Disclaimer: Sailor Moon and its characters do not belong to me. Warnings: shoujo ai, some spoilers, possible contradictions to the anime
Ramblings: This used to be a songfic to a song called "Golden, Golden" (written by Andy M. Stewart and performed by Silly Wizard), but I went through and removed the song lyrics to make it comply to the latest standards. If anyone wants to read the original (which I think is better) with the lyrics still there, please visit my homepage The Phonograph.
Golden
By Rapunzel
Another day, another fan club. Another session of smiling demurely and acting modest.
"Wow, Michiru, that picture you did was so beautiful!"
"Your violin music is the best!"
"Oh, Michiru-san, you're so talented!"
She was used to it. It was what she heard every day. The words had ceased to have meaning for her a long time ago.
"Michiru-san, I love you!"
Michiru gave the boy a slightly skeptical look as he posed dramatically, obviously trying to get her attention. He would have to work harder than that to succeed. He too was simply one among many, for there were many young men at her school who would have given their right arms to date her. Sometimes she wondered if it was because they really liked her, or if she was just a prize to be won. Other times she thought it didn't matter.
"I'm sorry, but I'm not interested in having a boyfriend." This was no lie. Having a boyfriend was not on her agenda. And if it wasn't on her agenda, it wasn't going to happen. She had her life planned out, what she would do for a living, what age she would get married at, what kind of house she would live in, and all that. Any deviation would simply get in the way of her dreams.
/-/-/-/
As she shut the door behind her, she breathed a slight sigh of relief and allowed herself to relax. Allowed the polite smile she held in place nearly all the time to slip away and her face to take on its much more comfortable blank expression. There was no one to see her now. Her parents weren't home; they rarely were.
On arriving at her room, she set her book bag down and reached for her violin case. An hour or two of violin practice to help her relax, and then she would start her homework. At some point, she would stop to eat dinner, possibly with her parents, but more likely on her own, and then she could spend some time reading or painting or just generally goofing off. Not for too long though; she had to be in bed by eleven o'clock in order to get enough sleep before school the next day.
The only problem came when she actually had to sleep.
She sat up abruptly, gasping for breath. The dream, it was that damned dream again. The one that now came almost every night. The one in which the world ceased to be. It was a truly terrifying spectacle, and she hated it. Hated having to see it over and over again while being helpless to stop it.
Helplessness. That feeling bothered her more than anything else. She wanted the dreams to stop, wanted them to go away and never come back. They weren't supposed to come; they disrupted everything.
"Why don't they stop!" she hissed, putting her palms against her face and tugging at her hair in frustration.
"They won't stop."
Michiru jumped. Who could have spoken? Who could possibly be in her room in the middle of the night? "Who's there!" she demanded sharply.
Her hands fisted in the covers to hide their shaking, Michiru looked around the room, searching for the intruder. By the window, a mere silhouette against the faint light that came from the street lights outside, a figure stood. She couldn't see much except that it was a woman. The voice confirmed that. Impossibly long hair trailed down, seeming to meld with the darkness and swirl around to hide the figure.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"You won't remember me yet," the voice answered her coolly.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
The woman didn't answer. Even in the darkness, Michiru thought she could see the faint glimmer of eyes in the woman's face, watching her intently. It was unnerving.
Seeing that no answer was forth coming, she tried a different tactic. "How did you get in here?" she demanded.
"I can go many places," was the not-so-helpful reply.
"What do you want with me?"
"To see if you're ready."
"Ready for what?"
The woman heaved a sigh. "You're not. Not yet, anyway. You haven't realized that it's real. I'll come back when you realize."
"Oh no, you won't!" Michiru said sharply, recovering herself slightly. "Get out of my room, or I'll call the police!"
"Calm yourself." The woman didn't sound perturbed in the slightest. "Calling the police would be useless. They can't stop me, and they certainly can't stop what's coming. But you, Michiru, you can." She took a step forward.
"Get out!" Michiru shrieked. "Get out!" Panicking, she flung aside the covers, jumped out of bed, and dashed out of her room, slamming the door shut behind her. For a moment, she leaned against it, trying to get her heart rate back to normal. She told herself she was being stupid. After all, this stranger was a woman, and she didn't appear to be armed. How dangerous could she be?
Squaring her shoulders, Michiru opened the door again, ready to rail against her nocturnal visitor. But the room was empty. The woman was gone, and only the curtains rustled by the window before which she had stood. Striding over to the window, Michiru shut it firmly. Then she went back to bed, but sleep was a long time coming.
/-/-/-/
The next day at school, Michiru had a hard time concentrating. Lack of sleep, although certainly a contributor, was not the main reason. She refused to say anything to anyone about it, but the previous night had scared her more than she would care to admit.
