Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Chapter 13

When the family returned later that night Sailor Pluto knew what had transpired. A sick feeling rose in the pit of her stomach as she looked at Serenity and Endymion's pale, ashen faces and the way they flinched and avoided each other, the disgust evident on their faces. Their parents remained oblivious. Sir Knight was enthusiastically thumping his son on the back, crowing about the splendid joke he had played by showing up at the ball like he had, while Lady Knight cooed at her darling child that had finally returned to her, pushing Helena off to the side. To think that Prince Endymion would be reincarnated as Serenity's brother Edward... it was painful to think about.

Edward managed to extricate himself from his parents' embrace, claiming weariness from the long trip, and slunk off to his old bedroom. Helena quickly made her own excuses and darted off. The loud slamming of her bedroom door told Sailor Pluto that the girl was in no mood for company, but she faced worse things than a petulant teenager. "Miss Knight?" Sailor Pluto called out gently as she entered.

Helena had thrown herself on top of her bed, wrinkling her dress and sending her delicate pearl stick pins scattering across the pillows and floor. She could hear deep sobbing breaths, barely muffled by the sheets. Thoughts of her own daughters - Emeline and Leonore - rose unbidden in her mind and without even thinking Sailor Pluto found herself kneeling beside the girl and gently stroking her hair, all in hopes of soothing away her pain. "What happened? Did young Mr. Knight have something to do with it?" Sailor Pluto asked.

"I didn't know it was Edward!" Helena cried. "It's not my fault! And anyway, he kissed me!"

Sailor Pluto pulled Helena into a sitting position so that she could sit beside her. The girl threw her arms around the Sailor Soldier's neck and sobbed into her neck. Sailor Pluto pulled her into an embrace, giving her the comfort she needed. "It seems to me that it was all just an accident. A terrible mistake. You did nothing wrong- you're not wrong. I'm sure Edward doesn't blame you. It's alright; everything can go back to the way it was before."

Helena seemed to calm down at that, but she still held on tightly. Finally, hesitantly, she whispered, "But... when I look at him... I still get that funny feeling in my stomach... the one that I felt when I saw him standing there at the ball. How do I make that go away?"

Sailor Pluto sighed. Of all the things they had endured, why did this have to happen to them as well?

"Don't make me go out there! Please!"

Sailor Pluto sighed and patted Helena on the head, nodding in acquiescence as the girl beamed up at her and dove back under her covers. Sailor Pluto looked down on her fondly as she closed the door behind her, making her way down to the breakfast room.

"Where is Helena?" Sir Knight exclaimed when he saw the servant in place of his daughter.

"She is feeling unwell, sayib," Sailor Pluto explained, taking careful note of the way Edward suddenly blanched at his sister's name.

Lady Knight snorted out that. "Hungover, more like. You should have seen the way she was guzzling down her drinks! I swear, I just don't know what I'm going to do with her. Oh, very well, go on and tell cook and you can take her breakfast up to her."

Sailor Pluto nodded as she swept out of the room, giving Edward one last glance behind her shoulder as she went but he continued to stare resolutely down at his breakfast.

Sailor Pluto was making her way back towards Helena's bedroom, her arms laden with a silver tray, when she heard voices coming from the dining room. They seemed oddly familiar, though she couldn't say where she had heard them before. More than that, she felt a tug on her soul, the same one she felt when she was near the Princess, the call of one Sailor Soldier to another. Gently making her way to the door, Sailor Pluto peeked through and saw a man and a woman seated at the table with the Knights.

"If I had known that you were still breakfasting I would have called later," the man said with an easy smile. He was a beautiful with blond hair and blue eyes and a distinctly feminine face. The woman seated beside him was even lovelier, her hair dark and wavy and her eyes were a very striking sea green color.

"Nonsense," Sir Knight stated. "We've all had a late morning, so I believe the fault to be ours. Edward, let me introduce you to Windsor Kingsley, a Company man, and his wife, Maria. Kingsley, this is my boy Edward, just returned from boarding school."

Sailor Pluto knew exactly who they were, but she couldn't accept it. It didn't make any sense. She could tell now that the mysterious gentleman was not, in fact, a man at all, but a woman. The disguise was so complete that the Soldier doubted anyone suspected her true gender; well, everyone aside from her wife, that is. It would be a hard thing to miss in the marriage bed, after all. There was no mistaking them. Seated in her own dining room was Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune.

Sailor Pluto didn't even feel the tray slipping from her numb fingers and crashing onto the floor. She had seen her death, and Neptune's, and Uranus's. She had seen them summon Sailor Saturn and had watched as the Soldier of Destruction obliterated all that was left of the Moon Kingdom, including the Soldiers that had called her. They had been killed after Queen Serenity's own death and the spell she had cast that had sent the souls of her daughter and friends to Earth to be reincarnated. They shouldn't be here. The spell shouldn't have affected them. Their souls should have been destroyed far away in the dark edges of the solar system. If Neptune and Uranus had been reincarnated, then that could only mean that Pluto - that she - had also been reborn. Her own mortal doppelgänger could even be here, in Bombay.

