Paved With Good Intentions
WEEKS
The Itch

She's camped out at a table in the Mark Square Cafeteria, and he is a Med Student.

While she may have been knowingly tempting fate, it still comes as a shock when Mamoru sits down across from her. It's been five weeks (3 days, 6 hours, 12 minutes, but she's not counting) since the last time she saw the love of her life, and Usagi isn't entirely certain of what she is supposed to say or do. Her notes and textbooks are spread out all over her table, but the twisting in her stomach makes it impossible to concentrate on them.

"Usako..."

The best she can do is refuse to lift her head and acknowledge him. Instead, she chooses to let her hair fall into her face to hide her eyes. She's had it in pigtails for so long that she had almost forgotten that she could even do that, and while it may be silly, having that thin barrier between them does a great deal for settling her nerves. She takes a deep breath... and then another... and then she does her best to focus on her schoolwork.

Usagi has never been the most dedicated of students, but if it helps her to ignore Mamoru, then she is damn well going to give it a shot!

"Usako, look at me." That voice... it almost makes her look up. Aside from Brady and a handful of calls home she hasn't heard anyone speak in Japanese for a month and a half. It's just another painful reminder that she came to this country for this man, and now it's all in pieces. She has to bite her lip not to give in and look at him.

It doesn't help. Mamoru leans across the table to cup her chin and gently tilt her face upwards. Her heart gives a painful lurch at her first true glimpse of him in months. He is such a beautiful man, and she has loved him for so very long; but he has hurt her deeply too many times and she doesn't think that she could handle breaking again because of him.

His eyes though... those beautiful eyes that she has spent hours staring into are filled with pain and bewilderment, and she can't handle that either. The honest confusion on his face as he searches hers for answers that her silence doesn't provide makes the knot in her stomach tighten. His hand slips from her face after a long moment, though his fingers tangle in her hair.

He can see a pink tinge to the strands around her face, and for the first time ever he can actually see the dark roots of her hair. There is a moment of guilt as he realizes that he has never actually questioned her hair color. It seems foolish now, but he had always just assumed that it was some sort of magical hold over from Serenity, and before they had discovered their history together he hadn't known her well enough to care.

There is a note in his voice that almost shatters her heart all over again to hear when he finally breaks the tense silence that has fallen between them. "Usako... why didn't you tell me?"

The question shouldn't baffle her the way it does, but she can't help it. "Tell you what?"

"About this! About you being here!" He gestures widely: to their surroundings, to the cafeteria, to Stanford and Palo Alto and California and the States in general she thinks. "You've obviously been here since the start of the semester. Why are you avoiding me?"

The laughter that bursts out at that is just a shade off of hysterical and entirely bitter. "Really? Really? Mamoch... Mamoru, I did go to see you."

There's a sharp stab of pain in his heart, ragged and painful with the use of his full name. He has been 'Mamochan' for so long that hearing her use his proper name just feels wrong. It feels like something between them has cracked and broken; feels as though he needs to fix everything now before it breaks any further. The problem is that he doesn't know what's been broken, and all he can do is stare at her.

Usagi lets the highlighter she's holding fall to the table and the clatter it makes sounds so terribly loud. After what feels like an eternity she breaks his gaze and lets out a shuddering breath.

"I went to see you," she repeats, her voice soft and ragged and just so broken that his heart aches in sympathy. God knows just how much he loves this woman, and seeing her in this much pain only inspires it in himself. That is it he who apparently caused this agony, this worry that has caused her to stew in her doubts instead of coming to see him only causes more.

The girl that he had left in Tokyo would have been up in his face. She would have been wailing and begging like a child, trying to fix them. The woman that sits in front of him now looks just as wreaked as that girl would be, but she isn't advertising it. There is no great temper tantrums and sobs, nothing that outwardly shows her heart break. Nothing but her wide blue eyes.

She's grown up somewhere along the way; she's had five weeks to work through this agony and yet he's only known that she was even in California for one.

"You were busy," and the words are bitten out, all sharp and harsh and in English and it makes Mamoru start. Intellectually, he knows that she had to know English in order to come to Stanford, but it's just another unexpected change between the girl that he loved and this woman that he doesn't know. "with your 'lab partner'."

It doesn't take anything more for Mamoru to know exactly what she is talking about. It's hard not to when the memory is all but seared into his brain. Mamoru has always subscribed to the idea that it wasn't cheating if it was just flirting and fantasies. Especially if the girls had the Serenity-look to them: long blond hair, wide blue eyes, athletic build and beautiful silhouette. It just meant that he missed Usagi, that was all. But Michelle... Michelle didn't fit into the blond and blue eyed mold.

Physically, she was a lot closer to Ami in appearance, and he had fallen into the trap of treating her like one of the girls because of it. They had always ignored any harmless flirting, knowing just how serious about Usagi he actually was. They knew how much he loved his Princess, and they never thought of his flirting as an invitation.

Michelle's kiss had been hot and heavy and needy, and it had stunned him immobile for several minutes. Eventually he had managed to pull his brain together enough to push her off, but apparently the damage had already been done.

Mamoru leans forwards, clasping her hands between his and continuing the conversation in their birth language. He had to make sure that she understood. "Usako... she kissed me. It was... a misunderstanding on her part."

And for a glorious moment, her eyes sparkle with light and love and hope. For just a moment... and then the sadness slips back into them, and she withdraws her hands from his with a heavy sigh. "Oh Mamoru..." and there is that pain again, that wrongness. "Mamoru... I love you. I love you more than anything else ever, but..."

"But?"

"These last few weeks... They've been hard, Mamoru. Really hard."

"There's no reason for it to stay that way," he finds himself saying, and isn't that a flip? It's always been her chasing after him, and now that she's taking a step back, he finds himself missing it. He doesn't want to let her go; she's tangled herself too deeply into his heart.

She smiles so sadly at him, and there is a strange look in her eyes. "They may have been hard, but Mamoru! Oh Mamoru, this is the first time in years that I haven't defined myself by what she was! I'm not Serenity. I'm not Moon. I'm finally finding out just who I am."

Mamoru closes his eyes. He understands the desire to know one's self all too well, and he can't begrudge her for it. Not when he still so clearly recalls the rage and agony of not understanding himself and who he was when they first met. It takes everything in him to put any sort of emotional distance between them, to understand that while she helped him find himself, she needs time by herself to do the same. It's harder than when he had lied to her when Chibi-Usa had first come to them.

"I'll wait," he promises after a moment that seems like forever, and gets up from the table. "As long as I have to. I love you, Usako."

He can hear the sobs start as he walks away, and all he wants to do is to run back to her and fold her in his arms. He wants to brush away all the pain and agony and tears.

But he doesn't. She has had five weeks to start to learn herself. A few more won't hurt. She needs to learn that her tears won't get her everything.

He knows he's lying to himself.