Sailor Moon Eternal

by SetsunaKou

This is a full length novel over 1000 pages long of the 6th season of Sailor Moon, our 'Eternal'. The Wedding of Serena & Darien is attended by some familiar shooting stars cutting across the night sky, finding loves of their own in the Outer-most unlikely places. Romances blossom for the Inners, as a dangerous new enemy's threat could destroy Earth & the Sailor Guardians of it...

28. Chapter 28 - Wedded Bliss

We do not own "Sailor Moon" nor any of the characters.

"SAILOR MOON ETERNAL"

The 6th Season of the Sailor Moon Saga

Chapter 28

"Wedded Bliss"

All through the nonstop flight back from Italy to Tokyo, the newly married couple remained wrapped closely in each other's arms. Susan had leaned her head comfortably the entire ride on Terry's chest, as he succumbed to a much-needed rest after a rather intense—and truly gratifying—month spent exploring the ancient city and one another with all the timeless love of a star crossed, lost millennia.

Over twenty hours later, Mr. and Mrs. Terry Starr finally arrive back in their adopted hometown of Tokyo, Japan. And though very little of consequence had occurred in the interim, both found it changed somehow. It was all exciting and new, as Terry and Susan look at it through the eyes of young love.

The whole city, their whole world, in fact, seemed as a place no longer empty, nor lonely. For they and they alone truly knew they would always have each other, and not only due to the invisible bonds of Time they two shared. It was a perfectly matched, utterly companionable closeness that went even beyond the passionate lovemaking which caused these young newlyweds to plan on never being apart again.

Not even for one hour of the flowing Time they lived by as dual guardians thereof.

Not ever.

Before they had married, Terry and Susan had looked around for a house that they could start their lives together in, but had not found a suitable one to their liking, that would be close enough to Michelle and Alex in the mansion for Susan to also be close to Tara. The partner Outer Soldiers had grown dear to one another, and Susan would worry for the young girl in particular if she was a distance away. Plus, any new home would require to be located near to his brothers' apartment, too, not to mention Terry's work at the recording studio in the city.

Of course, both their true callings must keep them within reach of all the rest of their fellow Sailor comrades and friends as well, in case a dire emergency arose in the city.

With all theses necessary stipulations, Terry and Susan had both decided to wait for just the right abode until the perfect one popped up. For now instead, they would simply stay in a nearby hotel until their "true" home was located.

Anxious to see how his brothers had been faring on their own for a whole month plus of his absence, Terry takes Susan right from the airport to their double (no longer "triple") bachelor pad. He was a little curious to see the state of affairs there, but not half expecting what met his astonished eyes, as he opened the door. The key to it was still in his possession, but upon turning the knob to the penthouse flat, he wondered if he had entered the right apartment, after all.

Everywhere was mess. Clothes were strewn across the floor in a state of chaos, some even draped on the furniture. Dirty dishes and glasses half empty, take-out food containers and opened bags of chips were lying forgotten on the coffee table. The horrendous kitchen was an unspeakable disaster area, where someone's attempts with a blender had obviously resulted in bedlam.

The brand new microwave was burnt out, blackened, while the remains of charcoal popcorn and who knows what else was still lurking within it. It gave the whole apartment a lovely odor of scorched butter, burnt corn and Korean Instant Cup of Noodles throughout.

Glancing into one bathroom, Terry was shocked by the piles of towels and laundry just thrown to one side of the bathtub. Razors, soaps and bottles cluttered every counter. Peeking into Sayer's vacant bedroom, Terry wouldn't even let Susan's curious eyes see the mess within, considering it too atrocious for a lady's delicate sensibilities.

However, Terry's own old room, thankfully, was the only one still sparkling clean—untouched as yet, as he feels safe to deposit his beautiful, pure of heart lady there to sit on its pristine bed while he investigated further.

So, steeling his nerves, Terry knocks on the final room's door left in the apartment, to see if anyone was still alive in this disaster area he once called home.

"If that's you, Sayer, GO AWAY!"

The loud and angry scream caused Susan to dash out into the hall behind him, as Terry and Susan look to each other in shock at the ferocity of Robin's especially nasty words and tone.

"Robin," Terry's low voice gently calls, knocking again, "it's—"

"I SAID 'GO AWAY!'"

"—Oh." Robin yanks the door open, fully prepared to give Sayer 'what-for,' but he seemed pleasantly surprised to see Terry standing there instead.

"Terry." His spitting venom, angry face turns upside down into a smile, as if an angel from heaven had just appeared before him as he brushes his mussed silver bangs from his drawn eyes.

"Robin, what on earth?" Terry motions around the apartment at the terrible messes covering…everything. "Where is Sayer?" He asks, though the intelligent lad had a feeling who the culprit for most of this was.

"I don't know and I don't care." Robin defiantly folds his arms and leans in his doorway, cat eyes watching as Susan begins to clean up what once must have been a living room behind him.

"Susan, don't." Terry stops his new bride with an arm to her shoulder. He did not want his wife to clean up after his lazy brothers.

"Terry, darling, I don't mind—" Susan says up at him, wanting to be of help.

"Susan." Terry simply puts on that authoritative air, and she immediately stops her protest. Then he turns his attentions back to Robin.

"Robin, what has been happening…?" Terry begins to probe, sensing there was an underlying problem more than just sheer laziness.

"He's impossible! I can't live with him. He said he 'won't clean up anything,' unless I do half, too! Why should I?! It's HIS mess! Not mine! Sayer and Alex party here at all hours of the night. And the landlord complains to ME for all their racket all night! I can't take it anymore! I'm moving out, Terry. Without you here to—to—TAME him, or whatever you did, I can't handle Sayer on my own. I'll be staying at Michelle's. I'm just finishing my packing now." Robin finishes his tirade, and slumps against the doorway again, his lime green eyes angry.

Just then the doorbell rings as if on cue, and Michelle comes waltzing right in, announcing her entrance in melodious tones.

"Robin, dearest! I'm here with the chauffeur to pick up your—Oh!" She stops short when she sees Terry and Susan.

"Susan! Terry!" The lovely young violinist coos, and rushes to Susan with a warm hug and kiss, the Frenchwoman not forgetting the same for Susan's new and strapping husband, as well. "Tell me, how was it?" She asks curiously of Susan, eyeing extremely tall, excessively masculine, and every bit as pleased with himself Mr. Terry Starr all the while. Then with one critical look at her Outer Scout friend's dreamy, satisfied eyes, Michelle doesn't wait for the reply.

"Oh, Susan!" The young debutante whispers with a girlish giggle behind her hand. "So lucky." Michelle was almost envious, plainly seeing the utter contentment in Susan's eyes.

"I am so very blessed." Susan hugs her back, joyously giggling as well. Then she returns to hanging on Terry's arm, as he strokes her long, dark hair. Michelle didn't have to use her empathic powers to sense the deep, loving bond between them. The French woman secretly hoped her own bond with his brother Robin, already strong and true in both their connected hearts, would also gain that same something more—and soon. She was gleeful, that perhaps it might come to pass presently, as her adorable guy would now be living at the mansion with her.

"Robin's coming to stay with me." Michelle says proudly, as Robin keeps coming in and out of his room, piling suitcases in the doorway.

"Robin." Terry attempts to talk him out of this rash decision, following into his brother's bedroom.

"Help me with this one, will you, Terry?" The svelte man struggles to close one particularly large, overstuffed with Robin's excessive, expensive taste wardrobe filled suitcase. Terry easily presses the troublesome luggage down with one hand while Robin clasps it shut in wordless combination.

"I know Sayer can be difficult at times, but—" Terry tries to defend his not present, oft needy younger brother, lifting Robin's suitcase in one hand, always being the strongest of the three, though all of them were unearthly strong.

"I'm not you, Terry. I can't put up with all his craziness, and do everything for him like you always have. I just can't. It's better this way, really. I've stayed this long, waiting for you to come back from your trip. But that's it for me! Maybe we won't argue as much if we're not always constantly in each other's hair." Robin was determined to leave. Without Terry to mediate between them (not to mention do all the cleaning and household chores) life in this apartment with Sayer was, in one word, impossible.

"Yes." Terry sighs, seeing the logic in his words. The relationship between Robin and Sayer might truly improve from what it was now if they gave each other space. Though, for not a moment—not for a single second—did he regret his marriage which obligated him to leave their bachelor apartment.

Terry knew older, loner Robin would be fine in his own finicky, yet stable way. But he just wished there was something he could do to instill enough order into Sayer's wild soul that could allow him to be able to exist on his own, when Terry himself wasn't there to take care of him.

Without thinking, he finds himself cleaning up. It was his second nature to pick up after Sayer, and Susan quietly joins her mate, helping him clean up the coffee table until their hands touch with an understanding smile.

While the newlyweds enjoy the intricate simplicity of one another's touch, Michelle takes Robin into his room, supposedly to gather up the last of his belongings.

"Thanks for offering to put me up at your place for a while, Michelle. I just have had it up to here with Sayer." With an animated hand slice gesture to his neck at his irksome brother, Robin speaks with the ease of his mind directly to Michelle's as the two psychics enter his bedroom, now that they were alone.

