Meus Amor et Mea Culpa: My Love and My Mistake
From the Past
Serena looked up at the steps leading to the temple, knots of all shapes and sizes taking place in her stomach. They were all up there waiting for her, waiting for an explanation. She had been gone for a week and had her brother inform her friends of her return and that she wanted to speak and explain herself to them tonight at the temple. Now, here she was, standing a couple of steps away from unleashing a horrible burden. Guilt solidified itself into the lead at her feet, making her freeze where she stood. What was she doing here? This wasn't right. And as she turned away, she heard Setsuna in her mind…
Serena looked outside the window, eyes half closed. Because of the events that had taken place so suddenly, she found herself wondering if the sun was rising or setting outside the windows of her uncle's sister-in-law's house. Granted, it wasn't like it mattered what time of day it was. All that did matter was that she was far away from all of them. Bitter hatred and anger burned in her stomach, threatening to boil and explode at the mere thought of them; those that she had trusted and turned their backs on her when she needed them the most. All for money.
Serena realized she must've made a very ugly expression when Setsuna came over and touched her shoulder lightly. Serena turned and looked at the tall, tan, beautiful woman who willingly protected without a breath of hesitation. At this thought, Serena titled her head to one side, questioningly.
"Why do you do it, Setsuna?" Serena asked. "Why do you always take care of me? I've trusted you from the beginning but I'm not sure if I've given you any reason to protect me."
Setsuna smiled. Serena liked her smile. It was as if Setsuna was hiding a little, happy secret to herself. Instead of answering her question, Setsuna took Serena's hands into hers. She brought their clasped hands up to face-level. "You know, Serena," She said. "You have good hands. Firm and slender. Strong hands, mind you." Her eyes glazed over momentarily. "They're your mother's hands, Serena, hands that reach out and care and heal to everyone around them. Hands like yours," She paused, no doubt, Serena thought, wafting in the memories of the days she had idolized the beautiful Selene Cartier. Then Setsuna smiled again and her grip on Serena's hands tightened. "Hands like yours, Serena, need to be protected. Because you are good, and when the good are hurt, what else is there to bring joy in the lives of others?
"You see," Setsuna continued. "That's why we weren't too sad when your mother passed away." Serena looked up at Setsuna, startled. Not many people spoke about Selene Cartier, especially when Serena was present. But Setsuna continued. "You see, even though we were so upset that your mother died, the thought that you were now with us made the ill feelings a little more tolerable." She laughed a bit. "Oh, your father was so happy when you were born, did you know that? He brought you into his arms and said proudly, to anyone and everyone who could hear, 'This is my baby girl. Beautiful, like my beautiful wife, and she'll be just as good.' Your mother usually hit him and said, 'She'll be better…'" Setsuna's voice faltered, as if imitating the voices of her old, dear friends was enough to send back their torn history together back into her mind. "'She'll be better. And she'll be happier.'"
Serena couldn't help the bitter words that suddenly left her mouth. "She was wrong." She said angrily, a shadow over her eyes. "I'm no better and I sure as hell am not happier."
"Serena-"
"No!" Serena wrenched her hands away from Setsuna's. "It's a joke, Setsuna, don't you see? My mother, unhappy for practically her entire life, finally finds her solace in our family and then dies. Do you know what they call that? Life. Do you know what I call it? Fucked up!" If Setsuna was bothered that Serena was cursing in her abode with two children in the house, she didn't show it. "And you want to know something else that's fucked up? Me! Oh, please don't deny it. It's true. Pregnant at sixteen. Practically on the run before my seventeenth birthday. Perhaps if we were living a hundred years ago, I'd be disowned and living in destitution."
The last sentence was said with a bit of hysterical humor but Setsuna took one look at her wet eyes and couldn't help the motherly intuition that overcame her.
'How many times,' Setsuna thought as she held the shuddering girl in her arms. 'How many times did I hold Selene this same exact way? How many?'
The thought was painful to her as she recalled the multitude of horrible things the beautiful heiress went through before she met Kenji, Serena's father. Setsuna softly, but firmly, pulled away from the teenager.
