A/N: Again, almost the same as the first posting of this chapter, but I altered some things.

Edited: February 16, 2016

Defying Gravity

Part I Chapter 2

I walked slowly out of the arrival gate in New York's JFK international airport, stumbling slightly onto a bench once I exited the terminal. The flight to New York was the best flight for the price I could get out of Japan on such a short notice. The only down side was that I had several layovers in different cities, all of them adding up to being longer than the actual flight. I set Luna's cage on the bench next to me and I sighed, lightly scratching my scalp as I tried to figure out what to do next.

"What do we do now Usagi?" Luna whispered from her cage.

"I don't know Luna," I returned. "And I thought we decided that I was going to use a different name here? New life, new me right?"

"You never told me what you wanted your new to be…"

I tilted my head and thought for a moment. "Serena," I answered after a moment, I want my name to be Serena."

We both fell silent and I sighed, wondering where I could possibly start to look for my sisters. This country was so large and vast, they could be anywhere, I had no clue where to start. I pushed myself off of the bench and grabbed Luna's carrier, but a familiar voice caught my attention. It was older and louder with more emotion present, and a slight French accent, but it was familiar nonetheless.

"Merde! I am just trying to locate my luggage you petit imbecile. I was told that it would be back by now, but I find out that it is in Russia somewhere! Vous êtes une personne incompétente!" Locating the voice, I spotted a young woman, a very irate looking young woman, at the lost luggage counter yelling at the attendant behind the desk. She had light, flaxen blonde hair that had been dyed to have a slight bluish tint to it, almost a frost blue color. From the back she looked different, and the hair was different, but the voice sounded the same so I had to know for sure.

I walked up behind the person as she stalked away form the lost luggage counter, mumbling words in French that were too low for me to identify. Tapping her on the shoulder, I gasped when she turned and I was staring into very familiar, dark blue eyes, a fascinating shade of royal blue. Her faced paled as if seeing a ghost when she saw me before she gasped out. "Usagi?" She murmured, a question in her voice.

"Hikaru," I muttered out as my sister embraced me for the first time in nearly eight years, tears streaking down my face. I didn't sob or let out shuddering cries, not believing I had any sobs left in me, but I did feel a great pressure lift from me, freeing my soul.

"Usagi, what?" Hikaru said, pushing back to get a better look at me. "How are you here, why are you here?"

"That's a long story," I shuddered out, stepping away from her. I bent down and picked up my suitcase and Luna's cage, not realizing I had set them down at some point.

I could feel the older girl's eyes assessing my movements, I'm sure taking in every wince and slight hesitation I made as I moved. "I wasn't sure it was you for a moment," she said, drawing my attention. "You look so much like her I got confused, like I was seeing the past, but I realized there was only one other person in the world that you could be."

"Her?" I questioned, looking at my sister in confusion.

"Dawn, er, Akari," she amended when my confusion didn't abate. "We changed our names when we ran away. We didn't want Kenji or Ikuto to be able to find us if they ever bothered to come looking."

"Oh," I replied, awkwardness lacing my tone. I was beyond happy to see my sister, but it was catching up to me that at this point, we had spent more time apart than together as sisters. We were effectively strangers. "What's your new name?" I asked, wanting to get rid of this awkward feeling.

"Stella," she answered, sticking out her hand. "Stella Parker, but you can keep calling me Hikaru if it makes you more comfortable."

"No, I-" I stopped, unsure of what I wanted to say. "No, it'll take a while to get used to, but Stella is your name now. That's who you are now, I think I just realized things and they're catching up with me."

Hik- Stella looked at me with concern in her eyes before leading me away from the flood of people and prying eyes, grabbing some of my stuff to lighten my load. "Okay, sit down and spill, what's going on in that pretty little head of yours?"

"I just…" I started, tears flooding from my eyes at this point. "I just, in my head I imagined things would be different. I ran away from home, I couldn't take it anymore, and I can here to America hoping to find you and Akari, that things would be like they used to but I realized that we're essentially strangers. You're not the same person I remember, and I'm not the same little girl you remember. We've all grown up in the time we've been apart and now I don't know what to do."

