Ok, folks. Sorry for the delay. This is dedicated to my friend Vallie-chan on her birthday (she's the one who suggested the darker tone, not me. *runs and hides*)

Episode 102

Recap: Kaolinite, who realizes that Usagi is Sailor Moon, takes the glass (not ice, I beg your pardon) Mamoru to Tokyo Tower. Usagi races after her without thinking and gets de-pure-heart-ified, but luckily she didn't have a talisman. Then the other Senshi arrive, with Venus disguised as a really ridiculous-looking Sailor Moon, which makes Kaolinite cast Usagi aside and throw the brooch away. Kaolinite leaves the Daimohn, Senishenta, to handle the Inner Senshi, while Uranus and Neptune take her on further up in the tower. Usagi transforms and beats Senishenta, and Mamoru's glass case shatters. They decide to help Uranus and Neptune, and defeat Kaolinite's shield with the Sailor Planet Attack; and Uranus deals the final blow with WORLDDDD SHAKING! (BEST. ATTACK. EVER.) Kaolinite falls off the tower. Sayonara, beyotch.

4 reasons to love this episode:

1. Venus: (pretending to be Sailor Moon) Special attack Love Me Moon Chain!

Usagi: …That attack doesn't exist!

2. Senishenta: (after losing her arm) My arm! *Takes out paper entitled "Product Warranty"* "If the merchandise breaks we'll replace it with a new one." Whew! I'm glad I'm under warranty!

3. Usagi's speech: I won't allow you to blow up the tower that sends happy, fun TV programs to living rooms all over the country! In the name of the viewers, I'll punish you!

4. Sailor Senshi are all standing together with Tuxedo Kamen. He throws a rose.

Usagi: *sounding completely surprised* Tuxedo Kamen-sama!

Audience (a.k.a. me): HE'S BEEN THERE FOR FIVE MINUTES, GODDAMMIT!

And yet I love this show anyway.

They sat in silence on the shrine porch, listening to the girls bickering inside.

"Usako," said Mamoru distantly.

"Hm?"

"I'm sorry your shoes are gone."

She snorted almost derisively and glanced up at him through her eyelashes, which he noticed they were slightly singed from some aspect of their battle; for some reason it made him want to laugh. "I'm sorry I put you in danger because of me," she replied, sounding quite morose. But she brightened almost forcibly and tilted her head towards him on her palm. "And I always get a lot of love from you, anyway, Mamo-chan." She pressed her hand to his chest, to the place she knew held his fountain of life, his connection to earth, and he caught her fingers there gently. They stared at each other for a moment, briefly reeling in a shared cerulean gaze, before –

"Man, talk about setting up a mood in someone else's house!" The voice was distinctly Makoto-ish.

Usagi sighed wearily, her shoulders drooping, and Mamoru chuckled a bit drily. There was never a moment's peace around these girls.

"Hey, are you listening?" The fiery bristle suggested Rei was the speaker. "We're not at an inn!"

"We aren't even doing anything," Usagi whispered, her face pink and mortified.

"If you're going to be all cuddly, go home!" Minako screeched into the ruckus.

Mamoru looked sideways at Usagi, who was leaning into his shoulder and staring fixedly at the ground. "How about it?" he murmured.

"What, leave?" She rubbed her cheek as if trying to remove her blush by friction.

"Yeah. I've got an idea of a real present for you." He leaned down a few inches to her ear. "It involves chocolate."

She sprang to her feet immediately. "Mamoru-san, I wholly approve of that suggestion."

He stood after her, stretching, with a grin spread across his face. "Doesn't take much, does it?"

She stood beaming before him, her hands clasped behind her back, and shook her head vigorously. "No, sir."

"Good riddance," called Rei nastily.

"Rei-chan," Ami scolded her in hushed tones. "Happy birthday, Usagi!" She waved. "Ja!"

The other girls seemed to remember, then, and hollered in a dissonant chorus, "Happy birthday!"

"Happy birthday, Usagi!"

"Ja ne! Happy birthday!"

"Don't get too bold now that you're sixteen!"

"What's that supposed to mean, Minako?"

"We don't want her consummating her rise to semi-adulthood…"

"Mina!"

There were sounds of muffled attack, and Mamoru could only assume Rei had begun to beat her with a pillow. He managed to keep his peals of laughter out of their earshot, or so he hoped, but Usagi grew to resemble a sunburned beet. "I wish they wouldn't," she said desperately.

"How much worse do they tease when I'm not around?" Mamoru chuckled.

