"The Queen is with child."
Venus honestly hadn't meant to come off so somber about it, but it seemed the appropriate way to announce the news when the consequences were so drastic.
Three of them would be leaving.
Long had it been since they'd been apart. Though there had been differences and distances in their younger years, in the centuries since Serenity's rise to power, the senshi had grown closer than blood sisters. If a tragedy struck, they closed ranks and took care of their own. Clothes were swapped with regularity, to the point where no one was quite sure whose civilian shoes belonged to whom and some days the only way someone could tell it wasn't her shirt was when it got a little difficult to close the buttons over their chest, or the shoulders were too loose. Unlike palace staff, all of whom had to be screened and tested by her personally, Jupiter had no qualms about one of her sisters-in-arms helping in the kitchen occasionally. Saturn and Mars were often seen meditating at dawn in the gardens. Venus and Neptune had put out seven duet albums.
Hotaru, looking not a day over twenty, took off her reading glasses and set down her crystal tablet. "Chibiusa?"
Venus' grin was involuntary. She'd missed the little twerp all these years. "Yeah. I mean, timeline's about right."
"How far along is she?" Michiru asked.
Venus shrugged. She knew. She knew everything down to the nitty-gritty details, and somewhere they all suspected that she knew much more than she ever let on, but someone had to feign ignorance around the palace. "No clue. How far away is June again?"
"I just had my birthday, and Haruka-papa's is soon," Hotaru reminded her.
"Right. So… that long. June 30th, we all know this."
Michiru sighed, and set aside her own tablet, stretching. "Well, I suppose that means we have a little less than six months to pack up and leave for a while…"
"Oh, can't we stay just for a while? See her when she's so small and new?"
Michiru looked at Venus, who shrugged. "I'm not the one to talk to about that, go ask Pluto."
She knew. She knew if they didn't leave before, then they'd be around when the Black Moon Clan attacked for the first time, a month before Serenity was due. June 29th. The Black Moon's first attack would create enough conflict that Serenity would need to step in and use the Crystal, an act that would ultimately both drive the Clan into hiding on Nemesis and also sent Serenity into premature labor, and fourteen hours later Usagi Small Lady Serenity would be born, in the early hours of June 30th.
She'd done a little snooping the last time they'd been in their future, so sue her.
Uranus, Neptune, and Saturn needed to be off-world before the Black Moon Clan attacked, or the established timeline would be thrown completely off-balance. She'd spent enough counseling sessions with Pluto to know how disastrous this would be. Luckily, she also had Pluto on her side to convince her sisters-in-arms that it was really in everyone's best interest that the outer defenses be increased and improved upon before the heir was born.
Venus really didn't care what else they did for the next twelve or thirteen years, as long as they were out of the picture for Chibiusa's growing up and training.
Okay, she cared. She cared a lot. Enough that she'd already had their castle mainframes duplicated and running in constant sync with her own so she could be updated at all times on their activities. Like hell were any other catastrophes happening after the Black Moon.
Not on her watch.
Still, over the next few months, the extended gaps in which three of their usual members were gone started to wear on the senshi, not to mention Serenity. The queen wasn't taking to pregnancy well at all, and when coupled with the looming loss of three of her most treasured friends? Some days Venus would find her sitting in a window seat, legs tucked up as far as she could manage, looking not a day older than she was when they first met so long ago—a teenage girl staring out the window at the galactajet that would be taking her friends away again.
As June loomed closer, Venus grew more fidgety. No amount of time spent with Pluto could calm her down—what if the Clan attacked early? What if something happened to the jet and they couldn't leave in time? How were they supposed to hold back three of their most powerful fighters from interfering with fate? Some days she just wanted to press a micro-packing button, zip up the entire contents of their quarters, toss them onto the galactajet and say 'sayonara, hasta la vista babes'. But she couldn't do that, not without the queen bursting into tears again.
Saturn was dragging her feet on June 28th, wheedling that perhaps they could stay. Just two more days, please? She really wanted to try that new lactose- and gluten-free vegan restaurant downtown—Venus wanted to scream in frustration. She didn't know how she was going to keep them from finding the reports already sitting on her drive, that there was suspicious activity and should be checked and identified, unless they left. Now.
Serenity was clutching on to Uranus, teary. "Now, now, kitten, we'll be around. Only a call away. And we'll be back before you know it. We won't know any time has passed at all, won't we?" Uranus was saying.
"Not even a full year will have passed on our planets!" Neptune agreed.
"Oh, that just means you'll look younger and prettier than me!" Serenity sobbed.
Neptune flipped her hair, just a bit, preening. Uranus pressed a kiss to the top of her queen's already-silver head. "Hush, you'll always be my beautiful kitten."
Venus gnashed her teeth together in frustration. 'Okay, buh-bye now! LEAVE!' As much as she wasn't looking forward to three less bodyguards on hand at all time, particularly with the horrors to come, it needed to happen. Now. Or she would lose her freaking mind. It didn't help that every couple of minutes, Uranus or Neptune would look at her as if to ask 'Everything's going to be fine, right?' and she would nod. The knot in her chest began to loosen as they finally, finally boarded the jet, but Saturn kept running back down the stairs to extract extra multiple hugs from everyone. The knot didn't dissipate until the jet was in the air, and into the atmosphere, and then the control tower cleared them for extra-atmosphere travel.
She could relax. For about five minutes.
Sleep didn't come easily, and the next morning dawned bright, early, and hot. Venus scrolled through her messages, noting that the others had arrived safely to their homeworlds—good, one less thing to fuss over—and that the activity from the day before had gone to ground. Venus flicked that one into the trash. Gone to ground, yeah right. She'd eat her bow.
When shots rang out on the streets, Venus had to hold herself back from going to the windows to watch the chaos. She wasn't worried, not exactly, not when she knew the events as they would play out, but she was anxious. So many things could go wrong anyway.
It was almost frightening, how smoothly June 29th went.
Four hours of panic, chaos, and finally the mother-of-pearl sheen of the Crystal later, the Clan vanished, Serenity's knees buckled, and then she was moaning, deep in her throat, her face etched in pain.
And when Uranus called the next afternoon, after having been sent the news bulletin of the Princess Usagi Small Lady Serenity's "premature birth, likely caused from stress due to the attacks from a rogue terrorist organization calling themselves the Black Moon", Venus could only stand there and take the tirade.
She'd done her duty. Now it was their turn to do theirs.