"Tell me, Serena." She said. "Luna told me that you have made friends in your new home." Serena only nodded. Setsuna nodded, too, in satisfaction. "Have you told them, child, of what happened last year, in Japan?" As expected, Serena shook her head. Setsuna merely patted her golden halo. "You know, Serena, secrets can be the death of a person, and I mean that in every possible way. You've seen just how horrible the consequences can be if we choose to hide things from our loved ones. Promise me, Serena." Setsuna suddenly demanded fervently that Serena looked up at her in surprise. "Promise me, Serena, that when you return, you will tell these friends the truth of the past year. None of those white lies, either. The truth, do you hear me? I've seen so many happy people be torn apart by lies. Your mother's family, you and your friends from Japan, even, at one point, your parents. Don't ask me about it now." Setsuna rushed when she saw the questioning look on Serena's face. "What's done has been done, but the future awaits you." She gingerly kissed her sister's niece's forehead. "Don't be afraid of their judgment. If they truly are your friends, you won't have to fear anything. Don't run away anymore, Serena. Stay there. It's safe."
Serena couldn't help but not believe those words. After all, it was hard to do so, when you've lost your will to trust.
Serena looked around her, at the faces looking back at her. She realized that these faces weren't very expecting; they were concerned. They were nosy in any way, their eyes didn't rove about her, judging her, but glanced over her weary face, her red eyes, and the limpness of her hair.
She gave a small, tired smile. "I guess I haven't been completely honest with you guys and I'm sorry for deceiving you like I have. I want to make you understand but all I can really do is just tell you, I guess. Unfortunately, I can't just jump to what happened last year. Sadly enough, all this crap started a generation before me.
"My mother was Selene Cartier, the heiress to the Cartier line back in France. While normally, being an heiress was a wonderful thing, my mother gradually…deteriorated, I suppose. At least, that's what I've been told. She was sensitive, my mother. And she was not pleased at all when, one day, her father, my grandfather, announced that she was arranged to be married to a man who came from an equally prominent family, the Shields. So, in a bout of rebellion that completely altered her life, she went to Japan. There, she befriended a certain dressmaker by the same of Setsuna Maui." Serena smiled at the gasps. "Yes, the same Setsuna Maui who later became Setsuna Tomoe, founder and owner of the 'Dusk' clothing line. Anyway, through this woman, she met my father, Kenji Tsukino, who was a photographer. There was a bit of an interruption when my uncle Artemis was sent by my grandfather to reclaim my mother, but Artemis insteadabandoned his family in exchange for a lifetime of happiness with his new bride, Luna, coincidentally Setsuna's sister. Long story short,my parentswere married, Artemis and Luna moved to the states, my mother cut all ties with my grandfather and they were never to be heard from again." Here Serena paused, tears and memories clouding her vision.
"At least, we thought so. My mother died when I was very young. After she had given birth to me, they said that she got weaker as the days went by. Finally, my mother passed away. I was too young to really remember, but what I do remember I cherish. Plus, people were always saying how much we looked like each other." Serena chuckled softly. "A decade or so later, my father followed her to the grave. Mind you, I was just fifteen years old when this happened. Kunthan was in school but, with father dead, he stopped schooling for a while to look out for me. Around the time father died, however, we got a strange letter…from my maternal grandfather, Roi Cartier. He was basically offering us to live with him and the rest of my mother's family in France. Since Kunthan and I had grown up with the feeling that my mother never wanted to have anything to do with my grandfather, we declined their offer. We thought it was all done and over with…
"And then he showed up. Mamoru Chiba." The name was said with such an intense emotion that the girls couldn't really fathom. "At first, it seemed like pure chance that they meet when they ran into each other as Kunthan was helping me move my stuff into his apartment. Honestly, I found him to be such an annoying bastard but Kunthan always chided me for being so judgmental on him. Apparently, no one was on my side. My best friends, Naru and Anne, were practically drooling over him. It went that way for a few months: Mamoru torturing me with his teasing and me, left standing alone while Naru and Anne sighed dreamily. It was comedic, really. Ironically, I started falling for the butthead since, when he wasn't teasing me, Kunthan loved to point out that Mamoru was watching out for me. Around that same time, another guy showed up in town, Alan. Unlike Mamoru, he was always courteous to me, flirting with me at every chance he got. He and Mamoru seemed to know each other and maybe I should've paid more attention back then but I figured they were just stupid guys who liked to argue with each other. However, as time passed, Alan soon showed more affection to Anne than me and I began to realize that my feelings for Mamoru weren't just kiddie stuff. I didn't say anything, though. I suppose I was too scared of the possible rejection he could give me.
"Then on my sixteenth birthday, Mamoru confessed that he loved me too. I was in heaven." The blissful expression that overcame Serena's face was marred with the teardrops running down them. Serena gently wiped them away, not letting her friends do it for her. They glanced at each other. Perhaps her confession ought to be left for another time. But Serena stopped sniffling and cleared her throat, prepared to finish her tale to the end. "Anyway, I told him I felt the same way and, for a while we were happy." She laughed sadly. "You know, I figured I would always wait until I was married to have sex but, as you can see, it didn't really work out that way." She choked on her words, slamming her fist to the wooden boards of the room. "I wish I had waited just a little bit longer. Just a month later, had I waited, I would've known the truth. I would've known the real reason everything happened the way it had.
