Usagi lay in her bed, staring at the ceiling. How did my life come
to this, she asked herself. Two days ago, I was content. Not necessarily
happy, but content with my life. I was doing well in school, had some good
friends and was able to support myself. Now everything's been turned
upside down again, just like when I first became Sailor Moon.
Usagi rolled over onto her side, staring at a picture that sat on her bedside. It was a picture of her and the other Sailor Senshi, standing in the park. Chibi-Usa was standing next to Mamo-chan and they were both clutching onto him, giving each other the raspberry. She cracked a small smile as she thought of those days. She'd been blissfully happy for such a short time that she had to constantly question whether it had really happened or not.
One by one, the people in the picture had turned on her and left her life. Chibi-Usa had been the first, returning to the future to be with her parents, the future version of herself and Mamo-chan. After she'd left, the others had been somewhat distant, their own lives starting to take precedence. Ami had been consumed by her studies and Usagi's pleas for her to come and have fun with them had led to an explosive outburst rare from the quiet girl. She'd told everyone point blank that she was sick of them and the way they tried to distract her from her studying. That she'd rather they left her alone, since the high school entrance exams were coming up and she needed to study for the Mugen Gakuen exam.
Usagi had been hurt and run off crying. Looking back, she should have suspected something was wrong. Ami had never talked to anyone as coldly and condescendingly as she had that day, but Usagi hadn't been able to see that. Not that she'd had time. Rei was the next to go.
Less than a day after Ami had blown the group off, Rei and Usagi had gotten into one of their infamous arguments. To be honest, Usagi had provoked her on purpose. Both of them had always been close and used the arguments as a way to blow off steam, but something was different that day. Rei had been particularly nasty and she had hit Usagi hard. Usagi had stared up at her from where she'd fallen with wide eyes, seeing the seething storm of emotion locked in Rei's violet gaze.
What had followed had been a string of verbal abuse that had left Usagi in shock. She'd never seen Rei that angry before, but she let loose with insults and deprecations that had caused tears to flood Usagi's eyes. Then she'd hit the end and said that she never wanted to see Usagi again. That had hurt worse than the blow that had knocked her to the ground. The coldness in Rei's voice had left no doubt as to her sincerity and it had ripped Usagi's heart out.
Rei had stalked off, not listening to Usagi's pleading. Usagi had stared after her; heartbroken.
Minako hadn't been mean, but she started getting modeling offers and spent less and less time with Usagi and Makoto. Eventually, she stopped talking to them period. Usagi had barely noticed by that point, still in shock over Rei.
Makoto had been painful. She'd relied on her tall, protective friend. Maybe too much. Usagi'd been in the habit of walking Makoto home everyday and having a snack with her. One day, Makoto hadn't come to school, so Usagi figured she must have been out sick. She went over to the apartment after school to see how she was doing and was astonished to find it empty. There were two envelopes attached to the door. One was to the building manager and contained her keys. The other was addressed to Usagi. In it, Makoto called her to task for her laziness, incompetence and her inability to act as a leader. It had said that she was moving out of Tokyo and would appreciate it if Usagi would leave her alone.
With the last of the Senshi gone, Usagi had turned to her last pillar of strength. Big mistake. She'd forgiven Mamo-chan so many times for how he'd pushed her away and how badly he treated her, but she never expected what had happened. When she'd arrived at his apartment, she had knocked. Not discouraged by the lack of response, she fished the spare key from its hiding place in the door molding and let herself in. Inside the apartment, she'd heard some faint noise. Ever curious Usagi followed them to the bedroom, where the door stood slightly ajar. She'd peeked inside and gasped in shock, stumbling forward and causing the door to swing the rest of the way open. Inside the room, Mamo-chan had been under the covers, naked, with another woman. Usagi had stared at the two of them in horrified shock as Mamo-chan had turned to her a look of irritation on his face. "Do you mind," he'd said coldly. "I'm too busy for little girls like you right now."
