Alverna: New story!

Yugi: Is that a good idea?

Alverna: Probably not. But I've had this typed up for about 8 months. About the same amount of time for my first one shot that was also recently pubished.

Atemu: Works for me.

Ryou: What about 'How did it come to this?'

Alverna: That will be posted tomorrow.

Bakura: Alverna owns nothing. Enjoy.

Chapter 1

It was Christmas time at the Mouto household, and everyone had gathered for the yearly Christmas party.

It was two years after the Ceremonial Battle, and Atemu, which was the pharaoh's real name, Bakura, and Marik were all in the Afterlife.

Yes, the Gods allowed Bakura to enter, as Zorc was controlling his actions and he did not remember anything that he had done under Zorc's control. Though Bakura was given his memories of what did happen before he entered the afterlife. Small pain, large gain.

As for Marik, he was brought out of the shadow realm and was going to be judged. What had surprised everyone was that Malik spoke up and said that Marik had merely been acting off of his own hate and anger. Not knowing any other emotion, he really couldn't be judge as a full human. So he was allowed admittance, not judged and since no person happened to be wandering soulless, in order to get a taste of other emotions and 'life', as Bakura put it.

Malik had moved to Japan less than six months after the battle. Ishizu and Odion were starting to drive him up the wall, so now he lived with Ryou, whose father was still Ra knows where.

Everyone, except Mokuba and Serenity, had graduated from High School and were in college.

Joey, Yugi, Tristan, Seto, Ryou, Malik, and Duke all went to Domino University for there own reasons. Joey and Tristan got full scholarships, surprisingly; Seto and Duke were aiming for business degrees so they would be taken more seriously in the business world; Ryou, Malik, and Yugi were all studying Egyptology, for obvious reasons. The hikaris all wanted to be near each other, and Yugi wanted to stay close to his grandfather.

Tea had gone to New York to study dance, and was doing spectacular. Mokuba and Serenity, who moved in with Joey after a fight with her mom, were their freshmen year of high school, and were constantly beating each other out of top in class.

Yugi couldn't help but smile as he watched Tristan chased Joey around for stealing his Secret Santa gift.

"Give me back my gift, you mutt!" Tristan yelled.

"Tristan!" Joey wheeled on his long time friend and was about to jump on him as Seto grabbed Joey from behind.

"Give him back his gift." Seto said, and turned to Tristan as Joey did as he was told. "And I'm the only one who can call him that. Don't do it again or I'll freeze your bank accounts and get you kicked out of college."

Tristan gulped and backed away. He knew from watching Seto in the past, that he would go threw with his threat.

"Stop scaring my boyfriend." Duke glared as he pulled Tristan into his arms.

"Well he stops giving mine my nickname for him, I'll consider it." Seto growled back.

Yes, Joey and Seto had gotten together, after they were 'accidently' trip by Yugi in the game shop, and ended up kissing.

"Come on guys," Mokuba chirped as he munched on some chocolate, "lighten up a little."

"Who gave you that?' Seto said in a half growl, half scared voice; Mokuba and chocolate were one dangerous mix.

"No one." Mokuba said slyly before running away from his chasing brother while screaming, "My chocolate!"

"Oh boy." Yugi shook his head as he came into the room with mugs of hot chocolate for everyone. "Anyone want to admit to the horrendous crime of giving Mokuba cacao and sugar?"

"Not me!" everyone in the room exclaimed. They all had seen what damage Seto could do on one of his good days, and it wasn't pretty.

"Can we do our Secret Santa gifts now?" Tea asked, and Rebecca voiced her agreement. How Rebecca had gotten in on the Secret Santa, no one really knew.

"Okay." Yugi nodded. "Ryou, Malik! We're doing the Secret Santa now."

The mentioned two came into the room with plates of Christmas goodies, smiles on their faces.

"About time." Ryou sighed. "Malik was getting as bad as Joey with the cookies."

"I love peanut butter blossom cookies." Malik glared at the albino. "Sue me."

"With the amount of money your family is getting now?" Ryou gave him a critical look. "No way!"

