"How long has it been?"

Blue eyes closed as the owner's tired head fell back. He was not sure how to respond to the question, for it held more depth than most would care to realize. Going for the simplest question and answer, he replied, "Probably about a year." It was a year since the final battle with Galaxia, and Mamoru prayed that the question would not be pushed any further.

Usagi turned her head to look at Mamoru, a warning look in her eyes. She turned back to the sunrise view she had from Mamoru's balcony and pressed her lips together in a thin line. "You know what I mean."

Mamoru sighed and said, "We haven't see Chibi-Usa in about two years." It was a confession that he found surprisingly painful. Sure, he loved Chibi-Usa, but he thought he would be able to go through a few years without the little pink-haired child before she was born.

"I miss her," Usagi vocalized what he had been thinking. "I just... I wish we could see her again."

With that simple sentence, a silver mist shot through Mamoru's apartment and out to the balcony, knocking both Usagi and Mamoru off their feet.

Usagi moaned ruefully as she felt her arm being tugged and a yelling filled her ears. "Go 'way," she groaned, trying to shake her arm free of her assailant.

"But Mommy, you and Daddy promised you would make pancakes!" a small voice whined.

Recognizing the voice, Usagi's eyes shot open. However, she was met with quite a surprise. Instead of the pink hair and red eyes she expected to see, she saw black hair and blue eyes that matched her own. "Uh..." she said tiredly, trying to get her mind together. Who was this girl? Why was she calling her 'Mommy'?

"I'm Thalia, Mommy," the little girl reminded her mother.

"Uh... r-right," Usagi replied, confused as the little girl took her hand in both her tiny ones and pulled her out of her king-sized bed and into the hallway. The blonde glanced back at the bed quickly and saw that she had been alone.

She followed the little girl's guidance to what was obviously a kitchen. The kitchen itself was huge, obviously meant to prepare food for a small army. And there, in front of the stove, stood a taller, slightly older-looking Mamoru making pancakes. Even more surprising, he was able to balance a little girl identical to Thalia on his hip while he was doing it.

"Morning, Mamo-chan," she said, causing the man to turn around. She looked at the two little girls, then to Mamoru, and the look in his eyes told her that he was just as confused as she was.

"Morning, Usako," Mamoru replied. "Did our little cutie here wake you up to make pancakes, too?"

"Yeah, Thalia said that we promised to make pancakes this morning," Usagi replied, letting Mamoru know the girl's name.

"Ithaca gave me a similar awakening," Mamoru replied, telling Usagi the other girl's name.

"Can we have chocolate chip pancakes, Daddy?" Ithaca asked, her eyes shining with delight.

"Sure, sweetie," Mamoru nodded. He then set the girl on the ground on her feet and said, "Why don't you two go get ready, and Mommy and I will finish making breakfast?"

"Okay!" the girls chimed before running off excitedly.

"What is going on?" Usagi whispered, approaching the stove like she was going to help make breakfast.

"I have no clue," Mamoru replied in an equally quiet voice. "I just woke up next to you, and Ithaca was pulling on my arm, telling me-"

"-that we promised to make pancakes," Usagi finished. "What the hell happened?"

"You don't think that wish had anything to do with it, do you?" Mamoru asked, his eyebrows furrowing.

"Well, I don't see Chibi-Usa around anywhere," Usagi said, glancing around the room.

"Mommy! Daddy!" the two little girls ran back in, now wearing t-shirts and overalls.

"Thalia, Ithaca, that sure was fast," Usagi said, squatting down so she was at the girls' height.

"Mommy!" both girls whined, laughing as they did.

"I'm Calliope," the first one claimed.

"And I'm Gaia," the second one reminded her.

"I'm telling you: you should just color code them," a new voice said. All four turned to the sound of the voice and saw a teenage girl with pink hair and red eyes. "Seriously. Red for Asteria, orange for Calliope, yellow for Gaia, green for Ithaca, blue for Nike, indigo for Psyche, and purple for Thalia."

