1145/Whistleblowing

Whistleblowing
Date of Scene:	05 March 2016
Location:	Zoisite's Palace
Synopsis:	Makoto comes to restless at Mamoru a bit, and they both find out Usagi never told Mamoru about her house. Or anything. Happens after 'Trust' but before 'Repairs'.
Cast of Characters:	Mamoru Chiba, Makoto Kino

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Mamoru Chiba has posed:
The morning after the night before. No one was at Jadeite's place but the fu dogs, who said that the Prince went off with Zoisite to his garden-castle after a fight with Venus, and that the Princess was there briefly but left when the Prince wasn't there.

When Makoto goes to Zoisite's palace to look for Mamoru, the black-haired teenager is, for once, not doing catch-up schoolwork. He's in the garden, weeding and pruning. There hadn't been any of that necessary until he asked Zoi if he could, of course, and then abruptly there was work to do with his hands...

The sun's already up down here, and it's warm and bright, but it's still the pleasant temperature of a late spring morning rather than the heat of the afternoon.

Mamoru looks up and smiles crookedly, face smudged and hands dirty, on his knees at the edge of a flowerbed.

Makoto Kino has posed:
Makoto brought her school bag, but she left it with the fu dogs at the temple before she ventured off towards Zoisite's palace in search of Mamoru. Finding him at work in the garden, she stops a short space away and meets his smile with a smile of her own. "Hi."

She's a little worried; it shows on her face even though she's trying not to let it. Looking him over and finding him dirty from the garden work but in one piece as far as she can tell seems to reassure her a little, at least.

"Want some help with that?" Mako wonders. "Or would helping go against the point?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
There's a little laugh from the grimy upperclassman. "No, I'd love help. I'm gonna need your help tending Kunzite's roses, too. We might as well get some practice in working side by side on it, right?"

Mamoru sits back on his heels and gestures widely; there's plenty of room, and there's plenty of flowerbed. There are so very many roses -- and they're many colors, but they all look like variants of his, of the ones he pulls from dream and uses as weapons and tools and messages.

"What brings you here so early?" he asks companionably. "I was expecting you later... not that I'm objecting! Zoisite's dealing with coffee stuff, if you can deal with the non-tea disappointment when he gets back." And that's teasing.

Makoto Kino has posed:
"Kunzite's roses?" Mako's eyebrows quirk up curiously, even as she's rolling her sleeves back and settling down on her knees at the edge of the flowerbed a little ways away from Mamoru, not so far that they can't keep up a conversation. "The one you left at my place is still in good shape, by the way. Better than good, actually. It's a little suspicious, but it might've helped us a tiny bit getting through to Nephrite so I shouldn't complain about it." She scopes out the roses from this very unglamous ground-level perspective, surveying them with a critical eye before diving in to start getting her hands dirty. "Anyway, I can bring it to you if you want. I should've thought about that earlier."

She looks over after a moment, with a smile less shadowed by worry than earlier. "Just restless, I guess," Mako admits. "I don't have a lot to do until the other shoe drops. Just school, and that was pretty lonely until Ami-chan and Usagi-chan finally came back. I thought I might catch Usagi-chan or something and we could all cram school together, and if we got done early I could go and bother--"

Here she catches herself, flustered for a moment before she stops and shoots him a faintly indignant look. "--I drink coffee too, you know." Drowned in enough milk and chocolate syrup, sure, but that still counts, right?

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Kunzite's roses..." Mamoru starts, then trails off, realizing that the Senshi Communication Network currently leaves something to be desired. He starts thinking about how to frame it, then Makoto's continuing, and he pauses with a handful of carefully pulled weeds and gives Mako another crooked smile. "Well, I'm a little suspicious. I may have been helping it along since it was a seedling."

He waves one hand a little while dropping the handful of weeds on the grass behind and a little to one side, that smile still there. "I'm afraid if we brought it here, it wouldn't want to leave, and I'd like it to come back home once I can move back. Which, hey-- Neph and Zoi said they'd move in with me! I haven't had the chance to ask Jadeite yet, and obviously asking Kunzite right now would be a little awkward, but I will once we have him whole again."

Then Mamoru blinks, hands on his knees. "Hang on. How long was Usa out of school? She was bringing her homework with her when she came here, so I just thought... actually, I wasn't really thinking straight; did she keep telling her mom she was sleeping over at your place or something? She's been here overnight an awful lot..."

