The Other Side
by Goz

Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon. If I did, I would've made them wear more clothes.

Warning: This is a Sailor Moon fanfic concerning various new Sailor Scouts of my own creation. It also contains liberal mixing of the Japanese version with the dub. Caveat emptor.

Note: I didn't say a *lot* of action. But I posted the next two, too...

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Part 6

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Ariane stared at the ceiling of her bedroom. She had been at the orphanage a week now, and had become accustomed to studying the stucco ceiling for hours before going to sleep. Glances at the clock punctuated her insomniac nights. She looked over at the glowing digital clock on the nightstand. It was three AM.

She sighed and rolled over to stare out the window. A car was slowly circling the parking lot. She stared at it for a moment before rolling over again and staring at the door. She heard footsteps outside and tensed, expecting at any moment to see it open and...

What was she expecting, anyway? Andrea? Her father? She didn't know. She didn't know anything.

Ariane had been searching her memories for anything that would prove Andrea's story to be right... or wrong. She honestly couldn't decide which she would rather have. Would it be better to have no past, or such an awful one?

But preferences aside, Ariane had no memory of her father. Someplace very far back, she had a very foggy memory, more of a picture, of a woman with red hair and violet eyes. Maybe it was her mother, maybe it was just a baby-sitter or nurse. Who could tell?

Ariane felt something wrong just moments before she smelled the smoke. She flung herself out of bed and threw the door open violently. A fire was crackling somewhere to the left, and Ariane flew down the hallway. She turned a corner and discovered that the entire corridor was aflame. She rushed back into the other hall, screaming. She stopped short half-way back to her room; Andrea's bedroom was in the part of the hall that was burning! She ran all the way to the opposite end of the hall and pounded on Connelly's door. She was still pounding when Connelly opened the door a crack and looked out.

"What is it -" she began blearily, then her eyes widened. "Oh, shit, there's a *fire*, isn't there? What's burning?"

"The whole east hall!" said Ariane frantically. "We've got to get everyone out of here!" Connelly opened her door the rest of the way and zoomed out towards the doors nearest the fire. A small part of Ariane was mildly amused to see that Connelly's pajamas had cows and moons on them. The rest of her was still panicking.

She turned away from Connelly and ran the rest of the way down the hall to the fire alarm. As she pulled it and heard the buzzing resounding through the halls, she berated herself fiercely for not doing this earlier. After a few seconds of waiting for people to come out into the halls, Ariane lost what little patience she had left and started racing down the hall, screaming "Fire! Fire!"

Connelly was already going into people's rooms and dragging them out. The nearest exit was blocked by the fire, so Ariane shrieked, noting her own hysteria with vague amusement, "Follow me!" and rushed down to the western hall to the other exit. Other people were emerging stunned from their rooms as she ran by, and she stifled a moment of embarrassment for her blue nightshirt.

Outside, Ariane heard fire copters' sirens, familiar from the last time this had happened. "Oh, they're here already!" she exclaimed to no one in relief. She glanced around the quickly growing throng for Connelly and Andrea, the only two people at the orphanage she was more than casually acqainted with. She saw Connelly standing by the door, rushing people out into the parking lot, but couldn't find Andrea anywhere. She shoved her way through the terrified crowd to the door.

"Connelly!" she yelled over the noise of the other orphans. "Has Andrea come out yet?"

Connelly cocked her head and Ariane repeated her shouted query. Rather than waste breath yelling, Connelly shook her head. Ariane tried to push past her to get inside, but Connelly pushed her back and shook her head again.

Ariane retreated back into the crowd in resignation. *Please, don't let her be hurt,* she silently pled. But somewhere she thought she remembered seeing Andrea smirk and say, "Fire? Hurt *me*? Come on, Ari, remember who I *am*!..."