Author's Note: Thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed the story thus far, knowing that you enjoy my story as much as I do pushes me to keep writing. I promise it will only get better from here!

On to Chapter Four! Read, review, and most of all - enjoy!

- Starfighter626

Chapter Four

Truths

The room was silent. The heavy marble doors drowning out the anxious roar of the crowd that was gathering outside. The people of Earth were growing increasingly nervous.

Two long, grief and fear filled, weeks had passed since the death of the King, and, in appeasement to the masses, a few simple ceremonies had been conducted by members of the Royal Court and Guard, without the presence — or permission — of the Queen. Throughout the city, individual memorials began to overtake the landscape and the gates to the palace were now heavily draped with the flowers and offerings of the grieving multitude.

But the palace remained a silent tomb. Their Queen, no more than a ghost behind its walls.

Perhaps her silence had lasted too long. She could not seem to find it in herself to care. She would not let them rush her through this. She would no longer sacrifice her peace of mind, simply to put other minds at ease. No. She would do this in her own way — and on her own time — so that in the centuries to come, she could look back on this moment without a single regret in her heart.

She took a long, deep and cleansing, breath as she tried to summon the strength to say goodbye.

"I will miss you beyond measure," she whispered to him through the crystal casing of his coffin. He looked so peaceful, like he was trapped inside the most pleasant dream.

She could feel the heat of the tears building. The desire to break into an irrepressible fit of sobs cutting off her airway. She blinked furiously, and took another deep and controlled breath. She would not lose her composure. She would do this with dignity. With grace...

"You were my anchor, my confidant — and I did love you, I adored you…I hope you truly knew that." She trembled, still trying to hold back the tears that were threatening to spill down her icy cheeks. She pinched the bridge of her nose tightly between her fingers trying to will the tears away.

"I wish I could have been yours, undeniably yours, the way you wanted." Her eyebrows knit together as she clenched her bottom lip tightly between her teeth, the corners of her mouth sinking into a deep, guilt-ridden, frown. "You were so good to me, and I know that you truly loved me — perhaps more than I will ever know. It was a beautiful deception you cast for me — one that I would gladly return to, if only you could return to me." She gasped, stifling a painful sob.

She pressed the palm of her left hand to the cold stone and gazed at him through the crystal. He was so beautiful and still. Dressed in his finest armor. It suited him.

"You look like King Arthur sleeping in Avalon," she thought to herself, smiling weakly.

She leaned in and rested her forehead gently next to her hand against the cool stone. Sighing, she began to gently rub her thumb over the band of her wedding ring, twirling it around her finger.

"I hope that you, in some way, understood that I never meant to hurt you. But my heart, it betrayed me — betrayed me as you knew it would." She glared at him accusingly — a hint of defiance in her eyes — but the fire of her stare was quickly extinguished by an extraordinary wave of empathy.

She lowered her face and closed her eyes, inhaling slowly through her nose as she shook her head slowly, acknowledging the truth of her betrayal.

"I tried." She whimpered. "I tried to deny it..." the guilt thick in her words, the sound of her voice barely a whisper against the stone. "I know that it wasn't enough. Not after what we'd been through. The battles, the years, the lifetimes." She balled up her fists and pressed them to her mouth repressing another sob of remorse.

She sighed heavily and sank to the floor, resting her back against the stone-hard surface of his crystal sarcophagus. There was too much to take in — too much to comprehend. Her once tightly bound world had been unraveled, the fairy-tale life that she had become increasingly numb to, now shattered — its pages strewn about the worried faces of everyone she saw. It had seemed that no matter how much time she took trying to make sense of it, no matter how many hours she spent trying to reason with her emotions, she still couldn't seem to grasp the reality of it anymore. The seething conflict in her heart ravaged her mind as she remembered the last time they had spoken, alone in their bedchamber, when he only had fleeting moments left. Using what little vestiges of strength he had left, he had desperately tried to make her understand something — something he was ashamed of, something he now felt it undeniably consequential for her to know, regardless — his confession.

"Usako, there are things that I must put right…before it is too late," he had whispered. His voice was weak and uneven, his fading blue eyes full of a desperate urgency that had made her gravely uneasy.

"For the sorrow I have caused you, for the sacrifices I have caused you to make, the anguish I have silently and selfishly inflicted...I am deeply and irrevocably sorry." He spoke with ardent sincerity. He wanted her to believe him — he needed her forgiveness.

She stared at him blankly, the meaning of his words eluding her.

