"How Long?"

(insert appropriate SM disclaimer)

"Galileo" sung by Indigo Girls 

Sailor Moon Expanded song-fic

By: Matthew Campbell


Scene Opens:  Ferrite is sitting behind a desk, writing something.  
He's wearing his "Trenchcoat-Mask" uniform, though the gray 
mask and his fedora have been removed and are sitting on one 
corner of the desk.  Ferrite's hair is white, with only a smattering of 
gray left at the temples.  Heavy lines cross his face and it's obvious 
that even with the life-extending properties of his Guardian magic, 
this incarnation's lifespan is nearly complete.
Behind him is an enormous bay window, through which we can see 
a full moon shining in the night sky.  The radio is playing and a new 
song comes on.


"Galileo's head was on the block, the crime was looking up the 
truth.
As the bombshells of my daily fears explode, I try to trace them to 
my youth."


We see an image of a young Robert Davis.  He's dressed up in 
skydiving gear, preparing to jump out of a plane.  As he stands in 
the doorway, looking down, a buried memory of falling through the 
Venusian sky sans parachute suddenly inserts itself into his mind.  
Face paling, he pushes his way back inside the plane.


"Then you had to bring up reincarnation, over a couple of beers the 
other night...."


We see Nephrite and Ferrite sitting in a bar.  Both appear to be 
quite drunk, and Nephrite is attempting to explain something to 
Ferrite using expansive hand gestures.


"And now I'm serving time for mistakes made by another in another 
lifetime!"


We see Robert Davis standing over a bleeding Tuxedo-mask.  The 
Trenchcoat-mask costume appears around him for the first time.


"How long till my soul gets it right?
Can any human being ever reach that kind of light?
I call on the resting soul of Galileo, king of night vision, king of 
insight."


We pull back to old-Ferrite, sitting at the desk.  As he writes, the 
camera moves so we can see over his shoulder at the document he's 
writing on.  It's a typed document, entitled "Irons Corporation: 
Twenty Year Plan".  Ferrite is using an ink pen to apparently make 
some corrections.
As he sits, a sudden fit seems to overtake him.  All the blood seems 
to drain from his face, and he clutches his chest.  After a moment, 
he seems to partially recover and resumes writing, even more 
quickly than before.


"I think about my fear of motion, which I never could explain.
Some other fool across the ocean years ago, must have crashed his 
little airplane."


We see a shot a the valiant sky-galleon Nemesis, aflame as it 
crashes into the surface of the moon.  Ferrite is looking on, his face 
twisted in anguish.


"How long till my soul gets it right?
Can any human being ever reach that kind of light?
I call on the resting soul of Galileo, king of night vision, king of 
insight."


Finishing, Ferrite throws his pen down on the desk and shakily 
rises.  His uniform melts away into a tattered old red dressing 
gown.  Crossing the room, he opens a sliding glass door and steps 
out onto a porch.
The porch is set on some sort of hill, for though the stars and moon 
are clearly visible in the cloudless night sky, all traces of the ground 
below are swallowed up by darkness.
Ferrite walks toward the railing at the edge of the porch, and gazes 
up at the moon.


"I'm not making a joke.
You know me, I take everything so seriously."


We see Trenchcoat-mask fending off a youma with his umbrella, 
face utterly devoid of humor.


"If we wait for the time till all souls get it right, then at least I know 
there'll be no nuclear annihilation in my lifetime."


We see a flashback to the destruction and darkness accompanying 
Queen Beryl's attempt to fully summon Mettalia into our world.  
The sky is darkened, and people are huddling in their homes with 
fear-filled faces.


"I'm still not right."


Curiously, this is a shot of Bob Davis offering a bouquet of flowers 
to an attractive woman.  She brushes them aside and walks off, 
clearly rejecting him.  Bob looks crushed.


"I offer thanks to those before me.
That's all I've got to say."


We see a series of brief images, highlighting Ferrite's pre-Robert 
Davis lives.  The early ones are mostly dressed in skins with ragged 
beards and carrying clubs.  Later ones are everything from priest to 
farmer, though there seem to be a disproportionately large number 
of sailors.


"Maybe you squandered big bucks in your lifetime.
Now I've got to pay."


We see Ferrite behind the desk of a corporate office, looking at a 
large number of bills saying "Notice Due" and addressed to Irons 
Corporation.  He appears to be thinking furiously.


"But then again it feels like some sort of inspiration to let the next 
life off the hook."


Ferrite is still sitting in his office, when an idea suddenly seems to 
strike him.  He doesn't appear to like it very much, and keeps 
thinking, while tapping his fingers against the desk and gritting his 
teeth.  Finally he lets his head drop in surrender and picks up the 
phone to make a call.


"Or she'll say look what I had to overcome in my last life.
I think I'll write a book."


We see Ferrite sitting at a table, signing books.  He's dressed in his 
Trenchcoat-mask costume and appears extremely embarrassed.  On 
the table a copy of the book is propped up.  It's title reads, 
"Trenchcoat-mask's amazing adventures with the Sailor Senshi", 
and on the dustjacket is a rather cartoonish picture of the Senshi 
rescuing Trenchcoat-mask from a generic monster.
Twisting his head to one side, Ferrite tries to estimate how long the 
line of people is.  The camera pans _very_ far back to show a long, 
long line that winds around the edge of a building and out of sight.
Ferrite pulls a check out of his pocket and looks at it.  It has a lot of 
digits.  Comforted, he returns his attention to the next fan.


"How long till my soul gets it right?
Can any human being ever reach that kind of light?
I call on the resting soul of Galileo, king of night vision, king of 
insight."


The scene shifts back one final time to Ferrite, still staring up at the 
moon.  Another fit shakes him, and this time he doesn't recover.  He 
slips to his knees, eyes never moving from the glowing orb above 
him.


"How long?"


Ferrite can remain upright no longer.  Gasping at the pain, he falls 
on his side, laying on the wooden floor of the porch.


"How long?"


Eyes fluttering open and closed, Ferrite stubbornly shifts his head, 
allowing him to catch sight of the moon again.  A quizzical 
expression crosses his face and he purses his lips.  As his eyes close 
for the final time, his last breath escapes in a whisper.
"How long?"


The End