Disclaimer: I own only the Guardians and the Yami. No one and nothing else.
Warning: Dirty language and minor sexual things. Don't like, then go away. Wait... //looks back at previous chapters// That should be on the first chapter for the whole story, not this. //mutters, shakes head//
Chapter Eleven
Trip Down Memory Lane
Haruka had detransformed and cornered Miranda when the other Guardians were leaving, demanding answers.
"I told you! I can't!" Miranda protested again. "Why won't you believe me?"
"You don't even care about your own teammate," spat Haruka, "seeing as how you did nothing while she was being attacked and just stood there when Saturn showed up. Aren't your orders to obey me? So tell me what happened!"
Her answer was a left hook.
"Shut the fuck up, Haruka!" Miranda snarled as her charge picked herself up off the floor. "You know nothing about what happened! You weren't even there! We do care about Titan, but we had to slaughter a few walls of Yami to get to her! Besides, you don't even remember things right!"
"Oh?" the Wind Senshi challenged. "Don't remember things like what?"
"Like my orders, for one thing," her Guardian snapped in a condescending tone. "And the fact that you believe you can see what's happening when you're not there. You're not a psychic."
"I know your orders say you have to obey me," Haruka spat. "So obey already and tell what happened!"
"Your memory has holes in it," Miranda bit out, managing to keep her anger under control. "I don't obey you anytime except at Court, and we're not there right now. Good-bye, oh lovely charge."
With those spiteful words, the blood-covered Wind Guardian stalked out of her charge's home, not realizing that her uniform had turned into a form-fitting dress from old times during the conversation.
This was when Haruka noticed that she could see no blood other than what was on Miranda and her odd dress, although there had been many bloody deaths in the room less than a half hour before.
What the hell was going on?
±——±——±——±——±——±——±——±——±
Sailor Neptune frowned as she headed downstairs. Something felt off…
There were vanishing, bloody bodies almost everywhere and she had to watch her step and fight her stomach. There was still the globe of power surrounding the house, though it was deep violet now and the broken, black one had faded completely.
She quickly got out of the way as Saturn, pulsating with deep purple power came her way and headed up the stairs. Guess she didn't find him, she thought to herself. Then an idea struck her and she pulled out her Aqua Mirror.
"Show me the one for which Sailor Saturn searches," she commanded as mist began to roll over the surface of her Mirror and then clear when she made her order.
All that the Senshi of Water saw was darkness.
±——±——±——±——±——±——±——±——±
Saturn cursed her bad luck as she headed up the stairs and into the bathroom where her sister and Tahi were.
"You need to calm down," the rainbow-haired woman said softly as Saturn pushed open the door. "Her magic's reacting to it, even though she should be tending to herself instead of you." The woman did not turn around from her spot at the bathtub where she was using warm water and a damp, clean cloth to separate Hikari's clothes from her bloody wounds and the words were like a slap in the face to the Senshi.
"Sorry," she muttered, sitting down on the toilet lid to watch, since there was nothing she could do to help. "So why are we doing this the long way, again, and not letting me just heal her once we get all the bandages off?"
"The Master used his magic to tie her closer to him when he beat her," Tahi explained patiently, not letting her hatred of the man color her voice or affect her hands. "She was bound to him in the beginning of her time with us, while you and your Kingdom were celebrating that the Guardians would be returning home in a few days. So long as Rena exists, neither she nor Titan can ever be free of him. But they've managed to keep away from him long enough that his commands do not carry the same force to her that they do for the rest of us. So when he attacked here, he brought backup in case she got it into her head to run. He probably also brought the men to keep anyone else who might be in the house from interfering. The Master used his magic to strengthen his ties to her and essentially infected her. We won't know the full extent until she wakes up and tells us, I'm afraid. How was your hunting?"
The Senshi was momentarily thrown by this change in topic. "Bad. He got out, somehow. And the Guardians left while I was searching, so that shield's gone too. Oh, Miranda and Haruka were having a fight when I came up here. Apparently, everybody's been reborn, but no one's talking to their vessels. That, or the vessels aren't listening."
