a normal weight, even if he has to spend a fortune to do so."

      "I am a normal weight! Well, sort of…"

      "Do you have enough towels? You never know when you're going to need an extra one."

      "Yes, I have plenty, Mom," Ami replied, slapping dust off of the cat carrier. Luna and Artemis were being shipped out the next day, a week before the rest of them, for lack of carry-on space. Airlines were getting tight these days, and Minako and Usagi packed so much that their best bet was to send the Guardians via courier.

      "What about an iron? Will you need one?"

      Ami ran a hand through her hair, back to its natural brown. She had a sinking feeling that the girls on the swim team would vote to dye it blue again. She had kept up with root maintenance until returning home, when her mother had a mild aneurysm and asked (ordered) her to color it back to normal.

      "I don't think I'll need it. Makoto has one if I do."

      "Your hat and gloves?"

      "Got them."

      "Earrings? Did you put them all in a baggie?"

      "Yes."

      "Your warm-ups?"

      "Packed them."

      "Q-tips? Band-Aids? Toothpaste?"

      "I'll buy them there!"

      "Am I doing nothing of value but driving you crazy?"

      She started laughing. "Yes! Yes, you are!"

      Dr. Mizuno sighed and sprayed down the pet carrier with Lysol. "I'm sorry. I get anxious when you have to go." She stood up abruptly. "Well, I have to leave soon. Would you finish my game for me? Give Zach my apologies."

      "Sure, Mom." She checked her computer; it was her move. Zach had kept his taunting polite, since he was playing against her mother.

      She clicked on a piece and captured his knight. It's me, Zach, she typed in the dialogue box.

      Good, now I can properly taunt. Bring it on!

      Your move.

      It took him in excess of ten minutes to make his move, most of the time alternately jeering and blabbering.

      My skills are far superior.

Those last four games didn't count.

I was injured.

Sprained finger.

Can't wait until you're back.

Going going back back to Cali Cali…

Strictly for the weather, women and the weed…

Sticky green…no seeds bitch please…jk [1]

I was off my game.

THINKING.

So what are you wearing?

I will move now.

Or not.

Hold up.

Want to know what I'm wearing?

Are you sure your mom's not reading over your shoulder?

BOO-YAH!

The last comment was paired with a red box reading "CHECKMATE!" flashing across the screen. Ami reached for her cell phone/communicator, and punched in Zach's number.

"Oh, what just happened?" he said in lieu of greeting.

"My mother started that game. It was beyond repair."
      "I think you're just making excuses for me beating the panties off you. Hey, what color are you wearing right now?"

Her mother simultaneously knocked on the door and poked her head in. "I'm going to pick up some groceries; why don't you come with me? There might be something you forgot."

She was a hairbreadth away from refusing, but something in her mother's face made her change her mind. "That sounds nice."

Ten minutes later, she sat shotgun and stared out the window as Tokyo passed by her eyes. It was amazing to think of how Americanized she had become as she idly searched for Wal-Marts.

"Ami," her mother said suddenly, her voice strange.

"Yes Mom?"

Dr. Mizuno's reached over and clicked the radio off while clearing her throat compulsively. "There's something I wanted to talk to you about."

Ami's heart dropped to the pit of her stomach and froze. "Yes?" Is it about Dad? Your job? Money?

She cleared her throat again, and took a few seconds to gather her words. "Mom?" Ami prompted, her face starting to fold over in concern. "Is something wrong? Is it Dad?"

"No!" The word came out as a quasi-laugh. "It's nothing like, like that."

"Then what is it? You don't have to—"

"Are you having intercourse?"

If Ami had been driving instead of her mother, she would have sent the car careening off the road and into a telephone pole or hapless pedestrian. The blood rushed to her face so quickly it felt like a third degree burn. She was struck speechless.

Her mother was just as embarrassed, stumbling over her words like a blind woman alone in the woods. "It's like…I thought…I know that you're a…you've become a young woman, uh, recently, and, uh, you've been away on your own. And that now you have a-a…male com—a boyfriend. And that…you probably sleep together."

Ami finally found her voice. "Mom!" she gasped.

"Ami, you know I trust you completely, and that you've, um, you know. Not had a lot of experience that way. But you grew up a lot since you've been away at school, and that, that you are very comfortable around Zachary."

"What—?"

"This is hard for me to articulate. I worry about you all the time, honey; I know what America's like. All those college kids copulating like crazy without a care in the world."

She slumped down in her seat until she could only barely see over the top of the door out the window. If this continues, I very well may throw myself out of a moving vehicle.

"And I know that you and Zach are very much in love, I can see how happy he makes you. But I want you to be—careful. All the time."

"We are," Ami said softly. "You don't have to worry."

"Oh." Several minutes passed before she spoke again. "Do you want me to put you on the Pill?"

"Sure," Ami muttered, wondering if any of her friends had to go through this. Probably not. I can't see Grandpa sitting Rei down for a heart to heart.

"Ami, this doesn't mean that I'm disappointed in you; it's quite the opposite. You haven't let me down, ever, with anything, and I respect your decision as a fully capable adult. I know you wouldn't do anything to let me down. If…what you're doing seems like the best course of action for you, then I will not interfere. But please, as a parent, please don't disappoint me."

