It was only a slightly nervewracking ride to the nameless (Misa) little (not as young as she maybe looks) girl (doll)'s house; she's silent and the clinging darkness that haunts her doesn't leave the car until she does. Mamoru's silent as he watches to make sure she gets inside and Rei either switches to the navigator's seat or stays where she is, and his car is silent as it pulls away from the curb again.
He doesn't breathe audibly until they're a block away, and it's another minute before he runs a hand raggedly through his hair. "Sorry," he says, voice a lot more collected-sounding than anything about his aura is; he's practically singing with tension. "You went out of your way to do me a favor and I blew it. I'm sorry."
Sailor Mars sits next to Mamoru in the front, because sitting behind someone and seething is a bit too weird. Instead, she sits shotgun glaring out the window. She was /not/ happy with this whole situation. She doesn't dehenshin until she's sure the two of them are alone, which doesn't take long at this time of night, going back to the miko outfit she was wearing.
She doesn't answer for a second after Mamoru apologizes. She lets out a long sigh and says, "It's not your fault. There's no way you would've known. Besides, protecting that shrine is my job. Protecting people like her is /also/ my job."
She turns to finally look at Mamoru, her black eyes cast in shadow except for the brief flash of light from streetlights outside. "I um... I spoke to Mako-chan. She said you were telling the truth, so I guess that backs up your story."
"... Sorry about before. Usagi-chan's a dear friend of mine, so when I saw you flirting with her I guess I over-reacted. We thought you might've been an enemy at the time."
Mamoru shrugs a little stiffly, but it's clearly due more to the general situation, still, than any bitterness or upset he may or may not be harboring over the mix-up. "I know," he says. "It's fine. I would have reacted the same way. I probably actually would have been more of a jerk about it than you were."
He's actually rattled enough that he lets the 'flirting' comment pa--
"It actually wasn't intended to be flirting. I mean, that's not something I do. Or I don't mean to. I just-- I'd had a rough week, and someone I knew died in a Labyrinth. I didn't tell her that or anything," he establishes firmly, glancing quickly sidelong at Rei, then putting his eyes back on the road.
"I just wanted to see her. But she could tell there was something wrong. Usually-- usually we banter, you know, just back and forth, but I guess I was too nice or something, I don't know. Anyway she was-- she was Usagi," he finishes with a laugh, helplessly.
It's a heartbreaking laugh; it's so affectionate, so thankful, so admiring.
"It was a good night, no dreams, good or bad, even if you were a jerk at me later. It's really okay, though. We all have secrets, and we keep them to make sure other people don't get hurt. And really-- we're both trying to make sure she's safe, aren't we?"
Rei actually wonders if Mamoru would've actually reacted the same way. She has a hard time envisioning him showing up at someone's balcony and threatening to set someone's expensive car on fire. He really doesn't seem to be the type.
She keeps that particular doubt to herself.
Mamoru says he wasn't trying to flirt. This doubt she doesn't hide, letting out a short bark of laughter. "Yeah you say that, but you should've seen how the two of you looked together." She still remembers the 'fight' over the cherry. It almost looked like Usagi was going to kiss him. The heartbreaking laugh does very little to dissaude her from that line of thinking. "Still, you made her happy, and it was her birthday, so it worked out alright. Besides I tease her sometimes too."
A moment passes before she adds, "Not in the same way! Get that out of your head!" She's giving him a /really/ suspicious look right now. After a moment she looks back out the window, at the passing sights outside.
"We are... but isn't there someone else you also want to protect? We're searching for the same princess, aren't we?" Rei thinks back to the fire reading she had earlier, and the prince that may or may not have been Mamoru Chiba. "... what will you do when we find her? I want to meet this person we're all searching for, but when I do... I can't imagine that it'll be an easy moment. There might be some bitter pills to swallow."
There's the very slightest jerk of the wheel when Rei asks 'isn't there someone else you also want to protect?' like Mamoru saw something in the road, maybe It's so slight. Perhaps he was avoiding a pothole.
He's studying her in his peripheral vision, trying to read into that, trying to figure out if she knows he's Tuxedo Kamen and has been pretending not to; he's building up his mental walls, his defenses--
--and then she says 'the same princess' and it takes the wind right out of his sails.
"She wants me to help her," the older boy says, tone about a million times less animated than it was only a moment ago. "But she's been the same person since I was small. Like a ghost, or a recording."