Usagi had bolted from the apartment, tears streaming down her face. She'd run straight home and thrown herself into her bed, crying her eyes out. Luna had tried to comfort her, but Usagi had turned on her loyal advisor and had all but thrown her out. Luna had left in a huff and that had been the last she'd seen of the cat.
Usagi's eyes teamed with tears as she stared at the picture. She'd managed to put those memories behind her, but Setsuna and the others arrival had brought them back into clarity. Setsuna had said that taking up her mantle as Sailor Moon and the Moon Princess was up to her, but she couldn't help but feel that she was being pressured to do so. Deep inside of her, she wanted her old friends back, even though a part of her said that they didn't deserve to be her friends anymore. And more than anything, she missed her Mamo-chan. Even when he turned against her and cast her into the cold and dark, she still felt the fire of her love for him burning hot in her heart.
And there was her most recent shocking discovery. The one that she couldn't understand in the slightest. The painting that Zach had been working on was unmistakably a portrait of Ami and he'd spoken of dreaming about her. That had sparked the portion of her mind that was once the Moon Princess to realize that Zach was a dead ringer for Zoicite. Substantially less effeminate, but still a virtual duplicate. As she thought back, Neal, Ken and Jason had more than a passing resemblance to Nephrite, Kunzite and Jadeite. But it couldn't be them. All of Beryl's generals had perished in the course of their battle with the Dark Kingdom and there were too old to be reincarnations.
Usagi rolled back onto her back and thought that maybe this would be a question Setsuna could answer for her. Setsuna was a mystery to Usagi. Haruka and Michiru were complex, but their intentions were straightforward and easy to read. Setsuna was the wild card. She was old and had watched civilizations rise and fall. She'd served all of the Queen Serenitys back to the founding of the Moon Kingdom and from what little Usagi could dig up from her memories, Setsuna had always stood aloof. She'd only rarely come to court and even rarer had been her participation in any of the battles at the fall of the Moon Kingdom. It was as if she had other responsibilities than those as a Senshi which were more important to her.
She couldn't pry much out of her memories about Uranus and Neptune. They'd rarely come to court because their responsibilities had kept them fighting off the stray alien at the edge of the Solar System. They'd always stood separate and stuck together, which Usagi realized with a start carried over to their current incarnations. She hadn't thought about it, but now she was sure that Haruka and Michiru were lovers. The way they'd sat together and the little signs that moved between them spoke of an intimate relationship.
Usagi stared at the blank white of her ceiling, trying desperately to figure out what she should do. She hadn't ever wanted to resume her life in Japan as Sailor Moon, but she did miss them. The other Senshi had been more than friends, they'd been family. And she missed Mamoru. He'd been the guiding light of her life until he'd shattered her heart. She wasn't sure if she could take dealing with him again, but she knew she had to try. She hadn't so much as looked at another man seriously since then. If she didn't at least get some closure, she'd never be able to move on in life.
* * *
Haruka glanced across the table in the small café that she shared with Michiru and Setsuna. All of them had wanted to get out of the apartment where they'd had their first encounter with their princess. No one had said anything since then, but one thought had been plain on all of their minds. Tonight had not gone well. Haruka and Michiru had been eager to meet their princess. Ever since Setsuna had awakened them, they'd begun to regain memories from their previous lives. That and a healthy dose of lust had started the relationship between them.
Their memories of the princess had been fragmentary, at best. Neither Uranus nor Neptune had ever spent much time at court during the Silver Millenium, but they'd at least gotten to know the princess on their infrequent visits. She'd been calm and intelligent and beautiful, with a heart bigger than the whole Solar System. To see Usagi was to see a shattered reflection of that wonderful person. Serenity had never had to deal with the pain of betrayal, whereas Usagi had been scarred by it. She was patently unwilling to trust the three of them and that hurt. None of them had ever done anything to her, but she kept them at arms length, in order to keep them from hurting her.
"Do you think she'll be willing to talk to us again," Michiru asked, breaking the ice while calmly sipping her tea. "She didn't react very well to the revelation of our identities, after all. I'd be willing to bet that she's spent the last few years trying to forget everything that happened back then. It must have been horrible for her to have all her friends turn on her like that."
