A.N.:  Okay, here's the next chapter.  For those of you who reviewed at least once before, please skedaddle over to the last section.  There's individual thank-you's for everybody—and, for those of you who didn't review before, there's a little bit of general info about the fic at the top that you might want to read. 

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CHAPTER FOUR

Serena sighed as she finished dressing, body still not entirely dry after her much-needed shower.  She still ached from the tossing and turning of the previous night, and not even the warmth of the water had been able to ease the knots in her muscles.  She wondered, tiredly, if even this pain could ever disappear.  She could not suppress the rather morbid thought that her constant physical agony was actually a rather fitting punishment for the sins she'd committed against herself and her guardians, and she still believed this was more than deserved.

Scowling, she pulled the bathroom door aside, wincing as the colder air outside sent a chill down her spine.  She shivered, rubbing her arms for warmth as she moved quickly into her bedroom.  She had taken only a few meager steps before she noticed the presence of another human being in her room, and she halted, mentally berating herself for her poor memory.  Had she been so wrapped in her grief that she had not even heard this other enter her bedroom?

She glanced up, eyes wide but not fearful.  She had forgotten the time set for her interview with the psychiatrist, and she had not truly prepared herself for this.  Still, she was no longer as susceptible to shocks or surprises as she had once been, and she was not visibly shaken at finding someone other than her mother waiting for her.  She was, in fact, almost curious to see her interrogator.  What was he like, the man her parents had chosen?  Would he truly be as clever as she'd overheard her father saying he was?

She lifted her eyes to the man's, taking in every aspect of his face and his features.  She recognized him instantly, of course, as the one she'd seen at the funerals of her guardians, but she was still a little startled by his appearance.  Surely, she thought with a burst of surprise, this wasn't the man her parents had chosen as her counselor?  Had there been some mistake? 

He was watching her, eyes and expression calm and completely unreadable.  The dark-haired youth was crammed rather uncomfortably into the wicker chair her mother had insisted she keep, and Serena felt another mild tinge of surprise that he was not the old man she'd been expecting.  This man, she thought, can't be even ten years older than I.  How, then, has he become my therapist?

No, this had not been the one she'd expected.  She'd anticipated an older man, one who might listen to her lies with the cool experience of his profession.  This boy, whoever he was, could not have been much past his college years, and he would be far less willing to go along with her deceptions than another.  Her apprehension rose in her swiftly enough that her heart skipped a beat, and she knew she could not fool the hard intelligence in his gaze.

How much truth would he see?

Meeting his gaze, she suddenly lost all doubt that this was the man her father's friend had sent.  There was too much knowledge within those cool blue eyes, and, as during the funeral, they tore directly through her soul in one quick glance.  She knew he was analyzing everything about her, and she wished she could also know what he had seen in her face.

Could she deceive one such as this?  If he was as intelligent as she suspected, how would she ever convince him of the falsehoods she must utter? 

She stared at him, assessing him much as he was assessing her.  He was certainly handsome, she mused, with thick, black hair and a flawless skin usually seen only in magazines.  His eyes were the brightest blue she had ever encountered, and his features were everything she'd ever believed she could want in a man.

Lita, she thought absently, would have loved this one.

He was tall, as well, and tightly muscled.  His body was as perfect as his face, graceful and lithe even through the immaculate suite he wore.  More than a little petite, herself, Serena guessed that the top of her head would not even touch his collarbone. 

Mina, too, would have drooled over this man, Serena thought, a pang of grief echoing once more through her heart.  Her blonde friend had always adored tall men, and this one would have been almost everything Mina had wanted for herself.

Serena's eyes subtly drifted over the man's body.  She knew, without thinking, that he would be strong.  His arms were folded over his broad chest, but she could see the easy strength in his fingers.  She knew, as well, that he would be the type of man strong enough to be gentle and kind, the type of man strong enough to withstand as much as he needed to.

She blinked suddenly, and the confusion still within her mind only increased a thousand fold as she realized she'd been staring at the man's slender, agile hands for much longer than was polite.  She shook herself, inwardly grimacing as she tried to bring her mind away from the youth's intensely handsome face and back to her true concerns.  What was wrong with her?  She told herself that she could not know anything of this man, not when she had only glimpsed him twice and had never actually spoken with him.  How could she know, then, if he would be gentle or strong, cruel or kind?  She couldn't even remember his name! 