"Maybe it would help if you stopped referring to those born in and for this world as 'vessels' and started treating them like separate people," Tahi suggested, her voice cold and brittle. She was one who had been reborn and remembered her entire past and the two personalities had, over time, become one person. "Currently, the rightful owner of the body has no way to contact their 'partner' from the past. The two of you keep yourselves separate and refuse to communicate, then wonder why you barely survive a fight." She gave a sigh of disgust. "You Senshi can be so arrogant."
"Arrogant?" Saturn demanded. "How so? And what's the 'rightful owner' shit, anyway? What the—?"
"You are arrogant, the lot of you. You believe that your knowledge tops all, that since you are Senshi, you have the right to do whatever you please, whenever you please. You don't wonder why the Guardians or anyone else was reborn, since your immediate and ever-so-obvious answer is for your comfort in this strange world." Tahi's voice had become cruel and mocking, but stayed so soft that only Saturn, still sitting next to her, could hear. "It has yet to occur to you that your High Queen did not intend for the Guardians to live, or for anyone beyond her daughter's Court and those fighting against their will to be reborn. It has also not occurred to you that Hotaru is the rightful owner of that body, not you. She would still have been born whether or not your Queen sent your soul to Earth at this time. She is the one who has memories in that body, not you. You merely grab control of the body from her whenever you awaken, doing whatever you please, no matter who it hurts. After all, you're a Senshi. You're special. You can do whatever you want."
For a long moment, the only sounds in the bathroom came from the cleaning of Titan's body. The Senshi of Healing wanted to cry that the words were not true, that she did not behave like that, that she could tell her old friends did not, but it would be her words which would be false, not those of the Yami woman. There was far too much uncomfortable truth laid out for her to deny any of it.
"Is this also your personal opinion or just a way to make me give Hotaru back her body, even though she won't take care of Titan?"
"Does it matter?" the rainbow-haired warrior retorted. "My personal opinion is mine and not subjective to your curtailing of ugly truths. Hotaru needs her body back, but you owe her an explanation. Your sister will be fine, with or without you, Saturn, until she is fully healed. With luck, she'll wake up and go into a healing trance before too long. Without it, the Master's bonds will strengthen and they won't be so easily broken this time. Your presence or lack thereof will not affect this. So explain everything to Hotaru and give her back her body."
Saturn battled the conflicting urges to hurt Tahi for the insults and to leave her alone because this woman was, for completely unknown reasons, important to Titan. Before one urge could smother the other, there was a tiny whimper from the bathtub.
"I hurt, Mom," Hikari whispered when her eyes finally focused on Tahi above her. "Why'm I in the tub?"
"You're bleeding, little one," the Yami replied softly, ignoring the child's grimace when another bit of her clothes and skin parted company. "We need to keep your clothes from being glued to your body and to replace them with clean bandages. Think you can manage a healing to get rid of the taint?"
"Think so," Hikari murmured, "but there's a lot. It's gonna take a long time."
"So why can't I heal her?" Saturn demanded angrily, finally catching her sister's attention.
"Hi, 'A'er," Hikari mumbled, "I love you."
"I love you too, sweetie," Saturn replied instantly with a smile, all emotions being drowned in her love for her baby sister and the need to protect her. "Now, why can't I heal you?"
"Because there's something inside me that'd make us both sick if you healed me," Hikari answered. "Just help Mom with my outside and I'll fix the inside, 'kay?"
Saturn sighed but agreed as Hikari slipped into a deep healing trance.
"She's got you wrapped around her little finger," Tahi smirked, handing the other woman a dry cloth.
Saturn glared at her, but made no move to deny it as they got to work.
±——±——±——±——±——±——±——±——±
Taylor was waiting in the kitchen when the Wind Guardian made it home, fuming mad and unconsciously stirring up gusts of wind around her.
"Well?" the blue-haired Guardian demanded, her voice icy. "What idiocy did you inflict on Haruka that you walked home across town in that?" She nodded towards the thin, bloody, originally-pale yellow, backless, sleeveless dress that Miranda was wearing. "And whip up winds to chill you more than you were, atop of it? Explain."
"She has more holes than memories," the blonde snarled, stalking to the bathroom and stripping off the bloody dress as she turned on the bath water. "It pissed me off."
"They all do," Taylor answered, following her lover. "Titan hasn't attacked Hotaru, even though we all know how dependent she was on Saturn, and they're living together. Being pissed off isn't good enough."
