Chapter 5: Faust

A/N: Don't hate Darien…he's confused.

"I gave you one task, Eva, one thing to do and yet here we stand mission unaccomplished," said Nicholas, crossing his thick arms over the broadest part of his chest, his eyes narrowed with unwavering disappointment.

She froze, her eyes falling to her still father and to the man looming before him. "I haven't…Nicholas, he's in love with that girl, I wouldn't…he's been through so much already."

"So has your father, Eva, and this little hospice is the only thing keeping him alive right now. I could take that away; I could take everything away from you. Or I could give you the world, all you have to do, is do as I say."

She hesitated, inhaled, wrung her hands as her eyes fell onto her father, the sound of his labored breaths filling the room with an unyielding sense of helplessness, of surrender. She felt like giving up, giving in. She couldn't fight Nicholas Chiba, she would never win. "I went to see him, like you said, to tell him about our past."

"Did you tell him everything?" He asked, the lurid smirk on his face widening until the pristine whites of his teeth winked at her from behind moistened lips.

She frowned. "I told him enough. I told him about his accident and it freaked him out. He doesn't remember any of this Nicholas, he's not a threat to you. He just wants to marry that girl; he just wants to be happy and to be left alone."

The older man grimaced at the young woman. How pitiful and self righteous she was. She had no idea of the capacities of the human mind, the essence of memories, the true notions of fear. Darien could remember any day now and everything that he worked for, everything that he had sacrificed would amount to nothing. This business, this sense of domination, the tangible power that he held over so many, it was all he had, and he would never let anyone take it away.

"Your poor father. It wasn't enough that he lost his company, his stock, his wealth-"

"He didn't lose anything!" Eva shouted, tiny hands balling into tight fists. "You stole everything from him. He trusted you and you betrayed him! You earned his trust and then broke him down with your lies."

Nicholas smirked. "Your father is a silly old fool who took a friendship that ended years ago and ran amuck with it. No one forced that pen into Gregory's hand."

"You manipulated him! My mother had just died for God's sake, he was hurting, he was ill and he trusted you, you son of a bitch!" she cried, angry tears forming against her lids, a clear sheet of liquid anger coating her jade eyes.

He was upon her in an instant, his thick, jeweled fingers around her neck, squeezing and gripping at the cylinder of flesh until her skin took on a pink hue, her cheeks flushing, the skin swirling with streaks of blue and red. She grabbed at his wrists, diminutive hands pulling helplessly as she tried to fight him off, begging with her eyes for him to release her.

"You listen to me you little bitch, I own your father's company, all of your assets, all of your money which means I own you. One word, one wrong move and your father will be out of this place and I'll let him die on the street. Do you understand me? We had an agreement, I keep daddy here alive, and relinquish company rights back to you if you get Darien away from that girl and under control," he cried, bits of warm saliva falling onto her face as he screamed. He shook her once again as her eyesight began to fade to black before letting her go and throwing her onto the floor.

Her father, powerless and limp thrashed in his wheelchair, his breathing tube rubbing painfully against his flesh as he watched in horror while Nicholas abused his daughter. He was so helpless in this shell and Eva, his Eva, was suffering for him.

The brunette cried out as she tumbled, her body falling into a nearby table before careening onto the ground. Tears spilled from her eyes as she took her first breath of air, her hands coming to clench the bruised skin upon her throat, her eyes leaking salty bits of tears as she coughed and sputtered on the ground.

"You don't have a choice in this Eva," said Nicholas, pulling the handkerchief from his coat pocket and tossing it to the ground beside her. "Clean yourself up, you look like a mess. Go to Darien, do whatever needs to be done to get him to sign those papers. You whored yourself out to him before, it wouldn't kill you to do it again."

Eva said nothing, hollow eyes focusing on the gray rubber wheel of her father's wheel chair. She remained still as the older man gathered his coat and sauntered toward the door, his face stoic and satisfied. He paused as he reached for the handle, inhaled, lowered his eyes to the ground. "I don't enjoy doing this to you, you know. Just do this one thing for me and you and your father will never want for anything again. You have my word."

She remained quiet, the stinging sensation around her throat subsiding as she waited for him to leave, until the satisfying click of a closing door reverberated through her mind. She gathered herself once he was gone, stood tall and rushed to her father. His hands were trembling, his mouth agape and a string of spittle descended from chapped lips onto the lapel of his velvet robe.

"It's okay daddy, I'm okay," she said, moving his head upward and covering his wrinkled spotted hand with her own. "I promise he won't hurt you, I won't let him. We'll finish this and never have to worry about him again, okay?"

She swallowed hard as she kneeled beside, regret and grief ripping and tearing her apart.

