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*
He makes coffee.
Chibi-Usa is asleep in his guest room, with Diana and Luna. He can hear Usagi in the living room, on the phone with her mother, speaking in measured even tones. No, I’ll be at Makoto’s. Yes, Chibi-Usa too. A girl’s night. It’s the weekend, so—
You would never know she is still in her gown, still adorned as a princess-almost-a-queen.
Mamoru can’t separate his logical thoughts from the wave of sixth-sense instincts hitting him deep in his gut, and can’t separate those from the raw frustration and anger that curls his fingers into fists. He thinks he’s missing some sort of large piece of the puzzle concerning the disconnection between all of the Senshi. It’s not his job to mediate, or to piece them together. He can’t say anything unless Usagi says it first, and she’s completely curled into herself from the cutting denials of the Outers that he doubts she will.
(If he never saw the three of them again, he’d die content. Especially Uranus. But his luck doesn’t hold well, not like this.)
So, he makes coffee. It keeps his hands busy, keeps him thinking; the smell clears his head.
“I can’t power down.”
He glances towards the doorway. Usagi leans against the doorframe, plucking at the billowing skirt of her gown with uneasy fingers. She looks tired, shut-down; he isn’t used to her like this, downtrodden. It makes him want to find the Outer Senshi and—
“Mamo-chan?”
He blinks, focusing his gaze back onto her. She nods to the kettle. “It’s whistling.”
“Oh,” he mutters, turning off his stove and pulling out two mugs. “You want some coffee?”
“I want to take this off,” she mutters, and he nearly drops his mug.
“I think you probably just need to relax,” he says after a moment, stirring a small amount of sugar into his coffee. He takes the mug in both hands and turns to face her, a hip propped against the counter.
She smiles without warmth. It’s foreign on her mouth. “There are three strange Senshi running around Tokyo and saying they won’t be on our team. I don’t think relaxation is in the cards.”
This is either an opening or a deflection. He has to tread carefully here. They are fragile together right now, between the weird dynamics with Haruka and Michiru, and the constant presence of their future child. He doesn’t want to drive her off, but he can’t ignore it either.
(For not acting as the mediator, he treads middle ground more often than not.)
The look in her eyes is akin to when the Black Moon kidnapped her Senshi, right in front of her. This kind of betrayal seems to cut at her more deeply; those who are supposed to be of her kind, rejecting her and all she stands for.
Silence hangs heavily between them for a long moment. Finally she turns back out towards the living room. He follows her out, watching as she goes to the windows. Her back is to him, the cut of her gown falling belong the curve of her shoulder blades. She’s pale enough in the damp dim light that he thinks for a moment she is just a figment, a ghost.
“It’s raining again,” she says quietly.
“It’s been raining a lot, lately,” he murmurs, his mouth pressed to the rim of his coffee mug.
Her fingers curl at the folds of her skirt, just a few shades lighter than her skin. “Do you remember them? From before?” she asks after a moment, still staring out at the city skyline.
“No.” He has thought about it for hours now, out loud with the Senshi and alone, and he has nothing but the last month of memories to support their existence. “They were meant to be hidden from us, though.”
“I think that’s just an excuse,” she murmurs. From a distance, he can see gooseflesh rippling across her bare arms.
He sets his coffee aside and moves towards her. His hands, which are callused from battle and healing the girls of their wounds time after time, catch on the smooth silk of her gown as he settles them at her waist. “You might be right,” he says, pulling her back to rest against his chest.
Her cheek nestles right into the hollow of his shoulder. She sighs; it ripples through her, and into him. In the faint reflection from the windows, he can see the downward curve of her mouth, the weariness etched there. “I don’t understand it.”
“Neither do I.” It’s odd to hold her, gowned and adorned as the princess, and to be in his normal clothes, his usual button-down shirt and slacks. It feels as if pieces of their past and present are clicking into odd, disjointed slots.
“They attacked us,” she says, voice flat. “They attacked us. Then they saved you and Chibi-Usa. Then they bowed before me. Then they betrayed us. What do they think they’re doing?”
He doesn’t have answers for her. Helplessness doesn’t suit his temperament. He is a fixer, a problem solver. It’s why he’s all too willing to jump in front of her in battle, or run off into a time storm—he has no physical manifestation of power. All he has are his hands, his body; those are his weapons for her cause.
“You’re their princess. They will follow you,” he says finally. It’s logical, and reasonable, but there’s a twinge low in his middle where he knows it won’t be that simple. Not with these Senshi.
She huffs, curling her hands over his where they lay across her middle. “I don’t need them to follow me. I need us to work together, to be a team. It’s the only way we ever succeed. You know that.”
“I do,” he says, pressing his mouth to her hair, just near her ear. He feels the shiver under her skin.
“And if there are more Senshi, that means we as a team are more powerful. It will be easier to defeat this—goddess of destruction, whoever is she.” An angry sort of growl pushes out of her throat. Her hands tighten over his. “I feel like we’re missing huge chunks of information, and we can’t do our job—“
“You have to give yourself a minute to rest, Usako,” he cuts her off gently, turning her to face him. “There’s nothing you can do about it tonight.”
