Strange Nights and Stranger Days 2/3

[draegyn]

From the instant they had jumped out of the window, Travis had studiously ignored Darien. Even his mind was barred and shielded against the older man and Darien endured his soul-brother's cold shoulder silently. He had earned it... sort of... but really! How could anyone have predicted that Ken would walk in at that particular moment? (His mind answered this honestly with a 'you could have you hormone-driven moron!!!')

Okay, so a prudent ward to alert him of anyone approaching would have avoided the whole fiasco but why should he have needed to? Being caught by Ken was practically a tradition now (Ilene on the other hand would still trigger all of Darien's instincts for self-preservation) and the only real problem was that Serena's wings had been bared. Now that had been a spanner in the works!

Thoughts of those pristine white feathers momentarily chased Darien's worries away (it was only Ken and it was time that he learned about the whole magic thing... right?) and a smug smile found its way to his lips (Serena's discipline could frighten even him and yet he had made her lose control with just a kiss! He was da man!). One positive outcome of the whole disaster was that he felt like himself again.

"So you feel better now?" Travis mocked.

Darien played at thinking about it for a moment. Questions raised by the dream silenced? Check.

Withdrawal from delicious girlfriend treated? Check.

Tuxedo ready for the wedding? Check.

"Perfect," he answered honestly, "In fact I'm absolutely dandy!"

"You do realize that my father now knows what we are?"

"Like Quill said, it's about time anyway." Darien paused, his conscience stirring. There was probably a better way to have broken it (a little voice at the back of his head suggested three instantly and the rest of his mind beat it into submission) but for the life of him he could not see how it could have been broken to them gently. Being told that your beloved children were no longer precisely your children would not go down well, no matter how it was presented. "Anyway, Raye's grandfather has known for years without trouble resulting and he accepted it readily enough..."

"Because he was kidnapped and held as a hostage for Sailor Mars. It would have been hard for him not to accept that Raye was her," Travis interrupted waspishly.

Darien ignored his companion's irritation and continued, "And I ask you what better way for your father to learn about the whole mess than by seeing that your sister was a princess for real and an angel to boot."

"Oh yeah Darien, keep telling yourself that."

"Yeah Dawien. Keep tewwing yeseff that," Birle echoed in a piping imitation of her brother.

Darien winked at the flame-haired tot. "I will Birle-girl, I will!" He looked up to the sapphire eyes watching him with faint annoyance. "Bro, I know it was a screw-up but and I repeat, but if anything terrible would result from this then one of us would have known. All I can see at the moment is a heap of embarrassment and maybe the threat of castration in my future."

Travis perked up. "Oh yes, nothing at all there to worry about!"

Darien laughed joyfully, all of his worries flying away. "You know Bro," he commented as he reached the gate to their yard. "I feel a lot better."

"Of course you do," Travis agreed, his own mood lifting in response to Darien's. "You've had some, Birle cover your ears, feather therapy from Twis and we all know how that cheers you up. Don't we Birle-girl?"

Birle, her hands splayed over her ears, nodded. "Uh huh!"

Darien held the gate open for Travis and his sister. "I'm not going to say it didn't help..."

"Right..." Travis grunted knowingly while he placed Birle on the ground to walk up the garden path on her own.

"Because it did," Darien agreed, "I freely admit that I am addicted to your twin and last night without her ended up with me..."

"Climbing up the walls?"

"That too but what really weirded me out was when I dreamed..."

"Dreamed? Birle don't run! You'll trip and get hurt."

Darien paused and a couple of metres distant Birle waited for one of her minders to unlock the front door. "It doesn't matter," Darien decided at last and, with a wink at Birle, he pointed his right index finger at the lock and pushed with his mind. The door started to swing open. "All that matters is that in four hours I will be marrying your sister, finally, and nothing and I mean nothing will stop that...!"

Darien and Travis regarded the figure standing before them, utterly dumbfounded.

"It is about time Endy! Where the Hell have you been?" a frustrated golden knight demanded frantically from the doorway. "I have been searching for you for nearly an hour, now come..."

"Whoa there mate," Travis put in, stepping around Darien. "Before you go anywhere I'd very much like to know who the Hell you are!"

