Part II | Rei Hino | 5216 words
Post-manga story. There will be spoilers to some degree. Unbeta-ed.
Theme song: FFVII Crosis Core - The Price of Freedom.
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heartbeat
In Greek, nostalgia literally means 'the pain of an old wound.'
It's a twinge in your heart, far more powerful than memory alone.
(This is what her heart tells her.)
. .
1.
It's like an eruption of chaos, she thinks as she stares at her watch on the table.
"WHAT?"
"Did you just say Jadeite?" Ami's sharp voice rings from the communicator.
"Yes – "
"Jadeite..." is what Minako murmurs, but her voice is a mix of half-surprise and half...something else; though she doesn't think the rest detected it the way she did.
"He should be dead!"
"Yes, that's what I thought too, but he's sitting here in my cafe right now!"
"But that – how could that even – ! We – "
"Rei," Minako's voice cut in suddenly, clear and sharp enough that any and all protests from Ami died on her tongue. "Rei. Respond."
Silence.
"Rei."
Still, no response.
And Minako stops waiting. "Ami, I want you to go over to the shrine now. And keep tabs on Usagi's and Mamoru's locations."
"On it," is the hurried and worried response, and she hears the sound of books and papers shuffling –
"Makoto – I'm coming over. Keep the line open." There's a moment when her leader briefly considers the situation. "I'm assuming he's not being hostile."
"...No, he's not," the tallest senshi says eventually. "He's..." There's uncertainty in her voice. "He's not...he – he doesn't look corrupted anymore, Minako. And he recognizes me."
More silence.
"You are giving him a chance." Maybe it's the way Minako says it, so simply and matter-of-fact, but it takes Rei a moment to realize that it's less of a question and more of a statement that her leader is directing at Makoto.
The shuffling of books from one end of the communicator stops.
Rei thinks that Ami has frozen in her tracks as the blue-haired genius stares at her watch.
"Yes," is the eventual, quiet response that cuts through the thick silence. "I am giving him a chance."
She feels her mind go blank.
Ami is completely silent, and it's Minako who lets out a slow, long breath that can be heard through the communicator. Makoto speaks no further, and it's a deathlike quietude that blankets all of them.
And for reasons that completely escapes her, the oddest sensation of something curling tight in her chest makes it hard to breathe.
It's unbearable, this silence.
Her fingers curls into a fist, and she forces her mouth to work. "Ami should go to the cafe too."
An even longer silence.
She has never felt a silence that spoke the volumes and questions this one did.
"Scan him," she says, her words strangely calm and clear even to herself. "See if he's still...corrupted."
She can almost see Ami hesitate. "I can do that," her blue-haired friend says finally, though the worry in her voice is so very clear, "but, Rei – "
"I'm fine," she cuts in. "Go. This is important."
Ami doesn't refute that, but Rei can sense the indecision radiating from the watch.
It's her leader who breaks the silence this time.
"Come to the cafe, Ami," Minako's tone is clear with an order.
"...Yes."
"And Rei – "
"I'm going to do some fire reading." Her words are coming out sharper than she intended, she knows.
Silence.
She wonders if Minako is going to say something she doesn't want to hear.
She hopes that her leader and best friend won't, because she's getting the strongest feeling that Minako knows exactly what is going on in her head and heart, and she doesn't want the blonde anywhere near them right now.
"Okay," her friend agrees. "See what the fire has to say about him. And keep the line open. If you want. We will update you on this either way."
Her eyes close involuntarily, and she releases a breath she didn't realize she was holding.
"Okay," she says, not sure and not wanting to know if there's a crack in her calm tone. "Be careful, all of you."
She settles back in her chair, and even as she continues to listen to the conversation between her fellow comrades that grows more rapid, she says no more.
And when she hears Jadeite's voice through the communicator, a smooth timbre yet seemingly so weary and old beyond his years –
Her hand slams down on the communicator to shut it off.
. .
2.
The fire tells her nothing.
It flickers and crackles as the wood blocks beneath it grow a bright orange, but it remains staunchly silent.
A sigh reaches her ears, and it's not from herself.
She refuses to look.
"Rei," the intruder says, "Can we talk?"