"It was," Setsuna said softly, her hands white as they clenched around a ceramic coffee mug. "I had to watch helplessly as the last chance for Crystal Tokyo crumbled to dust when the last of them abandoned her. Even if she can make up with them, I don't think they'll ever be able to regain the level of trust and friendship they had before. The spectre of the betrayal will hang over them for the rest of their lives."
"But we have to do something," Haruka burst out. "You saw the look on her face; the distrust and fear. We can't leave her with the wounds that the Dark Moon Clan inflicted on her, not if we care about her." Michiru stared at Haruka, a soft smile playing across her face as she clasped her hands over Haruka's. Normally, Haruka shied away from showing her softer side, but talking about their princess, no Usagi, brought it to the fore every time.
"Of course we do, Haruka," Setsuna replied quietly, "but it's all going to depend on Usagi and how much she's willing to let us help. She's wary of us and she doesn't trust us yet, but I have hopes that she will come to rely on us the way she used to be able to rely on the Inners."
Left unsaid, but known to all three was the fear that Usagi would do just the opposite and exclude them from her life, the way she had excluded the Inners. All of them felt the link to Usagi very strongly, perhaps even more strongly than they had in their previous lives and none of them wanted to contemplate a life without her in it.
* * *
Zach was putting the groceries away as he contemplated the events of the day. His hands were sore from acting as sketch artist for the other three as they tried to get pictures together so they could have a detective hunt for the girls. Ken and Neal had volunteered to foot the bill and he and Jason hadn't complained. A prolonged search would be expensive and Ken and Neal could well afford those fees.
Zach placed the last can in the cabinet, closing it as he moved out into the living room. He paused in front of his painting, scrutinizing it. This wasn't the first time he'd drawn or painted the girl. The strange thing was, the image in his mind had never changed. The girl still appeared the same to him now as she had when he was a child and the dreams had started. The others had said the same thing. The girls in their dreams seemed timeless, ageless. Perfect.
Zach sighed and dug into his satchel to pull out his sketch pad. He'd done some pencil sketches of the other girls, based on the descriptions and he now had a whole new respect for police sketch artists. It was very difficult to draw someone by description rather than by first hand experience. Yet, he'd finally managed to produce passable pictures, even if they were gray and white. He intended to transfer them into color on a larger paper stock. Now should he use the felt-tip pens, the colored pencils, or should he paint?
As Zach was deliberating his choice of tools, Usagi stumbled into the room from her bedroom, yawning. Zach glanced over at her in amusement. She had managed to get Thursdays off classes and she didn't have to go to work at the café until the dinner rush started, so she usually slept in. It was funny seeing her stumble about the room on her way to the kitchen and the pot of coffee he kept ready for her. She poured herself a cup, managed to get most of the coffee in her cup and not on the counter and drank deeply from it. Zach winced when he thought about how long that coffee had been sitting there in the coffee maker. It probably had the consistency and taste of battery acid by now. Obviously Usagi felt the same way, as she started coughing and gasping for a minute before sticking her head under the sink and running cold water into her mouth.
Now that the morning's entertainment was finished, Zach turned back to his easel and the open sketchbook at his side. He decided that the pencils would work better on this project since he had a wider variety of colors there than of anything other than the paints, and those were a lot more work. He started sketching a rough face, concentrating hard enough that he didn't hear Usagi pad up behind him.
"Who is that," Usagi asked in the same curiously tight voice she'd used last night when she'd asked him about the unfinished painting he'd been working on last night.
Zach jumped a little, surprised that she was interested in his work. Usagi had rarely shown more than a passing interest in his art before this. Her taste ran more to manga and comics than any other form of art. "I made some sketches this morning for Neal, Ken and Jason," he replied. "Hardest thing I've ever had to do, drawing someone by verbal description. We decided that instead of letting these women haunt our dreams for the rest of out lives, we need to try and find something out about them. So we're going to hire a detective agency to start looking for them for us."
