A light rain was falling as I walked up the steps to her front door.  It was 
winter and I didn't think it was strange that her inside door was open; the 
outside door, however, was locked. She had given and trusted me with a key 
so I unlocked the door and let myself in.  The house was gorgeous; an 
old-fashioned Victorian-era styled townhouse. Whatever her parents did for a 
living, they were quite comfortable because of it.  Everything was either 
made of wood or had wood in and around it.  The floor had several rugs of 
various sizes and the walls were covered with wood panelling.  All in all, 
it was a very intimate house.  I heard someone crying in one of the upstairs 
bedrooms so I went up to investigate further.  THere she was; curled up into 
a ball lying on her bed sobbing while her cat, Artemis, tried to comfort her.	

"Mina..." I said as I walked, rather quickly, to the bed. She had seen me 
come in to her room and made no attempt to acknowledge me.  I sat down on 
the bed and pulled Mina up so that she put her head on my shoulder.  Artemis 
kept saying that he didn't know what was wrong and that he was worried about 
her.

"Artemis, calm down.  She needs a friend more than a father right now.  I'll 
take care of her for awhile, okay?" I said knowing full well that Mina had a 
father-daughter relationship with Artemis.  Artemis nodded and mumbled 
something about going to see Luna and was off.

"Mina, what's wrong?"  She tilted her head to look at me and I saw that her 
eyes were all puffed up from crying. She tried to speak but found she 
couldn't so she buried her head deeper into my shoulder.

"Shhhhh... it's okay.  You cry all you want.  I'm here. Shhhhh."  She 
finally started to speak again.

"He dumped me.  After all the time we spent and how close we got to each 
other we got to each other we got... and... he dumped me!"  She was talking 
about her now ex-boyfriend Sandy.  I was introduced to him by Mina at a 
party where I was with Mina's friends Raye, Amy, Serena and Lita.  Since it 
was couples only, and neither Lita nor I had a date, I was with Lita.  He 
seemed like a nice enough guy; so much so, in fact, that I thought Mina and 
Sandy would be an item for many years to come.	

"What did he say to you?" I asked.

"He said that I spent way too much time with my friends and not enough time 
with him.  He said he was tired of my running off on him and not even giving 
him a good reason. But, what could I do?  I couldn't tell him I was a 
Sailor Scout.  He wouldn't have understood!"

"Mina, if he can't see what a beautiful person you are, then, he isn't worth 
having.  You're too good for him.  Tell you what; we'll go downstairs, 
you'll curl up on the couch by the fire and I'll cook you a nice meal and 
rescue you from a broken heart, okay?"

"Sounds good." said Mina, feeling a little better.  We went downstairs and 
she curled up on the couch with an orange, red and yellow afghan wrapped 
around her as she sat by the fire.  I unfastened the big red hair ribbon 
she had, bowed, in her long, golden hair, so she could feel completely 
relaxed.  Mina loved pasta but that would've taken too long to make so, 
with her permission, I made soup.

As I stood there stirring the soup,  I thought about my relationship with 
Mina.  We had been good friends since primary school.  We met when I got 
beaned on the head with a particularly hard dodge ball.  She ran over to me 
to see if I was all right and we have remained good friends ever since, but 
no more than good friends.  For some reason, oblivious to either of us, we 
had just never taken the next step into our relationship.  I guess we liked 
each other enough to just be friends which was fine for both of us. The only 
time we were ever apart was when she started to model for the Sailor V 
movies and even then we still kept in touch.  It wasn't until she went to 
Paris to fight crime with Artemis that we lost contact completely.  When 
she came back, I was the first person she called.  It was a major surprise 
to find out that she was Sailor Venus but, for some reason, it didn't seem 
to matter.  She was Mina first, Sailor Venus second.	

I scooped two bowls of soup, and carried them into the living room where 
Mina looked and sounded better.  She was smiling which really brought her 
eyes.  I sat down beside her and we talked about old times.

"Do you remember when you met the other Scouts?" Mina asked.

"No, but I'm sure you do.  Please tell me about it?"  I said holding her 
close, but not too close.

"I'll never forget it" she started.  "You already knew that I was Sailor 
Venus but you didn't know who the others were.  When I transformed back to 
Mina, the other girls were shocked that I transformed while you were 
watching.  They didn't know you knew. We were supposed to keep our 
identities secret but I knew that I could trust you.  One by one the girls 
started transforming and..."	

"Wait... I'm starting to remember.  Mercury turned into Amy, Mars into Raye, 
Moon into Serena, and Jupiter into Lita.  Yeah, I remember now. I never told 
you, Mina, but I knew Lita before you introduced us.  It was surprising to 
see her as Sailor Jupiter.  There were some other surprises too.  I never 
thought Serena would turn out to be a Sailor Scout let alone the Princess of 
Crystal Tokyo.  And Amy, I figured she spent all of her time with her nose 
in book. The only one that didn't surprise me was Raye.  I figured she was 
hiding something anyway."	

"How about when you met the guardians, Luna and Artemis?"	

"Yeah, I remember that day really well.  You five girls sent them in to 
greet me while you all watched for my reaction.  But I surprised you, didn't 
I?  They talked to me and I talked right back to them as if they were 
human."

"Yes you got us good."  She laughed.  I laughed.  She snuggled in a little 
closer.  I pulled away.

"Mina, you know you're my best friend in the world but you also know that 
my heart belongs to Lita."  She nodded and smiled.

"I know but can't two really good friends curl up by the fire and talk?"  
I thought about that for a minute and decided to throw caution to the wind.

We sat there, talking, laughing and crying and holding each other closely 
but at a reasonable distance.  After a couple of hours, I realized that it 
was time for me to go.  I noticed that Mina was still upset about Sandy and 
my leaving.

"We'll do this together real soon , Mina; I promise."  I kissed her on the 
forehead and hugged her long; perhaps a bit to long.  As I went out the 
door, I turned and saw that Mina was glowing.

"I don't know what I'd do without you!"  She called.

"Remember, you have seven friends who care about you deeply.  Keep us in 
your heart forever." I replied.	

She went back inside and closed the door.  For the first time, in a long 
time, I felt like I had really done a good thing.  Mina would heal a lot 
faster now because a friend reached out to her and helped her on the road 
to recovery.  Everybody needs a little emotional help sometimes.  I felt 
so good, I decided to go over to Lita's.