Bees buzzed around Seto's head and tried to get his attention. They should have understood he didn't have any attention to give. But they were loud, persistent, and too close to be ignored. They pricked at his skin and tugged at the blanket. Seto turned his face away and focused on breathing. He was dreaming. This was how all the dreams started.

Seto peeked and found Mokuba kneeling in front of him. His bright eyes smiled down at Seto, gray, not green, and he reached a hand out to hold his gaze.

"Come see me, Seto. I'm waiting."

Maybe this time he could see Mokuba at the end of the dream. It had been so long since the dreams ended up in his favor, and the bees were increasingly persistent. Their buzzing merged into something more understandable, maybe a name or a word.

Mokuba faded with a smile, so Seto pulled the blanket more closely to him and faced the bees head on, only to find faces. They surrounded him and pitied him while panicking. Seto couldn't count them as they swarmed, so he kept his gaze on the face nearest him.

"Seto? Can you hear me?"

The voice was unfamiliar. Seto expected to hear his kidnapper's voice coming out of the strange mouth, or maybe even Tommy's. So it was actually a sleeping dream and not a daydream. Seto couldn't remember falling asleep. Or maybe he didn't remember waking up.

"Seto, I'm-"

Seto got distracted by his voice and stopped listening. The voice was low and calm while all the faces continued spinning around him. A strange voice on a strange face.

"We're getting you out of this place. You ready?"

Seto nodded and scooted back a bit to sit up. He tugged the blanket along with him to keep all the wandering eyes off him. The man beside him nodded like he was encouraging Seto's movement. Seto should have known his face. He should have known all of their faces. But maybe he had just forgotten them somewhere along the way.

"Do you know if there are clothes around here?"

The man kept his voice quiet and still, and thankfully, his hands clear of Seto. The thought of clothes was all right, so Seto shook his head. If he focused enough, he could make the strangers find clothing, or maybe take some off to hand it over.

"That's okay. We're going to get something for you. There's a chain?"

Seto relaxed. The little part of his buried hope faded away because no one outside of this house would know about the chain, so Seto was dreaming and he wouldn't have to worry about being seen. He remembered the feel of the blazer against his skin, the last clothing he had worn. It had been snowing that day. The air coming through the vent had gone from warm to cool, so Seto assumed that was a long time before.

He edged his foot out from under the blanket. A bit of skin peeked out above the band and Seto brought it back under so the strange eyes couldn't see more than they needed. But the eyes stared at the lock Seto hadn't been able to figure out, and the strange hands carefully held his ankle, turning the band to get a better look.

Seto wanted to tell him that it wouldn't come off. It never came off in the dreams. They would just have to cut the chain, then he could see Mokuba.

"We got something for this?" the strange voice asked.

The bees around him buzzed and the hand came away from Seto's ankle.

No.

Take it off.

Don't leave me here.

He reached out and grabbed onto the hand that had abandoned him. It drew those eyes back to him—they were brown, not green, and not Tommy's blue—and Seto tried to form words. They came from his throat, he was fairly sure, but his mouth was only good for the one thing anymore. He licked his lips and tried, harder than he had before.

Nothing came out.

"We're just getting something to take this off. You're okay. I'm not going anywhere."

Maybe that was true. Seto wanted to trust this stranger. If he could get him to Mokuba then everything would be okay. Seto could wake up and keep going, keeping looking for another chance to drown in the shower or suffocate under the pillow. He was losing Mokuba's face.

Seto brought his hands back into his lap, picking at the blanket and trying not to hide his ankle again. The stranger's smile was nervous. It wasn't like the man's smile, the smile that wanted to consume Seto, steal him away, keep him trapped under its weight. This smile was good, honest. Seto trusted it.

"Here we are," the stranger said. One of the bees had brought up a little box, or not little, the scissors that came out of it seemed disproportionate to the size of the box. Because you're dreaming. They were thick and the stranger had to use both hands to close them around the leather band. He paused once to place a hand on Seto's leg, over the blanket, and assure him that he wouldn't cut him, or he would try, so long as Seto stayed still.

Seto could stay still. He froze until the leather snapped into two, and longer still while the man cut through the padded layer without too much effort.

Then the band was off, and with it the chain.

Seto pulled his leg in and ran his fingers over the scarring. He normally could only do that in the bathroom, but he was certain that he was sitting on the mattress. The band never came off in the dreams. Had he started to hallucinate in the bathroom? It wouldn't have been the first time, but none of the others had been this vivid.

