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Miriam had said nothing about the ardent sawing of her cello. Actually, she had said something, she had said "Stop torturing that," but Hero had chosen to ignore it in the pursuit of showing cool detachment in the face of her roomie. She did not often display cool detachment. Often she displayed 'yelling' and 'throwing things off the dresser' as Miriam Jacobs displayed cool detachment, which never invited cool detachment in oneself. There was still school to handle. There were marks to receive. There was orchestra. There was all the dull, aimless minutiae of life and Saturdays in which she pummelled thirteen-year-olds (Pisces; if you pull your punches with us, you'll pull your punches with them) that had proved a few members of her Zodiac conspicuously absent --

-- and not just Andeon, who always turned up still hung over --

-- tragedy came in threes.

Aries patrolled. She patrolled regularly. Sometimes with company, often not. It was merely a case of truly abysmal luck that saw her turn down the street to see, in an abandoned parking lot, the dark blue hair (black in the nighttime) and Robin Hood meets Star Accoutrements that signified Sailor Sagittarius, the Exploration Zodiac. Otherwise known as 'Jude Lawson.' Otherwise known as 'God This Is Awkward.'

She didn't walk away.

Instead, she walked forward.

"Soldier -- "

Was that a girl. This really was awkward.

Sagittarius was not in the office running for best military policy. Sagittarius would probably only salute if he was trying to make you believe that if your hand fitted over your entire face you had cancer and pitted you in the face when you inevitably tested it out -- well, okay, Gemini would probably try to make you do that, but Sagittarius would laugh. Probably. So when Sagittarius bowed, saluted, and generally acted as though he came from some bizarro world where he did all of these things normally --

God, who the hell were they kidding. Who the hell were they really kidding.

His eyeballs were floating everywhere else -- the pavement. The buildings around. The sky. Everywhere but the Zodiac Captain who stood in front of him, though they had stopped a good few feet apart. Personal space bubble: on. Aries' cape fluttered a little in the wind, as unripped and perfect as it ever was, as though she had never ripped off part of it to stick in his mouth as the world's most ghetto gag. That was uncomfortable to remember. All of it was uncomfortable to remember, as though the thought were a porcupine in your underwear.

God, who were they kidding.

"I will take that," she said after a while, "a sign that you were helping someone with a youma."

Holy s**t, was she actually correctly reading the situation?

"Don't kiss people on the hands. It gives people a wrong impression of us."

Natch.

There was a long, drawn-out silence, that devoured all the other silences and spat them out again as tiny stretches of quiet. Thank God that his Captain hated a silence like she hated inaction, the Dixie Chicks and A-; she said, "Apology accepted, don't worry about it," which was even more uncomfortable, and worse: "Good to see you on the job."

Aries had a p-p-p-poker face that would have won her any number of rounds at the tables, and it was present now. A scarlet-eyed mask. But something in her words had been -- strange; new; just as strange and new as I apologise. As there was a youma, and I beat it. It died. Swear to God. As there was something deep and tranquil about Grayson Graves' eyes, there was something infinitely unsettling and provoking about Hero Barrett's; she just looked at him. Both of them were unsettled, like he was some kind of mirror.

She couldn't bear to let a silence continue after that. She repeated, "Good to see you on the job," and there was no hint of sarcasm or bitterness. But she did say, "You should patrol in a duo," with every burst of hypocrisy unless Capricorn had managed to make herself invisible, though she did suddenly add: "I was only out briefly. -- Much action tonight?"

This was sort of ridiculous.

It was like an Is Sagittarius Sick? list: talked seriously about the youma threat. Looked serious about the youma threat. Took advice with I'll remember that, and not to laugh about later, for instance. He looked tense, pulled taut like an arrow string, which suited him somehow -- actually, he looked hunted, haunted, which suited him less. She did not think. About it.

"We're not letting Chronos out for the moment," she said after a while. "Just so you're in the know. The youma are too numerous and, frankly, stronger than I like or recall. Was there anything else on the agenda; let me think." The agenda. Maybe she'd hand him the minutes of all the meetings. Maybe she'd celebrate the fact that he, Magellan and Leo had become a trio. Maybe she'd say, I am in complete support of this move.

Maybe she'd say --

Maybes were a killer.