"Whoa, hey, okay, let's calm down for a second," Hi-Stella said, embracing me softly around the shoulders. "Take a deep breath and just breathe for a few minutes." I took a few shuddering breaths and I look down, seeing Luna look up at me hesitantly from her carrier. "Now, I think I best leave that whole running away thing for when we're home and Dawn could hear the story, but what makes you think we're strangers?"

"I mean, you look different, sound different. You have a French accent now, I guess I just starting to think about how much I've missed…"

"Okay, you need to stop that right now," Stella stated firmly. She grabbed my chin and forced my head in her direction, urging me to look at her. "We're sisters. Dawn and I never stopped thinking about you; we love you. And while we have grown up, that doesn't make us strangers." I nodded my head at Stella's words and wiped my eyes. "Now, I don't live with Dawn much any more, maybe a couple months out of the year when I'm on vacation or before I head on tour elsewhere, but I'm sure she would be glad to have you live with her."

I perked up at hearing that. While I loved Stella, my older sister, still loved her despite the time we spent apart, she wasn't my oldest sister, my hero, my defender. "Still as infatuated with her as ever I see," Stella teased, grabbing my suitcase for me. "Come on, my car is in short term parking so we best head out."

"S-Stella," I whispered harshly, my face beet red at her mentioning of my 'infatuation' with our oldest sister. I wasn't infatuated, she was just my favorite person in the whole world.

As we walked through the airport dodging the other travelers, I could hear Stella mumbling "shit," "go the fuck away," "fucking shit," among other French words, most likely choice words. I stifled back laughter at her language, a small smile still gracing my face though.

She guided me over towards a forest green jeep wrangler once we reached the parking lot, ushering me in the passenger seat as she put my suitcase in the back. "Now who do we have here?" Stella asked, taking Luna's carrier out of my hands and setting it on the back seat. She pressed the back of her fingers against the bars on the door, allowing Luna to rub against her fingers.

"That's Luna," I said, smiling at my guardian.

"What a perfect name for a black cat," Stella said, strapping the carrier down so it didn't roll about. "I hope you get along well with dogs or other cats Luna, you'll have to get used to it."

"You have pets?"

"I have a dog and Dawn has a cat," she said, climbing into the jeep.

I hummed as Stella left the airport and pulled out into the NYC traffic. "So what do you do now?" I asked her, interrupted her tirade of muttered curse words.

"What do I do? Job wise?"

"Yeah, I'm trying to get to know you now, see what my sister has been up to and all."

"I'm a musician, mostly a classical musician but I do dabble in rock and pop music occasionally. I play the trumpet, violin, piano, mostly the trumpet and the violin though."

I stared blankly at her as she drove, trying to merge the image I had of my second sister with the woman next to me. It wasn't working. "That's cool, do you do concerts and stuff?" I asked.

"I record albums and do solo concerts for the violin, electric violin, but my main job is first chair, composer and secondary conductor for the French symphony in Paris. I also work at the University of Paris as an artist in residence on occasion, usually a special seminar in the spring if I have the time."

I shook my head, "Wow, this, this is just so different from what I thought you would be doing when you grew up."

"What did you think I would be doing and I haven't mentioned anything about growing up."

I shrugged, "I don't know, I figured you would be doing math or something. I never remembered you being super involved in music."

"I've always been involved with music, ever since I was little. Dawn helped me keep it a secret from Kenji and Ikuto, you don't think that they would've been supportive of a career in music do you?"

I didn't answer, instead staring out the window at the city around me. Our parents wouldn't approve of music, they wouldn't approve of many things actually, art, music, theatre, teaching, gardening… They were only interested in potentially profitable careers like business, science, law, medicine, anything deviating from these choices were beneath their notice.

"Where are we headed Stella?" I asked finally when I noticed we were leaving the city behind us.

"Well, Dawn has an apartment in town for when she's working or has late nights, but her main residence, and where I stay whenever I'm in town, is out of the city in a more wooded area. It's so much a residential area, there are other houses around, but Dawn has a few acres to give a semblance of privacy. Not super convenient driving into town, but its not too terrible far either."

"Why did you guys pick the names you did? You and Akari, why did you pick Stella and Dawn?"

