Ami sighed as she whipped down the bookshelves with a damp cloth. She casted a glance to the magnificent books in the immense library of the White Royal Palace. These books contained ancient tomes, half forgotten lore, forsaken histories of this land and the many people there within. To simplly reach out and crack open one of these books would be worth any punishment her superiors could hand out-but Ami would be a true fool to simple risk her position as a maid just to indulge in her selfish wish to read these ancient books.

She nawwed at her lip, casted a look about for other maids or the librarians, then slowly reached for a book. Her hand faltered for a second before shooting higher for a higher shelf and she began to wipe the shelves harder.

3...

2...

1!

"Don't even think about it, Zoisite."

Behind her she heard him splutter the air out and mutter dark curses. She casted a look over shoulder to see him glaring at her. "How do you always know it's me?"

"Because you try too hard-you always try to be so quiet." she huffed.

"SO? That's the point-"

"And if you really wanted to scare me, you wouldn't hit that creaky stair every time. You do that on purpose." she explained as he remained stonily silent. "Now, what can I you with? You can't keep coming if it's not-"

"Oh? So, you want to deprive me of your exquisite presence?" It was her turn to splutter and she turned an interesting shade of maroon that clashed horribly with her hair. "Heh, this is important." Ami stiffened, then renewed her scrubbing of the shelf as he leaned against said bookshelf while folding his arms in front of him. "Do you think you could help us snag a few jobs for maids-"

"I thought Makoto's aunt would take care of getting maids-"

"-for the little wives."

"Oh." she breathed. "There's only six new positions opening-I'll see if I can't at least secure a job or two." Zoisite nodded and straightened letting his arms fall to his sides.

"Thanks, Ami, see if you can then tell us soon what you get." He turned to look at her. She nodded and continued scrubbing. He watched her a second then decided to ruffle her feathers a bit. He turned all the way about, grasped her shoulders and planted a kiss in the crook of her neck. She gasped then turned to whack his retreating form with her rag.

"You-!" she hissed quietly lest she caught the librarian's attention. He turned and wiggled his fingers at her in a wave.

"Bye bye, Ami, have fun cleaning and pining for books, you stick in the mud!"

"You-you pompous-arrogant-!"

"Ah ah, Ami, don't want your boss to here you-" he tsked her before walking backward out the door. "-besides this is a library, keep your voice down!"

Ami seethed. "Why that-!" Her face was on fire and she felt foolish. "How does he always do that?" she muttered rubbing her shoulder. That could be considered romantic-but only Zoisite could twist it to something else! she thought grumpily. "...not like he meant it anyway..."

"And what, maid, did he mean?" Ami jumped and whipped about to stare face to face with the librarian. She flushed and whimpered in shock. "Now, listen, maid-!"

That Zoisite was always getting in trouble!

---------------

Usagi sighed happily as she curled up into the thick sheets of the bed. She looked out of the doorway-the cloth working as a separator between her room and the main room was pulled back-she saw Rei still wandering about with a young child on her hip and Jadeite sitting at the table talking with her. Rei set the child down and swatted at her behind to get her to go quickly to bed.

The young child, Usagi had found, was not their child but the child was an orphan that Rei and Jadeite had "adopted". The young girl's name was Hotaru-she was a cute child with a bob of black hair and purple eyes, she looked like Rei enough to pass as her daughter. Hotaru had looked up at her with a curious expression when she fist met her-she had stared up at her with her head cocked to the side.

"Mamma," she had called Rei, "who's she?"

Rei had turned to her. "She's staying with us for a bit, Hotaru. Usagi meet Hotaru, Hotaru meet Usagi."

Hotaru had put a serious expression on her face and stuck her hand out. Usagi had blinked then bent to shake it, thinking what a peculiar child... "How do you do, Miss Usagi?"

"I'm fine. How do you do, Hotaru?" she answered.

Hotaru nodded briefly, "I'm fine." she turned to Rei and her first real emotion that made her look like a child and not a little robot broke over her face in a wide grin. "Mamma, can Usagi come play with me before supper time?" Usagi's brows shot up and she grinned. Rei nodded and shooed the out of the main room.

"Fine, fine, go play."

After playing with the child a bit-which involved playing with Hotaru's many dolls to Usagi delight (thank goodness Hotaru wasn't as stiff as she first seemed! Playing with "robot" children didn't sound very fun)-the four of them had supper. Rei had taken command and was helping Hotaru and keeping her clean. Jadeite ate his food and watched the others in content silence and would toss a comment out every once in a while. Hotaru hadn't always liked sitting in her chair and wanted to do everything herself often making a mess-she had nearly dumped her bowl of soup all over the table. Usagi had laughed and giggled along with Hotaru. She felt as if she had lived there for forever and this was her family.

"Mamma, I can do it!" whined Hotaru, reaching out with her fork to spear a meatball. Rei was trying to get her back in her seat.

"Hotaru, enough! I'll get it for you!"

"This is a lovely dinner, eh, Usagi?" laughed Jadeite to her. She grinned.

"Feels like home." she murmured.

"Home's where the heart is!" announced Hotaru. "Does this mean you can stay with us forever?"

"Hotaru!" huffed Rei, trying to get her back in her seat. "Don't talk with your mouth full-ehh! Don't tip over your bowl!"

