We do not own "Sailor Moon" nor any of the characters.
"SAILOR MOON ETERNAL"
The 6th Season of the Sailor Moon Saga
Chapter 27
"Something on the Wind"
"From out of the distant night sky you came down to me now."
"Where are we headed anyway, Starr?" Alex Sokova, in the driver's seat, of course, asks of the dark figure seated beside her in the red Ferrari.
"Shooting stars above me, I ask you this one request."
Even in the dim light of the full moon, she could sense every handsome feature of Sayer Starr's face. In the corner of her keen eye, Alex noted the sweet way his mouth curled into a wry smile as he starts humming and singing his new bride a familiar love song rather than answer her directly.
"Whisper how much I want to see her…Convey my message, starlight!"
"Oh! Turn left here!" He pauses his smooth, calm singing to call out startlingly abrupt, pointing with his hand stretched over her dashboard.
SCREECH!
"How about a little warning next time, Fighter?" The expert race car driver somehow safely maneuvers her vehicle in time to execute the unanticipated turn, Alex giving her back-seat driver a smug smirk. Sayer simply shrugs, continuing to sing his solo from the Three Lights' main theme.
"The time has passed quickly, and I've become a man."
"Just testing your reflexes, U. They've gotta be sharp for what I have in mind tonight. Just keep on driving." Sayer's hand rests comfortably on her leg, moving up and down it with his black leather gloves in the dark, rhythmically with his golden-throat's music.
"Finally aware of the feelings between us. Not enough to just think of 'U'…"
"You must think I'm a very good driver." As Sayer demonstratively traces a silky initial "U" along her neckline, Alex intakes air, while keeping her eyes straight ahead on the icy roads. Although, her eager mind was beginning to wander elsewhere, Sayer's bold fingers were becoming more and more persuasive…
"Move closer to me, my race car driver!"
"I know you're good at a lot of things, Ally." Sayer pauses his tailored serenade to whisper sexily back to her in the darkness. His silky voice caused a smile to tickle her lips in the car's front seat ride, distracting Alex from determining the destination.
That is, until she reached a dead-end in the long and winding road.
—A road less traveled, where you sang me your honest beauty…and there I asked you to be my wind song…
All at once, Alex realized just where this brightly shining shooting starlight was leading her—and it thrilled her to know this amazing Three Light had given so much consideration to her feelings on this subject again.
Because you really do care.
The road led to the same slopes they had skied earlier, this very afternoon, just beyond the same snow-capped mountainous hills…
"Search for your love! Through cold snows of silver!"
Search for your love! I'm drifting on the mountain.
Search for your love! Close our distance, I'm flowing towards you right now!"
"The cottage, Starr?" Turning the ignition off in the quiet vehicle, Alex asks breathily, feeling that delicious sense of mystery again as she pu it all together.
"If it's all right with you, Ally, I know you were real interested in it, and I kinda liked the old plac—" Sayer begins to justify his decision, but is stopped in mid-sentence with a crushing blow to his lips by Alex's energized ones. The kiss grows so hot between the pair of wild soldiers that it fogs up the shut-down automobile's windshield quickly.
Alex musses Sayer's endlessly tossed curls before letting the satisfied man in her passenger's seat go.
"It's all right with me." Alex reaffirms her obvious pleasure at his thoughtful choice. She could not imagine a location more suitable to her pleased mind.
No fancy hotels, no exotic locales, no far-off destinations like most normal honeymooning couples. Just you and me in that little, ancient, creaky, drafty, beat-up old log cabin out in the middle of nowhere, with no one around for miles—
The enchanted cottage that called to us, the place where you offered me your truest heart— your soulful song—and I felt the wind and the sky wrap around us there in that special way…
Making me sure the search was over for you—and that you were the one I wanted to make my own forever, too, Starr…
Sayer picks up his song again during her bout of silent meditation. "It's only your scent more and more—send it here to me!"
"C'mon, then." After burying his nose in Alex's nape of neck to inhale Uranus' powerful scent in lieu of his sexy serenade, Sayer, his pent-up anxiety that she wouldn't approve vanished in her appreciative smile, was glad he had even the good sense to have thought ahead. He had arranged for helpful Terry and Susan to set up the hidden cottage with enough supply of food and some certain basic amenities. Like his guitar, the handwritten song that started this off, a dozen red roses, perhaps—for he and Alex to enjoy a sudden shotgun, unorthodox honeymoon up in the cold mountain hideaway, just the two of them tucked away, alone in the world.
'Unorthodox' described how their whole, wild relationship has been thus far since Sayer and Alex's first objectionable meeting until now, and was still promising to always be.
"Can't my voice reach you, my Uranus?—I'm in love with you!"
Unconventionally stimulating and extraordinarily exhilarating for every second of their lives together, Alex indeed hears his song crooning to her of his offered emotion. She closes her eyes, leaning her forehead to his with her unspoken answer.
"Right now! Tell me you want me! You are my true Princess!"
"Just keep singing in that gorgeous voice, Starr. It'll keep us warm 'til we get there." As the dazzling singer unashamedly belts out his revised lyrics meant for her alone now, Alex prompts him to keep it up. Her eyes intensify with excitement as she zips up the parka jacket over his bare neck to brace him for the cold. That and a red hot kiss Alex charges Sayer up with as she gathers herself from the flaming red Ferrari in the snow.
