Subject to Change

by EightofSwords

High school is hard enough for Sererna with only the jerkwad junior Darien to worry about. But when you add a naked transformation phase, a pyro, a genius with OCD, and REALLY short skirts – how’s a girl supposed to graduate!

32. Secret Admirers

Disclaimer: I do not own Sailor Moon or the song "Lonely Day" by Phantom Planet.

L

Subject to Change

Chapter Thirty-Two: Secret Admirers

L

The only time Tuxedo Mask had ever felt such a strong sense of shock from Serena was when Venus's chain had hit her head. Surely the same thing couldn't have happened again?

This was a different flavor of shock, though. Pain accompanied it, yes, but there was something hollow…disillusionment. That was what it was. Something Serena had believed in had been shot down like a dove with blood quickly staining its white feathers.

He suddenly became aware that he was chanting, "Please not Venus, please not Venus," barely audible over the wind whooshing past his ears.

Sailor Moon's sense abruptly hardened. He concentrated on it, feeling the fear and disbelief falling away from her like molted feathers. Beneath was a deep sense of calm and confidence, as unbreakable as diamond.

At that moment, Tuxedo Mask bounded down from the last rooftop to land precariously atop a school fence. Below him, in the middle of the road, two Senshi faced off. Venus versus Moon.

Venus's chain hissed back an forth like a snake's tongue, moving so quickly that it blurred.

But several lengths of the jeweled chain lay severed on the ground like worms. It didn't take long for Tuxedo Mask to figure out where they had come from. Sailor Moon held in her hand a glowing rod that looked like an elongated version of her tiara. With it she was batting the chain away every time it came within a foot of her, and each time she batted, a new section of chain was chopped off and clattered to the cement. An infuriated, wild Sailor Venus was lengthening her chain to make up for it, but Sailor Moon did not seem to tire, simply continuing to spin and duck and leap and whirl and chop. There was a strange glow radiating from her skin. Or maybe it was just the pool of moonlight that the two Senshi stood in.

Venus finally let out a roar and fell still, her chain slamming down into the ground and buckling into the asphalt. A huge crack slithered down the asphalt from where it had landed to the base of the fence spire Tuxedo Mask perched upon.

Sailor Moon also fell still, but her chest did not heave up and down the way Sailor Venus's did. She did not seem exerted at all. She stared hard at Venus, and Tuxedo Mask could finally spot a trembling in her hands as they hung at her sides. He also spotted a darkness on one side of her fuku; he leaned to one side to look more closely, but that was when everything exploded into motion.

Golden light sprayed from Venus's suddenly outstretched palms; Sailor Moon leapt, twisting into a mid-air backward somersault as the attack whooshed past beneath her, but even before her boots touched the ground again, Venus had sent little glowing golden hearts hurtling towards her.

Tuxedo Mask tensed, pushing off his perch and tearing toward Sailor Moon, but he knew it would be too slow –

Sailor Moon crouched in, hugging herself, and extended one arm, opening the palm wide. The golden grenades collided with her palm and splashed off in a rain of golden droplets.

Sailor Venus screamed rage and teleported away.

Tuxedo Mask snatched up Sailor Moon without even stopping and raced back up to the rooftops. Only then did he realize that Sailor Moon's transformation was flickering, her fuku fading into pink pajamas and then shimmering back to fuku again. And only then did he feel the warm, sticky liquid seeping into his glove as he cradled her head.

DAMN! In his head, he cursed both Serena and Sailor Venus, one for sneaking out and the other for hurting Serena AGAIN, and in the same spot, to cap it off!

But it was better this time, he assured himself. This time, he knew she could heal, this time he knew how to help her heal.

"Serena!" His half-crazed voice tried to wake her even as he located the mental rope and touched it gently. Her eyes fluttered open a little, as though pulled up by the rope.

"I'm sho grounda'," she slurred.

"You're so grounded?" Tuxedo Mask interpreted with an involuntary smile. It heartened him that she felt well enough to joke. "If not by me, then definitely by Lita. Look, Odango, stay transformed, okay?"

Serena nodded, her eyelids already shutting. "To heal," she mumbled, clumsy-tongued.

Tuxedo Mask waited until she had fallen back asleep to start moving again. Something felt slightly off-kilter about the way he moved while carrying her, and it took him a moment to pinpoint exactly what it was. The arm that she usually had cupped around his neck or gripping his lapel to steady herself was absent. He looked down and saw that the absent hand was occupied tightly gripping her transformation brooch.

Ah. His eyes cleared behind his mask. That explained how she had deflected Venus's last attack – the same way she had prevented Jupiter's lightning from frying her. Thank God for that brooch – even though it was the same item that tied Serena to this unhappiness in the first place.

By the time Tuxedo Mask reached home – or rather, the Tsukino house, he corrected himself – the bleeding on Sailor Moon's head had already stopped. This soothed him immensely, for a voice in the back of his head had wondered if perhaps her last healing had been only a fluke…

But it wasn't, and he bent awkwardly while still holding her to grapple with one of the stones lining the front walk. Serena had showed him that the spare key lay beneath it, and he used this to open the door quietly. With even more awkwardness than before, he tore off his cape with his teeth (since both hands were occupied with Serena) and spread it out over the living room sofa so that no blood would get on the fabric and lead to questions later.

Then he set Serena down on the sofa where he could keep an eye on her. He settled down on the floor beside it, folding up his leg so that he could rest his head on it and watch the head wound closely.

He wondered for a moment if he should detransform or not, then realized that if Serena's parents (or anyone else, for that matter) were to walk in, it would be better for them to see Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask camped out than Sailor Moon and one of Serena's male friends.

Speaking of which, when were Serena's parents coming home? Serena had mentioned something…he frowned, trying to remember…they had extended their trip and were now returning on Saturday.

Saturday. A jolt ran through him. That was soon. He hadn't given much thought to it before, but not being able to be with Serena basically 24/7 now seemed rather difficult. Aside from the fact that he'd gotten used to her always being there to talk to, there was the question of how they would keep her safe. Lita wouldn't be able to sleep over every night, and he certainly wouldn't be allowed to stay ANY night. But they couldn't leave her guarded only by her superprotective, spastic father.

A sigh escaped from his lips. It would probably be back to camping in the tree. But how long could that last? Until graduation? His or hers? Until college was over? What if one of them got a job far away? Until one of them got married? Somehow he doubted that Serena's husband would appreciate some guy watching her from outside her window. He certainly wouldn't, if it was him. How about until they were both too old for the Dark Kingdom could consider them a threat? Because that might be how long it was before the Dark Kingdom actually all out attacked.

He sighed again. There was too much to worry about, too much demanding his brain cells. He was tired of thinking…

Sleep lapped at his consciousness like the tide, and eventually it washed him away from the shore. His head nodded forward, nestling in the cove between Serena's neck and shoulder.

That night, his dreams of the princess were more vivid than they had ever been before.

L

The first thing Lita did when she woke up the next morning was sit up and check to make sure that Serena was still safe in bed.

She wasn't.

Immediately, Lita's thoughts flew to the conversation between she and Mina the night before. Mina had said she would leave Serena alone as long as she didn't fight with Darien against her. That meant Mina wouldn't have kidnapped Serena from her bed in the middle of the night.

Maybe Serena was downstairs. Maybe by some freak phenomenon of nature she had left her bed at five-thirty in the morning and gone downstairs to read the newspaper.

Yeah, right.

Lita checked the bathroom.

Then all the bedrooms.

Then the kitchen.

No Serena.

At last she accepted that she would have to tell Shields Serena was missing. He was, after all, as obsessed with Serena's safety as she was, even if he was motivated by less noble reasons.

So Lita went to the living room –

And found Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask.

The first thing she took in was how close they were. That alarmed her a little. But that concern was swept away like debris on a tidal wave when she saw the huge reddish-brown stain on Serena's fuku and the flaky reddish stuff gunked in her hair. She lost ten years off her life when she saw that.

She rushed towards Serena and saw that no, her chest was moving; she was still breathing. And when she bent closer to examine Serena's hair, she saw the wound had closed to a puckered scar that drew a sinister cross with the scar from Saturday.

Lita forced herself to go to the kitchen and start cooking breakfast before she did anything else. Serena would need lots of food to replenish her after all the energy she had expended to heal. But she really, really wished for a TV in the kitchen.

Because she was thinking.

Serena had been hurt again, clearly with Shields. The wound was the same, which probably meant that the weapon was the same: Sailor Venus's chain. And Sailor Venus would only have attacked Serena if she was with Shields.

She tried to reconstruct what might have happened. Serena had come home last night without Darien; he had gone somewhere with business to take care of. Serena had seemed jumpy all evening (she berated herself. That should have clued her in that something was up! If only she hadn't been so preoccupied wondering if Shields really was Endymion!), but Lita knew that she must have been at house until at least eleven because Lita had still been awake at that time and listening to Serena breathe.

But at some time she must have left the house and encountered Sailor Venus. Perhaps Venus had confronted Shields and Serena had jumped in front of an attack meant for him. It was definitely the sort of thing Serena would do.

"I'll make the pancakes if you want to go get changed."

Lita nearly leapt out of her skin. As it was, she spun around and nearly knocked over the skillet. There was Darien, standing in the kitchen doorway in his uniform as though nothing were wrong.

She turned back to the stove. "No thanks," she snarled.

"Okay." Darien shrugged. "I'll go wake Serena up then – "

"No!" Lita spun again, her spatula flying out like a sword. "I'll get Serena – "

A yawn interrupted her. Serena shuffled in wearing her pajamas. "I'm up, I'm up," she said distractedly. One hand was gingerly pressing against her temple, fingering the dried blood and closed scab. Unhappiness marred her face.

Shields pulled her hand away from the wound. "Don't pick at it."

Serena looked up at him as he pulled her hand away, and some silent conversation seemed to pass between them. Her expression was apprehensive, his was fierce; then they seemed to trade, Serena's gaze intense and Darien's exasperatedly despairing. At last he shook his head and pushed her hair out of her face.

"Don't let there be a next time," he said, finally speaking aloud.

Lita was squeezing the spatula in her hand very hard. "Someone's still waiting to hear what happened this time. What in the heck was Serena doing outside alone? Or did you call her outside?" She directed this last accusingly at Shields.

Darien wanted to know the answer to why Serena had been outside without permission as well, but he could see Serena retreating into her shell at Lita's agitation. Her eyes were falling toward her hands.

They weren't going to get any answers unless they calmed down – Serena may be used to a furious, demanding Darien, but this was her first encounter with an angry Lita. He wondered if maybe her experience with the other angry Senshi was making her shy away from Lita like a horse accustomed to being whipped.

"How about Serena tells us the story after she gets dressed?" he said as lightly as he could. "She'll feel better after she gets all that gunk washed off."

Serena nodded quickly. "I'll be quick," she promised, and ran upstairs.

Darien bit the side of his cheek in thought, wondering if the benefits of Lita going upstairs to make sure Serena didn't relapse outweighed the risks. Before he could decide, Lita gave him a glare, tossed him the spatula, and headed up after Serena.

Lita seemed unusually hostile towards him today, he realized as he poured more batter into the skillet. But perhaps it was…you know. That time. In his experience, girls often became irrationally furious and homicidal during those days.

In fact, maybe it was magnified in Senshi. He had always thought Rei seemed particularly murderous on some days, more genocidal than homicidal, targeting not just a single male but the whole race of them. No girl he'd ever come across before had been quite that violent no matter what time of the month it was, but it seemed like Lita might come close.

Serena had never been that grumpy, though – well, except the time he ruined her dress at last Spring Fling – but let's not think about that, his mind said hastily. So maybe it wasn't a Senshi thing but just a homicidal girls thing. Although there were times when Serena just got extremely depressed. He'd never been exposed to those bouts of depression until he found out she was Sailor Moon, so he'd just put them down to her finally being able to reveal her true fears and anxieties about the Dark Kingdom to someone. But maybe they were due to something else…

Well, he really didn't want to think any more about the subject, he decided. He'd just shut up and be grateful he didn't have to deal with it.

He smiled a little thankfully to himself, then tuned back into the real world. And abruptly realized that he was standing in the middle of a cloud of smoke.

BEEEEEEEEEEP. BEEEEEEEEEEEEP. BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP! The smoke alarm was shrieking like the world was ending. He swore and yanked the pan, which held the flaming pancake, off the burner and dropped it with a CLANG! into the sink. He rushed to turn on the faucet and then reached up to bonk the smoke alarm.

But it was too late. The damage had already been done. He could hear Lita thundering down the stairs, and the stack of pancakes she'd already made were coated in soot from the smoke. Totally inedible, except for maybe by Sailor Mars. He'd certainly enjoy stuffing them down her throat –

"WHAT IN THE HECK DID YOU DO?" Lita burst into the kitchen. Her eyes alighted on the steaming pan in the sink, the blackened stack of pancakes. "THAT's why I didn't want you to make the pancakes!" She snatched up the plate of ruined pancakes and shoved them in his face. "See what you've done to them? See?"

"I'm not blind, Kino, I can see them!" Darien pushed the plate away from his face, his anger was mounting. That time or not, Lita was really making him mad… "I burned them, I'm sorry. Sue me."

"I'd rather punch you!" Lita snapped. "These were for Serena's breakfast! Are you trying to ruin her life?"

Silence filled the room like a lake, very deep, very cold.

At last, Darien said icily, "Excuse me?"

Lita's fiery green eyes maintained contact with his for a long moment, as though deciding whether or not now was a good time for this confrontation. Her eyes flicked to the stairs – Serena was tugging the tangles from her washed hair and putting it up, so she would not hear.

"Well?"

The ill-veiled fury in Darien's voice stirred Lita into action. How dare he act like the offended party when this was HIS fault!

"Don't 'well' me!" she snapped, her fingers shaking with rage. "I want you to leave. Right now!"

Once upon a time, before her parents died, they had taken her on a camping trip in the country. She remembered begging them to let her sleep in her own tent instead of sharing theirs. They had bought her a frilly pink princess tent that she had seen on TV, and she had been excited as a kitten with yarn to sleep in it. But that night in the darkness beneath the roof of that tent, she had felt too choked and suffocated. So she crept out of it with her sleeping bag and Mr. Cuddly (her teddy bear) to sleep outside under the starry sky.

But as she had stared up at the huge, stretching expanse of velvety blue-black, it was hardly more comforting than the smothering darkness of the tent. The sky was like an enormous bowl swallowing the whole world, pressing down on her. So dark that even the stars faded.

And that was what Darien's eyes were like right now. So dark and intense that they could swallow the world and extinguish every star in the sky.

His voice was ice when he spoke. "I trust you have a reason for this request?"

"Buddy, it's not a request." Blood pounded in Lita's ears as she forced herself to meet those dark, gaping eyes…it was as though his irises had bled and stained the white of his eyes. And he just kept standing there, staring at her and waiting, his hands shoved into his pockets like he was a normal teenage boy.

But he no longer even seemed human to her. No wonder Mina didn't trust him.

"Are you deaf?" she forced all the furious bravado she could into her voice. "I said out!"

"I'll consider it," said Darien, and his voice did not match his eyes at all. It was taut and cracking, shaking like a rotting rope bridge. "After you tell me what the hell you think I've done to ruin Serena's life."

"You want an explanation?" demanded Lita. "Okay. I'll give you an explanation. Serena keeps getting hurt because of you. Luna and the Senshi think Serena's been too friendly with Tuxedo Mask, she gets kicked out. Sailor Venus finds out Sailor Moon's allies with you, she pulls out the whip. Last night, Serena leaves the house for you, her heads gets cracked open again. You can't tell me there's not a pattern there!"

Lita stared hard at Darien's inscrutable expression. She had only known him for a few weeks, and thus she did not know, as Motoki and Serena and even Asanuma knew, that when Darien's face went totally expressionless was when he was feeling the most emotion. Emotion that was so strong that he didn't know what to do with it, so he hid it.

So Lita saw only his unaffected expression, and it spurred her to high levels of rage.

"You don't even CARE!" Her voice was half venom and half disbelief. Infuriated sparks practically shot from her eyes. They were already leaking from her fingertips.

"Shut up," Shields said quietly.

"You don't even care how much danger you've put her in! "

"Shut up," he said again, louder.

"You don't give a DAMN about her – "

"SHUT UP!"

Lita stumbled backwards at the intensity of his glare. But she glowered right back.

"I protected Serena for MONTHS," Darien snarled. "Before you even knew that she existed!"

"Well, I know now!" bellowed Lita back. "And you know what else I know? I know that Mina has something against you and that Serena's getting caught in it."

"Exactly," said Shields.

Lita backpedaled; why was he agreeing with her?

"Venus already knows that Serena's close to me," he continued. "She'll go after Serena no matter what – I don't know what lies she's dripped in your ear, Lita, but Venus hates Serena. Whether it's because of me or not, I don't know, and it doesn't really matter anyways because she's already decided to hate Serena. It doesn't matter to her whether I'm near Serena or not. But it will matter to Serena's survival because there's no one who can protect Serena any better than I can.

