Author Note: Here's the first chapter of the sequel to Love and War, because – as it turns out – I do actually have a heart. I hope you guys like this, since everybody wanted for him to live so badly (and I did too, I hate the thought of soldiers dying).
Disclaimer: I own nothing Sailor Moon
Even Angels Cry
Chapter One
"That was a great jump, Sydney." I compliment to the young girl that smiled a broad grin my way. She was adorable, all bouncing brown curls and brown eyes. I was helping the young cheerleading girls out, since their coach had hunted me down and begged for assistance. Even though my first year of college was keeping me on my toes, it was no match sure my determination. I was acing all of my courses with no problems, even the fillers that I wasn't interested in.
"These girls sure do love you." A masculine voice spoke up from behind me. I turned around to see my best guy friend, Andrew. Every time I looked at him I was reminded of Darien, the love of my life that had passed away over two years ago, back in the middle of my senior year, so I only knew him for only about a half of a year since he had stopped writing approximately five months before I was notified about his death. A week before the news, I had celebrated my seventeenth birthday.
Despite the lack of replies, I had tried to write. I must have sent him thirty letters that never got a response, and possibly never got opened. The worst part about Darien's death, the absolute horrid fact that killed me inside, was that there was no body discovered, only his dog tags. Dog tags aren't ever a good sign of identification, though. I was lead onto two different ideals. 1.) Darien was still alive, since no body was found and 2.) His boy was so badly mutated that dog tags were the only things left over.
"They admire me, because I've always been a cheerleader. And maybe because I still look great in my high school uniform, which the school willingly gave to me because I was dubbed their 'best cheerleader ever'." I boasted proudly with a giggle. "Anyway, Raye's still in her college class so I was thinking that maybe you would want to walk along the boardwalk with me? I'm restless."
"It sounds like a deal to me." Andrew nodded in approval and took a seat to watch the last ten minutes of practice. Once I made sure all the girls' parents were there to pick them up, I willingly left with Andrew. "You're really great with those girls, you know."
"Those little girls mean a lot to me." I shrugged. "Besides, it feels good to know I'm helping them advance in some skill or another. Darien… he would have liked to know that I was making myself useful, you know? He was always encouraging me to make an impact and I guess I did. It's nothing big, but it's an impact. And that song I song on Veteran's Day about him… it made people think. He always wanted people to think." I responded as my mind drifted back to the boy.
"I know you're still crazy about him Serena, I can see it in your eyes. Hell, I can hear it in your words and feel it radiating off of your body. It might not be anytime soon but I hope that, some day, you'll be able to open your heart enough to let me in." Andrew spoke quietly. I got silent and I looked up at his towering frame, observing him as we walked.
"Giving it a try can never hurt, can it?" I asked with a light smile. Andrew seemed eccentric. I wasn't feeling the same way. I was still in love with Darien but maybe I needed to try to move on, and Andrew was interested in me. I always thought that I'd never want to be with another man but I was sick of the emptiness eating away at me. I was tired of being alone. I wanted somebody that could wrap their arms around me in the middle of the night and pull me close. I wanted a family.
-0-
"Do you think angels cry, Raye?" I asked, hugging my knees to my chest, as I sat on my bed at our shared apartment. "I mean, I know they're superior beings compared to you and me, but do you think they're above the ability to cry?"
"Nobody's above the ability to cry, Serena, not even angels." Raye responded as she studied my face for a moment. "Sweetheart, everybody gets hurt at some point or another. Crying is a way to release some of the pain you feel. It won't make the problem go away, it might not clear your head, but it will let you unleash emotions that you shouldn't hold in. A person who refuses to cry is unhealthy. Crying doesn't make a person weak, it makes them strong to be so vulnerable and continue; it makes them real."
"It's hard to believe, sometimes." I whispered silently with my chin resting on my knees. I looked down at my freshly painted sparkling silver toes. "A lot of things in life are hard to believe, actually. I still can't grasp the idea that Darien's dead. Part of me is screaming that he's still alive because there was no body found. The only part is warning me that his body is so butchered that dog tags were the only thing salvageable. They couldn't have announced he was dead unless they had proof though, could they?"
"I'd really love to believe that he's alive and out there for your sake honey but, like you said, they can't just pronounce a missing man dead. He'd be listed as MIA, not deceased. And they wouldn't have sent you to a funeral and taken you through all the pain of the folded up flag and twenty-one gun goodbye." Raye, my more reasonable half, pointed out.
"I know that… I know… but I don't accept it. I don't think I'll ever be able to accept it but I'm trying to move on. Andrew is my boyfriend now. I agreed to date him, figured that it might do me some good to attempt a relationship. It doesn't feel good Raye; it feels like I'm cheating on Darien." I mumbled.
"Serena, it seems like all that counseling didn't do anything to help you. He's dead baby girl, you wrote your final letter to get him go. Your mind disconnected with him, now your heart needs to. You're so full of hope it kills me Serena but Darien is gone and he's never coming back." Raye spoke in a soft tone but her voice felt like a twisted knife straight to the heart. I felt the stinging sensation of metal sliding into my flesh, I swear. How could something hurt this bad without me even bleeding? Then I realized I was.
