Chapter 1
Title: On the seashore
Rated: G
By: Mellibea 

I hope you like this one. It’s an alternate reality.  Please be gentle when
you criticize me.  Good wishes and flames are all welcome.  Please write at
Mellibea@yahoo.com.  I would like to know if you like this or you would
rather have me throw it away.  Thanks.

Disclaimers:  I don’t own sailor moon or any of the characters related to
her.  If this sounds like one of your stories, I’m sorry, it was
unintentional.   Please bear with me  thank you, much appreciated. 

On with it…
****

ON THE SEA SHORE
By:  Mellibea

“But, he loves me”
“I wouldn’t be so sure” replied Serena Dryden more brusquely than what she
intended and regretted it right away when she saw the hurt expression on
her sister’s face.  “Mina, honey” she continued softly, “You barely know
each other.  It was a summer fling… nothing else; this is the kind of thing
that always happens.”
She could barely believe what she was saying; she was stumbling over the
words and she knew she was hurting her sister.  She wasn’t surprised when
Mina starting shaking her head.
“It wasn’t like that.  As soon as I met Andrew, I understood that there
would never be another man for me.  And the same thing happened with him.”
“Then, why didn’t he come on that flight?”  Serena wanted to know
worriedly.  “Or in any of the other flights that arrived today?”
“I don’t know.  There must have been something that impeded him to come or
that has postponed him.”
Serena could make a cynic remark to what that something could be.  Andrew
Xandreou had probably remembered, just in time, that he already had a
fiancée… or maybe even a wife.
‘That’s what happens when you let an impressive eighteen-year-old spend her
spring brake vacation in Greece’, she thought furiously.  When they invited
her, it seemed like something nice.  Lita Stephens, Mina’s best friend, had
planned to go visit her aunt who was married to a businessman in Athens.
The two girls had been studying for their exams really hard and they
deserved a vacation.
How was Serena supposed to know that Lita’s aunt was an irresponsible
imbecile, who had permitted her niece and her friend to start conversations
with attractive Greek waiters?  ‘If it had only been a friendly chat…’, she
thought, sighing deeply.  Oh, if Mina had only known that she had stepped
into the waiting hands of a Casanova…
At her return, Mina had told Serena that, even thought she did want to take
her exams, she wasn’t interested in all of that anymore, because she was
now engaged and would soon get married.
Serena had breathed deeply, controlling herself, and then had started
interrogating her carefully.  What she had found out wasn’t very
comforting… It seemed that Andrew worked at an elegant and famous
restaurant where Mina went with her friend’s family.  Andrew was the waiter
who tended to their table.  The next night, Mina and Lita had found a way
to go back to the restaurant, alone.  
FLASHBACK
“Of course, he isn’t just a common waiter” Mina’s eyes were shining like
stars.  “The restaurant is owned by his family, and apart from that they
own many other businesses… Hotels, even a boat company.  According to
Andrew, they are immensely rich.  Isn’t that incredible?”
“Of course” agreed Serena, but Mina didn’t let escape Serena’s ironic tone.
“When I’m done with my exams, Andrew will come to meet you and will ask for
my hand in marriage” the younger girl smiled tenderly.  “He’s very old
fashioned.”
END OF FLASHBACK
Of course, Andrew had taken the right path to get to Mina’s heart, Serena
thought furiously.  Her sister was also an old fashioned girl, a shy, sweet
young girl.  Until she left for the trip to Athens, all she could think
about was in her studies in college.  Her first love should have been a
delicate experience, and not a hurried love under the Grecian sun with a
professional seducer.  It hurt her to think about all the hurt her sister
will have to go through.
But, to her surprise, letters with Greek stamps started arriving regularly.
 Serena thought that maybe Andrew knew about Lita’s uncle and thought that
Mina’s family had money as well.  ‘How wrong he is’, she thought while
looking around her small apartment.  When he finds out that Mina’s only
living relative was her big sister, which worked as a secretary in an
agency, the so-called engagement would be over sooner than it began.
Serena had never been in Greece, but she had the notion that over there,
marriages for convenience were practiced depending on a girl’s dowry.  Mina
didn’t have the economic resources on her favor to be presented before a
family of a young man who was resolved in triumphing in life.
For a time, it seemed to Serena that Mina also doubted her relationship.
Mina stayed worried and quiet, spending most of her time in her room.
Aside from that, she had lost weight and looked pale from lack of sleep.
But as soon as another letter arrived, Mina became happy again and told her
that Andrew was coming to London in late June.
But his plane had arrived and he wasn’t on board.  Mina had gone back to
the apartment almost crazy with worry.  And now Serena had to make her come
to her senses.
“He would have told you if he had to postpone” declared Serena and then
carefully she said:  “Honey, I think we’ll just have to face that he simply
changed his mind…”
“He can’t have done that”  The younger girl’s cheek turn a slight shade of
pink.  “We’re going to get married.  He…has to come.  Oh, Serena, he has to.”
Serena looked at her horrified when everything was finally clear to her.
She didn’t have to ask why; she saw it in Mina’s sorrowful eyes, in her
shaking lips, in the strange expression of dignity and embarrassment that
appeared in her face when she looked at her face.
“Oh, no, Mina” she exclaimed.  “For heaven’s sake… it can’t be true.
“Yes it is.  I’m going to have Andrew’s baby.  But everything is fine,
because he loves me and we’re going to get married as soon as it is possible.”
“And you told him you were pregnant?”  Inquired Serena, and smiled dizzily.
 “And you still wonder why he didn’t come on that flight.”
“Don’t say that” exclaimed Mina.  “You don’t know him, he’s a decent and
honest man.”
“So decent and honest that he seduced a young girl out on her first trip”
replied Serena bitterly.  “Oh, Mina, you are a fool” she sighed.  “Well,
now we have to decide how to do what’s best for you.”
“I know what you’re going to say” Mina went pale suddenly.  “Don’t even
think about it Sere.  I’m going to have my baby.”
“Darling, you haven’t thought about it enough.  You have to start your
classes at the university… You have all of your life ahead of you.  You
can’t even imagine how hard it is to go forward in life with a baby…”
“But that’s not what I chosen.  I’m going to marry Andrew.  I admit that
this isn’t the life I had planned for myself, but it is the kind of life I
want… the only one, now and forever.”
“Mina… You couldn’t know that”
“Mom knew it when she met dad and she was younger than I was” replied Mina,
stubbornly.  “And you can’t tell me they weren’t happy.”
‘No’, thought Serena, she couldn’t say that.  Her parents had loved each
other deeply and were very happy until a car accident put an end to their
premature love, leaving her with the big responsibility of taking care of a
sensitive adolescent.  ‘And I haven’t fulfilled that responsibility’, she
scolded herself.  She needed her mother’s wisdom, so she could tell her how
to support Mina in this crisis.  She didn’t know what she was going to do.
She suddenly felt like she was a hundred years old.

