A knock sounded at the door to Makoto's apartment. Naru looked at the door, then at Makoto, who was finishing a glass of juice before leaving for school. The knock came again, more insistent. Makoto went to the door and opened it. "Nephrite!" she exclaimed.

Nephrite pushed his way in past Makoto. Naru stood up from the sofa. "Nephrite, what are you doing here?"

"Why, Naru?"

"I explained in the note."

Makoto looked from one to the other. "Um, I left something in my room I need to get." She disappeared through the door to her bedroom.

Nephrite lifted his hands out to the side, then let them drop in a helpless gesture. "I want to understand, Naru. I want to know why I have to take this on by myself."

"You're not alone. You have the Sailor Senshi to help you."

"That isn't the same -- How do you know I talked to them?"

"Makoto told me. Why didn't you tell me, Nephrite?"

Again he made that helpless-looking shrug. "I don't know. I guess... I didn't know if you'd want me to tell them about our son, and I knew I'd have to. And... if I told you I was going to ask them for help, and then couldn't persuade them, that would just be one more failure, one more disappointment for you. But even with the Sailor Senshis' help, I still need you, Naru."

Naru hugged herself tightly, fighting to keep herself under control. She turned away so he wouldn't see her tears starting again. "I'm sorry, Nephrite."

He came over to her in a few long strides, set a hand on her shoulder, and made her turn to face him. "Why, Naru?" he demanded again, then added, more gently, "I want to understand."

She rubbed tears from her face. "I -- It's -- I'm just tired of getting hurt and not being able to do anything about it. First you dying, and Umino dumping me for someone else, and then Kenichi hitting me and - the other things, and then getting shot and having to give up my baby, and now all of this, and I haven't had any choice about it, I've just had to take it and I'm tired of the pain. I'm tired of hurting, and I'm not going to just hang around and watch my husband and my son kill each other!"

"Naru, please --"

"No, Nephrite."

Nephrite said quietly, "He's my son, too."

She refused to answer him.

"Please, Naru, I need you. Please come back."

"Nephrite, if you love me, please leave me alone. Please let me hide for a while. I'll be back when it's over, I promise. I'm just tired of hurting."

"Naru-chan --"

"If you really love me, Nephrite, you won't ask again."

He opened his mouth as though to say something else, then stopped. He looked down and let his hand fall from her shoulder. "All right, Naru," he whispered. "I won't ask you again."

He turned to leave. As he reached the door, Naru ran up to him. She suddenly felt afraid. "I promise I'll be back when it's over. I haven't really left you, I just needed --"

He glanced down at her, a strange, sad, empty look on his face, and touched her face, then left the apartment without another word. Naru sank slowly to her knees, leaning against the door, crying bitterly. Makoto came back out, put her arms around Naru, and helped her back to the futon. "What have I done?" Naru sobbed. "He won't want me back after this, even if -- even if he's all right when it's over, but I can't watch him and Thulite try to destroy each other, I can't, oh, Makoto, what am I going to do?"

"You'll take a nap, and help yourself to whatever you want to eat, and think things over later when you're not so upset. I've gotta go now, so you just make yourself comfortable, and I'll see you later."

"Are you going to tell the others? Usagi and everyone?"

Makoto paused and looked back on her way out the door. "If I think it would be best, then yes, I will. But only if I think it's necessary. Okay?"

Naru nodded, and Makoto left.

* * * * * * * *

Nephrite rematerialized on his hill, behind his house, where Thulite had attacked him the day before. His cuts and burns still stung, but that pain was nothing compared to the ache in his heart. "Are you happy now, Topaz?" he yelled. "Are you done with me yet? Had your fill of revenge yet? I've lost my wife and my son and my friends, what else do you think you can do to me?" There was no answer; he hadn't expected one. "Why don't you just come right out and fight me, Topaz? I don't care if you kill me, just stop hurting the people I care about..." Sudden tears choked off his voice.

"Oh, Nephrite, you're so pathetic." The husky voice, accompanied by a throaty chuckle, made him spin around. Topaz hovered in the air about twenty feet behind him.

Nephrite summoned power and shot several energy-blasts towards her. A translucent black wall suddenly formed around Topaz. The energy balls ricocheted off the wall and flew back towards Nephrite. He threw himself to the ground, shielding his head with his arms as his own attacks exploded around him.

When it was quiet again, he got to his hands and knees. Topaz laughed at him. "Well. I'm sure that was rather humiliating. I'm not ready to fight you yet, handsome, not until my Lords and I are ready to conquer this miserable little world. So I'm afraid the suspense is just going to have to be drawn out a little longer. See ya." And she was gone, in a swirl of dark yellow energy.

Nephrite stayed where he was for several minutes. He was entirely alone, he had no control at all over the situation. The only thing he could think of to do now was drink. Heavily. He stood up and went into the house.

