A/N I'm soooo sorry about the long wait for this chapter, but unfortunately that little thing called real life intruded and I haven't had any time to devote to my writing lately. As a lot of you know, I work for a school, and springtime means achievement test time and school fundraisers, so I've been super busy. The good news is that all of that is out of the way now and I'm hoping to get back on track. I want to say thank you to all of you. GT now has over 600 reviews and has been put on so many alerts that I lost count a long time ago, and new ones are showing up in my inbox on a daily basis. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, you guys are the best! Now let me give out those hugs! BIG HUGS TO:

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Thank you so much! I treasure all of your opinions. Now, I'm going to let you move on. This is really just another filler chapter, sort of the calm before the storm I guess you could say, but there is still quite a bit going on. We don't see much of the kids this time, but…well, you'll see.

ENJOY!

The Galactic Trinity

Chapter 25

Mother Knows Best

Hotaru jerked up in the bed as she heard a knock at the door. She looked around wildly for a second and realized that she was alone in her room. She heaved a sigh of relief as she scrambled from the bed and pulled on her robe before hurrying toward the door where she unlocked it and carefully eased it open.

"Good morning, Sweetpea!" Michelle greeted her brightly. "I was just wanting to make sure that you were awake so that you would have time to get ready before we go to the meeting."

Hotaru rubbed her eyes and yawned. "Yeah, yeah, I'm up."

Michelle smiled and reached out a hand to smooth out her adopted daughter's tousled black hair. "You look like you slept hard. Rough night?"

Hotaru jerked her head away indignantly. "No! I slept just fine. What time are we leaving?"

"Oh, you have at least a good hour and a half before we go," Michelle told her.

"Fine! I'll be ready," Hotaru replied hurriedly and tried to close the door.

But Michelle stuck her foot in the crack to keep it from closing all the way and then pushed it back open just enough to stick her head in and say, "Good morning to you too, Sammy."

There was a loud thump as Hotaru's bed jumped a few inches off the ground, and then the sound of muttered curses.

Michelle giggled and hurriedly made her escape before the murderous look in Hotaru's eyes could strike her dead. After all, there was a reason for her being one of the most feared scouts, and it was probably best not to push her too far.

She was still laughing lightly to herself as she entered the cool darkness of her bedroom. Who did those two think they were trying to fool? She may not possess the insight that Raye had or the ability to see bonds the way that Mina could, but she really didn't need to. Even a blind person would probably be able to see that they were crazy in love with one another.

Of course love and relationships also came with its share of frustrations, and she was presented with proof of that as her eyes adjusted to the darkness enough to make out the lump under the covers of the large bed that was set between the heavily curtained windows.

Her lips settled into a determined line as she walked first over to one window and then the other to open the curtains wide and let the morning sun flood into the room. Then she reached out and whipped the sheet and blanket away from the lump.

The shorthaired blonde woman on the bed moaned and rolled over onto her stomach before pulling a pillow over her head. Her muffled voice grumbled irritably, "Michelle!"

Michelle fought back the giggle that threatened to bubble past her lips and spoke in her best stern teacher voice. "Amara! What are you still doing in bed? I thought you were getting up an hour ago when I left to go take a swim."

A growl came from the depths of the pillow. "I was still tired, so I went back to sleep. Is that a crime now?"

"Oh, don't get grumpy with me!" Michelle chastised her lightly. "It's what you get for spending most of the night in the garage playing with your cars."

The pillow shifted enough for one navy blue eye to peek out and glare at her. "I was not playing! The Porsche was in serious need of a tune-up. And once I got started I figured I might as well give it the full overhaul and change the oil and flush the radiator too. I have to keep it in top shape at all times. I never know when some jackass is going to pull up next to me at a light and challenge me."

The aqua haired woman rolled her eyes. "It's a good thing you're so famous for your driving skills that the police always let you off with a warning. I'd hate to see how many tickets you would have if you weren't."

Amara snorted. "Hell! They're lucky I pull over at all. I have been tempted on many occasions to just floor it and leave them in my dust. They'd never be able to catch me."

"You and your need for speed," Michelle muttered. "Well anyway, you need to get up. We have a meeting this morning, remember."

Amara sat up in the bed, eyes going so cold and hard that they almost appeared black. "I'm not going. Just tell Serena that I'm sick or something."

Michelle wandered over to the closet. "I am not going to lie to our princess for you. I know you have been upset with her the last few days, but you can't avoid her forever. You are going to this meeting."

"Yeah, yeah," Amara grumbled as she swung her legs over the side of the bed. "I might as well. If I don't that little wildcat will probably just storm over here and order me to attend it."

"Dearest," Michelle sighed and turned to face her. "Did you see the look on Serena's face when she said those words? She didn't like saying them any more than you liked hearing them. It was very hard for her to use the power of her station over you."

Amara stared out the nearest window as she recalled the horrible scene between her and Serena a few days before.

***FLASHBACK***

Amara stormed off the elevator and into the lobby of the building that housed the generals' penthouse. Michelle, Serena, and Mina scurried after her.

"Amara, please! Just listen to me about this, okay," Serena pleaded.

Amara spun around to pin the shorter blonde with a furious glare. "You are insane, Serena! You can't honestly mean that you want me to sit here, twiddling my thumbs and doing nothing, while you go prancing yourself into the time plane to confront that bastard."

Serena nodded firmly. "That's exactly what I need you to do. We don't know what Discord might pull. He may decide to launch an attack here while we are at the time gate, and if that happens I need to know that there are people here to fight and keep the city safe."

Amara snorted. "The teen brigade can handle it. They've proven that much to us. So why don't you leave Rini and Emma here with the others, along with Hotaru, and let Michelle and me come along? You're going to need every experienced scout with you for this."

Mina huffed. "She already told you why Rini and Emma have to go with us. Besides, all the rest of us will be with her. She'll have plenty of backup."

"Forgive me if that doesn't exactly make me feel better," Amara sneered. "That's too few scouts and too many men for my liking. It's the scouts' job to keep the princess safe. How can we do that if we're not there?"

Serena shook her head. "No. Our job is to protect the planet. And that's why I need you to stay here. You're one of the strongest scouts, and it would make me feel better knowing that you're here to keep an eye on things while we're gone."

Mina's face was beginning to flush with indignation. "The entire immediate guard is going with Serena. She'll be safe."

"Stay out of this, Barbie!" Amara snapped. "I know you're the captain of the inner scouts, but we outers don't fall under your jurisdiction. We know what our job is and we do it. I just can't believe that you are crazy enough to condone this. Doesn't the princess mean anything to you?"

"Why you…" Mina growled.

"Let it go, Mina," Serena said softly. "Amara, I'm asking you to please…"

"No, Serena!" Amara interrupted her. "I know you're concerned about the safety of the people here, but I'm concerned about you. I'm going with you into the time plane whether you like it or not."

Serena's eyes filled with tears. "Then you leave me no other choice. I never wanted to do this, but…" Her crescent moon symbol flashed briefly on her forehead. "Sailor Uranus, as your princess, I am ordering you to stay here to defend Tokyo against any possible attacks while we are gone. I'm sorry, but that is my final word."

***END FLASHBACK***

Amara sighed. "I know she didn't want to do it. As a matter of fact, I'm surprised she did. I've always known that my little kitten was spunky, but I never thought she'd screw up the nerve to issue a royal order like that."

Michelle walked over and wrapped her arms around her waist to give her a hug. "Serena is on her way to becoming a queen. We knew that she would have to grow up sometime. She's not the same fourteen year old girl we met so long ago."

"No, she's not," Amara grinned. "I thought she was a cute kid back then, but she's grown into a beautiful woman. I hope Darien appreciates what he's got because I'll kill him if he ever hurts her."

"Now that's the overprotective Uranus that I know and love," Michelle laughed and gave her a final squeeze. "Now get yourself ready. It's time for you to go see our princess. I predict you'll be flirting with her again in less than two minutes."

Amara grinned ruefully. "You're right. I can't stay mad at that little moon face for long. She's just too damn cute. Did you wake Taru up yet? You know it takes her forever to get ready."

Michelle nodded as she draped a dress over her arm and moved to the dresser. "Yes. I woke her up just before I came in here to wake you up."

"Did you wake Sammy up too?" Amara chuckled. "Where was he hiding this time, in the closet?"

A peal of giggles rang from Michelle. "Under the bed, actually. I feel a little bad, though. I think he bashed his head pretty hard when I said good morning to him. Hotaru didn't look too happy with me either."

"Serves them right!" Amara barked. "They need to stop all of this sneaking around. Do they really think that we are so stupid that we don't know what's going on? Hell! At least somebody's getting lucky in this house."

Michelle sniffed and strolled toward the bathroom with a sway of her hips. "Well if somebody would learn to come to bed on time…" She let her voice trail off suggestively as she entered the bathroom and closed the door.

Amara stood still for a few seconds before dashing over to the door and twisting the knob, only to find that it was locked. She knocked a few times. "Michelle!" But the only answer she received was the sound of the shower turning on.

Amara growled under her breath. "Damn infuriating woman!"

Raye stomped to the door and flung it open. She surveyed the couple standing on the other side of it and growled, "You're late!"

Jess rolled her eyes. "Don't get your pantyhose twisted in a knot, Pyro! We're only running a couple of minutes behind. Just because you're lucky enough to actually live where the meeting is taking place and not have to leave the comfort of your home to attend it doesn't mean you can give everybody else grief for making the human mistake of being a couple of minutes late."

"Ooo, somebody took her happy pills this morning! Care to share the wealth?" Jadeite teased in a joking tone as he came forward and shook Andrew's hand in greeting.

"Piss off, Jed!" Jess growled and stomped in the direction of the entertainment room, drawing Serena's attention along the way.

Serena grabbed Darien's hand and hauled him over to his best friend. "Uh oh! What's wrong with her?" she asked in concern.

Andrew shrugged. "I'm not sure. I think she had a bad night. She seemed fine when we went to bed last night. In fact she'd spent all evening babbling about a showing that Natasha wants her to do later in the summer and how she thinks she might be ready to start accepting commissioned work by the fall. She finally ran out of steam and fell asleep before I did for once. I woke up a few hours later and she was gone. She was locked up in her studio, but she had what I call her 'angry music' playing, so I knew better than to bother her."

