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She writes about death a lot. It's no secret that she was sick now. Minako made her wishes very clear to anyone who would listen to her about that particular secret. She does the morning shows and speaks publicly about what it's like to be fourteen years old and know -- just know -- that you're going to die.
Sometimes, when she's overseas mostly, they ask her about religion. Minako dodges around the question because the real answer is far more complicated than a simple admission that she turned to God when she'd thought that life had forsaken her.
Makoto says she's an idiot for even letting them ask. Usagi's far more Christian than the rest of them and merely smiles and tells Minako that if she'd wanted it, it would have been there. Ami just shakes her head because she's far too rational for something like that. She doesn't remember the hive of the past and Minako's glad for it. Not having that now would destroy Ami.
Rei never talks about it.
Ever.
"You died Minako," Artemis says after it's all said and done. Another hotel room, more time alone from who they are and who they're meant to be. "I'm sure that you can understand that Mars took that as badly as she did before."
Her head in her hands, Minako repeats the words of that time again and again. Regret fills her and she begs for forgiveness of something that she could never have prevented in the first place.
Secrets and lies are their specialty. They've lived and died so many times that when they're finally done with it and Minako's sitting next to Haruka on the couch in Usagi's tiny apartment she doesn't even bat an eyelash when Haruka inquires after Rei.
"She'll be along," Minako says smoothly. Rei is running twenty minutes late as she had to fix something on a project she's working on and had subsequently missed the train. There are three texts on her phone and no expectation for Minako to cover for her.
And then a question about afterwards.
Haruka shrugs and gives Minako a searching look that is far too western for her tastes. She's still not used to the fact that both Haruka and Michiru aren't Japanese, not completely. She supposes that rebirth isn't an exact science and it's not like she's much better - having spent half her life in England.
They'd come later, when the threat had seemed far more terrifying than a hidden remnant of days long gone. They'd brought Minako back her sword and then had said stay out of the way as the world slowly blew to bits around them.
And yet they remember as well as Minako does. Michiru sees Minako praying even now, long after dying fades to a distant memory.
"You still follow them," she'd said, apropos of nothing.
"I have been blessed with more than enough chances to not believe," Minako had replied.
Michiru had smiled sadly, and Minako thought that maybe she might understand.
They're twenty-five now, give or take a few years. They've lived longer than any group of guardians before them. Minako swells with pride when she sees the adults that the children she'd befriend have grown into. She's done with playing an adult in a child's body, the memories a curse she must carry the yoke of until the end of days.
Haruka turns to her then, all mixed features and dyed blonde hair. Minako wants to resent her for looking the closest, of all of them save Rei, to how she was before. It'd be easy to drive a wedge between their two factions, but even still, Haruka and Michiru keep her secrets without question. The one that time forgot and the one who cannot be mentioned, they know of the two missing parties of their little band and feel their loss keenly.
"Do you think that Koneko-chan and the others will ever fully recall the past life?" It's a question that they've asked each other many times now, but Haruka's always been guarded in her response.
Minako shakes her head. "Venus willing," she replies in the old tongue. It sounds clumsy on her lips but Haruka's head bows down almost respectfully. "They will never remember what drove us all to this time."
"You could tell her, at least," Haruka points out, leaning back with her elbows out and taking up far too much of the couch. "She'd understand."
Minako shakes her head. "No, she wouldn't."
Because her beloved Reiko has never been one for understanding. She hadn't even understood when Minako had tried to tell her of the mission.
Martians buck against rules and regulations, her father had told her before. They are a stubborn race.
Minako has found that she can be every bit as stubborn.
There's a crash in the kitchen and a yelp that might be Mamoru. "Idiot!" he's shouting and Minako gets to her feet to investigate.
Usagi is half in Mamoru's lap in her tiny kitchen, and rice is everywhere around them. The container had, evidentially, slipped.
"Hey, Minako-san," Mamoru grins up at her. The rice looks like maggots in his hair, but Minako's not about to be the one to tell him. The stink of death never quite came off of him after the last time, but Minako thinks she's the only one who can smell how it clings to him.
"Are you both alright?" she asks, hand on the doorway, leaning in and contemplating the scene before her. Makoto, Ami and Michiru are out on the balcony enjoying the evening air. Ami might be smoking a cigarette, but Minako's not about to judge. She's had a harder time of it than the rest of them because she left. Medical school in England and she's come back with a filthy habit and an even bigger crush on Usagi than before.
And Minako had really hoped that would go away.
Usagi starts to laugh, untangling herself from Mamoru and brushing rice from her hair as well. "Mn, we're okay, Minako-chan."