Makoto Kino has posed:
Reactions chase each other across Makoto's face as she listens, leaning down under the leaves of the rosebushes to pull at weeds: understanding and an odd sort of self-deprecating amusement as he talks about the potted rose that's currently living at her apartment and why it should probably stay there for now, genuine pleased happiness at the news about the guys agreeing to live with him--

--and then a sick, sinking sense of realization when he asks about Usagi, and Mako's hands still. "...She... was out for a while after we got you back," she says, sitting back, speaking slowly as though in gathering dread. "She was staying with me up to then, but then you were back and Ami-chan needed to stay with someone and I figured--"

Makoto stops herself there, abruptly. Her hands close into fists. "Stupid. I knew, I knew everything wasn't just going to be fixed that easily, so why wasn't I paying closer attention--?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru's brows furrow, and as Makoto starts turning into a dread-stomached explosive-in-the-making, they stop and his eyes widen. He half-leans and half awkwardly shifts to get closer to her and then firmly puts a hand on her shoulder, craning his neck to look at her face; his own expression -- and the weight of his hand -- are calm and solid things, even if there's concern in his eyes.

"Hey. No, stop. Don't beat yourself up. Just tell me what's going on. Whatever it is we can fix it. Stuff just takes time to fix when everything gets slammed into at once, right? Just tell me."

Makoto Kino has posed:
It steadies her - the hand on her shoulder, the look on his face, what he says - all of it steadies Mako enough that she can take a deep breath and seem somewhat calmer when she lets it out again, though the worry and guilt and the sense of a foundation she thought was solid crumbling anew beneath her are all still there when she meets his eyes.

"The storm," she begins. "Walpurgis - whatever--" still can't pronounce it, doesn't care. "It wrecked her house. She didn't even tell us." It hurts all over again, remembering; Mako still doesn't understand it any better now than she did then. Her fists clench against the feeling of panic and helplessness. "I found out by accident like a week later. She'd just been staying by herself at your old apartment, trying to take care of everything alone. That's probably what she's been doing."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru's mouth opens and shuts. He thinks about a bunch of things he could say. He walls off his own emotion neatly so his empathy doesn't broadcast it to Makoto via the hand on her shoulder, which he does leave there--

--and his face drops for a second, looking contemplatively at her knees. "You know... I'll go talk to her. Because Neph just had to lecture me about not telling people stuff or asking for help, so I kind of get where she's coming from on that."

He glances up again, and his eyes are warm, apologetic. "I'll find out what's going on in her head, I'll get her to talk to you about it again. And I'll get her to stay somewhere constructive, like, say, the apartment that Homura rented with our shared account. Jadeite's there too, right? He can make sure she's not alone when she's not here and not with one of you."

There's the crook of a little smile. "Think that'll work?"

Makoto Kino has posed:
"I got her to stay over at my place once I found out - I tried to let her know she could confide in me--" Makoto's eyes are very nearly pleading, begging Mamoru to understand: I tried. Not because she thinks he's accusing her; it's more like she's trying to convince herself. "But then Ami-chan got hurt, and with everything else that was going on..."

Breathe. She scrubs both hands over her face as she takes another deep breath, which means now her face is smudged, but she manages to smile back at Mamoru, a little, at his suggestion. "She'll probably be mad at me for telling you all this," Mako says, helplessly. "But if she can't rely on me then I don't know what else to do."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru starts to reach to muss Makoto's hair because it's so mussable, but realizes that while dirtsmudge on shoulder might be forgivable, dirt in hair is probably less so. So instead, he just withdraws his hand and looks a little wry, and shakes his head. "She didn't tell me either. It's not a matter of relying or not relying on you. Everyone's afraid of burdening everyone else with their own problems when they look around and see their friends all suffering too. It's just something we have to work on."

Finally, Mamoru gently lobs a pulled weed with a little clump of dirt around the roots into Mako's lap, on top of her hands when she drops them. "I tried with Venus last night. It almost worked, but she's really broken. She's not going to let anyone help her mend herself until she's ready to start mending herself, and nothing anyone does or says is going to work until then, I think-- honestly it would be easier if she stabbed with knives instead of words, words cut a lot deeper. At least I know for sure she'll keep fighting; she never stopped. And at least when there's an enemy in front of us, she stabs at them instead."

