Moriari

Chapter 9

A/N: Hope you all had a good 4th of July for those of us that celebrate it. Hope you enjoy this chapter and I will continuously try to update this story every week until it's finished.

Disclaimer: I do not own Sailor Moon.

Rating: M

She shivered, the gust of evening wind seeping through the wooden window as it crept up her bare leg and onto her thigh. He watched her burrow herself further into the covers, her hands snaking beneath the feathered pillow that rested idly beneath her head. The luminescent light of the moon seemed to be as affectionate toward the blonde as Darien was, for it never let its light off of her face and the illumination seemed to emphasize her already obvious beauty. He pinched the bridge of his nose. His body ached and he was undoubtedly tired from the resulting stress in regards to the trauma that the planet had recently undergone and last night's events with Serena. And despite the exuberance he currently felt over confronting his feelings and finally allowing himself to love her, he could not shake the turbulent storm that seemed to be hovering over his person. He had only felt like this one other time in his life and it was moments later that he learned his mother was dead.

In all honesty, what could he offer her? Their relationship, their love that crossed the borders of humanity, could never be open and free as he wanted it to be. King or not, she could never be his queen, his wife. It would be an impossibility for her to bear his children; crossbreeding with humans was not possible as their bodies were far too different. He would never have an heir, he would never see her swollen with his child, and she would never experience the joy of motherhood. Could he truly deny her that? Would he force her into a life of secrecy, into seeing another woman inhabit his throne, while she inhabited his bed and his heart? He would indeed be forced to take a wife of his kind, if not to provide stability to the empire, but to produce a successor, to rule his kingdom upon his death. So many thoughts such as these overcame him with sudden fits of anxiety and he was so trapped in his fears that he had to uncoil himself from her grip and leave the bed where she slept angelically. That is how he found himself in this chair; that is how he found himself swallowed by the thoughts of fear, his trepidation only stoking the flames of worry more as various scenarios ran amuck in his thoughts.

"Have long have you been awake?" came the sleepy croak of a womanly voice.

Her voice caught his attention and he looked to her, once again mesmerized by her earthy beauty. Her hair had become askew over the night and now it dangled freely around her, staining the white sheets gold as the ringlets rested against the cotton surface.

She frowned. His expression was impassive and the muscles beneath his soft expanse of tinted skin were taut. She searched his eyes with her own and found an expression beneath them that she had truly dreaded seeing: regret. Deep in her mind, she knew last night was possibly one of the biggest mistakes that she could have made, but she couldn't find the strength nor the desire to stop him. Slowly she pulled the sheets up to her chin to fully cover herself, suddenly ashamed of her nakedness. What had she done?

"What are you doing?" he asked, cocking his eyebrow as he watched her pull the blanket up to the tip of her nose and collapse onto her back. Her eyes focused onto the bare ceiling. When she answered a muffled "nothing" he couldn't help but smile. "You know we had sex last night?"

"I know."

"Then why are you hiding from me?"

She pulled the blanket down to her neck and stared at him. "For the same reason that you're in that chair and not here with me."

He frowned. He knew exactly what she was implying. "It's not what you think."

"Here it comes."

"Here what comes?"

"You apologizing for last night, telling me it was a mistake and saying that it'll never happen again. That having sex with me was a serious lapse of judgment on your part and that although you love me, we can never be together."

He laughed at her detailed response. "I wasn't going to say that?"

"Really?" Disbelief was laced in her voice. "So you've just been sitting their pouting for absolutely no reason."

He got up from his chair and slowly made his way toward her body. The bed dipped slightly as he sat beside her, his warmth radiating from his bare chest onto her exposed skin. "I wasn't pouting, Serena, I was thinking about…about how this could work out."

"You do think last night was a mistake."

"I didn't say that," he said, putting his head in his hands and then turning to look at her. "Our lives together wouldn't be some fairytale story, you know. We can't be together, not in the conventional way. There would be so much hiding and lies, would really be able to take on a lifetime of that?"

