Thanks for sticking with me during this fun experiment! I hope you enjoyed the story!
Thanks to my beta!
A crash of thunder made Minako start awake, heart pounding and Usagi's name in her throat. The storm was still raging, the ghostly figure still standing next to Minako. She blinked at him, finally recognizing his face.
"You're Mamoru," she said, and he nodded. "You know you're dead, right?" He nodded again, then they both turned as Kunzite ran up, calling for Minako.
"Please tell me YOU aren't a ghost!" Minako said, as Kunzite caught her in a relieved hug.
"I don't think so, but after your text, nothing would surprise me."
"It's her, isn't it?" Minako said, turning to Mamoru. "Usagi. She's the ghost of Conway Hall."
The wind was whipping her dress and her hair, tugging on Kunzite's windbreaker and sending seawater spraying through the air, but it didn't so much as flutter Mamoru's dark bangs.
"Yes," he said, and his voice was part of the wind, there and not there all at once.
"Usagi didn't jump!" Minako cried. "She was pushed!"
"I know," Mamoru said.
Minako looked at him. "The night of the seance… that was you. And the letters… that was you, too."
He nodded, eyes sad and distant. "I can go no further than this beach."
Minako turned toward the house, feeling sick with fear at the broken-down, rotten wood shaking in the screaming wind. "Usagi is still in there!"
"She can't leave," Mamoru said. "I can't reach her. No one can ever reach her."
"Well, I can go in!"
"Minako, are you crazy?!" Kunzite grabbed her arm. "You aren't undead and can actually be killed!"
She whirled on him. "Don't you see?! Her parents died, her stepfather let her sister claim her fiancé, Beryl manipulated and isolated her for years, and finally murdered her! She's been left all alone, nobody ever came! Well, I'm not going to abandon her!"
Kunzite grabbed her arms, pulling her toward him. "No! Minako, no, I can't let you go in that house! It's too dangerous!" He looked at her with intensity in those too-blue eyes.
She tried to yank herself away but he was too strong. "Let me go! I have to help her!"
"Look at it! The house is falling down in this storm!"
"If the house falls, what happens to Usagi?" Minako said, feeling her very soul shake with the fear of the answer. She'll be lost. Forever.
The wind whistled, and house groaned, a sound Minako heard in her bones. And then Kunzite was being pulled back, Mamoru's ghostly hands wrapped around Kunzite's elbows.
"You bastard!" Kunzite screamed. "Let me go!"
Mamoru met Minako's eyes and nodded. "Good luck," he said.
Impulsively, Minako stepped forward and pressed her lips to Kunzite's. His mouth was warm, dry, and pliable beneath her lips. "If I die, I wanna make sure I did that first," she murmured against his mouth, by way of apology. Ignoring the shudder in his breath, she grabbed the letters from his jacket pocket, and turned and ran toward the house.
The sobs were everywhere, deafeningly loud, and echoing through the empty, rotting walls all around her. Wrenching, heartbreaking weeping, so loud Minako had to cover her ears. "USAGI!" she cried.
And the sobbing stopped abruptly. And her ears rang in the silence. And there sat Usagi, cowering in a corner, arms crossed over head.
"Usagi?" Minako crept toward her. "Are you okay?"
"The storm is scary," she said, looking up. Minako reeled in shock a bit at Usagi's appearance. Gone was the exuberant, silly girl she'd befriended and instead the girl's eyes were dull, her hair falling in strings around her face. Minako could swear she saw the faded patterns of the wallpaper through Usagi's back.
She swallowed down her fear, kneeling in front of the dead girl, who was fading away right before her eyes.
"Usagi, you are the ghost," Minako whispered.
"I'm all alone here," was all Usagi would say.
Desperately, Minako grabbed her hands, cringing at how ice cold they were, how light-as-air. Her fingers were skeletal, skin peeling back from the tips. "You aren't alone! Usagi! I'm here!"
Then she pulled one hand free to shove the letters into what was left of Usagi's hands. "And Mamoru! He didn't leave you, Usagi! He wrote you… Usako? Right? That's what he called you." Minako was yelling over the wind, over the lump in her throat. "Beryl hid them! She hid his letters to you, and I'm sure she never sent the ones you wrote to him." Those she probably destroyed, but some sick part of Beryl's mind couldn't bare to part with Mamoru's handwriting, his words of love and devotion - even if they weren't written to her.
The house shook with a clap of thunder, the wood was bending, shaking in the wind. The roof quaked.
"He didn't leave you Usagi! He loved you! He just… he died. He was killed."
Usagi shook her head, covering her ears with her hands. She flickered.
"Minako!" Kunzite's voice sounded far away, floating to her through the broken windows. "You have to get out of there! It's flooding!"
"We're coming!" she called back, reaching for Usagi's hand. It slipped through hers like water. "You have to come out, Usagi! You have to leave with me!"
