A.N.:  Well, here's the next chapter.  I apologize for the long wait, but it couldn't be helped.  Reader responses are at the bottom, but don't forget to review!

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RECAP: Last time, Darien and Serena finally met face to face.  Serena started having a few flashbacks to her old life, and she finally realized that she must have known Darien during the Silver Millennium.  She still doesn't know who he is, though, and she's trying her best not to give him any clues as to their identities. 

Next:  Darien continues trying to solve the mystery that is Serena…

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CHAPTER FIVE

Serena wasn't talking.  Darien hadn't gotten a single answer from her—she ignored his every question, no matter how inane and purposeless that question might be.  Even when she did speak, her answers were so vague that she might as well not have responded at all.  He couldn't get her to talk to him, tell him what had happened to her or what emotions she was experiencing.  Darien leaned back in his too-small wicker chair, regarding the girl with heavy-lidded eyes.  She was still gazing out her window, and she would not even respond to his attempts at light conversation.  She seemed, in fact, determined to be as listless and vague as possible, and, if so, she was certainly succeeding.  Would she ever look at him again?  The view outside her window, he thought, couldn't possibly be that fascinating—especially since she'd been gazing at it for the past two hours.

Two very long, very silent hours…  

He sighed, rolling his eyes as, with perfect ease, she avoided answering yet another of his questions.  She was, he thought, almost making a game out of this, out of avoiding his every attempt to get her to speak.  Had he not already realized, even after so short a time and with only a few dozen words between them, that she was not the sort to do this intentionally, he would almost have thought she was toying with him.  Frustration turned his eyes to chips of ice, and he struggled to maintain the composure necessary for the professional that he was.  She was, he told himself, not being purposely evasive, and he should not allow himself to lose his faith in her.  In any case, he couldn't end this session until he'd established some sort of connection between them, and he couldn't do even that if she thought he was losing patience with her or that he was only here to learn the truth behind the deaths of her friends.  Serena had to believe he trusted her judgment, had to believe he was genuinely concerned for her.  If she didn't, he knew he would never be able to heal her.

He leaned forward in his chair, ignoring the protests of the wicker beneath him and finally allowing the remoteness to drop from his eyes.  He gazed at her, and his face now held nothing but the honest concern he'd felt from the moment he'd first laid eyes on her.  The time for pretense, he knew, was finally over—he could only help himself by letting her see how much he cared about her…and for her.  "Serena," he began gently, noting the way her hands clenched whenever he murmured her name but unable to keep the word from his tongue, "I'm only trying to help you.  Why won't you talk to me?"

Her eyes flicked briefly towards him at this, then away.  He'd thought he'd seen some sort of emotion flaring in her eyes, but she'd turned her gaze too quickly, and he could not be sure that he hadn't been imagining it.  Still, a flare of hope raged within his heart.  Was he finally reaching her?  This was, he thought, the first time she'd actually responded to him since the session officially started, the first time she'd even looked at him, and he took some small comfort in the fact that she'd finally decided to stop ignoring him completely. 

His hope was destroyed as quickly as had the joy she'd once possessed, when next she spoke.  "What would you have me say?" she demanded softly, voice completely monotone and lifeless but still not that of the child she was supposed to be.  "Did you want to know how they died, what pain they endured before their hearts and their bodies broke?  Would you truly be happier if you knew how they were tortured and beaten, how they were slaughtered?"  She shook her head.  "I can't tell you what happened that day, and that's all you really want from me.  Why not just give up?"

Darien's eyes widened imperceptibly.  I'll never give up on you, he thought, surprising himself with his own intensity.  His heart shuddered at the mere thought of walking away from her, but aloud he only murmured, "I won't lie to you, Serena.  I am here for answers, but I'm not going to push you for details of that night.  I'm only here to help you, if I can, and I won't ask for anything you're not ready to give.  I'm here for you, Serena.  Only for you."

Her hands clenched again, the knuckles white and bloodless.  "I…don't think I believe you," she told him slowly, and his heart sank at the acerbic hopelessness now in her voice.  "I've heard what they're saying about me on the news," she snapped quietly, suddenly.  "I know of the lies they're telling of me, of my involvement in this.  How, then, can I believe you were sent here for any other reason than to get me to confess?" 

Darien leaned forward, and his wintry eyes glinted with a sincerity even Serena could not doubt.  "I'm here," he said, emphasizing every word, "for you.  I will never repeat a word of what you tell me, unless you order me to do so.  If nothing else, I promise you this, Serena.  Your secrets are safe with me."

