Disclaimer: Indomitably not mine.

A/N: This is a request fic for SkyknightXi, who wanted 'exhausted Anzu' with the proviso that it could be mental or physical exhaustion. Of course, me being me, I went for both. Incidentally, the line about library books is what my mother genuinely said when she got the same news.

Important Note: This is part of the Ships Sailing series, which started with the fic A Ship Sailing Over the Edge of the World, a fic set some years into the future of the YGO universe, in which Anzu returned to Domino from New York with some important news for her friends. It was a weepy fic, and gave birth to a pretty weepy series. This fic contains spoilers, and probably won't make much sense unless you've read the first one. You can find links and summaries for the whole series at obabscribbler. livejournal. com/425690. html

Postcard from the Edge of the World

© Scribbler, September 2008.

If children have the ability to ignore all odds and percentages, then maybe we can all learn from them. When you think about it, what other choice is there but to hope? We have two options, medically and emotionally: give up, or fight like hell. -- Lance Armstrong

Dear Jounouchi,

They say there's nothing to do in hospital except sleep or die. Personally I'd like to smack whoever said that right in the chops and tell them not to be so depressing – like the people who have to stay here need to be brought down any lower? Unfortunately, whoever they are, they're partly right. There's very little to do in this place if you don't like watching daytime soaps or sleeping, especially if you don't have visitors. Which I don't. And I can see you imagining yourself plying the world's smallest violin, so stop it.

Gotcha. Freaked out yet?

That was a very weird way to start a letter, wasn't it? Still, it sounds better than 'if I die, this is what I want you to know'. I'm kind of hoping it'll never come to that, but my counsellor's one of those people who tells you things you don't want to hear, and she's really big on positive thinking, but also getting closure Just In Case.

Bah, humbug. I don't want any 'just in case'. The only case I want is a suitcase when I'm well enough to come to Domino and see you guys. But here I am anyway. Apparently my wishes don't count for much anymore. I have a needle in my arm filling me full of drugs, I've finished my book, my music player has no juice left in its batteries and I'm trying to look busy so the woman next to me doesn't try to tell me all the gory details about her prolapsed womb. Again. For the third time. She also has dementia, so she thinks I'm her daughter Laurie. Fun, fun, fun on the Fun Town Express.

Man, I really am bad at writing letters. If you're reading this, you probably don't want to hear about Mrs. Voinovich's undercarriage. Because if you're reading this it either means you're really, really old and I've brought this down from some trunk in the attic, and you're more worried about your own undercarriage these days; or else it means that special run of luck we've been enjoying ran out for me when we defeated Zorc and escaped that collapsing tomb in Egypt.

When they told me I had cancer I didn't react the way they thought I would. At least, that's the impression I got from the doctor's expression when I said, "So you're telling me I shouldn't check out any long-term library books?" I couldn't help it. I deal with stressful news by making stupid comments or crying. You've seen me. I bawled like a baby when we got Yuugi back in Atlantis. Everything was coming down around our ears and Dartz was still out to get us, so we should've been running for our lives, and all I could do was cry and hang onto Yuugi like … well, like we'd nearly lost him for good. It was kind of like if I let go, I was convinced he'd vanish. You understand, don't you? You were there.

But no way did I feel like crying in the hospital when they gave me the news. Mostly I felt kind of angry, though I couldn't tell you who I was angry with. Maybe nobody. Maybe everyone - everything. It wasn't fair, me getting sick when I'd just made it into a professional company as more than a member of the corps. I was on my way to becoming a real ballerina, so of course that was whenmy body decided it was the perfect time to throw a hissy fit and start growing tumours.

You're probably asking yourself why I'm writing to you, of all people. You are, aren't you Jounouchi? Why am I writing to you and not Yuugi, or Yami?

The simple answer is that I don't know. When the nurse gave me this pad and pen I just started writing, and yours is the name my hand came up with. It's kind of weird, actually. I guess even I expected I'd be addressing this to Yuugi. But no, it's you I'm writing to. Maybe I'll write to them later. If this course of treatment doesn't work out … well I may be writing a lot of these 'things I want you to know' letters.

