Makoto is back! Is it any wonder that immediately upon driving evil out of Mamoru's apartment, the foursome of Senshi left the boys behind to spend the evening cuddling with Makoto and just being glad she's back?
A few hours later and they've all retired to her home, where the plants are mostly watered, things are mostly in order, and there's an odd blue suitcase bunched up against the couch. That'd be Ami's, then.
Ami herself is presently in Makoto's kitchen, doing dishes, because it's the one chore she didn't do a lot of while Makoto was gone, and she did use the taller girl's plates and cups! Woops.
So, now that she's accepted that Makoto really is back, she is in there now, washing everything by hand.
'Immediately'-- well. After the initial bonanza of hugging (and maybe a few tears), Mako did hang back a bit to speak privately with Nephrite. But that was a few hours ago, and after spending the past two weeks by herself in a cell, the last thing she wanted was to go home to spend the night alone in her apartment.
Good thing her friends had no intention of letting her.
"Ami-chan," Mako says, leaning on the kitchen island on folded arms and smiling as she watches her friend doing dishes. "You don't have to do that right now, you know? Seriously, it's okay, I'll take care of it later."
Usagi's doing well.
Actually, she's doing better than she had been during the whole event at Mamoru's apartment, but in all honesty, that's not saying much.
For the past few minutes she's been in the bathroom, trying to keep herself calm and collected.
She's almost there, she's actually able to take a breath without remembering a horrible scream and that Makoto had been who knows where for ages and it was ages before Usagi even realized but now she's back and she's okay and didn't really mean all the stuff Not!Her said even if--
There's sudden crying as the bathroom door slams open and a little blonde tornado launches through the apartment. Her destination is Makoto, and she hits her mark.
Ignoring folded arms in the way, she's hugged up against Makoto, clinging perhaps just a touch too tight.
This isn't the first time she's done this since the balcony, and it probably won't be the last.
Ami blushes at Makoto's reminder, and she shakes her head. "I dirtied them," she tells her friend, "and you weren't even here. I should clean up my own messes." Yeah, because that's totally not symbolic of anything else that's been happening.
"Besides," Ami starts to say, just as Usagi shoots out of the bathroom. Ami cuts off and offers Usagi a sympathetic look, then expands it to include Makoto. Whatever she was going to say will have to wait; Usagi clearly needs more reassurance right now, so Ami just quietly goes back to the dishes so Makoto can attend to that.
"They're just dishes," Mako says mildly, still wearing that fond smile. Her mouth opens to add more to the thought - but that's when the bathroom door flies open and Hurricane Usagi is on her way across the room, and Mako breaks off whatever she was going to say and unfolds to meet Usagi and wrap her arms around her when the smaller girl gloms onto her.
"Usagi-chan." Her voice is gentle as her hand strokes over Usagi's hair. She won't say 'don't cry,' but - "It's all right." She's back where she belongs. It's all right.
Trembling lips! Sniffles! MakoHugs are still some of the best hugs out there.
She nods as she makes a stubborn little noise in agreement. Turning her head, mostly so she could breath without getting Shirt in her nose, she looks at Ami. She wants to hug Ami, too. And Rei. She wants to hug all her girls.
Actually, what the tiny crazy part of her wants to do is sit on them all like a Mama Bird and keep them all warm and safe and loved.
But not feed them chewed up worms, because ew.
Ami's smile grows fonder when it's clear that Usagi is at least a little contented by Makoto's hug. She finishes the dish she's been washing, then sets it aside and straightens back from the small pile still left to do. All night she hasn't really talked much about Takashi; avoiding the topic whenever it's been brought up.
It's probably time for that to change.
So Ami takes a deep breath, grabs another dish, and bends over to start washing it. Oh right, she was going to find her courage, here, wasn't she?
Ami grimaces a little at her own cowardice, then forces herself to say, "I think it's my fault." Out of the blue. Also literally. "I should have known he'd do something like this. I've known how much he disliked you. I'm sorry."
"--what?" For a seconds there Makoto is taken off-guard, stares blankly like Ami just started speaking backwards Greek. It only lasts a second before it's replaced by a spark of indignation, and Mako has to catch herself from straightening up into full now-wait-just-a-minute mode lest she dislodge Usagi.