He was pouring his first serving of scotch when it occurred to him how much Topaz would like it if he turned into a helpless, alcohol-sodden wreck. If he was going to do this alone, he was going to have to do it cold sober. He gathered up the bottles and took them into the kitchen, where he poured their contents down the sink. He would get through this somehow; he had no choice. And, with any luck, Kunzite would also dry out and get himself together.

* * * * * * * *

Naru napped, then woke up and ate lunch. Makoto's leftovers were better than anyone else's original food, and Naru wondered if maybe Makoto would teach her how to cook. Nephrite would like that, assuming he would even take her back, assuming he survived the inevitable confrontation with Thulite.

She didn't want to think about the possibility that she could lose Nephrite again. She didn't want to hurt any more. After clearing away her lunch dishes, she went to the futon sofa and mindlessly surfed through the channels on Makoto's TV the rest of the afternoon.

Makoto was late getting home; she was probably out with the Sailor Senshi. Naru envied the five girls their closeness. She and Usagi had been best friends since kindergarten, but ever since this Sailor Senshi business started, a few years ago, Naru had felt more and more shut out of her best friend's life. Her relationship with Kenichi and, now, the bizarre turns that her relationship with Nephrite had taken had widened the distance even further.

The TV news was coming on. The lead story on all the local channels was about a teenage couple found dead in a Tokyo park that morning. So far, no cause of death had been established; there were no signs of foul play or that they had overdosed on drugs

Naru knew, instinctively, what had killed them. Topaz. Well, it could have been Zoisite or Thulite, but Topaz was the one responsible. She wondered if Nephrite knew about these latest deaths. She walked over to the phone, and picked it up and set it back down again several times. He probably knew about it, or would soon if he didn't already, and she didn't really know what else to say to him. Anything she said right now would only make things worse.

She went back to the sofa and sat down, turning off the TV and closing her eyes. What happened, she wondered wearily. She had been so happy, everything had been so simple during those weeks between Nephrite's return and the day Kenichi had appeared in the woods with his gun. Why couldn't things have stayed like that?

She must have dozed off, because the next thing she knew Makoto was letting herself in, juggling a bag of groceries in her arms. Naru rubbed her eyes and sat up. "Hey, kiddo," Makoto grinned at her. "How are you doing?"

"Okay." Naru shrugged. "I've been sleeping a lot, and thinking."

"Ready to talk about it yet?" Makoto set the grocery bag on the counter and dropped her school satchel to the floor.

"No." Naru stood and watched the tall girl unpack the food she had bought. "How do you manage, living on your own?"

"All right. I get lonely sometimes, and sometimes I wish there was someone else here to take care of things for me. But when my parents died, I was thirteen, and they had brought me up to be independent anyway, so I didn't want to go to an orphanage, of course, and I didn't really have any relatives who could take me in. Just a couple of very old-fashioned aunts, which would have driven me crazy."

"What do you live on? I mean, if you don't mind my asking. How do you manage the bills and stuff?"

Makoto smiled as she tied an apron over her school uniform and began taking out the ingredients for supper. "I don't mind. My parents left me a lot of money. Fortunately, they were smart, or maybe they had a premonition that something would happen to them. The money's in a trust at the bank, and the people at the bank give me what I need every month. I have to show them my bills, and keep track of my expenses, but they've never given me any trouble about how much I spend. There's a monthly limit built into the trust, but it's more than enough for me to live on. And the guy at the bank, who oversees the trust, signs my rent leases and stuff like that, where an adult has to sign. Come on, you wanna help me cook? I'll give you a free cooking lesson."

"Okay." Naru went to the counter, where Makoto showed her how to clean and chop the vegetables. As she worked, Naru said, "If Nephrite won't take me back, or if something... happens to him, I'll have to learn how to live on my own. I can't go back to my mother's. I'd feel like such a failure."

"Oh, Naru, he's crazy about you. He'll take you back, don't worry. But I'm glad to have you for a roommate for as long as you want."

"Thanks. You know, that's the way it always used to be, girls our age or not much older, would go straight from living with their parents to living with their husband. Just like me and Nephrite, except with us it was so weird, all those things that happened. I wish I understood why my life is so weird."

Makoto looked up from boning and cutting up chicken meat, and winked at Naru. "You fell in love with a magical man. That's bound to do it."

"Yeah, I guess so." Naru remembered how he had looked at her when he left the apartment that morning. A spasm of grief gripped her insides. She fought to get herself back under control. It felt good, talking to Makoto, and she didn't want the conversation to end. "Hey, did you hear about those kids they found dead in the park this morning?"

"Yeah," Makoto said. "Actually, one of them, the girl, went to Rei's school."

"Oh, my gosh. Did Rei know her?"

"They weren't like friends or anything, but they were in some classes together. Rei was pretty upset. We were talking about it after school; that's why I was so late getting home."

