Disclaimer: Just own the words, not the folks.
These tumors are "silent". S+YY, if you squint. Warning: Character death.
Summer – Part 1
T-minus 365 – July 17
"Well, fuck!"
That summed it up nicely. 'Fuck'. He was fucked. His life was fucked. Mokuba was fucked. Noah was fucked.
Everything was fucked.
A year. That's it. That's all he had left.
What the hell could he do in a year?
That bastard. Even dead he found a way to hurt him.
Standing abruptly, he storms out of the doctor's office, ignoring his suggestions of 'alternative treatments'. As if he'd ever allow some quack to experiment on him. The last thing he wanted was to become some drooling idiot or some loser addicted to painkillers. There's nothing to be done but put his affairs in order. Hn. Like they weren't already in order. He kept them in order, at first for Mokuba's sake and now for both Mokuba and Noah.
Mokuba and Noah. What's going to happen to them? True, at 17 and 20 they weren't kids anymore, but it wasn't like they were ready to take over the company right now. Well, Mokuba is. Noah still needs some coaching.
As he climbs into the back of his limo, he swallows what is sure to be a sob. He hasn't cried in nearly 10 years. He can't afford to cry now. Shakily, he runs a hand through his hair and exhales, forcing calm.
"Back to the office, sir," the driver asks, lowering the privacy partition slightly.
"No. Just drive. I need to take care of some things," he replies, opening his ever-present laptop and pulling out his cell phone.
Three hours later, he's updated his will, transferred large sums of money into Noah and Mokuba's trust funds, added Noah and Mokuba to all of his bank accounts, including the Swiss ones, planned the house account expenditures for the next two years and started the draft for his 'farewell' videos. He'll work on the plans for his memorial service tonight when the boys are asleep.
Dropping the privacy screen slightly he gives the driver the order to take him back to the office. Though it's after seven o'clock, he can still put in a few hours work.
He sighs to himself, fighting back another emotional outburst. From now on, he'll have to work even harder. The doctor couldn't tell him how long before his personality started to change and he started to lose motor function, but he knew it would happen. That's just the way tumors were. Fuckers.
Speaking of fuckers, Gozaburo had to know. He had to know that having Seto around all of those chemicals would eventually do something to him. All this time he thought he'd won and that he and Mokuba were safe when Gozaburo went through that glass. What a fairy tale. There is no 'happily ever after'.
Stepping from the limo, Seto heads to his office carrying a heavy heart along with his laptop. It's well after midnight when he finally goes home.
T-minus 345 – August 7'I'm not going to tell them. Mokuba and Noah. I'll leave them blissfully ignorant. They've had enough shit to deal with in their lives, not to mention what they'll have to deal with when I'm gone.'
He begins typing furiously, throwing off his fatigue as he continues writing out his plans for the next four to ten years for Kaibaland development. The crystal clock on the bookcase chimes 2:30 am, but he has to keep working. After writing out the plans for Kaibaland, he's determined to get a start on the plans for his latest dueling technologies. Then there are the newest games he's designed for development, which need documenting. Most of these ideas he stores in his head to keep them from being pilfered by one of his less-than-trustworthy employees. Now he has to get all of his thoughts and ideas down, lest they rot in his grave with him. Everything had to be in place for his demise. No loose ends.
'Note to self: Fire that board of idiots while still lucid. Can't have those pricks driving Mokuba any crazier than he'll be without me. I'll definitely leave Mokuba in charge of Kaiba Corp. Noah's nowhere near ready for that level of responsibility, even though he's older,' he concludes.
Pausing in his rapid-fire typing on the laptop, he takes a moment to look at the picture of Mokuba, Noah and himself from their trip to Hawaii last summer.
'It's hard to believe that Noah has only been in our lives for three years,' he smiles.
The brilliant young man had spent nearly his entire childhood in an orphanage, placed there by his father, Gozaboro Kaiba at the age of five.
Seto frowns. He hated remembering Noah's story.
'That bastard Gozaboro threw his own son into an orphanage because he wanted to "teach his mother a lesson" about disobeying him', he snarls to himself.
