Mars

She has it so perfect. The Princess of the Moon Kingdom, the Queen of Crystal Tokyo, the spoiled brat who always gets what she wants. Do I sound bitter? That's because I am. I know what people say about me, when they think I can't hear what they are saying; according to the servants in the palace I am a jealous, hateful, spiteful, bitter bitch to their adored Queen, the perfect Serenity. I wasn't always the way I am, everything I have done, everything I am is because of her. I never used to be so sour, I used to be in love with a handsome man named Kaidou, he was my husband, my soul mate I loved him so much, he was my reason for living. But he's gone, dead; he has been for half a century now. My goodness it can't have been that long already but as I check the date I realise it is so. It has been fifty years since I laid Kaidou to rest but its still fresh in my mind the day of his funeral. I remember the droning voice of the priest telling me the life of a man that I knew so well because he spent his life with me. The feel of rain falling onto my head and my tears mixing with the rain, my sobs being muffled by the thunder overhead. Serenity came to me that day after my darling Kaidou was buried, offering sympathies, but I couldn't stand to be with her. All I could think was that I should have been there beside Kaidou; I should have been with him, an old woman ready to go to her grave but Serenity had stolen my normal life from me. I had lived my life; I did not want it extended, not without the man I loved. I didn't want to talk to any of them, the others, the lucky ones who still had their husbands standing or in wheelchairs beside them. Our loves were getting old and grey and as much as we wished and prayed there was nothing we could do to save them. I had never felt so helpless in all my life. I had known it wouldn't be long before I would be attending the funeral of one of the others. We had all taken the deaths of our husbands differently. I had locked myself in my room and cried my heart out, until I had no more tears to cry and then I yelled and screamed abuse at the world for letting my Kaidou die. I had then emerged from my room days later with a wall of hostility around me. We all try and keep in touch with our lost husbands in a special way. I read Kaidou's novel that he had written about us, the Sailor Senshi, over and over again. Reading it makes me feel like he is beside me again reading it to me the way he used to. Sometimes I can hear his deep voice resonating through my head. Taiki had been the second one of our husbands to leave us having been the second oldest after my sweet Kaidou. He had gone peacefully and silently leaving a bereaved Ami behind him. Ami had cried and cried and for days her eyes had been red rimmed. There was nothing I could do, nothing I could say the take the pain away from her, after all my pain was still fresh in my mind. Ami had finally wiped her tears away for good and she was the only one of us on comfortable speaking terms with Serenity, she still defended Serenity whenever Minako, Makoto and I spoke bad words about her. At first I considered the way she had begun talking again with Serenity as a betrayal but I soon learned that Ami was grasping onto Serenity as some sort of life line, someone to give her hope and friendship and love without a darkness in there lives like mine. Sometimes, and indeed even now on a few occasions I would find Ami just sitting in a chair smiling softly staring into the distance and I knew she was dreaming of Taiki, that was her way of keeping in touch with him. She was at peace with herself but she couldn't stand seeing Endymion and Serenity together, neither could the rest of us and I think they were aware of that, both walked on eggshells around us, careful of what they said or did with each other. I think we affected their love for each other because we forced them to cool off, everyone knows things are not so good now with Serenity and Endymion in any case and I know a secret that she doesn't. Endymion is having an affair with Setsuna. Serenity doesn't know, I have kept it from her as have the others and in a way we still know our duty is to protect our Queen. Umino, Minako's Umino was the third to depart for the next world. Minako had hidden her grief behind smiles of happiness pretending everything was okay, pretending that life without Umino was worth living, but it wasn't. I still hear her, thirty-five years later, crying in her room that is beside mine for her gone but not forgotten Umino. I never let her know that I can hear her but often she will meet my gaze across a room and in her eyes I can see all that she suffers, in that we are all linked, we all are suffering. Sometimes I hear Minako having a conversation with herself in her room pretending that Umino is there with her talking with her about his latest case. It isn't madness what she is doing; it is her way of keeping in touch with Umino. Shinozaki had been the last to go, and Makoto had taken his passing quite well, better than I had, considering she had at least gotten to say goodbye to him. She had shut herself away for days, and when she finally emerged she was listless and dull, the way I knew I had been since Kaidou's death, she had lost her will to live as had I, as had Ami and Minako. She didn't rant or rave as I had but I knew she kept her blame for Serenity silent as we all did. Makoto kept in touch with Shinozaki through the stars. I asked her once about them and she had smiled and told me, "I see his eyes in the stars." My room is practically a shrine to Kaidou and what we shared together full of photographs, memorabilia and silly things that meant so much to us. Ironically Kaidou had accepted his death and my continued survival before I had, as had the other girls husbands. Before they died, they even held 'Grumpy Old Men' clubs where they joked about their coming deaths with each other. None of us girls could ever bring ourselves to go to these meetings even though we knew they only held them to try and help us get used to the idea we would have to go on without them. They all talked so callously of their deaths that they frightened us with a harsh reality we did not want to face. Kaidou and I shared so many good times together. That day when he told me that he was getting married to another girl was the only sad moment we ever had with each other apart from Crystal Tokyo. I loved him even back then when I was only sixteen and he was twenty-three.