Did she believe him?  Her crystalline eyes were still so empty, and he could not read her.  She did not, at least, look away again, and her lips were twisted in something that was not quite a smile.  "If only I could believe you, Darien Chiba," she murmured gently, the anger gone from her face.  She sighed, and the escaping air seemed to carry with it all the sorrow of her loss. 

Darien's heart turned to lead in response. 

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By the time Serena's first session ended, Irene Tsukino had reorganized and cleaned every square inch of her home.  Her worry for her daughter's welfare had instilled a terrible, unavoidably nervous energy in her, and, had her very life depended on her ability to calm herself, she could not have held still.  Darien found her at the kitchen table, and even this wearied young man stopped to stare blankly at the woman rabidly polishing silver long since made spotless.  He simply shrugged, however, having greater concerns than this on his mind and perfectly able to understand the woman's fears.  He, too, cared for Serena, even if he couldn't understand why he did, and he knew why the girl's mother was so frantic.  He sighed, moving towards her and sliding into the chair closest to her own.  When she still didn't notice his presence, he reached out with one slender, strong hand, gently covering her fingers with his, stopping her movements before she could give herself blisters. 

She glanced up at this, surprised to see this oddly handsome youth staring at her with such compassion in those intense eyes of his.  Why, she wondered absently, was he down here, with her?  Shouldn't he be with Serena, healing her daughter as he'd been trained to do?  She looked down at the hand covering hers, staring at his fingers as her heart constricted painfully.  "How is she?"

The question seemed to catch the youth off guard, for the fingers wrapped around her own jerked slightly.  His hand remained over hers, however, and Irene finally permitted herself to look up and meet the boy's gaze.  His eyes, she noted immediately, were shuttered, his expression closed to her.  Irene had always prided herself on her ability to read the thoughts and emotions of others, but even she could not understand the look in this stranger's eyes.  He only frowned, shrugged, made no attempt to pull his hand away.  Silence stretched between them, and Irene almost began to wonder if he had even heard her question.  Then, just as she was about to repeat herself, the boy sighed.  "She wouldn't talk to me," he confessed, hesitating only a little.  "She doesn't trust me enough, I think, and she wouldn't let me help her."

Irene nodded.  She had, of course, expected as much, though she'd also hoped her daughter would have enough sense to share her pain with this man.  "She wouldn't tell you anything at all?" she asked finally, and she could not keep the disappointment from her voice. 

The youth shook his handsome head.  "Nothing that makes any sense to me," he admitted softly.  "I don't think she's ready to speak of that night.  Not yet, anyway."  His frown deepened, and he shrugged again.  "I'm not giving up hope, Mrs. Tsukino," he told her evenly, "and you shouldn't, either.  Trauma like this will take years to get over, and Serena may never be willing to tell us of what happened.  We can only stay with her, support her, let her know she's not alone.  She might yet open up to us.  I hope she does, for her own sake, but we can't let her see how frustrated we become when it doesn't happen as quickly as we'd like or even at all.  It's important that she doesn't feel any pressure right now."

Irene nodded, pulling her hand from his and standing abruptly.  She pushed her slender body from the chair she'd been using, moving slowly to stand by the nearest window.  "I'm willing to wait," she said, "but I don't know if Serena can.  She wakes herself every night with her own screams, and I know she's reliving everything that happened to her and to her friends.  Can anyone withstand something like that, and still have anything left of herself?"  Serena's mother frowned, and her eyes became bitter.  "She's afraid of the dark now, did you know that?  She didn't use to be, but everything changed, after that night."

Darien leaned back in his chair, and his expression had become thoughtful.  "Does she talk in her sleep?" he asked suddenly, earning a startled glance from the girl's mother. 

Irene considered.  "Yes," she replied, and her own expression was just as thoughtful.  "She always has, even before...well, before.  I can't understand what she's saying, but she does talk.  Why?  Can that help us, when her voice is usually so low that we can't hear what she's saying?"

Darien's eyes had narrowed.  "If we record what she says," he muttered, speaking to himself, "then we can always take the tape to a specialist.  There are people capable of manipulating a recording until we can understand the words on it."

Irene looked doubtful.  "Wouldn't that make her feel like we're betraying her trust?" she asked uncertainly.  "Serena might close herself off even more, if she ever found out.  I want to know what's going through her head, but I don't think going behind her back is such a good idea."

