Graham sat on the uncomfortable couch in the opulent hotel room he had gotten for a few nights. As he drank vodka, he cursed the near-constant call on him to usher the dead into the next life.

Still, the memories of Mamoru's damn parents had him off kilter. Their death had been a pain to cover up, and then that Miran, the fucking Oracle, had been a nuisance. He hated Oracles. Deep down, his real issue with them was that they knew so much more than he did. On the surface, he thought they were prissy know-it-alls.

Miran had been a special kind of pain in the neck to him. It was her that did most of the work concealing the witch's attack that killed the Chibas. And while she did, she had an insight into the scene of death that impressed him. That was aggravating and made him feel ineffectual.

Yet, even though the memories had been forcibly returned to the book, like always, the shadow of the memory lingered for a bit until it fully faded and settled into the book.

He tipped his head back and closed his eyes. Tomorrow morning he would meet with Usagi and the enigma she was dating. He looked forward to being done with this whole thing.

Naru sat on the couch in her apartment, the one she now shared with Sapphire. He was out, probably buying her something expensive, to her amused annoyance. She felt that explained it perfectly.

At first, she was surprised he was even willing to leave her side. Fearing he had lost her had broken something in him that her coming back hadn't quite fixed –yet. She knew she would work to do just that.

She closed her eyes and focused on her surroundings. Everything felt so different after she turned. Sitting still, she could actually feel the barely there air current in the room caused by the central air conditioning.

She felt a sharp snap in her being and then began feeling a bit dizzy. She also noticed the whole smell and feel of the room had changed. Naru opened her eyes, and she was sitting on a chair outside, somewhere, looking out across a vast desert twilight. It was breathtaking.

She blinked and gazed around her. "Egypt?" she asked no one. She assumed that was the only place her mind could be linked to.

She heard giggling and looked and saw herself dressed as an ancient Egyptian running off to the side ahead of her and being chased by Sapphire. She was struck by how handsome he always looked. She loved that man completely.

She stood and watched as the two figures ran, laughing, toward the edge of a large ornate Temple. As they reached it, she watched Sapphire press the Egyptian Naru against the building and kiss her desperately.

"I love you," he whispered, but Naru heard it as if it had been spoken into her ear.

She watched the other Naru tuck her chin, and her face morphed into sadness. "Your father will never tolerate that. He has higher expectations for you than a priestess of Bastet." a tear tracked down her cheek. "I will never be good enough in his eyes."

"Forget him."

"I can't! He can force you to marry or not marry!" Tears continued to slip down her face. "I don't mean to yell at you. I'm just feeling so hopeless. I heard he had planned a marriage for you. She's everything he wants your wife to be."

Sapphire pulled back and sighed. "I didn't want you to find out about that."

"Why? What, you didn't want me to know until you were married?" Naru couldn't help herself, and she cried harder.

He laughed despite her tears. After all, he knew how much his father's wishes didn't matter. "No, because I didn't want you to be hurt over nothing. I have a plan."

She cocked her head, "And that is?"

He pulled her into his arms, kissed her passionately, and said, "I'm dead."

"What?"!" She was startled and so confused.

"Right now, as we speak, as I hold you in my loving arms, it's being made to look like I was murdered. It will look like my body was drug from my room and dumped in the desert somewhere to rot. I'm free of my horrid father and his expectations. Please. Please, run away with me."

She blinked up, knocking the now-stopped tears loose from her eyelashes. "What?"

"My father can't influence our lives anymore. Run away with me. I have a plan and money stashed away. We won't live in opulence, but we will live and love together for the rest of our lives."

She embraced him and nodded as she yelled, "Yes! A thousand times, yes. I love you."r

"And I will love you in this life and every other life I have. This I vow to you always."

Naru blinked at the scene, and when she opened her eyes, she was sitting back in the apartment, looking into the eyes of the man she loved.

Present-day Sapphire looked at her with concern. "You look like you were a thousand miles away just now," he quipped.