Mina, who had come down the stairs in time to hear most of the conversation, asked, "Well didn't you try to sense what was wrong with her? After all, you two do have a soul bond."

"Of course I tried," Andrew replied, rolling his eyes. "But she obviously wants to keep whatever it is to herself because I ran into a brick wall every time I tried. She's blocking me."

Jadeite chuckled. "It's probably just her nerves. You know how easily she gets bent out of shape, and she's got a lot on her plate right now with kids, graduation, weddings, and now a gallery showing too. I'm sure she's feeling overwhelmed."

Raye frowned in the direction that Jess had gone. "I'm not sure if it's that simple, Jed. Didn't you feel her aura before? It was swirling and crackling like crazy. It felt like she was only two steps away from exploding."

All eyes swung to Darien, who shrugged. "Whatever it is, she's keeping it contained. I haven't felt anything out of the ordinary. There have been no tremors. I haven't even sensed a stray wind out of place. So maybe we're the ones overreacting this time and she's simply got something on her mind that she's thinking about."

"Maybe," Serena muttered. "Perhaps she just had one of her old nightmares wake her up and now she's cranky from losing sleep. Do you think you could discreetly ask Helios if he sensed anything? I know he still keeps an eye on her when she dreams."

He tapped the tip of her nose with a finger. "Sure. I'll track him down later."

There was another knock at the door, and Jadeite strode to it and flung it wide to reveal Amara and Michelle. "Welcome, lovely ladies! How nice of you to grace our humble abode with your delightful presence."

Michelle laughed softly as she stepped in and took a moment to pat his cheek. "You're always such a charmer. I hope Raye is keeping at least one eye on you at all times."

Raye snorted. "I don't have to. He knows what will happen if he steps over the line. Isn't that right, honey?" The last line was delivered in a sickeningly sweet tone.

Jadeite visibly gulped. "Ri…right, Firefly! But you don't have to worry. You're all the woman I need."

"Nice save," Amara growled as she pushed her way in. "Outta the way, Romeo! I have better things to do than to stand in a doorway all day."

Jadeite backed away, grumbling, "Great! Another cheerful soul here to brighten our day. You and Jess ought to start your own club. The two of you would probably be a hit at Halloween parties. At least that would give you a legitimate excuse for scaring small children."

"Jed, stop!" Serena pleaded. "Everyone is entitled to be in a bad mood every now and then."

Amara's navy blue eyes snapped around to look at Serena. "Your highness," she greeted stiffly.

Tears filled Serena's eyes as she stomped her foot angrily. "Don't you dare start treating me like that! I'm sorry, okay! I never wanted to have to give an order like that, but you backed me into a corner until I had no choice! Do you think that was easy for me? The last thing I have ever wanted to do is to have to use my authority over anyone. You are my friend, not my servant. Of course I may not even be able to claim you as a friend anymore if you hate me for what I did." Her head dropped in defeat.

Amara stared at the bowed golden head for a long moment before a grin began quirking up one side of her mouth. "Silly, moon face! I'm not mad at you. I was at first, but I got over it. I'm actually quite proud that you had the guts to stand your ground like that. You're usually such a pushover."

Serena jerked her head up and sniffled. "I am not a pushover!" Then she wiped a couple of tears from the corners of her eyes. "So does this mean that you forgive me?"

Amara held her arms open. "Come here, Kitten."

Serena ran and hugged the older, taller scout tightly.

"So when are you going to dump that prince of yours and run away with me?" Amara teased as she propped her chin on top of Serena's head.

Serena giggled, knowing that everything was okay now if Amara was flirting with her. This was the part where she usually quipped back with something like, 'I'm ready whenever you are.' But now that she was back on good terms with one of her best friends, she couldn't help but have a little fun with her.

She stepped back and grinned impishly. "I don't know. I've done some thinking and decided that I'm tired of the loud, overbearing types. I've decided that sweet and quiet are more my thing." She turned and looped her arm through Michelle's. "What do you say, Michelle, how about we run away together and leave all the worrywarts behind?"

A peal of tinkling laughter left the aqua haired woman. "Sounds good to me. Where did you have in mind?"

Serena joined her laughter. "I'll leave that up to you. You've traveled a lot more than I have, so you would know the best places. I've only set foot outside of Tokyo a few times in my life, and even then I didn't go far, just up to the mountains to visit the lakes or the hot springs on vacation."

Raye snickered. "That's not entirely true. You've been to the Arctic Circle twice."

Serena shivered. "That doesn't count! Nobody in their right mind would go there unless they absolutely had to. Besides, I'm talking about a pleasure trip, not something work related. I've never even been on an airplane."

"Well that will be changing soon," Darien said with a grin. "In just a few months we'll be going away somewhere, if you can ever make up your mind where you want to go for our honeymoon."

She stuck her tongue out at him. "So I'm having a hard time deciding. I can't help it. In case you haven't noticed, the world is a big place with lots of places to choose from. It's a hard decision to make."

Raye rolled her eyes. "You've changed your mind again? I thought you had decided on some island in the Bahamas."

"I don't know!" Serena moaned, fisting her hands at her temples. "It sounded perfect until I got to looking through all of those brochures that I got from the travel agent. Then I started thinking maybe Rome, or Venice, or even Paris. It's all giving me a headache. Let's go ahead and get this meeting started so I don't have to think about it anymore right now." Then she looked around curiously. "Where's Hotaru?"

Amara and Michelle both began chuckling.

"She should be here soon," Amara answered. "She and Sammy were coming in his car since you said that you wanted him here too. Although we probably shouldn't have let him drive after that bump to the head he had this morning."

Serena was immediately concerned. "What bump on the head?"

Michelle waved a dismissive hand. "It's nothing serious. It's just that when I went to make sure Hotaru was awake this morning he thought he was being sneaky by hiding under the bed so that I wouldn't know that he'd been there all night. As if they could hide it from me! Anyway, I said good morning to him and he tried to jump up while still under the bed. It was quite humorous."

"I'm sorry I asked," Serena sputtered. "That's way more information about my brother's personal life than I want. I don't care what he does or where he sleeps, but I don't want to hear about it."

Her indignant voice faded into the background as Andrew slipped away without anyone's notice and ducked into the entertainment room. It was empty except for Amy and Zoicite sitting together on a couch and talking quietly to each other. Amy looked up as he entered and pointed toward the balcony doors to answer the question in his eyes.

He looked out the glass doors and saw Jess standing near the railing across the wide balcony. At first glance she appeared to be perfectly content, just enjoying the breezy day and the sight of the city. She had forgone her usual braid today and had pulled her hair back with a gold clip. It fell in a mass of shimmering, caramel kissed curls down her back that danced slightly in the wind.

But appearances could be deceiving, and Andrew knew what signs to look for. He noticed how stiff her back was and how she had her arms clenched over her stomach like she was literally trying to hold herself together. Yeah, something was bothering her pretty badly.

He slid the door open and stepped out, closing it behind him. He reached her in just a few long legged strides and pulled her back against his chest as her wrapped his arms around her. She stiffened even more, but didn't try to pull away from him.

He propped his chin on her shoulder so he could speak softly in her ear. "Okay, I tried to be patient and wait your mood out thinking that you were just cranky because you didn't sleep well last night. But there's something else going on here. I can feel it. So are you going to fess up to what's bothering you, or are we going to have to play a round of twenty questions?"

She turned her head to look at him and attempted to smile, but it was a poor imitation of her usual cheerfulness. Her lips may be smiling, but her eyes held no sparkle and sat in her face like two chunks of cold, blue rock. "It's nothing, sweetie. I just had a rough night, that's all."

He had a feeling that it went deeper than that, and he wished that she would open up to him, so he prompted gently, "The nightmares again?"

Her face went totally expressionless for a moment, and he was afraid that she was about to withdraw in on herself, but then she sighed. "It was a nightmare, yes. But it wasn't one that I've had before. It was different somehow. I can't really explain it."

Andrew smirked, trying to lighten the atmosphere. "It wasn't about that time those older boys dared me to put on that mask and chase you, was it? I've apologized a thousand times for that stunt. I was stupid."

She couldn't help but giggle as she remembered the time he was talking about. Once upon a time on the moon during the Silver Millennium, a young Motoki, looking for acceptance from some of the older sons of the lunarian officers under his father's command, had agreed to put on a monster mask and scare the young "adopted" Princess Melody as a joke. It had seemed harmless enough until she had tripped while running across the footbridge that spanned the creek that ran through the gardens of the moon castle, trying to get away from him, and had fallen into the water. The creek wasn't very deep and she hit her head on a rock when she landed. Motoki had decided that the joke had gone far enough and had torn off the mask before jumping in after her and pulling her out. He had never given in to peer pressure again after that, deciding that he would rather put up with the other boys' teasing him about being friends with Melody rather than turning his back on her just to be one of the guys.

"No. I wasn't dreaming about that, although that experience did leave a lasting impression on me," she said softly. "Do you know I never walked alone through that part of the garden again after that stunt? But it doesn't matter. I forgave you for that the moment you stumbled into my room with that crumbled bouquet of starflowers in your hand. You were so cute, blushing and mumbling about how sorry you were for scaring me. And that's when I knew."

"Knew what?" he asked quietly.

She turned in his arms to face him. "That you were the best friend that I could ever ask for and that you would stand beside me no matter what. I mean, I knew that I could depend on my parents to be there for me, but you were different. How many eight year old boys would stand up to defend a little girl from an enemy?"

"Hey!" he chided gently as he saw a few tears brighten her eyes. "I thought we had agreed to not dwell on what happened in the past. All that matters is the here and now."

She nodded firmly. "I know. I'm not really letting it get to me. That dream just kinda freaked me out."

Andrew rubbed the back of his fingers against her cheek. "You're not going to tell me about it, are you?"

She smiled at him apologetically. "Do you mind waiting until I've had a chance to figure it out a little more. For all I know I may be making a big deal out of nothing. After all, everybody has bad dreams sometimes."