Darien frowned, understanding where Irene was coming from but not quite willing to let the thought go.  "You're probably right," he answered quietly, "but I don't want you to dismiss the idea entirely.  There's a fairly high possibility that Serena will never trust me with her problems, and we might have to resort to this if we want to help her.  For her own sake, we have to consider it."  He sighed, rising to his feet with his usual grace, his features a little tight with strain.  "I can't do anything more today, at any rate," he told Irene.  "I'd hoped to get a little further with Serena than I did, but maybe she'll talk more tomorrow."  She nodded, but Darien wasn't finished.  "I'd also like to speak with you again," he said.  "I'll have a better chance of understanding Serena if I know more about her, and you're one of the best sources of information that I have.  Can you come down to my office sometime tomorrow morning and talk to me?  I won't keep you long." 

He thought he could see a little reluctance in her eyes, as though this was something she didn't want to do at all.  "Of course," she murmured anyway.  "I'll do anything I can to help."

He smiled gently at her, though he was also filing away his observation until he could make sense of it.  "Thank you," he said, wondering if Irene Tsukino knew more than she'd been letting on.  Just how many secrets did the women in this family have?  

Serena remained at her window, trapped in her own memories until long after Darien had left.  She stared out into nothing, not even aware enough to be grateful that her bedroom faced the backyard rather than the front where all the reporters had been gathered for the past few days.  She didn't care that the rain had stopped or that she'd gotten through her first session with the psychologist without revealing too much.  She didn't care about anything anymore, and if she hadn't been reliving the deaths of her senshi yet again, she probably would have been thinking that she would never care about anything ever again.

Serena sighed, trying in vain to pull her mind away from her memories of that hellish night when her protectors had been taken from her.  She was tired to the point of exhaustion, but she knew that she couldn't risk sleep, not now.  As bad as the memories were during the day, they would only become a thousand times worse if she actually let her eyes close for more than a second or two.  She would smell the blood, if she slept, would hear the screams echoing through her mind even more than they already were.  She would see the determination in their faces as they'd sacrificed themselves to save her, as they'd died so that something greater than all of them would live...and she didn't know how much more of that she could take.  She felt as though the pain and the memories were slowly stripping away what little was left of her soul, and she certainly would have agreed with what her mother had said to Darien Chiba, had she been able to hear their conversation.  Even Serena sometimes wondered if, just perhaps, her pain was quite literally making her crazy.

You're not crazy, Serena.  You're just tired, and hurting.  You won't always feel this way.

Serena moaned, burying her head in her hands.  "Please," she whispered, despair and tears welling in her voice.  "I can't take anymore…"

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The day was still relatively young, by the time Darien finished his first session with Serena Tsukino, but while there'd been more than enough time for him to get back to his office, he didn't even try.  He headed for his apartment instead, feeling a little more drained than he would have expected.  What was it about that girl that had taken so much out of him?  Talking to her—or at her, since she hadn't really responded to him—had been physically exhausting, and it should not have been, not under any circumstances.  As new as Darien was at this, he knew his reaction wasn't in the least bit normal.  Where was the detachment he'd been trained to feel and show?  He was responding to Serena's plight as though he'd known her for her entire life, as though she was the most important person in his world rather than just a stranger he'd known for only a few hours.  She was getting to him, and he couldn't understand how or why. 

Darien sighed as he entered his apartment, tossing his keys onto the table and slipping out of his light jacket.  He moved slowly into his kitchen, pouring himself a glass of tap water and then drifting into the spare bedroom he was now using as an office.  The room was both as small and undecorated as the rest of his apartment, bare to the point of sterility.  The walls in this place were entirely blank, without even the small splash of color that would have been there had he ever bothered to put up wallpaper or pictures.  A plain, rather cheap desk was pressed against the far wall, a bookshelf crammed against another.  Both shelves and desk were almost fanatically neat, nothing out of place.  A single manila folder was lying at the center of the desk, and Darien sighed again, walking over and picking it up.  He let the cover slide open, his frown increasing as a picture of Serena laughed back at him, the warmth in her eyes cutting a hole in his heart.  Would she ever be this happy again?

