Hello.  My name is Jon Carp.  You may remember me from such stories as 
Pain, Pain the Lovers, and Pain the Story.  But I come to you today not 
as a writer of Pain.  I come to you as a writer of something else, which 
I send to you now.  This series starts mundane, but trust me, it gets 
really, really weird as it goes on.  Thank you.


Sailor Moon: Secondary Characters: Heaven
{Jon Carp}
Address: jcarp@med.unc.edu


No Pain!--Super Dave Osborne


Have I died and passed into the afterworld?  I must have, this is Heaven.  
How did I get here?  Let me retrace my steps.  What happened yesterday?  I 
was in tears, near lifeless...something sad must have happened, but what?  
What was I crying about?  Is it over?  Is it okay now?  Who am I talking to?
What's going on?  Oh no!  Now the sparrow is broken and mangled in my bloody
hands...this is so awful!  Giant flying insects are crawling all over me, 
biting and laughing...this is even worse than being alive!--King Missle




	70 degrees farenheit.  Soft, tickly grass, suitable for lying in or 
smelling.  Pleasant wispy mists surrounding the central meadow.  Clear, 
bright, beautiful sky.  Paradise.
	"I fucking HATE IT HERE!!"
	Nearly hysterical ravings scared away the peacefulness, stamping 
feet disturbed the grass, long black hair diverted attention from the sky.
	Makoto glanced over at Ami.  "I don't think this is healthy for 
her," she said.
	Ami winced as Rei yelled something especially piercing.  "It's not 
healthy for any of us.  Have you tried to talk to her?"
	"Yep.  Didn't do anything.  She doesn't care what I have to say."
	"Rei, SHUT UP!" Setsuna yelled, giving her best glare.  It did no 
good.
	"YOU shut up!  I'm going out of my goddamn mind here!"
	"Look, just try to relax," Makoto said.  "We're all bored, we're all
frustrated, and yet not one of us, you can see, is acting like a maniac.  It
doesn't help anything."
	"At least I'm the only one worried about this!  You guys act like 
you don't care if we ever get out of here or not!"
	Makoto chuckled.  "Rei, we're dead.  There's no escape.  Just 
because you never believed in this place doesn't mean you can deny what's 
happening."
	Steam, actual steam, rose from Rei's head.  "You...you think I'm 
denying it?  You think I'm pissed because of that?  I'm pissed because 
everyone's so goddamn happy!  Look at them!"  She pointed over to Mamoru, 
Chibi-Usa, and Minako romping off in the mist.
	"They're not happy," Ami said.  "They're just trying to make the 
most of it.  But they miss her too much to be at all content."  There was no
question who the pronoun "her" was referring to.
	"We all do," Makoto added.
	Setsuna laughed.  "I don't," she said.  They all looked at her as if
she were a mutant centipede, or some sort of giant duck.  "I didn't mean 
anything by that," she quickly added, cheeks slightly red.  "I just don't 
miss her.  And I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm happier than I've
ever been."
	"Well, whoopdee fucking doo," Rei muttered bitterly.  "Setsuna's 
happy here in the lovee-dovee heaven-land of lollipops and rainbows.  La la 
la la la."
	Setsuna leaned over to Hotaru.  "Was she being sarcastic?" she 
whispered.  Hotaru giggled.
	"Anyway," Setsuna continued, "Rei, don't ruin death for the rest of 
us.  Some of us like this, and your yelling and feeling sorry for yourself 
is just irritating."
	Rei was too angry to get any words out.  Off in the mist, Chibi-Usa 
tripped over a strangely-shaped lump and yelped.
	"Sorry!" she said, looking back at what she'd tripped over.  "Didn't 
mean to disturb your sulking."
	The hump grunted something back at her.  She grinned sheepishly and 
ran on.
	"They don't like it here, Rei," Hotaru said, pointing back to the 
hump in the mist.  "But you don't see them ranting and raving."
	"Fuck you."  Rei stomped off to be by herself.
	"See, it just goes to show the effect unhappiness can have on one's 
disposition," Setsuna said.  "I used to be that bitchy and irritating, 
didn't I?"
	"Yup," Hotaru said.  "We all did."  She glanced over at the big hump 
in the mist.  "Some of us still are."
	"Yeah," Setsuna agreed.  "We've got to cheer them up.  Right guys?"
	The response was quiet to nonexistant.
	"Right!" Setsuna enthused.  "Hey, Minako!  Hey!"  The blonde turned 
to look.  "Could you tell them to come over here, please?  Thanks."



