Author's Note: Somewhere in the mess of my reviews, both answered and unanswered, lies the most recent review I received for Dark Summons, posted about three days ago. I received it, read it, loved it, and then decided to reread Dark Summons, which prompted me to reread Secret Past by yamiyugifangirl, which prompted this idea.

So you have that reviewer to thank for this fic. And the fact that it and Dark Summons are now part of a series, because yes, that is happening.

To those of you who read Dark Summons forever ago and those of you who read it recently, the fact that I am still getting reviews for this fic, that it's one of my most popular stories to date, is phenomenal, and I'd like to thank each and every one of you for making it so worth writing. I hope you enjoy this dribbly-drabbly piece, as well.

Hooray for Ryou's psychic powers!

ALL THESE POSSIBILITIES (THERE'S A BREEZE IN MY HEART)

Stay…

A thousand memories of a time he had forgotten churned through his mind, burning into him knowledge he had never thought he could have. An entire world he hadn't known existed stretched before his mind's eye as though it were freshly painted, but staring at it burned him and he could not look for long.

He was not of this world, this time. The Millennium Puzzle and the history that Solomon Moto had of it had given he and Yugi some clues. It was Egyptian, yes, but there had always been more knowledge too far out of reach. Who was he? What was he? Why had he been locked away? Was it a punishment? What had he done?

To find out that it was a price he had needed to pay to protect his people. That made it better, it did. But it also made it so much worse.

Because it was clear why he had returned. Duel Monsters was a game based on an ancient one that had nearly destroyed civilization. Pegasus using it for his own personal means was terrible enough, but add in all the rest of them, all the trials he had faced alongside Yugi with Duel Monsters as the central act and it became clear that he was meant to stop another destruction. The same destruction, even, stretched across five thousand years of space and time.

So what happened when he had succeeded in stopping that destruction a second time? In saving… not his people this time, but his friends. What then?

Stay…

Then his duty would be finished. He would be finished, free to… move on. Five thousand years locked in a puzzle box, he would be free to see family and friends who had been gone for millennia.

The thought should make him happy, he supposed. He was a spirit, bound to an artifact, seen only by a single boy and in those who understood that there was more than one soul inhabiting that same child.

A child?

They were the same age. Yami – Atem – had five thousand years on Yugi, but those years had been spent locked away, his mind and his… astral body. They were the same age, and yet there was a part of him, the same part that told him he would leave as soon as this was all done, that said Yugi was nothing more than a small child against five thousand years of kingship.

Oh, but he was so much more than that.

Stay…

Yugi was so much more, and worth so much more than a half-hearted wave from someone who had existed alongside his soul. Yami had seen parts of Yugi that no one else would ever see. He had seen his innocence, the light and laughter that made Yugi the playful child he was, but also the determination and fierce morality that had nothing to do with Yami. He had seen the strength of his light, burning like the sun that Yami supposedly held steady on his brow five thousand years previous. And he was just supposed to leave that behind?

Stay…

Couldn't he stay?

Yes.

Couldn't he… couldn't he get the chance he hadn't had before, the chance to live those years that lie beyond the taunting whispers of teenage turmoil? He had been a pharaoh, yes, a king of a powerful country, but he had still been just a boy. If he wanted to, couldn't he defeat this rising evil, stop Duel Monsters from being used to consume the world in darkness, and then be left in a peace that did not equal death?

Could he choose to live once his duty was done?

Yes.

Truly?

Yes.

So when the time came… when it finally came to the end and he was given the choice – dear Ra, let him be given a choice – he would stay. Stay, because five thousand years and battles with and against Duel Monsters and those using them should allow him something, some sort of recompense, some prize for deeds done. Leave his crown in the dust of five thousand years, he didn't want a throne of gold or games. He wanted…

Yugi, grinning at him across a table, neither of them trapped in spirit form but both physical, the smell of some fast food lunch in his nostrils, the burning taste of soda on his tongue, and a smile on his own lips. Not the fierce concentration of someone waiting for an attack, but an honest, soft smile. A peaceful smile. A happy smile.

He stared into the amethyst eyes of his mind's conjuration and thought he could feel a hand in his and he wondered why, why did that make his heart speed up, his breath catch? Did he want to live that much that the very idea of touch was so alluring? Or was it something more than that? Did he want…

Walking down the sidewalk, side-by-side with Yugi, surrounded by their friends – Tea, Tristan, Joey, Ryou – laughing and chatting. And he was there, joining in. Not listening through Yugi's ears, usurping his time as their shared consciousness, not listening through his Soul Room, not lingering as a spirit. He was there, a part of their group, a physical part, his pace matched with Yugi's, and yet there was something off in the swing of their arms, his left swinging to match Yugi's right, mirrored, rather than cloned, and he wondered why….

Why?

There was something there, a thought that wasn't a thought, lurking on the edge of his consciousness. He could almost think it wasn't his thought. That maybe it was Yugi's, breaching through the doorway of his Soul Room as their thoughts sometimes did these days, but it didn't feel like Yugi's. It was a thought, but it didn't even feel like a thought. It was like a breeze, warm, gently making its way through the maze of his mind, whispering possibilities into his ears that he didn't understand, and yet wanted.

He wanted…

But like a breeze, he couldn't capture it, couldn't hold onto it long enough to glean anything more than some insubstantial knowledge that he could, would

stay

once this was all over, when he was given the choice, because

yes

he would be given a choice, and there were reasons he wanted – needed – wanted – to stay, reasons he couldn't quite see yet, but he knew they were there.

Five thousand years he'd been sleeping, waiting for this time

this boy

and once it was over, once his duty was done, he could stay, live the remaining years of his life with his friends

with Yugi

and it would be, he knew, somehow he knew, it would be wonderful.

It would be worth everything to stay.

He is worth staying for.

Trust me.

The spirit of the Millennium Ring glared out of the window at the rain, the glass of the window cold against the warmth of the room. His teeth clenched at the rustling of sheets behind him as his host turned again, his normally pale face red with fever as he unconsciously searched for comfort in the small bed. A moment later, silence again but for the boy's thick breathing.

Bakura considered inhabiting the body anyway. The boy wasn't so ill he couldn't be useful and the fever might make him less inclined to fight, though those battles were never difficult to win, no matter his health. He might see what he could find out in this weather. No doubt some unsavory peoples were lurking in the alleys, and none made better targets than those who made a habit of targeting others. They were always so unprepared for his host's gentle face to turn cold, for his hands to turn to claws.

Bakura grinned wickedly at his reflection. Yes. That did sound nice.

Behind him, his host shifted again, then sighed.

"Stay," he whispered on an exhale, and for a moment, Bakura turned to look at him. The boy was asleep, his face flushed, lips slightly parted as though he thought to speak again, but no more words came.

Bakura glanced at the rain but turned away.

His host would be useless to him bedridden. He'd go out again when the idiot was less likely to die from cold.

He slid back into the Millennium Ring and buried himself in plans for that idiot pharaoh and his host's friends. His laugh echoed around the halls of his Soul Room, but went unheard by his host's gentle mind. Ryou was elsewhere, buried in thoughts he wouldn't remember upon waking, of what was to come, and things he

sometimes

just

knew.