Though I love Usagi/Mamoru (and Chibi-Usa is a must!), I really do adore the pairing of Usagi/Rei as well. I blame the original anime for that.

Summary: Crystal Tokyo never happened and Mamoru has passed on. A disheartened Usagi remains, if only for her daughter's sake. As always, Rei is right by her side. In more ways than Usagi realizes. Rated T to be safe.

A Matter of Mattering

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

She watched the clock hit 9:03 and bit her lip. Hard.

Eight years to the minute ago they'd called her and torn away everything she'd held dear.

"I'm sorry ma'am but there's been an accident."

She'd spent the next eight months sobbing noisily throughout her life, and the next eight years sobbing quietly inside, because no one had understood why she wasn't moving on in some way, and she had a daughter for God's sake.

You couldn't do that to her child.

She let 9:03 pass, and sniffled to herself as she huddled onto the couch beneath her fuzziest blanket. Usually she spent the anniversary of his death surrounded by her friends, and being cheered up by her daughter. But Chibi-Usa was nearly ten now, and she didn't exactly remember the father she'd had when she was one and a half.

He would have been a great dad - if only for a short time. And those close knew he would have been a great King. Would have. He'd showered the infant Chibi-Usa with "poor little thing"s and promises of always being there for her when she needed it, and had sworn whenever Crystal Tokyo arrived in all it's crystalline glory, that he would be a fair and just ruler to all.

Those promises were meant to be broken, it seemed.

It had been eight years since Mamoru's death, and if Chibi-Usa wanted to go to a sleepover after school then Usagi had no right to press her own sadness onto her precocious daughter. She knew that.

Usagi missed little Usa's company anyway.

All of her friends were busy that day- it had been eight years after all, and even if she hadn't, everyone else had moved on with their lives. Without the Prince of Earth to help usher in the new era Crystal Tokyo wasn't happening, and evil had been dormant for some time. All-in-all they lived a normal life now. Part of Usagi felt that her friends were relieved for this reprieve, a second (or third) chance at a normal life. She wished could feel the same. Once upon a time she would have, but not now. Not without Mamoru by her side.

She didn't hold it against her dear friends. It wasn't their husband, and it wasn't their family. She didn't blame them. If she could have picked up and moved on she would have too.

'I miss you every day, Mamo-chan.'

Usually she'd be snuggled in her blanket with at least five urgently chattering women surrounding her, pressing warm food and hot tea and knowing hugs onto her for the entire day and most of the night. Her pink haired daughter would be dictating what they watched on TV, and delighting in the attention and candy being lavished on her. It made Usagi happy to see her happy, though it always stung a little that even their child didn't need to mourn for him.

She didn't know if she wanted the day to go by quickly or slowly. It couldn't be eight years since she'd lost him. That was insane. There were days when she still woke up in her empty king sized bed and rolled over expecting him to be there. He would laugh and tell her she was crazy to believe her bad dreams. The man was invincible, or at least it had seemed it.

He was a careful driver and there was nothing he could have done. He'd kissed her goodbye at the door and tickled their daughter, and he'd backed carefully out of the driveway before he waved to them both. He'd driven his usual route to work at the hospital where he was going to go and save lives, and then someone had ended his for the sake of a red light. His parents' fate had repeated itself on him.

She cried until the text messages on her phone blurred and her living room was covered in the crumpled tissues she tossed away from her. It was going to be a long day.

"I'm okay." she texted to all her friends, as she wondered if you could die from loneliness.

She heard someone bang on the front door, despite the perfectly functional doorbell beside it. If it hadn't been the day her husband had died she would have smiled. Only one person ignored her doorbell despite, or perhaps because, it annoyed her.

She opened her front door to Rei, who waved her phone under her nose with a raised eyebrow.

"You're okay? Really, Usagi-chan?" she walked in as though she owned the place, and dropped two large bags beside the couch, "I brought supplies and most of it's chocolate, so sit down and let's get going."

"I think I started without you," Usagi said weakly, gesturing to the mess of tissues.

"Looks like it," Rei agreed, "but I haven't missed the main event, I don't think."

'Don't make me laugh today.'

"You don't need to stay, Rei-chan," she said awkwardly, "I really am okay this year."

Rei regarded her messy appearance once more before saying, "That sounds very accurate."

"I'm serious!"

Rei shrugged, "Then I'll stay anyway. You don't actually think I can eat all this crap on my own, do you?"

She sighed as Rei made herself comfortable. There wasn't much point in arguing with Rei, she was stubborn like a bull and for as long as Usagi had known her she'd never seen Rei do something she didn't want to. Apparently Rei was there to stay.

Usagi settled on the couch beside her best friend biting her lip again, and dug her fingers into her palms. She didn't need to cry about it. Rei might not believe that she was okay, but it had been eight years, and she could do it. Everyone else was alright, Rei was alright, even if she was there. There was a reason no one else was.

The day passed in fits of sobs that Usagi attempted to hide, and occasional fleeting smiles when Rei managed to pull them from her. By the time night rolled around they were watching a movie and eating their way through Usagi's emotions.

"You don't need to stay all night, Rei-chan," Usagi said around a mouth of chocolate, "I've been alright today."

"Well I want to see this movie, and I'm just going to feel bad if I go home and eat the rest of this." Rei didn't look at her.

"I'm okay, I promise. It's just a day like any other, you know."

"Right."

She could count on one hand the number of times she and Rei had existed in awkward silence. Rei didn't seem to believe that she was alright, and Usagi could hardly blame her.