She was touched, but still too mortified to smile. "Thank you, Mother. I won't let you down, I promise." She would have promised her mother the World Cup if it got her to shut up and drop the subject.

Dr. Mizuno exhaled the breath she had been holding for the last year. "Thank you, sweetie. And I'm sorry for using the words 'intercourse' and 'copulating' and not in jest. This is much easier to talk about with my patients than my own daughter."

"I understand."

"I love you, Ami."

"I love you too, Mom."

"Now, I have to bring up another issue. Tomorrow night, I've agreed to uh, well, Dr. Franka, you know, the German heart specialist, he invited me to dinner-"

"You have a date?" Ami leaned her head against the window. When did this turn into the car ride from hell?

*****************************************************

One week later…

      Darien Chiba was, at the very most, eighty-five percent awake until he finished tying his shoes.  He took one look outside, and only pure psychosis and insane dedication kept him from chucking his sneakers off, throwing them against the far wall and burrowing back under the bedcovers for a few more hours.

      "Great," he muttered, opening his closet to fish out something hooded and possibly waterproof. The back door banged opened, and the sound of something large and galloping started jingling towards his door. Darien smacked his hand against his forehead when he realized he left it ajar. "No!" His voice was strained in a whisper-shout. "Ripken, don't—"

      Too late. The drenched yellow lab bounded through the door and made a beeline for Darien, attacking him with his hot, wet, tongue. He futilely tried to keep the dog from jumping on his bed.

      "Ripken! You're soaking wet and you smell—why can't Serena wake me up this way?" Ripken ignored his orders and continued lapping at Darien's face, leaving his face coated with sticky saliva that smelled like Science Diet and grass. "OK, OK, good boy. Want to go to the vet and get put down? Would that make you happy, doggy?"

      Ripken wagged his tail and barked, his tongue hanging out and his ears perked up. Darien wiped his face against his sweatshirt. "Shh! You'll wake everyone up!"

      Another form slid through the door, this one sleek and black. "That dog makes his chew toys look intelligent. I don't know why you bother to reason with him."

      "Good morning to you, too, Luna." Luna advanced on the bed, giving Ripken a wide berth. The guardian cats were still getting used to the idea of sharing their home with a canine, particularly, a canine as dumb and excitable as Ripken.

      "Are you going to run in this weather?" Luna hopped on the windowsill, staring out at the pouring rain. It was as dark as dusk outside, the rain falling so hard it made a noise like maracas as it hit the streets and roofs. "You'll die of pneumonia."

      "Thanks for the advice, Mom," Darien deadpanned, standing up. Make sure to wake everyone up so we could get to the airport on time, OK? C'mon, Ripken." The dog's ears perked up at the mention of his name. "You're dumb enough to run with me in the rain." He glanced at his Sports Illustrated Swimsuit calendar hanging from a thumbtack, one of five bought by Matt when he realized who was in it, with today's date circled in red. He smiled to himself; finally, today she was coming back to him. The thought stayed with him as he ran in the pouring rain.

      Darien was soaked to the skin when he returned, but his muscles felt warm and loose under the bone-chilling cold. He entered through the kitchen door, dropping his soggy sweatshirt and sneakers in a huddle in the corner. Ripken followed shortly behind, and Darien grabbed a dishtowel off the counter and did his best to dry the dog off before he…

      "Argh!" he shielded his face as Ripken shook off, spraying water over the kitchen with the efficiency of a sprinkler. "Ripken! Couldn't wait, could you?" He grabbed a roll of paper towels and started swiping down the cabinets.

      Water started running in the pipes; someone upstairs had finally pried himself out of bed and had started to shower. Darien ripped another Brawny off the roll and sponged off his hair. "Guess we better start waking them up, huh?" he said to Ripken.

      He tried Zach's room first, the bedroom in the corner of the house behind the kitchen. He could hear Zach snoring faintly through the door. "Straub!" He said, rapping his knuckles against the door. "Wake up!"

      The snoring halted for a nanosecond, then continued back on its rhythmic path. "Zach!" Darien called, knocking again. "Final warning. All right." He opened the door enough to let Ripken slither through. Seconds later, Zach was freaking.

      "Asshole! What did you do that for? AH! Get off my bed you dumb animal! You stink!"

      "Didn't you set your alarm?"

      "Yes. I also utilized the full capabilities of my snooze button. The good people of Sony make one hell of a clock radio."

      "Well, hurry up. We've got to hit the road soon." He left Zach to groan and fight off Ripken.

      All three doors were shut when he got upstairs, the sound of the shower overpowered by an eardrum-jarring screech. Darien located the source of the noise in Kevin's room.
      "Kevin!" He didn't stir. Darien set about shutting off all the alarm clocks. "God love you, you tried. Are you going to get up?"

      Kevin didn't move. To a casual observer, he looked like a dead body. Darien grabbed one of his feet and yanked on it. "Hey! Kev!"

      This time he stirred a little. "Quit it."

      "You slept through your alarms. Again."

      "Yeah," Kevin muttered, and rolled over.

