Subtext

Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon.

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Thanks for all the reviews on Chapter 9! I love reviews.

Sorry it's taken me so long to post a new chapter. I've been sick and busy, but here's this one, such as it is.

In response to tigonookami: The series indicates that Michiru knew for a while before their meeting that Haruka was Sailor Uranus, and therefore that she wouldn't always be working alone. Like Rei/Sailor Mars, Michiru has a gift for premonition, so I'm going to assume she gets information about her duties and in this case, accessories, from dreams or visions. I think we'll see some of that in future chapters. As for how fast things are happening between them… I'd like to hear more specifics on your problem with that, if you have a moment. It'd also be nice if you signed in, so we could have this conversation somewhere else. Anyway. This one is Haruka's point of view.

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My lips burned with the memory of Michiru's kisses as I drove back to my apartment. When I got in, I didn't feel like going to sleep, so I took a shower. It would save me time in the morning, so maybe I could go to the office at school before class and inquire about transferring to Mugen Academy. I wanted to know as soon as possible if I could transfer when the new term started. Mugen Academy was allegedly founded with the idea of bringing together the brightest students in the country and from overseas. Not to sound egotistical, but I didn't doubt that they would consider Michiru and me exactly what they wanted, since we are not only academically talented – we're famous.

Most of my shower was spent not thinking about the technicalities of the transfer, or the mission, but about Michiru. I remembered the exquisite feel of her body in my arms, her softness and grace. And the taste and scent of her, her soft lips opening under mine, and her body pressed against me, her arms around me, strong but gentle, and her breathless whispers when we spoke between kisses. Remembering, I lost track of time, and then after a while I found myself standing in the shower, eyes closed and arms crossed tightly, hugging myself under the flow of warm water. I roused myself from my daze, washed my hair, and then got out and finished getting ready for bed, tired finally.

The next morning, as Michiru suspected I would, I found it surprisingly easy to get the transfer process started. In the office they even suggested that I call Mugen Academy myself with their telephone to alert them of my interest, which I realized I should have done before. But in general, it went well. Both parties assured me that I would in all likelihood begin the new term there, assuming I passed the entrance exams, which I was unconcerned about. My classes seemed interminable because I was so eager to leave and pick up Michiru. Finally I was able to go, and I hastily made my way to Michiru's school. She was waiting prettily in front of a school building in a student drop-off area, alone. In her free time, she is almost always alone, unless she's with me. I saw several groups of girls staring curiously as she got into the car and smiled brightly at me. They commenced talking about it almost immediately – I could see in my rearview mirror as they pointed and chattered. It irritated me – dull, gossipy schoolgirls fascinated by things that aren't any of their concern.

"I got my transfer proceedings underway," Michiru said, as we turned away from the school and onto the main road.

"Oh yeah? So did I. Should we head over there and check it out?"

"Mm," she said, "but we should be very cautious. I don't want us to look suspicious before we even start there, especially since we might be engaged in some pretty suspicious activities there later on. If the place is what I think it might be."

"And what exactly do you think it might be?" I asked, still unsure about the particulars of our mission, as, it turned out, Michiru was also.

"Well, I'm not sure yet, but I feel something about this place – something grander and more threatening than the youma I'm used to."

We arrived at Mugen Academy and walked around the campus, memorizing its layout and trying to look casual. "Nothing looks suspicious yet," I ventured to say as we finished our lap around the school.

"Hmm. Not overtly… but I feel something about it. Don't you?"

I tried to focus my understanding of the elements that protect my planet and use them to gain insight into the world around me, but it usually doesn't work as well for me as for Michiru. "I'm not sure. I reckon you're better at that than I am."

"It just needs practice. I know you're sensitive enough for it."

I wasn't so sure, not that I didn't appreciate the compliment. "Let's go check out the areas where we've seen youma to make sure they're still safe, for lack of a better idea," I suggested, and she nodded in assent, so we strolled back to the parking lot.

Before I started the car, she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. I glanced at her and half-smiled, trying to remember that I cared very, very much about privacy and secrecy. She watched me for a moment, then kissed my cheek again, and then my lips, and bit the lower one gently. I shivered. She sat back in her seat, her expression demure and aloof again. But the pink still lingering in her cheeks gave her away. I smiled to myself and pulled out onto the main road, heading toward the garage where she'd been injured.

We pulled in and it was deserted, so we headed for the circuit where we were attacked the day before. We parked, and wandered around, looking for anything suspicious. We found nothing and ended up leaning against the fence around the track, looking out at it and talking. I talked a little about racing and how much I loved it, which I talk about too much, and I could see her getting uncomfortable and wistful. I tried to save the situation by going into how happy I am to be saving the world now, but it was too late. I felt a sense of foreboding as I looked at her cold, sad, beautiful face.

