Enjoy.

Serenity's Penthouse 7:00 A.M.

Ami, Rei, and Minako woke to the smell of breakfast. Following their noses they came to the kitchen to see Makoto cooking with the man they knew as Nephlite. Still edgy around the men, the girls stayed alert as they sat down at the table.

"Whats cookin?" Minako asked as her stomach grumbled.

Nephrite smiled, "Makoto made pancakes, while I've been working on blue berry muffins. And we made some fresh squeeze orange juice if you would like some."

Minako smiled and took a muffin before loading her plate with pancakes. Ami and Rei were just finishing stacking the food upon their plates when Motoki walked into the kitchen. "Morning everyone. Where are the other guys?"

"Still sleeping down stairs when I left. I don't think they are used to the time difference yet."

"Alright. We should go wake them up. Mamoru told me to take you guys to school. Usagi was gonna have you guys attend Azubu right?"

Nephrite nodded before shimmering out to, or at least everyone assumed, wake the other men for breakfast and school.

Ami looked to Motoki, "They've gone already?"

Motoki nodded, "Usagi was up and out the door as the sun rose. She said she needed to think. Mamoru was right behind her. He barely had time to ask me some favors before running out the door. I think he's afraid if he lets her out of his sight she'll teleport right back to that Queen you lot saved her from."

Minako seemed surprised, "You were up that early?"

Motoki nodded, "Mamoru nor I slept. We stayed up talking about some different things."

Rei gulped down some orange juice to clear her mouth before asking, "Did he say anything about what we're supposed to do?"

Motoki nodded, "He wants you guys to meet back here after school."

Makoto looked to the floor and missed the knights teleporting back in, "But Usagi-chan doesn't want us here. She said all those things... This is her home and if she doesn't want us we should respect that."

Motoki shook his head. "You saved her yesterday from something only she and Mamoru seem to understand. Last night when he came back I had a thousand different questions running through my head. After their display in the living room I had a million. Last night after he directed you to bed and I followed him... It was weird to see them so close, he was so protective. There was a look in his eye that I've never seen, that I know he never thought he was capable of... To see them love each other so unconditionally? It raised even more questions. I listened to the answers he had, and my questions are answered. He's offering you those answers. He's offering you the answers you've been helping us search for. But-- If you really want to turn your back, then do it. Walk away from here and never look back. But if you're as curious as I was? If you want to know how Usagi could say such cruel things? Why? Then he'll explain the best he can whether she wants him to or not." Motoki was quiet as he turned to walk out of the kitchen. After a few steps he paused at the door. "I know this is bigger than me. You are far more powerful than I can begin to understand. But what Mamoru needs you to understand is this is bigger than Usagi. If she's goes against it alone it will destroy her. But what I saw last night, you lot working together... not because you had to, but because you love her... No matter what's changed she's still your best friend. The girl that brought you together... Its the kind of love that can't be tampered with... There's not a force in this Universe that could compare to the power of your friendship." The room remained quiet as Motoki walked out. The others pushed their food around their plates, before depositing them in the sink and heading for the door. The boys following Motoki, and the girls traveling separately on the roads they knew so well.

When the boys arrived at school they followed Motoki to the oak tree to see Serenity perched in Mamoru's lap. Their approach was halted by the body guard with a bandaged nose. "I'm sorry I can't let you approach Miss Lua."

"John its alright they are friends."

"All of them?"

"Yes."

The group of boys brushed past. Jedite raised an eyebrow at Serenity. "Whats with the goon?"

Serenity shrugged. "Its part of being worth billions."

Nephrite smiled, shaking his head. "So how exactly did you acquire Mare Serenitas?"

Serenity shrugged once more, "I had to do something over the years. And money is always a useful commodity."

Zoicite chuckled at her response. Meanwhile Kunzite eyed the body guard over his shoulder. "What happened to that poor man?"

"Mamoru." Motoki responded then looked to Mamoru, "Why is he letting you near her? I mean after last week and all."

"She's his boss."

Serenity laughed, "And Endy apologized by means of an expensive watch for John and a locket for his wife."

Mamoru rolled his eyes. "There is not a force in this world that could keep me from her."