      This is insane. I'm not putting up with this every morning. "I'll come back in a little while. And I'm bringing Jay's dog with me."

      "Do your worst, you little crapweasel," he muttered before falling back to sleep.

      He tried Jay next. Jay was flopped across his bed diagonally, face down, one foot dangling off the bed and dragging on the floor, a pillow crushed over his head, most likely to block the noise of Kevin's alarms. "Jay?"

      He stirred a little. "Wha?"

      "Time to wake up."

      Jay merely drew his foot up and curled up underneath the covers. "Fuckoff."

      Darien picked a baseball up from the floor and threw it at Jay, hitting him in the ass. "Why won't anyone get out of bed? We have to pick up your girlfriend, you know."

      An arm snaked out from under the covers and groped around for the offending weapon. Jay made a blind toss towards Darien, who easily dodged. The ball sailed through the open door, hitting Lita, who was coming out of the bathroom bedecked in a nubby yellow robe and a towel wrapped around her head, turban-style.

      "Hey!" She yelped as the baseball bounced off her bare foot.

      "Was him," Darien pointed. Her face broke into a grin.

      "Jay," she whispered in a sultry voice, lying down next to him on the bed. "Wake up, sweetheart. You still gotta pay me."

      Jay pulled the pillow off his head. "Lita! You're not giving it up for free anymore? Put it on my tab."

      She hit him in the arm. "Get out of bed, lazybones. If we're late, you know Raye will be gunning for you."

      He grinned at her, the kind of grin where you knew something was up. "I can't. You gave me a hard-on and I don't want Darien to see."

      Lita's jaw dropped, and she grabbed his pillow and started raining blows down on him as Darien cracked up. "You pervert! You're disgusting!"

      "I'm just kidding!" he yelped in self-defense, grabbing the pillow in one hand and wrestling with her for it.

      She kicked him in the ass, but she was smiling too. "You'd better be, or I'm telling Raye."

      "Please do. It's your fault, getting in my bed wearing nothing but a towel."

      "I have a bathrobe on, you tool!"

      They were distracted by a scuffling noise in the hallway as Kevin stumbled out of his bedroom, almost tripped and fell over the landing, and opened the bathroom door with his forehead.

       "Hey, Kev, watch out for that wooden thing that covers entryways. I hear they're called 'doors'." Darien warned. His response came in the form of an upraised middle finger and a slammed door.

      "Well, at least he peed with the door shut this time," Lita sighed, cradling her turban in the hollow of Jay's neck. Matt passed by the doorway, towel over one shoulder, rubbing his eye and slightly limping.

      "Hey, Matt! You're girlfriend's in my bed!" Jay shouted to him. Matt continued to the bathroom without turning his head.

      "Hey Melman, you're mom's in mine."

      Jay picked up the nearest heavy object, which turned out to be a Far Side page-a-day desk calendar, and chucked it out the door, pages fluttering.

      "Nice arm. No wonder you can't beat the runner to second."

      "Fuck you, Vanilla Ice."

      "What's that supposed to mean?"

      Darien added his two cents. "I think he was referring to twisting your ankle last night trying to do that ugly-ass white boy dance that you're so fond of."

      Lita collapsed into giggles; Matt seemed to pay her no heed.

      "Hey, Belles, what are you doing in there?" he shouted at the closed door.

      "Shaving."

      "Well, I'm going to shower." He intruded gracefully. 

Seconds later, Ripken bounded towards Jay's bed with the thrown calendar clamped in his teeth. Jay immediately sat up and rubbed his dog's face.

      "Hey, boy, whatcha got? Why the hell are you all wet?" Ripken barked and tried to wedge himself between his owner and Lita.

      Jay shot Lita a fake glare. "Hey, move over. There's no room for the dog."

      Lita nearly strained her eye muscles as she rolled them skyward. "Jay, with that charm it's no wonder why hos aren't jumping straight in your bed."

      "Hos ARE jumping in my bed. You were just here."

      She smacked him, hard, with the calendar, which by this time was battered and a little soggy. "Hurry up, you guys, I'm going to make breakfast soon, and then we gotta jet. If Serena gets to the duty-free store with more than five bucks, we're all SOL."

      She returned to Matt's room and started dressing, pulling clothing out of her luggage, which was strewn across the floor. She had lived in the new house the past two weeks, until she was allowed to move into the dorms, which, incidentally, was tomorrow. All the girls were arriving today, along with their massive piles of luggage, and everything from people to carry-ons were crashing at the house that night. Kevin deliciously avoided the moving process, citing football practice as an excuse.

      "Football practice, my foot," Lita mumbles as she pinned the sides of her hair up, even though it really was a viable excuse. Kevin had doubles every day except Sunday. Letting her hair air-dry, she trotted down the stairs to make breakfast.

      Zach was just emerging from the downstairs bathroom, naked save for a towel around his waist. "What're you making?"

      Lita opened a cabinet and yanked a skillet from the tangle of mismatched crockery jammed into a deathtrap-like mishmash. "Omelets. Going simple, we're in a hurry. And when did I become your personal chef?" She teased.