She doesn't speak.
Then a hand presses against her shoulder gently, but it's like a sharp jerk to her and she whips around to glare at the unflinching summer blue eyes belonging to her leader and best friend.
"You knew," her voice is like ice, and a part of her wants to take back what she's saying right now, but she can't. "You knew."
There's something like weary humor and resignation in those blue eyes that only someone too old would have, and the play of fire creating dark and light patterns soaks into Minako's features, coloring her skin a dim orange hue.
"I suspected," Minako corrects gently; there's no traces of hurt in her gaze despite Rei's harsh words – but she knows better. She knows better.
She takes in a deep breath, then realizes that her friend didn't actually refute her accusation.
Her brows dip downward. "Since when?"
The blonde settles back on the floor, beside her,but while Rei's facing the fire, Minako's the opposite.
"Since we were revived." A momentary pause, and Minako rests her chin on raised knees. "Or should I say resurrected?" Something like a puzzled frown grows in that voice. "...Reborn?"
Then the blonde huffs. "Hell if I know which is it since Galaxia threw all of us into that – whatever pool it is before Usagi brought us back, and with our memories along for the ride."
She's saying it in a tone that Rei has long since recognized is meant to be deceivingly light and humored.
And quite that suddenly, the soldier of fire gets the feeling that Jadeite is just a small part of everything that her leader's been suspecting. Or thinking of.
"Ami mentioned it, didn't she?" Minako asks, not quite to her, but to the quiet room in general. "That the cause had been the pool itself and something about whatever things in us getting unsealed at the same time, since we've all been literally melted, blah blah blah and stars getting reborn – "
Her friend stops abruptly.
Rei's frown deepens.
"Minako – "
"And then I started to wonder," Minako interrupts. "Did Galaxia get her hands on Mamoru's guardians, too?"
The fire crackles warmly, but she feels ice in her veins that stops her cold.
"Mamoru was the first among us who got taken," her friend points out casually.
Taken.
Rei stares at Minako, whose face is hidden by long, flowing golden locks of hair that are tinted orange by the fire. There is a still, heavy air around her that speaks volumes about the dark memories that have been dug open and replayed one by one.
(she still remembers the day when she feels her crystal being ripped out of her as she disintegrates into nothing – )
Her eyes close as she tries to do away with the memory that haunts her at the back of her mind.
"So is it not so strange," Minako continues quietly, tone unreadable, "to think that his guardians had been there, too, in the pool?"
It's really all Rei can do when she doesn't speak.
His guardians, in the pool, with them?
Then, the blonde tilts sideways – literally – and rests her head on Rei's arm, just a little below the shoulder, and she automatically shifts to accommodate the new weight, a palm now pressing on the floor as she moves them both to a position less awkward and less likely to make them fall into the fire.
Somehow, it ends with the top of Minako's head resting on her collarbone, with her free arm being taken captive by her leader as hands curl around it. It's still a little awkward, this position, but it's also familiar and strangely comforting.
And Minako has all but leaned further into her and trusts her to keep them sitting.
The priestess contemplates trying to take her hand back. But while the grip Minako has on her arm isn't tight, her multiple experiences with Minako tells her that it takes far less energy to just let the blonde do what she wants rather than trying to remove her arm, verbally or physically.
So Rei lets it be, but not without a small huff; and there is a heartbeat of comfortable silence between the two of them.
Then Minako's soft voice rings in the stillness.
"If," she says, "and I'm saying if, they are back for good and to protect Mamoru, I don't have anything against them being here, because we all know how much an idiot the prince can be at times."
It almost makes Rei smile, those words, but it's a question leaves her mouth before she can stop it.
"You don't have anything against them being here?"
Silence.
"I do," her leader admits eventually, a hint of something rueful in her tone.
"But?"
"Usagi doesn't."
It's so simple, the way she says it, like it's all the reason they need to accept them back.
Rei can't really argue with that.
Then, the warm hands holding her arm captive curls around it tighter.
And when her friend takes a long, slow breath – suppressing a shudder and trying to ease some of the tension that had built up without Rei noticing – she finds herself frowning.
"Minako?"
A beat of silence.
