Yuki awoke to a silent hotel suite the next morning and felt a slight panic overtake him. He searched through the separate rooms, finding no sign of his younger sister. Quickly throwing his clothes on, he just barely remembered to grab the room key before he was out the door and pressing the down button on the elevator. Once he reached the lobby, he was half way to the doors, unsure of where he was going to search in the unfamiliar city, when he spotted the familiar crown of silver hair from the corner of his eye. Seated at one of the small, two-seated tables in front of the café was Usagi, her small hands wrapped around a large cup of coffee.

Slowing his pace, he made his way over to her. She didn't notice him until he pulled the second chair out and took a seat, but when she looked up at him, she chuckled.

"Your hair," she said, by way of explanation, and Yuki's hand automatically reached up to his head. He'd neglected to comb it in his rush to leave. Turning back to her coffee, she murmured, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you worry. Want some?"

She pushed a plate across the tiny tabletop that he hadn't observed before, housing a giant blueberry muffin. The round top looked as if it had been attacked by a bird; Yuki could see where Usagi had pinched bits of it off, but it seemed most of these had ended up scattered around the plate instead of in her mouth. Looking at the girl again, he could see that her eyes were rimmed in red and that the baristas behind the counter were giving her concerned looks.

"They gave it to me for free." Usagi smiled despite herself, trying to smooth over her emotions with little success.

"What's wrong, Usagi?" Her face crumpled, just like that, and she struggled against her tears for a few moments. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath to collect herself.

"I went to Mamoru's grave again this morning. I couldn't sleep. But while I was there..." Usagi let the sentence drift off and she looked at him again. He thought there was a meaning behind it, but he couldn't grasp it, so he waited for her to continue. "You didn't feel it, did you?"

"Feel what? What are you talking about?" Yuki was confounded, and Usagi ducked her head again, sipping the coffee in her hands for something to do. Her voice was so quiet, when she finally spoke again, that he could barely hear her over the bustling people around them.

"The curse," she looked up again, her sapphire eyes full of tears, "it's gone. I felt it, like a sudden empty hole inside of me. I was afraid something happened back home. I ran back to the hotel and called Akito, but she was so calm about it. She told me that Kureno had lost his curse as well, a while ago."

Usagi stopped, aware that tears were coming no matter how she fought against them. Yuki felt like the world had stopped turning. He couldn't even begin to formulate words. But she wasn't finished either, "And Hiro-san too. She thinks that when she gave up her hold on everyone and allowed them their freedom, it may have started a chain reaction."

Yuki was still frozen in time, so Usagi stayed silent, letting him take it in while she wiped at her tears. When he finally did speak, it was the question she'd been anticipating. "What's it like?"

"Well before my curse was suppressed, but since I didn't have any memories of my time as a Sohma I didn't really know the difference." Usagi paused, pondering for a moment. "It's bittersweet. It's a relief, but emptiness as well, like some part of me is suddenly missing. I guess it is though, huh?"

Yuki was silent, and she looked at him, her eyes softening. "I moved our flight. We're leaving this afternoon. I have to get home now, I feel it. Since this morning, every moment that I can't see Haru is like this angry cloud of confusion in my head. I hope that's okay."

"That's fine."

xXx

While Yuki packed his things in the other room, he could hear Usagi making calls in the otherwise quiet suite. One of them he heard tidbits of and knew she was talking to Edward, thanking him for everything once more and for treating them to Boston cream pie the night before, which she had gushed over endlessly. After that he tuned her out, his mind reeling with his own thoughts.

Would he be free of the curse, too? Would it happen today, tomorrow, or would it stretch on torturously? He was full of apprehension and anticipation. When Usagi emerged from the bedroom, she had all of her things already packed, and seemed the epitome of composure. In fact, she smiled at him.

"We can check out now. I want to take the sky bridge to the airport and stop in the gift shop to buy souvenirs for everyone." Yuki followed the silver haired girl's lead as she checked them out of the hotel, gave their thanks to Sumi, the hotel manager who had assisted them the day before, and set them on the path to the sky bridge that would take them back to Logan International.

Usagi stayed quiet; she seemed to be giving him space to digest the news that had hit her so hard that morning, and maybe he was a bit grateful for that. She let him wait outside the gift shop while she browsed, and emerged nearly an hour later with her arms full of bags, grinning.

When they entered the terminal, they stopped and turned at the sound of someone calling the girl's name. The familiar tall, lean frame of Edward appeared amongst the shorter heads of those surrounding him, and Usagi's face lit up in a smile.

"You didn't have to come see us off, now I feel guilty that I didn't get you anything." She gestured to the bags the two siblings were carrying and the boy laughed.

"Actually I came to give you this," He held out a white box in the space between them. When Usagi took it, it felt cool to the touch. "An authentic Boston cream pie. You won't find one like that anywhere in Japan."