He hadn't recognized the stranger.

"We got you some clothes. Probably a little big, but we'll work something out back at the station."

The clothes offered to Seto were rough, a material different than the sheets, than his towel, than his kidnapper's clothing. Seto ran his thumb over them with eyes closed, trying to figure out what he could be feeling since dreams couldn't have tactile sensation. Hands helped him with the shirt because Seto didn't move to put it on, and he did what he could to focus on the texture against the back of his arms, his chest, and his hips.

"You want to put these on under the blanket?" the stranger asked.

Seto looked at the pants he was being offered and at the stranger offering him modesty. He couldn't remember having any. But…they cared that he was naked? No one cared about that. Even in the dreams.

He did as instructed, working them on while staying covered, fingers finding the drawstring around his waist and tugging. His hands remembered the motions to tie a knot without Seto's brain having to be involved. If he had thought on it too hard, Seto was certain he wouldn't have known how.

The nervous smile returned and the stranger got Seto to his feet.

"You've got places to be," the stranger said. "People looking for you."

Throughout the walk to the hallway, Seto glanced back and again at the chain, lying forgotten on the mattress. The band was still attached, only cut down one side. It wasn't coming with him. The hem of the sweatpants dragged against his ankle with each step and Seto felt that as real as anything else he had experienced since the last time he could recall experiencing anything. He didn't know what he was feeling. What were they doing to him while he was asleep? Unconscious?

He swallowed to see if he could feel the tube down his throat. Nothing.

They went to the front door like the last several dreams and Seto started to look for Mokuba. He normally came running out from a crowd, but there wasn't a crowd, just two uniformed men standing beside a van. The side door was open and the stranger led Seto to it. Mokuba wasn't inside the van either. He had to be somewhere. Getting the band off didn't make the dream worth it. He needed to see Mokuba, to remember his brother's face before it disappeared forever.

The van didn't leave the driveway for a while. Seto stared at the blue and red flashing lights on a car parked on the street and played with the hem of his shirt. The world around him was blurred. The only details Seto could make out were the ones he stared at for a while. But the flashing lights never needed to stay in focus, so Seto watched them while waiting on Mokuba to make his appearance.

Panic set in when the van moved, and the stranger reached over to place a comforting hand on Seto's shoulder, over the shirt, not on his skin.

"You're going to be okay. I hope you know that."

Unless they were dragging the mattress underneath him, dragging him on the mattress, nothing explained the movement. He couldn't be awa—

Seto shook his head and pushed his hair out of his face, knocking the hand off his shoulder in the motion. Were they moving houses again? The momentum of the van was familiar, even if Seto was sitting this time instead of lying across the backseat.

He felt the shirt again and wondered if they had dressed him for the trip this time. Maybe the mountain house had gone up for sale. That had to be it. They sedated him for the long trip and dressed him should anyone look inside the car. The chain would have to come off for that.

He exhaled heavily, glad to know what was going on around him. It didn't explain the stranger's eyes or voice, but he could have been from a distant memory, someone Seto had known in that great before.

If they spoke to him during the drive, Seto didn't hear it. The view from the window was hazy, but Seto took in all that he could. Since the day on the windowseat, Seto hadn't gotten a glimpse of the outside world, not in his dreams, not in the vague notion of reality he lived in. But now everything was bright and vivid, trees, traffic signs, cars, houses, street lights—all of it. Maybe not vivid so much as there.

And people. There were people outside the window, turning to watch the cars with the flashing lights go by. Children, women, strangers Seto didn't know.

But no Mokuba.

He wanted to ask. This would only be worthwhile if Mokuba appeared. The longer the dream went on the greater chance Seto had of waking up. Maybe the drive would end with him? But if they were going to the mountain house, that had to be too far away for Seto to stay asleep. He didn't want to wake up.

Seto covered his eyes, unwilling to close them and risk falling back into whatever dreamless sleep he had been in before. Maybe he should wake up. If he focused enough then he could and his kidnapper wouldn't have control of his unconscious body anymore. Although it wouldn't make any difference. If he was awake, he would have to reciprocate. Any Tommy—

No. Tommy was gone.

He hadn't been around in a while, which meant all of this was the man moving Seto. Unless he had hired another Tommy. But he wasn't supposed to do that. It was just supposed to be the two of them from now on. How had he gotten Seto sedated without waking him?

