"Setsuna! You're here!" Serenity rose from her throne as Sailor Pluto strode into the room. "Does that mean Usagi will be coming home soon?" Hotaru stood up by Serenity's side, and her throat seized up as she saw her dark skinned friend nod in response to Serenity's excited question. "When, Setsuna? When will she be back?"
"In an hour, at the most, Serenity." Setsuna made a shallow bow to Serenity, then turned and gave one to Endymion too. Serenity and Endymion ignored her, however, and turned to each other in reserved excitement. Hotaru saw her friend's face twist a little at that. She felt Setsuna's pain as she was ignored in the all consuming heat of the King and Queen's love for each other. Hotaru quickly ran down from her seat at the Queen's side to greet her old friend, and ease that old, suppressed pain.
"Setsuna! Did everything go all right in the past?"
Pluto blinked, then gave her an odd look. "What do you mean?"
"Did I meet Chibi Usa--I mean, Usagi--in the past and become her friend? Did everything go as I remember it?" She couldn't keep the real worry out of her voice.
Setsuna smiled down at her. "We both love the Small Lady, don't we? Yes, everything's as you remember it. She's very eager to see you." Her smile suddenly faltered, and she brought her right hand to her forehead with a faint moan. Hotaru leaned forward.
"Setsuna? What's wrong?" She put a hesitant hand on Pluto's shoulder, but Pluto wrenched herself up straight with a grimace, and shrugged of Hotaru's concern.
"It's nothing, just a headache." She planted the end of her Garnet Rod in the ground, and seemed to hold herself erect with it. The Time Door suddenly shimmered into existence before her. "The Small Lady is calling me with the Time Key. I'll be back in a moment." She turned with a last glance at Serenity and Endymion, then walked through the door. Serenity and Endymion noticed the Door's presence, and stepped apart, eagerly awaiting the first sight of their daughter in over a year. Hotaru stepped back behind them, letting them have the first sight of Usagi. She wrung her hands until they hurt, breathlessly waiting. Why, oh why was Setsuna taking so long?
"Puu!" She heard a familiar voice echo out the doorway. "I'm finally coming home! Where are Mother and Father?"
"Follow me, Small Lady."
A familiar head, with huge pigtails and pink rabbit odangos popped out of the time door, surmounted by a small gray kitten.
"Diana!" Luna and Artemis ran into the room and happily greeted their own daughter back in her proper time. Diana mewed happily and leapt off her mistress' head to run to her parents. Serenity and Endymion were more restrained, but still eagerly rushed toward their daughter, and they were all engulfed in a huge family hug. Hotaru couldn't interrupt their reunion. She lowered her head and slipped out of the room. Maybe she could see Usagi later.
She sat in her room and pulled out one of her most precious possessions. The copy of the Holy Grail Chibi Usa had given her long ago, before she knew she was Sailor Saturn. Before she became Mistress 9. She rubbed it gently with her fingers as she sat on the edge of her bed. How often she'd sat down back in her castle, cradling this precious symbol of her most treasured friendship. A friendship that, in one sense, still didn't exist, until Usagi was her friend here again, in the future. Why had she ended up so alone? Was it her own unconscious choice? Or just a nasty twist of fate? Maybe the senshi of death and ruin didn't deserve to have friends. . .
She jerked her head up from her reverie when she heard a knock at her door. "Yes?" she called out. "Who is it?"
The door opened a crack.
"Can I come in, Hotaru-san?"
Hotaru quickly got up off the bed as she recognized that voice. "Chibi Usa-chan!" She ran to the door and threw it open to envelop the surprised girl in a hug. "You came!" She stepped back and motioned for her friend to come in. Usagi walked up to her and lifted one of Hotaru's hands, still holding the replica Grail. She traced her finger along the stones, then looked up at the older woman.
"You kept it? All this time, you kept it?"
"Of course I did! How could I not keep such a precious gift from my best friend?"
Usagi let go of Hotaru's hand and clasped her hands nervously behind her back. She stared fixedly down at the floor as she scrubbed her big toe across the floor. "I-I thought maybe you didn't want to be around me anymore, now that you're grown, and I'm just a kid. I mean, you never were around when I was little. . ." Her voice trailed off to an uncertain whisper.
Hotaru carefully placed her cup down before reaching out to lift Usagi's lowered chin. "Chibi Usa-chan." She smiled. "I mean, Usagi. You have no idea how much I wanted to be in the Crystal Palace when you were little, how much I wanted to be a big sister to you. But I didn't dare. I couldn't do anything to disturb the time line. What if we hadn't been able to defeat Pharaoh 90 because of something you did different, because you knew me from the past?" She gently wiped at Usagi's moist eyes. "It was as hard for me as it was for you. I thought," Hotaru took a deep breath before continuing--it was so hard for her to talk about her emotions. "I thought you wouldn't want to come back and be my friend, now that I'm so much older than you. I mean, it'll obviously be different for us here in Crystal Tokyo, but. . ."
Usagi reached out with that instinctive kindness that made Hotaru love her so much, and they silently hugged each other. "I'm so glad you've finally come back, Chibi U--sorry, I meant-"
Usagi interrupted her, still tightly clutching her arms around her in a tight embrace. "You can call me Chibi Usa if you want to." She let go, and the two girls stepped back. Usagi wiped her eyes yet again. "I'm used to it now anyway. To tell you the truth, every time someone calls me Usagi I look over my shoulder for my onee-san." Hotaru and Usagi joined in tearful laughter.
They talked for hours, about what had happened to Hotaru in the intervening years, about events while Usagi was in the past, and about old times together in the past. Darkness fell over the city, and Hotaru got up to turn on some of her lamps, and made the rounds to light the ones that ran off flame. When her room was bathed in a soft, yellow glow, she sat down in front of Usagi, and they laughed over the little joke Hotaru had played on Haruka when she'd arrived for her visit to Crystal Tokyo.
Usagi was laughing so hard her eyes were tightly closed. "Oh, I wish I'd been able to see that! The look on her face had to be priceless!" Usagi gasped and held her stomach. "I have to stop laughing! I've been doing it too much--my stomach hurts!" She heard Hotaru begin to cough and immediately sobered. She leaned forward and reached out to her friend, who was bent over in a coughing fit. "Hotaru? Hotaru? Are you okay? Do you need me to get Ami?"
Hotaru shook her head, still coughing, and clutched at Usagi's arm with one hand while she held her chest with the other. Usagi stayed next to her, hovering worriedly. Finally, when she was just about to run off for help, Hotaru quieted, and leaned back into Usagi's supporting hold to breathe in shallow, tired gasps. Her eyes were half closed in weariness, but they rolled up to look into Usagi's worried gaze.
"Don't worry," she whispered, her throat too irritated for her to manage more, "I haven't had a fit in ages. Guess I was about due." After a few more minutes she levered herself back to an upright position just at Usagi let loose with a large yawn. "Goodness!" she reached out to her young friend and clapped a hand on her shoulder. "You look beat. I'm sorry I kept you up so late, Usagi. You should get to bed."
Usagi nodded and got up off the bed. "I--it was nice seeing you again, Hotaru." She seemed uncomfortable, as if Hotaru's sudden fit had changed something. She rushed out of the room without a backward glance.
Hotaru stared at the closed door sadly.
"Welcome home, Usagi," she whispered into the night as she slowly reached up to turn off her lamps.
*****