Saturn wearily raised her head as Venus strode into the palace. How could she be so chipper? Saturn had a few hours of sleep under her belt, but Venus acted as fresh as if she'd just woken up, when she'd fought a major battle and directed rescue operations for the whole hellish night. As Venus neared she noted that Venus' energy was fueled by a great deal of fear and worry. Then Saturn looked at who was filing in behind her and gasped. A group of guards were carrying Mercury in on a litter. Saturn fought her way to her feet and ran to Mercury's side.
"What happened?"
"We don't know. She was helping put out the last fire when the firemen said she stopped helping them and stood lost in thought for a minute." Venus reached out sadly to touch Mercury's stiff cheek. "You know how she is." She cleared her throat and continued. "Then she said she was going to talk to me. I found her in the street a minute or so later, like this." Venus gestured toward Mercury's limp form. Saturn was already bent over her, trying to determine what had happened. After a second she stood up again.
"She's like the others. Our enemy must have taken her out too, however he does it." Saturn broke out in a cold, frightened sweat. He was picking them off one by one. Soon there wouldn't be anyone left. Then what would Serenity do? "We'll have to get her to the infirmary with the others. I don't know what I can really do for her, though." She put her head down in her hands. How much of her waning strength should she use to keep Mercury alive for a few more hours? Her stamina was already being sorely tried. She felt as if she would collapse any second. Suddenly felt a pair of small hands take one arm.
"It's all right, Hotaru. I can lend you some energy."
"Usagi! What are you doing up! Shouldn't you be in bed?"
"I slept a bit, but the nightmares were really bad. I'd rather be awake. I'm--" Usagi looked down for a second. "I'm a bit afraid to fall asleep again." Saturn turned to give her a hug at her embarrassed admission. Usagi returned it for a second, then stiffened and made moves to escape the embrace. "We don't have time for this. I could tell you wanted to heal Mercury, but you look so tired." Usagi closed her eyes to concentrate, and her heart crystal appeared in front of her, announced by a gust of wind. Usagi's hands enclosed the glowing gem and she looked up at Saturn. "I can give you some energy to help Mercury, but I think you should get some sleep after that, Saturn. Even though you're stronger as a senshi, you can't take much more of this."
Saturn opened her mouth to protest Usagi's suggestion, but just then she felt strength flooding into her, singing through her bones. While Usagi could still provide it she turned to Mercury and helped her as best she could. She couldn't heal her completely, but it would last for awhile. She saw Usagi lower her hands out of the corner of her eyes, and she nearly collapsed at the sudden stop of energy flowing into her. She turned to Venus. "I--the Small Lady's right. I can't function much longer. I'm going to get Makoto up." She reached out to place a heavy hand on Venus' shoulder. "You should probably go to sleep too. Wake Uranus or Endymion to keep watch while you rest." Saturn shot a weary smile at Usagi. "Thank you for putting some sense into my head, Princess. I'll go now."
She had almost left the battered throne room when she heard pounding feet behind her, and Usagi crashed into her with a fervent hug. "Be careful, please, Hotaru. I don't want you to be hurt like the others have been by our enemy." Saturn smiled down at her as reassuringly as possible.
"I'll be very careful, Small Lady. Don't worry, nothing will happen to me." Usagi let her go and she began to walk out of the palace. Servants were cleaning up the hallways with shocked and frightened expressions. Saturn was glad she wouldn't have to see the horrible stains on the walls and floor anymore, but the fear on everyone's face was almost worse than the gore had been. She began to stumble a bit, and had to concentrate to force one foot in front of the other. She blinked uncomfortably as she emerged from the cool, shadowed palace into the bright sunrise. She turned around to get a look at the palace in daylight and gasped in horror. The black stain covered the whole outside of the palace, working it's way toward the throne room like a cancer eating it's way toward the heart of the building. Time was running out.
Hit by a new rush of urgency at the terrible sight, Saturn jogged toward Makoto's property. She had to make sure Sailor Jupiter got back to the palace to guard the royal family, and then she had to find out how Mark had fared. She clutched her hands to her chest as fear nearly stopped her heart. What if he'd been hurt? Or killed? She leapt over Makoto's fence and dashed up the stairs to find Makoto sleeping soundly in bed. As soon as she set foot in the bedroom Saturn was overcome by a sudden wave of exhaustion. She forced herself to stay upright and walked over to shake Mako-chan.
