Knocking on Forbidden Doors

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You're never safe until you see the dawn

And if the clock strikes past midnihgt

The hope is gone

To move under...

-- Carry On Dancing, Daniel Jones and Darren Hayes

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PART V -- Back To Reality

Demando

I came to in a place shrouded by mist and fog, lying on a cool ground that felt almost frozen beneath the skin of my cheek. It was not until I moved slightly that I heard the clink of crystal, and felt the pull of my cape, that I realised I was once again dressed as the White Prince of Nemesis --my former self.

"Shoosh, Demando-sama, try not to move... I think you hit your head when you fell."

As I opened my eyes, turning my head to the side, I became aware of tanned flesh at my side. When I could raise my head above her knees, I saw the concerned face of Sailor Pluto, whom was kneeling on her heels by my head. Her gloved hands rested on her knees, her Time Key lying quietly by her side.

"Gomen nasai," she whispered, quite abruptly, her cerise eyes filling with unexpected tears. "Demando, I am so sorry for all of this... I should have known better than to take you there, I know what havoc alternate timelines can play with one's mind·"

"It's all right," I said slowly, halting her unusually garbled apology. Setsuna -- rather, now, Sailor Pluto -- had always struck me as an articulate person. This person -- this person who now appeared much younger than her thousands of years of existence -- was stumbling over her words in such a peculiar manner that it was almost frightening.

Sailor Pluto sighed, reaching over to help me sit up without actually having to stand or move from her position herself. We ended up sitting opposite one another, she seated on her heels, myself cross-legged with one Hell of a headache.

"Demando-sama, I-" she began, but I interrupted her.

"You have nothing to apologise for," I stated firmly, even though inside, I was still shaking from what had happened back in the alternate Nemesis. I knew that the image

("Oniisan!")

of Prince Saffir-sama's face twisted in agony as he was inundated with memories from my brotherâs life would never leave me... it was firmly in my mind. Forever. "I knew what I was doing when you offered the opportunity to me..."

She bowed her head; I saw two tears fall from her cheeks to land on the black material of her fuku's short skirt. "No, you didn't, Demando-sama. I never fully explained it to you... but I knew. I knew and I still took you there... I thought I didn't care! I thought it didn't matter! I thought no-one could ever hurt more than I do... but I was wrong, and because I was wrong, I have hurt you, Demando..."

My own heart was aching as the Senshi refused to look up at me. "Setsuna, you can't blame yourself for what happened... it was me who caused Saffir to see what I had seen, and in upsetting myself, I upset him, so the blame is my own..."

"I should never have taken you there."

Her tone was final, irrevocable. It hurt me to hear it, but there was really little I could do to change it, but it didn't lessen my curiosity any. "Tell me something, Sailor Pluto..."

"What?" she asked, not looking up at me. Her dark face was curtained by her long silky hair, but I knew that her tears had stopped. She never had been one for such displays of emotion.

My own tone was soft, almost pleading. "Why did you do it?"

She stiffened slightly, then looked up at me with calmly pained eyes. "Because you and I are not really so different, Demando of the moon they call the Nemesis. We are even neighbours in this solar system... and we are both outsiders from our own people. Somehow, we always outcast ourselves, preferring a life of solitude while we loved those who would never love us... and to each of us, only one, younger, person could ever reach our hearts and make us feel real again... in your case, it was your brother. In my case, it was the Neo-Queen's daughter."

"I don't understand," I replied softly, staring up at the closed time door with tired eyes. It seemed to me now that everything was spinning around me, that everything was falling apart...

"We were both restless at the same time -- and a restless Guardian of Time generally results in a large mess... like the one you just lived through."

"It wasn't completely wasted though," I suddenly said, still gazing at the Time Door. "No, this knocking on forbidden doors, it did bring about something rather remarkable..."

I heard the rustling of her pleated skirt as the tall solitary soldier climbed to her feet, picking up her staff as she did so. I followed her lead, swaying on my feet a little as I did so. However, I rather quickly regained my composure; I had no wish to further embarrass myself in front of the Senshi.

I found Sailor Pluto looking at me sadly as she then used one arm to indicate the Door. "I think it is time for you to go, Demando."

Blindly, I moved towards the Door, bleakly staring through it as I did so. "Setsuna..."

She followed me; I don't entirely understand why. However, she took the route back to my Nemesis by my side, and as we materialised in my throne room, I turned to her in abject confusion. "Why are you following me?"

