Disclaimer: Eh, standard Sailor Moon disclaimers apply, check my site for the full blown detailed one. Here, finally, is chapter two. Its not uproariously hilarious, not that I'm promising the others will be, but this is definitely the most 'serious' chapter of the story. So the others should come out much faster. I write more when its fun.
=) Rated mild PG-13

I Told You So
by Kei aka Splinter Tree

Chapter Two

I retrieve the burnt lasagna from the oven and contemplate my failure as a boyfriend. Well, maybe not my failure as much as Lita's insanity. What the hell is wrong with the girl? I've scrimped and saved and worked overtime and have totally given up drinking, okay I have a brew on Monday night football night, in order to save up the money I needed for the tickets and well, the ring.

After gingerly setting the spoiled dinner on the counter I take off the damn pink potholders and retrieve the box I've carried around for, well, weeks. I love my girl and want to do right by her, you know? I'm all she has, aside from the girls, but that's different. I dunno where her family is, or if she's ever had any. She never talks about them but I personally don't think too highly of people who would leave their baby out in this screwed up world by herself.

But I promised myself that I wouldn't just propose in some stupid restaurant or at the opera. I want it to be classy and, hell, what's classier than Paris, than France? Besides, Lita's always wanted to go there. Her shelves are lined with Paris travel guides and her place looks like a tourist trap exploded in it. I open the velvet lid and sigh as the diamond glints at me. I swear the rock is sneering. Thinks I'm not good enough for it or something. Why the hell can't my life ever be simple? You know how cluttered your brain gets after you've been reborn a couple of times? This is what, my third, fourth time around the reincarnation cycle and personally, I'm starting to feel sorry for cats, though I still don't like the damned things. I mean, they have nine lives! No wonder all they do is sleep and lick themselves, keep it simple ne? So basically I'm stumped. I mean I'm going to marry Lita, or at least propose to her, and I'm going to do it in Paris. These tickets were a steal and are totally nonrefundable. In other words I have two incredibly expensive investments that I can't do anything with. Hell, I'll do what I always do when I don't know what's going on, I'll call Kunzite.

Kunzite?! Yeah, I know, not ideal, but remember Zoi is in spaz mode. Its kind of funny actually. He's studying so hard his hands twitch in his sleep and if you put a pencil in one he'll write out math equations, either math equations or some really sappy poetry. And Jade... Jadeite and Rei are having a lover's quarrel. I think it has something to do with the fact that Jade wants to make love and Rei wants to have a quarrel. I have to say one thing, that girl knows how to keep a man like Jadeite interested. She's been more prude than a Victorian widow and its been driving him crazy. If I know Rei Jadeite will be making his own very expensive purchase very, very soon. And Darien, Darien doesn't get women. The girls told us what a mess he's made with him and Serena over the years so all that's left is Kunzite.

Although I might get Darien's input after all since Kunzite and Mina are staying with him and Serena. Mina's modeling all over the country and doesn't really need a place so when she roosts at home she usually crashes at Darien and Serena's, or comes to our apartment. Man, I bet Darien's 'snug, cozy', insert heavy sarcasm(he is such a cheepo, refuses to get anything bigger than a one bedroom), apartment is getting a little packed around the edges. I sigh again for melodramatic effect and close the lid of the ring's box before stuffing it back in a pocket and reaching for the phone.

The phone rings twelve times, I know someone is home cause the damn machine isn't on, before Kunzite finally answers it. "This had better be a woman better looking than one of America's finest models who I have in my lap by the way, or someone with a really big check."

"Kunzite?"

"Ah hell, Nephrite what are you calling here for?" I raise my eyebrows for a incredulous look, not that Kunzite can appreciate the effort over the phone, and return volley.

"Ah hell Kunzite, why can't I call 'here'?" And, I'm not physic or anything but I swear I can feel my fearless leader blush over the phone as he begins to stammer out an answer.

"Well normally I'm cool with interruptions but Serena and Darien are out for exactly two hours and with this damn one bedroom apartment me and Mina never get any time alone so we were kinda..."

"Oh... yuck... Kunzite stop, please... I beg you. I don't need to be thinking of you and that pretty girl like that. God, you're awful! I feel like I need to go wash my brain or something..."

"Nephrite, cram it." I'm almost afraid that he's going to hang up on me but a moment later a bright and not at all abashed voice comes on.

"Hiya Nephrite! Don't mind Kun, he's just sore cause we have to sleep on the couch and its too short for him. His big ol Wiley Coyote feet stick out over the edge." I respond the only way I can, I snicker. There's a few moments of muted arguing before Kunzite finally regains poscession of the phone.

"Okay Nephrite, is this life and death?" I sigh before replying.

"I gave Lita the tickets." There's a second of dead silence before Kunzite answers.

"Well did she flip?" I sigh again, just for grins.

"Oh yeah, she flipped, flipped out, started bawling, and walked out on me."

"That's bizarre Neph, I mean getting her those tickets to Paris is probably the nicest, smartest thing you've ever done in your miserable pathetic little life, aside from starting to date her that is. I wonder why she went nuts on you..." I hear a click as Mina gets on another phone and joins in the conversation, but her voice is strangely quiet, softer than normal.

"Neph, let me get this straight. You got Lita plane tickets to go to Paris?"

"Yeah..." There's an exasperated sigh at Mina's end as me and Kunzite wait expectantly.