"Let's go back to Mugen Academy, Haruka. The sea is unquiet."

My feeling of foreboding increased, but I offered her my arm and we walked back to the car. At the passenger door, we stopped and I moved so that I was facing her, clasped my arms around her waist, and leaned down to kiss her upturned face. I kissed her cheekbones and her forehead, her temples and hair, and the place at the side of her throat where I could feel her pulse against my lips. Soon I caught her in a long kiss and held her close against me, savouring the feel of her slim, feminine form in my arms. When we broke our kiss, she rested her head on my shoulder, against my neck, and we stood like that, unwilling to get back in the car and face whatever she sensed. It was getting dark. The sun was almost down, and the sky was streaked with the colours of sunset still lingering in the west as evening encroached upon them, pink and purple and darkness.

"Are your premonitions ever wrong?" I asked her as I opened the door and she got in.

"No," she said softly, and I sighed as I climbed into the car myself.

The drive seemed short, immersed in thought as I was, the silence between us heavy, noticeable, but not specifically unpleasant. When we reached Mugen Academy, she led me by the hand to the side of the main building, and suddenly as we walked we became aware of first a crashing sound, and then a scream. "Transform!" Michiru cried, as she took her henshin wand out of her pocket, and I followed her lead.

In uniform, we ran toward the sound. We could hear a dog barking wildly, and as we approached, we saw a young woman cowering on the ground, trying to protect her little black dog from something much like the monster in the locker room, but with spines. It sprayed a shot of needlelike spines at the woman, but she ducked down farther in time and they stuck in the wall of the building next to the victims. "Move the girl and the dog while I destroy the monster!" I yelled back as I ran ahead of Sailor Neptune to get between the monster and the woman before she was attacked again, but once there, I found I didn't have space to perform my attack. I tried to get the monster to back down with kicks and punches, and I had some limited success, as I tried to listen to what the young woman and my partner were saying, to figure out if she was alright.

I suspect my distraction, from trying to hear their conversation, largely caused the terrible events of the next few seconds. As I prepared to perform my attack, finally having pushed the monster far enough away from the girl, I heard her scream again, and looked around me. I should have seen it before, but off to the side there was a second monster which had initially been hidden behind the building. It was on my left while Sailor Neptune and the victims were on my right. I decided, stupidly, that it could wait, and continued with my World Shaking! attack even as I became aware of Sailor Neptune moving behind me. The first monster was obliterated by my attack like the one in the locker room, but I had not a moment to enjoy my success before I heard Neptune's scream of pain. She had gotten between me and the other monster, but she hadn't been swift enough performing her attack, or else it had gotten the better of her as she tried to fend it off, and now it bore down upon her, having sent spines sailing into her left side. I saw her Sailor fuku torn, blood stains expanding dark around the spines, as she lay weakened on the ground. Fear shocked through me like physical pain. I attacked the monster viciously, nearly dismantling it with just the ferocity of my manual attacks, and it backed away far enough from Neptune that I felt like she'd be safe from my attack, which neatly destroyed the monster. Without waiting even half a second to watch it melt away, I turned back and fell to my knees beside Neptune. She was conscious. "I don't know if I should pull the spines out, or if that'll cause too much bleeding…" I thought aloud, feeling hysteria welling up within me.

"They're not too deep…I want them out…"

As I considered what Neptune murmured, I heard footsteps, and the dog's frightened whimpering getting closer. "Excuse me… I can help," the young woman we'd just saved said quietly as she approached us, her dog following her closely.

I nodded, not looking up as she knelt on Neptune's other side. Perhaps she saw my hands shaking, or recognized the terror in my expression, because she laid a hand on one of mine restrictively as it hovered near Neptune's injury, and looked at me. "I am training to be a nurse. Please allow me to do this," she said, firmly but also kindly.

I nodded again, thinking this turn of events was almost too fortunate to be true, and watched as she proceeded to tear Neptune's fuku a little more, blotting away some of the blood with her sleeve. Her dog sat huddled against her, and like me, watched her hands as they worked on Sailor Neptune. I took hold of her hand, and found it to be shaking as hard as mine. I brushed her bright hair out of her face and winced, feeling ill, as the young woman gently pulled each spine out. Neptune squeezed my hand hard, her nails cutting into my skin a little as she felt the projectiles pulled out of her flesh. There were eight spines, only a little wider than needles, but much longer. "It looks like none of them went in very deep," the girl reassured us as she pulled out the last spine.

"Thank you. How can I repay you?" I murmured, still feeling awful.

The girl bowed a little, and replied, "How can you think of repayment, when you have just saved my life, and my dog's? This is nothing compared to what I owe you."

"Tell me then, what else can I do for her, to treat the wounds?"

