Title: Bright Eyes
Author: Nina/TechnicolorNina
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds
Pairing/Characters: Jack/Carley
Word Count: 2 429
Spoilers: Up through Episode 39, but this actually takes place much later than that.
Story Rating: R/M for character death and Jack having seriously dubious morals.
Story Summary: Potential series end: Jack finally sees Carley again, and remembers.
Notes: The duel at the end of this is totally functional. Thanks to calaidi and for saving my butt by figuring it out for me!
Warnings: AAAAAAAANGST. Character death. Also, vague allusions to sex.
Feedback: There may be something out there that's better than a review containing concrit, but if there is, I haven't found it yet. So if you have two minutes and you wouldn't mind? Please? Arigatou. (And concrit is cool. Flames are not.)
Special Thanks/Dedications: This story is for mistressminako.
Once upon a time I was falling in love
Now I'm only falling apart
There's nothing I can do – total eclipse of the heart.
Once upon a time there was light in my life
But now there's only love in the dark
Nothing I can say – total eclipse of the heart.
~ "Total Eclipse of the Heart," Bonnie Tyler
Jack would have sworn he could recognize her anywhere, and so it was something of a blow when he realized who, exactly, was running from him. He tore away from his place in the line walking down the street toward their final destination and pounded after her into a side alley, paying no attention to Yuusei calling his name behind him. He should have caught her easily – his legs were longer and he was a fast runner, if not a graceful one – and the way she easily outstripped him was just another thing to drive home what he hadn't wanted to see.
She rounded a corner and disappeared. Jack stopped – for only a moment, any longer and he'd lose her completely – and glared at the strangely-shaped fork that was going to keep him from finding her. He heard a noise from the left-hand turn, and took it.
" . . . is your arm better?" He kept looking out the window. Satellite – and Yuusei, reunited with his friends and with a brand-new title to boot – lay somewhere in that direction. "Jack?" "What?" She flinched as though struck. "I just wanted to know if you needed anything. For your arm." He turned back to the window. "I'm fine." "Well – let me know, okay? If you need anything – Jack?" He nodded absently, still staring out across the city and the water beyond.
Two years wasn't enough time to forget how to swing and capture; Jack pulled out his borrowed cuffs without even breaking stride. The figure in front of him drew a knife just as expertly as he'd drawn his own weapon, but she didn't stand a chance – Jack had never been entirely sure what Yuusei had made the connecting cable from, but it couldn't be cut with anything less than heavy-duty wire-clippers and a lot of muscle.
She turned around.
Jack thought the sound he heard might have been his heart breaking.
"Aa – " He looked up from his tea. "What?" She blushed faintly. "Nothing. I – I'm sorry I was out today, but I had to go to Security to get a beat-sheet and – " "You have a job. I know that." He drained the rest of his cup, swirled the remains in the very bottom, then put his saucer overtop and flipped it automatically. It wasn't until he'd done it that he realized she was still looking at him. His eyes flickered down to the reversed cup, then back to her face. "It's just something I was taught as a kid. It doesn't mean anything." "You read tea leaves?" Godwin's reaction to Jack's childhood habit had been a condescending kind of amusement; Mikage's, embarrassment, to the point that she no longer even served him with a saucer. This girl actually looked interested. Jack looked away. "It was a game my – guardian – played," he said at last. And then, with no idea why he should continue, "We didn't get tea often, but when we did she'd read our tea leaves." "I always wanted to learn to do that," she murmured. Jack paused, then set his cup on the counter. "Pour a cup. I made half a pot." She watched him as she sipped her own cup. "What do yours say?" "They've said the same thing for the last ten years," he answered. "I'm going to fall in love with a dark girl who looks to the future. I keep waiting for one to turn up." "Aa – " The blush grew more pronounced, and then more still as she realized he'd actually been making a joke, of all the world's wonders. She looked down into her cup, then flipped it the way Jack had. He sat down across the table from her and took it. " . . . you're either going to fall in love or win the lottery. Go buy a ticket and keep things interesting," he said, handing the cup back to her. She turned to put it in the sink and dropped it. Jack got up to deal with the mess – god only knew how badly she'd cut herself if he let her do it. Sometimes he wondered how she survived, living here alone. He didn't recognize it at the time, but the real fortune-cup in the whole matter was the one their hands met over on the floor.
