He wakes to a red sunset, warm and calming. His fingers curl in tall grass, and for a few sleepy moments, he is sure that he is dreaming. His eyes hazily try to focus on the blur of green and blue before them. Bright green grass. Tiny blue forget-me-nots.
Nephrite shoots upright with a gasp, clutching at his chest. But there is no stalagmite piercing it. No hole in his chest. Not even a drop of blood on his pale red uniform. He stares dazedly around him at his palace, the realm he has lived in for weeks now. The massive blue sandstone crossed circle is laid out at his feet. The sky he controls has settled in that transitory state he likes so much, with the sun a red half-disc on the ocean's edge. And all around him, tracing the contour of the place where he slept, is a ring of blue forget-me-nots. If heaven exists, it would probably look just like this for Nephrite. But the pounding of his heart, the rush of air in his lungs, the dampness of the grass soaking through his uniform, are all too real and mundane for an afterlife.
He urgently tugs on his connection with Endymion, and the golden response is immediate. I'm okay.
The hope and relief are overwhelming. If he's alive, and Endymion is alive, then it must be over. They must have won. The miracle they all prayed for came to be. He grasps at a clump of forget-me-nots and rips them from the ground.
And everyone else? Were any left behind? Nephrite springs to his feet and races through the woods, to a tree clothed in ivy that is surely not native to this place. The door to Zoisite's palace is ornately carved, and springs open at his touch. He has only to step inside, and he feels the bright flame of Zoisite's presence. He is here, safe and sound. Nephrite takes one of the little blue flowers from the ones gathered in his fist, and lays it on the stonework. If Zoisite is not yet awake to sense him here, then he will know Nephrite's aura in this little signature. A small token to let him know he was here.
Then he is racing through Jadeite's palace. He tosses down a flower here too, on the neat little path, just in case anybody else is looking for him.
When he emerges outside, in the heart of the bustling city, he has to shield his eyes from the sunlight. It is so unlike the darkness he was lost to, so unlike the dim half-light he has lived in for the past few weeks. And the noise and the people and the life here--what more evidence could he need that the Earth is saved?
Though he was a different person when he last saw it, Nephrite's memory of the quiet residential street in Juuban is crystal clear. He teleports to the same narrow alley in which Makoto once found him, feigning injury to get her attention, not so long ago. When he steps out, he is an ordinary teenage boy, wearing the jeans and long-sleeved crimson shirt (and rubber ducky boxers) that Usagi supplied him with, clutching a ragged bunch of grass and blue flowers. He runs up the street, ignoring any stares he draws, and when he gets to the names listed on the apartment buzzer, he's so frantic that he has to read through it twice before he actually spots the right name.
His fingers are trembling now as he punches in the number, doubt and fear tugging at him. He saw her die. He saw her die and light up the world with every ounce of power she carried. Even though he did the same, he still doesn't know why he is alive now. What if it was only the Shitennou who returned? What if that explosion left her without a body to fix? What if she took flight with her lightning, became one with the storm, never to return to mortal form?
"Please," he whispers, clutching at the cluster of flowers at his side. "Please."
She wakes up stretched out on her own sofa, one arm dangling off the cushioned seat, palm resting against the carpet. For a moment, it's like surfacing from an especially vivid dream; she can feel her heart racing, every nerve tingling, but at the same time she feels comfortable, suffused with a sense of well-being.
Then her Virtue phone buzzes and Makoto nearly falls off the sofa in her haste to scramble for it.
Messages are coming in one after another, from Ami, from Rei, from Mamoru. Jolting to her feet, Mako skims hurriedly through the display and breathes out a shiver of relieved, incredulous laughter. They're all right. Everyone is--
Suddenly Makoto is a whirl of movement and activity, dashing off a quick message to the others, pawing around for her housekey for the increasingly agitated second or so that it takes her to remember that it's still in her pocket, thumbing through her phone's contacts to dial the number that he gave her as she's heading for the door. When it goes to voice mail, she has to repress the urge to scream. So much has happened since she got that number from him, there's no telling where that phone even is, and while in her heart Mako doesn't truly believe that the miracle of Usagi's wish would leave anyone behind, it's not enough just to think it. She needs to hear his voice, to see, to touch, to know.
