Communication

By late afternoon slash early evening, Makoto is back from visiting Mamoru. She's changed clothes and washed the dirt off her face and hands and pretty soon she will start thinking about putting something together for dinner, but for right now she's tipped backwards onto the sofa, her back against the seat cushions and her legs dangling carelessly over the arm, where she'd originally sat before she let herself slide back over it.

"Everything's been so crazy I didn't even get a chance to ask," she says, looking upside-down at Ami. "How did things go with Agera-san?"

Ami is, for the most part, recovered from her ordeal with Kunzite. Between the notes he provided, Takashi's excellent care, and her own magical resilience, the Senshi of Wisdom and Justice has shrugged away the worst, and is now only suffering occasional pains when she dares pretend she was never injured to begin with.

This doesn't mean she's gone home, but she has certainly entertained the idea on more than one occasion, and she has been helping out a lot more with the chores around Makoto's house--especially with tutoring Makoto for the upcoming end of year tests. It's not that she's afraid to go home, though, it's more than Ami is growing increasingly agitated about the girls being separated for any length of time. The Crystal is mostly recovered, and it's only a matter of time before they will need to take the fight to Beryl. She probably should have already made that recommendation.

For the moment, however, Ami is curled up at the other end of the couch. She's got on a pair of red shorts, a white blouse and blue blouse, and short wh ite socks. Nothing particularly special, given the school week is over and she hasn't got plans for the weekend. In her lap she has the Mercury Computer, on which she's playing a game of sudoku idly to avoid dwelling on bigger issues.

Ami reaches up almost instinctually when Makoto flops down next to her, reaching to pet the girl's hair. She is waylaid, however, by Makoto's question. It draws a blush, and Ami retracts her hand almost immediately. "Well ... it went okay," she admits, clearing her throat. "We um ... we went for pizza. And it was very good pizza, and I managed not to get any on my dress." These are all things Makoto already knows, of course, and not at all what she was asking.

"I suppose I wouldn't mind another date," Ami finally explains to Makoto--most assuredly what she really wants to know. "We talked a little about the fact that he's had girlfriends before, and I've never dated. We also talked a bit about his aspirations with the Artha, and subspace theories, and what my plans are for how to get Kunzite back from the Dark Kingdom."

Mako has not, for what it's worth, been in any hurry at all to lose her houseguest. She's been happy at Ami's recovery, and (since it's Ami) has been glad for the help around the house. She's even made what she feels is a valiant effort to be a good student during the study sessions, despite feeling very little enthusiasm for the idea of exams when there are so many more important matters at stake.

Right now, from her absurd 1950's teenager-on-the-phone pose, she smiles at Ami and waits, patiently, for her explanation to get around to the important parts. "So," she says, "he behaved himself? I mean, I figured it must've been going all right since you didn't need a rescue, but did you have fun or was it just kind of okay?"

A moment later some of the rest of what Ami said catches up to her and Makoto blinks, eyes widening. "Oh!" Abruptly she plants both hands on the seat of the sofa and levers herself up, twisting around until she can look at Ami from a more upright posture. "That reminds me, Mamoru-san said to ask you about Kunzite's roses. Is that something to do with your plans?"

Ami's blush only grows more intense at the question of 'fun'. "I wouldn't call it 'fun' per se," she says, trailing off. "But it was very nice to spend dinner discussing issues that are very important to me with someone who shares my intellectual and educational motivations." She is very careful not to imply anything about Makoto. Very, very careful.

"Anyways, yes," Ami says quietly, "Kunzite's roses are a rather poetic way of describing my plans. Unfortunately, I've still been unable to come up with anything better, but at the very least, with Takashi's input, I have been able to narrow down the odds of failure on that plan to less than fifteen percent. All things given, an eighty-five percent probability of success is extremely satisfying. Still, I don't like that the plan involves killing him. But it seems there's no better way." As if Makoto knows what the plan is! Poor Makoto.

Careful as Ami was not to imply anything, Makoto still makes a rather sheepish face at the phrase 'intellectual and educational motivations'. It passes quickly, though, and her brows quirk upwards in contemplative interest. "Doesn't sound very exciting," she decides, "but that's probably good since you were nervous about not having done that sort of thing before, right?"

She scoots the rest of the way around so that she's sitting more or less normally as she listens to the rest of what Ami says, looking first attentive without quite comprehending - and then her eyes widen in surprise and faint alarm. "Wait," she says, raising a hand, "back up. Killing him?"

Ami blinks at Makoto's questioning look and alarm, as if she's entirely caught off guard by them. Has no one told her!? Didn't Ami tell her!? Shifting to face Makoto, Ami curls her legs up beneath her and puts her tablet down in her lap. "I thought I told you," she mumbles, as if quite disconcerted that she hasn't. "I'm sorry, Mako-chan. I meant to tell you. I do have a plan for dealing with Kunzite. But it requires us to resurrect him. And that means he has to die, first."

"It's okay." Mako shifts across the sofa cushions to lean in and sling an arm around Ami for a quick hug, then leans back again. "There's been a million things going on, and you were still working on it, right? So, you can just tell me about it now."