She opened her mouth to reply, but could offer no response. His admission forced her to realize the truth of what life had to offer them. There would be no marriage, no free display of affection, only hiding and concealment. Could she live under that shadow for the entirety of her life?

For him, she could.

"And what would be the other alternative? Can you really forget what we have Darien? Even if you sent me away from Moriari, I would never forget you and I doubt you would forget me either."

He looked away to the dark clouds that were floating in the distance. "I will love you for the rest of my life."

She reached out and touched his hand, his dark eyes falling to her. He leaned over and planted a small kiss on her cheek before letting his forehead rest against hers. His expert hands found their way to the sheet that was covering her nudity and slowly he began to peel the covering away from her body. "You're beautiful, don't hide from me." His voice was deep and memories of the huskiness in his words sent a pleasurable ache from her core to every nerve ending in her body. His hands fell to her naked breast and once again she surrendered to the will of his desire, letting him bend and fold her into an enclosure of goose bumps and gossamer flesh.

The construction workers had promptly arrived and from the window Serena watched in awe as they laid the foundations of the impending city. Their movements were so fast that she anticipated that the complex would be completed in less than a week and inaugurated in no more than a fortnight. She stood near the window, clutching a blanket to her chest, the breezy night air cold despite the walls that enclosed them. Darien was outside speaking to one of the chief engineers. She loved the proud arrogance in his stance, his commanding nature, his authoritative glare. He was a King among men, but to Serena, he was only her beloved. She was the one he had shared his secrets with. In her mind he invested his fears and his dreams. To them he was just a King; to her he was a reflection of all that was right in the world, a reflection of what true beauty could offer.

She dropped the blanket, her hands falling to her waist and over her flat stomach. It had been three days since their first encounter and they had rarely found themselves apart from each other. Things would undoubtedly be easier here. The engineers departed hours before dawn and arrived some time after the late sunset. The time they spent in between was their own and she found herself falling more in love with him as the hours progressed. In all honesty she knew that this relationship could bring more harm to them both than good, but it was a sacrifice they found themselves willing to make, just at the chance of being together.

She smiled when his hands snaked around her waist and he pulled her body into his. She leaned into him and felt herself relax as he ran kisses down the back of her neck until the skin of his lips pressed against the lace of her collar. He had never possessed such a feeling of euphoria in the entirety of his three thousand years of living. Over his lifetime there had been many women, but none of them that smelled quite like her; none of them had ever touched him the way she did, and when she smiled at him, every worry that buzzed within his mind disappeared and all he could see was her.

"Are they driving you crazy?"

"No, what's driving me crazy is you being inside, away from me," he said.

"They should be leaving soon."

"One can only hope," he said, releasing her as the sound of footsteps brought several men into the room.

"Majesty, the ground work is complete and we anticipate the living compartments to be finished by the end of this week along with the dining section. The town square and market place will be completed by the end of the month and we anticipate moving the humans in ten days from now," said an older man, patches of gray peppered into his otherwise dark brown hair. Darien thanked him for the report and watched as the men boarded their transports and sped off into the darkness, the sand from the engine falling like golden snowflakes back onto the dirt floor. Serena felt Darien offer a soft tug to her hand as she followed him up to their bedroom.

It had been nearly three weeks since their return from Embria and things between Darien and Serena had been strained if nothing else. There was infinite hustle and bustle around the castle as approvals for furniture and proper clothing for the humans were cast by her. Darien was constantly traveling back and forth from Embria to assess the construction and was consistently meeting with the high council of Elders to discuss the progress of the mining guilds. As busy as things were, they hadn't had the proper chance to see each other, and the stress from being apart was putting them both in rather foul moods.

There was one day left until the inauguration of the guild in Embria when Serena found herself overcome with such intense sickness and fatigue that she sent away the interior decorators hired to furnish the apartments . Presently she was lying on the bed, clutching her head as it throbbed painfully. She tried to pull herself up, but another wave of dizziness befell her and she was confined to the comforts of her bedroom. She hadn't recalled feeling so sick since she went down into the mining camps near the castle to talk to its inhabitants a little over a month ago and had not seen nor spoken to any humans since then. However she could not deny that the feeling of everlasting nausea had returned to her and in her weariness she could barely move.

Her eyes fluttered and she longed for the comfort of a dreamless sleep, but the constant shouting and movement in the castle kept her firmly planted in the bounds of consciousness. Her hands fell to her stomach and she found herself absentmindedly stroking her womb, trying with her hands to ease away the queasiness that seemed to be a permanent and unwelcomed neighbor. She reasoned that she could be getting sick, although illness rarely handicapped her and surmised that the events of this preceding week had forced her into a state of unrest due to all the chaos caused by the building project that she and Darien had undertaken.

There was a small knock on the door before someone stepped in, sat a steaming bowl of liquid on the glossy wooden table beside her bed and then sat down next to her. "Still feeling ill?" asked Darien, leaning in and kissing her lips chastely.

She nodded, covering her eyes and then looking up at him; his face was painted with concern. "Maybe Joshua should examine you. It looks like you have symptoms of a cold. A couple of years ago some of the humans in the camps got your human flu and that spread so fast we had to inoculate them with a vaccine and quarantine the rest."

"Human flu? You don't get sick?"

He smiled smugly. "No."

She groaned inwardly, another bout of sickness spreading through her and this time it felt like she might actually vomit. She covered her hand with her mouth and fought back the urge to heave, the taste of acid rising and burning the back of her throat. Her eyes were stinging with the effort and only did the feeling of Darien's hand stroking her brow ease some of her discomfort. When the nausea passed, she looked to him, thankful for his concern but made no attempt to shift, fearing that any movement might arouse the liquid in her belly and it would rise up and she would be forced to vomit on the man that sat concerned beside her.

He waited quietly, stroking her brow and letting his hand fall to her shoulder where it connected with her hand that was resting firmly against her lower abdomen. He opened his mouth to offer her some words of comfort when he felt a sudden jolt beneath his palm, an electrifying burst of energy sent straight into his hand. He immediately recoiled, his eyes widening, before bringing the hand to his face and staring at it confusedly.

"Did you feel that?" he asked, clenching his fingers into a fist and then releasing.

"Did I feel what?" she asked, raising herself on her elbows and surveying him.

He grimaced. "You shocked me and it kind of hurt."

"My stomach shocked you?" she asked amused. "Is the little baby, okay?" Her voice was mocking.

He stared at her, her words sending chills down his spine. It was as though a lake of icy water burst from its confines and showered him with cold realization. Baby?

Slowly, he let his trembling hands near her stomach again, removing her hand and replacing it with his own. He waited slowly for something similar to happen again and felt a sudden rush of relief overcome him. For a moment he thought…he would have sworn he felt something within her.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing."

He was going to suggest she try and have some soup when the familiar stinging sensation latched onto the palm of his hand and sent another jolt into his arm. This time he knew he wasn't hallucinating and let his hands press more firmly into her stomach. And there he felt it, the rapid maturation of growth, of energy, of the little ball of cells that was growing quickly within her. The world seemed to stop around him. He looked down at the blonde, watching her mouth move but unable to hear the exact words she was speaking. This was impossible, she absolutely couldn't be carrying his child, it defied every law of their biology. It had been a scientific fact that humans and Moriarans could not procreate together, but as his hand rested on her womb, the warmth that spread to him made it an undeniable fact that Serena was indeed pregnant.

Immediately he jumped from the bed as if he had been burned. His breathing was rapid and all the color had drained from his face. Concern immediately bled through Serena's bemused expression as she watched Darien hyperventilate before her.

"What's wrong with you?" she asked, finding the strength to pull herself forward despite her sickness.

"I…stay here," he said, putting a hand in front of him and backing away from the room, his wide fearful eyes never leaving hers.

"Darien-"

"Just…I'll be back, don't move!" His movements were frantic as he side stepped to the door and departed behind it, the methodic sound of his shoes against the floor disappearing as his footsteps faded away.

Darien waited in the hallway, his head resting against the stone wall, the cold of the hard concrete painful against his skull. Joshua had been in there for nearly half an hour. He recalled the look of surprise on the doctor's face when the king had burst into the lab and asked for his assistance. The physician was confused when Darien had asked him to give Serena a full physical examination, but to remain vague about its purpose and even more indistinct about the results. Joshua, in his loyalty to his king, had dutifully obeyed and stopped whatever he had been doing to follow Darien up to her chambers and proceed inside carefully.

The brunette surmised that he was wrong, that his weariness had led him to sense something that didn't even exist and that Joshua would emerge from the room with the unfortunate knowledge that Serena had a cold, and she would be bedridden but would otherwise recover soon and return to her duties regarding the humans. He had never believed much in wishful thinking or denying the obvious, but he was unable to process the possibility of what was occurring in that room. If it had been in a different time and place, he would have been overjoyed at the prospect of having a child with Serena, but bearing fruit with a human on Moriari was not a blessing, it was sentence for death.

His lips pursed; he had never thought to use a contraceptive during the many times that they made love as he had been told her pregnancy was a biological impossibility, but on reflection he realized how stupid that decision had been. With every other woman that he had been involved with, he was extremely careful to avoid getting in a situation such as this. If a royal heir were to be conceived out of wedlock, the repercussions of such a disdainful act on his part would be unthinkable for both the woman and the child. They were a people shaped by such a strong sense of morality, that their attempts to keep order could sometimes result in destructive and detrimental behavior to all involved. If she were pregnant with his baby, her fate and the fate of their child would be something he refused to fathom and thus hoped in happy ignorance that his discovery was false and for now she was free from the clutches of overwhelming danger.

The door emerged slowly as the doctor filed out, a leather bag of instruments propped onto one of his shoulders. "Perhaps we should speak in private, majesty." His stare beheld no anger and no knowledge of Darien's actions and they walked slowly, side by side, into a small conference room at the end of the curved hallway. Immediately the doctor dropped the bag, rubbed his eyes wearily, and sat in a chair across from Darien. The younger man remained standing.

"What did you expect me to find Darien?" asked the doctor his voice gruff. His expression still bore no notions of forbidden knowledge.

"Is she ill?" he asked.

"It depends on what you define as ill," he said, rubbing his hands on his pants. "You are about to have a disaster on your hands. The girl is pregnant. Four to five weeks or so from what I surmise. I would need proper equipment to fully know."

"Does Serena know?"

Joshua shook his head. "I have not told her, yet."

Darien remained quiet, a silent notion of awareness seizing his voice and forcing him into soundless comprehension. No shock overwhelmed him, nor was he beaten down with the sentiment of surprise. His thinking, after all, had been wishful.

"I sincerely doubt the father is a human, as the girl, to my knowledge has had no contact with any human males in a private sector." He linked his hands together. "I understand your affection for the girl, however you cannot keep this a secret forever, highness. I am unaware of how this hybrid of a child will affect her physiology as this has never happened before, but I am certain she will start showing in a few months and her pregnancy will no longer be only your concern."

"How is this possible?" asked Darien, his voice weak. "I had always been told…"

"She is quite different from other humans wouldn't you say? Perhaps her interesting blood strain allowed her to conceive, which is in fact an impossibility for a normal human woman. But based off her abilities we can deduce that the girl is different and her oddities are deeper than just bending nature to her will. It's unfortunate that this pregnancy is forbidden and even more unfortunate that the she will have to be killed." Darien closed his eyes, the heaviness in his heart making it almost impossible for him to breathe. "You must find the father of this child and make an example of him, Darien. Although there are few documented women on this planet with gifts such as these, this cannot become a common practice and the birth of your mining guilds will only make it easier for humans and our kind to mate. I understand you care about the girl, but the father must be found, and she must be killed."

Darien watched in silence as Joshua gathered his bag and rose from his chair. "It is your obligation to protect the purity of our race. You are King, after all."