Along with the fear came a feeling of indecision that she hated. What should she do about it? Tell someone? Tell them what? That some strange woman had come into her room in the middle of the night with the sole purpose of giving cryptic answers to her questions, and then disappeared without a trace? They would laugh and tell her she had been dreaming. Worse, they might think she was crazy.
In the end she resolved to say nothing about it to anyone. If the woman came back again, she would... She would think of something.
Still, she was confused. Just who was that woman, and what had she meant? Michiru wanted to simply dismiss her as a crazy woman, but somehow she didn't seem like one. Her voice had the tone of a woman who knew many, many things and simply didn't feel like sharing them.
While sitting at lunch, Michiru stabbed rather more forcefully at her food than was necessary. She didn't even pay attention to what she was eating. Between the dreams and the visit, her mind was in complete turmoil. Finishing her lunch as quickly as possible, she grabbed her book bag and prepared to head outside where she could at least be confused in private.
She had scarcely stepped out of the doorway when she collided with someone. Automatically, she stepped back, murmuring apologies. Looking up to see who it was she had bumped into, she came face to face with yet another source of confusion to her.
Tenou Haruka.
"Oh," Michiru said. "I'm terribly sorry."
"You said that already," Haruka said. Her voice had a distant, slightly bored note to it. "You said it three times, in fact."
"Oh." Michiru, normally so composed, was slightly flustered. She had no answer to that.
Haruka barely gave her a second look as she handed Michiru the book bag she had dropped on impact, and then brushed past her to go inside.
Michiru turned around to watch her depart; she couldn't help herself. There was something so captivating about Haruka. Maybe it was the way she went about on her own, refusing to play the popularity game, although Michiru was sure she could have been good at it. Maybe it was the way she wore boyish clothing without a care for fashion or other people's opinions of her. Maybe it was the way the sun glinted off of her golden hair, giving her a special glow. Michiru would have given almost anything to have Haruka model for her, although she wasn't sure any picture of hers could do justice to the other girl.
Michiru shook her head, trying to dispel those thoughts. She shouldn't be thinking about another girl like that, especially not that girl. Haruka was an outcast by her own choosing. She scorned popularity and those who had it. She was a world away from Michiru.
Or was she?
If Michiru was honest with herself, despite her popularity, she was hardly a social person. Oh, she knew how to carry herself gracefully in public and make small talk, but it was seldom that she talked about anything really important. In fact, it seemed like almost never.
/-/-/-/
The little run in with Haruka successfully managed to drive off all thoughts of the dreams and her visitor until that night. But although she would much rather have thought about the other girl even then, she had little choice about what she dreamed.
It was the dream again. The sky turned an unnatural shade of red. Darkness seemed to sweep over everything, buildings crumbling before it. What astonished her most was how utterly quiet it was, as though someone had turned off the sound. The end of the world should have been accompanied with screams, shouts, pandemonium and general noise. Instead, silence was everywhere.
Looking around her, Michiru realized with horror that she knew where her dream self was. She was standing in the downtown area, a place she often went shopping. She recognized some of the people around her, distorted as their faces were by terror. They were people she went to school with, people she saw nearly everyday. People she would never see again.
With a gasp, she jerked awake. Hands shaking, she fumbled for the switch of the lamp that sat on her bedside table. Once she had turned it on, she wrapped her arms around herself for comfort and began to rock slightly.
"It was just a dream," she whispered to herself. "Just a dream."
No matter how many times she repeated that to herself, she couldn't make herself believe it. It had seemed so real. "It can't be real, can it?" she whispered.
"It can."
Michiru jumped so forcefully she almost fell out of bed. "Who's there!" she demanded, although she had a fairly good idea.
"You still won't remember me."
"You again. What do you want?"
The woman stepped forward into the lamp light. Michiru's wary eyes took in her impossibly long, green-tinted hair, her serious ruby eyes, and her strange attire. She was wearing what appeared to be a white leotard under a sailor-like top with a bow and an almost indecently short black skirt. High black boots and a long key-like staff in one hand completed the picture.
'All she needs is a bare midriff and she'd have "tramp" stamped all over her,' Michiru thought. Somehow though, she couldn't see the other woman that way. Maybe it was her air of authority.
"You look surprised," the woman observed mildly. "Why? I told you I would come back."
"You said when I realized."
"You have realized, even if you don't want to believe it."
"Realized what?" Michiru demanded.
"That your dream is not simply a dream. It is a glimpse of the future."
Michiru's eyes widened in horror. "That was the future!"
She nodded. "Or, at least one of the possible futures. But it can be averted. You can help me avert it."
For a moment, Michiru gaped at her stupidly. "Me! Why me?"
"Because it is your destiny."
Michiru's incredulous look dropped abruptly as she started laughing. "Destiny!" she gasped. "What crap!"
The woman's face muscles tightened slightly, but if she was angry, she gave no other indication. "You don't believe in destiny?"
"Of course not!" Michiru scoffed. "We make our own destinies. Haven't you ever heard of free will?"