"Serena needs more than just protection from youma and rogue Senshi. And you won't know when because Serena won't tell people when she needs something. But I've been with her from the beginning, and I owe it to her to stay. And I'm not going to go back on that just because YOU don't want to share her."

There was a long pause as they each digested what he had said.

Finally, Lita said, "You know what? I have two problems with that."

"One," she lifted her index finger. "You can't protect Serena. She protected you on Saturday. You were there, and she still got her head cracked open. Actually, she got it cracked open because of you – " Darien flinched – "But we'll get back to that."

"Two," she lifted a second finger. "If you're so essential to Serena's survival, why are you going to a school in America next year?"

This time, the silence was not a lake.

It was an ocean. The Arctic Ocean.

And when Darien finally spoke, his voice was a glacier.

"Did your boyfriend tell you that?"

"Don't bring him into this," Lita warned, but Darien cut her off.

"No, tell me, Kino, what else did my best friend spill my guts to you about? Did he tell you where I grew up? Did he tell you what happened to my parents? Come on, go right ahead, share with the class what Loose-Lipped Lover Boy told you so I can know how hard to kick his ass."

"Speaking of asses, you're making one out of yourself," said Lita coolly. "I saw the papers on your desk, moron. Isn't it ironic that you told Motoki, whose ass you're so eager to kick, that you're going away, but you haven't told Serena, who you're so apparently determined to protect?"

Darien's eyes were hard chunks of sapphire; his lips moved to slap her with some doubtlessly sharp retort, but then suddenly his eyes slid past her, focusing on a point behind her shoulder.

She turned to follow his dismayed gaze –

And felt her stomach drop.

There stood Serena on the stairs.

L

"Rei Hino, where is your rosary?" Sister Leed stopped her in the chapel during morning mass.

Ino Umake stepped on Rei's foot as she pushed past her into the hallway. "Satan took it when they were together last night," she said under her breath. The girls around her all tittered.

Rei's fists clenched.

"Miss Hino, I asked you a question."

"Stop, you guys, didn't you hear her grandpa's dying?"

"That's what you get when you worship a tree instead of God!"

Laughter.

Blood.

Roaring in her ears.

"Miss Hino – REI HINO!"

L

Serena's books had fallen at her feet. One folder still remained in her slack hands, and a leaf of paper fluttered down from it like a dying dove.

"Darien, you're…" Lita saw Serena swallow and knew that it was tears that the little blonde had just forced back down. "You're going to school in America! That's so awesome!"

She beamed a smile brighter than any smile Lita had ever seen in her life. But her lips trembled and her eyes were too shiny.

Lita flicked a glance at Darien. All color had fled from his face, and if she hadn't been so concerned for Serena she might have laughed in his face. Serves the bastard right for keeping this from her. As it was, she merely swept past him and reached through the stair railing to pick up Serena's dropped things.

Serena started as though from a spell as Lita nudged her ankle with a textbook. "Oh! Sorry – Lita – oh, you don't have to do that, I've got them, sorry – " She took the book and fell to her knees, quickly scooping up her things. She held them tight against her chest, almost as though shielding herself. Her eyes looked anywhere but at Darien, though she still wore that very bright smile.

She took a step down, but must have missed the step, for suddenly she was tumbling head over heels down the staircase with a series of ominous thunks.

Darien was at the foot of the stairs in a blink, just in time to catch Serena two stairs from the bottom. Lita rushed forward, elbowing Darien back, but he turned a look of pure venom on her. She flinched away despite herself. Then she bashed herself for giving in to that son of a (CENSORED).

"Are you okay, Serena?" she demanded before Shields could.

If Serena had been an anime character, there would have been stars dancing around her head and her eyes would have been swirling. She didn't answer Lita's question, apparently trying to reinflate her lungs. Her eyes were wide and frightened.

Darien had a hand placed against her neck and was breathing calmly while he stared straight at her – in, out, in out. It seemed to help; her shell-shocked eyes focused on him and she began breathing again, in time with his inhalations and exhalations.

At last, Darien stopped breathing like that and returned to normal. "Are you okay?" he repeated Lita's question.

"I – I - I – " Serena made several attempts to speak before getting it right. She gave them a shaky smile. "I - I think so?"

Darien let out an equally shaky breath. His hand snaked up from the side of her neck to the base of her neck, tangling in her damp hair as though reassuring himself she was still there. Then he suddenly seemed to realize what he was doing and snatched his hand back. It took place in an instant, so that Lita didn't even see it and Serena wondered if she'd only imagined it.

A flush rose in her cheeks, and in Darien's as well. But then, even as he stared back at her, the color drained again from her face leaving it pale as flour. Her eyes fell from his and darted around, as though trying to look at anything but him.

Lita snatched the opportunity. Shoving past Darien, she slung Serena's arm over her shoulders and lifted her to her feet. She led Serena down the stairs and shot an icy glare over her shoulder at Darien.

"You missed your cue to leave."

At this, Serena's head snapped up. "Lita?"

"Shields was just leaving," Lita answered loudly. She sent Darien another poisoned glare. "What are you waiting for, a kiss goodbye?"

Serena stepped away from Lita. "Why is Darien leaving?" she asked, but directed the question at Darien himself.

"I'm not," said Darien. "I'm staying here." His eyes bored into Serena with an intensity that spoke of more than just the present.

"You're not going to America?" she breathed, disbelief shielding her hope.

Darien shook his head. "No."

"But – why not?" Serena couldn't believe she was arguing with him about it, what would she do if he DID go but he had to take this opportunity it was huge it was once in a lifetime he DESERVED it but oh she didn't want him to leave –

It was now Darien's turn to avoid her eyes. "It's…too early," he said. "I still have a year of high school left to go."

"Oh, like you don't already have all the credits you need," countered Serena, a little sardonically.

"Maybe I don't want to leave my friends," said Darien.

Serena's mouth opened. It closed. She looked surprised. And teary.

This gave Darien a chance to look at Kino. "Maybe next time you'll get the whole story before you start spreading rumors."

Lita stared back unabashed. "It doesn't matter to me if you're in America or Japan, you're not staying near Serena."

"What?" Serena's eyebrows flew up. "Where does that come from?"

Darien cut in. "Lita believes that I'm the reason Sailor Venus has been pursuing you so rabidly."

Serena looked at her friend. "But Lita, Darien wasn't even there last night!"

Again Darien cut in before Lita could speak. "Neither of us know exactly what happened last night, Odango."

Lita speared Darien with an incredulous look. "You don't?"

"I felt Serena transform," Darien said. Lita's eyebrows furrowed, and she opened her mouth, so he hurriedly explained, "Serena and I can feel each other transform, we don't know how."

Lita's lips pursed. "Why don't I have that?"

"We don't know," Darien repeated. "But I followed the feeling and found Odango fighting Sailor Venus – speaking of which," he said, a little pride welling up in him, "you were running her in circles, Odango. She didn't know what to do."

"Thanks," said Serena sheepishly. "I really can't remember much of it, though."

"Well, you were still bleeding pretty heavily then – "

"Wait, you're getting ahead of me again!" Lita stopped them furiously. "Shields, shut up. Serena, start from the beginning. What were you doing out of the house alone in the first place."

"What were you thinking?" Darien demanded.

"If you don't shut up, I will MAKE you shut up," Lita warned an unimpressed Darien. "Let her talk."

Serena was biting her lip when they returned their attention to her. She also eyed them apprehensively. Darien could practically see the gears working in her head. "You won't like why I left…" A little iron entered her spine; she straightened a little. A confidence like the kind that had graced Sailor Moon's face last night shone out from Serena's now. "So I won't tell you," she decided. "You'll just have to trust my judgment."

Before they could explode on her, she continued quickly but calmly, "Suffice it to say that when I went back out onto the street, I ran into Sailor Venus."

"Well, that sounds casual," muttered Darien.

"No, I mean I actually ran into her." Serena bounced her hands off one another to demonstrate. "Like I usually run into you on the corner – BAM!"

"Okay, okay," Darien interrupted her. "Why didn't you run?"

"Well, I was going to," said Serena thoughtfully. "But then – well, I don't know, I thought that if I kept running away from her, I was never going to, you know, find common ground with her. Or at least find out why she hates me so much."

"She doesn't hate you, she hates HIM." Lita pointed at Darien.

Darien and Serena looked at her.

"She cornered me, hit me in the head with her chain twice, and threw me on the sidewalk," Serena said bluntly. "I'm pretty sure she hates me, Lita."

Lita fell silent, but the first fissures of uncertainty were crumbling her resolute expression. "Did she say anything to you?"

"I asked her why we were fighting with each other. I mean, I thought we were battling for the same thing…" Serena's voice trailed off. "But she says it isn't the Senshi's job to protect everyone from the Dark Kingdom. She said that if she had already found the princess, she would let the whole Dark Kingdom loose on the planet."

"Are – are you sure you weren't dreaming?" Lita still could not erase the earnestness of Mina at the mall from her memory, nor her incredible sadness. "Maybe hallucinating or something?"

Serena looked at Lita gently. She seemed to understand what she was thinking. "I wish I had been," she said. "It would have been one of my nicer nightmares."

Darien snickered a little at this, albeit bitterly.

"But…" Serena's hand drifted to her scarred temple again. "This wasn't a dream." She sighed. "Anyway, she hit me with her chain again, I transformed, and after that, we basically just fought. Oh!" She clapped her hands. "My new tiara turned into a sword for me! I like that thing! And I got to chop her chain up a bit, and then she used some other attacks on me – but I guess you were there by then?"

Darien nodded and took up the storytelling. "Her attacks just bounced off you – you were holding your brooch?" At Serena's nod, he continued. "And she got mad and disappeared. Then I came and brought you back home. The end."

"So she lied." Lita's words were inaudible to them, but they saw her fists clench at her sides. She stood abruptly. "I've got to go – for a second – I'll see you at school."

"Lita?" Serena rose in concern, but Darien caught her arm.

"Let her go," he said, watching Lita intently as she hurried out of the door. His eyes flicked to Serena. "She's dealing with something. She'll be okay."

Serena sank back into her chair again. "She feels connected to Mina. Maybe we shouldn't have told her."

Darien did not see how Lita could feel a connection to someone who had nearly killed her best friend on two separate occasions, but maybe it was a girl thing.

"Que sera, sera," he said. "If she likes Mina that much, she'll go join her. In which case she's not worth your time anyways."

Serena flicked a glance up at him. "You're surprisingly heartless for a guy who throws red roses around," she murmured.

Darien grunted. "A guy saves you from bleeding to death and you call him heartless. That's gratitude for you."

"I am grateful." Serena leaned forward and hugged him tightly. This time, he didn't even flinch at her proximity, which he decided must mean he was getting used to Serena's impulsive displays of affection.

Serena pulled back a little to look up at him. "You've saved my life two times in the past two days, you know that?"

"Well, three if you count your stair tumble, but who's counting?" Darien smirked down at her.

"Ha ha." Serena leaned agains him again. "Y'know, I'd like to save you for once."

"Well, sorry, Odango. Aside from Venus's whip, the only near-death experiences I've had are the ones caused by you."

"Nuh-uh!" Serena protested.

"Hmm, let's count them, shall we?" Darien tapped his fingers. "That poisoned pork bun at orientation, then the flying shoe incident, then when you told your dad I was your boyfriend so he'd chase me with his gun, then, of course, Spring Fling, and then that other shoe incident – "

"Ah, those were the days." Serena sighed reminiscently. Inside, she thought of all the times Darien had saved her, and she was determined to give back – somehow.

"Yes, the attempted homicide heydays." Darien rolled his eyes. During their revolution, they spotted the clock. "Whoah!" He jumped up, and Serena nearly toppled to the floor.

"What?"

"It's nine o'clock!"

"OH MY GOD!"

L

"And here I thought the two of you had renounced your irresponsible ways." The principal sighed behind his desk. "I hadn't heard a peep of protest about either of you in such a long time. I must say, I really am disappointed – especially in you, Mr. Shields. I'm quite sure tardiness is not tolerated in American colleges."

"I'm sure it's not," agreed Darien solemnly. Serena swallowed a smile. Trips to the principal's office with Darien were always amusing. He could walk the principal like a dog.

"Ahem. Well." The principal coughed. "Of course you've sent your forms to Dr. Ludisae?"

"No, sir."

"Excellent, excellent," said the principal, straightening his papers before him. Then his head snapped up. "Wait! What?"

"I said, no, sir, I haven't sent Dr. Ludisae the forms," Darien enunciated clearly.

The smile had vanished from Serena's feelings. A cold knot was instead forming in her stomach. Darien really should go to America –

"B-but whyever not?" The principal sputtered. "How could you – Darien, this is an extremely rare opportunity! How can I impress that on you enough? This is the FIRST time any student in Japan has EVER been offered this chance! Everything is being paid for, you'll be in a country with INFINITE opportunities for a young man of your talents, you'll be learning from the best – "

Darien would be lying if he said that he did not feel a twinge as he listened to the principal. To go to America, to be a student there – it had been his ultimate ambition in middle school. His walls had been plastered with posters of American colleges – Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Columbia. The dream had faded under the intense glare of Tuxedo Mask's arrival. But he had pored over Dr. Ludisae's brochures a dozen times by now, and the Yale campus was magical and beckoning in a way Tokyo University's would never be, and the classes he could take…they had things he'd never even heard of before. And over the summer he could get an internship anywhere he wanted –

All the while feeling those familiar tugs of Serena transforming? And not being able to rush to help her? What if he felt her slowly dying again, as he had felt her that first time Venus had hit her? He would be too far away to make any difference. How would he feel then? How would he live with himself? There were no classes at Yale to teach you how to live after you felt your superhero partner die because you weren't there for them.

He looked at the principal. "I have my reasons, sir."

The principal looked away from Darien. "Fine," he said. "But the both of you have detention today with Miss Lanai."

Darien and Serena both looked up in alarm. "Sir – "

"And that is FINAL!" The principal slammed his pen down. "Hopefully, Mr. Shields, you will use the time to reflect on and, if you're as smart as Dr. Ludisae believes you to be, reconsider your decision."

He picked up his pen again and began to write. Clearly, he wanted to hear no more from them.

Was there no winning? He gave up a chance to go to Yale so that he could protect Tokyo, for God's sake! But did anyone appreciate that? No, of course not.

With a huff, Darien shoved his chair back. As he and Serena exited the office, the bell rang. They broke into a run. The last thing they needed were MORE detentions.

L

You were Jupiter, and you were my lieutenant and my best friend. My sister. I trusted you more than anyone.

A load of bull. That was all it had been. A big fat pile of crap. Oh, Mina had trusted her all right – trusted her to be stupid enough to buy her lies!

I trust you more than anyone, sis. Lie number one!

No, I won't hurt Serena unless she's with HIM. Numero dos!

Not even Luna and the other Senshi know this. Yeah, fat chance. They were probably the ones who told her what to say. And all that stuff about Endymion beign the princess and Darien being Endymion – whatever. That was probably a load of crock, too. The only girl Darien would kill was Rei or Mina herself. She couldn't believe she'd let herself get taken in by all that crock.

Worse than her self-contempt was how used she felt. How violated. All Venus had to do was use the word "sister" to make Lita believe her every word. Venus had reached into her and caressed her deepest, most sacred desire. Now that part of her that should have remained pure and bright felt dirty and polluted by the lies it had eagerly eaten.

It was a throwback to her middle school days, when she was naïve enough to believe the sweet nothings boys would whisper in her ear. The things she had let them do…

A square of paper landed on her desk. Lita's head jerked up; she stared at it as though it were a frog that had suddenly hopped onto her textbook. She glanced around but everyone, including Serena, was reading intently.

She unfolded the note.

Are you okay?

Lita recognized Serena's chubby letters and looked up. Serena now gazed worriedly back at her, mouthing the question that had been on the note.

She suddenly remembered something. The first time she'd ever seen Tuxedo Mask. She'd been in that alley, fighting with that guy, and Shields has jumped down to help her out. She'd taken care of it herself, but still, a sudden spring of awareness burbled up inside her. Shields had gone out of his way to defend her that night. A girl he didn't know. Would Venus have stopped for her? No. Would Serena? Most definitely. And so would Motoki. And so would Asanuma, and so would Buji, bless his little heart.

Lita suddenly realized that there was a whole line of protection surrounding her. A veritable Great Wall of China. How could she have been ignorant enough to think she wasn't part of a family? How could she sit at lunch everyday and not realize just how much she had? She had so, so much more than she had ever dared hope for.

She wrote back to Serena, I'm great. And she meant it.

L

"Sit down." Sister Loring was from England. She had the severity of a queen. Rei hated her.

"Do not make me ask you again, Rei."

Her proper way of speaking reminded Rei of Mina. She sat.

"Possession of a lighter on campus, assault on a fellow student using said lighter, and disrespect towards a teacher – I trust I need not tell you how many school rules you have broken?"

