Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ What Worth a Leaf in a Storm? ❯ Chapter 5 ( Chapter 5 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Makoto softly pumped the brakes until the vehicle had come to a stop, trying to see how gently she could accomplish it. Ami still rested against her shoulder, breathing evenly. The headlights winked off. The moon was no more than a sliver in the sky, but the stars seemed preternaturally bright; even the night sky in the countryside of Japan had never seemed quite this alive with winking lights. Makoto looked fondly down at Ami. There wasn't much to see, Ami's new chocolate complexion not quite the "ivory moonlit" skin of prose. But leaning over she smelled the sweetness of Ami's hair and felt soft strands brush her lips and felt the warmth of Ami's cheek against her skin.

"Hey, Ami-chan, wake up," Makoto cooed, and blushed in the darkness at her own voice. That wasn't going to wake anybody up. She ruffled Ami's hair once more then reached her hand over, trailing fingers over Ami's neck and telling herself she was just feeling her way to the shoulder. Makoto gave her a gentle nudge, to which Ami stirred, and fell promptly back to sleep. She nudged more firmly, and the pressure on her shoulder lessened as Ami sleepily raised her head. Makoto could imagine her casting about aimlessly as her eyes adjusted.

"Mako-chan?"

"Yeah, it's been a while. You wanted to wake up?"

"Yes, yes I did," Ami yawned, stretching a neck sore from laying bent too long, "All the lights are off," she said in that questioningly matter-of-fact tone of one not quite awake.

"Er, I'm supposed to turn them off so I don't drain the battery, right?"

"They're usually okay for a couple of hours," Ami explained, and reached a hand into the backseat. She heaved her pack into her lap and pulled out the map and a flashlight. Makoto watched her open the booklet and aim the flashlight at it, flipping through a number of pages before she craned her neck back to look at the sky, "It's a lovely, clear night way out here."

Makoto smiled, "It is."

"What a perfect view of the stars."

"Are you going to tell us where we are with them, then?"

"I could," Ami nodded, "Or...," she rummaged in her pack for a few moments and came out with what looked like a little box with a screen. Makoto couldn't quite see what she was doing, but Ami leaned forward to the dashboard, and when she came away the device was attached, and the screen was coming to life. Soon, there was a little map there, with there position marked onto it, "Or I could use a GPS. Thats much easier."

Makoto blinked, "A... GPS?"

"Global positioning---"

"I know what it is," Makoto interrupted, not sure whether to laugh or thump herself on the head, "I just can't believe I let you convince me about all that navigation stuff when I should have known..."

"You were too busy thinking about roughing it in a forest, weren't you?" Ami said shrewdly, and Makoto winced.

"Maybe."

"Which may still happen, Mako-chan. I wasn't trying to pull one over on you. We don't know what might happen out here, and it wouldn't be a good idea to rely that much on electronics."

"Really?"

"Of course. These satellite signals can be detected by certain equipment, and also jammed."

"Wait, detected? Then were lit up like a flare out here? This, ah, doesn't seem like a good idea, Ami-chan."

"There are enough people with GPS that nobody is going to be looking for them. However, if the enemy were to find out that we were close by, and were using one..."

"Ah, I get it. So if that happens, you..."

"Go with celestial navigation. It takes longer, and forces me to bring along a bit of extra equipment, but it could be necessary."

"Gotcha."

"So for now, how about we trade places and you catch a little rest while I drive. I guess nothing interesting happened while I was asleep?"

"Not mu--"

A blood-chilling, screeching roar broke through the other ambient sounds of the rainforest—various insects and bird calls that Makoto had long ago tuned out with the aid of the motor.

"Oh my," Ami commented, her mouth dry.

"Hooray, jungle cats," Makoto tried to sound nonchalant, and didn't like how tight her voice sounded in her own ears, squeezed by a stomach clenched with sudden adrenaline release.

"Rainforest, actually, Mako-chan."

"Rainforest—jungle, whats the difference?"

"Trees. Jungles are mostly vines and low-growing plants."

Makoto rolled her eyes, though she felt herself calming down.

"Rainforest cats then. What lives here again, jaguars?"

"Jaguars are native to Brazil. They aren't known for molesting people, though. It should avoid the road."

"Should?" Makoto said before she could stop herself.

