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Valentine's Day was the worst ******** holiday Linarite had ever heard of. In all seventeen years of her life, she'd never had a personal valentine. Her parents had always put forth the effort to buy her something chocolatey and of course there were the mandatory valentines given out by everyone in elementary school. She'd never gotten one of the double-sized ones, because she'd never really had friends like that.

Plain and simple, Audrey Collins was a loner. But that was ok, she was used to it. And she had good friends! Pasha, for one, who she had sent that silly carnation to, and that guy Elzo from Hillworth was nice to talk to. Made a girl smile at least, while she was busy being confused about a certain senshi. It was surprising, and yet not, that as she walked through the night she could make out the shining white and powder blue of a familiar uniform.

They'd parted on lovely terms last time, and it had been over a month and a half since she'd seen him. Or heard about him. Or anything, really. But she'd come prepared, and tucked into her lapel was a carnation carefully dyed with help from her mother. They'd been selling the damn things at school, and she'd bought several white ones to throw into food coloring at home to change the color.

Biting her lip, she smiled softly and walked into the halo of light around the bench. "Fancy meeting you here."

Lina was totally taken aback and the smile fell momentarily from her face as his words tumbled out to bowl her right over. White-gloved hands grasped each other tightly for a moment before he admitted to worrying about her, and her smile returned again. It only brightened, and her dark eyes widened with surprise and rising happiness as he asked her to be his Valentine.

"I...I've never had a Valentine before." Stepping closer, she took the daisies and cradled them close to her heart before remembering and fumbling herself with the teal and blue flower tucked into her wide collar. "I brought you one too! It's not a nice but...I made it myself?" Lina was big on homemade presents, it seemed. Beet red to the roots of her hair, it was a wonder it didn't all turn purple from the crazy blush.

"I'd love to be your Valentine, if you'll be mine. And I. I. I missed you too." The words came in a rush, and it was almost as if she'd forgotten entirely her brief meeting with Tanzanite not a week before.

The paper holding the bouquet crinkled as it hit the bench, Lina quickly tossing them to safety before she was crushed against the warm and solid frame of Sailor Castor. It was a lovely way to lose yourself, especially since lately all the bluenette wanted to do was crawl into a hole and just be lost. Being involved was too damn complicated!

Annoyed at the interruptions in the kisses, even if they were for breath, Lina simply ignored his backing off and all but threw herself back into his arms, her own twining around his neck as her lips fused to his again. It had been weeks, months, since she'd been kissed by anyone at all. And like a good percentage of teenage girls, she enjoyed being kissed.

Unfortunately, the only one willing to kiss her was one of the three people she was supposed to kill on sight. But wasn't Tanzanite supposed to be doing that? Tanzanite. Relucatantly, Lina eased away and blushed. "Not too fast."

Flushing again, Lina primly sat on the edge of Castor's lap, her slim legs crossing almost daintily. She was so short that even perched on the edge, her heels didn't quite touch the ground and swung idly in the air. Both of her arms went around his neck and smiled brightly. "Also, most couples don't have the threat of violent, painful death looming over their heads every time they even go within ten feet of each other." You had to laugh at it. Had to. Certainly she was not going to cry.

"And I wasn't aware that people actually watched movies on dates. Don't they just go to sit in the back row and feel each other up?" Lina was absolutely positive that if Khal had actually ever bothered to take her on a date, that would have been what they would've done. But he hadn't, and the thought alone was laughable. "So what else is there to do?"

Tease.

Blinking, the look on Linarite's face suggested that perhaps she had been beaten over the head sharply with a lead pipe. Her mouth was dropped open in an O-shape and her deep eyes went more than a little wide at the brightly wrapped present in her lap. "Wha...for me?!" Suddenly, the sad little flower in his tie felt almost pathetic, and she blushed in embarrassment and pleasure at his thoughtfulness.

Almost cautiously, like it was akin to a bomb or a trap. First the silly ribbons in every shade of red or pink a girl could imagine, and through the white tissue paper. It was like diving into a refrigerator box looking for the CD at the bottom, only she only had to get through three layers of paper before her eyes and fingers found something plush and black. Quizzically she pulled the rotund penguin from its cheerful packaging and couldn't help but burst into almost girlish laughter.

"It's adorable!" Indeed, the thing was wider than it was tall, with beady eyes and fat beak sticking straight out from its body. Squishy wings were extended to hold a very large, lace-edged heart between them with the words You Melt My Heart stitched into the cotton. Also wedged in behind the heart, almost as an afterthought on where to include them, was a small box of what appeared to be chocolate.

It was your run of the mill Valentine's present, but it was the first that poor little Lina had ever received! And well..it was from him. Smiling like a dopey fool, she deposited the chocolates back into the bag before giving both Castor and the penguin an exuberant hug. "Thank you!" Had he known who she really was, he would've recognized the Audrey in her almost immediately. But as it was, this was just Linarite being absolutely human.

Lina had been falling into a quiet lassitude and was simply enjoying his mild frustration with the uncooperative button of her top. She'd had no intention of telling him that it was absolutely for show, and was clasped on the inside. After all, this was not at all appropriate, no matter how much she found herself caring for the senshi. But when his troubled words reached her ears, she abruptly shoved him away and her mind ground to a screaming halt.

Penguin still clutched tightly to her chest, she simply hugged it tighter as she shakily addressed the boy who only just moments ago had shattered their quiet moment. "Tanzanite. What do you know about her? Did she actually go after you?! What happened?!" She remembered. The look on Aree's face as she had begged, the warm hands on her cheeks.

"Castor, you have to tell me!

Every drop of blood left Linarite's face like she herself had been stabbed. The penguin was now being clutched for dear life and it was evident at how deformed the thing was being. White fingers vised into the plush and her eyes welled up with tears. "D-Dead? She's dead?! What did you do to her?! Oh god, I never should have told her! Never. She said it was her last chance..."

As she spoke, the bluenette stepped slowly back and away, her mind lost in what was almost a mental BSOD before yet another thing clanged into her mental space like a bad nightmare. "The Queen? The Queen was here? Oh God. Oh God." Moaning like she was going to die there on the spot, Lina sank to her knees on the ground and simply hugged her penguin.

It had sounded like the Queen had survived, but Tanzanite had not. Why? What had happened that the Queen would sacrifice one of her more loyal lieutenants that way? Tanz had adored Nealite, almost worshiped her for reasons Lina never understood, and she had died?

What about her then? What about Linarite?