"Haven't you ever read 'Oedipus Rex'?" the other countered. "How much free will did he have?"
"You sound like my literature teacher," Michiru said. "That was just a stupid Greek myth."
"Perhaps," the woman said. "But I tell you that destiny is not just a myth, and that it does rule, if not the lives of everyone, certainly the lives of a select few. You are one of those few."
"How would you know?" Michiru said scornfully. She was beginning to think that her earlier judgment had been wrong; maybe this woman really was crazy. In any case, the best course of action seemed to not be afraid of her.
"You know it too," she said. "You simply don't want to admit it to yourself, because it would ruin your image of what your life will be like."
Michiru's mouth snapped shut. What the hell did she know about it?
"You know it," the woman repeated. "Here."
Gloved hands extended towards Michiru, and she looked at the object offered to her. At first she thought it was just a stick, but it had a strange ball on the end of it. Then it began to glow, and she found herself unaccountably reaching for it.
At the last moment she jerked her hand back with a startled cry. There was a power, a strange power that was at once terrifying and familiar emanating from that stick. Something in her was telling her to grab it, that it was hers, but the rest of her resisted. She didn't know why she was so afraid, except that something in her knew that if she touched it, there would be no turning back.
"Go away!" she cried, recoiling from the offering.
The woman quietly pulled her hands back, tucking the stick away out of sight. For a moment, she seemed to look almost disappointed, but the look was gone in an instant, and her face was imperturbable as always. "You can't hide from it forever," was all she said. "I'm Sailor Pluto. Don't forget me; we will meet again."
"Get out, Sailor Pluto," Michiru said, not looking at her.
"Just as you like," Pluto said.
Michiru waited, expecting to hear the door or the window open or shut, or at least a rustle of movement, but there was nothing. Looking up, she opened her mouth to repeat her demand, but shut it again. Aside from her, the room was empty.
Michiru shivered. Sailor Pluto, whoever she was, gave her the creeps.
/-/-/-/
"Michiru-san, are you okay?"
Michiru stopped walking and turned to look at her companion Meroko, a girl in her class who admired her for her talent with the violin. Right then, however, the girl wasn't looking at Michiru with her usual adoration, but with a look of slightly confused concern.
"Of course I'm okay. Why do you ask?"
"Well, you were about to walk into the wall."
Michiru blinked in surprise, then turned to look ahead of her. Sure enough, she had been only inches away from walking straight into the wall. Since she had been walking with her head down, lost in thought, she hadn't even noticed.
A blush crept up her cheeks. She hated being made to look foolish. What everyone else would think if they saw the normally graceful Kaioh Michiru walk into a wall... Fortunately, they were walking around the back of the school to the music room, and no one else was present.
With a little toss of her head, Michiru tried to shake away her turbulent thoughts and kept on walking. No need to let Meroko know something was wrong; the other girl probably wouldn't know what to make of Michiru's situation anyway. She would simply have to handle things herself, like always.
She had drifted off into her own world again without meaning to. This time, however, it wasn't nearly walking into a wall that jerked her out of her reverie. It was Meroko's scream.
Spinning around, Michiru saw what had become of her companion. Meroko was lying on the ground, and bending over her was... 'What the hell is that thing anyway?' she asked herself. Whatever it was, when it straightened up, it had something in its hand. Something with many pointed ends that glittered. Meroko lay on the ground, pale and unmoving.
The creature, which looked like a cross between a rat and a human, locked its gaze on her, and Michiru found herself nearly paralyzed with fear. She backed up until her back hit a wall, eyes transfixed on the monster, which still held that shiny object. She wondered briefly if she had been transported into a bad horror movie as the creature began to advance on her.
Suddenly, there was light, bright, blinding light coming from just in front of her. Straining her eyes, she could make out an object amidst the glow. With a jolt, she realized that it was the stick Sailor Pluto had offered her the night before. As before, she found herself unaccountably reaching for it. She tried to pull her hand back, but it was as though a magnetic attraction was pulling her towards it. She could almost hear a voice in her mind saying, 'Take it! It will fix everything! It's yours! Take it!'
Her hand closed around it.
Suddenly, it was as though all of her questions had been answered. In one blinding moment, she knew with perfect clarity exactly what she had to do. Her voice spoke out almost without conscious direction on her part, speaking words that sounded familiar, even though she was fairly certain she had never said them before.
"Neptune Planet Power Make Up!"
In under a minute, it was over. She chanted more familiar words, summoned a ball of water, and threw it at the monster, which vanished. At first, she thought that there was nothing left of it, but then she observed a rather frightened looking rat scurrying away from her. Breathing a sigh of relief, she went to kneel beside Meroko, shaking her to wake her up.
She wouldn't wake up. Concerned, Michiru shook her harder, but still there was no response. 'I should get the school nurse,' Michiru decided, and stood up to do just that. As she did, a breeze blew by, ruffling her skirt, and for a moment she wondered why her legs were suddenly so cold. She looked down.
