This story is set after the Super S Special.

*******

	The sea had drawn me here.  Rocking movement of the waves, so gentle
but insistent, like the weight of a quiet child tugging ever so
slightly against her mother, eyes pleading a constant song, "I'm here.
I'm here.  And you love me.  Don't you?"

"Don't you?"

**

TRUTHS: A Sailor Moon Moment

by Jennifer A. Wand

**

	Still, the whitecaps foam a little too silvery, the tide rises a
little too high.  The ocean is reacting to the same danger we sense,
the danger we have been aware of ever since the day of that eclipse.
The earth is threatened, yes.  The threat is perilous and very real,
yes.  Perilous, but it is not our danger to face.  Right now, it is
not our place.  Our place is...

	...no, I can say it now.  Our place is with each other.

	She comes up behind me.  Her hands come down to rest on the stone
railing, just outside mine, her whole body enclosing mine in a firm,
protective circle.  I settle back into her shoulders, my hair
cascading in aquamarine waterfalls down the front of her shirt.  A
wave crashes splendidly on the rocks as I feel her hot breath against
my ear.
	"You should be in bed..." I half-scold, though her touch sends ripples
through my skin.
	"Okay," she answers slyly.  "Let's go."
	"..._resting_," I emphasize quickly.  She chuckles nervously.  It's
the same game we always play, and it's always fun.  But I wonder if
tonight is the night for games.  A premonition of something more hangs
in the air.
	I feel her holding her breath, and I wonder whether she will begin so
soon.  But the truth whimpers defeat behind familiar reflexes, and she
succumbs to chitchat.  "I'm feeling a lot better now," she says, and I can
feel the heat of her blush on my hair.  "Next time you get sick, try
transforming.  A little battle works wonders."
	I pause with the image of her flushed, feverish face, staring up from
the pillow with an irresistible smile, made even more appealing by the
redness in her cheeks.  It stirs me, but the memory of what she'd been
saying-- and who she'd been saying it too!-- implants tiny icy fingers
into my next words.  "The next time I transform," I say pointedly,
"will be to give you a cold shower."  She pulls back, as if stung, and
I laugh gently.
	The laugh relaxes her, as I knew it would.  We look up in unison at
the full moon, glimmering beneath veils of blue-lit clouds.  In its
light, we both see the smile of an angel we have grown to love despite
ourselves.  "They'll be okay without us," she says, though her tone is
more questioning than anything else.
	"Yes," I agree, touching her thumbs with the outside edges of my
hands.  The barest of caresses.  Salty sea spray tickles my cheek, and
I taste it on the edges of my mouth.  Once she told me that's what my
lips taste like.  I wonder.
	The moon glows brighter as it passes a thin cloud, and I feel the
presence of a wave building just on the horizon.  Its sway is
overpowering.  Her hands cover mine, and she says my name in a low
voice.  I know it is time.
	"What you said tonight..." she begins.
	The mist in my mouth is bitter suddenly, and I feel scared.  I blurt
out, "No, it was..."
	"What you said tonight," she repeats, anchoring me firmly in place
with square shoulders and unmoving hands, "you would not have said a year
ago."
	It feels like an accusation.  It's not-- I know it's not-- but it
feels like one.  "I know," I concede, "I'm sorry, I..."
	"Don't be," she interrupts.  Her voice is so calm tonight, so wise.
It is a strange reversal.  Not long ago, she was the frustrated kid that I was
helping to grow up and face facts.  And now it is my moment of reckoning, my
chance to admit what I'd learned from her, what we'd both learned from that
luminous celestial sphere and its guardian.  Mustering up all my courage, I
turn to face her.
	Her beauty is staggering, and I lose control of my breath for a
minute.  "I wouldn't have said it," I begin, after recovering, "but I've
always meant it, you know.  Even before I knew I did.  I thought there was
something more important than us, but I never realized that we were such an
important part of that very something.  And that any cause that would separate
us," the waves are carrying me now-- how buoyant the truth feels!  "is not a
true cause at all.
	"It's like that puppet said, really.  We're so afraid of what's truly
