Chapter 23: Set For Appointment

Sunday June 29th, 2002

Stanhope Park Hyatt Hotel

2:18 PM

Mina sat on the window sill in the living room of the hotel overlooking Central Park, her knees to her chest and her arms around her legs. She looked out as the afternoon summer sky lit the treetops. Something had been on her mind for a good amount of the day, especially since last night when her and the other Scouts had went out with the new Ghostbusters. The feeling from the day before that was even more grand was when she first met…

Darien had stepped out of the bedroom and proceeded to the kitchenette to start the coffee machine when he noticed Mina peering off into the distance. The look on her face looked worried, "Hey, Mina." Mina jumped a start then looked in Darien's direction. She sighed and put her head into her hand, "Geez, Darien, you gave me a start. I thought you were…" she stopped short and took her head from her hand to look at him. Darien was a bit confused at first as he looked at her. She quickly changed the subject, "Never mind. You getting up just now?"

Darien nodded as he grabbed the complementary coffee beans from the bar counter and put them in the grinder, "Yeah. We're still a bit jet lagged. That and… Well, you know Serena."

"She didn't stay up all night watching local television here, too?"

He sighed, "Yeah." He started the grinder as Mina swung her legs away from the window and began walking her way across the large apartment-like room. She still couldn't believe the hotel she was staying at; the ornate European styling of the furniture made her feel as though she was living too good while Amy and Raye stayed at the old rundown firehouse the Ghostbusters operated in. She didn't mean to put down the Ghostbusters with her thoughts, but it was a rather elegant place she was, where the others were someplace so run down. She felt rather guilty about it.

She needed to ask someone what was on her mind, and she wasn't sure what to ask to where it would make sense. She watched as Darien stopped the grinder and started putting the grounds into the machine as she approached, "I was wondering something. Have you ever felt like someone you met is… I mean, I feel like… No, wait…" Darien turned to her to see she was having a hard time expressing herself. He had known Mina for a long time and knew she was never one to be shy with her words, but there was something he had noticed in the last few days being in New York, "There's something about that Eduardo guy that's been bothering you, hasn't there?"

She looked to him shocked he knew, but then softened when she thought about it, "That obvious, huh?" She sighed as she leaned on the counter, "I don't know why, but I've been able to, I donno, pluck the thoughts out of his head. The weird part is, every time he gets near me, there's this tension that rises. I can't explain it!"

That was when Darien put his hand to his temple as he sucked air through his teeth like he had the night before. He hunched over and put his free hand on the counter. Mina came up to him and looked him over, concern in her voice, "Darien? Darien, what's wrong?" "I don't know! It's happened more than once today!" His eyes were squeezed shut as he tried to work out why his head hurt, "I remember in the tower. I was possessed. Me and Dan were fighting. The thing that split me and the demon apart for a moment was his presence. His will to save Lita from me affected me. That was when I felt it…" his eyes snapped open. A look of sudden realization graced his face as he stood up straight, "Of course! I'm responsible!"

Mina kept looking on as he spoke becoming more lost as he spoke, "You're not making sense." "That was the catalyst! That was what Egon was talking about!" He stopped what he was doing and turned toward the door of the hotel suite. "W-what? Wait a minute!" Mina ran into his path and blocked the double doors leading into the suite, "Where are you going?"

"I remember it now! I have to go to the Ghostbusters' headquarters! Luna, Artemis, Egon, and Dan need to know."

"Wait a minute," Mina ran back to where her purse was and grabbed it, turning back toward the door, "I'll go with you. With everything going on, I'm not gonna let you go out by yourself."

"Shouldn't you stay here with Serena?"

"She should be fine," Mina slung her purse over her shoulder, "besides, nothing short of a tsunami will wake her up let alone get her out of that bed."

Once outside, Darien and Mina hailed a cab. One stopped and the doorman opened the door for them as another cab pulled up behind it. The two of them had got in as the cab behind it had it's door open revealing Eduardo stepping out. He looked up at the awning and read the title of the hotel, "The Stanhope? Holy crap, how can they afford this place?"

"Hey, Rockefeller!" Eduardo turned back to the cab he was in to see the front passenger window rolled down, the cabbie calling out, "You gonna pay for this ride, or what?"