He sighed. "Okay, I'll wait. Now let's get this meeting over with. Are you still up for going to my parents' house for dinner tonight? You know my mom can be sort of intense."

She smiled, and this time it looked genuine. "Of course I'm up for it. We've been so busy lately that we haven't had a chance to tell them that the wedding has been moved up to July, and they need to know. Besides, I like your mom. And your dad is pretty good about calming her down when she gets worked up, so I'm not worried about it."

"It could still be scary," he said uncertainly.

Jess smirked. "You're a tough guy. I'm sure you can handle it."

He growled and nuzzled her neck. "I thought I was your bad boy."

"You're that too," she replied flippantly as she maneuvered herself so that she could give his lips a loving peck."

"Okay, lovebirds! Break it up and get your tails in here! We've got some things to discuss," Serena stuck her head out the door to say, shattering the moment. She ignored the couples' grumbles and waved them inside. "Come on, I don't have all day. Believe it or not, I do have a life."

"And it's going to be a short one at the rate you're going!" Jess snarled as she stomped by dragging Andrew behind her.

Serena just smiled innocently; glad to see her past daughter's reincarnation acting a little more like herself. Thank goodness for Andrew. She couldn't picture a more perfect match for Jess.

"Again!" Talon called out to the teens that were scattered around the training clearing.

"Aw, come on, Talon! Give us a break already!" Katie groaned as she wiped her arm across her sweaty forehead and pushed away the damp strands of hair clinging to her face.

"For real!" Alex agreed. "We've been going at it nonstop since practically sunrise. Can't we rest for just a minute?"

Talon's black eyes glittered as they narrowed. "Do you think Discord will be kind enough to give you a time out during the final battle if you ask him nicely? No! He will be on the lookout for even the slightest weakness in your defenses, and then he will strike. You must remain on guard at all times and prepared to launch into action at a moment's notice. If you falter just because you are tired he will kill you. It is as simple as that. Now get back into position and let's do it again."

There were grumbles as the teens reluctantly did as they were told. DJ and Jayden helped Rini and Hannah up off the ground where they had fallen. Emma leaned against Alex's shoulder heavily for a moment before sighing and straightening back up. Katie and Skye both glared belligerently at the sorcerer for a minute before joining the others in the middle of the clearing.

Talon pinned DJ, Katie, and Alex with an intense gaze. "Now you three remember what I told you. Keep your power on a tight leash and don't release more than is absolutely necessary. I know you can take out a whole pack of enemies with just a single thought, but while you control the powers of gods you must remember that you are also only human with a limited amount of energy. If you exhaust yourself by just taking out the minions, you will not have the strength left to face Discord by the time you get to him. That is why your friends are important. Work as a team and let them assist you as much as possible so that you can conserve energy."

They all nodded tightly as they took up fighting positions. Talon waved a hand and suddenly two-dozen guardians and sentinels came crashing through the trees to attack them from all sides.

"Sweetheart, don't you think you're being a little hard on them?" Anya asked from her seat next to him. "They are so young. And Mercury's daughter and Mars's son are hardly more than children. Maybe you should lighten up on them just a bit."

He shook his head. "What do you think, Nebula?" he asked the orange cat sitting in his wife's lap. "Am I overdoing it with them?"

The feline watched her young charges for a long moment as she thought about it. Personally, she detested the sorcerer, but she couldn't help but be impressed by his magical abilities. After she had seen the success of his clones when they had faked DJ, Katie, and Alex's deaths, she had swallowed her pride and had spoken to him about helping out in their training. He had readily agreed, and Nebula had to admit that his guardian and sentinel clones were a much better training element than anything that she could come up with. So she had pushed her less than friendly feelings for the man aside and called a truce with him.

"I know we're pushing them hard," she finally answered quietly. "But we really don't have much of a choice. We don't know exactly how much time we have to work with. It could be weeks or even months before they have to face Discord, or he may decide to make his move tomorrow. It is my job to make sure that they are as ready as they can possibly be when the time comes, but I suppose they have had enough for one day and need a little down time. We'll let them go after they complete this round. I don't want to exhaust them."

She looked on in pride just a few minutes later as the last of the clones disappeared as it was defeated. Although they had been outnumbered three to one, the young heroes had held their own and emerged victorious. She jumped up from her perch on Anya's lap to address them.

"Well done!" she said in her usual brisk tone. "I think that will be all for today. You lot won't be doing anyone any good if you're too tired to move. So take the rest of the day off and we'll start up again tomorrow."

Grateful sighs came from them all as Rini, Emma, Skye, Hannah, and Jayden let their transformations fade. A fissure ran through the air as DJ, Katie, and Alex released the hold they had on their god powers and the symbols on their foreheads disappeared and their eyes turned back to normal.

"Thank goodness!" Rini groaned. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm starving."

DJ snickered. "So what else is new? You're always hungry. I still find it amazing that you don't weigh five hundred pounds with the way you suck up food like a black hole."

Katie elbowed him in the ribs. "Be nice! I have to agree with Rini on this. I think I burned off breakfast hours ago. I could definitely go for some food right now."

"I've got an idea," Skye interjected. "The penthouse isn't far from here. Let's go crash the parents' meeting and wrangle some lunch out of my mom."

That brought a round of approval from everyone. Even DJ couldn't hide the growl that his stomach made at the mention of food, making everybody laugh as they walked away.

Talon chuckled and shook his head. "So those are the saviors of the future world. It's hard to believe that a loudmouth group of teenagers is who everyone's hopes rest on. I feel sorry for their parents. I bet they all either have gray hair or no hair by now."

Anya giggled and then winced as she rubbed her swollen belly. "I bet we'll be saying the same thing about ourselves before everything's said and done. Just be glad that we didn't get our own mystery visitor from the future."

"I don't know," Talon said with a grin. "It might have been interesting to see how our child turns out."

Anya let out a snort. "You just want to know if we're having a boy or a girl."

He shrugged. "I don't need a visit from the future to tell me that. I'm positive that we are having a daughter."

"And I'm telling you that this is a boy," she snapped back. "Call it motherly instinct or whatever you want, but I am certain that this future soccer star is a son. And right now he's using my bladder for practice kicks."

He smiled sympathetically. "Is that your way of saying that you're ready to go home?"

She looked up at him miserably. "Please. I could really use a bathroom and a nap, in that order."

He lifted her from the ground as if she weighed no more than a feather and held her close. "Your wish is my command." And they disappeared in a soft flash of light.

Silence hung heavily over the room for a long minute after Serena finished speaking.

"Are you wanting us to go public?" Lita finally asked slowly.

"No, no!" Serena hastily reassured her. "It's just that Amy and I are wanting to come clean with our mothers, and if we do that it will reveal your identities to them as well. We didn't want to do that unless we had your approval first because it's all of our secret."

Nephrite sighed. "Zoi, are you okay with this?"

Zoicite nodded. "Yes, I am. I would rather be upfront with Amy's mom instead of hiding things from her. Besides, after what she said yesterday I'm fairly certain that she already knows. And we're only talking about letting two people in on the story, and I'm sure they won't talk."

"I'm cool with it," Amara said. "As long as it doesn't go any farther than that. I already have to chase the occasional paparazzi off my property as it is. I don't want a whole army of them camping on my lawn."

Michelle nodded. "I agree as well. Both of your mothers are honorable women who will keep their silence, so I know that we don't have to worry about them telling anyone else."

Serena turned to look at her youngest scout and her brother. "Sammy, Hotaru, what do you guys think? This could impact the two of you as much as Amy and I. I can't be for certain how mom's going to take all this. I'm pretty sure that she already has her suspicions about all of us, but hearing the confirmation that I'm Sailor Moon and that her son is dating Sailor Saturn might send her into a tailspin."

Sammy grinned. "Are you kidding? She'll probably turn into a total fangirl and start squealing with little stars and hearts in her eyes and everything. Besides, like you said, I'm pretty sure she already knows anyway. I remember this one time when you were fifteen and I had gotten up in the middle of the night to go get something to drink. I found mom outside your bedroom door peeking in. I asked her what was wrong, and she said that she was just checking on you. I ran down and got my drink, and when I came back up mom was going back to her room, muttering something about how she hoped you came back safe and sound. I looked in your room and you were gone. She had to know that something was going on, or she would have thrown a fit about you sneaking out."

Serena smacked herself on the forehead. "It all makes so much sense now. I've wondered before why she never mentioned the number of band-aids I went through or how quickly I could go through a bottle of aspirin. She always kept the medicine cabinet well stocked and bought my stories about falling down or running into things when I had a bruise or cut I couldn't hide, and then she never batted a lash about it when it was gone the next day."

"That's what tipped me off," Sammy said smugly. "One day you came home from school and you were helping mom in the kitchen. You bent down to get something and your skirt rode up. Not that I was looking or anything, but you had a nasty scrape on your thigh that was hard to miss. The next day you came down wearing a pair of shorts and it was gone except for a faint scar. I knew I hadn't been seeing things, so I started piecing the clues together. At the time there were five scouts and Tuxedo Mask, and you had four best friends that you seemed to go everywhere with. On top of that you had just started dating Darien, and all the papers were speculating about whether there was some big romance between Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask, so I knew you guys had to be them. Why else would a smart guy like Darien go out with a ditz like you?"

"Watch it, you little parasite!" Serena growled at him. Then she turned to his girlfriend. "Hotaru, are you okay with this?"

She nodded. "I am if Sammy is. I just don't want your mother to not like me anymore."

"Are you kidding? My mom's crazy about you!" Sammy exclaimed. "She'll be fine. Don't worry about it."

"With the outer's votes taken care of, Serena turned to face the others. "Well, what about the rest of you?"

"Hell! I don't care!" Lita drawled. "Both of my parents are gone and you guys are the only family I have. I say go for it."

Raye and Mina glanced at each other before bursting into giggles.

"What is so funny?" Serena demanded.

"You are," Raye choked. "You're acting like this is some super secret spy ring or something. I figured that you and Amy would have told your moms about this a long time ago. My grandpa and Chad have known for what feels like forever."

