Ami came down the stairs from Chibiusa's bedroom, a stethoscope around her neck and her medical bag in her hand. Usagi and Mamoru waited in the hall for her, each pacing opposite the other. When they heard her steps on the floor they both came forward, dozens of questions ready on their lips.

"She's fine," Ami said before either of them could speak. "Not a thing wrong with her, physically."

Usagi caught the tone in Ami's voice. "If there's nothing wrong with her physically then what, exactly, is wrong?"

Ami sighed. She had hoped this wouldn't become an issue. "Like I said, physically she's fine. I can't say what might be going on her mind. Something definitely is, though, because she's exhibiting all the signs of being in a dream state, even though she's not actually asleep." She looked past her friends to the doors further down the hall. "Now I'd like to check on the other patient." They both moved aside to let her through, and she walked past with a small nod.

When Ami had disappeared into Seiya's room Mamoru took his wife in his arms. She relaxed into his embrace and he felt her breathe a sigh of relief. "I'll sit with Chibiusa," he said, pressing a kiss to Usagi's temple. "You take care of Seiya." Usagi nodded and moved away, stopping at her son's door to look back. She gave Mamoru an encouraging smile before turning her attention to Seiya and Ami.

He was conscious, awake and fretting. He was also red with embarrassment as Ami conducted a thorough examination. Usagi bit her lower lip to keep from grinning at her son's discomfort, and Seiya sent a pleading look his mother's way.

"Mom, I'm fine," he said, trying to pull his shirt closed again. "Can you please call off the watchdog?"

Usagi ignored him. "Ami?" she asked.

Ami packed her implements back into the medical bag. "He's fine," she said. "He might have a headache for a while because he bumped his head when he fell, but that's about it." She grinned at Seiya. "No sign of concussion with that hard head. Still, keep an eye on him for the next twenty-four hours. Any sudden dizziness, nausea or cognitive problems call me right away." She walked out of the room, laying a comforting hand on Usagi's arm. Her friend acknowledged the gesture with a smile and then entered the room, sitting down on the edge of her son's bed.

"So," Usagi said, giving herself a pause as she tried to think how to broach the subject.

"I don't remember much," Seiya said, answering his mother's unspoken question.

"What do you remember?" she asked, looking him directly in the eye.

Seiya thought for a moment. "I remember meeting up with you in the street and then running to the shopping district. I remember Venus almost taking our heads off with her Crescent Beam attack. I saw Usa collapse, and then. . ." He gave a shrug. "That's about it, really.

"You don't remember what sent you out to find your sister?" Usagi asked. When Seiya shook his head she continued. "You told me that you could tell she was in danger. How?"

"I just. . . It was the strangest feeling," he replied, closing his eyes. "Like a shiver up my spine, making the hair on the nape of my neck stand up. And I could hear my blood pounding in my ears, and it was almost a voice in my head, telling me that Usa was in danger and needed my help."

Usagi nodded, trying to cover up her surprise. She was irresistibly reminded of a time long ago, before she and Mamoru had learned the truth about the other's secret identity. She had asked him, as Tuxedo Kamen, how he always knew to come to Sailor Moon's aid. His description of the blood roaring in his ears was too similar to what Seiya had just described to be a coincidence.

But how? Seiya and Chibiusa had never been close, certainly not close enough to form that sort of bond. They had fought and scrapped and argued with each other virtually all their lives, never seeming to care how the tension between them affected others. Until recently, that is. Could that be it? Together they had decided that their fighting could only damage the work that they all, as a family, needed to do. Had that made a new bond between them possible?

"Mom, what are you thinking?"

Usagi gave her head a shake and forcibly pulled her thoughts back to the present. She smiled at her son. "And you don't remember anything that happened after Chibiusa collapsed?"

Seiya shook his head. "Not a thing. Why, what happened?"

Usagi told him. By the time she was finished his eyes were huge in his face and his mouth hung open. "How?" he asked in a whisper. "How could I have controlled the Silver Crystal?"

"I don't know, Seiya. But we're all going to find out. Together."

Mamoru sat at his daughter's bedside, reassured by the steady rise and fall of her breast. As long as she was breathing everything would be okay. He also detected the signs that Ami had spoken of. One of Chibiusa's hands rested on top of the blanket and every few moments it twitched, as if she were trying to grasp something, and her forehead was creased in a slight frown. It did indeed look as if she were bothered by nothing more than a disturbing dream.

Eventually the weeks of worry and the occasional sleepless night got the better of him and he felt his eyelids drifting closed. The hypnotic regularity of his daughter's breathing didn't help, and before he was even aware of it Mamoru had slipped into a light doze, his chin sinking down to his chest.