Usagi passed the box to Yuki, dropped her bags, and threw her arms around the tall American. Yuki felt a sudden, dizzying sickness overcome him before he remembered. When Usagi didn't transform, the reality of it really hit home. Edward appeared surprised, and then sheepish as he gave her an awkward hug in return.

"Thank you, Edward. You've been amazing," she pulled away, sensing his discomfort, and smiled up at him. "Mamoru was lucky to have you as a friend, even for just a short time."

"I feel the same way about him, don't mention it. He was lucky to have someone like you back home, waiting for him." Edward stopped, and then smiled down at the shorter girl. "Good luck Usagi."

xXx

Usagi begged their stewardess to store her cream pie somewhere cold during their 16 hour flight and the woman reluctantly gave in, falling victim to Usagi's cheerful charm. As the plane took off, the silver haired girl stared out of the oval window, watching Boston Harbor grow smaller and smaller. She smiled a bit to herself, thinking, I'm going home.

After a while, she turned to her brother, who hadn't said more than a few words since that morning. Knowing how she had reacted to the news herself, she couldn't fault him for it, but she was growing concerned at his persistent silence. She decided to broach a subject she'd been meaning to ask about, hoping to distract him.

"Oniisan?" When he turned to her, she squirmed a bit in her chair, unsure how he was going to react. "Are you going to tell her how you feel? I mean, I don't know who she is or anything, but..." Usagi tried to ignore the shocked look Yuki was giving her, "It has nothing to do with the curse or anything. I just think if you care about someone, no matter what kind of feeling it is, you have to tell them. Don't make the mistake I did. You all graduated this year; you'll be going to university in the fall. I don't want to see you have regrets."

A silence settled over them again, and Usagi got the feeling that Yuki wasn't going to respond, though she knew he had heard her out at least. They sat together, counting down the moments until they were home.

"You know something," Usagi smiled, unable to stay quiet for such a long stretch of time, though Yuki looked grateful for a distraction from his muddled thoughts. "I never thought the curse was turning into an animal. It was more a feeling that we could never love someone normally. Love was a dream we couldn't have. That's why I wanted to end it so badly when I came back. It was never about Akito, though I always felt sorry for her. I just wanted all of you to have what I had gotten a taste of."

"Alright, I'll call her." Usagi looked startled for a moment, and then she started laughing. Yuki realized he hadn't heard her really laugh in a while. He smiled.

"Okay, you got me. But I'm glad." She turned toward the window, still smiling, leaving him to the quiet of his thoughts. After a while, she dozed off, her head falling to his shoulder. It didn't take Yuki long to follow suit.

xXx

"Hatsuharu Sohma?" The white head popped up suddenly, a set of chocolate brown eyes looking on her quite unexpectedly, speculative and guarded. The young woman smiled to herself as she looked him over, curled into the plastic chair of the airport terminal with his clothing ruffled, a telltale sign of how long he'd been waiting, or perhaps how much care he'd taken in getting ready before he'd rushed here. She held out her arm in the space between them, offering the hot coffee in her hand as a gesture of good will. He eyed it for a moment before finally accepting.

She dropped into the chair beside him, and sipped at her own beverage while she debated on where she wanted to begin. Her gaze travelled a few chairs down where another of the Sohma clan, Momiji, was situated, fast asleep. Beside him was someone she recognized well, Hotaru Tomoe, though the age difference threw her off a bit, also asleep. They were supporting each other as they slept looking peaceful and, in her opinion, quite cute together. A smirk twisted her lips when she imagined the look of rage on Haruka's face if she were to witness the scene.

"Who are you?" Turning back, she felt a little sheepish for getting so lost in her thoughts. Showing such a weakness was not in her nature, however, and she devoted her full attention to Hatsuharu once more. Both of his gloved hands were wrapped around the Styrofoam cup she'd given him, but his eyes were studying her, still questioning.

"My name is Rei Hino. I'm a friend of Usagi's." A place to begin, she guessed. He seemed unaffected by this announcement, just continued studying her, apathetic by all measures. "If it's alright with you, I'd like to talk for a bit." She hesitated, another thing she rarely did. "I want to tell you a story."

"Sure," Hatsuharu barely paused before he gave the shrugging answer, but he observed the girl beside him a bit closer. Her long raven colored hair was pulled into a loose ponytail, with fringed bangs that reached toward her dark violet eyes. She sat straight in her chair, poised, and some fierceness or confidence in her demeanor reminded him painfully of Rin.

"It's been almost a year ago, now. The day when Usagi came to the shrine to talk to me, confused and somewhat frightened. Before then I had no idea about her past, about the fact that she couldn't remember her early childhood. When Yuki Sohma appeared that day, I saw that life come back to Usagi, and I felt something in that moment that I'll never forget." Rei's fingers tightened around her coffee as her composure wavered for just a moment.

