"Married Life" By Mark Berger Edited by Will Wolfshol #include As always, dedicated to Jendra and all of the legions of good Sailor Moon fanwriters. Long live romance! Chapter 1: New Face, Old Enemy Serena Chiba twisted and turned in bed, helpless in the grip of a powerful nightmare. In her mind, she was running from a new enemy, desperate to escape. None of her attacks had worked on this opponent, neither had her healing abilities, and finally, even her power as Sailor Moon fled her. She was scared out of her mind, and sweat and tears poured down her face and body in rivulets. Finally, her opponent stood before her, prepared to take her life. Frightened beyond belief, beyond reason, Serena gathered the energy of the Silver Crystal into her fist and eyes and fired the energy at the opponent, blowing away the woman's hood and hurting her. . . but not killing her. The face was her own. Serena screamed and lashed out as she was dumped from her nightmare into blessed consciousness. She bolted upright in bed, wild-eyed, chest heaving as she desperately sucked in huge drafts of cool air, nightgown clinging to her body like a second skin, her blonde hair matted, her body illuminated by the gentle glowing of the Crystal as it lay in its brooch on her nightstand, and the sigil of the Moon glowing on her forehead, broadcasting her desperation to the world. Her cries and movement had woken Darien minutes before, and he had spent the time trying to wake her from the hell her own subconscious had trapped her mind in. Darien held his wife, making comforting noises into her hair as she burrowed into his embrace, the Rabbit of the Moon taking shelter in her protector. She sobbed into his chest until her crying died away and she slid, exhausted, into a deep, dreamless sleep. He laid down again, still holding her, and she unconsciously snuggled deeper into his arms, her rhythmic breathing quickly lulling him back to sleep as well. Cherry Hill Temple Rei Kumada stood up from feeding her two-month-old daughter. The tiny girl had curly dark hair much like her mother had in pictures of her from her first year, and her father's warm brown eyes. Naoko burbled happily as the mother placed her back in the crib. Chad stood protectively nearby, even though he knew his wife's powers to be far, far greater than his own. He was much better filled out than he had been when Rei had first met him at fourteen, and kept his hair in a much neater condition, shorter and out of his eyes. His ambition to be a rock-and-roll singer was gone, and his greatest ambition now was to make Rei and her grandfather proud, and to be the best father he possibly could be to little Naoko. Outside, the rain began to fall. Suddenly, Rei faltered and grabbed at Chad. Her eyes went wide with shock, and her breathing accelerated. "Rei. . . what's wrong!?" "I just felt an overwhelming wave of terror coming from Serena." The priestess could, on occasion, feel strong emotion from her first and closest friend. This was the strongest she had ever felt something from Serena. The other woman had been utterly and completely terrified. Something which frightened Rei, since after going through hell and back many times, Serena had become something of a hardened veteran, from whom fear would more likely incite action than terror. Hardened in responses, that is - Rei held it to herself as an article of faith that nothing, nothing could make Serena anything less than the unconditionally loving woman that she was. Anything that could do that would kill us, because without Serena, we're nothing. Without Serena, Amy would have worked herself to death, Lita would have probably died in a street fight and Mina, well, Mina would have died fighting the Negaverse as Sailor V. As for herself, Rei looked at her family and thanked whatever divine powers had brought Serena into her life. For had the meatball-headed girl never appeared, neither would Chad have, and the long sequence of events that led up to her beautiful daughter lying peacefully asleep in her crib would never have taken place. She would now be a lonely woman, forever soured on the world by the way it treated those who were different, like her. All the good things that had happened to her over the past five years, either directly or indirectly the result of one wonderful, strange meatball-headed princess. 