Naru came downstairs carrying a tray with the bowl, spoon, and towel that were used for feeding Jadeite. In the three weeks since Jadeite's paralysis began, Nephrite, Naru, and Kunzite had worked out an efficient system of making sure he got the round-the-clock care he needed. Naru handled most of the feeding, while the two men took care of cleaning and moving him and did an occasional feeding so that Naru could have a break.

Naru's yearning for her baby had grown to be a part of everyday life, just something she lived with, like the need to eat and sleep and breathe, like the pain in her chest where she had been shot. It was part of her, it would never get any better until she actually had her baby in her arms. At least she was able to direct some of her mothering instincts and the energy they generated towards taking care of Jadeite. In a strange way, though she was sorry for him, she was grateful for the outlet.

"I wish we had some way of knowing if he's getting enough food," Naru said to Nephrite as she headed to the kitchen. "I'm worried that he isn't."

"Hmm?" Nephrite looked up from the newspaper he was reading on the sofa. "I'm sorry, I was thinking about something in the paper."

"I wish we knew if Jadeite is getting enough food. He looks so thin." She went on into the kitchen with the tray.

Kunzite was in there washing dishes, his poetry abandoned for the moment. He was now producing poetry at a prolific rate and had even, with Nephrite's encouragement, sent some in to a poetry journal published by one of the universities in Tokyo. "Hi, kid." He smiled at her. "How's Jadeite?"

"I was thinking, maybe we should feed him more often."

"Think so?"

"The problem is, he has no way of asking for more if he wants more, or refusing if he doesn't."

Kunzite took the bowl and spoon and washed them. "It probably wouldn't hurt to give him more. He always had a healthy appetite anyway, and we don't want him to starve to death before we can get to Topaz and break the spell."

"That's true," Naru said. She left the kitchen, noting the time and figuring she would take Jadeite a bowl of fruit yogurt in an hour or so.

Nephrite was still on the sofa with the paper. Naru curled up beside him and rested her head against his shoulder. "So what's in the paper that's so interesting?"

"Dead drug addicts," Nephrite said without taking his eyes from the article he was reading.

"That's kinda morbid. What about them?"

"There's suddenly a lot more of them in the last few weeks." Nephrite pointed to a graph with the article. "In a city this size, it's nothing unusual to find a dead addict in an alleyway. But in the last two weeks, they've been finding them every day, usually at least two or three at a time. So far, the medical examiner hasn't been able to attribute most of the deaths to drug overdoses, exposure, or foul play. The authorities, according to this, are concerned."

"What do you think?" Naru asked. "I get the feeling you're concerned too."

"I think Topaz is collecting energy to rebuild the Dark Kingdom. She's preying on vulnerable people whose deaths might easily be blamed on something else, and draining them of every bit of their life-energy."

Naru clutched at his arm. "You guys never killed anyone, stealing their energy, did you?" She had never dared to ask before, though she had wanted to.

He hesitated a bit too long. "Not in the last campaign, no. I don't know if it was because we were trying to hang on to what little honor we might have still possessed, or if we just couldn't be bothered."

"But Topaz --"

"Topaz scares me." He hugged her close. "I'm sorry, Naru-chan. You probably don't want to hear that. But Topaz scares the hell out of me."

"Are you going to tell Kunzite about this?" Naru looked up at him.

"I don't know. I don't think it would be good for him to know that Zoisite might be involved in... this kind of energy collection."

"Nephrite, if she's coming back to steal energy, there must be a gate she's using -- maybe you can find it --"

"If she's been stealing that much energy, that means she's become a lot stronger."

"You aren't giving up, are you?"

"No, I'm not giving up. I want our son back, Naru. Believe me, I do. But listen to me." He hugged her once more, then pulled back enough to look directly at her. "There's more at stake now than our son and Zoisite and Jadeite. I can't go charging off blindly looking for a gate and then just storm in. I can't afford to fail again. Do you understand?"

Naru wanted to protest, but he was right. "It's like before, isn't it? When you guys were evil and were trying to destroy the world?"

"That's right. The Earth and the Dark Kingdom are at war again. It won't be enough to get our baby back, and free Zoisite, and heal Jadeite. We have to destroy Topaz."

Naru nodded. "I understand. But, Nephrite, what if our baby gets caught in the middle? What if she uses him like a hostage? I mean, what if she threatens to -- to kill him to keep you from attacking her?" She started crying.

