A/N: More Yami/Tea love :) This will be a three-part story, so there is more to come. The ending of the original YGO series has always fascinated me. Because I want SO BADLY for Yami/Tea to end up together, but at the same time, he had to leave, so he can have peace. Such a dilemma!
Anyway, this fic will be three separate oneshots, each addressing, basically, a different "possible" ending. I hope I do them justice! Please leave a review, as always!
Disclaimer: Everything you recognize belongs to the creators of Yu-Gi-Oh, not me.
The pharaoh's eyes lingered on each of them in turn, resting the longest on Yugi's face. Somehow, Tea knew, they were communicating, speaking as clearly as if they still shared one mind. She could see it in their eyes, the silent understanding, the bittersweet promise of departure.
But when the pharaoh's eyes finally came to rest on her, Tea wished she could look away.
His gaze was a shock of intensity, a blaze of mixed emotions. With just one glance, he stole Tea's breath away, leaving her immobilized by the rush of the cold, unshakeable knowledge that this was the last time those eyes would penetrate her soul, pierce her heart. Deep inside, she longed to drink in the sight of eyes on her, every last second, like a tonic, but she knew that if she did not draw up all of her willpower and force her gaze away, she would never rest, haunted by the memory of his final glance. She had to, she had to look away, there was no other option, or else – or else –
She barely felt the tear trace down her cheek. Her feet moved without her command and against her conscious will; she ran to him, her hand grasping the pharaoh's as the surreal light behind him grew ever brighter. In order to stop the tears she felt prickling behind her eyes, she bit her lip and clenched her free hand into a fist, refusing to allow the raw emotion to escape her. This was no time to cry.
"Don't go, Pharaoh," she said, her face fixed on the floor. Her words were so strained, so powerless. "Please, Pharaoh. Don't leave."
His hand slipped out of hers. For a moment, cold dread rushed into her heart, freezing everything from her lungs to her mind. She should have expected this, she knew, from the moment than the duel had begun. Quickly she tried to steel herself for that moment when she tore her gaze from the tiles at her feet to see the emptiness that the Pharaoh would leave behind, not even a mere shadow left behind to represent his presence in her world.
And then deft fingers tilted her chin up, drawing her eyes to the Pharaoh's face. They stood so close, so close that she could now see exactly which emotions burned in his violet eyes; they were no longer an incomprehensible storm to her. She saw despair, longing, agony, and flares of hope and love – love of two worlds, their impossible coexistence; the two worlds that he equally belonged to and yet could never settle in.
"You need not call me Pharaoh, Tea," he said, his voice a rumbling, anxious whisper. It carried through the stony room far more than she would have expected, resonant and colorful. "I am Atem to you. To all of you."
He glanced over his shoulder at the unknown. The band of mysterious white light was narrowing, but glowing ever more blindingly; overwhelmingly powerful energy, stronger than life, seemed to pour from the portal between worlds.
And then Atem met Tea's eyes, and, without hesitation, he pulled her into a tight, locking embrace. His arms gripped her back, and she, out of instinct, pressed herself close to him, her body and soul melting into his touch and his solidity. He was not yet a memory, not yet a traceless story lost in time - no, he was still here, so wonderfully whole and real, and she could not bring herself to let go. Desperately they clung to each other, their impossible choices left unaddressed.
All of a sudden, the hot light vanished, so immediately that Tea felt as if she had been plunged into cavelike, impenetrable darkness, even though the room was now no darker than it had been during the duel. Quickly she blinked to clear her gaze and mind. The portal had closed, the wall in front of her finally nothing more than a wall. The intricate Egyptian markings seemed duller than they had before, less poignant, less threatening, as if worn down by the passage of time.
And Atem was still there.
His face was now buried in her shoulder, but Tea felt no tears, only harsh breaths against her collar. He was holding her so tightly that it almost hurt. Tea suddenly became aware of a swarm of people and noise pressed against the pair of them, all buzzing with questions and exclamations. Slowly Atem relaxed, drew away from her; he glanced around at all their friends, the shadow of a familiar smile sneaking onto his face. He kept hold of her hand through it all. He threw an arm around Yugi's shoulders, grinned at Joey and Tristan.