"Titan might not have attacked Hotaru, but she didn't call for help when she needed it, either," Miranda snapped. "We found out she was in trouble on accident. Someone was beating her and we didn't know! We couldn't do anything until it was almost too late! Now tell me I can't be pissed off!"
"I'm not saying you can't get angry," the aqua-haired woman answered, turning off the faucet as Miranda got in the tub and handing her a bar of soap. "I'm saying you shouldn't take it out on Haruka without a good reason."
"She doesn't have any right to order me around like I'm her slave," the blonde growled as she savagely scrubbed away at the gore on her body. "She ordered me to tell her what happened to Titan! If she'd actually had the decency to ask, I might've answered. But no, no, she can't remember that I'm equal! I have to be inferior because I'm her protector. She has to order, she can't ask. Dammit, I hate this!" Saying this, she burst into tears.
"I hate this, I hate it, hate it, hate it," Miranda sobbed. "I want Uranus back. She didn't order me around or scream at me when I screwed up. I hate this, I hate it."
"I know, love, I know," Taylor murmured, wrapping her arms around her lover and rubbing the other woman's back, ignoring the damage to her clothes. "I hate it too. We just have to live with it for a bit longer. They'll remember soon, I know they will. Then things can go back to the way they were before. Everything will be all right again. Just have hope and patience. We'll be fine. She'll remember soon and she'll stop hurting you. Just hold on for a bit longer. It'll be worth it, it has to be. They'll remember soon. They have to. They just have to."
They stayed like this until Miranda ran out of tears and started to pull away. "I'm okay now," she rasped.
"Like hell," Taylor said with a smile, tears still brimming in her eyes as she grabbed the bar of soap. "You still need to finish cleaning." Saying this, she began scrubbing at the fine layer of dried blood covering most of Miranda's body that didn't want to come off.
"Okay, okay," the blonde laughed, trying and failing to squirm away from Taylor's grip and the soap.
The mood of anger and depression was broken, replaced by playfulness and flirting.
If only they could stay so happy forever.
±——±——±——±——±——±——±——±——±
Kori Mary played with her pencil, staring at the notebook in front of her, but seeing nothing. Something felt wrong… but it had nothing to do with Titan or any of her other teammates. Checking her mini-computer she'd created as a child on Suisei only made her feel worse, as it showed nothing amiss within Tokyo. So what was she feeling? She wasn't an empath like Io, so it wasn't someone else's emotions… What else could it possibly be?
"Maybe something's wrong with Ami," Mary sighed, rubbing her temples. Ever since they were little children in this life, with no memories of the Silver Millennium, Mary had always been able to tell if something was wrong with Ami, whether she had been picked on, if someone had hit her, whether she was ill, or if she were simply having a bad day.
Quickly deciding that she would go halfway across Tokyo at ten-thirty at night, Mary proceeded to grab her coat and boots. True, she held power over ice and snow and was rarely cold, but sometimes she needed to act like a normal human. Her grandparents, who had been looking after her since her parents had been killed, nearly fourteen years ago, had recently been convinced to take a vacation to Hawaii and that, yes, thank you very much, Mary was capable of fixing herself meals, doing homework, and getting to bed on time. Of course, there was an obligatory phone call to them each night, else they would cancel their trip and return on the next flight home. They really need that vacation, Mary thought to herself as she tugged her gloves on. Glad I already called them tonight.
Thinking this gave the Suisei Guardian a moment of debate. Should she or should she not call Dr. Mizuno and ask if it was okay to come over? True, the doctor had many years ago said that Mary was always welcome and there was no need to call ahead, but it was so very late…
The girl stepped out of the apartment, locking the door behind her as she quickly shook that thought out of her head. Yes, it was late and she was uninvited, but it would be worse to call, ask about Ami, and be told her charge and friend was fine. Something felt wrong, and the more Mary thought about it, the more certain she was that it had to do with Mizuno Ami.
±——±——±——±——±——±——±——±——±
Dr. Mizuno stood outside her daughter's door, torn between the desire to go in and try to fix the unknown problem that had her daughter crying and the desire she had to let Usagi, her daughter's first friend in Crossroads, do her best to fix it. Her dilemma was interrupted by the doorbell.
Who would come calling at this time of night? she wondered as she went to the door.