Usagi didn't reply immediately, she just looked at him for a long time and Zach started to feel a strange itch in the middle of his back as he tried to keep his attention on his work. It felt like Usagi was trying to work herself up to a decision of some sort. He let out a quiet sigh of relief when he heard her padding back across the room to her bedroom, but was surprised when she walked back out carrying something. Turning to face her, Zach noted that her hands were trembling slightly.
"These girls are important to you, right Zach," Usagi asked quietly as she sat down on the couch.
"To me, she's the most important woman in the universe," Zach replied as his eyes got a distant look. "I've never found another woman in my life to compare with her. It may be unfair of me to compare other women to what might just be a figment of my imagination, but I can't help it. I've been in love with her for as long as I can remember."
Usagi was quiet again as her fingers ran over the picture frame absently. Finally, she broke her silence. "What if I told you that I might know where you could find them," she asked softly.
Zach spun around in an instant, staring at Usagi in disbelief. He was sure she had to be making fun of him, but her eyes and face were deadly serious. "You're kidding, right," he managed to choke out. "How could you know how to find them?"
"Look at this, Zach," Usagi replied softly, stretching her hand out to offer Zach the picture. "It was taken a little over six years ago."
Zach took the picture from her carefully, his eyes widening in shock as the picture registered. "It can't be," he whispered hoarsely as he focused in on one portion of the picture, "but it is. How? How do you know them, Usagi?"
"Now that's a long and painful story," Usagi replied. Zach winced as he could hear the pain in her voice. A pain that time hadn't dimmed. "It all began eight years ago, when I was walking to school one morning."
To be continued.
Author's Notes:
Yeah! I finally managed to get another chapter of this done. I'd like to thank everyone for waiting so patiently for this. I had a bit of writer's block coupled with a period of unemployment, so I'm glad to see that this story is on the road to recovery. I'm not sure how long the next chapter will take, but I'm hoping to cut down the time frame as much as I can. But be warned, I have two other stories that I'm working on, so my time will be split as my muse dictates. I'd like to thank Comet Yo for some help with the final scene to this chapter as well as the beginning of the next. Usagi's finally made her decision and committed to it. All that remains is the wrap up in the States and then it's off to Japan.
See Ya
hitobashira
Usagi rolled over onto her side, staring at a picture that sat on her bedside. It was a picture of her and the other Sailor Senshi, standing in the park. Chibi-Usa was standing next to Mamo-chan and they were both clutching onto him, giving each other the raspberry. She cracked a small smile as she thought of those days. She'd been blissfully happy for such a short time that she had to constantly question whether it had really happened or not.
One by one, the people in the picture had turned on her and left her life. Chibi-Usa had been the first, returning to the future to be with her parents, the future version of herself and Mamo-chan. After she'd left, the others had been somewhat distant, their own lives starting to take precedence. Ami had been consumed by her studies and Usagi's pleas for her to come and have fun with them had led to an explosive outburst rare from the quiet girl. She'd told everyone point blank that she was sick of them and the way they tried to distract her from her studying. That she'd rather they left her alone, since the high school entrance exams were coming up and she needed to study for the Mugen Gakuen exam.
Usagi had been hurt and run off crying. Looking back, she should have suspected something was wrong. Ami had never talked to anyone as coldly and condescendingly as she had that day, but Usagi hadn't been able to see that. Not that she'd had time. Rei was the next to go.
Less than a day after Ami had blown the group off, Rei and Usagi had gotten into one of their infamous arguments. To be honest, Usagi had provoked her on purpose. Both of them had always been close and used the arguments as a way to blow off steam, but something was different that day. Rei had been particularly nasty and she had hit Usagi hard. Usagi had stared up at her from where she'd fallen with wide eyes, seeing the seething storm of emotion locked in Rei's violet gaze.
What had followed had been a string of verbal abuse that had left Usagi in shock. She'd never seen Rei that angry before, but she let loose with insults and deprecations that had caused tears to flood Usagi's eyes. Then she'd hit the end and said that she never wanted to see Usagi again. That had hurt worse than the blow that had knocked her to the ground. The coldness in Rei's voice had left no doubt as to her sincerity and it had ripped Usagi's heart out.