Phone still in her hand, barely aware of the sound of the bell, she yanks her door open before his finger has even had a chance to leave the buzzer.
And feels her heart skip a beat.
The phone slips out of Mako's hand and lands with a clattering thump on the floor of the entryway. She doesn't notice. She's already moving, rushing across the space between them to simply throw herself at him, arms outstretched. "Neph--!"
Suddenly, before he even has time to fully turn around, she is there. She is there, and alive, and beautiful, and she's rushing to him.
All he can do is catch her in his arms, sweeping her up off her feet for a moment as he's thrown back by her momentum. Then he rights them both, setting her down but not letting go. "You're here! I didn't know--my phone's gone and I couldn't call." He's clinging tightly to her, burying his face in her ponytail. "The last thing I saw was you. What you did. I didn't know if that meant... I had to see you were okay."
He's laughing, a choked sound of relief. "This is real, right? We really did it?"
"It's real." She clings just as tightly, hand moving over Nephrite's back but there's no trace of the wicked spike of rock that went through him. There's just him, warm and whole and here, not a phantom or a stone. "Usagi-chan and Mamoru-niisan, and the Silver Crystal - they made a miracle. They were magnificent, everyone was--"
She draws in a shivering breath at the reminder of those last moments when she felt the world breaking apart beneath her, grasps for a handful of his shirt. Even so, nothing can quell the giddy elation that's welling up within her. "We did it."
And then Makoto is laughing and crying both at once, arms squeezing tightly around Nephrite like she never plans to let go. "Let's never do that again, okay?"
She means it completely, her voice is filled with earnest sincerity, but still Mako laughs like she's made a fantastic joke because there is no more Queen Beryl, no more Dark Kingdom, no more Metalia. No more unresolved mistakes of the past to bring that ancient enemy roaring back to threaten the present. There will be other enemies, other fights, but they will never have to do this again.
They've rewritten the story.
"A miracle," Nephrite repeats. "They did, didn't they? I remember. Everyone was amazing. You were amazing." He pulls back, just a little, to look down at her. "What you did--I thought I was going to die uselessly, pointlessly, but you gave me the strength for that one last push, let me join with your storm..." His gaze slides away. The delirious rush of it, of throwing his entire being into the explosion, is still colored by the horrid pain and finality of it. Seeing her in that final moment. Knowing what it meant.
And then he laughs. Still pained but honest, relieved. "You're right. Let's never do that again. I guess... I guess we don't have to, do we? We've really stopped the past from repeating itself. It's really over."
He ducks his face into her hair again. "We can live our lives now. I never thought this far ahead. Maybe there will be other fights, you're right, but this was like... a chain around our necks, dragging all of us back."
Makoto can't quite hold back the shudder that hitches through her when he talks about dying and the image flashes through her memory of the way he'd looked, impaled through the chest by that terrible spike of stone. She doesn't want to think about that moment, or how it had felt to see it and know that everything she had to give would not be enough to save him.
She shakes her head, a short, vigorous jerk of motion. "Not uselessly," she says, voice a little thick. That, if nothing else, she can't let pass. "You protected your prince. You kept your oath. Even if I hadn't been there..."
Her voice trails off, unable to finish the thought. She can't make herself keep telling him he did the right thing when what she really wants is to make him promise that he'll never use himself as a shield again, and she can't ask that of him any more than she could promise it herself. After all, didn't she do much the same thing he did?
It's who they are.
So when Nephrite tucks his face down to her hair, Mako leans in close and shuts her eyes, soaks up the reassurance of being here in his arms. It's all right. She doesn't have to dwell on it. They're here, and they're alive, and the chains of the past are finally broken. "I felt you," she murmurs against the collar of his shirt. Something else that needs to be said. "There at the end - your power, with mine. Thank you for that."
He sighs against her. "We did what we had to do. I'm glad, at least, it was together."
They both made their decisions long before the spear pierced his chest. Long before they stepped into D-Point. Her princess, his prince, will always come before their own safety. It's an odd comfort, to share this implicit understanding.
"Oh," he startles, shaking himself out of such gloomy thoughts, and unwinds one arm from behind her back to show her the clump of blue flowers still clenched in his fist. They stick out at odd lengths, mixed in with bunches of grass. "I brought you, heh, possibly the world's worst flower arrangement. I made it myself." He beams down at her, like a kid presenting a macaroni necklace.
