Motoki had a habit of waking up when he realized he was alone in bed. It had started when he was a little boy and needed to sleep with his mother every night to get to sleep. She would try to sneak away to rest in her own bed, but he'd always known when he'd been left, and hadn't been able to stand it. It was a routine they had, one that went on for years. The talent had remained long after he’d managed without her, only to replace her with another woman.
Like he always did, he remained in bed for awhile to see if Makoto had gone to the bathroom or gotten up for a glass of water in the middle of the night. He listened for her feet making the floor of their apartment creak or water rushing through the pipes, but all was silence. So, out of concern and loneliness, he pulled himself from the bed and went on a search for his still new bride.
He found her in the kitchen, wrapped tightly in his bathrobe and a mug of steaming hot tea clenched between her hands. Her hair was badly askew and her skin pale from little sleep and a lack of makeup, but there was something else. It went deeper than physical appearance, and that was what drove him forward rather than chasing him back to bed.
"Mako?" he called out, his voice breaking from lack of use. He cleared it loudly, and it was only then that she heard him, straightening and turned just a bit too quickly than he would have expected. He smiled sheepishly, raising his hand to wave and then realizing the stupidity of the moment. He brought it around to rub the back of his neck and whispered, "Sorry. I didn't mean to... What are you doing up?"
It took Makoto a moment to smile at him. “Couldn’t sleep. Thought I’d make some tea.”
“Ah,” Motoki answered, bouncing his weight from foot to foot. He gestured vaguely for a few moments, opening his mouth to begin sentences that were never to be uttered. Finally, he settled on the obvious. “Would it be all right if I joined you?”
Makoto smiled, looking a bit sheepish. She looked down at the steaming mug caught between her white fingers. “I only made enough for one.”
Motoki shrugged. “That’s all right. I’m not a big fan of green tea anyway.” He stepped forward, pulling up the fabric of his pajama pants so that he didn’t trip over himself, and then sank into the chairs he and Makoto had picked out two weeks before. Well, she’d really picked them out, just like everything else in the apartment. He’d just gone with because he was still getting used to this marriage business. Sometimes, he was still a bit amazed it wasn’t all a dream, simultaneously praying that, if it was, he wouldn’t wake up.
Makoto took a long sip, shaking her head as she swallowed. “I decided to make chamomile this time.”
Motoki raised his eyebrow and leaned forward, sniffing. “Isn’t that a bit weak for you?”
“It has soothing properties.”
The eyebrow that arched moved inward, meeting its twin. “Mako, is everything all right? It isn’t like you to wake up in the middle of the night like this.”
Makoto nodded, a sad smile haunting her lips for a moment. “No, I guess not.”
“Mako?”
She exhaled, her eye-line dropping to grain in the kitchen table she’d found a few days before the chairs. “I didn’t mean to wake you. It’s all right if you go back to sleep. I don’t know if I’ll be able to, so don’t feel like you have to stay up with me.”
Motoki hesitated, contemplating if he should tell her about his habit, but he decided against it. He’d save it for another time. “I’m not going to be able to go back in there if I know you’re out here, unhappy.” His hand spasmed, a movement starting before his brain properly sanctioned it. He let it go after a moment’s consideration, his fingers resting over her wrist, thumb smoothing out the skin above the bone. “We’re married now,” he announced, his voice still a bit too high and unsteady. He cleared it again, hoping she didn’t notice. “We should be able to talk about what’s bothering us.”
Makoto looked up at him, her eyes a bit wider than they had been a moment before. After a beat, she nodded and took a preparatory sip from her cup. “I… I had a nightmare.”
“Oh,” Motoki said, continuously unsure. “Are… you all right?”
“Just a little shaken up I think,” she answered, shifting in her seat. “I haven’t had one in awhile. It took me off guard.”
Motoki swallowed, his mouth feeling dry. He thought about going to get a drink of his own or just sneaking a sip from her tea, but he stayed just where he was. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Makoto chuckled quietly. “Well, that’s what we’re meant to do, right?”
“Yeah,” Motoki said, laughing a little himself.
It took a few moments for the laughter, forced as it was, to subside and a few more for her to begin speaking. “A couple years ago, I used to have them a lot. It was right after… all that stuff with the Sailor Senshi and Beryl and the youma.” She gave him a look, one he knew was significant.
Motoki had next to no memory of the time when she had been Sailor Jupiter. From what all the girls and Mamoru understood, after the final battle when Sailor Moon lost her mind and allowed the Ginzuishou to destroy everything, a sort of reset button had been activated. Time had spun backwards, allowing a number of things to change. Minako had her surgery while there was still a better chance for survival, and she’d been free of tumors for the past five years. Ami had embarked on a medical fellowship before finishing high school and was still studying in Germany. And Makoto and Motoki hadn’t met in quite the same way as they had before.
He had vague images and impressions from that lost time. He remembered a green scarf and a card that all of the girls had possessed, one he now realized the karaoke had never actually issued. And he’d felt he’d known Makoto and the others before they were properly introduced, which had been a little weird at the time. But it had all been explained to him by Mamoru, and, considering Motoki didn’t immediately have him committed because of the strange sense of familiarity with the story, he believed them. He believed them even more when they’d had a short reactivation the year before, just before Usagi and Mamoru’s wedding. It had been a bit scary, and he’d been quite glad he’d missed all of it.
For some reason he’d never thought that maybe any of them had been scarred by anything he wasn’t sure had technically happened.
“Are they… bad?”
Makoto shut her eyes, her shoulders drooping. “Mostly, they’re just about things going differently. I think about… how everyone died and how we almost lost. It just haunts me.”
Motoki chewed on his bottom lip for a solid minute before responding. “But it’s all right now. You guys fixed everything in the end.”
“We almost didn’t,” Makoto murmured. He felt her muscles begin to coil and tense beneath his touch. “The three of us were lying on the ground, begging her to stop it. We chased after her. We almost had to fight her, but… none of us were strong enough to stop Usagi.” She shook her head despondently. “I wasn’t strong enough.”
Nothing but air came out of Motoki’s open mouth. He knew there had to be a right thing to say, a perfect turn of phrase to make it all better, but he couldn’t for the life of him think of what it could be. He never knew what to say, not to his own wife. It always made him feel like he’d never be useful, made him sure that one day she’d realize what a horrible mistake she’d make and he’d wake up alone one night and she wouldn’t be in the kitchen, reeling after a nightmare.
Motoki’s back went rigid at the thought, and before he knew it, he’d scooted his chair closer to hers, arms wrapping around her shoulders and pulling her to him. She tensed for a moment, but once she knew what he was doing, she seemed to melt a bit. Her cheek rested against his chest, her mussed hair scratching at his chin. She let out a long breath of air, but her eyes stayed open.
“It’s okay to make a mistake sometimes,” Motoki muttered against his better judgment. “Like my mind is screaming at me to be quiet and not to ruin this, but here I am, talking to you anyway. It’s probably a mistake, and it might wreck this, but I’m doing it anyway because… it’s the only thing I know how to do.”
Makoto sighed, her hand reaching up to wrap around his forearm. “You’re not going to destroy the world by talking.”
“No,” Motoki admitted. “But I’ll still try to save something.”
It wasn’t a cure-all, but it was the best that he could do. They stayed that way for a long time, not talking. It wasn’t the most comfortable position for him, but he didn’t want to move away from her.
Particularly when she let go of the now cold tea and dozed off in his arms.
