Disclaimer: I do not own Sailor Moon. Can't I claim Mamo-chan tho????

Email Addy: SailrPhnx@aol.com or UtenaStar@aol.com

Rated: PG 13
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by Sailor Phoenix

Part Nine

    Pressing the covers to her collarbone, Serenity scrambled to the foot of the bed for her paisley silk wrapper and hastily donned it on. She had hoped Luna was remembering the day they had come to the island, when they stood at the railing and Luna had said, You are not mad. And you are not Serenity Alessandros.

    When Serenity's friend turned to face her, there was a reassuring smile on her face. "We have many legends among our people," she said with a shrug. "Besides, who is to say what is real and what is not?"

    Serenity was so relieved that she sagged to the edge of the bed. "Do you know what Endy would say if I told him that? That I am suffering a psychotic episode."

    "Tell me more about this place you come from. Is it much better than this one?"

    "In some ways," Serenity answered. "There are far more medical advances." She glanced over at Selenity, who was fast asleep in her cradle, and felt a fierce protectiveness come to her. "Many of the diseases like small pox, whooping cough, and measles have almost been eliminated. People don't have to work so hard, and everything is faster. Example: a letter here takes three weeks to cross country, but where I am from there’s a machine called a fax that will transmit-send-words or pictures anywhere in the world in a matter of minutes."

    Luna's mouth dropped.

    If there was anything Serenity enjoyed, it was to captivate an audience. "There are many other machines too--airplanes, for instance," she went on. "They are like the big metal ships but these have wings and can soar through the air."

    "I want to see this place!"

    Serenity was filled with sadness. "It is not very likely," she replied gently, laying a hand down her friend's shoulder, "but don't worry. I have enough stories to last us till we are old women. In fact some of them should be coming soon."

    "They must be written down, the things you remember."

    Serenity agreed, but she could not help smile. What a shock some poor historian would get when he or she opened a dusty old journal dated 1895, and found details of fax machines, computers, and movie theatres.

    "In what ways is this time better than your own?" Luna wanted to know.

    "I don't know if 'better' is the right word to describe it," Serenity mused. "Things are far more simpler here. There isn't much stress." She looked around the room. It's very romantic time with carriage rides, living in mansions, wearing long dresses that rustle when I walk. But I am well aware that most people don't enjoy this luxury."

    Luna's brow was furrowed with a frown. "Don't women wear long dresses in your time?"

    Serenity smiled. "Only for elegant parties and other such occasions. I mostly spend most of my waking hours in a pair of jeans-trousers."

    "Women wear trousers?" Luna's voice was filled with disbelief.

    "Yes," Serenity answered. "And they vote and own their own business and hold political offices."

    Raising the fingertips of both her hands to her temples, Luna shook her head. "This is a lot to take in."

    Serenity felt an even greater affection for her quiet, practical, steady friend. "Yes," she agreed. "But don't get the idea that I came from a kind of paradise timeline. The human race still has a long way to go."

    Still looking a little bit dazed, Luna left her. Serenity quickly washed, dressed, and groomed her hair. Then placing the baby in Raye's capable hands, she set out for the beach.

    Serenity told herself she wasn't looking for Endy, but when she spotted him sitting on top of a boulder, the salty-misted breeze ruffling his hair, she was overjoyed. She stopped to smooth the skirts of her bright cotton dress with its lace-up front and to pat her hair.

    "Good morning," she called out when she knew she was close enough for him to hear. With one hand, she shaded her eyes from the fierceness of the sun's rays, and behind her calm exterior trembled a woman who knew she was betting her soul on a longshot.

    Endymion's stormy eyes swept from her face to her hem and back again. He climbed agilely down from the boulder, slung his lightweight jacket over one shoulder. There was a remoteness in his manner that was even more disturbing than the hostility he usually displayed.

    "Was I wrong in thinking last night made a difference?" Serenity asked boldly, facing him on the hard, rocky sand. The tide licked at the hem of her skirt, and the wind made silvery tendrils of her hair dance around her face.

    His expression was haunted, and Serenity felt an anger as deep as the Atlantic as she realized just how badly his voluptuous bride had wounded him. It was a bitter irony, having to pay the price of another woman's sins.

    "There are times," Endymion conceded after a long moment, "when, if I didn't know better, I would actually believe you were a totally different person."

    Hesitantly, Serenity touched his arm, sending a sweet riot of sensation through her. She clung tenaciously to reason, to the sad truth that Endymion would merely think she is insane if she tried to explain how she came here. "Isn't it enough that I've changed, Endy, that I am genuinely sorry for all the things I have done in the past? Can't we start over?"

    He raised his hand as if to touch her cheek, then let it fall back to his side. His grin was so brief and so sad that it tore at Serenity's heartstrings. "Yes and no," he answered finally, his tone ragged. "I want you in my bed again, and I want more children by you, but there will always be a part of my soul that I will not share with you."