Good thing you're sturdier than you look to endure the cold of a bitter winter night like this, my Star Fighter. Among other things I've got planned for you…
"Whoo whee! I'm good to go, now!" Then, with a wink, Sayer pops out from the car, retrieving their thankfully few suitcases from the trunk of the Ferrari.
"Please answer me! I need you now!"
Sharing excited smiles and the bags Alex insists on carrying her fair share of too, Sayer and Alex reclaim the skis they had left near a massive oak tree just that afternoon.
Was it only then we were last here?
Clicking ski poles in a dueling manner, the pair take off fearlessly into the still darkness, both somehow instinctively knowing exactly where the previously ne'er seen cabin was tucked away under all the ice and snow capped trees.
"Please answer me! So softly…" Sayer trails off his personalized version of 'Search for Your Love,' feeling that the deafening silence of this snow encased mountainside demanded the quiet to not break the magic spell, as they traveled side by side towards the singular destination.
It was as if, again, Alex and Sayer were being mystically led by the glistening starlight to the cottage that was waiting for two honeymooning lovers to spend their first sacred hours as a newly married couple together, to get to know each other more, as God in Heaven intended for man and woman to become one flesh.
Through the chilling winds, the stillness overtaking the lands, the soft moon and brilliant stars as their only illumination, Sayer and Alex speed along in perfect sync with one another.
In the silence, both reflect on each other—of the extraordinary spirit that could only match and complete them. This most unlikely couple recall what amazing, unreal things had occurred this day, and what unbelievable promises were about to occur this night that had both raw bodies' inner fires kindled, despite the frigid cold neither could much feel anymore…
Through the denseness of the thick ice encrusted on the branches, the two perfect soldiers, as one, suddenly stop, peering through the thick blanket of ebony to where a small log cabin lay waiting for them.
Pausing to look at his stunning Alex Sokova Starr, how dazzling and radiant her eyes shone in the moon's faint light, how perfect her golden bangs swept over her perfectly beautiful face, the sudden soft snowflakes drifting down to her hair added to the splendor of her attraction in Sayer Starr Sokova's dazzled orbs.
So much alike—though neither would probably ever admit it—Alex's thoughts were the same, allured by his dashing looks, enchanted by his undefeatable eyes as silent words of love pass between them in the night…
The two figures pierce through the darkness of night silently speeding across the open snowy expanse, into the frozen woodland grove. Flying it seemed on angel's sparkling wings, the approving gale of a fighter's starlit wind pushes at their backs towards the small little enchanted cottage.
Yanking off their skis at the log cabin's familiar front door (Alex was done first, of course, as she watches in amusement at Sayer fumbling with his) Alex was just about to turn the doorknob. But I was then she spied a shooting star of a pale blue shade rush past her Star Fighter's handsome face as if in a silent caress, and the enchanted cottage's door swings open wide to them as if by supernatural force.
Her ever-vigilant eyes peer in, and Alex immediately noticed that it wasn't as cold as she remembered—the cobwebs missing, the dust and dirt and grime of years spent untouched erased from view that gave the place a fresh air of coziness about it. Susan's gentle touch was everywhere. And that guitar and a dozen red roses above the sheet music written for her that had found its way back here told Alex that much feeling had gone into setting this place up for her benefit.
After all, the timeless cabin held such sweet promise for the two destined soldiers within its old creaky logs, welcoming Sayer and Alex in its magical folds again.
Alex smiles at the unusual thoughtfulness of her usually brainless companion, turning to Sayer and wordlessly flicking a loose curl that had fallen across his forehead. There was not a single thing more needed to be said that their hungry eyes weren't conveying to one another's souls.
With equally matched passions crashing, colliding, conforming to each other's needs, the two fighters explosively embrace one another. As they practically carry each other deeper into the special cottage, all the names of eternal lovers etched on the windowpane gleam with joy to now add 'Sayer and Alex Starr' to its hallowed roster…
One week later, full of wild passion, intimate revelations, and a snowed in cabin that only brought the trapped pair closer together…
"Time to fly, Starr."
"Is it really the last day of our honeymoon, Ally?" While the two still lay on the bed, Sayer whispers, gazing seriously over into Alex's green eyes soon after she had declared it was time to go, their waning food supply being the main deciding factor.
After all, she didn't want to see her wiry lover grow any skinnier if she could help it.
"No." Propping herself up over him, Alex kisses the top of Sayer's forehead affectionately. "I think our honeymoon will never end. If that's all right with you, Mr. Sokova." She cocks her head to gaze directly into his eyes, too.
"Fine with me, Mrs. Starr." Sayer smooches the underside of Alex's chin, and then anywhere else his lips could reach without moving his hung-over body from its comfortable lounging position on their shared bed all that much.
He and Alex then both throw laziness to the wind, fully enjoying the last of the shower's hot water before preparing to leave.
