Naru awoke to bright sunlight flooding her room. The light hurt her eyes; she squeezed them shut again immediately, then opened them cautiously, a little at a time, pulling her blanket across her face to shade them while they adjusted to the brightness. The sun hadn't shone like that in Tokyo in months. The strange weather must have passed, or Sailor Moon and the Senshi had finally suceeded in driving back whatever evil force was causing the bad weather. What a long night's battle it must have been. She hoped Usagi was ok. Sometimes after one of these big struggles, Usagi seemed to be out of it for several days or even weeks.

A little while later, the door opened, and the nurse, accompanied by the usual bodyguard/orderly, bustled in. "Good morning, Naru-san!" she practically sang. Even the orderly was smiling, as though the return of the sunlight had made everyone happier.

"I never got my meds last night," Naru said. "Wasn't anyone on duty?"

"It's the strangest thing, Naru-san," the nurse said, setting down the tray with the little paper cup of pills and the bigger paper cup of water on the small bedside table. "Everyone says they fell asleep sometime during the evening, even the people who were on duty here, and no one woke up until an hour ago. I saw the tray with your night doses and realized the night nurse had slept right through when she should have given them to you. Open up now, dear."

Naru started to obey, but then she realized that, in spite of the lingering sorrow and loneliness from the loss of her family, she felt more clear-headed than she had in days. The effects of the medication and the withdrawal must have worn off overnight. Experimentally, she shifted her hips on the bed and moved her arms and legs. The constant pain was gone. "I don't want them. I feel better."

"Now, Naru, dear, we're all in a better mood because all that cold and ice finally went away. Oh--you haven't seen it! Come look outside!" The nurse guided Naru over to the window. "Isn't it beautiful? It's so amazing how it just appeared there overnight! Or maybe it was being built while the weather was so bad, and we just never noticed it."

Outside, the sun shone brilliantly in a cloudless, perfectly blue sky. The trees in the courtyard had sprouted a profusion of leaves the fresh, delicate green of early spring. Spots of bright colors dotted the flower planters. A number of fallen branches lay on the ground, but groundskeepers in sunglasses were already starting the cleanup. At the hospital across the plaza, the part of the building that covered the driveway by the main entrance had crumbled into piles of broken concrete block. There were other signs of damage to the building, as though a mild earthquake had struck. "The plants seem to have recovered quickly," Naru said, not quite sure what she was supposed to be looking at, "but there's an awful lot of damage..."

"Oh, I guess it's hard to see from your window. Look, over there!" The nurse pointed to the left, and Naru craned her neck to peer between the metal bars in the direction the nurse was pointing.

Off in the distance, a cluster of crystalline towers rose high above the city. They caught the sunlight, refracting it into hundreds of rainbows that glimmered across the sky. The top of the central tower, the tallest, caught the light and shone so brightly Naru had to look away. "What is it?" she asked.

"No one knows," the nurse said. "It was just there when everyone woke up this morning. When my shift is done, I'm going to go over there with my boyfriend and see if we can get a close look. I wonder if they'll let people near it."

What were the towers, and how did they get there? Did they look as amazing close-up as from a distance? She would probably never know. As long as she insisted on telling the truth, she would never get out of here and see that beautiful building. Naru turned away from the window. "Maybe they'll let people look at it. Doesn't really matter, though." She went back to the bed and let the nurse give her her meds.

* * * * * * * *

Time passed as it had before the long night. Naru took her meds, went through her physical therapy--though the therapist was amazed at how much Naru had healed in one night--and talked to Dr. Tajima and the social worker, answering all the same questions with all the same answers. Maybe sometime they would get bored with her and let her go. Or quit coming. Either way, she wouldn't miss them. She read and re-read the two paperback novels, until one day the orderly who brought her lunch made the connection that Naru had either been reading that book for weeks or was re-reading it for about the eighth time. At suppertime, her ration of rice--undercooked this time--with brown sauce, rubber vegetables, and fish-like substance, along with milk and a packet of rice crackers and another packet of dried plums, was accompanied by a paperback novel about an underdog baseball team. Still not what she would have chosen for herself, but at least it was something she hadn't read until she had it memorized.

Fragments of rumors made their way into Naru's room. The Queen had driven back the freeze, it seemed. "Japan doesn't have a queen," Naru said to the orderly who mentioned this. If some Queen had done this, then what about Sailor Moon? What had happened to her?

"Oh, she isn't the queen of Japan. She's the queen of Crystal Tokyo. That's what Tokyo is called now, and we're the greatest city in the world, because of Neo-Queen Serenity-sama! The freeze ruined all the other cities, and she woke them up too, but they aren't as beautiful as our city of Crystal Tokyo."

The orderly hummed as he laid out Naru's lunch on the little table by the window. That was something else; everyone was so cheerful all the time. The scowling, hulking orderlies smiled all the time now and looked as though they enjoyed playing with kittens and puppies when they weren't manhandling uncooperative mental patients. The nurses never complained about aching feet or long shifts; they smiled kindly as they cajoled her into taking her meds. Even dour Dr. Tajima was as kind and jolly as a favorite uncle, even as he asked her if she still insisted that monsters existed.

"And they say I'm the one who's crazy," she muttered as the orderly handed her her plastic spork.