	Haruka and Michiru sat alone in the mist, leaning against each 
other's backs.
	"Remember when we were alive?" Michiru asked.
	"Yes," Haruka answered bitterly.  "Remember when you asked me that 
question a half an hour ago?"
	"Uh huh.  Wanna...y'know...?"
	Haruka sighed.  "Again?"
	"Can you think of anything better to do?"
	Haruka couldn't answer, because Minako ran up to them at that point. 
"Hi!"
	Haruka glared at her angrily.  "Go to hell," she said.
	Minako grinned.  "Too late," she said cheerfully.  "Listen, Setsuna 
and Hotaru want to try and cheer you up."
	"Tell them no," Michiru said.  "And we would appreciate you not 
bothering us again."
	Minako looked at them sadly.  "You can't just avoid them forever," 
she said.
	"Who?  What are you talking about?  Why are you still here?"
	"Setsuna and Hotaru.  You can't--"
	"Minako, shut up," Haruka said bitterly.  "You don't understand. 
Just get your bubble-brained ass out of our face, okay?"
	Minako refused to get angry at them.  "They're reaching out to you. 
They don't want to--"
	"Just what the fuck do you expect us to do, huh?"  Haruka was 
yelling now.  "Just pretend nothing happened?  Or maybe we should send them 
a note, or a greeting card or something.  On the front there's this cute 
little golden retriever puppy, they open it up, it says, 'Dear best friend 
and daughter,  Sorry about that killing you thing.'"
	"Won't happen again," Michiru added.
	"Yes, exactly.  'Won't happen again.'"
	"I thought it wasn't your fault."  Minako said.  "I thought you were 
hypnotized or something."
	"Of course we weren't," Michiru grunted.  "We were trying to fool 
Galaxia.  We knew exactly what we were doing the entire time."
	Minako looked at them with infuriating pity on her face.  "I'm 
sorry," she said.  "I'll leave you alone."



	"Okay," Setsuna said.  "I've got one.  See, Porky and Petunia Pig 
want to get a divorce, okay?  But, as a last-ditch effort to save their 
relationship, they go to a marriage counselor.  So they go to this guy's 
office, and he says, 'So, Porky, tell me why you want to get a divorce.'  
And Porky starts talking, and he's saying all these reasons, but the 
counselor stops him.  'Wait a minute,' he says.  'Porky, why do you say
Petunia's crazy?'  And Porky goes, 'I didn't say she was crazy, I said she 
was fucking Daffy!'"
	Hotaru thought it was funny, and Makoto laughed some, but Ami looked
confused.  "Who is Petunia?" she asked.
	"Porky's wife, apparently," Hotaru said.  "I've got one.  See, there
are these guys in this bar, okay?  And this bar is on the twentieth story of 
an office building.  So they're drinking..." she trailed off when she saw 
Minako approaching alone.
	"They said not to bother them anymore," she said, fixing her bow.
	"Oh for god's sake."  Setsuna was annoyed.  "Okay.  I'll take care 
of it."



	They stared at Setsuna with something that could have been 
annoyance, but wasn't.  "Piss off," Haruka said.
	Setsuna laughed.  "What the hell is the matter with you two?  Do you 
actually think we're not going to forgive you?"
	"I don't know what you're talking about."
	"Of course you do."
	Haruka did her best to keep her cool, but failed miserably.  "You 
think it's so easy.  You...you think we can let it all go.  Christ, we 
killed you!  You just expect us to pretend it never happened, how the hell 
are we supposed to do that?"
	"It's a little late to hold a grudge," Setsuna said.
	"Fuck you!" Haruka screamed.  She stood up and stomped away to be by
herself.
	"I'm sorry, Setsuna," Michiru said.  "She didn't mean that.  But I
don't think I can face you either.  Please go."
	"Why are you doing this to yourselves?  We don't blame you.  Why 
can't you understand that?  We never did.  I know I may have seemed like a 
bitter little bitch-goddess while I was alive, but that's not really me."
	"It's not about you.  Or Hotaru, either.  It ended up good for you, 
but we didn't know that.  For all we knew, we were sending you to hell.  And 
we did it anyway, Setsuna.  That's the point.  We did it anyway.  Just go 
back and enjoy your afterlife.  Don't worry about us."
	Setsuna smiled at her sadly.  "I don't think you understand what I 
meant when I said we never blamed you."  She chuckled to herself.  "You 
think I could be the so-called Guardian of Time and not forsee something as 
important as my own death?  I knew with very little doubt I was going to 
die, I knew you were going to do it, and I knew how why where when it was 
going to happen.  And I told Hotaru.  But, of course, it'd change fate for 
you to know we knew, so we put on our suprised faces or our betrayed faces 
and let it happen the way it was supposed to.  But believe me, we forgave 
you a long time ago."  She reached down to Michiru, genuinely smiling 
kindly.
	Michiru did not recognize the truth, Setsuna could tell.  "Please, 
don't make it have to be like this," she murmured.  "We love you.  I love
you.  I never showed it, but I really do.  Please."
	Michiru recognized the truth.  She took the hand, tears in her eyes.
"Thank you," she said, in a suprised/happy tone.  "Thank you."  
	After a while like that, they both realized they had neither blinked 
nor moved for several minutes.  They made up for it, looking around, 
breathing hard, speaking quickly and quietly.
	"Well," Setsuna said.  "Let's go find Haruka."



