Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor moon or Gundam wing.
An: It's just a small one shot to get my writer's flow going again. It's written in a very disjointed fashion (its a lot like my mindset) but I hope readers can follow along.
Warning: Grammar and maybe some spelling issues. English is not my first language, but I'm improving...I think.
Summary: Usagi always passed by the John Doe in room 106 on her way to see Mamoru.
The Eternal Light
Usagi had always passed by the John Doe in room 106 on her way to see Mamo-chan.
There wasn't anything special about him. Not really. He had short, brown lackluster hair and pale skin, a thin body and a handsome, but stern looking face. He honestly looked like all the other coma patients in the wing. Usagi had noticed him automatically because, unlike all the others whose bedside was overflowing with cards, photos, and other well-wishing, the boy had nothing.
"Poor thing," one nurse said when Usagi asked about him. "He was found in the park. The police think he was mugged."
He had been unconscious when he was brought in. He had a terrible blow to the head and he never woke up. He had no identification. There were no missing person report.
He was just there.
Alone.
Usagi felt sorry for him.
The first time she visited him, she brought a vase full of cheery yellow flowers to brighten up his room. She only paused long enough to set it on his nightstand before she left for lunch with Mamo-chan.
The second time she stay a little longer, greeting him with a bouncy hello. This time she brought a box of chocolate. She sweatdropped when she realized that she had eaten half the box.
There wasn't suppose to be a third time or a fourth time or a fifth, but somehow she found herself sitting by his bedside sharing the day's news and gossip.
John Doe had become her confidant.
"And Mamoru doesn't care that you're spending all your time with some guy?" Minako asked doubtfully. Usagi's blond friend had stared across the café table at her with disbelieving eyes. The waiter had made his appearance then, giving them their drink. Minako offered him a flirty smile before turning her attention back to Usagi.
"No," Usagi blinked owlishly. "Why would he?"
"Why? Because you're spending all your time with another man?" Minako quipped. "He knows doesn't he?"
"Of course he does," Usagi sniffed. "He says I'm a really good person for visiting a total stranger and offering him my company."
'I'm proud of you,' Mamoru had said. He had smiled at Usagi with his warm, gentle smile. His hand had reached out to stroke her hair. 'It reminds me of the little blond girl who use to visit me when I was in the hospital.'
Usagi smiled as Minako shook her head.
The ninth time she visited, Usagi could have sworn she saw his eyelids flutter. She waited at the edge of her seat in anticipation. He never move again. In the end, she left disappointed.
There were things that happened then that kept her away for the longest time.
There was school exams, Wise-man's sinister plotting, and Diamond's obsession with her. Once the city had even been on lock down because of the threat of a colony attack and Usagi hadn't been able to visit John until the ban on traveling was lifted.
By the time she managed to find the time, she was pale and shaking. She had lost a great amount of weight. Her legs seemed to creak as she slumped into the chair by his bedside. She was weary and emotionally out of sorts.
She felt inadequate and scared, and somehow she found herself by his side. She felt slightly better as she unload her problems to the prone figure. Only Kami-sama knows if any of her words got through, but it was enough to know that there was someone there she could speak to, someone who couldn't betray and spill her secrets.
"I'm terrified," she confessed. Her hand reached out and took his limp one, seeking comfort. "I don't know what to tell Mamo-chan. Chibi-Usa isn't suppose to be this early."
Usagi paled even more and touched her stomach with the other hand.
"I have to drop out of school, I think..."
She started to weep and she didn't know how to stop. Things were spending out of her control and she had never felt so lost and unsure.
She fell asleep at his side.
Rei had been the one to find her. The raven hair senshi said nothing for once. She just helped Usagi up and took her home with a compassionate look.
Her mother and father had been hard to face when she told them the news. Rei's firm hand in hers helped more than Usagi could ever hope to express. Usagi had felt more bless when her parents took the news in stride. It might have helped that Mamoru had proposed right on the spot when Usagi told him they were expecting.
The sparkling diamond ring on her finger felt right.
Her mother had fluttered, "A wedding and a baby shower!"
And so the months went.
Usagi was in her sixth month when she remembered the sleeping boy waiting for her at the hospital. She waddled her way to his room, only to find it empty.
Her heart ached.
"The young man in 106?" the nurse at the desk furred her brow and tried to remember. "I believe he woke up and left."
He left no name and no forwarding address, but the money covering for his stay came to the hospital a few days after he had gone.
