Thanks for all of the GREAT reviews! It means a lot to me! Keep it up please!
Disclaimer: I do not own Sailor Moon, or Gundam Wing!
"In the presence of the Soulmate Binder," Serenity said, somberly. The princesses gave a collective gasp.
"No, Sere!" exclaimed Rei.
"She can't do that!" Lita cried. Mina and Ami moved forward to wrap their arms around their weeping princess. Serenity just nodded, attempting to regain her composure. The Gundam pilots, with the exception of Quatre, who looked to be as shell shocked as his sister, had confused looks on their faces. Duo asked the question they all wanted to know the answer to, but did not want to ask.
"What is the Soulmate Binder?" Quatre answered softly, anguish for his sister and friend plain in his voice.
"It is a magic crystal, something like the Silver Crystal. It has the power to bind two souls together. If the Binder is activated in the presence of two soulmates, weather they are aware of their soul-bond or not, it will bind their two souls together. If only one half of a soul-bond is present, the Soulmate Binder will bind that half of the couple to the soul the activator intends." Heero, who had moved back to allow the girls access to their princess, joined in.
"Does that mean that it can bind Serenity and Endymion against their will?" he asked.
"Unfortunately, yes. When my mother activates the Binder, it will be with the intention of binding Sere and Endy. If neither of their true soulmates is in the room with them, it will bind them to each other." Quatre led the men away from the women, catching Ami's eye and gesturing to her as they left. She nodded and began guiding Serenity back to the princesses' wing of the palace.
"What, exactly, is a soul-bond, and what does a binding do?" Trowa asked, looking back over his shoulder towards Lita. This time, Wu-fei answered the first part of the question.
"Soulmates are broken halves of the same soul. Most people hold an entire soul. Some souls, however, become split somehow, and are born into different people. All twins are born that way, though, because they bond in the womb, they are free to fall in love. Soulmates like Rei and I, however, will never love anyone else. She is literally my other half. Now that I've found her, I'm complete."
"But, what does the binding do?" Trowa asked again.
"The Soulmate Binding was originally intended to bind souls like Wu-fei and Rei's. Over the millennia, it has been used to cement unions with the Moon Kingdom and form the Silver Alliance. It can form a semblance of a soul-bond between two entire souls, or make two halves of different soul-bonds fit, like forcing a square peg into a round hole. It can put the two pieces together, but it can't force them to match. There will always be something missing. When the binding is complete it gives the bonded couple the abilities of telepathy and empathy with each other. Each person can actually read the other's thoughts. They can also draw on each other's strength, both physical and magical," Quatre answered. The men had reached his wing of the palace and were gathered in his conference room.
"What happens if one of their soulmates happens to be in the room when the Binder is activated?" Heero asked, leaning forward in his chair, chin resting on his fisted hands, elbows on the table. His Prussian blue eyes were intense as he looked at Quatre.
"Well," the blonde answered, sensing that Heero was hiding something. "The Binder would pull together the real soul-bonded pair. It always chooses the best fit."
"Would it bind any other soul-bonds in the room, or just the intended pair?" Duo asked, his mind flicking to Mina for a moment.
"When it's activated, the Binder will unite all true soulmates in the room. The only people who could possibly be bonded in the wrong way are the intended," Quatre said.
"There has to be a way to stop this!" Duo leapt up, knocking his chair over, ad began pacing the room. "Serenity deserves better than to be forced to marry against her will!"
"We'll never change the Queen's mind," Wu-fei said, pounding his fist on the table. Quatre sank lower in his chair, defeat written all over his face.
"What if we could find Serenity's true soulmate?" Trowa asked quietly. Every one went still and silent, but Trowa's eyes were on Heero. Though his features were impassive, Heero's thoughts were racing.
"The only one who could know Serenity's true soulmate would be Serenity, or her soulmate himself," Quatre interjected. Trowa ignored him, never breaking his stare at Heero. All of a sudden, Wu-fei realized what he had missed in his excitement over Rei. He joined Trowa's careful observation of Heero, but spoke to Quatre.
"Quatre, do you have a soulmate?" Wu-fei asked.
"Of course I do! Ami…" Quatre stopped, realization dawning on him.
"And I have Rei," Wu-fei continued. "Who are the Sailor Senshi, Quatre?" The blonde shut his mouth and shook his head, but his eyes were guilty. Wu-fei pressed him further, hoping to force the truth from him. "Who are they?"
"The princesses!" Duo exclaimed suddenly. "The princesses are the Sailor Senshi! That's why they were training! I couldn't figure out why a princess would need to know how to fight! Now it makes sense! But that makes Mina…" he stopped short. Trowa finished the sentence for him.
