A Sweet Christmas Part 1 By: Jessica M. Moonflower E-mail: salud731@earthlink.net Rated: G Summary: It's Christmas time and the girls are helping out at a local children's hospital. Everybody readily agrees to help. Everyone except Darien. Darien has the case of the Christmas blahs, but Serena has an idea to get him into the Christmas spirit! What could it be? Timeline: First Season Disclaimer: I'll make it simple. I DO NOT OWN SAILOR MOON!!!!! ANs: It's Christmas time! YAY!!!! I love this time of the year! The decorations, giving gifts, getting them, decorating the tree, spending time with family, and rejoicing Christ's birth! I'm in a big Christmas mood as you can see! That's why I wrote this fic! ^.^ So I hope you like it! ^.~ "Don't stop giving love even if you don't receive it. Smile and have patience." *~Anonymous*~ *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* It was a cold, Thursday afternoon and five girls were seated in a booth in a restaurant connected to Crown Arcade Game Center. Each girl were deciding who should bake what for their charity bake sale at school. "I'll be making a chocolate bunt cake with rainbow sprinkles, but what will you guys make?" asked Lita Kino. "I could make chocolate vanilla frosted cupcakes sprinkled with little Christmas trees on it," suggested Raye Hino. "That's very holiday festive. Okay, Raye will do cupcakes and what about the rest of you?" Lita addressed the other three girls. "I'll make some good old fashioned gingerbread!" Mina Aino cheerfully replied. "I'll make the traditional fruitcake," Amy Mizuno piped in. "And I'll make my delicious Christmas shaped cookies!" Serena Tsukino chirped with enthusiasm. (ANs: Serena is actually a good cook in this story. So don't worry! She won't give people food poisoning with her baked goodies! ^_^) "Great! Everything is all set then. We'll make this the best bake sale ever!" Lita cheered triumphantly. "Just imagining all those kids' faces at the hospital when they get a gift on Christmas Eve just makes you feel all warm inside." Mina smiled at the thought. "It is for a good cause to raise all that money for presents. And we will be making kids happy," Amy added. "That's what Christmas is all about. Bringing the Christmas cheer to people who are feeling down, or who aren't able to spend Christmas with their own families," said Raye. "Receiving gifts are great, but I love giving gifts to other people more than receiving them," Serena joined in. "Yeah!" all girls agreed in unison. "Hey girls! What are you all up to?" Andrew Furuhata greeted them cheerily. "Hey Andrew! We're talking about our charity bake sale at school," Lita explained as Andrew took a seat next to Amy. "That's great! Anything I can do to help?" Andrew offered. "We pretty much got the bake sale taken care of, but we do need help at the hospital to distribute the gifts," Mina answered. "We need someone to play Santa and give out the gifts," Serena put in. "I could play Santa. I love kids and I wouldn't want to let all those poor kids down." "Really Andrew? You would play Santa at the hospital?" Lita queried with shock and hope filling her voice "Sure! Why not? It'll be fun anyway." "Oh, thanks, Andrew! This really means a lot to us!" Serena stood up to hug him. "No prob! I'm always in the Christmas spirit. Maybe I can get Rita to play Mrs. Claus." Andrew returned Serena's hug. "It'd be great if you would. We need one, too!" "I'm sure she'll agree." "Jeez, Meatball Head! If you hug Andrew any tighter, you might just smother him to death," said a deep, husky voice from behind the booth. "Don't you have anything better else to do Mr. Arrogant other than teasing me all the time?!" Serena abruptly broke from the hug to face the new comer. "Nope. I live to tease you and see you mad." "You're such a jerk, Darien Chiba!" "Whatever Meatball Head. What's going on here?" "It's none of your business!" Serena snapped. "Come on, Serena! Maybe he can help out with something," Andrew calmly replied. "Help out with what?" "Our school is having a charity bake sale to help raise money for the Crossroads Children's Hospital. It's going to be used to buy toys for the kids at the hospital. Everything is already taken care of for the bake sale, but our teacher is still looking for people to help around at the hospital. Andrew already volunteered to play Santa and distribute presents out to the children and he'll try to get Rita to play Mrs. Claus, but it would be nice if you agreed to help maybe read some Christmas stories to the kids and do some other things at the hospital?" Amy finished her long, detailed explanation. Darien was silent for a moment and