To Thine Own Self Be True:
"Here you go, Hime. One sundae for the cutest teen in the place." Haruka said as she placed a sundae before her daughter. Hotaru rolled her eyes with a grin as Haruka sat across from her. Haruka placed her own mint chip shake on the table and started to play with a napkin. "So, what was your question again?"
"Haruka-papa, I know you haven't actually forgotten." Hotaru said in a very serious tone as she took a bite of her sundae. Haruka sighed and bowed her head in resignation.
"You're right, I was just stalling." Haruka said in a more downcast voice then she intended. She softened it a bit by looking back up and weakly smiling. "I never could follow Michiru, Setsuna or you with that."
"Nope, we know when something's really wrong." Hotaru agreed, far more interested in the blonde woman's words than her sundae. Her violet eyes watched Haruka's movements before she spoke. "You both have worried me a lot lately."
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to worry any of you." Haruka looked up at her daughter as she caught the full statement. "Wait, what do you mean both?"
"Tell me what's wrong and I'll tell you what I meant." Hotaru offered. Haruka nodded but still paused to think.
"Have I ever told you about your Grandpa Ten'ou, Hime-chan?" Haruka watched her daughter shake her head and smiled at the innocent look, which feel upon the young senshi's face. "Sometime I should take you to see him."
"He's still alive?" Hotaru nearly choked on her ice cream when Haruka said this. The blonde smile as Hotaru composed herself. She shook her dark haired head and thought it over. No one had actually said Haruka didn't have family left, in fact no one said anything about the blonde's family at all. Setsuna was just on her own, and Michiru's parents seemed to love Hotaru even if they did want to see the violin player marry and have a child of her own. "Gomen, Haruka-papa."
"That's alright, I'm not too surprised by that reaction." Haruka reached over and ruffled Hotaru's hair. The teen abandoned her ice cream to fix her hair before anyone spotted it that way. "I hadn't spoken to him in a few years so it never occurred to me to mention he was alive."
"Hadn't?" Hotaru questioned, thinking she'd found the problem. "He contacted you?"
"No actually I went out and found him this morning, that's why I missed breakfast." Haruka watched the curious eyes of her daughter as she spoke. "I wanted his advice about what's been bothering me."
"Before I was born you Grandpa Ten'ou had a drinking problem." Haruka began when she spotted the slight frustration in Hotaru's eyes. "Alcoholism can be hard to live with, and it isn't exactly curable. He gave up drinking two years before I was born but it seems to run in the family. His brother's came by the house a number of times and they never failed to have a lot of beer with them. Finally he asked them not to come by unless they could do so with out drinking, we didn't see them after that."
"My brother and I used to go with your Grandpa to his Alcoholics Antonyms meetings and those stories really stunk with me as I grew up."
"I have an uncle too?" Hotaru asked. She wasn't sure what to make of that, Michiru and Setsuna didn't have any siblings.
"You did, once." Haruka said sadly. Again she was tempted to blow past the question but her father's words came back to her. She smiled sadly as she recalled her older brother. "He was very intelligent, always did great in school and I was always chasing his shadow. He even played the piano, baritone and guitar."
"What happened to him?" Hotaru asked as she tried to ignore the sinking feeling inside her.
"Sometime during his high school years he started to drink socially." Haruka leaned back and her seat and took a sip of her shake through its straw. "But you have to be careful with the family history your uncle and I share. He couldn't just drink once and stop, but he didn't want to become Dad. Instead he started going to parties where drugs were passed around." Haruka's teal eyes watched as Hotaru gulped. The tall blonde sighed but decided it was too late to not finish that explanation. "The last time I saw him he was addicted to a drug called speed and he was telling not to do drugs. I met your Michiru-mama not long after that and we moved in together so we could work easier. I received a letter while we were searching for the talismans to tell me that your uncle had over dosed."
"So you're sad that he died?" Hotaru asked lightly but the statement didn't seem right. She shook her own head before Haruka could say a word. "No, that was too far back. You may be sad but it isn't as noticeable."
"You are bright." Haruka smiled with a bit of pride even if her daughter was an 'old soul' and could remember pieces of a lifetime from a thousand years before. "I've always been afraid to touch alcohol because of my father's family, and when your uncle passed away I came to realize most even mildly addictive things could be dangerous. I never had too much of a problem, just having a nightmare about drinking or your uncle once every few months. Only having a passing curiosity about what alcohol tastes like."
"But lately the nightmares come every time I close my eyes and the temptation seems to be getting stronger." Haruka sighed again and gazed at the tabletop as she continued to tale to the teen before her. "So my problem is that I am afraid that I will give in, that I wont be able to resist forever and I don't know what will happen. I am too worried about all the bad things that could happen and everything I could lose."
"And you didn't have anyone to talk to." Hotaru said quietly, again showing her somewhat unusual wisdom. The girl waited until Haruka nodded ever so slightly before she put the last pieces together. "You always talked to Michiru-mama about any real problems, but you didn't want to talk to her because of what happened."
"I don't need to burden her." Haruka said quietly as she stood and offered Hotaru a hand up. "In fact I was starting to think she didn't care and I am still not sure if she'd be better off with someone else as a partner."
"Haruka-papa?" Haruka looked down at her daughter as they reached the car. She opened the door for the teen and waited for what the girl would say. "What does your heart want to do? Do you still want to talk to Michiru-mama?"
"Of course I do but.."
"Then do it." Hotaru cut her adopted father off as she got into the car. She smiled up at her. "I've been worried about you both because when you weren't talking to her, Michiru-mama wasn't acting normal. She was always sad and this morning she came down to breakfast, looking for you, and she just sort of sat there."