She turns herself sideways to face Ami fully, sitting cross-legged on the middle cushion and planting her hands on her feet. "You're seriously talking about bringing him back from the dead." Makoto's eyes are wondering. "Although it kind of seems like killing him is going to be its own challenge, if it comes to that... But what do roses have to do with it? They can't be a metaphor, Mamoru-san was talking about actual gardening."

"Eighty-five percent probabilty of success," Ami reminds Makoto quietly. "I mean, I seriously got us to teleport to the moon, where we seriously breathed the air of an eons-old kingdom." As if she has to defend herself to Makoto. Or maybe she's just reassuring herself that it's not as crazy as it sounds.

"There's an old legend," Ami says quietly, "from the Egyptians, which is near where Kunzite's powerbase lay. Every year, when the winter comes, it kills the land. In order to restore it, the Egyptians created a coffin made to look like Osiris, and filled it with sacred dirt, a little water, and seeds for the new year. As those seeds germinate and grow, they represent the rebirth of Osiris from the realm of the dead, and the renewal of the land."

Here, Ami takes a deep breath, then explains, "So that's what we're going to do. Jadeite is going to craft a coffin to look like Kunzite, and Mamoru will select the earth to fill it with. Nephrite has chosen the time to do it, and Zoisite will provide the seeds from his own palace. I still need to go with Rei to inspect them one last time; either they will raise my probability another three percent, or reduce it by fifty. But I'm relatively certain they won't reduce it more than seven."

Ami smiles nervously, then explains, "We'll place the coffin in his own palace, and bury his soul gem deep within it, and nurture it with Mamoru's energy. It shouldn't take long to grow a new body."

"Wow." There's no doubt in Makoto's expression as she meets Ami's eyes. It sounds crazy as all get-out, but it's Ami saying it, therefore it is so. Still, it's a lot to wrap her brain around. For a little while, she can't really come up with anything else to say - just, 'wow'.

Eventually Mako breathes out, and shakes her head with a little laugh. "Well, that explains what we were doing today with the rosebushes at Zoisite's palace. Mamoru-san was saying he wanted me to help with Kunzite's roses so it'd be good to have some practice, but we kind of got derailed before he could explain what he meant."

Ami considers that information carefully for several moments; a little tilt of her head as if she's doing mental calculations--which she is. After a moment, she blinks and notes, "Having a talented botanist tend the flowers regularly would increase his chances. Especially if it's someone who isn't full of poison and anguish," she notes, then smiles at Makoto.

"I know it sounds crazy," she says quietly, "but it's honestly the best I've been able to come up with. I don't think I can save him unless we miraculously stumble on his original body. And even that's questionable. He's been separated from it too long, and it's probably started to rot, if it still exists at all."

"I think Zoisite's traded a lot of the anguish for trolling lately," Makoto observes with a rueful glance upward at the ceiling, not quite an eyeroll. No comment on the 'poison' part, but she seems a little pleased at the vote of confidence in her ability to be of some help in all this.

She stretches, arms reaching upward. "I doubt Beryl cared very much about leaving him a body to go back to when she did... whatever she did to him." Mako grimaces a little, thinking about it. "It does sound crazy, but so does most of the rest of what's happened the past six months or so. If you say it's the best chance, then it's the best chance." She laces her fingers behind her head. "We'll make it work."

The bluenette sighs and slumps against the couch, letting her head rest on the back of it with her eyes closed. "And somewhere in all of this, we need to assemble the pieces of the crystal, and assault Metallia's stronghold at the North Pole. I should really have told Usagi to do this already," Ami chides herself. "We have all the pieces. I just hoped she'd be able to ... I don't know, enjoy some peace with Endymion before we risk the entire universe on being strong enough to save it."

At the mention of the key sections, Makoto jolts a little where she sits. "Dammit," she complains, letting her hands drop to rest on her thighs. "I keep forgetting to ask Nephrite for the third piece back. Well, I guess it's not that important as long as we know where it is..."

She takes a moment to breathe in and then out again. "The enemy wants the Silver Crystal too, right? It's probably best that we're not rushing into putting all the pieces together."

Mako's fingers drum momentarily against her knee, then stop as she looks up at Ami again. "The North Pole, huh?"

Ami nods her head just faintly at Makoto. "Honestly, we should rush to put it together," she says. "Or at least discuss whether it's time. I have every reason to believe that the Crystal can destroy Metallia, and Beryl both. It's all I've been waiting for before telling you all the exact coordinates Kunzite gave me for their base of operations. I've done as much surveillance on that area as I can without raising an alarm, and I still only have a fifty percent certainty it's there. But a coin flip is still better than a needle in a haystack."

At this news, Makoto sits up a little straighter, brows lifting as a spark comes into her green eyes. "You have coordinates. Geez, Ami-chan, how long have you been sitting on that?" The question is impressed rather than accusing, and Mako lets out another little laugh.

"In that case... you're right, we should definitely be talking about it. Unless we can find a way to deal with Kunzite first, but the Silver Crystal would probably work on him too, wouldn't it? I definitely don't have anything that does." There's a rueful twist to her mouth as Mako says it.