"Don't look at me!"
"Carley – "
She put her hands to her ears. There was something in her face – something other than the red mark under one death-black eye – that had not been there when he'd known her, something that propelled her from "pretty" into a realm of beautiful Jack thought it might be dangerous to enter. Inside his coat, her glasses rested against his chest.
"Carley . . . " He reached for her shoulder. She yanked away from him.
"This is your fault!"
He stared at her. He'd tried – had turned his back when he'd wanted to do anything but – had done everything he could – "
"You weren't there, Jack! You couldn't save me!" There were tears on her face now, running freely down her cheeks. "I couldn't stop . . . "
It was genuinely comedic, the way it happened; she was on her way in to wash her face, he was on his way out after a shower, they just happened to open the door at the same time and run right into each other. She wailed – he threw his hands up to catch both his balance and the much smaller form that was about to hit the floor – and then they were kissing in the hallway just outside the bathroom, Jack's hands still just behind her elbows, her glasses falling out of her hand to land on the carpet by their feet. Two steps and a turn left them standing at her door; another six, and they were sitting on her bed. It occurred to him that doing this kind of thing could completely ruin his reputation, and then he remembered he had no reputation left to lose. The thought was oddly liberating. He pulled away enough to take a breath and rested his forehead against hers. "Jack . . . ?" He raised his eyes to hers. They were dark, and incredibly pretty without her glasses covering them. He'd seen her without them before, but always at a distance that left her staring blankly for lack of focus and never with that kind of intensity. He hadn't been aware Carley could look intense at all. He wondered if she could see his eyes when they were so close, or if they were still a pair of dark blurs in his face to her. He supposed the kiss she gave him – not at all the kind of shrinking-violet peck he would have expected – was answer enough. She could never have dared that kind of forwardness if she thought he'd have a fit over it. He answered the kiss with equal enthusiasm, parting his lips to taste her, winding his fingers into her hair, feeling the press of her body against his chest. He was never entirely sure who pulled who back onto the pillows or reached for the first hemline, but in spite of a nature that demanded full disclosure, it never really bothered him. He had the definite impression that was the way it should be.
"I play Exchange!"
Jack turned his hand, wondering in some dark corner of his mind what would happen if he just let her win. Carley examined his cards.
"Battle Mania."
Jack drew the card and handed it over. He pulled a card from Carley's hand wordlessly. He knew what he had to use it for.
"Turn end."
Jack drew and played. "I summon Fortune Lady Firery."
The adoring crowds that had once watched him play in Domino's stadium might almost have not recognized him, this man in the travel-battered coat, voice pitched low, hurt and shell-shocked eyes on the woman across from him.
"And next I Synchro Summon – Fortune Lady Firery, Small Piece Golem, and Dark Repairer."
Red Demon's Dragon appeared on the field. Jack wondered what he was supposed to do with it; Carley was already swaying on her feet. To know she'd died because of him, not once but twice . . .
"Turn end."
Carley laughed. The insane note in it made Jack want to scream. She drew and played – Swords of Revealing Light. He was perfectly fine with that; he could feel the mark on his arm burning, sometimes more deeply, sometimes receding to a slight, maddening itch. The battle was on, and if he could only stall her long enough for the others to destroy old Momentum then maybe, just possibly, Godwin was wrong and there was still a chance -
"Turn end."
