Okay, as promised, the epilogue of Rini's journey. I hope you enjoy it. But first, as always, the disclaimers.

Sailor Moon belongs to Naoko Takeuchi, Toei, DiC, Pioneer, and Cloverway, in that order, none of whom are me.

The Island Of Dr. Moreau belongs to H.G. Wells and his descendants(if any), also not me.

This is emphasis, and this is thought. And ((this)) is auditory/visual flashback.

Yes, I am one of the laziest, most distractible human beings on the planet.

And now, the conclusion.

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The Island Of Dr. Tomoe

by Scorpinac

Epilogue: The Girl's Fate

Hello, again. I'll admit it, I never thought to add to this account again, but Mom insists that I tell of what happened after where I left off, and after having given it some thought, I finally agreed. If only to tell of my rescue and homecoming.

About two days after I finished the rest of my account, I was finally picked up by a ship named the U.S.S. Elysion, commanded by one Captain Hawk, who was gentlemen enough to give me one of his spare shirts to wear as a sort of makeshift dress. I'm told I looked quite wild when they found me, my eyes constantly alert, my long hair dirty, tangled, and waving behind me in the slight wind of the day, my well tanned skin all but bare. When they brought me aboard I told them who I was, and this time I told them who my family was as well. While the communications officer radioed the mainland, the Captain asked me my story, and I told him all that had occurred since I departed the ill-fated Millennium. He and his First Mate, as well as, I believe, four off duty officers, and a few off duty sailors, listened intently to my tale until I was done. Afterward, the First Mate quietly shook his head.

"The poor girl's been alone too long," he said. "Her mind's become deranged."

"But it's the truth!" I snapped. "It happened! All of it!"

"Poor dear, you need some rest, that's all," the Captain said consolingly, and guided me to his cabin where he set me down in his bed. It was the first time I had been in a real bed in so long I fell asleep almost instantly. When I awoke I was much calmer, and was allowed to use the ship's bath in private, the first time I'd had a real bath since the end of the compound. Afterwards I retrieved my account from my small boat and placed it safely in my new "quarters".

It also became clear to me pretty quick that no one was going to believe me. So when I was next asked, I simply said I had survived alone on a deserted island because my first lifeboat had sprung an irreparable leak until the one they found me in came ashore, and that my first story was just a fantastic dream I'd had. I also asked what the date was, I was shocked at the answer – May 16, 1941. I had lost nearly a whole year!

Two days later we sailed into port in Miami, Florida, and they took me to a hotel where I lounged for another two days, during which the Captain and his Mate bought me some new, proper clothes. And then, on May twentieth, I was told someone had arrived to see me. When I was brought down to the hotel lobby, my heart skipped a beat when I saw for the first time in nearly a year my parents and nanny, who were overjoyed to see me as well, my mother practically dive bombing me and squeezing the hard won life out of me in a hard bear hug.

"I thought I'd never see you again," she said through her tears. "They declared you to be dead when they didn't find you." I hugged her back, telling her it wasn't a dream, I was really here, I was really alive. And then I noticed what was in Trista's arms – a baby, asleep, no more than a couple months old. Before my father could take his turn, I stepped back.

"What's that?" I asked, trying to keep calm, pointing to the baby.

"Oh," mother blinked. "Oh yes, we were going to introduce him. You see, Rini, it turns out, mommy was pregnant when we left Europe, about two months so." She went over to Trista and took the baby, holding it happily. "This is your baby brother, Matoru."

"You replaced me?" I asked, feeling a small fury coming on. My father kneeled down next to me and took hold of my shoulders, looking me square in the eye.

"No, Rini, we'd never replace you, we couldn't," he told me. "Your brother was going to be born even if you hadn't been lost at sea. You see...babies...grow inside their mommies for awhile before they're born. Matoru was already inside your mother when we went on board the Millennium, we just hadn't found out yet." I looked at him like he was the crazy one, and he quickly added, "Having babies can be like that sometimes, you don't know at first until certain signs, or a really good doctor, tips you off. Anyway, the point is we were already having Matoru when you disappeared, and frankly it was all we could do in the wake of your loss to keep your mother from stressing out to the point of losing him." I would later learn that he spoke the truth all too well – my mother had in fact come close to miscarriage on at least three occasions with my brother.

