Sailor Moon Pain: The Lovers: Part 3 {Jon Carp} Address: jcarp@med.unc.edu So it's a melodramatic piece o'crap. You people happy now? Love is beautiful, like birds that sing. Love is not ugly, like rats in a puddle of vomit.--King Missle Jupiter looked at Uranus and Neptune. Uranus and Neptune looked at Jupiter. "Well," Jupiter said, "that was a bizarre coincidence." "What are you talking about?" Neptune asked. "That monster that just appeared on earth. It appeared at exactly a place where Sailor Uranus could see it, exactly the time her friends would be threatened, which was exactly the thing she needed to break out of her fantasy world. It also was extremely lucky that it was vulnerable to her powers and no one else's." "Yes," Uranus agreed. "It was pretty coincidental, wasn't it?" Haruka lived in the real world for the first time since Michiru's death. She talked to people, laughed, smiled, raced, and seemed to be completely herself. She wasn't happy, of course, and she wasn't going to be happy for a long time, but at least now she was truly living. Her friends were great, especially Hotaru, Terrae, Usagi, and Setsuna. They supported her, listened to her, cared for her, and loved her almost as much as Michiru did. After a shaky start, her racing was better than ever. She won several races in only a couple of weeks. Physically, she trained hard, disgusted at the shape she was in from months of inactivity. After a few weeks of prodding from her friends and her parents, she started seeing a therapist, the same one Terrae went to, and it seemed to be doing some good. She was slowly, steadily recovering in all ways. Her life was almost the same as it was before she met Michiru. Setsuna and Terrae assured her that as soon as she was ready, there was a large number of people of either gender who would kill for a date with her. When they said that, she laughed. It happened about four months later. Setsuna found Haruka lying in her sealed-up garage, the car's engine still running. The note, a crumpled piece of paper stuck behind one of the windshield wipers, read: To Everyone Who Cares, I'm sorry, I really am. I never meant to cause anyone any pain. Thank you all for trying to make me happy these past few months. I just can't pretend to live anymore. I was supposed to die in the crash, I know that now. Death is a blessing for me. Please don't be sad. P.S. Setsuna, I called your bluff. She was buried next to Michiru, of course, Setsuna saw to that. Her parents wanted her in the family plot they had reserved, but they relented after a passionate description of the dead girls' love. It was a small funeral. Barely anyone cared. Her parents were in attendance, and the rest of the Senshi, plus a few people from the track who really didn't want to be there. That was it. Well, actually, it wasn't. There were three people there no one had ever seen before. One was old with a grey beard, and also large muscular man with a stern face, and a regal-looking man with long flowing hair. Everyone else was glad to have them, to fill out the crowd, if nothing else. After the ceremony, when all the mourners had gone home and the gravedigger had finished his job, the three men stood unspeaking by the graveside for twenty minutes. The old man was the first to talk. "I hope you're happy, Pluto." "No," Pluto said. "No, I'm not. I never wanted this to happen." "Oo, how noble of you," Neptune said sarcastically. "Well, it appears that you have a choice to make." "What choice? Oh, you're talking about your Senshi, aren't you? What makes you think this changes anything?" Neptune looked sadly at the fresh grave. "No, I suppose it wouldn't, would it?" he said. "I had thought that you would be touched by the terrible story of loss and pain, but no, you're Pluto, you don't care about the humans." Pluto sighed. "I never sought a disagreement with you, Brother, or you, Uranus, but there are priciples to maintain. I have to keep control over my own domain, you understand that." The other two refused to look at him. "I'll make another senshi. I'll make two more. Better ones. They won't be hindered by human limitations, love or pain. They'll take over the Uranus and Neptune powers, and everything will be okay again, right?" He looked at them both hopefully. They ignored him. "Shit." He was begining to lose his temper. "Why do you put so much importance on two little mortals? I'm beginning to think you care about them as if they were gods!" His companions still paid no attention to him. "This isn't my fault! Blame the Fates! Or Venus! How can you expect me to expend so much pointless effort because of that damn human emotion?" A gentle hand on his shoulder stopped his tirade. He turned around harshly, but softened in suprise at the beauty and familiarity before him. "Finally, the truth," the woman said. "Persephone! I didn't...I mean, I wasn't...uh..." "Don't worry. I know you didn't mean what you said. I know you love me just as much as I do you. Come with me, husband. We have to talk. It's finally time for a happy ending." No matter how much he tried, he could never say no to her. Three weeks later. Setsuna didn't know what to do. She hadn't been herself since the funeral, she was losing control of herself. Her temper was short, she'd started neglecting her duties. But most disturbing of all were the dreams. At first, she'd just see Haruka and Michiru dying. Every night, over and over, until that particular subject had been depleted and the other Senshi started being massacred, especially herself. She'd see her own body lying bloody with twitching muscles, or burning, or shot through the head, or hanging from the ceiling. Then, more recently, she'd be back during Beryl's attack, and see them all cut down, destroyed, one after the other. She was getting used to these dreams, it was becoming familiar waking up in a cold sweat, dreading lying down for the night. That's why the new dream was such a relief. It came one night, out of the blue, it was happy, for the first time since Haruka's death. She was standing outside Michiru and Haruka's old house, gazing up at the starry sky. She felt safe there. Then she heard beautiful music, calm, wonderful. Pachalbel's canon in D. She didn't recognize it at first, because it was transposed into a duet with a violin and a piano, a strange combination, but she knew it was the most incredible sound she'd ever heard. Almost in a daze, she walked to the front door of the house and opened it. She walked up the stairs and one room forward, and then she saw them. Her two greatest, only friends. They looked at her and grinned broadly. They stopped playing. Haruka stood up and Michiru lay her violin down on a chair. "Hello," Haruka said. "We've been waiting for you. We were starting to think you'd never show up." "Y-you're dead...I thought..." "We were," Haruka said. "But not anymore." Setsuna was crying, she knew she had to wake up any second. "We wanted to say we were sorry," Michiru said. "I think we were taking you for granted, how much you took care of us and loved us. We were just thinking of ourselves and each other. But we have time, now, we can fix all that." They smiled. And it was that instant Setsuna realized she wasn't dreaming. It's strange, but true, to think that not much would change after such bizarre events. Same house, same feelings, same friends, same two people. There was one difference, though, subtle, but important. All the old emarressment, all the fears and the frustrations, gone forever. They started kissing in public, laughing in the face of all who would disapprove. Setsuna knew, they knew, the senshi knew, but the world in general went on the same as always, oblivious to any kind of love at all. Not that they cared. They were eternally, completely, enormously happy. And that's what matters. More than anything else in the world.