Author's Afterword:

I'd like to thank "Tuxedo" Will for editing this project and lending a
very helpful hand to this project. His work generally goes unnoticed by
the reader but I dread to think what would happen if I didn't have him
around to keep me on track.

Special thanks to Flashman & Co. for MSTing most of this story.
Definitely the #1 C&C of this story. To Lurker for his support and
creative ideas, that has me thinking of a sequel to this... or maybe two
stories but more on that later.

To the many people who took time out to C&C, especially those that wrote
more than once during this endeavor thanks. I'd include your names but I
don't wish to hurt anyone by excluding them. Without your C&C, writing
this story would've been the gloomiest thing to do.

There have been some strong arguments that Mamoru and Endymion would
NEVER do any such thing. People say that his characterization is
incorrect and unrealistic. I've noticed a generalization by some people
that say that if you plan to write fanfiction, that it should be done a
particular way; to me, this amounts to something akin to Henry Ford. Mr.
Ford once had a car plant back in the early 1900s and his saying was,
"They can have any color they want as long as it's black." Needless to
say, Mr. Ford went bankrupt with that philosophy.

Needless to say, fanfiction writers won't go broke but I think if you
take such a rigid attitude, the source tends to become stagnate after
awhile. This rigid attitude fails to compensate for the fact that humans
can change and not necessarily in good ways. A person is not born with
concepts of right and wrong but a blank slate. Society and perceptions
mold what a person views as acceptable and unacceptable.

Simply because a character is "this way" all the time doesn't
necessitate that the person is a dumb machine that is constantly like
that. Over time, things change; people do change and so do characters.
When I first started reading fics a few years ago, I couldn't stand
Ranma fics. Now though, I read Ranma fics, not all of them but I *do*
read them now. People who don't know I read Ranma fics still don't know
because I haven't shown an outward change; it was internal.

How does this relate to Mamoru? A character's internal workings need not
surface for very long or regularly. An inward change might not be
apparent until later stages. Usagi is so blindly in love with Mamoru
that, up until it was too late, did she recognize the signs that
something was seriously wrong. Mamoru himself might not have expected
that. So what caused his change? Maybe it was the constant fighting;
maybe it was stress from other events that weren't shown.

I can understand your discontent at Mamoru being made out to be the bad
guy but don't simply state that, "It should not be," simply because the
magna or anime do not present any evidences that Mamoru would do such a
thing. It would have to follow him every second of every day and his
actions would be open to interpretation. Rather I seek that you have an
open mind and simply allow the idea to occur; some have jumped to the
conclusion that I'd allow the suffering to continue but did I? Maybe,
but it will take a long time for Chibi-Usa and Usagi to heal. Some
things Chibi-Usa will simply never heal though. But for the most part,
the pain part of the nightmare is over and she can truly start to heal.

I had a choice, either impose Sailor Moon Universe rules on realistic
subject matter or impose real world rules on Sailor Moon characters. The
former I dismissed as child and spousal abuse are serious subjects so I
chose the latter. That reminds me, another argument that is being placed
forward is that dark fics should only be written within anime that
support it. That's like these people who walk around this Earth saying
it's a perfect place, sure it is... if they live on a sprawling plot of
land, high walls to block out the outside world and filtered
communications. Simply because the anime or magna series doesn't show
dark, angst ridden moments doesn't really mean that there aren't any.

I once got flamed because a person can't stand Sailor Moon but read one
of my Sailor Moon stories. Did I have Senshi? Nope. Battles? Nope.
Magic? Again nope... They hated it because it was simply the characters;
I didn't even reference the Senshi. The situation could have been popped
into other anime that have family. So they didn't like it and hated
it... not because it wasn't an excellent story but because it was that
evil of evils Sailor Moon Fanficiton! Sounds like me and Ranma fics way
back when ^_^. It's a perfect example of close-minded attitude that
occurs within the fanfiction community now and then.

Thanks for reading this far, and if you C&C, thanks even more.

In closing here's a list of some of my projects that are slated:

ToY? - The next in the "Tales of Younger Senshi" series, currently in
planning and will start to written soon.

A sequel to "Adventures of the Chibi-Scouts", we haven't started
planning this one yet.

MH2 - Yes a sequel to "Mama's Hand" no details as of yet although Lurker
might know some of it. Although this might be two stories, we'll see.

That's it so far but I'm sure to think up more.