Before You Blink

I was leaving. That was it, it was time for me to leave, once and for all. I turned to the door and my hand rested against the knob. "Usagi." His soft voice reached my ears, desperation lingered in the air and my hand clenched the knob unconsciously. I turned my head to look at him. "Please stay." He offered me a pleading gaze, something he had never done before.

"All right." I relented and turned fully as he came up and wrapped me into his arms, pulling me tightly against his chest, I laid my head upon it and he rested his on mine. "I'll stay." I echoed into his chest softly.

"Thank you." He moved and buried his head into my shoulder. "I'm sorry."

"You really don't have to be but I forgive you nonetheless." I tighten my arms, I almost lost him and it had been my choice, I never wanted to do that again. As I think about it out of the heat I realize what I could have lost, not just him, but my reason for living and my soul as well. Tears gather in my eyes and then he says something that brings us full circle to what had started my flight.

"Perhaps I can wait to ask you again, maybe you're not ready."

"I've never been more ready in my life." I groan, I shouldn't have said that but now that I have I had to finish it. "I've been dreaming of it since I first met you, before possibly, but it can't happen." I finished but my soul was weighed down by my guilt. I knew this is where our relationship was going and I knew that it couldn't happen but I allowed him to believe it and secretly I believed it myself.

"I'm going to keep asking you and finding ways to convince you to take the chance with me but I wont pressure you into it." He told me solemnly. "I won't stop until you say yes."

"I want to, I really do." I practically cried. "But it's not doable, I don't have the time to commit to it. I never know what's going to pop up or when."

"You think your the only one who has to deal with suddenly having to drop what they are doing and rush to some place else?" He asked me righteously, but with him it was different, he probably had to go to the office or the emergency room with a dying patient, I on the other hand had to turn into a superhero and fight against ferocious beings. He could ask for a day off, I could not.

"Our lives are too different." I said and it was the truth, only he didn't know how different, and it wasn't something I could tell him.

"Usako." He sighed and dragged me back to him. "All right, we'll leave this be for now, but I never want to hear you say that we are different because you know that underneath we are the same."

He crushed me to him and my hands fisting at his chest as I held onto his shirt for dear life. We stood there for a few minutes not saying anything both living in the relief that we had not lost each other and marveling at what almost transpired.

My watch beeped and I buried my head into his muscular chest. "I have to leave." I groaned.

"But not for good, I'll still see you again right?" He demanded making sure this wasn't just an excuse to run.

"I won't give you up for just anything and I'd never take the easy way out." She promised and looking up meaningfully into his eyes.

"I don't want to let you go, I fear that once your out the door something bad is going to happen." His hand reached up to push out a golden strand out of my eyes.

"I'll see you later tonight." I made plans to ensure that I'd have to meet them and that there wasn't a chance that it wouldn't come true. "But to keep those plans I have to leave now."

"All right." He reluctantly let me go and walked me out the door and as I made it down the hallway I felt his eyes follow me until I entered the elevator and the doors closed but before they did I turned to face him and his smiling face and the small wave he sent me didn't go unnoticed as the doors slid shut with my own answering smile cut short.

In the elevator I was alone so I answered the annoying beeping watch as it went off again. "What?" I hissed, anger at the moon princess, my guardian, the senshi and myself directed towards the weary senshi of Mercury.

"University." She told me before cutting the connection and I had no choice but to attend. I ran out of the elevator as soon as the numbers said that I had reached the bottom floor and the doors opened. I ran out of his apartment building and turned the corner into the alley I knew only too well. As soon as I entered the inlet I transformed never stopping as I continued to run and jumped over the wall that cut off the alley from being a through street. I scaled the walls and reached the roof. I thought how ironic it was that I had to wait for the elevator to descend only to go to the top of the building in half the time.

I skidded to a stop at the university and surveyed the scene, hoping to find the fight as soon as possible so I could leave just as fast. But I couldn't find them. Grumbling about poor directions I hit the watch on my hand and the face turned from the digital numbers to the face of Mercury. "Where are you?"

"The university, where are you?"

"Let me think, could it be the university?" I drawled sarcastically.

"Stop being sadistic and come help us, we're in the electronic building." Mercury chided me, her eyes narrowing as if something about my tone was bugging her; I wonder why that could be.

"All right, hold your horses, any information on what type of youma this is?" I wondered.

"There are thousands of tiny micro bugs that are attacking us." Mercury glanced up at something I couldn't see from the space of her watch and then she was talking to me even quicker. "I think they're supposed to be likened to computer viruses. Get here, now."

Again the watch screen fizzled out without a further word and I tsked at my friend's rude behavior. But by now I found the electronic building and slipped in the doors to see the damage myself.