"If you have Saturdays free, you should still consider coming to training." Cordial. "I know you're continuing with boxing. Still. Consider it. I'd appreciate the input. Cancer has the right jab of someone with advanced dementia." (Sorry, Abeline.)

"Of course. Away from the street."

Aries moved away back into the carpark, heading out of sight -- just because he'd beaten a youma didn't mean that another one wouldn't come to take its place, or that even worse an officer of the Negaverse would decide to crash the party. It was clockwork. They were running according to a script, both of them. He followed his Captain into a narrow alley next to the carpark that was filled with cinderblocks -- she pulled herself up to sit on some that had piled up, elbows on her knees, leant forward. Not the military posture he'd expected. Aries was tired.

"I disagree that you have no input to give in terms of fighting," she said. "But I'll argue that later. I'd also argue. That your princess misses you." She raised a hand before he could say anything. "But that's not the issue here. Ask your questions and I'll answer to the best of my ability."

She saw the flash of anger; how could she have missed it? Usually Aries answered his anger with her own. His own. Her own. Aries was angry; she had always been an angry leader; Hero Barrett was a naturally angry person pinned tightly under a self-imposed control that broke. Often. Miriam Jacobs had found that out. So had Jude. She did not say anything at the cigarette, she did not say anything at the dehenshin --

-- but, despite the dangers, broke her own. She was in sock feet. Singlet. Pyjama pants, which had an ill-advised cloud pattern, not exactly Hero Barrett standard issue. Maybe every other pair of dour plaid was in the wash. "From the time you left, I took Miss Soriano and Miss Thorne to the second gym: I didn't trust the authority any more. With good cause. The next day the dormitory building burned down, taking most of the students with it."

Hero had a family, surely? It was an odd thought. She'd mentioned them. It hadn't been at their best moment.

"They reappeared as zombies -- though, in my opinion, more properly youma -- the next day, those who'd died. Serenade resurrected Elke Arma, which is when I first began to believe in her as a princess. We managed to find Libra and Capricorn -- I hadn't yet been awoken -- " That must have stuck in her craw. " -- before the barrier went over. We spent the time in close quarters, beating down youma as we went." She'd had a gun. A gun she couldn't shoot.

Hero leant back against the chill bricks of the wall and gave a who knows? shrug. "Nothing marked about it. You asked me to take Serenade away. Prophetically. Though it makes sense now."

"Yes."

Well, that was blunt enough.

"I believe your failure to rise had something to do with the fact that you had been murdered before the fall of the dormitories." By Obsidian's hand. "Zue said it was you. I knew where you were buried. I knew it was you. And so we dug you up and you know the end to that story, so I'll hardly tell it again. And so."

Was she struggling now?

"Lawson."

At least it was his name.

"I apologise for my failure to save the life of Marcel Delaney. He was already dead. Nonetheless, I prioritised Serenade's life above his, thinking her more vulnerable. Therefore." Her eyes wandered. "I accept his death as my failure to act. As a Zodiac. As a human being. The lives of everyone I could have saved had I. Blown the whistle earlier."

Awkward pause again.

A little more stuffily: "That's my own personal burden. But that's my admission of it. I'm sorry."

Usually the you are a girl! had Hero blowing her top and punching him out, but this time there was nothing. There was nothing in general. She sat there in her pyjama pants and looked conspicuously empty of -- everything. She should have blown her top at what do YOU care? Serenade's alive, isn't that all that matters to you? She didn't.

"I'm currently rooming with Captain Kunzite." And hadn't that been a fun revelation. With three Zodiacs in tow. She grudgingly admitted that Miriam Jacobs was not (currently) a member of the Dark Kingdom. "A cavalier. She -- he -- has her full memories back, and I've carefully gone over mine. She's filled in a number of blanks."

All that she could fill; Captain Kunzite had been the Earth's guard, he didn't know the personal ins and outs of the Zodiacs. But he had known Captain Aries. And Captain Aries had known him. "I have always been the leader of the Zodiacs. I was previously a man. You were previously a woman, for interest's sake. Princess Chronos and her Four Seasons, along with Prince Eon, held the outer rim of the Solar System tens of thousands of years ago in the Silver Milennium. We were killed before the final battle that claimed both the lives of Kunzite's prince, Endymion, and the Moon Princess, Serenity."

Told as flatly as any history lesson.

"I'm still receiving my own memories. I'll keep you updated." Still flat.