We've been married for five years, Usagi thought suddenly. She froze in the act of scraping her (rather crudely cut, it had to be said) tofu into the sea weed and water broth. The bowls of the other ingredients (shallots, miso, soy sauce) sat on the counter by her elbow. Her first attempt at miso soup had been a disaster because nothing had been ready in time… this time, on Makoto's instruction, Usagi had chopped and sliced and measured everything before she even started boiling the water.
Her first attempt had been nearly four years ago.
Usagi felt a low, sad pang somewhere behind her sternum and took a shaky breath.
She had married Mamoru Chiba four years, nine months ago, after she had graduated High School and after he had actually gone to America to continue his education. The heart-shaped engagement ring had stayed on her finger all throughout High School, dissuading all but the most persistent boys from flirting with or hitting on her. The ones who still persevered had been quickly taken care of by Minako or Makoto. Through excessive, violent, terrifying good cheer from the former and to-the-point violence from the latter.
Usagi didn't know about this. Minako and Makoto had agreed among themselves that Usagi didn't need to know of their… persuasion techniques as long as they worked.
"Usa-ko," Mamoru spoke from the kitchen doorway, the smile less on his lips and more in his eyes, "how long are you going to boil the sea weed?"
Usagi startled, turned, and almost set the tofu tumbling to the floor. She steadied the cutting board and quickly swung back around, letting the chunks slide into the boiling water. The soup would be less sea weed-y than she had initially intended but she wasn't sure if that'd be good or bad.
Something in her stance, bearing or face must have concerned him. Mamoru frowned at the back of her golden head and softly said, "Usa-ko? What is it?"
Usagi was quiet for another moment, pouring the rest of the ingredients into the forming soup. The attention she gave to this simple task was, at first, a distraction and then a balm to her suddenly uneasy heart.
Mamoru waited, coming closer and leaning on the wall next to the stove to watch her. There was an exotic sadness in her eyes that he had never known in her. Suddenly, she looked a great deal less like Usagi –his Usa-ko—and much more like Neo Queen Serenity, the future she was hurtling towards with greater and greater rapidity.
"I've always dreamed of making you miso soup," Usagi said with a soft, brittle little laugh. Mamoru's concern turned to outright alarm at the sound of that small, jagged laugh. It slipped beneath his expectations and wedged, cold and hard, somewhere under his ribs.
"Usa-ko…"
"I tried…" a hitch in her breathing made him surge up from the wall, wanting to go to her but unable to. She started again, "I tried to make it once before. You weren't home so… so you didn't know. But… It burned and I threw it out and we went out to dinner instead."
She was staring into the pot of miso soup, the spoon unused in her hand and her eyes bright with unshed tears, "We've been married five years, Mamo-chan and I haven't made you miso soup until tonight."
Usagi pulled a long deep breath, closing her eyes and swallowing, "We've been too busy. First with putting things back together after Galaxia and then… and then there just… there was always something to fight. Something to plan. Someone to save."
She turned to him, saw his concern and tried to smile. It was a sad, brave little thing, trembling on her lips like the ripples of moonlight on water. That strange, alien sadness and more alien age in her eyes almost unmade Mamoru. He clenched his jaw, folding is hands into fists and waited.
"And… and there will be more. There's always going to be something. Someone. Somewhere… Until it's Crystal Tokyo and then… I don't think anyone will want me to cook then."
The image of Neo Queen Serenity (Usagi still couldn't reconcile the idea that she and that far off woman were the same person, she didn't know how she could ever become so calm and still and confident) in her shining silver gown and long, white hair trying to cook anything, even Miso soup made another unhappy little laugh burst from her.
"I don't think it would set the right tone," Usagi said, her voice edged with something that sounded dangerously like hysteria, "for the queen to make soup."
She took another hitching breath and tried to gain control over herself, told herself she was being silly (while doing this she employed first Luna's voice in her head and then Rei's). Distantly she thought the soup was done and took it from the heat, reaching for bowls.
"Usa-ko…"
"I'm sorry Mamo-chan," Usagi said, trying to inject some brightness into her voice, "I'm being dumb. Dumb ol' Usagi." With the hand not holding the two bowls, she bopped herself gently on the head, laughing again.
The sound grated and rattled against Mamoru. It wasn't right. It wasn't Usagi and it made him want to lash out at everything that put that broken, mournful smile on her face. Instead he stepped forward and simply pulled her against him. For one terrible moment, Usagi was rigid against him and then a low wail shuddered out of her. The bowls dropped from her hands and exploded against the linoleum. Neither of them paid any mind.
Usagi's arms came around and clutched at him with panicky tightness.
"Mamo-chan… Mamo-chan," thick with tears, her words were almost unintelligible, "When does it end? Haven't… haven't we done enough?"
Mamoru's arms tightened around the little body shaking against him; the harsh lines of loss and grief and utter bewilderment stood out in Usagi's voice and, in anyone else, they would have crystalized into disillusionment and anger and hatred.
