Disclaimers: Sailor Moon belongs to Naoko Takeuchi, but this story is mine and so are my characters. Please don't sue me.
Dedicated to Emily-chan and Sammi-chan.
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Little Sister
Part 7
By Marie-chan
On the UFO, Rubeus is watching Ashleigh again.
“That little brat is still holding on to
her worthless life. I’ll have to go down there and finish her
off.” he mutters irritatedly. “No.”
says the Wise Man, who had suddenly appeared behind him. “Wise
Man? To what do I owe this
honor?” He ignores Rubeus’s question and tells him not to kill
her, “Let her suffer, she’ll die
soon enough.” “Yes, of course.” Rubeus answers.
After dinner, the girls are in Serena’s room doing
homework. Luna comes in and acts
shocked, “What!? Serena doing homework?” Serena tells her
to put a sock in it. Luna hops
onto Ashleigh’s bed (it’s less crowded than Serena’s bed because she
and Renie are fighting for
space.) She walks up to the book Ashleigh’s studying. It’s
a physics book. Luna asks her why
she’s studying it, as she thought Ashleigh was in Serena’s class, and
there’s no way Serena’s in
physics! She tells Luna that she’s finished with her homework
so she’s brushing up on physics
so she can help Darien study. “BRUSHING UP!?” they shout.
Luna then notices that it’s a
college textbook. Ashleigh says, “Yeah, um...I’m really tired
tonight, so I’m gonna go to bed
early if you don’t mind.” She gets up and closes her books, pulls
her pajamas out of her suitcase,
and leaves the room to change. As soon as she’s gone, Luna goes
over to Serena and tells her
that she senses a strange energy coming from Ashleigh. Renie
asks if Ashleigh could be another
Sailor Scout. Luna says she doesn’t think so, because the energy
is different from Serena’s and
the other girls’. “Besides,” Luna tells her, “when we found Venus,
we had the full team.” Renie
must know there are more Scouts, but she probably feels she shouldn’t
tell them about the future
more than she has to. Serena says, “I don’t know, Luna, last
time you sensed energy from
somebody, you misjudged it and it turned out to be Amy!” Offended,
Luna responds, “Well, I
was just getting used to it; Mercury was only the second Sailor Scout.”
Serena says that’s no
excuse. Renie suggests that they call Raye. Serena digs
her communicator out of her book bag,
and pushes some buttons. Raye looks annoyed that Serena is calling
her so late at night, “You
meatball-head! Couldn’t it wait until morning?” Serena
tells her no, so Raye asks what she
wants. They ask her if she senses any energy from Ashleigh.
Raye says that as a matter of fact,
she has sensed a strange energy from the younger girl. “And,
oh yeah, I just remembered: earlier,
before Rubeus attacked Ashleigh and Darien, I had a really bad feeling.
I knew something was
gonna happen, I just didn’t know what. I meant to tell you guys,
but I forgot.” Serena makes a
really big monster-face, “How could you forget to tell us something
as important as that!?”
Raye starts to answer [the view switches to her perspective].
On the screen, Serena
disappears from view as she quickly shoves the communicator under something
[the view goes
back to Serena’s room]. Serena has stuffed a pillow over her
communicator, but Raye can still
be heard screaming at her, even though it’s muffled. Ashleigh
is coming in. She’s wearing some
pajamas that are in pretty sad shape. The knees are patched up
and they’re stitched up all over.
They were originally light yellow, but they had faded and now just
looked kind of dirty white.
Serena reaches under her pillow and turns shrieking Raye off.
It’s late at night now, and the girls are all asleep.
Luna is on Ashleigh’s bed and Serena
and Renie are snoring on their bed. Ashleigh is having a bad
dream, and is twisting in the bed.
Her movements awaken Luna, who walks up towards her face (she had been
at the foot of the
bed.) Ashleigh is cringing and whimpering. She curls up
and wraps her arms over her head in a
protective gesture. Her dream seems to be about something falling
around her. Luna touches her
face with a paw and Ashleigh wakes with a start. Luna asks what
her nightmare was about.
Ashleigh tells her she can’t really remember, but that there were explosions
and things falling.
Luna tells her to go back to sleep, but Ashleigh says she needs to
go to the bathroom first.
Ashleigh goes down the hall to the bathroom. She lifts her pajama
top up, and the
bandages are revealed to be totally saturated with blood. She
pulls some scissors out of the
cupboard to cut them off and they fall to the bathroom floor.
