This is a bit of a different fanfic than I'm used to writing. I thought it was an interesting premise, so I decided to write it. Here go the disclaimers: I don't own Sailor Moon, so don't sue me, yada yada yada…

Anyway, if you want to email me, it's at Guardian4@atlantic.net. However, PLEASE put Fanfiction or something like that in the subject line. I get a lot of junk mail and I may just delete it without reading it otherwise, though I won't mean to.

Onto the story…

Angelic Embrace

Part 8

Mars stared up at Jadeite. Slowly the other Senshi withdrew to leave them alone. She had no idea what to say to him.

"I'll walk you home, if I may?"

She nodded, but they never made it to her home. Rei woke up with warm arms around her naked body. Deep breathing fluffed her hair from behind. She knew immediately that it was not Yuuichirou because no hair tickled her shoulder. Her body tensed as she remembered last night.

"Oh gods," she muttered. She had done something she had not wanted to do. Well, she had wanted to be with Jadeite, but not cheat on Yuuichirou. It was dishonoring to him as well as her and Jace's relationship.

He stirred behind her and abruptly sat up. She sat up more slowly. Jace dropped his face in his hands. "Rei-chan, Rei, gods, what have we done?"

Rei hugged herself. "I don't know what to do, Jace. I don't want to hurt Yuuichirou and having an affair on him feels dirty. But I love you like I can't love him. What do I do?"

He gave her a wry grin. "I'm just as lost as you."

"What do I tell Yuuichirou when I go home today?"

A shake of his head told her he didn't know.

Slowly she got up from the bed and began to pull on her clothes. When she looked back she noticed that Jace had followed her progress with lost eyes. She knew what he was feeling, but it was all her fault for bringing this problem on their relationship. Why had she agreed to Yuuichirou in the first place? Because she had been grieving over her grandfather's death and she had thought she had loved him.

"We will meet soon…Jace."

He nodded and she left his home. As soon as the front door closed behind her, she fled. To where, she let her feet take her. Who could understand? Ami-chan? No, she understood less than the ways of the heart than anyone Rei ever knew. Mako-chan? No, she wouldn't understand, being on a high of love. Not that the fiery Senshi would have it any other way, but it didn't help her in her problem. That left Minako-chan. The only problem with that was that she would give advice, try to help, and doing ineffectual things.

She let out a sob as she ran. She wanted the princess; she wanted Usagi. She was the only person who she could truly count on to just listen. If she wanted advice, she'd go to Minako, but that would be later. First she wanted someone to talk to period.

Rei found herself outside the hospital. She walked in and carefully slipped by Ami when the woman wasn't looking. Immediately she headed for the door that led to a closed off room. She knew he was in there and he was the closest she could get to Usagi; to the princess. And he could be trusted. After all, his best friend was her past lover.

Endymion, or rather Mamoru, lay, for once lately, peacefully in his bed. She sat down next to it and crossed her arms on the edge of the metal bars that edged the mattress.

"Hey, Endy—oh, sorry, Mamoru. I have a problem and I thought you could listen." Suddenly her sobs let out and she gasped it out to the comatose man. Sometimes she could swear his eyes flickered under his eyelids, as if could really hear her, but it was so rare that she convinced herself she hadn't seen it.

The whole problem spilled out and after a while, her head pillowed on her arms, she lay silent, her tears dried up. A throat cleared itself behind her and she spun in her chair. She was almost disappointed, but mostly relieved when it was only Nick. She looked behind him and he shook his head.

"Mako-chan isn't here with me. She said she had some thinking to do and reorienting herself to both the past part of her and the present. I just came to see our liege, but he obviously isn't alone. If he's courting someone other than the Princess Serenity, I'll have to box his ears."

Rei smiled wanly at his joke. He moved to stand on the other side of the bed. "Or Jace will."

The smile disappeared and she looked away. "How long were you standing there?"

"Long enough."

Long enough to hear everything I said, she thought sourly.

"Not that long, but enough to get the gist of it," he said, correctly interpreting her thoughts with a speculative look on his face.

"I just don't know what to do, Nick. I love Jace, but I'm married to Yuuichirou, and last night…"

"I had not suspected that things would be so heated between you that it would happen so soon."

"But you knew it would happen."

"Yes, it would happen eventually, as it will between Makoto and myself. As it will between Ami and Zale. As it will between Minako and Keagan. It is only a matter of time, but I had not thought it would happen so soon between you two, especially with you…" He trailed off.

"You don't have to remind me." Rei looked anywhere but at him, her shame wanting to burn her face off.

His eyes were wary as he asked, "Out of curiosity, why don't you just divorce Yuuichirou?"

Rei glared at him. "No! I gave my word till death do us part and I will honor it even though I am no longer in love with him!"

Nick suddenly smiled, a glint of satisfaction in his eyes. "That is good to hear. I was hoping you were still the same woman who I called little sister in the Silver Millennium."

And suddenly Rei remembered that too. Though Nephrite and Raye, Princess of Mars, had not been related at all, because the two were the most psychic, they had formed a bond that went deeper than any others she had except with the princess and Jadeite. Her eyes filled with tears and she launched herself at Nick, burying her face in his chest. "I forgot that too! First the promise to him broken and now this! What is wrong with me, Nephrite?"

He shushed her and she suddenly remembered what name she had used. She smiled wryly. All of the past lives of the Senshi wanted to intrude on the present one, seeming to ignore that the Senshi of the present had different lives from back then and it wasn't wise to say their Shitennou/Senshi names in public.

"It took us Shitennou many years to fully remember and gain the emotions back from those memories. I am not surprised you don't remember our bond. You only remembered yourself but yesterday."