Back inside Serena was in the King-sized bed still asleep. She snuggled the comforter as she lightly snored, every so often talking in her sleep, "Yes, I'll have another scoop of peppermint ice cream on my donut parfait." She was clearly having a happy dream.

She began to stir as she smelt coffee brewing. It took her a few minutes, but her eyes finally managed to open. She sat up, yawned, and stretched revealing her pink bunny-print pajamas. After she put her arms down she looked about the room and found she was alone, "Darien?" She stepped out of the room and into the main foyer and found it empty as well. She looked around for another moment, "Darien? Mina?" She rubbed her eyes and shuffled around the room a bit, "Huh. Where is everybody?"

There was a knock at the doors. She turned and walked to them, looking into the peephole to see a familiar face. She backed away from the door and rolled her eyes, "Oh great," she sighed, "the goat's here." She unlocked the door and opened it to see Eduardo just outside. She immediately asked, "What're you doin' here?"

"Look, chica," Eduardo started right off the bat, "about last night, I was just ribbing you, okay? I don't mean anything by it."

"Really?" She said sarcastically, "And here everyone told me you were the charismatic one."

"Come on, I'm not here to make enemies," he pleaded, "All things considered, we got enough things that hate us. With teeth and claws, too." Serena heard his words and knew he meant it, her having her share of monsters being rather upset and vengeful towards her and the other Sailor Scouts. She nodded, "That is a good point. Still, what brings you here?"

There was that look again. That look of being unsettled as he needed to explain himself. She saw this and felt the worry radiate off him, "Eduardo?" He rubbed the back of his neck, looking uncomfortable the whole way, "I…" he looked the woman in her saffire-blue eyes. He almost felt an instant trust in her which alleviated his worry; he felt like he could tell her anything, which was rare for him. He seemed to straighten up a bit, "Can I come in?"

Dan faced the broken front doors of the building while inside the lobby. He was still in his Proton Pack folding his arms across his chest. He was stressed, "...So, that's where I'm at. With this nightmare going on, I feel like more than ever I have to watch after her. But the way she's acting..."

Nearby on the flower beds in the lobby, Luna and Artemis sat on the beds' edge and heard the story they have yet to be included in at this point. They heard the American man before them sigh and hang his head. The two cats looked at each other as they attempted to process what they just heard, Luna attempting to quell the man's tension, "That's quite the story, Dan, but you shouldn't let such a thing get between you two. Serena and Darien had the same circumstances as you at that time. Seeing that's common in our country…"

"It's not that," Dan began pacing off between the front doors and back, the cats finally seeing his face, "My family life was and still is… Complicated. What I had experienced makes me feel dirty, and now…" "But you're much more mature now," Artemis broke in, "as is Lita. It shouldn't matter." "You really have no idea who you're dealing with, Artie. They have no idea what was going on back then. These are people who will fill in gaps with bullshit if it means having a confirmation of their beliefs of me."

Luna began getting stern with him, "That doesn't mean you should feel any form of guilt for what you did! Your love is far older than anyone on this earth!" "I'm afraid it isn't going to get any older." That statement broke her sterness. Dan looked back to the two of them as the look of stress on his face worsened. His breaths started to become labored as he looked to have a thought come across his mind, "She said to me last week when we spoke to DyTyllio that…" he breathed through his nose before saying it, his voice cracked, "...That she hated me."

Luna looked pained by him stating that as Artemis's jaw dropped. He shook his head in disbelief, "That can't be true!" "It is." Artemis looked to his fellow guardian and saw the somber look on her face. She sighed, "Lita was very angry and overwhelmed with everything that happened with her grandparents. She had nowhere else to go. She came back to Tokyo and lived with Raye in the temple for a year…"

Sunday November 14th, 1999

Cherry Hill Temple

9:25 AM

Two bags. That was all that was left of her life. In the weeks following her grandparents' deaths, the local banks foreclosed on the house and forced her out. She stood outside her friend's temple, having already called and spoke to her in tears.