    Serenity longed to be welcomed in Endymion's bed, and she wanted to bear him more children, yet the pain his words caused her was so intense that it struck her mute.

    Endymion wanted to use her and with no appreciable difference in concern for her feelings. He wasn't asking her to be a real wife, and he wasn't offering her anything that remotely resembled love.

    Her entire body trembled with the effect not to slap him across his arrogant face.

    "I am no bitch dog," she pointed out, after a few moments of keeping her temper in check.

    Endymion hooked a finger under one of the laces at her bodice and brazenly traced the outline of a nipple, causing it to press towards him. "The response to that, my dear," he said, "is so obvious that I won't even answer it." He grew bolder then, flattening his palm against her breast, smiling as it swelled in his hand, as ripe and succulent as a late summer watermelon.

    Serenity moved to twist away, her face crimson with rage and humiliation, but he curved one iron arm around her waist and stopped her.

    "At last," he said, "I've figured out how to deal with you, Serenity. You need a man that can play your body as well as an angel can play the harp, and we both know that I am the man who can do it. I will bed you often and well, and you will behave yourself in the interim or suffer the consequences."

    Serenity's defiance drained out of her; she knew all the blood drained from her face. "What consequences would that be, Endy?" The question was barely audible.

    With an index finger, he lightly traced the line of her jaw, and she hated him for arousing her with a simple touch. "Very simple," he said with a regrettable sigh, "I will divorce you and ship you off to live in a cottage somewhere."

    "And Selenity?"

    "She remains with me," Endymion stated matter-of-fact.

    Although she didn't want to be sent away from Endymion and the lifestyle she had become used to, she could have borne both those things. The thought of losing her daughter was another story, and it filled her with desolation and terror. Where in her own century, she would of been able to fight Endymion for custody, it was useless in this century. She was his property.

    "I couldn't bear that," she said softly.

    Endymion curved a finger under her chin and lifted her face to meet his. While his touch was certainly not painful, there was no tenderness in it. "Perhaps motherhood has redeemed your little black heart," he said. "We shall see." With that he walked away towards the house.

    Serenity stood on the shore for a very long time, feeling an explosive anger building inside her, fueled by frustration and desire.

    It was probably despair that sent her after Endymion to angrily grip his jacket, which was still slung casually over his shoulder. "Damn you, Endymion," Serenity cried out, "don't you dare drop a bomb like that and walk away!"

    His expression was one of confusion, rather than anger, when he turned to look at her. " 'Drop a bomb'?"

    She sighed and shook her head. She was in no mood to explain World War 1 and all the succeeding developments that would influence the language. "If you'll just open up to me, Endy," she pleaded, holding his arm. "If only you'll give me the chance to prove I'm really different..."

    "I'll visit you when I feel the need," he said dismissively. "When I return to San Fransciso, I will live as I should have before."

    Serenity's heart plummeted. "You're talking about taking a mistress, aren't you?" she breathed. "Maybe you've already done that, set up some bird in a glided cage---"

    He shook his head, not in denial, but in bewilderment. There wasn't a hint of confusion in his words, however; they were cutting and concise. "Don't tell me you have the gall to object?" he drawled.

    She closed her eyes tightly and clenched her hands at her sides, struggling not to out scream the gulls hovering against the blue sky. Finally, she trusted herself to speak.  "I do object," she said. "You're my husband and I won't share."

    He touched her hair and offered her an indulgent little smile. "How refreshing," he said. " And how utterly unlike you." He bent his head to nibble lightly at her lips, but she knew the kiss was not a display of tenderness. It was a challenge.

    Again he caught his finger under the laces of her bodice, nestled it in the velvety softness and warmth of her cleavage. "I'm going into the city today to attend to some of my patients, but I will return on time for dinner and your wifely comforts, my dear. Be ready for me."

    Even as Serenity's mind shrieked rebellion, her body ached for the pleasures of Endymion's possession. Her nipples yearned to nourish him, her hips and thighs to cushion his weight. In her own time, the talk shows such as Sally and Jerry Springer covered such topics like this but they weren't even born yet and for now she had to deal with it on her own.

    They separated then, and Serenity went to one of her favorite refuges, a tiny chapel set in the back of the woods. It was complete with pews, stain-glass windows, and candles waiting to be lit, and the place seemed eternal, neither belonging to this century or her own.

    Before her accident and body switching experience, Serenity had not been religious. She still wasn't clear on her theology, but she had encountered someone near the simmering crystal bridge, and she knew the universe wasn't the random place it had once been. There was a distinct order and logic to how things were placed.

    As she sat in the soothing silence of the chapel, a single tear slipped down her face. Every day her old existence in modern day Tokyo seemed to be slipping through her fingers, more and more like a science fiction story she had read somewhere. This life, here and now, was real and vital, the one she truly wanted to live, and yet the emotional distance between her and Endymion seemed to vast to bridge. They were only in accord when making love, and that simply just wasn't enough.
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Coming soon the final chapter to "That Other Serenity".
Part 10