He had came to me that day, bearing gifts of chocolates, and I was so excited that he had brought me gifts that I didn't notice he had to tell me something. I talked on and on about school and hugged him for the chocolates and then he took my hand and forced me to stop talking and face him. He was so handsome that day dressed in his charcoal suit, blonde hair slicked back and his glasses in his breast pocket.

"Rei-chan I have news," he told me slowly as though he were unsure how to bring his topic into our conversation.

"What news?" I asked him tilting my head to the side and Kaidou shoved his hands in his pockets and looked away from me.

"I am getting married," he said as the wind blew his hair and it was like I had been slapped across the face. I stared at him in disbelief hoping he was joking and I started to smile but when I saw he wasn't smiling I realised he meant it and I felt a heavy weight in my chest. My heart is broken, I thought immediately pressing a hand absently to my chest.

"I see," I choked out looking at the ground. My Kaidou was getting married to another girl; it was so unreal I didn't want to believe it.

"She is the daughter of a political opponent of your father, he arranged for us to meet and the courting," he recited and I felt my hatred for my father swell inside my being. It was his fault that Kaidou could never be mine now, why did he have to do this to me?

"Did he arrange the ring and the proposal as well?" I asked sarcastically hating Kaidou and loving him all at the same time.

"No I did, she is a very nice girl," he said and I felt it was more to convince him than me.

"Well good for you then, go and marry her," I told him flatly looking at the ground and Kaidou frowned taking my chin in his hands guiding me to look at his concerned face.

"Why are you angry at me?" he asked me softly and I pulled my face from his grasp and looked to the floor again.

"I'm not," I lied quickly and I heard Kaidou sigh deeply.

"Please Rei, I thought we could always talk to each other, why are you angry?" he asked me again and that was when I couldn't hold back my love for him anymore.

"Why? Because I wanted to be your wife one day, I wanted to be the one wearing your ring, I wanted to be the one you kiss goodnight and I wanted you to love me," I blurted out before thinking and Kaidou took a step away from me shock written all over his handsome face.

"Rei…" he said his eyes wide but I didn't let him say anymore, I had to tell him all I had to say before he could speak or else I would loose my nerve.

"You're a big liar just like my father but at least I expected it from him, but not from you, I thought you were better than that, you told me, you would never mix work with love, but you did it all because my father told you too," I accused him mercilessly and Kaidou actually looked angry with me.

"Now Rei…" he said his voice low and growling but I couldn't let him speak, not now.

"If he told you to jump off a bridge you'd do it, you're nothing but his little gopher, go for this Kaidou, go for that Kaidou, marry this girl Kaidou and fix all my problems like a good gopher," I condemned Kaidou cruelly ignoring the pained look on Kaidou's face. I hit a nerve with him and we both knew it.