He lets out a breath. "It hurts when what you do is fix things, fix people, and you find someone who won't be fixed. She'll eventually get there, I think... but Usako, at least, isn't like that. Please don't be hurt by her keeping things locked away. I know it's hard, but I'm sure she's working on it, and it's not some perceived deficit on your part-- it's just... well, I'll find out exactly what it is. I'm sure she just needs to keep being reminded, like me."

Makoto Kino has posed:
Mako catches the tossed weed reflexively, and sits and stares at it for a moment like she has no idea what it is. (Which might actually be true; who knows what kind of weeds a place like this grows. Maybe she should take it home and stuff it in a pot, see what happens.)

"I can't talk to Venus," she says quietly, eyes fixed on the uprooted plant. "I don't know how. She doesn't talk to me unless she's giving orders like I'm supposed to follow them, or talking down to all of us like she thinks we're idiots who don't know what's going on. I know she'll fight the Dark Kingdom, but I don't know her."

She breathes in, slow and deep, and lets it out in a sigh of her own. "I know Usagi-chan's not like that, I just... I hate this. Not knowing how to help. Not even knowing that something's wrong until it pulls the rug out from under me, and then I find out everyone else knew but nobody wanted to talk about it."

Her shoulders hitch; she catches herself before she crushes the weed in her hands, and instead lays it aside with the one or two that she's pulled herself. "I was really scared, you know? While you were gone, it was like everything was falling apart. Venus was talking like it was stupid to even want to try to get you back, and Usagi-chan - I really felt like if something didn't get better we were going to lose her. It's not her fault." The words leave Makoto in a shuddering breath. "I should've been looking out for her better. Reminding her."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
And when Makoto's shoulders hitch, that's when Mamoru moves again. He shuffles himself next to her and unhesitatingly pulls her into a sideways hug. "Don't beat yourself up," he says firmly, quietly, next to her head. "It's been really hard for everyone. It's been really hard for you. Not a single one of us is capable of shouldering all of this, of catching everything-- especially not when every one of us is walking wounded. You've been doing your best. Everything is going to be okay, because you just keep doing your best. It's going to take time, but that's okay, too. We take care of the immediate problems first, and then we start working on fixing the rest of it. It'll keep."

Makoto Kino has posed:
His arm goes around her and Makoto leans gratefully into him, some of the tension uncoiling from her posture. When her breath shivers out of her again, it's a tiny almost-laugh. "I was talking about that with Nephrite, too... how it's going to take time to fix things. I don't know why it didn't sink in before now. Sorry."

She's quiet for a moment, soaking up the reassurance that Mamoru is offering her, but the longer she's quiet the more that 'sorry' doesn't seem quite right and finally Mako cracks a lopsided little smile. "Thanks. Will you just - talk to Usagi-chan, like you said? And then I'll talk to her, later. I might need to go punch something first."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru chuffs out a little laugh at the end of what Makoto says, and he squeezes her shoulders for a second. "Yeah, I will. She lent me the Luna Pen when we went to go save Naru and escalate Zoi, and I keep forgetting to give it back-- I'll just use it and go find her."

Then he finally withdraws, but his smile and his eyes are still warm, still look like they're sharing some kind of secret knowledge or joke with her, quiet and understated. "In the meantime, you go find Neph and Zoi and the coffee, okay? And if you brought your schoolwork, after you punch something, tell them I said they needed to help you with homework today instead of me. They've both been really awesome helping me catch up," he says as he pulls himself to his feet and brushes his dirty hands off on his jeans.

Makoto Kino has posed:
The face that Makoto pulls at this suggestion is prety much priceless: surprised, a little curious, a lot dubious, and very faintly alarmed. "I'm trying to figure out a way that asking Nephrite and Zoisite to help me with my homework isn't supposed to end in me dying of embarrassment," she says, wryly cheerful. "I'm not coming up with anything yet, but I guess we'll see."

She starts picking herself up while he's dusting his hands off. "Take care, all right? I'd go with you, but, well." It's probably better for everyone if she's not a part of that initial conversation.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"You could probably just do it near them and look frustrated, I'm pretty sure that counts as asking," Mamoru says cheerfully, his grin going decidedly crooked. "And I will. I still don't have my phone back, and there's no signal down here anyway-- but I'll try and make sure she's not too mad about you tattling, either. See you later!"

Why yes: on his way out, once he's out of sight but before he's out of earshot, she can hear him calling out 'Luna Pen, turn me into a--!'