"What!" Serena shrieked. "You never told me that you had told them! How did that happen?"

Raye rolled her eyes. "Duh! My grandpa may be a lecherous old pervert, but he is a highly gifted spiritualist and can read the fire every bit as well as I can. He knew that I was Sailor Mars before I did. He was waiting in my room when I came in after I had transformed for the first time and he told me that he knew what was going on and that he gave me his blessing. How else do you think we got away with using the shrine as an unofficial base for so long? Chad was an accident, one that you were partially responsible for too. Remember when we took that skiing trip back during the whole Dark Kingdom thing and he got frozen in that chunk of ice trying to protect us? We just assumed that he was unconscious, but he came to me later and told me that he saw both of us transform. So I threatened him with a long, painful death by burning his body a little bit at a time if he ever uttered a single syllable about what he saw. And he's been quiet ever since."

"Hmph! Figures!" Serena muttered as she rounded on Mina. "You were laughing too! So I guess now you're going to tell me that your parents are also in on the secret."

Mina shrugged. "Well, yeah! They've known about me since I was Sailor V in London. I had to let them in on things or they would have dragged me with them to who knows where. Seriously! What kind of parents allow their fourteen year old daughter move to Tokyo to live alone with no one but her cat? I had to be truthful with them or I would have never gotten here. They entrusted me to Artemis and threatened him within an inch of his life if something happened to me. Of course, we don't tell them everything that happens."

Serena threw her hands up in the air. "Well that's just great! Are Amy and I the only ones that were left out of the loop on this?"

Darien held up a hesitant hand. "For the record, I didn't know."

"Neither did I," Andrew was quick to add. "And by the way, I'm cool with you telling your mom as long as she swears to not breath a word of it to mine. I'm not quite ready to let that cat out of the bag with her yet. That woman is way beyond scary and a natural redhead. There's no telling what she might do if she finds out about all of this. She's liable to try to bend me over her knee."

Serena giggled at the mental image of the fiery haired Kathleen Furuhata hauling her much taller and heavier son across her lap. If she were the betting sort, she would put her money on Kathleen. That woman seemed capable of wrestling angry bears when she was riled to anger.

"We'll keep it just between us," Serena promised him. "Jess, what's your say in all of this?"

There was no response from the darker blonde woman as she stared fixedly out the glass balcony doors. It wasn't until Serena waved a hand in front of her face that she blinked and muttered, "Huh? What?"

Serena snickered. "Nice of you to finally join us. I was just wanting your opinion really quick, and then you can go back to spacing out."

Normally Jess would have retaliated by rolling her eyes and making a smart-ass comment, but she merely shrugged and mumbled. "It doesn't matter to me. You do what you feel like you need to do. I don't have anyone to hide anything from anyway. Everybody that needs to know about me already knows. I probably would have already confessed to my mom by now if she were still here, but not my dad. He would have gone spastic."

"Kunzite, Jadeite, you guys are the last," Darien said to them. "I'm assuming that you feel the same way since you have both remained quiet through all of this." Both men nodded.

"Then it's settled," Serena stated. "Amy, feel free to tell your mom whenever you like and I will do the same with mine. I guess I wouldn't have bothered calling this meeting together if I had known that there were already others out there that knew about us."

Mina waved a hand loftily. "Don't be silly! This meeting was an excellent idea because now that we're done with the heavy stuff we can get down to the real business of fawning over our newly engaged scout."

Amy blushed bright red. How had she ever thought that she would get through this without attracting a lot of attention to herself? Serena had insisted that she and Zoicite make the announcement of their engagement first thing before they discussed anything else, and predictably the girls had gone crazy. It had taken quite a while to calm everyone down enough to actually start the meeting and she had hoped that was all of her friends' dramatics that she would have to put up with. Obviously she was mistaken

Kunzite sighed. "Mina, isn't that what you spent the entire first hour of this meeting doing?"

Her lips twisted up in a pout. "Oh pooh! You seem to be forgetting that I am the goddess of love. One of my best friends just got engaged. Of course I have to make a big deal out of it. Aphrodite would probably strike me dead if I let this slide. So why don't you and the boys have some guy time while we girls do our thing?"

"Sounds like a plan to me," Jadeite and Nephrite said in unison as they jumped up and hurried to the pool table on the other side of the room."

"Aw, man!" Nephrite grumbled quietly to Jadeite as they were choosing their cue sticks. "First Kunzite falls and now Zoicite too. That's really going to put the pressure on us."

"I know!" Jadeite groaned. "Raye's been giving me these looks and making strange comments ever since Kunzite proposed to Mina, and they've gotten even worse since Jess and Drew moved up their wedding. I know she's just steaming for me to pop the question."

"Well why haven't you?" Nephrite asked. "It's not like you don't already know what's going to happen. Isn't Jayden proof enough of that?"

Jadeite shrugged, thinking about the ruby engagement ring that he'd been holding onto for close to six months now. "I don't know. I guess I'm just waiting for what feels like the perfect time. Why haven't you asked Lita yet?"

Nephrite sighed. "I almost have twice now. I've got the ring and everything. But neither time felt right. I figure it will happen when it's supposed to."

"We really are hopeless, aren't we?" Jadeite chuckled.

"Speak for yourself, loser!" Nephrite quipped back. "Now how about you set this game up so I can kick your ass."

She stood on the steps of a tall crystal building, staring up at a dark, swirling cloud of vapor as an evil, booming laugh that she knew only too well echoed in her ears. In one hand she clutched the Celestial Crystal tightly while she kept the other clamped over her mouth to hold back the screams that were trying to rip their way out of her throat.

All around her was nothing but devastation and death. There were at least a hundred bodies scattered across the ground, but her eyes quickly picked out her loved ones. There were Serena and Darien lying side by side with their hands joined together, never letting go of one another even in death. The other scouts were easy to spot as well. The inner scouts were all at the sides of their generals while Uranus and Neptune lay near Saturn, who was wrapped in Sammy Tsukino's arms. Pluto was there as well, sprawled across the chest of an extremely tall, fair-haired man that she didn't know.

But one person was missing. She rubbed away the tears that were blurring her vision as she looked around desperately for Andrew. Was he still alive, or had he been dealt the same fate that had befallen the others?

The sky suddenly lit up brightly with gold, silver, and red orange as a roar rumbled from the cloud and then vanished. She was forced to cover her eyes for a moment so that the light wouldn't blind her. When it began to fade she opened her eyes to continue searching.

Then, in the fading light, she saw that soft gleam of sandy blonde hair that she had been looking for on the ground about fifty feet away. A sob heaved in her chest as she stumbled toward him.

"Drew," she whispered shakily as she sank down beside him and reached for his shoulder to roll him toward her.

She reeled back in shock. It wasn't the sight of his dirt and blood covered face that caused a shriek to tear its way past her vocal chords, it was the sight of the person that he had been protectively laying over.

She found herself looking at her own face, her cold, dead face.

Jess jerked awake from where she had fallen asleep, slumped over her drawing table. She was barely able to contain the scream that was building in her throat as she fought to bring her breathing under control. The bulb in her lamp was flickering wildly, but once her heart stopped pounding quite so hard it settled down to a steady glow.

She swiped angrily at the tears on her cheeks. It was that damn dream again. The exact same one that had woken her up the night before and had scared her so much. Nightmares were nothing new to her; she had been suffering from them as far back as she could remember. But they had become much more manageable the last couple of years since she had discovered her past life and she now understood that the nightmares were nothing more than a manifestation of her past memories.

But this was different. This wasn't some dream about events that had taken place during the Silver Millennium. In this dream she was grown instead of being a five-year-old girl stumbling around a bloody battle where she had no business being, so she knew that it had to take place in the present.

Or was it the future? She thought back on the building that she had been standing in front of. It had been tall and looked to be made out of shimmering crystal. Serena and the others had told her once about their trip to Crystal Tokyo back several years before and she'd overheard the kids discussing the differences between the city of Tokyo now and how it appears in their time, so she was starting to think that building in her dream just might be the Crystal Palace.

"Now you're just being stupid, Jess!" she scolded herself. "How in the hell could you possibly be dreaming about a time a thousand years in the future? You're just stressed and it's starting to play with your head. That's all there is to it."

Yeah, that was it. So much had been going on the last few months that her brain had finally snapped and gave her that wacky dream. But as she thought back on the dead faces of all her friends and loved ones she felt uneasy. Okay, maybe she was making a big deal out of nothing, but it couldn't hurt to run it by Helios and see what he thought. He would be able to tell her if this was something serious or if she was finally losing what little bit of sanity she had managed to hold onto. And if he laughed at her and told her that she was crazy, that may not make the dream stop, but at least it would help her ignore it.

People who were descended from the Earth's royal bloodline had the ability to teleport to Elysian any time they wished, and Aurora had taught both her and Darien how to do it not long after they had sealed Discord away so that they could come to visit whenever they wanted to. It had been a comfort to her to be able to stay in touch so easily with the woman who had been her second mother her entire life, but it had been a while since she had attempted the trip.

She closed her eyes firmly and focused inside herself on her power. Then she thought hard about her destination and felt a tingling rush of energy flow over her skin a second before her body seemed to become weightless. She felt wind on her face and opened her eyes to find herself by the fountain in the massive rose garden of the Elysian palace. The woman sitting on a nearby stone bench was also a welcome sight.

"Dawn!" she squealed, rushing over to pounce on the youthful looking, white haired woman. Everyone else may call the priestess by her given name of Aurora, but Dawn was the name that she had gone by while living in the outside world and was the only name that Jess had known her by until just two years before. She saw no reason to change that habit now.

Aurora returned the hug with just as much exuberance. "Jessie, sweetie! It's so good to see you! It feels like forever since we last spoke. I know I saw you at your birthday party last weekend, but things get so hectic when everyone is crowded around. How are Andrew and my little ones doing?"

Jess giggled. "Everyone's doing fine, just busy, busy, busy. Now is it just a coincidence that I found you here, or were you waiting for me?"

The priestess shook her head. "Ah! You know me too well. Helios had a feeling that you would be coming, so I thought I would come and meet you."