In Usagi, however, it was a pure, almost child-like distress that broke Mamoru open. She had started fighting at fourteen. She had lost everything again and again and again and the only thing that kept her going was her own endless, boundless hope and faith; never tarnished, never undone… it was the brave little creature herself who kept her hope, faith and love from failing.
In spite of the hell of every fight she entered, every enemy she faced down or, God help them all, befriended, she always met each day with renewed delight, laughter and a shining purity of spirit that kept the Ginzuishou clasped to her breast filled with soft, gentle silver light.
But how long could she keep that light kindled? How long was it before the happiness was buried beneath the bright, benevolent chill of Neo Queen Serenity?
Mamoru heard his teeth creak as he clenched his jaw. It wouldn't happen. He wouldn't let it.
"Usa-ko… Usa-ko, look at me."
She turned enormous, swimming eyes to him. There was so much trust there, so much love and faith that Mamoru was humbled before it.
Looking up at him, reading the hard truth writ large across his eyes, Usagi's shoulders slumped a little, "It will never be enough, will it? It'll never be done."
In that moment Usagi felt the weight of the Eternal Moon Article in her pocket (even here, in her and Mamoru's apartment it was never far from her), golden and beautiful and made up of the faith and love her friends had for her. For a moment she thought it might drag her down, so heavy did it feel against her thigh.
"No," Mamoru said quietly, "You will always have to fight. But your friends will always fight with you. Ami and Rei and Makoto and Minako… they will always stand by your side. So will Haruka and Michiru and Setsuna and Hotaru. And me.
"We believe in Sailor Moon. And we believe in you, Usagi. Nothing will ever change that."
Usagi looked up at him for a long moment, and fraction by fraction the sadness faded from her. Not all of it; too much had happened and too much was still to happen for that sadness not to have taken small purchase but she was Usagi and her light would shine as bright and strong as it ever had as long as she had her friends.
She nodded once, straightening her shoulders and took a deep breath, "Well, as long as I don't have to do it alone."
Usagi stooped and gathered up the cracked and broken bowls, frowning down at them in disapproval. With a sigh she set them aside and fetched down more, filling each with a portion of miso soup.
Mamoru took them from her and, affecting deafness at her scolds that he should let her carry the bowls, she was his wife after all and… Mamo-chan? Mamo-chan? Mamo-chan!
But when he set both bowls down and settled her in front of one and kissing the swell of one cheek, she quieted, smiling at him and reaching up to link her fingers through his.
Usagi sat across from her husband, watching him with wide, nervous eyes as he sipped his share of miso soup. When he saw her watching him he smiled at her over the rim of his bowl, his eyes bright and affectionate.
"Try it, Usa-ko," he said, "It's the best I've ever had."
Epilogue
Neo Queen Serenity tilted her head delicately, her long silver-white hair sailing over her shoulders in the breath of fresh spring wind. On its silken back, she could feel that it had traveled across and through and over her city. It had picked up the sound of laughter and songs, of a happy argument between a newly married couple and scolding of a worried mother. The scent of flowers and mown grass and freshly turned earth and the very distant ocean teased against her lips and made her smile.
The peace would, perhaps, last long enough for a whole generation to live quietly and without fear.
It would never last forever but she was confident in her senshi.
The sound of footsteps on marble made her turn. The light silk of her gown slid against her skin and she smiled at the secret sensation.
King Endymion stood there smiling at her in that soft, deep way he had; when it rested more in his eyes than on his lips. Serenity smiled in return, unable to stop the faint blush from creeping across her face.
You'd think; phenomenal cosmic power and just as little chance to stop a blush as the next school girl.
In Endymion's hands was a small gold and silver chest. Serenity's soft smile brightened into a gleeful, childlike grin and she hurried over, the train of her gown rippling over the marble behind her.
When she stood before him, Endymion proffered the chest and she grinned up at him, bouncing a little on the balls of her feet.
"Go ahead," he said, soft laughter in his voice, "Open it."
Serenity lifted the lid of the chest, marveling at the lighting chasing itself over the inset pearls and gilded edges.
Within, nestled in a bed of dark purple satin, were two small bowls. They had been clearly –and rather badly- broken and then repaired again using the ancient method of kintsugi. The cracks had been filled with bright lacquer made precious from the flakes of metal that had been mixed in and the cracks showed bright as lightning against the dark, humble ceramic of the antique bowls.
The bowl on the right was shot through with irregular streaks of gold, bright as sunlight and warm as a kiss. The bowl on the left, however, had been repaired with silver instead and it looked like magic made solid.
Serenity released a soft, shaky breath as she stared down at the bowls… lost and so old as to be very nearly mythic and so, so familiar.
She lifted dazed, tear-bright eyes to Endymion and smiled slow and bright.
To Endymion it was the loveliest smile he had seen her wear in a hundred years.