AN: TweekinTinkaToy said the last oneshot was a bit more of a cliffhanger than they had bargained for. Thus, I felt obliged to speed up this one-shot's publication date. Afterall - I love Reinako. And I needed to see them get together too. This focuses on Mina, I'll do more Rei centric things in the future of course, but Mina was the one with the most to work through in terms of getting together.

This includes some details from Third First Breaths, but it is completely understandable without having read that, provided you've read/watched Sailor Moon through to the end of Stars of course...

Disclaimer: This is not published canon. I mean WE ALL KNOW Reinako is DEFINITELY canon. But this particular work is only an imitation. Because Alas, I am but a wee fan with too much time on her hands and too much work to procrastinate on...

Duty Bound

She had slipped out when the cleaning up had started: Makoto insisting on doing all the dishes, and Rei and Mrs. Tsukino fighting with her over the chore; Usagi and Chibiusa scrambling for the last few scraps left in the serving dishes; Ami, Ms. Mizuno, Mamoru, and Mr. Tsukino laughing all the while; and Shingo, amid all of it, trying his best to talk to Hotaru without blushing and tripping over his words – Setsuna, Mr. Tomoe, Haruka, and Michiru looking on with a range of expressions from wary to amused while they all talked quietly in the corner.

Haruka had caught her eye as she slipped out and nodded at her. She wasn't going to bring it up…or tell Artemis on her. She supposed the Senshi of the wind knew better than most the need to escape every once in a while.

The air was bitter cold, it seemed to freeze in her lungs as she breathed it in, but she walked out into the lightly falling snow anyways – hands stuffed into her pockets to ward off the chill.

Her parents weren't here…her first night back, alive, after the fiasco with Galaxia and the Galaxy Cauldron…and her parents and sister weren't here at the celebration.

I mean it wasn't like I invited them, Mina thought, and not like I want my mother here anyways given how she took things…this morning.

That was really the crux of it, Mina sighed, staring for a long while up at the full moon. Of course it's a full moon, how freaking auspicious. Her parents weren't here because…well…they hadn't taken things as well as the others.

Ikuko Tsukino had made Usagi and Chibiusa pancakes this morning – and that even after learning Chibiusa was her freaking granddaughter. And Shingo had thought it was all so "cool." Mr. Tsukino had asked question after question after question – never once flinching at the less than amusing details of having a daughter amongst the ranks of the Senshi.

And Mr. Tomoe – who, granted, still seemed to be processing the information – was surprisingly mellow about his daughter being the senshi of death. It was only her adoption of the Outer Senshi as parental figures that he seemed to have a problem with.

Ami and Rei hadn't even had to tell their families for goodness sake. Ms. Mizuno and Mr. Hino had already freaking guessed the reason the girls had disappeared for four months.

Makoto doesn't even have to tell anyone since her family's dead, but Mina smacked a hand over her face at the thought. She'd more than happily have her parents back regardless of whether they took it well – freak sake, Aino, get a hold of yourself. She breathed in a deep breath of the chilly December air and closed her eyes, tilting her head up and letting snowflakes fall across her eyelids.

She had five texts from her mother on her phone:

-Come home & explain. How long have you been keeping this from me?-

-I told your father – he is concerned. -

-This stops now, right Mina? You're done? Not a word of this to your sister okay?-

-Is this what's been holding back your career, sweetie? -

-I've thought about this all day, Minako. It's okay. We don't have to talk about it. Let's just move on. Back to normal. I've got a new round of auditions for you on Monday. :) -

Two years ago I would have jumped on this chance, she laughs. Traded in the transformation wand for a microphone in a second – I did, as a matter of fact…I mean I'd forgotten I was a Sailor, but still…I was more than happy to go along with how it used to be.

Has being a Sailor really changed me so much?

She'd been acting since she was old enough to walk and dance across a pageant stage. And sure her mother and father could be quite demanding about her career, but she'd never had a problem with it before.

Maybe it doesn't help that she boxed up all my stuff and tried to have Kara replace me as the actress in the family…she reasoned with herself. But I don't see why I'm so hung up about auditions.