Her unhappiness over that lack of remembrance must have reached even that other within herself, for her mind, almost in answer to the rebellious, petulant thought, quickly supplied the answer even she had not known she'd been searching for.  Endymion, that other in her mind whispered.  He is Endymion…

The word echoed through her very soul for a brief, intense eternity, but Serena was unable to hold on to it, was unable to maintain the bit of memory that had suddenly danced in her thoughts.  She sighed, realizing, not for the first time, just how futile her attempts to recall more details of her past life truly were.  In spite of this realization, however, her heart shook within her, and Serena wondered if she had known this man then, in that other life she could barely recall.  He certainly seemed familiar, and she found herself almost predicting what his first words to her would be.  She could even imagine his voice, could imagine every nuance and inflection of his tone. 

Who was he?  Even at the funeral, even through that impossible haze of grief, a part of herself had reacted to him.  She was not yet experienced enough with her dual identity to know why that reaction had been so strong, and she had not allowed herself to dwell long on that flash of emotion and that even stronger flash of recognition.  For her own peace of mind, she had not had any other choice but to force the image of his pale, rain-drenched face from her thoughts.  Still, now that he was before her once again, her soul would not let the question go.  She met his icy gaze, and her soft, almost haunted whisper went all but unheard by the man clearly straining to catch her words. 

"I know you…"

Serena's mind was whirling with confusion, and a too-long forgotten warmth flooded through her.  Had she, in that long-past fairy world that had been her home, known this man?  She sensed that she had, though she also believed she could not have forgotten a face like his.  Where, though, had she met him?  She continued to stare at him, unaware that her blue eyes now held a question the youth could not truly read.  Her features were clouded with confusion, her nose wrinkled a little with her doubt.  Her expression, however, was wistful enough that had even the most determined accuser would have forgiven her in that moment.

Who was he?  A remnant of her past, maybe?  One who, like her, had been forced to relive the life they'd squandered once before?  Did he know that he didn't belong on this world any more than she?  Was that other life, as it often was with her, nothing more than a dream forgotten before he awakened each morning?

Did it even matter? she wondered suddenly, mentally shaking her head.  Her best friends were dead, brutally slaughtered and already buried.  The life she faced would have little of joy or of love ever again—what did she care if one man didn't remember a world best forgotten?

But I do care, she thought tiredly.  Even if this man never learns who he is—and it might be better for both of us if he doesn't—he's still a part of my past.  Now that the senshi are gone, he may be the only connection with my old life that I have left, and I need to focus on that life to keep myself from forgetting why I'm doing this, to keep myself from forgetting why they died…

I need him…    

The fear would not abate, and Serena's heart was beating far too quickly.  She continued to stare at this strange man, and her mind would not stop seeking answers.  Who are you? she wondered.  What are you?  How is it that your voice alone can affect me this way?  Images were flashing through her mind, even now, sparks of memory there and gone before she could latch onto them.  She tried to grasp them, but this compulsion on her mind was still too strong, and she could retain nothing more than glints of her past so brief that she could make nothing of them…

A warm hand clasping hers, the fingers laced with her own in what could only have been a lover's embrace…

Herself, running, the hand so recently entwined with another's now stretched towards the smoke-stained sky in a silent, hopeless plea…

Her hand again, reaching, always reaching, unable to touch the fingers desperately seeking her own…

A light so intense as to be blinding, blocking out all but her own screams of sorrow and pain…

Serena fought against the stream of visions and the hopelessness now bending her mind, ruthlessly ending these half-remembered horrors before she betrayed herself to the hard-eyed man still watching her.  That other rose now in her soul, giving her the strength and the calm to pull herself together, to push these terrible part-memories from her thoughts.  Then, forcing herself to turn back to the shrink, Serena's perfect features settled into a mask as unreadable as stone.

Once upon a time, Serena had thought she'd remembered as much of her past as she would ever be permitted, but now, hearing this man's words and watching his hard, remote face, knowing that he was something to her but unable to discover the connection between them, she realized that so much of herself still remained hidden, still remained locked into her mind and beyond her reach.  Was this man, then, the key to regaining everything she had once been?  Would he be capable of releasing a past she did not even know if she wanted? 

The man's eyes were intense, and Serena would not allow herself to wonder if his hand had been the one holding hers in those vision-memories.  She gazed almost sadly at him, and she did not realize that her body was still shaking from that first moment between awareness and recognition.  Whatever this man was to her, she decided, she would do all she could to keep him by her side.  He might be her only chance for bringing back even a little of her old life, and she had to trust him long enough for her newly awakened mind to dredge up more memories.  Besides, she had promised the senshi that she would not close herself off to humanity—or whatever her equivalent was—and this was as good an opportunity as any. 

