"Serenity?" Mako-chan was leaning against the back of the couch in her huge suite, absently fingering a blossom on the rose bush that flourished in the pot next to her.
"Yes, Mako-chan?"
"Is it very wonderful, being a mother?"
Serenity looked up at the wistfulness in Mako-chan's voice. She thought for a second. "Yes, Mako-chan, I suppose it is." She smiled. "Children can be a holy terror, they can make your hair gray with worry, but it's wonderful, all the same."
"Oh, that's good." Mako-chan said with a soft sigh. "It should be wonderful."
"Mako-chan, what's brought this on? Do you want children?" Her friend raised her head slowly, flicking her ponytail behind her.
"Of course I did, Serenity. But I can't have them." She looked down at her hands. "Don't you remember back when I married Akira?" Mako-chan looked back up and wiped her floury hands on her dirty apron. "We found out I couldn't bear children."
"What? Mako-chan! Why didn't you ever tell anyone?"
"Oh, I did. As soon as I heard from the fertility doctors I went to Ami." Makoto smiled. "Did you know that fertility research she did those hundred years right after the Black Moon War was an attempt to help me? By then it was already too late, of course. Akira was long dead..."
"Oh, Mako-chan..." Serenity sank down by her friend's side. "I'm so sorry."
"That's okay, Serenity. I was an aunt to countless senshi children. It may not be the same, but it's something..." Mako-chan closed her eyes and sighed, as if she was too tired to cry, even though her voice throbbed with the pain of it. "That's why I never married again. Did you know that? Marriage and love and all well and good, but to know I could never have children to remember him by...I couldn't do it again." Serenity was crying. Mako-chan blinked and reached out to pat Serenity's arm. "It's okay, Serenity. Don't cry. It wasn't your fault."
"Mako-chan-" Serenity reached up and wiped the tears away as best she could. "-you would have made the best mother of us all."
As if that broke down her last walls, Mako-chan suddenly began to sob. "I know it! I know it! I would have been! But now..." she sniffed and sat up. "Now it's too late. You know what, Serenity? I'm tired of waiting for the discovery that will let me have children of my own. I'm tired of watching others breed like rabbits while I sit here in my immaculate suite of rooms. I'm tired of--I'm tired of feeling so hopeless, so empty."
Serenity stood up, fearful. "Mako-chan, what are you saying?"
Mako-chan reached behind her and began to untie her apron. "I'm saying it's time to go, Serenity. I've waited too long for this." She carefully folded the apron and put it on the floor. "I'm glad I got to have this talk with you. I could almost imagine you were Usagi again, and the world was simple and...simple and young. I miss those days so..."
Mako-chan closed her eyes and the sun streaming in from the window behind her began to shine through.
"No! Makoto! Mako-chan! Wait."
Her emerald eyes, faded to the color of peridot, opened one last time. "I got to mother you one more time, Usagi-chan. Go check the kitchen."
"Iie!" Serenity ran up to her friend as she almost disappeared. "I won't leave you!"
"Don't worry, Us-Serenity..." Her eyes closed again. "Don't cry..."
Serenity watched her friend disappear completely, watched her crystal disintegrate with a flash, and then forced herself up to her feet. Mako-chan had wanted her to go into the kitchen, so she would. When she opened the door a wonderful aroma reached her nose and she fell to ground again in another bout of tears.
A fresh platter of cookies cooled on the countertop.