"'For a while'? You may stay for as long as you like, my dearest one! After all, you already live inside of my soul. So why not my humble abode, too? It's the perfectly natural conclusion for you and I. So it will be good training." Michelle mentally coos as she coyly finishes rifling through Robin's unhappily already vacated underwear drawer which she slams shut with a disappointed, rueful frown.

"Hmm? Good training for what?" Robin, a little distracted after having a bout with unplugging his cell phone's charger from where it had somehow gotten tangled up behind the bed headboard's foot.

Probably stupid Sayer's fault. Terry put him in charge of assembling our beds when we first moved in, if I recall. Stupid Sayer strikes again. Hmph.

"You'll find out when we get there." Michelle whispers, mysteriously smiling, as she licks her lips at the thought of plugging in Robin's charger somewhere in her bedroom later. But that's when her own attention was pulled from ogling Robin's delectably tight-in-all-the-right-places, bottom lines wriggling over and around the bed's headboard in order to untangle the wires snagged behind it.

"I'll never forget the moment you gave that to me." Robin spiritually noticed his partner's entrancement with the highlighted center of his room, where every spotlight he had was directed since the day it arrived.

"I'll never forget the moment you came to me." The emotional mermaid of Neptune had tears shining in her eyes as she stands before the beautifully depicted, self-portrait of a certain destined encounter the renowned artist had dedicated to the other half of her soul, who had found her on that fateful day.

"Or did you find me on that day?" Robin's shaken heart whispers the eternal question that sung a symphony between the two as he had picked up Michelle's stray and unbidden mental musings.

"This is what I asked you here to help me with, Michelle. I didn't want to move my most valued treasure without my priceless mermaid who created it for me here at my side, to make sure it comes to no harm." Robin explains in his softest voice, understanding, reveling, in his love's tender spirit, which had become so entwined with his, these past three months since his return to Earth.

"Our love will never come to harm." Michelle promises poignantly, kissing his fingers as Robin wipes her tears away with caring thumbs on both her soft cheeks.

"I'll hand you the frame." Touched, Robin sweetly smiles as he intakes a deep breath at her tremendous words. He then lithely leaps onto his desk to safely remove the ornately silver and gold framed painting with very careful hands and a reverent look on his handsome face for both it and the gorgeous artist he was handing his 'prize' down to below.

---

A few minutes later, that precious painting she had given him when he first moved in this high rise apartment, not so long ago, was now securely covered and wrapped in a bed sheet under Michelle's one arm, with Robin tucked safely in her other.

"Let's get the chauffeur to carry the rest of these down." Growing more excited by the minute, Michelle practically drags Robin out towards the front door. "Terry! Susan! We're going now, but, on the way, we'll be stopping first at the hospital. Would you care to join us?" Michelle says as she fixes her hair, looking in the one clean spot on the spaghetti sauce splattered mirror to readjust her slightly mussed hair.

"Hospital?" Susan says concerned, fixing her own mismanaged tresses in the mirror of the coffee table facing the couch she and Terry had been comfortably sprawled upon.

"Oh, that's right! You weren't here, were you?" Michelle says. In all the excitement of the day, she had forgotten to explain the circumstances to the just returned home, honeymooning couple.

"The day you left, Tara received a phone call that her father had had another nervous breakdown. He arrived from Switzerland, escorted by nurses and his own personal physician the next day. As you know, Professor Tomoe has never fully regained his strength since his…problem…years ago. But they say it's more his mind now that has been affected. Some kind of sensitive work he's been experimenting on for the Swiss government of late. And you know about his past." Michelle looks down, remembering the tragic story of Professor Tomoe's alien takeover a few years back.

"He still doesn't remember a thing about that incident, and they don't think he's stable enough now to even leave the hospital confines for any length of time. Poor man." Michelle reports sadly as Robin grips her hand in support. She gives him a weak smile in gratitude.

"How's Tara taking this?" Susan was instantly worried for her young charge, who had already been through so much in her short life.

"Pretty hard." Robin says, truthfully. The sweet little girl's troubles and tortured past had plucked at his heartstrings some believed were insensitive. But they couldn't have been more wrong. For this star of Healer had seen much heartache and loss in his own childhood that now shed silent tears for another beleaguered adolescent.

"Oh, no." Susan felt about to cry herself for her dear little friend and fellow Soldier's sadness that she had tried to shield her from in this world.

"Let's bring her some flowers, shall we?" Terry looks into his wife's saddened eyes, trying to make her smile. He succeeded somewhat, though his own heart was heavy. That young girl had become very special to him as well.

They follow Michelle and Robin out to the limo, as Terry wraps Susan in his arms protectively.

I hope your father will be better soon, Tara. Terry thinks, a little prayer for the young waif and her beloved "Papa" on his lips as the limousine speeds off in the direction of the hospital, with one pit stop at a local florist, where the biggest bouquet of pink carnations, red poppies and blue violets in the shape of a teddy bear was procured.

---

Susan proudly hangs on her husband's arm as they follow Michelle and Robin into the hospital and up the elevator to the floor where Professor Tomoe was located. Michelle and Robin had dropped Tara off at the hospital earlier, and they knew she would still be here, at her father's side. However, they were surprised to find the quiet father and daughter being entertained by two others they didn't expect to be seeing anytime soon after the big blow-up when last they met.

"Sayer." Robin says cagily, his voice scratchy, as the silver-haired idol gives his caught-off-guard brother a disconcerting air.

"Amara." Michelle was secretly glad to see her cousin, after her 'traitorous' siding with Robin had made Alex, who was always down on him, follow Sayer out when the hot-tempered boy had stormed off in a huff earlier.

The two pairs eye each other suspiciously across the room as Tara holds her father's hand. They were listening to the amusing stories Sayer had to offer, and Alex's tough guy attitude made her the perfect straight man for his stand-up comedy antics. They were trying to cheer up the sickly professor and his worried child.

"Susan-mama! Terry-papa!" Tara pushes past Michelle and Robin, her sad eyes light up when she spots the newlyweds, still hovering in the doorway. Rushing to them, she throws her slender arms around them both, enveloping them in a big bear hug.

"You're back!" She smiles, though Susan and Terry could still see the pain behind the smile. "I missed you." She squeezes Susan—her teacher, her mentor, her good friend—whom she had come to cherish dearly once again.

"We missed you, too, Tara." Having tied a pink and red ribbon around his forehead to match the flower crafted teddy bear's for her to unwrap, in fond memory of visiting another sick child in the hospital a lifetime ago, Terry kneels down to her eye level and presents himself and the special 'teddy bouquet.'

Accepting her cute 'teddy' gift from the comely and considerate, self-deprecating young man, Tara turns to Terry, looking into his eyes deeply. Handing Michelle the teddy bear bouquet, Tara hugs him warmly in a hug for bringing her a smile through her moment of distress while she undoes the bow at his intelligent forehead with a sniffled chuckle.

Terry bear hugs the fearful eyed child back tenderly, and he could feel sudden warm tears splashing on the back of his neck. Tara felt a safe presence in his arms and in Susan's kind, magenta gaze, and she lets all her held-back emotions flow, for she was so terribly crushed about her father's suddenly worsening illness.

"Shh. Shh, little Soldier." Terry strokes her hair as Tara quickly composes herself. No one else notices her tears through her smiles as she forces herself to giggle gleefully at the humorous view of Terry donning a crooked pink bow on his head for her.

"Susan, come see the other funny present Alex-papa and Sayer brought for Papa and I." She tugs Susan's arm towards the contraption on the table at the other end of the room. With comical representations of little farm animals hopping up and down, it was a cute little mechanical farm scene.

"Ohhh!" Tara remembers herself halfway there, and turns Susan forward to face her father. He was watching the scene before him with interested eyes.

"Terry and Susan…Starr." Adding their freshly conjoined last name the once starstruck teenager has now maturely accepted, Tara looks up to her newly married friends as Terry walks up to the bed, casually putting an arm around his new wife. "This is my Papa." She smiles at the completely white haired, tall, thin, and very gaunt man lovingly and proudly.

Professor Tomoe, with great effort it seemed, props himself up on the hospital bed, and offers the couple a polite smile and nod.

"It's very nice to meet with the two people Tara has written to me most about in her letters, as of late." He holds out his hand in greeting, and Terry shakes the weak man's hand gently. "Congratulations on your wedding. I'm glad you've come back safe from your travels abroad. Tell me, how was Italy? It's been many years since I was last there…" A spacey tone overtakes his voice and the distant look in his eye makes apparent his weakened mental state to all those around.

"It was wonderful." Susan's beautiful smile and calm voice brings the older man back to this time and place.

"It is so good of you to have cared for my little firefly this past year, Madame." Tomoe vaguely remembered how it was this dark green haired, impressively lovely woman had appeared to him and had come to take his—wasn't my Tara a mere infant at the time? But how could that be…?—daughter to care for her when he was first in hospital care four years ago.

"It's very nice to meet you as well, Professor. Tara has told us much about you." Terry's low, congenial voice calms the Professor's mind, as well.

