Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ Alone ❯ Chapter 24: Homecoming ( Chapter 24 )

Alone

By Selenity Jade

Chapter 24: Homecoming

Rated: PG13

 

Disclaimer: I do not own Sailor Moon, Usagi, Endymion, or any other character in this chapter. The only thing I own is the plot. I'm also not making money off of this, so please don't sue. :P

 

Notes: Yes, people. A new chapter. Yes, people. King Endymion is having problems, Prince Endymion is having problems, and the newly-awakened Serenity is having problems. But that's what's fun.

 

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Last Chapter: Usagi, now Serenity, and King Endymion paused outside of her house just after he told her the story of his time.

 

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Serenity walked into her house nervously. She did not know how she was going to explain the sudden changes that had overcome her to her human parents. How could she tell the parents who had loved and cared for her for fifteen years that she wasn't exactly their daughter anymore? Hiding what she had become wasn't an option either. Not with the silver hair and the crescent moon symbol on her forehead.

 

She held the door open for the King to follow her into the house and then shut it behind it with a soft audible click.

 

"Usagi?" she heard her mother call from upstairs before the blue-haired woman appeared at the top of them. With a startled gasp, her mother flew down the stairs to stare at her daughter. "Usagi, is that you?"

 

Serenity smiled sadly at her mother, tears filling her blue eyes. "Yes, it is me."

 

"What... happened to you?" the older woman asked, a note of fear in her voice.

 

"I changed, Mother."

 

The woman who raised Usagi studied her for a long moment before she enveloped the princess in a giant hug. "We were so worried about you."

 

The tension in Serenity's shoulders relaxed as she hugged her second mother back. "I am sorry I did not let you know I was leaving," she said before pulling away.

 

The older woman smiled softly and touched her beloved daughter's cheek. "I'm sure it was important, Usagi. Your friends were missing after all. Your father and I were just worried about you, not knowing if you were okay or if you were injured. We just learned you were Sailor Moon and then you just disappeared with that Mamoru boy chasing after you."

 

It had felt like six lifetimes since she had left home that night and she felt a sudden pang of guilt that she hadn't even said good-bye to her parents, the parents to Usagi, who she no longer was now. At least not completely. "I am sorry, Mother," Serenity said again.

 

Her mother's eyes flicked to the man behind her daughter. "Who's this?"

 

Serenity glanced back at King Endymion. As if he read her mind, he answered, "I am Endymion."

 

Usagi's mother frowned slightly in confusion. "But I thought..."

 

"Mamoru was Prince Endymion. I am him in your future."

 

The cerulean-haired woman blinked. "Future?"

 

Serenity sighed. "It is a long story, Mother."

 

"Where's Chibi-Usa?"

 

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Endymion watched his wife's mother process the story they had just told her. She looked a bit pale and she hadn't even been told her daughter is more Serenity now than Usagi yet. Endymion decided that should wait until later.

 

"So now you're fighting here for the future?"

 

Endymion and the younger Serenity nodded. "Yes. As well as to save my Senshi, my Endymion, and Chibi-Usa."

 

"You'll have to fight your friends, your boyfriend, and your future daughter? How can this 'dark energy' change people like that?"

 

Serenity sighed. "I hope it does not come to fighting. As for the second question, it is hard for me to explain. I was bombarded by it on Nemesis, but it did not affect my personality, it only made me ill."

 

"That is because Serenity is immune to it," the King smoothly interrupted. He also decided against telling the mother that her daughter wasn't exactly human. "Dark energy is a force that is born from negativity. Every negative emotion or thought gives it power, but on a planet like Nemesis that is dark energy or when someone is somehow surrounded by a concentrated amount, that dark energy feeds the darkness within that person. That darkness grows, ultimately changing who that person is. They no longer fight the darkness within themselves and embrace it instead."

 

The older woman blinked, processing that as well. Endymion understood how hard it was for her to absorb all this information at one time, but they did not have much choice. Not if they were to save Serenity's Senshi, her Mamoru, and his daughter from Diamond and this Doom Phantom. They needed to take back their forces or they would never have a chance to save his wife and her Senshi.

 

The younger Serenity smiled softly in sympathy at her Earth mother. "Tomorrow, King Endymion and I will come up with a plan, but I think it might be best if we retired for tonight."

 

Nodding, her mother gave her a sad smile. "You not only look different, but you speak and act different as well. You are wearing the same clothes, but with that hair, that symbol on your head, and your mannerisms, I don't know if you really are Usagi anymore."

 

Endymion knew that hurt Serenity deeply, even though the only sign of it was a slight tightening of her eyes, a sign he knew well after a thousand years of marriage to her. "I am Usagi, Mother," the young princess said softly, looking into her lap. "I am also Serenity, more completely now. I need the fusion of my lives so that I can use the Silver Crystal more completely if I have no other choice. My mother - my lunar mother - awakened me so that I could save my Endymion. But I am still Usagi."

 

Serenity lifted her head, tears in her eyes again. "You still see that, do you not?"