"This would be a really sucky school if I'd spent five years here and couldn't count, Sister."

"Please watch your language, Rei. You are in the presence of our Lord at all times."

"Then the Lord knows that Ino was talking shit about my grandfather."

"What did I tell you about language, Rei?" There was a definite edge in Sister Loring's voice now. "Witnesses said that your attack was unprovoked."

"Witnesses hate me," retorted Rei. ""But you know what, so do you, so why am I wasting my breath? Just give me my punishment and let's get this over with. If there is one ounce of Christian mercy in your Jesus-loving heart, you'll expel me."

"And you wonder why the other girls will not talk to you."

Rei's eyes flashed. She lunged to her feet. "I know EXACTLY why they don't talk to me. And even if I didn't, I wouldn't give a damn, because you know what? I don't have to put up with their shit, just like I don't have to put up with yours."

"Do not walk out that door, Rei!"

Rei didn't just walk out of it, she slammed it behind her.

Sister Loring bolted up and ran after her, yanking the door open. "Rei, if you insist on leaving, give me that lighter first – "

Rei spun around, and she was smiling. "But Sister, I didn't use a lighter."

Sister Loring's brows furrowed.

Rei's smirk grew wider. "The fire came from Satan."

L

Darien had, as usual, beaten Serena to the numbers. So had Asanuma, and he remembered his memo to self yesterday: Ask Asanuma about Miss Lanai.

"Hey, Asanuma." He crossed over to Asanuma's number. "What'd Miss Lanai come out here for yesterday?"

"Oh, that?" Asanuma had found a piece of gravel and was drawing in the asphalt idly with it. "She found someone who wanted to buy one of the things I did in class."

"Whoah." Darien's eyebrows rose of their own volition. He hadn't expected that. Of course, his instinct was to be suspicious of anything Miss Lanai did, but Asanuma would probably go off on him like grenade if he said anything. But he could believe that someone wanted to buy Asanuma's work. That red painting, though highly disturbing (much like the paintings of Lanai herself) had shown some serious talent. "That's awesome, man. Who bought it?"

Asanuma shrugged off both Darien's praise and his question but grinned a little. "Oh, some person."

"Gee, think you could curb your enthusiasm a little?" Darien's voice was wry. Asanuma's grin turned sheepish. "How much did you get for it?"

"A lot, actually. More than enough to rent a huge limo to take me, myself, and I to prom. Oh, and eat a romantic candle-lit Italian dinner before that."

Darien made a stab at being sympathetic. He was a guy, so it didn't work very well. "You could go with someone other than Rei, you know. There's all those freshmen who like you."

Asanuma's smile grew ever more sardonic. "Unlike you, Darien, I am not a cradle robber."

That hit Darien's sensitive chord. "For God's sake!" he snapped. "For the last time, Serena's only a year younger than us!"

Asanuma's eyes widened. "So you finally admit it!" He whooped gleefully and plunged his hand down his shirt.

Sound shocking? Definitely. Darien stared at Asanuma in a mixture of horror and fascination as the blonde rooted around in his own shirt. So this is what happens when hormones get too bottled up.

After minutes of strange-looking action, Asanuma finally yanked something out of his shirt. It was square and black.

"I knew wearing this thing would pay off someday!" he exclaimed triumphantly. He popped it open, and it spat a cassette tape into his hand. "This baby's gonna make me thousands! What should I call it – Darien's Scorching Love Confession? Maybe I should incorporate your couple name – Serien. No, Darena sounds better, don't you think?"

"What would sound good to me is the sound of my fist breaking your nose," Darien muttered. He thrust out a hand. "Fork it over."

"Over my dead body!" Asanuma stuffed the cassette back down his shirt. "There. Reach for it there, if you dare, Dare-Bear!"

"I'm NOT reaching down your shirt. You'd enjoy it too much." Darien stuffed his hands in his pockets, then turned to squint at the locker room. "WHERE is Odango?"

"What an intense glare!" Asanuma followed Darien's gaze. "You know, Dare, if you keep staring at the girls' locker room like that, people are gonna start spreading word that you're a pervert." He grinned. "Namely, me."

"And people will tell you that it takes one to know one."

"Touché," Asanuma conceded. "Why's Serena taking so long?"

"How should I know?"

"Because you stalk her."

"I don't stalk her!"

"Fine, you glue yourself to her side 24/7." Asanuma rolled his eyes. "Speaking of which, take a little friendly advice from a friend – "

"Who else would friendly advice come from?" Darien muttered.

" – you might want to give her some space."

This got Darien to look away from the locker room.

"I mean," elucidated Asanuma under Darien's sharp gaze, "I know how tight you guys are and everything. But you've been, like, ALWAYS THERE these past couple weeks. And yeah, I know Serena's a people person and all, but haven't you noticed she's a little…not herself lately?"

Darien nodded jerkily. Of course Serena wasn't herself; she was worried about saving the world, dying, and going to hell!

"Maybe something else is causing it, I don't know." Asanuma held up his hands in a peace gesture. "But I think when people are constantly around other people without any alone time, they start losing sight of who they are. You need a little mirror time, you know? To look at who you are, think about what you're doing."

Darien's expression was unreadable. Asanuma knew this meant he had gotten through to him a little.

"Look, Darien," he said. "You of all people know that when Serena's around people, all her thoughts are concentrated on them. On making sure they're not sad, on finding ways to make them happy. Not on herself. Yeah, that's what makes Serena who she is. But I think that at the same time it makes her lose sight of what SHE wants. And that's one of the most defining features of a person, what they want. It's what drives them to do the things they do."

He paused and looked at Darien.

Darien met his eyes thoughtfully. "Go on," he said. "I'm listening."

Asanuma sighed in relief. "Well, anyway, you and Lita have been kind of crowding her lately. Not out of any ill intentions, but just because you're both so protective of her. The problem is, I think that you guys constantly being there is making Serena lose focus of herself. No offense, but you're both kind of needy."

Darien grimaced a little. He'd never really thought of it that way before. He and Lita were similar in a lot of ways – both orphans, both living on their own and not exactly social butterflies – it was probably a big chunk of the reason they didn't get along so well. Like poles of a magnet repel each other. But unlike him, she probably wouldn't react quite as peacefully if Asanuma called her "needy" to her face.

"So, anyways," Asanuma concluded, "All that tiem you guys are with her, Serena puts all her energy and thoughts toward you guys, and doesn't have that time to ruminate on herself. Which means she doesn't know herself well enough anymore to know what she wants. Which means she doesn't have a motivation." He grinned a litte. "Of course, this is all just theoretical."

"Of course." Darien rolled his eyes, trying to appear nonchalant, but inside he was bothered. Why didn't he ever notice these things? He was smart! He had gotten a scholarship to an Ivy League American university! But somehow he never noticed these obvious things going on right in front of his face until his friends pointed them out to him. It made him feel insignificant and stupid and socially inept. The way he had always felt at the orphanage.

But he had learned nothing there if not how to cover those feelings up.

"First Motoki, now you," he said lightly. "Since when did you two become such psychology majors?"

"Motoki's a bartender," said Asanuma. "Psychology is a prerequisite. Me, I just picked some stuff up from moping."

Darien lifted an eyebrow in wordless inquiry.

"You'd be surprised how observant mopers are," Asanuma told him. "It's like you've put your life on hold. But instead of that annoying elevator music, you're listening to enraged punk rock." He shrugged. "And eavesdropping on other people's conversations. You keep trying to find a similarity to your situations in other people's lives so you can find what you did wrong…anyways, don't worry, I'm not turning into Dr. Laura."

He grinned at Darien. But it was still hollow; Darien could sense it as though it were his own; there was a Grand Canyon-sized chasm gaping within Asanuma.

But he wasn't hiding in it anymore. He was fighting hard to climb back out of it.

"Anyways!" Asanuma clapped his hands. "Where IS that Serena?"

"That's the million-dollar question, Itto!"

Darien and Asanuma both turned at the bark. Coach Etoukou bore down on them, clipboard in one hand and feathery pink pen in the other. "Tsukino stayed home without you, Shields?"

Darien missed the jab, his head snapping toward the locker rooms again. "She's still not here – ?"

"She wasn't in the locker room," offered one of the girls.

"Yeah, she was, I saw her," offered another. "But before the bell rang. I haven't seen her since then. Maybe she fell asleep!" A batch of giggles broke out.

Darien was barely listening. His feet had already catapulted him into motion; he pounded towards the locker room, only barely remembering to slow down enough that he didn't blur. His hand skimmed the air as he ran, groping blindly for the rope. Maybe it was his panic, but he couldn't find it – there was a feeling like a strand of cobweb brushing his arm, but that surely wasn't it –

"Serena!" he yelled, skidding to a stop in the girls' locker room. Peripherally, he noted that it was the mirror image of the boys', except that the girls had stalls to change in. "ODANGO!"

"Here! I'm here!" He heard scrabbling, then a stall door swung open. His heart nearly dropped in relief. "Sorry – Darien?"

Darien nodded, still recovering from the fright he'd had – Sailor Venus could have teleported in here – so could Zoicite, or that other general, or any of the youma – she's not safe anywhere, anywhere – then slowly, enough adrenaline cleared from his brain that he realized that he was standing in the girls' locker room.

"Oh," he said. "Oh. I'll – "

"Get out!" Serena finished for him, her face dangerously red.

He nodded vigorously and pivoted, then fled the locker room even faster than he's raced into it.

"Shields – I oughta – you – " Coach was sputtered when Darien emerged from that taboo place. The whole class gaped like a school of fish – except for Asanuma, who was mouthing, "Sweeeeeeeeeet!"

The blonde jumped forward. "Do not punish Dare-Bear, Etoukou-sama!" he exclaimed. "For he is a pioneer to a frontier where none of us have ever dared to set foot before! He should be venerated, not decapitated!"

"We – we – uh – we're going to be doing relays again this week," Coach managed numbly. Dare-bear was apparently out of the frying pan for now. "Get a move on, people, or I won't give you time for showers at the end – "

Darien started to follow, then belatedly realized what those marks on Serena's face had been. Automatically he turned back to wait for her, but Asanuma caught his arm.

He started to justify the need to ambush her. "She was crying – "

"And what are you going to do? Make her tell you why?" Asanuma shook his head. "She probably doesn't even know. You can't rationalize tears, Darien. They come, they rinse you off, they go. If people could make sense of what they were crying about, they wouldn't need to cry!"

And there was that dumb feeling again. Darien tried to shake it off with levity once more. "When did you turn into Mr. Miyagi?"

Asanuma tapped his eye. "I told you, Dare-Bear. Watching."

"Watching your mom's chick flicks, you mean," Darien muttered.

L

Serena had never been so grateful for separate changing stalls in her life. She raced into the locker room, then straight into a stall, throwing it shut behind her and locking it. Then she slid down to the floor with her back against the door.

Darien had to go to that school in America. He had to.

But he couldn't leave. He couldn't!

All morning – on the way to school, waiting for the principal to see them, while the principal talked about all the opportunities Darien would have – her mind had inflated its shock absorbers, blocking out any thoughts of what Darien leaving would be like but now, as girls ran screaming around in the locker rooms, racing each other to the mirrors and gossiping as they laced up their tennis shoes, that resolve was leaking out of her like air, and her mind opened slowly, flinchingly, to what if.

In the morning she would wake up – probably late – and race to school without running into anyone in the street. If she had forgotten to brush her hair, no one would tell her because he wouldn't be there to make fun of it. Much less to walk with her and help her study and give her a rose for each right answer, nor to make fun of her favorite boy band on the radio as they drove to school.

And when she got to school, she'd walk to class on her own. She'd trip over stuff a lot more; he wouldn't be there to warn her when there was a stray, slippery piece fo paper in her path. P.E. would certainly be lonely, too – she could still remember that cold, lonely class she'd spent when they were fighting for real and pretending the other didn't exist. That had been a whole two hours of wearing a smile so huge and fake that her cheeks had ached for an hour afterwards. Not to mention that it had passed more slowly than a train of slugs.

Lunch – she suddenly realized that she had only been eating lunch with Darien and Motoki and Numa for weeks instead of months or years. Only two months ago she had eaten lunch nowhere near Darien, but she couldn't for the life of her remember what she had done during those lunchtimes. Talked with Ami sometimes, but more often Ami was studying at lunch. And before that she had eaten with Molly and the girls…she could see herself, in her mind's eye, waving her arms wildly around as she talked about things that now she couldn't even remember. Pop stars? Movies? How much she wanted the new skirt she'd seen at the mall but her mom wouldn't buy it for her?

She felt contempt as she watched herself in her mind's eye. How childish she'd been. Shallow like a puddle.

An yet – what she did at lunch now, it wasn't any more mature. She sprayed food all over Asanuma and Darien and made fun of Lita and Motoki. But it felt complete. It felt like family. There was never the feeling of being looked down on, of being left out the way she had sometimes felt during lunches with Molly and her other friends.

Their family broke sometimes, like when Asanuma had left them for a while, but they were something whole, something she was an integral part of.

If Darien left, there would be a gaping hole in that whole, though. A silence in the conversation when a sarcastic comment was called for but he wasn't there to give it. A break in the circle where they sat.

The image painted itself in her mind's eye: the four of them sitting beneath the shade of the oak tree. Motoki and Lita would be together, a couple, and then there would be Asanuma and her. Motoki and Lita would inevitably pair off sometime, and then Asanuma would get bored with only a girl to talk to at lunch. He'd leave eventually to sit with someone else. And then they would have splintered.

Silent tears dripped down her nose. Her backpack sat in her arms, and she hugged it tight as she stared into the future. After school, she'd be late because no one had woken her, so she'd have detention. With no one to endure Coach with – or suppose Miss Lanai requested her again?

Her heart quailed. Miss Lanai – or, for that matter, the Senshi, or the Dark Kingdom – what would she do against them on her own? How many times over would she be dead already if Tuxedo Mask hadn't been there to snatch her out of death's hands?

The realization hit her: she was too dependent on Darien. She had become way too dependent on him. When she first became Sailor Moon, she had dusted youma without him even showing up, but now a single battle didn't go by that he had to save her in. And now she couldn't even handle regular facets of life without him –

A new thought entered the mix – suppose he was staying because of how dependent she was on him? Suppose he was staying out of guilt? Suppose he was staying for her?

Her empty stomach wrung itself. That was exactly what he was doing! She had seen the hunger in his eyes as the principal extolled the virtues of Yale, the hopeful gleam that had darkened when his eyes fell on her. He felt obligated to stay and take care of her.

Well, she wouldn't let him! Serena scrambled to her feet and scrubbed her wet cheeks with the heel of her hand. This was her chance to pay him back for all he'd done for her! She would show him she could take care of herself and she would make him to go to Yale!

That was when she heard the voice calling her name. And suddenly it registered that the rest of the locker room was silent and still.

"I'm here, I'm here!" She called, hastily ripping off her uniform and hopping into her gym clothes. She lost her balance as she climbed into her skort one-footed and fell against the stall door. "Ow – sorry – Darien?"

He stared at her.

She couldn't believe he'd come into the girls' locker room! What was he thinking?

"Oh," he said. "Oh. I'll – "

"Get out!" She screeched. There was a line that couldn't be crossed, and he had crossed it.

Darien nodded, almost looking scared, and fled.

Serena glanced at her reflection in the mirror. Red anger burned bright in her face, and she felt like she was at least two inches taller.

She broke into a wide grin at her reflection and felt like herself again.

L

Coach put her in a group with Asanuma, Darien, and Tonami, one of Numa's senior friends. Asanuma kicked off with the baton, handed it off to Tonami, who passed it to Darien, and Serena pounded it to the finish line – usually at least two meters ahead of the next teams. This was her first chance to prove to Darien she didn't need him to stay, and she tore into it. Running fast, she figured, would prove that she was speedy enough to evade youma and Senshi.

She couldn't tell if he noticed or not. But he didn't demand to know why she had been crying, which was something she had been sure he would do. Perhaps that was a sign – though of what, she had no idea.

L

"Geeze, move it, loser!'

A shoulder slammed into Ami. She stumbled forward, her forehead banging into the edge of her locker door. There was a mirror left in it by its last tenant, and as she warily lifted her head again, she saw her reflection in it. She looked like a ghost. Veins traced pale spiderwebs beneath her wan skin, and deep hollows nestled beneath her reddened eyes.

But she had grown used to that. What her bloodshot gaze focused on was the reflection of the boy behind her, the imbecilic organism of testosterone swaggering down the hallway and bending now to the water fountain –

Her eyes narrowed.

– sticking his mouth against a stream of water that was suddenly frozen. His lips adhered to it and would not peel off. His eyes bulged as he realized his predicament.

Ami flinched. She turned, with the most energy she'd shown all week, to look straight on at the boy now struggling to remove his lips from the ice without ripping the flesh off them. Already, he had failed: there was a trickle of red dripping down the metal.

Ami turned slowly back to her locker.