Then she wraps some clean ones
around her waist and bends down to pick up the old ones and grimaces.
She stands up and
throws them out and under her pajama top, the bandage is already starting
to spot with new
blood. She returns to Serena’s room and goes back to sleep.
The next morning, the alarm goes off before anyone
wakes up. Serena jumps out of bed
because she’s late as usual, and sees that Ashleigh is still sleeping.
Serena says, “Come on,
Ashleigh! We’re gonna be late.” Ashleigh slowly wakes up
and asks what time it is. “Whoa,
Ashleigh, you’re so pale! Are you feeling OK?” Serena asks when
she sees her face. Ashleigh
tells her that she’s just cold. Serena pulls out Ashleigh’s suitcase
and takes out her school
uniform and lays it on the bed for her. Ashleigh slowly gets
out of bed and picks up her clothes
as Serena flies around the room in a panic.
The girls are dressed and heading down for breakfast.
“Come on, Serena, you’re going to
be late again!” her mother calls. Serena runs downstairs and
Ashleigh follows slowly. Darien is
in the kitchen, as they see when they get there. Renie runs up
to hug him and Serena looks
jealous. Since she’s only hugging his leg, Darien picks Renie
up. Serena’s mom tells them that
Darien came by to walk the girls to school this morning. “Oh
dear, Ashleigh, you look so pale!”
She lays a hand on her forehead, checking her temperature. Ashleigh
tells her that she’s just
cold. Serena’s mom says she doesn’t have a fever. They
don’t have time for a bowl of rice, so
Serena’s mom goes to get them a piece of toast. Darien says that
he came by to check on them,
but they weren’t awake, so Mrs. Smith let him in. He tells Ashleigh
that she really does look
pale. “Are you sure you’re OK?” She tells him that she’s
fine, then Mrs. Smith comes out with
three buttered toasts. They grab their lunches and bookbags and
go out the door. Darien offers
his toast to Ashleigh, who doesn’t want it, so he gives it to Serena
(not bothering to ask if she
wants it). He says he’s still stuffed from all the food her mom
gave him while he was waiting for
them to get up. Serena wolfs down the toast and says, “Come on,
guys, we’re gonna be late!”
She grabs Ashleigh’s hand and pulls her along, as Ashleigh is trudging
ahead at a snail’s pace.
She still looks tired and pale. Darien looks at her worriedly.
He grabs her sleeve and she
grimaces because now she’s getting pulled on from two sides.
Serena lets go and Ashleigh turns
to face Darien. She tries to tug her sleeve away but he won’t
let go. He’s studying her very
carefully, trying to figure out what’s wrong. “Ashleigh, I know
something’s wrong, why won’t
you tell me?” She tells him that nothing’s wrong with her, and
he should just stop worrying. He
looks sad because he knows she’s lying to him. His grip loosens
just a bit, and she pulls away.
She turns and runs past Serena towards the school. *I’m sorry,
Darien* she thinks as she runs.
Serena starts to go after her, but Darien tells her to let Ashleigh
go, because she needs to be
alone. Darien asks, “Serena, have you noticed if Ashleigh’s been
acting strange lately?” Serena
tells him that Luna said she’d woken up from a nightmare last night.
Darien frowns and tells her
that Ashleigh used to have nightmares a lot, but she stopped having
them a few years ago. He
says she could never remember much about them either. “Wow!
Luna said the same thing!”
Serena exclaims. “They mostly seemed to be about stuff falling
on her, or her falling from a high
place. I think they were recurring nightmares.” Darien continues.
“This time,” Serena reports, “I
think it was about stuff falling on her, and Luna mentioned explosions,
too.” Darien doesn’t say
anything, his frown only gets deeper. Serena asks if he thinks
Ashleigh will come back for her
stuff. “Huh?” says Darien, but then he looks down for the first
time and realizes he’s still
carrying both of the girls’ bookbags and lunches. He tells Serena
that he’s pretty sure she won’t
come back, so he says he’ll take it in for her.
Ashleigh’s in a crowded hallway at Crossroads Jr.
High, walking in the opposite direction
of most of the other kids. A guy on the edge of a large group
of friends can’t avoid hitting her,
and Ashleigh’s moving too slow to get out of the way in time.
He hits her hard on the side she’s
hurt on and she slams into the wall. The guy calls out a lighthearted
apology as he continues
down the crowded hall. Ashleigh, back against the wall, hugs
her knee to her body and starts to
cry.
On the UFO, Rubeus tells a shadowy figure that she’s nearly done for.
To be continued.....