emhegera@acs.ucalgary.ca (Ophelia)





        I may as well give a fair warning.  This is definitely a PG-13 fanfic,

for content (NO hentai, graphic violence, or even particularily bad language,

however)  It is also not remotely like any of the fanfics I've previously

posted, (ie, "Shadows of Insanity")  Please do not post elsewhere without

asking me first.



                Ophelia



                        AFTER THE STORM

                     By Elisabeth Hegerat



        I stand at the night-dark window, rain like tears streaking down the

ice-black glass.  The smooth surface is cool, as I rest my forearm against it.

 My breath mists unevenly against the slick glass, as my reflection stares

back at me, a solemn, watery stare.  I raise a hand to my face, but find my

eyes dry still.  It has been many years since I last cried. I think I've

forgotten how.  And as the heavens weep in my place,  I hear her stirring

drowsily.

        "Haruka?" she calls, voice thick with sleep.  "What's wrong?"

        "Nothing," I answer softly, levely.  "Go back to sleep, love."  The

bed creaks, and then she is there beside me.  One slender hand reaches out and

brushes my cheek, a moth's wing caress.  She says nothing.  She does not need

to.  And then, because she understands, she turns, goes back to bed, and lets

me be.  Leaves me alone with my ghosts.



        I wanted to be just like him.  Everyone loved him, my brother.

Half-brother.  I idolized him.  When he let me, I followed his every step,

trailing at his heels like a small puppy.  You must understand, I was only six

years old at the time.  I can hear him yet.  "Go on home, Tag-Along."  That's

what he called me.  I suppose it's only fair, since that's what I was.  When I

look back, I'm surprised he had the patience he did, as I tended to cling,

limpet-like to my idol, when he'd let me.  I lived for those times, warming

myself in his glory.   And I would trail behind him for a time, but eventually

he'd tire of the game, and send me back home, patting me on the head like a

small animal.  Go on home, Tag-Along.  Again he'd be off with his friends,

long legs outdistancing me easily, turning back to wave, with a smile in his

kindly cruelty.  But he could charm the very buds on the trees to burst into

bloom, he could, and when he did smile, I'd give my arm, my leg, my life

itself for that smile to be for me.  That was before he tore our world apart.



        I swore years before I'd never trust, never love again.  And then I

met her.  Bit by bit, stone by stone, she wore away my defenses, the

swift-moving current against the hardest granite.  And she opened my eyes, and

I saw that she loves me, and that I love her.  I look over at the still hump

that is Michiru, beneath the blankets.  I know she is awake.  But I also know

that she will feign sleep as long as I stand here, brooding.  And when... IF I

return to bed this night, she will finally settle into true sleep next to me,

with that weary, trusting sigh.



        The rain still falls, unceasingly streaming past my window. I see only

the monster I killed tonight.  We had expected the usual daimon, Michiru and

I.  Bizarre and unthinking, unfeeling.  Only there to serve its master's

command. But the monster that looked up at me, squinting through the murky

night, it had a face that had once been human.  For a small eternity, I could

not breathe.

        "Kill me now," it pleads.  I look into the upturned face of the thing

that had once been my brother.  It still has his eyes.  I don't want to know

how he got here, what dark power warped him beyond belief into this... THING

that asks its death from me.  No-one ever thought to ask what would happen if

a daimon seed met human flesh...  He knows me.  I see it in those unchanged

eyes.  There is no room there for fear, or scorn, or even amazement, that his

baby sister is a Sailor Senshi.  There is only room for the pain.

        "World... SHAKING!" I say, the familiar words coming automatically,

though my voice is rough with pain, and my throat tight with unshed tears.

And my world shudders, and shakes, and falls to pieces around me, just as it

did that night so many years ago.



        I can still hear their voices, echoing from the past.  Some things

never really leave you, and the sounds of that night will play themselves out

in my memory until my dying day.  Once again, I am six years old. I huddle in

the back of the closet, behind the winter coats and aging rubber boots, a wiry

scrap of a child.  And in the kitchen, the voices rage. My world is shaking,

and the foundations crack.  My mother, who loves him just as I do, her

shining, fair-haired boy, she tells him to leave.  And never come back.  My

brother, my sun and stars, has just blacked her eye.  She found the gun, and

the money.  I don't know where he got it.  I don't think I want to, need to,

even now.  It was in the sock drawer, the gods only know why.  And she's

realized that her angel is a fallen angel.

        "Why?" she had said, lips white.  "Didn't I give you anything,

everything I could?"  And he had laughed, and told her not to worry, that he'd

just done a favor for a friend, that was all, everything was fine.  She called

him a liar.  That was when he hit her.  And that was when I ran, for the

dubious safety of the coat closet.  I don't think they even knew I was there.

 I can see them, through the slatted door, my bright-blazing sun and the solid

earth beneath my feet, at war.  And now, I hear my mother.. hear her...

        "You're just like your father!"  She throws it in his face, and he

falls back as if she had hit him.

        "No," he says, in the voice of a little boy, a tremulous cry, a plea.

 Say it's not so.  "NO!" His cry is harsh, almost a sob.  He raises the gun,

that he had held so casually before.  It wavers in his shuddering grip.

        "He hit me, and then he hit you, and I left him, BUT YOU ARE YOUR

FATHER'S SON NOW!"   Her voice is as harsh as the raven's, echoing a doomsday

prophecy.  His face crumples spasmodically, and his finger convulses on the

trigger.  The gunshot is louder than the loudest thunder, and there is nothing

left of the world I knew as my mother dies at his feet.  He runs, leaving me

there, and when the police come, they find me kneeling in my mother's blood,

crying for the last time.

        I shed all my tears that unthinkable night, stood dry-eyed through the

funeral, and the long days and weeks afterwards, when I was sent to my father,

who was not my brother's father.  And I joined the world of the living again,

tackled it head-on.  But I brought my ghosts with me.  And to this day, I will

not cry.



        And I see my brother's eyes, just as they were this night, and I see

him die.  He looks... relieved.  As if death has come, not as a thief, a dark

hand in the night, but as a benediction, a blessing to cleanse the profane.

He looks as if he has finally found forgiveness.  Once again, I am left

behind.  He has his peace, but where is mine?



        Now, as the rain washes down the blackened glass, all the anger, all

the countless why's, the old, old pain rises up, choking me, clawing at my

throat as it pulls me down.  And I fight, as I always fight, striking out at

my ghosts.  And then... and then I stop.  The wave of sorrow, the hate, and

the fear, it engulfs me.  And I am drowning.  Until... until there is only the

empty night, and the rain, streaking the windowpane endlessly.  The tight knot

that ties my throat shatters, and the shards tear me to pieces inside, and

make me anew.  As I let go of the past, I start to cry.  And she is there with

me, her arm around me as I shake.  I am NOT alone.

        "Hush, now, hush." Michiru rocks me gently, as if I were a small child

in her arms.  They are dead.  But I am not.  I will never forget, but my

ghosts need not haunt me any more.  The voices are a bare muttering now.  They

fade, and are gone.  And with my arms around my beloved, the past in its

grave, and the tears still wet on my cheeks, together we sit.  And we watch

the rain.



        END



Comments welcome and much-appreciated at emhegera@acs.ucalgary.ca