Disclaimer:

I barely own myself, and therefore cannot own Yu-Gi-Oh. I'm actually quite content with that, too.

Author's Notes:

All right, this story began last summer (you can see that in the publishing dates). I was working at a summer camp, and the kids had gone wild over Ceremony of Dolls. They wanted another story, and I really wanted to write about my favorite pairing: Tristan Taylor and Serenity Wheeler. I was asked repeatedly why, if I was going to write something sappy, hadn't I picked Joey and Mai. The answer is simple: I adore that pairing, but I think Tristan and Serenity are more subtle and adorable. People who support the Duke/Serenity pairing actually scare me, because it tells me that they never saw Enter the Shadow Realm. Honestly, she belongs with Tristan!

Anyway...the original story had problems. I was never happy with it. So, when I organized my writing and editing schedules, this story made its way very quickly onto the writing list as rewriting opportunity. This weekend, I sat down with the old draft and started writing. It absolutely amazed me when two and a half pages of unresolvable mess became a six page story in need of a sweet wrap-up. Hopefully, I've fixed the issues in the original story and provided a suitable ending. I don't know. I'll let you be the judge of that.

One last thought, does it strike anyone else as a bit odd that as a general rule across the fandom, Serenity Wheeler is portrayed as a bookish girl. She hasn't had her sight in a very long time, and yet we all seem to envision her surrounded by the books she couldn't read for a long time. Did I just answer my own question?

The Card Catalog

"Fours fours! Beat that, Tristan!" Joey triumphantly threw his cards down.

"What? No way!" Tristan threw his own cards down in disgust. He couldn't even remember why he had agreed to play poker with Joey anyway. When Yugi walked into the main area of the game shop carrying a box almost as large as himself, he had no further difficulties with his memory.

The smaller teen started laughing as he set down the box. He could hear his best friend drawing Tristan into an argument. It never failed. Regardless of whether or not he won, Joey inevitably managed to start a fight over the game.

Yugi looked over to the counter where Tea was doing her part to help clean up the game shop. He couldn't help but notice that behind her annoyed look, she was on the verge of laughing at their friends herself.

Solomon Moto returned to the main floor of his game shop, and was quite pleased with the work his grandson and the one girl in the group had done. His wise eyes swept across the game store until they came to rest on the two boys who had been distracted from cleaning up the shop when the darker-haired one had discovered a standard deck of playing cards. The older man would have been upset, but Yugi's friends were much like grandchildren to him.

In his grandfatherly voice, he reminded the pain that they needed to pick up their game, "The regulars should start coming in soon."

This provoked an odd reaction from Tristan. "What time is it?"

"Since when have you ever been concerned with time?" Tea asked, resting her chin on her hand. She had just finished stocking the last of the Duel Monsters decks, and she was beat.

Joey good-naturedly elbowed the brunette in the ribs, "Tristan's probably got himself a hot date! Right, buddy?"

He chuckled quietly, unable to bring himself to meet his friend's eyes, "Yeah...right..." If Joey had any idea who he was going to meet, Tristan knew his life would be forfeit. It seemed best to just let the blond believe what he wanted to believe. "So, what time is it?"

"It almost three," Yugi pointed to the clock by the front door of the shop.

Tristan snarled. "Great! I'm going to be late!" Quickly gathering his belongings, he flew out the door, leaving his friends confused and bewildered. "See you guys later!"

As the door closed behind him, the three remaining just looked at each other blankly. Silence settled over them for a few moments before Tea finally spoke, "Did that seem odd to anybody else?"

Yugi and Joey just nodded.

Tristan made his way across town to the Domino Library, arriving a few minutes after three. He parked his motorcycle and fished something out of his backpack- a well-worn card no bigger than an index card. He'd found it in his locker that morning, wrapped up in a piece of paper that had the words, "Today. 3:00pm" typed on it.

At first, he was confused. What was so special about today at three o'clock? Looking at the enclosed card only made matters worse. It was typed in the style of an old catalog card, leading Tristan to suspect he knew who had left it for him. He had one very special friend with a love of libraries and bookstores, especially now that her sight had been fully restored. The fact that she left him this cryptic note just amused him.