	"So then the second guy is like, 'Hey, you just jumped out the 
window, how did you survive?'  And the first guy goes, 'It's weird, man, I 
was really drunk, and when you're really drunk you're loose and relaxed, and
you just flop down and it doesn't hurt you.'  So everyone thinks this is 
great, and they keep drinking, and after a while the second guy goes, 'Hey, 
I'm even drunker than he was, I just GOTTA try this.'  So he gets a running 
start and jumps out the window. He falls...and SPLAT! he dies.  The 
bartender looks at the first guy and says, 'Superman, you really are an 
asshole when you're drunk.'"
	Mamoru and Chibi-Usa, who had come over to hear the jokes, laughed, 
and Makoto giggled a little, but the others didn't get it.  "He's Superman!"
Hotaru explained.  "Of course he didn't die when he jumped out the window!"
	"Oh...right," Minako muttered.
	"That reminds me of one," Makoto said.  "Okay, what's the difference 
between someone who falls out of a three story window and someone who falls 
out a twenty story window?"
	"I dunno," Minako said.
	"The guy who falls out the twenty story window goes 
'AAAAAAAAAA--SPLAT!'  The guy who falls out the three story window goes 
'AAAAAA--SPLAT!  AAAAAAAAAAAAA!'"
	"That's...that's...that's not...in good taste at all," Ami sputtered.  
They laughed at that more than the joke.
	"The punchline is that the one who lived is worse off than the one 
who died," somebody said.  It was Rei, coming up behind them.  "Ha ha ha.  
Terrible.  Just terrible."
	"You know what you are, Rei?" Minako said.  "You're a pessimist.  I 
mean, you were happy enough back when you were alive, but you have this 
really negative outlook on death.  What's the point?  What does it solve?"
	"Some of us don't love EVERYTHING," Rei shot back.  "Some of us 
aren't smiling morons."
	Hurt, Minako shut up.  Ami put her book down and glared at Rei.  
"Okay, I've had enough from you," she said angrily.  "Just because you feel 
like...like shit doesn't give you the excuse to lash out at all of us."
	Rei started to say something, but Ami cut her off.  "And don't say I 
don't understand, because I do.  You're not the only one who misses her, 
Rei.  We all do.  Just look at Mamoru.  He knows he's not going to see her 
for a long, long time, but he's still trying to enjoy himself now.  Why 
can't you?"
	Rei sneered.  "That's not it," she said.  "That's not it at all."
	"Then tell us what it is," Mamoru said.  "What do you gain by 
keeping it in?  We can help."
	Rei didn't know what to do.  But she saw her friends, the look in 
their eyes (love, acceptance, possibly even kindness), and couldn't deny 
that they would indeed help.
	"I always knew I would die before her," she muttered.  "Because I 
was going to make damn sure of it.  But I was scared, I mean, I didn't want 
to die.  The one thing, the ONE thing that made it okay was that I was going 
to die FOR HER, and she'd know it.  Like the first time, I wanted that to
happen again.  But I didn't die for her, did I?  I just...died.  It was 
like...I don't know..."
	"Fate decided it didn't have a use for you anymore," Hotaru 
suggested.
	"Yes, exactly.  It just got rid of everybody who wasn't absolutely 
necessary.  I was just thrown away."
	"It happened to all of us," Minako said.  "But she knew.  She knew 
we were all trying as hard as we could to die for her."
	"I hope so," Rei muttered.  "I hope so.  But I'm not sure."
	"Ah, don't worry about it," Hotaru said.  "Just do what Setsuna and 
I did.  Tell Fate it can go fuck itself, and try to enjoy yourself here."
	"What happened to you two?" Makoto asked, staring at the newly-
vulgar girl.  "You're both acting really weird."
	"We're free," Hotaru answered.  "She has no duty, I have 
no...whatever.  This is the first opportunity either of us have had to just 
lie in the grass and tell dirty jokes.  But I was serious, about her.  She's 
not going to die for a while.  Just forget about her, and one day she'll 
show up, and you'll all get the opportunity to show her how much you care."  
	"She's right," Mamoru said.  "I hate it, but she's right."
	Rei sighed.  "I know."
	"Come on, have a seat," Hotaru said, patting the soft grassy ground. 
"I bet you know more tasteless jokes than all of us."
	"She does," Minako said, grinning.  "Tell them the one about the 
mushroom."
	"Oh, that one."  Rei laughed to herself.  "Okay, what do you call a 
mushroom with a twelve inch stem?"
	"Hmmmmm.  I don't know."
	"A fun-guy."
	The response to that one varied.
	"I don't get it," Ami said.  Everyone stared at her.  "What, I don't 
get...oh wait, yes I do."  She blushed.  "I do get it."
	Again, friendly laughter resulted, but was cut off but Chibichibi
falling from the sky and landing in the middle of the group.  She stood up
and dusted herself off.
	"Oh, I'm sorry," Minako said.  "I was hoping you'd make it."
	"Yeah, I know," Chibichibi said.  "It sucks, doesn't it?"