"Well," Stella struggling before shrugging. "Not sure, we liked the names, they're loose translations of our old names, so we went with them. Our adoptive parents were really supportive about it."

"Adoptive parents?"

"Right, let's leave that alone for now, Dawn is way better at explaining things than I am." Stella pulled off of the highway into a more residential, wooded area, and turned down a gravel path. I let my breath out in amazement as a house came into view through the trees. The building seemed to be a mixture between a modern lodge house and a fantasy medieval castle. A stone façade covered the entire building, and turrets, arched windows, balconies and slanted roofs combined to create a miniature dream house. Stella pulled her jeep under the connected covered car park and turned off the car. My mouth must've still been hanging open because my sister burst out laughing with just one look at my face.

"Flies dude, think of the flies," she said as she pushed my mouth closed. "Come on, let's go." She motioned for me to follow her out of the car as she grabbed Luna's carrier and my suitcase from the backseat. Grabbing my backpack, I followed her in through a side door in the car park that led into the kitchen.

"Dawn, I'm back," Stella announced once we entered the house. "We're you at?"

"Living room," a voice called back. "Back so soon? Did the airport not have your luggage or did they throw it at you as you walked in?" The voice was older, lighter with a teasing lilt in the tone, but it has the same warm quality I remembered.

"No I didn't get my luggage, don't remind me, but I did find something else," Stella replied, walking out of the kitchen and down the hall. I followed behind her meekly, fear and hesitation stalling my movements.

"Usagi," Dawn gasped when she saw me coming down the hall, her hand rising to cover her mouth. She stood slowly from the couch and my eyes filled with tears as I took in her appearance. I had been afraid that she had changed somehow, become a different person than the Akari I remembered, especially since she and Stella changed their names. As I looked at her, my eyes glossing over her form, I realized she was just an older version of the big sister I remembered. She had grown older, matured, but still present in her eyes was the same kindness and compassion that I missed. Her hair was different, a brilliant pale blonde layered down around her shoulder blades becoming a vibrant golden blonde. Her eyes flickered up and down, the crystal blue orbs assessing me, taking me in. She was taller, fuller in areas giving her a healthy appearance rather than the thinner, almost sickly look I remembered, one I'm sure I had.

I forced back the tears that were threatening to fall. "Dawn," I croaked out, unable to say anything else. She smiled, the type of smile that I had been missing for all these years, one full of love and affection. The tears that I had been holding back refused to be contained any longer as they broke out and raced down my face to freedom. I threw myself into my oldest sister's arms, not caring the pain it caused to my ribs because the relief in my heart at being back with my family overrode the pain.

I lost track of time as I cried against my oldest sister's shoulder, everything that had happened to me since I had last seen the two of them piled up and suddenly came rushing out. Dawn rubbed my back soothingly and waited until she was sure I had finished crying before tugging me back into the living room and onto the couch. During my crying fit, Stella had disappeared down another hall to the left and reappeared when we sat down in the living room, Kleenex in hand. I took the box and pulled out a tissue, blowing my nose before I looked around the house.

The floor plan was very open and modern to fit the modern castle exterior of the house. I could see the front door and the foyer to my right, both extremely well lit both from the handing lights in the foyer and the light streaming through the glass of the front door. The hallway curved slight from there, fitting with the slight curve in the house I noticed from the outside. I could see the dining room just to the right of the foyer if I had come through the front door and the kitchen was further down, with the side door leading to the car park. I couldn't see much on what was to the left from the foyer with my current view but from what I remembered on the outside of the house that was where one of the semi turrets was located.

I shifted my attention to the room I was currently in, the living room. The room was well lit, with a half partition wall with Greek style columns connecting to the ceiling as support beams. Insanely comfortable recliners and chairs were scattered around the room near the couch I was on, all of them facing the entertainment cabinet on the opposite side of the room. I could see a staircase behind the cabinet, opposite of the dining room, leading up to the second floor of the house. Another partial turret must've been in the back of the house as a curved section jutted out on my left with windows leading to the backyard and another door leading to a patio.

"What is up with this house?" I murmured, taking everything in. "It's really nice."