"Do you need help with the clean up?" Minako asks, knowing that Usagi (or Mamoru) would refuse. They're too polite, too infuriately unlike their old selves. Minako would go to her knees in a moment before Serenity - and she's done it before and Usagi hadn't understood.
"No, no," Usagi says, dismissing her. "Can you call Rei-chan? She’s late."
"She had to stay late," Minako supplies automatically, "and she had to catch the later train. She'll be here soon."
She retreats and Haruka's sitting on the couch still, leaning back and staring up at the ceiling. "You two are ... what? Into the friends with benefits stage?" She doesn't look at Minako when she talks, and Minako knows she's blushing something fierce as she folds her arms over her chest and cocks her hip out to one side.
"That," Minako says testily, "is absolutely none of your business, Tenou."
"I'd think the world would like to know that Aino Minako is off the market," Haruka says quietly. She wiggles her eyebrows and adds, "You're crushing my childhood dreams, Minako-chan."
Minako glares at her and wills her death. And because Haruka's smirking at her, Minako goes for the route of the low blow. "What would Michiru-san say if I told her that?"
Haruka puffs out her cheeks. "Probably congratulate me for having eyes," she shrugs and then winks at Minako lewdly. Shaking her head, she adds, "They were far worse than my people... why does everyone forget that?"
Pursing her lips into a thin line, Minako pretends to contemplate this. Those of Neptune hid behind court manners and decorum; they were not the sort who stood for such things said publicly. “Probably because most never knew it,” she says at length. “One of theirs would never be so rude among mixed company.”
Haruka’s eyebrows shoot up and she leans back on the couch, fingers bridged over her stomach. “I didn’t think you remembered that much.”
And Minako, who has had no identity save the past life for so long that she sometimes forgets that this isn’t then, scoffs. She folds her arms over her chest and cocks her head to one side. “I think it is you who will find that there are still gaps, Tenou-san. You were, after all, not there for a good portion of the battles.”
It’s a low blow and they both know it. Haruka tenses and Minako juts her chin forward, daring her to say more. They’ve all died so many times, what’s one more at the hand of a friend?
From where she’s set it on the table, Minako’s phone beeps a message notification. She leans forward and picks it up, already knowing who it’s from without bothering to look at the contact picture that’s popped up. Rei is on her way from the train station, and maybe when she gets here Minako can stop goading Uranus.
“I like to think we’re past that,” Minako says. “To answer your question from earlier.” She gets to her feet and moves to stick her head back into the kitchen where Usagi is squatting on the floor holding a dustbin as Mamoru sweeps spilled rice into it. “Rei is on her way from the station.”
"Good," Mamoru says. He doesn't look up from his sweeping and somehow it makes more sense for Minako even now to be dismissed without a word or a nod. "The food will be ready soon, will you tell the others?"
Sometimes, Minako thinks that it's easier to just forget all that he's done to Usagi - to all of them really. She can forget it with Haruka and Michiru easily enough.
Clutching her phone, Minako steps back into the main room and very pointedly doesn't look at Haruka as she types out a reply to Rei. Someday, she knows, she will tell Rei about the past.
And Rei will tell her that her identity is now not back then.
Rei doesn't understand how hard it is to pry the two of them apart. She's never had to shoulder that burden; she's never had her entire future be the certain death that Minako's faced. Sometimes retreating into who you were is better than trying to face up to that. She'd been scarcely fourteen.
"Mizuno-san is smoking again," Haruka comments with the air of one commenting on the weather. She's standing by the window now, watching as the three women outside talk quietly amongst themselves.
Minako smiles her small, sideways smile at Haruka and replies, "We all have our vices."
And they do. Ami's just happens to be the most visible of them, but they're all broken people. They can't handle what's happened to them over and over again, and then they will revert to what is known. Someday soon it's all going to change. The writing is on the wall, clear as day. Usagi will be queen once more. The only question is how.
It's a question that rattles around at the back of Minako's head and drives her to think about death far more often than she should.
When Rei arrives she brings in the dust of the road and the smell of rain in the desert. Minako remembers that smell from before, and she doesn't sit next to Rei at their shared dinner.
Haruka watches her like a hawk, and her smile is just as insincere. They're playacting for those among them who don't know. They have to be the strong ones; they're the survivors, after all.
Usagi isn't drinking, which is strange, and Mamoru's eyeing her with trepidation as she picks at her food. Minako's eyes narrow and she glances over at Rei, who's noticed it as well. There's something different about her, that's for sure.
"Actually, everyone," Usagi says during a lull in the conversation. "I brought you here to tell you something really important."
Minako knows then and her blood runs cold. She glances around to see the worried expressions on her friend's faces. They all know what's coming, and they know what might happen next. The world ends and is reborn anew.
"We're having a baby!" And Minako winces at the high pitched, excited sound of Usagi's voice.