Jess gulped. That didn't sound good if Helios was expecting her. "So he knew I was coming?"

"He had his suspicions," Aurora replied. "We know that you had a nightmare that was different than the ones that you used to have."

"What do you think it is?" Jess asked hesitantly.

Aurora pursed her lips in thought. "I'm not entirely sure. But this is Helios's realm of expertise far more than mine. Let's go and see what he has to say."

They walked arm in arm down the path to the palace where Helios awaited them at the top of the steps. He hugged Jess tightly before leading her inside where a tray of tea and snacks waited for them in one of the sitting rooms.

When they were all situated he turned his amber gaze on the reincarnated princess. "So your dreams have suddenly turned very active again it seems."

Jess nodded. "Yes. But this is different from what I've had before. You may think I'm crazy for saying this, but I think I'm dreaming about the future."

Helios seemed to mull this over for a moment as he took a sip of tea. Finally he spoke. "It isn't crazy for you to believe that at all. Dreams are very powerful and mysterious things. You have been taught all of your life how to make your mental defenses strong to protect your thoughts from invasion, but when you are asleep those defenses drop and your mind becomes an open book, making it easy for thoughts or visions to be channeled in."

"But why would I be seeing something that takes place in Crystal Tokyo?" she asked. "That's a thousand years away. Not only that, visions and things of that nature are Raye's forte, not mine. If anyone should be seeing future events it should be her and not me. I don't have a clue what to make out of it."

"That's because you are looking at it from a literal point of view," Helios told her. "You're focusing too much on what you actually saw instead of looking at the dream as a whole. In the dream you saw your friends and loved ones dead, correct?"

She shuddered. "Yes. They were all dead, and I was the only one left alive."

The priest arched a brow at her. "Were you? I was under the impression that you saw yourself dead as well."

She shrugged. "Yeah, but it was weird. I didn't feel like I was just a third party spectator. I actually felt like I was looking at a different person who just happened looked like me. It was like there were two of me there."

He nodded. "Yes. Now also think about this. If this was indeed a dream about the future, where were the children? What were they doing?"

This stumped her for a second and she carefully began going back through the dream and analyzing it. She remembered the dark cloud that was Discord up in the sky and the bright flashes of light. "They were in a different area fighting Discord, I think. Are you saying that I was dreaming about the final battle with that monster?"

He sat his cup down carefully. "I'm bound by laws that prevent me from revealing too much to you, but I think it's safe to say that you might have seen one of the possible outcomes of the future."

Jess was starting to feel irritated. "So you're saying that there is the possibility that the kids will beat Discord, but the rest of us will die? That sucks!"

Helios held up a placating hand. "I just said that it was possible. You've heard Sailor Pluto speak before about alternate timelines, haven't you? There are always one or two that sprout off from the main timeline. Something as tiny as one little decision can cause time to veer off the main course and head down one of these alternate paths. Let's take the Silver Millennium for example. If you had chosen to remain here that last day instead of going to the moon, time would have spiraled down another course. Queen Serenity and your parents would have survived, but both kingdoms would have been shattered. The Silver Alliance would have crumbled, leaving each of the planets on their own. Endymion would have become king, but in the end rebellion and civil war would have torn the planet apart and claimed his life. Queen Serenity eventually succumbed to death after years of expending her crystal's powers to try and keep her kingdom going, leaving you and your mother behind, brokenhearted, to try and carry on. On the night of your sixteenth birthday, you married Motoki, but during the reception the moon was attacked. Talon, goaded by Discord, had released the seal on Metallia and she resurrected Beryl. They combined forces and massacred everyone on the moon. Beryl ended up with the Silver Crystal while Talon got the Celestial Crystal, and universal war broke out as they fought for power. None of you were reincarnated, and most of the universe fell into darkness."

Jess sighed. "So you're saying that my impulsive idea to sneak to the moon that day is what has led us to this point in time."

He nodded. "Yes. Every thought, every action directs the way that time will flow. Something as simple as picking up a rock and throwing it could have more of an impact than you could ever think. So I believe that your dream is trying to tell you that you will have to make a choice at some point. And what you decide will determine whether the future that you saw in your dream will come to pass, or if time will choose another path."

"Great!" Jess grumbled. "No pressure there."

Zoicite reached up and pulled Amy's hand away from her mouth. "Amy, love, you've almost chewed that fingernail past the quick."

She clenched both hands in her skirt to resist the temptation to continue her nervous habit. "I'm sorry. I'm just so nervous. I mean, I know she probably already knows, but telling her face-to-face is a little overwhelming. And she'll probably flip when I show her this." She unfisted her left hand to look at the aquamarine ring on her third finger.

Zoicite captured the hand in his and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "Everything is going to be fine. I'm right here with you."

The elevator dinged and the doors slid open as they stepped out into the hall and walked the short distance to the door of Dr. Mizuno's penthouse. Amy took a deep breath and knocked quickly before she lost her nerve.

Just a few seconds later they heard the tap of footsteps, and then the door swung open to reveal her smiling mother. "Come in, you two. I was just making tea. Would you care for a cup?"

"Yes, please," Zoicite answered graciously while Amy merely nodded.

Dr. Mizuno waved them toward the living room. "You go ahead and sit down and I'll be there in a moment."

They went into the living room, but instead of sitting, Amy wandered around the room that she had known her whole life. Not much had changed since she had moved out almost two years before. There was a new picture on the wall and a few new knick-knacks on the shelves, but other than that everything was exactly the same as it had always been. The familiarity helped steady her nerves.

A picture on the mantle above the fireplace caught her eye and she turned to look at it. In it she was about six years old and both her mother and father stood behind her. It had been taken on one of their trips up to her father's cabin in the mountains, where he now lived permanently. That had been before the fighting had gotten so bad between her parents that they decided to divorce.

"I always did like that picture," Zoicite spoke up quietly behind her. "You look so cute and innocent in it." Then he whispered in her ear. "And with your hair longer like that I can really see the resemblance between you and Hannah."

She looked over her shoulder and smiled at him. "She has your eyes though. I don't think anyone could deny that."

"Okay, here we go!" Dr. Mizuno announced as she bustled into the room with a tray. Zoicite hurried to take it from her and deliver it safely to the coffee table.

"Thank you, Zoicite. You're such a dear," she beamed a smile. "Now why don't we all sit down and have a nice little chat. I have a feeling that the two of you had a reason for calling up and wanting to see me."

Amy sat down across from her mother and accepted the cup of tea offered to her, careful to keep her left hand hidden. She wanted to save the news of her engagement until after she got the serious stuff out of the way. "Yes, mama. I did have a couple of things that I wanted to talk to you about."

Dr. Mizuno smiled mischievously. "Ooo, this must be serious if you're calling me mama. You stopped calling me that about the time that you turned twelve, except for that one time when you had the flu when you were fifteen. But you were half delirious then, so I don't know if that counts. Anyway, how are you doing after yesterday, sweetheart?"

Amy shuddered at the memory of seeing the heart attack victim die right in front of her eyes, but she kept her composure. "I'm dealing with it. I know that it's just one of the unpleasant side effects of the medical profession and that I'll have to learn to cope with it if I want to continue on the path that I have set for myself. It's not easy, but I'm making it."

Her mother took a sip of tea. "That good, dear. It's also wonderful that you have a strong supporter by your side." She winked at Zoicite. "I remember my first experience with seeing death quite well, and it was horrifying. I was lucky though. I had your father to run to for comfort."

"Dad?" Amy murmured in shock.

Dr. Mizuno laughed. "Of course! I was madly in love with the man or I would have never married him. And although we had our problems later down the road, I can always say that he was my rock. I ran two miles from the hospital in the pouring rain to get to his apartment. And then when I got there he wasn't home. I collapsed in hysterics right there in front of his door. It felt like hours passed, but it was only a few minutes later when he showed up. He'd been at the park drawing until the rain chased him away, and he was just as dripping wet as I was. He took one look at me and picked me up off the floor and carried me inside. I'll spare you all the mushy details that I'm sure you would rather not hear about your parents, but I really felt like he saved my sanity that day."

"Whoa," Amy sighed. "And I used to think that the most romantic thing dad ever did was cook dinner and rub your feet when you got home from work."

"Lack of romance was never our problem," Dr. Mizuno said with a sad smile. "I think it was more that we just grew apart. We had different interest and ideas about what we wanted in our lives. While I was just a student and doing my internship, I found it easy to escape into his fantasy world. But later when I began my residency and then had you, my priorities changed. I became more serious while he still had his head in the clouds. Not that he was ever a bad husband or father, he was wonderful at both, but we both felt the gap that had opened up and the tension that was building between us. And when the fighting started we both decided that it was best to part ways. We didn't make that decision lightly and we hated the idea of doing that to you, but we figured that in the long run that it would be better for you if you didn't grow up watching us fight all the time. And that was also why I always told you to find someone that you had some things in common with."

"No problems there," Amy said with a smile as she reached for Zoicite's hand and squeezed it. "We have so much in common that sometimes it's hard to tell where he ends and I begin. Most of the time I don't even have to finish my sentences because he already knows what I'm going to say. But we do have just enough differences to balance us out. I'm just glad that he has the guys to fill his need for sports and action movies."

"And you have the girls to go shopping with and cry over romantic movies with," her mother laughed. "You girls used to keep me in stitches with the way that you would carry on. I think the five of you went through a whole box of tissue each the night that you were here and watched Titanic for the first time."

"It was a sad movie!" Amy protested.

The doctor waved a hand. "Yes it was. But I don't think you came here to debate which movies are sad and which aren't or to talk about your father's and my relationship. Did you?"

Amy sucked in a breath. It was crunch time. "No ma'am. There was something else that I wanted to discuss with you." Then her throat closed up, choking off her words.

'Do you want me to tell her?' Zoicite's voice whispered in her head.

She jumped at the sound. They had been working on developing the telepathic link between them, but that was the clearest that she had ever heard him. 'No. I'll do it,' she sent back to him.

He nodded slightly to let her know that he'd heard her.