"I need to go to the emergency room, Raye." My voice was soft and broken.
"Why? What's wrong?" Raye was quick to ask, concerned laced through her voice.
"I'm bleeding." I whispered.
"No you're not Serena, I don't see any blood anywhere."
"That's because it's inside me. It's in my heart." I mumbled before my shoulders rocked with tears and I tried so hard and fast that I could barely manage to keep breathing, taking these short lived gasps of air. I fell into her embrace, wishing it was Darien instead. I had never felt so alone in my life, not even after my father's death. Screw the bleeding, I was broken.
Darien
My mouth was as dry as the desert sand that was lying before me. My heavy eyelids opened up and I looked around the room I was in, confused. An Asian man leaned over to me and my eyes rolled back up towards my head. Did Heaven really consist of Asian people greeting you as soon as you woke up? He lightly shook me and spoke to me. I almost didn't understand the language, Vietnamese, as first. Then it sunk in that he wasn't speaking Vietnamese at all. The man was talking to me, plain and clear, in English with an Asian accent. "Stay with me here…."
"God, where am I?" I wondered out loud. The last thing I could recall was the torture camps and those ridiculously long trips through the deserts while they would beat my legs with metal bars. I threw my legs over the bed and stood up quickly, ready to move away and get far from these people. My head spun and I tripped backwards and onto the bed again. "Monsters… you… monsters…"
"Calm down, everything will be alright." The man spoke carefully, reassuringly.
"You… tortured… me…. You… tortured… my… men." My voice managed to crack out. I tried to ignore all the pain shooting through my body. What kind of sick people would beat the blood out of me then nurse me back to health? What was their plan, to torture me until near death again?
"Then you saved one of our people, an innocent child." The man responded.
"What... what are you talking about?" I groaned.
"It must have been too near your fainting to remember. But, yes, you saved a child. They had taken you out on one of those many long walks to the river, to get them water by hand. There was a young boy there and some men were holding him beneath the surface. They said you bravely charged after them with bloodied arms, legs, face, chest, back, and stomach, single-handedly taking down all the men in a hand-to-hand combat in under a minute. You pulled the boy from the river and performed CPR. You saved his life. Unfortunately, it almost cost you yours. One of the men on the ground pulled out his gun from his unbroken arm and fired quite a few rounds into you… You've been in a coma for nearly two years now." The man, who appeared to be a doctor, explained.
"A two year coma? Oh God, Serena…" I whispered quietly as the tears started to come to my eyes. "Serena, Serena, Serena!"
My entire body was throbbing with pain. I was confused and lost. Yet all I could think about was the picture-perfect girl from back home. All I could see was her smile, her eyes, her body… I could only hear her laugh. What about the rest of the army? What did they think had happened to me? Why wasn't I being nursed back to health in America? In California, with Serena by my side?
"If you don't mind me asking… how did somebody as skilled as you get taken prisoner in the first place and why didn't you escape?" The doctor pressed curiously.
"I did it to save the spot from some of my men. I struck a deal for them to let a few of my boys go, in exchange for me. And, yeah, I could have escaped but I didn't. I knew that I could get away but not everybody could. I wasn't going to have them kill my brothers because I decided to runaway from my problems. I'm pretty pain tolerant; I've lived a good life." I recalled.
"How old are you?"
"If I've been in a coma for two years… then I guess I'd be around twenty-one to twenty-two." I said. Serena would be around nineteen to twenty. She'd be in college right now and had probably moved to some college far away from California and everything that reminded her of me. She was probably having a great time with the love of her life and planning out a family, mapping out a house. I ran my hands through my hair, frustrated and hurt by the thoughts that were plaguing me.
"I need to get home, why am I not home?"
"The battle was and still is too bad to send you there. If you're going to go home, you must make the trip back yourself somehow or another." The doctor replied. "I'm Dr. Yamotoko by the way."
"Darien Shields." I nodded my head towards him. "I appreciate you helping me back to good health and everything but I have a life I need to return to. I hope that you understand that. I have somebody special in my life… and she probably won't be when I return."
"I'm sorry Mr. Shields. I wish I could have done something." He said and I actually saw the sorrow in his eyes. They say you can learn everything about a war from hospitals. I was sure that the man had seen enough destruction in one lifetime. I dropped my eyes to the ground and steadied myself. I wasn't used to walking and I should have needed a ton of physical therapy but I forced myself to straighten up. Dr. Yamotoko handed me my uniform. I took it into my hands.
I changed into the nearby bathroom and looked into the mirror. The suit itself had been cleaned up nicely and covered the scars from three bullets. With my combat boots laced up, I made my trip out of the hospital. Everybody smiled at me and every mouth said the same words 'Thank You' in Vietnamese. I smiled back, too, but my heart wasn't in it. My heart was with Serena.
