OH MY GOSH!! OH MY GOSH!! OH MY GOSH!!!

LOOK WHO ACTUALLY FINALLY UPDATED THEIR LONG-OVERDUE FIC!!!

IT'S AMAZING!!! After all, it's only been half-a-year....

I rally am sorry I took so long in getting this chapter out. As I said in all caps multiple times in my bio, there is no excuse for it!! And I wonder how many readers I lost in the process, but hey, it's my fault so I deserve to suffer whatever consequences my laziness might entail. But if it's any comfort I PROMISE I will NEVER wait that long to update again!! Honestly!

Anyway, I would have probably had it out sooner, because I was almost done with this chapter back in February, when lo-and-behold, I--the complete failure when it comes to anything technological (I feel for you, Usagi, really I do...)--manage to somehow completely annihilate my hard drive. That's right--I actually managed to ruin my hard drive. IT WAS FUN, let me tell you! I had to wait a week for a new hard drive to be sent to me because the other had electrical failure or something, and then it was six hours on the phone with the computer company installing the darn thing. It was a thrill a minute!

Also, it looks like my story needs some serious editing...oh joy! I'll get to it eventually, probably after I finish the story, so until then would you mind just having to read through weird typos and sentences with some pretty odd grammar structure? I hope it's not a problem. Also I have been noticing weird cases where all of my dashes were turned into single hyphens, and a string of three periods were turned into just on (this: . instead of: ...) making my sentences look very sloppy. It took me awhile, but finally I realized it was due to Microsoft Word's wonderfully annoying autocorrect! So I got that problem under wraps for this chapter though I didn't bother to go back and correct the other chapters since I don't even have the word files to them anymore. .;

Okay, enough with my ramblings, time to read!!!

Getting With the Times

By Silver Indigo Sky

Rating: PG/PG-13

Chapter 5- Blame it on the Earring

BACK IN THE PAST:

"I--I--who are you?!" was all the young Usagi could manage to sputter out in the sudden shock and fright of seeing someone who looked all too much like her. What appeared to be her clone (plus a few inches in extra height) stood in front of her silently, crystal blue eyes as wide as hers. After a few elongated seconds, Usagi decided it was time for another attempt at prying information from the apparent replica. "Hi, I'm Usagi...Tsukino Usagi. I guess you got your...uh...hairdo from me...well, your everything from me, so mind if you tell me your name?" Usagi could almost hear the crickets that followed that question. Again, she asked a question: "Do you go to school around here?" No such luck. Obviously her clone was a mute one.

"USAGI!" Makoto exclaimed. "Wait...two Usagi's? That's not right...." She ran up to Usagi. As she ran her expression changed from that of fright to that of relief, but confusion and almost humor. She was followed by three worried fourteen-year-olds. One had short but soft blue hair with rich blue eyes; another had streaming blonde hair with a glowing tan; the last had long black hair and fiery purple eyes.

"We heard you sreaming," Ami interjected. She took a look at the sight in front of her, not one that you'd see everyday. "Is this what it was about? Goodness, Usagi! We thought you were facing some youm...err, some ax murderer or something!"

Usagi turned to look at her friends. "I'm sorry, but she scared me! I mean, here I was just innocently coming to look for my moon earring which got knocked out during the fight...I mean, not fight--there was no fight...," she quickly turned to give her look-a-like an odd smile, "and here was this person who looked exactly like me! I got scared! Do you blame me?"

Rei, coming up to stand beside Ami, snorted. "Usagi, you can be SUCH a baby at times! You should never scream like that unless you're in some terrible emergency!" she shook her pointer finger at Usagi for extra emphasis. "You can be so brain-dead sometimes. I mean, you probably scared this woman half- to-death, when I doubt she did anything more than merely resemble you."

"RESEMBLE me?!" Usagi suddenly screeched. "RESEMBLE me?! No offense or anything, but this is way more than your average, everyday resemblance." She grabbed Rei by the arm in a circulation-cutting grip and wheeled her around so that she was face-on with the clone.

Rei stood there observing the pale woman for a minute or two. "I see what you mean...," she quietly admitted.

Now it was Minako's turn to talk. Unlike Usagi she didn't beat around the bush from the obvious when she came up to question her best friend's imposter.