Darien stared for, nose to nose, Travis and the stranger were almost identical copies of each other. There were small differences like Travis being more carefree and the stranger's white-blond hair was bound back in a long pony-tail (also the stranger's gold armour gave him a hint more dignity than Travis' baggy old jeans and blue singlet did for him - to their chagrin, it was not until they were two blocks from the Tsukinos' house that he and Darien had realised that Travis had not changed out of his pyjamas. It had required several odd looks, a dip into their subspace pockets and a quick leap into a bush before Travis was a little more appropriately attired... although the gravel pathway through the park had still played havoc on his bare feet) but for the most part they could have been the same person. Darien marvelled on the mysterious double for no more than a moment then he shook off his bemusement (for some reason he could not work up any fear at the appearance of a Travis... no, Tranquillity look-alike, it just went to show how bad his judgement was at that time) and sent a brief mental probe at the stranger.

*Who...?*

The stranger sensed and seized it in a stranglehold that made Darien gasp aloud. *Bro...? No? But... you are... oh no!*

Travis cocked an eyebrow, having overheard the mental exchange. "Oh no? Please don't try to make us believe that you are some past version of myself that just got caught in a time warp!"

Tranquillity's eyes were wide in consternation and he ignored both Darien and Travis to mutter to himself, "Pluto is going to kill me... Endy is going to kill me..."

There was a loud scream from within the house, causing all three men to come to attention. Tranquillity looked absolutely hysterical.

"Sere is going to kill me!"

Travis shook his head and looked at Darien. "No way!"

Meanwhile Birle had disappeared, unnoticed, only to reappear between Tranquillity's legs with wide eyes. "Twav! Twav! Sewena's in dewe! She's scweaming..." she paused and scrunched her nose in a manner that, at any other time, Darien would have found adorable. "I wonder if it's cos she's so fat?"

The third, and by far the most chilling, scream came. Once more Darien and Travis exchanged a look before acting in concert to break Travis' double from his fit (conveniently - or perhaps necessarily for their sanity - ignoring Birle)

"I was only trying to find Endy! I only said to take us where the bloody man could deliver those kids! Nothing more! Why me?"

A quick slap (administered by Travis on the principle that he could not punish himself) stopped the man from gibbering while Darien yanked Birle away from him and just in time. Slightly unfocused sapphire eyes fixed on Darien and then the full-grown man threw himself to his knees, armour clanking loudly (Travis winced noticeably, presumably because he knew exactly how long it would take to repolish the bright golden metal after that treatment).

"Darien you must help me!"

*Well not the past Twib.* (Darien regarded Travis in much the same way that Serena did and thus called him by the same 'mind-name'. Needless to say he did not, however, call her Twis. Truth been known, none knew by what names the two soul-mates were known to each other in the privacy of their minds, only that some of the names they used in the presence of others were so sickeningly sweet as to give listener cavities - this was mostly done to annoy Raye who despised public displays of affection with a fury the scouts had previously reserved for the Negaverse.)

Travis nodded in agreement. For some reason (surely not because he was watching his future self practically grovel at Darien's feet) he was struck by a strange sense of surrealism and could not seem to focus on the screaming woman just out of sight.

Finally seeming to realize that the duo were simply too confused to act, Tranquillity jumped up (scraping his left shin guard on a nail as he did so and causing tears of anguish to well up in Travis' eyes) and grabbed the two heroes. He wrenched them through the door and kicked it shut behind them (Birle escaped losing a finger by less than a hair - something that Travis' future self would come to hear about at great length from the future Birle).

"You," Tranquillity babbled as he dragged the hapless men along. "Are Endymion, do you understand?"

"That's sort of a given," Travis responded tartly to his doppelganger, resurrecting his composure through sarcasm (a technique he had picked up from Darien, the acknowledged master of the cutting remark).

Tranquillity glared briefly at his younger copy, effectively silencing him (and demonstrating exactly how much more formidable he would become in times to come... when he wasn't losing it of course). "You are Endymion," he repeated hastily, "The king of Crystal Tokyo, husband to Neo-queen Serenity, who is Serena if you cannot puzzle that out. You were late but now you are here... you have done that obstetrics course by now have you not?"

Belatedly Darien was seized by stomach-clenching nausea. "Obstetrics course?"

Tranquillity nodded and the glance that Travis and Darien exchanged this time was decidedly less calm. Obstetrics course? Screaming woman? The Tranquillity of the future?

...

Oh Crap!

