Ok, this is chapter three of my Ami X Minako romance fic. I'm trying my best to keep up with regular posts on this story. You see, I read an interview with Mercedes Lackey (my favorite author), wherein she said, and "If you're serious about writing, the only way to ever make a career out of it is to BE serious. That means, even if you go back and delete it all, you need to be writing three pages a day, minimum." I'm gonna go out on a limb, and assume she's talking about novel pages. A standard paper back novel page is –by my best guestimate- 350 words. That means if I want to consider myself a serious author, I need to write about 1000 words a day.

-Sigh- on average, I work 50-55 hours a week. No doubt some of you are now wondering what the problem is. I know back in college, I would have killed for 50 hours of work a week. But now I get paid salary, so if I work 50 hours, I average out at about $4.50 an hour. Plus, I'm dead tired, and it's hard to write 1000 words in the three hours of personal time you have a day.

So between personal stuff (journal, because I'll never admit to having a diary), fan fiction, and original fiction I average at about 3000 words a week. Just a little under par, eh?

Anyway, enough of my bitching. I've already had one review complain that the intro/authors notes were longer than the story (which they weren't… I went back and checked), so lets get this started.

Loves icy journey

Chapter three: Interrogation

By Michael Treiber

The first thing that Ami noticed when she entered her house was how quiet it was. Then she noticed how dark it was.

"Mother?" She softly called. The elder woman had promised to be home when she returned from cram school. "I'm home…"

"I'm in here Ami." She heard her mother's voice from the darkened living room. As she entered, the other woman turned on a lamp next where she was seated on the couch.

"Minako brought these for you."

Ami blinked in confusion. Why would Minako be dropping roses off for her?

Twin needles of ice stabbed into Ami as she read the card, and her mother spoke. The card was rather simple, a single line of flowing script which read,

'To my beloved Ami… Minako'

"Now Ami, I know that we're not as close as we should be, but is there something we need to discus? Something that maybe you feel a little… uncomfortable about?"

It took a supreme expenditure of willpower not to crush the roses and the offending card nestled within them, but Ami manage to keep her hands and voice steady as she answered her mothers query.

"Of course not mother. There is absolutely nothing that we need to discus."

The deep sigh her mother let out should have been ample warning to Ami that the next round of discussion wasn't going to be fun, but she didn't expect anything close to what actually came out of her mothers mouth.

"Listen Ami, I love you no matter what. And I understand that, while there is nothing wrong with the way you are, you might be a little confused about what you're going through. But I want to be here for you… you know that, right?"

Another flurry of confused blinks.

"Mother…" Ami slowly forced the words out, "You think I'm…"

"Don't!" Her mother softly scolded. " You don't have to hide what you are anymore. I admit that I was a little confused at first, but Minako's a wonderful girl. And I've come to realize that this isn't a choice you make… something you can switch on and off. It's just the way you are. If I want to love you, I have to love the real you."

Ami was to shocked to speak, so her mother continued, showing her a book which had been on her lap.

"Now, I think it would be good for us to read some of this book together. It's called "One in six teenagers'…"

*****

"Minako!" The blond was sitting under a tree eating her lunch, but looked up and smiled as she heard Ami call her name.

"Hi Ami! Did you get the flowers? I'm sorry if the roses were a little cliché... but I'm afraid I don't know what kind you like."

"What the hell are you doing? Do you have any idea what my mother thought? AND wanted to discuss for almost two hours!?"

"What do you mean?" Minako asked in a falsely innocent tone of voice. "I clearly upset you yesterday, and I wanted to make it up to you."

"Minako..." Ami sighed. She didn't know what to believe. True, Minako had just asked her for a date, but was she really clever enough to come up with something like this? Regardless, she continued.

"You can't do things like that. My mother spent a good portion of last night trying to convince me that not only was it ok to be gay, but if I was she would want to know. And THEN she started going off on what a wonderful girl you were."

"Really?" Minako was genuinely touched. She hadn't known that Ami's mother liked her.

"Anyway..." Ami said after looking at her watch. "We'll discuss it later. I have to get back to class."

*****

"It worked perfectly." Minako told Haruka. The two were seated on the couch in the racer's living room, speaking in conspiratorial whispers so as not to be overheard by Michiru, who was currently in the kitchen.

"Not only does her mother accept the idea of her with another girl," Minako glowed with pride as she said this, "But she likes me!"

"Really?" Haruka was genuinely happy for the other girl. "That makes the entire process that much easier. In fact, if she likes you enough, it gives you an ally in Ami's home camp."

The taller blond paused for a long moment before bringing up a rather delicate subject.

"Now… what about your parents? How do you thing they'll react?"

"I honestly don't know." Minako admitted. "My parents are pretty conservative. I've never really seen them as bigots, but…"

"But parents tend to react a little differently when it's their child instead of a complete stranger."

Minako sighed deeply.

"There's another thing to consider. I've always been close to both of my sisters, and I don't want to alienate them…"

Haruka shrugged.

"I'm sorry… I can't help you with that. I don't have any siblings, and Michiru's older brother is a huge fan of mine, so it was never a problem for me. All I can say is be ready for anything. They might just shrug, and think nothing more of it than if you told them you had a new boyfriend. Or they might try and strap you to your bed so that they can get a councilor to 'cure' you. Probably, its going to lie somewhere between those two extremes."

"How did you tell your family?" Minako asked, desperate for any advice.

The older girl raised an eyebrow.

"You seem to be getting pretty serious about this."

Minako simply nodded and waited for Haruka to continue.

"Well…" she obliged, "It all started when my mother started finding pieces of Michiru's clothing in my laundry basket. One day I came home from a race, and she just casually asked me why I had the same girl stay over all the time. I flush with victory, and feeling pretty full of myself, so I just told her the truth. Honestly, I don't think she meant anything by the question, and when I answered, she was blown away."

"But how did she react?" Minako was dying to know.

"First she just sat there, in complete shock." Haruka smiled lightly as she thought back. "Then she just stood up, walked into the kitchen, and stated making dinner. I was kind of worried when she wouldn't answer any of my questions, or respond to me at all. That's when my father got home from work. Just like every other day, he walked in, kissed her, and asked her how her day was. She stared at him for a minute like he had just asked what color the sky was, and then, in a completely deadpan tone of voice, she told him, 'Oh, fine… by the way, Haruka came  out of the closet when she got home. Apparently she's been sleeping with that Michiru girl.'"

Haruka threw back her head and laughed before continuing.

"And this is the best part. He just stared right back and says 'You mean you didn't know?' Apparently, he had figured the whole thing out weeks before, and was just giving me time to come out on my own."

Minako sighed.

"Well… its good that everything worked out for you, but I think I need to concentrate more on actually getting a girlfriend before I start worrying about telling my parents about her."

"Phase two," Haruka told her, "Involves showing her that the two of you can pleasantly spend time alone, without her feeling threatened."

Minako frowned in thought for a moment, and then smiled at the idea that bloomed in her mind.

Ok, so I made up some family for some of the characters. I don't think anything I made up contradicts the established story in any way… for the most part, you really didn't see anything about the families of the Senshi. Especially the outers.

The next chapter is going to be kind of like this… Tiny bit of material from "Beginings", and an bunch of new material. So far I haven't been doing to badly, content wise on this fic… the chapter average is well above a thousand words… not to shabby, if I do say so myself.