 

Her mother smiled and enveloped her daughter in a protective, comforting embrace. "I still love you, no matter how you are."

 

Endymion silently left the room to give them a chance to weep together after everything that had happened. This wasn't his time anymore, she wasn't his wife, and this world was long past gone to him.

 

But watching them made him hurt all over again for what had been lost and for the daughter he might never see again as she was.

 

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She found him sitting on the railing of her back porch. She didn't approach the somber king, only stood behind him unobtrusively and watched. His strong - and still handsome after a thousand years - profile was easily glimpsed by the light of the nearly full moon. He looked sad as he stared up at the heavens and her heart ached to see such loss and heartache in the man she loved. The fact that he was a thousand years older than her own prince didn't matter, the very real pain on the face so like her own Endymion tore at her soul.

 

Perhaps it did not matter that this Endymion wasn't hers; they were the same man to her heart, as if the time they spent a thousand years ago, here in the present as Mamoru and Usagi, and in the future as rulers of the Earth might have tied their souls together in such a way it was impossible to separate them now. Or maybe she just loved Endymion, whatever form he assumed. He was always the same, after all. Just a little different in appearance.

 

"Are you feeling better, Serenity?" the soft gruff voice of the king asked. She should have known he would sense her behind him. Not even necessarily because of who she was to him, but because he also had powers beyond that of a human.

 

"A little," she admitted. "I am relieved she still loves me even as I am now."

 

He nodded, glancing at her with those piercing cobalt eyes. "I do not think parents would stop loving their children just because of a few changes."

 

"Perhaps not, but I was still worried. I am vastly different now."

 

The King smiled wistfully. "Not so different, Usako. Not so different at all."

 

Serenity smiled at the love in the name he called her. He had never given her a nickname when she lived on the moon, but he had said her name with the same loving care then as he said 'Usako' now. "May I ask you something personal?"

 

He blinked before smiling in acquiescence. "Of course."

 

"In your time, do you see your wife as Usagi with a name change or as Serenity with time spent as Usagi?"

 

The man looked away, but not before he saw the pain the memory of his wife brought him. "Neither. She is Usako to me, not because she was named Usagi, but because that is what I called her, and that name simply tells her I love her every time I say it. It does not matter what her name is, she is just Usako to me. Perhaps if we had spent more time together when we were truly young when you lived on the moon, I might have come up with a different pet name for you, and I may have called you that instead. But I didn't, so it's Usako. You'll always be Usako to me. I cannot help but call you that. If it upsets you that I am not your Endymion when I call you that-"

 

"No, please. It does not upset me," Serenity interrupted, coming up beside him and leaning forward against the rail. "I was simply wondering if you see your wife as two separate identities."

 

He gave her a half-smile. "No more than I see myself as separate people."

 

Laughing softly, Serenity had to admit her concern over how the people she loved would see her were unfounded. They loved her and it didn't matter to them - or him - how she was named, or looked, because she was the same where it counted. "You are right, Your Majesty. I should not worry so much about it. I am who I am, whether it's Usagi or Serenity, and no one is going to love me because of only one of those 'identities'."

 

Sighing, he touched her shoulder. "Don't call me 'Your Majesty', please."

 

She looked up into his sorrowful eyes and nodded. "I am sorry."

 

"You are trying to distance yourself from me."

 

Looking away, she murmured softly, "I do not think that-"

 

"Usako, I spent a thousand years with you and I know when you're being distant."

 

She sighed. "I am confused," she finally admitted after a long pause.

 

"Ah." He turned his body to face her, leaning back against the rail.

 

"I... I feel like I should be scrambling to get my Endymion back and I am not doing that. When I am here with you like this, the heartache of knowing he is with the enemy doesn't hurt so much. I feel like I am betraying him because I feel for you more strongly than I should."

 

The King was startled into laughter, the sound tickling her ears because of its deep rhythmic beauty. He had always had a beautiful laugh. "Usako, don't you think I feel the same? You are younger, but you're still my wife, and I miss her so much. I haven't been able to hug her or touch her in months, and I have never been without the sound of her voice for more than a few days. It was tearing me apart before you arrived and then suddenly I just want to touch you, hear you laugh, taste you. Gods, Serenity, I feel like I am betraying my wife because I am falling in love all over again with the girl she once was!" he cried, grabbing her wrist in his larger hand.

 

"Endymion," she murmured, watching him fight back tears. It had to be hard for the older Mamoru to be so alone. He had always feared being completely alone, because no matter how often he pushed everyone away, that was his one true fear. He was utterly alone. No matter his age, he was still Endymion, still Mamoru, and he was hurting and scared. She did the only thing she could think of to comfort him.

 

She kissed him.

 

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Next Chapter: Prince Endymion's activities and introduction to Black Lady. Oh, and maybe what happened AFTER she kissed him. ^_^

 

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AN: Don't ask. I don't know, you know? Or maybe I do know, and you'll never know. ^_^

 

Lovies!