"It matters not," Tranquillity went on, heedless of the growing panic in his two captives. "You must be near graduation correct? At some point during the course you would have learned of child birth, surely."

Darien did not get the chance to reply. As the last word fell from Tranquillity's lips Darien was propelled forward (Travis conveniently got shoved against a wall outside the room) and presented to the pink-faced, perspiring, obviously in pain (yet still strangely elegant and graceful) silver-haired woman puffing harshly on the battered old couch.

"See Twis? I told you we were in the correct location! You husband was just being his typical hard to find self!" Tranquillity would most likely have babbled for longer (Darien knew the signs) but Darien cut him off with his own incipient hysteria.

*You want me to make her think I'm your Endymion?* he sent on the tightest band he could form.

*Do I become some sort of idiot in the future?* Travis interrupted, aghast. *How could I, at any time, think of trying to have someone impersonate him to her?*

Tranquillity sent a wave of hostility to his critic. *It is not lying to her! He really is Endymion... just not the right one. Hmph! It would not even be necessary if he had not vanished just before my sister went into labour with his children!* "Do you see Twis? He is here, safe, sound and still in time." A final shove pushed Darien across to the couch.

Stumbling from the force of the knight’s shove, Darien thrust his arms forward to stop himself... a little bit too late (it is surprising how someone with superb reflexes could lose all hint of coordination when startled). When Darien pulled his face from between a pair of generous breasts to meet their owner's amused, but definitely strained, sapphire eyes his own face was as red as hers (albeit for a different reason).

"Uh... hullo Gorgeous?" It was the only halfway intelligent thing he could think to say at just that moment. It would be something for him to puzzle over in the years to come, how in a crisis involving the fate of the Earth a comment would easily be forthcoming while in a non-life threatening situations (okay, so his lover was pregnant, it was still not the be all and end all… maybe) he was as eloquent as a hibernating bear.

Those oh-so-perfectly-kissable lips formed a wan smile. "Hello yourself, Handsome. I am pleased that you could make it." Her voice was not audibly stressed but it was impossible for him not to feel her tenseness, pressed together as they were. Suddenly reminded of his position, the young man shifted so that not even a fraction of his weight pressed against her swollen abdomen.

"Me too," he said absently and, with surprise, he realized that it was the truth. She was about to have his child (had Tranquillity said something about children? Surely not!) and he would be there to see it... His growing euphoria quickly sobered. He would not be there or at least not the right him. For a split second he vacillated.

They should tell her the truth so that her husband could be found...

They should not worry her...

Behind him he could feel the anxiety of both Tranquillities/Travises. What should he do?

Serenity shook her head tensely at him. "This will be the first time in three lifetimes that you will be present for the birth of our children," she said with a small hiss. Darien might have started obsessing over the plural once more (it was shock enough to see her pregnant but with twins? Although he really should have expected it...) but another, subtler message reached him. *Oh please go along with Twib's scheme Darien...*

*You know?!* He sent back in a spit-second mental squawk.

*How could I not?*

*Then why...*

*To stop Twib-twit from panicking... yet again.* She sighed mentally. *Why else would he have brought us to the past if he had not erred in his haste?*

*Good grief! But what about me... your me I mean?*

*He will find me...* Another contraction hit, causing her to break off the silent conversation. Darien quickly helped her to sit upright as this time she endured the pain without a sound.

"How long between contractions now?" he asked aloud. His mind might have been spinning in chaos but his training had kicked in.

"About five minutes I guess," Tranquillity said from behind him (Darien was relieved to note that madness was no longer trembling in his voice).

Darien nodded. "Okay, then this shouldn't take too much longer."

*Longer?! Cripes Bro! The wedding!* It was an extremely tight wavelength but both Serenity and Tranquillity caught it (probably because it was the same band they would use which in this instance made privacy impossible). Tranquillity began to unravel again and Serenity's eyes widened.

*Oh Darien, we came on that day!*

"Just relax," Darien said aloud while simultaneously giving his soul-brother from the future a mental shake. Once the last of the contraction finished he moved to check her dilation. "Everything will be okay love."

*Not if we don't do something,* Travis promised ominously, ignorant of Serenity's awareness. *You're going to be late! Mum'll kill you and that's if she doesn't find out about this morning's little excursion!*

*Take me to the Grounds,* Serenity suggested quietly so that neither version of her twin could overhear.