"You have no idea," she griped, yanking on a pigtail with vigor.

He hummed his pity in response and they said nothing, though Usagi continued to tug violently on her hair.

"I was scared tonight, Mamo-chan," she muttered as they clapped down the pathway away from the Hikawa shrine. "It was all scary. You getting frozen in glass though… that was the worst."

"It was the worst for me, too," agreed Mamoru somewhat facetiously.

Usagi glared. "That's not funny."

"It's a little funny."

"It's not."

"It is, see how hard I'm laughing." He gazed placidly at her, not laughing a bit.

She crossed her arms tight against her small chest and huffed. "Maybe you should shut up."

He snorted. "Sorry."

"You don't sound sorry."

"Are you just being this argumentative because it's your birthday and you can, or are you really that pissed off about your Daimohn shoes trying to turn me into a sculpture?"

"Yes, I'm mad!" she cried. "I'm mad because no matter what happens, you always get taken away from me!" She flushed slightly. "And I don't mean – you know I don't mean that badly, but it's my fault, because you try to protect me, and then before I can even stop you there's all these horrible things happening to you, and I can't stand that!"

He was glad the streets were mostly empty; she was making quite a scene.

"Usako," he said frankly, "nothing is going to happen to me."

"You could have shattered!" Her voice was shriller than that Daimohn Octave from a few weeks ago – well, alright, nothing was that shrill, but it was pretty damn close.

"But I didn't," he reminded her with the utmost patience.

"But Kaolinite did, and it could have been you!"

"That's funny," he said, the sarcasm itching back in, though he did his best to rein it back, "I didn't realize that I was made of glass shards glued together when I saw myself in Crystal Tokyo."

"Mamoru," she growled, "I love you."

She sounded so ridiculous, with those words coming out of her mouth as if they were the foulest swear she could muster up, that he had to laugh. "I love you too, odango atama." He snatched her hand from its limp position at her side, enclosing it in his own.

"I'm angry with you now," she grumbled, but didn't take her hand away.

"Hmm," he said thoughtfully. "That's a problem, certainly. Are you going to slap me again?"

She seemed so on edge that he was frankly surprised she didn't burst into tears; instead, she whirled around and buried her face in his chest. Immediately, he felt horrible for provoking her.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "That was such a terrible thing to do."

"No, forget about it," he muttered. "I shouldn't have – that was stupid of me. Forget about it."

"I can't believe that was today." She pressed her ear against his heart and her cheek against his sternum, behind which the heart of the earth, too, beat silently. "So many things happened today. No one would say happy birthday, and then I hit you, and then the girls surprised me, and then I went to find you, and then the Daimohn came, and my heart got sucked out twice…" Her eyes appeared, big and mournful, below him. "Do you know that hurts, Mamo-chan?"

He wrapped his arms more snugly around her. "I watched you scream," he mumbled. "I know." He frowned for a moment. "You know, it's not fair, Usako, for you to say you hate to see me get turned into glass when I'm the one who has to watch your pure heart get torn out of you twice in one day."

She chomped down on her bottom lip, considering. "I didn't think of that," she admitted.

"So maybe we're equally martyrs for watching the other suffer," he suggested cheekily.

She exhaled quickly, amused. "Maybe we are."

"Let's go," he said softly, taking her hand again and leading her down the pearly lamp lit streets.

She hung more tightly to Mamoru's arm than usual, but who could blame her? The day seemed to have stretched on forever, and while her birthdays had generally gone too fast before, this one seemed to taunt her with its unending roller coaster of wonderful and terrible surprises. Up-and-down, up-and-down. She was starting to get a bit nauseous, and so it was little surprise to her that her feet dragged, her eyes drooped; her power was drained from the Sailor Planet attack, and emotionally, she was exhausted.

And so it was in the midst of a hazy mist of routinely moving her legs forward, one step at a time, that her phone buzzed abruptly. She jolted as if shocked by electricity, and Mamoru started at her sudden movement.

"Kind of jumpy, aren't we?" he said, recomposing himself.

She ignored him and dug out her phone. It was her mother. Joy.

"Hi, Mama," she said, flipping the stupid thing open.

"Usagi, where are you? When you called earlier you said you were going to be home after dinner at Rei's."

"Oh – well, you know how parties get, Mama. I think all the girls are sleeping over, after all." She furtively ignored Mamoru's probing eyes.

"Without any of your things?" Typical Mama, to worry about not having pajamas.

"We're all girls! We'll make do."

