Disclaimer: I now own Sailor Moon, Ranma, Fushigi Yuugi, and Ayashi no Ceres, and am currently attempting to add Gundam Wing to the collection. But so far it's not working. So, for now, I don't own Gundam Wing.

Just kidding! I don't own Gundam Wing, Sailor Moon, or any of the previously mentioned anime, but, again, who's to say that I don't own others? *cackle*

Editors: As always, you guys are amazing. ^^ Thank you's to AutumnHime, Usagi Asia Maxwell, and Lady Artemis for their insightful comments and uplifting compliments. ^^

Warning: There is only one point behind this chapter and somehow I'd made it last a whole chapter … haha. Beware.

……………………

There was something wrong. Something so wrong that neither Duo nor Artemis was getting a single kick out of teasing him.

Explaining himself to Usagi lightened the load on his conscience, and heaven knows how much he needed to do that. But something didn't dissolve. Something that weighed with oppressing tenacity on his mind. Something that he wanted to hurt more than Duo, and that's saying a lot.

He would ask Quatre, after swearing him to secrecy, but rumor had it that the formerly virtuous blonde had joined Duo in this battle. He would ask Trowa, but the brunette had already affirmed his nonaligned status and refused to bestow help to either side, which included advice on which his pursuit of happiness relied. He didn't even think about asking Wufei, and, truth be told, he didn't plan on it either. And Relena? Relena would probably laugh him all the way to Calcutta after that whole fiasco in her room.

So he was left to brace himself against the dismal, blue-gray, bellowing waves and go speak to her. In person. The terror was so vast that he didn't have words to depict it.

Upon entering the room, he wordlessly thanked the deity whom he had just taken up praying to – Luna wasn't there. But Usagi was also better, less disoriented, which means the prospect of her forgetting this whole thing was ground down to nil. Or less.

The bed was empty this time, and for a trice, relief swamped him … until he saw that she was situated by the window. Somehow the fact that she could now move bothered him, and after that thought crossed his mind, he mentally beat himself up. He was afraid of a girl whom he shadowed by five inches? How low can he go?

"Hiiro!" she exclaimed, jerking back slightly with surprise as amusement lit up her features. He mentally sighed and pushed himself forward.

"I came to speak to you." He grimaced at the inept statement. She had the courtesy to not comment and instead beamed and nodded tolerantly.

He opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it, almost blinking bemusedly. He didn't know what he wanted to speak to her about … This clearly didn't bode well for the impending conversation.

"I'm sorry," he blurted out the first thing that came to his mind and then felt like slapping himself.

The pale-faced girl looked up at him, puzzled, and at length replied, "You have nothing to be sorry about."

Okay, now the conversation was in progress, what next? Ah yes, response, of course. He shook his head. Maybe Duo was right about him treating everything that should come naturally as if it were an intricate math problem, to be carried out with regimented steps.

"I'm sorry for not believing you even though my intuition told me to."

"It was natural, but … yes, it was a little illogical."

Damn it. How could it come so effortlessly for her when he was stuck here planning out his syllables like an apprehensive general?

"So?" she pressed and then bowed her head in shame. "I'm sorry. I realize this is difficult for you."

"It's odd knowing that you know all about me," he grunted, shifting slightly from discomfort and indecision.

He looked up and instead of seeing her eyes, saw an averted face with knitted brows. Usagi's mouth twitched in a decisive manner before he had a chance to comment. Not that he was planning to anyway.

"Hiiro, I have something to tell you," she began slowly. "I-"

"Usa?" A vivid voice broke through the film of dreariness on their conversation as a flurry of colors burst into the offensively white room. Luna.

"Oh! Am I interrupting something?" She covered her mouth with delicate hands and started backing away from two pairs of blue-tinted eyes, both undergoing some type of thunderous emotion that she couldn't fathom, before changing her mind and progressing again into the room. "This is urgent, Usagi. I don't think you would want to wait," she whispered faintly, not meeting her protégé's eyes.

Usagi blinked at the woman numbly. The lack of movement the past two weeks was evidently also slowing her mind. She pursed her lips and glanced up at the man beside her, not directly though, for fear of blushing.

"Hiiro? Anything else?"