      "When you saw us eating Doritos and beer for dinner."

      She shuddered at the memory, and returned to rifling through the fridge, pulling out cheeses. Cooper for Jay, sharp cheddar for Matt, none for Zach. Oh no, where is it? She dug around awhile before finding the yellow Kraft singles, individually wrapped. The guys affectionately dubbed it "welfare cheese". It was the only cheese Kevin would touch; himself being the pickiest eater that Lita had the good and great fortune to ever encounter. She had tried to trick him once, slipping provolone inside the layers of egg instead of the orange plastic-y squares, but his selective taste buds were far too clever to be tricked into eating something that wasn't constituted of mostly chemicals and food coloring. He had actually tried to pick it off with his fork.

      "Darien? Where's those scallions you bought yesterday?"

      He stuck his head in the kitchen. "They're in there."

      "Where? I can't find them."

      "There. In the plastic container."

      She rolled her eyes for the second time this morning. Living with these guys was nothing but an endless string of eye-rolling. "I said 'scallions', not 'scallops'!"

      "What? Same difference."

      "Scallions are green onions."

      "Why didn't you just say green onions, then?"

      She grabbed the handle of the skillet and resisted the urge to hit him in the head with it. "Because when I sent Jay to the store for a green onion, he came back with an underripe yellow onion!"

      He smirked. "So you assumed I was dumber than Jay?" Jay, sneaking behind Darien to get to the bathroom first, smiled and posed before disappearing.

      "You brought back seafood instead of vegetables. You tell me."

      "Hey! Language barrier here!" he chortled, ignoring the fact that he spoke English better than ninety percent of the native population. He turned to the bathroom door, only to find it closed and the sound of the shower running. "Dammit! Jay, you're an ass!"

      She worked assembly-line fashion, handing off plates to whoever's she finished, feeling someone like a line cook in a greasy spoon. The kitchen was too small to hold a table and chairs, so they had shoved it in a corner of the living room. She, Darien, Kevin, and a newly awakened Artemis ate the table like civilized human beings (and a cat, sitting on a phone book) while the rest piled on the couch, plates on their laps, and watched ESPN.

      Darien practically wolfed down his food. "Hurry up, you guys. We're going to be late."

      Matt waved him off. "We're not going to be late." He drowned his eggs in ketchup and started stirring it into a gross-looking orange mass.

      Twenty minutes later, they were scrambling to get together while two cats and a dog ran under foot. Darien cursed as he jumped in the shower; he was the first one up, but last to shower, and was therefore screwed out of hot water. Might as well just stand in the rain.

      Kevin was irritatingly honking in the driveway. "Who's coming with me?"

      "I am. Keep your shorts on," Zach said, gulping down a can of Mountain Dew while juggling his keys and a bouquet of flowers.

      Matt, who was backing his Celica out with a Camel in his teeth, suddenly stopped and rolled down the window. "Lita, grab my phone."

      "I have mine," she replied, jumping into shotgun and waving away a cloud of smoke with a grimace on her face.

      Darien raced through the rain and practically slid into his car, started it, and (im)patiently waited for Jay. "Come on, come on."

      Jay was still pulling a shirt over his head and hopping on one foot trying to force his sandals on when he shut the door to Darien's Eclipse. "All right, we're only a half hour late. It's cool." They traveled exactly forty feet before the next interruption.

      "Hold up!" Jay shouted, grabbing his cell phone. "GAME OFF!"

      "What did you forget?" Kevin sniped on the other end.

      "Raye's flowers. Turn around, Darien. I kind of want to get laid tonight."

      "You are so lucky she's not here!" Lita interjected. "I'm about to kick your ass for that one!"

      "Oh, Lita, two nights in a row. You promise?"

      They probably would have still made it in time if they didn't run into a bottleneck that delayed them another half-hour, and then Kevin taking the wrong exit and everyone else following him. He threw the phone in the glove compartment to avoid the bitching.  

      Zach got them lost in the airport, insisting on taking the shuttle that he thought would take them to the gates, but instead ran to a nearby Marriot. They nearly tore his head off for that one. Five minutes later, Darien's foot was run over by an old man in a Jazzy wheelchair. They gave him a grand total of thirty seconds to recover from his potential broken toe, adding insult to injury by making him run at a gimpy half-trot.

      Meanwhile, in a wayward baggage terminal, Serena had checked her watch for the fortieth time, and then yawned. There was nothing to do in the empty baggage claim except watch their luggage spin endlessly on the carousel, theirs also being the only bags remaining. "Can I read that after you, Raye?"

      Raye tossed the magazine on Serena's lap. "Here. I can't read with Mina's fat head cutting off the circulation in my legs." Mina's head was resting on Raye's lap as she slept, her Walkman blocking out all other sound. Somehow, she managed to hear Raye's comment.

      "I heard that, ass."

      Raye pulled a headphone off her ear. "Go eat some Metabolife, supermodel."

      Amy yawned. "It's been an hour. Why don't we collect our luggage and call a taxi?"

      All were silent as their bags took another lap around the carousel. A skycap glanced at them and started tapping his foot.