"More like more than six thousand miles. I was in Egypt, or at least I was having a memory of ancient Egypt."

Sapphire sat next to her on the couch and cupped her cheek. "Was it a good memory?"

She nodded slightly, careful not to dislodge his touch, and said, "You were there and desperately in love with me. This isn't the first time we've been in love."

Sapphire blinked in absolute shock. "Huhn?"

She turned her head and kissed the palm of his hand. "We were in love in a past life. You faked your own death to be with me." Naru climbed into his lap. "We have found each other –again."

He wrapped his arms around her and teased, "I'm just that stubborn. I wouldn't ever have any woman but you."

She rested her head on his shoulder. "You're being silly, but it feels really good. So good. You've loved me beyond one lifetime. You had even vowed you would."

"Surprising only you. I would be shocked if I didn't fall in love with you instantly every time I met you."

She felt him shift, and he was then holding a long thin box for her to see. "Open it."

"You don't need to get me anything."

Sapphire kissed her forehead and said, "I disagree. And your mom sent along a message with this. She said, 'Get over it and accept the pretty jewelry.'"

She opened what she knew was a box that would hold a bracelet from her mother's jewelry store. When she did, she gasped. Inside was a stunning sapphire tennis bracelet.

He frowned. "Sorry, she had a beautiful sapphire and diamond bracelet, but I couldn't make myself purchase it. Even though you would have something that nice."

She held out her writs for him to clasp the bracelet and said, "I don't want diamonds. You aren't the only one that would be put off by that. By now, you should know all I need are sapphires of any sort."

He kissed her forehead. "You have no idea how happy I am that I got to love you in another lifetime. Just the idea of having your beautiful love before makes me happy about my previous life."

"I was a priestess of Bastet, and you were a noble who wouldn't marry the woman your father wanted you to. All you would have was me. You defied your father and then now your brother for me." She blushed a deep red.

He shook his head. "I didn't defy Diamond. You and your love enabled me to fight back. You saved me. You probably saved me from a horrid marriage in ancient Egypt too."

"Can't both be true? I like the idea of us both fighting for each other."

Sapphire held her tightly. "Honestly, so do I."

Minako yawned, her eyes watered slightly from the harsh glare of the late-night police station overhead fluorescent lights. She rubbed her eyes and then tried to focus back on the report she was reading.

A friendly female co-worker stopped by her desk at that moment and said, "You look tired. Don't you have a hot man to be going home to?"

"I am, and I do," Minako forced a smile. "But my work still needs to be done first."

"You work too hard," the woman said. As she walked away, she added, "I hope you finish up soon and get to go home."

"Thanks."

She pressed her hand to her forehead and forced herself to go back to reading. Minako hadn't been tired at all in a very long time, and she was struggling with how to fight through.

She yawned and set the report down that she was reading. Drumming her fingers, she focused on one of her now many problems. Rubeus, the death of Mamoru's parents, and the coming problem of Beryl remembering her past were pushed aside for now. Why the hell was she tired? That was her main focus.

Only one possible solution came to mind, and if that was true, he had shitty timing. He had decades to draw on the power she gifted him in thanks. A gift she gave freely and happily, but she just wished he didn't call upon it when everything was so precarious.

Still, she didn't begrudge him for drawing on her power now –even with the bad timing. He was the only reason she was still alive, and she thanked him profusely at the time with a rare vampire ability she had. One she assumed Usagi had too.

"Dammit," she muttered softly as her eyelids drooped.

She called Kunzite, and as soon as he answered, she said, "I need you to pick me up and bring me home."

"Absolutely. Are you okay?" He was distressed because a vampire shouldn't "need" something like that. Want, yes, but that didn't sound like what was happening right now.

When he had her back in his room, he dressed her in comfortable pajamas, something she usually never wore since she usually slept naked. He wrapped her in his arms and couldn't hide the worry in his voice. "What's going on?"

She had just enough energy to explain. That was while she was resting in his arms with her eyes closed.

