She is Me Chapter 7: Here I Am, a gundam wing/sailor moon fanfic

Disclaimer: We do not claim ownership of Gundam Wing or Sailor Moon. We are borrowing them for entertainment purposes only; no money is being made from the writing or reading of this story.

She is Me

Chapter 7 ~ Here I Am

Written by Kei

"No, Luna…"

"He'll hate me if he finds out!"

"I can't lose Quatre, Luna!"

"I've already lost my innocence; I don't want him to lose his, too…"

Serena shot up in bed, her bruised cheek throbbing. She started crying silently in the darkness, weeping for her lost innocence and her lost best friend.

'I've got to get out of here!' she thought, throwing her covers off her body and sliding out of her bed. She tiptoed past Wufei's lightly snoring form on his bed and then ran like mad when she got into the hallway. She pounded down the corridor as fast as her legs would carry her and she let herself be embraced by the night and stars when she got outside.

Slowing her pace, she walked down to the bench she and Quatre had been sitting on. Her tears started flowing again and she didn't bother to try and stop them.

'Quatre, I know you didn't mean it…it's probably my fault, anyway. I've tainted you, somehow, without meaning to. I'm so sorry, Q…'

"Why are you out here?" a voice asked from the shadows and Serena jumped. What if a teacher had found her? She would be in so much trouble!

"I-I couldn't sleep," she answered shakily. "I'm sorry, I'll go back to my room now…"

"You're not in trouble, Serena," the voice spoke warmly and Serena calmed down. "But you are troubled, right?"

"How did you know that?" Serena questioned fearfully; she was beginning to get scared, and she took in her breath sharply when a feminine figure in shadows jumped down from the tree and sat on the bench beside Serena. The moon glowed behind her, darkening her features so they weren't visible.

"I have been…observing you for a long time, now, Serena, and I know all about your problems with your so-called best friend," she said, pushing out the last several words venomously.

"What about Q?" Serena asked defensively.

"He hit you, Serena!" the woman exclaimed. "Stay away from him," she warned.

"B-but—"

"I'll take care of him, Serena. Avoid him at all costs, unless you wish for another mark like this one," she stated, jabbing Serena's bruised face hard with her index finger. Serena cried out in pain at this and heard her companion hiss, as though it had hurt her, too. Her anger faded quickly into confusion.

"Wh-who…are you?" she whispered, but the woman had already gone. Serena, bewildered, stood and walked back to her dorm room and crawled back in bed. She forced sleep over herself and dreaded the inevitable morning.

"A pretty sailor-suited soldier of love and justice, Sailor Moon! Here I am!"

In class the next morning, Serena briefly wondered where Quatre could be, but then remembered that mystery lady's warning to stay away from him. She knew she would heed that warning, despite her intense desire to make up with her best friend. She still loved him dearly, though he had hurt her in more ways than one.

"Hiya, Serena! Can I sit here?" Duo greeted her, setting down his books atop the desk next to hers. She smiled and nodded and he took the seat. She noticed Trowa entered next, and he claimed the desk on her other side. Wufei came in after that, sitting behind her. A short girl with long white hair sat in front of her and Serena shrugged, but she furtively studied the position the guys had surrounded her in and realized that it was some sort of protection thing. Well, she figured it was for Trowa and Wufei; Duo didn't know that Quatre had hit her unless someone told. She guessed he was just being nice.

When Heero marched into the room, he did a double-take. He saw Usagi sitting pretty in the second desk in a row and there was Serena sitting right behind her. If not for the differences in their coloring and the fact that La Conejita had more muscle tone that Serena, the two could be identical twins! The same heart-shaped faces (Usagi's was quite cold compared to Serena's happy, cheerful one), same height and basic build, and the same long, silky hair.

"Good morning, Heero!" Serena waved and beckoned to him. He eyed her warily, guessing that she hadn't read his letter, and sat down to Wufei's right and behind Duo.

Class moved slowly, and by the time lunchtime rolled around, Serena was restless and more than ready to eat. She tore into her brown paper lunch bag and pulled out several sandwiches, pudding cups, a can of Coke and two square drink boxes of fruit juice.

She lifted her ham-and-cheese sandwich to her lips to take a big bite when she became aware of the protection thing again. Heero sat on her right, Wufei on her left, and Trowa and Duo were sitting directly across from her. She was glad that they were doing this for her, but it saddened her to know that Quatre was the cause of it.

From the branches of a tree, a black cat watched the scene, the crescent moon on its forehead glowing in the noonday sun.

That evening, Wufei and Serena were studying separately in their room, and Wufei excused himself to take a shower. Serena nodded and returned to her textbook and copied a few notes down on her paper. She almost screamed when she heard a faint scratching at her window. She parted the curtains and lifted the window, frowning when in trotted a black cat she knew all too well.