For a moment, she couldn't believe her eyes. After shaking her head and rubbing her eyes to clear her vision, she looked down again. What she saw was no different, and no less unsettling.
Instead of being clad in her usual school uniform, she was wearing an outfit very much like the one Sailor Pluto wore, only the colors were different. Instead of black, her skirt and sailor top were aquamarine.
"I see you figured out how to use your transformation pen, Sailor Neptune."
She nearly jumped out of her skin, spinning around to confront Sailor Pluto, who calmly stepped out from the shadow of a nearby building. Michiru sent her a distrustful look before turning around to leave.
"Where are you going?" Pluto asked.
"To get the nurse," she answered. "Meroko won't wake up."
Pluto calmly surveyed the girl sprawled on the ground before her. "The nurse won't know how to help her. She's had her heart crystal taken. We need to return it."
So saying, she bent down and retrieved the object the youma had been carrying. "Here," she said, and kneeling down by Meroko, she showed Michiru how to return the heart crystal.
"Come," she said, straightening up again. "She'll wake up soon, and we need to talk in private."
'You're damned right we do!' Michiru thought, but she kept her mouth shut and followed Sailor Pluto.
Pluto led her around the back of the school and across the sports field. Across the field, at the edge of the school grounds, a grove of trees grew. Into this grove went Pluto, and in Michiru followed her. She could see at once why the other had picked this spot; it was secluded and no one was likely to see or hear them there. Light filtered down through the leaves and made patterns on her skirt, and she watched, mesmerized. Then it struck her just how short her skirt was, and she tugged at it in a vain attempt to make it cover more.
"If you dislike it so much, why not just change back to your normal clothes?" Pluto asked, observing her discomfort.
Michiru did just that. Taking the pen in one hand, she held it out to Sailor Pluto. "Here," she said. "Take it back."
Pluto only shook her head sadly. "I can't. It's yours."
"I'm giving it to you."
"I can't take it."
"Take it!" Michiru cried. "I don't want it!"
"It doesn't matter what you want."
Michiru's arm fell to her side in defeat. "I don't want it," she repeated hopelessly.
Pluto looked at her sympathetically, eyes taking on a gleam of understanding. "I know you don't," she said. "None of us do. You think I chose this? If I had had my way, my life would have been very different."
Michiru slumped against a tree trunk, suddenly feeling helpless. "I don't understand," she said. "Why? What am I supposed to do?"
"Save the world," Sailor Pluto said, making it sound like the simplest thing in the world. "I can help you there. Let me give you a brief synopsis."
"Okay," Michiru said.
"The end of the world is coming," Pluto said. "You've seen it in your dreams. Everything now rests on the Grail. We need to find it. If the enemy get a hold of it, everything will be destroyed. But if we find it first and give it to the Messiah, the world will be saved."
"So we find the Grail," Michiru said. "I suddenly feel like I've been stuck in a Monty Python movie."
Pluto smiled at her briefly before becoming serious again. "Unfortunately, it's not that simple. In order to get the Grail, we need the three talismans, which are hidden in the pure hearts of three people."
"Pure hearts?"
"Yes. That was why the youma took your friend's heart crystal. The enemy is searching for the talismans too, but they must not find them."
"So my job is to find the talismans," Michiru said.
"Yes, but more importantly, your job is to keep the enemy from finding them."
"Okay," Michiru said slowly, trying to wrap her head around what was required of her and take it all in stride, like she did with everything else. "I think I understand."
"Good," Pluto said. "I have some business to take care of, but I will join you as soon as possible."
Michiru froze as Pluto's words dropped a rock of ice in the pit of her stomach. "You... you're leaving?" she asked.
Pluto paused. "Well, yes."
Michiru's legs seemed to give out, and she slid down the tree trunk to rest on the ground. For a moment, she thought she might cry. "You mean I have to do this... alone?" For some reason, that thought terrified her more than anything else. Fighting monsters with someone who presumably knew what she was doing was not nearly as frightening as the prospect of doing it alone.
'Why not?' part of her mind said. 'You've done almost everything else alone.'
Pluto, seeing Michiru's distress, moved over to kneel down next to her and put a comforting arm around her shoulders. For the first time, Michiru began to think that maybe she could grow to like this woman. Maybe she wasn't always as aloof as she seemed.
"No," Pluto said gently. "Not alone. Not you. In that respect at least, fate has been kind to you. You will have a partner."
"Who?"
"Another just like you. The second part of your job will be to find her and fill her in on your mission."
"Find her? But how will I recognize her?"
"You will know," Pluto said softly.
Michiru waited, watching her companion curiously. Pluto sounded almost envious.
"You will know," Pluto repeated. "The two of you are meant to be together."
With that, she stood up and made her way quietly between the trees. Michiru watched her go, those words echoing in her head.
