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Chapter Eight: The Stones

Darien paid for his distraction from what he was supposed to be doing (namely, work) by getting trapped under piles of undone paperwork in the office until fairly late at night. He was the last to leave the building, other than the custodians, and it was dark outside. He swung by a fast food place on his way home, starving and worried about Serena. He had told her to stay put, but who knew whether she really would or not? A horrible fear that she would be gone when he got back gripped his guts and made him drive faster than what was probably wise.

He juggled the bags of fast food as he opened the door, praying that she would still be there. Slipping inside, he closed the door and latched it, set the food down on the dinner table, and called softly, "Serena?"

There was no response.

"Serena?!" he called again, more loudly, starting to panic. "Serena, are you here?"

A quiet moan came from the general vicinity of the living room couch. Feeling immensely relieved, he hurried over, to discover Serena and Luna sleeping together on the sofa. She was still wearing his shirt and boxers, and the too-big t-shirt had worked it's way up her mid-drift as she slept, exposing the bare skin of her flat stomach and the sloping edge of one breast. Swallowing hard, Darien reached out and eased it down. She stirred a little and made a soft, sleepy sound in her throat. He felt something squeeze inside him, and despite himself, reached out to stroke her cheek.

Her eyes opened slowly under his gentle touch and she blinked dreamily at him a few times, a serene little smile on her face. His breath caught. She looked like an angel.

Then she sat up, her expression doing an instant one-eighty from angelic serenity to total bitch-mode.

"Where have you been? Do you know what time it is? I thought you would be home hours ago! I was worried sick! You could have called, you know!" she ranted, sounding very annoyed but actually very relieved.

Darien sat back on his heels with an amused expression. "Sorry, but seeing as how I was an hour late this morning and had done none of the work I was supposed to have finished last night, due to a certain blonde distraction who is sitting in front of me, I was forced to stay later than I usually do." He stood up and went to the dining room, calling over his shoulder, "You hungry? I stopped by Wendy's on my way home…"

Serena was immediately by his side. "I'm starving! Did you know that there is absolutely no food in this place other than cereal?"

Darien laughed and handed her a hamburger. "Well, I mostly eat take-out, since I'm not really one for culinary skills." He suddenly looked at Serena with an idea in his eyes. "Hey…"

"Don't look at me. I can boil water and bake cookies from a roll, but that's about the limit of my chef qualifications," she informed him quickly.

"Darn." They both laughed and ate for a while in silence. Serena finished her hamburger and started eating fries out of Darien's box.

"So what did you do all day?" Darien asked, curious.

"Nothing much. Just watched TV, mostly." Thinking of the TV room, she remembered something that she had wanted to ask him. "By the way, who's the little girl in the picture with you on the wall?"

He shot her a surprised look at her seemingly out-of-the-blue question. "Picture on the wall?…"

"In the TV room," she clarified.

"Ah. Her name is Mina." He swiped the last fry before she could and stuffed it in his mouth.

"Mina?" Serena prompted, patiently.

"Yeah. She's my foster-sister."

Sudden memories flashed through Serena's mind-- Sammy laughing…running through the woods…petting Luna…coughing blood onto his pajamas…

"Foster…" she said, a little faintly.

"That's right. My parents both died of cancer when I was eleven." His tone of voice was indifferent, but Serena caught a little flinch in his eyes. "So I went to a foster family that adopted me. But you don't want to hear about that. It's just a stupid sob story. Everyone's got one." Darien's eyes dropped to the table, away from hers.

"No, I do," she assured him, a little more vehemently than she had meant to. She toned her voice back a little, "I really do want to hear it."

His eyes flickered to hers once, then dropped back to where his finger was tracing a little circle in a spilled dab of ketchup. "Well, the couple that took me was told that they were barren and would never have kids of their own. That's why they wanted me. But two weeks after the adoption was finalized, they found out that my foster-mother was pregnant." He looked up in time to catch the widening of Serena's eyes. "Yeah, well, luckily, they were good people, and they said they never regretted getting me. When she found out the news, the first thing Marlene did was take me on her lap and say, 'Darien, you're going to have a little brother or sister!'" He smiled at the memory. Then he was solemn again. "She died giving birth to the baby, to my 'little sister'. Artemis, that's my foster-father, was pretty broken up about it; I guess we both were. But he's a tough guy. He raised both me and Mina, helped send me to college and made sure that I got every opportunity he could give me, just as if I were his own son."

"You are his son," Serena said softly, "in every way that counts." Darien gave a lopsided smile, then propped his cheek on one hand and cocked his head at her.

"So what's your sob story?"

