Recovery

For what I hoped to be the final time, if not ever, at least for today, I opened my eyes to find myself in a different place. This one was familiar, and welcome, after the trip to the Shadow Realm. Yugi's concerned gaze cleared and he smiled. "Mokuba! You are back, and unharmed. You are unharmed, right?" I nodded, accepting his hand to sit up from the couch. "We can talk later, you and me, and Yami, if you want, about all that happened, but for now, we know that Seto's okay, Roland called, and he's sending the limo to pick you up." Before Yugi could take a breath the front buzzer rang, or well, buzzed, I guess. "Oops! That's gotta be the car - you better get going, but call later, okay?"

Yugi didn't have to encourage me toward the door, I was two steps ahead of him the entire way. "Yugi - thank you, so much, and say thanks to Yami for me, too!" I waved, or at least I meant to, but I couldn't seem to stop my feet from running through the door, down the walk and into the limousine that was double parked with the engine running right outside the door to the game shop.

I almost felt as though I might be able to beat the limo if I got out and ran I was so eager to get home. I still wondered if I'd found all the pieces. Would Seto be okay if I missed even one? I know that Dark Magician said we did everything right, and he is a magician who's got some sort of special magic dealing with spirits, I'd had a first-hand encounter with that, but... I fretted. I worried. I felt...

No! I was not going to be afraid, not after all I'd done to stop what the fear had done to Seto. I had done everything correctly! Big Brother was going to be okay! If he wasn't for some strange reason, I would march on back to the game shop and demand that Yami send me back so I could give that magician of his a piece of my mind for doing such a shoddy job... I laughed. The driver glanced at me through the rear view mirror so I stopped, but I couldn't help it. Give Dark Magician a piece of my mind - wasn't that why there had been a problem in the first place? Silly expression, if you ask me.

They were waiting for me, the servants were. The limousine hadn't quite stopped before I opened the door and dashed up the stairs of the mansion. The servant at the door opened it so I could run through without even breaking my stride. I flew up the stairs to the personal rooms as fast as I could. The door to Seto's suite was open, so I ran in, and ran halfway toward his bed, where I just knew he still was before my brain took in the fact I wasn't alone. Roland sat in a chair set at the side of Seto's bed. One look at his face and I could tell he hadn't slept well since Seto had fallen into his coma, either. I hadn't been able to appreciate that before. Roland probably had no idea he was the Lord of Dragons in Seto's spiritual deck, with the special ability to protect dragons, but I knew - and I knew how appropriate that honor was for him.

"Roland, I..." I gasped.

"Later, Mokuba. Your brother needs you now." The faithful bodyguard stood up, and patted my shoulder before leaving the room and closing the door behind himself.

Weird that I should feel a tiny bit - scared. Hadn't I convinced myself that I did everything I could and that Seto would be okay? I couldn't help but feel anxious as I walked toward his bed and looked down. It had been so horrible to see him so still for so many days.

I instantly noticed the difference. Seto's eyes were closed, but there was just this - well, energy that had been missing before. He wasn't moving anymore than he had when he was comatose, but I could tell he wasn't in that awful state any longer; I could tell he wasn't even sleeping. He was just resting his eyes. Well, it made sense. It's not like he, well, his spirit had been resting during that time, either. I wondered how much, if anything, he'd remember - his spirit had been pulled into pieces after all. Maybe he had amnesia. That would suck for him, I know that Seto would hate to have missing memories, and maybe that's why he's resting his eyes.

"Seto! I'm so glad you are awake!"

"Mokuba," Seto said my name, with a slight edge in his voice, as he opened his eyes and glared at me. He sat up and scooted back until he was supported by the headboard. "If you are going to let me sleep in so long, the least you can do is be on hand when I wake up so I can yell at you."

My mouth fell open. "Really? Really?! After all the worry I'd been through, after all the trouble of going to the Shadow Realm - the Shadow Realm, Big Brother! - to gather up the missing bits and pieces of your soul, you have the gall to yell at me for not being here when you finally decided to stop worrying me like an idiot and wake up?!"

Seto's eyes twinkled at me, and that wonderful smile, the one I saw when he smiled at our mother in his memory, lit up his face. "You didn't let me finish, Little Brother. I wanted to yell at you for putting yourself in danger just to save me."