"Everything's packed. Here's your jacket, lover. Get your guitar in the bag." Alex ducks a roving kiss as she shoves his red jacket in his face instead. "I'll check out the kitchen. You clean up the bathroom." Evenly doling out the marital chores her husband would not be allowed to shirk, Alex found she endlessly enjoyed bossing Sayer around.
"Yes, ma'am." Sayer salutes her like a good soldier, but with a wink and playful kiss to the tip of her cool nose. He bounces away to the bathroom to 'clean' it—a lick and a promise wipe, I know, I already did most of it—causes Alex to marvel at his still boundless star energy, even after a full week of sleepless nights and—ahem—roughhousing. Sayer Starr was still energetic and shining with optimism, humor and fun.
He'd have to be to keep up with me. Alex smirks as she finishes washing the dishes and drying the single wine glass left that Sayer did not break in New Year's Eve enthusiasm last night, imagining how she should pack it safely in their already tight luggage.
"You can just leave that there to dry, for when we come back." Sayer had snuck in some time during her reflection, wrapping his arms around Alex's scented neck, playfully burying his face in her just showered waves of golden hair he had helped shampoo.
"What if some other couple decides that this cabin would make a nice home, and moves in to our love nest with their fourteen kids and two dogs?" Alex responds saucily, polishing off the glass to gleam on the shelf alone. She reaches up to Sayer's strong arm, liking the feel of it around her.
"They had better not!" Sayer cries out in heated protest, before bashfully looking away from her quizzical gaze. "I bought this old place. Lock, stock, and mountaintop." Proud Sayer gives his utterly surprised wife a sweet wink.
"You bought it?" Alex incredulously muses at the spontaneous idea of her ever impulsive mate wryly. "Yeah, well, I guess this could always be our little get-away retreat where we could spend our second honeymoon when we're old and grey?" She scoffs at her own inside joke, unable to imagine either of them 'old' or 'grey—youth and vitality were so much a part of each of their beings.
"Who says we have to be 'old and grey' to go on a second honeymoon, Ally? I figured, we could visit this place every few months for some, uh…" Sayer dangles the temptation, his beautiful crooked smile kissing her neck invitingly.
"Starr..." Alex sighs softly as his attentions intensify down her neck to her upper chest. 'We really should be going." She had to employ all her own restraint as Sayer's lips search for a better vantage point, her strong hands holding all his fingers from going any further.
"How can we go? We're still snowed in, you know. I just checked." Sayer smoothly uses that 'we're trapped' excuse to not leave yet as he tugs her a-shirt straps down her smooth shoulders with his teeth while his hands were preoccupied.
"You know damn well that we could have escaped from here any time we pleased, Mister." Alex stands, leaving his tantalizing attempts as she marches to the front door to pull it open for the first time in a week.
"Yeah. But wasn't it fun being trapped in this joint, stranded alone with no link to the outside world whatsoever, with only gorgeous me as your favorite pastime?" Sayer whispers, mischievous as a schoolboy, as he joins his partner at the front door to stare at the white wall of ice staring back at them in its stark coldness.
Sigh.
"You or me?" Sayer inquires with a reluctant sigh at Alex's silent smirk and raised brows at his remark, both knowing what had to happen next.
"Me." Always the first to take the lead control, Alex gives her lover a teasing side glance, seeing his slight pout.
"Even though I'd love to see you in it, I think it's a little cold out there for that skimpy bikini of yours, my Star Fighter." Alex mocks the meager sailor get-up of her lover. Then she raises her hand high to the ceiling, nearly touching the low roof as she calls upon her ruling planet for the extra power boost needed.
"URANUS CRYSTAL POWER…MAKEUP!"
Before Sayer Starr's eager eyes, thirsty to witness his Ally's transformation into her strident form of a sailor soldier this close up since their bodies had merged, Alex Sokova Starr transforms into the dazzling Sailor Uranus.
"That short little tutu of yours there probably isn't that much warmer. Just saying, Sailor U." The navy blue ponytailed young man comments wickedly with a pouty face at her disparaging remarks on his sailor soldier form.
Sayer did not mind one bit in turning into Sailor Star Fighter—a woman's body—in front of Uranus, just as she had no objection to his transformation at all, either.
That kind of thing never mattered to Alex, his Starlight form every bit as gorgeous in her unprejudiced eyes.
"Hey, U, do you think we have time to find out if it'd be any…different…with you in your sailor soldier form…?" Mischievous Sayer bites his lip in curiosity, feeling around Sailor Uranus' uniform back in search of a zipper, or buttons, or maybe some Velcro to loosen…
"Not as different as if you had transformed into yours…" Alex teases cruelly, smacking Sayer's wandering digits away.
Sayer Starr or Star Fighter…It wouldn't matter to me, because you are the exact same person, with the same heart and mind and soul. My crazy shooting star…
"Now, just shut up and get out of my way." Sparkling at him in her vivid yellow, new super sailor uniform, Uranus orders the man standing before her with radiant eyes, moving a step forward into her wide stance.
"WORLD SHAKING!" She cries out, sending a gleaming yellow-gold ball of pure Uranus planet energy to steam through the thick expanse of ice that had been packed for a week against the cabin's outer walls.
That felt good.