They watched the rest of the movie in silence, Usagi lost in her own thoughts, and Rei hardly seeming to notice.

As she watched the credits rolling, she couldn't hold it in any longer.

"The world never stopped, y'know? People didn't stop. Everything outside of me just went on like normal, like he didn't matter. Like it didn't matter that he…"

"Go on," Rei had turned towards her, "that he?" Usagi couldn't help but think her friend sounded like a therapist in that instance.

Usagi hated therapists.

"Nothing," Usagi said quietly, feeling almost ashamed of her outburst, "don't worry about it."

"Why are you being so stubborn?" Rei scowled, sounding suddenly very un-therapist like.

"Me? You're one to talk!" Usagi countered flatly.

"I'm always stubborn," Rei shrugged, "but if you're being this stubborn something's wrong. So why are you are being so stubborn?"

"Because."

"Because what?"

For a moment she simply watched Rei, taking in the familiar stare and noting with some surprise that Rei didn't look impatient at all with her. She looked simply as though she cared, and Usagi had a feeling that Rei already knew what she wanted to say.

"Isn't that what the world wants me to do?" she said softly, "What the world, what everyone, has already done. Forget. Forget he existed, forget he died, and forget that he was ever a part of me because I'm still here, and he doesn't matter anymore."

"Mamoru mattered." Rei said without missing a beat. "Mamoru will always matter. To all of us. And no one wants you to forget him," Rei moved next to her on the couch, "we want you to be happy, but we all know you'll never forget him. You're not meant to."

"Well that's what it feels like!"

"That's because it hurts."

"Of course it hurts!"

Rei blinked dark eyes at her, and Usagi winced. She hadn't meant to snap.

"Sorry," she put her head in her hands, "I just - I can't talk about this right now."

She wanted to shrink into herself, and sob alone, without Rei there to see her falling apart. It wasn't anyone else's job to pick up the broken pieces of her life, or at least it shouldn't have been.

"Well I think you need to," she heard Rei say, "I think you've been keeping this hidden beneath the surface for eight years, and I think it's about time you let it out."

"Why are you even here, Rei?" She turned to stare into a pair of dark amethyst eyes, "Did you just come to get on my case for being a crybaby? Like always? "

"That's not what I'm here to do, and you know that!" Rei's temper flared at the accusation. With a fierce scowl she closed her eyes and took deep, calming breaths. Rei had never been the most patient or well-behaved person, but she was truly trying right in that moment not to let her fiery nature get the better of her, lest the situation spiral out of control.

Rolling her shoulders to relieve some tension and flicking a stray lock behind her pierced ear, Rei continued, now steadily and even, "I know things turned out… different, than you thought they would. Than we all knew - thought things would. And I know it hurts. I know it hurts more than you knew it could. Maybe it always will, I don't know, Usagi-can. But you can't let that pain rule you and dictate your life."

"Rei, why? How can you know that?"

For a moment Rei didn't say anything. Then the dark haired woman closed her eyes, and leaned back against the couch to take a deep breath, as though she didn't dare to make eye contact.

"I've loved you since we were both fourteen years old, y'know" she said softly, "When I realized it I got so mad with myself. I didn't want these feelings, but I found myself stuck with them. It never got any easier. I don't know that it ever will, either." Rei swallowed thickly. "It's different than losing someone, I know, but I feel like I can relate a little, at least.

Amethyst eyes fluttered open and for a moment they clashed and just stared at blue ones.

And that's all it took for Usagi's dam to break.

She collapsed against the couch and cried. Harder than she had in her life, harder than the same night eight years ago.

She cried for her husband. She cried for a little girl who'd never get to know her dad. She cried for the fact that her future had once been so bright, and it had shattered in her hands. She cried because she'd never been brave enough to acknowledge how Rei felt about her, and she'd never realized how much that must have hurt.

And then Rei was pushing her hair back from her damp face, and wiping her tears with a gentle hand.

'I don't know what any of this means. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say. What do I say?'

"I don't kn-"

"It's alright," Rei was pulling her in close, letting Usagi sob into her shirt, "none of that matters."

'I'm so tired.' Usagi thought. 'Rei...'

She hugged Rei, grateful for…for everything.

"It doesn't matter," Rei kept saying, "Usagi, that doesn't matter."

Usagi's whole world was spinning at a rapid pace. It was making her sick. She was sobbing in Rei's arms, her gentle arms that somehow felt so safe. They always had.

'How could it not matter?'

"It's okay," she heard Rei whisper against the top of her head, "you're okay. It doesn't matter."

For a moment she pictured a world where things had transpired differently - like they were supposed to. Where they all lived happily-ever-after in a Crystal Palace and their worries were few and far in-between.

That world was perfect. That world was a dream.

With sadness Usagi looked at Rei properly. Perhaps for the first time in years.

That perfect world didn't exist, but Rei did...

The blonde noted the dark purple eyes that shimmered with their own tears, and the twitching half smile-half smirk that Rei was working so hard to keep in place. She saw her hands clasped softly in Rei's own slightly larger ones. She saw the best friend who'd always been there, even when Usagi didn't deserve her unwavering loyalty. Rei had been there by her side through everything. Every victory, every defeat, every joy, and every sorrow. They both knew Rei always would be there. Through everything. She was too stubborn to shoo away.

At that moment she found her voice. "It does matter," Usagi said firmly, daring Rei to disagree.

For once the dark haired woman did not rise to the clear challenge. She simply nodded as Usagi hugged her tighter, her sobs slowly easing down until completely ceasing all together.

It does matter, Usagi thought fiercely. It matters because Rei matters.