Yuck, what a gloomy thought. Positive thinking, Mazaki. If you can keep your head when all those are you are losing theirs, then … something-something. It's a really famous quote. Which I can't remember. Some dead British guy said it.

Phooey. Just pretend I said something witty and inspiring and positive. Because we have to be positive. We can't be negative. No, no negative thoughts here, just us positive visions of the future. It's the power of positive thinking at work! Look at me, sticking to my counselling plan! My positive counselling plan.

I think I'm getting way too cynical.

Where oh where did all my naïveté go? I guess a lot of it got swallowed by the Millennium Items and all the problems that came with them, but I hung on to a lot until that moment in Doctor Mariposa's office (yes, my doctor really is a woman called Doctor Daffodil Mariposa, and yes, it actually is her real name. And Americans say Japanese names are weird). Naïveté is like everything else good in life – you don't realise you've got it until you haven't anymore, and when it's gone it's the only thing you really want.

Well, that's not strictly true. what I really, truly want right now is to have never got cancer, but being a little more naïve about the harshness of life comes a close second.

Aw, are we wracking our liddle brains tryin' to figure out what the big word with the funny letters means? Say it with me – naïveté. N-a-ï-v-e-t-é. Do you know that word, Jounouchi? It means the state or quality of being inexperienced or innocent, especially in being artless, credulous, or uncritical; or an artless, credulous, or uncritical statement or act.

Yes, I have dictionary in my bedside cabinet. My spoken English may be great, but I can still be caught out by written stuff and I want to be able to understand what these doctors are writing in the notes hooked on the end on my bed.

Wow, I'm great at wandering when I write. I don't usually have time to just sit and write a letter. Emails are so much easier. I sent you one of those this morning. I'm sorry about that. I'm sorry about lying to you, telling you I'm great and everything's fine. I haven't even mentioned I'm in hospital. But by this time next month I'll be out and it will all be fine. Then I can put all this behind me like a bad dream from eating too much cheese late at night. I can pretend it was another one of our old Movie Nights, when we were in high school and we'd all go round to Yuugi's, eat pizza and watch videos and DVDs, then fall asleep scattered about the sofa until Grandpa woke us all up to go home. Except that mostly, towards the end, he just covered us over with blankets and called our parents to say where we were, and I got to experience the truly horrific sight and smell of you and your breath first thing in the morning. I still have nightmares about that. We said Movie Nights were for helping Yami acclimatise to life in the modern world now he didn't have Yuugi's memories to look at whenever he wanted to know something, but I think we all knew it was just an excuse to hang out and have fun doing not much of anything before exams and graduation.

I miss all that. I miss you guys most of all. It's scary, being here in New York while all this is going on. My mom's flying out next week with her boyfriend, but they can't stay indefinitely, and I'm … I'm not ready to come back to Japan yet. I have a life out here, and no stupid cancer is going to make me give that up just when I'm starting to achieve my dreams. I love my dancing. I need my dancing. Without you guys or my family here, dancing is the only thing keeping me sane. I don't know how I'd bear it if it turned out I couldn't do it anymore.

That said, I haven't danced all week; not even in the street. I do that sometimes. People must think I'm insane, but you know when you get a song stuck in your head and you start humming it? I do that, but I start dancing too, no matter where I am. At least it makes people avoid me on the subway, and I'm never short of vacant seats. Ha ha. And we're not just talking a few shuffly steps, Jounouchi. Oh, no, no, no, no. we're talking the works – full ballet mode from apartment to subway, and tap or krumping on my way home in the evenings. I'm the only girl on my block who krumps and call pull off a mean pirouette.