With a dazzling smile at the surge of raw power racing through her body that felt somehow different—enhanced in a strange way—than last she had stepped through this doorway, Uranus gestures her chin to the huge hole her Uranus ground trembled power sphere had plowed straight through for the two to pass through.
"Come on." Uranus grabs up the pair of suitcases that they had lived out of for this enchanted week, Sayer wrestling to hold onto both their skis and his large bagged guitar that just made it to fit through the somewhat claustrophobic tunnel her blast had incurred.
As Alex closes the cottage door behind her tightly, she contemplates for a split second on the changes that happened to her each time she stepped through its squeaky old door—good changes. Then she gives Sayer the thumbs up to run, side by side, slipping and sliding and holding each other up through the half frozen, now melting tunnel of ice she had created.
Laughing as they go at the sheer madness of it all, with cold, wet drippings dangerously raining down on their undaunted heads, Sailor Uranus' laughter stops the moment the pair emerge from the carved out tunnel to the other side.
Standing perfectly still, the Guardian of Uranus halts as she glances around at the blinding white world. Cautiously, her keen ears pick up a faint…something…on the wind that she had been kept isolated from all during the final week of the last year.
"Ally…?" Sayer notices her nervous stance as he knits his dark eyebrows in worry while strapping on Alex's set of skis to her feet.
"Something's…different on the wind." She muses mysteriously, closing her eyes tightly with her hand to her golden tiara as if trying to bring whatever it was into focus.
When nothing comes in clearly, Uranus shakes her head, unable to zero in on it, but just knowing something…something was out there.
The soldier of the sky looks up to the clear blue winter heavens in deep meditation.
"Sure, I feel it too…" Sayer kneeling at her feet, caresses Uranus' legs with an entirely different theory more to his romantic nature as he strapped her skis over her yellow ankle boots. "You and me, right?"
"You think it's just that?" Alex's more suspicious mind was unable to attest the cause of her uneasiness to their physical relationship, but couldn't pinpoint anything else altered, even as her tension was settling down.
Yes, indeed, everything was changed now that she and this Star Fighter had…bonded… on so many levels.
And yet…
"We got this, U." Sayer confidently pulls off his own warmth's red coat to place over Sailor Uranus' bare shoulders. He boldly leans in to land a reassuring kiss on his golden sailor of the wind's uncertain, glossy lips to bring her out from this sudden, unknown anxiety.
Looking into his confident gaze that had been explosively electrified by her planet powered liplock, Sailor Uranus nods and detransforms back into her normal form. Regaining herself, Alex returns the selflessly relinquished red and white article of clothing back into his wriggling arms before the outwardly shivering creature froze to death, for her sake.
"Geez, it's cold out here! Not like our nice, warm cottage! Brrr! Let's race to the car! Whoever wins, gets to drive!" Zipped up again in the red and white parka that matched her golden one, Sayer Starr takes off giggling with the dare, nearly losing his balance as he was unfairly stealing a head start. In his haste in this unsure sport, he comically flies down the steep slope, one ski pole sticking straight up in the air as he slides down, out of control.
Alex couldn't help but chuckle at her funny mate's laughable ineptness at skiing.
And there's no way I'm gonna let you drive my car, you reckless driver.
"Maybe you're right. Maybe it's nothing." She whispers to the wind as if trying to convince herself as she shakes off the uncertainty pervading her soul as she speeds off after Sayer.
But deep down, Alex understood that the wind was trying to tell her something—warn her of something that was sure to come—as it whips her right in the face with a harsh, cold, gale biting on this first day of the New Year, 1999…
Hours later…
"Starr…Time to wake up, lover." Turning the car engine off, Alex none-too-gently nudges the figure sleeping peacefully next to her on the entire two hour plus drive back to Tokyo.
"Mmmmhh." Sayer was still dead tired, off in dreamland.
"Wake up!" Alex barks, then she shoves his head and pinches him hard.
"ALLY! WHAT?!" Sayer sits up, rubbing his pinched spot with a twisted lip. "Isn't there some easier way to wake me up?" He asks, looking right into her eyes.
"Yeah…but we don't have time right now. We're here." Alex smirks, getting out of the car to greet the onslaught of welcome home friends rushing to the Ferrari parked outside of Terry and Susan's rural home.
Alex's eyes sparkle to see the beloved cousin she had not been separated from for long, ever since they had been together.
"Amara!" Michelle races to Alex's arms, the two soul mates sharing a warm embrace. Alex exchanges a look with Michelle's curious eyes.
"I suppose there's no use in asking, you two have obviously had a wonderful honeymoon." Michelle says in her flirtatious manner, giggling, with her eyebrows raised.
"Yes, we have." Alex answers aloud, popping her red faced new husband playfully on the cheek.
"A very good time." Sayer's embarrassment melts away with one flash of her dazzling smile.
"You're looking thin, Sayer. But I'm surprised you're not in worse condition." Robin, standing behind Michelle, comments snidely.
"What's that supposed to mean, Rob?!" Sayer had a vague idea that Robin was insulting his wife somehow. Robin just continues to smirk nastily, until both Alex and Michelle give him a threatening look.