The day at Hikawa shrine replayed in her memory again: her subdued best friend, the startled face of Yuki, and Usagi's face when she looked at him, full of sadness and hope, a world of memories playing behind her blue eyes. The confusion of five minutes prior had vanished. Usagi had begun to transform into someone new in that very moment, though Rei had not realized it at the time.

"It was loss. A part of my best friend had been restored; a part none of us knew was missing the whole time we'd known each other. I'm not sure if even Usagi realized just how big that absent piece of her heart was. I can't say she became a different person, because that isn't true." Rei stopped again, trying to articulate her words. She felt like she was rambling incoherently. "I guess what I mean is, I could feel the distance between us start to widen then, and it has been expanding ever since. I don't know if Usagi has told you certain things about her time with us-"

"About being Sailor Moon?" Hatsuharu fought the urge to smirk as Rei froze in her seat, her mouth dropping open in shock. Her head whipped around to make sure no one was listening to them, but the terminal was practically empty. It was the small hours of the morning after all. "She never told me, but I figured it out. I saw her at the school, on the roof, as Sailor Moon. I knew it was her. Besides, everything else made more sense once I realized it: why she had to leave the family, why she and Yuki had their memories erased by someone besides Hatori, and why she looked so different."

"I see," Rei tried to decide whether she was annoyed or amused, but shrugged it off. "Well, the point I was making is that we all had a very set future. Certain circumstances had revealed exactly how our lives were supposed to play out. When Mamoru Chiba died, however, that future was lost."

Rei smiled, a little ruefully, "The future is never set in stone, that's what they say. I cannot imagine the state Usagi must have been in, losing not only the person she loved, but the certainty of the life she had expected." A silence settled over them. Down the row of seats, Hotaru stirred for a moment, shifting into a more comfortable position before slipping off to sleep again.

"My point in all of this is that the Usagi that will be stepping off of that plane today is not the same one that I knew so well." Hatsuharu glanced up as he realized that people were starting to emerge from the gate. Their plane had indeed arrived, but he gave his attentions to Rei for the moment, sensing she wasn't finished. "Our paths that were intertwined unraveled at some point. We've slowly starting moving in our own directions, still together, but also separate from each other."

Hatsuharu couldn't stop himself from searching the crowd for a familiar crown of silver hair, though he was still listening to the raven haired girl speak. "Her destiny, her path is with you now." He turned his brown eyes back to her, and she was smiling, though she looked a bit sad. Fishing in her bag for a moment, she produced a small wrapped package and held it out to him.

"This is for her. Tell her to call me or I'll kill her." Hatsuharu accepted the package, and nodded. Rei smiled at him as she stood, and looked him over one more time with those intense violet eyes. "Take care of her."

The young woman turned, walking away without another word. The white haired teenager sat there for a moment, contemplating her words as he looked over the package in his hand, and the coffee in the other. When he finally remembered to look up, he spotted Yuki and Usagi walking side by side. The former was loaded down with bags that Usagi had no doubt swindled him into carrying. She was holding only her suitcase and a few of the lighter parcels.

As though she could feel his gaze, she turned her head and locked eyes with him, just as Hatsuharu rose to his feet, putting his coffee and the box aside. She stopped in her tracks, a flicker of emotions through her expression, and an unspoken question. He already knew. He'd expected it, and when he nodded to her, she dropped everything in her hands and ran toward him.

Hatsuharu caught her in his arms, buried his face in her hair while she held on for all that she was worth. "I missed you." She mumbled into his shirt. She held on for a few moments longer before she pulled back, her expression somewhat somber now. "How many are left? Yuki is still cursed."

"Not entirely sure." He looked down at her, suddenly remembering Rei's words. "Most of us are free of it now, though."

"Any idea what caused it?"

"Tohru and Kyou," was Hatsuharu's short response before Momiji's shout of joy cut through them and Usagi's fellow rabbit enveloped her in a hug, followed on the other side by Hotaru.

"Usagi! You snuck off to America without telling me!" The blonde boy whined. Usagi smiled despite herself. Hatsuharu left them to join Yuki, helping him with the load of bags. "You and Yuki probably saw all kinds of cool stuff without us."

"Are you getting taller?" The question seemed to come out of nowhere, but Usagi was looking at Momiji with wide eyes after he pulled away from her. They used to be near the same height, but Usagi hadn't seen him since sometime before they took their finals for the year and he seemed to have surpassed her by a few inches at the least. Momiji just grinned and nodded. "How is everyone? Has it been chaos?"

Momiji sobered at the question. "It's been an interesting couple of days, to say the least, but I believe everyone has gotten over the initial shock. Akito took it quite well, which I think helped the rest of the family accept the changes quicker than they might have. Kureno left, though. I think with one of Tohru's friends, Arisa."