And just like that, the dark thoughts of a moment ago evaporate as Mako blinks at Nephrite in sheer astonishment.
"You... you brought me flowers." The floored expression on her face softens quickly into a wondering smile, touched beyond words. Everything else that's just been happening, and he brought her flowers. "Nobody's ever--"
Eyes misting, she steps back from him enough to bend her head down to the bunch of flowers, closing both of her hands gently over his around the stems as she breathes in the delicate wildflower fragrance. "Forget-me-nots," she murmurs. "They're beautiful. Thank you."
Straightening up, Makoto smiles brilliantly up at him, eyes shining. "I have a vase for these," she says, giddy again for more than one reason. "Will you - that is, would you like to come in?" The 'please' may not be verbalized, but it's written hopefully all over her face.
His delight at her reaction is impossible to hide. "Yeah, there were lots of them growing in my palace when I woke up. I guess I must have been thinking of you," he says sheepishly. "If I weren't in such a hurry to come see you, I would have spent a little more time making them look nice."
"I'm sure you have lots of other people to check up on, but," he looks hopeful, "I would love to come in. Just for a bit."
"Then, please." Her cheeks are pink as she takes the collection of flowers and grass stems from his hands and begins to turn back towards her apartment.
The door's still standing open the way she left it, phone lying discarded on the floor just inside. The rest of the apartment is much the same as the last time save for the sunlight streaming through the windows: a small, neat, welcoming space, green with potted plants wherever she could find a convenient place for one.
Makoto steps out of her shoes, bends down for a moment to scoop up the phone before she looks back to Nephrite. "I got messages from most of the girls already. They're okay. Of course I'll still want to check up on them, but there's a little time. There's time," she says again, the breath going out of her in an incredulous little laugh.
"...I'm glad you hurried," Mako adds a moment later with the blush still lingering on her face. "It would've been kind of terrible to have missed each other, after all of that."
"Time," he repeats, removing his own shoes as he follows her. "What a novelty." No more hidden visits tucked in between one crisis and the next.
Her apartment is indeed the same as he remembers, but now he is the one who has changed. Now he can feel the warmth here, how inviting it is. Like his own palace, but... softer, somehow. More comfortable.
"Everyone is okay, then? I'm glad to hear it." He smiles at her blush. "I don't know what I would have done if we'd missed each other. Run all over the city, I suppose."
Mako can't quite repress a giggle as she moves across the room ahead of him. "We really need to see if Luna will give us communicators for you guys," she comments thoughtfully, placing her phone on the bit of countertop that separates the kitchenette from the living room. "It seems silly not to at this point. But yeah, everyone should be all right now."
She drops briefly out of sight behind that dividing countertop as she goes down onto her knees on the kitchen floor to open one of the lower cabinets, holding her flowers protectively close to her with one hand while the other reaches in. "What do you think you'll do now?"
It only takes her a few seconds to find what she's looking for, and then Makoto comes back up with a glass vase that sparkles in the light from the window. "Mamoru-niisan mentioned you were going to be staying with him," she says over her shoulder as she turns toward the sink. The words are accompanied by a quick flash of a grin. "He seemed pretty excited about it."
"That would be handy," Nephrite muses. "Now that I'm not stuck hiding out, I should be actively involved in things. I can't always wait around for Mamoru to come get me."
Her question gives him pause. He leans against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest. The mention of staying with Mamoru makes him grin, though. "Yeah. I think it'll be nice, you know? He clearly has no idea what he's in for, though. I do not keep normal sleeping hours."
He tugs absently at his sleeve. "I tried not to think about it much before. Hard to make plans when you're in hiding from an evil organization. Now..." He looks around her warm kitchen. It wasn't so long ago that he was here before, was it? Under false pretenses, an assumed name, an intent to do harm. It was here that he threatened her.
He swallows thickly. "I need to think about it. I've been living under a false life for so long, I'm... not really sure what my life will look like now."
"I have a feeling he probably won't mind that much," Makoto notes as she stands at the sink filling the vase with water. "When you live alone like that, it's nice to get some company. Besides, have you seen his place yet? Apparently he owns a whole floor. I'm pretty sure you guys can work out some way to not trip over each other."
