Disclaimer: I don't own Yugioh. End of story.

A/N: Yes, I did retire from this fandom -- but this story begged to be written. Go figure.

These days he can be found in the window seat with paper, pencil and two decks of dueling cards, mapping out stratagems. Witnesses have helped him in his obsessive quest to record every move in his last match. Now he sits, spreads his own and his opponent's cards across the cushion, and painstakingly goes through the list of turns. He did this; I did that. If I had done something else there . . .

Over and over, he lists everything he could have done differently, how the other might have responded, the entirely new faces the duel could have taken on. He keeps a tally of how many lead to his victory: so many. So many ways I could have changed it. For as it turns out, victory for him would have meant victory for his opponent as well.

Had Yugi won that duel, Joey's soul would be intact. And Yugi is convinced that , with the aid of his spirit companion, the match with Pegasus would have played out very differently. Perhaps they could have had it all.

If only I had done it right!

Today they are finally taking the bandages off, and all she can think about is the day she went into surgery. Incidentally, this was also the day they told her that her brother had become a vegetable.

Cold metal presses against her temple as the doctor cuts through the gauze. When the bandages fall from her eyes, Serenity can see again. With a few blinks she brings the room into sharp focus, her vision clearer than it has been in years.

All this possibility – the world opened up before her – and the question spills from her lips – "Now will you tell me who paid?"

"I can handle it," she insists when they trade glances. Really she is thinking that someone finally got in touch with long-lost aunt Harriet, or maybe Grandma won the lottery, or cousin Mel got a promotion. A big one. It's possible.

They give her the name, and Serenity is forced to admit that she was not expecting a total stranger.

The first place that Serenity and her mother go in Domino is to the hospital, to visit the shell that was once her only brother. The second place is a modest house in a middle-class neighborhood, following the address a kind nurse back home wrote down for them. Her mother wants to accompany her to the door, but Serenity insists on going alone.

A tiny boy answers the door, sucking his thumb, and looks at her expectantly. Serenity clears her throat. "Is your father home?"

"Don't got no father," he says around his thumb.

"Oh." A stepfather, then? Boyfriend? "I, um, I'm looking for Mr. Motou. Is he here?"

"No Mr. Motou here."

Serenity checks the address and says, "Are you sure, sweetie?"

"Who is it, Matty?" A matronly woman bustles up and pats the boy on the head. "Hello, dear, how can I help you?"

"I'm looking for Mr. Motou," Serenity repeats patiently.

For a moment the woman seems confused. "Mr. . . oh, you mean Yugi." At Serenity's strange look she adds, "This is a foster home, you know; none of my children have the same last name, so it's a bit difficult keeping track . . . come in, come in."

Children? Serenity follows her indoors, since she has no other option; but she is thinking that this is the wrong house after all.

The girl has red hair and a nervous smile, and she reminds him of Tea for no reason other than that she is a girl and she is visiting him. Yugi gets off the window seat, careful not to disturb the cards, and comes forward to shake her hand, since it seems the polite thing to do. "Hi."

"Hi." She laughs, embarrassed. "I . . . I'm Serenity. I was looking for someone, but I think I must have the wrong address . . . "

He isn't listening anymore. He is scanning her features, trying to pick out any that mark her as Joey's sister. "You're Serenity Wheeler?"

She stops midsentence and stares at him. "I – you – yes, I am – how – " He opens his mouth to reply, but she cuts him off. "It was you!"

"It was me what?"

"You paid for my operation. For my eyes."

Right, he thinks. That.

"That's why I'm here," Serenity prattles on. "Wheelers don't accept charity; that's what my mother says, and I'll pay you back somehow – I meant to work it off, but – "

When he registers what she is saying, he shakes his head vehemently. "Don't pay me back." He is about to explain that it wasn't really his money, but Serenity is surveying him with narrowed eyes.

"Mr. Motou – "

"Yugi."

"Yugi, then." She blinks a lot. "Why on earth would you just – give – so much – to a total stranger? I mean – "

"Listen to me!" Yugi finally snaps, and she falls silent. He closes his eyes and breathes deeply, wishing he could retreat to his window seat and his cards. "I gave you the money," he says slowly, "Because it was really Joey's, and that's what he wanted. That's all."

Serenity looks at him skeptically. "My brother never had that much money. In fact – " She stops short, comprehension dawning belatedly. "You knew Joey?"

He nods. "He was my best friend."

"Wow," she murmurs. "Just . . . wow." She comes around to sink onto his window seat.

Yugi's blood pounds in his ears as the cards scatter over the floor and slide into the dip of the cushion – Joey's cards, the play he has so carefully recreated. "Don't!" he grinds out fiercely, falling to his knees to retrieve the mess of monsters and traps, careful to keep Joey's separate from his own.

"Sorry," she says quietly. "Umm . . . what are those?"

"Duel Monsters cards," he replies, irritated.

"Oh. I've heard of those. You play?"

Obviously she wants to change the subject. "I do," Yugi says shortly. "So did your brother."

"Really?" Serenity looks interested. "Was he any good?"

"Yes." He fingers the cards in his hands. "He was taught by the best."

"Who?"

"My grandfather." Yugi stands and finds the rest of the cards, carefully assembling first Joey's deck, then his own.

Serenity's large eyes follow him with an unexpected understanding. "You taught him too, didn't you?"

The student surpasses the teacher, Yugi thinks to himself, and does not answer.

"What happened to your grandfather?" she wants to know.