"Everything came out into the open when Uncle Artemis came to town. He had heard of father's death, many months late of course, but nonetheless, he was the only relative that had shown any actual compassion towards us. Moreover, though, he also brought us information. Apparently, the death of my father had made my grandfather a bit more welcoming towards me and Kunthan. The invitation he had sent us after father's death wasn't a casual get-together. He wanted to inform us, in person, that as the children of his favorite daughter, that we were to be granted the greatest portion of his will. This portion was to be given to us either upon his death or our eighteenth birthdays. Kunthan's portion was immediately routed to a savings account; that's how he's getting through school by the way. However, our grandfather had specified that I not be 'intimately involved' with anyone until passed my eighteenth birthday, otherwise, I was not entitled to my portion of his will.
"That's when I found out about Darien." A bitter smile crept on her face. "I found it very convenient that, right after my grandfather makes this decision, Mamoru shows up. Of course, it took me a little longer to figure out this part of the puzzle but, when I realized that Anne, Naru, Umino and even Motoki were hiding something from me, I did some investigation of my own. After this lovely little revelation, my Uncle revealed that, should Kunthan and I have refused any of my grandfather's money, our share would've passed into the hands of one Darien Shields. Uncle Artemis has a lot of resources at his fingertips and, before long, I had bank records and certain immigration documents that showed me, not only were my friends getting paid money to keep quiet, but also that I was some financial puppet to the bastard named Darien Shields. Yeah, Darien Shields, aka Mamoru Chiba, aka the son of Damien Shields, the man my mother had left a continent to get away from, but, above all, Darien Shields, the asshole that benefited from taking away my virginity."
Serena sighed, leaning against the wall, unwilling to seek out her friends' faces. "I left Japan as soon as I found out. I did exchange some…choice words with Mamoru, Darien, whatever the hell his name is. It wasn't until I got to the States that I realized I was pregnant. Remember what I said to you when I first met you? That my parents had no say in the matter? Well, it is true; they're dead now." Serena paused in her story-telling. With eyes closed, she reached into her bag and pulled out a star-shaped locket. "Kunthan told me you saw this, Mina." Serena said softly, still not looking at her friends. She opened it and soft music began to vibrate in the room. "He heard the music of my locket playing when you came to my house months ago." She offered the golden treasure to her friends. "That's her, it's Rini."
With gentleness fitted for an actual babe, Ami boldly reached out and took the locket from Serena's hands. A different compartment in the locket was open now, revealing small picture of a little baby girl with curls of pink on one side of the open locket.
"You heard me tell Darien that he doesn't have a son anymore." Serena suddenly said as the locket was passed around. "It's true; I did have his son but…" Serena coughed gently, blowing back a sob in her throat. "In the hospital, after I gave birth, a nurse came to me and told me my son had died. Kunthan says I didn't even ask about my daughter, I just passed out from the shock." A struggling smile came back on her face once again. "I was going to call him Shingo, you know."
She took back her locket as it came full circle and her shaking hands clenched against the gold as the tears she had been holding onto for the past year dropped. Amy's arm immediately came over her and Mina's hand covered Serena's clasped fingers. She looked up and, through bleary vision, saw Lita coming over to her, embracing the smaller girl from behind, letting Serena lean against a warmer and kinder frame than the cold wall. Finally, she saw Rei scoot over towards her, fresh tears streaming down her ivory cheeks. With the sincerity and touch that could only be described as angelic, Rei pressed her lips to Serena's forehead. Only when Rei felt the sad creases on Serena's forehead smooth out, did Rei pull away. And she did so, only to look into her friend's eyes, those sad cerulean eyes that saw things she shouldn't have, and say,
"Don't cry anymore, Serena." Rei said. "You're with family now." She kissed her cheek. "You're safe."
a/n: well, the actual 2-year anniversary of this fic is tomorrow but i decided to cut my readers a break since i'm long overdue for an update. yeah, this has been one of my longer chapters where practically the whole thing was dialouge. i thought it kind of fitting that the last three chapters with all the juicy information have tying titles. anyway, i hope you have all enjoyed, especially now that all the mystery stuff has been moved out of the way...well, at least for Serena it's been moved. I've still got the other girls to take care of, remember?
review!