"Hi, hi!" Tara smiles brightly, running out the door to greet the couple, but Alex thought she noticed something different in her eyes.
"Sayer, Alex. It's so good to see you." Terry comes out of his house, his own wife on his arm.
"Happy New Year, you two!" Susan sings out, looking oh-so-charming and fresh in the new year. She was wearing a neatly pressed apron, obviously in the middle of making dinner, from the Italian aroma escaping the front door.
"Oh, Susie! Are you a sight for sore eyes!" Sayer's mouth waters at the sight of Susan in an apron and the thought of food—good home cooked food! He bounds up to his sister-in-law.
"Tell me you're actually cooking a dinner. Tell me, tell me!" He childishly grabs on her astonished sleeve. "Oh, hey, Ter." Sayer halfheartedly calls out in greeting to his brother, much more interested in Susan's culinary skills at the moment.
"Sayer?" Terry asks in wonderment at what his strange behavior meant, but then again, Sayer was constantly being strange.
"We got snowed in," Alex begins to explain.
"Poor Sayer." Robin snickers unsympathetically under his breath, resulting in a poke in the ribs from Michelle, while Alex completely ignores him.
"—And ran out of food. We made it though, on a few boxes of chocolates and those fruit flavored surprises you left for us. I've been eager to thank you." She gives Terry a crooked smile, a new understanding of the man she once thought was a cold stiff.
"I'm glad you enjoyed them." Terry smiles back knowingly.
"Oh yeah! What a mess Ally made! We really enjoyed them!" Giving a rolling-eye Alex a Cheshire grin, Sayer winks at his tall brother. Terry didn't realize until now how much he missed his silly companion, for all the liveliness Sayer brought into their lives.
"Come on, Susie! I'm hungry! What've we got? Spaghetti? Your stuffed shells? I'll eat anything home-cooked! Oooh, that smells good!" His mouth was going a mile a minute as he drags Susan back into the kitchen, and "helps" her put the dinner on the table.
"Nice, isn't it? The way your husband just ditches you for another woman's more tasty treats?" Alex ribs her brainless mate, as she and Michelle follow them in, arm in arm. "At least, let him keep smiling, for now..."Alex had let her mind take a reprieve from the anxiety pressing in on her for these past few hours, for Sayer's sake.
But the closer she drove in towards Tokyo - where the heart of her unrest seemed to stem from—she couldn't hide her concerns from the other, other half of her soul.
"I feel it, too, Amara. This morning, I felt the waves crashing roughly…again." Through Alex's smiles since they had arrived back, Michelle's keen sense could pick up that her cousin had gnawing thoughts much like her own.
"Have you told the others?" Alex was, through all…even the normalcy of her new relationship with Sayer…a soldier first, still in control of her emotions.
"Robin knows, of course—no one else—yet. I didn't want to frighten them without consulting you first. Amara, what do we do?" Michelle's soul was crying out for reassurance from the one who had always pulled her through what she could not understand.
"What we always do, what we've always done, Michelle. Together, we've got this. Together we're stronger than ever before." Quoting her surprisingly rational husband from earlier, Alex calms Michelle's growing anxieties over the storm both knew was on the sunsetting horizon on this first day, of the final year of the millennium…
Susan's homemade linguini and sausage hit the spot indeed as Sayer hungrily wolfed down more than enough to make up for the past week of less than filling meals.
Not that everything else wasn't way more than fulfilling…Sayer muses with a big goofy sigh as he gives his gorgeous framed, tall and sleek wife a pleased grin.
Alex was not half as hunger rabid, finding her companion's conversations and storytelling more uplifting than any meal for her worried mind. Alex sensed the same in Michelle, and the need to protect her as well as Sayer now—and even beyond them there was one more—her Princess—Serena—to whom she was bound to by duty, by destiny, by love.
After dinner, everyone retires to the living room for coffee and a movie. Susan sits on Terry's lap, with Tara, now living with them, snuggled close to Michelle on the settee during the heartwarming old movie "Old Yeller." Robin leans back in his chair and falls asleep almost immediately, not terribly interested in dogs, as he much preferred cats.
Sayer sniggers at his 'sleepyhead' brother after the mischievous boy had managed to place some of Michelle's girly barrettes in Robin's silvery hair to make him look like some demented rabbit while he snoozed, Sayer plops on the floor near the couch against Alex's legs.
"You're quiet, Ally." He comments attentively with a familiar hand rubbing up her long calf and along her tense thigh.
"Am I? Just tired, I suppose." Alex decides to keep her forewarning suspicions from her happy-go-lucky companion for as long as possible.
"Let's go home, then." Sayer winks at her, and gives her arm a squeeze.
"Ally's a little tired—all that driving you know—so we're going to be going, uh, home." Sayer suddenly remembers the apartment he was offering his new wife wasn't his alone. And the thought of having snarky bro Robin hanging around wasn't very pleasant…
"Oh yes! Don't worry, it's all been arranged, Amara. You and Sayer may take full hold of his apartment—I mean your joint apartment." Michelle smiles, the thought of her tough cousin and wacky Sayer Starr setting up house together, even in the fully furnished, stylish Three Lights' pad was quite amusing.
"Robin is staying at my place." Michelle states proudly.
