This is a strange little fic I wrote while I was kinda depressed…for some reason, at the moment, I am intrigued by Nephrite and Naru…oh well, it happens. I have no idea what anyone else will think of this short story, but it’s worth a shot.

The characters of Sailor Moon are the creation of Naoko Takeuchi, and the lyrics of ‘San Andreas Fault’ were penned by Natalie Merchant.

This story is about Naru’s confirmation that sometimes, things do work out after all, and that reality isn’t always cruel.

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Night-time. Prevailing darkness. The midnight curtain which covered the sky was as dark as the shadow that hung over her heart.

How melodramatic, thought the girl to herself, sighing heavily as she pulled her curtains closed, shutting out the moon. She knew it was wrong, but the moon filled her with…disappointment? Disappointment in the one person who could have saved the only man she had ever truly loved.

It wasn’t her fault, though. Naru sighed again as she thought this, and another, more ominous, thought suddenly occurred to her.

"It was…that man," she whispered in a tormented voice. "That man…Zoisite? That evil man with those awful green eyes…"

She had been feeling better. She had been accepting it. She had gone with her best friend Usagi to the cemetery. It would have been the time to mourn her loss, to show her respect to the dead.

But that man, the man who had tormented her dreams, had returned. She remembered her first, brief introduction to him. She had been clutching Nephrite, when she looked up at the sound of the new, silky voice, unlike the roughness of the youma. He had a deceptively soft smile on a deceptively innocent face, and he had taken the crystal.

He had killed Nephrite over a stupid crystal.

The stupidity of the whole thing would have made her laugh, if it hadn’t hurt so much. Then, just when things were looking a little more sunny, he had shown up and attacked the padre who had been so pleasant to her, trying to counsel her in her grief.

Sailor Moon had not been too late this time. She supposed she should be grateful for small favours. Even if she couldn’t save Nephrite, at least she had helped that poor man.

And Umino…he was sweet, but it just wasn’t the same. He had saved her life that day, with no regard to his own safety. Just as Nephrite had…

She knew this was the real reason behind why she felt so differently about Umino these days. Being her saviour certainly made up for a lot of character flaws.

When she was alone, though, things changed. She could easily let Umino slip from her mind, and the bleakness of solitude fell over her. The pain of separation from the man who had used her, lied to her, and ultimately, been nothing but a thorn in her side.

Yet, he had loved her. She believed that, deep in her heart. Why else would he have saved her, been willing to die for her?

The tears were there again before she realised it, as she began to weep her bitter tears again. Tears for love gone awry, and the span of uncaring universe that separated her and her love.

And she had never been able to tell him how much he meant to her. She could only hope that he knew.

"I would have loved you forever," she whispered to the sky, as if she could somehow talk to him through the stars he had seemed to love so much. She recalled the night he had called on them to destroy Sailor Moon…and when she herself had stood between the girl heroine and the man she called an alien…what had driven her to do it?

Maybe that was why he had protected her, saved her. He was simply returning a favour rendered. A debt of honour, so to speak…if there was any honour in that evil society of his.

There! That was it! She had made him laugh…he must have been doing more than simply humouring her…and that laughter had been so sweet, so unexpected…so unrehearsed, unlike all of his previous, choreographed lies.

"But how can I live without you now?" she whispered to a world-weary sky, her own words just as tired as the stars. "What I am supposed to do?"

She continued to watch the sky from the darkness of her window. She could clearly recall the night he had spoken to her from outside this very window…when he told her that she had changed him , shown him what love really was.

He could have been lying then. He probably was. But death…it tended to make one overlook those little faults. And the big ones, too.

He was gone. She knew that, and though it hurt her, she could accept that. All she wanted…no, all she needed was one last thing.

"Nephrite-sama," she whispered as she pressed her face up to the glass. "Please…if you can hear me…I just need to know…did you love me? Ever?"

The stars twinkled back at her, as silent as they had been every other night. And like on every other night of this zombie existence after his death, she sighed, and returned to her bed. What else could she do?

As she lay down, and closed her eyes, she let the name drift off her lips, to where it seemed to linger in the heavy night air. "Nephrite-sama…"

* * *

"Naru-chan..?"

She opened her eyes, to find herself in her darkened room, the curtains blowing languidly in the gentle breeze from her open window.

Open window? When did I open my window? She slowly got up, and latched the window closed. She then re-adjusted the curtains, and moved back to her bed. She sighed as she looked at the clock on her wall. It was three o’clock in the morning – there was still several hours until she had to get up, to face another day at school.

She realised with a start she could see quite clearly in what should have been a dark room. Her stereo was on, the dim green light of the display screen shining into her room.

"When did I turn that on?" she murmured to herself, slightly annoyed with herself. As she pondered on this, moving towards her stereo, she realised there was no possible way it could have been on when she had gone to sleep earlier. She would have noticed.

As she got closer, she noticed something even more disturbing. The CD tray was open, a strange, green CD seated in it. She frowned, not recognising it. She looked to read the title, but as she touched it, it suddenly recoiled into the machine. Naru jerked her hand away, her blue-green eyes wide and surprised.

Stunned into a trance, Naru watched it as the machine began to softly play the music captured digitally on the compact disc.

Naru began to tremble as she listened to the words – they were in English, yet it was like there was a voice whispering the translation into her ear as she listened to the woman sing the words of this song. An all too familiar voice was backing up what the woman sung as she heard his sultry voice whisper in her ear…yet, when she turned, no-one was there.

Words so sweet…it was like being in some surreally romantic dream. She could feel his presence, the soft fingers of the zephyr meandering in from the window, which had fallen open again, seemed to caress her gently.

What was the song trying to tell her? Why was this peculiar song playing in her stereo, from a CD she didn’t own, didn’t even recognise?

Her breath caught in her throat. Those last words…it reflected her own loss so greatly! She had felt as if she had been promised so much, when Nephrite had told her that her "little dream" was quite welcome to come true. That had built her dream…but as the song said, it was wicked ground. A fault line…she supposed she should have known that in the first place. No matter how much Nephrite might have wanted to change in the end, there was too much in his past. He had been living on borrowed time from the moment he had rescued her.

The song ended, the CD halting itself. As Naru half turned from gazing out the open window, the stereo flipped itself off, the dull green light extinguishing.

The dim warmth she had felt seemed to leave her, as she knelt before the device, turning it back on. She pushed the ‘open’ button, the CD tray sliding out.

It was empty.

Stunned, she closed it, and opened it again. Still empty…what was going on?

Suddenly, she switched it back off, and walked to the window. She could still hear the song in her mind as she leaned out of her window, overlooking the quiet Tokyo street.

As she looked down at the street, she saw a shadowy figure look up, and her breath caught in her throat. The cerulean eyes that shimmered with unshed tears in the bright sunlight…they were all too familiar…

She was unable to move, as the man stared back at her, his eyes seeming to smile as the gaze drew itself out, a longing gaze, a last gaze.

It was like he was telling her something. Telling her to go on without him. Her future was just as bright as it had been before he had stumbled into her life. He had been and gone, and left a mark on her life…yet, she could go on without him.

She smiled faintly, her eyes still locked with those of the shadowy stranger – yet, they knew one another intimately. As he seemed to shimmer in the pale moonlight that struck him gently, she raised a hand in farewell.

He smiled widely – only the second time she had really seen him smile. His auburn hair shone in the moonlight…as he began to fade, like an over-developed photograph. She continued to wave to the empty street, though he was long gone. She did not cry, though. She didn’t think she would ever need to cry for him again.

He was forgiven – but not forgotten.

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