My Worst Fear

I don't own Sailor Moon, or any of the characters, and all that fun stuff.

August:

Serena turned her face upward so that the filtered light of the sun dappled her face through the leaves of the trees. She took a deep breath, rejoicing in the action and celebrating the feel of her lungs filling to bursting. It wasn't that the air was different; it wasn't cleaner, fresher, or more crisp. It didn't have a different feel, taste, or smell. It was air. But somehow, to the blonde it was different. To her the air was special, because air in New York had to be different from the air in Tokyo.

Darien was reclined on a park bench, watching his wife with a sense of awe. Was it possible that she was more beautiful here than she had ever been before? He smiled, wondering what other marvels New York City held. He had already decided that the eighth wonder of the word should be the way that Serena's hair caught the sunlight so that it looked like she had a halo.

Halo?

Darien shook his head, trying to clear away the touch of terror that had sprung into his mind. What would he have done if Serena had died?

He had taken her home from the hospital late last month, expecting that they wouldn't be together in August... But it was August, and they were in New York, celebrating life. Darien wasn't precisely certain what had happened, but Serena had made a remarkable recovery and for that he was grateful.

He tried to memorize the rapturous look on his wife's face.

Oh God was he grateful!

She spun around; arms flung wide, face upturned, laughing, and practically glowing with happiness. She was still thin and pale, but she no longer looked like a wraith. In fact, with the return of her insatiable appetite, Serena had been gaining back the weight she had lost at a rapid clip.

Her weight wasn't the only thing that was returning. She had a lively sparkle back in her eye. She had a healthy glow to her pale skin. She had a lovely sheen to her blonde hair. Serena was coming back.

"Lets get some ice cream."

Darien grinned at the blonde; her incurable sweet tooth had also returned. "We haven't even had lunch yet."

Laughing, Serena looked even more beautiful. Darien would have mourned the chiming harmony of her laugh for all of eternity.

"So we'll have ice cream for lunch... and sandwiches for a snack." Her blue eyes sparkled. "Come on Baby, let's misbehave."

How had he ever said no to that?

"You win." He held his arms up to signal his defeat, not taking his eyes off of Serena. Darien was absolutely mesmerized by the joy in his wife's face; he was so in love with her.

"There is a vendor back this way." Serena began to skip off before Darien had risen from the bench.

Darien felt panic rising in his chest as he watched the blonde skip off. Why was he so worried? She wasn't going to disappear. She wasn't going to die.

Dead.

"Bunny!" He heard the desperation in his voice, it sounded so obvious surely she heard it too. "Bunny!"

The lithe figure on the path turned, swaying in the shadows like a nymph. "Just wait there, I'll get it." She smiled, mischief playing over her features. "Don't worry Darling, I won't run off without you." She teased him playfully.

She started to turn, but he couldn't let her go. "Let's go together."

Serena shrugged, "Then hurry up."

"I just can't stand to be without you, Angel."

Angel?

"I'm always with you, Darien." The teasing in her eyes had evaporated, leaving Darien to drown in their somber blue depths.

They stood silently on the path as he struggled against the unbearable sense of loss that had welled up in his chest. What would he do without her?

Darien tore his eyes away from his wife's; he had to be strong. "Let's go get that ice cream."

He lifted one arm to wrap around Serena's slim shoulders and pull her close to his side. Where his arm should have touched the smooth soft flesh of her shoulder there was nothing. Nothing.

Suddenly the loss, the grief, and the pain came crashing back to him.

Darien pulled back with a start.

For a moment he was disoriented, struggling against the blanket and the knowledge that came with waking up. Then he remembered where he was. He remembered the last few weeks.

He had fallen asleep in a chair in their bedroom. In her room, first and foremost. Everything about the room spoke of Serena's impeccable taste and style; everything about the room mourned her loss. It was as though all of the joy and beauty of the room had been slowly sucked out, and what was left was a cold shell.

Darien sat there, in the darkness, staring at the bed. He had tried sleeping in it once after Serena had passed on, but it had hardly been what one would call restful. He would wake up, not knowing why, until he realized that he had rolled over expecting to pull Serena's form close to his. She wasn't there.