"I have no idea what you're talking about my love." She replied bewildered, stroking the side of his face tenderly with the feathery touch of her hand. He didn't have the strength to argue nonsense, and she would not have him fill their last moments together with regrets over trivial matters that held no lasting merit.

"You have never caused me sorrow or anguish, and you have never once asked me to sacrifice anything, not in two lifetimes." She assured him.

"But Usako," his raspy voice was barely a whisper now, "they were not my lifetimes to share." He struggled to sit up, wincing with the unexpected effort, so that he could look her full in the eyes as she sat next to him. He soon realized, however — as he met the power of her confused stare — that he could not look into those innocent and all-forgiving eyes while he admitted to his treachery. He lowered his gaze and stared at the pink diamond wedding ring sparkling on her left hand.

"My Queen, I have wronged you in the most malicious ways imaginable. You have to listen to me..." he took a deep breath and reached for her hand. Intertwining their fingers together as he lifted her hand to his face. He gently kissed her ring.

"Don't misunderstand, my love, if I were given the same opportunities and the same circumstances, I would still do nothing different," he started, "but I realize that everything I have done was for my own selfish reasons, and it has had very little to do with the true desires of your heart." He looked up at her from beneath his furrowed brow, hoping to see some tiny inclination that this sudden admission of guilt had registered with her. Hoping that somehow, through his jumbled words, she could hear the truth and would understand.

"I loved you then Usako — no, Serenity — as I love you now, and the very idea of you belonging to another..." he paused and drew a ragged breath, "I was unable to bear it. I couldn't stand for it — I wouldn't." He straightened himself, squaring his shoulders. He looked to her as if he was preparing for a firing squad, accepting of his fate, repentant.

He took another labored breath and looked longingly at her. When he began again, his voice was stern, but warm, and full of an intangible ache. "Understand, my love - I've only ever wanted the absolute best for you. I wanted to give you the world then, and now — regardless of whether you would ever want the world...from me. I knew, back then, in the Silver Millennium," he lowered his face, returning his eyes and attention to the ring on her left hand, "I knew before I began my pursuit that you should belong to another — that, if I allowed it, you would belong to another. I couldn't accept it. I refused. Forgive me, dearest Serenity, but I was utterly yours from the first moment I laid eyes on you, and incapable of letting you go." He looked up at her, his ancient blue eyes brimming with heartbroken tears.

She stared at him absently, blinking back her confusion — unable to comprehend the magnitude of what he was trying to tell her. Somewhere buried deep within her, the heart she had long thought frozen skipped a beat and landed in her stomach.

"Endym— Mamo..." she whispered, her voice cracking a little around the edges, unsure of how to begin. She was still trying to make sense of the strange apologies and admissions that he was bombarding her with. The sudden abundance of unrest — and was it relief? — in her heart, making her increasingly anxious.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she shook her head and closed her eyes, hoping to discourage a rebuttal, "but it doesn't matter now. If you are searching for forgiveness for something, then it is yours. But you have nothing to apologize for. Not now, not ever."

"No, Serenity. You're not listening to me!" He declared, exasperated, his already exhausted features now revealing the true mask of the struggles he had held inside. He met her stare straight on and looked deep into her eyes, searching their cerulean depths for a sign of understanding. These eyes! Eyes that had captivated him from the very first time he had felt the weight of their stare — blinked back with silent retaliation. Only the slightest hint of guilty acceptance in them.

"You are so noble...so loyal." He reached up and stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. "Even though you know the truth of my words, you deny it. You deny my guilt as you have denied the true fire in your heart for so many centuries."

She dropped her chin to avoid the blazing intensity of his stare.

"Serenity, Usa... It's all right. You don't have to fight it anymore. If I had been a man truly worthy of your love, you would have never had to fight it in the first place." He lifted her chin with his free hand so that he could look once more into her beautiful eyes. His gaze was soft and disarming, communicating a compassionate plea that she could not fully comprehend. Her eyebrows knit together with reluctant frustration and heartache.

"I don't know what you're talking about..." she trailed off once again, gently pulling away from his touch.

He sighed and relaxed his stance, defeated. He knew he had earned this torture outright, that no matter how unbearable, he undeniably deserved it — but that was not going to make it any easier to admit his treachery, or to make her believe it.

"Usako..." he took another deep breath to strengthen his resolve, "I am not your soul's true mate — no matter how much I wish that weren't true. I stole you away from your true destiny, and one true love, before you had the chance to deny me." He stated, matter-of-factly.

Serenity froze — trying unsuccessfully to deny the words she had just heard him say. She stared blankly at their hands resting on her lap, still intertwined. The sparking diamond now seemed to be taunting her. She took a shaky gasp and looked up at him, dazed.