"Usagi," Dawn chuckled, drawing my attention. "You haven't changed much have you?"

"In some ways I have, but not in any of the ways that matter," I replied, my mind flashing back to all of the criticism I've received about being immature, childish, ignorant.

Dawn looked at me with critical eyes, "No, you have changed, quite a bit really. You want to tell me why you're here? Or what those bandages around your ribs are for?"

I winced at Dawn's words, remembering what happened to me before I ended up leaving Japan. Taking a deep breath, I started explaining what happened with my friends and my parents, leaving out the stuff about sailor scouts and magic. I wasn't ever going to be Sailor Moon again, so I didn't think it was necessary to open that can of worms. Stella had seated herself on the arm of the couch next to me sometime during my story and both of them were listening intently.

After I finished, Dawn and Stella were quiet for a moment before Stella jerked up from her seat. "Those fucking losers," she hissed, "and that rat bastard, I can't believe he would try this shit again, either of them. They haven't changed a bit. We should've brought her with us when we left."

"How could we have done that?" Dawn returned, "Neither of us were in any state to take care of her and if we had taken her, you know they would've come after us and probably have us charged with kidnapping or something equally ridiculous. Kenji may have been mediocre, but he had a few friends in strategic locations."

"Wait," I said, shaking my head, "what are you guys talking about?"

Dawn sighed and shook her head, "Kenji and Ikuto, they did the same thing to me that night that we disappeared, only it was much worse. Stella got me out to a hospital, but Kenji had friends in the police, we knew that they would do nothing to him and everything to us, that's why we left. We hoped that maybe they would change after that night, not knowing what happened, but clearly we were wrong. We should have known."

I stared at them in disbelief, "So you knew he was like this, that they were like this, and you just left me there?"

"Usagi, what would you have had us do? I was sixteen, the same asge as you are right now, I didn't know what to do. I was scared and hurt, and I thought with us gone, they would leave you alone. Seeing you here now, hurt and broken, kills me inside that I could have done something to prevent that. If I could go back and figure out a way to get you away from them, I would, but we can't. All we can do is move forward. I know you've created an image of sixteen year old me in your head, imagining me as your protector and savior, but remember I was still just a kid. I'm older now, financially more stable and I'm in a place to be able to take care of you if you want. I'm offering, I want you to stay, here, with me, that's all I've ever wanted."

I shook my head slightly, trying to shake away my thoughts. I knew she was right, I had idealized her, propped her up on a pedestal as my hero, but she was only a teenager last time I saw her. I couldn't imagine taking care of a child right now, so I can't hold it against her that she and Stella left me behind. "I… I want to stay, but I think I need to lie down for a while," I murmured finally.

Dawn nodded and helped me up off the couch. "I'll give you a quick tour around the house before I show you to your room." She stopped briefly, noticing Luna in her carrier, "Oh hello, who are you?"

"This is Luna," I responded, letting her out of her carrier and picking her up.

"Hello Luna, aren't you a pretty thing," Dawn murmured, scratching the cat beneath her chin. "Do you get alone well with dogs and other cats?" Luna purred in response while I smiled.

"She'll be fine."

Nodding, Dawn lead me out of the living room until we were standing in the entranceway. "Right, well, this is the front door, as you can see. We rarely use this door though, opting for the side door in the car park instead." I followed her down the right hallway from where I entered. "You saw the kitchen and the dining room," she said, pointing to the rooms. She pointed down a staircase leading to another floor, directly underneath the staircase leading upstairs. "This leads to the basement, there's an exercise room and a small pool down there, but the pool is kept in an atmosphere controlled room so that the moisture in the air doesn't escape."

"Seriously?" I asked, gaping at her.

"Seriously," Dawn chuckled before continuing down the hall as the house curved to the back slightly. "This is the library, entertainment room, blah blah blah," she said as she opened another door leading to a large room full of books, movies, music and games, along with another TV with gaming consoles. "If you want to play video games, the games and everything are kept in here, the TV in the living room is generally used for movies and TV rather than any type of games." I looked around the room curiously before Dawn tapped my shoulder and motioned me back in the hallway, "You'll have time to look around later." She stopped briefly at a pair of doors just outside the library, "I forgot, laundry facilities and storage area in here." She continued down the hallway passed the front door. To the left of the front door was a simple sitting area with a window seat looking out at the driveway and the gardens in front of the window.