	Setsuna and Michiru had just had a long talk with Haruka, and the 
three of them were coming back to join the others.  They were the first to 
notice it.
	"What is that?" Michiru asked.  Haruka shrugged and stared up at the
thing hovering in the sky.  Setsuna's jaw dropped.  She stood unmoving, 
unbreathing.  "No," she whispered.  "No..."
	The shining ball of white light that had captured their attention 
wasn't moving or breathing either, but instead increasing in size.  The 
others noticed it by now, and they all stood and looked up, wondering what 
was going on.
	A beam of light shot down from the ball to the ground.  "Go to it," 
somebody said.  "Walk into the light."
	"NO!!" Setsuna screamed.  Hotaru walked to the sobbing woman and 
took her by the hand.  "Happy faces," she said, tears of pain in her own 
eyes.  "It's time to put on our happy faces."
	The mood among the rest of the group was decidedly positive.  All 
were smiling, several had tears of joy in their eyes.
	"Yaaaaaaaay!" Chibi-Usa squealed.  "Now I can be conceived!"
	Rei and Mamoru went first, running at full speed.  The others were 
slower, but every single one of them had happy expressions on their faces.
	Their first sight was her.





	The four of them sat in the car, gazing up at the night sky, waiting 
for the streaks and specks of light.  They came.

			Star light, star bright,
			First star I see tonight,
			I wish I may, I wish I might
			Have this wish I wish tonight.

	Hope.  Hope for contentment and happiness, finally.  A normal life.
	Love, but I've got that already, so nothing.
	Love, but I've got that already, so nothing.
	Death.  To be thrown away again, dutyless and happy.

	"What did you wish for?"

	"I can't tell you.  It's a secret."



	
	Rei stood, hidden behind some bushes, bathed in two kinds of 
moonlight.  Minako crouched nervously beside her.
	"I don't believe it," Rei muttered.  "The five minutes she's in my 
presence, her attention is mainly directed towards those goddamn Starlights.
Now she goes off and spends all night with him."
	"Ssssshh!" Minako whispered.  "They're going to hear you!"
	Rei ignored her.  She looked over at the two figures sillhouetted on
the moon, and grunted.
	"What are they doing now?" Minako asked.
	"Kissing."  Rei sighed.  "It's very cute.  They're really in love, 
aren't they?"
	"Uh huh."  Minako tried to look too, but was distracted by the salty
water dripping from Rei's face.  "Are you crying?"
	"I don't think she knows," Rei whimpered.  "She doesn't know how 
much I care..."
	Minako hugged the quietly sobbing girl, having absolutely no idea if
she was doing any good.  "She does.  And even if she doesn't, we'll show 
her.  We'll show her."

	The moonlight covered all.  And nothing at the same time.