"How come you don't go to school?" Haru asked Hotaru one day, as she and Takeshi worked through their summer homework. It wasn't hard or anything, just journals on things they saw and did, but it was tedious.

Hotaru paused on her own 'homework'. Haru had been jealous when she learned that Hotaru got to choose her own homework, making up her own lessons, but after looking at just what the older girl did for her self-assigned work, had decided Hotaru liked torturing herself. The books she read were incredibly boring, and with the tiniest letters ever.

"I have health problems," Hotaru said.

"Oh." Haru usually would have dropped it there, but something that day – maybe the heat of the summer, maybe the boredom that made Haru drag her feet at the idea of returning her focus to the homework waiting for her – prodded her to ask some more. "Does it hurt?"

Hotaru didn't immediately answer, and Haru's imagination jumped to action. Like a cursed princess, Hotaru couldn't really go to school, and be known only to a few until her prince came for her! It was a problem only true love's kiss could fix, and –

"Sometimes," Hotaru said at last, cutting off Haru's thoughts before she could think about a dragon. Maybe this dragon could be a nice one instead of a mean one, like Granny, because while Granny was as scary as a dragon she wasn't evil or like a witch. More like a fairy godmother.

Wait, Hotaru had answered.

"Hahi?"

Hotaru smiled like she knew what Haru was thinking. "It's painful, sometimes."

Takeshi dropped his pencil.

"Do you need to go to the hospital?" he asked urgently, no smile on his face.

She shook her head. "I'm okay. I'm getting better," she added when he looked ready to protest. "Really. I'm not in pain now."

At the time Haru had thought she was like a princess, and that had been about the extent of her worries. Hotaru was pale and didn't – couldn't – run around or be as active as Takeshi or Haru, but she looked and acted normal.

Haru didn't realize just what that had meant, until Hotaru coughed up blood on her twelfth birthday and began to fall to the ground.

And no, she didn't want her friend to be a princess, not if it meant something like this.

Before Hotaru could collapse to the ground, a thin man grabbed her. "Easy, easy."

"We need to get her to the hospital!" Haru cried out, the only thought she could form as her head went white.

Takeshi narrowed his eyes. He hadn't noticed this person around before – and he wasn't someone who stood out, but he did wear a kimono while everyone else was wearing western-styled clothes. Takeshi wouldn't have missed him coming close enough to them to catch Hotaru before she fell.

It was almost like he had appeared out of thin air.

"No, it's fine," said the man, adjusting his grip on Hotaru's body so she was held a little more carefully. She didn't look fine, not to Haru or to Takeshi. She still had blood streaked below her mouth, and the red was all-too-clear for them to see on her shirt.

And she was breathing hard, like she had run as fast as she could even though she had done no such thing.

"She's not!" Haru shouted, because clearly this man couldn't understand the gravity of the situation.

"She is," the man insisted. "She just forgot to take her medicine and had a bad attack. As soon as she gets some rest, she'll be fine."

Hotaru weakly nodded in his arms. She didn't push him away, and Haru hesitated. If Hotaru could see herself, maybe she might agree with them more. There was a chance her friend didn't understand just how sick she looked right now.

He began to walk towards the realtor's place Hotaru lived, and the two of them had no choice but to follow.

"Are you sure?" Takeshi asked. Smart as Hotaru was, she wasn't a doctor. "It looks like she's – it looks really serious. Are you a doctor?"

He asked that question with a bit of hope.

"I'm not a doctor," said the man, dashing their hopes. He didn't look like a doctor either, dressed in a green kimono. Most of the doctors Haru had seen wore white coats and dressed neatly beneath them. This man definitely didn't look the part of one. The only thing that might have made him like a doctor was his glasses – but he didn't look particularly smart with them, just tired and suspicious. "But I do know enough about her condition to say that it's not as bad as it looks."

"That's really suspicious," Takeshi said bluntly. Haru nodded, taking a deep breath so she could scream at any given time. The only reason they weren't screaming and accusing him of kidnapping was because Hotaru was still conscious, and she wasn't struggling to get away from him. That could be changed any second.

And she could scream really loudly. She had won a screaming contest at school last year. They all got in trouble with the teacher, but it had been so worth it. Haru would scream with the force of the screaming champion of grade five if she had to, she wasn't afraid of using her power.

"That it does," agreed the man, not even arguing with them. What a weird man. "Here we are."

