Hey, all! It's been less than three months since I updated; I'm improving wouldn't you say?

Anyway, I now have a lot more ime on my hands, being that I'm living on my own and all. (Yes, the college thing worked out! Yay! I'll be paying off my loans until I die, but that's okay!)) It's kind of weird having this rather large apartment, and only me and my kitty to fill it. But, I'm adjusting, and my family comes up to visit quite often, as I'm only about 150 miles from them. And now I have all this time, with no one to amuse me, so I've been been writing more. Both for this account and some of my others, elsewhere.

Now, about this story. It's nearly tied up! I'm entering the home stretch here, can't really see much more to do with the plot, so I figure it'll probably be, at most, 5 more chapters before I'm all done. How bittersweet!

And, once again, a hug thank you to my reviewers. I love you guys!

This chapter is kind of heavy on dialogue.

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"So, Usa-chan, how are you doing in school?" Chi-Chi asked over breakfast the next morning.

"Actually," Usagi gulped, " I don't go to school." Her mother was obviously shocked, her brothers snickered, and her father tried to stop an explosion.

"Why not?" He asked, stopping Chi-Chi from ranting about the importance of education. He was sure there was a reason that Usagi wasn't in school; she seemed pretty smart to him!

"Well, Dr. J. taught me pretty much everything I need to know. I was already pretty advanced when I was found, so I took an equivalency exam when I was 11, and more than passed. I did attend a high school for a couple years, but that's when I was hiding out on Earth, and it was really just to keep up appearances. Now it's just a question about whether I want to go on to university or not. Whatever I decide, it probably won't be for a couple years, because I've got a lot of other things going on right now." It seemed even Chi-Chi could accept this. A somewhat crafty look took over the matriarch's face as she headed into her next question.

"And do you have a special boy in your life?"

Usagi choked on her orange juice, and found the whole table looking at her with interest. "Umm.." The corner of Hiiro's mouth twitched; he was amused, and she nearly threw her fork at him. "I wouldn't exactly call him a 'boy.'" The nerve! Letting her face this question all alone! "Really more of a man-whore." Everybody's jaw dropped, even Hiiro's. Minute as it was, Usagi could read him like no other, and had quite shocked him. "Lot's of fun, but he insists on being paid by the hour, and since I'm currently unemployed, I might have to cut him loose one of these days." Even further shock. Finally, she laughed. "You guys should see your faces!" She brandished her spoon at Hiiro. "And you! Leaving a girl to fend for herself like that! Why, I should kick your ass for you!"

"I knew it!" Chi-Chi crowed. "I knew it! He... watches you, and I just knew!" Then she burst into tears. "My baby's all grown up and in love!" Usagi flushed quite spectacularly, and the more observant people at the table noticed the tips of Hiiro's ears turn red.

"Yui! You're consorting with that... that weak onna!" Usagi glared at Wufei annoyedly.

"That 'weak onna' could pin you in less than 10 seconds, Wufei." The pilots looked shocked, for reasons unknown to the rest of Usagi's family.

"Hii-man... I think that's the first full sentence you've ever said to us..." Duo mock-whispered.

"Hn." Back to normal, it seemed. Duo slung an arm around Hiiro's shoulders.

"So, if she ever gets tired of speaking troll, I can have her next, right?" The next thing anybody knew, there was a gun in Duo's face.

"Omae o korosu!" Usagi's family looked vaguely alarmed, but the petite girl just shook her head and sighed.

"Boys."

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Some months later, Usagi's family had relocated to a large house that Usagi had purchased, after charming the agent down to a more reasonable price. Given the sheer number of people living in said house, it was rather cramped, and afforded little privacy, particularly to Usagi, who had long been a solitary creature. She had moved in with them at her mother's insistence. Her parents had fallen right back into parenting, and decidedly did not want her living in a house with five young men, even though, or perhaps especially because they knew she was involved with one of them. And while she loved her family, she really did, and she loved spending time with them, having the constant press of people around her was making her claustrophobic. The fact that they were all so much bigger than her was sending her long ingrained combat senses haywire. While at first, the fights for the shower and sharing a bedroom with Pan had been novel and fun, it was quickly growing old. Usagi had always, alway liked having her space. She needed quiet, and down-time, precious commodoties in the Son household, to relax, and she hadn't seen Hiiro in nearly two weeks.