"Rei knows, too," Ami whines in reply, opening her eyes to stare at Makoto worriedly. "And Minako knows I know. It was when we first realised Kunzite was breaking free. Minako concocted a plan to capture him. It didn't really work, except I was able to erect a Subspace Barrier around him. And then ... well, we made a deal, and he told me. But only if I agreed not to tell you guys--except Rei--until we were ready to fight Metallia."

Makoto's head tilts as she listens, processing this. "Huh," she says thoughtfully. "Why did he not want you to tell us? --Because somebody might try to run off on their own or something? Or let it slip that we knew before we were ready to do anything?" She's guessing, but her guesses seem reasonable, at least to herself.

"Man." Makoto sighs ruefully, reaching up to rub absently at the back of her neck. "This is the first I'm hearing about any of this. We've got to start getting better at telling each other things, all of us."

"Venus, specifically," Ami says thoughtfully. "It was pretty clear he didn't trust Venus not to run off and challenge Beryl to single combat, or something. And we really do want to make absolutely certain we're ready before we provoke her in any way, because ..." she trails off. "I mean, we lost this fight last time, Mako-chan. We can't lose it a second time. I don't think we get a third chance."

Makoto makes a face at what Ami says, and then nods, her expression slowly growing a little grim. "I know," she agrees quietly. "We've got to give it our all. No repeating the mistakes of the past."

She falls silent for a moment, seeming to wrestle with something inwardly, until at last she comes to a decision. "...which means I should probably warn you," Mako says unhappily, "Usagi-chan might be a little mad at me right now."

Ami blinks in surprise at that news. Usagi, mad at Makoto? No that is probably not possible. She must have been mishearing. "What?" Ami asks when she's sure she didn't actually mishear. "Why would Usagi-chan be mad at you!?" Literally it's the least likely possibility on Ami's list.

Mako slumps, like she's trying to physically make herself smaller. "She might not be, I don't know yet. Maybe Mamoru-san talked her down." She scrubs her hand quickly over her face. "I told him something I'm sure she wanted me to keep secret. Except it shouldn't even be a secret, I don't know why--"

Makoto stops herself for a moment, breathes in. "You probably don't know either - the Walpurgis storm wrecked her house. For some reason she felt like she couldn't tell anybody about it, so she was staying at Mamoru-san's old apartment until I found out by accident."

"What?!" Ami asks, straightening up in worry. "Why didn't she tell me?! She could have stayed at my house! We would have helped her rebuild. Where is her family staying? Where is Jadeite staying?! Is everyone okay!?"

"Everybody's okay," Makoto hurries to assure Ami, though she still looks unhappy. "Her family's staying with some relatives outside the city, and Jadeite's staying at Mamoru-san's new place that people set up for him, so they're all safe."

She deflates a little more, looking down at her hands. "I don't know why she didn't want to tell anyone." Or, well, she knows but clearly she still doesn't understand. "She didn't want to be a burden to any of us, or something. I got her to come stay here for a while, but once Mamoru-san was back I figured she'd want to spend that time with him. I didn't know she hadn't at least told him what happened."

Ami puts her face in her hands, then takes a deep breath. "Of all the stupid," she mumbles, then looks up at Makoto. For a moment she doesn't say anything, then deflatedly says, "I'm sorry. I should have at least told you that I knew, even if I didn't give you the details. I told Usagi-chan. I thought ... I should have told you myself. I'm really sorry, Mako-chan. We really do need to all get better about talking to each other. This whole conversation is just so stupid. But thank you for telling me. I wish she'd done it herself."

Mako nods, still looking unhappy. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. I was trying to support her as much as I could, but... we could've all been."

She unfolds from where she's sitting and scoots over to put her arms around Ami again. "I just kind of panicked," Makoto admits. "It was right after we got back from the moon, and I had a dream about how everything ended, and then I went to Usagi-chan's house and found it like that... I had no idea what to do. But it'll be okay, if we just work a little harder at telling each other about this stuff. And remind each other that we're not in this by ourselves."

Ami sighs and melts into Makoto's hug, utterly placated by it. She sighs and wraps her arms around Makoto in return. For a few moments, Ami doesn't say anything at all.

When she does break her silence, it's first with another sigh, and then Ami admits, "She tries to take on so much for the rest of us. I wish she'd just ... trust us to share the burdens. A load is lighter when split four ways," she notes.

Some sense of lingering tension that Makoto wasn't fully aware of begins to ease away as she nods slowly. "Yeah. I know." She tips her head to lean it against Ami's. "I don't think it's that she doesn't trust us, it's just... maybe she doesn't think about sharing the load with us. But she should be able to, any time."

Arms still around Ami, Mako sinks into the couch cushions. "Mamoru-san went to talk to her, but we need to make sure she knows. Keep reminding her, until it sticks. And each other, too."

Ami just sinks further and further into Makoto's arms, sighing contentedly as she does. "Mmm," she agrees quietly, but there's really nothing left to say. So she doesn't; instead, Ami just allows herself to dwell in Makoto's hug for a while, enjoying that sense of connection for as long as it lasts. Eventually they'll have to do something about 'dinner', but such silly things can wait until later.