"Isn't Susan as pretty as I described, Papa?" Tara asks cheerfully, going to her father's side. She was unaware—as she was just a babe then—that her Papa and Susan had met before, when Sailor Pluto went to the nursing home in Switzerland to bring baby Tara back to Japan for the all-important battle with Queen Nehelenia, with Tara subsequently maturing at the time exponentially.

"She is indeed beautiful, my darling. She reminds me a lot of your mother when she was that age." The fragile man gives a nod to the timeless Soldier whom he had trusted then implicitly once, but recalled little of the details of now. Tomoe's mind often wandered to happier times when he had all of his faculties, and his beloved wife was still with him.

"Thank you." Susan blushes at the compliment. Terry was proud of his sensational beauty and squeezes her shoulders tenderly, exchanging a congenial nod with the professor.

"What do you mean he's coming to live with us!?" But just then, Alex's low rumbling thunder breaks through the pleasant conversation taking place on the other side of the hospital room. Close by her side there, Michelle looked alarmed at her friend's embarrassing outburst.

"Amara, just because Sayer's being difficult, doesn't mean you have to follow suit." The intuitive female knew she would strike a nerve with those rhetorical words.

"I'm not following anyone." Alex states defiantly. "It's just the thought of that shrimp living with us in your mansi—" Collecting her anger, Alex starts to explain in low tones the source of her uneasiness on this subject, rather than shouting it at Michelle's head.

"Good. Then it's settled." Michelle declares victory in conclusion, shutting Alex's tirade down curtly. "Robin will come and stay with us. And Sayer can have that entire disaster area of an apartment to himself. See? It all works out splendidly." Michelle coos, as Alex twists her lip and eyes her French cousin's motives suspiciously.

"Sounds splendid to me." Folding his arms and turning his back on his immature brother, Robin proclaims. He was that sick and tired of Sayer so much that he didn't realize that, just maybe, he was jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire at the reality of going to live in an abode where he'd have to share Michelle with Alex.

And then there was Michelle…

"Yeah, me, too." Sayer declares with a huff. He crosses his arms the same, and shoots Robin a nasty stare. "I don't want to live with you anymore, either."

"Good." Robin petulantly agrees, crossing his arms, as well.

"Good." Sayer repeats, and the two boys turn back to back, refusing to even look at each other.

A cringing Terry was about to apologize for their bad behavior in front of company—especially an older, injured one whom they should show some respect for, but he was suddenly cut off by Professor Tomoe's soft chuckling.

"I do like your young brothers, Mr. Starr." He says to Terry, laughing at their childishness. "They are so full of life." He smiles, wistfully looking from the argumentative boys to Terry and Susan, half wishing for the happier days of his own youth.

"Please, Professor, do call me 'Terry.'" Terry offers deferentially, giving the older man his due.

"Yes, Terry." The Professor nods, accepting the respect, and gaining some of his own for the uncommonly genteel young man who did not seem so young. His very demeanor gave off a responsible, adult mood and his lovely wife was of the same character, it seemed.

The Professor considered himself a good judge of character, and knew right away that these were trustworthy people.

"Have you two moved into your new house yet?" He says, making pleasant conversation, when he is startled by the warning look of his daughter's big violet eyes.

"Papa." Eyes going wide, Tara whispers and puts a finger to her lips.

"Oh, did I ruin the surprise?" He says guiltily, covering his mouth with a culpable look on his yet handsome features.

"Surprise?" Arching a brow, Terry asks, curious as to all the secrecy going on.

"Oh, well. Now is as good a time as any to tell you, I suppose." Michelle forcefully yanks Alex with her across the room, and faces Terry and Susan where they were standing next to Tara. "Amara and Tara and I have decided to give you two newlyweds a special wedding present." Michelle speaks with a purposely portentous air, as simultaneous, she giggles excitedly. In her enthusiasm, Michelle had totally forgotten the heated argument between her love and his brother only seconds ago, resulting in tension between herself and her dear cousin Amara, as well.

Michelle elbows Alex with her arm and Alex gracelessly whips out a set of keys from her back pocket, and holds them out to the puzzled couple.

"The house is yours." Alex's deep voice offhandedly grants, dropping the keys in Terry's unsuspecting hand.

"Your house?" Terry repeats in utter disbelief. "But, Miss Moreau, Miss Sokova, we simply can't take your—" He was about to decline, shocked at the enormous gift the two women were so selflessly offering, to give up their own residence.

"Of course you can, silly!" Michelle exuberantly adds, and grabs hold of the tall, mahogany ponytailed man, kissing him on the cheek playfully. "It is our wedding gift to you!" She hugs and kisses a dazed, insensibly smiling Susan as well.

"Oh, darling!" Regaining her shocked senses, Susan looks up, bursting with happiness at her husband. "That house is exactly what I've been wanting! That must be why no other place we looked at could compare!" Susan never felt more at home anywhere than at the home she'd been staying in for the past year. From the beautiful decor inside to the idyllically manicured outside property, Michelle's rural mansion had special memories—it being the first place she and Terry had found each other, fell in love, and even where Terry had kissed her for the first time.

"Michelle, Alex, Tara," Susan turns to each of her dearest friends and Sailor Soldier sisters, and squeezes all their hands in hers gratefully. "There are no words. Thank you so very much." She smiles genuinely, already imagining what each room could be, what it would look like, and what life in it she and Terry could enjoy together.

"Indeed. Thank you all. It is very generous of you to donate your home." Terry says, for that house had the same special meaning to him, as well.

"Not at all!" Michelle waves it off. After all, it was only money—which she had ample amount of access to all her privileged life—and if she could make her dearest friends happy with it, Michelle considered it worthwhile.

"Don't worry about us! Amara, Tara and I are all going to be very happy at my other mansion in the city. And we won't be that so very far away. It's only a few miles. That is, if you two madly in love newlyweds would ever want for company." Michelle chuckles, her voice so high and flirtatious, with her eyes getting heavy lidded at Terry and Susan. Susan blushes femininely in the protection of her husband's arms.

"Terry, Susan—may I speak with you both privately?" Professor Tomoe clears his throat and beckons to the new couple.

The others all take the hint and take their leave of the kind professor, with hugs and many well-wishes, waiting outside the door with Tara, while he speaks with the puzzled pair of young lovers.

"Yes, sir?" Terry respectfully poses the query as he moves closer to the ailing man's bedside, with Susan trailing quietly behind.

"I have a very special request to ask of you both." Professor Tomoe reaches a frail hand out to Susan, who saw the beseeching look in his sincere eyes.

Eyes that no longer held a hint of the madness which had been chaos within, but was still tortured by his own heart's torment to do what was ultimately right for those he loved most.

Susan takes the older man's pallid, pale hand in her slender darker one, feeling his urgent need and true feeling for his darling little girl eating at what small remnants of peace existed within him.

"As a logical scientist, I realize that my weak condition makes my return to reclaim my responsibility as guardian to my sweet Tara impossible now. As a thinking man, I recognize my own faults and frailties have not yet been fully healed to live a normal life outside of hospitalization and psychiatric care that I have been diligently undergoing these past few years. And as a concerned father, in my current state, I fear that I am unfit to reliably serve in that capacity to my dear girl, whose more precious health has needs of her own that I would be remiss as parent to not recognize." The white haired Professor massages his aching eyes as he admits the truth before them openly.

"Not at all, sir! Your devotion to your only child is quite admirable and apparent!" Terry tries to halt the conscientious doctor from speaking ill of himself, after obviously giving this subject of his health and fitness to care for the teenage girl much consideration.

"And Tara loves and misses you immensely, Professor, wishing to do everything she can to help in your recovery—it's her dream to be with you again." Knowing her young charge's sentiments on this well—since the Guardian of Pluto had been the foremost caretaker of Tara since Sailor Saturn reappeared to her as a babe—Susan adds her tender voice to her husband's argument for this depressed man to reconsider his decision.

"No—please allow me to finish." He smiles weakly at the tall young man wiser than his years and lovely lady who had the deep eyes of someone who understood well that sacrifice and duty were borne of love. "—I cannot, in good conscience, bring my Tara home to Switzerland with me, when one of my…fits…may overtake me at any given time. It would be unfair to burden such a young child with this problem, where I am yet uncertain of myself to be what a young girl needs to have a strong father as role model and caregiver. My constant nursing and medical testing which will be required creates a rather reclusive life in drab settings, which would be an unfit environment for my little firefly to grow up in." His fatherly eyes search Terry and Susan's concerned ones to try to get them to comprehend what it had taken for him to give up the daughter he treasured most in the universe.

For her own sake, the Professor would be the one to sacrifice. He would be the one to endure solitude.

Not his brave little soldier, who had already been through so much upheaval in her young life.

He would be the strong Papa she deserved. Even if their time apart would break his heart.

But it wouldn't be so bad if he was sure she was in safe hands. His great love for his little girl would keep him going and right his ailments someday soon, the Professor was certain.

"So that is why I am asking—no, begging—you two to keep Tara in your care here in Japan, where she has schooling and friends and a real sense of what being part of a larger family means." He gazes meaningfully up to the pair's responsible faces, sure he was making the right choice for his baby girl as he meets their eyes. He, more than most, understood that pledged duty, close allegiance and bonded companionship with one another was ingrained in these special individuals who were entrusted to be guardians of this galaxy.