Nephrite hugged her again. "I don't know, Naru-chan. I really don't know."

Nephrite went to work, studying Topaz's attacks. He hung a large street map of Tokyo on the wall in the living room, and began marking the locations where the deaths were occurring. Though he hadn't wanted to upset Kunzite, he finally told him about the energy-collecting, and the two men went out together to investigate the death scenes. The new rule in the household was that no one left the house alone.

They never found a gate, though there had to be one somewhere. Nephrite spent hours looking over his map and trying to calculate where a gate might be located that would be central, or at least convenient, to the locations of the attacks, but none of his theories checked out. They did find plenty of traces of Topaz's power, and from this were able to tell that she was drawing on Metallia's power, but not in large quantities. Metallia, though considerably weaker than before, had survived the destruction of the Dark Kingdom, and her power made Topaz a formidable enemy.

The first time they found traces of Zoisite's power at one of the death scenes, Kunzite refused to believe it. "Zoisite wouldn't do something like this. Drain someone's energy until they died? Impossible."

"Zoisite isn't himself now," Nephrite tried to gently remind him. "Topaz probably has him brainwashed. He's under Metallia's influence again. You know what he's capable of. He killed me. He nearly killed the Prince."

"I don't believe he would do this," Kunzite insisted.

But the second, and third, and fourth times, Zoisite's involvement became harder to deny. At the scene of the fourth death Zoisite had caused, Kunzite leaned against the alley wall, hands shoved deep in his pockets, staring at the marks on the ground that indicated where the body had been. "I won't let him turn evil again." His voice was hard. "I'll destroy him if I have to, to save him from that."

Nephrite didn't know what to say. He put a hand on his friend's shoulder, and they teleported home.

Then one day, the power residue at the most recent attack scene was neither Topaz's nor Zoisite's. In fact, there was something that Nephrite found vaguely reminiscent of his own power. It couldn't be his son, though. The baby wouldn't be more than four months old, or, if Topaz had applied her time-speeding abilities, more than a few years. But there was no other explanation. Kunzite had the same realization, and they both agreed not to tell Naru about this. She didn't need to know that her baby was already evil.

While Nephrite and Kunzite searched for Topaz's gate, Naru concentrated on caring for Jadeite. The responsibility fell almost entirely on her now, with the other two men so busy with the search for Topaz. But her nursing duties kept the aching emptiness she felt from overwhelming her, and thinking of new ways to help Jadeite kept her from dwelling on all the terrible "what-ifs" surrounding her baby's fate.

One day Naru phoned Minako and explained what had happened to Jadeite. She had had little contact with Serena and the Sailor Scouts lately; they had been busy with school and a series of small crises. But Minako was terribly upset to learn of Jadeite's condition, and came over that same day.

Naru met her at the door; Nephrite and Kunzite were out investigating death scenes. "Come on up," Naru said, leading Minako upstairs to Jadeite's room. He lay there, eyes open, completely motionless, looking frail in his striped pajamas beneath the blankets. "He can't see or hear you, and he can't respond, but I think this will make a difference to him."

"How will he know it's me?" Minako looked a little frightened.

"Here, I'll show you. This is what we do to let him know who's with him." Naru led Minako over to the bed and lifted Jadeite's limp hand. "Just use your fingernail to write your name on his hand. I don't know if he understands or not, but he might."

Slowly, Mina traced her name on Jadeite's palm, then sat beside him holding his hand and stroking his hair. "So Topaz made Kenichi shoot you, then she took Zoisite, and now she's done this to Jadeite?"

Naru nodded. "And Nephrite thinks she's responsible for all these drug addicts and drunks they've been finding dead."

"Wow," Minako said. "When does it ever stop? I mean, I've been Sailor V and Sailor Venus for five years, and I'm just sick of bad guys. We've kind of got our hands full with some other stuff, but if it gets bad enough, tell Nephrite we'll help out."

"Yeah, I will, if it gets bad enough." She didn't want to tell Minako that even Nephrite was afraid of Topaz.

* * * * * * * *

MI - NA - KO... Minako was with him, her hands so warm and gentle on his hand, his hair. It was humiliating, that she was seeing him as he must be now, but still... She had come. She cared. People did care about him; Topaz was wrong about that. Dead wrong. Oh, MinaKO, if I'm ever able to see you again, if I'm ever able to put my arms around you and dance with you again, I'll never let go. God, gods, if you're there, whoever you are, please let me be able to see her again, please, and I'll do my best to be worthy.