Endymion.

He jerked awake, his head coming up so quickly it felt like his spine was wrenched out of place. Blinking the tiredness from his eyes he looked around, noting the familiar surroundings of Chibiusa's room. There was no one there but him and his daughter, so that voice whispering his seldom heard name must have been a dream.

Prince Endymion.

He was standing in the courtyard of a vast temple, the weight of a sword heavy at his hip and armor pressing down on his shoulders and across his chest. A long cloak floated behind him as he walked along a rose-shrouded path, his footsteps echoing loudly. He had been here once before, and knew where to go to find answers.

He stopped short, though, when he saw who was in the heart of the temple. He had expected to see its guardian priest, but the last person he had thought to see there was his daughter. She appeared to be deep in conversation with the priest, her face turned up toward him and her eyes never straying from his. Mamoru was about to call out to the pair when each extended a hand toward the other, a soft golden glow between them.

"Terra Crystal Power!"

The words were barely audible but their effect was immediate. The golden light between Chibiusa and Helios exploded outward, enveloping the two of them. Mamoru flinched away from the light, his eyes tightly closed. . .

He was back in Chibiusa's bedroom, his daughter still lying unconscious on the bed. He blinked rapidly, surprised to find that his vision was normal and not effected by the powerful light he had just seen.

A vision, he thought to himself, sighing. He stood up, rubbed his face and walked to the window. But a vision of what? And why?

"The story is still unwritten."

Mamoru spun back to the bed. That whisper had been Chibiusa's. He reached the side of her bed in time to see her eyelids flutter and then lift. She blinked once, twice, and then her eyes focused on his face.

"Dad?"

He smiled and took one of her hands in his. "Who else?"

She tried to sit up then, but her face quickly wrinkled in pain and with a loud groan she collapsed back onto the pillow. She lifted her hand and covered her eyes, shielding them as if the light was painful. "What happened?" she asked.

He slid back into the chair. "I'm not really sure, to be honest," he said. "What do you remember?"

"A woman," Chibiusa replied, closing her eyes. "She'd had her heart crystal removed. At least I think she did, based on what you and Mom told me." Her eyes opened again. "And a park bench that was somehow alive."

Mamoru nodded; it gibed with what Usagi had described to him, but clearly Chibiusa had no idea of events after she was caught in the Daimon's attack. "The park bench being 'alive" is what happens when the Daimon is absorbed by something. That's how it can attack people and get a hold of heart crystals."

Chibiusa gave her father a weak smile. "I kind of figured that," she said. "It makes sense, after all." She struggled to sit up, wincing again at the pain in her head, but this time she didn't lay back down. "I know that Mom arrived on the scene, and I remember Mercury attacking. Then an enormous burst of some sort of energy, and nothing. It's a blank after that."

"I'll let your mother tell you the rest," Mamoru said, rising from the chair as footsteps were heard on the stairs. A moment later Usagi appeared, grinning when she saw her daughter was awake and sitting up. She quickly took the chair her husband had vacated; he gave her shoulder a quick squeeze before leaving the room.

At the bottom of the stairs he leaned against the wall, closed his eyes and tried to call the vision back. It was no use; the reality of it was fading fast. Not the memory, though. That would linger for a long time. And was that explosion of golden light a good thing or a bad thing for Chibiusa? With a sigh he opened his eyes and pushed away from the wall, knowing that he would keep this to himself until he understood more.

Back in her daughter's bedroom Usagi watched as her husband hurried down the stairs, as if eager to escape the room. A part of her mind wondered what could be bothering him, but she knew that Chibiusa was more important at that moment. She focused her attention on her daughter and was pleased to see that Chibiusa didn't look puzzled or confused, but rather curious to know what had happened.

Chibiusa smiled. "Dad said you'd tell me the rest."

Usagi grinned in return. "The rest, huh? Presumably from after you blacked out."

Chibiusa nodded. "I remember Mercury's attack and then that flare of energy. That's the last of it."

Usagi didn't reply right away, not sure how to broach a subject that was sure to upset and agitate her daughter. With Seiya it had been different; his first reaction was curiosity, wondering how it could have happened. Chibiusa was likely to view what happened in a negative light, as some sort of slight on her abilities as Sailor Moon. And to be angry that Seiya had saved the day, which boded ill for the fragile truce existing between brother and sister.

"Mom?"

Usagi shook her head to clear it, bringing her attention back fully. "Sorry. Just thinking about how to tell you what happened." She took her daughter's hand. "I don't want you to get upset."

"Why would I get upset?"

Usagi told her what had occurred in the plainest terms possible. When she got to the part about the Silver Crystal responding to Seiya Chibiusa's only reaction was a widening of her eyes. There was silence for a long minute when Usagi stopped speaking.

