His lips were so soft...

Serena found herself sighing, her body sinking against his. Serena...Serena...Serinity. He had called her Serinity. The name was familiar and it filled her with a remembered since of awe and duty. Someday she would be...

Who was he?

His lips moved against hers, undemanding and gentle. He pulled away, the tips of his fingers still beneath her chin and her lashes fluttered up. Turquise eyes met hers and an odd warmth moved through her. "Serinity?" He murmured.

"Where...where am I?" The place was oddly cold and bereft of...what? Laughter? Light? Love?

Everything.

She looked up at the familiar turquise eyes, his pale skin and pale hair. God, he was achingly familiar. He looked at her with such longing and need that her heart skipped a beat before turning over. Who was she to him?

Who was he to her?

She was lifting her hand before she realized it and trailing the tips of her fingers over his cheek. "Are you real?" She traced his lips, as if trying to remember what wasn't there, but what should be.

Diamond. Diamonds. Diamonds were forever. An odd phrase, but it was there in her mind. He was suddenly her only constant in a world full of the unknown.

"Very real." Diamond murmured against her fingers before curling his fingers around her wrist and kissing her palm. He barely dared to breath. She wasn't fighting him or pulling away in revulsion. He smiled at her question. "I'm yours." Who was he? It was true. He had been hers since the moment he had looked upon her. Even when she had looked down on him with sympathy and pity. "And you're mine."

She hadn't understood then. He needed her. She was the air he breathed and she hadn't even known. She had refused to see. Now, she would. By the Dark Moon, it had worked. She was his. "You're home."

Home? In her mind, she heard the memory of laughter and smiling face, a hand holding hers. She saw flashes of women surrounding her, feminine voices and a male voice-

She stood and her knees buckled, her entire body seemingly have lost its ability to stand alone. His arms surrounded her and then he was lifting her, swinging her up into his arms. Serena inhaled. "Why am I so weak?" He felt like a stranger to her, but oh so familiar at the same time. His scent wafted up, like soft roses, and something much more dark. She couldn't help herself, she leaned into him, one hand pressing against his chest. She inhaled again, the tip of her nose pressing against the rich folds of his shirt.

"Because you've been gone for a long time. Someone...took you." His arms tightened around her for a moment. "From me. But you're back. And I'll never let you go again." He would kill them all. The Sailor Scouts, her precious Prince Darien, he would kill them all before he allowed them to take her from him. "The Dark Crystal will heal you. Come."

There were so many questions running through her head as he strode through the pristine empty hall with her in his arms. And yet she knew what the Dark Crystal was, she knew what the Empuriem Crystal was. She knew who Serenity was...

She was Serenity. He was... "Diamond?"

He glanced down and his lips curved at the way she spoke his name, the way it sounded coming from her lips. "Yes?"

Her eyes moved over his face, catching the dark crescent glimpse over his forehead. Unease moved through her and she brushed back the sharp cut of his bangs, her thumb smoothing over the inverted crescent moon. That was...wrong. So wrong. So beautifully wrong. She could feel the hum of energy against her thumb when she touched it.

God, he was beautiful. "Has anyone ever told you you're beautiful?"

Diamond gave a soft laugh. Only Serenity. "Your beauty outshines any Diamond, Serenity."

"SERENA!"

Shock vibrated through her body and she turned her head, looking over Diamond's shoulder. His arms tightened around her, the muscles in his chest bunching against her side as he half turned. Something hit the ground inches from where Diamond had just stood. The white marbled floor cracked in a spiderweb from the stem of a delicate blood rose.

A rose. Her fingers twisted in Diamonds shirt as a twisted array of images pounded beneath her temples. Dark hair, the sharp crisp tuxedo. Tuxedo Mask. Dar-

He stood a dozen feet behind them, elegantly dressed and in his hand he held another deadly rose. She knew him, knew him as surely as she knew the Sailor Scouts surrounding him. The sense of familiarty came over her. She knew them. No, she should know them, but they were in the far recesses of her mind. She didn't know them, she didn't feel for them...like she did Diamond.

But she should. There was no doubt in her mind that she should. They were like ...family. Yet they stared at her with desperation, and at Diamond with such hatred that the skin on her arms rose. They were going to kill him. They didn't understand it wasn't Diamonds fault, his mind was twisted, molded by something so dark-

What?

"No." Diamond hissed. He hadn't felt their bright aura's because he'd been so focused on Serenity. How had they found him, much less tracked him so fast?

"Put her down." Darien, that was his name. Darien spoke and his voice sent an array of foggy images through her mind again. She saw his face in front of hers, laughing at something she said. He rolled his eyes, calling her a meatball head...

"She's mine." Diamond said, his voice utterly cold and void of any emotion. He looked at the floor and then shards of dark energy tore off from the floor towards Darien.

"No!" Serena pushed a hand against Diamond's chest. He couldn't kill them. He couldn't. Killing was wrong. Even if they were wrong in what they had done. No matter how wrong that man and the Sailor Scouts were, she didn't see them as deserving of death as what Diamond intended to do...

Diamond twisted back around as Darien rushed forward. An old panic settled in his chest as Serenity pushed and twisted in his arms. She was fighting for that fool, even now, she was still fighting for HIM. But he could put an end to that, to all of it with an extra boost from the Dark Crystal. He could make her love him. He could make her need him with every breath in her beautiful, powerful little body.

Serena could feel the building violence between the two men, it was there in the air between them, thick with tension. There was something that she was missing here. Her knees gave that watery sensation again when Diamond lowered her and she reached out, clinging to him least she fall. Diamond shifted, placing her behind him and she stumbled back and reached out with blind hands until she could brace herself on a small table.

The dark haired man withdrew another ruby red rose and sliced through the heavy shards of dark energy like they were nothing. Her heart skipped a beat; they weren't listening to her. She didn't know what was going on and while she didn't doubt Diamonds ability to defend himself, he was badly outnumbered. She had felt that thread of power than ran through his veins when she'd touched the Dark Moon on his forehead.

Fear filled her, along with a sense of urgency. Strength filtered through her and she lifted her hand.

Diamond felt the spark of power behind him and turned his head. A flash of pure light and energy shot from Serenity's hand, knocking Darien and the Sailor Scouts clear across the room. She wasn't aiming to kill, merely to maim. Even with the energy of the Dark Crystal running through her veins, Serenity was a sight to behold. She should have been weak and completely complacent until her body fully accepted the dark energy, but she was so powerful...

Only she could weld the Emperiem Crystal with such dignity.

She wasn't fighting for her beloved Darien. She'd just raised her hand, for him. Her burst of energy was short lived, as he knew it would be, and he caught her as her body gave out once again. With a wave of his hand, he sent crystalized energy over Darien and the Sailor Scouts, effectively encasing them before they could rebound from Serenity.

Serena held to Diamond as she stared at the display of power that he welded so easily in the form of Crystal. They were like crystalized beauty, frozen in time. Sadness filled her. Diamond tilted her chin back with a finger and kissed her softly. "They can't have you." He murmured.

"They weren't going to hurt me." She didn't know how she knew, but she knew. But there intent for Diamond had been something different altogether. In his arms again, she couldn't help but stare over his shoulder at their crystalized bodies, wondering...

"Come." Diamond said, bringing her attention back to him. "I want to show you your new home." There would be time for questions later, and sweet, sweet lies.