"Please Rei, why are you speaking to me this way?" he asked me his voice cracking, and his face was a mask of hurt and betrayal but I hardened my heart to him. I could not think of him anymore, I had no right and I promised myself I would not think of him again once he left the temple.

"Because I love you," I told him simply then surprising even myself I reached up to his face and with my free hand I grabbed his hand and pulled his lips to mine. He was too surprised to resist and I felt his lips respond to mine then I pushed him away and stared at him. Remembering his face, his eyes and his mouth then I turned my back to him and pointed to the exit of the temple.

 "Please leave, and don't come again."

"But Rei I..." Kaidou touched my shoulder but I shrugged off his hand.

"Just go," I demanded and there was silence then the sound of footsteps walking away from the temple and I felt my heart go with him.

"I will never love another," I promised myself, I never wanted my heart to be broken again. I picked up his box of expensive chocolates and opened the lid of the bin.

"Goodbye Kaidou," I said to the chocolates and I threw them away.

How foolish I had been back then to risk such a man as Kaidou like that without a second thought. The next day my father graced me with his presence but I realised early on in the visit it wasn't me he wanted to see.

"Where is Kaidou?" he demanded after I greeted him stopping my chores to run down to him and I stopped in my tracks and raised an eyebrow at him.

"How should I know?" I asked sarcastically but my father was too worried about Kaidou, the son he never had, to notice a daughter that he wished he never had. To him I was just another expense in his pocketbook.

"He came here yesterday, then he broke up with his fiancée and then…disappeared," my father told me fluttering his hands like a magician and I looked at him sharply.

"Disappeared?" I repeated in disbelief

"He up and left, no one can find head or tail of him, why would he leave?" my father asked me taking my arm roughly.
"I don't know," I replied wrenching my arm from his grasp and rubbing my arm. My father sighed and began to head back to his car his work obviously done not bothering about my health, or school or anything about me. The unimportant child that would never be considered anything but a nuisance in her own father's eyes, how could I blame him for hating me? My birth killed my mother, and when my mother died so had my father's ability to love, especially me, the one who looked so much like my mother.

"If you see him…" he turned to say and I shook my head firmly.

"I won't," I told him remembering what I had told Kaidou and my father for once took on the look of a caring parent and came over to me.

"Look pet, I know you think you were in love with him, but its just a school girl crush, besides its not healthy for you to spend so much time with someone so much older than you, you're just a child to him," my father told me and I rolled my eyes to the sky. It was a pretty good effort at being fatherly but still pathetic.

"Ten years isn't much older," I pointed out and my father tapped me under the chin.

"Don't argue pet, remember if you see him tell him to call me," he reminded me, his paternal ways finished for the day he strode to his car.

"Fine," I said watching him leave, not even a kiss or a hug to me, his only daughter.

"See you later pet," he called out as he drove off and I stood staring after him before going back to my chores as though nothing had happened.

It was another two years before I saw Kaidou or my father again.

It was a year after Yuuichiro had left the temple so he could marry Naru. I smile now when I remember how he thought he was in love with me and I thought I was in love with him. I should have known my heart could only be true to one, my darling Kaidou. We agreed before he left that we were just biding time with each other until our true loves came along. I remember him leaving, my Yuuichiro, a true friend.

"Rei, I want to thank you so much for believing in me," he told me taking my hand and kissing it so I blushed.

"Yuuichiro thank you for being you," I replied kissing his hand.

We just stared at each other for the longest time until Naru called Yuuichiro, her new husband, and told him to hurry up or they would miss their flight. For their honeymoon they were going to Italy and afterwards they had both decided to open a jewellery store together. I was so happy for them both. Yuuichiro had dropped my hand and leant forward to kiss me on the cheek.

"Perhaps we will have a second chance, in another time, another place when we are both free to love each other for real," he whispered in my ear and I smiled as he pulled away from me and after we shared another long glance he left with his wife.

