Chapter 6

	In the week that followed, Serenity practically lived at the 
hospital, ignoring school and her other royal duties. Her guardian senshi, 
who had set up a schedule to watch over her, brought her clean clothes, food, 
and homework each day, while Diana fielded questions from curious reporters 
who had somehow found out where Serenity was. The official story from the 
palace was that the crown princess had been hospitalized with a mild case of 
pneumonia. Nobody outside of the royal family’s inner circle knew about 
Helios’ condition. King Endymion had not wanted to induce panic amongst the 
citizens by announcing that the priest of Elysion had fallen into a coma. 
Even though Hyperion had been marked the new priest, according to Eos and 
Aurora, the young boy had not spoken a single word since the ceremony. His 
muteness did not prevent him from performing his duties, which were mostly 
non-verbal, but it was unlikely he would inspire much confidence in his 
abilities. Luna, Diana’s mother and the king and queen’s most trusted 
advisor, thought it best to hold off the announcement until Hyperion had 
recovered from the shock of what had happened.

	Serenity, for her part, remained almost constantly at Helios’ 
bedside, holding vigil over him. One of the nurses had informed her that 
studies showed that coma patients could sometimes hear the people around 
them, so Serenity made a point to talk to him often when they were alone, 
telling him how much she loved him and making plans about what they would do 
when he finally woke up as incentive for him to do so. The times when she ran 
out of things to say -- which was often when the person she was talking to 
had no ability to speak -- she would resort to reading either the newspaper 
or her assignments aloud.

	“It’s good to see you are keeping up with your schoolwork,” Mercury 
said with a small smile upon walking in on Serenity reciting her English 
lessons. The doctor had come in to check on Helios’ condition, which had 
remained constant ever since the first night -- never improving, but never 
worsening either.

	“Trying to, at least.” Serenity sighed, sliding off Helios’ bed so 
that Mercury could examine him. “Nothing is sinking in. I can’t concentrate 
at all.”

	“Maybe it would help if you went home to study, or to the library,” 
she suggested. “You’ve barely left this room since Helios-sama was admitted. 
I know it might be difficult to slip away, what with the press camping 
outside the hospital, but --”

	Serenity shook her head, not wanting to hear the same thing everybody 
else had already told her. “I can’t leave. I want to be here the moment he 
wakes up.”

	Mercury gave her a sympathetic look. “I understand your feelings, 
Serenity-chan, but it is impossible to predict when that might be. He could 
remain in a coma for weeks, months, maybe even years. He may not even --” The 
doctor broke off the thought before she finished the sentence, but Serenity 
already knew what she had planned to say: He may not even wake up at all. 
“What I mean to say,” Mercury began again after better composing her 
thoughts, “is that you shouldn’t put your life on hold because of this. I 
doubt Helios-sama would want that.”

	“But my life is on hold, Mercury-sama,” Serenity said. “Until Helios 
wakes up, I can’t think about the future.” Reaching for Helios’ hand, she 
gave it a light squeeze. “I don’t want to think about the future…not if he’s 
not in it.”  

	“Serenity-chan…”

	By that time, Mercury had finished taking down his vitals, so 
Serenity returned to her spot on the bed, pushing back a strand of hair that 
had fallen over his closed eyes. Oh, how she wished they would open again…

	“He will wake up someday, won’t he?” she asked, looking back at the 
doctor.

	There was a long pause before Mercury answered. “I…don’t know. I 
won’t lie to you. The longer he remains in a coma, the less likely it is he 
will come out of it.”

	“But it’s not impossible.”

	“No, it’s not impossible. There have been rare cases of coma patients 
waking up even decades after the original onset.”

	“Then I will keep believing,” Serenity decided, “even if it takes 
over a thousand years. Helios waited that long for me to return to the 30th 
century; I can do the same, if I have to.”

	“I --” Again, Mercury refrained herself from commenting, only placing 
a placating hand on Serenity’s arm before sighing and turning to leave.

	The doctor was halfway down the hall when Serenity suddenly stood 
back up and ran to the door. 

	“Mer-- I mean, Mizuno-sensei!” 

	Mercury turned back around, sprinting back to Helios’ room. “What is 
it?” she asked, brushing past Serenity and Vesta, who was guarding the door. 
“Did something happen?” 