I'm sorry, Darien.

Serena sat quietly against the headboard, the silky purple sheets pulled up to her chest as she watched him pace, his hands running through his locks in a frenzy. She had known Darien was no virgin and didn't really think of his past escapades as it had never been an issue. Somehow, the topic had never come up. Before, when things were different between them, she would tease him about how much of a slut he had been. She wasn't stupid or deaf; she heard the things he and Andrew would talk about when they thought she wasn't listening.

But this, this somehow seemed different to her. This girl, the woman who played such an important role in his past wasn't just some girlfriend that he had been intimate with and then forgotten, this woman played a pivotal part in his life. And it wasn't just that, it was the fact that initially Darien had kept their meeting the night of his birthday a secret until she confronted him about it. He had told her he felt guilty, but why feel guilty when allegedly, nothing had happened between them?

She was so busy staring at the pattern of the sheets and mulling over the thoughts in her own mind, that she hadn't noticed that Darien had stopped pacing and was staring at her, in a most intense almost frightening way.

"That was a long time ago," Darien said, his voice strong. "It doesn't mean anything."

She looked to him, crystal blue meeting indigo. "It means something," she said, raising her hand and tossing her hair behind her. "Did you…I mean, did you love her?"

He sighed. He had already lied to her about their initial meeting. Keeping things from Serena now would only make things worse later. "I don't know. And that's the truth. I wish I could tell you more but...I don't know if this even happened…I feel like I'm losing my mind." He swallowed hard.

She frowned, a mask of empathy spreading across her face. "I wish I didn't remember that but I did," he said after a moment. "I can't…it doesn't mean anything. I love you, you're the only person I want to be with."

She nodded in understanding, yet despite this declaration she still felt a sense of impending doom settle in her gut; almost as if she knew that this ordeal with him, with her, wasn't over yet. But something more pressing was stirring within her, and she had to know why.

"Darien, honestly, why is your uncle here? What exactly do you think he wants?"

He smirked, sighed and came down to sit beside her in bed. "All of this, all of the fighting, the lies, it's all about Chiba Incorporated. My great-grandfather started the company years ago and left it to my grandfather, Stefan Chiba, who ran it until he died. I'm not sure about the details, but Nicholas was supposed to inherit the company from grandfather upon his retirement. Nicholas was older than my father and it only seemed right to give it to the eldest son. But Nicholas was always crazy, self absorbed, self indulgent and grandfather decided that he didn't want to leave his company in the hands of a narcissistic megalomaniac, so he passed it on to my father instead. That's sort of when all the fighting started."

Serena nodded. "What does all of this have to do with you?

"I own a thirty two percent stock share in the company. Technically I'm a part of the board. I don't attend the meeting and don't make ruling decisions, but if necessary I could intervene and make a ruling decision at the meetings. Nicholas also owns thirty two percent stock in the company and he wants the rest of mine. He'd have over half the majority shares and wouldn't need the board's approval anymore for any of his practices."

"So why not turn the stock over to him? You'd never have to hear from him again."

Darien smiled sadly at Serena before looking to the sheets. "Because it's the only thing of my father's that I have left. When he died, he specifically left that to me, to look after. I don't remember him, or my mother, it's the only thing of them I have left. I think he knew what kind of person my uncle was, how he would treat the company that our family built. You have no idea the things Nicholas has done, supported, using Chiba Inc. funds Serena. He's not a good person. If I turn all of my stock over to him, he'll have complete control of a multibillion dollar company; I can't imagine what he would do with that kind of power." Darien chuckled lightly before turning to face her. "You sure you want to be a part of my family? We're kind of all screwed to hell."

She laughed nervously, her eyes falling to the sheets and avoided the question. "Is this why you never talked about them?"

"Partially, yeah. As far as I'm concerned, whatever family I had, died a in that crash a long time ago."

Serena nodded her mind spinning. Slowly the confusion seeped in again, clouding her thoughts, her judgments. So many secrets and lies; did she really want to get involved with these people. Darien carried such a burden on his shoulders. Was she really ready to carry it with him? She wasn't sure. And for the first time, in a long time, she was scared.

His hands were sweaty against the doorway as he stood in the hallway of such a familiar setting. He questioned, pondered, why was he even here?

He needed to know the truth, needed to know that he wasn't losing his mind, needed to get a grip on reality and separate truth from lies. He wanted answers; he wanted to hear it from her mouth. He promised, promised himself, that once he learned the truth he would leave, he would leave and repair his relationship with Serena, go back to the way things were before he came, before she came. Go to medical school, be a doctor, get married, move on.