The water had turned to ice. Inexplicably. What could cause the water to change phases so instantaneously?

Only her. It must have been her.

Somehow.

She should feel some sense of vindication. Some thrill. Pride.

Where was it?

She looked for it. Inside her.

She couldn't find it.

L

Rei yanked her locker open. Elation crackled cheerily within her. She was leaving. She was never coming back to this place. Ever. And the look on Sister Loring's face when she told her Satan had made that fire –

Something fluttered out of the folders she was stuffing into her backpack. It landed at her feet. She glared at it, suspecting something foul from one of Ino's friends. It wouldn't be her first hate letter or death threat.

But there was a Naruto sticker sealing the envelope shut. Who would seal a death threat with a Naruto sticker? Who at this school even liked Naruto? The only reason she even knew it existed was because she heard Asanuma exuberantly reliving the events of one episode with Serena…

Rei picked up the envelope. She peeled the sticker carefully away without letting it rip, and slid out the envelope's contents.

A gasp of air exited her lips. Sparkle entered her eyes.

"Oh my God…" she whispered. A laugh squeezed its way out of her throat. Then another, and another, until ribbons of laughter floated around her.

She waltzed the hell out of that school, feeling as pretty as a princess.

L

"So. Didja find your dress last night, Leets?" Motoki eased himself down onto the grass.

Lita continued to stare intently at the oak tree, chewing slowly.

Motoki hesitated, then waved a hand in front of her face. "Lita?"

"Huh – oh!" Lita's eyes blinked and refocused on him. "Hey, Toki."

"Hey yourself. What's got you thinking so hard?"

Lita fiddled with one of her rose earrings. "Just…stuff."

Motoki groaned. She looked over at him in concern. "What's wrong?"

"You!" Motoki exclaimed. Lita frowned, and he cut her off with a look. "All of you! Everyone's being so quiet, and thoughtful – Asanuma I can understand because he's moping over Rei, and maybe Serena and Darien I can understand, too, because they always act weird together, but not you, too, Lita!" He finished with a whimper, laying his head on her shoulder pathetically.

This brought a smile to Lita's face. She lifted her hand, patting Motoki's soft hair. "Oh, life's so hard for you, you poor baby."

"I KNOW." Motoki turned his head to look up at her and stick out his lower lip. "I think a kiss would make me feel better."

"Not now!" Lita pushed him away frantically. "I just ate garlic bread, Motoki!"

"Then I'll eat some salt and vinegar chips and we'll be even." Motoki laughed and opened his lunch. Lita rolled her eyes at him.

"Here." Motoki tossed a huge muffin at her. "For you."

Lita looked down at it, turning it over in her lap. It was a huge sort of muffin, the kind where the top spilled over the sides by about ten centimeters. And it was banana-nut, her favorite.

She looked up to see Motoki watching her hopefully. As she stared at him, he leaned over and kissed her.

He drew back. "Feeling any better?"

He was so good.

"Much," Lita told him.

He put his arm aroudn her shoulders, and she leaned against him, and they chewed together in content silence. Lita couldn't remember ever being happier. And it was strange, because she knew it didn't make sense to be happy when there were youma running around and Mina had lied to her and was actually still gunning for her best friend –

"That was SO AWESOME!"

"What were you thinking?"

"Shut up, Dare-Bear, she was defending the weak – "

"You could have been suspended! What if you'd been suspended, Serena?"

"It wasn't her fault, Sugaru-san told me the girl went after Serena-chan – "

"So you could have called for help! Me, or a coach! Have you missed all those lectures they give about bullies – "

"I'm not a baby, Darien, I think I'm capable of dealing with a teenage girl – "

Darien snorted as though to remind her of certain other teenage girls she had been unable to deal with, and Lita saw Serena flush angrily.

"Whoah, whoah," Lita heard Motoki say. "Hey! What happened?"

"Serena happened, that's what," Asanuma informed him proudly, throwing himself onto the grass.

Darin let out a dissatisfied "hmph" as he folded himself on the grass, though he deliberately left space beside him for Serena to sit down. Serena, however, passed over it without a word and settled next to Asanuma.

Lita cracked her knuckles loudly. "What girl went after Serena? Not Mina?"

"NO!" Serena and Darien were both quick to shout. They exchanged glares and looked away from each other.

"All I saw was some half undressed girl following Serena-chan out of the locker room cussing at her," Asanuma volunteered. "Then she shoved her. Serena just kept walking, so the girl shoved her again. Then Serena, like, grabbed her hand and spun around and hugged her. She whispered something in her ear, then let her go."

"Sounds sordid," said Motoki.

Darien grunted. Serena blithely unwrapped her lunch.

"And the girl didn't do anything, just walked away," Asanuma finished after glaring at Motoki. "What did you say to her, Serena-chan?"

"None of your business, Numa-chan," Serena said cheerfully.

"She doesn't want to tell," Asanuma raised his eyebrows with a knowing expression. "That means she said something she's afraid to have been caught saying."

Serena smiled and took a bit of her sandwich.

"No, really?" Asanuma gasped. 'Did you threaten her, Serena-chan?"

Serena rolled her eyes. "No, of course not."

"Then what did you say?" Asanuma wailed.

"More importantly, why was she shoving you?" demanded Lita angrily.

"She was going to kick a freshman out of a changing stall so she could get dressed," explained Serena. "I told her to wait her turn. She got mad and followed me outside." She smiled a little. "Not such a good idea since she had already taken her shirt off. But I alerted her to her oversight."

Asanuma shot a sly glance at Motoki and patted the pocket where he kept his digital camera. Motoki laughed but quickly turned it into a cough. Lita slapped him distractedly on the back, still steaming over the discovery of yet another Serena predator.

"Well," said Motoki when he was finished fake-coughing, "I'm proud of you, Serena. "You stood up for what was right at the risk of your own pain and black eye. Good job."

"Don't encourage her," Darien spoke up at last. "What if that girl had seriously hurt her?"

"Then she would have had all four of us fighting for her throat," Motoki said easily. "And probably a good portion of the school's population as well."

"Serena could have taken her," Asanuma said, trading one of his sprinkled jelly rolls for one of Serena's chocolate cupcakes. At her warning growl, he said, "Honestly, Serena-chan, I'm just helping you eat more healthily – that jelly roll has FRUIT in it."

"Chocolate's a fruit," Serena said, switching the jelly roll with one of Lita's toothpicked squids. "It grows on trees, doesn't it?"

Roars of laughter filled the air. Even Darien's lips lifted a tad.

As they died down, clutching their sides, a howl was heard. "No! Please, give that back, Gaioh-san!"

Serena frowned seriously and stood up. "I'll be right back."

"Oh, for the love of…" Darien rose quickly and headed after her.

"I've got a good feeling about this," said Asanuma, and followed them both, pulling out his camera as he went.

Lita and Motoki sat for a moment. Then –

"I'm gonna go watch too," they said simultaneously. They looked at each other and laughed, then ran after the others.

L

"Please give it back, Gaioh-san!" Melvin was pleading in a quavering voice. "I made that whole meal for my girlfriend! It's our anniversary!"

If he had expected sympathy from tall, burly football player Naji Gaioh, he was horribly mistaken. Gaioh laughed and held the scrumptious lunch higher out of Melvin's jumping reach.

"Hey!" Serena planted her hands on her hips as she skidded to a stop in the grass in front of Gaioh. Her arms twitched up, wanting to make her usual Sailor Moon gestures, but she forced them back down. Yet the speech still spilled out. "Girls find boys who actually remember anniversaries super, super hot. Especially when they cook food for said anniversary. In the name of hot boys everywhere, for trying to ruin a happy couple's special day, I will punish you!"
"Ix-nay on the eech-spay," Darien muttered to her. She glanced over in surprise, then consternation. He wasn't supposed to FOLLOW her! He was supposed to just watch and see how she could fight on her own!

Gaioh laughed. "Your girlfriend's got a big mouth, Shields."

"I'M NOT HIS GIRLFRIEND!" Serena thundered and brought her foot – CRACK – down on Gaioh's toes. Gaioh howled and grabbed his foot. Melvin's lunch dropped – and Serena caught it deftly, looking smug.

She handed it to Melvin, then stabbed Gaioh's barrel-like chest with her finger. "You! Pack your own lunch from now on! What if Melvin's lunch contained something you were allergic to and you didn't know it? You could have DIED!"

Gaioh blinked down at her, sputtering. Clearly he'd never thought of this before. Nor had Darien, but that was beside the point.

"I – I – "

"And FURTHERMORE!" Serena pushed her figner deeper. "How are you going to find a girlfriend if you can't cook? Girls want a man who knows his way around a kitchen, Gaioh!"

"Really?" Gaioh said in interest.

Serena removed her finger. "Really." She brushed her hands off. "Now go run along and sign up for Home Ec."

She turned back to look at Darien as Gaioh lumbered away. She was ready to smirk at his awed and admiring expression – which, she was disappointed to discover, eh was not wearing. However, there were applause and catcalls coming from behind him.

"Wooh! Go, Sailor Serena!"

"Hey, if I learn how to cook will you date me?"

"Ding dong, the Giaoh's dead, the Gaioh's dead…"

Serena flushed and smiled in all the praise. A hand grabbed her own: Asanuma, pumping it up in the air like a boxing referee and roaring in a weird accent, "And Tsukino wins the match!"

"Well, doesn't someone have a hero complex," said a voice in her ear. Serena looked up to see Lita smiling amusedly at her. "Are you trying to give Shields an aneurysm? If you are, I totally condone it, but…"

Serena looked over at Darien as they headed back to the oak tree and their lunches. His eyebrows had drawn together, and his eyes flicked around tensely.

When they reached the tree, all of their lunches were swarming with ants except Darien's. Amid the exclamations of "No! I never got to eat the chocolate cupcake!" and "I bet they didn't go for Dare-Bear's because it's so disgustingly healthy" and "Hey, Lita, try it, the ant tastes surprisingly meaty," and "Gross! Get away from me, Motoki!" Darien drew Serena aside.

"Could you have come any closer to blowing your cover?" he said lowly. He was standing very close to her so that no one would hear.

Serena flushed. It was true, she had nearly blown it – "But people just thought I was copying Sailor Moon! They didn't actually think I was her!"

"Not yet, but sooner or later someone's gonna make the connection. The only girl in Minato ward with blonde hair, the only one who wears said hair in that style, has blue eyes and does a perfect impersonation of Sailor Moon – "

"Okay! I'll be more careful next time!" Serena cried, frustrated. Now he thought she was even less capable of taking care of herself than ever – but now she resented him for thinking it instead of just feeling guilty that he worried about her. "Happy?"

"Odango, wait, I didn't mean it like that – "

But Serena had already stomped away from him and was now wailing in distress over her ant-covered lunch.

L

There was one good thing about this day, at least, Ami told herself as she dragged herself out of the juku building. Mina had changed the location for today's meeting from the temple to somewhere closer to the juku building, which meant a shorter walk for Ami.

This was small consolation for her, though, as Senshi meetings with the explosive combination of Luna, Rei, and Mina were pure torture. Mina had been trying to teach them more powerful attacks. Rei was flourishing; already she had three new attacks, but Ami was still struggling with her first. When she transformed, a cool wave of refreshment washed over like a glass of ice water, but trying to freeze things sapped all that coolness out of her and left her feverish and shaky. And then she had to detransform, which always left her feeling weaker, and go home and make something to eat and THEN begin her homework, both for school and juku.

Neither girl was transformed when Ami found them in the well-hidden clearing in the park. Rei's face was rosy, however , as though she'd been sitting in front of a warm fire. She clutched something in her hand, and when she saw Ami, she jumped to her feet.

"Finally!" she exclaimed. "Now I can share my news – look at this!" She waved a piece of paper at them.

"If it's not a letter from the princess telling us where she is, this shouldn't be eating up this important training time," said Mina, but Rei didn't listen to her.

"I found it in my locker this morning!" she said excitedly. "With this!" She held up another slip of paper, this one bright pink. "Read it!"

Ami took the paper tentatively, glancing at Mina. But the blonde was staring into space.

Rei –

I'll be the one in the tie-dyed tux.

Please come.

Love,

Your secret admirer

As Ami lowered the note, Rei held up a different slip of paper.

It's an Azabu prom ticket," she said, eyes bright. "Do you think it could be him, Ami?"

Mina was the one who responded. "That is from a boy?" she said sharply.

Rei snorted. "No, it's from a girl. Of course it's from a boy – it better be, anyway." She looked very fierce for a moment.

"You are allowing a boy to interfere with our mission to find the princess?" Mina's voice rose.

"No, I'm not letting it interfere!" Rei's voice slapped. "Besides, so what if I was? We've got lives, too, we can't revolve around the precious princess all the time!"

"Oh, yes you can!" Mina stepped close to Rei, leaning over her. "What else do you think you were reborn for? So you could frolic with Terrans? No! You were reborn specifically to find the princess and guard her. Our lives, our bodies, our souls, belong to her."

Rei pushed Mina away from her. "Stop being so dramatic."

"Those aren't dramatics. It's the literal truth." Mina grasped Rei's arm. "We were born solely for the princess, and since we swore our allegiance to her on the Silver Crystal, our souls have been bound to hers. Where she goes, we go. Have you not ever wondered how Luna was sure the princess was in Japan? Why all the Senshi live here, instead of being scattered across the seven continents, as chance would have dictated? It is because where the princess is, the Senshi are, and where the Senshi are, the princess is. We are hers, Mars. Do not think of attaching yourself to any other being, for I promise you it will lead to nothing but your own ruin."

Rei was stubborn as a donkey, but not even she could withstand the intensity that burned within Mina's eyes. Her heart quailed within her. But…

"I just want to be loved." The pleading whisper slipped from her lips without her permission. When she realized what she'd said, she turned red and angry.

"The princess loves you, Mars," Mina told her.

Rei lashed out, her own mortification sharpening her arrows. "Well, the princess isn't here, is she? And no one else loves me, so I'm going to the prom. At least there someone loves me!" She stalked away.

It was strange how Rei, who was about as different from Ami as a human being could be, nursed within her the exact same emotion as Ami. I just want to be loved. Amazing how she, who knew perhaps half of the words in Ami's pendantic vocabulary, could still express in so few words what Ami had never been able to translate into a verbal language. And no one else loves me.

It made Ami feel insignificant. As though she could walk back and forth to the ocean all day getting water, but her bowl would never get full. The water all just poured back out through the holes. She was a human sieve. She wasn't worth loving. She could fool herself all she wanted, saying it was just her mother being too busy to love her, her father being too detached from the world to love her, Jaime and Veronica being too spoiled and preppy to love her, Rei being too emotionally damaged to love her, Mina too unfamiliar to love her, but not even BOYS liked her. Why did someone like Rei, who went out of her way to say something witchy and scathing to every male she met, have someone who liked her, while Ami, who tried to talk nicely to people and certainly never insulted anyone, had no one?

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair!

"Come one, get up." Mina's sharp voice grabbed Ami's attention as her hand grabbed her arm. "Just as well that she left, that gives us time to focus on your attacks."

No! Ami wanted to shout. Just let me be! Just let me sit…

Instead she stood up. Let Mina shout her into defensive stances. Let Mina punch her and kick her. Let Mina yell at her for not trying to block. Let Mina wipe away the blood that trickled down her lip. Let her pitiful freezing bubbles trickle from her mouth and take her dwindling energy with them.

Let herself cry when she got home.

L

Lita would not have woken up that night if it had not been for the thunderstorm. It wasn't a particularly loud storm; there were only a few muffled thunderclaps and the subdued pattering of the rain. But since her first transformation in Sailor Jupiter, a new awareness had crackled to life within her, and when the first fork of lightning lanced down, her eyelids flew open as though electrified.

She was distracted from the exquisite sensation of the crackling lightning, however, by the shape sitting on Serena's bed.

"What the hell are you doing?" she demanded in a harsh whisper.

"Shh," Darien replied.

"Oh no you don't." Lita threw off her blanket and got to her feet. "This is the second night in a row you've been close to a sleeping Serena without a chaperone. Don't tell me Venus attacked her again."

Without waiting for him to answer, she leaned over and peered down at Serena. She expected to see a perfectly serene, slumbering face, so her eyebrows flew up when she found perspiration gleaming on Serena's forehead and a twisted expression of pain upon her face.

Lita took a step back. "What did you do to her?"

The huddled blonde let out a sharp little cry. Her body twisted. Darien's hand rubbed soothing circles on her shoulder. She stilled.

"Remember I told you Serena needs more than just help fighting youma and the other Senshi?" Darien spoke quietly. Lita nodded. "This is one of those things. She has dreams."

"What's that got to do with you?"

He brushed aside her surliness. "She usually wakes up. But then she can never get back to sleep. If I can keep her from waking up in the middle, she can usually get through the rest of the night without trouble."

Lita crossed her arms, studying him skeptically.

