Hello, hello, and welcome to yet another new story! *murmurs of half-hearted approval* I know, I know, another story, you say? But I promise to be more vigilant in my updating, mainly because I have a lot to draw from, being that I'm living the college experience right now.

As noted in the summary, this is set in an alternate universe and takes place in the U.S. because I don't know much (read:a single thing) about Japanese universities. And the rating is really only to be safe and some language (and a lot of alcohol consumption). So for you smut-lovers, I apologize in advance.

The title comes from that term "Alma Mater," which translates to "Nourishing Mother."

Shitennou Names:

Kunzite - Ken (senior)
Nephrite - Nevan (junior)
Jadeite - Jed (sophomore)
Zoisite - Zane (sophomore)

And all the girls are sophomores. :)

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Sailor Moon or McDonald's. Or California. I'm the one who wrote it, but I'm still shaking my head: what a combination.

If you love the Senshi and Shitennou and think you might love college, this is the story for you. Enjoy!

The Sigma Mu fraternity house was built in 1955, atop a grassy knoll of a hill. Despite its past occupants' attempts to demolish it via bonfires, a rogue wrecking ball, and a brass statue of the university's founder, there it still stood, near the center of Crown University. To hopeful students and present ones alike, the building appeared proud and regal, a vision of whitewashed Grecian columns and a burnt red, brick facade. But ironically, that's just what that dignity was—a facade.

The first morning of the Spring semester saw California sunshine pouring in through the house's arched kitchen windows and two brothers bent over the refrigerator. Their faces bespoke plain discouragement.

The dark-haired one shook his head first. "Un-be-lievable." He stuck a hand tentatively in and pulled out a beer can. Then another. Then another. Then another.

"Do we really have nothing but beer?" Darien asked rhetorically.

"So it would seem," replied Ken. Like his companion, the young man looked to be twenty-two, but his hair was a pale blonde, so pale it appeared silver. He passed a hand through it, sharp green eyes alight with frustration. His broad shoulders sagged for a moment before he sat at the kitchen table, accepting defeat. "Guess we'll have to settle for coffee and beer today."

Darien, though, would not give up so easily. A ray of hope still gleamed. "Hey, hold on, I think I see something else," he said in excitement. He eagerly reached into the fridge again, only to pull out...a sock.

"Oh, EW!" The grey and white object dropped to the tiled floor.

"Looks like Jed's," Ken said dispassionately.

"That is disgusting!" Darien exclaimed. He grimaced as he kicked the sock away like it was contaminated. Which it may well have been.

There was the creak of hardwood from the foyer: the sound of someone descending the winding staircase. Both brothers raised their heads when Nevan entered the kitchen's door-less entrance.

" 'M hungry," he mumbled, still clad in black boxers and a white undershirt. He yawned, stretched a pair of strong, tanned arms and made a bee-line for the fridge.

"Don't bother. There's nothing but beer."

"Lame." A beat. "Is that Jed's sock?"

The group then began to talk seriously of going to either the cafeteria or the campus McDonald's (though they were both five whole minutes away) only to cut their chatter short when an unearthly wail reached their ears. Nevan looked up from scratching his chest in time to see a blonde blur whiz past the open kitchen doorway.

"I'M SOOO LATE!" it shrieked. Before he had all but catapulted out the door, though, the young frat boy backtracked into the kitchen.

"Have you guys ever heard of class?" Zane demanded. Hyped-up as he clearly already was, Zane still felt the his morning coffee merited a little more delay. He almost dropped the whole potful on Ken's head in his haste.

"I scheduled it so I don't have class Mondays," Nevan informed Zane with a grin, leaning back in his chair with hands folded behind his head. "It's gonna be a suh-weet semester." Darien and Ken hid their own smiles as they told Zane they didn't have class till noon.

"You guys suck! And what about Jed; isn't he still sleeping?"

"Yup." For some reason, Nevan's eyebrow twitched with what appeared to be annoyance.

"He doesn't have class either, I suppose?" muttered Zane, a little rancorously.