	“Um, no, not exactly,” Serenity said, blushing. “I just had a 
question, if you don’t mind.”

	“Of course not. What’s on your mind?”

	After closing the door so that Vesta couldn’t eavesdrop on their 
conversation, Serenity joined Mercury at Helios’ bedside. “I was just 
wondering if there is any reason why Helios needs to stay here at the 
hospital.”

	“I don’t quite understand. What do you mean?”

	“When you first told us that Helios was in a coma, you said he was 
perfectly healthy, except for the fact that he can’t wake up. You said it was 
like he was in a very deep sleep.”

	“Yes, that’s true.”

	“If that’s the case, why can’t I take him home to the Crystal 
Palace?” Serenity asked. The idea had been floating around in her mind for 
the past few days, though she had been hesitant to bring it up. She hated the 
thought of Helios being confined to a cold, harsh hospital room and felt it 
would be better for him to be surrounded by the people who cared about him. 
“I’m sure the hospital administrators are tired of all the reporters and 
paparazzi hanging around outside, and this pneumonia cover story can only 
last so long. If Helios was transferred to the palace, they would go away and 
things could get back to normal around here.” 

	Mercury frowned, pushing her reading glasses up the bridge of her 
nose. “It’s true that the board would love nothing more than for the press to 
leave, but transferring Helios is not as simple as that, Serenity-chan. It‘s 
not like we can simply put him in bed and wait for him to wake up. We still 
need to monitor him and take care of his basic needs.” 

	“But you could do that at the palace, right?”

	“Well, yes, I suppose I could…”

	“And I can help take care of him,” Serenity offered, growing more 
eager about the idea by the minute. “One of the nurses taught me how to do 
those exercises that are supposed to work out his muscles, so they don’t 
weaken too much, and I can bathe him, and change his clothes, and --”

	Mercury frowned. “There are still some things you are not qualified 
to do.”

	“Then I’ll hire a private nurse,” she decided. Money was no object; 
she would buy the latest equipment and hire the most experienced nurses and 
doctors as long as it meant Helios could come home with her. “Please, 
Mercury-sama. I don’t want him to wake up in a place like this. No offense.”

	“None taken. If I was Helios-sama, I doubt I would want to wake up in 
a hospital either.” The doctor sighed and looked down at Helios’ chart. 
“Helios-sama is scheduled to have a feeding tube inserted tomorrow, as it has 
become clear that he will require long-term care. If everything goes well, 
and you make the proper arrangements, then I see no reason why I can’t 
release him into your care by the end of the week.”

	“Really?” It was the first piece of good news she had received since 
Helios was first admitted to the hospital. Unable to contain her excitement, 
she hugged Mercury. “Thank you. Thank you so much! You have no idea how much 
I appreciate this.”

	“But I want you to do something for me as well.”

	“Anything! I’ll do anything.”

	“Quit putting your life on hold,” Mercury said. She held up a hand 
when Serenity started to protest. “I’m not saying you have to give up hope, 
but go back to school, study for your college entrance exams, and go out with 
your friends every once in a while. You can’t make your life all about 
Helios-sama. It’s unhealthy, and I doubt he would want you to do so.”

	“B-But --”

	“I assure you he will have around-the-clock medical care, and you 
will be the first person anybody contacts the moment he wakes up.”

	Serenity sighed in defeat. The logical side of her knew Mercury was 
right. Though she had little interest in anything besides Helios at the 
moment, she still had duties and responsibilities that she couldn’t just 
ignore. Like she had told Mercury, the pneumonia cover story could only work 
for so long; if she didn’t start making public appearances again soon, people 
would begin to think she was seriously ill.

	“Okay, I’ll…try,” Serenity agreed.

	“That’s all I ask.”

*****

	In the days following his slipping into a coma, Helios had become 
quite adept at identifying people solely by the sound of their voices. Words 
were no longer as muddled and incomprehensible as they were before, though 
there were still times when it seemed the voices were faint and far away.

	The soft beeping sound that never seemed to end, he learned, came 
from something called a heart monitor. The equipment used in modern medicine 
was largely a mystery to him, but he had a vague idea of what one looked 
liked, based on dreams he had seen. The fact that he was most likely hooked 
up to one meant he was probably in a hospital -- one in Crystal Tokyo, as 
everybody with the exception of Eos and Aurora spoke only in Japanese.

