Author's Note: I tried to post this story once before but the formatting got messed up and it decided to post chapters three, two, and three in that order. So here's the real deal. Sorry for any of you who got confused! Oh, and I do not own Sailor Moon and make no profit from this story.
It was dark outside and they were supposed to have been asleep long ago. Instead the two girls were quietly giggling over the light of the flashlight they held between them. "Say, why do you always wear this Serena? You even wear it to bed." The petite redhead fingered the fine broach the other girl wore. "It's a sort of luck charm." The other replied conspiratorially. Her voice was a mere whisper. "It grants wishes. And look," she popped the lid up and a smooth sphere rolled onto her hand. Even in the mellowed light of the flashlight the crystal sent rainbows dancing in the air. "Isn't it pretty?" "It's like magic…" the redhead smiled wonderingly. The other giggled. "I'm just lucky I haven't lost it. But I wish for that too-never to lose it." "Maybe you should wish for a boyfriend!" "Like dreamy Tuxedo Mask…" The two girls continued to giggle and whisper long into the night.
"What's the point?" Molly Neruda asked a dark blue, cloud-dotted sky. What's the point indeed, she wondered. One more afternoon wasted on one more pointless date. Absently she wondered how Melvin was doing. In junior high and high school they'd seemed to have such a thing but then Melvin went his own way. He was too in love with computers and science to really care about her. A raindrop landed on the cement, followed a second later by another. Molly sighed and tucked her auburn hair behind her ear. She'd have to be getting home; she had work to do and she really didn't want to get rained on anyway. The raindrops were coming faster now and Molly tiredly started buttoning up her coat, wishing she could cry the teardrops that fell from the sky. Here she was, twenty-five, wet and single in the streets of her hometown. Home for the holidays and alone again. Sometimes it just felt like too much and she would wish that she could go back to the wild days of her childhood, the pure happy days before Nephlyte had died. Those days seemed so perfect now. What did life really hold for her these days? An empty career and an empty apartment. She sighed again and, head bent, began slogging through the rain to her apartment.
"More firewood?"
"Mmmm." The blonde woman on the couch in front of the cheery blaze stretched cat-like. "No, I don't want you to move." She snuggled closer and the dark haired man she was lying on gently brushed her hair out of his face and, taking one long ponytail, tickled her nose with the end of it. She wrinkled her nose and the phone rang.
The woman groaned. "The hospital can't have you. You're on vacation."
The man kissed her on the end of her nose and stood up. "You know I have to get it Serena."
"I'll be waiting."
Her dark haired husband went into the other room to answer the phone and came back a few minutes later, the portable phone in his hand. "It's for you. A Molly Neruda." He handed her the phone.
"Molly? What are you doing in town?"
Darien sat on the couch and began rubbing her back in slow circles.
"We have to get together!" There was a pause. "Six-ish? I won't be late. I know, I know. Bye."