A/N: Enjoy!

Taiki and Chibi-Chibi were waiting for me when I ran out of the house. She took one look at the expression on my face and, thankfully, didn't say a word. We walked back to the apartment in silence, and I went straight to my room and closed the door behind me. I was caught up in that weird feeling of wanting to cry but being unable to. Maybe I was in shock. Out of all the ways I had thought that my parents might react, that had never been one of them. I'd always thought that no matter what, they would accept me. It wasn't like I was doing drugs or drinking or anything like that. I was out there every night saving the world! Without me, Tokyo would have been destroyed years ago.

Would they ever come around to the idea? What if they never did? I threw myself down on the bed and tried to picture myself explaining the story of the Silver Millennium and Crystal Tokyo, about the past I'd forgotten and the future I'd never have. If my parents couldn't even accept that I was Sailor Moon, there was no way I would ever be able to tell them that much. And forget explaining about the baby and where she really came from. Maybe it was a good thing I'd started practicing my story around Motoki after all. It was looking like I'd need it.

I heard a knock at my door. I didn't answer. I wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone about what had happened. But someone opened the door anyway, and I didn't have to look up to know who it was. Seiya padded across the floor towards me and crawled onto the bed. She laid down so that she was propping her head up on her hand. Even in my misery, I couldn't help noticing that she was wearing a dark blue tank top and a pair of white cotton panties that emphasized the slight golden tan she'd gotten after all of her time on Earth. For once, though, the lovely view of her legs didn't do anything to cheer me up. I closed my eyes and let out a deliberate groan, and Seiya sighed.

"Do you want to tell me what happened?" she asked quietly.

I knew she wouldn't go away until I answered. "Not really."

"Taiki told me that you told your parents the truth."

I said nothing.

"Did they - were they angry with you? Did they throw you out?"

"No." I had to respond to that, because I didn't want Seiya getting the wrong idea about Mom and Dad. "No, it was nothing like that. They didn't believe me at first. I had to transform to prove that I was telling the truth. They thought that I was so upset by what happened in the war that I was just pretending to be Sailor Moon. I was - I can understand how they might have thought that, but it hurt me." I paused for a moment, startled. I hadn't realized just how deeply it affected me that Mom and Dad were always thinking the worst of me. "And then Mom got really upset when she I transformed. She ran out of the room and said she didn't want to hear about it. Dad followed her and I left." I shrugged.

"I'm sorry," Seiya said. She reached out and tangled her fingers into one of the streamers of hair that fell from my odango. "You know, it's nice to see your hair like this again. I was starting to think that I'd never see my odango again."

I turned my head to look at her. "I've always been here."

She smiled, just a little. "What are you going to do about your parents?"

"I don't know. What can I do, really? I can't make them accept the truth if they don't want to. Shingo seems to think that given enough time, they'll get used to the idea. Maybe he's right. I did spring it on them pretty abruptly." I rolled over onto my side. "Did you ever have to tell your parents?"

"I don't know who my parents are, Odango."

"What?"

Seiya kept playing with my hair while she spoke. "Every prince or princess that is - was born on Kinmoku needed senshi, and children with those shining star seeds would be born as required, usually within a five or so year radius of the royal child. In my case, Princess Kakyuu was born and a little while later so was I. The palace had a special way of finding the senshi. When they discovered who I was, I was told they approached my parents and explained about my destiny. It's a great honor, you know. I was taken to the palace and raised with Taiki and our princess and Yaten."

I stayed silent for a long moment, quelling my initial desire to say how horrible that sounded. I couldn't imagine being taken away from my parents when I was just a baby. I tried to picture doing that for Chibi-Usa, taking her guardians away from their parents, and knew I would never be able to do that. But Seiya didn't seem to be disturbed. Actually, she sounded calm and relaxed. I swallowed hard. "That sounds - different."

"It's just the way things were, Odango. They wanted to foster a stronger sense of loyalty between us and our princess, and what better way than to introduce us when we just toddlers and let us grow up together?" she replied. "It wasn't so bad. I had my sisters, and we all had Kakyuu."

"It just sounds sort of... lonely. I mean, didn't you ever wonder about your family?"