At Kawahira Realtor's, the man used a key he removed from his pocket to open the doors. Granny wasn't here, but he entered anyways and set Hotaru down on one of the sofas.

"Thank you," she rasped. She sounded like she had a really bad cold, with the worst sore throat in the world.

Takeshi and Haru made a beeline to her side, stepping past the man with the glasses.

"I don't think you should be speaking," Takeshi suggested.

"Where does it hurt?" Haru asked at the same time. Takeshi gave both of them a hard look, and Haru added onto what she had said. "He's right, don't speak!"

After she said that, though, Haru realized how contrary her words were.

Hotaru, though, came up with a way, and tapped at her head, her throat, her chest, her stomach . . . .

Haru's throat had a lump in it. At least, it felt like it did.

"She'll be fine," the bespectacled man said dismissively, and Haru lashed out.

"How can you say that?!" she shrieked, never mind that he was a stranger. How dare he treat Hotaru's pain like it was nothing? She'd give this weird man a piece of her mind-

Hotaru tugged at her hand, and when Haru turned her head she gave a weak smile, trying to reassure her.

It only fanned at her anger, unfortunately.

Takeshi, though, put a hand on her shoulder, and while she was distracted took the reins. "Is there a reason we can't go to the hospital?"

The man had the gall to look bored. "Other than it being a waste of time? No."

There was almost nothing about him that reassured them, except Hotaru, and even their friend's implicit trust of him didn't ease their worries, especially when her eyes slid shut, and she didn't respond to Takeshi calling her name or Haru nudging her arm.

Haru and Takeshi tried to stick around, but the man shooed them out.

"She needs rest," he said. "When she gets better, she'll let you know. Now go home."

Her body felt like it was boiling. Well, had. Now it was more of a simmer. The presence of Saturn, awakened within her, was the return of something that had been inactive for too long moving once more. She knew the sensation and it was familiar, but at the same time there had been years of inactivity.

The best way to describe the feeling would be to call it 'dusty', or 'stiff'. Like a machine creaking back into movement after years of stillness, even though her joints were no longer cybernetic.

Hotaru opened her eyes when she stopped feeling like there was a supernova going off in her brain. Takeshi and Haru were no longer there, but the guardian of Terra watching over her was.

"Would you like some medicine?" Kawahira offered, brandishing a bottle of cough syrup knowing fully well that it would help her with exactly nothing. "It tastes like strawberries."

She shook her head. Already the accelerated healing that came with Saturn's powers was kicking in, and any internal injuries that had been inflicted by Saturn's return – to be more accurate, her suppressing of Saturn's return – had already been fixed.

Hotaru felt full. Content. Like she could fly, if she wanted to now. And she could, really, so she wasn't just imagining it, because filling her veins, her soul, was the power that Saturn wielded.

Stars and space, vast emptiness that was like the abyss but promising in potential, the countless specks of bright lights that were the lives on this planet, the fates and destinies that could be woven.

Deaths. The old which made way for the new – destruction for the sake of hope, and rebirth. Necessary tragedies, ends that were given meaning, a part of nature, the inevitable end which came with the circle of life.

A cycle like the phoenix, rising anew from its own ashes in the splendor of the sun.

She blinked several times in rapid succession to clear her sight and shoved away the influx of information. The last thing she needed was to drive herself insane with the sudden cognition of her soul's nature.

"What-" her voice was raspy and hoarse, like metal scraping on metal. Hotaru cleared her throat, and the next words came out sounding closer to an actual human voice. "What did you do to make them go?"

Because if words alone would have managed to make Haru back down, then Kawahira deserved to be the advocate of the Devil himself. And Takeshi might have seemed easy-going, but he had a stubborn streak as wide as a baseball field in him, too.

"How anyone with talent and half a cup of wits would explain away damage caused by the reconnection of a powerful being's source and soul," he said and shrugged, unrepentant. "I scrambled their senses."

Those were not reassuring words to her own senses.

"What," Hotaru said flatly, hoping that she had misheard.

"With illusions and a bit of hypnosis," he added, because the method had obviously been what was bothering her. "Nothing permanent, just enough to convince them that the best method of helping you was to return to their homes, instead of staying around a newly-awakened Soldier of Silence."

Hotaru cringed. She hadn't even considered whether she might have negative effects on them or not.

"Probably none," Kawahira answered when she asked about possible adverse effects. "I just didn't want to bother explaining or coming up with a flimsy excuse on the spot. You were coughing up blood, and even non-medical professionals know that's hardly a good sign."