His voice speeds up, gains speed again, and the car silently glides through the night on invisible wings and chained lightning. "She's real, and she's somewhere out there, and we'll find her-- but the real her, would she even know me? I dream of her every night, and sometimes they're nightmares, but I don't even know if she sees me, if she's dreaming with me or she's another memory I've forgotten. Would I even know her? She said I'd remember everything, remember who I was-- but I've been someone for eleven years!"
The heel of Mamoru's hand thumps against the side of the steering wheel, and the dim glow of the dashboard displays uncaringly continues to paint the two in a ghostly, desaturated light, bluer than the moon. "Maybe they're eleven wasted years. Maybe I've only been someone for the past five or six months. But the point is-- will any of us know her? It's magic-- maybe I'll know her when she has the Ginzuishou in her hands. But that's a cold hope, Hino-san. That's a cold hope. She won't answer me anymore. It's always the same things she says, if we're not too busy dying."
Rei picks up on Mamoru's reaction, more from his tone of voice than the way the car subtley jumps, but she doesn't pick up on what it means. Maybe she trampled on a sensitive topic? Perhaps she was a bit too blunt about it? She doesn't know he's Tuxedo Kamen. That's the last thing she'd guess, and not just because of henshin magic protecting his identity.
Rei turns away from the window to watch the driver again. Mamoru seems troubled. As she listens to his words her opinion goes from 'troubled' to 'hopeless'. The blue shines in her black eyes and plays upon her features, coloring her otherwise black hair into a deep blue, and casting stark shadows behind her bangs.
There is a sadness in her eyes, or maybe there isn't. Maybe it's just a trick of the light.
"Maybe we will, and maybe we won't, but there's one thing I'm sure of. I don't think we can avoid it. I don't think we can /not/ find her. Just like I don't think I could /not/ want to look after that girl, and I don't think you could /not/ offer to take her safely home. It's not just our will. It's who we are."
Rei leans back in her chair, black eyes looking at the road ahead. Lights pass by them in a flash, enlightening them and then leaving them in darkness. "Yet, even I can't tell what will happen when that day comes. I just know that I have to keep moving forward. It doesn't matter how hard it gets to keep going, because forward is the only way we can go."
"I don't want to avoid it," Mamoru says almost too quietly, distant somewhere in his head, eyes on the road but mind elsewhere. There's a sense to him of incompleteness, sharp and everpresent, mixed in with the roiling maelstrom of indecision that insists it's not. Suddenly it's focused, he's focused. "I want to see her again," he tells Rei, but he's not really telling Rei, either. Maybe he's telling the world.
He flashes Rei a quick, wry smile, sidelong as all hell. "You know, for a couple of months, I was keeping track of everyone I thought our Princess could be. But then I realized the traits I was looking for could be completely inapplicable. All I know for sure is that she needs me, and I'll come when I'm called. You're right: it's who we are."
Mamoru pulls up alongside the curb at the base of the shrine steps, then turns the car off and looks at Rei, the light of the waxing crescent moon mingling with the orangish glow of the street lamps and painting their faces in Fauvist impressions. "It doesn't answer my questions, but yes: as long as we're moving forward, it's enough for now."
"Me either," admits Rei. "I want to see it happen. I don't care how hard it is. Everything worth doing is difficult, right?"
She knows her shrine is coming up soon. She knows her own neighborhood. When Mamoru stops in front of it, she reaches for the door's handle, but doesn't open just yet.
"I guess that makes sense. I tried, for a while, to get a reading on her, our mission, our past lives... I think the magic blocking our memories is stronger than my psychic powers. Even when I do see something, it doesn't make any sense."
She opens the door and steps out of the car. She turns around and looks it over. "It /is/ a nice car, isn't it?"
She stands in the light, both the moon and an overhead streetlamp shining down on her. Her body is turned partially towards the path home, but her eyes are still focused on Mamoru. "Thanks for the ride home, Chiba-san. Stay safe. Maybe next time we'll meet in better circumstances."
She closes the door behind her and starts walking up the stairs. Some might think it's a long walk, but to her it's just an everyday thing. Phobos and Deimos land on her shoulder and outstretched hand, escorting her the rest of the way.
Mamoru's smile is small, but it's real, and there's nothing wry to it this time. He just nods to Rei's farewell, and only waits about a dozen stairs before turning the silent car on and slipping into the night.
I want to see her again.
But who could she be?