      Raye shook her head. "No. We're not lifting a finger. Jay said he'd carry my luggage and so he's carrying my luggage."

      Serena squirmed a little. "Well, he doesn't have to carry mine. I'm going to get it, I think those people are getting pissed off at us." However, she didn't move, but languidly took another sip of her Mountain Dew.

      Amy pulled out a nail file and started reshaping her nails for the fifteenth time that hour. "Perhaps they got stuck in traffic."

      Raye gritted her teeth. "I've been on a plane for eighteen hours. They can drive on the shoulder for all I care."

      A female airport employee snuck a look at the girls, focused on Mina, then averted her eyes for a split second before blatantly staring directly at the blond girl, her forehead creased as if in deep thought.

      Serena noticed. "Hey Mina, I think you're being recognized."

      "Who?"

      "That woman over there. I don't think she knows your name or anything."

      Mina sighed heavily. "That's the problem. Everyone knows my face, but not my name. I'm THAT model that everyone's seen before but can't place. I'm Victoria Silvstedt."

      "Who?" Amy piped up.

      "Never mind. Disguise me. Make me look ugly."

      They obliged. Raye reached down and started mussing her hair; Serena pulled off one of her shoes and dropped it on the floor.

      "Serena, she said      make her look ugly, not homeless."

      "Same dif! Besides, all you did was tangle up her hair a little; she looks exactly the same."

      "And pulling off her shoe drastically alters her appearance? Have you shared this information with the CIA?"

      "Both of you, shut up!"

      Silence. Fifteen minutes passed. Mina forgot about the incident and began snoring softly.

      Serena broke the silence. "Hey, want me to run for McDonald's?"

      "Yeah, why not?" Raye sighed, digging in her pocket for American money. "What number do I like again?"

      "Six, I think. No onions, side of barbeque, Sprite for a drink."

      "Damn, girl, if there's one thing you can keep straight, it's food."

      "Oh, cram it, Raye. Anything else?"

      "One of those fish sandwich things," Amy requested. "No tartar sauce."

      "Mina?" Raye jostled her legs.

      "Nothing, thanks," Mina mumbled, shifting slightly.

      Serena managed to juggle all the paper bags and drink holders back without spilling…much; a fact she was very proud of. Oh, how she had missed McNuggets. Golden brown, perfect shape for dipping in honey and hot mustard, that smell, that wonderfully greasy smell. No one was around, so she stuffed one in her mouth whole.

      And stumbled into a gigantic reunion scene.

      Darien turned to her and smiled; she stopped chewing and froze like a deer in headlights. For some reason, her jaw refused to work, so the huge chunk of processed meat stayed lodged in the side of her cheek, like a chipmunk storing away a walnut. Her eyes welled up in tears, and Darien started laughing despite himself.

      "Hey there, Odongo-head," he said, enveloping her in his arms, McDonald's bags and all. Serena was still with shock.

      "This is all wrong. Your first glimpse of me is not supposed to be with food shoved in my mouth."

      He kissed the top of her head tenderly. "I don't care how I see you, just as long as I do."

      "But—" she muttered between chewing. "But—" She gulped down the rest of the McNugget and reached for another. Darien kissed above her ear, in the exact spot that sent shivers down her spine. "Hey, paws off!" she suddenly barked.

      Darien retracted his hand from her McDonald's bag. "OK, jeez, I don't see you in how long, my love? And you don't even share your fries."

      She dropped the bag and embraced him. "I'm only kidding! I'd rather have you, anyway!" She reached up for his face with both hands, standing on tiptoe to kiss him.

      When she pulled away, her eyes were half-closed, her bubblegum lip gloss smeared around her mouth. Darien went to his own personal Happy Place.

      Jay had snatched the bag of McDonald's away from Serena's feet and held it in front of him as a furious Raye dumped Mina off of her lap and onto the floor and charged at him. "Raye! Look, I brought you food!"

      She batted the bag to the ground and looked like she was either going to burst out crying or deck him. Instead, laughter burst out of her like water through a dam, and she practically jumped on top of him.

      "I missed you so much, you asshole!" She shouted, throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him so hard that they both lost their breath. His arms went around her back and he deepened the kiss.

      "OK, you two, find a telephone booth," Lita muttered, retrieving the very crumpled bag and inspected its contents.

      "Or a public bathroom stall," Matt added, accepting a handful of proffered fries.

      Amy was staring shyly at the floor when Zach approached, blushing furiously and feeling like an idiot. She was currently being attacked by the insecurities that had left her during the course of the past school year, and she found it difficult to even meet his eyes. A tiny part of her had expected him to show up with a siliconed frat whore hanging on his muscular arm, so when he approached solo, her heart gave a little flutter of relief. She felt strangely awed, thrilled, and undeserving as she glanced quickly at his face, the gentle smile getting wider as he approached. In her mind, she imagined running dramatically into his arms and making him remember exactly why he stayed monogamous, and yet, her feet stayed planted to the floor like electromagnets. You missed him all summer, you idiot! Why are you having a panic attack now?

