Disclaimer: Nothing is mine, the honor goes to Naoki Takeuchi.
Author's Note: I want to cry anytime I read this, and I'm sorry if something similar happens to you.
Time Is But An Instant
I.
Time is a complicated thing, a worm that creeps up in unexpected places, that grabs you by the ankle and pushes you underneath the water to drown you with past memories. For you, time is a thousand years slumber, and the thought that, once upon a dream, you had loved a man with all your heart. You never thought you could love someone as much, but time proves you wrong and naïve, again.
II.
In another lifetime your lover died in your arms, and you felt yourself die inside. Now you just feel empty as you hug yourself, the last remnants of your daughter's body turning to little fireflies against your skin, as you feel cold inside. A world without Chibiusa isn't worth saving.
III.
Chibiusa calls you Mama, once. You remember her voice, her pretty eyes, her soft hands, as you hold your daughter from the future to your chest and you listen to the girl tell you about the new friend she's made, this girl Hotaru.
She's so pretty, Mama, she says, and you hold your breath until your lungs are burning. She's never called you that before, you've never felt this way, so complete, so alive. Pretty like Mama. The child doesn't even realise that your world is shaken and electric, and that you will never be the same again.
IV.
You stop being jealous of Chibiusa, and instead your feelings turn to Mamo-chan. When he takes her side over yours, you no longer wail. Your heart, however, breaks whenever she runs to him first —scraped knee, nightmares, bullies, little whims. You wonder what kind of a mother you are in the future that your own daughter never thinks to turn to you in her need.
V.
You try to ask her about the boy she likes, but Chibiusa clamps up like a scared hedgehog, and her jabs cut at your courage like little quills. You've never seen her look at you like this, and it hurts a bit, to watch her turn her back on you and walk away, her pink curls disappearing down the street towards the entrance of her school.
Minako shares at Rei's temple that Chibiusa has a secret, And I'm not telling, she adds, winking like the rascal she is.
Your stomach does backflips at her words, and in your mind you can see Chibiusa approaching Mina for advice, cute little pigtails chasing after each other in the wind. Regret tastes bitter in your mouth as you laugh it off —you should have been a better cousin back in the day before you fancied yourself her mother.
VI.
Sometimes she feels more Mamoru's than yours. Those days you can barely look him in the eye as he takes your hand, and you hate her for that.
(But if it came to it, you'd kill him a thousand times to save her precious life.)
VII.
Chibiusa is your daughter. You'll spend years mulling over these words, waiting for them to become real. You love your daughter even before she exists, and it tears you up inside.
VIII.
She spends the night tucked besides you, her warm cheek against your own. You'll forever remember her face as she says goodbye. It feels like losing her and Mamoru at the same time, him to his big dreams of studying in America, her to that future where you can't answer for your own acts.
You long for your little rabbit even as she's standing at your side, not fully gone, yet. You never truly believed that there is a future for the both of you waiting to be lived. You want her to stay; you feel the tears clog your throat as she clenches your hand. When she turns to you, you muster the last of your strength —you haven't been sleeping much these last days, curled as you are around her, savouring every second you have left together— and you smile your usual toothy grin, childlike and sweet. You'll hold it for as long as she stays in sight, it's the last memory you'll create together in a very long time.
Your love is a circle, you never know when she might be back, if you'll ever get to see her all grown up or younger, before she is born again. It's hard to tell where you stand in her timeline, it's hard to imagine where you really fit in her life.
IX.
You count the days until you can see her again, you scratch them against the wall like a prisoner of war. Motherhood is a battlefield, you've come to realise over the years, and your baby girl, your sanctuary, the peace you fight for.