So why not guardians of his precious little firefly, too, while he gave his all to recover for that time when they two could be together again?

"If it is your wish, sir, Susan and I will gladly undertake the welcomed task, for Tara is no trouble at all and has become so very dear to us both, with her incomparable shine and childlike joy." Terry commits after sharing an agreed glance with his new wife, who nods with a soft smile.

"Thank you. Thank you both. I cannot tell you how my mind is much more at ease knowing my baby girl will be growing up with those she cares so much for and who care for her as family, so close by. I believe that I will be growing stronger, too, day by day, until that happy time I can return here and bring my Tara home, when I can be the full man and father she deserves again, someday, God willing." Professor Tomoe bows his head, part of the recovering of his mind involving the gentle truths of rehabilitating his soul to the Creator of Heaven's peace.

"We pray for that blessed day when the Lord will restore you." Terry, too, as a deep thinking man who considered a great deal about the Maker of it all often of late, understood that it was His grace more than anything that could completely heal this good man whole again, if it was meant to be so.

"Until then, we'll watch over her like she was our own." So proud that her newlywed young husband was not one bit vexed of what some men would deem an 'intrusive' request at this time in their budding new lives together, Susan pledges once again to the older man as she leans on her wonderful Terry's strong arm, knowing he would always be there to care for she and Tara both now.

---

Saying nothing of their conversation with the professor to Tara, but gladly accepting the responsibilities to come, they allow Tara's father to break the news to her in his own way. Terry and Susan look fondly upon the loving daughter and her dutiful father with saddened eyes, knowing of the future, and the heartbreaking separation soon to come.

Hoping little Tara would be able to cope with it, the two of them wordlessly promise to try to make room for her in their new lives together. It was not so difficult to think of, for both Terry or Susan cared for this special child very, very much—Terry, in his responsible paternal role, and Susan in her protective motherly fashion.

Susan muses these thoughts as the group bids farewell once more to the sickly professor, leaving the hospital all together as a group. But, Robin and Michelle, after a few harsh words exchanged in the parking lot with Sayer and Alex, depart to Michelle's parents' luxurious summer mansion, close to the posh side of the city's cultural art district, on the edge of the cliff, overlooking the ocean.

With the help of her acquiescent limousine driver, Michelle was more than welcoming to move Robin "in" her mansion. Alex takes the rest of the hospital visitors in her Ferrari back to the Three Lights' (well, now only 'one' Light's) apartment, this time to pick up some of Susan and Terry's traveling bags filled with goodies and surprises to cheer up a depressed Tara.

In addition, they all helped finish clearing out Terry's former room in the high rise flat, now that he had a 'new' abode to deliver the remainder of his clothes, personal items, and multitudes of books that Sayer would have no use for whatsoever in his more studious brother's absence. And with Robin now flown the coop, so to speak, as well, that would leave the whole spacious three-bedroom apartment to one single bachelor who had never lived alone, nor had any idea how to cook or clean, or do anything by way of caring for himself, for that matter.

"Since Terry and Susie...and 'Chelle and Rob are now…gonna be living together…and I'm, uhh, gonna be all on my own, you wouldn't by any chance…want to…ummm…huh, Ally?" Sayer asks timidly while he continued to clean his bedroom—after already tidying the living room by strict orders from Terry—as Alex stood over him as guard to make sure he did so without cutting corners, though she does not lift one finger to help him. She had vowed a long time ago never to clean for, nor pick up after any man.

Terry had to stop his own Susan and Tara from bowing and scraping to his lazy brother, who had to learn to fend for himself now. This left a feckless Sayer alone to rearrange his pig sty of a room as he pulls two week old undershirts and socks from under the bed.

"Live? With you?" Alex says incredulously, as, in amused disgust she picks up some of his discarded clothing and dumps them on the pile of dirtied fabrics building up in the hall. "Do you think I'm crazy?" Alex didn't care, and knew darn well that Sayer didn't either, knowing that people may look down upon a couple of young singles living together, though it may be completely innocent.

But appearances aren't why I'm refusing, are they? Alex watches Sayer's comical attempts at making his bed, still surprised at how one person who was so adept at any sport you could throw at him, and talented with any musical instrument imaginable, could be so inept at the regular chores of life.

You can see he's been spoiled. His brother must make the bed for him every morning…and get his laundry done and do all the other cleaning required to run this place. No way would I do that for you. She ponders, almost chuckling as Sayer falls flat on his face. The bedspread, at last satisfactory, was getting all wrinkled and mussed again and Sayer's swearing could be heard muffled against the red striped comforter.

I'd be crazy to consider it. The independent woman couldn't believe herself for even allowing such an unchecked thought enter into her mind. But Alex couldn't refrain from smiling a little wistfully in the gorgeous young man's direction, when he wasn't looking, of course. She knew that living here with him would mean to constantly put up with this Star Fighter all the time. And living side by side in close quarters, no doubt she would be with him in every way, soon enough.

Now that wasn't a completely unwelcome thought, on a whole, but…Is that what I want?

Once again, she feels the emotions roiling within her on the subject of her relationship with this perplexing man from the stars.

Why can't I think straight when I'm with you? Alex shakes her head at herself. Never, before she met him, had she felt such uncertainties. The only thing that was certain before, was that love would be her downfall. But, even on that, now, she wasn't so sure...

"So…the answer is 'no'?" Sayer peeks up, finally finishing the bed, this time with (was that hope?) written on his dark features. His face was so cute when he asked her something he didn't know if he should ask, and didn't know the answer to, when he was trying to be dead serious.

"N.O. Anyone would have to be crazy to put up with you." Rolling her eyes as she evocatively annunciates the two nonfungible letters, Alex catches sight of a rolled up T-shirt peeking out from beneath the dresser.

"Oh, Ally! You hurt me right—" Half expecting that refusal, and having a fairly thick skin for it, Sayer dramatically puts on a show, performing hand slung over wounded heart. He didn't want it to seem like he was disappointed or anything. He was still confused on matters of love and truly wondered what exactly this tough lady wanted from him, when—

SMACK!

The red T-shirt whacks him right across the head, thrown so hard that Sayer sees stars and the violently tossed shirt continues on its path to knock the perfectly placed and plumped pillow he had so painstakingly worked at, right off the bed.

"You're gonna get it now, Sokova!" His dark blue eyes light up in that way she loved, as Alex ducks out of the room. Laughing, she lets him catch her in the hall and allows his "punishing" kiss to run shivers right through her, up and down her spine.

Tara finds the pair in the hallway and hurries towards them, used to all the touchy-feely embraces and osculation scenes between her Outer mamas and papa and these wandering Three Lights. "Look! Have you seen what Susan and Terry gave me?" She holds up a gold and delicately pearl embossed bracelet from Italy.

"Yes, it is lovely, kitten." Alex admires the pretty charm, swallowing a bit of shame as Sayer takes the hint at her raised brow and scats away to get back to his cleaning.

"I'm glad they're married now. Terry and Susan love each other very much, don't they?" Tara says dreamily, fairytale romance a big thing for this teenager to admire and aspire to someday.

"Yes, I believe so." Alex slowly answers, lost in thought as she reflects on her own thoughts of the matter.

Susan and Terry definitely seem to have strong feelings for each other—trust in one another with their hearts. Could I ever I feel enough of that kind of trust for this wolf of mine?

She glances back across the hall into the kitchen he had escaped to before, as, at least in a first decent attempt, Sayer begins to load the dishes in the dishwasher. He seemed to genuinely be trying his best to clean up and prove to her that he wasn't worthless.

Maybe someday there would be a capable woman with golden hair and self-autonomous air, who wouldn't think herself 'crazy' for wanting to be with him. Sayer makes the fervent wish as he glances back to wink at her when Alex peers in the kitchen doorway.

I don't know. Alex smiles at his indomitable positivity and sweetness. The determined look upon his face was so cute, even as she watches him drop a glass in the sink and cut himself, red blood squirting everywhere. I think I need more time to find out. I think I need more commitment, more assurance that what you want aligns with what I want, and won't stray. Always suspicious of men, and especially this one, with an established track record—and with her closest friends no less—Alex still amazed herself that she could be interested in this lothario Sayer Starr at all.

Until, when going to him, and sucking the shards of glass from his hand and wrist, she spies the scar on his arm from the blade of the sword which was also plunged into her flesh in their first battle together with General Jarrod upon re-meeting. It was still there from that opinion changing time when Sailor Star Fighter had carried her in warm arms and Sayer showed her his soft side.

Then Uranus had realized how impending death made you face what you would normally shield yourself from. And that maybe, just maybe, she could trust Fighter like Pluto has come to implicitly trust Maker. That maybe she could care for him, like Neptune has come to unwaveringly care for Healer. And maybe, maybe, she could love him like Uranus has come to passionately...

As they gaze into each other's eyes, Alex and Sayer both were trying to see what the other was so intensely thinking.

"Keep that cut clean, Starr, and the rest of this place, too, if you think you can handle it. We'd best be going. Come on, Tara, Michelle will be wondering what's happened to us." As in a rushed goodbye of sorts, Alex challenges Sayer to rise to the occasion of his new household duties, as she herself was suddenly anxiously wondering about what Michelle and Robin were currently up to in her city mansion, alone.