She looked at me for a moment before she answered. "Sometimes," she said at last. "I suppose that we all did, once in a while. It's a natural curiosity to wonder where you came from, what your parents and the rest of your blood family might look like. When I was about fifteen I was offered the opportunity to go meet with them if I wanted to, but I declined. I didn't want to know. Yaten went, though."

"She must have found that hard."

"I think she regretted going," Seiya agreed. "She was very quiet when she came back, and from then on she was a little bit colder towards every person that we met. I never asked her who she met or what she saw, but it changed her."

I could believe that. "Do you ever wish things had been different?"

"Do you?" she asked. "Do you wish that you'd been brought up somewhere else, not knowing your parents so that you didn't have to worry about telling them?"

"No."

"Well, I'm the same. I told you. It's what I know, Odango. It might sound awful to you, but that was how things were done on Kinmoku. The things that we missed out on were made up in everything else that we got, like the power to defend our planet." She sighed. "And besides, in the end being senshi is what ultimately saved our lives. I'm sure that our families, if anything remained of them by the time Galaxia came, perished in the war. We would have died too"

I was quiet for a long moment, not really sure how to respond to that. I could tell that little by little they were becoming accustomed to the heavy weight of grief, but I also knew that it would be a long time before they thought of Earth as their home. "Seiya?"

"Yes?"

"I don't regret telling my family. I don't know what's going to happen when we go to fight Rubeus. I hope that we'll come out it okay. I believe that we will. But..." I looked up at the ceiling, trying to organize my thoughts into something coherent. "What happened to the moon during the Silver Millennium and Kinmoku made me realize that sometimes things don't work out, and it's not for lack of trying. It just happens. I didn't want to go into the fight with Rubeus knowing that if I didn't come back, I'd have regrets."

"Odango, nothing is going to happen to us tomorrow," Seiya said firmly.

"You don't know that. Rubeus is - he's strong, Seiya. You didn't see the way he looked at me. I know he would do whatever it takes to kill me, even if it means that he might not survive. That's just the kind of person he is." I hoped she would understand what I was trying to say - that this would be literally a fight to the death. Then again, most of our battles were. I'd just never thought about it like that before.

"Where is this coming from? Why are you suddenly so afraid?"

"I'm not scared! Well, okay, maybe I am a little. It's hard not to be. I used to go into every fight thinking that me and my friends were triumph no matter what, and before Galaxia we did. She and Chaos proved that we're not as all powerful as we think we are." I paused and cleared my throat. Nerves were making my hands shake, and it was getting harder to continue. "But I - it's more than that. I just don't want to have any regrets. And I -" I hesitated, the words getting stuck in my throat.

Seiya's face changed as realization dawned on her. "You have a regret involving me?" she said, sounding surprised. "Odango, you know that you can tell me anything. What is it?"

I took a deep breath. This was going to change everything for better or worse, and at this point I really had no idea which it was going to be. "When we first met, you did everything you could to be there for me," I said as steadily as I could. "Whether I wanted you to be there or not, you were there. And even though I tried so hard not to, I started to depend on you. I knew that I had a future waiting for me with Mamo-chan, but it was only the fact that I was so worried about him that allowed me to be strong."

She started to say something, but I held up a hand to stop her. "Please don't. I just need to get this out, and if I don't I'll probably never have the courage to say it again. You probably don't want to hear this, but I love Mamo-chan. I love him a lot. He was my prince. I was supposed to love him. Because of that, I'd never really had the chance to know what it was like to just fall in love with someone naturally. So I hope you can excuse me for not wanting to consciously realize I'd fallen for you."

The look on her face at that moment was priceless, she looked so shocked. I didn't think she could've spoken even if she had wanted to. My stomach was churning so hard that I thought I might throw up. I swallowed hard and continued. "I wouldn't have done anything about it if Mamo-chan had survived. Like I said, we had a future together that would've saved the world. But now he's gone, and he - I know that he wants me to move on. He asked me not to ignore love when it already right in front of me, and it took me a little while to understand that he meant you. Even the senshi told me not to be a coward, because they knew that if I lost my chance with you I'd never forgive myself. It seems that more people realized how I felt about you than I thought.

"So this is it. Now you know what my one regret would have been if we had died tomorrow and I never got the chance to say..." My heart was pounding so hard I felt dizzy as I reached over and took her hand. It felt damp and warm, but I still slid our fingers together. "I love you, Seiya."

Please review!