Letting out a sigh, he grasps the heavy silver frame, lifting it to study Noah's smile. Unbidden, the memory of their conversation two years ago plays in his head.
January 8th; 11:30pm:
Noah knocks on Seto's bedroom door.
"What," the CEO snaps, continuing the rapid typing on his laptop.
"Seto, do you have a minute," Noah calls quietly.
Pausing a moment, he decides against sending the young man away. He'd been coming by every night since New Year's and Seto kept saying, "Not tonight, maybe tomorrow." There must be a reason for Noah's persistence.
"No, but come in anyway," he replies.
"I can come back tomorrow," Noah offers.
"No! Whatever it is, come in and tell me now," he grumbles, trying not to sound as agitated as he felt.
Slowly the door opens and an unusually solemn Noah sits on the bed, head lowered.
"Noah…" Seto frowns.
"Did I ever tell you where I lived before you found me," Noah query's, looking up at his big brother.
Seto shakes his head.
All he knew about Noah began with Mokuba's school project, a family tree. He'd done a random search for the last name Kaiba just to see of there were any long-lost relatives out in the world. Seto figured it to be a waste of time since any relatives would have crawled out of the woodwork long ago, given the size of Gozaboro's estate when he died. No one had come forth to claim any inheritance or even attend the funeral.
But when Mokuba ran the search, he did it worldwide. A 'Noah Kaiba' turned up in Sydney, Australia. At first, Seto couldn't believe it. How could there be a Kaiba left in the world who didn't want any of Gozaboro's money. Seto figured Mokuba had made it up and did his own search, getting the same results.
Seto then hired a detective to find out more about 'Noah Kaiba' and eventually confronted him personally. He still thought it must have been Mokuba's generous heart that compelled him to take the young man back to Japan.
"I lived in a orphanage in Sydney," Noah begins, pulling Seto back from his recollections. "M-my…fa-" he pauses and swallows, calming himself, unable to use that word for that man. "Gozaboro sent me there when I was five. He changed my name and had me listed as the 'illegitimate child of a call girl recently deceased; no known relatives.' He said he did it to "teach my mom a lesson" because she'd taken me to see my grandparents when he'd ordered her to stay away from them."
"What," Seto hisses, wishing he could kill the bastard all over again.
"I remember her crying when the men pulled me out of her arms. That's the last time I saw her. She died when I was seven. I don't know how. I didn't find out until I moved here with you. I did a public records search a few weeks after I arrived."
He pauses.
"I couldn't speak English when I got to Sydney, so I couldn't tell anyone what was going on and that I wasn't an orphan. It took me almost two years to learn the language because no one would help me. I didn't have any friends and the people running things ignored me or treated me like shit. When I turned 10, I broke into the computer files and found out what Gozaboro had said about my parentage.
"Later after learning how to search the Internet, I found out that the orphanage I'd been abandoned in had been cited numerous times for abuse and neglect and had avoided being shut down due to the legal wrangling of a powerful, but shady law firm. By hacking into the law firm's system, I found out that they were under retention by Kaiba Corp. Gozaboro kept the place running just to torture me.
"I ran away when I was 14 and lived on the streets for a few years. I'd just gotten an apartment after having a steady job for five months when you found me."
Seto's rage threatens to overwhelm him, but he holds his tongue, fearing any outburst would shut Noah down and he'd have to hear all of this later. He couldn't deal with hearing any more of this story later. It would be now or never.
"I knew about you and Mokuba," Noah begins again. "And I knew when Gozaboro died. I knew I could have come back and claimed my place as his true heir, but I didn't want to. I'd seen you duel and I'd seen you in business related interviews. I knew I'd have to fight you for control of Kaiba Corp. and it just wasn't worth it to me. Even though everything was rightfully mine, I didn't want anything more to do with Gozaboro Kaiba."
Silence blanketed the room for a few minutes before Noah stood to go.
"Well, that's all I wanted, Seto. Sorry for the interruption, but I thought you'd want to know."
Seto watches him leave, heart heavy, but anger still strong. He knows he's no good to Noah until he calms down. With some effort, he's able to reign in his temper about thirty minutes later and goes off to find his not-so-little little brother.