Rei had stalked off, not listening to Usagi's pleading. Usagi had stared after her; heartbroken.
Minako hadn't been mean, but she started getting modeling offers and spent less and less time with Usagi and Makoto. Eventually, she stopped talking to them period. Usagi had barely noticed by that point, still in shock over Rei.
Makoto had been painful. She'd relied on her tall, protective friend. Maybe too much. Usagi'd been in the habit of walking Makoto home everyday and having a snack with her. One day, Makoto hadn't come to school, so Usagi figured she must have been out sick. She went over to the apartment after school to see how she was doing and was astonished to find it empty. There were two envelopes attached to the door. One was to the building manager and contained her keys. The other was addressed to Usagi. In it, Makoto called her to task for her laziness, incompetence and her inability to act as a leader. It had said that she was moving out of Tokyo and would appreciate it if Usagi would leave her alone.
With the last of the Senshi gone, Usagi had turned to her last pillar of strength. Big mistake. She'd forgiven Mamo-chan so many times for how he'd pushed her away and how badly he treated her, but she never expected what had happened. When she'd arrived at his apartment, she had knocked. Not discouraged by the lack of response, she fished the spare key from its hiding place in the door molding and let herself in. Inside the apartment, she'd heard some faint noise. Ever curious Usagi followed them to the bedroom, where the door stood slightly ajar. She'd peeked inside and gasped in shock, stumbling forward and causing the door to swing the rest of the way open. Inside the room, Mamo-chan had been under the covers, naked, with another woman. Usagi had stared at the two of them in horrified shock as Mamo-chan had turned to her a look of irritation on his face. "Do you mind," he'd said coldly. "I'm too busy for little girls like you right now."
Usagi had bolted from the apartment, tears streaming down her face. She'd run straight home and thrown herself into her bed, crying her eyes out. Luna had tried to comfort her, but Usagi had turned on her loyal advisor and had all but thrown her out. Luna had left in a huff and that had been the last she'd seen of the cat.
Usagi's eyes teamed with tears as she stared at the picture. She'd managed to put those memories behind her, but Setsuna and the others arrival had brought them back into clarity. Setsuna had said that taking up her mantle as Sailor Moon and the Moon Princess was up to her, but she couldn't help but feel that she was being pressured to do so. Deep inside of her, she wanted her old friends back, even though a part of her said that they didn't deserve to be her friends anymore. And more than anything, she missed her Mamo-chan. Even when he turned against her and cast her into the cold and dark, she still felt the fire of her love for him burning hot in her heart.
And there was her most recent shocking discovery. The one that she couldn't understand in the slightest. The painting that Zach had been working on was unmistakably a portrait of Ami and he'd spoken of dreaming about her. That had sparked the portion of her mind that was once the Moon Princess to realize that Zach was a dead ringer for Zoicite. Substantially less effeminate, but still a virtual duplicate. As she thought back, Neal, Ken and Jason had more than a passing resemblance to Nephrite, Kunzite and Jadeite. But it couldn't be them. All of Beryl's generals had perished in the course of their battle with the Dark Kingdom and there were too old to be reincarnations.
Usagi rolled back onto her back and thought that maybe this would be a question Setsuna could answer for her. Setsuna was a mystery to Usagi. Haruka and Michiru were complex, but their intentions were straightforward and easy to read. Setsuna was the wild card. She was old and had watched civilizations rise and fall. She'd served all of the Queen Serenitys back to the founding of the Moon Kingdom and from what little Usagi could dig up from her memories, Setsuna had always stood aloof. She'd only rarely come to court and even rarer had been her participation in any of the battles at the fall of the Moon Kingdom. It was as if she had other responsibilities than those as a Senshi which were more important to her.
She couldn't pry much out of her memories about Uranus and Neptune. They'd rarely come to court because their responsibilities had kept them fighting off the stray alien at the edge of the Solar System. They'd always stood separate and stuck together, which Usagi realized with a start carried over to their current incarnations. She hadn't thought about it, but now she was sure that Haruka and Michiru were lovers. The way they'd sat together and the little signs that moved between them spoke of an intimate relationship.