In short, she was on her last nerve.

So that evening, when she spontaneously burst into tears and stormed out the front door, they were suitably confused and surprised.

And when Hiiro, who had been boredly laying on the floor in his room suddenly found a sobbing mass of blond hair on his chest, he was also confused and surprised. Both because she had somehow managed to sneak up on him, and because he couldn't remember the last time, if ever, she had been this upset. After a moment of indecision, he rested his hands on her back and rubbed circles with his fingers. When her sobbing finally ceased, she sat up a little and rubbed her swollen eyes. "What's gotten into you, vanida?" A little half-sob shook her, and she breathed raggedly.

"I'm sorry." She hiccupped and wiped her still-wet cheeks, a futile action, as more tears were silently leaking out. She gave a small, humorless laugh. "I must look awful."

"You're beautiful." Truly, red, swollen eyes, raw cheeks, and a red-tipped nose didn't suit her at all, but it hardly mattered to him outside of the fact that it represented pain. "Who made you cry?"

"No one. I just.. I'm frustrated, I guess. I haven't seen you in so long, and we haven't had any time to ourselves in even longer, and I miss you, and it's driving me crazy to never have any time for myself, and I'm constantly surrounded by people, and I love them, but I don't think I could stand them for another second right now, and I feel so guilty, because I shouldn't feel this way!" She nearly burst into tears again at the end of her rambling dialogue.

"Nobody said it was going to be easy, vanida. Did you mention any of this to them?" He continued rubbing circles on her back.

"No. I... I don't want them to think I don't want them around. I do. But I need to have some quiet and to be alone for a while to balance it out. I even share a bedroom! There's no escape!"

"Escape?"

"I don't mean it that way. It's just wearing me down to constantly have all these huge people pressed around me, asking questions, hugging me for no apparent reason! I've been trained as a soldier! It startles the hell out of me to suddenly have someone pick me up from behind and spin me around like they do! And not seeing you.. it hurts. Physically. I just feel this ache when I haven't seen you in so long, and it's so hard to move around it! We've been searching for eachother for milennia, and now that we've finally found eachother, my parents keep us apart because they want to 'preserve my innocence,' I guess. Bit late for that, but they think it's inappropriate for a young girl to spend so much time with a bunch of men."

"They're just doin what they think is best. They're probably worried sick about you right now."

"I know." She pitched forward and rested her forhead on his breastbone. "I'm a selfish brat."

He smirked. "Only a little bit." She lightly smacked him. She shifted her head so that her pointy little chin was now digging into his chest and stared at him.

"I love you." As usual, he felt that strange warm flutter in his heart.

"I know, vanida." She smiled.

"I'm going to have to come up with a nice little nickname for you. Yadid? Raman? Caradoc?" She giggled at his face. "Prehaps Navid. Vanida and Navid. I think it fits! But if you don't like it, how about Lezane? Keefer? Erasmus? Cer-" He occupied her lips, and she didn't speak but in a passionate cry for quite some time.

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She rolled off him, and lay gasping for breath. "Oh, god, marry me." He laughed, a real laugh, one that even she didn't hear very often. She twisted to look at him. "No, I'm serious. Let's get married."

He silenced, and looked at her, just as intensely as she was scrutinizing him. "Your mother would kill me."

"No, she wouldn't. She'd be upset at first, and then she'd get over it and be ecstatic. Come on, we could just put our clothes back on and hop a shuttle tonight. Go to Las Vegas, or something." He searched her eyes.

"You don't really want that."

"Of course I do! I love you, and you love me, and I see no reason for us to sit around playing this waiting game."

"So that's it. You don't want to worry about your parents trying to be your parents, and you're not thinking straight right now."

"Hiiro-"

"You cannot lie to me, Chibi." He stroked his hand along her waist, ran his thumb absent-mindedly over the scar on her abdomen. She teared up again.

"Is it because I can't have children?" He noticed for the first time that he had been touching her scar.

"No! Don't ever think that, Usagi. I love you, not what you can or can't do. I'd probably be an awful parent, anyway." He laid his hand over the raised, pale mark. "This doesn't matter to me. I just don't think you want this for the right reasons." He moved his hand to cup her cheek. "Someday, vanida, we'll get married. Someday. And your father will give you away, and you can make your senshi wear hideous bridesmaid dresses, and your mother will cry, and not because she missed it."