Seto scraped at the edges of his mind in search of the memory that wasn't there, of waking up for the briefest of moments to see the man staring down at him, smiling, waiting for the drugs to take effect. He would have felt it. He always felt the needle.

"We're here."

The stranger's voice shook Seto's consciousness to the core. He should have recognized it if he was a dream, and if it was just a dim knowledge of his surroundings, it had to be a new Tommy. They weren't alone anymore. Someone else had agreed to do this to him.

His door opened and another strange face stepped aside so Seto could get out. His bare feet touched the ground, gritty pavement and a painted stripe, and it was another sensation he couldn't explain. He ignored the prompt to walk, running a toe over a loose rock. There was nothing in the room or bathroom that small. Choking hazard.

What was this dream? Had his mind finally learned how to fool itself into artificial feelings? The band had been taken from his ankle. How could his mind remove its constant presence?

"Come on, Seto."

The stranger guided him this time, up a short series of stairs and to a backdoor. Another house. But when Seto looked around, he didn't see a forest, but buildings and cars. There were some trees, but not as many as the man had promised. It was supposed to be a mountain, not a city.

People kept looking at Seto. He didn't know them but they stared like he had three eyes. His fingers moved up to his face to check if a third appeared. Everything felt normal.

The fact that he could feel things still felt wrong.

His hands went back to the shirt, checking that it hadn't disappeared.

It was there, but where was he?

Maybe he was awak—

"Seto?"

If people would just stop looking at him, he might be able to think, to focus, to figure out what was happening in the world around him. Maybe it was just the room around him. Even though he couldn't feel the chain on his ankle, he might have just learned how to focus out of the sensation. But it wasn't there. Seto couldn't deny that the only thing on his ankle was cotton.

"Mr. Kaiba?"

Seto turned and met the gaze of the stranger, this time really looking at him. He should have found similarities or familiarities. Even if his eyes weren't the dull green, the shape of his nose or the line of his jaw—something—should have been the same. But Seto didn't know him. Why didn't he know that face?

The hand extended, gesturing him to an adjoining room, was strange. The location was strange. These people were strange. Everything was strange and where the hell was he?

He followed the hand because he had to know. Mokuba should have appeared by now and this had gone on far too long. He needed to wake up. He had to wake up. Why couldn't he wake up?

The stranger helped Seto into a chair. He faced a mirror and couldn't look into it. This was supposed to be when he got to see Mokuba, not himself. Seto didn't want to see the face staring back at him, just Mokuba.

And then the bees came back. They buzzed in a higher pitch and kept stinging him, but Seto didn't pull away from them. It might have been his kidnapper trying to wake him and if Seto jerked away, then he would wake before Mokuba appeared. That wouldn't have been fair. Then the bees would have been bothering him for no reason.

So he waited.

He shied away when the buzzing got too close and every time he did, he caught himself and reminded his body not to pull away. He had to stay asleep.

But the hem of the shirt distracted him. Why could he feel it? Why, out of everything, after all this time, was he able to feel the cool, coarse fabric? It should have been the sheets or even his clothes. And Seto could see it, more clearly than any dream. No amount of blinking would take his world back out of focus.

Maybe this was re—

A heavy sigh came from beside him and the buzzing stopped. He must have given up on bringing Seto out of this daze that was too strong to be a daze. Seto wondered what he thought of the constant motion in his fingers. He might have thought it strange that Seto was still messing with whatever the fabric was. Seto didn't know how long it had been, but certainly too long for him to still be distracted by a t-shirt.

"—Seto."

There he was. He was breaking through the daze before Mokuba showed up, speaking in a voice unfamiliar, but different from the once before. How many new voices would the man use to break Seto's focus? It could have been his new Jim, new Tommy. Maybe that was why Seto didn't recognize—

"Hey big brother."

Seto lifted his gaze from the shirt to the edge of the table, bringing his face up in the motion only a fraction of an inch. There was no reason for the man or a new Jim or Tommy to call him that, to even reference the fact that he was a brother.

Had been a brother?

"I got your letters."

They shouldn't know about the letters, but neither would Mokuba. It had to be part of the daze, Seto thought, turning slowly to see if the dream was about to end on Mokuba. He would take even a glimpse of Mokuba before having to return to that hell. Just some ounce of light to keep him going until the next dream.