"It was Topaz. Well, it could have been Zoisite or Thulite who actually drained their energy and killed them, but you know what I mean."

Makoto put her knife down and looked at her with interest. "How do you know?"

"I just... I know. My instincts. They said on the news that it didn't look like they'd been doing any drugs or anything like that. I'm just... certain that it was Topaz."

"Great," Makoto said.

"I know. It's scary. With, like, the junkies and the drunks, you can go, well, they kind of brought it on themselves, getting oblivious like that, hanging out in dark, isolated places, and they probably would have died sooner instead of later anyway. That doesn't mean I don't feel sorry for them, or that it wasn't bad of Topaz to drain their energy till they died, but still... but now, when it's kids our age, who weren't doing anything but making out in the park...." Naru rubbed at the scar on her chest.

"I'll make sure I tell the other Senshi what you think. It sounds like Nephrite really needs our help, but we've got these other strange things going on right now, and Usagi and Mamoru are breaking up and getting back together every other day...."

The girls cooked and gossiped, and for a short while Naru reveled in feeling just like a normal teenager. They ate supper and watched a movie, then Naru watched another movie while Makoto did her homework, all without a single mention of Nephrite or Topaz or Thulite. Makoto turned in for the night, leaving Naru sitting on the couch, staring at the TV and twisting her rings around and around.

The wedding ring was as lovely as the engagement ring, set with five smaller but equally exquisite diamonds. Nephrite had made promises to her when he gave her that ring, and she had made promises to him. But what was the good of making promises if you only kept them when it was easy to do so? In fairness, though, Naru argued with herself, nothing had been easy for her, not since Nephrite's death, except for those short weeks between his return and the day Topaz came crashing into their lives by way of Kenichi and his gun.

No, something inside her argued back, it wasn't true, that nothing had been easy for her. Loving Nephrite was so easy, she felt like it was what she had been born to do. Being loved by him, that was so easy too. He had never demanded anything of her, never made her do anything she didn't want to do. He might suggest things, books he wanted her to read or music he wanted her to listen to, or the idea of restoring the garden, but these were clearly because he wanted her to learn and grow and thrive. He had never said a word to her that could be interpreted as critical or unkind.

And she repaid his love and kindness by abandoning him when he needed her the most. Naru crammed her fist against her mouth to keep from crying. She didn't want to go back, she didn't want to see the inevitable confrontation, she didn't want to hurt any more. But she was running out of justifications for staying away. And it seemed that this choice was not going to be free of pain.

Naru turned off the TV, unfolded the futon, lay down in her clothes, and pulled the blanket Makoto had given her over herself. Her thoughts chased each other around in circles until she lost the threads of them and fell asleep.

She woke up, feeling lonely and disoriented, and reached for Nephrite. He wasn't there; there was only emptiness next to her. Then she realized where she was, and what she had done. Her sleep seemed to have had the effect of ordering her thoughts, for she now saw two things very clearly. She had broken her promise to her husband, she had left him when he needed her the most. He was probably going to have to destroy his son in order to keep Topaz's evil out of the world, and she had left him to face that alone.

The other thing she realized was that she did have a choice. Not about the situation with Topaz and Thulite; that was beyond her control. As were so many things in life; people could rarely pick and choose the bad things that happened to them. What she did have a choice in was how she handled it. She could stay away and protect herself as best she could, or she could stand by her husband and help him do what had to be done.

It was like a light coming on inside her head. Naru sat up. She had a choice -- not in what happened to her, but in how she handled it. She could stay away, or she could go back, and no one was going to force her to do one or the other. It was completely up to her.

She jumped up from the couch, hurried to the phone, and called a taxi.

* * * * * * * *

Naru carefully opened the front door of the house to see Nephrite sitting up in an armchair, listening to some of that Bach music he had had her listening to several weeks ago. The music was turned up very loud. She stepped quietly into the room, then hesitated, not knowing how to approach him.

He looked up and saw her. Quickly, he stood and turned down the stereo. "Naru?"

"I -- I'm back."

"I thought --"

"I know it'll hurt, but at least I'm going into this voluntarily."

"Oh, Naru." He reached her in a few long strides, wrapped his arms around her, buried his face in her hair. "Oh, Naru." It sounded like he was crying.

"I'm sorry, Nephrite." Naru started crying too. "I was hurt and confused and angry --"

"It's all right, love." He nuzzled his mouth against her ear and whispered to her, holding her closer, moving his hands over her back and shoulders. "You don't have to explain anything, or apologize for anything."

She pulled back a bit to look into his tear-filled blue eyes. "Nephrite?"

"What, love?"

"Thank you for letting me figure things out for myself."

"Oh, Naru." Nephrite kissed her again, drinking her in. Then he lifted her into his arms and carried her upstairs to their room. Neither of them noticed Kunzite staring thoughtfully up the stairs after them.