A/N: Okay, folks, there's some super-important thing in the author notes tonight. But only after you read this chapter. I'll put it in the end, okay?

Now something less important. I have never been this close to crying, when writing something. So maybe this chapter is sad, maybe it isn't. I had to remind myself not to kill Bakura the whole time I was writing this.

I need a hug.

Remeber to read the important thing at the end.

17. Words Never Matter

Yami was knelt in the middle of the street, drowning in his misery and guilt, swallowing back the tears. He wanted to scream, he wanted to cry. He wanted to throw up everything that felt bad, that weighted in his heart. He missed the feeling of innocent heart. It had been so light. Now it felt heavy. The weight of what he had done seemed to be too much to bear.

Finally he understood the consequences of his doings in full extent.

He had hurt Yugi, he had hurt Ryou. He had tore away the soul halves. He had broken 'a family'.

He still hurt Bakura.

And now he hurt himself too.

Bakura had said that Yami didn't understand, but finally Yami thought he understood, what Bakura felt. The pain, all the pain. Yami felt terrible.

Even though he knew that words were not enough, he wanted to apologize. He wanted nothing more to tell Bakura, that he felt bad. But it would never be enough. Yami didn't even deserve the change to start again. Bakura had treated him so nicely. Why hadn't Yami understood? Why didn't Bakura treat him like he deserved to be treated?

Yami gulped painfully.

He started remembering again. The Magic, the blood, screams. Bakura's scream echoed in his ears.

Everything was so loud. Yami's breathing. The scream. The car that passed by.

Yami slammed his hands to his ears and let out a small whimper. Staring at the street in front of him, he whispered again and again:

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." He could have been there forever, knelt on the sidewalk, whispering apologizes to the air, to man who couldn't hear them. But he didn't.

If there was a passerby who saw Yami, to him it would look like Yami just got up and started walking away, without a reason. But that someone couldn't see the panic in Yami's mind, or the stifled scream in his mouth. The passerby didn't know the reason.

Yami had a reason. A silent scream, he heard through the Mind Link, the pain he got.

The guilt made him get up. The guilt made him forget his pain, and concentrate on the pain of the others. It made him concentrate on his yami.

His yami was in serious trouble.

Yami felt it. Through the Mind Link came the coldness, the numbness, the emptiness. Yami knew what they meant, he had felt them before, before he became a hikari. This could mean only one thing.

His yami was dying.

Bakura was dying.

Bakura's eyes were open. He stared at the sky, but he couldn't see it. He felt a stone pressing against his back in a way that should be painful, but Bakura didn't feel the pain. And he couldn't move, he just laid there.

He heard his own heartbeats, and he heard the sound of waves hitting rocks, the sound of ocean, the constant moving of water.

Bakura knew what this meant. He was back in the island.

Did he even get away in the first place? Or had it all been a dream? One final dream before fading away.

Just let him sleep, before he dies.

No way. His eyes were open. He couldn't sleep. The island didn't let him.

A rational voice in the back of Bakura's mind said that this was the dream, the island was the dream, really he was in a street, lying there, dying.

Bakura ignored the voice.

Who would come to get him this time?

Bakura already knew the answer to the question.

No one.

Here again. Here forever. Here until the stars started falling down around him. Here until the world ended. Here until he faded away.

Bakura wanted to laugh. The whole situation was so weird. He wanted to scream.

He couldn't. He couldn't open his mouth and ask for help, couldn't open his mouth and scream, couldn't cry.

If he could, all that he would do. Even if it meant losing his pride. Sure, Bakura had his own, but when you're dying, what's the point in holding to your pride? That would be just stupid.

'I'm going to be here forever, again,' Bakura thought and then he thought nothing more.

His heartbeats faded away.

But his eyes remained open.

It didn't take much from Yami to locate Bakura.

The yami had collapsed to the ground. His white hair covered his face, and his back was turned to Yami.

"Oh Ra," Yami let out a small hiss and ran to Bakura.

He already knew that what he would see, would make him feel bad, still he turned Bakura around. Bakura's limp body was light.

The empty eyes stared past Yami's left ear.

It was like the time Yami had seen Bakura sleeping with Marik. This time it wasn't a fake death. This time it was something real.

Yami didn't know what to do. He tried hard not to throw up.

Oh whatever. Yami turned around and let it all out, on the street.

When he felt a little better he looked at Bakura again. What should he do? Should he call an ambulance? Should he call Ryou? The ex-hikari, who didn't care about his ex-yami. Malik? The hikari, who had said that Yami should take care Yugi? The ex-hikari who had said he couldn't help.

No, Yami shook his head to himself. They couldn't help him. They couldn't help Bakura. Only one who could help Bakura was his hikari, Yami.

Yami didn't dare to look at Bakura's eyes again. Instead he just stared at his chest. It wasn't rising and falling like normal person's chest should.

Bakura didn't breath.

And people who didn't breath, died.

Yami hesitated for a while. Then he reasoned to himself that nothing could possibly happen.

He put his right ear to Bakura's chest, trying desperately to hear yami's heartbeats. Yami stopped breathing, he wanted to heard something. Where was the thump, that had haunted him last night?

It wasn't in Bakura, at least.

Bakura's heart had stopped beating.

Yami quickly took Bakura's hand to his own. It was cold. Yami held Bakura's hand and looked at the yami. To everyone else, Bakura was dead. Gone forever. But Yami knew that somewhere in him were still his soul.

Yami needed to find it

He looked around him, and saw no one. If he had time, he would take Bakura somewhere, out of the streets. But he hadn't time.