Tears coursed down Darien's cheeks; he felt as though some one had carved out his heart and replaced it with cold, dark, heavy iron. How do you survive losing half of yourself?

He stood, and began to pace restlessly around the apartment. Part of him wanted nothing more than to sell it so that he could move on and live in a place that didn't remind him of what he had lost. Part of him hated the idea of leaving behind all of the beautiful memories that were the only remainders of his true love. Part of him wanted to vent his grief in anger, to break things. Part of him wanted to curl up and die. But all of him mourned.

Darien paused at the doorway to Serena's studio.

There were so many times that he had walked into this apartment to find the radio blaring some strange, annoyingly happy, American music. Serena would always be in her studio, dancing around and singing at the top of her lungs with all of the lights on. Darien could almost see her now, a smudge of ink on her nose and a pencil shoved over one ear.

He moved on, but a few minutes later he was back at the doorway.

After he moved in Darien had hired a maid, to help Serena out. When she was younger Serena had been a slob, but once she purchased and decorated her apartment Serena had been meticulous about keeping it perfect. The only room in the apartment that could be seen as messy was the studio, but Serena had quickly forbidden the maid to touch the room.

Now there was something that prevented Darien from entering the room. He felt as though he would disturb something, what he didn't know. Just something. At the same time he was drawn to the room, to see what Serena had been so desperately trying to get out of her head in the last few weeks of her life. He was drawn to her passion, her disarray, and who she was in this room when no one was watching.

Tentatively, Darien stepped through the doorway, feeling like a thief in the night. He walked though the room glancing at designs for houses and office buildings, amazed by the grace and imagination that had gone into many of the designs. There was the house that Serena had designed for her brother, there was an apartment complex that was already under construction, there was a shopping center, there was a house that she had designed around a fountain, and here...

Darien's breath caught in his chest.

On the desk was a stack of designs houses, shops, and office buildings all designed with a crystalline structure. On the top of the stack was a building that Darien had seen once in his life, but he recognized it in a second. It was the Crystal palace that would one day stand in the center of Tokyo; well, once he had thought it would stand in the center of Tokyo. He knew now that it was impossible for that to happen; Serena was dead, so there could be no Crystal Tokyo.

Grief struck again. Darien slammed his fist down on the table. Why was fate so cruel as to remind him that he would never have the life he had once seen? He wouldn't have a pink haired nymph for a daughter, he wouldn't live in a palace with Serena until the end of their days, he wouldn't even suffer when the Dark Moon Kingdom attacked.

Darien grabbed his keys and his wallet. He couldn't stay there now. There was only way he could get the future out of his head. There was only one way to forget the past. There was only one way to not feel the future.

He was going to get drunk.

Michiru looked around, amazed at how one building could be so different from place to place. The walls were the same sterile white; the lighting was the same florescent white. Everything was the same, and yet it was so very different.

She smiled at the pink haired attendant who walked toward her. "Miss Kaiou?"

Aqua waves bobbed up and down as Michiru nodded. "Yes."

The attendant looked relieved. "I'm so glad. This one is so cute, but for some reason no one wants her." She shook her head. "I would think that they would be dying to adopt a little American girl."

"Well she isn't an American girl."

"It is true enough that she was born here, so I guess technically she is Japanese, but she'll grow up to be a blonde haired blue eyed beauty like her parents."

The maternity ward smelt of life, not death. The air was full of hope and promise instead of death and sickness. Michiru was amazed that the hospital could be so different from one wing to the next.

Serena Sheilds had been honored as a loyal friend, loving wife, talented professional, and an excellent character. People mourned her loss, sorry to see such a promising girl taken from the world at an early age. They were sorry, but they couldn't understand that the world had lost more than a kind hearted architect.

Privately her friends remembered someone that the rest of the world did not know they had lost. Raye Kumada had opened her favorite room in the temple so that the women who protected the city could remember their friend, and leader.