"WHAT?! Michelle, I thought we discussed that you were not going to…live…with that little cretin—" Alex jumps to her feet, about to throw every objection in the book at them, now that she could no longer keep that close an eye on her beloved and that distasteful shrimp.
"He'll be alone at my studio apartment—just so he's close to the recording studio, of course, Amara, dear." Michelle says, giving her cousin a smirk. Secretly, she did want Robin to stay at her mansion where she generally resided, but for some reason, he had refused the invitation.
"Oh." Alex settles down her ruffled feathers, and Sayer giggles at the whole situation, especially at Robin's sour expression at being referred to in the third person as a 'cretin,' like he wasn't even there. That was classic!
"Thanks, 'Chelle. Thanks, Rob." Sayer says, still chuckling as he hustles Alex out the door with a few quick goodbyes to Terry, Susan and Tara.
And Sayer gives Alex cause to smile on the short ride into the heart of the city with his light hearted tales as the two of them begin their new lives together.
The first month of the final year of the millennium thankfully passed quietly over the city of Tokyo and those residing there. Well, as quietly as possible—Sayer and Alex's fiery arguments over the joys of living together became quite legendary in their apartment building's gossip circles.
But somehow, they hang on—their love strong enough to bring them through each other's idiosyncrasies, adapt to them and finally, accept them. (Though Alex's hard line stance on a 50/50 split in everything, including the cooking and cleaning, drove them both to eat out most of the time, or at Susan and Terry's well run household, where they were always welcomed.)
It was on one of these such night's that the unlikeliest of married couples found themselves at the home of Sayer's brother and his wife Susan's picture-perfect marriage. Sayer and Alex (as usual) arrived in a heated discussion over a certain topic, controlling the conversation at the table on this cool winter evening.
"You expect me to believe that girl was in your dressing room just for an autograph?" Alex points her fork up to Sayer accusingly.
"For the thousandth time! Yes, that's all she said she wanted." Sayer pleads innocent though secretly in his mind he could tell from that little red-head's—ahem—attire and advances on him that she was far interested in something more than just his signature. "Geez, Ally, I can't help it if women still crawl all over me. What do you expect?! I'm rated this month's number one most eligible bachelor in 'Sexy Superstars' magazine pull-out calendar. The poor, drooling girls have no idea I'm married—you've kept it such a good secret." Sayer starts to fight in his own defense.
Typical man to blame it all on me.
"Hey, it's my career, too. I have to keep up my independent race car champion persona, or those jerk men won't take me seriously on the field." Alex starts to justify herself on the reason why she may have been even more personally responsible for their hush-hush relationship than he was. Well, Pym the promoter also insisted, begging, in fact, after his little nervous breakdown at the hospital upon hearing of Sayer's marriage, that they keep it quiet.
"Well then. I don't see you planning anytime soon to announce your marriage to all your adoring fans." Sayer twists his lip, drawling out the word "fans" with insinuations, knowing just how Alex attracted a crowd in her racing circles of all types.
"I—I just thought it was unnecessary." Alex says, caught proverbially with her pants down.
"Good. So did I." Sayer says, popping a big piece of roast beef into his mouth in an uppity manner.
"Good." Alex pokes at her plate, then crosses her arms, looking away from her difficult sparring partner. Terry, more accustomed to their verbal fights that did, once in a while become physical as Alex was not afraid to belt her husband during an argument and Sayer not a lamb to the slaughter himself, exchanges a knowing smile with his wife and Tara. They graded this one as a mild case and after a long, tension-filled pause, Susan bounces up to clear the table, as Tara quickly joins her in washing up and serving of coffee.
"Hey, Ter. Let's go drink our coffee outside. It's getting stuffy in here." Sayer says, his point of anger reached, with her easy distrust of his loyalty in question, as he flashes Alex an angry look.
"Thanks for dinner, Susie. You always outdo yourself." Sayer's angry look does a 180, giving Susan the sweetest of smiles and a warm squeeze of her shoulder as he then strides past his own wife without so much as a glance. He holds the door open for Terry, who in stark contrast, pauses to take the time to take his wife's hand and brush a tender kiss across the back of her hand.
Then Terry goes on to kiss a pleased Susan on the cheek tenderly, maybe about to indulge in a little more, until a frustrated Sayer had to come back to physically drag his big brother out the door. Shrugging to Susan as he was tugged, Terry dutifully follows an aggravated Sayer outside.
Holding her building temper long enough for Sayer to be out of earshot, Alex slams her fist down hard on the kitchen table making all the remaining silver and glassware jump at Uranus' unleashed rage.
"DAMN! That man!" Alex growls, taking Tara and Susan aback with her ferocity.
"What's wrong, Alex? You're not really jealous, are you? I don't think Sayer really would entertain—" Susan tries to comfort her dear friend, sensing this was more than the usual passing row.
"No. No. That's not it. I know he wouldn't—he wouldn't dare." Alex goes over to where Susan and Tara were washing and dry dishes, glancing out the window at the culprit blowing off some steam with Terry outside at the basketball hoop they put up on the driveway for him. "It's just—oh, never mind." Alex looks down, a strange bit of embarrassment on her usually confident features.