"Mina is Sailor Venus. Lita is Sailor Jupiter. Quatre, your Ami is Sailor Mercury, and Wu-fei, your Rei…"
"Is Sailor Mars. I had already guessed. She told me about the legend of the senshi and their soulmates." Wu-fei turned to the three who had never heard the story. "Each of the senshi has a soulmate that is reborn with her, every time she is reincarnated."
"So, you're saying that Mina is actually my soulmate? That's why we bonded so quickly? That means that Lita belongs to Trowa, right?" Duo asked, excitement spreading over his features. "But where does that leave Sere…" Heero interrupted him.
"Serenity is mine." His voice was low and deadly. "I will be there that day. No one is going to take her away from me."
"Do they know? The girls, I mean. Do they realize what we are?" Trowa asked. Lita's ace flashed in his mind and for the first time, he felt hope. She was strong and sweet, with a love for life and a loyalty that he envied. Besides all that, she was intensely beautiful. They had talked the first night they met and instantly connected. At first, Trowa had thought it was all one sided on his part, but if Lita was his soulmate, then she must feel the same. He found himself smiling. Looking around at the others, he could see that they all had the same smiles on their faces, except for Heero. Trowa could understand the stormy look on Heero's face, however. Selene help any man who tried to come between any of them and their soulmates, now that they knew.
"Rei does, I think," Wu-fei said in answer to Trowa's question.
"What about the others?" Duo asked.
"Ami might have some idea, but as for the others, I have no idea. I'm sure they feel the pull of the soul-bond, as we do. They just might not have connected it to the legend yet. The only reason Rei and I realized our connection was that she is so connected with the sacred fire of her home planet. An ember of it burns in her personal garden," Wu-fei added.
"I want to find Sere," Quatre said. "Endy will probably be arriving on the Moon shortly and we need to talk to both of them." Heero clenched his fists until they were white and almost growled. "No, Heero," Quatre tried to calm him. "Endy is just as much a victim of this thing as you and Serenity are. He doesn't love Sere that way and never has." Heero loosened his fist slightly.
"I won't really feel at ease until this is all over," he said quietly.
"Well, you're not the only one. We have to be realistic guys. My mother won't stop with Serenity and Endymion. Endy has four generals, Jadeite, Malachite, Zoysite, and Nephlite. She's going to try to untie Earth with the other planets in the Alliance and the best way to do that is through marriage. Just wait and see. She is going to arrange marriages between the senshi and those generals. Then she's going to marry me off to Kensington," Quatre responded, dejection filling his voice again.
"No," Heero broke in. "I won't allow it. Serenity is my soulmate, the light to my darkness. I didn't want to fall in love with her. I didn't want anyone to be able to use her against me. But not now. She's my other half, and no one, not even a meddling mother, will take her away from me."
"I dare someone to try to take my Rei against her will," Wu-fei chuckled softly. "She's more than any man other than me will ever be able to handle." His voice sobered. "And if whatever man she's paired with tries anything with her, I will kill him."
"You guys don't understand. If they are ordered by the Queen to marry these generals, they will have no choice. I will have no choice! They will marry me and Ami off to different people!" Quatre cried.
"Queen Selenity might not even have arranged the other marriages. Serenity didn't say anything about it!" Duo's voice was hopeful.
"You're right," Quatre said, pulling himself together. "No use borrowing trouble when we have enough already. Let's go find the girls." He stood and walked from the room, the others following his lead. When they reached Serenity's rooms, however, the women were not there. "They're probably in their private gardens," Quatre told the others. "The entrances to the gardens are down that hall." He gestured vaguely in the direction of a long hallway. "I'll go find Serenity." He began to walk through the doors to Serenity's quarters, but Heero stopped him.
"Let me. Go to Ami." Quatre paused for only a moment, then nodded his agreement and set off after the others down the hallway. Heero watched him go, then stepped through Serenity's apartments and out the other side, into her private garden.
Serenity's garden had been made to resemble a park on Earth. There were wide swathes of neatly trimmed, bright green grass, dotted with occasional patches of colorful flowers in pink, yellow, and blue. There were several large, low, spread-branched trees scattered in with the flowers, and raised paths made of pale sand and paved with white pebbles cut across the lawns. There was a pond in the center of everything, spanned by a complex bridge that looked as though it had been spun from white and pink sugar. That was where he found Serenity. She was leaning over the railing, a pink flower cupped in her hands, over the water. The long white skirts of her gown and the twin tails of her golden hair streamed out behind her in the wind. Heero took one step onto the bridge and paused, struck by how beautiful she was. Then, gathering his courage, he went to her side. She continued to stare out over the water, so that he thought she was oblivious to his presence.