	Helios always paid close attention whenever he heard the voices of 
Mercury or people he assumed to be doctors or nurses based on his 
unfamiliarity with them. Although he didn’t understand a lot of the medical 
jargon, he understood enough to realize that his condition had remained 
stable ever since the first night.

	He wasn’t quite sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. 

	So when Mercury interrupted Serenity’s admirable, if butchered, 
assault on the English language, Helios took notice. Mercury didn’t mention 
anything about his condition, which he assumed meant it was the same as the 
last time she had examined him, but he frowned as the doctor and Serenity 
discussed his maiden’s reluctance to leave his side.

	Helios wasn’t certain exactly how many days had passed since he had 
first fallen into the coma. He thought it might have been a week, though, 
based on listening to the news stories Serenity sometimes read aloud to him. 
During that week, she had hardly ever left his room. She even slept there, 
her occasional soft snores and half-awake mumblings alerting him to her 
continued presence during the night.

	Helios didn’t want her to put her life on hold for him. There was no 
telling when, if ever, he would awaken, and the thought of Serenity throwing 
her life away, waiting for him to do so, depressed him. What good was her 
staying by his side when they couldn’t even speak to each other?

	Mercury was right. Serenity should be studying for her college 
entrance exams and going out with her friends, things normal girls her age 
did. She had so much life left to live, things she had dreamed of achieving 
ever since she was a little girl. He fervently wished Serenity would take 
Mercury’s advice to heart, but he had a feeling the doctor’s words had fallen 
on deaf ears.

*****

	Mercury agreed to release Helios the following weekend. The night 
before he was to be transferred to the palace, Serenity went to sleep in her 
own bed for the first time since the night before her birthday. It had been a 
difficult decision to leave him, but she was needed at the palace to help 
with the preparations, so she had reluctantly left him in Aurora’s care with 
the promise that she would be notified immediately in the event that his 
condition changed during the night.

	It took her a while to fall asleep. Though her luxurious queen-sized 
bed was far more comfortable than either Helios’ hospital bed or the hard 
plastic chair she had been sleeping on for the past couple of weeks, it 
felt…wrong to be away from him. Even the dead quiet of her bedroom -- free 
from the hospital noises she had grown accustomed to -- unnerved her.

	“Diana, you awake?” she whispered after an hour had passed, finding 
herself still wide awake and restless. Her guardian cat, however, seemed to 
have had no trouble falling asleep, not even stirring when Serenity reached 
over to stroke her back. “Lucky.”

	Serenity rolled over on her side, facing away from the slumbering 
cat. She needed to get some sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a busy day. 
Desperate to try anything, she closed her eyes shut and resorted to counting 
sheep…



	She was back in the hospital, or at least so she assumed.

	Serenity couldn’t tell for certain, because she was standing at the 
entrance of a long, shadowy corridor. It was difficult to make out much of 
anything, but she recognized the noises surrounding her -- doctors speaking 
in a language that might as well have been Greek for all she understood it, 
various beeps, drips, and hums coming from expensive medical equipment, the 
rattling of trays as orderlies distributed what passed for food to the 
patients…

	…the sobs of mournful family members learning that their loved ones 
had not made it… 

	Forcing herself to ignore the noises, Serenity took a hesitant step 
forward. Above her, a fluorescent light switched on, chasing away some of the 
darkness. With yet another step, another light came on.

	She continued walking down the corridor at a leisurely pace, the 
lights illuminating the way. Judging by the colorful murals and drawings 
decorating the wall, Serenity deduced that she must be in the children’s ward 
of the hospital, yet she had not passed a single person -- child or adult, 
patient or doctor -- in the hallway. All the doors were closed, the lights 
turned off within, but she could still hear the familiar hospital noises 
surrounding her. 

	“Where is everybody?” Serenity murmured to herself, feeling a chill 
run up her spine as she opened one of the doors at random and saw that nobody 
was inside, despite the fact she could plainly hear a frightened child’s 
voice whimpering for her mommy. 	 	  

	Serenity silently closed the door to the empty room and resumed her 
walk down the corridor. 