"Wow, you do look a lot like our friend, Usagi, here!" her voice was all amazement. "Just out of curiosity, did you do that purposely? What's your name? Where do you come from? I wish someone would dress like me! Then, I would know I was finally being admired for the perfect teen idol I am...," Minako's voice trailed off as she stared into the sky with wide, dreamy eyes. It didn't take long for her to return to the present (and her actual life), and she continued what she was saying to the woman who now looked all too amused. "Still, I guess I can see where Usagi was coming from before, because it can be a little creepy when someone dresses like someone else to your degree--eh, no offense or anything--so tell us something about yourself so that, you know, we...lose our creepiness. Or however you say it. I'm sure you know what I mean!" She smiled brightly having finished what she thought to be quite a respectable and intelligent opening.

The odangoed woman stood there silent before opening her mouth in a way that looked like she was about to talk before Minako interjected again.

"Oh, I'm Minako by the way," she smiled once more and held out her hand. The woman gave her a strange look before meeting Minako's hand with her own. Minako couldn't decipher the expression. It looked almost cautious, yet amused, as if she has some great inside joke.

"Yeah, I know," the heretofore unspeaking woman finally said. "Aino Minako." She took a step back as if to look over the individual girls. "You're great at volleyball and picking out clothes, as well as guys. You moved here from London not too long ago, and you already are a teen idol of sorts, Sailor V." It was the woman's turn to smile, and she savored all of the attention that was being focused on her. She realized then that this had the potential to become a very fun experience. All she had to do was play up her knowledge of her own present time, and she could astound thousands! Maybe she could make money by being a fortune teller.... Still, she had never had such rapt attention placed on her before, unless it was in a life-or-death-of-the-whole-world situation. She moved so that she was now facing the dumbfounded black-haired teenager. "And you're Hino Rei," she said pointing to her. "You're a priestess. You're also a very loyal friend, but over the years you have also proven yourself to have somewhat of an unpleasant temper at times." Rei stood there even more shocked than she had been before, and none of the girls could seem to get a grip on what the woman meant by "over the years." Ami herself, though she was usually on top of everything, seemed utterly bewildered. How would this woman know if Rei was a loyal friend or not? It wasn't like she WAS Usagi!

In turn, the woman faced each and every one of the girls and gave them their name and some facts about them. "You're Kino Makoto, and you are madly in love with "cute" foods and home decorations. And Motoki, the owner of the arcade, of course...." she said to the rather frightened brunette. "Mizuno Ami, the smartest girl in the class and one of the best swimmers out there," she bowed her head gently to the surprised blue-haired girl. She moved on to the final girl. "And, of course, Tsukino Usagi...." All the girls waited on edge to see what she was going to say about her. They were all expecting the spookiest.

To the girls' astonishment, she didn't whip out all sorts of eerie facts about their friend; she merely bent her head down and quietly laughed in a secretive way. But their surprise didn't last long because about the time that they had given each other freaked out looks (after all, what if the woman was some insane stalker just preparing to murder them and laughing over it) she turned to face them again. She began to barrage them with all sorts of facts about Usagi without even taking a breath.

"Tsukino Usagi, your birthday is June 30. Your dad's name is Kenji; your mom is Ikuko. While your mom is really cool with most of what you do, your dad is super overprotective! You love going to the Crown arcade, especially to see Motoki and drool over him--which is really disgusting!--and to play the Sailor V game, right teen idol?" she glanced over at Minako with a friendly and light-hearted smile. "You also have a crush on Tuxedo Kamen. However, you have a talking cat named Luna who doesn't trust him much. Actually, she doesn't trust him at all, and better than that, she has a propensity to nag, but you know you have to learn to live with her anyway because there is never going to be a way to get rid of her. She is forever and always your guide--she is the sailor scouts' guardian after all, and you're their leader, Sailor Moon..." She finished quietly as her lungs' supply of oxygen was seriously depleted. It took more energy than she realized to spit out a handful of facts about herself to herself, even if it had been at rapid-fire pace. Luckily the spooked out teenagers' silence allowed her enough time to catch her breath before she began to talk again, but this time to do the inevitable and explain who she was and why she was there.

Perhaps it wasn't the brightest move she could do, and it was always possible that some terrible, future-devastating consequences might arise from her actions, but she didn't care. She couldn't think of any relatively good way out of this, and even if she did come up with a means of escape, who's to say she wouldn't run into them again? Besides, if Mamochan and the others took their time in finding her (and lord help those poor souls if they did), she might be stuck here for a night! She didn't want to think what it would be like if she was stuck in this strange year for longer than that.... Still, if she would have to spend the night in good old 1992, she'd have to fish for some kind of shelter shelter. Besides, right now her priority was getting on their friendly side so she could get them to give her some food (being placed into another time period really burns a lot of calories after all!). And if they truly trusted her, she could picture all of the money she could get rolling in from her previously mentioned fortune telling idea!

So now was the time of truth.

