If Not Now…
~1600 words
AO3 Link
For the prompt party! While I feel blessed by its return, given the prompt “Everything I had to sacrifice,” I doubt Haruka and Michiru feel the same.
It came like a wave, almost every night now. It was a
writhing mass that was a single creature and many at the same time, all faceless
yet bearing many teeth. If Michiru faltered but one step, it would consume the
crystal spire behind her and all she loved with it. The many teeth ripped at
her clothes, hair, skin. She did not move. She refused. Even as they bit
deeper, deeper. She could not fall despite the pain. Deeper. She was going to
fall, all would be lost and she could not lose and deeper—
Michiru woke with a gasp. Reality was quiet and warm. The
softness of sheets was startling against her skin, the remnants of the vision
left her expecting pain in place of comfort.
Haruka stirred beside her. “’R you okay?”
“It was just a dream, love.”
Haruka pulled her close and nuzzled into her shoulder. “I had
a dream. A nice one.”
“Oh?” Michiru worked her fingers through Haruka’s hair
against her scalp. The rhythm of her breathing was a comfort as her own fell in
time with it. “Tell me about it.”
“Well I was there, and you were there. And so was a baby.”
Haruka paused, waking up a little more. “Our baby.” She made figure eights with
one finger on Michiru’s hip. “We were parents.”
The last word came on a breath of reverence. “Our baby was happy. Just like us.”
Michiru had never thought much of children, but when Haruka
spoke like this, she ached for them as much as she ached for anything, nearly
as much as Haruka ached for them. “That is a nice dream.”
“You know…” Haruka’s muscles went tense. She breathed deep
before continuing. “You know. We’ve been at peace for a while now.”
“We have.” It wouldn’t last, but they had.
“Do you think… do you think maybe… now could be the time?”
Haruka twisted up to look her in the eye. “I mean. We’re a good age. And, sometimes I think,
if not now…”
Michiru suddenly felt the truth of it. Now was all they had.
She shoved aside all her vision meant. She would take what happiness she could
for Haruka, she would make now work despite everything telling her it couldn’t.
“If you’re ready, I am.”
“You mean it?” Haruka
scrambled to sit up.
Michiru swallowed down her doubt. She would—she could—choose the nice dream for once. She swore she could against the screaming inside her that she should share what she saw. “As
much as I have ever meant anything.”
Haruka laughed and kissed her, rough and urgent despite
still laughing. “We’ll be parents,” she
whispered against Michiru’s mouth.
Michiru let herself laugh along.
***
There were several days of sharing the news and starting on
paperwork. She’d begun to believe it was really happening. And then Mina found her. Michiru walked out of a morning matinee of
a French film, one of her quiet retreats, and there she was. Michiru ignored
her, but Minako would not be swatted away so easily. She fell into step beside
her.
“You know it can’t happen right now.”
“What can’t?” She would have to say the words, state exactly
the dream she was dashing.
“Children. I know you see the same thing coming as Rei does.”
“What I may or may not see has no bearing on our choice.”
Michiru kept her voice calm. “And Rei’s visions, like mine, hardly have a
timestamp. It might be a hundred years before whatever doom she sees comes to
pass.”
“I never thought you to be naïve.”
“I will not hold back my life—her life—for what might come.”
Mina jogged up to walk backwards facing Michiru. “And what
will you do with the child, when the doom comes?”
“Protect it.”
“You have someone else to protect.”
“I have no desire to protect that princess above all else.”
“It is your duty.”
“I don’t care.”
Minako’s shoulders stiffened. Venus flashed deadly gold in
her eyes. “It doesn’t matter if you care. It doesn’t matter if I care. Our
lives are bound to a purpose.”
“I have given enough. I have given my childhood and my blood
and my literal heart to duty. I am finished. Surely you can do your job well
enough you don’t need us.”
Minako’s mouth turned up at the corners, bearing her teeth
rather than truly smiling. “And what will Haruka say, when you ask her to turn
away from her duty?”
Michiru stopped cold. “She will know it is only a
possibility, and that we could do both if it came down to it.”
“You’re a liar.”
The thought of slapping her played in Michiru’s mind like a
daydream. “If you’re so righteous, why are you talking to me and not her?”
