"When Dawn Comes"
By Kimra
Part XIV
The silence following Tuxedo Mask's words pulled at Serena's pounding veins. But she met his eyes stare for stare. Lita the scout of Jupiter, Raye the scout of Mars, and Amy the scout of Mercury did nothing but stare in at the both of them in response to the accusation.
"How-" Her voice cracked, the oppressing silence breaking the nerves she had been desperately scavenging for. Not now. She ordered herself remembering she was in scout form. Her back went a little straighter her eyes harder. How she could even for a moment forget she was transformed when staring at the tuxedo clad man was a little beyond her. Especially with her three friends powered up and standing around them.
She took another breath and all eyes fixed sharply on her.
"How dare you." She managed, feeling proud of the anger that came with the words. All her friends reacted in surprised caution, he didn't even flinch.
"How dare I?" He mocked his eyes sweeping over her. "How dare I?" He repeated and his eyes moved to the three scouts. "I thought you would have at least told them. Your friends. But then I guess, I suppose I can understand why you didn't. I wouldn't want to admit to that much failure either." He sneered it, his eyes hidden in the shadows of a mask she desperately wanted to rip off so that at least she could guess what he was thinking.
Instead of tearing the cloth from his face she sought a response, an excuse. The three scouts, her friends, where waiting for a response. The tension in the air so thick it shook her visibly.
"Is someone going to tell us what happened?" Lita demanded from the side lines of the unproclaimed battle. Serena didn't look to her friend, but the man before her did.
"Your little leader made some what of a spectacle of herself, the other day. What was it? Sunday night?" He looked back to her, and she found her attention sharpening at the demand in his expression.
"I was sick." She snapped sharply in defence, it was the best she could do. She refused to tell them she was drunk, it was far to late to tell them now.
"You didn't look sick." He snapped, his mouth set in a grim line. She could see the anger in his stance, his very existence radiated the anger, but he was keeping it in check.
She wondered fleetingly why he was holding it in.
"Well I was okay!" Serena shouted then waved her hand vaguely at the three. "Finish the story then." She managed to keep her voice relatively steady, her body on the other hand was shaking with nerves. She needed him to tell it, give her some idea of exactly how she had let Zoisite take the crystals.
She saw his eyes narrow, even beneath the mask. "Don't you think they should hear it from their leader first?" He sneered again, his expression intent.
Damn mask. Serena still had the compulsion to take it off him, she could see his focus on her but nothing else and it was driving her insane. How are you supposed to have an argument with a mask? She growled to herself, all eyes on her once more. She realised they where waiting.
"Well I'm sure I wont do my stupidity half as much justice as you will." She managed to retort, not even having to feign the anger that pushed through her. She despised the fact that he put her on the spot like this, wondered if he knew she had been drunk. Wondered when exactly in the night she had managed to fit a Negaverse battle in. To many questions. Serena snapped and her eyes darkened.
She had failed in her duties, duties that made her something more then the average person, the only thing that marked her special. This time anger made it's way into her. She felt nothing like guilt in the face of Tuxedo Mask's treatment. He should have known there was something wrong with her, what where hero's for if they couldn't tell when someone was drunk or sick.
"Yes well." She began glancing at her friends to see Mercury typing away on her computer with alarming speed. "If were all done fighting the Youma, I'm sure it wont matter if I go." Serena walked between Amy and Raye, her only choice if she didn't want to pass him, and began for the park's exit. "I'm sure Tux Boy can insult me quit effectively without me being around." She stated blandly sure they could hear her and not caring in the slightest.
She walked steadily, not faltering in her exit. Even outside of the park she did not run, although she knew there eyes weren't on her. She couldn't very well force information out of Tuxedo Mask, not when the other three where there. Admitting to him that she was drunk, especially if he didn't know would diminish her in his opinion. Not that you can get much lower then the creature responsible for the lose of his precious crystals.
She had hardly progressed from the park when she felt a presence behind her. She didn't turn, didn't acknowledge it, only kept her pace, her small fists balling as she readied to attack who ever would interrupt her brooding.
The hand that landed on her shoulder, was familiar to the extent that her fists unclenched and her head lowered away from her friends face.
"What's up girl?" Lita asked in a companionable way. Serena shook her head and shrugged the hand from her shoulder.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you." Serena muttered, not understanding how she could be sorry for something she couldn't help, but saying the words anyway. Silence followed her words and Serena dreaded when it would be broken
"Cape boy decided to do his disappearing trick." The casual remark was to break the silence, and Serena appreciated the subtle approach Lita was trying to take to get the information she was probably dying for.