"I do mean it, you know," her friend says then, "that if they are here to protect and guide the prince, I could – at least try."
For Usagi, are the unsaid words hanging in the air.
"But?" she asks softly.
The fire in front of her crackles, warm and bright in the darkness of the room.
"I just don't know if the pool has melted away Beryl's claws on them."
The sensation that goes down her spine at those words –
It's like ice.
. .
3.
Cherry blossoms fall all around her.
She breathes in the clean scent of air that marks the end of spring and the beginning of autumn, and it makes her close her eyes.
A crow lands on her shoulder.
Rei glances at it.
"Phobos," she whispers, recognizing it immediately, and smiles faintly.
The crow preens, and she brushes against its beak gently.
Deimos flutters close too, demanding attention, and she lifts an arm for it to land on.
Usagi – who had dragged her out of the fire reading room in the name of getting fresh air – hasn't said anything, but she's looking curiously at the birds, and even goes as far as to reach out to Phobos with a finger, seemingly not afraid at all.
She's rewarded with a slight, affectionate peck from the one sitting on her shoulder.
The smile on Usagi's face grows.
"It has been a while," her princess says softly, "hasn't it, Phobos? Deimos?"
The two birds caw in agreement.
Rei smiles too, a genuine one that she hasn't felt forming in a while.
"You used to play with them all the time on the moon," Rei murmurs, remembering. Her twin guardians didn't usually like anyone aside from herself, but Serenity – and the senshi, to a lesser degree – had always been an exception.
Usagi grins. "We had a lot of fun too."
"Yes," Rei deigns it necessary to say in a very, very dry tone, "with pranks."
The blonde sticks out a tongue at her childishly. "You were just no fun back then, Rei."
Rei's amusement grows as she stares pointedly at the tongue. "Are you sure you are twenty-one and going to be married soon, Usagi?"
Predictably, the bride-to-be scowls.
The soldier of fire snorts.
In the meanwhile, Deimos caws again, flaps her wings, and flies; bored and probably intent on finding a mouse somewhere. Phobos follows suit, and Rei watches them fly in the sky for a moment, until the trees hide them from view.
"They used to play pranks on Jadeite too, didn't they?" Usagi asks softly, still, like her, watching the place where the crows had disappeared.
She stiffens, but her response is neutrally calm. "Oh?"
A cherry blossom falls from a nearby tree and brushes against the back of her tense palm.
"Feigning," her princess says then, gentle and uncharacteristically quiet, "is unbecoming of you, Rei."
She has to force herself to stop from flinching at those words. Those words, she knows, are less of Usagi and more of the queen who will be the leader of Crystal Tokyo, wise and altruistic beyond her years.
The blonde reaches out to her then, grasping her hand, and she's suddenly looking into bright blue eyes that are both compassionate and seemingly reading right into her soul.
"Do you still love him, Rei?"
She stares at the other, half in disbelief that Usagi would so bluntly ask the question where others had trod so carefully around save for Minako, and half astounded because she hadn't expected it from her.
It would have been so much easier to brush aside the question, had it been anyone else.
But this isn't just anyone, is it now?
A sharp gust of wind, and the cries of crows in distance, drowns out her answer.
. .
4.
Mamoru asks to talk to her.
For all intents and purposes, Rei can't say that she's very surprised. She has a few suspicions on why he wants to talk to her, but she also trusts Usagi enough to believe that she had not divulged anything about the conversation they had, so that can't be one of them.
And while she doesn't hate the prince, and knows he is a good man – albeit an idiot in a male way, sometimes – that does not necessarily mean she likes him any more than as a distant friend.
There are also dredges of loyalty that she does feel for him, and his life is one that she will prioritize over her own without question – but that is all there is to it.
Mamoru sips at his coffee.
Rei watches the few pigeons nearby peck at the ground where seeds had been thrown by a stranger and where cherry blossoms are scattered, and feels the cold breeze that's comforting against the afternoon sun.
"I think," he says finally, breaking the silence since drinks were ordered, "that you know why I want to talk to you."
She purses her lips, but doesn't reply. Let Mamoru take her response as he will.
The prince doesn't seem affected, and it's another pause before he speaks again.