Do you remember that time I tried to teach you to dance in time for prom? You were so pitiful and grumpy when you finally asked for help. I snuck you into Miss Odori's dance studio so you could see what you were doing in all the mirrors. You stood on my feet so many times, and whenever I yelled, you just yelled right back at me. I thought you were such an ungrateful bozo, until you met me at the changing room door afterwards. You had band-aids and cotton wool, and you held my shoes while I put them on my poor feet. You'd run to the store and back so fast you nearly broke the sound barrier. Then you took me out for ramen to say sorry and thank you without having to actually say the words. You big lughead.

My hand hurts. Today has taken way more out of me than I expected. It's not like I've been doing any strenuous exercise, but I'm so tired all the time now. Still, that's okay. It means the treatment is taking effect.

That's what I keep telling myself. It's what I have to keep telling myself. I can get through this. I can, because if I do it means I get to see all you guys again – you and Yuugi and Honda, plus Otogi and Bakura and Mai and … damn it, yes even the Kaiba Brothers. I want to come back to Domino and watch you and Mai argue and make-up again every day. I want Honda to try explaining stuff to me about his bike that I'll never understand because I can't tell a carburettor from a tailpipe. I want to watch Yami trying to work the toaster, or the phone, and laugh with Yuugi about how he can bargain his way back from the afterlife but still hate the TV in case it sucks out his soul. I want to see Otogi pretending he doesn't want to ask me where I got my new playing-card-earrings, and I want to watch Bakura eat three bags of cream puffs in one sitting without stopping or throwing up. I want to see what kind of man Mokuba Kaiba turns into. I bet he'll be much nicer than his lousy brother. That said, I want to see Seto Kaiba's face when Yami beats him in yet another contest. I want to see Shizuka qualify as a doctor and tell her all the things she should and shouldn't do to make her patients feel better, the way my doctors have done for me. And I want to see you letting go of the tough guy mask when she gets her qualification and acting like the gooshy big brother we all know you are.

But most of all, what I want more than anything is to just be with you guys again. I want to just hang out with you and talk about … anything, really. All the stuff I can't talk about with my mom, or the other dancers in my troupe, or anyone else here in New York. I want to talk about how I came out on top in my own personal battle, and later confess about how this was so, so much scarier than being tied to that chair at Battle City.

I never told my mom about any of that. Man, I felt so guilty covering up all that chafing on my wrists from the handcuffs, especially when she bought me a new top with short sleeves and I refused to wear it. She was really hurt, but what could I say? Sorry, Mom, but the injuries I received while being used in a death match devised by a mentally unstable teenage boy with a magic stick would look really bad with purple cotton?

Battle City was scary. So were all those other fights – Dartz and his goons, the Oricalchos, Zorc and the darkness and ... argh, everything. Hel-lo, end of the world on the table? Fighting for the survival of the whole human race and the Dominion of the Beasts? Trying to keep the whole of history intact?

But at the same time, they were less scary than this because at least we could be active. I'm no great duellist, but I did my part, and I knew you guys would keep fighting and win against Malik. Nothing ever shook my faith in that, or in you. Yes, even you, Jounouchi. Just don't let your head swell from me saying that.

But nobody's going to win against an illness by using cards. Even if Yami was still tied to the Millennium Puzzle instead of living in his own body and piggybacking on Yuugi's life force, I don't think his magic could do anything to help me. And that's scary, you know? Yami's the guy who saved the world – multiple times – but I know in my heart that there's nothing he could do against the Big C. I also know that would tear him up inside. Yuugi, too. They both blame themselves for things beyond their control, and they do it way too easily. It's one of the reasons I've kept quiet about this so far. I'm on the other side of the world and don't want to wreck things for all of you when there's nothing you could do anyway. And it would wreck things, because I know you'd all drop your lives and head on over here the moment you heard, and I don't want that.

Well, I kind of do, but it'd be too selfish. This is going to go on for months, and no way could I forgive myself for disrupting your lives for that long. Friends don't let friends spend all their money on airfare and lose their jobs because they won't go home in time to clock in on Monday morning.