      Before she could convince her mind to give in to the bit of drama she so desperately wanted to indulge, Zach had reached an arm's distance from her. Ami still couldn't move, but he simply hugged her anyway, laying a quick kiss on the corner of her mouth. "What's wrong?" he asked, and the soft sound of his voice radiating through his comfortably large chest. Ami sighed and felt the tension drain from her body.

      She raised her gaze to his face, and was partially re-paralyzed by his startling green eyes, blazing and soft at the same time, staring at her with nothing but love and concern. She suddenly felt ridiculous.

      "Nothing. My mother. Nothing." He laughed suddenly and hugged her to him harder. Amy let herself relax totally as she pressed her cheek back against his chest, leaning into his embrace.

      Mina was still laying flat on her back on the much-less-than-clean ground, stunned, blinking up at the ghastly fluorescent lights. Kevin's head came into her line of vision, a shadowy silhouette seven feet up.

      "Hey there," he said simply, trying to smile at the fact that her hair had landed on some kindly citizen's pre-chewed, discarded Winterfresh. "Raye treats you with kid gloves, huh?"

      She smiled, her best flashbulb-runway smile. "Shut up and help me up."

And really, she could have said "Go screw a pig, and then lay naked in Los Angeles rush hour traffic," and Kevin would have complied just as quickly. All he could think of was the fact that his girlfriend, an honest-to-God supermodel, was laying on the floor beneath him with a smile that would make a Buckingham Palace Guard turn and stare. Really, it succeeded in turning him into nothing more than a 275 pound lump of mush with no willpower to do anything except what came out of his amazingly gorgeous, undyingly sweet girlfriend's full, glossy pink lips. Hooooly shit, it has been way too long.

He lifted her off the floor almost too easily, successfully hiding his shock at how skinny she had gotten. It almost ruined his sparkling first impression as he felt her ribs and collarbones through her embrace, and for a moment he missed the familiar squishiness of her breasts pressing against him. Her body was all long, bony limbs, skinny hips, flat chest. Even her face seemed sunken in. She noticed him staring.

      "What's the matter?" God, he knows I'm skinny! I know I'm skinny, but that's not the point. Oh God, he's going to say something!

      In the end, it wasn't Kevin who said anything, but rather Jay, pulling his face away from Raye's face long enough to bellow, "Mina! Where did those Sports Illustrated tits go?"

      Kevin glared at him, his eyes narrowing, dangerously close to decking Jay in the mouth. Mina reddened again, racking her brain for an excuse. "Italian food sucks," she mumbled, knowing it was weak but at a loss for any reasonable explanation.

      Zach added his two cents. "Well, the brown thong got all our hopes up."

      She gasped, her hand shooting to cover her mouth. "Zach!"

      "What? We all saw it! Hell, we all own it now; Matt bought the calendars."

      Mina inwardly groaned; the brown thong picture was four months old, taken before she had left for Europe. By some miracle short of bribery, her agent had managed to get her on the Sports Illustrated shoot in New Zealand. The weather had been a degree above freezing, and for three consecutive days Mina squeezed into wisps of fabric that passed as swimwear, had her eyebrows plucked and her face painted and hair blown out hundreds of times, and tried her best to appear "enthralling" and "sensual" while posing, partially naked, in Arctic-like water.

      Three days of shivering and mosquito bites and Sports Illustrated rewarded her with a single spread; one picture of her facing the camera, wading thigh-deep in the ocean, her cascade of slightly curling blond hair artfully arranged to cover her bare breasts, blue eyes matching the sky behind her, clad in only a tiny brown thong. The companion was the same shot but from behind, with Mina looking back over her shoulder and smiling. Her long, tan back was exposed; sand was clinging to her butt and upper thighs. The publishing company had reproduced posters of the back shot and stuck it in their calendar, too. Her agent had happily reported that it was the most frequently downloaded picture for the week that the edition had come out, a fact that Mina had wisely kept from Kevin, mostly for his own sake.

      "It's not too late to get them back. You like food, you like beer. We can resurrect the boob," Jay yammered.  

      "HEY!" Everyone's head snapped up to face a very irritated skycap. "Hate to interrupt the tearful reunion, folks, but you need to clear off your baggage now. We're shutting this carousel down."

      "We're coming," Zach groused. "Jackass," he muttered under his breath.

      Serena jumped a little as metal clanged loudly a little too close to the house, followed by cheering. She smiled and refilled her iced tea, praying that no one had drank directly out of the pitcher, again. It's probably ninety five percent backwash anyway.   One sip and she gasped; someone had poured Captain Morgan's in the pitcher, and from the taste of it, a lot. The door banged open and Luna jumped on the counter next to her.

      "Lita's scallops turned out great, don't you think?" She lapped out of a bowl of Pepsi that someone had poured out for the cat Guardians, and gasped and shook her head briskly. "Goddess, what's in that?"

      "Rum," Serena answered simply, taking another gulp and forcing it down, making her "uck" face as she did so. She had forgotten that the guys usually celebrated everything from Super Bowl Sunday to the opening of a new supermarket with getting piss-ass drunk. Everyone except herself, Amy, and Kevin were half-crocked, and no one had listened to her objections about playing horseshoes in the mud while drinking wasn't a good idea. Already, there had been one close call with Zach's head: lucky for him, he was used to ducking line drives, or Raye would be guilty of manslaughter.

