12. To The Secret Garden…

The next morning, a Tuesday dawned bright and cheerful despite the events of the night before. Darien had left the dance on his motorcycle once he had been completely checked out by the ambulance crew and after he had searched for Ann and Alan before one of the class-mates of Alan told them that the youma had practically attacked them and drove them away- both of them looking extremely ill. This little bit of information, plus the whole debacle of the 'space botany class' episode caused the rest of the scouts to be leery of Ann and Alan- especially since they had been absent prior to the attack. Serena on the other hand refused to believe that the two of them were evil and therefore that evening she waited at the base of their apartment, trying to work up the nerve to go up there for a third time; al the while Luna trying to talk her out of it.

"Hey, how ya doing Meatball head?" Darien called out, waving with one hand with a big bag of flowers in the other.

"Oh, hi Darien!" Serena greeted, not even registering in her mind that he had called her by a nickname that she despised. Her face brightened just at the sight of him but then when she saw the flowers, it dropped instantly. "Who are the flowers for?"

"Someone up there-" Darien answered, pointing to the apartment building.

"Huh?" Serena asked in confusion before reality settled in. "Oh…"

"Just doing a good deed." Darien explained with a shrug. "You know, visiting a sick friend."

"Oh, but she's not really sick you know." Serena insisted, trying to do anything to stop Darien from going up there. 'She's faking it…"

"Hmm…." Darien murmured, questioning for a moment whether he should give the flowers to Serena or to Ann.

"You never gave me any flowers whenever I was sick Darien." Serena whimpered, causing Darien to jolt out of his thoughts.

'She did save my life last night…'

"C'mon Serena," Darien pleaded, going back to his assumption that Serena was still a child, despite what she had done for him and despite the fact that something was changing within him. "Don't be jealous, she helped me with the play and everything remember?"

"Uh-" Serena began, her mind trying frantically to stop him. "-but you can't go in there Darien! They've got space plants in there and they're really, really, really dangerous!"

"Space plants?" Darien asked, laughing at what he thought was a joke as he walked on by her. "Hey that's a good one Serena." And then he walked away, leaving Serena to follow.

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Serena caught up with Darien in the elevator and as the doors closed, Serena turned to Darien and talked to him, candidly for the first time since the previous night.

"Hey Darien…" Serena began quietly. "Are you alright? I mean, you gave us all quite a scare last night."

"Yeah I'm fine meatball head-" Darien assured, the flowers hanging by his side "-and thanks by the way."

"Thanks?"

"For saving my life…" Darien smiled as the elevator doors opened. "…I'm lucky your grade in First Aid went up…"

"Darien!" Serena called, exiting the elevator behind him. "Darien wait up!"

But it was too late. Darien was already knocking on Ann and Alan's door. And Serena knew that there was no turning back now.

A/N- Hello beloved readers. Sorry for the long delay, but this is the second last chapter to be updated so please review it! Thank you to Champion of Justice, Sailor Violin, ffgirlmoonie, CeliaChiba and DoubleG for reviewing chapter 11. I hope you guys will review this one too... chapter 13 should be up soon.