You've been keeping an eye on Yuugi and Yami while I've been away, haven't you? Not letting them go all miserable about stuff they can't change? And Bakura, too. You're making sure he's eating right and not hiding himself away in his apartment, feeling guilty over stuff that wasn't his fault, aren't you?

You need to watch out for that sort of thing too, Jounouchi. If things don't go well for me, that's one of the major things I want you to know. Quit beating yourself up about the past. You're a really good person, and you've proved that more times than you've done dumb stuff. You're not the same guy who worked with Hirutani, and I think you accept that; but you're not the guy who refused to acknowledge Mai as his friend either, and I get the feeling that's something you haven't truly accepted yet.

Mai gave up her soul trying to force Dartz to give yours back. She basically went on a suicide mission, right into his lair, and she knew exactly what she was doing but did it anyway. And yea, she might not have told you she was going to ride off into the sunset, but she came back to you, Jounouchi. She was a wreck, travelled the world to find herself, spent months looking for some kind of peace and spiritual enlightenment, and she came back to you. Read into that. Get your brain into gear. That means even more than you realise.

Ah, here we go. I can see the nurse who's due to take this thing out of my arm. Good thing, too. I can barely keep my eyes open. What are they putting in this stuff – Essence of Hit By A Truck? I feel like I could sleep for a week. But I can't leave this unfinished. It's a letter, and letters are like stories: they need to be finished.

I love you, Jounouchi. Not in a romantic way –ugh, no – but still very much. I love you the way I love Mai, or Shizuka. You're all a family now, or as good as, and I like being a part of that. I know I yell at you a lot and boss you around, even in emails with my CAPSLOCK OF DOOM, but if it came down to it, and I needed help, I know I could count on you. Right now, when I need to find extra strength from somewhere, that means more to me than you'll ever know.

Maybe that's why I chose to write this to you. You were the guy who became the kind of friend Yuugi always needed and pretended he had in me. You're a much better friend than I was at the beginning, because you've never lied to him. I'm not proud of the way my friendship with Yuugi started, but I'm glad it did start, and if I was jealous of you when it seemed like you swept in and did so much better what I was supposed to be doing … well, I guess it was all for the best. If it hadn't been for that I might have gone on the way I was, and I'm so much happier with the way things turned out – even if it did mean more life-threatening apocalyptic battles than I bargained for when I broke his Gameboy. Thank you for reminding me of what I had in Yuugi, even if it took losing my title as his 'best friend' to you in to make me realise it.

And if you do get this letter before you're eighty, promise me you won't hate me too much for lying in the first part, because there's no way I'll be sending it myself. I'm sorry. I just want you to know that.

Love from,

Anzu

xxxx

"Jounouchi?" Mai tapped on the door. "You've been in there for ages. Are you all right?"

A muffled noise came back to her. It sounded almost like someone was choking.

Mai frowned. "I'm coming in," she warned, wrapping her fingers around the doorknob and turning it. "Last chance to tell me to leave you -" She froze. "-alone. Jounouchi?"

He was on the bed, cross-legged up by the headboard, which was weird in itself as he always sprawled everywhere. Sitting in an armchair, standing in line at the bank, lying in front of the TV – Jounouchi was always long-limbed and outspread like a plate of spilled spaghetti. Now, however, it seemed like he was deliberately trying to take up as little room as possible.

"What's wrong?" Mai immediately moved to sit beside him, twisting awkwardly so that her legs pointed away from the bed but her torso faced him. She took his face in her hands and turned it towards her, seeing with alarm that there were tears in his eyes, as well as that truculent expression that meant he was trying his hardest not to let them fall.

"She asked me not to hate her," he bit out. "Can you believe it? All those lies while she was so sick, and she was giving me advice on how to be true to myself, and then she asked me not to … not to … Oh, shit." He tried to yank his face out of Mai's hands, but she refused to let go.

"You're not making any sense."

"Here." He thrust something at her. "Apparently it was in her will that these things got mailed after her funeral."

