Standard disclaimer: The characters aren't mine. This should come as no surprise. I am simply a teller of stories that occasionally claw their way desperately out of my head.

Notes: Rei's birthday brought in Rei Birthday 'Fic Day over on my Tumblr. This was the second prompt: "Crisis of faith on Rei's birthday. Doesn't have to be religious. Ideally serious but not depressing. Also has to mention a polar bear." Challenge accepted.

(17 April 2014)

A Year Older

Rei was a year older.

Today was her birthday and she was a year older and it didn't matter at all.

It hadn't mattered before, and Rei felt that the consistency should offer her some kind of comfort. All it did was remind her how stupid she was back then.

Aging should have effects and consequences. She'd watched herself and her friends grow and bloom. She'd watch her grandfather shrink and wither. It was tragic and beautiful and natural. It was life.

Rei leaned closer to peer at herself in the mirror. Not a single blemish, not one wrinkle, not one strand of grey hair to mar the black mane that was once her pride.

Today was Rei's hundredth birthday, and she hadn't aged a day since her twenties.

She felt her fist clench and fought down the urge to punch the mirror.

None of the others understood. Mako had come closest for a time, but even she had made her peace by now. Sometimes Rei wished she could, too.

No. Acceptance tasted like surrender.

Minako would needle her. They were young and vital forever, and Minako couldn't understand how Rei needed to reconcile the face that stared back at her with the weight of the years in her heart.

How she needed to reconcile that the day she found salvation, she was cursed for eternity.

Rei and Ami had enjoyed hundreds of philosophical discussions over the course of their friendship, but on this, Ami couldn't see. She was too thrilled with her gift of time. Time to research, time to discover, time to learn. Ami had set experiments in motion that wouldn't see results for another three hundred years. Ami understood so much, but not this.

And Serenity.

Rei wanted to be angry with her, but how could she? Even if she'd known, she would have changed nothing. Serenity wasn't to blame.

That only made it worse when Rei blamed her anyway.

Serenity. Her best friend. Her goddess.

Rei had built her life around her faith. In herself, in her religion, in her friends, in Serenity. Rei didn't always agree with her, but she DID always believe in her.

Rei stared at her liar's face and tried to find the truth. The reflection swam and blurred. Rei blinked hard and turned away.

Enough of this.

Happy greetings and well wishes followed Rei to her office. She ignored them. Rei would have to be smiles and politeness at her birthday party that night (Queen's orders; Rei was to attend under threat of treason and the next hundred years in a dungeon that didn't exist), and had no intention of being pleasant one second before duty required it.

As Rei settled into her chair to call up the security plans for that night's completely unwanted and unnecessary party, she wondered briefly if she could arrange for palace security to guard her from going to the stupid thing.

Rei felt it moments before Serenity materialized in the center of her room.

Oh yeah, she could do that now. Security would be extra useless in any party-saving tactics, then.

The moment she saw Rei, Serenity beamed and started forward, but just as soon stopped and frowned. "You're grumpy," she accused.

Rei swiveled her chair toward her displays. "So glad you came all this way to state the obvious," she replied as her fingers danced over her desk. Palace layouts sprung up around her.

Serenity tried her best to glare a hole in the back of Rei's head. "It's your birthday and you're grumpy!"

"I'm relieved to see the country is in such capable hands," Rei said without turning around. With a gesture, the interior cut away zoomed in on the palace's public reception hall. Rei leaned forward to study it, then jumped back with a cry of alarm as she was suddenly staring into a pair of piercing blue eyes. Serenity's face poked through the light display.

"It's your hundredth birthday and you're grumpy!"

"Well I am now!" Rei shot back. Her fingers dug into the arms of her chair as she prepared for a fight, but at her admission, Serenity's expression crumbled.

"Oh, Rei-chan," she said, and it sounded like her heart was breaking.

Now Rei felt grumpy AND like dirt.

"I never do good with today, you know that." Rei said, and her own voice was soft and gentle. "Just let me get through today and I'll be fine."

"Will you?"

Serenity still held her with those eyes. Of all the things to love about Serenity, Rei loved her eyes the most. They were the part that, despite everything, had never changed, and Rei felt her faith renewed just by seeing them, and knowing they saw her.

"Yeah, Usagi," Rei said, and Serenity smiled. "I will."

They lingered like that, neither wanting to break the moment, until Serenity's eye widened. "Oh yeah!" She pulled back and circled around the desk. Rei swiveled in her chair to track her, coming to a stop when Serenity was standing right in front of her. "Here!" she said, and pushed a bundle of white fur into Rei's hands.

Puzzled, Rei examined it. It was a very cute, very fluffy, very confusing stuffed polar bear. "Thanks?"

"I picked it up when Ami gave me the good news," Serenity explained. "It's official as of today. They aren't endangered anymore! We've saved the polar bears, Rei-chan!"

And then Rei was hugging the polar bear, by way of Serenity hugging her, and the polar bear being caught somewhere between them.

"They'll never be in trouble again. Ami says that this time we can do it right because we'll still be here. People are good, but they're only here for a little while, and they forget about stuff like this. We have to remember for them. So we will." Serenity placed a lingering kiss on the top of Rei's head. "Believe in us."

"I do."

And she did.

She still didn't want to go to the stupid party though.

"We're still having the party," Serenity told her.

Rei stuck her tongue out, and Serenity answered in kind.

Five minutes later, neither showed any signs of stopping.

Rei considered that maybe aging was overrated after all.