No More Reeni

By SmellDRoses

Chapter One: Tearing and Breaking Down

Authors Note: The text which is centre aligned is clips from songs or sayings, they act as page breackers (and no, i dont own them!)

The crisp December air glittered, as snowflakes fell slowly to the white blanket like ground. Trees were caked with the white snow, like icing on top of a cake. Serena looked out on the picturesque view. She smiled, and made a grab for Darien's hand. She pulled him out of the confines of the warm shop doorway and to the park.

Darien followed slowly, almost unwillingly as if he didn't want to be with her. In the park, Darien stopped and Serena let go of his hand. She turned to face him, a worried smile on her face. "What's the matter, Darien, are you okay?" She started to babble as she got no answer from him. "Darien? Darien? Why are you looking at me like that? Darien? Darien?" She grabbed hold of one of his hands. Every time she said his name, her voice rose in pitch.

Darien couldn't stand it any longer. He felt as if his heart was breaking, every time he looked into Serena's eyes and saw all hope and love he was going to break. He gulped and started talking, knowing that things would never be the same with the two of them once he had finished. "Serena…" He found that he couldn't look at her in the eyes, couldn't bear to see the damage he was about to do. "I don't love you." He heard her gasp in shock, felt her hand slip from his. He ploughed on, knowing it wasn't enough just to shock her, he had to make her hate him. "I never have. I just felt sorry for you, and when it became obvious you had feelings for me, well, I thought it would be better to just go along with it. But, well, you're starting to annoy me, your clumsy ways; it's just getting to me. And your nickname for me-I hate it with a passion. I want to break up with you." Before he saw her miserable face, he turned and walked away, his heart seeming to stop beating with the pain of what he had done. He stopped and paused, and without turning around, said to his one and only love, "Don't call me."

Serena felt as if her breath had been knocked out of her, as if she had been hit by a car. As Darien spoke those awful words to her, her heart seemed to fracture and break into a million pieces. She didn't know what she was to do. How was she going to survive without her Darien?

Slowly, like an old, crippled woman, she pulled herself up from the floor where she had fallen and walked broken heartedly. Knowing that Darien had taken half of her heart with him. And wasn't going to give it back to her.

Love is like war,

Easy to begin but hard to end.

by Anonymous

"Ami…" A small sad voice asked.

"Yes, Mina." The blue-haired girl looked up from her book she had been half-heartedly been reading and waited for Mina to carry on.

"I don't understand." Mina simply stated. Her head in her hands, defeated. She was watching the pig-tailed blonde by the counter talking to Andrew. "I can't understand it. She looks so sad, and Darien hasn't come back here for a while now. Serena used to be such a bunny rabbit (AN: yes I know it's becoming a bit of a cliché), bounding with joy and happiness, now it's hard to get a smile out of her, never mind the twinkling of her laugh. And Darien! Well! He's no better, how could he have done this to her? He loves her! He's her soul mate! I know this, I mean; I'm the freaking Goddess of love. Why did he have to say whatever he said to her? Why did he have to break all that was good in his life? In her life?" Mina thumped her hand on the table, ignoring the fact she was drawing attention to herself.

"I don't understand either." Ami sighed, her gazed becoming transfixed on the blonde headed girl not far from them. "You can see she's trying to move on, but it's not working."

Ami, Lita, Mina and Rei were watching their friend, worry evident in all of their eyes. Serena was sitting on a stool at the counter, her back to the others. She had been avoiding them for the past week now. Every time she looked at them, pain seemed to cover her. Serena's friends reminded her of all the good times she had had with Darien. Andrew wasn't any better, being Darien's best friend, but Serena knew that she had to look on the outside as much as she could, that she had gotten over her only love, even though inside, her mind was a chaotic mess of pain and sadness.

Not thinking, Rei called out to her depressed friend, "hey, odango atama…" Her voice drowned away as she realized what she said. She watched as Serena seemed to physically recoil from the nickname her old love had given once when teasing her. Without a goodbye or a glance at anyone in the shop, she half walked, half jogged out of the electric door.

"Shit!" Rei exclaimed once she had realized what she had said. The others frowned at her, not at her language, but at what she had done.

"Rei…" Lita whined. "Serena had only just ventured out of her house, why did you have to do that?"

Rei hit her head against the wall. "I didn't mean to! It just…came out…natural like."

Andrew then walked up the group, "What's up with Serena?" he asked, bemused.

"Don't you know?" Rei asked exasperated. She sighed at his shake and carried on. "Serena and Darien broke up."

Andrew's eyebrows rose. "What? But he loves her…"

Lita interrupted him, "He broke her heart." She watched as Andrew again shook his head in disbelief.

"You guys, you don't understand, Darien really loves her. He was planning on giving her an engagement ring next weekend, when they were going out to that Swiss Spa for the holiday." The girls' eyes rose to above their hairline. "I never thought Darien would get married, he always said that there was no such thing as agape, the love where he would risk himself for another person. He told me not too long ago that he would rather die than see Serena hurt."

"But…" The girls trailed off, still trying to process the startling information.

"Why then was he so mean to her? Why did he say he didn't love her?"

I'd like to run away

From you,

But if you didn't come

And find me

I would die.

by Shirley Bassey

She had had enough. She was completely and utterly fed up. What was she going to do? She was eighteen, and moping about because of her boyfriend had dumped her. Something had to be done. She was going to completely renovate herself, starting with her hair. That night, she booked herself in for a haircut at a new hairstylist just down the road from her house. She then went through her wardrobe and chucked out anything remotely childish, she decided that her multitudes of clothes with bunny motifs were to be first of the charity heap. That included her bunny nightwear.

