Walking Towards Light: Ami Redux
Act 1 - First Steps
Chapter 2 - Denial: In which absolutely nothing is wrong and Ami returns to life in Tokyo after 6 years away.
Two hours after leaving the hospital, Ami found herself walking up the familiar steps of the Hikawa Shrine.
Leaving the hospital felt great. The cool spring breeze was refreshing after weeks in that stale antiseptic environment. Ami felt that she'd spent entirely too much time in recovery already.
Her doctors disagreed. Patients weren't normally out of bed so soon after suffering a massive stab wound to the chest. It was a miracle that she was even able to breathe on her own after 2 weeks -wait, no. It was 3 weeks. Ami corrected herself internally. She was apparently in a coma for about a week or so. More time lost. Ami sighed.
Senshi healing powers. Yet another thing that made her inhumanly far ahead of the curve.
The actual miracle was that no one noticed the strange uptick in the number of 24-year-old women being stabbed, recovering at super-human rates and then going to convalesce at the Hikawa Shrine. Rei did it first, but now she as bringing it back full circle. Ami wondered if it was karma - she did stab Rei to begin with. She sighed again. They might as well broadcast their secret identities over the news at this rate. She was too tired to care anymore.
Leaving the hospital, going to Rei's. Good enough.
The Hikawa Shrine had always been her home away from home.
There had been an awkward moment last week when everyone realized she was technically homeless. Rei then kindly offered the temple's spare room to her as a temporary home. "Until you could figure out your future." she said.
Ami frowned. She hadn't actually considered having a future. There were too many loose ends from her past that bothered her still. Ami replayed everything in her mind from the beginning. Queen Metaria possessed her mother. She killed her mother. Queen Metaria possessed her. She killed Queen Metaria. End of story. Except that it wasn't. Two key questions jumped out at her.
How did Metaria come to possess her mother? How was the Dark Kingdom still in existence?
Ami struggled to connect all the pieces. Her objective analysis of recent events beginning to waver.
Flashbacks. The fear on Jupiter's face. Her sword slicing at Sailor Moon's neck. The resistance of her mother's body against as she stabbed.
Ami looked up the stairs.
There. Right there. Blood, red. Dripping. Rei. Face down. Pale. Cold.
Ami stopped in her tracks. That wasn't a flashback. She didn't actually remember stabbing Rei herself, but she knew it happened. It made no difference either way. Her imagination could fill in the details. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea? Maybe she should go back to the Outers' house...
Ami considered it briefly. No. She had intruded on their home life long enough. After everything she'd been through, Hotaru deserved as normal a childhood as she could get. Having Ami around would complicate that. Ami shuddered. 3 weeks ago, her actions led to an 8 year old child suddenly aging several years, transforming into Sailor Saturn and then fighting a duel to the death with a homicidal maniac. Definitely, completely 100% not normal. Thankfully, she had reverted to being an 8 year old child after she de-transformed. She hadn't had to sacrifice her second chance at childhood just to save Ami.
Wait...Hotaru saved her…?
Ami couldn't remember the details, but that felt about right. She let it slide. There was already had enough to feel guilty for without the extra effort of remembering more.
No, Hikawa Shrine was the only place for her right now.
Rei assured her that it wouldn't be any trouble. She didn't have much anyways. Just a backpack of essentials and a trunk full of suspiciously new clothes that Haruka said she outgrew years ago.
That trunk was now halfway up the long staircase. Usagi insisted that she be the one to lug it up – Ami was still technically recovering from severe wounds. Ami smiled... any minute now….yes. There was Mamoru. Usagi pawned off the task of carrying the trunk on him and raced up the stairs to be with her friend.
"Ami-chan! Hi! Are you sure you want to live here with mean old Rei? Michiru's place is much nicer."
Rei made an inarticulate sound from the top of the stairs that Ami mentally translated as "Go fuck yourself". At least some things haven't changed.
"No no, this is fine. The Outers' house is fine too, but after everything, I don't want to make things weird for Hotaru so it's time to move out."
"How is Hotaru? Did she tell you anything?"
"She's surprisingly ok. She just said that it was her turn to protect the Doctor. I'm not quite sure what she means by that. I didn't get a chance to follow up, but she seemed to be taking everything in stride."
Ami shrugged. Usagi gasped.
"Oh! Doctor! Hey! You're a doctor now! Congratulations!"
Ami looked up confused. Congratulations? Right. Doctor. It's supposed to be an achievement. That was her life's dream before. She technically had a medical degree now. Strange that she hadn't really noticed.
Usagi paused at her friend's hesitation.
"I'm sorry, did I say something wrong?"
"No, you didn't. Thank you Usagi."
Ami's brain felt slow. Pathways between emotions and logic struggled to connect after such a long period of disuse. and she had never been good at emotions to begin with. What she was feeling now was complicated at best. Still, Usagi's concerned blue eyes motivated her to at least try.