His knuckles bruised slightly as he rapped on the door, the sound of bone against wood echoing throughout the pristine elegant halls of the high rise apartment complex. Indigo eyes studied the marbled floors, his eyes straining to hear footsteps approach behind the barrier.

The door swung open and he flinched, steeling himself against her advances, against any tricks she might pull.

"Darien?" asked Eva, her eyes wide and surprised as she surveyed him.

"I need to talk to you. Can I come in?" he asked gruffly, his eyes focused on the ground.

"I… yes," she said, moving away from the door as he edged carefully into the penthouse.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, her hands coming up to cover her throat. The last thing she needed was for Darien to start questioning her over the mysterious bruises that peppered the tender skin of her neck.

"I needed to talk to you," he said, running his hands over his face and staring directly at her. Something about her was different today. She looked…terrified and almost as though she'd been crying. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, yeah, long night. What did you want to ask me?"

Darien sighed, steadying himself before he began. "I know that you said we were friends, but were we ever involved?"

Her eyes widened slightly. "Involved? Yeah, you could say that. Why?"

Darien looked to her silently before responding. "I remember you."

"You remember me?" she sputtered, her mouth gaping in complete shock. "What? How?"

"I dreamt of you last night. We were…together."

"Where?"

"In a boat house, it was raining outside and we…"

"That was the day we made love for the first time," she said, nostalgia washing over her and warming her heart in a familiar way.

"The first time?"

"Yeah, we were…I loved you and you told me you loved me. We were closer than friends, I just…you're sort of engaged remember? I didn't want to tell you that."

"No? Well because of you I'm dreaming out it, while my fiancée is lying in bed next to me."

"I-I'm sorry."

His eyes narrowed. "Tell me that you being here has nothing to do with my uncle."

She started, shocked, Darien was never a fool, he had always been the smartest person she'd known. What was she supposed to say? That your uncle has taken everything from me and the only way that I can get it back is to seduce you away from your girlfriend and con you into signing away something that meant so much to you, to your father. "Not particularly, no. I'm playing at the Mugen Academy School of Music and teaching a violin class," she lied. "When your uncle, in his infinite knowledge found out, he contacted me. Said you could use a friend. I didn't even know whether or not you were still alive…I just, I wanted to see you again. For old time's sake." The words were falling off her tongue faster than she could imagine. She hated the taste the lies left behind.

Darien surveyed her quietly before letting his eyes fall to the skyline. "I'm confused…I have…these feelings, emotions, doubts, things I can't explain to anyone, not even Serena. I don't know what to do. I've always, I mean, I've never wanted these memories to come back. Not any of them. It's like a part of me knows that they were bad."

"They weren't all bad," she said honestly. "We happened. And for a while, you were pretty happy. I think, I thought I made you happy, and then that night happened and you lost it, ended up in the hospital and left soon after. You didn't even say goodbye."

Darien watched as a single tear slid down her cheek and he ached. He believed her. She looked so small and frightened and genuinely concerned for him. His body was moving on its own accord, coming to rest in front of her, his hand reaching up to brush the tear streak that coated her cheek.

She closed her eyes when she felt his fingertips against her skin, for the first time in a long time, she felt safe, and the loneliness that had settled in her heart after her mother had died was fading. She had never loved anyone the way she loved him, and doubted that she ever would.

"Why did I do it? Drive into that cliff?" he asked, his voice soft, eyes tender.

"The days before, you were on edge, upset, different. You said you didn't trust anyone anymore, that you didn't know what to believe but you never told me why you felt that way. We were supposed to meet that night, for a bonfire at the beach with our friends. You never made it to my house. Instead I came to you and by the time I found you, you were in a hospital bed with tubes stuck down your throat. Witnesses cried suicide; I didn't know what to believe. You were different after that. You shut down, and then you left."

Her eyes were shining with tears, beautiful green eyes that held so much sadness, and he couldn't help it, he was drawn to her in a way that he couldn't explain. A part of him didn't trust her, knew that something about this situation felt wrong, but another part knew that most of what she was telling him was the truth. He could feel that panic, that confusion again and he knew that he had felt the same emotions the day of his second accident.

"I need to know why I did what I did. And I need you to help me," he said, staring down at her. "I need to know if I can trust you."

"I would never purposefully hurt you." If I could help it, I wouldn't be doing this now. But I have to save him. He's my father.

She neared him slowly, her hands snaking up behind his neck and leaned in, the feeling of his heart beating gently against her as she held him, encircling him in a hug of warmth, comfort and understanding. His hands moved slowly to envelope her waist and pull her into him as he held her.

And then he felt it, his heart felt like it dropped into his stomach, an electric sense of want and need shot through him as if he were being shocked. This embrace, a hug between lost friends, suddenly felt like so much more.