Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
The Second Story

AN: So I was talking Sailor Moon with my friend Midnight, and we were bitching about the general lack of PGSM outers fic. So we decided to write one. Enjoy.

London, Spring, Two Years Ago

Michiru couldn't think straight. The constant monotony of her life right now was driving her up the wall and she could not find the correct words to say anything to either Haruka or Uranus to fix the situation.

How exactly does one go about asking their lover if they are, in fact, a magical girl that could have fallen out of some Japanese comic for little girls?

Michiru thought that the whole thing was so absurd that it should have been easy for her to simply force the words out of her mouth. She couldn't, however. She was forever forcing the words to come when they simply would not. Michiru didn't know who to ask a question like that. She was so desperate for something, anything, to help her out, however, that she sought out Pluto. She hoped that their mysterious guide on this foray into the absolutely absurd would be able to provide her with some guidance on how to ask the questions that she so desperately needed to ask.

Pluto, however, wanted nothing to do with Michiru's own personal hang-ups and problems with their current mission. They where hard pressed, it seemed, to find anything that could be of use, for the monsters just kept on coming, with no signs of getting stronger and no clues as to who their enemy could be. She did not want to hear about Michiru's personal problems, as they had no real impact on the mission.

It was moments like these that made the irrational anger well up inside of Michiru. Pluto should have been helping them, not trying to hinder her and Uranus' progress at every step. They had to fight this evil, and in order to feel as though she could actually make a difference, Michiru knew that she needed to know if Uranus was Haruka. Pluto would not tell her.

Such was the nature of how these things worked.

Still, she tried to pull on her best face in order to get the point across. There was nothing that she could do about this. She was a soldier in a war that she had yet to truly understand.

After the next fight, Michiru threw caution into the wind and asked Uranus if she remembered anything from the past life. She knew that it was risky, and not something that she should have done for fear of risking revealing her own conflicted feelings when it came to the past life.

It had been close to a month since Uranus had first asked Michiru about the past life, enough time for the memories to start coming back. Michiru's had come back in a jumble that she was still sorting out, but she remembered the face of her lover first and foremost.

She guessed that Uranus was going to have the same reaction.

"Bits and peaces," Uranus looked at Michiru with a curious and indescribable expression on her face. "Why do you care?"

"I was wondering if you had someone who was special to you in the past life." What was she doing? This was going against the convention of what she'd been doing with Uranus for months now, simply not talking about herself for any length of time. Michiru guessed that she was curious; knowing what she did about the past life. She knew that Neptune and Uranus had had something - she didn't really know what exactly, the only memories she had of it were of the passion and the pain - in the past life. She'd drawn her own conclusions about the events, and she knew that she was very much in love with the memory of Uranus from the past life.

It was that idea that hurt her so much. She knew that she loved Haruka, but at the same time she loved this woman with every fiber of her being. How was she supposed to ask if they were, in earnest, the same person?

"We're having a conversation with layers, Neptune. Just say what you want to say." Uranus folded her arms across her chest. Spring was starting to arrive now, Michiru had just turned twenty-three two weeks ago, and finally the nights were warm enough for the both of them to not be cold in their Senshi uniforms.

Michiru clammed up, her hands sweating inside her gloves. She wanted to say everything, to beg Haruka to take off the mask of Uranus and simply come clean to her about everything that'd happened since this whole business with the senshi had started.

"I-" she began, not really knowing what to say.

"Are you that afraid?" Uranus asked, looking up towards the sky. "We've been dancing around this for weeks, Neptune. Just spit it out."

Michiru closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. "In the past life, you and I were lovers, Uranus. Pluto told me the first time I met her that I shouldn't try to remembered the past life because it would just hurt everyone too much once I did."

Uranus looked pensive for a moment, "It's just that? What are you worried about then, Neptune? I have a lover already, I won't let the past dictate what I do now."

Michiru sighed, perhaps now would be her chance to slip that it. "I have a lover too, she's a lot like you, Uranus... always with her head stuck in the clouds."

Uranus laughed, "I wish."

Michiru wanted to scream. How did one go about asking these questions without sounding like a fool? She wasn't good at play acting, for her talents were far more musically based, and this was the worst rouse ever.

She supposed that a little slip up couldn't really be helped.

She looked towards the sky, looking at all the tiny lights of distant worlds. She could do this, yes she could. "Can't you see, Haruka, the past life dictates the present one so nicely, it's as if fate rules over our every action."

Uranus doesn't say anything for a minute, and the air is thick with the silence around them. "So you figured it out, huh?"

"You gave it away with the comment you made about Aino Minako." Michiru smiled. "You always call her the same thing, and then when Uranus did it as well, I guessed."

"Michiru, why didn't you just say something?" Haruka has her in her arms now, and Michiru couldn't help but think the situation was still a little weird. She likes looking at Uranus' face, but Haruka's does not fill her with the heart wrenching longing like Uranus' does. "It's been weeks since that conversation."

"I had to be sure." Michiru explained, pulling Haruka's head down and kissing her. It was a different sort of kiss than the one that Michiru was used to, there was no innocence here, just the desperate longing of two souls that had been searching for each other across the stars.