Wait a minute! "You know? You remember?!"

Seto raised his right hand to his temple and closed his eyes briefly. "Not all of it, for which I suppose I must be grateful." He sighed. "But I have pieces of memories of you gathering my most precious memories in your hands and taking care of them." Seto opened his arms, inviting me in for a hug, a truly rare thing. I climbed up the side of the bed into his arms, wrapped my arms around his neck, and squeezed gently tight. This is the hug I wanted more than any other. This moment reassured me that Big Brother really was okay - that I hadn't missed anything - that I'd gotten it right.

"We have a lot to talk about, Mokuba. I'm starving, so Roland is getting something for me to eat. Fetch my robe, and we can talk over there." Seto pointed toward the sitting room just off his bedroom. By the time I'd gotten the robe from the wardrobe, Roland had returned with the tray for Seto. At an unspoken command, conveyed with a glance, Roland took up a position inside the room guarding the door against interruptions.

"So, tell me all about it," Seto commanded. He was wolfing down french toast as fast as - well, as fast as Joey, which wasn't at all characteristic for Seto, but then again, he hadn't eaten anything solid in over a week.

"Big Brother, it's all..." I didn't want to trouble him. I didn't want him to get cranky that Yugi and Yami had been involved, and that it was all about spiritual things and magic.

Seto set his plate to one side and leaned forward to pin me with his special Big Brother Glare. Yeah, I've seen the look enough to have named it, and know what it does. It makes me do what he says, or at least that's what he wants it to do, but I thought perhaps, this time I better resist it. Seto changed his tactic. "Mokuba, even when I am incapacitated, you are still my little brother, still my responsibility, and I care for you. Always. I need to know - everything - that happened, no matter how uncomfortable you think it might make me, to make certain that nothing bad happened to you."

"But, it's all spiritual stuff and magic and..." I protested weakly.

"Mokuba, you already let slip that you had to go to the Shadow Realm. What could be harder for me to stomach than that?" Seto sighed.

I clapped my hands over my mouth, and replayed every minute and every word since I entered the room. "Oh, I, uhm, didn't say those things just in my head, huh? When you said you wanted to yell at me?"

"You most certainly did not. Do me a favor, stop with the dithering, and tell me about it already!" Seto sent a half-hearted glare my way, then picked up his plate and started digging in again.

"Well, uhm, after we, that is, Roland and me, did everything we could think of, what with doctors and all, and... Well, it wasn't good... The prognosis, I think is the word the doctors used..."

"Roland told me how dire the situation was, Mokuba. What I don't know is what you decided to do about it," Seto mumbled around a mouthful of food.

Oh, that might be why he wanted me to talk now while he was eating, so he could sort of hide behind his food, and not have to react to anything I say. Okay, Big Brother, perhaps I understand a few things about you a bit better than before.

"I went to Yugi." Seto started. "Yes, Big Brother, Yugi. When weird things happen, he seems to have a way to make sense of them."

"Must be that weird hairstyle of his. Go on," Seto urged.

So, I explained it to Seto. All of it. Well, skipping over the bits of conversation with Yami and Yugi that he wouldn't have liked, the part about him being weakened toward spiritual attacks, but Big Brother's eyes gleamed when I told him I'd given Yami a black eye.

He'd finished eating and put his plate down on the side table by the time I'd gotten up to the Shadow Realm. He nodded his approval for the protected path that Yami and Yugi had somehow made for me. I couldn't help but glance over toward Roland when I got to the part about the Lord of Dragons, so I caught the slight twitch of his mustache that usually indicated he was trying not to smile.

"Seto, I - want to ask you something. You see, the Blue-Eyes White Dragons, they held the really important feelings and memories. The first one..."

"Mom," Seto said. "You want to ask about Mom."

"I'm sorry for - well, for peeking into those memories, I guess. You really loved her. Was she, in reality, was she the way she is - in your memories?" I had to know.

Seto reached over and tousled my hair. It hit me then. He always tousled my hair when he was pleased with me. From him, the gesture was an unspoken 'I love you' and he learned it, when he was a child, from Mom.