"Tell us!" Tara prompts with understanding eyes as she dries the dishes.
"It's silly." Alex shakes her head.
"Oh, Alex. Is it because Sayer forgot your birthday yesterday?" Susan asks in her soft voice.
"How did you know it was my—who told you?" Alex asks, certain she never told Susan or any of the others, save Michelle, of course. She always thought it weak to divulge in such a trivial thing as one's birthday. But this year was different for some reason. Alex indeed did share this point of information with someone else. She did not expect a gift or even a card—just the simple acknowledgment that he remembered what she had said once in a while—that he cared enough to keep his sieve-like mind focused long enough to prove to her that he was truly listening when they shared intimate things.
"We have our sources." Susan smiles mysteriously, keeping secrets her age-old specialty. "But Alex, even if he did forget, you know how Sayer is. Don't hold it against him."
"Yeah, I know how brainless he is, but that's not the point! It's not my stupid birthday that matters, it's the fact that he never pays attention to what I say. And someday, not listening to what I say could prove fatal." In her strict duty as a Sailor Soldier, Alex tries to justify her hurt feelings.
"Yes. But I'm sure he doesn't mean to ignore you, Alex. Because everyday, when I see you together, Sayer constantly gives you the ultimate gift of his devoted attention—his enduring love. There need not be anything more said or done or remembered. I know Sayer loves you. Even if something as easy to miss as a date slips by him. Don't let his absent-minded nature dampen one moment of your well-suited passions he shares your destiny with." The mistress of Time's ever revolving clock, Susan explains this special star's degree of devotion to her fellow sailor soldier wisely.
Alex stops to reflect on Pluto's timeless advice, realizing she was the one truly being silly. Sayer honestly gave her his love, his smile, his shine readily any time of the day, without hesitation. So what more did I expect on my birthday? I need no other gift than that.
"You're right, Susan. See? I was just being silly. It was really unlike me, I'm sorry. I'm just…not myself these days." Knowing it was not Susan to whom she must apologize for her growing shortness of patience as of late, Alex gazes out the window. She may have been confused about her other ominous feelings, and it was eating at her soul to think she had little control of what foreboding storm was coming. So much so, that fear had morphed to anger that even she, as a tough, hardened warrior, would not be able to protect the ones she loved most—protect him from impending trouble. Alex had kept her heartaches bottled up inside, making her bitter, until, after this conversation with her sister-in-law, she was able to see and smile at the dark-haired husband who was just then expertly dunking a basketball.
"Damn! Hell! Sh—" But instead, Sayer, his emotions apparently thrown off kilter by their raging argument, falls and scrapes up both his knees, swear words filling the still air outside until even the jay birds blushed.
"I guess I'd better get out there." Alex chuckles at his childish antics, shaking her head. Then she awards her wise "elder sister" Susan a hug, that surprised both serious women, for the prudent counsel on dealing with her new other half. The soldier of speed gives wide eyed Tara a quick pat as well as Alex pops out the door in a flash to 'rescue' her mate.
"Thanks for dinner, 'Sis!'" She sings in mimic of her guy, uncharacteristically affable, her face bright and lively as she races out onto the basketball court where Terry was leaning over his bleeding brother.
Wordlessly, Alex gathers up her accident prone Sayer and physically carries the skinny man to their car with a wave goodbye to Susan and Tara through the kitchen window.
Playing his favorite music on the radio, both keeping fairly quiet on the ride back to the apartment, once inside, Alex immediately goes to work on Sayer's skinned knees. She breaks out the oft-used medical kit in the bathroom cabinet, and not so gently applies the antiseptic to his legs.
"Ay-YEE!"
"It's gonna sting." Alex coolly announces, after the fact.
"Now you tell me." Embarrassed at hitting that high note in pain, Sayer now grits his teeth at the pain, manfully peeking at Alex as she finishes cleaning his "wounds."
"Ally, look. I'm sorry about before. OUCH! Honestly, I didn't know who that girl was and I don't care who knows I'm married. I'd shout it from the highest roof, publish it in any magazine, if it was up to me! But you don't have to tell anyone if you don't want to, just as long as you still don't mind having me around." Sayer bites his lower lip sweetly, peeking up to meet Alex's caring green eyes.
"Starr…Of course I don't mind having you around. I…" Smiling, Alex just stops short of saying those three important little words, but her eyes finish the sentiment for her.
"I do, too, Ally." Sayer responds softly, knowing her now so well they could read each other, as they lean into each other for a kiss. "Oh! I almost forgot!" Then with a jolt, he suddenly pulls back and reaches into his top pocket to produce a little red jewelry box.
"I got this made for you, and it came in a few days ago, but I wanted to have it engraved, so…" Sayer sticks it out to her surprised eyes. "Sorry it's a little late. Happy Birthday. I hope you like it." He smiles in anticipation, totally unaware that this 'neglectful hang-up' was what had really upset her earlier.
You did remember! You were listening, you stupid idiot. Alex silently smirks, accepting the gift. She truly didn't require a single present from him, and was simply elated to just have had him remember her in Sayer Starr's sieve-like brain. With a smirk at this surprise, she opens the little box and finds a gorgeous, sizeable ruby with many small diamonds set around a lucky horseshoe shaped band encircling the gem that gleamed on the golden ring shining in tailored splendor back at her.