He shook his head, swept a brief gaze over Luna, and walked out of the room.

The silence was broken by an impatient, "What is it?" Another head poked into the room and pale blue eyes stared at her with gravity.

"We need to talk, Usa."

Artemis was here, too? Something bad is going to happen soon … She braced herself and advanced, blindly casting herself into the storm.

…………………

She was hopelessly, dreadfully lost. Defying an urge to turn that into a melodramatic poem, lamenting her love life, or lack thereof, and crafting metaphors to connect the general sense of loss, Relena batted her hair away from her face and looked up. Bad, bad idea.

A swell of nausea swept past her with such concentration that she stumbled towards the wall. Who knew this house had such a high ceiling? And that such a high ceiling would be decorated with such a realistic heaven that it made people swoon from dizziness? But most importantly, who was willing to brave over seventy meters up into thin air just to paint a churn of blue? Correction, who was moronic enough to do so? Or perhaps the question is: just how much money did Quatre have?

Putting a hand subtly on the wall, just to prove that she wasn't hallucinating, Relena scolded herself. You should be used to this! For goodness sake, Relena! Your house is as similar as they get to this!

Her optimism was floundering, and she herself wasn't willing to save it. Seeing Hiiro a week ago was nice. No, it was beyond nice. She hated herself for acquiring such a large vocabulary and then completely forgetting it when not in her office and instead adopting one of a fourth-grader. Shaking her head, she attempted to distract herself, a technique that had been used too often for comfort.

An amused smile covered her face as she thought back to the circumstances under which Hiiro and she met. A frown quickly replaced it.

For the past week, since she had gotten here, jetlag assailed her to the point where she was ordering breakfast at midnight and dreaming at noon. So, instead of going through all the trouble of leaving her room and then perhaps falling asleep in the halls, she had created a way to contact the Manguanacs when needed. She forced down a giggle. Even for the sake of their Master Quatre, not many were happy about waking up at two in the morning and finding themselves on a mission to procure chocolate ice cream.

By now, the drowsiness is fading, and her daily routine had somewhat been set straight. Or as straight as it's probably going to get before she is jetted off to Paris or Lord know where else. So she was making her way back to civilization … until she got lost. After that, she had actually had the luck to find her way again … and then promptly gotten lost again. Grumbling in exasperation, she scowled up at the ceiling with closed eyes. Some being up there has got to be laughing at her…

Her break was over, and the blonde began trekking towards what she assumed to be the front door until she faced a dead end – the door of her room. And just as she was about to scream out loud in aggravation, the door next to it opened to reveal one Perfect Soldier. Oh yes, somebody was definitely laughing up there.

…………………

"So what's the big deal?" she began restlessly, trying to lighten up the atmosphere and shoo away her fears.

"Usa, since you're beginning to recover, and Artemis and I do have lives back home-"

"Are you guys leaving? But I'm sure our world can live without you for a few more days!" the blonde cried, secretly elated that that was all that the news was about … and then kicking herself for being so selfish.

"Usagi, a day here is a week in our world. Luna and I have been here for over three months, and you have been here for almost half a year."

She didn't know how to respond to that, and her brain was moving sluggishly. So she didn't answer.

"Art and I have come here to take you back…"

"Back?" she heard herself whisper. One part of her was laughing for joy – she'll be able to hear Shingo burp out the ABCs again! She'll be able to spend half of the Tsukino fortune shopping with Minako again! She'll be able to yell at Setsuna for being so logical again! She'll be able to … continue her manga again. And the other part of her? The other part didn't know what to think.

"Now, Usagi, I know how much you care for … him, but truly, he's a fictional character! I myself have been swept away in this whole charade and almost believed him to be real but … reality is reality," her mentor finished with resolve.

She looked down, missing Artemis's stunned and then riled expression. Her senses had almost shut down but through them crept Art's hiss of, "She's in love with one of them? Who is it? Why do I never get let in on the juicy stuff?" and then a dim smack, that probably would have been loud, ricocheting off of the walls, followed by a snarl courtesy of Luna.

"Give me one month by Gundam time to straighten this out," she finally stated as her senses cleared.