"I don't think they are coming, Darien."

"We didn't part on the best of terms, I guess." Darien shrugged, and pushed away from the wall. Ami, Mina, Lita, and Raye were already there; the only people who were missing were the Sailor Scouts from the outer planets. He had hoped that Haruka and Michiru would come to remember Serena. Personally, he had never gotten along with Haruka, but Serena would have liked the two women to be here. Darien sighed.

The last time he had talked to Michiru he had been angry, and drunk. He had been brutal to the violinist. While Michiru's reaction had been shocked but kind, Haruka had reacted with equally cruel words. Honestly, Darien couldn't blame Haruka; if the tables had been turned he doubted that Haruka would have escaped with a wounded ego.

"Why don't we go inside?" Ami recommended, meekly. "If they do decide to come I'm sure they will be able to find us."

"I don't think it is much of a loss." Raye had never been a fan of either Haruka Tenou or Michiru Kaiou, but her negative feelings toward Michiru had only escalated since April.

Part of Darien felt badly for Michiru.

As the Sailor Scout of Neptune Michiru had an innate connection with the sea, and she possessed the Aqua Mirror; she had learned earlier that Serena was dying because of the connection between the Ocean and the Moon. Michiru had been the only person, besides Serena, who had known how things would transpire for months before they occurred.

Darien thought back to his conversation with Michiru from that fateful day in April, when Serena informed the girls that she had cancer. He had been angry that Michiru had over ridden his advice to Serena, thinking it would have been better for the blonde to rest.

"Who do you think you are? What gives you the right to tell her what to do? She is dying for God's sake!" Even now, Darien could almost see the tears welling up in Michiru's aqua eyes.

"I know."

"She needed rest! Why did you have to interfere? She'll never get rest now!"

"Please, Darien, walk further away. She'll hear you."

He had been enraged, what made this woman think that he didn't want Serena to hear? Honestly he thought it would be better if she heard his anger, he had really wanted to take Serena in his arms and shake some sense into her. No, he had just been scared. He had just wanted to hold her and pretend it would be alright. He couldn't have done either, so he yelled at the only person he could blame.

"She doesn't want people to hurt for her, so let her think she has succeeded." Michiru's hand had rested hesitantly on his arm as she led him away. She was like a frightened bird, ready to take flight at any moment. "Come away."

Looking back, Darien was ashamed at the way he had treated Michiru. She had done so much to help. And now her words played through his head like a broken record. Why couldn't he take it back?

"The Ocean told me the Moon was dying... But she made me promise not to say anything, not even to Haruka. She didn't want anyone to worry. So I worried alone. We will all fall apart without her; she is the kind heart that ties us all together." Michiru had suffered months of pain, of worry. No one had understood that she did it all for them.

"When did you find out?"

"July."

All he could think was that it was four months before him. Four months. An eternity. "Bitch."

Why couldn't he take it back?

Raye had blamed her too. Ami, Lita, Mina, and even Haruka. They were all people who had spent their lives fighting; coming up against something they couldn't fight was something none of them could handle. They had all felt betrayed, because they couldn't stand to feel lost. They had all felt anger, because they couldn't stand to feel pain. Michiru hadn't had the luxury of anger, but she had felt the pain ten fold.

He hoped that Haruka had gotten over it.

"Let's go inside." Lita's voice pulled Darien out of his reverie, but it couldn't quite eradicate Michiru's voice.

"She didn't want anyone to worry. So I worried alone."

"Bitch."

They walked out of the courtyard into the traditional Japanese room, sliding the door closed on the sunny day outside. Tears sprung immediately to their eyes as they saw the little alter that Raye had set up. There were pink lilies, stargazer lilies, calla lilies, and white lilies in piles around a cherry shrine that held pictures of Serena and news articles about Sailor Moon.

"We are here to remember a woman who has changed our lives and made us who we are today." Raye began. "She has always put other people before her, even when she was younger." The temple mistress smiled even as tears clouded her vision. "I use to think that she never had any idea of how serious situations were, but she always knew... I think she even knew better than we did, but she..." Her voice broke. "She didn't want us to know and be scared. She was always there for us, before we knew we needed her there."