Usagi stared at the blank white of her ceiling, trying desperately to figure out what she should do. She hadn't ever wanted to resume her life in Japan as Sailor Moon, but she did miss them. The other Senshi had been more than friends, they'd been family. And she missed Mamoru. He'd been the guiding light of her life until he'd shattered her heart. She wasn't sure if she could take dealing with him again, but she knew she had to try. She hadn't so much as looked at another man seriously since then. If she didn't at least get some closure, she'd never be able to move on in life.
* * *
Haruka glanced across the table in the small café that she shared with Michiru and Setsuna. All of them had wanted to get out of the apartment where they'd had their first encounter with their princess. No one had said anything since then, but one thought had been plain on all of their minds. Tonight had not gone well. Haruka and Michiru had been eager to meet their princess. Ever since Setsuna had awakened them, they'd begun to regain memories from their previous lives. That and a healthy dose of lust had started the relationship between them.
Their memories of the princess had been fragmentary, at best. Neither Uranus nor Neptune had ever spent much time at court during the Silver Millenium, but they'd at least gotten to know the princess on their infrequent visits. She'd been calm and intelligent and beautiful, with a heart bigger than the whole Solar System. To see Usagi was to see a shattered reflection of that wonderful person. Serenity had never had to deal with the pain of betrayal, whereas Usagi had been scarred by it. She was patently unwilling to trust the three of them and that hurt. None of them had ever done anything to her, but she kept them at arms length, in order to keep them from hurting her.
"Do you think she'll be willing to talk to us again," Michiru asked, breaking the ice while calmly sipping her tea. "She didn't react very well to the revelation of our identities, after all. I'd be willing to bet that she's spent the last few years trying to forget everything that happened back then. It must have been horrible for her to have all her friends turn on her like that."
"It was," Setsuna said softly, her hands white as they clenched around a ceramic coffee mug. "I had to watch helplessly as the last chance for Crystal Tokyo crumbled to dust when the last of them abandoned her. Even if she can make up with them, I don't think they'll ever be able to regain the level of trust and friendship they had before. The spectre of the betrayal will hang over them for the rest of their lives."
"But we have to do something," Haruka burst out. "You saw the look on her face; the distrust and fear. We can't leave her with the wounds that the Dark Moon Clan inflicted on her, not if we care about her." Michiru stared at Haruka, a soft smile playing across her face as she clasped her hands over Haruka's. Normally, Haruka shied away from showing her softer side, but talking about their princess, no Usagi, brought it to the fore every time.
"Of course we do, Haruka," Setsuna replied quietly, "but it's all going to depend on Usagi and how much she's willing to let us help. She's wary of us and she doesn't trust us yet, but I have hopes that she will come to rely on us the way she used to be able to rely on the Inners."
Left unsaid, but known to all three was the fear that Usagi would do just the opposite and exclude them from her life, the way she had excluded the Inners. All of them felt the link to Usagi very strongly, perhaps even more strongly than they had in their previous lives and none of them wanted to contemplate a life without her in it.
* * *
Zach was putting the groceries away as he contemplated the events of the day. His hands were sore from acting as sketch artist for the other three as they tried to get pictures together so they could have a detective hunt for the girls. Ken and Neal had volunteered to foot the bill and he and Jason hadn't complained. A prolonged search would be expensive and Ken and Neal could well afford those fees.
Zach placed the last can in the cabinet, closing it as he moved out into the living room. He paused in front of his painting, scrutinizing it. This wasn't the first time he'd drawn or painted the girl. The strange thing was, the image in his mind had never changed. The girl still appeared the same to him now as she had when he was a child and the dreams had started. The others had said the same thing. The girls in their dreams seemed timeless, ageless. Perfect.