"I'm...this is going to be hard for you guys to believe, and you guys probably won't understand--I hardly understand how this situation I'm in came to be!--but in all honesty--and you guys have to believe me--and even if you don't, it's okay because I have an infinite amount of ways to prove it--well, I'm Tsukino Usagi. I'm Tsukino Usagi of the future." She drew an easy breath in as she finished the sentence. The hard part was over.

All of a sudden, Usagi began to feel as if she was getting TOO much attention. It was fun when the all stared with amazement at her (for the first time she didn't feel completely clueless!), but now they were just flat-out gawking. It was very discomforting.

Usagi bit her lip and gave a little awkward smile as they continued to stare at her in a mix of disbelief and shock. She stood there looking around uncomfortably as the seconds ticked on until finally she couldn't take it anymore.

"Look, maybe I should have eased into it a little more! I'll grant it, it's an unusual situation that doesn't happen everyday, and I can bet that you guys didn't even know time travel was possible! I can bet even more that you certainly weren't expecting to see someone from the future just randomly show up, but someone did! That someone is me! I'm...Usagi's future self, from the year 1997." She inhaled deeply before looking herself straight in the eyes. And she proceeded to formally greet herself:

"Hi, Usagi. I'm you; you're me. There's no difference between us but years. We're the same person, just you must be fourteen, and I'm nineteen." She smiled at herself, and her younger version bit her lip and gave her a befuddled, unsure smile.

Without either Usagi knowing it, Ami had quietly taken out her nifty computer scanner and had thoroughly scanned each girl, showing the results to Luna who took extra pains not to leave any detail out in her examination.

With Luna's consent, Ami spoke up. "Prove it, 'Tsukino Usagi', prove that you're our friend's future self."

"Well, I did," was Usgai's response. "You guys were all my friends then and you still are where I come from, and I told you all facts about yourself. Doesn't that make you believe me? I know who you are, and very well--you're my best friends."

"Yeah, sure, and that may be, but how do we know you just didn't look us up and stalk us? We want physical proof," Ami said sternly. "We won't believe you any other way."

The elder Usagi just stared at her. "What, do you want us both to strip so that you can take note of where all our beauty marks are located and stuff?" she asked sincerely.

"No!" the younger Usagi chimed in.

Ami shrugged in response. "We don't care what kind of physical proof you show us--we just want some to fully believe you."

Usagi looked at her in disbelief. "Oh come on! If you're going to do this to me, which I really don't see the need for, at least give me something that's physical to prove to you!" she whined.

"It's YOU again!" an astonished voice called out in the distance. "Wait...wait...," the astonishment quickly became confusion. All six faces (seven if you count Luna) turned to face a rather bemused Mamoru walking up to them.

"Mamoru-san!" Rei cooed happily, sauntering closer to him. "I haven't seen you all of today! How are you?"

"Um, I'm good," he replied half-heartedly, not even bothering to look at the girl. Instead he gaped at the girl whom he had seen in the street earlier, the one he could have sworn was Usagi, but yet had seemed much altered from the Usagi he knew. Except for now he knew she couldn't possibly be Usagi because Usagi was standing right beside her!

At least he was able to take some relief from the fact that it hadn't been Odango Atama that he had openly stared at earlier. Still, he never "checked out" any girls like that, and the fact that the one he would suddenly be compelled to do that for just happened to be a clone of Usagi did not give him all that much reassurance. 'I am losing it' he thought. If he should suddenly have the hots for Usagi, something would not be right in the world. Still, looking at the woman who looked exactly like Usagi, just a Usagi that seemed to be his age, he couldn't stop his subconscious from interjecting loathsome thoughts that Mamoru just didn't need right now, like how beautiful she was. And--damn his subconscious,--but he could swear it was focusing more on his Odango Atama rather than the more appropriately aged woman next to her. He was starting to think an appointment with a psychologist in the near future would be in order.

To Mamoru's great disgust, he could feel his face heat up slightly, and he could only guess how flushed he was becoming. 'What is happening to me?' he thought to himself. 'Why the hell is this happening? I'm blushing?! I haven't blushed since I was in seventh grade! And over Odango Atama? No way, can't be! Motoki will have a field day with this! It has to be because of the girl next to her. That's right! I have all the right to blush! She caught me doing something very embarrassing this morning! Normal people would blush in my circumstance!' Mamoru comforted himself in this way and managed to get his mind back to functioning mode and away from his wayward, and startlingly pleasing, thoughts about how wonderful it would be if his Odango Atama would grow up to look so gorgeous.