Usagi sadly smile.
She thought of him often, wondering who he really was and what he was doing. He came to her in her dark days when she had been captured by Wise man and put into a dank dungeon. He came in between the thoughts of Mamoru, her family, and the senshi.
Diamond stood outside her barred cell. His eyes were concern as they hovered over her figure, still in her wedding dress.
Usagi looked up from her place on the floor. Her white gown billowed around her and her veil was beside her. She asked him to let her go.
"I can't," he finally said. She could see the struggle on his face. He turned away so that he wouldn't be able to see the look of heartbreak on her face. "I can't let you go."
He left.
The next few days blurred.
"Ouch..." Usagi rubbed her stomach and tried to massage the pain away. She heard some sort of commotion nearby and feverishly prayed that it was Mamo-chan or the senshi. "Owie."
Her stomach was begging to ache terribly. Something wet trickled between her legs.
"Oh my god."
Her horror grew when she lifted her dress and saw the water.
"Mamo-chan..." she whimpered. She laid on her back on the cold ground, weeping. Oh Kami-sama! Was she destined to give birth here, alone and frighten?
She moaned as another cramp came. She called out for the guard and for Diamond. For anyone. Even Wise-man would have been a welcomed visitor.
No one came.
Usagi's entire body ached. Her eyes squeezed shut and she could feel the tears as they trailed down her cheek.
The commotion was getting closer and there was an awful thunder-like clap that vibrated in the air.
She heard her cell being opened, but never opened her eyes until a warm hand took hers.
Her glazed locked onto Prussian blue eyes.
"Breathe," he said quietly. The hand that wasn't holding hers, held a gun. His eyes narrowed as he kept an eye on her open cell. He warily noted her condition. "We don't have time to leave."
"Nope," Usagi managed to grin wanly through the pain.
Chibi-Usa was coming and she was coming now.
John never released her hand, even when he scooted down and lifted her dress. His face was blank. "Another few minutes. Then push."
Usagi grunted. John never changed expression even when her hand painfully squeezed his.
"Mamo-chan," Usagi sobbed.
"I'll take you to him," John said. "I promise."
He looked so serious, so stern, and so resolved that Usagi believed him.
"I'm Heero," he didn't look at her in the face.
"Yes, you're a hero," Usagi smile warmly.
"No. That's my name. Heero," he said with a slight annoyance.
"Oh," Usagi almost giggle. "I'm Usagi."
"I know."
Usagi wanted to ask him how he knew. As a matter of fact, she even wondered how he found her, but her stomach rippled right then and there and she groaned.
Heero looked at her.
"Push."
The child was beautiful.
Just like her passed out mother.
Heero gently wrapped the crying infant in his jacket aware that time was short. He hoisted the mother into his arms and he carried them both out of the dungeon as another explosion rocked the ground. He saw Duo come skirting around the corner.
"Dude, there's like monsters everywhere!"
Duo yelped when Heero dumped the girl into his arms.
"I'll take the baby," he said stoically.
"Sure, take the lighter load," Duo grumbled. He got a better grip on he unconscious blond girl. He raised his gun and shot at a creature that spotted them. He didn't stick around to see if the creature was following them. He turned and ran after Heero.
"Status?" Heero ordered.
"You want one now?" Duo looked with disbelief. He quail under the glare.
"Alright," Duo tried to think. "Trowa and Quatre are keeping the monsters distracted and Wufei is still searching for that thing you said to look for."
Heero reached up and touched the comm by his ear. "Wufei?"
Wufei's voice came out small and thin through the mic. "I'm still looking."
"What's the hold up?" Duo groused. "We've got fucking monsters on our tails!"
"This place is a maze! You try finding that god damned talisman!" Wufei cursed came out loud and clear. "I'll contact you if anything changes."
Wufei cut off the connection.
"I still don't get how we ended up here," Duo complained. "You leave for a year and then out of the blue called us for help. Now, we're in some sort of weird dimension trying to rescue some girl and her baby." The girl almost slipped from his grip and he had to stop to readjust his hold. "Why are we looking for some talisman anyway?"
"That talisman is keeping them out," Heero said curtly.
"Who? Keeping who out?" Duo grew frustrated. "Dude, don't you think you owe me some explanation? Seeing as how I'm risking life and limb here!"
"The talisman is keeping the senshi out," Heero replied.
"Senshi? As in the Sailor Senshi?" Duo almost rolled his eyes. "You do know that it's just a video game, right? There's no such things as Sailor Senshi."