He left her sleeping, the covers pulled up to her shoulders, a smile on her face in sleep for the first time he could remember seeing since he'd come here. She had a habit of falling asleep at the table either in tears or close to it. She was attractive – not beautiful, Jack suspected beautiful would always be just half a step beyond her – but attractive, yes, certainly, when she didn't look ready to fly to pieces at any minute. He nearly stepped on her glasses in the hallway – not that it would have mattered; he hadn't bothered with anything but his jeans when he got up, and the frames were heavy enough to withstand the momentary weight of an uncompleted step from a bare foot. He picked them up and examined them, wondering why on earth anyone with her eyes would hide half her face behind the awkwardly-shaped frames in his hand. A hand came to rest on the back of his still-bare shoulder. "Jack?" He turned just enough to catch the flash of a dressing gown he hadn't known she owned and handed her the glasses. "Here." She slid them on and smiled up at him. "Thank you."
"I play one card facedown. Turn end."
Jack was in the middle of drawing when the world went black. Carley screamed; if Jack had been able to see his own hand in front of his face, he would have been at her side in an instant.
Then he saw it.
In the middle of Satellite, high above the place where the end of the world began, the crimson dragon spread its wings.
There was a low moan behind him. Jack turned. Carley had sunk to her knees, back bent like a penitent in a church.
"Carley!"
The world dissolved in red.
"I'll go to Satellite too!" "No. Don't get any deeper into this." "But I want to know the truth, too!" "When this is all over . . . I promise to tell you everything." Somehow he'd known, walking away, that he would never tell her anything . . . but he'd honestly thought, then, that if anyone didn't come back, it would be him.
"Carley!"
The smile she turned up to him was more than heartbreaking; it was her smile, Carley's smile, the smile she had smiled at him in a hallway three weeks and a thousand years ago. There was a thread of blood at the corner of her lips.
"It's over, Jack."
Jack shook his head as he lifted her back up to sitting. "It's – "
"You won." Carley sighed and closed her eyes. "It hurts, Jack . . . "
His eyes drifted to the Life Point counter on her duel disk. Eight hundred. Neither of them had been doing so well at the end; he'd tried to go easy on her, to draw it out, to keep one last thread of hope, but he was still – had been – the King. Cards that would inflict only minor damage on someone like Carley were not part of his deck.
"There's a doctor – "
"Did you draw?"
"It doesn't matter. I – "
"Did you draw, Jack?"
He smoothed her hair out of her face. "Yes. If you can just hold on until Yuusei and the others come – "
"I activate a trap."
Jack stared at her. Carley opened her eyes. She found his hand and brought it up to kiss his fingers.
"Battle Mania."
Jack had never been on the receiving end of his own dragon's attack before. The geoglyph had faded, but as far as Jack was concerned it might as well still have been all around them. Carley's life counter dropped to zero.
"Whose are those?" Jack stuffed the glasses hastily back into his coat. "Nobody's." Yuusei gave him the kind of look normally reserved for a five year old with crumbs all down his front who disclaimed any knowledge of what happened to the cookies. "Jack . . . " He sighed. "They belong to this girl . . . from the city. Go ahead. Laugh." "I didn't know you had a girlfriend." "I don't." "Jack . . . " "How's Aki doing?" The look Yuusei bestowed on him could have cracked stone, but at least he stopped pressing the matter. "Where is she now?" "Wouldn't I like to know." Yuusei laid a hand on Jack's shoulder. Beneath his palm, the memory of a smaller hand still lingered. "We'll find her if we have to go through every tunnel in old Momentum ourselves. I promise."
"Leave him be."
If it took this long for Yuusei to drag his ass anywhere these days then it would have been hopeless even if Carley hadn't sacrificed herself, Jack thought bitterly. He left his face buried in her hair. She had been living – for lack of a better word – with the other Dark Signers beneath old Momentum, in a place where nobody had gone for years; and so, of course, her hair still smelled of the fabric softener she used on her bed linen. Jack wondered – in a very absent kind of way – if she'd ever gotten around to changing the sheets after. His hand found hers – so small, and so cold now – and he slid his fingers through hers, twining them together.
And then, as his tears finally started to fall, he whispered against her hair the thing he had never had the chance to say.