********

She was felling a whole lot worse when she woke up the next morning.  She
had spent a horrible afternoon the day before.  Mina had finally gotten
hold of the restaurant in Athens, only to be politely told, that Andrew
didn’t work there anymore and that they didn’t know where he was.
‘I bet they don’t know’, thought Serena furiously.  ‘They probably get
hundreds of calls like this one’, she added silently.
She had to spend all night listening to Mina’s heartbreaking sobs through
the wall that divided their bedrooms.  She had tried to keep her company
but Mina’s bedroom door was locked.  And, anyhow, what could she say or do…
when she herself had never fallen in love?  She was the last person who
could give her comfort, let alone advice.
Surprised, she saw that Mina had already woken up and was making breakfast
in their little kitchen.  She looked pale and her eyes were red and puffy,
but her jaw was locked in determination.
“I’m going to go get him, Sere” she declared.
“You can’t through all the restaurants and Inns in Athens!  It would be
like looking for a needle in a stack of hay!”  Out of breath, Serena took
the cup of coffee Mina was offering her.
“Not in Athens” negated Mina.  “Andrew is from an island called Karthos, in
the Jonico Sea, to the south of Cordu.  I’ll go there.  His family should
know where he is.”
“Mina” whispered Serena stuttering, after taking a sip of coffee, “haven’t
you thought that maybe Andrew… doesn’t want you to find him?”
“That’s not true.”  Answered Mina quietly.  “If it was like that, I would
feel it here” she laid her hand on her heart.
That simple gesture and the confidence that implied made Serena feel like
she had a knot in her throat.  ‘He’s not worthy of that confidence’, she
thought getting mad again.  There should be thousands of lectures she had
to use on Mina to impede her from going over there, but, in that moment,
she couldn’t think of anything.
“Then, I’ll go with you” she declared.
“Sere, are you serious?”  Mina’s face lightens up.  “But… what about the
agency?  Do you think that Mrs. Strathmore will let you take some days off?”
“I have accumulated vacation” Serena gave her a serene smile.  “And Mrs.
Strathmore will not fire me, she trusts in me to take care of the most
difficult clients with whom the other secretaries don’t want to deal with.
On my way to the agency, I’ll go see her and I will explain that I need a
few days off” she tried to make her voice sound determined, but deep inside
she didn’t feel like that.
‘What will we do if we don’t find him?  Or what’s worse, that we find him
and he doesn’t want anything to do with Mina?, she asked herself.  Then she
told her self that they would cross that bridge when they came to it.
“We’ll find him” Mina seemed to have read her thoughts.  Her voice and face
expressed tranquility.  “Is destiny, Greeks have always believed in destiny.”
‘And in the furies’, thought Serena somber.  Those beings follow the
disgraced and take out their vengeance on them.  She told herself that she
would be a modern fury and she would find Andrew Xandreou, no matter how
good he had covered his tracks.
“Destiny doesn’t exist” she declared and concealed her crossed fingers
under the table.