He decided it would be best to ask a question of the strange new woman, any question, just to break the tension. After all, he had to live up to his reputation of being "Mr. Cool and Collected," the one who always played the part of the suave young man. Once he came up with that question, he opened his mouth to voice it.

"So," he began, but for some weird reason he felt a compulsion to start over again. "So...," and that was as far as his mind would remember the question. Damn his mind! Why was his body giving him such trouble today? It's not like he did anything particularly abusive to it. Well, he had flown on top of buildings hardly even fifteen minutes ago to get to a fine resting point on top of a rather tall tree. But he had come to accept that his body was made to do those kinds of feats by this point in time! Freakish? Oh, yea, he knew he was pretty dang freakish, but at least he didn't feel so bad because he always knew the sailor senshi were there to be outcasts with him in a society that was made mostly of normal, everyday human beings. And not a whole bunch of superheroes who throw roses and fly around in tuxedoes, unlike him. Sometimes it was tough being Tuxedo Kamen....

"HEL-LOO, Earth to Mamoru-baka!" his subconscious managed to pick up the voice of Odango Atama. The minute he heard it he snapped back from his thoughts only to realize he was staring numbly at the ground. Geez, he realized he had gone off on another little mind-tangent again, but he hadn't realized he had completely spaced out! He turned his dark blue eyes to face her and going by his natural instinct of when-in-doubt-smile, he flashed her one of his infamous crooked grins.

"You know what, Mamoru-baka, it's funny that you should call me spacey when you just stop talking after a 'so' and look down at the ground practically drooling!" her teasing comment was rewarded by a giggle from Minako and Makoto in the background, a grunt from Rei, and a sheepish look from Mamoru.

"At least he doesn't do it fifty times a day like some people I know," Rei shot an accusing glance Usagi's way.

This time Usagi the elder-spoke-up in response to Rei's insult. "Hey! That is sooo not fair! You might want to know that I totally get over it! In fact, I'm probably the most mature out of all of us!" she huffed. She stuck her nose in the air in an indignant manner--a gesture she was positive she picked up the minute she met Rei. Everyone turned their glances to her, and she blushed. "Well, I do."

Mamoru for his part didn't know what to think. So he stood their expressionlessly before finally finding the right question to ask: "who are you?"

Everybody just stood there silent as the question pressed heavily down on the group.

Luna turned to face Ami; Ami turned to face Luna. Her sailor senshi scanner had proclaimed they were one in the same, and now all of their senses did too. The cat and the smart blue-haired girl both exchanged smiles as Ami confidently answered the question. "Oh, she's Tsukino Usagi, all right...she is definitely the future Tsukino Usagi...."

Minako moved around to stand beside the now-certain future Usagi. She looked at her all-smiles. "So, what's it like to be nineteen?" As the question rolled off of her tongue, she perked up even more. "Nineteen! You're nineteen! Do you go to nightclubs? Have you gone to nightclubs? Do you make a lot of money? Are you in college? Do you have a boyfriend? OOH, DO YOU, DO YOU?"

Usagi sweatdropped. 'Never mind,' she thought to herself, 'the hard part is still to come...great....'

And poor Mamo could do nothing but stand there like a petrified stone in his overwhelming state of shock. Whatever feeling of reassurance he had felt before had all but left him. He would need a lot of time to let this one settle in....

I soooo cannot wait till the next chappie!! The next one will be nothing but Usa/Usa/Mamo fun! YAAAYY! The good part of the story is finally beginning!!!!

But first, a few questions to everyone. PLEASE READ!!!!:

I've been getting a lot of "your story is confusing" reviews. Believe me I do not want this story to be confusing! I want it to be an easy read that flows well and has a smooth plot. I will definitely clear up or get rid of any of the confusing parts, or e-mail you personally with an explanation to what's confusing you, but I can't if I don't know what's confusing in the story. So, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE: IF YOU FEEL EVEN SLIGHTLY CONFUSED, TELL ME WHAT'S THE CAUSE OF IT. It's easy, just plop it in my review.

My e-mail is easy. It's SilverIndigoSky (at aol dot com)

This one is another important one, and even better, it's simple! I REQUEST THAT PEOPLE REVIEW MY FANFICTION! See, getting reviews makes Silver Indigo Sky happy, and if she gets past the 100-review mark with this chappie, she will post the next chappie next week!

.....well.....who's she kidding....she'll post it next week anyway (after

all, the guilt from procrastinating so much last time got to her) but

still, reviews would be nice....

Oh yea, and the new chappie of Love Will Turn you Around will be out by

Friday!

Remind me NEVER to write two chapter-stories again at once....

Silver Indigo Sky