"What do I do, Nick? I love Jace as if he was my life, but I swore a vow to Yuuichirou and I've worked three years to save our marriage. Three years! I don't want to think that those years were wasted."

"No year that you try your hardest at something is ever wasted. But this time I cannot advise you. Go to Minako if you have need of advice, but in the end it is all up to you."

"But I cannot deny the pull I feel for Jace or Jadeite."

"Don't deny it."

"But if I don't, I'll end up cheating on Yuuichirou; I already have, and that demeans not only him, but our relationship."

"Think it over long and hard before you do anything is all I can say to you," Nick said seriously.

"I almost wish one of those youma would come around and accidentally kill him."

He frowned at her attempt at humor. "Don't ever joke about something like that, Hino Rei. It is a dangerous thing. After all, it might happen if we aren't good enough."

That stopped her cold and chilled her. Yuuichirou, dead? No! Much as she wanted to be with Jace, she would never forgive herself if Yuuichirou died. And it would hurt so much more if she knew that she had joked about it and it had come true.

"I'll go so you can talk to the prince," she said quietly and soberly.

Nick squeezed her arm as she pulled away from him. "Just remember I am always here if you want to talk."

She nodded and left the room. It was time to talk to Minako, the warrior of love. She had to have advice. She had done her explaining and crying to listening ears, even though it hadn't been quite the same as it would have with the princess. Now she needed advice on a course of action.

She found Minako and Keagan leaning against a railing, overlooking a lake. She hesitated to approach them, but he knew immediately that she was there. He turned to look at her as she approached.

"Hello, Rei-chan." Minako turned to greet her.

"Never could sneak up on you two, could I?" she asked amusedly as more memories superimposed them over the people in front of her. Only these images were of a much younger Kunzite and Mina. Mina had only been sixteen when she had found and fallen for her soulmate; it had taken Minako nearly ten more years than that to find the same thing. If she judged Keagan's age correctly, he was 27 and Kunzite had only been 18 when he had become the head Shitennou for the Prince Endymion.

"Is there something wrong?" Minako asked as she saw the shadows in Rei's eyes that she had tried so hard to hide.

"It's about Jace and I."

Keagan nodded and moved to leave, but Rei reached out and grasped his arm. "Stay, Kunzite—I mean, Keagan. You were very close to me back then and we are close again, so stay. You can help, as well, I hope."

He nodded and leaned back on the railing. Minako gestured for her to continue.

"I love Jace and Jadeite more than life, but I'm married to Yuuichirou. I don't want to cheat or have an affair on him; that's demeaning for all concerned. But I swore a vow on my marriage day that I would stay with him till death parted us. What do I do? I want to be with Jace, but I don't want to…go through the pain of a divorce and such."

"You have to talk to Yuuichirou about this," Minako said after a moment of silence. "You have to tell him."

"I can see that going over real well," Rei muttered sarcastically. "'I'm a Sailor Soldier that protects a Princess of the Moon and I found my soulmate again, so we have to break up'."

"She's not saying to tell him you're a Soldier or anything," Keagan said with a calming look at her. "She's saying tell him you're not in love with him anymore. Work from his response then."

"But how do I approach it?" she whined softly.

"The Rei way," Minako said with a smile. "Do it like Rei would, or if it makes it easier, the Mars way."

Rei looked startled, but a slow smile spread across her face. She nodded, a lilt of laughter falling from her mouth. "Thanks, Mina-chan."

"Mina-chan?"

"Minako-chan."

Minako laughed as she walked off. Rei took a roundabout way of getting back to the shrine. As she reached the middle of the stone steps leading up, a thought stopped her cold. She had not come home the night before and Yuuichirou knew she had no one stay over with so she could not plead she had stayed over at a friends. She could not plead work for her work was the temple. What was she going to tell him?

"Rei, Rei! You aren't going to believe this!" Yuuichirou called at the top of the steps. She walked up to his excited form.

"What?"

"I saw the most incredible thing! There were these warriors fighting this monster in the middle of the street yesterday! I saw it when I was coming home from the store with the teas! They were incredible and then after the battle, I saw this one dressed in red embrace and cry into this man's shoulder. They looked like they belonged together so much that it brought tears to my eyes, seeing how happy they were together."

Rei choked on the air she was breathing like Jace had the day before when she had said she was married. He had watched her kiss Jadeite?! Oh gods above, this was going to be harder than she had originally thought.

"It kind of reminded me of when we first got married, you know? The love that was there was kind of how it was between us."

Rei was close to having a coronary right there on her doorstep. Was Yuuichirou trying to kill her? She got her breathing under control, and with sheer force of will got her heart to beat normally.

As they walked back to the shrine, Yuuichirou finally turned to her and asked casually, "So where were you last night?"

She stumbled and Yuuichirou's arms went around her, though she pushed away from him fairly quickly. "That battle you mentioned had the streets all clogged up. I had gone with some of the friends you saw at the shrine earlier to meet at the park with some other people and on the way back, the police had the street all sealed off. I couldn't come back so I stayed with Makoto." She took a deep breath.

"Yuuichirou, I have something to tell you—"

"At least you weren't involved in the battle. I'd die if something ever happened to you."

Her mouth snapped shut and he turned to her. "What did you want to tell me?"

"Nothing except that I forgot that I didn't do the walk yesterday."

"Oh. Don't worry about it."

He kissed her, but she didn't return it. He gave her a curious look, but went back inside the temple without another word. Rei felt tears filling her eyes. She had intended to tell him, she really had, but she couldn't, not after his declaration of love. She stumbled over to the tree that her crows lived in and they flew down, settling on her shoulders.

Slow tears tracked down her cheeks. "Oh gods, what do I do?"

Silence even from Phobos and Deimos greeted her.

End part 8

At least everyone has all their memories. Standard disclaimers still apply.