Mai took the letter gingerly. Jounouchi looked away from her the whole time she was reading. By the time she'd finished there was a hard lump rising from Mai's stomach into her gullet. It felt like she'd swallowed a hot coal and was now trying to vomit it back up, inch by burning inch – word by burning word.

"Oh, Anzu," she said at the end, unable to think of what else to say.

"Bitch," Jounouchi rasped. His hands were balanced on his knees. They tightened convulsively into fists, clenching and unclenching in time with his ragged breathing. It was clear he was holding himself together by a thread. "Fucking bitch."

"You don't mean that."

"I do."

"You don't."

"I fucking do. I hate her. I wish … I wish …" Suddenly all the tension went out of him and he slumped forward, hands in his face and hair, elbows juddering on his knees. "I wish she was still here so I could yell at her."

Mai had never been very good with emotional displays. Her old approach used to be running away or pretending she couldn't care less, but she'd grown up a lot in the last few years. Ever since she met Jounouchi and his friends, actually.

So she didn't try to get away from his pain, or try to excuse herself to be alone with her own after reading the letter. Instead, she put the paper aside, shifted around so she was kneeling beside Jounouchi on the bed, and held him. It wasn't a hug, just a gentle hold that turned into a rocking motion as his grief, which had been building inside him since he got the news about Anzu's death, finally found a release.

"You're probably gonna get one of these fucking letters too," Jounouchi said into her shoulder.

"Maybe." The idea that she would get something so personal and tragic sent a spike of terror through Mai, but she shoved them away. That didn't matter right now. Jounouchi was what mattered now.

"I should burn the damn thing."

"Hm."

"I don't mean that."

"I know."

"I don't … I don't hate her, either."

"I know that, too."

"But I'm still really, really pissed at her."

"Wasn't that how you spent most of your time whenever you two were around each other?"

He didn't reply.

Mai nodded, a lock of blonde hair falling across her face and sticking to her lip-gloss. She didn't push it away.

"I … think I wanna read it again."

"Okay." She finally released him and made as if to get off the bed, but he caught her wrist.

"No," he said quietly, his tone the complete opposite of what it had been when she walked in. "Stay."

Mai hesitated a moment, before settling beside him to re-read the words Anzu had written months ago, in an entirely different country, in what felt, to them, like an entirely different lifetime.

I love you, Jounouchi. Not in a romantic way – ugh, no – but still very much. I love you the way I love Mai, or Shizuka. You're all a family now, or as good as, and I like being a part of that. I know I yell at you a lot and boss you around, even in emails with my CAPSLOCK OF DOOM, but if it came down to it, and I needed help, I know I could count on you. Right now, when I need to find extra strength from somewhere, that means more to me than you'll ever know.

"Stupid idiot," Jounouchi mumbled. "Getting all sappy. She sounds like something from one of those romance movies she made us watch when it was her turn to choose on Movie Night." His voice was back to harsh and grating, his words bitten out angrily. Mai knew he would continue to swing from mood to mood until his feelings burned themselves out and he could soft through the ashes to find some semblance of peace with what had happened – and with himself.

Jounouchi never got to say goodbye to Anzu. When she died, she'd promised to call him back to arrange a meeting sometime. Mai knew that was eating away at him. The last time he'd seen her alive was before she found out she was sick. The sight of her body, bald beneath her headscarf, and so wasted and thin compared to the vibrant girl he'd known, had affected him badly. Ridiculous guilt that he should've known something was wrong was his constant companion, even though there was no way he could have. There was no way any of them could have known Anzu was keeping secrets from them.

Mai's eyeballs felt hot and dry.

"She always tortured us with those damn things. And if it wasn't sappy, crappy romance it was dance movies. Do you know how many times I had to watch Footloose because of her? Or, worst of all, it was dance movies with romance in them. I wanted to put a pillow over my own face half the time."

Mai didn't respond. When two spots of water landed on the page, she didn't say a word, just laced her fingers with his and held tight until he finally squeezed back.

Fin.