What frustrated him no end, though, was the riddle written on the card. She had left him a riddle. It had taken him a few hours to solve even part of it. Even then, he hadn't managed to solve all of it. The first part of the riddle seemed to point to the Domino Library.

So, here he stood feeling lost in the library, the clock over the circulation desk showing the time as 3:06pm.

He looked at the card again. It said something about a rabbit. Immediately, he thought of Peter Cottontail. Finally having a real direction, he wandered into the children's library. He found the books quickly enough, but nothing around them. No clue of what he was supposed to do next. No sign of her.

Perhaps she left, since I ran late, he thought to himself. The idea was ridiculous, he realized. She was one of the most patient people he knew. She'd have to be to put up willingly with her sibling, even if she rarely saw him.

Frustrated, Tristan sat down at the end of the stacks with an unseemly thud. Some little girls playing with the nearby puppet theater giggled at him.

Oh, haha. Very funny, he thought as he rested his head on his knees. Over the girls' laughter, he heard another laugh. A very distinctive laugh. A familiar laugh. In a heartbeat, he was on his feet and following the sound. He never found the source of the laughter, but he found himself facing another rabbit. A velveteen rabbit, to be exact.

He picked up the book and thumbed through it, thinking it somehow appropriate. She had, at one point, a bad illness. He'd spent a lot of time with her while she was recovering from the surgery that corrected that disorder.

As he reminisced, a card fell out of the book. Warily, he picked it up and stared at it. It was typed in the same style as the first card. "Great!" he muttered. The first card had taken him hours to decode. He wondered how long he'd have to figure out this one.

It then occurred to him that he hadn't found this card on his own. She had led him to it when he couldn't find it on his own. Reading the new card again, he resolved to find the answer himself this time. He'd show her that he could play her game.

The riddle on the card felt obvious, but confused him greatly. It referred to an animal he should have felt a strong kinship with, or at least what it had been at its core. Tristan thought long and hard. What was she talking about?

Almost on their own, his feet started leading him through the library, his eyes catching a few titles as he passed. One shelf in the nonfiction section caught his attention, though. It was filled with books on robotics.

He couldn't look at anything related to robotics without flinching. His brief period trapped in the body of a robot monkey had left a bad taste in his mouth. Thinking back over that nightmare, he realized what she was referring to. It made him smile to think that she looked at those same events with a certain degree of fondness.

I sacrificed myself for her, and she took care of me while I was trapped. It was just one more thing that made her special to him.

Looking back over the books, he wondered which one he meant. He looked at the card again, hoping for some kind of clue. What he found was unexpected and very useful. He raced toward the fiction section, chastised by two librarians along the way.

Arriving at his destination, he quickly found what he was looking for: a science fiction book whose title aptly described most of his time in the virtual realm. He pulled the book from the shelf and opened it. As expected, another card fell out.

This new card baffled Tristan no end. There was nothing he could figure out, no clue to direct him to the right section, even. The card just made no sense.

He decided to wander the library for inspiration. His feet soon found their way to the library's cafe. He'd always thought this was a pretty spot, the kind of spot he'd love to share with her. The cafe had been built on an enclosed bridge overlooking a garden at the edge of a pond on the library grounds.

Tristan stopped and stared out the window. It was so peaceful, so serene. She really would love the view if she was here.

"I wondered what was taking you so long," a soft voice spooked him out of his reverie. He spun around and saw Serenity standing there. Her bright smile warmed his heart as she handed him a mug of tea. He gratefully sipped it, thinking to himself how lucky he was.

"This is where I was supposed to end up?"

"Mm hmm," she smiled mischievously as she sipped her own tea.

"So, now what?"

She placed a finger over his lips, then took his hand and led him out to the garden. They found a cozy bench, and Serenity revealed that she had checked out a book of poetry. Tristan wasn't a fan of figurative language, but he quickly relented as she snuggled against him and begin to read.

The rest of the afternoon didn't matter as he lost himself in the sound, feel, and smell of her.