She couldn't remember much of death…only that the realm within the Galaxy Cauldron had been warm, and bright, and peaceful…and though she had been trapped there, and incorporeal right up until the end, she had not been afraid. She had not felt stress or anger or worry. She had merely drifted, content. When was the last time I felt content. She laughed. I can't think of it.

Granted…there had been no excitement there either…no happiness…no joy. And she wondered idly if death was like that normally or if the dark and violent circumstances of her own had led to that particular realm of stillness.

Waking up…tasting air…had been such a shock this morning…but more shocking than that had been remembering the feeling of being in the cauldron – the enormity of it – all those lives and hopes and dreams packed in together. And she could understand how beautiful it was once Chaos corrupting influence had been purged from it.

The cauldron had no ending naturally…and its beginning stretched as far back as the universe itself. This is the place where stars are born, she remembered being told, though by whom, she could not remember.

It was strange to think…the cauldron had long ago created her too – her planet, her soul, and her purpose…

And if I'm alive again, I still have a purpose to fulfil. She sighed, staring up into the endless night sky. They're all fooling themselves if they think things will become normal. We exist to maintain normalcy…not have it ourselves.

There were things she wanted, goddamnit, from life - that she could not have. And perhaps knowing that makes the whole enterprise of acting seem a little bit tedious, she reasoned back to the her initial frustrations with her mother. It's just more pretending… pretending to be normal people, pretending to be normal old Aino Minako…

And her mother was well and good when everything was normal, but, she swallowed the lump in her throat, normal wasn't something she had patience for anymore.

She wants me to be done, Mina thought, clasping both hands together under her chin. But how do I tell her…all of them really…that I never will be. Truly, I never want to be. It wouldn't feel right leaving the fighting to someone else when all my friends are still in the thick of it.

It's my duty… she hung her head. I've accepted that, I find meaning in that… can I still be frustrated by all the things it means I cannot have?

Does that mean I have to chose between my mother and my duty...forsake family like I forsook love?

A light crunch on the snowy temple steps broke through her thoughts. "Go away Artemis," she called out. "I'm fine."

"Clearly you're not," said a voice that was decidedly not her cat's. She whipped around. Rei was making her way down the temple steps, a thick coat over her robes. And she was carrying…a blanket and two steaming mugs.

"What are you trying to do…freeze?" she chastised, walking nimbly across the snow and kneeling next to Minako. "Here, take that."

Minako wrapped numb fingers around the steaming mug Rei had thrust at her and looked away as the senshi of fire settled the blanket around her before taking a seat on the steps beside her and bumping her shoulder. "What's up – and don't say nothing?"

Minako sighed. "I've been thinking…did you ever wonder if there'd come a day…when we were done fighting?"

Rei hummed next to her, shifting until her leg brushed against Minako's cold one. "I don't think I did…but I guess it's a bit different for me – always seeing the next disaster coming." She sipped her tea. "But…we're not fighting now. Nor will we tomorrow…and Usagi seems very sure we won't be fighting for a while longer. Seems the universe is so full of positive energy right now it can't sustain anything too nasty."

Mina nodded. "I used to wonder – after the Dark Agency – whether I'd get to return to being normal. And I stopped after a while. I mean, it wasn't exactly useful to think of all the normal things I could be doing…but I always hoped…" her voice seemed to get caught in her throat as her words became jumbled.

"I don't know what you remember of the Galaxy Cauldron," Rei said after a while. "But I remember the moment Usagi saved it – Chaos was completely banished and all this energy was released back into the universe – stars were literally reborn – all these bright lights replacing everything that Galaxia had killed. And…and as we were all coming back together and celebrating…I felt it become reborn too."

"Chaos." She said sharply, her head jerking up to look at Rei. "Did it come back to Earth? Possess another sailor? Did it –" Rei's warm fingers were suddenly pressed gently over her lips, and her friend's violet eyes were staring into her own.

"Stop," Rei said, warm breath tickling Minako's face. "It was reborn…just like everything else, and just like everything else it will take millennia for Chaos to become as powerful as it was before. And when it's back at full strength, It won't just have one ragtag team of Senshi from the corner of the Galaxy to fight it back - all those others like us are being reborn too. And they'll be just powerful and just as able to stand together against chaos when that time finally comes again."

