She met him again at the cemetary some time after that. It wasn't her usual day to visit, she had just come spontaneously, but her mother sure wouldn't complain. Not exactly such a lot of visitors at her grave that she could be picky...

She hadn't even brought flowers, she just kneeled down and cleaned the letters on the gravestone with a handkerchief.

She heard others talked to their deceased relatives at the grave, but she couldn't. Whenever she was here, all she could do was... be here. Probably cry a bit, on a day like this. Even after all these years.

It was on her way out when her eyes were drawn to someone at the far end of the cemetary.

Jadeite. Even more unmistakable than ever, in full Shitennou garb, a little stuffie in his hand, his head bent down. She slowly went closer. He didn't take notice of her until she stood next to him. The grave he was visiting already had stuffies on it. And flowers. And letters. And oddly, cans of ice tea.

KUROKI MIO

said the letters.

"Oh my gosh, I didn't know she's buried here too," whispered Rei. "Hi Jadeite."

"She's not buried here," answered Jadeite, not turning round, not looking at her. "There were no remains. I had some girl with no relatives buried in her place. That girl might like the attention of Mio's fans, and Mio, if she could see it, would love to see her faithful fans betrayed. I tried to catch the spirit at least."

Rei nodded in agreement. It sounded perfectly like Mio.

"Do you miss her?" asked Rei. She wanted to say something nice, because this was actually very cute, in a weird way.

"Hell, no," said Jadeite quickly and put the stuffie down, placing it neatly between some other stuffies, arranging the bow around the little thing. It was a mouse. He smirked to himself. "She hated rats. We had lots of them in the Dark Kingdom for my youmas. Mio-chan threw a fit at the sight of anything rat. Sometimes she caught one and slowly killed it in front of my eyes because she knew how much it bothered me. I hope this thing haunts her, wherever she is, so she knows I haven't forgotten about her."

"Wow, that's... definitely catching the spirit."

And somehow, she had the feeling that it took a guy as twisted as Jadeite to come up with something so much in her spirit.

She looked up to Jadeite.

"She still bothers you... that means she means something to you," she stated.

Jadeite shrugged.

"You know how they say, that it's the ones that make us the most sorrow we feel attached to the most? Oh, well..."

If that's true, his love for Queen Beryl must be bottomless, Rei thought, and she didn't like that thought.

"I guess I'm lucky I haven't got this kind of attitude towards my father," she sighed.

Jadeite smiled a small, forgiving smile. "What if it's the other way round?"

Rei stared at him. Then she turned away. "I don't even want to think about what this could mean," she decided. But she couldn't bring herself to walk away from him like this.

"Wanna sit with me a bit?" she asked.

There was a bench nearby, and they sat down there, Mio's grave in sight.

Jadeite didn't look like he had cried, but he did look pale and not well at all.

Jadeite's hands produced a cigarette out of his pockets, and in a routined, absentminded way he took off his gloves and tapped the end of the cigarette with a fingertip to light it.

He inhaled deeply.

"You're smoking?" asked Rei astonished. "Are you sure a Guardian should do that?"

Not to mention "are you sure you're old enough to smoke?", she thought.

The old familiar smirk had a short appearance on Jadeite's face.

"You don't have to tell me how unhealthy it is, I've heard it all from the princess. But I like it. It's just..."

He paused and watched the glowing cigarette in his hand. "It's like the Dark Kingdom. It's poisoning you, it's killing you, and you know it. The thought that you could do something better with your time has crossed your mind. But at the same time, it feels good, there's something damn right about it that you just can't define, and it has been your life for such a long time that you can't even imagine what you'd do without it."

"You miss the Dark Kingdom?"

She couldn't help sounding reproachful. The Dark Kingdom was, after all, responsible for most of the things that had brought Jadeite to the state he was...

Jadeite nodded a very small nod. The hand that held his cigarette started to shake.

"It's been my life. I lived a whole life there, the only one I have a full memory of. I know I've done horrible things. And there's the curse and all... But... I can't pretend I'm not..."

Now his hand shook so much he dropped his cigarette, and he had to bend down to pick it up again, and while he did so, he shuddered, and dropped it again. It was painful to watch.

Then he had it firmly in his shaking hand again, and let himself heavily drop against the back of the bench.

"What's the matter with you, Jadeite?" Rei asked worriedly.

"It's okay," said Jadeite. He had put his feet onto the bench and hugged his knees, "Really."

But he wasn't okay. He was obviously feeling sick.