"Sorry I'm coming over here so late," murmured the welcome sight as she stepped into the penthouse, "but I was worried about Ami. Is she all right?"
"No," the doctor sighed, shaking her head. "She came home from the arcade this afternoon and asked if her friend Tsukino Usagi could spend the night. I agreed and Usagi-chan went home to pack her stuff, agreeing to be back around seven, which is when we usually eat dinner. Ami took a nap and woke up in a panic. She must have called Usagi-chan—or the girl is just like you—because her friend was here ten minutes later. Ami won't talk to me about whatever it is. Usagi-chan went into her room the moment she arrived, and neither has left it since. They won't say so much as a word to me. I can still hear Ami crying if I stand by the door. That's been almost nonstop since she woke up. Do you think you can help?"
"I can try," Mary agreed slowly, hanging up her coat and slipping off her dripping snow boots. "But I don't know how much success I'll have."
"You've always been able to calm her down and make her feel better, Mary," Ami's mother sighed. "Thank you."
Don't do that just yet, Mary thought to herself. I haven't done anything.
Moving down the hall, the girl placed her hand on the doorknob of her charge's bedroom and slowly turned it.
±——±——±——±——±——±——±——±——±
Usagi was at a loss of what to do with her blue-haired friend. Ever since Ami had called on the communicator, asking her not to wait until seven, and looking horrible, the Moon Princess had been worried. There wasn't much that could make the Senshi of Ice cry, let alone bawl off and on for nearly five hours. What intelligible words the girl could get out of the genius consisted of "fool," "pain," "duty," "dead," and "Guardian." The only thing Usagi could do that even slowed the tears was holding Ami and telling her that everything would be all right.
She was ready to go against her Senshi's unspoken orders and get Ami's mother when there was the slightly eerie creak of Ami's door slowly opening and a girl with shoulder-length blue hair stuck her head in. "Ami? Can I come in? Or will I be turned into an ice statue?" Usagi then noticed just how cold the room was and that everything had flecks of ice on it.
Ami's head shot up from Usagi's shoulder and she stared at the newcomer for a second before leaping up and running to her oldest friend, wrapping vice-grip arms around the guest's waist.
"Ami," the girl murmured. "Can you let go for a minute? Otherwise the door will shut and smash your fingers in the process." The Senshi of Wisdom let go of her friend for the short moment it took for the girl to step into the room and the door to shut and then latched right back on.
"I'm sorry, Marina," she sobbed into the taller girl's sweater. "I'm sorry. I didn't think… didn't think you'd… you'd die. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." The girl started at the name "Marina" but quickly got over it and worked on calming down the hostess.
"Ami, shush," she ordered, her voice both hard and gentle. "Now. It's not your fault, okay? There's nothing to be sorry about. So stop apologizing and crying. We don't want your eyes to freeze shut."
"But it is my fault!" the girl protested. "If I hadn't fought Zoicite, then—"
"He would've gotten to Serenity and quite possibly killed her," the stranger interrupted, "which was not something either of us could allow to happen. Besides, you fought him and we can't change that."
"But I got you killed!" Ami shouted. "What about that?"
"You did no such thing," the other snapped back, her eyes turning cold. "I got in the way because I could and I had no desire to see you die. I'd already seen enough people I cared about die that day, all right? I didn't want to add you to the list."
"So you died instead?"
"Not quite," the girl admitted, her former composure and strength gone, as her gaze moved to the wall, unable to meet anyone's gaze. "He only just missed my heart. I was barely alive when the Silence hit. Only a tiny portion of my spirit was left in my body. As to the rest…" she shrugged. "Not sure where it went, but it's in my body now. Are you going to stop crying yet?"
"Stupid…" Ami whispered into her friend's chest. "You could have told me when I first became a Senshi."
"Except that I was helping take care of a grandmother with a broken hip and wasn't even in Crossroads, remember? Five years ago?" Then she looked up from the Ice Senshi's head and met Usagi's astonished gaze. "I'm Kori Mary, by the way."
"I'm Tsukino Usagi," the Moon Princess heard herself answer automatically. "Why are you here?"
"Something felt weird and my friends were all fine—for the most part. I wasn't worried about my grandparents, so I assumed something was wrong with Ami and came over," Mary answered easily. "Looks like it's a good thing I did."