"Susan? Are you two done packing yet?" Alex authoritatively turns on her heel to collect her other passengers, wanting to get on the road quickly. Tara gives Sayer's longing look a shy smile and wave farewell, then looks out the window of the living room towards the hospital where her father still was, and her pleasant smile wavers a bit.

For each of these Soldiers of love and destiny had such unknown futures yet lying ahead of them.

---

A little while later, after Terry and Susan had finished packing the remainder of his things, Alex and Tara help them load it all into the Ferrari, and the group drives off to 'unwrap' Susan and Terry's final wedding present.

The very special gift was the treasured house the young newlyweds could now call their very own, one they could fill with happy sounds and the light of their burgeoning love.

Even down-to-earth Alex was aware that, for some silly reason, the first entrance into a new place of residence together for a married couple was an age-old tradition. So Alex merely drops the couple's bags on the front walk as she hustles Tara off. Both wave a swift goodbye to the newlyweds, seeing that this ritual was best left for the happy pair to share on their own. Besides, Alex was anxious to get back to the mansion, where she had left Michelle and Robin, doing goodness-knows-what.

That left Susan and Terry standing in front of their new house together as the sun sets behind it, and a soft breeze blows through the multitudes of trees surrounding. It made this secluded hideaway all the more romantic now that it was to be their home together.

Watching his wife's wistful expression as she gazes at the house with new eyes, as if she had never seen it before, Terry feels the same way. The place had a warmer, more homey feel about it now.

Feeling the emotion of the moment, he lifts her, sweeping Susan off her feet so easily, as she hangs onto his neck and Terry holds her lithe body up with one arm. He opens the door with the other and kicks it open, carrying his beautiful wife over the threshold, kissing her tenderly as he closes the door behind them.

"There. Now it's sealed with our kiss." He announces to the walls in his poetic, romantic manner. Terry gently lowers her down slowly and kisses her lips again as he does. The spacious mansion's two stories already seemed to glow with their light. Susan excitedly shows her new husband around the house—as if he hadn't been there before—exploring it all over again, anew.

Compartmentalizing her missions as Soldier of Pluto and guardian of Tara, which were all intertwined with duty and battles, Susan almost completely forgets the first time she herself had arrived here to live with the other Outer Sailor Scouts in this Earthly time stream. All the lonely feelings of being a part of—and yet still separate from—that distant day were wiped away by the splendor of today.

And the fulfilling feeling of utterly belonging to him.

"Here. This can be our conservatory music room for you to write your music in. You can put a piano right here under the skylight, so you can see the stars as you play." Susan lifts her lover's musical fingers and presses them to her lips adoringly, eager to hear the melodic strains of a piano echoing through the halls, knowing he would compose songs to play exquisitely for her.

"And Alex's old room can perhaps be your library." Susan smiles, trying to please him as much as she possibly could with room designations suited for him. "We'll put up some shelves and cabinets and fill them with novels and books of all sorts that you choose. And poetry! Don't forget the poetry. I want to fill this house with your beautiful poems." Susan uncharacteristically spins, spreading her arms out, for she was so proud of Terry's seemingly endless talents—especially the ones he so elegantly and eloquently used for her.

"My lady, you're too good to me." Terry kisses in Susan's hair, wondering what he's done to deserve such a noble creature. "The most beautiful creature God ever created and she belongs to me." Terry waxes poetic as he draws her in his arms.

Susan blushes at his words, and throws her arms around his neck. "Completely yours...entirely yours...forever yours..." She wanted to say all she felt for her new husband, who gazes down at her tenderly.

"And I am eternally yours, my princess—" He lifts her off the ground, kissing her once more. "—No, 'Queen' of my heart."

"Oh, you make too much of me!" Susan demurely responds, turning even redder at his declarations, looking down.

"That I could never do." Sensing her uneasiness in being called 'a queen,' Terry kisses her forehead gently and changes the subject. "But I think you're excited about this place, aren't you?" The intellectual man asks, for inside, he, too, was excited by her exhilaration.

"Very." Susan whispers, her eyes lighting up when she passes by Michelle's former room—the final one in the house for her to fill. She, of course, would leave Tara's room, dining room and living room the same.

"What's this one going to be now?" He playfully wraps his arms around his wife, seeing her whirring mind going an enthused mile a minute at new ideas for this last vacant room.

"Oh, just a guest room, Terry darling." Susan quickly covers up. But in her mind, in her heart, Susan knew what she wanted this one to be someday. She planned to paint the walls a happy, pale lavender color, making it so bright and cheery, with a cute little border of fawns and ponies. She eventually planned to move the bed out and a cradle in…Susan sighs blissfully, trying not to let her curious eyed husband notice.

"Now we have a library, a conservatory, a guest room, Tara's room, the kitchen, living room and dining room still, of course." Terry motions around the house from where they stood, still in the hall. "But I don't think you've mentioned what this last room here is going to be." Terry teases playfully, opening the door to the bedroom Susan had called her own, but was now willing to share with another.

"Oh, this room?" She uncharacteristically felt playful and teases him back. "Maybe we can just use it for storage, or maybe…" Susan's magenta eyes catch afire in mischief as her hands touch her man's tightening muscled chest.

"Or maybe…?" Terry asks, as he gently releases the bun in her hair with tender fingers, and it cascades around her shoulders.

"Maybe it could be our bedroom." Susan whispers low and seductive.

"What about the suitcases, my love?" Terry asks in between fervent kisses.

"They can wait until tomorrow. We won't be needing anything until then." She says with a twinkle as Terry carries her into the room and shuts the door behind them with a swift leg's kick.

And their new house itself seemed to sigh, pleased that finally these timeless lovers could finish what began not so long ago, in this mansion of endless, starlit dreams…

---

Meanwhile, a few miles down the road on the edge of the coastline, a storm was brewing. But not outside under the clear cast starry night, but rather inside the spacious mansion atop the hill's crest.

A singular young man within, who had come here earlier for refuge, was right at the moment wishing he was anywhere else—the moon, for instance would be preferable to what he's had to endure the past few hours.

As much in love with Michelle as he could be, Robin Starr was still unwilling to do everything she wanted, for, as far as morality and young male hormones clashed, he also now had her parents to answer to as well in the back of his conscience to contend with. They gave him a strict, "hands-off" order, until something more permanent in their on-trial relationship could be established in the next year's passage of time.

And on top of all that physically challenging provisos, to add to this requisite of prohibited intimacy under her demanding parents' stipulations—which made quite a difficult foxtrot for Robin to perform with Michelle—there was Alex.

And Amaralexis Sokova was one woman who was always sure to make her opinion on every subject clear—and then pound you on the head with it, should anyone dare cross her.

The room arrangement for Robin had been done in relative peace, until 'helpful' Michelle decided to just happen to rifle through one of the drawers of his designated room's chest—which the private idol had privately tucked away all his underclothes, having a suspicion that a certain demure French girl would be interested in perusing them.

That same, said young woman then started to move everything back and forth between the chest and the dresser, 'to be better arranged for you, dearest' and driving poor Robin absolutely batty. That is, until she suddenly decided to forgo the rest of his unpacking and settling in for a more enjoyable activity.

"You must tell me if this mattress is entirely to your liking, Robin dear! If not in the slightest, I can easily have it replaced, tout de suite!" Michelle bats her long lashes at him, her pleasure reflecting in the mirror vanity where he was placing his cologne bottle, which she had obtained in Paris just for him, among other personal skin and hair care products befitting an idol of his caliber. "It is getting a little warm in here, isn't it? Please, do try the bed and tell me if the temperature is right for you." Removing her pink shawl that matched her rouged cheeks with a fluff to her jostled curls, Michelle pleasantly asks Robin this pressing question for the third time now since he arrived. As perfect hostess, she seemed genuinely concerned if the bed was comfortable enough, smiling inquisitively with the sweetest eyes, filled with utmost concern for her new guest and his well being.

Robin, with a smiled sigh, decided it would be easier to just oblige her and lie on the still made luxuriant comforter, multiple fur pillowed, extremely plush bed for a moment, swearing by its more than suitable comfort zone. However, before he could get back up from its voluminous folds, the surprised young man finds his host suddenly appearing on top of him on the bed, as well, like an elegant, siren hovering over her chosen mate for life.

"Some like their mattresses firm, while others prefer plush. I could never decide which to furnish my rooms with, since I only use a waterbed in my room. Perhaps you'd care to try mine out, to see which one is most satisfactory? Hmm?" Michelle's wine-colored silk dress had a few too many buttons undone at her now open collar, her aqua curls loosened from the 'busy helper' ponytail she was sporting just moments ago. And there was a mischievous glint in her inviting sea of blue eyes to boot.

"Michelle. This bed is very comfortable. And the room's temperature is just fine. Let's finish the unpacking, okay?" Uncomfortably hot for other more personal reasons now, Robin tries the gentle approach, and attempts to lift her off with a tender touch, but finds her hands steely clamped to the posh bedding beneath them both.