She took a deep breath and tried to force the words out. "Mama, I…I…"

"Just spit it out already, Sailor Mercury!" Dr. Mizuno said with a laugh.

Amy's eyes went so wide that they almost swallowed up her entire face. "So you did already know!" she finally gasped.

Her mother curled her legs under her and settled back in her chair. "Of course I did. I've suspected it for a long time actually. I know that my schedule was hectic during your teen years and that I wasn't around as much as I would have liked to have been, but I am your mother and I still took notice of what was going on in your life. Sailor Moon was just beginning to make a name for herself in the news when you became friends with Serena. Then suddenly Sailor Mercury showed up. And it seemed that every time you girls added a new member to your group, a new sailor scout would appear. I wasn't convinced at first, but I kept watching. The five of you were always together and seemed to disappear any time there was trouble. Then there were the times that I would find your bed empty in the middle of the night. I knew you weren't the type to sneak out for no reason and the fact that the chain would still be on the door told me that you had to have left by the window, which would kill a normal person since we are thirty stories up. The next day there would be a report of a monster attack that the sailor scouts had taken care of the night before, so I knew that it couldn't be a coincidence. But what finally convinced me was when I heard you tossing and turning in your sleep one night and I went to check on you. Your room was as frigid as a winter night and there was this mist in the air. Even your window was iced over. You were laying on the bed with a layer of frost on your skin and a symbol shining on your forehead. I looked it up on the internet and discovered that it was the symbol of Mercury. That was when I knew for sure."

"Why didn't you ever say anything?" Amy asked in surprise.

Dr. Mizuno shrugged. "I had my share of time of superhero fandom when I was growing up, so I knew the importance of keeping secret identities secret. I hated the idea of you risking your life like that, but I also knew that you had been given your gifts for a reason. So I watched from a distance and prayed for all of your safety. I knew that one day you would tell me when you thought the time was right."

"There's more to it than that," Amy said softly. "Now that you know, I want you to know the whole story."

So she told her mother the tale of the moon kingdom and of Princess Serenity and Prince Endymion, with help from Zoicite. They also explained their involvement and how they had served the prince and princess. Amy glossed over the events that brought about the end of the moon kingdom, she figured that her mother didn't need to know that a brainwashed Zoicite had killed her past incarnation or the fact that he wasn't a reincarnation the way she was, but was really the same man that had lived a thousand years before. There were still some things that they needed to keep to themselves, like the fact that their future daughter was currently living with them. They didn't want to give the poor woman a stroke after all.

Her mother sat in thoughtful silence for a long minute after they finished talking. Finally she sighed. "Well, that is a lot to take in. A lot of people would write it off as being ludicrous, but I believe you. I have witnessed some miraculous things in my life and have learned how to keep an open mind. There are some religions that preach of reincarnation, so who am I to say that it isn't true. But reincarnation or not, you are my daughter and I love you with all my heart."

"Oh, mom!" Amy cried as she jumped up from her seat to run over and hug her mother. "I love you too!"

Dr. Mizuno hugged her back tightly for a moment before pushing her back gently. "Hold on just a minute! Is there something else that you were going to tell me?" She reached for Amy's left hand and looked at the aquamarine ring in curiosity.

Zoicite stood up, grinning proudly. "Yes ma'am! I have asked your daughter to grant me the honor of becoming my wife, and she accepted."

His future mother in law squealed as she practically shot from her chair to throw her arms around both of them. "I can't believe it! My baby girl is getting married!" She stepped back to smush their faces close together. "Oh! You two make such a cute couple!"

Then as quickly as she had grabbed them, she let them go to run to her purse sitting on an end table and dug through it until she pulled out her cell phone.

Amy shook her head in bemusement. "Mom, what are you doing?"

Dr. Mizuno pressed a button and held the phone to her ear. "What do you think I'm doing? I'm calling your father to tell him the wonderful news!"

"You're calling dad?" Amy gasped.

Her mother rolled her eyes. "Of course. I was married to the man for fourteen years and he is your father. You know that he and I have stayed on speaking terms. I always call and tell him about the important events in your life. And this is the biggest one yet!" She paused for a moment before gushing into the phone, "Guess what! Our little girl is getting married!"

Amy moaned and dropped onto the couch. "Great! Now I know how Serena feels having to deal with her mother. She's going to blow this completely out of proportion."

Zoicite chuckled and sat down next to her to drape an arm over her shoulders. "Of course she is. You are her only child and this is a big deal for her. But if it gets to be too much I have a simple solution."

"Oh yeah! What's that?" she asked wryly.

He shrugged. "We'll just elope."

"Oh no you won't!" Dr. Mizuno said harshly, having overheard him. "There will be no eloping in this family! I will see you two married properly even if it kills me! Is that understood?"

"Ye…yes ma'am," Zoicite stammered meekly. Then he whispered to Amy, "I never knew your mom could be so scary."

Amy leaned against his side and sighed. "You have no idea. You may as well strap yourself in. This could be a rollercoaster of a ride."

"So," Ilene Tsukino said as she cut the three sandwiches that she had made and turned to set one each in front of Serena and Darien, who were sitting at the breakfast bar in her kitchen. "I can't say that I'm surprised that the two of you decided to stop by today. I was kind of expecting it after the talk that Serena and I had yesterday."

For one of the few times in her life, Serena ignored the food in front of her. "Mom, I've been thinking, and you are right. Everybody has their share of secrets, and some more than others. After listening to you yesterday I figured out that I'm already pretty sure that you know some of mine. So I decided that it was best to just go ahead and tell you all of it. I've kept it from you for long enough."

Ilene held up a hand. "Hold that thought for just a little bit, sweetheart. I have a story that I want to tell you first. You just eat your sandwich and listen to me for now."

She waited until Serena had picked up the sandwich and had taken a bite before she started. "Now I know I have told you before about how your father and I met and eventually married, at least I told you the condensed version. I won't destroy your appetite or corrupt your brain by going into all of the disgustingly romantic details of our courtship."

"Thank heaven for small favors," Serena muttered with a shudder.

Ilene tapped her lightly on top of the head. "Be quiet and pay attention. Now about a year and a half after we were married I started feeling sick. Convinced that I was pregnant, I ran to the nearest drug store to buy a test. I was so excited while I was waiting for the results because I loved being a wife, and now I wanted to be a mother as well. Imagine my disappointment when the test came back negative. So I figured that I just must have picked up a virus or something that had thrown my system out of whack and moved on. A few days later I was still feeling sick, so your father forced me to go to the doctor to get checked out. I guess I must have done something wrong when I did that test, because my doctor informed me that I was most definitely pregnant."

Serena smirked. "And how did dad take that little bit of news?"

Ilene smiled. "Well, once we picked him up off the floor where he passed out he was ecstatic. You would have thought that he was the only man to ever find out that he was becoming a father with the way he was acting. The months passed by fairly smoothly. We decided that we wanted to be surprised, so we didn't find out if we were having a boy or a girl. So finally the big day came, and I suddenly found myself the mother of what I was certain had to be the loudest baby girl ever born. I still find it amazing that the windows didn't shatter."

Darien began laughing and Serena elbowed him. "Don't you start!" she hissed.

Darien ignored her and asked Ilene, "So she was loud even back then?"

She nodded vigorously. "Was she ever! But luckily she was a good baby that rarely ever cried unless something was wrong. Now let me get back on the subject. Well Ken was just as pleased as punch that he had a daughter. We hadn't really discussed names all that much, thinking that the right name would present itself when we finally had our baby in our arms, but it didn't. In fact, we got into a pretty heated fight that night and I finally sent him home to go to sleep thinking that we were both tired and we would be able to think better in the morning. But that night I had a visitor."

Serena sucked in a breath as a strange feeling swept over her. She had a feeling that she knew what was coming next. She remembered once when she was back in middle school when she had taken an astrological quiz online that told her exactly how the stars and the planets were aligned at the time of her birth. It had also told her that she had been born at the time of the new moon, when moon magic was at its most powerful.

"Queen Serenity came to see you," she whispered shakily and felt Darien grip her hand tightly.

Ilene smiled. "You caught that quickly. I had fallen asleep with you beside me, and when I woke up I thought I was dreaming. There was a woman with long silver hair standing next to the bed with her hand on your face. I panicked for just a moment because I'd heard horror stories of babies being kidnapped from hospitals, never to be seen again. But then she spoke to me and all of my anxiety disappeared."

"What did she say?" Serena barely breathed.

Ilene spoke softly. "She said, 'I had to come and see this little angel for myself. Once she was mine, but now she belongs to you. I know you will love my little Serenity just as much, if not more than I do. You are her true mother and I am confident that she will have a long and happy life with you. She is a special little girl. One day, she will change the world.' Then she leaned over and kissed your forehead and a golden crescent moon began glowing there. After that she just vanished. I wasn't sure if it was real or a dream, but the next morning I woke up with the name Serenity bouncing around in my head. I thought it sounded a little formal though, so I shortened it to Serena. When your father came in carrying a giant stuffed bunny I asked him what he thought of the name, and he agreed that it was perfect. We got your middle name, Usagi, from that bunny because you seemed entranced by it when you saw it. You were unusually alert for a newborn."

Serena looked highly confused. "So you've always known that I was a reincarnation?"

Her mother giggled. "I don't know if I would put it that way exactly, but I always knew that you were something special. It was almost like you had some magical gift that always made people feel better just by being around you. I remember seeing your father come trudging through the door many nights after a long hard day, looking like he was ready to kill someone. Then he would take one look at you and all of his stress and strain would just seem to melt away. Sometimes I wish you were still around to calm him down when he's coming up on deadline time. He gets himself so worked up."

"So what else do you know?" Serena asked curiously.

Ilene paused to take a sip of her lemonade before continuing. "I probably know a lot more than you think. I know that you are Sailor Moon and that you and your friends have been running around in short skirts and fighting monsters since you were fourteen. I almost died the first time I found your bed empty, then Queen Serenity appeared to me for a second time and reminded me that she had told me when you were born that you would change the world. Then she told me everything."

Serena gulped. "Everything?"