The eyes were Mokuba's, but nothing else. The face was all wrong, the hair too short, the height too tall. The dream was supposed to end with Mokuba, not this twisted version of him. Where were the youthful eyes, the rounded cheeks, the messy tangle of hair? Seto couldn't find much familiar other than those eyes. Those were Mokuba's eyes, even if they were more tired.

For the first time in however long, Seto's mind gave him a Mokuba who was older than the kid he had been stolen from.

No, his mind couldn't make that up. This was Mokuba, only older.

His gaze broke away and looked across the rest of the room. The dream should have ended. Mokuba should have faded into his kidnapper, the gray eyes darkening to green. But he didn't leave the room. His reflection tried glaring back at him when his gaze wandered too close.

Seto grabbed the shirt again and stared at it.

He was awake.

Rubbing his thumb over the cotton didn't make the feeling or image change. This was real. He wasn't in that room. The weight on his ankle he had thought would be permanent was actually gone. The man didn't appear because he wasn't there. It was just—

Hands still messing with the shirt, Seto turned back to Mokuba. It was actually him. This was actually happening.

It couldn't be happening.

But Mokuba stood right there, too old for Seto to have made him up. He might have imagined the height or the weight loss, but not the brokenness and terror in his brother's eyes. The dreams of Mokuba had always been a beacon of light. This Mokuba was shadowed. But it was him.

Seto swallowed and tried to remember how to speak. It had been so long and every time he had tried before, nothing had managed to come out. But that had been talking to the man who kidnapped him, to the man who chained him to a bed, to the man who destroyed him.

And this was—"Mokuba?"

"Yeah, big brother. It's me."

Seto hadn't been able to close his lips after speaking, like if he shut them, then no sound would come out ever again. He couldn't keep looking at those scared eyes, so he looked down at Mokuba's t-shirt, at his bare arms littered with scars, at his shoes, one foot nervously rubbing against the other.

"I know they said I wasn't supposed to touch you, but you're just going to have to suck it up because I'm going to hug you now."

Mokuba fell forward onto Seto, wrapping his arms around him. Seto tensed.

"I promised you forever, Seto. I'm never going to let you go. I'll always be here to take care of you, so you don't worry about anything."

Maybe his dazes had gotten stronger. This wasn't Mokuba, but his kidnapper, grabbing him and upholding his promise to never let him go. It was more plausible than a rescue after all these years.

But the arms were too small, too weak. Seto reached up carefully and put a hand around Mokuba's back, waist too narrow to have been his kidnapper's. The t-shirt was too big, hanging off enough that Seto could grab a handful of it and tell how wrong the texture was to have ever been on his kidnapper. And there was nothing sexual in the contact.

Seto brought his hand back around and lightly pushed against Mokuba's stomach, giving himself space to breathe and to stare at his brother. He pulled his hands away, but reached one of them up to touch Mokuba's face. Maybe that would prove if he was real. Maybe his fingertips could confirm what his eyes couldn't.

He traced his fingers from Mokuba's cheek to his upper lip, feeling the warm breaths and confirming that this wasn't a hallucination.

"Mokuba."

Mokuba's hand grabbed his.

That touch was so infinitely and beautifully real.

"I thought I was dreaming," Seto said, finding his voice at the sight of his brother's face. He could hear himself and his voice was just as unfamiliar as all the others of the morning. "I've had this dream so many times."

"I know what you mean."

If Mokuba had been dreaming about finding Seto in this room and he understood, then that must have meant this was real. That nothing that had happened since he woke up had been a dream.

"I'm—" Seto started, not even sure how to ask the question he never thought would be necessary. "—I'm really out?"

Mokuba nodded once, twice, over and over, face twisting like he might cry at any moment. "He was arrested. You're out."

Seto's breaths shook while he tried to process such a simple statement. He was out. The man had been arrested. He was out.

Bringing his hand back to the shirt which had caused him so much confusion, Seto asked, "Whose clothes are these?"

"I'm not sure. A cop, probably."

Seto nodded and tried to remember if he had seen any police earlier. The strangers in his room. The strange face talking to him. The bees trying to gain his attention that he had ignored. Those had all been real?

"Were they trying to talk to me earlier?"

"Yeah, they were. Are you ready to talk to them?"

He had just remembered how to talk for Mokuba's sake. How was he supposed to talk to an entire group of people when Mokuba was right there? "No," he said, unsure of how to force down the thought. There were other people around to talk to. His world had opened back up. He was out.