"Luna," she said in a dead voice, her face becoming expressionless and her eyes sad.

"You can't escape your destiny, Serena," the cat spoke imperiously. "I see how you have tried to run from it by coming here, but you know that this is all futile. You are Sailor Moon and you will always be Sailor Moon!"

"No!" Serena hissed back harshly. "I gave you back that accursed Silver Crystal and renounced my title! I am not Sailor Moon anymore, Luna, and I never will be again! It put too many lives in danger, and I refuse to have that happen again! My family was a target and my best friend was almost killed because of me being Sailor Moon! You will NOT force me to do what I don't want to!"

The two argued back and forth, unaware of a Chinese boy pressing his ear to the door from inside the bathroom while the shower water ran. He had turned it on and was waiting for it to heat up when he heard an unfamiliar female voice with a slight British accent to it start speaking. Now this mystery woman and Serena were fighting about her being some person called Sailor Moon.

"My destiny is just that: MINE!" Serena exclaimed angrily. "I am in control of it, not some lifeless jewel!"

"Serena, I am not here to force you to do anything, but I recently became privy to some information regarding the one called Quatre Raberba Winner," Luna informed her.

"What? What do you know?" Serena demanded.

"Evil entities who want to get you in their clutches have somehow taken control of his mind and corrupted it, to turn him against you. They will not release him until you surrender," Luna told her. "Serena, I know you don't want to be Sailor Moon, but if you truly care for your friend, you will take this and use it."

With that, the cat did a back flip, and Serena's old brooch containing the Silver Crystal appeared on the bed. Luna then went back and melted into the dark night. Serena closed the window and picked up the brooch. She leaned back against the wall her bed was pressed to, holding the brooch at her chest as she pulled her knees up in front of her. She let her forehead droop down to touch her knees and felt the power of the Silver Crystal murmuring and whispering things to her of a past she had desperately hoped to leave behind and ultimately forget.

"You can't escape your destiny, Serena," Luna's words came back to her.

"I really can't escape it," she whispered despairingly.

"Escape what?" Wufei surprised her, coming out of the bathroom with a wet head of shiny black hair that was down for the moment.

"Oh, um, my assignment!" she covered quickly, holding up her paper and hiding her brooch. "Ethics is such a hard class! I mean, who gives a hoot about ethics, anyway?"

"Injustice!" Wufei exclaimed. "Have you no morality, woman? No honor?" He then launched into a long speech over honor and justice, his two favorite subjects. Serena didn't mind letting the world stop for a while as she listened to her roommate rant on and on.

"As a soldier, one must always fight with honor for justice, no matter which side he is on! If he believes he is just, he is right if he fights with honor!" Wufei raved.

"A pretty sailor-suited soldier of love and justice, Sailor Moon! Here I am!"

'Here I am,' Serena thought, Wufei's voice fading for a moment. 'But just who I am…I don't know…'

Heero was sitting on his bed cleaning his gun; Duo had already gone to sleep and was snoring to wake the dead. Heero simply rolled his eyes at his roommate and wondered how he had gotten stuck with Duo.

He could hear the sounds of the night because his window was open, but out of the corner of his eye he saw a bit of white and turned to see La Conejita lounging on his windowsill. Her silver eyes were narrowed and they flashed at him, but the rest of her lithe body seemed totally relaxed.

He pretended to go back to his weapon, but then, when he thought she wasn't expecting it, his hand shot out for her. He was surprised when she caught him by the wrist and clicked her tongue at him.

"Uh-uh-uh, sweetheart," she scolded mockingly. "Live by your emotions, but don't ever show them."

"What do you want? What are you doing here?" he demanded angrily.

"I came to tell you to stay away from my girl," she told him in a sugar-coated voice. "I don't know just what the hell you thought you were doing being near her as much as possible today, but don't do it again."

"Do you honestly think I'm hanging around her because I want to?" he scoffed. "I'm doing it because I know that Quatre did something to hurt her. I won't let it happen again. Really, Bunny, I'm doing it because of you, because I know she's 'your girl.' "

"I can protect her on my own without you Gundam boys meddling in it!" she hissed.

"What is your obsession with her? Is it because you two look alike or something?" he asked.

A scornful smile crossed her face and she said, "Our connection goes far deeper than the similarity in our looks. She is the reason I am alive, and soon we will be one. Stay out of it, Heero. This is the only warning I'm giving you."

"And I should warn you that—," he tried to say, but she had suddenly disappeared when he blinked. He stuck his head out the window and searched the obscurity, but she was nowhere to be found. "…I have a mission, and I will complete it."