"Well make sure you get a toothbrush, somehow, and get all that cake out of your teeth. I'm going to the dentist tomorrow, and I don't want to have to drag you along with me."

"I'll do my best," said Usagi in a deadpan.

"I don't hear Minako yelling in the background. Why is it so quiet?" Did she have to have a mother who was so inquisitive?

"Oh, I just ducked in the other room when I saw you were calling."

"I thought Minako's voice could break through walls," said her mother fondly.

"Mm," said Usagi vaguely. "Well, I should go, Mama. I'll see you in the morning."

"What time?"

"Mama!" Usagi groaned. "I'm sixteen already, do you have to know every detail?"

"I'm only wondering, Usagi, I've got that dental appointment at eleven. And knowing you and those girls, you'll call me at ten tomorrow night and tell me you decided to take a trip to Australia. Well, never mind the time, just try not to stay over all day; you've got studying to do this weekend. Do you have your key?"

"Yes, I have my key," she seethed.

"Alright, then. Have a fun time, and happy birthday. I love you."

"Bye, Mama." She snapped her phone shut vehemently. What did she expect Usagi to do, anyway? Besides spend the night at Mamoru's, of course…

"Who hired the Spanish Inquisition?" asked Mamoru with one of his evil smirks. **

"She's always like that," Usagi replied, feeling rather injured. "She doesn't trust me."

"And why ever not?" Mamoru continued conversationally. "Well, I'm sure the girls will be surprised to see you turn up again."

For a moment she thought he had actually taken her seriously, but one long look at him revealed that he was joking. "You don't mind, do you?" she asked. "I've missed staying at your place, ever since Chibiusa left."

"Me too," he said. "It sure was hard to feel lonely with the two of you going at each other's throats."

She peered up at him and felt a pang at how he could say such things without any fluctuation of tone, or expression, or anything. It would be better if he acted as though it hurt him to be alone, because that would mean he wasn't too… too numb to it. But she knew talking about how he felt made him feel uncomfortable, weakened, and so, out of respect for him, she kept her mouth shut. He was one of the few people she would bother keeping quiet for.

The silence made her fidgety, and something itched at the back of her mind – something she knew she was forgetting to tell him. Instead, she said, "Mamo-chan, when is your birthday?" Her eyes found the sidewalk and intricately traced its contours. "Just so I know, when it comes around."

He laughed lightheartedly. "August third."

"Oh." She frowned. "That's funny. I would have thought you had a winter birthday."

"Why's that?"

"I dunno." She shrugged. "You just seem the type." Then it hit her. "Oh! That's what I couldn't remember. Mamoru – Haruka-san is Sailor Uranus. And Michiru-san is Sailor Neptune."

He met her eyes solemnly. "Another hunch, or do you have proof?"

Uncertainly, she shook her head. "I just feel it. Haruka-san offered me a ride to Tokyo Tower when Kaolinite took you there, and we were driving under the bridge, and something about the lighting made me see things differently… it just fit. Like a click in a lock. They look exactly like them and I can't believe I didn't see it before." She shot him a sidelong glance, but his lip was taut, his eyes glazed over in deep concentration. "It's the same way I felt when I realized you were Tuxedo Kamen – that I couldn't believe there had been that wall in my head for so long. It was just so obvious."

Mamoru nodded. "I know what you mean. With you, it was more like… like I did know, the whole time, but every time I went to put my finger on it – it slipped away."

Abruptly, Mamoru pitched forward, and Usagi yelped, grabbing his wrist and pulling him back upright. With a wry frown he bent down and untangled what seemed to be a silk scarf from around his feet.

"What is it, Mamo-chan?" asked Usagi curiously. "Did it get caught around your legs?"

He didn't respond; he just crouched there, silently, the wine-colored fabric fluttering in a humid breeze.

"Mamo-chan?"

"She needs our help," he said hoarsely. And suddenly she was flying behind him, hardly keeping up save for her fingers ensnared in his; his feet slapped heavily on the concrete, sending vapid echoes into the bare street behind them, and hers pattered quickly and quietly behind.

"What's going on?" Usagi gasped. He reeled to a sudden halt as a car whizzed past, then dragged her across the road. He seemed to know just where he was going, but the buildings that flashed by her grew more and more unfamiliar, smaller and meeker and dustier.

Mamoru finally stopped, his chest heaving, in front of a small apartment building. There was a small alleyway between the building and its neighbor, and he jerked his head silently towards it.

"Transform," he ordered under his breath. "Quietly."

Adrenaline pulsed hot and fiery from her heart as she grasped for her brooch and murmured, "Moon Cosmic Power, Make-Up!"