Neptune tried to sit up then, but made very little progress. "Uranus, don't worry, I'll be alright…. Just take me home," she said faintly.

I was angry in the aftermath of fear by then, and felt I knew what I must do. The girl said I should take her to a hospital, and I thanked her again, and rose with Neptune in my arms.

I held her tightly as I watched to make sure the nurse-to-be left the campus safely, and then carried her to my car. We were both detransformed when I got into the car myself. She sat, staring ahead, looking more herself in clothes that weren't torn. She seemed to be in pain but alert, and seemingly not poisoned, which was something I had worried about briefly from the look of the spines. Now came the time to say what, moments before, I had realized I must say. "Michiru."

She looked at me, fearful of my tone, knowing, perhaps, what was coming. "Haruka…"

"You could have been killed! And for me!"

She sighed, sadly. "Well, I have the right to fight youma," she said weakly.

"Cautiously! You can't just throw your body in between me and murderous youma!"

"Haruka…" she said softly, and looked at me.

I looked back at her expectantly, mad and scared, trying to ignore the allure of her beauty and fragility. She continued. "It was stupid of me to go about it like that. I should have attacked from a different angle; I shouldn't have put myself in a position to take a blow for you."

I nodded, tears in my eyes. "Michiru. I can't bear this kind of thing. I can't! We have to change something. We have to try to harden our hearts. The idea feels awful, but I can't just tell myself it's because it's not our fate to be apart. It could seem awful solely because I want to be close to you so badly, and I can't risk that being the only reason!"

She closed her eyes, looking mournful and frail. "Alright, Haruka. We'll try that."

Tears escaped me, though I tried to prevent them. "Tonight we should stay together, in case your injuries get worse. Which apartment would you rather be in?"

"Yours."

I drove off, full of grim thoughts as I sped home, wishing Michiru wasn't looking miserable beside me. "We'll just try it," I said, as I pulled into my parking space.

She nodded. "If it doesn't help, it's pointless, and we might as well not keep it up, okay?"

"Okay," I agreed, and felt better immediately, before realizing that if I wasn't serious about it, it wouldn't work at all and wouldn't be worth the effort. So I tried again to be resolved as I went around to her side of the car, opened the door, and picked her up, glaring at her for her protest that she could walk.

Like that other recent time, I carried her all the way in, and laid her down upon my bed. She rested there quietly while I brushed my teeth and changed, and then I helped her get ready for bed as best I could, giving her flannel pajama pants and a loose t-shirt before leaving the room so she could be alone to change. I came back in after a few minutes spent cleaning up my kitchen. "Do you need anything, Michiru?" I asked, setting down a glass of water beside her on the nightstand.

She shook her head as I sat down beside her on the bed with a warm, wet washcloth. "May I see your side? Does it need to be bound or treated in any way, except for the cleaning I'm about to do?" I asked as she pulled up her shirt, exposing her pale stomach and ribcage, the dark red, drying puncture wounds startling against her white skin.

She shook her head, wincing as I started to rub away the drying blood as gently as I could. As I worked, we talked about morning, and agreed that she would stay home from school but that I needed to go, so I would take her to her own apartment in the morning, go to school myself, and then come over to check on her after my classes. When I finished I left her as comfortable as she could be, trying to sleep, and went to take a shower, wanting to avoid any more painful conversation, and needing to think things over more thoroughly.

In the shower, I sat on the floor and let the water run over me, thinking hard about what had happened and what we decided to do about it. Looking back on it, I'm sure I knew even then, at some level, that I was being stubborn and stupid. But I suppose we had to try it, the not being together thing. Well, I should say I suppose I had to try it, not we. I don't think Michiru ever really thought it was a good idea. She was just trying to be good to me, which I appreciate. But in the shower I came to the definite conclusion that I had to try it, and try it seriously, although I admitted to myself that I couldn't be sure it was the right thing to do. I thought of kissing her, and couldn't imagine never kissing her again. But after the fighting, I told myself.

I came out of the shower and Michiru was asleep, beautiful and pale. She did not look peaceful. Her face was shadowed and drawn, and I lay beside her and watched her for a long time before sleep overcame me. I did not dream, and slept only fitfully. I awoke long before the alarm, got up, got dressed, and made breakfast to bring to Michiru in bed. She was awake when I brought it in, lovely and not so unhealthily pale as the night before. We ate together, but only talked a little. After I did the dishes, I drove her home. We checked her battle wounds again, which looked better, and I left her curled up in her armchair, wrapped in a blanket. I made sure she had a stack of books beside her, as well as some snacks, a glass of water, and a pot of tea all within easy reaching distance. I didn't want to leave, but she insisted that I go to school, that she'd be fine, and that she'd take good care of herself in my absence. So I left, and completely preoccupied, drove to school and moved from class to class in a daze.