It was the perfect solution. Compress something that could take several hours into forty-five minutes... but there was a problem. *What about your husband? If we go then he'll miss this.*

*As opposed to you missing your wedding?*

She had a point.

*Besides,* she persisted quickly, *Endy... you could always find me.*

*But no one can duplicate another's entry into the Grounds!*

*It matters not but if it aides you then know that he will not be,* she replied, almost serenely. *He will be reproducing yours.*

Darien stilled. True, if anyone could follow him in then it would be him... especially with Serenity there for him to lock on like a compass. He nodded and bent to pick her up.

"What...?"

*Bro...?*

Both Tranquillity and Travis started to protest but Darien silenced them both with a slight thread of power. "I'm taking her to the Grounds, you stay here." *Both of you and look after Birle, Twib... Travis I think she's digging around in my bookshelves. Go and rescue my textbooks will you?* He waited long enough to feel their agreement before he created a gate and carried the pregnant queen through it.

Around two hours later (from Darien's point of view) found Serenity settled in a nest of the softest linen material that Darien could form from the substance of the Grounds. She wore nothing but her glorious silver hair, her silk gown discarded from comfort's sake while Darien massaged her pelvis with fingers of flesh and power to ease her discomfit.

"You know," she remarked in one of the increasingly shorter periods between contractions, "My brother's mistake has its advantages."

"Oh?" Darien commented, looking up from his ministrations.

"Yes." She smiled crookedly at him and, despite her dishevelled state, he thought she had never been more beautiful. "He wanted to take me to where ever you could deliver the twins and he did so. It has been a very long time since you worked as a doctor..."

"Oh? How long?" Darien inquired lightly (just to keep her distracted and not to gain details of his future... honest).

She shook her head slightly. "Let us just say long enough that some of those skills might have become rusty."

"Besides," a deep voice murmured off to the side and behind him, causing Darien to freeze in complete shock. "This way I can concentrate on being a father and not the doctor."

Slowly Darien turned. He would have thought that he would have felt this other's arrival, some indication or hint that he was near but he had sensed not a spark. He did, however, now know how Travis had felt when suddenly confronted by the Tranquillity of the future. Everything was the same but... not. Darien thought of himself as confident and self-assured (except after weird sex-changing dreams and nights without his Meatball Head to cuddle against) but the man in front of him demonstrated what real confidence was.

"I remember this meeting from your perspective," King Endymion said sympathetically after a raking his eyes over his reclining wife. "And all I will say is this; when you get to the age I am now you will either be sure of yourself or suffering an acute case of nervous paranoia."

"I told you he would come." Serenity whispered to Darien but her eyes were locked with Endymion's. "Although I must admit that he did cut it finely."

"I knew that you and the twins would wait for me," he answered, stepping around Darien to move to Serenity's head. He knelt and carefully and tenderly moved the sweat-soaked silver head onto his lap. She sighed in contentment, her muscles relaxed and a calmly joyful aura composed of both silver and gold surrounded both monarchs.

It soon became obvious that was all the unborn babes had been waiting for. No sooner had Serenity relaxed than another contraction hit, this one seemingly never-ending to the nerve-wracked young man. Several minutes of both men encouraging the gravid mother to push later and Darien caught the first glimpse of her, their child.

"She's coming Sere. Push!"

The labouring woman did so to the mental inducements of both men and the rest of the head appeared. Darien cradled the emerging child in awe. This was... would be his offspring.

"Oh. My. God! The wedding's off!"

Darien jerked but the older couple were too entranced in each other and their task to notice the intrusion. His head whipped around to discover his Serena regarding the group in utter horror. Her words abruptly registered.

"Meatball Head?"

"I swear Darien Chiba, I am never giving you the chance to touch me... or even look at me naked again!"

He felt more of the infant emerge and tore his eyes away from his stricken bride-to-be. The rest of the child's body was pushed out in a wave of blood and other maternal fluids. With simple, deft movements he tied and cut the umbilical cord and cleared the little mouth of any and all blockages. Then, after a firm thump on the back, a thin, reedy wail arose from the tiny throat. Satisfied, and the arrival of the second infant immanent, he then handed the newborn princess (not surprisingly to him her cries were now unusually loud and piercing to have come from such a small set of lungs and Darien knew which parent he blamed) to Serena.