She . . . well, she wouldn't have been able to explain it very well herself, but still.

"What were you thinking?" Kawahira asked, drumming his fingers together. On another person, the action might have made them look like they were plotting something, but on Kawahira he just looked like he was fidgeting for the sake of fidgeting. "I could have erased their memories, you know."

"I forgot, at the time," Hotaru said. And in retrospect, she wasn't sure she liked the idea of tampering with their memories even further. "I thought I could just – hold it back."

She just hadn't expected the backlash to be so severe. Her magic had healed it almost immediately, but it had still made Haru and Takeshi worry, and even Kawahira, as evident in how he had actually stuck around until her respirations had become regular once more.

"Get some rest," Kawahira said, voice like a sigh of exasperation with how soft and whispery it was. "I'll contact your parents."

As if his words had been a spell, her eyelids grew heavier, and she couldn't hold them up any further.

He ruffled her hair like he always did, an action and no words, but this time it felt like a goodbye. Her consciousness faded away before she could try to grab him or anything, which was something she wouldn't put past him causing.

When Hotaru woke up at last, she was surrounded by her parents, just as Kawahira had implied.

There were a lot of things she felt in that moment, but whatever complicated mess her emotions had become, she pushed them all back to make way for joy, first and foremost. The least of which she owed to three of the strongest women she knew was a smiling face.

"Hi," she whispered, and opened her arms.

All three of them came forwards, ignoring the elbows flying and digging into each other's ribs, to envelope her in a group hug for the first time in years.

That was probably one of the best birthday gifts she had ever received.

Naturally, the other sailor soldiers tried to rush over. Key word being 'tried'.

"It's not our house," reminded Setsuna, and as accommodating as Granny had been, Hotaru also didn't want to end up mobbing the old woman with the entire solar system guardians in her own house.

After letting Granny know that she would be out, Hotaru transformed for the first time in years. The essence of Saturn, unbound and unfrozen at last, washed over her, and from the purple light that had enveloped her she emerged as a soldier and an incarnation of a planet.

On her brow, covering where her mark of Saturn would be, rested the tiara that served to protect her head as a helm would. The Silence Glaive, heavy with responsibility and power, rested in her hand, a familiar weight. It would not swing down today, and there were no enemies in sight, but it was there, a part of her as much as the sailor armor and the tiara on her brows were.

Pluto extended a hand to her, and she took it. Neptune took her other hand, and Uranus connected the others.

Together, bound in a ring of clutched hands, they teleported to Tokyo.

Before she could even release their hands, Saturn was tackled by Usagi in a flying hug.

"Saturn!" her princess shouted, exuberant to the point where it nearly broke Saturn's heart. "You're back! You're okay now!"

Following the princess, the hug grew larger when the inner soldiers joined in as well.

"It's been too long," Ami mumbled, the closest to her.

"Have you been eating?" Makoto asked, trying to look over her to the best of her abilities. She might have had more luck if Saturn wasn't covered up in so many arms, Makoto's own included.

Rei exhaled softly. "This is a relief," she said.

Minako was the first to let her go, though it was for her sake more than anything. "Guys, I think we smothered her."

Saturn was actually not smothered. It took more than that to take out a sailor guardian, after all. She was just a little overwhelmed, and in the good way.

Hotaru released the transformation, just as Mamoru entered the apartment.

"Hotaru-chan," he greeted, smile wide and welcoming. His smile slipped, as he turned serious. "Did someone already give you a checkup?"

"I was just about to do that," Ami said, computer on her hand. "She was fine last time, and given that she can transform now with no pain she should be fully recovered, but . . ."

Doctors, Hotaru thought fondly as Ami ran scans over her body, visor extended over her eyes.

"We've got so much to catch up on," Minako said. "Usagi and Mamoru's wedding, first and foremost."

The wedding! The very wedding that had been put on hold indefinitely so all of the sailor soldiers could attend – the one that hadn't happened yet despite being a sure thing because of her condition.

It was finally happening. Her princess was going to marry the prince.

Usagi clapped her hands in glee. "I was hoping you'd be the flower girl and ring bearer, Hotaru-chan."

The honor of being both came to Hotaru so she could stand in for Chibi-Usa. Usagi's friend Naru was maid-of-honour, because it wasn't fair to any of the sailor soldiers if one of them happened to be maid of honor.

