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Haruka had thought the hardest part was behind her. She’d dragged herself through the despair, she’d kept going, she’d gotten what help she needed to get here. But now, seeing that long blonde hair in the moonlight, she knew the hardest part was yet to come.
“Mina!” she yelled, to no response. The wind blew strong here on the cliff, but she feared it hadn’t swallowed the sound. With a deep breath and a heaviness in her gut, she tried again: “Venus!”
Venus did not turn, merely rose a hand over the space beside her. Haruka walked up slowly. The terrain felt uncertain under her feet, each rock ready to tumble into the ravine below. Venus stood right on the edge. The toes of her shoes curled over. Haruka had the obscene urge to make a toe the line joke.
“Why are you here, Uranus?”
“I came for you. Why are you here?”
Venus stared up at the moon. Her eyes had gone gold, a pale, inhuman yellow that spoke of power. “I don’t know.” Her face contorted, but the gold eyes did not tear. Haruka wondered if they even could. “Last time it was quick. She died, we failed, our right to exist ended until we could try again to prove ourselves worthy.”
She shifted her weight back and forth. Haruka reached for her hand, but Venus tolerated no touch. “There was nothing we could do.”
“You would say that.” Venus looked at Haruka for the first time, and even though her face bore nothing but contempt, Haruka felt relief. “You never were cut out for this. But I’m not like you. I could have saved her. I exist to save her.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” Haruka said, slow and careful. “I think you exist for more than that.”
“There is nothing more.”
Venus turned back towards the moon, and despair washed back over Haruka. There had been things she could have done, she could have saved Usagi and Michiru and the rest of them. But she was here and they were gone and all the hold she’d fought to have on keeping on started to slip away. She’d ostensibly come for Mina, but really she’d come for herself. She needed Mina, needed to know she could save something. And she couldn’t. She looked over the cliff. It didn’t call to her, the way holing up and drinking until she slipped away had. Part of her felt almost cowardly for it.
“I can’t do it either,” Venus said, her voice barely loud enough to cut through the wind. “It’s what I’m supposed to do, isn’t it? Die for duty, or the loss of it.” For a moment, Haruka saw Minako, the nights they’d stared down what it all meant, the secret tears Mina had shed knowing her whole life wasn’t really hers. “I’m not the soldier I’m supposed to be.”
“Mina…”
A misstep. Venus slammed back to rigidity. “You may go.”
“I won’t leave you.”
“It wasn’t a question, Uranus. I’m your commander and I’m ordering you to leave.”
“Well, I’m a bad soldier, aren’t I? That’s what you always say.” Haruka felt tears sting in her own eyes. She wiped them away. “I need you, okay? I don’t have anything else left. And neither do you, maybe. Just me.”
She waited for Venus to tell her she was nothing. She heard it in her head, that she was worthless, that she shouldn’t have the audacity to think she could mean anything, but the words never came aloud. Venus’s shoulders slumped.
“Do you remember being Mina?” Haruka dared to ask in a whisper.
“I wish I didn’t.”
“Well, Mina wished she remembered less of being you, so I guess you’re even.”
Venus shook her head. "I never should have been that girl. She made me weak." She spat into the abyss. "I lost sight of the important things."
Haruka sat and let her legs dangle and stared at the distant dark line of the horizon. "You used to tell me there was nothing more important than a good time."
"I know that," Venus snarled. "I know who I was, I know all my failings."
"They're not failings to me. And they weren't to her, either."
"Of course they were, Serenity is dead."
"But she lived, and she loved you." Haruka looked up. There was a knot in her chest, she couldn't help thinking of Michiru and her own failings. "And I still love you. And Rei--"
"Don't."
"Rei and Usagi would both kick your ass for this. Or well, Rei would try and Usagi would cry on you. But they're not here, so I have to do it for them."
"As if you could." Venus sniffed, halfway between a sob and a smile. There were tears in her pale eyes.
"I could do it Usagi's way. There's plenty to cry about." She looked at Venus, daring to see Minako still inside her. "You miss them, don't you? Who they were this time?"
Venus sat down, seeming to shrink into a more human form. "Isn't it enough that I failed? The grand golden soldier has fallen. Isn't that enough despair? I don't want to be the girl who feels more than that." She put her head on her knees. "I've been through this before. I loved Serenity as my liege."
And now you love her and everyone else as people, but Haruka knew better than to say it so plainly. "I don't remember that life much. But I understand some." She picked up a rock and bounced it in her hand. "I was gonna let myself disappear, in that little house Michiru bought us. Just hide out until the world went on without me. Because how can I go on without Michiru? And the rest of them?" She threw her rock hard over the edge. "But I've got you, and if I can do anything for you, that might be enough for me."
Venus's chest heaved. "I don't know if I can do this, Haruka." She sobbed and clawed at the frayed edges of her skirt.
“Neither do I. But I’m gonna try for you.”
“It’s easier to let Venus take over. She’s always been ready, and this… she can get through this.”
“Maybe we can too.” Haruka rubbed her back as Mina’s transformation faded and the tattered material of her fuku turned to soft cotton under her fingers. She sat in the t-shirt she’d been in before this whole mess started. It would have been like nothing had happened if not for the bruises and cuts making abstract art across her skin. “I love you, Mina.”
Minako sobbed, big heaving sobs of a kind even Usagi had never matched. Haruka pulled her close. She clung on, like Haruka was all she had in the world, and maybe she was.
“Don’t let me go, Haruka. Don’t let me go.”
“I won’t.” Haruka held her tight. “I can’t promise we’re gonna be okay, but I promise we’re gonna be here.”