Hello everyone! Merry Christmas & Happy New Year! Despite being short this chapter was immensely troublesome to write. True to form, Haruka proved herself extremely uncooperative, and the whole thing had to be done several times over. But Chapter Eight is already underway, so hopefully there won't be such a long delay next time.

Chapter Seven

It probably wasn't allowed, but two days later Haruka went to hear the Tokyo Symphony rehearse. Stealth made it easy for her to gain access to the practice hall, and for the final hour she stood listening; concealed but still positioned so she had a clear view of Michiru.

Her once partner showed no evidence of injury from their recent encounter with the Sparklers. She appeared calm and poised and intently focused, her bow moving effortlessly over the strings as her fingers flew. It was the Glorification of the Chosen One they were playing, from the Rite of Spring. The violins were wailing and the timpani beat out a savage rhythm that echoed in Haruka's head.

Sacrifice. Why did it always have to be about bloody sacrifice?

The primitive story of a young girl who danced to death for the good of her people, giving her life energy to the earth so that spring might come again. And who was the Chosen One Michiru thought of as she played? Tamiko? Hotaru? Usagi?

There were too many dead girls in Haruka's world.

It was easy to pick out the sound of Michiru's violin, soaring above the cacophony of the orchestra. But her playing didn't sound the same to Haruka anymore. Michiru had improved technically, there was no doubt about that, but there was something disconnected in her music now, as if it no longer reached her soul.

Couldn't the others hear it? Couldn't Michiru herself hear it?

Perhaps not. Michiru had been made lead violin, after all, despite the fact that she was one of the youngest musicians on stage. Haruka couldn't help but feel a small glow of pride at her accomplishment. It had always been a dream of hers to join the Tokyo Symphony.

Waving her hands, the conductor called a stop to the orchestra and began to lecture them on some point. Michiru sat neatly with her violin on her lap, head cocked, listening closely. Her waist length hair was tied back in a braid, and there was something about the look of that braid that Haruka didn't like. It was too restrained, too unlike Michiru.

The length of Michiru's hair had been a shock to Haruka when she first saw it. She hadn't even realised at the restaurant just how much longer it was. Not until Michiru transformed in the car did her hair flow free, fanning out in the slipstream behind them as wild and tangled as a mermaid's. Haruka had felt Michiru's happiness in that moment, and her power. She'd gripped the steering wheel just a little bit tighter to suppress any other reaction, because the sight of Michiru as Neptune again was so heartbreakingly beautiful.

The orchestra's practice came to a close. The musicians packed up their instruments and said goodbye to each other, and Haruka left her observation post to keep the appointment she had privately decided to set.

She caught up with Michiru several blocks away from the practice hall, deliberately waiting until any stray members of the orchestra had dispersed. Michiru turned with guarded eyes when Haruka called her name. Her hands were full of too many things – violin case, music folders, handbag, and the sight of Haruka seemed to catch her off balance. Inexorably, the folders began to slip, Michiru's attempt to hoist them more securely against her hip doing little to stop their progress.

Reaching her in two quick strides, Haruka caught the folders as they were about to fall. And then, since she didn't quite know what to say (how do you apologise for nearly killing someone?), they just stood there in the street and looked at each other, with Haruka's hands still on the folders that Michiru precariously held. Inspired by the folders perhaps, Michiru's handbag next made a bid for freedom, slipping from her shoulder to slither down and catch on the fist that held the handle of her violin case. Both of them watched its progress.

"Maybe I could take something?" Haruka offered.

Michiru replied quietly in a voice of cold fury. "That won't be necessary." In a move that utterly shocked Haruka, she let go of her violin case, allowing it to clatter to the ground. With one hand now free, she was able to regain mastery over the wayward folders and get her handbag back over her shoulder where it was meant to be. Only then did she reach down to pick up her violin.

As soon as she had it, she started walking again as if Haruka wasn't there.

Haruka frowned and went after her. "You dropped your violin," she pointed out, easily keeping pace even though Michiru was hurrying.

"So?"

"I've never seen you do that before."

"The case is well padded; the violin will be fine." Michiru sounded distinctly annoyed.

"Look, Michiru, can we go somewhere and talk?"

At this, Michiru finally stopped. "What about?"

"About…This."

Michiru raised one savagely elegant eyebrow. "This? Exactly what this are you referring to?"

"Us. Working together again."

"I thought you didn't want to work with me."

"I've been given orders."

"I see."

It was slight, so slight no one else would have caught it, but Haruka heard the change of tone when Michiru said those two little words. She suddenly sounded as fragile as glass about to shatter, and her eyes…even beneath her stubbornly lowered lids Haruka caught a glimmer of pain.

Haruka suddenly wished she could explain that it wasn't only because of the orders that she wanted to work with Michiru again. She wanted to tell her that she'd missed her, that fighting without her never felt the same, that no one else in the world could read her and match her the way Michiru could.

But she didn't say anything at all, because she hadn't even realised how much she felt like this until the words were already threatening to slide off her tongue. In dismay, she clamped her mouth and kept it shut, fearing what other insanity might come out if she started.

Michiru finally looked up. Her brilliant sea-blue eyes were filled with secrets she wouldn't let Haruka see. Those eyes had been Haruka's world, once. But…this Michiru had dropped her violin. The woman Haruka used to know never would have done that, and she suddenly wasn't sure she knew anything at all about the person standing before her.