The Cherry Blossom trees had already lost their leaves; the autumn time of year reflecting her pain. She stood just outside the front steps of the shrine as she felt a terrible guilt for having to impose on her friend's family. Alas, clouds gathered overhead signally their late-season rainfall in the distance. She picked up what was left of her worldly possessions and proceeded toward the temple doors.

The months proceeded as Lita Kino sat some nights behind Raye in the main prayer temple as she continued her fire readings. She sat with her knees to her chest watching as her friend performed her chant. The tension some nights became so bad Raye lost focus multiple times leaving her to worry if Lita would ever recover. She rarely spoke during this time.

Sunday May 8th, 2000

8:12 PM

One particular night, all the Sailor Scouts were having one of their meetings; one of the rare times Amy was able to make it, being home from University. As the others spoke, her silence in the room was becoming deafening. All Lita had done was stare off into the tabletop in Raye's room as the others spoke.

The cat guardians were present as they themselves engaged in conversation as Lita sat silent. She was numb. In her time at the temple, Lita had managed to find work in a small diner in Shibuya and was starting to slowly make her own way back out on her own, but in the meantime, she was still destroyed. Winter was coming to an end, and she was now another year older. She was growing a pain in her heart and everyone in the room felt it.

The others around her tried talking to her asking if she was okay, but it was too much. All she said was that she was okay, then stood and walked out. It wasn't a convincing answer to anyone involved. Luna had looked around the room and saw that the girls were unsure of what to do. She took it upon herself to follow the teenager out of the room.

In the guest room, Luna managed to find where Lita had walked away to. She found her sitting on the end of the bedroll looking into the darkness around her, again with her knees to her chest. The black cat walked in slowly as to make sure she didn't startle the girl, "Lita?" She asked softly.

There was a whimper in her voice as she responded harshly, "I said I was fine!" She buried her head into her knees as she started to sniffle. She didn't look at the cat as she tried to convince the feline, but Luna already knew what she was to see on her face. She walked in further and sat beside her by the bed. The both of them sat in silence a moment more as Luna looked for the words.

She sighed as she started, "I will never truly understand the pain you feel, I'll admit. I had never lost as much as you, but even though I should be grateful it hurts me that I can't help you. Your fellow Scouts feel the same. Artemis, too. We can only imagine how bad it is, that's why we're trying to understand."

"He abandoned me." Luna looked to the girl as she lifted her head, her face soaked in her tears, "Who abandoned you?" "You know who!" Luna didn't know who she was referring to at first, but as the tears streamed down Lita's face she put her paw to her mouth, "No… Lita, you can't mean that!"

"When I needed him most," she spoke as she cried, her speech being uneven, "he never wrote back. I wanted so badly to tell him what was going on, but he never wrote me!"

"Why didn't you write him?" Lita stopped for a moment and looked to the cat asking her the question. There was what looked like a conflict going on in her mind and it was telegraphing on her face. The cat guardian knew this was going to be a hard answer to swallow, but she knew the teenager before her was emotionally destroyed; no answer was going to be overtly rational, "I'm so angry at him. I told him where I was, I told him what I was doing, and nothing!"

"Did you tell him exactly what you were doing?" Lita went to speak, but the tears started to well up in her eyes again. She let loose and started crying hard into her knees again as she tried to speak, "I didn't want to hurt him, but he forgot about me! I don't have anyone left! He's like all of them!" She picked up one of her shoes from the floor beside her and threw it across the room, "I hate him!"

"No you don't!" The cat walked in front of her and became stern with her, "You don't like letting people see you hurt! It took you years to finally tell us what had happened to your parents. Lita, you have to understand that we know you omit things to make sure no one worries about you, but it's making you your own worst enemy! It's not Dan's fault you haven't received anything from him. After all, you lost your apartment during all of this; how do you know he didn't try and it went nowhere?"

Lita was gobsmacked. She had hated the man who cared about her outside of her family for months now. After she signed her grandfather's no -resuscitation order, she kept questioning if she made the right decision. Every time she asked, she always wondered what Dan would tell her. The more she asked, the more an answer wouldn't come to her, and the more she hated Dan for it. Now being confronted with the possibility Dan hadn't been able to get through combined with her not telling him outright in a letter where she was and what was going on…

"Do you remember how the rest of the Scouts met him?" Lita looked at Luna as Luna asked her. The cat sat down and looked toward the room's ceiling prompting her to follow suit. That was the moment she noticed some of the wood making up the supports of the room looked newer. There was even a badly painted spot on the ceiling where a burn mark was visible. Lita's face changed, "Isn't this…?" "Yes. This is where Dan crashed into the roof after one of those creatures threw him and Dr. Stantz from the park. I remember Artemis and myself standing and hiding away as you all confronted him."