I spent a year of loneliness without my best friend, Yuuichiro by my side. Things at the temple had settled down into the normal swing of things and I had routine and normality. Then Kaidou came along and shook things up.

I remember the day he returned to me so clearly. I had woken up late that morning and heard the sound of movement at my door and curiously wearing only my pyjamas I walked to the door and swung it open. There on my doorstep on one knee was Kaidou. He looked the same as I remembered him only more refined and he was staring up at me wearing a sweater and jeans and a charming smile. I thought he was a hallucination at first remembering I had dreamt about him the night before and I guess I must have stared at him strangely because he laughed melodically.

"I really am here Rei," he told me softly and his manly voice echoed through my ears, it was a voice I hadn't ever expected to hear. I still didn't say a word and after a pause Kaidou spoke again.

"Rei, what you said to me the last time we saw each other really changed my life around, I left Japan and went to France do take up a career as an artist, something I have always wanted to do, and now I have fulfilled that dream I have only one more dream to fulfil and it is this, Rei will you be my wife?"

In all my years of living, I had never expected it would be Kaidou who would be saying those very words to me. Still I just stared at him and he felt into his pocket and produced a rose ring box and held it out to me flipping the lid open. I gazed down at the beautiful ruby and diamond ring and felt an unexplainable urge to throw the ring in his face. I looked him straight in the eyes then turned around, stepped back into my room and shut the door calmly in his amazed face.

An hour later I opened the door again and Kaidou was still there on one knee still holding out the ring. He looked up at me and smiled charmingly with pleading in his eyes.

"Please say yes Rei, I won't move from here until you do," he swore to me and I let myself smile weakly.

"How long are you planning to wait?" I asked him innocently wicked look shining in my eyes that Kaidou saw and grinned taking up the unspoken challenge.

"As long as it takes," he promised and I shrugged and shut the door again.

I didn't open the door again that day although I did look out the window many times and there was Kaidou still outside my door true to his promise, waiting. My grandfather fed him lunch, giving him strange looks as he did so, obviously curious to know whom this man was and what he was doing outside my door. I watched movies, read a few books but mostly I meditated asking the fire whether or not to accept Kaidou. The fire didn't give me any answer and I knew it was my choice. It was ten thirty at night when I opened the door and there was Kaidou sleeping peacefully. He had a coat as a blanket and his bag as a pillow, he looked so sweet just sleeping on my doorstep. I knelt down beside him and brushed back a lock of golden hair from his forehead. Kaidou murmured my name but didn't wake and I bent my head and touched my lips to his. Kaidou woke with a jolt and as I pulled away he sat up and took my shoulders in his hands.

"Rei, do you love me still?" he asked me timidly and I reached out hesitantly to caress his cheek.

"You know I do," I replied my heart full of hope and love for this man.

"Then marry me," Kaidou asked me his voice husky with emotion and I fell into his waiting arms, running my hands through his hair.

"Yes Kaidou, I will, we were meant to be together," I told him and he nodded in agreement nuzzling his head into my hair.

"I love you Rei," he mumbled and I gripped onto his hands tightly.

"Never leave me again for so long," I said squeezing his hands and Kaidou looked my deep in the eyes.

"I will never be far from you," he swore as he bent his head to kiss my lips lingeringly.

That was perhaps one of the happiest days of my life. The absolute happiest day of my life had been our wedding. I remember every little detail. The way Kaidou had turned to watch me with a smile as the door to the church had opened. The way his eyes lit up at the sight of me in my wedding dress. I remember how handsome Kaidou was in his black tuxedo and slicked back golden hair. I remember hearing Usagi's giggle of nervousness behind me as we began the walk up the aisle and the sound of the three other girls as they urged her to be quiet. I remember turning to look at my grandpa who was escorting me down the aisle and seeing his wrinkled face smiling happily pride in his eyes. I remember he patted my hand and I felt all the love he held for me. I had chosen Usagi as my maid of honour, she was my best friend after all and the other three girls were my bridesmaids. Kaidou had asked Mamoru to be his best man and Mamoru had accepted. Taiki, Umino and Shinozaki had offered to be the groomsmen and Kaidou and I had happily accepted. My father had suddenly become paternal offering to pay for the wedding and so on but I refused to let him walk me down the aisle, my grandpa was the only father I had ever known. The ceremony went off without a hitch and before I knew it the priest was announcing us as the newly married couple. A series of cheers and congratulations surrounded us as well as grains of rice as we ran down the steps of the temple and into the limousine that awaited us.