"Yes, should. Dot worry about it, Mako-chan. We'll be traveling to fast to worry about this for now."

"I'm not really worried about it now, but we're not going to be driving a jeep into enemy headquarters," Makoto mumbled. Ami wasn't sure what to say to that. They quickly switched seats, "I'm not sure if I'll be able to get any rest now, either. That woke me up just a hair bit," Makoto noted, feeling fidgety and restless now. Ami keyed the ignition and flipped the lights back on.

"You'll be out like a light after you calm back down. Whatever you do now, though, it's still going to take us the better part of a day, perhaps two, to reach Cuiaba; you'll fall asleep sometime."

Makoto at first doubted that she'd ever be able to relax--it was quite necessarily a human's first, instinctual reaction not to fall asleep after hearing the territorial roar of a lethal predator and all--but Ami proved right once again. As her body stopped screaming "Fight, run, fight, run!" at her, she found it hard to keep her eyelids up in the quiet that was left behind. She folded her hands in her lap and reclined her head against the seat and fell into a fitful doze, constantly starting awake every time the motion of the vehicle tipped her over to the side. She didn't think it was all that noticeable, until she felt Ami grab her sleeve and tip her over.

"A friendly shoulder makes for better rest, I found," Ami said kindly. Makoto sleepily smiled her gratitude, and fell into a much better slumber.

**************************************************

Makoto vaguely recalled awakening briefly when Ami stopped to fuel up in a small town, but it was like the skip of a stone on the surface of her memory. When she cracked her eyes open next, then, it was because of the first peeking of a warm sunrise over the horizon. It subdued the surrounding forest in darks of brown and green under the fiery majesty of the summer sun. The sounds drifting around her subtly changed as the calls of nocturnal life giving way to the daytime creatures. She shifted slightly, and saw the golden-orange light playing over Ami's face and making it the color of aged bronze. These little things were still a little shock when Makoto first saw them, in that period of sleep before she remembered where they were and what they were doing. This scene in itself, driving through a foreign country with a blazing new sun painting the world with Ami beside her looking so unlike Ami ever had, was almost enough to convince her that she had not in fact awoken, and still lay in the clutches of a most unusual dream.

"Good morning, Mako-chan," Ami spoke quietly, breaking the spell of Makoto's sedate mind. She squeezed her eyes shut tightly and opened them again; though everything looked the same in that second that passed, it felt once again like a normal world. Makoto sat up and winced as she tried to stretch up straight, a pain in the side of her neck yelling at her to take it easy for the moment. Ami saw the face she made from the corner of her eye and giggled, "You probably have it worse than I did, what with our height difference."

"God, I sure hope youdidn't feel like this. I'd have to pop you for telling me to use your shoulder, if so," Makoto smiled to confirm the levity of her statement, but her lips drew back slightly and she rubbed the side of her neck before trying to stretch it again. Ami reached a hand over to try and work at the muscles there, but Makoto shrugged her away,

"Uh-uh, no trying to drive and give massages at the same time. That's just asking for trouble."

Ami put her hand back to the steering wheel, while Makoto put her hand to her stomach.

"All that, and I'm starving too. I can't believe I forgot about food yesterday."

"I had some of those cereal and dried fruit bars you made earlier, so I'm fine. Go ahead and grab some rations."

"Way ahead of you, Ami-chan," Makoto said around a mouthful, she'd started searching through the appropriate supply pack right after she first spoke. She was happy with how her traveling items had come out, and was also glad that Ami approved; no bland, terrible rations for this trip. Makoto looked at the deep brown fingers of her hand as she ate. It was rather amusing, she thought, that even with all the things that the military had put its time and effort into, and all the useful discoveries they made, military supply foodstuffs continued to be as unpleasant as they were. Perhaps it had something to do with the soldiering personality, she mused, finding a sort of camaraderie and boldness in various minor hardships. Certainly didn't seem to apply to her little band of "soldiers", but that wasn't quite the same thing. That thought struck a question as it formed. It really wasn'tquite the same. Ami was no soldier, and Makoto suddenly found herself curious on one account.

"Hold on a moment, you told me that military rations didn't sit well on your stomach, but when did you ever have to live on army food?"

"I never had to live off of them, but my roommate back at school had a sibling in the Army. I'm not sure why, but he sent her some. Neither of us felt very well that night, as I recall."