Yugi swallows. "The same thing that happened to your brother."

"Oh," she says quietly. "I'm sorry." After a moment she adds, "Sort of funny, isn't it? All these people going brain dead at once. I heard it happened to some CEO or other – "

"Brain dead?" Yugi repeats.

"Upper brain," she clarifies and smiles wryly. "I asked so many doctors about it that I think I know everything there is to – "

"My grandfather isn't brain dead," he interrupts. "And neither is Joey."

Serenity shrinks back against the window. "What are you talking about?"

"How much do you know," he says carefully, "about what happened to your brother?"

"I . . . they wouldn't tell me how . . . "

"Okay," Yugi says softly. He cannot think of a way out. "Okay. I'll have to tell you then."

So he tells her.

He starts at the beginning, when his grandfather was taken, and narrates all the way to the championship duel before starting to lose control. His voice fades away, but he does not notice he has stopped until Serenity takes his arm and leads him to the refuge of the window seat. "Go on," she whispers. "I want to know."

Then she cuts him off after his halting description of his own and Joey's opening moves. "Yugi, I don't understand anything you're saying. Who won the damn duel?"

Yugi stares at her for a moment, he mouth moving wordlessly, then croaks, "Joey did."

Serenity smiles, delighted. "My brother the champion!" Slowly her smile fades, slips away. "So how . . . "

"The money was his," Yugi says dully, "and that's all he wanted. But he also won the chance to duel Pegasus. And Pegasus was angry . . . "

He forces all emotion from his voice as he tells her how tall and proud Joey stepped onto that dueling platform, how cautiously he played. "I got this far," he had told Yugi beforehand. "I can't lose it all now."

He has replayed everything in his mind since they returned home – everything except these moments, the ones he has been trying to erase. For the first time he wonders exactly how much Joey knew about what he was getting into.

The emotion he has kept from his voice leaks back through as he comes to the end of the painfully short duel. Pegasus seemed almost to play with Joey, up until the moment when he dismantled his strategy in a few swift moves. Yugi quietly relives the shock on his friend's face; the quick, only half-scared glance at himself and the others in the balcony; the way his whole body froze as Joey crumpled to the floor. The casual way Pegasus threw back his head and laughed, that ominous, mounting laugh that even now haunts Yugi's dreams.

"They . . . they gave me the prize money," he says, swiping at the wetness on his cheeks. "Said I was the runner-up, so it was mine. I said, what about his family; and they said, that's not how we do things. So I – I looked up your hospital, and I gave it to you myself."

Serenity is sitting on the floor in front of him now, tears streaming freely down her face. "Isn't there anything – "

A strangled sob escapes from Yugi: this is exactly why he did not contact the Wheelers directly. He is not sure they will realize that he would do anything, anything, to reverse what happened. "No!" he chokes, pleading. "Pegasus – his body was found a day later washed up on the shore. Without him – he's the only one who can bring them back. Joey – and my grandfather – and the Kaibas . . . "

She reaches out and fingers the cushion, her arm the beginning of a link between herself and him, as she considers this. "So all that's really changed," she says slowly, "is that now I know how it happened. And someone was there – someone who cared about him. You were there for him."

"I – " Yugi has never thought of it that way; all he sees is his failure. "Not really – "

"You were in the balcony," she persists gently. "He looked at you. Right? He knew you were there." Standing, Serenity scrubs at her cheeks. "That's good. Sorry, I didn't expect this to be so – well . . . Thank you. You still didn't have to give me the money, you know. A lot of people would have kept it."

"A lot of people aren't Joey's best friend," he returns, standing also. "It was really all in the family."

Pleased, Serenity giggles and rummages in her purse for pen and a scrap of paper. "Keep in touch, then," she remarks, scribbling down her number. As she straightens to give it to him, she sees that he has something for her as well.

"You should keep this," Yugi says awkwardly, holding out Joey's dueling deck.

Slowly she flips over the top card and closely examines this piece of her brother. The picture is slightly disturbing; the rest of it is unintelligible to her eyes. She returns it to the stack and presses the whole thing into Yugi's hand. "All in the family," she reminds him. "I don't know a thing about this game. Just as well his brother keeps it as his sister."

He blinks hard and draws the deck close. "Thank you."

Serenity smiles tearfully and hands him her number. "No. Thank you."

As she is leaving, Serenity is actually knocked over by the same little boy in his haste to get to Yugi. Bawling loudly, he slams into Yugi's legs and clings.

Serenity pulls herself up and lingers in the doorway, watching as Yugi crouches to comfort his charge. "Shh, Matty. What happened?"

"Karla called me 'norphan agin," the boy sniffles. "She says I ain't got nobody to love me no more!"

Yugi closes his eyes briefly, then catches Serenity's gaze. "But I love you," he tells Matty firmly. "And your mom and dad love you very much. They just can't be with you anymore, that's all." He straightens, patting the boy's head abstractedly, and goes to his desk with Matty attached to his jacket like a limpet. Hesitantly he pulls open a drawer and places that precious stack of cards inside, but he cannot bring himself to shut the drawer, shut the deck off from the light.

Understanding, Serenity walks across to him, her footsteps loud in the near silence. She pushes the drawer slowly, leaving enough of a crack that sunlight illuminates half a card back. Then she links her arm through his with a smile. "Aren't you going to introduce me to our little brother?"

-finis-

Please R&R. 30 seconds. Drop a line. 'Twould be much appreciated.