"Would you like to talk to me?"

More than he could have known.

"Yes."

About anything, whatever it took to commit this new voice to memory. He wanted the voice, the face, the uncomfortable smile locked away in case he woke up. This was too easy to have been real. How was he supposed to believe this was real after all the shattered hope?

"Roland and his wife just had a baby," Mokuba said with false positivity.

"You're going to be with me forever. I'm going to keep you forever."

His silhouette appeared over Mokuba's shoulder and Seto blinked it away. "Roland is married?"

"Maybe you should ask the questions."

They were in an interrogation room. Seto glanced back over to the mirror and realized what it was for. They were watching him, listening to him, taking note of everything he did. They were in a police station. Mokuba had probably been sent in to warm him up for a round of questioning.

Seto turned back to Mokuba. The full meaning of the shadow weighing on him finally clicked with Seto. He remembered and hated how long it had taken. Mokuba lived with Gozaburo.

"Are you okay?"

The sound that came out of Mokuba was the best sound Seto had ever heard, so relieved, so happy, like a breath held in too long only to come out in a laugh. "I'm freaking wonderful," he said, moisture building up around his eyes.

That was his baby.

His baby he had been separated from too long.

"How long was it?"

"I'm not supposed to tell you that."

So they were listening, likely just waiting for their chance to ask all the questions they wanted about what had happened to Seto and what he had been through. But Seto wouldn't waste the chance to spend time with Mokuba for the first time in however long Seto wasn't supposed to know. Of course him not being allowed to know meant that it had been too long.

"How old am I?" he asked after a moment of thought.

Mokuba's smile came through, less anxious than it had been before. "I can't tell you that either."

Fine.

"What day of the year is it?"

"June 9th," Mokuba said. Seto almost huffed in frustration that the part of the answer he wanted had been left off, but pressed on.

"And how old are you?"

"I'm seventeen."

Seventeen.

Seto closed his eyes and let that sink in. He was practically an adult. Mokuba wasn't the kid Seto expected to meet when he got out. He was a young man, a seventeen-year-old man. Seto had missed the transition and knew there wouldn't be many pictures to have marked his growth. He missed him grow up.

"I'm twenty-one?"

That hardly mattered. Mokuba was seventeen.

"Yeah, we've got boatloads of parties to make up."

Seto tilted his head to the side like the change in angle would make sense of Mokuba's statement. "We can't have parties," he said. He might have been out, but he wouldn't be able to live on his own. His kidnapper had ruined him, broken him down into nothing more than a doll. He would have to go back to Gozaburo.

"Seto," Mokuba said slowly, "Gozaburo was arrested too."

Seto felt the heat all the way down inside of him, to places he hadn't access in four years. Gozaburo had hurt Mokuba. He was the shadow and the source of the scars. "What did he do?" Seto asked, wanting confirmation because he had to know.

"Your letters," Mokuba said, too calmly. "You called him out."

It was a lie so apparent Seto couldn't even be angry at it. If Gozaburo had truly been arrested, then there wasn't anything Seto could have done to lash back on Mokuba's behalf. Of course, even if he was still living in the comfort of his home, what could Seto have done? He hadn't done anything in four years. He was in no condition to go after Gozaburo.

Before Seto could act, Mokuba had wrapped his arms around him again.

"You like this. If you would just relax, just trust me, you would make it so much easier. Give in, Seto. Relax."

"I'm so glad you're okay," Mokuba whispered.

"But you're not," Seto said, right as a knock on the door pulled Mokuba away from him. Two women brought in chairs and only one of them stayed. The other left after giving the chair to Mokuba so he could stop kneeling beside Seto. He stayed just as close though, pushing his chair right next to Seto's.

"If we start now," the woman said, "then we will finish sooner." She sat across the table from them, blocking Seto's view of himself in the mirror. She had probably been listening from the other side before.

"Seto, I'm Mallory Waters."

Seto met her gaze and wanted her to leave so he could go back to time alone with Mokuba. This might still be a dream and every moment talking to her was a moment wasted.

"I'm just going to ask you a few questions and then we can be done for the day. Is that alright with you?"

That tone certainly spoke to this all being a dream. It was the same type Tommy used when trying to force Seto into something. "Can you do one more bite? You can open wider than that. Do you really want to use teeth on me Se-to Kai-ba?"