"Makoto. Makoto! Wake up!" Saturn groaned softly when she got no response and began shaking Makoto much more vigorously. "Mako-chan! Wake up! Serenity needs you!"
Makoto's eyes snapped open at her words and she sat straight up for a second and looked around in confusion. "Serenity? What? Huh?"
"Makoto, it's morning, and you need to go back to the palace."
"Morning?" Makoto brought a hand up to her forehead and scowled as she tried to remember the events of the night before. "I slept?"
"Yes, I let you sleep here while I took care of things at the palace, but now I'm exhausted, and our enemy took out Mercury. She's in something like a coma back at the palace. Serenity, Endymion and the Small Lady are all fine, but Venus and I have to get some rest, so you and Uranus are going to have to run things until we get some rest."
"Mercury? He got Ami?" Makoto's eyes filled with horror that was quickly swept away with a wave of determination. "We have to stop this bastard!" Her lips pulled up into a snarl and she pulled herself out of bed with only a faint grimace of pain. She looked down with distaste at her torn and bloody clothes she was still wearing from the night before. "I have to wash this off, then I'll run down to the palace. You go ahead and sleep now, Saturn." Makoto walked quickly toward the bathroom, barely limping at all. Saturn watched her go, and cast a longing look at the inviting bed, but squared her shoulders and forced herself to leave the room.
She had to find out if Mark was all right.
She debated detransforming, but if she was tired as Sailor Saturn, her exhaustion would be impossible to ignore as Hotaru, and she'd have to walk there. Taxis and public transportation wasn't running today. Too much had been destroyed the night before. That decided, Saturn took off toward Mark's apartment building. He had to be all right! He had to!
Saturn limped slowly up to the building a few minutes later. The devastation had lessened as she'd gotten further from the palace for awhile, but it had inexplicably increased near the building again, as if this was a focal center for the violence much like the palace had been. There were policemen and firemen around, and the building looked a little scorched, but in much better shape then she'd dared to hope at first. She quickly became Hotaru before anyone noticed the presence of a senshi and stumbled up to the entrance. Nobody spared her a glance and she slipped into the occupants' elevator with a bunch of other people and pressed the button that would take her to Mark's floor. She pushed her way off the elevator rudely when it opened again, not having extra energy to spare on politeness. Mark's floor seemed generally undisturbed and Hotaru began to feel a bit better about everything as she softly knocked on his door. When she didn't receive an immediate answer she knocked more insistently. What if something had happened? What would she do? She began to work herself up again, and was about to pound frantically on his door when she saw the knob begin to turn. She eagerly pushed on the opening door.
"Mark? Mark? Are you all right?" She burst through the door and bowled him over in her haste to see him. Mark fell backward onto the floor with her hugging him tight. She looked him over--he didn't seem to be hurt. She sent her healing sense questing into him for any sign of injury, and it didn't find anything wrong, except he was almost as tired as she was. She smiled in relief. "You're okay. I--" Her eyes filled with tears as relief overwhelmed all her other emotions. She buried her face in his chest. "I was so worried!"
He began to struggle to sit up and Hotaru pulled back, rubbing the back of her hand across her wet face and running nose. "Hotaru! You look terrible!" Mark's face went from shocked surprise to concern as he reached out to brush her hair back from her forehead. "What's happened to you?"
"You've heard about the attack on the palace, haven't you?"
"Well, yes, but you weren't at the palace, were you?"
Hotaru shook her head. "No, but after they failed at the palace they ransacked the city, especially the properties near the Crystal Palace." She saw Mark's face grow pale at that news. "Haven't you heard? The city's in bad shape. Especially near my friend's place. The iron gate she had up around the property is probably the only reason the monsters didn't kill me in my sleep." Mark grabbed her hand and held on to it as if to reassure himself that she really was alive.
"That's right, you are very close to the palace. I-I didn't even think that you might be attacked." He kept gazing at her. "But something else has happened. You've been up for awhile, haven't you?"