Her half-smile was strained, unhappy. "To make sure you got home all right."

I turned away from Sailor Pluto then, looking about the room with biased eyes. My audience chamber... so different from the one I remembered from that other Nemesis. My dark, shadowed, crystalline audience chamber... so unlike the gentle friendliness of that which my brother had built... and even if there had been an underlying paranoia in that chamber, the blank honesty of that room far outstripped the political ambiguity of my own chambers.

I stared at the indicator of the jakokuzuishou for a moment; the extreme flow of energy showed me that it was gaining immense power. Fast.

"My time is up," I murmured, and I bent my head as I stood on the dais, one hand bracing my form against the green throne that meant very little to me anymore.

"Is it?" asked the Guardian of the Door; imagine that! The Senshi of Time herself was unsure of how much time was left to me!

Setsuna

As I looked to Demando, I sighed to see the expression etched onto those icy features. They were starkly outlined by pale pink glow of the indicator; but I could clearly see his depression, his indecision.

"Do you know what today is?" he asked finally, still not looking to meet my eyes. I couldn't understand why he danced away from me in that manner, but I did not question that.

"Time's divisions are meaningless to me in such small quantities," I replied softly, though not quite truthfully. Because of the day this was, I was well-aware of the date.

"It's April Fool's Day," he murmured softly, raising a hand to his temple as if it hurt. "It is exactly one year after our original attack on Crystal Tokyo..."

"It seems you have reached a stalemate," I murmured, before turning away. "I must go now."

Demando's tone was incredulous as his head then swivelled to follow my progress down his dais, and his tone sounded almost as broken as his brother's had the moment Demando had passed out in the alternate reality.

"Don't leave me alone."

The voice was low, the tone was pained... not like the usual speaking manner of the White Prince at all. Demando never sounded as if he were requesting something, no matter how hard he tried. However, today, he sounded as if he were brokenly pleading with me... but he was not going to force me to do anything.

Slowly I turned back to him, meeting his violet eyes. They were a deep, pained purple at that moment, so very tired, so very very weary that it almost broke my heart.

"Some of us are always destined to live alone," I said, and even though it had meant to sound be final and irrevocable, my voice quavered as I spoke.

"Like you," he whispered softly, and I knew that he understood. He understood what my life was as the lonely, melancholy... forgotten soldier....

I shrugged, trying desperately to sound indifferent, like I had done before. However, it didn't work... somehow, Demando was successfully bringing out emotions in me I had long tried to conceal, long tried to hide and deny. "That is my duty."

"And that will be your downfall," he whispered, then he closed his eyes, drawing a long, shaking breath. "Just as it will be my own..."

I turned my gaze to the garnet orb for a second, and I sighed. "Demando, your loneliness is much the same as mine, I will admit that. You have lost the one you loved as your own, and you will never have the one you love as an equal with you. I have the same problem -- the one I love as my own isn't mine, and the man I love has his wife, his one true love.

"But we are different in the way that you can't accept that. Until you can, you will never be truly happy again."

Demando smiled bitterly. "Then I never will be happy. Setsuna, I have never been denied anything I ever wanted, and now that I have been, it doesnât humble me in the slightest... it only makes me want it more."

I bowed my head, trying to suppress my disappointment, my grief over a lesson I had so badly wanted him to learn. "Then we are not as similar as I once thought."

"Perhaps not," he whispered, and I turned back to him at the sound of his quiet tears. He was by now sitting in his throne, and he had lowered his head into his hands.

Suddenly mortified by my indifference, I moved back to his side, carefully kneeling beside him. "Demando-sama."

"What?"

He didn't look up at me; his tone was so low I almost missed it. However, I didn't let that put me off, not at all. "What are you going to do now?"

Demando smiled bitterly; his voice reflected his abject misery. "I don't know! I don't even think I can go on living, not like this... not after all I've seen, not after all that I've discovered..."

"But I do it everyday of my life," I whispered softly.

"Yes... but you are immortal. I am not... and you have just proved to me that I am better off dead than living in this body, ruining everything that I touch..."

I sighed, allowing one of my gloved hands to move upwards. I gently pressed it over one of the pale hands resting on the arm of his throne. "You don't have to die because of what I showed you."

Demando snorted at that. "Sailor Pluto, don't you know? Time is an excellent teacher... but it kills all of its pupils."

Slowly, I stood up, pulling the reluctant Prince to his feet as he did so. "Demando, you're going to become desperate, aren't you?"