Exhausted, Serena flung herself on her bed and had her first restful night for over a week.

You will never know true happiness

Until you have truly loved,

And you will never understand

What pain really is

Until you have lost it.

By Anonymous

"Where's Serena?" Andrew asked Serena's group of friends. He still couldn't understand why Darien had dumped her. They had been perfect together; Serena's yang to Darien's yin, and Andrew knew that Darien loved the blonde klutz.

"We don't know, Rei phoned Serena and apologized about Monday. She said she would meet us here at eleven o'clock. And it's now…eleven fifteen. She's late." Ami sighed.

"Maybe Serena's forgotten." Lita sighed. She put her head in her hands.

"Maybe Serena's back to normal!" Mina, ever the optimist, replied hesitantly.

"Doubtful." Rei sighed. She almost wished Serena was only late. She wished Serena was loud and a klutz again, the very things that had annoyed Rei.

The bell on the door ringed and the group turned with hope in their eyes. It was not ill-found hope, but they were not expecting what they saw. Instead of knee length blonde hair done up in buns with bunches of hair free, Serena's hair had been cut waist length and was down, her hair flowing into large, golden curls, which it had always wanted to do, it was set in a side-parting. And her clothes…well she looked like a goddess. Previously she had worn simple shorts and t-shirts, or baggy trousers and a jumper. Now, she wore a pair of low-rise drainpipe jeans, navy blue in color, which showed off her long, toned legs, she wore a pair of black wedges which helped elongate her legs. She wore a white strappy top, tight on the top and loose under the bust which accentuated her curvy, yet toned figure. She walked determinedly into the café come arcade and stopped with her friends.

Andrew's jaw fell to the floor. She was so beautiful. He had never noticed how much her hair and clothes hid her mature figure. He gulped and cleared her throat. "Hi…Serena." He raked his hands through his hair.

Andrew racking his hands through his hair was a habit picked up from Darien, and every time he did so, it hurt her. She gulped, and looked at Lita, who she knew was the most blatantly honest. "Do I look bad?" She whispered.

"Uhh…have you looked at yourself in the mirror recently?" Lita asked her, confused. Serena nodded and looked at Lita expectantly. Lita carried on. "Serena, you're a major boy magnet. You look beautiful, but you did so before. Is this because of-?"

Serena cut her friend short, before she could utter the words which would tear her heart to shreds again. "I have to go, I've just remembered, I promised my mum to get her shopping for her." And with that, the blonde beauty disappeared, leaving emptiness in her wake.

"Darien's going to regret dumping her." Andrew announced, stunned.

"Maybe that's the point." Mina whispered.

Used to be that I believed in something

Used to be that I believed in love

It's been a long time since I've had that feeling

I could love someone

I could trust someone

I said I'd never let nobody near my heart again darlin'

I said I'd never let nobody in

Celine Dion

Serena sighed, and let herself slide to the grass, resting her back against a willow tree. She hadn't known what had possessed her to cut off so much of her hair, maybe she was trying to move on from Darien. She hadn't though. Ever time she heard his voice, even his name; her heart broke again into a million tiny fragments. She loved him with all her heart. She wanted him back, wanted him to tell her that what he had said was all a terrible joke and that he did love her, with all his heart. She wanted to see him so much that she felt herself stand up and walk along to his apartment, but, as she proceeded in closing the distance between herself and his block of flats, she saw something that hurt her more than she could ever imagine.

Darien was walking a girl out from his apartment. The girl's arm was interlocked with his, and she was giggling at something he had said. Serena gasped, and saw Darien glance her way, then turn away, without recognition of ever seeing her. As if that wasn't enough, at that moment Reeni, the young child Serena thought was a menace came out from the doors of his apartment, following the couple with a smile on her face. Serena watched, shell-shocked as Reeni grabbed hold of the other girl's hand and skipped along with the couple.

They looked like a family. Even the hair was right. Serena knew that Reeni had come from the future, and it figured that she was Darien's child, maybe that was why they were so close now. Serena hated the child, yet here, the girl with Darien seemed to love her…like a mother loves her child.

The girl Darien was with had strawberry blonde straight hair. Reeni had pink hair. The girl was tall, leggy, a face like a supermodel, perfectly proportioned, beautiful in an unearthly way. Darien held the girl's hand with ease, as if they were meant for one another. Serena noticed that the girl kept glancing at Darien. The glances seemed filled with love, overflowing even. Serena couldn't stand it any longer. She ran, tears blurring her steps.

I can't carry on like this

I can't carry on, loving you from afar

I'm moving on…

Anon

Serena ran home, heart wrenching tears escaping from her broken heart and body. She clumsily dug her hand into her pocket, searching for the jangle of her keys. Instead of the keys she found a rose. Still red and as fresh as it had been picked that morning. It hadn't though. It was one of Darien's roses. A rose that he promised, would never die, just as their love would never die. Serena fell to the floor, her tears multiplying tenfold. She felt like she would drown from the sheer multitude of tears, as if they would never end. She kept remembering all the good times, and then, a memory of the morning He broke her heart would remind her that it was all over. That everlasting love only lasted a couple of years.

Slowly, she breathed in deeply, reached back down into her pocket for her keys, and unlocked the door. She had to get on with her life, no matter how much it hurt to do so.

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