"So he didn't tell you?" Serena's shoulders slumped, now they would hound her for an explanation and she had none to give.
"Nope." Another pause. Serena's nerves where stretched thin, too much stress, to many unexplainable mystery's and none of them seemed like they where going to let her relax any time soon. "So…" Lita took a breath and let it out loudly, her pace matching Serena's with ease. "…you going to tell me what happened?" Serena looked over at her tall friend, then around them. The street was empty.
"Where are the others?" She asked cautiously.
"Mercury went home to do a scan, see if there's any traces of the Crystals anywhere in Tokyo. Mars went to read the fire."
"And you came to get the story out of me." Serena finished off for Jupiter.
"Yes. So are you going to tell me, Sailor Moon?" Lita's brows where drawn in a tight frown as she stared at Serena.
"What's to tell?" Serena asked as casually as she could, pushing sudden and unexplainable tears away. Lita's expression showed she was ready to pursue and Serena bit into nothing wishing the lie wasn't half as necessary as it felt to be. "We fought, I klutzed out, Zoisite got the crystals." Serena shrugged as if it wasn't anything, hoping it didn't show how pathetic she really felt.
"You klutzed out?" Lita asked casually, her eyes on the road ahead of them.
"Yeah? So what's new?" Her voice was light and perky, surprising even her with the normalcy it presented.
"Nothing… I guess." Lita's voice was vague then a smile lit her face. "Hey look. It's late, and I'm beat. So I'm going to go home. But I'll see you at the meeting tomorrow afternoon." Lita went to turn in the direction of her house and paused catching Serena's shoulder once more. "We'll talk tomorrow." She promised in a companionable voice. Serena stared into the green eyes and saw the worry that hadn't been audible in Lita's voice. She didn't give a response, Lita didn't wait for one, instead the scout of Jupiter turned and disappeared into the night's shadows.
Serena didn't move as she watched the shadows where her friend had gone. Time passed, she could tell, because time never stopped but it was only logic that told her time had passed.
Abruptly she turned to face the direction she had been heading in and her feet began movement without a conscious thought. Her hand reached to her broach and mid stride she de-transformed, knowing there was no one about to see her. The transformation didn't even make her pause.
Serena fumed as she walked. Her booted feet crunching into the cement beneath her as she moved. She couldn't remember it sure, but that didn't mean she had been in the wrong. But how can you defend actions you can't remember? She demanded of herself. She knew despite how much she didn't want to that, having being drunk she may very well have been the cause of Tuxedo Mask losing his crystals.
But he had pushed her into lying to her friends, and that was unforgivable. Even if he hadn't known what he was doing he had caused it to happen. And if his so pissed off with me, why did he come to my rescue? She pushed that thought aside, not even wanting to think on it. Some thoughts where too much at times, and she already had a hundred things to worry about.
She had an entire night of her life to remember, a night that seemed to have been a lot more eventful then even she had expected. Sure, fine, she had slept with Darien, but that was beginning to subside into something less then important. She had also let the enemy get a step closer to ultimate power, and that was unforgivable. Strike nine million and ninety nine for Serena Tsukino.
Her feet continued to stomp. She suspected if she were still transformed she would have seriously dented the concrete, it didn't matter how weak she was, every ounce of her strength was going into blaming the ground for her problems.
One redeeming thought, one that did little to actually fix anything but did relieve her slightly came to mind. If she had been in a battle, a battle she had obviously lost, there was every possibility that she had gotten injury's from the Negaverse, and that Darien had done no more harm to her then taking her virginity. But it wasn't a full proof idea, and she refused to let the possibility take hold of her thoughts.
She didn't notice the lighter step of her feet as she contemplated the possibility.
One thing was for sure, she knew, she had begun the night at Molly's and finished it at Darien's. She had asked Molly as obtusely as she could, and gotten little more help then a name she still hadn't matched to a face. And that left only one person to try and pry information from. And logically he would be the easiest to ask, because she didn't have to hide where her night had ended from him.
Setting her shoulders she made a decision that she could no longer avoid. It wasn't a question of her embarrassment or fear anymore, it had progressed past her. Now it was for the scouts and for a princess she doubted they would ever find. Now it was her duty.