Leaving the water running, she sets the vase down near to hand, fishes a pair of scissors out of a drawer. One by one, she carefully separates out the individual stems, trims ragged ends under the flow of water from the tap before she places them in the vase.
In between she glances back toward Nephrite, and her expression slowly becomes thoughtful, quietly sympathetic. "...That makes sense," she says over the white noise of the faucet, between the quiet snip of the scissors. "When I talked to Jadeite... he said he didn't remember much about his life before." One of the little clusters of blue flowers has broken off too short for the vase. Mako looks down at it, cradling it in her hand. "Is it the same way for you?"
He watches her work, the haphazardly torn bunch of plants somehow transforming into a pretty bouquet. "It's strange. There are things that I just know, like my age. And I'm pretty sure I'm aware of things that happened in the world five years ago, ten years ago. But I can't really remember how long I've been in the Dark Kingdom, and the further back I try to remember, the murkier it gets. And... who I was when I was Masato... it wasn't all fake. I don't think. But I don't know if it would be right. To salvage any of that."
He shrugs, rolling out his shoulders and the cares that sit on them. His grin returns. "But I didn't come here to be gloomy at you! I can't believe you just turned that mess I handed you into this pretty arrangement. You're like some kind of wizard when it comes to flowers, aren't you?"
He plucks the little cluster of flowers from her hand and, leaning closer, carefully slides the ends into her hair, tucking the flowers behind her ear. "Or like a fairy princess."
Makoto looks towards Nephrite as he lifts the little bunch of forget-me-nots out of her hand, opening her mouth to say - something--
--but then he's tucking the flowers into her hair and whatever she was about to say is lost in a quiet and thoroughly undignified squeak of indrawn breath as Mako forgets how to even put words together. "I - that's--" Blushing fiercely, not quite able to look away from him, Mako fumbles and drops the scissors into the sink with a clatter in her haste to turn off the faucet. For a couple of heart-in-throat seconds she stands there, starry-eyed, gripping the edge of the sink in an effort not to just melt away into a puddle of goo on her own kitchen floor.
Soon enough, a breathless little laugh hitches out of her. "I think fairy princesses are supposed to be a little more delicate," she manages, but oh, does she look so happy at the comparison all the same. "I just like flowers. These were beautiful all on their own, they didn't need much help from me."
Tearing her eyes away from him, she picks up one of the longer blades of grass from the little pile of greenery still lying next to the sink, slides it in among the stems in the vase. Then another, a few graceful arcs of green to complement the blooms. "You could probably guess from the name, but in the language of flowers, the forget-me-not stands for memory. It also means steadfast faithfulness, and--" For just a moment Makoto's thoughts stutter like a record skipping. She can feel her cheeks flaming.
He really, really should not enjoy making her blush this much. It would not be very nice of him to try to provoke this reaction on purpose. But heavens, she's adorable when she's flustered.
He leans on the counter, smiling as he reaches up to adjust the flowers in her hair a little, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "I think you're plenty delicate enough." He listens to her explanation, nodding attentively even as she stumbles a little over it. "It's never really occurred to me before that flower symbolism might work a little bit like star symbolism. Except I suppose you can choose the flowers to convey the meaning you want."
She's definitely not getting any less flustered, that's for sure, not as long as he's standing there next to her toying with her hair and smiling like that. This sort of thing isn't good for Mako's heart rate; she can feel it trip into overdrive when he tucks that errant curl behind her ear.
Smiling to herself, a warm and private little thing, she decides not to mention the third meaning of the forget-me-not just yet. She'll hold that close to her heart a little longer, like a wish you don't tell because saying it would prevent it from coming true.
"That's true." She looks up to meet Nephrite's eyes again, unconsciously turning to face him more directly as she does. "I wouldn't have thought of it either, but there are some similarities, aren't there? Of course, Western flower language isn't always the same as our hanakotoba, so there are variations from that, too... Still probably not nearly as complicated as trying to keep track of the stars and all the things going on in the sky, though."
She smiles earnestly up at him, pleased with the unexpected commonality. "Maybe these forget-me-nots can also stand as a sign that the things you need to remember will start to come back to you soon."