"You will know."
/-/-/-/
By the next day, Michiru was rethinking her opinion of Sailor Pluto yet again. How in the world did she expect Michiru to locate her partner amidst the thousands of people in the city? Worse, what if her partner wasn't even living in the same city as she was? So far, the only clue she had to go on was that the mysterious person she sought was female.
'Great,' she thought sarcastically. 'That eliminates one half of the population, leaving goodness only knows how many left.'
Once again she found herself heading outside to mull things over in peace. It was too crowded and chaotic inside the school to get much thinking done during her free time, so she headed to the roof, where it was usually quiet and unoccupied.
Looking up at the blue sky from her vantage point on the roof, Michiru fell to pondering her problem again. She wished Pluto had been more specific about how to find this partner of hers. "That bloody woman. She couldn't give me anything to go on, could she?" Michiru muttered to herself.
"Did you say something?"
Michiru froze upon hearing the familiar, husky voice. Tenou Haruka had evidently just come out to enjoy the sunshine as well. As she turned to look at the other girl, Sailor Pluto's words rang through her head again. '"You will know."'
She knew.
"You weren't talking to me, were you?" Haruka asked rather disinterestedly, not looking at her.
"I... No."
"Okay then." Without a backward glance, Haruka sauntered off. Michiru stared at her back, suddenly unable to make her mind work to form any coherent thoughts.
Haruka. Of course, it just had to be Haruka.
/-/-/-/
Michiru slammed the door to her bedroom and threw herself face first on her bed. It had been a week since she had realized who her partner was to be, and she still hadn't said anything to Haruka. In fact, she hadn't said anything to the other girl at all. That was nothing out of the ordinary; although Michiru delighted in watching Haruka from afar, she almost never spoke to her. In fact, she doubted if Haruka even knew of her existence. That would change. It would have to.
Or would it? Michiru was torn. On the one hand, she wanted a partner, and wanted one badly, and she wanted Haruka to know her, recognize her, maybe even just look at her once in a while. She needed the help too. Thus far, her search for the talismans had been utterly fruitless. She had only come across one youma, which she had destroyed, but the heart crystal hadn't contained a talisman. It was frustrating.
Still, she kept her mouth shut. After all, she hadn't wanted to become a senshi. There was no reason to suppose Haruka would be any more eager than she had been. After watching the other, she knew that Haruka dreamed of one day becoming a racer. But if she was doomed to the same fate as Michiru, those dreams would be put on the back burner. Could she, in all good conscience, doom the girl she had a crush on to a fate she herself hated?
/-/-/-/
Indecision was for the weak.
As she dragged herself into her house, Michiru thanked her lucky stars that her parents weren't home. If they had been, it would have made things a lot more complicated. For one thing, they would have insisted on calling an ambulance.
Wincing from the pain coming from the large gash on her side, Michiru slowly made her way to her room. She made a detour to the bathroom where the first aid kit was kept and began rather ineffectually trying to staunch the flow of blood. While the wound certainly wasn't gushing blood, it was still oozing slightly, and she wanted to stop it before it soaked into everything and ruined the rest of the clothes she was wearing. The shirt was already done for, but she still hoped to salvage the skirt.
After covering the wound with disinfectant and binding it as best she could, Michiru stumbled back out of the bathroom. She was ready to head straight to bed, but stopped when she noticed a crimson blotch on the floor. With dismay, she realized that she had left a dripping blood trail all the way from the front door.
Blood, she discovered, was a very difficult substance to clean. It liked to stain any surface it came into contact with. An hour and a half later, she was still kneeling on the floor, scrubbing desperately to try and remove the last traces. There had been so much of it. 'So much blood. Did that all come from me? No wonder I feel so tired.'
It wasn't that she had been careless; but the youma had been particularly stubborn this time. It had refused to die until after it scored a hit on her. She was only lucky she hadn't been hurt worse.
This had to stop. If she had had a partner, this wouldn't have happened. Much as she hated to admit it, Michiru was beginning to realize that this wasn't a battle she could fight alone. There would always be more battles, and sooner or later, her luck would run out. But if she had someone to guard her back...
Before, it had been a struggle between loneliness and conscience, with loneliness arguing in favor of bringing Haruka in and conscience holding out against it. Conscience had had the upper hand, but now that common sense had entered the picture, it was a different story. No matter how much she didn't want to do it, no matter how bad she would feel afterwards, her path was clear.
Haruka had to be brought in.
/-/-/-/
Slamming the door to her bedroom behind her, Michiru flopped onto her bed with a groan of frustration. She had just come back from her first attempt to recruit Haruka to the cause. So far, the words "unqualified disaster" came to mind when she thought of the meeting.
It hadn't started out so badly. Elza Gray, a friend of hers, had told her that there would be a race today. Knowing that Haruka was likely to be there, Michiru had gone. Haruka had indeed been there, but things had not gone quite as she had planned. It had been simple enough to get Elza to give her a formal introduction, but once she'd actually had to deal with Haruka herself, things started getting complicated.