"That explains that," Makoto nodded; "One mystery down."

"A mystery, Mako-chan?"

"Anything you don't know is a mystery, isn't it?"

"I suppose. If that's the case, however, we're both harboring a fair number of mysteries right now. Would it be alright we played a little detective to pass the time?"

"I... guess," Makoto answered hesitantly. Was this the same as "catching up," she wondered? "Ah, but first, could you stop for a sec, I have to use the, um, nearest bush."

Ami's eyelids fluttered in surprise, then she nodded and pulled over to the side of the road.

"Paper is in that side pack," she pointed, and Makoto nodded thankfully. She walked into the cover of a nearby cluster of brush and went about her business, the whole mess feeling slightly inappropriate to her urban sensibilities. She stepped back into the jeep and strapped her seat belt on.

"I think I'd prefer to remember to get this done when we're getting gas or something," she grumbled.

"May as well take the opportunity to get used to it, you never--"

"Know whats going to happen," Makoto finished for her, sighing, "I won't forget, Ami-chan, but I will complain now and again. So then, what was that you said about playing detective?"

"I'm just wondering what you've been up to the past few years, since, well... you know..."

"Right, right, I know."

"That's a bit of a mystery in itself, isn't it?" Ami started for a moment, having been so focused on talking that they'd been sitting on the shoulder for a few minutes. She started the jeep.

"What's is?" Makoto asked.

"That we grew apart at all, Mako-chan. What happened?" Makoto couldn't see the full extent of Ami's expression as her friend maneuvered back onto the road.

"You had to follow your dream, and I had to, er, not follow your dream," Makoto said stiffly. This was among the last things she wanted to think about, much less talk about, right now.

"Hold on, whats that supposed to mean? Mako-chan, I know you had your dreams too. What about the cake shop. Or the flower shop, surely you were able to make those happen?"

Makoto blinked. Those certainly had been her dreams; they still were at some level. She hadn't really thought about them in a while. "Sure, I guess I could have. I didn't, though; I decided that Usagi-chan needed my help more," Makoto explained. This wasn't entirely untrue. She had devoted her spare time after that to helping their Queen out. There was plenty for a bored senshi to do in Tokyo. Makoto had gone about making appearances at schools and public events, training palace guards--she'd gotten a lot of her teaching skills from there, just in time to unlearn them all when she decided that she wanted to teach children instead--and other such busy work.

"Really?" Ami didn't sound terribly convinced, and Makoto couldn't blame her. What was she supposed to say, though? At some point down the line, her dreams had become much more than what they'd started as. Suddenly her cake shop had a certain girl sitting at a table with a book and a piece of cake in the middle of the day, reading and talking and laughing while Makoto took care of orders and experimented with fun baking ideas. Or the florist shop, where through the front doors had walked her pretty friend to come smell the roses and Makoto had plucked out the prettiest one and given it specially to her, just to see her blush and smile. Makoto knew that at some point in her life, Ami hadn't been in those scenes at all, and they'd still been happy dreams. That wasn't the case now, though, and hadn't been for some time. Love-sickness shouldn'tbe any reason to have changed her life so much, but without even a friendly voice to say, "ah, theres always other fish in the sea," she'd never really gotten over it, and a broken heart was difficult to hold dreams in.

"Really," Makoto said finally, in a quiet tone that begged for an end to questions on the subject.

"Were you maybe trying to free up more of your time for, erm, somebody who reminded you of your long-lost senior?" Ami ventured cautiously, and a little wordily, as though she didn't want to go right out and ask the question directly.

"Huh?" Makoto looked at her blankly.

"You were so often falling in and out of love that I though, surely by now one of them must have been the right guy for you. Especially since they weren't all turning out to be alien nemesis and such."

"Oh, ha. I was a little flighty, wasn't I?"

"Mako-chan, Minako-chan is flighty. You, on the other hand, were a yo-yo."