"But Usa, dear, you're only going to hurt yourself more!" Luna made a move to get closer to her, but the blonde backed away stiffly.

"One month," she repeated.

Luna sighed and turned to her companion, shrugging ever so slightly, nodded, and dragged the still slightly wound up at being left out Art back out the door.

Usagi slumped and then jerked back up when Luna's head popped back into the room.

"We'll be leaving tomorrow then, Usagi. You have one month from then…" the woman stopped and then looked away indecisively. "Don't get too attached, Usagi," she quickly whispered before scampering back out the door and proceeding to drag Artemis down the hall.

One month … to show him that he was the world to her? One month to decide her fate from now on? One thing was for sure – she needed to do some serious thinking. Starting now.

…………………

A sigh broke through the still air, and Kenji looked up from his paper. If he had a penny for every sigh that has flown by this household for the last half-year, he'd be rich by now. Okay, maybe not. Maybe he'd simply be rolling in pennies.

Motoki, the questionable policeman had left urgently, muttering something about an important clue that might lead to the recovery of Usagi. Three months have passed since then and still no news. No news of the recovery of his darling Usagi, the baby of the family.

Mamoru had to apologetically leave for the sake of business and promised to visit once or twice a week, trying to console the family. The blow had been harsh and instead of healing quickly, had loitered with wicked doggedness.

Yukari had become listless the past month, anything but her usual self, full of a vitality that Usagi had somewhat inherited. He worried for his mother-in-law. Up until a month ago, she had the been the personification of the family's morale.

Ikuko, his dear wife, was having horrible nightmares. Perhaps not nightmares, – she was having dreams of Usagi coming back – but in the morning she was being hammered with reality. Every night, by his side, she was tossing and turning and muttering darkly to herself that the dream wasn't real, but every morning, she came out of the bathroom with puffy eyes and a snuffly nose, giving away that she had thought the dream to be tangible.

Usagi's cousins had been devastated – Minako and Hotaru being the ones who were affected the most. Both had more than enough fame to let their jobs go to a virtual standstill for the last half year, but just recently a resignation seem to appear in both girls' eyes.

Ami had phoned incessantly with worried questions on news, and Setsuna had been searching (and hacking) extensively after work for any sort of lead, occasionally even dabbing into paranormal sites out of frustration.

But perhaps no one was hit harder than Shingo, his darling daughter's older brother. The man now in his early twenties had a strong belief that Usagi would come back, and in his personal opinion, suffered more because of it. Reality was reality, and nothing could alter it.

And so a new question had encroached upon the household – when should the funeral be held?

…………………

The rabbit had gone Hiiro-hunting and thus far with no success. By now, she was already gnashing her teeth in frustration but refrained from her previous need to just break down and cry. Tears were idiotic, and there was nothing more to say about them.

She finally struck gold when she had thought she had given up. Walking to her room, she distinguished voices from down the dead-end hallway. One was Hiiro's … but other than Luna, who's voice she could recognize from five miles away, and herself, there were no females in the house … except perhaps the maids, but even they rarely appeared long enough to chat. So who…

Peeking around the corner, she glimpsed a flash of golden hair. Her heart rose to her throat as one name darted through her mind – Relena.

……………………

Hahaha … this chapter is so boring! ^^''' Oh well, I typed all this in one sitting – my wrists hurt, and I'm bored beyond reason (which says something about the interestingness of this chapter). Review please!

NOTES:

When I revised the previous chapters, I revised a lot of things, and those who have not just recently started reading are, if not already, going to be confused out of their minds. Here are the major changes:

1. The ages don't truly work out no matter how I change Usagi's … so, I'm going to change Hiiro's and alter the manga slightly. Usagi is still nineteen and Hiiro will now be twenty. Okay? Okay. I'll write it into a chapter somewhere in case somebody doesn't read this.

2. Setsuna, a government official is one of the illustrious cousins of Usagi which include actress Minako Aino, playwright Ami Mizuno, and supermodel Hotaru who is currently being home-schooled. You didn't need to know that last bit…

3. Usagi's grandmother's name has been changed to Yukari.

4. And for those who were confused in the first place – Artemis changed to his human form and posed as Motoki. I have had questions about that in the reviews.