He snorted again, though now he sounded as if he was on the verge of tears. "It would be the honourable thing to do, wouldn't it?"

I shook my head, but he didn't see that as he refused to look at me. Therefore, I lifted my hand to clasp his chin, forcing him to look into my eyes. He seemed surprised, but not really. It was a paradoxical look, but a very tranquil one.

"You can't die yet, Demando-sama. I won't let you."

His surprise completely faded, to be replaced by a look of resignation. "Setsuna, I never told you..."

I smiled bleakly, not taking my miserable eyes away from his. "You never told me what?"

"I never told you... thank you..."

I sighed at that -- even now, he couldn't forget her. "You are a coward, aren't you Prince?"

Demando's hands moved upwards slightly, to rest quietly on my shoulders. His smile was unhappy, his tone quiet and reflective. "Yes, I am, Senshi... I will never be half the soldier you are..."

I brought up my other hand as my right hand stole sideways; I then cradled his head in my hands as I leant upwards slightly, to place a delicate kiss on his cool lips. "Then I will be the courageous one, Demando. I will admit that something odd passes between us after that shared experience."

"Yet, some of us are always meant to be alone," he breathed softly, his face right beside mine as his arms softly stole about my waist. He then pulled me closer to him, softly pressing his chill lips over my own in a kiss that left both of us bewildered and disorientated.

I kept my arms loosely about his neck as I drew my face away from his, and I let my tears slip down my cheeks as I did so. "It's a funny old world, isn't it?"

He laughed, though it sounded forced and unnatural. "Yes... who would have guessed? The two secret admirers of the Neo-royals falling in love with each other..."

I looked at him sadly, with surprise. "You love me?"

His own smile was just as sad. "Did I never tell you?"

"No. And don't tell me now, either."

"I won't... because some people are always meant to be alone, ne?" He sounded almost joking, but his eyes were dead serious.

Sadly I nodded, not at all surprised by his calm acceptance of what he knew he couldn't have. Even though it was completely out of character for him, I knew that he would accept this little forbidden action.

Grudgingly disentangling myself from his arms, I stepped backwards with a sigh. "I shall put the timelines straight again, Demando."

He merely stared at me for a moment; then he sighed. "I won't remember, will I?"

I shook my head, my agony complete. "No... but I always will."

Demando stepped closer; he reached one pale hand forward to brush my hair away from my brow, tender and gentle. "Oh, but I was right about you, Senshi. You are strong and noble, wise and true. You will live with the memory of me forever, this brief and fleeting love... but I will forget, because I am far from being as strong as you are..."

"You're strong inside," I replied softly. "You have your strengths, Demando, and before you die, you will see them... just as she will...."

Demando's lithe fingers lingered over my high cheekbones for a second longer; he then bent down to kiss my lips once more. I allowed one hand to steal to his temple to gently run my fingers through that soft, pale hair, but I did not prolong the kiss. It would have been just one more memory to torture myself with.

"And so we come full circle," he whispered, and he moved back to the jakokuzuishou's indicator. "But I have just one question for you, Setsuna..."

"Yes?" I asked slowly, painfully. My heart was still aching from the delicateness of his last kiss.

"Will I... see him again?"

"Always," I whispered, and I prayed that he would not ask the next question that I expected from him. However, I knew that he would, it was written in time.

"... will I see you again?"

"Never."

The word hung for a second in the air; but Demando did not challenge me. He merely bowed his head and nodded. "I suspected as much."

As I turned to weave the timelines back into their true configuration, I heard his words. "Aishiteru, Sailor Pluto... Meiou Setsuna..."

"I love you too," I whispered, casting him one last, longing glance. I had to smile through my tears when I saw the way he gently indicated I should turn around, and go back to my duties, my door, my life...

Because that was who I was... and who I will always be.

Demando

I remember fainting as soon as the light from the Garnet Orb grew too bright... I thought that she would leave me then, but throughout my mind ran the words of the Senshi... aishiteru mo mata, oujisama... and even as I reawoke on the day after my brother's death, she spoke to me gently, softly...

The last words I remember hearing upon my awakening were simple... and even though I did not remember who said them or why, they comforted me somewhat in the hours leading up to my own death.

"On behalf of Father Chronos, may I be the first to welcome you back to reality... Prince Demando-sama."

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As written by Celeste Goodchild.

Sailor Moon is the property of Naoko Takeuchi, Kodansha Comics, and Toei Animation.