Jedite grinned as he pushed his Lord's button. "And the purpose of the watch?"

"Serenity insists on keeping up pretenses which includes the body guard."

The bell rang and Mamoru, Serenity, and Motoki headed to first period while the generals headed to the office for a quick orientation with the principal.

3:45 P.M. Serenity's Apartment

Serenity sat on the couch sipping a glass of green tea. Mamoru sat underneath her, sleeping as he held her in his arms.

"Its not fair." Motoki continued to complain from her left, sitting opposite her on the couch.

Kunzite steched his legs over the end of the love seat and relaxed. "Its not out fault we're smart. We worked hard over multiple life times for this kind of intelligence."

Zoicite smiled and looked up from the book he was reading, "And by we he means all of us with the exception of Jed."

Jedite hit pause on the DoA4 to turn around and glare at Zoicite. "What the hell dude! I could do well if I wanted to! I lived just as many lives as you! I just don't apply myself to my studies."

Nephlite glared, "I was about to kill you, you mind concentrating on the game?" He fluffed the pillow behind his back and settled into his seat on the floor a little more comfertably. "Besides its not the life times that make you smart, its hard work, desire for knowledge, and the ability to comprehend the world around you. All things you lack, my friend."

"Bastard. At least I'll kick your ass here! Kasumi for the win!"

Nephrite smiled as he and Jedite continued their match.

"Its not just acing everything! It was the girls! I've never seen the girls drool over anyone like that... Well except Mamoru! Hey Usa, I'm surprised Sakura didn't scratch your eyes out when you told her Mamoru gave you that ring."

"What else was I supposed to tell her? Besides I was hoping his fan club would take the hint and move their attentions else where."

Motoki smiled, "Not a chance. They've been dedicated for years. But it does seem that you four will soon have your own club."

Kunzite shrugged, "I hadn't noticed them. They pale in comparison to my lady love."

"And who's that?" Minako questioned from behind him.

Everyone in the room jumped, save for Serenity, who had seen the entrance of the four girls and two cats, and Mamoru who was sleeping. Serenity frowned. "What are you four doing here?"

"I invited them." Serenity looked to Endymion as he spoke, his eyes remained closed and he gave no others clues that he was truly awake."

"Endymion. I do not want them here."

"Thats too bad."

"Endymion."

He opened his eyes and stared at her with a calm that only he would dare in the face of her anger. "Serenity." He paused and let her boil in her anger for a moment. "They saved you last night. They deserve to know the truth."

"I didn't ask them to save me! I would have been much better off if you had left me! The battle would be done and you would be safe!"

In an instance, Mamoru was sitting up, forcing Serenity to look him directly in the eyes, tightly holding her by the shoulders. "Dead is not better off."

"It would be done."

"It will be done and you won't leave me."

"I would rather leave you than risk any of you."

"You don't mean that."

"I mean every word. I could not survive another moment in this world if I were to lose any of you one more time."

"Then we will work together. Your mother died because she was not meant to fight the false queen. Her guards had passed on their right, she was alone. You lacked the power. The Dread Queen was smart to separate us at that battle, but she will not succeed in that twice. We will learn from history and we will be a team. As a team we will be unstoppable. As a team we will triumph. As a team we will write our future in the history books."

"You have no power over my guardians. I dismissed them released them from their duty."

"I will do nothing more than give them an option."

"You've no right!"

"I've every right! We are bound!"

"The physical means nothing in the courts of old. The spiritual defies definition. The law is all that matters."

"We are bound by law."

"In many a previous life!"

"Til death do us part, my dear."

"Death parted us."

"The courts of now believed those individuals dead. But the courts of old have seen you live for 10,000 years. They saw you live through that accident. They saw me live through. So I repeat, til death do us part. By the courts of old, you are still my wife. By the laws of old, they are just as much my soldiers as they were yours!"

"They are mine!"

"Were, my dear! You dismissed them. So now they serve only me!"

Anger boiled in her eyes, "They are not your soldiers. They are not yours to command. I freed them of their duty."

Cool calm stared her back, "You freed them from duty to you." He shrugged pushing her into the seat next to himself before standing up. "Besides. I will ask nothing more of them than to take a stroll through that mausoleum you've kept up over the years."