"I felt them. When we – after the events with Galaxia," there's a hint of something dark in his voice at the mention of that name, but there is also more wonder, and something that felt wistful, "I started...sensing their presence."
Rei doesn't deign it necessary to speak yet, but she's watching him carefully, now.
"I didn't realize what that feeling was then," he says quietly, staring into his cup of coffee, "But now...now I do. All it took was for me to see Jadeite."
And they are all coming back to me now, my brothers and friends, he doesn't tell her, but she hears it anyway, and she also sees the yearning in his eyes –
He takes in a deep breath, looks up into the sky, then closes his eyes as if he's listening to something.
"Elysion is waiting for them to return, too," he whispers, the soft tone of his voice a mismatch of wonder and longing and sadness.
Rei's not familiar with Elysion, even though she's heard of it and knows it's a sacred place for Mamoru, and for this planet they live on now. She also knows that Usagi has been there, before, and can only imagine what sort of place it is.
But if it is anything like what she feels for Mars, she thinks she can understand why the prince is reacting this way. It's like how she feels the pull and tugging on her heart, the distant singing of her planet that reaches out to her soul; a place where it is warm and scorching hot in the day, then ice and cold till your breath mists over in the night –
"I have forgiven them," he tells her, eyes of royal blue now fixed on her, "and I know that I can't ask you to do the same."
She doesn't visibly react.
"But," he goes on to say, voice quiet, and with a gaze that reminds her of Usagi's, "if it helps you any – any at all – " to decide, he doesn't say, but Rei hears it anyway – "Elysion would not be waiting for them if their bond had been ripped the way it was a thousand years ago."
When Beryl had her claws on them, Minako's voice whispers in her mind.
"He has pledged to me, again," the prince murmurs to her, soft and laden with emotions, "But I know...I know he can't pledge his heart again. His heart belongs to another."
Silence fills the air, and there is something momentous and unsaid in his gaze.
The pigeons, previously scattered on the ground as they pecked for seeds, are the ones that break the silence when they fly off into the sky, the cries and the flapping of wings reaching her ears.
There is another beat of silence before she speaks for the first time.
And it almost feels inane, the way she phrases her soft question that carries in the still air –
"Is that so?"
The prince – her prince – looks her in the eye, and something like compassion and sadness and understanding swirls in the depths of his gaze, and it makes her heart ache.
"Yes," he answers simply. "It is."
( – and just when was it that the distinctive line between thinking of him as the prince and her prince had blurred that she hadn't noticed – )
She closes her eyes, breathes in the scent of the afternoon chill, and feels a ghost-like wind that feels more like memories brushing against her skin.
. .
5.
Days later, Usagi says to her, very simply, that she is bringing him over to the shrine.
Rei thinks it's less of a warning and more of a fact that Usagi's trying to tell her , that this...this meeting, this reunion, is something that will eventually happen, regardless of whether she wants it or not.
And she doesn't know if she's ready for this.
She remembers Minako placing a hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently, with a quiet, somber gaze that spoke of too much and too little all at once, carrying neither enmity nor good will, only things that had been and will be.
Then there is Mamoru – Mamoru, who eyed her with apprehensive hope, a mismatch of understanding and frustration, sadness and joy, and everything out and in between.
And she remembers the look Usagi gave her. It hadn't been happy, but it wasn't exactly sad either. But there was trust, faith and strength and – whenever was it that her princess who used to cry so much became so strong?
(then Galaxia and Cosmos flash past her mind and it's like ice in her veins and encroaching darkness – )
Her eyes close at the memories.
Soft wind blows, carrying the scent of the cherryblossoms , and the sound of rustling tree leaves reaches her ears.
Nearby, her twin guardians watch quietly as a young man in his twenties begins his trek up a long set of stairs, his shoulders heavy with invisible burdens and his blue eyes speaking of something too old and worn with desperate struggles to stay afloat.
And she knows he is approaching.
She can feel it in her soul.
. .
6.
She sees him.
And despite herself, despite the fact that she told herself she wasn't expecting anything, she is surprised at what she sees.
