Disclaimer: Me no own Sailor Moon.

Chapter Eleven

Rei sighed in her sleep and felt Mars nudge her, ruby power coursing through her veins. Her fingers, clasped around the pendant that Serenity had given them, relaxed at her command and fell limp to her side. There was pain, there always was, but she welcomed it. Pain meant life and life... as long as there was life there was fight left in her. Images, tattered, torn from the past, fled past her inner vision. She flinched from them, from sights she had been able to forget for so long, but Rei had always been one to face her worst fears.

She sensed the false safety in the eternity offered here, in timeless slumber, but shrugged it off. It wasn't her way. She had duties, duties that would call to her even in infinite death. She felt Mars' approval and, with more effort than she could have possibly imagined it would have taken, opened amethyst eyes.

She closed them immediately as more pain, unleashed by her awakening, washed over her. She bit her lip bloody and, with a gasp, swung numb legs over he edge of a table, a marble table?, and stood. Rei had planned to keep her eyes closed until she had gained her footing, for she wasn't brave enough to want to face the terrible world all at once, but her plans evaporated as she dimly heard with ears that had enjoyed silence for far to long, a curse. A curse and then, arms, strong arms caught her as she stumbled and caught her when she would have fallen.

Rei opened startled violet eyes and met sapphire. Sapphire but not Ami's sapphire, or Michiru's, of Serena's... More pain with those names but she pushed it impatiently away. Time enough for the past, now she had to deal with the present. And the present, to her swirling vision, became a man that took more time than she would have preferred to recognize.

Rei would have cursed herself but her tongue was heavy. As it was the man read the anger and horror in her eyes and named himself.

"Jadeite..." Her chapped lips moved with the word and she tried desperately to wrench herself away but it was no use. Mars screamed in frustration as its princess sunk, fighting tooth and nail, into oblivion once more.

Jadeite wondered at his stupidity as he held the Princess of Mars, bleeding to a death that had been prolonged years, in his arms. He saw as consciousness left her and the fight she was never destined to win was lost. She sank unresisting into his arms, all rebellion lost in a sleep he doubted she would ever wake from.

Another gasp on pain roused him, a gasp that was softer, more gentle than the one torn from the Princess of Mar's throat. Jadeite looked up to see the other princess wake, wake and roll off the table. He met her cerulean eyes and sat, numb, as she crawled to the few feet to them. He made no move to help her, there was a determination there that pinned him to his spot, determination and a weariness he had seen too often, in his reflection, in Kunzite's, in Nephrite's, in Zoicite's...

Princess Ami didn't try to speak like her friend. She brought herself up to her knees as she reached his side. One pale hand, trembling from effort, touched his cheek and, obligingly, a stunned Jadeite let a woman he had once named enemy read his soul from the windows of his eyes.

After what seemed like forever the hand dropped. He closed his eyes tightly and heard a sigh, a sound so small he barely registered it. Unwillingly his eyes opened. The Princess of Mercury moved her ivory hand to Rei's brow and, before Jadeite's amazed gaze, healed the wounds that had claimed her friend as a ward of Death. The vermilion stains no longer spread as a gentle blue glow emitted from Ami's small, shaking hand and Rei's breathing, a shuddering, unsure thing, grew steady as he held her.

A sad, bitter smile touched the Princess of Mercury's face as she lifted her hand once more. "And I had so hoped we would be able to rest," she murmured in a low voice that wasn't meant to be heard. "I could even hear angels singing and saw... I saw Horatu and Michiru and Haruka and Serenity but I couldn't see Rose or Ken or Serena or Endymion..." The barely whispered voice fell, cracked, away and she collapsed as well as the wounds that had claimed Rei claimed her as well.

If he was thinking clearly Jadeite might have wondered at the tears that streaked down his cheeks but he couldn't for, in his mind's eye, he was reliving the day that began the hell that they had lived in for the past five years. The day Endymion died. The gem in his arms shone as he reached for Zoicite's mind, past Sol, refusing to let his liege see this weakness in his right hand man.

Zoicite was different, different from Nephrite and Kunzite. There was less anger in him, less bitterness for the world that took away one of their best friends. Jadeite called with a ferocity that would not be denied because he saw, as the blood pooled around Ami, Endymion's.