In a rippling flash, she felt silk enfold her skin, heat blazing from her pores, light blaring behind her closed lids. And then she was Sailor Moon, who opened her eyes and looked to Tuxedo Kamen for some sort of explanation.

"Mugged," he murmured. "Come on."

Their minds seemed to merge together in a seamless connection, as if they were a single soul that only happened to possess two bodies. Tuxedo Kamen darted away, blending into the night, while Sailor Moon stealthily approached the alleyway. Only as she neared the dark opening did she begin to hear the muffled cries and protests.

Her eyes adjusted to the dark, as they tended to do when she was transformed – just one of the many perks, she thought grimly; she peered around the corner and saw three men crowded around a small, slender woman, who was gagged with a thick black cloth that seemed to be a torn t-shirt. One of the men rooted through what Sailor Moon presumed was the woman's purse while the second held her roughly against the brick wall. The third had her pressed up against the wall, and Sailor Moon was fairly sure she heard him moaning.

Her heart skipped a beat. She'd fought glass-blowing youma and powerful women in red dresses whose hair could lash out and get you, and she'd defeated Death Phantom and the Dark Moon, but this… She felt her throat swell up so that she couldn't swallow. It was just too close to what Dimande would have done to her, if Tuxedo Kamen… if Mamoru hadn't intervened…

Whhhsh.

A single red rose plunged into the middle of the alleyway. The man searching the back glanced at it uncertainly. "A flower?" she heard him mutter. "Hey, where the hell did this come from?"

"Huh?"

Whhsh.

Another rose zipped past the third man's arm, searing through his jacket. He flinched at the pain and paused in his activities to gape at the second rose, now lying on the ground. "What the – oh, shit!"

"What?"

"It's him!" The third man detached himself from the woman, who slid to the ground in a shuddering heap, to gaze blankly around the skies. "Tuxedo Kamen!"

The second man kicked the woman, and immediately she fell still and silent. "Tuxedo who?"

"You're telling me you've never heard about him? He's all over Tokyo, always meddling in things… he's been in the papers forever…"

"That's true," said Mamoru's voice. "Allow me to introduce myself."

With a gentle leap, he plunged from the roof's edge, his cape billowing out behind him, and landed gently on his toes. "Vermin who take advantage of innocent women are not worthy of the beauty of the rose," he said in his dramatic tones.

Sailor Moon rolled her eyes. Could he manage to make sense for once in his life?

"Unfortunately, I don't arm myself with garbage," he continued, and in half a second had pinned the third man to the wall with a half-dozen roses. The man's pants were still dropped around his knees, and Sailor Moon prudently averted her eyes.

"Oh shit," said the second man. "You weren't kidding!" He looked to the first man; the purse was drooping from his fingers, and he gazed around like a cornered rabbit in uncertainty.

"Come on," he grumbled finally, "we outnumber him."

Sailor Moon knew a cue when she heard one. "That's where you're wrong!" She darted into the alleyway, where Tuxedo Kamen was warding off the two men with his cane. Picking up her pace, she slammed full speed into the second man, aiming a kick at his back; he crashed into the wall and lay there, momentarily stunned.

"That's for love and justice, you pervert!" she screeched.

"Oh, mixed it up, hm?" Tuxedo Kamen asked her lazily, sending sporadic thwacks into the first man's gut; the former seemed to be quite relaxed, and perhaps even enjoying himself. "You can give up anytime you like," he added. The man lunged for his throat, but Tuxedo Kamen sidestepped him and gave him a nice strike on the backside.

Letting him do the clean-up work, Sailor Moon knelt down beside the shivering bundle that was the woman. "You're alright now," she said softly, her heart aching at the sight of a pair of terrified eyes. Why, this was no woman – this was a young girl, perhaps five years older than Sailor Moon at best. Gently, she removed the rough black t-shirt from the girl's mouth. "Do you hurt very badly?"

She nodded her head tentatively; her eyes were bloodshot and swollen with tears, and Sailor Moon noticed a stain of blood trickling down her leg. "Let me help you," she murmured, gently coaxing the girl off the ground and shielding her exposed areas with her own body. She helped the girl's vibrating hands rebuckle her pants around her waist, and the girl began to sob freely now, out of what seemed to be a mixture of pain, fear, and trauma.

"We should take you to the hospital," Sailor Moon said, her hand gently rubbing the girl's back. "Just in case. Are you hurt anywhere besides…?"