"I got it!" Wufei said triumphantly through the communicator.
"Destroy it," Heero ordered.
"Done."
A moment later, a white brilliant light blinded them. When he opened his eyes, Duo was treated to a sight of two girls in different colored shorts skirts. Behind them was a masked man in a tuxedo.
The masked man was the one who took the girl from his arms.
"Thank you." The man bowed. "I'm in your debt."
One of the girls took the baby.
The raven haired girl, obviously the one in charged, ordered the girl in blue to get away with the child. She ordered the man to escape with the unconscious blond.
Right before his eyes, they vanished.
Heero didn't seem surprise.
Come to think of it, Duo wasn't surprised either. After having the pilots show up on his doorstep and Heero curtly telling him that they were going through a magic vertex, he wasn't too sure he could even be surprise by anything anymore.
The girl with the raven hair grabbed a wand.
The next thing he knew, a familiar vortex appeared.
"It's time you go home. Your other friends have already gone through," she said. "We'll take care of it from here."
Duo grabbed Heero nervously by the shoulder and ushered him through.
The last image he had was of the palace crumbling under the force of the remaining girl's attack.
Duo sat Heero down at his kitchen table. After calling to make sure that everyone was safe, Duo had grabbed his friend and wearily said, "Let's talk."
He thought his homey kitchen was the perfect place to have that all important conversation.
"So?" he sat a cup of coffee in the front of Heero and slumped into a chair.
"I was in the hospital."
Well, that was news.
"For what?" Duo asked.
"I was in a coma."
Duo almost fell out of his chair. "WHAT?" He breathed deeply and tried to calm his heart.
"One year. Ex-white fang soldiers." Heero sounded so nonchalant about it that Duo could only gap in disbelief. There was just some people who still can't get over the war. The ex-soldiers must have spotted Heero and decided to take revenge. They probably left him after the beating thinking he was dead. It was a miracle Heero was sitting with Duo now.
Guilt set in.
He hadn't contact Heero in that year. He simply thought that after Heero's retirement from being Relena's personal guard, that the Wing Zero pilot wanted some peace and quiet. If he had picked up the phone or tried to email him, or even tried to visit his house...
"Idiot."
Heero read his face. The almost kind insult was Heero's way of telling Duo that he didn't blame him.
"Ok, you were in a coma..." It still boggled his mind. "Then what?"
"She visited me."
"The pregnant chick?" Duo confirmed. The years of partnering with Heero allowed him to translate the grunts. "Was she a nurse?"
A firm 'no' grunt.
"A patient?"
'No.'
"A visitor?"
'Yes.'
"So a random stranger just decided to visit you?"
'What a weird chick,' Duo thought inwardly. He noticed Heero's face turned a slight shade of red.
"You know," Duo hid a grin. "They say those in comas can still hear what's going on around them." Duo leaned back in his chair. "So I take it, she felt sorry for you."
'With no identification and no one to claim him, it must have gotten bleak,' Duo thought. The girl must have been one of those bleeding hearts who couldn't stand to see someone hurt and alone. "She visited and talked to you."
A grunted 'yes.'
'You like her,' he mentally added. He kept it to himself. He got the feeling that if he said it out loud, he would be looking at the barrel of a loaded gun. Years of friendship or not, Heero still had an itchy trigger finger.
"So you woke up. Did you talk to her?"
Knowing Heero, he probably high-tailed it out of there without a word. Heero's blank look confirmed it.
Heero reached into his pocket and withdrew several folded papers.
Duo grabbed it and read.
"You did a background check on her?" he gaped.
Everything about the girl was noted. From her family and friends to her favorite animal (bunnies) and her favorite color (pink). To top it off, there was the fact that she was actually a superhero named Sailor Moon.
If he hadn't seen the magic with his own eyes, he wouldn't have believed it. Who knew that the video game was actually real? There were real genuine super heroes out there battling monsters and saving the day.
Superheros, at least the comic book ones, were careful about guarding their identity. Heero must have been watching her closely to be able to find out that big secret.
"You stalked her, didn't you?"
Heero glared.
"Ok, you followed her," he mended. He stared at Heero intently. "Dude, why didn't you just go up and talk to her like a normal person?"
"Her lover works in the hospital. He's a doctor," Heero said.
'Ouch.' Duo flinched. There were still questions swirling in his head, but the most important one that would answer everything was, "How the hell did you get involve?"