He sighed, still rubbing Serena's back though the strain had melted from her features. "If you don't believe me, just stay up tomorrow night and watch."

Lita took him up on his "invitation." She stayed up in the kitchen when Serena headed up to bed, using the excuse that she felt like doing some crosswords. She sat and did just that, nursing a cola and studiously ignoring Darien in the living room until she was sure Serena would be asleep. Then she climbed upstairs with her drink and settled down on Serena's vanity stool to wait.

It came sometime around two. It started as labored breathing, heightened to mumbles with tossing under her sheets, escalated to kicking and crying out.

"Are you going to let her go on like that?" Shields' voice came from the doorway. He was leaning against the doorjamb and watching the scene.

"Endymion!"

Lita froze. Shock rippled through her. Slowly, she turned back towards Serena. She didn't even notice Darien's sound of impatience as he brushed past her to calm the thrashing Serena down.

She licked her lips, watching him smooth back blonde bangs. "Does she say that every night?"

Darien glanced down at her. He took in her pallor. Suspicion leaked into his expression. "Why?"

Lita forced herself to think. She didn't believe anything Mina had said anymore, but what if Darien was the reincarnation of the princess's killer?

"I've heard it before," she finally decided to say.

"Where? Who is he?" Darien's hand gripped her arm tightly. His eyes were intent, dark.

How did he know "Endymion" was a name? Much less that it had belonged to a male? Suspicious…?

"He was the prince of Earth." Lita watched him carefully, but there was no twitch of recognition or alarm. "Mina told me. He was reincarnated here."

"Who?" Urgency.

"Why do you want to know?" If she could get him to talk, maybe he would blurt something out that could prove or disprove what Mina had said.

Darien released her arm, frowning. Clearly, he was thinking as hard as her about what to say.

At last, he began. "Serena's been having these dreams for a while. To the best of my knowledge, they've always involved her screaming out the name Endymion. Presumably, she's calling out to Endymion. As you can see, she always experiences…considerable pain when she's calling out to him. I'm concerned that Endymion is the one causing her the pain. If I know who he is, I can make him stop." He paused, glowering at something she could not see, then looked up and searched her face. "So I ask you again – who is he?"

"They don't know." Lita fought with herself. To tell or not to tell? His speech just now had been delivered with perfect innocence, but he had such a poker face. She decided to keep this one little piece of information to herself and reveal the rest. "But they want to. He was the one who killed the Moon Princess."

His dark eyebrows flew up. She clarified, "Back then, in the Silver Millennium, not now. He supposedly loved her, and when he got mortally wounded, didn't want to be without her, so he killed her to take her with him."

"He killed the princess." Darien rocked back. His face was that of a soldier who had just walked on a land mine and was now staring down at a suddenly legless abdomen.

He was talking to himself. He was totally out of it.

She looked away from him, and in doing so, her eyes landed on Serena. Who stared back at her, eyes glowing like moons in the darkness.

"Serena!" Lita jumped up and ran to her. Serena shook her head, one hand clamped over her mouth, and turned away from her. She forced herself up on one elbow and reached towards her nightstand with a hand that shook like a leaf in a storm. Her fingers hit the glass of water standing there and knocked it over.

Water splashed all over the floor. Serena stared at it, then let her eyes close slowly.

"Shh, Odango…" Darien's hand appeared, pulling Serena up gently against his chest. His hand vanished in thin air – it took a second for Lita to realize he was reaching into a Sub-Space Pocket – then reappeared with a bottle of fruit juice.

Serena swallowed several times, then slid her hand away from her mouth. She took long, shuddering gulps of the juice.

"Better?"

She nodded. With much more stable hands, she picked up her pillow and pressed her face into it for a moment. At last, she spoke. "We don't know he's bad."

She had been listening?

"It was Mina who had told me," Lita conceded.

"It fits with what Miss Lanai told us," Darien said quietly.

"The same thing goes for Miss Lanai as goes for Mina," Serena said hoarsely.

"They've never had contact, though." Darien's trouble eyes rested on Serena. "As far as we know. If they haven't talked, how could their stories match each other unless they were true?"

Serena looked down at her pillow. "If he was murdering me, why would I be calling out to him? And why would he come after me? He killed the princess because he didn't want to be alone without her. He's never even met me."

"She has a point." This was Lita's contribution.

"Maybe he's latched onto you now," said Darien darkly. "Maybe he's Seiko."

Lita raised her eyebrows. "That's going a little far."

"And if he…liked me," Serena said, "Why would he be talking about the crystal in my dreams? Wouldn't he be, like, whispering sweet nothings?"

Darien threw up his arms. "Do I look like I'm a reincarnated Earth prince? Don't ask me to fathom his warped mind."

"I'm not asking you to read his mind, I'm just throwing out ideas!" Serena swung her legs over the side of the bed, narrowly missing Darien's face, and stood up. "But sorry, I forgot, you don't think I'm capable of intelligent thought!"

She pushed open the window and dropped out of sight. Darien and Lita both rushed to look out and make sure she was alright. She was just landing on the ground, her Senshi skirt fluttering as she sprang up again and out of sight.

Darien reached swiftly into himself to transform also and go after her –

If I were you, I'd give Serena some space.

But –

You're making her lose focus of herself.

He fell away from his core, let the tuxedo melt back into his t-shirt and sweats. He grabbed Lita's arm as she climbed out of the window.

"Let her be."

"Are you crazy? She's on her own out there!"

"I'll feel if she gets hurt. For now, let her have some space." Despite the calm nonchalance of his voice, he felt disgusted with himself again. He didn't know how, but somehow he'd done it again, he'd screwed things up with Serena.

"We just found out about ANOTHER person who wants to kill her and you want us to just sit back and let her traipse around alone?"

"No, that's not what I want to do!" Darien snapped. "But she didn't jump out of a second story window in the middle of the night because she felt like a stroll! She needs something and she'll come back when she's got it, so just let it be!"

L

Sailor Moon ran faster than she'd ever run before. Her lungs threatened to explode as she streaked through the streets, her feet felt wreathed in fire, but if she slowed down, he would be able to catch up. And if he was going to go to America, she couldn't afford to let him see her right now, like this. Terrified to her bones, helpless and needy. About to cry, afraid to die, missing him even though he wasn't not gone yet, barely able to keep from breaking down and thanking him so much for deciding not to go, but no, he has to, he wants to, he needs to go –

"Stop!" In a voice mangled by starved lungs, she shrieked at herself.

Her body tumbled to a stop, thrown by her momentum down to her hands and knees on the pavement. She stared down at it as though she could see her reflection in the cement. "Just stop it! He's going, okay? You're going to make sure he goes! What happened tonight doesn't change anything." She was calming down now, tranquilized by decision. "Now get up and go back. Nothing's wrong, you're okay. You're okay. You're okay." The words got caught in her throat and repeated themselves like a CD skipping and repeating the same song over and over and over and over and over….

L

Ami's workbook was wet. The pages were wavy and rippled now, the ink smeared into Rorschach blobs. She could see Luna's black face in the bottom right hand corner, face angry; and Rei's beautiful silky rave hair in the left center; and scattered all around them were the black hearts for hate that Ami always found in her locker instead of love letters.

This isn't right, you should be happy for Rei. This is why you're stunted; this is why you don't have friends; instead of being happy for her you're jealous –

Somewhere in the river of tears she drifted to sleep.

A loud slam woke her. Her eyes flickered open to see her mother stalking toward her. She banged an orange pill bottle down on the tabletop.

"This is the last straw, Ami, you're taking the med," said Dr. Mizuno. "I'm sick of coming home to this soap opera every night."

"No, Mam – " Ami's pathetic voice choked off as her mother seized her chin and forced her head back. "Mam – !" She gagged.

Dr. Mizuno forced a swallow of water down her daughters throat to chase down the first pill. If she had been paying any attention to her daughter's face, she would have seen that an inordinate amount of water seemed to gush from the young girl's eyes; the same amount, indeed, as the water she'd just swallowed.

But Dr. Mizuno wasn't paying attention to Ami's face. Or she might have seen the icing-over of her face just before she evaporated into thin air.

L

Sailor Venus stared down at Sailor Moon's swirling golden hair as the impersonator crouched in the middle of the street. It reminded her of her own hair. She hated it so much. She would dye it red, permanently, this night…

A chill wind fingered her face. She froze.

Mercury!

Minako took of like a beam of light. Sailor Moon would have to wait.

She found Mercury slumped against the front window of the under-repair Crown Arcade. Her gloved hand pressed against the glass. She was mumbling something to it as Venus stepped toward her.

There were fading wings on the heels of her blue boots. Venus digested their presence and felt the truth bite into her once more: This was her Mercury. It was not an Earthling wearing the Mercurian's fuku. It was her very own dear, dear, dear Mercury of the witty jokes and flitting presence. This was her Mercury, torn and twisted and sapped.

The blue-haired child whimpered as Venus gathered her up into her arms. Minako shushed her gently. Mercury's eyes rolled back into her head, and she fell into a twitch-haunted slumber.

Minako smoothed her hair back from her hot forehead and began to sing softly. As she sang, Mercury's transformation faded, and Ami fell still.

The face was innocent and pitiable. But gazing at it, Venus could not curb the hatred rising like bile in her throat. This pathetic, weeping mortal could not have been what Mercury had been reborn to be. This was a pale, blasphemous shadow of her, a weak, sobbing replica.

And yet, wasn't that was Minako herself was? A pale, blaspheming shadow of her old self. And she hated herself.

But she couldn't hate this broken child. How could she? She had not chosen this fate.

So Minako continued to sing, smoothing the tortured creases from Ami's face and praying, for the girl's sake, that she would never wake up.

L

The next few days found Motoki and Asanuma rejoicing at the return of the Serena they had once known. She laughed loudly and often, gobbled her food, talked happily, and, best of all in their eyes, fought constantly with Darien. Not a word came out of his mouth but that she had to contradict it, and it resulted in many glare-offs – until Serena heard a cry for help and skipped off to save the day.

It was hilarious to watch, really. But not so fun to be part of. Serena watched Darien at every moment with every move she made, trying to see if it convinced him yet that she could take care of herself and he could go to America. Darien on the other hand watched Serena with an even closer eye than usual because of all of her antics. On top of that, he was rather hurt by Serena's constant shooting him down every time he opened his mouth. He wondered if this was how she had felt back when she was a freshman and he was the sophomore insulting her at every turn.

Considering how focused they were one each other, you might think that it would be impossible for them not to notice that they were both watching each other. But this is Serena and Darien we're talking about, and of course the impossible is entirely possible and even probable for them, so they didn't notice that they were basically stalking each other.

It was Thursday, and Darien hadn't mentioned America or Yale AT ALL. Serena sat in study hall next to Darien APPEARING to work industriously away at her math homework. Really, she was just drawing numbers and plus and minus signs with a couple of 'x''s mixed in for good measure. Why? Because she was determined to show Darien that she didn't need him to help her with homework, either.

What she was really doing instead of thinking about rombolas or whatever was about what to do. Desperate times called for desperate measures. The problem was, she couldn't think of any measures.

Behind Darien's head was yet another poster proclaiming "PROM NITE!" She stared at it for a moment, chewing on her pencil, and conceived a brainchild. (Asexually, of course.)

She could go to the prom. Lita would be there, so Darien couldn't say it wouldn't be safe. And that way, he'd have some alone time and he would finally be able to realize that he could go to Yale!

Okay, so the plan was a full of holes, but it was the best she had. Desperate times, remember?

"Odango, you have no clue how to do this homework, do you?"

She snapped back into reality. "What?" She snatched her paper back from Darien. "I do too!"

"Uh-huh. Would you mind explaining to me, then, why your homework on 'Drawing Parabolas' has all numbers and no graphs?"

Serena shot a glance at her book. So that was what that had meant… "So maybe I was a little muddled," she said defiantly.

"Give me your pencil," Darien sighed and began erasing her nonsense and explaining the chapter to her. When he finished and Serena completed a couple problems to his satisfaction, he turned back to his own textbook. But not before saying, "I swear, Odango, I don't know how you'd ever live without me."

URGH! A strangled sound emerged from Serena's throat, and her pencil snapped in two as she squeezed it. Darien rolled his eyes, figuring it to be just Serena getting mad at a math problem. Little did he know.

L

"Announcement, announcement!" Serena cried at dinner that night, as she helped herself to a third heaping helping of Lita's marvelous spaghetti. (She was especially hungry tonight because she had foiled two bullies and a robber – Darien certainly hadn't been happy about that one, but she assured the police officer that the robber just thought she looked like Sailor Moon because of her hairstyle.) She tapped her fork against her glass – not particularly effective, since her glass was actually plastic.

"Yes?" said Darien warily. This really had been a tiring week for him. It should be illegal for someone to have as much energy as Serena. Especially after that incident today with the burglar…good God.

"I – " Serena pointed to herself with her fork. "Am going to the prom."

"Did someone ask you?" Lita asked curiously, snapping a breadstick in half. "Tonami?"

"Nooo – well, yes, he did, but I'm not going with him," Serena said. "I'm going stag."

Darien looked even unhappier than before. He set down his fork. "Why the change of mind?"

"I just decided that I'm a high school girl, and I should take every opportunity I get – " She paused, then finished cheerfully, "to have fun! After all, I don't OWE anything to anyone..."

"That's the spirit!" Lita waved a forkful of spaghetti. "Freedom! Do what you want! Especially since your parents are coming home soon and you'll have a curfew and everything to worry about – "

"Don't remind me," Serena groaned, but she grew quiet and thoughtful. "No, I miss them. It'll be worth it to have them home."

Darien thought of his empty apartment, basically unlived in for weeks now. It would be back to silent dinners with only a book propped in front of him for company…

"I'll miss this, though." Serena's voice dissipated the lonely image from his mind. He looked up. She was twirling spaghetti around her fork and staring at it wistfully. "It'll be so weird to get ready for school in the morning on my own…" She looked up, and her eyes met his. She straightened abruptly. "I mean, I need to, though! I've gotten much better about waking up on time. It's good you guys won't be here, I'll have to take care of myself for once! That's important! After all, someday I'll be living on my own without anyone to watch me but myself!"

Into the silence that followed, Lita raised her eyebrows. "Okay. What are you going to do for a dress, Serena? All the stores are closed by now."

"Oh, that's no problem," Serena said airily. Then she remembered. "Oh my gosh! Lita, I've never told you about the Luna Pen, have I?" Without waiting for a reply, she yanked the pen out of her Sub-Space Pocket (where she had started keeping it after Darien pulled it out of her pencil bag that one time). "Luna Pen – give me a gorgeous prom dress!"

When the smoke cleared and the dots stopped dancing in front of their eyes, Lita and Darien saw Serena standing in front of them in a dress worthy of a Disney fairy tale.

Lita shook her head. "Uh-uh. People will be asking where the groom is."

"And undoubtedly assuming it's me," Darien muttered.

Serena heard him and spun. "No, they won't! You're not going!"

"I'm not?"

"Well, you said you weren't," Serena said with hasty casualty. "Remember? Take the night off and relax. I'll be with Lita."

"Oh, no, you don't," Darien began but Serena snapped her fingers. "No, wait!" he exclaimed. "I have the perfect idea!"

She stabbed the Luna Pen into the air. "Luna Pen! Make me look like someone who's not me – but still in a prom dress!"

This time when the smoke cleared, a willowy black-haired girl stood before them. She was taller than Serena by at least fifteen centimeters and wore a strappy black dress that belled out from its narrow waist into a flouncy skirt.

The girl who was Serena pouted down at it critically. "More color, please, Luna Pen?"

Crimson ribbons shimmered into existence, threaded through the skirt, and every other layer of skirt flounce brightened from black to red. A three-layered choker of red and black jewels materialized around her neck.

"I feel very vampirish," said Serena doubtfully, looking to Lita for suggestions.

"You look sexy," Lita offered.

"Very un-Serena-like," Darien agreed, and Serena glowered. Before she could bite his head off, he asked, "But how is this the perfect idea?"

"Well, duh," Serena said, her ire disappearing at the opportunity to be smarter than Darien. "If I look like this, no one will know I'm Serena. Which means none of the Senshi or the Dark Kingdom will come after me. So you don't have to worry about leaving me alone!"

"Wow," said Lita, impressed. "Good idea. And I like that pen."

Darien opened his mouth to say, "Over my dead body are you going to prom without me," but his mind flashed suddenly to Asanuma's words. You might want to give her some space. You're making Serena lose focus of herself…

He picked up his fork. "Okay," he said, filling his mouth with spaghetti so that she wouldn't hear the lie in his voice. "As long as you use that disguise."

Serena's eyes widened. Before he knew it, she had shot from her chair and had her arms around his neck. "Thankyouthankyouthanyou!"

He avoided her sparkling gaze. Sure, he would let her think that she was their on her own, but he would sneak in and keep an eye on her. Because as long as she didn't KNOW he was there, she wouldn't feel smothered, right?

But it still made him feel bad when she so trustingly hugged him like this. It was like accepting payment for something he was going to steal.

