Oops, I guess I made a mistake ^_^;;; I made it sound like you guys got to vote on the ending of the story, but that would be mean, and I really wanted to write both endings. There will be a chapter after this one. This chapter is titled, The Story of Mary Jane, the other is titled Okaeri Nasai, which is the other ending to the story. This ending has Usagi staying in the present, alone. The other ending is Okaeri Nasai. Now, if you want her to be with Trunks, you have to wait for the next chapter, be patient!
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Sometime during the early hours of the morning, Usagi turned over in his arms. She watched him sleep for a few moments, losing herself in his face. She reached up with a hand and let her fingers run through his hair a few times.
He stirred slightly, and his hand covered hers, though it did not still her movements. He opened his eyes and stared back at her.
They stayed that way for quite some time.
She smiled softly, and brought his hand to her face, gently pressing her lips to the back of his hand. His other hand drew her closer to him, and he kissed her once more. After which she laid her head upon his shoulder, listening to the rhythm of his breathing, and closed her eyes, letting sleep take her once more.
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The next morning, Trunks woke up to an empty bed. It didn't surprise him, he had been expecting it, but he still felt and emptiness as he sat there alone, staring at the place she had been. That was when his eyes caught glimpse of something sitting in her place, glinting in the morning sunlight.
It was a crystal. A large one, nearly the size of a golf ball, and beautiful beyond belief in its flawlessness. Next to it lay a small piece of paper, on which the words were scratched hastily, 'Take care of me.'
He picked the crystal up, gently examining it, and a smile touched his lips.
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Usagi had a backpack full of clothes, and a wallet full of money. She had everything she needed.
She was walking along the shoulder of a road around the outskirts of the West Capitol. She had been walking for a few hours now, and didn't plan on stopping just yet.
She didn't, either. She walked for an entire day alongside of that road as civilization gradually began to fade away. More than once a car slowed down to ask her if she needed a ride, or if her car had broken down and she needed help. She always shook her head no, and said thank you, but she was just walking.
It wasn't until night was beginning to close in that she stopped. She stepped off of the road and made her way into the woods. She reached a clearing, and halted again. Pulling out a single capsule, she tossed it. A house rose up, and she entered it, dropping her backpack. She took around.
This was her new home.
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A year went by, and she was still there, as alone as before. But one day, she got up, sat down in front of a desk, and began to write. She wrote words, she wrote sentences, she wrote paragraphs, pages, chapters, parts, until the entire house was strewn with pieces of paper covered in her messy handwriting. She revised and reworded, rewrote and rethought. Several more months continued, and she simply wrote.
It was the second week of May when she finished. She gathered up her pieces of paper, now neatly typed up, stuck them in a large envelope with stamps and an address, and mailed it.
Several more months passed, and Usagi had become a published author.
Her book sold one hundred copies.
Her friends had hunted her down once more, and insisted that the book was wonderful, that they had no idea why it had sold so few copies.
Usagi wondered if they had been the only ones to buy it.
The critics told her that her writing was naïve, ignorant, and too idealistic, her characters' emotions were cookie-cutter. Her friends defended her again, saying her next book would be much more popular, that there were plenty of good writers who got bad reviews.
She just smiled, and with a shrug said she didn't want to write another book, and she didn't care that anyone bought it. She stated she had simply wanted to write what she felt. So, she had.
She moved back to Tokyo, bought a small apartment, and began writing an advice column for the newspaper her father worked for. She liked it, and it seemed that the people who wrote in enjoyed her answers to their questions, and solutions to their problems.
She dated again. She kept several men in rotation, but never seemed to feel much more than affection for them.
Rei asked if this was happiness. She asked her if she wanted to spend the rest of her life pretending that things were okay.
She said that she liked the way things were. She knew she didn't love those men, and that they knew she didn't love them. No one had any delusional thoughts about happily ever after in the relationship. She said it wasn't fair to let a man fall in love with her, when she wouldn't love them back.
And she was happy, she replied.
What about Trunks, she had continued in her interrogation.
Usagi answered that Trunks was gone. He had gone his way, and she had gone hers.
Had she loved him?
Yes, how could she not?
Did she still love him?
Love didn't just die.
Then what of Mamoru?
It was the same.
But if she had to choose-
-It was apples to oranges, she had never thought about it.
Then why was she doing this to herself, why was she putting herself through loneliness and denial?
For the future. For the future that might never come.
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When I went to write the ending, I was stuck for a while. My first shallow attempt at an idea was simply to leave them happily in love, immediately after the fight. Well, I re-thought things, and didn't think that that ending really went with my style. I also went back to the first chapter, and thought about really where I had gotten the idea for this fic, and what the main theme ended up being. The fic's about Usagi. It's not about Trunks and defeating the androids, it's not about them falling in love, it's not about Sailor Moon saving the day. It's about Usagi. It's about her life after all of those constant things that she had grown to depend on all of those teenaged years suddenly disappeared. Something that happens to a lot of people when they grow up, so to speak. I like the way this fic came out. There's some funny parts, some sad parts, some romance, some gore, and I hope that you guys enjoyed it as much as I did.
As for what is next on my agenda…well, um…let's see, Sweet Child of Mine will be taken down. The response was weak, and I don't have the time to write it right now. Expect to see a sequel to one of my preexisting fics very soon, as well as that preexisting fic being revised. Sailor Song will be finished, and I have new fic in the works! It's going to be called Castles in the Sky, and will be really cool!! It has mortal combat and Trunks and Brolli and love and oh yeah! I just haven't decided yet if I want Usagi or Chibi-Usa to be the heroine. I prefer Chibi-Usa, but I know that Usagi is a reader's favorite…