Makoto buries her head in her hands. "I thought you were going to say you got fired again." She smiles then, half-behind her hands. Bright and wide and euphoric, the opposite of how Minako feels.
Birth is the antithesis of their existence. They were born to destroy and to die.
"Congratulations," Minako says, and they all echo her. An empty sound in the joyous room.
It will be a girl, Serenity the XVIII. Those in her line always have girls.
Later, when they're all gathered around ultrasound pictures, Minako slips out onto the balcony to stand amongst Usagi's potted plants and small herb garden. It's quiet out here and Minako finds herself wanting to be fourteen and flinging herself off of rooftops just to see how far she'd fall before instincts took over and she'd twist to save herself.
"You're not happy about this," comes a voice from the doorway and Minako turns. Rei is standing there, stoic and silent as always. Rei who knows far more than she'd ever let on. "Why?"
Minako turns and looks out over the skyline. "Do you know the poem about death?"
"There're about a million of them, Minako, you'll have to be more specific."
Biting at her lips, Minako recites from memory, "Because I could not stop for Death..." she falters, translating as she goes. The cadence isn't right in Japanese, but she thinks that Rei will get the point. "He kindly stopped for me; the carriage held but just ourselves and Immortality." She looks down then, at her feet in boots that make her look taller than she actually is. "We're doomed to never be able to stop, immortality is our reality, and this is the beginning of it."
Rei is silent for a long time, shifting from foot to foot and looking as small as Minako feels. "The stink of death is everywhere around us, isn't it?"
"You should be able to smell it, Reiko. It was always your gift," Minako replies.
"It was her gift, Mina, not mine," Rei retorts and Minako smiles. Rei can't help herself sometimes, and it just slips out. The little hints that Rei knows more than she's letting on. Rei, who could be the answers to all the questions Minako doesn't dare ask. Rei, who could be everything if only she'd just ask.
"I suppose that it wouldn't do to point out that we are one in the same," Minako replies. It's an argument as old as whatever it is that's between them. As old as that first admission that she was dying, as old the horrible memories that Artemis has told her he wishes he doesn't have, as old as the first time Rei kissed her just to make sure she was still alive.
Rei looks away. "No."
And the blanket refusal is almost enough to make Minako scream. Rei knows that they are the same, she has to by now.
She turns her attention back to the sky and simple railing that stands at chest level, keeping her from jumping from this place. "I know what it's like to die; I just want to know what it's like to stay dead."
"I don't want that for you," Rei replies quietly. "And you shouldn't want it either."
"I've come to hate the past life recently," Minako says, echoing Rei's words from what feels like a life time ago. "Because that is all we have. Our identities are going to be slowly stripped away until we have nothing but that name - that title. This is the beginning of our end."
And then Rei touches her and Minako feels herself go stock still, fingers on her arm and heart hammering in her chest. At least her heart has never betrayed her. Just her mind on more than one occasion. "Does it have to be?" Rei asks.
"You've seen the future same as I," Minako says bitterly. "She's happy, and that should make me happy, but it just starts the countdown again. We're going to die. The whole world is going to die and she will rise from the ashes our queen."
Rei's face is impassive, but she steps forward and into Minako's personal space. Her breath is warm in the cool evening air and her hands on Minako's waist are a comfort as she tries to remember that there are no curtains drawn and their friends can see them. "It doesn't have to be," Rei insists.
"You can't fight destiny, Reiko. I've tried," Minako lets out a sad-sounding little laugh and then sighs. "Can't fight the moonlight."
And when Rei kisses Minako in front of the window for all the world to see, Minako supposes that Haruka has her answers. This is so much more than a simple arrangement. It's hard and painful and she hates showing much she needs it.
The smell of death is everywhere and the gods are harsh and unkind.
Rei is there, though, a blessing and a curse. Her one weakness. And when Rei understands, she is better than anything else in the world.
"Then here's to immortality," Rei whispers in her ear as they pull apart. Their breath mingles and it's a pledge anew. Minako can see the little red string that's connected their fates since birth brighten around Rei's fingers as they come up to cup Minako's cheeks. "We'll make it work."
Minako rests her forehead against Rei's and just breathes in the scent of them together. "We should be happy for Usagi," she breathes.
"We should," Rei agrees.
The reasons why it's hard go unsaid, and when they slip back inside and ignore everyone's comments about their absence, Minako finds it's a little to smile. She leans in and stares at her future princess's blurry image in black and white.
"Congratulations, princess," Minako whispers, fingers reaching out and touching the picture. When Usagi turns to look at her sharply, Minako smiles and inclines her head respectfully. They may never understand, but Minako will not abandon the old ways despite how much she hates them.
They're all she has sometimes.