Haruka didn't recognize her. That much had been apparent from the beginning. Despite the fact that they attended the same school and had brushed shoulders in the hallway a few times, there was no spark of recognition in Haruka's eyes until she had mentioned the wind. Then the spark had been accompanied by fear. Fear of her and the destiny she brought with her.
Michiru pummeled her pillow, lacking anything else to take her frustration out on. She should have known better than to start off like that. Of course Haruka was terrified. If she had been having the dreams like Michiru had, if she understood what they meant, she had every reason to shy away from Michiru.
'Pull yourself together,' Michiru told herself. 'No one said this was going to be easy. You gave in to it because you didn't have a choice. Eventually, she'll realize that she doesn't have a choice either.' Part of her cried out that it wanted Haruka to have a choice, but she quelled it. 'You didn't choose this destiny, not for yourself, and not for her.'
/-/-/-/
Michiru quelled a feeling of mild guilt as she followed at a discrete distance behind Haruka. She told herself that it was necessary to shadow her future partner as much as possible, partially to ensure her safety, partially to see if she could find another opportunity to talk to the girl. So far, she had had only one other chance after the race. Haruka had come to one of her performances and looked at her painting of the world being destroyed. While the painting had been a good conversation starter, it hadn't helped much after that. Haruka was still as stubborn as ever, and she refused to accept her destiny.
Michiru paused, resisting the temptation to duck into the nearest alleyway as Haruka stopped in front of a garage. Running now would only make her more obvious. She wasn't sure yet whether or not Haruka knew that Michiru was following her. If she didn't, there was no point in giving it away now, since it would almost certainly anger the other girl.
Haruka vanished inside the garage without seeming to notice Michiru behind her, and Michiru breathed a small sigh of relief. She hated trying to tail Haruka, and she would have been mortified beyond words had she been caught.
Her relief did not last long. Something was wrong, she could feel it. Her first thought was Haruka. Was she in danger? Abandoning all composure and fear of being found out, Michiru ran full tilt towards the garage Haruka had gone into. As she came to an abrupt halt at the entrance, she thought her heart would stop.
Haruka was sprawled on the floor, still conscious and not obviously wounded, and a large, worm-like youma loomed over her. That in and of itself would have been enough to strike terror into Michiru's heart, but that was not all.
Glowing in the air before the fallen girl was a pen very much like hers. Haruka's hand was stretched towards it. In another second, she would grasp it and fulfill her inescapable destiny. She would become Michiru's partner and join the battle. She would fight evil and save the world.
She would be utterly miserable.
"No!" Michiru cried. "Don't touch it!"
Her words had the desired effect. Haruka's hand fell away as her head whipped round to stare at Michiru. Confusion was written large on her face. Beside her, the pen dropped to the ground, unheeded.
Michiru felt a slight pang of regret. She did want Haruka as a partner, but at the same time, she felt that she couldn't let her selfishness ruin Haruka's life. "If you touch that, your life will never be the same," she said. To demonstrate her point, she raised her own pen and called out the incantation, transforming herself into Sailor Neptune. For a moment, she thought Haruka's eyes might pop out of her head, so shocked did the other girl look.
/-/-/-/
"You're a strange girl, do you know that?"
"Yes," Michiru answered, too tired to bother with a witty reply. She was at Haruka's apartment, stretched out on her stomach on the couch. She had taken off her shirt and bra to expose the ugly marks the youma had left on her back and arms, and Haruka was gingerly trying to clean them. Gingerly, because when she had first dabbed alcohol on the wounds, Michiru had yelped with pain.
However gentle Haruka tried to be, the slashes stung every time the washcloth Haruka held touched them. Michiru bit her lip, valiantly trying to smother any sounds of pain. After all, this had to be done, and there was no point in making Haruka feel guilty about hurting her. The only problem was that she would have trouble answering Haruka's questions with her lip caught between her teeth. She was sure Haruka had plenty of questions to ask her too.
"Why did you let yourself get hurt?"
Michiru huffed out a surprised breath. Of all the questions for Haruka to start off with, that wasn't the one she had expected. "I couldn't let you get hurt," she said. "You're my partner."
Haruka looked down at the stick she had grabbed after the fight, which was now resting innocently on her coffee table. "I wasn't your partner then," she said.
"All the more reason for me to not let you get hurt," Michiru said coolly. "Innocent people shouldn't be involved in such things."
Haruka gave her a slightly disbelieving look. "This coming from the girl who said not an hour ago that she'd use whatever means necessary to get what she wanted? You're a walking contradiction."
"That's different," Michiru said irritably. "I already explained it to you; I don't have a choice."
"You're a strange girl," Haruka repeated, shaking her head.
"You're one to talk," Michiru said sourly. "You grabbed the pen, even after I told you not to. Why?"
