Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon
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Misunderstandings, Truth, and Lies
by sdikanimefanatic
Chapter Two: A Visit and a Confrontation
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"What the Hell happened to you?" Andrew demanded, his voice raising an octave as he set the battered blonde on the twin-sized bed in the guestroom of the apartment located above the Arcade; Elizabeth turned on the lamp on the spare room's desk before hurrying to retrieve the first aid kit in the bathroom located across the hall.
"I was attacked," Serena stated drolly, pointing out the obvious for the frantic blond Arcade owner as he pulled a large medical kit from behind the desk, stored there for the rare times Serena needed a place to stay and be patched up after a run-in with monsters…or others.
"By who? A monster?" Blond brows furrowed in concern as he studied her hand, two of the fingers obviously broken.
"You could say that," Serena murmured and gritted her teeth as Andrew tugged on the tip of one broken finger to align the broken bones, the fingers of her good hand digging into the faded blue and white comforter covering the bed; he murmured a soft apology and when she nodded her consent, he repeated the process with the other finger.
"Where were your Scouts or Darien?" Andrew asked, attempting to distract the small blonde from the pain of her injuries as he placed temporary splints he had dug out of the medical kit on her broken fingers to keep the fragile, broken bones from shifting; part of him thought maybe it was a good think that he was such a packrat and saved them from the time he broke several fingers playing football while in junior high school.
"Elsewhere…" the reincarnated Princess murmured distantly.
"Tell us what happened," Elizabeth pleaded as she sat on the foot of the bed across from Serena, the bathroom's first aid kit in her hands. Setting the kit down on the mattress beside her, she opened it and carefully pulled Serena's legs towards her, placing the blonde's small feet on her lap. With gentle fingers the red-haired young woman carefully removed the wounded blonde's penny loafers, mindful of the injured ankle the smaller girl had.
"I went home to get it cleaned up for the obvious reason," Serena started with a sigh. She concealed a wince as Elizabeth gently pulled off the shredded knee-high socks, which had at one time been a pristine white and now clung to the many small lacerations of her shins and calves. Resolutely she continued in as steady a voice as possible despite her pain so not to worry them. "While I picked up the mess waiting for me, Jack came home and demanded his dinner. When I started, the Scouts called me on the communicator to come to a fight. Jack heard and told me I'm not allowed to go and said he would show me what would happen if I ever disobeyed him again."
"What did he do?" The red-head asked in worry, picking a cotton ball out of a bag with a pair of long medical tweezers and opening the brown bottle of peroxide; after carefully saturating a cotton ball with its contents, she set the peroxide bottle on the linen chest at the foot footboard of the bed. Elizabeth carefully shifted the long medical tweezers in her hand, brushing the saturated cotton ball over the small lacerations, watching the applied liquid suddenly fizz into small white bubbles, indicating it was actively cleaning and sterilizing any germs that might have seeped into the wounds. At the slightest cringe of pain and hiss of breath from the blonde, the taller girl murmured soft apologies.
"He slapped me a bit, threw me against the wall and onto the floor. When I feel it felt like I broke my wrist, but I guess it was just my fingers," she said wryly, wincing as the red-headed girl gently patted her wounded legs dry with a soft hand towel. "But afterwards I finally got him to leave and I ran to the fight. Of course, it wasn't that easy -- on the way there I was ambushed by Thunder. She sent these two monsters that ambushed me from behind, and started to strangle me, hence the marks on my neck. But I got them off with the Crystal."
"Did you call the scouts or Darien?" Andrew asked in shock, his fingers gently probing her out-of-socket shoulder. He cringed in sympathy and when she lifted her head, turning her blue eyes to him with weary resignation, he shifted, rising from the bed for better leverage as Elizabeth carefully placed a mouth guard from the first aid kit in Serena's mouth; carefully he gripped the elbow of her dislocated arm and placed his other hand on her shoulder. Before she could automatically tense up to brace herself for the pain, he suddenly lifted and twisted her arm, pressing her arm close to her body; the shoulder was relocated with a loud, sickening pop.
They waited for her to regain her breath before she continued; she spat out the guard into Elizabeth's waiting hand and took a deep, calming breath before she finished in a hoarse voice. "No. I kept on going to the fight. When I got there they were weakened, hurt, and I killed the monster. But as soon as I finished they started going off on me and demanded that I give up the throne, my crystal, and my position in the group as both leader and Scout. They said that I was weak, foolish, clumsy, and stupid. It just reminded me about Jack… I detransformed and began to walk away. They must have seen because they started to come after me and shout at me to come back."
"Oh, Serena!" Elizabeth whimpered, biting her lower lip in sympathy.
