A/N: A little one-shot about Michiru's reaction to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and also an excuse to write a little Haruka/Michiru fluff. The spill makes me very sad; I really think we've ruined one of our oceans.
Haruka slumped in the chair she had placed next to the bed as her night vigil slowly crawled on. She was not much of a night owl and preferred to be up and active during the full glorious blast of daytime, but worry would not permit rest that night. Michiru was sick.
It had started two weeks ago, with the oil spill in an ocean that was a world away. Michiru had caught a glimpse of the billowing plume of crude oil during the evening news, which Haruka was half-watching as she flipped through one of her auto magazines.
"An oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico," she had remarked gently, sinking onto the couch next to Haruka.
"It looks pretty bad," Haruka remarked. "I think the whole Gulf might be ruined."
"How terrible," Michiru murmured. Haruka noticed that she was a little pale, but chalked it up to an exhausting orchestra rehearsal.
Michiru's pallor was not gone the next day, or the following. As the week progressed, she appeared a little more weak, a little more tired, a little more listless.
"You should take some time off," Haruka said to her over breakfast. "I think you're working too hard."
"Hmm?" Michiru turned her eyes - dull and lidded – up from her eggs to meet Haruka's concerned stare.
"You look tired," Haruka repeated irritably. "I think you should take a break from work." What was especially annoying was Michiru's tired little laugh as she stirred the food around her plate.
"Work is not making me too tired," she said, dropping the fork and standing. "Speaking of which, I have to go. Could you buy a newspaper for me today? I want to see if that oil problem has been solved yet."
The mystery illness continued, until one morning when Michiru could hardly lift herself out of bed. Haruka did not know which was more alarming; the sick gray color of Michiru's face or how compliant she was when Haruka 'suggested' she take a sick day.
Haruka sighed as she contemplated Michiru's unmoving form. Three eleven in the morning. She wasn't quite sure if Michiru's connection to water was merely psychological or more magical. Did Michiru, so agonized over the destruction of a precious ocean, bring this illness on herself? Or was her magic, so intimately tied to water, as polluted as the Gulf of Mexico? Haruka imagined that it didn't much matter; all that did matter was that Michiru was sick, and there did not seem any feasible way to cure her short of removing however many thousands of gallons of oil were in the Gulf.
A thousand deaths at the blade of the Space Sword was not punishment enough for those responsible, Haruka thought darkly.
Her musings were interrupted by Michiru suddenly lurching out of the bed and toward the bathroom, one hand clamped over her mouth and the other arm curled around her stomach.
"Michiru!" yelled Haruka, rushing after her. The soldier of the seas dropped to her knees in front of the toilet and retched into the bowl, her blue hair spilling forward to hide her face.
"Michiru," Haruka said again, and then reached forward to pull soft blue waves out of her lover's face. Michiru's face remained that terrible gray, and was coated with a fine layer of sweat. Haruka noticed that Michiru's delicate hands were shaking as she reached up to press her fingers to her temples.
"I'm sorry," Michiru whispered.
"Don't be," Haruka replied firmly. "It's not your fault." Michiru sighed, and sat back from the toilet, her nightdress clinging to the sweat on her back and arms. Haruka blanched when she saw the contents of Michiru's stomach; a black, gooey slick floated on the surface of the water. She reached over and quickly flushed, so that neither of them would have to see the horrible pollution that came out of Michiru's poor body.
"I want to go there."
Haruka knew exactly where Michiru meant.
"I doubt that would help anything. It could make you worse," Haruka argued, running a washcloth under cold water from the sink. Michiru moaned softly as Haruka gently pressed the cloth to her burning cheeks. She stretched her legs out against the cool bathroom tile, sighing as her nightgown rode up, exposing her legs.
"It may be the only thing that can help me."
Two days and a small fortune in plane tickets later, Haruka and Michiru were standing in a steamy Louisiana marsh in early twilight.
"This is awful," grumbled Haruka, pulling her shirt sleeves off of her sticky skin, only to have the damp material settle back against her. She smacked her neck as a mosquito buzzed obnoxiously by her ear and summoned a quick breeze to blow away any other pesky insects around her person. "How do people live in this?"
Michiru said nothing, but knelt down next to a pool of water, on which floated a shiny slick of oil. It was deeply annoying, Haruka thought, that the only sign that Michiru displayed of being affected by the heat was the slightly frizziness in her normally obedient hair. Michiru dipped two fingers into the water and flinched, but soon her expression smoothed into one more that was more serene. The slick on her pool, as well as in the surrounding water, slowly dissipated.
She remained there, motionless, her hand stuck in the water of the marsh, her face utterly peaceful. A white egret – Haruka did not see where it came from – slowly approached Michiru's pool of water. The soldier of the seas opened her eyes, and silently watched as the slender white bird cautiously approached, timidly setting one foot, and then the other into the water.
Michiru finally stood and turned to Haruka, her eyes filled with a lovely and elegant sorrow, a healthy flush back in her cheeks.
"We can go now."
"…is that it?" Haruka asked, nonplussed. She had imagined that Michiru might create some great tidal wave to sweep away the oil from the delicate marshland, and then suck it down with a colossal whirlpool of her making. Something grander, anyway, than sticking her hand into stinky marsh water.
"It was a little thing," Michiru admitted, picking her way back over to Haruka, and taking the blonde soldier's hand. "Very little. But I feel much better now, knowing that I was able to do something."
She looked over her shoulder at the egret, now fishing in the water. Haruka imagined that she saw the shine in the flip of a fish's tail as it evaded the hunting bird.
"Let's go home." Michiru grinned up at Haruka, looking like her usual self for the first time in weeks. "This heat is abominable, isn't it?"
"The humidity is worse," muttered Haruka. She led the way back to the boarded path they had followed from the park's entrance into the heart of the marshland.
"Oh, I think that's the best part," Michiru argued, tipping her head back and inhaling deeply. "Do you feel how much water is in the heavens here?" Haruka smiled at her blue-haired lover.
"It's hard to tell where one begins and the other ends," she said. Michiru squeezed Haruka's hand in agreement.
"Exactly."