Minako started, "Thirty-some-odd years ago, I had a very shitty day. I'm strong and can defeat almost anything, but not in the number that they came after me…."

Kunzite wanted to ask all kinds of questions, including what this had to do with her unmistakable exhaustion, but he stayed quiet. He could tell she was fighting to be able to remain conscious right now.

She continued, "After the fact, I found out there had been nineteen full-grown pissed-off male Werewolves. The day before, I had killed what turned out to be their queen."

He couldn't help himself with that statement, "Werewolves packs don't have queens."

"One did."

He shook his head. "Some think that was a weird rumor. If that sect existed, it was wiped out…." He tightened his grip on her. The truth had dawned on him immediately. "What were you thinking!? They were rumored to be so brutal."

"They were brutal. That was exactly what I was thinking." She let out a small sigh. "Their queen, Matilda, was a twisted bitch, and they followed her every malicious whim."

"Babies?" he asked. He knew infant sacrifice had often cropped up among the worst of his kind.

"No. Teen girls. They slaughtered them then she bathed in the blood. She got the idea from Elizabeth Bathory."

"Wait. Who?"

"Elizabeth Bathory. She was a countess in Hungary. She lived in the late 1500s and was the most prolific female serial killer of all time. Elizabeth believed that bathing in virginal female blood would extend her life and her youthful appearance. She killed more than six hundred teen girls. Matilda thought it was a fantastic idea and idolized the Countess."

Minako grew quiet for a moment and tried to gather some more strength.

She then continued, "I objected to her goal of trying to surpass her idol's kill count. Realistically it was something Usagi should have handled, but I didn't know how to get a hold of her. She was my idol, and asking for her help just sounded too wild anyway.

"Killing Matilda was easy. The werewolf pack surrounding her became the problem."

Kunzite leaned down and kissed her forehead. "You were in danger," he stated. Internally he was reeling from the danger she had been in.

"Yeah. And it was a human man, Pasha, with silver bullets and damn good aim that saved me. He had been trained as a sniper, and it showed.

"I thanked him by linking my power to a single silver bullet. I liked the symbolism of it all. Whatever is happening right now, he's calling on my gift to him. It's using up a lot of my strength." She smiled. "I'm glad he's finally using it. The timing stinks, though."

He knew exactly what she was saying. This drain on her energy was because of a gift to a human that saved her life. Without that, he'd never have met her.

"Can I lend you my power in any way to help?"

She gave him a weak smile. "I won't even lie and say no. Feed me."

He brought his wrist to her mouth, and she bit down, drawing his blood into her mouth and letting it slide down her throat. As tired as she was, she was careful not to take too much.

It helped ease the painful ache of over-exhaustion. Still, she was tired. Kunzite got under the covers with her and held her. And for the first time, they both drifted off to sleep together.

Meanwhile:

Pasha held a silver bullet to his granddaughter's head as he wept. The whole family stood around him in the hospital room looking on, some with hope, some skeptically, and one very angrily.

His own son hated him for the first time in his life for the false hope that his father was giving his wife and daughter. After all, the doctors said stage four brain cancer. She had months to possibly weeks to live. His precious six-year-old was dying. He didn't think his heart would live a moment longer than she did.

Still, his father had insisted on going home, unlocking his safe, and taking out that damn bullet. The one he always claimed had power. He had returned proud of what he had and had declared everything would be okay.

Micheal's wife looked back at him with her hopeful eyes, and he wanted to beat his father, Pasha. He knew he was going to have to watch his wife be crushed completely under the realization again that their only child would soon be dead.

Pasha held the silver bullet to his granddaughter's head, crying the whole time he whispered the long-remembered incantation. One act, over thirty years ago, was going to save his family now. He was overwhelmed with gratitude for Minako.

Three days later, the latest scans came back. The doctors couldn't figure out what happened —she was cancer free.

Michael hugged his father, Pasha, grateful to be so wrong about that old bullet. His world had hope again.