"There's a half-bath down here," Dawn said, opening a door to a room that was directly behind the living room. There was a toilet, sink and small shower in the room, but it was clear that the shower was only there for emergencies or guest usage. We continued down the hallway until it became clear that we were leaving the main house and entering the connected but separate building I observed outside earlier. "This is Stella's section of the house, it's almost like a separate apartment," Dawn explained as she knocked on the door at the end of the hallway. "She has her own entrance technically, but she doesn't use it, and there isn't a full kitchen, just a small fridge and microwave."

Stella opened the door, a bag of popcorn in her hand only wearing a tank top and a pair of bikini style underwear, "S'up, you want to see my pad?"

I saw my oldest sister roll her eyes, "I'm constantly amazed at how quickly you manage to lose your pants and find junk food little sis."

"I have amazing skills," Stella replied, her mouth full of popcorn, "And don't call me little sis, I'm only a year and a half younger than you."

"Still younger," Dawn retorted and I smiled, recalling similar discussions from my childhood. Stella moved back into her room and I followed, my mouth gaping open at the sight. I could feel Luna's mouth fall open as well, and I absentmindedly pushed her mouth closed as I took in the beautiful murals covering two of the walls in the room and the awards and pictures on the other two.

Stella's bed was snug in the corner with a window in the middle of the wall, staring at the very end of the bed. The two walls the bed cornered were painted as a lush forest floor with towering trees and sunbeams falling through the canopy leaves at the top of the walls. The entire room was comfortably furnished and screamed Stella, focusing on making the room feel like home rather than any specific type of style or design. Stella seated herself at a desk in the corner of the room which held some complex music equipment along with her laptop computer. A small reddish brown dog perked its head up from the end of the bed and dashed over to us. It sniffed calmly at Dawn before turning its attention towards me with more vigorous nosing. The dog stood up on its hind legs and started sniffing at Luna, who clung to me and I winced at feeling her claws dig into my skin.

"Essie, down," Dawn said, pushing the dog away.

"It's okay, she's cute," I said, bending down slightly to allow Luna to have a better look at the dog. She was around medium sized, coming up to around my knee with long silky hair. Essie excitedly poked her nose at Luna, while my guardian looked at the dog with disinterest, batting the intrusive nose away.

"Awe, Luna," Stella laughed at the friendly dog and the not interested cat. "Essie pretty much stays with me, and I'm only really here in the summer. I spend most of the year at my flat in Paris. Oh Dawn, I short seminar scheduled for August to beginning of September in Los Angeles, so I was going to leave Essie here before I pick her up when I stop in for my birthday."

"That's fine with me," Dawn said.

The two of them continued discussing the logistics of Stella's trip while I looked at the awards on the wall and the shelves. "You won a Grammy?" I gasped, looking at the award.

That drew Dawn and Stella's attention to me. "I told you I was good," Stella chuckled.

"And modest," Dawn added, rolling her eyes before motioning me out of the small apartment space. "We'll let you get back to work, I have to finish showing Usagi around."

I followed Dawn out of the room, feeling Luna sigh in relief in my arms when we got away from Essie. "You're such a baby," I whispered to her, wincing again when Luna dug her claws into my arm.

"Stella's room is soundproof by the way," Dawn said, drawing my attention, "Well, mostly soundproof. If you're here and need something, and she's the only one around, in there working on stuff, knock really, really loudly."

We returned to the living room and Dawn grabbed my bags before we started up the stairs towards the second level. There was a doorway to the left at the top of the staircase, which Dawn gestured towards. "That's my room, but I'll show that to you later, it's the master bedroom so it takes up like half of this floor. We walked a short distance around the alcove and I glanced out of the window to my left, realizing that I was directly over the front door. Dawn stopped in front of another doorway, "Okay, if you've been following the layout of the house, you'll know that this room is in one of the turrets." She opened the door and waved me inside. "This is you're room."