"Please, Endy, don't."

He held her face with a gentle hand and looked her in the eyes. "My love, I do this for you. Whether you come with me or not, I will show them what they deserve to know." He offered his hand to help her stand, "Now help me show them their lives of old. And don't think if you deny me you can escape while my back is turned."

She took his hand sighing. "I could not escape you if I tried, Love. For me, you've grown eyes in the back of your head." Serenity lead the way out of the room. When they came to the hallway she took a right past the entrance as Setsuna entered the penthouse, ignoring the entrance of her old friend she continued. She walked on past the kitchen, walking to the end of the hallway. Her hand on the door knob she stopped. "Its hard to explain. Its been a long time since I started all of this."

"Usagi-chan? How long? What did you start?" Luna's quiet voice spoke up from behind her. She was just as certain as the rest of the girls, that the amount of time being mentioned was an exaggeration. There was a logical explanation for everything that had happened to Usagi and the strange history of the family no one knew she had.

Her grip tightened on the knob. "I guess the place to start is with what you've been searching for. I'm the princess."

There was a simultaneous gasp from the four girls and two cats. "Are you sure Usagi-chan? Central never said anything-"

"Luna, Artemis was in control of Central. And your limited outside information was directed form the Moon Castle main computer system, directed through the computers here in my apartment."

"Artemis!?!" The white cat blushed and hid in Minako's arm's as Ami restrained Luna.

Endymion put a soothing hand on Luna's head, "There will be time for that later."

She'd forgotten about him. "Who does that make you? I mean if she's the princess? I don't remember her being married, or betrothed. But you said you were her husband! It gave you right to command the senshi!"

Mamoru smiled, "I'm the Prince of Earth."

Luna shook her head, "But we were not allied with Earth. We were fighting the people of Earth that Beryl, an Earthian, commanded! Any contact with the people of this planet meant death!"

Endymion nodded, "I was the Crown Prince of Earth, Beryl attacked my family first, slaughtering my mother and father. The Queen gave me asylum."

Serenity smiled over her shoulder, a mischievous look in her eye, "Besides my mother would not dare have killed my lover."

"You mean betrothed?" Luna offered.

"No our marriage was forbidden because of the war. We were simply lovers." Luna's eyes bulged at the causality in the Princess's voice. This was not something so casual! "We are bounded, Luna. He became immortal when we made love the first time. Possibly before that, when we declared our love under the light of the moon." A dreamy look entered her eyes, "It was a lovely night..." Her voice drifted off as she was swept away by the memory.

"Bounded? How?"

"Soul. We are one. I believe we always were. But it was our love that cemented that link." Mamoru answered the cat as Usagi was still away in her dream. He placed a gentle hand on hers that still gripped the knob. "Shall we move on? They need to see whats in the mausoleum."

Serenity snapped back to reality and turned the knob. Walking into the pitch black room as the lights began to turn on for multiple displays. "Don't listen to him. This isn't a mausoleum. Its, if anything, a hall of memories. At worst, a museum of who you have been."

"Its a mausoleum. A collection of dead people whom she cared for over the last 10,000 years."

"Endymion, I don't think thats funny."

"I'm not being funny. Its a mausoleum because you started this place to help you over come your grief. It has never helped her. The only ones it has helped is us. It will help you to remember."

They followed Serenity back to the painting of herself and Endymion. "I collected these after everyone was sealed." She brushed the sword with her finer as a look of pain crossed her face. "It was with this sword that the Dread Queen pierced my side, and later Endymion's heart." She laid a finger on the ring. "This was to have been my engagement ring, though it was more of a promise as our courtship was forbidden." She brushed the locket, and it opened playing a quiet tune. "This was given to me at birth. When mother first discovered Endymion, and thought to send him away I gave this to him as a reminder. And the necklace-"

"Was my mothers. I was to give it to my future wife, and on the night Serenity gave me the locket I gave that to her."

"It was that night mother discovered we were lovers. After that she didn't dare send him away."

"Wasn't it quite the scandal?" Minako questioned.

"Of course."

"Then why didn't she send him off?"