"Aren't you going to thank me for my hospitality, Robin dear?" Michelle was bursting with giggly excitement as she sends out more signals than just this mental message to the gorgeous-eyed rock star pinned beneath her hovering form kneeled on the bed over him.

"Thank you, Michelle." In his vulnerable, prone position trapped beneath her, Robin answers simply through their psychic communiqué, offering only a smile—sort of—to the deflated disappointment in her dismayed, sad eyes at his unresponsive behavior. For some reason, Michelle's genuine unhappiness at his compulsory cold shoulder made him feel rather like a cad.

And suddenly, her tantalizing, aphrodisiac laced patchouli, peony, lily and neroli perfume of his favorite mint-lime flavor was so intoxicatingly near, her rather red, moist lips, tantalizingly close, her soft, supple skin, so very warm, suddenly stirred all the coldness inside this vulnerable Healer to long to embrace it, and seize that undeniable glow of hers for his own, too…

Michelle's mind may have been linked with his, though in this exhilarated moment, instinct takes over first enlightening shock, and neither young physical bodies were able to communicate as they normally would on the psychic plane. On some more basic level of the physiological meeting psychological, Michelle's entire mentality assured Robin's quivering with energy consciousness she wanted all of him just as badly.

Robin amazes himself as he wraps his wiry strong arms up around Michelle's back, yanking down the straps over her revealed arms, then undoing the zipper of her dress down her bared back with lucrative speed. Fingers race heatedly along the clasped hooks and eyes of her lacy brassiere as sensations he had never felt before start to take over his maturing male body.

Seeing the pleased look come to her eyes at each of his electromagnetic touches, Robin stretches his silver coiffed neck up to taste the ocean of Michelle's moist lips, soon surfing the waves of her inviting tongue with his. The Starlight Soldier who once had no physical desire but to serve his devoted Princess, and questioned his brothers for entertaining such adulterated, ludicrous thoughts as 'love' with 'these earthlings,' now was more than agreeable to explore this new realm himself.

"Ahh…" His musically sultry voice murmuring a pleasured groan, Robin feels the warmth of his celestial mermaid's perfect body press against his as he pulls her willing form closer to his cool one...

"Michelle, get away from that alien, right now."

Michelle keeps her eyes closed for an extra second of bliss before obeying her cousin's stern warning, as she knew she must, knowing this was all too good to be true.

"Amara, dear! I didn't hear you come in." Like an agile cat, Michelle jumps up and combs her hair back into position, feeling like a little girl caught in a candy dish.

Well, it was almost something that pepperminty sweet. You're quite the kisser, my husky Healer. She sighs at Robin and gives Alex a fake, innocent smile.

"I know you didn't." Alex twists her lip with a dark, angry look in her green eyes. She crosses the room to her wayward friend, quickly zips her up, and tugs Michelle's unbuttoned shirt firmly closed again. Seething silently, Alex roughly buttons it up, while viciously shooting Robin an evil glare the entire time.

"I don't think that you should be staying here if you can't…control your animal urges." Alex growls authoritatively at Robin in a dictatorial tone, more than protective of her dear cousin and easily suggestive best friend.

"Amara, it's not his fault. I was just excited with room introduction and the unpacking and such. That's all. Nothing happened. Really." Michelle tries one of her wily smiles on Alex who herself knew how difficult life was now that they had accepted these…men into it. Given her trials in restraint with her own desirable star wanderer, the once stringent female was being a little more lenient than she would've been before.

Which meant not killing one Robin Starr dead where he stood—for now.

"Uh huh." Alex had noticed, before she stopped the pair, that that shrimp wasn't doing too badly himself in the suggestively seductive area. She had a good bird's eye view from behind of what his hands were up and down to over Michelle's compliant body.

"Out, Michelle." Alex forcefully pushes her partner out the door. "I'm going to have a little talk with our guest here." She declares, pointing her poutily acquiescent friend out the bedroom door. Then Alex turns to smirk at Robin, who upon her arrival, had also immediately leapt up and thrown himself into the business of unpacking and folding his clothes like he had no guilt in the matter.

"Listen, Shrimp. I should slice you up into tiny pieces right now. However, I know you've got a problem because you're a man now and can't control yourself. But that doesn't mean you can just waltz in here and take advantage of the situation that you caused." Her space sword just itching to emerge, Alex instead verbally gives Robin what for, laying the blame for everything upon him.

"I caused?! It's Sayer's fault for being so…so…" Robin searches for the word that best described his impossible brother.

"It's not him I'm talking about." Alex cuts Robin off, her unexpected defense of his horrid brother made Robin emboldened towards her.

"Oh? Aren't you?" Robin sneers, an evil look coming to his eyes. "I don't think you can tell Michelle and I what to do in this department, when you can't keep your hands—among other parts—off Sayer…" He trails off, smugly, snidely and insinuating of the not very feminine, purportedly liberated woman's physical attraction to his just as annoying brother. Robin revels in Alex's instantly shocked look, thinking he had upped her for once. But he gets a bad feeling when her glowering face turns, a dark cloud passing over it.

"You know what, Shrimp? I'm glad you're going to be staying here. Because you just signed your own death warrant. I'm going to make your life a living hell. And when I'm done with you, you're going to not only want to be back among the stars, off-worlder—you're going to wish you were never born." Standing tall and menacing over him as she crunches her knuckles slowly, Alex smirks sadistically. The severe look in her eye made Robin believe every word, giving the gulping young singer a really bad feeling that every threat was no mere bluff.

So, after only the few short hours he had been here in Michelle's beautifully opulent seaside mansion, Robin Starr was already planning his escape…

---

Early the next morning, Sayer was awakened by a crashing sound at the front door. He shrugs it off as part of his dream and goes right back to sleep.

So, back to his dream Sayer drifts to where he and Ally were speeding down the road on her motorcycle. In it, they had hit a huge rut, causing them both to go flying through the air, but on soft winds, pleasantly landing in soft grasses. Her even more dazzling green eyes were ablaze invitingly beside him and he rolls over…

THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.

The crash at the door turns into explosive knocking and Sayer indeed rolls over, but with a less than satisfied frown. The bone-tired young man trudges out of bed, silently swearing expletives at his interrupted dreaming, and flings open the door to find a worn out and disheveled Robin standing there. Bags were loaded in his hands, shoulders, and on his back, and there were dark circles under his eyes.

"I lost my key." He rasps simply, pushing past Sayer and walking into the apartment. He drops his full suitcases onto the ground, and plops down on the couch in sheer exhaustion, believing he'd never be able to sleep a wink again after the night of terror he had just endured.

"You want some orange juice? Looks like you can use some." Sayer goes into the kitchen and pours them both a glass. He brings one to Robin and slumps across from him on the other couch.

"Thanks." Robin accepts and takes a large gulp. Then he glances up, a sudden quizzical look on his frazzled features. "How come you're not at all surprised I'm back?" Robin asks his brother in wonder.

"'Cause I knew you would be." Sayer gives Robin a sideways, sardonic smile. He downs his juice, goes out the door, and picks up the Sunday paper that was resting on the door jamb. "Ally?" Sayer invokes her name, all-knowingly. Leafing through the paper, he chucks all the unimportant parts to the ground until he reaches what he was looking for—the funnies—keeping the sports page tucked safely underneath, as well.

Robin holds the cold glass of orange juice to his throbbing head when he nods. "Alex." He repeats. Her name was one of the most despised, disdainful, deplorable terms in any language, in his book. Sayer's fond name of "Ally" for her was quite unacceptable to him—Yuck! There's nothing fond about that creature! You're a masochist, Sayer. He sighs, closing his eyes and leaning his painfully aching head back against the couch.

"She's a tough lady." Sayer concludes proudly with a smirk.

"That's one word for her." Robin tries to forget last night's barrage of attacks—mental, verbal and physical—on him the last twenty-four hours by that "tough" lady.

"You and me again then, Rob?" Sayer asks, flipping through the sports section without even looking up at his brother.

Sigh.

"You and me."

Sigh. Robin decided to go with the lesser, easier—and least dangerous—of the two evils. Even if he's messy, at least Sayer doesn't terrorize me like that madwoman.

"All right, then. That means half the housework is yours. I'll make my bed and do all the dusting. You do the dishes and the laundry. You don't like my cooking and I don't trust your cooking, either. So, we'll order take-out. That's the deal, okay?" Sayer lays down his terms, feeling he had the upper hand now with Robin's options exhausted, and he turns his attention back to the comic strips.

Robin twists his lip, feeling somehow that he had gotten the short end of the stick, but just sighs. He thought that a little bit of cleaning couldn't be half as bad as facing the golden dragon again on the other side of the coin.

"Yeah. whatever." Robin lets it go, knowing that if he was going to live with Sayer again, he would probably end up doing all of the work anyway. So why argue now? Besides, in a strange way, he had missed his brother's midnight television binges, refrigerator hauntings, and loud snoring. It kind of gave everything a sense of normalcy. Robin smiles to himself. He was used to Sayer's oddities by now and much preferred it to Alex's irate and vicious bluster.