"No, he does," Nevan said of his roommate. "The idiot's alarm has been going off all morning 'cause he keeps hitting snooze."

"Figures," the other said with a shake of his head. He then gulped down the rest of his coffee, yelped because of the burning heat, and promptly ran out the doorway. The front door slammed in his wake.

The kitchen lay silent for a few seconds, until Darien chose to break it. "Does he know he's still wearing his pajama pants?"

"He will soon enough," Nevan assured him with a wide grin. "Five bucks says he throws a hissy fit when he gets back about how some hot chemistry girl rejected him because of it."

"Hot chemistry girl?" Ken echoed.

Nevan shrugged. "Zane DOES like a good dose of academia in his sex." Darien choked on his coffee at that. Ken didn't bat an eye; only patted Darien's back comfortingly. "Don't worry; sometimes I wonder why we hang out with him, too."

The subject of this compliment only grinned and rose from the chair, announcing he was going to shower. "So none of you bastards better try to beat me to the one with hot water; savvy?" Barefooted and more rejuvenated from the coffee, the brown-haired junior climbed back up the stairs. "Mickey D's, then?" he called over his shoulder.

Before Darien and Ken could reply, yet another blonde whirlwind appeared, this time at the top of the staircase. "Oh, are we going to McDonald's? Awesome!"

"Now you decide to wake up," Nevan harrumphed. "And only you would call McDonald's anything but greasy and cheap."

"Which equates to awesome," Jed said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Oh, by the way," his roommate added as he and Jed passed each other on the staircase, "you realize you've missed two classes already, right?"

Jed shrugged, completely unfazed. "Just means it would just be a half-hearted school day if I went to any of the other ones, right?"

"Slacker." Nevan shook his head. He reached the room he and Jed shared just in time to hear the blonde triumphantly shout: "Eureka! That's where my sock went!"

Ultimately, all four of the men were decent and clean enough to leave the house and make their way to scout out their breakfasts. As Jed and Darien argued over the virtues of extra hashbrowns versus extra hot cakes, Nevan spotted a familiar brown ponytail bobbing over the heads of a crowd of sleepy college students.

"Lita!" he called, then waved, moments before leaving his place in line to greet the tall brunette. He wove through the gathering mob of people eating and chatting until he reached Lita. Unbeknownst to him, the girl had actually spotted Nevan first. As she'd waited for him to turn so she could catch his eye, the athletic sophomore had been regarding his muscular back and brown hair out of wistful green eyes. When he'd reached her, instead of asking the ubiquitous, impersonal "How was your break?" Nevan just pulled Lita into a hug. The thing was, the two had texted and Skyped all winter so that Nevan knew exactly how Lita's break had been; in fact he already knew more about how she'd spent it than even some of her girl friends did.

In his embracing her, Nevan didn't see the way Lita's eyes fell closed, didn't realize that her slow, calming breath was to keep herself from nuzzling the brown curls grazing her cheek. "It's great to see you, Leets."

Clearing her throat and trying to grab at some coherent thoughts, Lita offhandedly said: "Even though you just saw me last weekend on Skype." In spite of herself, she allowed a smile to spread across her face as she spoke.

Lita had first met Nevan her freshman year, when an overeager Mina dragged her to the Sigma Mu house for a cookout. He was a sophomore then, an astronomy-physics double major known affectionately as "Wild Man" within Sig-Mu. As she remembered it, Nevan had practically swaggered over to her, but before he had a chance to get his flirt on with this lean, tan, attractive girl, the topic of sports had come up.

"Are you going to the basketball game tonight? The women's team here isn't that bad, actually," Nevan had allowed, fair-minded.

"No, I wouldn't say they are," Lita had replied, a twinkle coming into her eye. Minutes later she found herself head to head with this cocky frat boy in a pick-up game (with Jed forced to hold up a bucket up for their hoop). Needless to say, Lita—who happened to be at Crown on a basketball scholarship—won.

Nevan still hadn't learnt his lesson apparently since now he was asking, a year later: "You up for some basketball later?"