Not that it's going to keep her from saying it.
"Hang on a second," she says, lifting a hand to wave an interjectory finger. "Why are you apologizing? None of this is your fault, Ami-chan. I'm pretty sure it's Agera's fault. For one thing, he was always on his best behavior around you so you wouldn't know how crazypants on dark energy he could get. And for another thing, most of the time when a guy says he doesn't want to hurt a girl, it goes without saying that includes 'don't kidnap her friend and replace her with dark energy Folger's crystals just to see what happens'."
Huff. Subsiding a little, Mako lets her hand drop and loops her arm back around Usagi. "Sorry, Ami-chan, but I won't accept your apology for not knowing every crazy thing that guy might do. I'm going to keep on blaming the jerk who actually did it."
The look Ami gets is one made up of large, watery eyes. "Ami-chan..."
And then Makoto's pretty much saying what Usagi's thoughts are on the matter.
Still cuddling against Makoto, thank goodness for the window air conditioning unit, Usagi holds her hand out to Ami.
Join hug!
"There was this guy in America who was in 'love' with an actress and thought the best way to get her to notice him was to kill the president. He didn't, but I don't think she swooned. And people didn't blame her, because that would be stupid of them." Sniffle.
Ami deflates just a little at Makoto's indignation, although she does appreciate that she isn't holding her responsible. "It's not that," she explains. "I know it's his fault for kidnapping you; I didn't make that choice and I won't accept responsibility for it. But I still should have seen it coming. I mean, I literally can't think of a Dark Energy Boyfriend who hasn't tried that trick, at least once, on someone," Ami points out.
"Literally, everyone we've known who's at Takashi's level of darkness has been a villain," she explains quietly, as she sets the dish aside and then notices Usagi's outstretched hand. "And not only did I fail to expect him to be a villain, I expected him to be a hero. Albeit an anti-hero, but a hero nonetheless. That is absolutely my fault. No matter how nice the villain is being, I shouldn't let myself be fooled into thinking they are anything but a villain. I mean, for God's sake, Makoto, I took him to dinner the night before I found out where you were. I told him so many secrets I shouldn't have. I nearly told him ..." she trails off, then bites off whatever she was about to say and looks back down at the sink, and the one lonely dirty dish left in it.
"I shouldn't have done that. I should have been looking for you. I knew that thing wasn't you. I'd known it all week. I just didn't know what to do."
Makoto mouths the phrase 'dark energy boyfriend' silently to herself - that's a thing? Oh God, it is a thing - but she doesn't interrupt Ami while she's talking, and by the time she's done the expression on Mako's face has turned to one of regret and compassion. Oh, Ami.
"Ami-chan," she says softly, and Mako begins to scoot her way around the countertop and into the kitchen, nudging Usagi along with her. If Ami won't come to them... "All of us wanted to believe in him. He did a lot of good things. I mean, I didn't like him and I didn't see this coming, either. I underestimated him."
She lets out a breath, tries to find the right words. "You would've figured it out," Mako says. "I never had a doubt that if I couldn't get myself out, you and Neph and the others would come get me. You've had Fiore and the Xenians and that asteroid to worry about, too - seriously, what was he even thinking doing something that would distract you at a time like this?"
--Wait, she's getting away from the point. "My point is, none of this is your fault. I don't think you should be beating yourself up like this."
Droop. Left hanging!
And then Makoto's inching closer to Ami, and Usagi happily scoots along with her.
"Taka-baka fooled lots of people, Ami-chan. I never woulda thought...he'd be suck an...asshole." Blush.
Still, she's close enough, her hands still outstretched.
She reaches out to yoink Ami in for Mandatory Girl Hugs.
Rei's only exempt (this once) because she's either asleep or at the store. Usagi lost track.
Ami allows herself to be drawn into the hug, and she sighs heavily within it. "I sitll feel guilty," she expresses to the pair of them. "But I'll try not to let it impact me any further." She closes her eyes and settles into the hug.