"You are never going back to them. You're going to stay here with us, and we are going to protect you," growled the Arcade owner as the red-head carefully wrapped the injured blonde's sprained ankle.
"No!" Serena protested, unwilling for the two who cared so much for her to further sacrifice their lives for her. "I couldn't have you guys give up your lives just to protect me."
"Serena we love you -- we were cousins in the Silver Millennium and we will continue to keep you safe no matter what from now on, we protect our own, right, Andy?" The taller girl stated, giving the blonde Princess a look that told her there would be no arguing.
"Yes," Andrew growled protectively, closing his medical kit.
"But…" once more the Princess tried futilely to protest.
"No buts, my daughter! You are going to avoid them and let them think of their actions to you," reprimanded a familiar voice. Beams of moonlight shown through the partially opened blinds of the guestroom and condensed into a 'holographic projection' of Queen Serenity in her mini-fairy form standing on the desk, looking just as gorgeous and radiant as she was back in the Silver Millennium.
"Queen Serenity!" Andrew and Elizabeth's voices echoed in unison, the blond Arcade owner rising to his feet and bowing to the spirit of the monarch; although she was unable to rise without jostling the Princess, the red-head bowed from her sitting position on the foot of the bed.
"Mother!" Serena's eyes were wide in shock at the miniature 'hologram' of her mother, shifting to try and stand; she only stilled when the tiny monarch made a 'stay seated' motion with one tiny hand.
"Daughter, I saw everything they did, and it is an unforgivable act to go back on their oath. From this moment on planets: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto have no heirs. As well as my old advisors, Luna and Artemis… neither will any longer have the Moon's power supporting them," they had not expected her to be that drastic, but Andrew and Elizabeth knew it was for the best, and were given the duty to protect Serena. "My little Serena, you are the purest, sweetest, and most intelligent girl I could have wanted. It is time to show your true self not the facade you had this whole time. It's time for you to show and become yourself."
"Yes, Mother," the reincarnated Princess murmured, her voice thick with unshed tears at her mother's love for her.
"I will be here when ever you need me and I will be watching over you always," promised the tiny monarch, she form fading into beams of moonlight once more. "Good bye, my daughter. Good bye, General Andrew, Lady Elizabeth."
"Good bye, your highness," Elizabeth whispered, watching as the spirit vanished from sight. Truly, it was a great honor to be visited by the Queen's spirit…
The next morning, the Scouts and Darien arrived at Serena's house. As they knocked on the door, they heard someone fall. Moments later, when the door opened to reveal Serena's father they could see he had a black eye and was dressed in a sloppy manner.
"What do you want?" The messily clothed man demanded of them belligerently.
"We're here to see Serena? Is she in?" Amy asked, the most calm and polite of the bunch…and the first to recover of the sight of and the smell wafting from the man before them.
At the sound of his daughter's name the man became enraged, his voice raising into a slurred bellow, "Tell that whore she is to be home by four today or she is never allowed in this house again!"
With that statement, he slammed the door in their faces before any could speak, leaving the group to their puzzled looks.
AT THE ARCADE
"Hey! Wake up, Serena," cajoled Elizabeth as she peered down at her small blonde friend sleeping soundly on the guestroom's bed with piles of spare pillows gathered from around the apartment supporting her injured ankle and shoulder, with the petite girl covered with the white sheets and the soft, thick faded blue and white comforter.
"Hmm..." The sigh came from the sleepy girl as she groggily stirred and blinked sleepy blue eyes up at the red-head. "Yeah?"
"I need to check on your injuries," the taller girl informed the reincarnated Princess.
"Sure," the exhausted blonde agreed with a hearty yawn; before the smaller girl could help push the covers off of her, the taller girl had carefully pulled the covers down, pooling them at the foot of the bed. Turning on the lamp on the desk for better light to check on the injuries the blonde had sustained, the red-head was in for a shock for what was revealed to her green eyes.
"Serena!" Elizabeth gasped, her green eyes widening at the sight of the now flawless skin of the smaller girl's throat and healed cuts on her legs. "All your bruises and cuts are all gone! How can that be?"
"I've always healed fast," Serena reminded the older girl and smiled wryly, "I guess it pays to have Lunar blood in me, huh?"
Elizabeth was nodding in awed agreement as Andrew poked his head through the guestroom's door to check on them. "Say, Serena, would you like to help with the arcade if you feel up to it?"
"Sure," the small blonde agreed, wanting to repay him for the medical assistance and place to sleep. "Meet me downstairs in ten minutes then," Andrew replied with a relieved smile, happy she was bouncing back from the betrayal and injuries from last night.
