With All of My Heart

Jadeite awoke the next morning alone. He didn't know when Zoisite left, but he had at very least stayed until Jadeite fell asleep.

After he dressed for the day, Jadeite paused at his door. Zoisite was probably up already. Would he have told the others? Maybe he hadn't seen them at all and Kunzite and Nephrite were now assuming that they had slept together. Jadeite bit his lip nervously and opened his door.

He went to the kitchen first, and found Kunzite there, along with Zoisite. Jadeite froze when Kunzite looked up at him. 'He must know...' Jadeite thought instantly as he felt the blood drain from his face.

“Good morning,” Kunzite said calmly and then turned back to Zoisite.

Jadeite sighed quietly to himself in relief and then went about finding breakfast. A look at Zoisite told him that nothing had been said, and he was grateful.

---

“Going out?”

Jadeite turned, jacket in hand, to face Zoisite. He looked concerned, but Jadeite assured him that this wasn't the usual “going out”.

“I'm just going for a walk, that's it.” He was being truthful, and Zoisite would see that. He nodded and left, and Jadeite put on his shoes and headed out the door.

It was still early afternoon, and warm enough that he didn't really need the jacket. He slung it over his arm as he walked, in no particular direction. Occasionally he would turn down one side street or another, going wherever his feet ended up carrying him.

One street he ended up on was lined in various shops. He slowed his pace, looking inside to see what the shops had to offer. Jewelery stores and flower shops mostly, nothing that really caught his interested until one flower shop in particular made him stop cold.

It wasn't the flora that caught his attention. Facing him, and not standing more than a few feet away, was a woman browsing the selection. She paused in front of the red roses, and wore a sad expression as she brought one close to her face to inhale the scent. Jadeite was frozen, he couldn't move, he could only stare.

She must have felt his eyes on her, because she looked up and at him suddenly. Her eyes growing wide in recognition. “Jadeite,” she whispered, dropping the rose.

He stared at her. Just stared. It was her, there was no way it could be true, but there she was. Her hair was dark brown and straight, no longer the bright red curls he was used to. She wore a simple blouse and knee-length skirt instead of her form fitting purple dress. She was still tall, taller than him, but somehow she seemed so much less imposing standing in the shop rather than on her dais.

Her voice and face hadn't changed a bit. Her eyes had lost that commanding look, they were much as they were the last time he had seen her as the kingdom collapsed around them.

“Jadeite?” she asked again, this time taking a step towards him. He was rooted in place, unable to move even if he wanted to. It was impossible wasn't it? There was no way this could be...

“B... Beryl-sama?”

She looked around at the people browsing the shop around them, and then grabbed his hand. “Follow me,” she ordered, and then began pulling him down the sidewalk. He managed to will his feet to move fast enough to keep her pace, but he was still in wide-eyed shock.

They turned a corner, and this smaller street was much less crowded. Only a few people walked along the narrow road, and none of them within earshot, so she choose to stop here, releasing his wrist and then turning to face him once more.

“How did you find me?” she asked in an accusatory tone.

Jadeite was startled back by her question. “I wasn't trying to. I just happened to walk by and I saw you.” He wasn't going to mention that part about how he had only just stopped looking for her.

Beryl pondered this for a moment. “I didn't want any of you to find me,” she said.

“I swear I won't tell them!” Jadeite exclaimed. If she had been in hiding, he was going to try desperately to keep her from leaving him again. He never realized just how much he needed her now that he finally had her again. “Please, Beryl-sama,” he pleaded, falling to his knees in front of her, “let me stay with you.”

“Get up,” she ordered quickly.

Jadeite struggled to his feet once more, but kept his eyes focused on the ground near her feet.

“The name I go by now is Akako.”

“Yes, Akako-sama,” Jadeite replied.

She sighed at this. “Please drop the 'sama' as well. In public we need to appear as regular humans. Surely you know this.”

Jadeite nodded slowly, raising his eyes back up to her face. He actually found her, the real her. “How?” he asked. How was she alive?

“I could ask the same for you,” she replied. “You were as dead as I was.”

Jadeite nodded, and then realization struck him. “Wait, you knew that we were alive as well?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn't you contact us?” Jadeite was still partially in shock, and as a result was hardly thinking straight.

Beryl raised an eyebrow. “You really need to ask that question? I would think that anyone who knows me would want me dead if they knew I was alive.”

“I don't!” he exclaimed, shaking his head. “Knowing you're alive... I don't feel as lost anymore,” Jadeite's voice trailed off into a whisper as he looked away from his queen. It was the first time he had expressed any kind of feeling to her.

“Go home, Jadeite,” she said. “Forget you ever saw me and go home.” Beryl stepped around her former servant and began to walk away from him.

Jadeite's whirled around to watch her leaving. No, he wouldn't. He would beg her to stay with him until he had no voice left. “Please! Don't leave me again,” he called after her, and then ran to catch up. “Please, Ber- Akako-san.”

She paused to look at him and Jadeite pleaded with his eyes. She sighed. “You give me your word that not one breath of this will reach the other Shitennou, or anyone else?”

“Yes! I swear on my life.”

Hesitantly she nodded. “Then follow me.”

---

The pair reached an apartment building not much further from where they had met. Beryl lead Jadeite up to the tenth floor and then to her home. She unlocked the door and allowed him to enter first.