Bottom lip trembling, she presses her face into his shoulder. Her bare shoulders shake. He strokes his hands up and down the line of her spine. “Do you think it’s because of me?” she whimpers, her fingers curling into his shirt. “Am I not what they wanted for their princess?”
The rage returns, the urge to find the three of them and punish them for this crisis of confidence. He swallows down the bile rising in his throat and presses his mouth to her hair, her temple. “It is not because of you,” he says fiercely.
“Then what else is it? I’m—I’m the glue, that’s what everyone has always said, I’m the glue, and if it isn’t working, then it must be me,” she says. The words are ragged, as if they are ripping right out of her throat.
He smoothes his hands over her hair, pulling back just enough so he can see her face. “It isn’t,” he says quietly, his hands framing her face. His fingertips catch at her damp cheeks. “I think if you asked the other girls, they would agree with me.”
Her mouth turns down. Her hands grip into his shirt tightly. “I don’t know what to do now.”
Leaning down, he kisses her for a brief moment, tasting salt on her lips. “You can’t do anything right now,” he says. “We’ll figure it out tomorrow.”
“I wish we didn’t say that every time something like this happens,” she murmurs.
He swallows hard, dislodging the lump at the base of his throat. “You have Minako, and Rei, and Makoto, and Ami. You have Chibi-Usa. You have me, for whatever good that does you. You have us, and nothing changes that,” he says firmly. He wishes there was a better way, an easier way to show her the certainty in his bones that she will succeed; there isn’t an alternative. She’s a force of nature, and they will bend to her eventually.
Usagi smiles finally; it’s soft and slight, but there. It makes her look more like herself. “Mamo-chan, don’t you know? You’re everything,” she says.
The way she says it, so easily and so assured of its truth, still catches him to the quick. He lowers his gaze, the back of his neck burning. In his arms, warmth rises off her limbs. With a soft white glow, she sighs and powers down at last. Now she relaxes, back in her blouse and skirt from hours and hours ago.
“Is it weird that I don’t totally feel like myself in that form yet?” she asks after a brief silence, resting her chin on his chest as she looks up at him.
He thumbs the remainders of dampness from her cheeks. “You will. We all will,” he says quietly.
She tilts her head into his touch, relaxing her grip on his shirt. “Thank you,” she says softly, smoothing her hands across his chest. “Everything’s just been a mess, and I—I am so grateful for you, for all of you.”
It feels as if a vise is curling around his heart, his chest tightening. He never seems to have words to give back to her, the way she uses hers. Instead, he leans down and kisses her again, her hair catching in his fingers and her mouth sweet and warm under his.
Power, he might not have, he thinks much later as she sleeps next to him. Words might not be his strength. But actions reverberate louder than anything else.
*
Mamoru waits in the hallway, right across from the elevator. He waits, as he has waited for an hour now. No one knows he is here. Very rarely will he make any moves without telling Usagi or Minako first. This, however, is more than business. It’s personal, right down to his bones.
He keeps his eyes on the elevator, steel shining dully in the grey light. Today is another rainy day, damp and heavy on his shoulders. Though it’s just been two days, he’s already seen all the girls, and the reverberation of the Outers’ revelation has caught them all. Everyone is a little more somber, cautious; especially around Usagi. When he’s seen Minako, he can see the wheels turning behind her eyes, her instinct to force the outsiders to heel; but Usagi is quiet and more mournful than anything else at the loss of something they never had. The other girls, the loyal four, will not act without Usagi’s knowledge. He usually does the same; not today.
Smoothly and silently, the elevator doors slide open. The three of them walk out in perfect unison; Haruka, Michiru, and Setsuna. They see him, and stop; various levels of surprise etch across the lines of their faces. Perhaps they thought they were harder to find; perhaps they thought no one would question them after the events of two days ago.
There is something in him that likes proving these women wrong.
Straightening, he faces them silently. Haruka’s hand twitches at her side, the keys to her apartment jangling with the movement.
“Mamoru-san,” Michiru says, breaking the silence. Her hair is an otherworldly teal, dark against the pale of her cheek. “How can we help you?”
“You can let me in,” he says tonelessly.
Haruka smirks, eyes cold. “Is that an order, Your Highness?”
A flare of energy sparks in his chest and down his arm to his fingertips. Sometimes it happens, a strong heat right near his heart, and he thinks he could knock down buildings with the power there. He clenches his fist reflexively, bile rising in his throat. “Should I make it one?” he asks, something of a snarl curling his mouth.
“Stop it,” Setsuna cuts in abruptly. Her dark face is unreadable, but there is deference in her gaze. She has always been one for respect. “Let’s move out of the hallway.”
Inside Haruka’s apartment, he stands at one end of the living room, with the three of them at the other end. It’s glass, glass, and more glass; pinpricks of rain against the windows break the tense silence. He needs to have the distance between them, to keep from reaching down into whatever muscle memory he has from his past life and ripping them to pieces. His sword hand shifts at his side, longing for a weapon.