"But you are my love. You are my destiny. You have always been." She whispered, her voice distant.

"No, Serenity. You have always been mine."

He sighed again. She could hear the pain in his words, could feel the twisted twinge of regret in his labored breath. This was no easier for him to say than it was for her to hear, and she leaned toward him reassuringly.

"There is another. Another, whose love for you was, and is still, deeper and more all consuming than I could ever comprehend. He loved you enough to leave you — in that lifetime and in this one. Twice, he has been willing to let you go — at extraordinary cost to himself — solely because he thought you were happy." He shook his head with awe. "I was never, could never be, that strong." He traced the outline of her jaw with the tip of his finger as he slowly lay back down against the pillows.

Serenity gawked at him. "But I don't —"

He stopped her.

"Usako, the memories of my treachery have been with me since my rebirth after your battle with Chaos. I have denied them for 2 centuries. It takes the absolution of death to make me admit to them now — please do not deny me my penance. Not now. Not when eternity beckons! I need your forgiveness. Please Serenity!"

"But…" She started, befuddled. He held up a trembling hand to silence her.

"No, Serenity. Please listen to me," he took a deep and labored breath, trying to summon the strength to paint the painful memory of a time long since past — and the single decision that had altered the course of time and the fate of the universe.

"Serenity, do you remember the locket?"

"Mother?" A soft voice beckoned sweetly.

"Mother? Are you well? Are you okay?" The voice continued, its concerned questions pulling her from the confines of her dream.

"Mother..."

Serenity opened her bleary eyes to the frantic face of her daughter whose red-brown eyes were examining her thoroughly. She cleared her throat and sat up straight, her neck stiff from sleeping in such an awkward, crumpled position.

"Oh!" She yawned, her eyelashes fluttering as she tried to focus her exhausted vision. "I'm sorry dearest, I must have fallen asleep. I apologize. How long have I been here?"

The pinked-haired princess let out a relieved sigh and stroked her mother's face lightly, "Not long, maybe an hour or two. I was worried about you, you've isolated yourself so much in the past weeks — I was afraid you might have fallen ill."

"You worry too much my dear. As you can see, I am fine. A bit of a mess," she ran her hand quickly over her hair, smoothing the fly-a-ways from her disheveled buns, "but fine, nonetheless." Serenity took her daughter's hand and rose carefully to her feet. She smoothed out the wrinkles in her long ivory gown, and rubbed her puffy eyes gently with the backs of her hands.

"Tell Mars that I will address the people shortly, but first, I really must attend to myself. I can't let them see me like this. The people are skeptical of my present condition as it is, I shouldn't give them more reason to be concerned." She turned to look at her daughter who was staring painfully at the crystal-encased body of her father.

The princess took a shallow breath and nodded, turning to look to her mother.

In her eyes, the queen could see that she held no secrets from her daughter — that, regardless of how bizarre her recent actions might have seemed, no explanations were needed. Perhaps the truths that Serenity felt too ashamed to reveal herself had already been exchanged between the princess and her father, she did not want to ask. But somehow, Serenity knew that her daughter understood, and supported her completely — without hesitation.

"I will tell them that you are preparing. Take your time. Things will move at your speed now mother, or not at all. Do not let anyone push you into decisions you are not ready to make, not anymore." The princess leaned in and kissed her mother gently on the cheek. "I will deal with them. Go! Make your peace." She turned and walked briskly to the open doorway into the palace, glancing back briefly over her shoulder as she paused in the archway. She watched heavy-hearted as her mother bent to place one last lingering kiss on the crystal tomb.

"Goodnight, sweet prince. Goodbye, my king." She could hear the soft whispers of her mother's final farewell to her father. She watched quietly as the queen gathered herself and slipped her wedding ring off her left ring finger, and placed it on her right.

Serenity turned and made her way to the doorway. Fresh tears sparkling in her eyes — she refused to let them fall.

"Thank you my love. Tell them I will be down within the hour." Serenity embraced her daughter, kissing her hair.

"Thank you mother — for everything..." the princess hugged her back and broke away, walking swiftly down the long marble hall toward the massive marble doors of the grand entrance.

Serenity watched solemnly as the guards slowly opened the heavy doors. Bright white light burst through the tiny opening and spilled into the darkness of the hall, engulfing it.

She squinted against the assault. This light was too bright, its blistering heat too intense for the small space. Her heart fell.

This was not the light of the sun, or the moon. She knew this light. She had seen it countless times — in her dreams, in her nightmares. She could never forget it.

"No!" She gasped inaudibly, and braced herself for the inferno.