Heero in his own unique, brisk, curt way told him everything in a few succinct sentences and Duo slowly began to piece the puzzle together.
Heero was there at the wedding, hidden up in the church rafters. He watched everything dispassionately from the moment the guests arrived to the moment the wedding was interrupted. A faint white mist wafted up from the floor and the crowd fell to their knees weak and gasping.
Heero drew out his gun.
Before he could even get out one shot, the white hair man who appeared, disappeared holding the bride in his arms. Panic erupts and Heero follows above as the groom and the bridesmaids went to a private corner to talk. He listens as they tried to contact her through a communicator. They were quick to hurry out the door. They ran a distant away to a park and transformed behind several bushes. They tried for hours before they realized that their magic was blocking them from following.
"That thing with the talisman," Duo nodded. He understood. Sort of. "Her buddies couldn't follow and rescue her."
They couldn't follow.
But Heero, a normal human, could.
He revealed himself to the startled and wary senshi, offering to follow the kidnapped girl into the other dimension if they could provide the way.
"I know you," the groom said. He stared at Heero. "Room 106."
Heero never wavered from the groom's studying glaze.
What choice did they have? In the end, the groom held out his hand with a determined glint in his eyes.
Heero asked for a few days.
Duo finished the rest of the story. "You tracked us down, gathered us up, and shoved us through some portal for a rescue mission."
He rubbed his aching head, remembering the deserted alley and the mass of whirling black against the graffiti stone walls that creepily appeared. He also remembered Heero walking through, unconcern, and him following without a second thought, to make sure Heero was alright.
Bastard.
He could have at least explained it along the way. Though, to be fair, if Heero showed up and had told him this story before everything happened, the first word out of Duo's mouth would have been to have Heero committed.
"Now what?" he asked. He stared at Heero. "Are you going to talk to her?"
"No."
That sucks, but it was probably for the better. The girl was getting married, she had a baby, and apparently she fights monsters in her spare time. A chick like that sounded like trouble.
Duo placed a comforting hand on Heero's shoulder.
There were plenty of other fishes in the sea. Ones that don't come with aliens and magic. He offered Heero the guest room and watched his friend trudge tiredly to bed.
Heero left Duo's apartment around three a.m.
He found himself in the hospital, standing right outside the nursery.
It was easy to tell her apart from the other infants. She was the only one with that shade of light pink hair. It sprung from her tiny head in little tuffs of curls. He watched as she yawned. Her eyes opened sleepily and a pair of red eyes blinked at him. She seem to recognize him from the happy gurgle.
Heero placed his hand against the glass.
There was no one around to see the slight smile on his face.
He left her to go find her mother. When he located the room, he quietly crept in and looked down at her sleeping figure.
"It's kind of funny, isn't it?" she wasn't completely asleep. Her eyes opened and she smiled at Heero. "Now I'm in the hospital bed and you're visiting me."
Heero said nothing.
That was alright. She did the talking for the both of them. Her voice washed over him and he silently nodded at points to assure her that he was listening.
What was it about her?
Her presence soothed him and calmed all his turmoil thoughts and anger. He had felt it the very moment she spoke to him while he slept, trapped in the darkness and confusion. Her voice was like an invisible beckon. It was what drew him along that dark tunnel so that he could wake again in the real world. When she reached out and gently ruffled his hair, Heero wondered if this is what a mother's touch felt like, full of warmth and comfort.
In the dim light her hair shone and her blue eyes sparkled. It matched the wedding band on her fourth finger.
She had gotten married in the hospital.
"Thank you," she said. He watched as she silently slipped off her engagement ring and placed it in his hand. Heero isn't sure about what it meant, but he slips the ring into his pocket. It was worth it to see the pleased look on her face.
When he left the room, he passed by a tired looking Mamoru Chiba who gave him a firm nod.
Duo was waiting when he came back. He had an extra beer and a knowing look.
"You ok, man?" he asked.
Heero took the can. "I'll be fine." They drank on the balcony together without saying much. Pretty soon, Duo fell asleep with his head on Heero's shoulder, snoring.
Heero pulled out the ring and stared into it thoughtfully. He held it up to the light and watched as the diamond sparkled. If he looked carefully enough, he could see past the shine and see the moon. Beyond that, he could see the north star.
The eternal light that guide lost souls...so that's what she reminded him of.
She was like the North Star.
Above them, the real north star twinkled.