Haruka shrugged indifferently, not meeting Michiru's eyes. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
Michiru sighed, looking up at her with sad eyes. "You shouldn't have done that. You're in over your head now."
"What is with you?" Haruka asked, sounding mildly irritated. "I thought you said you liked me. Why wouldn't you want me to be your partner?"
Michiru ducked her head to hide the fact that her cheeks were tinted slightly pink. "I do like you," she said, her voice muffled by the couch cushions. "A little too much, perhaps. I know you don't want this fate, so I tried to spare you from it."
Haruka shrugged again. "If it really is fate, that means it doesn't matter, right? I can't escape it anyway."
Michiru stared at her incredulously. "I don't understand you, Haruka. When I tried to persuade you to help me before, you freaked out on me. Now, you seem to be taking it all calmly in stride. Why the change?"
Haruka knelt down on the floor by the couch, putting herself at Michiru's eye level. "That's simple," she said with a slightly mischievous smile. "No one told me before that I got a beautiful girl as compensation."
/-/-/-/
It was decided that she should spend the night in Haruka's apartment rather than bothering to go home. She tried to call her parents to let them know, but ended up having to leave a message since they weren't home. Sighing, she hung up the phone and went to find Haruka.
She found the other girl kneeling in front of a low cupboard, rummaging through it. After some tugging, she emerged with a blanket and pillow. Standing up, she turned around and noticed Michiru.
"Did you get through to them?" she asked.
Michiru shook her head. "They weren't home. They rarely are."
Haruka nodded understandingly, but didn't comment.
"Are those for me?" Michiru asked, gesturing at the blanket and the pillow.
"No," Haruka answered. "They're for me. I'm taking the couch."
Michiru shook her head. "I don't want to inconvenience you..."
"You're not," Haruka assured her. "I don't mind. You're the invalid, you get the bed. Next time, you can have the couch if you're so keen on it."
Michiru barely even blinked at the suggestion that she would be spending more than one night here. It was probable, now that she and Haruka would be working together. All she said was, "If you're sure."
Haruka nodded. "I'm sure."
And so Michiru found herself in a sparsely furnished bedroom, lying in a not uncomfortable bed. In lieu of her nightgown, she was wearing an old tee-shirt of Haruka's that was far too big one her. As she settled down, careful not to lie on her back, she fell to thinking about the girl who was in all probability asleep in the other room.
It was done. For better or for worse, Haruka was committed. Michiru still wasn't sure whether she should be glad or sorry about the whole thing. Still, she couldn't deny that it was nice to have someone fuss over her and tend to her wounds instead of her having to do it herself. And Haruka seemed much more open to her now...
With a small smile on her lips, Michiru fell asleep.
Her peaceful slumber did not last long. All to soon, her vision was filled with terrible images. Buildings crumbled, people cried out in terror but were soon silenced, and she watched in helpless horror.
Forcing herself awake, Michiru lay gasping like a landed fish. For a moment she panicked, not recognizing her surroundings. Then she remembered that she was in Haruka's bedroom, and the other girl was asleep out on the couch.
At least the other girl had been asleep out on the couch.
Faint light spilled in through the doorway as the door opened slightly, and silhouetted in it was Haruka. Her face was cast into shadow, but her voice sounded concerned.
"Michiru? Are you okay?"
Michiru tried to say yes, but her voice didn't seem to want to come out of her throat.
"What's wrong? Does your back hurt?"
Michiru shook her head. "I had the dream again."
Haruka had seen the painting; she didn't need to ask which dream. She simply nodded and turned to go.
"Haruka!" Michiru called desperately.
Haruka turned back. "What?"
Michiru didn't know what to say. She had simply wanted to detain the other girl, not to be alone. "I..." she stammered, hands trembling, still seeing in her mind the chaos and destruction.
Haruka came into the room and sat down on the edge of the bed next to her.
"I... I'm scared," Michiru blurted, finally saying what she had felt for so long. Before, there had been no one to say it to, but now... "What if we can't stop it? What if we fail?" She knew she was beginning to sound almost hysterical, but she couldn't stop herself. Closing her eyes desperately, she tried to stop the tears, but a few still slipped out.
An arm reached out hesitantly and encircled her waist while another one reached up to clasp her shoulder. Michiru found herself being pulled gently against a warm chest.
"We can stop it," Haruka said firmly.
Tentatively, Michiru rested her head against Haruka's shoulder. "I'm sorry you had to be brought into this," she said, hiccupping slightly. "I tried to do it on my own, but I wasn't getting anywhere. All I got were battle injuries, not talismans."
A warm hand rested where the overlarge shirt had slipped off to reveal her shoulder. It rubbed lightly, warming Michiru, who was still feeling chilled after her dream.