* * * * * * * *

After three weeks of investigating, Nephrite and Kunzite were no closer to finding the gate Topaz was now using than they had been when they started. There was no discernible pattern in the locations, frequency, or size of her energy-draining attacks. Zoisite's power signature was appearing more often, as was that of the mysterious third person. Nephrite still couldn't believe that this other person was his son; how could an infant or small child be stealing such large quantities of energy? He wracked his brain for other explanations, but couldn't come up with anything he found convincing.

He and Kunzite sat at the kitchen table one evening, poring over their map, trying to figure out what they might have missed. If they could find the gate, or anticipate where Topaz's next attack might take place, they could confront her in person. But she seemed to be truly random in her choices of locations.

Maybe Sailor Mercury, with her little blue computer, could make something of it. Nephrite wasn't sure why he was so reluctant to involve the Sailor Scouts in this matter. Maybe it was because they were busy with other troubles right now, or maybe it was because he was embarrassed to admit that he and Kunzite, the two most powerful Lords of the Dark Kingdom, needed the help of a bunch of teenage girls. Or maybe it was because this conflict with Topaz was so personal. Her grudge against them was personal, and she had attacked and hurt each of them in the most private and intimate ways she could think of. Nephrite wondered if someone as unbalanced as Topaz was really capable of destroying the world, though he wasn't willing to gamble that she wasn't. But she had come very close to destroying his own personal world.

"Damn," Nephrite muttered in frustration, staring at the map. He drained the little bit of whiskey left in his glass and poured more, then passed the bottle across the kitchen table to Kunzite. Kunzite refilled his own glass. Naru was sitting at the other end of the table, working her way through her math textbook. Nephrite had insisted she try to make up the schoolwork she was missing. She watched the bottle going back and forth between the two men, but didn't say anything. It was only whiskey. She had been used to worse with Kenichi.

"Working hard, gentlemen?"

All three of them jumped to their feet at the sound of the husky female voice. Topaz stood at the far end of the kitchen, flanked by Zoisite and another young man, both wearing gray uniforms. The second young man looked about eighteen. He was tall and broad-shouldered. His hair, pulled back into a short ponytail, was between red and auburn, his blue eyes had a hint of green to them, his handsome features, so like Nephrite's, were softened just a bit by a slight resemblance to Naru.

He sneered at Naru. "Hello, Mother."

Naru let out a cry. Her knees gave out and she sagged against the table, clutching at the edge to keep from falling to the floor. Immediately, Nephrite was at her side, supporting her by holding her close against him. "Who the hell are you?" he demanded.

"He's Lord Thulite," Topaz replied, "second of my faithful commanders. You see, now I have my own little harem of Lords, just like my mother did." She met first Zoisite's eyes, then Thulite's, giving them each a sensual smile. The two men wound their arms around her waist. "Except I've taught mine to share. We have a fine time together, don't we?" The three of them shared another glance. "You can't deny that that's how it was between my mother and her Lords, can you?"

Nephrite closed his eyes against unwanted memories, sickening things, things he thought he'd managed to forget, and pressed Naru more tightly against his chest.

"Get the hell out of here." Kunzite's voice vibrated with barely-suppressed rage.

Topaz smiled again. "And, of course, there's dear Kenichi. Poor boy, not a trace of magic in him. He's nearly useless when he doesn't have a gun in his hand, but I still find him... amusing. Of course, given the damage you did to his head, Lord Kunzite, I don't think I can keep him running much longer, but it was fun while it lasted." She gave an exaggerated sigh. "Poor boy." She shook her head, then spoke again more briskly. "Getting back to your original question, Lord Nephrite, Thulite is your son. Don't tell me you didn't recognize him?"

It was what he had been afraid of, but -- "How can that be? My son was only born five months ago."

"Well." Topaz sounded like a teacher about to deliver a lecture. "You know I can run time faster. Plus, remember I kept the placenta? So full of rich life-energy. I fed him on it, first on the blood, then on the tissue, and he grew as you see him."

Nephrite swallowed the sickness that arose in his throat. His son, fed on blood and human tissue... "You monster." Naru's shoulders shook as she cried against his chest.