Usagi smiled, a little bittersweet. "I had no idea you were such a romantic, dov."

"Hn." She burst out laughing.

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When she returned home, a little rumpled, but looking much better, she found her father waiting on the front steps. He remained silent as she sat next to him. He cleared his throat. "We looked for you."

"I was with Hiiro." She felt the guilt intensify.

"We figured that, after a while." He didn't look at her, but at his hands, and she felt like crying again.

"I'm sorry. I just... I freaked out, and Hiiro, he always makes me see sense. He has a way of making me take a step back to seehow dumb I'm being."

"What did you 'freak out' about?"

"No one thing in particular. It, uh.. " She swallowed, thickly. "It just kept building. I don't know what say... I mean, I'm so, so happy to have you back; I missed you like crazy, and I've been so happy to get to have a family again. But.. " She sighed, and tried to start again. "For most of my life, I've been alone. I've spent my time mainly with Hiiro and Dr. J, and for a while with a bunch of girls that I did little more than lie to. And now, all of a sudden, I've got all these people around me. And at first, it was nice. It was new, and I loved the loud, crazy fun of it all. But after a while, I started to go a little crazy around the edges. I love you guys. So much. More than I ever thought I could. But sometimes I just need to be alone for a while. I need quiet, so I can think straight. And I hadn't seen Hiiro in so long, it was starting to actually hurt." All of this was said quietly, as she, too, stared at her hands.

"You were like that when you were little, too." She looked up and saw a small, remembering smile on her father's face. "When things would get too crazy or loud, you'd just wander off to another room, or outside, to play all by yourself." He sighed. " I don't know why I didn't expect you to still need that. As for Hiiro... I guess I just don't want to give up my little girl, when I've just got her back." This time, Usagi did start crying again.

"Dad, you don't have to give me up. I'm not going anywhere. But, Hiiro is a part of me. When he's not around, I feel like I can't breathe right anymore. He would never try to take me from you, because he knows, all to well, how important you all are to me. I mean, for god's sake, I tried to get him to run away with me and get married, and he told me no."

"He said no?"

"Well, actually he said 'someday.' He said that someday, he'd marry me, but not unless you're there to give me away, and mom wouldn't miss it." Goku chuckled.

"Really?"

"Yeah. He's a lot sweeter than he puts on. He knows how much you mean to me, and he would never want to cause any trouble between you guys and me. But.. I have all of you. I have so many people to love, and I'm all he has. He doesn't remember having a family. All he's ever known is me and Dr. J., and then later, the other pilots, but he has quite a lonely existence. And I need him, daddy. You know how you said Setsuna showed you my past lives? He was that man. We've been chasing after eachother for thousands of years, and now we have eachother again, and I don't think I've ever been this happy in all of my lives. Well, I guess I was happy enough in the last one, but only a happy that came from hardly having a brain to think with. I have a real family, and the man I've loved forever, and as soon as I can have both of them at the same time, everything will be so unbelievably perfect." Goku sighed, and put an arm around her. He pulled her close, and she fell into the hug, and somehow, laughed and cried simultaeously. After a while, Chi-Chi joined them, and they talked until well past midnight. The only bump was reached when Chi-Chi jokingly remarked about having a platoon of little grandbabies with Hiiro's blue eyes and Usagi's hair, and Usagi had to explain to them about her injury.

They still had to worry about returning to their home, and all the ramifications of that, considering that Usagi's life was in this world. There were still a few wedges between the large, happy family. They had to overcome a lot of troubles. But they knew that, with time, everything would be alright.

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So? Ya like?

I hope so.

FYI, Vanida means Beloved Woman, Wife in Sanskrit, and Dov means beloved in Hebrew. All the other names mean the same in different languages.

Two songs that I listened to while writing this chapter are: Suds in the Bucket, by Sara Evans and My Litle Girl, by Tim McGraw. I suggest giving them a listen! If you don't already have them, there are several videos containing them on YouTube! And the Title is From I'll Stay With You, by The Goo Goo Dolls, it can also be found on YouTube.

Review, please!