Sailor Mercury reached her apartment balcony and shed her magic, becoming Ami Mizuno once again. She had a communicator message from Mamoru—it read "Zoisite is with us." And there was a text message from Usagi: "Call me! [double heart emoji] [blue heart emoji] [bunny emoji]"

Ami changed into her pyjamas. On her balcony, overlooking the city, she called her princess.

"Hello, Usagi… I'm doing fine, how are you? … Yes, well, I helped him find his way. That's all … Yes, well, I suppose I have. I don't know, I feel a little strange. No, no, I'm fine on my own… I might call Makoto later. Yes, I will, Usagi… I'm very lucky to have you looking out for me." Ami smiled into the phone. "Goodnight, sweet dreams."

She hung up and watched the night; Tokyo lights below and starlight muddled by clouds up above.

Tomorrow, she thought, or the day after, Mamoru and Nate would probably want to introduce Zoisite to everyone. So she would meet Zander again. Ami observed the nervousness this inspired, the not-unpleasant flutter in her stomach.

Well, there was a right way and a wrong way to go about this…

Ami opened her computer. It would take her some time, she thought, to compose the appropriate message. But it would do well to begin this as it had begun long ago. With an email.

000

It was four in the morning and Mamoru, Nate, and Zander were crammed into a booth at an American chain restaurant that served pancakes and bacon 'round the clock. After the amount of alcohol they'd drunk (umeshu and whiskey and they did finish off that white wine after all), Mamoru had insisted on something greasy to fill them up and stave off hangovers. This was not the kind of night made for sleeping. Mamoru and Zander were leaning in close over a diagram that Nate was constructing with care, using straws, the salt, pepper, and sugar dispensers, and the packets of fake sugar arranged in a little circle.

"—and over here, they live like, up the coast, there's three Outer Guardians. They give off this vibe of, like, chill, but also very dangerous. Still waters running deep; a sleeping tiger that will eat your face. I've only met them once so far and." Nate shook his head. "Dude."

"Dude?" Zander asked.

"Dude," Nate confirmed.

Mamoru just looked between the two of them. "They're nice," he put in. "They're hosting a cherry blossom party later this month."

"Oh," Nate added, "And they have a kid. She's a little shy."

Mamoru coughed and they looked at him. "'The kid' is also a Sailor Guardian,"

"Wait," Nate said, "You mean this little girl was hanging around in Silver Millennium, being an Outer Guardian?"

"She wasn't a 'kid' then, but yes," Mamoru said.

"Wait," said Zander.

They both looked at him. "What… other… guardians?" he asked slowly. "I know there were Uranus and Neptune, the sentinels of the system… but Nate said there were three?"

"Four," Mamoru said. "Let me explain. Queen Serenity—" he lifted his mug of coffee in a silent toast, and the others followed suit, "she kept secrets. Usagi herself didn't know until a few years back. The elder is Sailor Pluto, Guardian of Time—yes, Pluto is a planet—"

"I didn't say anything—" Zander said.

"—And the kid is Sailor Saturn, Guardian of Revolution." His voice was very soft.

"That's a huge responsibility to put on a kiddo," Nate said.

"She's older than she looks. She got a second chance," and again Mamoru lifted his mug, "thanks to Usagi."

Silence fell, broken only by the music pumped in over the speakers. "Country roads, take me home to the place I belooooong, West Virginiaaaaa…"

"How are we alive?" Zander asked.

"I don't know," Nate said. He used italics a lot, Zander had noticed.

"Mamoru," Zander turned to his Prince, "how are we alive?"

Mamoru looked him in the eye and intoned, "When a man and a woman love each other very much—it's four in the morning," he said by way of defense as they pelted him with little packets of sugar. "I'm not sure why we're alive, except for the grace of the Queen and we're here to make the world better! They will throw us out of this Denny's, cut that out!" The shower of sugar packets ceased.

The three young men looked at each other and grinned. "I love you guys," Nate admitted.

Mamoru looked a little sheepish, and Zander said "It's okay, he's Canadian, Canadians are sweethearts."

"You take that back." Nate glowered.

"No," Zander took a sip of coffee.

"Three and a half months since New Year's," Mamoru said thoughtfully. "And Zander—"

"Yes?"

"You remembered more of your past life over the last three months."

"Well, yes, but I thought my imagination was going out of control. It was kind of scary."

"I wonder if…" a name was on the tip of Mamoru's tongue, but he held back from speaking it (or them) out loud. "…I wonder how much they'll remember by the time they reach us."

"You sound sure of it," Nate observed.