"Clean her up," he ordered as he ruthlessly deposited her into the shrinking embrace of her mother's past self. He softened only slightly in the face of her horror to her first real exposure of childbirth. "Meatball Head I will argue with you later. In fact I will take great pleasure in helping you to change your mind but right now I have another baby to catch."

The baby quieted but Serena looked no less at a loss. "What do I do?" she repeated, helplessly regarding her cargo.

"Clean her up and wrap her in something," was all that he could tell her before he needed to turn his attention back to Serenity and the second birth.

Apparently it was enough for she did not speak again and accepted the next twin more confidently (it was a boy of course and it too became quiet moments after being handed to Serena - whatever her secret was Darien resolved to learn it before he even thought of getting her pregnant). When the last of the afterbirth had been expelled and dealt with he looked up to find his lady holding the twins, each swaddled in cotton cloths, quietly regarding the two peaceful faces.

He saw the tender look in her eyes and raised and eyebrow. "I see you have already changed your mind."

"Maybe," she conceded shyly. Darien smiled slowly and his heart filled to near bursting with joy. His future was standing before him.

"Could I have my babies now please?"

The two younger royals blinked and came back to themselves. Blushing slightly, Serena knelt and offered the queen her children. With Endymion's help, the two were soon suckling peacefully at their mother's breasts. Darien and Serena stepped back to watch the idyllic scene. Unconsciously he put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer.

"Be my wife," he whispered into her hair.

Her arms snaked around his waist as she buried her face in his neck. "Was there ever any doubt?"

Darien chuckled, as much because her breath tickled his throat delightfully as because she so conveniently forgot her threat. "Of course not," he murmured, "Not even when you looked like you would faint."

"Hmph! I suppose looking for your boyfriend and finding him with a... future?" He nodded and she continued, "Future version of yourself giving birth to twins, which by the way looks really ick, is not enough reason to faint?"

"Yes, I suppose it is but it does raise another question for me. How did you get here?" Darien pulled away enough to meet her eyes. "Him," he said, jerking his chin in the direction of the oblivious Endymion, "I understand. But you?"

"Would you believe that I followed him?"

Darien raised his eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

Serena shrugged a little in his arms. "You heard me. He turned up at the house and I heard him while he was raiding our attic. Since Uncle Quill had Dad in hand I went up to investigate and found him literally pocketing, no, sub-space pocketing all of my old baby things."

"I was stealing your baby stuff?" But now that he came to think about it that wasn't such a bad idea...

She nodded. "And some of Twib's"

"Oh... okay, so he... I tried to escape and you jumped through?"

"Not exactly." She wrinkled her nose in the same way that Birle often did (three guesses to where the younger sister had learned it) and to much greater effect. She looked up at him through her long, pale lashes and said earnestly. "I knew it was you and so that made everything all right."

"You helped him." Darien sighed philosophically. At least he knew he would not have to worry when his turn came around.

Serena nodded. "Yeah and then I felt you go into the grounds and he asked me what was wrong so I told him and then he disappeared. Now that sort of made me curious so I tried an experiment."

"Oh." Darien had a feeling he already knew what she was about to say and he felt admiration for her growing in him. No one was as good at getting around rules as she (not always a good thing, especially when he was trying to keep ahead of her).

"I made my own gate, trying to match what I felt of yours as close as I could, and then focused on you and sort of dug my way through the Grounds until I reached you."

"You would not have found it possible had you not been soul-mates."

Darien looked to where Endymion was regarding them. The king's face was shone with inner peace that had come into being with the completion of his family. In fact Darien expected to feel something very similar when he finally placed the ring on Serena's finger.

"How so?" Darien asked the man (he obviously had learned it somewhere so why not here and now?).

Serenity wearily looked up from her children and exchanged a glance with her husband. Both smiled knowingly. "You are soul-mates and thus it follows that spiritually you can be considered as one," Endymion informed the younger two.

Serenity nodded. "You share a heartbeat," she added.

"No matter where you are your beings will synchronize with each other. Being as the Grounds are controlled and shaped by your minds, what ever area one may be within will align with the region the other occupies."

"That's useful to know," Serena remarked thoughtfully.

"Very," Darien agreed emphatically (it had always bothered him that there was a place that he could not reach her in).

Serena pulled away from him and he reluctantly let her. She carefully moved to crouch next to Serenity and examined the twins again. "I suppose it's the traditional Serenity and Tranquillity?" As Darien joined her she reached out to touch the little girl's cheek.