The blonde heard her voice agree and returned her gaze to her friend, who was just now letting go of Mary and wiping her eyes. "Sorry," the blue-haired girl mumbled. "I shouldn't have done that."
"Done what?" Mary asked calmly as she stepped away from the door and sat down in the middle of the room by Usagi. "Try to squeeze the life out of me? That, I'd agree with. Not so much the tears and screaming. You needed to do it, nothing's broken, and no one's dead, so it's no big deal. Now come sit down and explain what happened, calmly."
Ami scowled at her friend, but sat down, the three of them in a circle. "Well, Usagi-chan and I were going to have a sleep-over tonight. I was tired, so I took a nap when I got home. Usagi-chan wasn't supposed to be over for two or three hours. When I fell asleep, I had a dream where…"
±——±——±——±——±——±——±——±——±
Mamoru was dreaming. He had to be. Elysion had never been this beautiful, not even in Endymion's memories. Even the best and most glorious of the memories did not come close: this world glowed happily with the magic filling and caring for it, filling every stem of grass to the petals on the flowers. Even the air itself held this beautiful magic, forming a dim mist from being over-saturated.
"Who did this?" he wondered aloud. "How could this place change so much so quickly?" The Prince had visited Elysion a few months back, on his birthday. The place had been flourishing and had completely healed from Nepherina's attacks, but this was far above and beyond that.
"You know who did it, my Prince," Helios said softly, appearing behind the man, dressed in his white robes, "even if you do not know it now. This change has been gradual and over the course of thousands of years. It has had more power to work with in recent times, now that you remember yourself. You have finally opened your eyes to the true beauty of this place, my Prince. I was hoping you could see my home this way at least once and my wish has finally been fulfilled, after so long."
"Did I never see this place as Endymion?" Mamoru asked, looking in confusion at his priest.
"Never in all its glory," came the whispered answer. "There were many times when you came close, but you never quite got it. Lily, on the other hand…" His words trailed off in a sigh.
"Lily?" the raven-haired man prompted, even as he felt something pulling on him, drawing him deeper into the gardens and the gentle, magical mist.
"Someone very close to you," was all Helios would say, though he gave his Prince a sad smile. "Now I must go and attend to my duties. You would do well to remember yours as well."
The wielder of the Golden Crystal was confused by the rebuke within the last statement—after all, wasn't his only duty to protect Serenity and Earth? Wasn't he already doing that?—and took the easy way out: following whatever was tugging at him to walk into the mists.
A few minutes later, he discovered a turning and followed the pull to take the left, spying something though the fog. Was that a girl he saw, tending to the flowers?
Suddenly, the walls of roses on either side flung themselves at each other and wove a barrier between him and whatever was caring for the plants.
"What the—?" he heard a familiar voice cry out in shock. "Stop that! Just because he hasn't been here for a while doesn't mean he doesn't belong. Now go back to where you belong." Slowly, the weaving of thorny flowers began to unravel, the stems returning to where they belonged. "That's it," the voice continued gently, softer now, and soothing in quality. "Go back to your beds. He belongs here. He just hasn't been home in a while, that's all. Nothing to get so excited over. He won't hurt me. That's good, calm down, back to your beds."
After a few moments, the roses had parted enough that he could see through them to the girl on the other side. She had left her place kneeling farther down the path to come up to the barrier, touching the plants as she murmured to them. Eventually, they all returned to their proper places and she sighed with relief. The air around her glowed a yellow and green tint of magic, making it hard to really see her features.
"Now I just have to prune the lot of them." She sighed again. "That'll be fun," she grumbled sarcastically. "We hate it and it hurts."
"What do you mean?" Mamoru asked softly, trying to figure out where he knew this girl's voice from. He had heard it recently, he was sure.
"Pruning hurts," the young woman explained, turning to face him as the light around her slowly dimmed. "It involves getting rid of unwanted growth and dead bits of plants, and I feel every moment of it. Not all the bits that are gotten rid of are dead. That's why it hurts, Endy."
"Do I…know you?" he couldn't help but ask. There still was no name to match the face coming into view. Beautiful raven hair, midnight blue eyes… who did she remind him of?