Mamoru's smile was slow and easeful. It was not the kind of smile you'd associate with a man who was into his third cup of coffee. It was the smile of a King in his garden. "I'm pretty certain," he said.

000

She slept, and dreamed.

She dreamed that she made her descent through a dim cave, where the walls were carved of pale blue stone. Mariner Castle, she realized. The Silver Millennium. Mercury.

"What is my name?" Ami wondered, within the dream.

An answer didn't come to that query. But the setting grew clearer, the time and place: Ami was underground, among the splendid inverted cities of the Mercurians. She stepped lightly, so as not to be overheard. The court of Mariner Castle was composed of aristocrats and spies, forever watching one another and weaving intricate, tangling plots. Ami-in-the-dream was young—terribly young—but already she had learned the value of a secret.

At the cave's end there stood a rough wall of ice. Ami put her hand on it (a child's hand, she observed) and sang a simple melody, which the dreamer tried to remember for later.

The ice shimmered and slid aside in panels as thick as pottery, to reveal a high-vaulted chamber where vapor curled over the floor. High in the walls were thin windows that admitted slips of desert-bright sunlight. Fountains filled the air with water's music. Ami walked between beds of crocus, camellia, and snowdrop, until she reached the garden's center, where sat a woman in stately robes.

"Teacher!" Ami forgot decorum and ran towards her.

The woman was very old, with clouds of hair so white it was almost blue. She sat in a bower of roses, most of them white, but a few bloomed green.

"Ah, Hermia!" said Teacher. Her smile cast wrinkles over her face, the creases of a well-loved map. "Have you finished packing for your journey?"

"No," Ami replied. Hermia, she rolled the name over in her mind. Hermia.

"Good. My gift for you is ready." Teacher sat up and rolled up her sleeves. With deliberation, she wove her hands through the air. A curl of vapor became a column, and strings formed like frost on a windowpane. She snapped her fingers to form silver pegs, and in a matter of moments, the Mercury Harp rested, complete, in her hands. She held it out to Ami. "May she be worthy of you, my girl."

"May I be worthy of her," Ami replied, with a tone so serious that the woman—her teacher— laughed.

"I did not misspeak," she said. "Hermia, your grandmother the Queen has spoken. I will not go with you to the heart of Silver Millennium."

"But Teacher! I asked her to—"

"The Queen has her logic. There is erratic behavior on the Sun; I should be here. I must protect our home, in the worst case. If I could go with you—for your sake, and to meet the Queen who was able to unite our fractious planets... but enough of 'ifs.'

"I don't want to leave Mariner," the girl replied in a small voice. "The Solar System is so big. I don't want to leave you behind."

"You think I won't be with you?" Teacher's voice was gentle. "Besides, you were not made for this court. All of us with our cold pride of intellect, and spirits as flimsy as snowflakes. Your mind, and your heart, are meant for greater horizons. And there will be new loves. Such loves waiting for you, Hermia, little dear-as-sapphires."

"Do you have proof?" Ami asked.

Teacher's smile was contended and a touch wry. "You'll see," she replied, and she handed the Mercury Harp to her student.

Alhena. That had been Teacher's name.

Ami woke up, and knew: the Mercury Harp was hers again.

She lay back—soon she would reach for a notebook to record this—but for the moment, she quietly basked in a pool of gratitude.

000

Of course, even a night of adventures cannot last forever. It was six in the morning when Zander stumbled into his own apartment—tiny and cramped, but his alone. He looked over the sketches he had made and smiled blearily. He took a very, very hot shower and fell into bed.

It was ten in the morning when the sun, that traitorous bastard, insisted on boring into his eyes and annoying him into wakefulness. Zander stretched and combed his fingers through his long hair before he checked his phone, where a message waited, a message that promised that sometimes, nights of adventures turn into days of miracles.

"Hello Zander," wrote Ami, "I feel badly about how our last meeting ended so abruptly, would you like to start over? Let's meet at noon, at the bridge. If you'd rather not, I understand."

She finished with a hibiscus emoji.

He texted back "Yes!"

000

Ami had dressed carefully. After some deliberation, she decided on black trousers and a peach-colored turtleneck, under a long coat of dove-grey. A freshwater pearl gleamed at her collarbone.

She walked to the bridge with a steady pace that did not match her nerves. To calm the flutters in her stomach, Ami studied the trees. The cherry blossoms were beginning to bloom, shy little knuckles of white and pink along black boughs. Ami realized she was humming an old song, "Sakura, Sakura," one she hadn't thought of since she was very, very young.

"I'm not old," she said to herself. She smiled at the thought.