"Also because I have like two groomsmen," added Mamoru. He looked a little wistful as he listed the two names. "Ittou and Motoki."

"I lent you Gurio," reminded Usagi, tucking herself into his side. "And Shingo."

"Gurio didn't appreciate being lent by you to me," retorted Mamoru, fondness making his blue eyes twinkle. "And Shingo might still try to stab me in the back for making his sister's marriage be set back so late."

"Sorry," mumbled Hotaru, immensely guilty at the reminder that they would have been married a lot sooner had it not been for her.

Usagi smacked Mamoru and frantically shook her head, inadvertently hair-whipping both Rei and Mamoru, the two with the misfortune of being closest to her at the time.

"It's not your fault!" she shouted. "It's not like being married or not would ever change just how much I love Mamo-chan, that's just formalities!"

"It also gave me time to practice my cake-decorating skills," Makoto threw in her own two cents. The owner of a cake shop doing very well in Tokyo smiled proudly. "They're going to have the prettiest wedding cake ever."

"And it gave me time to actually make the dress myself," Setsuna spoke, too. "Not just Usagi's dress, but all of ours."

"I'm sorry for giving you the wrong idea," Mamoru apologized, gently prying his lover's fingers from his shoulder one by one. Given that she was squeezing him like the end of the world was upon them, it took him a considerable effort.

Hotaru smiled and agreed that there would be nothing to forgive, as Minako launched into the logistics of how the bridesmaids and groomsmen pair-up would work.

.

After the presents – everyone had really gone all-out, as if this was the last chance they had to spend money – Hotaru tapped Setsuna on her wrist.

"Uncle says to tell you that his birthday gift to me makes up for whatever you're working on right now," she informed her quietly, while Mamoru was busy murmuring something into Usagi's ear. The whole day had been a bit busy, and it was only now, after receiving all the birthday gifts, that she remembered what felt like a week ago.

Setsuna started, before she sighed in exasperation. "Honestly," she muttered. "What a show-off."

She stood from her seat. Michiru noticed, and raised a chopstick to tap against her glass. The sound, like a crystal bell, rang through the room, grabbing everyone's attention and ceasing ongoing conversations.

"Thank you, Michiru." Setsuna cleared her throat. "I was going to announce this later, but some recent developments have made me think it might be more prudent to share it now."

Hotaru glanced around the table, and while the inners looked like they didn't have a clue of what Setsuna might say, Michiru and Haruka were grinning in anticipation.

Nonetheless, everyone leaned in, excited to hear what she had to say.

"I've been offered a job as a professor of physics at Yosen University," Setsuna announced.

Ami clapped her hands over her mouth as Usagi shrieked in joy.

"Oh my gosh!" exclaimed Minako. "Setsuna, that's awesome!"

"The Dean of Physics there is an old friend of my mentor's, and recently one of the faculty retired, so he put in a good word and, well." Setsuna smiled, abashed. "I think a part of it has to do with how they're trying to even out gender imbalances-"

"No way," interrupted Haruka. "We talked about this, Sets, there's no one better for the job, it has everything to do with your skills."

"And even so, you'll show just how powerful and amazing women can be in the sciences," added Michiru.

"Given that I still have plans on going into fashion design later on in my life, I doubt I'll be a good role model," Setsuna said dryly.

"Nah," Haruka said, grinning. "You'll do both like the boss lady you are." She spoke with full confidence, as if there was no other option. It was the verdict of the heavenly king.

"Totally," agreed Makoto, the guardian of the other planet with the claim to the same title. "Oh, I wish you told me earlier, I'd have made a cake – well, another cake."

Hotaru glanced at the cake, the remains of what had been a beautifully decorated two-tiered cake. Even after everyone had gotten at least one generously-sized slice – and more than half of them had gone for seconds because Makoto's baking was unrivalled – there was still plenty left.

Still, priorities.

"Yosen's been rising in rankings these past years," Ami said approvingly.

"I'm sure they'll appreciate an intelligent professor to help further boost themselves," Rei complimented.

"Congratulations," Mamoru said genuinely when he could get a word in.

Hotaru nodded quickly, trying to hide her distractedness. Yosen. Where had she heard that name before? It sounded vaguely familiar.

Haruka cleared her throat. "But," she began theatrically. "Isn't Yosen all the way over in Akita?"

Akita. Where Namimori was.

Yosen University was where Haru's father taught as a math professor, Hotaru recalled at last. It was close to Namimori.