L

At one time, Ami's sapphire blue hair had been the physical feature that made her stick out like a sore thumb. Now it was the floury pallor of her face that caught Serena's eye.

"Oh my God," Serena murmured when she saw her. "Ami, what's happened to you…?" She watched Ami close her locker and lean her forehead against it briefly. Her conscience hammered at her to go to her, but her fear nailed her to her spot. Ami was with Venus.

Ami's translucent hands rose and pushed herself away from the lockers. She shambled off, tiny as an ant beneath her exponentially larger backpack.

Serena stared at the locker. Twin streaks glinted on the painted-metal. Her feet finally moved, and she halted in front of the locker, reaching out to touch the streaks. Her finger came away wet.

She reached into her SubSpace Pocket, looking for…something.

Her hand hit something unyielding and cold. The tiniest of frowns dented her forehead, and she drew it out.

A bottle of fruit juice. Strawberry melon, one of her favorites. Still beaded with condensation.

She smiled. Darien.

Her eyes lifted to the wet smears again. She tore a scrap of paper off her homework and began to write.

L

"So Serena's going to prom tonight, but you're not," Asanuma said that morning at their lab table. His tone was studiously blank.

Darien threw him a glance over his spectacles as he adjusted their spring scale. (He was a bit agitated because Serena's homeroom teacher had kicked him out before the bell rang, which certainly meant Serena was going to do something that would get her into trouble, and he wouldn't be there to nip it in the bud. And of course this knowledge Numa had attained made him grumpier.) "What makes you think that?"

"Kobayashi sold her a ticket. Only one. So I jumped to the conclusion that she's going stag. Unless of course you're just being cheap and making her pay for her own ticket but still going with her?"

"Even if she did go to prom without me," Darien neatly sidestepped Asanuma's prying. "What's the problem? You're the one who told me to give her some space."

"Not what I meant," Asanuma said contemptuously. "Girls aren't supposed to be alone at prom."

Darien laughed without humor. It suddenly struck him that that was the way he always used to laugh: without humor. When had that changed? And when had it changed back? "If Serena's fan club still has half as many members as it did the last time I checked, her dance card'll be full."

"Dance cards," scoffed Asanuma. "As if anyone uses those these days, you old man."

"Look, I think you're the last one who should be criticizing me when it comes to prom," Darien pointed out.

"Low blow," Asanuma growled.

"I thought you liked stuff below the belt," countered Darien coldly.

"At least I've got stuff below the belt," Asanuma returned fierily. "You haven't got the balls to ask Serena to go with you – "

"Oh, like you had the balls to ask Rei?" Darien retorted.

"That's different!" Asanuma snapped.

"Different how? Because Rei's a bitch and Serena's not?"

Asanuma's fist flew out and punched Darien in the face.

"Take it back," Asanuma threatened lowly.

"Make me."

Adrenaline coursed through Darien's veins. All the tension of the past couple days – Serena getting hurt multiple times but now always pushing away his help, the unusual and suspicious respite from any Dark Kingdom activity, the quickly approaching return of Serena's parents, Yale, his own parents, his own damned social idiocy – had piled up and was now avalanching, roaring down his slopes. He rolled his shoulders back, waiting hungrily for Asanuma to punch him again.

But the blonde lowered his fists. "Never mind," he muttered.

"Why?" Darien almost snarled. "You scared?"

Asanuma stared at him. "Man, Motoki was right," he said disgustedly. "What are we turning into?"

Darien stared back at him. He saw his crouched, feral reflection in Asanuma's pupils, and slowly straightened. God, what had he been thinking?

"Asanuma – "

"No, no, it's okay." Asanuma raked his hand through his hair. "My fault. I shouldn't have messed with you about Serena. I hate it when people do that to me about Rei, I shouldn't have done it to someone else."

"I shouldn't have called Rei a – you know," said Darien awkwardly, though actually he did not regret actually calling Rei that, for in his eyes, it was what she was. What he had regretted was how it made Asanuma react, and for that, he WAS sorry. "I'm a bastard."

"Makes two of us," Asanuma said unhappily. "God. I wish this whole dumb night would just hurry up and be over with."

"Amen," said Darien.

They sat silently together until Motoki came hurrying over just before the bell. "Hey," he said. "So, Darien, you still haven't changed your mind about prom?"

Asanuma laughed out loud.

L

A scrap of paper fluttered out of Ami's locker as she struggled it open. She rattled in a shaky breath and bent to pick it up (since it was probably the calculus homework she'd been unable to find in third period and had had to take a zero for), grasping the bottom of her locker to steady her. But suddenly – WHOOSH! She found herself staring up from the floor, her fingers wet and slippery, her eyes wide, and her rear end numb.

Snickers erupted. Mortification heated her skin, and she clawed back to her feet, the weight of her backpack trying to drag her back down.

A minute puddle of water sat on her locker shelf, surrounding a bottle of juice. This water had been what loosened her grip on the shelf and made her fall.

Where was the juice from? It wasn't hers.

Something rustled at her feet. She looked down again and saw the scrap of paper. From this vantage point, she could see the fat scrawl across it: For you. Sorry it's melting.

Ami fell back down on the floor again, her knee buckled. It was melting. Everything.

L

"Wait, so let me get this straight," Serena said, hands on her hips. "You DIDN'T tell them I WASN'T going to prom?"

"For the fourth time, Odango, no, I didn't."

"URGH! I can't BELIEVE you!" Serena stomped around the kitchen. "If they had told ME they had I was going to prom, and I hadn't disabused them of the notion, you would have been all over me! You're such a HYPOCRITE! 'Do this, Odango,' you say, and then you go and do the opposite! How are you going to have children if you can't be a proper role model for them?"

Darien finally regained his verbal footing and raised his eyebrows at her. "Okay, I have to tell you that I REALLY haven't been thinking that far ahead in the future. I've been focusing more on slightly less important things like KEEPING YOU ALIVE!"

"OBVIOUSLY NOT IF YOU'RE BLOWING MY COVER TO EVERYONE! And I'm quite capable of keeping me alive myself!"

"Could we keep the noise level down to a sonic boom, please?' asked Lita sarcastically, coming downstairs. "Serena, Toki and I are going to dinner beforehand, so if you're planning to come with us, you should probably start getting ready – "

Serena blanched. She hadn't planned to intrude on a romantic dinner between Motoki and Lita with her presence. "I – " she said. "Oh. Hmmmm."

"Here's an idea." Darien quickly saw Serena's mental dilemma and found a way to solve one of his own problems with it. "Lita goes ahead with Motoki beforehand, and I take Serena to the school when prom starts, and you can meet up there."

"Hmmm." Serena eyed him suspiciously. "It SOUNDS good…"

"Surprisingly enough," Lita added her two cents.

"Ha ha." Darien glowered at them. "Just go get ready."

"No! Dress second! Hair first!" Serena grabbed Lita's hand and dragged her up the stairs. Darien followed them, arms crossed. "Let me do your hair, Lita?"

"I was just going to put it in a ponytail with a prettier scrunchie…" Lita said.

"No, no, NO!" Serena pushed Lita down into the stool in front of her vanity. She selected a brush. "Pretty hair like yours must be free to awe everyone with its beauty during special occasions like these."

Darien smirked at Lita in the mirror as Serena set to work. "Let us observe a moment of silence for your poor hair."

Darien was silent after that, all right. But less out of his own volition than from the hairbrush Serena sent flying at his head. "Ow…"

"There's more where that came from," Serena warned absently. She reached in one of her drawers and rummaged around. "Where are you…muahahahaha! Found you!"

Lita was truly getting scared now. But she just didn't have the heart to tell Serena she'd rather let her hair be when Serena was so excited about fixing it up. And plus, Serena's gentle brushing was very soothing though her strange sounds and talking to herself were not.

"Open eyes!" Serena commanded.

Lita opened them. And blinked.

"Wow," she said, turning her head one way, then the other. Soft waves fell down her shoulders, pinned up here and there by tiny rose-shaped clips to create different layers. "It – it actually looks really pretty, Serena."

"Of course!" Serena pouted. "Did you ever doubt me?"

"Well…." Lita laughed, touching her hair in wonder. "Where'd you find these clips?"

"Oh, I've had them for ever." Serena waved a negligent hand. "They match your earrings perfectly, though. I've been trying to find them ever since you agreed to go to prom with Toki. I KNEW they had to go in your hair."

That warmth melted Lita's insides again. She rubbed surreptitiously at her eyes. Perhaps seeing this, Serena hastily pulled Darien out of the room with her, urging Lita to use anything she needed from her room.

"I'll make dinner," Darien said when they got downstairs. "What do you want?"

"I think I'd rather make my own." Serena sniffed. "You're bound to make it healthy and gross – "

Darien cut her off. "Pizza?"

"Pizza!" she agreed.

Forty-five minutes later, they both balanced steaming plates of pizza in their laps as they sat in front of the TV. Serena had a glass of milk; Darien had tomato juice. ("GROSS!" Serena shrieked. "Aren't there enough tomatoes for you in the pizza sauce?"). Serena wanted to watch Friday night anime episodes; Darien wanted to watch the news ("BO-RING!") They compromised by watching the news on a channel that had a news anchor Serena thought was hot ("How can you like that guy? He's way too old for you. Like twenty five, or something.")

They traded their crusts and pepperoni (Darien liked crusts, Serena didn't). And when the news ended, they both looked up at the stairs.

"KINO," Darien bellowed, "ARE YOU STILL ALIVE?"

A high heel flew down the stairs, narrowly missing his head.

"Signs point to yes," Serena intoned.

"Yeah, I get the point." Darien held up the shoe's sharp heel and grinned, pleased with his little pun.

Serena groaned. "Haven't you used that pun before?"

Then Lita appeared at the foot of the stairs.

"LITA!" Serena gasped, jumping up and spilling her milk all over Darien. "You look GORGEOUS!"

Lita blushed, looking down at her dress. "You think?"

"I know," said Serena. "Oh, let me take a picture – "

"In the time it'll take you to find the camera, then find batteries, then figure out how to work it, the dance will already be over." Darien rolled his eyes as he peeled off his milk-soaked school overshirt. "Let her go, I'm sure Motoki will take a bunch."

"I'll take them tonight!" Serena whispered in Lita's ear. She squeezed her arm warmly. "WAI! You look SO PRETTY! Motoki's eyeballs are going to hit the floor!"

Lita flushed even warmer than before. Under Serena's effusive squealing, her apprehension about what Motoki would think had dwindled almost to nothing. Now she was impatient to see his reaction.

"I'll see you there!" she told Serena and hurried down the front walk, holding her skirt like a fairy tale princess running to her prince. Just the cheesy thought sent thrills through her.

She laughed. She was so whipped.

L

"Let's go now," Serena said.

"Now?" Darien checked his watch. "But it's not eight yet."

"I know, but I want to be there early and see everyone," Serena said, bouncing up and down on the sofa. She jumped up and shouted, "LUNA PEN! TURN ME INTO THE NOT-ME DRESSED-FOR-PROM GIRL FROM BEFORE!"

Smoke exploded, then cleared, and the raven-haired, tall girl from Tuesday stood in the middle of the living room.

"Well, before you run into the ball so eagerly, Cinderella, what are you going to tell all the boys who ask you what your name is?"

"Oh!" Serena's now brown, kohl-lined eyes widened. "Of course I thought about that – "

"Liar."

" – and I decided on Mocha."

"Mocha?" Darien tasted the strange name on his tongue.

"Yeah, Mocha! Like the flavor of that ice cream you got, which I thought would taste nasty because it's based on coffee but is actually pretty yummy – "

"YOU'RE the one who ate all of my mocha ice cream?" A growl rumbled in Darien's throat.

Serena – oops, Mocha – grinned innocently. "Maybe just a little. But never mind that! I'll buy you some more to make up for it. Right now I want to GO!"

"Okay, okay." Darien led the way outside to the car. "Let's lay some ground rules, though," he said as he backed out of the driveway.

Serena rolled her eyes. "I know, I know – don't tell anyone who I am, stay away from Mina, stop interfering with bullies and criminals on the most wanted list – "

"NO," said Darien. "Well, those, too, but I was thinking more along the lines of…BOYS." He paused significantly. "That dress you're wearing is rather revealing, and I know how teenage boys' minds work, so first off, make sure their eyes stay on your FACE. Second, hand positions. If they go higher or lower than your waist – "

"DARIEN!" Serena's face flamed as red as her crimson ribbons.

"What?" Darien glanced over at her.

She buried her face in her hands. "I can't believe you're SAYING this stuff to me – "

"Well, if I don't tell you, who else is going to?" he demanded. "Anyway, third rule, don't drink any punch, it's probably been spiked, and don't drink anything any boys offer you, either, that's probably been spiked, too – "

"You're acting like you're my DAD," Serena moaned.

"No, I'm acting like I'm your superhero protector Tuxedo Mask." Darien gave her a piercing look.

"And again you're being a hypocrite," Serena muttered. "You say I shouldn't let boys touch me above or below the waist, but you do all the time, Tuxedo Mask." She dragged out the words.

Now it was Darien's turn to blush brightly. "Not like that!" he spluttered. "It's different! Anyways, you get the picture. Behave."

They had reached the school parking lot, and Darien could see Motoki's white car parked not far away. That meant he and Lita were already here.

Serena hopped out of the car. "I will," she said emphatically, smoothing her flouncy skirt. Then she tossed him a wink. "As long as Hot Anchor Man doesn't show up, that is."

"Oda – Mocha," Darien growled warningly, but she had already skipped off.

He sighed to himself and then parked the car. He glanced around to make sure no one was nearby, then got out of the car and pulled a tux out of the backseat. Any other time he would just have transformed and removed his cape, mask, and hat, but if he did that now, Serena would sense his transformation and come running. So it was back to the slow and awkward human methods. He headed to the locker room to get changed.

L

Entering the gym was like entering a rain forest. It was warm and muggy, the air almost solid as it pressed against Rei's skin and sheened it with a film of perspiration. Or maybe it really wasn't that hot, maybe it was just her.

At least the lighting was dim enough that no one would notice the dark spots of sweat seeping through the dark red material of her dress. The only illumination came from rope lights strung along the walls and from paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling like stars. That, and the dancing techno lights that flitted around the DJ booth.

At the same time, the dimness worked against her – how was she supposed to find him if she couldn't see him?

Anxiety pitted her stomach – what if she didn't find him? What if he didn't find her? Or maybe he already had – was he watching her, at this moment, somewhere? She resisted the urge to look around. She suddenly felt clammy, cold beneath the sweat, and too exposed in her dress. What had she been thinking leaving the house in this thing?

She bit her lip. Never mind that. She was a Senshi, and she had worn far skimpier clothing than this without cringing. She wasn't going to turn coward now.

Her eyes flicked back to the DJ booth, where Asanuma would be standing. She kept her eyes deliberately away from it for a moment, trying to prepare herself for the letdown. It doesn't matter if it's not him, she told herself, knowing she was lying.

She let herself look at the boy behind the booth.

But it was. Oh my God, it was! He was the only one standing behind the stacks of CD's, and his loud tie-dyed tux screamed out at her eyes.

At that moment, he looked up, dampened blonde curls falling over his forehead as he pressed his headphones closer to his ears. He looked straight at her.

She wasn't aware of moving, but suddenly he was growing closer in her vision. She must have jostled a dozen people, but only three things penetrated her fogged awareness: there was Asanuma, he was wearing tie-dye, and the words of the music that had suddenly grown louder in her ears.

I could tell

From the minute I woke up

It was gonna be a lonely, lonely day.

And then she was there. Standing a foot away from him. She was sure she should be posing in some coy way, but she couldn't for the life of her feel anything but overexposed and awkward.

He seemed to feel the same way: a pained expression crossed his face before settling into a congenial smile. "Hi, Rei! What are you doing here?"

Even though the sun is shining down on me,

And I should feel about as happy as can be –

Warning bells should have gone off when he asked her that. After all, if he had written the letter, he should know why she was there. But Rei's heart was thumping too loudly for her to notice.

"I got a letter," she said as nonchalantly as she could, holding up the pink envelope. "With a ticket in it. From a secret admirer..."

"Uh – cool! That's, you know, cool." He nodded to himself, not meeting her eyes.

"Yeah." Rei nodded, too. What was she supposed to do now? Shouldn't he have confessed by now?

I just got here and I already want to leave…

"I was… pretty surprised. But really happy!" she added hastily.

"Really? That – that's great!" Asanuma smiled brightly, his eyes crinkling shut.

It's shaping up to be…

a lonely, lonely day.

Rei was slowly feeling the ground disintegrating under her feet. Why wasn't he saying anything? He had sent the freaking letter, hadn't he? Maybe he'd changed his mind – as this thought occurred to Rei in horror, the music died.

Asanuma, who had been staring at her from under his bangs (though she hadn't noticed), started as the music died. He turned quickly to his DJ apparatus and keyed a few buttons. The music started up again. He pushed his headphones from his ears and turned back to Rei.