"Is he okay? And is Mizuki? What about the heart snatching victim?" Chibiusa spoke so quietly that her mother almost missed the questions.

Usagi blinked back tears and squeezed her daughter's hand. She should have known better; that Chibiusa's first reaction would be concern for the safety of the people involved. If she was upset or angry it wasn't coming out just yet.

"Everyone's fine," she said, a catch in her voice betraying her emotions. "Seiya has a pretty nice lump on his head from when he blacked out but other than that. . ." Her voice trailed off and she met her daughter's eyes, seeing understanding in their depths.

Chibiusa smiled. "I'm glad no one was hurt," she said. With a sigh she lay back down on her pillows. "I think I need some rest. I'll decide what I think and how I feel about the rest of it tomorrow."

Breakfast the next morning was eaten in almost complete silence. Chibiusa was subdued and withdrawn while Seiya's face had the tight, pinched look he always wore when he had a headache. Usagi was tempted to make a fuss over both of them but held back, remembering what her husband had said to her the previous evening.

"They both have a lot to think about and come to terms with," Mamoru had said. "We need to give each of them the chance and wait until they're ready to talk about it."

Usagi had agreed, but it was difficult to follow through with the plan in the light of day. Especially without Mamoru at the table, his presence serving to keep her steady. He had gone in to his lab, a most unusual occurrence for a Sunday. But considering the rapidly escalating situation perhaps not so strange.

As she stood up to clear her dishes from the table she saw a look pass between Seiya and Chibiusa, so she wasn't surprised when the two of them disappeared out of the house together shortly after the clean up. She resisted the urge to follow them, if only to keep the peace. She had to trust that they could work things out just between the two of them.

Neither of them spoke on the short walk to the neighborhood park. As expected it was empty; most of the families in the area were known for staying close to home on Sundays. It was the one place, and the one time, that they knew they could have a completely private conversation.

Chibiusa sat in one of the swings while Seiya leaned against the pole nearest her. She didn't look at her brother as she pushed against the ground with her toes, setting the swing in motion. "Thanks for understanding," she finally said. "That I didn't want to talk in front of Mom, I mean."

Seiya snorted. "Not hard to figure it out," he replied, moving to the swing next to hers. "I wasn't eager to have this chat in front of her either."

"So you know? What happened yesterday?"

Seiya shrugged. "I know some of it," he said, carefully looking anywhere but at his sister. "Most of it I only know what Mom told me. I honestly don't remember."

Chibiusa struggled against a grin. "You honestly don't remember saving everybody and proving every negative thing I've ever said about you false?"

He turned towards her then, an answering grin on his face. "Don't push it, Usa. Besides," he went on, looking away again. "I didn't really save everybody. Or at least I didn't have to. Mom would have taken care of that."

"Why did you rush into the fight?" Chibiusa asked. "You just said it yourself; you didn't have to."

"I don't know," Seiya replied, standing up and beginning to pace. "I still don't even understand what drew me there. I was sitting at home, perfectly peaceful, when I was overwhelmed with a feeling that you were in danger. Next thing I knew I was out the door."

"And taking my locket?"

"I understand that even less," he admitted, stopping in front of Chibiusa and meeting her eyes. "I saw you collapse, and your transformation coming undone. I didn't think, I just acted." He laughed then, but without humor. "Believe me, I was surprised as anyone when Mom told me that the Silver Crystal reacted to me."

Chibiusa nodded, accepting her brother's words, but with her mind racing at what it all might mean. From what their mother had told her the crystal's reaction to Seiya had been far beyond anything she had ever been able to generate. And her determination to accept her brother for whatever he might become was still too new for that thought not to rankle.

"It bothers you, doesn't it? The idea that I might have more control over that damned thing than you do," Seiya said, his hard voice breaking in to her thoughts.

Chibiusa sighed and stood up, surprised at having to look up to her brother's face. When had he gotten so tall? "I'd be lying if I said no," she replied. "And I think our truce precludes lying to each other." She started to walk off, back toward the house. "Besides," she called over her shoulder, "I've gotten some pretty sound advice from a couple of people recently."

"What kind of advice?" Seiya asked, catching up and walking at her side.

"The kind that says I should just accept you as you are, and as you might become."

"Could you do that even if it meant you would no longer be Sailor Moon?" Seiya asked, putting her darkest thought into words.

Chibiusa glanced up at her brother. "I don't know about that; you'd look awfully silly in the outfit." He shot her a look that made her grin, but then she grew serious again. "I honestly don't know if I could accept that," she said, staring off into the distance. "But I can make you a promise that I'll try."