"You do and you don't," she sighed sadly, looking beyond him. "You've met me recently, but you knew nothing of my powers or my true self. You knew me long ago and were a bit jealous that my ties and magic were stronger than yours." Then she smiled. "Don't hurt your brain by thinking about it too much, Mamo-kun. Ask Endy next time he wakes up. He'll probably hurt you enough without the added pain of thinking too hard. He's very overprotective. Come find me when you wake up, okay? I need to leave." With those words, she moved forward the few steps between the two of them and flung her arms around his neck, breathing in his scent deeply as she tried not to cry. His arms wrapped around her and he marveled that she smelled so strongly of earthy things when she seemed to be more a creature of the heavens. "I've missed you, Endy. Remember soon, please," she whispered before fading into the fog, becoming less solid until she vanished from his arms. "I love you."
Mamoru just stood there, staring at the nothingness down the path. Who was this strange young woman who said she loved him that he had one time known? He knew she was important to him and his past, but how? He felt that she knew both his past as Chiba Mamoru—all the details, including the things he had forgotten due to the amnesia—and as Crown Prince Endymion of the Golden Kingdom.
The protector of Earth stood staring, feeling the memories beginning to come, though not coming far enough to do more than tickle, and felt Endymion somewhere in the back of his mind, trying to make something understood. Soon, though, the memories began to truly come and one formed fully within his mind, shoving all others out of the way for the moment.
He was standing with a girl slightly smaller and a few years younger than him, watching the sunrise from the garden. He was dressed in a simple tunic and breeches, since they would be working as much as they could in the garden today. Finally, it was a true holiday and there were no more formal clothes!
She drew back her black hair into a ponytail with one hand as the wind whipped it every-which-way and secured it with a tied band, bringing his attention to the thick bracelets upon her wrists and the long, green gloves she wore.
"Why the uniform, Lily?" he asked, dismayed. Why must she constantly be working, never just able to spend time with him as Lily, not as the Guardian of Terra and its Prince? "We'll just be in the gardens."
"True," she admitted, grinning at him, "but I like it. It reminds me who and what I am. Besides, it's cool and the day is going to be hot!" She laughed and pulled him down the stone steps. "Bet you can't beat me to the fountain!" Then she took off through the maze of flowers, forcing him to race after her before he lost sight of her…
The memory was slow to fade and was soon overrun by others as the floodgates in his mind opened.
He remembered.
He remembered everything.
±——±——±——±——±——±——±——±——±
Lily woke up crying. Damn the Crystal, taking away everything important! Everything that had truly mattered to her had been ripped away and was now dangled in front of her, tantalizing and just out of reach. Damn the Queen for doing this! The Guardian of Earth rolled over and buried her face in her pillow, muffling her sobs that did nothing to ease her grief. Was everything she loved to be forever just barely too far away to grasp?
A quarter hour later, an unusual sound broke her out of her cycle of self-pity. The phone was ringing.
"This is an ungodly hour to be calling, so there better be a damn good reason," she snapped into the mouthpiece as she picked it up, hoping the roughness in her voice would be taken as having just woke up, rather than the truth of tears.
"Um… Lily-san?" Lily felt her heart stop and her breath catch at the sound of the voice on the other end. The voice continued, "I'm sorry if I woke you up. It's just… Can we talk?" It was Mamoru.
"How did you get my number?" she asked slowly, trying to shut down her overactive imagination and aching heart. He didn't remember. He couldn't. But… then why was he calling her so early? Taking a quick glance at her clock, the Guardian smothered a groan: it was 2:26 in the morning.
"It… it was in your backpack. I took it home with me when the Crown was closing and you still hadn't come back. Motoki-kun said he didn't want to leave it at there, but couldn't take it home because his sister would probably mess with it. Apparently, her backpack and yours look alike. So… can we talk?" Mamoru repeated softly, scared that she would say no. After all, he had no proof she was the girl from his dream, no matter what his gut said. It could be entirely possibly that she was someone else and he had interrupted Lily's sleep for no reason. "I'm sorry I woke you up," he added.
"S'okay," she sighed, pulling herself upright in her bed. Staying lying down meant she could fall back asleep and she didn't want that to happen. "What do you want to talk about and why couldn't it wait until morning?"
"It's about Helios and the Silver Millennium… and you and me," he whispered, convinced that she was going to hang up or be clueless.
