A/N: A long time ago, I was browsing through a Live Journal community, Fics on Demand I think it was called (because Aramis told me to), and came across a request that caught my interest. It was already filled (again, by Aramis because she's awesome) but it gave me ideas and I ended up writing this anyways. I think the story sat in my writing folder for so long cause I had originally looked up the flower I wanted to use at the end and had found the perfect, PERFECT one and then LOST the page I had found it on and the first ending that went with it. I have no idea where they went! But I finished the story (again), then promptly tucked it away and forgot it. Dug it up the other day and decided I still liked it a lot even without the original end and so the fic finally sees the light of day XD

"What are you doing here?"

"Saying goodbye." Bakura's translucent arms swept across the graveyard. "Is this not an appropriate place for it."

"You've tainted everything else in my life, I won't let you taint this as well!"

"Ha! Yes, and your life was just shits and giggles before I entered it."

"Well, yeah, but it wasn't ruined!"

Bakura looked away.

This wasn't what he'd come here to do.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, the words grating and unnatural.

"What?"

His gaze snapped back to Ryou. "I'm sorry, alright? It's what they're making me- I'm supposed to apologize for meddling with your pathetic little-" he broke off again and pushed a hand through barely visible hair in frustration.

This wasn't what he wanted.

"Did I really ruin it?"

It was Ryou's turn to look away.

"No," he said quietly. "Um, I'm sorry too. You did quite a lot for me actually, I mean, the dolls were a bit disconcerting but . . . at least I wasn't alone, right?"

Bakura chanced a confused look at the boy. He always was a strange one, making such a light hearted statement about the one thing Bakura knew he feared most.

"Aren't you now?"

"No. I have friends to keep me company now. Very good ones."

"They're not with you."

Still he couldn't stop the bitter harshness but Ryou didn't seem to notice. Or ignored it.

"Amane keeps me company here." He knelt down to prop the flowers against the stone on which Bakura still sat. It was a proper ordeal, not the simple, traditional plaque in the ground. A sort of sharp reminder that Ryou wasn't originally from here. But then, neither was he.

"Besides," he continued, "it's not anything really. I mean, it's nothing compared to what you went through."

"What would you know of that?"

"They told me some and … I pieced together the rest. I'm sorry."

Bakura gave a stiff nod, arms crossed and looking away again. They were silent for a while until Ryou broke it.

"I miss you . . . a bit."

Bakura moved then and Ryou couldn't feel it, but he could see, the place where ghost like arms wrapped around his shoulders, the spot where the side of the spirit's face would have just touched his, heard the soft whisper in his ear, "Don't. Not for me," just before Bakura disappeared completely, leaving Ryou to wipe away the sudden bit of moisture in his eyes.

The next year, and every year thereafter, along with a bunch of brightly colored flowers for the girl who's name was carved on the stone, there appeared a small, white desert bloom for a man who's very name had been stolen because even the original had long ago been lost to time and his revenge.