The street around them was filling with people as night encroached; weary workers heading for home, sweethearts holding hands, groups of friends intent on merriment and drinking. Next came the city lights to chase away the darkness, but it didn't shift the shadow in Haruka's heart. She was remembering the recent fight, and what Usagi had told her about the Space Sword hurting Michiru. Was that really true? Why hadn't Michiru said anything to her? Was it her soldier's pride, or was it just simply that she thought Haruka wouldn't care enough to stop?

God, the sight of her afterwards lying crumpled on the battlefield; it was too much like that other time.

Haruka didn't want to be reminded that her hands were still covered in Michiru's blood and there was nothing she could ever do to change that. She didn't want to be reminded of the betrayal that had forced her to do it, or the way she had seen herself that night through Michiru's eyes.

Normally, she was angry, and that was good because it stopped her thinking. But she couldn't be angry now, not after Usagi's revelations. She owed Michiru so many sorrys, more than she could ever say in a lifetime, but she was never going to say them. Because if she did that, if she placed her own personal feelings above the need to protect the Princess, then she would no longer be worthy of her identity as Sailor Uranus.

"All right then," Michiru said reluctantly, almost as if the words had to be painfully dragged out of her. "If it's work, I guess we can't avoid it."

The café they went to was expensive and mostly empty. Haruka ordered black coffee. Michiru ordered green tea. As they waited for their drinks in the dimly lit booth, Michiru didn't look at Haruka. She went through her music folders one by one, as if to check they were all there.

The discordant clatter of the violin case was still ringing in Haruka's ears.

"Don't you want to check your violin?" she asked.

Michiru shrugged. "I'm sure it's fine. You can check it if you want."

Upon opening the case Haruka discovered that the instrument was indeed fine, but that didn't reduce the wrongness of the scene she had witnessed. Michiru loved her violin as an extension of herself – how could she treat it with such casual abuse?

"You're lucky," she said, snapping the case shut and stowing the violin under the table. "But you should be more careful. Next time—"

"We didn't come here to talk about my violin." Michiru cut her off in a voice as flat as the Nullarbor Plain. "We came here to talk about work. So please can you get on with it?"

Annoyed at Michiru's continued antagonism (but, oh, what else could she expect?), Haruka responded by becoming frostily polite. "I wanted to discuss the matter of developing a training schedule. It's clear from our encounter with the Sparklers that we don't work together as well as we used to. That situation is going to have to improve."

"You didn't need to see me for that. You could have called me on the phone."

Haruka's eyes hardened. "I'm beginning to wish I had. But unfortunately we'll have to see each other if we're going to fight together."

"Yes," said Michiru, her tone biting, "I suppose it will take you some time to get used to the affront of my presence."

"If that's the case, then it's entirely your own fault."

This feeling – this hot anger building in her blood – was much more familiar to Haruka than her earlier contrition, and she welcomed it because it swept everything else away. No more guilt or remorse, no more apologies waiting unsaid upon her lips. She looked over at Michiru haughtily, and with a callous disrespect for her abilities.

Michiru's shoulders tensed. Haruka's own hands started to itch with the desire to ball into fists. Underneath, part of her was frightened at how easily this aggression was flaring between them, but mostly she just wanted to fight.

Providently, their drinks arrived just then, and the tension eased a little with the distraction of the waiter. When he left, Haruka grabbed her coffee cup and glowered into its black depths, trying to regain a measure of control. Michiru was fussing with her tea, still steely but no longer furious.

She was wearing perfume, a scent Haruka didn't recognise. It wafted over her with dangerous sensuality, sharp ginger and a deeper note of musk, stirring unwanted memories of velvet skin shivering beneath her lips.

In desperation Haruka gulped her coffee down, letting the bitter taste rest on her tongue to erase that remembered sweetness.

"We should get this planning done," Michiru said, sounding weary.

The empty coffee cup clattered as Haruka returned it to its saucer. "Yeah okay," she sighed.

Several hours later, Haruka regarded a packed shopping bag with an expression that hovered between wariness and distaste. She was back in the living room of her own apartment, contemplating what madness had possessed her to go out and buy every one of Michiru's CDs released in the last two years.

After Michiru had left Tokyo Haruka had stopped following her music, as decisively as she might have given up smoking. But after the meeting in the café, after hearing Michiru play and seeing how she treated her violin, Haruka's curiosity had gotten the better of her. On the way home she'd visited the music store, and this was the result.

The CD player opened with a smug snick, as if it had always known this day was coming. Randomly Haruka chose a CD and shoved it in, still not quite believing what she was doing. Something grand and operatic blared out, but the brash overture was soon eclipsed by the sure notes of the violin. It was a complicated solo, going on and on into ever greater heights of technical genius, but it seemed to Haruka that at its centre the music was dead.

She stopped that disk, and tried another. All of them were the same. Just like the playing she'd heard today. The joy felt forced, the pain felt ugly, and the brilliance was cold. Michiru's music had definitely lost something, some integrity, some passion, that had always lain at its heart before.

If only Haruka could pretend she didn't know the reason why.

As the final note of the last recording faded away, an uneasy wind stirred the budding branches of the cherry trees on the street outside. So this was what losing her soldier's honour had done to Michiru. Hollowed her out and left her empty. Could she be brought back from that, now she was active again? Was it even Haruka's responsibility to try?

Something stirred in Haruka's chest, a monstrous grief she could hardly contain. What help could she give, when she herself was little better than a fallen soldier struggling against the downward tide of despair? Only death in the end could release her, but it was not a soldier's fate to die easily. Her eyes fell on the training schedule she and Michiru had put together finally, after many arguments and timetable clashes. They'd be seeing each other again in two days time.