The silence lasted for so long Mamoru became convinced his phone had died.
"Lily?" he asked, worried.
"I'm here," she answered absently. "Just thinking. Why don't you come over here and we can talk? I don't think either of us want to do this over the phone."
"What's your address?" the Prince asked, instantly relieved.
"Check my bag," she answered. "You don't seem to have a problem going through my things. Bring it with you when you come over."
"But—" He didn't want to search through her things, but he'd had no other choice!
"You called me, you get to work a bit," she answered with a yawn. "We don't live too far apart, so I'll see you in a bit, Mamo-kun." Then she hung up.
With a groan, she wandered over to her dresser and started pulling things out. Her brother may have seen her in pajamas before and had no problems with it, but Mamoru was still a stranger and they were not children by any means. There was no way he was coming into her apartment without her being dressed respectably.
A few moments later, she was jerking the blankets off her ally and friend.
"Christy, get up," she ordered. "Mamo-kun's coming over."
"Give me my blankets back," the green-haired woman muttered sleepily, curled up in a ball to preserve warmth. "It's cold."
"You can sleep in my bed," Lily answered. "Mamo-kun's coming over."
"What?" the Guardian of Meiousei demanded, sitting up as the words penetrated her sleep-fogged mind. "It's the middle of the night!"
"He called and apparently remembers something," the younger girl replied, distantly surprised that her glee wasn't showing. "So I invited him over and we're gonna talk. You can spend the night in my bed."
"M'kay," Christy yawned, grabbing her blankets back and stumbling towards the bedroom.
When Lily checked on her friend a few moments later, the older girl was fast asleep and Lily no longer had someone to vent her nervous energy on. With a sigh, the Guardian of Earth began to use that energy to straighten up the apartment, waiting for Mamoru.
It seemed to take forever for the doorbell to ring, but once it did, Lily quickly invited him in and took back her belongings.
"So what was it you wanted to talk about?" she asked as they sat down; him on the couch and she into a chair. She took the time to observe him, to see who he had become in the millennia since she had last seen him. He was wearing rumpled clothes: either he'd fallen asleep in them or they were the clothes he had worn that day. She couldn't remember what he had been wearing when he helped her with her homework, just that it had been dark, like the clothes he now wore. Lily didn't know whether to be offended that he didn't bother to try to look decent when coming to the house of someone who was basically a stranger or not care since it was only two in the morning. After a moment of thought, the Guardian went with the latter. It was too early to be dealing with emotions!
"Er… what do you remember about the Silver Millennium?" he asked nervously, refusing to meet her eyes.
A bitter laugh escaped her lips as she answered. "It would be better to ask me what I don't remember. It's a much smaller list."
Mamoru was visibly taken aback. "Why… why are you so bitter? Was it really so horrible for you? It didn't seem that way at the time… What happened?"
"My life began and ended over a thousand years ago, Mamo-kun," she answered seriously, what little light was in her eyes dying out. "My heart just hasn't stopped beating yet, that's all. What I have now is almost nothing compared to what I once had. Aside from you, I have no family and it's not like we know each other. My friends almost all lived in the past and I'm not exactly close to anyone else."
"Wait… we're really related?" Mamoru choked out, his mind unable to focus on anything else.
Lily laughed, some of the light coming back into her eyes. "Yes, we are. But I was a baby when the crash happened, so don't ask me for information. I know less than you, seeing as how I remember absolutely nothing. A surname is all that connects us."
"Then where did you spend your childhood?" the Prince wanted to know. "If you were at the hospital with me wouldn't they have kept us together?"
Lily shook her head. "I never ended up in the hospital. Helios found me and brought me to Elysion. Then, when he figured I could take care of myself, he helped me buy this apartment. I have enough money to get by. Now let's stop dissecting my second childhood, okay? It's irritating and not getting us anywhere."
"Well, I guess I want to know if you're… if you…" Dammit, why did his voice box have to shut down now? He'd come over with the purpose of asking this question. He couldn't just stop now! "If you're my… my…" Dammit!!
"Little sister?" she asked, raising an eyebrow at him. He nodded, shamefaced. "Yes. In both lives. Soldier first, sadly. Then family."
"Why?" he demanded. "Shouldn't it be the other way around? Being a soldier is your job, not your life!"