"Of course," Endymion agreed, "Although the scouts will no doubt mangle the names as they see fit."

"Of course," Darien echoed wryly (the addition of Serena and Travis to the team had heralded a whole new wave of nicknames, his least favourite of which was 'lover-boy').

Serena met her twin self's sapphire eyes and commented softly, "She's going to be Sailor Moon."

"Yes, the Moon's avatar will not be male again until Small Lady presents us a grandson." Serenity did not look surprised but then she had probably expected this. Her son would be needed to succeed his father.

"However," Serena mused softly as she moved her finger to lightly brush the prince's forehead. "The young prince is only half a senshi."

Darien froze, following her gaze to the boy. How could that be?

"Yes," Endymion acknowledged, again, as if he had expected it but then he would have known that it would be so from the time in his past when he had stood where Darien was standing now. He was not worried so either time had mellowed him (unlikely) or it was not as it appeared.

"He has a soul-mate!" Darien whispered when comprehension dawned.

Serenity nodded as she tenderly gazed at the infant. "Yes, another exists who will complete him and enable him to become Earth's knight." She looked up and her face was unreadable. "The existence of souls capable of splitting into two functioning segments are so few and far between that the existence of a soul great enough that, when split, the halves are strong enough to be senshi was though impossible."

"Until us," Darien finished.

"Until us," Serenity agreed, "But we are unique and will never again be duplicated."

"Which does not prohibit that two halves of a soul not so encompassing may not join and serve together," Endymion finished.

Darien frowned. The two monarchs had apparently had many years, if not decades (little did he know) to consider the implications and his mind raced to discern what they had long since discovered. "Practically that would mean two senshi," he said slowly as he thought it through. "An Earth Knight and a 'Sailor Earth'!"

Serena withdrew her hand and looked at him with wide eyes. "Wicked!" she exclaimed and then snatched at his nearest hand. "But it gets even more interesting love." She placed his hand against little Tranquillity's cheek. "Can you feel it?"

Darien was about to ask what she was talking about when suddenly his magic flared. Not that of the Earth, bestowed upon him as its protector, but the magic that was his by blood. He knew. He felt the shape of the soul that was already and would one day be his son's. He felt the, not a wound, but an absence where another would lock to complete the boy's spirit.

And he knew the shape of the one who would do so.

He knew it and he remembered a coquettish woman with crimson curls and secretive eyes. He remembered her unwelcome fixation upon him when he desired no more than to be left in peace with his princess. He remembered a bitterness in her so great that when he could be what she had so desperately been searching for she turned to inflicting pain upon others so as to deaden her own. He remembered a woman he had gone to war against and died facing. He remembered a twisted soul he had fought in two lifetimes and killed in this one.

How ironic that all the pain Beryl had endured might have been ended had she been patient just a few years longer. Instead she had doomed herself to the millennia of solitude which had tortured her so.

"Oh shi..." Serena clapped her hand against his mouth, cutting him off, and then glared at him disapprovingly in tandem with Serenity (Endymion, on the other hand, looked sympathetic).

"You will not be teaching our children that kind of language Darien Chiba!"

Serenity looked set to scold him even more fiercely but Endymion intervened. "It is time for both of you to leave in any event. You have a wedding to prepare for after all."

Serenity blinked and her irritation vanished. "Oh yes! You must not be late for that... although it is not as though they could start without you."

"Very true." Darien rose to his feet and helped his fiancée to hers. "Is there any more advice you could give us?"

Endymion and Serenity were silent for a moment. They were communicating on such an intimate level that not even their younger selves could eavesdrop." "The Sword of Artemis belongs to Tran... Travis," Serenity said at last. "Despite what Venus might argue about him already possessing a sword, that particular one was created by him..."

"To protect you," Endymion completed, looking directly at Serena. "He did so even before the Silver Millennium and not, as even the Guardians would have it, for the senshi to protect the princess. That has simply become the custom. The sword's true power will never be known except by him."

"Much as the crystal will only completely answer to us," Serenity added.

"Thank you," Serena replied sincerely and her mind was already planning how to wrest it from Artemis and Mina (who had found it on the Moon only a few weeks before and had declared finders, keepers).

