Ami and her family were walking along the street, heading for the temple. They were staying in a hotel, until they could find a more permanent residence. Gregory and Aria were greatly distressed to discover that their parents had no intentions of ever returning home. They fought with them tooth and nail, but there was no winning.
Ami all but ran up the steps to the temple, and her husband and children followed behind. Ami had reached the large meeting room before them, and they had found her spaced out, lost deep within old memories.
"Why do we have to be in this dusty old rat hole anyways?" Aria complained. Even though Aria had inherited her mother's look, she had not inherited her attitude.
"Aria!" Ami said, angrily. "This is not a dusty old rat hole, this is a sacred temple!"
Aria found herself backing away from her mother. She had never seen that look in her eyes before.
"Okay, all right, I'm sorry. I can see how this would have been a beautiful place when it was kept up."
"Oh, it was! My friend, Rei, her Grandfather, and another took care of this place by themselves, though the rest of us helped sometimes."
Gregory and Aria looked at each other. Their mother had rarely talked about her childhood. The only thing she ever mentioned, once in a great while, was some fairy tale about sailor-suited female warriors. They had never heard her mention a Rei before, and they had no idea who the "rest" were.
Meanwhile...
Mina and her family were walking towards the temple, the same way Ami, Greg, Gregory and Aria had come, just a few minutes before.
In the opposite direction walked Rei, Chad, Chaz and Rena.
The temple sat on top of a hill, so the two old friends did not even see each other until they were near the top.
"Rei!"
"Mina!"
The two girls ran into each other's arms, tears of happiness in their eyes.
Andrew and Chad shook hands, and smiled at their wives tears.
Rena and Chaz stared at Selena and Dior. Selena and Dior stared at Rena and Chaz.
When Mina and Rei had separated themselves, they finally saw the other's daughter and son.
Mina saw Rena and had to do a double take. Rena looked exactly like her mother: black, purple highlighted hair and all. Chaz looked almost exactly like Chad had at his age, except for the hair. Chaz's hair was cut short, and he had no bangs that could hide is eyes.
Rei noticed right away that Selena and Dior had golden blonde hair, like their mother, and they both had blue eyes that were the same shade of blue as Andrew's.
"Rena, Chaz, this is one of my best friends, Mina Furuhata."
Rena and Chaz were startled to hear their mother say one of her best friends. They had rarely heard their mother talk about her childhood, and when she had anything to say, it had something to do with a myth about sailor-suited female warriors.
"Hello Rena, Chaz. This is my daughter, Selena, but everyone calls her Lena, and my son, Dior." Mina said with a smile. "Kids, this is Rei Kumada, one of my best friends."
Selena and Dior, too, were surprised to hear their mother call this Rei one of her best friends. Their mother had rarely talked about her childhood, and when she had said anything, it had to do with some urban legend about sailor-suited female warriors.
Rena and Selena smiled and nodded politely to each other, as did Dior and Chaz.
"Come one, lets head up to the temple. Some of the others may be there already. I can't wait to see everyone!" Mina said, already starting up the stairs.
"Yes, I can't wait either!" Rei said, following Mina. "But I'm afraid to see what has happened to the temple while I was gone. Without anyone here to do upkeep, it must be a mess!"
"Oh, don't worry about it Rei! We'll all help clean it up!" Mina said, now in a jog, eager to see her friends.
"Wait up!" Rei said, running to catch up with her, leaving the husbands and children behind. With simultaneous shrugs, Selena and Rena followed their parents and brothers.
It was not long before everyone had arrived and had introduced their families to each other. There had been much commotion over Haruka and Michiru's daughters, until they had explained about finding the two babies abandoned together on the beach one night. They did an extensive search, but never found their biological parents. They even did DNA testing to see if the two were sisters, but it was determined that their was no way the two babies were related. It was not long before Haruka and Michiru had two new adopted daughters.
All of the teenagers stayed near their parents, until Ami, ever the voice of reason, urged them to go explore the grounds and get to know each other. The teenagers readily agreed.
After several minutes of silence, Cassandra spoke up and asked, "Okay, so how old is everyone?"
Everyone was kinda of freaked out to learn that every one of the girls was 15 years old, and every one of the boys, even the twins, Demitrius and Donal, and Ken Jr. and Keith, who were nine months apart, were 17.
"I guess our parents thought alike, huh?" Dior said, trying to come up with an explanation.
Everyone just shrugged.
After about ten minutes of just sitting around under an old tree, Rena spoke up.
"I've got a question for you all. I know I personally was surprised to find out that my Mom had friends here. She had never spoke of her childhood. Was it the same with your parents?"
Fourteen heads nodded. A confused silence reigned.
"Well, actually, our Mom would sometimes talk about some stupid story about sailor-suited female warriors." Dior said.
A chorus of fourteen voices rang out: "Mine too!"
"I wonder what it could mean?" Aria pondered out loud.
"Oh, our mothers were probably just members of some fan club for these "Sailor Senshi" they always talk about. They probably were only friends because of their common interest, because how else would they have become friends?" Demitrius reasoned.
"You're probably right. I mean, just listen, they couldn't have been very good friends, because they're already arguing about something or other." Keith pointed out.
Sure enough, yelling could be heard from inside, but because the teenagers were sitting behind the building, they could not see the object of the argument.
