Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon.

Like Shooting Stars

When Michiru is a child, her family home has a room with tall French doors that lead out to the garden with the swimming pool. The pool is salt water, because salt water was supposed to be healthier than chlorine and Michiru's mother cares about these things. Michiru begs to be allowed to go out to the pool from the moment she can walk, but the pool was deep and so she is forbidden.

Michiru spends hours sitting on the inside behind the French doors, listening to her brothers splashing, until one day a housemaid neglects to lock the doors and she breaks free into the open.

The sun blinds her at first, forcing her to cover her eyes as she ventures further, but then a gust of wind blows across the garden, tossing Michiru's hair and taking her red ribbon with it.

Gasping, Michiru gives chase, barely registering that the tiles beneath her feet are damp and she is getting closer to the edge of the pool. Reaching out for her ribbon, Michiru's breath catches in her throat as suddenly her legs fly out from beneath her, pitching her forward off the tiles towards the green-blue water.

There is a slap as she hits the surface and she sinks like an anchor to the bottom of the pool.

Silence.

Not a single sound, not from the water rippling around her body or the air that escapes her mouth in bubbles. Her eyes can't make out the pool walls or the pale tiles on the floor, just a never-ending expanse of blue stretching on to the end of the world.

Pain is bursting in her chest and she clenches her eyes shut against the rush, images flashing of a city in ruins, waves as tall as a house, people freezing in mid-flight, a girl with streaming blonde hair standing next to a tall woman holding something red and glowing in her hand, the light grows brighter, brighter…

"Not yet, Neptune, not yet."

She feels arms wrap around her and gently carry her tiny body upwards until she can breathe again.

A loud screech cuts the air, and Michiru is pulled from the water by one of her brothers, spluttering and soaked. He slaps her cheek lightly until he is pushed out of the way by her mother, who cries hysterically while she wraps Michiru in a towel, alternately thanking the gods for sparing her daughter's life and shouting to anyone within hearing range that Michiru should never have been allowed outside without her.

Michiru coughs as her mother tries to dry her face. She blinks water out of her eyes and croaks, "Mama, there was a voice in the pool…"

Her mother carries her back to the house but Michiru keeps watching over her shoulder at the glistening ripples on the surface of the pool. There's a tickling at her ear, and she grabs at it only to find that her ribbon has somehow been blown back into her hand.

Two months later they move into a house that has no swimming pool.

When she is due to start high school her parents choose to send her to boarding school in Tokyo, because that was what wealthy parents are expected to do with their daughters, especially one as gifted as Michiru has proved to be. At fifteen she writes to tell them of her transfer to the prestigious Mugen Academy.

Her parents are proud. They don't know her very well, and she's gotten very good at lying.

The first thing she does when searching for an apartment with Haruka is narrow the search to buildings with swimming pools. When they find one and move in she swims every day, and dives down to the very bottom.

Hauling herself up on the pool ladder, Michiru's wet footsteps seem unnaturally loud in the empty hall. She towel-dries her hair and makes herself comfortable on the white plastic deck chair, her head still pounding despite the soothing relaxation of her morning swim. She gets headaches all the time now.

Sometimes she wonders just who the hell this Queen Serenity thought she was, granting them their duty like a blessing when it really was a curse. How at sixteen she already feels like she has lived and died a thousand times.

When she dreams her voice echoes in aquamarine halls, icy cold and alone.

"A penny for your thoughts."

Michiru jumps at the sudden voice, and turns to see Haruka standing behind her chair. Of course. Haruka is the undisputed champion of surprising people.

"I was remembering the time I almost drowned," Michiru replies.

Haruka crouches down so they're at face level. "Seems a little odd to want to think of that after going for a swim." Michiru just shrugs, and Haruka steps around the chair to face her. "There's so much going on in that head of yours, and I can't make it out." Haruka's head cocks to one side, cheeky, sandy hair falling into her eyes. She's barefoot and the bottoms of her pants are getting wet but she doesn't seem to notice. "What made you think of it?"

"I was thinking about destiny."

Haruka raises an eyebrow. "As in the general concept?"

Michiru laughs bitterly. "No."

"Ah. You mean the destiny that's our high-risk job with terrible uniforms and non-existent pay? Even Buffy got to fight in jeans." Haruka wrinkles her nose, and Michiru laughs.

"I've been thinking about it too," Haruka continues, resting her hands against the deckchair's armrest. "I've been wondering… What happens when we get older? Do we retire?"

"Is retiring even an option?"

Haruka frowns comically, seeming to ponder the idea. "Well, something should happen. I'm not going to be a teenager forever and I intend to age gracefully, thank you very much. Come to think of it, do we even age?"

Michiru leans over to kiss her, and Haruka's lips are chapped. "I think it depends on how human we are," Michiru whispers.

"What?"

The loudest thing in hall is the water dripping from Michiru's bathing suit to splash upon the floor. "Humans don't conjure water in their fingertips, Haruka."

Haruka smiles at that. She squeezes Michiru's hand and Michiru's heart squeezes with it. She remembers asking Setsuna once if Neptune had loved Uranus in her other life, and Setsuna had whispered one of her typical not-answers. Michiru shakes her head to clear it, reasoning that it wouldn't make sense for two soldiers to be fated to fall in love, she must love Haruka in spite of her destiny, and yet…

And yet, here she is, a reincarnation of an ancient warrior, a living carbon copy. Michiru wonders, not for the first time, if her hair is blue because it's the same colour as her mother's or because Sailor Neptune had blue hair then, or if she plays the violin due to her love of music or because her past incarnation did. Her life has never truly belonged to her.

There's a long, uncomfortable pause before either of them is willing to speak again. Haruka is the one to break it, pulling Michiru into her arms so that Michiru's head rests against the hollow of her throat. "I don't think we're very human at all."

They stay entwined for a while, until Michiru gently slides off her chair and takes Haruka's hands while they stand. The sun is nearly up, and they have work to do.

Michiru has never hated Sailor Neptune more.