Usagi raised her eyebrows at this unexpected bit of news. Still, she wondered how Akito had taken the loss of Kureno. He had been a closest companion of the dark haired girl for many years, and the silver haired girl knew she was in a perpetual state of guilt and contrition toward the members of the zodiac, and hoped that the rooster's sudden departure hadn't injured Akito further.

"I think Hatori may have someone as well," Momiji added as an afterthought. Another smile spread over her face as she thought of the stoic doctor, and remembered his somewhat altered demeanor the last time she saw him. Perhaps she was correct when she detected something off; it was love all along. The thought pleased her.

"I'm glad. It seems like everyone is getting the chance I wished they could have." She paused, then grinned devilishly at them, "And what about you two? I saw you looking all cozy a few minutes ago. Have you been hanging out the whole time I was gone?" Usagi laughed delightedly as the both of them turned bright red and attempted to deny her accusations at the same time, only cutting each other off and becoming more flustered. Hatsuharu and Yuki rejoined the group, looking over the two with interest.

"What did you do to them?" Yuki asked, making Usagi burst into a fresh fit of giggles and unable to answer. He shook his head at his sibling and nodded his head toward the exit. "Let's go home."

xXx

When the group arrived back at Shigure's, everyone in the house was just waking up. Tohru put on some coffee and tea for everyone and offered to make breakfast. Kyou arrived in the kitchen in time to offer his help. Though they appeared normal, if not a bit more awkward around each other than usual, Usagi could see that their relationship had shifted. It was a look that lingered, or a tone of voice, or a slight brush against each other, and it brought a smile to her face.

"I forgot to give this to you." Her attention was pulled back to Hatsuharu as he slid a small wrapped package across the table to her. "Rei said to call her or she'll kill you."

"It's from Rei-chan?" Usagi glanced at him in surprise, studying the box with interest. She wondered when Rei had met with Hatsuharu, and why, but at the moment her curiosity was too great. Her fingers worked under the tape and quickly through the wrapping paper to the small, unmarked box it encased. When she opened it, her blue eyes took in the pink cell phone disbelievingly, a small rabbit charm dangling from one side.

"Now the call thing makes more sense," Hatsuharu commented dryly as Usagi turned the phone over in her hands, getting a bit misty eyed. She flipped it open and hit the button to take her into the contacts. Sure enough, Rei's number was already there, programmed in along with all of her friends. When she returned to the home screen, she noticed there was a message already waiting for her, and she opened it.

Don't make a fuss over it. Now you have no excuse not to call, Usagi no baka.

Usagi closed the phone and smiled to herself. Perhaps she had been neglecting her beloved senshi and friends more than she meant to. Before she could get lost in her thoughts, however, breakfast was served. She kept the group entertained with stories about the sights of Boston and the tall American that they'd befriended in the short time they were there. Once the meal was through, everyone had a slice of the Boston cream pie that he'd seen her off with.

"Oh! I almost forgot!" Usagi jumped up from her seat and ran from the room, where they'd left their things because they were too tired to take them upstairs, and returned with an armful of bags. After the dishes had all been cleared, she dumped the bags on the table one by one, creating a messy pile in the center, from which she plucked a t-shirt and a sweatshirt. "I brought back souvenirs! I didn't know what to get everyone so I got a bunch of stuff. Pick out whatever you want!"

She showed off the shirt she'd gotten for herself, white with 'I Boston' written on the front. The sweatshirt was grey and just said 'Boston.' In the pandemonium pile was an eclectic arrangement of hats, shirts, pens, postcards, key chains, magnets, mugs, picture frames, and every other thing you could possibly find in a souvenir shop.

Momiji and Hotaru wasted no time in digging through the goodies to find what they wanted. When Tohru seemed a bit more reluctant, Usagi began shoving things in her direction enthusiastically, until she submitted and chose a cute stuffed teddy bear with its own tiny Boston shirt on. Meanwhile, both Momiji and Hotaru got a kick out of the shirt that was similar to Usagi's, except it had a lobster in place of the heart.

"Why are you kids making such a racket this early in the morning?" Shigure appeared in the kitchen, looking over the scene in amusement. They looked up at him in surprise, stalling their souvenir party for a moment, until Usagi stuck her tongue out at him.

"You sound like a grumpy old man, Gure-chan. Come pick something out. And have some pie before I eat it all!" She turned back to the group and started trying different hats on Kyou, despite his vehemently annoyed protests, and she missed Shigure's smile.

xXx

Ah! I think this story is on a crash course with its ending. I couldn't exactly bring Tohru and Kyou together in the way that the series did since I've changed Akito so much, so I simply leave it to your imaginations. In other words I was too lazy to come up with something new so I took the easy way out. Ha ha, but I am both relieved and sad that this is almost over. I'm glad some of my stories are reaching completion so I can feel okay about starting a new one soon. (;

Please review!