******

The Dionysius hotel was small, clean and simple.  Serena sat on a table, in
a corner of the hotel’s balcony, with a glass of orange juice in front of
her.  She was sheltered from the noon soon by a roof made of palms.
Farther away from the small balcony’s garden sat the center of the lives of
the people of Karthos.  
The island was only a remote point in the Jonico Sea, but it was full of
tourists.  Up to now, Serena had heard French, German, and English being
spoken.  Mina and her had been lucky to have gotten the last  available
room in the hotel.
She had left the girl in the first floor room.  She was starting to feel
the first effects of the pregnancy so she had gotten dizzy from the long
flight to Zakynthos, and then, from the long ride on the ferry.  It was
really hot in Karthos, which was why she had accepted Serena’s suggestion
of staying inside and resting, while Serena started their search.
Serena had been tempted to cancel this whole thing after calling Lita
Stephens’ Greek uncle.  She had told him, without going into detail, that
she needed to find a young waiter from the Clio restaurant and if he could
help her.
Judging by his ironic exclamation, the man hadn’t needed any more
explanations.
FLASHBACK
“Do you know his name, thespinis?”
“Yes, Andrew Xandreou.”
“Xandreou?”  After holding his breath, he had answered:  “I’m sorry that I
can’t help you, but I advice you, thespinis, to not continue your search”
there was a pause and then he continued:  “Believe me, it will be for the
best”
END OF FLASHBACK
After that, he hung up, leaving Serena with thousands of unanswered questions.
Anxiously, she had realized that had been a warning.  She only hoped Andrew
wasn’t a criminal, a member of the Greek Mafia, if that actually existed.
Maybe he wasn’t in Karthos, but in some jail.  But, how could she tell Mina
something like that and crush her optimism?  Maybe she would just have to
find out for herself, she concluded.  She sighed and finished her orange
juice.  She asked herself were she should begin her search.
“Did you like it?”
Kostas, the big owner of the hotel, neared her table.  He had a black
mustache, a dashing smile, and smoked nonstop.  His friendly welcome wasn’t
hypocrisy, and for Serena’s own good, he spoke very good English.
“Yes, the juice was delicious, thank you” nodded the girl.  “It was just
what I needed.”
“Is not good to travel in this heat” he was leaving when she stopped him.
“Kostas, do you know a family by the name of Xandreou… that has a son named
Andrew?”  Inquired the young girl making the man’s polite expression fade
away from his face being replaced by another surprised one, almost
apprehensive. 
“Why do you ask?”
“Oh, our families… met a long time ago” she commented in a light tone.  “I
think they live here and I would like to see them again, that’s all.”
“Xandreou?”  He answered after a moment of silent.  “I don’t know that last
name.  I think you have come to the wrong place, thespinis.”
“I don’t think so” she inquisitively looked at him.  “Are you sure you’ve
never heard about them?”
“Yes” he paused again.  “You are on vacation, thespinis, you should rest.
Go to the beach… Enjoy the sun… And the wine.  Get to know the tourists…
and don’t waist your time looking for those people.”
If that wasn’t an indirect warning, then she had never heard one before,
thought Serena looking at his retreating back.  It was the same message she
had received in Athens:  ‘Keep away from the Xandreou clan’.
‘Everyone knows them, but they don’t want to talk about them’, she said to
herself.  No matter, for Mina’s own good she had to brake that world of
silence.  She picked up her purse and went to the exterior stairs, which
gave a second access to the rooms.
In the hotel’s lobby she saw a few flyers announcing cars and motorcycles
for rent.  She decided to rent a cycle and make her first trip around the
island.  The information on the tour catalog said that almost all of the
most beautiful beaches were far away from town, so she thought that it
would be nice to find an almost deserted beach and rest there until she had
