Welcome to Gaia! ::

She came in through the window, moving carefully to keep the long tendrils on the back of her fuku from catching on the latch, then closing it behind her. Sailor Europa paused for a moment, perched delicately on the kitchen sink, then dropped quietly to the floor. She listened to the sounds of the apartment - the TV was on in the other room, which meant Xavier was still awake.

Stepping carefully around the scattered cans of empty red bull (was the kitchen booby-trapped on purpose?!), she made her way towards the living room. The dream world had finally gone away, which meant she was sleeping again, which meant she was trying to get back to more or less regular, less reckless patrols.

And for that, she needed a partner! She seemed to recall, hazily, that Themis had upgraded at some point, but she hadn't seen front nor hind of him since, even though she'd spoken plenty to Xavier. Even if Angus was in on their secret, it still wasn't dinner table discussion.

She paused in the doorway to the living room, and surveyed the scene before her. The TV was on, making noises from some FPS that was plugged into the glowing X-box. Parked on the couch, Xavier. In his underwear. Xbox controller in hand, headset on... pint of Cherry Garcia balanced on the cushion next to him.

Europa sighed and shook her head. "Zay," she groaned, crossing the room and seizing the ice cream. (Mostly empty, mostly melted.) "You keep spending your nights like this and you're going to get fat."

She didn't seem at all bothered by his near-total state of undress. Instead, she waved the Ben & Jerry's at him. "Every time you eat a pint of ice cream in one sitting, you make Michelle Obama cry."

"Oh, yeah, walked up for flights of stairs in uniform? That would've gone over really well," retorted Europa, sending the ice cream container sailing into the wastebasket. "Couldn't've come up here in my civvies, either," she added, leaning against the closed door to her friend's bedroom. "How would that look? Like some kind of late night booty-call? I've got a reputation to uphold, Zay!"

Really, she was just teasing. And a squirmy, uncomfortable Xavier was one of her favorite kinds. When you'd grown up together, you knew how to push all each other's buttons, and if you knew what was good for you, you'd do it mercilessly.

"When was the last time you took Sailor Themis out for a spin?" she asked, rallying Tempo from under the sofa. She gave the tuxedo cat a vigorous scratching behind the ears while she waited for a reply. "It's a beautiful night, Zay. The weather's getting really nice! We should go!"

Europa (and cat) took a seat on the couch. "And playing Halo in your underwear at eleven o'clock at night fits into this plan where?" she asked, and Tempo mewed in what could only be described as agreement. "This is our civic - no, our celestial duty, Zay! Reborn Alien or no reborn alien."

She lifted Tempo up to rest on her shoulder and continued, "Plenty of us were fighting this fight for ages before we knew we'd lived before on other worlds," she said. "And, come on, Elysion's closed again, so there's going to be a lot more nasties out on the streets, we've got to go clean up youma scum, so the people of Destiny City can sleep soundly at night--!"

She jumped abruptly to her feet, sending Tempo scurrying for cover. Air guitar solo! "Here come the men in black!" Up on the coffee table. "GALAXY DEFENDERS!"

She paused. "Zay, Zay, we need sunglasses and fedoras, stat. Henshin up and let's go."

Europa stopped mid-exaggerated guitar strum. "That's all I was asking for!" she said sweetly, hopping down off the table. "And," she added, refusing to account for her goofy behavior with ever-present sleep deprivation and the sheer enthusiasm of dragging her best friend out on patrol, "I didn't smoke anything."

"Why?" she asked disapprovingly, scooping a few empty red bull cans off the table and tossing them one by one at the recycling bin. "Did you want to smoke? I taught you better than that, Zay."

Cans disposed of, she moved on to rallying miscellaneous food wrappers towards the trash. "Ugh, you don't bring Bell over to this place, do you?" she asked. "It's a dump!"

Or who knew? Maybe Bell was into pigsties. Maybe she was more rebellious than she initially appeared? In all honestly, Europa hadn't spoken to her since Elysion. She'd actually been sort of avoiding it. (Alternately, Xavier's apartment wasn't as much of a mess as Europa was making it out to be. Her qualification for "dump" was probably "doesn't use coasters.")

She'd moved on to washing the breakfast dishes in the sink. "Well?" asked Europa over the sound of the water. "Are you going to henshin or not?"

Open mouth, insert foot. Europa was left standing uncomfortably in the living room for god knew how long before she made the executive decision to follow Xavier into the next room. Finding it empty, she decided he must have gone out the window, and, opening it, looked up just in time to see him hoist himself up onto the roof.

Europa climbed out and followed him. "Themis," she hissed, "Themis-"

He was mad at her. He was definitely mad at her. If there was a book based on her life, this chapter would be titled How to lose friends and alienate people. She was not proud of this.

Europa pulled herself up onto the roof, unsure of what she might find waiting for her. "I'm sorry," she muttered, to whomever it was she found.

Europa followed Themis closely, a look of concern pasted on her face. "You haven't been patroling," she called, her tone one of worry, not accusation. "Themis... is everything okay?"

She'd have thought that a power boost would make him more confident, but maybe dragging him out of his apartment hadn't been the right thing to do. So here there were, two rusty super senshi, chasing each other across rooftops and generally acting like two angry toddlers.

It was hard to be on the lookout for youma and evildoers when you were already preoccupied with figuring out what was wrong with your best friend.

It was almost enough to make Europa sit down and cry about how much her own life had sucked lately. Actually, coming from anyone else, it probably would have been. But whether or not they'd had a meeting lately, she was still captain of the Basterds and Themis needed her right now, didn't he?

Well, tough love. "Oh, yeah, and I like getting concussions? My dad and I just love lying to my mom. You know what the best day of my life was? Telling my ******** dream school I wouldn't be attending in the fall. Getting suspended from the swim team because of my constant injuries? Just awesome."

Any senshi who thought they were alone in this was being selfish. Teams were the natural way to go. No one should have to fight alone.

"Themis, in case you hadn't noticed, no one is exactly having the time of their life out here," she called. She hoped he'd stop jumping soon. It would be nice to have a proper conversation.

Senshi-ing had been fun, once upon a time. But those first few months were long gone now.

If that was what Themis thought she'd dragged him out of his apartment for, then he had totally misread her intentions. Or maybe she'd presented them wrong? Even if they were looking for trouble, couldn't a night spent running around Destiny City in superhero guise just be for fun? Despite everything that was going on, despite her general reticence for being a senshi... Tallulah Cowden loved being Sailor Europa. If this ended and she lost her powers, well, she'd be sad to see them go.

She was angry and distracted when she made the leap onto the steeply pitched roof, and her foot connected with a loose patch of shingles. With a shriek, Europa lost her balance and began sliding towards the edge, scrabbling for any kind of handhold that could keep her from plummeting eight stories. (Controlled jumps aside, she'd never fallen from that high before.)

Her hands caught on a gutter, and she managed to keep herself from plummeting, but she couldn't manage to pull herself up.

"Themis?" she called weakly. "Themis, help me-"