	She wasn’t sure where she was going, but she felt the need to find 
someone -- anyone at all would do -- to ask them what was happening. 
“Mercury-sama?” she called out in a small voice. “Are you here? Papa? Mama? 
Diana?” After a short pause, she added, “Helios?”

	Nobody answered her.

	A bulletin board posted on the wall beside the door to the playroom 
caught Serenity’s eye. She once again stopped, admiring the crudely-drawn -- 
yet charming -- pictures drawn by the children staying in the hospital. They 
were all drawings of a beautiful white unicorn with wings. Some of the 
children had drawn themselves riding on the back of the mythical horse, while 
others portrayed the Pegasus standing regally against landscapes that bore 
some a minor resemblance to areas in Elysion.

	In the very center of the collage of Pegasus drawings was a 
watercolor painting that Serenity knew quite well, as she had drawn it 
herself for a class assignment back when she was training with Usagi and the 
others in the 20th century. The assignment was to paint a landscape of a 
lake, but Serenity had disobeyed her art teacher’s instructions and added a 
supposedly mythological Pegasus to the picture. Though she had rightfully 
received a low grade on it, it was one of her favorite pieces, and she had 
given it to Helios shortly before she left to train on the Moon with her team 
of senshi.

	“What is this doing here?” she asked herself aloud, pulling out the 
tacks attaching it to the bulletin board and taking it down.

	She stared down at the painting, her hands trembling as the Pegasus 
in the picture began to move. It was trying to fly away, but something 
prevented it from doing so. After a couple of minutes of thrashing and 
whinnying, the Pegasus gave up and lay down on the ground, its large golden 
eyes shutting close as if merely going to sleep.

	But he wasn’t asleep. Somehow, Serenity knew.

	The Pegasus was dead.

	“No!”

	Serenity let go of the paper as if it had suddenly caught on fire. 
The painting fluttered to the ground, landing in front of her feet. When she 
finally found the courage to look back down, she was relieved to see that the 
picture had returned to its original condition. Serenity picked it up and 
placed it back on the board where she had found it.

	“It was just my imagination,” she said. “Right?”

	She continued onward down the hall, picking up her pace. She didn’t 
like this place at all. She needed to find a way out of there, but the 
corridor seemed endless, much longer than Serenity remembered it being, and 
all the elevators and stairwells she passed were out of order. She was about 
to turn around and go back the way she came when she finally saw somebody 
standing in the middle of the hall, about a hundred feet ahead of her.

	The person in question was short in stature, maybe about four to six 
inches shy of five feet, and had curly golden blond hair. Because the child 
was facing away from her, Serenity could not tell if the child was male or 
female, but thought he was most likely a boy, since his hair was short and he 
was wearing white pajamas. The strangest thing about him was that he seemed 
to glow in the darkness, his entire body outlined in an ethereal golden light 
like some kind of heavenly angel. Serenity almost expected wings to sprout 
from his back at any moment, but they never did.

	“Hello?” she called out to the boy. “Do you know the way out of here? 
I think I may be lost.”

	The boy, startled by the sound of her voice, briefly glanced over his 
shoulder toward her, then turned to his left. He began walking straight 
ahead, soon disappearing into the darkness.

	“Wait!”

	Serenity broke out into a sprint, reaching the spot where she thought 
she had seen the boy disappear. Looking to the left, as the boy had done, she 
saw nothing but a solid wall -- not even a door he might have used to leave.

	“I must be losing it,” Serenity said with a loud sigh, leaning up 
against the wall.

	To her surprise, the wall was not as solid as it first appeared. 
Serenity fell right through it, landing hard on her back. “Ow!”

	Looking around as she pulled herself back to her feet, Serenity 
noticed she was now in a different area of the hospital, one more familiar to 
her, as it was the floor were Helios’ room was located. This area was far 
more quiet than the children’s ward. The only thing she heard was the sound 
of somebody sobbing in the distance.

	Almost as if beckoned by a siren’s song, Serenity followed the sound 
of the crying down the hall. She once again came upon the boy. This time, he 
was sitting on the floor in front of a door, his knees drawn up to his chest 
and his face hidden behind his hands. As she approached him, she realized he 
was the one whose cries she had heard.

	“What is it?” she asked, kneeling down beside him.