then spoke. "I'm sorry, Amy, but I can't." "Why not, Darien? It's for a good cause and you'll be making kids happy!" came Raye's persuading voice. "I've got things to do on Christmas Eve," Darien coolly replied. "Like what? Don't tell us that you're working on Christmas Eve." "I have to study for my Physics exam." "On Christmas Eve???????!!!!!" Mina gave Darien an incredulous look. "I always study several weeks in advance for any test." "Seems like he's worse than you, Amy," Lita whispered. Amy silently agreed. "Look, I said I can't do it and I mean it! NOW, QUIT BUGGING ME ABOUT YOUR STUPID CHARITY CAUSES!!!!!!!!" Darien barked. Andrew and the girls cowered up against the booth in fear for they were taken aback by Darien's sudden indignant outburst. They never saw him this mad about anything before and were scared of making him mad further. They continued to look at Darien in fear as if he had grown two heads and a horn. Serena was the first to recover from her momentary shock, infuriated over his coldness and heartlessness. "Listen you mean spirited imbecile! How dare you for calling sick children worthless causes! You have no right to say so! Half of these kids can't even go home and spend Christmas with their own families because they're too seriously ill to get out of the hospital! We're lucky to be with our own families at Christmas time. The thought of these kids staying at a hospital on Christmas Day and not being able to be at home with their families instead is sad. I don't know what your problem is, but you are nothing but a cold, heartless, conceited, jerk who wouldn't know what it must be like in their shoes!" Serena furiously berated Darien. Darien gave Serena an icy glare that could turn anybody into stone if they dared look into his stormy midnight blue eyes. He calmly, yet coldly replied. "Oh, and you do? Little miss I-know-what-it's-like. You never had to experience such a thing in your life! You have a family! Some of those kids are orphans in those hospitals! Not all of them have a family to go home to on Christmas or a family who visits them when they are ill! They're lonely little kids who have no friends, no family, not even a relative to care for them! So don't go out and start acting like you've been in their situation before because you haven't!!!!" Serena stood stunned and speechless. She had to admit she never had to go through something like that in her entire life. She has always been blessed with a Mom, a Dad, a brother, friends, and relatives who gave her so much love throughout her lifetime. She truthfully doesn't know what it's like to be alone and depressed without a friend or loving person in the world who cares about them. Before Serena could say something, Darien spoke again. "I'm leaving. I'm sorry for my outburst. I'm just having a bad day. I'll be out of your way." Darien turned and walked quickly out into the cold afternoon of the city. All the girls, except Andrew, were surprised by how Darien strongly spoke about loneliness and depression in a child's life. Almost as if he had been through it himself. "How would he know what it's like to be in those kids' shoes? It's not like he's been through it himself! He has a family after all!" Serena voiced out the thoughts that the girls were wondering about themselves. "Serena, can I talk to you alone for a moment?" Andrew asked in a serious tone. "Sure, Andrew." Serena and Andrew excused themselves from the table and both walked inside the backroom of the arcade. Andrew closed the door behind him and motioned for Serena to sit down on the couch while Andrew pulled out a chair and sat opposite of Serena. "What's up, Andrew?" "Serena, there is something I need to tell you, but you have to promise you can't tell nobody else." "Alright. I promise. What is it?" "Remember when Darien was yelling at you for saying that he wouldn't know one thing about what it must be like to be those kids at the children's hospital?" "Yeah. How can I not?!" "Well..." Andrew paused for a moment then solemnly said, "Darien is an orphan." Serena sat there shocked for the third time that day. 