Still, she did not want him in her life.  She did not want to depend on another, to worry about his safety or the threat her nature posed to him.  She did not want to spend time with one who would always need more from her than she was willing to give, and she certainly did not want to come to care for him in any way.  If she did, she was afraid she would start to feel again, would start to experience something other than this pain and the merciful emptiness that came with it, and then she truly would break.

A new terror rose in her as she turned to look him in the eyes once more, and she realized that this man would be far more dangerous to her than Beryl had ever been.  Would her dependency on him finish the job Beryl had started, not sparing enough of her to finish this impossible task?  Would her past with him, if there even was such a past, damage her more assuredly than the death of her guardians?

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The girl's eyes were wide with shock, wide with an apprehension that seemed far greater than this situation warranted.  Her face was white, her hands involuntarily clenching into fists.  She seemed truly shaken, and Darien could not understand the almost terrified expression in her eyes.  She was clearly unsettled by him, and the tall youth found himself questioning her strange behavior yet again.  Why did she seem so afraid of him?  Though his reception of her had been a trifle cooler than he'd wanted, nothing in his expression or stance should have caused fear. 

He certainly had not wanted to frighten her.  His job—and his own peace of mind—depended on his ability to draw the girl from her emotional shell.  He needed to share in her knowledge, in her secrets, and he could not do that if she feared him.  If he did not get her to trust him and confess, how was he to save her?

He could not understand the sudden terror that had arisen in her eyes, a terror that had not come until after she'd been given plenty of time to watch him and analyze his appearance.  She hadn't been frightened when she'd first entered her bedroom and seen the strange man waiting for her, so why should her reaction have changed after only a few seconds?

What had caused this?  Even if, Darien decided, she had recognized him from the funeral, she should not have reacted this way—or did she truly believe he had come only to gain answers from her?  Was she afraid, not of him, but of the questions he might ask?

What did that say of her innocence?

Her lips were still moving, and Darien reluctantly forced himself to catch her words.  "I know you," she repeated softly, and she was clearly speaking more to herself than to him.  "How do I know you?"  From the tone of her voice, Darien wondered if she even remembered that he was still in the room with her.  Nonetheless, her words and her voice stirred something in him, something that even he had not known existed.  That something inside him shifted and awakened, and he was left unknowingly and subtly changed.  The change ripped through him, wreaking havoc with carefully guarded emotion and even more carefully guarded thought.  Darien's heart beat painfully in his chest, and, once again, he felt as though a deeper, lost part of himself was crying out in helpless anguish.  They were both trembling slightly, but Darien forced himself to remain where he was, crouched in a chair much too small for his large body.  He would not give in to the instincts telling him to rush to his feet, telling him to storm across the room and seize her in a grip fierce enough to hold her until she answered the questions he didn't even know he wanted to ask.

Who was she?  What was she?  How had this girl, with her pale face and too-large eyes, caused such havoc in his once-ordered mind and soul?  How had she done this to him?

No matter how strong this need to question her might be, however, Darien's training was far stronger.  The professional within him swiftly pushed his emotions aside, forcing them under a blanket of remoteness, a blanket that cooled the heat of his own questions and his own doubts.  He became, once again, only the one sent to learn what truths Serena Tsukino had to offer.  He stood then, pushing himself to his feet, moving in that same fluid grace that often astounded greater men than Serena's father.  He tugged briskly on his suit jacket, straightening invisible wrinkles as he continued to train his wintry blue eyes on the slight girl before him.  He briefly considered her words, and his eyes were once again unreadable.  "Of course you recognize me," he replied, voice smooth and politely distant, authorative.  Then, aware that he sounded somewhat cold and almost patronizing, he added, "I was at the funeral yesterday.  You must have seen me there." 

She stared at him, and her beautiful, haunted eyes widened at the detached tone and expression in spite of herself.  "No," she protested in a hoarse whisper, still locked in her own world and obviously prey to the confusion that he had already mastered.  "I knew you then.  I must have known you then.  How else could you do this to me, make me remember what I'd tried so hard to forget?"

His own eyes widened at the dreadful intensity of her voice, and he did not miss the strangeness of her words.  He frowned, strangely unsettled and wondering if he would ever know what she meant.  "Then?" he repeated, ignoring the rest, giving her the chance to see his own lack of understanding at her emphasis of this small word and trying, at the same time, not to be frustrated when she remained as oblivious as ever to the query in his eyes.  "Have we met before?"