The man she remembers – the guardian that she knows with her heart – is a person who is confident and proud. Someone whose gaze pierces too easily, reads too easily, and understands too quickly. Someone who is wholly strong in his own right, physically and emotionally; a respected leader of his kingdom in the east of this planet, once upon a time.
He is not any of them anymore.
And he's watching her, apprehensively.
Perhaps it's the muted grief in his eyes that makes her walk towards him. Or maybe it's the way his broad shoulders seem to have hunched slightly when they would (should) be squared, though she doesn't think anyone else would notice.
She doesn't really know, and doesn't really care, save for the vague sensation of some kind of invisible chain coiling tight around her heart.
Then there's a second, when she finally comes to a stop, that she wonders for the second time in her two lifetimes – just how, exactly, did Beryl get her hands on this man who was one of the most fiercely loyal people she knew?
There had been nothing save for darkness that night when Silver Millennium had been at the brink of destruction, when they traded blows far too hard and vicious to be considered friendly sparring anymore, when he watched her with a gaze that held no recognition and was nothing but ice –
It was the moment when she knew he was lost to his kingdom, to his prince, and to her.
It was when she had stopped hesitating.
It was when she had moved, fast because she knew she had the advantage of speed while his was physical power, swift enough that she knew he wouldn't be able to avoid it, and when she pooled magic into her palm –
The invisible chain coils more tightly around her heart.
She remembers it like it happened not an hour before; the way her palm had pressed against his chest as she released her power, even as she still searched for a familiar heartbeat she couldn't feel, the warmth she couldn't sense, and as fire flared to life –
However is it that Beryl managed corrupt him to the degree he no longer recognized any of them, least of all the prince?
Then it occurs to her, and it almost makes her breath catch with its implications.
The crystals.
Their hearts.
If Galaxia could take their crystals and manipulate it the way she had, then – then –
There was a brief conversation she had with Ami once, a long time ago, when they had just found their powers, and when they had no idea who the princess of the moon was. Her friend, with furrowed brows and a pensive look, had told her that their enemies were not living beings. They didn't breathe, and they had no heartbeat.
Rei had wondered if Ami told her this for her own benefit. While they hadn't thought much about it, when no memories burdened their mind, they had been young.
Young and afraid and mere children that had been forced out into the wild and the dangerous with half-baked instructions by a guardian cat who didn't even have all her memories.
It would not have surprised her if Ami told her this to ease her mind.
And while she knows better, now, that Ami didn't tell her that just for her benefit, that Ami was being honest when she said he had no heartbeat – that doesn't mean the thought didn't linger.
Had she not been the first among the Senshi to kill an enemy – Jadeite – that looked too human?
She killed him.
Twice.
She can almost feel her teeth beginning to grind against each other at the memory, and tore her thoughts away from that.
Jadeite had no heartbeat – with his crystal corrupted the way hers had been by Galaxia, perhaps – when she first met him in this lifetime.
And does he now?
She presses a hand against his chest, feels him suck in a breath, but ignores his surprise in favor of the warmth she can feel.
It's there.
Oh Selene, it's there.
She looks up, and into his blue eyes, a shade darker than Minako's.
His gaze is solemn, quiet, and expectant.
The feel of his heartbeat and an innate strength she recognizes as Jadeite's makes her want to slump in relief, because while Rei doesn't know what she would've done if he didn't have one, Mars knows that it would have been the moment she pooled magic into her palm again, regardless of all the sadness and anger it will bring her prince and princess, even when she knows that she will be killing him for a third time –
"The first time you met me in this lifetime, near this shrine," she says to him suddenly, "Do you remember it?"
Something like surprise flickers in his gaze, but he responds.
His answer is just as quiet as his gaze, and it reverberates through his chest. "Yes."
His tenor is a mishmash of something rough and broken, sad but so, so familiar and it makes something in her ache.
"I killed you." She doesn't know if her voice has cracks in it. "I didn't remember you back then, but I killed you."
(and if I need to kill you a third time, fourth time, fifth time, I'll still do it. Because if you are a danger to my princess, no gods or demons will save you from my hands, I swear, even if I have to destroy myself in the process, Jadeite – )
She barely stops herself from shuddering out a breath, and it takes her a moment to realize that he's watching her like he's waiting for her to condemn him.