      Luna sputtered. "Good gracious! Artemis gulped this down before like it was nothing." She stopped and thought a moment. "Maybe that's why he was so eager to throw those horseshoe things, even though he could barely lift them."

      "Maybe you should bring him inside. The last thing we need is for him to slip and start talking in front of the neighbors." By the sound of things outside, it sounded like the entire block was crammed in the backyard, including the hippies from next door whom Jay affectionately referred to as the "Crunchy Vegans".

      "I think I will do that. Where's Amy?"

      "Sleeping in Zach's room. Mina's passed out on the couch."

      "She looks awfully—"

      "YES! I know! She's too thin!" Off of Luna's pointed look, she quickly added, "We'll talk to her about it, I swear."

      Luna deftly leapt off the counted and headed for the door. "All right, then. Oh, no here comes that idiot dog!"

      Ripken knocked himself through the door, nearly trampling Luna in the process, and threw himself at Serena, jumping on his hind legs to lick her face.

      "Ooh!" she gasped. "Good doggy! BIG doggy!" His paws started digging into her chest. "OW! Down!"

      "Ripken!" Darien had entered the kitchen after him. He reached out and removed Ripken's paws from Serena's chest. "Bad dog. That's mine." A lazy smile spread over his face as he swept her in his arms. "Dog's got good taste."

      She raised her face up to his. "Now you know that's not true. He started humping my suitcase when I got here."

      "Maybe it smelled like you." He crushed her lips into a brutal kiss, a kiss with months of celibacy to make up for.

      Serena ran her hands down his back, feeling the hard, conditioned muscles underneath, and something swelled in her chest and flooded up to her head so quickly that she thought she would pass out.

      One of his hands crept to the edge of her tank top, then snaked under it and gripped her breast. She gasped softly. "Darien! Not here!"

      "Why not here?"

      "Because Mina's sleeping RIGHT HERE!" Mina was sprawled face down on the couch, fully dressed, one arm dangling off the side and brushing the carpet. "Plus the fact that absolutely anyone could stroll in right now…!"

      "She's a deep sleeper," he mumbled, pushing her up against the wall.

      "No she's not! I could sneeze in the next hemisphere and she'd wake up, blasting away."

      "Serena, dear, she passed out with her shoes on. That's fair game." He grabbed the hem of her tank top and began pulling it upwards. She grabbed his hand, rubbed it against her bare skin, lifted one of her legs to straddle his hips.

      The kitchen door suddenly slammed; they both froze like a strange imitation of pornographic statues. Jay stumbled in, "stumble" being an apt description since he could barely keep himself upright. He pingponged off one wall, then the other, finally giving up and using the wall to support himself. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he made it into the bathroom and began urinating with the door open.

      "Not on the floor, not on the floor," Darien whispered to himself. Serena put a hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle.

      It took Jay a full five minutes to leave the premises, knocking his head off the door frame once for good measure, thankfully noticing the partially dressed pair pressed up against the wall. Mina's breathing remained deep and even, punctuated by an occasional snort.

      They both let out the breath they had been keeping in. Darien turned his face back to Serena's, and started nibbling at her neck.

      "Where were we?"

*     *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *

      "OW! Yo! Hernia!" Jay dropped one of the boxes he was carrying and grabbed at his midsection. "Jesus Christ, Raye, could you have left some shit at home? This is the sixth fucking box I've dragged up these goddamn stairs."

      Raye swiveled around, her eyes ablaze. "Listen, SHITHEEL, if you don't want to be a nice boyfriend and help me move in, then stay the hell home and quit your whining!" She stuck her chin back on top of the pile of boxes in her arms. "Besides, those are Mina's. We didn't even get to mine yet."

      "You're fucking kidding me."

      "I kid you not."

      "Oh. My. God. So I'm doing all of Kevin's work."

      "Pretty much," Mina echoed from below, her arms full of laundry baskets. "Hey, he has to win football games for us; we don't want him pulling a muscle or something."

      "He can eat my ass," Jay groused, kicking the door open. "What room again?"

      "525. Turn left."

      Jay sighed and picked up the box again. "What's with the gray walls? I remember them being brown."

      "It's a thinly veiled ploy to drive us insane and get us to commit suicide after we've paid our tuition. Pure profit without the pesky hassle of actually educating us."

      "You know, that's probably not far from the truth. Wow, it smells a lot better now that it's a girl dorm. Kind of like…not shit."

      Two floors below, Darien had resorted to carrying two suitcases at once and kicking a third along the floor, totally disregarding what kind of damage he could potentially inflict on the contents.

      Serena squealed. "Darien! Stop that! You're going to break something!" She herself was laden down with a single desk lamp and a makeup case. He gave her a pointed look.

      "Which room again?"

      She reddened. "Actually, I forgot." She knelt down, unzipped the suitcase that Darien had been kicking, and pulled out a piece of paper. "310 Simmons. That's…right down…here! Hey Lita! We found—" She opened the door and was promptly silenced.

      A girl was in their room, unpacking onto her already-made bed. Several posters and drapes were hung. She stopped at stared up at Serena.