"Ananta!"

Sailor Pluto came back to herself at the sudden reprimand from Lady Knight. She realized what she had done and fell to her knees, carefully picking up the scattered food and broken porcelain, and all the while the lady continued to berate her for her stupidity.

"Mother, please."

Sailor Pluto looked up from her cleaning to see Edward's pained and embarrassed expression. He waltzed over to her and began to help, ignoring his mother's exclamations.

"Thank you," she muttered and tried to ignore the way his fingers brushed against hers.

"Let me carry it for you. I wanted to speak with Helena," he said, his face flushing scarlet at the mere thought of confronting his sister.

Sailor Pluto nodded and followed the man up the stairs. He kept shooting her suspicious glances the entire way and opening and closing his mouth like there was something he wanted to say. "Did she..." He finally began, haltingly. "Did she tell you anything... about what happened?"

"Some," Sailor Pluto replied ominously.

Edward flinched at that and nodded. "I didn't realize it was her, I swear. Does... does she hate me?"

"I don't think she could ever hate you."

He looked relieved, even if not quite convinced. When they came in front of Helena's door he apparantly got cold feet for he thrust the tray towards her and mumbled out his apologies before rushing off. Before Sailor Pluto could knock the door swung wildly open and Helena's face popped out, looking all around the hall. "I thought I heard Edward at the door," she explained, hope evident in her voice.

"Yes, he was here. He feels as awful as you about what happened." Sailor Pluto passed the tray to her and stepped inside, noting the wilted look that came over the girl at what was supposed to be a comforting statement.

Sailor Pluto sighed in exasperation. Helena and Edward had been avoiding each other for a month now with no hope of ever reconciling in the near future. When forced into the same room together, they barely said a word to each other, but Sailor Pluto caught the looks they sent when they thought the other wasn't looking. They looked at each other with sorrow and longing and horror. Like all the others, this attempt had been a failure as well. How many centuries must pass before the Princess could awaken? She was beginning to regret ever embarking on this mission; she should have listened to her father and let things happen in their own time.

Edward made sure to speak with the Sailor Soldier almost every day. At first, it was merely to assure himself that his sister did not hate them, that she still thought kindly of him, but it had eventually evolved into a tentative friendship. She was a servant in this timeline and her dark skin proclaimed her to be a native, even if it wasn't true; Edward really had no idea of how to go about being her friend, but he tried. She wanted to push him away, to remind him of their different stations. She could be fired for something like this and then how would she be able to complete her mission? He persisted, however, and Sailor Pluto didn't have it in her heart to turn him away. Dormant feelings that she had tried to quash began to stir once more every time he came to her to talk. It was maddening; she should have better control of herself. She would always be a Soldier first, a woman second.

"You know, you could always ask her yourself if you are afraid she doesn't love you anymore," Sailor Pluto commented, interrupting another one of Edward's long monologues of self-doubt and loathing.

Edward blushed hotly and turned to avoid her gaze. "It's more than that, though," he said quietly.

"What do you mean?"

"I find that... I don't really want her to love me like a brother any longer. I mean, she really hasn't been my sister in years. She's almost like a stranger to me, and I can't help but be drawn to her in an unnatural way. A way that no brother should be drawn to his sister." He rubbed his eyes, as though trying to unsee whatever unbidden images rose in his head at thoughts of his sister.

"Endy- Edward," Sailor Pluto corrected. "It's not your fault. Or her's." How could she explain to him that they were reincarnated lovers?

"No," Edward shook his head. "You can't try to justify it. Thank you for trying to make me feel better, but I know what is right and good and proper and what I am feeling right now is none of those things."

"What are you going to do then?

Hesitantly, Edward approached her. "I need to find someone new. Someone who won't remind me of her. I... I've been thinking about this a lot and... you're really a wonderful woman, Ananta. I don't think I've ever met someone as understanding as you. Maybe if I had met you first... I don't know. I know it will cause a scandal, I know I could be disowned, but... I would like it if you married me."

Sailor Pluto reeled back as though she had been slapped. She loved Endymion, it was true, but she had never wanted this. She and Wilhelm had come together through their mutual grief. They had been friends and companions for years before they had ever been husband and wife. She had known that Ellyn had always been first in his heart, but Sailor Pluto had also been aware that she had held her own special place there as well. But what Edward was suggesting... using her as a replacement... as a way to drive thoughts of Helena from his mind and as a wedge between him and his family, an excuse to avoid them... It was infuriating. She was no one's replacement. If Edward had loved her on her own, Sailor Pluto wasn't sure if she would have had the strength to push him away, but he didn't and she wouldn't be insulted like this.

They heard a gasp and a clatter and the two whipped their heads just in time to see snatches of blue silk and blonde curls dart through a door. Helena had heard everything.