"Jadeite, I'm so sorry," said Rei again. "I'm so sorry I mentioned that place... Is there something I can do for you?"

He took another puff and blinked when the smoke got into his eyes. "You're already doing something for me," he said. "I have noone else I can talk to about these things. Sure, there's the princess, and everyone is like 'you can open up to her and become like you used to be'. But this is so... look, they tell me that I am the same Jadeite that I've been in the Silver Millenium. But if that's true, I must also be the same Jadeite that I've been in the Dark Kingdom. Because... life is life, right? You can't say one is worth more than the other. You can't just choose one. I'm either all of them, or none. Does that make any sense at all?"

Rei nodded. "That makes a lot of sense to me. Although it seems to me the healthy reaction would be denial."

He shortly smirked. '"That's what the others try. 'I was bad, but I was forced, and I hated it and fought it every step on the way.'. But I didn't fight it. I didn't hate it. And... there wasn't any force needed to hold me there. I'm the one... I'm the only one who WAS bad. Through and through, evil to the end..."

Now Rei felt sick too.

"Oh, Jadeite... I don't think you could be... after all, I've seen you do good things... mourn for Nephrite, protect your Queen like a real guardian..."

He sneered. "Yes. Her. That's the point, you know. The others can tell themselves they hated her, because she forced them. They have a right to be upset. I can understand they want to forget...

But who would remember them then? Mio-chan's dead... Beryl-sama's dead... I'm still around because Endymion missed me. But I miss them, too, and they're not coming back, and I'm the only one who doesn't have the right to abandon their memory..."

He blinked some tears away.

Rei sighed. Now that was something she knew about.

"I know... for a long time, I thought I had to be the guardian of the memory of my mother. Nail down the last traces of her existence. Justify that I'm still there by carrying on the torch, so to speak. But... that didn't help, and it was scary to have that responsibility on my shoulders. You know what helped? Realizing that what would keep her memory alive was her, not me. She has left so many traces behind, she has changed the lives of many people, and whether I force it or not, these traces are there. She still lives in other people."

Like Mio, she wanted to add, but she couldn't bring herself to name her in the same speech with her mother. The colorful stuffies on the grave maybe said it for her. Like Beryl, because without her, I never would have become a Sailor Senshi.

For a while, they were silent. Jadeite lit himself another cigarette and Rei watched him smoke. She had to admit, it did look soothing. After a mere minute, she was almost asking him to give her a cigarette, too, if it hadn't been for the thought of how she would explain that to Minako.

"Do you sometimes see her, in other people? In the streets?" asked Jadeite.

"God, yes... it's been more than ten years, but I still see her," said Rei. She wiped a tear out of her eyes.

Jadeite laughed humourlessly. "That's why I avoid leaving Asia. Lesser redheads around. But lots of Mios... I guess it's no use whereever you go."

"I guess..."

Then he had finished smoking and just teleported the butt of the cigarette away.

"People are going to notice if you do that too often," said Rei.

"I'll tell them I ate it."

"Ew..."

"Talking about ew... do you want to see the other graves?"

"What? What others?"

"Well... mine, actually. And the guys'. We Shitennou had human incarnations in this time that weren't brought back when the Earth was restored. Our families don't even remember us. But I do. And I still have some of those stupid stuffies left. Come on, it's right over there."

It was a part of the cemetary that Rei had never entered before.

"These are ours," said Jadeite proudly. "And this is mine."

And there they were, four graves, with matching gravestones, and names on them that Rei had never heard before. She saw different dying days. Jadeite's being the first one. She should have known. She had heard it often before that he had been the one who had been under Beryl's control for the longest. Of course, it meant that he had been taken first. For a moment, her throat tightened. But then she told herself that Jadeite was here, right in front of her. He wasn't dead. He might not have recovered yet, but he was still there, and there was even a little smile on his face. Weirdly enough, seeing how much Jadeite liked this place and this crazy idea made it okay for Rei.

"You know, I should be creeped out of my mind right now," said Rei. She read the inscriptions again, but didn't ask questions. Although it was really hard not to.

"You'll get used to it," replied Jadeite as he was picking up a crumbled flower from his grave. It was yellow and wilted now, but it had clearly been a white rose once.

"Kunzite," he said warmly.

"And Nephrite, too," he added and pointed to a little shot glass that had probably contained something alcoholic.

"And Zoisite?" asked Rei. "But I guess he'll just sing or play some music."