"Well, what did you expect me to eat?" Thulite asked. "My own dear mother abandoned me."

Naru cried harder.

"Oh, you can cry all you want, Mother. I know what you are. You traded your own child for the chance to live as my father's whore."

"It wasn't like that," Naru sobbed. Carefully, Nephrite settled her onto a chair and loosened her fists from his shirt. Then, fighting to maintain an appearance of calm, he walked over to Thulite. "You are no son of mine," he said coldly.

Thulite lazily glanced at the distraught girl at the table. "I suppose I could be Kenichi's. Or has someone else been there?"

Nephrite's control snapped. He grabbed a fistful of the younger man's uniform and slammed him back against the wall of cabinets. "You may have been spawned from my seed," he growled, "but no true son of mine speaks of his mother that way."

A slow, sneering grin spread across Thulite's handsome face. "You've really been around to teach me that."

"Well, I'm telling you now. Got it?" He let go of the uniform as though casting away something filthy, and turned his back on Thulite, showing his contempt as he walked away.

"You're both such whores," Thulite said.

Nephrite slowly faced him again. "You are no son of mine," he repeated. He went to Naru and held her close as she sobbed against his waist.

"Well," Topaz said, "now that that touching little family reunion is over, I've got a message for Kunzite from his former boy-toy."

Kunzite stared at Topaz and Zoisite. "He can tell me himself."

"He prefers to not speak to you. He wants you to know I've given him so many things you never could. I've made a man out of him, and he likes it that way."

Kunzite stood up quickly from the table, knocking over his chair. He reached Zoisite in a few long strides and grabbed the smaller man's shoulder. "You look me in the eyes and tell me that, Zoisite."

Zoisite faced Kunzite, but his green eyes slid past Kunzite's to focus on a point somewhere behind the silver-haired man. Then he turned his face towards Topaz again and nuzzled his face into her short hair, as Thulite rejoined them.

"You've got him brainwashed," Kunzite said. "If he was himself, he wouldn't want anything to do with a creature like you."

"Not true, big boy. He wasn't brainwashed the first time he took me."

"Then you put some other spell on him, like you did on me."

Topaz gave him a slow, hungry smile. "I didn't have to."

Kunzite stalked away, then suddenly turned, a pale pink energy blade in each hand. Zoisite and Thulite stepped in front of Topaz. Naru cried, "No, don't kill him!" while Kunzite hesitated, looking at Zoisite.

Topaz laughed. "I think we made our point, boys." The three of them disappeared in a shimmer of purple light.

Nephrite looked down at his wife. "Naru, he's evil."

"He's still our son, Nephrite. I couldn't let Kunzite kill him."

"Naru --"

"You changed. He might change, too, if he's given a chance."

"Naru." He took her chin in his hand and made her meet his eyes. "If I have to kill him, or let Kunzite kill him, to keep Topaz from bringing the Dark Kingdom into the world, then that is what I will do." His words were like a knife he was plunging into his own heart. His son, his own flesh and blood, and Naru's... Here he was, vowing to kill him if necessary.

"Can't I do anything to change your mind?"

"No. I'll do what I have to do."

"You're heartless. How can you say something like that?"

"Naru, you know -"

"Fine, go ahead and kill him. But what if I can't forgive you?" Naru asked.

"Then I'll just have to live with that."

"I see."

He let go of her chin and she looked away from him. Without another word, she got up and left the kitchen.

Nephrite stared after her until Kunzite said, "I couldn't do it. I couldn't kill Zoisite, even if it meant being able to kill her too. Even though I swore I would kill him to save him from being evil. I can't do it. I want him back."

Nephrite met his friend's shame-clouded eyes. "I can't depend on you to help me, then."

Kunzite turned away. "No," he whispered, as he too left the room.

Nephrite was left standing alone in the kitchen. He was going to have to do this by himself, without help. He wondered if he had the strength to fight and defeat Topaz, when doing so would mean losing his wife, his son, and two of his best friends. If Topaz wanted revenge on him for betraying Beryl and the Dark Kingdom, she was certainly getting it. He sank into a chair at the table and rested his face in his hands, letting tears of frustration and despair leak from his eyes.

No, he thought after a while. He wouldn't let her win. There was too much at stake here. He straightened, rubbing the tears from his face with the palms of his hands. It was time to ask the Sailor Scouts for help.