Yami slipped away.

To find his soul half.

Bakura felt it.

He laid on the island and felt it.

Someone held his hand. It was warm.

Bakura had never wanted cry this much in his life.

Bakura held to the hand, clung to it's warmth, though he never moved.

He felt the warmness in his hand, but no one sat beside him, in here at least. In the street, then? The street, he hardly remembered. Did it matter?

Did anything matter?

Bakura was slowly losing grip of the hand.

And when he would, he would die.

Yami opened his eyes in the hallway. Once again he stared at the strange paintings on the wall, on the Bakura's side.

Yami walked to the door. Just like he thought. It was open. Yami didn't give it a second thought. He entered.

Yami had been here before, in his dreams, in real life.

The island.

Yami frowned. This couldn't be right. This couldn't be Bakura's real Soul Room. This was his... trauma. This was the state Bakura was in right now.

Maybe, Yami thought, he hadn't completely removed the seal. Maybe some of Bakura was still in this island.

Yami stepped on one of the rocks. There, in the middle of island, where he had stood in Yami's dream last night, laid Bakura, eyes directed to the sky, chasing the invisible stars, like always.

'You just freeze, unable to move, unable to see, unable to think. Only thing you can do is repeat the trauma again and again,' whispered Yugi's voice to Yami's ear.

And there was Bakura, trapped inside the island, trapped inside his trauma.

Yami closed his eyes for a while, but when he opened them, the island was still there. Bakura was still there.

Yami walked to him, sat next to him, and without even thinking took Bakura's hand to his own.

"Bakura, I'm sorry," Yami said.

Bakura didn't show that he heard.

"Bakura, you have to close your eyes. You have to sleep."

Still nothing.

"You're going to die. Fight back, like you always do."

Yami felt the tears in his eyes. He quickly swallowed them back. Now wasn't the time to cry.

"Bakura, I'm sorry."

Nothing. Yami gently removed the black lock of hair from Bakura's face. And still he whispered:

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

But it wasn't enough. Words were never enough. You couldn't kill a person with words, you couldn't save a person with words, unless you were a god of course. But to normal people, words hardly ever mattered. Words were only for questions, never for answers. Words were for problems, never for solutions.

Words did not change anything. The acts, what people did, changed. Only they really mattered.

Still whispering his apologizes Yami took Bakura to his arms. Bakura's body was light, like Yami was carrying a child. The eyes never left the sky.

"I'm not going to let you die in this place," Yami hissed.

Having Bakura in a tight grip, Yami started walking towards the door.

But the door didn't seem to be there anymore. Yami looked around him.

The island.

It didn't want them to leave. It held them inside.

Yami was panicking.

"Let us out!" he screamed. "I made you! You need to do as I command! I gave you Bakura, and now I'm taking him out of here!"

But the words didn't matter. They would never matter.

Yami closed his eyes and let out a cry. Bakura in his arms was getting colder, and colder.

The island didn't answer to Yami's pain. But the Shadow magic did. It started circling around Yami and Bakura, the thick, black and purple fog.

Yami opened his eyes, and stared at the empty sky above the island.

"If you don't let us out, I have no choice but destroy this place," he said. "You know I can do it. I created you."

Yami smiled smugly. The Magic continued circling and slowly it devoured the island.

Yami was sure he heard someone, not human, screaming. The island was alive. It was alive, Yami had woken it up, and it didn't want to let go of Bakura.

Yami put his hand to Bakura's Ring.

"Help me," he whispered. "We can get out, if you help me now."

The Ring started glowing. Bakura had heard his plead. Or at least his Magic had.

The circling of Magic got stronger, faster.

Yami stared at the sky, Bakura's empty eyes stared at the sky. Yami saw the first stars appearing to the sky, small lights. But he knew what it meant. The island was disappearing, the trauma was disappearing.

'Trauma is like your shadow, only something huge and dangerous. You always know that your trauma walks right behind you. It never disappears,' Yugi's voice reminded Yami.

'I know,' Yami answered. 'But let us try.'

The stars, there were thousands of them, beautiful lanterns, lighting up the sky, in Bakura's Soul Room.

Yami lowered gently Bakura to the sand.

In the distance raged still the storm made out of Shadow Magic, and the island, was still inside it. But it didn't matter now.

Yami sat next to Bakura.

"No," he whispered.

The eyes, they still stared at the sky, they still didn't see anything, they were still dead. His body was still cold. His heart still didn't beat. He was still dead.

"You mean it didn't matter?" Yami screamed to the stars.

The stars, like the island, did not answer.

A tear rolled down Yami's cheek then another one. Yami kept his hand on top of Bakura's cold one and cried. Cried for his worst enemy, cried for his yami.

And when the cried, someones fingers slowly wrapped themselves around his hand, holding them in a tight grip.

Yami looked at the body next to him.

Bakura smiled.

"It mattered," he said, before he closed his eyes.

Yami, though he was still crying, couldn't help but laugh. He laughed and held to the hand of his sleeping yami.

And finally Bakura slept, in the desert of his Soul Room, under thousand stars.

A/N: Okay, the super-important thing. Actually a question, and i hope i get answers. Do you want me to continue this?? Because, ok, I know I promised the yaoi, but I think, I can end it in here, if someone wants, on the other hand, I can continue this, and do the yaoi. I'm okay with both options. Just tell me what you think, 'cos I'm not sure. The making Bakura sleep was a kinda end of something. A part? or the story?

Tell me your opinion, I appreciate it.