Hotaru stared at Setsuna, not daring to even think because they couldn't possibly-

"Oh, that'll be quite the commute from Juban," Michiru took the baton and ran with it with all the dramatics she was capable of. "I guess Setsuna will be moving. Do you happen to know a place where you'd be interested in living?"

No way.

Setsuna smiled, lips curling up slowly. "As a matter of fact, I have a town in mind," she said playfully. She may have been 'answering' Michiru's question, but her garnet gaze was fixed on Hotaru. "It's a quiet but interesting town, from what I've been told by someone living there for a few years. Nice people, too."

Hotaru found her voice. "But what about-" at a loss for words, she vaguely gestured to everyone else. Usagi, Mamoru, the inners –

Who all happened to be smiling knowingly, and wait a minute.

"Hotaru-chan," Usagi said, gentle and proud. "Your friends are there. We wouldn't want you to have to move again."

"But I'm a sailor soldier," Hotaru protested. She had a duty, they all did. Sailor Saturn could finally fight alongside her sisters, now that destiny had been changed. She couldn't choose anything else over that.

"You're also Tomoe Hotaru," pointed out Rei.

"Hotaru, we can still live our lives while we do our duty. We don't have to be what we were," Setsuna said gently while Hotaru tried to come up with a way to explain why being Tomoe Hotaru was not reason enough to not do her duty as Sailor Saturn. "You told us that."

By 'that', she had meant they, as sailor soldiers, could be moved from their posts. Pluto would no longer have to be at the gates, Uranus and Neptune did not have to stand guard on their planets, and she would not have to be asleep indefinitely. She hadn't meant for civilian life to take priority over guarding the princess.

"But," she wavered in her protest, because a part of her was immensely happy at what she was offered. A life, an actual normal life where she could just be Tomoe Hotaru, without Sailor Saturn always looming behind her.

It terrified her, too.

Haruka reached over to rumple her hair. "It's not like we're retiring or anything," she said. "We'll just be balancing it out. Enjoying the normal, living our lives."

"None of us gave up our dreams," Michiru chimed in. "And none of us will. It's just that we have two dreams. What we want, as civilians, and what we want as sailor soldiers."

Giving both sides of their identities equal worth. Whereas Hotaru, all this time, had subconsciously been tipping the scales in favor of Sailor Saturn.

She understood, logically, what they were saying. Emotionally, she craved that balance too.

And yet, still, a part of her – the same part that knew what it was like to bring down the Silence Glaive wordlessly, with the intent to reset life – was scared, worried. Dared not hope.

Usagi slipped out of her seat and came to hug Hotaru. "We all noticed you were worried," she soothed. "But whenever we tried to reassure you, you didn't really listen."

Had she really not listened? They always reassured her that it was okay, that she could take her time, that there was no need to feel frustrated and Hotaru had always appreciated their willingness to wait for her.

Maybe she hadn't thought about what else the sailor soldiers had been trying to tell her. That it wasn't just Sailor Saturn they were waiting to return to them.

"Probably because you didn't have your powers, and couldn't let yourself relax," Minako added. "So we waited until you actually could make the choice before springing this on you."

Because sometimes, having a choice made all the difference. Hotaru exhaled. Granny had been right. Before, without her powers, she had been too focused on herself being useless to the protection of the solar system and the princess.

Now that she had it, now that she was reassured that she wouldn't be helpless in the face of a crisis, Hotaru could think with a little more leisure. Think about her future as Tomoe Hotaru as well as Sailor Saturn, rather than just the latter like she had been focusing on.

"Namimori's really far from Tokyo, though," she protested, even as most of her mind was caught up in a whirlwind of things she hadn't dared to considered before. It wasn't like everyone would move to the small town.

"And we can teleport," said Usagi.

The way she said it, like it was so obvious and easy, stunned Hotaru, like someone had hit the back of her head with a frying pan.

Then, she broke out into giggles. Of course distance wasn't an issue. How could she have forgotten how insignificant that was?

Suddenly, all the worries that had been plaguing her for months seemed insignificant. And how could it not be, when the strongest women in the solar system – when the strongest woman in the entire universe – said it was so?

AN: AN: I have promised Ze Happy and I have delivered! Put your pitchforks down, please.

Next is an interlude of sorts, where we have a lot of different POVs from different timelines, both present and past. It's a very long chapter but I swear it's all important information.

Sweet Dreams~