"Besides," she mumbles, "we still have to deal with Fiore and the Xenian asteroid. We can't just blow it up from afar," Ami explains to the two of them. "We're going to have to go there directly, and ... I don't even know. Destroy the creature on it. If Queen Serenity's notes are correct, it won't reason with us."
Usagi pulls Ami in, and Mako shifts to welcome her, wrapping her arms around both of her friends to hug them fiercely. At Ami's explanation of her conclusions regarding the Xenian, Mako lets out a deep sigh. "Figures," she says.
Her head tips in to rest against Ami's. "I went and picked a fight with them, after that plan that Neph and the guys tried to pull off went wrong. Fiore and the Xenian, I mean. It was pretty dumb." Mako's voice is momentarily chagrined. She's had plenty of opportunity for hindsight on that decision, enough so that she's not very proud of it now. "I think you're probably right, it's not gonna listen to anything we have to say, and it won't let Fiore hear us either."
Usagi wraps an arm around Ami's waist, also snugging in close to her. She shifts her head so none of them are within Breath Stream of one another's noses.
Usagi hums. "I'd heard you beat me to chopping down the beanstalk."
Hug. Wiggle. Snuggle.
"It's okay to feel guilty, Ami-chan. I feel guilty all the time!" More so within the past few hours, thank you very much below-the-belt Not!Mako.
"I think Nephrite must have teleported himself to the asteroid," Ami explains to Makoto quietly as she opens her eyes to look at her friend again worriedly. "He was able to calculate its mass, which should be impossible as we don't know what it's made of."
The bluenette wrinkles her nose, then squeezes them both before disentangling from the hug to go wash the last dish--just a lonely cup. "We should ... talk about the things your double said, I think. Not because I'm judging you for what she said--
"--But because I'm worried about how much of it might have come from your own feelings, magnified by dark energy. I don't want you to resent anything about our friendship, Mako-chan. So if there's something you're feeling ... we should talk about it."
"I burned the stupid thing all the way out to the roots," Makoto tells Usagi cheerfully. "I thought it might at least buy us some extra time. There's more of them, though." The cheer has faded from her tone by the time she makes that last addition; it comes out on a sigh.
And then Ami's talking and Mako leans into Usagi a little, grimacing. "He didn't teleport to the asteroid," she puts in quietly. "He disguised himself as Tuxedo Kamen and let Fiore teleport him there. He was planning on teleporting back." She sighs again, a sharper hiss of breath through her teeth. "The guys were all in on it. Dumbasses. I understand why he tried it, but he could've been killed."
She hears the rest of what Ami says, feels Usagi tense against her side. Winces a little herself, but then her hand comes up to pet Usagi's hair again, while she tries to figure out how to answer that.
Makoto's silence grows deafening, even with her hand in Usagi's hair.
Still tense, she pulls back, hands folding in front of her as she looks down.
"None of you are strays." She wipes an eye before she continues. "I know it's not fair, that I..." And she looks up, crying, and her voice is rising. "I know I don't deserve them, not when everyone else...but when my house was broke it was the hardest thing ever because all I wanted at the end of the day was my Mommy but I had to stay here and be Sailor Moon. And I'm so sorry. And if there was a way I could let you all go, if that's what you wanted, I'd find it, I swear, because all I want is for you all to be happy, even if it's not with me!"
Ami looks back up at Usagi, and it's her turn to be stern. "Excuse you, but this isn't about what you do or don't deserve," Ami tells her. "We are all lucky to have everything in life. The odds of the human race even existing are staggeringly low. Some of us have one parent, some have none. Some of us have whole families, but then we have other issues. I am not any less of a person just because my father isn't in my life, and neither is Makoto just because her parents died in a tragic accident. You absolutely deserve your parents, Usagi-chan. You are lucky to have them; don't take them for granted. But neither should you feel guilty about it."
Rei was at the store, just picking up a few things. Mostly she went on a snack run because someone (she suspects Usagi (but it was actually Ami)) ate up most if not all of the snackfoods in Makoto Kino's house.
Now she's back with a couple of bags carried under her arms. There are store bought snacks in one bag, cookies, chips, some ice cream popsicles and soda. In the other bag there is milk and a few other common ingredients to replace might've gone bad over two weeks. Underneath one of the plastic bags is a bag of flour, because for some reason she thought that was needed.