"Sorry, I suppose that was my dream before. Thank you for remembering that. It's just that I haven't really done anything really with being a doctor. Medical school was just going through the motions. I don't think I've actually ever helped anyone…did the bare minimum in practical and then got kicked out of residency. The university swept me under the rug in a research lab after that. I've just been wasting everyone's time and resources. I'm not comfortable being congratulated for that. It's ok though. That's in the past."
Ami frowned, bitter about the 6 years of her life she tried to throw away. Usagi gave her a comforting hug.
"I've missed you Ami-chan. It's been a long six years. Did you make any friends in Germany?"
Ami shook her head. Not even close. Did all the people she hurt count? She shouldn't expect Usagi to understand.
"That must have been hard for you. I couldn't stand being so alone."
"It's ok. It was my choice Usagi. I don't regret it."
The lie slipped out unconsciously, second nature after a lifetime of deflecting. Usagi's kind blue eyes saw right through her mask.
"Regrets aren't a bad thing Ami. I have them too. Lots of things. I ate too much at breakfast, I fed Luna sardines before bed. I make tons of mistakes! That's how I learn. I need to. It's important to learn I think. My biggest regret is also my biggest lesson. I regret that I couldn't get through to Beryl. If we could understand each other sooner, maybe we Metaria wouldn't have had a foothold...maybe I could have spared you all from a lot of pain. Every life we've saved since, the Sisters, Hotaru, Professor Tomoe...its has been in part thanks to Beryl. We couldn't save everyone, but some is better than none! I won't give up. If you ever need to talk, I'll be here to listen. I might not be able to do much, but I will do everything I can."
Usagi flashed her a trademarked Usagi grin. Guaranteed to make anyone feel better, even depressed blue-haired geniuses.
"Besides, I'm proud of you anyways! You're a doctor now and that's that. Whatever else happened is history. You're back. You can move on. Have you thought about what you'll do next?"
"Hmm. A little."
Ami lied with a smile. She really hadn't considered her life beyond destroying the Dark Kingdom, but she couldn't tell Usagi that. She'd keep on lying to the end of time to spare Usagi from having to deal with someone like her. It was for the best.
"Technically, 'Amy Anderson' is the person with the medical degree. Setsuna said that she'd fix that though. I never asked for details."
"Setsuna, our super-lawyer?"
"Oh? She's a lawyer?"
That explained a lot. So much had changed here since she left. Everyone had lives now. Real, honest, normal lives. All Ami had was a fake identity and a hole in the chest.
"Oh yeah! She's amazing! Have you heard about the time she got Minako off of that public disturbance change? Long story short, she got the charges dropped, AND an apology from the mayor. She even got the Parks and Rec people to pay her 10000 yen as a performance fee!"
Ami raised her eyebrow. Minako was still Minako.
Usagi prattled on. Ami was happy to let her tell the long version of the tale. It gave her something to think about other than the complete and utter disaster that was her life at the moment.
A.N. The end of Chapter 2 - the exposition!
Lots of self reflection and bitterness here on Ami's part (and *koff*exposition*koff*koff*). She's not in a great place, but at least she is feeling again. After the events of "Ami's Story", that's a distinct improvement for her, and by extension for me. I personally enjoy the fact that this story is more character driven and Ami has lots of interactions with her friends (unlike the last story). As a writer and as a person, I'm happy to call that "growth". That also leads us very neatly to the next chapter.
Our first act begins with some character moments over the next few chapters. It will be a 4 chapter set up for all the upcoming action. Stay tuned!
Sidenote: There is a small reference to my other fanfic "The Little Girl Who Stopped the Silence" in this chapter. It is not required reading at all, but feel free to pop over to check it out. I think it adds some meat to the characterization of Hotaru that I use for this story. We'll be meeting her shortly;)
In a completely self fulfilling moment, I wound up writing out the full story of Minako's public disturbance charge referenced in this chapter (approximately 2 months after I first wrote it here in "Walking Towards Light" as a throwaway comment). The story can be found on profile as Ch 2 in Rei and Minako: Immovable/Unstoppable.
Continuity wise, this story uses mainly anime as it's basis, with manga elements drawn in as appropriate. There shouldn't be anything too universe breaking.
For clarity, the Inner Senshi are aged 24-25.
Career wise, the only plot-relevant ones are Ami being a (failed) doctor, Minako being a police officer, Mamoru being a practicing doctor and the aforementioned super lawyer Setsuna. For flavour purposes, Usagi is a teacher, Mako owns a bakery and Rei has taken over the temple from Grandpa fulltime. Haruka and Michiru remain a racecar driver and classical violinist respectively.
Minako being a police officer is taken from Codename Sailor V and is explored a bit more in my other fic "Immovable/Unstoppable" set 5 years before this story.
Thank you for reading! See you in Chapter 3. PM or Reviews welcome.