Disclaimer: I have no claim on the characters here in. They are not nor will they ever be mine.

This is a one shot, though I was jerked up off my butt and inspired to write it by what happens after she gets home it is doubtful I will ever write it or maybe I will you don't know about these things. I've wanted to write a 'Serena is betrayed by Darien but has one or several guy's arms to run to' fic for a long time and although this one points her at a specific guy that I'm sure many will recognize I could easily change a few words to make it a mystery until she gets home. Hmm an idea is forming but I'll see how this goes first.

Temptation

Serena sat across from her newly ex-fiancée at the small coffee house table near his college with her mouth hanging open in disbelief and shock. He had just told her that it was over between them. He had slept with another woman and gotten her pregnant; according to Pluto the babe in belly was Rini. It was obvious that this was a carefully prepared speech for him, designed to deliver as much information possible in the shortest time so that he could tell her then run. She could already see him eying the door simply waiting for the moment her eyes would well up with tears to blind her to his escape, not knowing his plan had no chance of working. It had been almost five years since Darien had seen Serena; one couldn't really blame him for not knowing that tears were the least of his worries.

"Why?"

"What?" Darien looked across at her in surprise, obviously not expecting any response but wails.

"Why? Why did you do this? Give me one good reason why you would do this to us?" Serena asked in an inquiring, level tone.

Darien looked across the table into Serena's eyes and was almost disturbed to not see one tear there. Only a suppressed anger conveyed through piercing blue eyes that seemed to bore into his soul as if her eyes could drill holes into his mind and pick the answer out. He stumbled for the answer he had prepared for this question that he hadn't thought he would have to answer until after Serena was done wailing, say a week or so from now he had thought. "Temptation." He stumbled out.

"What?" Serena's voice let some of that barely concealed anger lash out in her voice as she spat the word out like a dagger.

Darien got the vague impression that she would use a dagger to carve the answer out of him unless he got more articulate in a hurry, but it was hard to think when presented with such a completely contrary reaction from the one he was expecting. "Temptation, look around you Serena. All these beautiful, charming, intelligent women around me, it was too much. I'm only human after all and with all these girls throwing themselves at me. It wasn't enough that I had you. You were so far away it was like you didn't matter to them despite my declarations of true love. Finally I broke under the pressure of their advances. I'm sorry."

"You're sorry? You broke under the temptation? Are you kidding me?" Serena looked across at him in disbelief. She had spoken louder than she had intended but didn't notice the stares beginning to get thrown their way as she continued to focus on the man that was once so important to her life. She was unaware of ten specific stares that had been on them the whole time as she continued her tirade. "Tell me how long did it take for you to 'break' under the pressure?" She emphasized 'break' using her fingers as quotation marks. "And what? You couldn't tell me about this sooner. A phone call? A letter? An e-mail? A message in a goddamn bottle?" Serena looked at him in continued incredulity. Her heavily sarcastic questioning session had gotten a bit louder and talk around the couple had stopped as the gossip hungry students around them gathered to enjoy the show of the college's biggest playboy getting torn to pieces by the "little baby he had left back home" that they had heard him speak of only occasionally. They were all enjoying the gob smacked look on Darien's face but were surprised when Serena released a chuckle, especially their very special audience cloistered a short distance away. A sardonic smirk twisted Serena's pretty face giving her a decidedly deadly and confident look. "Tell me just how long did it take you to prepare that little speech of yours anyway? Please tell me you didn't work too hard on it. Or that you had help from someone truly incompetent if the best excuse you could come up with is temptation. You don't even know what temptation is. You can't begin to comprehend temptation. Temptation is…"

Serena's biting tone cut off as the cruel look melted off her face to be replaced by darkened bedroom eyes and pouty full lips that left Darien the gap mouthed one this time as he gazed upon the unknowingly sexy persona presented to him. Behind Serena's darkened, smoky eyes played flashes of a long, smooth, hard body walking out of a bathroom with water leaving trails down a smooth chiseled torso to end at a towel nearly falling off slim hips. Of usually glove encased hands sliding up long, pale legs innocently search for injuries. Of small pale hands on an only slightly darker back working loose the tight muscles of the brunette with his messy head bowed before her. Of pouty lips and stormy eyes cold like an icy wind that melted when those lips turned up into a rare smile. Of how those eyes closed gently as a long, pale, slender finger traced down the scar that split that face between the eyes, and of how those eyes opened again when the finger ended its journey on those lips that kissed the finger with tortured longing. Serena's eyes closed slowly as these scenes passed behind her eyes and finally a tear coursed its way down her pale cheek.

Serena opened her eyes to look at the startled Darien and stood. Tearing him to pieces had lost its appeal now. Serena slowly twisted the ring Darien had given her years ago before leaving on his fateful trip off her slender finger and looked at it for only a few seconds before letting it drop into Darien's now cold coffee. She looked down into Darien's perplexed eyes. "I wish you and your girl a wonderful life. Goodbye."

Serena picked up her small travel bag and turned to face their attentive audience. Out of the corner of her eye Serena caught sight of ten familiar faces. She turned and smiled at the eight sailor scouts and two cats. "Hi guys. Sorry I can't stay and chat but I've got my own temptation waiting for me at home. Five long years of sharing a bed, a bath, countless classes, sweaty training sessions and long antagonizing recovery periods bought on by fights caused by repressed temptation." Serena spoke that last word with another sarcastic twist of her mouth and tone, and then she smiled, sighed and closed her eyes. "I think it's about time that I gave in to it, don't you? About time that I broke under the pressure of knowing that hard, sensual body could be mine for the loving had I only stopped protesting about a love so far away."

Serena opened her eyes and a small smile crossed her face as she turned to leave. As she got to the door she turned one last time and cast a large, laughing smile on the scouts, her audience, and her cringing ex-love. Though cool in the shop it was hot outside as she swung her large loose jacket from her shoulders to reveal a tight, white baby doll belly shirt and skin tight jeans. Having shocked the gazes of all that looked upon her lithe frame she unknowingly fueled many wet dreams as she left with a statement that was nearly ripped from her lips in a moan. "Five long years of pent-up temptation, oh, I'm going to have fun when I get home." Serena turned and started out in a brisk walk towards the train station the sooner she got back home, the sooner she could deliver the long hoped for news to her very male roommate. Nothing was holding her back now.