Well, she had certainly called it right: Duo-kun and Heero-kun had no sooner announced their return and some of the situation to their superior, a woman named Une, than it felt like ships of people started showing up. They had all ended up getting a crash course on what exactly a colony was--more or less, an independent space station united under the Earth Sphere Unified Nation--once some of the other Preventers had showed up.
There had been no way to not tell Une-san about everything, not if they were going to come up with something to explain this sudden huge influx of people. Granted, Usagi wasn't terribly certain she actually remembered their cover story: it was either something to do with a cult or perhaps there was something about a top-secret military experiment or a... something. Really, she couldn't remember all the details. Trunks-kun probably did remember all of it, and that was good enough for her.
Besides, she usually had her hands full trying to keep the people she had brought to this world in line. For some reason, most of them still deferred to her on almost everything. Even Une-san generally contacted her on anything to do with the colony. It was a bit like being a town mayor, she thought, only without the benefits or cushy paycheck.
Better to be somewhat in charge of a colony, she thought, than to be the Queen of Crystal Tokyo. It wasn't the first time she had thought that, and it probably wouldn't be the last. At least being somewhat in charge of a colony of people wasn't always a full-time gig; she was able to have most nights off, which was good.
Of course, Trunks-kun was usually pretty busy too. If people deferred to her on day-to-day matters, they often went to Trunks-kun with anything to do with security. Apparently, the two of them had made quite the impression on everyone in those couple of meetings at Sylphiel-san's home.
That was all well and good, she supposed, but she really would have preferred to have a little bit more time for just her and Trunks-kun. If Duo-kun and Heero-kun were going to be gone as long as she feared they would--and as often as she feared they would, with still be full-time members of the Preventers--then she at least wanted to be able to spend time with Trunks-kun.
They had been on this world--on this colony, she corrected herself--for a few months now. It seemed like things should be starting to settle down. Une-san had arranged formal identities for them before a fortnight was out, so that was that dealt with easily enough, at least on her end of things; she didn't know if it was difficult for Une-san to arrange that. The woman had never said if it was or wasn't.
It had been no surprise to her that most of the people who had been couples on that weird world had gotten together and demanded the means to get married once the legalities of identities were taken care of. Une-san had come through on that as well, which had been good. There might have been riots otherwise, and that was something she really didn't want to see any time soon.
Especially since she had made a point of leaving everyone's powers as they were. From what she could tell, there weren't a lot of people with any kind of powers here. In fact, the only one she had heard of was a friend of Duo-kun's and Heero-kun's, a Quatre something or other, who apparently could feel other people's pain. Her people seemed to be on a whole other level from that. The lack of riots really was for the best.
She and Trunks-kun had talked it over a few times since then, even if Trunks-kun did seem to have a tendency to turn a heretofore-undiscovered shade of red at the topic of marriage. At the last discussion, with Duo-kun and Heero-kun conferencing in from somewhere a lot closer to Earth than they currently were, the decision had been made that it would be best if the two couples were both separately married but the four of them know they were together... at least as much as was possible when half of them were literally millions of kilometers away.
The word 'eventually' had come up plenty of times in all the discussions about getting married. Certainly she was in no rush on the matter.
In truth, though, if she spent too many more nights dreaming about ChibiUsa... Well... Too many more nights of this, and she would end up asking Une-san to send someone to this colony with pink baby clothes as soon as humanly possible.
After all, if once was happenstance and twice was coincidence and thrice was enemy action, then what did twenty-three times mean?
Twenty-three times means getting married in a hurry, she thought wryly to herself not even a month later, before I start to show.
At least Duo-kun and Heero-kun had been able to make it to the wedding, such as it was. She had to say that she rather preferred the rather subdued ceremony that had been cobbled together for the people of this colony to the huge production that would have happened should she have eventually married Mamo-chan. This was smaller and more intimate--and a large-scale thing wouldn't have been right for her and Trunks-kun. A couple of 'I do's and rings were enough for the two of them.
But at least it was over and done with. And her other two boys had followed suit immediately afterwards, so that was done too.
And maybe that was the wrong way to think of it, but it worked. Besides, it was a little amusing to think back on the look the Justice had been wearing. Not many people in this world looked like she and Trunks-kun did, and an official coming from Earth probably didn't expect a girl with white hair and a guy with purple hair to be the ones more or less in charge of this colony. And then there was also Duo-kun. Apparently, a fresh-off-the-shuttle Duo-kun was a hyper as everything Duo-kun.
That was something she was going to have to remember for future reference.
But for now, she and Heero were curled up around each other on the overstuffed couch, sitting quietly and watching Duo-kun and Trunks-kun catch up on everything that had happened since the last time the two of them were on colony, a few months ago. Duo-kun and Heero-kun had apparently been busy: she had learned quickly that only about half of what they did could be repeated to people without ridiculously high military clearance. The half that Trunks-kun and she got to hear was both plenty and hair-raising enough. She didn't want to think too much about the other half.
Whatever story Duo-kun was telling Trunks-kun had brought a smirking grin to her husband's--and she was never going to get tired of saying that or hearing that or even just thinking that, her husband--face.
She wasn't going to say that this was perfect. It wasn't. Part of her was always going to miss her Senshi and her family. Part of her was always going to wish there was a way to get Trunks-kun's mother here to meet her grandchild. Part of her was always going to wonder what might have been had the Reapers not interfered with all their lives like they had. Part of her would probably always hate it when Duo-kun and Heero-kun had to leave for a mission that could take days or weeks or months... or even longer.
But it was good enough. In a few months, she would have her daughter, and for right now, she had her boys.
It was a good place to start.
09 November 2012
Oh. My. Goodness. It's finally done. But... But... But.. But there was so much more I wanted to do with this story that never made it in. Like:
I wanted to do more with Ban and Ginji. I wanted to tell that the brown-haired girl who was about Usagi's age (Chapter 43) was Cardcaptor Sakura's Sakura... but she's there with one of the Tsubasa versions of Syaoran. I wanted to give Kuwabara (also Chapter 43) more of a backstory, why out of all the Yu Yu Hakusho boys, he was the one who was grabbed (the only one without demon blood, being the answer).
I wanted Minako from Usagi's world to show up post-story via one-way only Pluto Express because, in this story, she and Usagi are BFFs and twinnies-and definitely better together. And I didn't know I wanted it, but Katsuko got me thinking that I would have paired her with Trowa and Wufei. (Because Usagi-chan has lots of boys and that seems like a good idea to Minako too.)
I definitely wanted to do Ban trying to argue a 100% success rate via videophone with Lady Une-and how she's only going to let him claim that if he and Ginji join the Preventers. You can guess how well I imagine that would go on both parties' behalves. You can also probably picture Taro!Ginji trying to slip in on the call.
I wanted a small section about Sylphiel. I wanted a light-hearted bit about Ranma and Ryoga (Chapter 36). I wanted someone, maybe even Une, trying to recruit some of these more-or-less super-powered people into a special branch of the Preventers.
So while the main story may be over, the 'verse itself might not yet be done. Here's hoping.
Later, folks!
Apollymi