When Darien had walked in alone, without Serena by his side, chaos broke out. He was bombarded with questions of where Serena was, and why she was not with him. When he had told them that they had broken up, all the scouts starting yelling at him, just assuming that it was he who had broken up with her.
"Hold on a minute! I didn't break up with Serena, Serena broke up with me!"
Silence immediately dropped, and then a collective "Oh." rang out.
"Serena decided, all by herself, that we should both live life to the fullest while we still could. She ordered me to leave, and you know that no one can disobey the princess."
Heads nodded in agreement.
"Well, it figures. Of course Serena would be late, the Meatball Head!" Rei said, her old self coming back.
"How was I supposed to know you would all get here so quickly?" A soft voice, that had a hint of amusement in it, said from the entranceway.
They all whirled around in a collective group. There stood Serena, in a business suit, high heels, a briefcase, and the old familiar "meatballs". There was an aura of such purity and royalty around her, that everyone in the room, even the husbands that had no part of the Silver Millennium, bowed.
"Do not bow to me. I am not a princess, nor am I a queen. Save that for the appropriate time." The softness was still in her voice, as well as a certain maturity.
"Serena, what happened to you?" Rei asked bluntly.
Serena laughed a beautiful, twinkling laugh.
"Oh Rei! I grew up! I finally learned that the future queen of the world needed to grow up and mature a little before the end of the world came."
It was then that Serena spied Darien, hiding in the back of the room, unsure of how to act towards her. He should not have been scared.
"Darien!" Serena said, and she walked gracefully over to him. "Darien, do you not want to see me?"
"Oh, Serena." He sighed lovingly. "You have grown more beautiful and more graceful then I could have ever thought possible. I guess I am afraid that we won't know each other anymore."
"Oh, Darien, do not be afraid of me not knowing you or you not knowing me. As long as we know what is in each other's hearts, there will be no problem. Besides, we have some time to get to know each other before the end of the world." Then Serena's eyes went wide. "Oh my!"
Serena had been the only one facing the doorway, so everyone turned around to see what she was so surprised at. Standing in the doorway, were their sons and daughters.
"Are those yours?" Serena asked, and everyone but Darien nodded. "Oh! Let me try to guess who they belong to! Come here." She beckoned kindly to the teenagers, and they found themselves obeying without quite knowing why.
Serena looked over the girl in front of her.
"You must be Chad and Rei's daughter! You look just like her!" Seeing Rena nod in confirmation, she asked "What is your name?"
"Rena."
Rena went and stood by her parents.
There was now a boy in front of her.
"Hmm. You must be Mina and Andrew's son."
Dior nodded and said, "My name is Dior."
Serena went through the next seven teenagers quite easily, and then she got to the outer's children.
"That's strange. You two must be twins." Serena said, referring to Demitrius and Donal. The twins nodded. "You two look exactly like my Darien, except for the hair. There is a slight green tint to it.... you're Setsuna's sons!" The two nodded and went to stand by their parents. It was then that Serena noticed Desmond.
"Oh my! You look almost exactly like Darien! You two could be brothers!" Serena exclaimed. Everyone compared the two, and had to agree.
"Who knows, maybe we are brothers." Darien said.
"Yes, you never know." Setsuna said. All of the adults in the room seemed to agree, while all the teenagers were wondering how Darien and Desmond could possibly think that they could be brothers when they had only just met.
"Okay, and you must be Setsuna's daughter! You look just like her!"
"Yup, that's right! I'm Destiny!"
Destiny caught a hint of pity in Serena's eyes for just a moment, and then it was gone. Destiny shrugged and went to stand with her family.
There had been pity in Serena's eyes. She felt so bad for this teenager who was obviously such a happy, popular girl. One day she would have to stand and guard the Gates of Time, all alone.
Serena shook off her feelings of pity, and then studied the girl and boy standing in line next.
"Oh my! Your little Hotaru's son and daughter! Well, I guess Hotaru isn't so little anymore." Serena said looking over at the woman.
"Yeah, my name is Zoe, and this is my brother Jason."
The brother and sister left to stand with their parents, leaving only Anila and Meriel.
"Oh my." Serena said, too stunned to say anything else for a moment.
"You look like none of the people in here, yet, your Haruka and Michiru's daughters."
Anila and Meriel's eyes went wide.
"How did you know?" Meriel asked.
"It's your auras. You give off a feeling of magnificent power, and you give off an essence of gracefulness. Who else could you be but Haruka and Michiru's daughters?"
"But we're adopted." Anila said.
"It does not matter. You are their adopted daughters, and you adopted their essences."
Anila and Meriel shrugged and went to stand by their mothers.
Everyone was silent for a moment as the teens and parents stood looking at Serena and Darien in the front of the room, then Serena spoke.
"Do they know how we met?"
All of the adults shook their heads.
"Then they will learn in due time. Meanwhile, kids, would you mind going somewhere for a while? There is an awesome arcade downtown that you could go to. Here, here's some money to spend. Come back in an hour." Serena said, managing not to sound condescending. She pulled out two one hundred dollar bills from her briefcase at her feet.
"Now, split the money as evenly as you can. I know it's not much, but hopefully it will last all of you an hour. Have fun!"
All of the teenagers left, after their parents said that it was all right, leaving only the Sailor Senshi and their husbands in the quiet room.
Back to Chapter Nine
Chapter Eleven