"Aw." Malik pouted. "So much for getting some easy money."

"Malik!" Yugi's innocent face adopted a very pharaoh like glare. "This is a party. We're doing the Secret Santa's, now."

"Okay." Malik sighed. "And, sorry."

Yugi nodded and handed out the Secret Santa gifts that had been set on the table as people came in.

"Oh, come on!" Joey shouted and immediately turned his glare to Duke. It was that dog costume Duke had forced him to wear after the whole Duelist Kingdom fiasco and during the Dungeon Dice mess.

"Not me!" Duke raised his hands in surrender. "I threw the one I had into a bonfire."

"And I saw him do it." Yugi vouched.

"Then who?" Joey questioned before he noticed a giggly Tea. "Ha, ha."

"I couldn't help it." Tea snickered. "I saw it during Halloween and was going to give it to you for Christmas anyway. Being your Secret Santa, I just couldn't resist."

"Ha, ha, ha, ha." Joey grumbled as everyone else hid chuckles behind their hands.

"I'm sure we can find some use for it." Seto said as he sent a dangerous smirk towards his boyfriend.

"Uh-huh." Joey muttered as he blushed.

"Too much info there Seto." Yugi sighed. "We don't need to know what happens in closed quarters."

"Next person please." Rebecca muttered, a bit put out by the display.

In the end, Serenity received a bracelet from Yugi with a 'St. Joan' charm, a 'The Forgiving Maiden' charm, and a 'Marie the Fallen One' charm; Seto was gifted with a 'Blue Eyes White Dragon' stationary set from Ryou; Malik gave Professor Hawkins a few pieces of ancient carvings, stating that his family had copies in Egypt; Yugi was given a picture from Joey. In it was the whole gang, right after the Ceremonial Battle, and before the darker halves went to the Afterlife. How they got Seto into the picture, Yugi still wasn't sure.

Rebecca squealed when she was given the next upgrade of the Kaiba Corp Duel Disk from Seto, who flatly said to not mention it; Ryou smiled at Mokuba while he held the next book in his favorite series; Malik smiled at the new cartouche necklace that had his name carved in it, his gift from Serenity; Tea raised and eyebrow at the huge makeup kit given to her by Solomon. He had a weird obsession with young females.

"What?" Solomon asked at the weird looks being sent towards him. "She needs makeup for her onstage performances. I wanted to help. With college being expensive, Tea doesn't need to have makeup kits added to her bills."

Everyone had to admit he had a fair point.

Mokuba cheered as he received a huge box of his absolute favorite types of candies from Rebecca.

"Did you give him that chocolate earlier?" Seto demanded as Joey pulled him back down onto the couch they were sitting on with Yugi.

"No." Rebecca shook her head. "I would have eaten it myself."

Professor Hawkins was the last one to have his gift open by Solomon, who gasped as he saw his 'Blue Eyes White Dragon' card, repaired.

"I had Yugi send it to Pegasus, with a letter of explanation I wrote." Arthur explained. "He was more than happy to fix it, my old friend."

"Thank you." Solomon said as he held his card close, and then glanced at Seto. "Rip it again and your company is wiped off the face of the earth."

"Duly noted." Seto nodded his head. He had recently learned not to upset the elderly man. Just like himself being angry on a good day, it wasn't pretty to see Solomon mad.

"Hey," Serenity pointed to one more wrapped gift on the table, "what's this doing here? All of the Secret Santa's have been done."

"Well," Malik picked it up, "let's have a little looksie. It's for you, Yugi."

"For me?" Yugi asked as he took the gift from Malik. "It doesn't say who it's from, and Joey already gave me my Secret Santa gift."

"Just open it." Tea encouraged.

"This coming from Miss. 'don't open until Christmas'?" Duke asked.

"Talk about a switch." Tristan agreed.

"I really need to get more female friends here in Domino." Tea sighed.

"Well," Yugi glanced down to the wrapped box, "I guess I'm opening this."

Yugi took off the wrapping paper and opened the box to reveal…

Alverna: You guys can probably guess what he got.

Malik: Review and let us know what you think!