Spontaneously, he bowed to the two monarchs and they regally nodded their heads in return. Darien started to open a gate only to have the portal slip from his control into his elder self's. The glimmering doorway back into the real world flickered into existence and Darien gallantly (inspired by the obvious way that Endymion doted on his lover - and not wanting to be shown up and by himself no less) offered his arm to Serena.

"Shall we?" he murmured.

She, with mock hauteur, nodded graciously and accepted his hand (her charade spoiled slightly by her quick grin at Serenity). "We shall."

"Then farewell and thank you both," Endymion said after them. Serena gave him a quick smile before she stepped through and Darien was about to follow her when Endymion spoke again. "Oh and Darien." Endymion's voice was so grim that Darien could not have turned away if he had wanted to. Endymion caressed a lock of Serenity's silver hair. "Do you remember what it was like to be alone?"

Darien had no doubt as to what he was referring to. He nodded, the memories rose in his mind like a terrible flood. It was not that he had been in pain nor even that he had known what he had been missing. There had just been that terrible emptiness that had made life meaningless and that was after she had been born. Before... nothing could compel him to seek out those memories that he had barred from his conscious mind. No, they were best left forgotten.

Endymion nodded in satisfaction. "Then you know what our son will be doomed to if his mate does not survive and that she, herself, will need help and support, else she falls again to evil. However, should a Lunarian embrace darkness, then nothing even Beryl did will compare."

Darien nodded soberly. Seeing Birle grow over the past two years had eased most of his reservations of Serena's decision to cause her birth but now he had a personal stake in her future. She would live to see adulthood and do so sane, he vowed it. "I'll take care of her," he promised. Endymion nodded once in a clear dismissal of both the topic and Darien. With no further ado he once more turned his mind to his family and Darien left him in peace.

"Well?" Tranquillity demanded as soon as Darien stepped through the gateway. He had calmed a little but by no means enough and was still unhealthily stressed. Serena stood behind him looking more than a little harassed and Darien correctly deduced that he had arrived just in time to prevent her from doing something violent to her twin of the future.

"Everything is fine," Darien reassured the man. He saw Serena roll her eyes (she had told the high prince that several times and had he believed her? no!) and forced himself not to smile. "Really. Endymion is there, you are an uncle twice over, both are healthy and Serenity is a little tired but none the worse for wear."

"You are sure?" Tranquillity still looked frazzled but he slowly deflated under Darien's unshakable confidence.

"Yes!" Serena gritted out for Darien. Her expression was promised dire retribution if Tranquillity did not let it go and would not have boded well for Travis had he been close by. She would more than likely have let him have an earful about being an ass on the principle that prevention was better than the cure. That raised another issue for Darien, though. Where were his soul-brother and Birle?

Suddenly Tranquillity's mind calmed enough for him to realize the implications of Serena's presence. and he collapsed against the nearest wall. "She... you... knew all along?" (Interesting that it was not the fact that she had somehow found a way to join Darien in the Grounds that shocked him, is it not? Another testament to her life-long predilection for twisting the rules to her own advantage.) Serena nodded and allowed herself to be slightly appeased by his reaction. "Oh..." the high prince commented reasonably, "I should have known that... I have not exactly been thinking clearly have I?" The young couple simply looked at him wordlessly. Tranquillity sighed and all of the tension finally left him. "I guess it is because Hota-love had such a close call... Ah... forget I said."
Darien and Serena exchanged glances. Not likely.

Tranquillity winced (no doubt thinking about the lecture Pluto was going to give him and how he had just dug himself that much deeper). "Just remember when it is you turn that I am not calm in this kind of situation."

"You're already forgiven," Serena promised him and aggravation vanished. Darien nodded in support and Tranquillity sighed again.

He heaved himself off the wall and started towards the still open (and obviously waiting) portal and Darien remembered something. "Where's Travis and Birle?" he demanded quickly.

Tranquillity half turned and answered, "Mum called, looking, so I... he took Birle home." (Time travelling was confusing at times, especially to the traveller.) He started to leave again and this time he was half through the portal (only one leg and his left elbow still visible) when his head stuck itself back through (his head was unattached to anything else and made him look like a wall hanging out of the Adams family) and advised quickly, "Darien beware of Luna and Terran, they will cause you no little amount of trouble and much inconvenience about your illicit visit this morning."

Darien nodded, philosophically. "I expected as much but I can handle it.”