Darien thought back to the way Serena had mustered her strength to tell her friends the bad news. Yes, she had been a pillar of strength even as she walked hand and hand with death. Had Serena had a pillar of strength? More importantly, who would be their rock, now that she was gone?

"Ladies, I want to start by telling you that I love you. I know that you have all been worried about me, and I'm sorry that I caused you pain. I suppose that I wanted to save you from the future, but the future has a funny way of rushing toward you even when you try to hold it back."

Raye was still speaking. Darien clung to the present as he tried to dispel Serena's voice from his head, but it seemed as though he would live for all eternity with the cheery blonde's voice playing though his head. He struggled to listen. "She broke us free of our shells..."

People say that your eyes are the windows to your soul, but no one ever believes it until they see a person with pain in their eyes.

Ami sniffed loudly, drawing Darien's eyes to meet hers.

The look that passed between the blue eyed doctor and the dark politician spoke more of their feelings that a thousand words ever could. It was overflowing with grief and pain. It spoke of memories long passed, and dreams that would never be. Most of all, it showed Serena's words spinning through their souls.

"Don't blame yourself, Ami. You are the most amazing doctor that I have ever met, but there isn't anything you could have done. One day you will find the cure for cancer, but even you can't change what is past. So live each day in a way that will make me proud; with plenty of laughter, love, and a little bit of adventure. Sing at the top of your lungs when no one can hear, dance when no one can see, and every now and then promise me that you will do something crazy. Think of it as the most important test of your life."

Ami broke her eyes away from Darien's. They both knew what she was thinking. It had been hard enough to live outside of her shell with Serena around. It just seemed like too much to think of living that way without Serena's gentle teasing to prod the young doctor into life. For the first time Ami was convinced that she couldn't pass a test.

How do you apologize for failing?

"She convinced us that we were worth more that even we imagined."

Mina felt a twinge in her chest as Raye's words resonated inside of her.

"Don't cry Mina! We both know that with me gone you will be the most beautiful woman on the earth." Serena's attempt at humor had died, as her eyes took on a serious cast. "You are beautiful, Mina. But that's not it; that has never been everything there is to you. You are smart, talented, and loving. You have a sense of what is right and what is wrong. You follow your heart. You are one of the truest friends that I have ever had the pleasure of meeting, and I'm sure that if you should decide that you no longer want to be a housewife you will be able to do anything you want. Decide what you want and do it, no one will blame you for it."

A sob caught in Mina's throat. She had always been just another pretty face, there had only been one person who believed in her. Now the one person with unwavering faith was gone. She didn't think she could believe in herself when no one else did.

How do you apologize for failing some one?

"She saw us as good people even when the rest of the world shied away because of idle gossip."

Lita's forced smile wavered as she tried to wipe tears from her eyes with out anyone noticing. When she had first come to Tokyo she had been the mystery that inspired cruel gossip; it hadn't helped anything that she was gangly and awkward.

"I know you aren't going to cry here. You like people to think you are too tough to cry, but its okay if you need to. Crying is a relief to your soul, like when your heart overflows and it needs to drain out your eyes. Don't bottle all of that emotion up, that's how you become bitter and withdrawn. Don't go back to that; let it out. It feels good, and no one will think less of you for it."

Serena had always been the shoulder that Lita cried on; the blonde was just so kind and not judgmental. Serena had always sat there, quietly smoothing her friend's brown hair and whispering reassuringly, letting Lita cry for as long as she needed.

The brunette clenched her fists, her nails dug into the soft flesh of her palms. She tried to hold herself straight and tall, to not bend under the weight of her grief because that is what she always did. She couldn't cry; there was no one to cry to. She couldn't cry, she couldn't be weak.

How do you apologize for failing someone who is gone?

Raye took a deep breath, struggling to finish the speech that she had written, but the last sentence stuck in her throat. All she had wanted to do since Serena's death was to curl up and die. With a violent temperament and a quick temper Raye had always seemed to play the part of foil to Serena's loving personality. Serena was honest and innocent, Raye was jaded and covered her feelings with sarcasm and anger. What is a foil without its other half?

