by Hotaru/Amber

Credit for the title 'It Can't Rain All the Time' goes to the song from The Crow. (The movie, not the series.) I just saw it awhile ago, and found the story so sad, yet in its own way, beautiful, I felt like writing a fanfic based around the lines 'It Can't Rain All the Time'. (Which is also the title of the ending song, sung by Jane Siberry.) (So all rights to the title belong to the before-mentioned people.) This is the fanfic I came up with... I'm not sure how. It takes place *quite* along time past Crystal Tokyo, on a dying world far from Earth. Comments are appreciated at: tomoechan@hotmail.com

All rights to Sailor Moon and all associated characters thereof belong to Takeuchi Naoko, Kondansha Comics, and Toei Animation.

	Rain pelted the window sill, splattering in silvery drops near my eyes. My hands were rough, toughened by the years of battle, the years of war, the years of hardship. Invisible tears tore at me, memories striking at me from a distance, trying to remember all those that had died, all those that we saved, and how, even now, I felt no rest, no peace. Sighing, I turned back to Michiru, young yet old, beautiful yet withered, strong, yet fragile. Her aqua-green hair had long since become stroke with silver, lighter than before, but drifting by her shoulders in endless waves, as if the ocean itself moved them. Her eyes remained bright; blue that was as clear as the seas from which they had come. We had all aged like this; becoming more and more like Serenity, yet paled versions of our younger selves.
	"Are you alright?" she asked me, quietly.
	"I'm fine." I said, turning away from the window. She stood up, and took my arm.
	"No you're not." She leaned her soft head against my bone-hard shoulders. "What are you thinking about?"
	"The silence."
	"What will the others think?" I stared back at the window.
	"I don't know, Michiru. We chose to leave. It's time, don't you think? They all will, in the end. Except Serenity. And then she'll be reborn. And all over again. And again, Michiru. Another battle; another war to wage and win." Michiru lifted her hand, and stroked my cheek. "I'm tired, Michiru." And why shouldn't I be? Ten thousand years, that'll do it to anyone, I reflected. Ten thousand... it couldn't be so long. I looked down once more and my old hands, veins almost showing through the pale skin. Perhaps it could be.
	"Sometimes, Haruka," Michiru whispered to me, "I dream."
	"Dream?" I said. It had been so long since I dreamt. It happened less and less, with the passing of time. "What about?"
	"My dreams?"
	"Yeah." She closed her eyes, her eye lashes resting against her cheek, still a dark black.
	"It's the ocean. I can hear the music again, Haruka. It's not Neptune, either. It's real music, on a violin, coming in with the crashing waves, calling out to me."
	"I used to have dreams like that. About the blue skies."
	"I want that again, Haruka." Her hand was clasped in my own. "I want to stand by that ocean with you."
	"So do I, Michiru."
	"But not like this. No more like this. It is time for our rest, to return."
	"It takes so long to be reborn..."
	"What's wrong?"
	"Michiru." I turned to her, and gazed into her sea-blue eyes. She stared back at me, already knowing my answer. "I don't want to be alone." She stared at me, her eyes gentle. Then, her long, delicate fingers pulled my head towards her, and she kissed it lightly.
	"I know." We turned back to the window together, the rain still falling. "I don't know this planet," I whispered.
	"So?"
	"I wish... The last world I'll see, and it rains." Michiru smiled, like she used to in the old days, when we would ride by the surf on my motorcycle, feeling the wind whip our hair in our faces. I could see, as she could, a purple light shining in the distance, growing closer and closer. Instead of the sound of explosion, it covered the world in silence.
	"Yes, Haruka. It rains."
	"I love you, Michiru."
	"I love you, too, Haruka."
	"Goodbye, Michiru."
	"Haruka?"
	"Um hum?" I sounded, just as the purple reached out small house. I felt her hand be pulled away from my own, and I felt my ancient body finally, blissfully, give in, and I felt my spirit, returning to the air, to the endless skies. But even as I left, left Michiru, the others, and the Earth, far off in a distant galaxy, her whispered ears still reached my invisible ears, a stream of light, breaking apart the dark grays of a stormy winter's sky.
	"It can't rain all the time."


	I put my hand to my forehead, blinking. Sunlight is streaming through my window, forcing open my eyes with the sounds of the dawn. I blink; twice, trying to remember.
	'Strange dream,' I mutter, rolling over on my bed. Tenoh Haruka... she had seemed so real. I forced myself to laugh. I didn't believe in all that reincarnation stuff. I had just stayed up to late, that was all. I pushed back my short white hair, feeling it move aside beneath my fingers. I stretch my long legs, conditioned from years of being our school's champion cross country runner. I liked running. Sometimes, I was the wind itself, free and wild. And one day, one day, I was going to be a real champion racer, the best in the country. I smiled at the thought, relishing in the hope of my future. I tucked my blankets in, then walked over to the window, pulling open the blinds. The single shaft of sunlight that had awoken me broke through dark clouds, rolling in on the horizon's edge. Leaves shone gold on the trees; the fall, my favourite season, was finally here. I hear the door creak behind me. I turn; it's my mother. She walks up to me, glancing out the window.
	"Looks like rain," she says. I nod, and recall my dream, seeing again the woman with the once-aqua-green hair. Even though I'm awake, I can still see her smiling face in my heart. I smile at my mother.
	"Yeah, but it can't rain all the time." And with that, the blowing autumn rains began to fall.