"Good." Sayer smiles brightly at Robin. "And since I did all your jobs yesterday. You can start by making my bed and doing all the dusting today, too. It's only fair." Sayer states, and goes back to his funnies. He suddenly breaks out in raucous laughter at the latest offering of the Peanuts gang.

Oh, yes. Robin sighs, getting up and going into his old room. He decided to let Sayer win for today—tomorrow was another day for arguments. Everything is back to normal. He messily makes Sayer's bed, just throwing the blanket, then pillow on the top, when he spots something new he'd never seen before on Sayer's cluttered night stand.

"You are something from out of this world, do you know that!?" He hisses, and makes a sour, frowning face at the color photograph leaning there. Clipped out of a sports page was a young, golden haired race car driver who had just won the latest race a week ago.

Robin shakes his head as he finishes making Sayer's bed. In one last stroke of flipping his long silver grey ponytail over his snappish shoulder, he "accidentally" knocks the damnable picture to the floor as he leaves.

Nonetheless, it lands face up and Alex Sokova's dazzling smile still looks up at him tauntingly, triumphantly, even as he leaves the penthouse apartment bedroom with a loud door slam.

---

Sayer disappears soon after he had gotten changed to meet somewhere or the other with Alex; Robin enjoys some peace and quiet for himself, listening on his 'just right' bed to a certain favorite violinist on his room's stereo system, alone, but not really alone with Michelle's psychic ever-presence nearby, at the solitary apartment; while Terry spends some quality time with Susan at their new home, on this last day of their vacation before the Three Lights would have to return to work.

Expecting the remaining two Lights to be productively songwriting and arranging music in Terry's understandably provided absence, Mr. Pym had already thrown a fit at them and their nearly four straight weeks of 'goofing off,' when neither Sayer nor Robin had one piece of composition between them to show for it. Angry, the businessman wanted the pair of lazy boys to be prompt and early Monday morning for a full day's work at the recording studio and doing some interviews and photo shoots he had scheduled for later.

Terry and Susan enjoy their last day planning out what goes where in the house's now empty rooms. Susan actually did all the directing, with Terry, very husbandly, moving the furniture about to where she pointed. And then he moved it all back again when she very womanly changed her mind as to the 'best' placement. He did so uncomplainingly, for he loved to do every little thing for her. Anything Susan wanted was Terry's command.

She even received a full breakfast in bed, served quite lovingly with his adept hands cooking the nutritious meal.

After breakfast, they visit the furniture store in town, buying odds and ends to fill their home. They then stop by a prominent music store whose manager was more than pleased to be providing a gleaming white, gold trimmed parlor grand piano to the Three Lights' own Terry Starr. While Susan chose the style and color of the piano so very tastefully, Terry had gazed upon her and a certain other gorgeous instrument her graceful figure was standing so close beside all the while which seemed to dovetail so well together with her beauty in his besotted eyes.

Piano chosen, the manager even personally saw that the grand instrument would be delivered to their house that very afternoon while the young couple completed their furniture shopping. Just as they were exiting the music shop, Terry had dashed back in, telling Susan only that he had omitted in giving the house's spare key to the reputable music store owner for the delivery.

Little did the inwardly bursting with glee man say that he would have a harmonious surprise waiting for his angel when they returned back home.

Terry then stopped along the way in many shops on the road, buying Susan everything a good wife needed and deserved plus more than a few extras, such as jewelry and clothing. Susan blushes at his over-attention and thanks him wholeheartedly with kisses and embraces.

On the way home, Susan requests a quick stop at the supermarket, so she could prepare the most delicious meal of Terry's choice for the first home cooked dinner in their happy home by her loving hands. He pushes the shopping cart for her as Susan fills it to the brim with everything she believes her man would like. She desperately wanted to be as good a wife as he deserved. Terry himself was proud to show her off as his bride now to every passing fan or store employee.

Upon arriving back at the house, they find the piano exactly where they described. He only had to push it a little bit to the left at Susan's request, as she sighs with adoration at his strength and then also his talent to easily play a series of soft pianissimo chords with those same powerful hands.

But something else that was tastefully wrapped in purple velvet and gold ribbons, carefully secreted within the large closet doors Terry had led his curious lady to, took Susan's breath away. As Terry had unraveled the ribbons, his magical fingers had skillfully plucked the beautifully glissando scaled notes, signaling to Susan the 'surprise' he had secured for her earlier at the music shop was none other than a gorgeous golden walnut harp.

"This is a very special gift for my stunning angel to play, her eternal melody to my adoring harmony all day." He poetically states, leading his Susan close to the wondrous instrument she had never touched before in her life as he brings out an impressive 47-string concert harp to sit beside their new grand piano.

"But, I—I can't even play it…?" She whispers incredulously, never being much with music and feeling rather small in this now instrument filled conservatory.

"Oh, contraire, amore mia." Terry shows off some of that romantic Italian lingo he had picked up on their honeymoon there, running his hand expressively along the contoured neck of the impressive instrument he had procured for his impressive lady love. "Angels were created by God to play their harps. And God created you to be my angel. So it won't take much teaching at all for you to slide right into it, ll mia cara angelo (my darling angel)…" The tall rock star convincingly pulls his reluctant musician with him into a sultry stance by the lovely stringed instrument which reminded him so much of her, languidly running his warm fingers over hers along its delicate strings. Breathing rhythmically into her ears, Terry strokes her trembling fingers over and over until Susan, pressed into the gorgeous harp, with his heady scented body hovering over hers, ably guiding her hands to feel her way along the harp's pillar, column, arch, sharps and harmonic curves, soon gets the hang of it under his gentle tutelage.

Before long, she and Terry were making their first beautiful duets together—and not strictly speaking on the piano and harp—in their new conservatory which was filled with music and laughter and glorious love that sweeps them both away…

---

After that exciting jam session had left the pair of newlyweds in perfect, breathless harmony with one another, Terry then endlessly compliments his Susan's newly acquired culinary skills, taught expertly by Michelle, after dinner.

"Are there no limits to your exquisiteness, my darling?" He coos, tasting her sauce rather luxuriantly to express his sentiment.

He even insists on helping with the dishes. They both thoroughly enjoy even this mundane task, because they were together. Terry steals a kiss between nearly every dish he had to dry passed between their caressing hands as the evening quickly passes for the couple.

Returning to the conservatory for him to play to his 'perfect chef of his gratitude' on the new piano, Susan lounges on the settee they had just purchased. The white tufted velvet, mirrored settee suited the room perfectly between her special golden harp and the stately parlor grand piano while a devoted Terry plays a beautiful melody, all romance themed. Adding to the perfectly tuned strains of the musical instrument, his own voice sings as he plays for his Susan alone.

His eyes dance upon his lovely lady as she lounged before him on the settee to the sound of his beautiful voice. The words coming from his lips she knew were meant just for her. Seeing the wistful look on her face, he begins to play their melody, the one that has been Susan's for all time. The one he has come to know and share in her eternal love theme that was once lonely and sad, but now had become triumphant and fulfilled as it rings throughout time, which he was now an integral part of.

All because of their love, to which even Time itself could stand no boundaries.

As he finishes the last glorious strains, Terry Starr leaves the piano and goes to his singular audience, touching her cheek softly, only to find it moistened with tears.

"My love?" He whispers, kneeling down to Susan's seated level, taking her hands within his.

"Thank you, my darling." She opens her eyes, still glistening with happy tears. "Thank you." She whispers, kissing both the hands that were wrapped around hers.

"For what, my beloved?" Terry kisses her cheeks, her eyes, taking the tears from them.

"For loving me." She whispers, gliding towards his open arms, running her graceful long-nailed fingers a glissando across that gorgeous harp he had gifted her with, making glorious music as she melts into his chest. Feeling their music entwine around her very being, playing music throughout her no longer lonely soul, Susan holds him tightly to her, knowing that he was now and forever hers to love in return. "I love you." Susan blissfully murmurs as Terry carries her to their bedroom in this mansion of their dreams.

"And I love you, eternally." Terry responds in a breathless whisper as he kisses her magenta lips with utmost gentility and love.

Asleep hours of love later, with Susan pulled close to his chest, Terry smiles with adoration down at his beautiful bride. He gently strokes every inch of her perfectly tanned, supple skin within his charmingly long fingertips' reach. His musician's touch attention travels from her soft arms down to her shapely legs. He buries his celestial nose into Susan's rose scented tresses, lips pressed to the crown of soft locks upon her endlessly long, dark emerald hair, bestowing tender kisses to her closed eyelids where marvelous jewels were hidden behind.

All at once, Terry felt the raw emotion of tearful gratitude to God for granting him this treasure beyond comparison, realizing she was most precious thing in his life.

Silently, the thoughtful man pledges his everything to her, all over again, when he suddenly recalls another pledge to another lady. Though the circumstances were different and the feelings not the same, a noble creature like Terry couldn't help but feel a little guilty. After all, the life, the soul, the allegiance he promised to Susan now, was once promised to another Princess alone.

To dear sister and Princess Fireball, whom he had left so readily, a galaxy away. Though his mind was riddled with guilt over he and his brothers' abandonment of their Lady of the Stars, Terry knew deep in his heart that he could never give up what he had found here with Susan.