“So, you’re here. What do you want?” Haruka says finally. He can see her sword hand flexing as well.
A hard sort of smile curls his mouth. “I’d like to know who the hell the three of you think you are.”
“I don’t take orders from princes without a throne,” Haruka snaps back.
Both Michiru and Setsuna wince at her words, and Michiru lays a slim hand on her forearm. “He is our prince,” she says gently.
“I don’t give a damn how you treat me,” he says coolly. “I’m here for Sailor Moon.”
Michiru sighs and sits in the nearest chair, grace echoing in every movement. “This is the way it has to be,” she says.
“We are equipped for this kind of mission,” Setsuna adds, a hand propped on her hip.
“And you and the others aren’t. Sailor Moon certainly isn’t. She can’t even fight her own battles with fellow Senshi,” Haruka drawls, eyes glancing away towards the large windows.
Swifter than he remembers moving before, he cuts across the living room and has Haruka by the arms, shoving her back into the wall. The sound of her body hitting the wall echoes in his ears, a satisfying thud. Anger curls through him, tightening his grip on her forearms. She is all muscle but so is he. “You should be more careful,” he says, eye to eye with her. His voice is low, loathing dripping through every word.
“Mamoru-san!” Michiru exclaims. He can hear her and Setsuna shifting behind them, nervous energy flooding the room.
Haruka glares at him, pressing back against him, but he doesn’t give an inch. “She is your princess. You dropped a knee, and received her blessing. And then you rejected her. I’d like to know what kind of loyalty you perceive that to be,” he adds harshly before dropping his hands from her arms and stalking back to the other side of the room.
“You have to understand that we are not used to working with anyone, even each other,” Michiru says after a moment, gaze even and cool on him, like oceans before a storm.
“I don’t care,” he says shortly. “If this enemy is as dangerous and as powerful as you say it is, you will need all of them.”
“She’s not prepared for this kind of battle,” Haruka mutters, smoothing her shirt down, her eyes dark slivers directed right at him.
Mamoru looks directly at Setsuna then, jaw tightening. “You know that isn’t true,” he says pointedly. Even now, he’ll wake up from sleep in a cold sweat, the memories of Usagi cold and lost in a time not her own; sometimes Chibi-Usa still cries over Pluto, a Senshi now very much alive.
She turns her face away from his, her hair a dark smooth curtain across her profile. He shakes his head and clenches his hands into fists, nails digging into his palms. “She has saved this planet three times over in two different eras,” he says in measured tones. “She has died for it twice. This is not the same princess from your distant recollections. So don’t treat her like she’s nothing.”
“We aren’t,” Haruka snarls, her body jerking towards him. She is held back only by Michiru, who has a delicate hand on her elbow. “We’re trying to protect her.”
“She doesn’t take to that well,” he says. “So stop.”
“And what would you have us do? The die has been cast, and we have our parts to play,” Michiru says quietly, voice hard as steel.
“Let her play hers. I don’t know if you thought we would all stop coming around when there was trouble, but that isn’t how it works,” he says.
“I resent you coming here telling us how to do this,” Haruka says hotly. “You have no idea what’s ahead—“
“I could give a damn,” he cuts in, voice icy-cold. “The next time you see her, show her the respect she deserves.”
The three women watch him, not speaking. He’s said what he wanted, done some small thing in support of Usagi, and there’s nothing else to be done. Except—
“I know you think it’s funny, playing with her like that,” he says as he stops at the front door, looking directly at Haruka. He can see the image as clear as day in his memory, the fountain, Usagi’s face crumpling as she pushes it into his chest, Haruka’s casual smirk. “But she feels everything. She takes it all in. And I don’t think it’s funny at all.”
Michiru and Setsuna glance at Haruka, who hasn’t flinched from his gaze. Slowly, she nods.
He leaves them, then, to the cold glass and their plans.
*
It’s later that afternoon, when he walks into the Arcade, that Minako grabs his arm and tugs him to the side. She looks suspicious, a little wary.
“Did you do something?” she asks, brow furrowed.
Mamoru glances involuntarily towards the booth in the corner, where Usagi sits with the other girls and Chibi-Usa, sipping at a milkshake and smiling at Makoto. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know,” Minako says, wrinkling her nose and dropping her hand from his arm. “Yesterday you looked like you were going to throw every rose in Tokyo at the Outers, and now you’re late—did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Do something.”
He looks at Minako, mouth thin, and says nothing. Straightening her shoulders, she rests a hand on a hip and smiles slightly. It might be pride he sees there, an understanding. She is the one he has the hardest time with; she is the most protective.
“All right. I’ll give you that,” she says before turning back to the booth, her hair swinging wildly with the movement.
Smiling faintly, he moves towards the counter, intent on talking to Motoki. He catches Usagi’s gaze as he sits. She smiles brightly; there’s only the slightest touch of sadness in her eyes.
No matter how it ends up playing out, he will keep the look in her eyes as a victory.
*