"She really was like that. Yes, I love her, and I adored her, but she really was kind, and beautiful, and I'm so very sorry you never had a chance to meet her, Mokuba," Seto replied quietly.

"Well, I sort of did, in your memories. And, in a way, the way you are toward me, that's sort of like Mom, too."

Seto smiled. "A big brother can't replace a mother, but he can try to the best of his ability to fill the void."

"Uhm, the next Blue-Eyes was..."

"Dad. But you know that's how he was. I'm recalling dim memories of his lessons in chess."

"Yeah, that's what I saw. Maybe the very first one."

"What's troubling you, Mokuba?" Darn his big brother sense!

"Dad was always so pleased with you, when you did well in school, and that chess tournament you won. He never... He never looked at me that way. I've been... I haven't had to face it for years, but I think perhaps Dad - hated me - for Mom. He always seemed to have such a stern expression around me."

Seto shook his head. "No, Mokuba, you are seeing it all wrong. Dad always felt that it was a tragedy that you would never know Mom the way we did. He didn't hate you - he always felt sorry that you never got to know her. He told me not to tease you too much, when we were little, even though that's what big brothers often do. He told me that he needed me to be nice to you, because whenever I was nice to you, I was passing on those times that Mom was nice to me. You see? He never hated you."

I didn't know what to say. It was like I was meeting my own family for the first time through Seto's words. I guess in a way I was. I certainly had an image of Mom now, that I didn't have before.

"By the time you got to the last Blue-Eyes White Dragon, I had a pretty decent sort of awareness. Still disjointed, and sort of like I was sleepwalking, but I know who the last dragon represented," Seto said.

I couldn't help but blush at that. "Me. Why would you have a Blue-Eyes for your memories of me?!" I demanded loudly.

"Why not? 'Cause you are important to me, Mokuba!" Seto yelled.

"Boys. Keep it to a dull roar, please!" Roland called from his position by the door. Chastened, both of us nodded, before realizing that it had been a long time since we last heard that command, and trading glances, started to laugh. It had been years since Roland last dared to address Seto with anything other than a helpful suggestion, certainly not an out-and-out command like that.

"Well, you were getting loud," Roland muttered, which only caused us to laugh harder.

"You've omitted the Dark Magician's involvement in the whole thing, Mokuba," Seto told me, once we had settled down.

"Yeah, well, he's... It was magic, you see, and... You hate magic!" I blurted out.

"Yeah, well, there's magic and there's magic. That nonsense that Wheeler pulls with his Time Wizard is a pain in my ass, and all that crap about destiny that that idiot Isis woman wanted me to follow - that's the sucker end of it." Seto looked down at the floor for a very long moment. "I'll admit it this once, and only to you (and our sharp-eared bodyguard over by the door there) that there's another sort of magic. Yeah, the heart of the cards - the way Yugi has it, and the way it works for me. I can't say I don't believe in such things, knowing that you were basically gathering cards one at a time to recover my soul. I've suspected magic is behind quite a lot of what we've been through, and that you did the right thing, obviously, by seeking the help of 'professionals'. If you hadn't, well, I doubt I'd be breathing on my own right now, if at all."

"I had Dark Magician's help, Big Brother. In the Shadow Realm, when even Yami and Yugi's protected path couldn't help me anymore."

Seto gave me a very sour look at that. "Yes, I'll admit I have some awareness of that one's help as well."

"Seto! He really did help! And he really does seem to care. Not just because of Yami and Yugi, but because of... Well, other considerations." I finished weakly. Yeah, didn't Dark Magician himself tell me that Seto wasn't comfortable with this aspect of their shared past? I'm an idiot for even indirectly bringing it up.

"He's the signature card of my greatest rival, Mokuba," Seto told me with a deceptive mildness. Yeah, I've learned not to trust that quiet tone.

"Yami said something similar about you. I don't get it."

Seto quirked a smile. "You will, someday." He stared at me for a long moment with an expression even I couldn't figure out. "Roland, bring me the silver case." Roland didn't seem to mind that Seto didn't use the word 'please' and brought the metal case holding the rarer of Seto's excess Duel Monsters cards from its spot in Seto's giant walk-in closet. While Roland held the case flat against his hands, Seto thumbed the combination wheels, opened the clasps and rummaged in the case for a moment. He brought out a Dark Magician card, a twin to Yugi's own card, and handed it to me before closing the case and nodding that Roland could return it to the closet.