Had he met this girl before?  This would, at least, explain the sense of familiarity he'd experienced when he'd first seen her.  Still, he knew he could never have forgotten a face like hers—hadn't he once thought he could recognize her anywhere, in any crowd?  Ah, but Serena would not have been the same girl in this mysterious 'then' that she was now, and he might, after all, not have recognized her.  For all he knew, she might have looked completely different than she did today; grief, at least a grief of the magnitude he suspected she was enduring, had a way of changing even an individual's physical appearance, and Darien recalled the way he'd struggled to reconcile the pale girl from the funeral with the laughing child in the old family photographs.  Perhaps, he mused, he'd encountered her before the death of her friends, before her suffering had left that haunted expression in her eyes, before her pain had stripped her of the joy he'd seen in her in those pictures. 

Death had certainly changed the girl, and Darien was not truly surprised at this.  She was only fourteen years old, but she had witnessed far too much, and her eyes did not belong to a teenager.  Darien had not even truly spoken with her, but he already knew she held a calm far beyond her years.  The kind of maturity that now lay in her eyes could not have come before the murders of her friends, and Darien found himself wondering what she had been like, before this tragedy.  Had she been as full of joy as those pictures proclaimed?  He would, he mused almost wistfully, have liked to have known her then, but he wanted to know her as she was now even more.  Would she give him the chance?

He turned his eyes back to the girl's, and his struggle to explain away his own emotions was hindered by the sudden realization that the girl was no longer as agitated as she had been.  She was no longer shaking, and her eyes were not as wide.  An almost unnatural calm had come over her, and, while he did not know what had been affecting her this way, she had obviously recovered, her control a rival for his own.  She had lost her fear of him, so much was certain.  The confusion was gone from her gaze, having been replaced by a clarity that was all the more unnerving.  She shrugged, and some of the color returned to her pale face as she turned away.  "Never mind," she replied, and her voice was curiously gentle and evasive, as beautiful as he had known it would be.  "It doesn't matter.  It might someday, but not yet."

Darien's eyes narrowed, but he only nodded again.  This was not, he knew, the time to push her, and he was intelligent enough to realize that she could not be forced to share her thoughts.  She had to do that on her own, or his attempts to heal her mind and heart would be completely futile.

This was not going as well as he had hoped.

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Serena felt the color returning to her cheeks, felt the blood beginning to flow once more in her veins.  She almost closed her eyes in a silent prayer of gratitude towards that other in her, towards that part of herself that had managed to regain control even as the wave of memory and recognition had assailed her.

Serena's heart had finally begun to beat again, and she could almost breathe without difficulty.  This was, she decided, going relatively well.  She had not yet truly had to lie, and the man was nearly as cold and impersonal as she had initially wanted him to be.  Still, she could not help berating herself for the mistakes she had already begun to make.  She knew she'd aroused his curiosity with her unthinking words and her unthinking reactions to him, and she rather viciously cursed herself for her own stupidity.  Had she truly said what she had?  This man was already searching for connections, and she had all but pointed them out!  If he really was one of her kind, he would not be long in discovering who she was—and who he was, for that matter. 

She already knew he was far too intelligent, and she could not afford to slip up again.  Whatever he was, she needed to keep her secrets far better than this.  If she did not, she would only lead him to the very answers she sought to hide from herself.  Mina, she thought, would have been disappointed in her, had her guardian lived to see this.

The man was still watching her, and his eyes had not lost any of their intensity.  Serena almost shuddered under that formidable gaze, and that other strained to keep from reacting to his gaze.  Did he guess just how many secrets she had?  She knew she couldn't deter him from pursuing a greater explanation for her comments, and she wished she'd had the emotional strength left to protest this visit.  Her mother, in her worry, might not have insisted, had Serena truly objected. 

She shook her head, moving away from the man and taking her customary seat in the window.  She could feel his eyes on her, but she fought to keep her expression and her body perfectly stiff and controlled, as controlled and blank as Mina's had always been when trying to avoid giving answers she could not truly offer.  She settled herself into her cushions, watching with faint, wilted bemusement as the man resettled himself in her tiny wicker chair.  Her eyes did not, of course, miss his grimace as the wicker sagged under his wait, but she pretended not to see.

She stared at him for a long moment, trying desperately to remember what role this man had played in that other life.  Had he been like her, one of her mother's people and belonging to her mother's court, or was he some minor noble she'd never truly met?  His appearance, she thought, was certainly aristocratic enough, but did that mean anything at all?  "I never caught your name," she murmured, hoping for a clue to his past, and her own voice was as cold as his had been.

The man nodded, shrugged—clearly frustrated by his inability to communicate with her on even the most basic of levels.  "Darien Chiba," he muttered, and she wondered why he seemed so ill at ease with his own name.  Was he hiding something from her, or did he simply realize that this human identity could not possibly be his?

Darien Chiba…

Endymion…