“Why have you kept your visions to yourself instead of
telling her?” Minako crossed her arms. “You’re the one who could make her
understand. If I say, hey, Rei’s had visions, maybe this isn’t a good time, she’ll
take the optimistic route. She wants this too badly. Even you want this too
badly.” She stepped closer. “How long do you think she’d last, trying to
protect Usagi and your child?
Sometimes she barely makes it through worrying about you, and you take care of
yourself.”
Michiru wanted to say they’d leave, settle somewhere far
away from whatever battles came, but Haruka would never do it. “When, then? Are
we to always set aside life for duty?” Years of anger uncorked inside her. “Do
you tell Mako to set aside love? Is that why she has yet to get serious with
anyone? You must know that’s what she wants more than anything.”
“She knows the time isn’t right.”
“The time will never be right.” Michiru rose her chin. “I
have often wondered, Venus, if you would have kept Haruka and I apart if you
thought you could. I suppose I have my answer, and Haruka will too.”
Minako’s face made it clear she’d like to slap Michiru too. “I
would never. All I do, I do to protect you all. Especially her, damn it.” She
gritted her teeth. “Haruka’s too good for either of us. So is Mako. Loving
someone who can’t defend themselves like we can would rip them apart.”
Michiru almost felt a twinge of pity for her. “And never
getting to love all they can won’t?”
“I’m not saying never.” Her fists clenched. “I’m saying not
now. If we have as long as we supposedly do, a few more years is nothing.”
“And if we don’t?”
“Then fuck me, I’ll have been wrong. But you’ll know, even
then, that I’m also still right.”
That was the worst thing—it was true. Michiru could not
pretend Minako was being anything but honest. It was not meaningless the way it
was when her family cautioned her against abandoning her duty to them. She
could not even hate Mina for making her accept what she had known all along.
She could only hate herself, for giving Haruka false hope.
“Leave me.”
“Michiru.”
“I’ll do it. I’ll tell her everything, but please leave.”
She wished that Minako had stayed hard, rather than looking
at her just then with soft understanding. “I hope it comes soon,” she said very
quietly. “I hope it is the last big fight.”
“I never thought you to be naïve.” She went back to the
theater and bought another ticket. Nestled into the darkness where no one could
see, she planned out how she could tell Haruka.
***
“I had a vision.”
Haruka stopped with her jacket hanging off one arm. “A
vision?” she asked, although it showed in her eyes that she knew all it meant.
“A fight is coming.” Michiru focused on a painting on the
wall instead of Haruka’s face. It was one of hers. She followed each
brushstroke with her eyes, letting the memory of each movement squash down her
current emotions. “Likely it will be soon.”
“Oh.” Haruka flailed to get her other arm out of her coat.
She put it on the back of a chair, but when it fell she left it in the floor. “I
guess then… I mean. Yeah, that’s… I’m going for a run.” Still in her work
clothes, she bolted out the door. Michiru let her go. There would be tears
later, she knew, Haruka would cry in her arms, but now this was what she needed.
Michiru had been allowed to process alone too, after all.
She picked up Haruka’s jacket. A folded paper fell out with
her keys from one pocket. Michiru knew better than to look. But she’d known
better than to do a lot of things lately. NAMES
was scrawled across the top in Haruka’s big, excited handwriting. Several ideas
were crossed off. A few had little stars next to them. Michiru crumpled it and
threw it in the garbage. It would do no one any good to see it again.
That night she had a vision—or perhaps a dream, she could
not say for sure, though she knew she saw what Haruka had dreamed before. They
sat in their yard. Michiru knelt without
regard for grass stains on her skirt; Haruka was cross-legged just a few feet
away. She held the hands of a little girl who stood wobbly on her chubby legs. “Okay,
now go to Mama!”
The little girl let go of one hand, then the other. One
cautious step. Another with more confidence. Her soft face broke into a smile
and she bounced through the rest of the steps until she tumbled into Michiru’s
lap. “You made it,” she heard herself say.
Her little girl looked up and gave a gummy shriek of
laughter. “Mama!”
Michiru woke quietly this time, careful not to wake Haruka.
There was no sense in getting worked up over what could never be.
SittingOverHereDreaming 