The girl shook her head violently. "N-no," she stuttered, finally managing to speak. "I don't think so. Not badly."

"I found something of yours," said Tuxedo Kamen abruptly, appearing at Sailor Moon's elbow. He handed over the wine-colored scarf.

The girl's eyes widened even more; she clutched the scarf to her chest, before burying her face in it and bawling silently. Sailor Moon stepped forward and pulled her into a tight embrace. They stood there, waiting, for countless minutes, until she emerged, her nose and eyes still running.

"It'll be faster if I carry you," Tuxedo Kamen said as if no time had passed. "Is that alright? I'll be careful."

The girl looked to Sailor Moon fearfully. "Is there another way?" she whispered.

"It'll hurt less than walking," Sailor Moon assured her, "and we'll be there faster. Don't worry, he's very… erm… smooth. At running."

She received a skeptical glance from Tuxedo Kamen, but nothing more. "Let's go," he said, wrapping the girl's arm around his neck and picking her up from the knees. With a quick bound, he launched to the rooftops; Sailor Moon followed, and together they flowed like moonlight over the city.

He tried to ignore the stares as he left the police station; they were fewer than those from the hospital staff, but it was still, well, sort of awkward.

"Did they believe you?" asked Sailor Moon, who had waited outside.

"Yeah. I had to prove it though." A grin twitched at his mouth at the thought. "Apparently they get more prank calls from Tuxedo Kamen than I'd have expected."

"What did you do?" she asked curiously.

"Pinned a guy to his chair."

She gaped. "You didn't."

Uncertainly, he wriggled. "I was impatient. I want those men in jail."

"Well, I'm glad that's all settled." Sailor Moon leaned against the station wall and gazed up at the murky summer sky. "I hope she's alright."

"She's in good hands now. The rest is up to them." He just hoped the hospital would take good care of her, but it was useless to worry.

"I guess so." She scowled at the ground. "Those bakas, how could they do something like that? It's – it's – it's …"

"Despicable?" supplied Tuxedo Kamen. Always sharp on the vocabulary, she was.

"Despicable!" She groaned in blatant hatred. "Come on, Kamen-chan, let's go."

"I thought you promised you weren't going to call me that," he said, grimacing, as they leapt into the air.

"It's cute!"

"It's repulsive!"

They landed outside his apartment less than a minute later. "See," said Tuxedo Kamen unhappily, "these are the times when I really wish I had a balcony or something."

"So you don't have to climb the stairs as Tuxedo Kamen?" Sailor Moon giggled.

"So I don't have to transform outside, baka."

They drifted into the shadows until the coast was clear, then emerged as Mamoru and Usagi once again. Wordlessly, they entered the building, and Mamoru punched the button for the elevator; he was too tired to take the stairs. As the elevator creaked upward, Usagi leaned into his chest, and he pressed his chin against the top of her head; when they reached his level, he dropped a kiss on each of her odangos before releasing her.

Usagi let out a small, weary sigh as he fumbled for his key, and both of them exhaled tangible relief when the door creaked open and revealed their sanctuary. Mamoru pocketed his key and drifted through the hallway, feeling rather detached from his feet. "Some birthday, huh?"

"Not exactly what I expected," Usagi replied, yawning. She collapsed onto his couch and slapped her feet up on the coffee table; her eyes drifted half-closed.

"Hey, don't fall asleep," he warned. "I have to make you a chocolate cake."

Obediently, she stood once more and walked restlessly toward the kitchen. "But Mamo-chan," she whined, "I'm tired."

That was it. Of all the things to snap him, it was a stupid whine, but as soon as she said it, he scooped her up in his arms and kissed her madly; she squeaked in surprise and wrapped her dangling legs around his waist (how in the world was she so damn tiny?) and drove her fingers into his hair and kissed him back with the fervor of a sixteen year old girl who had fought far too much for one birthday.

He pulled away gasping like a wet fish out of water, and said, "Do you like chocolate or vanilla icing?"

She laughed and kissed his nose. "I can't believe I'm saying this, after today," she said, "but… surprise me."

**NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION! I hope Monty Python fans picked up on that - I couldn't resist.

Things I tampered with:

1. The beginning is slightly different from how the anime episode ends. I just took some liberties. *shrug*

2. Yep, that's right, people. I said it: Usagi's small chest. Not all 16 year olds have C cups. Another liberty.

3. Well, you already knew I played around with Mamoru's powers. No surprise there.

4. Canon. *Runs and hides - again*

So... yeah. Probably not what you expected, but there it is. Thanks for reading! (: