(how can I just let you walk away, just let you leave without a trace? when I stand here taking every breath for you. you're the only one who really knew me at all)

(so take a look at me now)

Darien pushed through the people on the sidewalk, now nearing a steady run as thoughts of his very last encounter with Rini flew through his mind at an almost blinding speed. There hadn't been any words. She had given him the earring, knowing he would have the other. Hoping he would make the connection.

Rini wanted Setsuna back as badly as he did. It was their love for Setsuna, their bond through her that let Rini feel his sadness, even through Raye's useless incantation. Rini knew. Maybe she had known all along. She had come to give him the earring, to give him a vital clue to getting back to Setsuna. Rini had given him hope, she'd given him something to desire, she'd brought him back.

Darien was back, he thought, an almost cheesy grin spreading over his face as he ran, his heart beating in his chest. He'd decided at the last minute not to take the car, and although it was probably almost a twenty minute walk, he found himself running, feeling more alive and himself than he'd felt in literally months. He made the run in almost eleven minutes.

(I wish I could just make you turn around)

He jogged up to the front door of Serena's house and rapped on the door a moment. The time it took for Serena's mother to get to the door seemed like an eternity, but who was really trapped in eternity? Setsuna.

Not for long.

"Oh, hello, Darien! Rini's been expecting you to play for a long time," Serena's mother greeted him. "Did you and Serena have fun planning?" She grinned at him.

"Never more fun," he lied, smiling.

"Oh, that's good. Did she head off to Lita's?" She asked him, her innocence to everything quite touching him, and he almost couldn't lie to her this time. She let him in.

"I think so," he said, not exactly untruthfully. He would assume she would head off to her next planned event without him there to help with wedding thngs.

"We're all so excited, Darien," Serena's mother beamed. A wrench of guilt tightened around his heart, and his smile was not quite so genuine anymore.

(there's so much I need to say to you, so many reasons why)

"It will be great," he somehow managed. She had already turned her back to go to the kitchen, however, sparing her seeing his forced expression.

"Rini's in her room, go ahead and see her," Serena's mother called to him from the kitchen, but Darien was already on his way toward the trapdoor at the end of the hallway. He reached up to grab the string that held the door up, but it slowly came down before he even touched it. He saw Rini's small white hand lowering the ladder to him. He took it and watched her hand slip back up through the hole and heard her footsteps hurrying across the room. He climbed up the ladder with some difficulty; it was almost too small for him to get through.

He made up to her room and looked around. It was so small and comfortable, fit for a little princess. His little princess. He looked to his right and saw that Rini was behind a bookshelf, in a little crook of the room that couldn't be seen unless you went around the bookshelf. Darien moved toward it, ducking. The ceiling was too low. He could see even before he reached her little hiding place that there were pictures on the floor. His heart began to thump loudly in his ears.

"Rini?"

She wasn't facing him. She was sitting on her knees, a bit hunched over, something clasped between her hands in her lap.

He realized that Soft Rose didn't only look like the color of her hair, but matched it perfectly.

"Rini?"

Slowly, she turned her head. She was smiling, but she was also crying. He knelt slowly beside her and put a hand on her tiny shoulder.

"You need to see her, don't you, Daddy?" Rini asked softly.

Darien swallowed, but was only able to nod. She had never called him that before.

"I love her, Luna P," Rini said softly, no longer looking at him, but at the pictures scattered face down on the floor. "I miss her." Rini's smile did not falter. "She always called me Chibiusa."

Again, Darien nodded, unable to make his voice work in his throat.

"Mama pretends that she can't hear me if I ask about them, but I know why. You loved her, didn't you?"

Tears prickled his eyes. "Yes," he whispered.

"You still love her."

"Yes."

Rini slowly turned around, object still grasping in one hand, hiding it from his view. She put her hand to his neck, grabbing the chain there that she had probably seen only once or twice before. She pulled it gently away from his neck, lifting it, the long chain sifting through her fingers, until she reached the charm on the end, the beautiful, tiny key. She examined it, and her features seemed to soften.

She let the key drop back to his chest, only outside of his clothes this time.

Slowly, her fist unclenched around the object she was holding, and he saw there a bigger version of the key around his neck.

"This one takes you to the Gates of Time," she explained, looking down at her key, "and nowhere else. I didn't steal this one, Luna P gave it to me so I could come play with her whenever Mama was mad or Daddy was busy. When my Mama was calling for me, Luna P would send me home. But I could always come back. She hears a lot of voices across time, Luna P does. She hears a lot of joy and confusion and greif. I know she hears me crying." Rini looked up at him again with her small smile and crying eyes, eyes so damn like Setsuna's. "I bet she hears your voice, too, sometimes."

Darien found himself reduced to silence yet again.

(there's so much I need to say to you, so many reasons why)

Rini took his large hand and put Setsuna's key into it. "You can go see Luna P, now."

"Thank you, Rini."

Rini only smiled in reply. "Don't tell Serena," she warned, still smliing.

"I won't, I promise I won't," he said, nodding in agreement.

As he was about to stand, Rini grabbed his shirt and put the charm back beneath it. Wordlessly, she sat back down on the floor and pulled a coloring book off the bookshelf. "See you later, Darien," she said with honest cheerfullness.

"Bye, Rini," Dairen bid her farewell, and then he went back down the later, slightly bewildered. He put the key in his pocket when he reached the bottom of the stairs, marvelling at what he had in his pocket. "Goodbye!" He called to Serena's mother on the way out the door.

He walked back toward his apartment, almost in a daze. This was it, he had the power to see Setsuna again sitting in his pocket. He would see her again.

(so take a look at me now. there's just an empty space. there's nothing left here to remind me, just the memory of your face)

He put his hand on the doorknob, but it jerked open before him.

Serena was standing there, looking both angry and shocked at his appearance. She was holding a pink shopping bag with all of her wedding planning supplies in it.

"What are you doing here?" They asked each other in unison, neither of them able to hide their irritation.