Hotaru nodded. "I was helping with the rescue effort." She swallowed and looked away from Mark's eyes lest he see the slaughter reflected from her eyes. "It was bad. Especially the palace itself. Evidently Serenity was forced to erect some sort of shield to stop the creatures from killing her, and the repelled monsters killed everyone in the palace the could find, then ranged out from the palace to kill others." She pulled her hands into tight fists, hoping the pain of clenching them would lessen the pain of her memories. Mark reached out and put his hands on her shoulders in wordless comfort, and Hotaru looked up at him. The expression on his face scared her. He looked so angry she gasped softly, and he was so focused that he didn't even notice her fear. "Mark! What is it?" She grabbed at the clothes around his neck and noticed he was only wearing a robe, but the moment was too intense for that fact to take root in her mind. "Tell me! You're scaring me!"
Mark blinked and looked at her. "What? Oh, I'm sorry. It's just--you'd think Serenity would step down from ruling after this."
"What?" Hotaru stood up and backed up a pace in surprise. "Why?"
"This is the second time she's brought attacks down on us. She should step off the throne so we won't be attacked by outside forces like this."
"How can you say that?" Hotaru looked at him carefully. She'd heard hints at feeling like this in her conversations with him, but nothing so strong before. "You would rather she give up the throne to the monster who keeps attacking us?"
"Monster? You think this enemy of Serenity's automatically has to be a monster?"
"Well, isn't it he who attacked us, twice now?"
Mark shook his head. "I'll admit that innocent people were hurt both times, but both attacks were focused on the Palace--on Serenity and her senshi." Hotaru didn't like how he growled out the word senshi so spitefully. "The first time some innocent people were hurt because a few monsters got out of control. The second time, no one would have been hurt if Serenity hadn't interfered." Mark got to his feet as well and pulled Hotaru to the window. The flames were out all around the city but smoke still rose from many places and emergency lights and sirens were still active all over. "Look at the destruction she's caused! Whoever is trying to attack her didn't intend this!"
Hotaru pulled out of his grip. "Serenity didn't intend this either." Hotaru forced her roiling emotions down to a manageable level. "If the enemy hadn't attacked in the first place, none of this would have happened." Mark turned to her with fiery zeal in his eyes, and while Hotaru loved him for his passion, she could tell she wouldn't like what he said next. She placed her small hand over his lips to keep them silent. "Shh. . .you're safe and I'm safe. Let's not fight about this." Her hand slid down from his mouth to take his hand. "I don't think we'll be able to budge each other's positions. Let's just be glad we're both safe." Mark's intense expression softened and he pulled her to him in a hug.
"You're right. We'll have to talk about this all eventually, but it doesn't have to be now." Hotaru put her head up against his chest and smiled as she heard his heart beating in his chest. His chin rested on the top of her head and her soft smile turned into a grin. He was just so much larger than her! These Americans. . . Mark spoke up again. "How did you get here, anyway? I didn't think you had a car."
"I don't. Besides, the roads are in bad shape. I don't think it'd be very easy to drive anywhere. I walked."
"Walked! When you're this tired? Well, I can't allow you to walk back in this shape! You look like you couldn't walk a block, and I'm not much better." Hotaru felt a red flush spread through her face as she began to realize what he was about to suggest. "Why don't you just sleep here?"
"Mark!" She took a shocked step back. "I--I know I have strong feelings for you, and maybe eventually we would. . .but. . .I mean, we've only known each other for three days!"
Mark smiled. "No, not that. I have a couch. You can catch some rest in my bed, and I'll take the couch."
Hotaru clutched her hands in front of her chest. "Oh."
He went into his room and came back out with a pillow and a blanket. When he came out again he stopped and looked at her closely, as if he were memorizing her features. At first his face was frighteningly serious, then he smiled at himself lopsidedly, gave her a jaunty little salute, and settled down on his couch. His feet hung over the edge.
"I'm shorter, the couch will be more comfortable for me," Hotaru said softly. "I don't want to kick you out of your bed."
"No, I insist. Besides, you're my guest."
Hotaru was silent for an indecisive second, then smiled and said "Good night," softly, too busy with her thoughts to note the irony of her words, since the sun had been up for over an hour. She watched him for a second more, then went into his room and settled down to sleep in Mark's bed. The fact that she fell asleep in less than a minute proved just how exhausted she really was.
*****