"Well ma petite, this is it, the end of your life as Rei Hino," Kaidou said as we drove away waving to our friends whom we would see at the reception and I turned to him shaking my head and smiling gently.

"Oh no my love, it is just the beginning," I corrected him and he didn't disagree, he just pulled me into his arms and kissed me lingeringly.

When Crystal Tokyo was created I returned immediately to the newly built Crystal Palace and was greeted by Serenity at the door. I had hugged her tightly, Endymion too, and the other girls and their husbands as well. It had been so long since I had seen them all that I half feared they were an apparition and I had to convince myself they were real. Finally we were reunited again, the Sailor Scouts all together once more, we thought that our lives were perfect and that nothing could ever happen to make us unhappy ever again - how wrong we were. The night before we found out the information that destroyed our lives we had all had a rare dinner together as one huge family. There had been much talking and laughter, plans of many things that we would all do together but those things never came to pass for after the next day we never met again as a 'family'. The end of the night after kissing the other girls and their husbands goodnight I walked up to Serenity and hugged her tightly feeling something was wrong and that it would be a long time before I hugged her ever again. She seemed to sense this and hugged me back tighter.

"Why so sad Rei?" she asked me, her caring blue eyes upon my face and I stared into her eyes for what I didn't know would be the last time I would do so without feeling any kind of hostility towards her.

"I just feel like this is the last time we will ever be together like this," I replied unsurely and Serenity had frowned in confusion.

"What do you mean, we will always be best friends forever?" she had stated and I shook my head to shake the thoughts from my mind. If only we had known how real those words were.

"I know, I'm just talking nonsense, goodnight meatball head," I said smiling and giving her one last hug I turned and took my husbands arm and let him lead us to our room.

"Goodnight Rei," I heard Serenity whisper to me as we left the room.

When I had discovered the news that Kaidou would die but I would live on for years after I wasn't sure that I could handle living without Kaidou, but I have walked a difficult path and realised that I could live without him. If you could call my presence here on Earth - living. From that day on I never saw Serenity the same way and I believe she knows this because she can never hold my accusing gaze. Sometimes I pity her because she has lost the friendship that she used to share with all of us, a friendship that we all knew meant so much to her but most of the time I am jealous of Serenity because she has Endymion, even if he is a liar and a cheat, I know that he still loves her in his special way. To him she will always be his precious Princess Usagi. Anything he has become is the fault of us, the senshi, we pushed them apart those two, but Serenity still believes in her love for him, and everything aside she still has him to turn to while the senshi and I have nothing. I really can't blame her for everything though, I should have realised that by now. I should have forgiven her long ago but I need someone to blame, to take the hurt away from me because if I don't I think I may die of a broken heart. Wait I can't die, I can't even kill myself, don't think I haven't tried because I have, so many many times. Ami discovered that we could only die if we loose all our energy and the only way to do that is in battle. It's funny I have died accidentally so many times fighting our enemies and yet when I truly want to die I can't. I almost long for an enemy to come, a strong enemy to give me release from my living death but so far, for the past five decades none have dared try and attack Crystal Tokyo and so I am still here, pining for the man I lost and for the girl I used to be. Most of all I pine for Serenity and my heart aches to know that she is so close to me yet so far. I long for her friendship but I fear I have severed the ties between us too far and she will never have me back. I would not take me back, how could I ask her to? It all has become so clear that there is no one to blame for our destiny except destiny itself and that is where my hate lies. Forgive me Serenity I've been a fool for so long, but no longer.