"Yes, everything," Ilene confirmed. "I know that you were once the princess of the moon and that Darien was the prince of earth that you were in love with. You and all of your friends died when there was an attack on the moon and Queen Serenity used her powers to send all of you here to be reincarnated. There was more detail to the story, but that's it in a nutshell."

"Wow!" Serena mused. "Here I was stressing about how to tell you all of this, and I find out that you already know. How freaky is that? So you don't feel like I'm less of a daughter because I had another life before this one?"

Ilene's blue eyes flared angrily and she placed her hands on her hips. "Serena Usagi Tsukino! I can't believe those words would even come out of your mouth! Just because you happen to be an old soul in a young body doesn't change anything! I carried you for nine months, put up with you using my stomach for kicking practice, and went through thirty-two hours of labor to bring you into this world, young lady! I sat by your side through the chickenpox and every cold you had, so I know exactly whose daughter you are, and you are mine!"

Darien chuckled and said, "See! I told you so! I knew your mom wouldn't ever turn her back on you."

Tears welled up in Serena's eyes and spilled over. "Oh mom!" she cried and hurried around the bar to engulf her mother in a giant hug. "I love you!"

Ilene returned the embrace, tears of her own shining in her eyes for a long moment before stepping back and dabbing at the corners of her eyes with her apron. "Okay! That's enough hysterics. Go finish your sandwich. I still have a few questions that I'm a little unclear on."

Serena returned to her seat and began munching away with her normal, insatiable appetite. "Fire away! Now that the hard stuff is out of the way I feel like I'm on top of the world!"

Ilene smiled mysteriously. "I want you to explain Rini to me. I have my suspicions, but I want to hear it from your lips. I am an only child and your father only has one brother that has two sons. So I want to know exactly where my niece that seems to pop in and out of our lives sporadically comes from."

Serena's appetite fled again as she laughed nervously. "Well, you see, that's kind of a funny story actually."

An old lady was walking with her terrier down the street a few minutes later when she heard a scream come from the white, two-story house she was walking by.

"You mean I have a granddaughter!"

The old lady shook her head. She just didn't understand some people and their need for theatrics.

Andrew looked up and smiled as he heard the sound of laughter float in through the French doors that led out onto the back deck of his parent's house. Jess had been a little quiet and withdrawn all afternoon, but now she seemed to be just as cheerful and carefree as she always was as she sat near the grill where his father was busy flipping steaks. Of course the fact that his father was playing bartender and had mixed her up two stout rumrunners since they had gotten there may have loosened her up some. He knew he was feeling pretty relaxed himself after a couple of drinks.

"Yikes, Drew! I said to slice the tomatoes, not dice them!" his mother exclaimed as she looked up from tossing the salad she was making.

He grinned sheepishly. "Sorry, mom."

She took the cutting board from him and added the tomatoes to the salad. "You men are all the same. You get sidetracked by a beautiful woman and all of your brains fly right out the window."

Andrew sighed. "I can't help it. I take one look at her and it's like the whole world stands still."

Kathleen giggled and picked up her wine glass to take a sip. "Who would have ever thought that my level headed baby would be turned into such a romantic? I worried about you for a while after the whole Rita fiasco, but then Jess came along and brought you back to life. I'm truly indebted to her."

"No more than I am. I hate to think what my life would be like right now if it wasn't for her," Andrew said reverently.

"That's the way love is supposed to be," Kathleen said sagely. "Sometimes it hits you right away, and sometimes it builds over time. Take your father and I for example. When I first saw him I never imagined that he would be the man that I would spend the rest of my life with. I had just moved here with my parents and was a junior in high school. I wasn't happy about the move because I had to leave all of my friends behind. Your father was a year ahead of me in school and was a star running back on the football team, so I thought he was just an ignorant jock. Then I made friends with a couple of girls in my class and we started going into the arcade after school. Your grandparents owned it then and your father worked there after school and on weekends. One day we started to talk and the next thing I knew I was in love with him. We dated for a while and then he proposed. The rest is history."

Andrew chuckled. "Yeah, I know. Then you got married and had me and Liz, and then your whole world came crashing down."

Kathleen smacked his hand with a spoon as reached for a piece of the bacon that she had cooked that was waiting to be crumbled into the salad. "My world did not come crashing down," she insisted. "You and your sister have been the joy of our lives. Although I wish that Lizzy would settle down and meet someone decent for a change. I swear that girl must have bum magnet tattooed across her forehead."

"She'll find someone, mom," Andrew said. "I believe that there is the perfect someone out there for everyone. She just hasn't found him yet."

Kathleen sighed. "It's a shame that all of your friends are taken. I think that there would be at least one of them that could bring her down to earth."

Andrew winced as he thought about Darien and the generals. They were all definitely and undeniably taken. "She'll find someone eventually, mom. She's still young and has plenty of time."

"I'm sure she will," Kathleen grumbled. "I just worry about how many bad apples she's going to have to go through before she finds that right one. But enough talk about your sister. I was under the impression that you and Jess had something that you wanted to tell us tonight. It's not like you to just call out of the blue and ask if we can get together like this."

Andrew rolled his eyes. "Stop fishing for information, mom. Yes, Jess and I have something to say, but we're going to wait until we're all settled down before we say anything."

Kathleen's glass clinked sharply as she put it down before she could drop it. "Ooo, you have my curiosity piqued, now you have to tell me. Is she pregnant? Are you finally going to give me a grandchild?"

"Mooomm!" Andrew groaned. "Get real! If Jess was pregnant do you think she would have drank those drinks dad gave her?"

His mother's face fell. "Oh! I guess you're right. Sorry, my imagination ran away with me there for a minute. At least tell me if it's good news or not."

Andrew beamed. "It's great news. So don't worry about it."

Andrew Sr. bustled in the back door carrying a large platter. "Kathy, my love, the steaks are done! Is everything else ready?"

"Everything else has been ready. Drew and I were just waiting on you. You didn't overcook the steaks because you were too busy flirting with your future daughter in law, did you?" Kathleen huffed playfully.

He set the platter on the counter before he snagged her around the waist. "I have to flirt with the girl some to make sure she stays in the family. If I left everything up to Drew she'd probably be on the first plane back to the United States and leave us forever."

Jess giggled as she came in the door. She walked over and put her arms around both of Andrew's parents. "Don't worry about that. Just knowing that I'll have you two as in laws makes marrying your son worth it. I'm not going anywhere."

Andrew pretended to pout. "So you're just marrying me for my parents, huh?"

She stuck her tongue out at him. "Aw, don't be so sensitive! You know I love you too. I just think of it as I'm getting a package deal."

Amid much laughing and good-natured grumbling, they managed to get the food onto the table. Once they were all seated, Andrew spoke up.

"Mom, Dad," he began. "I think it's fairly safe to say that you approve of making Jess a permanent member of this family. Well how would you feel about her becoming your daughter a little earlier than planned?"

His father appeared a little confused. "What are you saying, son?"

Kathleen's hazel eyes kept growing wider and wider by the second. "You two did not run off and elope, did you?"

"No, no!" Andrew hastily reassured her. "It's just that, for sentimental reasons, Jess and I have decided to go ahead with the wedding in July instead of waiting until November."

Kathleen opened and closed her mouth soundlessly several times and Andy roared with laughter. "I think for once you've managed to strike your mother speechless."

She slapped at his shoulder. "I'm not speechless, I'm panicked! That is only three months away. I don't know if we'll be able to pull it off in that short amount of time. Ilene and Serena have been working on her wedding for months, and they only just recently got the details finalized. Oh, this is going to be pushing it."

Andrew chuckled. "There's nothing to panic about. It's pretty much all arranged. All you have to do is show up at the Hikawa Shrine on July 15th. It's going to be a very simple ceremony, nothing fancy. You can come in your blue jeans if you want to and we won't care."

His mother rolled her eyes. "Like I would show up to my one and only son's wedding in jeans! You must have lost your mind! So the time and location are set, but there are still other things to consider. What about the bride's dress?"

"Taken care of," Jess replied. "I've been holding on to my mom's wedding dress for years. All it may need is just a few alterations. But it's a very simple dress. And I'm not worried about bridesmaid dresses or anything because I'm only going to have Serena standing up with me as my maid of honor, so she can wear whatever she wants. And Darien's going to be the best man, so he and Drew can wear t-shirts and it won't matter to me."

Kathleen tore a roll in half and spread butter on it. "Okay, so you're going for very casual. I get that. But what about the reception?"

Jess's startled eyes flew up to meet Andrew's. She had only been focusing on the wedding itself. The thought of a reception had never even crossed her mind. "I don't know. I guess I could ask Lita to make a cake or something. It doesn't have to be a big deal."

Kathleen's smile turned almost maniacal. This was something she could do. "Let me give you two a reception, please! It's fine if you want a simple wedding, but you should have a reception to celebrate with your family and friends. I won't go over the top or do anything fancy, I swear. But, please let me do this for you!"

"You know you're going to have to give in to her on this. She's never going to let it go," Andy chuckled.

Andrew looked to Jess, who nodded and smiled. "Okay, mom. You can do the reception, but nothing big! Maybe just a few snacks and a cake, that's all."

She waved a dismissive hand. "Of course! But what a cake it will be! I'm going to make a cake that will blow even Chef Lita's mind. And I think we'll have the reception here. It will be summer, so hopefully the weather will be nice and we can open the house up to the yard to give everyone room to move. Oh, I need a pen and paper so I can start making a list."

Andrew leaned over to whisper to Jess, "I hope we don't end up regretting this. I warned you that she could be scary."

Jess giggled. "Oh, let her have a little fun. Like she pointed out, you are her only son. I feel like we need to let her do something since I single handedly yanked the wedding out from under her. Well, all except for one little detail anyway."

"What's that?" Andrew asked, arching a brow.

Jess looked at the man across the table from her. "Poppa Andy?"

The older man laughed and shook his head. "My girl, you are about to marry my son. When are you going to give up that Poppa Andy nonsense and just call me dad?"

She grinned impishly. "Okay, d…dad," she retorted, stumbling a little over the word that had become almost foreign to her since she had lost her parents almost four years before.