He pushed the picture to the side, slipping into a nearby chair as he began rifling through the contents of the folder.  Nothing in this file was new to him, of course, though his boss had only given it to him a day before the funerals.  He'd gone over what little information he had so many times that he now more or less had every known detail of Serena's life memorized.  Still, he couldn't help frowning as he looked everything over once more, unable to shake the feeling that he was missing something vital.  There were too many gaps in his knowledge of the girl, too many discrepancies in what he did know.  Why, for instance, would one tiny schoolgirl have sustained so many injuries in a single year?  Both the family doctor and the school nurse had noticed and documented literally hundreds of odd bruises or scrapes on Serena's skin in the last few months, though the hurts had eventually been dismissed a natural result of Serena's well known clumsiness.  Nothing had been done about them, though Darien suspected that there was much more to it than anyone else was willing to admit.  If these injuries, after all, were simply caused by Serena tripping over her own feet all the time, why was it that nobody had said anything before?  Her hurts had only become frequent enough to be noticeable within the last eleven months or so, and Darien knew there had to be a better explanation than mere clumsiness.

Darien continued to frown, thinking, as always, that everything about Serena seemed to have changed in the last year.  Her school records told him that she'd always been an indifferent student at best, but lately her grades had dropped, even for her.  She was failing or close to failing in every class, and even her attendance had  become more erratic.  She'd started missing more school, in the last few months, coming late or leaving early several times a week.  She'd always had permission, of course, and she'd always had a legitimate excuse, but Darien wondered how everyone else could possibly have missed this.  Serena's teachers had noted that she was falling asleep in class more often, and yet they hadn't thought anything of it.  If they had, he wondered tiredly, would this tragedy have been avoided?

Darien grimaced, tossing the file onto his desk and leaning back in his chair.  He closed his eyes, still mulling over the oddities surrounding the pale girl he had become so fixated on.  Having gone over Serena's file so often, he still couldn't explain the patterns he'd noticed.  Skipping school, falling asleep at all hours…something was obviously not right in Serena's world, and Darien intended to find out exactly what it was.    

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READER RESPONSES:

Koosei:  Well, I don't know if Serena is going to "warm up to him" right away.  There won't be any of the open antagonism that characterized their early relationship in the anime, but she's obviously not going to trust him right away, either.  Even I don't know exactly what's going to happen between them, though.  As for your question about the other senshi…well, I guess they're already starting to "pop up."  Serena's going to be hearing a lot of voices in the future! 

Thanks for reading.  I appreciate your comments and your compliments, and I hope you continue to enjoy this story.

Sassy_Chan:  Once again, Sassy, I'm overjoyed that you bothered to read this.  You're an incredible friend, and I appreciate all the support you give me.  With praise like that, I'll certainly never suffer from low self-esteem! 

And, yes, I'm also glad that Serena and Darien finally got to meet.  Let's just hope Darien isn't always going to be too stupid or too ignorant to pick up on the clues, ne? 

RaLeCo:  Deep, huh?  You have no idea how much I appreciate the compliment…all of them, actually.  What you wrote was infinitely more inspiring than I can every say, and I'm overjoyed that you took the time to review.

Lady of Pluto:  Once again, thank you for the compliments.  You're fairly amazing yourself, and I always look forward to hearing from you. 

Usako4life:  Yeah, I don't know how I'm going to make this cheerful, either.  As much angst as I've got in the first few chapters, it's hard to believe that I never actually meant for this story to start out so depressing.  At the very least, though, I can promise a happy ending.

I really can't answer your question, about whether or not Serena's realized who Darien is.  She obviously has on some level, but she doesn't know exactly who he was or what he was to her.  She will eventually, though.  Thanks for reading!

Roswellbfan:  What do you mean, my idea to use the shout-outs was a good one?  It was your idea!  I always get such warm fuzzies when you respond to each of your reviewers personally that I absolutely had to do the same (though not for RM.  Can you imagine how long that would take?  I'll do that for the sequel, though).  And OF COURSE I would include you!  You are, bar none, my favorite reviewer/writer on the planet.  I'd be an unmitigated git if I hadn't included you, because most of my inspiration and motivation to write comes from something you've written or said to me.  I owe you more than you could ever know. 

"Nothing short of breathless", huh?  Thank you!  That certainly is a compliment, especially since it's coming from you!  You're pretty darn talented yourself, you know.  Small wonder that I look forward to your reviews!  Actually, I just stuck that bit with Lita in because I was trying to lighten up the mood a little.  I don't want this story to be completely depressing, and I'm trying to ease up on the angst. 

Again, thank you.  Your talent and insight shines through even in your commentary, and I just adore you.

Ocianne:  Well, I'm glad you're liking this fic, even though most people would hate me for killing off the senshi.  Of course, I stick by my promise that they aren't going to stay dead.  Thanks for the compliments! 

Fan:  Once again, my thanks to you, whoever you are, for reviewing so many chapters on the same day.  That must have taken forever, so I really appreciate the dedication.  You're amazing!