"You sweet idiot. Did you talk to any of the girls about it first?" I feel the part where I'm going to get screwed coming but I know I can't avoid it so I go ahead and continue this conversation instead of running for my 'miserable, pathetic little' life.

"No, just the guys. I was afraid one of you would spill the secret." Mina, when she responds, is oddly gentle but her words leave me shell shocked anyway.

"Nephrite, the tickets were a sweet gesture and all but Lita won't, can't fly on air planes. Her parents died in a crash when she was fourteen, a little while before she discovered she was a senshi."

I arrive at Darien's apartment a half an hour later, though I'm surprised I survived driving over here. I just can't believe it... I mean Mina's explanation sure explains everything to me but I just can't understand why my Lita never told me anything... Is it that she doesn't trust me? That I don't mean enough to her to tell me something that personal? I voice my questions to Mina and she responds with a cup of hot chocolate. I stare at the mug in my hands for a second.

"I think I need something a little stronger." Mina snorts as Kunzite comes in and joins us in the quasi kitchen/dining room.

"Drink up Nephrite." I pause, suspicious, before taking a sip and spluttering.

"My God! What did you put in here?" Mina raises golden brows.

"Brandy of course, its good for you." Kunzite regards his lover with distrust.

"Next time I'm sick I'd prefer that you not be my nurse..." Mina smacks him in reply, of course.

"Neph," she says softly, "you have to understand... You know how close mouthed Lita can be about her own feelings sometimes. I don't even know if she had a reason for keeping it from you except that sometimes, even now, she seems so damned afraid of her past. She's still got a lot of hurt locked up inside and a lot more healing left to do. She didn't even tell us about what had happened until we moved to America. We had known the basics of course but she never sat us down and shared the details of the event that shaped her life, for better or worse. Not until we were like sisters Nephrite.

"She loves you, its so obvious. Just please, please, go back home and wait for her, she'll be back soon I promise, and try to work things out." My hands clench the mug to my chest as I close pained eyes.

"All right. I'll go."

I open the door five hours later to reveal a much subdued Lita. "I've been at Ami's," she says softly, "and we need to talk." I take her arm with a feeling of trepidation and lead her to the dining room table. Baby, hearing the door, begins to try to break down the bathroom door, howling at the top of his over sized lungs. I sit and Lita sits opposite from me. I sense that she wants to begin. I drop her hand and she curls them into her lap, her face downcast.

"I... I know I should have told you that I was an orphan, long ago, but I never seemed able to. When I was fourteen my parents were killed in a plane accident. It was a diaster... Over two hundred people were killed. It was all over the news... The pilot hadbeen drunk and his co-pilot was in the bathroom when the plane malfunctioned and went down. There were no survivors.

"I had been at home alone that weekend. My parents were taking a second honeymoon in France and were on their way back home. An airport representative called my house but it was too late. I had seen the news on tv. I... I've never been that close to darkness before Neph, true darkness, and I was only a child.

"I was a poster child for air line safety. The press called me 'Lita Orphan Girl' when they learned my story. I stayed in an apartment. I had a social worker but my parents had left stipulations in their wills so that I could live, for the most part, by myself if something ever happened to them. Then I met up with the girls and discovered I was a Scout. I didn't tell them until we moved to America, and they wanted to know why I wouldn't fly over."

"How did you cross that ocean?" Lita smiles at me and I close my eyes, its painful to look at.

"In a very large boat. It took weeks. Darien had moved here earlier, for college, and Ami had followed. Serena didn't need any more reason than that. Her dad was furious but her mom thought it was sweet. They'd better get married soon or her dad'll really blow. Mina was doing a lot of her modeling over here so eventually she packed up and moved as well and I figured why not? I mean my friends are my family. I didn't have any other ties.

"Then we moved here and met you guys. It seemed like this huge cosmic joke at first, us four finally finding four perfect men, but you know... when we started to remember stuff, all of us, from Before, it was more like Fate. And then when we all so confused about who we were it was unbearable, Setsuna came down from her throne of Time and explained to us lowly immortals that our past loves had been reincarnated into the present and slapped us all on the back of the heads for being stupid.

"Everything was so perfect and it hurts to remember all that pain Nephrite. I... I haven't been this happy in a long time. I didn't want to spoil it." My heart goes out to my girl and I stand, knocking my chair over, before sweeping Lita up in my arms.

"Honey, its okay," I whisper huskily as she buries her face in my shirt. "Its okay." I stroke her hair as she returns my embrace, face streaming.

"So we're not going to Paris?" Lita sounds hopeful, but the timbre of wistfulness underneath the hope makes my decision for me.

"Hell no, we're going. Those tickets were nonrefundable." Lita raises her head and looks at me, disbelief and fear written plainly on her so beautiful face.

"But..." I put my fingers under her chin and tilt her head up so that I can lean down and touch my lips gently to hers.

"Do you trust me babe?" She looks away and pulls me closer.

"Yeah but Nephrite... I can't do it... I know."

"Do you trust me Lita? I promise you Lita, I'll keep you safe. Nothing will happen." There's a long moment of silence broken only by the beating of our hearts, and Baby's frantic but ineffectual struggles against the bathroom door.

"Let's go to Paris Nephrite." I smile and clutch Lita closer, though I pray she doesn't feel the ring box I have in my pocket.

"Okay babe." Baby howls and we both wince at once, together.


Author's Notes: Hay ya'll not much to say for once. hehe Email please... I really appreciate it!

email: inspiredthoughts@hotmail.com

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