-Aitana awoke with a start as her body jarred, metallic clink of the gurney entering the back of a waiting ambulance not helping at all with her disorientation. There were flashing lights.. faces she did not recognize that swam in her light headed stupor. Moments before she recalled being in a great battle. Chibimoon and her father... the lady with the monster arm and the archer. Aitana was straining to try and see her stomach, but the men were pushing her back, slipping a mask over her mouth and nose even as they tried to restrain her. Her body burned and ached.. she could smell the metallic scent of blood. Wriggling and making unintelligeble sounds, Aitana was whisked away to the hospital, her eyes falling shut somewhere along the way.

When she woke up again the ceiling was white and bright. Jarring lights poured down from the ceiling and in through the windows. She attempted to lift her arm to shield herself, yelping as pained ripped through her tightly bound midsection and shoulder.

It took awhile for her head to clear.. to sort out the details. Many hours of medical work.. and sleep.. and drugs.. though by evening just an IV of nutritional supplements dangled from her unwounded arm. Apparently she'd been screaming in her sleep.. his foster father coming to check on her in the night was welcomed to the sight of a gushing wound through her stomach. More disturbingly.. the couple had watched another one seem to appear, as if by magic on her shoulder as they waited for the ambulance they'd already frantically called for.

If they hadn't accidentally woken her from her dream... Aitana wondered if she would have waken up at all. It had felt like her life was slipping away in that dream world, as she sunk into the water, her last vision being that of her princess surrounded in other protectors.

She owed her foster parents her thanks.. perhaps even her life. But as her eyes searched for them across the room she could all but sense their leeriness. Maybe it was just shock.. but they seemed so scared. And not the right kind of scared. It had been too much for them...

They were all the way across the room, as if they'd subconciously sought out the furthest possible corner of the room. Their voices were hushed. It took him a long moment after they'd realized she was awake to even approach her. He looked at her differently now. She couldn't blame them.. what else was someone to think of a person that gained injuries out of seemingly nowhere?

She was alive.

Aitana Ceu Matos otherwise known as Sailor Juno, one member of the Amazon Quartet protectors of the future princess of the moon, had survived her greatest battle yet. And in the back of her head she'd always remember her foster parents accidental saving of her life. But while she'd gained her life that morning she'd lost something else.

And now she was alone. Literally and figuratively.

She could only wonder what else she'd lost, swept away from a battle long before it was over. What would be left when she woke up for the next time.

536