"I was so scared. I didn't think that I could do it alone, but I didn't want to drag you down with me." Michiru felt the arms around her tighten. She flinched slightly as they put pressure on her still healing back, but accepted the embrace, even burrowed a little deeper into it.
"We'll stop it," Haruka said with conviction. "We won't fail."
Somehow, when Haruka said it so firmly, Michiru couldn't help but believe it.
"We'll do it together," Haruka said quietly, and there was a strange note in her voice that made Michiru look up at her. "Together."
"Haruka?"
"I had a dream too," Haruka murmured, gazing intensely into Michiru's eyes. "But it wasn't anything like your dream."
The intense but strangely tender look in Haruka's eyes made Michiru think that she could guess what Haruka's dream had been about. As she slowly brought her face closer to Haruka's, she remembered Pluto's words. 'The two of you are meant to be together.'
Then she stopped bothering to think at all as Haruka kissed her.
/-/-/-/
Weeks passed, and Michiru found herself spending more and more time at Haruka's apartment. In fact, she found herself spending more time with Haruka period. They took to scouting the city together, ever on the lookout for daimons. Since they had no real means of extracting heart crystals by themselves, they had no choice but to wait. The search was beginning to take its toll on both of them, but Haruka kept insisting that they continue it without relenting.
Haruka seemed almost more determined than Michiru was. Far from fleeing from her destiny, she threw herself into it. Michiru began to notice that Haruka's drive to find the talismans at whatever cost seemed to increase most after those nights when Michiru dreamed about the end of the world. After her initial breakdown that first night, Michiru never cried about her dream again, but she still often wound up in Haruka's comforting embrace.
It made her wonder sometimes. Why was Haruka so driven? Sometimes she wondered if Haruka really was embracing her destiny after all. Still, she had a little trouble believing that, since she knew without a doubt that the idea of actually killing someone to get a talisman weighed heavily on Haruka's mind.
Whatever Haruka's motives, Michiru was glad to have the other girl at her side. The task allotted to her was still not one she would have chosen herself, but at least it was bearable when Haruka was with her.
/-/-/-/
"Haruka?"
Haruka looked up from where she was sitting, her usual spot at the window, overlooking the city below. For some reason, Haruka liked to be high up and able to look below her. Perhaps it was something to do with her connection to the wind.
"What is it?"
Michiru moved to sit at the window beside her taller partner. "Nothing really. I was just thinking." She slid a little closer to Haruka, leaning in to put her head on the other girl's shoulder. Automatically, Haruka's arm came up to encircle her waist.
"About what?"
Michiru was silent for a minute, thinking about how she wanted to phrase her question. "When you first became my partner," she began, "you said that I was compensation."
"Did I?" Haruka said rather carelessly. "I'm sorry if I implied anything by it."
"No, it's not that," Michiru said. "It's just... Was I worth it?"
Haruka blinked. "Worth what?"
"You know," Michiru said, gesturing vaguely. "You had to give up your dreams and your former way of life to become Sailor Uranus, and all you get as compensation is me."
"You make it sound like I got a bad bargain," Haruka said. "Michiru, you aren't still feeling guilty about 'forcing' me to join you, are you? Because you didn't force me to do anything. Fate is fate, right? I knew I would have to give in sooner or later; but in the end, it was my choice. I'm just glad I don't have to fulfill my destiny alone."
Michiru sat with her head on Haruka's shoulder in silence for several minutes. Finally, she said, "You didn't answer my question."
Haruka smiled. "Why Michiru, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you were fishing for a compliment."
Michiru sighed. "I worry sometimes. You never say what you're thinking."
Haruka sighed heavily and ran a hand through her hair. Her gaze returned to the sky, and she sat staring out the window in silence for a moment. "You could ask me the same question," she said at last. "After all, didn't you have to give up your dreams too?"
"That's different," Michiru murmured.
"If you could go back and do it differently," Haruka said, "if you could have gone on to play the violin professionally, if you had never had to be Sailor Neptune, would you take that choice?"
Michiru thought about it. "This is assuming that I would never have met you either, isn't it?"
"That's right."
"Then no," she answered. "I can still play the violin any time I choose. But I would much rather have you than some career."
"Likewise," Haruka said. "I can still go driving. I can't be quite my usual speed demon self with you in the car because I don't want to get you killed, but I would still rather have you at my side than a career, however brilliant, that I would have to give up in a few years anyway."
Michiru smiled. "Thank you, Haruka. I know I seem needy sometimes..."
"I think it's just that I seem cold sometimes," Haruka said ruefully.
"Not to me," Michiru said. "Never to me." Her eyes glowed, mirroring the tender smile on her face.
Haruka turned fully away from the window. "And to think you could ever wonder if you were worth it. Who else would I find who could put up with me?"
"You make it sound like such a chore," Michiru teased, her solemn mood all but gone.
"Well, you made it sound like you were guilty of forcing me into something I didn't want. Let's just call it even."
"Agreed," Michiru said.
Owari