He chuckles, his smile meeting his dark eyes as they meet hers. "Stars at least follow predictable patterns. Given the right calculations, I can tell you where any of the planets will be in the sky ten years from now. But flowers have their own nature, don't they? You could have all the right conditions in place, and they still might not bloom. I guess that's what makes them special, huh?"
He considers her idea, gaze straying to the little blue flowers in her hair. "You might have something, there. After all, it was your rose petal honey that set off my memories in the first place."
"...or they sprout up in some way you weren't expecting," Makoto agrees with a little laugh, dipping her head in a nod of agreement. "But you're right, that's what makes it so rewarding to start from a pot of dirt and see what grows from it. It takes patience, but it's worth it for the chance to help something beautiful come to life."
It's clearly a pet subject; talking about it, eyes shining, for a little while Mako forgets how flustered she is. Until Nephrite mentions rose honey and oh look, it turns out it was physically possible to blush harder than she already had been.
"Oh, geez," she yelps, ducking her head to cover her face with both hands. "I almost feel like I should apologize for that. I mean, I didn't even know if it would do anything, and it turned out okay, but - putting something in somebody's food hoping it'll affect their mind, it's so creepy. I kind of can't believe I went that far, I just--" The words tumble out too quickly, almost stammering. "I guess I was a bit desperate."
The way that she lights up when she talks about flowers is the way that he lights up when he talks about the stars. And that means he should definitely ask more about them later. But now she is flustered again, babbling frantically. "Hey, whoa, no," he reaches up with both hands to take each of hers, trying to coax them away from her face. "It wasn't like that. I mean--" he scrambles for an analogy, "if someone's been poisoned, is it wrong to give them an antidote without getting their permission first?"
He sighs. "I never told you--I started remembering things before that. But the memories started when I was trapped in a witch's labyrinth, so I wrote them off, told myself they were hallucinations. And every memory I gained after that, I kept ignoring. I wouldn't let myself believe in any of it. Endy tried to get through to me once, but I decidedly ignored his signals. And you--you tried to tell me the truth, and you know what I did. I lashed out. I was so desperate to keep myself from having to acknowledge them."
He looks at her earnestly, both of his hands still wrapped around hers. "I don't really know what those chocolates were, but I do know that they worked. Something about them spoke to me in a way that words couldn't. Pulled the memories out of my subconscious so I had no choice but to look at them. Kunzite may have been the one who finally convinced me to leave the prison I was in, but it was those chocolates that made me see the cage."
The antidote analogy does the trick. Mako lets Nephrite draw her hands away from her face, and she looks up at him - still red-faced but calming, no longer on the brink of spontaneously combusting from sheer embarrassment - as he gives his explanation. As he talks, her hands slowly curl around his.
"That was... sort of what I was hoping for when I made them. Just a little kick in the memory, maybe, to try and shake something loose. The roses were Mamoru-niisan's," she explains, smiling self-consciously. "Not those roses, but..."
He has both her hands and she's not really in any hurry to pull them away, so Makoto turns her head, looking off across the apartment to where the little potted rosebush has been placed to get just the right amount of sunlight, still stubbornly blooming despite the time of year. "I'd been taking care of it since he was taken, and I thought... if there was a chance it might've picked up a bit of something from him, and something from me... Well, anyway." Turning her face back towards Nephrite, she smiles up at him. "I'm just glad it worked. It was a pretty long shot."
He chuckles. "A kick in the memory. That's about what it felt like."
He turns to see the roses, so delicate and unassuming in their little pot. So deceptively ordinary. "Of course. Your power, and his. It would have to be that, wouldn't it?" Isn't it something, that two of the most important people in his life have an affinity for roses?
"Yes," he says turning back. "You saved me. Again. Thank you. For everything you've done."
And now he's holding her hands, and he doesn't really want to let them go. "I, um... I know there's a lot going on right now, and everything keeps changing. And we have kind of a bumpy history. But I'd like to see more of you. If you'd like to."
"I had a lot of help," Mako feels compelled to point out. "Mercury and the other girls were backing me up the whole time. You had Mamoru-niisan and Kunzite working on your behalf, too." Thinking of Kunzite brings a soft little laugh to her lips as she remembers. "He asked me to save you, you know - Kunzite did. I mean, I was going to try anyway, but thanks to him I had some idea what I was up against."