"She..." Raye's voice broke, and she wiped at her eyes, plopping down on the tatami mats. "I... I'm sorry you guys. I can't."

So they sat. Every eye in the room was downcast, in every heart a different litany played, every mind remembered a woman who had thought more of everyone in the world than she had thought of herself. She had believed, and so they had believed.

"Death and rebirth."

They looked up, startled, to see Haruka and Michiru and two other women stepping through the sliding door.

"Those things are too quiet." Raye grumbled.

Mina cast a withering look toward Raye before she rose to greet the four women with a degree of coldness. "Hotaru, Setsuna, we haven't seen you two in a while. I take it you have heard the news." Her eyes turned to coldly take in Michiru and Haruka. "We didn't think you were coming.

Hotaru was a sixteen year old with violet eyes and jet black hair that she kept cut short and straight. Without the startling eyes Hotaru would have been the epitome of classic Japanese beauty, as it was she looked exotic. She had been raised by Michiru, Haruka, and Setsuna. Now, Mina noticed that the young woman's eyes were cold enough to freeze water. It was a pity that she was so loyal to Michiru.

The green haired olive skinned woman next to Haruka was Setsuna Meiou, she had once been a prominent fashion designer in Tokyo but she had disappeared several years earlier. In her mid thirties she was older than any of the women in the room.

"What were you saying Hotaru, dear?"

"Death and rebirth." Hotaru smirked, her violet eyes scornful. "Did you honestly believe that one day you were all living your lives as princesses and the next you were school girls in Tokyo? Why would you remember your life before?"

"Hotaru."

"Michiru-mama, it's absurd. And they are blaming you because they are too stupid to understand."

Michiru shook her head, "That's not why they blame me. And it is not your place."

Hotaru glared at the women in the room. "How many lives have been lived between then and now? How many lives will be lived before crystal Tokyo?"

"What Hotaru is trying to say, is that there will always be a Moon Princess and she will always be the soul mate of the Prince of the Earth." Michiru rested one hand on Hotaru's shoulder, gently restraining the young woman. Her other arm was busy holding on to a bundle of blankets. "We came to remember Serena with the people who loved her."

Mina felt her friends gathering behind her; she knew that Raye, Lita, and Ami would be behind her if she decided to throw the other women out. The only problem was that she saw Haruka, Setsuna, and Hotaru drawing themselves up ready to fight. Mina wasn't an idiot and knew that in a fair fight the women across the room would win, and with their loyalty being questioned they weren't likely to fight fair.

A glance at Darien showed him to be sitting on the floor with his head in his hands. He would be no help.

The tension in the room was almost palpable as it crackled between the two groups. At the center of it all Michiru stood smiling calmly, she lifted her hand from Hotaru's shoulder and began to fuss at the pink blanket in her arms.

For some reason Mina felt intrigued; pink was not Michiru's color, and the violinist was always keenly aware of how she looked. Why would she be carrying a pink blanket that clashed with her black suit and turquoise shirt?

Mina took a startled step backward when the bundle in Michiru's arms let out a gargled squawk and began to wriggle. The tension in the room shattered, leaving two groups of women blinking in surprise as they relaxed.

"Wha... What is that?" Raye asked incredulously.

Mina watched, enthralled, as Darien rose to his feet the first smile that she had seen in weeks spreading across his face.

"Death and rebirth." Darien's was awestruck as he approached the group at the door.

One elegant hand pulled the pink blanket down. "Yes." Michiru said with a quiet smile on her face. "Don't worry, Darien. This is not the end, it is only the beginning."

So thats the end. I don't know if I am really satisfied with the very end of it... I feel like I should be able to do better, but I think I may have left you all hanging for too long while I wrote this. It did end up being longer than I planned. Oh well. I hope you enjoyed it. Please reveiw. Let me know if I should rewrite the end, starting where the outers show up. -LS