To Tea, the moment was perfect. Her eyes filled with the tears she had so carefully controlled for so long, but no one seemed to notice, not even Atem, and Tea was grateful.
But later that day, she lingered quietly while the rest of the group departed from Yugi's game store, their constant rendezvous point. Yugi himself had gone upstairs to his room, leaving Tea and Atem alone at the ground floor, and she could not stop herself from asking the question that had been roaring inside all of their minds throughout the evening.
"Why did you choose to stay?" she blurted out, then winced at how harsh the words sounded in the gentle air. "I mean – I'm glad that you did. But… aren't you trapped here, now? How will you ever be able to rest?"
The pharaoh stared at her for a long moment, then glanced out the window at the star-speckled sky. "I do not know why I stayed," he said slowly. "All I know is that when you touched me – when you spoke to me – I could not bring myself to pull away from this world. Your voice brought back every memory, every feeling that I had never known before… every bond I had made in this world. I realized... I couldn't leave just yet. It was not what I truly wanted. I think I belong here, now. With all of you."
"Of course you do," said Tea. "You've belonged here since the moment we met you. I've always known that."
Atem glanced at her, his eyes as piercing as ever. In one smooth motion, he traced the tilt of her cheekbone all the way down to her lips and chin, then curled a loose strand of hair behind her ear, his touch so light and fleeting that Tea almost wasn't sure that it had happened.
"It means a great deal to me that you would say that, Tea," he murmured.
She could only nod. He was so close now that she could see every tiny, nearly invisible scar on his face – scars that Yugi did not have. These were the pharaoh's scars alone now, no matter how closely he resembled Yugi in this modern era. They fascinated her – each one, she was sure, with its own mysterious story.
"Do you – do you think you will be happy here, Atem?"
"Happy?"
Tea nodded swiftly.
"Happiness is a strange thing," he mused. His breath crossed sweetly over her skin. "Not because it is something I have never experienced. Only something that I have never thought about experiencing."
Their eyes locked again, bound as if by some invisible knot. When Atem's hand rested on her waist, Tea noticed suddenly that she was still touching his arm, and at the same time, she noticed that she no longer seemed to have control over her body, for she could not pull that hand away. Tea's heart began to tap rapidly against her chest like a mouse pattering against a glass cage. "It's okay to want to be happy, you know," she said, her words sounding pathetically breathless to her ears.
"I think," said the pharaoh, "that is something I've learned from you. From my time in this world."
Unable to look away from him, Tea saw not feelings, but memories, flashing through his eyes and her mind like a cinematic version of their past. Memories of them, together and apart, their friends, their fears and their stories. For one endless moment, they were connected, mind and soul, sharing the same reminiscences.
The pharaoh's lips pressed against hers, unsure, soft. Like the balmy embrace of a steaming bath, like the promising glow of heated embers, his lips caressed hers, always careful. Tea felt the trapped little mouse in her heart scurry out of its cage, dashing wildly through her chest in its freedom. Suddenly her body remembered how to move, and she kissed him back, full of wonder. For all that her heart and mind had warred in trying to tell her, whether it was the Pharaoh or Yugi whom she loved; for all the feelings that she had buried under a wall of reason, believing that they were bound to be disappointed; now she was happy, deliriously so, surrounded by the kind of joy she did not remember experiencing ever since the shadow games and surreal wars had begun.
When Atem pulled his lips away, his fingers replaced them, a gentle pressure against her lips before she could open her mouth to speak. His eyes gleamed with violet lightness that she could only ever remember seeing a few times before.
Happiness. Simple happiness, the same as she had seen when they stood by the sunset together, when Yugi had been freed from the Orichalcos.
"I think I will be happy here, Tea," said Atem.
"Because this is where you belong," she said in return, smiling.
He smiled too. Now, his expression was one of exhausted relief, and he leaned his forehead wearily against hers. "Thank you, Tea," he murmured.
She couldn't speak, but simply hugged him tightly and hoped he understood.