Hi All,

Finally another Chapter!

As you may of noticed I took a little longer to upload this Chapter, busy schedule, busy life, and at the end of the day all I do lately is come home and sleep, once life settles I will try and update once a week like I have been recently, otherwise I will only leave it to about two weeks for your fix of this story.

Please read and review, let me know what you think.

Catch ya's

PP

Chapter 17

Over the next couple of days Serena stayed with Darien, unable to stay at her home every time she went home she expected her family to be there.

It came to the day of her family's funeral, Serena had to finally go to her home for the wake, which Darien had enlisted the help of Andrew to get the house ready, which with the help of professional cleaners, and caterers the house was ready to welcome the mourners of her family.

Serena stood at the front door of the house, she hadn't been inside the house since arriving about an hour ago, but from her vantage point at the door it allowed guests to offer their condolences. She maintained the same silent attitude that she had for the previous days. There was a lapse of guests, and Serena looked down at her outfit, she didn't remember this dress that she was wearing, it was a cute A-line knee length dress, and she was wearing heels that she didn't recognise those either, she rarely worn heels as she was always running, or hiding, except for when she was Sailor Moon.

She looked down her hands, wondering what she was supposed to do when no one was around, she looked in the door, and saw that people were mingling, there were waiters walking around with food offering them to the guests. She thought to herself, that maybe Darien had organised all this, he really had been impressive the past couple of days, he had organised all of this, granted most of it was already organised in her parents Funeral Plan, but she was pretty sure nothing would have run as smoother if he wasn't there.

Serena let out a big sigh, and leaned back against the wall, thinking about what she needed to do next.

"Serena?" Said Mina, pulling her from her thoughts, "Why are you still outside?" Mina grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her into a hug, which Serena didn't refuse.

Ami came up next and lightly patted Serena's arm, trying not to overwhelm the girl, "Have you had anything to drink? You look dehydrated?" Serena just shook her head, and smiled weakly at her court.

Darien had looked over from talking to Amara, Michelle and Hotaru about Serena's behaviour the past couple of days, and he saw that the inner court had arrived, and saw how Serena's body action was reacting to them, she seemed to be surviving okay, but he excused himself from the ladies, and grabbed a glass of water and walked out to Serena, handing it to her with a small smile crossing his lips for her to see. She took the drink, and offered her own smile back to him and took a sip. Ami nodded at Darien in approval.

Lita and Rei walked up to Serena and seeing this Amara and Michelle went tense and wanted to get closer, Hotaru gave them a cheeky smile, and quietly slipped in next to Darien, no one noticing her as all eyes of the Princess's court was on Rei and Serena and the confrontation that was could occur in the next couple of minutes.

Serena stiffened when she saw Rei, but accepted Lita's condolences and hug, when Lita let go of her; she politely turned to Rei, and accepted her condolences with a tight nod of her head and whispered for the scouts to hear, "I don't forgive you for your actions, but I am willing on working on making us a team again, at this time I cannot but next week we will talk." Not wanting to be in the presence of these girls, and put on the spectacle that her court was expecting and not wanting to embarrass her Parents and Sammy's memory she turned and walked through the doorway, up the stairs and closed the door to her room. None of this surprised her parent's grievers; most of them were still surprised that the young emotional girl hadn't started crying in front of them.

Downstairs Amara, Michelle and Hotaru walked up to the inner court, and before Darien could intervene, Michelle walked up and whispered to the girls, "You girls need to leave the Princess in peace. I would have thought you girls would have learnt from the past not to upset the Princess."

Lita was first to respond, "I think you need to mind your own business, I don't know who you are, this is Scout business, you have no right to intervene."

"But you forget Lita; we were once part of your team." Amara spoke up.

"Yes, but our team split up the middle, and now you cannot be trusted," Pushed through Mina speaking for the team.

"Are you seriously pushing that I am the reason why you are pushing the Princess away, you girls used to be so nice." Hotaru spoke up, causing everyone to look down at the young girl, who had tears in her eyes.

Michelle placed her hand protectively on Hotaru's shoulders, "No sweetie, you are not the reason for all of this; this is something different, before we even were awaken." Hotaru looked up at Michelle grateful for her protectiveness.

"No, Saturn you are not the reason for this issue, but this is not the place to discuss visions of the past or the future, we are here today to pay our respects, and we do not appreciate you stopping us from supporting Serena." Mina said with an air of authority, impressing in her words that she was to be heeded, she was still the leader of the scouts, and she had these powers for a reason.

Amara gave her a look, unhappy that she was being forced into stopping the conversation, but she saw the truth in Mina's words, "We will have this conversation soon, Venus, and if you try and impose you authority on us again there will be trouble." Amara then turned to Darien holding out her hand for him to shake it, "Please keep her safe, we must take our leave now"

Darien shook Amara's hand and waved them good bye and turned to the remaining scouts, "I only ask if you choose to stay girls, that you behave yourselves, I just want Serena to grieve, maybe tomorrow you can look at rebuilding the relationship. But today is not a scout business day." Each of the girls nodded and walked inside, and Darien wiped his head with relief, he was glad that Mina had taken control of the situation or that could have gotten ugly, there were civilians here and that could have gotten messy, but no one seemed to notice what was going on with the group of girls that were in the door way, so he was doubly relieved, and concerned about what destiny had brought him in the middle of.

Upstairs in Serena's room she had fallen asleep on her bed, too exhausted from the grieving, the standing the possibility of drama in her life. But her sleep was not a restful one; she was having a vision, a nightmare or was it both?

She was standing in the middle of a deserted street; all around her was destruction, and rubble. She was dressed in her Sailor Moon warrior outfit, instead of her Crescent Moon wand she was carrying a heavy sword with beautiful moon etchings engraved up the blade, it was out in front of her to protect herself.

From behind her she heard a ghostly voice, 'Princess, this way." Serena turned to try and catch the owner of the voice, the sword swinging wildly in that direction. From the other side of her the same voice called, "No, maybe it was this way." Serena swung dangerously again, almost over balancing with the weight of the sword. "Follow the sound of my voice, Princess, we will give you the answers that you need" The voice called from further away the same direction she was facing, she lunged forward and started to follow the taunting laughter and calls from the mysterious voice.

The voice eventually pulled her towards a cemetery, where the voices stopped at row of tombstones, each one engraved with a symbol of the planets on it, there was 8. She lowered her sword and looked at each of the grave, these were graves of her beloved Sailor Scouts, yes, she fought with them, but they were still her friends, her sisters. Tears silently running down her face she sat on the ground defeated, at this point the voice started talking to her again.

"If you had of protected them Princess, you wouldn't have had to bury them, this is all your fault, instead you were caught up in your own little world of petty arguments that you couldn't protect them, you pitted your team against one another and instead of protecting you, they fought each other, and when we came and took their lives it was easy, one by one, by then none of you ever saw it happening, and it will happen again, for this is your future Princess, constantly unable to protect your Court, your lovers, your precious little planet. But I know how you could protect your planet."

Serena looked around for the voice, still unable to see the owner, "How?" She whispered through her tears she would do anything to protect her court.

"You must die for your court to live, you dying will bring them back together as one court."

"But if I die, there reason for uniting is gone?" Serena questioned

"But you will be reincarnated, you can't die if you protect yourself with the Silver Crystal." The voice said. Serena sat there staring at the stones, this was true, she could use the Silver Crystal to tether her to her life and bring her back, she had lost her real family, and this one was so new, she didn't want to lose what they could become to her. "So what do you choose?"