"I remember," she cleared the tears from her eyes as she looked again at the burn mark, "He used his Proton Pack to get out of the sheets he was tangled in. That's where the beam hit," more tears came out as a small laugh came out, "Raye was sooo angry at him."

"Do you remember what happened after?"

Lita sniffled again as she recalled, "Yeah. Dan ran out to find Ray in one of the Cherry Blossom trees hanging by a trap cord," A very small smile came to her face, "Dan asked me to help untie him. I stood on his shoulders and helped let Ray down. When I let go of the cord, we both lost our balance and I landed on top of him. I remember his green eyes…"

"It was that look on both your faces I remembered so clearly. Me and Artemis kept watch on you from afar and I clearly remember the looks on your faces. It was real, and we could see it," Luna walked to Lita's side and sat beside her, "That man will always care about you. His heart is only for you, and he would follow you to the ends of the Earth to protect you."

"We all should be so lucky!" Lita turned and found all of her fellow Scouts standing in the doorway of the room, Raye's voice projecting softly as she spoke, "We know it's been hard, but we all want to be there for you. Remember, we're your friends, too."

Serena spoke her piece, too, "You'll never truly be alone. As long as he's in your heart, you'll always love him. Never let doubt in him hurt you like this again." Raye turned to her surprised, "Wow, Meatballhead, I very rarely say it, but that's well put!"

Serena clearly became annoyed at the utterance of her nickname, "Then how about not insulting me when I'm right about something?" "You have to earn your way to that, klutz!" The bickering started again and Amy and Mina looked to each other and rolled their eyes. Mina walked up and held out her hand, "Come on. We'll ditch these two and see if the ice cream stand is still open."

"I get it, you talked her out of it," Dan had taken off his pack and had sat down on the flower planter's edge along with the cats, "That doesn't mean she doesn't have the capacity to do it again. On top of this, I get this feeling she's angry about something else and it's just…" he stood back up and paced a bit more, "She started getting like this after the Draugr threw me. That and after last night I feel like she's getting mad at me to push me away from her."

"She's afraid you're going to get hurt because of her," Artemis jumped down from the short wall and joined the Ghostbuster at his side, "She cares about you so much she keeps forgetting that the Solar Knights are supposed to protect their respective princesses at the cost of their lives."

"She hasn't forgotten," he stated bluntly, "that's why she's doing this." "Unfortunately, he's right, Artemis." Luna followed suit and jumped down, "We know what Lita is like when she becomes upset or scared."

Artemis rolled his eyes, "Boy, do we."

"If she does this…" Dan ran his fingers through his blonde hair, distress on his face, "I feel like she's being targeted. After the attack on us last night, and what happened out here… it's getting bad. I can't be sure I can protect her if she starts being rash in her judgement."

"She'll come to her senses soon enough," the white cat assured him, "just be with her. You have another Knight with you now, as well as the Scouts. You'll all be able to protect her if need be."

Dan walked back and picked up his pack, "I'm not so sure of that. I keep being told when the time comes that I'll have all that I need," he slung the pack over his shoulder with one strap, "Instead, I feel like I'm about to lose it all." Luna was confused by that, "What makes you believe that?" "In my life," he said, "when has that never been the case?" He turned away from the cats and started walking out.

The lone Ghostbuster walked his way away from the large building and began heading toward his headquarters. The cats watched as he walked, an almost defeated shuffle to his step. It looked as though he was set for an appointment with someone - or something - that was bound to unravel his life once again. Years ago he lost his apartment. Then he lost his girlfriend. He had lost his job twice. He then lost his family. He was a good man trying to do good things, but if there was anything that life hated it was a good man doing good things. In trying to do good, he was about to be punished once again.

This time, the cost would be too high.