Minako smiled as Rei's fingers fell from her lips. At least that's one thing I won't have to worry about next time. "Sorry... But chaos wasn't the only evil out there?" Rei nodded along as Minako spoke. "I felt others too – Metalia and the Death busters and enemies others like us fought and enemies no one has ever faced yet…and I just felt like, no I knew."

"That we'd never be done," Rei finished her thought for her.

"We never will," Minako echoed. "I knew, and I think I knew before all of this and I just let myself pretend there'd be a future without all this fighting…but I was stupid and I just feel…"

"Like you're thinking too hard," Rei smirked.

"Hey,"

"Look, fearless leader," she teased. "You told me when I started having visions about Chaos that we'd beat it just like everything else…so I'm telling you, we're going to beat every demon that comes after it."

"it's not that," Minako shakes her head. "I know we'll win. We've go me after all." She tried to joke, but Rei barely smirked. So she continued on more seriously. "It's everything else. I can't be the star my parents want if I'm always fighting evil. And I feel like acting is a chore now since I do so much of it in my real life pretending everything is normal…and I can't ever be a normal high school girl. I won't ever have a normal career. And I certainly won't have…" she bit back the last part of her rant. Rei got the point.

"You're ridiculous."

"Hey!"

"No I mean it," Rei elbowed her. "Who says you can't have a normal career. You're going to be Neo Queen Serenity's leading guard. I guarantee you'll get a decent salary from that. And she'll have you be the one dealing with the press – that's plenty of time in front of the camera and you get to say exactly what you really think…there's really not many years left that we have to hide our powers. Usagi's going to take the throne in less than 10 years now."

"Shit."

"I know, we don't have long to train the clumsiness out of her." Rei said, and she laughed along with her picturing Usagi tripping up the Crystal palace steps. "And like I said…we do get a break for a while. So you do get to be like every other high school girl with no excuse not to revise for her exams."

"You're so comforting."
"Aren't I," Rei laughed, leaning into Mina as they both gazed up at the stars – which seemed somehow brighter than they had before Rei had come out. "And…"

"Hmmm?" she wondered, glancing towards her friend.

"And love…" Rei whispered. "You didn't say it…but you can have love too."

"That…that's a nice thought." Mina said. "But I don't ever kid myself about that – you know. Love would be a –"

"Distraction," Rei said. "I've heard it before. It wouldn't be…"
"Rei,"

"No, listen," she said. And as Mina pulled away from her, preparing to argue, the fire senshi grabbed onto her hand. "You can do your duty and have love. If you'd just give it a chance."

"I –" she bit her lip. Rei's hand squeezed tighter to hers. "We've talked about this before Rei."

"No, not really." Rei laughed. "We've talked around this…and away from this, and about everything but this. But you have never come right out and said it to me…and I'm tired of waiting."

"huh?"

"I was waiting for you to come to your senses. Ace was wrong, Mina. You can do your duty and have love – look at Haruka and Michiru."

"I can't"

"You've never tried," the fire senshi huffed. "Look - I just died. And I get another chance, again. And you know what?"

"What?" Mina whispered, unable to look away, and unwilling to…

"I'm tired of letting destiny dictate what I can and can't have." Rei continued, and her other hand brushed across Minako's face, cupping her chin. "And I was waiting for you to figure that out too. But you're still so stubborn."

"Rei…" Minako stuttered.

"Please, just give this a try." Rei whispered.

And without more preamble, she felt Rei's hair fall across her forehead and had just enough time to set her tea down on the steps as Rei pulled her in for a kiss.

Fire roared within her, warming her better than a blanket and tea ever could, as Rei's lips caressed her own. Mina grabbed onto the sleeves of Rei's jacket as the blanket slipped from her shoulders into the snow. She held perfectly still for the longest time, just holding Rei close as she continued to kiss Mina fiercely. After a few long moments she felt a tear splash across her cheek and the fire senshi begin to pull away.

"Sorry…" Rei began to stutter. But Mina pulled her back towards her, wiped the tear from her face, and held her gaze.

She had given so much to her duty…wasn't it time she did something for herself.

Her hand wound its way into Rei's hair as she leaned into her.

"I do love you," she whispered. And Rei sighed, shoulders sagging in relief, as Mina kissed her back.