Kathleen stopped talking to herself long enough to add, "And you must call me mom. The official words may not have been said yet, but you are as much of a Furuhata as the rest of us. In fact, for this wedding we will be acting as parents of the bride and groom since your parents, god bless them, can't be here in person."

Tears stung Jess's eyes. "That's kind of what I wanted to ask about. I know this is a little unconventional, but then again I've never been known as a conventional person. I was wondering if you would walk me down the aisle, dad, since my dad can't."

Big Poppa Andy Furuhata was not usually an emotional person, but his brown eyes appeared a little misty as he looked proudly at his soon to be daughter. "I would be honored to."

Kathleen waved a napkin in front of her face. "Oh, dear! I think I'm going to cry!"

Andy snapped back to his usual self. "Don't you dare flood the table with your tears, woman, and ruin this food! Speaking of this dinner, it's not going to eat itself. So let's dig in before it gets any colder. I didn't stand in front of that grill for nothing!"

Andrew squeezed Jess's hand under the table and whispered. "Sometimes I swear you are a witch. Is there no one you can't charm?"

She grinned. "Maybe I'll weave a magic spell on you later after we get home."

He returned her grin with his own. "Does that mean you plan on staying in our bed tonight."

She nodded. "I'm not going to be afraid of my dreams. I know that they can't hurt me. In fact, I think they're trying to help me."

"Help you what?" he asked softly.

"I'm not sure yet," she whispered. "I guess I'll figure it out when the time comes."

Elysian

There was a soft flash of gold light as Serena and Darien appeared in the rose garden. It was nighttime in the dream world, and a bright full moon made everything seem to sparkle.

Serena spun around in a circle. "Oh, it feels like it's been so long since the last time I was here! I've missed it."

"Yeah, me too," Darien chuckled. "I'd forgotten how calming this place was. Maybe we should start coming here more often. It would probably do wonders for our stress levels."

A light, tenor laugh came from behind them as Helios stepped into view. "Believe me, your future selves feel the same way. The king and queen often visit the Elysian of the future to take a breather when they need one. The difference in time flow comes in quite handy. They can pop in and take an hour to enjoy the peace and quiet, and then get back home before anyone even realizes that they're gone. They both say that it's cheaper and easier than going to therapy."

They both laughed at this little tidbit of information about their future selves.

"So, old friend, what are you doing slinking around out here? Were you waiting on us?" Darien asked.

Helios shrugged. "I sensed that you were coming. I also know why you are here. So before you ask, yes, I know about the young princess's dream. But I'm afraid that I can't tell you anything about it. She came to me earlier to talk about it and then asked me to keep my silence. So I am going to respect her wishes."

"I just want your reassurance that she's not in any danger," Serena told him. "She seemed so distant and snappy earlier, like she was about to explode at any moment. If there is something I can do to help her, you would tell me, wouldn't you?"

The priest bowed his head. "Of course I would. But I think she will be okay. We had a nice long discussion and she was much calmer when she left. I believe that you both have been in situations similar to hers before, when your dreams are trying to tell you something and you have to figure out exactly what that is. She was confused before, but now that I have steered her onto the correct path she is thinking clearly. Her powers are stable, so I don't think we have any fears of her inadvertently causing any disasters. She has actually learned a lot of control the last couple of years."

"Well that makes me feel some better," Serena sighed.

There was a flash of pink light as Rini appeared. She looked around for a moment to get her bearings before glaring at Helios and planting her hands on her hips. "There you are! I have been waiting for you! Or did you forget that we have a date tonight?"

Helios flinched under her hot maroon glare. "No, I didn't forget. I just had a little bit of business that I needed to take care of first. I do have a job to do after all."

The pink haired girl stomped up to him, pigtails quivering in anger. "That's fine! But would it have killed you to drop me a quick line to let me know you were going to be late? You know a quick 'Hi, honey! I'm running behind. I'll be there as soon as I can,' would have been fine with me. But instead I get nothing."

"I'm sorry," he said softly. "I guess time just got away from me."

Rini's face flamed red. "Then wear a watch!"

Two bright spots of color burned on Helios's pale cheeks, showing that he was on the verge of losing his temper as well. "I said that I was sorry. What more do you want? Are you going to let this ruin the rest of the night?"

Sensing that a full blown Rini-fit was about to occur, Serena jumped forward and slapped a hand over her future daughter's mouth as it popped open to deliver what was sure to be a scathing string of words.

"Don't you dare try to bite me, you little hellcat!" Serena squealed as Rini glared at her and attempted to sink her teeth into her palm. "You need to take some deep breaths and calm down for a minute before you end up saying something that you'll regret later. Darien and I are the ones that held Helios up. So if you're going to be mad at anyone, be mad at us."

Rini sucked in several breaths through her nose and the anger faded from her eyes. When she seemed calm, Serena finally released her mouth.

"Sorry," Rini muttered, looking sheepishly at Helios. "I didn't mean to go off the deep end. Can we please go to dinner now? I'm starving!"

"Like mother, like daughter," Darien whispered under his breath.

Serena elbowed him in the ribs. "Nobody asked for your opinion!" she hissed before speaking to Rini and Helios. "Now you two go and have fun, okay."

Helios grabbed Rini's hand and they disappeared in a flash of white light.

Darien chuckled and wrapped his arms around Serena's waist from behind. "You handled that like a pro. I guess that's the good thing about having our kids around now, when we have them in the future and they become teenagers we'll already know how to handle them."

Serena rolled her eyes. "Oh yes, you handle them so well. Every time something comes up with one of them you disappear into your office, claiming that you have some work that has to be taken care of right then, leaving me to deal with whatever the current crisis is. I'm sure not much will change in the future."

He gave her that familiar, lopsided grin. "Hey! I always thought that dads were supposed to be the disciplinarians and moms were the ones that kids run to with all their problems. Isn't that like a prerequisite for being a mom, that you suddenly know everything?"

"Oh, yes!" she drawled sarcastically. "Becoming a mother automatically turns every woman into the world's most knowledgeable person. I can't believe you even made such a sexist comment. Being a mother is hard work, believe me, I know. Been there, done that, got the memories to prove it. Besides, there's one little thing that you've forgotten, Dr. Genius."

He nuzzled her neck. "And what would that be?"

She giggled and twirled out of his grasp. "Technically, I'm not anyone's mother yet. I'm just pretending like I'm their mom."

He took a step toward her. "But you do it so well. Anyway, it will be a reality someday. I can already picture it." He put his hands on her stomach.

She snorted. "Yeah, I can too! I'll be fat. I won't be able to see my feet. My back will hurt and I'll have to go to the bathroom all the time. And don't get me started on having to listen to you grouch when I wake you up at three in the morning because I have a craving for ice cream."

Darien shook his head. "Nah! You'll be beautiful as always, round belly and all. Now, what would you like to do with the rest of our night?"

"Hmm," she mused. "I'm not ready to go back to the outside world yet. It's so peaceful here. Why don't we go sit under our tree for a while and just enjoy the moment? It's been a crazy day."

"Yes it has," he agreed as he took her hand and began walking. "But at least everything turned out okay. I do have to say that your mom blew my mind with her story."

Serena nodded emphatically. "Tell me about it! There I was worried about her getting mad because I've been keeping secrets from her for so long, and I find out that not only has she known my secrets all along, but she's been keeping some really big ones herself."

"You got her back though when you dropped the bomb on her about Rini and DJ," Darien said with a smirk.

She grinned impishly. "Yeah, I did. At least I still had a few secrets to pull out on her."

"At least she agreed that it was best to not tell your dad right now," he sighed. "It would be my luck that he would either try to kill me or he'd have a heart attack and end up in my ER."

"No, telling daddy would not be a good idea at the moment," she agreed. "He's not as accepting of unusual things as mom is. He swore the sailor scouts were just a figment of people's imagination until he actually saw us at the D-Land ball, and even then he thought it was some kind of a publicity stunt until we saved him and Sammy from that monster at the virtual reality game that time. He's a very grounded person and doesn't like to believe in anything that could be considered magic or supernatural. I guess he'll be in for a rude awakening someday when he discovers that my world isn't exactly normal."

"We'll deal with it when the time comes," Darien replied as they reached the top of the hill and sat down under the tree where they had spent so many hours as Serenity and Endymion.

"I guess so," she mumbled as she burrowed up to his side and laid her head on his shoulder. "Have I told you today how much I love you?"

He chuckled. "Only once or twice, and that's nowhere near enough."

"I love you," she whispered, and then turned her head to nip at his neck lightly with her teeth.

"You little vampire!" he growled as he whipped around and pushed her down so that she was laying on her back on the grass as he loomed over her. He pinned her arms above her head. "How about a taste of your own medicine?" He ducked his head to attack her slender neck, alternating between nibbling and sucking.

"You won't hear any complaints out of me," she choked out between gasps. "Darien, do you love me?"

He raised his head to look down at her. "Of course I do. You know I love you more than anything else in the world."

She smiled contentedly. "Will you love me forever?"

He shook his head, his eyes burning like two deep sapphires. "No, because forever is not long enough for me. I will love you for eternity and beyond."

Serena pulled her hands free from his to loop her arms around his neck and pull him down into a searing kiss.

A/N So that's it for now. Like I said, this was just kind of a filler chapter, but I had a lot of fun writing all of the little interactions that took place here. The moms especially, Ilene, Kathleen, and Dr. Mizuno, cracked me up. This chapter really did seem to focus on moms of all kinds. We had the real moms, the adopted moms Amara and Michelle, the future moms Serena and Amy, and the soon to be mom Anya. Queen Serenity even played a little part as the past mom. Well the next chapter will probably shift back more to the serious business and bring the younger crowd back into focus. Jess's dream is definitely foretelling of something that is looming in their future and there is still one more visitor from the future that is going to put in an appearance. A hint was given in this chapter, but I'm going to keep quiet about who it is for now. Anyhow, I hope you found this chapter entertaining in a lighter, less dramatic way than usual. Don't forget to drop me those reviews and tell me what you thought. Later gators! Lots of love and hugs!

~Sere~