"First off, I owe the Moon my life and sanity," she sighed. "Since you remember at least some things, try to remember why I went to the Moon in the first place. Secondly, I took some very powerful oaths. They pretty much boil down to being a soldier and protecting two certain people—and a planet, by default—before everything else."
"But why?" Mamoru demanded, his voice breaking. "Why did you choose killing over me?"
Lily was stunned. Was that what he thought she'd done? "That's not what I did, Endy," she tried to explain. "I wanted to be a Guardian because it meant—to me, at any rate—that I could pay you back for looking after and taking care of me when I was little. Also, you were more than a bit dense when it came to some things that could get you hurt or killed," she grinned slightly at the memory. "Not to mention your habit of rushing into danger to protect someone, even if they could take care of themselves just fine. Me taking my oaths prevented you from doing that so much, though I obviously couldn't stop it completely," she added darkly.
Blushing from embarrassment, Mamoru quickly changed the subject. "Say, do you remember when Mother wanted one of the rose gardens replaced with a stone wall and you raised a fit?"
"And when Mother ignored me and sent people to start getting rid of the garden, they couldn't get in?" she laughed. "How could I forget? You were the only person who could come in, but that was just because I knew you wouldn't try to hurt all the plants. Mother had such a fit over that!"
"It was funny to listen to Father trying to explain to her about your magic, though," he added, trying not to laugh at the memory. "She couldn't understand that magic wasn't always just a biddable force, that you sometimes had to do what it wanted instead. She kept thinking that, magic or no magic, no child should be more powerful than she was, especially when it came to the upkeep of her own palace!"
"Oh, and didn't you…?" The conversation went on and on, neither participant noticing as the hours flew by, the sun slowly beginning to make its appearance before they came back to themselves and throats that were far too dry.
However, almost as soon as the siblings became aware of how much time had passed, their bodies began to protest this disruption of their sleep cycle.
When Christy left the bedroom in the morning, her eyes met the sight of Lily sleeping in a ball in the armchair and Mamoru, fast asleep on the couch.
"Guess I'm the only one eating breakfast," she laughed softly, covering up the siblings with blankets before going into the kitchen and digging out some cereal.
±——±——±——±——±——±——±——±——±
Rei sighed and rubbed at her eyes, exhausted. She had been trying to do a proper fire reading for the past hour and she was getting nothing worth trying to translate.
"Are you going to stop yet, Princess Mars?" Phobos asked, sticking her head into the meditation room. One upside to having a human body meant that she could come inside when it got cold.
"I need to do this, Phobos," Rei growled, too grumpy and tired to try to convince the crows to call her by her given name. "Something feels wrong and there's an enemy coming. We need to be ready and this will help."
"Not if you kill yourself trying," Deimos scolded, following her sister into the room. "Besides, the enemy's already here. I think they've been lying low for years, seeing as how all of them are human."
"Magical," her sister admitted, "but human. Now, are you going to come out of this room of your own free will or are we going to drag you?"
"I need to get something," Rei argued. "I feel like I'm useless. Hotaru's cousin got hurt because no one was there to protect her and there's no reason they won't come after the Senshi too."
"Even if they do, the Senshi will be just fine for today," Deimos said firmly, coming over and grasping Rei by one of her arms. Her sister came over and grabbed the Senshi's other arm. Together, they dragged the miko out of the meditation chamber and to her bedroom.
"Get dressed," they ordered. "If you don't have things to do around here that don't include worrying, moping, or going anywhere near that room again, we can go wandering around town. It's not like Granpa Hino won't be glad to see you getting out some." Then the twins left, locking the bedroom door behind them.
Groaning, Rei looked around her room, realizing just how much time she had spent in there lately. When not with her friends, she tended to hole up and keep to herself, or work herself to exhaustion, especially with this feeling of impending doom that had been making itself known the past few weeks.
Maybe doing as the twins ordered would help, if only to get her mind off the sense that the Senshi were in over their heads and the end of this enemy would not be a good one. With a sigh of defeat, the Senshi of Fire began looking around her closet for a suitable outfit to wear while going shopping.
±——±——±——±——±——±——±——±——±
AN: Sorry I took so long//kowtows// Things just kept happening and then I got the evil WB!!! Forgive me and show me love?