Ami reached the bridge and stood on its center. The sky, she thought, looked like a late Renaissance painting—she'd have to point that out to him.

For the first time in years, Ami felt an itch: to summon her Mercury Harp. To feel its heft and vibrations. To pluck out a melody for the sheer pleasure of it. Streams began to flow, that had been dammed up with regret.

She hummed with greater vigor, regarding the sky, until she heard him say, behind her, "Ami?"

Ami stood very still.

"When I turn around," she thought, "my life is going to change."

She took a deep breath, and turned around.

Zander stood behind her, in the middle of the bridge. He looked peaky and pale, but his hair and clothes were impeccable. His eyes were a clear, brilliant green. "Hello."

"Zander—you look well," spilled out before she could hold it back.

"Thank you," he said with some surprise. "I was glad to hear from you."

"Good." Enough small talk. Ami said, "There's something I want to tell you."

"Yes?"

She stepped closer to him, and closed the gap by putting her hand on his shoulder. The touch startled them both. She lifted onto her tiptoes and said, mostly to herself, "I've never told this to anyone before." Then she whispered.

"I am Sailor Mercury."

Four words and she was back on her heels, withdrawing her hand. Now he was staring at her.

"Are you upset?" she asked.

"No, not at all," he said. His expression was dazed. "You were the one…" he said slowly. "You showed me how to reach the Jazz Crystal. Endymion. Nephrite."

Ami nodded.

"Because…" Zander ran a hand through his hair. He looked up, across the water, back at Ami. "Sailor Mercury did that because Mercury is you. All this time?"

"All this time," she nodded again.

After a pause, he asked, "Why?"

"I didn't want you to be alone," she said.

"Even after what I did?" Another question followed on its heels: "Did you know—from the very first? When we met?"

"Not at the first," Ami replied. "When you mentioned hearing bells…"

"That's why you left in a hurry!"

"And I am so sorry—"

"Don't apologize," he said, "It's fine, I understand now, I understand."

Ami chuckled, despite herself.

"What is it?" he asked.

"I just realized," she said, "we both love to say 'I understand.'"

"Oh my god, you're absolutely right," Zander said in dazed French. He shook his head and said "You're right," in Japanese, and then he said, "I have so many questions."

"Can we… walk and talk?"

Zander stood up straight again. "I brought an umbrella," he said, "just in case it rains."

"Très bien," said Ami. She led the way down the bridge and began to talk. "So, you know my friend Usagi? Well…"

000

Much later…

Zander was completely lost geographically, but it was more important that he follow and understand every nuance of what Ami was saying. He must not be distracted, not even by the world-shaking idea that Ami and Mercury were one and the same.

They had walked a long way, through the park and through crowded boulevards. Now they were climbing up a flight of stone steps to a Shinto shrine, and Ami was saying, "So you see, I could say that because Usagi forgave me, after Galaxia, I can forgive you. But that's not it. That's a little too neat, too tit-for-tat. The fact is, forgiveness is irrational. And I'm not… good with irrationality, but it will have to do." A little line appeared between her eyebrows, and Zander felt an urge to smooth it away with his thumb. "And… oh. I tried to be brief, but my thoughts are so scattered."

"I don't mind," Zander said.

He didn't. He could look at her forever. The steadiness in her eyes, offset by the changing ripples of her expressions. The dark smudges under her eyes…

He halted on the steps. Ami halted, too, when she was two steps above him. They were closer to eye-to-eye, now. Zander swallowed hard. "You've had a rough couple of days, haven't you?" he asked.

After considering, Ami nodded. "Yes. A lot of bad memories."

"I'm sorry," he said. His voice was soft.

She turned to him. "Zander," she said.

She reached forward and brushed his fringe back into place. Then she brushed his temple—and then she cupped the side of his face in one cool hand. Her eyes (blue as lapis lazuli, as the icon of a goddess) rested on his. "I am going to trust the future," she said, in soft, perfect French.

"The future," he echoed.

She continued, in the same language, "What is between us—I'm interested, but I want to take it slow."

"Slow. Yes. I understand. It's better than I deserve," and he was trying to agree with her, but she just lifted an eyebrow. "Shutting up now," he added.

Ami shook her head. Then, she darted forward like a minnow and kissed Zander's lips, quick and cool, before pulling back.

He blinked, and saw only Ami's smile, contented and a touch wry. "Finally speechless?" she said in French. Then, in Japanese, "Come on," she said. "The princess is waiting."

She held out a hand, and Zander took it. Together they ascended the steps to Hikawa Shrine.