Author's Note:
This is my first attempt at published fiction. I've written stories before but just recently decided to write one for an audience! I hope you enjoy the story… it's not much right now, but more updates are coming soon and it's going to get kinda juicy. ;)
Email me at plutodreams@yahoo.com if you have comments or suggestions. Happy Reading!

Disclaimer:
I do not own Sailormoon or any of the characters in it. I'm merely borrowing them for artistic purposes. J

Do Dreams Come True?

Prologue

            The pain was unbearable. She struggled to breath but found that she didn't even have the energy to do such a simple task. Normally a brilliant ocean blue, her eyes were now clouded over with the exertions of her labor. "Darien…" she whispered.

            He was by her side in an instant with a damp cloth to smooth over her sweat-soaked brow. "Hush, darling," he soothed in his rich, low voice. "It'll be over soon, just be brave." She attempted a smile for his benefit, one that curved her full pink lips but failed to reach her eyes. "There's my girl," he smiled, warm brown eyes crinkling in loving concern.

            A bustling nurse reached the bedside table and motioned Darien away. "You need to wait outside," she commanded, taking hold of his arm and forcibly pulling him away. "No, I'm waiting here," Darien insisted. "I want to see my daughter being born." The nurse's eyes narrowed. She was up for the challenge. But Darien said one sentence to her, just one, in a soft, yet chilling voice, and she was gone. As always, the Chiba name got its way. Turning back to the bed, he looked down at the pale blonde who looked trustingly back at him. "I'm not leaving you, Mina."

~

            "MOMMY!" Ashley's screams echoed through the small three-room apartment. "Jimmy stole my notebook!" The petulant four-year old was a vision in a strawberry-adorned jumper – a vision, that is, if one overlooked the juice stains that also adorned the dress and the blonde pigtails that were skewed at odd angles to her small head. The culprit behind her predicament, three-year old Jimmy, sat innocently at the breakfast table making a mess of his cereal and milk, somehow managing to get most of it on his face and in his light brown hair rather than in his mouth.

            Serena came out of her bedroom, one arm still seeking its home in an unbuttoned peach blouse. The rest of her body was fully-dressed in a knee-length black skirt and low-heeled black sandals. "Ashley, darling," she said in a persuading tone of voice. "Could you please put your jacket on? Mommy is going to be late for work… again. And Jimmy, finish up that cereal, please. We're leaving in five minutes."

            Oblivious to the screams of her children, Serena sat down and proceeded to pour herself a cup of coffee. Closing her eyes and resting her head in her hands, she let her hair, sensibly cut to shoulder length, form a curtain around her face. The young girl who had once thought she would be the Queen of NeoTokyo had long since grown up and abandoned those fantasies. Now she was merely a single mother working hard to support her lovable yet havoc-wreaking children. NeoTokyo had never come about. Rini had never been born. The city was as it had been when she was a teenager and did not look likely to change. If anything, crime was at an all-time high because of the retirement of the Senshi, something they had been unable to help as they each began to raise families of their own.

            *CRASH!* A cup shattered into a thousand tiny pieces of glass on the already filthy floor. Serena could only watch in despair as Jimmy began to wail. Her life was just like that glass, broken and irreplaceable…