The drive back to the house was quiet and Haruka spent most of it thinking to herself. When they arrived she gave Hotaru the car keys and asked her to find Setsuna and return them. The tall blonde for the second time that night forgot completely about her convertible and walked up the stairs. With nervous steps she came to Michiru's door and was slightly surprised when the door opened before she could knock. Michiru glanced around before taking Haruka's hand and tugging her inside the room. Haruka was still confused as the door clicked locked and she found herself gently pushed down to sit on the end of Michiru's bed. Michiru her self took a seat on a desk chair, which she'd brought near Haruka.
"How'd did it go with Hotaru?" Michiru asked instead of saying the many other things she wanted to. She watched as the teal eyes drifted about her room avoiding her own and she felt a small pang of guilt for that.
"It went fine." Haruka said with out any real information. She finally brought her eyes back to the deep blue ones, which gazed intently into hers. With all the courage the blonde had left she decided to push a subject she normally would have avoided, things couldn't get worse after all. "Michiru, what happened last night?"
"You mean in the gym?" Michiru said, this time her eyes broke contact as she shifted her head to look down.
"I mean, why did you kiss me?" Haruka said as she once again gently tilted Michiru's chin up so that those blue eyes had to meet hers. This was one time where Haruka was no longer willing to let the answer go. She needed to know what in the hell had passed through the other's mind at the time. "And why did you run afterwards?"
"Haruka, can't we just talk about what ever is going on with you first?" Michiru tried to evade the conversation one last time. She knew it was inevitable, that it needed to be had, but she still felt slight fear to even tread on the topic.
"No." Haruka said firmly with a determined shake of her head. The blonde's teal eyes blazed just a bit as she leaned a bit closer to her partner. "You can't just do that to me if you are board or something didn't go your way. I don't think I could handle it if you started to play with me that way Michiru."
"That's not why I did it." Michiru closed her eyes to block out those pained teal eyes in front of her. "Please believe me that I'm not trying to play with you."
"Then what did happen? Explain it to me." Haruka asked in a bit more gentle of a tone as she leaned away from Michiru. Blue eyes opened again before Michiru all but sprang from the chair. She began to pace the floor.
"Okay, okay I'll explain." Michiru said though her voice shook just a bit as she continued to pace. "For the past month I haven't been able to reach you no matter what. It felt as if we were farther apart than I have ever felt from you, even the first day we met when you turned away from me. At first that didn't bother me, I thought you were mad and that you'd get over it like you always do. You'd come say sorry or start rambling off about that new car they have you driving and we'd be back to the same friend's we've always been."
"But I didn't do that this time." Haruka put in as her teal eyes followed the slowly pacing woman before her.
"No, you didn't and that worried me Ten'ou Haruka." Michiru paused to give the blonde a stern look and shake her head. "Why couldn't you just act like you always do and come to me?"
"Your explanations first, remember?" Haruka soon found she was again watching Michiru pace the floor slowly.
"While we were in the gym a few things just fully hit me." Michiru said quietly and stopped pacing. She watched the dark window with her back to Haruka as she spoke. "Over that month I had been worried, about your behavior but also because for some reason you didn't run to me to talk. I knew something was wrong but I kept telling myself I didn't want you to always depend on me, that I had let you do it too much. As the time kept ticking past I started to realize that with out those talks I didn't have the same connection to you and I started to feel like I was losing you."
"Haruka, when you offered to get Setsuna that night it felt like I had been slapped." Michiru sighed as she recalled every thought that went through her mind. "Not only were you not talking to me, but I wasn't allowed to come to you anymore and that scared me. When you started to turn away it felt like you were turning away from me, or us or whatever this is."
"You did it because I wasn't talking to you?" Haruka asked as she stepped up behind Michiru. Michiru turned to face her with an objection but Haruka held a finger to her lips first. "Did you do it because you were afraid of losing your friend and you wanted things back the way they were? If that's all it was just tell me and we'll go back to what we were but I don't want you ever doing that again."
"No." Michiru spoke after Haruka had removed her finger. Haruka felt like her heart dropped out of her chest and nervous didn't describe what she felt as she waited for Michiru to elaborate. "Haruka, I wasn't raised to feel like this."
"Like what?" The blonde asked as she leaned down to examine those blue eyes up close. Michiru almost looked lost as she did this.
"Like I'd be lost with out you." The violin player whispered. "Like the world wouldn't matter with out you in it."
"Like I couldn't breath if you never spoke to me again." Haruka cut in with the beginnings of hope burning inside her. "Like if I lived though you hating me I'd never be able to forgive myself."
"I'm trying not to let them down Haruka, this isn't what they raised me to be."
"Someone wise asked me what my heart wants." Haruka said quietly as she leaned just a bit closer until her face was centimeters from Michiru's. She gazed deeply into those blue eyes and spoke just above a whisper. "Tell me your heart wants me to go and I will Michi."
"I don't want you to." Michiru breathed out just before their lips met again. She closed her eyes as Haruka pulled her close and gave in completely. Her family had tried to teach her to find someone who could take care of her, a young man who'd help them have nice little grandchildren to coddle and no one cared about love. Well, Michiru decided Haruka fit the part about caring and as for grandchildren they had Hotaru.
'My heart wants you.' She thought silently as she returned the taller woman's kiss. 'My heart needs you.'
ANI misspelled "Thyn" but this morning I dug out the coin I couldn't find last night and got the correct spelling. Sorry about that in the first version of this chapter.