"Oh come on, do you have to say it like that? So I had a few crushes, thats what young girls do." Especially when they're desperately wanting that normal fairytale romance, she thought. First there had been the puppy loves of a fair young maiden bursting with lively energy. It had been fun, then, to moon and swoon and giggle and gossip with Rei and Minako. Somewhere along the line, though--and it was strange to think about it all in retrospect now--it had stopped being so fun. It had started being... a necessity. She was a sweet young lady, and she should end up with the man of her dreams. At some point she'd even stopped trying to get to know the guys, and just fallen in "love" with the first charming fellow to express the slightest interest in her. Then the relationship would sour for some reason or another. All of them kind of blurred together for her now, all the single dates and two-week romances. No wonder they hadn't lasted long if they hadn't even been important enough to her to create even a single distinct memory. So she would end up single and despondent and seek Ami's company and feel better. Then go and repeat the mess again. A cycle of running to Ami and feeling better and more comfortable until she felt too better and too comfortable, then she had to run away again. It had been a terrible, wonderful day when she had finally realized that she was running away, and why.

"So what do slightly older girls do?"

"Tut-tut, I think its my turn to ask a question now," Makoto deflected smoothly, "Why don't you tell me, what do slightly older girls do? Did Ami-chan meet any nice gentlemen out in the world?" It was quite easy to fall into old habits, Makoto found. Talk about boys, be normal, she's your friend, and so on.

"I never was quite like you and Rei-chan and Minako-chan. Nobody caught my eye, and I guess I didn't catch anybody else's either."

"I find that hard to believe. You told me everybody else at the university was smart, too, so nobody could be intimidated by that any more. What's to stop them from asking you out?"

"I'm not sure," Ami said, keeping her eyes steadily ahead of her, on the road.

"You must have had the bad fortune to get there when everybody had lost their glasses, I can only assume," Makoto suggested, laughing.

"So you really never got another boyfriend this whole time, Mako-chan?" Ami asked, Makoto's joking mostly ineffectual.

"No, I really really didn't"

Inexplicably, Ami seemed to relax, and Makoto hadn't even noticed that she was tense. Azure eyes sparkled and lips formed a mysterious little smile, at least "mysterious" in that Makoto couldn't figure out what was so amusing about her not getting a boyfriend. She shrugged it off, not caring too terribly much. Ami hadn't gotten herself a boyfriend either, and that was the more important bit of news here. She'd stopped running away from feelings towards Ami, she accepted those, and now she had to stop running away from Ami's feelings as well. OF course, they were in the middle of a mission in a foreign nation, so perhaps this was a bad time to find out what Ami's feelings were. Instead Makoto moved the conversation to less personal things, talking with Ami about school and what it was like to live so far from home, while in turn Ami asked her about what it was like to keep living in Tokyo as it evolved right before her eyes into the seat of power for the entire world. When Ami put it like that, Makoto figured that it was probably a very interesting story, but since she actually had lived in Tokyo during this time, it seemed as mundane to her as any other long-term street construction project. It wasn't long before Ami's eyelids began to droop slightly, and Makoto suggested that they trade positions, and they once again switched off. Ami stayed awake long enough to guide them to a nearby small town, though, and visit a gas station. Makoto observed somewhat wondrously that they didn't seem to have to stop very often, and that she thought gasoline would have been more of an issue.

"Mako-chan, they don't call this a golden age of science and medicine for nothing, you know," Ami smiled, and showed her a small vial of additive that she'd been adding to their fuel purchases, "This gives us a significant boost in fuel efficiency, and reduces emissions by a few factors. Most fueling stations in the modern world have this already in their supply, but it hasn't gotten to everywhere yet." Ami's expression turned somber for a moment, "In fact, that's probably the sort of reason that this terror group has sprung up. That's only speculation, though."

Makoto didn't like Ami looking quite so bleak. "A truly wondrous age, and things are getting better all the time. Nobody's worse off than when Usagi-chan started. A little patience is in order; there's a difference between working miracles and doing the impossible. But a golden age of medicine, eh? Whats that do for your studies?" To her surprise, Ami actually cringed at the mention.

"Awful, terrible things. Pre-med is stressful enough without half of what you learn becoming obsolete on a regular basis."

"Such a wonderful era we live in," Makoto said magnanimously once more, and stuck her tongue out at Ami. It had the desired effect: Ami laughed at the absurd expression on her face. After that, Makoto drove while Ami slept again. They finally decided that the backseat would make a great place to sleep in, though, so there was no more Ami on her shoulder to enjoy, but she consoled herself with the thought of being able to sleep without worry of terrible neck pains next time around. Ami gave her a brief description of how the GPS worked as well, so she was able to use it at least well enough to locate Cuiaba, which it appeared they would arrive at before Ami awoke again.