Their souls were now one and his love for her was eternal. He could not imagine a life—or a time—without his beloved new wife. And for all that realization, his responsible heart also felt selfish and ashamed.

Forgive me, Princess. But another now owns my soul… Terry closes his eyes, wishing that he could explain somehow to Princess Fireball and tell her that he still loved her, that she, too, was very important to his heart. He wished that she could understand somehow, some way that his love for Susan was an overwhelming force beyond anything he had ever known before. This Princess of Pluto was the missing half of his soul he had always longed for, with the eyes of magenta which had always haunted all his romantic heart's dreams.

'I understand, Maker. I understand, and am glad for you.' Fireball's soft voice enters his mind gently and her scent wafts through the open window softly. Though she was sad they were gone from her immediate presence, the Princess of Kinmoku, and now Queen of Janus was joyous that one of her beloved Soldiers had found true happiness at last.

'Worry not, my beloved. Find peace in the life you now lead. You are still with me in my heart and I will forever be with you in yours, my brilliant Maker. As I myself have now found, too, love is eternal.' Princess Fireball's gentle osmanthus flower scent, her musically soft tone, her very radiant presence from millions of light years away, had suddenly heard his heartfelt quandary through Robin's sensitively open relay, and she had come to set Terry's troubled mind at ease.

'Thank you, my Princess. Thank you.' He thanks his sweet sister silently, her tender solicitude cementing why his bond, his love for his cherished leader would always be strong. For Fireball's abiding kindness, her tender compassion and her unsurpassed understanding of each of their souls since childhood has been a Godsent blessing for he, Sayer and Robin for as long as any of them could remember.

Terry opens his eyes and gazes lovingly at the beautiful creature still resting peacefully on his chest. The Princess of Pluto, his Susan was a delicate beauty beyond comparison. The Lord had given her to him, and Terry promised himself and the Lord he would cherish her dearly. And now, he was certain that his Princess wanted it to be this way, and that she was somewhere, far away smiling down upon their love.

"Thank you." Terry whispers out loud once more for the good fortune of this wonderful life opening for him. His wrists begin to glow as he strokes Susan, playing pianissimo along her soft keys as he would his favorite instrument.

Home, at last, Terry Starr's no longer wandering star holds his beloved wife's pure of heart crystal closely, deeply, truly, blissfully, forever inside of his deeply provoked heart.

---

Monday morning dawns on our newly wedded couple, where usually up-before-the-sun Terry had to pull himself out of bed for once in his life. He seemed unwilling to leave Susan's side, as she wrapped her arms around him, not wanting to let him go. But finally, he had forced himself to pull away, both feeling the loneliness of their first separation.

The moment her new husband drove away, an artificially smiling Susan had run into the kitchen and burst into tears at the table she slumped at, her brave face faltering.

Hours pass as Susan Starr wandered the empty rural mansion in her state of dejected melancholy. The music room had called to her, and she found herself plucking at the strings of the new harp her love had so thoughtfully given her, she even soon was able to play the first bar of "How Fragrant is the Rose" from the sheet music playbook Terry had included with his sweet, romantic gift.

The logical soldier in Susan believed herself to be silly. All housewives must bid farewell to their husbands every day when they went to work. It was a perfectly normal way of life. Come now! You've endured millennia alone! It's just a few more hours to bear. Then I'll be with him again. Her delicate fingers glide across the elegant instruments strings with triumphantly hopeful strains of a glissando as she leaves the conservatory.

Trying to busy herself with the house decorating, Susan keeps glancing at the clock ticking by so slowly all morning. She, the official keeper of time, believed truly it was slower today than any other, as she tries to keep her mind on her "secret" project in the guestroom. Somehow, yesterday, when Terry was talking to the furniture movers, explaining where everything was to be placed in their absence, Susan had made a special request of the store manager, to include something extra in the package.

"And please don't breathe a word of this to my husband—it's a surprise." She had told him and the kind, older man had happily obliged. Surprise it would be, for Susan herself didn't know when that particular piece of furniture would be put to use, but she was very eager to find out, even if she knew nothing about the whole subject whatsoever. After all, Susan knew Terry would welcome it, and if it would please him, she would do her best to make it so.

Thinking about him all the while, she could no longer take the loneliness as she jumps to her feet. Susan gathers her things together and leaves the guestroom like a swift gazelle in full flight, closing the door and all its secret contents, firmly behind her.

For inside, where the bed had been so kindly removed, there was only a brand new baby's cradle standing in the middle of the otherwise vacant room.

---

Across town, in the recording studio, the Three Lights had been hard at work all morning, arranging and singing and laying out their newest compositions to record. Usually the calm, level headed one of the bunch, Sayer and Robin found their brother Terry growing more and more anxious with each passing hour. He had very little patience with them for having nothing accomplished for these weeks while he was on honeymoon vacation. And when things went wrong—as it often did in his eyes, Terry Starr was a bit of a perfectionist when it came to his own work—that raised the level of the tension in the room to a feverish pitch.

Sayer and Robin, not the most even-tempered people in the world, were both taken aback by their generally composed and conscientious brother's most uncommon state of mind.

"Hey, Ter, you all right?" Sayer asks after a while, putting a brotherly hand on Terry's shoulder as they walk back from the studio's office to drop off some much worked-on composition papers, on their way to take their lunch break.

"Yes. I'm fine, of course." Terry says, too quickly, and puts on a forced smile as the crews working with the temperamental rock stars—the tall, mahogany brown-haired one especially—eagerly clear out of the recording section for a well-deserved luncheon.

"Yeah, well, you're not acting like—" Robin begins to complain of Terry's uptight manner when a soft knock comes at the door.

"Come in." Antsy Terry snaps, almost expectantly, cutting off Robin as he feels his insides suddenly catch aflame at the sight of the person just entering the room.

"Terry," Susan whispers, her own feelings mirroring his exactly upon meeting his eyes. "I—I brought you your lunch." She stumbles over her words, and walks over to her new husband. She lays his sandwich on the desk.

"Thank you." Terry nods, not seeming to know what he was saying. Susan nervously squeezes her hands together, a bundle of energy.

Sayer and Robin begin to exchange blinking glances at the strange way Terry and Susan were stiffly acting in front of them.

Susan, embarrassed, catches their gazes. "I brought you boys something, too. I hope you like ham sandwiches." Her fingers quickly dig inside the bag still clutched in her tense digits. Susan hands out two hurriedly wrapped sandwiches to Sayer and Robin, who look at each other, then back to Terry and Susan, before accepting them.

"Gee. Thanks, Susie." Sayer shrugs, never looking a gift sandwich in the mouth. He hungrily unwraps it and takes a big bite. "It's good! With loads of mayo! Just like I like it!" He smiles gratefully at the young wife, until it suddenly dawned on him what the look in Susan's eye, reflected in Terry's, really meant.

"Yeah…Thanks." Robin eyes the sandwich in his hands, about to sit down on the couch and see if it was edible enough for him to eat it. But Sayer's yanking hand, pulling him up towards the door, surprises him.

"Well, uh, I think Rob and I will maybe go and, uh, take our one hour break now." Sayer purposefully announces, wondering if either Terry or Susan was even listening to him.

"We'll have lunch in the cafeteria with the crew, okay? So, we'll see you guys later, all right? And, uh, thanks for the sandwiches, Susie." Sayer says with a small blush crawling up his cheeks as he pulls a grumbling Robin out the door with him, even as his more finicky and snobbish sibling was already complaining of having to eat with the crew.

Terry quickly closes the door behind them, and Susan took no time in rushing straight into his arms. They embrace and kiss as though they hadn't seen each other in years, completely forgetting about the sandwich, or lunch break or work demands, or anything else but one another, for that matter.

As Sayer and Robin cross the hallway, Robin whines, curious as to why they left so suddenly.

"Sayer, why did you have to pull my arm off getting out of the recording room?! It's much quieter and peaceful in there than in the lunch room with all those other musicians and staff." The silver star idol carps about having to share a table with the noisy plebians who were employed at this studio.

"Rob, don't you have any tact?" Sayer asks incredulously of his self-serving fellow group member.

"I'm surprised you even know the word." The silvery young man tosses back with a petulant leer at his normally unintelligent brother.

"Geez! Can't you see the two lovebirds want to be alone?!" The navy blue haired lad, who had his mind on all the trappings of romance than he'd care to admit, rolls his eyes at his less than quixotic brethren.

"What for?" Robin asks, puzzled. "They were just alone this morning and have been alone together nearly every second for the past month."

"Four weeks straight? Wow. Is marriage that good?" Sayer ponders with a low whistle, more to himself than to Robin as he plops down to take a big bite of his ham and mayo sandwich.

"If sharing your body, your mind, your heart and your soul with another for-every-second-of-my-life counts—" A foreboding, yet fascinating thought enters poor Robin's cool mind where warm waters freely flowed now. "—I'm three quarters there." He slowly unwraps his sandwich, lifting the bread to inspect the moist and succulent, no doubt tasty ham waiting for him inside. But Robin eyes its potent coating of yellow spicy mustard—which totally reminded him of someone with similar colored hair and just as spicy aura—warily before daring to take a wrinkle-nosed, but still salivating, satisfied, small nibble.