in our soul that we'd rather be controlled by evil than let our heart take
over.  Perhaps I should have learned that long ago.  I'm sorry I led you
around with a lie for so long..."  I taste more salty droplets, and realize
they are my own tears.
	She caresses my cheeks, wiping the drops away with warm fingers.  "You
didn't know," she says.  "We didn't know how things would turn out."
	My head feels heavy, and I look down at the cobblestones.  "Perhaps I
did," I whisper sadly.  "Perhaps if I had looked into my heart at the very
beginning, I could have saved you all that pain."
	"You tried," she says.  "God, you tried so hard.  Remember when we
first met?  You kept following me, asking and asking me to join you.  But when
it was time, you told me no.  Don't do it, you said, or your life will change
forever.  Remember?"
	I do remember.  The rising panic in my throat as I saw her about to
grab the destiny I'd been urging her toward... all I could think was no, not
her, there had to be a way to spare her this pain!  The daemon's fingers
slicing through my skin hurt, but she cradled me afterwards in her arms, and I
was as warm as I'd ever been.  I remember thinking that with just the memory
of that warmth, I could face any pain alone.  But still, she stared across the
floor at a small blue rod... and her eyes narrowed...
	"You did, though," I smile through the haze of tears.  "Why did you do
that?"
	She just nods.  "And then, when..." her voice catches at the memory...
"when we learned the truth, even then you broke free and tried to save me."
Flames erupt in my mind, the witch's hair, her sneer, holding the gun so deep
against her chest, ramming it into her.  And my arms tied, unable to do a
thing, as snakes surrounded my vision and I was tangled in the hair of a
Gorgon.  Nightmares rising all around me.  They could take me, turn me to
stone, but not her, never her, she never deserved it.  I was the one who
dragged her into it all in the first place, and this was how I was rewarded?
Never... they could have me... but they can't take her... I shouted, screeched
it in a broken voice, and suddenly I was free, limping toward her.  But then
the pain started again...
	"You tried to save me," she repeats.  "Why did _you_ do that?"
	I hear her voice returning my own question, and it is as if a dam
breaks inside me.  My eyes clear into crystal depths.  She pulls me into a
tight embrace and I eagerly drown inside it, whispering into infinite warmth,
"Because I would do anything for you, anything in the world.  Because..."
	Drawing away to face her, I smile into her eyes, eyes as wide as the
sky, and my hands rise up to cradle her beautiful face.  Truth rises to the
surface of the waters, and my smile is as brilliant as the moon.  "Because I
love you, Haruka."
	Her smile mirrors my own.  "And I love you, Michiru."
	I melt against her then, as I've been dying to do all night, and water
meets wind in mad and fervent kisses, as sparkling and as tender as the
moonlight reflected in the sea.  Her arms are so secure, her lips so warm, her
skin so maddening.  My pulse races.  I wish for this moment never to end.
Breathlessly, we cling to one another.  I feel our love rise around us as if
we were the eye of a hurricane, the center of a whirlpool.  The core of it all
lies in this place where our lips and souls meet.
	The heat dissolves as she coughs loudly and importantly.  "Oh, I'm not
feeling so well all of a sudden."  She cracks a familiar smile.  "I think I
ought to go back to the room.  Will you... *cough cough* ...help me there?"
	Rolling my eyes, I answer flatly, "I don't know.  Maybe I should get
your favorite chambermaid to help you."
	"Oi.."
	Arms slung about each other possessively, we walk toward the inn.  For
a moment I am the ocean, roaring against the rocks as the other me walks away,
and her words fade into the mist: "Really, Haruka.  One of these days I'm
going to get you back.  Maybe with a rock star in my dressing room... what do
you think of that?  We'll see how you feel then!"  The warm glow of lamplight
envelops us as we leave the balcony.  Outside, the moon glows, a guardian
beacon holding the tides in their proper place and reflecting brilliant light
off the ever-moving water.  Truly, I have nothing to fear.

*fin*

Thank you Ilana and k-chan.