She nudges the doorbell with her elbow and waits to be let in, blowing air up through her bangs and tapping her foot. She's completely unaware of the conversation inside, though she does imagine that the other Ami and Usagi have been catching up with Makoto.
Dismay flashes over Makoto's face when Usagi pulls away, as she listens helplessly to that tearful speech. Fortunately, Ami answers before Mako has more than barely begun to pull words together; as Ami makes that last declaration, Mako is nodding in agreement.
"I know," she tells Usagi, quiet but firm. "And Ami-chan's right. It's nothing you should feel guilty for." Letting out a breath, she cracks a crooked, self-deprecating half-smile. "It's true that I feel jealous sometimes. Just a little bit. Who wants to admit to being jealous of a friend? But--"
The doorbell sounds just as Mako is saying 'but,' cutting off whatever was going to follow. With an apologetic glance to the other two, she turns and heads to the door to open it for Rei. "--thanks, Rei-chan," she says as she steps back to let her friend in.
Excuse you.
That's the start of Usagi's Hurt Face.
Excuse you.
And her lip trembles when Ami's done speaking.
But then Makoto's talking, and she opens her mouth to protest--
But the door.
When Makoto's out of the kitchen, Usagi looks back at Ami-chan, both angry and hurt. "I'll stop feeling guilty over stuff I have no control over when you do."
And then she hears Makoto talking and Rei's voice and...
Another Usagi Torpedo, and this time her target is Rei!
Ami leans back at Usagi's words, as if physically assaulted by them. Ouch, that one hurt. But she probably did deserve it. Grimacing, she rubs her arms, then sighs and shakes her head. "At least I feel guilty for something I actually had control over," she mumbles to herself, as Usagi flings herself at Rei.
But she doesn't voice it loudly, and with the other girls across the room it's questionable whether they could hear it. More importantly, she does come to begin taking bags from Rei. Guilty as ever, she starts to put things away. She really should have gone shopping while Makoto was away.
"Thank you! And of course!" says Rei, cheerfully. She walks by Mako, stopping lean on her briefly. "It's good to have you back."
She moves past her and towards the kitchen, only to be intercepted by a Rei-seeking hug missile. "Oof," she says, playfully. "Hi, Usagi-chan." She leans against Usagi and manages to get one arm around her in a hug, only to adjust the hug to be a little better once Ami takes some of the groceries away (and frees up valuable Rei armspace). She pulls back to put the rest of it on the counter, helping to put things up and listening to the conversation.
"I don't know what you are all feeling guilty over, but you are all sweet and wonderful people. Even Usagi-chan"
Mako flashes Rei a grateful, only slightly rueful smile. "A few too many things, I think," she says. A quick, brief glance to Ami, and then Makoto is also helping to take the grocery haul off Rei's hands so as to free them up for Usagi-hugging. "We were mostly talking about some of the stuff the dark energy clone me said while she was on a rampage."
Which reminds her - setting the bag of flour down on the counter for the moment, Mako turns back toward the two of them. "Listen, Usagi-chan," she says. "What I was gonna say before was, I do have a family now. I have you guys, and Mamoru-niisan, and Neph and the boys... all thanks to you. And it's not because you're the princess. It's because you sat next to me and shared my lunch. So like I said, there's nothing to feel bad about. Okay?"
It says a lot about Usagi's state of mind when she doesn't pull away from Rei's MEAN AND HORRIBLE comment to ignore her.
Instead, Rei gets a 'meanie Rei-chan' and a sniffle.
Makoto's finishing her earlier thought, and once again she's greeted with a Lamprey Usagi. (If Usagi were, you know, a blood sucking parasite...)
After a moment, Usagi looks up at Makoto. "Did any of the monsters hurt you? Did you scare the monsters into doing chores? Did you finally go 'lawl I've had enough' and beat up everything because you're awesome and Mako-chan?" She lowers her voice. "Did you do it as Mako-chan or Jupiter? Or both?"