"So," he began awkwardly.

"So," echoed Rei. Then she shook her head, her glossy black hair swaying. "So you don't know who might have sent this?"

She held up the letter, the damned letter. Why hadn't HE ever thought of the secret admirer scheme?

"No," he heard himself say. "I…I could look at the handwriting, though. Maybe I could figure out who it is." No! No, idiot, what are you saying? Don't help her get together with some other guy!

She handed the letter to him. Her fingers were shaking just a little bit. Probably from the sheer excitement of meeting the damned genius who thought of this… He was careful not to let his fingers touch hers, lest he – lest he…did something he regretted.

He frowned down at the paper. "But this…" he let out a breath and looked up at her with a huge smile of relief breaking out on his face. "This is Serena's handwriting!"

Her insides shattered.

Fell to her toes like fragments of a broken CD.

She forced herself to speak. Only a single syllable, because anything more would unlock the tears stinging her eyes. "Oh?"

"Yeah!" Asanuma laughed. It was a sound of relief, but in her ears, it was mocking. "That's funny!"

"Yeah. Hilarious," Rei forced out. She swallowed tightly, then spun to walk down the stairs, her hair and dress swirling around her.

"Hey!" Asanuma stepped towards her. "Rei, wait!"

But he still wore his headphones, which were connected to the DJ equipment, and as he took another step, the whole table lurched. He yelped and spun, diving towards it. He righted everything with a grunt, then tore off the headphones and turned again.

But by then Rei had vanished.

L

Minako's arms were wound loosely around the neck of her dance partner, her chin on his shoulder. Her eyelids were half-closed. She appeared totally relaxed to anyone who happened to look, but the eyes beneath the lids swept the room.

"Still no sign of her." Malachite's murmured words stirred her hair.

Minako's lips tightened. "We must have missed her. I specifically heard Shields tell one of his friends she was coming."

"How can we miss a blonde in the middle of all these brunettes?" Malachite said softly. And it was true, the whole gym was filled by a sea of brown and black hair, except for a couple dots of light in the form of Shields' comrades Furuhata and Itto and a few redheads.

Minako moved restlessly. She didn't know what to do short of barging up to Jupiter and demanding to know where Moon was.

Malachite tightened his grip on her waist. "Just wait," he said. The slightest shade of entreaty tinted his tone. "Perhaps she's showing up fashionably late – " His grip loosened suddenly. His voice cut off.

"What?" Minako's eyes pierced into his, but he wasn't looking at her. She spun to follow his gaze, but he had looked away. "What was it?"

"Nothing."

She frowned at his blatant lie. The pain from not being able to trust him cut even deeper here, here in the mass of dancing couples, where but for the strange music and different clothing, they could have been back in the Silver Millennium. In the novels he teased her so about loving, there would have been a turning point here, here in this dimly-lit ambience; they would have pledged their love anew and everything would have somehow healed itself.

"Minako."

She twisted her head away from his hand. "Tell me what you saw!"

"Minako – "

"No! You made your decision when you agreed to this plan!" She was crying again. Twenty years she'd gone in the Silver Millennium without ever shedding a single tear and now she'd sobbed an ocean's worth in a fortnight's time. She hated this place! Hated it! She hated him! Why couldn't he just give up his damned prince?

She hated herself, too, because she knew the answer to that question; it was the same as the answer to why she would never give up her princess. She hated herself for hating him for not doing what she would hate him for asking her to do!

"Why isn't it enough?" Minako demanded. Her fist pounded his chest. "Why isn't our love enough, Malachite?" Why can't we be like the couple in my stories, why can't our love save everything, or at least us, why isn't our love enough to overcome the chains to our monarchs, why don't I love you enough to fight for you –

"He was here." The words dragged themselves from his mouth.

Minako blinked through the water in her eyes. "What?"

"Shields. He was here."

"Then so is she," Minako breathed. Her hands fell from Malachite. She pivoted abruptly away. "And if she won't show herself, I'll drag her out by those hair tails."

L

The music pulsed in her ears like a heartbeat as she entered the gym. Immediately, her eyes flicked toward the DJ booth. Asanuma stood there alone, she couldn't tell if Rei had come yet or not.

Her eyes roved the room for Lita, and found her quickly; she and Motoki were the tallest couple in the crowd, and one of the most good-looking, in her biased opinion. They danced like devils, something she hadn't expected from either of them; they both seemed too self-conscious. But apparently together they threw that to the winds.

When Lita saw Serena – or Mocha – the slight tension in her lips disappeared. She smiled widely at her.

Serena waggled her eyebrows at her, then slipped into the crowd before Motoki could notice her and wonder who she was.

In the thick of the dancing, swaying a little to not stick out TOTALLY, she glanced up at Asanuma again. He leaned over the equipment with headphones hanging around his neck and a tired expression on his face.

She wanted to wait and watch so that she would not miss what happened when Rei came and found him (certainly he wouldn't look so unexcited if she had already come!) but at the same time, she did not think Rei would want her to see it. Nor was it really her right to see it.

She turned resolutely. Arms brushed against her and elbows knocked against hers: she was in the middle of the dance floor. She tried to dart through the crowd like she had become quite adroit at doing, but found herself instead knocking into people and drawing their attention. That extra half a foot of height really made a difference!

"Whoops, sorry!" One boy accidentally banged her with his shoulder. He lifted his hands in a conciliatory gesture, turning away from the knot of people he'd been in. "You okay?"

"Oh, fine," Serena assured him. His hazel eyes were staring straight into hers, sketching a blush on her cheeks. How strange it was to stare straight into someone's eyes, not peer up into them!

"Let me get you some punch or something." The boy broke away from his group and moved close behind her, brushing against her flouncy skirt. "Unless you already have a lucky boy to do that?"

Serena realized that she had decided to come to prom solely for the purpose of freeing Darien; she hadn't thought past that. But what was she going to do all night until one? Hover at the punch bowl? Why not enjoy herself? Here was a nice boy she could dance and have fun with for a while –

A smile flashed flirtatiously across her lips. "I do now!" She hooked a hand through the arm he offered her and pushed her way through the crowd with him.

They were both flushed and laughing by the time they reached the refreshments. He picked up two glasses deftly with one hand. "Punch or sparkling grape juice, Cinderella?"

"Whichever hasn't been spiked," Serena answered with a daring sort of grin.

"Hmm. There's only one way to find out that sort of information." He poured punch in one glass, juice in the other, handed her the juice and clinked his cup with hers. "Cheers!"

They downed the cups' contents enthusiastically. The juice crackled like holiday sparklers down Serena's throat. The music suddenly seemed louder.

"I don't know what alcohol tastes like!" she confessed to the boy.

"What?" he yelled over the pounding music.

"I don't know how alcohol tastes!" she shouted.

He grinned at her in a way that made her sure he still hadn't understood her.

"Okay!" he shouted. "Hey, let's dance!" Without waiting for her answer, he grabbed her hand and started moving. They danced their way back into the crowd. Serena was bumping into people all over, but it was an invigorating feeling. Like she was connected to them, like she was part of something. Certainly, the last thing she felt like was alone as she and the boy grinned stupidly at each other and music guided her limbs with a grace she never achieved otherwise.

The fast music died abruptly, cut off mid-sentence. Serena blinked as her arms fell to her sides. Sweat glued her hair to her cheeks and neck and back; she felt hot and alive. Except for this sudden silence was like a refrigerator, like a sublimation process, and her floaty, vaporous delight was quickly condensing into cold ice cubes. They jolted her brain awake; what was even the name of this kid she'd been dancing with?

She looked around. He was gone.

But there was someone suddenly rushing toward her as music started again: a slow, mournful intro.

"Chere, chere!" It was Miss Lanai, decked out in the strangest leather ensemble, but that wasn't all. "Since your partner 'ad to leave so quickly, 'ere is someone to take 'is place!"

It was Darien. Grinding his teeth at the way Miss Lanai's fingers bit into his shoulder and shoved him at Serena.

"Wha – ?" She began to say, but then Miss Lanai, too, had vanished into thin air, and Darien was placing his hands on her waist with an expression that suggested it was painful.

Which only fanned the flames.

"WHAT IN THE HECK ARE YOU DOING HERE?" she hissed at him. She didn't even have to tilt her head back to glare at him; she came up to his nose now. "I came here so you WOULDN'T have to follow me around!"

"Don't make this scene here, Odango." His voice was quiet but warning at her ear.

She moved her hands from his shoulder to knot around his neck, looking as though she was merely moving closer to dance but really she was moving closer to yell at him in a whisper. "Why can't you do something for YOU for once?"

"Something for ME?" Darien gave her a disgusted look. "Hello, Pot, this is Kettle! You're black!"

She was fuming. "Don't you dare – "

"Let me finish!" Darien had first kept his head craned back from her, but now it was bent toward her as his eyes flashed. "I'll start giving myself spa days when you cut yourself a little slack!"

"I cut myself plenty of slack!" she said. "I came to this dance!"

"So that I 'wouldn't have to follow you around!'" He crooked his fingers into quotation marks.

Serena reached up and yanked his head down by his collar. "Shut up and listen to me for once!" She smushed her forehead against his fiercely. "You always tell me 'Serena, stop worrying about other people for once and do what YOU want!' Well, you get a chance to go to college in AMERICA, something you've been dreaming of your whole life – don't tell me you haven't, I saw those posters on your walls! – and YOU. TURN. IT. DOWN!" She shook him violently. "And don't you DARE lie and say it's not because of me!" she snapped when he opened his mouth.

Darien's mouth snapped shut again as she shot down his protest before he'd even fired it. But he regained himself and said coldly, "This may not have occurred to you, Serena, but my life doesn't revolve around you. You're flattering yourself."

"Oh, really?" The pressure of her forehead against his lessened. "Then why – " Her words tickled his lips – " – did you spend a whole week camped in the tree next to my room?"

She'd known!

She let him go. "Of course, your life doesn't totally revolve around me," she said airily. "But admit it or not, you've let protecting me become a huge chunk of your life." Her eyes bored into his. "Too big a chunk."

Darien met her gaze squarely. "There are worse things to devote my life to."

They stared at each other. Serena looked away first.

"I don't want you staying for me." She stared at the floor as they stepped from foot to foot.

"You're being the hypocrite here now," Darien told her lightly. "You want me to do what I want, but now you're saying that I should go because you don't want me to stay for you."

"Darien, this isn't a joke!" Serena stopped swaying to the music and gazed up at him. "I've been trying to show you all week that I can take care of myself! You don't have to worry about me or about the Dark Kingdom, I'll take care of it. You can go to Yale and be the normal, extraordinary person you deserve to be."

"So that's why you've been running around like Wonder Woman all week?" Darien murmured, but quickly sobered at the betrayed look in her eyes. "Sorry – Serena. Look. I've made the decision, okay?"

If anything, all her words tonight had only convinced him more of the fact that he was not going to leave her. She wanted so much for him to be happy, how would he find another person in America like that? Who would be so angry at him that they pounded his forehead with theirs? Who would be so brave that they ignored their fear of hell to make him follow his dream? "I'm not going."

"Darien – " Her eyes were despairing.

"No, listen to me." Suddenly one of his hands had moved from her waist to her face, against the soft skin of her cheek. The face was all wrong, eyes and hair too dark for his Odango, but the expression was all her. "Wouldn't you miss me if I left?"

His voice was dark and thick as chocolate. Serena stared up at him, her breath caught in her throat –

"NO! PLEASE – !"

The scream keened through the air. Serena stared at Darien for one more long, tortured second, then spun.

The music screeched to a nauseating silence. The whole room had gone silent, except for the scuffling from onstage, next to the DJ booth. The light from the booth was dim, but there was no mistaking the golden hair of the Senshi onstage or the red curls of the girl she held pinioned in her arms, a jeweled chain noosed around her neck.

"Molly!" Horror bleached Serena's voice.

"Quiet!" Sailor Venus's command rang through the room. Her blue eyes swept across the sea of faces, scrutinizing, examining, dismissing. Threatening. "Now listen to me. Listen all of you! This girl will die in two minutes unless Serena Tsukino comes up here to me NOW."

Gasps erupted all over the room. Serena would have made some sound, too, except Darien's hand was now pressed tightly over her mouth.

"Mocha," he whispered. "Come on – "

Serena shook her head viciously and scratched at his hand with her nails, trying to claw it away even as she began to run forward, to elbow through the crowd –

"Come out or she dies!"

Darien grabbed her waist with his other hand. Quietly, invisibly, he melted backwards into the crowd of high schoolers with Serena pressed against him.
He backed out of a door in the very back of the shadowy gym, a single drop of sweat trickling down his temple as he prayed to God no one noticed them –

"Then where is Darien Shields?" Venus's voice rang out again, fury and desperation bubbling within it. "WHERE ARE THEY?"

Darien broke into a sprint, Serena hanging onto his neck for dear life.

Her fingers, cold and shaking, fumbled into his where they grasped her waist. She shoved something into him. Her voice was as shaky as her hands. "You need a disguise – Luna Pen, turn Darien into someone else – "

Smoke exploded, but something went wrong. When the smoke cleared, Darien saw his reflection in Serena's eyes, and he definitely didn't look like himself – he had freckles and red hair – but the irises around his reflection were blue. And Serena's hair was gold. And in odangoes.

She had transformed back!

"No…" She stared down at the Luna Pen in panicked consternation. "Luna Pen – !"

Darien reached the car and threw himself into the driver's seat. He started the car without bothering to move her from his lap; she scrambled over to the passenger seat on her own. He yanked the car into reverse and squealed out of the parking lot. She opened her mouth –

The windshield exploded in.

– screaming as a hand shot into the car and closed around her collar.

Darien stomped the brakes. He was prepared for it; he pitched forward but caught himself on the steering wheel and pushed himself back against his seat.

Serena wasn't so lucky. She flew forward into the windshield, breaking fresh spiderweb cracks into it. Blood smeared the glass. And worse yet, the hand was still clenched in her collar.

Slowly, it began to pull her.

"So here's our little fugitive…"

Serena moaned dazedly as the hand dragged her over the splinters of glass scattered on the dashboard. Darien lurched forward to grab her, but then she let out a splitting scream, and he flinched back.

Which immediately revealed itself to be a poor decision. The hand was pulling Serena out through the hole it had made in the windshield.

The sharp, jagged, broken glass hole.

He shot out of the car. Slammed into the thing perched on his car's hood and threw it to the sidewalk.

Zoicite laughed up at him as he pinned her to the cement. "Do not get mixed up in this, boy."

Of course, he was still under the Luna Pen's disguise. He hesitated between Zoicite and the car, uncertain. He had to get Serena out, but if he didn't deal with Zoicite first, Zoicite would just attack him from behind while he tried to get Serena out.

"Go on, finish the job for me," Zoicite said, as if sensing his dilemma. "It's much more fun when you'll be the one dragging her flesh through each razor-tipped edge."

Serena cried out. "No…'m fine…" She panted. Blood painted her eyelids like red eyeshadow. Her breaths were short and shallow. "Get…her…"

One of her arms were already out; she stilled for a moment, steadying herself. Cloth tore along with something else. A scream tore out of her. Her other arm was free.

Darien was at her side in a second. "No…stop…" he said helplessly.

Serena seemed not to hear him. Her whole body shook like a leaf. A fresh layer of warm blood crept across the glass from her freed arm.

What did he do? Not just yank her out. Break more glass. Make the space larger. He punched the windshield with a strangled cry.

Serena screamed again, her eyelids flying open. Her eyes had rolled back in her head; she looked like a creature from a horror film.

Gurgles spilled out of her mouth. More blood trickled out – no, how? He was trying to fix it – he punched the windshield again, it wasn't large enough yet –

She screamed and screamed until finally a word tumbled out of the crazed howls
"No…STOP!"

He understood at once, with horror – his punching of the windshield had driven glass deeper into her body –

"Entertaining as this is, I have a schedule. Move." Zoicite closed her fist and opened it – the whole windshield shattered into pencil-sized shards and flew outwards. Serena screamed again as the shards that had buried themselves inside her flesh tore out again.

Darien only half-heard her; the shooting outward of the shards had sent a dozen of them tearing through his own body. He stared down at his stomach, where holes had appeared and red blossomed on his white dress shirt –

Gold sparks sprayed out like sparklers.

"YOU!" Glee, not outrage, colored Zoicite's voice. He looked up, found her staring intently at him. Her empty eyes had darkened and contracted like a shark's in a feeding frenzy. "My Queen – my Queen, I have found him!"

She stepped over Serena's body without sparing the blonde a glance, her eyes hungrily fastened to Darien. "I will bring him. I will bring him to you!"

Rose petals exploded outwards; Tuxedo Mask stood there glaring at the Dark Kingdom general.

Zoicite's feet stopped. She took a step backward. Tuxedo Mask bared his teeth in feral satisfaction.

A sentiment that quickly disappeared as Zoicite's hand closed around Serena's throat.