Zach sighed and dug into his satchel to pull out his sketch pad. He'd done some pencil sketches of the other girls, based on the descriptions and he now had a whole new respect for police sketch artists. It was very difficult to draw someone by description rather than by first hand experience. Yet, he'd finally managed to produce passable pictures, even if they were gray and white. He intended to transfer them into color on a larger paper stock. Now should he use the felt-tip pens, the colored pencils, or should he paint?
As Zach was deliberating his choice of tools, Usagi stumbled into the room from her bedroom, yawning. Zach glanced over at her in amusement. She had managed to get Thursdays off classes and she didn't have to go to work at the café until the dinner rush started, so she usually slept in. It was funny seeing her stumble about the room on her way to the kitchen and the pot of coffee he kept ready for her. She poured herself a cup, managed to get most of the coffee in her cup and not on the counter and drank deeply from it. Zach winced when he thought about how long that coffee had been sitting there in the coffee maker. It probably had the consistency and taste of battery acid by now. Obviously Usagi felt the same way, as she started coughing and gasping for a minute before sticking her head under the sink and running cold water into her mouth.
Now that the morning's entertainment was finished, Zach turned back to his easel and the open sketchbook at his side. He decided that the pencils would work better on this project since he had a wider variety of colors there than of anything other than the paints, and those were a lot more work. He started sketching a rough face, concentrating hard enough that he didn't hear Usagi pad up behind him.
"Who is that," Usagi asked in the same curiously tight voice she'd used last night when she'd asked him about the unfinished painting he'd been working on last night.
Zach jumped a little, surprised that she was interested in his work. Usagi had rarely shown more than a passing interest in his art before this. Her taste ran more to manga and comics than any other form of art. "I made some sketches this morning for Neal, Ken and Jason," he replied. "Hardest thing I've ever had to do, drawing someone by verbal description. We decided that instead of letting these women haunt our dreams for the rest of out lives, we need to try and find something out about them. So we're going to hire a detective agency to start looking for them for us."
Usagi didn't reply immediately, she just looked at him for a long time and Zach started to feel a strange itch in the middle of his back as he tried to keep his attention on his work. It felt like Usagi was trying to work herself up to a decision of some sort. He let out a quiet sigh of relief when he heard her padding back across the room to her bedroom, but was surprised when she walked back out carrying something. Turning to face her, Zach noted that her hands were trembling slightly.
"These girls are important to you, right Zach," Usagi asked quietly as she sat down on the couch.
"To me, she's the most important woman in the universe," Zach replied as his eyes got a distant look. "I've never found another woman in my life to compare with her. It may be unfair of me to compare other women to what might just be a figment of my imagination, but I can't help it. I've been in love with her for as long as I can remember."
Usagi was quiet again as her fingers ran over the picture frame absently. Finally, she broke her silence. "What if I told you that I might know where you could find them," she asked softly.
Zach spun around in an instant, staring at Usagi in disbelief. He was sure she had to be making fun of him, but her eyes and face were deadly serious. "You're kidding, right," he managed to choke out. "How could you know how to find them?"
"Look at this, Zach," Usagi replied softly, stretching her hand out to offer Zach the picture. "It was taken a little over six years ago."
Zach took the picture from her carefully, his eyes widening in shock as the picture registered. "It can't be," he whispered hoarsely as he focused in on one portion of the picture, "but it is. How? How do you know them, Usagi?"
"Now that's a long and painful story," Usagi replied. Zach winced as he could hear the pain in her voice. A pain that time hadn't dimmed. "It all began eight years ago, when I was walking to school one morning."
To be continued.
Author's Notes:
Yeah! I finally managed to get another chapter of this done. I'd like to thank everyone for waiting so patiently for this. I had a bit of writer's block coupled with a period of unemployment, so I'm glad to see that this story is on the road to recovery. I'm not sure how long the next chapter will take, but I'm hoping to cut down the time frame as much as I can. But be warned, I have two other stories that I'm working on, so my time will be split as my muse dictates. I'd like to thank Comet Yo for some help with the final scene to this chapter as well as the beginning of the next. Usagi's finally made her decision and committed to it. All that remains is the wrap up in the States and then it's off to Japan.
See Ya
hitobashira