'Wow, you're really powerful!' Serena had once enthused when Rei had completed a particularly difficult task. Despite her weariness, she had responded, 'You're just now noticing,' rejoicing to see the laughter particularly bright in her friend's eyes. Rei realized what must have happened. Serena must have had a particularly nasty nightmare. Asleep, with all of her emotional defenses down, Serena would have reacted as the Serena of old in a similar situation. She also knew what Darien would do. Darien would protect the Meatball Head like he always did. Whenever Serena needed him, he was there. She looked up at her own husband and smiled peacefully. Whenever she needed Chad most, even if she couldn't bring herself to admit that she needed help, he was always there. It didn't exactly feel like a destined love, but it was their love. The Moon Kingdom 8,003 BC Colonel Jadeite, the most junior of the Terran Royal Guard, looked at Princess Rei, Sailor Mars, most trusted of the Moon Princesses' defenders. Rei looked back and winked. Jadeite broke out into a smile and embraced her. Although it wasn't illegal for members of the Royal Guard and Sailor Senshi to. . . fraternize (Jadeite laughed internally at the word - as if what he felt for Rei was anything close to fraternal), it would attract attention. Not as much attention as Sailors Uranus and Neptune had - that had shocked the entire solar system, and (it was rumored) caused many cases of depression, as many young men had looked upon Neptune as a nearly-perfect image of womanhood - but it would cause people to talk. Rei, even when not in Senshi form, packed a lot of physical power into her small frame, stronger than most men. In fact, after Makoto and Haruka, Rei was the strongest of the twin princesses' court. Her relationship with Jadeite, while a bit volatile, owing to the temperaments of the people involved, was a happy one. "Speak of the devil. . ." Jadeite saw Princess Imbrium leading her five-minutes-older sister by the arm towards Rei and himself. The younger Princess was an inch shorter than Serenity, with her yellow hair falling in waves down her back, not restricted as Serenity was to wearing the royal hairstyle while in public. However, she often did so, and on those occasions the easiest way to tell the two apart was to look in their eyes - both shared the same bone structure and had huge, wide eyes that added to their beauty, but Serenity's were the blue of a Terran summer day, while Imbrium's were the green of a forest pine. The twin Princesses giggled at some private joke and moved on, pretending not to notice the lovers. The Negaverse Quartzite watched a hologram of Sailor Moon rotate in the tank. The hologram slowly dissolved to Princess Serenity, then to Serena, then back to Sailor Moon. This computer system was completely separated from the castle's data network - Quartzite didn't want any of the information on it to reach the public access. She then changed the image to Tuxedo Mask. . . Prince Endymion. . . Darien. "Prince Endymion, you will pay for the death of my sister!" In the dark recesses of her mind, trapped by millennia of brainwashing, a fifteen-year-old girl railed away at her confinement. "LET ME OUT!!! HELP!!!" She looked at herself. Still as translucent as the last ten thousand or so times she'd checked. Desperate, she sent a message to the one person who could possibly hear her. In the dark, Jadeite watched the young woman carefully. Due to the interaction of the Eternal Crystal with his body and mind, the death of Beryl had freed his soul from her evil, and he now watched over the remaining Moonchildren who had fallen under Beryl's sway and had not been freed as he had. Most especially, he watched over Imbrium, whose loss he still felt personally responsible for. I will find a way to rescue you, Imbri, for I remember the way you were in the Silver Millennium, so full of life, just like your sister. Tokyo Serena whispered, "Imbrium. . ." in her sleep, then she shot upright again, or tried to, before she was stopped by Darien's arms, still wrapped around her as though to protect her from her nightmare. She sighed happily and settled down into Darien's arms. "Good morning to you too, Serena." "Darien, I love you." Serena kissed him deeply, then rolled upright. She felt slightly dirty from her nightmare, and needed to wash off the remnants of the bad dream. Over breakfast, Serena asked Darien, "Dare-chan, what do you remember of the Silver Millennium?" "Precious little, I'm afraid, and what I do remember, I fear that Beryl may have tampered with in some way, so it might not be very accurate." "Do you remember a girl by the name of Imbrium?" "No." "I had a vision this morning, just before I woke up, of me standing next to a girl who was