	The boy didn’t look up.

	“It’s all my fault,” he said in a raspy voice. “I’m sorry. Please 
forgive me.”

	“For what? Who are you?” she pressed. “Where are your parents?” She 
stood back up, holding out her hand to the child. “Come on, I’ll take you 
back to children’s ward. You’re a patient here, right?”

	He shook his head, then as Serenity watched, the boy began fading out 
of sight. She tried to stop him, but there was nothing she could do. He 
slipped right out of her fingers into thin air.

	The boy’s sudden disappearing act startled her, but not as much as 
when she finally noticed whose room the boy had been sitting in front of. 
Looking at the name plate on the door, she gasped.

	It read, “Helios Nikolopoulos.”

	For the first time since she had arrived, Serenity felt truly afraid. 
With a shaking hand, she reached for the doorknob and twisted it. The door 
was unlocked. It took her a few more seconds before she found the courage to 
push it open.

	Immediately, she wished she hadn’t.

	Inside, Helios’ body had been covered by a white sheet, the heart 
monitor attached to him now turned off. Serenity shook her head, not wanting 
to believe the significance of what she saw. “It’s not him,” she said, 
walking over to his bedside. “It can’t be him.”

	With her eyes closed, mentally praying that it was just some sort of 
administrative mistake, Serenity pulled down the sheet covering the body in 
Helios’ bed. When she opened them again, she stifled a scream.

	The was no mistake. Helios was dead.



	“Serenity-sama! Serenity-sama! Wake up!”

	Serenity moaned, her eyes still closed shut. Helios was dead, and she 
didn‘t care if she ever woke up again. She wanted to join him in the Eternal 
Sleep. Yes, that was the only way they could be together. She would die, and 
then she could see him again. 

	That was the only way…

	“Serenity-sama!”

	Somebody was shaking her, their voice panicked. Serenity struggled to 
remain asleep, but whoever was trying to wake her up was making it difficult 
to do so. Slowly, she opened her eyes to see the human face of Diana looking 
down at her in concern.

	“Di…an…a?”

	“You were having a bad dream, Serenity-sama,” Diana said. “A 
nightmare, by the sound of it.”

	“A…dream?” Her mind still foggy, she turned her head to the side. She 
was back in her bedroom at the palace. Tears of relief began running down her 
cheeks. “Thank goodness. It was just a dream,” she whispered to no one in 
particular.

	Diana sat down beside her on the bed, gathering Serenity in her arms 
as if she was a child. Serenity buried her face in Diana’s shoulder, letting 
out the tears that continued to fall.

	“It’s okay,” Diana murmured, rubbing soothing circles along 
Serenity’s back. “It was only a dream.” After a short pause, she asked, “Do 
you want to tell me about it?”

	Serenity shook her head. She wanted to forget all about it if she 
could.

	“Are you sure? You might feel better if you do.”

	“It was nothing,” Serenity lied, sitting back up on her own and 
swiping the sleeve of her nightgown over her eyes. “I feel silly for even 
getting upset about it. I’ll be fine.”

	Diana pursed her lips. Serenity could tell she didn’t quite believe 
her, but the catgirl didn’t press for more details, for which she was 
grateful. Instead, Diana tucked Serenity back into bed, staying by her side 
until Serenity finally fell back to a restless sleep.

***** 

	The next morning, Serenity woke up shortly after the crack of dawn 
and surprised one of her handmaidens when she asked where the bed linens were 
kept. The confused handmaiden offered to change her sheets for her, but it 
was not her bed that needed changing. After grabbing a stack of bed clothes 
from the linen closet, Serenity entered the bedroom next to hers and began 
stripping the bed.

	Technically, the room belonged to Diana, but the catgirl rarely used 
it, preferring to sleep on Serenity’s bed in her cat form. When she had heard 
Helios was coming to stay at the palace, Diana didn’t hesitate to offer her 
room for his use, knowing Serenity would prefer it if he was close by.

	“Now, how did this go again?” Serenity mumbled to herself, trying to 
figure out which direction the fitted sheet was supposed to go. She hadn’t 
made up a bed since her training in the past, when it had been one of 
Grandmother Ikuko’s rules. “This side is longer, I thi--”

	“Would you like some help, Serenity-sama?”