He smiled at her. "You aren't crazy, dear Naru-san. Our guests here are merely troubled people, burdened with sorrows and negative feelings, who just need treatment and rest and peace."

He left the room, leaving her to eat her meal. Naru stared at the door after it closed behind him. Since when were mental patients called "guests"? He made it sound like she was spending a week or two at a hot springs spa. Oh well. Her stomach growled, and she dug into the usual undercooked rice, overcooked vegetables, flavorless sauce, and something that might be shrimp except it wasn't shaped quite right.

The thought of shrimp triggered memories of Umino's spicy shrimp that he used to make. Thanks to the meds, she was still in a kind of dull fog a lot of the time, but sometimes something would trigger a sharp flood of grief that would sweep away her will to do anything. Her appetite gone, she got up from the table and lay down on the bed, closing her eyes and pulling the covers over her head in an attempt to shutter away the memories.

* * * * * * * *

From another orderly, she learned that the assistant superintendent of the Institute hadn't been seen since the morning after the long night. The speculation was that she had been caught outside and froze to death. But Naru knew the truth. It was the assistant superintendent who had subtly but firmly directed her competency hearing, who had authorized--ordered--Dr. Tajima to do whatever was necessary to "control" Naru's "delusions"--keep her silent. The assistant superintendent had been one of Them, and had been driven away or destroyed by Sailor Moon's victory. Or the Queen's victory, as it seemed to be. But she could never say so. No one would believe her, and it would only make things worse for her.

* * * * * * * *

At least a month had passed when one morning, the nurse and a female orderly, who usually helped Naru with her morning washing and dressing, came in carrying a plastic shopping bag and smiling even more broadly than usual. "Naru-san, such wonderful news!" the nurse said. "The guests here at the Institute have been invited to go meet with Neo-Queen Serenity-sama, and she's going to heal them! Isn't that wonderful?"

The Queen was going to heal the mental patients? What kind of person was this Queen? She, not the Senshi, had pushed back the freeze... Naru's suspicions kicked in. "Who is this Queen? How do you know this isn't some kind of evil plan--"

"But Neo-Queen Serenity-sama couldn't do anything evil! She drove back the freeze, and awoke the world, and made everything beautiful and happy, the way it is now. She's so beautiful and kind, and just wants everyone to be happy," the nurse said. "Here, Naru-san, look at this. Isn't it pretty?"

From the shopping bag, the orderly took a pink velour track suit and held it up for Naru's approval. There's a reason why I never used to wear pink, Naru thought. But the nurse and the orderly were looking at her with such pleased expressions, so eager to hear that they had made her happy, that Naru couldn't bring herself to reject the suit. "It's cute," she said, examining the clothing. The drawstrings had already been secured in their tunnels with the usual red thread. At least the red didn't show up as easily against the bright medicine-pink color of this outfit. The seat of the pants had the word "CHICK" appliqued across it in silver fabric. "Cute," Naru repeated.

"And we'll shampoo your hair and curl it, and you'll look so pretty for your audience with Serenity-sama." The nurse beamed at the idea. "Isn't this exciting?"

An hour later, her red wavy hair shampooed and curled into a style she never would have worn if she'd had a choice, dressed in the embarrassing pink track suit, Naru left the Institute with an accompanying orderly. The light and warmth of the sun were overwhelming, and she shrank back when she first stepped into it. It was the first time she'd been outside in--how long? It must have been at least three months now, or nearly four, since the accident. Although by her figuring it should be mid-summer, the crisp freshness of the air and the newly-leafing and blooming plants reminded her more of early spring. "It's all right, Naru-san," the orderly said when Naru flinched and closed her eyes against the bright light. "Doesn't that feel nice?"

It was so strange to not have four close walls around her. People walked past, cars honked their horns in traffic in the distance. The breeze chafed at her sensitive skin. Naru hunched her shoulders and bowed her head and let the orderly guide her across the plaza to the curb, where several large white passenger vans were waiting. The vans had the logo of the mental institute painted on the sides, to warn everyone about the crazy passengers inside, Naru thought.

Other patients were being led towards the vans and helped to board. Some of them seemed fairly alert and self-directed, while others looked lost in worlds of their own, and had to be firmly guided by their accompanying orderlies. Naru's orderly brought her to the door of one of the vans. She raised a foot to step into the van, then a vision of the inside of a car as it flipped end over end down a cliff flashed in front of her, accompanied by rocking vertigo. "No!" Naru cried over the sound of Umino's shouts and her mother's screams in her mind. She felt herself tumbling, then someone caught her.

"It's all right, Naru-san. You were in a terrible car accident, isn't that right? You're safe now. Our drivers are very careful," a male orderly said as he steadied her on her feet.

"I don't want to go," she sobbed.

Dr. Tajima's voice spoke. "This is not the taxi, Naru-san, and you won't be going on any steep roads. The drivers are trained to drive very safely. You need to take this step forward as part of your healing."

Naru struggled to get herself under control. "They told me Neo-Queen Serenity will heal me."

"Perhaps she can. But you'll never know unless you get on that van."

Never mind that she didn't need to be healed. If she made them think she had recovered from her mental disturbance, they would let her leave the Institute. Naru brushed the tears from her face, took a deep breath, and stepped onto the van.