"He isn't four," Mokuba said, and Waters pressed her lips together in a forced smile.

"Of course. I was just letting you two know that, for today, I only need to ask enough questions to ensure Haru is locked away."

"Who?" Seto asked, before he realized he knew the answer.

"Arden Haru?" Waters said, professional manner dipping into something akin to horror.

Not the man. Arden Haru.

Arden Haru.

The man didn't keep him chained to a bed.

Arden Haru kept him chained to a bed. Arden Haru kidnapped him. Arden Haru abused him. Arden Haru destroyed him. Arden Haru messed with him. Arden Haru played with him. Arden Haru kept him from Mokuba. Arden Haru stole four years. Arden Haru promised Seto forever.

"The man who kidnapped you," Mokuba said, probably not even realizing how much his words sounded like Seto's thoughts from all this time.

Seto lowered his head. The man—Arden Haru—had a name.

"Oh."

"He never told you his name?" Mokuba pressed. Seto turned to look at him and only found green eyes. Of course it was time for him to wake up. This dream had been too good for too long.

A hand found Seto's and squeezed. "I'm right here, big brother. Come back."

That was Mokuba. His kidna—Arden Haru wouldn't have called him big brother. Seto closed his eyes to remove the vision of green and answered Mokuba's question. "He wouldn't tell me." Not after all that time begging, all that time searching for any trace of information that might give Seto a clue to who he was, how they had known each other, if they had known each other.

Arden Haru.

Waters took a deep breath that signified trouble. "Seto, I'm going to have to get you to identify him."

"What?" Mokuba said before Seto knew what had just been asked of him. "Why is that necessary?"

"We brought them in separately. The house was rented to Haru and Grayson said it was him, but we need Seto's word. Grayson could just be setting up another guard for all we know. I had hoped Seto would recognized his name and visual recognition wouldn't be necessary."

There wasn't another guard. Arden Haru had kidnapped him and Seto needed to confirm that before they could lock him away. He would be locked away and never come after Seto again. He promised forever. But no, they already arrested him. All Seto had to do was identify him. That wouldn't be hard. They had seen each other only hours before.

"He is a few rooms over," Waters said. "Would you like to do this now?"

Mokuba shook his head. "Can't you just show him a picture?"

Mokuba was seventeen and trying to protect him from demons he didn't understand.

"Would you rather wait for someone to print out a picture, or walk over and be finished in seconds?"

The argument started to continue and Seto cut it off because he didn't need Mokuba fighting this battle. This one had been lost a long time ago.

"I'll do it."

Mokuba managed to get out his name and nothing else. His hand tightened in Seto's and Seto squeezed it back. If he could see the man—Arden Haru—while Mokuba was beside him, while Mokuba's hand was in his, maybe that would be evidence that this was real. The hand in Seto's was his brother's. He had to know.

"Will you come?"

Even though Mokuba was clearly ready to protest, he relented and walked with Seto out of the room, following Waters, still hand in hand.

"He can't see or hear you," Waters said, moving down the next room where two walls of glass caught Seto's attention. More interrogation rooms. The one she was looking inside had to be his, so Seto headed for it only to be stopped by Mokuba's refusal to walk.

"Are you sure?" Mokuba asked.

"Seeing him won't kill me," Seto said. It might set him free. "It should be simple in comparison."

The last time they had seen each other, Seto hadn't been wearing clothing. He had been chained to the floor. He had been on his back trying to find patterns on the ceiling texture and having trouble while his body rocked on the mattress. The man—Arden Haru—couldn't see him. It couldn't have been a simpler concept.

There he was, handcuffed to the table and looking as calm as ever. He was in there and Mokuba was beside him. Then this was real. Mokuba was here and the man who kidnapped him—Arden Haru—was now the one chained and imprisoned. Seto had never even dared to dream this before. But if he had, that smug expression would have been exactly what Seto picked.

"That's him."

His hand tightened around Mokuba's. That was him and this was Mokuba. They were different people. This wasn't just his mind plastering Mokuba's face on Arden Haru's body.

"Are we done?" Seto asked.

"Yes—" she started and that was all Seto needed to hear. He tuned out the rest and kept focusing on those handcuffs holding Arden Haru to the table. They weren't enough. They were so fragile compared to the chain that had held Seto all this time. And if he was being arrested, there wouldn't be chains. It would be a timed sentence. He would know when it would end and how long he had been there and what the weather was like and what was going on in the world. He would have people to talk to and be able to take care of himself.