She's getting flustered again, saying more than she needs to. "...anyway, you're welcome." Her smile is bright, a little sheepish. "I'm just glad..."
Her voice trails off. When he says that he wants to see more of her, Makoto's mouth goes dry and she has to remind herself to breathe. She doesn't need any time to think about her answer. "Yes," she says without hesitation, not a single shadow of any misgivings to be seen in those bright green eyes as she looks up at him. "I would like that. Very much."
He laughs. "I'm grateful to everyone, but you were the one who had to put up with me."
Hope lights up his face when she says yes. Hope and delight. "Okay--I mean, we can take this one step at a time and not rush into anything. I know I don't have much to offer right now except my charming smile. But I can still bring you flowers, and..."
He squeezes her hands, red-brown eyes looking into hers. "We never gave ourselves a chance last time. I don't want this to be some kind of obligation because of the past, but I don't want to miss this opportunity. To try again."
That both of them are even alive after D-Point was reason enough for joy - Makoto bites her lip as Nephrite squeezes her hands, trembling on a knife-edge between elated laughter and the happiest kind of tears.
"It's so weird," she says, a little shakily. "I feel like maybe I've been looking for you for a long time, since before I even knew what I was looking for. You might end up disappointed." The corner of her mouth turns up ruefully for a moment as she says it. "I have all these little bits of memory, but they're not - I mean, I'm not--"
She stumbles over the words, shakes it off with a quick reflexive motion of her head that makes the petals of the little blue flowers in her hair quiver. It's not important. "I'm not expecting anything because of the past," Mako says instead, earnestly clasping both of his hands holding hers. "It's just, we're finally both on the same side. I feel the same as you do - I don't want to waste the chance to spend more time with you. Especially since... how many people get this many chances?"
"At a new life? A new start? One in a million, maybe?" He laughs. "It's like we won the lottery."
He looks at her hands clasped in his. Steeling his resolve. "So... would it be okay if I kissed you?"
At that question, the last thing she'd expected, Makoto's breath catches and suddenly she is standing wide-eyed and utterly still, feeling her heartbeat racing in her chest. With those few words, spoken with such artless sincerity, it feels like her mind has short-circuited and all her thoughts have scattered.
In a moment, maybe she'll wake up and discover that she's dreamed it all.
Words fail her, but he's waiting for an answer and the only coherent thought Mako can manage to pull together is that she needs to say something before he starts thinking she doesn't want him to. Gripping his hands tightly, somehow she manages to nod. "Yes." Her voice comes out small and a little breathless. "Please?"
Artless sincerity. Another change from the man he was when she first met him. Masato Sanjouin of the Dark Kingdom was designed to be suave and charming, a picture out of a paperback romance novel. He would have offered Makoto the poetry she deserved, but how much of it was real would have been highly debatable.
This Nephrite cares first and foremost about that sincerity. About not clouding his words. He wants to get this right. It's not as pretty as he wants to make it for her, but it is the honesty she asked for and deserves. "Okay," he says softly, a smile tugging at his lips, "but I should be the one saying please."
Their hands remain clasped together as he leans down and presses his lips to hers. A chaste kiss, warm and lingering.
Romantic that she is, Makoto has imagined this moment so many times, long before she'd ever met Masato Sanjouin or remembered anything about Nephrite. Her first kiss, the subject of countless daydreams. But that's all they were: daydreams, wispy and insubstantial, built on movie scenes and shoujo manga. Now that she's here in this moment, facing him, Mako realizes that she has no idea what to do.
She tilts her face up toward his as he leans down. Closes her eyes. Holds her breath.
Later on when she daydreams, it will be of this moment, vivid with sense-memory: the sunlit stillness of her kitchen and the way the light from the window glows around him, the subtle fragrance of forget-me-nots. The excited thrumming of her heartbeat. The warm clasp of his hands on hers, and the soft pressure of his lips. She sighs into the kiss, tries to hold the moment suspended in her memory like rose petals in honey.
When Nephrite draws back, and Makoto opens her eyes again, the look on her face is that of someone slowly waking from an inexpressibly pleasant dream.