"Yeah Lita, are you up for a little one-on-one?" asked an amused voice. Lita turned and shot Mina—who had just arrived to meet her for brunch—an ugly look. In return, she was only met with a pair of wide baby blue eyes that seemed to say Did I say something wrong? Oblivious to all of this, Nevan said a friendly hello to the sorority girl, whose sun-kissed hair and golden tan qualified her to be poster child of California. Mina was a big-city girl from L.A. and the social chair of Sigma Mu's sister sorority, Beta Chi. "How was your winter break, Mina?"

"Super! I had to pay a foot and a nose for it, but I got to visit the big manzana!" Lita didn't appear to meet this news with any surprise. She answered Nevan's baffled expression with a laugh and explanation. "She had to pay a lot for it, but she went to NYC," Lita translated.

By this time, the other Sig-Mu guys had gotten their hands on the three trays of food and were whistling Nevan and the girls over. "Come sit!" Jed urged them. Greetings and questions and laughs were exchanged around the table. "How's Serena doing, Mina?" Darien rushed to ask. Ken was hard put not to roll his eyes at how quickly his serious friend could go into lovestruck puppy mode.

Mina giggled. "Fine, since you brought her home at, let me see-" Mina stopped to tap a manicured finger mock-thoughtfully to her chin "-was it 3 A.M. last night?"

"So that's where you were!" Jed said as Darien turned a suspicious shade of red. "Library, my ass!"

"Oh no—they were definitely visiting the library," Mina said wickedly.

"Spare me," Ken murmured, chomping down on his hashbrown. Mina directed her attention towards him while the others riled Darien about his library exploits.

"How was break, Kenny?"

"It was fine. And don't call me Kenny."

Mina only leered at him through gold lashes. "Aw, I know you like it."

"You know I don't," Ken countered, shaking his head in despair. "But how was your break?"

"Fantastic. I went to New York for part of it; did some shopping, saw Broadway plays, skated at Rockefeller—it was great. How about you?"

"Well, I don't think I skated at Rockefeller," he replied, and she could have sworn he was teasing her.

"Maybe some other kind of exciting? Didja hook up with any girls back home?" she quizzed him. It was common knowledge that Ken was a solid, cold rock when it came to girls and relationships. Maybe that was why Mina, at least when it caught her fancy, tried to flirt with him and pull him out of his icy shell. Of course, the fact that he was gorgeous helped too.

"No, I worked a job; as you could very well have done." Unlike Mina, Ken hadn't come straight from the heart of Beverly Hills, silver spoon in mouth. His single mother had worked to the bone for her two boys, cleaning other people's homes and waitressing. It was only with support, grueling commitment to his schoolwork, and a scholarship that Ken had been able to attend Crown U.

It was perhaps natural, then, that Ken held Mina and her frivolity a little in contempt. Except for those moments when the sorority girl bowled him over with warmth and honesty that defied the socialite stereotype.

"Oh la-di-da," Mina responded. "I'll have you know that I volunteer at the children's hospital four times a week at home and three times a week here. Didn't know that, huh?" Mina poked him playfully in the shoulder. She had never been thrown off by Ken's impassive personality or tacit disapproval; it only ever pressed her to dig deeper, push him harder.

The stolid Ken allowed himself a smile. "No, I didn't. Fit right in there, don't you?" Mina squealed at this, inwardly delighting that Ken's wry humor could come out in a flash.

"You girls coming to our welcome back party on Friday?" Jed asked, interrupting the flow of Ken and Mina's interchange.

"I thought last Saturday's party was the welcome back one," Mina answered in confusion.

"Oh, Mina—and you say I don't know about Greek life," Lita sighed, patting her friend on the shoulder. Patiently, she explained to her blonde friend: "Most of the people were probably too drunk to remember that party. So it'll be like this is their first 'welcome back.' Capisce?"

"Hold on one minute," Nevan cut in. "...we had a welcome back party Saturday? Where was I?"

Darien and Ken exchanged looks. "Welcome back, indeed," Ken muttered, as everyone else laughed.

Reviewing speeds up the updating process, me lovelies! :)