Now, sleepy from a good meal and a long day of play, she rested in the bed that they had loaned her. It was Hotaru's bed, so now Hotaru was to occupy the shepherd's loft above the hearth. Hotaru had already climbed up there and was fast asleep. The conversation dwindled and Rei blew out the candle as Jadeite banked the fire. She walked with her husband out of the room and up to their room. Usagi drifted off to sleep contently.

---------------

Upstairs however, Rei and Jadeite sat beside their bed with a candle beside them flickering throwing shadows across them as Rei shuffled her deck of cards. Quickly, she dealt out the cards and Jadeite watched as she flicked each card over. He waited quietly as she mumbled the title of each card and watched as her brow became more and more furrowed.

"What's wrong?" he asked quietly as she sat back giving the cards an impatient and confused look.

"It's all counterdictary. I can't get a good solid reading from it." she grumbled and swept the deck back up and placed in a secret "book" with a hollow craved out for the cards. "It's as if my inner guide is lost itself."

Jadeite sighed and she raised a brow at him. "Nephlite's said the stars are clouded."

This time both brows went up. Nephlite was a top notch astrologer and astronomer-his predictions by the movement of the stars was always reliable, sometimes even more than her cards could be. For him to say the cards were clouded and thereby unreadable was saying something.

Jadeite chuckled darkly. "It's almost as if something doesn't want us to know the future."

"Or that perhaps we've entered a crossroads and now the future has yet to be decided." commented Rei as she kneeled next to him. The both of them were quiet for many moments before Rei spoke again. "Does...it still hurt?"

Jadeite turned to his wife. "They were a brutal bunch-I think they used me to take out their own repressed anger." Rei frowned; leave it to her husband to speak so lightly of being tortured. "It's better." he amended when he saw the look on her face. Rei sighed and leaned against her husband. He shifted slightly and placed his arm around her shoulders.

---------------

Out in the darkened streets, Kunzite shifted through the shadows like a forsaken wraith in the night. He moved quietly and swiftly to an pub with warm and bright lights spewing out it's windows. It wasn't a grand place-it contained seedy figures watched by the eagle eyes of the hostess. Kunzite walked through the door without knocking.

The hostess, a rather lovely woman with black ringlets and blue eyes, turned to him and nodded. He walked up to her. "Evening, Luna."

"Hello, Kunzite," she replied, casting her wary gaze around at the tables in the pub.

"How's Artemis and Diana?"

"Artemis is fine-he's upstairs putting Diana to bed." she murmured. "He's by the bar, sitting on the far stool."

"Thank you, Luna." he said with a nod. He walked past the woman and towards the bar, wading through the rather lively crowd in the bar tonight. He walked towards the bar and sat next to a hooded figure in brown. "Evening."

"Evening." replied the figure, giving away his masculinity in his voice.

"She's got the jobs, and our little maid got us a job for a maid for the little wives." Kunzite commented cryptically. It didn't matter, the man next to him nodded.

"Good, our girls pulled through nicely-have you decided who's going to fill which post?"

"I got three girls already in with the regular maids."

"Who's to fill the position for the little wives' maid?"

Kunzite mouth hardened. "I haven't decided."

"Decide quick; we can't dawdle with these positions."

"Understood."

(stands still) You know I never ever expected this story to write this easy. It's almost as if it's writing itself. As you can see I've been a busy little bee-like I said reviews-nice, thoughtful, long ones are ofcourse my favorites...or just plain funny ones-help me write faster. Gives an author more incentive to write you know? Oh! Ah...heh, just to warn you-Minako's appearance might be pushed back a chapter or two. I need to set other stuff up first.

EDIT: As there was some confusion that the figure at the bar that Kunzite was talking was Artemis; I've changed it-PEOPLE! That's not Artemis! It's someone else entirely! You'll figure it out later! Now, that that's out of the way-I got a kiriban for 1000 hits for this story coming up as soon as it hits it-it's already past 800 now. It'll be a desktop so you can use it if you want.

Allison-Thank you, tell me what do you think is going to happen?

Serenanthy-Review #1: If you still miss updates, email me and maybe I'll set up a mailing list or something for this. As you can see no, he didn't get her pregant but the two of them have adopted Hotaru. This chapter I got to show the ...gentler side of their love. I've based Jadeite's personality on a Scorpio so him and a Aires like Rei would have an explosive love. They love each other quite intensely and loyally if you wait to see it at the end. Diamond's corruption will start to show soon.

Review #2: As you can gues from here, Kunzite at least isn't. You're getting dangerously close to figuring out my simple little story. Heh, you were right on the money about Ami being a maid, just a little different from what you expected, eh? Actually, in the manga duty plays a very important role to Minako-in Codename wa Sailor V, the predecessor to BSSM, it's at the very least hinted that since Minako don't follow her duty is a reason, along with the other senshi and their princess, for the destruction of the Silver Millenium. In Sailor V, Minako falls for a bad guy who tells her that her lovelife will be miserable and that she should be happy because then she won't have to chose between love and duty. Regular sweetie, huh? Anyways, never fear! Kunzite/Minako will appear! ...sooner or later...

whitey9h-You're a sweetie, and to tell you the truth he's already been "introduced"-Zoisite mentioned him as the banished prince. But keep your eyes peeled and wary-not everything will be as it seems.