She startled and flicked her eyes away. "I…I don't have one."

"Yes, you do. Everyone does," he insisted, with an odd tone in his voice. His gaze seemed to pierce her through.

Serena bit her lip, trying to think of a way to dissuade him from this line of questioning. He spoke again before she could think of anything that might satisfy him.

"Come on, I told you mine, now you have to tell me yours. It's only fair," he coaxed.

She gauged the odd seriousness in his eyes. There was no getting around it, for some reason he was intent on hearing her 'sob story'. If she refused, he would get suspicious. The only thing she could do was try to act normal and make up something.

Faking playfulness, she sighed heavily, as if severely vexed. "Oh, all right."

Carefully, she constructed an edited version of her life-story, leaving out all mentions of the unusual phenomena that occurred around her. She told him that she had run away from her last home because they wouldn't let her keep Luna, which she figured was partly true. She also told him that she was eighteen. If he knew her real age, he might turn her in to the police. When she finished, he was silent, and she fidgeted in her chair, desperately hoping that he had bought her story.

Finally he asked, slowly, "You have a locket from your Grandma Lita?" His eyes met hers, and for a moment, she thought he looked almost-- disappointed. But before she could wonder, the look was gone.

"Yes," Serena said, trying to keep relief out of her voice. She reached under her-- well, really his-- shirt and pulled the gold oval into view. Darien leaned across the table and ran his fingers over the engraved pattern of crescent moon and miniscule stars. He had an intense expression on his face that Serena could not read. His fingers brushed across her hand as he moved to open the locket, and an uncontrollable shiver ran through her.

He swung open the tiny golden hinges and turned the oval over. A round jewel dropped into his palm. He held it up between their faces, and light danced across its translucent surface. Slowly, locking his eyes with Serena, he drew something from his pocket. She was afraid to break his gaze to look at what it was. He seemed like another person entirely, with an arresting focus that did not belong to the playful Darien who she had met that morning. Keeping his eyes locked on hers, he laid something beside the stone in his palm, then took his hand away. Serena gasped.

Two stones, almost identical in size and shape, lay cradled next to each other in the curve of his palm. One was softly shining with an almost ethereal, silver light. The other gleamed with translucent gold. The light mingled and played over Darien's skin, turning his hand into a jewel itself. When she could finally drag her eyes away to his, she found him staring at her with a strange light in his eyes, as well, the midnight transformed into sapphires. A little heat pricked at her chest, deep within, and she almost thought that a voice whispered deep inside her… ~*~Always…his glow, beside mine…when you need me, I will come…be strong, little one…always, and it will never fail you…~*~

Serena shook her head abruptly, frightened at thoughts that were not her own creeping through her mind. She stood, shakily, and extended her hand to Darien. He held her gaze for a moment, then sighed and placed the silver stone in her palm. She slipped it back into her necklace, mumbled something about being tired, and left the room, trying to control her trembling.

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He watched her go, cursing himself. Way to go, Chiba. Now you've frightened her away.

He rolled his golden stone around in his hand, feeling a little hurt. She hadn't told him the truth about herself…not that he had thought she would. It just would have been nice to know that she trusted him, that was all. Then he smacked himself in the forehead. She just met you this *morning*, Chiba, you think she's gonna trust you already? He sighed deeply and put his head down onto his arms. That morning. Last night. It had been last night that he found her. He had known her exactly twenty-eight hours, and had thought of nothing but her for the entire time. It was so strange, the way she seemed so familiar to him. He was sure he had never seen her before, except, perhaps, in a dream… But he had many dreams and didn't remember most of them.

He stood up, slipping the stone into his pocket, and cleared the fast-food paper from the table. A vision of Serena's bare mid-drift and the memory of a low sleepy sound from deep within her throat filled the uncontrollable part of his brain that had mutinied and devoted itself to her. He groaned softly as the thought sprang unbidden into his mind that he knew exactly what he would dream of tonight.

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In his room, she sat on his bed and put her head in her hands. She shook it slowly, sliding her forehead across her knuckles. I…I imagined it. That has to be it. There were no voices. She lay back, spreading her arms to the side. So Darien has one, too. That doesn't mean anything. They probably sell them in some superstition store somewhere and he thought it was pretty.

But did she really believe that? She rolled over on her side and buried her face in his pillow, inhaling his scent. Even she wasn't sure.

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AN: keep those reviews comin', and I'll keep the story comin'! ^_^

btw, no quote for this chapter *~* Need quote!! If anyone can find something that fits this chapter, (preferably poem or song lyrics) send it to ryo-chan@mindspring.com. Thanks! ^_^