"Yeah... please be careful not to run into them accidently when you're here. They don't admit to coming here. But you can mess around with their graves a bit if you like, it'll bug the hell out of them and they can't even complain."

It was of course most unappropriate to laugh on a cemetary, but Rei couldn't help it.

"You know, I'm a miko, and I'm going to be a priestess, I can't pick up a hobby of vandalizing graveyards... as much as I would like to..."

"Too bad... then you'll have to watch I guess."

And so she watched him. He had indeed more stupid stuffies, and they wore stupid Shitennou costumes, and Jadeite let them take stupid poses and bent the little swords on them in crazy angles.

"Will drive them nuts," he said. "I'd make them wank as well, but this Catholic places have no sense of humour at all."

Rei thought of her Catholic school and sighed. She was very proud of herself though not to have flinched at the wank.

When Jadeite was finished, they stood there for another moment to approve of the new decorations. Four strangers lied here, but to Rei, they almost felt like friends, seeing how much Jadeite cared for them.

"What were they like?" asked Rei.

"They were good people," said Jadeite. "They didn't deserve us."

"Oh, come on, Jadeite..."

But Jadeite's head already hung down in the way Rei had come to realize as his new trade mark.

"It's true... their lives had to make space for people long dead with horrible intentions. They fought us. They lost everything. They cried..."

Without a warning, Jadeite cringed and dropped to his knees. Twice, his energy lit up and crossed his body in the most unsettling way, obvioulsy giving him trouble.

"What's wrong, Jadeite?" asked Rei alarmed and wanted to help him up.

"Don't touch me!" he hissed. "Just a flashback. Don't touch me."

For a moment longer, he cringed and moaned, and Rei didn't know what to do.

Then he seemed to be steady again. Rei remembered his warning to touch him, but she just had to help him up. Yes, she caught some excess energy, but she hardly even noticed it.

"Your hand will hurt, please, you don't have to..." said Jadeite.

"That's nothing compared to a visit at the dentist," replied Rei. "Don't treat me like I've never had to deal with your energy before. You didn't want to underestimate me, remember?"

"I'm sorry," he sighed.

"I should hope so," replied Rei dryly.

"I'm really sorry..."

His terrified, guilty face made Rei angry. He shouldn't be like this. There was something that made her feel very uncomfortable at the thought that he might be unhappy. He was supposed to be one of the greatest powers that could protect Earth. He was supposed to be strong, and confident. What good did it do to apologize all the time?

"Yeah, so I heard. Quit repeating it, Jadeite. I'm not deaf."

"Sorry..."

"Are you listening at all?"

Obviously not. He still was all regret. Although he stopped the stupid apologies at least.

He looked at her, despair in his face.

"Rei... does it never bother you to have destiny thrown at you? Destiny is no excuse. We use up their lives for ours. Look here, they're gone. Not even the princess could bring them back. This world hasn't got a place for them any more. It's not fair. They didn't get a say in it."

"Stop it, Jadeite. From the position of one of those who didn't get a say in it, I can tell you it was a good thing. Scary, yes. But also rewarding. I wouldn't want to have it any other way."

"Really?"

"Really. Once you've been a Guardian, there's no way back. I really miss it. If your human incarnation would stand here with me, she'd tell you the same."

She. Jadeite shot her a short side glance, but didn't comment on it. There's no use denying it, Jadeite, thought Rei. I can read. And this says Hanako.

"I'm not certain she would," said Jadeite. "The curse hit her badly when she fought it."

"See? When she's that brave, she definitely supports who you are now."

"No, she doesn't. She's all 'When will you stop moping, emo boy?' Whatever that means. But thanks."

"You're welcome. So, any plans? About when you'll stop moping, I mean?"

Jadeite shrugged.

"When the nightmares stop," he said lightly, but it chilled Rei out of their silly mood, and she didn't ask any more.

She wanted to say something, but suddenly, she couldn't think of anything that would get past the nightmares.

And on top of it, she realized it would get dark soon which meant everyone at the shrine would start worrying.

"Jadeite... I... I need to go home, but... I'm usually here on Wednesdays, after school, so..."

He nodded.

"Want me to bring you home?"

"No."

Not yet.

But maybe over time... there was a mental image of Jadeite and her walking through the portal of the shrine that lay just out of her reach, but she knew it was there. For now, that was enough.

Altough... she couldn't leave him standing there, staring at his own grave...

And he could just as well begin somewhere...

"But I want you to bring me to the door of the cemetary."