Ami gives Rae a tense smile, but doesn't say anything to her about the conversation at hand. Instead, she simply takes the flour Makoto had stolen and carries it off to be put away with the rest of the food Rae's brought. Then, it's back to the sink to start drying and putting away the dishes she washed.
Oh. Right. What the clone said. Yeah, Rei remembers a few details about that. "I honestly stopped listening to what she was saying when I realized it wasn't you. Sorry if that sounds like I'm blowing off your problems. I don't mean to, but I couldn't really trust her to not paint things in the worst possible light, or make things up outright, even if she didn't mean to."
With a soft smile, Rei turns to Makoto. "If you do want to talk about things, we're here. I know we don't have a lot of connections out of the group, but you could make more friends if you wanted to, if that's really bothering you. I also know we didn't have a lot of choice in this, but there's a lot in life that we don't really choose. It's who we are. Maybe that's not enough of an answer."
She sticks her tongue out at Usagi for calling her mean, only to giggle at what Usagi says next. Not laughing at her, just... she remembers that conversation.
In any case it's starting to be too many cooks in the kitchen, and Rei can't even cook, so she takes a few steps back and lets the others put things up. Mako's the one who knows where everything should go anyways.
"No monsters," Makoto assures Usagi. "I didn't even see anybody else the whole time. I was just stuck in a room with an orb thing showing me what the copy was doing. It took me a while to break down the door, but once I found my transformation pen, the rest was a snap."
So she says, but her eyes are worriedly following Ami even as her arms squeeze around Usagi.
Rather than say anything, she turns her face toward Rei. "You probably did it the best way," she says with a rueful answering smile. "It was mostly the dark energy talking. I won't say that she didn't bring up some things that have been bothering me, but... blown way out of proportion, made into something it isn't. I..."
Here she hesitates a moment, looks away from all three of them. "I'm talking some of it out with Neph. The rest... I don't know."
Usagi's sad that Makoto was by herself the whole time, but still, there are stars and hearts in her eyes because Makoto broke down the door before she found the pen! She knew it!
She wants to turn to Ami and go 'bleee I told you!' but remembers she said Not Nice Things to the blunette not too long ago...
Unlatching from Makoto, she latches herself onto Ami.
"I'm a butt..." It's soft and whispered, but the meaning is clear! 'I'm sorry don't be too mad it's okay if you are because I was a butt.'
Ami is caught by a blonde! And she was just in the midst of putting away groceries. "It doesn't make you a butt to say truthful things," she replies quietly, twisting in Usagi's arms to return the hug. "But it also doesn't make me feel less guilty even if it's not logical to be so." She shrugs a little, then sighs. "I'm getting tired. Maybe we should table this discussion until after we've dealt with Fiore. I think we should all get some sleep. I have a feeling, with how Mamoru's condition is, that things are going to escalate, and very soon."
"Huuuuh," says Rei. No Monsters? Really? She could swear she saw some... oh well. Maybe it was symbolic! Or something. It hardly seems to matter now that the real Makoto is here.
Then Ami brings up a good point, because Fiore does need to be dealt with soon, for better or for worse. "There really is no way around it, is there? Yeah... we should get some sleep. We'll be more ready to handle things later, when our friends aren't being kidnapped or made sick."
Makoto nods, reaches up to rub absently at the back of her neck. "You're right," she agrees. "There's a few other things I need to tell you about--" the 'you' is plural, encompasses all three of them, but it's Ami she looks toward, "--but it can wait until we've handled Fiore and his asteroid. And we'll definitely need our rest for that."
Because she can, she wanders over the few steps necessary to sling her arms aroun Usagi and Ami together, giving them both a squeeze before she steps back. "I'll pull out some stuff to sleep on. Thanks for staying over, you guys."
Usagi droops for a different reason altogether.
Things with Fiore are soon coming to a head, and she doesn't need Rei's powers to see that.
(Well, it would be nice, really.)
Then there's a Makoto joining in on the hug!
When the taller girl pulls away, Usagi looks up at her with large eyes. "Can we all sleep together? Like in an almost pile of cuddly cute bunnies? Only far enough away not to smother each other if it gets too hot?"
Then she's scurrying around! "I'll help you find stuff, Mako-chan!"