'Darien is an orphan? Then that means... Oh, no! What have I done?' "Oh, Andrew! I feel terrible now! I didn't know! I really didn't. If I did, I wouldn't have said those cruel things to him. What am going to do?" Tears began to flow down her fair cheeks as she buried her head in her hands. "It's okay, Serena. It's not your fault. I didn't come here to make you feel guilty about what you said. I wanted to tell you this so you can give Darien a break and maybe..." Andrew trailed off. "Maybe what?" Serena looked up at Andrew with curiosity. "Maybe...get him into the Christmas spirit?" "How can I do that? After all I said to him? He wouldn't want to talk to me now!" "Yes, he will! Just give him time. He always gets bitter whenever any major holidays come up that deals with family. And you have to take it easy on him. He's had a rough childhood." "How did he become an orphan?" Serena quietly asked. "He was five when it happened. He and his parents were out driving somewhere when the car just skid off the road and down a ditch. His parents died instantly and Darien was the only one to survive the crash with a few cuts and bruises. The night of the crash, the doctors told him that he has amnesia, but found out his name while going through some of his parent's belongings in the wreck. The doctor also told him that there were no relatives in the area they could contact and since nobody came to claim custody over him, he stayed at a children's hospital for a while to recover from the accident and until they could make some arrangements to put him in an orphanage. It was Christmas Eve when he was put into the children's hospital. He has had some bad memories at the hospital. While all the kids may be sick and ill, at least they had family that visited them. Darien had nobody because he was the only orphan there at the time. Kids noticed this and started taunting him endlessly about how nobody loves him and that his parents abandoned him because they never loved him. They even tormented him with the fact that he has amnesia and couldn't even remember a thing about his parents. Not the love that they gave him, their faces, or smiles. Nothing of his childhood before the accident happened. He was robbed of those memories in the crash. On Christmas Day, the hospital gave out toys to the kids from the contributions they got from people. Every kid got a present, but Darien. They seemed to have run out of gifts and had nothing to give him. The kids laughed at him and told him that who would ever give him a gift when no one cares for a boy without memories or a family even. The next day, he was shipped off to the orphanage where he faced more pain and suffering from the kids there. Over the years, he closed out everyone, including his heart. I may be his friend, but even he won't open up to me at times. I'm just lucky that he shared with me this part of his life. Even though it was painful to do so. He doesn't get too close to people often, for fear that he'll just get hurt again just like those kids at the hospital and orphanage did to him." Serena cried throughout the whole story that Andrew told of Darien's painful childhood past. She cried for the fact that Darien had to face such harsh cruelty at such a young age. She wished that she could've been there for Darien when he was just five-years-old. She now understood why he was so cold to most people and why he called helping the sick kids at the hospital "worthless causes." It was all because of a bad experience he had with them. She knew that Darien needs to learn how to trust and love people again. She wanted him to be with people who care about him on Christmas, instead of alone in his apartment studying for some dumb Physics exam. Serena felt more determined than ever to make it her number one priority to cheer Darien up. "Andrew, I wish Darien never had to remember such sadness and loneliness in his past, but it's a part of his memories. That's why I'm going to make Darien some new happier memories! I'm going to do something special for him this Christmas!" "What are you going to do?" Andrew asked curiously. Serena wasn't so sure herself yet, but knew she'll think of something! "I'm not sure yet, but I know it'll bring a smile to his face and bring him in a Christmas mood which everybody should be in!" "I know you will. I think you're the only one who can cheer him up." "And I plan on doing so!" Serena smiled with determination shining in her eyes. *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ That's it for now! I originally wanted to make this a one part fic, but it seemed to be a lot longer than I expected and I wanted to get something out after my long absence in the writing world!! It should be a two part fic. No more than that, I hope! I am working really hard to finish the second part. I should have it out before Christmas. At least that's what I aim for. I really have to work on my English project that is due before the Christmas vacation and a Music project. So please be patient with me! Also, please e-mail me with your comments on this fic! My inbox has been so empty lately! E-mail inspires me to write more! Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Year!!!!! ^_^