by Lady Aishiteru
Prologue
"I'm sorry, Serena. We can't.....see each other anymore."
"But why, Darien?" Serena moaned, her eyes large and moist, tears flowing freely from them.
"Because," Darien said hoarsely. He had to turn his back to her; he couldn't stand to see her cry. Mustering up every ounce of will he had, he forced himself to grit out the next sentence. "I don't love you anymore."
"But we've....been together for so long! What about our past? It's destiny!"
"Past? Destiny? Those things happened a thousand years ago. I'm not going to let the past ruin our lives." With those harsh words, Darien hopped on his motorcycle and sped away on the rain-slicked pavement.
He knew it was dangerous to be riding so fast in the rain, and it was even worse with his tear-impaired vision. But he didn't care. She was safe, safe from whatever horrible fate would await her if he had stayed a second longer. And that was all that mattered, he thought.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Serena continued to stand there, long after the motorcycle had crossed her line of vision. She stood poleaxed, in a complete state of shock. Rain pelted her scalp, ran in rivulets down her forehead and joined the tears that wouldn't stop. 'Ruin our lives?' she thought, failing to comprehend those words. How could he say something so awful?
Ignoring the fact that she held an umbrella, she raced home as fast as her feet would carry her. She didn't know what she was going to do, but whatever it was, it wouldn't be easy.
She tripped on a crack in the sidewalk, and a fancy pen tumbled out of her knapsack. Then, a thought occurred to her. They couldn't see each other anymore.....but what if she could see Darien without him knowing about it? She cradled the Luna Pen in her hands, and, despite the throbbing pain in her knee, laughed fiendishly. He would not escape her again. She raced home to get things started.
"There," Serena said to herself. "That should be the last of it." She closed her duffel bag and ran out into the night. When she arrived in Tokyo, Serena pulled her hair into a low ponytail and boarded a late night bus.
She wasn't sure where she would go, but she knew that if her plan was to work, Serena Tsukino would have to disappear for awhile. Serena had made sure that she had plenty of yen with her, and if she ran out, she could always find a part time job. She had left a note to her parents and Rini, but Serena knew that they would still worry about her. It couldn't be helped, she reflected. It was something she had to do. Something wasn't right, and Serena wouldn't give up until she had gotten to the bottom of it.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Darien woke up with a start, cold sweat pouring out of every oraface on his body. He didn't understand it. He had done what the dream had told him to do, even though it was the hardest thing he had ever done in his life. He should be sleeping easily, now that Serena was supposedly out of harm's way. So why wouldn't the dreams stop?
He hadn't seem hide nor hair of Serena for almost a month now. Even Rini was clueless as to her whereabouts. He couldn't ask the Scouts. Every time he tried to talk to one of them, they'd look him in the eye, like he did something horribly wrong, then turn their backs and ignore him. He had searched all of her favorite hangouts, but it was no use; she was even absent from the Crown Arcade. It was as if Serena Tsukino no longer existed.
Darien stood up and looked at the moon from his window. 'Maybe someone out there has the answers,' he thought. Maybe someone could tell him why doing the right thing hurt so much, why it felt so wrong.