It would have been Zoicite's right to refuse Jadeite's summons, his terribly rude and angry sending. But his voice did not come through Sol and the anger was not directed at Zoicite. And Zoicite came because he heard the words that Jadeite would not voice, even mentally, the fears whose echoes took the green eyed General back to a night when they all wept and Endymion's broken body lay on the burnt surface of the Moon. He dropped the research he was doing on Pluto and ran.

Zoicite followed the map burnt into his mind by Jadeite's fear and burst, unseeing, into the small room that had been the virtual prison of the two captured princesses that they held, suspended from Time. Or who they had once held. Zoicite cursed vividly. Oh they had all known that they couldn't keep Time at bay forever but he had never suspected...

Two bloody princesses lay on the cold stone floor but only one was bleeding. Jadeite met his gaze, emerald to blue, and in that moment information never meant to be shared was passed and the two games played, Kunzite's/ Zoicite's and Jadeite's became one. Adrenaline ran through him as realization hit him. Zoicite grinned savagely but thrust his sudden joy away as he knelt by the Princess of Mercury's side. He cradled her head in his lap and looked to Jadeite.

"I am a Healer," he said, "but I couldn't heal them when they were brought to me, do long ago, they resisted. They wanted death. Why should I be able to bring them, her, back to life now?" Jadeite refused to accept his answer and replied, surety in his voice.

"Because we wished them to live only for our purposes. They preferred to die as martyrs, as heroes, not puppets, tools." Zoicite knew the answer to his next question but he asked anyway, needing to hear confirmation to his hopes.

"And now Jadeite?" The General bowed his head, a grim smile darkening his features before he raised his face, serene determination written across regal features.

"Now it is us who are the puppets, the tools, if the princesses will wield us. We cannot let them die if it is in our power to prevent it." He paused, bowed his head again, and continued, voice graver, quieter with inner turmoil and yet, peace with a much debated decision.

"We cannot let Sol rule anymore. We've served a monster because we swore blind loyalty to him but, even if it destroys our integrity and honor we cannot continue, not because we don't approve of him but because he's destroying the Universe. Innocents, children are suffering under his rule Zoicite. My god, my cousin, my betrothed cousin, is his current conquest.

Sol would have her beloved killed in order to have a week long affair with her. No man is perfect Zoicite, I know that, but such callous disregard for life... And Beryl? The child they plan to raise? Do you want our sons serving him? Do you want our sons to pledge their lives to him as we've pledge ourselves to his father?We stood silent while Sol destroyed Utopia. Utopia's gone, gone five years ago, but while the princesses live there's still hope. I saw Lita's magic Zoicite. I know you thought I didn't, prayed I didn't because then I would have run and told Sol," the voice soured with self-disgust and Zoicite flinched.

"I saw but I held my tongue because, because damn it I saw the same fire in her that I saw in the others but I saw something else as well. I saw the ability to win this impossible fight. I'm not a seer Zoicite, I can't read the stars like Nephrite, I can't see the future, but that instant, when Lita, Princess of Jupiter, stood before us, defiance the only thing in those emerald eyes, and demanded that we lie to her, demanded that we say that what we were doing was right, in that instant... I saw that if there was any hope to fix what we allowed to happen it would begin with her, with them..." He waved to the two forms that lay between them and Zoicite reached out and put a hand on Jadeite's pained shoulder.

"Looks like we all finally agree on something. A first since, since Endy's death." Jadeite laughed harshly and nodded, wiping the suddenly noticed tears away.

"Heal her," he said softly in his only reply.

Zoicite let his hands stray to the suddenly remembered princess and he brushed matted aqua hair away from a white brow unbroken by wounds. 'Please,' he thought silently, 'Please have the will to live.' He sent his magic into the princess, as he had done solong ago, and expected to find resistance. He met blue, a gentle glowing cerulean light that guided him with a soft, feminine touch, to the places where he was needed most. Zoicite marveled as he healed, binding flesh and making whole what was almost lost forever. After an eternity the light delivered Zoicite back to himself. He left reluctantly, some part of his mind desperately craving the serendipitous serenity that had descended on him while in the ordered mind of the Princess of Mercury. He opened his emerald eyes and met slightly amused sapphire, sapphire framed by dark lashes.

Pale lips curved slightly, not quite a smile but definitely not a frown. "And dragged back to the world again," she whispered with a sigh that wasn't quite as heart felt as he thought she wanted it to be.