	Startled, Serenity dropped the tangled sheet and looked toward the 
opened door. Ceres stood in the doorway, already dressed, and she held 
several bouquets of colorful, fragrant flowers in her arms.

	“Ceres, you surprised me!” Serenity said, picking up the sheet and 
spreading it on top of the mattress. “What are you doing up so early?”

	“I should ask the same of you.” After placing the bouquets on top of 
Diana’s desk, Ceres walked over to the bed and began to help Serenity fit the 
sheet over the mattress without being asked. “Why are you the one changing 
sheets? The maids should be doing this; it’s their job.”

	“I wanted to do this myself.”

	“Why?”

	Serenity sighed, letting the mattress fall back on the bed frame 
after pulling the sheet over the last corner. “I can’t do much of anything,” 
she admitted, reaching into her pocket for her ever-present transformation 
brooch and pulling it out. “Not even my crystal was able to wake him up. I 
feel so…powerless, you know?” She placed the brooch back in her pocket and 
shook her head. That wasn’t quite the right word. “No, more than that. I’m 
useless. There’s nothing I can do to wake Helios up, so if there’s anything I 
can do for him, even if it’s as minor as this, I want to do it. At least it 
makes me feel like I‘m actually doing something.” 

	“Serenity-sama…” Ceres walked over, placing her hands on Serenity‘s 
arms. “You’re not useless. You’ve stayed by Helios-sama’s side all this time, 
haven‘t you? That‘s something.” She frowned. “To be honest, until all this 
happened, I never really understood how much you loved him.”

	“Ceres…”

	“It’s true,” she confessed, unable to meet Serenity’s eyes. “I just 
assumed it was a silly crush you would eventually outgrow. Even as the years 
went by, and you continued to profess your love for him, I thought you simply 
got a thrill out of wanting a man you knew you could never have -- the 
proverbial forbidden fruit, so to speak. I even hated Helios-sama at times, 
because I knew he would eventually have to break your heart, and I didn’t 
want to see you in that kind of pain.”

	“You were right, Ceres.” Serenity brought her hand to the left side 
of her chest. A dull constant ache had settled there since the moment she saw 
Helios laying unconscious in the shrine of Elysion. “He did break my heart. 
Maybe not in the way you expected, but it’s broken all the same.”

	“No, it’s not broken. Your heart may be in pain, but it’s not broken 
yet.”

	Taking a seat on the bed, Serenity sighed. “Still, if only I had 
listened to you --”

	“It would have been the worst mistake of your life.”

	She glanced up at Ceres in surprise. After all Ceres’ words of 
warning concerning their relationship, Serenity never expected her to say 
something like that. “How can you say that? If I had only given up my 
feelings for Helios like you wanted me to, none of this would have ever 
happened! Helios would still be priest of Elysion, and --”

	“Neither of you would have been happy, right?”

	Serenity balled her hands into fists, clutching at the fabric of her 
skirt. “I would have rather been miserable for the rest of my life, than to 
go through this unbearable hell.”

	“But there’s still hope,” Ceres said, sitting down beside Serenity on 
the bed. “Helios-sama is still alive, and when he wakes up, you two can 
finally be together like you always wanted.”

	 “If he --”

	Serenity shook her head. She had been about to say “If he wakes up,” 
but the words refused to leave her lips. Though she knew it was a strong 
possibility, she tried not to think about it.

	“Serenity-sama, don’t lose hope.” Ceres reached over and placed a 
hand on one of Serenity’s fists, giving it a firm squeeze. “We are all 
praying that Helios-sama wakes up, and one day, our prayers will be answered. 
I know they will.” 

	Leaning over, Serenity rested her head on her friend‘s shoulder. 
“Thank you, Ceres. I appreciate it.”

	The two of them sat together silently for a few moments longer before 
resuming making the bed. Afterwards, Ceres, an expert flower arranger, began 
making several large floral arrangements with the bouquets she had brought 
with her, while Serenity decorated the room with pictures -- mostly drawn by 
her, but some were photographs -- and mementos of the happier times she and 
Helios had spent together. 	

	The last item she pulled out was her treasured bell. Holding it up, 
she gave it a ring and sighed before placing it on the nightstand beside the 
bed, next to a photograph of herself in her school uniform. On the off-chance 
that she was not present when he awoke, she hoped the photograph would be one 
of the first things he saw.