"Hey!" both little girls objected, putting their hands on their hips.

"Chibi-Usa," Usagi and Mamoru breathed in surprise.

"Been my name for thirteen years," she replied, walking out of the doorway and down the hall.

Mamoru glanced at the little girls in the room and quickly went over the names Chibi-Usa had rattled off: Asteria, Calliope, Gaia, Ithaca, Nike, Psyche and Thalia. Wait. That was seven. Seven identical little girls? Good God, what were he and Usagi up to in this weird alternate time-reality place?

"Hey, are the pancakes ready?" a male voice asked, and a boy with blonde hair and Mamoru's blue eyes poked his head into the kitchen. He appeared to be about fifteen or sixteen, and his immediate questions about food only firmly planted the idea that he was a teenager in Usagi and Mamoru's minds.

"Not yet," Mamoru replied. "Help your sisters get ready, will you?" Good, Mamoru, he thought. Act like you do this every day. Mamoru turned back to the pancakes and flipped them onto a plate.

"Fine," the teen replied, rolling his eyes and heading back the direction he came.

Usagi and Mamoru shared a confused, worried look before Usagi said, "Calliope, Gaia, why don't you two go sit at the table, and breakfast will be ready soon."

With that, the two were off, allowing Usagi and Mamoru to get back to their conversation. "Okay, so Chibi-Usa is here," Mamoru said.

"Along with eight siblings," Usagi continued. "Maybe more. This obviously isn't Crystal Tokyo, so what do you think is going on here?" She was thinking, trying to find a way out of the mess she had gotten herself and Mamoru into.

"Maybe if we can contact the senshi as they are now, and they can explain things to us," Mamoru suggested.

"Good idea," Usagi agreed. "We can find them in the phone book after we take the kids to school or wherever it is they go in the mornings."

CRASH!

"She did it!" two small voices called.

Usagi sighed and let her head fall into her hands.

"The pancakes are ready, so let's take them in and see just how many little munchkins we have running around," Mamoru suggested. Usagi nodded, and the two brought the plate out into the hallway, just in time to catch two of the septuplets- which ones, neither parent could tell- run into another room. The confused duo followed the children and walked into a dining room, which held a table set for fourteen. The septuplets had all already taken their seats. In fact, only two seats remained open: the two at the ends of the table.

"Okay, who wants pancakes?" Usagi asked, looking around the room. There were the septuplets- all identical- and five other children: Chibi-Usa, the blonde teen, a raven-haired girl with silver streaks in her hair and Usagi's blue eyes that appeared to be the boy's age, a dark haired boy who was the spitting image of Mamoru at age ten, a boy with blonde hair and Mamoru's eyes about age eight, and a girl who was the spitting image of Usagi at age six.

The kids went into a frenzy as soon as the pancakes were set on the table, and Mamoru and Usagi found themselves lucky to get two each.

"So who's got what after-school activity today?" Mamoru asked, causing all the kids to burst into laughter.

"We don't have school today, remember?" the girl with the silver-streaked hair reminded her parents. She was obviously the eldest of the children, and the others looked up to her as the leader. "It's the day of the senshi, remember? Twenty years since the senshi defeated Galaxia? We always go out with the cousins to the park?"

"Right," Usagi replied. "I've just been a bit out of it today."

The confused smile immediately disappeared from the girl's face, being replaced by a frown as her siblings went on talking. "Mom, Dad, can I talk to you for a moment? Alone."

"Uh, sure, kiddo," Mamoru agreed, and the three left the table, and the two adults followed the girl into the living room.

Suddenly, the raven-haired teen stopped and turned around. "What's my name?" she demanded of the two.

Well, I was going to make this chapter longer, but it was just a perfect point to cut it off. So what do you all think is gonna happen to Usagi and Mamoru? And what do you think of the septuplets? They're an idea I've been playing with for a while, and I just had to put them in this fic.

Please review!