"My brother explained to you what was going to happen, I presume," she said suddenly, allowing her flower to fall from her hands and turning to face him. Though she was no longer crying, her gorgeous eyes were red.
"He explained a lot of things, about both soulmates and the Soulmate Binding," Heero replied quietly. He moved closer to her. "You know that he and Ami are soulmates."
"Yes. Rei and Wu-fei are as well." She sighed sadly. "I'm happy for them."
"We think that Trowa and Duo are Lita and Mina's soulmates," Heero said, trying to lead into what he was going to say gently. A smile crossed her face, though it did not reach her eyes. She was so brave, he thought, and genuinely caring. It was obvious that she was hurting: the look in her eyes was breaking his heart, but she tried to be happy for her friends. She might not be as fiery as Rei, as strong as Lita, as intelligent as Ami, or as obvious a leader as Mina; but her quiet strength and her genuine love was somehow greater than any of them. She had so much more to deal with than any of the other four. Yes, they were princesses and senshi, but Serenity was The Princess. She would one day rule them all.
"Wonderful!" she forced happiness into her voice. "All of them deserve it. I hope… Well, I hope everything will be all right."
"It will be," Heero assured her. "None of us men are going to let our soulmates be taken away from us." He waited for his choice of words to sink in. He saw hope flash in her eyes before it was replaced by an even greater sadness.
"Oh, so you have found your soulmate then? Congratulations. Who is she?" Serenity dropped her head and he saw a single shinning tear impact the wooden slats of the bridge. When she raised her head again, she had pulled the mantle of her royal composure around her. She stood taller, straighter, her eyes almost completely veiled. Serenity appeared to have gotten over him quickly. Heero knew better. The glistening track of wetness down her cheek told her lie.
'She's the most beautiful, most special woman in the entire galaxy," he said, stepping closer to her. Anger flashed in her eyes and she covered it quickly.
"What is her name, Heero? And when will the binding ceremony be preformed? I would like to attend." He smiled.
"The ceremony could not take place without you." This time, Serenity, could not contain her anger.
"I don't understand you, Heero! Why are you trying to hurt me?" She struck his chest, but he grabbed her hand and pulled her against him. She struggled, in an attempt to get loose, but he did not slacken his hold. Instead, he buried his face in her hair, whispering her name.
"Serenity, Serenity, Sere, it's you! You know what we are. I love you. I love you. I love you…" After a few moments, she stopped struggling, subsiding into sobs. She fisted her hands in his shirt and sagged against him, crying violently. He just held her, rubbing her back and whispering how much he loved her into her hair. Finally, she stopped and pulled back to look up at him. He smiled at her, brushing away her tears with his thumbs. "Did you really doubt me?" Heero asked. She nodded.
"You- you said that love was a weakness, a distraction. Of course I doubted you. I knew the connection was there, but I couldn't make you see it, not if you didn't want to. What changed?"
"I am still afraid you will be a distraction. Beryl's forces could take you and use my feelings for you against me," he told her, watching the instant withdrawal in her eyes. She moved to take a step from the circle of his arms, expecting him to release her. He did not.
"Then why, Heero? Why put me through this?" her voice was breaking and she hated it. She was the Princess of the Moon. She was supposed to be strong and do her duty. Marrying Endy was what she had been called to do. They were friends, they could coexist. They might never be happy, but they could make it. Why did she have to share a soul-bond with Heero, who thought she was nothing more than a weakness? Obviously, Selene had a sadistic streak.
"Because I dare anyone or anything to try to take you away from me now." His hand was gentle when he lifted her chin, though his eyes were anything but. They were fiercly passionate when they met hers. "I've finally found you, Serenity. You're my light, my warmth. Before you I did my duty, because that was what I had been trained to do. You were right when you said that the other night. I was trained to do my best, to kill, to eliminate the enemy by any means necessary, in order to protect my people. But I had no heart. I would die for those under my command. Every single one of them know it, which is why we can work so well together. But that was only because it was what I had been trained to do, not because I cared. You, you're the sweetest, most loving person I've ever met. You cared enough about a cold, callus killer to tell him that you were sorry he thought love was a weakness. Don't you know how special you are?" He caressed her face and slowly lowered his lips to hers. The rush was instant, though not unexpected. It was like coming home. They fit together exactly right. Her arms slowly came up around his neck. When they broke apart, she rested against his chest.
"What are we going to do?" she asked sleepily. He chuckled and scooped her up off her feet.
"Right now, I'm going to take you to bed. You're exhausted." He heard a soft sound and looked down. She was already asleep. He carried her back to her rooms and tucked her into bed, brushing a kiss over her forehead before he left her. Heero decided that he would visit the library. He wanted more information on the Earth's royal family and it's generals.