Ten minutes passed and Serena tapped her reincarnated cousin on the shoulder to get his attention. The tall blonde looked down at her and saw she was dressed in one of the sets of clothes she left in the guestroom closet in case of an 'emergency' and had her hair up in her traditional buns, but with the streams braided and wrapped around the base of each bun.
"Hey Andy what would you like me to do?" The reincarnated Princess asked, adjusting the sleeves of her long sleeved pink button-up shirt that she wore over a white tee-shirt neatly tucked into a pair of faded blue jeans that clung to her slender hips, the rolled up cuffs revealing the penny loafers she wore for school.
"You can start by getting the tables wiped," the Arcade owner suggested, "The supplies are in the backroom where they always are." "Ok!" She turned on her heel and hurried to the backroom, where Elizabeth was tying on her apron. The small blonde gathered the cleaning supplies into the small blue plastic tub used for busing the tables. Picking up the small tub, she turned and was almost out of the backroom door, which was mostly out of sight of the front door of the Arcade due to one of the larger booths, when she heard the cheerful ding-ding of the bells over the door to announce customers entering.
"I wonder where Serena is?" Raye's voice carried the question back to the small blonde, who stared at the darkhaired girl in shock, her spine stiffening. "I wish we could find her," grumbled Lita, who rubbed at the back of her neck wearily.
Having heard this Serena snapped out of her shock, immediately stepping back into the backroom, ducking out of sight of the those she once called 'friends' and pulled Elizabeth aside. "I…I can't go out there," the shaken reincarnated Princess stammered.
Elizabeth frowned in worry as she looked out the still open door and saw why, her spine stiffening in anger, her voice becoming tight. "Serena, I want you to stay back here, okay? I'll get Andy to handle them."
"Thanks," the smaller girl whimpered, shakily setting the plastic tub back on the backroom's desk. Elizabeth gave her a reassuring hug before picking up the tub herself and heading out of the backroom and making a beeline for her older brother, who was working in the kitchen beside the backroom.
"Andy, they're here," Elizabeth hissed the warning, setting the tub of cleaning supplies on the counter beside the stove.
Hearing that warning, Andrew gave her a searching look that turned into a glare of sheer righteous outrage that could melt the oven he was in front of him as he took the plastic tub and headed for the kitchen's green swinging double doors. As he stepped out of the kitchen, the girls called him over to the table they normally sat at. He pretended not here them, cursing them in his mind seconds before he was tapped on his shoulder. Annoyed they couldn't take a hint, he looked over his shoulder to find Mina, Lita, and Amy staring at him in confusion.
"What can I get you?" Andrew asked as icily as he could, hoping they'd just go away and leave his family and business alone.
"Andy, what's wrong?" Mina asked, fluttering her eyelashes sweetly at her crush.
"My name is Andrew, not Andy. Now what can I get you?" He ground out, giving them an annoyed glare. He took the group's usual order and headed back into the kitchen as the girls went over to their usual booth, commenting on how rudely he treated them.
"Something's wrong with Andrew," Lita informed her friends as the trio sat down.
"What happened to Andy? What do you mean?" Asked Darien, concerned with the man who had been for the longest time his closest and only friend.
"Well when we called him Andy, he flipped out saying his name is Andrew. And to the second, he glared at us and spoke so coldly," replied a dejected Mina, depressed at how her crush had looked at them and the coldness in his voice.
"That doesn't sound like him... Something must be wrong. Maybe he knows where Serena is?" Suggested Michelle, trying to come up with a logical solution to the sudden rudeness of one of their long-time friends.
"Do you think he really could?" Replied Amara as she saw as Andrew came over with the drinks.
As he set the drinks before them, Raye asked in concern, "What's the matter?" "What's the matter? What's the matter?" He repeated the question, his voice derisive and mocking before he sneered at them in disgust.
"How about your betrayal to your oath and friendship? You wanna know something? Serena came over to my house at three in the morning -- she was tattered, bruised, bloody, and broken!" Everybody stared at him in shock. Satisfied, he turned away from them as though the sight of them was so disgusting he couldn't tolerate it. As he began to leave, Darien grabbed his arm.
"Where is she?" Darien asked the blond he'd considered his friend. "No where you need to worry about," Andrew retorted coldly. "She is safe, healed, and slowly adjusting. I'm now her protector."
"What?" Raye objected, rising to her feet. "How can you be her protector when you don't know what she is?!"
"I know more than you know, Mars," he hissed, emphasizing her planet's name.
"What?!" The dark-haired girl gasped in shock, recoiling at the fact he knew her alternate identity.
"How do you know this?"
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Much thanks to Beka for beta-ing this beyond my expectations.