"I deserve it," he says to her quietly. It makes her wonder if he knows what thoughts just ran through her mind, if he means that he's submitting to her judgment, if he's willing to die by her hands again –
It makes her want to hit him.
As it is, her palm on his chest had curled into his shirt, just a little.
But she can still feel the heartbeat, and just a little bit, it cools her temper.
She breathes in, slow and deep, and keeps her palm pressed to the rhythmic beating of his chest.
She doesn't know why it has a strange, calming effect on her.
"You had no heartbeat, back then," she tells him, as if making casual conversation.
He seems to startle at that.
Then his brows furrows, and the expression on his face grows pensive.
"I... " A pause. Then, "No," his voice drops to a whisper. "I don't think I did."
She watches him close his eyes, as if trying to do away with memories that threaten to drown him, with a hard, set jaw and shoulders that tremble faintly –
It makes her want to reach out to him, and she does, running a thumb against the lines of his jaw in a way that she had done once upon a time, before brushing against the roughness of his face –
When he barely leans into her touch, it's as if he's trying not to. And this is also the moment when she gets the strongest feeling that whatever she says next will make or break him.
And this is why she speaks, despite all the doubts and memories that lurk at the back of her mind, despite all that threatens to overwhelm her; because Beryl is no more, her claws along with the witch – and all that remains is a man broken by his own guilt and darkness.
"But you have one now," she tells him in the surest voice she can manage. "A heartbeat."
He looks at her in disbelief, and it almost makes her give him a wry smile.
"You disagree?" she asks him, and wonders if the sadness and brief humor she feels has bled into her words.
He can't seem to decide if he does or not.
"Do I?" he questions instead, voice a whisper, hoarse and strangled. "Do I really have one?"
He almost sounds as if he's a lost child looking and longing for the warmth of sunlight.
And perhaps, she can't help but think, perhaps, he really is one.
"Yes," she says instead, her voice as certain as it was a moment ago.
The expression on his face then – it makes her feel as if her heart has been grasped tightly in an ethereal fist, and it makes her reach out to him once more; bringing him down and touching her forehead to his, in a way that her mother did for her when she still lived, and in a way that had comforted her too many times to count when her father made her upset.
"Forgive yourself, Jadeite," she whispers, words coming out of their own accord before she even realized what she'd just said to him.
But maybe she's telling him what he needed to hear, because he lets out a shuddering breath, and then he's holding her to him tightly; it's familiar and comforting in indescribable ways that feel like a ghost of what they had been and could have become.
And when he tells her he loves her, with a voice that is raw and afraid and trembling with emotions, her heart aches for him and for a broken love that she knows is far from being mended.
The words she would have said about them and the future are swallowed when he presses his lips to hers.
Then there is a moment – the barest of a second – when she feels her breath catch and something like frost settling on her shoulders, feels the involuntary tensing of her own muscles as she unconsciously curls the hand she has on his chest into a tight fist; some instinct deep in her warning her that this isn't – this can't – this thing between them – she can't let this happen again.
But it's only for a moment.
He tastes like faded memories, bittersweet and something too archaic and fragile to name, indistinct but familiar and comforting yet strange; it makes her flatten her palm against his shirt once more.
The heartbeat she can feel reverberating through his chest seems too much like a soothing balm on an open wound that has festered for far too long, and a part of her that thinks it shouldn't be that way.
It really shouldn't.
And she doesn't know what will become of them now that it has come to this.
But maybe, maybe, it's a start. It's a start of some sort, and while there is nothing she is sure about this the way she had been a lifetime ago, she knows that the hatred and darkness that once lingered in this man is no longer.
Beryl is no more, Metallia is no more, and there is Crystal Tokyo in the near future to dread and look forward to.
It's...a start.
.
.
.
A/N: ...Due to unforeseen inspiration, this is no longer a one-shot. Woo?
This one was written prior to the Shitennou Ficathon 2012 and...yes. It's been probably a little less than a year since I first wrote this. It had slipped my mind since then due to other matters taking precedence, but...well. Finally got around to fixing errors and such, so hopefully it's good enough for public consumption.
Minako's coming up next. Do stay tuned.