"You..." he stuttered as she left his lap, swaying to an unsteady sitting position. The not quite smile broadened as she saw the Princess of Mars, her breathing normal though she remained in Jadeite's arms. She turned back to him.

"Princess of Mercury, Ami the Puppeteer." Jadeite coughed with laughter that edged on hysterical and Zoicite turned an interesting shade of red.

Mina drew her knees under her chin as she watched Kunzite do something that she could only name as putter. He walked impatiently around her room, her new prison, as she studied him from underneath half closed lids, lashes fluttering and brushing ivory cheeks. She thought about asking him to leave but refrained. Thought about trying to hate him again but refrained as well.

She wanted him to leave, and wanted, desperately, to be able to hate with the pure rage that she had so easily come by before, but she couldn't. Lita had given her, cursed her with knowledge. When her friend had come to her mind, cloaked in emerald green, Mina hadn't seen, but had somehow absorbed, all that had happened since she had sunk into unconsciousness under the weight of Beryl's magic.

Mina had seen what must be done and had torn every strand of gold from the essence that was her soul and offered her birthright to Lita, Princess of Jupiter, Senshi of Jupiter. Had become powerless in the eyes of Earth and had awoken in the arms of a General she could later name as Zoicite. He left her, weak as a newborn, in this room. Had left her but she hadn't been alone for long.

Kunzite had followed him and, in the passing two weeks, rarely left while Mina was awake, though admittedly that wasn't often. She was lucid even less. If she hadn't been trained as well as she had been she might have worried about what secrets might have passed from restless lips when delirium gripped her exhausted body but... Coral lips twisted in a rendition of a smile. She was the leader of the senshi. She would speak in torture before she would talk in her sleep, or her delirium. Her smile vanished.

Mina thought for a moment about faking sleep but discarded that idea as well. As much as she didn't want Kunzite here she wanted him to leave less, maybe. It had been simpler when he had been an almost faceless enemy. It had been easier before she had been able to see shadows of herself, of leadership, in him.

Only Mina would never serve her chosen liege as blindly as he did, as coldly as he did. She would have seen and prevented a liege like Sol. Perhaps. She shivered, drawing Kunzite's silver gaze. She knew he wanted something, had come to her room every day for two weeks because of something that ate at him like her failures ate at her.

"Mina..." he started, stopped. Stared into unyielding azure, bowed. He looked up at her from his waist, face frustrated. She saw the words forming on sculptured lips before they stopped. The walls had ears, a Sorceress's ears.

"I... I'm not... I didn't..."

'I didn't kill Lita. I gave you back your life, even if it's only for now. I'm on your side. I can't swear my allegiance but you have it...' She heard what he couldn't say and more, closed cerulean eyes, wishing away the knowledge and the burdens and complications that would follow, before lifting her head from her knees, finally accepting it all.

"I know," she responded simply, softly, but with enough anger, enough ice to please a Sorceress's ears. Mina opened her gaze, let down some of her many walls as she stared, unblinking, at the General, after all, the Sorceress didn't have eyes. General Kunzite bowed lower, broke eye contact, and left.

Mina sighed a very real sigh as the door locked behind him before resting her chin on her knees. She wondered briefly what he had seen when he looked at her, wondered even more briefly what she would have seen if their positions were reversed and cursed. 'Lita, whatever you're up to do it soon or I think I might go mad.' She waited, foolishly perhaps, for some kind of answer, some cosmic portent, and got one. Mina's body went rigid as her necklace warmed on her breast and she knew, with a sudden conviction, that suddenly she and Lita weren't entirely alone in this mess or death and intrigue.

"Mercury... Mars..." she breathed, forgetting how not alone she was.

Beryl narrowed dangerous eyes. "Mercury... Mars..." One clawed hand reached down and stroked the bulge that was her stomach before she rose and called for the man that was the father of her unborn child. The man who would one day name her Empress as well as Sorceress.

Author Notes: Huh, huh? See I didn't forget them! *rasberry* LOL...I wrote that really fast! *basks in reader's approval* hehe I felt guilty for taking a month for part ten but don't expect this all the time! Though I have a really good ending cooking. Hope you guys enjoyed! EMAIL!!! inspiredthoughts@hotmail.com Visit the site: http://www.geocities.com/keitree