The crash was deafening, the ceiling above them crumbling, barely missing hitting Minako's shoulder. Usagi looked at her in panic. "This isn't safe! You have to go!" the ghost insisted, but Minako remained stubborn.
"I am not going to leave you," she said, firmly. "For once, someone will not leave you."
A tear ran down Usagi's cheek, red as blood.
"But this is no home for you," Minako said. "Let's leave together. He's waiting for you."
There was another crash and Usagi yelped. The door was now blocked, the rain falling in through holes in the roof. Already there were inches of cold water on the floor. Mamoru's letters floated away, ink melting together as the water carried them away, just as it had his body all those years ago.
The upstairs had fallen into the downstairs, all doors were blocked. The house was falling apart, just like the legend was. Just like the story that everyone had gotten so, so wrong.
"We're trapped," Minako breathed. She squeezed her eyes shut. This is it, she thought. This is how I die. At least I got to kiss Kunzite goodbye.
"The attic window!" Usagi said, breaking through Minako's thoughts. "That's the only way!"
The storm seemed to settle, or at least fade the background as Usagi took Minako's hand. The attic stairs fell like puzzle pieces, and together they walked toward the room where Usagi breathed her last, to the broken window that was their freedom.
Now it lay one story lower to the ground, empty and beaconing, the soggy ground within safe landing distance. Minako squeezed Usagi's hand. "After you," she said.
They jumped together, and the last thing Minako saw was the brightest flash of lightning behind her eyelids.
"Minako! Minako!"
Blue. Red. Blue. Red. A loud wailing sound. And Kunzite's voice.
"Minako, wake up!"
Groaning, Minako sat up, pressing her hand to her head. She realized the storm was over, the full moon breaking through the clouds to spill its silvery light over the beach. The wailing sound was sirens, the flashing red and blue were emergency vehicles that had driven up to the house… no. To the rubble.
The house was gone.
"Are you okay?" Kunzite's face hovered over her, handsome brow furrowed in worry.
"Nothing that won't heal," she murmured, flexing her arms and moving her feet. "Where's Usagi?!"
Kunzite shook his head slowly. "I don't know, Minako. She's gone. So is he." His arm came around her back, settling gently underneath her arm. "Can you stand?"
Nodding, Minako allowed Kunzite to pull her slowly to her feet. Then, his warm, large hand settled on the back of her head and his lips were on hers, urgent and affirming and desperate. Minako wound her arms around his neck, pulling him closer, hands grasping the slippery fabric of his windbreaker, catching stands of white-blond hair under her palms.
"I'm glad you're okay," he said, mouth against her cheek.
Minako realized they were hidden from view by the small mini-beach. "I don't feel like answering questions," she murmured, eyes shifting to the moving figures and flashlights that were coming around from the front the rubble.
"I agree," Kunzite muttered, and together they stumbled down the back pathway, slipping on the wet mud and jumping the last few feet to the rocks of the jetty.
And there was Usagi, standing in the surf. Of the main beach, the real beach. Off the property of the house.
Minako shouted her name and ran, and before she knew it was wrapped in a hug with the her friend- warm, solid, real. Minako pulled back and looked at Usagi - she looked good. As good or better than when Minako first met her, stumbling out of the garden and wandering into the land of the living - where Usagi didn't belong, but where Minako was able to reach her.
Salt stung Minako's throat. Even though Usagi had died a century ago, Minako felt her loss in a very real, painful way. "I guess… this is goodbye," she managed.
"Thank you," Usagi said, eyes shining with tears.
"Usako!" Mamoru appeared, running from the mini-beach the same way Minako and Kunzite had, only his feet didn't leave prints in the mud, he didn't need to jump the jetty, gliding down in the moonlight.
Usagi ran to him and as they embraced they faded slightly; Minako could see the ocean dancing through their bodies as they kissed.
"Thank you for waiting for me," Usagi said. Mamoru's hand brushed her hair from her face, his lips pressed to her forehead.
"Do you think I'd let something as simple as death separate us?" he murmured, mouth to hers, hand tightening on her lower back.
Kunzite leaned down to Minako's ear. "Should we be watching this?"
"Shhh!" she swatted him, leaning forward to hear the couple better.
She watched as Mamoru bent Usagi backward slightly, as if in a ghostly dance to music only they could hear, and he kissed her with a passion that, honestly, surprised Minako considering they were both technically dead.
She blinked, and they were gone. The moonlight was alone on the water, she and Kunzite left landing side by side on the beach.
Blinking rapidly, Minako reached out and grabbed Kunzite's hand, tightly. "She's really gone," she murmured.
For a moment Kunzite was silent beside her. Then he spoke, softly. "So, what do we do?"
Minako squeezed his hand, the feel of his lips still tingling on hers.
"We live."