She raised an eyebrow amusedly at him and lifted Serena into the air.

"Let her go!"

"…run…" rasped Serena. Her robin's egg blue eyes, impossibly, glared out from the red mask drying on her face, screwed-up and tearing. "Dar…ien…please…"

"NO!" Tuxedo Mask shouted, his hands flying to his ears. He tore his eyes from Serena and stared straight at Zoicite. His voice was hoarse. "Let her go. You want me, don't you?"

Zoicite eyed him disdainfully. "No, Queen Beryl wants you."

She took another step backward. A swirling black vortex appeared behind her: a portal. She paused thoughtfully, sliding one gloved finger through the blood that coated Serena's arms.

"Let her go," he said again. His voice throbbed. "I'll do anything if you don't hurt her."

"Exactly." Zoicite smiled. "Which is why I'll be bringing her along."

She stepped into the portal with Serena. They sank into inky darkness, Serena's golden hair billowing outside for an instant before it was swallowed up, too.

Tuxedo Mask didn't even pause to snatch one last glance of the school, its familiar hallways and sheltering trees, before throwing himself into the black vortex. Which was sad, reader, because he would never see that dear old school again.

L

The portal spat him out into a cave. How he knew that it was a cave was not at that time clear to him, but he knew without doubt that it was a cave. He could feel the pressure all around them, the tremendous, smothering weight of ancient stone that had existed when Adam and Eve still drew breath.

He crashed into rock, his back slamming into a stalagmite. He fought quickly to his feet, ignoring the dizziness that pounded at him like invisible fists.

"You might have let him land more gently, Zoicite."

This was a new voice. He analyzed it in his mind as he squinted into the darkness that soaked his surroundings. Raspy, old, contemptuous. Familiar…

Light seeped into his eyes. Gray and smoky…gold glinted. Serena. He lurched forward.

"Bring them down."

Now the gold was moving. Bobbing up and down. He forced his legs to pick up speed, quickening – the ground disappeared from beneath him. He pitched forward. He realized as he collided with yet more unyielding stone that these were stairs, winding downward.

Without waiting for his head to stop spinning, for the light before him was disappearing, he half-slithered, half-tripped down the steps.

At last the floor evened out. He rolled to his feet, squinting. Here the grey light mingled with an orangey glow – a huge blimp-like orange mass writhed like an embryonic sac at one end of the cavern. Black shadow undulated within it.

But this did not interest Darien. His attention glued to the three figures that stood in the middle of the cavern. One bent over the figure with golden hair spilled around it. The scrabbling sounds of their struggle echoed in the yawning rock.

"No!" Tuxedo Mask burst into a run. If Zoicite took Serena's brooch, she wouldn't be able to transform! How would she heal then?

Zoicite laughed. Even as his fingers brushed her arms, something cold and huge tore into him. He looked down in shock to see a shard of crystal as thick as a tree trunk protruding from his abdomen.

He toppled backward. The crystal hit the floor first, and his body slid a foot down it before it reached the ground.

Searing pain he'd never known before. Exploding – someone had set a fire cracker off in his stomach. Golden sparks buzzed about like bees, but they couldn't move the missile from his body.

His shaking hands approached the crystal. He forced his fingers to close around it. As sweat broke out across his forehead, he thought dimly that his situation was the reversal of what Serena's had been, he had something sticking inside him, she had been stuck inside something.

The crystal didn't want to be pulled out. He grunted wildly. Before he could let himself think about it, he pushed the crystal instead, forcing it back into the gaping hole of torn flesh.

Through, through – oh God how far did it have to go why wasn't it coming out already his own hand was inside the hole now pushing inside the too warm too soft mass of organs it was like sticking his finger down his throat he wanted to gag

And it was out. His abdomen spasmed as though gasping. He fell forward and retched. He wanted to throw up, but the organ that contained his bile wasn't attached to his esophagus anymore. But blood was there aplenty, and it gushed from his mouth like vomit as the sparks went busily to work.

"Oh, for God's sake, Endymion."

That voice again. It must belong to the third figure… he ignored it.

At last, the vomiting stopped. Saliva dripped sluggishly from his panting mouth. He laid his feverish face against the cool rock and scraped the strings away.

Something touched his face. He jerked away, panting.

Then let out a sudden cry, a wordless apology, as he realized – it was Serena's finger that had brushed his forehead, Serena that had dragged her leaking body across the floor to comfort him. He latched onto that blood-slick hand and smashed it against his face.

"Odango…" Pleading, despairing. Her eyes were falling closed, though her fingernails dug into his hand. With his free hand, he flailed out for the string between them. He found it and tangled his fingers through it. Her eyelids snapped open, and she stared up at him. Her irises were jagged with pain.

A hiss slapped the air.

His eyes, so concerned on Serena's form, now snapped to the side. There was Zoicite, and there, beside her, was a human skeleton.

She had reddish hair twisting like serpents out of her skull, and fangs denting her lower lip, and skin stretched tightly across her bones, and age-eaten shreds of dark silk hanging from her figure, but Darien took note of none of this. What his eyes took in was the object she was tossing up and down in her claw-like hands.

Serena's brooch.

When she saw Darien's eyes on it, she gripped it tightly and lifted it to her mouth. Then she licked it. Red liquid clung to her lips. His newly born stomach heaved. His arms closed reflexively around Serena.

"Queen Beryl, I presume?" he said it so coolly, with such perfect uncaring, that Beryl took a step back.

Then she smiled. "You remember me? That's auspicious. I was concerned you might have the same loss of memory Senshi seem to have sustained."

Her tongue flicked out as she did; it was forked and made her words hiss. She had fangs as pointy as the calciferous spikes that rose up out of her shoulders.

"Well, actually, your minion called you Queen Beryl, so…" he trailed off obviously. Stay calm. Sound casual. Stop panicking. Stop panicking.

"Ah, Zoicite?" Beryl tossed a careless glance in the general's direction. "Yes. She's really just an extension of my soul, you know. If you'd employed that technique on your Shittenou at the beginning, they wouldn't have come over to me at all, you know."

This was a lot for Darien to sort out and try to comprehend. Serena was struggling to rise in his arms, and he pulled her back down distractedly.

Beryl's sunken eyes zeroed in on the motion. Her forked tongue flicked out. "Take off that ridiculous thing," she said suddenly. She meant his mask.

He stared at her. There were klaxons ringing in his brain the longer he looked at her. That dreadful sense of familiarity was growing, stirring like an awoken basilisk. He focused on the wrinkles in her face, the papery transparency of her skin, focusing on how old and ugly she was. How vulnerable.

"Take if off, I said."

He glared at her, not obeying. I'm in charge of the situation. I'm in charge of the situation.

She leaned forward, her hair the color of dried blood as it spilled over her ashy shoulders. "You have not changed a bit," she hissed. "Still as pigheaded as ever, aren't you? Defiant…but that's what makes you so appealing, you lovely man."

Or maybe I'm not. Darien recoiled backward, arms tightening unconsciously around Serena. This woman looked like she was eighty-five and had to be far older than that, yet she was eyeing him, a seventeen-year-old, like a morsel of meat.

"And even now you prefer a moon brat!" She spat suddenly. Her eyes poured venom onto Serena's form. "Tell me, Endymion, what does your precious princess think of your relationship with this Sailor Moon? In fact, tell me – where is the dear princess?"

Darien was still stuck on her first sentence. "Hang on!" he sputtered. "I'm not Endymion!"

She laughed, dry and papery. "Not Endymion? Darling, I never knew you to be such a comedian."

"No, really, I'm not!" Darien assured her. Perhaps if she realized that he wasn't Endymion, she would let them go – "I'm not him – "

"No, of course not," said the woman indulgently. "You're just his reincarnation, but that's enough for me."

"NO!" Darien shouted. I'm not a murderer! "I'm not his reincarnation either!"

"Then how do you explain those golden sparks?" countered Beryl. "Give up the charade, Endymion. Unless you truly expect me to believe a random mortal has come into possession of the Golden Crystal."

Darien felt Serena slackening in his arms. "Don't you mean the Silver Crystal?" Panic was beginning to grip his voice, shaking it. Was Serena dying? She'd lost so much blood… Please don't let her die, please, God…

Beryl stared at him. "My God," she finally said. "You actually don't know. You've lost your memory just like those damn Senshi."

"I'm not Endymion!" Darien insisted stubbornly, though uncertainty was beginning to scuttle through him. Venus had shouted the name Endymion when she whipped him… "Prove it!"

"I already have. Several times over." She sashayed closer. With a gnarled finger, she reached down past a tensed Serena and touched his stomach. He hissed and flinched away, less from the leftover pain of the wound than from revulsion. "Each time Venus or Zoicite drew blood from you. You, Endymion, are the prince of Earth, and the royalty of Earth control the Golden Crystal. Those golden sparks are manifestations of the crystal's power."

The image was strange, this woman who had been the one behind all their grief and anguish for the past half a year, now lecturing like a professor. She quickly shattered the image, though, hissing in fury. "Endymion was in control of the Golden Crystal before he threw his life away for that little moon slut!"

She paused. "But now, Endymion…" Beryl took his chin in her paper hand. A stench like wet, moldy library books wafted from her. "My dear, dear Endymion…you and I are never leaving each others' sides again."

Her hand darted with lightning speed from his chin to behind his ear, clutching the side of his face. He flinched, his mind screamed – I'm a minor! I'm a minor!

He whipped his head away from her seeking mouth, hiding his face within Serena's hair. It seemed almost sacrilegious that a flowery scent still clung to the soft strands when blood was crusted so thick along her scalp.

"STOP THAT!" The old woman's shriek reverberated through the echoing cavern. She kicked Serena away from him – what worried Darien more than anything was that Serena didn't even make a noise – and dug a calloused bare foot into his chest.

Beryl leaned down to rip his mask off. Her talon-like fingernails scraped skin from his face as she did so, and little firecrackers of yellow sparks erupted.

"Ah…" She sighed. "Yes, it is you, Endymion."

She leaned down once more to kiss him. He pressed his back deep into the stone, willing it to swallow him up. Then something slithered down his arm. Black and taut, it slid into his fingers and hardened. A familiar shikk noise reached his ears.

Suddenly knowing what to do, he wrapped an arm around the old woman as though to hold her closer.

She sucked in a breath, eyes glittering feverishly down at him –

Then he slammed his cane-blade down into her back.

Black blood spurted out of her chest and onto him, then fountained forth from her lips onto his face and neck. He twisted out from under her, gingerly grabbing the hilt of his cane to turn her back onto her stomach so that he could withdraw the blade (and also so that he would not have to see her dead eyes.) Her body jerked convulsively one more time as he pulled the blade free, then lay still.

Everything lay silent and still for a moment. He looked around. Zoicite stood in the corner, but she was not moving. She stood very still, but her eyes were swirling in a strange way. She was not moving now, but something told him she would be very soon – if he didn't put a stop to it.

Regretting what he had to do, not wanting to do it, he lifted his blade again.

That was the instant Zoicite's hand shot out and gripped his wrist.

His eyes shot to the general's face. The swirling had frozen, and Zoicite's eyes flickered strangely.

"Forgive – me – " gasped out the general. Crystal flickered into existence in her gloved hands. "Prince – "

Then she severed her legs, then her arms, and crumpled to the floor.

Darien stared in pure shock at the appendages rolling to a stop on the floor. Then at the lump of a torso with the blank-faced head.

He wanted to vomit again.

He swallowed hard, instead, and stumbled back to Serena, falling to his knees and crawling the last few feet.

He couldn't see her chest moving. He scrabbled for her pulse. Slow, so slow. His head dropped to hers.

"Odango, transform," he begged in a whisper. It had totally escaped him that she didn't have her locket anymore. He wasn't thinking at that point. There was less awareness in him than in a drunkard. He sank into himself and scrabbled blindly for the string connecting them. His blood-slicked palms couldn't find it, they slipped and slid through empty air. He needed her so badly, needed to see her eyes staring up at him so he could convince himself that he'd had to do to Zoicite what he'd just did to protect her. But if she was already dead, it was for nothing.

Gurgle.

He turned, slowly. Dreading what he would find.

But the dismembered limbs and amputated torso littering the floor were all still.

Reluctantly, his gaze moved upward. The orange membrane was undulating. Stretching and bulging like an embryonic sac. Then it split, exhaled a colossal whoosh of black smoke.

His hand crept back to Serena.

Then the dragging, maniacal laughter began. It rang in the cavern, soft at first but growing louder. Then the hag's body jerked up.

His other hand gripped his cane as he half-rose. Her eyes were still empty; the blood had congealed around her mouth in crusty bits. She tottered toward him, then suddenly changed course, veering toward one of the body parts on the ground. She bent jerkily, clawed in the gray material.

"Ah…" Her voice was gravel as she emerged with Serena's brooch. Darien stepped forward; she crammed it in her mouth. Her jaws crunched down on it. Bits of yellowed enamel showered from her mouth like bread crumbs.

Darien pressed Serena's face against his shirt. And it was none too soon. Scintillating white light exploded. Darien clenched his eyelids closed, but not soon enough –

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Each individual blood vessel popping in his eyeballs, his optic nerves sizzling back into his brain like red-hot safety pins, the moisture lubricating his eyeballs vaporizing –

"Oooh, that was quite the rush." He heard the voice, as the pain ghosted away like an afterimage of the sun. But all he could see was the negative of that blinding white light: black. Blackness, blackness.

"Did that hurt you, little prince?"

A laugh. Damn it, he couldn't see her –

"Yes, it did, didn't it? Now you know the pain I felt after what that witch's crystal did to me – power, that's what it is."

What was she doing? He tried to follow her movement with his ears, but in the echoing cave, her voice came at him from all directions. She could be anywhere. He squinted, but that didn't push the blackness away.

"But not enough. It was empty. Where is this one's Seed? I will have it, before that greedy wench comes for the others, I will have it. And you my young prince – you'll tell me where that princess is, before I have yours, too."

Her voice sounded louder. She was closer?

"That wench isn't getting the Moon Seed, no, no, and she won't have yours either."

Yes, the footsteps were coming closer, he could hear them. He scrambled to his feet. The loss of his vision felt like a tangible thing, like a sudden weight glued to his face; he staggered, off balance, as he snatched Serena up and began to run.

He had no idea where the staircase was, nor any other exit – but he couldn't let that monster near Serena – he hugged her body tight to him, there it was, suddenly, the string! He tangled his fingers through it, clenched it tight, pulled and pulled.

He felt the flutter of her eyelashes against his neck.

"…hurts!" She buried a scream in his collarbone.

She was awake! She was awake! His mind shoved aside for the moment the fact that she was still on death's door in order to revel in her consciousness.

"Darien…" Her moan cracked halfway through his name. "Please…put – down…!"

"I can't," he whispered. "Odango, I can't – "

Her cry shrilled out again, as his foot caught in a crevice and his arms tightened reflexively around her.

"Serena," he pleaded wildly, "Serena, I can't – "

He tripped again, and this time he couldn't catch himself. They went sprawling.

She was out of his arms. He pushed himself up on his elbows and scrabbled across the rock floor. Rough, rough, rough –

"Dar…ien…"

Over there! No, there. Wait – this way?

"Serena?"

"AARRG – !"

A scream – cut off.

"Oh, my. What a stubborn meal. All that blood and she can still kick like that?"

Horror. Flooding his veins.

"Oh…salty. Very salty."

"Give her back!" He leapt to his feet. Which direction to yell in? To charge towards? "GIVE HER BACK!"

"Come and get her." Something brushed his arm. Insubstantial and phantom-like. It wrapped around his head like a turban, darkening the blackness behind his eyes to an even deeper pitch. "Come in and get her, little prince…"

"SERENA!" He yelled as loudly as he could. "SERENA!"

"She can't hear you until you come in…come in, little prince…" Another tendril coiled around his leg. "…come in…"

He lunged against the thick tendrils, heaving all his weight towards the direction he sensed Serena's terror pouring from – his hands stretched, reaching – it caught a hand, clenched it –

Then, suddenly, the tendrils' pressure disappeared. And so did the ground underneath his feet. A fleeting second of free-fall – then hard, cold floor slammed against him. His hand flew to his head – but no, there was nothing there. Just his hair, his face…no tendrils.

He blinked, rapidly. Perhaps – but no. He still couldn't see a damn thing. Just blackness squeezing his eyeballs until he was sure they would pop out of their sockets.

He could hear breathing. From beside him. And it was then he realized Serena's hand was still in his.

"Serena!"

Her voice, faint and bewildered. "You're – "

Clicking. Coming towards them. High heels. Mars? Had the Senshi saved them? No way –

Pain exploded in his gut. A foot, slamming into him – it crunched into his ribs again, he rolled away – lurched to his feet, dragging his arms up into a guard stance –

But he was guarding from the wrong direction. Something harder than a crowbar smashed into him, and he toppled back.

Only for the floor to disappear from beneath him again.

L

L