I walked into the room and gawked at the space around me, my mouth falling open at the beauty of the room. Part of the room was the turret I had seen outside, but rather than a window seat in the round space with the three out facing windows, a custom built bed was fixed into the space, big enough for two or three people. The ceiling was painted to resemble the night sky with stars and the moon twinkling amidst clouds covering the sky. As in Stella's room, two of the inner walls were decorated with murals, but these revealed wolves clustering in the frozen tundra with large mountains and tall evergreens filling the space. A dark wood grain dresser and a desk sat against the wall while a sliding door on the very inside doorway was open to reveal a closet.

"There's a bathroom through this door," Dawn spoke from behind me, moving towards another door on the perpendicular wall. "It's a shared bathroom between this bedroom and the guest bedroom on the other side."

"How did you… why did you do all this?" I asked, gesturing to the room around me.

Dawn sighed, "A friend of mine designed this house for a project, I really liked the concept and our adoptive parents had it built for me as a graduation present. I had this room decorate with you in mind. It was a way to keep you close I guess, but also, I never gave up hope that you would get here eventually." I touched one of the wolves' faces as I listened to her explanation.

Its golden eyes seemed almost luminescent as they stared into my own. I turned back to Dawn with wonder in my eyes. "You remembered? All of these years, and you remembered my favorite animal. You made this room for me, hoping that I would come here."

"I never gave up," Dawn replied, hugging me. She released me a few moments later and I wiped at my eyes, setting Luna down on the floor. "Now why don't you get cleaned up and snug into bed, the sheets are clean, I change them every few weeks. The bed detaches and rolls away from the window slightly to make it easier to change the sheets by the way." She set my bags down next to the bed and turned towards me. "Are you going to be okay?"

"I-" I started, unsure of what to say, "I might need some help in the bathroom…"

My sister just smiled, "Come on, I'll help you." She pushed me into the bathroom and helped me out of my clothes and the bandages around my ribs, looking away when she knew that I would feel uncomfortable being naked in front of her. I saw her eyes narrow in anger when she caught sight of the still visible bruises. I stepped into the glass portioned shower and I watched Dawn as she hit the buttons on the shower, turning the water on to the right temperature and for lights to turn on in the cubicle. "Light and aroma therapy," she said. "The colors and scents will induce calm and relaxation, Stella and I both have these types of showers."

I hummed as I let the warm water hit me, the scent of lavender and vanilla filling my nose and soft blues, greens and purples to surround me in the shower. Dawn left the room after making sure that I would be okay by myself and fifteen minutes later, I shut the water off and stepped out of the shower. Wrapping the towel around myself, I walked back into my room and saw Dawn frowning as she glanced through my suitcase. "I didn't have a lot of stuff," I explained when she turned to me and helped wrap my ribs again.

"Well that's going to change," she said. "While I don't want you to be materialistic, you still need basics. We'll go shopping in the next few days to get you these things to make you feel more at home."

Tears came to my eyes at her words, knowing that she would take care of me, would get me the things that I needed instead of me having to figure out how to get them myself. "I don't know what to say…" I finally managed to say, "other than, well, I do want to stay."

"I know, and you're welcome to stay," she replied, turning to leave the room. "I need to make some phone calls about making sure that you can stay in this country with us legally, that's going to take a while. You just get some sleep."

"Wait Dawn," I called after her. When she turned her head to me, I bit my lip hesitating. "When, when you do get the papers, I want to change my name," I explained, "I don't want to be Usagi any more, I want to be Serena."

Dawn smiled, "Alright, Serena, then goodnight, I'll see you when you wake up." She left the room and I pulled the pajamas Mina had given me out of my bag and got dressed, mindful of my sore ribs.

"What do you think Luna?" I asked my guardian, who had curled up next to me in the dark blue sheets of my new bed.

"I like your sisters," she replied, letting a big cat meow, "they seem nice, and they honestly love you very much." I hummed in response, trying to see out the dark blue curtains on the window. I'm guessing it would be about late afternoon, but I wasn't sure. "I think this place will be good for us," Luna continued, getting even more comfortable, "at least it will be a welcome break from the senshi mess that late queen forced on you, and the tense atmosphere of the Tsukino home." I hummed again in agreement before I let sleep fully claim my senses.