"We were bounded. To be separated by such a great distance so shortly after a bonding of that nature- physical and mental-would surely have killed us both. So she told the courts she gave the load surviver of the royal family asylum. It couldn't be constituted as an act of war since Beryl was already threatening our people." She sighed. "But we are not here to talk about Endymion and myself." She turned and looked into the darkness immediately across from the painting. Slowly another series of lights turned on. The first lit up a painting of the princess sitting among eight similarly dressed women. Each with a glowing symbol painted in the center of their forehead. "There are eight senshi. You four are the inner guardians. Designated to protect the princess and the crystal. The other four are the outer senshi who guard the outer most reaches of the kingdom from hostile forces."

She touched a blood spattered stone sword. "This was Venus's sword. It was a gift for the leader of the Senshi." She turned to Minako. "You died holding this in your hand."

She turned back to the table fingering a broken emerald choker that was made up of delicate oak leaves. "Jupiter wore this to the ball that was interrupted by the final battle. It was a celebration, I have long since forgotten what exactly it was that we were celebrating." She looked to Makoto, "Your lover gave this to you two weeks before you died, and you cherished it every moment of those two weeks."

Serenity lightly touched the next object lying on the display. It appeared to be some type of charm carved into stone. "I took this from the remains at the Temple of Mars." She smiled at Rei, "You used to go there every morning to pray and-" Tears had begun to stream down her face and she choked on her words. "And to look at the art work. You used to tell me that there was nothing more beautiful and enchanting than the religious symbols carved into the stone of the temple."

She looked to Ami as her fingers ran across the top of the final object. A book. "Its called 'The Ocean of Our Mind'. It was a mercurian classic. It was your favorite. You taught me your language with this book. And even after I could speak and read mercurian fluently, I'd still beg you to read it to me because nothing sounded more wonderful than y hearing the passion in your voice as you read in your native tongue."

The girls remained silent. But Luna looked around, "Where is the display for the other Senshi?"

Serenity looked over her shoulder, "Everything is here. They were different than my inner guard and so they've their own section somewhere else."

The girls shifted uncertainly. Recognizing themselves in the painting, but nothing more. They waited with bated breath hoping to understand. Serenity continued to the next portrait. It was an ancient painting of Minako. Serenity described the artifacts, their meaning, and the life of the woman who shared the face and soul of the young girl behind her.

She stepped up to a similar painting and table honoring Makoto, then Rei, and finally Ami before moving on to the next picture of Minako. They continued on for hours, Serenity describing each woman as if she had spoken with the yesterday. The girls listened to stories of revolutionist who had been beheaded. Whores who'd died of strange diseases. Royalty who'd been murdered. Witches burned at the steak. Wifes who had died in child birth. Grandmothers who died watching their grandchildren play...

All lives of women who looked like them, and sounded so familiar... so familiar that it tickled something at the back of their mind until they came across the newest addition. She spoke of the women in the newest wedding picture Ami had come across. Tiffany the model. Emily the baker. Leslie the writer. Helen the pediatrician. Then Serenity showed them the wedding album from her marriage to Darien Shields V. She explained about her sense of foreboding. And in great detail she explained about careening over a cliff to their impending doom. "I reverted to a child because I couldn't let go of him. I could never let him go, but that last time, I refused the heavens. Denied their claim on him and clung to him with every part of me. And so his soul fed off of my immortality. Instead of dying he reverted. And because I had been drained in such a way I reverted. Pluto explained it to me once since I've been back. You four reverted because it is your duty to protect me. I stole you from your lives and I apologize. I don't know exactly how you came to be placed with your families. I believe that once you had reverted, the crystal placed you where you belonged, where you needed to be. And please don't think for a moment that you're families aren't really yours because of this. Just understand that no matter how you came together, you came together and for the past 10 years you have been family. You have loved them and they have loved you." She headed for the exit the group follow her. "Luna and Artemis I've no history for you. I imagine mother kept you by her side until she felt you were needed to guide us." She stopped at the door. "You four should stay in here and look around. Try to understand everything I've told you. Everything you've seen." She stepped out, Mamoru on her heals closing the door behind him.

The girls walked around the room looking at everything with their own eyes. Trying to understand, until slowly things began to click.

Three furious girls teleported from the room. The only one remaining calmly and quietly used the door.