"Realize if you play this card against me in duels, Mokuba, I'll target it and take it out first - though it might be good for me if you have a Dark Magician in your deck. If you design your deck to support this monster, it would give me practice for my duels with Yugi."

"Seto!" I protested, almost automatically. I can tell it then. Seto truly is back to normal. He's going to snark at Yugi and continue their rivalry as if nothing happened. I guess, in a way, that's what Yugi, or at least Yami, expected. That's why he said he'd help me, just so he wouldn't lose Seto as his rival. It is an antagonistic sort of friendship. Then again, except for me, Big Brother is rather antagonistic toward everybody, so I guess it's the only way he can even have friends. I noticed I was tracing the edge of the card with my finger. Friends, huh? "Why don't you ever use a Dark Magician card, Seto? I've seen how powerful and versatile he is in duels."

Seto smirked at the pronoun I used. "Two reasons: it is the signature card of my bitter rival. You know how I feel about anyone other than me playing a Blue-Eyes White Dragon. I respect Yugi too much to put him through that ignominy."

I blinked at him. Respect? That wasn't what I was expecting. "And the other reason?" I asked softly. Maybe it had something to do with why Dark Magician helped me in the first place.

Seto stared at me, then at the wall, then at the floor, picking at the edge of his robe and other such nervous and reluctant tells for so long that I was sure he wouldn't answer. He finally did. "It's respect, too. For him - the priest who became the card. There was a time... I have memories..." Seto closed his eyes and shook his head slightly. "Without accepting it as proof of anything... Anything other than what I admitted today..." He said fiercely. "I somehow know the man behind the card. And there is - was - a kinship of purpose between us. Out of respect for that man, I would never think of ordering him around in a game, using a card that bore his resemblance. Sometimes I wonder at Yami's cruelty in treating him so."

I thought back to the moment when I had the power to launch an attack at the fear that had so hurt my big brother. True, I had initiated the action, but even if someone else had 'commanded' me to, it would still be satisfying to help. Maybe that was why Dark Magician helped me find the shards of Seto's soul. Sure, to help Seto, who he admitted he'd known in the past even if Seto never really would, but, maybe - no, not maybe. He'd told me, if I added a Dark Magician card to my deck, he liked watching duels. He liked helping. "It's not cruelty, Big Brother. I think - Yami understands that Dark Magician likes to help."

"Hmph."

I grinned. Yeah, Seto was back to normal. All grumbly and grumpy and not wanting to see anything good about his rival. He then shocked me with that awesome smile of his again, and reached forward to tousle my hair.

"My memories are weird, disjointed, and dream-like, but I can tell you, Little Brother, that the Blue-Eyes Mokuba Dragon is second only to the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Mokuba Dragon of every dragon, including every other version of the Blue-Eyes, that I've ever seen. Someday you are going to have to tell me exactly what that felt like."

"Even if I have to talk about magic?" I asked wickedly.

Seto tousled my hair a bit more fiercely. "Even if. I'm sure when you talk about magic, and," Seto rolled his eyes. "'the heart of the cards' it is the sort of magic that I might be willing to admit, under duress mind you, that could perhaps possibly be real."

"Mom and Dad helped," I said. Drat Seto's sharp hearing that he caught that. I hadn't really meant to say it at all.

"Oh?"

Seto's expression is open, not skeptical. Maybe it's a result of conquering the fear. Maybe he's still a bit off-balance from just waking up from his coma, or maybe, just maybe, even though I'm the little brother, he's come to respect me, even just a little, too. "I think it was something Dark Magician did, but not as the Dark Magician. He used to be a spirit magician..."

"Spirit sorcerer," Seto corrected me. I grinned. Oh, yes, he recalled more about their 'shared' past' than he was willing to admit, and I'd just caught him out on it. "Yeah, laugh it up later, Mokuba. Go on."

"Well... After the first attack, that the Anubis fear-monster deflected, I found myself..."

-the end-