"That is not what I meant... never mind." The disassociated head shook itself (something very unsettling to watch) and disappeared leaving no hint of his presence behind.

"Well," Serena said after a moment's silence. "That was interesting."

"For you, maybe," Darien retorted, "For me it's another feather in the cap of what is turning out to be a really strange day."

Sapphire eyes narrowed. "Are you saying that you don't want to marry me today, hmm?"

Darien swept her back into his arms. "Perish that thought," he ordered immediately. He became slightly wistful as he stared down into her heart-shaped face. "I just had some outlandish notion that we could get married in peace."

"With our track record? Let us recap shall we? First time, we died. Second time... we died. Third time... we died."

"I see a trend there. I guess I should count myself lucky that all that happened was we had guests from the future."

Serena looked ambiguous. "I don't know. I could really have done without seeing myself push two big..." She gestured inarticulately. "Out of my..." she trailed off again but Darien got the idea.

"Look at it this way Love," he told her after a little consideration. His hands moved lower and he felt her become more pliable in response. He lowered his head closer to her ear and purred, "We're going to have a lot of fun putting them there first.

She swatted him lightly. "Do you think of nothing else?"

"When you're around? Not often.

Chuckling, she finally surrendered to his advances and things were progressing satisfactorily (rather like that morning so, really, he should have known better by then) when, halfway to Darien's bedroom (known as such only by Ilene. The young lovers thought of it as theirs, the scouts knew it as the love-nest and Ken tried not to think of it at all), the doorbell sounded. Darien cursed mentally (inciting his telepathic lover to giggle) and reluctantly began to untangle himself.

"Ignore it," Serena pleaded and he was tempted, very tempted. He was on the point of succumbing to that temptation when the bell sounded again, several times, and this time accompanied by a banging as well. Serena pouted as he pulled away but when a quick probe (not to mention the start of the yelling) told her who it was, she moved away faster than Darien. She snatched her shirt up from the floor and rebuttoned her shorts.

"Hey Dare! Come on! We're supposed to be getting ready by now!! We're here to make sure you're on time remember?"

Darien snorted before he stole a last, heartfelt kiss from a certain young Lunarian to tide him over. "I wouldn't count on me being on time if they're here," he whispered.

"You're late, you die!" she whispered back before she hurried towards the back door.

*Look who's talking Miss Punctuality!* he sent after her as he went to greet his self-appointed minders.

*Pish posh,* he heard her chuckle into his mind before she turned her own to other things (such as an explanation to her mother as to her whereabouts for the past hour). With a sigh Darien let her go and opened the front door.

"Hey Dare!"

"Lookin' good dude!"

"Got cold feet yet?"

Darien smiled in welcome (okay, so they had bad timing but they were his friends and they would be participating in a strange ceremony - Setsuna had railroaded Darien and Serena into using it with underhanded tactics, i.e.: convincing Ilene that it would be more spectacular - without... much argument). His smiled wilted a little as he eyed his manically grinning blond friend. "How are you Andrew?" he asked cautiously and so it started. His hyped on caffeine (the arcade manager/future doctor had insisted on a buck's night and had still not recovered from the coffee that was substituted for alcohol in deference to Darien) friend bounced into the house.

"HeyDaretheykeepaskingmeifI'mrelatedtothetwinsdoyouknowwhy?Ohanddoyouhaveanycoffee?WhatamIsayingofcourseyoudo!Whereisit?"

Darien watched the man disappear down the front hall. "He's still strung out?"

"Obviously," Joe (the game machine repairman that Darien had met while he was working at the Arcade and had become friends with over the years) sighed.

Darien was shocked. "But it's been three days!" (Three days in which he had not been able to find Andrew. He should have used magic.)

"Darien," Dan (who had been a younger intern at the same hospital as Darien and Andrew and had been taken under the two elder men's figurative wings) muttered wearily, "His dad owns a cappuccino machine."

Darien's eyes widened. "So do I!"

Joe, Dan and Chad (Raye’s 'not-boyfriend' who had become a friend of both Darien and Travis once he had learned of their secret identities after he had nearly been eaten by an energy-sucking monster) paled before pushing past Darien in order to reach their insane fourth before it was too late. Darien looked up at the sky and in the distance he thought he could see a speck of silver-white only for it to disappear. With a sigh he shut the door and rejoined the madness.