      "Hi!" Serena chirped automatically. "Um, I think you have the wrong room, hon. This one's mine, and my friend's. See?" She held up the dorm assignment.

      Lita appeared in the doorway. "Yo, I can hear Raye and Jay bitching at each other in the…hi. I think you have the wrong room."

      The girl reached into a bag and produced a crumpled sheet of paper. "310 Simmons. No, I'm here. Do you guys have your assignments?"

      Serena glanced up at Lita, who dropped a bag and started rummaging around in her purse. She unfolded a sheet of paper and studied it. "Kino, Makoto. Sophomore standing…blah blah blah…oh no!" She dropped her hands to her waist and grimaced. "I'm in 312!"

      "What?" Serena screeched, ripping the paper out of her hands. "What do you mean? We requested to be put together again!"

      Serena's new roommate shrugged. "Someone must have screwed up somewhere."

      "You're telling me," Lita sniped, running a hand through her hair. "Now what am I supposed to do?"

      "There's nothing much you can do," Darien said, juggling the weight in his arms. "You guys are right next door, not across the country. It's basically the same thing. Can I put this shit down now?

      "But it's not!" Serena wailed. "I thought I was going to live with LITA!"

      She managed to stretch the name into four syllables. Even Darien gritted his teeth and tried not to claw out his inner ear mechanisms. "Can I put this stuff down now?"

      Serena's face flew through a myriad of emotions: several times Lita and Darien thought she was going to burst out crying, until she chose the expression "faintly optimistic" and she smiled and addressed her new roommate. "I'm sorry, I'm just a little…disappointed that I couldn't live with my friend. I'm sure once we get to know each other that we'll get along just fine." She punctuated her last statement with her trademark Colgate smile, her eyes squinched into slits of cheerfulness and her cheeks creasing with glee.

      The girl merely stared back, her face blank. "Whatever," she shrugged, turning her back, and finished tacking up a Jennifer Lopez poster.

      Serena stood there for a full minute, smiling mutely at her new roommate.

*     *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *

      Lita wrestled her luggage into her new room, practically leaving dents in the floor when she dropped it all. A tall, blonde girl arranging picture frames on her desk; she looked up when Lita entered and smiled.

      "Hi! Lita…isn't it?"

      "Yeah!" She racked her brain, trying to remember where she had seen the girl before. "Aren't you on—"

      "The swim team with Amy? That's me! Audrey?"

      "Audrey!" Lita nodded and smiled. "Good to see you again. I guess, uh, I guess we're roommates now. I thought you graduated."

      "Twenty credits and one year of eligibility left. I'm an official Super Senior." She laughed. "This is cool. I thought I'd get stuck with a dorky freshman or something."

      Lita smiled again, feeling a bit better after getting separated from Serena. "Nope. Just a dorky sophomore."

*     *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *

      "What the fuck is this?" Jay pulled a filthy pink thong out from behind the radiator and held it up. Raye nearly went into a paroxysm of disgust.

      "OH MY GOD! EW! PUT THAT DOWN!" She darted across the room, pulling Mina along with her. "Jay that's disgusting! You don't know where that's been!"

      "I know exactly where it's been. It's been in someone's ass." He held it at arm's length and began advancing on the girls, chasing them around the room when they screamed and ran.

      "You are so immature!" Raye screeched, throwing anything she could get her hands on at him.

      "And you love it." He grabbed a struggling Mina around her waist and dangled the thong in her face. She screamed and tried to break his hold, but he had her pinned.

      "Stop! Stop it! JAAAAAY!"

      "AAAH!" Raye started screaming simultaneously, clutching her head. Her face contorted and tears sprang to her eyes as she sank down to her knees, clawing at fistfuls of hair, still screaming in abject terror. Finally, the scream petered off and she slumped against the bed, whimpering.

      "Raye!" Jay dumped Mina on the floor and flung the thong behind his back as he rushed to her side. The thong hit Matt, who was just coming through the door, square in the face.

      "Raye, what's the matter?" Jay gathered her up and sat her down on her bed. "Are you OK? What happened?"

      Matt's tirade about taking a faceful of dirty thong died in his throat when he saw Raye pale and gasping, barely holding back tears. "Raye? What's going on?"

      Her head snapped up to face him, her violet eyes practically sparking, her cheeks dotted with red. "Didn't you feel it?" she asked him. "Matt, didn't you?"

      He shook his head. "Feel what?"

      She sucked in a few gulps of air. "Something…horrible. Didn't you feel it? It was just…so…it was bad." She lowered her head, looking like a little girl: hurt, vulnerable, broken. They had never seen her like this before. "Matt, please. Please tell me you felt something. Come on. You out of everybody…"

      "I'm sorry, Raye, I didn't feel anything."

      "Oh God," she breathed, covering her face with both hands. "Oh God."

      The others simply stared at her.

*Wow that was a lot of filler. Well, anyway, Venusorbit1@aol.com for C&C. thanks everyone!

---

[1] Zach's screwing around, reciting lyrics from Notorius BIG's "Going back to cali" Don't own that song neither. Diddy does.