Jadeite kicked off his shoes and then looked around. It was nothing spectacular. All the required rooms, and nothing more. “Have a seat,” Beryl instructed as she entered the kitchen and grabbed something out of the cupboard.

Jadeite did as as he was told. Picking a spot on the couch and then watching Beryl as she appeared to be preparing tea. It was strange to watch her, and stranger still when she handed him a cup. “Thank you,” he said, unsure how to thank one's queen when she serves you tea.

Beryl sat herself across from Jadeite, a coffee table between them. She sipped from her own cup while Jadeite considered a million things he wanted to ask. “Have you been alive these whole two years?” he decided on first.

Beryl nodded. “I woke up in a hospital. They had a Japanese name on file for me, so I started using it. Turned out that I had this apartment as well. I couldn't explain how, I just accepted it. I found myself a job and have been supporting myself since then.”

There were other things Jadeite wanted to ask. 'Where do you work?', 'What do you do on your time off?', silly things really, but when one came from such an odd background, such questions seemed important somehow. But those weren't the questions he asked next.

Jadeite put his tea back on the table. “Can I live here?” He didn't want to sound desperate, but he was already well beyond that.

Beryl looked up at him, surprised to say the least. “Jadeite...” she said, beginning to shake her head.

“I won't tell the others!” he added quickly. “I'll just grab my things and leave. I don't have much, they'll never know.”

Beryl put her tea down as well. “Jadeite, they'll be looking for you. I can't risk them finding me.”

“They won't find us!”

“You found me, and you weren't even trying.”

“We can move!”

“Jadeite...”

Jadeite rose from his chair, walked around the table, and fell to his knees again in front of her. “Please,” he begged, “I'll do anything you want. I don't care if I never see any of them again. Just, let me be with you.”

He had never asked Beryl-sama for anything before now, but he had to. He wasn't going to take no for an answer. He had finally found meaning to his life, and he wasn't going to lose that. Life was serving her, being with her, loving her.

Beryl looked down on him with sad eyes. “Is this what I did to you?” she asked. “Jadeite, you are strong enough to find your own way in this world, you-”

“No!” Jadeite almost screamed, shaking his head, his blond curls bouncing as well. “Beryl-sama, I love you!” He clasped his hands over his mouth as though to stop himself, but the words were already out. Beryl just stared at him in shock.

Jadeite averted his eyes, finding a spot on the carpet beside him to look at instead. He shouldn't have blurted that out, even though he had professed it to her a million times in the Dark Kingdom, that was only supposed to have been an effect of the curse. This was no curse, his feelings were real, and always had been.

“It is my fault, after all,” Beryl whispered, causing Jadeite to look up a fraction. “Alright, you can stay here for the night,” she said with a sigh.

Jadeite was overjoyed, and able to look upon his queen again. “Thank you,” he whispered. He got to his feet when Beryl stood up as well.

“You can sleep on the sofa, I suppose. It's all I have to offer.”

Jadeite froze. The sofa? He had caught a glimpse inside her bedroom, and she had a double bed. He closed his eyes, feeling defeated once again. At this point, he knew that he should probably except what she was offering, but that didn't make any less painful. She was turning him away from her bed, never before had that happened. He had always managed to please her, how could he do so now? Would it have been better if he hadn't told her how he felt?

“Jadeite,” she said, apparently picking up on Jadeite's distress, “I used you then, and it was wrong of me to do that.”

“I don't care,” he replied quietly, “you can keep using me.”

“If I wasn't without my powers, I would think that you were still under the curse.”

Jadeite continued to stand where he was, eyes closed, fighting back tears once again. How could he explain that he didn't care if she didn't love him back? He knew that would probably never happen, and he was fine with it. He only wanted to be with her, as a lover would be, even if it was only one-sided.

Suddenly, he felt arms around him, and he opened his eyes wide when he smelt the familiar scent. Her hair may not have looked the same, but the smell was most definitely what he remembered. Jadeite buried his face in the brown locks, and the tears he had been fighting began to fall. “Beryl-sama,” he whispered.

Her arms tightened around him momentarily. “Jadeite, you do realize that I don't have the same feelings for you?”

Jadeite nodded, refusing to leave the familiar aroma. “I don't care,” he said, “I just want to be with you. That's enough.”

Slowly, Beryl pulled back. She kept her hands on his shoulders as Jadeite was forced away from his own little heaven. “Go home and get your things,” she said. “Just don't say anything about me or where you are going. Can you do that?”

“Yes,” he nodded.

Beryl reached forward and played with a lock of his blond hair briefly. “Could you change the colour of your hair as well? It attracts too much attention.”

“Anything,” he agreed readily.

“Make sure they don't follow you.”

“I'll be careful, Beryl-sama.”

Beryl dropped her hands from his shoulders. “It's Akako,” she reminded him.

“I'll call you that in public,” he agreed, “but you're still Beryl-sama.”

She seemed to agree to this, nodding slightly. “What name do you go by?” she asked.

“Kiyoshi. Kono Kiyoshi.”

Beryl smiled softly. “Alright, I'll be waiting for you. Until I get a second key, you'll have to use the buzz board downstairs.”

Jadeite nodded excitedly. “I'll be back soon.”