But for that moment, I simply looked in his eyes, and could see how serious he was. And then he finally took his turn hugging me, and I knew he wasn't lying to me. After he let me go, I went back to my mother and hugged her again, apologizing for my accusation, and finally greeting my little brother, who just turned slightly, still wrapped in whatever pleasant dream he was having. Then I said something I probably shouldn't have.

"Just don't turn into a pig-kid or dog-kid, okay?" I said to him, and my parents and nanny stared at me with wide eyes, and I realized my mistake. Captain Hawk, who was with us, jumped in before I could say anything myself.

"She told us she was trapped on a deserted island, and had a crazy dream about a mad scientist turning animals into people," he explained. "You might want to get her a therapist." I considered rebuking him, but decided to just leave it at that, for the moment. Trista then took me in her arms, and apologized for losing me on the Millennium. I forgave her, and told her it wasn't her fault, because as far as I was concerned, it wasn't. While I did that, my parents thanked Captain Hawk profusely for bringing me back to them alive and well. Dad even insisted on giving him a small check for twenty thousand dollars! Captain Hawk accepted, but continually stated that he had simply done his duty as was required of him, and nothing more.

We spent the rest of that day at the hotel, just basking in our reunion, and caught a plane home the next day. I had managed to bring my account to the hotel with me, and placed it in my new suitcase when we packed that morning before heading to the plane. When we finally got home, I placed it in my room, locked in a drawer, for a time forgotten.

Coming home turned out to be harder than I thought. After all my time on the island, I had forgotten what my real home was like, it took me a few days to re-accustom myself to it. Father hired a tutor to help me catch up on the year of schooling I had missed, and mother took Captain Hawk's advice and hired a therapist to help me resettle myself into my old life.

As fate would have it, my therapist was one Alice Vilyu, who at one time, a lifetime ago according to her, worked at the same university Tomoe had been expelled from. She was the first person after my rescuers on the Elysion that I told my full story to, in hopes that she would believe me. Well, she did tell me that what Tomoe had told me of his and Kaolinite's being thrown from the university had been the truth, and that his wife had indeed died, apparently by her own hand, and that it had been believed at the time that she had taken his child with her, though the baby had never been found. And nothing was known of Tomoe or Kaolinite after they abandoned humanity.

But in the end she told me that while I may have stumbled upon the remains of where Tomoe had retreated to, and subsequently died, the idea that he had actually made men from animals was preposterous, and that I must have imagined it or dreamed it, as I had told the sailors, in a desperate attempt to keep myself entertained and sane while trapped on the island alone. Realizing I would get no help there, I let it go, and just agreed with her – it was only a dream.

As time passed, and I slowly tried to reintegrate myself into society, I decided to try and find proof of my tale, by learning of the location of the S.S. Nemesis. I made a few phone calls to the port authorities about the ship, and got confirmation that it had departed from Morocco with one Dr. Patricia Mimete, four "unusual" manservants, and, quote, "assorted cargo", unquote; it sailed out on a course leading it to Bermuda, and arrived minus said passengers and cargo, and plus an additional one thousand and fifty dollars – I have no doubt that was the fifty to get the Nemesis to pick up my original lifeboat, the four hundred to take me aboard and save my life, and the six hundred meant to take me to Bermuda, before Captain Rubeus ditched me at the island.

I was told that the Nemesis had then set out toward the African continent again, and that there was a report that three days later the ship's communications officer radioed in, his voice panicked and crazed, screaming for help, they were being attacked by pirates. There had been no word from the ship since, and to this day it has never reappeared. If I am right, the boat that floated to me that last day on the island was all that was left of her, and of Captain Rubeus.

Guess his karma finally caught up to him, huh?