almost exactly like me, except her hair was down, she was a little shorter, and she had green eyes instead of blue. Sound familiar yet?" Darien asked, "Wasn't she your. . ." The look in Serena's eyes confirmed Darien's question. Both finished, "Twin sister." They ate in silence for a while, and chewed over the revelation, and the suddenly-uncovered memories. Silver Millennium "IMBRIUM!!!" Princess Serenity called out for her sister. The younger Princess had taken her private solsailor, the Vincent, out for a short trip and hadn't returned. The wreckage of the vessel was seen on the far side of the Moon, and as soon as word arrived, Serenity, her love Endymion, her beloved friends the Sailor Senshi, and the Palace Guard had gone out looking for the ship. Serenity was wearing a light dress, similar in style to that worn by her friends. She was using her mother's Crescent Moon Wand as a searchlight, casting illumination about with the Silver Crystal. "IMBRIUM, PLEASE ANSWER!!!" They had found many corpses over the past half-day, but not even one single hair of Princess Imbrium's, other than in her ruined quarters aboard ship. "Serenity, what's going on?" asked Sailor Mars and Prince Endymion at the same time. She gave a bitter laugh and replied, "Well, I don't think that the Vincent will be flying again anytime soon. Other than that, I don't have Clue One." She began to laugh a bit unsteadily, as though trying to force her sister's memory from her brain, then the tears began to fall. Endymion moved to embrace the girl but Rei got there first. CRACK!!! Serenity looked at Rei, a shocked and wounded expression on her face as a handprint began to redden on her cheek. "R. . . R. . . Rei?" Rei slowly drew her hand back, almost shocked at herself for slapping Serenity like that. Rei hugged her friend as the tears started to fall. "Serena, you need to get a hold of yourself. I know how much this hurts you. Remember the condition I was in when that lunatic murdered Kelvin?" Rei asked, referring to her late brother, "But there are people who are counting on you and if you just let yourself go. . . think of Darien! He needs you!" She herself began to cry, "You silly Meatball Head. . . Of course we all love Imbrium, almost as much as we love you, but if she's gone, we can't afford to lose you too, either to death or madness." Serenity accepted her friend's love. "I guess I should thank you, Rei, except my cheek hurts, a lot." "Any time, Serenity. Any time." Tokyo "Do you think she was reborn?" Darien sipped his coffee, made a face as it had gone cold, and went to draw two fresh cups. "No, I don't think so, Darien. I don't think she ever died. She disappeared just before the final battle. I know that Beryl didn't use her as one of her stormtroopers, I think that she wanted to conquer the Moon Kingdom, assassinate Mother and me, and then use Imbri as a brainwashed puppet ruler." "Imbri?" He set one of the cups down in front of Serena. "Thanks, I hate cold coffee. Anyway, that was my nickname for her when we were little, Imbri. She was the first one to ever call me Serena, `cause `Serenity' was too big a word for her when she was learning to talk. After that, the name kind of stuck to me." "I have no idea why people called me `Darien' at that time, there's no way to get `Darien' from `Endymion,' and I can't think of any reason for it to be a nickname." "Annnnyway," drawled Serena, "I have a missing sister on my hands, looks like. Wouldn't it be ironic if now, ten thousand years later, we managed to accomplish what we couldn't back then?" "We can try." "`There is no try, only do.' She's my sister; she's worth it." Darien nodded his agreement. ----- To Be Continued! I know what you're thinking: `AARGH, it's YET ANOTHER Silver Millennium Twins thing!!!' We shall see what time holds for these twins, forced onto opposite sides of the Seventh Negaverse War. I'll tell you, this whole storyline sure as heck surprised me - I wasn't expecting to do a twins story until I sat down to write the last chapter of The Wedding! Heck, I wasn't seriously expecting to do a *sequel* until I sat down to write the last chapter of The Wedding! See ya in Part 2! mberger8837@vax2.winona.msus.edu -- Mark Berger Defender of the Terran Empire and Knight of the Crystal Millennium Champion of Light and all things Mekton Zeta: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/6661/index.html Author of Sailor Moon: The Wedding and Married Life "Now listen - strange women lying on Moons, distributin' Crystals is no basis for a system of government!"