	*I suppose that’s about it,* she thought to herself, admiring her 
handiwork. *This room is much more cheery than the one at that dreary 
hospital. Helios should --*

	As she turned around, her breath caught in her throat.

	Her eyes widened at the sight in front of her. Less than five feet 
away from Serenity stood a ghostly vision, a man with silver hair and eyes of 
molten gold. He was completely transparent and glowed with a faint golden 
shimmer. He slowly brought up his arm, his palm upturned toward her, and 
stared at her as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

	“Helios?” she breathed, so soft that Ceres didn‘t hear.

	Mirroring his movements, Serenity raised up her own arm, placing her 
palm against the apparition of his. She couldn’t feel him, but she could 
sense him. It was a strange sensation she would be hard-pressed to describe 
to somebody else, akin, perhaps, to feeling as if somebody was staring at you 
from behind. Helios smiled, but before he could say anything, the vision 
disappeared, fading into nothingness as Serenity tried in vain to grab him.

	“No, Helios!”

	Her sudden outburst caught Ceres’ attention. She looked up from the 
arrangement of yellow roses she had been working on, concerned when she saw 
Serenity hugging herself.

	“Serenity-sama?”

	“Just now, I thought I saw…” Bringing her arms back down to her 
sides, Serenity shook her head. “No, that’s impossible,” she said more to 
herself than to Ceres. “I was simply imagining things. That‘s all.”

	“What are you talking about?” Ceres asked, obviously confused. “You’
re acting strange. Why did you suddenly yell out Helios-sama’s name like 
that?”

	Before she had the chance to answer, Diana appeared in the doorway, 
out of breath. “Serenity-sama, there you are! I’ve been looking all over for 
you!”

	Serenity was glad for the interruption. If she were to tell Ceres 
what she thought she had seen, no doubt Ceres would think she was going 
insane. She wondered briefly if maybe she was.

	“What is it, Diana?”

	“The ambulance has arrived. They’re preparing to bring Helios-sama 
up.”

	With that news, Serenity pushed all thoughts of the ghostly illusion 
from her mind.

	“We’ll be right there.”

*****

	“What…just happened?”

	Though his world was once again dark and cold, for the briefest of 
moments, he had experienced a vision of Serenity and one of her senshi -- 
Ceres -- in an unfamiliar bedroom. Helios shook his head. No, it had been 
more than merely a vision. He had actually been transported there; he was 
almost certain.  

	And Serenity had seen him.

	Helios strained his ears, struggling to single out his maiden’s voice 
from among the murmurs he could hear in the distance. If he had truly 
appeared before her, Serenity was certain to mention seeing him to Ceres, but 
none of the voices seemed to belong to her. In fact, most of the voices he 
heard were new to him, mixed among a few he did recognize -- most 
prominently, King Endymion and Sailor Mercury. He thought he heard the queen 
as well.

	“I didn’t see anybody laying in the bed,” Helios said to himself, 
recalling that the bed in the room had been neatly made. “I assume that means 
I can only hear people in close proximity to my body.” That would explain why 
voices seemed to appear and disappear at random, some louder and clearer than 
the rest. “But how and why did I suddenly appear in that room, of all places? 
I’ve never seen it before.” 

	He attempted to think back to right before it happened, but nothing 
unusual had occurred to his knowledge. One moment, he had been floating 
around in the nothingness, naked as a newborn baby. The next, he had appeared 
in that unknown room, dressed in clothes that were not his.

	“Damn it!” he uncharacteristically swore, his hands pressing against 
his head. “I was right there! If only I could have stayed a bit longer, I 
could have told Serenity how much I love her and how sorry I am for putting 
her through so much pain because of me, but…”

	Helios again shook his head. No matter how it happened, it had 
happened and could happen again. He just needed to focus and try to figure 
out how to recreate the situation. Maybe the next time, he would be able to 
stay longer.

	*Maiden, no matter what it takes, I will come back to you. I 
promise!*


DISCLAIMER: Sailor Moon is the property of Naoko Takeuchi.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Any comments or criticisms can be sent to me at 
ElysionDream@aol.com. Special thanks to my editor Starsea.