After checking his room, the living room, the game room and the entertainment room, he finds him out by the pool smoking.
"Nasty habit," he growls feeling a bit of his anger return. "It's not allowed on my property."
"Oh, sorry, Seto," Noah stammers, grinding the cigarette out in the makeshift ashtray of aluminum foil in his hand. "I started when I lived on the streets and I'm afraid I haven't been able to kick the habit yet."
Seto narrows his eyes dangerously.
"Has Mokuba seen you?"
"No! Of course not! Actually, this is the first time I've lit up here. I usually do it elsewhere. It's just that it's really late and I needed a smoke after telling you everything."
"Is that why you take walks four to six times a day?"
Noah chuckles guiltily.
"Yeah. Wow, didn't know you knew about that. You're keeping tabs on me, I guess. I understand not trusting me. After all, I'm just some stranger who moved into your life and house a year ago."
He turns away from Seto's intense gaze, feeling even more the outsider. He knew he should have never come here.
"Of course I keep tabs on you," Seto grunts, crossing his arms. "I'll always keep tabs on my family."
Noah turns to him, startled.
"Now get back in the house. It's 2:30 in the morning and we both have work in the morning. While I, as CEO can be late, you as my employee cannot."
Noah smiles, doing as he's told and Seto heads back to his room.
T-minus 343 – August 9After pulling that all-nighter the day before yesterday, Seto lost three-fourths of yesterday to sleep.
'I've got to regulate my time better,' he broods. 'I can't afford to miss any days. That useless little trip down memory lane cost me valuable work and sleep-time. From now on, I'll plan to sleep from 1:00 am to 5:00 am. That should give me ample rest for the time being. I'll add an hour or two later if necessary.'
Checking his watch, he sees that it's 11:45 pm. That gives him another hour for work, which he definitely needs. The Kaibaland plans he input before somehow became corrupted and he had to purge and enter them again. Luckily, he was able to print most of them out so he had the majority of his last-minute notes as well. Even so, he'll have to do the bulk of the work tomorrow.
At 12:45 am, he saves once more and shuts the laptop, locking it. By 12:57 am, he's showered, dried and brushed. By 1:02 am he's asleep.
T-minus 306 – September 10 – San Francisco, CAHe stands on the pier with his eyes closed, enjoying the salty wind blowing off the bay and around him, whipping even his perfect tresses out of place.
He'll miss the sea. Even though he spends more time flying over it than being on, in or near it, he'll miss it just the same.
And the wind. He'll miss the wind. He'll miss its howls during the worst thunderstorms and its fierceness when he fights it while flying.
Flying. Gods, how he'll miss flying. Maybe when it's almost his time, he'll just take his dragon up for one last flight and never return. That's how he should go, flying in his magnificent blue eyes, not wasting away in some sterile, white tomb.
Sighing to himself, he opens his eyes. Back to reality. Even if he wanted to follow through with such a plan at the end, he's not there yet.
T-minus 300 – September 17His flight back from San Francisco, CA was delayed due to fog for three hours, which put him three hours behind. Counting that and recovery time from jet lag, he lost another two days!
Fuck!
At least he got some work done while he waited to see that specialist, Dr. Corey, not that it did him any good. He said the same thing to Seto the other four specialists had, he could try the experimental/"cutting edge" crap, or he could die. Traditional treatments wouldn't work on his particular tumor. The fast-growing, grade four, malignant, astrocytoma had already started to infiltrate his frontal lobe.
"Fairly soon," Dr. Corey had warned, "Your behavior may start to change. And you may find it more difficult to think things through. Your sight and memory may soon be affected as well."
With that bit of knowledge and Dr. Corey's concurrence with the other specialists, Seto pressed himself to work even harder. He had to get everything down before he forgot it all and before he couldn't think straight.
Losing those two days mattered more now than they would have two months ago.
He still hadn't finalized the farewell videos to his brothers, which was bad because he needed to get them taped soon so he could edit them, if necessary. He definitely wouldn't trust either task to outsiders, as all he'd need would be for one person to tell a tabloid and his brothers would know everything. He needed them to stay innocent of this situation. He would stress about it enough for all of them.