"Big brother, I'm sure Roland wants to see you."

Mokuba started walking out of the room and Seto stared at Arden Haru until the wall blocked him from sight. Losing sight of him cleared Seto's head a bit, enough to think through what Mokuba said. "Why is Roland here?" he asked.

"I'm living with Roland. He volunteered. This way I can stay out of foster care."

Seto nodded. "That sounds like him."

Men Seto didn't know were the first to greet him when they entered the next room. They had been talking but stopped so Roland could address Seto with a simple, "Mr. Kaiba," that sounded so wrong after years of just being Seto. But this was the man who stepped in for Seto when he couldn't protect Mokuba.

"Thank you," Seto said, "For helping Mokuba."

Roland smiled and said a few words about Seto moving in with him and his wife, but the extra eyes watching Seto made him uncomfortable. Were they curious about what he had gone through? Did they want more information than they heard while eavesdropping? Did they think the clothing looked as wrong on Seto as it felt?

"Roland, can we get back? Mrs. Waters said that we could leave."

Seto squeezed Mokuba's hand in thanks.

"Of course. I'll pull the car around."

One of the two men who had been staring spoke to Seto as he walked by. "It's great to see you, Mr. Kaiba." Seto met his gaze, just as unfamiliar as everything that day had been. Seto kept walking without a word.

They stayed inside by the entrance while Roland went for the car. Seto stared out at the world that had kept going on without him and Mokuba spoke through the silence. "So, what do you want to do tonight?"

Seto shrugged because he didn't know anything about anything anymore. Maybe in the course of his life, four years wasn't that much, but he had no idea who Mokuba was now, what he enjoyed doing, how he spent his time. And he didn't know what sort of things the world had to offer him. He only knew that room and those green eyes.

"We could watch one of my movies," Mokuba suggested. "You know, one of the ones where things blow up?"

Seto raised his eyebrows. That was the second time Mokuba had referenced his letters.

"You really read them?"

"Probably more than was healthy."

The letters he had written to a notebook named Mokuba had found their way to his actual Mokuba. "I never thought you would," he said, not even trying to figure out how they had gotten out of the first house and to Mokuba.

"Why did you leave them behind?"

Standing for so long felt unnatural. Seto leaned back against the wall while watching a bird peck at something on the sidewalk. "Accident," he said. He thought that was right. It had been so long since it happened that bringing the memory back up was painful, grabbing his lungs and twisting.

"Okay—?" Mokuba said, leading in to the story he obviously wanted to hear.

He would have to know eventually. And since Seto already had that day on his mind, he went ahead and told Mokuba in the hopes he would never have to think on it again. "I heard him enter the house and he was angry, so I hid the notebook under the mattress. He said we had to move, and he never gave me the chance to get it back before we left."

Mokuba hugged him again.

"You can't get away from me, Seto. I promised you forever. We will move to the house on the mountainside and be happy forever. Just you and me to our ends."

"You don't have to lie to me," Seto said, looking down at the heaviest of the scars on Mokuba's arm and tracing it with a finger. Touching someone else, even of his own choice, nearly took Seto's breath from him.

"What do you mean?" Mokuba asked, then followed his gaze. "Oh. I don't want to talk about me."

"You're all I want to talk about."

Mokuba looked up at Seto and gave him a little smile that only touched one side of his mouth. "I love you, big brother."

This was Mokuba. Older than expected, with a different face and voice, with the wrong height and hair, but this was his Mokuba. After all this time, Mokuba was right there, close enough that when Seto decided to try giving him a hug, he could, even though his hands shook and each breath sent jolts to his core.

"Thank you, Mokie."

Over Mokuba's shoulder, Seto looked at the blurry cars and vague outlines of trees, praying desperately he would never wake up.

Author's Note: Thank you all so much for reading and sticking through with this after all these years. Goodness knows this should have been finished a long time ago. It was a much more difficult story to write than I expected it to be and I ended up much closer to it than I ever thought I would get.

-heavy exhale-

From Seto is completed but the story isn't over. You can head over to my profile page for the first chapter of the follow-up story, Aftershock. Several of you suggested scenes you want to see for Seto's recovery, and there were several elements here that I feel need more closure. I have ten chapters planned for it, not including the bonus scene from Dear Mokuba.

Thank you again.