So now I had no way of proving my story, to any degree, and finally just let it go, keeping it to myself. I knew it was true, but now no one would ever believe me, and I didn't want to get locked up in an asylum as a lunatic. I did, however, continue my sessions with Dr. Vilyu, and to this day I continue to see her on occasion, whenever the remnant cries of the Beast Folk pound in my mind too loud and I need a sensitive ear I can talk to, without feeling like I'm being fitted for a straight jacket. Okay, so sometimes it does feel like she's doing that, but she hasn't committed me yet, so for now I trust her. But that's not quite all.

Since returning to the world, I have found that I have never truly resettled. When I walk among my fellow men, every now and then I get this feeling that I am again staring at Tomoe's monsters, that soon the regression I witnessed on the island will begin again, but on a far larger stage. When I sat in my school class, I would glance around at my classmates and again see the three happy pig-children, the joyful and innocent Kit, the loyal and stalwart Kyusuke, and even poor stubborn Melanie. Of adults, when I walked in the park or rode on the bus with Trista, it would sometimes feel like once again they were around me, Kakeru, Malachite, Chad, the old Sayer of the Law, even Beryl. Even my brother, in his wails for food and to be changed, reminded me of the wails of the poor creatures in Tomoe's lab as he worked on them. Yet I knew in my heart it was just my imagination, that they were not fantastic "Beast Folk" around me, just normal men and women and children, not enslaved to a madman's twisted whims and fancies.

As the years moved by I felt this less and less, but deep in my mind it was always there, always waiting to awake and unnerve me in the night. I might have come to finally let it go, if not for my brother's curiosity and childish behavior. One day when he was eight, I now eighteen, he slipped into my room to read my diary, the little imp! He didn't find it, thankfully. He did, however, find my all but forgotten account. When I walked in on him he had just gotten to my encounter in the cave of the Sayer, eagerly going over my introduction to the Beast Folk's "Law", and after fessing up to his intended misdeed, begged me to let him finish, telling me it was the best story he'd ever read! I threw him out of my room instead.

A little bit later my mom came up, and told me that Matoru had told her about the account, and how he had found it after she prodded him. She had given him four smacks on his rear for the attempt to invade my privacy, and had come up because now she wished to look at this "story" he had told her about. I asked her why, and her answer chilled me.

"He said it begins with you being shoved off a ship named the Millennium into a lifeboat being taken by a couple of cowards," she said calmly.

"You sure you want to look at it?" I asked.

"Please," was all she said, and I got it out and handed it to her. I sat there in silence for about two hours while she read it. When she was done she just sat there a few moments, processing.

"Do you believe me?" I asked quietly. She looked up at me, and finally spoke.

"Why didn't you tell us?" she asked, tears in her eyes. "Didn't you tell anyone?"

"Just Captain Hawk and his men, and Dr. Vilyu," I answered, still quiet. "They didn't believe me. I didn't think anyone would."

"Oh, sweetheart," she put it aside and gave me a hug, and I knew, without her saying it, that she did believe me. We decided not to tell my father, mom was worried he'd have me committed right away, even though it was years later. A few days later, I let my brother back into my room, and let him read the rest. I never told him it was true, I didn't want him looking at me like I was mad, or worse, a monster myself.

After I graduated, I asked for and was given by my father a small place in the country to retreat to now and then. I have put it mostly behind me, but as I have said, now and then I still feel that unsettling feeling creep over me, seizing me whole, and being in the city only worsens the feeling. I hide myself in good books, study mathematics, and at night drown myself in astronomy, finding an infinite peace in the endless starry skies. When I look up there, into the vast heavens, I feel a solace, and hope.

And I do hope, or I could not move on.

And so, here in my solace and hope, my story finally ends for good.

Yours sincerely,

Rini Shields.

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And now I'm really done! Yes, my fanfic is completed! (Knocks out inner "Dexter" and shoves him back in his box.) I hope you have enjoyed this variation on the classic tale, which in places I will admit to more than a little closely following the original novel by H.G. Wells. And remember to hit that Review button, please!

Scorpinac