to face the real business that had brought her here.
‘Trips end when lovers meet’, she thought wishing it was true. 
She was still going up the exterior stairs when she heard a voice calling
her urgently.  She looked down and saw one of the hotel’s waiter, who had
served the table next to her while she talked to Kostas.  She gave him a
kind smile.
“You want to see Andrew Xandreou?”
“Yes” said Serena, getting excited.  “Do you know him?”
“Since we were kids” he raised a hand to his chest in a theatrical gesture.
 “I’m also from Karthos.”
“Then, can you tell me where I can find him?”
The guy shrugged and looked over his shoulder.
“Like you know, that’s not very easy for me…”
Serena understood him perfectly.  She took out a couple of bills from her
purse and gave it to him.
“He’s in his house… The Apollo Villa.”  Whispered the boy.
“Is it near here?”
“No” he pointed to the hills in the island’s interior.  “Is very far away.”
“Is there a bus?”
“No, there’s nothing there… only the villa.  You can go by car or
motorcycle.”  He handed her a card.  “My cousin rents them… at a good price.”
‘And you will get a commission without a doubt’, she thought.  She thanked
him and kept going up the stairs.
“Thespinis” whispered the boy again and Serena stopped.  “No matter what
happens, you will not tell my boss what I have told you, right?”
“Not a word” she assured him and then said goodbye.
Mina was still sleeping.  Serena wrote her a note telling her that she was
going out for a stroll.  She took off the simple dress that she had wore
for the trip and put on a pair of white shorts and a sleeveless shirt with
her initials embroidered in red and gold thread on her left side.  She put
up her beautiful blond hair and put on a pair of sandals.
It wasn’t hard to find the place where they rented the motorcycles.
Andonis, the owner, wore a dirty shirt and had a three day beard;  the
expression he had on his face when he saw her made her wish she hadn’t put
on such attractive looking clothes.
She rented a motorcycle, even though the price was a little higher than
what she expected.  When she asked him if he had helmets, the man looked at
her like she was crazy.
“The streets in Karthos are really good” he declared categorically.
Fortunately, she was luckier when she asked him if he had a map of the
island; the man gave her a damaged copy.  Serena studied the red lines that
represented the roads carefully.  
“I’m looking for a house in particular… The Apollo Villa.  Could you show
it to me on the map?”
“You want to see Xandreou?”  He whistled and then gave her a lascivious
look.  “Just like so many other women.  He is a fortunate man.”
‘Well, fine, his luck is about to change’, she thought furiously.  Andonis
comment and his secretive smile confirmed her worst fear.  Mina’s decent
and honest lover was nothing but an experienced Casanova, she said to
herself while the man drew a cross on the map.
“Villa Apollo” he informed her and gave her another admiring glance.  “You
should have told me before.  I would have given a special price to one of
the Xandreou women.”
‘Seems they come in herds’, thought the girl disgustedly and gave Andonis a
cold stare when she saw he was going to help her get on the bike.
“You’re very wrong, Kyrie.  I’m not… what you think I am.”
“Maybe not now, but, who knows?”  She smiled broadly.
“I do know” replied the girl brusquely and left.
At least it seemed that was what everyone was trying to warn her about,
Serena told herself while she drove away from town and into the road
Andonis had signaled to her in the map.
‘Xandreou woman’, she thought skeptically.  ‘I’ll make him pay for that,
even if is the last think I do, I swear’
Then she remembered the waiter’s words and thought that it was strange
comment, something akin to another warning.  Suddenly, even though it was
hot, she was felling shivers running down her spine.

On to chapter 2…

*********
I know this is a long boring chapter, but I’m just trying to create the
mood for what’s to come.  Please write, I beg you!!!!

The email is Mellibea@yahoo.com , don’t forget me!!!