************************************************************* *********

Cuiaba was another interesting sight for Makoto as she approached. It must have been one of the flattest cities she'd ever seen, and one of the more oddly colorful. There were skyscrapers and towers, for sure, but nothing like the endless bristles of those glass and concrete edifices as existed in other big cities. In this case, those buildings just gave it a feeling of being busier than a town, just enough so that it might be called a city. It took her a while to determine what seemed odd about the coloration as well. She was used to all sorts of things, like old Tokyo and its brilliant signage overtaking the same shiny metallic silvers and dull brick brown and red as most other places of its type, or the new Crystal Tokyo with its light-breaking faceted appearance and beautifully colored mineral spirals, or even depictions of the famously large cities of the west, like New York and Mexico City, which were still in that same definite color scheme. This, however, incorporated creamy-hued walls and red-tiled roofs scattered among these usual constructions, all of which was coated liberally with a fantastical amount of sunlight and a capped with a cloudless blue sky. On the whole, it came across as feeling a terribly clean place, everything solid colors or pearly whites in the sun. It reminded her of the calmer areas of home; the little neighborhoods with traditional homes and streets where kids felt safe to play. The street would have a sidewalk that went by the apartment she used to keep, and she used to follow that sidewalk down towards Usagi's house where she could often encounter Usagi and Ami walking to school and accompany them.

That was quite some time ago. She shook her head from that reverie, and realized that she didn't know if she should enter the city or not, or where to go if she was supposed to head in. She pulled the jeep to the side of the road and reached behind her to shake Ami awake.

"Hey, we're here."

"Here?"

"Cuiaba."

Ami came more fully awake, then, sitting up and leaning over the passenger seat to get a better view of the city near in the distance.

"So what's the plan from here, Ami-chan?"

"We go into the city. Watch the locals, see how they react to strangers coming in. Not everybody will pay enough attention to realize that were not from around here, but pay attention to those that do. Of course, if they're any good at this, they'll know better than to show any reaction."

"Wait, who's 'they' in this case?" Makoto asked, wanting to be clear.

"The terror group, or anybody who supports them. If their headquarters is nearby, there's probably a reason for it, and the city might be involved. Getting supplies, or spreading propaganda. There could be enemy agents in the city, and they'd be naturally suspicious around now. Particularly of anybody Japanese, even Asian at all. I'm going to be doing my absolute best to disguise or at least obscure my accent, try not to give yourself away.

"You got it."

Makoto drove them into town, hands slick on the steering wheel for no good reason. What Ami had said had made her just a teeny bit nervous, and once again she found herself thinking almost fondly of the hideously lethal monsters they used to have as opponents. Ami asked around, and found them a cheap but nice hotel to stay at. This started the worst time for Makoto. Ami insisted that she needed to go out into the city to try and gather information, but refused to let Makoto accompany her, for fear of attracting suspicion.

"Look, either we admit you're a foreigner and they get curious as to where were from, or I say you're my mute bodyguard, and thats going to attract attention too. Mako-chan, trust me, if anything happens I'll contact you right away, but nothing is going to happen."

For once, this didn't prove to be a case of famous last words. For a week and a half, Ami went into the city and wandered around, stopping in at bars and cafes and stores and whatever other places she could think of to lurk for careless conversation. She talked about going to a mechanics shop on the pretense of inspecting the jeep and, besides the fact that the fellow tried to cheat her by telling her she had a problem that she didn't, he answered all her questions freely and without duplicity, saying that there hadn't been much traffic through here or strange looking people. The same went with librarians she spoke to, and the hotel staff, and storekeeps, and everybody else. There just wasn't any sign at all of unusual happenings going on around this place. At the end of that week and a half, Ami said that she was ready to give it up here. There might be something, but it was too big a maybe not to go and check out what the rest of this country, especially the other city the questioned gunman had told of, had to offer. They took a few days to stock up on supplies, feeling safe about buying a few more perishable foodstuffs so they could save the traveling rations for when they needed them. They also also purchased a couple of gas cans for emergency fuel.

Makoto couldn't have felt more grateful to leave that place behind, she'd been getting a little stir-crazy cooped up in a hotel for two weeks. Now, finally, she started on the twisting, circuitous path to Manaus.