Initial U.
Yes, it was flamboyant and almost flashy to a glamorous rock star degree, much more than her own understated style, but it screamed out him, her 'Starr', in every glistening detail. So Alex was instantly enamored of it, because she really did love him, more than she'd admit, deep inside.
But moreover, it bespoke of his genuine emotion for her, his thoughtfulness to embrace everything she was, the letter that signified the undeniable soldier of Uranus that pervaded Alex Starr's every fiber he recognized.
And loved more than words could ever say.
"Here's the real engagement ring I promised you I'd get…maybe a little late. But I wanted to get it designed specially, with U in mind, hehehe." Sayer chuckles that cute nervous laugh of his at the joking lettered word substitution that meant much to them both plainly visual on the lucky horseshoe shaped ring. "You're all the luck I'll ever need, Ally." He whispers meaningfully, brushing back the mussed bangs of her golden tresses, his trembling eyes meeting her strong ones staring into his intensely.
"The ruby's a rare, genuine article, full of carats, or so I was told—and just look at the inscription." A little embarrassed at the display of open affection, Sayer begins to describe what he had procured from the gleeful jewelry shop salesman. He points at the inside rim of the diamante U-designed, rare gem encrusted ring that sparkled even in the dim lighting.
"Engraved on my heart."
"I can tell you dream up song lyrics, Mr. Sokova." Alex whispers almost sarcastically with their familiar battle of the name-game, but her true voice was choking with emotion. "That's beautiful." Alex looks at the romantic 'Initial U' themed ring, evocative of the song of her heart that this Star Fighterhad mysteriously become part of the rhythm thereof when they first were thrown together, by some strange fate, at the Princess' wedding. And both unforeseen and thrilling, their relationship bond was forged in battle later that unforgettable night.
'Forever I'll engrave on your heart, shining in sparkling gold…Initial U.'
Alex marvels at the way this golden, bold and stunning initial U had been wrapped in tiny diamonds around a rather large ruby as she lifts it from its case. She slides it atop the silver band already adorning her left hand ring finger, both fitting perfectly because these two warriors' digits were comparable in size. "But this one will always be real to me, too." She states meaningfully, showing to Sayer that it wasn't the value or quality of the ring—this new one undoubtedly expensive from the look of the flawless, excessively outsized ruby stone and specially crafted golden U-shaped diamond studded setting—but the genuine thought and first memories of their inconceivable love that came with it.
Both rings now had special meaning to her with his attentive love encircling her heart with the two symbolic pieces of jewelry independent Alex never believed she'd own.
"Yeah, guess it was a real part of me. Hah! How many girls can say they got their wedding ring before their engagement ring?" This Star Fighter's inextinguishable humor made every hurt eventually run away.
"How many boys who turn into girls by night like vampires get proposed to after just singing a song?" Alex tosses the saucy comment back in their thrilling verbal jousts neither would ever admit defeat to.
"Three?" Sayer answers truthfully with the triple fingered, quirky admittance, before turning more to another tease as he slicks back his dark hair and pulls up his red jacket collar. "And if you're not careful tonight, 'I'll keess you neck and suck your bluud.'" Sayer pronounces in a terrible foreign accent of the infamous transformative, blood-sucking villain, giving a swift 'bite' to Alex's neck, perhaps not drawing blood, but surely leaving her with a definite hickey.
But the silly look on his 'fanged' Dracula-like mug and East European drawled voice cause Alex to break out in a full belly laugh as she ducks away to make a quick escape.
"Look into my eyes!" Dracula Sayer demands, joyful inside that his oft-serious Ally was joining his merry chase around their shared apartment. However, it didn't get much further than the beige velvet settee, with the Tokyo Tower scenic moonlit wraparound windows of their penthouse as backdrop, where Alex let Sayer catch her.
That new ruby red, personalized 'initial U' engagement ring gleams under the starlight as brilliant as the love in her eyes up at this one of a kind, emotionally fragile creature the stars had destined her with to care for.
"Sounds tasty to me, Vlad. Do your worst." With his dare accepted in her excited eyes afire, Alex, draped across the settee provocatively, surrenders to the role of Sayer's 'ravished victim' as a somewhat apology for her bad behavior before.
As they make love as only these passionate newlyweds could, both laugh at this crazy playacting of Sayer's favorite, creepy movie monster. All was soon forgiven and forgotten as he lavished her with all his attention's birthday gifts Alex could desire on this passionate night that replay over and over in her fantasies that the tough woman never imagined she'd desire, once upon a time.
Still, the sailor soldier in Alex Sokova couldn't help feel "something" amiss behind the still winds, although she pushed them aside for these more pleasurable diversions, just to keep herself sane.
Something suspicious on the wind was undeniably about to happen to this planet, but Sailor Uranus had decided not to share her premonitions with neither Sayer nor any of the others, save Michelle. Not until the time called for this oncoming war to be known and once again steal their peacetime joy away.
Please God, let him be my stability 'til then.